Juicy Surgery Deets to Come!

 Day of surgery went well and I plan to go into some great detail as soon as I have the strength to dedicate to it. I’ve taken notes and talked to the doctor and did a bit of research so I’ll have plenty to go through even before my post-op visit June 12th. 

For now, simple details that I’ll likely mention again in the full post. Gallbladder did. Or just have polyps but gallstones and a weird little condition called cholesterolosis or ‘strawberry bladder’. I’m literally weird inside and out and this tickles the hell out of me. A duct that was too short needed to be catheterized to be drained and he’ll be monitoring that as I go through recovery. But my liver is not only NOT fatty or scarred but back to a healthy state. And the elevated liver enzymes and cholesterol and triglycerides can all be attributed directly to the gallbladder and I’ll see marked improvement of those over the next 4-6 months. Which also means the obstacles to losing weight and possibly even the high blood pressure will also see satisfying improvements.

Sometimes you know it’s not your lifestyle choices. Sometimes it’s freak genetics. And da-yum, does it feel good to be right once again. I just unloaded a little package deal and now my devotion to cautious but persistent healing begins again. Sore but already in so many ways much better than the collection of symptoms that plagued me before. I am beyond grateful for the doctors here and the amazing staff at the hospital I’ve been getting surgeries in. I’m grateful my dad took the leap and finally moved so I could finally unlock everything behind those invisible obstacles. And I’m proud of myself for breaking through doubt and fear and advocating for myself once more. 

As I said, more to come, hopefully a bit more organized so those who need it can glean a little insight if some of their experiences align here and are looking for comfort. That’s really my driving purpose with sharing openly.

Weird Life Hacks

 Do you ever realize that you probably have one or two or ten life hacks floating around in your brain but they’re just so random that you never think to actually compile them? Okay, that’s everyone, but I do have two in particular I decided to share because I remember Googling solutions (are we still saying that?) more than once and my particular solutions are kind of absent from all of them. 

Which basically means, yes, try them yourselves at your own risk but I have done these multiple times and they do work for me at least. Take from that what you will.

First… those painful swollen taste buds. Searches always say saltwater rinse (blech), apply ice, hydrate, keep moist, etc. So when you hear my solution, you’ll wonder how the hell that landed… here goes. Stick out your tongue between your teeth and lips, wipe the saliva from the area with your fingers or just air dry and… wait. Drying the tip of your tongue feels super weird but you’ll notice the painful taste bud actually becomes less sensitive as it dries. I usually leave it out like this for as long as I can stand it (usually no more than 10-15 minutes) then I go ahead and moisten my tongue again, drink water, make sure it feels normal then repeat if it still bothers me. 

I’ve never had to do it more than twice but instead of days of avoiding and wincing, the swelling and sensitivity is gone in less than a day. My little theory here is that drying actually works to starve and desensitize it while also keeping the dark moist environment from irritating it. I still go easy on it and make sure I keep up with dental hygiene but usually after a nap or sleep, it’s gone. Keep in mind I also do not have chronic dry mouth issues or any condition where this could cause problems. I actually stumbled across this because I have the tendency to ‘pick’ or relentlessly agitate wounds/scabs/bruises if I don’t find a way to isolate them. Tongues are tricky because they want to constantly move about. I’ve been in states where I really need to focus so I ended up putting my tongue in ‘timeout’ and momentarily forgetting about it to where it dried out and realizing it was significantly less sensitive and distracting after doing so. So since I remember weird details like that, I just started doing it every time and there was a clear pattern. If you’re prone to swollen taste buds, you may want to see if this cuts down on the healing time like it does for me!

The second one is plantar wart removal. I had one of these suckers when I was working at Petco and nothing worked. I didn’t have health insurance at the time so seeing a doctor wasn’t going to happen so I was getting a bit desperate. I tried the usual; duct tape, clear nail polish, paring (slicing off the dead erupted skin with a sharp sterile knife), wart removal pads and freezing kits. While the freezing kits gave me the best temporary relief, this sucker was persistent. So what worked? This one isn’t entirely outside of advice but it wasn’t this specific. I used a combination of paring and opaque nail polish. To start, you’ll want to pare the erupted part to the level of the skin around it. Do NOT try to dig in. You can do some serious permanent damage and a keloid scar can be more painful than a plantar wart so go ONLY to the skin level. You may or may not see a black ‘seed’ in the wart. Don’t be tempted to fish it out. I’ll explain why as we go. Once you do get to skin level, clean the area again and make sure it’s completely dry then use an opaque or dark colored nail polish to dab and smooth a thin layer, let it dry, then apply one or two more thin layers. Don’t do it thickly thinking you’ll save time. It won’t dry right and it won’t stay put, both of which are crucial. Then just leave it alone up until the pain comes back or the nail polish comes off. You may notice that the wart’s seed is closer to the surface. This is something I noticed myself but again, don’t be tempted to dig it out. You need it to keep rising naturally as this is a sign that your body is helping to reject it. Again, pare the skin carefully only to the surface and repeat the steps of cleaning and applying new nail polish (make sure you are sterilizing the knife and the skin each time; also you really shouldn’t be using either the knife or the nail polish for any other purpose so it’s best to use an old nail polish you intend to throw out or one that you don’t love and don’t mind getting rid of). 

Though I spent months with the other treatments failing, this one slowly but completely resolved the issue noticeably in a little over a week and three parings. By the third or fourth paring, I didn’t need to apply nail polish again; the seed scraped off with the paring and the relief was almost immediate. The skin looked healthy and new and pink, like baby skin, so I cleaned it up, applied an unscented moisturizer and that was that. No scarring, no infection, no need for expensive solutions after all. But again, everything affects each of us differently so this may be a terrific solution for you or you’ll just need to try other options. This one was one where I was able to still work on my feet without pain and the return of pain was an easy indicator to give it attention again. There were 2-3 days in between needing to treat it. You can shower normally (I wouldn’t bathe because it could over moisten the skin and polish) just don’t scrub or you’ll need to wait for your skin to dry completely to repaint it. I definitely had a smoother time of paring after a shower but I wouldn’t do it while the skin is still very wet either. Paring seems to be more controllable when the skin is a little tough. 

Again, I don’t know exactly why the color nail polish worked so much better; it could be the formulation or it could be blocking the light itself that brought the virus/damage/etc closer to the surface (maybe ‘blinding’ it from thinking it was more secure than it was?). I don’t know the exact science but I do think the the adherence but temporary quality of the polish allowed me to be more sensitive to when it was time to treat it again without irritating the skin around it or letting moisture in. Duct tape is probably operating on the same theory but the padding could desensitize the needs and tape can definitely hurt the skin or trap moisture more. 

I’m adding that if you don’t want to contaminate the nail polish or do away with it, use the included brush to put some on a folded up piece of paper (so it doesn’t soak through) and then use a q-tip/cotton swab to apply it. A cotton swab actually does a really good job of making sure the application is thin each time too. 

I used a floral paring knife that was rarely used and always kept cleaning. Please look up how to pare skin properly. I did it similarly to cutting fruit where you grip the knife with your fingers, placing my thumb out of the way on the edge of the foot but pressing the fingers toward the thumb parallel to the skin. You may have to change the technique based on the location and your ability to reach it. Don’t pare it yourself or trust anyone with it if the confidence isn’t there. I’ve been lancing my own abscesses and other things other people let doctors do for years but I’ve also always done due diligence in proper procedure. Feel free to ask about the time I drained an enormous cyst on my cheek, flattened keloid scars or filed corns. Very doable if they haven’t advanced to infection. 

If you have found some off the wall or specific procedure you feel that the internet overlooked, feel free to share! It’s definitely irresponsible to pass off personal advice as something people should blindly trust but if you feel you have a hidden gem that might work for someone but are hesitant that it might end up another TikTok disaster in the wrong hands, you’re still in good company with me, and it might inspire discussion on why it works and who might be more successful with it. In other words, one of the reasons why the Internet could still be a useful space!

Share in comments or drop me a message/email. It might inspire a future post!

Holy Cholecystectomy, Batman!

 No surprise that after that HIDA scan showing 9% ejection fraction and the almost too large polyps that the gallbladder is, indeed, coming out. End of this month, in fact! I’m dealing with the blah symptoms (nausea, upper right quadrant pain especially after fatty foods, fever/chills alternating/ temperature regulation issues, water brash in throat, trapped gas— this can vary for everyone but that’s been my cocktail), counting the days.

My dad lost his best friend this past month to a long battle with cancer. RIP, Richard ‘Too Tall’ Insprucker. Like my grandpa, he stuck around more years than expected and I’m sure his daughter was grateful for every moment even though it’s never enough.

Indiana decided to pass work requirements for Medicaid like the absolute fidgety, awful at budgeting moronic Republicans that they are and I’m just hoping they actually LOOK at my medical history and see that moderate to complex label meaning if my insurance is gone, so is any ability to work. I absolutely rely on ADHD medication to focus and I’ve had a lot of digestive system complications that have been crippling. I have no intent to get on disability. It keeps people poor and helpless and I have no intent of letting them cap my income/assets at any time for any reason. The only ‘entitlement’ I want is health insurance and quite frankly, after a work history that paid little, rarely ever gave me even expensive but even mildly helpful insurance and led to a great deal of my health issues, I *muthafucking* EARNED it. Service and retail jobs sucked my very soul and no one should make less than living wage at jobs that trying. I learned a lot in college but they lied about ever placing me, which was the whole reason I went. I was already learning those programs on my own; what I needed was the network and employment. 

I don’t do ‘nothing’ either. Even laid up, I’ve made crochet patterns to sell, I do product testing with several companies, I do piecework graphic design and do surveys in spare time that I cash out for PayPal credit. No, it’s not stable but I pride myself on being resourceful and giving my life purpose even though my medical issues cause a great deal of anxiety and depression as they get worse before my doctors can figure out what’s wrong. Unfortunately with digestive issues, it requires trying medications for months at a time, running scans when symptoms worsen and waiting some more. 

Just getting to the heart of the gallbladder issue took nearly a year because I also have moderate to severe gastritis and elevated liver enzymes that show some liver damage or hepatic steatosis vs. fibrosis (that IS reversible but will still need to be scanned again next year to see if I’ve been able to do that). For those unaware, this is the crux of medical complexity. It’s one or more chronic conditions that require constant medication and specific treatment. Aside from the physical issues, I’ll remind you again… neurological= ADHD. It not only doesn’t go away, but it can be crippling when under stress. Coping mechanisms can’t always help for impulsivity or emotional regulation. 

I might panic about things that are minor to other people but I’ll be the one weirdly calm in a crisis because I’ve likely already cynically ruminated my way through it in the event it ever happened. I hesitate to call that a disability because when it comes down to it, my brain just files things a bit differently in a way that makes sense to me but can be difficult to explain the logic stack to anyone else. Nonetheless, I don’t have it mildly. I’m a stimmer to the point that others think I’m anxious, but I actually only feel anxiety if I DON’T fidget. If I’m fidgeting, I’m usually calm and thinking clearly. (I had to turn off the tapping feature on my phone that operated my flashlight because I’d turn it off and on when I didn’t realize I was tapping on it.)

But yeah. Indiana is a beautiful place with some ugly misled, authoritarian, freedom hating nosey ass people (and a ridiculous amount of people that fill their yards with rusty junk) but really, where can you go in the US that isn’t full of problems? I don’t have the financial means or the physical ability to just get up and travel. I’m one medical crisis after another and I’m really just trying to get the most out of life however I can. I take care of kitties, indoors and out, and make the best of it. 

But hot damn, are people aggravatingly dumb out there! You guys actually go out there and deal with people without ripping out your hair and howling at the moon? More power to you, because what goes on these days makes me very grateful I enjoy my own company. It’s like people don’t even try to be polite anymore. I mean, there are a few of us left but not nearly enough. It’s soothing to my soul when we meet, but I miss when people were at least fake-considerate. Grumbling about Gen Z when most of these kids are a lot more emotionally intelligent than the haters.

It’s Coming Out…

Well, today is the day I went and got the HIDA scan and while I wasn’t expecting a stellar gallbladder, I also was not at all expecting a 9% ejection fraction. And I know that most people have no clue what that means (I didn’t either), between 35-40% is passing functional, with 70% and above and 35% and below both being strong risks for removal (cholecystectomy). So 9% isn’t just borderline bad, it’s significantly low. I go next week for the next steps but I’m under no illusion about avoiding surgery here. With the abdominal and digestive distress and nausea, I was already preparing for this to be the case.

And surgical complications aside, I’m mostly looking forward to seeing some of these symptoms kick rocks. Aside from the incision site soreness, my last surgery gave me this incredible insight into listening to my body and taking the good with the bad. I do still have to follow a gastritis and liver friendly diet but with the gallbladder being gone, that’s one less trigger to content with. Life without gallbladder’s list of smaller meals, less fatty, spicy and acidic foods are already something I’ve been maintaining for months (if not years; moderation but not restriction and awareness of the risks of discomfort if I do exceed anyway). 

Still, finding something is always part anxiety part relief. Early finding means being able to get to something before it’s an emergency or cancer risk. I’ve used what I learned about paying attention to symptoms to advocate for this change and it actually feels good to know I do know my body well enough to insist something isn’t right. And to not fear the guilt of ‘wasting someone’s time’ if it’s nothing serious. We can’t know but it’s best to err on the side of caution. I haven’t been wrong yet and I’m proud of myself for pushing past old fears and rejections to insist on looking at what could be causing repeat discomfort or pain.

I told an old friend once that I’m broken. I think they might have seen it as giving up or not taking risks but I meant it quite literally. I hadn’t been diagnosed for the ovarian issue yet and that cost me more than half my life in physical and mental distress before I even knew the source. And I continue to have vision issues (I had high pressure in my left eye that went away post surgery and became astigmatism, like it deflated and deformed the shape of the eye itself) and ongoing digestive distress from where it pressed against my sigmoid colon, bladder, gallbladder, stomach and spinal nerve. I have never had a normal sex drive or interest. So when I said I was broken, I wasn’t being poetic but, as I said, quite literal. I can’t be dismissive about the pain and anxiety that left permanent marks on me. And I’m not about to be ashamed or overcompensate to please others. I didn’t say it with shame or some odd sense of pride either, just matter-of-factly. I am broken. It’s not a disability but I am very much shaped by the struggle to make my body do what I want it to do. I struggle for energy and stamina and sometimes just finding my niche. I don’t exactly fit anywhere so I need people in my life who aren’t looking for where I go. If you’re meant to be in my life, you won’t be ashamed of me or feel the need to explain why you’re my friend. It’s your self-esteem that suffers if you can’t defend your friends as their own people. Quite frankly, I’d rather be alone than treated like a shameful secret. The people that value me have never had to bring me low to raise themselves up. I don’t need to tell most of you that that is a toxic relationship. Please, do not ever stay around someone you feel is beneath you or even better than you. Healthy relationships are about equality and embracing those differences. I’ve said it countless times before but comparisons kill clarity. They’re highly subjective and stunt your growth if they’re not constructive.

You can’t really have a talk about physical health with a dive into mental health. Remember that in a state of physical illness, you really have to look for those mental vulnerabilities and take care how they affect the physical. It’s all too easy to be too hard on yourself when you’re weakened by pain and doubt. Look for support where you can. If not with others going through something similar, they by fortifying yourself to understand your mental state might need some pep talks from the self.

Losing It (Not My Mind)

 Just an update on my health issues here. Starting with weight loss, other than a bit of an upset where I gained 2 lbs instead of losing 8 like previous months, I got back on track and lost 6 lbs, so I made it to 215.6 this morning. This means I’m 1/3 of the way to the goal weight of 150, having lost almost 30 lbs since December 4th when I started.

For those who are curious, it’s mostly diet and outdoor walks when the weather allows, housework pulls a lot of duty on bad weather days though. Breakfast is typically tuna salad on whole grain bread or multigrain crackers or egg with salsa on toast. Banana bread is another variation occasionally, as is oatmeal with fruit. Lunches are typically 1/2 cup of lentils in half a can of soup, occasionally a turkey sandwich with mustard and Swiss or provolone. I also make batches of Mediterranean pasta salad (whole grain rotini, feta, Kalamata olives, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, chickpeas, and a homemade red wine vinaigrette). Dinners are typically 5 oz chicken breast, baked or pan cooked in olive oil with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Sauces for the chicken include buffalo ranch, sour cream Dijon with dill, tomato pesto, teriyaki (sometimes with Swiss, red onions, and pineapple rings), avocado (with sour cream, salsa, garlic and lime), and hoisin with sesame oil. I might add more but I loved all of these so I’m content to prep 8 dinners at once, 2 each with four different sauces. These also have a side of veggies including asparagus, cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, green beans and/or potatoes. On occasion, I’ll eat tacos or farfalle Alfredo or even pizza if I make room for them but they’re higher calorie, sodium and saturated fats so those are rare exceptions. Snacks include Greek yogurt with chia, flax and hemp hearts, raw almonds, apples with peanut butter, bitter dark chocolate but I really deviate on snacks a lot and let that be a mood. It sounds like a lot but it’s cheaper than you think to whip a lot of it up in batches. Another occasional addition is homemade sushi rolls, typically with crab, avocado, cucumber and cream cheese, but you can’t store these for too long and it’s a lot of prep so I don’t often do this, as much as I love them. I prefer the things I can freeze for a week or two and heat up as needed.

Jumping to general health, BP meds have given a very slight drop in BP. I’m experiencing a lot of nausea and abdominal distress still and I’m scheduled for a HIDA scan to see if the gallbladder polyps means it needs to come out. I’m kind of hoping the solution to getting rid of the added digestive stress is that simple to correct. It’s not a complex surgery and my sister had it done and was back to normal in a little over a week. The gastritis I’m just not sure if it will be as easy to resolve or remain chronic and be a cancer risk. I hate these tentative ones but I’ll remain focused on weight loss which can do a lot for symptoms. After so many setbacks, I’m just so relieved I can lose weight at all because I had so many obstacles in the attempts. I had thought the ten pounds I lost after ovary surgery was a good start but complications elsewhere were always possible and I had to summon a lot of strength to keep advocating for my health.

Creatively, I’m not a force right now but I’m not dried up either. I’ve been building the mini houses and have slowly acquired the stuff to make a proper diorama for them. Since the nausea hit a couple weeks ago, that’s been on pause. If all I can do right now is focus on diet and exercise, to fight to earn back the energy and focus for my creative pursuits, I am embracing that and keeping my cognitive function as flexible as possible. Mostly doing logic puzzle type games on my phone, as much as I can without nausea interrupting.

Aging is fucking scary. Aging with grace is a privilege not everyone has. None of us like to be here but it’s inevitable. I just aim to do as much as I can with this life while I can. I don’t need some grand return. I just strive for peace and kindness and contributing to that for others as much as possible. Just with as little socialization as possible because people… y'all wear me out. I really can only take so much before I just want to be alone and interpret my experiences.

The Obesity Question

 I went through a lot of introspection over the years about body image, like many women are forced to do throughout life. And this is coming from someone who has always marched to their own beat, no matter how much I tried to blend in. (Masking can work temporarily but always comes with a cost.) I came with a large frame, broad shoulders and with an early puberty, broad hips, and a big ole booty. And all of this when I was a normal weight for the better part of my life. So even then, I got comments about being big if not outright fat when I was just fit.

I’ve written extensively throughout my blog about my body struggles. I started gaining a ridiculous amount of weight in my late 20s due to antipsychotic mood stabilizers that I never needed. ADHD misdiagnosed as bipolar. 80 lbs in app. 8 months kind of fast. Dealt with depression over that for a few years before wrenching my ankle stepping off of a curb humiliated me enough to diligently diet and exercise. It took a year and a half to lose 63 lbs and the plateau stuck there despite still being overweight. Six months of no more loss turned into major burnout. After a year, the weight crept on.

I got to about 215 lbs before my sister and I resolved to lose weight together. She did, I just kept gaining. I was working twice as hard trying to catch up. This is when I learned I was fighting hormonal hell and an ovarian fibroma looking to kill me. Again, talked about extensively in former posts. I was about 235-240 prior to surgery. After surgery, I dropped 10 lbs but ended up at 246. Doctors found fatty liver, gallbladder polyps and gastritis this time.

But instead of being discouraged, I saw hope in this. Why? Because those are things that diet can actually reliably help. So I made grocery lists diligently and started prepping. I got this. I’ve done this before and knew exactly what foods to focus on. Over the next few months, I have consistently lost two lbs a week, exactly what I was aiming for, no more no less. As I said before, without hormonal chaos blocking my efforts, I already had the discipline. Last week’s weigh in put me at 221.5 lbs. I don’t weigh daily or even weekly. I weigh at the end of the month and hope it’s about 8 pounds less than before. It works. I’m not prone to fixation on the obsession of that number every time so I can spend more time focusing on calorie burn and exercise and alleviating stress. So I’ve already lost 10% of my starting weight but the end goal is nearly 40% of loss from that number. Again, 150 is firmly in the normal zone for my body type and I don’t care to go beyond that. I could only get to 167 before the time bomb inside of me started working against me.

And this is the driving point behind starting a post about weight loss again. Obesity is not a discipline problem. Many times it’s a very complex problem. I started with looking at it like a discipline problem because that’s always the first assumption. And yes, I had a food insecurity issue. I used to ask my dad to buy specific foods but if I didn’t eat them right away, he would and I would deal with the crushing disappointment of the loss of that comfort food. So I’d often binge a lot of comfort foods after seeing them, knowing they weren’t guaranteed to be there if I waited. Yet that problem being removed didn’t fix it. Even once I maintained a healthy and strict discipline, I dealt with the disappointment of calories in calories out letting me down. I had doctors check my blood but tests were always normal. No metabolic or thyroid or issues so it was always insinuated that I was just lying about diet and exercise. Not that my neglected reproductive system was killing me slowly. I still firmly advocate for women to get screenings outside of what is routine only for pregnant women. Child free/less women should be screened regardless, especially when family history, pressure or pain in the abdomen, etc. exists.

Please don’t fall into the trap of thinking you aren’t doing enough. Chances are you’re doing far more than most and have crept every nook and cranny of the internet and doctor advice you could possibly find and are being failed. If you’re a woman reading this, you may need to assert the importance of screening, scans and blood tests more regularly than recommended. The recommendations fail us often. Luckily, because I do press now, they found my three new abdominal issues early and diet actually can help now. Even in a household rife with pizza rolls, hostess cupcakes and high sodium frozen dinners. 

I still ‘cheat’ but I don’t consider it the crime some do. I dong deny myself the things that aggravate my conditions; in fact, causing the discomfort only reaffirms why I love a healthier normal now. I fully remember to appreciate the efforts needed to lose weight and stick with it. Diets and exercise are hard to figure out for all of us. I’m happy to share some tips that might work but you may need to learn which foods, healthy or not, you can and can’t tolerate to tailor my advice towards your own journey. All the same, I want women to start to genuinely understand that obesity is not a personal failing. Medicine can fail us, genetics can fail us; don’t let anyone gaslight your efforts or make you feel like one ‘cheat’ was the catastrophe holding you back. You can fall off the wagon with diet and exercise more than you think and still succeed IF you’re not battling an unknown diagnosis. Fight to be heard. Fight to be on this earth longer and stronger. Fight to feel good again.

New desk, who dis?

 I downsized my clutter a lot when moving to the new house and once I got all my stuff in… the room still had that echo quality that screamed emptiness. At first, the minimalist void felt like an accomplishment but then it felt like I was in someone else’s home. And it was technically someone else’s home not long before then so I wondered how to make it my own.

One of my first big purchases was my corner desk. A humble behemoth that would fill the yawning space of the corner between the two windows. My little computer desk was some ramshackle abandoned Walmart buy my friend left behind when moving in with a boyfriend but it was perfect in my attic room with sloped ceilings and limited space. It didn’t make the trip here (my dad and stepbrother managed to bang up my storage ottoman and TV stand too but those were able to survive, albeit irregularly) but it would have looked ridiculous in the gaping corner space.

It took myself, my brother and nephew to help me put it together, if only to maneuver the thick instruction booklet, someone to hold and another to assemble. Two people was enough but being able to concentrate on the instructions and guide the assembly made for a smooth job for me, with each of them assembling a wing of the desk and referring back to me for their next step. Still, it took nearly four hours to reach completion and give my trusty old 2009 iMac a home. My graphics tablet (more often relegated to a second monitor) and printer joined the tech force and I was happy to assemble a proper filing system in the file side, adding a shelf to the big tower cabinet that needed no tower so I could file the odds like my mobile graphic tablet, binders, a photo box of resumes, fancy parchment papers and so on. It didn’t take long for dolls and a spice rack I converted into a craft bit keeper to move in. When my sister got me a Cricut and a 3D printer over the next couple years, I was truly at a loss for spaciousness.

I ended up converting my humble craft table into the only surface that could accommodate the 3D printer tent that is a necessity in a house with cats and shoving all craft stuff onto the right wing of the desk. My printer is in limbo between a grey end table and a wheeled laptop desk. Storage between the 3D printer and corner desk became… am I moving again? Boxes! Too many janky junky boxes! How did I get here AGAIN?!

So my new mission became to get… another desk. Something that could hold the entirety of the monster printer tent and provide sleek storage for all the craft-toting boxes. I wanted a craft table again. I wanted my corner desk to migrate back into a proper office setup (plus the whimsy of a cat cafe diorama but I’m not trying to become bland) and instead extend the space to accommodate having TWO Cricuts (yes, that’s right; as a product tester, I accumulated a spiffy new Cricut Explore 3 to now be the Queen of Craft Machines). I also wanted a proper cabinet to sort all this eyesore clutter into so I don’t look like a hoarder. Things eventually leave as I gift quite a bit rather than make and hoard. I wanted the journey, not to get saddled with a dust collecting neglected accomplishment. I find someone who will appreciate it and it’s theirs.

In any case, laptop desk will migrate into another space, as well as the grey end table, which will find a new home in the bathroom next to the sink most likely. The printer will go back on the corner desk and the craft table will fill that spot, getting all its crafting stuff back.

But, thanks to a friend of my sister’s needing some impromptu graphic design assistance and her adding another $100 for Christmas, I’m getting the desk I’ve wishlisted and mooned over for months! Measured, planned, perfect space saving and eye-pleasing compromise for that space. A black and faux wood miracle of modern space.

 I’ll post the proper before and after once I’ve gotten everything sorted and can say for sure what I’m pleased with. It should come the Sunday before Christmas so my sister will be here and offered to help me build it. So eager to get it up and functional.

As for life, I started the diet I was successful on years ago to help me lose weight. I haven’t been ambitious with exercise yet but dropping the weight is crucial in alleviating some of the pressure on unfixable joints. Diet is still the best way to do this, with exercise being better for toning and eventually burning off the more stubborn fat later. I’ve been going almost three weeks strong now but I’m avoiding the scale for now, just focusing on reducing stress (which can trap weight loss more than anything) and keeping a clean focused diet. 

For those wondering, breakfast is typically an egg on whole grain toast or tuna salad. Lunch is a prepped variety of 1/2 cup lentils added to soup. Dinner is either one of my prepped chicken dinners (sauces ranging from creamy avocado, creamy Dijon, hoisin sesame, and teriyaki, with broccoli, spinach or pineapples as the side. Snacks are usually honey Greek yogurt with chia seeds, cottage cheese with fruit, a hard boiled egg, typically a protein to keep evening cravings in check, which is one of my weak spots. Evening anxieties tended to result in unsatisfied grazing.

I haven’t done much crafting but this can happen when I’m focusing on diet. It’s not an easy habit for me, especially one not even a month old. I’m hoping the new desk and organized space may rekindle some of that ambition but it’s okay if some things need to be shelved while I focus on wellness. I resorted to extreme fasting and overdoing exercise in my desperation before surgery just to watch the number on the scale go horrifically higher. Now I have gastritis so if I want to court ulcers or cancer, I can skip meals but the only real option is a very protein focused steady small meal plan. And that is exactly what my old diet had been when I was doing well.

So that’s that. I’d probably go into more detail but I gave cats to feed. Man, can I fill time typing though!