February considered

I thought I should think about February this week, since it's a short month and will be gone before we know it. I'm not sure I really have any special goals for February, though. There are my reading plans, of course, detailed in my Reading Posts. Following my challenge from two years ago, I should also be reading books from the stacks by my bed. I don't know if I'll have time for any of those this month, though. There's something about these 21st century books that I'm reading -- they're often depressing and hard to get through. I only read 7 books in January, and that's usually a big reading month for me.

I consider February to be a pink month, due to Valentine's Day. I already have a card for Rocket Boy, cleverly hidden behind the card for my niece, whose birthday is the 16th. I must get her card in the mail soon, after which I will have nowhere to hide RB's card. I suppose I will just turn it backwards and sideways. He won't notice it. February is also Girl Scout cookie month, but ours haven't arrived yet. My Girl Scout (the one that I order cookies from) said she will try to bring them by tomorrow afternoon.

Last year I worked on my wardrobe, and February was underwear month. My underwear situation is actually pretty good now, on account of the work I did last year. So I don't think I'll bother with that one this year. I'm still having trouble with the whole "size" problem -- like, what size am I? What size am I going to be? What size should I buy for? So I won't worry about clothes for now.

For Christmas I gave Rocket Boy three piles of coupons: for movies, hikes, and activities. He forgot about them immediately, but I've reminded him a few times, and now he's kind of into it. In January we did not take any hikes, but we watched the movie "Giant" together. I don't think we did any special activities, but we might have. My memory is a blank. Mostly it was cold and I was itchy. So far in February we've done one activity (went to History Colorado in Denver last Sunday).

We've also watched one movie together, "When the Wind Blows," but I don't know if that counts, because it was my choice. I found it on a list of "The Most Depressing Movies Ever" or something like that. I was just reading the list for amusement, not because I wanted to watch depressing movies, and then I spotted this one, which is based on a book by Raymond Briggs. I love Raymond Briggs (The Snowman, Father Christmas, Ethel & Ernest, etc.), so I requested the film from the library. Rocket Boy did NOT like it, so I'll probably have to watch another movie with him that he wants to see. For example, he wants to watch "The Egg and I," on the Criterion Channel. I also borrowed "The Great Gatsby" from the library, because Teen B is reading the book for Language Arts, so that's another possibility.

He's very psyched about the idea of hikes, so I agreed I'd go on one with him today, while the trails are in reasonably good shape (before it snows again). We drove up to northeast Boulder and went on the White Rocks trail from 95th Street to close to Boulder Creek. We only went about a mile and then turned around and walked back, so it was actually just under two miles, 1.97 miles according to my app. I could have gone farther, but my bladder was not cooperating, and there were no restrooms of any sort and no trees or other cover. I just couldn't pull down my pants in full view of anyone who might suddenly run by.

But it was a pleasant trail, very good for winter. I don't think it would be much fun on a hot summer day, although I don't know -- maybe things bloom there, hard to say. It was extremely barren today, but there were a lot of prairie dogs squeaking around. Very tame prairie dogs, actually. I waved at them all, said hello. One of them sat about two feet from me, not scared at all. Then I moved toward it and it scurried under the wire fence.

All of our 19 inches of snow melted this week, due to high winds, and we got just a dusting last night. (It really looked like someone went out with a salt shaker.) But more is coming. Monday night we could get another inch, and then Tuesday night is when it's really going to hit: a 90% chance of something (they're not giving an estimated amount yet) and a low of 10. Of course, Tuesday is the night of Teen B's next concert, which is called "Synergy," because all the different musical groups play things together. Orchestra with band, choir with jazz combo, that kind of thing. I like "Synergy," but I know I'm going to be sitting there thinking about snow. Maybe it won't really get going until after the concert. In any case, Rocket Boy will be sitting in the auditorium with me, and he can drive us home.

I'll stick the Mounjaro report in here, just to have someplace to put it.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 226.2
• Weight this morning (after 33+ weeks on Mounjaro): 225.6

I thought I would gain this week, so that little jump down was a pleasant surprise. I'm now down exactly 29 pounds, which is about 11% of my starting weight. 

It was a good exercise week: I did something every day. Last Sunday I walked around the museum, Monday I did a stretch video, Tuesday I took a 28-minute walk, Wednesday I did a stretch video and took a 30-minute walk, Thursday I took a 29-minute walk, Friday I did a stretch video and took a 29-minute walk, and yesterday I took a 28-minute walk. (And of course today the hike.) This coming week will be more difficult, with cold and snow, so I'll just do the best I can.

I had a little bit of a scare this week, when I sampled some of the Valentine's candy I'd bought for the living room candy dish. I ate a Hershey's heart -- and it tasted good! OMG, I respond to chocolate again! This was terrible news. What happened? Is the drug not working anymore? But fortunately I had just checked out a book from the library called The Ozempic Revolution by Alexandra Sowa and it gave me the answer. Apparently many of the weird side effects of GLP-1 drugs -- like making me not respond to chocolate -- go away after a while. The drug still works, your blood sugar stays low, but some of the more magical effects go away. And also the less magical effects, like nausea and diarrhea (still waiting on that one). Now, I probably need to go up to the next level of the drug, 10 mg, and I'm going to ask my doctor about that when I see her in March. That'll probably bring all the side effects back for a while. But this is what I have to look forward to eventually. I'll be able to enjoy chocolate again -- and I'll have to put in some effort to keep myself from bingeing on it.

Maybe. After I ate that one heart, I ate a few more, and then I stopped. And I haven't had one in two days. And I don't particularly want one. Today I had breakfast and Starbucks, I took that hike, I ate some lunch. I'm not hungry. But also I'm not eating more hearts because I'm trying to do the right thing. That's what you have to transition to when you take one of these drugs: doing the right thing via food and exercise because you want to be healthy, not bingeing on dieting and then bingeing on cheating and making yourself crazy. The drug is still helping with that, filling me up and making me less psycho.

It was a decent cooking week too, which probably helped.

• Monday we had Brenda's sticky tofu, rice, and salad
• Tuesday we had salmon, rice, and broccoli
• Wednesday we had broccoli cheddar quiche (made with the leftover broccoli) and salad
• Thursday we had corn & red pepper chowder with garlic bread
• Friday I was going to make a Chinese noodle dish but I realized I was missing a crucial ingredient (Chinese sesame paste, which King Soopers didn't seem to have). So instead we had P.F. Chang's sesame chicken from the King Soopers frozen food section, which I'd bought on a whim, with rice and salad. Rocket Boy was horrified: "We're having chicken?!" but the twins were delighted and ate it all up. Teen B in particular loved it. "Can we have more of that stuff?" he asked me. I admitted that P.F. Chang's is in fact a chain restaurant and there's one at Flatirons Crossing. So...
• Saturday we ate out at P.F. Chang's. And it wasn't bad. We'll have the leftovers tonight.

This coming week will be more difficult, for multiple reasons. First, King Soopers employees are on strike. So I'll have to shop at Safeway, which doesn't have everything I want, probably supplemented by Sprouts and maybe other stores. Second, the snow and cold. If I shop tomorrow, which I should do anyway, the snow won't have started yet, so it should be OK. But still, Safeway. And it'll be cold. Then Tuesday we've got the concert, so I don't know what we'll do about dinner. Thursday we're going to Teen A's conference at TEC at 5:30, so dinner will have to be something easy. 

I guess it's not that big a deal. Dinner will be fine.

I'm avoiding talking about the big topic of the moment: the political situation. Last week I got so upset about it that I had trouble sleeping, just so angry. So I put myself on another politics news break. As Rocket Boy and I were driving to the trailhead today, we were listening to NPR and I got so upset I asked him to turn it off. I wanted to open the car door and jump out, at 50 mph.

But I'm thinking about doing something this week that's been heavily recommended: making phone calls to my elected representatives. That would be Senator Michael Bennet, Senator John Hickenlooper, and Representative Joe Neguse, all big liberal Democrats and on the right side of everything I believe in. But it's still supposed to be important to call them, because Republicans are probably also calling them and yelling at them. I don't want to. I hate making phone calls. The Reddit post I read said you should call all three of them every day. I'm thinking maybe I could call one of them each week. Maybe.

Maybe if I call one of them on Wednesday (when I'm supposed to be calling dentists), that would make it easier to call dentists. This past week, I called Hoshi Motors on Wednesday to make an appointment for my car, because I've been putting that off too. I didn't then go on and call dentists, but I did sit down and do some more research on dentists. I now have a list of four good dentists to call. Maybe I could call one of them on Wednesday and also call one elected representative.

Wednesday is a long time from now.

Other than Wednesdays, my new schedule is going pretty well. Oh, but there is one problem! I heard from our tax person last week, which means that "Paperwork day" (Tuesday) is now officially "Preparing for taxes day," which meant that I freaked out and did nothing. It's so ridiculous. I'm going to try again this week. We got two W-2s in the mail this week, which will help.

Genealogy day (Thursday) is my favorite. I look forward to it all week. So far I'm not doing much research, I'm just entering the information I have on my various relatives into my tree. Since I know a LOT about my ancestors, there are hundreds of people who need to be added. I just work along for an hour, putting people in, and then reluctantly stop.

And I had another fun writing week, even though Teen B was home sick the last two days, interfering with my writing time. I kept thinking about Anne Tyler's essay, "Still Just Writing": 

"After spring vacation the children went back to school, but the dog got worms. It was a little complicated at the vet's and I lost a day. By then it was Thursday; Friday is the only day I can buy the groceries, pick up new cedar chips for the gerbils, scrub the bathrooms. I waited till Monday. Still, that left me four good weeks in April to block out the novel."

I mostly worked on my short story collection, moving things around and tinkering with wording. I decided to print them all out and put them in a binder, so that I can look at them, but then our printer decided to break. Rocket Boy is trying to fix it now. We'll see.

OK, that's probably enough for this week. Nothing much going on, except for the world falling apart. How can I help? I've got to do something, I can't just watch it happen (or not watch it, because I can't stand it). Maybe I'll make that phone call. What are you doing?