Friday Five!

I'm not doing very well so won't have 5, but here's 2.

1. I've been busy over the last couple months knitting cosy merino wool hats to hopefully sell and build a small business from. My brain is still completely broken from covid in 2020, so all tasks that go along with it (branding etc) take much longer than they should, but hopefully in the next week I'll have some ready to post. Made fur pom poms and everything to help keep production costs lower.

2. I was supposed to sell at a local charity craft event, but was disinvited because someone would be selling scented candles, and that sent me into the worst mental health dive of the last few years. When someone is disabled, you're supposed to make accommodations. But in the UK this type of discrimination is legal because they can't guarantee my health and safety. I wouldn't have moved had I known that, the ADA only cares about the discrimination and whether the accomodations requested are reasonable (which for me is to minimise fragrance, but as you can't control others walking through a space - I'd have a helper in case I needed fresh air, and my mask/air filter too). The group is for knitting and crochet, not candles, so they gave preference to something unrelated that made it unsafe for me. Really crap, and makes me want to leave the group but then I'd be even more isolated.

3. BUPA approved seeing a foot specialist and I wish we'd had it in 2020. He ordered new scans but already found multiple things the NHS just ignored on the MRI they did, even though they explain some of my ongoing issues and could have been treated at the time. I don't know what BUPA will approve as far as treatment because the only reason they're allowing this is due to a new issue - but at least I can be referred to his NHS practice. I do not recommend having your right foot in spasms that prevent you from driving. The pain gets old fast.

2. I was supposed to sell at a local charity craft event, but was disinvited because someone would be selling scented candles, and that sent me into the worst mental health dive of the last few years. When someone is disabled, you're supposed to make accommodations. But in the UK this type of discrimination is legal because they can't guarantee my health and safety. I wouldn't have moved had I known that, the ADA only cares about the discrimination and whether the accomodations requested are reasonable (which for me is to minimise fragrance, but as you can't control others walking through a space - I'd have a helper in case I needed fresh air, and my mask/air filter too). The group is for knitting and crochet, not candles, so they gave preference to something unrelated that made it unsafe for me. Really crap, and makes me want to leave the group but then I'd be even more isolated.

Well that's really sh*t!!! I'm sorry!!! 

I'm not doing very well so won't have 5, but here's 2.

1. I've been busy over the last couple months knitting cosy merino wool hats to hopefully sell and build a small business from. My brain is still completely broken from covid in 2020, so all tasks that go along with it (branding etc) take much longer than they should, but hopefully in the next week I'll have some ready to post. Made fur pom poms and everything to help keep production costs lower.

2. I was supposed to sell at a local charity craft event, but was disinvited because someone would be selling scented candles, and that sent me into the worst mental health dive of the last few years. When someone is disabled, you're supposed to make accommodations. But in the UK this type of discrimination is legal because they can't guarantee my health and safety. I wouldn't have moved had I known that, the ADA only cares about the discrimination and whether the accomodations requested are reasonable (which for me is to minimise fragrance, but as you can't control others walking through a space - I'd have a helper in case I needed fresh air, and my mask/air filter too). The group is for knitting and crochet, not candles, so they gave preference to something unrelated that made it unsafe for me. Really crap, and makes me want to leave the group but then I'd be even more isolated.

3. BUPA approved seeing a foot specialist and I wish we'd had it in 2020. He ordered new scans but already found multiple things the NHS just ignored on the MRI they did, even though they explain some of my ongoing issues and could have been treated at the time. I don't know what BUPA will approve as far as treatment because the only reason they're allowing this is due to a new issue - but at least I can be referred to his NHS practice. I do not recommend having your right foot in spasms that prevent you from driving. The pain gets old fast.

Have you considered moving home back to the USA?

1) I had my covid booster (the Moderna bi-valent) this afternoon.  So far I just feel....odd. Ate supper (grabbed a pizza on the way home after picking the daughter up at her work), but have had a metallic taste in my mouth that won't go away that started about 15 minutes after the vaccination. Had a ginger chew that is usually very mild-flavored and it was so hot that the entire inside of my mouth was burning. Daughter ate one and said they were the same as always.  I am drinking lots of hot tea with honey, as my voice is sounding croaky. My throat is not sore, but I now sound like I've smoked 5 packs a day for years.    For a while my sense of reality felt like being like wired awake on too much coffee. Everything was visually very crisp (I'm rather nearsighted, so that was weird) and I was just hyper aware of everything in the room. That, thankfully, went away after a bit.  This is definitely a different reaction than I had to the other Moderna vaccinations. It's not awful (so far), but it's kinda bizarre. Now my upper arm is getting sore. If it holds true to form, I'll get the redness down to my elbow and it'll be really uncomfortable and hot for a couple of days, and then just go away. And I'll feel like crap tomorrow, but that, too, will improve over time.

2) I consider it worth going through the vaccines - the CDC has just thrown our area back into 'high risk' and is recommending wearing masks indoors again. All of which is not getting any publicity and there are almost no masks in sight. A former co-worker who commutes over to Mass. says that in the town she's working in they went from 0 cases of Covid to over 100 in about 48 hours. That's not getting any air time either. Go, Mass! Daughter says she has a scientist source who has correctly called all the waves' timing from the start, and he says November. So we have more masks in the house, and are good to deal with it. Daughter will have her vaccine next weekend.

3) Debating buying potassium iodide for the daughter. It's pointless for me, but if things start wafting around it might do her some good. Dear Lord, I hope it doesn't come to that. They mentioned in passing on the morning news that it's 60 years this week since the Cuban Missile Crisis. And here we are again! It's like Groundhog Day.  Flashbacks of my mom giving me a whole bag of M&Ms (she never gave me candy) and saying, no, we didn't have to go practice going to the basement like they said to do on the radio. But yes I could look out the window. My co-workers 30-40 years younger and are blissfully unaware of the 1962 crisis and don't seem to know what's going on now with Russia. I'm not saying anything. Because it won't matter. There won't be anywhere that is safe. Let them have that peace.  Just color me a little ray of sunshine here this evening....

4) So. If I can get around tomorrow I need to go to the garden - we have some large terracotta pots out there with specimen tomatoes, and some with flowers/bulbs that we need to get up into the communal hoop house for a few more weeks. And I need to prep the plots for garlic planting next month. I saved a bunch of this year's best and will put it in, and we also found some Transylvanian (no, really) garlic at the Garlic Festival at Saugerties last weekend. So I definitely need to grow that!  It might be Sunday (more likely Monday after work.) But I can at least plot it out on paper where things will go.

5) The daughter has a pet guinea pig. It's adorable. It is in there right now making nests of straw in the corner of it's pen to hide in. Smart animal.


EDIT:  Next day. Aside from being a little tired and having a sore  arm that has gone on-and-off numb down to my fingers, I am fine. The last four times I got the Covid Vaccine I had to spend at least one day in bed, miserable.  Today I was able to go shopping at the pet store for supplies. Go figure!    Garden will be at least tomorrow, though. I wasn't going to push it. And about the non-participation in the civil defense drill. It just dawned on me that it was a school day. I should have been in school, but wasn't. And I don't think I was sick. I think mom must have just kept me home from school that day. (?) Definitely out of character for her.

That's just awesome! I have never before seen a bouquet of flowers larger than the recipient! 

1. I've been busy over the last couple months knitting cosy merino wool hats to hopefully sell and build a small business from. My brain is still completely broken from covid in 2020, so all tasks that go along with it (branding etc) take much longer than they should, but hopefully in the next week I'll have some ready to post.

I really hope you can make a go of this. I think it would be so good for you. And I've seen your skills, your work is amazing! 

Friyay!

1.  Chemo is done. Now we wait for the side effects.  Definitely a bit more anxious this time. When I come out the other side from the side effects, at least I’ll be 1/3 of the way through.

2.  Loving my kids and how they are already excited for Christmas. My daughter ( wants a Costco sized teddy bear, but a panda. I said I didn’t think they did Pandas and she said Santa can make anything. My son (5) just wants a ride on Santa’s sleigh.  My sweet kids!  Think my dad is planning his material list to make Santa’s sleigh. 💕

3.  My interior designer brought lots of “cozy bits” this week which is making the house feel much more like home. More comes next week as well. Since we cancelled two holidays and I’m stuck at home, we decided to just make things comfortable.

4.  Random yet exciting, our local Costco opened a petrol station yesterday.  Especially exciting as Asda (where we normally fill up) is closed for 6 weeks for refurbishment. Costco claims they will be 10p a litre cheaper anyways!

5.  My craziest side effect that I’m trying to embrace is I can’t stand a fizzy drink now. So I’m officially off caffeine and Coca-Cola is likely to go bust but hey, water has got to be better for me.  May as well drop my biggest vice. Every cloud and all.

1.OH is away to Leeds, Hull & Manchester for some gigs, so it's just me and the hounds for a few days.

2.  I decided to grow out my buzz cut hair... not cut it since 20 May, and it is going through a very helmet-y, ugly phase.  I need to keep strong and not cave into the temptation to shave it off again!  I'm going to be wearing hats for the next few months.

3.  Big greyhound walk at Ayr beach on Sunday.

4. Tins of pumpkin have arrived from Amazon today, so i might make pumpkin bread or muffins tomorrow.

5.  I'm bidding on a Freitag bag on eBay... I've wanted one for years, so i hope i win!

Take care, everyone! 

Friyay!



4.  Random yet exciting, our local Costco opened a petrol station yesterday.  Especially exciting as Asda (where we normally fill up) is closed for 6 weeks for refurbishment. Costco claims they will be 10p a litre cheaper anyways!

  I've been getting tons of emails about Costco selling petrol and wondering where this was happening.  Don't think we are getting a petrol station in our local Sunbury Costco.  After letting our cards lapse for years, we've just started going back.  Loving the roast chickens and the fancy french butter.    And I am super happy that your biggest worries at the moment are about pillows and Costco!  Long may it continue. 

Friyay!

1.  Been a very weird week.  I always thought my GP file must say "hypochondriac" and now I'm starting to think I'm completely the opposite.  My nurse always calls on Monday to check in and I told her that I was feeling really run down and out of breath since a jab I had last Friday (one I'll have to have every 4 weeks for life).  Was told to come in.  Next thing I knew, I was in A&E and was admitted for a couple of nights for IV antibiotics.  I've definitely learned some real life lessons the last few weeks.

2.  Our new dining table came and it's beautiful.  Had friends around last night for it's inaugural dinner. 

3.  One week until next chemo so hoping I stay healthy this week and can enjoy the week.  This is the "good week" in between each round. 

4.  Kids are off and we carved pumpkins yesterday.  My daughter carved a panda and my son the Spiderman spider.  They look awesome.

5.  Since round 2 of chemo my taste buds are f*cked and nothing tastes good anymore.  Except apple juice.  Food is just weird, burned tasting textures in my mouth.  It's so weird.  And sad.  I love food!

Sorry to hear about your A&E stay and your taste buds, KFDancer. Fingers crossed for a good week this week  .

My Friday Five, which is actually just one situation split into five bullet points :

1. Back at the end of July, I applied for an internal promotion - a Senior role in the main Operations Centre in Exeter. I interviewed at the end of September, and got an official job offer letter today (though I knew 2 week ago that I was being offered a position).

2. Although there were some permanent positions available, they're offering me a temporary secondment for 12 months (I think to cover maternity leave or similar), and I believe I may be entitled to relocation assistance (if so, they should put me up in a furnished rental and give me a travel allowance to return home once a week).

3. Problem is... at the time of the interview, I was leaning towards not wanting the job after all. It would mean leaving Defence and working in Civil forecasting, something I've never really wanted to do... and I was worried that I would regret taking the job, as I have colleagues who moved there from my office and are not enjoying the work. I've always enjoyed working in Defence and I'm not sure I'm ready to give it up. The main reason I applied was because I've been wanting to move back home to the South West for years, and now seemed a good time after losing my dad... but recently I haven't felt that same urgency to move that I had a few months ago and I think it may have been a knee-jerk reaction to everything going on.

4. However, on the plus side, the new role does mean a promotion, more money, and a step up in my career... I've been in my current role for 11 years now, so I really should have moved to a senior role by now (I do usually work a senior role when I'm overseas though). Also, I've really been struggling with the current situation in my office - I've been under a lot of stress this year and we have all these new trainee and newly qualified staff who don't really know what they're doing, and it's become a real chore to go to work every day. I'm just tired all the time and feeling burned out (the last couple of days at work have been a nightmare of having to correct everything the previous shift has done wrong).

5. I only have until Monday to respond to the offer, but since they didn't send it until Friday afternoon, of course no one was around to respond to my emailed questions, or answered my calls, about the exact nature of the job position (as it could be in a number of forecasting areas) and whether I'm entitled to relocation or not... both of which will determine what I decide. It's a bit of a relief though to be offered just the temporary secondment because it means I'm leaning more towards taking it now, since if I don't like it, I'll only have to stick it out for 12 months.

If it’s a 12 month secondment, that’s perfect. Gives YOU a chance to see if the move is right for you!

A few hours late, again....

1) The Daughter borrowed a telescope from the local library (very nice one, with all the gadgets, star charts and books that go with it included in the bag) and we were able to see Jupiter a couple of weeks ago - plus four moons - very clearly. From our front porch. VERY cool. Took it back and borrowed a good quality digital camera. Again, it came with all the various lenses and adapters. Got some really nice fall foliage photos and from our latest apple-picking adventure lots of photos of the orchard. I am really impressed with this library! We have to take the camera back today. I wonder what she'll get this time?

2) I am sipping a cup of tea, delaying going out to the garden to do the final cleanup and plant the remainder of the garlic. Woke up this morning and it was 26F out. It's supposed to warm up later, so I'm waiting until it does. Not a lot to do left, just forking over where the garlic will go, cutting dead plants off at the soil surface and bagging up anything that was diseased. Have a decent sized compost heap in the big garden for winter to work on, and will turn it in the spring. In the meantime it'll hopefully give shelter to some of the garden snakes over the winter. Am leaving all the sunflowers we planted standing in place for now, until the birds eat all the seeds, and will then cut them down and lay them across the mulch I'll have to put over the garlic beds in a week or two. (I prefer wood chips, with a row cover on top. The sunflower stems will help hold it all in place against the winter winds.)

3) Have been doing three loads of wash every other day in the new little washer, and am slowly getting caught up - the pile of dirty laundry in the hall is going down noticeably now. Still have to go to the laundromat tomorrow to get all the blankets and quilts done, though, so I'll probably take most of the smaller stuff still waiting for a wash with me when I do that.

4) Sill going back and worth with the student loan people. My count says I should have been paid off last April. Their count says this December. Because December is after the temporary TEPSL waiver program ends (Oct 31) if I don't have the 120 payments officially by the 31st I get thrown back onto the "old" rules - and will have to be working at the time they discharge the loan. If I quit earlier, they won't discharge the loan and I'll have to keep paying on it.  If I get my count updated as having made the 120 payments before Oct 31, I don't have to be working at the time they discharge the loan. If they moved quickly on anything it wouldn't matter, but the processing pace is glacial. I"ve been moved from Mohela to FedLoan and now back to Mohela loan servicers. And, of course, something goes wrong with every move. I started the application process last October/September (2021).

They are now saying to allow 90 days every time I send in a document with the latest employment verification just for them to process it. So If I have to wait until 90 days after Dec 1, that puts me well into February of next year before they'll even verify the count. Then another 90 days minimum to recommend to discharge it. Then who knows how long for the actual discharge.  So basically, where I was hoping to not have to work past last July, it's looking like next July isn't out of the picture. Unless my appeal requesting they revisit the count goes through - I submitted it last May and they sent a notice a couple of weeks ago that they were just now looking at it at the Dept. of Education. (So, five months waiting in the que?) They had no estimate of when a determination would take place. If they find in my favor and verify the April count as valid, I can stop working after Christmas. Which is really very, very appealing. (Not having to go out to work when it's -6F with a stiff wind blowing would be just about the best Christmas gift I could get, I think!) If not, I will be quite literally hanging in the breeze....

5) I would like to go on a vacation where I don't have to plan it, do the driving, or worry about anything. Given the uptick in covid, flu, and having to sort out all the logistics and get time off from work to do it, it's not happening. Until after the student loan people get the records straight. Then I'm going to take one whopper of a trip somewhere. Maybe a cross-country by train, where all I have to do is look out the windows all day at the world going by. The Rockies are pretty in summertime, so....

Life goes on.

Friday!

Have had several crazy busy and also very sad weeks....

1.) Played a gig a few weeks ago as a celebration to my very good friend who is really struggling with lung cancer. He's been in hospital for weeks ,getting oxygen, physio, chemo, and immunotherapy.  He was able to Zoom into the gig though. It was all very bittersweet.

2.) An extremely close family member to my husband was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and it's looking like it's been found too late and it's too aggressive to do anything. (Still we will know more in a week after he meets the oncologist, so please keep your fingers crossed they can do something).   And then he had a mini stroke after the first biopsy so he's struggling now too with walking.  We are heartbroken. 

3.) Had a massive, massive audit at work this week .So it's been crazy. 

4.) I am playing 15 gigs between now and Christmas.  And then there are all kinds of extra rehearsals and whatnot. Bring on the craziness! 

5.) Waiting for some new beer ingredients to come in to make more! 

Oh PB. Can we all agree cancer needs to go F*ck itself?!?

When I was in limbo and knew I had cancer but not the full extent, I was terrified of hearing the word pancreas. I am heartbroken for all of you that the pancreas is affected. Sending love and good energy your way.

1.  I’ll post about my cancer updates in my thread. It’s a roller coaster ride and one I don’t recommend.

2.  I have been feeling so much better. My joints and aches and pains don’t hurt like they used to. I was able to take my kids trick or treating and did the school run this week!

3.  Been quizzing everyone on “best holiday they’ve ever been on”.  We had two cancelled holidays due to my health and I’m hoping for some epic holidays next year.  I’m going to look into northern lights for Feb half term and hopefully something luxurious for Easter holidays.  Any and all opinions of best holidays welcome!  I just don’t think I want a long haul flight. 4ish hours max.

4.  Have been able to catch up with friends this past week.  Really good for me.

5.  The house is coming together. I need to take pictures and update you guys!