September 28, 2025 Sunday

Greetings!

Well, best laid plans...

Things didn't turn out being nice and simple.

I thought I was doing a bit better for a few days, never well--but a little better.  Since it said on the news that the pollen count has been exceptionally high this fall and Leah was also stuffed up with a headache even on her allergy pills this last week, I figured I'd wait out the weekend to see how I was doing before I decided whether to go back to the clinic.  I was about the same for several days--no better, no worse...and even had a few sneezing jags to make me think it was just allergies.

Saturday I woke up to a super dry throat and some coughing, but I figured that was from the mouth breathing, you know?  I know it may sound weird if you've never had a chronic illness or known someone who does that a person cannot be sure if they are sick or not.  But when you live with chronic pain and various issues...it gets hard to tell if you are really "sick-sick" until it is bad enough.  Besides the sinus infection I've also been in a fibro flare since we moved...which means all my muscles ache, chronic fatigue, and IBS.  (Thank goodness I'm still on LubriSyn so the bones/joints aren't screaming at me, too--lol!)

I was so tired on Saturday that even after sleeping about nine hours I fell asleep for a couple more hours in the early afternoon.  Not feeling great, but still didn't think I was any worse.

Sunday, though...woke up to a really bad sore throat, coughing, and couldn't even talk.  Hours of hot coffee and I got my voice back even if it sounds gravely and a bit squeaky.  Finally know--I am still sick-sick.  So I am going to the walk-in clinic tomorrow.  I don't want this to turn into pneumonia or bronchitis or something.  (Maybe has already?)  Whatever.  So that's how things stand right now.  Probably more antibiotics and rest in my future.  Good thing I feel like I have all the patience in the world for putting my new home together. 

Ever since Allie and I moved...it's like the biggest weight off my shoulders.  Like my very soul breathed a sigh of relief.  Hard to explain, but all that stress left me.  Being sick...hey...I've been worse sick off and on for the past several years.  I've been dealing with fibro for over 20 years, for that matter...then cancer...cancer...so...feeling like crap and having to put my plans on hold is absolutely nothing new.  No matter what--when I feel better this place will slowly get organized and all put together.  I am used to having to do things in baby steps.  It's all uphill from here.   

So, what else happened this past week...

On Tuesday Dagan was down here picking up a trash bag to go to the bins outside...Blink was outside the door...so we made the snap decision to let them see each other for the first time.  (I didn't want to do it alone and deal with a cat fight.)  Blink was nervous about coming in.  She's known there was a cat in here and was very interested--hanging outside the door often.  Allie came running up, all perky, to see who we were talking to at the door.  They both froze when they saw each other.  Blink growled and hunkered down, ears back.  Allie was puzzled and took a step back.  Blink was furious!  Dagan stuck the bag inbetween them as Blink was going to run and lunge at Allie...and chased her back and shut the door.  Blink howled and yowled and carried on in sheer cat anger for a while.  Nope!  Not going to be friends.

Kind of figured Blink would be the problem.  She younger, fitter, has claws, and is extremely territorial.  They know that because she has done the growling, yowling, howling thing even when a cat has come into their yard...and run from window to window to watch them and threaten them.  And she's an inside cat!  Once a friend of Leah's came to visit and had her little dog on a leash--and Blink wanted to kill it, too.

Allie will be perfectly fine.  I think she had been an apartment cat the 8 years before I got her because she had no interest in going out in the hallway--ever.  Or outside on the patio.  Allie ran to the far end of the living room from Blink and stared at the door for a good hour after the scary cat was right outside the doorway...but then she was just fine.  The outside world holds no interest for her.  She's an apartment cat.  I think she might have felt differently if Blink had come inside, but she's all fine and mellow and happy...and I don't think Allie has given Blink a second thought.

Blink, on the other hand, is often right outside the door.  I feel badly having to chase her away, but she could do Allie some damage.  Allie isn't a fighter.  She hides and withdraws...like she had at Cat's Cradle and most likely at the Pound before Cat's Cradle rescued her from being put down.  She had quit eating and was less than half her size she is now.  Starving herself.  She stayed curled up in a corner of the room for a week and never seemed to move, they told me.  Then she finally found a cat bed up by the window.  She never seemed to move again. Spent all day curled in a ball in that cat bed with her back to all the cats in the room.  Even when I petted her and I could feel her purring but she wouldn't even turn her head to look at me.  She had given up.  

As soon as she had a new home with me and realized her past human and her cat companion were not at my place...she was a different cat!  I had been worried about her back legs being all stiff and at a bit of an angle...arthritis or something?  Nope--she had been a fat cat before she was abandoned.  Probably not two months after she had her new home with me--she was once again the fat, happy cat she used to be.  Her walking stiff back legs fit a fat cat perfectly.  So funny!

So, Allie will be fine here with me.  They don't have to be friends.  The situation will bother Blink more than Allie.  I don't think Allie has given her another thought, to be honest.  Blink is part of the outside world (often right outside the door listening and smelling under the door).  The funniest thing to me is that Allie is so used to a home that is chaotic and filled with boxes and bins (because that is how it has been for the three years I have had her at the old place) that she has felt perfectly at home here ever since I didn't try to make her go in the scary, noisy room anymore--lol!  As long as it is her and I hanging out...she's happy. 

Wednesday--Dagan met with the cleaning company and got an estimate.  That night he and Leah brought over the pile of my big flat stuff.

Was the last thing to be moved over here.  A lot of oversized art & craft supplies.  Makes me smile just to see them up there--temporarily--to be out of the way.

Thursday--the donation truck came.  Found out they don't take furniture anymore.  But they took everything else.

Dagan and Leah have had to deal with all the last things over there.

Allie and I have just been chillin'.

Moved a cat bed and it has become her latest favorite place to sleep.

Thursday night Leah searched for my folding tables and set up two of them for me.  

I need some surface space to fold clothes and unpack boxes when I am able to do that.

Friday the cleaners came.  Dagan said they did a good job.

Saturday--down to the last pieces of furniture to sell.  The low, wide cherry cabinet went.  Then there's a lady from Grand Forks (80 miles north of Fargo) coming today (Sunday) to pick up the three pieces of red furniture (cabinet and two end tables).  The last thing is my big oak table--if it doesn't sell Leah's sister will take it.  So hopefully all those pieces of furniture will leave without a hitch.  Dagan and Leah plan to turn the keys in by Monday.

Also, on Saturday--Leah saw these paper shelves on Facebook Marketplace for $10.00 each!!  She thought of me immediately.  OMGosh!!  Yes!  They were from an office and he had eight of them.  

Leah went and picked up three of them for me!

I plan on one in the living room hutch.

But we'll have to take the doors off to slide them in there and put the doors back on.  They should just fit!

And two of them for the two hutches in the studio--which don't have the glass doors and should just slide right in.

I do have a lot of paper supplies, as you know.  The living room will hold things for writing letters and journaling.  The studio would hold things for making cards and art journaling.  I have already found some cheap plastic trays on Amazon that should fit on those shelves.  Won't know how tight the fit would be until I get them--so I hope they will fit.  The trays could be used to hold a variety of things--including ongoing projects.  I already have some larger trays Leah and I have been using for various card projects and we just stack them on top of each other.  Not the best system, but it worked okay.

Some of you may recall that I had a tall skinny cherry cabinet I used for years with a bunch of small drawers that Leah and I used all the time.  They were full of rubber stamps.  We loved them because you could just pull out the whole drawer and bring it over to the craft table to work on cards.  I was so glad Leah took it for the boys' school room!  They still use it all the time.  Different drawers hold glues, pencils, googly eyes, etc.  :)  So that's the idea behind the trays for these shelves.  Please, please fit!

So much for me having surface space, eh?  LOL!

The boys still love messing with the magnets when they are down here--lol!  I am glad I bought another set of them.  (Thanks for the card, Ann!)

So, that's about it for this last week.  I will go to the clinic tomorrow.  The keys will be turned in soon.  Goodbye, Goldmark!  I will miss my apartment at North Sky, of course, but I know I am happy here already since the day Allie and I moved--even if it's a total mess!  LOL!  So in my frog voice I will say...till next week, my friends!  You all are a bright spot in my life every week!  :) :) 

P.S.

Apologies to the people I usually send birthday cards to starting in October.  They are packed away somewhere in the boxes.  Never thought I would be sick for this long--lol!  When I unearth them you all will most certainly get belated birthday cards.  :) 

September 21, 2025 Sunday

Greetings!

Went to the walk-in clinic on Monday and--yes--have a right fine, full blown sinus infection.  Was put on antibiotics, an OTC allergy medication, and an OTC nasal spray.  Leah had dropped me off on her way to bring Ian to Haley's Hope (dyslexia session--which is helping him be able to read better, BTW).  I was in and out pretty fast so I waited out in the waiting room until Ian was done and they came to pick me up.

Darkish art for a waiting room?

Nice seat to see the front door and her car.

Was very empty for a change.  The doctor was a really nice young lady.  She said it could take 5-7 days for me to feel better...if not--come back.

Back home.  Back in my lounger.  Allie and I are still resting and very slowly I am improving.

Wasn't able to have even one nostril open most of the day until Saturday.  But there have been other small improvements over the weekend.  Able to sleep longer and the pressure headache isn't as terrible as it was--lol!  Just watching to see I don't plateau or backslide because I will go right back to the walk-in clinic.  Not sure five days of antibiotics was long enough, but we'll see.

Meanwhile...they've been over to the apartment several times.  Dagan was out of town for work Monday through Wednesday.  Things have been selling...the huge metal shelves from the garage, my massage table, the bookcases are now all gone, the rug in the Livingroom, my mom's serger sewing machine, all my oil paints...and some other things.  Still some things left to try to sell.  If they are not gone by the time the donation truck comes on Thursday 25th...shall donate what's left.  

Show two boys a wide open space, eh?  LOL!

Apartment just a little emptier currently than these pictures.

Bookcases gone.  Lights around the window taken down.  Gerald came to replace the broken blind in the studio one afternoon...

...and left me a nice note.  

He had called to see if it was okay to come replace the blind.  I told him it was fine for him to come any time to work on anything and I got to thank him a second time for how nice he's been all these years.  Best maintenance man I've ever known.

That pile of big flat stuff still has to come over to the house.

Such energy!

Donations all on the right front there.  Hope we can sell my bike.  Maybe have to take that with us and sell it in the spring.

Won't be long and the keys will be turned in.  Dagan's trying to set up cleaners to come.  Only nine days left!

A project Leah had the boys helping with.  She's done this for years--back when she worked in an office before Ian was born.  She collects the printer rejects, cuts them down, clamps them together, and paints coats of the red rubber cement type stuff on the one end to make scratch pads.  The people can use them at work and she keeps some for at home.  

Quite a stack there!  The boys like to paint on the rubbery liquid.  Takes several coats.  I told you Leah is a born recycler!

Here are the boys playing games on their phones in the waiting room at the chiropractor's for Leah's appointment.

I love that they get along so well that they'd rather cram together in one chair than use another one right next to them!  lol!

Restless geese wandering through the neighborhood--lol!  That time of year--wanting to fatten up before the big trip south.  Probably have to enlarge to see them.

Boys playing Mario Brothers pin ball.  Which reminds me...Liam's cake critter was from Pikachu, I was told.  I am quite out of the loop--lol!

The boys went to two different birthday parties in the last week, too.  Busy times!

So what did I get Liam for his birthday?  Well, it was something Mama suggested that I have never heard of or seen before.  A do-it-yourself Crystal Tree Forest...where you grow your own crystal trees???  Here Liam is working away coloring...

...and somehow this tree was grown in about eight hours!

They are very fragile.  Small bumps and pieces fall off, as you can see.  Gramma is absolutely fascinated.

I was still sick downstairs...but Liam is going to save one for me to make myself so I can watch it grow!  I am excited to see that.  They are quite beautiful really...even if temporary.  I really need to get well!  Sick and tired or being sick and tired--lol!  

Well, this time if I am not better by say Wednesday or Thursday I am heading back into the clinic.  I do have unpacking to do for goodness sake.

Oh!!  Meanwhile--got a call from the OBGYN's nurse...on Thursday, mind you.  (Appt was Friday.)  Told me the doctor didn't have enough information and wanted me to have an ultrasound before she sees me because it will show a lot more.  Duh!  Can you come in this afternoon.  It was 12:30pm.  No.  Arrangements have to be made ahead of time--don't drive, etc.  The nurse sounded like she had never expected I could just come in an hour or so, anyways--and she sounded quite relieved I wasn't mad about rescheduling because I was sick (sounded sick) and had just recently moved--so that was fine with me.

So now I go in Friday, October 17th for an ultrasound and then see her on Tuesday, October 21st.  Another month.  But at the rate I'm going I will need the extra month to feel decent again.  

Plus, was changing addresses and went to change online for SS, etc...and discovered my license expired on my birthday in March!  (Don't know why I had it in my head that it was due in 2026!?!)  Without a state driver's license or ID, the government won't let me change my address...and I have been too sick to go to the DMV.  I did see online I can still renew for up to a year without taking the tests and all that again. Whew!  So that's another thing I need to do.  At least these days you can sign up for an appointment online and not have to wait as long.  Another thing where I need to be well enough to leave the apartment--lol!  (Already have IBS and antibiotics are doing their job on my guts, as usual--but need them to get well...and so it goes--lol!)

Well, at least I have a diagnosis and a plan.  Feel better now this week or go back to the clinic.  Nice and simple. 

Another thing--the office at the senior apartment called me maybe a week or so ago about getting recertified to live there!  How stupid.  I already gave my notice.  They know I am not going to be living there any more.  The girl told me she'd have to check with somebody and call me back.  Never did.

Well, they left a big stack of paper work for me outside my apartment!  Leah brought it to me.  They were supposed to have done this in July when my lease was up...never did.  I assume they are trying to cover their butts or something?  So weird to be filling out all this paperwork TO live there when I already gave notice and am already gone.  But I did it.  And made a note right on the first page stating the fact I had already given my two month notice for the end of September.  The paperwork is dated each time you sign your name on each page.  ???  So glad to be rid of them.  But I don't trust them, either.  I keep wondering if they are going to try to sue me for something or other.  Wait till they find out I got in on a special deal when the first building opened up--only a $99.00 deposit.  That's all they can keep--lol!  Anyways--I really loved my apartment, but not the management after they switched to Goldmark back a few years before the plague hit.  

Funny, but I am not the least bit stressed about getting unpacked and organized...living in boxes and bins again.  Because I am now on the other side.  Moved!!  And it will happen as soon as I am able.  Things will settle down once all my things are sold or donated, the place is cleaned, and the apartment keys are turned in.  It's still hanging over all of us, you know?  Done and dusted!  I am waiting for it to be done and dusted!  I will be feeling more human eventually...with or without another trip to the clinic for antibiotics.  Will know this week on that score.  And everything is just patiently waiting till I can start.  Nothing is going anywhere.  But I am here!  Allie and I are finally here!  And that is a good thing.  Makes me happy.  

My patience has returned.  I'm not exactly surprised I got really sick.  My immune system is pretty shot and the long, long move was more stressful than I even realized.  So not a shock that I collapsed, I guess.  Body just gave out.  What a relief to be finally moved.  I already love it here and it is total chaos and will be for some time--lol!  Will look a whole lot worse before it gets better...but I don't care.  In my mind I can picture it all put together...and one day soon I can start digging into boxes.  It's all uphill from here, right?  Just been slower out of the gate than I ever thought...but that's life.  This too shall pass.

Oh...(sorry I keep thinking of things to tell you--lol!)...the cheaper coffee I had been buying on Amazon the last couple years...almost all of it is out of stock.  Coffee is supposed to be going up here pretty darn soon.  I was expecting it to be more expensive, but I wasn't expecting not to be able to even get any.  AWK!!  So Leah (bless her heart!) got me stocked up from Coscto!!   You know how I like variety.  :) 

Costco must have had more coffee stockpiled than Amazon--which was a surprise.  They were still about the usual price, too!  I had already planned to start switching over to tea in the evening.  See the teas on the shelf above.  (Just stuck all this in the hutch for now--might end up being a good place for them all, though?)  Once I get used to tea every night...then maybe even work my way up to only tea after my one big Yeti tumbler of coffee is gone in the morning...so that all that coffee will last longer.  That's the plan anyways.  So far, I have been having tea about every other evening--lol!  Slow and steady wins the race.  

It's not that I don't like some teas, but I just am not used to drinking them on a regular basis and I have always loved coffee much more--lol!  Hey--I grew up with parents and an aunt and uncle who lived nearby where the last thing they did at night was unplug the coffee pot.  Remember the percolator pots?  But I will work at this becoming a regular tea drinker.  Wish me luck!

Okay done with new things to tell you--lol!

We'll see how this coming week goes.  I am beyond trying to predict--but am thinking positive and am hopeful that I'll feel better.  Regardless, Allie and I are doing fine.  I like being able to see McFamily here and there on a regular basis.  Leah sent me down some cooked hamburger patties and some meatloaf tonight!  I'm running out of the food I had precooked before I moved.  I am always invited to come upstairs to eat with them, but I haven't yet progressed be being dressed or not running to the bathroom unexpectedly--lol!  Not quite human enough yet.  But I will be eventually.  Of course, then I will be doing my own cooking most of the time, anyways.  It is really nice to have somebody cook for you when you're sick, though.  And they don't have to drive over to deliver it to me like they used to have to do.  Leah cooked over at my apartment for me quite often when I was on the Keytruda cancer treatments (she found out I was living on toast and cheese sticks).  This is so nice and so much easier!

So--that's about it from here.  Until next time, my friends...have a really great week!!  :) :)

September 14, 2025 Sunday

Greetings!

My week was about the same.  But then the head plugging got even worse this weekend.  Leah is taking me to the walk-in clinic Monday.  I think it is a sinus infection that I won't get rid of until I get antibiotics.  We'll see what the doctor says, but that is my guess.  So I don't even have one picture I took this week.  I was actually surprised--lol!  Luckily I have the pictures from Leah that didn't get here in time last week. :)

Of the playground they put up for the boys.

Fun things around Liam's birthday.  The Scheel's Ferris wheel.

Birthday dinner.

The first Saturday of the month at Home Depot kids' crafts.

Airplanes this time!

Liam's birthday cake being made...here's the surprise rainbow filling.

And yes--they did save me a slice of cake.  :)

Another critter from another game, I would imagine--lol!

I was downstairs sick, but I could softly hear them singing Happy Birthday.  Those two red-heads are cousins. 

Some not nice weather.

Your guess is as good as mine, but they do go to Meadowlark Elementary.  

Well, that is it from here.  Very short one this week.  I said I'd go in if I got worse.  The last couple days even the strongest allergy/cold medicine I had couldn't open my nose up to breathe.  So, time to head into the clinic.  And then I have the OBGYN on Friday to decern whether I have ovarian cancer or not.  Probably more tests in my future.  Oh! Oh!  And I did get into the lab for that blood test on Thursday finally and got the results back online.  I was in normal range.  But that test isn't that reliable, they said.  So even if you get a normal reading doesn't mean you are home free from cancer.  But I take it as a good sign.

Anyways, I'll see if a doctor can tell me anything positive to do about my sinuses.  I need some good sleep.  Harder to accomplish as a mouth-breather--lol!  Other than that annoying inconvenience that kept me only managing to do the necessities for yet another week...it's been a pretty decent week on the whole.  A quiet week--mostly just me and Allie...with brief deliveries from McFamily of groceries and of mail and/or packages delivered.

Next time I hope I am feeling better, am more alert, and have some good news to report from doctor visits.  Meanwhile...Allie and I are just hanging out, dozing off occasionally (Allie way more than I), and enjoying each other's company--lol!  Have a really good week.  :)