Adulting – Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

The interesting times continue

“May you live in interesting times” is said to be a curse. And our times have certainly had waves of interesting in the past few months. Back in December, I had mentioned our leaking bay window (apparently the guys who put in our new siding and fascia didn’t actually caulk above the window like they were supposed to) and our internet outage. I didn’t mention that my car’s bumper was damaged around the same time, while parked at a public parking lot. Fortunately, the driver left a note and his insurance covered the repairs.

On top of that, while I was in Tennessee in February, there was a power outage that came with a surge that fried the circuit board for our solar inverter. That meant when power was restored, anything running through the solar was still out. Understanding that we had the most essential circuits mapped to the solar power, I came home to a cold house, with pretty much only power in the bedrooms being usable. Did I mention this was in February? Our solar company was able to come out that afternoon, saw the fried circuit board, and bypassed it to get us up and running again. The actual repair – replacing the solar inverter – was originally scheduled for before our Caribbean cruise, but they had to postpone until the day after we returned.

After they finished and left, I was looking out the bay window at the equipment on our wall. Then I turned the other direction and saw something entirely unexpected: the utility pole out back was suddenly leaning. I do mean suddenly; we had done a garden walk after arriving home the day before, so I was fairly sure that it hadn’t started leaning during our trip. I call ComEd, our electrical company, and they had a team out later that day, mostly before the rain picked up. They carefully navigated our trees with the small truck in the second photo, which was then used to prop up the pole. Surprisingly, the power was only out for a brief period while they were working, though I found out the next day that the attached cable wires were affected.

Just over a week later, I received a text warning me about an upcoming outage scheduled for this past Monday. The new pole was delivered to our front yard on Saturday – again, carefully avoiding damage to our plants and trees. On Monday, I intermittently took window breaks to watch the process, including happening to look out at one point when a guy with a chainsaw dropped a piece of the old pole, after having moved the appropriate hardware and wires above that point. The old pole still has some wires, presumably not electrical, attached to it, and it about half the height of the adjacent new pole.

And I’m happy to report that our solar battery kept us up and running throughout the scheduled outage.

My different packing styles

In the last month and a half, I have packed for four different places that weren’t my own bed (and were all sadly lacking in cats): a local convention, a brief work trip to Tennesee, a conference for work in Boston padded with an extra night to see friends, and a Caribbean cruise. As I packed and unpacked yet again, I reflected on the differences inherent in packing for very different trips, both in the duration and the nature of the trips.

For three of the four trips, I packed my Temperature Tree embroidery project; I didn’t take it on the 2-night work trip, and by the trip to Boston, I had moved it into a smaller bag that fits in my carry-on. At Capricon, I worked on it during my Friday morning Stitch & Bitch, then didn’t touch it for the rest of the trip; in Boston, I kept up on it until the morning I was packing out. (Yes, I had enough time at the airport after the conference to catch up if I had felt so inclined. I was busy reading.)

Capricon was the only driving trip, which gave me a lot of leeway in how many bags I packed and the possibility of loose items. (Not to mention boxes to build a Box Fort.) On the shorter work trip, I checked what’s effectively a carry-on bag (not to be confused with my actual carry-on, a backpack that includes my laptop) with some space to spare. Heading to Boston, I knew I was spending an afternoon “book and yarn shopping” with friends, so I gave myself the extra space of a larger suitcase, and I did in fact use it. (Among other things, I found a used copy of Elphie: A Wicked Childhood, a recent prequel to Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Score!)

For our longer trips over the last couple years – to the UK, Canary Islands, or even to Portland (which was only a week) – I’ve packed knowing I’d want to wash laundry during the trip. In Glasgow a couple years ago, it was easier to find a laundry service than time to use a laundromat. Similarly, on a longer cruise, there isn’t a really good laundry option… handwash everything in the tiny bathroom, pack an extra suitcase and have to store it in the equally tiny room, or pay for the laundry service per bag. I lean towards a mix of those, handwashing smaller items, and paying to wash larger items, so I can pack for half the duration of the trip and reuse items. Of course, part of that is because some delicate items like bras really shouldn’t run through the dryer if you can help it. On our cruise, that plan lasted until we realized how small the laundry service bags are; then we decided to use some of our promotional credit to pay for ongoing laundry service instead of on a per bag basis. As it turns out, coming home with only a couple days of dirty laundry from a long trip is a fabulous experience.

For everything except the cruise (for both Customs and profitability reasons, they don’t want you bringing your own), I packed some nicer teas, though I was so tired one morning at Capricon that I completely forgot I had and asked housekeeping for some spare tea. (My roommate slept in the first morning, so our room wasn’t reset.) For Capricon, we packed a couple meals, knowing that we’d have a fridge in the room, and for my trip to Tennessee, I packed some snack foods, mainly because I didn’t know what time the included breakfast would be available compared to when my work day needed to start.

Overall, it’s an interesting study of what becomes important for each trip, including the never-ending dilemma of “can I fit another craft project?”

Did you “spring forward” last Sunday?

Or did you, like me, reluctantly hobble forward in this seemingly pointless semiannual ritual where we change the clocks and hope our circadian rhythm catches up to the change quickly?

I was oddly lucky this morning in not realizing the change had hit when I woke up to feed the cats. Had the clock in my bedroom automatically changed, I might have wondered at the cats letting me sleep in; they do not partake of time changes lightly. In fact, I didn’t remember about it until nearly an hour later, after they had been fed and I had showered, which is when I felt like I had lost an hour of my day, preparing and eating breakfast at a time – according to the clock – when I have normally finished those and moved onto either chores or work.

There have, on multiple occasions, been bills put forth in the US Congress to end the time change. In recent years, it seems one will pass either the House or Senate, and then get ignored by the other body until the resurgence of complaints – now or in November – brings the issue to light again.

I am aware that the issue is not as simple as “stop doing it.” Back in 2007, with about two years warning, the start date changed, extending daylight savings by four or five weeks. From an IT perspective, this was a borderline disaster for the bank I was working at: PCs ended up on one time and servers on another, due to a mismatch in software updates. I see a bit of that now, as I have co-workers in other countries who don’t change their clocks, which means recurring meetings will shift for someone… which way depends on who originally scheduled it.

I do hope we do away with the time change, like so many other countries have, at some point in the near future.

Thyroid: the Stabbening

When I had my MRI in November, other than the arthritis, the results turned up something odd about my thyroid. After a discussion with my primary doctor in December, I scheduled a thyroid ultrasound, which confirmed that I have “nodules” on and around my thyroid. This resulted in a specialist visit to see an otolaryngologist, also known as an ENT (Ears Nose Throat).

After an initial meet & greet – which I question the need for when the ultrasound results recommended an “FNA” – Fine Needle Aspiration – I scheduled the FNA, or thyroid biopsy, to pull some tissue from the nodules. Alas, our medical system is weighed down by bureaucracy.

The base of my neck with slight scabbing from the Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA) for my thyroid

Bureaucracy aside, the doctor’s bedside manner was good, talking me through the process before starting and throughout. I was warned that the local numbing agent would burn going in – it did. After that, I only felt pressure as each needle went in, and then got poked around a few times. I’m not sure the poking around part was really mentioned, though I suppose it still just counts as pressure. It reminded me a little of a root canal, when the dentist is poking into the tooth repeatedly to make sure they got all of the root and you only feel the pressure of the poking.

I was warned that the results could take up to 7 business days; they took 5, and I am relieved to say my thyroid nodules are benign.

Setting my 2026 Side Quests

What are Side Quests, you ask? Well, I used to refer to them as Goals, but really, “Quest” is more fun as a concept, at least for us gamers. I don’t accomplish every quest I give myself, and sometimes I add quests during the year based on circumstances. For example, the year I got laid off, getting a new job became my highest priority quest.

For the most part, I try to spread my quests across various categories that I’ve deemed important, such as Garden, Fitness, and Finance (among others). Obviously, these will vary by person… one of my categories is “Garden,” which may be entirely irrelevant to you. An important factor is always making sure these quests are SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based. The SMART aspects helps in planning for achievable goals rather than setting your sights on something that may not be feasible in the time period you’re looking at. To use martial arts as an example, a white belt working towards a black belt in an achievable quest, but setting a deadline of a single year is not likely to be attainable.

I find that tracking my quests is also useful, so at the beginning of the year, I set up a document on my Google Drive listing them. Over the course of the year, I pop back into the document to make notes and mark when I complete items. Then at the end of the year, I copy that document for the layout as my base for the next year’s quests. In some cases, quests that I didn’t get to may be carried over to the next year, like some of the sorting and furniture rearranging that I didn’t get to in 2025. I’m kind of in a house organizing phase at the moment, so if I keep it up, I may complete that quest early this year.

What do you want to accomplish in 2026 and how do you track it?

Christmas Stocking Memories

In college, I spent a year abroad at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, which was a fabulous experience is so many ways, including my first Live Action Role-Playing (LARP) adventures. That’s not what comes to mind this time of year though. As the dorms closed over break, I went with the guy I was dating to his parents’ home near Edinburgh for most of the month we had off (with a fun-filled week in Paris for New Year’s). His parents were amazingly welcoming to this strange American he dragged home, including me in the family Christmas traditions.

A collection of stocking stuffers wrapped in an assortment of different wrapping papers. (The wrapping paper is actually double-side, so six different patterns is only three rolls.)

On Christmas morning, I woke to find a stocking lying at the foot of my bed – rather than hung by a fireplace (not that we did that in Miami either) – and was amazed to find that every gift inside that stocking was individually wrapped! I recall being delighted as I unwrapped each gift, many of which were small Lego sets. (Oddly, I owned no Lego at all until that year. I certainly made up for it over the next few years.)

This year, in the midst of dealing with the delightful homeownership issues that I mentioned, I decided to do the same for my daughter… wrapping all of the stocking stuffers, that is, not the Lego sets part. (Don’t worry, we have plenty of Lego in the house.) I’ve thought about it in the past and never got around to it. After wrapping all of them, I realized that she’s the same age I was when I woke up to a stocking full of wrapped gifts, so I guess this was the perfect year to do it.

Homeownership is not for the faint of heart

Almost two weeks ago now, it snowed – again – bringing our accumulated snow to a whopping 11 inches early in the season. It was warm enough that the snow was melting on the roof even as it was falling, causing an annoying drip drip drip outside my bedroom window, which I unfortunately noticed in the middle of the night. I suspect the persistent dripping off the edge of the gutters is partially due to the smaller width of the gutters after the siding and gutter work early last year; this was not a problem we had encountered before. A few hours later, I was sitting in the living room sorting embroidery thread and realized I could open the curtains for better lighting, as it was a sunny day and reasonably warm (for winter).

Snow, not content to pile on our roof, garden, and driveway early this winter, melted into our house, leaving a puddle in our bay window. (Alas, poor Olaf.)

The ceiling of our bay window shows water damage.

I was definitely not prepared for what I found! There was a puddle on the bay window bench and water damage on the window’s ceiling. I scrambled to clean it up, then move everything we had near the window out of the way, discarding a couple cardboard boxes after relocating their (fortunately undamaged) contents. It was a while before I returned to sorting my embroidery thread, followed by waves of cleaning, and as the snow continued melting, the realization that the afternoon heat (I use the term loosely, it was in the mid-30s) was causing a steady drip of snow melt and I wanted more than just a pair of towels in the window to mop it up.

Monday morning found me on the phone to the window company, who installed the window back in 2018, followed by reaching out to the company who redid our roof, siding, and gutters last year. The consensus is that nothing can be done until after the snow melts (did I mention 11 inches of accumulation?), my towel/bucket approach was the necessary approach for now, and the cause of the leak (likely the gutter work) needs to be fixed before the window can be. As the weather shifted back to cold (and colder… last Saturday’s high was 8 degrees), the drip temporarily abated, though it did return this afternoon in a sudden burst of warm weather (high of 48!). Hopefully enough has melted to clear the gutters of ice, though we’re not keeping the warm weather for long, so I’m not sure of the repair timing.

Another disaster struck Friday morning, at least for someone who works from home… our internet connection vanished mid-morning! Our neighbors use the same service, so I was able to verify that it was isolated to our house, and now know that the wire bringing fiber into our house can freeze at the box if water gets into the wrong spot, pushing the wires apart and breaking the connection. On the plus side, they were able to send a technician out that evening, though the poor guys were working in the dark by the time they got here.

As the title says, homeownership is not for the faint of heart. On the plus side, there’s chocolate. On the downside, I wonder if that’s why my glucose count was higher than usual on my annual blood test last week?

MRIs are annoyingly loud

A couple years ago, I posted about my first MRI experience, which was for my hip. While I found the sound variance fascinating with a headset, this week, I experienced an MRI without one, and it was definitely annoyingly loud at various stages, even with the earplugs they provided. When it wasn’t too jarring, I was – as I was concerned about in my previous experience – bored.

I understand why I didn’t have a headset this time. Technically, I had two MRIs back-to-back: one of my spine and one of my brain. It’s safe to assume that they don’t want a headset showing up while scanning your head.

Good news! No concerns at all about my brain. Well, at least not on an MRI.

Bad news! We’re back to arthritis in my neck being the likely cause of the tingling in my fingertips that I have been experiencing since May. The EKG I mentioned back in July that was checking for nerve damage/carpal tunnel showed nothing significant, which led to me seeing my Primary Care Physician (PCP), who then referred me to Neurology.

On the plus side, the neurologist is amazing – attentive, taking notes, looking up possibilities while we were talking about my symptoms and eliminating options based on symptoms that I don’t have. She called me within a couple hours of the MRI results hitting the system to discuss what I should try next. I’ll schedule a follow up with her in a month or so to discuss the effectiveness of the latest possible solution.

What a waste of time.

Near the end of May, I visited the Orthopedics department at my medical group to assess a new problem in my right hand – my fingertips were intermittently numb. A couple days earlier, I had been discussing that problem with a pair of people who had similar symptoms dealt with, and in each case, it was related to carpal tunnel. I received a carpal tunnel diagnosis years ago, so it made sense that these new symptoms could be related.

And yet, when I saw the doctor and mentioned my carpal tunnel, instead of being sent for an EKG – apparently the only accurate way to diagnose carpal tunnel and determine the severity – I was sent to a month of Physical Therapy (PT) on the possibility that the arthritis in my neck was causing the numbness. Here I am, eight PT sessions later – with out of pocket expenses and eight gardening mornings lost – scheduled for an EKG a couple weeks from now.

I’m not clear on the decision making process here, though I suspect the bureaucracy of insurance is part of it, opting for the presumably cheaper PT instead of another test. (I’ll know for sure which is cheaper once I see the billing.) I am disappointed in the process, having to wait more than two months from my initial appointment to possibly discover the cause, and having lost so much gardening time.

Oh, it’s Thursday.

It’s been a weirdly busy week, including a physical therapy appointment this morning, and I suddenly realized it’s Thursday evening and I haven’t written a blog post yet. I did make art, a couple versions, over the last couple days, but I’m not ready to share them. Zuko left a scratch on my leg Monday when he launched himself at Arwen, Arwen fell off the bed Wednesday morning and hooked into my left elbow to catch herself, and I appear to have encountered poison ivy last weekend, at least according to my right wrist.

That’s the long-winded way of saying I’m taking this week off.