once more, with feeling?

Doctor's office called today with results from my latest blood test.  My TSH is stubbornly clinging to 0.2 so my dose has been reduced again to 100 mcg/day, down from 137.  That's a big drop.

I'm still taking my 5 mcg/day of Cytomel, though, and I'm wondering if that's what's keeping my TSH so low.   I did some research on this today and found a stat somewhere saying the T4/T3 ratio should be 80:20 or optimally 90:10.  My ratio has increased from 137:5 to 112:5, which is quite low, and I honestly don't know if that's enough to keep the TSH suppressed.  I should probably write an email to the doctor and ask her if she wants me to go off the T3.  I wasn't happy before when I went off it, but who knows what will happen now?

I have to say, I'm feeling pretty thrown by all this.  I used to be on top of all the developments related to thyroid cancer and recovery treatments but obviously I'm not.  This past blood test, for the first time ever (in more than 15 years!) I was directed to stop taking any biotin-containing supplements for a week before the draw.  I still have no idea why -- I asked the nurse about it and all she could tell me was that she was relatively new to working in the Endocrine Clinic but that she had always written the orders that way.  I'm did a quick search and this article came up which explains the situation.  Now I'm wondering how screwed up my tests results may have been all these years, because I've been taking the same B vitamin complex supplement for ages.

I did take some time and read up on A-fib and low TSH, and apparently it's a big enough thing that even WebMD has an article about it.  OK, OK, if I really am cancer-free it's manifestly better that my TSH be closer to 1 than 0.  I get it.   Most of the articles I'm seeing were published in the last couple of years, when I really haven't been paying attention to this stuff very much.  Also, I have been convinced for years that I needed a higher dose of levothyroxine to suppress my TSH and keep any cancer cells dormant. It will be interesting to see what happens.

I've been eating a little wheat here and there -- crackers with some cheese at lunch, a few cookies.  Nothing like pizza for dinner or a plate of pasta, that just seems like it will be too much, but the amounts I have eaten have not bothered my digestion or made my joints swell.  Were all my wheat problems a side-effect of too much thyroid hormone? I have no idea, but it would be pretty awesome if I could eat more like a normal person again without being sick for days afterward.

Merry Christmas!

A very quiet day here in soggy Arizona, but nice.

I'm finally setting up the new laptop I bought for myself over a month ago!  Yesterday as I was trying to order photo cards my old laptop shut down on me three different times, signaling it had really, really had enough of this life. 

I'm looking forward to not having to worry about whether or not the plug is in just so to make the connection so it could actually charge the battery.  This kind of thing is to be expected when a laptop has been dropped repeatedly on that same corner -- I'd say it's bad luck, but it's physics: that's where the battery is, so it would always land there.  I hope to do much better with this machine, especially since I won't be travelling with young kids who need more supervision, thereby causing me to rush and forget, say, to zip up my laptop case completely. 

This year's duck confit cassoulet was a major success, so much so that there is none left!  But, I have more duck, saucissons de Toulouse, and roast pork to put together another one, probably for dinner tomorrow?  I don't see anyone complaining.  Confit-ing the duck took forever yesterday in a very slow oven, but it paid off in deliciousness and extra duck fat for next time.  We're going to have potatoes fried in duck fat with our rib roast Christmas dinner this evening.

Said roast is resting in its salt at the moment.  I'm not entirely sold on how I'm going to cook it, and since I only do it once a year, I always have to look it up!  Fortunately it's pretty hard to ruin as long as I don't overcook it!

New keyboard feels pretty good.  I just have to get everything ported over to this new machine and that's going to take a while.  Fortunately Carbonite will just keep chugging along in the background until it's done. 

I haven't done a bit of my school work, but I've got quite a lot of vacation still left.  One of these days I'll be disciplined and tackle it, but with all the shopping and wrapping and cooking, it didn't make sense to try to do it before today.   I'm debating how strict I need to be with myself, because I got books for Christmas and if I start reading...

wellll....

That's didn't take too long.

First, my team lead assures me  I will be offered a contract for next year, so that's helpful.  It still wouldn't surprise me if I didn't get one.  I seem to have a 3-and-out streak going on, and this is my third year at my current school.

Second, she wisely decided not to wait passively by for admin to get back to us, but she put together another proposal for them.  Specifically, three of us each teach one class for one trimester, and the math teacher (who literally can't do more than she is now) will just have to monitor study hall (like now).   Today we got a terse email saying "We will be moving forward with electives and your proposal," so I guess that's it.  We were all hoping they wouldn't say OK but of course they did because it's the cheapest option.

But now I'm on tap to teach Robotics to junior high kids for 2 45-minute sessions a week, supposedly in lieu of after-school Robotics. There are problems with this scenario.  First of all, I don't want to give up the after-school Robotics.  I love working with those kids.  But if I'm teaching this new class, I'm really not going to be able to give up 2 days a week after school.  It was hard enough this year, and I can't imagine doing it next year with having to teach another class.

Second, there is currently one will-be-junior-high student who may return to Robotics next year: our current "older kids" team is all 8th graders, except for one now-6th-grader. I'm not sure she'll want to take Robotics, though.  She's extremely over-scheduled as it is.   I'm not sure if there will be any interest, and if there's not, I don't want them loading up a class with students who don't want to be there.  That would be the absolute worst.

Third, a Robotics class and a Robotics competition team are not the same things.  I think I need to define that the class is the class and not expected or required to go to the tournament.  I doubt 2, 45-minute sessions, with the trimester ending at the beginning of November, would be enough time to get a robot and missions coded for competition.

Fourth, and this is bothering me... I haven't said a word about this to lead coach, mostly because I'm hoping that nothing comes of it.  We still don't really know how things are going to shake out next year, so I'm just going to bide my time and see what happens.

At least our math teacher is finishing out this year, which is a relief.  I hope she'll decide to stay in spite of how badly admin is treating us.

In completely unrelated but similarly sucky news, I have pink eye.  I also have a zillion papers to grade but my eyes hurt so that's my excuse for playing Words with Friends instead.

ack

You know that feeling, like you're coming down with something, but it's not a physical thing, it's just because you're miserable?

Yeah, that's what I'm feeling right now.

The meeting over electives with administration was today.  We all said our piece... it was basically one piece that needed to be said.  It was not well-received.  While we weren't outright told to "suck it up, buttercup," that's essentially what happened.

We left with, "No resolution today.  We'll meet again in January after the break."  So I have this horrid uncertainty hanging over my holidays now.  Thanks, admin!

Pretty sure we're losing our math teacher.  I don't know what I'm going to do, but after poking the bear today I'd be really surprised if I get offered a contract for next year.  I wanted to stay at my school until I retire, but now I don't know if I'll be given that opportunity.  It was nice while it lasted.

surprise!

Last Saturday was the FLL robotics tournament, and we went in with expectations.  The big-kid team would do great at the robot game, and therefore had a good chance of advancing to the state-level competition.  The little-kid team, who had never once practiced an actual competition round, had never practiced their presentation, and literally had never heard about FLL's Core Values?  They would learn a lot from the experience, hopefully having some fun along the way.  All in all, my co-coach and I went into the day thinking there was a decent chance we'd be done for the season.

That pleasant dream was not to be.  It was an excellent tournament: the big kids won the Robot Performance award for having the best scores at the robot games.  The little kids won the Core Values award for being the living embodiment of innovation, cooperation, and fun.  After their first competition round, they came off the stage so pumped up it was adorable; if you could bottle that feeling  and sell it, you'd be a zillionaire.  For the subsequent judge meetings, I just advised the team to remember the feeling they had coming off the stage, and take that into their meetings with the judges.  Apparently they listened to me, because the judges loved them so much that they are advancing to State!  

When they were announced as the 7th and final team to move on from the tournament, my co-coach and I turned to each other with identical expressions of What just happened?!?!?  We were sure the big kids' team would advance, especially after doing so well in the robot game.  But the big kids weren't having any fun and have a tendency to snipe at each other a bit, which is an affront to the Core Values.  But the biggest reason is probably that the judges knew the team didn't build the robot and write the code, or that they didn't do it alone:  too much parent work on display. There were a lot of other factors involved as well, but it still came as a surprise.  The big kids were definitely disappointed but they seemed to get over it pretty quickly.  The little kids, of course, are jumping out of their skins with excitement.  Fortunately, the state tournament isn't until the third weekend in January, so we have some time to prepare a little better.

I wish those were the only surprises from last Saturday, but they weren't.  I headed over to the tournament about 7:15am, and was surprised to have a text from one of my junior high team-mates by the time I arrived on campus just 15 minutes later: Read your email.  So I log into my work email and there's a message from our assistant principal, reviving the issue of junior high teachers teaching elective classes.  We went through this last spring and we all pitched a fit about it, and administration backed off.  But now it has reared its ugly head again, only this time admin is requiring all the junior high teachers to teach one elective class per trimester, in addition to study hall (or perhaps replacing it, that wasn't clear.)

Of course this has thrown three of the four of us into utter turmoil.  One of our team is a nun and she has taken a vow of obedience so she doesn't have a choice.  Our team lead, who has been at the school for 27 years now, is similarly "stuck," because a host of her grandchildren attend the school and she doesn't want to leave them, or the school.  Our math teacher is the hardest hit because while she has 3 of her 4 children on campus with her, her 2-year-old is still at home.  She has already sacrificed a lot to be with us, teaching three different math subjects plus religion.  She and I completely agree: we barely have enough time now to do our jobs properly, and you want to take some of our prep time away, while giving us more work to do?  

In what universe does that make sense?  Here is more work, and you'll have less time to do it in!  

We are all very upset by this in many different ways.  First, the way it was announced -- a 6:30am email on a Saturday morning! -- was simply horrible.  The level of disrespect is off the charts. Second, that it was conveyed as a requirement, no discussion allowed, is just unacceptable.  Third, of course, is that the demand itself is ridiculous, serving no legitimate purpose and having a very negative impact on the quality of the teaching we will be able to deliver.  

I've spent countless hours on this since first reading that email, and it has cast a pall over my days.  I responded Sunday afternoon, saying the current system respects our need for time to do our jobs properly and have work/life balance, and I requested a meeting to discuss the situation.  To date, I still haven't received a reply to the concerns I raised in the email, but admin did set a meeting for Monday after school.  Every time I think about it, my stomach drops. 

I don't want to leave my school (and my church, and my parish...)  This is not a bridge I can burn!  This is more than just a job to me.  It is my church, my community, my extended family, and that's what makes it hurt so much to be treated with such a lack of consideration and respect.  I know from recent, painful experience that I can teach more classes than I am now, but I also know that the quality of my teaching suffers tremendously, and I have no home life whatsoever.  

The last time I worked like a crazy person, DD was still living at home and helped nearly every night, putting dinner on the table.  She was just a high school student then, and wasn't working outside of school.  But all three of the men here now are working long hours and DS2 will be back in school soon, so they don't have the availability to cook that DD had.  Cooking for my family isn't just about nutrition: having dinner together is how we stay connected to one another. It's too important for me to sacrifice!  

I'm going to spend some time writing up my thoughts in preparation for Monday's meeting, but then I have to stop thinking about it.  Tomorrow's a grading day... once again, I'm completely swamped, mostly because so much energy has been burnt over this electives dictate.  (We're supposed to tell admin what class(es) we want to teach when we get back from Christmas break!  So I'm supposed to spend my break finding something else to teach next year?!)  But also... I lost my prep time on Thursday because of the special mass and procession for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  It was lovely, and I enjoyed it, but I really have a lot of grading to do! I graded my most recent Religion quiz through our brief staff meeting yesterday, even though we have been specifically told not to do that.  Since it was just a discussion of how our tuition is being restructured, I didn't think it would be too bad if I graded.  Also, if the principal saw me grading during the meeting, maybe she'd realize I already don't have enough time to do the work I have, so why is she 1) taking time away from me while 2) giving me work to do?!

I read back through the blog here to find what I wrote about the elective kerfuffle last spring, and the single common thread (during school time) was I am constantly overwhelmed with work.  I just am.  I can do a pretty good job of keeping up, but then extraordinary circumstances occur like losing all but one day of my prep hours for the week because of various special events, followed by losing the entire Saturday to the robotics tournament.  That meant Sunday I had to do both housework and grading and other prep for the week, so of course I was up ridiculously late finishing all the grading; I had to enter the grades themselves early in the week when I finally had a prep hour again. But then this week we burned so much time with many discussions going round and around about what we're going to do about this situation, because none of us is happy about it.   I'm estimating I have somewhere between 9 and 12 hours of grading (not joking).  It's probably closer to 12: revised analysis paragraphs, and new conclusion paragraphs, for both 7th and 8th (that's at least 4 hours by itself); an 8th grade engineering design challenge -- and I left the actual devices in the classroom, so I can't compare the sketches to what they actually built -- models for both 7th (rock cycle) and 8th (states of matter and changing states) grades; 8th's Dry Ice observations lab worksheets; and at least one set of notes (there may be more).  That's just what I have at home: back in the classroom, I need to grade my students' Religion notebooks for the chapter 8 work... I'm thinking I can do that while they're studying for the unit test (chapter 9 is a review chapter, thank God.) Fortunately I have graded all but 2 of the student's quizzes, but the grades aren't recorded yet!   Did I mention grades have to be in by Tuesday morning because progress reports are being printed Tuesday to go home Wednesday?! 

This is what I mean, and it's like this whenever something disrupts the schedule, which happens at least 2 or 3 times a month.  I'm praying a lot. We'll see what happens. 

a blur

The week after a holiday is always tough, and this one was exceptionally rough because we had so many odd things going on at school, namely our annual Christmas program, which involves rehearsals which eat up half a day, and then two performances (because the program is split for grades 1-4 and 5-8.)  We had exactly one day this week with a "normal" schedule, and that was Monday.  Every other day's schedule was hijacked by events we had no control over.

And we had Robotics every day after school because tomorrow is our FLL tournament!  I should be sleeping now, but I realize I haven't written in a while and that's no good.

Also adding to this week's feeling of barely-controlled-chaos: 7th grade was in the lab two days doing their mineral identification lab, and 8th grade was in the lab every day except Monday with their thermal energy transfer engineering design challenge.  Kids love building things!  I am so much more comfortable with letting them build than I used to be, but I'm still worn out by trucking back and forth to the science lab several times a day, not to mention prepping several dozen 15-ml ice cubes for the testing phase.

Last but not least? My grade's week to keep the teacher's lounge looking decent, and my co-teacher was out two days for family stuff and off-campus professional development.  (sigh) Fortunately my colleagues are not slobs but still.  The timing was impeccably bad.

All the weirdness this week ate into my prep hours at school, and, as I said, robotics every day after.  I'm behind on grading and have to revise my plans because of new events that popped up for next week, too.  By some blessed foresight I printed everything I needed for this week and will need for nex week before I took off for Thanksgiving, so at least I'm not behind on that front. 

I'll get caught up eventually. Just need to survive tomorrow and then: the 2-week slog to Christmas break!

Managing

Temperatures have dropped below 80 degrees finally, so I'm back to wearing layers and layers, and I put the big cuddly blanket back on the couch.  The boys all wander around the house in shorts and t-shirts, when I'm bundled against a cold they don't feel.  A side effect of my lowered thyroid meds? Possibly. For a while there, I felt like my thermostat was more like a normal person (ha!), but now I'm back to being too cold or too hot a lot of the time.  I don't get it.

The weekend was a blur of Thanksgiving preparations, helped along a bit by the fact our internet was down for most of it.  It's amazing what you can get done in the real world when you're not spending hours online.  In general I've been better about that since I have too much to do, but the temptation is always there. 

There's only so much you can do so many days ahead: dry out the bread for stuffing, make the cranberry sauce, that sort of thing.  The apples are ready for the pie, which was the probably the most time-consuming of the prep tasks.  Tuesday afternoon I'll be making the pie crust and popping it into the fridge to be ready for baking on Wednesday.  There's still some laundry and general cleaning to do, also, but that can wait until Wednesday, too, because our house guests' flight doesn't land until 9PM. 

One more day of school this week and my heart is just not in it... I want to be home cooking and baking or just under a blanket reading a good book or knitting.  In the face of all the many tasks I have ahead of me, I still found the time to start that scarf project.  So far it's working up nicely, but we'll see if I actually like the final product!  I do like the pattern itself, but I'm not sure about the weight of the yarn I'm using for it.  Since the pattern is so flexible, there is no "wrong" yarn to use, but I'm not sure I'll end up with a scarf that I would actually wear!  We'll see. 

missed one...

Yeah, last week wasn't a great one, so it's no wonder I missed my weekly post.

Apparently, I'm doing fine on the thyroid meds, so I should just stop worrying about it.  I'll have a blood test in another couple of weeks and we'll see what the doctor says about my levels.

Ironically, the weekend was long and lovely.  I had time to finish everything I needed to do, and I even got to work on the alterations to the dress I bought over a year ago, to make it fit for work (that is, long enough -- I sewed some wide lace at the hem).  Many compliments when I wore it, too.

Since Monday was Veterans' Day, we had a short week, but short weeks with Monday off are always the worst.  It just felt like crisis after crisis, albeit minor, and/or every time I  turned around something else was popping up to take away class time.

I survivied, we all survived.  DH has a brutal cold right now and DS1 was making noises that he was coming down with something, too.  So far I'm healthy, thank God.

Trying to be good about doing my tiny exercise set each day, and I do think it helps.  Still not doing very well at getting to bed at a decent hour, though.  I'll sleep when I'm dead still rattles around in the back of my brain some days, but that attitude convinced me that it was OK to read an entire (albeit not very long) book last week, Bernard Cromwell's Agincourt, which I adored. Way too much fun, and I did spread it out over three days, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  Also not as bad as it could have been: the number of peppermint mochas consumed by me last week; was it 4, or 5? I just want them all the time now, they are so delicious.

In another fit of insanity, I bought some beautiful (very cheap) yarn and a new, simple but very cool knitting pattern to work it up in.

 Now to get caught up on my grades so I can actually start that project!

from the outpost just past exhaustion

This was a very long week: parent-teacher conferences.  For what I believe is the first time, I was ablae to meet with all my students' parent(s) in the space of a few days, plus one other.  I wasn't at school any later in the evening, but I did get up earlier so I could be at work before 7am.  This was a minor inconvenience to me but it also involved putting out DH since we're still sharing cars with the boys.  Just now it's the boys who get the cars during the week since I just stay at school all day.  At least I get to drive on the weekends!

At any rate, we actually had two half-days of school so you might think I'd be feeling pretty good by the end of the week, but no.  Today was our annual party day and that's a semi-fun but mostly boring day of supervising groups of children in various unstructured activities where they can get into trouble if left too long to their own devices.  The day went well and the weather was perfect, but it just seemed interminable.  At the end of the day we have a sort of "awards ceremony" to recognize the biggest fund-raisers, and if students donate a certain amount, they can put a whipped-cream "pie" in their teacher's face.  The third grade teachers had very generous students this year and were basically covered in whipped cream by the end of it, but I got off easy.  The one student in my class who met the donation requirement was a sweet girl who really didn't want to "pie" me, but I encouraged her to pick it iup and go for it.  She barely touched me with it!  I'm not complaining, though.  It's not exactly my favorite thing!

I guess I'm used to this new thyroid dose?  I feel... calmer, I guess? Less keyed up.  Maybe  I don't really know.  I am able to get things done even at the end of the day, so that' s good.

One important lesson from this past week:  last weekend I made up a to-do list and included estimates of how long I thought everything would take.  I estimated 3 hours for grading my students' materials and procedures, when in reality it took at least 7 hours if not more.  I knew I'd be getting up early every day and really didn't want to stay up late, but that's what happened, and I was a zombie the entire day on Monday. (Even so, I worked efficiently at school Monday and Tuesday, and finished everything I didn't get done over the weekend!)  I realized that I'm much better off giving the students class time for these assignments on Monday and making them turn them in before they leave.  This gives me an entire week to grade them, so I can spread the grading out and possibly still have something resembling a weekend.  This week's project plan papers were due on Tuesday, and I've already graded one class set -- and since it was one of the classes destined for more comments, the others shouldn't take nearly as long. I hope! 

It's a 3-day weekend and DD says she's coming to visit on Sunday, she's coming down with some friends.  We're all thinking it's about 60-40 she'll show up; there are a few things she needs here, so she has incentive.  I've invited her for a belated birthday lunch on Monday.  I do hope we get to go.

I feel like I'm making progress on the work-life balance with this week's decison.  We'll see how it goes.

the new normal, apparently

I write here for myself, although I know there are a few others who read here. Life goes by too fast and I want to record some of my internal state, at least occasionally, and I know if I don't write it down, whatever I'm thinking now will be lost forever. 

It's always a surprise how much I forget.  Just today, when I popped into the blog, I saw the past few entries and thought, Right, that new dose of thyroid meds!  Completely slipped my mind in the end-of-grading period business I've been swallowed by.  I guess I'm used to it?  I feel more sensitive to cold, but the temperature just dropped here considerably, from nearly or over 100 degrees to the high 70s, low 80s.  It's delightful, but I'm freezing, or I'm too hot!  It's difficult dressing for weather when the mornings are quite literally close to freezing but the afternoons are in 80s and toasty. Layers.  Lots of layers.  I layer on scarves and sweaters in the morning and then gradually peel them off as the day goes by.  This explains why I have so many scarves!

This weekend's necessity: shoe shopping.  My existing colder-weather shoes don't work with my orthotic and wearing them without the orthotic is a huge mistake, as I found out Thursday.  I was able to make my sandals work because they already had nice cushy insoles with at least some arch support, so I added a metatarsal support and I was good for the day.  No such luck with my little black booties, which were very cheap and cute but completely flat.  They've got absolutely no support but also no room for an insole.  I practically lived in them last winter.  I have a pair of Bjorn booties that are getting to the falling-apart stage but I've had them forever and they're awesome... but again, they won't work with my orthotics.  My riding boots do fit my orthotics but they're a little snug now, I wore them today and my feet felt better at the end of the day then they did in the morning, when they were still reminding me that not wearing proper footwear on Thursday was a bad decision. 

I'm resigned to doing something about this, though, because I can't do my job if my feet are killing me.  I feel lucky that just a change of shoes eliminates my symptoms (Morton's neuroma), although the pain comes back if I spend too much time walking barefoot or in bad shoes.  It's just a reminder not to screw around with this condition.  I will go to great lengths to avoid having foot surgery.  I spent the last two summers with my foot in a boot, and I never want to deal with that again.

Once again Friday evening finds me vaguely hopeful for the weekend, and I'm not feeling too swamped.  I posted my grades for the end of the grading period already, but of course have new work to grade anyway.  (The grading never stops!)  But it's November, and the holidays will be here before we know it, and overall everyone seems to be doing just fine, at least for the moment.  It's good to acknowledge it, and I am very thankful.

not just love

I have a saying, kind of a family motto: Food is love.  There is nothing better than sharing a meal with my family or others that I love, and it's made even better if I, or we, prepare that food especially for the occasion.  Even if the occasion is just Sunday morning breakfast.

Today I realized that it's not just love, it's therapy.  I got up earlier than I could have and made the big fall breakfast: eggs, bacon, Trader Joe's gluten free pumpkin pancakes... and that chip on my shoulder has shrunk considerably.

My frustration this week involved struggling to do what I need to do when there are other things that I'd much rather do. As an adult, I do what I have to do, but as a human, I get annoyed if I never get to have any fun! (This from the woman who just got back from a weekend trip to New Orleans...)  But even if I can't do everything I want to do, I can at least take the time to make a decent breakfast. 

Bonus: leftover pancakes make great take-to-school snacks. 

6 days in...

Nearly a week (the aforementioned 6 days) on the impossibly-tiny 112 mcg/day dose of levothyroxine, and the main thing I can say about myself is that apparently everything is pissing me off.

I feel as if I've spent most of this week with a chip on my shoulder, and I don't exactly know why.  I'm still struggling mightily with work-life balance, and I'm acutely aware that I rely on everything going smoothly 100% of the time so that I don't get swamped.

Of course, not-so-smooth events occur every week, so I'm swamped every week.  I'm really tired of it, and I want to change it, but I don't exactly know how to do that.  I'm figuring it out as I go along.
For example, I'm putting all my quizzes into Google Classroom, so I don't have to grade them ever again.  But it's a trade off of up-front time vs grading, and sometimes the grading seems less tedious than entering the quizzes, since every single question and answer has to be manually entered... unless there's some magic "upload" button I've been missing all this time.

I think the school year is going well.  We're coming up on the close of our first trimester (I know, I know - weird) so I really do have to catch up on entering grades.  I'm not really even that behind with the actual grading, just getting them into the gradebooks... it's another tedious and thankless task.  For example, there is a way to link assignments in Google Classroom to the gradebook so the grades can be imported automatically, but that costs another not-significant sum to enable, and it's not in our budget this year.  So I end up copying grades from one to the other, and due to odd variances of student names, they're not always in the same order, so something that should literally be a button push becomes 10 minutes of tedium. (It's probably not 10.  It may only be 2 or 3 minutes, but it's so tedious it feels like at least 10.)

Yesterday by the end of the day I was feeling irrationally happy that it was Friday, and I had two days off.  Today, at 9PM, I'm annoyed again.  I literally just thought to myself, I didn't get anything done today, when I, in fact: bought groceries for the week, shopped for DD's birthday, finally bought the notions I need to fix a dress I can't wear because it's too short, went to Mass, made a fantastic from-scratch shepherd's pie for dinner and washed all the dishes (of which there were many), and finally applied for the refunds for DD's aborted flights to New Orleans.  That's not nothing, in fact it was a rather busy and productive day, I just didn't get any schoolwork done, and so... I didn't get anything done today, and now I fear tomorrow will be a long, horrid slog, priming me for a miserable week ahead. 

I do hope not.  I like to believe I can choose, but I'm struggling this week to make my choice  -- not to be angry all the time -- stick.

Oh yeah: residual upper respiratory crud continues; body aches galore, headaches many days this week.  I want to blame all the wheat I ate last weekend but I don't know if that makes sense.  Most likely it's my lack of consistent exercise, but I'm also exhausted all the time these days, so the idea of getting up earlier to put in my workout strikes me as absurd.  My hands hurt. Also, I don't think I've shaved my legs for a month now and I don't think anyone would be able to tell.  Isn't lack of hair growth a hypothyroid thing?  I don't want to have furry legs but if I never had to shave them again, I wouldn't be sad about it!

meds update

On Friday, my endocrinologist called me when I was hanging out in DFW between flights, and we had a brief conversation about my dosage.

She wants to lower it again.

So now, after 15 years or so on 137 mcg/day, I'm down to 112.  Dropping to 125 mcg/day barely budged my TSH, from 0.1 to 0.2, and the doctor has targeted 0.5 for me.  I suppose I'm used to the lower dose, more or less, but I did tell her about feeling slow and stupid, and the hives.  She was skeptical that any of that had anything to do with the thyroid medication changing, and in that, she is typical of every endocrinologist ever, in direct contradiction to every thyroid patient's experience ever.

But I asked her again why she wanted to reduce my dose so much, and she is worred that I'll have a fatal arrhythmia or a stroke or a heart attack, and since both my parents had heart problems, I am trying to be more agreeable about it.

I wonder when she'll go for my 5 mcg/day of Cytomel?  I know my chart notes mention how attached to it I am, and I know in the past when I've given it up, my autoimmune symptoms worsened considerably.  At that point, though, I hadn't yet figured out that I have a problem with wheat, so who knows what would happen now?

I don't go for my blood test until the end of November.  I'll continue to track how I'm doing here, so I have some data over the course of this grand little experiment.  I have noticed I am having fewer palpitations, but that hasn't dropped to zero.  Also, my pulsatile tinnitus is back, but that may have something to do with the huge right-side lymph node under my jaw,  which is dealing with the remnants of the upper respiratory crud that descended upon last week.

Quick trip

Last week was kind of crazy because we had no school on Monday and then I took Friday off!  So I "only" worked three days, and I feel like I haven't worked in ages.

That's because on Friday I took off for a little jaunt to New Orleans to visit my brother and his family.  The original plans were blown up both on their side and on mine, since DD was supposed to come with me, but then she came down with the flu: no flying for her! 

I had a great time visiting my brother and his family and all their adorable cats.  They fed me all kinds of delicious food and drink and it was just nice to have time to hang out and be together.  The best thing is that now most of them will be coming to see us at Thanksgiving!  I am beyond excited about it.  When I texted DH the news he deadpanned, "Great!  I'll start cleaning now."  (The house is really not that bad! Really!)

Part of the reason I feel like I've been away a long time is because I read a novel loaned to me by my dear mother-in-law, The Lilac Girls,  about the "Ravensbruck Rabbits", girls and young women who were the subjects of gruesome medical experiments in the only Nazi concentration camp that was exclusively for women.  Most of the women were Polish Catholics, and from Lublin, which is a place I know my mother visited several times.  I think I still have cousins there.  It was meticulously researched and only slightly over-written in that "first novel, name-dropping" style, but I was thoroughly engrossed nonetheless. 

I arrived home after two entirely matter-of-fact flights in the early afternoon.  From there it was grocery shopping, mass, and then dinner prep, as usual.  And now I have to prepare myself to plunge back into the work world, and I just want to dive back into another book instead!

This is why I shouldn't read unless I have an actual school holiday.  I always want to read more, more, more. I am an insatiable reader, I just manage to keep it under control most of the time.  Still, it was a lovely weekend and I do feel refreshed.

ick

It turns out that the coming-down-with-a-cold feeling was accurate.  I woke up yesterday with a raw throat and nasty drainage.  I suppose I should be happy I'm not congested, but said drainage is making my stomache feel queasy today.

Who's ready to go back to school after the long weekend?  Not me, not feeling like this.

I did finish a lot of grading and can do more tonight, but tomorrow is going to be a rough day if I'm not any better.

The papers I dragged my feet on grading were, on the whole, about as wretched as I expected them to be.  Sometimes when the whole batch is lousy I just want to throw it out (as in, not put it in the gradebook).  It's not a crime -- not every little thing has to go into the gradebook.  But these ones, they're going in, and the students will just have to face the consequences.

This is the point where I lower the hammer: I've told them 4 or 5 weeks in a row exactly how to fix their papers, and the vast majority of them just don't do it.  I spent hours and hours (and hours and hours) making detailed comments so that they could do well, but from here it seems that was all wasted effort.

I will have to rethink the research paper process for next year, because I do not want to go through this again! It's contrary to the stated goal of the science project portfolio, which is to make the process and the outcome better for everyone.  So far, that's not happening... but then again, I graded the least-experienced class first, so maybe the other classes will be better?  Here's hoping.

learn something new every week!

It was a wretched day at school.  I was sabotaged by our (incompetent) ISP, who did not come out to repair our wifi equipment until around 2PM, by which time all my classes were over.  So instead of my students being able to share and peer edit their documents online, I had to fight the constantly-dropping connect to get their papers printed out so they would have something to do.  Then, of course, they didn't really do anything but socialize, since they couldn't actually edit their papers.

That'll teach me not to have a backup lesson plan in case of technology failure!  But today was especially bad since the students are now off on a 4-day weekend.  It's our miniature "fall break" and I never assign homework over breaks like this if I can help it.  We were at the end of a unit in both grades and there was no way I was starting another one.  I'm still turning it over in the back of my head, what we should have done, and I'm still thinking that the hardcopy work-around was the best option, even if it was far from great.

The hassles were compounded by the fact that just last weekend, DH moved us all over to a new cellphone provider, and I couldn't get a mobile hotspot to help me print the papers out more easily.  It took approximately 2 hours when it should have taken about 20 minutes, because the connection kept dropping.  And of course I couldn't supervise the students while I was fighting to get their papers printed!  It was just a very frustrating day, but still: lesson learned.

The other thing I learned? Hives can be caused by 1) viruses or 2) thyroid problems.  I feel like I've been fighting off a cold for three weeks now, which is implausible to say the least.  More likely this is another side-effect of my new dosage.  For a while I had been thinking I was getting bitten by random mosquitoes (we do have some around school), but there aren't any mosquitoes or fleas at home and I'll just be sitting here and all of a sudden I've got itchy red welts on my hands or feet, or occasionally my neck.  The pattern of localization tipped me off that something weird was going on, then a colleague mentioned to me this week that her daughter, a student in my home room, was dealing with hives as she was coming down with a cold.  This absolutely blew my mind, because I've also had that coming-down-with-a-cold feeling for a while and hives, not bug bites!  But in researching it just now, thyroid issues popped up as a common cause of chronic hives.  I'm at about week 4 I'd say, so 2 more weeks and they classify as chronic.  Let me add this to the list of complaints to mention to my doctor once I get my bloodwork done...

About that:  I had an appointment for Wednesday at lunch which I had to cancel because I read the order and it said the draw had to be between 7 and 8AM.  Ha!  Let's see if I can manage to get that done in the next month. 

Between the frustrations at work, the general fatigue and body aches, and the now-ever-present itchyness of hives, I'm about ready to just say forget it and put myself back on my old dose.  I don't because I know Dr. A has my long-term health in mind and she is concerned that my old dose was stressing my heart and weakening my bones.  That said, I'd rather live a shorter, less painful life than a longer one if I'm going to be feeling like this all the time.

That's probably just the (chronic) irritation talking.  If I could just get more than 6 hours of sleep, catch up on all my grading, and not be itchy for a day, I think I'd feel a lot better.  At least tomorrow is a non-contact day, but the trade-off is getting up early to drive to Xavier College Prep downtown for in-service.  I am very much regretting not taking the day off! (Didn't I say that last year? Hmmm.)

how many weeks now?

I can't keep it straight in my head, but that's not important.

I'm settling in to this new dose, I guess.  I do feel stupid from time to time, but most days and most times I appear to be functioning normally.

If it seems odd for me to describe myself that way, I can't help it.  There are times when I feel "off", but most of the time I'm too busy to notice.  I suppose that's a good thing.

My triumph this week was finishing grading all my students' research paper work before 5PM today, so I actually had time to do some other things.  It will be nice to start the week off with a good night's sleep!

In other news, DS1 starts his new job tomorrow!  Ah, how delightful is the prospect of having an offspring that can actually support himself! We'll be managing with only 3 cars for a bit until he saves up for a car of his own, and I'm the designated non-driver: DH will drop me off at school in the mornings, and someone will pick me up in the afternoons... I hope!  We'll see how it goes.

inventory, planning

I had to go back and look to see how long I've been on this new dose.  It feels kind of like forever, but I know that's not true. 

Minor injury month continued with me stubbing my newly-healed, once-broken baby toe last Thursday.  It hurt for a while, enough for me to think What is wrong with me? Did I break it again?!? but then it settled down.  It wasn't broken, merely insulted.  It was very red for a day it's back to usual now.

Physical symptoms are not too bad.  My hip was bothering me today, probably from the way I was sitting all curled up watching the Downton Abbey movie, which was delightful.  I mean, it was a piece of fluff, but it was still fun to watch. Except I'm paying for it with a sore hip today? It's just a guess.

The lymph node persists, but is only interminttently painful.  Palpitations have nearly disappeared, as has the pulsatile tinnitus I've had for several years.  I only notice it when it's really quiet and/or I'm dehydrated, so it's not really a bother.  I could usually switch it "on" by listening for it, but now if I try to hear it, I can't.  I suppose that's good!

On the other hand, I'm definitely more likely to say something to irritate my family these days. My sanity-filter seems to be malfunctioning:  there are things that I think, but I don't say, because I know they'll only cause problems of one kind or another.  Lately I've been saying those kind of things anyway, with the predictable results of various people being annoyed with me.  I could blame the new dose but I know I'm just a jerk sometimes.  And then I think, well, do I have to be gracious when I cook a nice dinner at the end of the week when I'm exhausted and nobody says so much as thank you? Feeling unappreciated makes me want to say jerky things.

School-wise, I'm doing my best to keep up with my grading, etc, and I'm managing better.  The first half of the year is difficult because I'm losing two afternoons a week to Robotics, and also dealing with all the extra grading for the science fair.  It's a lot.  I've been looking through my plans and dropping things I've done in the past that didn't seem to help the students' learning, things like virtual labs, and that's helped me keep up a little better.  I've seen how many grades the other teachers take and even if I drop an assignment here or there, I'll still have more grades than anyone else. 

We're heading into the time of extreme exhaustion, because we're all ready for a break but we don't get a fall break, just a long weekend.  It helps, but it's really not enough.  But this year I'm taking an extra day to go to New Orleans with DD! Wedding dress shopping is something I've literally never done, in spite of the fact that I've been married twice -- and did, in fact, wear a dress each time.  The first time I had a custom dress made for me by a friend of a friend who was a costumer for her dance company, and the second time I just wore a cocktail dress.  So the whole bridal gown experience passed me by, and now I'll get to enjoy it vicariously.  I believe being the aunt on the shopping trip is ideal, because I have zero involvement in planning the wedding and therefore zero stress about the bride choosing a dress. 

Other travel plans are percolating, too. I've been going back and forth on what to do for our 25th anniversary, and had really decided to just stay home and work on the house. (We're selling in a few years, and it needs work before we do.)  But various people have told me not to be ridiculous, that we out to do something special to celebrate, and I think that's right.  I should have some good memories and not just an updated kitchen which I will eventually be leaving behind, right? So I had to really think about the kind of trip I want, because DH was talking about going to Rome.  Italy sounds really lovely, but honestly I'm worried about my dietary restrictions.  When eating wheat makes you very sick, it's really hard to be around it all the time.  The breads and pastas in Italy are fantastic, and I wouldn't be able to eat them without possibly ruining the rest of my time there with joint pain and digestive upset.  I know I would be able to find something to eat (a girlfriend jokes that I could just have a steady diet of gelato), but I think it would really bother me to be in that environment and not be able to properly enjoy it. 

Then I started thinking about what kind of trip I would like:  a nice, comfortable place to stay - no camping or roughing it in any way; really good restaurants; nature that I haven't seen before that is accessible to someone who's in pretty good shape but is not a mountain climber; perhaps some culture (music, museums, shopping), but those are the least important. I want to be able to go for beautiful hikes to breath-taking places but be back in time for a really great dinner.  Today I settled on Colorado Springs, but we'll see where (and when!) we end up going. DH rather maddeningly keeps asking me what I want to do, without telling me what he wants to do.  I think both should be considered in making any plans, and the planning really is a big part of the fun.  Sometimes I think the anticipation of the trip is at least an equal pleasure to the trip itself.  If it seems as if it's more, that's only because the anticipation lasts so much longer!

fall

Minor injury month continues (extended from minor injury week.)

Yesterday was a long, mostly pleasant day.  School was fine, and afterwards I led a professional development session that went well.  I was able to leave almost immediately afterward and came home, and shortly after that I went to pick up DD where her ride-share dropped her off. We stopped on the way home for Starbucks for everyone.

Back home, all the offspring (no longer kids, right?) were gathered around the kitchen counter with their drinks, catching up.  I unpacked an Amazon delivery and decided to empty the small, indoors recycle bins into the huge one outside the garage since there was no room for the box... and that's when I fell. 

Our garage has a raised area by the door, kind of a like a sidewalk.  I appreciate it because it prevents you from accidentally driving into the back wall of the garage, at least if you're going slow enough.  I honestly don't know what happened, but one minute I was walking with the two recycle bins and the next I was on the garage floor with recyclables everywhere.  The garage is well-enough insulated that the offspring didn't even hear it, even though all that plastic and glass crashing to the groud seemed very loud to me.  I'm very grateful that none of the glass broke!

I picked up everything I noticed and disposed of it, then limped back into the house, grumpy.  I have several nasty bruises in progress -- they're still not visible but they hurt!  I don't think I hit my head (I fell near the car, after all), but my jaw is sore and my hip joint is really complaining, too.  Ah, well.  This won't kill me, but it certainly wasn't fun, and when the bruises come out it's not going to be pretty. 

Just another note in my "hey, you changed my dose and look what happened" file.  For the record: no alcohol had been consumed prior to this event.

haha!

Of course I blogged yesterday about a painful node, body aches, brain fog, and getting little sleep because of too much work to do.

So today, on less than 5 hours of sleep: the node has made barely a twinge, body aches just about gone, and brain fog, well, I can't really tell but it's certainly not worse. 

(eyeroll)

No harm in keeping track of these things, but this reminds me of the times your tech refuses to work until you actually call tech support, when it auto-magically starts working perfectly again.

I'm just glad I'm feeling a little better.  We'll see.

hmmm

Just keeping track a little more closely:  I do think I'm coming down with something, but I can't figure out what.  I have no sign up anything upper respiratory -- no post-nasal drip, no congestion -- except I now have a remarkably painful lymph node just under the jaw joint on the right side.  I think I've had this before?  It's a weird place to have a constant pain and it is kind of distracting. It started Monday morning, I think, but yesterday was an all-over painful kind of day so it was just kind of background noise.

Body aches again today but not as bad as yesterday, but that may be because I slept for about 9 hours last night.  That's not happening again today because I had too much grading to do, since I didn't do any yesterday because I was sleeping!  Anyway, fewer body aches meant that the painful lymph node was that much more noticeable. And I'm just going to say it: it's just a reactive node, and not cancer.  The odds of it being cancer after the incredibly thorough workup I had over the summer are so close to zero we'll just call it zero. Even though it feels like one node to me, it's really a small cluster of survivors from neck dissection, and they freak out if something's going.  I've had them biopsied at least twice and examined under countless ultrasounds and they're always 1) reactive which means 2) not cancer.  (The evil-thinking part of my brain thinks, Wouldn't it be funny if you got a recurrance because you're on a lower dose now? To which the rational part of my brain responds, Shut up.)

I'm trying not to psych myself out of (or into) anything here, but I feel ... off.  Clumsy.  In the past week I have sustained 3 minor injuries in the kitchen: one burn, one knife wound, and then to top it off, I grated the side of my thumb just enough to make it sensitive.  None of these injuries are life-threatening, but to me they are a sign that I'm not at the top of my game, so to speak. 

I really can't afford to be operating at less than peak efficiency.  If this goes on much longer I'll have to think about ditching the new dose and going back on the old one, hoping the damage is reversible...  or maybe I have a little virus or something that will blow over in a few days... or maybe there's nothing going on (I just typed "they're" and stared at it for a few seconds knowing it was wrong but not knowing how to fix it! I finally figured it out.) and it's all in my head and I'll have forgotten all about this by next week!

I'm busy enough.  It's not as if I want to sit around examining how I'm dealing with this new dose, but enough "off" things are happening that I really need to document if I'm going to convince my doctor to put me back on my old dose, even if it is stressing my body in other ways.  At least my brain was working well on it...

Week 3

Everything hurts.

I have been working long hours, but my work is not physically demanding.  I don't recall spending a day grading leaving me aching from head to toe, literally, but that's where I am.  Perhaps I'm coming down with something?  It's a possiblity, but I don't feel sick, exactly, I just hurt all over.  Muscles, joints, you name it. 

I'm also exhausted beyond what I think I should be!  I haven't been too bad on getting sleep -- at least 6 hours and usually more, which is, to be honest, great for me.  I have at various times routinely stayed up until 1 or 2 while still getting up by 6:30, so shouldn't I feel less tired?

Digestion: meh.  Still nibbling on ginger frequently, and I haven't had the really horrid gastroparesis-full feeling I had a few times the previous week.  But I go from having zero appetite to being ravenous, and I'm not sure what that's about since I eat the same way all the time.  There's nothing new going on in my diet.

I have been wearing my shoes with the metatarsal orthotic, and I was thinking that was making my legs ache (not a bad hypothesis), but then I realized that there is no way the orthotics could be bothering my hands, so I gave up that idea.  I suppose it's still plausible.

Today in my first class I oollected their homework from over the weekend and put it in my expandable file, and then, about 5 minutes later, handed them back out to the students because I had forgotten what they were!  The kids laughed about it and forgave me that bit of silliness, and in all fairness we did have about five different things going on at that moment, but it wasn't one of my best mornings, to say the least.

Just a very long and painful day. Here's hoping tomorrow is better.

two weeks in

Approaching the end of my second week on my new dose, and trouble may be brewing. For the past three or four days I've experienced the return of my gastroparesis symptoms: feeling full after eating just a few bites, feeling bloated all the time, having to burp a lot...

This could be unrelated to the change in meds, but maybe not.  We'll see.  I'm coping by nibbling on candied ginger, and chewing gum when I can. Both seem to help a bit, but the vaguely unpleasant feeling is still hanging on.  I hope it goes away soon!

In other news, I scored two pairs of sandals and a beautiful pair of pumps at The Walking Company's Labor Day sale.  It will be nice to wear shoes with the correct footbed to keep me from furthering injuring myself.

I'm almost done with the ridiculous amount of grading I had to do, and then it will probably take an hour to enter all the grades.  I think fondly of how good it's going to feel when it is done, and I vow to do a better job of keeping up with the grading, going forward. Thank God for this 3-day weekend so I could catch up!

free!

Doctor cleared me from boot-wearing yesterday: the toe is finally healed!

I wore the same sandals on both feet today and felt short! It was awesome not having to stump around campus in that thing.

The toe still feels a little "crunchy" and the doctor says that's normal.   I still feel like I have to have an ice pack with me and my 20-minute timer whenever I sit on the couch.  That will wear off eventually. 

Now to try to dig out from the pile of grading I've got myself into...

checking in

Since I'm on a new dose of my thyroid meds, I'm going to make an effort to check in more frequently so I can keep track of how I'm handling it. 

So far, so good.  In fact, the beginning of this school year is almost suspiciously smooth, with no major problems or headaches or seemingly intractable problems.  Maybe it's because this is my tenth (!!!) year teaching and I've finally chilled out, but I don't have that sort-of-an-itch feeling that there are things that are just waiting to explode.

Which is not to say that those things aren't there (we're having a meeting to review IEPs for our students this Tuesday), but so far, so good.

I'm seeing my doctor regarding my broken toe tomorrow, and hope that I can finally stop taping, and wearing the boot, etc.  We'll see.  It's less than ideal timing with respect to my dose change, but I also started a bone-growth-promoting supplement the last couple of weeks to see if it helps.  Here's hoping.

Without getting too graphic, I had some kinds of an intestinal bug for about a week that finally seems to have resolved.  I was thinking it was a side-effect of the bone-growth supplement, but I haven't stopped that and everything has finally settled down anyway.  It was unpleasant but didn't get in the way of teaching, so it could've been worse!

So far no signs of fatigue or brain fog, and I'm definitely feeling calmer, less tightly-wound.  I don't think I had any palpitations this week, whereas normally I would feel my heart going crazy at least two or three times a week. It's really too soon to tell, though, since it has only been a week.  I'm going for my blood test in mid-October and have even already scheduled it.  I'm trying to stay on top of things, with fair-to-middling success so far (she says, eyeing the huge stack of projects left to be graded!)

new dose, day 1

For about 15 years now I've been on the same level of thyroid medication.  After my last (exhaustive) round of tests, my new doctor has declared me "disease free" which is very nice (I don't really buy it, but whatever, the effect is the same) and decided to lower my daily thyroid meds from 137 mcg/day to 125 mcg/day.  I dimly recall being on a lower dose before my cancer diagnosis, but that was all so very long ago...

Anyway, I have some trepidations about this.  I know my dose is high, it gets flagged as high every time I have blood work done.  But I feel good.  This is "normal" for me now.  I'm not particularly enthusiastic about adapting to a new normal, not when the school year has just begun.

That's going just fine, except for me wearing THE BOOT at school because that damned pinkie toe is still not healed.  I actually bought a new supplement designed to promote bone growth and I'm now putting up my foot in class to try to get it to actually heal.  It has been more than 2 months now!  I would like this process to be over.

Lots of stuff happened that I did not write about, as usual, now.  I accept that is the way things are for the present and forseeable future. Overall things are just fine and I have every reason to expect they will stay that way!

laziest day

Halfway through our east coast vacation, we're suffering with high heat and humidity as the remnants of that hurricane (Albert?) make their way up the coast.  Ninety-plus degrees with similar humidity are a good excuse to stay in and lounge around, so we did.

This year's vacation is weird because it's just DH and me.  We left the kids out of the planning because they're all supposed to be working.  As of this writing, DS2 just landed a job but the other two are working at finding one, although DD had an interview today for a position that's a great fit for her, so we'll see how it goes. 

We're also not doing our usual jaunt to Mystic, because my brother hosted a mini-reunion at his place near Boston, so we did an overnight there instead.  I have played more cards in the past two weeks than I've played in the past five years, but that's OK -- last week I taught my boys and their visiting cousins the very basics of whist, our family's favorite game.  We'll have to revisit when I get back because my siblings caught me up on some of the finer points of bidding... let's see if I can remember everything they said!  They are all much better than I am at paying attention to all the cards, not just the trump suit and the picture cards.  It's a great mental workout and a fun way to spend time together.

The next day, DH and I toured the Adams National Historical Park at the suggestion of my sister-in-law.  I had not been in Quincy center for years, and the re-design makes the historic places so much more accessible.  The visitor's center has a great half-hour video to prepare you for the tour, starts with a trolley ride to the birthplace homes of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, and then takes you out to John Adams' later home, Peacefield, where several more generations of Adamses lived until they deeded it over to the nation. We had a little time before our tour shuttle left, so we walked from the visitor center over to the United church where both former presidents and their wives are encrypted.  John Hancock's father was minister there -- founding fathers everywhere you looked!  The tour was excellent.  I particularly liked Peacefield's all-original-to-the-family-everything.  Wallpaper, floor boards, carpeting, dishes... the family stipulated that nothing be changed, and so it's all the original stuff, very nicely kept.  The stone library building built by JQA was amazing, too.  My only regret is we spent literally not time in the garden at all!  There simply isn't time on the tour for it, which makes sense because half of the year it's barren.

Plans are somewhat vague for the rest of our trip, but we'll be heading back up to Boston for a Red Sox game on Thursday (fingers crossed we don't get rained out.) 

It's simultaneously nice and weird to have no responsibilities.  Lots of time to read!  I finished Unseen Academicals, my last Discworld novel (although I may have missed one or two of the witch-centered ones.)  Pratchett's later novels all deal with self-discovery and acceptance, but not in a politcally correct way.  His faith in people was wonderful, and made his books a joy to read.  He was as keen an observer of human nature as you are ever like to find, even if he often wrote non-human characters. 

This same attitude ("humans are actually pretty great, even with all their flaws") was the underpinning of the novel he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman, Good Omens.  I read the book before I watched the new Amazon mini-series, and rather liked the mini-series better.  The book had kind of a "showing off" vibe to it; some parts were written specifically to be amusing and didn't always help the flow of the story.  The mini-series managed things better, particularly the denouement, which I absolutely loved. 

Also watched season three of Stranger Things with DS1 (along with pretty much all of Farscape) and enjoyed it as an aesthetic experience but like many others, find it lacks a central message. It got really out there this season and while it was a lot of fun, it's hard to find any substance there.  Remarkably, one thing that came through this season is patriotism (!), along with family, and trusting your friends. I'm curious to see how the events of the last episode affect the characters going forward.

Health stuff: My little toe is still (fill in your own expletive) broken. I'm trying to keep it up as much as possible, but I'm not encouraged.  It's hard to wrap it in a way that the wrap itself doesn't end up making it hurt.  It will heal eventually...  My new doctor called to say yeah, all those test results mean we don't really have to do anything now, although I apparently missed a blood test last week (oops).  So I'll do that when I get back, no big deal. One odd thing was I developed an absolutely huge bruise on my forearm from the IV placement. It's finally starting to fade after growing for several days, and it still hurts like heck. Other than that, things are OK but I am really not sleeping well at all out here.  I try to go to bed at a decent hour and just end up lying awake... jet lag. I will just get used to the 3-hour time difference when we are going home!

this house is too big!

Post-dinner, I'm sitting in the family room with a glass of wine, listening to the soft shush-shush of the dishwasher.  DH is upstairs in his comfy chair, and DS2 has moved his computer up to his room so he's not here, either.

My niece and nephew headed back to to New Orleans this morning after a really delightful visit, and DS1 is currently on his way home from a quick trip to California with some friends.

I feel very much like I'm rattling around here, but that's always the way it goes after visits.  The visit was great for keeping my mind off the intense round of medical tests I had on Friday: brain MRI, CT scans of my thorax and head/neck, and a PET/CT as well.  So far the results of the first two have come back completely clear, which is great, but it's of course the last two that are most dispositive.  I am wondering what my new endocrinologist will say if the scans show something, or if they don't (which seems to me is more likely, even though my tumor marker is consistently detectable these days.) 

I did a review here of how my cancer has been followed and these tests were all requested for me five years ago (five years!) when I had a similar, positive tumor marker + negative whole body scan, result, but my insurance company at the time (Cigna) denied every requested test.  Those denials kept me on the same useless ultrasound/Thyrogen/whole body scan merry-go-round until now.  Sheesh.

I'm still not expecting anything to show up.  Or should I say hoping nothing will show up?  What's worse?  I don't know.  I just don't want to be thrown back into any sort of treatment loop. 

Good news is the pituitary adenoma appears to be stable, so brain surgery is not likely in my future.  Totally not sarcastic: Yay!  Technically I have to wait for the nurse to call me and tell me what the doctor wants me to do, which won't happen until the other two tests are posted.  I can wait.

so, not done...

My head and neck surgeon at MDA referred me to their endocrinologist, and I thought, "Why not?" I like my endo just fine, but her office staff is neither friendly nor supportive.  I always feel as if I'm inconveniencing them when I call, if I actually connect to a human.  If I don't connect to a person, I inevitably get bounced to a voice mail box that is full.  This year, because I wanted to be tested at a more local hospital, I had to make a half-dozen phone calls to figure out where the order should be sent.  That's not my job, and I resented it having to do it.  I'm glad I did, though, because for the first time ever I didn't have to drive all the way to Phoenix for my testing.

My tumor marker test results finally came in, slightly lower than last time (3.60) at 2.90.  But my new endocrinologist and I discussed whether this result is useful or meaningful for someone like me.  Her opinion: at this point, it's detectable vs undetectable.  I should haven't any cancer activity, so the tumor marker should be undetectable.  The fact that it's not means I have some cancer somewhere, albeit (most likely) very small.

Since my ultrasound and my whole body scans consistently come back clean, even though my tumor marker is detectible, that says these tests aren't worth doing any more.  (This has been going on for years, after all.)  The new endo explains it like this: we know the cancer is there, but it's not showing up on these tests, so there's no point in doing these tests anymore.  Half of me says, YAY! No more low-iodine diet, no more Thyrogen (r) trials, none of this foolishness anymore! 

The other half says, Wait, what? Intellectually I knew that sometimes thyroid cancer just stops picking up radioactive iodine sometimes, I just never thought mine was like that... except it obviously is, since I've got cancer that doesn't show up on the whole body scan.

The new endo wants a thorough work up to stage my cancer, so next Friday I'm going for a lab test that looks at adrenal function (to see what's going with my pituitary), as well as a CT scan, a PET scan, and a brain MRI.  It's going to be a fun (haha) and expensive day. 

The good thing is, after all that, we'll know what we're dealing with, because honestly at this point all we know is that there is cancer somewhere.  I've been operating on the assumption that it's small because it's not showing up on the whole body scans, but that's only one possibility.  The other possibilities include a) it's not small and/or  b) it's not picking up the radioactive iodine anymore.

I'm just glad it will be over relatively quickly, and I'll have some idea what's going on soon.

In other news, I had another round of x-rays on my broken toe and it's worse, at least the break near the bottom joint. I'm now buddy-taping two toes over and wrapping around the ball of my foot to try to stablilze it, and I'm back to elevating the foot and icing it as often as possible.  I could not possibly be more irritated with that situation.

On the other hand, I watched and enjoyed season 3 of Netflix's Jessica Jones (spoiler, foreshadowed from the very beginning of season 1: Trish was the monster all along. ) and all of season 1 of HBO's Big Little Lies, and I've read two Terry Pratchett novels and have one last one I'm kind of saving.  Plus I'm listening to the McElroy's podcast The Adventure Zone, and am caught up with Amnesty but just started the Balance arc.  If I'm going to just be listening, I need to find something else to do, so I'm actively toying with the idea of a knitting project.  I just don't know what to knit!

Niece & nephew are visiting next week from New Orleans, and then the following week DH and I are heading east.  Summer's not flying by but it is going by faster than I'd like!

and, done!

Most likely. 

Since I had the scan at a different hospital, the nucmed doctor was not there to look it over.  Technically I have to wait until I get the official report, but I looked at the images and didn't see anything out of the ordinary.  I was particularly interested to see whether the weird area of uptake in my chest re-appeared, but I didn't see it.  (Doesn't mean it's not there, but if it is, it's very subtle.)

There was a blip, however, at the lab: my bloodwork that's supposed to go to UC Davis? "We're not using that code anymore," the technician told me.  She assured me they would call the doctor's office and find out what was supposed to happen, and that's all to the good. But I had a blood draw last weekend before this whole process started that was also supposed to go to UC Davis, and now I'm wondering if it actually went. 

I could allow myself to become agitated about this, but I won't because I'm not going to find out those results for another month. I'm just going to back-burner all this until my next appointment.

at the turn

I'm happily exhausted.

Monday I started my low-iodine diet and my first-ever stint as a summer STEM camp instructor.  My school sponsored a session of Camp Invention, and it was both very busy and very fun.  The best part was the team I worked with, including the director and one other instructor, both teachers from my school, and then all the interns and "leaders in training" -- older students -- who helped make it all possible.  I'll get a stipend that sounds great for a week of 9:00 AM - 3:30 PM contact time, but we all earned every penny of it!  I think one afternoon we teachers were out by 4:30, but all the other days it was more like 5:30 or 6, and the day started about 8 the latest.  NIHF sends all the material (more than adequate amounts, but a lot of absolutetly lowest-cost supplies) and curriculum (truly superb), and they provide online support with everything from training videos to background music and timers.  Even though all I had to do was read through the curriculum and deliver it, there was still considerable prep work involved, and my two classes were probably the least fussy! 

The kids had a blast.  It was interesting to work with such young students.  It took me back to my story-time days when my own kids were very small.  The very first sort-of teaching thing I ever did was story time at Borders!  The younger group (rising first through third graders) was completely onboard.  The older group (rising fourth through sixth graders) had some holdouts on some of the slightly sillier things, but there was only one who pretty much sat out the entire week.  Fortunately she wasn't able to poison everyone else's enjoyment, even though she refused to participate in practically everything.  The kids built, and we sent home with them, an inordinate amount of stuff that would make me shudder if anyone brought it into my home now, but looking back, I remember that's what you deal with when you have young kids.  Also: building and experimenting is such a positive activity for them, they all (except that one) loved just having time to make stuff, and no one telling them to stop making a mess or "No, you can't do that."

Notwithstanding all that, I'm definitely in the right job: teaching the "littles" for more than a week and I think my head would explode.   I couldn't even begin to count the number of times the phrase "suck it up, buttercup," went through my head when a child whined about something not being exactly the way they wanted it... I managed not to say it aloud even once! Something to be proud of, I suppose.  Redirect, redirect, redirect... In a week, you can really suss out who the good kids who are and who are, sadly, more or less rotten.  By today I just wasn't as willing to give the brats a lot of energy or attention.  Everyone survived.

LID while at camp: no breakfast (never eat breakfast, really), apple at snack time, a banana and fig & walnut thing from Trader Joe's; after school, a peach, and then dinner.  So far it's going OK but DS2 threw a mini-tantrum about the boring roast pork loin and I did rather harshly put him in his place by suggesting that he find a better recipe and cook it himself!  With any luck, by this time next week I'll be off the diet and have a clean report from my scan.  The scan will be done, of course, but I don't know if I'll get the results immediately the way I usually do, because I'm going to the different, blessedly closer, hospital this time around. 

So, a blood test tomorrow morning kicks off the merry-go-round of appointments. Oh yeah, between the ultrasound and the scan, I'm spending $1000 on medical testing next week -- there goes my stipend...

into the maelstrom

In five days, give or take, I'll start the low iodine diet in preparation for my whole body scan two weeks from today.   That will give me a solid week before my dose of radioactive iodine.  It ought to be enough...

I have an inordinate amount of medical appointments scheduled for the week after next.  I feel as if they have come out of nowhere, but they all materialized over the last few days.  I have three ultrasound-related appointments, and then four whole-body-scan-related appointments, and three trips to the lab.  I still need to schedule my last follow-up appointment, which will be right before I head into my pre-service days, as well as a "spot check" .  

I don't really want to think about my summer being over yet, but that's how this plays out.  I really wanted to do the scan in early June, but that didn't work out.  At least I'm not driving all the way into downtown Phoenix this time, but the situation is still somewhat tenuous.  At UHC downtown, I went every day to the same place for the injections, the dose, and the scan.  At the closer place, I'm in a different locale for each step!  They sound like they have their act together.  I just hope they do.  

Next week, I'm teaching at a STEM summer camp program at my school.  It's a later start than my usual school days, I'll be out by 4, so the days won't be too long.  I hope having a broken toe doesn't impair my ability to have fun while I'm there!  

same foot, different summer

Yesterday was a very busy and productive day: the two boys and I finally, finally painted DS2's room.  Yay!

Except on the way back up to his room to finish up the second coat, I stubbed my little toe on the rug that is usually in the hall -- I had flipped it over so it wouldn't get (any more) paint dripped on it accidentally.  And then I walked right into it, smashing my little toe in the process.

I have a podiatrist now, after smashing my big toe last summer and breaking it in 3 places. I spent most of the summer in a boot, praying it would heal before school started.  It did, and I've been very cautious about going barefoot since then, and especially since the neuroma kicked up in my right foot, too.  Why is it always the right foot?

Anyway, saw the doctor, she took x-rays, and showed me how it was broken in 3 places. Horrifying, actually.  No cast, just buddy-taping, and she wants me to wear the boot again for another six weeks.

Not likely...I feel barely recovered from the hip damage I developed from wearing the boot last summer, and this isn't a big toe, which you really need for balance and walking, etc.  This is just a baby toe!  Sure, it's kind of purple now, and I will keep it elevated, and ice it, and all that stuff, but I refuse to surrender another summer entirely.  Also, I've got sandals that accomplish pretty much the same thing.  We'll see how it goes.

best excuse ever

I have some correspondence to write, but the piano tuner is here. 

It is possible to maintain a coherent thought, but stringing more than one together with another? Nope.

summer

The first unofficial start of summer in my family is Mother's Day, when we celebrate the coming season with a cookout.

The actual unofficial start of summer is Memorial Day weekend, because here in AZ, school (at least my school, and up to this year, my kids' school) conveniently end just before that.

Of course, science-wise, summer doesn't officially start until the summer solstice, which is some 3 weeks away.   My brain seems more atuned to that calendar, because I'm surprisingly not exhausted and ready for long, lazy days.  I have a long list of tasks I'd like to accomplish, both work-related and house-related, and I've been chipping away at it all week.

Which is not say that I'm being super-productive.  Just moderately so, as in, "not completely lazy and doing nothing."  But it doesn't feel like much of an accomplishment to spend hours trying to schedule medical appointments, and still be without any for my long-delayed whole body scan.  I did schedule an ultrasound, though, and I may just skip the WBS for now... again.  It just seems like a lot of money and hassle (Low-iodine diet? No, thanks.) for very little information.

I had my vision field test and eye exam on Tuesday.  My eyesight is holding steady which shocks everyone. There is widespread disbelief that I can function well with the same lowest-level cheaters I've been using for years.  I guess it's unusual.  The VFT, however, showed a gap in my left peripheral vision that I actually noticed during the test.  Directly to the left, there's a blind spot.  Upper left and lower left, I could see all the flashes just fine, and close to the center, no problem. I requested records be sent to both my endo and my head & neck doctor at MDA, so we'll see what they say.  I can't remember the last time they imaged the pituitary, but I do know my pituitary hormones are still behaving themselves.  The doctor is having me repeat the VFT in six months to keep an eye on it, so that's something to look forward to, just before Christmas.

I'm still processing the fact that I have only 2 college students now.  DS1 is home and diligently applying for jobs but he's going to have do something about his inverted sleep schedule!  He's getting lots of interviews and we're all just waiting for something to click.  DS2 is also home, post-high school graduation, and we gave him this week to be lazy, but he'll be looking for a job now, too -- the kind of job you can have and still be a full-time college student.  We'll see how that goes.

DD is spending the summer up in Flagstaff, and is looking for a job up there.  I've seen a bit more of her recently as she's come home for Mother's Day and DS2's graduation.  I've made the drive up to Flagstaff multiple times, too, helping her furnish her new apartment.  I have to say it's much nicer than any of my college apartments ever were, but then, my parents didn't help my furnish mine.  She has great taste and we've been lucky finding her good used furniture at good prices in resale and antique stores.   My mother-in-law (visiting for DS2's graduation) found her an awesome little table and chairs set absolutely buried in stuff at the antiques mall.

I'm sure my restlessness will settle down eventually.  My classroom is in great shape for the fall, I just want to give my desk a good cleaning and a thick coat of wax to spruce it up a bit.  I had the luxury of time to go through all my files and clean out stuff I didn't need, and organize what was left.   I'm working one week in June at a STEM camp at my school, but I'm also seriously thinking of applying at Pearson as a scorer for piece work over the summer, too.  Otherwise I think I might go crazy doing nothing?

Last summer I had to sit around with my foot up because of the broken toe.  I certainly don't want to do the same thing by my own choice this year!

wistful

This evening was DS2's last high school chorus concert, and it was wonderful.  The senior boys of the Men's Choir did an adorable rendition of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," and the Schola Cantorum was brilliant as always. 

We'll get to hear him sing one more time, at graduation... and that may be it.

Already I'm sad. The end of an era is fast approaching. All three of my children are legal adults.  DS2 is already enrolled in his classes for the fall, but I had to stop myself from typing "three college students" because DS1 is graduating tomorrow!  So, two college students, but no high schoolers anymore. 

It's so strange to think about how little they were once, and how big they are now.  Me? I'm just the same, or at least I feel that way.  Maybe that's what makes it so hard: they are growing and changing so much, and any changes (or growth) for me are nearly imperceptible.

three weeks

In three weeks, school will be over.  DS1 will have graduated.  DS2 will have graduated.  All the concerts, plays, dinners, and everything else will be over, too. 

The past couple of weeks have bordered on maximum craziness, but for me personally? I'm just coasting to the finish, now.  It has been a bit crazy.  Last Friday, DS2 sang in a concert up in Paradise Valley, it was amazing and worth the drive; Tuesday, I helped move DS1 out of his college apartment (translation: I cleaned while he packed. College boys don't clean much, in my experience.  Still, he's got his entire security deposit back as fas as I know.) Thursday, DH was in the hospital all day for a cerebral angiogram to investigate his AVM; the doctor reports it's non-threatening and no treatment is recommended for now (*whew*). Also Thursday, DS2's senior dinner, which was a bit stressful since DH didn't get released from the hospital until 5PM and the dinner started at 6.  We made it, and it was the usual lovely evening of listening to the faculty heap praise and a little bit of teasing on the graduating seniors. My last unusual task for the week was to make a playlist for the junior high dance yesterday.  With the help of a premium Spotify account, mission accomplished.  The kids were much more enthusiastic about dancing this year and most everyone seemed to have a good time, even those kids who just sat against the wall watching everyone else be goofy.  It was pretty great, but surprisingly exhausting for an hour-and-a-half event.  Looking back at the week that just ended, the exhaustion is completely understandable.

Now I just have to keep track of the boys' remaining events, put the guest room (finally all repaired after the most recent plumbing disaster nearly 2 months ago!) back together in advance of my in-laws visit, and keep up with my grading.  Nothing even hints at being a problem in that list...here's hoping it stays that way!

stings

Maybe because I'm chronically sleep-deprived (my own fault), but over the past week or so, I've had way more than my usual share of bone-headed mistakes.  Nothing major! Nobody was injured, it didn't cost anyone any extra money, nothing like that.  Just a small handful of times I was just wrong about something and refused to see it.

I know no one is perfect, but I hate it when I screw up like that (or any other way), to the point where truly minor things will keep me unsettled for days on end.  It's doubtful anyone else even remembers my mistakes happened.  Why should they? But my memory for my faults is tenacious. I still cringe remembering how I handed the scissors to the teacher the wrong way in kindegarten! (I was four and the youngest kid in the class, it was a lot of pressure at the time.) 

I'm too old for this.  I don't want to brush off mistakes as if they're nothing, I want to learn from them.  But shouldn't I be able to forgive myself and move on? Is there a way to balance the tension between rebuke and forgiveness?  I'm still hoping to find it.

post...

In the sense of "after," which didn't strike me as a good post title. I can't explain the way my brain works sometimes.  Just go with it.

I'm mostly recovered from the field trip last  week, Wednesday-Friday, with 45 seventh graders and 10 other adults, to Mt. Lemmon, south of Tuscon.  UA has a fantastic program, Sky School.  It was awesome but very cold, and of course some of the students didn't listen and only brought a sweatshirt or two, but no one got frostbite so it's all good.  We even got to use the telescopes this year!  I had a blast, the kids had fun, the instructors couldn't get over how well prepared and engaged the kids were, etc.  A splendid time was had by all, except I only got about 6 hours of sleep over the three days because the bed was like a rock and other reasons having to do with me not being able to relax since I was responsible for 56 people. 

So now comes the long, downhill glide into the end of the school year.  This year it will be less hectic and dramatic for me because my school is not being renovated this summer, so I don't have to move everything out of my classroom or clean out closets or anything like that (although it would be much easier, since I did all that last year!).  But this year my two boys are both graduating, and that means lots of extra events to deal with it.  Just this week, DS2's drama performance and his thesis defense, on the same day!  He has my sympathy.  He doesn't seem stressed but I know he'll be happy to have it over with.  DS1's graduation is fast approaching on May 7!

The house is still a mess following the most recent plumbing disaster, but repairs should begin this week.  As long as everything is back together for DS2's graduation at the end of May, when the in-laws are coming, it's OK.  I won't say it doesn't matter, because it really is getting on my nerves, but I know as soon as all is back together, I'll forget it was ever any other way.  At least I hope so.

... but just yesterday DH semi-seriously brought up the topic of moving to a smaller house.  I love love LOVE this idea, as much as I hate the idea of moving, this house is just too much for me to keep up with.  We'll see!

2 weeks later...

Am I up ridiculously early for a Sunday, or did I just stay up too late?  I did sleep from roughly 10pm to nearly 4am, so that's not too bad.  I just managed to unsettle myself enough that going back to sleep now (or trying to) seems like a colosally stupid idea.

Spring break was productive, but I didn't do everything on my list.  I did see the doctor about my foot, and she gave me a cortisone shot and new insoles for my sneakers. I started doing more exercises for it, too. The foot is definitely improving and there are even some days now when I can walk around without even thinking about it.  It helps that I didn't over-do over break, so no, I didn't go to either the Ren Faire or the botanical garden.

What else didn't get done? I didn't do the closets, nor did we paint DS2's room.  Both will wait.  I did finish all my grading, only to nearly immediately get swamped again on the return to school. But I'm not behind, and if I manage today well, I can stay on top of it.

I started to type, "this is the most stressful time I've had in a while," but it seems to me I'm always in a stressful time.  I have a family and a house and a car and a job, so of course there will be stresses.  They've been coming thick and fast, lately.

A quick run-down: DH was recently diagnosed with an AVM in his neck and has further tests pending. Most of the time these are in the brain and can be quiet serious if they rupture, but his is apparently not in the brain.  We don't really know, and it's discomfiting.  We'll know more after the next test, but the ENT sent an order to the hospital for it that no one there understands, so it had to be rescheduled once already, and may have to be again. It doesn't help that one of his co-workers is off on a 2-week vacation in the middle of a rather intense period at work! 

It also doesn't help that the drain seal on the kids' bathtub failed, so instead of draining down the pipes, it drained into the floor/ceiling below, and subsequently into the first-floor guest room.  That happened on Thursday night about 10pm - fortunately I heard the sound of the water falling and we caught it pretty quickly. Even so, there is significant water damage Workers were here until 8pm Friday inspecting, setting up de-humidifiers and fans, and removing dry wall.  Plumbing and construction repair will be late this week if all works out.  We have no idea how much insurance is going to cover.  This is the fifth (possibly sixth? I can't remember!) major plumbing failure we've had in this house.  Quite frankly, we thought we'd caught them all.  DH is grumbling about moving.

Me? It's so helpful that the foot is better!  My eye twitch is holding steady but no more visual migraines -- and I'm annoyed I forgot to mention them to my doctor last Tuesday.  I'm switching my thyroid cancer scan to a much closer hospital, so most of my appointment was about discussing that, and in the fuss, I forgot to mention it.  I managed to come down with a cold just as my break was ending, but I used Zicam nasal spray religiously and it really did cut down on how long I had to deal with it.  Just as that nonense resolved I noticed this odd tugging sensation in my right breast.  At first I thought, "scar tissue," but my lumpectomy was in my left breast, so that doesn't work. Since it has persisted for about a week now, I'm seeing my doctor about it on Monday after school. 

What else... had the parent meeting for my 7th grade field trip last Wednesday, and managed to pull everything together.  I have been slightly panicked that we will have too many people to fit, but that knot is untangling itself between students who are not eligible because of behavior and students who are not eligible because of academics. I do need to get back to the parents and let them know how many can come as chaperones, though. I can't believe how quickly time is going by!

In other school news, the plan to offer electives for next year has been hammered out and does not (thankfully) involve the core teachers doing anything other than monitoring a 45-minute study hall one day a week.  Yay!  I'm also thrilled to be starting astronomy with my 7th graders and biology with my 8th graders this week.  I adore my chemistry curriculum but it involves a lot of time in the lab, and so therefore a lot of running between the classroom and the lab, and setting up before and then cleaning up after.  Last week about killed me because all that was going on and my students were leading morning prayers so I didn't have as much of my usual time before school to get everything done.

Not enough time to get everything done... that's the theme of my life.  Over break, I took the Odyssey in because there was a weird burning smell after driving it sometimes.  Of course we were just over 30,000 miles and so it needed, seriously, $2100 worth of maintenance, including new tires.  Cars are expensive even if they're not broken!  The burning smell was caused by a loose gasket and was a tiny part of the overall bill, but now I have new transmission fluid and everything else.  One thing I couldn't get done over break was get the windshield repaired, that had to wait until last Thursday afternoon.  It was just bad luck that a rock pinged it hard enough to make a crack about 18 inches long.  I delayed calling a few days and then was shocked when I finally did call, how long I would have to wait for the repair.  Everyone is so busy!

All that business with the van happened because I knew I'd be making 2 round-trips to Flagstaff within the span of a week.  DD's spring break here with her cat was only moderately frustrating. I tease her that she is a bad roommate because she leaves her stuff all over the house.  I notice she does not do that in her own apartment.  It's so much smaller, she has no reason to do that!  When I picked her up, I drove up on Thursday and we came back together on Friday, but yesterday I just made the round-trip, which explains the weird sleeping schedule.  She worries us a lot, but she assures us that she's doing fine and we shouldn't worry.  If only! 

At least it should be easier for me to stay on top of my work now that she is not here, but the noise of the fans is really annoying! The house is topsy-turvy, with the kids' bathroom upstairs and the guestroom downstairs taped off and with noisy equipment in them.  90% of the stuff from the guest room is out in the living room now, and there's paper taped over the hallways to trap the workers' dust, etc.  It's nerve-wracking being here. Spending all day on the road got me out of here yesterday but I have too much to do to escape again today!

So, off I go to execute today's plan: shopping, grading papers, attending the matinee of my students' play, cooking a nice dinner, and driving DS1 back up to ASU for what is almost surely the second-to-last time.  He's graduating in just 6 weeks!