A large weather system has been slowly moving over us since some time last night. It’s been raining all day, and is expected to continue to rain through to about 4am. Some areas were getting rain and snow, but mostly, it is rain. Our temperature has remained steady at 4C/39F since the wee hours of the morning, so even though it feels like -2C/28F, there’s no snow right now, and the overnight low is supposed to remain above freezing. While there have been storm warnings for some areas, we’re just getting a steady and constant rain.
Image created by WP AI.
A good pajama day.
Not least of which because I got zero sleep last night. I don’t even know why! I was just awake and, strangely, feeling excited. Like something really great was about to happen.
Not a bad reason to be awake all night, I suppose!
I finally got up to join my daughters at about 5 or 6am. This is the time of the day when my older daughter is winding down from her work night, and my younger daughter is getting up to start her day, so they like to make a meal together – breakfast for one, supper for the other! They made a potato soup, using potatoes we still have left from our own harvest. It made the house smell so good! Since I didn’t sleep, I was, of course, already feeling hungry.
Once it was light out, past 7:30am, my younger daughter went out to do the morning rounds. I enjoyed some soup for breakfast, then managed to get a couple of hours of sleep. Which would be a lot easier if I didn’t have so many cats that like to use me as a bed! 😄
So it’s been a quiet day overall. Just the usual household stuff. Tomorrow, I’ll be heading to the town north of us to pick up more kibble and a few things at the grocery store. The day after, I’m taking my mother for her eye treatment in the city. I almost forgot about that! Things must be improving, because she has not been complaining about her vision, at all, for quite some time. I do hope she doesn’t try to cancel at the last minute, because she thinks she’s dying, again. Based on her last visit, her next treatment might be 5 or 6 weeks later, rather than 4 weeks.
For now, I just want to get a full night’s sleep for a change!!
Before I get into things, I just want to share this adorable photo I got last night.
Nothing like a bowl of kittens to brighten your day!
This is a picture from yesterday, because I’ve taken none today. I haven’t even gone outside, and I don’t know if I will get to it. A daughter took care of feeding the outside cats, and I am skipping my morning rounds entirely. All because of a very long and strangely painful night.
Quite a long time ago, I started feeling a strange pain in my left side. I thought I might have pulled a muscle, but it never went away. This started about 6 months after I’d had a large cyst remove, and thought maybe there was a connection, since it was in the same general area, but the doctors couldn’t find any. It got worse to the point where I had difficulty standing up straight – which could be a real problem while driving! Since moving here, I’ve gotten more tests done, and still, no cause could be found. There comes a point with doctors where, if they can’t find a cause for something, they start looking at you askance, and you can tell they think you’re just making it up, or that the problem is psychosomatic. Eventually, I just stopped trying to find a cause. The pain, if I can even use that word, is just there, now encompassing an area from my hips to under my ribs. It’s just a constant presence, but after a while, I no longer got that escalation, where I couldn’t stand up straight anymore. At least, it became more rare. Instead, something else started to happen.
I would lie down in bed, on my right side, because my left hip is more arthritic than my right. As soon as I started to relax, my left side would start cramping. Perhaps spasming would be the better word. The only way to alleviate it was to tense up and twist into a pretzel. As soon as I tried to relax again, it would come back. Sometimes, if I lay on my left side, that would help. Sometimes, I had to get up. Usually, I just went through several bouts of these contortions before I could finally relax my muscles, and then finally be able to sleep.
Well, last night, it happened again, except this time, it was both my sides, not just my left. I was jerking around like a marionette, trying to get it under control and to the point where I could relax. I’m still feeling residual pain from that.
That, on its own, was bad enough. Things didn’t end there. At about 3 – 3:30 in the morning, I rolled over, and instantly my right thigh started cramping viscously. I couldn’t stay lying down, but I couldn’t straight the leg, either, or the cramping would get worse. Of course, I had to go to the bathroom, right? I managed to hobble my way to the bathroom, but even just sitting on the toilet triggered more spasming. I even tried massaging the affected muscle, but just touching it cause more spasms. I was able to do my business, then hobbled to over to get some ibuprofen, because my extra strength arthritis acetaminophen that I take very night before bed doesn’t touch this. Ibuprofen helps with Charlie horses, and this was kinda like that, so I thought it was worth a try.
I’m still feeling residual pain and weakness in my leg from that.
It would have been nice if that were it, but nooooooo. Then my feet had to get into the action.
My feet are wrecked, so it’s not unusual for me to have a metatarsal suddenly dislocate, or for there to be shooting pains, etc. One of the things that happens pretty regularly is sudden cramping if there is a change in temperature. The temperature itself doesn’t seem to matter; it’s how quickly it changes. So, for example, between the time I come out of a nice warm shower and the time I can put on socks and shoes, my toes can start cramping, and it takes a while for them to warm up again enough for the cramping to stop.
Which means that sometimes, if my foot comes out from under the covers, my toes will start cramping instantly.
That started happening last night, too. With both feet – and they weren’t even out from under the covers.
I don’t even know how long that went on for before I finally passed out, until I was awakened by a kitten deciding to curl up against my face, neck and shoulder. That was when I realized I had all the big kittens on my. One on my neck and face, one in my arm pit, one on my chest, and two around my legs. If any of the tinies were on me, I wouldn’t have known, because they weigh nothing! 😄
I managed to get out of bed and do their morning feeding (including Butterscotch, who has rediscovered my pants shelf as her favourite bed), mostly because I needed them distracted so I could go to the washroom. That’s when I discovered I was still feeling the effects of all the cramping and spasming of the night. My daughter was about to feed the adult cats and saw me hobbling around, so she was more than understanding when I asked her to feed the outside cats, too.
Thank God we have a narrow hallway and arm bars all over the place. I needed the walls and the arm bars to hold myself up!
I’m better now, after a few more hours, but definitely still having issues.
I have considered why this might have happened, and if it was because of the work I did in the garden yesterday, but I’ve done that much and more before, without reacting like this. I mean, I’ve ended up stiff and sore to the point that walking was very painful, but no muscle cramping and spasming like what hit me last night. Especially not with so many parts of my body affected, not to mention all of them in one night.
Whatever it is, I’m currently in recovery mode for the day.
After all that, though, I do have some good news. I’m almost afraid to say something so soon, as it’ll be a few days before it follows through. Still… here it is.
We’re going to be getting that truck.
Last week, I’d stopped at the garage to talk to our mechanic, checking out some of his other vehicles at the same time, letting him know we were able to increase our down payment to $1000, thanks to my daughter. At this point, I’d pretty much given up on the truck, but he had a couple of SUVs that would have worked out, for my husband’s needs, at least. One was sold and the other wasn’t prepped for sale yet, but it gave him something to keep an eye out for.
Well, yesterday, I got a call from him.
He had been talking to the financing lady. He told her the new amount we could give for a down payment, and he was willing to drop the price on the truck even more for us. At this point, I suspect he’s actually taking a loss. He doesn’t just buy used vehicles and resell them right away. He’s a mechanic. He makes sure they are completely sound, first, so any work that needs doing, he does. Unlike the dealership that sold us our van, he doesn’t sell vehicles that turn out to have major damage on them. That has to be factored into the price, too.
As for the financing lady, she tried taking off the warranty, and that also lowered the final cost. Between the three things, that brought the payments down to $162 bi-weekly. Our max budgeted amount was $300 monthly. We would have another $100 or so per month for registration and insurance we have to consider as well. This still put us just over our budget amount. Since bi-weekly payments means having at least a couple of months a year with three payments instead of two, this put the monthly budget amount at more than two payments totalling $324. We’d have to budget closer to $400 per month.
However…
Just the night before, my daughter told me she would soon be able to transfer more over to contribute to the damage deposit, having been paid for more commissions. She has also said she will help with the payments.
I gave him a tentative yes, and mentioned we might be able to increase the down payment. I just didn’t know by how much. He told me to talk to the finance lady once I knew. Depending on the amount, if it would only save us a couple of dollars a month, it might not be worth adding it on.
So I went to talk to the girls, and my daughter said she would able to bring our down payment up to $1500.
I emailed the financing lady with the new amount. I also asked about having monthly payments instead of bi-weekly. It’s just easier for budgeting, since my husband’s disability comes in at the end of the month.
I got a quick response with some new numbers. The increased down payment would make a difference. We would have to make a bi-weekly payment for the first payment, but after that, we could call the lender directly and arrange for it to be monthly, instead. The monthly payments would be $331.
We accepted the deal.
Which is kinda scary.
First, taking off the warranty is a risk, but considering who we are buying it from, I consider that risk to be very low.
Next is relying on my daughter being able to make regular payments. Yes, she has consistent commissions, her Patreon supporters and even a few sales from her digital shop, but working freelance like she does means the monthly income is inconsistent. I know she’ll be good for it. I just don’t like it having to rely on it.
The final thing is, where in our budget these payments will be coming from. Some is what we’ve been squirreling away into our contingency fund. That’s going to drop. Most, however, will come from that part of our budget that pays for things like getting the septic tank cleaned, or hiring plumbers, or fixing my mother’s car…
But with the truck, there will be some reductions in the budget. We will no longer have to do as many trips to the city to stock up, because we can fit probably four times as much in the back of the truck as we can in her little car, and not have to worry about how heavy the load is. That doesn’t even count the space available in the cab if we fold up the back seats. My mother’s car, even with the work we had done recently, is not good on gas. At least it’s not getting worse anymore, but with fewer trips to the city, even with a relative gas guzzler like a truck, we will be spending less on gas per month. We would go back to using my mother’s car just to drive my mother around again, and as an emergency back up vehicle.
Best of all, we’ll have a reliable winter vehicle before the sow flies – with new tires, too!
It will take a few business days for my daughter’s transfer to come through. Once we’ve got the down payment all together, I’ll head over to finalize the purchase and get the truck insured. If all goes well, we’ll have a truck by the end of the week.
I just pray that nothing goes wrong between now and then!
There were so many things I was supposed to get done today, including a trip into town.
Instead, we’ve all been like this.
Yup. Even the cats are feeling it. One of my daughters is still pretty sick, and I have yet to see her today at all. The other is working on commissions, but is also finding herself dragging through the day. My husband normally struggles to stay up during the day, between his pain levels and the medications, and he finally gave up the fight and has gone to bed. It’s all I can do not to curl up with the cats on my bed and snoozing.
Like these guys.
The outside cats are even feeling it! I hate having to close them out of the sun room for the night, after luring them out with their second feeding of the day. Some of them ended up overturning a garbage can and were making a mess. At least I know they can’t get into the bin with the kibble, but if racoons get in, they can literally tear the bin apart, as they’ve already done with the old bin we had to replace because of them.
I really look forward to when we’re past winter solstice, and the days start getting longer again.
I must say, I’ve been really enjoying the warmer weather we’ve been having lately!
There is a down side to it, though. Insects that would normally be hibernating right now, are coming out in droves. Flies, I’m used to, but mostly it’s these guys.
They are EVERYWHERE! As I started this post, there was one crawling up the wall. Every now and then, we hear the distinctive “tick” of one of them landing on the floor or some other hard surface. They congregate on window sills and corners. When washing up before bed, I find them crawling across the soap. Every now and then, we’ll discover one that’s crushed on the floor, as we’ve inadvertently walked on them. I’ve even found my beside touch lamp triggered by several of them, walking along the metal base. !!
Our daughters have been vacuuming them up several times a day, lately. Unfortunately, that’s not really an option on the main floor.
These are not our local species of ladybug (coccinellidae). I’m told that these are the imported Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis) that we were told have been particularly bad this past summer.
Apparently, they bite, too.
Not much we can do about it but vacuum them up, really. They’re still a beneficial bug, but can be a problem in greater quantities.
Maybe we can take a lesson from our cat and just chill.
That’s her, with her chin draped over the plant stand, in front of my crochet corner. She has a thing about draping her chin over things. Or using objects as chin pillows. Typically, not the object the rest of her body is on. :-D
In other news, I got a call back from the septic guy that has been coming to our farm for many, many years. I’d left a message for him over the weekend, mentioning that the tank hasn’t been done in at least two years. We are concerned that the tank might back up into the basement, as has happened in the past, now that there’s suddenly 4 people using the system. He remembered the farm and the ejector system we have. While he was willing to come out and do the tank, he recommended against it, while the ground was still frozen. He was confident that we’d actually be okay until the fall. To get it done now, while the ground is still frozen, introduced a potential risk. It would take a while for the tank to fill again with water, triggering the ejector to send it out to the field, far from the house. Normally, any water in the pipes after it was emptied would drain back into the tank, but with the ground shifting over the years, there would be pockets of water remaining that would freeze, or the septic field itself would freeze, over the days it would take before warm water was once again being ejected from the tank. This would cause a major problem. The only way to fix that would be to find the blockage, then dig a hole to the pipe to repair it. In his opinion, emptying the thank now would put us at greater risk for that sort of scenario than for our tank having too much solids.
So I’m thinking that we will likely get it done in the late spring (the earliest he recommended), then go back to having it done every September.
Meanwhile, I got a response from another expert I’d asked advice for regarding our situation with the Co-op we left behind. It was most helpful. He made some of the same recommendations the lawyer did, but had other suggestions that the lawyer, not being as familiar with housing co-ops, would not have known to suggest.
Oh, how I wish I didn’t have to still deal with this crap.
Speaking of dealing with crap…
My husband had a medical appointment today, adding two more people to his team of caregivers; a joint meeting with a dietician and a diabetic nurse. It was not pleasant. He was having a very bad pain day. Pain is a complicating factor, as pain causes high blood sugar reading. So does things like lack of sleep, and numerous other things. We’re basically treating a symptom.
Thankfully, on having it pointed out to them that he was in great pain at that moment, they were willing to cut through the usual stuff (which he’d heard before, anyhow) and go straight to options. The best one of them being that, in the future, they could have these appointments over the phone, instead of him coming in.
Meanwhile, I took advantage of the appointment and got the process started to move my own medical files over – then ran into an old friend in the waiting room! It was good to see her again. I look forward to our being able to get together to catch up.
Slowly but surely, little by little, we’ll get all this medical stuff switched over to our new home.
One of the things I was looking forward to – hoping for – with this move, is to be able to sleep again.
The few times I came out here to visit, I slept better than I had in decades, not realizing how poor quality my sleep had become.
For all the weird things going on, including the odd things that keep me up at night, this hope of mine has been true.
The last few years, I’ve been getting perhaps 4 hours of sleep at night. If I was lucky, I’d get a couple hours nap, later in the day.
One of the things that prevented sleep was noise. Traffic noise. People noise. Drunk people noise. Emergency vehicle sirens noise. Animals. The occasional crunching of vehicles hitting each other noise. Having people living on either side of our walls noise. Just… noise. I wore earplugs to sleep for many years.
The other thing that prevented sleep was pain and stress. The more stressed I was, the more pain I was in, and the stress levels have been high since 2013. It wasn’t unusual for me to have to take painkillers, just to sleep. Just over the counter stuff, but I was already taking painkillers daily because of my osteoarthritis and dislocating of metatarsals. Then there was that mystery pain in my side no cause has been found for. I used to never get headaches, but tension headaches had become frequent. By the end of the day, anything I’d taken earlier had worn off and I would need to take more, many nights. In the last weeks before the move, of course, I was taking them every day, just to push myself to keep going.
The biggest sleep killer, however, was busy brain. Much of it, stress related. I’m sure many reading this will understand. No matter how exhausted, once your head hits the pillow, it starts. A thousand thoughts, whirling through your mind, and before you know it, you’re wide awake, too wired for any possibility of sleep.
I used quite a few techniques to help alleviate the sleeplessness. I picked up some sleep headphones and would listen to music. This would sometimes be enough to drown out the busy brain. Sometimes I would listen to instrumental music, sometimes to binaural recordings to induce brainwave patterns to assist sleep.
Some nights, however, the busy brain was just too much, and I needed voice to drown it out. For a while, I tried listening to audio Bible, only to find it led to me start falling asleep in church, during the homilies and sermons. Plus, if I want to listen to an audio book of any kind, I want to actually pay attention to what’s being read, not fall asleep and miss it.
One thing I tried that worked well was to record myself reading positive affirmations. Unfortunately, my first attempts, using my phone, didn’t last. For some reason, after a while, the files became corrupted and the recording would begin to sound weird. Eventually, I borrowed my daughter’s microphone and used my desktop. That worked, and there was no file corruption problem.
Sometimes, however, nothing would work, and I would resort to over the counter sleeping pills. Which also didn’t always work, but it was a last ditch attempt.
Since the move, for all the hassle and stress with the state of the house, the hot water tank dying, the ongoing troubles with the movers, and so on, my sleep has improved substantially.
No more earplugs. Noises such as the furnace turning on or the wind outside are about it, and those are rather soothing.
Not once have I had to sleep with headphones on to drown out my busy brain. I’ve still had some nights where my thoughts just ran in circles, but I fall asleep anyways.
Most amazing of all is, I hardly ever take pain killers anymore.
It’s not that I don’t have pain anymore. I certainly do. But it’s so much less than it was before. Once in a while, I’ll be hurting a bit more and will need to take some during the day, but I don’t think I’ve had to take any before bed since the move.
My husband had a medical appointment today, adding two more people to his team of caregivers; a joint meeting with a dietician and a diabetic nurse. It was not pleasant. He was having a very bad pain day. Pain is a complicating factor, as pain causes high blood sugar reading. So does things like lack of sleep, and numerous other things. We’re basically treating a symptom.
The Re-Farmer 