Proud

Daily writing prompt
What are you most proud of in your life?
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This one is easy. What am I most proud of in my life? My family. My wife is a genius and a phenomenal software engineer who is capable of anything. My step kids are both brilliant as well. We have one college graduate and one college student, both of whom have grown up to become fine adults who are on the cusp of achieving great things. I simply cannot wait to see where their lives take them.

I don’t know what I did to deserve becoming a part of this family, but it is clear that I am the luckiest man alive.

Fall of the House of Usher: Possible Spoilers, Maybe?

I just finished watching the new Mike Flanagan series on Netflix. The Fall of the House of Usher. Eight episodes, kinda based on Edgar Allen Poe stories and poems. I don’t think I am spoiling anything, but I can’t tell for sure. If you’re planning on watching it and you’re sensitive to spoilers then maybe now’s the time to stop reading this post.

Okay?

Can I go on?

Okay.

I have seen all of Flanagan’s Netflix shows. I haven’t seen anything else he did. House of Usher is better than Bly Manor. Probably better than Midnight Mass. Definitely better than Midnight Club, though that’s not a knock on Midnight Club, I enjoyed it very much. It’s not as good as Haunting of Hill House, but that’s because nothing is as good as Hill House. That show was amazing.

Like most of his shows, I watched up to the last episode thinking that I was enjoying the series and yadda yadda blah. Then you get to the finale and oh my god the horror genre show turns into this massively emotional roller coaster that you did not see coming, even though after five series we probably should see it coming.

My spoilerish comment here is that I teared up over Lenore. Nevermore.

Yet Another Photo a Day Cat

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52/365

Jen has decided that we will celebrate Lily’s birthday on October 31st. When we adopted her in January they said she was about three months old, so it works out. We picked a birthday for Robin too but I can’t remember what it was. January 15th, I think.

Projects

Daily writing prompt
What have you been working on?
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I have a number of little projects in the works at the moment, but I haven’t been making a lot of progress on any of them. Here’s a list of a few of them…

  • Figuring out whatever is going on with my back pain/stomach pain this weekend. That’s sort of first and foremost in my tiny little brain, for obvious health reasons.
  • Binge watching all of the original Doctor Who. I just finished season 20. Only six more seasons and one made for TV movie left to go. I’ve already finished the revival show, all 13 seasons. Will I finish everything by the time the new 60th anniversary episodes air? I think that’s likely.
  • Various music, song writing, home recording projects are in the works, but it has been about a mont since I’ve made any progress on any of them.
  • Redesigning, cleaning, and furnishing the kids’ bedrooms. I made a bit of progress on this one last weekend, but my pain problems have gotten in the way this weekend.
  • The never ending Flickr Photo-a-Day challenge, also known as the 365 challenge… or maybe the 366 challenge this year thanks to the leap year. I’ve finished this four years in a row and we’re 52 days into year five. I’m going to put a stop to this one someday, but not today.

There you have a few current projects that I am working on these days. There are more, but these are the ones that get most of the brain focus. Nothing too serious, apart from fixing the kids’ rooms, but all are important to me to various degrees.

The Struggle Continues

The issues from yesterday are still around today. My back is still in serious pain. Tylenol helps, but I’m seeing evidence that each dose wears off faster than the last. That’s not good.

The stomach is still an issue too, but is it really? I barely ate anything yesterday, and it’s been a smidge over 12 hours since the last time I had even the smallest bite of anything, and that was just a single piece of bread. When I woke up and my stomach was off, was it just because it was as empty as my little rewired, redesigned, butchered stomach can be?

I’ve had a little water this morning along with my morning vitamins and another dose of Tylenol. The 15 minute break between drinking and eating just ended. I am about to try eating a protein bar. Will I feel better afterwards? Will I feel worse? I haven’t a clue, but I’ll let you know when I know. Wish me luck, universe!

The Crappy Day Continues

I had a bowl of soup for lunch. Campbell’s Chicken Noodle. Classic. I thought that was safe, given that my stomach issues were fading at the time.

Nope.

The lunch time soup sat in my stomach like a dead weight for hours. At the same time, the back pain came back to me all fresh and new. I had some Tylenol before lunch and it’s safe to say it worked. I had some more about an hour ago and it’s working again. I haven’t had anything to eat in about 4.5 hours and I have to have something, but what?

I think I am going to just try a piece of bread or two. Maybe bread and butter. Something light and simple that hopefully won’t nuke my digestive system again.

Let’s see how this plays out.

In the meantime… cat picture.

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Sick Day

Didn’t we just go through a whole sick thing?

I woke up with back pain. That’s new. Yesterday Jen and I did a bunch of moving things around in her office and that involved me lifting heaving things and picking them up off the floor and putting them onto a table and back again, over and over again. I think I strained my back a little. It woke me up a little before 5:00am and then made it really difficult to fall back to sleep.

On top of that I was, gastric bypass recoverally speaking, really fucking stupid and I ate WAY too much last night. I knew I was doing it as I was doing it and for some reason I just kept doing it. Like some kind of moron. I felt okay when I went to bed, so I assumed I would continue to feel okay. I did not. My stomach was a gassy, achey mess this morning and it was all my fault.

Those two things combined made it virtually impossible for me to do anything. I tried to go through my morning routine, but 12 oz of water with my vitamins and a two-protein bar breakfast just made the stomach situation that much worse. Also, the existence of the stomach situation made the back situation that much worse.

Generally speaking the treatment for any gastric bypass stupidity is patience. Eventually it will work itself out. I think I am feeling that now. I feel better. Far from 100%, but better. That’s good. My back is a little better too, but it’s still there. The jerk.

So the moral of this particular story is this:

Don’t be a friggin moron.

QED

Secrets

Daily writing prompt
What’s something most people don’t know about you?
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I’ve been oversharing in public blog form since 2008. Is there anything that anyone doesn’t know about me? I doubt it. At least I can’t think of anything.

Everyone knows I am married with two step kids. Everyone knows I play guitar and like photography. Everyone knows I’m a programming supervisor. Everyone knows I like traveling and road trips. Everyone knows I am an atheist and a militant red head and I had gastric bypass (because I never shut up about it).

I mean… what else is there?

Here’s one, I guess… I had a shitty night’s sleep last night and when I woke up (way too early) I had quite a bit of pain in my lower back, on the left side. It was enough that I couldn’t go back to sleep and now I am exhausted, in pain, and somehow need to do my morning exercise.

How does that work? Does that count as something no one knew about me?