It's been a busy day!

Today we celebrated my grandpa's 90th birthday! We had his party at the library here in town. They have a really big community room that we've used for several big group gatherings. I think it's pretty affordable for the size, too. 

My mom and sister did most of the planning and decor. I printed the invitations and mailing labels, printed 600 pieces of confetti (images printed on cardstock and die-cut in 2" and 1" sizes with my Cricut), and the water bottle labels that I printed on glossy sticker paper and laminated. I've learned that I do NOT like putting labels on water bottles. LOL! The difficult part is trying to get them on straight...it was a lot more difficult than I anticipated. :P Luckily my mom came over on Thursday and helped me get all the labels on there. Then yesterday my mom and sister set up a lot of the decorations. There were a lot of backdrops, balloons, and centerpiece decorations. There was also a table set up for the guestbook, multiple tables that had display boards with photos behind photos that were laid out on the table, and several tables set up for the food. We had meat and sides from Hog Wild as well as sandwiches, wraps, and fruit trays from McAlisters. 

It was a WSU themed party. My grandpa graduated from there and they attend a lot of their sporting events. We requested that everyone where yellow and black for pictures...and there were a lot of people in WSU gear! We'd gone to a local sports store on Monday and got Johnny a hoodie and a ball cap. Most of my WSU apparel (I also graduated from WSU) is pretty old and ratty looking...but mom had a hoodie that she got in a size smaller than she likes wearing, so I wore that. It was super soft and comfy so...now it's mine. ;) 

We were able to get some new family pictures...much like we did when we had grandma and grandpa's anniversary party in 2021. We were able to get a large group family photo as well. 

We also had a surprise guest! My sister--who *hates* people in full-body costumes that cover their head--was able to get the WSU mascot, Wu, to make an appearance. :) It was really neat and the guy did a great job. Naturally...his energy was like that from a sporting event...but in a much quieter room with about 40 people. My sister was battling anxiety...but I was battling autism. lol. As a neurodivergent person...I'm very uncomfortable with awkward silence. I already don't like when people don't keep up their side of the conversation...and Wu doesn't talk, he pantomimes. Yeah...I don't know what to do with that. lol. But he did a great job. My sister's friend who is a photographer was there to take photos...and she had Wu walk around the room and kinda photo bomb people. It was cute. And Wu also signed the guestbook which I thought was really cool. He walked around looking at the pictures and admiring the decorations (like...pointing them out and clapping or giving a thumbs up, etc). So it was just really neat to have him there. 

We stayed to clean up after the party. I was wiped out from printing and cutting all the confetti last night and then waking up early and helping load stuff...so I actually ended up taking a nap after I got home. :P I think tomorrow I'm going to take the day off and just relax. I do have some orders that I need to work on, but it shouldn't take too long to get done before I go to bed tomorrow so they can go out in the mail Monday. :) 

Why is the weekend so short? :(

It feels like the weekdays go by so dang slow...then the weekend goes by way too fast! Luckily this weekend is a three day weekend...so at least we get one extra day. It's supposed to snow tomorrow. They're calling for, like, 4-8 inches so we'll see how much we actually get. Thankfully Johnny and I both work from home, so we don't really have to get out in it. :P 

I'm finally feeling better as far as my sore throat, but I still feel out of sorts and super tired all the time. But I think I'm having problems sleeping more because of pain from my chronic health issues and perimenopause crap rather than from being sick. I can only sleep for 2-3 hours at a time but then I wake up and have a hard time getting back to sleep. When I am finally able to get back to sleep...I'm still up again 2-3 hours later. I've never been a person who really takes naps...but apparently that has changed in 2025. :P Hopefully my sleep schedule will get back to normal soon. 

The night before last I didn't sleep at all! Darn ol' Milo puked on my side of the bed...so I had to wait for Johnny to get up and then wash all the bedding. It takes FOREVER to wash all the sheets and blankets from our king size bed. I slept for about 3 hours and then had to grab some stuff from mom. Then I laid back down...but about an hour later I woke up to Johnny telling me that my dad was calling because grandma's thermostat wasn't working. So we got around to drove over to grandma's. We weren't planning on taking the dogs...but Nova darted out the door and wouldn't come back in the house so we took them with us. :P They like going to grandma's though and they're always good puppies at her house. Grandma's thermostat was all messed up...none of the buttons worked so we couldn't turn the heat down from 90 degrees, turn it from heat to AC, turn the fan on or off...nothing. Tried taking out the batteries...and that didn't change anything. The only thing that worked on it was the reset button...but then the heat was just off completely because we couldn't do anything after we reset it. So mom stopped by Walmart to grab a new thermostat and Johnny replaced it for Grandma. She just has a cheapie one for now, but I think eventually we'll get her a thermostat like we have that can be controlled by both the control panel and with an app on your phone. Then mom could see what's going on with Grandma's thermostat from her phone to maybe troubleshoot anything going on without having to drive all the way to her house. But for now...at least her house isn't 90 degrees anymore! Of course, even at the 75 degrees she likes to keep it at, that's still too hot for me! :P 

And despite only getting 4 interrupted hours of sleep...I didn't get to bed last night until way later than normal. But...since I didn't really get anything else done yesterday except washing the bedding, I put all my orders into my spreadsheet and got everything ready to print, cut, and package today so all my orders can go out in the morning. I have 16 orders so far since Friday between both of my Etsy shops plus my eBay. The first part of February was pretty slow, but it's been picking up a bit now. And I'm still doing better this month so far compared to last year. By this point in the month last year, I only had 22 orders...this year I have 45. So hopefully I'll pass the 60 orders I had for the month of February 2024. :) 

I've also been busy this month working on stuff for my Grandpa's 90th birthday party. I made the invitations earlier in the month and now I'm making labels for the water bottles and some large "confetti" to decorate the tables like I did for the girls' graduation party. 

Our refrigerator seems to be working fine again. We discovered on Monday that when the repair guys were here on Friday, they didn't hook the water line back up after they left. So our ice maker was completely out of ice on Monday. I gotta say...I'm not super impressed with Rick's Appliance Service after having to wait 3 weeks for it to actually be fixed...plus not hooking the water line back up. But hopefully we won't have any more issues with the fridge so it won't be a big deal. *crosses fingers*

Oh and I figured out that it's actually my TMJ in my jaw that is causing the issues with my ears. Sometimes it's pain, but most of the time it's more the feeling of pressure in my ears...like when you're on a plane and you feel like your ears need to pop. It seems like I just keep collecting chronic health issues. :P And pretty much all of them are caused by or a comorbidity of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. Apparently hEDS is the "gift" that keeps on giving. :P 

Johnny and I finished Season 2 of Night Agent pretty quick. Now he's watching The Killing with me. We're excited for Season 3 of Reacher to be released on Thursday! I even have it written on the dry-erase calendar that we have in the kitchen. ;) 

Well...I better get back to work! I hope everyone is having a good February so far! 

February Update

Well...I'm STILL not feeling 100% after getting sick at the beginning of January. I still have a bad sore throat off and on, a dry cough (especially at night), and occasionally an earache. At first just my right ear was hurting so I thought maybe the pain in my jaw was causing my ear to hurt...but this week my left ear has been hurting, too, and that side of my jaw doesn't hurt. I'm not sure why everything keeps lingering. My sleep is all messed up, too. I've been super tired and end up going to bed earlier than normal...just to wake up 2-4 hours later. I've even been taking a nap frequently during the day...but I'm still tired all the time. 

I think part of the reason why I keep waking up--other than the cough--are the lovely night sweats of perimenopause. I'm so over it. We keep the bedroom really cold...but it actually seems to make it worse. It's like...because I'm cuddling under the blanket, it makes me too hot. I might talk to my doctor the next time we're there and see if trying HRT would help. 

FINALLY got the fridge fixed. Our freezer stopped working on January 20th. The first time they came out was January 24th. He said there was a freon leak (and he's not certified to work with freon so someone else had to come with him) and the compressor and evaporator needed to be replaced. The guy told Johnny it'd only take a day or two to get the parts...but apparently they didn't come in until Johnny called on February 3rd. Then they couldn't get out to our house to fix the fridge until today. I'm glad it wasn't any later...because the refrigerator section started losing cooling yesterday. They were here for just over 2 hours this morning. Bozley hid in the bedroom with me while they were here...he's not a fan of strangers. Every once in awhile he'd go to the doorway to see what's going on...but most of the time he just laid on the bed making little growly barks. Nova laid in the hallway behind the gate watching them work. They set the smoke detector (twice) and that freaked Nova out. They had to weld something together...something about they use an aluminum something or other now and it's common for it to break down. They went ahead and replaced the compressor (I don't know if they replaced the evaporator) too. So far it seems to be working again.  

January and February have been kinda slow for work. It was the same last year, too. But...I had only 35 orders in January last year versus 100 orders for January this year. And for the first 7 days in February last year, I had 6 orders and I've already had 14 orders so far this February. Last February picked up more during the second half of the month, so hopefully it'll be the same for this year. I'm honestly kinda glad for a bit of a break at the moment since I haven't been feeling well. 

Oh! The dogs went to the groomer! They are so soft and smell so good. :) And no more grinch toes! 

Well...I think that's about all for now. 

Uuuuuughhhhhh

So far I'm really not a fan of 2025. :P And I'm not even actually talking about the political shitshow going on right now. 

About three weeks ago, Johnny got me sick with what I assume was the flu (I know it wasn't Covid because we tested negative multiple times). One of the other things going around lately is walking pneumonia...but I've had that before and it didn't really feel like that. We felt pretty crappy for the first few days. My biggest complaint in the beginning was stuffy/runny nose and Johnny's was more the productive cough. I only had a productive cough for a few days. But we've both been just so tired and blah...and now we have more of a dry cough. Honestly, I prefer a productive cough. This dry cough has been making my throat hurt really bad...and it's keeping me awake at night. Every few minutes it's like my throat feels dry and creates the urge to cough. It used to happen to me a lot as a kid...but I don't remember having a cough like this for basically my entire adult life. :P I hadn't drank coffee in years...but I've been drinking it everyday for the last week or so just because it's been soothing for my throat. 

I've had jaw/ear pain as well...I'm not really sure what's up with that. I don't know if I have an earache from being sick or if the pain is just from my jaw. I sneezed at one point and I literally thought I'd broken my jaw...it was such a horribly sharp pain that shot through my jaw. I've always had TMJ...which isn't uncommon with hEDS. I've never had this kind of pain in my jaw though. So I don't know what's going on with it...and not super excited to go to the doctor to find out. :P A lot of times, it seems like the treatment is more painful than just dealing with the pain from whatever the problem is. 

I've had several issues pop up over the last few years (especially pelvic organ prolapse...common with hEDS) and a lot of them require surgery to actually fix. And since I have adhesive disease, abdominal surgery is pretty much out of the question for me unless it's absolutely necessary. I had abdominal surgery in 2010 for a rectopexy repair and a pretty sizeable colon resection. It was an absolutely NOT fun experience. Then in 2011, I went in to have my tubes tied and the surgeon couldn't even find one of my fallopian tubes because my entire abdomen was full of scar tissue connecting all my organs together. Any future abdominal surgeries--including to remove the scar tissue--would result in more scar tissue. 

So yeah...whenever new issues pop up, I'm not super excited to get into what it's going to take to treat it. Even when it's medication...medications come with side effects and I'm already on several medications everyday. Oh the joys of chronic illness. :P 

And if health issues weren't enough...our freezer isn't working! Yeah...on the refrigerator we just bought in October. I was hoping after all the things we had to fix/replace in 2024 that 2025 would be a bit smoother. But it isn't really off to a good start. :P Luckily it's still within warranty, so we had someone come out on Friday. Apparently they're going to basically replace everything inside...but have to wait for parts to come in. He didn't know how long it would take. The refrigerator section is still working fine so far...which is good. But I'm still not buying a whole lot of groceries at the moment just in case it starts having cooling issues, too. My biggest complaint at the moment is the freaking beeping. :P There's a "HI" error that appears at least every hour or so that comes with beeping...and we have to go hit a button to make it stop every time. There's apparently no way to turn that off or at least silence the beeping. It's bad enough during the day...but it really sucks at night. Whenever the electricity flickers off...it also has an alert that will keep beeping every few seconds until you go hit a button. It's really, really aggravating for a person like me who hates noise. :P 

Other than that things are doing alright, though. Milo is starting to be more interested in the Litter Robot. He's still not actually using it...but he has been getting close to it and investigating it. I'm still leaving it turned off for the most part and then turning it on at least once a day to run a clean cycle. Today I turned it on and he was up here in the living room, heard the Litter Robot start to cycle...and then ran downstairs to go check it out. He didn't get close to it...but he did watch from inside the doorway. Leo will go the the bathroom in the Litter Robot occasionally but still uses the old litterbox too. It's about half and half for him. Angel still loves it and uses it exclusively, as far as I know. The only times I've seen her in the old litterbox is to bury the boys' poop when they don't cover it with litter after they're done. It's like she's cleaning up after the boys. LOL. ;) 

Work is still going well. Since I've felt so crappy...I haven't worked on many new designs lately. I still have some more custom letter name ones that I want to get listed. They're the ones where there are individual graphics for each letter. I've had quite a few orders for the ones I have listed so far. I've also been busy with some party stuff for my Grandpa's 90th birthday party next month. Mom has been coming over and we've been working on invitation stuff. So that's always fun. 

Ooh and I have a new exercise bike being delivered today! I'm excited for that. I like that it folds up so we can keep it out of the way when we're not using it. And it's supposed to be quiet, too, so that's good. 

Johnny and I are watching Season 2 of Night Agent. I forgot that's another show we started watching last year that we liked. We're almost halfway through now. We usually watch one episode a night during dinner...sometimes two. And then I also started watching Killing Eve. I really just have it playing in the background while I'm working so I only catch bits and pieces, but it's interesting. 

Well...I've got some work to do. Hope everyone is having a good 2025 so far!

RECIPE: Cheeseburger Soup

Another new recipe for the new year! This is a new soup in the pressure cooker that I basically just made up as I went. It turned out pretty yummy and it was super quick and easy. 

Cheeseburger Soup 

Ingredients:

1lb ground beef
1/2 tbs fresh minced garlic 

32 oz beef broth
1 small onion, diced 
1 carrot, peeled and diced

1 celery stalk, diced   

1 can petite diced tomatoes, do not drain 

1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce 
16oz Velveeta cheese, cubed
16oz elbow macaroni, prepared according to package

Directions:

1. Brown ground beef with minced garlic and drain. 

2. Combine beef broth, ground beef, onion, carrot, celery, paprika, salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce in the pressure cooker pot and stir. 

3. Pour the diced tomatoes in the pot then topped with the cubes of Velveeta cheese. Do not stir.

4. Set the pressure cooker to "Soup" and cook for 5 minutes. Carefully quick release the pressure when finished. 

5. Stir in elbow macaroni and serve. 

You can serve topped with crackers, corn chips, or whatever else you like! The picture below is of Johnny's bowl...he likes to add a lot more pepper. ;) 

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