Huzzah!

Well, I:

• Drove to the UK area to pick up my friend's jacket, which he accidentally left at a friend's house while celebrating the new year
  
  
• Drove to the grocery store to pick up food, especially as we were out of coffee, so things were dire
  
  
• Drove to Captain D's through the drive-through to pick up dinner
  
  

It was odd to drive after eight weeks, but it felt nice to get some independence back. Yay, I'm back on the road!

Today I cancelled the Chandler Pharmacy's standing order to mail me my prescriptions, so I'll have to pick up a couple after PT tomorrow. So now I can go to my appointments by myself.

To everyone who drove me to my appointments, though, thank you so much for helping me! I really appreciate it.

Today I:

1. Got pooped on by a bird within 30 seconds of exiting my front door, on a day where I was happy with my outfit and thought I looked nice. Fortunately, I was in a thin but long-sleeved shirt, so I didn't get any on me.  I walked back into the house, went to the front entry closet, where my clothes are kept (left over from when I was living in the living room), and changed shirts, although things didn't match quite as well.  Everyone I've told the story to has told me that it's supposed to be lucky.  I'm not sure how.
2. On the other hand, I went to take my medicine at the beginning of work and realised that one of the pills looked off, and in fact looked a lot like something I took last night. I pulled out a magnifier I keep with me to look at the imprint, put it and the shape and colour into the drugs.com database, and it wound up being tizanidine.  They're pretty mild, really.  Each tablet is only 4 mg and you normally take three at night, but they can make me loopy.  So I'm glad I caught it.  I went through the other bins of the pill reminder box and there was one more.  I'm not sure if I consolidated some other medicine and accidentally put tizanidine into a similar bottle, then put them in the reminder box, or what.  I think that's what happened, anyway.  To be honest, I'm not sure what small white pill I accidentally substituted it for; I think it was my furosemide (Lasix, or diuretic).   Thankfully, tizanidine (also known as Flexeril) has a scored side where you can divide it into fourths, and that's what clued me in because I noticed it last night when I took them. I guess that was lucky.  Oh,  wait, we're back to the bird poop.
3. After work (which was steady) I went and picked YKWIA from our friend's house, took him home, let him rest for a bit, then went on a major grocery run on my own.  It took an hour and a half.  I got everything on the list except wine.  I got to the liquor store that's attached to Kroger just at 10.  I asked the security guard if they were closed, and he said they were.  I asked when they closed, and he says, 'They're closed now.' Well, gee.  I got that part.  So I ask, when do they normally close so I know next time.  Nine? Ten?  It was ten--so technically I came up at 9:59, but oh, well, we'll have to get wine to cook with tomorrow instead.  Most of it was fresh produce, dairy, beans, that sort of thing.  YKWIA pretty much never cooks out of a box--it's all real food.
4. I came home, he helped me bring things in, and he put them away and I did a few small things to help.  Now I'm going to go plotz on the bed.

PS I started the manual update to the April 2018 Windows Update before I left.  It's still in the downloading phase, at 18%.  This may be an all-night sort of thing.  Okay, again, time to just collapse on the bed, listen to music and pretend my back still likes me.  Oh, and maybe take a couple of those tizanidine pills. :)

I won't say I was super-productive

at work today, but I did get everything I needed to do finished, despite having to leave at lunchtime for an appointment and coming back afterwards, and knowing that I would, I went in early. Actually, my day started at 5:30 am, by 6:10 I was at Kroger picking up a few things that I needed, at 7:05 I was getting a bottle of gas treatment (my car's running a little rough; I thought it might help clean things inside) and gas. By 7:15 I was at work. It turned out I had a patron I was able to help that early in the morning. I did various things to do with the library and went ahead and worked my referral queue and did the charge reconciliation just in case I got delayed coming back. Then I picked up my friend, took him to his appointment, dropped him off, and got back. I did charge entry for much of the rest of the time. I'm going to save moving the last of the bound journals for tomorrow, when I'm in jeans (I was in a black skirt and cotton sweater today, which would have shown a lot of stuff), and I need to work on an interlibrary loan tomorrow as well, and follow up on a referral that the doctor's office supposedly sent but not to me, and also fill the clinic cart with children's books and mail those book cards and pockets.

But after work, I was super-productive. I came home, turned off the air conditioner, opened the windows, filled the fish tank with a gallon of water because the pump was empty as a stop-gap measure, reconciled my bank ledger (I find I do better with an actual notebook rather than a phone application), paid every bill I could and put in the ones that will come out of this pay cheque. Then I went to Costco, opened a membership there, got a few things like tuna, bagels, orange juice, and a bulk item YKWIA has been having a co-worker of mine pick up for him and reimbursing because for $12.69 you get 40 packages as opposed to Kroger, where the same item has 10 packages for $5.99. He has two packages a day, so that's a significant savings. I didn't get any, but the Frigo string cheese I get for the game came in packages of 60 for $9.99 vs. 16 for $6.79. Guess where I'm going to get the cheese from now on?

While I was in the store, a friend called who was stranded and needed a ride over to a house to pick up some food and then a ride to his home. So, I did that after checking out, and then stopped by Kroger on the way home to get dressing for the tuna (which will go well with the cheese bagels), cream cheese (to go with the cinnamon ones), the makings for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, burritos, that sort of thing--easy, ready-made or non-cooking stuff. I haven't given up my desire to cook or anything, I just wanted to get some things I consider staples that I can easily bring to work. I have a new cookbook they were giving out a work where each recipe has just four ingredients, and some sound pretty nice, so I'm going to look through it and see about getting a few things to cook with. Kroger is having their 'A Taste of Italy' special right now and I saw some lovely pasta (I can't remember what it was called) that was very intriguing, as well as balsamic vinegar and pesto from Italy. Costco had huge bottles of balsamic vinegar, which I adore with olive oil and some French bread for dipping.

Now I'm home. I'm glad I went ahead and closed the windows; I was gone much later than I planned, and I don't want someone breaking (or in this case, not breaking) in. So I got home and turned the a/c back on because it was stuffy. Fortunately, one of the bills I paid tonight was an electric bill I'd gotten a disconnect notice for tomorrow. Glad that the date fell okay. I kept thinking I was getting paid on the 14th, not the 15th, and so there seemed to be plenty of time to take care of it.

I found some calcium chews to take this morning that weren't expensive at all, were similar to Caltrate, and had extra D3 in it as well. I already take vitamin D pills, so I need to make sure I don't overdo it. I take 5000 IUs a day. I have some 2000s from when I was taking a lesser dose; I think that, along with the other, should equal out pretty well. I need to see about getting some more B12, since I'm out after this week. I'm not a big supplement person, but I've noticed more energy since I started taking them. So I'll keep plugging along.

So, it's 10 pm and I'm finally sitting down and starting to get tired. I'm going to eat a small meal, listen to some music, do some reading, and go on to bed soon. I'd like to go in a little early tomorrow, as I'm about 2 1/2 hours short for the week and I'm trying to save up PTO. Oh, and I talked to our retirement representative about our pension plan today. I can still draw from it, as I'm vested, after I leave the company. I can actually draw at 55 (in five and a half years), but the benefit will be greater if I wait till normal retirement age. We checked to see if our plan was one where you could draw it out as a lump sum and put it into an IRA, but it isn't. That's okay, though. I can roll my 403(b) into a similar plan (even a 401(k)), though, assuming I can find a job with benefits.

Which reminds me--the perfect job came up, for which I am perfectly qualified, and here in Kentucky. But it's in Pikeville at the osteopathy school there, where they're starting an optometry programme up and need a librarian for that specialty. I can't drive to Pikeville (which is in the far eastern part of the state, I think about three hours away by car), and I have ties here that I'm unwilling to leave. But I have faith that a good job will come up. In the meantime, though, I think it's almost time to start looking outside of the library field. :(

Okay, good night.