I've barely taken any pictures since the ones in my last post. It's definitely that time of year, where January isn't particularly inspiring or exciting. When your highlight of the week is getting out for a couple walks because the temperature is above freezing, you know it's been a bit of a blah stretch. Basketball is pretty much the only excitement we have right now, and maybe a Knighthawks game here and there. I realized the other day that if I was asked about my hobbies, I'd likely say, "Visiting Wegmans to feed two growing boys" because that's how I seem to spend most of my non-work time these days. Among all of us, we're probably there about every other day. Both kids eat through their stashes so fast and I have lost my ability to plan dinner ahead, so I usually need a last-minute run for ingredients. It's pretty exhausting, to be honest, so I guess it's good we don't have a lot else going on.
All things considered--knock on wood--we're also in a bit of a lull for medical stuff. Carter picked up a cold late last week, and missed both Friday and Monday at school. We never tested him, but he never had a fever and nothing seemed to escalate quite like my flu did. And with him being immunocompromised, I think it would probably be pretty obvious if he had something more. The colds are annoying enough, particularly in their duration, but he's a good sport. I wish it would ease up sooner, but no signs of a flare this time around, thankfully. We will hopefully go soon to test his med levels and antibodies as we're at the midpoint of his infusion interval. They're hoping his levels are higher than they were last time, after upping his dose. I feel fortunate he seems to respond well to the drugs, after seeing so many people online dealing with side effects and failures. That could change at any time, but I'm savoring this bit of "easy".
Jacob is doing well, too. His leg has been cooperative and he's playing well. We're still dealing with some team drama, but the main source of the drama was academically ineligible for the last two games, so that took care of itself a bit. Jacob had 14 points in the Buffalo game, which was fun for all the grandparents and Craig's uncle to see. They won, but it was closer than would have been ideal--not by the fault of the players, but more because their coach has a tendency to put in the bench guys too early. We'll be up like 10-15 points at any point in the game and suddenly have 3-5 bench players go in. Usually that's reserved for being up closer to 20+, so we're unclear why that keeps happening. I guess it's nice to get those players out there with a little pressure, just in case they get called on in a big game due to injuries or something, but they're just not quite good enough to hold smaller leads. We almost lost this one as a result, which never should have happened, and wouldn't have with the better players in. But I will say that when the top 6-7 guys were out there, they played team ball so much more consistently, and the scoring was nicely spread across the top few guys. It just felt better than watching one guy constantly try to bust through and lose the ball. It was more of the same for Friday's game, but they pulled out a tough win and Jacob had 16 points. It's still a little hard to understand some of the decisions being made with the team, but it still feels better than losing every game or not having him play like last year. Speaking of which, we just passed the 10th anniversary of his original bone cyst surgery. Crazy.
Otherwise, I'm just dealing with a whacked-out lower back for no apparent reason. Heat seems to be the only thing that helps. I miss bending over without pain. Today was the first day I felt like I had some relief, but even that came with a few pain spikes during the day. I have no idea how it happened, but I guess the 40s are wild like that. Last week I started the process to be evaluated for ADHD. It may not be much of a stretch since I have two kids with it, but if I have it, it's likely ADD instead...I think. But in talking to my therapist (who I've been officially released from for now), I decided that my biggest mental struggle lately has been in the executive function area--the aforementioned dinner planning issues, keeping my house clean, organizing my thoughts enough to do my work, losing focus, just generally struggling with starting projects, especially when time is limited or it's something I don't feel like doing. It's like analysis paralysis, but so much worse than I've really ever dealt with. I tend to think it's a hormone fluctuation issue, or maybe just brain changes since COVID, which also happened to be around the time I got an iPhone and my general phone use increased. I may have had flashes of it as a kid and was able to manage it, but it's just gotten to a point where it's impacting a lot of areas of my life and I'm struggling to work against it like I used to. Not sure how it will turn out, but maybe I'll get some coping skills out of the deal regardless that could help both me and the kids.
The boys were thrilled to have a snow day Thursday. We got about 3-4 inches overnight and and a few more during the day. I don't think we got as hammered as they thought, mostly because it took longer to change over from rain the prior night, and also because the later bands we got weren't bad. Even still, the 6+ inches in one shot was livable but still relatively rare here. We're honestly in a pretty good spot--we don't get the same kind of lake effect Buffalo or Syracuse often do, and we don't get the nor'easters like Binghamton does. I can probably count on one hand the storms we've had over a foot in my adult life. Buffalo is going to get hit again over the next few days, too, but it looks like we'll avoid nearly all of it. At least we have a snowblower now, and thank goodness since my back would absolutely not have been able to survive this. Starting today, we're going into a deep freeze that will last the rest of the month, at least. The extended forecast is all below freezing, including double-digit, sub-zero wind chills on Tuesday, and possibly worse next weekend. It's giving me shades of February 2015, honestly. That was the month after I lost my job and it was only above freezing once, for a couple hours in the middle of the night. We had so much snow, so much cold, and it lasted an entire month. Hopefully this is not that, but it looks close. The big bummer for me is that it means the sidewalks likely won't be clear for weeks again. They almost got clear on Saturday when it warmed into the upper 30s and anything on pavement melted pretty good, but then it got cold Saturday night and any remnants turned into black ice. So, probably not the safest, but I miss my walks when I can't take them and may get desperate enough to bundle up. The bike and elliptical just don't hit the same. I've been eyeing up low-profile treadmills on Amazon, the ones that literally take up a small patch of floor and can be stored under a bed or couch, just to get me through winter.
I think the struggle right now is that we don't really have anything super exciting to look forward to. We're hoping for a good run in sectionals (and maybe beyond) for Jacob, but we can't really rely on much just yet. We have Carter's birthday in a month, which is always a nice target, but I don't have too many gifts to get excited about just yet. We know we have modified baseball and both travel sports in the spring/early summer, but there's really too many practices and other lead-up stuff to get through first before we can really start getting excited about destinations or anything like that. I feel like we need to plan a trip or something. I've talked about going on Craig's Las Vegas road trip, but the logistics and cost might be tough. And the kids wouldn't like that much, either. Maybe we need a trip up to Toronto or something? We just need something to look forward to that's not months away, otherwise winter seems like it's going to last forever!
Thank goodness for a long weekend and no Sunday scaries this week. Jacob has his only game this week tomorrow. I've done a lot of relaxing this weekend, so hopefully I can be a bit more productive tomorrow. And Craig has next weekend off, so let's see if we can get something to look forward to, shall we?
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