Category: introspective

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The Day After Christmas

I had a nice, peaceful day on Christmas watching movies and doing puzzles. Today, I met Michael and his dad and stepmother at Longhorn Steakhouse for lunch. They treated me for my birthday, and we had a very nice time eating and chatting.

Michael’s dad gave me a couple of cross-stitched items that he found in his mother’s things. One was a Christmas stocking she made for me when Bob & I got married, and the other was a little angel I had made for her one year. I was so happy to get them as they bring back fond memories.

Michael and me
Bob and Kimberly

After lunch, Michael and I came home and opened stockings and exchanged gifts. I got myself a new mouse mat, a cross stitch kit, and some puzzles. Michael got me two puzzles – one for Christmas and one for birthday, and he also filled my stocking.

This has been such a nice Christmas. I am thankful for friends and family and for the ability to enjoy my hobbies.

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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

I will be spending Christmas (which is also my birthday) enjoying Christmas movies and my favorite foods and probably working on a puzzle as well. My son will come home from his dad’s on Friday, and then we will celebrate both occasions together.

I hope you have a wonderful day however you choose to spend it!

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Merry Christmas Eve/Michael Health Update

Merry Christmas Eve! Michael finished his Minecraft Lego advent calendar today. He really enjoyed discovering each new item as the month progressed.

Here is the finished display:

A little over three weeks ago, Michael had a manometry study to test the motility of his esophagus, in an ongoing effort to discover why he has trouble swallowing food. The results of the test were apparently normal, but they did make a note that there was “absence of contraction in the skeletal portion of the esophagus.”

Based on this finding, they have referred him to be assessed for possible neuromuscular disorders. Unfortunately, the first available appointment with that department isn’t until September 2026.

It is confusing to me why this is not considered a GI issue, but we are seeing the GI doc in January so hopefully can get a better explanation then. From some reading I have done, it may also explain his chronic constipation issues.

Thankfully, he is able to swallow as long as he has enough liquid to help get it down, so he is okay for now.

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Week in Review: December 21, 2025

L to R: Chris, Evan, Michael, Hans

I had a good week overall. I had a few moments when I felt overwhelmed by everything I needed to get done, but there were also some really good things. I had a couple of good doctor appointments, and Michael had some dental work done successfully with the help of a little sedation.

On Friday evening, my friend Suzanne came over for dinner. We usually work on a puzzle together, but this time she needed to get home to help her son with some renovations he is doing to her house so that he can move in with her.

Then on Sunday, my friend Renee, her boyfriend Chris, and her two sons Evan and Hans came over to celebrate Christmas with Michael and me. We had a really nice time. We ordered Chinese food, and I had made a couple of treats that I remembered from my childhood – sour cream cookies and a Heath-inspired dessert bar. We also exchanged gifts, and Renee gave me a puzzle that she picked up at a farmers’ market. ☺️

After dinner, Renee asked to play puzzle chess, and we played two rounds of that. We used a couple of the cereal puzzles I got earlier this year, and we each won one round. Here are the puzzles we did:

This week I only work Monday and Tuesday, and on Tuesday I will be off for a couple of hours to get my first Invisalign trays. Michael is going to stay at his dad’s Wednesday and Thursday night, so I will have a quiet Christmas/birthday and will celebrate with Michael on Friday.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

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My 500th Post!

This is my 500th post! I started posting on this blog on August 31, 2016 and am posting this on December 17, 2025, so it has been over 9 years since I began! I have taken some breaks along the way, so it is exciting to reach this milestone.

Looking back over my posts, over half of them (268) have been about jigsaw puzzles. I only started puzzling in 2021, but it quickly became an obsession of mine, and I have done a LOT of puzzles in that time.

The second largest category is books, with 165 posts. I have been a voracious reader my whole life but haven’t always written about the books I read. I have found lately that writing book reviews helps me remember the books more clearly, so I will keep doing it as long as I can.

Posts about other topics are more sporadic, but I have at times shared updates about my life and posted about pets, travel, or other fun things. I don’t have a lot of readers, but I still enjoy posting for myself and truly appreciate those who stop by and leave a like and/or a comment.

Here’s to many more posts to come!

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Week in Review: December 14, 2025

Today, I finally finished decorating for Christmas. I kept it very simple this year, just my small tree and a couple other decorations. I just don’t have the energy to do more than that.

One of the things that has been on my mind a lot lately is my financial situation and the fact that retirement is getting closer than it used to be. I finally took a step towards facing things and met with a financial planner this week. We had a good initial meeting, and I am hopeful that she will be able to help me.

Death has also been on my mind recently. A friend who lives far away lost her husband to a sudden heart attack a couple of weeks ago. More recently another friend lost her 24 year old son to complications from a seizure. I have known her for about 20 years – we met because we both had children with autism and have been connected ever since. Michael and I went to his celebration of life on Saturday. It was a very moving service.

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Week in Review: December 7, 2025

I had a good week with just a couple of appointments. I went to the orthodontist to get prepped and scanned for starting Invisalign. The appointment was a lot longer than it was supposed to be because their scanners were acting up, which wasn’t helped by the fact that I have a very small mouth that is hard to maneuver the scanning wand in.

I also went to the optometrist. I was happy to be able to go to the one that I prefer due to an insurance change, and he updated my prescription and added prisms to make it easier for me to focus. I will go back in six months for the diabetic medical exam.

Michael did not work again this week. He was originally scheduled for Wednesday, but that morning they texted him that they were low on product and he did not need to come in. His job coach’s manager is going to contact them to see what their plans are for his employment, so hopefully we will find out more information this coming week.

I started doing Christmas puzzles this week and have completed three already. I have also finished five books so far this month, as well as a short story called Goblins & Greatcoats. The story is by Travis Baldree and is set in the world of the Legends & Lattes series. It is a fun story that features Zyll, a goblin who appears in the most recent book, Brigands & Breadknives.

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Thanksgiving Catch-Up

This has been a busy month, so I am very glad for a four-day weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving. Yesterday, Michael and I had a quiet day at home and enjoyed our version of a holiday feast. We are both picky eaters, so it was mostly beige foods. We enjoyed it though!

This morning, Michael had a manometry study to evaluate the motility of his esophagus. He has previously had a barium swallow and an upper endoscopy, both of which were normal. We are hoping that this test will give us some answers to his swallowing difficulties. The nurse who administered the test was great; she was very patient with him and explained everything that was happening very clearly. Michael had a bit of trouble with one small section of the test, but for the most part he did great. Actually, he did a lot better than I think I would have done!

Tomorrow I am going to a local puzzle competition. I am going as a spectator, partly because I enjoy watching people who can puzzle fast and partly because they are having a puzzle swap table. I am really hoping people bring some good puzzles to trade.

Speaking of puzzling, I just bought a new floor lamp for my living room that is a lot brighter than the one I had. It makes doing puzzles much easier and also helps me take better pictures of the finished puzzles. I am going to put the old floor lamp in Michael’s room since he only has a bedside lamp right now.

I did something a little different this year and bought an advent calendar for Michael. It is a Minecraft Lego advent calendar, and he seemed to really like it. I hope he will enjoy building each day’s item.

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Reading Habits

When do you read? 

The answer to this question has changed over time for me. For most of my life, I simply read all the time (meaning at any moment that I could sneak in even a few minutes.) 

While my son was growing up, my time to read did lessen somewhat, but I still read way more than most people do. These days I tend to finish 10-12 books a month, with one of those usually being nonfiction.

The most common time you will see me reading now is during mealtime. From childhood, I always had the urge to grab a book while I was eating. I had to suppress that during family dinner time, but now that I am single with an adult child, I almost always read when I eat.

Outside of that, my reading times are pretty random. I do read in the evenings or on weekends, but I also watch TV or movies and put together jigsaw puzzles, so I’m not as single-minded about reading as in the past.

I’m interested to know what other people’s reading habits are and how they have changed over time, and I would love it if you left me a comment with your thoughts on this.

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Catching Up – July 2025

This post is really just a list of random things that have been happening in my life over the past few weeks. But first, here is a picture of my cat Peanut Butter sleeping on my son’s backpack:

  • I got two more bookcases to store puzzles, but I built the first one and it fell apart. My fault for going cheap – Target no longer had the one I liked from them, so I got them off of Amazon. I’m going to try to build the other one and see what happens. I kept the shelves from the first one so I can have extra for the second one.
  • A couple of weeks ago, we started seeing what looked like gnats in the apartment. After some research, I found out they were drain flies. I poured boiling water down the drains and bought traps for them. I also contacted the apartment office and they added us to the Orkin list. The Orkin guy came on Friday and treated the drains, so hopefully we won’t see the bugs again!
  • I got my ears re-pierced. I originally had my ears pierced as a teenager (had to do it twice because they got infected the first time). Then a couple of years ago, I got out of the habit of wearing earrings and the holes mostly closed up. So I finally went somewhere and got them re-pierced.
  • I got my third library card. I already had ones from my local library system and from the Queer Liberation Library, but I got one from the Free Library of Pennsylvania after finding out that anyone who lives in PA can get one for free. Once I had the card, I added it to Libby and checked some of the books on my TBR. I found two dozen books that my local library either didn’t have or only had a physical copy of, so I am very happy with that.
  • One of my front teeth needs a root canal. A lot of dentists have been dropping the insurance company I have, so it has been challenging to find people for things. I did find a local endodontist, but I can’t get the rool canal until mid-August. The pain is mostly under control right now, but sometimes it does get pretty bad.
  • After the root canal, I still have one tooth that needs a filling before I can start with orthodontics. I need to talk to my dentist about that first, though. I really like her bedside manner, so to speak, but when she gives novacain, she always hits the nerve directly. She says this is the best way to do it, but it is quite painful and I have never had a dentist who did that before.
  • One piece of really great news – Michael got a job! He is a donation processor at a thrift store, and he is working twenty hours a week. He just finished his second week and is feeling pretty good about how it is going. So far, he has been learning how to sort the clothes and other donations that come in. The next thing he will learn is how to tag the clothes. He is pretty nervous about being able to do it quickly enough, but they seem like they are willing to work with him. He has had his job coach with him so far, but she will just be coming once a week now.