January is over

Wow, we've reached the end of January already. That went fast. I think it was all the work I assigned myself. I spent so much time making lists and checking them off (or fussing endlessly over not getting stuff done) that the time just flew by.

I haven't done a coronavirus update in a few weeks. Two weeks ago, 397,000 people had died. As of this afternoon, 440,272 have died, 43,272 more than two weeks ago. That's an average of 3091 per day. The number of cases per day is dropping, which is wonderful, but it still seems high. If the number of deaths per day doesn't start going down, we could hit 500,000 in three weeks. 

I just keep wearing my mask, social distancing, not going much of anywhere (except the occasional walk, occasionally with twins, as above). Last night we were going to eat at Chili's, but the kids didn't want to go, so I just picked up takeout. It's a long drive for takeout, but it meant that I also got to dash into Walmart, which is next door, and get paper lunch sacks, which our grocery store no longer carries. (I use them to clean the litter boxes.)

Not much to report on, as usual. The kids got their new glasses, so that crisis is off my list. This week, maybe even tomorrow, I'm going to have blood work done, and the next week I see my new doctor. 

I am just dreading this appointment. I imagine it several times a day. In my imaginings, the doctor always tells me I'm too fat (which is 100% true) and then something bad happens:

• Sometimes she tells me she can't treat such a fat slob, that I disgust her. How could I possibly be content to live like this, I should be kicked out of Boulder.
  
• Sometimes she puts me on an extremely low calorie diet, like 500 calories a day. When I say there's no way I can stick to that, she tells me she can't work with someone who won't even try. 
  
• Sometimes I tell her about all the times I've been on Weight Watchers, in my teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s, and she says, "why did you quit?" I try to explain about losing weight -- as much as 50 pounds! -- and then gaining it all back while still going to meetings, the time I actually reached my goal but the leader told me I needed to lose 5 more pounds and I started starving myself and ended up fainting during a meeting. She says, "if you care so little about your own health, I can't help you."
  
• Sometimes I ask her if she'll give me a referral to an ophthalmologist, so that my insurance will cover it, and she says she'll only do that if I agree to start taking my health seriously.
  
• Sometimes I tell her I have trouble walking these days because I can't breathe in a mask. I tell her I wish I had a dog to walk, but we have cats and what if I got sick and couldn't take the dog out, etc., and she tells me I obviously don't care about being healthy since I keep making excuses.
• Sometimes she lists off the bad things that will happen to me because I'm fat: I'll go blind, my feet and then my legs will be amputated, I'll have heart attacks and strokes, I'll get Alzheimer's, I'll get colon cancer, I'll get ovarian cancer, I'll die before my children finish high school.
  

These are just a few of the scenarios I've come up with. It's like I'm transferring every doubt and fear and insecurity and anxiety I've ever had onto this poor doctor who I've never met. It will be pretty funny if she turns out to be nice and wants to help me. I'm trying to focus on not cancelling the appointment, because of course that's what I want to do every time I have one of these terrible fantasies.

*****

Candlemas/Groundhog Day is on Tuesday. We'll have pancakes for dinner, or perhaps crepes -- I have strawberry jam and whipping cream in the fridge. Okay, we might just have regular pancakes, but we'll see. We'll burn the last of the Advent candles, which I have forgotten to do on several other occasions, and try to get Christmas put away.

To that end, I have started taking down the tree. I needed to get the ornaments off because Mr. Merlino has been taking them off for me. He likes to pull apart the straw stars and then eat some of the straw (it shows up in the litter box). Look what he did to some of the other ornaments. The flamingo now consists of one leg and a little bit of pink stuff. Bad cat!

As I took the ornaments off, Mr. Merlino took some off too and chewed on them, so eventually he was put in the garage and I got the rest down and stowed away safely. So that's an important task done.

Speaking of tasks... it's still January, so perfectly natural to still be talking about resolutions, right? It's February tomorrow, so let's review our quarterly and monthly goals.

Quarterly goals:

• Read a presidential biography. I am on page 279 of Team of Rivals, out of 754, so that's 37% of the book. I'm reading it in fits and starts, other books keep calling my name, but I think I'll have it finished by the end of March.
  
• Work on a home improvement project. My quest to deal with our unbelievable mess of files and papers is not going well. Right now I have two gigantic piles on the floor of my bedroom. I thought if I put them there it would be harder to ignore them, but it turns out that it is very easy. Keep trying. Still have two months to go.
  

Monthly goals:

• Make contact with at least one friend or family member. In January I had a Zoom call with friends and I finally managed to send a congratulations card to a friend who recently adopted a daughter and an e-birthday-card to a friend who turned 70. February might be a good time to have a family Zoom call and I'll plan to write a letter to my friend in Los Angeles.
  
• Read the book for the book group. I plan to start it tomorrow and read about 35 pages per night. We meet on the 8th.
  
• Read the book for the Classics Challenge 2021. I have definitely decided to do this. In the next week or so I'll finalize my list, post it formally, and start the first book (maybe after I finish the book group book).
  
• Take the twins somewhere fun. All we did in January was one park trip combined with a Starbucks trip. February probably won't be much better, not until I get new glasses. But we could go sledding if we get some good snow.
  
• Donate $$ to some organization. After thinking some more about this, I decided not to make a master list now, but keep jotting down ideas as the year goes by. In January, I donated $50 to the American Lung Association, which used to be one of my (and Rocket Boy's) regular charities. I think $50 will be my set amount, so that will be at least $600 for the year, which we can afford. I'll choose February's recipient later in the month.
  
• Do one of the smaller goals on my master list. January was the twins' health month: physicals, eye exams, and new glasses. February will be mine: blood work, a physical, hopefully an eye exam and new glasses, and whatever the physical leads to, such as amputations (no, stop it!). I'm not going to plan any more than that.
  

It's also the beginning of a new week, so I should review my weekly goals.

Weekly goals:

• Cook dinner with one twin, alternating weeks. It's Kid A's turn this week, so today or tomorrow I'll sit down with him and make plans for it. This has actually been going pretty well.
  
• Lift weights (twice a week). Strong Women Stay Young has not turned up and I have used that as an excuse not to do any weightlifting. So, today I ordered a used copy of Strong Women Stay Slim, as a compromise. It has weightlifting advice in it, but also other stuff, so that when Strong Women Stay Young FINALLY decides to reappear, I can keep both books.
  
• Bake something. Our delivery of Girl Scout cookies arrived yesterday, so I won't need to bake cookies for quite a while. I am toying with the idea of making lemon poppy seed bread for Candlemas (in addition to the crepes), but not sure if I'll do it, since the stupid twins don't like poppy seeds. Maybe I can think of something else.
  
• Watch a movie with the kids. We didn't watch a movie together the whole month of January. I just haven't been in the mood. I'll try again this coming weekend. I'm not ready to remove it from the list.
  
• Blog. I'm doing it!
  
• Deal with the trash, recycling, compost, and weeding out the accumulation of stuff. I failed at this last week because I didn't get the trash out in time for pickup. I put the recycling out, but the bin was only about half full. This will be compost week. Maybe I can pick up some branches and whatnot before the snow comes on Thursday.
  
• Pay bills and put money into savings. This is going fine, although the time has come to start paying all our property taxes, so I won't be saving anything for a while. I also need to start our taxes.
  
• Work on the current home improvement project. This is failing utterly, so I will try again this week.

And finally, since it is of course a day, I will look at my Daily goals:

• Go for a walk or get some other type of exercise. We took a 26-minute walk to the creek. It's a nice day.
  
• Help the kids with school. Kid B and I are struggling with his Language Arts homework. We've worked on it for a while today and may do more later.
• Clean the kitchen. I ran the dishwasher but still have a bunch of recycling (from last night's Chili's run) to wash by hand. Also must put away the clean dishes.
  
• Spend 30 minutes cleaning this week's room. Last week was "hall and floors" and I totally ignored it. Maybe I could do some vacuuming today. Next week is "bathroom" but since I cleaned the bathroom last week for the plumber, I'm not going to do it again so soon. So maybe this coming week will be "hall and floors." I don't like vacuuming.
  
• Make dinner or otherwise arrange for it to happen. I've been trying to make soup all week. Maybe tonight?
  
• Clean the cat boxes. I'll do it this evening.
  
• Read. Yes.
  
• Write. This blog will be enough for today.
  
• Get at least 7-1/2 hours of sleep at night. Not doing as well on this I could be. Try to turn off the light by 11:30 tonight.
• Extra: take the ornaments off the tree! Done!
  

I'm having more trouble with some of the weekly and daily goals than the larger ones, so I'll have to spend some more time thinking about them. But in general, I'd say I'm reasonably pleased with how the year has started. I'll try to keep the momentum going.