Author Angel Ackerman

Progression: A Discussion of Finding the Resources to Grow

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I may have said this before, but even if I have it’s a message that can be said again: I am blessed to have a talented and caring medical team. In addition to this team, I have also been harvesting resources for my physical and mental help.

I am recording this week’s journey so others might consider different ways to find their own resources.

On Monday, the teenager resumed therapy with a new therapist who attended Moravian College at the same time I did and is loosely a friend of my traveling companion M.

I asked if she was comfortable treating my daughter, because we have circulated in similar arenas in the past and my 17-year-old daughter struggles to connect with therapists who work with teens and is too young for a therapist who treats adults.

From what I knew of her personality from the few interactions we’ve had over the years and the information on her web site my gut said she would be a good fit for the teen.

And in my teen’s eyes, I was right.

My daughter is far from a troubled teen, but she has two parents with disabilities, a mother with trauma in her background and an extended family history of addiction.

Her strong empathy and witchy powers can make her experience of the world intense. (Speaking of which— I gave her my tarot cards on her birthday and she cried. I knew she would understand the significance of the gesture but I didn’t expect her to get so overwhelmed she cried.)

On Monday and Tuesday, my work performance wouldn’t crack 88%. I was frustrated and in pain and just moving slowly. After mapping my pain patterns for years, I can say that my back pain is worst when I ovulate and when I menstruate.

Wednesday was, as mentioned in other posts, the teenager’s 17th birthday. I had a tele-appointment with my therapist of about 12 years. Coincidentally I discovered his birthday is the same as my daughter’s. That’s just another reason we get along.

It’s fun to have a professional in your life for a long time like this because I get to see his practice grow and develop, sometimes in parallel to my own life.

I recently took the ACE Childhood Trauma test, which gave me a different outlook on some of my experiences. My parents did the best they could, but they had their flaws and their own battles to fight. So between their own struggles and life events they couldn’t control, stuff happened.

I can’t explain why it’s time to face some of this now, but that’s the way things go sometimes. We all come to certain aspects of self awareness in our own time.

On Thursday, I visited my beloved chiropractor, Nicole Jensen at Back in Line, who leveled things out, told me I was stressed and talked with me about different physical therapy stretches I need to do to fight the pain. We both agree that the pattern of pain increases on those certain days in my menstrual cycle.

I came home and ate cake and ice cream for breakfast. Not the best decision as I have been 20 lbs overweight for a year.

I suddenly remembered that Stitch Fix offers employees access to the Ginger Mental Health app. So I made an appointment for an initial consultation for Friday.

My hope was to use Ginger’s coaching to set goals and recreate/spur my discipline and good habits regarding food and exercise. For instance, I haven’t lifted a barbell in a year. I miss strength training. I still think I could be an excellent body builder.

My Ginger coach is Kathryn, who has a master’s degree in social work. Our session, completely done over text, seemed to be two sessions in one.

The first hour, she asked basic questions about me. The second hour we set up a plan of the topics we’d like to address. This week we will start making and implementing goals. It doesn’t always feel like talking to a human, though the occasional grammar or spelling error reassures me that it is a person on the other end.

Some of her thoughts include: “Sounds like a great idea! So in your case, a plan I might suggest would be to start by addressing your feelings of stress, [being] overwhelm[ed], and lack of motivation by incorporating mindfulness into your daily routine, which can help bring some relief from challenging emotions and help you see more clearly how your thoughts and emotions are impacting your behaviors so that you can feel more grounded, intentional, and comfortable being yourself. This can also include exercises centered around relaxation techniques, positive distractions, mindful awareness, developing awareness of triggers (when feeling stressed and/or overwhelmed, taking time to notice what the root cause is and look for a pattern), pattern recognition, scheduling and time management, and identifying and building on your current strengths and resources. We can also discuss accountability/working with providers (i.e. therapist and coach) and explore sleep/exercise/diet as needed.”

A lot of that feels copied and pasted, but it’s okay in my opinion. Sometimes just having someone help you pick a direction or even commit to a new direction can be the change you need.

Also on Friday, our dog F. Bean Barker got spayed at Canyon River Run, a vet we really love.

On Friday night, I learned a new work center at the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy— style carding. My colleagues cheered me on in learning this new role and I very much enjoyed it, even when my computer monitor broke and I had to use a computer on another line and lean way over to grab my boxes.

Basically, the associates who “style card,” grab all the completed fixes that come off the QC line and use the packing slip to print a style card that includes a personal note from the stylist and lists each piece in the fix and offers examples of how it can be worn.

Working with anywhere from 6-8 fixes at a time, the “style carder” folds the packing slip and style card and places them into an envelope before returning them to the box.

A quick check that the box is correctly wrapped and the style carder lines up the boxes and shoots them down the table onto a metal conveyer line operated by sensors. This takes the boxes to “OB1” or the outbound/shipping department which inserts the return envelope, tapes the box shut and prepares the boxes for mail pickup.

The pickers assemble 920 items a shift, which breaks down to 184 fixes. Each QC associate folds and packages 130 fixes a shift, each style card associate aims for 900 fixes a shift, and the Bizzy Hizzy itself ships about 6,000 fixes a day.

During this time, our tasks are fairly simple, automated and monotonous so we are allowed to listen to podcasts or music. I’ve used the time to explore a lot of topics via podcasts on Spotify.

Spotify is still a new platform for me and it’s slowly gaining exclusive proprietary rights to a lot of the podcasts I listen to. I heard on several news broadcasts that Spotify paid 60 million for Alex Cooper’s “Call her Daddy” where she talks about sex often with an emphasis on blow jobs.

I listen to her because she has some funny stories of the ridiculous escapades she has had: dating a professional athlete, offering blow jobs as a way to sneak into sporting events, etc. But she also sometimes interviews people— like a retired Playboy bunny who left the Mansion and points out the realities of such sexual exploitation. Alex can be really insightful but she also can misuse her vocal range to try and make the podcast more interesting to listen to and that hurts me ears.

In addition to Kristen Bell, Dax Shepherd, Mayim Bialik, and Conan O’Brien (and in addition to the news and fashion), I searched for cerebral palsy podcasts. From TheMighty.com, I learned that the name “cerebral palsy” is an umbrella term for several brain-related disorders. And I don’t really know anything about which CP I have.

I learned CP can interfere with the neurotransmitter GABA which is why our muscles and our brains don’t communicate effectively. I learned that muscles that don’t get used correctly and don’t get the right messages can stiffen and become spastic. This causes pain and lack of control.

The two main classification differences I have heard are hemiplegia and quadriplegia which you may recognize from the words paraplegic and quadriplegic. These terms explain the parts of the brain/body affected. I would assume I have mild hemiplegic CP, as I think it only affects my lower body. But sometimes I think I see it in my hands so I don’t know. And I think I am low spasticity as I seem to have fairly good muscle control for someone with this disorder.

But I don’t know. So I did what I like to do, on Saturday, I called Nan. If you don’t know Nan from this blog, she is often my partner in crime. She has been blind since birth. Like me, we were raised in able-bodied families and never knew life any other way.

Nan is older than I and, despite her disability, has lived independently for most of her life. She attended college. She married. She has a hobby writing career and attends poetry open mics. She was a teenager when NASA put a man on the moon, but despite having never seen the moon, she has been fascinated and following the advances of NASA ever since.

Nan is closer to my aunt’s generation than mine. My aunt has what would now be referred to as developmental delay, but what was called the now insensitive term “mental retardation” in her day. In school, she didn’t learn what the other kids learned. She had basic reading skills and could add and subtract but never learned to multiply or divide. I know because we used to play school, except I really taught her things.

My aunt, then a few years later Nan, and even a few more years later me, we were all part of 20th centuries advances. Medicine had found ways to help us survive, but technology and society had not discovered ways to help us thrive.

None of us have thick medical files that detail the specifics of what is wrong with us. You were thrown into the mainstream to sink or swim. And if you couldn’t swim, you were institutionalized or kept home. Therefore, families didn’t talk about disability as much as they pushed functionality— they urged us to act as normal as possible and pretend the differences about us were not even noticeable.

I mentioned some of this to my primary care physician when I transferred to his practice more than a decade ago (some friends and my therapist recommended him). At that time he guided me to specialists to explain what is wrong with my specific body, but I am realizing now that he might not know that I know nothing about what my disorder is.

So, also on Saturday, I emailed my doctor. I asked him to help me find someone who can talk to me about cerebral palsy. I know children with the disability in today’s world work with a pediatric neurologist.

And it hasn’t all been work and reflection. My daughter and I got mani/pedis for her birthday/upcoming trip to Cape May. It was our last appointment with “Nails by Bethy” at Hyperion Salon. Beth has a new full time career that should offer her more stability and room for advancement.

We met Beth 12 years ago on the same date she ended her nail career. And the teenager and I got to be her final clients.

And yesterday I tried the new strawberry popping bubbles at Dunkin. I had them in an iced matcha latte. I must say, this is the best matcha latte I ever had at Dunkin but the bubbles had such an artificial strawberry flavor it tasted like someone poured chunks of jello in my drink.

If Dunkin’ wants to capitalize on the boba trend they should stick to normal tapioca.

Review: Sunday Adventure to Turn In Family Restaurant

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

My family has always enjoyed small, off-the-beaten path restaurants. The kind of place many people would call a “hole in the wall” but I prefer to think of them as “independent.”

That’s how you find the best, or the worst, of food. And often the highest quality meals at the lowest prices.

Today, the teenager and I got up at a reasonable hour — or early for us— to take Extra Crunchy and Parker (and another family’s foster Wynken) from our cat rescue Feline Urban Rescue and Rehab to another animal rescue Furry Feet Rescue for shots and neutering.

By the time we retrieved kittens and microchips and made the 17 mile drive to drop the babies off, it was noon.

We found ourselves needing to use a bathroom and hungry in the small town of Bath, Pa. At a traffic light we noticed Turn–In Family Restaurant and with the teenager’s current occupation as a diner waitress, well we couldn’t resist.

Who says animal rescue is all hard work?

Turn In Family Restaurant turned out to be adorable. We got there after the Sunday morning early rush and minutes before the after church crowd.

The restaurant smelled of fresh potting soil as it actually had real plants and flowers. The dessert case looked amazing so I splurged and bought the teenager’s dad a giant cookie (hey, Darrell— “put that cookie down.”)

They gave us the lunch menu but when the waitress arrived she offered us breakfast and I accepted. After all, you can’t judge a diner without trying its classic morning meal.

Speaking of classic, my daughter got the Turn In Breakfast which is the same basic idea as the Tic Toc Breakfast Feast— but the price is $3 cheaper and at Turn In includes toast. I ordered the eggs Benedict.

The Hollandaise sauce couldn’t have been more perfect. The home fries the right delightful mix of soft on one side and crispy on the other. The Canadian bacon with my platter was thick cut and just salty enough to give the meal the right zest.

The teenager and I realized that we have become true pancake connoisseurs. The Turn In pancakes were very fluffy and rather dry, where Tic Roc’s pancakes are denser and have a heavier butter/fried flavor.

The bill came to $20, which included the cookie but not the $5 tip we left.

A Comedy of Errors 17th Birthday

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Teenager #2 moved out last week, and Teenager #1 celebrated her 17th birthday last night— a celebration that included a good friend, her favorite movies, pizza from Dominos and Cards Against Humanity until past 1 a.m.

I got to bed at 3 a.m. after wrestling with temperamental Touch of Grey foster kitty, and ending the evening with a dog so exhausted that she wouldn’t leave her crate leaving me no choice but to lure her upstairs with a piece of bologna.

My living room is full of pizza and pizza boxes but it was a great day for the teenager.

The morning had a rough start. The teenager left for summer school. I had a 9 a.m. online therapy appointment. At 8:57, the dog walks to the door.

“No sunbathing,” I warn her.

But, the sun did distract her and as I tried to her back into the house, our cat Oz escaped and ran into the back yard. The dog, being a dog, engaged in chase. Oz ran. Bean ran. I ran. I fell. I got back up. I saw no sign of either. That’s the teenager’s dog and her first cat she raised from a kitten.

I frantically call them.

You cannot lose the dog on your daughter’s birthday.

The dog responded to her name.

But my neighbor’s dog Buddy starting barking hearing Bean outside his door. So Bean went on his porch and refused to budge.

It is 8:59.

I grab a leash off my neighbor’s tie. I clip it to Bean, drag Bean to our house, shove her in, and race back to the neighbor’s to return the leash.

9:00 a.m.

My heart is pounding. I dart into the house, grab my laptop, flip on the couch, log in, open my email, click on the link for video-chat, log in, authorize camera, authorize mic.

9:01 a.m.

My therapist pops on screen.

“Are you ready for me?” he asks.

“Not exactly,” I reply. “Give me one second.”

I tell him what happened. He asks if I’m okay post-fall. I mention I might have a bleeding toe but I will evaluate later.

“You certainly are resilient,” he says.

After the session, I take the dog to pee and Oz is on the neighbor’s porch, in her back yard, as if trapped. I put the dog away and retrieve him.

Oz

I bring him home, bring the dog out, tie her to her lead, and begin to hang the laundry on the clothesline.

Bean starts acting rammy. I wonder if the teen is home from school. I turn to look. Another dog is standing under Bean’s body. I have never seen this little black dog before, but Bean is trying to get it out from under her body. I don’t think our dog is acting aggressively, but I don’t know if she’ll eat this small dog.

The dog runs.

Bean did not touch it.

Teenager comes home and decorates the cake she made for her birthday. She leaves to get a friend.

Bean takes a bite out of the cake.

Lucky I caught her so we still had a cake.

Just another day in our menagerie.

Silk & Sonder wellness planner: “mid month” update

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

This is (kinda) my first full month with a Silk & Sonder planner. I say “kinda” because it arrived a week into the month.

But I realized today, that even if some of my prompts are empty, and even if I stare at the same exercise day after day, that I am still performing the reflection actively and being present for/in myself.

The new July planner is, according to a tracking email I got this morning, out for delivery today. This is very exciting as I feel like now I can perhaps slowly ease into the upcoming them and actually use the planner as a planner.

I’ve experimented with various ways to log what’s important to me and honestly I still struggle with “what should be where.” I can’t determine what should be on my monthly habit tracker versus my weekly goal tracker.

I have quasi-decided that my monthly habit tracker reinforces habits I have established and the weekly goal tracker helps me tackle specific projects or establishing/renewing habits.

The other “problem” I have is using the weekly health planner— it’s been blank each planner I have received. I don’t meditate, never have and don’t intend to. I haven’t reliably reconnected with flossing. I haven’t lifted a dumbbell in months. Once upon a time I did yoga…

But that also brings up the idea of how many times can you list something as a goal and/or put it on the tracker and not do it at all.

This is indeed a journey.

#mysilkandsonder

Previous blog entries here: Silk & Sonder.

The latest on our FURRy friends

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As volunteers with Feline Urban Rescue and Rehab, the teenager and I have met some wonderful crazy cat people.

My daughter now pet sits for our cat foster godmother — an endeavor that involves the usual house sitting details (bring in the mail, water the flowers, feed the fish in the pond, clean the pool filter, take care of the two dogs, two indoor cats and two outdoor cats) and the animals rescue ones (17 cats in one special area of the house and several more in the garage). It takes a special teenager to handle that kind of responsibility.

One of our fellow foster moms— a specialist in the unsocialized “hissy spitty” feral kitties—met the teenager at our foster cat godmother’s house when Parker and Extra Crunchy (the two surviving distemper kittens) were getting their shots. Hissy spitty mommy has a vacation planned in July, but, like all of us in this game, has too many animals for any simple care solution. So she asked my teen if she could house sit. Hissy spitty mommy has about eight kittens, one foster cat, two house cats, one Senegal parrot (26 years old), two dogs (one of whom is a kinda-dog-aggressive geriatric German shepherd).

We agreed to meet them after taking care of things at our foster cat godmother’s house. I usually don’t accompany the teenager on this job, but to make less driving around I came.

The teenager invited me to come see the little cat who always hides behind the litter box. So I did.

“She’s terrified,” the teen said.

I crouched down. I offered her my fingers. She sniffed and came right out of hiding. When I tried to pull away, she leapt in my lap.

Khloe

We send our cat foster godmother this video: Khloe finds a new mom

And of course the teenager suggests this one belongs with me. And foster godmother tells me I can take her home. But we are going to visit the Hissy Spitties. The teenager and I agree that I will return to visit Khloe and if she rushes to me again that we will take her home.

Foster godmother, not missing an opportunity, tells us her former owners used to take her kittens away then throw her outside and kick her if she tried to get in the house. At least, that’s what the teenager said.

We then went to the Hissy Spitty Sunporch and toured their lovely herb garden, met their pets and even received a handmade bar of soap.

“Mom,” the teenager said, “I think you found your person.”

Then we stopped at Sheetz for a very unhealthy dinner and went back to see Khloe. She came to me even faster this time.

And despite never coming out of hiding for our cat foster godmother, she couldn’t seem to get close enough to me here in my room. I got five large brush fulls of hair from her.

Welcome to our menagerie, Khloe.

Finding Magic in the Middle of the Night

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I have spent most of my life loving the morning, popping out of bed at 7 a.m., and falling asleep by 10. I did my best work as a “morning person” and loved the rhythms of the sun.

I don’t think that has changed. But in my current job working for fashion subscription service Stitch Fix at their Bizzy Hizzy warehouse.

I had a choice of day or evenings, but the prospect of waking up before 5 a.m. every day did not appeal to me.

Even though I traditionally considering myself a morning person.

Now I get my mornings to wake up without an alarm clock, enjoy the sun, make appointments and merely use my favorite part of the day for myself.

And if I come home from work exhausted and sore, I can collapse in bed.

I have come to appreciate a beauty in the middle of the night— the stillness of what is normally busy and crowded, the darkness of businesses and houses. There’s a hush that falls over the world.

I received a phone call from my daughter while she was at her pet sitting job last night. She asked if we could go for a drive. She wanted to listen to music and try my car’s sport mode. She wanted to explore country roads and laugh together.

I took the dog out one last time as both the dog and my daughter relieved themselves (though my daughter was indoors). The dog and I sat in the hammock and waited for her.

And cuddling with an almost 60-lb pit bull/mastiff/black lab mix in a hammock is both riotously funny and dangerous.

I even tried to take some photos.

It didn’t work.

So we left at 10:30 p.m. and with gas more than $3 a gallon we drove for an hour. We even left the state. And when we got closer to home, I spotted a generic “food mart” at a Shell station with all the lights still on at 11:45 p.m.

The teenager loves a good gas station mini mart.

In character for us, we pulled a u-turn and visited a mini-mart stocked with a wide variety of characters, where I think I was being eyed suspiciously because we were wearing masks.

We picked out some snacks: Lipton Pure Leaf tea was on sale for 2/$3.33, an Oreo brownie, and some 7-layer burrito flavored Combos. The bill came to almost $10.

I had the cherry hibiscus iced tea and it was amazing. The Combos tasted like eating tacos.

Driving through some more questionable neighborhoods, we saw police interviewing some women in cheap flip flops and got passed by an SUV with Florida license plates.

I made my daughter laugh by imagining her picking a fight with somebody twice her size, and then almost made her pee herself laughing when she asked the psycho princess cat Touch of Grey sit for a Combo.

“Are you teaching her tricks?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Since she’s crazy, instead of getting her to cuddle and be sweet, are we rehabilitating her for a career in the circus?”

We both cackled.

“What’s next? A little pink tu-tu to match her collar? Teaching her to dance and spin?”

The teenager curled into the fetal position laughing.

These are the memories I will cherish. Simple, poignant moments in the middle of the night. The ones that chronicle who we are.

Week Three of Hello Fresh: delicious meals and quasi-final thoughts

Angel Ackerman 1 Comment

Earlier this week we got our third Hello Fresh meal delivery. The teenager (I have reason to believe teenager #2 will be moving this week; as she has only been home a few hours in the last week, I hereby formally declare that teenager #1 is now, once again, the teenager) asked to try one of the discount offers provided in another of our subscription services.

They are certainly clever marketers. Box one comes at something like 50% off, then they scale back the discount until delivery four is eight percent off.

And box five, for four people, once you include the shipping, is about $40 per meal.

On my previous Hello Fresh posts (see Hello Fresh, Continuing Thoughts on Hello Fresh, and Hello Fresh Delivery Two)

Now, as I have mentioned, I am a good home chef and a very thrifty shopper. For the cost of one of these meals I bet I could replicate at least three of their recipes.

But that’s not the real point of one of these services, at least in my opinion.

These services:

  • Renew people’s interest in being in the kitchen.
  • Teach people to cook without the risk of randomly googling a meal on the internet, buying the wrong ingredients or admitting you don’t have any skill in the kitchen.
  • Offer the convenience of avoiding the shopping experience or running out of or forgetting a key ingredient.
  • Provide better choice and healthier options than restaurants.
  • Help people meal plan and stick to that plan which can reduce the chance of poor food-related decisions.
  • And my favorite, expose people to new recipes and new uses to standard ingredients, expanding a person’s cooking repertoire. That, in my opinion, is worth the investment and why, after next week, I will be converting to a two-meal, once-a-month plan.

Now for the “cons” of specifically Hello Fresh:

  • I am freaked out by the idea that my raw meat spends 24-36 hours in transit, and by the amount of ice packs in that box. The waste generated upsets me. I noticed that our cat foster godmother reuses the boxes as cat huts.
  • The ingredients sometimes disappoint. I bought their “chicken protein pack” and their chicken strips were tiny chunks— like popcorn chicken. I ordered an extra bag of Brussel sprouts and they were either $3.50 or $3.99, which is the going rate for fresh Brussels. Now they are my favorite and I thought Hello Fresh might have access to special sprouts. Maybe organic or a unique source. Nope. Green Giant.
  • Our schedules in this house are chaotic and finding the time and energy to commit to preparing several meals a week like this is more stressful than I anticipated.
  • The recipes assume you have a certain efficiency in the kitchen. I think we, on average, require one hour at least for a meal that should take 10 minutes prep time and 30 to cook.
  • There’s a lot of rice.
  • I’m not sure these meals fill me up for more than two hours.
  • There are cheaper meal delivery services available. One friend recommended trying Every Plate.

So what have we tried so far?

  1. Pork with Apple Dijon Pan Sauce over farro and wilted kale. (Photos above) I liked it. Teen found the pork scrumptious and well-seasoned but does not care for neither farro nor kale.
  2. Thai Ginger Curry with creamy coconut veggies, peanuts and lime rice. I loved their creative use of red peppers and green beans for the vegetables. They provided a fantastic, full-fat coconut milk. Teen did not care for it. She likes my curries, but this curry was not her thing.
  3. Tuscan Garlic Butter Chicken with creamy kale and paprika carrots. Amazing. All around. The Tuscan heat spice blend excites me. Teen still hates kale.
  4. Paprika Chicken in a Lemony Sauce with pistachio rice and roasted carrots. Not the rich Hungarian dish I was hoping for but very yummy. We both agreed. The pistachios in the rice seemed so decadent.
  5. Thai Shrimp with candied peanuts over sesame cabbage and arugula. I bombed this one. I loved the salad portion and the peanuts, but I’m not a fan of shrimp. The teen loves shrimp but is not fond of purple cabbage and discovered that she detests arugula. So I ate salad for three days until I got sick of it and she ate a lot of shrimp.
  6. Meatloaves with creamy mushroom sauce plus garlic mashed potatoes and roasted Brussel sprouts. The teen and I might agree this was our favorite. But I didn’t eat my mushrooms.
  7. Creamy Cilantro Steak Bowls with garlic lime rice and charred poblano. I enjoyed this one but they were so generous with the steak portions that I got three meals out of what was listed as two servings. This was spicy. And that was good, but the vegetable was onions and neither the teen nor I wanted to chomp on a serving of cooked onions.

We have one meal left this week— apricot ginger chicken— and one more box coming this week. Hello Fresh offered a refresh of our taste buds, but hits hard on the wallet.

Bizzy Update: Friday night dance party on a Thursday

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It’s been a rough week.

Now, by saying that I don’t mean a bad week, or even an unhappy week. But reality is life is rarely easy nor does it often stay the same.

And I took a fall down the stairs on Sunday resulting in a lot of bruises and perhaps more shaken pride.

On Tuesday, the entire Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy warehouse received news that not only had Stitch Fix’s stock soared twenty percent the previous day but that the company was restructuring the pay scale and putting it into effect with the next pay check.

This meant the entire company got a raise— the starting wage for the Bizzy is now $16.50 and warehouse associates will receive 50 cent-an-hour increases every six months until the three year mark.

On Wednesday I did most of my shift in QC, moving to pick at 9:30. I had completed 93 fixes despite a roster meeting that night which put my metrics at 108%.

On Thursday morning, my daughter and I went for our first shot of the Pfizer vaccine. (I later found out Rite Aid had the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. And the hospital literally 500 steps away had been giving it the previous week.) We went to another campus of the hospital network near our house and noticed they had a very smooth operation able to accommodate more than a dozen people at a time.

And I literally had my choice of any time I wanted for my first vaccine. But somehow, when I went to schedule my follow up and they only offered the second dose on two days in July, during two evenings— July 7 and July 14. And the July 7 window was 4 to 8 p.m. Those times conflict with my shift. So I politely asked if there would any other times available. I was told no.

Thousands of choices for the first dose. Only a couple for the second.

Had I been able to find Johnson & Johnson I would be officially mask free by the end of June. Ironic that it won’t be until August now even though I am probably naturally immune. For now. Maybe for life.

The good news is we had our Friday night Bizzy Hizzy dance party on Thursday as one of our supervisors was going to be out Friday and didn’t want to miss it.

But between the heat, the humidity, achy muscles from the shot, lingering effects from my fall down the stairs and maybe even some joint pain from changes in barometric pressure… I only got 113 fixes folded and shipped out. That’s 90%. People noticed too. That made me sad.

Speaking of sad, our favorite nurse is leaving the Bizzy Hizzy for a position in hospice. The nursing staff is only temporary due to Covid and she thought it might be time to transition back to a permanent position.

Teenager #1 and I had fun gathering some gag gifts for her: Band-aids, ibuprofen, muscle pain relief cream, etc., with a Lebanon bologna/horseradish cheddar hoagie from Park Avenue Market. She loved it.

Stitch Fix circulated a giant card that we all signed and had cupcakes for her at our 10 p.m. break.

This was followed by the regular Friday night dance party. And I hit 124 fixes. That’s 95%.

I’m ready for the weekend.

Review: End of Hello Fresh week two and random junk we tried

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My daughter often stops at Grocery Outlet in part because of their “rainbow Coke program” where you can rummage through lose cans of soda and mix and match flavors for 25 cents each. They have weird food, good deals, and allow us to try things on which we wouldn’t usually splurge.

Tonight we made the Cheetos Jalapeño Macaroni and Cheese. Now, hands down, without question, my absolute favorite ultra-processed boxed macaroni and cheese product is Wegmans house brand Spirals and Cheese dinner, which I often used to get on sale for 33 cents a box.

This hard larger than average noodles that once prepared very quickly absorbed all the sauce. It tasted exactly like jalapeño cheetos. Except you didn’t have to chew so much. I ate a bowl, and the spice developed on the roof of my mouth versus my tongue. I added a can of tuna and had another bowl. A two-serving box was 79 cents.

Other Random Products

  • Fried Oreos: finally tried them at Sheetz. Gooey in the middle. Enjoyed them but was disappointed by the end product because I never realized how much of the allure of Oreos was in the crunch factor.
  • Strawberry Ice Cream Cone Hershey Kisses: very smooth strawberry flavor and I didn’t expect the crunchy bits. Honestly, between 20 flavors of Oreos and constantly rotating flavors of Hershey Kisses, my taste buds are getting burnt out. How many different flavors of potato chips and Mountain Dew do Americans really need?
  • Tropical Swedish Fish: like the iconic red flavor of Swedish Fish that vaguely resembles cherry, these tropical Swedish fish vaguely resemble something familiar but the flavors listed on the box aren’t even all flavors (passion fruit, pina colada, beachy punch and tropical island). They are weird and the colors are muted and off-putting.
  • Dunkin’s Peach Lemonade Refresher: possible one of the most over sweetened items I have ever tasted. Even teenager #1 who likes sweet things couldn’t drink it. So I suggested she blend it with some diet ginger ale we had in the house. That she loved.

And as promised— a brief update on Hello Fresh.

Meals, for four servings, cost about $35 each, when including shipping. The meals are amazingly curated and the recipes amazing. This week I tried to pick things my daughter would like but that I wouldn’t normally buy or don’t often take the time to make.

The Turkey meat loaves with mashed potatoes, Brussel sprouts and mushroom sauce were a hit. But the shrimp Thai salad bombed. I don’t care for shrimp, poor teenager #1 struggled to eat it all. And didn’t. And it turned out I didn’t notice when I ordered it that the based of the salad was arugula. And the teen hates arugula. So I ate massive vegetarian salads for dinner for three days. They were scrumptious but I don’t want to eat arugula again for a while.

We downsized our box from three meals to two as it is Sunday, another box ships tomorrow and we still have steak from last week to make.

So while we are eating better, we are spending a whole lot of money, struggling to find time to be in the kitchen and then stressing over getting the meals prepared before they go bad or another box shows up.

Blogging while exploring the June 2021 Silk & Sonder planner

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

My new Silk & Sonder planning arrived today (no wait, yesterday) after some mishaps with the postal service. To read more about that, Silk & Sonder’s marvelous customer service and my previous experience with the product, allow me to direct you here: Silk & Sonder posts.

I already did the boring stuff— the data transfer of dates already scheduled and associated what not like what Hello Fresh meals we still have coming. Now I will sit with the book for a while and interact with it while blogging my feelings. I received the May journal late in the month and used the time to experiment and test how I wanted to use the book so I feel ready to commit more fully.

So let’s open the book.

1. I find the space “if lost return to” a tad silly and makes me feel five. As in five years old.

2. Table of contents.

3. Editor’s letter. Let’s actually read it this month. Meha, the author of the letter, does a really great job articulating why June is a great month for this theme of “play.” She also has a great thought that addresses my fear of play. “Play can be nurtured in seemingly ordinary ways, but it’s up to us on how willing we are to open ourselves up to new characters, stories, and settings in the midst of our chaotic schedules.”

Play can be nurtured in seemingly ordinary ways, but it’s up to us on how willing we are to open ourselves.

Meha, Silk & Sonder creator

Calendar stuff…

4. May reflections: wins, hiccups, favorite moments, hard moments, changing habits… I feel like I can answer these now and my answers will help frame the month ahead.

And coupled with this… on the same two page spread is space for June intentions.

So let me fill this out and I’ll be pausing there for right now. Until next time…