Again?

Inspirational song: Rock Me, Amadeus (Falco)

As my evening progresses, I'm starting to wonder just how well we have cleared that butthead virus from our systems. We are all noticing a return of sore throats and scratchy coughs. The Mr is even considering revisiting the NyQuil tonight. Me, I've been tossing back cough drops since early afternoon. I felt inspired to Google how soon after covid can you catch it again. (The answer seemed to be that it's rare to get it within 90 days, but not impossible.) I hope this is just a run-of-the-mill cold for all of us. Either way, I'm planning on zooming in to this month's sales meeting. I guess game night might be remote too.

Before we really started coughing again, the girls and I met at Hobby Lobby, in a vain attempt to find an appropriate easel to set up a piece of pottery I made back in 2010. It's heavy, and all I found was light twisted wire holding up basically weightless canvas art. I may be able to steal one away from somewhere else in my house, while I continue to look for a hefty art stand.

Valerie was on fire today at Hobby Lobby. She was so funny and energetic. We arrived separately, and I was able to find them by going to the side of the store where I guessed they would be, and listening for the sound of an excited pre-schooler. I found her hiding in garlands of beaded Easter decorations. She didn't know I was there, but my daughter saw me from the end of the aisle. She stood at one end filming while I stood quietly at the other, waiting for Valerie to emerge from her beaded curtain and realize I was there. The reaction was everything you would hope it would be. 

Oh, and if anyone wants to get Val a cute birthday present in a couple of months, these pictured tiny rocking chairs were pretty darned cute.

Phoned In

Inspirational song: Daydream Believer (The Monkees)

Yeah. I just caught myself starting to fall asleep, without blogging or taking pills. The latest babysitting work week has ended. It's officially recovery time. This is gonna be fast, and my photos are absolutely swiped, not my own. 

I got up early and took housemate J to the airport this morning, and both on the way there and on the way back, I stopped at several stores. By the time I picked up the kids, I was already tired. Four hours into it, when I looked up and saw Mr S-P walking up, I was so relieved to have backup that I nearly cried. Since he got here, I have done little beyond reclining in my room, with videos playing on the TV.

Yesterday I made chocolate pudding from scratch, and today it had chilled enough to feed it to the littles. I can't remember Dmitri got to try it last time I did this, but he got a full share this time around. There is no doubt that boy enjoyed the experience. 

There. That counts as a post. After nearly 10 years of doing this every night, they aren't all poetry.

Origin Story

Inspirational song: Bones (Imagine Dragons)

Ah, this babysitting day went much better than yesterday, even if I did end up sore and broken-feeling by the end of it. For my own sake, I dug out the old bottle of the first antidepressants I got for fibro pain, the lowest available dose and not my current level. But it was at least something, while I wait for my refills in the proper dosage to arrive, and it might just have made today possible. 

We started the morning shopping at big box hardware stores, for chainsaw oil and a few other things. Even though I looked everything over thoroughly, I only came away with one tiny plant, a kalanchoe flapjacks that I've been wanting for several months now. I can't wait for the weather to warm up enough to put some of these succulents outside on the porch for the season. This being Colorado, I have at minimum 9 or 10 weeks to go.

Once the kids got here, we were off to the races. They were in a pretty good mood, and we had our wits about us more than the last couple days. Yesterday we tried to show them How to Train Your Dragon, but only part two was available to stream. Today I went downstairs to our old DVD storage units, and found that we owned the blu-ray of the original movie. We set them up to watch, and for once, Valerie was invested from the start. I had to stay pretty close to keep Dmitri entertained, but even that wasn't so hard this time.

Once the movie was over, we sort of hung out on the bed and let the kids be silly. Dmitri is just old enough that he is figuring out that when he makes a noise and we imitate it back, it is a sort of active communication. The two kids had a whole conversation with each other in growly noises, and it was the most hilarious thing I could imagine. We really aren't that far away from them speaking real words and developing complex sibling jokes, are we? Things they will have just for themselves for the rest of their lives, and we will get to witness the birth of those memories. We are so lucky.

Concentration

Inspirational song: Give Blood (Pete Townshend)

We are starting to clue in why we have continued to feel off, even though we are done with the plague. Neither of us has been good about getting all of our meds and supplements in every day since we first started getting sick. As a result, we have been more achy and more short-tempered as our blood concentrations are going up and down. It messes with our eating too, but as neither of us is diabetic, we can only go by how we feel, not testing of blood sugars. 

It hit home for me this afternoon, when I just stopped being okay with the kids climbing on me and kicking me (one of them in particular), that this also coincided with me running out of some of my prescriptions, and my refills are taking forever to arrive. (This isn't making me any happier about being forced back onto Express Scripts by my insurance company.) I take an antidepressant specifically for fibromyalgia pain, and I've been completely out of it for days now. This isn't the kind of thing you're supposed to cold turkey off of. No wonder I'm cranky and sore.

Valerie doesn't like it when her grandparents get snippy with each other. We found that out right as they were getting picked up and a few short words were exchanged (having zero to do with any of the kids). She started crying and made us realize we might have been a bit loud. I guess that was the catalyst for our epiphany about our health habits. We will have to be better tomorrow.

Simple Joys

Inspirational song: All Out of Love (Air Supply)

I had all the fun I could muster. By nine pm, I was packing up my devices, taking my nighttime pills, and putting pajamas back on. I can't even imagine what it must be like to be the kind of people who go out into loud, crowded event spaces on a Friday night. I barely tolerated that when I was a young'un. I've already been sitting in bed for about 45 minutes, just flipping through social media while Dateline provided droning noise that I mostly ignored. Am I boring? Hell yes. Do I like it? More than you can possibly imagine.

It was a babysitting day, so naturally that ate up all my energy. It started early with a grocery trip with the babies and their mama. They had needs, and I needed a fresh couple bricks of cream cheese in which to hide Murray's daily pills, so off we went. I'm thinking in the future, we need little radio transponders attached to both me and my daughter. We spent most of the trip chasing each other around the store. I was in charge of the cart with Valerie in it, so at least I had good conversation while I was trying not to get annoyed on a third or fourth lap around King Soopers.

I followed through on my promise to Val that we would play steam cleaner today. There was only a half tank of wash water in it, so we didn't do the entire rug. It was enough to entertain her, which was all I was going for. She also watched two and a half videos of carpet cleaning on YouTube. It's gonna be fun, when she is going through some adolescent moodiness in several years, to remind her of what an earnest little goofball she was as she approached her third birthday. I just can't get enough of her.

 

Crackpot

Inspirational song: Get Together (The Youngbloods)

For several years now, I've told myself I'd go down and paint a ceramic bowl for the annual Empty Bowls fundraiser to benefit the Our Center here locally. Every year something comes up to keep me from coming, either weather, illness, fatigue, or mere forgetfulness. This year, I finally got there. The satellite group for our Rotary club organized an evening party to paint, and my buddy made sure I didn't back out (by agreeing when I asked for a ride so I didn't have to clear snow off my car). I'm very glad I went.

I thought about what I would paint for two days. I decided it would be what I think about all the time--a philodendron gloriosum (specifically, a dark form leaf). Once I got there, and saw my bowl shape choices, I decided on a coordinating plant for one side of a square bowl. I did a sort-of impressionistic variegated string of hearts, to go with my heart-shaped philodendron leaf. Good old Google images assisted me. It came out better than I'd hoped. I just hope I get to see it after it is fired. Guess I need to try to make it to the actual fundraiser dinner.

The kids were here briefly this afternoon, helping me out with getting Murray into and out of wheels for dinnertime. Valerie showed off all the cool things she has learned lately (including a fascination with the same cleaning videos on YouTube that her mommy and I watch). Dmitri practiced being incredibly charming. He got giggly over lots of things, and tried a couple foods, namely a big old Burger King fry, a pickle, and some little pieces of gummy bears. Guess which one was his favorite.

I promised Valerie that when she is here tomorrow, we would run the steam cleaner over the carpet again. Of all things...

Inching Forward

Inspirational song: One Step Ahead (Split Enz)

Oh, right. The rule is don't do too much all at once, or you'll regret it. I did way too much in general for a person with my particular constellation of chronic illness. It's doubly worse when I factor in how recently I had the plague. How many times did I say rest like you've never rested before? I did not follow my own advice. I got a wild hair up my butt and had to paint and arrange my room right now. I pushed too hard too soon. So I spent most of today lying around, listless, nodding off frequently. It's now nearly bedtime, and I'm feeling better enough to put freshly washed blankets on the bed (I had to because of Saoirse's filthy paws), and rehang my plants and one painting. The curtains arrived today, and I'm struggling to decide how much it bothers me that one is a different dye lot than the other three. More on that in days to come. For now, I need to figure out how to fall asleep tonight, after sleeping away the day. I'm not interested in medicating myself to unconsciousness. I might be playing puzzle games for a while, until I get bored enough to conk out. At least my room is snug and quiet with the thicker curtains.

Eggs

Inspirational song: I Can't Drive 55 (Sammy Hagar)

Traffic on the local speedway that is our street is starting to sound louder. It's the sound of wet streets that are soon to turn slick and dangerous. This is the music that will lull me to sleep, with uncharitable dreams of at least one of those yahoos who drive too fast in front of my house getting into a wreck of their own making.

We moved game night up a night because of the storm and cold air moving in. They are forecasting only about 5 inches of snow, but deeply cold low temperatures, so we chose not to bring the babies out in that weather. We all met next door, those of us who could make it, and played a couple of our favorite games. The babies faced off, and we learned Dmitri is a little scared of sweet old Jasper.

Today was Mr S-P's birthday. Because we missed so many celebrations, I demanded that we meet in person, so I could start providing birthday cakes for those who were skipped lately. I chose the traditional Smith birthday cake, and made an angel food cake from scratch. I texted the group, and told them they should recognize how much I love them all because I was willing to use nine whole eggs for them, in this era of scarcity. (It's better now, right?) I just wish my oven had been up to the moment. I thought it had heated sufficiently to bake the cake in the allotted time. But when I took it out and inverted it, it totally collapsed. Well, poop. I put it back in the oven for another 15 minutes, but it never even pretended to rise again. That's okay. Dense angel food with homemade lemon curd topping (to use up the yolks) is still better than no cake at all.

Starting Now

Inspirational song: Poker Face (Lady Gaga)

Oh, this is gonna be a long night. I need to make a whole lot more progress on painting my room, so I can move things back into place. The whole house looks like my room threw up into it. I can't live like this, at least not much longer.

I should have done more during the day today. Instead I got up early and went shopping with the family. We started at the thrift store, so it was pretty easy for me to take it easy on picking things up. In fact, the only thing I got was a set of nesting baskets that are a good shape to set plants inside of when they're in ugly pots. Valerie had a blast running around looking at everything, forgetting what she was holding as soon as she saw something else.

We went to Walmart next. We set the kids facing each other in the cart, Dmitri in the regular kid seat, and Val in the big plastic two-seater. Boy, did they like that. The primary thing we were looking for was a better set of curtains that the epic fail from yesterday. There were more options in 63 inch length, but it was still hard to find 50 inch wide ones. I found the perfect one, in paper bag brown, Better Homes and Gardens, but there was only one single panel. I decided to order all four online, rather than buying the one and risking getting a slightly different color. I placed the order standing in the curtain aisle, and darned if they aren't shipping free and due to arrive tomorrow. Now all I need to do is take the crap ones back.

I finished one pour of paint around 1030 this evening. I should do another small pour and finish the section where my bed goes, so it will dry by morning, and I can push the bed back in place. If I'm going to do it, I need to do it now. Like right now.

Curtains

Inspirational song: One Way or Another (Blondie)

What a tiring, frustrating day. I got another coat of paint on the north end of the room, but just a single coat where the curtain rods were (the rods that are currently getting dust on my bed, as are the plastic bins of clothes and other assorted junk). I wanted to put a second coat on the top strip of wall, so I could be done completely with that part. Instead, I'm sitting fully reclined, with Alfred pinning me down, as a mild muscle relaxer and medium pain killer work a little magic on my sore back. It all counts as progress, just not as much as I would have hoped by now.

I took an afternoon break from painting. I picked up Valerie, and she and I went curtain shopping. First we did a few laps of Target. The curtain options there were beyond disappointing. Instead of curtains, Val and I got some food items and a toy rabbit from the dollar spot. Turns out that cute kid loves pistachios and freeze-dried apples. We snacked on them the whole way between Target and Bed Bath and Beyond.

Valerie had more latitude to play at BB&B. The store had fewer other customers, so I didn't have to worry about her running out in front of someone else's cart. She thought it was pretty awesome. She especially liked hiding behind the curtains on the displays. Her silliness helped soothe my agony over searching and not finding anything appropriate for my room. I was finally so sick of failing to find 50 inch wide, 63 inch long curtains in any color, that I grabbed some 84 inch length ones in a fabric I didn't like, just to have something. I figured I could hem them to fit.

I ripped the packaging a little trying to remove one curtain. I unfolded it, held it up to the window, and swore a blue streak. It said 2 panels, 74 x 84. I thought each panel was 74 inches. Yeah, no. That is the total width. Not even close to fitting my windows. I have to reassemble the package somehow, and return them tomorrow. Maybe I can find some at Walmart. Or @ Home. Or, what, Marshall's? I just don't even know anymore where to look. All I know is I do not have energy to sew my own again, so there had better be some decent ones tomorrow, or I'm gonna get a n g r y.

Cholesterol

Inspirational song: Ooh Baby, Baby (Linda Ronstadt)

As a wall color, "Night Light" isn't quite as extreme as the chalk white I demanded back in 8th grade, but wow, it's close. If anything, it's closer to the cholesterol color my mom painted my childhood room after I moved out. It has a ways to go just to be French vanilla. But it is the clean slate I needed. A palate cleanser, as it were. Maybe in a couple years, I can consider putting in a more intense color again. For now, the furnishings, bedding, art, and plants will provide all the excitement for this decor.

We picked up the kids and took them with us to Lowe's. I was ready to get the paint, and start on the north one-sixth of the room, so I could reclaim my dresser from what used to be my craft and dressing room, and get rid of the temporary plastic drawers I had been using since September. Got the paint and tools I didn't already find in my garage, plus the bar and curtain rod supports for the living room, so I can put hanging plants directly in front of the picture window. We had to drive with a steel electrical conduit running from the back of my Tucson, over Dmitri's head, and out the passenger window. Inelegant, but it did the trick.

While at Lowe's, we decided it was time for Dmitri to graduate from riding in the car seat bucket to sitting up in the buggy. He was so much happier. He never flopped over (granted he was buckled and had a blankie for support), and he never stopped smiling. Valerie was given permission to run her wiggles out, and while I was getting paint and curtain accessories, grandpa let her go from one end of the store to the other. By the time we got to the house, he went out like a light, and she bored herself to sleep watching Cars for the first time. (She does this every time with a new movie. Chances are she will ask for it tomorrow.)

By the end of the evening, Dmitri was ready to go back home, and Valerie was totally on board to go out for Mexican food with grandma and grandpa. She really only ate rice, chips, and the tomatoes off her taco, but she had a grand old time with us.

Happy Faces

Inspirational song: Ring My Bell (Anita Ward)

I got the best of all possible worlds today. I encountered happy people, animals, and plants throughout the day. Who could ask for more?

I ran errands this morning, driving around to the big three hardware stores, taking pictures of paint prices and gathering extra paint chips, only to circle back to the color I had settled on before from the store I had previously chosen. I was temporarily distracted by an Ace Hardware sale, until I re-read it and realized it wasn't BOGO, or even buy one get one half off. It was buy two gallons and get one free. That's all well and good, but my bedroom is not so big that I would need three gallons. I'd like to repaint the kitchen, to get rid of the yellow I fell out of love with years ago, but am I ready to do both now? Probably not.

I picked up the grandkids on my way back from paint scouting. When I pulled up, the kids brought the babies out to the car. I never even got my seat belt off. I was informed that Dmitri was in a ridiculously good mood, and darned if he didn't keep it nearly the entire time he was with me. Valerie was charming and chatty the whole time too. I missed having them while everyone was sick, so it was nice getting back into the routine.

I got a message from my mother with a photo I requested. I failed to verify if it was approved for release, but since that is what I specifically asked for, I'm going to take the risk and share it here. I told her to get me a photo with the end-of-cancer-treatment bell, and she delivered. She posted a bell ringing video too, but those don't translate to this blog well. She completed a very long radiation series today, more than I had to go through with both of my breast cancers combined, if I am not mistaken. Now she is cooked and she just has to simmer, and, I don't know, thicken upon standing? Is that taking the metaphor too far? I hope her skin starts treating her better, as the burn wears off. For now, I'm just happy she made it through the tough parts.

For the record, I did not buy any new plants today, even though I looked them over at all three stores. When I was chatting with the Mr, I noticed something that startled and amazed me. The aglaonema that has stuck it out through the worst of my abuse and neglect, the one I ignored for years, is doing so well now that I'm paying attention to it, it has actually flowered! I didn't even know they did that! It put out a tiny, creamy white flower that resembles a peace lily or anthurium bloom. This gives me hope that I'm finally getting good at this house plant stuff, equal to where I'm going with the outdoor gardening these days.

Extra Gravity

Inspirational song: Free Fallin' (Tom Petty)

There are a few spatial anomalies in my house, places where gravity is extra strong. One such spot is in the center of my kitchen, where it flips Athena over on her back frequently. Lucky for us all, she manages to fight the pull of gravity and restore her balance just before one of us can lay a hand on her delightfully fluffy tummy. There is another gravity-anomaly between my pillow and bedside table, although I have not yet tested whether that one shifted when the room was rearranged.

The worst super-gravity spot in the house surrounds my recliner. Everything hits the floor there sooner or later. There is a reason that my iPad has a shattered screen, and the glass protector I put over the top to keep using it also has a few cracks in it. Today, I knew better than to stand back when I saw my daughter balanced a drink tray from McDonald's on the seat of my recliner, but stand back I did. The lid didn't pop off my Coke when it inevitably hit the carpet, but some did spill out the straw hole. We grabbed some microfiber cloths and dabbed it up right away, and I promised myself I'd move up shampooing the carpet on the priority list.

A little later, I saw Valerie was being cute and spreading a blanket over her legs on the couch, getting comfortable. I zoomed my camera to take a picture, and that's when I noticed my daughter had left her tea sitting on the edge of the couch when she stood up. I took the photo, and before I could put down my phone, splash! Gravity struck again. This time the lid came off and the whole drink poured on the rug. And this time I went and grabbed the carpet shampooer.

By the third time a container of liquid tipped over this afternoon, I was just so happy that it was plain water (in my plant watering can), that I just shrugged and moved on with my day.