So that's another very mixed two weeks. Arisia was great, and then the endoscopy was fine, and then I had a sinus infection that still hasn't let go of me. But I had to go back to work last Wednesday anyway.
First, Arisia!
Wonderful! Made new friends, found old friends, went to lots of panels, wore pretty things, relatively easy train ride, got sleep and found gluten free noms right in the hotel. Yay, hooray. Definitely going next year. I wish I'd had a chance to harp on about the wonders of Arisia before my sinuses melted and my brain fogged up, b/c now it feels so distant. Also, not overcrowded like DragonCon, so Ima try and get more of my NYC friends to come with next year. I learned about psychic stuff and literature, played with swords, vented about Doctor Who. Obviously broke my no-chocolate diet. But at least they were truffles made by the ppl selling them, so they knew for sure they were non glutenous.
Although I got the budgeting wrong, and then bought fripperies on top of that, so... whups. Next year I won't do that tho. And I might not do any other new cons this year so I can save up more $$ for that savings pillow, in case that happens again. But its early in the year to make that decision, I think.
OTOH, wouldn't it be nice (and less expensive) if I could be more actively geeky in my own gigantic home-city? So I'm resolved to try that, tho obviously it hasn't worked out since I got back. Ironically, I got to hang out a bit more with NY/NJ filkers, so I'd like to get more into that scene even if its just as audience.
And then, an endoscopy.
Not a lot to report so far, b/c I haven't had my follow up appointment yet. Obviously waaaay less traumatic than the other procedure, since all I had to do to prepare was just not eat for 8 hours. They gave me a bit more anesthesia, but b/c I wasn't suffering a medically induced stomach flu I bounced back pretty easily. My doctor said after the procedure that my stomach looked irritated and inflamed, so maybe GERD type stuff? But all of the other possible problems (celiac, bacteria, etc) had to be tested via biopsy, so I should find out about that next Monday. But no tumors or ulcers, so that's good. Some extra tummy aches for the rest of the week, but I just tried to be careful not to push my stomach into super-acid mode.
If something super evil had come up in tests, my doctor would supposedly have told me so by now. Or not. They are not terribly organized at that office. I think I'll be most upset, actually, if I don't get any new data from this. In which case I got *another* procedure (and seemingly a resulting sinus infection) for no f'ing reason. Meh.
And then, a headcold/sinus infection thingie.
The day of the endoscopy it wasn't supposed to start snowing until 12pm, at which point I would be on my way home. But it started at 8:30ish when I got off the train. B/c f#$% me, apparently. So I trudged home in the snow with the docs that had holes in them, got home and spent the rest of the day resting. But Wednesday morning I woke up with the sinus ick, stayed home to try and fight it with lots of cold/allergy stuff, and failed miserably. Was home sick for 7 days, Wed thru Tues. Thought I was better Saturday/Sunday so I did chores and laundry, relapsed on Monday. Sho much fail. And I'm expecting more fail from the HR department that doesn't seem to be crediting me my pto, even tho I filled out all the intermittent leave stuff.
While home sick, I continued failing my no-chocolate resolution, and also made a big pot of very garlicky cream of tomato soup with canned tomatos and paste, so my digestive system wasn't happy either. Canned tomato paste may be severely evil with oxalates. Oops. But I did learn a fun trick- baked eggs over soup in little ramekins. Recipe used tomato sauce, I don't see a huge difference.
On the upside, I also learned to cook pork tenderloin in the crock pot, and that turned out OK. I also re-tooled my brownie recipe to use coconut flour. The consensus on the internet was weird. "You only need about 1/4 to 1/2 as much coconut flour as regular flour in a recipe, so you should sub it in 1:1 and just add four more eggs." Um... no. Why can't I just used half as much flour? So I tried that, and it worked. W00t. And I added some chopped up candied ginger I picked up at Arisia. Those were my after lunch snack last week, at least its not solid chocolate right? This weekend I tried something similar with my old banana bread recipe, and it worked ... OK. Still tasting the lack of almond butter.
I was almost well enough to get back to work on Wednesday, but the blistering weather wasn't helping. I rediscovered teh leggings-under-trousers technique. And dosed myself with lots of cold meds, with varying degrees of success. Now I'm down to Affrin once a day, usually at bedtime so I can breathe in my sleep, but it seems to work on me for longer than 12 hours so I had to use it for the evening shift tonite. And while I was very frustrated at having to stay home sick the previous weekend, I was OK with doing it again this week.
More or less forced myself to watch a bunch of Netflix DVDs after I ran out of Xmas present DVDs. Watched Attack the Block on disk (yay!), Hunger Games (yay!), Hansel & Gretel Witch Hunters (all the campy yay I expected!), Mirror Mirror (um... pretty costumes), and finished watching Leverage (yay! tho sad its over). This weekend I finally reconnected my bluray player to my wireless network (I forgot I'd had the wireless password stuck to the router on a piece of paper all this time *headdesk*) so getting even more tv time on the tv was also great. Forcing myself to Netflix may not be as bad an idea as some other things I've tried to force in the past. I should keep up with it, along side my Doctor Who resolution. Which got away from me last week, but I'm back on track now.
Now things are sortof back to normal, except my supervisor transferred out of our department last week on Friday, so I have some new duties to attend to around the office. Which I made sure to write down b/c of medicine fog :-P. Sad to see him go, but he's going to a more tech-programming focused department.
Hopefully the boss will get on with filling the position soon, b/c I'm already feeling the lack. Without a manager to back us up, I still have to come in for opening shift if I get sick again :-/ Over the last couple of years it seems like I only get one terrible cold-out per semester, but I didn't get to recover fully before going back to work this time, so eep. Also, hopefully they get a move on with that, b/c apparently the position doesn't require an MLS. Which means more of my IT-centric friends may be able to apply. Hooray!
While I was sick, BPAL put out their Lupercalia limited's, but obv with a sinus infection I haven't done all the figuring out for that :-P But they'll be up until March 18th, and I'd like to read some reviews before I buy (if possible), and I'll be splitting my order between two months to save teh budgets. They're also discontinuing a bunch of scents on 3/18, including a couple of imps I recently aquired and enjoyed, but not sure if I want bottles. Plenty of time to figure it out, hopefully, after the sinuses subside :-P At least spending $$ on perfume means I can't spend it on fancy chocolates this month.
While sick, apparently in the last throes of Venus in retrograde, I started missing having things to work on that my brain could actually keep up with.
Sewing obviously, but also the simpler beadwork stuff. So I'm going to start getting those together again. Don't think I'll be doing fabric things until I stop being sinusy tho.
And I want to clear more projects out of my fabric-space before starting on the big summer/Dcon project. Tho I'm still not sure if that's going to happen. If it doesn't, I think I'll instead splurge on blood red silk for the Recency costume I wanted to do, a second run on the pattern I used for Em's wedding. Yaaay. Or maybe I should just make that the next big deal and not bother with the giant complicated steampunk costume, which may require purchasing corset and bustle. Tho once again, can't figure out corsets until my GI can give me some f'ing data.
The jewelry-needs came back pretty suddenly last week, so I'm not sure if it was the attraction of shiny so much as the need to pound clay. B/c last week was f'ing frustrating. First will see how it works out with the bead kit. Wouldn't hurt to put up more Etsy listings, but I'd really just rather enjoy the beads for now. Business is secondary in my mind. Restocked my beadkit over the weekend and brought it to the office today, and tho I had to do a lot of stash-scraping I shouldn't need to make a FMG order this month. W00t.
On a whim of some kind (it was hazy, I don't remember clearly), I decreased last week's lunch boxes to see what happened. And my digestive system was a bit less cranky, and I wasn't extra hungry after work. Tho granted, I may be too spaced out on cold meds to notice. So Ima keep doing that, which means less grocery bills.
There's a shortage of a few things at home, b/c I'm starting to space out my monthly CC trips differently. Now instead of going the first Saturday of the month, Ima go after the first payday of the month. B/c I'm tired of having to shuffle $$ around accounts to get groceries after paying all my bills. Darn monies.
Last week I also noticed that if I put all of my savings into my Roth IRA each month, instead of splitting it between IRA and emergency savings, I could max out my Roth IRA this year. Did a bit more research, and in a job-loss sort of emergency I apparently can take $$ out of my Roth without a penalty. Or at least without the same penalties. I have about 2-3 months expenses saved in the regular savings account, and "experts" say to have 6+ months saved, but Future Retired Chrysilla won't be able to eat ramen, so I'd like to start maxing out the IRA pls. If I have to drain emergency savings for some reason, I can go back to splitting paymetns until its refilled.
And there was tarot, but a big reading for Imbolc. I was a bit... fuzzy, but I got there eventually.
In the 'questioner' position, it looks like I'm getting my bearings to head in a particular direction, keeping in mind past journeys that didn't go quite the right way, but that reflection also helps me set new trajectories for myself. And the current path doesn't look so bad.
The "destiny" position is confusing. I'm not sure if the Fool has to choose between stress and relaxation, or one causes the other, or if stress is what I make of it. But again, Chrysilla on her own.
Past is pretty much as expected. Very fun, followed by more cautious fun. Future looks interesting, I hope it means getting certain projects off the ground.
And up the left side is ... weird. It seems I might be better off figuring things out on my own for a while longer, and it may be good not to try and rely on other ppl for help right now, b/c my social groups have a lot of crazy stuff to deal with.
Sadly, it doesn't look like I can help them either, b/c up top there's a lot about breakups and hoarding and giving up. Otoh, it may mean breaking up with my old/current lifestyle, or my hangup on health, or something like that. Is it time to give up thinking I can ever be healthy again? Will things be somehow easier after that?
Overall... I want to go out and see my friends, and do fun stuff. But I'm still actively sick, as compared to the passive sick I sortof always am. And I'm still waiting for more medical data. I don't feel patient so much as "I f'ing give up already". Will see how it goes. Felt better this weekend, but if today's cranky-making blizzard puts me in a sinus relapse, I will be even more cranky. And I just plumb forgot my last allergy shot appointment (before Arisia), so I have to get that together as well. Will call that doc tomorrow.
This week I'm going to see Coriolanus at the NYU place, so hopefully that will be fun. Would like to stay out after with friends, but I'm not sure what my body will be up for. :-/
<3 Chrysilla
Crossposted from Dreamwidth,
http://chrysilla.dreamwidth.org/