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Homemade pizza fail! It started well, crust started cooking in cast iron skillet on stovetop, then baked in oven for a bit, but when I switched the oven to “broil” I forgot that our oven won’t let you just switch modes. You need to press START again. So I sat on the floor watching it cook a little bit (residual heat) but not finish, and then I realized. And of course I should have done BAKE for a while again first but I was flustered and went right to BROIL so then the top was beautifully cooked and the crust was raw in the middle. So then I put the skillet back on the stovetop to see if I could get the crust to cook a bit more, and it burned a bit on the bottom and stayed raw in the middle. Lol! Well, honestly, it was still edible, especially the lovely tomatoey-cheesey top. Even bad burned raw pizza is still pizza.

Why so sleepy? Why?

Dave went to a big gathering of local guilds where he literally chatted with people all day (my idea of hell, his idea of heaven) and I stayed home in the quiet to read and nap. That’s what I did today. Finished “Downfall”, a thriller by Mark Rubnstein and listened to many many chapters of “House of Pain”, non-fiction by Patrick Radden Keefe about the Sackler family and the opioid crisis for which they are responsible. The first 15 chapters were mostly biographical, with hints of shady pharmaceutical advertising even back in the distant past. At chapter 16 all hell broke loose when we reached the story of how they shoved Oxycontin through the FDA approval process and then sent an army of sales reps out to push the stuff… my god. They knew full well what they were doing. They gave out free 30-day prescriptions. The lies. The greed. The arrogance. Honest to god it’s Nazi concentration camp levels of evil, no exaggeration. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this much evil. I need to switch to something lighter before bed or I’ll have rage nightmares.

Warm. Sleepy. Read lots between naps. Finished Jane Casey thriller, started Mark Rubenstein thriller, started listening to “Empire of Pain” about the Sackler family.

Today was better! I felt less sleepy and I did some things. Ran errands in the morning — dropped off a box at UPS (returning bad medication pumps to pharmacy) and picked up a few things at Safeway. Ben and Jerry’s was on sale so I splurged on a little container of Peanut Butter Cup and had some of it for breakfast.

It was warm and sunny and beautiful so I sat outside and read for a while, and then I came in and baked a cake! A lemon chiffon cake, and I also made lemon pie filling to fold into whipped cream for the filling between layers. I was very nervous because cake is difficult and I don’t always have success, but it turned out great! Light and fluffy and lemony. The cake itself didn’t have any lemon in it, according to the recipe, just lemon zest and I don’t like lemon zest. So I skipped it and crossed my fingers and replaced a half cup of water with lemon juice and it worked. It took many hours but of course a lot of it was baking time and chilling time and so forth, so it wasn’t too much for me. During waiting periods I lay down and rested and stitched and read.

After it was done and cooled I froze half right away, and split the other half into layers with filling. Here’s an English cutie-pie with half an enormous cake and an enormous spoon. Lol!

Oh the other exciting thing that happened today was I got my first Homebound library book delivery! It arrived in a green canvas zippered bag. Very practical. The tag with my address on it can be reversed to show the library’s address when I’m ready to send it back. I’m thrilled! I won’t need to wait for a “good” day to get fresh books and return the old ones. No more late fines and wasted holds. Thank you, library!

I did my exercises too. Just one set, but I did them. I’ll try for two sets again tomorrow.

I’m so sleepy all the time, and I never stop eating. I hope this is evidence of hypothyroidism and I hope my endocrinologist’s new plan will help.

Nice day. Felt tired but in a pleasant way, so I mostly just stayed in bed and read.

Nick the Library Guy called me! I’m all squared away for the Homebound program. Books I request will end up at his desk, and he’ll mail them to me in green canvas bags. He will even send an extra empty bag with my first pile of books so that I can return the books I checked out yesterday. So happy :)

Slept pretty ok last night despite the ANTS. Ran some errands this morning — New Seasons for hazelnuts at 30% off, and the library to check on my Homebound application. The librarians were so kind! Nick, the guy who runs the Homebound program, will be in tomorrow to process my application, and they said he’d call me when it’s done. I picked up my holds while I was there since they might expire before they get mailed. Not too many to carry, thank goodness.

For the remainder of the day I read, stitched, practiced calligraphy, listened to audiobooks, and goofed around on Mastodon. The #twitter tag has been VERY entertaining lately. Lots of “Twitter Blue” drama. Musk is such a colossal idiot.

I did my leg exercises TWICE tonight. My muscles are trembling.

I really don’t understand any of the Business Stuff in Succession. Board meetings and share prices and hostile takeovers and so forth. But it doesn’t matter. I love watching the Roys do their thing.

Did my exercises today and also helped Dave slice up all the old cardboard to go in the recycling bin. He always cuts it all up into pieces small enough to lie flat in the big wheelie bin, rather than just jamming it in. You can fit a remarkable amount in that way.

When will the ants stop crawling on my bed and me? When? They finally discovered the ant bait a few days ago. They’re supposed to carry it home and poison the whole tribe (Flock? Colony! That’s the word) but so far there is no difference. Ants ants ants crawling crawling crawling.

Horrible sleep last night. Back-to-back anxiety nightmares, drenching night-sweats. Clenched my teeth so hard (despite mouth guard) that I woke up with a splitting headache. Slapped ants off myself all night. UGH.

I was determined to have an ok day anyway. Took a bath and washed my hair first thing, and changed my bedding. I knew if that was all I could do today it would at least help me sleep better tonight.

Did some stitching, read a ton. I’m reading “Special Agent” by Candice DeLong. She’s the FBI profiler and psychiatric nurse who hosts the Killer Psyche podcast. Good stuff, a memoir.

I’ve been diligently practicing my uncial insular script and decided to treat myself to a nice but inexpensive pen and some good notepaper. And some ink. It all arrived today and I’m thrilled. Jetpens is awesome!

Big fatigue. Slept maybe ten hours straight through the night, and then took a nap at about 11 and slept on and off till 1. It’s not yet 7pm and I’m ready for bed.

Ate lots of yogurt to try to help my tum. it’s a bit less cranky today.

The current series of Taskmaster is so good! Danny, Ivo, Jenny, Kiell, and Mae. Very competitive.

I will try to do my exercises now and then head for bed. My legs feel really weak today but I bet I can do five of each, which is better than none!

Went to Trader Joe’s this morning, yay! Rode the electric cart and didn’t wear myself out too badly.

Why does everything I eat make my stomach bloaty and hurty, all of a sudden? Not fancy difficult food. A tangerine. Steamed plain spinach. Arghhhh.

I still feel like I’m slowly beginning to recover, yay! I did my exercises standing up again, and spent at least half the day out of bed. Ate a huge pile of steamed broccoli and asparagus for lunch. I did a very good job eating the produce that came in my veg box this week. Sometimes I don’t have the wherewithal to cook the random veggies they send, or eat the fruit before it goes bad.

Yesterday I baked eight little purple organic potatoes. Ate two hot, two cold sliced in half and spread thickly with butter, and fried the rest up in butter for an afternoon snack today.

I mailed in my “homebound” application to the library. I’m so excited! I spent ages browsing the online catalog and selecting books to request. Our library has a very good, very usable online catalog. They even have a virtual “new books” shelf, which is always my first stop when I go there in person. I found some new fiction, the next novel in a crime series I’ve been listening to (Jane Casey’s “Maeve Kerrigan” books — scribd has the first three but no others), a Finnish grammar book, a couple of calligraphy books, and a non-fiction book called “Tasting History: Explore the Past Through 4000 Years of Recipes”. Sounds interesting, huh?

And I won’t need to tire myself out carrying them around the library and out to the car and into the house! Omg I’m so excited, so excited. I hope my application goes through quickly. I bet it will. It should arrive at our branch tomorrow and then it can’t take too long to get me entered into the system. I hadn’t realized that I’ve been avoiding the library because of fatigue. Books books books books, wonderful books. I can have Book Greed again! That’s what Ex-Husband #2 lovingly called it when I checked out more books than I could carry :D

But now I’ll only need to bring them in from the porch after they’re delivered, and my walker will do the carrying.

Woke up feeling awful but somehow felt a little bit better as the day progressed. My three-day headache went away, for one thing, and I felt a bit less depressed, and I am very very proud of myself because I did my horrible little exercises and I did them STANDING UP even though it was extremely difficult and tiring and I nearly collapsed afterward. But I did them!

I sat by the window in the living room and worked on my blackwork project, instead of staying in bed all day. And in the evening I sat with Dave and watched terrible TV with him for the first time since Hospital.

Tonight I went to the online library catalog to request a book, and I discovered that they have a “homebound” service which will let me select books to be mailed to me for free! With free return postage and no due date. I’ve printed out the application form and will send it in tomorrow. Sometimes I’m ok to go to the library under my own steam but sometimes I’m very very much not and it would be AMAZING to have a stack of library books show up on my doorstep! This whole last month I could have had endless fresh books.

I’ve been learning insular uncial script. As one does. Man, having an ipad and apple pencil for calligraphy practice sure is luxurious and also saves so much paper.

Endocrinologist appointment. My thyroid hormone levels are still ridiculously wrong. But at least that might explain SOME of the exhaustion and fatigue and weakness and depression and feeling cold all the time. My doc and I have been trying to fix my thyroid levels for months. Or maybe a year? Or more? I haven’t been right since before we moved and that was early 2022. Nothing seems to help.

Walking from elevator to doc office was exhausting but maybe not quite as bad as I was expecting.

Ravenously hungry today and craving ice cream.

Sometimes, despite the fatigue and depression, I manage to work on my current blackwork project for a while.

Tired

Dave’s friends Peter and Jeralyn (sp?) are so nice! I’m stuck in bed because I Did Too Much this morning, but they are totally understanding and came in to our room say hi and get acquainted. Lovely people.

Yeah so this morning I decided to go OUT to the store for the first time since the hospital. I literally haven’t left the house till today. And instead of going to the small store I went to the big store because they have Dr Oetker’s Chocolate Mousse. And instead of driving an electric cart though the store, I walked for the exercise. This was a huge mistake. I had to walk so slowly, like the slowest 100yo granny in the nursing home. And I had to stop and rest every 20 feet. And oh god it was hard and scary. It felt like I had dived (dove? diven?) to the bottom of the sea. I had my portable oxygen concentrator with me of course but I probably needed ten liters per minute and it only goes up to five, and I had it on three so the battery wouldn’t die. Ughhh I’m in such bad shape, far worse than I even realized. Ugh ugh ugh.

So yeah after I got home I couldn’t even put my one bag of groceries away. I had to go straight to the bedroom and lie down for the rest of the day.

I hope that, in the long run, this too-much-exercise is beneficial. I feel like I’ll have sore muscles tomorrow so maybe I’ll end up a little stronger? Lordy I hope so. So FRUSTRATING.

Henry came over today and mowed the yard and moved heavy things around (all of Dave’s spare clothes are in the basement now YAY) and was so very helpful! We have these two window shades at the head of our bed which were installed stupidly backwards so that the pull-chains were at the inner window frames, so you had to reach all the way to the middle of the bed to raise/lower them. I had the bright idea to swap them so the pull-chains were at the outer edge of the bed, but of course that required climbing onto the bed and fiddling with hardware and drills and screws and pilot holes and whatnot. Too much for us to manage. But Henry did it! Now I can raise my window shade without reaching! It’s so luxurious.

My Remodulin pump woke me up FIVE TIMES in the night with false alarms. Finally I got up and tried to do a factory reset, but it wouldn’t reset properly, so I got out my spare pump and set it up. Ugh. Woke up feeling so awful. Dave has friends showing up tomorrow so I set the Roomba to work on the floors and I swiffered the kitchen. And then I went back to bed and listened to a Jane Casey audiobook all day.

It was so hard to do my exercises. I feel so weak and tired. But I did them anyway.

Today was slightly better. I wouldn’t say I felt good, exactly, but I felt less horrible. Started working a new blackwork chart that Clare of The Steady Thread sent to me as a get well gift. Awww!!!

Dave went to costco and bought many things, including some hummus in little individual serving tubs! So easy, no need to get a bowl dirty or decide how hungry i am. He also got a loaf of excellent bread, so I had hummus, bread and butter, and cherry tomatoes for dinner. Good nutrition. I’m gonna eat a lot more bread and butter before bed, since that loaf is at its best today. So soft and chewy.

After I hit Publish on this I’ll do my exercises. I skipped lungs yesterday but will do legs and lungs tonight. Right… NOW.

This morning I:

Got up
Ate breakfast
Put away clean laundry
Washed sticky spot from new sweater
Did stupid boring exercises!!!
Practiced uncial calligraphy
Wrote letter to niece (very short, using new calligraphy)
Watched Antiques Roadshow
Ate lunch

And then I got chilly and exhausted and went to bed for the rest of the day. Except the sun came out for a bit this afternoon so I lay on the deck for about twenty minutes soaking up some vitamin D and breathing the fresh air.

Ughhh i just feel so rotten all the time. When will I feel GOOD? Even when, like this morning, I can do a few chores I don’t feel GOOD.

Online therapy with lovely Suzanne. Good. I’m a bit depressed lately but talking with her keeps it from building up too much. I’ll feel better when I feel better.

Ridiculous fatigue but I managed to sit on the sofa long enough to watch Survivor and, big news, I scraped up enough creativity to finish the bookmark I’ve been making for Em. It had stalled at the final hurdle because I couldn’t CREATE. But today I stitched it onto its backing and fringed the edges, so it’s finally finished.

No spoilers, but I forgot to mention Succession. Season 4, Episode 3. You know the ep I’m talking about. Best hour of TV ever made? That middle 20 minutes or so felt like a single long shot, but I thought it couldn’t possibly be. But then the little after-thing on HBO had the creators talking about how they shot that segment scene-by-scene but then ALSO shot it in one long take, with cameras and film rolls hidden around the set. They said they used most of that single take in the final edit.

My god, the acting, writing, and directing were superb.

Life comes at you fast.