New Microwave

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Thursday I noticed our microwave was humming when not in use. I thought that didn’t seem normal and found out that it was an indication of something failing internally. It’s 23 years old, purchased back in 2002 at Walmart when we were still in our apartment, so it’s the only microwave we’ve ever owned and it has worked flawlessly. It even looks great after more than two decades of use. The idea we’d have to part with it was bumming us out.

Due to its age many parts are unavailable, but a door sensor still is, so we ordered that from Amazon on the off chance it was the culprit. Joe switched it out on Friday and sadly it did not stop the humming. We came to terms with the fact that we’d need to buy a new one and for the past few days have been unplugging it when not in use since it’s something we use daily and was in fact still working fine, but was now a fire risk.

Normally I would have done a ton of research and plugged all the data into Excel to figure out the best model to get, but with the way I’ve been feeling I just didn’t care that much. I was originally thinking of getting another GE, but I read on Reddit that the Panasonic inverter ones were better so I focused on those. Plus GE pissed me off after we bought our refrigerator and learned they designed it so that only their expensive water filter would work and therefore couldn’t buy third party ones for much cheaper, so I didn’t want to give them my business anymore. I found a Panasonic microwave at Costco that I was considering since the price and features were right, but I wasn’t crazy about how it looked.

This morning we went to Target to pick up a prescription and decided to peek at their microwaves and there was one Panasonic left that was the same style as Costco but with a different color scheme (Costco was black around the door with stainless on the control panel whereas the Target one was stainless around the door and black on the control panel which I liked better due to all the fingerprints you’d see on the stainless). Target’s price was $10 more than Costco but we had just gotten a $10 off coupon at the pharmacy for Joe getting his flu shot, so it ended up being a little less with the Target card 5% discount.

It’s similar is size to the old microwave – about an 8th of an inch shorter in width and slightly taller, but capacity wise it’s slightly larger (1.2 vs 1.1 cubic feet) and a little more powerful (1250 watts vs 1100). I don’t love the split color scheme or the reflectiveness of it, but oh well, I will get used to it like I had to do with our refrigerator. Sound wise I find it to be a little deeper, and it was annoying me this morning, but the old microwave was irritating my ears lately too.

Other things I do not like about the new microwave:

— The keypad is so dark yet reflective it’s difficult to read the text on the buttons.

— Because the door is stainless steel, fingerprints quickly accumulate. We will have to adjust how we handle the door, but using the bottom or top so as to not leave marks. I’m glad we didn’t get the Costco version where the stainless steel was on the buttons (although at least those can be read easier).

— The cooling fan is so powerful you get a cold breeze on you if you’re standing in front of the unit while it’s running. Unlike the old microwave where the vents were on the left side but toward the back of the unit, this one is closer to the front. There must also be fans on the bottom of it because the breeze seems to be coming from the left bottom half of the unit. It’s quite weird. I don’t recall ever feeling any air on me when the old unit was running.

— The unit is very lightweight compare to the old microwave so every time you use it, it shifts on the stand.

— The inside is dark which makes it feel less inviting.

— The bulb is a white-light LED which makes that cold and uninviting feeling more noticeable.

— The running time on the display is shown as a decimal instead of a colon. The colon only appears for the clock.

— After pressing the 30 second button, you still have to press start (old unit would start after a brief delay (to make sure you weren’t going to press the button to add more time)).

— After cooking is complete, a zero remains on the display for a minute before going back to the clock even if you’ve opened the door to remove the food. No one thought to program it to reset once the door has been opened.

It does heat up things more evenly than the old unit, though, so there’s that. I just wish more thought was put into the design. Everyone is trying to make appliances look sleek yet forget about the user experience.

We are slowly going from all white appliances in the kitchen to stainless steel. Personally, I don’t care for stainless due to how easily it is to see fingerprints and other marks on it, but there are more options in stainless appliances than in white these days. In fact, I couldn’t find a Panasonic white microwave with an inverter or I would have considered it.

Oh and in case you weren’t aware – “inverter microwaves offer continuous, graduated power for more even cooking, better preservation of food texture and nutrients, and improved energy efficiency compared to traditional microwaves, which use a full-power, on-and-off cycling system”.

Why I Haven’t Been Posting

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This is a post to let everyone know I am going through a health crisis at the moment. It has disrupted my life greatly and has caused me significant pain and suffering, both mentally and physically. If you’re a long-time reader, you might remember all the health stuff I went through from April 2019 through March 2020. Well this is similar to that but on steroids. It also started in April like last time and then just intensified from there.

Perimenopause is the suspected culprit, but so far hormone replacement therapy (which I started at the end of June) hasn’t “fixed” me. It did help with some out of this world anxiety, body shakes, paranoia, nausea, and ear stuff, but I’ve since developed nerve pain that started in my arms and legs and now include my feet, hands, and various other parts of my body. Sometimes they burn, or tingle, or have a crawling sensation. I’ve had to start taking Gabapentin just to get any sleep at night and I don’t like it. I am taking the least amount possible but I feel off kilter, get dizzy if I stand up too fast, and my ears are starting to be sensitive again, but I’m not sure if that’s from the drug or whatever is causing all this nerve stuff to begin with. It’s been incredibly scary and I wish it would go away. I really hate taking medication and avoid it at all costs but I’ve tried a bunch of different sleep aids prior to the gabapentin because I had completely sleepless nights thanks to the pain. Even with the Gaba I only get 5-6 hours most nights.

I finally saw a neurologist last week who sent me for blood work and tested my reflexes. He doesn’t believe I have actual nerve damage since I can still sense things, including temperature, so we’re looking at thyroid, autoimmune, and possible vitamin deficiencies. He doesn’t think it’s MS or small fiber neuropathy, so I guess that’s good. I don’t think he likes me very much, though. I could tell I was annoying him by asking so many questions. He seemed so nice ten years ago when I saw him about my cold hands and feet, but back then the stakes weren’t as high so I guess I wasn’t as frantic as I was this time around. I came to the appointment with a bunch of health history documented as well as possible causes for my issues. I probably came across as a know-it-all but I simply wanted to be thorough and maximize the time we had. It’s not cheap to see doctors on our high deductible health plan (although the premiums are much lower, so normally it would balance out if you weren’t having major health issues like I am).

I was taking Emergen-C, which has a bunch of vitamins, when all my issues started. I’ve since read that too much B6 can cause toxicity, and there was 10 mg of it in there and I had been taking it on and off for the past five years, and daily for the past 16 months. A lot of my symptoms line up with that, but with my hormones going wonky, it’s hard to pinpoint the true cause of what’s happening to me (and maybe it’s a combination of things). I quit the supplement the second I read about the B6 stuff which was on June 29th, but I didn’t quit drinking a Body Armor electrolyte drink until two weeks later because I didn’t realize they add B6 to that too (as well as most breakfast cereals). I couldn’t persuade my PCP to test my B6 when I saw her about the burning sensations, so by the time I figured out there was a test through Quest that I could pay for out of pocket, I had been off the supplement so long my levels were in the normal range. So now I don’t know if they were abnormal before or not because B6 will leave the bloodstream fairly quickly, but it can get stored in muscles and nerves and cause issues for awhile. It’s the one B vitamin that isn’t truly water soluble. So IF that is my true issue, I won’t feel better for awhile as it can take anywhere from 6 months to well over a year for the nerves to recover.

If this is all hormone related, who knows when it will calm down. I never even knew all the stuff I’ve experienced over the past four months was even possible! As I type this, my lips are burning. I see a lot of perimenopausal women complain of low libido, hot flashes, joint pain, and insomnia, but not as much of what I’ve been dealing with, although there are a few. I guess I’m just “lucky” that I’m getting so many weird and extreme symptoms.

I just hope it’s not autoimmune because that sounds worse than the other possibilities as those will likely improve whereas autoimmune might not. I’ve joked in the past with my best friend that sometimes I think I have Fibromyalgia, but I called it Fibro Light since my issues would be rather mild and go away for years at a time, if not indefinitely, but now it’s not so “funny”. I’ve had so many little things crop up here and there, and even bigger things like Interstitial Cystitis that bothered me for a long time but then just stopped and I never even adhered to the special diet for IC. I guess that’s encouraging that this nerve stuff will also go away in time, but when? It’s the most painful thing I’ve ever had to endure.

My neurologist doesn’t think I even have Fibro, though he did think hormones could be playing a large part. It’s just weird that the issues got worse instead of better by getting onto hormone therapy. So that makes me wonder what’s really going on. Maybe that points more to B6 issues? I read the symptoms can get worse before they get better and I’m only two months into stopping the supplements so I don’t know.

I hope it’s just a vitamin deficiency that I can treat. I bought a DNA test awhile back and I have the MTHFR mutation which makes processing B vitamins harder, so maybe that’s why I’ve had nightly pains that would crop up for a week or two at a time over the years even though I was taking vitamins, and now that I stopped, things are even worse. Low B1, B6, and B12 can cause nerve issues and hormone changes can make those things low even if you’re eating lots of foods with them and taking vitamins. Paradoxically, B6 is a tricky one because too little can cause nerve issues but so can too much.

Strangely enough, since this all started my migraines stopped (and I had one every week back in February) and my acid reflux has pretty much gone away (probably because I cut out all added sugars and minimize carbs and spicy foods). Something similar happened last time I was ill as well. I’ve also lost a lot of weight like last time. First because I was so nauseated I had no desire to eat and now because it’s much harder to get enough calories when you’re avoiding added sugar and high histamine foods like avocados which are full of fat and I love (and I have been having a bit here and there because I’m not fully convinced histamine is a driver of my issues but much like with the other things I don’t know for sure). I guess it’s good I was a little overweight (somewhere around 140+ lbs) when this began since now I’m under 120 lbs.

Some days I can push through the symptoms and do normal things around the house and even go out like last weekend when we went birding (but didn’t see any actual birds, which was frustrating), but other days I sit in my bed or on the couch and feel so scared and depressed. I cry… a lot. I want my life back! We had plans for this spring which included lots of birding since that’s migration season, and then afterwards we were going to adopt a dog because we finally felt ready for one, and then this happens. I hate the uncertainty of all this. If I at least knew how long it would be until I felt better it might be easier to cope, but with ever-changing symptoms and some things getting worse instead of better, I am seeing the world in a different light and I don’t like how this whole experience has changed me.

If/when I get better I am going to be so damn grateful. It’s stuff like this that makes me wish I could believe in a higher power. I just have my doubts because would God really let people suffer like they do? I will admit, I’ve prayed to him anyway just in case. Which makes me sound like an asshole – I don’t fully believe in God but now that I am suffering I will ask for help anyway. Oh well, it is what it is I suppose. I don’t know what else to do. I try to live my life in a way where I treat people well, even if sometimes they don’t necessarily deserve it, and I thought I had earned a lot of good karma for that, but now I’m wondering if it was just luck and there is no such thing as karma, because I will tell you one thing – I absolutely know I don’t deserve what’s happening to me right now. And it’s really hard not to feel bitter about that, especially watching people my age breeze through life, going out and enjoying themselves while I sit here in pain unsure of the cause or whether it will ever go away. It’s really tough.

This experience makes me feel so old and I’m only 49. Had you asked me how old I felt back in February I would have said I didn’t. I had no pain at all (other than the migraines)! I was exercising daily, eating ok (not great, but not terribly either), had added stuff into my daily regime to keep me healthy – working on my balance, doing crunches throughout the day, and making sure I wouldn’t develop insulin resistance by doing little things like making rice ahead of time and letting it cool to reheat later which helps reduce blood sugar spikes. Physically and mentally I felt great! I want to get back to that. I really really really hope I do. I don’t want to live the next how many years feeling awful all day every day. That’s no life. I’ve already lost interest and joy in most things due to this. We’ve been saving money for years, building up our nest egg for retirement, but without health it’s all meaningless. I mean, sure, it’s great that I can pay for healthcare without going into debt, but I want to enjoy life, and right now I’m just getting by in survival mode.

If you read this far, please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. My mom is very religious so she’s been praying and she called one day to check in on me and when I said I was no better she said “damn, I guess God and I aren’t as tight as I thought” and that was pretty funny. Oh, and speaking of her, she got a hysterectomy and her panic attacks went away. She never needed to take hormones and had no other issues from what she’s told me and this is the woman who has every other sensitivity in the book, so how I ended up in this mess I will never know. Maybe it’s all childhood trauma and anxiety driving this to be worse than it would otherwise be. I just wish I knew how to fix it.

P.S. I should mention how thankful I am for Joe – he has dealt with my crazy mood swings and stepped up to do all the grocery shopping, and 99% of the cooking and dish cleaning since I’ve felt too ill to do it. He also drives me everywhere since I don’t feel well enough to drive right now.

2025 1st Quarter Recap

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01/25 (Sat)
We attended a LEGO train show at the arboretum.

01/27 (Mon)
Deactivated/deleted all my X accounts because F you know who.

01/31 (Fri)
Decided The Pink Stuff is a scam. I’ve owned it for years and I’ve yet to find a single thing it can clean better than the other products I own. In fact, it barely cleans at all. If someone knows what I can use this stuff for, please let me know, because it was a waste of money as far as I’m concerned.

Got a photo of the Rock Dove (aka city pigeon) that started showing up recently. We decided to name him Vinny (and as time would go on, he invited his friends and we’d have up to 8 of them at a time under the feeder).

02/01 (Sat)
Finally found a use for my E.T. TV tray from the 80s – to hold my Sonic order while I eat in the car.

The Philly Cheesesteak at Sonic is pretty good, by the way.

02/02 (Sun)
Put out a new welcome mat. I realized I didn’t have any for that time period between Christmas and spring, and this one suits my sentiments exactly.

02/04 (Tue)
Loving these pretzel twists from Trader Joe’s. Not quite the same as the ones Sonic sells, but still quite good when made in the air fryer.

02/14 (Fri)
Celebrated Valentine’s Day like the romantic couple we are by getting Mexican takeout (ironically from the same place as last year) and finishing the Dexter prequel, Original Sin.

02/15 (Sat)
Went to an ice hockey game at an arena close to home. A longtime friend and her sister are on a team that was playing an exhibition game that night. Joe and I sat by her husband (who happens to also be my ex from the mid-90s haha), his friend, and their two kids. It was nice getting out of the house for an event even though I hate going out at night. It’s also really cold inside the arena so I was so happy to get home and under the covers with my heating pad to warm up my cold feet! It was nice seeing everyone, though. I met my friend, her hubby, and her sister in the 90s on a BBS; and while the friend and her hubby have been to our house for a game night, I hadn’t seen the sister in decades.

02/16 (Sun)
Had to contact Discover to get a new account because someone got ahold of the card # and was making fraudulent charges labeled as Apple.com

02/21 (Fri)
Migraine City! That is what this month has felt like as I’ve had one every week. Typically I get at most two in a month so this is concerning. Not sure if it’s due to tight muscles in my neck, dry eyes, or hormones, but it’s annoying nonetheless especially because over the counter headache medicine isn’t making it go away like in the past, so they last two days.

02/24 (Mon)
Had my longtime ComEd electric account hijacked because someone can’t do their job correctly. Apparently someone in the same town called to put electric in their name and somehow ComEd wasn’t listening properly and changed my account instead of the correct address that has the same number but a totally different street name (that doesn’t even sound like ours so how they made the error I’ll never know). They couldn’t reinstate my old account so I had to get a whole new account # too. So annoying!

02/25 (Tue)
Received my new Discover card and had to go through all my auto-pay accounts to update the payment information. At least it was relatively warm outside (60 degrees) so I could open the windows and listen to the birds.

02/26 (Wed)
Had to contact Amazon a second time about getting a refund for a gift I returned over a month prior. When I spoke to them the day before they assured me they would process the refund, which they did, but they shorted me $4.42 for some reason, so I had to get them to fix the error. They acted like they were doing me a favor which infuriates me. I returned the item. I got confirmation I returned the item. The confirmation also listed what was paid for said item. So why didn’t they refund the full amount in the first place?

02/28 (Fri)
Tried to get Paczki from a local bakery called Hannah’s that everyone on Facebook was raving about, only to arrive and find they had two flavors available and wouldn’t have any others until later. Call me crazy, but as a bakery shouldn’t you have all items available upon opening? We left empty-handed because I didn’t want to give them our business. We got some Paczki from Caputo’s for $2 each and were labeled as also being from a local bakery but they were quite dry and I didn’t care for them.

03/02 (Sun)
Tried a Burger King iced coffee for the first time and wow, it was not good. I asked for a plain iced coffee but I swear it tasted subtly like mocha to me. In any case, for almost $3 I’d rather get an iced coffee from McDonald’s; it tastes much better and is only $1 via the app deals.

Although now that I’ve found the perfect products, I’d rather just make iced coffee at home.

03/03 (Mon)
Had a new hot water installed. You can read about that debacle here.

03/15 (Sat)
Visited my parents for the first time in nearly a year. It was actually a pleasant experience without Brother #2 there (which is why we chose a non-holiday timeframe). We worked on everyone’s computer (what else is new haha), got some food from the local Burger King (the location of my first job in the 90s), enjoyed some of my mom’s food as well, and played a game called What’s Your Like?

03/17 (Mon)
Made corned beef and cabbage in the crockpot for St. Patrick’s Day. We splurged this year by getting Vienna from Woodman’s which was $27.79 but it was the most tender cut of meat with almost no fatty pieces.

It was a bit on the saltier, side, though, so if we get it again next year I might rinse off some of the spices (the meat was marinated in it instead of having a spice packet).

03/21 (Fri)
What the hell happened to McDonald’s Shamrock shakes? They are awful now! We usually get one every year, but missed out last year, so I’m not sure when they changed the formula but I will not ever get one again – it tasted medicinal.

03/24 (Mon)
Learned our association hired a new landscaping company. I really hope they actually stick to a schedule and not show up on random days multiple times a week making noise with their leaf blowers like the last company.

03/28 (Fri)
Joe took the day off work and we ran a bunch of errands before visiting the arboretum in the afternoon. We were delighted to see not one, not two, but three belted kingfishers by Sterling Pond, but I was not able to get a photo of any of them that I liked because they were way too far away and kept getting spooked whenever we got closer.

I did get a photo of this bluebird, though.

And this Northern Flicker peeking from behind a tree.

03/29 (Sat)
Joe’s son, E, and his girlfriend, A, paid us an early afternoon visit. I made chicken salad sandwiches for lunch which they really seemed to like. So much so, A wanted the recipe (apparently neither one had ever had chicken salad before).

03/30 (Sun)
Paid a visit to West Branch Forest Preserve to get some fresh air where I was finally able to photograph a Brown Creeper!

We timed our visit perfectly – it had rained in the early morning and started to drizzle as we made our way back to the car. We stopped and picked up Bibibop on our way home.

The next morning someone posted about a loose dog they saw about four miles from the preserve. The dog looked a lot like the dog we saw that afternoon. The lady with it didn’t have a leash on the dog, so now I’m wondering if it just got ahead of her and lost, or something happened to her. I had been tempted at the time to tell this lady to leash her dog, but I don’t think it would have made a difference.

Notable series this quarter:

Shrinking (Apple TV)
We finished season two which I thought was even better than the first season. We binged it hardcode during Apple’s free preview weekend.

Dexter: Original Sin (Showtime)

I wasn’t expecting to like this prequel but Patrick Gibson really picked up on Dexter’s mannerisms beautifully. The actors playing a young LaGuerta, Batista, and Masuka looked a lot like their older counterparts as well. We were hooked and had to stop ourselves from binging it too quickly. Once we were finished we were inspired to watch the original Dexter series which we fell in love with all over again. There was so much we had completely forgotten in the two decades since the series originally aired. And while seasons 5-8 weren’t as good as 1-4, overall it’s still an 8/10 for me.

Hot Water Heater Installation

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We had our water heater replaced yesterday. Unlike last time, we planned it. While it hadn’t failed, it was 14 years old, so it was just a matter of time. We chose ABT since they have good prices and employees. And while I liked our installers (D and R), once again I’m reminded why I get so anxious about such events.

Things started off poorly when I was informed by the head guy, D, that the wall cabinet had to come down for them to do the work. I was rather dumbfounded, because that wall cabinet was there in 2007 when the last water heater was installed and I don’t think the plumber touched it, and he was working by himself! Now, I could be wrong, but if he did, he certainly treated it better than these guys did (more on that in a bit).

Shortly thereafter, I was also informed that due to the existence of a check valve on the line, ABT was required by code to install a thermal expansion tank (I believe the check valve was installed a few years ago when the village put in a smart water meter). However, ABT didn’t have one with them and would have to come back to install that part at a later date for cost ($50). When I told Joe, he asked if he could swing by Home Depot to buy one and have them install it and they said yes and showed us what to get (which just so happened to be what Joe was looking at). Within a half hour he dropped it off (one of the perks of working so close to home). We saved $20, but more importantly, having to empty the laundry room a second time (although I confirmed the cabinet would be able to stay put on the second visit).

After the old heater was removed, the head guy asked if I wanted to clean the area so I used the Shark handheld to get rid of 14 years of cobwebs and dirt. The water was off by then so I couldn’t mop the area, but I did have a spray bottle of just water that I used to wet some paper towels and do a quick wipe of the floor. It was by no means perfect, but you can’t really see anything back there once the new heater is in place anyway.

As for the cabinet, I did not realize that the way Joe put it up originally, using something called Molly Bolts, hindered the guys’ ability to reinstall it the same way because they didn’t say anything to me. Apparently, once disconnected, the bolts fall into the wall so you have to use new ones. I’m guessing either they didn’t have any, didn’t want to do it that way, or felt it would be better to use screws into the studs. Regardless, I wish they would have at least ASKED me! Because I would have told them to leave it alone and Joe could have put it back up later. Now it sits a bit to the right and higher than before. I’m short enough, so I don’t like that. Not to mention the wall looks bad around it, and they left a misplaced screw in the wall which also looks bad. Oh and the bins I had sitting on top of the cabinet barely fit and scrape the ceiling. UGH!

In addition, the linoleum tile was scratched to shit in some places and one tile in particular has a very dull spot on it now. Whether Joe did that when moving the washer and dryer, or the installers did, I’m not certain, but this is why I hate having work done. It’s like no one is careful with the surrounding finishes! I’ve made notes for any future work in that room since people cannot be trusted to be careful in other people’s homes.

Oh, and the new water heater is louder that the old one because of course it is. All appliances seem to be louder these days because they’re made with cheaper parts and less insulation to equal more profit for companies and less contentment for consumers.

Streaming Stupidity

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Determining when you’ve finished an episode of a series, and then displaying the next episode in your “continue watching” should be Streaming Services 101… and yet Peacock and MAX just can’t seem to handle this simple concept. You have to literally start the next episode and then exit out, otherwise the end of episode you just watched will be what appears in the “continue watching” section the next time you log in. Why these two services can’t figure out that if you’ve reached the credits, that means you’ve completed the episode, is beyond me.

And MAX takes it one step further by placing you at the end of the episode you just started watching, thus confusing you further and making you question where you really left off. This happens even after turning off auto play! I’ll let it finish the episode and take me back to the series page, and yet the already watched episode is forced upon me next time. Whhhyyyy? This is such a simple programming fix!

Apple gets it. Hulu gets it. Netflix gets it. Why can’t these two streaming piles of you know what fail at something so spectacularly simple, and why aren’t more people complaining?

I started using Just Watch (an app and online service) just to track my place in series because of this nonsense.

In addition, if it’s a TV series I can borrow from the library, I’ve started doing that vs watching it on MAX because it’s just too infuriating. We had unknowingly skipped episodes of the shows we were watching on that service because of how stupidly it operates. And if you check Reddit, people have been complaining about this for years and yet nothing has been done to rectify it.