Ten Little Celebrations – September 2022

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The 10 celebrations I am featuring in the September 2022 of this monthly post are about foods and health and getting things done. There is also a lot to celebrate about the outdoors this time of year.

Frito pie. I have discovered Dickey’s Frito Pie with brisket, beans, and cheese. It is packed with the Fritos in their own bag for takeout….and I like it without the Fritos! It’s a good thing for me to get when my husband is hungry for a barbeque sandwich…celebrating that the barbeque places where we live now are much better than the ones convenient to us in Maryland.

A birthday. We celebrated by daughter’s birthday. I was chagrined that ice cream cakes are harder to find these days, but she said she wanted ice cream sandwiches…and those were easy to purchase!

Getting the flu and COVID vaccine. I celebrated that the shots were available in time for me to get the shots early enough for them to protect me during my upcoming travel.  

Legal updates completed. My sister and I collaborated to get my parents legal documents updated according to their wishes….and celebrated the completed milestone.

Rings of Power series. I don’t watch much television but I am enjoying the Rings of Power….celebrating the quality of the production and seeing more of Tolkien’s world.

Our large wind chimes. My office is situated where I can hear the wind chimes on breezy days…I celebrate their sound and the memory of when we bought them too.

Poke weeds. Yes – they are weeds…but they are native, and they do produce berries that birds eat. I celebrate that I have several plants that out of the way in my landscaping so I can leave them rather than battling them all through the season.

Springfield Botanical Garden. I find something to celebrate every time I go! This time there were lots of insects to photograph.

Spider Lilies. I don’t know how I missed the orange spider lilies in my parents’ garden in previous years…but I was there at the right time this year to see them!

Great weather for being outdoors. There were still some hot days but as the month progressed, I celebrated some cooler temperatures….the ease of getting outdoors without being concerned of high heat or poor air quality.

Intentions 2022

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At the end of last year, I posted about what I thought would be different about 2022 for me – things that I wanted to make happen. Now that the year is half over, I am assessing my progress on the four areas I wrote about last December.

Releasing myself from some of my daily metrics. This has been the hardest change…and I still find myself pushing for the 12,000 steps…4 books…2,000 words each day. But there are days where other priorities have prevailed such as tasks on the critical path for our move from Maryland to Missouri. So far, I’ve ‘made up’ for the low days on books and words…am averaging the goal for 2022. I’ve not made very much of a change!

Reverting to a cleaner/neater house. In the Maryland house, the piles of boxes that accumulated over the three months before we moved made it harder to clean although we did clean the areas we could get to and cleaned items that were being packed. The house ended up sparkling after the carpeting was replaced; 35+ year old carpeting in a house that always had at least one cat is a cleaning challenge! In our new house, we are vacuuming frequently to clear the dog hair (previous owner)…successfully based on the vacuum canister not filling up as quickly as it did originally. We are still unpacking but there are lots of spaces to put things away and we are striving to keep more surfaces clear. The laundry chute is a plus – no hamper or other laundry receptacle in the bedroom. This intention is still a work in progress but both my husband and I are making the effort; we are motivated to have the house comfortable….keep it cleaner and neater than our Maryland house.

Look for the unique. It’s a habit now…I record something unique at the end of each day and have been surprised how easy it is to identify an event or sight or food…that was a 1st or one/only. The habit has caused a slight change in my attitude. I am more likely to look from a unique perspective or try something new than I was a year ago!

Moving to live closer to my daughter. Done! We are still working through the aftermath…address changes, new licenses/registrations, completely unpacking. Of all the changes I anticipated at the beginning of the year…this is the big one. It probably happened faster than I thought it would. We’ve owned our house in Missouri for about 1.5 months now – enough time to realize we make a great choice. I’m already set to make a fall road trip with my daughter, accompanying her on a road trip to Canada for her to attend a conference – something I would have not been able to do if we still lived in Maryland.

I am doing so well on my intentions made at the beginning of the year that I am adding to the list for the remaining months:

Spend some time each month with my parents (Carrollton).

Design/implement landscaping tweaks to our yard in the fall.

Start volunteering (again).

Unpacking

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The morning after the movers got everything into the house, I was up with the dawn (before 6 AM) and ready to start with the unpacking. My sister helped and we made good progress for the next 4 days of her visit (with a few breaks for exploring the area around Springfield).

I kept my laptop set up on the kitchen counter to mark off the boxes on my inventory as we unpacked them.

The living room was one of the prime areas that boxes were piled. I had thought ahead to have the book boxes in the area near the window and the other (lighter boxes) destined primarily for the kitchen/China cabinet) in the center of the room. The kitchen counters became cluttered with items to put away – slowing down to allow time to refresh shelf paper…and occasionally rearranging once we better understood the way we would use the kitchen.

The basement also had a big pile of boxes…mostly in the John Deere room. My husband helped me put my office furniture together and I started carrying a few items down to the kitchenette that I would use there.

We had piles of bubble wrap which we stuffed in plastic bags to return to a store for recycling, Styrofoam went in the trash. There were piles of boxes and packing paper. I posted to the community Facebook page and the boxes that were still in good shape were given to people in the neighborhood that were preparing to moving. My sister and I took the damaged boxes/paper to the recycle center since the first curbside recycling day in our new house was cancelled (they didn’t have a crew!)…and the size/amount of cardboard would have overwhelmed our bin anyway.

Every day the house became more ‘normal’ but it will probably be weeks before I unpack everything…and there are items (pictures/breakables) to get from my daughter’s basement (and a lot of beanie baby bins that she is going to take back).

As I write this – I am one week into the unpacking process and the house is livable…but still looking messy with boxes in odd places!

Plans and more plans

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As it gets closer to the time the movers will arrive at our Maryland house, I find myself making detailed plans for just about everything: food, clothing, how the cars will be loaded, internet service.

I’ve managed to use up things like protein powder and eggs. I have the milk planned to be gone before I leave for Missouri and the closing of our new house. I have one leftover that will go with me as my ‘meal in the hotel’ but otherwise the refrigerator will be mostly empty except for items my husband will need for the time he will be here monitoring the re-carpeting and the house being listed for sale. We may or may not come back for when this house closes so all the food in the house will be gone when he leaves.

The weather has gotten hot and is likely to stay that way. I have one light weight jacket…otherwise I am wearing summer clothes and flip flops (although just in case I am taking a few pairs of socks and a pair of regular shoes). I’ll do laundry a day or so after closing on our Missouri house. With the warm weather…the space needed for clothes is reduced; most will be on the truck.

Space in the car is at a premium because we are minimizing the driving between Maryland and Missouri. I will do it twice but my husband will only make the drive once…..unless be both decide to come back for a last goodbye to the house as it transitions to a new owner. My Prius Prime is small so I have mapped out where items will go in the car…how I will organize the loading. I’ve already made adjustments to my plan by delaying the loading of my car somewhat to avoid 90-degree temperatures!

My husband is handling the utilities; both of us are keen to minimize the time we are without internet service in both locations! Doing everything on our phones at a time when so much is happening makes us anxious.

Overall – the planning has reassured us that everything that needs to be done….is on track (so far).

Clearing the Path to the Front Door

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One of the suggestions to prepare our house to sell quickly was to clear vegetation away from the front walkway...since it detracts from the entrance to the house. It was easy to see the point, so I started the project at 6:30 AM on what promised to be a very hot day. My first action was to cut an iris that was blooming very close to the sidewalk to enjoy inside. Most of what was leaning over onto the sidewalk were day lilies with a few iris…and milkweed.

I used the hedge trimmers as a first pass to get the leaves removed so I could see how much I would have to dig out. There were two trips with the wheelbarrow back to the brush pile with the leaves!

It will probably take a couple additional rounds of morning yard work to get the area the way I want it. I’ll post some pictures from the follow up rounds as they happen.

We also need a new welcome mat!

Round 2

The next day I cleared all the weeds from under the bushes and dug out a shovel-wide swath along the sidewalk. There were a lot of day lily buds crammed into the space. Overall – it was another 2 wheelbarrow loads back to the brush pile. We’ll put mulch down in that strip and the front should look a little less ‘wild.’

Staging our House

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We’ve got our instructions for staging our house in Maryland. Nothing surprising:

  • Open the blinds and pull back sheers/drapery…or take the drapery down completely.

  • Taking the dividers out of the transom windows gives them an updated look.

  • Take any hangers or nails for pictures out of the wall….leaving the holes is OK.

  • Clean any bugs/dust out of overhead light fixtures.

  • Weed the front flowerbeds…cut or pull anything that hangs over the sidewalk to the front door particularly.

  • The stager complimented us on the plans already made to replace the carpet…that the paint inside and out was in excellent condition.

Our plan: Complete the actions as soon as we can. By the time the pictures are taken for the house to go on the market and people start to look at the house, it will be empty. Anything left can go in a closet or in the garage.

Preparing to move (2) – May 2022

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A lot has happened since my last post about preparing to move back on 5/5.

We have packed a lot more boxes, of course. Our goal is to minimize items to go in the cars (precious/high value things, liquids, key documents, and whatever we need while the truck in enroute).

There is still some ‘messiness’ around the stacks of boxes but it is gradually being cleared away…with the rooms beginning to look ‘all packed.’ The very last will probably be the kitchen since we continue enjoying cooking/eating at home; about half the kitchen is already packed.

The boxes have been cleared from around the grand piano to make it easier for the crew that will prepare it to go on the truck. The box move was hard work since they were filled with books…the heaviest of our boxes. We managed to remove the humidifier box (which stuck out from the bottom of the piano).

I have developed a lot of skill in reusing packaging material like Styrofoam, foam squiggles, bubble/pillow wrap and paper. For example, I cut up a foam board yard sign to pad the top of a box, disconnected strips of Styrofoam from a larger piece/bent them to fill an odd space in a larger box and used squiggles to fill small spaces around paper wrapped breakable items to keep them from moving too much. I’m also realizing that plastic hangers work well to fill the top of a box without adding more weight.

The last ‘rooms’ to get packed (and the ones we are still working on are my husband’s office and the garage. We’ve made a good start and they will be packed more fully before this weekend. The before and after picture of my first round of garage packing is shown below.

We are getting rid of things we don’t want to move:

We’ve taken multiple loads of recycle and trash to our local facility.

Almost all the hazardous waste has been taken for disposal.

My husband called the county for curbside pickup of a ping pong table, glide, lawn mower, and karate punching bag for later this week – stay tune for pictures of the pile!

And I’ve scheduled another donation a few days before the movers come

Maintenance

The radon remediation has been completed.

The screens that were damaged/worn in the screened deck were replaced.

A light new bulb was put in the light fixture over the basement stairs (with some trickly ladder work).

Carpet replacement has been scheduled for after the movers are done (i.e the house is almost empty).

Overall – the progress we are making appears to be on track to be ready for the movers…and to be almost totally focused on our house in Missouri rather than the one in Maryland by mid-June!

The Pace of our Lives

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In April our preparation to move started an uptick in the pace of our lives  and May is continuing the upward trend. It should plateau at the higher level soon…..and hopefully  begin to decline by mid-summer. I find myself reverting to techniques I used during my career to organize my life – adding detail to my calendar, making lists of things to do, taking notes in key meetings, and adding to a timeline of events for reference later.

It’s not just the pace but the variety of activity and the amount of money involved with moving. Perhaps right now is the highest stress; even though everything seems to be happening as it should, there is always the niggling feeling that either we have overlooked something or there will something major that will turn up and cause a delay rippling through all the subsequent activities.

It will be good to have less stress…but perhaps the pace is not too bad. Maybe – we’ll decide we like this faster pace and organize our life after the move to achieve the pace we had pre-pandemic (not quite as ‘hot’ as it is now…but a significantly faster pace than we lived during the pandemic).

Donate/Recycle/Trash

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We are getting rid of things we don’t want to move via donation, recycling and (last resort) trash:

Donation

We’ve done monthly donations that filled our porch – needing to be out by 8AM and picked up sometime during the day. This month the pile was front of the garage because we had maintenance people coming: boom box, yoga mat, mini-trampoline, office supplies, clothes, window/deck pressure cleaner, deck stain sprayer, clothes, coffee maker carafe, reusable water bottles, small outdoor rug.

Recycle

We have curbside pickup for some types of recycling for things like plastics, paper and cardboard, but we overwhelmed the bin with the amount we needed to recycle so we included it in our trips to the ‘landfill’ where they have recycling bins plus an area for electronics recycling: cables (computer and phone), computers, files from the 1970s and 1980s , and old cardboard.

Special recycle

Our credit union had a shredding event; we took 3 boxes of old receipts! It would have been too time consuming to do with our small home shredder.

Trash

Fortunately the most bulky items were not heavy….but it was depressing that they could only go into the trash: furnace filters that were for a furnace that has been replaced, old plastic bins, and Styrofoam from inside boxes that we used for packing not needing the Styrofoam

Hazardous waste (special trash)

More of this type of trash had accumulated in our basement and garage over the years than I realized. Most of it was very dusty. Our county has a hazardous waste area of the landfill that is staffed on Saturdays so we accumulated what we had and took it all at once – a SUV full!

  • Paint (and paint cleanup fluids)…this was the bulk of what had accumulated.

  • Gardening chemicals…some was very old and might not even be sold any more!

  • Cleaning products

26 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

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COVID-19 cases in Maryland are increasing but all the counties in the state are still green in the CDC’s COVID-19 Community Level map. Most of Missouri is too. Still - the positivity is 5-8% in Maryland and 8-10% in Missouri…not low enough for me to be comfortable in crowds or in indoor spaces without a mask. How does that translate into our increased level of activity?

Buying a house. Both my husband and I wore masks when we walked through the house we had bid on and then the next day when we talked to the inspector. There was a meeting in the realtor’s office where we wore a mask as well. During our travel, we masked at rest stops and in registration/hallways of our hotel. We brought an air purifier into our hotel room and got takeout for meals.

Birding. We masked at the Harriet Tubman Byway visitor center and the registration/hallways of our hotel. Otherwise - the activity was outdoors, and we didn’t mask. All our meals were picked up from drive through windows.

House maintenance. We’ve had more people in our house for maintenance purposes in Maryland…preparing the house to be sold. We mask while they are here, and they do too.

Broken tooth. I have an appointment with the dentist because a molar cracked…needs repair. Hopefully the precautions the dental office has in place are effective. This seems like the highest risk situation of all the things I’ve done recently.

And we are moving over the next month! I am realizing that the precautions I have in place (following guidance re boosters, masking when I am indoors other than at home, avoiding crowds, keeping hand sanitizer in the car, taking an air purifier with me on road trips) are probably going to be my strategy for the foreseeable future unless the infection rate drops dramatically. So – this is the last of the monthly posts even though the pandemic is continuing. I’m not getting complacent…I’ve simply accepted that this is the prudent way to be…nothing new to post about every month.

Preparing to move (1) – May 2022

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The pace of our preparation to move to Springfield, MO has increased since my last post about our move a little over a week ago.

The most physical activity has been toward packing since the date for the movers to arrive at our house in Maryland has been set for early June:

I started out with a goal of packing 20 boxes a day for 5 days…only succeeded because many of them were already packed and all I had to do was add them to the inventory and tape them up. Then the goal became 10 boxes for 5 days…not as easy because I was packing more boxes. Now my goal is 5 plus until they are all packed. I had to buy more boxes.

There are some items we have packed in the original boxes they came in….much easier for them to be safe going on the truck.

I watched a video on packing glass/ceramic items and have now packed most of those items that will go on the truck. I used a lot of packing paper, bubble wrap and squiggles – extra carboard inside the boxes if they were not double thickness boxes. The cardboard, bubble wrap and squiggles were reuse items from packages we’ve received over the years and stored in the basement.

We’ve identified an issue with the piano moving…determining how to remove the humidifier box that makes a bump on the underside of the piano.

We cleared a corner of the basement to put items that will remain with the house after the movers leave since we will be here off and on until the house is sold. I am also clearing all the closets and those too will contain items that will stay with the house.

My daughter is coming for a few days before the movers to help with last minute packing and will take a carload of items back to Springfield.

About my inventory list….I have it as an Excel spreadsheet with the box number (I bought a roll of number labels from Amazon), contents, location in current house, destination in new house, date packed/taped, transport (which car/trip, movers, movers take apart before move). Then I do a Pivot Table to summarize my packing (date x transport). Obviously almost everything goes with the movers but I can easily click on the pivot table cell to produce a list of items I’ve slated to go in a particular car and trip. For example…I will probably make 3 trips to and from before Missouri between now and when we close the sale of our current house….and I have a list accumulating for each of those trips!

We are also making progress with items we don’t want to move:

We’ve taken a load to the landfill/recycling center and already accumulated another load which we will take today.

I took wire hangers back to the dry cleaners and old glasses to a optometrist office that is a collection point for them.

I’ve discovered that I don’t use plastic bags for packing and there were a lot of them in the packing materials we accumulated so I am taking a bag stuffed with them to the grocery store every time I got.

My husband is marking off maintenance items at our current house:

A plumber replaced the sump pump.

A new refrigerator was purchased, delivered and installed since replacing the ice maker in our old one was so expensive

The creak in floor outside my office is gone after much effort to find the joists

And finally, there is activity in Springfield on our behalf as well:

The appraisal came back higher than our offer…good news.

An agreement to the list from the house inspection was reached and radon remediation will be done before we close.

Overall – I think I see the light at the end of the packing tunnel…

Zentangle® – February 2022

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Even without the Valentine tiles I posted about on 2/14, I still had plenty of tiles to choose from to make the 28 for the February Zentangle post! The square tiles include 2 made from a purple folder I found while cleaning out my office; the color is very dark…requires gel pens for the patterns. There is a square coaster (rounded corners) in the group as well; I found a stack of them that I had forgotten about so there will be more in March.

The rectangular tiles are probably my favorite shape/size. The color of the lightweight cardboard varies slightly. I like the more golden color (the one with cut corners) the best.

The last 4 tiles are on black paper (it is a pad that my daughter bought back in in high school…well over 10 years old)! I’m savoring the black background and the different weight of these tiles…still have more than half the pad left!

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. “Zentangle” is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

A Decade of Post-career

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I left my career behind 10 years ago this month…and am still savoring the near total self-determination I have in how I spend my days. My self-discipline has always been very strong…and it still is. There are rhythms that I maintain reenforced by personal metrics (when I sleep/eat, hygiene, exercise, reading/writing) but there is plenty of time for activities that make the days, weeks, months, and years into a mix of old and new experiences that suit my wants and needs.

My daughter was already in graduate school at the beginning of the decade. I used her graduate school, post doc, and first job as part of the framework for my own exploration of new places: Tucson AZ, State College PA, Pittsburgh PA, and Springfield MO.  I got significant experience in packing up for long distance moves too. Now that she is engaged in her career and has purchased a house, she may live in the same place for longer. My husband and I enjoyed a trip to Hawaii with her – a follow up to her visit there on a geology field trip and then conference. We travelled to Florida for 2 NASA launches from Cape Canaveral…invited by my daughter for NASA programs she had supported: MAVEN (2013) and OSIRIS Rex (2016).

My parents entered their 90s toward the end of decade; I’ve endeavored to spend more time in Texas enabling, with my sisters, ‘aging in place’ – living almost independently in the house they’ve been in since the early 1990s. At the beginning of the decade, they were still doing some traveling although no longer driving long distances (they flew or let others do the driving): to visit us in Maryland at cherry blossom time in 2012, to visit my daughter in Tucson (with me and my sister doing the driving between Dallas and Tucson) in 2013, to Oklahoma to visit family and their friends from college in 2017 (with me as the primary chauffer), to Springfield MO to visit my daughter in 2019 (with my sister getting them to Oklahoma to visit family and then my daughter/me chauffeuring them to Springfield MO, they flew back to Dallas). The most unique experience of all that travel was their sighting of a gila monster in the back of the Tucson vacation rental house. The pandemic and their physical limitations have kept them close or at home for the past couple of years.

My husband and I discovered Birding Festivals during the decade: Bosque del Apache (NM) in 2016 and 2018, Rio Grande Valley (TX) in 2017, Space Coast (FL) in 2019, Laredo (TX) in 2020. We’ve enjoyed day trip birding events too…mostly in Maryland but occasionally into Delaware. They are a very appealing combination of travel, nature photography, and, of course, birding. During the pandemic we ‘made do’ with virtual festivals – not the same but still engaging.

The Staunton River Star Parties (VA) were an extension of my husband’s interest in amateur astronomy and prompted a flurry of purchases to enable camping on the observing field.  The weather cooperated in October 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 – and then the pandemic squashed that activity.

Coursera started up near the beginning of the decade and I enjoyed taking courses on topics that hadn’t been on the critical path toward getting my college degrees back in the 1970s and early 1980s; I moved on to other types of courses but returned to the platform at the beginning of the pandemic and probably will do courses sporadically when there is something that catches my interest. I enjoyed the intense Master Naturalist (2015) and Howard County Legacy Leadership for the Environment (2018) classroom-based courses and the follow-up advanced education courses/webinars in subsequent years.

Volunteering became a good way for me to ‘give back’ to my community, increase interactions with other people (particularly K-12 students and the general public), and increase the time I spend outdoors. It was ramping up throughout the decade until COVID-19 and now I am looking for opportunities to restart.

What is likely to happen during my second decade post-career?  There will be more of the same for several years (hopefully, minus continuing impact from COVID-19 or some other pandemic) with a flurry of activity making a long-distance move to a new home closer to our daughter. By the end of the decade, my parents will be over 100 years old if they are still alive. I hope that my health will still be about the same as it is now or that the accommodations I need to make are relatively easy; I am anticipating that I’ll need to have cataract surgery (and be thrilled to not need glasses for the first time since 3rd grade). There is a lot to look forward to!

Ten Little Celebrations – January 2022

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As I look at my list of little celebrations in January 2022, I am realizing that my surgery stands out so significantly that getting through the surgery itself (the 1st surgery, the reopening of the incision to release blood, the 2nd surgery) is the major celebration of the month! There are little celebrations around that big one: a sunrise and good grocery shopping experience before the surgery, an excellent chicken soup I made a few days after coming home, the hematoma beginning to fade (although it is still not completely gone 2+ weeks afterward…I am checking/celebrating progress every morning), and my first grocery shopping after the surgery (with the assistance of my husband).

The other celebration that stands out this month….more than a little one…is the death of our cat, Boromir. I was glad I held him close for over an hour on his last day….that he seemed at peace. We are still missing him but also celebrating that Boromir was with us for so many years and particularly through the pandemic when we were at home most of the time; he contributed to the positive vibe that seemed so natural…so easily sustained.

And then there were some ‘usual’ little celebrations:

A great meatloaf. I discovered that adding a little olive oil if the ground beef is very lean and using spaghetti sauce instead of salsa improves the texture and flavor!

Red velvet cake/carrot cake for our 49th wedding anniversary. We both savored our slice of celebratory cake…not having any leftovers!

Peppermint snow ice cream. Celebrating a seasonal favorite and plenty of snow to make it!

A new garage door. It was awful to have a damaged door….I celebrated that we could get it replaced quickly.

Snow on the ground. Celebrating the beautiful scene from the windows of our house….and the different perspective as I walked through the neighborhood.

Unique Aspects of Days – January 2022

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This year I am jotting down something unique about each day…encouraging myself to notice those things that are not the same day after day. Sometimes it is related to what I identify as a ‘little celebration’ – but not all the time.

Some of the unique aspects would happen every year – a first snow of the year, a 49th wedding anniversary (Ok – next year will be the 50th),  and a 1st awesome sunrise of the year.

Others will only happen once – perhaps more truly unique: a pet dying, making a new recipe for the first time (this month is was pumpkin peanut powder curry cream (soup)) and a surgery.

Still others I recorded this first month of listing unique events were simply rare: fog in the afternoon and a new garage door.

Overall – this is a good project for 2022…another dimension of awareness into how I am spending my days…making sure I am not ‘in the rut’ all the time!

Cancer Diary – Entry 7

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A flurry of pre-op activity….the discipline of getting to appointments on time and filling the waiting time between.

The uptick in activity pre-surgery increased two weeks before the surgery date with an appointment with my primary care physician for bloodwork, EKG, and chest x-ray. Everything came back good for the surgery; however, there was a ‘nodule’ that showed up on the chest x-ray. There was a follow-up CT Chest that indicated that the issue seen in the x-ray was not there (i.e. the ‘nodule’ seen in the x-ray was a shadow or other artifact rather than something real). I was very discombobulated by the x-ray and was glad I could get an appointment for the follow-up the next day. The data from the tests done by my primary care physician were posted on the surgeon’s portal 9 days afterward….I was glad to know they had gotten to their destination.

Three days before surgery, I had a PCR test for COVID-19 at a drive through testing site for surgery patients (i.e. not a site for the general public/symptomatic people). It was my first experience with a PCR test and was easier than I expected:

  • We had gotten 3 inches of snow overnight and my appointment was at 9 AM, but the streets were relatively clear, and I drove up to the parking lot testing location a few minutes early; there was no line; the guard checked me in, and I drove into the tent where a nurse with full head gear respirator checked my ID and did the test.

  • The nurse did not need to swab deep in my nose!

  • Supposedly the results will be available and posted to the portal within 48 hours…the day before the surgery.

A person from the outpatient surgery center called with some final instructions:

  • No food after midnight, no liquid after 6:30 AM….and stopping certain supplements. I already knew those things from previous instructions, but it was good to be reminded.

  • I need to shower with antibacterial soap (like Dial) and not apply anything post shower; I made a special early morning trip to the grocery store to get the appropriate soap.

  • They are on heightened COVID protocols now and have closed waiting rooms - recommended that my husband drop me off and return at the time the nurse specifies during a call to him when my surgery is complete; he will never go into the building. I will be at the surgery center for at least 5 hours.

  • When the nurse calls my husband after my surgery concludes, she will also provide details for at-home/follow-up care and then I will get the same thing in writing before I leave the facility. One question we’ll ask is whether we should proactively assume I might have been exposed to COVID and should implement our strategy of masking/separation-when-unmasked at home.

  • The time I need to arrive for surgery was 15 minutes earlier than I was told previously.

  • I needed to provide insurance and billing information to the pharmacy at the facility so the nurse could pick up any prescription I needed to send home with me.  

  • The exact location in the building where I need to go when I arrive was also indicated; all I had before was the address of the building.

  • The list of things I should bring with me is short enough to fit in my coat pocket: insurance card, glasses case, phone, photo id. They already have my medication list in their files.

I am set to stay near the bedroom on the second floor of our house for at least the 1st 24 hours after surgery. Snacks and flowers and supplements are on top of my dresser. There is a small folding table and chair set up in case I want to eat a meal or two up there.

I am relieved that the surgery is going to happen as scheduled (not cancelled or delayed because of increased hospitalization due to COVID-19) and reassured after the conversation with the person from the surgery center; it was good to talk to a real person!

Next Cancer Diary post will be about my perception of the surgery day…

Previous cancer diary posts:

Zentangle® – December 2021

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31 tiles for the 31 days of December….

In the first few days of the month, I continued to use my old pens…but then switched to red (with black…sometimes white) and some Christmas themed patterns. There was a skew toward square tiles rather than rectangular this month…just as there was in November.

I enjoyed the red pen…will return to it for February (valentines). Maybe in January I will pick another color to feature in most tiles….and strive for some very different patterns.

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The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. “Zentangle” is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

What will I do different in 2022?

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At the end of 2021, I am thinking about changes over the next year. There will be changes that I don’t anticipate…events requiring me change in some way; those changes I am not going to worry about; I’ll deal with them as they occur. What I’m thinking about for this post are changes that are intentional…that require my action to bring to fruition. Here are some possibilities I’m contemplating:

Releasing myself from some of my daily ‘metrics’ that have accumulated over the years. The one that has certainly gone ‘over the top’ during the pandemic has been book browsing; in 2021, I browsed over 2,000 books! The metric started back in 1985 with the goal of reading a book a week. Maybe some of the others that could be reduced or the metric allowed to float rather than always being a stretch goal for every day.

Look for the unique. Now that my blog has been going for over 10 years, I’m realizing things I repeat again an again…and need to force myself out of the rut more frequently. Sometimes it would be as simple as taking a totally different kind of photograph than I normally do…it would take more effort to go to places I have never been before…or to become more patient in locations where I go frequently to observe them in a new way.

Reverting to a cleaner/neater house. I’ve been gradually getting messier as I’ve gotten older: leaving things out on surfaces rather than putting them away…not vacuuming and dusting as frequently. I want to move back to my younger-self version of housekeeping in 2022.

Moving to live closer to my daughter…within a 30-minute drive seems about right. It would be much better than the current 2-day drive. The situation we’ve be in during the pandemic has made it more important to me. It will be a huge change to move from the house we have lived in for over 25 years and our first long distance move in almost 40 years. There would be a cascade of changes from this one: quickly locating service providers and shopping in the new location, picking new volunteer gigs, etc. There could be tweaks to a new house that would keep us busy for months. And selling our existing house would be a project that would enable the move. The time commitment for this change is higher than anything else we have done in recent years.

Of course – intentions are not sure things. It takes focus and sustained action; there could be events that preclude some of these. Time will tell - I’ve already made a note to follow-up on how these intentions are progressing in July 2022.

21 Months in COVID-19 Pandemic

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And the pandemic continues …

Just as the Delta Variant seemed to be waning, the Omicron variant appeared…just starting its sweep of the country now; it’s too early to predict its impact over the next few months as the usual cold weather in much of the country and indoor holiday celebrations provide the ideal conditions for the spread of airborne infections (like COVID-19). It helps that more and more people are getting vaccinated but there are wide disparities in vaccination rates across the country.

Things are different than a year ago –

  • A year ago we were wondering when we would be able to be vaccinated…now we are have been vaccinated and boosted.

  • I wear KF94 masks now all the time rather than double masking with cloth masks like I was a year ago.

  • I am going to the grocery store every week rather than every 3 weeks.

  • My daughter came for a short visit at Thanksgiving (road trip from Missouri) – last year we settled for talking on the telephone.

  • My husband observed the Lunar Eclipse with the local amateur astronomy club…rather than just planning on going to some of their sessions. They are still doing virtual meetings.

  • We did some virtual birding events like we did last year but we also attended a Druid Hill Park (Baltimore) birding walk.

  • I traveled to Texas (road trip) to visit my family….something I would not have done last November.

Some things are the same:

  • We are still not eating in restaurants; we do get takeout occasionally…about the same frequency as we did last year.

  • My husband is attending the virtual AGU meeting.

  • We both enjoyed the Crane Fiesta from Bosque del Apache for the second year in a row.

From a mental health perspective, I am probably less anxious about COVID-19 than I was a year ago because I am vaccinated and my masks are KF94s…that protect me as well as others. I am frustrated that COVID-19 is still a pandemic. I acknowledge being uncomfortable in crowds….and realize that it could be years before I choose to go to a concert or fly on an airplane or go into a grocery store on a weekend. Maybe it is more than COVID-19 that has caused the feeling; there are so many events in the country that surprise me (not in a positive way) and avoidance, under the umbrella of being COVID-19 vigilant, is my way of coping.

From a physical health perspective, my cancer diagnosis and coming treatment are my priority…the health of my 90s-year-old parents is a close second. I’m anticipating trips to Texas – hoping that there won’t be an emergency trip to Texas before my surgery. My confidence in making road trips safely (from a COVID-19 perspective) is high based on my 3 road trips since being fully vaccinated in April: carrying all food with me, air purifier to run in hotel room, KF94 masking any time I am inside, making most stops at interstate rest stops.

I am anticipating a quiet holiday at home this month…and then a lot of action in the first half of 2022!

A few more notes from November…

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As November is ending - there are a few more items I want to post about….

My 90-year-old mother still enjoys making breakfast herself and my dad. I photographed one of her more elaborate breakfasts when I was visiting: microwaved sausage patty, sauteed peppers, mushrooms and onions + cheesy eggs from a skillet, and a freezer biscuit heated in a toaster oven. I’m glad that modern conveniences (microwave ovens, precooked sausage patties, frozen biscuits) make it easier for her to prepare meals.

A brown-headed cowbird visited out deck on a cold morning….alone, looking very round scrunched down in the cold. It stayed around for a bit. I wondered if it had become separated from a flock or was just enjoying the sunshine and relative safety of our deck.

The sun backlighting oak leaves gives their color more definition. This was a morning that the grass was frosty; by the time I took the picture the frost was beginning to melt but it still added a sparkle around the leaves.

My husband was out at a county park/astronomy site for the lunar eclipse in the early morning hours of the 19th. It was cold but he was prepared for that and stayed until the clouds obscured the moon about 5 AM. He took lots of photos!

Finally – I enjoy finding ways to reuse single use plastic. I’m not sure whether this was a bowl or a dome from a food purchase….but it makes an excellent stand for my laptop when I am using an external keyboard! It allows for plenty of air circulation around the laptop, raises it off the surface of the desk (in case I spill something), and the light shining through it is appealing too!