Into November, less than 9 weeks of the year left, and another weekly update post on life in general, my health goals, and reading ...
1. For the first time in a few weeks, this past week brought some positivity. After a full three weeks in the hospital due to COVID Pneumonia, my dad was able to come home on Friday night. He started making a turn early in the week, needing a lot less oxygen. He still requires some oxygen at home, and likely has several weeks or more of recovery ahead of him, to regain his strength and to hopefully have his lungs fully recover. He called me briefly on Friday afternoon to let me know he was coming home; it was a 30-second conversation, but it was so good to hear his voice again after 3 weeks. He also sent a picture of himself on Saturday; and while he looked a little worse for the wear (understandable after 3 weeks in the hospital), if was good to see him smiling and feeling, if nothing else, in good spirits.
While having him home and hopefully on the upswing on recovery was obviously the best news we've had in awhile, it did become the impetus for some difficult conversations in our house. Because Jackie's dad died from COVID in April, the parallels of what was happening was always right in our face and easily on our minds, and on Maia's. The question of why one papa lived, and one papa died, are questions that we have no satisfying answers to; and thus, Friday to Saturday there was a batch of emotions in our house - thankfulness, confusion, joy, loss, pain, relief - and its a mix we all struggled to process at times. Suffice to say, life impossibly can remind you of its beauty and cruelty in the same moment.
In other news, Halloween was yesterday. While our local town set trick-or-treating hours (and actually set them longer than usual, not sure about the reasoning behind that), we did not partake. Simply, considering our local positivity rate is increasing rapidly towards 15% and our hospitals are already over capacity, we felt a decision to partake (even in a mild-to-moderate risk activity) would be irresponsible. In place of the traditional format, we did trick-or-treating inside our house. Jackie used her Cricut to make house numbers for all the doors inside the house and Maia went door to door to those; Jackie and I assumed different "characters" to pass out candy. Maia thought of it as playing trick-or-treating, and with her imaginative personality, she loved it. She never complained and never mentioned once about not going out door to door in the neighborhood.
It was a reminder to me that kids often take their cues from the adults in their life. Locally, so many of the pushbacks against COVID restrictions and recommendations on limiting social events is couched in terms of not wanting "our kids" to miss out on certain things. And I suppose that could be true in some instances, my personal experience with Halloween was that I was very worried about Maia being disappointed. But she read our energy and effort in this year's experience and ate it up. Certainly, with what's happened to our family, she may understand the risks more than most 7-year-olds; but I take it as a reminder that we often project our feelings to our children, when often they simply want our time, energy, and effort in engaging with them, in whatever form it takes.
2. On the getting healthy front, for the second week in a row I managed to "only" get on the treadmill 4 times. Again, a month ago that was my minimum, but there does feel like a little let down. Part of it stems from usually getting on the treadmill Sunday through Wednesday night without issue, but simply feeling too tired come Thursday and Friday to get on, and I often think of Saturday as my "day off" from worrying about every detail (exercise, food planning and calorie counting). That said, things continue to move in the right direction. I had a weight check in at my doctor's office this week, and I am down 12 pounds since the end of July. Feels like a good start, and I feel confident (at least in the moment) that I can continue the necessary work.
3. In reading, I finished book 77 for the year - The End of the Day by Bill Clegg. I continue to work my way slowly through Reaganland, which I've enjoyed but am in no hurry to rush my way through; its a good book to read from every night over a month to get a sense of the history it is providing. I will likely start The Midnight Library by Matt Haig sometime this week as well.
No special recipe again this week; making my quintessential Fall meal tonight for dinner - grilled cheese sandwiches and chili. We'll see what the week brings.
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