Jennifer Lyon
Wednesday, February 21st, 2024
Rainy Whining

It’s been rainy but nothing huge here in our area. Some places have been hit hard, so I’m not minimizing this. But dang, in our neck of the woods, it’s just wet, muddy and dreary. Maggie and I are used to more activity. However I did get my MRI for my throat approved and scheduled, so that’s good news. The scan is in March, and by then it’ll be 8 months since I started trying to get help. It’s getting worse, but still more annoying than causing any real problems that we know of so far. I can eat and swallow, and that’s kind of important :-) At least, we’re making progress and I’m happy enough about that.

The sigh-and-wait thing is my Humira medication. This is a once a year challenge to get this — we seriously play the same game every single year. Just imagine me rolling my eyes as I’m making endless calls between the specialty pharmacy, the doctors office, and my insurance, and begging them all to contract the right people with the right information to get the proper authorization. It’s bureaucracy at it’s finest. I guess it keeps my busy? And I’m always grateful when the rest of the year goes smoothly too.

Back to the rain, I’m amusing myself by thinking of absurd or fun plots :-) Still not writing, no real plans to write, but making up plots is fun! Although,  a quick aside, Youngest suggested I write a cookbook or cooking/baking website — but I think that’s because he wants all my recipes :-)

How’s your week going?

Monday, February 19th, 2024
Weekend Roundup

Eh, it was a weekend. I spent time prepping food for having Youngest and his wife over, but they weren’t able to come over (through no fault of their own). Since I had so much food, I dropped some enchiladas, Spanish rice and cake for them. Life happens and we’ll reschedule.

I made the gluten and diary free cinnamon cake — I think it needs a bit of work. I have some ideas :-)

Otherwise, I read “VERITY” by Colleen Hoover. That book was a surprise! It turned out to be a bit of a psychological suspense with a dark twist, and I inhaled that book. I don’t read many of Colleen’s books (though I know who she is and I’m happy for her amazing success!) but this was NOT what I was expecting. So that was fun and slightly disturbing, LOL.

We have more rain on the way, although I’m not sure when it’ll start as I write this late Sunday afternoon. The clouds have moved in, and the air is getting heavier so sometime in the next 12 hours maybe? We’ll see.

So my weekend was uninspiring weekend, how was yours?

Friday, February 16th, 2024
Friday Five

TGIF! It’s time to share five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

  1. One morning this week, I read an article that a mountain lion had been spotted in our area, and saw the ring camera video. Then I went out for an early morning walk, and was stopped by another walker with a big dog who’d seen the mountain lion the night before right outside his back yard. He lives about a block from me. And that was when I cancelled our walk and took Maggie home :-)  It was full daylight and I was probably safe, but I’m pretty confident that if I have to wrestle a mountain lion for Maggie, I will lose. Mountain lions don’t normally come down from the hills/forest to our area, but it can happen. I’m as careful as I reasonably can be.
  2. I finally unpacked and put away our books in the bookshelves. I’ll probably be packing them again soon to paint, but then who knows when that will happen since we have other things going on (just life stuff). I don’t want to look at stacks of boxes anymore, and it’s only takes an hour to pack them up anyway.
  3. Wizard and I went to dinner for Valentines Day, and had a fabulous meal! We both got the steak and lobster special and I was surprised how good it was. I had to bring half my steak home, and that was my lunch the next day so it’s a double win for me!
  4. I made sourdough bread yesterday and will probably bake it today. I’ve never had it fail, but I’m wondering if one day I will??? Sourdough starter is a living thing, and it could just decided it didn’t want to work one day, or have a premature death :-)
  5. Today is Youngest’s birthday! He and his wife are coming to dinner on Sunday — they’ll be the first to see our floors. But the important thing is Youngest and I brainstormed what kind of cake he’d like. It all has to be dairy and gluten free so it’s tricky, but we decided on a Cinnamon Roll Cake. We’ll see if it comes out — youngest doesn’t mind being my taste tester :-) I’m also making enchiladas, Spanish rice and maybe a salad.

That was my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Wednesday, February 14th, 2024
Wednesday Reading

I’ve been reading a biography about John Belushi — “Wired: The Short and Fast Times of John Belushi” written by Bob Woodward. John Belushi was a comedic star who rose to fame on Saturday Night Live and went on to make many movies before died of a drug overdose. I think I was about 19 when he died so it had an impact on me. I thought the book would be interesting.

For context, this book was published in 1984, so it’s an old book, written by an old school journalist. And it shows in the writing!!! The book suffers ( by today’s standards and my humble opinion) from way too much detail and backstory of every person mentioned. I know the author did a ton of research, and in the time this was published, that level of detail was considered reasonable and admirable. But I often find myself struggling in a new scene trying to find out how it relates to Belushi. I will say this, though, I’m more than half way through and I haven’t DNF’ed it, so it’s compelling. That’s a compliment to the author that he managed to cram so much detail in there and keep my interest. These days I’m brutal about dumping a book that I loses interest in :-)

But still, in my opinion, the old school journalist could take some lessons from modern authors (and their amazing editors!!) on how to tighten a story to a razor sharp reading experience.

What are you reading?

Also, Happy Valentine’s Day!

Sunday, February 11th, 2024
Weekend Roundup

We had a great weekend. Saturday was pretty normal stuff. But while running errands, I stopped by youngest to see the desk he built for his home office. It’s gorgeous! It’s a simple farmhouse design, and perfect for him. I really am impressed with the level of attention to detail he put in this desk. He’s really developing some amazing woodworking skills.

After that, I made dark chocolate brownies for Superbowl. Then I decided they are too dark chocolate for most people, so I froze those, and bought Ghirardelli’s boxed brownies, and made those to take to Middle’s. Yes, I realized that’s a bit over the top, but I do stuff like that all the time, LOL. They all seemed to like them. I passed because they had gluten, and my stomach has been touchy for a few days. I had treats at home so it doesn’t bother me to do that.

Sunday we went to Middles to watch the Superbowl. We had a delicious dinner of tri trip and tons of great conversation while watching the game. It got tense in overtime, and that’s when we left…but Wizard listened to the game on the radio. His team lost. But big congrats to all the Kansas City Chiefs! Truly, we had a lovely time with out son, daughter-in-law, their two dogs, and our dog :-)

How was your weekend?

Friday, February 9th, 2024
Friday Five

TGIF!! Time to share five random things about out week. Here’s mine:

  1. Thursday night, the last storm blew in, bringing high winds and rain. All was fine here, but it was pretty dramatic and kept me and Maggie awake. Wizard slept through through it, LOL.
  2. We continue to love the new floors. Although they aren’t self cleaning, so there’s that :-)
  3. The other day, the microwave refused to start and claimed I hadn’t put the food in. I swore at it, and then went into a mini tirade lecturing the microwave that it did not get to tell me how to do my job. Why doesn’t it just do it’s job?? Huh? Yeah, I was annoyed. Wizard was sitting at the bar laughing his butt off. Which, of course, made me laugh. It’s just a day in our life. But the microwave was wrong, just so you know. I’d put the food in, but it had forgotten that small fact (because some arbitrary amount of time passed — and it’s short term memory sucks…just saying). The microwave is lucky I need it to heat my coffee.
  4. Since walking has been hit or miss with weather, I’ve upped my yoga and added some very very light weights and I’m also doing standing crunches. It’s  been a few weeks now and is going pretty well. So far, I haven’t triggered any neck or shoulder spasms. It’s been a quiet week so the little things are exciting, LOL
  5. It’s Superbowl this Sunday! We are going to Middle Son’s and I can’t wait! Maggie’s invited too, she is going to be so happy! Going in the car is always the best day ever for Maggie. Wizard and I are looking forward to seeing Middle and his wife, their dogs and just hanging out for a few hours.

That’s my five, it’s been a quiet week! Now I’d love to hear yours. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Tuesday, February 6th, 2024
Wednesday Stuff

We’ve had a lot of rain, but so far, no problems for us. L.A. and some other areas have had flooding, mudslides, trees falling, and various related problems. But it looks like the worst is over. We’ll have more rain today, but it should be lighter. I feel badly for the people who’ve had property damaged or destroyed.

In one case, a dog fell in a river and his human went in after him. Both had to be rescued. I probably wouldn’t be that close to a river in a storm, but if Maggie went it, I’d probably go in after her before my common sense kicked in.

The good news for me is I made it to the doctors! Well Wizard drove because he knew I was anxious about the visit :-) The weather lightened up for the two hours we were gone, and we were very thankful. The doctor visit went really well. The previous doctor was uninterested and said all he saw was a little redness. This doctor was a much better fit for me. He looked in my ears and nose first. Then studied my throat. He was able to clearly see what I told him was there. He declared it very weird, LOLOL. He suggested a CT Scan, and said he’d do a biopsy too if I wanted it. At that point, I felt I was in good hands and asked him his recommendation. He suggested we do the CT Scan first to see if there’s anything going on below the problem area. Then we’ll see if a biopsy is need. I agreed. He also wanted more bloodwork, and I agreed.

In this discussion, he looked at me and said, “You’re worried it’s cancer.” I nodded (because–duh, of course I am). He told me that it doesn’t look like cancer to him, but he can be wrong, and therefore the first thing he wants to do is rule out cancer. And once we do that, then we’ll try to find out what’s the root cause of the little spots, soreness and inflammation.

I walked out of there very happy with the plan.

Then, to my surprise, he called me when I was on the way home, and told me, “I’ve been thinking about it, and I think and MRI is a better test for you.”  I didn’t even hesitate, I agreed. He asked if I was claustrophic. I said yes, but I could probably deal with it. He said he’ll call in a prescription and I can decide at the time if I need it or not.

I was impressed. He put real thought, and possibly a bit of research, into my weird case. At this point, I trust his judgement. I feel like we’ll either solve this, or at least rule out anything that needs immediate treatment.

So that was my experience with the new ENT :-)

How’s your week going?

P.S. The server is going down for maintenance so I’m going to try to post this on Tuesday evening before it goes down.

JenniferLyon.com