Smile-breaks
It's been a while
Where have you been? Oh, sorry. Where have I been? I missed you.
I've been around all this time, distracted by Life. It does interfere sometimes, doesn't it? Life got me vaccinated—twice—and took me with Paul to swim and then not to swim but to a doc to see what was going on with him. Turned out to be, so far, a need for a change in meds for his spasms.
A slew of birthdays in the family, friends to keep up with—heck, another decade day for me, which thankfully passed rather quietly. Potted plants thriving and then not thriving, needing my not-so-green thumb. . .
And I got the vaccine, Moderna for me. Second one last week, so I'm free as of June 10th. At a price. I figured since I'm what you might consider old and since reports were that "old" people didn't seem to get the Moderna side effects after the second dose and since my old sister—oops, older than me sister—didn't get the side effects, I blissfully, ignorantly and naively assumed I wouldn't get them either.
That was then. This is now. At 10:30 of the night I got my second shot, I got the chills. Boy did I get the chills! I shook for four hours, my teeth clicking and chattering, my body shaking like an earthquake. It stopped once, when I rolled over and lay on my right side. Unfortunately, this was the side where they shot my arm—where I was not supposed to put pressure. Obviously that was not an option. I don't think it would've worked for more than a few minutes anyway.
At 2:30 a.m., still shaking, but mildly now, I got up to help Paul with something,—and whew! when I got back in bed, the chills receded and I got to sleep. Good for me.
Until the next morning. I woke with achy muscles, a headache, and too tired to do much but lie there. A fever? Maybe, but slight. I stayed in bed feeling flu-like until early afternoon and even then I wasn't up to much. I lazed around and went to bed early. Next day. . . all was fine! Normal is so good!!! And yay! June 10th, I'm good to go! A big thank you to Christy, my daughter, for getting me through this by taking full charge of brother Paul. Family is good.
While you were gone—oh yeah, while I was gone—there were birthdays galore and even a really fun birthday party to celebrate grandson Blake's 30th. There were presents to get for out of town family birthdays, cards to send and lots of news to avoid. That last one crept in there uninvited. . .
Amidst all this excitement, there was a lot of boredom, too, which led me to—where else?—the garage. Time to clear out boxes of stuff no one will ever care about. Been planning to do that for, um, a couple of years. No excuses now. Besides, I was bored stiff and if I just got started. . .
So I did. I still have a long way to go, but the boxes aren't going anywhere. Not until I chase them out, empty them out and hopefully not set up too many new "de-cluttered" boxes.
Life. It pokes its head in where you don't really want it to. And then it gives you a lovely surprise. Mine was today. A box—uh, oh, another box—with two recipe books I'd been promised by "nun" other than Sister Karol Jackowski, their author. The lovely surprise was an unexpected salt and pepper set enclosed.
If you stick around long enough, "Life" brings you good surprises. I hope yours come soon.
