Wild Weather Week (but mostly not here)

We ended up having a bit of a weird week.  Not bad, just sort of weird.  Lots of stuff, some wacky weather, and plenty to fill a long weekend.

As I mentioned in my last post, Carter wasn't feeling great at the start of it, so we got an evening doctor's appointment just to get him checked out.  The nurse practitioner wasn't concerned.  His lungs were clear and figured that he just had enough post-nasal drip that it had caused his cough, and now he had another virus on top of it.  The cough is still hanging in there and the new virus is too, though he still seems a bit better.  That night began Craig's colonoscopy prep, so that was a bit rough.

Tuesday was a bit of a wacky day.  Craig's colonoscopy was late morning, so I worked from home until it was time for that.  I worked in the waiting room for a couple hours waiting for him, pulling a bunch of reports that needed to be pulled that day after our books closed.  Craig did have a good number of polyps.  A couple seemed relatively standard, but some others seemed to be related to inflammation.  I've been telling Craig to get a colonoscopy for years because he tends to have some cranky digestion more frequently than I find normal, and I figured he probably had irritable bowel.  He has thought he's lactose intolerant, but the doctor was intrigued by finding out that our son has Celiac, so he now has an endoscopy scheduled to check for that.  Yay.  That wasn't great news, but hopefully nothing serious or that can't be managed.  My cousin is going through colon cancer treatment now (just got some great news that his tumor has shrunk to almost nothing!), and anything would be better than that.  

We came out to the beginnings of some crazy weather.  Wind was ramping up that night along with mixed precipitation.  We grabbed some quick, bland lunch, though it was a bit odd because Craig was still pretty dopey from the anesthesia.  I went back and finished work from home for the day, but over the course of the day, Jacob's evening basketball game and Carter's first Upward practice got canceled due to the wind.  It ended up not being too terrible here, but around Buffalo gusts were over 70mph.  The canceled stuff was disappointing, for sure, but I think they didn't want buses out on the roads when semis were getting blown over.

Wednesday I had a morning work meeting all morning (but at least a good lunch), and then hammered through as much work as I could.  With it being the day after my report-pulling day, it meant our crazy period of reporting had begun so I had a ton of stuff to get done.  Oh, and did I mention my boss' son was having a medical emergency so she wasn't really around?  It was just a bit of weird week on that front, too.  Thursday I was working back at home but had to do some running around for Jacob mid-afternoon.  I had to wrap up promptly because we had a busy evening!  Jacob had a game and Carter had a concert.  I hated to miss Jacob's game but of course I had to go to the concert!  It featured the orchestra, band, and chorus, which meant Carter was doing double duty.  After a quick jazz band song (featuring Carter's buddy Ben), orchestra was up.  He was first chair (of two, but still).  

He's just to the right of the conductor

I found out that day that he was introducing one of their songs!  He did such a great job.

A couple of the songs sounded a bit off to me, but this one, "Calypso Holiday" was pretty good.

I was so proud of him.  Performing used to give me so much anxiety, so his ability to do this impresses me to no end.

Chorus was up next.  It was the 4th and 5th grade chorus, and they did a really nice job.

Carter is in the black shirt to the right of the conductor.

"Waters Ripple and Flow" was really pretty.

Imagine my surprise when I found out Carter was playing an instrument for "Oye La Musica" in addition to singing!  He did such a great job doing double duty for this song.

I was really hoping the band portion would go a little quicker because I wanted to make it to the end of Jacob's game, but alas, the band portion went long enough that we wouldn't make it.  He did end up with four threes in a tough loss.  Carter and I settled for a photo and went out for ice cream!

Friday was an in-person day for me, and while I was hoping it would be a shorter day in the office, I ended up getting caught up in things and staying most of the day.  I was a little preoccupied waiting for word on Heather's surgery--the doctor was pleased with how she came out but I haven't heard much since and haven't wanted to pry.  But I was mostly just extra eager for the weekend because it was a long weekend.

I spent Friday night starting to take down the Christmas decorations.  I actually pre-gamed the decor by assembling our new shower storage.  Our old storage tower, which we'd had since Jacob was a baby and the tub toys started to take over, had officially rusted out and one shelf was hanging on by a thread.  I finally found one that seemed like it would work, which came earlier in the week.  I had procrastinated putting it up because I feel like they're always a little complicated.  It probably took me 20 minutes, but it really wasn't too bad and it holds a ton and seems much more stable than our old one.  I can't even tell you how that little thing made me feel just a little bit better about the mess that is our house.  

The weather was whipping up again Friday night with more wind, and I was wondering if Jacob's Saturday game would be impacted like Tuesday's was.  The Bills' Sunday playoff game had already been postponed because Buffalo was supposed to get a crapton of snow (again) on top of crazy winds.  I did what I could Friday night but didn't get very far.  I tried to do more on Saturday morning but between sleeping in, working out, and getting Jacob to school, I wasn't very productive then either.  The winds really got going by then and I did everything I could to ignore them.  By the time Carter and I had lunch, we had to take off shortly after, a bit earlier than expected, to bring Jacob some food and meet Craig at the game because he had been at work since early that morning.  We knew the game was going to be a tough one because they were playing Avon, which is a ranked school and has a few really good players (including the Section V single-game three-point record holder).  As predicted, it was pretty rough, although Jacob was hot early on.  He barely saw the ball later but ended up with 13 points.  It was a bummer of a loss, and the weather upon our exit added insult to injury--blowing snow within the band.  Yuck.  

Buffalo was getting hammered even worse.  We only got a couple inches over the course of the weekend thanks to a few passes by the lake effect band, but Buffalo got absolutely dumped on.  Even my parents got somewhere in the neighborhood of a foot, but areas in the southtowns (around the stadium and Craig's family) got at least two feet and some areas over three.  They were trying to dig out the stadium right up until gametime on Monday afternoon and the seats still had tons of snow.  Fans went through waist-deep snow to their seats, but I'm thinking it was worth it since they won!  Luckily the weather was minimal here--I mostly just slept with earplugs one night and it must have been blowing in a favorable direction to not drive me nuts shaking the house.  All things considered I was thankful for that being better than expected but I'm hoping everyone in Buffalo stays safe, especially since another storm is coming their way this week and could dump a couple more feet.  

I spent the rest of the night Saturday cleaning up the rest of my non-tree decorations and redecorating for winter.  I started to take off the ornaments on the little tree late that night as Craig got home from his game (also a loss).  Sunday was a full day of tree takedown, minus church and a couple-hour coffee date, the third monthly one with my friend Marcia.  We are still really enjoying it.  I started to feel a little odd after I got home but pushed through the tree anyway.  I didn't feel terrible, just off.  We went out to dinner as a family, and I pretty quickly went to bed once I finished the tree afterward because I had a headache and my digestion seemed off.  I didn't have a stomach ache but something on the lower end seemed funky.  I felt a little reflux-ish and the headache just made me feel a little nauseous.  I was in bed early but didn't go to sleep for a long time--both because the boys were up late and loud, and because I was uncomfortable.  I had restless sleep full of weird delusional thoughts for at least the first half of the night.  My brain makes up sort of a weird narrative sometimes--I can't remember what, but when it happens it's usually an alternate-reality scenario I swear is real and somehow need to attend to--and it leaves me sleeping very shallowly in a half-conscious state.  I finally did sleep better and got to sleep in a bit, but I can't say I felt great most of the day.  Better, since the headache was gone and my digestion behaved, but I still felt tired and unsure if my body would cooperate when I ate.  It did, but I still felt a bit reflux-y and blah.  I mostly just killed time until the Bills' game and got in a lot of screen time.  I wanted to do more, but just didn't want to move.  The house is almost back to normal but there's one spot I still need to add decor to and I need to figure out what we're doing with the toy corner and basement.  The plan is to buy a 16-cube storage shelf for the basement that can display Lego creations, store extra Legos, and maybe hold some games or other toys, either for storage or display.  The IKEA Poang chair that's in the corner of the basement can come up to the living room, the exercise bike can go downstairs by the new shelf, and the living room will hopefully look a little less chaotic overall.  I think we have a plan, but we'll see if it works out as expected.  It'll create a new challenge come holiday time next year when we move furniture around, but we'll cross that bridge in 10 months.

Oh, and we also got Jacob's spring schedule for travel basketball Sunday night, which probably added to my stress and restlessness.  It includes another Easter tournament (noooo) and a lot of long drives.  Probably no flights unless they make it to the big championship in Nebraska, but the drives are significant--like Philly, Michigan, both ends of Ohio, New Jersey, Indiana...although we're happy about Indiana because we have some additional sightseeing to do there--maybe back to the Hickory gym, hopefully to the Indianapolis Children's Museum, and maybe a couple other basketball things on Jacob's list.  We get near-ish to Cedar Point, Kings Island, and Hersheypark, which are all already open for the season when we're there, but I don't think it will work out to go to the parks unless we get really creative.  But we'll see.  Overall less intimidating than last year, but still a LOT, and I haven't even thought about how that will impact school or work.

So, onward to another week, thankfully a four-day one.  Craig's endoscopy is tomorrow, after my morning dentist appointment, and Carter's now-first practice is tomorrow night.  We'll see what happens with Craig's diet after his appointment--that's definitely the wild card of the week.  No basketball until Friday (well, aside from daily three-hour practices...ugh), and then Carter plays on Saturday.  I still feel like I have a ton of stuff to work on around the house, and I just don't have full energy for it.  I wish I would have had more of a chance to get the kids to clean up their respective piles this weekend while we had the extra day, but apparently my energy only went so far.  I have a few more things to give away via the Buy Nothing page, so hopefully that will inspire more willingness to purge.  But at least things are a little less chaotic without the Christmas decor, even if I do miss it.  I want to pull out a puzzle to cut down my screen time now that the dining room table isn't as full, and later a diamond painting leftover from the pandemic.  And hopefully the shelf's arrival will inspire me to organize the toys and make the house a bit more tolerable.  The month countdown to Carter's birthday is on, too.  Lots to keep my mind busy during this otherwise blah time...