Category: introspective

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Week in Review: April 12, 2026

This was a pretty busy week for me, but at least I did get to do some puzzling and a bit of reading.

The autism mother to mother luncheon that I am helping to plan is this coming Saturday, so this week is crunch time. I still need to finalize the program and get the files ready to print for the name tags and other things. I’m planning to spend some time on that today and am hoping to get it all ready to go. I took off this Thursday and Friday to go to the church to put things together so we are all ready for registration.

Healthcare rant incoming: My son had his first cleaning with his new dentist. Before we scheduled the appointment, we had a consultation to discuss what they could do in terms of sedation for doing fillings or other work like that and they said they could prescribe Valium for him to take before the appointment. At his cleaning, they did find some cavities, but the hygienist told me the dentist said he wanted to see how he would do without medication for this first time doing fillings. I pushed back and explained that he needed the medication and that was the whole reason we did a consultation before scheduling the cleaning, to make sure it would be available. After that, she went back to the dentist and he did prescribe the medication. It’s so frustrating that we had to have the conversation again!

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

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Week in Review: April 5, 2026

Happy Easter!

This was a pretty good week. I felt fairly productive at work and Michael’s job seems to be going pretty well. One thing I have been avoiding is making a phone call to the place where I got my dental implants a few years ago to discuss the issues I am having now. My dentist feels like it would be a good idea to pursue whether they will do anything for me since the implants seem to have been placed too close together, but that seems like a terrifying phone call for me to make so I didn’t get it done last week.

I have still not been reading as much as usual, but I did finish one book last week. It was a short story collection called Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld. I have enjoyed several of her novels, but this book was a bit more difficult to read. The stories seemed designed to expose toxic beliefs and prejudices, and I have to admit some of them hit close to home. The two stories I liked the most were “Follow-Up” and “Lost But Not Forgotten.”

I hope all of you who are celebrating Easter have a wonderful day however you choose to spend it. I will be having a quiet day at home with Michael.

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Week in Review: March 29, 2026

The Mother to Mother Autism Luncheon that I am helping to planning is coming up in just three weeks, so now it’s time for me to get working on the program and the items that will be included in the folders and bags we hand out. Thankfully, a lot of the heavy lifting is done by the team at the main site, and I just have to tweak things for our location.

I had some unfortunate dental news this week. On Tuesday, I noticed that one of my teeth was pretty loose. The orthodontist had said my teeth might be a bit wobbly as they moved, but this one was really moving. It turned out to be one of my implants (I have two implants right next to each other). My dentist looked at it and said she believed the implant had failed and that an oral surgeon should evaluate both of them. The oral surgeon said that it has definitely failed, and that the other one would fail as well, due to too much bone loss, which is most likely because the implants were placed too close together.

So now I have to organize getting the implant crowns off and then getting the implants removed and a bone graft done. I need a driver for the appointment, and I need to make sure Michael can get to and from work, and it’s going to cost $3600. I’m also stuck eating soft food for the foreseeable future so I don’t fracture it before it can get taken care of. Ugh!

On a positive note, I took Friday off work to watch the first day of the USA Jigsaw Puzzle Association Nationals. Friday was the individual prelims, Saturday was the pairs and teams prelims, and Sunday is the finals for all three categories. I had purchased a 1500 piece puzzle to do while I was watching, and I ended up staying up until 3 AM on Saturday morning finishing it! I haven’t taken pictures of the puzzle yet, but here’s a picture of the box:

I did get all caught up on laundry on Friday as well, which was good, but I was definitely avoiding a bunch of admin stuff I really need to do. There are a few things on my list which I am anxious about, so it’s really hard to make myself tackle them.

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Week in Review: March 22, 2026

This has been a pretty good week. Peanut Butter turned 13 on Monday. He is still pretty healthy, despite his age, which I am thankful for.

In health news, I had my three-month check-in with the orthodontist, and he was pleased at how much movement has happened with my teeth so far. He gave me trays 13-25, so I will see him again in another three months.

I got to spend time with two good friends this week. Renee came over Friday evening and we ate together and played a bit of puzzle chess and then watched a few episodes of Best Medicine. She is a fan of Doc Martin, so I wanted her to see the new American version of the show, and she liked it. Then Kim came over Saturday for lunch and a movie. We get together every other weekend and take turns hosting. We had a nice time.

I haven’t been reading as much lately as I usually do. I have only finished two books in March, both of which were mysteries. I was about 80% done with a third one and then it automatically returned to Libby and I had to put it on hold again! I am currently about 40% done with another one; this one is on my Kindle so I don’t have to worry about it going away, lol.

Michael seems to be doing pretty well at his job. He feels like he has a good handle on the daily tasks. He has had a few awkward interactions with people, but we talk through them and I try to give him suggestions on how to handle them in the future. I know I have my own share of social issues, but I do have the benefit of a few more years of experiences to draw on.

All in all, a pretty good week!

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Week in Review: March 15, 2026

Another busy week in the books! I spent most of the week in the office training a new sales rep. It went really well, and I am feeling good about his future in the job. Now I am back to working from home for the foreseeable future, which is nice.

Michael had a good first week at his job. He was pretty stressed the first couple of days. Tuesday evening we emailed the hiring manager with some questions, and she got back to us the next morning with answers to all of them, so that made him feel better. He was finally able to start asking the person training him some questions about specific tasks as well, so that was good. For him, the biggest difficulty isn’t the job itself, it’s his communication struggles.

Michael also had a birthday this week, turning 24 on Tuesday! I took him out to dinner to celebrate, and he chose Longhorn Steakhouse. It was very good, and we had a nice time. He celebrated with his dad and stepmom on Friday night.

I took my car in for an inspection and oil change and was very happy it didn’t need any additional work. I also went out to dinner with the friend who helped me drop off my car at the mechanic. We had a good time catching up over dinner at Texas Roadhouse.

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Week in Review: March 8, 2026

This has been a very tiring week. I was catching up from time spent training at work and feeling stressed about having to do more training next week. I have also been quite anxious about Michael starting his new job tomorrow.

I think he is ready for the job. We went shopping for jeans since they recommended wearing them and he didn’t have any that fit. He hasn’t worn jeans in a number of years due to sensory issues. If he finds them too uncomfortable, he will have to wear his black work pants and hope they don’t get too messed up doing janitorial work. He also has his state ID and social security card in his wallet as well as a drink and a snack to have if they get a break or, if no break, when his shift is finished.

I will be taking my lunch from 9:30-10:30 to take him to work, and his dad will be picking him up at 2:00 to bring him home. His dad is retired, so thankfully he is able to do this. The alternatives are that I do it and extend my work day by another hour or Michael uses Lyft (which would get expensive!)

On Saturday, the registration opened for the luncheon I am helping to plan for mothers of children with autism. Our location is a satellite, so we serve lunch and then simulcast the program from the main site. Last year, we allowed up to 100 moms, but this year we are cutting it to 50 unless our fundraising suddenly shoots up. Yesterday I sent out 50 confirmation emails as well as approved 16 children for childcare. Today I sent waitlist emails to the few additional people who have signed up.

One change that has been made for this year is to allow people to come for the after lunch simulcast program if they can’t commit for the whole day or if they are waitlisted for the lunch. So those people will have the option to still hear the speaker, etc, which is nice.

Last thing I will mention is that I am struggling switching to tray #11 for my Invisalign. I tried both last night and today and cannot get the top one on completely. There is one tooth that just isn’t in the right spot for that aligner, I guess. I am really hoping I can get it on tomorrow.

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Week in Review: March 1, 2026

We got some great news this week – Michael got a job! He will be working part-time cleaning an office building. He starts on March 9th, the day before his birthday. I am so thankful he got this opportunity and am really hopeful that it will be a good fit for him.

Outside of that excitement, my week was exhausting. I had to go into the office all week to train a new employee. He did quite well learning the information, but it takes a lot out of me to be talking and interacting so much with other people. I am glad I had the chance to relax and recharge this weekend while Michael visited his dad.

Today is my dad’s 84th birthday. He lives far away from me, so we will just talk on the phone. I am grateful that he is doing well.

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Week in Review: February 22, 2026

Doesn’t Peanut Butter look cozy? I recently bought this self-warming pet bed and he absolutely loves it. He is definitely spending the majority of his time on it!

This has been another busy week at work, but I did take Tuesday afternoon off to take Michael for a meeting with a potential new dentist. He has to switch dentists due to a change in insurance, and we needed one who had some sedation options for when he needs work done (he is fine for a cleaning). This dentist does not offer IV sedation or nitrous oxide, but he does offer medication that the patient would take the night before and the morning of the appointment. Michael has been successful with a combination of medication and nitrous, and he decided that he is willing to try just the medication the next time the situation arises, so we went ahead and scheduled his next cleaning with this dentist.

I watched a very interesting movie this week called Rental Family, starring Brendan Fraser. It takes place in Japan and is directed by Japanese director Hikari. Fraser is an American actor living in Tokyo who lands a gig with a “rental family” agency, playing stand-in roles for strangers. It was a bit odd at times but heartwarming.

I also watched quite a lot of Olympic figure skating this week. I thought the women did especially well, and I enjoyed a lot of their free skates. I used to watch a ton of figure skating when I was younger, but I have been out of touch except for the Olympics for a while now. I enjoy some of the other winter sports as well, but just didn’t have the time to watch them this time around.

I hope everyone had a good week!

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Week in Review: February 15, 2026

This was a busy week. I went into the office for the first three days to train a new employee. It went very well, but it was exhausting. I am still going to be helping in that department, but the new person will be covering several of the tasks I was doing and I will be learning some new ones.

Michael has not been feeling well this week and after he complained of waking up with heart palpitations for three days along with being lethargic and having some difficulty breathing, I decided to take him to the ER on Thursday evening. We were there from 5:30 pm to after 1:00 am, but thankfully he didn’t have anything emergent. He is still not feeling great, so we will probably be following up with his primary care doctor next week.

I have not been doing as much reading or puzzling this week, so I was glad to finally be able to sit down on Friday evening and do the Valentine’s Day puzzle I posted yesterday. I am hoping to get back to more of my normal schedule this week.

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Week in Review: February 8, 2026

I have been feeling more stressed this week. I think I could use some of these stress balls! Work is super busy as I am helping out another department, and in my personal finances, I am trying to get some information I need to finalize how to handle something. After several attempts, I think I found someone who might be able to answer my questions (fingers crossed). There is also no news on the job front for Michael.

On Monday, I had a combination endoscopy/colonoscopy. The procedures went well and the results from both were good. I am especially happy about the endoscopy because there were no eosinophils found in the biopsies, which means that my condition is under control with the medication I am on. That is a welcome change from the first 50 years of my life, with a lot of that being before I even had an accurate diagnosis.

Today, I was invited to go to a performance of Hadestown: Teen Edtion. The performance was incredibly good; it was hard to believe some of the cast were really teenagers! I did find the event quite draining, however, especially sitting in the loud, crowded auditorium before the play and during the intermission. I would have loved to have some noise canceling headphones at those times.

I have to go into the office Monday and Tuesday to do some training, so those days are going to be quite busy for me. I’m hoping things will quiet down a bit after that.