Today we celebrate the birth of the lovely Windsparrow. I hope that you have a lovely day and that the year to come brings much joy and laughter.

I am on the east coast. My alarm went off at a heinous hour. I am coffeed but still don’t want to be awake. But I’m supposed to do work? That seems so unfair.

It is unfair that we have to be working at this hour, even for those of us with bodies on east coast time.

Yeah, that ain't right, meara.

Happy, Happy Birthday, Windsparrow! May your day be lovely and the year ahead filled with goodness.

Having to work is completely ridiculous. The stream of 3 day weekends we’ve been having is showing me that I would really be ok with retiring. Sadly my bills say otherwise.

I should probably set up a meeting with my financial guy and see if I will be able to move into a retirement place when I turn 60.

Rainy day and a Monday, grey and dreary.

Matilda is up but not quite out the door.

[Two seconds ago from her: "Okay, I'm leaving! Wait...I don't have my shoes on."]

I don't have to go to work but I still have to get up at 6:45 on schooldays to make her to-go breakfast sandwich and lunch. Also, rousting her out of bed is an active project that takes 40 minutes.

When we had brunch with Iris's family on Saturday, Janet (Iris's mom) and I were discussing Matilda's gap year. Janet said she did an AFS program between high school and college and spent time in Denmark and then traveling in Europe which she loved and really helped her in her college focus.

AFS options: [link]

Lots of fun times, David. I’m glad you are finding little bits of joy here and there.

I am over here in the “why do we work oh right bills “ corner. I was given a talking to this morning and informed that they had almost fired me for being in a bad mood last week. It doesn’t matter anymore who’s right and who’s wrong. This company has changed and me working here is no longer a good fit for anyone, them or me.

So I’m officially on the hunt. Very scary, especially since I want to get away from what I’ve been doing for the last ten years. And I need a significant jump in income if at all possible. Plus it’s Carnival and jackshit happens during Carnival. Except that it might be a good time to network, hmm…

I did answer JenP’s thoughtful questions, maybe I can format my answers and post them tonight.

Ohhh I used to work for AFS.

Lots of fun times, David. I’m glad you are finding little bits of joy here and there.

My two part strategy for dealing with this year is: go all in on relationships, and embrace change.

But I'm learning that I really need to pace myself on the socializing because I still need a fair amount of alone time. The loss I'm feeling with Jacqueline doesn't really manifest as loneliness, if that makes sense.

That said, the significant thing about both the Bowie showie and the Sketchfest outing is that I included Matilda in them both.

We're knitting ourselves together in a new way and it's good. She's still very much a 17 year old focused on her peer group friendships and school activities, but we're figuring out the new dynamics in our relationship without Jacqueline to triangulate with.

Ohhh I used to work for AFS.

Resource!!

I did answer JenP’s thoughtful questions, maybe I can format my answers and post them tonight.

I'm glad you're working through it because it does sound like a necessary change is coming.

Well, shit. The 2/1 appointment wasn't showing in MyChart, so I called the clinic this morning, and while they did have that time blocked out for me, on closer review it wasn't an appropriate time slot for a biopsy. They gave me the first available, but it's not till Feb. 14. I'm on the wait list if anything opens up sooner, but why would it?

Happy Valentine's Day to me! Plus, that's Ash Wednesday. How...nice.

So now I'm back in full meltdown mode as bad as I was when I first got the MRI results on Friday. I'd just managed to come up with coping strategies for staying kinda sane for the rest of this month, but they're stopgaps, and now they have to work for half of next month too?

And if this IS cancer, all I can think is that every bit of delay I have to go through until they can diagnose it gives it time to get worse and harder to treat and survive. And if they can't find the lump via ultrasound to do the biopsy, they'll have to schedule me for an MRI-guided biopsy at that point...which is also a very full schedule so who knows how much longer that will be?

Just....argh.