4th of Nisan

Passover or Pesach, this year, starts on the night of April 12th to the 20th. I’m going to do it this year. The seder and ‘diet’ during the holiday. Ashkenazi Jews have a more restrictive diet than Sephardi Jews during the holiday. In addition to no leavening (from 5 types of grains: wheat, barley, oats, rye, and spelt), which is chametz, we don’t eat kitniyot. Kitniyot (lit. ‘small things’) are legumes, rice, corn, and other foods considered similar to grains. Even mustard is on the list. I try to keep it as close as I can. There’s a surprising amount of corn products in things.

Seder lit. means ‘order’, it’s a ritual dinner that goes in a certain order. I didn’t do a seder for a couple of years after my fall and cancer diagnosis. I think this is my 3rd year getting back into it. I’ll be the leader at our family one. It’ll just be my parent and I. It’s a bit sadder when it’s just me. (Had that for a couple of years.) We used to go to a friends’ place for the 2nd night. Most people do (or go to) seders on the 1st 2 nights. The hostess had an accident (I don’t remember exactly what happened) and got brain damage from it. So, they haven’t hosted one since. They might have stopped it when Covid came around, too. I kind of miss their seders. There were a lot of people. I got to see their dogs. There was interesting food. I usually was the youngest one, so I had to ‘search’ for the afikoman. Afikoman is a piece of matzo (cracker like unleavened bread) that’s been hidden. The kids have to find it. They usually get a prize of some sort. The best present I got, I think, was an illustrated Hebrew dictionary. (Most of the time it’s like $1 or something small.) The seder can’t end unless everyone eats a piece of the afikoman. It’s also the last thing that’s eaten. I think some strict families don’t sing or listen to music after.

I decided on the actual dinner things for ours. We’ll have the usual hard-boiled eggs and gefilte fish first. I got 2 jars of the fish, which will be nice to have during the week. Then, matzo ball soup. I got 2 jars of this. We’ll probably use all of the 1st jar that night. My parent wanted to make the roasted chicken. The last couple of years we’ve gotten it from one of the markets. It might be even better made at home. I thought having a salad would be a good side. Probably get a spring mix. I can put a few leaves from it on the seder plate. I was hoping to mix in shredded carrots and shredded cabbage. I think Safeway used to have those already prepared. I’m hoping they’ll still have that. Craisins or dried cranberries would be great in the salad, too. I already found a good looking dressing and got it. It’s a garlic vinaigrette. I got quite a collection of desserts. Double dipped chocolate macaroons, almond macaroons, fruit slices (candy), chocolate seder plate (it looks impressive to me. Hopefully it’s in one piece), and Osem's chocolate chip Pesach cake (they make amazing Pesach cakes. I think they crushed this one, sadly). I bought 2 boxes of matzo. Even though I’m the only one that will eat it after the seder, I’m going to use it a lot. Matzo pizzas, matzo with charoset (fruit, nut, and wine mix, which the one I bought is like a jam) on it for a snack, matzo sandwiches (almond butter and charoset, egg salad, and tuna salad), and more. I decided not to try to roast an egg this year for the seder plate. I’ll just put a hard-boiled egg on it. I’m not sure how many hard-boiled eggs I’ll need for sandwiches for the week. Safeway has a couple of brands, and they all have 6 to a bag. Maybe if I want more I can just go back to get more then. We’ll put an orange on the seder plate again. It represents marginalized Jews. Like LGBTQ+ Jews, Jews of color, etc. We’ll have to get parsley for the plate, too. I noticed we have ‘extra hot’ horseradish. We could use that for the plate and the little matzo sandwich we have during the seder part just before dinner. I hope I can handle a tiny piece of it. I’ll get sparkling grape juice for my 4 cups. I don’t drink alcohol. I think I’ll get 2 bottles. I can have the rest during the holiday.

I got 3 bags of Pesach noodles. They didn’t have any at the markets, and they only came in 3s on Amazon. (I got most of the Pesach stuff from there.) I love those noodles. It’ll definitely last longer than the holiday. I’m going to try and find a good pasta sauce to have with it. Kind of hard to find without soy or corn products. I’ll have some cheese with it as well. I’ll use both the sauce and cheese with the matzo pizzas and noodles. I also found a premade roast chicken, potatoes, and carrots boxed meal. They say it can be used for camping. They say they’re kosher for Pesach. I might try more of them in the future, if I like it. I got bbq potato chips. That would be a nice snack. I got an herbal tea sampler. Most teas are kosher year round, but it was on sale in Amazon’s Pesach section. Hopefully it’ll be good. I thought a sampler would be nice. I can try a variety of them. This holiday is one of my faves, but it takes quite a bit of planning.

The main picture on the Jewish calendar is of an old French seder plate. It has the spots for each thing, each one is also in Hebrew and French. The outer part of the plate has all the sections of the seder in both Hebrew and French. That’s kind of cool to see. Most seder plates don’t do that. The other (secular) calendar has someplace in Scotland, I think. It has the Scottish flag. It’s of a sunset around some ruins.

I downloaded my ancestry . com data, and uploaded it to MyTrueAncestry. They supposedly do a deeper dive into how far back they go. My parent did it before me, and it looked interesting. It only took less than 10 minutes. It was free, although they show more if you pay for it. Not sure how accurate it is. A big percentage were Illyrians. I still don’t know much about them after looking them up. I’ll look at the other groups at some point. (A lot of them I don’t know much about.) Another big percentage were the Romans. I’m surprised by this one, but they got around, like the Vikings. I didn’t see any Viking in there, oddly. It had an era circle of what percentage of people were for each era. They also have a map, so you can see where they travelled around in certain eras. My parent also recently tried another DNA thing. Something that sequences your whole genome. I might be able to do that when they have a sale. It takes a while.

Went to Kettlefish for the first time on Saturday. There’s only 3 entrees I can have there: fish and chips, cod tacos, or Caesar salad with cod pieces. I got their cod tacos with coleslaw. The fish was really good. There were way too many things in the tacos, so most of it fell out. Even with eating the fish first, it was still too much. The pico de gallo tasted like it had curry spices. Interesting. The tacos also had too much lettuce. The coleslaw was interesting and good. They also had ice cream. I got a chocolate eclair bar. Reminded me of the strawberry shortcake bars. Just with chocolate. I might try their fish and chips next time.

I ordered quite a bit of meds lately. My primary doc’s ‘team’ also ordered 400 mg gabapentin. They want me to take it once 3 times a day. They think it might help me more than the 300 mg once 3 times a day dose. I had been waiting for my morphine 60 mg pills. I’d run out by Friday morning. (I take it 3 times a day.) I was so happy to get it today. It really cut it close. I also got the gabapentin. It was 90 days worth. I wanted it to be a 30 day one. I ended up with 4 huge full bottles of it. Too much. I barely had space for it and the other meds I got. (There were a few more.) I think the gabapentin was $16, but I wasn’t charged for the others. I thought it’d all be a lot more expensive. Maybe I’ve already hit the deductible or whatever it is.

Today I didn’t miss any of the Spanish sentences on Duolingo. Did 3 lessons. Finished a unit and my Spanish number went up to 62. Hit a milestone for my daily streak, which was 1,250 days. Finished all the quests for today. I’m 5th in the league. 

Someone tried to basically harass me on Shabbat . com. He sent weird messages and tried friending me twice. He seemed to only be there to look for a wife. He made quite a few false assumptions about me. I eventually just blocked him. Oddly, I noticed I haven't used that app for 3 years. I might get back to it. It's kind of like a Facebook for Jews. Including part of it where you can find places to stay and host Shabbat dinners. They got a dating part of it, which I never really used. Most people on there have been nice.

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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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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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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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3rd of Cheshvan

I forgot to mention that I have a new passport. It was a busy summer with getting that done, too. It was different compared to the last time I got it. I wasn’t sure if it was going to happen. They even said that my pic might not be good enough, and I might have to take it again somewhere else. It all came together, and I’m happy I have it now. I can travel. Yay! I also got my state ID. That one was easier, but good to have.

Today Daylight Savings Time ended early in the morning. I was hoping to sleep that extra hour. Got up at 6:24am to go to the bathroom. Took a while to go back to sleep. I normally get up at 7:30am. That’s to take my steroid on time. According to my watch (yes, I have an Apple watch now), it said I had 1 hr 3 min of deep sleep. A lot more than my usual.

Started watching You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment today. It was weird. Some of it didn’t seem right. I’ll see how it goes. I’m skeptical about it.

Had a great chicken sandwich for lunch. It had a breaded chicken patty (hadn’t had this brand’s before), Colby Jack cheese, bread and butter pickles, a whole type of sweet red pepper (don’t remember the name of it), and some Subway garlic aioli on a sesame seed bun. Had a mandarin orange gel fruit cup with it.

Still doing Spanish with Duolingo. I hit an 1100 day learning streak today. I had a lot of streak freezes for a while, so those days don’t count in between. (So, it’s been much longer than that.) For the last 7 weeks I haven’t used a freeze yet. It’s been a while since I’ve done that. Did 3 lessons. Didn’t miss any. Did all 3 quests for the day. I’m 8th in the league.

Went grocery shopping. I was going to get a Chomps bag, but they only had the singles. So I got 4 of them. Tonight’s dinner was a smoked turkey and dill havarti sandwich. That was pretty good. I just don’t like how much butter they put on it sometimes. It was ok this time with that. Dessert is going to be caramel apple pie. One of my faves. I'll have that as my last snack. I've been doing that often. Having the dessert as my last snack, not right after dinner. I don't know if that helps or not. Sometimes if it's a smaller meal that's not on my splurge days, I will have dessert right after. Then, I'll have a smaller last snack.

I found Amy’s frozen Chili Mac! I hadn’t seen it in a long time. My parent is thinking of making chili for Election Day dinner. We’ll have tortilla chips with it. If I don’t like it, I might have the chili mac instead.

I got some more kimchee. It’s probably good for my gut. It says it’s mild, but it’s a bit spicy to me. Might get sauerkraut instead next time.

I’ve been getting turkey bacon lately, too. This time I got a thick store brand one. I’m trying to get more protein into my diet.

Got a Korean BBQ yakisoba instant noodles. Sounded really good. I try to only have 1 instant noodle thing a week. It’s like a treat that way.

I found a maple pecan Honey Bunches of Oats. That sounded really good. Yes, I’m trying cereals again. Not many taste like cardboard now, which is a plus.

I’ve also been getting Chef Boyardee stuff. Mainly mac and cheese and beefaroni or ravioli. It’s surprisingly good, and not that bad for me. I used to think it was just for kids, and I didn’t have it much as a kid anyways. So, why not?

Monday dinner will be grilled chicken, green beans, and mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes have some butter on them. It sounds pretty healthy, besides the butter. I’ll add BBQ sauce to the chicken. To jazz it up a bit. Having tiramisu cake for dessert. I like Safeway’s Chantilly cake with berries, but they didn’t have it this time. I’ll try this, though. With walking around the stores and at home, I managed to get 75 exercise minutes. Shows how much I do on grocery days.

I also got lottery tickets. Got 5 tickets. Mega Millions is up to $303 million. Half of that is still a lot. If I did win, I’d split it with my parent, and then do the annuity. I would still get quite a lot every year for 30 years. I doubt I’ll live that long, so I’d have to give it to someone else at some point. I keep thinking about what it would be like to win. I have a pinterest board dedicated to my dream home ideas. The next drawing is this Tuesday.

Just got my new sweater today. It’s a caramel-colored tunic sweater. From the same brand that did one of my other new sweaters. That one was nice and soft. Hopefully this one will be the same. I’ll wash it tomorrow. It’ll be laundry day, so perfect timing. 

I don't know how often I'll be able to post. It might just be on the weekends. I originally created this blog as an everyday thing. I don't know if I can do that. We'll see. I might post what I watch from Youtube in the future. I've seen some interesting ones. I don't really watch amv's (anime music videos) anymore. A lot of them are on history facts, science, animals, travel, etc. A lot of things. I have a lot of interests as it is, and I'd love to learn/watch more about things, so it's fun to me. 

World Chocolate Day!

I love chocolate! Great to have a day to celebrate it around the world. The most chocolatey thing I had lately was a mocha cookie crumble frappuccino yesterday. It was one of their new seasonal ones. Even the cookie part was chocolate based. It was like a shot of different types of it. Good stuff. I've been getting iced mochas when I go there through their drive-thrus for the past few months. Hasn't been that often. I've noticed it helps with some of my headaches and weird skull cracking. My old go-to was iced chai or iced matcha green tea when it was seasonal. I'm not a big fan of coffee, but the bit that I do get plus the chocolate, is apparently helping me health-wise. Maybe I need to start drinking coffee on a regular basis? I know I'd have to doctor it a bit, though. Like, add creamer, sweetener, possibly chocolate, etc. 

This is my wallpaper for July. As it says, it's Law from One Piece. Another one of my fave characters. I like his look, too. Cool design. He's the captain of the Heart Pirates, and their Jolly Roger is in the background and on his coat. He's an exceptional surgeon and was a Shichibukai. The Shichibukai are 7 of the most powerful pirates that are allied with the World Government. They basically get immunity from the government. Some translate it as pirate emperors.  

The month-long holidays for July are: National Grilling Month, National Hot Dog Month, National Ice Cream Month, National Blueberries Month, National Picnic Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. 

Managed to finally get the back brace a few days ago. It's for my fractured vertebrae. Specifically, the T8 one. That's just a little lower than halfway down the spine. I'm at risk of breaking another vertebrae, having more pain, and/or being paralyzed if I don't wear the brace. Also, at risk because of the bone lesions, but with the brace it cuts it down a bit. Went to the 1st place I was referred to through my insurance, and they couldn't give me one or fit me that day. They felt it was an emergency, and then called another place I went to for my sling previously, for me. That place called Master's was able to see me, fit it for me, and give me it. The doctor that prescribed the brace didn't put her name on the paper, so I had to search for it. I've seen her before, but she's an Urgent Care doc. Not like I see her on a regular basis. Managed to find it through looking at the antibiotic she ordered that same day. With that, my insurance was able to cover it. I think it was free to us. 

It's a bit to maneuver. Every time I sit or stand, I have to adjust the area near my sternum (collar bone). When I sit, I then have to let out a button and push down a certain amount, then click the hole in place. When I want up, I have to first let out the button, pull up, then click the right hole into place, get up, and push it into place. That hole's actually marked so I know how high I really need it. I have a hard time seeing it sometimes, though. Then, I also have to adjust to make sure the rest of the brace is even. There's a pulley system in the back. When I get into it, I have to pull back on something far while inhaling and then wrapping it around me to a certain point. I thought I wouldn't be able to put it on myself, but I can. It's a little awkward. Feels like a mix of things while on. A giant hug, restricts my movements, a bit more protected, and more. After a while, my spine does feel a bit sore. My chest feels fuller, too. It's a bit difficult to eat with sometimes, since it's so stiff. I have a feeling it's not going to last very long. The person who helped with my fitting said most of the time it lasts around a month. 2 months is stretching it. Not sure how long it takes to heal vertebrae or how long I'm supposed to have something for it. Hopefully, it's for long enough. 

On July 4th, we went to Elmer's for brunch. I haven't been there for brunch since March. It's a brunch-type place. We did go not long before that for dinner for the first time since then, too. It was nice to be there again, and to have the stuff they're more known for. I got their fresh fruit waffle special, which seemed appropriate for the 4th of July. It had blueberries actually inside the waffle along with on top, strawberries, bananas, whipped cream, powdered sugar, and cream cheese icing. Got their hash browns and a biscuit instead of eggs and a choice of meat. The waffle was messy, and I was worried I'd get it on the brace, but I didn't. Yay! No one asked or stared at the brace, either. That was great. 

Went to World Market after that. I had wanted to go since March, and they just reopened. I love looking at their international foods. Got some of my faves: roasted garlic cheddar, tuna and potatoes in olive oil and rosemary, dill pickle mustard, and red cabbage and apple salad. Feel a bit more normal with getting these. Went to Barnes and Noble right next store, since they just reopened as well. They're both connected to the mall, but only B and N has an opening to it. At least, they did. That's closed off now. You have to go through the main mall entrance if you want in. Apparently, 80% of the mall is now open. I was curious about that while we were there, but was starting to get really tired and sweaty. So, decided to go home instead. I also read that many of the restaurants around the mall are now open for dine-in, too. Good to know for the future. I'm happy, yet hesitant about so many places that are reopening now. 

On Sunday, I placed #2 in the Amethyst League on Duolingo. I got a hefty amount of gems from a reward chest for making it there. I don't make it in the top 3 that often. I'm now in the Pearl League. #4 last time I checked. It seems they're a little more competitive in this one. I'm still not used to being that high up on it, though. I'm breezing through their Welsh course. Hardly getting things wrong. A lot of it just makes sense so far. 

I've gotten back into my author instagram account lately. Hopefully, I can keep it up. The only way people will get to know me is through something like that. I've already had some more follows the last couple of days. Sometimes it's hard to decide on content to post, but there's always something. 

I recently went to Costco. I haven't had an eye exam in roughly a year and a half. Not good when you have contacts and your eyes are getting worse. So, I finally made an appointment at Costco for it. I actually have vision insurance now, so it should be covered. Hopefully, the prescription will be updated and better. It'll be the first time I've used Costco for the eye exam part. I've ordered contacts through them before. By the way, I'm only down to one more pair of contacts. I've been using my current ones for a couple of months. It's recommended to use them for 2 weeks. Not good. The soonest appointment they had was for the end of August. Kind of a ways away. At least, it's happening. At some point, I should look into seeing a dentist since I'm covered now. I haven't seen one in around 14 years. 

I've been reading the shortest of the 2 books I got through the My Thrill Club, called Shadow of the Lions. Going through it faster than expected. Not reading it as often as I'd like, though. It's been interesting. It's about a missing boy from a prep school. Been missing for roughly a decade. No one's found a body. I like mysteries like that, and there's quite a bit of suspense. 

For the last couple of days, I've been trying to read a little of Daf Yomi (lit. page of the day) a day. It's learning a page of Talmud every day. The Talmud is so big that it takes 7 1/2 years to read a page a day. That 'cycle' restarted not long ago (I think it was back in February), and I've wanted to join it occasionally. So, why not? Right now it's on what you can move on Shabbat. There are a lot of prohibitions on Shabbat or our Day of Rest. They go into a lot of detail and argue on seemingly minuscule things at times. It's still interesting to read their reasoning for things. Some have stories behind it. 

Yesterday, I almost didn't have a shower. With only getting 2 showers a week normally, it's not much. I don't feel as clean during the week as I used to be. Anyways, my home aide had the day off, so another one took over for her. She called me twice before 9am. I was asleep. At the end of the last voicemail, she said since she called twice, she's cancelling for the day. That made me panic a bit. I called the Home Care hotline and was able to get in contact with the person filling in for my home aide. They were able to reschedule for that day. Thank goodness. She did more than my regular one did. She even asked me if I needed anything more than just the shower. I think she felt bad about that morning. I was just happy it worked out. 

Ordered more things from Amazon. A nightshirt for when the weather gets much warmer. It's unusually cool out right now. The past few years, it's been really warm this time of year. I'll be prepared, at least. An adult color-by-number coloring book that's based on cats. Thought that would be fun. Maybe more fun than the coloring book I got last month. That one's just one color and in lines. Thought it was creative, but ended up tedious. A book called 1001 Movies to See Before You Die. That might be a good one to go through. It'll be interesting to see how many I've already seen. Making somewhat of a dent in the classical recordings one. The movies one might grab my attention more now, though. The next Try Treats subscription box is on its way. Should be interesting to see which country it features this time.