TGIF

Hello from rainy Minnesota where we have considered building an ark. We have had well over 4” of rain this week and more is on the way. It’s feast or famine around these parts, it seems. It’s been such a rainy spring but I am hoping it tapers off because we really don’t need more rain! Here is how the week shaped up. 

A book I am reading this week is ‘After Annie’ by Anna Quindlen. The first sentence is ‘Annie died right before dinner.’ That reminds me of the opening lines of Everything I Never Told You (Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.) In this case, Annie dies from an aneurysm, leaving behind a husband and 4 kids, the oldest of which is 13. This is very much a character driven novel so do not read this if you need plot! But I am enjoying it (although enjoying seems like the wrong verb to use given the subject matter).

The high of my week was a fun day at the zoo on Wednesday with Paul! I had the day off for the Juneteenth holiday and it was finally not raining! It was the busiest I had ever seen the zoo so I guess everyone else that was off for the holiday had the same idea. We were there for over 5 hours so we saw a lot including 2 amazing bird shows, one of which featured other animals. I really enjoyed some 1:1 time with Paul. It’s a way more low key experience to take him versus taking both boys.

The wing span of this vulture was incredible!

Enjoying the splash pad! It was only 67F but Paul was still all about the splash pad.

Getting up close and personal with a tarantula.

The lows of my week was: dealing with another ridiculous bill from CVS - $1,900+ this time. That’s an improvement from the $4k bill I got about a month ago but come on! Why is this so difficult? I have insurance! I was told I met my deductible in March when I paid around $1k. This is what it took to take of this: 

1st call: CVS Pharmacy where they tell me the co-pay insurance company denied the claim because I allegedly did not meet my deductible. They can't help me and say I need to call the co-pay company. CVS IS THE WORST but I can only use CVS or it will be out-of-network so my hands are tied here.

2nd call: Co-pay company tells me that all they can determine is that I haven't met my deductible but they have no other info besides that so they said to call my insurance company.

3rd call: The insurance company tells me I have met my deductible but it happened on the same date that this stupid $1,900 bill is associated with so I am incredibly confused because I had paid over $1k in early March to allegedly meet my deductible to pay for this stupid medication. But the guy I talk to said I actually need to talk to the pharmacy - which is the first phone call I placed at the start of this whole maddening process. 

4th call: Back to CVS Pharmacy where they tell me that I still owe $1,900 toward my $3,200 deductible despite the fact that they said my previous $1k+ payment would meet my deductible. I give up and fork over my HSA card. 

All that said - I know the infusions are even more expensive than my injectable drugs were but they are handled by a clinic so I am hoping that the process is more straightforward since the devil that is CVS is not involved. 

A show we are watching is ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ on Hulu. It’s a series about the purchase of a sort of failing football club in Wales by none other than Ryan Reynolds and some Rob guy who wrote for ‘Its always sunny in Philadelphia’ which is a show Phil loved but has assured me is ‘not safe for Lisa’. I’m in it for Ryan Reynolds and the underdog story. 

For workouts I did the first workout of Caroline Girvan’s Fuel series which was very high impact/HIIT-like. That’s not really what I need out of ST workouts right now so I either need to redo the Iron program or find something else. I ran 4 miles on Wednesday morning, will take today off since my first meeting of the day is at 8:30 and I can't run and be presentable that quickly for a zoom. I'm going to see how I feel on Saturday morning and maybe do a strength training workout of some sort if my hand feels ok (I get an injection in the tendon this afternoon), and then will run 6 miles on Sunday.

The best money spent was on happy hour with a good friend that I used to work with, which was another high of my week! I hadn't seen her for over a year which is ridiculous considering we work 1 block apart but work has been busy for both of us and it's hard for me to plan social events when I am gone so much for work travel.

My plans this weekend include not much again. If it isn't raining, one of us will take Paul to an event at the local rec center tonight. It's supposed to be rainy tomorrow morning so I'm hoping to convince the boys to go to the library. We are going to try dropping Taco's nap this weekend to see if that results in better bedtimes/later starts to the day. So if the rain clears out, I will take the boys to a local wading pool/splashpad/park and give Phil some time off to do whatever he pleases since I'm traveling next week. Sunday we are planning to go to the lake where Phil is a member of a swim club after my 6 mile run. They have a swim course set up several times/week, including Sunday mornings. Last year Taco had no interest in the water so we didn't join him but he seems more interested this year so I am hoping this can be a standard Sunday morning activity. Sunday is the nicest day of the weekend so hopefully we will be outside quite a bit!

Bonus photo:

I caught this action shot of Paul rolling a yahtzee on Tuesday afternoon! He was so proud of himself. He has rolled yahtzees the 2 times we've played so he is going to have really unrealistic expectations about how often that happens! Yahtzee is a really great game for his age as it gives him the chance to work on his math skills, which is his favorite subject!

How was your week?

Weekend recap

Happy Monday! We had a very ‘ok’ kind of weekend. Friday was wonderful, Saturday was rainy, Sunday was hot and started with someone getting a goose egg but ended on a good note.

Friday was Paul’s last day of kindergarten! Here is a side-by-side comparison of the first and last day. I can’t believe how much he has grown and changed!

That night we got together with my college friends. It was a gorgeous summer night and they have a great deck/backyard with a beautiful flowering tree. It was so fun to catch up with everyone. I hadn’t seen most of the girls since February and hadn’t seen the husbands since last August. These friends are all a year older than me but in such a different stage of parenting as their kids range in age from 11 to 17! One heartily offered to babysit because she misses toddlers (how???) and I think we will take her up on it as we can walk to restaurants from her house.

The boys slept in until 6:45 on Saturday since we had been out later than usual on Friday (later than usual = home at 8:40. We are party animals clearly.) Saturday was a LONG day because it rained all damn day. I fit my 6 mile run in before the rain started but then we were kind of house bound because I could not talk the boys into going to the library despite my best efforts. They had fun with playdoh for awhile but then it was a lot of screens and fighting. Le sigh. I napped for over an hour during Taco’s nap though. I felt so dang tired. Am I tired from the infusion? Because I have young kids? Because of the rainy weather? Because of sleep interruptions from being on prednisone? All of the above?

So many playdoh toys!!

His little bird creation was quite cute.

Taco was up at 5:30 on Sunday. I think he is ready to drop his nap. Sob. In some ways it makes weekends easier as we can go to the pool and stay long enough to make it worth the cost of admission and can spend more time at the zoo. But I often rest during his naps so I am sad to miss that rest period. We will adjust but gah I am sad to lose that time to rest. 

We went to a baseball diamond that morning for an annual Father’s Day sort of batting derby (the guys all take turns hitting balls and those not hitting field balls). It’s next to a park which is next to a farmer’s market. Within 5 minutes of arriving, Taco fell while running and head planted into the sidewalk and got a big goose egg. This kid is so prone to falling for some reasons. He felt better after having a donut but looks rough.

Ugh that goose egg! 

We ran into a couple of families we knew and then had to abruptly leave when the kids were not listening/cooperating. 

I napped again during Taco’s nap and then my MIL came over in the afternoon. We got takeout from Phil’s favorite place (pork rice bowls from a BBQ place called Brasa) to celebrate Father’s Day. My gift to him is the gift of time to play golf. We played a game of Yahtzee (my MIL’s fave game) after dinner and Paul rolled for my MIL. He was thrilled to roll a Yahtzee!

Paul is home with us for the next couple of days as his summer program starts on Thursday. Phil will WFH today and I will WFH tomorrow and then we both have Juneteenth off so I will do something fun with him that day - maybe the pool if it’s not raining. We have a very rainy week ahead of us! 

How was your weekend? Did you do anything for Father’s Day?

5 Things Friday + First Infusion

Happy Friday! Here are 5 things on my mind today, including a check-in on how my first infusion went.

1. First off, thank you for all the thoughtful comments on my post about feeling joy! You all left so many insightful comments that really made me think.

2. I had my first IV infusion yesterday and all-in-all it went quite well. I'm used to getting IVs when I've been fasting for a surgery but getting an IV when you are hydrated is so much better (it's taken up to 3 attempts to place an IV before surgeries but this was easy peasy). I felt sleepy during the infusion which is apparently a common side effect but felt good otherwise. So overall I would say it was pretty easy aside from the hassle of being at the clinic for 2+ hours. I get my next one in early July.

3. Today is Paul's last day of school. He had a really wonderful first year of school and is sad that the school year is coming to an end. He has grown and changed so much in this first year. He started the year being able to read on his own on a very basic level and now I would say he's pretty much completely literate. He will struggle with bigger words but he can read books on his own now which is cute to see. Bedtime has become a bit of a struggle lately because he wants to keep reading his Dog Man books. It's kind of a good problem to have because it's great to see his love for reading flourish but he also needs to go to bed at a certain time so that mornings aren't too much of a slog... 

4. I had a really great trip to NYC. I landed Monday afternoon, worked in the office for a few hours and then was able to go for a run in Central Park! It's rare for me to get a run in while traveling as it can be tough to fit in before work so I was glad I had Monday night free. 

5. We have a gathering with my college friends tonight that I'm really looking forward to. Our husbands/kids are joining us so I am hoping Taco/Paul are entertained by the older kids so we can catch up with the adults but we'll see... It looks like it will be a beautiful summer-like evening so I am really looking forward to it. Besides that we don’t have much planned for the weekend but I am sure we will be outside quite a bit as the weather forecast looks pretty good! It’s Father’s Day on Sunday obviously but we are pretty low key - my gift is encouraging Phil to take golf or find another way to make time for himself.

How was your week?

On Feeling Joy

Happy Monday! I fly to NYC this morning and come back Wednesday night. I haven’t traveled since mid-May. I really needed this break after my cluster of travel in April/May. I will never cluster travel together like that (I traveled 3 of 4 weeks for work but if you include our Destin trip I traveled 4 of 5 weeks) again if I can avoid it because it was not good for anyone. But onwards and upwards. I have 2 trips in June and 2 in July and then hope to take August off.

I’ve got a bit of a weightier post today about joy. It’s something I thought about during my long run (6 miles) along the paths of Lake Harriet and Bada Maka Ska on Saturday morning.

The idea of joy was on my mind because I had read Melissa of Brighton Jotter’s Good Things Friday post before my run and she commented on the feeling of joy she felt while watching her adult children work on a puzzle with her husband/their dad which sounds like such a lovely scene, especially since I love puzzles! I can completely picture that ‘my cup runneth over’ joyful kind of feeling.

On my run I got to thinking about the last time I felt an emotion I would describe as joy. One thing you should know about me is that I am not very emotional. As Phil says, we ‘stay in the meaty part of the bell curve of emotions,’ meaning we are kind of ‘steady Eddie’ kinds of people. We don’t experience super high highs but also don’t tend to experience super low lows. So I am kind of not really prone to feel joy. It’s kind of a nice way to live because the mountains and valleys sound quite volatile. But I was wracking my brain a bit to identify joyful times. 

I did have a joy-like fist-bumping feeling after a couple of really good client meetings in Dallas last month. The advisor we met with was very smart and asked great questions that really made me think. When we left the meeting I said, ‘gosh I love my job’ to the sales rep I was traveling with. It was a fulfilling moment and joy-like.

Beyond that, I felt joy watching Paul’s kindergarten music program last month…

Paul is front and center in his cute pink polo. Their concert was so dang cute. I grinned ear-to-ear the whole time.

And I’ve felt joy watching Taco do imaginative pretend play at the goose house in our neighborhood. 

And I felt pretty joyful leaving the kids with the sitter for our anniversary date night last month. 

But the time I felt pure and utter days-on-end joy was on my Banff trip last August with my good friend Amber. We had the best time hiking and saw some awe-inspiring views. And I only had myself to care for which was such a good feeling for a change.

I feel a bit of shame that the most joy-filled time I can think of was away from my family. Part of the joy was from being in such a gorgeous area and part of it was not having anyone depending on me (neither work nor young children). But we couldn’t really do that kind of trip with my kids at their ages - I know other families go on big adventures but we’ve decided it’s not worth spending money on big adventures until the boys are older and heartier and can handle some hiking, for example. Nor is it easy to do these kind of trips with just Phil as it’s a lot to ask my parents to care for our young kids. 

That said it’s not as if I am not happy. I am most days, although I have really struggled with irritability now that I am on a bit of a higher dose of steroids again. Prednisone makes me feel awful but I need it to manage the pain of the flare. So I am kind of stuck in this place of heightened annoyance and limited bandwidth while being frustrated that my RA won’t behave itself despite being on several drugs. I start infusions this week and they should make a huge difference but I’m not expecting immediate results and will probably have to be patient.

Right now, joyful feelings kind of feel like a bridge too far until my disease is better managed and I am off or at least on a much lower dose of steroids. I guess a subtitle of this post could be ‘steroids are awful’ or ‘steroids are not compatible with joy.’ I fear I will be on steroids for several more months so for the time being I want to try to find little bits of joy where I can, kind of like Elisabeth’s joy-finding posts. I’ll probably have to really look for joy because my general state of mind is, well, kind of melancholy with a side of irritability (I sound really fun to be around, don’t I?).

But after my run I did text Amber and our other friend Kelly to say - we need to do a Banff type of meet up next summer because I need a joyful series of days. And I am encouraging Phil to do a guys’ golf weekend this summer so he can ‘fill his cup’ or ‘put on his own oxygen mask.’ But those cup-filling experiences will happen while the other parent solo parents. 

And I am reminding myself that it won’t always be this way. I won’t always be on prednisone, my disease will be better managed, and we will reach a less physically demanding and boundary pushing stage of parenting.

Are you prone to feelings of joy or more ‘steady Eddie’ like me? What is the last experience that brought you joy?

TGIF

This week was a bit of a mixed bag with high highs and low lows. Here's how it shaped up.

A book I am reading this week is ‘The Secret Book of Flora Lee.’ It’s sort of set during WWII which is usually a genre I avoid because I got so burned out on it. But Kyria gave it 5 stars and she doesn’t give books 5 stars all that often so I felt compelled to read it, especially since we often like the same books! Plus most of the book seems to take place in 1960s so the WWII theme is very much in the background. 

The high of my week was meeting up with Birchie! She’s on a long road trip and made a stop in Minneapolis! We went for a walk around one of the lakes in our city (Bde Maka Ska which was formally called Lake Calhoun) and then we got dinner. It was so wonderful to meet in person! Aren’t we cute (she gave me permission to post this photo!)!

The lows of my week were 

1. Getting the dreaded call from daycare that Taco had thrown up on Wednesday afternoon. Ugh! I had 4 client meetings on Thursday and it’s a very busy time at work for Phil so I scrambled to reschedule 1 of the calls and asked a colleague to take one of the other calls. I kept the other 2 as Phil agreed to stay home in the morning for my VERY BIG DEAL client call (meaning an 8 figure opportunity) and then the other one was during his nap. So it all worked out but I was scurrying to do all of this rescheduling while in the car to pick up Taco as I didn’t want to shift things the day of (in case it isn't obvious, my trusty uber driver Phil was driving - I never text/email while driving). 

2. My pesky flare in the first finger of my right hand is getting worse now that I've tapered down to a lower dose of steroids. I'm glad to not feel super jittery but the pain/swelling in that joint sucks. My infusion on the 13th can't come fast enough. I'm hoping and praying it makes a big difference right away. In the mean time I'm bumping my steroids up by 5mg and hoping it doesn't impact my sleep/make me feel shaky/jittery again. If that doesn't work my doctor will make an exception and allow me to get an injection in the tendon sooner than ideal. 

A show we are watching is the documentary about the Ashley Madison data breach on Netflix. Yes it’s a weird show to watch but documentaries are our thing and it’s prompted some good discussions about how one defines infidelity, what is forgivable, and what challenges a marriage can come back from. 

For workouts I ran on Tuesday and that is it. I had planned to run on Thursday but that did not happen since I was on Taco duty. Today I hope to squeeze a Caroline Girvan workout in, tomorrow I will do my ‘long run’ which is about 5.75 miles, and on Sunday I will do another Caroline Girvan workout. I’m almost done with her Iron program (which I have loved!) so need to figure out what to do next!

The best money spent was on dinner with Birchie! We shared some small plates and an entree and it was so good!

My plans this weekend include not much! Phil will go out to his mom’s with Paul one of the days of the weekend to help her around her home (if both are still healthy of course - fingers crossed the stomach bug doesn't move through our house). The weather forecast looks good so I will probably take the boys to the beach by our house one afternoon. When I went for a walk with Taco and a friend last weekend, he sat down in the water fully clothed when we stopped at a beach on our walk so I guess he’s more interested in water. Last summer he wasn’t. 

I love living walking distance from this lake! This photo shows how clean our lakes are! 

How was your week?

What We Read in May

First things first, I guest posted over on NGS’s blog as part of her 20th Anniversary guest blogger series and shared the 20 ways blogging has made my life better - and my intro includes an explanation for my (very odd) blog title!

May was another solid reading month for me. I finished 9 books! I had a work trip to Napa at the start of the month which meant lots of plane reading time. I’ve kind of given up on working on planes because I can’t get my VPN to work which means I can’t open any files so I just keep up with emails on my phone and let myself read for pleasure.

Best of the month: 

The Seven Year Slip was an easy breezy book with a bit of magical realism. The protagonist inherits her aunt’s NYC apartment and discovers that sometimes when she enters the apartment, the clock turns back 7 years. I don’t always like time travel but it worked for me in this book. The Other Side of Disappearing was a 3.5 star book that I rounded up to 4. The protagonist was forced to grow up early when her mother abandoned her family, forcing the 20-something protagonist to take over the care of her half-sister. Their mom left because she fell for a scam artist/hustler. In this book, the sisters team up with a podcast duo to find out what happened to their mom. Fat Talk was my book club’s May selection. We had a really good discussion about the book. There are some controversial topics in the book but that’s what makes for a great discussion. James is a retelling of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from Jim’s perspective. I loved this book and gave it 5 stars but I don’t understand why it’s described as ‘uproariously funny’ in the publishers blurb - do not read this for humor. I found the content very heavy. Last but not least, Congratulations, the Best is Over was another 5-star read! It’s a collection of essays that made me laugh out loud which is really saying something because books rarely make me LOL. He covers both light and heavy topics with a healthy dose of humor. This is his 2nd collection of essays and I preferred it to his first (but also liked his debut). 

Just ok to meh:

Competing Devotions is a book I read after it was recommended during an Ezra Klein podcast about balancing work and caring for a family. It was a little too academic and I don’t know what I was supposed to take away. Trust was ultimately too cerebral for me. It’s about a man who worked in the finance industry and was criticized for how well he did during the stock market crash of 1929. I liked but didn’t love The Lonely Hearts Book Club. It was good but I would have to look up the plot line. The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control was just ok. I liked the premise of the book but it felt overly long and then the last 2 chapters were something like 9 principles to remember and 11 suggestions or something to that effect. It reminded me of this bank conference I helped organize 10+ years ago when I worked at a different company. At the closing lunch, the head of my division (which was a person my retired friend and I did not care for to put it lightly) closed out the conference with a text-heavy series of slides with something like ‘the 14 things to takeaway from this conference.’ Who can remember 14 things? Most humans can’t. Unless you are constantly referencing something, at most you can maybe remember 3-5 things. So this book end on a meh note and I couldn’t tell you any of the things I was supposed to take away and apply to my life. I did take away the general theme that it’s ok to be a perfectionist and she points out how you don’t encounter men who refer to themselves a ‘recovering perfectionist’ or something to that effect and yet women do this All. The. Time. (I have been guilty of saying this as well but will not say that going forward.) 

DNF:

I abandoned the buzzy book, Everybody in My Family has Killed Someone at about the 10% mark. I didn’t like the narration style which included breaking the 4th wall. Sometimes I like that style; this time I did not. The book opens with the protagonist’s sibling showing up at his house with a body that needs to be buried (it happens right away so is not a spoiler). I could not even wrap my mind around this as an enneagram 1. Do NOT come to me to help bury a body is what I am saying. I am not that kind of ride or die friend because that kind of task would haunt me and I do not want to go to jail for assisting in a crime. 

The boys’ reading:

Taco has gotten over his obsession with ‘The Circus Ship.’ I love that book but reading it daily can kind of ruin it for a while. Paul has kind of fallen off the wagon of reading together and instead wants to read Dog Man and Wimpy Kid books on his own. It’s great that he can read on his own but I really love cuddling up with him with chapter books! Late in the month I did talk him into reading book 7 of the Dragon Masters series which he really enjoys. We can read them in 2 sittings so we fly through those books. We had read one chapter of Harry Potter but decided to pause that book until he’s a bit older and heartier in terms of intense content. 

Did you read anything great in May?

TGIF!

This was a short week that felt short! Sometimes short weeks feel long but this one didn’t! It’s kind of shocking that today is the last day of May but I am not sad since we are entering peak weather season! Here is how my week shaped up.

A book I am reading this week is a buzzy new release that is on several summer reading guides called ‘Real Americans.’ It’s a pretty hefty book at nearly 600 pages but it is so good and propulsive! It’s a multi-generational story about the 1st, 2nd and 3rd generations of a Chinese immigrant family living in the U.S. 

The highs of my week were 1. Book club on Wednesday! We went to a fun newish restaurant called Kim’s and a couple of our dishes were delivered by the chef/owner who is a James Beard award-winning chef! The food was awesome and the conversation was even better. 2. Volunteering at Paul’s track and field day at school and watching him participate in his events. 3. Finding out my infusion treatments were approved by insurance. My first infusion is on June 13th. Now that I’ve accepted this is the next right step, I am very ready to start the treatments. 

Paul really excelled at the bean bag balance activity!

The low of my week was carrying a screaming and flailing toddler out of his school’s one year anniversary party. He did not want to leave but everyone was hungry/hangry so it was time to go.

A show we finished watching is the latest episode of ‘Everybody in LA’ which ended on a strong note. I’ve also been watching Top Chef on my own and we have watched a lot of basketball since the Timberwolves were in the playoffs, but sadly lost last night and ended their season.

For workouts I ran in the rain on Monday and then ran again on Wednesday. Tomorrow I will do my ‘long run’ which is about 5.75 miles and on Sunday I will do a Caroline Girvan workout.

The best money spent was on some Mickey t-shirts for Taco. He only had long-sleeved Mickey shirts so we had to add some summer shirts to his wardrobe. His love for Mickey knows no end!!

My plans this weekend include laying low tonight! Tomorrow the boys have haircuts in the morning and then we are hosting a family for dinner that night. The adults will have seared ahi tuna, grilled asparagus and an Asian-style rice. The kids will have take and bake pizza. On Sunday I’m going for a walk in the morning with a college friend and we will go to Phil’s HS friend’s house that is on a lake after nap in the afternoon! So we have quite a social weekend ahead of us!

How was your week? What are you reading or watching these days?