While the gas has been turned off (two weeks and counting) I discovered it’s possible to cook rice in the microwave. My stomach has been so iffy lately that plain rice has sounded nice, but I want some veggies too, so I bought a sack of TJ’s frozen mixed veggies. So to make my current favorite bland dinner, you put 1/3 c jasmine rice and 2/3 c water in a LARGE bowl. Cover with a plate, nuke for 7 minute. Stir, dump in some frozen veggies, cover, nuke for 3 more minutes. Perfect.
Tonight I seasoned it with a shake of TJ’s Chili Lime Seasoning. Yummy! And still fairly bland :D
The Gas Men were here again this morning, banging on stuff. Dave had a look at their work and says they’re doing an excellent job. They might finish tomorrow…
Routine cardiology appt today. He’s letting me lower my dose of Amiodarone back to 100mg — hallelujah! That might help solve my thyroid situation. Also he’s changing my diuretics to something that won’t upset my stomach so much.
Both cardiologists felt my Cold Knees. Both said they’d never seen anything like it. Lol! I hope they name a condition after me. Shallenberg’s Knee.
We finished the Sewing Bee tonight!! So happy that Annie won. That jumpsuit was spectacular, and she’s made a number of other splendid garments through the whole series. I feel like she has improved her skills radically over the run of the season, too.
I’d love a crack at sewing Esme’s Amorphous Dress.
I was quite tired today, but Dave felt much better and had the energy to do some things! It made me SO HAPPY to look out the window and see him pottering around in his workshop. He fixed his mobility scooter and his van!
Did I mention that the Gas Man got started on our repair yesterday? He’ll be back tomorrow with a helper and he said he might be able to finish up. Fingers crossed. No hot water here for two weeks. I did finally wash my hair in the kitchen sink a couple days ago.
My god I miss Mister Rogers. This blooper showed up in Goodable today. <3
Oof still hot but “only” 95°. Surprising what a difference those five degrees make, but it’s still brutally hot and I need to be very careful not to overheat.
Up eatly because the Gas Man started repairs today at 8! Oh man, there’s just nothing like a summer morning, just before it gets hot. The air is damp and warm, and the fragrance of growing things is practically tangible. And then omg summer nights, after the sun goes down and the air is thick and smells like hot plants. I would have slept outside last night but after a few minutes sitting and enjoying the air, I remembered there’s such a thing as mosquitoes and I am DELICIOUS. Wonder where you can buy a mosquito net…
I did a little Trader Joe’s trip in the morning before it got hot out, and then just lay quietly on my bed for the rest of the day with my feet elevated and the fans pointed at me. In the afternoon when it got up to 95°, I soaked my cotton seersucker dressing gown in cold water and draped it over me. Who needs AC when you’ve got evaporation?
(Well, Dave does, but alas our AC is ineffective. But it’s ok with me because I loathe AC anyway. So stuffy and artificial)
Whew it was a scorcher! I sat outside in my garden for as long as I could before it got too hot, and then I came in and traced off my mid-Victorian doll clothes patterns again with adjustments this time so they’ll fit better.
Tomorrow will be hotter, maybe 100°, but next week should be lovely — high 70s, low 80s.
Another glorious day in Paradise. I ripped out my ailing pea plants and sat out in my garden in the sunshine in the morning, listening to the birds and insects making a happy racket.
Then I ran to Ace for a hose, a little bag of potting soil, and some more green bean seeds. Home again, I started several little pots of green bean and nasturtium seeds. Mom mailed the nasturtium seeds to me, collected from her own nasturtiums which are the descendants of my nasturtiums from decades ago.
Oh what an absolutely glorious day! A real summer day. Eighty degrees, puffy clouds in a bright blue sky, warm gentle breezes. In the morning I played in my garden. Planted my new strawberry, cucumber, and green bean seedlings, and started a couple of sprouted potatoes too. And then I sat in the shade on the deck in the middle of my plants and just enjoyed the day.
Then I went to Trader Joe’s for apples and goat cheese (my staples), and salsa and chips, and a whole bunch of beautiful fruit. And now I’m just chilling and enjoying the fresh, warm air blowing in through my bedroom windows. Gonna watch the new episode of Sewing Bee now. Dave is still in the hospital — they want to monitor his kidneys. Eight days he’s been in there, argh!
Susan (hi Susan!) got Henry and me hooked on Redactle. So much infuriating fun, especially when we all work on it at the same time!
When Dave is home I can fall back asleep if I wake up too early. When he’s away, I can’t. So yeah. Permanently tired. I visited him again and he looks/sounds great! He’s hoping to come home tomorrow, fingers crossed.
On the way home I stopped at our little local nursery (plants in a parking lot) and bought some more seedlings — strawberries, green beans and cukes. Also a potted fern.
Got home in time for appointment with Gas Man #3, who needed a closer look at all our Issues before writing up a proposal. Sounds like he has a good plan. I hope the estimate is reasonable. We’ve been without hot water for a whole week! Tomorrow I plan to heat some water in the electric kettle and have a bit of a wash, and I can wash my hair in cold water in the kitchen sink, if the weather stays lovely and warm. Summer has finally arrived.
My sweetie had his foot operation today and it went fine. Plenty of healthy tissue under the bad bits. *whew* He says he’s feeling much better, almost back to normal, so we hope he can come home soon.
The Henry family visited today! Such joy they bring me. Smol Baby is developing strawberry-blonde curls! Maybe she’ll end up with glorious , reddish, wavy hair like mine.
Watching excellent BBC crime deama, Sherwood, and up way past my bedtime. Oops.
Super nauseated so this will be quick. Had enough energy today to do a little housework and visit Dave in the hospital for a couple hours! I read to him <3 He’s doing well, just feeling icky from antibiotics. Surgery tomorrow to clean up his foot wound.
I managed to do a few things today. I set up my new vermicompost system (wormbucket.com) and went to Portland Nursery, which is absolutely Disneyland for gardeners. My god, it goes on and on and on. Houseplants and gardening gear, of course, but also row after row of every imaginable flower, groundcover, shrub, vegetable, fruit tree, berry bush, rose bush, etc etc etc. I ran out of energy before walking through it all! I was very restrained and bought only my worms, two tiny houseplants (Crispy Wave ferns), and an envelope of mixed good-insect-attracting flower seeds, which I strewed over the lawn where a big patch of buttercups has grown during No Mow May. Hoping some of them will take. We had a gentle rain later so I’m hopeful.
Oh I also stopped at Ace for tomato cages because they cost half as much as at the nursery (sorry but $20/cage is too much!)
Then I caged my tomatoes and my zucchini, and filled another grow-bag with soil to plant something in later. Not sure what. My peas look really wimpy so maybe I’ll rip them out and try again. I have a packet of carrot seeds too.
And THEN I worked on Em’s birthday dress and made great progress! Can probably finish tomorrow if I have the stamina.
And then around 5pm I’d had enough and crawled into bed.
Dave had an angiogram on his leg today and they fixed his circulation issues! Hooray! We had a quick phone call but the connection was terrible and I could only understand about half of what he said (come on boomer, get comfy with texting) but he sounded great (if exhausted). He’s hoping to come home soon — if not tomorrow, maybe Monday. Oh man I hope so.
The house is so quiet and dull without his cheerful chatter. Hurry home sweet Dave <3
Dave is still in the hospital but he’s feeling a lot better. He’s still on heavy-duty IV antibiotics but his white blood count is almost back to normal. *whew*. Tomorrow he gets an angiogram on his leg. We had a good long phonecall tonight and he sounds like his usual self again. I hadn’t realized how very confused and mumbly he had become — it was so gradual. Sepsis is NO JOKE.
I had the Big Fatigue again today so I pretty much stayed in bed, but I did get up and go to New Seasons for a couple of sandwiches so I have tempting food for the weekend. Got some really nice-looking sliced sourdough for toast, too, and some lemons to make lemon curd.
Dave didn’t have a stroke and he doesn’t have a DVT so that’s good. He does have sepsis and a handful of other things so they ran tests on him all day. He’ll be there for a few more days probably. He’s miserable. Poor chap. :(
I visited Henry’s family this morning and stayed till the afternoon. It was wonderful to see them — it has been forever because of their bout of Covid.
When I got home I climbed into bed and watched Taskmaster for the rest of the day!
Up early to go to the OHSU medical center for a chest echo and labs. Labs came back showing all my thyroid levels to be nearly off the charts, so maybe they will finally believe me that this is all a thyroid problem and actually do something about it.
When I got home poor Dave was dragging around looking weak and sick, poor fellow. I’ve been smelling gas on and off since we moved in so I checked the symptoms of natural gas poisoning and they matched him pretty well, so I finally convinced him to call the gas company about it. They sent a guy out within half an hour who found multiple gas leaks all through our house. Like, every coupling is leaking. Argh. The Gas Man said it’s harmless to breathe… but I dunno if I believe that. He turned off the mains and we have a company scheduled for next week to come fix it all.
Meanwhile Dave was dizzy and weak and wobbly and headachy and numb and nauseated and body achy and all… so (again) I finally convinced him to call the Kaiser nurse. He went over all his symptoms and she said go to the ER, so I took him in. As we were driving and going over his symptoms again he realized that it was all matching how he felt when he had bouts of DVT (deep vein thrombosis), and when we got there and they examined him they noticed that a wound on his ankle was looking infected too. (He’s diabetic and often has wounds that take forever to heal) I hung out with him in his ER cubicle until I got tired and came home. He’s there overnight, thank goodness, where they can take good care of him.
Why won’t men take care of their health *before* it’s an emergency? He has been suffering for a week or ten days and I’ve been begging him to see a doctor! They x-rayed and CT scanned him and gave him antibiotics and I don’t know what else happened after I left.
Tell you what, though, it was refreshing to be in an ER and not be the patient! This is only his second ER visit since we met, but I’ve had four. But who’s counting? Heheh.
Yay I don’t have a pituitary tumor. Endocrinologist says it’s probably the amiodarone messing up my thyroid, so they’ll give me more of one hormone and less of another and try to balance me out.
Which is, of course, exactly what I asked them to do three months ago. *eyeroll*
Em’s birthday sundress was becoming an Epic Headache (size and fabric) so I ran to the fabric store and bought some sturdier, less difficult fabric and will re-kajigger the size tomorrow maybe. Oh except tomorrow I have a chest echo at 8:30am so that’ll probably be all I can do!
Dave hasn’t been feeling well for several days. Achy, massive fatigue, lightheaded. Covid test was negative but I’ll give him one tomorrow as well. My poor Englishman. :(
One year ago today, I went on a date with an Englishman, and he turned out to be the man of my dreams. We’ve had one whole year of peaceful contentment together, and we’re trying hard to stay alive for many more. I love you, Dave Fifield <3 <3 <3
I finally decided what to make Em for her 9th birthday next week: I’ll draft a version of this tiered maxi sundress in her size: https://oliverands.com/community/blog/2016/06/tiered-maxi-dress.html . So i went to Mill End and bought three yards of the most luscious, lightweight, floaty cotton in a beautiful understated floral print. Maybe tomorrow I can draft the pattern and get started.
