bleeding sinuses

This is kinda icky but it's so weird,  I want to share. 

... 

Two days ago, I had the first nosebleed I ever had as an adult. I was at work so I stuffed tissue up my nostril and put on a face mask to cover it for the rest of my shift. 

Just now, I sniffed and felt like there was a glob of mucus in my throat and went into the bathroom and spit out a huge glob of congealed blood.  

Now my mouth and throat taste like iron. I find this very disturbing but MonsterMustDie says I'm over-reacting. 

Winter Solstice 2023

MonsterMustDie had his first oncologist appointment in the afternoon. We waited 45 minutes for a 5 minute visit. The doctor came in, gave us a limp handshake, and simply said he was ordering a PET scan and he would see him again in three weeks if the scan was done and he had results to look at. His cancer is rated at Gleason 8 and PSA level 7.  

We had friends and neighbors at the house for Winter Solstice in the evening. Michael and Marcia could not come because Michael's back in chemo for #5-leukemia. 

Bob & Karen came and were a huge help in layout and cleanup for the gathering. 

My brother Jeffery and sister-in-law Robyn came all the way from Charlottesville, Virginia to be with us that night. They stayed at the Adams Inn on my recommendation and we had breakfast with them this morning before they headed back home. 

When we got home and were coming in, the PET lab called and set up his appointment for the afternoon of January 3. It was good to get that on the schedule and be one step closer to dealing with this health crisis in whatever way we need to. 

I worked the afternoon at the dress shop. I almost forgot to go. I lost track of the days and my schedule. I made it back home from work by 6:33pm to find MonsterMustDie already in bed for the night.  

life

Yesterday, MonsterMustDie announced to friends on Facebook that he has prostate cancer. We know nothing yet about his condition other than the first basic diagnosis.  He has his first appointment with an oncologist on Thursday. 

I work early Thursday morning.  After work,  I'm planning to go with him to his appointment in the afternoon. 

That evening is our Winter Solstice party,  which I would have never planned if he had told me when his appointment was. He forgot or got the week wrong,  so he didn't tell me the date until this weekend after invitations had already gone out. 

My hope is the party will be a distraction from our troubles and that everything doesn't go down in flames. 

-----
Sight of the day is a man wearing a t-shirt with a grey & black flag on the front saying "Live Free" and the words on back say "The final variant is communism".
I have no idea what that means.  

still working it out

There was some progress made with my ongoing troubles at my condo in Atlanta. On Friday, December 1, I met with a Senior Banker and transferred all but $0.69 from my original account into an entirely new account. The old account is still active, frozen, and I am told that my property manager/realtor can make payments to that frozen account but no one can make any withdrawals from it while it is frozen. I hope that solves the problem. 

The other good news is that the last withdrawal by him of $2,486.00 was successfully caught and blocked after all, according to my bank. 

I am still worried about what he is going to do to me at tax time if he claims I made a lot more money than I did. I am afraid he can put anything he likes on my W9 for my condo. I know nothing about what companies can or can’t do with tax forms. 

I probably need an attorney. 

I definitely need a new property manager. 

Troubles continue

This week, my husband, who is more interested in engaging with conflicts than I am, sent the realtor who is the property manager at my condo a nastygram.
Here is his empty response:

Please let me know if you were able to access the owner portal and see the reports. 

 In case you were not able to access the portal, I've attached a year-to-date report showing all inflows and outflows and balances after each transaction. 

You will recall our phone call when I explained that you were holding the former tenant('s) security deposit of $1,700 which you sent to me electronically on Aug 18, 2023 so that I could send it back to him. My accounting department inadvertently sent these funds back to you $1,650 on August 24 and I explained that we would take the funds back so we could refund the former tenant's security deposit, which we did. Unfortunately, the accounting department sent the funds back to your account again on Sept 18 for $2,051 so we took the same funds back so we could pay your former tenant his security deposit refund. All of those transactions are on the attached report. When we spoke, I apologized for this happening twice and if I could explain - we manage 225 properties and yours was the only one where the owner held the security deposit so our accounting team was unfamiliar with a process to refund a tenant security deposit when we were not holding the funds. 

This will not happen again as the new tenant security deposit we are holding. I sent $2,486.00 to your account on Nov 22nd and the next payment you should expect will be around December 9-11th for $1,350 rent less $135 management fee or $1,215. You can expect this same amount around the same time each month. 

 Please let me know if you have any other questions about the statement.

xxxxx

After reading the idiot email he sent, I responded with this today. I haven't heard any response yet.

xxxxx, 

 Your Portal documents do not agree with my banking statements. Also, the Portal documents appear to be changing. I’m looking at my bank statements. 

When you first started managing my condo on June 01, 2023
Your monthly management fee should be $135.00.
You retain a constant $400.00 in Required Reserves.
We refunded the previous tenant $1700 from my checking account on August 21, 2023.
Repairs on the condo were $295.00.
(my tenant)pays $1,350.00 rent each month.
(my tenant)also paid a $540 move-in fee that included a pet deposit.
By now, I should have been getting $1,215.00 each month. Simple as that.

 
HERE’S WHAT MY BANK SHOWS:
06- 15-23 xxxxx Real Estate + $860.00
07- 15-23 xxxxx Real Estate + $1260.00
08- 21-23 xxxxx Real Estate - $1700.00

08- 25-23 xxxxx Real Estate + $1565.00
08- 29-23 xxxxx Real Estate - $1565.00
09- 13-23 xxxxx Real Estate + $2051.00
09- 18-23 xxxxx Real Estate - $2051.00
The $2,486.00, sent on October 23, was immediately removed by you from my account, just like every other payment you’ve put in.

TROUBLES

I believe my current property manager is a con artist. I had a discussion with him on Wednesday about the lack of funds in my shrinking bank account. He said he would put in 2 months payment and figure the rest out after he got back from Thanksgiving holiday. He said he had no idea why his bank was sucking everything back out of my account, like it was a mindless machine. After that discussion, I put a payment block on his company on my account Wednesday after he put money into it. Today, he sucked the last payment out by changing his company name to access my bank account. Now, I’ve had to completely freeze my bank account and I will have to close it to protect my money and open a new account. I need to find a new property manager for the condo. Meanwhile, the contract he has is for 12 months so I may be stuck with him and without any income for a year. I don’t think this affects the current tenant. They are still paying this realtor, who is keeping all of their money, every month but I am getting none the rent money. I need some referrence/financial advice/help with the condo I own in Atlanta. I might need an Atlanta attorney. I might need a new property manager in Atlanta if I can get out of my contract with my current realtor. Rental on the property has been my main source on income since we moved to North Carolina, until recently. I had to change realtor for managing the condo when the previous Real Estate company, stopped handling small individual properties like mine. She recommended the current manager of my condo. The condo has not made any money for me since this guy took control of it on June 1, 2023. It has only cost me money - $250 each month in Condo Association fees + payments to contractors for improvements + special assessments on the building + property taxes. I get monthly distribution emails saying that I’ve been paid and but when I look at my bank statement, every payment is sucked back out of my account in full a couple of days later and not replaced. The nice little emails made me feel like money was going in. It wasn’t. Wednesday was a frustrating day that all started with me trying to get health insurance and going to Healthcare.gov to see if I qualify for anything. Then I checked my bank account to calculate incomes to apply for healthcare and see that my bank account is shrinking every month. I have to cancel my doctors appointments next week because I can’t get insurance and a lot of medical services seem to insist on it. They don’t want to see me if I’m self-paying. I can’t apply for healthcare if I don’t honestly know what my monthly income is when I fill out online forms. I can’t count on the condo rent and I can’t discount it either. I need to cancel all of my subscriptions to everything and try to stop bleeding so much money from my savings. The most frustrating part of that is that Adobe software will charge me $109.98 to end my monthly subscription to all of my work apps. I thought when I had to update my Adobe software it would be a simple pay-by-the-month fee that I could easily drop or pick up again if I wasn’t working with a particular software package. Leaving them effectively ends all of my work possibilities in graphics or photography. So, since I’m not actively working, I suppose I am going to have to go out of graphics and photography altogether now. I can’t keep paying for my own tools. I am almost certain he will file a W9 claiming I made money on the condo this year when the condo has only been costing me a lot of money in HOA fees, property taxes, and maintenance fees. I don’t know what to do or what I can do about any of this. I have no words.

cold & wet

Today,  everything is dark, wet, and (finally) cold outside.  I would not be taking a single step outdoors if I didn't have to work tonight.  MonsterMustDie is working today until 5pm.I start work in the dress shop at 5pm, so we will not see each other today. 

We started watching Devil's Hour on Amazon last night, based on the recommendation of friends, and it's quite good with attention to detail in dialog and art direction. 

Going to the Potluck

Just finished making a pot of Thai green curry, based loosely on the recipe I got from a friend. It is a recipe with little or no specific amounts but a list of general guidelines on how she makes her curry, which everyone loves. She makes curry the same way I make gazpacho or guacamole. You just figure out what the base is and eyeball or taste until it seems right. No two batches are alike. This is a day when I walk a couple of blocks down and up to the next neighborhood near us, which is a lot more multi-generational (younger) and hipper (still working) than the neighborhood we live in. I always have a great time at the annual potluck, whether I go there alone or with my husband joining me. I always walk, crockpot in arms, because it's so close. I wish I knew more of our neighbors. People in High Point keep to themselves and mind their own business. This one street is different because it has a lot of multigenerational households including the children and grandchildren of original residents. It has in tiny community of people who have known each other since childhood and that sense of community spreads to some of the newer families on their block as well. With a lot of younger people who have children, the parents will inevitably know each other through their children. A few blocks over in our neighborhood, the only people who know each other are the dog-walkers, and they don't get too personal or care to do anything outside their home. It's amazing how different things can be, so near each other.

sound

I wonder why it's so quiet here; not our house but the neigborhood itself - so much that I think if voices are raised indoors that someone outside could possibly hear them. Inside the house there are sounds of air vents, fans, electrical hums, creaks. It's not the cacophony of nocturnal noises that my grandparents, the Hardy's, house was but there is quite a symphony of sound in this old house.

In Rufus Hardy's house, there were constantly bangs and groans from things turning on or shutting down, compressors, motors, electrical hums, loud clocks, etc. The mechanics of older buildings are simple yet mysterious.

In Horace Crowe's house, the only sounds were TV or radio broadcasts. Even the old "baby-burner" furnace in the floor was silent because it relied on hot air rising to conduct the heat. Ceilings were high with open transoms above the doorways to help keep the building cooler at ground level in th summer. All of the noise in their dodgy, poor neighborhood came from outside the house, where there was always some sort of drama going on.

The washing machine is down again

Against all odds, a tech came by this morning to service the washing machine that has been stuck, locked shut, nonworking for over a week. Today's visit from Whirlpool was free but they can't get it running again until they get new parts, which they will have to order. $576.65 is the total for parts to keep our washing machine working because we need a new board and pressure switch. The board keeps going out on it - the one in it now was installed free last year when the original board was recalled. The most recent service call we had when it stopped working was last July. This is a machine I purchased when we got married in 2016. Makes me wonder about buying a new washer. Looking it up, it's a lot more expensive now for a new washer. Now, just the washer alone is $938. I can get a one with less features in steel that won't match for $698. However, most of them can be delivered by October 18 at the earliest, which is might be sooner than we can expect the new parts to come in. The next time it stops working, I believe the answer is to replace it entirely, possibly from a completely different manufacturer.

behold our gourds

MonsterMustDie has fallen in love with the variety of gourds and pumpkins this autumn. 

October plans

I'm trying to figure out if I can visit Atlanta at the end of October. I won't know absolutely if my requested time off at the dress shop will be granted until 1 or 2 weeks before.  That limits my ability to make hard plans on where I can stay or what I can do if I make the trip. I can't buy tickets to any events in advance. Friends can't plan for me as a house guest.  Reservations anywhere are completely out of the question.  

flat tire - it just blew

Out riding with K when she had a flat tire. As it turns out, there had been a low pressure warning for a while that both she and B had been ignoring.  Oops. 

Fortunately,  B came up quickly and saved us. He put on the spare and switched cars with K. He later got a good deal on two new tires - the one that blew and the one that had been about to go for a while. 

disturbed sleep

I woke up at about 4:00 AM this morning. Tried to be quiet walking into the kitchen to give Ellie Cat a snack and then heard MonsterMustDie walking around in the house. He immediately started making coffee. I suggested it was too early for coffee and he assured me he was not going to be able to go back to sleep, anyway. We both gave up on going back to bed and just stayed up. I was able to go back to bed at 6:00AM and I slept for a couple more hours before getting up at 8:20-ish and staying up for the day. Tonight's dinner was just kinda put together impromptu with what I had in the fridge. I cooked angel hair pasta, pan-roasted chicken, and a salad of bitter greens purchased at the Farmers Market on Saturday topped with leftover dressing from dinner at a Greek restaurant last week. MonsterMustDie took a sleep aid and went to bed around 8:00PM tonight.

Ellie had oral surgery yesterday

Ellie Cat had six teeth removed yesterday. Her mouth was a mess. She was out of it all day yesterday. She woke up long enough to throw up twice. Her only desire was to be on the hot back porch but we kept her indoors near us and her food & water. She seems to be back to her senses this morning. We haven't gotten her to eat or drink anything much today. I suspect she probably visited her water fountain last night but food is not interesting or too painful for her. She got two types of pain meds this morning, per the vet's instructions. The first one, Meloxicam, went down easy. The second med, Gabapentin, made her foam at the mouth.

sweet things in the malstrom

 I dreamed I was at some sort of geeky meeting. Chris was hosting it at his home, which was large, so it might have been SciFi of some sort. We were heading out and a huge storm was brewing on an otherwise sunny clear day. I could see patches of dark, round clouds in the sky of deep blue. I was in a van with some younger women driving, reminding them to pull over preferably down hill if it got too bad to drive.  The clouds opened up with tornado warning wind and rain by the time we were driving through a downtown section and I looked out the side window and thought “that flower looks like icing” which, in fact, it was. There were long white tables and fantastic baked items set up for some sort of party. There were cakes in the 3D form of cartoon characters with perfectly spherical heads. There were beautiful elaborately iced flower cookies. There were pastries in the shape of animals... and it was all about to be blown away... all of that bakery artistry wasted, so we paused in the street, opened the doors and I saved a bunch of things that were about to be ruined, pulling them into the vehicle and placing them into any any bags we had to stabilize them for the ride. Then, we kept going through the storm. 

Another UTI?

 I have UTI symptoms again this morning. I decided to take one of the leftover Nitrofurantoin capsules I had from the last UTI before they switched me to Ciprofloxacin. I hope these leftover antibiotics are enough to knock it out this early in the infection. I'm also wondering what is causing this and if this is just the last infection was not completely clear when they took me off antibiotics last time. 

twisting around in circles

I miss having a real job using the skills I spent years learning, which are useless now. It's been two years since I had my last freelance temp gig and now I'm paying too much to keep software on hand that I do not have a use for other than personal entertainment. I'm losing what I know about a dead industry.

Jump to today. Out of the blue, I got two phone calls from what I truly believe is another work scam. A woman with an accent too thick to understand phoned about a print production job in Winston-Salem. I don't think there is any company that fits the description of what she said this job is about there. After agreeing that, yes, I was interested in any work I could get at any price that used my skills, I got a couple of emails and another phone call & voice mail from a man with an equally heavy accent that went on about something about work for a temp gig at low pay doing something related to printing. Again, I could hardly make out what he was saying. I'll play along until it gets too weird.

MonsterMustDie has a cousin who wants me to make some banner ads for him in a "New York Times" style that I'll have to investigate before I get back to him on it. He's asking how much advertising work I'm doing now. Well, I'm not doing anything now but I can make something look good even if I can't guarantee I can send people to his site. This would be a free favor, anyway. I'll do it but I'm dreading it because I expect him to be over-critical of anything I do. Not what I need when my self esteem is at an all-time low.

I can't touch any of this until Wednesday anyway, since I work closing shift at the dress shop tomorrow. MonsterMustDie works in the morning so he won't be available to help me deal with any of this. All of these things will have to wait a day for me to get back to them. I'll do what I have time for before going into the shop.

Dysfunction

MonsterMustDie was out all day, hunting for dead people's stuff, with a small but very specific list of provisions to pick up. He got every last thing wrong, to extent that I think he did it on purpose. That, and he seems to have intentionally omitted the main thing we needed, which was paper towels. He is quite capable of passive aggressive behavior when he thinks I ask too much. This is not fair, considering that I alone paid $550 to a tree service last week to trim some branches hitting our roof and clean our gutters. The gutters were overflowing and causing damage to the woodwork outside the house. That still needs to be replaced as soon as I can find someone to do the work, since I am not a carpenter. 

I woke up this morning to find the thermostat set at 65 degrees. That's too cold even for me in the morning. I turned it back up to the usual Summer temp of 72 degrees (70 if I'm actively cooking) and asked about the temperature. MonsterMustDie said he had not touched the AC. Maybe it was bumped down and forgotten about last night. He was also hyper-sensitive to sound and light this morning. I turned down the volume on the TV, which is always up too high in the morning. I turned overhead lights back off - we don't really need them anyway with window light in the Summer. 

All this also makes me wonder if he sneaks in drinking when he's out of town and/or I'm at work at night. 

I've got other things to deal with. All of the Alexa devices, including the DVD player which had color settings that seemed to be RG but no B and high contrast, have been wonky this week in ways that I have only partially worked through and reset. Most of it was fixed with updates and rebooting to reset everything easily. The Alexa in the bedroom, which I often use as my alarm or reminder, is still not functioning properly - mostly not listening to me. 

Lastly, my earbuds are not functioning correctly but I think that's entirely my fault from falling asleep most nights listening to podcasts on them, which is very annoying because the earbuds are also the main way I listen to music. The left bud/speaker is not playing music. I know it's still on because now and then it plays a system sound occasionally, with no prompting. I wonder if I changed something by sleeping on it. Or maybe that battery is going kaput, which seems unlikely because they are still too new. 

The UTI I had last month finally cleared after three rounds of antibiotics. No idea what brought it on other than generally bad habits on my part, mentioned earlier. The important thing is I feel good now. I'll be working a 4-hour shift at the dress shop this morning. The rest of the day will possibly be spent pacing in circles around the house. 

security

They are removing our metal lockers at work this week.  Those who need to a locker will have a clear box with a 4-digit code that expires in 8 hours.  Gonna have to keep everything in my car or in my pocket now.  

so tired

I'm dragging tonight,  working closing shift. My back and legs are tired and I am feeling drowsy.  I didn't sleep well last night.  I had a bad case of restless legs after working closing shift. 

I suspect the UTI and the medication I'm taking for it is wearing me down as well.  Tomorrow is my last dose of antibiotics and I hope the infection is cleared.  

still sick

I'm nearly finished with my first round of antibiotics,  Macrobiotic, and my doctor has sent me a second prescription at my request.  

Maybe  TMI, my first urination of the morning was still brown and cloudy. I've been trying to drink lots of water but obviously I still need to drink more.  My morning dip stick test still came out positive for a UTI. I feel better but I'm still very uncomfortable. 

sick again

I've got another UTI. I woke up with symptoms yesterday morning. The soonest I could see any doctor was 4pm. I was scheduled to work closing shift last night and I realized,  while waiting for a doctor to see me, that there was no way I could work  on my feet while feeling that bad, twitching, burning and trying not to wet my pants; so I called out for the night.  I also took Cystex and drank yarrow tea all day, hoping that it would not ruin test results so I could get a prescription for antibiotics. 

I also realize I've been doing a lot of urinary health no-no's this week:
I took a warm tub bath. 

I've been snacking on gummy bears which, for reasons I do not know, seem to be an irritant. 
I had a few glasses of red wine - one glass a night - this week, another huge irritant. 

the very bad memorial day weekend

The electricity fluttered and the went out for a while Friday. Since then, we've had no internet service. That meant no TV or music either. Lumos ISP could not make a service call until Tuesday. Looks like our modem died.  

Half of the duct work has been taken down in our basement on Sunday so we were hoping for cool weather until we can have a functioning AC again. We had arranged for a friend of the exterminator, who is also a neighbor, to install new ducts on Tuesday. 

Tuesday, we got an new modem and we are finally back online after a holiday weekend with no communications. The modem death was probably a blessing because it forced MonsterMustDie to work on cleaning out the massive hoard he has in the basement so that someone could work down there.

Meanwhile, the person who was supposed to replace the ductwork ended up ghosting us on the project. I spent Wednesday making calls to set up appointments for estimates from the few companies that said they might consider a project as small as replacing ductwork. That's $69 or more a pop just to have have someone show up and look around and 1. decide if it was worth their time to it and 2. give us an estimate for work to be done at an undisclosed date.

Last night, we were saved by our friend Bob who, after owning and modifying multiple homes over the years, had a good bit of experience in that installing ductwork. He came over to the house with tools, went with John Stephens to the nearest building supply store, and the two of them replaced the ducts last night. 

invisible death

 This week, our kitchen and basement are filled with the smell of decaying flesh.

We cleaned the kitchen thoroughly, emptied the trash, checked inside the cabinets, even cleaned the cat dishes. No change. The stench is getting worse. 
When I got home from the shop last night, the entire house reeked of it. I noticed the basement lights were on so I went downstairs to turn them off. When I opened the basement door, the smell hit me. Whatever died in the house - and it is definitely a decaying animal - is somewhere between the floors beneath the kitchen.
I'm going to try to stay out of the house as much as I can today. MonsterMustDie is burning my scented candles and misting air freshener everywhere, so I think he is as motivated as I am to locate and remove whatever the source of this miasma is. Once we're able to do that, we'll need to figure out how to prevent this from happening again.  

In retail adventures, there was a parking lot spook. An ultra-thin guy dressed in black was spinning through the lot on a bicycle all evening after the shops closed. He was still going around when we finally left the shop at 10:15pm.  We were lined up at the door by 10:00pm but the manager on duty was having some sort of complication in back that they weren't talking about so one senior employee stayed back with her after she let the rest of us out together.  

In the store last night, one guy was disrobing and trying on clothes in front of the racks in the men's department. I don't know if anyone tried to stop him but he was quite a topic of conversation - why would anyone do that when we have dressing rooms?  However, I have seen women do the same thing in dresses. 

blowing in

Most of yesterday was spent visiting my closest friend here,, who is recovering from lung surgery.  She's still on pain medication and not able to move much but it is very difficult for her to stay down.  Along with recovering from surgery,  she's got a new puppy that she and her husband brought home last week.

suit cases

 Last night's adventure in retail was the woman who stuffed two very large suitcases full of gym clothes and was walking out the door without paying for any of it. One sales floor associate saw what she was doing and at least prevented her from getting out with one of the suitcases, although she got away with the other one.  We spent more time getting out and closing the store tonight because it took so long to unpack and re-hang the clothes that we could put back out on the sales floor. Several multi-set singles had to be set aside at the end of the night on the "mis-mates" rack for further processing.

waiting for sleep

I worked at the dress shop Saturday morning while MonsterMustDie drove alone to Alabama for his 50th high school class reunion.

He visited his family graves while he was there - his parents, his sister who died when she was a toddler, his uncle who he is named after. Somehow, this time alone, visiting the cemetery was especially painful for him. He never cries over any of them but it hit him especially hard this time around.

He made it to the class reunion. He didn't recognize most of the people there, as I predicted. One woman was still recognizable, who was the prettiest girl in their graduating class according to him. She had taken care of herself over the years. The men were mostly bald, fat, and bearded now so there was hardly any trace of who or what they used to be. 

He arrived late at night at the Soogs house, where he spent the night before finishing the trip home.

soft in the head

 MonsterMustDie's memory continues to get worse and I really don't know what I can do about taking care of him or myself. I picture us both being homeless. I think that, eventually, I might have leave him in the care of the State if I can't manage the house and basic accounts that he has sole control of - mortgage, utilities, internet, etc. I would have to try to move back to Atlanta to live in my condo, while finding work to pay for basics. I wonder if being married to him might entitle the State to take all that I have, including my condo in Atlanta. I have no one to ask for advice. 

Today he forgot a botched Amazon delivery I got and gave to him to use outside - a multipack of a product similar to but different from what I actually ordered a single of that was sent by mistake (Amazon just told me to keep it and they credited my account - I still didn't want their substitute because it smells awful). He now thinks he just bought it himself and he is telling to me that he just bought this and why large multipacks of this was a good idea to him when he purchased it. He not only is losing days at a time but now he is creating things that never existed. 

Thankfully, he is still running his online antiques business without any trouble that I know of. He also still has a good part-time job for an Italian company here as well. I am very grateful he is able to do both of these things. That bit of income helps a lot with what he can't pay with social security alone. I worry that he seems to be hoarding a lot more. He has another new future-hobby now that he is spending hundreds of dollars on matterials and equipment to set up the perfect studio for himself again. This time it is to make woven art, like basketry, sculptures.  This follows setting up a space and materials for encaustic artwork that he never made. Before that, it was a woodworking-design-furniture business he was going to start with a former co-worker. Thankfully, all of the woodworking equipment and most of the materials were put into the garage of his future-partner's house so I don't have to climb over it. There are still a few odd boards and fabrics in our attic and basement but it is only a fraction of what he had.  

sick again

 Woke up with a UTI that hurts so bad my arms and legs feel weak from the pain overload. Definitely not going to able to work tonight, which involves standing for hours. I called out for today and tomorrow morning. I called the closest UrgentCare clinic and was able to get a 2:20pm appointment. I arrived at 2:00, filled out paperwork, and waited. They were able to see me at 3:35pm. Once I got in, the nurse and PA were both very nice. I got a new prescription for Macrobid. Tonight, I'm already feeling better, not because of the Macrobid but because of the emergency CIPRO in my stash that I took while waiting to be seen by a medical professional. Thank heavens for that stash! I'll start the new antibiotics tomorrow morning and hope for the best possible recovery.

I don't know what brought this infection on this time. The questionable sushi I got a couple of days ago from MonsterMustDie, who had the best intentions bringing it home from me? I had a belly ache that night and the next day. The sake he also brought me that I had last night? Too many probiotics? I need to figure this out.

Holiday Weather

 This year was the coldest overall Christmas holiday I've seen. Low temperatures and high winds made stepping outdoors for anything other than travel not an option. At least it was very dry so there was little danger of ice other than the usual preparation for cold pipes. Hoses were drained, spigots were covered, and interior cabinet doors were open to let the plumbing be heated by the ambient room temperature. 

It was a pizza holiday again. We had pizza with the Karen and Bob's family in Greensboro on Christmas eve. They were lucky enough to have all of their family with the for Christmas, including two grandchildren and it was a fun and warm night. Then we had pizza dinner and Hallmark movies with Jennifer, Gaby, and Dean near Charlotte, NC on Christmas day.

New Year's eve was foggy and misty all day and night. The fog is still spectacularly dense on New Year's morning.