There’s always a time in every book when I look at it and think, “I have no idea what I’m doing.” And then I try desperately to figure out. Meanwhile Bob is saying, “And then this happens and this happens and big finish and we’re done.” The fact that I am finishing books again is solely because I’m writing with Bob “I know what we’re doing” Mayer. So I know that even though I’m panicking at the moment, we will finish this book. And the next two. Everything’s gonna be all right.
Argh.
What did you work on this week?
(Oh, almost forgot. The Rocky Start series is out in audio now.)
134 Responses
I got more things planted / replanted, did some thinning and weeding. Started working on the irrigation system for the garden beds. They’re mostly raised beds and containers, so it’s going to be an interesting layout.
I was going tonwork on the heating system for the pool last night (we’re going to run a black hose along the deck railing where it gets lots of sun and circulate water to and from the pool (which doesn’t get much sun) so that we’ll actually want to go in it), but it POURED rain as soon as I changed to go outside.
I definitely know that ‘this’ll never work’ feeling. It’s brilliant when it turns out not to be true.
This week I’ve been going through old notes, harvesting ideas for photography & mini book projects – concertina books, booklets or possibly ebooks. Even collages or blog posts – I’m just at the collecting stage. I’ve also been gardening – spent a day weeding round my blueberries and netting them (had to water the ground to get the canes in; and argue with a blackbird who was helping himself to the berries right under my nose). I’m also thinning the ridiculously prolific plums before they break the branches of my Victoria plum. It’s going to take hours: there are about ten times too many. And trying to deter badgers from my strawberries. I thought it was pigeons who were consuming my initially abundant harvest. Badgers are a bigger challenge. No jam this year, alas.
Ha! An advantage to indoor hydroponic gardening I never really thought about – no badgers, no blackbirds, no pigeons, and no weeds.
The five shelf unit arrived and got assembled in increments, because there was some bending over and my back protested. It was originally going to be Yet Another Garden Unit, but it ended up as handy laundry and cleaning supply storage.
The Aerovoirs are due today.
Deveral pounds of assorted Hershey’s Nuggets are due today.
A grocery order is due today.
I think I’ma take a nap.
Jane, I hear dachshunds were bred to hunt badgers. I read it in a book, somewhere. LOL
That’s a thought – except no dogs allowed on the allotments, and badgers are protected. It’d be fun, though. Maybe they could be scared off . . .
Jane, here it’s the blue tongue lizards and the bandicoots who eat the strawberries. Please send a badger!
Thank you so much for the Rocky Start. Audio books. I much appreciated the price too.
Same here! They arrived yesterday.
Today I am working on being hopeful. I am hopeful that the heat will break.
And Cuomo lost his race in NY to a young, brown, Muslim Socialist. I didn’t believe that was possible and was trying to not pay attention to that race because I felt it was doomed. Big happy!
SO HAPPY.
😀
Lupe, I just read the headline for that, and didn’t get the details. Wow!! That is a BIG win! A brown, Muslim socialist! Amazing.
Anyone who isn’t Cuomo would be good, but I just didn’t have faith that it could happen.
Mamdani’s success made me so happy too! Especially since it was pretty much a blowout, despite all the money (and endorsements by creepy people) spent for Cuomo!
That is fantastic!
am total opposite of happy
he will be disaster as mayor with platform he espouses and his almost total lack of goverment experience
this result has given life to other campaign options that had been previously written off as dead
Glad Cuomo didn’t win. AOC endorsed Mamdani, she has power aligned with Bernie. It’s going to be interesting.
Today I’m going to have the stitches taken out and hopefully boot the boot. What an annoying but necessary contraption.
I have good news and not so good news. The stitches are out but I will have to wear the boot for two more months.
Hurray for stitches out! … boo for extra months of boot. Sending strength and healing vibes and hugs.
Months??? Argh.
I’m so sorry. Well, you have something to look forward to, in two months. 🙁
All summer! Ugh.
Oh, that had to be a letdown—I’m sorry!
If you have a shoe that is equal in height to the boot, it keeps you from walking awkwardly (both with the boot and afterwards).
Trying to get a few things done early in the day with the heatwave, and wrestling with the mini-split AC units which don’t seem to be behaving the way they’re supposed to (although they do cool, for which I am grateful). Chasing multiple disappearing workmen.
My book definitely feels like I’ll never finish it. Mind you, I’m only about 45 pages in, but progress is sooooo slowww.
Love mini split units, so efficient! Hope it readjusts and gives you no more problems.
I’m working on waiting. My physical therapy appointment (first available on June 18th when I saw the orthopedist) is July 8th. It is increasingly hard to walk. (And yet–this is where I envy Murderbot–I don’t really want to have a new leg installed.) Therefore, very little is getting done.
Sounds awful! I hope PT helps.
It certainly helped with the IT band syndrome that started last summer. I hope this doesn’t become a tradition.
I saw my PT person today. Hugs.
Hug your PT person for me.
Too often I’ve experienced that feeling that the task is too big, too hard and too complicated to ever finish. I’m glad you have Bob in your corner!
Last night I taught an in-person discussion class about using setting to show or enhance the POV character’s emotion. It seemed to go well, and one of the attendees is hopeful I’ll come back to teach another aspect of setting.
I’m hoping I can teach using setting to show the POV character’s background, interest, etc. Although I try to use books published within the last five years, there’s an awesome passage in Agnes & the Hitman (where Shane first sees Agnes’s kitchen) that I can’t resist using when I teach that subject.
Did he think about implements that can be used for killing?
Doesn’t everyone?
Good one, Mary Anne!!!
In a kitchen? All of them.
I loved Jenny’s lethal pan! 🍳 As a cook I probably would have used my cast iron rice pot.
I recommend a large pot of caramel sauce. It will stick to the hair on your skin and burn longer.
We talked to our lawyer today about rewriting our wills. Which involved a…um…sidebar with my husband during the lawyer conversation. We thought we’d gotten everything sorted out beforehand but apparently not. These aren’t fun conversations by their very nature: you have to imagine that you’re dead. Which brought up all kinds of questions like who is going to take care of my sneaky mother? But better to get it all resolved now than to leave a mess.
Good for you! Those are very hard conversations to have, but so very important.
But when you’re trying to explain to your husband that your nieces and nephews should get more money than his nieces and nephews because his have parents who are also going to leave than money whereas yours do not…it’s not a fun time.
Oh dear. Yes, money makes everything weird. So far I only have one niece that I have a relationship with to worry about. She gets it all at this point.
I find myself wanting to shout out unkind things like: “And I make more money than you so I should have more of a say!” How nasty. We never argue about money. In fact, we rarely argue and when we do we never shout at each other so this is all very confronting, obvi. Luckily, I’ve kept all this as my inside voice. I’m so glad I’m not an estate lawyer. Imagine hearing all this crap all the time??
Oh, I am dreading my mother in law’s passing. It is going to be a nightmare with Kevin’s brother. As the will stands, he doesn’t get the house. It needs to be sold and the proceeds split between them. I am not convinced that she won’t change it, against her deceased husband’s wishes… Because he NEEDS it and she accedes to all of her precious birth child’s whims… Yeah it can get ugly.
Who is the executor for your mother’s will? I find that is the worst job and yet the job with all the power.
I’ve had a will since 2012 and my husband still doesn’t have one. He, of course, is the one with a complicated family. Argh.
I just got my dad to update his from the one he had made over 30 years ago. The person he had named as executer is now significantly unfit… But he is balking on getting power of attorney done or any kind of financial planning for end of life. I understand that he doesn’t want to think about it, but it would make it a lot easier on me in the future. Sigh. Good for you for getting the hard work done.
I just had an aunt that died with no will . . . no nothing. Her husband, child, siblings, and parents all pre-deceased her, leaving only a step son (who had been caring for her) and a distant set of nieces and nephews. The biggest issue so far was getting someone to start the probate process, since the state she was in required it to be a blood-relative to submit the paperwork and her step-son did not count (in the eyes of the state)
I seriously wondered what would happen to the house if no one was found to get the ball rolling.
Needless to say, that has prompted me to start discussions with my son about putting the necessary paperwork in place and to document decisions, last wishes, etc. We both now have “If I’m dead, start here” bright red binders with all of the important things we’ve pulled together for now.
That sound horrible Beth.
If there’s no will you can get these very perverse outcomes. We had a distant cousin die recently, and the cousins he was close to all his life found out he was dead when they called and the phone was disconnected. They were too far removed to count legally speaking, and so everything was sold and all they wanted was some keepsakes and the WWI medals. Instead everything went to the niece and nephew from the estranged sister, who had never even met our cousin.
I get that people don’t want to think about death but it comes to us all. My parents talked to me about what was in their wills from about age 10 – I knew who would be my guardian and what happened to the house etc. It was so normal for me that wrote my first will at age 18. It really should just be life admin.
That is really difficult, Tammy. I hope you got it sorted out.
It’s sometimes hard for the lawyer too. When people were struggling to imagine various contingencies, I would try to keep things light by asking what they’d do if they died, without using any form of the verb “die,” and instead proposing scenarios where they might die unexpectedly (since everyone assumes they have time to arrange things “later”).
The thing most couples had trouble imagining was the possibility that they’d die simultaneously, so they needed to choose someone other than each other as beneficiary and/or executor. So I’d often ask, “What if you’re both hit by a truck?” Until the day I asked that of a couple whose close relative had actually been run over by a truck!
I know my husband’s life plan is to die before me, but I keep telling him he can’t bank on that. Unless I kill him. Don’t check my chest freezer. Shh.
My Mom told us a story about our sainted grandmother whose husband was awful. I didn’t like my grandfather. She asked abuela, “have you ever thought of divorce?” And abuela said “No, but I’ve thought of homicide”.
This coming from the sweetest lovingest person I ever knew.
My parents sent my father’s will back to the lawyer (they had different lawyers) saying that he’d left out the “deemed to have died simultaneously” clause in case they were hit by a truck but one of them lingered.
In Canada, interestingly, there is no deemed to have died simultaneously. Even if we are both hit by a truck and appear to die at the same time, there will be a determination of who actually died first. How they make this determination? Who knows. But it means you have to think about each other’s wills very carefully.
The way I usually see it phrased is “if xxx survives me by more than thirty days”.
I have always planned that I would not have to deal with this because I get to go first (Spoiled baby syndrome). It doesn’t matter that I am 5 years younger. He had a healthier life (oatmeal every morning, commute to to work by bike for 50 years, loves salads, Three pieces of fresh fruit daily, No extra wine after dinner). Then he gets ALS and I have to face reality.
So sorry to hear that.
Thanks Margaret . Life’s hardest lesson is that Daddy’s Little Princess doesn’t always get her own way. Sigh. (according to my sibs, I have never learned this LOL).
Poor fella
He is a trooper. Since he can still use the computer, he is making these lists for me on how to take care of everything. He is researching how to sell his workshop and what I should ask for them. We have been working with a great contractor for the last 8 months on not only creating an ADA compliant primary bath but he designed it so it actually looks stylish. We are getting the house painted, have ran a 220 electrical circuit to the garage for a car charger (he thinks I should be getting an electric car or a hybrid) And he has a list of projects he thinks we should have the contractor finish. Plus he has contacted our yard guy to come and weed and bark the slope – a job he usually did. He keeps telling me to look around and see if I can spot other things I might need done.
He sounds amazing. Impressive that you are working together to prepare. Wishing you both all the very best.
We have been working on our wills for 18 months and because DD lives in another country it has involved two sets of lawyers.
Many reasons for delay, most recently that DH just couldn’t deal with it while facing major surgery (and mortality).
It’s not easy.
But Tammy I think the lawyers that hear the really bad fights are the divorce lawyers.
Yes, you’re not wrong. But I think divorce lawyers expect to hear the very bad fights. The estate lawyers I’ve spoken with are somewhat disgusted by how much families who used to love each other turn on each other all in a quest to get more money or property.
I am 100% positive that when DH’s mother dies, there will be a family dogfight of epic proportions. I’d be perfectly happy if he signed a quitclaim to the family trust and just walked away, but no chance of that. 🙁 It’s not going to come to much money in the end (after lawyers and taxes), definitely not worth the infinite hassles and grudge matches I foresee.
I expected that when my parents died because I have one sister who bitterly resented when my Father helped financially support my oldest brother and I over the years. But by the time my Mother died, my sister had made peace with the allocation and nobody made a peep about who got what in the end. Of course, the fact that my brother’s debt was subtracted from his share and not from the whole ttrust did a lot to soothe her. And I had gotten off the monthly help a few years earlier, so that was no longer an issue. My sister gradually let it go and we were able to support each other when my Mom died. Which was the only thing she really wanted, for her children to love and support each other.
I hope you will be as lucky.
I’m very pleased to announce that I finally vacuumed the entire basement. It was full of dust bunnies, some the size of an actual little bunny, and cobwebs, and diatomaceous earth, and dead cockroaches from the DE. I had been procrastinating for months. It’s much better now, and a place I might be comfortable hanging out in during a tornado watch.
It has been very hot and very humid, and my grass is getting to the height that bunnies and birds can hide in, but my cardiologist told me not to work outside in this kind of weather. I do walk, but that’s not the same as pushing a mower uphill. Maybe midweek, next week, we’ll get a break from this.
I have made Kali walk the first two blocks, and have not carried her, for two days. She is resisting, but we are making progress. I think Oak mites get in her voluminous fur, and then onto me when I carry her. I’m very allergic to those bugs. The bites last for weeks. I walk dressed in pants, a long-sleeved SPF shirt, and a wide brim hat. I counted five Pin Oaks overhead in one small area of my walk. They are everywhere, here. They are the ones that harbor the Oak mites. Sigh. I really miss the desert.
With the sun beating on it the pavement is much hotter than the actual temperature. Could be why she is resisting.
Mary, this has been an ongoing challenge. She wants to be carried part way, and balks, repeatedly. The road is shaded by those huge Pin Oaks, and other trees, except for a few gaps. Stubborn little dog, but so cute! And she knows it.
So interesting that it’s the first blocks and not the last ones. What is different about them? What does she do if you do the walk in reverse ?
Debbie, I’ve tried walking on different paths, and it’s the same. But, when we get to the halfway point, she starts acting like a sled dog, and charges toward home. I’m not sure what that means. She definitely likes heading for home.
Lots of little bits and pieces going on here – mostly because there is a summer hiatus from my other obligations, and it is too hot to do anything outside. I’ve been plugging away at my crochet project and feeling very pleased with that.
I coached a young man through learning how to drive a stick shift (my car). He had bought one, and needed to be able to say he had driven a stick before going to retrieve it, so we spent an hour or so driving parking lots and his neighborhood, practicing starting and shifting up to third. (He did manage to retrieve the car and impressed his dad, so I call that a win!)
The large mystery quilt is at a point where there is a bunch of hand applique – or at least applique that I’ve chosen to do by hand, so it’s taking a while. To give myself a break from that, I did put together two of the tiny “nearly insane” blocks. That puts me up to 20 done, only 80 or so left to do!
https://www.instagram.com/p/DLU43LxRuDW/?img_index=1
I also spent some time re-quilting a quilt. This time, I stitched over the original quilting, which was in a teal thread, with a thicker metallic blue/green. I’m hoping it will make the quilting stand out – it was kind of fading into the black background before. I’m going to enter it into a show in August, so I wanted to give it a better chance of success. I think it turned out great!
My other task was taking my indoor/outdoor cat to the vet. He’d gotten into some kind of scrape on Friday, and we noticed a sore on his chin. On Monday, I called and got an early appointment, dosed him up with gabapentin and took him in. He got a rabies booster and an anti-biotic shot, and then slept the rest of the day. I’m watching him like a hawk to make sure that redness goes away!
I really like those quilt blocks. Lovely blues. And that feathery chain stitch (?) is so unique and pretty.
I laughed when you said you taught someone to drive a manual. My husband just gave me a cheat sheet for driving my Morgan. First, all our cars are manuals. Second I have been driving for about 60 years. His list has 27 steps, starting with 1. Apply the 2026 license plate stickers. 2. Tuck the current insurance cards in the plastic sleeve in the right hand side (passenger’s side) of the toolbox. !!!!!!
And I did successful drive it and I am practicing starts, stops and using a manual toggle -switch turn signal. I have to admit starting a car with a choke gave me some trouble.
I can’t say that I ever had a car with a manual choke. I did drive a manual shift for about half my driving lifetime, but then local and regional traffic got so heavy that my leg practically fell off from holding the clutch down in stop-and-go. Life got smoother with an automatic shift.
The quilts and quilting are beautiful!
I returned from a birding trip to find my poor husband dealing with day 4 of no a/c — we are dealing with extreme heat here in the mid Atlantic at the moment… The part (why is it that the cause of any breakdown is always a part that is not immediately available??) came in and there is cooler air now though it will take a day or two to get to a normal temperature.
So today I am going to work on sorting what food in the pantry (like cooking chocolate) has been ruined and what can be salvaged. I must also go through the bathroom cabinets to take out all liquid things that are not supposed to heat to crazy temps. My husband bore the brunt of this contretemps so I will work hard on not complaining about the heat cause he hasn’t complained once other than to say that it was “pretty toasty” here while I was away.
We replaced our furnace and a/c this week. They were running ok, but we bought our house 2 years ago from a pair of young women who had inherited it from their grandmother. They live on the other side of the state and had no idea how old the mechanicals were. After having the water heater go out during the coldest week last winter, we decided to get ahead of the curve on the HVAC.
And now we’re having a heat wave and it’s nice not to worry.
That was a smart move!
Still working on memorizing lines–I’ve got maybe 50% down. Still knitting. Unfortunately, I am about out of things to do at my job because I am perennially waiting on my boss to (a) finish going through all of my stuff that’s done (for months) and (b) meeting with my subject matter expert, who keeps having Stuff Come Up in 9 out of 10 meetings. I seriously need to Look Busy and I can’t come up with fuckall at this point because I’m perennially almost done except for waiting around for inevitable critiques that will mean we spend more months on it.
*shrug*
That sounds miserable, Jennifer. But you are coping very well, considering. Does you boss have a boss?
I just clipped Mack’s nails. That was a mighty struggle. And introduced a kraken in Anna’s pool in the first Joan of Art book. Jenny will probably take the kraken out, but it was fun while it lasted. I actually have a pool come alive in my first Nightstalker book. That was a lot of fun to write.
A kraken might make the cut. After all, who would have expected llamas to be extant in the Rocky Start series?
Save the kraken! Tentacle Friends, Assemble!
Bob, it must be a baby Kraken? Or a really big pool.
Maybe her uncle stole a baby one from a collector and never managed to offload it, so they kept it. Then when people say what’s that in the pool they just deny that there is anything there
And eventually it will grow too large and have to be relocated in the dead of night to the Little Melvin. Wherein it will be trained to attack outsiders and further defend Rocky Start.
The main thing I’m working on at the moment is trying not to melt. They say the mid-Atlantic heat dome will break tonight…or tomorrow…maybe. The other job is hoping hard for thunderstorms and cooler weather. 😀
Starting on rewrites since those are due in September… and having zero idea what I’m doing, but I know I still gotta do it all anyway.
We’re having a heat wave here too and the A/C is struggling to keep up. I managed to get a few rooms tidied, dusted, and vacuumed before starting starting on the next book. I told my husband that if I kept it clean all the time he wouldn’t notice the effort that goes into getting it clean.
I’m coping with the heat and still recovering from a grocery run on Monday. (I have to pick up a prescription tomorrow and plan on more groceries if I feel recovered enough for it.) This tablet is showing its age, and/or being messed up by software updates, so I’m moving more apps onto my phone instead. However, thumb-typing doesn’t work well there, so I’ll continue with the tablet here as long as I can nurse the thing along (or face the hassle of replacing it). Surprisingly, I seem to be okay with reading ebooks on the small phone screen.
That would drive me insane. More insane.
I worked on Having Vacation which was both easy and fun. Then came back to real life. Thanks to choosing our vacation week well (temporarily low workload) I had only 200 emails in my inbox on Monday morning and had dealt with them all by the end of the day.
Now the real Moving Prep Work begins. Also, OMG, the yard. O.O
I’ve gotten past the point where it feels like my manuscript will never end, and now I’m in the stage where I have 20 pages left, and I work on ten pages, and I STILL have 20 pages left. Sigh.
On the plus side, I’ve started to think in general terms about the followup to this WIP. Not quite brainstorming (which I’m saving as a treat for August), just a premise, so I’ll have a three-book pitch for my agent in July.
As to more physical work, I’ve given myself a pass to do nothing until the heat breaks, which should happen overnight.
I am thrilled to be here on Arghink on the actual Wednesday of this post, which I have not managed with the past few Sundays and Thursdays. I am working on keeping my semi-professional face on until my employer leaves for a week. There will still be phone calls, but I am taking a couple days off and the 4th of July weekend is on the horizon.
I’m working at staying out of the house while a plumber fixes a problem in my bathroom.
Diane, do you have a choice of cooler places to wait? I hope so.
Jenny, you might very well just have saved my sanity with the Rocky Start-audiobook mention there. Today hasn’t been fun, but you’ve made it about a billion percent better. Sorry not sorry for the book I started a couple of hours ago, it’ll have to wait now. Binge-reading can start!
I have a lot of trouble sleeping last nights, waking up scared and unable to stay in bed, can’t get comfortable or feel safe, feeling so worn out. On top of that, I found correspondence this morning between the GP and the belly-doc, and long story short is that the GP has done his best to find out IF they can help me and if so how, but they have already done all the examinations they can and can not find anything wrong. This, as opposed to the last letter from that department, wasn’t a dismissal of the issue, just an observation that they can’t help any further because they have already done everything they can. I haven’t talked with GP yet, I expect he’ll call sometime the coming week or so. I think that the conclusion is that the medical world are done with me, and this is what it is. 3 people I’ve told have already started pushing for psychologists again and I… just can’t. They go: “You just have to push harder/exaggurate/put more effort into it”. Sorry, I don’t know how to. 3 people of that profession have already said they don’t see how they can help, and the centre for eating disorders also said it doesn’t sound like their thing, so I wouldn’t know where to go anyway. Besides, I don’t have any energy for this anymore. I have been at it for 2 years and it’s still hell. I. Don’t. Care. Anymore. I guess I’m just broken and that’s it. I can’t do this anymore.
So what with that and anxiety about the state of the world and having had to slaughter the blue and yellow knitted cat because of stuffing-issues + hearing grandma’s in the hospital because of complications (infection) after her hip-surgery, it’s been . . challenging. Good thing there’s Jenny&Bob-books!
On the more positive side of work is that I got my yarn-order in, so I’ve started a re-knit of the cat. It’s now gonna be two shades of blue put together, which should give it kind of a… marbled effect, I think is the word. So I am working on that, and worked on sorting the yarn. I’m now completely set up for at least 5 different projects, which is kind of exciting. And the big happy: The looms from the awesome person over in the U.S. also came in yesterday! Yesterday was such a good day. I unboxed and shouted with glee and got the stuff organized and it really was one amazing box of stuff for one happy loom-knitter, including 6 cupcakes of yarn. A lot of knitting and experimenting to come!
I also figured out what was wrong with the Heart Pillow I was knitting, so I hope to get back to that pattern again once the cat is done. My mind is also toying with ideas for little things I wanna knit, trying to figure out the hows. I hope I can make these little ideas reality! And then when they are reality make people happy with them.
And “Switzerland” and her wife are coming to visit on Sunday!!! Big big big happy. Yes that is Sunday-post-stuff, but it deserves to be here too, to counteract today and how pointless and scary everything feels lately.
Aaallright, I’ll go back to my knittycat AND read Rocky Start so my brain won’t break. Thank you, Jenny and Bob!
I left a late reply to your Sunday post, Shass. Probably not helpful – I hope not annoying – but just in case it could be, might be worth a look?
Thanks for the headsup, I had indeed missed your reply. I have bene in contact with a sort of equivalent of RNIB here on and off for over 10 years. They don’t really have anything to teh get-out-and-about-with-volunteer-effect themselves, but they can refer you to other organisations that do that kind of work. Unfortunately my experience with that so far hasn’t been great, including when I still lived in Sweden, but I can defnitely give it another go. At least I can get some information about it. Thanks for the nudge.
There is also an organisation here called Running Blind, where you can get out on group-walks or jogs or runs. My biggest issue there is that they do it at 8AM in the mornings on Saturdays and it’s on the other side of the city from where I live, so… it doesn’t really appeal to me right now.
I’ll do some research and see what I can find. Thanks again for the caring nudge.
Shass, I feel your despair. I hope a breakthrough comes along. It really seems something hard to live with.
How do you organize your things? Do you use braille and some kind of tags for it? You amaze me.
Aw Jan, thank you so much for the sweet words! It’s a bit different depending on what needs to be organized, actually. I do use braille-labels for my teas, spices, pasta/rice/couscous/other dry pantry-things I put into jars/boxes, my mosaics, large reusable clay-buckets and jewelry things. I don’t always feel like sniffing my way to what I need, and for things that feel the same but are different colours, it’s pretty essential to know what’s what. For some things, I just use differently sized boxes or cases of different materials. For the yarn I don’t really have a system yet, except for trying to put colours of the same type of yarn into bags, so I don’t need to check every single skein. That I managed this time around with Be My Eyes on my phone, asking for either the colour, or for it to read the wraps on the skeins. Some parts of my life/home are incredibly disorganized and could use some attention, though. 🙂
I’m so sorry the medical folks can’t help, Shass. Sadly there are a lot of areas in which they simply can’t or don’t have answers. I’ve been dealing with chronic illness for over 40 years (fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and now long Covid) and they literally have no idea what causes them or how to treat them, except to offer medications like antidepressants (which I can’t tolerate because of said illness).
What help I have found has come from nontraditional medicine: acupuncture, Reiki, cranial sacral therapy, hypnotherapy, massage, and so on. Of course, it is expensive, because you have to pay for it all out of pocket, but if you can find something that helps, it’s worth it.
Hugs, and hang in there.
I second this: most problems I’ve had, conventional medicine was no help with. Complementary therapies have been hit and miss, but the hits have been really helpful, for a variety of problems. My main go to was homoeopathy – it either helps or does nothing: as far as scientists are concerned, the remedies are so dilute there’s nothing there. I don’t care if it’s a placebo effect: if it kick-starts my system into healing itself, that works for me.
I have been interested in alternative medicine since I was 13 and read about homeopathy for horses, and at one point I was considering becoming a herbalist/herb therapist (spoiler: this never happened, unfortunately), so I’m absolutely not against trying alternative routes. I think the bigger issue is sorting out the humbugs from the good bunch in the first place, and then find the thing that works. Most people I know here scoff at alternative medicine, so it’s not easy to know where to start. But, as mentioned to Deborah above, perhaps I could start with asking the hypnotist if she knows of something or someone. Thank you for your encouragement!
I believe, looking back, that the most important thing I did when I began my healing journey was to say to myself, ‘I’m not willing to accept feeling like this, and I will do anything to feel better again.’ (This was after my GP told me there was nothing wrong with me, and so nothing to be done about it – I was feeling light-headed all the time.) Setting such a strong intention to heal drove me to try several things until I found one that did – slowly – work for me.
PS. Trust your instincts when looking for someone to work with. And use what works for you in what they suggest – you don’t have to take on board their whole philosophy.
Oddly enough, in tests some placebos still work even when patients know what they are. On the other hand, I once had a workplace friend who had trouble getting to sleep. She found for a while that taking an Ibuprofen solved the problem, until a nurse friend of hers told her that it must be placebo effect since nothing in the medication would help with sleep. After she lost faith, the Ibuprofen didn’t work any longer.
In the opposite, yesterday I thought that a wasp that I had encountered had stung me, and I felt a strong pain on my skin and I even put an ice cube on it. But the “sting” disappeared so quickly and completely that I’m now sure it was “antiplacebo” pain.
Thank you, Deborah! Fortunately I believe there’s a lot of good alternative medicine to get out there, you just have to find the right people. Perhaps the hypnotist I went to last year has some tips. I could always ask her. My friend over in England is a reiki-master, so I could perhaps either try to convince him to get here, or do a trip over there and see what that does. I know they have reiki here too, I just would like him to be my first experience with it if possible.
Shass, I am so sorry you are continuing to have problems with not receiving a specific diagnosis or useful treatment. Although our situations are very different I do understand your anguish & overwhelm with seeing multiple people but not getting the care you need.
I would like to try and give you some hope for a better outcome for you so I hope you don’t mind me sharing some information.
I was referred to 6 psychiatrists over a more than a 2 year period ending up by chance (& insistence of my partner) reluctantly seeing no 7 – a locum for my then specialist – before I finally felt seen & heard. No 7 went on to work with me (& still does years later) to turn around what for the previous 2 years was referred to by many medicos as non responding/intransigent depression (which further made me feel totally hopeless & untreatable).
I also endorse Jane’s suggestion for looking into any possibility for accessing some comfortable outdoor time – vitamin D is such wonderful support for our body. But of course not at the expense of feeling vulnerable & being verbally abused.
I also tried some alternative therapies. Some had some impact, others didn’t.
I can remember the first hypno-massage session I had (which no 7 wanted me to try to see if it would assist to create new neural pathways so I could imagine myself & my life without depression). I thought the idea was bizarre and I was hugely sceptical and thought the woman would likely be a total nut job so I made my partner agree to stay in the room with me during the first few sessions. It ended up being amazing & I kept on doing sessions for about a year.
I am sending you universal high strength extra powerful positive thoughts for hope and the equivalent of a no 7 to help you. Take good care – you ARE deserving of getting the support you need.
EllyG, thank you so much for your sweet message and for sharing your story. I’m happy you have found people who make you feel seen and heard and treatments that make a difference. I have been in therapy for a couple of issues before, so I’m not anti-therapy as a rule. I just know the wellfare officer at my GP’s won’t work because the short sessions (20 minutes tops) stress me out and he does CBT, which doesn’t work for me, and to get more specialized therapy, you very likely need something more concrete to present them with than: “I have troubles connected to food-intake but I don’t know why, I don’t even know if it’s physical or mental at this point.” I just… don’t really know where to go with it.
Hypno-massage sounds interesting! Provided one feels safe with the therapist, I can imagine that is an amazing experience. I’ll check if that is a thing here, thank you for the tip! One gotta start somewhere, right?
Thanks again for your words and your story. I wish you all the best kind of healing, too. Hugs!
Shass, I wasn’t meaning to suggest that you should consider mental health assistance. So my apologies that it came across that way. Clearly your medical issues are very different to mine.
I know when I was at total despair level, sometimes hearing that others had been able to move forward in their situations gave me a bit of hope that things could be better for me too. So that is why I referred to my experiences with multiple psychiatrists before meeting no7.
This week has mostly been about coping with the heat and humidity. Finally cooler tomorrow so I can work outside and at the flower farm. We’re leaving for Budapest in 2 weeks for a river cruise with DH’s family and it’s currently in the mid-30sC. Hoping it cools down before we arrive.
We’re meeting with our financial planner this week. Focus of the discussion will be on pre-planning for DH’s retirement. He can likely retire by the end of this year. I’ll admit to being worried about what he’s going to do with himself. After 5 years off retirement, I’ve got my own schedule. Most of my interests are not his and vice versa. There are probably a few activities we could do together, but we’ve never been joined at the hip and I don’t want to start in retirement. Unlike me, DH is not a planner so not sure he’s done more than think about not working at his stressful job. I’m hoping that when he decides upon a last day, he’ll start exploring his options.
I remember my dad’s workplace (back in the 1970s) ran a ‘preparing for retirement’ course. I wonder whether there might be some useful resources online nowadays? (I’ve been freelance for decades, so the transition wasn’t as clear-cut for me.)
Thanks for the suggestion. He’s taken the course offered by his organization. Given that’s it’s very large, the course is pretty high level. While it deals mostly with financial concerns, it does touch on other post-retirement issues such as health (mental and physical).
Enough people, especially men, have post-retirement problems that I worried about it a lot, but I found that my own retirement went fairly smoothly. Having interests outside of work reportedly helps a lot, but even an interest that has been dormant for most of a career can be revived (pre-retirement, my father could not afford golf after he got married, but after moving post-retirement to an area with, I gather, more inexpensive courses, he took it up again with enjoyment) and of course people can find new interests. I think the point is to seek activity out, not just vegetate.
My local church has a Lads that Lunch day… so men can go out and eat together socially and get out from under their wives feet. Otherwise there are repair groups and Men of the Sheds where men mostly OAPs go fix things and build things… try looking around for that sort of thing
Still plugging away at the WIP. I’m in an accountability group at the moment, which has been really helpful for setting and sticking to goals. Very nice group of people. The others often want to talk through issues with productivity or plotting, but I find it enough just to articulate a goal and report in at the next meeting.
I also started prepping the metal awning over our bedroom window for repainting. It had two multigenerational bird nests built into the corners that had accumulated A LOT of bird poop, so step one was removing the nests and hosing the whole thing down. I put down some shad cloth underneath to try to catch as much of the flaking paint as possible, but it’s a huge mess. I need to borrow my parents’ shop vac, probably, to clean up. Maybe I’ll do the best I can with a broom for now, though, and use the vacuum at the end when I’m done stripping the paint.
I made a batch of garlicky potatoes in broth and a batch of apple cobbler yesterday. Still need to make a few more things to restock the freezer. I’m out of breakfast foods at the moment.
That should be “shade cloth.” Anyway, the shade cloth worked okay, but there was still a lot of flaked paint to clean up. It’s done now, though—until I get out there and start scraping!
If you are dealing with bird poop (or rat, or mouse, or bat) please wear a respirator or some kind of mask. There are many pathogens and bacteria in that stuff.
I am trying to get through the obstacles that keep getting put in my path to sell my mobile home. Between the park I live in deciding all for sale signs have to be in the windows & not outside AND Facebook thinking that my park being 55+ is discriminatory…
Oh my sympathies !
Trying to catch up on the day job after spending a week focused on sorting out DHs health issues ( it increasingly looks like he doesn’t need surgery now but we won’t feel sure until he meets with a cardiologist in three weeks).
Cooking and freezing food so that when my three nephews are here for the 4th I can focus on them and not cooking.
Trying to keep the garden going during this heat spell and also weeding in bits because I want to plant nasturtiums as soon as the heat breaks. Also I mowed because I don’t thing DH should until we get an all clear for his exercise (we have an electric mower and it’s a good workout).
And trying to help my mom get a portable air conditioner since her AC broke and the new one won’t be installed until July 14 — challenging since she is 400 miles away and is inconsistent in responding to questions. But it’s done.
Also I’m trying to make summer foods. Squash blossom soup, corn, cucumber yogurt soup, shrimp sandwiches, and I’m trying to buy sorrel for soup. Soon it will be time for uncooked tomato sauce on pasta.
Costco has a portable a/c $479 on web. I bet you can get a second hand one for less.
Woop, such a lot of work! Keeping fingers crossed hubby gets a get-out-of-surgery-free-card from the cardiologist. If they can wait 3 more weeks even to see him, that must be good implications of him not needing it, right? Sending strength and hugs and patience!
Walked Pixie early and then turned the air on and stayed in the house. Mostly, I’m just keeping up with cleaning and meal prep.
Blessedly, only two meetings. And Pixie has her surgery on Friday. Sigh.
Good luck with surgery tomorrow, Pixie! The kitts and I will be thinking of you! Big hugs and strength to both you and your mum.
Been trying to tidy up financial chores – which is not my happy space ☹. On the other hand I’m doing donations today which will give me a warm inner glow 😉
Mainly what has been giving me the most pleasure is mending a towel. It has worn thin along the centerline to the point of threatening holes. Once past the terrifying bit of cutting it in half, I hemmed the cut edges, lined up the stripes, and am now frankenstiching the old edges together so the worn bits are on the outside – I have three inches to go and it is oddly immensely satisfying.
Sides-to-middle. My mum used to do it to sheets, but then of course there was a bumpy French seam running down the middle of the (single) bed.
Not so much a problem with towels (I hope!) 🙂
I worked this Working Wednesday, both at home and at the day job. We had a huge storm and the roof at work didn’t leak so that was a definite plus.
I was going to clear out more weeds in the rose bed out front but not after all the rain we got. That will be a tomorrow project.
Also tomorrow I have a phone meeting with our district manager and a person from HR about my troublesome coworker aka the chaos monkey, which I will not be calling her. It’s about to get real.
I decided to call a cleaning service to come as we have 20 family members coming in for my daughter’s baby shower. I feel so relieved! No they are not staying with me, but they will definitely hang out with us. My SIL and I will be making tres leches cake and flan ( my daughter’s favorite).
Maybe quesitos ( puff pastry with cream cheese and guava) OG is cheese only but we love guava. Can’t wait to see my sibs!