Singled out

 The upgraded hot tub is definitely smaller, but it's SO nice.... The material it's molded out of is really non-slip, which is important as we age, and as my bones are damaged by the cancer.

I've been in it three times already! I need to tweak the chemistry a bit more, though, as it is about a hundred gallons less water than the old tub.

In other news, this past week, my job pulled a fast one on me.  

Every week, when I get home from my office day, I go into my home office, and fire up my computer, which has been turned off since Friday.

When I did this on Monday afternoon, the computer would not connect, so I messaged my supervisor, who was still at work, and she put in a help desk ticket for me.

The I/T guy who called me first thing Tuesday morning, was clueless about why this might be happening.

After multiple calls, the I/T guy told me that my home office computer was dead/broken, and that he would have to come get it.

I disconnected the box, and had it ready when he arrived, so he would not have to come into my house.

He's a blatant Trumper, evangelical/fundamentalist, and conspiracy theorist...and I did not have time to put everything in my house away, or out of sight, before his arrival. 

Since I had already had my office day, and was scheduled to have the afternoon off for my oncologist appointment, I had to stay home.  

SO, I spent the rest of the morning hiding things, and preparing for the guy to come back.  I wasn't sure where all of the cords needed to be plugged into the new computer, so I had to allow him in upon his return. 

I messaged my boss, and asked her if I was going to be paid for these few hours, and she said I would have to either make up the lost hours, or use my vacation time!!  

THIS made me angry... needless to day.  

Anyway, when the I/T guy came back with my new computer, he had information that was not available first thing in the morning: 

The I/T department PLANNED this!!!

They told NO ONE, and they only did it to ME.  The I/T guy said it would be happening to everyone, as the new security requirements made it necessary.

HOWEVER, by the end of the day, everyone else in my department was told to bring their computers to the office to be replaced on their next office day. 

NOW, I was furious.... 

No one else had to be surprised like this, and no one else would have to use their hard-earned time off in order to get paid....

Anyway, he got the new unit hooked up, and then he had to sit right next to me, in the room where I keep 90% of my Pagan identity.... to get everything working.

Once again, EVERYTHING was wiped clean.... and now things work differently than they ever have, and I HATE IT.

I was pleased that my oncologist visit ran on time, and I was home by 2:30, so I clocked back in and worked until 5:00, to make up some of the time I had not been able to work, and would not be paid for otherwise.

It took most of the rest of the week to get things up and running, so to speak, and much of the changes are permanent.  

We are no longer allowed to save our log ins on the websites we use.  I use more websites than anyone else, so I have a three page print out (which I printed the first time they wiped everything clean, a few weeks ago).

Now, I have to manually type in my user name and password dozens of times a day.  Some of the websites "time out" and shut you out after a very short time, so I have to log into the same ones over and over.

We are also no longer able to PRINT anything that we keep in our Outlook folders, which is where I keep all of my passwords.  Needless to say, I am very grateful to myself for having the foresight to print that list last month!

This coming week, I will create a new document in WORD, and save it in my permanent drive, where I CAN update it, and print it, if I need to!

And, as if we are being punished, now we can't have nice pictures in the back ground on our monitors, either.  We are allowed plain blue.

I suppose I will get used to it, but this switch to a new "brain box" was REALLY poorly handled.  For ME, anyway... not for anyone else.

Anyway, it's been a lovely weekend.  Coolish weather, and some gentle rain yesterday.  

Today is sunny, so Dave can get out and clean up the mess left behind by the old hot tub being taken away.

There was a lot of rotted wood underneath it that he shoved off of the patio into the grass, and that needs to be cleaned up.

I am cooking my first ever corned beef today.  So far, so good.  I remember my mom's smelling AWFUL, but this one smells pretty good so far.   

I brined it for three days, and then boiled it twice this morning, before putting it in the slow cooker.

I will make Colcannon later on, and got swiss cheese, marble rye bread, and Thousand Island salad dressing, so I can make Reuben sandwiches with some of the left over beef!!

I'm not catholic, and only a small percentage of my family's ancestry is Irish, but I'm doing it anyway!

If you're celebrating today, have fun!

Spring is springing

 It's a bit earlier than usual, as I said last week, but there are new "usuals" in the world, when it comes to seasons and weather.

We, in most of the U.S., are forced to change our clocks this weekend, by losing an hour of sleep, in order to gain an hour of daylight in the evening.

Many of us hate this transition, Dave and I among them.  It serves no practical purpose.

So, it's suddenly nine o'clock, and we have to get showered and out the door to be at Costco when it opens at ten.

I am going to return that horrible vacuum, and we are going to pick up a few things, and then go out for brunch.

Our annual windfall has arrived in the bank, and we are making various improvements around the house.

I got a new set of pots and pans recently (donated the old set to the youth shelter, so they can have lots of equipment in their kitchen), and yesterday, we put a deposit down on a replacement hot tub for the patio.

The old one is on its last legs, leaking, and falling apart.

It's been our faithful companion for 11 years, and it's time to get a better (not bigger) one.

This coming week, Dave has scheduled estimators to come out and give us bids to continue the window replacement project.  We will have to finance that, of course.

I see the doctor on Tuesday. Actually, I will see the physician's assistant this time.  Just for my every-other treatment check in.

Have a good week!

Cookin'!

 It was in the 80s again yesterday, and will be again today.

The daffodils are in full bloom, and the flowering trees are blooming.  The irises are popping up, and the trees are putting out buds and leaves.

We didn't really have a winter, per se.  It's going to be in the 70s all this next week, with the potential for some MUCH needed rain by the end of the week.

Had a friend over last night for a cooking lesson, and I am pretty sure her dish turned out better than mine!  YAY!!

Today, some friends from California are passing through, and we will be cooking together, too!

SO, that being said, the house is pretty clean, having just had company a couple of weeks ago.... and maybe I can keep up with it better if I keep having company for dinner, HAHA!

Speaking of, my old Shark stick vacuum was pretty worn out, so I bought a new Bissell vacuum a few weeks ago.  I can't remember if I posted about it in my blog or not.

Anyway, that new one turned out to be awful, so we are going to take it back to Costco, and I have ordered a newer, bigger version of the one I used to have.

Let's hope THAT one does the job!

The Bissell has to have a different brush for the area rugs, so I have to change the brush every time I clean, and move from the hardwood and tile to the area rugs.  This was not made clear in the product description. I even had to purchase the area rug brush separately, because it did not come with the unit.

This vacuum also leaves clumps of cat hair, and dirt/litter, behind that I have to go after with the hand vac.

The bedroom area rug looks filthy, because our cats all have black fur, and I go over it at least twice, with the right brush, on the rug setting, every week.  

The light colored areas of the rug just look like I have not vacuumed at all.

I am sick of having to clean up after this thing, so BACK IT GOES.... 

The new Shark will arrive next Thursday, and we will take the Bissell back to the Costco warehouse on Sunday morning.

Same price and everything, so it's almost like making an exchange.  The refund for the Bissell will cover the cost of the Shark, so it should be a "wash" on my credit card.

Not much to report on for the past week.

My treatment went just fine, and I am feeling pretty good.  Seemed to have less of an issue with the steroids this time, which was most appreciated.

Tech issues at work continued to smooth out as last week went along.  Everything finally works again, but now they are forcing us to change all of our passwords, and our main password, every 60 days. Ugh.

No appointments next week, which is nice.

Hopefully, we will be getting out to walk.  We both need the exercise.

I am taking dance classes on line, since I will just be in the way if I go to class, at this point.

I won't be here for the show, so I can't really be in the staging aspect of class and rehearsal without screwing everything up.

Wishing you a good week, Gentle Readers!

Crash

 After the system crash / security issue at work the week before last, I arrived at the office on Monday to find my work computer had been wiped clean.

Apparently, they did that to all of us "low level" employees.  

They "pulled" all of our desktops, and replaced them with a new version that had NOTHING on it that was functional.   

I was unable to do ANYTHING AT ALL for the first two and a half hours of the day.  

My supervisor's system wasn't wiped, so she had to do my billing, because those bills HAVE to go out every morning.  

I mean... we are the BILLING OFFICE, and it's my job to get the bills out - accurately and promptly.

She was also having her phone ring, over and over, with other employees (who were all working from home) calling in a panic because all of their "stuff" was gone, like mine.  

At one point, she stood up from her desk and yelled "I'M NOT I/T!"

As it turned out, not surprisingly, she made a major mistake in one of my tasks, and the director came at ME about it.... but I was able to deflect it back to the source, without harm to my job, and we fixed it together.

In  retrospect, it would have been REALLY HELPFUL if we had been emailed, or somehow notified, that I/T was going to do this, and that we would not be able to log in, or do anything, on Monday morning.

At the very least, some newer employees needed to be told to SAVE everything to their "U" drives (which are permanent, and are there for us to be able to keep important information and tools for our jobs).  

This was not done, and a LOT of very important tools were wiped away.

But no.  It was just done, and we were left floundering.

The floundering continued all of last week, with items slowly being restored.  It was quite stressful, aggravating, and frustrating. 

Sadly, as part of the rebuild, they have taken away ANY sense that we had of being able to "personalize" our screens.   No more pretty pictures in the back ground, to make staring at those screens for 40 hours a week more bearable.

It was a very difficult week, and my phone still doesn't work, and I still can't do all of the billing.

At the same time, one of the major vendors/websites that we use daily had a major security breach, and had to shut down.

What is this trend, lately, with hackers/whoever breaking into HEALTHCARE operations???  It's pure evil, I tell you....

In other news, the weather has been very April like, and daffodils are blooming all over town, a month ahead of time (two months ahead of Illinois), and my willow tree is sprouting leaves already.

This does not bode well for a tolerable summer.  Ugh.

We may yet see more winter-like weather, but it's not likely.

We finally got to go out with our February birthday friends for dinner last night.  I get to tag along, by default, HAHA!!  We always go for sushi.... which I adore!  

It was wonderful.  Our favorite sushi place was closed for a long time, building a new restaurant...and they have been re-opened for a while, but none of us had been there yet.  

It was quite nice, and the food was, of course, perfect!

We will take advantage of the spring like weather today, and get a couple of things done outside.  Dave is going to re-arrange the storage shed, as it is kind of a mess.

I might set up a fire in my fire pit to belatedly celebrate the Pagan holiday that was a couple of weeks ago, when it was cold and wet outside.

Like it still should be ... sigh...

Anyway, my treatment is this coming Thursday.  

I will have to go ahead of time for my blood draw, but am enjoying only having to see the doctor every six weeks.  Having to go to see the doc one day, and have my treatment another day, every time, was getting REALLY old.  

Have a good week!

Busy weekend

 Our friends arrived, safely, on Thursday, and we took them a dinner of rotisserie chicken, and deli salads.

They had me laughing within minutes.  

Friday, we met at the Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, and literally spent the entire day there.  The menfolk really enjoyed it.

Yesterday, we met at the First Americans Museum and spent the entire day there.  

It was quite an education.  

You think you have an idea of what the European "settlers" did to the Native peoples who were already here?  Think again.

There was lots of positive stuff, too, though, and they are going to be expanding.  

We decided then and there to become members, in order to support this wonderful, educational, eye opening facility.

Then, last night was a big steak dinner.

We will be staying home today, while our friends go on further adventures.  

We have chores to do, and errands to run, and then they will come here for our last evening together.  I am making a big pot of potato leek soup.

I am feeling a bit tired, but I am sure it will hit me harder when it's time to get up for work tomorrow.

On that note, have a great week!

INCOMING!

 Had my chest CT on Tuesday morning, and scanned through the results on the patient portal.  I didn't see anything alarming, and didn't receive any phone calls telling me not to go to treatment.

The CT appointment took all of about 8 minutes, start to finish, and then we went up to the lab to get my blood draw taken care of...and sat there for a freaking HOUR.... just waiting and waiting and waiting....even though we got there the moment they opened.

Ridiculous.

Treatment on Thursday went just fine, but the steroid reaction lasted through Saturday this time.  I didn't sleep much for two nights....it was bad.

But, at last, I slept last night for almost 11 hours.

Several friends followed through on sending Dave cards for his birthday... he got 15, and someone sent a gift as well!

Now, it's time for him to apply for medicare, and get the ball rolling for his retirement.

This coming week, my dance sisters from back home, and their husbands, are coming to visit!

I had said something, back at Christmas time, about missing my chosen family back home.  

My best friend here had said she didn't want to come to Christmas dinner with us anymore, and the other friend who had said she would come was talking about backing out at the last minute.... so I was feeling unsupported by friends here around the holidays.

The second friend even went so far as to say "FUCK the holidays" to me, knowing how special the holidays are to me. 

SO, my girls from back home started plotting to make a trip, and it's finally just a few days away! 

They arrive Thursday afternoon, and are renting a car, and a house.  

They will get settled into their rental, and pick up some groceries, while we finish our work day on Thursday.

Then we'll get together for the first time that evening.  (One of them has a zoom meeting at 5, so it will be after that.) 

Then, we are taking Friday off to spend a 3 day weekend with them!

We're hoping to go to the new First Americans Museum and Cultural Center, the newest Lebanese restaurant in town, and maybe some other attractions.  

I also want to make dinner for everyone at least once.  I'd love to have people around my table who WANT to be here!!

They leave on Monday, so we will have plenty of opportunity to do stuff with them, both running around, and just hanging out!  

I'm really looking forward to it!

This weekend, so far, has been about cleaning the house, and preparing for a possible winter storm that's due to arrive today.

I made my first deep dish pizza yesterday.... Made the sauce, and the crust, from scratch, and filled it with provolone, mozzarella, pepperoni, sweet Italian sausage, and black olives. It turned out REALLY well!  

The crust was a little bit too thick around the edge of the pan, though.... not sure how to avoid that, though. 

I will be making Jambalaya for Super ball game day today.  We don't watch the game, but I always make Jambalaya on the day.

That being said, I am off to start my day.  Have a great week!

Good progress

 I met my new doctor last week.

She apparently used to work with my former doctor, back after the first time he moved practices.  I never met her, though.

That put my heart at ease a great deal.

She is kind, and she looked me in the eye, and listened to me.  

Then, I met her nurse. 

Her nurse investigated that whole billing thing, where the patient portal had a message that said YOU MUST PAY THIS AMOUNT BEFORE YOUR APPOINTMENT.

Well, apparently, they can't legally require patients to pay up front for services that have not yet been rendered.  

I COULD have gone for all of those scans, and said "please bill my insurance first."

Neither the nurse nor the doctor knew that OU Health has the policy of sending an email ahead of time that takes the patient to a demand for payment.

Now, we ALL know, and we all know that it's just a "scare tactic," as the nurse put it.

We talked about all of the scans that the interim doctor had ordered, and my new doctor did indeed see it my way... every 6 months is sufficient for the routine CT scans, and the new routine of doing a bone scan, so those will happen in April.

In the meantime, though, she ordered a chest CT without contrast for next week.  

She said that Enhertu (the chemo I am on) can cause lung damage, so I will have to start going for a chest CT every TWO months.

Ugh... but if lung damage hasn't happened in a year, it's not likely to.

Also, my heart ultrasound that I had last week came back completely normal again!  Great news!

So, we will continue with the treatment protocol as it is until April.  At that point, we will see what the scans show, and go from there.

I do not need to see the doctor every time I go for treatment, and will only have to make the two appointments (doctor one day, treatment another) every 6 weeks.  

I can go for my blood draw before the treatment any time I want, on a walk in basis.

I feel like now, at last, this stressful transition of my entire care team, and the place that I go, is over.  

We can now settle into a routine, and I can shift my focus back to "center."

In other news, Dave has been released from therapy, after working through the program for PTSD.  His therapist is moving to a different practice, and wanted to finish this cycle of treatment with him before she leaves.

He will probably go back to his previous therapist now.

His 65th birthday is this coming week, and he will be starting to put the wheels in motion, over the coming months, for his retirement.

Today, it's rainy and chilly in OKC, and it's one of my Pagan holidays, so, once again, the weather is making me have to change my plans.  I had hoped to have a fire in my fire pit, but may still do one in the chiminea.

First, though, we are going to Costco, and out for brunch.  Have a good week!