the_rck | Entries tagged with coffee

I slept in today. Scott alarm went off, and I mumbled something incoherent about needing more sleep and left Scott and Cordelia on their own. I got up briefly because I woke enough to realize that there was only enough coffee left for one cup which meant that Scott might get out of the shower and not have coffee. His coffee is challenging to make on short notice because he wants it cold enough to gulp down in under a minute. I microwaved some water long enough to dissolve the instant crystals then added cold tap water. Scott usually grinds his own beans and cold brews the coffee.

Then I went back to bed and slept until 9:30, so almost another four hours. I woke with a headache that didn't go away until I'd had both food and caffeine.

After my appointment yesterday, I had lunch at Totoro. I'd been thinking of going somewhere else, but Cordelia texted me to ask me to get her something nice while I was out. My options in that direction if I'd gone to the Northside Grill or Which Wich would have been... limited.

I think I left my glasses there. At least, I can't find them now. I need to get my act together and call them to ask. I remember taking them off because I was having trouble reading the menu. I remember, as I was getting my things together to leave, that I saw them and intended to put them on. I didn't stop anywhere between Totoro and the bus station where I'd have even considered taking off my glasses (I re-tied my shoe by the federal building which is not something for which I'd have removed my glasses), and I think I'd have noticed them falling off entirely at any point between Totoro and home.

I've checked and re-checked the places I might have taken them off when I got home, so I really don't think they came home with me.

I did seven Ingress missions while I was out. There are still more I can do on central campus and in between central campus and medical campus, but the pickings are getting thin. Everything left downtown has an estimated duration of at least 30 minutes. Some of those might be fun at a point when I'm not just after numbers. Right now, I need twenty three more missions for the badge. I think I can get that many if I just wander around north campus for a while, probably across multiple days since most portals can only be hacked so many times per day per person.

North campus would likely give me some unique hacks and captures, too. I'm much further away from badges for those, but every one helps. I might go out there later this afternoon, but I'm getting headachy again, so possibly not.

I slept badly last night because of the head cold. With the c-PAP on, I had a sore throat that wouldn't let me sleep at all. After I took it off, I slept some but with a lot of wakings. I was able to get up to get Cordelia's breakfast and make Scott coffee. He normally cold brews some, but he didn't realize last night that he needed to make more, so he got instant. Scott notices the difference in taste, but Cordelia doesn't so far as I know. Of course, he drinks his black, and she drinks hers with creamer and sugar.

I'm better on the dizziness front because I remembered, last night, that the Epley maneuver is a thing. I couldn't remember what it was called, but searching 'inner ear vertigo physical therapy' found it immediately. I didn't have anywhere to put my laptop where I could see the instructions while doing the movements, so I had Scott read them off. There are only five steps, but they have to be done in a particular order, depending on which ear one's trying to treat. I wasn't sure which side was having the problem, so I just did it for both ears.

I've saved the instructions so that I'll have them locally if I need them when I don't have internet.

We watched The Good Place as it aired last night. I have no idea where the story will go next, but I'm very interested to find out. I'm also glad that I didn't offer it for Yuletide (I almost never offer open TV canons, not unless the whole sign up and writing period is during a hiatus) because I'd most likely want to poke at the big mysteries that the show will eventually address, and I'd guess wrong. I wouldn't mind doing that during a hiatus, but having the ground moving under me while I write would be difficult.

Cordelia's trimester ended yesterday. She'll have exams today, Monday, and Tuesday. Since her school only has five classes per trimester, she'll by home by about 9:30 on Tuesday.

Scott says he doesn't think Cordelia and I should come to wait with him during his mother's surgery. He feels like there's no point in having lots of people there.

My to-do list for today is as follows:

( To-do list )

I don't think my body is liking the lower levels of caffeine in the mornings. I'm having trouble waking this morning and had some issues yesterday. I slept pretty well last night.

Then again, I'm pretty sure I didn't get enough iron yesterday or Friday. I need to eat about 4.5 oz of chicken liver to get what I would have gotten from my multivitamin. I had been eating at least 3 oz of chicken liver a day on top of the multivitamin. (The amount in the multivitamin is 18 mg. 3 oz of chicken liver averages something like 13 mg.) I don't want that much chicken liver.

We can only get safe liver sausage (no nitrates or nitrites) for me if we go to Whole Foods, and that's less iron rich (about 6 mg per 2 oz) than pure chicken liver is. It just has the advantage that I don't have to prepare it or scrub anything to clean up after cooking it. It also costs three times as much as 20 oz of raw chicken liver.

Fortified cereals have a lot of iron. If it looks like I'll need to keep going without the multivitamin for much longer than until Tuesday, I'll look into those, but I find most cereals difficult to justify. Either they've got a lot of fiber that will make me sick, or they're 90% refined sugar.

I did a lot, for me at least, yesterday. I ran two loads of laundry and stripped the bed (it didn't get made up again until Scott helped me just before bed). I ran the dishwasher and got Cordelia to empty it. I made the grocery list and then did the shopping. Scott dropped me off then took Cordelia to class then stopped at the library then came to pick me up and take me home. He had an hour to relax between when we got everything put away and when he needed to leave to get Cordelia.

I need to throw out or otherwise get rid of the fitted sheet with holes. I've washed the dirty sheets, including that, and one of the new fitted sheets. I left the other new fitted sheet in the packaging and may do that for easy storage until we actually need it.

I also replied to a snippy email from my gastroenterologist's nurse which told me that my nutritionist ought to be able to solve all dietary problems. I got equally cranky because the nutritionist has explicitly told me that my issues are beyond her training/pay grade. There isn't anyone else in the system to whom she can refer me. Some of the specialty clinics have specialized nutritionists, but none of them deal with patients who have more than one set of major dietary issues. I've got at least six different parameters to deal with. Seven if one counts our budget being very inelastic.

Scott and Cordelia went out this morning so that Scott could let her sit at the wheel of the car in a parking lot and understand where all of the pieces are. He says they went back and forth a couple of times. I wasn't sure that would happen because I wasn't sure Cordelia would feel ready to do it.

Scott's sister has offered to do the same thing with Cordelia in her car on Tuesday, after the biopsy. I think it would be a good idea because her car is bigger than ours and so would feel different, even if all Cordelia does is sit in the driver's seat.

We had to reassure Cordelia that it doesn't actually matter which thing she does first on getting into the driver's seat as long as she does certain things before she starts the car. (She was a little astonished that we mentioned fastening her seatbelt as a before starting the car thing. Then Scott and I remembered that she doesn't remember a time when not doing that was legal. It hadn't occurred to her as a thing that needed to be mentioned.)

I spent the last dream cycle before I got up dreaming about trying and failing to make coffee (I kept walking away and having other people turn off the heat or dump my coffee or...). I took that as my body nudging me about getting up to give it some caffeine, so I gave up on sleep and went and made tea. I'm trying to cut down on my morning caffeine a little bit now that it's summer.

We still don’t have Comcast internet. As far as Scott can tell, they decided we only wanted TV after all. He had two hours last night, between getting home and having to go to bed, so he really didn’t have time to call them. Tonight and tomorrow will be as bad. He might not have time until next Monday. He thinks that getting together the information necessary for me to call wouldn’t work because I don’t know which bits of hardware are which. So I’m going to have to listen to him rant about it for the next week. I’m not sure he realizes what him being that cranky does to my anxiety.

I wrote about 1500 words yesterday on two fics, mostly on the pinch hit.

I tried coconut oil in coffee yesterday. Maybe it would work better if I’d been able to find our immersion blender than it did with a whisk, but the oil didn’t do anything about the parts of the flavor that bother me. I tried adding stevia on top of that, and the combination was better but still not something that I can drink. It’s not even a question of just getting used to the difference. My body simply announces to me that, If I drink that, it’s coming right back up.

People who know tea— If I make tea with 3/4 of the cup filled for steeping and then add cold water to fill the cup after the steeping’s done, will the resulting tea be weaker than if I did a whole cup of hot water for steeping? Adding the cold water makes a huge difference in how long I have to wait before I can drink, but it’s not something I’ve ever done with tea, just with instant coffee. This morning’s chai took twenty minutes to cool to where I could drink it. My goal is to finish my caffeinated drink within the half hour window after I take my morning medications because I can’t eat during that time and might as well be doing something toward getting ready to face the day.

My first goal for today is a shower. My second is to finish a library book that’s due on, I think, Friday and can’t be renewed. I’m a bit cranky with myself for not having finished it yet because it’s by Donna Andrews, an author I usually really enjoy.

Other things I need to do today— fill and run the dishwasher, gather the trash and get it to the curb. I think everything else is optional, so I’ll see how much energy I have and go from there. I still want to do work in the basement, but in order to do anything down there, I have to do something with the suitcases and boxes Scott has piled down there because I can’t get around them to the bookshelves. I don’t want to just move them because that would mean they would block the path to the laundry. Why is figuring out where things go harder than moving them?

Crossposts: http://therck.livejournal.com/957413.html

Ugh. Coffee with whole milk and stevia is pretty disgusting. Neither the milk nor the stevia mellow the coffee anywhere near enough, and the stevia adds an extra layer of ick on top— I had a swallow of coffee more than five minutes ago, and I can still taste the stevia. I haven’t managed to choke down even a quarter of my cup, and it’s been an hour.

I have no idea what other options I have for getting this much caffeine without sugar or artificial sweeteners (pure stevia is the only one I can have). Black tea might be possible, but I’d need a heck of a lot more of that to get the same level of caffeination. At half an hour a mug, how much time would I need for that? I’m also suspicious that caffeine without sugar won’t do anything to help me wake up and think.

The last time I stopped caffeine was right after my gall bladder surgery, six or seven years ago. I did that deliberately because I was pretty sure that I’d be too out of it to notice the withdrawal headache, and that worked. The thing is that without drinking coffee (with sugar!) every morning, I ended up having to nap every morning, losing about three hours out of my day every single day and running into problems with doctor/dentist appointments because the best time to schedule them was late morning, at least in terms of getting home in time to pick Cordelia up from school. I also didn’t do very much writing because school day mornings are the best time for that. Afternoons involve lunch and exercise time and are generally broken up into pieces too small for me to use. Also Cordelia comes home an hour earlier now than she did then.

Right now, I’m wondering if I could manage being awake and doing things in between when Scott gets up and when Cordelia leaves for school and then nap because I’m pretty sure the fact that I seldom get much sleep during those three hours is a big factor in my needing either coffee or a nap. The biggest problem is that I’d be stuck in the bedroom for most of that time because Scott naps in the living room and because Cordelia really, really doesn’t want me awake while she’s getting ready for school. I think we could compromise in terms of me being awake as long as I keep the bedroom door closed.

Tumblr sent me a we’re about to give away your user name email to get me to log in. I debated whether or not to bother but ended up doing it just to keep my user name. I don’t know that this will make me visit Tumblr with any regularity because I find it overwhelming. I’ve thought about trying to disable the images there, but if I do that, is there any point in Tumblr at all?

We turned up the ceiling fan in the bedroom last night. That helped some but not as much as I’d hoped. I slept middling well. I’m still really exhausted (and the lack of coffee/sugar isn’t helping). I think that I’m going to have to push for changing the AC at night.

Cordelia spent most of yesterday with Scott’s family. They didn’t end up going out in the boat because it rained, but they played a lot of Telestrations and some card games and had dinner. Scott and I met his sister in Brighton to retrieve Cordelia and bring her home.

Crossposts: http://therck.livejournal.com/956096.html

Well, the nutritionist had a few concrete suggestions. She wants me to get away from using sweetened creamer in my coffee. She thinks whole milk might work and then try stevia in place of the sugar in the creamer. My suspicion is that, done like that, the only thing that coffee will actually do for me is to keep me from getting a caffeine withdrawal headache. She wants me to add a bit of psillium (sp?) husk powder to my orange juice so that the sugar hits much, much more slowly. She wants me to find a way to sleep uninterrupted for long enough not to feel the need for sugar to help me wake up.

She didn’t have any suggestions for the brain fog/fatigue, but she did understand why I’m not willing to pursue gastric bypass options (for GERD and weight loss).

She seemed to believe me when I talked about how different foods affect me physically. I got the impression that she’d really like me to do an elimination diet of some sort to see which foods really give me IBS and/or GERD problems and what kind. I don’t think she understood when I tried to explain that my anxiety levels affect that enough that something can be okay one month and not the next.

She was pleased that I’m reliably walking ten to fifteen minutes a day. She thought that that should make me sleep better, but I’ve been doing it for months, and it doesn’t at all.

She strongly suggested turning up the AC at night given that overheating seems to be a factor in my having problems falling asleep and that having problems falling asleep is pretty huge in terms of me not sleeping enough. She thinks that lack of sleep may be a big factor in my blood sugar issues.

Scott and Cordelia won’t be comfortable, but maybe I’ll be able to fall asleep faster. Right now, it takes anywhere between thirty minutes and two hours for me to fall asleep. That will be a huge problem when Cordelia goes back to school because she wakes me two or three times every morning (only once deliberately) and is getting up an hour and a half after Scott does.

We all woke this morning before any of the alarms we’d set went off. The free hot breakfast was fairly varied, but the protein options were mostly things I can’t eat. I ended up with some muffin type things and some honeydew melon and two slices of lunchmeat. I’m pretty sure those were ham, but they weren’t labeled. All three of us tried the orange juice. Cordelia and I found it too sweet. Scott didn’t notice that at all. I couldn’t finish mine because it tasted wrong.

I had a headache for about half of last night. It eased when I got up but didn’t go away. I think that it’s partly me freaking out over trying to go into town to meet Scott and Cordelia for dinner and partly me being undercaffeinated. I’ve had a small Coca-Cola. I probably should have ventured the coffee at the breakfast. I just didn’t want to try to deal with it. I ended up lying down for a while after Scott and Cordelia left, and I think that helped, too.

And a bit later…

I’ve made coffee. I wish that hotels provided more in the way of creamer for coffee. One packet of powder isn’t nearly enough for me. I added two packets of sugar and poured in some honey, and it’s only marginally drinkable. When I use CoffeeMate or the equivalent, I do three parts coffee to one part creamer. That stuff’s largely sugar, so I don’t add anything further.

Scott just texted to say that they’re done at Willis Tower and are heading for Navy Pier now. (I seem to have estimated the time they’d spend at Willis Tower accurately. Scott’s text was within half an hour of my best guess for when they’d be leaving for Navy Pier.) He emailed me a photo he took from the skydeck. He also texted to say that buying the transit pass is very, very easy. That’s just part of what I’m anxious about, but it helps a little.

I kind of want to write. I’m not sure whether I should try editing the Amber thing I wrote the other day or see if I can come up with something else. The existing story needs a fairly massive rewrite of the beginning because of my usual problem with not including things that I know that the reader really needs to know, too. I always laugh when I hear the writing rules that say one should tighten in a second draft and cut things out. I always, always, always add at least 150 words per thousand of the first draft. At least. When I’m writing, I have a tendency to jump over the stuff that’s obvious to me and to assume that it must be equally obvious to everyone else.

I need to clarify the starting situation and how everyone came to be where they are and to make the decisions they made. I also need to lay groundwork for the ending.

Of course, when I first saw the beta comments, I had a nasty migraine and just kind of wanted to cry because everything (not just the writing!) seemed utterly impossible. I’m glad that I sat on that and just left everything until my brain was functioning again. I’m pretty sure I can make this work.

But I’m still kind of foggy and anxious right now. It might be better to write something new, something that’s not going to take much thought.

I think, now that I’ve had some coffee, I should drink a lot of water. I’m pretty sure that dehydration contributed to my mid-drive migraine yesterday. I had had about half as much water by that point in the day as I normally would have had. Pretty much the first thing I did on getting to the hotel room was to knock back about six glasses of water (hotel room provided dinky glasses).

I’m confusing myself about time of day because I haven’t changed the time on my laptop. It would be pretty easy to do, but we’ll be home Wednesday evening, and then I’d have to remember to change it back. I’m mostly remembering to subtract an hour or to look at my phone for the right time but not always.

I’ve been listening to little bits of different audiobooks, but nothing’s sticking right now. I don’t think it’s the books. I’m pretty darned sure it’s me. I brought some DVDs that I could watch on my laptop, but I’m not convinced that I’ll do better with those than I am with audiobooks.

And I just dripped coffee on my shirt. Fortunately, I brought an extra, but it’s still not ideal.

Cordelia is having issues with her cucumber slices ending up dried out and bitter by the time she gets to lunch time. I can’t figure out a way to stop them drying out, and I’m not certain that it’s not actually a problem of us picking bad cucumbers. She thinks it’s not that because she’s happy enough to eat the slices right after she cuts them. We’re substituting sugar snap peas. They’re more expensive, but we only have about a dozen more lunches to make.

The shirts I ordered from blair.com arrived yesterday. Sadly, although they fit, I can’t wear them because both bra straps and about the upper inch of my bra show because the dratted things have scoop necks. I’ll have to send them back. They’ve got a tunic t-shirt (which, weirdly, is not longer than the regular t-shirt) for twice the price that might be better in the neck/chest/shoulders. It seems to have most of the same color options. And let’s see… There’s a t-shirt for about the same price that has a better cut neck but comes entirely in prints and colors I don’t like. They’ve also got polos that I could try, but they also cost more, and I’ve had poor luck with polos— I’m afraid of getting that bumpy cotton knit fabric because I find it very, very unpleasant. (I don’t even like hugging Scott when he wears it.) There are also less than a dozen colors to choose from there. The stuff that looks best in terms of collar cut is all long sleeved.

I’ve emailed the company to find out how to go about returning these shirts. Looking at their FAQ, I will have to pay $10 on top of the shipping I paid to get the shirts in order to return the dratted things. That’s not enough to make keeping them a good idea. It’s just enough to make me angry.

The energy audit guy says that our house is fairly tight. There are some issues with Cordelia’s closet, but I suspect that that’s largely because there’s a pipe running through the closet and up into the attic and out the roof (all of the plumbing for the shower is in that closet, too). He said that, given that, insulation is likely to help us a lot.

He also asked if I grow sage for religious/purification reasons. I told him that I grow it because it overwinters, can deal with the low levels of sun, smells nice, and is great to cook with. It’s pretty, too.

Scott had to be ready to go in early this morning for work, but they turned out not to need him. I stayed up past 11:00 in the hope that they would call and tell him he could wait for his usual time, but they didn’t. He had to get up at 2:00 and call them.

The FDA has a recall out of certain brands of flour for possible E. coli O121 contamination. I have no idea if the all purpose flour we have is part of it because we always move it from the package into a heavy duty plastic bin and throw out the container. Scott goes back and forth, depending on which is currently cheaper, between Gold Medal (recalled) and King Arthur (not recalled). The chain of logic for the recall is pretty tenuous— 50% of people who were part of a recent E. coli O121 outbreak remembered making and eating baked goods, and 'some' reported using these flours. I suppose it’s a good idea to be extra cautious. I’m just thinking that we’ve already baked with the flour we’ve got without issues, so maybe we’re okay?

Scott bought a new kind of coffee creamer. It is terrible. It is also, sadly, expensive and of a size to last me the better part of two weeks. This is going to make my morning coffee challenging. It took me nearly half an hour to drink my coffee this morning.

I wrote about 100 words last night, right before I went to bed. It’s not the next thing that should happen in the story, but I was having trouble getting that bit to work. Skipping around isn’t my usual method of writing; I can think of only one other piece (still incomplete) in which I’ve done it. Me doing it now isn’t a great sign, but I’m still hopeful that I can pull this off.

I have finally received the packet for the genetic counseling service at the cancer center. I have to fill it out and return it before they’ll schedule to see me. I’m looking at it and not even wanting to open it. I just feel so very, very tired, and I know that filling the forms out will require a lot of phone calls and asking questions of people who would rather not talk about this stuff.

Scott forgot to get me more coffee creamer yesterday even though I asked, so I had to use almond milk and stevia this morning. Almond milk really doesn’t do what I need in terms of cutting the coffee. Using it tastes pretty much the same as adding extra water, and I seem to need that aspect of the creamer more than I need the sweetness.

I took the trash out and discovered that Scott had once again emptied the recycling into the trash bin instead of the recycling bin. The bins are deep enough and heavy enough that there’s really no way I can pull that stuff out to move it. I could probably tip the thing over on its side and crawl inside, but… Not only do I not want to crawl inside, but I also couldn’t get the thing upright again after, not without help. I have no idea how often Scott puts the recycling in the trash bin because I don’t generally take either trash or recycling out. I know he doesn’t intend to, and that it’s not that he doesn’t care. It’s most likely that he’s very tired and is going out there in the dark. The light blue recycling bin and the dark blue trash bin (and the brown compostables bin) look very much alike in the light from the porch.

At least the house smells better now.

Scott is sick enough that I really think we ought not go to the birthday gathering today. That will be kind of awkward since it’s a party for him and for our nephew, but Scott has wracking and fairly continuous coughs whenever he moves, even with doses of OTC cold medicines in him. I’m pretty sure that him trying to drive would be unsafe. I’ve texted Scott’s sister, and she says we should let her know, later, how he’s doing. She also says that it might be better not to share his germs with everybody else.

Scott’s still in bed, trying to sleep. He had to get up to fill the reservoir on his bi-PAP about an hour ago. I’m fairly puzzled by the size of the reservoir. It seems to be designed only to hold enough water for six to seven hours of running time, and that’s less than useful on weekends.

I’m trying to work out the logistics for the things that need to be done today. I probably should call around and see if someone can take me out for groceries. I don’t see Scott being able to do it any time in the next few days. We can get by through tomorrow and possibly even Tuesday, but I’d rather not have to. Also, I really do want my prescription from Kroger. I don’t like not having any migraine medicine on hand. I can’t really go out to Kroger by bus today because the #1 bus doesn’t run all the way to Kroger on Sundays.

All of the library stuff that’s due today can be renewed, but I have some holds that will vanish at the end of the day. I don’t think those three items will be hard to get again, but I would like to have them this week if I can.

I’m not sure if Scott’s got any sick time left (he gets two days every six months), so he’s probably going to drag himself to work tomorrow no matter how sick he is. He has Wednesday scheduled off because it’s his birthday, and he and I were planning to try to take care of a lot of different errands that day. I don’t think that’s going to happen.

I want to bake a cake (from a mix) for Scott’s birthday, but we still don’t have a working mixer, so I’ll have to mix with either a whisk or a wooden spoon. Hopefully, I can manage that much. The mixer is difficult— Scott found a replacement paddle that will fit except that the mixer needs some maintenance. The upper part, the part the paddle attaches to, isn’t straight any longer. It tilts downward. A completely rigid paddle can hold it up, but the pressure isn’t great for the paddle. Also, the new paddle Scott bought has silicone bits that are meant to scrape the bowl as the thing stirs. Those get flattened pretty much completely by the weight of the arm of the mixer. Scott says he can fix the mixer, but it’s been waiting for a few weeks now, and I really don’t think it’s going to happen before Wednesday.

I wanted very much to sleep later than I did today, but Scott coughing and getting up to refill his reservoir woke me up enough that I really couldn’t get back to sleep. My arms, shoulders and neck were kind of aching. I think the ache is part tiredness and part that, while I’m wearing the compression pad, there really isn’t really a comfortable position for me to lie in.

I took a benadryl last night because I was still pretty awake at bedtime. I’m not convinced it helped because I ended up reading for another hour and a half. I was enjoying the book, but it wasn’t must-finish-this-now territory by any means.

I’m trying to decide whether to keep or return a library DVD set. I’ve had it for weeks, and I’ve only watched the first 15-20 minutes of the first episode. I keep telling myself that I’m going to watch more, and then I don’t. It’s renewable; there’s no one waiting for it. I just… If I’m not going to watch, I shouldn’t keep it.

Scott got me a couple of new coffee creamers to try. Coffeemate’s hazelnut powdered creamer is not so great. It doesn’t particularly mellow the flavor of the coffee, so I’m not sure I’m going to use it on its own. If I combine it with a liquid creamer, I can use a good bit less of the liquid creamer than I would normally, about one third to half as much, but I’m not sure that that’s the way I want to go. Scott also got me a small bottle of thin mint flavored liquid creamer. I think that’s also Coffeemate. The mint flavor definitely comes through. I don’t mind the flavor, but I don’t think it’s worth the price hike that comes with the Girl Scout cookie tie-in.

We didn’t have our usual role playing session last night because the GM was down with a nasty headache. We also didn’t have people over for board games because Scott had to get up at 2:00 in order to be at work at 3:00. I was both sorry— I really miss seeing people other than Cordelia, Scott and my physical therapist— and glad. Not having people over meant that I didn’t have to get fully dressed. Wearing a shirt makes dealing with the compression pad considerably harder.

Scott is currently scheduled for 3:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Saturday. He thinks that him going in early is easier on me and Cordelia than him staying late is. I think that’s tied up in him thinking that I’m not likely to get my act together to prepare dinner in a timely manner. That may be correct, but I’m not likely to get back in the habit of doing it unless I’m forced to. I actually can do it now. The compression pad makes it awkward but not impossible.

I’m going to have to buckle down and move these boxes of books out of the living room today. The main barrier is taping them shut and labeling them. I can only do one or two before I need to rest because of the stooping involved. I’m not willing to get down on the floor to do the work because that generally hurts quite a bit and because I’m not sure how easily I could get back up again. But it really has to be done in the next four hours because the cleaning lady will come this afternoon. Of course, I’m pretty sure that the scissors have slipped between the cracks in the couch and are on the floor underneath now. I really, really don’t want to try to retrieve them, but I will need them.

I woke with a migraine again this morning. I don’t know what’s going on with that. It makes something like three times in the last couple of weeks. I suppose I should just be glad that taking Amerge helped. I don’t know— It seems wrong, somehow, to wake up with a headache instead of having sleep help make a headache go away. I’m not sure why it should given that headaches first thing in the morning has been the way of things for me for many, many years.

Of course, I’m not sure I’ve been sleeping well this week at all. I’ve been kind of dragging all day, every day, this week, and I have no idea what to do about it. Extra caffeine hasn’t helped. Sometimes, a big wallop of protein helps but sometimes not. I have to get up early tomorrow which will not be fun at all, but I guess I’ll manage.

I think I’m going to ask Scott not to get this particular coffee creamer again. It’s Bailey’s French vanilla (no alcohol), and I don’t like how it tastes at all. I think that the thing I dislike is a deliberate flavoring because it’s just a hint of alcoholic flavor. I’m not sure what the brand was of the creamer he bought last week. That was creme brulee flavored and overwhelmingly sweet. I needed a lot less of it to make the coffee palatable. I’m not sure that I actually liked it, however, so remembering what it was would be useful for asking Scott not to get it again. Right now, he’s grabbing things more or less at random with the idea that I’ll eventually find one that I like and write the specific brand and flavor on the grocery list every week until he knows.

Oh, damn. They just changed the timing on my colonoscopy without consulting me. They want to do it at 8:15 now and in mid-April instead of early March. The change in time means that there’s probably no point in my going to bed the night before. They want me drinking prep solution for a couple of hours, starting at 5:00 p.m. the night before, and that will mean not being able to sleep for hours after. Then, I’ll need to be up six hours before the procedure for thyroid medication and at five to three hours before for more prep solution (and no sleep after that). They say to take my morning meds four hours before the procedure, but I’m not sure how useful that will be given that that’s dead in the middle of the last set of doses of clean out solution. I will ask my psychiatrist about it tomorrow. It may be that she’ll tell me to skip the Wellbutrin that morning and just take my afternoon dose after the procedure. Oh, well, at least the only bad thing about the changed date is more time to get anxious about the whole thing. It’s just very frustrating that this doctor pretty much always reschedules things at least once.

Once the burnt soup had cooled, I was able to get it out of the pot (hurrah for non-stick pots) almost completely. Soaking took care of the rest. I’m mourning that soup because I’m getting the impression that I’m going to need a lot of protein this week. I didn’t actually wake up yesterday until about half an hour after dinner (which was pretty much all protein). Cordelia and I ended up ordering sandwiches from Jimmy John’s yesterday for lunch, but the protein in the tuna sandwich I got then didn’t seem to help, so I don’t know.

I’ve had a few ounces of cheese this morning in hopes that that will be enough protein to get my brain to operate for long enough to deal with my PT appointment. I’m not going to do anything with the stove (except the kettle which is so loud that I can’t miss it) or the oven for the duration.

I got halfway through two different library books yesterday. With a little effort, I should be able to finish both. That will leave me with two books that I want to finish before Sunday.

I’ve pulled about twenty books off my bedroom shelves with the intention of getting rid of them. I need somewhere to put them that’s out of the way and okay for them to sit for quite a long time. I think I’m going to want to weed our bookshelves more generally and then get rid of everything all at once, but that requires a specific place to put the dratted things. If I could empty the box of stuff to shelve, I could use that.

I’m also debating whether or not Books by Chance would consider certain books romances. I’ve got a bunch of oldish Yasmine Galenorn urban fantasy, and while I would not call it romance, someone else might disagree. Of course, the resale value for those is likely to be less than trivial. I expect the resale value on 95% of what I want to get rid of will be that way.

I used about half as much instant coffee this morning as the amount of water I was adding calls for. The taste was considerably more tolerable. I can’t say that it was actually good, but I didn’t have to fight nearly so hard to drink it as I did yesterday’s.

I’m trying to decide if I need to do something with Cordelia in terms of how she prepares for tests. She usually does very well, but she got a 76 out of 100 on last week’s social studies test. She thinks this isn’t important, but usually she gets between 90 and 100 on such tests. I don’t know if it’s that the test was particularly hard or if it’s that she didn’t prepare properly. If it’s the latter, we need to do some work. She’s going to have more tests as she goes along. I think I’m going to email the teacher and ask her opinion. I’m more concerned by the sudden drop than by the score itself.

Both the pending holds came in yesterday before we went to the library. I got a little antsy about getting there in time because Scott got out of the shower, with forty minutes before closing time, and sat down to argue with someone on Facebook. He’s been arguing with this person for the last couple of days. I have no idea why he’s bothering.

I leveled up in Ingress. I really did just need one trip out of the house to do it. I was fourth level by the time we pulled into the library parking lot.

I have four books I need to finish before Sunday. I rather think I won’t, but three of them can’t be renewed, and the fourth is something I’ve already renewed four times (I started it and liked it quite a bit but keep forgetting it exists).

Cordelia has no school today. She’s been in her room, mostly. I think that three days at home has helped her cold a good bit. She’s not happy, but her throat isn’t hurting any more.

I’m making spinach bean soup right now in hopes that that will help her cold (and mine. I’m about 85% certain I’ve got the dratted thing at this point). The soup doesn’t smell quite right, however, so I’m worried I may have to pitch it. The spinach was kind of freezer burned. Usually, that doesn’t matter for this recipe, but what I’m smelling right now is spinach that’s a little off. I can’t normally smell the spinach when I make this. We may be ordering from Jimmy John’s.

I’m feeling kind of draggingly tired. I slept okay last night, so it’s not lack of sleep. My best guess is that it’s another sign that I’ve got the cold.

Scott got yet another instant coffee brand this weekend, and I tried it this morning. I think I’m going to have to use less than recommended because a packet of stevia and a good bit of almond milk didn’t make it even remotely palatable. I almost couldn’t tell that I’d put anything in at all. I had to force it down which isn’t sustainable. Unfortunately, Scott bought a fairly big jar of the stuff, one that will take weeks for me to get through.

I’ve been doing a very small amount of writing every day recently. I think that, over the weekend, it was not knowing when Cordelia would come out and start reading my screen. Today, it’s that plus being really tired. I think I will try to nap after we have lunch. And after I count slices of bread to see if there’s enough for tomorrow’s lunches or if I have to make more.

And I just realized that I left the soup too long— It’s burned very, very thoroughly. I guess I really do need a nap. I’ve never done that before. Hopefully, I can salvage the pan.

Cordelia and her friend labeled last night’s school event as 'funnish.' Apparently, it was awful early on and got steadily better as it progressed (I think because more kids arrived). We let them walk over by themselves, but Scott had to go pick them up after because the school required that each child be signed out by an adult. We assumed that Scott would drive Cordelia’s friend home, but she called her father, and he came for her. They took a lot of photos in the photobooth, all of them with at least half a dozen kids in them.

Cordelia is pretty miserable with her cold. I think she has accepted that we can’t magically fix it, but she still hopes that something will help. I know the feeling. When I was in college, in the late 1980s, the student paper had a cartoonist named Fred Zinn, and he did a comic that’s applicable— It has someone looking at a bottle of pills that promise to condense all the misery of a cold into one second. They take a pill and end up as a pile of dust but feeling much, much better and pleased with their choice.

At least, Cordelia has three days to recover without worrying about school. There’s no school Monday. I think it’s a report writing day for teachers. Cordelia’s friends will not be coming over because their mother is off that day.

I’m pretty sure I’m getting Cordelia’s cold. My throat is kind of itchy. This is far from ideal given that the waiting room at PT is tiny. I think it’s about half the size of our living room, and there are always at least three of us in there and often more.

When I made bread on Wednesday, I discovered that molasses can ferment. I think I knew that. I just hadn’t deep down realized it. Fortunately, I tasted the contents of the old jar before I used it, and we had an unopened jar that was fine. I made Anadama bread. Scott was a bit worried that the cornmeal in it would give him problems, but it hasn’t. It’s a third of a cup of cornmeal to about five cups of other stuff, so it’s pretty well diluted. I’m glad that Anadama bread still works for him because it’s the easiest variant I know beyond the basic white bread recipe in terms of keeping ingredients on hand.

I ran out of my sweetened, flavored creamer Thursday morning and have put unsweetened almond milk in my coffee the last two days. Things definitely taste better with the creamer. The coffee with stevia and almond milk tastes kind of vaguely alcoholic in a way that does not appeal to me. I think I can tolerate it, though, and I’m trying to decide whether or not I’m going to. The creamer, in the amounts I use, has as many calories as the mix I was using that included both creamer and sugar.

Scott is scheduled to work tomorrow. We’re not pleased by that, but it was fairly inevitable because they’re trying to do something with a particular line and he’s the employee who knows that line best. We haven’t decided yet if we’re going to do the library run today or wait until tomorrow. Doing it on Saturday always leaves us needing to take things that can’t be renewed back a day early which requires an extra trip. Also, parking downtown is free on Sunday but not on Saturday. If we’re quick at the library (under ten minutes), we don’t have to pay there, but it costs us an extra few dollars for parking when we go for bubble tea afterwards.

I tried to shelve a stack of hardcovers, A-C authors, yesterday, and I couldn’t shelve any of the Bs at all because of the junk piled two or three feet deep in front of the bookshelf. I didn’t feel up to trying to shift that right then, but I probably should do so at least long enough to get the books in. There are six of them, and none of them are small.

I spent a lot of time yesterday annotating my list of unread books. A lot of that consisted of trying to remember why and where I acquired them and of figuring out how likely I am to actually read them. A friend linked me to a local company that sells used books, DVDs, and CDs on commission and will pick stuff up from the seller’s house, but they won’t take romances, and they won’t take books published by Scholastic, and they won’t take anything older than a certain date (1985 for kid’s books because of some new laws regarding toxic stuff in older books and 1970 for adult books). They’re also decidedly unenthusiastic about fiction that’s more than three years old. They say that non-fiction tends to hold value better. They don’t say that they won’t take remaindered library books, but I would be surprised if they did. I guess I will see what I end up with on my to-get-rid-of pile and decide whether or not to deal with them then.

The PT massage is helping less this week. I’m not sure why. I’ve been doing it as regularly and as thoroughly as I did the previous week, but I have more pain, and I think, based on the discomfort from my bras, more swelling. I will be going in again on Tuesday. It makes me wonder if all of that suction was actually beneficial. The PT seemed to think that I would have less pain and swelling after treatment, so this isn’t just a case of expected and temporary worsening.

The genetic counseling office called me yesterday to explain that they’re sending me papers to fill out and that, when I have returned those, they will call me about scheduling an appointment. My impression was that the main purpose for the call was to give me a name and number to call if my packet doesn’t arrive some time next week.

I hope to write today, either Weiss Kreuz or Narnia, but Cordelia has decided in the last day or so that she wants to read whatever’s on my screen. She looked at some rp comments I wrote and reprimanded me for swearing. I have no idea what she’d say to sex and/or violence. She did mention that she’s having trouble finding Heroes of Olympus fics that are to her taste. I think a big part of that is that she is both a canon shipper and more interested in the female characters than the male characters.

I overfilled the very large box I had for books that are basement bound and didn’t get through all of the shelves in the bedroom. I’m not sure what to do about that. Taking books to the basement, a few at a time, will take a very long time for me because I really don’t have any stamina to speak of. I might manage three trips a day with six to ten books at a time, but a lot of these books can’t be shelved right now because our cleaning lady has piled boxes and such in the bit of the basement that houses my manga, the anthologies (paperback anyway), the A-K paperbacks, and the H-R hardcovers.

I kept the Narnia books, the books by Diana Wynne Jones that I have up here, and the things I haven’t read yet on the bedroom shelves. I need to weed the unread stuff and get rid of the things I know I’m never, ever going to read. Some things have been on those shelves nearly as long as Cordelia has been alive. At this point, I really very much doubt I’m ever going to read them. I am moving some things that Scott read and liked but that I have not read and probably won’t to the basement shelves. I don’t think he finds being surrounded by books as viscerally comforting as I do, but he keeps books, too.

The fact that I found moving books from the bedroom to the living room makes me think that I’m not ready to go back to shelving books at Cordelia’s school. I don’t want to volunteer for less than an hour at a time, but I may not be able to manage more than about ten minutes (and then need to rest before I try to walk home). It’s very, very frustrating. I can’t even try using our treadmill to get started on rebuilding because it’s in that corner of the basement that’s filled with boxes and other crap.

Yesterday’s PT was another hour long appointment. I expected it to be only half an hour. The PT is pleased with my progress with regard to the massage, and she spent about twenty minutes using a little suction device on various parts of my breast. That’s supposed to loosen up the deep tissue that I can’t get to by massage. She says that the radiation damage has made all the tissue in there contract and that that’s leading to fluid build up. She’s hopeful that we’ll only need a couple more appointments to get this cleared up.

I have reminded my oncologist that he promised to refer me for genetic testing. One of his nurses got back to me. Apparently, I have to fill out a bunch of paperwork and then send that back before they can schedule me.

evalerie has been urging me to try 23andme which is a vast amount cheaper than official testing. The drawback, however, is that information from 23andme can’t be used by formal researchers or put into my official medical record. My sister’s doctors want me tested because they’re of the opinion that, if I have the same PALB2 mutation she does, that’s fairly indicative that the 'likely benign' designation is wrong and that researchers in China and Australia are on the mark. I haven’t looked into insurance coverage for the testing yet, and I need to do that. Aetna may not want to pay for it, but I think Medicare is likely to even if Aetna doesn’t. According to my sister, official testing costs about $4000 if one has to pay out of pocket.

Cordelia basically told us yesterday that the draw of her school’s gay-straight alliance is the free snacks more than anything else. She complained that a bunch of sixth graders have joined and that now there aren’t enough snacks for everybody. Nobody in the group is publicly identifying as queer in any way which, for a bunch of ten, eleven, and twelve year olds doesn’t entirely surprise me. I’m sure there are kids who are and who know they are, but there are also kids who haven’t really thought about it yet, either because they don’t feel safe doing it or because they’re young enough that applying that sort of thing to themselves feels alien in some other way. The group is having speakers in from the local community college, so I’m hopeful that something’s happening besides free snacks.

At my suggestion, Scott browned our leftover ground turkey last night and added it to broccoli cheddar soup he made from a mix. I had planned to do that myself yesterday, but he started cooking while I was still psyching myself up for it. I think he’s so far out of the habit of me cooking that it doesn’t even occur to him that I might. I know I’m far enough out of the habit of it that I don’t necessarily think of it at a point when it’s reasonable to do it.

I want to bake today. I’m not sure what to bake. The things that appeal to me most may be beyond my stamina (or not, I won’t know until I get there), so I’m kind of afraid of trying them. I know I can make brownies or cake from a mix. That takes ten minutes, and I’ve done it a couple of times in the last two months. I’d just like to do more than that. We still have the ingredients for gooey butter bars and for chocolate chip bars.

Scott bought me a couple of new types of instant coffee, the kind without sweetener or creamer added. One (Folgers) is packets of powder to add to hot water. That one is fast and strong and works pretty well. The other (Kroger brand) is teabag sorts of things with coffee grounds in them. Those only work if I let them steep for at least ten minutes (and preferably longer). I’ve been adding stevia and a flavored creamer. I’m not sure that that I’m cutting any calories because the creamer seems to have as much sugar as the old instant coffee. I do think I’m getting more caffeine, however, so maybe this is the way to go.

Hm. I may not bake or venture into the basement today. I got light headed while I was getting my lunch. I’m going to eat and drink a lot of water and see if that helps any. It was momentary, but I really don’t want it happening while I’m on the stairs or in the middle of something that I need to finish on some sort of schedule. Of course, Cordelia will be home in a little more than two hours. I’ll feel better about trying the stairs if there’s someone else in the house with me.