Tag Archives: Covid vaccine

A Better Week

This past week was better than the week before, although I did have medical tests for two days which was a big time suck. Tests for the Valley Fever (no results yet) and for the arm. I most likely have tendonitis of the biceps, and that is why it’s so painful. I’m now icing three times a day, but I might need some PT. Do you know if they will do PT via telehealth, at least until I get both vaccines? Yes, I’m a wimp.

When I came out of the Xray office, these birds were holding a noisy concert.

Before I forget to tell you, next week I’m going to post on Tuesday instead of Monday, but then I will probably go back to Mondays.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ve been selling part of my wardrobe on Poshmark. I’m sick of a cluttered closet although I usually choose from a handful of yoga pants and tunic-Ts to wear. Also, I feel less guilty about all these art supplies I’ve been stocking up because what I am making at Poshmark is just covering my new purchases. I particularly love pan pastels, but they are expensive at about $10 each!!!

I’m going to share a page from my art journal with you to give you an idea of what I’m working on. If you haven’t been keeping up with me starting an art journal, I will let you know that I am a COMPLETE AND UTTER BEGINNER, which becomes clear when you see this page. But it is a good representative of me teaching myself how to use art supplies and experimenting with what works and what doesn’t. So here goes. [Covers eyes and ears at the same time with all 4 limbs.]

I worked on a separate sheet of paper which I then adhered to a background page (scribbled with pastels and water) in a temporary-type way. My daughter’s face is a transfer. Learning to do a transfer was the most exciting and most difficult thing I’ve done so far. It meant another supply I had to buy: Fluid Matte Medium. I used watercolors and acrylic paints. A scrap of a poem called “Daughter Poem” and a ticket from a production of Rent my daughter was in. A “Love” stamp with gray ink. Gray pan pastel with 2 different stencils and a die cut. A pocket made of tracing paper with a plaid secret note and a gold star. I would have liked to stitch the pocket with colorful yarn/thread, but the paper has been weakened from all the coats of paint and products–and the transfer process as well.

A pick-me-up that occurred this past week is that I had an essay accepted at a journal with a very nice editor–we worked a bit on revision. And . . . I had three poems accepted by another wonderful journal. The essay and the poems are all about my father, so maybe this is a trend for 2021.

I am hoping to get the vaccine this week. If not this week, then certainly next week. Keeping these fingers crossed until it happens.

Make it a great week! XO

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Filed under #amrevising, #amwriting, Art and Music, Literary Journals, Publishing

Year End

Goodbye, 2020. Go on, get outta here!!!

It’s hard to remember the trip the gardener and I took to Costa Rica 10 months ago. The monkeys were plentiful, which should have foretold the year ahead.

At least the monkeys in Costa Rica were very cute.

We all still need to be very very careful. Even if the vaccine works well for the majority of people, it takes weeks to work. You need about 3-4 weeks between the two doses, and then a week or so after the second dose before you can be reasonably sure you are not contagious. And they are going to be much slower about getting the vaccine to us than first predicted. That’s because human systems are involved, and human systems are very bureaucratic and plagued by human error and missteps. And laziness.

My 86-year-old mother lives in a garden home (duplex) by herself, but within a senior community in Kalamazoo. There is a current covid outbreak in the assisted living portion, and within the month of December half the infected residents have died!!! They were supposed to get the vaccine on December 21, then at the end of December, then January 7, and now the vaccine date has been postponed indefinitely due to “shortage.” I want you to know that this senior community is five miles from the Pfizer plant making the vaccine. I wrote letters to politicians about the situation, but it felt like dropping my iphone into the Grand Canyon.

On Christmas day, I watched an episode of Tiny Pretty Things on Netflix. My friend’s daughter plays Delia, and that is what drew me to the series. Four of my cats watched with me. (I’ve now finished the series). Then I wrote the first draft of a poem and painted a background page in my art journal. That was a good day.

I’m still plagued with a few symptoms from the Valley Fever and now the fall I took, but I am stuck at home anyway heh.

Are you living in a lockdown? Arizona is not locked down. In fact, I don’t even know what the rules are for restaurants and such because we have so few rules and haven’t heard much from Governor Doofus in awhile.

Please keep on staying safe for the new year. We all want to celebrate an end to 2020, but let’s not get carried away. It’s going to take 2021 a lot of effort to really get rid of 2020 altogether.

Hugs to everyone and make it the best January and 2021 you can for yourself and others.

 

Costa Rican sunset

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Filed under #amwriting, #AmWriting, #writerlife, #writerslife, Cats and Other Animals, travel