Tag Archives: dex

Monday musings

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It’s warm but still cloudy here in Northern California. No rain, just cloudy.
All the leaves are popping out and things are growing. We’re still losing some ponderosa pines to bark beetles down in our woods and ost likely this is due to lack of water. Not sure what we’re going to do yet as it’ll probably be expensive. Since they’re not threaten ting the house, I think taking the big ones near the house( not infected, just too close) makes better sense.

Oh, good news! My daughter finally found the perfect car to commute into the sierras. A Honda crv 2007 with 85,000 miles. It’s very nice and with the awd, if she gets into snow she’ll be fine. Of course, now we’re moving out of snow season, but in a normal year Truckee, ca can see snow in June. Not happening probably this year. Then sometime down the road she can start looking for a roommate situation so she can stay up there 2 nights. But for now BCD will be her new best friend.

My 12 mg of dex, is tolerable, but I still had red face for a few hours and hyped out cleaning. Oh, well, that’s par for the course.
We’ve been eating out on the patio, and last night had a nice Cobb salad. Even my son, who’s never home it seems, ate with us. And tonight he said he’d be home as he has midterms soon. So I think ill just grill some burgers. I need some rolls. Or, I make make crockpot meatballs and make sammies. I have the meatballs in the freezer.

I have work tomorrow and then Wednesday I’ll have my daughter drive me too Winco in her new to her car.
We didn’t trade in her vw( too low of a trade in) and it works fine. So I may drive it for a while and then decide if we’ll keep it or sell. We could get maybe $3000 for it. So we’ll see. We’re going to pay her the $3000 to help her with the down payment and then if we sell we’ll keep that money.
My van that I love is 16 years old with 145000 miles. Still runs great but does need work so. Her VW is 15 years old, has had work done( new timing belt, tires brake stuff) but only has 84,000 miles. So we’ll see.

I did most of my fly lady zone ( the bathroom ) already and yesterday I finished the kitchen zone because last week on Monday I had the bladder infection, so nothing got done.
B has my shelves ready to go up on the one white wall and it’s going to make my vintage catherine holm really pop. We need to buy more pait for the rest of the kitchen . Probably 2 gallons as we’re going over a green.
But, I figure one wall at a time is all I can do.
I’m loving the idea of the white space as in the future touch ups re painting will be very easy.
Well, off to do something.

No matter what you do, dex is dex!

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So, I’ve been busy. Dex busy. I’ve been off dexamethesome for about 7 weeks. We wanted to see how rev would be alone. My number went up imagejust a bit, but I decided I’m not waiting for it to go higher. Well, I loved being off dex, but other things crept in. One, my foot problems amplified. And now I need to see a podiatrist. The X-ray looks like arthritis but who knows. Then my energy of course wasn’t as high. My husband and did something special every Sunday instead of me being flat out after the dex high. So, when I took it Saturday night, the same routine. Sweating, peeing, and then busy energy in the morning. But it was yesterday that was a little over the top. I cleaned and did a ton of things from 7 am till @2 pm. I made dinner, cooked black beans for the week. Made a cherry pie, and cooked butternut squash for soup. That’s on top of vacuuming, washing the couch cushions and geez, here’s the wild thing. Cleaning every grate hole in our propane wall heater. Hello? Am I nuts. ??
Well, it was ok. I feel okay today and I’m off to the library shortly.

Apart from that, it’s cold here and it’s suppose to rain this week. Tomorrow I need to go pay our house insurance( more money out the window)… And then a Costco trip (more money out the window)for a pie for thanksgiving.( I’ll freeze it then take it out). Plus some other basics. I’d rather not go but Costco toilet paper is calling…

We had a fun and ( more money out the window) trip to Ikea. We go about once a year and the reason this time was to get some sort of curtains to help keep heat in.
I am not a curtain person at all. None of my windows have them but this time of year I hate being cold more than I dislike curtains so off we went. Ok, so one thing led to another and $$$$. But it was really fun.

Dinner is planned,the butternut squash soup and maybe some pasta.

Applegate fire and budget woes!

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So, from my blog most of you know I work at a little branch library. It’s Applegate. So yesterday a fire started in 7 different areas on I-80. It closed the freeway and by afternoon evening there were mandatory evacuations. Pretty scary. I don’t work Thursdays so I’m ok, but will the library open. If she can get there probably. Hopefully it’s all better by this afternoon but it’s smokey here. Scary to think about evacuating. Grab your pets and go. So I’m worried about some of our older patrons who I know we’re evacuated. I hope their safe.

So on to budget stuff. We had our mortgage modified under one of the first Obama programs. It was great.and easy. But now the interest rate has changed per the modification and our payment has gone up $150. That’s quite a bit for us, but what’s really scaring me is it will change again next year too. I didn’t know that or chose to forget. But another $200 increase will kill us. We will have to sell. Any number crunching I’ve done for retirement is based on the old payment amount. So, it is difficult to think about. I’m not a mover and with my health always in question it will not be easy. But there is no

way with the new numbers could we do it. I’m going to call the mortgage company and see what they say but probably there’s nothing they can do as this was part of the loan agreement. Its very depressing to me and I hate to think about the stress if it all. I am also a planner and I guess I’d better start planning our options. Rent? Whatever.? I don’t know… It’s just hard to deal with this at our age.

otherwise, I’ve done well with not buying lots of groceries. Today I need to get 1/2 and 1/2 and some other things.

We also still do not have the car back from the repair shop. This is now 6 weeks and that is so messed up I can hardly deal with it.

Plus, since I’m off dex, everything is hurting more as dex is of course a steroid that is anti inflammatory. So that completely sucks. Yeah great to be off dex, boooo, I’m hurting.

gee what other bad news, oh the trees. We have now another one dying. The tree guy said it’s way complicated to get these down. It’s probably okay to leave them as they are down the hill. So we looked at the oak near the house and one pine. $1700 is the quote. We said ok, but now I’m really thinking we can’t afford it. They are not a threat yet so should we wait. I’m really insure. We really have so little savings and this would be a big hit. Plus we have property taxes due in December. Ugh…. We just can’t cut a break …

Well, on that dismal note, I’m off for the day.

October budget stuff and other news

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So, yesterday was doctor day. My labs all look good. M-protein at .3 ,so good. It has been in this range since last February . He says I’m stable and he wants to try dropping dex,and see if revlimid will work alone. I’m willing to try. The only experience I’ve had with this is when I first relapsed in 2010, I tried revlimid alone and it didn’t work. But, it could be different now.,my body will know pretty quickly and since I see him once a month and have blood work, I’m not too worried. ( well, maybe a little). It’ll be weird to be off dex, but probably nice. I actually won’t see him till November as I have to work 2 Wednesdays in November , and other days don’t work either for one reason or another. But I’ll still get the labs done, so we will know if something changes. Hey, the great news is the labs are now on an online portal so it makes it so easy to check and less stressful.

OctoberI  budget….well, im going to try and keep groceries low. Ha, I think always say that. But seriously I am. We’re going to do a freezer / pantry challenge and try and buy only essentials. We’ve been going to the produce market for vegies, so I’ll keep doing that.

we have to rent a wood splitter this weekend, and buy a car battery. I bought some garlic on line and I may look at potatoes. I really want to plant these at the right time( fall) to get a harvest. Let’s see what else. We need to pay the car insurance bill some on the credit card, and I’m hoping that’s it. Our Christmas fund is funded at $1000 but I always seem to go over with extras like food and little things. I’m not buying a real tree this year so that’ll save $.

November is house insurance and thanksgiving food. I’m still thinking thanksgiving menus and I’m pretty sure I’ll stick to basics.

More applesauce

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We got maybe 12 more jars done. About half are apple butter. We have at least 2 more batches to make,but I’ll wait till next weekend.

This was a tough dex week. I didn’t sleep well for 2 nights. Today, it’s very smokey here due to a fire so I’m not going out. I’m just going to read and nap. Yesterday, I made chicken pot pie and put black beans in the crock pot for the week. Tonight we will have black bean chili with tortillas.

Not too busy of a week, work, take one kitty to the vet for annual shots and do some shopping.

I’ve decided to limit my internet time, too much blog reading, so will see how that goes.

Sleepless in Seattle , no Meadow Vista!

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ImageArghhh, no sleep last night. It’s a dex night but this is ridiculous. I went to bed at 10 ,slept till the cat woke me up at 1:44, then never went back to sleep. Got up at4:55 , had coffee, then we did our walk. Now, I’m ready for a nap. But I have already done some stuff. Listed some vintage lunch pails. And I’m going to list a few other things today. I have a few Flylady things to do but that’s it. Tonight is egg salad sandwiches, so the eggs are hardboiled already. I need to get my LLS forms ready for my insurance co pay. It’s going to be less since we’ve had a reduction in how much we pay. I am very grateful to the LLS for their support. 

I might go out to the barn and declutter some more but will see if I’m still awake. Plus we are having very hot weather, 100 degrees so not to conducive to being out side.

Dex Monday!

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Well, the 20 mg is noticeable . I’ll go back to 16 mg next week and compare. But my face is pretty red today, and on 16 mg not so noticeable. Plus, I’m zooming around doing things. So far, making potato salad eith potatoes from our garden, making the last of the tomatoes I froze last year into sauce, swish and swiped the bathroom, took sheets off the bed… And going to make some whole wheat bread. Umm, oh, walked my 2 miles. So this is definetley more than the 16 mg. I guess ,I’m curious , is it going to effect my m protein. Who knows. I’m still in a very good remission on rev/dex, and there’s been no increase other than minor. 

Later, I’m dropping off thrift store stuff. Not a lot but every little thing that goes feels good. 

Almost finished the one wall of the barn that’s the Legos, Star Wars, Star Trek , memento boxes and Christmas and camping. So it looks better and I got rid of 2 empty bins that were old. So all in all good!

 

JKWP update

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We are on day 388. I haven’t been Miss Enthusiastic, but I’m still doing it……

ImageHere’s the park around 5:30.

so I worked yesterday, and left a note for UPS, I’d be home  around 2:15. He didn’t show up till @3:45. So , I started on time last night. Tonight is dex, I’m thinking of taking 20 this week and 16 next week? I don’t know I’ll probably just keep it at 16 and see what my m spike is next month. :

Made cole slaw for dinner and since I bought large tomatoes at Costco, I think I’ll make BLT’s for dinner with cole slaw.  Otherwise stuffed tomatoes ? I’ll see when I get home from the library. More library drama. My daughter did NOT get the clerk job. She’s worked there 5 years as a page and is in a MLS program. They hired outside  which completely sucks and does not show that they care at all about helping someone like my daughter who is so qualified. But the real clincher is now there is going to be a clerk 20 hours a week position open in the branch she works at. She is scheduled only for 12 hours at this branch next pay period…… So the question is , is this going to be a lateral for someone, or is she going to get this. If she doesn’t she is going to quit, and you know what, I agree. 

She is so talented, completely tech savy, the patrons love her, but if admin can’t see it then she’s better off going to school full time and finishing. So that she update on library dramas.

oh, I know , does anyone use fitbit.? I thought I’d get one for my husband as his company is doing a walking challenge..

Update….

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Okay, after spending half the day calling optimum RX and being on hold ( 4 times) finally at 4:50 they said no we haven’t gotten the order. I called down to mercy , talked with the nurse and she called them. So I’m out floating in the pool and sure enough they call back 10 minutes later. So finally it will be delivered tomorrow . The problem is I won’t be home till 2:15 nor will anyone else. So I’m kinda taking a chance that ups will come later. I will leave him a note and put it on our gate but still………

my m protein is .30 . I like .25 better. So if the 16 mg of dex doesn’t keep the m protein down, I’ll go back to 20 , I guess. 

Really who knows if that’s it, but I’d still go back if that’s what it takes.

what a day!

 

Monday, my no dex day!

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It is so nice to have sorta a normal day today and yesterday. Not being on dex let’s me get some things done that on “normal” dex weeks I don’t do. So yesterday I did some gardening. We’re going to try out the square foot garden idea. We have a big garden and herb garden but iwant to try and grow all our vegies this summer and have enough to freeze. My daughter is a big gardener and really does most of the seed starting etc. but I have always gardened even as a child. We bought a new lemon Meyer tree to replace the once that got hit with frost and now don’t produce. So we will keep that in. Pot. And put in the green house come winter. It’s so great to have your own lemons. So today we are going to put in more lettuce, chard, radishes and whatever else I can find. It’s suppose to start raining tomorrow so it’s good timing.

i had my blood test this morning and what a hassle. I got there 7:20, no lab work is there. So I think ok, I’ll go over to Starbucks  ,get a coffee and wait till 8 and then call the cancer center. So, that’s what I do and find out he forgot to put the order in , so I have to wait for the nurse to come in at 9. So, home I go and she calls like 15 min later and puts the order in. So back to the lab at 9 and I’m back home by 9:17. Still a hassle.then I ask her to please be sure my revlimid order is in as this is my week off but I start Friday. Ok, she’ll call him at the other center. So, I’m the patient, should I be the one having to figure this all out?.