Shall this be a new year of resolutions?
Jan. 1st, 2013 08:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunrabIn 2012, the only resolution I made was to remember to call my friend Cindy at least once a week, instead of always waiting for her to call me - I'm really, really bad about picking up the phone and calling people, but I managed to keep that resolution. Without any resolutions on the subject, I decided just after the first of the year that I really needed to get out from under the burdens of a largish single-family home, so repaired the home, sold the home, bought a condo, moved. So far so good, right? Also good, that I don't think I've mentioned, is that I've lost nearly 25 pounds in the past year, getting my BMI to just under 25 - that is, within normal instead of overweight! Without any resolutions about losing weight!
I whined here about the couple of tachycardia events that screwed up my summer, and then somehow never got around to getting back here. I think, mind you I'm not certain, but I think, that this new year I resolve to write a few more substantive posts here, rather than depending on 3-sentence Facebook updates to be the only way I keep up with friends or organize my thoughts.
Brief catch-up of other things since July: sold bike - shakiness of heart status, anxiety, and that it's just not so much fun without my favorite riding partner, and then I don't have a garage any more, and I was thinking, this bike is going to sit here unused for months and suffer because of it; the year it sat immediately after Steve's death, it needed a couple thousand dollars of repairs to get it back into shape
to ride - sitting is not good for bikes. And that was in a garage - imagine how much worse, in a parking lot where rain and snow happen; even to a bike with a cover, rain and snow have effects. So, sold bike. Not ruling out buying another someday, if I happen to run into someone to ride with regularly. Kept helmet and jacket and boots.
Had one more unsuccessful attempt to place 3rd lead for biventricular pacing, in September. This was done by the guy who invented some catheters that are the state of the art for lead placement, and the concensus was, surely he could do it, if anybody can. Well, I turned out to be one of his very few failures; he got further than anyone else ever had, but my veins are seriously corkscrew-like, or spiral pasta, or
that tangle of christmas tree lights - they do not run in straight lines and gentle curves. And from 4.5 hours under anesthesia, I had a peculiar reaction of persistent low blood pressure that took a day in the ICU with a "Neo" drip (short for Neosynephrine, yes, the same stuff that clears your nose; that's what they use to raise blood pressure) to fix, and my BP has stayed a bit lower than we'd like ever since, which,
since we can't really eliminate any of my BP meds for other reasons, has meant that I've started adding a little more salt back to my diet -
still not as much as normal people eat, but more than before; something with an average amount of salt during my first meal of the day seems to forestall the episodes of lightheadedness and dizziness later in the afternoon. It's not supposed to work that way, but it's working.
Anyway, unsuccessful surgery costs just as much as successful surgery does - or more, if one winds up in ICU overnight rather than in recovery room - so I was a tad worried about finances for a bit. But! I had started the application for SS disability in June, finished it in July, and then prepared to wait 4-6 months for them to turn me down and start an appeal. Instead, in August, I, and one of my "references," got long additional forms to fill out - what? They were actually looking at my app only a month after I finished it? Indeed. And in November, poof, a deposit from SSA mysteriously appears in my bank account, and three weeks later, I get a letter explaining what it is. I got approved for Social Security, and thought they can't send me a back check for all the way back to when I became disabled, they could and did send me money going back to the initial date of my application. That money then paid off the hospital bills - since my insurance is from the Texas Employees Retirement System, I am always out-of-network and my copay on such things is 30%, and 30% of a five-figure hospital bill is a hefty four-figure sum, and that had been REALLY worrying me - and I paid off the credit cards, and bought a new stove - the stove in the condo when I moved in worked, but one burner was really wonky, and the whole thing was filthy beyond my ability to be sure I had really cleaned it, and I had been wishing for a new one, so I did. And there's still a bit left from that deposit from SSA, which will probably turn into paying taxes, because they didn't withhold any and a chunk of it will be taxable for me. And they will be sending me an amount each month which effectively doubles my monthly income - my pension check from Texas is pretty damn modest, and with only that for income, I was at about 200% of poverty level income for one person, which is a difficult amount to live on in the third-richest county (or 5th richest, depending on the list you read) in the US, where the median income is around $90K a year (look up Howard County, MD if you want). So, anyway, much relieved. Sad that I seem to be disabled enough to qualify so quickly, but relieved.
In the "getting rid of stuff" department, I had pared down books and CDs, sharing them and selling them and whatnot. I also had to divest myself of a few of my pets - I hated to do that, but between the fact that I had been paying my petsitter to come once a week and help me clean, because I couldn't manage them all myself after Steve died, and the fact that this condo technically has some limits on pets and is certainly more limited in size, I couldn't keep on having an entire roomful of chinchillas and rabbits and guinea pigs. It took several months to find homes I could trust for Darwin chin, and Domino and Farfalle buns - but I did it. I figured I'd keep Chippy chin and Fern bun, my most elderly pets - not fair to an elderly pet to uproot its life, and not fair to a new human to stick them with a pet of such age. So, Chippy passed away late this fall, at age 13. That's not ancient but around average for a chin; he went peacefully but I don't know if all the changes in moving may have made him a little older than he was. Fern bun is still going strong, at around 9 years old - so the current critter inventory is Dexter cat, Fern bun, and Oreo and Theodore piggles. That, I can manage by myself. Darwin chin is loving his new home, and Domino and Farfalle have a couple of humans to spoil them rotten - I get regular updates. Anyway, having only one rabbit cage and the piggle cage on top of it, meant that the third bedroom finally had enough space that I could move everything from the storage unit I had been paying for, into that bedroom - so now I have another 40 or so boxes of books, crafts stuff, Steve's old stuff, garage stuff, tools, who knows what, to go through. It will be easier to go through it here, than it was in storage. but this whole sorting-and-getting-rid-of process is tiring, and wearing, and saddening. I can't do too much at once; I get stressed out and do too much crying. So it will take a while. But I have found good homes, bit by bit, for things of Steve's. There's so much stuff that's too personal to just throw out, but there's too much of it for me to keep; finding a spot where it will be useful or at least appreciated is important. So Steve's band letter sweater and band blanket went to the alumni archives, for example. Some of the paper stuff I'm scanning - slowly - before tossing it. Bits and pieces get mailed to various friends and relatives - every month, seems like, I have a category of stuff where I ask "who wants some of this?" and some that I just send off without asking first, to let somebody else just deal with it.
In December I went to Texas for a long visit, and that also included getting some stuff out of the house: Steve's old German textbooks from college went to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fadethecat, for example, because she made the mistake of mentioning that she was thinking of learning German over the semester break. I had managed to throw away many of Steve's textbooks from the '60's within that first year after he died, because I had always been annoyed that he kept so many of those - I mean, really, he's not going to brush up on physics from his 1964 physics textbook; it's not even correct any more! But I had saved the German books because, well, they were sort of special to him, and I had taken German in high school, and we both thought we might brush up one day, and well, I had to save something. However, there were so many things in that category that they were becoming more a burden, and a reminder of what we never did get around to doing, than they were a memento. So - the idea that somebody could, however faintly, USE!!! those books - all the excuse I needed, to finally let go of them. Hell, it's not like I'm going to forget Steve's interests, because there's still so much stuff, I will still be going through it for years to come, with little surprises turning up here and there, I'm sure. Anyway, I also took a clock that Steve's dad had sent us, that we had never gotten around to displaying, and brought that to Steve's cousin - keep it in the family, and Pam and Dan have children and grandchildren that an heirloom clock can be passed on to, and that's one more thing that I don't have to keep having remind me of the things we didn't get around to. That sounds callous, sort of. But there's so much stuff! Steve shouldn't have kept so much! I shouldn't have kept so much! We should have opened more things sooner after we moved up here, and decided what to do with them then! And honesttogod, it hurts me so much when stuff reminds me of everything we DIDN'T get around to doing. I need for the burdens of grief to be a little bit less, I really do.
Much fun was had in Texas. Parts of Austin have changed so much they are unrecognizable - when I went back in october 2010 to have a memorial service for Steve there, I really wasn't looking at Austin at all, and when I did the anniversary of that visit, in Octover 2011, it still was more to visit just people, and for a few days. Before that, our previous visits to Austin had been to deal with Steve's dad's estate, and other than that, to attend a few specific events. So this was the first time since 2005 that I really had time to drive around looking at things. So much has changed. And prices, good heavens - housing prices there are more than here! This was also the first visit since 2005 that instead of staying all at one person's house, I visited with several people. I didn't get to see everyone, but I managed to catch several people I hadn't seen last time. And the people I didn't see, well, they can always come visit me; I live in an interesting place and I have a guest room! I spent a night with Steve's cousin Connie, who is considerably older than he was - so I have to grab these opportunities, while they are still able to live independently. And I got to see Fade and Rob's new house, and new dog - both, big steps for them! Great location on the house, and it's a big house with a kitchen I am way envious of. And I stayed with Lise and Sam, and had Christmas dinner with them - Sam cooked duck! I get to computer-chat with Lise several times a week, but there's nothing like seeing someone in person - and getting to see her new sewing machine, and help with a couple of projects. And to meet Taz's new spouse, who is a very funny guy! And then I went to visit Pam in Katy, which included some side trips to stuff that was new to me, and fun to find out about - Industrial Country Market on Highway 71, new since we left Austin, and fascinating. So not all the changes beyond recognition are bad things; some of the new stuff is interesting. I didn't get to eat in every single restaurant that I missed, that Steve and I always ate at, but that's probably just as well, since I want to keep the weight off!
OK, that's well enough of a ramble and a catch-up. New Year's resolution: keep up with LJ better, keep up with my friends' lives better. It's not all always me, and when it is me, sometimes it's good to share.
I whined here about the couple of tachycardia events that screwed up my summer, and then somehow never got around to getting back here. I think, mind you I'm not certain, but I think, that this new year I resolve to write a few more substantive posts here, rather than depending on 3-sentence Facebook updates to be the only way I keep up with friends or organize my thoughts.
Brief catch-up of other things since July: sold bike - shakiness of heart status, anxiety, and that it's just not so much fun without my favorite riding partner, and then I don't have a garage any more, and I was thinking, this bike is going to sit here unused for months and suffer because of it; the year it sat immediately after Steve's death, it needed a couple thousand dollars of repairs to get it back into shape
to ride - sitting is not good for bikes. And that was in a garage - imagine how much worse, in a parking lot where rain and snow happen; even to a bike with a cover, rain and snow have effects. So, sold bike. Not ruling out buying another someday, if I happen to run into someone to ride with regularly. Kept helmet and jacket and boots.
Had one more unsuccessful attempt to place 3rd lead for biventricular pacing, in September. This was done by the guy who invented some catheters that are the state of the art for lead placement, and the concensus was, surely he could do it, if anybody can. Well, I turned out to be one of his very few failures; he got further than anyone else ever had, but my veins are seriously corkscrew-like, or spiral pasta, or
that tangle of christmas tree lights - they do not run in straight lines and gentle curves. And from 4.5 hours under anesthesia, I had a peculiar reaction of persistent low blood pressure that took a day in the ICU with a "Neo" drip (short for Neosynephrine, yes, the same stuff that clears your nose; that's what they use to raise blood pressure) to fix, and my BP has stayed a bit lower than we'd like ever since, which,
since we can't really eliminate any of my BP meds for other reasons, has meant that I've started adding a little more salt back to my diet -
still not as much as normal people eat, but more than before; something with an average amount of salt during my first meal of the day seems to forestall the episodes of lightheadedness and dizziness later in the afternoon. It's not supposed to work that way, but it's working.
Anyway, unsuccessful surgery costs just as much as successful surgery does - or more, if one winds up in ICU overnight rather than in recovery room - so I was a tad worried about finances for a bit. But! I had started the application for SS disability in June, finished it in July, and then prepared to wait 4-6 months for them to turn me down and start an appeal. Instead, in August, I, and one of my "references," got long additional forms to fill out - what? They were actually looking at my app only a month after I finished it? Indeed. And in November, poof, a deposit from SSA mysteriously appears in my bank account, and three weeks later, I get a letter explaining what it is. I got approved for Social Security, and thought they can't send me a back check for all the way back to when I became disabled, they could and did send me money going back to the initial date of my application. That money then paid off the hospital bills - since my insurance is from the Texas Employees Retirement System, I am always out-of-network and my copay on such things is 30%, and 30% of a five-figure hospital bill is a hefty four-figure sum, and that had been REALLY worrying me - and I paid off the credit cards, and bought a new stove - the stove in the condo when I moved in worked, but one burner was really wonky, and the whole thing was filthy beyond my ability to be sure I had really cleaned it, and I had been wishing for a new one, so I did. And there's still a bit left from that deposit from SSA, which will probably turn into paying taxes, because they didn't withhold any and a chunk of it will be taxable for me. And they will be sending me an amount each month which effectively doubles my monthly income - my pension check from Texas is pretty damn modest, and with only that for income, I was at about 200% of poverty level income for one person, which is a difficult amount to live on in the third-richest county (or 5th richest, depending on the list you read) in the US, where the median income is around $90K a year (look up Howard County, MD if you want). So, anyway, much relieved. Sad that I seem to be disabled enough to qualify so quickly, but relieved.
In the "getting rid of stuff" department, I had pared down books and CDs, sharing them and selling them and whatnot. I also had to divest myself of a few of my pets - I hated to do that, but between the fact that I had been paying my petsitter to come once a week and help me clean, because I couldn't manage them all myself after Steve died, and the fact that this condo technically has some limits on pets and is certainly more limited in size, I couldn't keep on having an entire roomful of chinchillas and rabbits and guinea pigs. It took several months to find homes I could trust for Darwin chin, and Domino and Farfalle buns - but I did it. I figured I'd keep Chippy chin and Fern bun, my most elderly pets - not fair to an elderly pet to uproot its life, and not fair to a new human to stick them with a pet of such age. So, Chippy passed away late this fall, at age 13. That's not ancient but around average for a chin; he went peacefully but I don't know if all the changes in moving may have made him a little older than he was. Fern bun is still going strong, at around 9 years old - so the current critter inventory is Dexter cat, Fern bun, and Oreo and Theodore piggles. That, I can manage by myself. Darwin chin is loving his new home, and Domino and Farfalle have a couple of humans to spoil them rotten - I get regular updates. Anyway, having only one rabbit cage and the piggle cage on top of it, meant that the third bedroom finally had enough space that I could move everything from the storage unit I had been paying for, into that bedroom - so now I have another 40 or so boxes of books, crafts stuff, Steve's old stuff, garage stuff, tools, who knows what, to go through. It will be easier to go through it here, than it was in storage. but this whole sorting-and-getting-rid-of process is tiring, and wearing, and saddening. I can't do too much at once; I get stressed out and do too much crying. So it will take a while. But I have found good homes, bit by bit, for things of Steve's. There's so much stuff that's too personal to just throw out, but there's too much of it for me to keep; finding a spot where it will be useful or at least appreciated is important. So Steve's band letter sweater and band blanket went to the alumni archives, for example. Some of the paper stuff I'm scanning - slowly - before tossing it. Bits and pieces get mailed to various friends and relatives - every month, seems like, I have a category of stuff where I ask "who wants some of this?" and some that I just send off without asking first, to let somebody else just deal with it.
In December I went to Texas for a long visit, and that also included getting some stuff out of the house: Steve's old German textbooks from college went to
fadethecat, for example, because she made the mistake of mentioning that she was thinking of learning German over the semester break. I had managed to throw away many of Steve's textbooks from the '60's within that first year after he died, because I had always been annoyed that he kept so many of those - I mean, really, he's not going to brush up on physics from his 1964 physics textbook; it's not even correct any more! But I had saved the German books because, well, they were sort of special to him, and I had taken German in high school, and we both thought we might brush up one day, and well, I had to save something. However, there were so many things in that category that they were becoming more a burden, and a reminder of what we never did get around to doing, than they were a memento. So - the idea that somebody could, however faintly, USE!!! those books - all the excuse I needed, to finally let go of them. Hell, it's not like I'm going to forget Steve's interests, because there's still so much stuff, I will still be going through it for years to come, with little surprises turning up here and there, I'm sure. Anyway, I also took a clock that Steve's dad had sent us, that we had never gotten around to displaying, and brought that to Steve's cousin - keep it in the family, and Pam and Dan have children and grandchildren that an heirloom clock can be passed on to, and that's one more thing that I don't have to keep having remind me of the things we didn't get around to. That sounds callous, sort of. But there's so much stuff! Steve shouldn't have kept so much! I shouldn't have kept so much! We should have opened more things sooner after we moved up here, and decided what to do with them then! And honesttogod, it hurts me so much when stuff reminds me of everything we DIDN'T get around to doing. I need for the burdens of grief to be a little bit less, I really do.Much fun was had in Texas. Parts of Austin have changed so much they are unrecognizable - when I went back in october 2010 to have a memorial service for Steve there, I really wasn't looking at Austin at all, and when I did the anniversary of that visit, in Octover 2011, it still was more to visit just people, and for a few days. Before that, our previous visits to Austin had been to deal with Steve's dad's estate, and other than that, to attend a few specific events. So this was the first time since 2005 that I really had time to drive around looking at things. So much has changed. And prices, good heavens - housing prices there are more than here! This was also the first visit since 2005 that instead of staying all at one person's house, I visited with several people. I didn't get to see everyone, but I managed to catch several people I hadn't seen last time. And the people I didn't see, well, they can always come visit me; I live in an interesting place and I have a guest room! I spent a night with Steve's cousin Connie, who is considerably older than he was - so I have to grab these opportunities, while they are still able to live independently. And I got to see Fade and Rob's new house, and new dog - both, big steps for them! Great location on the house, and it's a big house with a kitchen I am way envious of. And I stayed with Lise and Sam, and had Christmas dinner with them - Sam cooked duck! I get to computer-chat with Lise several times a week, but there's nothing like seeing someone in person - and getting to see her new sewing machine, and help with a couple of projects. And to meet Taz's new spouse, who is a very funny guy! And then I went to visit Pam in Katy, which included some side trips to stuff that was new to me, and fun to find out about - Industrial Country Market on Highway 71, new since we left Austin, and fascinating. So not all the changes beyond recognition are bad things; some of the new stuff is interesting. I didn't get to eat in every single restaurant that I missed, that Steve and I always ate at, but that's probably just as well, since I want to keep the weight off!
OK, that's well enough of a ramble and a catch-up. New Year's resolution: keep up with LJ better, keep up with my friends' lives better. It's not all always me, and when it is me, sometimes it's good to share.
