Tag: personal

Posted on
Jul 9, 2021

The Friday Five for 9 July 2021

Image from Pixabay. Because it’s pretty.

Answers to today’s questions at https://thefridayfive.dreamwidth.org/103077.html

1. What was your favorite past time in high school?

Well I only went to high school for three months before I dropped off (it was like peruskoulu/primary school (ages 7-15) which I loathed), and most of those months I was absent. But at that age my fave thing was talking about Star Trek and other scifi with my best friend. Favorite thing I did when I was alone though was reading, and it still is.

2. What is your all time favorite board game/card game?

I’m not interested in these and haven’t played in 30+ years. When I was a kid I remember we played as a family occasionally and it was fun enough, but I’ve no idea about the names of the games.

3. What is the last movie you saw at the theatre and what did you think of it?

I’m not sure… I think maybe The Queen? IMDB says it came out in 2007 here in Finland. I went to see it with my Mom – we’re both huge Helen Mirren fans! I liked it because Helen Mirren and she’s always awesome.

4. What is something (no matter what kind of mood you’re in) that makes you happy the moment you do it, see it, or hear it?

Do – painting, and bookbinding, or when I’m writing and get into the zone. See – our Beagle when she was alive, all worries fell off me the moment I saw her, she was always so happy to see me. It was just a total mutual love fest 😀 I still get happy whenever I see a Beagle when I’m out and about. Hear – certain music: my favorite tracks from The Piano and The Last Of The Mohicans soundtracks, pitter patter of rain outside.

5. Do you believe that crop circles are made by human or alien?

I want to believe they’re alien, but I don’t think I can bring myself to fully believe that.

Health Update + Hot Weather + Jeri Ryan Site
Posted on
Jun 22, 2021

Health Update + Hot Weather + Jeri Ryan Site

God I miss winter! Hence the picture. It’s from Pixabay.

Heat wave

Heat wave is not much of a  wave anymore – something that comes and goes like in summers of the past. More and more they just come and stay 😕 Summer’s barely started and we’ve already had 21 heat wave days this year 😐  Today’s going to be the hottest day so far in my city, 31 Celcius. It’s not yet 10am, I’ve already had the fan on for hour and I’m already so done with today, it’s already much too  hot… how the hell am I going to make it through the day? I’m on the very edge of a migraine attack and my head feels nasty, and there’s noise outside in the distance and sometimes closer that sounds like maybe the grass cutters will come around. Hopefully not today, those drivable machines make a horrible noise and my head really, really can’t take it today, and I’d have to close my back door and windows to make the noise bearable which would make my apartment feel like that there is no air because it’s so hot inside.

Health

In the Finnish Crohn’s Disease Facebook group there are people there whose symptoms worsen a lot during hot weather. I haven’t noticed this myself before, but the last few weeks it’s been a tiny bit worse. But my symptoms vary enough, come and go, that I can’t be sure. Just that this latest while of a little bit more active symptoms happened simultanously with the hot weather.

I haven’t slept in about three weeks now. Part of is the hot weather no doubt, but mostly I think it’s my iron levels… namely the lack of them. All I get is about 30 mins of sort of maybe kind of lousy sleep, that doesn’t feel like I slept at all, totalling about 2-3 hours. Mostly I think it’s because my ferritin is still much too low, close to zero, and the last time I slept this badly, the ferritin was about the same as it is now. I slept much better when it got over 30, but when it was 43 the doctor said I can stop taking iron  every day and to only take it during my period. I’ve read that IBD patients should have ferritin the minimum of 100, but the doctors here don’t seem to know/believe that. 43 is the highest mine’s ever been, and that lasted only about year – as soon as I stopped taking it every day, it came down to 9 (and CRP was 14 so it propably was/is closer to zero actually) within the year.

Now I’ve taking iron again since November, but it’s got up only to 21 which is what it was for a decade at least and that’s when I had so many bad sleeping problems. Not to mention terrible tiredness. Tiredness has never gone away, but sleeping was so much better for a while when the ferritin was around 40. I hate that the doctors ignore ferritin so much here, they don’t really know about it or believe that ferritin actually does anything, and that ferriting being 15 for women of childbearing age is totally okay! (Their own Doctor’s Handbook states that ferritin under 30 is empty and needs to be fixed but somehow that doesn’t count) But that it’s bad if men have it so low because their ferritin is apparently supposed to be like 150 or more 😯  Iron infusions are almost impossible to get unless you go to like one of the about five doctors in the entire country (who have private practices) that understand about ferritin and do infusions if oral iron supplements don’t help, or you can’t take them. If you pay out of pocket for everything, of course. Even IBD patients who aren’t supposed to take iron orally by the Doctor’s Handbook are told to take it orally and if they can’t, well too bad! Never mind your quality of life, and never mind if literally the only things you can do is go to work and sleep, because you’re so tired all the fucking time. Only extreme cases iron infusions are used in treating IBD patients. I bet if men had systemic problem with low ferritin it’d be taken seriously in the public health service and by doctors in general  😐 

Jeri Ryan Site

This past week Claudia, the owner of I Heart Jeri Ryan donated her content to my Jeri site, because she closed I Heart Jeri Ryan down due a personal loss. She has some things that I don’t and it’d have been such a shame to lose them. So I’ve been uploading her things (and will continue to do so in the coming days, as I go through Claudia’s things), and I’m happy to see my Jeri gallery now even more complete 😀 

Posted on
Jun 11, 2021

The Friday Five for 11 June 2021

Picture from Pixabay

Answers to today’s The Friday Five @ Dreamwidth.

1) What is the best book you’ve read?

I can’t name just one… ’cause there isn’t just one. It depends on my mood and what I’m into currently, and what genre we’re talking about. I have many favorites, but not “the best” and even faves are likely change depending on what genre I’ve been reading recently.

2) What is the worst book you’ve read?

This one particular Harlequin romance… I can’t remember its name or the author, but it’s the only book I’ve ever put in the trash after I read it. The heroine was so stupid that I ended up wondering how the hero managed to fall in love with her, instead of strangling her for her incredible stupidity, or at least leaving in disgust. It’s been been at least ten years since I read it, propably closer to 15, and I’ve since regretted that I threw it away – it was so bad, I should have enshrined it instead!

3) What is a favourite book from childhood?

I don’t know it’s the favorite but certainly one of them… Watchers by Dean R. Koontz. It was the first Koontz book I ever read. My Dad read it first (he was already sick at this point, so he’d started reading to pass the time – before he didn’t read that much), he liked it so much he said I should read it too (I’ve always loved reading and read a lot even as a kid), and then I loved it so much I told Mom she should read it as well. That memory is what makes that book special to me. We read a lot of Koontz’s books after that, and I still do even though new ones aren’t as good as the old ones.

Another favorite, for the story, is A Princess Of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I love the whole Barsoom series but this one is my favorite one of all of them. Another favorite series is The Famous Five by Enid Blyton, but I haven’t re-read those since I was a teenager and I can’t remember if I had a particular favorite.

4) What is a favourite book from adulthood?

Oh so many! Lightning by Dean R. Koontz is one I’m very fond of. Time travel, alternate timelines and dramatic mysteries, oh my!

Mostly my faves tend to be book series though, for some reason! I really appreciate the Palme Trilogy by Leif G.W. Persson – I keep seeing something new everytime I read it and the humor still makes me giggle even after rereading them like 3 times – and the original Millenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson. A more recent favorite is The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey.

I also love the Marianne book series by Juliette Benzoni. It’s my favorite historical romance series.

5) What is a book you’ve read a number of times?

I reread a lot! Chances are, if I really like it, I’ll reread it! As an example, I reread the Barsoom series about every five years, and when I was a kid/teenager I reread them every year. I’ve read the early Dean R. Koontz novels (Watchers, Whispers, Lightning, Phantoms… ) something like 10 times (and even many of the later ones a few times), and love them as much as ever every time. Currently I’m looking forward to rereading The Expanse series – but I want to read the last book first, which should come out later this year if I remember correctly.

Posted on
Jun 4, 2021

The friday 5: May 28 2021

Beagle because we had a beagle and she’s been on my mind a lot lately. I love beagles! Pic from Pixabay.

I’m bored so have answers to last week’s The Friday Five questions!

1) What are you doing this spring that you weren’t doing 1 year ago?

Umm… nothing? I think. Well, I think I’m not as worried about COVID-19, or rather the worry has changed shape into trying to accept that it’s going to be with us at least for at least the foreseeable future, kind of like having flu vaccines every year.

2) What pandemic precautions are you still taking?

Out and about, and with strangers: all of them so washing hands, social distancing, wearing face masks, no parties visits.

With family/friends: if we’re both *completely* vaccinated and I trust them not the be careless out and about, and they have to be spend time with people they don’t know about (customer service jobs , schools etc.), we visit each other indoors but try to keep some sort of distance so no hugging or touching, no more than 2-3 persons visiting at the same time. And we still wash hands entering/leaving homes. Otherwise if the other person isn’t completely vaccinated yet or sees people who aren’t/can’t be sure about, we see each other outside with masks on and taking the usual precautions.

3) What’s a safety rule that’s very important to you?

Washing/disinfecting hands! I’ve noticed that since the masks because practically required in busses and shops and so people started wearing them routinely, they also stopped washing/disinfecting their hands 🙁

4) What plants are blooming where you live?

No idea! I only know that they are pretty but when asked to name them, I can’t think of any/remember names. I’m not a plant person. I just notice “Ooh! That’s nice and green and lush! Oh that’s a pretty flower!”

5) What was your most memorable summer job?

I’ve only had one summer job that wasn’t my occupation which is a librarian. It was in 1993 and it was inspecting buying invoices in a grocery store chain HQ. That meant inspecting that the chain stores hadn’t ordered anything they weren’t allowed to, and if they had reading them the riot act if they had. No matter what the reason was – usually because the usual allowed product had been unavailable, and they had had to order something outside the allowed list to replace it because customers needed to be able to buy them anyway. I guess I remember it so well because it’s so different from what I did as a librarian in the years after.

Posted on
Jun 2, 2021

New Dishwasher + Health Update

Image from Pixabay

New Dishwasher

I’m getting a new dishwasher!!! My 23 year old dishwasher finally gave up the ghost yesterday! We bought a new one today, and it’ll be delivered tomorrow :mrgreen:  I can’t wait!! My old one has been a faithful one but I’ve wanted to buy a new model for the last 8 years or so because they have cool new features the old one didn’t, but couldn’t justify the cost when the old one was still working normally. (I come from a family that doesn’t buy new costly things until they break.) Had to replace my washing machine last July which was 30+ years old in last July, and still crazy in love with my now no longer new washing machine 😀 I feel silly being so excited about a new household appliance but there you are!

We decided that instead of waiting for the fridge to break, we’ll aim to replace later on this summer. It’s also 23 years old, makes too loud noises sometimes… probably normal for an old fridge, but they sound too loud to me because I’m sensitive to sounds due to my migraine. It’s the one I’ve wanted to replace for more than a decade now but money’s always the issue and haven’t been able to do it because it still works. But hopefully now this time we can stick to the plan!

Health update

Continued to sort of have an migraine attack yesterday, and still today though less so. It’s been a long run this time, going on five days 😡 I’d like to be able to point to a particular thing and say “this is the reason” but I can’t. There’s been nothing out of ordinary going on, not really. I did have some stress from mid-May onwards due to having to prepare and leave in formal applications for KELA to handle and all that stress resolved on last week’s Monday. So too early to count for this longer than my normal run of bad migraine attack days.

KELA made a negative decision on my disability retirement application yesterday. Which, expected. Still, disappointed. And a little suspicious – the stated time it’ll take to make a decision is up to three months. And that’s how long they took in 2018 with my last disability retirement application. But this time they handled it in a week and a bit! Doesn’t seem enough time to me to do their due diligence. KEVA hasn’t made their decision yet. I wonder what happens if they say yes? Apparently it’s rare, but it’s happened. The retirement pay KEVA would pay me isn’t anywhere near enough to live on, so it’d be complicated and probably more of a bureautic headache than a save!

And I can never spell propaply probably, no matter how many times I mistype it!