The countdown begins!

Ladies and gentlemen, we might actually get to close on the new place, after all. The scheduled closing time is about 50 hours away, so that could still change (😫) but I'm hopeful that we're on the real final stretch and that the end is in sight. 

Or should that be, the beginning is in sight?!  Trick question! Both are correct.

I laugh at myself when I look back at previous posts here (which is another great reason to start a blog, if you haven't already), specifically the one from 10/29/21 where I was going on and on and on about the "new normal" of life after COVID.  It's so cute, in hindsight, to read about what was on my mind at that moment.  Don't get me wrong, my COVID experience was horrible, but I haven't had much time to think about it since writing that entry.  

I realized the other day that things taste somewhat normal (or what I remember they should taste like) again. I don't know when that happened.  My sense of smell is pretty much back, too, although occasionally muted by nasal congestion and post-nasal drip.  I had a random coughing attack the other night, which was probably acid reflux and not a respiratory concern.  I think I have more headaches now than I did pre-COVID, but that could be for so many other reasons, too.  Most notable is that I can have random symptoms like that and my first thought isn't, "I hope this isn't COVID!"  😷

My Dad will be discharged from the TCU tomorrow and coming home.  Tomorrow will be 3.5 weeks since he was last home, and since the last time he saw my Mom.  That's a long time -- nearly the entire month of November.  It seems like the whole world has changed since then, but has it, really?  The biggest change is that my Mom went through hip replacement surgery, but that's not really anything you'd pick up on if you didn't know.  Other than there being a walker in the living room, and a random cane here and there, there aren't any outward signs in the house that she went through any of that.  I did take some pictures to show my Dad when he gets back to try to make it more "real" for him (nothing graphic, just pics of my Mom's x-rays and pics of the incision when we first took the bandage off).  I know if I was away from my spouse for almost a month, and he'd gone through something traumatic like that in our absence, I would want to see pics or something to get a better feel for what he had been through.  

The biggest change will be that my Dad isn't supposed to drive anymore, but that's not even the end of the world.  He hasn't been driving much, anyway, and my parents already have resources that they've been using for transportation to various places.  It does make me sad, even though I've known for a while that this was coming.  And while it makes me sad for my Dad (because I can't imagine a Car Guy's feelings when being told not to drive anymore...) it also brings me a huge wave of relief.  

The other "change" is more of a formal acknowledgement, in that it's now been officially recognized that my Dad has dementia.  But this isn't really a change that's going to drastically throw "normal" life out the window, either, because it's been "there" for so long that it's not news to me, or my Mom, or anyone who is close to my Dad.  It hasn't suddenly worsened or anything, it's just finally been clinically evaluated.  Which also brings me more relief, to have it acknowledged as a fact, and out in the open.  I struggled with this muchly when my Dad was first hospitalized, about the guilt of knowing it was there but not actually doing anything about it, but I had a long talk one day with one of his doctors who tried to assure me that I shouldn't feel like I did anything wrong.  That things like this happen so gradually, families adjust to the changes gradually as well.  I wanted to yell -- that's all fine and good, but I work in freaking healthcare and should have known better.  And she pointed out that there's nothing I could have done or can do now to change anything, anyway.  She said I shouldn't feel bad that I "missed" anything, because I didn't.  I don't know; it's still an emotionally sensitive topic for me, but I know she's right.  I'm a daughter first and a nurse after that.  It's not my job to diagnose everyone in my family (lol).  I'll resolve this internal struggle, eventually, probably.

In the meantime, I have a few hours left of work and then I'm off for six whole days!!  Crazy, I know.  Tomorrow I'm picking up my Dad in the late morning and bringing him back home, and helping him get settled back in, and then tomorrow evening we have the final walk-through at the new place.  Oh my gosh, you guys, tomorrow night I get to sleep in my own bed again!  I can't wait!  Then Wednesday afternoon is our closing, and after that we'll go to the new place to do some measuring etc. and start moving some things in.  Thursday, Turkey Day, we'll move some stuff over in the morning, and then in the afternoon bring food in and have Turkey Day dinner at my parents' house.  Friday, Saturday, and Sunday -- and probably most of the otherwise-unaccounted-for moments for the foreseeable future -- will be cleaning, painting, and moving, organizing, unpacking, lather, rinse, repeat.  

Alright, I have to get back to work now.  TTFN and thanks for reading!

Where do I belong?

I'm so confused. 

I don't know where I belong.  I've been staying at my parents' house for over a week now.  I lived in this house for almost 20 years, it's not a strange place to me.  The décor has changed, but it's the same structure.  It's a comfortable place, it's a familiar place, but it's not my place.  

45 miles to the east is my current residence.  It's also a comfortable and familiar place, but it feels less and less like "home" every time I'm there.  Our décor is being packed up, and for the last few months I've been mentally preparing myself to leave.  My time there is limited, and has been cut even shorter now that I've spent the last almost 2 weeks at my parents'.  And like my parents' home, it will always feel familiar but soon, it won't be my place anymore.

20 miles to the north of that is another place, a place that I've only seen once in my life, but will soon be the stage for the next chapter in our lives, the first place we will live without our son.  Not counting the place we lived when we first got married, but that doesn't really count because we did end up living there with him, after he was born, ha, ha, ha.  In my mind, I've been trying to prepare myself for this move as well: to have a new home base, a new town to claim as "home". I've looked at the pictures of the house (from the online real estate ad) countless times, trying to recall my fading memories of what it was like in person, mentally unpacking our belongings and organizing things and decorating and making it our home.  But it's not my place yet, either.  Right now it's still someone else's home.  The only thing tying me there right now is a bunch of paperwork.  

Don't mind me. I've had a lot of time to think about a lot of things lately.

=============================================================

I started writing this a few days ago. When I first started writing it, I was having a bit of a pity party, which I don't even want to admit right now.  Changes can be challenging, even if they're only temporary, but especially if they're open-ended.  And it's not like things are going to go back to exactly the way they were before, because that's not how life works.  But when I started writing this, and was thinking about how my home base has changed recently and will change again soon, I was at that tiresome point where I was sleep-deprived and stressed out and a little down and not knowing when things were going to progress.  I don't want to whine (well, not much, anyway...) because other people are feeling worse than I am right now, and this I know for a fact because I'm temporarily living with one of them, and talking on the phone a couple times a day with another.  I really am honored that I am in the position to be able to help out in this situation.  It brings me so much peace to not have to worry about how my parents are doing right now.  As much as I miss being with my hubby every day, and sleeping in my own bed, it makes my heart happy to be able to be here right now.  

While all of this existential pondering is going on, the saga of settling on a closing date for the new place continues as well.  I can't even tell you off the top of my head anymore how many amendments we've signed for this deal.  I hate to complain because we did say we'd be flexible with the closing date so the sellers could find a new place, but we presumed that the sellers at least had a game plan and that they wouldn't wait until the last minute to decide to ask about changing the date!  Our original closing date has now come and gone.  The amended closing date, the ones the sellers finally proposed in writing, was declined by the title company.  I wanted to cry.  There have been a lot of times in the last 2 weeks that I've wanted to cry, but I haven't.  Not because I've been telling myself not to cry, but I just don't really feel like crying.  I either haven't reached that point yet, or I'm handling everything better than I thought I was. ;)

Closing Date #3 has been set.  Today we received the confirmation email from the title company.  If the sellers proposed another change right now...too bad, so sad.  No more amendments.  That's the closing date and we're sticking to it.  We've been flexible and more than generous, and our realtor has also been working his ass off to get this settled for us.  I bet he wishes we were paying him by the hour ;).  Last weekend, we started buying new furniture for the new place. But it still seems surreal to me, and because of the person I am, I can't get my hopes up yet.  

Meanwhile, in St. Paul, my Mom is making most excellent progress since her hip replacement surgery two weeks ago today!  I'm impressed!  Her mobility is pretty much back to her baseline, and I'm helping her get through all of her follow-up appointments and such.  And over in Minneapolis, my Dad is making progress as well in the TCU.  Or so I hear, based on telephone conversations with his nurses, doctor, and social worker.  Not being able to see my Dad or his current situation has been very difficult and challenging.  And knowing that he's in a strange place and confused about what's going on has made it even more difficult.  But we've worked through some issues and apparently he is working hard on his physical therapy as well, because today his expected discharge date was moved from December 3rd to November 23rd.  Insert happy dancing here!

So, that's where we're at now.  There is light at the end of the tunnel and it's not the headlight of the oncoming train.  :)

One day at a time, sweet Jesus

That's all I'm asking of You

Just give me the strength to do everyday
What I have to do...

It's amazing what six solid hours of sleep can do for a person.  ("A person" meaning me.) Even if that sleep is obtained while in a recliner in a different house in a noisy neighborhood while a person is also half-listening for another person's activity.  

Long story short: my Mom broke her hip last weekend. She had  total hip replacement on Tuesday and was discharged home on Thursday.  The last time my Mom was a patient in the hospital was just over 47 years ago, when she gave birth to a legend.  (Yes, that would be me!)

On the same day that my Mom broke her hip, my Dad was taken to the ER for what ended up being a COPD exacerbation and generalized weakness.  I mean, the ambulance taking him to the ER had literally just pulled away, and my Mom had gone back into the house to turn off the TV and call for a ride and lock up the house, and she was walking back outside to wait for her ride when BAM, femoral head fracture.

So, not to make this all about me because it certainly is NOT (oh, who am I kidding?! It's my blog, of course it's about me.) but that's how I started the Craziest Week of 2021 (So Far): trying to get a hold of my Dad in the ER at one hospital in one of the Twin Cities (which was a task in and of itself because this particular facility apparently has a rule against transferring calls to ER patients...) to let him know that the reason my Mom wasn't at the hospital with him yet was because she was in the ER at a different hospital in the other of the Twin Cities, while also trying to keep in touch with my Mom to find out the extent of her injuries and her treatment plan.  And as much as I wanted to drop everything and run to the cities so I could see what was going on myself, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be allowed into any ER with the current COVID visitor restrictions.  Not only that, but I myself was only one day out of my COVID isolation period, and I was living with someone who was only halfway through their COVID isolation period as well.  So I stayed home and made phone calls and freaked the hell out.  I can handle one parent being hospitalized -- my Dad has been hospitalized a few times over the past few years, so this wouldn't have been the first time I stepped up to help out, and I'm glad to do so. But the added stress of my Mom being hospitalized (when she hadn't been hospitalized for, like I said, 47 years. And the last time was my fault, ha ha ha.) and trying to be there for both of them...well, I mean I guess now I know I can handle that as well, but for a while, it was iffy.

For me.  Not for them.  

Because I don't feel like reliving all of the details of the last week right now, I'll conclude with a Current Update.  My Mom is doing very well; today is post-op day 4, and her 2nd full day home, and she's doing great! She's very motivated to get back to baseline.  I'm staying with her for the time being until she gets back on her feet and regains the confidence and comfortability to be home alone.  I don't think it will take long.  Although, I will also have to reach an acceptable level of confidence and comfortability of her being home alone at night before that happens, too.  Heh.  My Dad spent, let's see, 6 days as an inpatient while his COPD was treated and the exacerbation resolved, and then was on a waiting list for short-term rehab to rebuild his strength.  He got into the short-term rehab (for lack of another term that I hate to use...) yesterday and as far as we can tell, is doing well.  He can't have visitors in the short-term rehab center, which sucks big fat donkey balls.  I'm a visual person. I don't like just getting info over the phone, I'd rather do it in person. I want to see for myself what this facility is like, what the people are like, etc.  

So my first few days back to work in the office after COVID went something like: try to get as much work done as possible while also keeping an eye on my cell phone to make sure I don't miss any important calls, then as soon as I could possibly manage to get out of the office (meaning when we were done seeing in-person patients) I would go to one hospital (usually the VA) and visit with one parent for a while, then go to the other hospital (Regions) and visit the other parent.  Then drive home, try to catch up with the hubby, debrief with him for a bit, then try to fall asleep so I can get up at o-early-hundred and do it all again.  It was utterly exhausting.   Then on Thursday morning, my Mom called before I even left for work and said she was being discharged that day, and could I pick her up and spend the night at the house (which we had already discussed)?  

SUNDAY 11/07/2021

Another two-day blog post. Yay! 

Anyway. I've been staying at my parents' house since last Thursday night, staying with my Mom while she recovers from emergency hip replacement surgery.  Which, at this point (POD #5!) is mostly emotional support.  She's doing awesome physically. Much better than she thought she would. She thought she would basically be an invalid for a few weeks. Good thing I'm a nurse and knew that wouldn't be the case.

The closing on our new place has been postponed a few weeks.  Not related to any of the above.  I'm bummed but not completely heartbroken, because of the above.  Hopefully in a few more weeks, I'll have more time to help.  I'm a pretty useless wife lately.  

It's been weird staying here again. Well, it was at first.  It's not as if my parents left my room the same when I moved out, or anything like that.  They don't have a spare bed or even a sleeper sofa anymore.  They do have two recliners and a loveseat.  I've been sleeping in my Dad's recliner. It's not horrible. I've slept in a lot more uncomfortable and inconvenient places (like the old "couch" in the OB waiting room at the old hospital where I used to work...lol).  

But I'm not used to how fricking loud the city is! Holy crap! There are cars driving by, bass pumping, car doors slamming shut, people yelling, tires screeching, all hours of the night. OK, not like constantly, but enough to keep me on Alert.  For the last 17 years, I've lived in the nice, quiet country, where occasionally a car drives by or a train rolls by in the distance, and if I heard someone yelling outside my window I'd be flipping the fuck out.  

However, the 20 minute drive to work is nice...heh.  Not nice enough that I want to move closer to work, or find a job closer to home, but it is nice to have a temporarily shorter drive.  

Alright, I'm gonna sign off for now.  Most of what is on my mind isn't fit to share in here, out of respect for my parents' privacy and my sanity.  But if you're the praying kind, could you please keep us in your prayers? God will know why.

Thanks. 

I can't think of a witty Title.

I'd like to see where in the Bible it says that God will never give you more than you can handle, please.  And if it's there, I'd like to file an official complaint.

Don't go Googling scripture now, just because I'm being sarcastic.  Truth be told, that saying amuses me muchly.  God knows that we can't handle much on our own, so He doesn't give us more than HE can handle. And He can handle anything.  

Tonight's ramblings are brought to you by lack of sleep and increase of stress secondary to sudden onset of parental caretaker responsibilities.  As evidenced by (funny, I don't think I've used the term "as evidenced by" since nursing school, and now I'm having flashbacks to writing care plans) I don't even know what I was going to write next, I just wanted to use "as evidenced by" in a sentence. Next!

If you ever get COVID and want to find a way to snap yourself out of a post-COVID funk really quickly afterward, I'll tell you what works: having both of your parents come down with major medical issues. At the same time.  It helps if you're basically the only child, too, and as an added bonus to keep you on your toes, make sure each parent is hospitalized at a different hospital, preferably in two different cities (neither of which should be the city of your residence).  That is a completely effective way to forget your own problems for a while.  Oh, eventually (and actually, it won't even take that long...) your body will remind you that you're not as young as you think you are anymore, and that you are still recovering from COVID and should be taking it easy yourself.  However, as the #1 daughter, you will push that aside and do what needs to be done to take care of your parents.  Because, dammit, the people gave you life.  They raised you. They made you the awesome person you are today.  It doesn't matter that you didn't always get along when you were growing up, and even sometimes still don't see eye to eye, because you just step up and do what needs to be done.  It can't rain all the time, right? You can sleep later.  Perspectives change suddenly.  Welcome to adulthood.  And if you are fortunate enough to also be a nurse or other caregiver, who does this kind of thing for a living as they say, it will be both a blessing and a curse.  A blessing, because you'll know how the "system" works and what to expect, and also because you'll already be professionally trained in the best and safest ways to literally just take care of people.  A curse, because everyone needs to just turn their professional mind off for a while. But, that's what comes with working in health care.  You can't get away from it, even when you're not on the clock.  It's everywhere.  

ANYWAY...I just needed to write a bit to organize some thoughts and vent a bit.  I'm mentally exhausted, but physically not too bad right now.  I don't even feel like explaining everything that has happened since my last post right now, that's how tired I am.  I should sign off and get some sleep until midnight when I have to wake up and be a nurse again.  But I don't mind -- I've spent years and years and thousands of hours doing this kind of thing for people I'd never met before and may likely never see again; it's really quite an honor to be able to care for people who mean the absolute world to me.

I just hope my car doesn't get broken into, stolen, or operated on (i.e. catalytic converterectomy) overnight.  That would suck.  

Good night!

 

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...

The contents of this blog, such as text, graphics, images, and other material, are provided for amusement only. Anything written or implied here is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read in this blog.

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.