I haven’t really been able to work this week at my regular work, mainly becuase my face is so swollen, I can’t wear my glasses so I can’t read. I also just feel really itchy and bad. I spent this week listening to a mystery audiobook and drifting in and out of a Benadryl induced sleep. The audiobook experience was hilarious because though I got the general gist of the book, oftentimes, I would wake to find the murder victim was pregnant! the main character having sex with a person I will never find out who! the suspected murderer is publishing a book and was there ever a mention of a book? Anyways, no idea. And during my waking hours, I made Vince this graduation cap topper which I’m extremely proud of.
Lovelies, I’m slowing making my way through my stint with facial poison ivy. I did not see the doctor (sorry! – I just really don’t want to take steroids), but I did take the day off yesterday and most of the day off today and rested. I took a bunch of meetings today, but I did not turn on my camera and you won’t get to see how terribly bad it is, but I think the very worst is over, but man, it’s not fun.
Vince called a few days ago and told us that his housing for next year is secured – a room in a 4 bedroom apt on campus for $900 a month all utilities included. I think he was disappointed because it was the most expensive option he chose, preferring to probably pay about $600-$700 a month instead. I was like – that’s not bad, it’s less than you (I mean, I’m) paying now. And then slowly he asked if he could remain on the family cell phone plan to which the answer is yes. It was always going to be yes, regardless of the housing cost. I so clearly remember, you always hoping to pay a certain amount in rent, but you always end up paying more than you want to.
Speaking of paying, I paid my lovely plumber more than $1000 for this beautiful installation of my water main which was leaking. We also installed a smart water shut off valve just for funsies because as soon as I heard about it, I wanted it. Some women covet Jimmy Choo stilettos, I covet plumbing technology. But if it’s anything like any of our smart devices, it might be a miss since lights still turn on/off randomly in our house for no reason we can understand. Look at the beautiful shiney new copper! Look at the lovely crimped joints. No more soldering, just some magical crimping method.
Next is fashion. So, unbelievably, there is a ton of fashion videos which I’ve watched for a long, long time. Mostly “haul” videos of luxury purses which is interesting and mystifying to me at the same time. Tons of women with 25, 35, 45 purses worth more $4000 each. Like (besides the money) – how do you need so many purses? Where do you store all the purses? Can you possibly use all 45 purses?
But recently, two things! I’ve turned to fashion bloggers who talk about how to get dressed nicely and I’ve discovered ebay for thrifting. I’ve always hated the idea of a capsule wardrobe, where every piece is tan, black, beige or navy of very high quality and then you mix/match them. So boring! So repetitive. I can’t have 7,000 items in my closest and I don’t want to spend a ton of money on clothes, but I want to have fun. So since I’ve been renting clothes and listening to the videos and buying inexpensive, but nice clothing, I’m learning about fashion and what makes me feel good and look good for not a huge ton of money (because I’d rather spend the $ on plumbing). Really, I never thought I would do this! For example, look at this rocking outfit. The rule I’m following here is to only wear two colors – so I’m wearing red and black (there’s black in the dress and the grey is a tone of black) and the kicker is that my watch band even matches. I felt so good and so comfortable this day. And the cost breakdown is this: grey sweater – originally from Target, probably priced at $25 dollars, but I paid $5 at a thrift shop, red Rothy shoes – new would be $155, bought slightly used on ebay for $53, Mata Traders red dress – new approx $110, on ebay used for $21.50. (Disregard the dirty laundry and also you can see a bit of my eye swelling from the poison ivy). I wore this on a regular Saturday all day. Felt great.
Because I’m so embarrassed about my face, I missed Edda’s class year end picnic. Jeremy and Elka went in my stead. Jeremy brought me home Cheetos and a cookie. Lovely husband.
I’m feeling poorly today. I don’t know what it is, but this is the season of itchy-ness. First I got a tick bite and that was weeks and weeks of intense itching (which pretty much confirms that I’ve never been bitten by a tick before because, man, I would totally notice) and still kind of itches on my belly. Then I got like a bug bite on the right side of my face (I think twice, once maybe by a bee) last week that almost swelled my ear shut and now, I have poison ivy on my nose tip and on the same side of my face as the previous bug bite. This is what it looked like yesterday and I don’t even want to show you what it looks like today because it’s super weepy and my eye is swollen and I’d like nothing better than to stay in bed a lot of the day, but I’m actually on for a guitar lesson (which I don’t want to miss) and a couple hours of volunteering at Main Street. But kind of relaxing things – like I’m not performing or anything, but I’m just feeling run down and not great. I should probably get some steroids, but I don’t want to and also, I like to suffer.
As a side note, the plumber is here today and is ripping out the main to the house to replace the leaky son-of-a-bitch and therefore, the water is not working now and I need to use the bathroom. And I want to be able to flush and I can not.
Jeremy, in an act of true love, not only bought me an air fryer as a gift, but also CLEARED countertop space for me. Again, true love. It’s my quest to make healthy, low carb, high protein, high veggie lunches quickly. I’ve been surprising myself, cooking doesn’t have to be a whole thing. It can be much easier than going out. (Though I have to say, I don’t do any cleaning…Jeremy cleans for me). For a long time, I’ve been making egg based lunches – usually scrambled with cheese and an english muffin. Then I moved to boiled eggs and no cheese (I basically stopped eating cheese in the house) with microwaved frozen veggies and canned beans. Now I want to move to a piece of chicken and/or fish with the veggies and I want to do it fast.
Of course, we first made tater tots in the air fryer and they were AMAZING. And for sure, not on the list of “healthy things”. And I know it would be amazing for chicken nuggets or chicken patties. But the next day, I tried tilapia filets and they came out overdone and looking like this:
Interesting.
Jeremy is going to spend the weekend working on his bike in the living room. He spent a lot of money on bike parts and is switching stuff around and upgrading everything. He’s watching a lot of youtube videos.
We took Edda to the pediatrician yesterday and I got what I wanted – though I was prepared to not get what I wanted. I got an order for a urinalysis and a script for amoxicillin. We are trying to get a urine sample from the Edda-mame, but no luck so far. We can’t start the antibiotics until we get the urine sample, otherwise we’ll be killing the little buggers if they are there. We are kind of kicking ourselves because I think the seizures were caused by her constipation and she had an enormous bowel movement on Monday afternoon and no seizures after that. We should have given her an enema on Saturday. Oh well. Live and learn – we are tucking it away in our standard operating procedure from now on.
Jeremy is slowly doing major surgery on his bicycles for an upcoming cross country trip (not on the bike, he’s not biking 3000 miles), it’s flying in luggage to California. He’s super delighted to be doing this. We talk about bikes a lot. Like a lot.
It was a bit of a rough weekend for us, we are a little unlucky with summer long weekends. Edda had a cluster of seizures on Saturday (seven), a bunch on Sunday (four) and two on Monday. This is very unusual for her, she has never had more than 2 a day, and never for so many days in a row. So we are keeping her at home today – she’s still running her low grade fever which she hasn’t been able to kick – and we’ll see a professional and see what they say. She was also clearly constipated which often adds to her seizure woes. Otherwise, she seems mostly OK, enjoying her TV and sometimes even laughing a lot.
Anyways, we really had no plans for the weekend, so it’s just as well we stayed close to home. On Friday, before the seizure clusterf*ck happened, we went to line dancing at Main Street which was a lot of fun. We brought Elka who was the star of the show. She wore her dog park vest which had her name on it and everyone asked if she was a working dog and I had to explain, no she’s a family dog, and Elka basked in the extra attention and occasional dropped hot dog.
The only other plan we had at the beginning of the weekend was to have dinner with our friends Tom and Noah and we decided to bring a festive cake:
I did manage to go for a run on Sunday – I love being in the woods and being where no one else really is.
It was muddy and damp – I scooted at least three turtles off the trail during my run. The trails are mountain biking trails and I get worried that there might be a bike/turtle mishap which would be bad for everyone.
On Sunday, we had an impromptu visit from Bob and Katherine and their new puppies Whimsy (white) and Bunter (brown). Elka was very excited and kind of nervous. Whimsy clearly wants to be alpha and so there was a bit of growling and Elka who is very nice, but submissive was like – really – I have to be beta to this 15 pound puppy?
I feel much much better today – the bees are gone. My bug bite is much reduced. I took a Benadryl last night before bed and slept well and had vivid dreams which were shocking and not at all typical of me. I like to power through things, but sometimes I need to cry uncle and sleep for the day. I’m trying to get some stuff wrapped up with work and then, off for the long weekend to just hang out with Edda, Jeremy and Elka.
Hello loves, I’ve been dealing with a insect bite that happened a few days ago on my the side of my face next to my ear. I was also mowing the lawn yesterday and discovered that bumblebees had settled into an eave of the house and I was trying to deal with that by taping over the hole with cardboard and I may or may not have been restung in the exact same place? I kind of can’t decide because today it got so exponentially worse, I thought my ear was going to swell shut.
Jeremy and I got into a slight argument over said bees because I was hot, sweaty and itchy and upset about the bees living in my house that when Jeremy got off a long west-coast call at 8 pm and found me outside winding the up cord for the lawn mower and putting it away, I snapped at him and wanted him to call the exterminator to take care of the bees, which resulted in the grumps from both of us. And also because I had sealed off the opening to the hive with cardboard, I could see a handful of angry bees buzzing around their previously opened front door while I was super grumpy. But at some point before it got too far, we decided to be nice to each other and we were for the rest of the night.
And I did call our very nice exterminator who had helped us with our mouse infestation in the attic a while ago by pointed out the little mouse trails in our insulation and then poisoned them. On the phone, I was like – I have bees in the house, can you help me? And he said – do you have bumblebees, honey bees, wasps or yellowjackets? And I was like….I have….bees…that fly around and buzz and are scary. And he came over in 15 minutes and took care of my bee problem. Talk about prompt service! I was honestly abuzz with gratefulness. (Honestly, I get upset two ways, I get upset because there are bees in the house. And I get upset that I have to kill them with pesticides that are no good for anyone, including the person doing the application.) And then because I was about to fall over from my swollen ear (I had been icing it the 2nd half of the morning), Jeremy kindly went to the store and got me some Benadryl and I took that and an advil and my ear felt better, but then I crashed and fell asleep for 4 hours in the afternoon which is what I do when I take Benadryl.
Jeremy went to work yesterday for an 8 am coffee date and was home by 10 am. He rode his bike to the train station for the first time since the pandemic. He showed me all his upgrades to his bike – mainly the lights that are now detachable and USB rechargeable.
My droopy peonies which are beautiful, but droopy. I did better this year, but next year, I can do better, I’m sure. I have an idea.
I went on my Wed pokemon walk with Elka. Six-seven pm is a gorgeous time to be outside.
Jeremy is repairing Seni’s bike and having a good time doing it.
I’m still experimenting with clothes – I told you that I was renting outfits? Well, this is one of them. It’s like a smoking jacket so all day I was asking for cigars. Where is my cigar? I’m having a good time trying out things and I am capable of wearing dresses everyday. And I hate non-natural fibers. Basically, I hate plastic clothes and this is one of them. They still make very expensive clothes out of polyester and apparently no amount of tailoring and/or styling will make me like them. I was outside tending to my drooping peonies and Jeremy was amused to find me in my smoking jacket and crocs.
The peonies – I did tie up with string this year, so they are, for sure, off the ground after rain, but just barely. I forgot how tall they actually get – they are pretty much up to my boobs in height and I tied them at about thigh height. So next year, maybe I’ll need tomato cages? Or tie them higher. They are so beautiful and gorgeous, I’m still trying to figure it out.
Elka is terrible to walk when it’s sunny and hot outside. This is all she wants to do – I think this was the forth time in a 15 minute walk. And then I’m stuck. I try coaxing her to go home, to get up. And she ignores me and proceeds to almost fall asleep in the sun.
Ack. I don’t even want to post this photo lest the pipes burst and flood the house. Here’s our corroded main pipes with water leaks. I was wondering if I’d never noticed this before or if it’s new or what. Our beloved plumber is swamped this week, so he’ll come next week. Maybe it’s over the entire house – I hope not. We are going to also install a smart water shut off here at the main to prevent the house from flooding. Should detect unusual water flow activity and automatically shut everything off. The electrician helpfully said – well at least it’s the plumbing which runs only to the kitchen and the bathrooms – with electricity – it runs through the entire house so if you have to replace everything, it’s easier with plumbing. Ack again. seriously.
I was thinking of converting the house over to a living system. The plumbing is the circulatory system, the electric – the nervous system, the people are the brains, the wood – ortho (of course), insulation (fat), air handling is the pulmonary, garden is dermatology, pretty flowers is the makeup or plastic surgery. So if we go with this analogy, the heart of our house’s circulatory system needs some stentwork or bypass surgery and we’ll also install a pacemaker to make sure it runs OK.
Jeremy and I are practicing discussing these repairs and so far, so good. No arguments. Yet.
Here’s our EV charging outlet for a car we don’t have. Come and get it all charged up here! No waiting! There is also many enormous holes in the drywall all over the house.
Yesterday was Elka’s gotcha day (2 years!) and we celebrated BIG. She got two new stuffies, salami, meatloaf, pigs ear, a trip to the dog park, fried chicken and an ice cream pup pop (pumpkin flavor). A very exciting day for all of us! Haha.
Shark stuffy:
Dog park visit:
We did an outdoor dining dinner near the dog park which was luxurious. We don’t eat out much and a spontaneous dinner out on a lovely night with french fries is an unexpected treat. She got one of Edda’s fried chicken strips and there were so many fries, we had to finally put it on the other side of the table and pile dirty dishes on top of the pile to stop us from eating the entire thing.
Ice cream *note Elka’s licking tongue finishing off her doggie ice cream. A lovely weekend day.
