Holidailies Day 21: Survey 2.0

I am again tired and totally out of ideas for things to write. So we get another survey, though for kicks and giggles this is one that I filled out in 2009 on Facebook so I'm going to be putting my new answers in like, bold text or something like that. We'll see.

A - Available: yes (No, very married.)

A - Age: 19 (31)

A - Annoyance: people who dislike others immediately without even getting to know them (Currently, people who seem to want to torpedo other people's lives for fun, like the government and selfish-ass anti-maskers/anti-vaxxers.)

B - Bestest Friend[s]: Jenn, Robyn, Megan, Rissa, Becca, and Tavis (Chris, Kimmy, Chava, Amanda)

B - Birthday: June 18th, 1989 (This has not changed)

C - Crush: Long story (I am now married, but how can you not have a crush on Antoni from Queer Eye, I ask you? He is too adorable for words. Chris agrees with me, so you know.)

C - Car: '91 Toyota Corolla that has seen better days, but still moves (2001 Subaru Legacy that has about 50 lives and still runs fine despite the haunted electrical system, and a 2004 Toyota Matrix that drives better than it looks...)

C - Candy: Reeses. (Reese's are the greatest good. Second up, sour gummy worms.)

D - Day or night: Night. Day tends to come too early. (I fully agree with this still)

D - Dream Car: MUSTANG!!!! (I really want a newer Subaru that I don't have to fix every 6-9 months or so, because Subaru's are just... amazing cars)

E- Easiest person to talk to?: Any of the aforementioned friends (Chris, which is helpful to our marriage.)

E- Eggs: none at all please (I have made my peace with scrambled eggs provided they have much cheese on them. Preferably also ham.)

F - Favorite Month: June (It's hard to top the birthday month, tbh)

F - Favorite color(s): Purple, Green, Blue and Brown. (I would stick to Green and Purple these days)

F - Favorite Memory: First time I held my nephews (& Getting married)

G - Gummy Bears or Worms: Worms. Preferably sour (I said sour gummy worms above, yes? Yes.)

G - Giver or taker: Depends. I try to be a giver, but I don't always succeed (I still lean towards giver because I am very bad at graciously accepting things.)

H - Hair Color: Normally Brown, currently Red (Brown, with more gray in it after a couple of years of teaching full-time)

H - Height: 5' 1/2" (As far as I'm aware, I haven't grown or shrunk at all.)

H - Happy: right now, pretty. (Mostly? It's been a very long year and I'm having trouble feeling anything outside of exhausted)

I - Ice Cream: Cherry Garcia or Cookie Dough (Actually, I have moved away from Cookie Dough, but I do love Extreme Moose Tracks and anything that involves cherry.)

I - Instrument: Voice and piano (a little) (Less piano, still voice sorta, mostly ukulele these days)

J - Jewelry: Cross necklace, wristband (if that counts), and currently penguin earrings (Celtic trinity necklace, tungsten wedding ring, a pewter Claddagh ring with a green plastic "gem," silver Celtic knot ring). 

J - Job: Not currently. (Independent tutor and teacher, working on picking up some substitute gigs too.)

J - Jail: never, and don't plan to go (Have never even been to one, I don't think)

K - Kids: eventually. Preferably husband first. (Well, spouse, but yes. Eventually. When we have enough money to pay for our own lives AND someone else's.)

K - Kickboxing or Karate: Neither? (Neither, but I would love to learn kickboxing.)

K - Kindergarten: was at home, just like every other grade (Is a very cute age group to work with?)

L - Longest Car Ride: 2 1/2 week road trip (In one day? 17 hours. Overall, I think 2.5 weeks is still the record for a road trip.)

M - Milk Flavor: Chocolate (also, does Irish Cream creamer count?)

M - Most missed person: Jenn and Robyn!!! (Currently? Kimmy cause pandemics are The Worst)

M - Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and all 3 Lord of the Rings (Yeah, still pretty much. Maybe also Monty Python and the Holy Grail.)

N - Number of Siblings: 4 (3 living, now)

N - Number of Tattoos: 0 (but I wish I had one) (2, one on my right ankle and one on the inside of my right arm)

N - Name: Alanna Kathryn Fairbairn (this also has not changed, since Chris took my last name)

O - ONE WiSH: Things to be less complicated (Lack of debt and/or functional health insurance)

O - One Phobia: Dark and stage fright (Still very much not a fan of the dark)

O - One regret: A great deal of what happened a year ago (Not following up when the resources person at my college asked if I'd ever been tested for ADHD in 2010)

P- Pet Peeves: People who are ignorant and choose to remain so (People who believe "freedom" gives you the right to be an asshole without repercussions.)

P- Part of your appearance you like best?: Hair (I enjoy my eyes and my smile)

P- Part of your personality?: Absolutely bloody insane. :D (Creativity)

Q- Quote: "Don't tell the elf." "Not a word" ("In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." - Douglas Adams)

Q- Quick or Slow: Quick, when it comes to computers (Most of the time I enjoy that my brain moves quickly, but sometimes I wish it would slow down so I could catch up)

R - Reason to smile: Seeing school people again (The year is almost over?)

R - Reality TV Show: American Idol!!!!!!!!!!! (JANUARY 13!!!!) (Great British Bake Off. So good. So pure.)

R - Reason to cry: Life (My bank account)

S - Song Last Heard: Um... something on the radio (Currently listening to a song called "The Dye Sky" by Jolė on a Spotify playlist)

S - Season: Summer, def (Spring, as it tends to be less skin-melting than summers where I live now.)

S - Shoe: sneakers (Salomons or Sanuks)

T - Time you woke up: Sometime around 8:30. About the earliest I've woken up all break (Sometime before 10 but after 8ish? I don't know. My phone was plugged in on the other side of the room and I kept trying to go back to sleep.)

T - Time Now: 7:17 pm (10:36 PM)

T - Time for bed: sometime before midnight, cause I have stuff to do tomorrow (Um, as soon as I finish this because it's been a long day and I have had to people a lot.)

U - U love someone: Yes, many someones. As friends. (I definitely love Chris. And also many friends.)

U - Unpredictable?: I can be. Other people most certainly are (Ha. Hahaha. Hahahahaha. Yeah. Pretty much.)

U - Underwear: is generally a good thing. No matter what some girls think (Oof, some internalized misogyny Past Me? I would only wear boxers from TomboyX if I had the money to fully replace my current stash.)

V - Vegetable you hate: Cauliflower... yeck (I still agree with Cauliflower)

V - Vacation spot: That I've been to? Disneyland. That I want to go to? The British Isles (Anywhere that has beaches, tbh)

W- Worst Habits: I mess with my nails, picking, biting etc. (I just read this and was like, *cough*ADHDsymptoms*cough* but anyways... currently, anything that involves making impulse purchases.)

W- Where are you going to travel next?: School. But past that I dunno. (Travel? That's still a thing? I honestly have no idea.)

W- Weather right now: freezing, especially since my father left the door open when he went out to the car to get stuff (Cold, and was kinda foggy, but not as bad as it was in the Valley)

X - X-Rays: when I hurt my foot... that was FUN! (And at the dentist and chiropractor now)

Y - Year you were born: 1989 (This also is a fixed data point)

Y - Year it is now: 2009 (2020)

Why is there no Z? Zebras! Zoos! Tigers! Something like that... 

Until tomorrow,

Hobbit

Holidailies Day 20: I Love My Fidget Cube

I love my fidget cube. That's it. That's the post.

Oh, more reasons? Well currently I'm off my meds because of the aforementioned government system fuckery, so I am sliding between relatively normal functionality and being All Over The Place (also realizing just how much the meds usually suppress my appetite). So when I was working with my students today over Zoom, the fidget cube that I just re-found in the moving process was a lifesaver because it helped me be slightly more focused. 

As for the rest of the day, I've just been keeping it close and occasionally pausing to sit and just mess with it until my brain feels like it can focus on just like, 5 things, not 15 at any given time.

It's not much, but it's enough that I managed to do laundry and cook (and do dishes, miracle of miracles) today as well as some more unpacking. But it's not enough to extend to writing anything more than this right now, so hopefully, tomorrow will have a little more writing focus in the cards.

Until tomorrow,

Hobbit

Holidailies Day 19: Duck Appreciation

 

It occurred to me that one of the stated purposes of this blog is Duck Appreciation, and that has been painfully absent up to this point. So the following will be some beautiful pictures of ducks that I have just now Googled.

Before that, a quick moving update! I got the absolute last of our stuff out of the house today and we are officially finally fully out. And the fact that I literally showed up to make the final dump run/pick-up of the big items that wouldn't fit in the other loads about 10 minutes before the owners showed up to fix some stuff was only slightly awkward since we were supposed to be out Wednesday... But it's done! Now we just get to... sort... and unpack... *cries*

Anyways, ducks!

Duck with hair!

DUCK STAMPEDE!

"NED! Stop trying to pick a fight with the geese!"

Blow up duck!

"Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope!"

And of course, the ultimate Duck Themed Prank.

Holidailies Day 18: I Swear, This Stuff Multiplies

... Is what I've been saying every time I go to the Davis house and there's still SOMEHOW STILL STUFF THAT WON'T FIT IN THE CARS!

Like. I could have sworn we would get it all moved Wednesday. Nope. Then Chris was there yesterday to paint and took a full car-load up. So theoretically there was about another load left there for me to pick up today. One trip and one and a half cars loaded (Aunt Cindy got back into town and drove her car, which has minimal cargo space but took a bunch of light, little stuff) and there was still big stuff that wouldn't fit in my Subaru. At this point, I'm realizing it might have been cheaper to rent a truck for a day and just do a couple of loads worth to get everything, but you know, hindsight and all. 

Anyways, tomorrow will *hopefully* be the last of it, but I have to get up early to do it because the owner is coming to make sure we actually got everything out at like, 11, and I have a student to teach at 12. And I have to make (hopefully only one) dump run and then load up the last of the big stuff. That's the plan. 

Note to self, next time, don't move when you can't borrow a truck from people for longer than a couple of days, because my Subaru has a ton of cargo space for a car, but still can only take so much.

Until tomorrow,

Hobbit

Holidailies Day 17: Paperwork

[Fair warning, this post may get a little ranty, which will probably mean it will also get sweary, so if that's not your deal... Tomorrow is another day!]

I hate paperwork so fucking much. I didn't even have to do that much of it today, but I now know that much is in my future because of course, why wouldn't it be?

We have had MediCal benefits for the last couple of months, as well as EBT food benefits which have been great. Buying food is my favorite. We were not doing all that much of it for almost a month while the paperwork processed.

But with MediCal, I was having way more issues. Last time I was on it - when we lived in Roseville - I found out I could get Kaiser because I'd previously had Kaiser. And Kaiser is not great, but I could still get appointments in a few weeks if needed, as opposed to waiting months for just the initial intake appointment let alone anything specialized.

When we got back on MediCal this year, I was like, great, I know I can get Kaiser in this area because I had it for work, I just need to get back on it... no. Apparently, it wasn't that easy, but it was right at the 6 months of Pandemic Mark, everything was terrible, and I did not have the mental or emotional energy to engage with any level of automated phone systems and bureaucratic nonsense at the time, so I let it slide. I lived in hope that whenever I did manage to get my brain around to dealing with it, I'd be able to find my way through.

BUT THEN! We needed to move. And right before we moved, I had a very intense November of writing which I was not fully anticipating, and so ended up doing the bare minimum in terms of dealing with paperwork things. And then at the end of last week, right as we're about to jump into weeks of moving madness, I realize... I'm about to run out of my depression meds, which are also meds that help me sorta kinda manage my ADHD. At like the barest level, which is why I want to get better ones eventually, but like, it's better than nothing?

I look at my prescription. No refills left. "Fuck," I think, and then because I had 50 million other things on my brain, I forgot to call during business hours every day until today. Three calls and an hour of waiting for a call-back later, I finally talk to a real person and she tells me that, 1) I should probably just go to an urgent care doctor of some sort and beg them for a new prescription, which means more calling around and more paperwork for a new doctor, but like, I can do it because I need to, because otherwise I go off my meds for an indeterminate amount of time right in the middle of the holidays and moving and ramping up teaching stuff and none of that is easier to do when I'm not on medication. The only reason I had any left for most of this week is because I started stretching them out to half a dose a day just to try and get through. And now I have found that I will have to do all of the calling and paperworking and explaining without them because fuck everything.

Then she tells me the second piece of news, which is that apparently we're going to be out of the coverage area in our new place, which I wasn't anticipating because it's not that far away from the closest hub for Kaiser, but whatever. It means that I'll have to find a new health network again, and get another new doctor, and potentially wait months for an intake appointment, and generally have to jump through a ton of hoops to get any sort of mental health care. And good luck finding a doctor who isn't going to tell me that maybe my mental fatigue and inability to focus when I'm tired is because of a thyroid issue that has never been supported by the blood tests, but what else could it be because I'm fat? It couldn't be ADHD or anything like that. That's totally not in the realm of possibility. My weight must be the only answer.

Anyways, so that's something I get to deal with tomorrow because I got distracted by the next thing on my list. It's another fun thing I get to deal with, figuring out how to get benefits switched from county to county because I could have sworn last time they told us to call the county we were moving to first, but when I called Placer County they told me to call Yolo first. At which point I had about 20 minutes until my next student of the day and had lost all of my fucks to give, so I just gave up and spent the next 20 minutes trying to bring myself down from the screaming and crying level of emotion into something that could reasonably deal with a 13-year-old student without reverting to my 13-year-old self in response. 

Me right now

I just... There are so many pieces of this whole process that are beyond shitty and frustrating, and I am very glad that I don't have to pay for health insurance when I'm this poor, or like, roll into an ER just to get my damn depression meds, but also there has got to be a better way to handle this. Whoever decided to make this system as clunky as possible to discourage people from using it did an fucking admirable job.

Until tomorrow,

Hobbit

Holidailies Day 16: Cleaning

Short post, because today is the final day that Chris and I have to work on the house together, and we have to do All The Cleaning. So I'm trying to do all my daily stuff before I leave, cause I suspect that we will be there until very late and will not have the energy when I get back to Roseville, even if I get back before midnight.

On the plus side, if we reach the goal, we will be well and truly done and then can finally move on to... focusing on unpacking and organizing in our new place, and sorting through and repacking all of the storage stuff in Roseville that we just tossed in boxes so they could be moved over the last couple of days. *cries*

Until tomorrow,

Hobbit

Holidailies Day 15: Muscles

 I have them, it turns out. They were a little bit taken aback by being pressed into service after a fairly sedentary pandemic to date. I have been properly hungry multiple times over the last few days, like the hunger of one who has actually worked hard and whose muscles need some proteins and electrolytes to survive. It's a weird feeling after months of just being like, "oh, it's been [some amount of time] since I ate, I should probably like, do that or something."

Another thing about muscles is that they tend to yell a lot after the first days of using them, and even more so when you use them consistently. Which is to say that my leg muscles especially are doing the thing where every time I sit for longer than like, 5 minutes, getting up is no small task because of the soreness. 

The other benefit of hitting my steps goal consistently for the first time in months is that I can sleep relatively well, even though I'm currently not sleeping on my preferred bed. The problem is waking up, and mustering up enough energy to process any information at a speed other people deem reasonable. This is proving difficult, and means that keeping my executive functions, well... functioning, is a monumental task because holy crap it takes a lot of mental energy to process multiple tasks all in a row. 

The other good news is hopefully after tomorrow we will be done. I will be taking care of the backyard, we only have one more room and a couple of closets to finish clearing out (we ran out of car space despite having two cars with good capacity), and then we just have to Clean Everything. That's all. Though, at least it's not nearly as much of Carrying All The Things which has been what most of the last 5 days have been. 

Until tomorrow,

Hobbit