Sunday Funny

The boys got some galaxy slime at a birthday party they went to and they had fun with it.

River "drew" a person with his (above).

So naturally Ocean needed to "draw" a person as well (below).

I love the eyebrows!

Weekly Mileage #151 and the Rainy Week

Ocean "helping" sort daddy's stuff

It rained Monday morning and it was supposed to rain all week, so I decided to run on the treadmill instead of the trail. My foot didn't hurt while running (.5 + .5 +.5) but it wasn't super happy later, and it was stiff and sore the next few days. I knew it would take a while to heal, but I'd hoped it would be a bit further along by now.

I took advantage of the rainy weather and spent Tuesday and Wednesday working.

By Thursday night, I hit a milestone. I'm finally caught up on my travel site posts, my membership site is updated, I've updated my Etsy listings to reflect that I won't be guaranteeing overnight shipping and if you want a rush order, you'll pay extra for it (I did some on Saturday, but then went back and changed the wording a bit this week). I've also migrated my listings to my Shopify site.

I used to have a blog for my handmade notebooks company and I wanted to add a store option to it. After doing some research, I found the best option was to shut the wordpress site down and use Shopify to build a shop with a blog, rather than trying to add a shop to the blog. This gives me two sales options to direct people to. Etsy sends people to my listings, but they also can shut me down at any time, for any stupid reason, and my customer info isn't my own, and the fees..... . Hosting my own store means I do have to send traffic to it, but my customers are my own and the fees are cheaper.

I'm feeling like I'm finally getting on top of things. That two day work retreat was key in getting me to this point. Definitely something to do again.

Friday we had a youth service project of babysitting for parents in the ward. It was successful, and went really well, but it was difficult to get enough adult leaders to commit to help. Don't think we'll do it on a holiday next time.

Saturday we were going to drive to an RV dealership in Pennsylvania to check out a trailer we're considering. There's limited info available online, so we want to see it in person and see whether it's worth keeping an eye on it. From what I've seen online, it looks like it would be a good fit. We'll have to get rid of our RV first, but the planner in me wants to know what to look for and what it will cost us.

I called Friday to make sure it was still there before we drove seven hours round trip, only to find out it was sold a week or so earlier :( The salesman thought they might have one coming in for an RV show next Saturday, so he'll check and get back to me.

Since our plans fell through, we spent some time sorting through Jeremy's three trunks and two large duffel bags of military gear. Disgustingly, we only managed to get rid of the the two large duffel bags. After rearranging stuff, those bags have been replaced with giant ziplock vacuum bags full of old uniforms and boots that we're going to try to donate to an ROTC program somewhere. Hopefully they can use them. From what we can tell, no one else wants them, but it feels sooo wasteful to chuck them, and donating them to Goodwill isn't the greatest idea either.

I'd hoped to actually get rid of some of it, but all we did was rearrange it into "stuff he might need for drill", "stuff he's got accountability for, but is unlikely to actually need", and "misc crap that we still can't get rid of". We might be able to winnow that last trunk a bit more....

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I was talking to a friend about chronic illness diagnosis. She mentioned how nice it was to finally have a diagnosis, which led to effective treatment for her. It got me thinking- while I'm still unmedicated, I do have my symptoms under better control due to my supplements and lifestyle changes. And when I do have a bad day, I know what to try to get me through the day. Having a diagnosis really does make a difference.

But. I am having second thoughts about being unmedicated. My symptoms are so up and down. There is no flat line, this is what it is every day. Lately I've been struggling more with insomnia, which always makes me less able to handle life. I'm still more productive than I was before my diagnosis, but the tired always catches me up when the insomnia is worse. I need to get back on keto/low carb, but I am starting to consider the heavy duty night time meds- they've helped others lose weight, sleep better, and feel better. All things I could use right now. If doing keto doesn't help me sleep better at night, I will need to go back to the doc.

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 3.00 mile treadmill walk/run
Thursday- 10.00 mile bike ride
total- 13.00 miles

2020 totals

7 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

27.74 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
4.50 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
40.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
72.24 miles total

Sunday Funny

There's nothing quite like walking through the living room, glancing over, and seeing a rat in the bench.

Pretty sure that was Ocean's doing, since Scabbers is his little buddy :) 

And yes, I really need to recover the bench.

Weekly Mileage #150 and the Scout Campout

Monday I was feeling tired and a bit under the weather. So while I thought about a run, I just ended up hiking. I felt better by the end, but my foot was sore.

I cleared out my desk, gathering stuff for taxes, and reorganizing my drawers. It's too easy to shove everything in a drawer and forget about it. I also worked on a couple etsy orders.

Wednesday was Ocean's 6 month ENT checkup. His ears and tubes are looking good so we don't have to go back for another 6 months.

The doc was looking for fuzzy bunnies in Ocean's ears. Ocean said they were red fuzzy bunnies :)

I finished checking my email sequences and automations for mistakes and they're now ready to go live.

I was feeling exhausted- it's a constant thing, but this was worse than usual. I ended up going to sleep super early (8:30) and didn't wake up till 7:30. I haven't slept for 11 hours straight in .... ever? I woke up with a sore throat, but it improved as the day went on. Hopefully all that sleep will keep me from getting sick.

Friday after speech therapy we got ready for a Scout campout, then I worked on my website. Now that my membership site and email stuff is in place, I'm finally starting to catchup on my other tasks.

The campout was just the girls troop, and we stayed on the edge of Shenandoah NP at a cabin owned by PATC (Potomac Appalachian Trail Club). We drove up after dark, and while the road was really rough, we were able to park pretty close to the cabin, with only a short hike in.

we were right on the edge of Shenandoah NP, which I've always thought was quite isolated (the mountains will give you that feeling), but we could see quite a few lights from our vantage point

It was a very primitive cabin with no running water or electricity, but there was a wood burning stove that the girls got to chop wood for. And we brought a couple propane heaters for the rooms the adults slept in since we have to be separate from the girls.

In the morning we did a 2 mile hike with 1000ft elevation gain for the hiking merit badge. Not the easiest hike, but they did it! One girl struggled a lot, but she made it as well. Another girl was super impatient and kept hiking ahead, then she'd stop so we could catch up and then want to head out right away. The poor girl who struggled really needed those rest stops and couldn't just keep going. It was a good opportunity to talk about hiking in a group, going the speed of the slowest hiker, and asking if anyone isn't ready to go again, rather than if everyone is ready.

There was a giant chimney just down the trail from the cabin we stayed at.

There were several springs on this mountain and one of them has a pipe fitted to it so you can easily fill containers. That bathtub it empties into was at UVA back in the day in a guest house and it's said that Winston Churchill bathed in it. It's now known as the Churchill bathtub :)

The girls took turns filling the containers and bringing it back to the cabin for filtering.

While we were hiking, I also got to deal with the fallout of an Etsy order I mailed overnight on Thursday that didn't arrive Friday afternoon as it was supposed to. The customer was not happy. Thankfully it arrived Saturday and she loved how it turned out. I refunded her overnight shipping fee and will be contacting the Post office on Monday to get my refund from them. Thankfully I had decent cell signal where we were camping, so I was able to respond in a timely manner to her less-than-thrilled messages. 

After dinner Saturday night we headed home (everyone else was staying till late Sunday morning). After we got home and before I went to bed I updated all my Etsy listings. If you want a rush order, you will pay extra for it, and there are no guaranteed delivery dates. You can pay for expedited shipping and I will get it to the post office on time, but once there, it's out of my hands. This was my first time dealing with overnight shipping on top of a rush order, and it's just not worth the stress.

Sunday I worked on catching up on these posts. I've been jotting down notes, but haven't uploaded the pics or fleshed out the details for a couple weeks. Not sure when I'll get caught up, but I'm getting there.

My toe is still a bit stiff and sore, but I'll start running consistently again this coming week.

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 3.00 mile hike
Thursday- 10.00 mile bike ride
Friday- 2.12 mile hike
total- 15.12 miles

2020 totals

7 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

27.74 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
1.50 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
30.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
59.24 miles total

Sunday Funny

The boys found this art thing and just had to mimic it.

January Mileage

I ended the month a bit behind on my bike mileage. I need an average of 30 miles a month, which at 10 miles a week gives me a week off each month. Which works, unless I skip the first two weeks of the month like I did in January. It won't be too hard to catch up though.

My foot mileage is close to where it should be- 24 miles rather than 31 miles.

I'm right on track with my hikes.

I had planned on starting to build my weekly foot mileage, but injuring my toe has put that plan on the back burner. I've still got time, but I'm worried about trying to do too much, too close together. I may not be able to do that half marathon in June. I'm keeping my options open at this point.

January mileage:
1 treadmill workout + 5 hikes + 1 race + 3 trail runs + 2 outside walks + 2 bike workouts + 0 kayak outings = 44.12 miles

52 hike challenge: 5 hikes

365 mile challenge:  20.0 bike miles + 22.62 outdoor foot miles + 1.50 indoor foot miles + 0 kayak miles

total miles: 44.12 miles

Weekly Mileage #149 and the Work Getaway

Monday I ran errands then went on a hike. I'd wanted to try running, but I was feeling very low energy, so I ran my errands first in an effort to feel better. I wore my trail running shoes which are much more flexible than my hiking shoes. It only took a couple steps on the trail to realize my foot is not ready for running yet. It didn't appreciate the hike too much, thankfully it was less rocky than last week's hike. I'd probably have done better to wear my hiking shoes, but I was holding out hope that I'd be able to run. I miss my trail runs!

Tuesday we went to the VA for Jeremy's back appointment after music lessons. I had to park forever far away from the hospital. People were parking in fire lanes, up on the grass, wherever they thought they could get a spot. It's just ridiculous that there's such a shortage. Picking up patients is an issue as well. Valet parking has taken over the main entrance, which I didn't realize. We got blocked in when it was time to pick up Jeremy. He has to leave in a wheelchair and isn't supposed to drive for 24 hours. Next time if I can't find parking close by, we're using valet parking. Which is free. So weird.

Wednesday was a busy morning. I dropped off the CRV for an oil change and tire rotation and 190k maintenance check. Thank goodness for shuttles. I got back in time to eat breakfast then head to the salon with Sunshine. We both got our hair thinned and ends trimmed. So far it hasn't helped with my current round of headaches, but in general it will. I then ran some errands on the way home. Jeremy was home with the boys and letting the heating/ac tech in for a belated fall/winter checkup.

I spent some time with the Glowforge and etched some leather labels for notebooks. Working on some ideas.

Thursday I rode my bike, did laundry, and got stuff ready for my work getaway. I did a bit more etching of label ideas as well as a cover for an order. Then I dropped some stuff off at the AirBnB I'd reserved for my work getaway. After YW that night, I took Sunshine home, gathered a few more things, then went to the AirBnB.

Friday I worked on my membership site, then took a break for a quick trail run to get my blood flowing and try to get rid of the omnipresent headache. Then it was back to work. There were just a couple twinges in my foot while I was running, but it wasn't super happy when I stopped running. Feels like good progress though.

Saturday I finally finished my membership site, and then I moved on to email automations and sequences, which made my brain hurt, but I finally have a much better grasp of them. I didn't quite finish my automations and sequences, but I got close.

Wondering why there's so many pics of me? I needed some pics to include when updating my branding. Gotta say, there's nothing like staring at photos of yourself, trying to pic the best one, to make you focus on your flaws (perceived or otherwise). The water bottle pic is to show off my stickers that people can request when they work through the products on my membership site.

Sunday morning I headed home and arrived home in plenty of time to get ready for church.

I'm frustrated about the continuing headaches. I wake up with them, they last all day, sometimes they taper off by evening. Painkillers don't help. Stretching helps some. I'm starting to think it's got to do with how I'm sleeping, but I'm not sure what to change. I sleep with my contour pillow and a mouth guard (my old tray retainers). Maybe my whole body is tensing up? I've got a chiro appoinment on Wednesday. If that doesn't help I'm going to have to go to the doc and see if there's something else going on.

My toe is still stiff and sore, but it's making progress.

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 2.70 mile hike
Thursday- 10.00 mile bike ride
Friday- 1.85 mile trail run
total- 14.55 miles

2020 totals

5 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

22.62 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
1.50 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
20.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
44.12 miles total

Sunday Funny

I told the boys to smile. River did a decent job, Ocean took a while to get there.

Finally got it!

Weekly Mileage #148 and Snow Tubing

Monday there was no school, but I'd planned on going for a trail run and hike as usual. Spraining my toe Saturday night put a stop to that. So no running, and I babied my toe since I knew I'd be walking and standing that night. It was feeling a lot better than on Sunday at least.

Monday evening we took the YW snow tubing. The weather cooperated with cold weather (it was actually in the high 20s when we were there) so there were no problems running the snow machines. We had a great turnout and the girls all had a lot of fun. Definitely not the cheapest activity, but it's fun to do something out of the ordinary once in awhile.

waiting my turn at the top

Wednesday we went to the Scout Shop to get a couple things, so on our way back we stopped in Shenandoah NP for a hike. The trail was a lot rockier than I'd anticipated, so my foot wasn't super happy the rest of the day. Nice views from the summit, though.

trying to get a smile out of everyone at the same time

the best they managed

the marker at the top- just under 3000 feet elevation, which is a lot for around here

Thursday I finally did my first bike ride of the year. Skipping the first few weeks of the month put me off track, but I'll be able to catch up as long as I don't skip any more weeks for awhile.

I had a lot of headaches the last half of the week, which greatly affected my ability to be productive and high functioning (boo!). I'm not sure if they're from changing up my supplements, sleeping weird, all the rain storms that have been moving through, stress, or the weight of my hair. I'm getting my hair cut on Wednesday, so I'll hopefully find out soon. The headaches affect my narcolepsy in weird ways- I find it soo much harder to keep my eyes open when I have one of these headaches. I try to avoid naps because I never know if they're going to screw up my nighttime sleep routine, but I actually took a nap Friday (without repercussions thankfully).

Friday morning we went to the fire station with our play group. All the little boys loved it! Ocean now wants to be a fire fighter. River wants to be a police man and own a pie and donut trailer.

Jeremy had drill this weekend, which made Sunday extra fun. I got the boys ready, went to Ward Council, ran home and picked up the kids, and ran back to church. And we were actually on time! After church we had ward youth council, so I brought the boys in for that with mixed success. Next month I'll have Sunshine take them to the nursery. We've had some leadership changes in some of the groups, but hopefully we'll soon move to once a month ward council instead of twice a month, which will make my life a little calmer.

~~~~~~

Thoughts about the definition of disability and how it applies to me.

I know some narcoleptics receive disability benefits (though it's hard to get approved, despite how difficult it can be to function normally and be a productive employee), but I hadn't thought much more about it. I don't plan on applying for disability, so it's just been on my periphery, not a major concern.

This week I came across a comment my sister made about applying for the National Parks Access pass, which is for people with disabilities. She has one because of her MS and she was telling our friend to apply for passes for her son and husband who both have type 1 diabetes, as does my sister's daughter. That's when I realized I'd probably qualify for a pass as well. I'd always thought the pass applied mainly to people in wheelchairs. My definition of disabled (or differently abled, if you prefer) was skewed way too narrowly.

To qualify for the pass, you have to have a permanent disability that severely limits one or more major life activities, and you have to have a letter from your doctor stating your disability and limitations. That got me thinking about how exactly my life is limited and how I'd communicate that to my doc for the letter, though I still wasn't completely convinced. The examples I came across included breathing, walking, hearing, learning, seeing, and such.

Then I read how the Americans with Disabilities Act defines disability. "A physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual" with major life activities including, but not limited to: "caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating, and working". It goes on to list major bodily functions that are also considered major life activities: "functions of the immune system, normal cell growth, digestive, bowel, bladder, neurological, brain, respiratory, circulatory, endocrine, and reproductive functions".

And it goes on to say that even if medications have an ameliorative effect or symptoms are in remission, the disability is still there.

So yeah, I guess I am disabled. My sleeping is definitely affected, which in turns affects my ability to learn, concentrate, think, and even communicate. Searching for the right word that I know I know but can't come up with is a common and frustrating occurrence. Coherent conversations do not always happen.

Anyway, I need to go in for a physical soon, and when I do I'll ask for the letter so I can apply for the pass. Unlike our military pass that we both sign and either of us can use, only the person named (or their caregiver) can use the pass, so Jeremy wouldn't be able to use it if I wasn't with him. But he's eligible for the military pass as long as he's in the Reserves and by the time he gets out he'll have his disability stuff squared away and will be able to get his own Access pass. He could actually apply now, given the state of his back, but he wants to wait.

All that brought some thoughts about being defined by your chronic illness/disability. Some people say they don't want to be defined by their ----- (fill in the blank). But I think we are defined by it, even if we don't want to be. Dealing with the symptoms/limitations/etc caused by chronic illness or injury/disability make us who we are. We would be different people if we didn't have to deal with those things. So yeah, we are defined by our disabilities.

And all this comes on the heels of an article I read about people who are dealing with invisible disabilities and the discrimination they face versus people with visible disabilities. Think handicap placards and people being judged because they don't "look" disabled. There's actually a change.org petition going around to issue orange placards to people with invisible disabilities to cut down on the judgmental attitudes and nasty notes they've been receiving. Go here to learn more about it and sign the petition. And go to this link and share the video with others. Thanks!

Weekly Mileage
Wednesday- 2.57 mile hike
Thursday- 10.00 mile bike ride
Saturday- 1.50 mile treadmill walk
total- 14.07 miles

2020 totals

4 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

18.07 outdoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
1.50 indoor foot miles towards #365milechallenge
10.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
29.57 miles total

Sunday Funny

This spring/summer the boys had a hard time with their f's, so instead of Minecraft, they'd say Minecrap.

I'm not a huge fan of Minecraft, so I'm more than willing to perpetuate the name Minecrap, and we all tend to call it that.

I tolerate Minecrap as long as they're being creative and building things, so Sunshine and River do get to spend some time on it. The real problem is that given the opportunity, they'd spend all day on it, never doing anything else.

Our New Computer Desk

other than the ugly computer chair, I love everything in this picture!

Let's step back to October 2018.

I was more than tired of computers being all over the dining table, so I decided to build a desk where they could live. But first I needed to find or make space for it. Part of why I sold the buffet was to make room for a desk. Once the buffet was out of the way, I sorted through our wood stash for some of the wood and bought the rest of what I needed.

I used a combination of this pattern and this pattern. The first desk was what I was initially going for, but we wanted a space in the desk to store the computers. I thought about putting in drawers, but decided a lift top would be quicker and easier, and I'm all about quicker and easier right now. I got the lift top from the coffee table (the second link above). I ultimately decided to switch out the legs for a simple 2x4 leg with braces. Fewer cuts and a lot less time, which was the real impetus for the decision. If I wasn't doing it on a budget, I'd have ordered some legs like I used for the dining table, but the 2x4s are solid and sturdy and do the job while being inexpensive.

After cutting the frame pieces during the day, I threw the frame together that night. It turned out I didn't have long enough screws, but I used what I had. I always intended to take it back apart to sand all the wood, so not having the right screws wasn't as big an issue as it could have been.

After living with the frame in the living room for several days and deciding it was a good size, I took the frame apart, labeling each piece as I went. We'd had cold rainy weather lately, but we had a warmer day in the forecast, so I took advantage of that to sand all the 2x4s before putting them back together with the correct length screws.

I built the desk box from salvaged wood from shelves pulled out of Sunshine's room. Though I did have to buy a sheet of oak plywood for the top, as well as an oak board for the hinges to attach to.

I've used a piano hinge before, but I remembered why I dislike them. They're a pain to install properly.

I painted the legs the same color I used on the boys' beds, but it took me awhile to get around to staining the top. When I did, I stained it black, in an effort to hide the inevitable dirt and grunge that I knew would collect.

I don't have a good picture of the desk in the living room, but this screenshot from a video shows where it sat behind the couch. Here you can see the shelf I added for the extra monitor that Jeremy uses on occasion. It was sitting on top of the desk, but then you couldn't lift the top to get at anything inside. Moving the monitor restores that accessibility.

The desk was blocking the door to the back deck and it was becoming really annoying to try to squeeze past whoever was sitting in the chair while trying to go out that door. Moving it to the library has improved traffic flow so much in front of the back deck door. I'm also very pleased that it just fits in the space available on this wall.

Right now the inside compartments of the desk need to be cleared out, but they hold a surprising amount of stuff. I have hinge arms I still need to attach to keep the desk tops from banging down, but it hasn't been a priority yet.

The desk is wide enough that two people can work at it or one person can spread out with plenty of space.