rest

To sleep? or not?

/ Loony Feminist / 1 Comment

Sometimes I wake up at the normal time, thanks to the alarm, get up and have breakfast and have to go straight back to bed. My brain isn’t working properly, I can’t cope with easy crosswords or even Solitaire. Sunday (I think) I went back to bed and slept for five hours straight. Then woke up and had a shower, and felt ok.

Today is Tuesday. Same thing, but I only slept for two hours, and felt ok-ish. I needed to do my ironing but really couldn’t muster the energy until about forty five minutes ago. It only takes ten minutes, because we each do our own, and one of my little life rules is that I do it every week. So there’s not much. Schlepping the ironing board from utility room to lounge is the hardest bit, to be honest, but that’s what makes me want to put it off. Anyway, long story short, I did it because I could feel the energy needed just getting to the right level, and of course I felt much better afterwards.

A shower always helps me feel better. Always. But I don’t always have the energy! how frustrating.

Looks like we’re in for the long haul with Covid/lockdown, so I’ve been trying to find at least one positive thing in every day.

Today was the ironing! and then, as the sun was out and it’s not actually freezing cold, I pottered round our small garden and found these snow drops. Love them.

Also tried to take a photo of the cat, but she would not look at the camera. I pulled a little weed out of her catnip pot – it’s real catnip in there, just a bit sad and wintery at the moment – and her reaction was priceless. “What are you doing? That’s mine! Have you changed it? I need to investigate all of it right now!” she is such a doofus.

To The Wire

/ Loony Feminist / 2 Comments

Wow but it’s been tense this last week. I live in the UK, but it feels like the whole world has been awaiting the results of the US election.

I am so relieved, just so relieved, that Biden and Kamala won. I’m not sure what’s going to happen next, despite Trump’s blustery tweets (which seem to have gone very, very quiet this weekend).

There is of course a lot to deal with now, including how on earth it was such a close race.

Ho hum. I do have a lot more thoughts on this particular subject, but not sure it’s appropriate to share them right now, as there are a lot of people who will not be at all happy with the election result.

So what’s been going on here? at our house? well, I have a niece who is 40 years old today. Lockdown celebration of course, and her sister collated video messages from family and friends which she’s made into a delightful mixture. It’s just so lovely.

And last Sunday hubby had a birthday, so I made him a chocolate cake. Dairy free of course. It was, even though I say it myself, absolutely delicious. I baked it on the Saturday, but we couldn’t wait until the actual birthday to start on it, so we had some on Saturday . . . . And on Sunday evening, just before national lockdown, we went to Lambs of Sheep Street in Stratford upon Avon, which is a fabulous restaurant we go to regularly. Excellent. Hubby had steak, I had duck. Delicious. Then we went home and ate some more chocolate cake . . .

Then hubby’s very old MiniMac computer started playing up. It had Ubuntu installed on it, because one of the iOS updates broke it. At least Windows will tell you if an update is inappropriate (usually). But even with Ubuntu, it was failing. So now he has a Lenovo with an SSD. Runs like the wind. But it arrived with no DVD drive in it. I am in correspondence with Lenovo (We bought it direct from them) to find out why. I’d like them to send me the drive and I can fit it. I also want to know why the guarantee has only 8 months left on it, as we bought it this week. Hmph.

I’ve been sleeping a lot. I mean A Lot. Yesterday I woke at 2.30 pm, today I got up, had breakfast, and went back to bed again. Woke at 12.30, so I was able to at least shower and dress before hubby’s afternoon ziz.

All the Xmas presents are ready to be wrapped, labelled and parcelled up, but I just don’t have the oomph to actually do it. I’m intending to do it in stages, it’s just too much altogether otherwise. Even so. Maybe tomorrow morning. Our main postal service has started collecting parcels from your house, so that will help a lot.

Finally found some jeans I like. John Lewis. Yeah. The thing is, because they’re brand spanking new, it feels odd to wear them round the house! so I haven’t yet. But I will I’m sure when I’m feeling a bit more Rah! Rah!

Decided I would crochet some face / wash cloths, so am awaiting some lovely variegated yarn (Rainbow Cotton from Hobbii). It’ll make a change from knitting and won’t take long. Am awaiting a grandson’s measurements from his mum before I can continue knitting the jumper I started. Apparently he’s had a growth spurt, and is all arms and legs. Not sure I want to knit something that (a) he may not choose to wear and (b) won’t fit him even if he does adopt it. Hence the crochet project idea.

Not great

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The good news is, the cat is better. It took a month, and she had to be anaesthetised so they could wash out the wound properly, x-ray it to make sure there was nothing in there (there wasn’t) and take a swab to establish exactly what was going on in there. Result – bacteroides which needed a different antibiotic injection. Now she has no cone collar, she’s very, very happy, and back to normal. Even, dare I say it, slightly more affectionate than usual. That translates into allowing a slightly longer cuddle each day than the regulation ten seconds.

The bad news is, I’m not well at all. Some sort of chest infection or other. No voice for the last seventeen days, coughing like a bastard, very weak, achy, shaky, tired and weepy. I am trying to at least shower each day, but can’t always manage it. I’ve cancelled everything I was going to do, and am just pathetic. I’m taking 40mg Prednisone – last dose of the fourteen days on Sunday. Also 100 mg Doxycyline which I absolutely hate, but are the only thing that work, last dose of the seven days on Monday. I’m really, really hoping that by the middle of next week I’ll feel like a normal person. Or at least on the way there. Or at least the blood pressure and pulse rate will be down and more like normal.

My mother meanwhile has bashed and cut her shin badly, which is not good news at 83. Twenty-two steristrips and a large dressing. I can only contact her by text, and she says she’s doing fine, but of course she would say that because she is as brave as a lion. As soon as I’m better enough hubby will take me over and we will do whatever she needs us to do. In the interim, my sister, who lives locally but works full time in a very busy job, has had to manage it all. Damn and blast.

Then I was too ill go to to Logan’s first birthday party. Ex-hubby had offered to take me and YD (now heavily pregnant) down to Southampton for the day, and they did actually go, but I was just too poorly. Even Facetime/Skype was a bit difficult, what with me having no voice! but Logan is just a joy to us all.

Today I had to go back to bed at 10 am, woke at 1.30pm, and had a cursory shower/hair-wash. I can’t cope with the usual moisturising face/arms/legs at the moment, just too much.

Can’t knit. Can’t even pick up the guitar. Reading is something I can do in short bursts. Thank goodness I’ve done all the Xmas presents. Don’t even talk to me about the tree. That goes up the week before Christmas, and not a moment before.

I feel as if I’ve fallen off the small social world I do have. I’ve been out of the house to go to the doctors’ three times in the past two weeks, and am due again on Wednesday. But am not up to driving, so wonderful hubby has to take me. Phhhhh.

Oh. And the cat peed in the car before I got ill, so now my car stinks of cat pee, despite my feeble attempts to sort that out. And now I’m not well enough to do anything about it. I do have a plan, which involves a special valet service, but it’ll have to wait till I can drive at least.

YD has stopped work. Yesterday. Hooray! time for her to put her feet up.

Hopefully, my next blog will be a little bit more cheerful!

Finished!

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Finally. It’s taken me 12 days elapsed time, but I didn’t do any painting over two weekends, so that’s 8 days altogether. So every weekday for the past eight days I’ve got up, put on grotty old working clothes, moved stuff, painted, got hot, sweaty and covered in paint, moved stuff back, and had to have a scrub in the shower.

All worth it though. Done now. Finished the last wall today. Hubby likes it too.Image

My friend made me this cork board. I love it. It’s unusual, artsy, and looks really nice.

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You can see the contrast in the above photograph between the two different colours.

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You can see my old glasses drying – I don’t wear my nice funky ones for painting in. I had to give these old ones a good wash as they were covered in paint speckles.

The colours look much better in real life. Three walls are a pale sky blue, the fourth wall is a pale Wedgwood china colour (and is called Favourite China!). It’s a clean look, which we both like. But I’m absolutely exhausted now and don’t plan on doing any more decorating, ever.

I also cleaned the oven, which was sorely in need. Half an hour of Mr Muscle sprayed on to it, then wiped and scraped until we can see through the door now. That’s something I will be doing much more often to keep it reasonable.

Update on This and That.

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Fetched car from the garage today. It’s 14 years old now, and needed some welding done to it. But I love it, it’s just perfect for me. It’s an old Ford Ka, in very dark purple.

The alarm system has finally been fixed, with a further visit (this was the third) from the alarm company.

Finally managed to sort out a keyboard for our Tivo box – it’s an Apple app called Peanut Plus (why?). It replicates the remote control configuration and provides a proper QWERTY keyboard. For £1.50. Excellent. So the £12 wireless keyboard which didn’t work has gone back. Result, I’d say.

Had a brief but rewarding conversation with The Husband about the socks I was knitting him. He wasn’t that keen and I was hating knitting a boring rib in a boring colour. So that project has hit the dust and has been unravelled. I’ve started another project, for a Christmas present, so no photos yet. But it’s in a fabulous colour, called Sunset on the Horizon and has cheered me up no end.

However, I’m in the middle of a small M.E. crash, which isn’t good. I’m sleeping until lunchtime and then slobbing around all afternoon. Hm. It’ll pass, when I’ve had enough rest.

The Christmas sewing project went so well I’ve extended it a bit, and bought some more fat quarters. But now have no energy to actually do anything with them. Yet.

Still haven’t been able to plant any bulbs yet – maybe next week.

That’s it for now.

Forgot.

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I meant to say on yesterday’s blog, and then forgot. Last week I had an ME/CFS crash. It involved sleeping most of every day and then all night. I had to cancel everything I’d planned to do and just leave it till I got better. Some days I couldn’t even shower and dress, because that’s a major “task” when I’m like that. It’s easy to feel depressed and useless, too, but I decided it would just pass. It took all week, but it did pass.

I thought I had been very careful, having a sleep every afternoon and only doing one “thing” a day, but clearly not. I suppose it builds up over time. I had already had to stop going to the knitting group twice a week, and have started going on Thursdays one week, and Saturdays another week.

But there we are.