Meh.
There's something oddly humiliating about being rejected for blood donation. Twice. In a row.
The first time was my fault - I had completely forgotten I was taking antibiotics.
This morning, though - my iron was too low. By ONE point. As in, if I'd had meat or beans or something like that for dinner last night, instead of just the quick bowl of pasta because I was lazy, then I probably would have passed.
They gave me a t-shirt anyway. Consolation prize. I've rescheduled for Wed; note to self - eat LOTS of iron-rich foods between now and then.
I feel like it just hasn't been a great start to the new year. MiniPlu missed the first two days of school after vacation (the only two days her school had this week) due to her cold; she seems to be getting better so hopefully I won't need to take her to the doctor for strep tests or anything. Two's foot still hurts her - she can walk on it, but not for long periods, so I'm thinking I DO need to take her to urgent care to get it xrayed, make sure she didn't fracture anything.
I finally had my right shoulder looked at, which has been paining me for months - bursitis/rotator cuff injury. It means doing one-armed TKD for awhile, at least for certain activities. And PT. And an MRI. (When they heard I had done metal welding - in MIDDLE SCHOOL - they wanted to do a preliminary xray or something BEFORE the MRI to make sure I didn't have any metal in my eye. I pointed out that I had just had an MRI of my eye and brain in JUNE - which I had written on the form RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM - which was, in the words of the doctors, "absolutely pristine". They'd better not make me do more tests for nonexistent metal in my eye after that, not when they can pull up the MRI record and see for themselves.
And now the blood donor rejection. Also, when I made a payment to Two's online lunch bill pay, apparently I typed in our checking information wrong because I got notice yesterday that payment had been rejected. And Will, who has a LOT to do today, has been puttering around for the past two hours, wasting time. We won't go into how much *I* have to get done, in between taking the tree down (now without Will's help, since he's got too much else to do), taking Two in to be xrayed, dealing with an email backlog, etc.
One of my New Year's resolutions was to remember to be thankful for the good things in my life, even on difficult days, but right now it feels hard.
I finished my first book of the year the other day, Patricia Wrede's Shadow Magic, which was given to me, as part of a five-book compendium (Kindle format), for Christmas. This is middle-reader/YA fantasy, set in the mythical land of Lyra. It's also Wrede's first-ever novel and ... I have to say, I can tell. I've read several other books by Wrede and adored every one of them, but not this one. The character viewpoint switches around several times, and there's not enough depth to any of them to make me care too much. I did like the mythical sentient beings she invented and the plot concept itself is fine, but things resolve too quickly, and too easily, many times. This was the book-giver's FAVORITE series when she was younger, though, so I feel kind of bad that I didn't really connect with it. I do plan to finish the series, but probably alternating with other books.
I've started Novik's Tongues of Serpents, but time constraints mean I'm only about 27 pages in.
The first time was my fault - I had completely forgotten I was taking antibiotics.
This morning, though - my iron was too low. By ONE point. As in, if I'd had meat or beans or something like that for dinner last night, instead of just the quick bowl of pasta because I was lazy, then I probably would have passed.
They gave me a t-shirt anyway. Consolation prize. I've rescheduled for Wed; note to self - eat LOTS of iron-rich foods between now and then.
I feel like it just hasn't been a great start to the new year. MiniPlu missed the first two days of school after vacation (the only two days her school had this week) due to her cold; she seems to be getting better so hopefully I won't need to take her to the doctor for strep tests or anything. Two's foot still hurts her - she can walk on it, but not for long periods, so I'm thinking I DO need to take her to urgent care to get it xrayed, make sure she didn't fracture anything.
I finally had my right shoulder looked at, which has been paining me for months - bursitis/rotator cuff injury. It means doing one-armed TKD for awhile, at least for certain activities. And PT. And an MRI. (When they heard I had done metal welding - in MIDDLE SCHOOL - they wanted to do a preliminary xray or something BEFORE the MRI to make sure I didn't have any metal in my eye. I pointed out that I had just had an MRI of my eye and brain in JUNE - which I had written on the form RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM - which was, in the words of the doctors, "absolutely pristine". They'd better not make me do more tests for nonexistent metal in my eye after that, not when they can pull up the MRI record and see for themselves.
And now the blood donor rejection. Also, when I made a payment to Two's online lunch bill pay, apparently I typed in our checking information wrong because I got notice yesterday that payment had been rejected. And Will, who has a LOT to do today, has been puttering around for the past two hours, wasting time. We won't go into how much *I* have to get done, in between taking the tree down (now without Will's help, since he's got too much else to do), taking Two in to be xrayed, dealing with an email backlog, etc.
One of my New Year's resolutions was to remember to be thankful for the good things in my life, even on difficult days, but right now it feels hard.
I finished my first book of the year the other day, Patricia Wrede's Shadow Magic, which was given to me, as part of a five-book compendium (Kindle format), for Christmas. This is middle-reader/YA fantasy, set in the mythical land of Lyra. It's also Wrede's first-ever novel and ... I have to say, I can tell. I've read several other books by Wrede and adored every one of them, but not this one. The character viewpoint switches around several times, and there's not enough depth to any of them to make me care too much. I did like the mythical sentient beings she invented and the plot concept itself is fine, but things resolve too quickly, and too easily, many times. This was the book-giver's FAVORITE series when she was younger, though, so I feel kind of bad that I didn't really connect with it. I do plan to finish the series, but probably alternating with other books.
I've started Novik's Tongues of Serpents, but time constraints mean I'm only about 27 pages in.