Category review

I’m Back in Line—singing the praises of my chiropractor and watching the teenagers grow up

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Today turned out to be a completely ordinary but yet amazing day. I owe much of that to my chiropractor, Dr. Nicole Jensen of Back in Line Wellness Center.

I have been working with her more often since I started at Stitch Fix as I don’t want to live my life in constant pain as I did toward the end of my decade working for Target.

Nicole has a background in physical therapy so she can deal with my cerebral palsy issues, messed up S1 joint, and get all that tension out of my neck. (I never even told her about my tendency to hold all my tension in my neck— she noticed.) She also gives me ideas on what to do at home (like which of my physical therapy exercises and what new stretches).

And funny story— she’s even worked on one of my fingers (after my cat bite/hospital stay for cellulitis this past August) when it wouldn’t bend and once she adjusted a toe for me. I can’t quite remember why…

So today Nicole did what she termed some agressive work on my hips as my main complaints these days are more about stiffness than pain. Now don’t get me wrong— QCing (standing still folding clothes from 3:30 pm to midnight) makes me hurt. And picking also makes me hurt. But both those pains usually fade by morning leaving behind stiffness that can be quite uncomfortable.

I am very grateful for Nicole, as she has done more than any other person to help me understand how my body works because of my disability.

When I left her, I felt like someone had popped off my legs as if I were a Barbie doll and popped new ones on. They didn’t feel bad, they just felt loose and new and weird.

And I didn’t experience any pain at work, at least not the bad kind. I definitely experienced the discomfort of a good workout. Even bending down at the end of my shift wasn’t nearly as intense as usual.

And I walked more than 26,000 steps (but only picked 693 items).

For Saint Patrick’s Day, Wawa had given me a free matcha drink. There happens to be a Wawa across the street from the chiropractor so teenager #1 picked up a matcha mint latte for me.

I seem to be one of the first people posting on YouTube about Wawa’s matcha, so here is today’s installment: Matcha Mint latte from Wawa. This particular video has 18 views. Yesterday’s has 118. Spoiler alert: it was tasty but I gave it to the teenager as the fact that I couldn’t taste the matcha ruined it for me. But I would rate Wawa’s matcha better than Dunkin’s and akin to Starbucks.

Next, I took the teenager to the bank to open her first checking account. Even though the small bank I used has been gobbled up by a larger bank, I took the teenager to the same branch where her father and I opened our checking account in the late 1990s. I still have the account, in part because I am incredibly fond of my account number.

When we got home, teenager #2 asked me some questions about the differences between savings and checking accounts so we discussed banking. Teenager #2, a friend teenager #1 made in marching band who came into our home when she needed a place to stay last fall, turns 18 in about a week. Holy crow. A week.

In my household, birthday children get $100 and get to plan a day. I saved up $100 cash to give her— and, knowing this was my custom, she asked if she could use that money to open her own checking account. I responded, “of course.”

After all that, I made some ravioli and we all took turns cuddling with the dog.

I challenged the Chromebook and lost

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I only got five hours sleep last night. My emotions were a mess, my body in pain, and I had a sinking suspicion some of my issues are menstrual cycle/hormone related since in addition to my S1 joint issues, I also feel all my cramps in my lower back. PMS week is supposed to start this weekend, but as a forty-something woman I think the party is starting early.

I treated the teens to iced coffee at Wawa. They have a $2 special going on right now and I gotta say I still don’t like Wawa’s iced coffee. I don’t like their flavors. The coffee tastes week. And they never put enough ice in, and I’m the woman that asks for less ice at Dunkin’.

I get to work at Stitch Fix’s Bizzy Hizzy. I see I am once again assigned to QC so I take some ibuprofen and head to my favorite table— Valley 1, line 1B, table 2B.

And after the first hour, the supervisor who also has a disability comes over.

“Angel,” he says, “would you do us a favor and move to pick?”

“Now you know I’m glad to say yes. When?”

I’m thinking after lunch. Nope. He says to go after I finish my cart— which is two fixes!

I only picked 120, and at 11:29 pm my Samsung Chromebook warned me it had 34 minutes left. It died 20 minutes later. Apparently it can’t do math. I only had two more items left to complete my cart, and one was one aisle away. We had to manually get the last items as you can’t restart a pick from the middle.

And I felt better doing all of this than I have all week. Even despite wearing rather impractical shoes.

I came home and took out F. Bean Barker (who I learned is half pitbull/half mastiff). The neighbor’s dog barked as she was mid squat and she refused to go to the bathroom, too afraid.

And then she had explosive, watery diarrhea in the dining room and downstairs bathroom. And we ran out of paper towels.

All in all— an adventurous day.

The plunge and the mother clucker

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Tonight my neighbor (Little Dog’s mom) and I went on an impromptu dinner date and she even suggested going to one of my favorite spots— Three Mugs Pub.

I had a Yuengling and the mother clucker sandwich— very crispy and a mix of spicy, tangy and garlicky. My neighbor said she should be rolling the camera, so to speak, for one of my food review videos.

It felt good to laugh.

In a rather impulsive move, I visited the Apple.com site and looked at refurbished MacBook Airs. I ordered the $800 2020 13” in gold. I haven’t had my own computer for about three years, relying instead on an iPad Pro I bought used from Gayle.

The keyboard and the stylus on the iPad doesn’t work anymore. I don’t know if the keyboard died, or Nala broke it, or it merely needs to be cleaned.

In the spring I bought a refurbished HP laptop but hated working on a PC. It was a purchase of necessity as my boss at my previous job demanded I purchase my own PC to work at home during the pandemic.

I sold it to a friend when that job ended.

So if I really plan to start writing again and publishing, I need a computer.

And probably my Apple ID and password.

Meeting the metric and other full moon ruminations

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

Today started with a groggy Angel that for the second day in a row got less than six hours sleep. I headed off to my amazing chiropractor, Nicole Jensen, to report that despite the grueling work week somehow I was not in pain.

And she indeed found that my body was moving well and that my main issue was stiffness in my mid-to-upper spine consistent with all the snow shoveling needed in the last few weeks. She also asked about my neck as I store all my stress in my neck and shoulders.

After getting a great adjustment and convincing a staff member there that her mother did not want a large bird that talks, I came home and unsuccessfully tried to nap. One of my favorite Sarah’s convinced me to get another Dunkin Cold Foam Cold Brew which I review in this YouTube video: Vanilla Cold Brew with Cold Foam

I texted her to thank her for the advice as it was dead on. And somehow I QCed 105– yes one hundred and five— fixes which is more than the required metric of 104. I finally did it. A mere three-plus hours before the full moon.

It was a successful night at the Stitch Fix Bizzy Hizzy.

Teenager #1 waited up as a bonding exercise before the full moon. Today in addition to chores and school work, she replaced the screen in her bedroom window and embroidered her face masks for work.

Here are some other contemplations and updates at 2:15 a.m.:

  • I am itching to write fiction again. My friend Gayle has agreed to be my book designer should I decide to publish my books. Gayle and I once had the dream of our own publishing imprint, Parisian Phoenix Publishing.
  • My mortgage refinance is scheduled to close next Saturday. The refi will save me $300 a month, pay off my car, and leave me with several thousand extra dollars. I am dropping from 3.25 to 2.85% interest and adding five years into my mortgage. But it will also drop my actual mortgage to be less than the current 50% of my net pay. My hope is that when things “look better,” I can pay down the principal.
  • So the extra money— do I:
  1. Buy myself a computer and put the rest in savings. It’s been about 3 years since I had a computer and I’m an Apple girl so it’s an investment. Adding the rest to savings would give me about 5-6 months income in the bank as an emergency fund.
  2. Put it all in savings to see what happens in the economy next.
  3. Use it to buy the computer and pay teenager #1’s car insurance should she pass her exam March 9. The bill will be $1500 for 6 months. Mine is $488.
  4. Use it and other savings I have to pay down $5,000 on the new loan’s principal.
  5. Plan a vacation— not going to happen.

And here is today’s kitten picture:

And the new Dunkin menu

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A few weeks ago one of my former colleagues from Target (Jessica? Jackie?) posted the upcoming new menu items from Dunkin’— on the list was avocado toast.

Now, I received a push notification that avocado toast and cold brew with cold foam had arrived so Teenager #1 and I took our showers and headed out.

Coincidentally, we both decided to wear dresses which might be due to the warm weather (40-something and sunny!). She wore her Karl Lagerfeld Ready to Wear dress that I bought her for Christmas from the Stitch Fix employee store.

If you want to be spared reading, here is our vlog review of our Dunkin trip: Review of New Dunkin items.

We ordered:

  • Chocolate Stout Cold Foam Cold Brew
  • Grilled Cheese Melt
  • Avocado Toast

We loved the avocado toast and ordered a second piece. But let me give my impressions…

Avocado Toast: $3. Very rich with avocado and lemon; the everything bagel seasoning is a very nice accent.

Chocolate Stout Cold Brew: Medium was $4. Was supposed to be $3 on the app but the promotion didn’t work. I had mine with cream because chocolate coffees tend to be too bitter for me. I liked it, and the teens liked it, too. In the future I would ask for less syrup.

Grilled Cheese: $4. Good. But pricey for what it is. They don’t toast the outside of the bread so the sourdough isn’t crispy. But Dunkin’s sourdough is delicious so that makes up for it.

My favorite cat litters

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

This won’t be the most game exciting post, but as a foster parent for feral kittens and a long-time cat mama, I’ve seen and experienced a lot of development in the cat litter arena.

I thought I’d share the cat litter we stock in this house in case it would help anyone else.

In our main living area boxes we use So Phresh from Petco, on repeat delivery. It’s nothing fancy but the price is very reasonable and it ships to the door. Plus, the plastic buckets are reusable and the kitty on the bucket looks like our Fog. I apologize to the UPS man every time we get a delivery. We fill our four cat boxes downstairs with this litter (one on the sun porch, one in the dining room, two in the bathroom).

Even though the fosters receive donations from the supporters of Feline Urban Rescue and Rehab, because we currently have five cats in teenager #1’s bedroom, we order Arm & Hammer’s Clump N Seal from Chewy.com. This is my favorite clay litter, but it is pricy so I can’t justify buying it for every box. But it really does seal in odor and isn’t dusty. So for the two boxes in the teen’s room, Arm & Hammer it is.

Both of these litters are fairly scent-free because I know cats have sensitive noses and I do, too.

Now there are occasions when we use Yesterday’s News and Feline Pine. Yesterday’s News is a pellet litter made from recycled newspapers. It dissolves when urinated on, but does not clump with poop. Same is true with Feline Pine. With both, you can scoop out the poo and shake the box and the box refreshes in a way. I like that the pellet litters are easy to clean up when they get kicked out of the box. Yesterday’s News is very clean and scentless— so when a cat is recovering from surgery or illness it’s a safe choice. I also use it in the tray of the bird cages.

But I like the pine smell of the Feline Pine when the cat uses the box, so I keep a tiny litter box in my room with that litter. It’s small because with the birds, cats aren’t typically in my room.

Teen #2 has two boxes for her two cats in her room, and I suggested she use one pellet and one clay litter so her cats have a choice.

Our foster cat godmother from Feline Urban Rescue and Rehab recently traded in her traditional cat boxes for a horse trough. That is a brilliant idea!

The embers of happy

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Today I fought my emotions and fought my pain to find some moments of happiness for myself. And in the end, my heart is warm.

My daughter and I often carpool now that she is a waitress at one of our favorite local businesses— Tic Toc Diner.

Before work I took her to the Starbucks in our local Target (#2536) so I could try the new Pistachio Latte.

Our reaction video: Review of our lattes

Once I arrived at the Bizzy Hizzy, I realized I had forgotten to wear red for “red day,” but they gave us all red masks and iced heart sugar cookies. That brought me some joy. As did my lunch, my attempt at Cajun seared scallops.

I started my night in QC, where my performance slipped because despite taking two naproxen sodium my pain level was going from 5 to 7. By 9 pm, I had only QC’ed about 52. But then at 9:15, I got moved to pick direct! It felt amazing to zoom through the warehouse and even though the naproxen sodium had worn off, my pain had dropped to a two or a three.

Teenager #1 texted that she had her uniform and she was waiting tables by herself and she made $28 in tips. I love seeing her in this new role.

And my friend who adopted Fenrir/Fern of the Norse Pride (now Edie) sent me this picture of her:

She looks so majestic. I am assured that she is still naughty.

By the end of the night, I picked 48 fixes and walked about 12,000 steps.

A friend texted to check in when I really needed to hear a familiar voice (thank you, Bill).

Another friend texted me the word “ramfeezled,” to be exhausted from working too much. (Thank you, Joan.)

And then I got home, and found the best surprise ever. Now, every night teenager #1 comes to hang out with Nala. While she is here, she makes my bed.

Tonight I found this…

She bought me clearance Valentine’s chocolate from the Dollar Tree. That’s my girl— frugal impresses me just as much as the thought.

Ipsy February 2021 Glam Bag Plus

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

I have to admit I was disappointed when my choices rolled around for this month’s Ipsy glam bag plus. I love the fun of this subscription service and it’s allowed me the opportunity to change up my look.

But the pandemic now limits where I can go and covers a lot of my face so I just don’t wear make-up that often anymore.

I upgraded from the glam bag to the glam bag plus about six months ago and downgraded my plan from every month to every other month. The smaller bag got highly repetitive and didn’t offer enough edgy products. I think the value and versatility of the glam bag plus is much better than the glam bag. The one “bad” thing is that most of the fun of getting a surprise happens when you select your products online versus a surprise when you open the box.

Glam bag plus allows you to select your products from a curated collection. I have to admit— sometimes none of the products appeal to me. But today, even though online I was disappointed, when they arrived in real life I was impressed.

Here is a video of me unboxing this month’s glam bag plus: February 2021 Glam Bag Plus

Foods of a snowy day

Angel Ackerman Leave a comment

We woke up today with the snow falling as anticipated… I came downstairs to discover that Mr. Mistofelees stole the baguette from the top of the pantry amid the pots and pans.

I trimmed around the cat-eaten morsels and prepared a platter of baguette, hummus, olives, dates, cocktail cucumbers, molasses bread, jam and goodness knows what else as a light breakfast.

Why a light breakfast? Because I promised the teenagers I would make poached eggs on crumpets for second breakfast later in the day. I learned two things:

  1. I forgot that I always toast the crumpets before adorning them with ooey gooey imperfect-looking poached eggs. I served untoasted crumpets and that was gross.
  2. Teenager #2 hadn’t ever had poached eggs before— and the egg won approval.

I used the opportunity to taste-test Supercoffee, which I purchased at Wegmans in part because I didn’t feel guilty about the $3 sticker price because I used a gift card my mom gave me for Christmas and this was my one splurge. I’m surprised a didn’t buy a $10 chunk of strong Brie.

Here is my review of Supercoffee… spoiler alert: it didn’t impress me with flavor, but now, an hour after finishing it, my right hand is bright red and really warm.

Click the image above to see the video

Friends, food and fun

Angel Ackerman 2 Comments

The last two days— when not paying bills, shoveling snow, fighting pain and surviving work at the Bizzy Hizzy— has been a blend of chores and silliness.

I took Teenager #1 for a drive yesterday to navigate city streets made narrow by snow and drive in whatever slop we could find so she could experience driving on snow and ice in a controlled manner.

She asked for something from McDonalds so I got her an iced coffee, and I wanted to go to Dunkin across the street for my iced coffee.

I ordered the coffee on the McDonalds app and no lie— it took 45 minutes to make it through the drive through. At Dunkin, I got a cold brew with cream, the coconut flavor shot and one pump of the pink velvet syrup.

Yes, they have the pink velvet syrup in things other than the pricey pink velvet macchiato.

At work in the Stitch Fix warehouse, I tried to get a picture of the inflatable Valentine’s dinosaur…

And I got assigned to QC. I assembled 89 fixes and was very grateful when my Tylenol and ibuprofen managed to numb the pain in my spine. I listed to two IT innovation podcasts featuring data science, algorithms and Stitch Fix.

After taking Minerva of the Roman Pride to FURR’s cat adoption event at Petsmart, teenager #1 and I went to Wegmans across the street. Now, we are expecting snow again tomorrow AND it’s the Super Bowl so of course, it was crazy.

But it sure made this generic bologna sandwich taste amazing.

A social worker friend and I discussed budget tactics, loan amortization and the influence of white privilege in the disability sphere.

Then our neighbor and our favorite little dog stopped by. We finalized dinner plans to go to our favorite local diner— and wow was it lively tonight.

Not only did we have the brand new waiter (whom they hired instead of teenager #1), but there was one guy who looked like his mask came out of a BDSM scene and a sweet little old lady wearing fingerless gloves who sent back her omelette so many times they ran out of egg whites.

The poor new waiter dropped food on the floor and broke at least one plate, didn’t have any grasp of the menu, was slow as molasses, and could not keep track of the condiments. But don’t worry, we were patient.

Apparently my request for a tuna melt on rye confused him, because he had to return to the table to confirm that I didn’t want a tuna melt and an order of rye toast.

And during one of our trips today, we fished the Yuengling out of the yard that teenager #1 tried to throw to the neighbor as he was snow-blowing.

After all that, and much trademark cackling, we finally did the soda taste test video we’ve had planned: Weird Sodas (Ramuné in melon and strawberry, Major Melon Mountain Dew and A-Treat Pumpkin.

That’s some real pandemic excitement.