Hello May!

So far, May has been kinda crappy, health-wise. :P Monday I tore the frenulum under my tongue (the thin flap of skin that attaches your tongue to the bottom of your mouth). It started bleeding a lot and it has hurt quite a bit since. Luckily it's healing and it doesn't hurt as bad as it did. It no longer burns, but it's still pretty sore. I've also been having some pretty severe neuropathic pain for the last week. It's causing me to not be able to sleep very well...even though the medication that I take for it makes me sleepy. I've also been getting nauseous every time after I eat anything (probably IBS and GERD) and my anti-nausea medicine also makes me super tired...but the neuropathy is making it hard to actually sleep. BLAH.

I picked up my new glasses on Tuesday. I think my right eye is still getting used to working again. When I'm wearing my glasses, if I close my left eye it almost looks kinda of grainy...which isn't something I've ever heard of before. LOL. I've had blurry vision and double vision...but this is the first time I've ever had "grainy" which is the only way I can think to describe it. And I checked...my glasses aren't dirty. :P I think it's starting to get better, though. In case you're curious how blind I am without glasses...with both eyes open, I can see about the length of my arm and then anything farther than that is blurry. Now...if I close my left eye? I can see about the length of my hand before it gets blurry. :P For quite awhile, I only wore my glasses while I was driving in unfamiliar areas where I needed to be able to read street names or during class when I needed to see the board or something. Then it gradually got to where I always had to wear them while driving...and now I wear them all the time from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed. :P My new glasses are comfortable though...nice and lightweight. I think they're pretty cute, too...for a pair of plain black glasses. They fit my style. 

I've had several sticker orders this week. I also posted some new designs as well as the newest product...sticker sheets! So far I only have two sticker sheets...but I plan to make a bunch more designs. The sticker sheets I have so far are printed on matte vinyl sticker paper. I also want to make some planner specific stickers--like to-do lists and schedule-type stickers--that will be printed on paper sticker paper...so they're easy to write on with any pen or pencil. I'm going to be working on some transparent stickers in the near future as well. Oh and the vendor event that my sister is helping her friend with--and took some of my stickers and sticker sheets to--is tomorrow from 10am-7pm. I'm anxious to see how they do! Hopefully I'll sell a lot of stickers! :) 

In completely unrelated news...I started playing the Stranger Things Puzzle Game on my phone. You have to have a Netflix account in order to play it...but it's actually pretty fun. These late nights when I haven't been able to sleep...I've been playing around on it. Just something fun to pass the time. If you have a Netflix account, like Stranger Things, and like to play games on your phone...definitely check it out. :) 

Alright...gonna get back to working on stickers! Hope everyone has a good weekend! 

Stay-at-Home Order

Yesterday, the Kansas county that we live in issued a Stay-at-Home order effective today which limits non-essential movement for 30 days. Of course, it's pretty broad as far as what is considered "essential" business (I don't personally consider liquor stores essential, but whatever) but at least it is a start.

However, I also believe this should be done on a national level (even worldwide), not just by county. If the country was limited to only essential movement for the infectious period of the disease and incoming travelers (or at least those considered moderate or high risk of infecting others) were quarantined for the infectious period...then the sooner we could go back to business as usual aside from continuing to quarantine incoming travelers. If there is no one infectious in the public, then no one will be infected to then infect others.

I downloaded the game "Plague Inc" to play again not too long ago. The basic idea is to create a bacteria, virus, fungus, parasite, etc. that will eradicate the earth's population. It was entertaining for about a day. That's how long it took me to pass every level at normal difficulty. The basic idea is that you have to infect every single country and keep people alive long enough to infect everyone in each country...and make sure that it kills everyone before a cure is found. Throughout the game, you choose modes of transmission (birds, animals, blood, airborne, etc), symptoms (coughing, rash, vomiting, etc), and then characteristics of the plague (can survive in hot or cold climates, resistant to medication, gene re-sequencing and mutation which slow down a cure, etc). All those choices affect how and at what speed the plague progresses and eliminates humans. Yeah...it's kinda morbid when you think about it. :P

But I also find it pretty interesting. I passed each disease type before a cure was finished...usually taking less than 2 years from patient zero until no more humans remained. It really highlights how important it is to stop the spread of infection...especially when there is no cure or vaccine. And that is really what the world needs to focus on right now...isolation and quarantine. It should be common sense. And we can already see what happens when a healthcare system collapses under overwhelming rate of infection. I really think the focus should be on lives and healthcare...not the economy. The economy can recover from a recession. People cannot recover from death.

Anyway...it really isn't much different than what we've already been doing. We've been staying home except to get groceries and necessities (like when I had to grab a few things to get Johnny set up to work from home). Aubry has been going to work 2-3 times a week. Food service is considered essential (now only for carry-out, drive-thru, or delivery), so as long as the business stays open, she is still expected to be at work unless she becomes ill. The girls have been taking their dogs on short walks around the block for some fresh air, but they have to distance themselves from anyone else who happens to be out doing the same. We have used delivery and drive-thru a couple times in the past two weeks...helping out some local businesses while still trying to be responsible citizens.

I still haven't had much work available. There were two files available when I checked first thing this morning but as soon as I clicked to claim one, they were both gone. So far I haven't seen more since. But...I did finally get our census done! ;) And last night Aubry and I did her taxes (I made her learn how to do it on paper before I showed her how to do it on Turbo Tax). And since Johnny is working upstairs in our bedroom, I'm going to work on trying to get the basement cleaned out and organized. It's been a slow process. :P I've also been watching some RV/tiny home shows on Hulu and daydreaming about Johnny and I doing the same someday when we're empty nesters. ;)