October 19, 2026

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (333)

Year 7 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 7, Day 167: I actually fell asleep last night without a sleep aid! That’s … it’s been months since I could get to sleep naturally! But oh my gosh I’m creaky and achy today. We had time in the pool this weekend and it coincided with my throat FINALLY healing up – both good things! However, I also gave my liver a break today and didn’t take pain meds until evening so got to enjoy the new pain in all its glory.

We received confirmation that we have been assigned a table at a craft fair this fall so now JB and I are cranking out the papercrafts like it’s our job. It sort of is! I’m not sure how much of each product to bring for a crowd this big (hundreds) in this economy (terrible) for a whole 6 hours. Thinking positively, we’ve branched out from their art on greeting cards to adding prints, stickers, and buttons of their designs too. They’re all very cute!

Thinking less positively, I’m debating whether it’s worth updating the online shop. It doesn’t get any traffic anymore since Twitter was destroyed and I haven’t had time to do much with it on Bluesky. But that can be a question for later. I’ve been taking progress photos and maybe those can serve for the online postings.

I’ve got to get cracking in my sewing, too, though I can’t imagine that I’ll be able to make a great deal more of them by the time we show. It takes about 3 hours per item and that’s a lot of time and related energy.

Year 7, Day 168: I’m about to go to war with our shower water pressure. It’s been dwindling a little more each day, and just stopped like it was choked off today! What the heck?? I’m not as sanguine about tackling a possible repair here on my own as I was (also not) about fixing the oven. Plumbing is scarier than some oven surgery. I don’t want to have to open up the walls but we are worried this is because of a leak somewhere. For the moment, this is getting backburnered though, we have another shower to use and we simply don’t have the energy to tackle this.

I asked my trainer to crank my workouts way down last month because I’m being pulled in so many directions it’s not even funny. It’s become more and more draining to do even the barest minimum workout, though, which is both frustrating on principle and in the whole chronic illness this problem is not solveable kind of way.

Year 7, Day 169: I’ve been fighting a sad and losing war with the powdery mildew that’s come back to attack my snap peas. I’ve been spraying the plant with a vinegar and dish soap solution to try to treat the affected leaves to no avail. It’s a bit depressing and has led to me neglecting the garden a bit. Usually every day I get a bit of joy from a tiny bit of growth, a new little tendril poking up, a little bundle of flower starting to develop, but the plant essentially looked dead all last week. It was just a matter of time before I had to rip it out, like last year’s, I thought. I had germinated a back up in the house which is growing pretty hardily but hadn’t quite gotten to the point where it seemed safe to

But this morning I spy some little bits of white peeking out from under new leaves! Not just one or two, either, there are at least half a dozen, maybe more. Maybe all hope is not lost.

Year 7, Day 170: Getting near the end here. I’ve put together personal thank you notes for vendors who have worked with us over the years. I wanted to thank them myself. They’ll never get that acknowledgement from the faceless corporation that doesn’t give two hoots about anyone, before I close this chapter.

This week’s loaf of foccacia was a little flat. Turns out I forgot my lukewarm water temp range and mixed in 120 degree water instead of 100-115. Whoops. Still edible! It just didn’t grow much. Oh and I oversalted the top. That was much less great but it’s easy to brush off the extra salt. Ooh! Maybe the next go should be 1.5x to get a taller loaf next time for sandwiches. I’ll skip the kosher salt on top, and stick with a bit of sea salt, since the kosher salt seems to do something funny to the top.

Year 7, Day 171: It’s a bit frustrating that I’ve been taking Tragic Sandwich‘s advice from a few months back to rest as much as I can and YET it’s still not enough. I send myself back to bed for 1-2 hours of rest every weekday and it’s still like peeling myself, a caramel bog, back out when the timer goes off to go pick up a child. No, it’s a lot frustrating. *wild gesticulating*

My sleep in general has been an ever-changing beast. It used to be non-existent and stressful, full of screaming nightmares. When the buyout happened, sleep was only possible in chunks of a few hours and I could taste adrenaline every morning so was too keyed up to sleep any more than that. By the summer, sleep deprivation was so bad that my doc and I agreed to try Ambien just to get some hours logged at night. Now, my body craves more and more sleep, no matter how much I get.

SmolAc has been going around dripping like a faucet this week. Thankfully their throat isn’t painful anymore, it was earlier, but I’m still downing antivirals and directing them to the tissues. Crossing all the things that this one doesn’t overcome my faux immune system.

That temporary awful thing I’m dreading starts today. It won’t be that long in actual time but it’ll feel like four lifetimes. Wish me luck and survival?

October 12, 2026

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (332)

Year 7 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 7, Day 160: Work stress is coming to a head here for PiC and even though I’ve been seeing the train’s headlights for a while, I still don’t know how to help.

He’s been working so damn hard. He’s trying to do an impossible amount of work AND be here to help out a lot with the kids so that I don’t die. This leaves him working late into the nights and running on 2-4 hours of sleep and that’s totally unsustainable.

Today, promotions were announced again and he was passed over again because they require you to put together this whole promotion packet thing to be considered. So they won’t consider him for promotion. WITH WHAT TIME?!

I was supposed to be so much more free now with less and less work to do. But my damn throat pain is sending pain up to my ears even with the lidocaine because I had the audacity to eat. I am not happy to have a THIRD mystery pain thing, and even more unhappy that it’s compounding his stress because he’s trying to be everywhere at once while none of his work efforts are being recognized in a tangible way. I’d be mad too!

Year 7, Day 161: SmolAc’s first elementary school parent teacher conference was happily a breeze. They are adjusting really well. Their teacher likes their energy (has lots but channels it appropriately and knows when to let loose and more importantly when not to), their vocabulary, and their critical thinking. Apparently when the other kids aren’t understanding a concept, she will call on them to explain how they think about it and it helps the other kids. That’s really not something I would have predicted, it took literally 2.5 years for them to even be willing to speak in class, now they’re an explainer? I’m so happy that they’re happy. Though I would be happier if the other kids would finally learn to keep their hands to themselves! They aren’t distressed by it but they have been telling us about the kids who hit them at school (after which they tell the kids to knock it off and if they won’t, then the teacher is called in). It’s being handled in real time like it should be and they’re not coming home bruised in body or spirit, they’re just very matter of factly letting us know. They’re still very happy to go to school and enjoying loads.

For JB, however, I am displeased with their new school. TWO teachers in subjects that absolutely should NOT be using AI platforms in teaching – because the point of doing the work in those subjects is to learn HOW to do it by doing it and editing it- have been telling the kids to use AI platforms for edits without bothering to inform parents. I’ve been very alert to the introduction of this tech and have pushed back strongly on the requirement to use it when the principal claimed that policy is to allow families to make the call. Sure is hard for them to make that call when you never tell them that your kid is a guinea pig, isn’t it??

Year 7, Day 162: I should continue to read up on the propositions for voting, but I don’t wanna.

I should sort more kids clothes for donation. I also don’t wanna.

I should figure out the Cricut and make some stickers but don’t wanna.

I’m surrounded by so many chores needing doing and I don’t want to do anything.

I have a sneaking suspicion this is depressive sluggishness and would LIKE to shake it off but how? Or is it intense fatigue and depression from the current excessive pain on top of helping out a friend with childcare all all month on top of my kid’s aftercare? That’s also possible.

So for now I push myself to get the kids to school, rest for a while, do a few chores like pay bills or run the laundry, pick up the kids, feed them all, manage SmolAc’s homework and home learning until JB comes home and sort of keep an eye on their pacing through their homework and music practice.

Just survive one day at a time and, if I can, get myself to make some basic donation decisions already because the books and clothes and toys, outgrown hand me downs mainly, are piling up and doing damage to my peace of mind too.

Year 7, Day 163: I’m slowly replacing all the things, services and such, that we have paid through work because my privileges will be revoked in a couple of months and we have to be ready to shift seamlessly if PiC’s layoff lands any time soon. I get a free phone line through Comcast for a year and I’ve set that up to have an extra hot spot on hand, along with a very limited release use case for JB to be able to reach me and PiC on a check in and emergency basis. We’ve been using PiC’s work phone for the data when the internet cacks up a hairball.

I need a good replacement for Adobe since that is subscription that’ll go away sooner than later. I tested RevPDF for a couple weeks but I hate it. Claire Willett advocated for SmallPDF (referral link) which looks very promising so I’ve gotten myself set up with that and will be giving it a good test to make sure it does what’s needed.

I was able to do what I needed at PDF24 (fill a form and sign the doc) but it’s in browser so I wouldn’t feel comfortable using this for anything confidential. For confidential stuff I would only be happy with a reader/editor app that I downloaded directly to my computer and wasn’t loaded into someone’s servers. If anyone has a better alternative, please share!

Year 7, Day 164: All my labwork came back negative for anything solveable so, dammit, it could be outside referral time. The one bit of good news is after 3 weeks of intense pain (up from the 6 weeks of moderate barely tolerated pain), I think the increased dosing of the antivirals broke the blockade. The swelling finally seems to be reversing course – not getting worse each day. If I’m lucky, this will also start to get better 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

What a huge, temporary, relief. It’s been 3.5 years of surviving with yet another daily medication to just kind of manage the problem. I want answers. Preferably answers I can DO something about. But that process is a slow one, I’ve been warned.