26th of Shevat

Having the new hospital bed in my room has been interesting. The remote actually has a clip to hook over the rails. I don’t have to have it at my side all the time. The old one didn’t have a clip and would easily fall. Had to sleep with it. It feels weird to not have to do that now.

I got 2 new calendars. One that’s Jewish, and the secular one features places from around the world. We think the one that features places has Amsterdam for this month. The houses are similar to the one’s there.

I kept getting hot flashes and had to open the windows in my room. It got pretty chilly in there. It was weird to feel so hot when it was so cold outside.

I had my first bed bath with it on 2/13. I didn’t really trust the water coming from the bathtub, so I got some downstairs, and slowly went back up the stairs. I poured it out in the tub afterwards to make it easier to go down the stairs with. The dust bunnies went everywhere, but it did go down the drain. I did the bed bath after lunch instead of right after brushing my teeth in the morning. I think it was the perfect time. I did that for the other times since then. Most of the time since then it’s ended up being 40 min-45 min to do everything. (A little bit less time last time I did it.) That’s not too bad considering I was by myself. The last couple of times, there wasn’t any wet spots. Yay! I ran out of lotion last Monday. I quickly ordered more that day. With my most recent bed bath, I had to go without the lotion. At least I got clean. It’s just my skin got a bit drier afterwards. I got it tonight. 

I waited a while, but my next Universal Yums box was stuck on the pre-shipping phase. I sent an email to them about it. They replied back only a few minutes later. (It was much faster than expected!) They were sorry that it looked like they lost it. How do you lose something like that? They quickly sent a replacement box free of charge (I paid for the one they lost, so it should be like that) after that email. They said it’ll be on Türkiye or Turkey. That’s interesting. They sent another email on a Turkish recipe for karnıyarık. It’s for a savory stuffed eggplant. I hate eggplant. Maybe if it was hidden I’d try it. They even had tips for what to look for when picking a fresh eggplant, and on Turkish olive oil. They prefer Turkish olive oil. Should be interesting to see what snacks they have. Probably would be different than Treats was. I think they mainly look for things with multiple servings, which is great to me. Apparently, I got 2 boxes from them tonight. (I just got them, so I don’t know what’s in them yet.) They must have found the ‘lost’ one.

My parent was gone last Monday through Friday. She went to a NASP convention. They go to a different place every year. This time it was in Seattle. I heard she met a lot of people she hadn’t seen in a while. She also broke her glasses. She went with an Uber there, and came back in one. 

Rosie has been super clingy since she was gone. She already was before, but even more so now. She’s been resting under my new bed as I’m on it throughout the day. There’s a pretty big area back there. She’s been peeing a lot on the puppy pads. She’s been going through them like water. We got more on Saturday. It takes a lot out of me to do them. I was giving her the insulin shots. Sometimes it was earlier than usual. I didn’t know if she was going to run away later, so I did it when I saw her just before making breakfast and before my dinner. Her usual is after those meals. There was one night where I didn’t see her downstairs until my last snack. A little late, but I did it. I think I was doing it right. I didn’t feel any wetness or smell it in those spots. She seemed wobbly at one point where she tripped over her legs. She was ok after a minute, though. I didn’t think she needed sugar or anything with that. She’s been lying on the hard linoleum floor in the kitchen sometimes. I don’t know why she does that. She has food, water, and the pads have been taken care of. Sometimes I’m making something, so it sort of makes sense. Other times I’m not. Weird. She’s been sitting/lying down really close to me as I eat, too. Sometimes so close, she’s under my chair. Hopefully, she’ll go back to normal, since my parent’s home now.

I decided to order groceries online Friday night, since my parent’s glasses broke. I thought it would not be good for her to drive. Found everything except for the usual desserts, my toothpaste, and a med. Still had to go out for those things Saturday. That’s also when we got more puppy pads for Rosie. My parent decided to wear her bent glasses while driving, since she could still see that way.

Last week I had a chocolate chip cookie sandwich with cream in the middle. It was from the new bakery area at a local market. It seemed over-the-top, and a great way to celebrate things. I could only get through half of it. They also had a red velvet and champagne cake. It was combined, and interesting.

A couple of days ago (in the morning), after brushing my teeth, there was a lot of red stuff that I spat out along with the toothpaste. I didn’t eat anything with a red color. I didn’t feel pain in my mouth, and didn’t see any blood from my gums. The only thing out of place was last night I noticed a hard/spiky spot on the roof of my mouth. It disappeared pretty quickly. I don’t think it had anything to do with it. So, what was it? I’ll see if it does it again.

I enrolled all 5 of my ebooks on Smashwords to their annual Read an Ebook Week promo. I set them to free. I seem to get more ‘bites’ when they’re free. It’ll be from March 2nd-March 8th. I put up a notice about it on my socials. I doubt anyone will care on those. I’ll still post about it on March 2nd.

Last week was Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week. I didn’t see anything new and interesting on facebook for it. Seems like everyone’s quiet about it this year. Maybe they’re scared.

I posted a selfie on my socials. I haven’t taken a selfie in a long time. I also wanted to compare previous selfies to see how much my ‘moon face’ has gone down. (A steroid made that happen.) I think it’s pretty much gone. I had a couple weird responses. One person, on Tumblr, said they looked at my profile and my selfie and they want to make a mural based on it. Saying I’m their muse. They said they’ll pay me $500 for it. I quickly blocked them. That was just bizarre. On Twitter, someone mentioned me. Apparently they said they were ‘inspired’ by my selfie and drew/painted me. It looked awful. The other people he did that to and was inspired looked awful, too. The original selfies were much better. Good it’s not just me. I don’t like that they did that without my permission, but it doesn’t violate Twitter’s rules. Although, he also had drawings of naked men. Some with rabbit heads. It was creepy. Another little surprising thing was a comment on facebook. Saying my skin is perfection, with hearts for eyes emoji. I think I should take it as a compliment, but I’m not used to that. At least it wasn’t like that person on Twitter.

It’s been raining heavily lately and windy. It’s supposed to get even windier tonight and Tuesday. The temperature has been warmer than usual, too. Warm, but stormy. Weird combo.

I finally cooked again Sunday night. It was One Pot Chili Mac and Cheese. From another pin on Pinterest. I don’t know if I rinsed the beans correctly. It turned out great, though. I thought there wouldn’t be enough liquid, but the pasta was perfectly done. There were a lot of leftovers, but that just means more lunches/dinners during the week.

Had a phone appointment today with my primary care doctor. I wasn’t expecting it. I had a notice telling me to do a pre-check in. I looked at my appointments, and there was also one to see someone in oncology (one I don’t know) in April. No one told me about it. I don’t like when they ‘decide’ for me.

Anyways, my doctor said she created the phone appointment today. She wanted to talk to me right away. She had just talked to Dr. Slack about my pain. He might think I’m still in palliative care (pc), which I’m not.

She went over 3 options for pain. The first one was to go to a certain specialist (I don’t remember what she called them), choosing between 2 different places in Seattle. They’ll insert a pain pump. Seattle’s a long haul. I don’t want to go all the way out there. It also sounds a little scary. The second option is to switch to methadone. I’d have to get off of morphine. The third option was to try gabapentin. That would work together with the morphine. She said the morphine deals more with bone pain, and gabapentin deals with nerve pain. I chose the third option. I think I’ve tried gabapentin before. (I could be wrong. We might have just talked about it.) It was back when they thought I had fibromyalgia. In reality, I probably was experiencing symptoms of my cancer. If I took it, I don’t remember how it affected me. She said there’s either 100 mg or 300 mg capsules. She’s going to try a stronger dose for me to start with. It’ll be the 300 mg. There’s more wiggle room to work with as well. Like, the max is higher than some others. She said I should probably start with it at night, since it might make me sleepy. It might also make me dizzy, unsteady on my feet, or trouble thinking/brain fog. She’ll order this along with okaying my next morphine refill. She wants me to talk to her again in 3 weeks over the phone. Just to see how it’s going. Hopefully, this will work. The other options sound intense, and again, scary. 

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5th Night of Hanukkah

 It's the 5th night of Hanukkah. It's an 8-day long holiday. The last day is on January 2nd. 

Went to Central Market, Safeway, and Petsmart last Sunday. Rosie needed more food and treats. Her treats basically clean her teeth. I got salmon flavor this time. She loves them. She’ll even jump off my bed to get them.

Safeway apparently doesn’t have a Hanukkah section this year. It could be because of how late the holiday is. It’s the same day on the Jewish calendar (25th of Kislev), but it doesn’t match up with the regular calendar. I think the Jewish calendar added a month this year, so it could be because of that. There was a section at Central. They had a lot of gelt (chocolate coins). I got a couple of the bigger bags of gelt the week before. This time I also got Hanukkah candles. They were expensive. One box was like $20. I got a $14 box of them. It has blue and white candles. Nice to have more than one color. It has enough for the holiday plus one more. Maybe that’s just in case? A little weird. I also got Hanukkah cookies. They have a blue Star of David on each of them and are shortbread cookies. I think they have clear sprinkles. Cute for the holiday.   

Rosie’s new litter box came. Another package from Chewy came before that. Don’t know what’s in that one. The litter box is big. I just hope I can still get to the toilet and sink in there.

I’ve been taking care of the puppy pads a few times a day. She’s been using them instead of the litter box to pee most of the time. Although, there have been a few times where she used the box for it! She pooped a couple of times in it too. I think we need to get more pads.

We did our traditional Chinese buffet dinner on Christmas Eve. It’s a tradition among American Jews to have Chinese food on Christmas. (Either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.) It was a bit crowded. In fact, I thought I tripped over someone, but no one was there. They had some good stuff. 

The first night of Hanukkah was on December 25th. I’ve been lighting the candles. These candles seem ‘taller’ than the ones I’m used to. So, they last a little longer. We listened to some klezmer while we ate dinner the 1st night. I had a broccoli cheddar bake. One of my fave frozen meals, but it’s not fried… People eat cheese/dairy products during the holiday, too. (Just not as well-known.) At least I covered that. We had Hanukkah cookies and gelt for dessert. That’s kind of close to feeling like the holiday. We might look for sufganiyot (jelly-filled donuts).

I had my bed bath last Thursday. Ran out of wipes, so it was a good thing that I bought more. At some point I hope to use my shampoo again. The no rinse stuff seems like it’s still somewhat good for my hair. I don’t think I got the bed wet. I’ve been pretty good about that lately. Had to use the antifungal cream, since I’ve felt itchy. It burns in those areas with that stuff. I don’t put on as much as my home aide did. That was overkill. I’ve been putting on lotion. My skin feels better with it. I put some of it under my eyelids. For some reason that area has gotten dry and rough. The lotion helps a bit.

I had to make an appointment to see my primary care doctor. Apparently she needs to go over my pain meds. Maybe she can help with my pain more. I feel like they ignored my pain with palliative care towards the end. So, I have a CT scan coming up, an oncology appointment (with someone I don’t know), and the primary care doctor one. January sounds a little busy.

I might ask my primary care doctor about getting a new (well new to me. It’ll probably be gently used) hospital bed. I’m hoping to put it in my room upstairs. Hopefully they can take my current bed up there down to the garage or something, and take my old hospital bed. The current hospital bed slumps to one side. It feels crooked. The remote’s buttons have worn down so much it doesn’t have the illustrations anymore. It’ll be nice to be in my own room again. It’ll be nice if all the buttons work on the remote, too. The only ones that work on my current one are for the head and leg part, not the whole thing.

Went to Central today. I found another Hanukkah thing. A bag of 2 different types of chocolate truffles. It says Happy Hanukkah on it. My parent found a premade meatloaf. Just had to add ketchup and cook it. Didn’t have pork in it, even though the one they make for the meals does have it. We had it for dinner, along with pearled pesto couscous and a green cauliflower. The cauliflower was butter-poached. It tasted like cauliflower, but looked like broccoli. It was a bit weird. The meatloaf was good, except I noticed it was really salty in parts of it. The couscous was great. We also got chocolate coffee cups with mousse for dessert. We’ll have that later. 

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19th of Kislev

Managed to go to the bank on Tuesday. I was taken off the shared account. That took a little while. Then, I asked for a printout of a bank statement. That statement will show my royalties I finally recently got. I added my social security number to them. (Wrote it in pencil below my name, in case I made a mistake and needed to correct it. Hope that's good enough.) I also was going to highlight the royalty payments, but then I thought it won’t matter. They’re easy to see. They gave me kind of a small envelope. I managed to stuff all those papers in. The bank also had a menorah in the back. Nice to see something Hanukkah related. I didn’t put my number on it and send it that day, because it was raining, and I didn’t want it to get ruined. I put it in the mailbox yesterday. It was a bit thick, but it made it in. Now I can start thinking about other things. I’ve been so worried about this, and I hope they respond quickly. I did what they told me to do. Hopefully it’s all correct. In the letter they were asking for why I was getting royalties, but I told the interviewer about that. She didn’t highlight it either. She just wrote royalties on the envelope. I’m a bit worried if I did enough for it. Maybe they’ll tell me by calling me. Again, I just need to relax and think about other things until I hear from them.

After going to the bank we (my parent and I) went to Central Market (or Town & Country now) for dinner/dessert stuff. My parent was getting ingredients for her scallop and parsnip puree dish, which was from a French recipe. It looked good and fancy. Although, I hate parsnips and can’t have shellfish. I got a turkey dinner. It had roasted turkey, brussels sprouts, a little stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce. It was pretty good. I didn’t melt the plastic of the gravy container this time as I heated it up. Yay! I wanted to try something from their new bakery area. A lot of it looks pretty or over-the-top. I got the fudge Boston mini. It looked good. It fell apart as I ate it. It was like a parfait. It had cake, custard, fudge, chocolate frosting, and little hollow balls that were like sprinkles. It was so rich tasting, I couldn’t eat the whole thing.

I noticed something on the ground Tuesday night. I didn’t have my contacts in, so I couldn’t really see what it was. I thought it was a big dead rat. In the morning, after putting my contacts in, I looked at it again. It was just one of Rosie’s mouse toys. It scared me. Good that it means she played with it, though. Despite getting a new type of litter box, she’s still peeing and pooping outside it. We both think maybe she just needs a bigger one. Her hips/legs felt good enough to jump on my bed last night and during the day today. Her blood tests came back, and her diabetes seems to be under control. The only thing seems to be that she's very dehydrated. We plan to change her water bowl to a fountain-like one. She might like it more if it's moving, I think. She does drink a lot. Maybe it's just not being absorbed. 

Duolingo was going through maintenance as I did my lessons today. It was a bit glitchy. I missed 3 sentences. I think I was still correct, and maybe they marked me down because of the maintenance. I think I did 3 lessons. They made me redo one story. I’m now 10th in the league.

Got this month’s Treats and it’s on Poland. The recipe is for Polish paczki, which are like donuts. There are some ‘new’ snacks. There’s a sesame candy/snap that was good. Had the Delfina chocolate bar today. It had alcohol in it. Didn’t expect that.

This will probably be my last Treats box. I’ve been getting it for about 3 years. Amazon will stop their subscription for it at the end of this month. I feel like it’s time to try something new anyways. I’m thinking of getting Universal Yums. Specifically their Yum Yum box. It seems like they cover more countries, and I think you get more in depth info on the country and its snacks. You pick a country to start with, then they choose the next one. It’s a surprise each time like Treats is. I’m not sure what I’ll pick. They also have you fill out a quiz on what flavors you like and such. It might be more customizable that way.

Had a hard time sleeping last night. Something made me feel upset enough to cry. Then, Rosie decided to sleep on the bed and a little on me. She was there for a good chunk of the night. She normally gets off at like 12:30am. I decided to raise the leg part, which I like. She doesn’t. After a while of this, she finally made like she was getting off, so I lowered it for her. She finally got down. That was like at 4am. I had a hard time the rest of the night too.

Did my bed bath today. Didn’t get any water on the bed again. I think I did a better job with my hair. I haven’t been using my shampoo for a little while, and instead use the rinse-free soap stuff. My home aide used it on my hair occasionally too. It’s easier to work in, and if I miss a spot, it’s ok. Different with my shampoo.

Went to Olive Garden tonight for dinner. I got their chicken and gnocchi soup, which had more gnocchi than last time. Then, I got a 6 oz sirloin that had fettuccine Alfredo on the side. The steak supposedly had a garlic herb butter, but I think that fell off and went into the pasta instead. It was all pretty good. Took half of it home. Not sure how good it’ll be the next day. I’ll see.

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16th of Kislev

Rosie had a vet appointment this morning. It was too early for me to go. She apparently is a pound lighter than last time. That could be a good thing, since she was a little overweight. She has severe arthritis in her legs and hips. They think a different type of litter box would help her with that. One that’s more open on one side so she can just walk in. I think one of the sides will have to be up higher to catch when she pees. She’s getting gabapentin for the pain. She was very dehydrated. So, they gave her fluids through an iv. She came back with a hump on her back full of the fluid. Despite having so much fluid already, she came back and started drinking more right away. They’re going to run some blood tests. I think my parent said they might know the results by tomorrow. They want my parent to get a stool sample, too. I hope all this helps her.

Had my bed bath today. I timed it this time. It was 20 minutes with just the ‘bath’ part and getting dressed. 10 more minutes to put everything away. When my home aide was here she didn’t clean me as thoroughly. It was a little less than 15 minutes with her, and that’s not counting the time it took to put things away. I think what I did today was really good. Faster than I thought it would be. Good for someone who has to use a brush for a lot of it (and sock aid). There were no wet spots or cool areas this time on my bed either. Yay!

Managed to go to both markets (Central and Safeway), plus CVS, yesterday. Had to go to CVS for 2 things. 1 I can only find there, but the other can be at Safeway too. I found that 1 thing that I can only find there. However, the 2nd thing they were completely out of. It surprised me. Found it at Safeway, but it was odd.

I also wanted to see if both markets had Hanukkah sections up yet. Central did have it, but the candles were super expensive. I got 2 bags of gelt (chocolate coins). There were a lot to a bag. Safeway didn’t have their Hanukkah stuff up yet. They usually have cheaper candles. Usually the box only has enough for the holiday, so you have to get a new box every year. Maybe I need to wait a little longer. The holiday is a bit late this year.

I had Central’s smoked turkey and dill havarti sandwich for dinner last night. It’s a little weird that they add butter to it. I always have to heat it up, so I don’t deal with patches of cold butter. It was good. Had cherry crunch pie from them for dessert. It was pretty tasty. I had Safeway’s blackened chicken with mushroom sauce, mashed potatoes, and broccoli for dinner tonight. There wasn’t very much chicken, small amount of broccoli, and ok amount of mashed potatoes. I had their Chantilly cake with berries for dessert. I had it right after dinner. Usually the prepared meals from the markets are so big, I end up having dessert as my last snack instead. I really like their Biscoff cookie butter cake, but it wasn’t there. That one’s a new fave. The cake I got is usually really good, but it’s quite different compared to that other one.

I also got deli meat from Central. It’s their honey roasted turkey. It reminds me a bit of what ham tasted like in the past. (It’s been a very long time since I took pork products out of my diet.) It’s really good. Got more Colby Jack cheese to go with it. I realized the previous deli meat I got went bad really quickly. Hopefully this one will be better.

I also got 3 of my faves from Amy’s frozen meals. Their cheddar broccoli bake, chili mac, and pesto tortellini. The chili mac reminds me of my mom’s chili mac. Haven’t had hers in a long time, but this one seems special that way. I think Saturday night I did try a different frozen meal. It was Stouffer’s beef and macaroni. Seemed like they would have cheese with it, but they didn’t. I added some parmesan. It tasted like a stuffed pepper, only with macaroni instead of rice. Very interesting, and I might have it again in the future. It was pretty good on calories. Should have checked the sodium, but I forgot. It’s ok if it was a little high. It looked like it was a good amount to me. Very filling too.

I dropped Vanitas no Carte recently. It was getting too sexual for me. The way they depict when the vampires drink blood is over the top. It was kind of disgusting. The story was interesting, but I just couldn’t get past that. It was very artsy too.

I got back to watching Jujutsu Kaisen, Boku no (My) Hero Academia 5, Mairimashita! (Welcome to Demon School!) Iruma-kun 2, Dr. Stone 2: Stone Wars, and Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken (That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime) 2. All of them have been great! The only ones I haven’t gotten back to are Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? (So I’m a Spider, So What?) and Hataraku Saibou (Cells at Work) 2. Just haven’t been able to get back to them yet. I found out some of them are on Netflix, which is great. I’m luckily caught up with One Piece. Apparently it’s on hiatus until April.

I've been continuing to do my long walks inside like I mentioned last time. It's a 30-minute walk. I still think this is the best way to do it right now, since I'm not used to how long it is outside. I did about 110 rounds today of the loop I do at home. That's a lot. I feel tired afterwards each time. I think once I really get used to it, I might try to do an outside walk. When I do, I probably should do it earlier in the day. I don't like doing it in the dark.

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9th of Kislev

One of the bowls I use was broken recently. It was old. I left it in the sink to soak so it’ll be easier to clean in the dishwasher. I had ravioli with sauce (from a can), and it can be hard for the dishwasher to really clean it after that. My parent grabbed a pot from the rack near it, and hit the bowl with it by accident. It shattered. 

Last week was really foggy. I didn’t go for my outside walk one of the days, because of how foggy it was. It seemed dangerous. I did go out there because I needed to check the mail. I get previews of what’s in the mail through emails. It looked like it was a serious thing from the Washington Health Care Authority. It was just a thing that didn’t apply to me since I don’t do taxes. Anyways, I couldn’t see the mailboxes because of the fog. I can’t imagine what it was like to drive in it. It’s gone now. I managed to do some outdoor walks couple of times since. On Tuesday, I plan to do double what I've been doing this past month. If I can't do it outside, I'll have to do around a 30 minute walk inside. I think it'll be around 30 minutes outside with doubling it anyways. I guess I'll see how it goes.  

I finished watching Kai Byoui Ramune. It was just ok. Reminded me a bit of xxxHolic. It was about a doctor (Dr. Ramune) curing people of their supernatural curses/illnesses. I’m glad I finally finished it. It’s one of the ones I started a few years ago. I don’t think it was very popular. I only have one more episode of Zombie Land Saga Revenge (its 2nd season). Sadly, I don’t think there’s another season of this one. I’ve got quite a lot of episodes left of Jujutsu Kaisen and Boku no Hero Academia season 5. Watched them recently. It’ll be great if I can keep up with watching the ones on my current list again. I’ve also been watching Better Than Us on Netflix. Good to get back into watching Netflix shows as well.

I did my bed bath again last Thursday and today. I really do feel cleaner now than when my home aide did it. I didn’t get my bed wet this time and on Thursday. Just a couple of cool areas. I think I have to put the washcloth in a better place when I’m done with it. I managed to get lotion on my back. I put some on the brush and did it that way. It worked well. Got lotion on my feet, too.

Today I missed a sentence in the Spanish lessons from Duolingo. The unit’s on commands this time. I’m 15th in the league. I made it to the Diamond League, and they’re a lot more competitive than in the previous one. I finished Unit 40, and now I’m going through Unit 41.

I finally laundered my bedding. It’s been a long time. It’s been since I did it when I got new sheets. It feels nice and cozy again. I want to try to do it every couple of weeks. Might not do my pillow that often. When I had the pillow in the washing machine, apparently it made it move out of place. I couldn’t move it back myself. (It was really heavy.) My parent helped put it back. It's also been moving with other loads. It's not normal. I thought it was just because of my pillow. Luckily, I've found a way to move it back now.

Managed to go to both markets on Sunday. Also, went to the pet store. We got a low dust litter and a new mat for under her litter box. She’s ruined what was her current mat. The low dust litter might help my parent with her lungs. It’s scented, and I hope Rosie is going to be ok with that. She started peeing outside the box yesterday. I caught her today. Thought she was in the box far enough, but she wasn’t. She peed a little on the mat/floor, but I managed to push her in more after a second. Maybe she thinks she’s in all the way, but isn’t? I’ll try to catch her while I’m awake, but I can’t when I’m asleep. I can't watch her 24/7. My parent did clean the floor and added the new mat today. Maybe if it's cleaned, she'll go in all the way and also poop in there? It's not like she's losing her mind. She still has her wits about her. Hopefully, she'll go back to how she was before. 

We also went to a small hardware store and got a big flashlight battery, a filter for the furnace, and an extension cord (I think). The flashlight I use had dimmed down a lot. My parent put in the new battery for me, and it was nice and bright again. My parent took the old filter out, and put the new one in. Apparently, there were 3 dead mice that made it inside and on top of the old filter. We don’t know how they did it. It was definitely time for a new filter then. At least we’re not breathing in dead mice anymore.

My parent made a pasta and meatball thing for dinner last night. It’s never really the same when she makes it. Good, but different. This time she got the local market’s premade beef meatballs (just have to cook them), onions, green bell peppers, special canned tomatoes that she pureed, garlic (from a jar this time), and fresh fettuccine from that same market. She added fresh parsley to it. The meatballs were huge! I added some parmesan to mine. Tried to mix it up, but it spat sauce at me. It was very good.

I plan to have the local market’s smoked turkey and dill havarti sandwich for dinner tonight. Their raspberry and lemon cake for dessert. For tomorrow’s dinner, I plan to have BBQ brisket with mac and cheese from Safeway. For dessert, their Biscoff cookie butter cake. That was amazing last time I had it!

I got most of my author royalties from Amazon! Yay! Except for $6 more. I don't know what happened to that. They gave me what they said they would from a letter back in June. Thank goodness the tech team looked into it, and they got it for me.

I got a letter from Social Security. They made a phone appointment for me. They said they’re constantly reviewing my status. They need info from me. I don’t know what more they need. Maybe they saw that Amazon finally gave me my royalties. There’s another letter from them today. I don't know what that's about. I checked the mail earlier and it wasn't there yet. I'll check again just before dinner. 

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2nd of Kislev

I forgot last time to say what happened on getting a new number/card, and more info, on KP. Apparently, they don’t give out new numbers if plans change within KP. Unless you leave the state. All my medical records will transfer over as well. So, no running around trying to get at least my meds onto the new plan. My social worker says it already shows up that I have Medicaid with them. I might not have to worry when I fully change to the new plan. Yay!

I had my last bed bath with a home aide last Tuesday. Normally it’s every Monday and Thursday. She had off on Monday, and Thursday was a holiday. She was planning on trying to squeeze me in for both Tuesday and Friday. I guess Friday didn’t work out for her. She wanted me to friend her on facebook to stay connected. I tried to, but her settings don’t allow me to friend her. So, I messaged her about it. She’ll have to friend me first. It’s a little weird, but she was nice. It’s ok if I don’t hear from her.

I did my own bed bath today. I did it this morning. I used my shower brush for a lot of it. Since it’s hard to reach some areas with my right shoulder. (I broke it in 2020.) I also had wipes that helped. I had my sock aid ready to put my socks on myself. That’s hard to do without it. I still have all the products she used. I ordered them, so I can just order them again when I run out of them. I’ll have to be sure to remember to use lotion. I did remember this time. I’m super dry, and I think she said it’s worse now that it’s close to wintertime. I’m not sure if I’ll do my bed baths more often, or keep it to Mondays and Thursdays. It’s not like I sweat a lot now. Might be different during the summer. I think I got myself cleaner than when she did it. (Got the bed wet in a little area. I'll just try to be more careful and cover that area with the towels more.) I think it took me a little longer. That might get better over time.

Went to Thanksgiving at one of my parent’s friends’ place. It took about 1.5 hours each way to get there and back by car. Kind of a ways. The turkey was really good. The rest of the food was ok. Got to have interesting conversations. There was a couple with 2 children, my parent and I, the hostess’ parents, and the hostess herself. There were supposed to be 10, but it looks like there was just 9 of us. I didn’t know anyone. (Other than my parent, of course.) There was a dog. I think her name was Heart. She had a sweater on that didn’t really fit her anymore. She also had a painful gum issue, I think. The kids were off the walls. Loud and rambunctious. The boy decided to bring his train under the table and play with it. Eventually he started rubbing my legs under the table and put his head out on the side. It was really bizarre and inappropriate. There was also the time when that family was about to leave but the girl got upset, threw her jacket off, and said she was staying. I tried to stay away from them at the end, and gave them as much space as I could. We left so quickly we forgot our utensils for the pies and the bag. (We were leaving the pies behind. We had brought apple and pumpkin pies.) Maybe she can do something up here, and give them to us on the way or something. My parent said we could just buy new stuff and not worry about it. I don’t know if this will turn into an annual thing. It would be interesting if it did. It’s been a while since we were invited to a Thanksgiving dinner with friends. It was nice that way.

Managed to go to both local markets yesterday. I got a smoked turkey and dill havarti sandwich for dinner that night. Cherry crunch pie for dessert. I plan to have a salmon and pesto pasta dinner tonight. It has asparagus and cherry tomatoes as well. I think it’s pretty healthy. I’ll have a Biscoff cookie butter cake for dessert. It’s new and sounds amazing! Didn’t do the lottery tickets because the machine was acting up, and I didn’t want to wait for it to be fixed. Maybe we’ll go back soon.

Didn’t expect to pour cereal all over the floor this morning. I might have enough left in the box for a few days. I tried cleaning it up with a broom and dustpan. Still heard a little crunching afterwards. 

I was going to have a cherry mixed fruit cup with lunch. (I usually have some form of fruit cup.) It was hard to get out of its package. I noticed there was some weird hard brown sticky stuff on it. It was so sticky, I couldn’t open it. The others in the sleeve looked the same, so I had to throw them out. I had mandarin oranges in gel instead. Luckily I have 2 more things of fruit cups besides the orange one. I just feel like I wasted one package of them. It’s not my fault though. There probably was some sort of leak and it got all over the cups. Today’s been weird. 

I managed to get an outside walk in, along with my 2 indoor walks. Tuesday's the start of the last week of my current walk. I'm going from the mailboxes, all the way to the tennis court, and back home. Oh, I also check the mail afterwards, so technically I do go to the mailboxes again. The next one I'll do is twice around that same area. I'm not sure if I can do it twice, but I'll try. Hopefully I can get the last week in with going outside for them. If I don't go out, I do 15 minutes inside. I'll double that when I can't go out with the 'new' way of doing it. 

Oncology called me. I was busy with something so it went to voicemail. They made an appointment for me. This will be to go over the CT scan I'll get done on January 2nd. It's with a different oncologist. The one I was assigned to is Dr. Nik (they shorten it to that), and this will be a Dr. Stephen. Maybe Dr. Nik will be on vacation? (Hopefully he's not leaving too. So many doctors seem to be leaving or moving around.) I hope this one will be ok. Usually they want lab work done like the week before. They didn't mention that this time. I might call them back at some point to make sure.

I plan to get back into anime and Netflix shows. I still have quite a few anime that I haven't finished from a few years ago. The list for what I want to see is long. I have quite a lot on my Netflix list as well. 

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