Yikes, it’s been awhile, hasn’t it? I’ve been so busy, haha!
Ok, the crappy stuff out of the way first –
Unemployed
As of January 15th Joe will be officially unemployed. We knew this was coming for months since his company decided to eliminate his department. He will be getting a generous bonus for staying until the end, plus severance which includes his company covering our insurance premiums through May. His company has been good to us so he’s been looking internally but so far nothing has come up. He is also looking externally but between COVID and it being the end of the year he’s heard nothing back from anyone at this point.
Left arm issues
A few months ago my left arm started giving me trouble. Mostly it would just hurt if I tried to grab/reach for something. I figured it would just eventually go away on it’s own. It did not. In fact, it slowly lost it’s range of motion and now I can’t even lift that arm up past my chest or put it behind my back. This has made washing my hair or shaving my armpits difficult. I saw my doctor (really the nurse practitioner since the doctor is always so busy) and she determined it was likely a rotator cuff issue which could progress into frozen shoulder syndrome. Yay!
I’ve been going to physical therapy since the at home exercises I was given by the nurse weren’t making any noticeable difference. PT has been good, especially once another therapist started dry needling the area. The pain is much less since then and even my range of motion has improved ever so slightly. It still blows my mind that I just can’t move that arm normally anymore. Hopefully it’s just a temporary issue. I have to wonder if moving a bunch of cases of water to prep for our spare room makeovers is what started all this.
Ok, now on to the positive stuff –
Master Bedroom Renovation
Our bedroom makeover has been “done” for awhile but I haven’t posted it because we were on the fence on whether to replace all the furniture. It could use a refresh, as it’s 16 years old at this point. Many of the clips in the dresser drawers have long since broken, so if you pull the drawers out too far they fall out of the track. We are tired of how high up the bed is in the frame, plus I am really starting to hate the footboard. We went to IKEA weeks ago but nothing really struck us, nor did Ashley furniture. So we’re at a standstill right now.
We did get a beautiful shag rug and matching runner and small rug for inside the closet. Speaking of, Joe still needs to install our new mirrored closet door. He’s going to install molding around the opening first, though, because the builders left it rough and just did a really crappy job. It will look much nicer when he’s done. I don’t think I have a before photo, though, which is a bummer. We didn’t put the bed back into the frame so that is hanging out in the loft right now. Wookie can get on and off the bed easier with it being closer to the ground which is nice. I predict the bedroom won’t be fully finished until spring. In the meantime, I am loving the lighter colored walls (we went with Sandstone Cove by Behr, which is the same color in the loft). The bedroom is just way more inviting now. During the day it’s so nice and bring in there, particularly because we haven’t put the blackout curtains back up. I tend to wake up at sunrise anyway so there really isn’t a need for them now.
Wookie’s Health
Wookie has had this bile vomiting issue for as long as we can remember. It usually occurred in the mornings and the vet suspected it was tied to her having an empty stomach and the digestive juices upsetting her stomach. We’ve tried changing dry foods and limiting her treats to narrow down the culprit since some things seem to trigger it more than others (such as dental chews, of course). When she had two bouts of mysterious diarrhea this year we noticed when she was on the special canned food diet her vomiting stopped. So we’re in a trial run right now to see if it was a fluke or not. Unfortunately the food is hella expensive (a week’s supply is $23) so if it does the trick we’ll have to see whether it’s just the dry food that’s the issue and see whether we can find a more frugal food. It would be nice to no longer suffer from the anxiety of worrying she’s going to vomit on the nice new rugs or damage the new flooring if she vomits and we don’t notice right away. She seems not too bothered by the vomiting but I’m sure she too would be happier if it stopped.