The Christmas break is over and it's back to the grind. How depressing! I really got used to not working and waking up super late (like 9-10 am), so it has been tough to get up so early again the past couple of days.
I enjoyed the time off, but overall, this Christmas was kind of a bust. My family usually gets together on Christmas Eve to have a bunch of fun snacks, but my mom has been dealing with some pretty severe gastrointestinal issues that she wasn't up for it. Right around Thanksgiving, my mom got a urinary tract infection and due to the holiday, her doctor's office was closed. When she finally did go in after the Thanksgiving holiday, her blood sugar was so high that they couldn't get a reading, so they sent her to the ER. My mom has type 2 diabetes but her sugar has been under control with diet and medication for the last several years, but this UTI shot her sugar up. Her sugar was in the 460s at the ER and her A1C was 11!!!!! They gave her a shot of insulin and gave her some IV fluids as she was dehydrated from the UTI. The doctor who saw her was actually pretty snobby and condescending, saying my mom had been "noncompliant with a diabetic lifestyle", based on the sugar numbers, but that wasn't true at all. I think the UTI and the fact that we had just eaten a Thanksgiving meal with pie for dessert is what shot her sugar up. They ended up changing her diabetes medications as they believed her current medication was ineffective. They prescribed a once-daily insulin injection and Metformin. She had also just started Ozempic and they told her to keep taking that.
Well - all of those new medications combined resulted in catastrophic - and I mean truly catastrophic - gastrointestinal issues. Not to be TMI, but we're talking explosive diarrhea and gas. My sisters and I were pretty worried and wondered if she needed to go back to the ER, but my mom flat-out refused to go. Due to her stomach problems, she hadn't been able to eat or sleep much, so she insisted that she just needed to sleep. By Christmas, she had improved but was still having issues, so that's why we skipped Christmas Eve together.
On Christmas Day, Nick and I drove down to his mom's house, where we enjoyed tons of snacks before having a standing rib roast dinner with risotto and pasta with broccolini. It was SO good. A surprise we got is that Nick's brother, L's ex-girlfriend came for Christmas dinner. L and his gf had broken up a few months ago, so we were surprised to see her there as we didn't know she was coming or that they were back together. We're still not sure if they're actually back together, but they sure acted like a couple again by flirting and giggling.
Later that evening, things kind of took a negative turn with L. If you remember, he's the brother who stopped talking to Nick for a year and a half after a minor dispute. He's also the one who had been in the fire academy training to become a firefighter, but that career path is officially over due to a second hospitalization for low sodium levels. Since the loss of his career, he's been going off the deep end as he's been drinking heavily, abusing his Adderall, and even doing cocaine on occasion. He's historically had drinking problems and has wrecked and totaled several cars due to drinking and driving. How he's never gotten a DUI is beyond me. Well, since he lost the fire department job, he's been driving for Lyft. Apparently, he had a lot to drink one day and wrecked into a ditch (thank god no customers were with him). He immediately abandoned the car and walked away from the scene of the accident as he had been drinking. His stepdad later had the car towed and picked him up and he said that he could smell the alcohol coming off of him.
Anyways, back to Christmas Day. Nick's grandfather gave cigars to all of the men in the family for Christmas and after dinner, L lit one up in the house and Nick said, "you're not going to smoke that in here, are you?". Innocent question. L then went to the back door and muttered, "the door's right here, dumbass," and went outside. We all just looked at each other as we couldn't understand why he was being so rude. Nick asked me, "was that directed at me?" and then we heard L scream from outside, "FUCK YOUUU!". Nick got very upset that L was acting like that towards him for NO reason, so much so that he wanted to leave. I tried to calm him down and said just to ignore him, don't take it personally, etc. L's ex was sitting there with us and she just opened up about how hard it had been being in a relationship with L due to his drinking, doing drugs, and hanging out with bad friends. She also revealed that he's been suicidal before and that she's worried about him hurting himself. The stress of all of that is what made her break off the relationship.
Needless to say, L doesn't seem to be doing well. L had drunk a lot that day, so that was probably the cause of his outburst, but I don't know why his anger is always directed toward Nick. Even during snacks, L was getting angry at how Nick was chewing. He's been mad at him before about that, saying Nick "eats like a baby and it's disgusting to watch." L never used to be cruel and mean like this. You know, Nick and L's paternal grandmother has schizophrenia and Bipolar disorder. I often wonder if what L is going through is Bipolar. I have my suspicions. Anyway, Christmas Day was nice other than L being weird toward the end.
The day after Christmas, my mom was feeling well enough to do our Christmas dinner which was ANOTHER standing rib roast! Lol very over the roasts now. We made mashed potatoes and asparagus casserole with ours and it was very tasty. My mom ate very little of it though as she didn't want to push it with her stomach which was still uneasy. We ended up not doing our gift exchange as my older sister had come down with a cold and wasn't feeling great, so we agreed to postpone.
On the 27th, Nick and I went to a brewery before meeting up with his mom and siblings for lunch. L and his ex came with and L was in a much better mood this time, laughing and smiling. Before we met up, he had sent Nick an apology text saying that he was ashamed and embarrassed by his behavior, so that's good at least. Nick and I then hit the road and came home.
My BFF Brittany was supposed to come up and visit for a few days but she tested positive for Covid! Luckily she had only mild symptoms, but we were both bummed about canceling her visit. Her diagnosis messed up her whole Christmas vacation and her birthday, which was on the 27th. She was so bummed out about her holiday being ruined that we ended up planning a girl's trip to the beach over the MLK holiday weekend to make up for it. The beach in January may sound strange, but why not?? It's MUCH cheaper and it won't be crowded with tourists. We can swim in the heated pools, relax in the jacuzzi, and eat lots of seafood. Our room is also oceanfront, so we'll enjoy looking at the ocean with coffee in the morning and wine at night. We are both VERY excited about this trip and I really hope nothing messes this up for us!
I had been planning to go back to visit my mom and sisters for our belated Christmas exchange over New Year's, but it turns out my sister's husband caught the flu which was then passed to my baby nephew, Max. My sister took Max to the doctor and he also has norovirus! Poor little guy. So, our Christmas exchange was postponed again and Nick and I ended up going to a New Year's Eve party at a friend's house. These are new friends for us as Nick only met them recently at a brewery when he asked to pet their dog lol. We have since all hung out and hit it off. The husband is an engineer for the department of defense ($$$) who actually used to work for NASA and the wife is a math professor at a college. Their house is MASSIVE and so nice, complete with a beautiful in-ground pool. I think our house is the size of their basement. Anyways, we had a very nice evening having snacks and drinks followed by YET ANOTHER rib roast dinner. Yes, it was very tasty, but I think I'm good on rib roasts for a while lol. After dinner, we played ping pong and darts and I'm very pleased to report that I hit the bullseye twice! It was a lot of fun and I'm glad we've found new friends.
Well, that pretty much sums up the Christmas holiday and New Year's. Do I have any resolutions? Hmm, of course, my dream is to lose weight and not be so fat, but making resolutions doesn't work for me, but I would like to commit to walking more. That's the least I can do, right? I have the MyFitnessPal app and it told me my average steps for all of 2022 was around 1,700 per day. That's so low! I'm such a fat ass! I have tentatively vowed to increase that to almost double at 3,000 steps per day. I did take a walk yesterday around my neighborhood and let me tell you, I am SO out of shape. This was a simple walk - my neighborhood isn't hilly and only has some minor inclines, but toward the end of the walk, my right leg was killing me! It felt painful and tight around the knee and my shin hurt. Why only the right leg, IDK. This also happened to me in the summer of 2021 in Maine whenever I attempted to walk on the beach. My right leg would just seize up and become SO painful. I'm sure this pain is from lack of use and exercise. The walk was only 24 minutes and 0.91 miles and I was almost limping by the end of it. WTF. If that's not a wake-up call, I don't know what is. What's strange is that there are other times I can walk significantly longer and farther with no issues. For example, when Brittany and I went to see The Weeknd in concert, I walked over 10,000 steps that day and didn't have the right leg pain like I did yesterday. Okay, standing up for hours was difficult and I wanted to sit down, but I still DID it.
Sigh. My mom always says "your health is your wealth," and she's right. I'm not that young anymore, so things are going to start coming home to roost in terms of my health if I don't change. My lack of exercise, my crappy eating, my excessive Prosecco intake...all of this is not good for me. While I can't change everything overnight, I can at least try to walk more. I would also like to significantly cut back on how much wine I drink as all these articles are scary about what it does to your health if you drink over the recommended limit, which is only ONE drink per day for women. I know I would probably be considered a heavy drinker even though I don't think of myself that way. I just read an article last night about how alcohol ages the skin and makes you look older. I don't want to look like some dried-up old drinker. I don't want a big old red nose and red face. I also just feel bad for my body in general that I ingest something that truly doesn't seem to have any benefit whatsoever in terms of health. I need to do better in many, many ways.
9:33 a.m. - Wednesday, Jan. 04, 2023