At the Moment

Life Overview

Karen

Hello stranger.

Still breathing.

And still working from home. You can catch up HERE.

I have been working remotely for two years and three months.

OVER. TWO. YEARS.

I’m sorry … what?? In a lot of ways, I feel like I’ve just started this job – I feel like I’m still blindly stumbling in the dark with my arms outstretched trying to figure out this new gig. But in other ways, I was MADE to do this job. I’m good at it. I feel pretty confident doing it but my confidence level swings back and forth like those big pirate ship rides you see at sketchy county fairs.

I’m very fortunate, I realize this. I know a lot of people would LOVE to be able to work from home. My daily uniform is a tank top and gym shorts in the warm months, and sweats and slippers in the cold months and I’m lucky if I brush my hair most days, but I’m WAAAAY less stressed than when I was working in the clinic and I don’t see myself going back to an office for the rest of my working days.

EVER.

I get bored sometimes, not gonna lie. My group, the Urgent Action Team, has gone through a lot of people. And no, it’s not because I’m a bear to work with, (at least, I HOPE that’s not the reason), but our group … we’re designed to be the janitors of the precertification departments. I continue to work today, tomorrow and the next day’s cases and of course, if/when there are any problems our pre-registration group contacts my group, (i.e. me), to figure it out. If it gets too bad, I just direct them back to the person that created the mess.

It’s exhausting and frustrating to always have to clean up someone else’s mess and THAT’S a big reason we can’t keep people on my team. Honestly? I’m thinking I may ask to transfer to another group at some point – I’ve been cleaning up after people now for nearly 2 1/2 years, I’ve put my time in.

But now is not the time. The hospital I work for is switching over to a new EMR (Electronic medical record) and though it’s going to be really cool once the dust settles, it’s going to be pure chaos before that happens. So, asking to be transferred out 1. is bad timing and 2. likely won’t happen even if I ask. The hospital flat out discouraged anyone from taking a vacation during this time period – they need all hands on deck. And that’s fair. I wouldn’t have done that anyway, I’m not a jerk, (most of the time). But once that dust settles? I make no promises.

Kevin is doing well. He’s loving retirement. He’s busier now than when he was working. He has to take care of me, our house, the boys and the rental house, LeRoy, (his special-needs uncle who also lives in the rental house with our boys, yes, the boys are still living there), his elderly parents, our seven chickens and in his “spare” time, he goes treasure hunting to fill his three thrift booths. (He’s getting a reputation for having fun, unique stuff – his monthly paychecks from that are pretty good!). Kevin knows to leave me alone when I’m working and he’s typically working on some project after I get off work so he does that and I bury my nose in my cross-stitch projects so we rarely see each other save for Friday/Saturday nights. (Our dates nights).

Blake is also doing well. He quit Wal-Mart and is now working for a prominent shipping company. He’s working from home from 6:00 PM to midnight, (he still likes his evening shifts), and he seems to enjoy the work. This has built his confidence and it’s heart warming to see him start to figure out where he belongs in life.

Brandon is also doing well. He just quit the bank when he found out that his big brother was making more money than him AND working from home, so he is also getting ready to start working for the same shipping company as Blake and will be working from home, eventually. He has to go in to the office for six weeks for training, but ultimately, he’ll work from home during the day. Blake is my night owl, Brandon is my early bird. He’s pretty excited to start that adventure.

I pray this job works out for the boys. I think a big reason they have these positions is because of Trump’s tariffs thing he’s started so … who knows if it continues when Trump leaves office. I’m quite confident that if a Democrat gets elected to the office, he (or she), will promptly undo everything Trump has done, (on so many levels and regardless of whether it’s been good for the country because ORANGE MAN BAD), so, we’ll see. That’s still three years away … a lot can, and likely will, happen in that time frame.

Not to bring politics into this … YET.

We’re coming up on three years since my dad passed away. Mom is doing better but she struggles daily and I’m sure she will continue to struggle daily. She’s adjusted but it’s a roller coaster ride. We still get together every Saturday to catch up, go out to lunch, watch Survivor, (we’re getting ready to start season 16!), and work on crafts. I look forward to these days with my momma. She’s my best friend and I enjoy our time together.

I mentioned cross-stitch – I’ve really gotten back into cross-stitching. It’s SO RELAXING! I subscribed to “Just Cross Stitch” magazine, it comes out quarterly and mom and I look forward to thumbing through it when it arrives. I’ve been bookmarking my favorites and my goal is to work at least patterns from the magazine. I’ve also jointed Audible because I spend so much time working on crafts now after work that it just makes sense to listen to some books. I’m still an active Kindle Unlimited member, but I rarely actually read anymore so I think I might cancel that and become a member of Audible when my free trial is over.

We recently returned from a two-week cruise! We drove the Jeep down to Galveston Texas to catch the boat there. We were LITERALLY one day ahead of the crazy cold, snowy weather that hit most of the US. If we had delayed our travel time by even a day, we would have struggled to get down there. We took a gamble booking a cruise the last week/first week of January/February but it’s cheaper to take a cruise that time of year, (for obvious reasons), and we decided to go for it. Up until we left, the weather had been pretty mild and we thought, “cool – no problem, we’ve got this.” And then … Mother Nature wagged her finger and said, “not so fast, chicka.” lol

Writing more about the cruise is on my list of things to write about, (don’t hold your breath folks – if you had a dime for every time I’ve said that, right??), but in a nutshell – to sum it up – the jury is still out on whether I like being on a ship for two weeks. Kevin could have sailed longer, he loves it, but … I started to get a little homesick and started to feel a little claustrophobic, which is stupid given we stopped at eight ports during that two week time. We were busy and off the boat quite a bit but still … it’s a lot. Would I do it again? I don’t know … I guess it depends on the trip but … it was a lot.

The Jeep was a dream to drive. No issues whatsoever and we even got pretty decent gas mileage – better than I expected. And driving down there WAS more relaxing than navigating the chaos and stress of flying, so liked that part. But, the down side – it took two days to drive down there and back so … there’s that. Would we drive to a port again? Absolutely.

Kevin surprised me with one of those digital picture frames. His folks have one and they love it. His mom really loves that the family can upload their pictures to their frame through the app so she feels like she’s constantly being updated on how the family is doing. We both took a lot of pictures on our vacation and posted them there so it’s been fun to see them scroll through. We’re going to make folders and start uploading more vacation pictures. We have soooo many pictures. It’s also a goal of mine to make photo books of our cruises, camping trips, holidays, etc. Mom has been busy sorting through all of her pictures and putting them in albums and it’s been quite a project for her. But she doesn’t want to leave a bunch of random pictures in a box for us after she’s gone to scratch our heads over and think, “who is that??” So that has inspired me to get our photos organized and ready to view. We have sooo many cool photos, both print and digital – the challenge is to put there somewhere so we can easily look at them.

These are the highlights of my life right now. Obviously, there is SOOO much more to say – I have so many thoughts and opinions on what is happening with the world right now, it’s overwhelming to think about sorting through all of that – where do I even start??

I’ll figure it out. In the meantime, I hope you all are doing well and hopefully we’ll “talk” soon.

Reflections

January 2025 Reflections

Karen

Jan 1

Boys and LeRoy came over last night. We played a few games of Lords of Waterdeep, (one of my all-time favorite board games), and watched Wayne’s World – a classically stupid movie. Slept until 8:00 this morning, fought a sinus headache for a bit this morning, then made myself take the Christmas tree down. I put it up early November so to say I’m sick of looking at it – yeah. Kevin took the outside lights down, too. It’s supposed to turn bitter cold this weekend and into next week, so it’s better just to get it done. I’m still hacking my fool head off, though I have been coughing up junk, (sorry – TMI but keeping it real here). I should get the antibiotics I ordered from the Family Pharmacy tomorrow. I’m still not sure if I’m going to take them as I’m not entirely convinced it’s a bacterial infection, but it’s been over a week now, I’m still pretty stuffed up, coughing and … it’s not going away if it’s bacterial. We’ll see. It IS nice to know that antibiotics are available without having to see a doctor. Just be careful with that – you don’t want to take too many antibiotics.

Jan 2

The antibiotics I ordered came in the mail today. They came in an orange bottle, just like if you had picked up the medication from the pharmacy – which, I suppose, shouldn’t have surprise me, I bought it from a pharmacy, for pete’s sake. I didn’t know what to expect, but it seemed pretty normal. I haven’t taken them – I’m still stuffy, but my snot is still clear (sorry – TMI), which means, I don’t think I have a bacterial infection and if it’s not bacterial, there is no reason for me to take antibiotics. But it’s nice to have them – it gives me peace of mind to know that I have them, just in case. I literally wore a hole in my fitted bed sheet. I ordered some new sheets from Amazon, they are supposed to be hotel quality – we’ll see. (P.S. – I actually really like them). I regret not buying the boys sheets and pillows for Christmas now. They’re guys – there’s no telling what kind of shape their bedding is in and that’s something we all hate to spend money on – most of us, anyway.

Jan 3

We were freaking busy today. Being the first of the year, and all of the insurance changes, we were kept quite busy running new insurance for testing. I have decided that I do not like working the first week of January – maybe I’ll take it off next year. Still haven’t taken the antibiotics …

Jan 4

Mom and I had our standing Saturday date. It was SO GOOD to see her! It had been two weeks due to us being sick – I didn’t want to get her sick because what ever I had, (maybe it was COVID, who knows, don’t care), I certainly didn’t want to pass it on to mom or the boys. We ate at Jimmy Egg, which is a breakfast/lunch place. I had the chicken quesadilla and it was delish! We will definitely be putting that restaurant into our Saturday rotation from now on. Went back to mom’s house, watched Survivor and crafted. Mom made some shortbread cookies with a dollop of blackberry jelly in the center – SO GOOD. My family has become her guinea pigs – she loves to try new recipes and I get to take home the goods afterward. Sometimes I share with the guys … sometimes not. hehe We talked a lot about going on a cruise – she would need to get a passport, first. She acts interested but, I’m not sure if we’re there yet. Close, but not yet. I asked her if she could go anywhere, where would she like to go? She chose Alaska. GOOD CHOICE!

Jan 6

Had a meeting with just me, the supervisors and the manager. She wanted me to show her an issue in our process that everyone insisted we continue to do because it made sense for our process when the Asst. Director of the department kept insisting we didn’t need to do it. It’s so frustrating to work with a management team that make “policies” that actually hurt our process and slow us down. It’s incredibly frustrating to work with a management team that do not truly get what we do and yet they think they know best on how we should do it. I like all of these ladies, don’t get me wrong, and I appreciate the opportunity to explain why we should continue to do this specific process to them, but overall, I feel like I have to fight just to do my job. I think I got through to our manager, maybe – we’ll see. The bottom line? I’m going to continue to do what I’m doing – screw it. I don’t care. It doesn’t make sense to change it. Since a number of flu cases have gone up, the hospital has implemented the mask policy for the nasty “unvaccinated” workers. I’m SO GLAD I’m not at the hospital right now. Such BS.

Jan 8

One of the supervisors used me as a guinea pig today. She wanted to test out a new “dot phrase” in an effort to make our documentation uniform and consistent. I’m all about this – it’s amazing how all over the board we are with our documentation and I’m sure it’s confusing and frustrating for the clinics to try and figure out what they are reading and get the information they need to take care of their patients. A dot phrase is a quick text – something that you can input, for example, type in .document and a pre-determined phrase comes up in the patient’s chart. This quick text is a template that we can fill in with the necessary information about the test that we ran through the patient’s insurance and let the offices know the outcome. I was also asked to be part of a “focus” group to help my co-workers navigate our new electronic medical record (EMR) system that the hospital is gearing up to start using in March of next year. It will be an EPIC change. (Epic is actually the name of our EMR we’re getting ready to switch to). Again – very honored to have been asked to do this – I think my Technical Writing skills will come in handy for this project. I won’t be writing anything, at least, I don’t think I will be, but taking information and regurgitating it into comprehensive information that the worker bees can understand … I’m pretty good at that. So – we’ll see. I have no idea what my involvement will look like, but I’m looking forward to getting involved. Left the house, for the first time in three days, to grab some Qdoba for lunch. It felt good to leave the house. Also – starting to seriously think/plan our vacation plans for 2025.

Jan 9

To my utter surprise, Kevin is not keen to go on a cruise this year. !! I was pretty shocked to hear him say that. I don’t think it’s the cruise, per se, I think it’s more the flying part that he doesn’t want to do. Flying is stressful, there’s no doubt about that. But still … no cruise?? Maybe I can convince mom to say yes to the cruise. She’s soooo close! I think it would be fun to go on a cruise and never leave the ship. Take a route that we’ve already done and I’m not really interested in seeing again, like the Western Carribean cruises – those ports are a little scary, not gonna lie, and instead of spending money on excursions, like we normally do, spend that money on a cabin upgrade, or on a VIP package where we have access to more private places on the boat – not open to the general public. I think that would be so fun! I’m just not sure if Kev would be up for it – when it actually came time and we were sitting in a port, I think he would feel like he was missing out on something by not leaving the ship. I don’t know, I’m not giving up on that idea. We’ll see. For now, we’re talking about maybe flying down to South Padre Island in Texas and staying in a cabin on the beach. It’s pretty expensive, but we’re seriously thinking about it!

Jan 10

We got 5 inches of snow today!

That’s the most we’ve gotten in a long time. If we get snow, it’s usually just a few inches and a lot of times, it’s not even snow we get, but ice. We get a lot of ice in my area of the country. Luckily, we only got the snow. Times like this is SOOOO NICE to work from home. I don’t have to worry/stress about getting out in this mess. It’s pretty, but only because I don’t have to get out in it. I opened my big mouth to my supervisor and offered to help her with other projects. She seemed pretty stressed about other teams needing some serious help and stupid me was like, “Hey! I can help!” So, of course, she took me up on that offer. I wish I could just be one of these employees that everyone forgets about – someone who just sort of lingers in the background, you know the ones – we all work with people like that. But alas – no – I have to open my big mouth. So – I will be helping Therapy fill out some paperwork to help them get caught up. It’s not hard, just fax some forms, but still … it’s okay – we’re really not that busy and I would rather stay busy. I text mom today to ask if she had found her birth certificate so we could get the passport process started. It was sort of a test to see how serious she was about us going on a cruise. To my UTTER surprise – she said she found it and it was in her purse! OMG!!!! We’re going on a cruise!!

Jan 11

I braved the elements, got out, picked up mom and me some nuggets and chili from Wendys and went to her house today. The roads actually weren’t that bad. The main roads are clear, just the side roads were a challenge. But the Jeep got around really well, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. (Did I tell ya’ll that we leased a Jeep??

Brand new, 2024 all blue Jeep. We leased her back in October for 3 1/2 years. Who knows if we’ll keep her after the lease is up – we’ve never done this before – call it a mid-life crisis splurge – OMG – I love driving her!! Yes – it’s a her. Use the correct pronouns, please. **SMIRK**). Mom was happy to see me. We watched our Survivor episodes and chit chatted about our cruise the rest of the time. Mom is going to make an appointment to apply for her passport at the post office. We did a lot of researching on my laptop together. She wants to go to Alaska, so now we’re looking at cruises to Alaska. Kevin and I took a cruise to Alaska about five-ish (?) years ago so I know what to expect. That ended up being one of our favorite cruises together. It’s funny, because when I first suggested Alaska to Kevin he wasn’t all the gung-ho about it but once we went, it ended up being one of his top three cruises. I jumped down a rabbit hole …. and bought a Traveler’s notebook. I’ve always wanted one. I just wish I had started this years ago … I could have had so many notebooks filled out with all our vacations and trips! Oh well, better late than never, I suppose.

Jan 22

What am I going to do when I retire? Kev asked me that today and honestly, I don’t have an answer. I like to work, I like the push to get something done, I like the mental stimulation. I like having a purpose and a goal. I love the feeling of accomplishment and the feeling of a job well done. I know me, I’m lazy. If I don’t have a goal, some deadline, something to work toward, I will spend countless hours in front of my computer watching gamers game, or jump down YouTube videos. (I have to mark “not interested” on YouTube shorts – otherwise, I spend HOURS just needless scrolling … ). Technically, I can retire in a little over two years. It would be nice to have my time back, but we would have to think of some options for health insurance since Kev is currently on my health insurance. Kev can get on Medicare in a few years, but I still have a ways to go for that. For now, I will likely continue to work, though, it will be nice to have the option of retiring at any time after 62. I don’t know – it’s something I need to seriously think about.

Jan 24

Crazy busy day today. Richelle was already off, April signed off after a few hours of starting because of a migraine, which left me and Cheri W until Cherie C and Lori clocked on at 12:30. And Fridays have not been quiet here lately. We were able to keep our heads above water, but it was a lot. We currently work 72 hours out, management is talking about adding more days on to our “window,” which means possibly working four or five days out. I’m all for it, we certainly have enough people. I’m ready to be busier.

Jan 25

One of mom’s friends text her to ask if we might want a “vintage” chest of drawers to either use or put in Kevin’s booths. I contacted Kev and he said he would take it so mom’s friend and her husband dropped it off at the house. Kevin still has three booths in the flea market. He toggles between wanting to keep them, downsize or get rid of them entirely, it IS a lot of work for him to go out several times a week to not only replenish his “inventory” but to make trips to his booths to rotate stock, add to his stock, etc. But believe it or not, he not only makes his rent every month, but he makes a tidy profit on top of that. He does pretty good business. Probably because he and LeRoy find some unique pieces and I think he has a reputation for selling interesting stuff. Mom and I have a “treat” after lunch every week. Usually, the person hosting makes muffins or cookies but this week we went to Hurt’s Donuts – we bought two donuts and it cost $6.00! What?! Uh – they were good, but not $6.00 good. Yeah, we won’t be doing that again. Wow.

Jan 26

Weather is looking decent for our trip to the Pinner’s Conference this weekend. It’s always a gamble to plan a road trip at the end of January – especially in the Midwest. Our weather is so unpredictable. I looked at my Hotels.com account and had a butt pucker moment – oh stop – you know what I’m talking about, those moments when your heart drops to your feet, because I didn’t see the hotel reservation on my account. I KNOW I booked it back in August or September. I called the hotel to confirm our reservation and they told me we were good to go – they had us booked. I then remembered that I had booked the hotel through Kev’s account and when I signed on to his account, yep, there it was. Whew!! Mom is really looking forward to this trip, if something had happened to our hotel then I would have to find another, more expensive alternative because there was no way we weren’t going to go.

Jan 27

Our department is downsizing, we have too many people and not enough work. I KNEW this was going to happen and I tried to tell management we didn’t need any more people, but of course, they didn’t listen. They are moving some people around to other groups and I think a few of them are quitting. I need to make myself indispensable so I have more control over my own “options.”

Jan 30

We’re heading to Pinner’s! I’ll write another post about that soon(ish).

Health, Life

Healthcare … On Your Terms

Karen

You know what’s crazy?

Other than our world right now, I mean honestly, take any subject and tell me, without telling me, how nuts it is.

But I’m specifically talking about healthcare. I think COVID broke our healthcare system, ya’ll. And it was pretty broken before that whole fiasco. But it’s not only broken, it’s changing.

Case in point: being able to buy antibiotics without seeing a doctor. And no, I’m not talking about buying it from a mysterious stranger on the corner with a long trench coat, (though I suppose those do exist), but being able to buy certain medications online.

I really thought my flu spiel turned into a sinus infection. I used to get them all the time so I know what they feel, and smell, like. So when the signs started appearing I thought, “well crap. Now I’ll have to make a trip to Urgent Care.”

Only. I didn’t have to.

I watch “The Chicks on the Right” every morning. I start work at 7:00 AM and they’re an early show so it works out well. I really like how they are informative but also have a great sense of humor – makes the darkness that is our current political landscape bearable, you know?

Anyway, One of their sponsors is All Family Pharma. It’s an online pharmacy out of Florida that prescribes COVID medications, antibiotics, Zofran, Prednisone, Tamiflu … and a few other things. It’s hard to believe that you can buy antibiotics without seeing a doctor, but you can and I did. I wanted to have some on hand in case what I had really was a sinus infection – I had a plan B.

I’m the kind of person who HAS to have a plan B.

All they did was ask my weight and … I think that was it, actually. The antibiotic cost $20, the doctor’s fee was $20 and shipping was $10 through FedEx. Fifty bucks for peace of mind? Count me in!

On one hand, it’s cool you can buy “simpler” medications online without seeing a doctor. On the other hand, it’s WEIRD to be able to buy medications online without seeing a doctor. I’m grateful that it’s a choice, though I do worry about people taking advantage and ordering too many antibiotics. That’s not a good thing. You don’t want to get used to antibiotics so that when you need them, your body doesn’t respond to them. I wonder how the pharmacy prevents that from happening? The pharmacy also strongly recommends that you take a probiotic to counteract the antibiotic killing off the good bacteria in your gut.

It all seems so … underhanded and sneaky, in a way, to be able to do this. Or, maybe we’re so brainwashed into thinking that you have to go see a doctor, that this is the way it’s SUPPOSED to be when in fact, it’s really not that big of a deal?

I don’t know. I’ve worked in healthcare for the past 13 years – I’m brain washed.

(*Side note: got an email from the hospital today – since the number of flu cases is on the rise, they have implemented the mask policy for the unvaccinated. (*GASP*) If I were still in the clinic, I would have to wear a mask. I probably wouldn’t outside the clinic, but I would have to wear one in the clinic – therefore advertising the fact to everyone in the clinic my vaccination status. Yet another reason I will NEVER go back to the clinic).

Something else that is new to healthcare – private primary care physicians (PCP). We have one, maybe two, in my hometown that I know of. When I retire and we are no longer on my company healthcare, I think that’s what we’re going to do. Pay a monthly fee to have access to a private PCP. This is a doctor not beholden to a certain hospital and completely independent. They can do x-rays and ultrasounds in the office, so that would save you money, if you needed something like that.

I like the concept and again, I’m glad we have a choice. Whatever we can do to get away from the “establishment” healthcare system, I’m all for it. Whatever we can do to break the mold and make changes, I’m in.

I hope buying medications without seeing a doctor and seeing a private doctor outside the “system” collects steam and opens a door to more and more anti-establishment options. Something needs to change with our current system and I feel like these options are a step in the right direction.

Life

Christmas Postponed … For the Second Time

Karen

And it was all my fault – both times.

The year was 2010 – and it was a tough year for our family. Kevin had his motorcycle accident, (the ER doctor said his pelvis was a “bag ‘O glass”), in April 2020 and by Christmas time, I couldn’t pass gas or have a bowel movement. (TMI, but we’re friends here, right?)

I remember being SO UNCOMFORTABLE when we went to Brandon’s Christmas concert at school, (he played the saxophone in band/Jazz), and I thought I was going to explode. I looked six months pregnant. I felt like a walking whale.

I couldn’t stand it anymore and went to the ER. They gave me a bunch of laxatives, kept me for a bit, nothing happened, they sent me home.

Let me repeat that, they pumped me full of laxatives and nothing happened. Now, my gut is full of liquid crap with no way to exit … after about a day of feeling like I was going to implode, I went back to the ER. They did a colonoscopy and prepped me for emergency surgery.

I had a blockage.

I mean – DUH. I tried to tell them that the last time I was in, but whatever, I was about to be fixed. The doc said, “No problem. The scar will only be about six inches long – you can still wear that bikini.”

DUDE – you clearly haven’t met me. This body hasn’t ever seen a bikini and never will, but I appreciated the positive attitude.

This all happened right smack dab during Christmas. I had my surgery shortly before Christmas and was in the hospital Christmas Eve/Christmas day. And my incision? Was gigantic. It went from the bottom of my belly button to nearly my lady bits.

I’m no math wizard, but my incision was CLEARLY longer than six inches. And I was stapled, so that was unbearably uncomfortable. But I pooped …. boy howdy, did I poop – eight times in the hospital, to be exact. And it was GLORIOUS. lol

It wasn’t until my post-op appointment w/ the general surgeon that flayed me open did I learn why my incision was much bigger than anticipated. I had not one, but TWO twists in my intestines and they ended up removing nearly three feet of intestine.

So. That was fun.

But being in the hospital during Christmas was awful, and sad. And I don’t wish that experience on anyone. (Don’t recommend having your intestines removed, either).

The boys were in high school when his happened. So, they were disappointed but it wasn’t like they missed a visit from Santa. I got home on the 27th and we had a late Christmas at that time.

Fast forward to now.

We had our family Christmas party on the 22nd. My family came over to our house – it was our boys, my mom, my brother and his family, and my sister’s sons. Mom brought over her signature “goodies”, (i.e. cookies, fudge, peanut butter cups, snowballs, etc- all homemade, by the way)., and Kevin and I made tacos, with all the trimmings, and little smokies. Mom brought over macaroni and potato salad. It was quite the spread (and I stressed about not having enough food … we had juuuust enough food).

After we ate, we played our (now) traditional Saran Wrap Ball game. Mom wraps up a bunch of small gifts, money and this time, she put numbers in the mix, up into a giant Saran Wrap ball. One person unwraps the ball, (you can’t tear it!), while another person rolls a pair of dice and tries to roll a double. Once a double has been rolled, the person unwrapping the ball must stop and hand it off to the next person while also handing off the dice to the next person to roll another double. It sounds easy, and it is, but the game actually lasts much longer than you think. When a prize falls out of the ball, the person unwrapping the ball can keep the prize.

The numbers are for picking a gift after the game is over. Everyone brought a “gag” gift with them to the party and after the ball had been completely unwrapped, we went down the line, starting at one, and people picked a gift of their choice. Other players had the option of stealing gifts along the way.

It was a lot of fun and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I filmed the game while Kevin looked on.

But during the game, Kevin said he started to feel sick. I had no idea this was happening and I felt fine but when Monday rolled around, Kevin was down. He had a 101.9 fever and he was pretty much comatose. I made sure he was drinking fluids, giving him Tylenol and putting a wet cloth on his forehead to cool him down, but I felt fine, save for a dry cough.

Christmas Eve rolled around and yep … I’m feeling sick. I had chills and a fever but my fever never got as high as Kevin’s. We had to contact mom and the boys and let them know not to come over. We didn’t want to take the chance of infecting them, especially since we were running fevers. Kevin still had a slight fever on Christmas Eve, but not as bad as Monday.

By Christmas day, I was down. It had settled in my lungs and sinuses and I was coughing up a storm. Still a dry cough, but more consistent. We contacted the boys and had to tell them we needed to postpone Christmas.

What a terrible, sinking feeling that is to have to cancel something that people are looking forward to. I not only felt physically terrible, I just felt terrible, period, for being the reason it had to happen.

By Friday, my sinuses were a solid block of concrete – I couldn’t even blow a puff of air out of either nostril. I don’t know what happened, or what triggered such a reaction, but it was terrible. And of course, it happened while I was on the phone with my supervisor because yes, I still worked during this time. I didn’t feel bad enough to be bed bound and I work from home so … why not?

Neither one of us went to the doctor, and we’re still recovering though to be honest, neither of us are at 100% yet, (I’m still coughing up crap and sinuses are still pretty stuffy), but we were pretty sure we had the flu. Maybe it was COVID? Who knows. It doesn’t really matter at this point, I’m just GRATEFUL that no one else seemed to have gotten sick after the party and I’m especially grateful that my elderly mother didn’t catch anything. Getting sick, in general, is terrible and a challenge, but when you’re an elderly person, it can be really bad and this virus? Was pretty bad.

So, Christmas 2024 was a bust. It was a huge let down but what can you do? Viruses are out there and though you can make healthy life choices and cut down the number of times you get sick, you can’t avoid getting sick entirely. All you can do is get through it and try not to pass it on to another person.

How was your Christmas?

In the News, Life

The One Where the Landing Gear Got Stuck

Karen

Kevin went through some old paperwork a few days ago and sent me this snippet from a news story:

This snippet is so old it refers to flight attendants as stewardesses!

It’s a little small and certainly faint but if you press the control button on your keyboard and use the scroll button on your mouse, you can make it big enough to read.

This snippet is from 1991. Kevin had a work thing in San Francisco and I went with him. One of his (very pretty and very skinny) co-workers went, too, and she took her mom. So, the four of us went to San Francisco to keep him and his co-worker company.

I don’t remember what I did while Kevin was working, but I do remember hanging out with everyone afterward and touring the town. We rode the street cars, Walked (? – Or did we take a taxi?), to Lombard street, and walked around Fisherman’s Wharf and watched the sea lions sun bathing. It was a lot of fun, but I was four months pregnant with Blake and I do remember huffing and puffing up and down those streets and also feeling very self conscious of my growing belly, especially next to his attractive, skinny, co-worker.

This experience was only my second time flying. Kevin and I went to Cozumel, Mexico, for our honeymoon and I was terrified. Not so much of flying, but of leaving the country. I had never been out of the state of Missouri before that time, let alone the country. And let alone to a country where English-speaking people were the minority.

But back to San Francisco … I know we’ve been back to San Francisco since that 1991 trip … but I can’t remember the circumstances. I think it was a cruise port, or maybe it was a cruise stop, but I remember taking a taxi and doing an impromptu tour of the city, the Cliff Notes version. Our taxi driver was our tour guide and he was so awesome. I believe this happened in the early 2000’s sometime. So, we’ve seen San Francisco on the surface, but we haven’t really explored San Francisco thoroughly. We would likely never go back now, which is sad, because I remember it being very pretty and certainly interesting, but we have no desire to go to a city that has an app for visitors on places in the city to avoid drug needles and feces.

No thank you.

Plus, I think it’s criminal how Gavin Newsome has contributed, (he’s not the only one – there have been several throughout the years but he’s certainly the most current), to the downfall of the state of California.

Back to the 1991 trip.

The trip ended and we flew back home. I guess it was United Airlines. If Kevin hadn’t found this snippet I would have sworn it was American, because I feel like we’ve always flown American primarily because of the points reward credit card that we use 99% of the time, but it was United, apparently.

Other than this incident, I don’t remember anything weird about the trip. It seemed like it was pretty straight forward. But the moment we reached the Springfield airport, we kept circling the airport. Even with my flying inexperience, I knew something wasn’t right. Why weren’t we landing? What was going on? We circled the airport several times. People were getting antsy, myself included. And the more people got worked up, the more I got nervous. Again, I didn’t really know what was going on but based on the crew and passengers’ reaction, something was off.

Finally, the captain made the announcement: “Attention ladies and gentlemen, we’re having a little trouble getting the landing gear to cooperate. We’re circling the airport until we resolve this issue. We’ll keep you updated.”

Say what??

Okay. Now I could hear grumblings and low murmurs from the passengers. The aircraft’s nervous scale just shot up about 50 points. Were we going to have to land without wheels? How would that look? I guess it would “technically” be a crash landing? How were we supposed to use the oxygen thingies again?

My head is spinning and Kevin is trying to reassure me and I think he grabs my hand, but maybe I’ve seen too many airplane crash disaster movies over the years. The memory is a bit fuzzy.

What’s not fuzzy is I remember a female flight attendant crouching right next to me, (because I had the aisle seat), and lifting a trap door in the floor. I had no idea what I was looking at – mechanical stuff, but I swear I saw the landing gear wheels looking all cozy and docile still nestled within the belly of the airplane.

This may, or may not be true, because I don’t know the first things about planes, and especially back then, so the black thing I saw? Could have been a number of things, who knows if it was actually the airplane wheels.

The flight attendant reaches down into the planes guts and again, I swear I see her cranking something. I’m thinking, “Is she manually cranking the wheels down? Is she qualified to do that?! Is that even possible? I mean, I guess the airplane manufacturer would have some sort of fail-safe system in place for times like this, right??”

Shortly after she fiddled with whatever she was doing, we were able to safely land. I was nervous, but not really scared. I have faith. I’m a Christian. And I trusted God to land us safely – and He did.

But it was a bit of excitement and for a brief moment in time, we bonded with total strangers. Nervous laughter and weak smiles were shared on the plane once we touched down, (with wheels, I might add). And when we stopped at the terminal, everyone clapped with relief.

Apparently, we had been up in the air long enough to trigger a reporter showing up at the airport when we got off the plane. I have no idea why a reporter decided to pick me, out of all the people who got off the plane, to approach and ask questions, but as you can see, it happened. I remember speaking to a reporter, but I was still too amped up on adrenaline to remember what I said. Who knows if I said anything more intelligent than what you see in the news clip, knowing me, probably not. In fact, that poor reporter was probably thinking, “I couldn’t have picked a more articulate person to get a quote from?” Ha!

So, that’s my short claim to fame story. This experience hasn’t soured me on flying but I won’t lie, I was pretty nervous to fly the very next time after this incident.

Your turn: what has been your most memorable flying experience?

Annoyances

Things that Annoy Me #3

Karen

(This little girl is my inner little girl smirking at the world’s stupidity).

This sort of goes along the same lines as my “don’t interrupt me when I’m focused” pet peeve.

I mentioned I’ve been training at work. This activity is painful for me because I don’t have a lot of patience to begin with but when you train? PATIENCE IS REQUIRED. I’m feeling annoyed, I won’t lie. I’m getting impatient with this girls’ stupid-ish questions and her inability to retain what we talked about minutes before. Then I feel uber guilty because, good grief Karen, cut the girl some slack. She’s new. She doesn’t know what is happening and you’re bombarding her with a ton of information.

She’s one of these people who have to take notes on EVERYTHING. Which, I suppose, is better than never taking notes, but when you take too many notes, and then can’t function without referencing said notes, then it turns into a crutch; an excuse to stop using your brain and putting the puzzle pieces together. The problem with this approach to learning anything new is … what happens if the thing you have to deal with falls outside your carefully crafted notes?

But it’s okay, everyone has to start somewhere and I’m throwing a lot of information at her, it’s normal, right?

Yes and no. A person’s ability to learn also comes from his/her own personality. How receptive is she? How intelligent is she? Does she have the ability to multi-task, think on her feet, problem solve?

Everyone says they can multi-task, but that’s a lie. Not very many people can ACTUALLY multi-task. It takes a special sort of brain to juggle several things at once and still focus enough to get these multi tasks done.

I hate to say it, because I’m not completely convinced it’s a real thing, but I sort of think she has ADD. She is constantly talking about her dogs, shushing her dogs, letting her dogs out, letting her dogs in, she’s hot, she’s cold, she has a headache, she needs to throw another pod on her Keurig …. it goes on and on. And I think she KNOWS she’s like this because I will be talking, she interrupts me to make a comment about the above distractions and then she will reign herself in and say, “I’m sorry, yes, so getting back to A, B, C …”

I just stop and let her regroup her brain cells when she interrupts me. But I would be lying if I didn’t say it didn’t drive me crazy. Training is not a game, it’s generally not fun, it’s draining and after 11 weeks of training, I’m OVER IT. So, my patience threshold is at an all-time low. I’m trying very hard not to take it out on this girl, she’s actually very sweet and it’s hard to be truly annoyed with her … but then, it’s the over-the-top enthusiasm, too.

“Oh my gosh, I’m just soooo excited to be here!” Or, “This is exactly what I’ve been wanting to do!.” Or, “I love this sooo much.” Or, “I can’t believe I’m here right now getting to do this.” Or, “This is the best, I JUST LOVE THIS!.” Or, “This is my dream job!”

Look …

I appreciate your enthusiasm, really. It’s sort of refreshing to talk to someone who WANTS to learn and LIKES to work. You definitely don’t see that often nowadays, but girl, please, can you tamp down your overly-excited Chihuahua behavior about 15 notches because … we’ve crossed over into the weird zone and now it sort of sounds like a Stepford wife that is short circuiting.

I’ve actually had to ask her to take a deep breath, slow down, read before clicking, and I did sort of have to bark at her, (to continue the dog reference), … I feel like I’m trying to corral a 5-year old who drank one too many root beers. It’s exhausting and it’s no longer cute, or flattering, now it’s just annoying. Can we get back to training so we can get you up and running and I can stop talking to you and stop working 10:30-7:00, (because I HATE this shift), and get back to my regularly scheduled working life?

Most importantly -F.O.C.U.S

She has three dogs, and they are very cute, (how do I know? Because she posted a picture of them after they got back from the groomers), and I get that dogs, pets, are some people’s children, I get that. But when you’re constantly having to pull your attention away from work to reprimand them, talk to them, shush them, takec are of them, or, at the end of the business day, interrupt to me to say, “Daddy’s home! Go get daddy!”, I feel like I might say something I will regret, throw my computer against the wall or roll my eyes so hard I might need to seek medical help.

COME ON.

I’m all about having fun, posting funny memes and having a laugh, but when our primary purpose of spending time together is to get some work done, I’m gonna need you to get serious, retain what I’m telling you and focus – we have a job to do.

Book Corner

How Many Five-Star Reads in 2024?

Karen

Any Goodreads readers here?

I didn’t do very well on my reads this year. Only finished 24 books.

I read 58 in 2022 and 37 in 2023.

I worked A LOT this past year. I also worked a lot on projects for my mom’s craft booths. So I didn’t really have a lot of time to read.

I only read ebooks. I have a Kindle and I’m a Kindle Unlimited member, so I can read unlimited books for $10 a month. Of course, I only read 24 books this year so didn’t exactly get my money’s worth this year, did I.

My top genres of the year were mystery, thriller and historical fiction.

The longest book I read was “The Rose Code” and it was one of four books I rate 5 stars this year. I’m pretty picky when it comes to awarding a book 5 stars but I only read four 5 star books in a year?

That’s sort of pathetic. The five-star reads are as follows:

My goal for 2025 is to read and write more. But that’s pretty much my goal every year so …

Tell me, how many books did you read in 2024?