Welcome to May

It's May 1st, and that means we're one third of the way through the year. I thought today might be a good day to revisit my New Year's resolutions and think about how they're going.

Turns out, that wasn't a good idea. I looked at my resolutions this morning and realized I haven't done any of them! Nothing! Well, I've started doing the reading ones, but that's about it. I haven't made any progress on the home improvement projects, nor the goals related to the rental house. I haven't been walking or lifting weights. I haven't taken the kids to do any fun activities, we haven't been cooking together, we haven't gone to any movies. I didn't get the taxes done early. I haven't gotten a part-time job. I haven't even been giving away money. Just nothing.

Well, OK, I've been preoccupied with health-related stuff. The braces, then the heart. And we had a lot of snow. I can't think of any other excuses.

So, going on the premise that there's no time like the present and you've got to start somewhere, I decided that May 1st would be a good day to start going for walks again. And so I took a walk. I walked for 21 minutes in the early afternoon (from 1:22 to 1:43, to be exact). My first walk in two months. I didn't drop dead from exhaustion, I didn't have a heart attack or a stroke. It was very pleasant (the photos are from the walk). We're supposed to get rain starting tonight, so I don't know if I'll walk again tomorrow. Maybe in the afternoon. But I made a new mini-resolution to try to take a short walk every day from now on. (Every day is an easier plan than 3 times a week or whatever -- simpler.)

As for the rest of the resolutions, I don't know. It's not too late -- there are 8 months left in the year. Maybe I could choose one each week to focus on (it could be the same one for a few weeks if it takes me a while to get it done, as it undoubtedly will). I think this week I'll try to work on some of the piles of files that I've been ignoring for a few months now. Rocket Boy is coming back next weekend, for Mother's Day and the rest of the twins' school year, and it would be nice to have some piles of files removed from the floor before he arrives.

There, done. That's not so scary. Maybe after Rocket Boy gets here, he and I could talk about the home improvement projects. Like the backyard. Or the kitchen floor. The hole in the floor has gotten so big that Sillers has trouble lying on it. For some reason, she likes to lie on it, keep it covered up for us, but it's outgrowing her. One of these days, someone is going to step right through that hole into the basement.

I think I am pretty much all recovered from the heart procedure. The bruise on my arm has almost completely vanished and the nausea is improving. Sometimes when I lie down to sleep at night, my heart thumps around weirdly, and at other times I have mild chest pain, which I think is related to the procedure -- my heart and arteries are still a little annoyed about the whole thing. Or, alternatively, I could be having a lot of little heart attacks. I don't think so, though.

One thing I'm still dealing with is depression and irritability, which I think is from the beta blocker, the metropolol. I'm going to ask my cardiologist if I can stop taking that, and if he says no, I have some thoughts to express on quality of life vs. quantity of life. That is, if I have to feel like this for the rest of my life, it's not really worth extending it, is it?

Oh, and there's one other thing, and I don't know if it's a lingering effect of the drugs they gave me during the procedure, or another side effect of metropolol -- but I can't do Wordle and Quordle! That is, I can do them, but they're really hard and not nearly as fun as previously. I find myself staring at the screen of my phone, trying desperately to think of a word, and I just can't come up with one. I've failed at Wordle twice in the past week, and failed at Quordle three times. I certainly hope this isn't a permanent change.

One of my resolutions (that I haven't been keeping) was to have a theme for each month, so that all the months would be fun, not just the fall. I definitely missed April -- I feel as though I missed April altogether -- but now it is May, and I think I can do this for May.

May's theme is, without question, flowers, and the color of May is pink (and purple, for the lilacs). I don't usually buy or plant any flowers until Mother's Day, but Mother's Day is early this year, on account of today being the first Sunday of May, so next weekend I am definitely going to buy some flowers! It's not too early, either, due to climate change. I'm quite sure we're done with snow, and if we happen to have a freak May snowstorm (the way we used to), I can always put tarps over the flowers.

I had my orthodontia appointment this week and I got pink bands. And tonight we had Subway, and I got two cookies, the raspberry cheesecake variety (which is partly pink).

I am not normally a fan of the color pink, but for one month, I can be. I only have one or two pink shirts, but I'll wear them. I wonder if I could bake something pink. I haven't been baking -- haven't felt up to it. Maybe I'll start to feel up to it. Or if not, maybe I can find something pink at the store. Pink-frosted cookies, or something. I did buy strawberries -- maybe I can do something with them.

I think that's all I have to talk about this week. Nothing special happened. My book group met via Zoom. I was very, very lazy, and I didn't accomplish much. I didn't cook -- we had sandwiches a couple of nights, and one night ramen. My friend from the book group brought over the dinner she was going to bring when Rocket Boy was here: manicotti and sauce. I baked it and it was delicious. One night I made a Dutch Baby -- that was fun, if not really dinner food. 

On Friday morning I threw away a LOT of food, because it was compost pickup day. Some of the food hadn't gone bad, but it was things I had tried to eat during the week and failed, due to the nausea, so I just needed to get them out of the house. This week I can start fresh, no more nausea (I think). The twins only have 19 days left of middle school -- how scary is that? We'll try to have a good month together. With lots of pink and flowers.