Well, it is halfway through the second day after chemo and so far, so good! I had heard rumors that the Zometa (the IV infusion for my bones) really made you feel icky the day afterwards, but I think the steroids to help out with the chemo may have done its part in helping out. I felt really good yesterday and walked 6 miles on my own yesterday morning. The weather was super nice in the morning before the temperature started to soar into the upper 80’s. I actually turned on the A/C last night, which was so much more comfortable for sleeping. Being on high dose steroids for 4 days straight allows me a somewhat artificial high burst of energy. It gives me a chance to get a lot done but it also affects my sleep. I did A LOT yesterday…lots of walking and stuff around the house. I was tired and sound asleep by 11 p.m. However, I woke up at 0345 and then couldn’t go back to sleep until 0500. Sigh, This is what steroids does to me…besides making me hungry all the time.
This morning I was able to make a part in my hair! Granted, it is still really short and still may fall out, but this was a day to celebrate. It is the little things that you have to celebrate. The Boston hat is still donned when I go outside though. My hair isn’t that long yet.
Yesterday was the first of May and Lily got a May Day basket from her friend, Maddie Condin. A blue solo cup with pipe cleaner “basket handle” filled with candy. They put them on your door step, ring the doorbell and skedaddle. I used to come to work at Ft. Crook Elementary School when I was the school secretary there, to May baskets from the students’ families. I have lived all over the world, but Nebraska is the place where I have seen this tradition the most.
Speaking of food, after being at home for so long and cooking almost every meal at home, I feel like I am getting into a cooking rut. This happened when we lived in Norway and we only went out to eat once a month. We have really only gotten take out once every couple of weeks, if that. We used to only run our dishwasher once every week…now it is every other day. I am making a big batch of tomato meat sauce today. It will be on the stove for several hours today and then I will freeze it to allow us to have portions for the next 4 months or so. However, pasta and sauce is our easy go-to meals. I have been going online and finding some new ideas. I cannot go to the grocery store though…I am sending Rich there. I know there is a lot of foods which are not making it to the shelves. It is frustrating that I cannot see what he can see as I have always done the grocery shopping for the nearly 29 years we have been married. I can usually figure out a way to substitute one ingredient for another or morph a recipe in a different direction when I can be in the grocery store myself. I had to do that a lot when we lived in Norway and could not get the ingredients I was used to. I had a creamy enchilada recipe which had 7 ingredients in it. Four of them had to be substituted while we lived in Norway. When we moved back to the U.S. and had the real ingredients from the original recipe, the kids didn’t like it….so I had to go back to the “Norwegian creamy enchilada recipe.” I really miss grocery shopping. I have always loved to cook and to bake. I am getting a lot of my cupboard and freezer cleaned out. That is always a good thing. So the search continues for the next best recipe for the Messina family.
So the last thing I want to mention is school. Lily is winding down her freshman year (yay!) and will probably have fewer assignments over the last two weeks. She was in an art class this past semester and had to have half of it rewritten by her art teacher because they couldn’t assign the different mediums needed for the regular assignments. Lily has always been very artistic and I felt bad for her having to be left to doing reports and random drawings. She contacted her counselor and signed up for a year long art class for next year. This additional class really added to her course load, especially in the fall. She surprised me by asking to take Personal Finance during the summer. The class will be 3.5 weeks long and online for 3 hours a day. This will lighten her load this fall and keep her in a learning mode this summer. She is also taking several cooking classes through Metropolitan Community College this summer as well. Lily is signed up for driver’s ed class at the end of the month, but she hasn’t been able to get her driver’s permit because the DMV has been closed for a couple months now. I don’t know what is going to happen with that at this point. Tim is starting his master’s program on Monday. He is taking an accelerated online program so he can graduate in a year. He is pretty excited and I am excited for him. Joe is finishing up his EMT class and has 3 firefighter exams in the next few weeks on top of the myriad of other exams he has taken. He has applied to several different metro KC fire departments. I am so hopeful he will find a place to work that he enjoys. I am not doing anything as exciting. I have taken up Duolingo again and am brushing up on my Spanish. I was dancing to Latin music today as I was cooking….ah, the best. Rich is going to a class all day tomorrow to get his Concealed Carry Gun permit. So we are all learning in our isolation!
Messina Musings 