Week 22 - A Bad Reaction

After a lovely, relaxing Memorial Day, it was back to reality and back to "normal". Until Thursday that is.

Lori emailed on Monday morning to ask if I was doing anything and since I was in recuperation mode from getting all my gardening done, I was free as a bird. After stopping at Bomgaar's (the farm store) for a few things and Starbuck's for yummy drinks, we knitted the afternoon away on her patio. Happy times.

Tuesday was my first day working without my neck brace and it was wonderful to be able to use 2 screens again but that also took some getting used to. I was thrilled to get a long overdue haircut that afternoon and then I did some cooking for the week and started A Small Light about the woman who hid Anne Frank and her family. It was a nice first day back to work.

Wednesday was my first day back on campus in almost 2 months. It was a day full of food and fun. There were donuts for someone's birthday, cookies from Lacey, lunch with Dodie and ice cream sundaes that afternoon. Talk about sugar overload! But I enjoyed it all. After lunch, I went to the student health center for my overdue shingles booster shot and I hit one Goodwill and a market on the way home. It was a good day.

I woke up Thursday feeling like absolute crap. I had a horrible headache and body aches to boot. I went back to bed for 2 hours and then got up, feeling some better, to tackle monthly reports. Since I had a new virtual machine, everything was harder than usual and I had brain fog and fatigue on top of that. There were storms all afternoon and after I lost my vpn connection for the 3rd time, I quit work at 4:30. I didn't feel better until bedtime but at least I won't get shingles, right? Get this - it was the 1st of the month and I didn't work on new socks. That's how crappy I felt.

Work on Friday was a flash in the pan. I went out at lunch to feed Andrea's cat and pick up a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut (a rare treat). I finally made some progress on my June socks and finished A Small Light that evening. And despite knowing how it would end, I was sobbing. If you have Hulu, definitely watch it. If I ever get another cat, she'll be called Miep after the main character.

It was a low key weekend of trying to stay cool without my AC, which was going to be replaced on Monday or Tuesday. With a freon leak, I kept it off as long as possible, only turning it on mid-afternoon when it got too hot in my closed up house. Other than the bare minimum of chores, I streamed and knitted most of the weekend. I watched Stonehouse and The Departed, which I'd never seen. Fabulous movie. After my slow start, my first June sock flew off the needles and was done on Sunday. I made it to match the sweet William, which was my grandmother's favorite flower, that I grew from seed last year and is blooming in one of my veg beds.

So other than the reaction to the shingles booster, the week was a good re-entry to normal life. The rain was a bonus (we're 4" behind for the month of May) and by the end of the week, the stiffness in my neck was completely gone. I needed the recharge weekend to face the next week, which would be 5 working days with 2 of them on campus and water aerobics was starting. I can do it!