What's Been Going On: Monday, 21 March - Wednesday, 23 March, 2022

 

Almost to the weekend, which means almost to Spring Break for us! We’re not doing anything or going anywhere (I have big plans to clean out my fridge, if that counts…), but we’re taking the week off except for some fun reading, and a change in schedule is always nice!

It’s been a *week* around here so far. Not at all what I expected at the beginning, but that’s life, huh? This weekend is supposed to be rainy, so it’s going to be books and knitting and naps all the way down, because I could use all of it!

Here’s what I’ve been up to so far this week.

 

Monday, 21 March, 2022

You may remember this was the day we had planned for my mom to come up.

I had coffee and edited and posted my Monday post, then posted my review for How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith on my book blog. I got dressed, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, set up the stovetop to soak in a mixture of baking soda and vinegar, swept the upstairs and downstairs, and restarted the dryer from the night before.

My daughter and I started school with On This Day in History and geography (Liberia), and then we got going with math. We had *just* about finished with math, when I looked down at my white board, then glanced back up at the screen to find all of my right peripheral vision smeared. OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. It took a few glances back and forth and one glance at my daughter’s face (the left half was missing!) to confirm: I was getting a migraine.

I immediately took a dose of migraine meds, texted my mom to *not* come up, and told my daughter school was done for the day (can’t teach if you can’t see…). She played while I lay down on her bed – my head had started pounding by this time. My brain gets *really* weird during a migraine, too; I have a hard time finding words and sometimes really struggle to speak. At one point, the word ‘house’ appeared in my brain, but I couldn’t figure out how it was pronounced or what sounds any of the letters made. In the past, my husband has asked me during a migraine how my head felt, and all I could come up with was, “…fiiiiiiiiiiiine?”, when I was very obviously not fine, but “My head feels like it’s been shot by a cannon and my stomach feels like it’s been put through a blender, and if I could decapitate myself without adding more pain to my already-painful state, I’d highly consider it at this moment” was a little out of my reach at the time. Migraines are wild.

About two hours later, my head still hurt, so as per the label on my meds, I took a second dose, and my daughter announced, “Hey look, Grandma’s here!”

Turns out her phone never got my text (this is not the first time this has happened with texts that I’ve sent; I’m going to have to watch that they say ‘delivered’). Fortunately, my head had settled down to a dull roar and the visual disturbances were gone. I had caught it early enough that there was no chance of vomiting, though my stomach definitely wasn’t happy (migraines are *so* fun), and while my head still had a pretty fierce headache, I was able to rally, especially with the help of a bottle of Diet Coke. (And my mom had offered to leave or for me to go lie down, but nah. I wasn’t about to miss out on her visit.)

This was our holiday celebration, since we hadn’t seen each other since early December, so I was able to give her my grandmother’s cross-stitch, which she loved. We spent the afternoon together, my daughter playing with the toys Grandma had brought up. Somewhere in here, I wiped down the stovetop. When my husband got home, my mom and I ran over to a local grocery store, where we bought some ready-made pasta dishes for dinner. I had planned on cooking for my mom, but that wasn’t about to happen with my head still hurting (again, it was only about a 5 at its worst on the scale of 0-10, so not the worst. It really helps if I catch them super early). I also grabbed a bag of tomatoes off the discount produce rack (a huge bag of tomatoes for a buck? Heck yes!).

At home, we baked the pasta and ate, and then it was SO nice out (like in the 70’s!) that I refused to let the whole day go to waste inside and we went for a nice slow three-mile walk. I was feeling mostly normal-ish by this point, so it was a good time.

We hung out with my mom for a bit longer. I took out the garbage and recycling and hauled the cans to the curb, switched the laundry, and said goodbye to my mom. I put my daughter to bed, and my husband and I watched an episode of Deadly Women before bed.

Phew! Stupid migraines. I think this is the third I’ve had so far this year? Glad I see that new neurologist next week…

 

Tuesday, 22 March, 2022

Migraines are never just a one-day affair for me; the next-day migraine hangover is awful in its own way (and my stomach is *still* unhappy about it!), but life goes on and my daughter needed some educating. After breakfast and coffee, I took the new clothes my mom had given me upstairs, wrote a book review, and posted my review for Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang on my book blog.

We started school with On This Day in History and geography (Libya), then it was back to math. We read our book about slow processes in nature, another section from our book about the earth, a little bit from a book about the different aspects of math, and half of a book about Egyptian mythology. My daughter ate lunch right away; I curled up in my chair and dozed for a bit. Migraines are exhausting.

After our lunch break, we did spelling and Language Arts, began reading a book about Milton Hershey, read two chapters of our history book, and did our thirty minutes of Read Harder/silent reading (I’m reading Everything You Need to Know About Asian-American History; my daughter is reading Matilda), and then school was done for the day.

I did an hour of volunteer work, then lay down for a few minutes, not to sleep, but just to give my brain a rest and some quiet. I spent a little time on the computer while the leftovers heated in the oven, and then we had dinner. I did my Duolingo and showered, then crawled into bed to finish reading Garbology by Edward Humes. My husband and I watched one episode of Deadly Women before bed.

 

Wednesday, 23 March, 2022

I had breakfast and coffee, then posted my review for Attainable Sustainable: The Lost Art of Self-Reliant Living by Kris Bordessa on my book blog. I got dressed and filled and ran the dishwasher.

We started our day with On This Day in History and geography (Liechtenstein), then moved on to math (I’m so tired of drawing bar graphs!). We read more about slow processes in nature, and I had picked up our earth book, when my daughter threw a tantrum about my not letting her play with toys during schooltime. As I am not an endless font of patience, I cut it off right then and there and instead headed to the kitchen, where I prepared the tomatoes I bought on Monday for roasting. My daughter and I both needed the time to cool down.

I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and then we were ready to talk for a bit about why education is so important. We had lunch, and I blended the tomatoes to make sauce. (Below is one tray; there were two, but I had already dumped the first one into the food processor before I remembered to take a picture!) The sauce went into the fridge afterwards.

 

We did spelling and Language Arts, read more about Milton Hershey, and read two chapters of our history book. We did our 30 minutes of Read Harder/silent reading, and finished our book on Egyptian mythology.

My mother had given me her Kohl’s cash on Monday, so I ran over there and used it and a little bit of a gift card to buy a pair of capris that I very much needed (I don’t really love wearing shorts anymore, and I don’t have a ton of summer bottoms that aren’t my son’s old basketball shorts, soooo…) and a necklace. I ran to Aldi to pick up a few staples, then came home, put the groceries away, and began boiling noodles and warming the sauce. We had a lovely dinner of fake-chicken parmigiana, with the sauce I’d made earlier in the day.

 

After dinner, I did my Duolingo, biked 30 minutes while reading Outsmart Waste: The Modern Idea of Garbage and How to Think Our Way Out of It by Tom Szaky, then showered and put dinner away. I put my daughter to bed and continued reading, and my husband and I watched one episode of Deadly Women before bed.

 

That’s it so far this week. I’m worn out already; migraines are no fun, and while I’m not necessarily worried about the uptick I’ve had in them – I used to get one a year, or every other year, and lately it’s more like once a month or so – I am irritated and frustrated at the far more frequent pain and days-long stomach issues and often having to cancel my life for days at a time because of these things. Crossing my fingers that the neurologist has some ideas next week, or at least a better preventative, because obviously the one I’m taking now isn’t much helping!

I hope your week got off to a bit of an easier start than mine! :)