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Missing Skill

Today’s bloganury prompt is all about the missing skill you wish you had. I haven’t participated bloganury yet, but with nothing else compelling to write here I am. The one missing skill I wish I had was singing. I cannot carry a tune to save my life and I love singing. In fact, I’m quite jealous of all the amazing singers in my life. This is also why I was in band and not choir.

So I was finally able to workout today. I’ve taken the past couple of days off because I jacked my knee up. Consequently, I substituted body weight exercises for the plyometric exercises. While I was able to get through the workout, my knee didn’t tolerate it very well. It’s swollen and a bit weak. I’m probably gonna need to wear a knee brace when I run and workout. Obviously, I have my fingers crossed hoping I can run tomorrow. If my knee doesn’t tolerate it, I’ll pivot to walking immediately.

Since the boys are back in school, it’s back to the status quo during the day. My door is always open to my sales assistant, who never judge me for my missing skill. Even if I’m singing Metallica poorly at the top of my lungs. They probably think I’m trying to speak their language. Nonetheless, thank god for dogs that love us unconditionally.

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Winter Break

Winter break is over for the boys. They’ll finally head back to school tomorrow after a nice break. Of course, they’re just in time for the omicron variant, which means we’ll receive a boundless number of emails from school about it. Honestly, the Covid fatigue is real. I’m over all of it. Fortunately, there is no chance that they’ll go virtual, which will save my sanity.

Tomorrow the puppies and I will get back to our well established routine. While the boys are home, the puppies are a bit all over the place. They bark to get into our room and then bark or get out. Unfortunately, there’s just so much going on that they can’t decide where they want to hangout. Normally, I leave my door open so they can come and go as they please. However, that isn’t feasible when the boys are home from school.

I finished The Diary of Ann Boleyn, by Robin Maxwell last night. It was an entertaining read that fed my Tudor obsession very nicely. I’ve already ordered her other books about the Tudors. It’s all Hillary Mantel’s fault. Her Wolf Hall trilogy about Thomas Cromwell is absolutely outstanding. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Tonight I’ll be starting another Mantel novel albeit not one that involves the Tudors. After this book, I’ll circle back to Robin Maxwell and the Tudors.

Reading has long been a love of mine. For many years, I neglected this love, but not anymore. I’ve made reading daily a priority for the last three years, which has been wonderful. I’m slowly working my way through the top 500 novels. What books have you been reading? Did you ready anything interesting over winter break?

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Back To It

Well I was back to it today after taking most of last week off. Unfortunately my computer, or more to the point my wifi, didn’t want to cooperate this morning. Fortunately, I was able to resolve the issue relatively quickly and then had no issues the rest of the day. Thankfully, I was much busier at work today than I have been. Woohoo!


It felt good to be back. Admittedly, I like and need the structure. Before going back to work today, I spent the weekend relaxing at home. I baked a tiramisu and prime rib roast on Saturday, which was mighty tasty. Yesterday, the hubby and I took the puppies for a walk in the Glades. It was an absolutely beautiful morning. The puppies had a great time. I, however, was disappointed that we didn’t see any alligators.

The rest of the day, we binge watched the Office and It’s Always Sunny. We had planned on having leftovers for dinner, but I changed my mind. Consequently, I sent Goalielocks and his GF to the store to get supplies for homemade pizzas. The only crust they had available was mini pizzas and a brand I’ve never eaten before. Thankfully, the new crust was mighty tasty and the perfect size.


Hubby and the Mayor are back to it tonight. That is back at hockey practice as we resume our normal schedule. This of course means a mad dash until SAHOF (the state tournament.) I’m loving my new planner and productivity stickers. Hopefully, I’ll be able to stay on top of our collective, crazy schedules.

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Christmas

We had a great Christmas even if it was a little more low key than previous years. My Christmas started when I rolled over in bed and the Mayor was there to wake me up. As soon as I rolled over, he asked if it was time to open up gifts. Spoiler alert, he also did the same thing the next morning only that time he was asking to go to Dunkin’. Eventually, the Mayor was able to coax me out of bed, so he could open gifts.

The bigger hurdle in the early morning wasn’t me, but Goalielocks. Unsurprisingly, he took awhile to wake up. Once up both boys were excited to open their gifts. Honestly, it was a weird holiday since they opened some accessories, but their main present was still in transit. This year we bought to big family gifts, a squat rack and a new tv for the loft. Naturally, the boys were excited for both.

Our annual Christmas brunch was an absolute success. Fortunately, we had very little leftovers, which is great. I certainly don’t need to eat caramel rolls for a week. We put Anakin in his crate since he gets aggressive when people come into the house. Unfortunately, he doesn’t do well with very little kids, so he stayed in his crate until Ava left. Meanwhile, Athena was showered with lots of sweet love and attention by Ava. Athena was so patient and loving with her.

Some how we started watching the Best of the Crocodile Hunter, so that was the background music to our brunch. I forgot how much I loved Steve Irwin and his show. He had the best energy and was just a riot to watch. Shortly, after I told my brother Jake probably wouldn’t be able to c due to work, Jake called. Honestly, Jake’s call home was the best gift ever. After company left, we napped and relaxed before heading to the Kennedy’s for dinner.

Dinner at the Kennedy’s was wonderful. As always, Hanh cooked an absolute feast for everyone. She’s an amazing cook! After dinner, we had some drinks before deciding to play some games. Note to self, the games may have gone better sober. We had an absolute blast playing Heads Up and Scattergories. I’ll tell you one lesson the Hubby and I took away from the evening, the Mayor isn’t allowed to play Scattegories with the grandparents. All in all, Christmas was a wonderful reminder of how blessed we are.

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Christmas Eve Eve

It’s Christmas Eve Eve and I’m not any closer to being ready for Christmas than I was this time last week. I’ve still got a ton of baking and shopping to do. Not to mention the horrific job of wrapping the presents. I literally hate wrapping copious amounts of gifts.

Tomorrow I’ll be baking the Finnish cookies, more mint cookies, parfaits, caramels and I’ll start the caramel rolls. It will be a busy day in the kitchen. I’m excited for the Finnish cookies. This year I’ll be making them with cloud berry jelly, lingonberry jelly, huckle berry jelly and gooseberry jelly. These jellies will also go great with the krumkakes I’m making Christmas morning.

I’m excited to make the caramels. I haven’t made them in over twenty years. They’re a bit time consuming, but they are mighty tasty. I’m also going to experiment with trollkrem, which is a Norwegian dessert. I’ll be using the lingonberry jelly to make it since I couldn’t find lingonberries anywhere stateside. We’ll see how the day goes because if I run out of the time, the trollkrem will have to wait for NYE.

It was a bit funny at work because the first email said we’d be getting of three hours early on Christmas. Christmas Eve is the 24th of course, but since Christmas is Saturday my company is observing Christmas on Christmas Eve. Consequently, that makes today Christmas Eve in the eyes of my company. Thank goodness this wasn’t confusing at all.

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Great Appointment

I had a great appointment with my endo today. She’s lowering my Synthroid dose (sort of,) which should normalize my thyroid levels. I say sort of because I’ll be cutting one Synthroid pill in half on Sundays. This way I don’t have to throw out the prescription I just refilled. Lastly, I don’t have to go back until June, which is also great news.

The rest of the day was not as great as my great appointment. While work was hopping yesterday, today it was deader than a door nail. I love my job, but I hate being bored. Obviously, I can’t wait until it picks up again in January. I work tomorrow, Thursday and Monday. After that I’ll be off for the rest of the year. Yay!

I was concerned about running with my thyroid levels being off, but my doctor cleared me for activity. Yay! Unfortunately, either my allergies or the common cold starting kicking my arse today. Consequently, I decided to rest today instead of running. I’m still planning on doing my BBG workout tomorrow morning. Unless, I wake up and feel like a truck hit me, which would be super lame.

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Rest

I’ve been all about rest since the craziness ended. Fortunately, as busy as AEP was for us, the days following have been the polar opposite. In fact, I don’t remember it being this slow last year. I mean, I’m talking a handful of leads per day, which is insanity. Thankfully, our leaders have been generous with cutting us loose when it’s completely dead. Consequently, I was done with work by 3:30.

Nonetheless, I’m still recuperating from AEP. My body still feels likes it is in overdrive. Well, probably because it is. I got my lab results back and I’m super hyper again. In fact, my TSH is barely detectable. My T3 is way out of range and my T4 is also high. Clearly, my doc will be making some adjustments to my thyroid meds come Tuesday morning.

Well, I’ve been feeling restless. I haven’t been feeling unwell. At least, I don’t feel as bad as when I was first diagnosed. It could explain the issues I’ve been having with my shoulders and legs. When you’re thyroid is off, your tendons can’t function like they’re supposed to, which can lead to frozen shoulder and other tendon issues. It’s also the reason it took so long for my posterior tibial tendon to heal.

I’m absolutely loving my wireless headset. I’ve been so productive at home while work has been slow. It’s nice to feel like I’m finally accomplishing something around the house. Moreover, it’s nice not being tethered to a chair for the whole day. I love being able to be mobile all day long. Obviously, it’s also much better for my back. My back was starting to get angry after those long AEP days.

Jake called this afternoon. He looked and sounded great. We loved that behind him there was a picture of Prison Mike. If you watch the Office, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Anyway, I’m enjoying this well deserved period of rest, so I’m gonna get back to it.

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Kindness

So I wrote about struggles last night and choosing kindness. I thought I’d share an example of kindness we witnessed on Thanksgiving. This year, like every other year, we headed to my brother’s in Boca for Thanksgiving dinner. This time it would be our family, Richard and his wife along with a Richard’s dad and his partner.

Shortly after we got there, I noticed an individual I didn’t recognize. I thought perhaps he came with Richard’s dad and his partner. This young man was non-verbal autistic and was plugging his ears due to the noise. He walked around the island looking at the food. Suddenly, he put his hands into the brownie tray and grabbed a handful of brownies and ate them.

After he finished the brownies, he moved on to the chips and dip. At this point, several of us are horrified that whoever’s he’s with isn’t stopping him from eating potato chips and French onion dip directly from the container with a spoon. Eventually, my brother and sister-in-law figured it out. It was there new neighbor’s son, who is non-verbal.

My brother walked over to his house to talk to his parents. Their only response to my brother was that they had told him not to go inside the house. Obviously, this didn’t stop him from entering the house. My brother came back into the house to escort him out. However, before Jon walked the surprise visitor back to his house, he put the dip and bowl of chips on a plate for him to take home.

While my brother and his wife could have raised hell over their neighbor walking in and helping himself to their food on Thanksgiving, they didn’t. They chose to treat him with kindness and dignity. Unfortunately, his parents don’t supervise him very well. This story could have easily had a different ending. After all, this is Florida where people shoot first and ask questions later.

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Made It

We made it to the weekend. Thank God. Except nothing really changes for me since I’m working. The Mayor has two games today and the Goalielocks has two tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the first time I can see his team place since Labor Day. It will be nice to spend a day with the family even if it’s in Orlando.

The week has been an ass kicker for several reasons, but work has gone well which is awesome sauce. That’s about the only thing that has gone well. As always, the highlight of my week is Jake’s call home. He looks good and sounds good. I can’t wait to visit him once busy season is done.

This morning’s drive to Dunkin is was sponsored by Carrie Underwood.

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Beautiful Weather

Beautiful weather has been here for the last several days. The humidity is lows and the temperature is just right. This is the weather I wait for every year. Of course, what kind of Minnesota would I be if I didn’t talk about the weather. Naturally, my Florida is much better than the weather in Minnesota where they saw snow this week. I definitely don’t miss winter.

The dogs are also enjoying the beautiful weather. Mostly because I love being outside, which means they get to play around. Instead of the quick in and out of summer, I’ve been letting them hangout outside for a bit. This has been a great way to break up my day since I haven’t been taking a lunch break during AEP. After our outdoor adventures, we all go back to work. After all, they’re my sales support staff.

Unfortunately, my brother’s dog Diego passed away this morning. It made me think of how much our puppies and our family’s puppies shape our world. For my boys, my brother’s dogs Oliver and Shelby were the first dogs they spent a lot of time with. Their Grandma Sandy had dogs, the legends Pepper and Pronto, but they were pretty young when they were still around. Nevertheless, these sweet puppies have colored the pages of our collective memories. It’s incredibly hard to let them go because Maya, Shelby and Diego were the best.