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The fatigue, oh god the fatigue.

We have this weird ant problem. Ever since we moved here more than a year ago, we’d need to pick an ant off of us when in bed, now and then. There’s no trail, and we don’t know where they’re coming in. They just APPEAR. And lord how they stink when you squish them. I just picked one off this iPad. For the last month it has been BAD. I probably pick 30-40 off of me per day, and whenever I wake up at night I pick off another one. We’ve got ant traps everywhere, but since there’s no trail it’s hard to know if they’re in the right spot. WHAT do they WANT? There’s no food, grease, water, or sugar in the bed. Just us. GAHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Go away ants you’re making me CRAZY. And there’s another on my arm. They just appear from nowhere! I’m losing my damn mind.

Woke up feeling pretty good, with a little bit of energy! I tidied up my side of the bedroom which inspired Dave to work on his side too. It’s not done yet but it’s so much better! I put away my SAD lamp because the days are so much longer that I don’t need extra daylight, and I cleaned and put away my humidifier because it’s warm enough (50s, generally) that I can keep the bedroom window open all day and the furnace doesn’t run much, so it’s not uncomfortably dry inside.

Then I made a quick mushroom-ginger soup for lunch (Dave licked the bowl) and baked a dozen of my frozen cookie-dough lumps, and then WHAMMO I hit the wall and dragged myself to bed for a rest. Slept a bit but mostly just rested.

Feeling better now after a few hours of nothing. Should be able to get up for dinner.

Lovely gentle drippy rain all day.

Greedily ate one more slice of pizza before bed last night, unhappy stomach in the night, bad sleep, exhausted. Stayed in bed all day.

Tonight I did my lung exercises and my (seated) physical therapy leg exercises for the first time since my big hospital stay. It’s hard for me to walk from the bedroom to the kitchen to get food and that is very scary. If I remember right, I was this out-of-condition when I started physical therapy but improved quickly. Within a couple weeks I felt much stronger, I think. God I hope so. I can’t DO anything and there are things I want to do.

I did my lung exercises tonight. I have a little gadget called a “flutter valve” that you blow into, and the back-pressure is supposed to help open up my lungs and loosen and clear out gunk. And then my other gadget, my inspirometer, helps strengthen my diaphragm and whatever other muscles help me inhale. Tomorrow I hope to do a few of my leg exercises because lordy I’m in BAD SHAPE. Walking so slowly. Ugh.

Dave made us a lovely lunch of sautéed salmon (so tender!) and the “chips” (crinkle-cut fries) that he makes in his deep-fryer. Ok, I admit, I didn’t think we needed a deep-fryer, but the chips he makes are AMAZING. He peels the potatoes, cuts them with his crinkle cutter, and fries them perfectly so they’re lightly crunchy on the outside but soft and fluffy on the inside. I’ve never had such delicious fries. I was wrong! We do need a deep-fryer. But all that hot oil frightens me so Dave gets to do all the frying.

When will I have a not-tired day? When? It was all I could do to drag myself out of bed a few times today. I washed, dried, and folded a load of towels. I did the washing up and cleaned the counters so the kitchen sparkles. I sat on the sofa to watch Taskmaster. Now it’s 6:30pm and I’m headed back to bed to listen to the Taskmaster podcast. And that’s my day.

Finally caught up on Succession s04e02 tonight. Omg so good.

Helped Em finish her sewing project, then lay down for the rest of the day.

Darn I forgot to post yesterday! And I was sure I’d written something. Well, Monday was a nice quiet day. Kirsten went to Henry’s and took the girls outside to play for hours. I made another Italian casserole and rested and ate.

Today Lulu had school so Kirsten brought Em back here so she could practice her cello and do her school project with me. Her assignment was to make a quilt square using fabric that is meaningful to her. The kids are allowed to just glue their fabric to cardboard, but of course Em wanted to actually sew! And it was a perfect project for us to do together because I have scraps of so many things I’ve sewn for her over the years. We used a pink sun-protection fabric that I used to sew clothes for her second trip to Burning Man (age three), gray fleece scraps from the first Halloween costume I made for her (an awesome robot with electric lights and knobs), and rainbow jersey that I used to make her Christmas joggers! Because we were using difficult thick stretchy fabric I set her up to do Foundation Paper Piecing with great big seam allowances. I also showed her how to draw small versions of her quilt square and use markers to color them in and decide on fabric placement.

We got the whole square finished. She did all the cutting and all the sewing, except I helped sew through the big horrible lump at the center where all the seams crossed. Tomorrow we’ll sew it to a backing, pillowcase-style, so that she can stuff it and have a keepsake memory pillow when her project is returned to her :)

And then Henry and Co. showed up in the afternoon. I hid in the quiet bedroom, Henry hid with me to finish his work day, the girls played on the trampoline for hours, and Jayla and Kirsten chased the baby around.

So. Tired.

Nice quiet day. Better sleep last night. I baked cookies! And then I was exhausted and slept for the rest of the day.

We both had an extremely rough night so today was a rather hard day but oh well, maybe we’ll sleep tonight.

Kirsten and Emma arrived around 2:00, YAY!!! It’s wonderful to see them again. Em is so tall now, and sweet, and articulate, and intelligent, and so lovely. I’m a very proud auntie.

Henry, Jayla, Lulu, and Freyja showed up a bit later and the little girls had a riot playing together. No quarreling, just high-quality Cousin Time. Awesome. There’s nothing like cousins.

Henry went to the grocery store for us, put away the groceries, and moved more heavy things from place to place. We would be absolutely sunk without him. He even moved our beds a few inches apart so that Dave’s back-pain thrashing won’t jounce me awake all night. I hope. Poor Dave. He has such a hard time getting comfortable, and when he raises and lowers the head of his bed, the Bluetooth gets confused and lowers MY bed flat and then I can’t breathe and I dream that I’m dying and wake up gasping for air. So tonight we’re gonna make him some presets. Those just send one quick signal and shouldn’t adjust my angle. I hope. Lord. We need sleep so badly.

I gave Em and Lulu each a beautiful hardback copy of the wonderful new kids’ graphic novel retelling of Beowulf: Bea Wolf, by Weinersmith and Boulet . They were thrilled!

Now they’ve all gone back to Henry’s house. Em will spend the night there (possibly the whole week) and Kirsten will come back here to sleep and spend a quiet day tomorrow.