Delicate

Oh.... do I keep talking about my difficulties?  Or do I leave things a little so that the days that mean a lot to a lot of people are empty, or happy, or neutral or something.

I am approaching Christmas differently this year, a little more delicately and a lot more taking care of myself-ly.  So maybe I'll give it a break.  Or write and set the post for after, because whoever may be reading may not be reading on the holidays anyway, but I don't really know what I'm saying or not saying so I'll just pretend this post didn't happen.  

Two Truths And A Lie

When I wrote that post the other day bringing up Jason and I for the first time (I think) in a long time and how I have been feeling more like I really have to admit I'm single single, little did I know that a handful of days after I wrote it (but before it actually posted... ironically) Jason really hammered home the point.

Jason, it turns out, was angry with me at something I'd said a few days earlier and to quote him I got "caught in the crossfire."

What happened was I got a text from him saying he was going to hang out with [female name] on Sunday.  I replied "ok and I need to know this why?" (I'm not in the best mood these days either as it turns out.)

He then went on to tell me that he's had a crush on her for 20 years and finally asked her to be his and is going to start dating her.  And that he was letting me know right away since I'd asked him to do so if/when he was planning on starting to date/see someone.  That much is true.

I was stunned and confused, because usually when we're hanging out or chatting there is mention of whatever gal he's talking to and this was not a name I knew.  So I called, to clarify, already pretty damn upset and probably in some variation of shock and hurt.

He picked up, I could tell he'd been drinking, but I still asked him what on earth he was talking about.  He clarified that yes he was going to start dating this person and was letting me know as requested.  I was devastated.  Told him I'd be by the next day to pick up my stuff and when he questioned me on this I realized I was being pretty reactive so I backed down and said "picking up the packages I had delivered there."  Because no good was going to come out of a non sober person and a very very hurt and upset person hashing things out right in that moment.  So I ended the call and went straight in to an absolutely terrible panic attack devastation type awfulness.

Part of the problem, of course, is that he is who I have turned to when I'm not ok for the last decade or so.  And you can't turn to the person who IS the problem to help you with that problem.

But also, I realized that it was really interesting timing seeing as I'd just written, but not yet published a blog post saying I was single and this relationship wasn't a relationship at all really and here he was unknowingly letting me know I was right.

It hurt.

I felt pretty desperate and didn't know what to do or who to turn to.  The people I maybe could have called would most likely have been more judgmental  of the situation than I wanted to hear right in that moment.   But I felt like I needed to talk to someone... that it would ground and settle me a bit.

I think I talked to an AI chat bot on my meditation app for a bit (I have huge moral and environmental issues with AI but that's not the point right now) but that got frustrating (it's a beta model FWIW) and so I reached out to a friend on a social media site who has talked to me about her complicated and complex relationship with her now ex.  It helped.  We type-talked for ages and she was calm and comforting and didn't judge but also asked great questions and noticed that I REALLY wanted to avoid my feelings so she reassured me that it was valid that I was hurt and that I should let myself feel that hurt.  

Jason, meanwhile, had sent some more texts (I have a boundary that we do not talk or text when he is drinking so I was not replying to those texts) and his last one was mean.  This was even more hurtful.

Shortening the story somewhat, I didn't hear from him the next day, nor did I reach out because every time I went to text him I saw that mean/unkind text and it hurt.

I was miserable at work (this happened on a Sunday, so the Monday was a hard day... I didn't really sleep, etc etc) but got through it.  On the Tuesday I knew I wanted to talk with him and let him know that this was a conversation that should have happened while he was sober and that the unkindness he levelled at me wasn't ok.  I messaged him at the end of my work day and asked if I could stop by.  He replied, so over I went.

I tried to be calm but firm and the first thing I asked was "so who are you dating exactly?" and this is when he replied with "no one"  "I was in a really bad mood and you got caught in the crossfire."

Well it was like a weight was lifted off of me that he's not actually actively dating but I told him that this meant we had a whole other problem.  And for myself although there was relief at this there was also the realization/understanding that a fundamental trust had been broken.  A lie told to hurt.  Even if inebriated at the time, it crossed a line for me I think.  (Plus the hurt of thinking it was real is a situation I will likely have to deal with at some point in the future.)

Long story quite short, he apologized and said it was a low blow and that he had said that to purposely try to hurt me (he's never done that before which is a sign to me of how not ok he really is) and that he is not handling life right now and so really not coping and not ok.

In some ways I wish he'd told me this a while ago rather than trying to cover it up and "protect" (?) me from his mood and state of mind.  Because I didn't know I was asking too much by saying I missed the way he used to be (checking in on me when he knew things were tough and asking about my day and things like that.)  The other thing I realized in the conversation we had is that while I'm maybe able to check in on others while I'm at my worst, he is not.  And I can't expect that from him (or anyone else I suppose.)

I booked an "emergency" (as in unplanned) counselling appointment for myself to talk about not what Jason might need but how I can be less impacted by him and his moods and upset and how I can continue to give myself emotional distance from him and all that kind of stuff, but in a lot of ways this maybe really feels like the final nail in the "are we or aren't we" coffin.

The devastation I went through when I thought he was starting a new relationship was too much.  Like the thought I had was "how many times can this guy break up with me?" and the truth is he did, once, a long time ago.  The rest is on me.  (Which is what I'd like to dig into in this counselling session... I should probably make notes before I go in eh?)  I am always hurt when an ex gets married or something, I just am, but this was way too upsetting and I can't have so much of my mental well being tied to someone else.  Especially when that someone else is at their lowest/worst/whatever we're calling it. 

Now this feels like pretty heavy stuff for the week leading into Christmas but hey, that's just how life goes sometimes eh?  Jason, historically, has had a really rough go of it in late Fall/early Winter and has, for the past few years, called me and utterly ruined my day with some drunken anger and I was hoping to avoid that this year (I told him back in October I was terrified of it happening again this year, which is part of why I have been hammering home the fact he can NOT call me if he is having a drink or more) so perhaps this *incident* was this year's version of that, but whatever it was it wasn't ok on his end and it wasn't ok on my end and I don't really know how to move forward from here.

It's True Though

I know I've been saying this a lot since 2020, but wow did this month really fly by.  (Maybe the advent calendar counting down the days helps make the time passage more obvious but yeah.... it was the middle of the month like *that* last week.)

As we have arrived at Solstice, I'd like to wish you all a very happy yule and a very happy winter and a very happy shortest day of the northern hemisphere year.  Here's to winter and cozying down with blankets and books while we watch the days get ever so slightly longer.

Happy Solstice.  

It's Not A Large Place!

I lost two things in my apartment this week.  Which always baffles me when it happens because I do not live in that large of a place so how on earth could it have just disappeared!?

I did find both of them, mind you... the one, was a small item I was returning and I had gone with it to my "shredding" machine (where I store my receipts until I'm ready to shred a bunch of things) and I had placed it down to sort through the receipts and then walked away because the receipt wasn't in there.  So I guess really I'd lost *two* things at this point.  But I found the receipt in my kitchen (I hadn't moved it to the machine bin yet) but then couldn't find the small item where it should have been (in the kitchen, on a counter, by the door, nothing!) until I went back into my bedroom for something else and found it sitting on the floor next to my open closet.  Scatterbrained move I guess... overly distracted and not paying attention?

And then the next thing was my hot water glass/mug that I drink, well, my hot water out of.  It's a tall, double uhhhh paned?  That's not the word, it's double walled glass drinking container that I drink hot water out of.  It wasn't on the counter where it lives (for the cold seasons).  It wasn't in the cupboard where it lives when not in use.  THERE IS NO WHERE ELSE I PUT THIS THING?????  It wasn't anywhere I sit - not on a table or a counter or a side board.  It had just... disappeared?

Until some part of my brain thought to just maybe check the dishwasher, where it was sitting quite happily waiting for me to take it out after the last wash.  I guess I had taken all the other things out but not seen the seet-hrough glass at the far back end of the top rack.

So yeah, I'm maybe not "losing" things but I'm certainly not excelling at finding them when I need to.  Heh.

You Guys!

You guys!  You GUYS!

About two nights after I wrote this post where I complained about how annoying I find it when my sheets wrinkle after I sleep on them I was lying in bed and some part of my brain thought "I wish there was some kind of like... strap you could use to keep the sides from pulling like that".

And then of course I didn't remember the thought when I woke up and then the next night I went to bed and thought "I really have to remember to look into that elastic sheet holder idea" and then... well, I forgot the next morning.  Rinse and repeat until the other day when I actually woke up and remembered!  (Probably, honestly because I was tucking the sheets BACK DOWN UNDER the mattress where they're SUPPOSED to be!)

And well, yes (duh?) there are like sheet... suspenders (I actually saw them called that) like thingies that will (hopefully???) help hold the sheet down and flat and secure and so I have ordered some and while I imagine it will make washing sheets and making my bed a little more annoying I am really really hoping they fix my "the sheets are wrinkled the next morning" frustration!  I'm excited!  And pretty proud of my brain for either thinking to look for the thing or maybe remembering they exist.  (And I'm maybe a little annoyed that the lady in the like literal bedding store didn't know/think to mention this strap thing as a potential solution but hey, it is what it is eh?)

Here's hoping! 

Who's In The Well Lassie?

I turned on my kitchen light yesterday evening to do... whatever (cook probably!) and the darn thing was flickering.  Now it wasn't just .... flickering, it was flickering in sync to my wall clocks!  So every "tick" was timed with the light flickering!  Honestly it weirded me out.  

For half a second I wondered if there was some ghostly connection like the light was mimicking my heartbeat as some kind of message from beyond or something, but then I thought it was maybe the (intense) wind doing weird things to the electrical so I turned it back off and sat down to google.

I think/assume my brain registered the fact that the other things in my apartment weren't also flickering once a second (like my living room stand up light) but I also am really very cautious about electrical stuff knowing it can cause fires and bad things so I didn't want to mess around.  I did also need to cook though and so I turned it back on and just tried to deal with the flickering while also monitoring it.

Aaaaaaand then the bulb burned out.  Well that answers that then eh?  But... um... I have no recollection of changing these lightbulbs (have they maybe been in there since the renoviction?  mayyyyyybe?) so... I guess I'll have to get Jason or someone to come over to help me in the morning?  But let me just fiddle around a bit first.

The light is a dome light with three "clips" holding it up.  I got one to wiggle but wasn't able to get it off.  I texted Jason asking if he'd be able to help the next day and he said sure but also to send him a photo.  Which I did.  "One of the clips slides off" he said.  But I'd tried that and hadn't managed to make it work.  He further explained that the movable clip is spring loaded and probably stiff, so I (standing on a chair mind you, not anything hugely safe, ahem) went back to the "wiggly" one and gave it a pull out until it was far enough separated that I could maneuver the glass dome out of the other clips!  (I felt quite proud of myself for this!)

And that's when I learned that there were actually TWO (of three) bulbs burnt out, oops!  I'd not seen this style of bulb in a while (twisty loopy ones?) but I noted the "maximum wattage" sticker and luckily  had the correct wattage of bulbs in my closet so I put on my headlamp for lighting backup (WOO HOO!) and carefully rotated out the old bulbs and put in the new ones (while trying really hard not to tip myself over on the chair, yikes) and then I carefully washed the glass dome and slid it back in and VOILA!  I changed the lightbulbs on a ceiling fixture all by myself! YAY! (With some remote support of course.)

Now my kitchen is a whole lot brighter (I wonder when that first bulb went out, I certainly didn't notice it) and the "colour" (temp) of the light is not the same which is driving me a little bit batty but I'll maybe just have to get used to it as I'm not sure I can find any warmer 60watt bulbs out there (I've been googling.)

So yeah, if my flashing lightbulb was trying to send me any message it was probably "you can do this even though you don't think you can!" or something like that.  And really, I can't see how anyone would magically just *know* how to get that dome off if you hadn't done it before or hadn't been told how it works, eh?  

This Space

I've been single for a long while now.

My friendship with Jason, who is a former boyfriend, has made it feel not quite as single as a normal single-ness feels but the last year or so have been tough for us, or for me anyway, I can't speak for him, nor do I really know what he thinks of it all, he's been emotionally distant for a while now.... and so I realized at some point today that I am, in fact, single.  Really.

Maybe it was the "meeting someone great" dreams that made the back of my mind start to think about that maybe meaning I'm ready for that to happen rather than being mildly content to hang out with an ex and feel like that was enough of a "relationship".

The Jason and I story is way more complicated than I think I've ever gotten into here, or anywhere other than babbling conversations with him from time to time.  I've been extremely hurt over the last 8 or so years (when his last relationship ended so we were both single single) that he refers to himself as single on the regular (on his socials and in conversation) when I guess I thought we were on a similar page of "not together but kind of half not quite *not* together".  And man oh man am I over-simplifying like nearly a decade of whatever the two of us have been and how I felt about that and I just never quite felt like putting it out here so you all have maybe been just guessing or not knowing or more likely not even caring, I don't know.

I do know that from time to time a counsellor will ask "I'm confused by your relationship with Jason?" and I'll reply "yeah me too, but no we're not together not exactly but he says we're totally not and I guess I kind of agree but also I don't so I don't know.  And no I'm not sure it's healthy or good.... for me anyway."

But am I wanting to or willing to or able to just cut off our friendship completely cold turkey overnight?  Nope.  But I digress.... in my head.

I started this post with the simple idea of talking about the fact that "single girl" is in the title of this Blog and that not long after I started it someone warned me against doing that with the whole "manifesting" thing.... suggesting that if I put that energy out into the universe I would never be anything but single.  *shrug*  If it is that it is that.  I don't know.

I just know that between the relationship and devastating breakup with Max and then my mental health really falling apart I haven't had the heart to even consider all that it takes to try to date.  And in this day and age it feels even more daunting and impossible.  And I'm not 20 something or even 30 something anymore, and so neither are the men I would be considering dating.

Am I going to rename the blog?  I doubt it.  I didn't consider it in the early days because there were hundreds of people reading it a day and I didn't know enough about the internets and stuff to want to "risk" screwing that up (not that I have ever made anything from this blog or gotten any fame or anything since it's, you know ANONYMOUS! HA!) And would I now?  With just a small (but wonderful, you guys rock!) number of people reading most days?  Maybe?  But also, can I be bothered?  Or am I creative enough to think of an adjacent name?  The blog name came (as I've said before) literally from me "writing" Dear (person) notes in my head and finding them amusing and so I was like well here I am, a single girl giving advice to strangers, that'll be what I'll call this blog no one will ever read ever!

Now it's no longer *that* and I haven't had anything near a desire to date since, what was it... 2015?  A decade?  So I am still single and I'm not really giving "pretend advice" anymore (not that it was that common in the beginning anyway) but if this space is about being a single girl and I'm not trying to date, do I change things?  And what if I date in the future and end up married or partnered up, is it still the blog of a "single" girl at that time?  I remember thinking to myself well I am just ONE person and that's a singular so it can stick as a name and really in the grand scheme of things it's not likely that important in anyway or to any one or to the universe but hey, I had the thought and so I wrote about it and here we are. 

Nope

It's pomegranate season (yay) and I have a few I bought that I'm keeping in the fridge until the next time I get groceries and another one or two (depending on price and feel).

I pulled one out of the fridge earlier to crack open and when I picked it up there was a soft spot.  This is not good but I figured I'd just avoid that side and area and so I cracked the thing open and started getting the seed things (maybe arils but there is some controversy around this term apparently!) and I noticed that some of the stems in a not soft area were black instead of the normal cream.... hmmm....

I tasted a couple.  They weren't quite right.  I kept working on it.  More black stems.... double hmmm....

In the end I decided it wasn't worth the risk of potentially eating something that had gone off/bad and getting maybe sick or feeling unwell or upsetting my stomach.  If just that area of softness had been weird I might have kept the rest but finding "off/odd" ones in other parts just made me feel like the whole fruit wasn't worth the risk.  Oh well.  Such is the delight and slight risk of eating fruit that was picked who knows when and imported from who knows where how long ago.  

I opened another so I'm good to go for a bit but that was an interesting, and slightly unsettling reminder to check your produce not just when you buy it but when you go to use it.  (That one might have been sitting in my fridge for a couple of weeks but still should have been good.) 

These Dreams*

For two nights in a row, I had dreams where I met a (n attractive) guy!

This is unusual as the dreams I mainly "remember" are stress dreams and I can't remember the last time I had a dream about meeting a potential boyfriend.

I know *why* the locations/settings of the dreams happened but not why my brain seems to be ready for me to maybe meet and date someone when *I* do not feel ready for that as far as I can tell!

One dream was me meeting this cute blonde who was (I think?) filling up his van (that he travels or lives in?) while I was doing the same with my van (that isn't on the road in real life) and this is because I had just re-watched Nomadland (for the third? fourth? time) and it's a story about folks living out of vans, so that "meeting" made sense.

The other one also kind of made sense but was a bit of a stretch for a dream.  In real life I had just learned that a new (younger male) co-worker is literally from the same town I am from.  This NEVER happens!!! like not nearby, like the actual town!  We talked about which high school we went to and even our street numbers, like I'm SO HAPPY to find someone from there! I also discovered he played baseball in high school so in the dream I met someone who was "way too young" for me but he was cute and he liked that I knew about baseball and I woke up and was like "NOPE! Sorry brain, not dating "too young" guys, sorry but no."

But yeah, it was weird (?) to have two nights in a row of a dream where I met someone I knew right away I liked and we clicked in that way.  Go figure. 

 

 

 

 

*(Potential earworm, sorry!)

A Laundry Fiasco Of My Own Making

Sometimes I out think myself or I think of a great idea and then it doesn't turn out quite that way! (Humans you know?)

My building has a laundry room with two (paid) machines of each type (two washers, two driers.)

Kind of to save money, I do a lights load and a darks load and then one dryer load.  

And I try to do my laundry at times when I'm unlikely to be competing with others for the machines, but also in a timely enough way that I don't run out of clean things!

So a few weeks back I was trying to do laundry but every time I thought I'd go do it, someone was already in the machines.

So I thought I would be SUPER SMART (tm) and I did a half load two weeks ago to (I thought) flip me out of the cycle of laundry doing that everyone else seemed to be in.  ME SO SMART.

A couple of days ago when I was dealing with "I just bought new sheets and am going to give my flannel ones to someone so I should wash them" but I also had my older old sheets in the laundry pile (the ones I had taken off to put on the flannels!) so yikes, that's three loads of sheets I'm going to do on top of my already pretty damn full double load.  Oh well, here goes.

So I step out into the hallway almost directly into the path of a neighbour who is just heading down to check if the machines are empty and she says oh you go, "no no" I say but she insists and so now, in my head, there is the pressure of knowing someone ELSE is waiting for the machines and this is exactly what I was trying to avoid by attempting to shift my laundry doing schedule.  Sigh.

But.. it is what it is and I actually skipped going to an exercise class at the gym to do "all this" laundry so I've committed now, here goes. My vague plan is that I'll do the dark load and a light load and put them in the dryer and then do the flannels (and maybe another set depending on how full things get) and then either have a second dryer or just add on to the first dryer depending on timing.  Ok, here goes.  Sorry neighbour, I feel like a hog!

I got the first two loads going but noticed that while the two machines had the same setting, one was going to do the wash in 35 minutes and the other would be done in 25 minutes.  Hmmm.  Oh well, I pressed start, heard the water going and went back upstairs.  

When my buzzer went off at 25 minutes I went downstairs to get the first load out and that's when I realized the "25" wasn't minutes?  It was the machine telling me I still needed to add 25 cents.

Which... isn't true.  I had added the correct amount but somehow it hadn't read that quarter but ALSO *not* spat it out (usually the coin thing spits out a coin it can't read).  I pressed the return thing and nothing happened so I put in another quarter and two popped out.  Weird.  I kept putting in a quarter (and getting it back) until the machine read one and then I realized I was in a predicament.  Because now I had one washer starting from the beginning and another finishing in like 7 minutes and I still had another load of laundry (sheets) I needed to put on (or else I wasn't going to have anything to sleep on that night!) Gah!  This now completely screwed up my drying situation.  I had three loads of wet happening/ending at three different times and I wasn't sure how to best handle it.

So I waited til load 1 finished and I put it in the dryer.  I then started load 3 in the empty washer.  I set the dryer going.

I came back down when load two was finished and tried to be smart knowing that I didn't quite have the brain power for this.  I pulled out whatever was dry in the first dryer load (some I found out when I got upstairs still needed some time so they got hung to air dry....sigh) and then I debated starting a second dryer load or adding the wet stuff to the half dry load and so I ended up putting the wet stuff in with the half dry stuff and adding extra time to the drier.

I then came down when washing load THREE was done and put it into the second dryer and checked the content of the first dryer (took out some dry things or pretty dry things I didn't want to wrinkle) and added more time to it so that the two dryers would end at pretty much the same time and then after how ever long that was I came back down, made sure everything was dry, made my bed, folded the sheets I was giving away and storing, put away all of my laundry, checked on the things I'd had to hang to finish drying and while completely sweaty and gross feeling and frustrated I delivered the sheets I was giving away to my neighbour.

And that's how I over-complicated what should have been a pretty simple three loads of laundry day and took nearly four hours to do it.  

(Things would still have been complicated but a little easier if I'd realized the "25" was asking for a quarter and not telling me a timeline!)

Today I Learned!*

*ok well it was last night but that's not as fun to say

I have a laptop stand that I use and have used for years to just keep a little bit of air flow and "cooling" under my laptop.  (By the way the company that makes this laptop says it is NOT a laptop it is a portable computer and we are not supposed to use it on our laps, nope!  To which I reply... guffaw!)

I got this stand a number of years ago at IKEA, it wasn't expensive, and it's light and it does it's job just fine, yay.

So yesterday I had sore thighs.  Like as if I had had an intense "leg day" at the gym, which I had not and so that evening I got a hot water bottle and put it on my thighs to try to get them feeling better and while I watched a show I let the heat soak in to my thighs.

Eventually (duh) I had to get up to pee and when I went to move my laptop aside it.... stuck?  What?  It was heavy?  I really wasn't sure what was going on!

Well it turns out that this laptop stand has a (had) little rubber foot thing along the one edge which makes TOTAL sense for non-slip factor, but the heat from the hot water bottle had melted it (I had no idea!) and that melt had stuck the rubber to the case of the hot water bottle (if you're a hot water bottle user, a case is the most delightful thing ever IMO!) and well, wow, I had not seen that coming!

If I knew the stand had a rubber footing band I had forgotten and I didn't think about the heat from the hot water bottle being "too hot" as it was mitigated by the cover and the pj bottoms I was wearing.  OOps!

I put the laptop aside and flipped the stand upside down so the rubber could stop melting and then I took the hot water bottle case, that I've had since FOREVER (honestly maybe high school or right after, it's old and worn!) and started picking and pulling off the melted rubber.  I pulled off as much as I could (really pulling out the fibers) and then cut/trimmed some and then put it in the wash to get off as much more as I could.

Now there is just one strip of black left on the case and I'm trying to be more aware of the fact that hot things make other things hot too, hello! And that could cause a melting you're not thinking of, oops. 

 

Oh, Well That Was Interesting!

A friend's kid was doing a fundraiser for their school trip and long story short I bought three things of frozen cookie dough to "help"!

I was super excited to have this cookie dough over the winter and holidays so that I could have easy access to sweets without having to go buy a chocolate bar or an over-priced cookie or something. Note: I do have a recipe for cookies that I have made and I guess I just wanted something a little easier?

Last week the delivery of said cookie dough was made and I was a little ... perplexed?

I'm not sure what I had expected, but a giant blob of dough in a resealable bag was not it.  (I say this with amusement rather than upset or anger.)

But yay, I could now make cookies right?  Right!  

Except... duh (to me) the dough is frozen.  Hmmm.... I can't easily take it out of the pouch/bag and cut it in half.  Maybe I could thaw it and make a dozen or two today and another dozen or two in a couple of days?  Yeah, ok that.  

So I let it thaw and then scooped out little balls of dough, which wasn't easy! And baked up the sugar cookies (I'm finding it hard to find a good sugar cookie out there!) and was mildly disappointed in the result.  (But I ate three or four anyway)

I then asked my neighbour if she'd like the full bag of chocolate chip dough and she checked the ingredient list, wasn't thrilled by it but said sure.

She made up some of those and messaged me that they tasted very chemically and would I like a couple?  I said NOPE! (with a laugh) and then noticed my stomach feeling a little bit not happy and like it's not like the ingredient list was gnarly or anything but it did include palm oil and some other things that the cookies I make at home don't use or have and while my neighbour took her cookies to her Dad's (who liked them) and is taking the rest to a New Year's party in a few weeks, I actually composted mine and the rest of the frozen dough because I am trying to eat healthier in general and reduce my sugar NEEEEEEEEED and even though it felt a little wasteful and a little bit like I threw the money away I'm telling myself it'll help some kids do something fun and that it's better to compost the thing that is upsetting my stomach than to eat a thing I didn't really enjoy that my body doesn't really want.

But yeah, I guess going forward I'll either stick to the very simple cookie recipe I have that I know I enjoy or I'll buy a cookie that someone else made or something that just isn't a sack of frozen cookie dough.

Was still a fun idea though and good on me, I guess, for trying.  

Internal Groan

I sat down to write just now and pulled out my sticky note that has my post ideas on it and they're all health related.

Which... makes me groan both because that's not really a delightful topic of interest to go over and over and because it takes a lot of brainpower for me to sort of think through the background and the explanation and the reasoning of whatever the health thing is.  

So while I *do* have ideas for blog posts I could write, right now they're all health things I've been dealing with and I really have to be in a certain mood and headspace to sit down and type that stuff out!

Crackle Crackle Shhhhhhh

This is probably a repeat of a story I've already blogged about but hey, who remembers with that much detail anyway!? (If you do I'm sorry!)

I've had an alarm clock radio since I was in high school.  Maybe before, but for sure high school, so this thing is probably 40 years old.  (It shows up as "vintage" if you try to find it on like Etsy or something, plus the shape is... triangular-ish! OoOOOooooOoh!)

You can have the alarm set to play you a tape (I stopped doing this a while ago for fear of it eating said tapes, but yes I do still have a shoebox of tapes somewhere) a buzz or the radio.  Other than when I used to have it play a tape I have had it on radio for.... decades.  Often, when I have some extended time off from work, when I go to turn the alarm back on it has like... lost the signal or something?  Like I'll usually but the alarm function back on on the Sunday before I have to go back to work as like a mini test and I'll be woken up by nothing... a low hum maybe which generally has me sitting up and thinking "well that's not ideal" as there's no guarantee that non noise would be enough to wake me up on a work day.  So then I fiddle around with the dial a bit until the radio station comes back in and sometimes, if I"m feeling really untrusting of it, I will turn on the back up alarm I have.  

Some mornings the radio alarm will be fine but then when I sit up to turn it off it'll crackle, like my body is interfering with the signal, it's cool!  EVERY random once in a while the system will have a little goof up and the radio will have a tiny bit of buzz to it and that's shockingly loud or the radio will come on at FULL VOLUME but the biggest thing I have to watch out for with this alarm clock is the fact that when it goes on vacation it seems to need an adjustment to get back into the correct flow of things.  Maybe it's more like us than we think!

A Non Problem, I Know*

Last winter I was pretty chilly for a good few nights.  If we remember, I ended up putting a plush like fleece blanket on top of my sheet and it was soft and cozy and I really liked it.  But also last year I thought about trying flannel sheets (C-Dawg swears by them) and being extra extra cozy with them.  I haven't had flannels in a long time but feel like I have vague memories of having them as a kid maybe?  Or something?  But last fall when I went to try to buy them they were sold out so I made a mental note for myself (I maybe even made a physical note on my laptop who knows!) and bought myself a pair in September.  I gave them a wash and tucked them away in a drawer and then last week I figured it might be cool enough for me to put on these magic fluffy warm cozy sheets yay!

Well, I mean they are less chilly than regular sheets, but they're also... not soft?  I mean they're soft but they're not smooth.  The first night I got in expecting (and hoping for) cozy bliss and it was more of a feeling of "ew, no" but I did my best to not think too much about the feeling of them and ok, sure, it was warmer without being warm?  Ok.  Then when I got ready for bed the second night I was actually really bummed to think that I "had" to try to fall asleep in those flannel sheets again.  I really missed my summer weight light and smooth sheets.  Sigh.

By the third night I really wasn't looking forward to bedtime and I started to think that maybe this wasn't a sheet type I was going to get through a couple of months with.  I started to admit to myself that I'm probably just not a flannel sheet person.  And that maybe this is why I don't own a pair and don't remember sleeping on them for..... ages.  This "I don't like flannel sheets and am not putting myself through a season of this discomfort" realization came right around that American-copied Friday sale and so I got myself a pair of slightly on sale non flannel sheets that, in theory, would be my alternate, non summer sheets.  I'd previously done a "feel" test on them in the store so I wasn't buying blind.  

They arrived last week and I gave them a wash (a fiasco I'll talk about another time!) and put them on my bed and oh the bliss when I got into bed that night.  They weren't as cool on my feet as my "summer cooling sheets" but they were soft and smooth and I knew I could transfer the fleece blanket to it's "reall cold" location when I needed to so I was happy.  

I was less happy the next night when I noticed that these sheets, um... pull?  No, that's not a good explanation.   They don't stay tight.  I do have this problem with my summer sheets but it usually takes a few days to start getting "loose" and it fixes right up when I wash them.  But these new ones are loosening up from the sides as I roll around and move around all night.  Bit of a bummer.  So so far when I go to remake my bed in the mornings, I'm also pulling the fitted sheet back down at the sides.  I don't love that and I'm annoyed I'm dealing with this but I'm still happier with these than I was with the flannels.  (And yes I did mention this to the store and they just sort of said "yeah...." and the sales lady said "that doesn't bother me at all!" Well... it bothers me so....)

Somewhat amusingly, when I started asking around for who might like my flannel sheets (I was indenting to give them away not sell them, and also you can't donate sheets to charities it seems, or at least not the ones I looked at) everyone I asked said "oh no thank you I don't like flannels for this reason or that reason!)  So it turns out that C-Dawg and her love of flannel sheets may be the exception not the norm!  But then again that bedding store did sell out last fall so it's probably not just her.  And for those who like or love flannel sheets I'm really happy for you.  I just guess I needed to learn or re-learn that they're not for me...... and not for quite a few people that I know!

The flannel sheets, by the way, ended up being given to a friend's friend who is moving and who wil have several spare bedrooms in their new place and so are happy to have "free" sheets for those beds. 

  

*With the knowledge and acceptance that I am fortunate and thankful to have shelter and a bed and to live in the comfort that I do.

Wow

Just popping in to say that after yesterday's pretty darn cold day and wind (I got out extra blankets for my couch y'all!) last night (once the wind settled I guess) it got quite warm (I removed all my extra bed blankets kind of warm!) and this morning it's so warm I have all my windows wide open and I'm down to a t-shirt and the blanket over my legs is a little too warm!

So a very mild night and day after a chilly one yesterday.  Go figure! 

Just Popping In To Say

That the weather here this morning has been OH so very moody!

I have already seen three rainbows since I got out of bed (about one an hour YAY!) and it has been sunny with blue sky patches and rainy with light purple clouds and it just keeps cycling through that and oh yes some wind too* (power outages last night in places I'm hearing) and so yes, a rather mixed messaging morning for the weather for sure.

 

*The wind has a bite to it, which is totally expected for December but also I sit next to one of my windows and my hands are cold while typing! 

The Pressure

This year started off weird.

I woke up on my (50th!) birthday in January with an out-of-nowhere (seriously, I felt fine the night before) bronchial infection (bronchitis was the best guess, and yes I needed antibiotics and an inhaler if I remember correctly) and then my parents caught Covid in February.  Before they tested and were just frighteningly unwell,  I went over (in an N95) to drop them off some meds and noticed that my Dad was checking his blood pressure.  I asked why, as my Dad and I have both always had very low blood pressure and he said that his was now elevated enough to monitor.  And Mom was monitoring hers too.

So, on a whim, I checked mine, which has always been almost stupidly low, and it was elevated.  Which for me, is a BIG change.

I bought a home machine.

I started to monitor my blood pressure regularly.  It was much higher than it has been all my life.  This concerns me.

I mention this to a naturopath I saw in early Spring.  She tells me this is normal for an aging body.  I still don't like it.

I mention it to my doctor later in Spring.  She has me monitor twice a day for a couple of weeks.  When I go back with this information she circles a few numbers and tells me that I don't have enough "concerning" readings for us to do anything about it.  She tells me what numbers are high enough to be worrying.  I keep monitoring.  And then I stop because I'm not hitting those "scary" numbers. Not often anyway.  I work on cutting back on the amount of salt I add to things.  Something my old doctor had told me to do when I was getting "blacking out" going on when I was standing up.  (A low blood pressure thing.) 

Not related, but relevant to the story.... one of my brothers had a not-quite-heart-attack a few years ago and I kind of forget but they might have put some stents in or something but he had heart blockages that were unusual for his age so they asked if I wanted to be part of a study to try to help reduce heart issues in families with a tendency for that kind of thing and so I've been monitored remotely, off an on by a Vancouver based Cardiologist for the last however many years.

We had a check in call a couple of weeks ago and when he asked if I had any heath changes since the last time we talked (two years ago) I mentioned that my blood pressure has been elevated compared to how it's been the rest of my life.  He asked me to monitor and record it for the next few weeks, which I've been doing and, uh.... awkwardly, it turns out my readings are lower than they were when I was monitoring in spring.

Now, there may be a couple of reasons for this.  One being that I have reduced my salt intake.  Not eliminated it, but I am aware of it and trying to change how much I take, especially how much I sprinkle on my food/meals.

But I also had the terrible thought the other day that spring was baseball season and this was my first year following a team and I found it stupidly stressful and now I'm wondering if baseball had my blood pressure elevated....??????

I mean I'll find out again in spring if/when I start watching again because my blood pressure right now is ok.  Not perfect, and not where it used to be "back in the day" but it's also lower than it was half a year ago with some readings actually back to what I'm used to.  So I'm wondering.

Could I be "allergic" to baseball?  And if so.... how do I learn to enjoy it without making my system a stressed out mess!?

The Spirit Is Not (Yet?) In Me (Weird How That Can Sound Creepy If You Let It)

It is December.  And in case you live in a place that is not Christmas-oriented, around here, that means CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY TIME FOR THE NEXT MONTH OH BUT ALSO THE LAST FEW WEEKS HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Traditionally this is a tricky time of year for adult me and for whatever reasons, last year I really felt like being Christmassy so I bought mini lights and put them up and I got a mini light up tree thing and put it on my table and it was nice.

And right now?  As we wander in to December (the month of many holidays) I am not feeling it.  But not in a bad way just in a ... "shrug" kind of way.  (Hard to explain.)

I have written (and sent) my International cards and I'll likely work on my US and local cards this week.  (Our postal strike has resolved after a year of them having to struggle through negotiations.)  This weekend, I put the decoration thing on my front door (I saw my across the hall neighbour had put something up on hers and I wanted to be a part of sharing the season with my neighbours) and I pulled out some of my small decor and put it up, and then took it back down.

I have advent calendars (hard to find the cheap ones wow) and the business of traffic and stuff will keep me as out of the malls as I can be (Hillside, I'm looking at you seeing as I don't really go to the others....)

But I'm not feeling the pull to put stuff up in my place - to decorate.  I don't know yet what I will do on and around the day itself.  My folks are going to the mainland to be with one brother.  I have invites to join C-Dawg (but that feels really intrusive despite her assurances it's not) and my other brother's family and Jason may or may not be in town and even just thinking about what I might do is freaking me out so I'm not going there right now.  

I have gifts bought.  Not yet wrapped.  

I'm just not... feeling it.  We'll see if that changes over the next while, eh? 

 

Oh, No Thank You!

In the "please tell me that did not just happen" category, I might have just been bitten on my butt.  

Well, not my butt exactly, but like on my back around where you might think your butt area starts.  So... on my lower lower back/upper buttock.  

I have a pair of fuzzy PJ bottoms that I wear after I get out of bed and before I put on "outside" clothes.  You know, the clothes I will wear in public.... aka outside.

Well this morning, I had had them on for about an hour, doing my morning stuff when OUCH!  A sharp, like sharp sharp pain happened in that area.  I immediately stuck my hand down there to see what I had poked myself with but all I could feel was the tag of the pants which wasn't sharp in anyway.  Um... what just happened?  I wasn't sitting at the time so it's not like I sat ON something.  Oh no, did something bite me?  Oh lord I hope not.

But just in case, I threw those pants right in the laundry basket, and changed to a different pair of fuzzy pants and then went and washed the area and tried to look at it in the mirror (which is hard to do) and then I put some just in case lotion on it and that made it start feeling better but you guys?  I do not want to consider the fact that something may have bit me becuase it got INside my clothing.  Nope nope nope.

So, uh, probably like a bedsore or something right?  RIGHT?  (Gah)

But yeah, the ointment helped make it feel better and I really don't like the idea that I might have gotten bitten so we're just going to ignore this post and pretend none of this happened and hope it's all just totally normal and ok.  Ok?  Ok.