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Tired. Low mood. Did some sewing and played some games and watched some Taskmaster.

Over the past month I’ve been titrating my Remodulin dose up from 0.04 mL/hr, increasing by 0.002 mL/hour each week. Today I hit the goal of 0.05! The side effects have been minimal and tolerable, just slightly worse than my ordinary constant side effects — more stomach issues, nausea, diarrhea, joint pain, some insomnia — but NOT the constant migraines I got last time I increased my dose, thank goodness.

Might help me live a bit longer, so totally worth it!

Today was a Tired Day, but I did manage to sew some slippers for the little girls. I use this pattern, and have drafted larger sizes for larger feet:

https://thediymommy.com/sew-soft-baby-slippers/

Lovely restful day. Dave: lunch, love, laughing, cuddling, talking about everything under the sun.

My purple streaks have faded away, so this morning after I washed my hair I gave myself some blue streaks!

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And here is another dose of cuteness: my two granddaughters, my little loves.

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Mom gave me new sheets for my upcoming birthday! I opened them early because I couldn’t wait :D They’re from LL Bean and are beautiful and such high quality, a million times better than my worn-out old Target sheets. The set came with fitted, flat, and two pillowcases. I made my bed using both sheets for the photo, but tomorrow I’m going to turn the flat sheet into a second fitted sheet by adding extra fabric and elastic on the edges. Aren’t they lovely?

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I made a small batch of my famous carrot – cheese – potato soup today. Sooooo delicious!

• A small onion, minced
• A few carrots, sliced
• 2 or 3 russet potatoes, diced
• A small amount of milk or cream
• A lump of cheddar cheese, chopped or grated
• a lump of cream cheese
• Dill, salt, pepper

Sauté the onion in a fine knob of butter. Add potatoes and carrots. Cover with water and simmer till soft. Turn the heat as low as possible.

Now, if you have an immersion blender, go to town until the soup is as smooth as you like. Add splashes of milk or cream if it’s too stiff. I use a regular blender and it works fine, just be careful and do a small amount at a time. I puree a couple of ladlefuls, then pour them back into the pot, fish out a couple more chunky ladlefuls and puree them, etc. I always leave some chunks of vegetables.

Now, turn the burner to medium-ish and stir in a your cheeses. Stir stir stir. Add milk if it’s too thick. Don’t let it boil!! Just heat it to melt those cheeses.

Season with dill, salt, and pepper. Devour!

P.s. I don’t peel the potatoes, but you can if you prefer.

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Dave came over! He had lots of Zoom meetings, and between them we napped and talked and snuggled. I just cannot get over how amazing he is. It is exceedingly rare for me to find a person whose company doesn’t exhaust me. There are only a very few — and Dave is now one of them.

I envy his ability to sleep anywhere, anytime. We’ll be watching something on my laptop in the middle of the afternoon and then I hear snoring, ha!

Sleep and I are not such good friends. I need to lure it, to trick it, to trap it. I need elaborate bedtime preparations and careful timing. To simply be able to FALL ASLEEP is a trait I’ve never had.

But once I do fall asleep at night I have been sleeping quite well lately, on the whole. I think my anxiety is at an all-time low.

This morning I returned some mushy organic apples to Trader Joe’s and swapped them for crisp ordinary ones. Sorry, organic apples.

And then it was mammogram time. Fun. And worse than usual because my heart beats so hard that it was really difficult for my tech to get good images on the left side. And then they spotted some microcalcifications and wanted even more images. I was there for nearly two hours, getting squashed and smashed.

I need to go back in 6 months for more images because those microcalcifications can be completely benign or can indicate future trouble. Not worried, though. PROBABLY harmless, and if not they’re catching it very early.

Errands this morning: shipped a bundle of stuff to Henry (spit-up cloths for Freyja, new floppy hat for Lu, socks for the big people) and then went to Trader Joe’s.

And then I played Garden Story and watched The White Lotus for the rest of the day.

I slept until 10, then got up and finished sewing my new linen shorts! They’re loose and cool and comfy. So thrilled that I had enough energy for a project!

Had a lovely afternoon with Dave the Best Boyfriend Ever *heart eyes*

Little Miss Freyja was allowed to go home this morning and meet her big sister and her great-grandma. She’s healthy and round and squishy and beautiful *heart eyes*

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Today I started sewing a pair of shorts with some leftover green linen. Got them all seamed, and tomorrow I’ll hem them and finish the waistband with a drawstring. I used the Jogginghose pattern from Klimpergross, men’s size medium because I used woven instead of jersey.

Welcome to the world, little one. We’re so glad you’ve come to join us on Planet Earth.

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Hat knitted by me of course.

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Mama and baby are just fine and can go home tomorrow to meet her big sister! Freyja is round and pink and squishy and, in my humble opinion, much more beautiful than the average baby. :D

I hope I can manage to visit soon, soon, soon.

Very tired day. Fixed Em‘s bathing suit and sewed a little doll sleeping bag with her. Then for the rest of the day I played Garden Story (Switch) and Merge Dragons (iPad) and watched In Treatment (HBO).

It looks like my pharmacy will be able to ship my sildenafil for Friday morning delivery, which is exactly when I’ll run out, so bullet dodged this time yay.

Today was Dave Day! He had several Zoom meetings on his schedule so he came over early and did his 10am and 11am meetings here. Mostly I put in my earbuds and listen to my podcasts and audiobooks during his meetings, but sometimes I eavesdrop a little because it’s so much fun to hear a person with amazing expertise do his thing. Then we had our usual Falafel House lunch, and then we took a big nap because we were both really tired. Then he had another meeting or two; one was with the young woman at his company whom he’s mentoring — I really love to overhear that one because he’s so encouraging and kind to her! *heart eyes*

Rough morning. Slept 5 hours last night. Combination of coffee ice cream yesterday morning and remodulin insomnia, i guess.

Realized I only have three more days worth of one of my crazy specialty meds (sildenafil, 12 x 20mg/day). Usually the specialty pharmacy calls me when it’s time to refill but I guess they skipped me this month. Anyway I called then first thing but they said the manufacturer is out of stock so they don’t have any to ship. So… I guess I’ll just die? *eyeroll* I have left 4 messages with my pulmonology team at UCSF to see what I should do. Maybe they have some samples I can have. I just don’t even know what to do.

Another chapter of Over Sea, Under Stone! Nearly finished, just one more enormous chapter and a rather lengthy epilogue to go…

https://archive.org/download/kayrayreadstoyou9/OverSeaUnderStone_13_128kb.mp3

Mailed away my passport renewal this morning. I have no idea how long it will take to come back — months, I’d imagine. Luckily I have no international travel plans at present.

Still no granddaughter #2 despite multiple false alarms…

Very tired from last night’s insomnia but had a lovely day with Dave. The cheese-and-pickle sarnie plan got pushed to Wednesday so we had our usual Falafel Corner lunch today instead :) After lunch we lay around and worked on a couple of Cryptic Crosswords via The Guardian’s crossword app. Brutally difficult.

It’s nearly 11pm and I’m not asleep yet, grr. I did all my calming bedtime things, listened to my audiobook for an hour, and now I’ve got the bake-off playing which usually knocks me right out. Fingers crossed.

Therapy day, yay! I had to miss my previous session because I had just gotten home from the hospital and felt too fragile to drive. It was wonderful to have a talk with lovely Suzanne again. I also stopped at Trader Joe’s for tomatoes, to go with the cheese and pickle sandwiches that Dave and I are planning for lunch tomorrow.

In the afternoon Henry and I watched a bunch of great YouTube videos together, mostly from the channel called Townsends, where they do re-enactments of 18th century life — cooking, crafting, clothing, etc. Here’s one we really enjoyed:

No new chapter today. Maybe tomorrow.

Didn’t do much today, but I did get started on renewing my passport. Dug out my old passport and discovered that it was issued slightly less than 15 years ago (December 2006, yikes, just under the wire), which means I can renew instead of re-applying, which means I don’t need to send in my birth certificate. Filled in the forms online and printed them. All I need to do now is go to the UPS place to get a passport photo taken, and then send the whole thing in.

Ya never know when you might need to flee the country, and anyway eventually they won’t accept a regular driver’s license even for domestic flights (was supposed to be this year but Covid pushed it to 2023 I think). The DMV will let you apply for a “Real ID” but I figure a passport kills two birds with one pile of bureaucratic red tape.

Watched Women’s Park Skateboarding today. Man! Those little girls can FLY!