February 3, 2025 Monday--5am

Good morning!

Allie hasn't had to follow me into the bathroom as my patient guardian many times a day anymore.  *knock on wood*  

Things have suddenly improved quite a lot.  Whew!  These fibro bouts are very unpredictable.  That part has shifted to tolerable, while the body aches all over are even worse...but the exhaustion/chronic fatigue has let up some, too.  So--a good week on the whole as far as my (cancer free!) body goes.

The bad part of the week was finding out I had suddenly lost Medicaid, food stamps, and Federal Housing Assistance out of the blue on Tuesday.  Many, many people were thrown into turmoil because of many, many federal assistance programs and grants being cut off.  Trillions of dollars in aid...from Meals on Wheels to school lunch programs to veteran aid to fire & police...the list goes on and on and on.  Thursday I heard a federal judge put the order on pause until Monday...but I wasn't sure I would have coverage for the dentist appointment I had already had to reschedule for Monday.  So, I called and rescheduled it once again to be on the safe side.  I wasn't sure if I should see my oncologist on Friday, either.

The good news is, I had already seen my results for lab and CT scans online and I was still cancer free so I could pass if I had to.  There were people who had to cancel surgeries and treatments.  I am so lucky I'm not in treatment anymore and that I already had my CTscans done the week before!  Leah said if I got charged for the visit she and Dagan would pay for it...so I said I'd go.  I am one of the very poor, truth be told.  I live on SS--a little over $1,000 a month.  What a stressful week!  

And it is not over.  I heard that Elon just got access to the entire federal payment system...for everything!  ???  Why?  What are they planning to do next?  Randomly stop payments on individual programs?  Trump has made it clear that he wants to stop all federal assistance and grant programs because he thinks they should all be switched over to being privatized.  Anything else should be the responsibility of each state to take care of their own--including natural disasters.  Like we are each a separate country?

Okay.  I don't usually talk about politics, but this was a tremendously stressful week and most of what all else is going on sounds insane to me.  Enough said.

Silver lining.  One anti-diarrhea pill a day and fasting before appointments has been working to keep things tolerable and I made it to see my oncologist on Friday--lol!  Amazing!  There are always silver linings.  :)

When I asked the girl at the check-in desk if Medicaid was working she said--"yes" with a big sigh...and we both added at the same time..."for now".  Dr. Failing, my oncologist, wants me to see the urologist for another poke and peek of my bladder.  I am going to try a new doctor--a lady doctor.  I have also had another mystery lump.  This one is on my face and been there 7-9 months maybe.  So, another trip to the dermatologist is on the list, too, to have that removed and tested for skin cancer.  Have to try to make calls today.  All the stress has my entire body complaining...quite painfully.  Nothing I haven't had to endure before, obviously--but worse pain always slows you down.

So, I am happy to report that I got into the studio again to play this past week.

Tested the other handmade art journal and it was about the same.

Quite buckly...and likely made of the same student grade paper.

Then I tried the Strathmore Visual Watercolor Journal with better quality paper...and it is hard to explain the difference, but ahhh!  Let's just say that it's more what I am used to and the watercolor paint does more what I expect it to do.  

Even though I am still mostly a newbie and years out of practice at what I did know...I was having such fun trying to remember how to judge how wet the paper still is to get this and that effect and so on.  Felt like I was now finally on the path to remembering how to paint with watercolor!  Life is too short to use crummy paper.  I will give the grandboys the handmade art journals.  I didn't know when I made those journals so very long ago how bad student grade paper really is--lol!  For watercolor paper anyways.  

Got too overconfident and tried the new method she was demonstrating on a YT video I had on my laptop.  I want to learn how to do what she does...where she has a dark edge around every petal.  But I need a lot of practice.  As you can see, if I tried it when it was still too damp it spread too much.  Too dry and it didn't blend on the edge at all and was just a sharp line.  

Anyways, I was having a lot of fun and I shall continue to try to learn how to do transparent flowers--on good paper--lol!  (Notice the lack of bad buckling--whoohoo!)  Probably need breaks to do something else fun, too. ;)

Speaking of fun!  The boys went to one of their favorite places.  I can never remember the name and just think of it as the trampoline place--lol!

They stopped at Perkins and Ian was using sweetener packets it looks like to build what I think of as a card house--lol!

Excellent job!

Meanwhile, they have worked on the cat tunnel between Blink's litter spot under the stairs and my maintenance/laundry room.  They used hunks of carpeting to enclose it.  Leah says she needs to figure out some way to keep the top hunk of carpet up higher.  View from one end...

...and the other end.

This is where it comes out in the maintenance room by my washer and dryer.  Blink made it through, no problem.

They shut off the door on the litter box side under the stairs so Blink can't get into my apartment because she has claws and is clawing the new lift chair upstairs.  They keep my apartment door shut, too, so she can't get to my new red lift chair down here.

I want a new bin to hold the clean kitty litter and a trash container with a lid for the unmentionables--lol!  We'll be getting those before I move.  The bins I am using over here for litter and bird seed are just too big for that space.   

I plan to keep Allie's litterbox in the maintenance room at first.  She has a similar door/hole from my bathroom (behind the toilet) into the maintenance room so I don't have to keep the maintenance door open all the time.  Eventually we hope they will get along and we can open up the tunnel so Allie and Blink can come and go as they please and I will move Allie's litterbox under the stairs, too.  That's best case scenario, as you never know with cats. ;)  Oh, and the cats are using different litters!  Blink uses wood pellets.  Allie was not having any of that when I did try wood pellets over here.  We hope they can both use the same kind after a while but who knows with that, either.

This was exciting!  Ian went to a paid class on carnivorous plants!  Leah and Laim went along to the free version.  It is like having new pets.  I could see the pitcher plant and the Venus Fly Trap but there's another low one I don't recognize.  Ian got three plants to take home.  Anyways, later on they found a millipede in the house.  

The millipede could not climb out of the pitcher plant!  It must be really slippery inside like they said at the class.  Future bugs in the house beware!

Kids fall asleep in weird positions...just like cats and dogs, eh?  LOL!

Anyways, we were warmer (above freezing) for a few days and now back to cold again, but not as cold as those 50-60 below windchills, hopefully--lol!  For the next two weeks it says below freezing during the day and if below zero that'll be during the night.  Nippy, for sure.

That's about it from here for now.  I finished the Agatha Christie series and decided to rewatch all of Vera on BritBox.  I find that gruff old lady catching the bad guys quite soothing.  Right, Pet?  Yes, Love.

Hopefully this coming week will be less shocking, but you never know.  Allie, Vera, and my paints will keep me company--lol! Till next week, my friends.  We are all in this together.  :) :)