Sigh

So apparently I overdid it yesterday, which I guess isn't surprising. I was bored, so I did all that housework, and that was a mistake. It's not my knee that is really hurting (although it is a bit), but rather my back. I am really tight above my knees, as if my quads are telling me, Really, again? Anyway, I'm going to try to take it easy today. I'm up taking my meds and drinking some fluids, but after that, I may lie back in bed. I got up and made coffee, and got my friend up (and he's moving slow). He's studying via Zoom with friends now and probably will for a couple of hours at least, so I'm just going to rest, and he agrees I should. Afterwards, when he can be attentive, I need to practice going up the step with the left leg. My right leg has been my 'good' leg since high school, and of course, you go up on the 'good' leg, down on the 'bad' one, but once the next surgery happens, the left will be the 'good'. The thing is, it just had surgery, so it needs strengthening, and the right still needs strengthening before surgery as well, so I have new exercises to do as well. But I think going up and down the stairs will help, though I found out in PT it's hard, especially at first.

Well, I am the proud renter of

a storage unit. I went with Space Center Storage over on Stone Road. I tried first over on Richmond Plaza, which is closer to my current apartment, but they showed me the 10'x10' unit and it simply wouldn't be big enough, but the 10'x15' would be, and they didn't have any climate-controlled ones available. Because the items I need to store include books, art, and furniture, it's important for the temperature and humidity to be controlled. I set it up so the monthly rental fee and insurance (required) come directly off my debit card, in case something happens and I might otherwise miss that date. I also got a heavy-duty lock from them. I almost got some boxes but decided to check out U-Haul and they have them much cheaper. I'm going to go over there in a little while and get some boxes and tape. Needless to say, those were on the list from last week, which got interrupted by appendicitis. So if I take what I had left, let's see what else there is [with a couple additions]. I'd like to complete all of this by tomorrow evening:

1. Tour and rent a storage area for the move.
2. Obtain or at least line up some boxes.
3. Work on reducing/weeding books.
4. Take out the trash and recyclables.
5. Do some cleaning.
6. Do some job hunting.
7. Write up my notice for my apartment manager in preparation for the move, to be given on Sunday.
8. Pay my COBRA bill so it's in time for August.
9. Create a timeline/Gantt chart for the move.
10. Finalise my list of what from each room will go to the house, and what will go into storage.
11. Research movers, as neither my friends nor I, can handle the big stuff.
12. Find a missing book from the library that is camouflaged among mine.
13. Do laundry.

I did get a little rest, too, sleeping later than I planned today and taking a short nap later after coming back from the storage place. I haven't slept much this past week, we had an incredibly busy week (over 100 in clinic each day except Friday, and over 200 on the schedule for Wednesday). Next week is slower (yay!) and I'm off Friday for the delivery of the furniture over at YKWIA's. On Monday I have a phone interview from the University of Kentucky Medical Library for the nurse liaison librarian position I applied for in the spring. :) My boss is aware, and I'm going to have them call me on my lunch break.

Okay, I'd better pay my COBRA now (so there's time before the end of the month for it to credit), it was the main reason for getting onto the computer this afternoon, although I did want to blog, too. Then I'm going to go get those boxes and do some work on the apartment before running over to a friend's house to help him feed the animals and check on him since bending is not an option for him still. Have a good weekend!

I've gotten a lot of rest today

broken up by terrible bouts of coughing. I tried to do some simple things like rearrange the TV table in the living room, and it got hard to breathe through the mucous (yeah, isn't that lovely) and I had to sit down. So today I'll just rest. I've got the Bastille station (although, really, it's played a lot more Mumford and Sons in the last hour than anything else) on Pandora on right now. I may watch something later, but really, I think I'll read. I still need to finish The Paper Magician and I have five days left on the loan. I am really enjoying it, it's just I only now have a good light (I put an LED bulb in) over by the couch, and if I read in bed, I tend to fall asleep. :) I think my doctor would definitely say it's time to rest today, and I can work at other things as I feel better.

So here's my week ahead:

1. Tonight. Read. Listen to music. Relax. Pick up A from his job at 1 am and deliver him to his house. Give my (now bimonthly) libation, as I'm doing so at dark of the moon and at times I have my period. This one is the latter. It sucks to be on your period and sick, let me tell you.
2. Sunday: Request my benefits check. Check for jobs to apply for, and apply if I fit the requirements. Maybe do laundry over at YKWIA's. I need to, as I didn't last week. If not, I may do it over here at the complex, as I have detergent and softener here. It's just a matter of getting quarters from somewhere on a Sunday. A lot of places get a bit stingy on that front. If I'm feeling up to it, I should work on the bedroom while I'm at it and do a bit of excavation of most of the horizontal surfaces. The bath and kitchen are in good shape; I just need to do a few dishes and touch up the bathroom. The bedroom is the worst room in the apartment. Light a candle for my mother.
3. Monday: Check for jobs to apply for, and apply if I fit the requirements. Send back the extra computer, as they got the return labels to me. They're crediting me $15 with Amazon for my trouble. I need to work on the apartment, especially straightening up in the dining room, living room, and anything else in the bedroom. Try to rearrange the plants in front of the living room window so they won't get crushed if they try to open the windows--they open fine, but I always have to move a plant or two, with the orchids blooming, and the freesia bulb pots are on the sills. If I move things around, and they open them, as I think they're required to check, then I can minimise any damage. The African violets in the bedroom are never a problem, as they're pretty low to the pot.
4. Tuesday: Check for jobs to apply for, and apply if I fit the requirements. My eligibility review with the unemployment office, a class related to that, my pulmonary rehab, and of course the walk-through/inspection is that day. Go through my life insurance portability and AFLAC paperwork and send them in.
5. Wednesday: Check for jobs to apply for, and apply if I fit the requirements. Do some more de-cluttering and de-hoarding. I've got two boxes of books ready to go from the entertainment centre that is between the living area and dining room; I need to finish the rest, find a room for the books I'll keep, break down the centre, take it to the Dumpster area, and then move one of the other two shelving units over so that the one is back to back with the other and the space between the two areas is more open. Right now, the space has the centre on one side (going towards the hall), with two shelving units back to back with it, dividing it completely. I want to change that. I also need to take a friend in for a blood draw.
6. Thursday: Check for jobs to apply for, and apply if I fit the requirements. Pulmonary rehab, and I may be taking a friend to an event. I can't remember if he said he wasn't going after all, or if he's checking on it. It's where a mah-jong group takes over a local restaurant and plays for about four hours. :) He's been playing at the library and learning the game. It sounds very complicated.
7. Friday: Check for jobs to apply for, and apply if I fit the requirements. Take a friend for a shot. Work on the game notes.
8. Saturday: Check for jobs to apply for, and apply if I fit the requirements. Take a another friend to work at an ungodly hour (for a Saturday) for the first of two jobs, then pick him up at 1 am that night.

So I'm back in physical therapy

and while Jeremy, my therapist, doesn't think I have a pinched nerve, my pulse goes away (this has a name I didn't catch) when my arm is brought up or back, on both sides, so there's compression near some of the muscles where my neck, shoulder, and chest meet. He did some deep tissue massage and showed me a couple of stretches that would help. I go back next week and I've also scheduled for the week after to coordinate with a friend I take to the same place. I'm feeling lots of tingling now.

Last night I lay down and was pretty much gone for the night. I'd almost gotten the kitchen straightened out, and I thought about maybe getting up early this morning (I was shooting for 4:30 am, since I'd gone to bed so early, but alas, that never seems to work out. Instead I got some much-needed rest. I'll try to wash the plastic dishes tonight and wipe down the counters, then take the trash out tomorrow when it's light outside. Oh, and the recyclables. I really should sweep and mop as well. But otherwise, the kitchen is looking much better.

Tomorrow, thankfully, there are no appointments (we had three between us today, although in two places). I'm going to over to YKWIA's for a little while, but tonight we're both tired, so I came on home. I really just feel like going on to bed, but it really is too early and I have stuff to do. I could try to go into the bedroom for maybe a half an hour, but we both know if I do that I'll probably just fall asleep. Still, it's very tempting....

I'm at the library

I'm not sure how long I can sit up and type; after work and everything this afternoon I came home, laid down for about an hour, and my shoulders and neck finally unbunched to the point where I was no longer in pain. It was a bit better today, but still bad, and it's already bunched back up some in the hour I've been back up and gone out.

I wanted to get some books on job hunting, and as a special bonus prize I snagged the first season of 'Lou Grant', a show I really enjoyed as a kid, which was not available on video until recently. I also decided to pick up, on the recommendation of one of the staff (you know, on the shelf with a card saying, 'I couldn't put it down') a book by V.E. Schwab called A Darker Shade of Magic, which looked intriguing. In all, I checked out nine items, paid off a fine (I know, bad librarian), and now I'm sitting by the front window typing.

It's amazing how much I type these day, but rarely write anything by hand. I was working on a Greek lesson the other day (mainly because I wanted to stimulate the little grey cells, as Poirot always put it, and I've always been embarrassed that I only made it to the aorist in Ancient Greek, about a semester and a half). I don't have special software that writes out the language (including the diacritics, anyway), and so I was writing it out by hand, and my hand kept cramping up and sometimes I'd just sort of flail and fail to write a letter correctly. I must practice some more; I don't want to lose the ability to write for any length of time.

Today it was hard to be productive with the pain, but I got what I needed done, did some online searching, and then took a friend to get a shot and some blood work at two different offices. Afterwards we went to Captain D's, and I had a nice salmon salad. I shared my cheese sticks with him, and he gave me his hush puppies. :) Then I helped him with something at the house, came home, and it wasn't quite 6 pm. That's when I laid down, then got up at 7 pm, put some other clothes on (I got some cherry preserves on my skirt somehow), and came over here. I browsed the shelves for awhile. I've decided that I do like the new branch after all, even though it is no longer in walking distance (and if I took the bus, I'd have to go downtown and transfer to another one, even though they're not that far). Richmond Road was terribly backed up where they're doing some paving, but I was able to avoid it for the most part, just crossing straight across it. I need to get some gas, but I may have to wait until tomorrow since they're doing the work at night.

Okay, I guess I need to go ahead and go. The library's going to close in a little while and I'm really starting to hurt. I have pain just going down my left arm. Maybe one of my co-workers is right, and I should go back to physical therapy. Right now, though, I'm going to go home, take some ibuprofen and the tizanidine (but not that much, as last night it made me a little sick to my stomach), and lie back down. I hate that I'm not really doing much at home, but really, I guess what's important is that I function at work, can do my job well, and then come home and try to ease it up. Good night, if I don't write any more tonight.

I've gotten a lot of rest this afternoon

I got home from my friends' house about four-something and took a nap, and have been up and down since then just sort of chilling out.  I should have done some things around the house, like take down the tree, and I'll try to do that in the next couple of days, but it was nice just to spend some time thinking and relaxing for awhile.

My counselor says that introverts process things internally, meaning by thinking, whereas extroverts process externally, mainly through talking things out.  I'm definitely an introvert, so it's nice to sort of decompress and think about how things are going in my life, and what I want to do with it next.

I still haven't heard more about the position I had the phone interview for, but I haven't given up hope on that.  It's a university position and those soemtimes take awhile to go through the various steps.  I do hope I hear from them soon.  Obviously, I'd really like to get an in-person interview, but however it works out, I'm happy for the opportunity.

I paid my rent yesterday, the second time in two paydays in a row, and so the next couple of weeks are going to be very tough financially.  I need to make some calls and arrangements tomorrow sometime.  I still don't have Internet at home, which means I have no working home phone (it is Vonage, and so it works over the Internet).  I need to call and cancel that or at least put off the next month or so until I can get it working again  I also need to see about delaying my cell phone payment, which I hate to do, but I simply have about $15 to last me almost two weeks, and there isn't money for anything beyond gas and maybe a little food. I bought flour today so I can make my own bread. I have a little peanut butter and jam in the house, some oatmeal, tuna, that sort of thing, but it's not going to last.  I should get a reimbursement of banking fees on the 17th for $10, and of course, somewhere that reimburseemnt for the trip in Novemmber is in process, which at least could get me some groceries.

I was doing so well for awhile there, several years, in fact, but I've just gotten myself in a difficult position what with having to finance dental work and not having money from the settlement any more.  A lot of that is my fault--I let a former friend, or someone I thought was a friend, borrow quite a bit of money because he was basically in dire straits and had a family to worry about, and he not only didn't pay me back, he blamed me if I even brought it up and treated me like crap. So obvioulsy, he is an ex-friend, a user who really took advantage of me when I was hit by the car and was recovering from it, and then had some money for the first time in, well, ever, really.  Now he's probably much more stable, as he has disability now and his wife has a better job and degree, but I'll no doubt never see that money ever again.  Word of wisdom: if a person's family won't help them from getting evicted or to get back in state after getting stranded hundreds of miles away, there's probably a reason, and it is more likely that they've used up all their goodwill in the past rather than the fact that they're inexplicably mean and grinchy.  Oh, well, Brandon will eventually reap the rewards of his actions. I know karma doesn't really work like most Americans talk about it doing, but I do believe ther will be justice for people who go from person to person using them up like a parasite.  I just didn't want to see his family out on the street, especially during the holidays, and also felt that the only reason he would like me was if I helped him out.  That may have been true in his case, but you can't really buy love and friendship.  My true friends have demonstrated that to me on a daily basis.  Any way, I'm going to chock this up to a very expensive learning experience, and while I do believe in paying things forward, one should only do that if you can afford it and it it's for a good cause, not for emotional rasons.

Well, it's almost 11 pm.  I've taking my nightly meds, brushed and flossed my teeth, put all my daily accomplishments into the Habitica application (I'm almost level 15), and I think it's time to go to bed I'm going to try to get up early, maybe do some exercising tomorrow morning befor work.  It's cold outside (finally), we even had some snow today, so it's nice that the apartment complex has a gym now.  I really haven't used it yet this year, and I should.  Good night!

My schedule tomorrow will be starting one hour earlier

So that I can leave work and go get my first allergy shot of this series. My Epi-Pen is in my bag (just in case), although I don't foresee any issues, and hopefully there won't be any. I'm going to go in on Tuesdays and Fridays whenever possible. They are right across the street from where I live, practically, so it should be pretty convenient.

Tonight I got some rest, but didn't do any of the stuff I should have. That's typical for me on Mondays. My weekends are often busier than my weekdays, and I usually crash once I get home on Monday. But I'm surfacing for some blackberries and yoghurt, and to get some water in me. I had two big 32-oz mugs full of water earlier today, but haven't had anything since I got home.

So I think I'll do a couple of things before going back to bed, notably filling the fish tanks. I've been meaning to do it for awhile and the large one is down lower than half. I have just a few goldfish in there, but I'm being a very bad fish mom. So I'll at least lug some water back and forth first. Good night.

It's very quiet in the house

Which I'm enjoying for the moment. The only sounds are occasional steps upstairs where my neighbour lives. I came home directly from work and laid down for awhile and recharged. Now I'm up and contemplating doing some work on the house. I also have a movie out from the library to watch, Oculus. But I have to admit, what I'd really like to do is some reading. I realised today that it's nearly October and I can't tell you a fiction book I've actually read completely this year. I simply never seem to have time to read anymore, which is very sad for a bibliophile and librarian. I will have to make time. When I was on the bus I read more, since I'd wait at the bus stops and then there's the bus itself. But now that I have a car, I'm running, running, running, without having that cushion of time. I have several books checked out, I just haven't really had a chance to get to them. So here's the plan: work on the house for awhile and then sit down and do some reading as a reward. Okay, off to start. :)

I watched three episodes

of 'Haven' tonight, including one that was excellent that had a Groundhog Day premiss. I'm in season 2. YKWIA is on season 4. Hopefully I'll catch up before long. But I'm enjoying watching it with him. It has plenty of quirkiness, mystery, likable characters, and it keeps my interest with every episode. But now I'm home. I can't say I got a huge amount done around the house today, although I did get some things accomplished. But what I did get was a nice break from work and life and I feel better as a result. Tomorrow it's back to work, etc. Maybe I can continue to work on the house some on Saturday. I think this is a more-than-one-day-job for sure. :)

I went for my interview

and while I was maybe a little weak on one or two questions out of twelve, I think I did very well, and I was nervous but not paralysingly so. I think I connected personally with them very well. I wore the floral skirt, a white camisole, a white vertical-pleated blouse, a white lacy long jacket, and my grandmother's pearls for luck. :) Apparently sandals are not allowed by the dress code, so if I wanted to wear any dresses or skirts I'd definitely have to get some comfortable dress shoes. But for pants I have black shoes that would fit fine. I am really excited about the prospect of working there. Please think good thoughts and keep your fingers crossed. They were interviewing today and then it goes to human resources. Oh, I hope I get it.

This is my last day off before returning to work on Monday. It's been a long, sad, and, at times difficult, few days. But I'm going to take some time today for recuperation from the stress of the funeral and such. I miss my grandmother, of course, and want some time to reflect. But also I feel drained from the visitation, funeral, and yes, even the interview. So for right now, I'm going to drink some more water, take a nap, and then putter around the house and maybe do something fun like read or watch a show later.

It is nice to be home

Saturday I:
• Took one friend to get his hair cut
• Took my friends' bill over to the company, which apparently many people decided to do at the same time; thankfully they opened a 'payments only' window, so I lucked out
• Took another friend to an appointment
• Went to pick up food for all of us at a time when Long John Silvers' was packed due to some sort of promotion
• Took the one friend grocery shopping
• Came home and slept for a bit, then got up to do things and couldn't sleep or concentrate, so I listened to music and tossed and turned in bed

Sunday I:
• Got up very early in the morning to work on the game notes
• Cleaned my friends' house (with some help)
• Did four super-large loads of laundry
• Went to get some food from the the grocery for me and for having at the game
• Gamed for about six hours
• Had A help me get things to the car, but had to wrangle a purse, laptop bag, two grocery bags of food, two carts and a bag containing the laundry from the car to the apartment with some difficulty
• Put a couple of pillowcases and a couple of blankets on the bed but didn't really make it, got into my sleep shirt, took my meds, and went to bed

So now I'm home, I've eaten, and I need to:

• Work on a couple of job applications/cover letters
• Work out the finances for the month
• Maybe get started early on the notes
• Relax a bit

I'm going to start with the last bit, even though I might just fall asleep and waste my evening. I hope not. But I am really needing some quiet time with my feet up, although in general my knee is now doing better than when it was injured, as long as I don't overdo it. So rest and relaxation is actually the most important thing on the list. I do need to get one of the cover letters in by Friday, but otherwise things can be put off a couple of days.

My Internet connexion seems to be back to normal, yay

I came home about 9 pm, made the bed, and promptly put my feet up and listened to some Simon & Garfunkel for about an hour, then fell asleep until a friend called checking to make sure I got home okay. I normally call, but I'd put him to sleep with a foot rub and didn't want to wake him.

It's been a pretty good blend of productivity and rest today. We did a short trip to Kroger and decided to do the big run tomorrow. But I also nailed a fence board back into place that otherwise would have allowed dogs to run free. I discovered that although I have more power in my swing, A actually hits the nail at a higher percentage than I do, which is amazing, if you knew him. He hammers like a girl, I hammer like a guy, and together we make a pretty good team.