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Bad sleep so very tired today but Henry and Lulu came over for hours so it was a wonderful day anyway. Henry brought leftovers for my freezer, a sriracha barbecue sauce, chicken, and beans dish, very strongly flavored, sweet and spicy, so I could actually taste it. I made cilantro-lime rice which went with it very well so we ate lunch all together. My stomach is not too miserable today. I think the extra dose of diuretic helped. I only weighed 97 pounds this morning, so there’s not a drop of extra fluid in me.

Henry did tons of chores and housework while Lulu and I snuggled in bed and I helped her read the words in her new Nintendo game, Fae Farm. Super cute but lots of reading to get started. She’s got the hang of it now and can probably have fun on her own, exploring and crafting.

I am plum worn out now, hoo boy. Time to zone all the way out in front of Fargo, s01e05.

Oh! This morning for breakfast I made a lemon yogurt that’s as good as or better than my favorite lemon yogurt that Trader Joe’s discontinued! Whisk together a tablespoon of sugar and a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, then whisk into a half-cup of thick yogurt. I used my homemade whole milk strained-kefir yogurt but storebought Greek yogurt should work fine. Add more lemon or sugar to customize, or some lemon zest if you like it. So good, so sharp and fresh-tasting!

I had a Good Day! Omg, an actual Good Day. I took metolazone first thing in the morning AND didn’t eat anything until the late afternoon so my stomach felt ok for hours. I did so many fun things! I tidied up my bedroom a bit and even put away my clean laundry. I dealt with packages and got my horrid pile cleared off the table. I pounded up dried bread into crumbs in my mortar and shredded some more stale bread to dry in a low oven for more crumbs. I assembled my mini eggplant parmesan and baked a batch of banana-walnut muffins and washed everything up and left the kitchen tidier than when I got there. And I strained a quart of kefir to make yogurt. And watered my container garden.

And then I was ALL WORN OUT, naturally, having clocked over 1000 steps, but for a good and satisfying reason so I went back to bed in the early afternoon for drawing and audiobooks and zoning out. At about 3 I baked my casserole and have been working on it very slowly while watching season 1 of Fargo. Forgot how good it was. And my casserole is delicious! I can taste it! My stomach feels full and uncomfortable now of course but it’s less annoying late in the day when I can just lie here and rot. Maybe the trick is to simply not eat for the majority of the day. Sigh. I drank some juice in the morning so I never felt lightheaded or anything. I daresay a little lemon sorbet would be ok too.

The minute I eat anything, I start feeling uncomfortable again. Gah! But still not horrible like yesterday. This morning, before eating anything, I breaded and fried some eggplant slices and tomorrow I’ll assemble them into a little eggplant parm, and then I’ll eat it and feel awful. But I just had a great Zoom appointment with wonderful Dr. Jeff Robinson, my pulmonology specialist, and we have a plan. I’ll take metolazone again tomorrow to try to get ahead of the edema, even though I just took it yesterday. And he’s going to ask his pharmacist if there’s a gentler form of potassium I can take, a liquid perhaps. We’ll try that first, and if that doesn’t help I’ll skip my potassium supplements for a few days to find out if that really is what’s making my guts feel so bad. Feels good to have a plan. He wants to do everything possible to keep me comfortable.

Also, and he was sweetly delicate about this, through he needn’t have been, he told me that Oregon is a “Death With Dignity” state! So when it all gets to be too much I can choose to go on my own terms. He says just having that medication on hand can help me feel like I still have a little bit of control as it all slips away. I’m so very happy about this! Not yet, of course! I’ve got eggplant parm and lemon-blueberry muffins to make and a LOT more videogames and drawing and Taskmaster and knitting and hanging out with my lovvies still. But someday I can make that choice for myself. I didn’t know it was legal in the US but it turns out there are eight states that allow this humane treatment. Only eight, which is shocking, but at least there are eight and I live in one of them. https://deathwithdignity.org/states/

Feeling so much better. Yesterday was horrible. But I slept well and my stomach is behaving and I think I can sit in the living room for a while instead of staying in bed all day.

It’s cold! Wearing my thickest wool socks!

Horrible night. Stomach problems, breathing problems, bad insomnia.

The house was chilly this morning and I wore my warm slippers. Autumn is coming!

Played some Zelda and got the Autobuild ability yay!

Made easy Thai sweet chili sauce this morning so that my broken taste buds can perceive some flavor in my stir fries, and very tangy potato-sauerkraut soup for dinner. It’s Soup Season.

A little drawing, a little reading, a little Zelda, a lot of nothing.

Still alive! Stayed in bed mostly. Did a little drawing in procreate but got worn out really fast. More tomorrow. That leftover homemade pad Thai was such a treat.

Mood better tonight because different strategy today. Instead of getting up, doing stuff, getting exhausted, and going back to bed at noon all sad, I got up, made my breakfast smoothie, and went back to bed to read. I conserved my energy until my grocery delivery got here in the afternoon and THEN I used my One Daily Spoon to make myself a nice meal. Tofu Pad Thai For One! Rice noodles, tofu, broccoli, red bell pepper, an egg, bean sprouts, peanuts, sauce, lime juice, cilantro. Not quite like restaurant pad Thai but also WAY LESS SALTY and still quite tasty! Kind of a pain in the butt, with making the sauce and having all the ingredients prepped and ready to go before you start cooking, but I’ll be more streamlined next time. I can scramble the egg in the pan, for example, instead of whisking in a little bowl. Also the “For One” recipies from http://onedishkitchen.com make two Kara Servings, so tomorrow’s lunch is already taken care of. I cut the sugar in the sauce by 2/3 so I’ll add a bit more to my leftovers and see how that is.

I ordered like six different kinds of crackers in my grocery delivery. Lol. Cheese and crackers is my new Appetizing Thing, apparently.

My body is still so heavy, and walking is a huge effort… walking around less means I notice less, though I know that is the worst possible thing for me to do. I need to walk more or it will only get harder. Maybe my darn PT people will get back to me next week and give me even gentler exercises.

Ugh. I wake up feeling pretty ok but my body is so heavy. Every step feels like slogging through deep snow carrying a toddler. Went back to bed before noon. Listened to audiobooks all day. Feeling full, took metolazone at noon.

Down.

Got really dizzy and nearly fainted this morning. Very low BP. Dehydration from all the diuretics?

A better day, thank goodness. Sort of average+. Slept well! Did some cooking, read my book, watched the Barbie movie and utterly loved it. Sharp and funny and curiously deep. Amazing set design and costuming.

(But isn’t Ryan Gosling a little old to play Ken? Isn’t that, like, one of the things we’re fighting against — older actors being paired with younger actresses? But that’s literally my only complaint.)

I ate barely anything yesterday but today I did better. Realized if I skip breakfast that leads to zero appetite later, oddly enough. So I made a small smoothie this morning and then was able to eat two kiwi fruits and a big bowl of popcorn while watching the movie, a small bowl of homemade chickpea/tomato/cauliflower curry over rice for dinner, and I have my sliced crunchy green apple and goat cheese for a bedtime snack.

Still alive etc. Not a great day. Not a terrible day. So weary. Finished two excellent books — “Book Lovers” and “The Family Next Door”.

Mom did laundry, made my bed, did endless dishes (where do all the dirty dishes come from? I use my disposable paper bowls almost exclusively), and played Bartok on the piano for hours. Bach is a bit too much for my brain lately. Bartok is so much simpler.

No appetite today. Nauseated.

Wish I had a live-in helper.

The muffins I made were stupendously good. Seriously. This recipe https://www.recipetineats.com/brown-sugar-apple-muffins except homemade apple vinegar, no cinnamon, and a cup of chopped walnuts. I only needed one large Granny Smith to get two cups. And I did the all-in-one method a la Mary Berry. So moist, so flavorful, wonderful texture. That is the best way to chop apples for baking, for certain! Because of the extra mass from the walnuts I ended up with enough batter for 13 heaped muffins so I made the extra one in a measuring cup.

My experimental strained kefir was a resounding success. I ended up with a very thick cross between Greek yogurt and sour cream — I’ll use it in place of either. Super-creamy because I use whole milk to make my kefir. I drank some of the whey, which was surprisingly refreshing, and I think I’ll use some to soak my bulgar wheat overnight for tabbouleh tomorrow.

I made myself a tiny salad for lunch as a treat. I usually try to eat more calories if I can eat at all, but the garden cherry tomatoes were so tempting and I just craved a crunchy juicy salad. So good, so good.

I got two more big bags of fresh library books yesterday and started going through them today to winnow out the unreadable ones but the first one I dipped into was so good I couldn’t stop reading it! “The Husbands” by Chandler Baker.

I think I’ll have another tiny salad for dinner and then some Potato Mess for the calories, with my new homemade sour cream!

God it’s wonderful to have a better day. I don’t even feel that great — but in contrast with yesterday I feel like Wonder Woman

Oh yeah I put up two quarts of dill pickles, too! In three weeks or a month they’ll be amazing. I cut them pretty small, in quarters lengthwise and then in half the short way, so I can fish out a little piece when I want a pickle and not over-salt myself.

I took metolazone at bedtime last night even though I knew I’d need to get up to pee all night. I just felt so awful that I decided it was worth it. And I was right. I got up every 1-2 hours to pee but my abdomen felt UNFULL when I got up in the morning. God what a difference. I did the washing-up, baked apple-walnut muffins, and started straining some kefir for kefir-yogurt. Now I’m all tired and starting to feel full again but not miserable yet. Yesterday was so horrible. I lay in bed all day like a lump. Couldn’t even handle listening to an audiobook.

Now I know I can trade sleep for a few hours of feeling not-full-and-puffy the next day.

Mom brought home cucumbers for me to pickle, so I’m gonna try really hard to scrape up enough energy for that after I have a little rest. Those full-sours I made are just BEYOND DELICIOUS. I’m definitely a full-sour girl.

A very hard day

So tired. Mom bought me the most adorable pants at our local Weird Discount Store. Linen/rayon blend, woven blue-and-white stripes, pockets, loose and beachy, elastic waist, long enough! I feel so cute in them.

Tired. So tired of being tired. It’s tiring and tiresome.

I found a website full of recipes for single serving meals. I’m excited. I’ve filled my recipe app (paprika) with interesting recipes like pad thai for one (I rewrote it for tofu instead of shrimp, eww), eggplant parmesan for one, split pea soup for one. I have a hell of a time recalibrating my cooking muscle-memory to make non-family-size meals. This should help, and a “single serving” is still probably two-three meals for me. I keep ending up with like a week of leftovers every time I cook for myself. It’s too much.

https://onedishkitchen.com/

Also she/he/they list ideas of what to do with your surplus ingredients; for example if you have surplus mozzarella from making eggplant parm, you could use it for a personal pizza or a caprese salad

Hoping to wake up with enough spoons to cook something new for myself sometime soon…

Yesterday was a metolazone day so last night I woke up every 2 hours to pee. So that tells you how today was.

Mom is visiting, yay!

I took a bath and washed my hair this morning, then baked a batch of banana-nut muffins. Perfect recipe. https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/banana-muffins/ but I skipped the spices. I don’t want spices in my banana-nut muffins. Used a cup of walnuts btw.

Then worn out and did nothing for the rest of the day. Zelda, audiobooks, YouTube. Lots of Townsends.