Showing posts with label COVID 19 2020. Show all posts
Showing posts with label COVID 19 2020. Show all posts

Sunday, November 1, 2020

Hygge in Kansas

 Hygge is a Danish and Norwegian word for a mood of coziness and comfortable conviviality with feelings of wellness and contentment. I think of it as quiet satisfaction, and since Kent and I have been working from home for nearly eight months, we’ve –or maybe it’s more accurate to say I’ve—focused on making our home more comfy and cozy, more hygge. And we’ve done a lot!

In no particular order:

I got this because it made me laugh and also goes with the overall colors in our living/kitchen area.


Ding dong the pergola is GONE (and we do not miss it one bit).


I actually got these new house numbers in 2019 but we didn't do anything with them until this year so it counts.


Back yard without the pergola plus you can see our wonderful sun umbrella and the paint scheme.


Action shot of Kent doing I don't even remember what to the umbrella.


Completed paint job plus our new chairs (we also got the table but I'm too lazy to dig up that photo too).


I repainted the sun face (it was green and rusty). It really pops now.


I also repainted Fat Cat, he'd faded a lot and now he's a vivid part of the yar.


I ran two virtual half marathons and also did a COVID virtual challenge (but then of course that stupid bone in my foot broke). But it was all hygge until then.


Hummingbird feeder and a HUMMINGBIRD! I was so excited to see that!


So very many surprise lilies!


A small fountain, which we both love.


I got special mugs and started using the frother on our Ninja coffee maker. I do like a decaf latte.


A tidy solution for all our masks.

The big 72" cat tree. It's now in the second bedroom, and the kittens love it. The platforms are a bit small for our big boy cats.


Two COVID kittens. Definitely hygge.


Privacy screens for the litter boxes (they were in a kid's tent from IKEA, this is a lot less . . . gaudy).


A rowing machine. I made a cover for the rail so it doesn't get dusty, and the kittens think it's wildly fun to play with that fabric.


We reorganized the Billies at the end of our dining room and put a lot of our baking/cooking supplies in there. It's so much easier for me to get stuff now as I'm just 5'4 1/2" and need a step stool for the top shelves of the kitchen cabinets.


I got more cloth napkins, four each of the three you see below. We kicked the paper napkin habit years ago but I wanted prettier ones. 


New kitchen bar stools. Yes they are very orange, also comfortable and work really well in our home.


My office set up, which includes a second table to make an L shaped desk, a second monitor, and my office chair. 

This fabulous tea kettle. The color is ombre, getting darker toward the bottom of the kettle.


Our refurbished Vitamix (that's the chili paste for a pozole in there). So glad we got that.


And a bigger Breville than the one we had (which we passed along to one of Kent's co-workers who adores it). We adore this one and use it nearly every single day.



Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Have you heard the joke?

Teepee, wigman--two tents (too tense). That's me these days.

You know how it is when you go to the doctor for a well visit, you run in, get your tests or exam and leave. And you never think or expect something might be wrong. That's how I've been all my life. I get the exams, even the icky ones, on schedule, I floss my teeth, brush my teeth twice a day, see my dentist twice a year etc. etc. etc.

For me, it wasn't the breast cancer that changed this mindset for me, it was when I was diagnosed with melanoma in August, 2017.

The only reason I was so faithful about getting my skin checked every year was because a much loved mentor in college died from melanoma, and it wasn't a good death. Because of how he died, I've always feared melanoma even though on the face of it, I have very few risk factors. I had dark hair (color it now), dark eyes, I don't burn easily, I didn't get many burns as a kid and I never really got into tanning beds (I found them boring). So I was gobsmacked to have a melanoma on my back. My margins were clear, which is good. But of course I'm on the six month follow up plan, originally for five years and now my dermatologist wants me to continue for well I don't know how long. I'm a fan of that even though I get very nervous for those checks or when it seems a mole has changed.

Flash forward to May 2018, and I fractured my pelvis, which I also could not comprehend. In fact I told the orthopedist she was wrong when she called to tell me the news. But I had, and I'd done it from over training. And then the DEXA scan showed osteoporosis. Boy did that put me in a tailspin.

That may sound silly, but hear me out. We all have mental images of who and what we are, and mine's all about being strong RAWR I can do things myself. Only apparently I can break my bone without falling or being in an accident. Not the kind of RAWR I want at all.

So then in 2019 when events moved super fast from 3D mammo to come back please to diagnostic mammo plus ultrasound to biopsy. I remember lying on my side while she got things ready to do the biopsy and she said something about 80% of these biopsies are benign and I said yup, I'm sure it's nothing. But then again, I thought the same thing about the melanoma and the fractured pelvis so I'd better get this checked. Sure enough, boom. Breast cancer.

Oh but wait, there's more. Last fall I had a lump removed from my arm that turned out to be an atypical leiomyoma, which is associated with kidney cancer (yes, atypical leiomyomas are usually found inside the body and for women, they're often uterine fibroids but not me, I'm a snowflake). And of course the follow up kidney scan did find a couple of dinky tumors on my right kidney. So there's another thing for the regular follow up list.

Sign on a neighbor's house
While I'm not physically fragile, emotionally I feel tattered around the edges and dislike living with the idea or fear of something coming back. That is such an unrecognized cost of breast cancer and I'm not entirely sure how to navigate through it.

I don't feel so RAWR these days. Next week I'm scheduled for my first set of post-cancer scans. In my case, I'll have an ultrasound on the left breast as it's far too painful still for a mammogram. I have a lot of scar tissue, and frankly it hurts all the time. I'll have a diagnostic mammogram on my right breast.

Now put a big helping of COVID 19 on top of all of that, add in a global economic meltdown and rampant job loss, and you bet I'm an anxious bundle of tension. I'm so incredibly glad I run, otherwise I would probably be a hot mess. 

Monday, April 20, 2020

Yesterday

I made bagels.

With Everything But
The Bagel seasoning
I used a recipe from Skinnytaste (hate the name, but there are some good recipes on her site)—it’s not a traditional bagel recipe. Instead you use Greek yogurt (she is very clear that regular yogurt won’t work), baking powder and then bake, not boil, the bagels. The comments ranged from “best bagel ever!” to “the outside baked just fine but the inside was still doughy” and everything in between.

I followed one tip, I weighed the flour instead of just measuring it. But I had a hard time getting exactly one cup of Greek yogurt because I had to scoop it out of my individual yogurt containers (I have one a day at breakfast, and since they are not quite six ounces each, I had to use one plus part of another—I did my best). I also baked them for about five minutes longer than indicated. Next time I think I’d drop the heat to 350 and bake even longer.

We each had one this morning and they were pretty good. I always slice and toast my bagels and then put butter on it, and that's what I did for ours today. I really like that they aren’t gigantic, most store-bought bagels are so big you could practically use them as spare tires for your car. 

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

My COVID 19 efforts

Once the Kansas City metro area (both sides of the state line!) issued the stay at home order and also ordered non-essential businesses to shutter, I realized that this pandemic was going to crush most small businesses. As with the staffing model change at work, I can’t save everyone but knew I could do something to help.

First up, our cat sitter. She does an amazing job, this is her only source of income and we have been so glad to have her take care of our sometime obnoxious cats. The first week of the stay at home order, we sent her $100 via her normal payment route. Last week, she sent out a fund-raising campaign with t shirts, so we’ve ordered two. While neither of those amounts will replace her lost income, I hope it helps some.

Easter dinner
Next the restaurant where we had my incredible surprise 60th birthday dinner—Affäre. Like many restaurants in the area, they immediately shifted to curbside pick-up for a set menu. We’ve gotten dinner there twice, and then ordered our Easter meal shown from them too (shown in this photo). We can’t order from them every week, it’s not cheap so not really in our budget, but I know it’s helped and they’ve been clear with all their customers how moved they are by the support.



Masks in progress last week
Finally, fabric masks. I joked around a couple of years ago with a friend who is somewhat of an end-time prepper—she’d said that people with skills would be welcome at their “compound” when the apocalypse comes. I told her then that Kent and I both sew and she was lukewarm about whether that skill counted as essential during those end times. Joke’s on her, it definitely counts.

We’ve already made and distributed about 40 fabric masks and I’ve got another 22 cut and partially assembled. No, these aren’t the same quality as the N-95 masks but I’ve made them with fabric that has a very high thread count and they’re lined. Most have ties, the child masks have elastic so they stay on. As I told someone  who tried to thank me for making her family masks—hey, I can do this bit of good, so I am.