49 Weeks Behind Us (Weekly Update)

49.

49 weeks behind us since coronavirus hit Georgia full force. Almost a year. I get a pit in my stomach when I think about it.

 These 49 weeks have been tough. So tough. It's been a total eye opener. It brought out the good in a lot of people and the absolute worst in others. I have seen more selfishness and ignorance than I thought I would ever see in a lifetime. And meanness too. It's been a trying year. A sad year. An anxious year. A lonely year.

 500,000 deaths in America alone from Covid. SMH.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/22/politics/president-joe-biden-coronavirus-500000-deaths-trump-fauci/index.html

 

It DID NOT have to be this bad. We know why its this bad (and I won't keep repeating it).

 

All I can do is speak for myself, but I know I have done my part during this unprecedented pandemic. I've masked and social distanced to the best of my ability, as well as Bri and Doug. I am not an essential worker, so it's the best way I could contribute. Basically, I stayed out of trouble. I can always feel good about that.

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Doug, Bri and I rented a house on the beach on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina for the week. We had not been on a true vacation since December of 2019 (NYC at Christmastime) - and even then it was just a couple days long. The last long vacation we had was to Maui in May/June of 2019. So, we desperately needed a change of scenery and some time away...

I will blog about our trip over the next several days. We didn't do much there but relax and continue to social distance. It may not be the most super exciting recap, but it will be hopefully interesting enough to read.

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We started our trip the day after Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day was interesting though. I woke up to a dying refrigerator. Everything was beginning to melt all over the place. Luckily, we have a garage fridge we could throw stuff into, but unfortunately, the freezer part wasn't big enough to hold all the frozen B@tcher Box stuff we had been storing in our main fridge. So, Doug ran out to buy a small freezer to hold the rest of our meat...

Doug gets home and says "Happy Valentine's Day! Here's a new freezer!" Very romantic indeed.

We purchased a new fridge (our current/old one is 17 years old, so it was time for a new one) and it will be delivered tomorrow.

 Despite the chaos of Valentine's Day morning, we did have a nice rest of the day. We did have a bunch of packing and preparing to do for the next day though.

We exchanged some gifts...

Doug's gift to me (and a new freezer - heh)...

Bri's gift to me - a laminated valentine. (I got her a laminator a couple of weeks ago and she's been really enjoying it)...

Doug prepared a delicious v-day meal of lobster and steak...

 

 Valentine's Day can be for furry people too...

 

Total love fest.

 

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I kept up with politics just a little bit while I was away. I really tried not to pay too much attention to it.

 

I felt so badly for everyone who had to survive with no power and/or water in Texas during/after the winter storm. Their week was so horrible.

 

Ted Cr@z. No words. What a horrible person, liar, piece of crap (and all of this was true even before he fled town)...

 

 

We fixed our senator issues in GA. Hopefully Texas can fix theirs in time.

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I had so much laundry to do when I got home. SO. MUCH. LAUNDRY.

We really did have a nice time away. The beach was beautiful. But of course, there are always hiccups on trips - at least for our family. Nothing earth shattering but hiccups nonetheless. I'll get to all that later.

One thing I will mention is that I still deal with a bunch of chronic health issues on a daily basis. All sorts of crappy issues - which linger even when I go on vacation. My ear/tmj has been acting up again. I have some sort of contact dermatitis issue under my knee that is super uncomfortable. I still deal with taste/smell anxiety (especially in the time of Covid). I have to stay on top of keeping my tonsils clean. I get headaches. My lower back gives me issues sometimes. I'm pretty sure I have "H@glund's Deformity" on my right heel - which developed a number of months ago. (I haven't been officially diagnosed yet, but I am quite positive that's what I'm dealing with. I hardly ever wear high heels, so I think it is genetic on my part. So - that's been fun.)

 I know I am in my late 40's but holy crap. I have been dealing with all this type of "chronic stuff" for so many years. I cannot seem to win.

It's difficult to say that I'm "sick" right now because I'm really not. I am not feeling any sort of excruciating pain right at the moment (which I have dealt with before). I just live in a constant state of discomfort. All the time. It seems like I float from one weird issue to the next. And then let's just add on a bit of social isolation, pandemic anxiety and slight bitterness on top of that. 

I'm exhausted. All this would make anyone pretty grumpy.

You can probably understand now why I really don't want to add any sort of Covid diagnosis on top of all this. I deal with enough already. Lingering side effects of the virus are no freaking joke. No thank you.

I saw this posted the other day and it spoke to me...

Chronic illness bites. That is all.

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So, that's my post. I will post all about my trip soon. It's tough getting back into the swing of things - not going to lie. This is what I posted on FB on Saturday...

Hopefully I'll get my groove back soon.

 HH Day 1 coming up next...