Taking the Bad with the Good

Last week was a rough week.  Work has remained stressful, and despite being more than halfway through my steroids, my sinus issues were still hanging in there.  It was so frustrating to have felt like it was finally easing up the previous weekend and then have it flare pretty badly again for a good portion of the week.  I called the ENT and struggled to get an appointment, but finally got in yesterday.  Fortunately it cooperated a bit more for the weekend (before the appointment), thanks in part to finally finding a sinus medicine that seemed to help a little, but I know it's still causing just enough trouble that I'm not out of the woods yet.  The ENT thinks it's just inflamed, and while the steroids helped (I'm done now), it wasn't quite enough to get me over the hump, so I'm going to try daily irrigation with steroids.  She's not sure why it's happening, but it could be that allergies or a virus set it off and it just can't go down on its own right now.  It might eventually, but I have to try the steroids because being sick for six-plus weeks is exhausting.  I have been hitting my breaking point in the past week, despite moments of relief, likely because the original steroids wreaked havoc on my body.  

It has seemed like no matter how much sleep I have been getting, I am waking up exhausted.  By the weekend I was a little vaguely lightheaded and weak, but I think that was due to the steroids.  Even with the congestion finally easing up a bit, I still had a full head feeling and just didn't feel like myself.  I was uncomfortable in my own skin, and that feeling makes everything harder.  Brain fog has been a huge problem, particularly at work.  And every couple days, the congestion ramps up again and makes me think I'm right back to square one.  Even when the congestion eased over the weekend, I started to get a sore throat, and the drainage had a sour taste.  The sinus pressure remained anyway and made my head feel heavy.  It just gets so frustrating that every couple days it's something else.  I don't have time for this, even once every three years.  Never again would have been fine after the last one in 2019. 

I think with work being extra busy and me feeling sort of anticipatory for the weekend, I ended up being sort of anxious for most of the week.  I just had too many balls in the air and too many things I was worried about messing up.  But by the end of the week I had worked through a lot of the things and my anxiety didn't have a firm target, so I was just weirdly jittery, almost to the point of being excited and anticipatory in a positive way, but it was still like my body was on edge waiting for something.  I was happy it was a more positive feeling at least, but I don't like that my body is in that sort of mode where it has to be anxious even if it doesn't know why.  What's going to happen when something is actually truly bad?  I feel like I need a couple week reset right now, which is definitely not happening.  I am just OFF.  I don't know how else to describe it and I don't know if it's the illness, the steroids, the anxiety, or something else entirely.  It makes it all really hard to fix.  I'm hoping our upcoming travels provide a helpful distraction in the meantime, but I fear they might only make the problem worse. Let's hope the steroid rinse makes a quick difference before our next trip.  It's going to be a long four hours in the car each way.

Anyway, getting back to the week, the one highlight from last week was that Carter finally got his viola!  He has been doing chorus for a couple weeks and is now starting orchestra.  This musical side of him is intriguing and I really hope it sticks.  He's eager to get started on real instruction, but getting the instrument was a big deal.  

I know this will likely turn into some battles to practice, especially early on as it starts getting hard, but I really hope he loves it.  We also had his open house at school last week, so I finally got to meet his teacher.  She seems nice enough but he's still not that into her.  Parent-teacher conferences are coming up, so I will be interested to see what her take is on him.  He's been doing pretty well academically but he seems to think he gets yelled at a lot for nothing.  I hate when he gets that feeling--it's like a throwback to second grade--but hopefully we can get to the bottom of it.  He had a lot of stars on the "green light" chart--probably in the top handful of kids--so I think everything is okay, but I hope we can talk through it a bit.    

Most of last week was spent just waiting for the weekend since it was our first of three straight basketball weekends.  This one was just to Syracuse, but I hadn't seen Jacob play in so long that I was excited to finally see for myself how his game has improved and how he matches up on the 17U team he's currently playing on.  It's quite a step up from the team he was on in the spring, but he's been working so hard to get bigger and stronger and better, and I knew it would show.  In some ways it made the week drag, and in others it was one of those weeks where Friday got here and it was like, oh crap, we need to pack.  

The funny thing about this weekend is we were playing in my college roommate Mary's hometown, and in fact our first and last games were at her middle school, which is right across from the neighborhood where she grew up.  The good news is I'm pretty familiar with that area so it made navigating pretty easy.  However, we ended up staying closer to the city in a really swanky hotel because we got an amazing team rate.  That was worth the extra drive!  We actually didn't have to leave until a reasonable time Saturday morning since he wasn't playing until early afternoon, so that was a nice change of pace.  

After dropping him off for pre-game prep for game one, Carter and I had a delightful Taco Bell lunch down the road.  I caffeinated big-time to try to ease the foggy headed feeling I had going, which was only moderately successful.  Unfortunately, they were running an entire game behind so we had a bit of a longer afternoon than planned, but Jacob's team won the first game and he hit a three-pointer in the effort.  He suddenly looks so tall out there and doesn't really look out of place among kids 2-3 years older than him.  Definitely on the younger end, but not significantly.  It's so amazing to me to watch him, and I'm really proud of how hard he has worked to get to this point.

After the game, he and Craig needed some lunch, so we dropped them off at Chipotle and went to yet another elementary school next door to the plaza.  I regretted not thinking to go to the playground at the other school while we had that extra game's wait--the weather was really nice, but I suppose I was just tired and a little time on the phone was more comfortable.  But we made up for it a bit at this playground.  It was a fun one with a couple less-frequently-encountered activities.
 

Those balancing "surf boards" are probably one of the tougher playground features I have ever done, second only to maybe the log roll, which is straight-up broken bones waiting to happen.  I love a good challenge, though, even as an adult.

Curved and sloped monkey bars!

Another good climb!

The school had a ton of soccer fields out back, and also had an enclosed box field.  We ended up only having time for a few kicks there with one of the balls left out on the playground--one of which got me solid on my shin (ouch!)--but it's good to see Carter eagerly grab a ball when he can.

We rejoined the boys and went to check in to our hotel.  It was really fancy!  I don't think I've ever seen a room like this.  The bathroom was right off to the left when you walked in, but the head of the beds were on the other side of the bathroom wall, facing out toward the windows, rather than having the windows to one side of the beds.  It was definitely a minimalist type room, with two tabletops and a bench going the length of the window wall.  The bathroom also had a fancy sliding door to the shower and toilet, with a wall of shelves (with a coffee maker, safe, and closet) opposite the sink.  Oh, and to Jacob's left in the photo below was a tall skinny frosted window to the shower.  Not great for keeping the room dark in early mornings, but I can see that being helpful if in need of a nightlight.

The lobby was really swanky and had a bar (and really expensive grab-and-go breakfast!).

Outside, the hotel is situated on what is apparently the Syracuse Inner Harbor.  It looks like it's where Onondaga Creek feeds into the lake, but it seems this area had some man-made work done on it to make it a place to dock (and ideally have events, but I have no idea if that's the case).  It was a lovely day outside, though, and there were a couple boats docked there.

Across the way (past a couple docking inlets) is the big mall, Destiny USA

I couldn't help but snap a pic of this tree nearby.  The berries were so perfectly fall-colored and the golden hour highlighted them perfectly.

We headed back out for an early evening game at yet another school in Liverpool, this time a sort of interesting looking one--a mid-century modern, almost chalet-like building that was built in the 50s and renovated a few years ago.  It was really nice inside--lots of light wood, cool tile, and modern light fixtures.  Outside was a pretty cool playground, which we luckily had time to explore in the lovely early evening light. 

This one rivaled the Parma playground for tall towers, but this one was still a bit shorter.  Even still, Carter did an amazing job climbing the pole!

He also conquered this other one that's made for working out.  It had two "handles" that you're supposed to hang from to do leg lifts (they had one of those workout trails with exercises at each piece of equipment), and he was determined to climb up and sit on one of the handles.  Took a few tries, but he did it!

We were intrigued by this different piece of equipment.  You walked on it and it hinged up and down at various joints.  It's harder than it looks--it felt like it was moving way more than it appears from afar.  I'd never seen one quite like this.

We did all the things on the main structure, did some swinging, and eventually worked our way over to the younger playground.  This piece of equipment there was sort of neat.  You could climb up each side, ring the bell, and then slide down the pole.  I feel like there are probably a lot of races there!  But again, this was a new format to me.

On the way over to the gym at the middle school, Carter couldn't help but roll down this giant hill.  If you zoom in you can just see him getting up at the bottom.  I'm guessing people sled down this but hopefully there's a way to stop because the school building is just beyond the walkway.

I was thankful for such a nice day and pleasant evening, since our fall has been mostly too cold for a lot of fun, especially at that time of the day.  For a weekend where everything had to revolve around Jacob, I was happy we got some good Carter time in.

Back in the gym, Jacob's team battled through a tough game.  They went down early and struggled to come back, making it almost close a few times but eventually losing by low double digits.  Jacob ended up with two threes, which was really fun to watch because his team cheers excitedly for every three.  

After the game, we needed to get some dinner but most of our preferred choices were farther away.  We settled on Jersey Mike's and grabbed some snacks from the Dollar Tree next door.  We settled in back at our room, ate dinner, watched TV and tried to work out sleeping arrangements.  I have to say, even though I didn't sleep fantastically, the beds were so comfortable!  We had a bit of an early morning, but not much worse than a typical weekday.  I caught this picture from the hallway as we headed out to give a better perspective on the harbor.

We headed back to the first school we had been at, dropped off the boys, grabbed breakfast for the three of us (Jacob got some stuff from the hotel to eat on the way), and Carter and I went to finally check out the playground before the game.  Unfortunately, it was still too cold (mid-40s) and very dewy, so we couldn't really stick around.

Even more unfortunately, Jacob's team lost their game and that was it for the day.  It was just a rough one all around, and Jacob just missed his only shot--it was in but then rolled back out.  He did get a nice assist, though.  But the loss was a bummer.  We decided to kill a little time at the Waterloo outlets to try to find shoes for Carter and hit up our favorite chicken and waffles place in Geneva at lunch time.  The menu was a bit stripped down from previous visits, but the food was delicious as usual.  After lunch Carter asked if we could stop at the cool playground down near the lake, so we did just that for about 15-20 minutes.  It was a lovely day, especially with the fall colors.

The good news of it all is that we were home by mid-afternoon.  As much as I just wanted to go lay down, I pushed myself to get outside and go clean up my garden.  I knew half of it was dead anyway, and I just wanted to get it managed in lovely 65 degree weather rather than slogging through it all in a few weeks, knowing that we have a couple more busy weekends and weather isn't usually cooperative in mid-November.  There were still two baby zucchinis growing, but they seemed to have stalled despite the plant still looking healthy.  But I accidentally pulled it out trying to get the dead cucumber vines, so I guess we'll never know if they were still viable (although they are currently sitting on my counter anyway!).  The tomatoes still had a ton of seemingly healthy tomatoes--mostly green--but I salvaged what I could and I'll see how they do over the next few days.  Last year half of them rotted almost immediately, but it seems like our many frosts still haven't been enough to fully kill things off.  I still had flowers blooming in my fully exposed pots, too!  I cleaned up the entire garden and most of the pots, and emptied the full recycling bin of empty beer cans from Craig's grilling that have been collecting all summer (and maybe last fall, too?).  It felt so good to get it done, even if it's always sad to end another growing season, especially since this one was a little underwhelming.  The timing of growth vs. use never seemed to work very well this year. 

Sunday night ended up being extra exhausting because the boys weren't getting along and we ended up having a big argument with Jacob, who still insists we favor Carter.  A year after wrapping up therapy it looks like we're headed back because we just can't seem to communicate properly.  It's times like these that I wonder if it would be best if he does get an offer from a prep school and got a break from what seems to be a very frustrating setting at home, but at the same time I don't want to give into this mess and let it keep festering--I want to fix it.  I'm at the point where I want to put cameras all over the house so we can watch the footage every time they fight and see who actually started it.  Each one has an excuse going back step-by-step to the root cause, but the truth is getting bent by one person or another (or their perceptions just end up totally different) and we never fully figure it out.  Jacob feels he gets the blame more often, but I do think he seeks out interactions more often (even if he doesn't intend on them going bad) and I believe as the older kid he should have more restraint to not start things or at least step back and decide to end it before it gets too far gone.  Carter overreacts, and we're working on that, too, but they just keep proving over and over how incompatible they are.  We're also still having trouble getting Jacob moving in the morning, and anytime we try to talk to him about that or his homework, we get all sorts of attitude.  Apparently neither kid got the gene to appreciate any sort of constructive criticism unless it's in regard to sports and coming from someone who isn't us.  Anyway, Sunday night's argument (and a couple others in the following days) were made infinitely worse by the steroid malaise I had going on, so this week didn't really start any better than the last one.  Today was the first day I felt the brain fog lift, which was a huge relief even if I'm still not feeling well.  I did my first steroid rinse tonight, so we'll see if it helps.

I think part of me is just frustrated because so many other things in life are in a good place--we're blessed in so many ways and I feel strangely insulated from a lot of things other people have to deal with--and yet we just have these things that keep popping up to steal joy away.  Work, health, and kid frustrations overshadow the good stuff way more than I'd like right now and I feel guilty that I can't just focus on the good.  I know things could be so much worse.  Not only have we lived so much worse, but between people we know, news, and social media, I know others are dealing with so much more than we could even fathom, and I feel bad about being overwhelmed by much smaller things.  I know that hard is hard, and it doesn't disqualify mine from being a challenge, but I worry about my ability to deal with truly hard stuff down the road if some of this small stuff is putting me over the edge.  For now, at least I'm aware that my "hard" is much easier than many others' versions and try to be grateful, but some days I'm not sure I succeed.  I often feel like I'm in an endless video game of obstacles, and just when I jump over one, there's another thing--a work project, a cleaning task, a kid issue, another meal to cook, another in-office day--that immediately pops up and keeps me running and jumping 'til I'm exhausted...and then it happens again.  I just need a break, but relief isn't coming anytime soon, so on we go.  It's fine, I'm fine, everything's fine...just gotta keep swimming.