19th of Adar

Had a fun weekend. Went to a new place called McCloud’s for dinner on Friday. Their menu is huge! There were so many good sounding desserts on their specials menu. We shared fried pickle fries. They come with ranch. They were kind of in a nifty shape. I thought they were pretty good. I got their bbq combo. I chose the brisket, mashed potatoes, and potato salad. It comes with cornbread. The brisket was very fatty, but the rest of it was decent. The sauce was interesting. The mashed potatoes didn’t look very normal. It needed more salt. The potato salad was just ok. Cornbread was just ok. I ate close to half of everything, and had the rest (including pickle fries) for lunch on Sunday. The mashed potatoes were much better after I added a lot more salt at home. Maybe the rest of their entrees/sides will be better. I had their toffee caramel bundt cake. It was amazing! I ended up eating it all.

We went to Burger King on Saturday for lunch. Been a while since I had been there. I got a whopper with cheese without onions with onion rings and a vanilla cream soda. It was great!

After that, we got pedicures. I decided to get those instead of going to the podiatrist just to get my toenails clipped. I got the same ‘package’ as my parent. The signature one. They do a few different massages in addition to the actual pedicure part. They also add in putting on nail polish. I didn’t want the nail polish. I wasn’t sure if it would make my toenails worse. They almost didn’t understand that I didn’t want it. They don’t know very much English. I think I might have it next time. Something sparkly. I guess it’s ok to try and see what it does. They didn’t trim my nails much. That was my main thing. Next time I’ll ask them to trim them shorter. Hopefully they’ll be able to trim both my big toes’ nails. They’re the weird looking ones. They were still pretty short this time, so it was understandable that they didn’t do much with them. The skin on my legs and feet still feels really soft from all that stuff they did. I think I’ll get their basic thing next time. That still has a couple of massages. (And they still apply lotion and such.) Nail polish is included in it, too. I had worn my slippers so I can easily slip in and out of them. They tried helping me put them on afterwards. They were really nice.

We went home so I could get my socks and shoes on. My feet/legs felt naked and cold on the way home. We went to Starbucks for a snack after that. I got an iced lavender cream oatmilk matcha latte and coffee cake. The latte was new, and it had kind of a fun taste. The coffee cake was good, but very crumbly.

Went to my haircut appointment at 4:30pm. My stylist and the receptionist were the only other people in the store. It was a little weird. I got another buzzcut. It feels like she cut it even shorter than usual. I think the 6-week thing worked out more. It wasn’t getting too crazy before the haircut like it had been. The only issue is I had to make an appointment for more than 6 weeks out. It’s going to get funky again. I guess I can wear a hat if it gets bad. I brought up Rosie passing away. She suggested we get another pet. To fill the void, and that many pets need good homes. It’s hard. I don’t think I want to get attached like that to another pet and then deal with their death again. It hurts. She talked about her new chihuahua puppy. I was thinking a while ago about getting a chihuahua. (Long before Rosie passed away.) A nice small dog. Again, I don’t think I want to deal with that again. Unless maybe if I won the lottery and had my own house. (I might get both a dog and cat.) That’s a big maybe, though. Anyways, it looked like a lot of hair was on the floor when she was done. I didn’t think my hair was that long.

My parent made our usual St Patrick’s Day dinner on Sunday. It’s easier to cook like that during the weekend. There were corned beef, potatoes, carrots, and cabbage. They were all boiled together with a little spices. I had the corned beef with a little maple mustard. It was great without it, but it elevated it a little more. It was all great. Shared soda bread for my last snack. Another fave.

This month’s Universal Yums is on Colombia. (Got it on Monday.) I don’t think Treats covered Colombia. It’s pretty new to me that way. Should be interesting to see what emails I’ll get on it from them. So far, there was a recipe for Sancocho Colombiano. Apparently, a huge stew with beef and vegetables. They usually add a sauce on top of it. They might have rice or avocado as sides. Went through the booklet. I can have the 2 recipes in it. I think 1 of them looked really good. Cheese in hot chocolate is apparently a thing. The music playlist wasn’t great. I thought they’d have traditional music. Instead it was pop, rap, and hip-hop. Looks like fun and different snacks this time. There’s one I can’t have. It’s bacon and lime potato chips. My parent said she might have that one.

I’ve tried the cheese rings with cassava powder. They were pretty good, just had a strange aftertaste. Had some of the Chew n Crunch Stix. They weren’t great. Very interesting that it had specks of candy inside. I noticed there was gelatin in it. I don’t know if that’s from pork, beef, fish, or plants. (I can’t have pork products.) The uncertainty scared me and they weren’t good, so I threw the rest out. Had one of the passion fruit flavored lollipops with bubblegum in the center. The candy part was really good. Very flavorful. You could smell it, too. I’m not sure if I’ve had passion fruit before. It looked like it had seeds, but I think they made the candy have bumps and colored them in to make them look like seeds. The gum wasn’t very good. Didn’t last long. It was an experience, though. Today, I had a little bit of the coconut caramel stick candy. It was awful. It also had gelatin. It wasn’t worth having the whole stick. I threw the rest of it out, too. I also had the coffee cake that actually has coffee in it. It was really good. Seemed like it was steamed. It was nice and moist. Had a little strange aftertaste. Not sure what that was. I gave it 3.5 hearts. I gave the coconut caramel sticks 0 hearts. So, today had both the lowest and highest ratings so far. There are lime potato chips from the same brand that did the bacon and lime potato chips. It sounds interesting. I’ve had lime tortilla chips, but not potato chips. There’s also mayo potato chips. To me, that could be good or bad. All depends on how it’s done. There are garlic plantain chips. I’ve tried plantains a couple of times and didn’t like it. Maybe I’ll like it in a different form? There’s a gummy thing. I’ll try a little bit, but it also has gelatin. If it’s good, I might eat more of it. There are lemon cream sandwich cookies, a peanut chocolate bar, and a wafer chocolate bar. Those seem ‘normal’.

Yesterday I had a meatloaf meal from Safeway for dinner. It also had green beans and mashed potatoes. Their meatloaf only has beef, which is great. They use a ketchup-based sauce, which reminds me of what my mom did with her meatloaves. It didn’t have the garlic and herb butter for the green beans/potatoes this time. I like that usually. It still was good. I had a slice of their Biscoff cookie butter cake for my last snack. It’s one of the best cakes they have. Super popular. They didn’t have it for a while. It was the last one. I’m so happy I got to have it. It was amazing! I had Amy’s broccoli cheddar bake for dinner tonight. It’s a frozen meal. One of my faves. I had an oatmeal raisin cookie for dessert. It was pretty tasty. For my last snack, I’ll have cheddar pretzels and either the last of the s’mores chocolate or the beef and cheese sticks. I love the beef and cheese sticks. Another thing I haven’t seen in a while. It might be best to have that then.

I’ve decided to get most of my Passover food from Amazon. They have a good selection. The QFC in Seattle disappointed me last year. They really didn’t have much. They used to be impressive with a huge selection. They actually have a section for it on Amazon. I looked at it last year and it had pretty much everything I needed. Even the jarred charoset and actual choices of cereal. I’ll check it out again soon. The holiday starts the night of April 12th. I have a little while.

I finished my little project of listening through the decades on Spotify. I didn’t find much in the 2010s and 2020s. I added a little over 330 songs to my liked playlist with that. Now I’m listening to my liked playlist on shuffle with their ‘new’ recommendations mixed in. I’ve added quite a bit more that way. I’m still not used to listening to music throughout the day again. It’s another experience. I used to do it all the time, but I stopped it at some point. Probably after my fall 5 years ago and cancer stuff.

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14th of Shevat

It’s been a while. This whole past week was weird. I was supposed to get my hospital bed last Monday (on 2/3), and they were also supposed to ‘pick up’ my old hospital bed that day. The weather was really awful. We had gotten some snow and ice. It was so bad, my parent said the schools she works for were closed. The Apria driver did call me about postponing it, considering it was so bad out. He said he’d call me on Tuesday at around 9am or 9:30am. I never heard from him after that. The weather was bad for most of the week. Schools were closed most of week, except for Friday. That was a 2 hour delay. I have a feeling they didn’t call because of the weather. It was forecast to be really cold out this week. Not much snow in the forecast. It was ridiculous to be waiting so long. Especially with no word from them.

On Monday, they called me at around 12:30pm. I was going to call them after I had lunch. So, perfect timing. They had apparently called my parent just before me. I have her as my emergency contact. They have my info, but for some reason they’ve contacted my parent instead. It’s weird. It was like that with the previous bed. Anyways, they finally did it. They attached some of the old bed parts to the new one, which was interesting. The new one’s fully electric. Different than last time. Just a press of a button to have the whole thing go up and down. There was a crank with the old one. The family room looks really empty downstairs now. My bedroom looks more ‘busy’. I managed to get the hospital table where I wanted it. Parent helped a lot with bringing it upstairs. I almost had to throw it in my room. I can still get to the closet with it. Should be interesting to see what it’s like for bed baths. The bed itself is pretty comfy. 

I still need to dust more in my room. I wasn’t really using it as my room for close to 5 years. A little weird to get back to. I’ll vacuum it more and go through my clothes and other things. Hopefully I'll have the energy to do stuff like that. 

I ordered calendars last night. The previous calendars were stuck on December 2020. I got the Jewish calendar this afternoon. That’s pretty fast. It’s from the same museum that did my previous Jewish calendars. They showcase a different artifact (sometimes 2) a month. I don’t like the new packaging. They went without plastic with a slight overhang. I had to cut that off. They still have the Torah portions or parsha, phases of the moon, Shabbos lighting times, National and Jewish holidays (I think they even have things like Ramadan as well), and more. It’s usually a nice calendar. Last night, I also searched for a secular calendar. I was planning to get a chemical element one, like I had last time. That was a really cool one. Apparently they stopped making them in 2023. I looked for an herbs/spices one, which I had before. Nothing. Then I did a generalized search. They had a Pusheen calendar. I had one in the past and liked it. The problem was it wouldn’t get here until March, and I want it sooner. I was surprised with the sample that they even had Shavuot on there. That’s kind of rare for secular calendars. I found one that was called Passport to the World. It has pics of places from around the world. I think I had a calendar in the past with the same company. They’re French. They have French, Spanish, and English for everything. It might have pretty pics. I think that’s supposed to be delivered on Friday.

I also might look into getting a clock for my room. I already have an idea of where I’ll put it. I’d like it to not tick. I’m a little nervous about how to put it up on the wall. Maybe my parent can help me. I just want a simple one. I’m going to have to get rid of my stereo at some point. It doesn’t really work anymore.

My little TV is old (I think I got it just before I went to college in 2003), and it only plays my old Sega Genesis games. All the other channels don’t work. I want a new nice and small TV. I’ll take down my ace flag, and put it up there. Maybe have a sound bar underneath it. Maybe eventually get a game console with games. I think my parent got a Playstation for us, but it would be interesting to have something like that in my room as well. She can play with me, too. I have some ideas for the future in my room. It seems fun that way.

The Saturday before that Monday (the day I was supposed to get the bed) the Got Junk people came by. They were supposed to be here at 11am, but they came at like 10:30am. They took my bed, the headboard, and the stuff that was under the bed. I was nervous to know what was under there. I thought there would be like a ton of spiders, mice, or Rosie’s poop. None of that craziness. I found my certificate from when I ‘graduated’ from swimming lessons as a kid. Found a few of Rosie’s toys. She must have brought them there. I saved her fave big yellow ball and ladybug plush toy. It’s kind of an angry looking ladybug. I saw my old posters. There was a wooden slab. My desk used to be made of 2 short blue bookcases and a wooden slab/plank over it. I have a real one now. I think what I have now was my mom’s. I certainly didn’t need that huge piece of wood anymore. I’m glad they took most of it away. My parent, on Friday (I think), vacuumed the area that was underneath. There were a lot of dust bunnies and small pieces of debris. Now it’s even better. I didn’t have the energy by then to vacuum it myself. We had it ready for a while this way.

Last Saturday I also had a haircut appointment. I was worried the Got Junk people would take so long that I’d have to cancel it. Luckily, they were quick. They were done before around 11am. I got another buzzcut. A little cold for right now, but it’s so easy to take care of. I had a lot of grey or white hairs. Kind of surprised me. Yet again, she didn’t charge me. She does it because she feels that’s what she can do to help me. When she found out I had cancer, that’s how she felt about it. I feel guilty about it sometimes.

Afterwards, we went to Isla Bonita for lunch. I got their burrito blanco. One of my faves at other Mexican places, so I wanted to see what theirs was like. It was very good. Leftovers made for another great lunch.

After that we went to Starbucks. (I think we went home in between.) Apparently my parent had lost her wallet. The Apple Pay wasn’t working, so I paid for everything. A little difficult for me, considering I don’t get much through ssi.

After that we went to Walmart. I needed a surge protector and my parent needed Tums. I bought both of them, since Apple Pay didn’t work there. I needed the surge protector for my new all electric hospital bed, iPhone charger, and watch charger. The other outlet is for my lamp on my nightstand. So, it was another thing to prepare for the new bed. I’m surprised the iPhone charger works as well. It’s pretty old, but I haven’t used it in a long time. Hopefully it’ll work for a while. I think we might have gone to Petco, too. Rosie needed more cat litter. Apple Pay did eventually work there.

I tried to take a cramp med that my parent gave me during the week. Did it for 3 nights, and didn’t have any cramps those nights. It might interact with my other meds, so I decided to have it when I have cramps at night. That hasn’t happened yet. I’m unsure if it’s safe for me to take on a regular basis.

We decided to go out on Thursday. Kind of felt stir crazy. We went to Starbucks again, which I think I paid for it again. (We tried the Apple Pay again, and it didn’t work.) I tried one of their new sandwiches: pesto egg and mozzarella. It was really hot at first. It was good. The gingerbread latte wasn’t as great as I expected.

We went to Safeway for dinner stuff, and Central Market that night for dessert stuff. I think I got broccoli chicken Alfredo. I got a fruit tart for dessert from their new bakery area. My parent was able to use Apple Pay at both places. Thank goodness. I went through the self checkout and I had to tilt the fruit tart at a weird angle. It made some of the fruit pieces slide off.

We went to the Olive Garden for dinner Friday night. They actually had Apple Pay, and my parent had no problems with it. I got chicken and gnocchi soup, fettuccine Alfredo with broccoli, and tiramisu for dessert. There wasn’t enough gnocchi in the soup. I think I had like 3 in the whole thing. There was way too much broccoli in the fettuccine Alfredo. Like more than a head’s worth. The tiramisu was frozen in parts. Once I thought the cream/custard was like ice cream, it was better. Had half of the fettuccine Alfredo with broccoli and had the leftovers for lunch on Saturday. It seemed like quite a lot still.

Did weekly grocery shopping at Central Market on Saturday. Parent found some decent bananas. I got 2 dinners and 2 desserts. One being a broccoli and cheddar quiche, and the other dinner their mac and cheese. I had half of the mac and cheese Saturday night. Got a hazelnut chocolate cupcake from their new bakery area, and a cherry pie slice. The cupcake that night was a bit weird. The frosting/nuts/chocolate syrup was good, but the cake part had like an herb. I couldn’t place it. I got tired of having the oatmeal cookies, and got snickerdoodles this time. We also got hot dark chocolate. We still have small marshmallows, so why not?

Went to Safeway on Sunday. There’s a new flavor of the cereal I get. I normally get the maple pecan Honey Bunches of Oats. It’s one of the few cereals that doesn’t turn into tasting like sand. The new flavor is chocolate Honey Bunches of Oats. I thought about it. It would only be 3 more grams of sugar. I decided to get my usual, but I might try the new one soon. For a dinner, I got grilled chicken with green beans and mashed potatoes. It also has some garlic and herb butter. I added BBQ sauce to the chicken and the butter mostly on the green beans. I got tiramisu cake for dessert. There was a big one that was like 500 calories, and the one I got was 210 calories. I don’t need a lot. The chicken with BBQ sauce (it was one I haven’t had before) was really good, same with the rest of it. The cake is probably tasty, too.

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4th of Cheshvan

Had a bed bath today. It went faster than usual. One reason being I got a haircut on Saturday. So, less vigorously washing my hair. She used the dry soap stuff on it. She said I didn’t need the regular shampoo this time. You don’t have to rinse that stuff off. She said it’s good this time considering my stylist washed my hair already. Another reason was I’ve been taking my towels down and back up. Since she’s not doing that anymore, it cuts out some time. It ended up being around 12 minutes.

 

I got up the nerve to call Molina. I was on hold for a little while. Their ‘menu’ before that was awful. It took close to 30 minutes in total. There was a lot of waiting for them to figure out stuff. I can stay on KP (Kaiser Permanente) through Molina, and they switched me to staying on it. Yay! I wasn’t sure if they would let me. I’ll get another card with my primary doctor’s name as my pcp, their address, phone number, etc. I might have to visit her for my meds, etc. to transfer. I forgot to ask about that. There’s still no premiums, copays, etc. Hopefully I did all this correctly. I asked as many questions as I could think of. At least I won’t have to have a totally different medical team/facilities. 

I didn’t think I slept very well last night. However, I got 1 hr 8 min of deep sleep in. I usually get like 20 min at most. 

It was really raining and windy this morning. It’s stopped raining and the wind has died down since. I was nervous that the power would go out earlier. 

I’ll have to go for my walk earlier than before tomorrow, since it gets dark earlier now. I was going out at around 5:15pm. Now it might be around 4pm or so. Today I walked for 10 minutes inside instead. Hopefully I’ll go out tomorrow. 

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2nd of Cheshvan

It’s been an even longer time than last time. I want to get back into it though. A lot of things have happened. I’ll try to keep it shorter than last time.

Over the summer, I was approved for ssi. I get a very small income through it now. They also are going to discharge all my student loans. Meaning all of them will be forgiven or gone. I think this will happen in December. 

Being approved for ssi also got me approved for Medicaid. I chose Molina, since I was told that they worked with Kaiser Permanente (KP), my current insurance. The Molina insurance started on the 1st. Apparently they’re not letting new members use KP. There are exemptions, however. Like, if they have been with KP for more than a year. I’ve been with it for many years. I plan to call on Monday about it. Hopefully I can use KP through them this way.

I’m losing weight again. This time through more exercise, eating a bit better, and tapering hydrocortisone. I’m down to 7.5 mg of the hydrocortisone in the morning and 2.5 mg in the afternoon. So far no crazy symptoms of withdrawal yet. Hopefully I can get off of it soon. I’ll switch to 5 mg and 2.5 mg of it soon. Also, just got a letter saying my endocrinologist will be going out of network. So, I'll probably have to find a new one and tell that one about my progress. Hopefully before I get to the point of getting off of it. I don't know what will happen if I don't have it anymore, and I'll get an attack of some sort. They say if I get an attack right now, I need to take something like double what I take now. It's weird. I'm not even sure what an 'attack' would be like with this. 

I’ve gotten back into walking. I made a ‘plan’ to ease into it. I hope to get back up to my 2-mile walks 3 times a day again. Right now I’m doing 2 indoor walks and an outdoor 1 twice around, in a loop where the mailboxes are and a street in between where the tennis courts are and the house. The next outdoor one will be one loop around where the tennis courts are and the house. A bit longer of one. I’m not sure if it’ll just end up being the same distance as my current one. I think it’ll be a little longer. On weekly grocery days, it’s different. I turn the indoor workout on my watch, and pause it when I stop. It ends up being more. If I go out and don’t come home until it’s dark out, I walk inside for 10 minutes. It works out similar. Might have to increase it when I get to walking longer.

I’ve lost enough weight to go down (smaller) another jean size. I’m now 3 jean sizes smaller than at my heaviest. I got new jeans, since the old ones were really falling off me. I’ll get another pair soon, since it fits me like a glove. I got 3 more shirts (like lightweight sweaters) recently. I lost 3 inches from my waist, so that opened up more options with clothes. They seem a bit big on me. Although, it looks like they’re supposed to be. I bought another shirt recently. I should get it today.

I got a haircut today. They’ve been ‘free’ ever since my stylist has known about my cancer. I’m getting more bald spots/lines. It’s a little disturbing to me. I haven’t gone back to the hats yet, but I might.

It’s been pretty cold out lately. When it gets even cooler, it’ll be perfect for my ‘new’ shirts I got last year. They’re more like heavy sweaters. It actually looks like fall now. The trees have turned beautiful colors.