The Struggle Continues

That sounds like an exciting sequel, but it's not. It's annoying and exhausting and I often feel like I'm over it, but then it sucks me back in, and this both disappoints me and pisses me off.

Mostly, I don't think critically much about how I look. I try to keep my hair brushed, my hands and face clean, and my clothes comfortable. Then I go about my day and it's fine.

But sometimes, especially at certain times of the month, and maybe especially especially because my body is making some midlife changes that I KNOW TO EXPECT... Sometimes, I just feel like I don't know the body I see in the mirror when I'm not expecting to see it.

The part about this that bothers me the most is that I am anti-feeling-like-crap about the way you look. I outgrew self-hate-speak years ago. I see pictures of myself from 15 years ago and think I look... insubstantial. I don't want to go back to that. Maintaining an artificially low (for me) body weight took up so much of my energy and attention that I have zero desire to go back to those days.

And yet...

My body is changing quickly and seems partially alien to me. I'm still flexible. I do the splits, I stretch, I squat, I bend. But now, when I try to touch my nose to the knees of my outstretched legs, I can't... because my belly is in the way.

I feel spry (mostly; I did a killer workout Friday and am just now getting over being sore about that on Sunday evening), and my body does what I want it to. I don't struggle with movement, and I'm strong enough to handle most tasks I set out to do on my own. In other words, I'm extremely functional, and probably more so now than I have been in years.

I'm proud of who I am, what I've learned, how I'm trying to improve, and of the life I and my people have built. It is absolutely profane that a chance encounter with my own reflection at an angle I wasn't prepared for threatens to send me spiraling.

Here's what I know: I'm not going to do anything about it. It's dangerous, mentally and physically. Usually, I just wait it out until the feeling passes. Fortunately, I guess, my life is generally too busy to get mired down in this sort of thing for very long.

Update: I'm past it now but wanted to go ahead and post this because... most of us end up in that space sometimes. 

Here's a picture of me walking last week. I have to go VERY late not to walk in complete darkness since Daylight Saving Time started again. I hate having no time to myself when I get home, but seeing sunrises like this *almost* make it worth it.

Today was weird

First, James's company laid off 15% of their staff. Then James went in for an emergency dentist's visit because one of his fillings was loose and instead of it just coming out, his whole tooth crumbled. He was going to take my car because his needed gas, but he couldn't get it into gear. We've known the transmission was going out for a while and I had planned to take it in this morning, before we had to make a last-minute appointment at the dentist's office.

However, I was able to get the car into gear, so Mal and I dropped it off and walked to a nearby McDonald's to hang out and play until James got done with his three-hour tooth ordeal and picked us up on the way home.

Also, I'd made a late lunch and when we left, I accidentally left the stovetop on. D noticed and turned it off, which is a life-saver. I'd thought to move the beans off of the burner, so they weren't ruined/didn't start a fire.

Furthermore, I have an HEB order on the way right now and decided that since we were across the street form HEB at McD's that I'd just pick it up. I called and learned that delivery isn't always the closest store, where we do curbside.

I don't know. It's just felt weird. James kept his job (for now) and we're grateful. But it's sad to see people go; he's hearing all kinds of stories about people who were just about to put in for maternity leave or have just come back from disability leave or who just closed on a house. I hate it. This economy sucks.

This has been your ray of sunshine for the day. Bleh.

Je suis inquiet?

We were supposed to go on a big blow-out vacation to Southern California in April 2020. Toward the end of February, there were some whispers about a big virus spreading through China. Then it hit the US. I remember making myself a couple of pair of Mickey ears, thinking, "We still have six weeks to go... this thing could resolve itself, and I want to be ready." Obviously, it didn't happen. We were fortunate and got all of our money back, even the stuff we'd pre-paid that was "nonrefundable." But it sucked.

What ended up happening, though, was that later that year, in October, we took an all-outside road trip around the Hill Country, and it was truly awesome. Cost a whole lot less, too.

Now here we are, on the verge of our first really big trip since the start of the pandemic. Don't get me wrong, we've gone to Port Aransas, West Texas, Galveston, and have done short jaunts to OKC, Dallas, San Antonio, and Waco, and really enjoyed ourselves. But this is the first full week, major travel trip we've planned in three years. And I am tentatively extremely excited. And also a little anxious about being excited. Because I hate letdowns. I'm a giant wuss about disappointment, and there's little I enjoy more than traveling.

The world doesn't want me to buy things today

Except for our oven (which we're going to simply throw out and not replace as soon as James builds me a cabinet to hold an induction burner), we've replaced every appliance in our kitchen since we bought the house 6 years ago. The garbage disposal was supposed to have been replaced by the seller but wasn't, the fridge and dishwasher died, and the microwave was murdered by a power surge (the day we activated our solar panels, and the company that installed them reimbursed us for a new one, so no harm/no foul).

Sadly, the dishwasher I chose was garbage. I don't know what to tell you. I'm a cheapskate. I spent a very few hundred dollars, not realizing that LG is widely known as a crap dishwasher. We've had issues with it pretty much from the beginning, with the door making a LOUD noise when opening and closing. Also, the fat doesn't get enzymed away, and instead builds up in the nooks and crannies of the drawers, and all over the floor of the dishwasher. When I go to "rinse off" the filter, it makes me want to barf. I have to wear gloves, because holding it leaves such a layer of orange, thick, sticky fat that if I use my bare hands, there's no effective way to wash it off. And it grosses me out that we still put our dishes in there. They come out mostly clean, but the idea of it is sickening. I spend almost as much time trying to clean the dishwasher as I would if I just hand-washed the dishes (which wastes water, so I try not to).

We decided that the time had come to bite the bullet and spend a few extra hundred dollars on a more reputable dishwasher. I had looked at several and finally found a model that seemed to work for us. I called the local distributor and he helped me make sure we were getting the right one (this one has a water softener, so hopefully that will help keep the enzymes active enough to wash that nasty stuff down the drain like it's supposed to do. The sales guy said he'd send me an estimate for the washer and installation, I'd get 3% off if I wrote a check, then they'd call to schedule as soon as they'd gotten a picture of the check from me. Cool.

But he didn't send me an estimate. And, sadly, after about noon, I didn't get a chance to do anything so I guess I'll call him back in the morning and follow up.

The guy who's been mowing our yard since 2018 has been getting busier and busier, harder to nail down. We often go two weeks beyond when we actually need the yard mowed, and I feel like I'm harassing him. So we've been talking about buying another electric lawn mower for a while. The one we had before only lasted about a year and a half before the battery wouldn't fully charge, and I learned that you can't get a replacement because both the lawn mower and the battery itself are no longer manufactured. I knew the lawn mower had been discontinued when I bought it. That's why it was on such a great sale! Again, I DO NOT LIKE TO SPEND A LOT OF MONEY. But in this case, it bit me in the butt.

So today, I looked at a bunch of reviews and ended up picking out a mower and an extra battery (having to charge 3/4 of the way through the job is a real bummer). What's wild is that the battery alone costs 4/7 the price of the lawn mower! Anyhoo, I ordered it from Lowe's and then realized a couple of hours later that the sale hadn't gone through. They requested a different payment method. I got James's credit card and tried that, but it didn't work, either. Turns out that both Apple Card and the Amazon Visa we have declined the charges, probably because instead of processing it as one sale, they charged the battery and the mower separately, and two several-hundred-dollar charges in a row at a place we rarely spend that kind of money looked sus. We informed our banks that they weren't fraudulent, but I have to wait to call Lowe's tomorrow and have them process the sales.

I do hate spending money, but today I really tried to! The internet just didn't want to let me.

Then this other thing happened that was pretty significantly cooler.

We had a Panda Express coupon that expired today, so of course we had to use it (savings!). D had requested PE this weekend, actually, so it was a perfect time to get a discount. We'd pre-ordered food and I ended up there about 10 minutes before it was supposed to be ready. I ran in to use the restroom, as Mal and I had been running errands for almost an hour at that point, and then Mal mentioned that he was hungry. We'd just picked up groceries, and he wanted to go out to the car to get a Clif Kids Z Bar, then go back inside and wait for the food. He ran like a crazy person through the parking lot, and a man getting out of his car seemed amused by it.

When we got back inside, Mal practically inhaled the granola bar before noticing this cute panda plushie that was for sale at the cash register. He brought it over to show me, and I told him that he couldn't just walk off with it and asked him to put it back. He said, "But I kind of wanted it." I told him that I'd see how much it was when we got our order, but that he needed to put it back until then.

A couple of minutes later, the gentleman we'd seen in the parking lot walked over and asked me if it was okay for him to give Mal a gift. I said sure. He asked Mal's name, then said, "I want to tell you one thing: Never take a present from a stranger if your mom isn't around, okay?" Mal said, "I already knew that!" The guy said, "Good. Here you go." He'd bought Mal the panda! It was so sweet.

On the way home, Mal said, "That guy gave me two things: advice, and a stuffed animal!"

The Wonders of Modern Medicine (and TMI, maybe?)

A few years ago, I'd read more than one study showing that there was a correlation between people who were on an antiviral like Acyclovir to treat herpes and a lower incidence of Alzheimer's development. There wasn't and still isn't a clear answer as to whether this is at all causal, but it was of interest to me for two reasons: 1) I have a family history of Alzheimer's, and 2) at the time, almost every month, toward the end of my cycle, I would get a cold sore.

If you've never had a cold sore (or fever blister or whatever colloquialism you use for it) before, then... well, I guess good for you, you smarmy devil. But they initially tingle, then hurt like the dickens for 3 days, then seep for a couple of days, then dry up and scab over, then take a good week to heal. So we're looking at 2-3 weeks of dealing with this. Every month or couple of months. I HATED IT.

Sometimes I didn't get one. Sometimes, I'd get more than one (like the time I spent a whole day on a boat on Lake Mead and got super sunburned then ended up with at least 5 cold sores all around my mouth). Once or twice, it tried to come up INSIDE OF MY NOSTRIL.

As soon as I'd feel it coming, I'd apply Abreva topically and swallow a ton of Lysine. Sometimes, I'd stop it in its tracks. Many times, it didn't matter what I did. It was going to break out.

My doctor had no problem putting me on acyclovir. Ever since then, it's been perfect. I hadn't had a cold sore in years. I'd had a couple of instances where I'd felt the tingling, but then between the preventative, medicine, and supplement, we'd stop it!

Until last month.

Ugh.

As I've mentioned, my body is vaguely trying to stop having menstrual cycles. I went about 120 days last year, then had regular periods for three months. This past month, I didn't have a period. But when it got to what would have been my last day if I had, I started feeling that tingle. I've since gotten topical Lysine, which is a lot cheaper than Abreva and as effective, if not more. Except this time, all efforts were impotent. I got a stinking cold sore and it reminded me of how much I appreciate how effective the anti-viral has been for the past few years.

A further complication here is that I've stopped wearing make-up in the past year. I didn't have any concealer, so it was just out there, doing its disgusting thing (I do wear tinted lip balm and sometimes eye-liner). 

This was about a week into it, when it had started crusting over.
I did break out the left-over powder to try to even out the screaming red color.

Here's the thing I hate the most about it: It's all I can think about when I have one. First, it just hurts so badly. Then I know how messed up it looks, and sometimes I realize that part of the dry skin or scab has started peeling off, and then I wonder how long it's been that way. It's just such a dang focus and I despise that it takes up that much mental space for me.

The moral of this story is maybe that I'm super vain, maybe? Or is it that life is demonstratively better when you can afford or have offered to you "good" insurance that allows you to see doctors for non-life-threatening conditions. My quality of life is improved so much just being on maintenance meds for asthma and cold sores. Using my inhaler once every other month instead of 6 times a day is like a miracle. Being super bent out of shape about the first cold sore in 3 years instead of being super pissed that it's happening for the eighth time in a year is the same. I feel like that sort of peace of mind and care should be equally available to everyone, and not just lucky and/or "rich" folks.