in which our plucky heroine has a week of upson-downs...
Have been spending most of my energy this week doing various sorts of preparation* for the periodontal surgery Monday morning. Shopping for groceries suitable for eating without being able to chew. Making soup and broth and freezing it. Getting various chores caught up so I can rest and recover, at least as much as that is possible?? Doing my best not to panic/worry about the whole situation. My hope is that it will be bearable. Not knowing what to expect is the worst. At least when they do the second tooth, I will have a bit better handle on it, no matter how bad it is...
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Tuesday - The citrus shipments this year has been
somewhat noticeably less varied than in years past. I finally found some organic blood oranges earlier this week at Fred Meyers!? of all places, so was able to put up a few jars of marmalade last night. Then I found some organic Cara Cara oranges, so will make a bit more later this week, and call it good enough, since it is likely that there won't be a lot more coming in, with springtime so early and all this year.
Tuesday evening - Once again I have no phone AND this time no Internet either... plucky heroine is grumpy. After a quite challenging afterdark exploration, I discovered that there is no dial tone at the box where the phone lines meet the house, so hopefully this is Century Link's problem to fix...
Wednesday morning - as of this morning, I do have internet, though the electrons are moving in molasses slow dribs and drabs, not at their usual speed, but still have no phone service at all. (plucky heroine waiting on the technician or someone like them)
Later Wednesday morning - Yay! Plucky heroine has phone service again!! Cheerful technician checked phone entry box and then had to go further upline and sort out problems in the transmission wires, somewhere up in the sky there was an old corroded and broken wire, which has now been repaired. All the crackles and static formerly on the landline phone are also gone! (happy dance)
Wednesday night - 3 Mountains Baronial Social, and I brought more origami paper and continued teaching folks how to fold cranes. Have now used up the entire first package of 100 squares of origami paper. I think there is now enough to string at least two, maybe three 4ft strands. I also had a chance to talk to Topaz about possible classes I can teach at future social night gatherings...
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I got a mysterious fangirl letter last week, from someone who did not identify themself, someone who reads my blog... They had lovely complimentary things to say about me and standing in my kitchen reading their words and feeling all warm in the middle, and then read that they had recently had a sort of financial windfall, and wanted to share a bit of it with me... inside the envelope with the letter was another envelope with two 100 bills!?!
My jaw literally dropped when I opened that, and I stood in my kitchen making sort of weird noises standing there with my mouth hanging open.
They wrote that they were too shy to let me know who they were, but wanted me to have a treat to use as I saw fit, signed the letter with a pseudonym, and all I can guess is that they are someone in the Bay Area (because the postmark was San Francisco) so I figure that the benign universe wants me to do well and get through this dental thing, and that both people I know, and people I don't even know, wish me well...
and... it goes on a bit more, even, because I took some of that money and got myself
a pair of warm bedroom slippers, which I have wanted for ages. I found a local store that carried
the ones I wanted, because trying on footwear before buying it is
important crucial (plucky heroine has odd feet), and because I really try to support local vendors as a matter of policy. So I went to the store**, and did the try on various sizes etc thing, which took a while, and when time came to pay, there was someone ahead of me at the one register... the clerk was very apologetic, and I said my usual thing, about how "unless someone was bleeding or having a baby there was no need to be in a rush and I wasn't fussed" and there was some other pleasant and amusing chat while we were all waiting for the other transaction to go through...
after I was done, and getting ready to head out, a different clerk, a young man, came over and said how he just had to tell me that he just loved my positive attitude and point of view!! I tell you, that made my yesterday so good that I was practically dancing when I left their shop because, you see, I wasn't always that sort of person... I work really hard to try and focus on the positive, and I don't always succeed, though I do a lot better now than when I was a younger woman...
Friday - 9PM and finally starting to be able to see again after getting eyes dilated this morning for eye exam... dang that stuff takes a long time to wear off!! I have an inherited condition that requires regular monitoring every six months. At least this time they were able to find and use the "weaker" drops; the regular drops usually take 24 hrs to wear off. This time I got a good eye doctor who thoroughly explained the various test results, showing what had and had not changed over the last few years, was very reassuring to know that the eyes are still within the norm!
Saturday - had a lovely visit with my friend Chris, who drove me out to Home Depot to buy a roll of reed matting to attempt to block out the view of the horrible pastel playhouse trash behind the cross alley house. She stayed to help attach the matting to the chain link fence, and I cooked up a batch of pot stickers so we could have a late lunch. The matting is sadly not opaque, even in four layers, but does blur the view somewhat.
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March SMART goals (x=extra)
| # | THINGS MADE | THINGS FIXED | THINGS GONE |
| 1 | candied pomelo peel | back corner fence | - |
| 2 | blood orange marmalade | - | - |
| 3 | cara cara marmalade | - | - |
| 4 | x
| - | - |
| 5 | x | x | x |
| 6 | x | x
| x |
| 7 | x | x
| x |
| 8 | x | x | x |
| 9 | x
| x | x |
| 10 | x | x | x |
| 11 | x | x | x |
| 12 | x | x | x |
| 13 | x | x | x |
| 14 | x | x | x |
| 15 | x | x | x |
today's gratitude - the kindness of friends, both known and unknown, plus the delightful soft felted wool of my new slippers, which insulate my feet from the Very Cold Floor in the morning
*... I got some powdered whey protein on the suggestion of the dietician at my PCP office, which I tried out added to yoghurt, with fruit and a little flaxseed meal. Is a bit "chalky" but edible, significantly more nutritious, thankfully not nasty-textured (it is vanilla flavor, but fairly mild tasting; I was unable to find unflavored whey protein which would have been my preference, so it is limited to being used in yoghurt/fruit, as I think vanilla is not so good combined with savory broth (bleah)
Just made up split pea soup with veggies, cooked until everything was completely soft. The guideline is nothing more solid than scrambled eggs. Added a sprinkle of smoked paprika to give a good flavor to the meat-free soup, since meat requires chewing, and packed into two freezer containers. Going to eat up the lovely crunchy/chewy things beforehand..
** "Imelda's" isn't that a great name for a shoe shop?
