This is It. Now what?

I've been holding off on this one particular internet search for a few weeks now.  It feels like it's been a lot longer than a few weeks, but no, it's really only been about two weeks since COVID hit our house. 

But as a public service to you today, I'd like to strongly recommend that you do NOT Google-search for anything along the lines of, "What are the long-term effects of COVID?"

I'm taking a little poetic license in today's title, but only a tiny bit. I'm hoping the worst is over for our household.  I think it's safe to say the boy has recovered unscathed, and I'm pretty sure I've reached the "recovered" point as well.  I haven't even had any medication today, because I wanted to see how I'd do without it.  I feel like the meds are what messed my head up so much yesterday. I hate taking meds, even when I need them.  But today, I feel like I don't need them.  And the solid clunk of mucus that was the inside of my head is slowly starting to melt away now, but that's alright; I don't have a fever, I'm only coughing once in a great while (and it's a "normal person" cough!) and I barely have a headache anymore.  I don't feel completely back to pre-COVID normal, but I feel like this is as good as I'm going to get for now.

But I do have to admit that the whole COVID virus thing itself is fascinating.  What is it doing, exactly? Why did I lose my taste and smell?  Why did we all three catch this even though we've all been vaccinated, and why is it affecting us all differently?  Why did I have a fever but didn't feel like I had a fever?  What about the insomnia?  I have so many questions.  I want explanations.  I want to know more about this mysterious, crazy virus.  Mostly I want to know when I will feel completely like a normal person again, but I don't think anyone has that answer...

:)

In other news, we're one day closer to our closing date!  It will be weird to switch my brain to thinking of this place as the boy's place, and our new place as our place.  I feel like I should just still be able to show up here whenever I want, ha ha ha, like I still own the place or something.  I mean, we've lived here longer than we've lived anywhere else together, so that only makes sense.  But the idea that this won't be where we live anymore in a few weeks...weird. Hasn't really hit me yet.  I've been distracted by a few other things recently.  Ha. Ha. Ha.

Alright. I guess I'll sign off for now and see what the weekend brings!  Hopefully this brain fog goes away soon.  It's frustrating.  I feel like I've forgotten how to think.  That's not going to work for me.  You can keep my sense of taste and smell, but I really would like my sense of being able to think returned intact, tout suite, s'il vois plait.

 

COVID, day number whatever we're on now.

My advice to you about the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is don't get it.  Get the vaccine, get the boosters, wear a mask in public, do everything within your power to avoid catching this virus (or any variants thereof) and to avoid spreading it to others, because it really does suck.

And I'm not just saying that as the self-proclaimed Queen of the Man Cold, either.  I'm saying it as an otherwise-healthy adult woman with no underlying co-morbid conditions that should have made this any worse for me.

I actually did think I was doing better the last time I wrote about this.  Then that night, I don't know what happened, but my fever jumped up to 101.2 and stayed there all night, and I felt like I was going through Day One again -- all-over body aching, incredibly tired and just run down, and so much headache and coughing.  I lost my appetite (and my sense of taste and smell are gone, it's very hard to eat when you can't taste or smell anything, oddly enough...)

Oh my gosh, you guys, the coughing attacks were horrible.  Every day, at least once a day but often twice or three times per day, depending on what I was trying to do, I would go into these coughing fits that felt like they were honestly going to kill me.  I wasn't coughing anything up at all but it was like my body wasn't getting that message and was just going to keep coughing harder and harder regardless.  Then I wouldn't be able to catch my breath and that would make cough even more, and all I could do was just try to gasp for breath and pray for it to be over soon. The coughing episode, the painful bronchospasms, or life, whichever ending would bring the fastest relief.  

The fevers were bad, too.  You know, in the past when I'd have a fever, I'd know it because I would be super cold.  Like, even a fever of 100 would make me feel so cold that all I'd want to do was curl up under 3 or 4 winter blankets, fully-dressed with at least a t-shirt and a sweatshirt and leggings and socks (and I never wear socks to bed unless I'm sick!) and stay cocooned there until I stopped shivering.  With this stupid virus, it's like my body wasn't even trying to fight the fever.  I wouldn't feel cold like I did in the past, I would just feel "normal" or whatever, and then I'd check my temp and it would be 101, 102, 103... and it would keep going up throughout the day no matter what I did.  

I couldn't sleep because I was afraid of doing anything to bring on another coughing fit.  I've spent most of the last week or so literally just lying there not doing anything but praying.  If I did fall asleep, I'd forget that I wasn't supposed to move so I'd go to turn or something and start another coughing fit, and/or wake up in a pool of my own sweat, dizzy and lightheaded.  I'm not trying to make this sound over-dramatic, this is literally what my last week has been like. This was WITH the vaccination.  I hate to think what it would have been like without it.

I started this entry yesterday. Yesterday I worked from home for the first time in about a week.  I think I made it about 5 hours.  Today I'm working from home as well, and it's going a little better, but my head is so full of cotton today that I can barely think straight.  I know it's not really cotton, but it sure feels like it.  I feel like I'm moving in slow motion (sorry, co-workers!).  

In other news, there's still drama going on with our scheduled closing in a few weeks, but I won't share all of that here.  I'll just say that people don't surprise me anymore.  Which is really sad.  People and their craziness.  I'd love to lay the whole story out here but I'm not going to, because one thing I've learned from living in a small town for almost 20 years is that everybody knows somebody, and there's probably somebody on my FB friends list who somehow knows the people whose place we're buying, and at this point I just want this transaction to be completed and done with so we can all go about our merry little ways.  

Still looking forward to the move, though!  I was hoping to get some packing done while being on isolation, but that hasn't happened.  Hopefully this weekend I can pull myself together and get some things done around the house - some cleaning, some organizing, some packing... I'm so tired of having no energy to do anything.  At least I can move around without spurring on a coughing attack today!  

Alright, speaking of which, I need to get back to work.  Have a great day and stay away from COVID!!

COVID day 4.

Well, today so far my temperature has not been above 100ºF oral...so, one point for me!

I also slept pretty well last night, too, which is a new thing for me.  Other people I've talked to have said they didn't have trouble sleeping when they had the Rona, but I have. Not last night, though.  Last night I slept comfortably and was not awakened by either coughing or a full bladder. Another point for me!

Still had the piercing headache when I got up, though.  Boo.  I was also feeling like my lungs hurt when I took a deep breath, so I decided I'd better spend as much time upright as possible today.  One of the last things I need is pneumonia.  

Anyway, I also decided to take a shower this morning.  The last time I took a shower was the day before yesterday, and it was a struggle then.  It wasn't much better today.  It's so frustrating that a simple thing like taking a shower is so tiring.  What is this virus doing to my body???  

I've spent a lot of time the last few days losing what little patience I had left for all the excuses there are for not getting the vaccine, not wearing masks, not social distancing, etc.  My personal favorite today is "I don't know what's in the vaccine."  Because suddenly people need to know every single component of everything they put in their body?  People who never gave a rat's ass about the specific chemicals they are willing to eat, drink, smoke, or otherwise expose themselves to are now suddenly concerned about receiving a vaccine that could save their life or the lives of those around them?  Pfffffft. Whatever.  

I will admit, I was not the first person in line to get the COVID vaccine when it became available.  I'm a skeptic, like so many others.  I knew I would ultimately end up getting the vaccine, but I didn't want to be the first one to offer up my arm.  I definitely knew I wanted to continue suggesting that my patients get the vaccine when able, and I didn't want to be a hypocrite.  And, I wanted to do whatever I could to help protect my parents and my mother-in-law and all of my other loved ones and acquaintances with compromised immune systems or other risk factors (including my asthmatic son).

Anyway, as I sit here with aching joints, a piercing intermittent headache that won't quit, sinus pain that feels like my facial bones have cracked into a thousand tiny pieces like the shell of an egg run over by a monster truck, frustrated because I can't even take a shower that includes conditioning my damn hair without needing to sit down and rest for 10 minutes afterward, I'm just annoyed with people who have a blase attitude about doing what they can to prevent this from happening to them.  I wouldn't want this to happen to anyone else.  I have a shit ton of crap to get done in the next few weeks, I do NOT have time to be exhausted by doing literally nothing.

*deep, cleansing breaths*

Alright, then. Sitting upright makes me tired, though. I think I will sleep well again tonight.  I'm ready to go to bed right now, and it's only 6:40pm.  Watching TV has never been one of my favorite things.  The computer and the phone don't help my headache.  I am working on crocheting a leaf garland thingie for our new place, but I don't want to do too much crocheting because, hello, I'm breathing COVID breath all over everything.  So I'm definitely not going to work on any crochet projects for anyone else right now, either.  I look at the listing of our new place about once a day, but that's getting old now, too.   I've seen the pics.  I know what the pics look like.

It's funny, though, if you think about it.  Our new place, that is.  We looked at it once, and then made an offer. And it was one of the quickest showings I think we'd had this summer.  It honestly surprised me and, at the time, made me think that the hubby didn't like the place.  At other places, we would both look in all the closets and the cupboards, and make sure doors and drawers opened properly and such, and it felt like this one we just kinda zipped through.  (Which, I do want to add, had absolutely nothing to do with our realtor! He was always good about giving us as much time as we needed to look at whatever we wanted to see.  This time, as it turned out, the hubby knew what he was looking for and, having seen it, didn't feel the need to see more.)    My point being, it will be interesting when we get to see the place again, to see how well I remember it.  I was looking at it guardedly when we did look at it, because I didn't want to fall in love and get my heart broken again (figuratively of course), plus we still had another house to look at after that.  I don't know, it's hard to explain (especially with COVID cotton brain).  There's a hell of a lot of money and work and time involved in this transaction for a place we've only seen once and spent less than an hour looking at.  It better freaking work out.  :D

Alright, it's 7pm and my eyes are fuzzing over.  I'll catch y'all later.

Knock on wood...

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I suppose I need a new hobby.  

Not really, though, (she writes, while seated next to The Cart of Scrap Yarn and Yarn for Current Projects, in name only since it also contains various crochet hooks and patterns and other craft-related things like pens and paper and lip balm and lotion and phone chargers and...etc).

By the time we had an offer accepted on a house, I think I had subscribed to about 10 different email lists, and had about 6 different apps on my phone that I checked on a regular basis (read: several times a day).  This, I now realize, was overkill; the lists were eventually duplicated, as I'm sure you can imagine. But it wasn't about finding the listing that no one else had (okay, maybe on some level it was, but that wasn't realistically going to happen!).  It was about finding it first.  Actually, at first it was about the cross-referencing, to find out if a place had an offer on it or not.  There were a handful of places we looked at online that we liked, that we hemmed and hawed over and when we finally asked our realtor about it, we were told they'd already had offers accepted. I may have written about this in previous entries, ha, ha.  So looking up the same property on different sites was my way of checking to see if any other sites had it listed as Contingent or Pending, or if one site had info or pics on it that the others didn't.  

It's been about three weeks (I think?) since our offer was accepted, and I believe I have finally unsubscribed from all of the email lists, removed myself from all of the FB groups, and deleted almost all of the apps from my phone.  

Yes, I said "almost all".  There's one I just can't seem to delete yet.  I'm not going to name the app, because the point of this isn't to give them free advertising (especially since I never did figure out which app had the most reliable information all the time...)  Part of the reason I haven't deleted it is because, you know, just in case.  Perhaps the day we sign the paperwork and are given the keys and can walk onto the property and into the house unassisted by any realtor, I might consider deleting the app.  

But, honestly? It's still kind of fun to look.  Online only.

Until very recently, I was honestly afraid to look online again.  Afraid of what? Afraid that a better place would come up for sale.  The last thing I wanted to tempt was buyer's regret.  Even though I was pretty sure it wouldn't happen, I still didn't want to know if it did.  However, curiosity eventually got the best of me, and I pulled up the ol' search queries and looked through the lists again.

OK, I'm slightly exaggerating. I have been checking part of the app frequently -- the "saved homes" section.  I'd deleted all of the other listings except "ours".  Because of the kind of person I am, I needed to see that "Active" status change to "Contingent" on that particular listing.  

It hasn't. Not on this particular app.  And yes, I checked a few of the others to make sure.  Because of the kind of person I am. The kind who likes to see things in print, apparently.

Which is fine; I mean, like all things online, we know the truth so what does it really matter?  We have the purchase agreement and the appraisals and the mortgage paperwork and everything coming together with our names and that address on it, and that app just uses information it pulls from other apps anyway, so, you know, not tres reliable.  (Sorry, I'm on the laptop and don't feel like looking up how to do the accent on tres. And I'm not going to go back and fix it, either.)

But what semi-annoys me is that the number of "saves" for that particular listing keeps going up.  Um, people?  Go away.  Taken! Not available!  Do NOT save this listing, do NOT click there to contact an agent for a showing, because it ain't gonna happen.  Don't save my house listing. Quit looking at that house and picturing your furniture there.  Do NOT imagine yourself soaking peacefully in the soaker tub (or whatever it's called) in the master bathroom, because the next ass soaking in there is going to be MINE.  (Perhaps not, IDK. Maybe the current residents use it every day.  Cut me some slack.)  Don't look it up on Google Maps and whatever you do, do NOT drive by and see if you'd like the drive, the area, or the looks of the house from what you can see from the road (which isn't much).  Just stop it! Go look elsewhere!  Despite the fact that there's no "SOLD" sign on that sign at the end of the driveway, this one is taken thankyouverymuch!

I know, I know; it's probably another form of the "just in case" clause, along with not having the time or staff to go put "SOLD" (or "PENDING") signs on the sign at the end of the driveway. I'm not filing an official complaint, just putting a minor annoyance into words for amusement only.  I don't remember how much time there was between accepting the offer and closing on our previous homes; maybe it was longer than this, and I'm just more impatient with it this time.  Or maybe I'm just singling out specific things to vent about because I can.  

Anyway...we almost have a closing date!  We have it narrowed down to a specific time (date) frame, and based on that, it will be before December 1st.  It's a long story that I don't feel like retelling right now.  Let me just say that, if you ever plan on selling your place, please do some homework beforehand and have an idea about what you're going to do when your place sells.  M-kay?

At any rate, I hope to be able to share pics soon!!

In other news, that I may or may not purposely have saved for the end of this entry, COVID has entered our house.  Last Wednesday (a week ago), the boy stayed home from work with a fever and some other symptoms, and then went for a swab test per his employer's COVID screening guidelines.  On Friday, he got the results back - positive!  UGH.  

So, the hubby and I went and got tested on Friday.  We were "kinda" symptomatic -- I mean, so many COVID symptoms are the same as allergy symptoms, and given that we could now check the "Have you been exposed to someone with COVID-19" criteria, we figured, why not?!  Our tests came back negative.  

And then, on Sunday morning, I felt like I got hit by a truck.  I don't even feel like recounting all of that right now.  Long story short: went in for a swab test on Monday, got the results early this morning.  Positive. Today is my 4th day of running a fever, and I still feel like I got hit by a truck.  The headache isn't as bad as it was the first day, but it still comes back every now and then and lands me flat on my ass.  My neck hurts.  My hip bones hurt and my knees hurt and my long bones hurt and when I start coughing, everything hurts even more.  Nothing tastes right.  I haven't completely lost my sense of taste, but have lost most of it.  I can't sleep.  I can lie down and do nothing, but I'm not tired.  Not sleepy.  I can't get comfortable enough to fall asleep, or I'm too hot, or too cold, or I start coughing if I move.  

So, yeah.  We're statistics now, my son and I.  We both got vaccinated with the Johnson and Johnson vaccine at the end of March, and now, we both have COVID.  So far -- KNOCK ON WOOD!!! -- the hubby is feeling fine and not showing any symptoms. I really, really, REALLY hope he doesn't get it.  He got the same vaccination that we did.  I always thought that maybe I had the stronger immune system since I'm, you know, a nurse and all...but I'm not a frontline nurse.  I don't actually deal with patients who are acutely ill with viral illnesses anymore.  I've been social distancing, masking, washing my hands, staying out of public places a lot of times, etc. just like everyone else the last year and a half or whatever it's been; I guess it makes sense that my immunity is down.

Oh yeah. Another annoying thing is that I get winded easily now, and I also get light-headed easily.  Earlier today I was trying to clean up the mess that has become the dining room table (I saw a thing recently on the interwebs that some tables are like junk drawers with no cover, and ours totally is right now. The biggest catch-all in the house!) and I was standing up for maybe, IDK, five minutes?  And then I took a step away from the table at which I was standing, and felt all kinds of woozy.  No bueno.  I've been trying to be a good patient and drink water whenever I'm awake and upright, and rest as much as possible, but man...this sucks.  

And now I'm just whiny and blabbering.  This is worse than the flu. I'm glad I had the vaccine, though, because it could have been so much worse, had this happened a year ago.

Here's one last tip before I sign off: if you get COVID, don't watch/read/listen to the news for a few days, because there are way too many stories on the news about COVID.  Colin Powell died from complications of COVID this week, for example.  (He had other health issues, too, but that doesn't always occur to you when you feel like crap.)  People are dying from this virus everyday, and now my son and I have it, and that's just a little frightening on some level. So if you get COVID, don't think about anything, either. 

TTYL!

Must paint all the things!

So, now that the inspections have been done and the applications have been approved and we're basically just sitting around waiting for the closing date to get here*, I've finally allowed myself to start thinking about how the heck to decorate the new place.  I know I mentioned this earlier, at least in that I was thinking about where to put things, but that's not decorating; that's organizing.

* Actually, we're waiting for the sellers to find a new place to buy so we can actually close on our designated closing date, but that's a whole 'nother story for another time!!

I'm talking about the fact that we're leaving most of our existing furniture in it's current location when we move.  So the decorating I've been contemplating is something I really haven't ever had to consider before: decorating from scratch.  I've already mentioned how much I love furniture shopping...ugh.  So the thought of starting over with new furniture is...well, on one hand it actually is kind of fun and exciting. But mostly it sounds like a huge pain in the butt because there are so many things to consider!  For crying out loud, I just spent a whole frickin' summer trying to find a property that met three basic criteria, and that just about did me in; now I have to shop for huge, expensive things that  A) look good, B) are comfortable, C) are durable, D) will fit in the house, size-wise, E) will fit in the house, décor-wise, F) will fit in the house, budget-wise, and G) is something that both the hubby and I agree on in the looking-good and being comfortable departments?

This is the definition of a herculean task.  

However, thanks to the likes of apps such as Pinterest, Craigslist, and FB Marketplace, and even Zillow, I'm thrilled to be able to look at the options that are out there without having to spend hours driving around from one furniture place to the next.  I know eventually we'll have to go look at stuff in person, because there's still only one way to find out if a couch is comfortable or not, but until then, looking at stuff online will suffice nicely.

There is one insuppressible urge I've had since the dust has settled and I've moved from "oh my gosh I can't believe we're going to move" mode into "holy crap we're going to move, I better figure out how to set up this new place!" mode: I keep looking at old furniture and wanting to paint it.

There's a fine line, though, that's hard to explain.  See, I do love and appreciate antique furniture.  We have looked at a couple of beautiful bedroom sets as ideas for the new place, and for something like that, there is no way I would ruin something like that with a "shabby chic" paint job.  And old hutches and secretaries and desks and such, there are some really beautiful and interesting pieces out there that I would love to get for the new place as well -- pieces I have always admired and wished I'd had room for that I will now have room for.  And in the same vein, I've always wanted to take old furniture and give it new life with a pop of color or something.  Not even antique furniture, though, perhaps just a small side table or dresser or something.  

The problem right now is, well the main problem right now is that we don't have anywhere to keep more furniture if we do find something we like, so we literally are just looking for ideas at the moment. Neither one of us wishes to move things more than we have to, so we're fine with waiting until we can move whatever we decide to get directly to the new place instead of bringing it here and then moving it there.  Besides, like I said, there's no room "here" to keep extra furniture right now.  ANYWAY, the problem I'm having right now is that I want to paint all the things. Every shelf or desk or dresser I see for sale, if it's not super nice the way it is or if it's not quite exactly what I want, I imagine that I could make it so much better with some paint.  I mean, have you been to any boutique or gift shop or craft sale market type place lately?  Or on Pinterest? ;)  People are taking random, ordinary, boring furniture and painting it and it looks oh my gosh so cute!!  I could do that!  I could make oh my gosh so cute furniture for our new home, or I could even make it to sell (to buy other oh my gosh so cute things for our new home, perhaps).  It would be so easy!  I might just have to do it.

Alright, alright.  I can't do it right now, because right now my lunch break is over and I have to get back to work. So I can make money to pay for my new home and all the things we need to put into it, whether cute or not.  ;)  Thanks for reading today's Thought Dump... the tiny bit of space I cleared out by writing this is already filled up with more images of cute turquoise and white shelves for my new home office, to go with the cute L-shaped farmhouse desk I have in mind, but I shouldn't be thinking of that yet when we don't even have living room furniture picked out yet, or a bedroom set...and there's still so much packing to be done, even without bringing most of the furniture....UGH!

Things Not To Do, Vol. 1

In case you're not privvy to my SnapChat story (yes, I have one of those, too...)

*ahem*

When going out of town for the weekend, don't forget to bring your medications!  All of them!!  Of course, remembering most of them is better than forgetting all of them.  But also remember quality vs. quantity, if you happen to have that luxury.  

I wish this was a random reminder not spurred by real-life events, but it's not.  Here's the story, of a lovely lady...(to the tune of "The Brady Bunch" theme song, of course!)

We went out of town this weekend for our niece (my hubby's oldest brother's daughter's) wedding.  As usual, I was running around packing my bag the morning that we were leaving, because that is how I roll.  I know I should pack ahead of time, so if you're going to suggest doing that, please don't.  I've never been a 'have everything packed the night before' kind of gal.  Don't get me wrong, it's definitely a goal I'm aiming for at some point in my life, but for now, I'm not.  And I usually do alright with that.  "Usually".  You probably already know how this story will go, so why am I even trying to make it sound somewhat mysterious?  Spoiler alert! I forgot to pack my antidepressant medication!  

Of course, I realized this once we got to the hotel (about 5 hours away from home) when I was going through my stuff to make sure I had everything. Which, of course, I didn't.  Let me tell you a couple of reasons why I freaked out at first: for one thing, it used to be that if I was even a couple of hours late with this medication, I would get these horrible side effects. I don't think "side effects" is the right term, but we'll go with that for now.  It was like this nauseated, drunk, foggy feeling that was absolutely horrible, and for that reason I have very rarely ever missed or even been late on taking this medication for the last 15 years or so that I've been taking it.  Another reason is that I just don't want to do anything to disrupt the fragile stability of my mental wellness.  ("Fragile stability" is a thing, right?)  It's already iffy enough considering I've been off the one medication for a few months (but will be going back on soon), and also considering that my emotions are going through the ringer lately just with life doing it's thing, and I was really instantly scared that this was going to be the gentle push I needed to completely send me off the rails and plummeting back to the pits of darkness again.  

I do not like the pits of darkness.

However, instead of panicking like I wanted to do, I took a deep breath, reminded myself that I still had another mood stabilizer to take, and that I would really only be missing one day of that one med (considering I took Friday's dose, and that I could take Sunday's as soon as we got home, so I would only be missing Saturday's dose...) and it's an extended release formulation so it will last a little longer anyway, and I would make sure to say some extra prayers for extra protection...and try not to think about it because that would definitely make it ten times worse.

It went alright.  Sunday morning I woke up feeling like my head was being sliced by tiny razor blades from the inside out, then that stopped and I felt like the corner of my head was in a vice and being squeezed tighter and tighter, like a big pimple.  I know these are general symptoms and could have been due to other things, of course...like being mildly dehydrated, or sleeping on a bed that wasn't mine for 2 nights in a row, or *ahem* trying to dance at the reception the night before...

It occurred to me today that the natural assumption might be that if a person misses a dose of their antidepressant, they will start to feel depressed.  Right?  If you miss a dose of your painkillers, you start to feel pain, and if you miss a dose of your anti-anxiety med, you start to feel anxious... but for me, it's not like that at all.  The way I feel if I miss my antidepressant correlates in no way, shape, or form to how I feel when my mental wellness heads south and starts to head for the pits of darkness.  Allow me to try to explain -- as a mental patient, not as a medical professional.

The meds keep all the circuits in my brain firing the way they're supposed to fire.  Like an engine. With a whole bunch of cylinders, lol.  All cylinders firing in a specific order that keeps things moving along and working and making sense, and making me to function like a normal person (so I'm told). 

When I miss a dose of meds, those cylinders start to misfire.  Just a few backfires here and there at first, no big deal, I can compensate with the others and keep functioning pretty well.  Maybe some are slowing down and others are speeding up to keep on track, but it's all generally still making sense in the big picture.  But the longer I go, the more misfires there are and the less compensation there is. My brain starts to feel like it's turning to cotton, or maybe that's the spider webs forming on the cylinders that have decided to stop firing.  I feel like important neural pathways are being lost and my ability to think clearly and look at the big picture starts to fade, and I can only focus on small tasks.  It's a horrible feeling.  It's like my cognition is slipping away and I can't do anything about it.  There's this low buzzing sound in my head that won't go away, and I literally cannot thing straight, and I feel like I'm not even in my own mind anymore.  That's about as far as it got yesterday by the time we got home and I took my meds and went to bed, but it has been worse in the distant past.  I don't even want to think about it right now, because I still don't feel back to 100% (probably about 96% but I'm still fuzzy on some things that require super detail which is bothering me...)

So, there you have it.  If you are fortunate enough to not know what it's like to be on a medication that alters the way your mind works so that you can stay out of the pits of darkness and function in the world like a somewhat normal human being, now you have a bit of insight into what it's like when you make a simple mistake (like all people do because no one is perfect!!) and that mistake results in your missing your daily meds for a day.

So what did we learn from this? Pack the meds first.  Go back to using the pill box and pack that first.  Keep an extra dose or two of meds in the purse "just in case".  These are things I tell my patients all the time.  Other than that? IDK.  I seriously considered contacting our health plan's online urgent care thing to see if they'd call in a very short-term supply of meds to the local pharmacy for me.  Maybe I should do that next time, because feeling disconnected for days and days and days afterward just really is cramping my style and I don't like it.  Don't get me wrong, I feel a thousand and fifteen times better than I did yesterday, and it just keeps improving, but I still feel a twinge of "off" and I want it to go away, like, right now.  

Mental illness is a real thing, my friends.  Yes, it's in our heads, because that's where our brains are kept...

Until next time, remember to be considerate to everyone you meet because you have no idea the battles they are trying to overcome.

I know things will happen in God's time, not mine. But...

 ...I'm getting a little restless!

Don't worry, I'm fine. I know better than to wish time away.  There's a lot to get done in the next six weeks or so, and since we said we'd be flexible on the closing date to allow the sellers to find a new place, it'll likely be longer than six weeks, anyway.  

I'm just a little concerned because, in a very unusual move for me, I'm actually looking forward to decorating.  I have themes picked out for two of the bathrooms. Ideas in mind for the office and the bedrooms, and the garage, and the yard. I'm finally allowing myself to picture where I'm going to put things. Not just the big things, like the couch and the TV and the bed, but the little things like the cleaning supplies and the shoes and the dog food.  You know, the things you don't normally think about putting away until you realize you have to put them away, and since you're starting from scratch, you want to make sure you put them away in the best place the first time.  Because where the current resident has them might not be the best place, right?  I don't even remember where they had cleaning supplies. I don't know exactly where I want them.  In the laundry room/entryway because then they won't be near food and having everything right there makes sense?  In the bathrooms because that's where I have most of the cleaning supplies now so that makes sense to me, even though the reason I have them there now is mostly because we have other stuff in the entryway (mostly overflow from the kitchen and random stuff that would be better in the garage) and because right now we don't have a linen closet?  Also, we do have a "pantry" in the new place but it's at the end of the hallway, away from the kitchen, next to the entryway and the bathroom; maybe that would be a better place for cleaning supplies, and paper products and such.

I just want the new place to be organized.  Well, not "just" as in the only thing I want, but it's an important factor, for sure.

I wish I could share pictures, but I'm too superstitious to do that yet.  On paper, the deal is almost as close to being done as it can be without being done; I think there is one type of inspection that needs to be done that is supposed to be done this coming week, and we need to decide get our homeowner's insurance set up, and then we just wait for the closing.  We have a date for the closing, like I've already said, and said we'd be flexible, but we do have a date in writing.  I'm too superstitious to share that date here yet, too, other than to say it's in the middle of November.  :D

In the meantime, I've been all over Pinterest looking for decorating ideas.  This weekend we picked up some totes to start packing, and the hubby has so far filled up 6 totes full of Hot Wheels cars.  I take that back -- six totes full of Hot Wheels Volkswagens.  And he says he can probably fill four more totes. Of Hot Wheels Volkswagens.  You know those little cars they sell at Wal-Mart and Target for like 99 cents (or are they up to $1.99 now? I don't pay attention to these things.)? Yeah, those.  Ten totes of those.  Of just the Volkswagens.  That's not counting the non-Volkswagens.  There will be a lot of those, too.  And the non-Hot Wheels Volkswagens.  I don't know where these are going to go yet. 

That's another problem with having hobbies in common with your spouse, ha ha ha.  I'm not the kind of wife who is going to tell him he can't put them back up in the new house.  He's the one who said he's going to put them in storage for a while until he decides how to display them.  I have my own collection of car stuff to worry about!  Not nearly as big as that -- I'm pretty sure my Maverick and Maverick accessories collection will fit in one tote, maybe two.  Unless you count the actual Maverick itself... which is arguably smaller than 10 Tough Totes :D *ahem* Anyway, my point is that, we have a lot of stuff, and we know it, but we both have the same vision in mind for how we want our new place to look.  We don't want it to be jam-packed with stuff.  And honestly, even if we were taking all of our stuff with us, it wouldn't be, because the new place is about twice the size of our current place.  I guess what I'm trying to say is we both want the new place to be organized, and not jam-packed, and comfortable, and still "us".  

I have never looked forward to shopping for furniture before.  In fact, I'd usually rather watch grass grow than shop for furniture.  It's just so incredibly boring!  And so hard to find something we both like.  I don't know about you, but I can never decide if everything is comfortable or nothing is comfortable when "trying out" furniture in a showroom.  Especially couches.  Is that an anxiety thing? The way I sit on a couch in a showroom is nothing at all how I'll sit on it at home.  At home I'll be lying down, or cross-legged, or lounging, with my dog next to me, and a blanket, etc.  Maybe this time I should just go to the furniture store in my leggings and oversized sweatshirt, with my hair in a messy bun, wearing my slippers, with my favorite water bottle in one hand and my phone in the other, and a favorite blanket, and plan on spending at least half an hour on the end of each potential couch playing on Facebook or playing video games so I can see if the furniture being considered is REALLY comfortable or not.  Or I should show up on a day when I'm feeling like crap and see if I can get comfortable enough to spend half a day not moving on it, watching TV, with my dog curled up next to me.  See?  Sitting down on a couch politely for 10 seconds with everyone watching you expectantly to find out if you think it's comfortable or not is simply not sufficient to judge a piece of furniture that is going to become a major fixture in your life.  Not when you're also trying to picture whether the style is something you can deal with looking at everyday for the next 5-10 years (hopefully!) or so, whether it fits in with your vision for your home, whether there is a whole ensemble that comes with it or not, how much it costs, and -- my personal favorite -- how many other people have tried it out before you, and what kind of germs they have left behind.  😷😷😷  (And that was me before COVID, too, people.)

But now, I almost am.  Looking forward to shopping for new living room furniture.  We've always had this certain style in mind that we've always said we wanted to get someday.  But now I'm not sure if it will fit with the look in the house.  And, we almost have two living rooms to furnish, because we have a nice finished basement, too, with a gas fireplace that would be awesome to sit by.  

A big part of my problem is that I don't have the ability to picture what other furniture would look like in a room.  Even if I know what the room looks like. I've never been able to do that.  I have an image of what a room looks like in my mind, and I can't, like, take out one piece and replace it with another hypothetical piece and have an accurate picture of what it would look like.  And I generally consider myself someone with a pretty good imagination, at least I used to...but I can't do that, and the more someone tries to describe to me what it would look like, the more frustrated I get because I just can't picture it any other way than how it actually is.

Anyway, yeah. Shopping. I really want to find some tables or desks or something at, like, thrift stores or garage sales or something that I can paint and make instantly cute.  But not too cute.  Cozy.  But also useful.  

But first...more sorting, packing, and cleaning.  I forsee a lot of this in my future!  On that note, I'm signing off for now. TTYL!

It's as they say...

Yesterday should have been one of those days where I was allowed to walk around with a sign that said, "Remember to be kind to those around you because you never know what they're going through." or better yet, "Leave me the f*** alone because I'm having a mixed-up emotional kind of day and I don't want to deal with any of your stupid, petty shit!" or the slightly less aggressive version, "Don't sweat the small stuff, and it's all small stuff."

But, of course, this is real life and in real life we only get to dream about carrying signs like that.  

It wasn't just that I was stressing out about work, because nurse scheduling is tight right now and I felt bad about needing to take a few hours off to take care of some personal business which put a minor disruption in the matrix (although less of a disruption than I perceived, I'm sure, but I hate to cause any disruption at all).  

*ahem*

On September 30, 2004, we moved out of the big city and began the rest of our lives here in the country, on our little farm.  Something I'd wanted to do all my frickin' life! Due to my poor documentation at the time, I don't remember if we closed that day (it was a Thursday) and moved in over the weekend, or closed earlier in the week (I always think we closed on the 27th or 28th for some reason) but I do remember that the boy and I spent the first few nights out here ourselves before the weekend when we brought all the rest of the furniture etc.  I remember that he finished the week at school in St. Paul, so maybe we did close on Thursday and he didn't have school on Friday and we moved the stuff in on the weekend. I'm not sure why he wouldn't have had school on Friday but who knows? 

WHATEVER THE CASE MAY BE, I was super emotional yesterday because it was 17 years pretty much to the day that we moved into this house, and it was also the day we officially sold it.  Now you might wonder, as I myself am also wondering, why I am so emotional about selling the damn house, especially because it's still in the family and it's not like I'll never see it again, and the plan all along was to tear this house down and build a new one so WTF?  

So I will tell you, as I ruminate on this a bit more -- it's not "the house".  It's not that I'm going to miss these specific walls (that are still sponge-painted light blue from when we moved in 17 years ago....yikes) or this specific floor or the popcorn ceilings or the wallpaper in the kitchen that I was always going to attempt to peel off but never did.  It's all the memories of living here, of course, and how old they make me feel.  The boy was just a little 1st grader when we moved here, and now he's a frickin' adult. I never would have guessed that he would be living here himself one day!  

I think it's just all the stress of everything.  

The last offer we made on the second-to-last house we looked at was accepted.  We're in the process of coordinating inspections and appraisals, I've spent the week gathering/scanning/submitting paperwork, and we're hoping to move into our beautiful new home in a little over a month.  I should be bouncing off the walls excited (and believe me, at first I was!), and inside I really am, but I knew this "downer" part was coming!  Finding out the offer was accepted is the high point -- then, for me anyway, came the sticker shock, quickly followed by the rush to get everything together financially, and now as we wait for the results of the various inspections to come in, we also wait for the sellers to go through what we just went through and find a new place -- hopefully in a MUCH shorter time frame than we did!  We said we'd be flexible on the closing date to allow them time to find a place if necessary, but I hope this doesn't get dragged out too much longer.  Our new landlord wants us out ;). 

We're still in limbo. The new place is basically move-in ready for us, but we need to put up some fencing and shelter for the horses before they can move over.  We are also planning on leaving much of the furniture here for the boy, so we need to decide what kind of furniture we'd like in our new place, and also how to get it on a budget.  It's like the hubby said last night -- it's as if we're starting over again. Which is kind of fun, starting with a clean slate, and this time we can be picky and only get what we want instead of whatever we can find.  It's another major life transition -- instead of going from the city to the country, we're going from the country to the more rural country.  We will be farther out there, not as close to fast food and restaurants as we are now.  

Alright, I gotta get back to work.  TTYL!