"Daily" Check-In

Catching up, and I'm putting this here because I have a feeling I will go on and on; too long of a post for a conversational thread. Hope my pals can find it!

The weather is frightful; yesterday only support staff had to report to work (or use leave; I did a bit of both), today we are closed. The high temperature will be in the negative Fahrenheit *before* wind chill. brrrr

Anja - Benji would love a barn hunt. And thanks for the advice to 'use email' to post from the phone; I hope to have time to look into that.

Favorite Christmas gift of all time? Probably the baby doll I got when I was around 4 years old? I named her after myself, calling her "Leesha Baby". Also, DH has given perfect gifts to me multiple times: a ring when we reconciled, a camelback when I was training, this laptop with a 10-key. I don't remember if any were attached to 'occasions' though; the camelback would likely have been my birthday. The ring was in December, I know.

The 1-1 dollar match gift from OKM that paid for my teen school trip to Mexico ranks right up there, too. It not only covered Christmas and Birthday, but other gift-giving as well. So. Worth. It. Lifetime memories, for sure.

A lot has happened since my last post. DD tested positive for covid and had to quarantine for 5 days. She improved rapidly, thank goodness, and got bored enough to clean out her car.  (She never does that. When I ride, she always says, "Don't look in the backseat, Ma." LOL) Unfortunately, SIL is not faring as well. He had the same symptoms, but has tested negative repeatedly. :(  

I got a prescription for albuterol to try it out. I. Am. Loving. It. So much easier breathing with this medicine. Problematic in some ways; it's a learning curve to self-administer the inhaler. I was disappointed at how far I could expand my lungs to get my first puff this morning; I reminded myself that's why I am on this medication. That reminds me, I need to call and ask the Dr. about 1 puff every 3 hours vs. 2 puffs every 6 hours. BRB.

Okay, that task completed.

This year, the holidays coincide - Hanukah began the evening of December 18th, and the last candle lighting will be the evening of December 25 (Christmas Day). With two sets of holiday traditions to cover at the same time, I find it harder. I haven't made latkes yet and wonder if I'll get to it *scream emoji*, and the Christmas gifts for DH and work colleagues are not what I would like them to be. Throw in illness and weather, and, well, I guess I'm grateful to have lived as long as I have, so I can roll with it, go with the flow, accept that it is what it is.

We did porch drop offs and exchanges with 'the kids' (DD and SIL), and zoom candlelightings for nights 1 and 2. Night 3 she came over masked. She was stir crazy yesterday, with her work cancelled for weather, so she came over; and tonight we'll zoom again because of weather.  I've got to be flexible whether I like it or not! I learned that at my regulatory job back in the 1990's, actually. lol

Chris, I do wish you could send excess heat our way. Man plans, mother nature laughs. Thank you for your descriptions from the other side of the world. It helps keep things in perspective.

Hugs and love and Merry Christmas, belated Happy Solstice, Peace and Joy to you all, ~Ace

Puzzling

 Ah, what a satisfying puzzle!

It took me almost six months to complete it, and provided many hours of enjoyment. The completion of it was so fulfilling that I weeded out several other puzzles and moved them along. I used this one for some ‘heat days’ - keeping myself indoors when weather conditions were dangerous on the hot side. I’ve used this technique to keep myself safe on snow days in recent years. I get terrible cabin fever and tend to go outside before the end of the day! Nowadays I have to consider that my physical abilities are not what they once were, further compromising my safety.😞

Along those lines, if google is to be believed, my right side should feel better in about six weeks. On Wednesday morning, I slipped in the bathtub, and likely mildly bruised a rib. No pain while breathing, so I figure I’m okay. A sharp intake of breath to sneeze was uncomfy a day or two ago; seems better now.

Then yesterday, I walked wrong (probably changed direction too quickly), and it feels like a mild groin pull. I can get around with an occasional “dr dr it hurts when I do this”, so I don’t do that. A part of me is sad that I don’t seem to be as young and spry as I was - oh the things we take for granted - and a part of me is oh so grateful I got to NYC when I did. I was a bit lame on that trip, but today I feel older and more unhealthy.

Getting by, though, and life is good. Grateful for the weekend after a busy month at work (timing that by how far behind I was in looking at OKM’s blogs). Enjoying delicious coffee from Yemen with rumchata creamer. ❤️ Have a good until I see you again 🤗

Happy Canada Day!

Just a little test to see if I can still blog if the whim hits.  Benji says hello, too.

Good Sunday Morning

 Hello, everyone.

The weekend is lovely (I am using my denial skills to forget about work). SPINNINGJ brought me a delightful butterfly puzzle yesterday - 1000 pieces with a repeating pattern - so if I ever finish the penguins, I'll have that stay-at-home activity to keep me occupied. And dear niece also sent a second two-sided one, so I am set for jigsaw puzzling for now!

Yesterday DD and SIL were over as usual. I baked brownies for SIL, since his birthday was the day before. It warmed my heart to see the delight on his face when I insisted he finish off the last of them. It also made clean-up this morning easier, with no leftovers to put away and just the dish to wash. The young people made quick work of those 😀

As things get busier - daylight, springlike temperatures - I found myself grateful for blogs this morning. I can catch up when I am not as busy, but the writer might be. Let's go backwards today:

2-13 blogs

2-12 horchata

2-11 rain, people who feed me, the bombas box footrest OKM gave me to use at work while I cover another desk during a maternity leave

2-10 bras, adding machines, fancy coffees, senses of humor, custodians

2-9 Suze Orman

2-8 Encanto. Brushes - hairbrushes and toothbrushes. My body.

2-7 The diversity in my workplace.

On the subject of gratitude for my body, I thought OneKidsMom wrote a lovely tribute in her blog the other day:

"Time to remind us all that we have ONE amazing body, issued to us at birth (or before, depending on when you start counting)... and its up to first our parents and then to ourselves, to take the best care of it we can, while it does amazing things for us.  Like keeping us going, alive!  It converts food to energy.  It heals wounds and injuries.  It resists illness and infections.  It does all these things as long as it can, and it's our job to do the best we can to provide it with high quality input:  clean water, fresh nutritious food, activity for body and brain.  It's easy to take our body for granted or to criticize it for not looking a certain way... but my goodness, what a functioning vehicle for life!" 

Thanks for putting that into words, sis.

If you haven't read or don't follow, the complete blog should be here:

https://onekidsmomspark.blogspot.com/

 off to the rest of the weekend ... may you have a good one as well 💝

Gratitude catch-up

 1-29 Family Movie Nights

1-30 DH brewed coffee with caffeine

1-31 hairpins and scrunchies 

2-1 my sinus is draining (beats it backing up!)

2-2 dreams that help me work out emotions; pretty smelling hand soap

2-3 I filled my tires with air BEFORE the cold snap; the blue of the early morning sky

2-4 the process of elimination 

2-5 OKM helped me get to Mexico when I was young (15); my late sister-in-law helped me get to know my brother by asking me to babysit my niece every week

2-6 Today I am grateful that I am not a nurse. I knew I was never cut out for it, and I just watched a TV piece about the situation nurses are in now. 🙏🙏🙏 I am so grateful for the nursing care I received when I had DD. Thank you nurses everywhere.

I Need New Lotions

For the non-regular readers: My New Years Resolutions became new years "restaurant lotions" when autocorrect took over.

And those lotions are getting stale.

It's time for new goals!

How funny that I never made new years resolutions until SparkPeople, because I knew they were usually discarded by the end of January. Now I understand them to be goals, and I'm grateful for whatever goal-setting skills I have.

Last year's year-long goal was too long. Maybe I need to re-work once a month? Who knows. I know I'm actively looking for that next 'hook', the next thing to keep me moving forward, fighting the good fight for health and well-being.

I need a goal to keep me active. After getting my 300 miles last year, I kind of went pffft with the regular walking. And this week my hips and legs have told me about it. Yesterday I walked .68 of a mile and runkeeper'ed it, just to get a shout out from Dee. Thank you, Dee.

In this transition to setting new goals, I usually 'see' if I can walk 30 continuous minutes. That's the baseline for beginning most running programs, and I still daydream about returning to some form of running (I was always an interval run-walk person). I think I was working on that in early 2020 before getting sick and I never quite got back to it. I'm likely an early OGcovid case without any medical proof. Loss of sense of smell is the biggest evidence. On the bright side, with the three pokes, I'm hearing recent rumblings about 'super-immunity'?!?  I'll take it.

But back to the new goals. Grateful every day is still a goal. That one is year long, likely to gasp its last breaths in July or August due to work pressures. We shall see. One day at a time. AND - yay, me - I DID write down gratitudes on the day I thought I missed. I found the slip of paper after I wrote my last blog. So, for January 19th:

Today, I am thankful for: beating the morning rush, a sister who is cold-weather-aversive, and my car still starting.  To catch up the rest of the days:

1-22 it felt warmer this morning

1-23 I didn't have to make the tight and somewhat treacherous turn into my parking spot because DH and DD were parked far enough to the west

1-24 Benji

1-25 librarians

1-26 dog training pads

1-27 DH walked Benji

1-28 a beloved niece's gift giving skills.

Below is a picture of the aforementioned gift, which I described to a co-worker as I grinned, who responded with a horrified look, "YOU LIKE THAT?!?"  Why yes, yes I do. 😂

It claims to be the world's most difficult jigsaw puzzle - two sided, repeating image, same image turned 90 degrees for the reverse. But it does have a central image and a straight edge border, so I may have a fighting chance. I used to work "Impossibles", which had no border and five extra pieces. But they weren't 2-sided.

So as I work toward finding a keep fit or keep active type of  'restaurant lotion' 😂, I'll also chip away to get the puzzle fitted together. Initial estimate was completion in July. But I'm happy and laughing at it. And I'm now telling people, "Never mention to a beloved niece that you are 'pandemic bored'." 💗

Goldilocks Goals

 I feel like my New Years Resolutions (aka restaurant lotions because of a hilarious autocorrect) are for Goldilocks - one is too hard, one is too easy, and one is just right.

Too hard: Eat sitting down. Okay, I can do this. But it takes a lot of work and effort, and so far, I'm getting a failing grade. It is serving its purpose by raising my awareness of what I am eating and when and why.  Many of my "stand-up" foods are unnecessary dietary additions, and the impulse to eat them standing up is driven by emotions. I literally need to sit with my emotions, and keep that self-care (of feeling the emotions and letting them run their course) at a distance from the work of fueling my body-of choosing what to consume and sitting to consume it.

Too easy: No vending machines. This feels like how I think changing any habit will always go, but never does. Not only were the vending machine purchases junky and "stand-up" kinds of eating (stuffing down emotions with food), they created extra personal bookkeeping work that was a nuisance.  Killed two birds with one stone here by making and keeping this restaurant lotion.

Just right: Grateful every day. I forgot to write down something for January 19th, but in retrospect, I'll say I'm grateful to have survived that work day. A record-breaking amount of  'walk-in' work came in (no postponing it), a co-worker was absent, and a big special project was hard-deadline due. Still, we got it all done. But we bear the battle scars to prove it. 💓 Shout out to our great commander who could see the whole picture to organize it.

 Speaking of gratitudes, let's catch up:

1-18:  Today I am thankful to wake up before the alarm.

1-19: (forgot. survived brutal work day)

1-20: paper towels, toilet paper, kleenex

1-21: Today I am thankful for water.