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Discouraged
This is my beautiful boy, darling boy on our walk this morning (Friday). On Tuesday, both Maya and I separately found enlarged lymph nodes on Mulder’s neck. They have only grown since then. I fear this means that he is no longer in remission, and his lymphoma is back. Shit shit shit. We have an appointment with the vet on Monday, but I know what the answer will be. He had 5 months of chemotherapy, and at first all was well. But as time went on, it got harder and harder for him. He had probably 3 bad days every week, where he would walk around feeling like crap, throw…
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Inertia
This meme or whatever has nothing to do with anything at all, and neither does my post. I’m just trying to be here. I’m frustrated with blogging right now, because I can’t leave comment on so many of your blogs (via my iPad) and it doesn’t really feel safe to use my work computer. I need to try Ted’s desktop, perhaps that is the solution. And to be clear, I don’t have trouble leaving comments on ALL of your blogs, just some, but somehow the knowledge that I am having trouble sometimes seems to have stymied me from even READING any blogs lately. I’m just playing stupid games on my…
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Thursday 13 – What J’s been up to
In an effort to get motivated and back to blogging from my unintentional hiatus, here are 13 things I’ve been up to lately.
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Covid Update – On the Mend
The picture above crossed my mind this week, with all of us down with Covid at the same time. Thankfully this was not our experience at all. Ted was past the worst of it by the time Maya and I were down. None of us got all that sick, though being sick is never fun. We all took varying amounts of time off from work, we all worked some from home, none of us had to go anywhere. Ted’s parents cooked us dinner one night. His brother brought us lunch another day. We ate leftovers and got curbside pickup at the grocery store. A kind neighbor sought out the sore…
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Meme Monday – Covid Edition
Well, Ted tried his best to keep us safe, but our house is just too small, and Covid is too virulent. I tested positive Sunday morning, and Maya tested positive this morning. I feel like we’re at different phases, with Ted on the mend, me in the midst of it, and Maya on the decline. Mostly it feels like a head cold. At this point, all we can do is stay away from everyone else, and hope none of us have long Covid. I am very thankful for grocery delivery and curbside pickup. Early in the pandemic, in the lock down phase, it felt selfish to me. Like, “I’m not…
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Current Situation
Today is my Fabulous Friday, which was supposed to be spent with my friend Neva, trying out a new pasta place downtown, drinking some wine, walking and talking and catching up. Then Ted started feeling poorly, and took a COVID test on Wednesday. You can tell by my tone that he tested positive. Sigh. Neva’s son is high risk for lung issues, and has been hospitalized a couple of times with COVID, and we are trying to avoid that happening again. So we have postponed, we’ll get together in a few weeks instead. At times like these, I wish we had a guest bedroom. As it is, Ted is wearing…
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PSA – Girl Scouts
Girl Scouts Troop 6000 is a program designed to help girls living in temporary housing in the New York City shelter system. Each week, Girl Scouts meet in shelters across the city to take part in activities, make friends, earn badges, and learn leadership skills. Girl Scouts is a wonderful program, and my daughter and many of her friends from Elementary School gained a lot from being able to participate. I am so glad that this troop exists for girls who might not normally have that opportunity. If you would like to buy some cookies and have them shipped to you, you can do so here. If you don’t want…
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Catching Up
It looks like I took a little blog break there. I’m back today, and have a few minor tidbits to share. First off, this is the same beautiful magnolia/tulip tree that I shared with you a couple of weeks ago. It’s downtown, and likely the next time I walk around the area, it will be bare. We’re having rain again, after a very dry period, which is welcome, but I imagine will knock down most of these blooms. Saturday morning, Maya had an appointment to get her hair done. I dropped her off and then walked around our little downtown for awhile. I like to explore, and went down a…
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Salad Bar
Do you really need a recipe for salad with chicken? Probably not. But anyway, here is how I sometimes serve chicken and salad, and I call it a salad bar. This way, we can all have just what we want, and nothing we don’t. I like my salad fully dressed, so I take my portion and put it in a mixing bowl, toss it with dressing, and then put it on my plate. Ted and Maya aren’t as picky as I am, so they just put some dressing on top of their salad and call it done. Here’s a list of the options we had this time. What am I…
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Next Door Neighbor
We came across a video of the top dogs from the 2022 Westminster Kennel Club Masters the other day, and just fell in love with this dog, whose name is ‘Bee’, but whom we call ‘Next Door Neighbor’. All Shetland Sheepdogs, in our mind, are named either ‘Mommy’ or ‘Next Door Neighbor’, which is a throwback to our sweet girl, Genevieve, who was half Sheltie, half Keeshond (which is Mulder’s breed). Anyway, if you need a smile, watch ‘Next Door Neighbor’ do her thing with SO MUCH ABSOLUTE JOY. I love her so much.
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Wordless Wednesday – Current Situation
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Happy Valentine’s Day
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Miscellaneous Monday
I don’t know what to write about today, so I’m going to just throw a bunch of stuff at you. Here goes. Regarding the meme above, this is how I felt when we were in France last year. The names of the towns we stayed in were pronounced completely differently than they looked to my American eyes. Mougins is pronounced ‘MOO-jan‘ with a soft j, short a, and a soft n. Click the link to hear. Vincennes is a little closer to how it looks, VA-sen, with a short A. One of the stops on our train ride between Paris and Vincennes is Nation, pronounced NA-si-on, with all short vowels.…
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Intention vs. Accountability
There are things that I intend to do, or not do, but then things fall apart when faced with reality, and I fail on my intention. I have an ongoing issue with my love for potato chips. I do not intend to eat them practically every day. I don’t keep them in the house, usually, because if they are here I will eat them. Especially if they are Salt and Vinegar Kettle Chips, or sometimes, Doritos. So I start out my day just fine, but then I go to the grocery store on my lunch hour, and I get to the check out line, and there they are. Somehow, magically,…
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Meatless Monday – Garlicky Spinach and Chickpea Soup
Somehow I seem to have subscribed to receive recipes from the Washington Post via email. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it brought me this recipe last week. Since you need some sort of subscription to access the recipe there (it may be free, just sign up to receive their emails I think, which is likely how I ended up with it). (UPDATE: Clearly my memory is deeply flawed. I just realized that I did not receive this recipe in an email from Washington Post, I saw it on Suzanne’s blog, Life of a Doctor’s Wife.) I did a search and found the recipe on the PureWow website.…