*Swistle appears before you wearing lab coat*: Keto for Ears was not the immediate, clear success one might have hoped for.

The good news (for me) is that the adjustment back to keto was nothing: after several weeks off, I was expecting some re-entry pains, and there were none—possibly because I am still in the “I HAVE A NEW LEASE ON LIFE!!” stage of illness-recovery, where I am so fervently appreciating things such as “breathing through my nose” and “being able to do more in a day than shower” that I feel pretty good no matter what.

The not-good-not-bad-just-data news is that I did not experience any swift, clear ear relief. There could be many reasons for this: (1) it hasn’t been long enough; (2) the inflammation is not the main source of pressure/pain after all; (3) this is not the kind of inflammation keto helps with; (4) who knows, some other thing, I’m not actually a scientist.

It was especially disappointing because I’d thought of ANOTHER reason to think it might help: the keto diet can be helpful for people with acid reflux (like me!), depending on their own roster of acid-generating foods (if it’s “meats and cheeses,” keto will not help). On days I take off from keto, I generally need to take two of my daily acid-management pills, instead of the usual one pill. And ears can experience symptoms of acid reflux, because everything is connected up in there. (Speaking of which, did you know a light, persistent cough can be a symptom of acid reflux? I’d thought I was developing asthma, which runs in the family, because I had a light, persistent cough unrelated to illness, and I coughed more whenever I laughed. Nope: it was acid reflux. It went undiagnosed for awhile because I kept saying no to questions about experiencing heartburn.) So I’d wondered if maybe the acid from my non-keto eating was percolating up in my ears and increasing the irritation. But apparently not, because I have switched back to keto AND I am taking two of my daily acid-reflux-management pills per day to hopefully prevent me from getting an ulcer from all this ibuprofen, and still there is no change to the ears.

Well! I had much better luck with a second experiment, which was “Let’s see if Swistle, who normally cannot assert herself with authority figures, can leave this fourth doctor appointment with either an oral antibiotic or a referral to an ENT.” Success! I have a prescription for augmentin, which I will take twice a day for ten days. I have just taken my third dose. It is too soon for me to appear before you in a lab coat to report results.

If this does not work, my next stop is an ENT. Because what worried me most about my (fourth) doctor appointment is that the doctor said my ear didn’t look too bad. She said the ear canal was a little pink but not red/”angry” and that the ear drum was “not bulging” and…I can’t remember if she said it was “a little opaque” or something similar, but anyway, her tone was that actually everything looked pretty okay in there, as if the ear drops had helped considerably. SHOULDN’T THAT WORRY HER, when a patient has been describing pain the way I was describing pain (“scary” / “keeps me from sleeping” / “wakes me up every night” / “I am taking four ibuprofen at a time and it is not enough” / “I have looked with temptation at the extra prescription painkillers I shouldn’t have saved from previous medical situations but did save”)? Shouldn’t she think, “Wait: if what I’m seeing here doesn’t line up with the reported pain levels, what is it I’m NOT seeing?” But I don’t think most doctors think that way. I think most doctors, in this situation, think that if what they can observe doesn’t line up with the reported pain, then the pain is misreported. My hope (lessened somewhat by a coworker’s recent experience with a shruggy, listless ENT) is that an ENT would have more of a Detective frame of mind.

I wish I could see Edward’s pediatric ENT. He was the kind of doctor who gets his teeth into an issue and CANNOT LET GO until he has answers. He kept Edward in the hospital for ten days, which involved multiple and vigorous fights with our insurance company (he mentioned that he himself had to speak at length to someone high up in the insurance company, and finally had to pull rank about WHO KNOWS MORE ABOUT WHAT A CHILD NEEDS MEDICALLY, ME OR YOU??), because he felt something wasn’t right, and he wasn’t going to stop pursuing it until he felt it WAS right. (And he was correct about something still being wrong. That seems like an important detail.)

Well. If wishes were etc. Perhaps I will find an ENT who is just as knight-like! We need a gender-neutral term for knight-like. Just as…valiant? No. Terrier-like? That’s more what I’m going for. I liked the “riding into battle” feeling of the word knight, but I like the implied teeth of a terrier. Assuming that’s what terriers are like. Possibly I am thinking of another breed.

My goal is to keep diet-related talk very very low around here. There will be diet-related talk in this post, if you wish to skip it. I will not be hurt; I will understand: I fairly often skip other people’s diet-related posts. If it helps with the decision-making process, this will be more about “diet as in what/how I eat”—in this case, as it pertains to being ill. There will be absolutely no talk of weight gain or loss. Okay, here we go now.

You may remember that for various reasons I normally eat a keto diet. In a typical week, I eat keto foods six days per week, and have one day off to eat everything I thought of longingly the previous week. If there is a holiday, or my friend group is getting together, I will take an additional day off; for Christmas, I typically take at least three days off; when we went to England, I took that entire time off. My body has gotten pretty accustomed to this, and is good with re-entry: you may have heard that when people switch to a keto diet they get “keto flu” and feel crummy for a few days as their bodies transition from one source of energy to another; at this point (6.5 years in) my body is more like “oh this again” and makes the change-over pretty snappily. Sometimes when I take a lot of days off (like when we went to England) I will notice a day of transitional crankiness, but I know most of the tricks for alleviating it (eating plenty; drinking plenty, especially Powerade Zero; plenty of salt; remembering that it’s temporary/diet-related and not because everything is terrible), so it’s not a big deal.

I bring this up because starting two days into this 3-week+ illness, I stopped trying to eat anything resembling keto. For two days my usual foods were basically fine, but as I got sicker it was not working: I needed buttered toast, and I needed chicken rice soup, and I needed regular ginger ale, and I needed applesauce, and none of those things are permitted on keto. Pretty much every diet has an “And actually this way of eating is HEALTHIER for you!!” angle it tries to sell, but for me personally, eating keto does not work or feel healthy when I am Quite Sick. Thinking ahead, I have wondered if it will not work for me as I get older and more medically fragile. We shall cross that bridge etc.

Well. My point is that I now feel well enough to go back to my usual way of eating. But I’ve been putting it off, because it is more pleasant to eat whatever I want; and also because while I was sick but on the road to recovery I made some heartening/sustaining foods (Mairzy’s Baked Oatmeal, for example), and had Paul bring me some sustaining foods from the store (big squishy deli rolls and deli meat; seeds-and-grains bread for toast; applesauce; pineapple chunks; pudding) and wanted to eat the rest of them and not waste them. Also because, once a person is off keto, they are OFF-off (there’s no “on it, but ate a brownie and need to adjust” as there is with, say, Weight Watchers), and tacking just one more day onto the Off streak can feel like not a very big deal.

Here’s what tipped it for me. I have been having some intermittent and distressing ear pain/pressure, even after three separate doctor visits and two separate prescriptions. Paul and I were discussing it, and he was researching ears and how they work, to see if there was anything else we could try at home. I recalled that the doctors had mentioned that one issue I was having was INFLAMMATION: it’s not necessarily that my ear is filled with fluid, but more that it is all swelled up and sore in there; the doctors said I should take ibuprofen, specifically, because ibuprofen will help reduce inflammation (acetaminophen, they said, will only reduce pain). So the things Paul was finding out about DRAINING ears (I’m sorry, this is icky but I think I’m done saying icky things now) might not apply.

That was when Paul said, “Wait: didn’t you start keto because it’s supposed to reduce inflammation?” And I was like: “!” Because, yes. And because when he said that, it occurred to me that when I walked into the doctor’s office a few days ago, my knees were hurting with every step, and I was thinking it was because I have walked no further than the distance between my bed and the recliner for three weeks. But it was 6.5 years ago while on a walk with Henry that I thought “I can barely walk with this knee discomfort, and I am too young for knee replacements” and impulsively tried keto, not believing it would work but believing it was worth a shot. And although it was no miracle, it DID significantly reduce joint pain for me, and I no longer had trouble going on walks with Henry.

So perhaps it would also reduce the EAR kind of inflammation? Maybe, maybe not. But since I was intending to get back onto keto any day now ANYWAY, this idea made it motivating to do it now and find out. I am still on day one, so it is too soon to know. My ear feels pretty okay right now, but the pain was already intermittent.

Paul left very early this morning, around 4:30 a.m., to bring the twins back to college, so I said goodbye to them the night before. I didn’t know which would be worse: getting up early and then having to see them drive off, the house suddenly very quiet and dark; or waking up as I did this morning and knowing they were already gone. Both ways seemed bad.

I feel freshly bereft, and I assume/hope this time it will not last anywhere near as long as when they first went to college. By the time Christmas break happened, I was completely accustomed to not having them here, and was just looking forward to seeing them. I hope it will not take long to get back to that point. This morning, waking up, I thought, briefly, what is the point of getting out of bed. But I am still a little sick, and my ear still hurts, and those things can artificially multiply despair. There are two other children at home! This will be a nice life even when NONE of the children are here! Buck up, little camper!

I started by drinking a big cup of water and taking a shower and having a good large breakfast, and then doing something nice for the plants. (Long, long ago, I saw an article/comic/post about managing depression / low moods, I think a list of things the author would try for their own recurring cases of it, and one of the things on the list was something like “Do something nice for the fish”—perhaps with a drawing of the author putting some fresh water and/or food into the fish tank. I have thought of it so many times since, and applied it in so many ways, and can’t find the original—so if it rings a bell and you know the source, I beg you to tell me. [Edited to add: commenter Tiffanie found it, with clues from commenter Nine! Breaking the Low Mood Cycle, by Elodie Under Glass])

Now I am eating a bowl of pudding with graham cracker crumbs and whipped cream, to simulate pudding pie. Soon perhaps I will have a second bowl. The twins are safe and well. It is good for them to be at college.

I want to be careful to put this WELL INTO PERSPECTIVE, and I will in a second, but to begin I want to complain that I feel like this illness ruined the time I was planning to have with the twins and William home from college. We were going to play games! and put together puzzles! and keep watching Christmas movies! and do some fun organizational tasks (sorting stickers)! and do fun outings! and maybe go see a movie! They were going to have friends over! William was going to lead us in some group cleaning tasks, like where we all clean as much as we can in one room together for 30 minutes! But now the twins go back to college this weekend, and I am still sick—too sick to drive them back, which I’d been looking forward to. It is quite fun to be stuck in a car with them for 7-8 hours and hear all their conversations, and stop for treats, and so forth.

To put it in perspective (as one should ONLY advise oneself to do, never someone else), I did still get lots of time with them. We had the week before Christmas, and also most of Christmas Day, before we got sick. And when I was sick in bed, and Elizabeth was just a little sick, she came to my room and lounged with me and we traded tidbits from the People magazines we were reading. (Apparently when they asked about me at work, Elizabeth said, “She’s pretty sick—but I know she’s going to be okay, because she’s lying there saying ‘Oh my god, Brad Pitt’s girlfriend is 33??'”) On two occasions William, who has also been sick with Ear Involvement, came into the room with his electric throw blanket and said “Move over” to Elizabeth, and all three of us were lounging, and William was pretending not to be interested in celebrity gossip but then semi-crabbily participating anyway. And I have been too sick to play games, but I have spent some pleasant evenings sitting the living room while the kids played games, just listening to them and enjoying their presence/interactions, even though I am a little amazed how often they swear, right in front of us, like they don’t know they’re supposed to pretend in front of their parents that they don’t swear. I have been too sick to go on the Pokemon team walks we were planning to do with Edward, but that is okay; it is pretty cold out anyway, and Pokemon does not matter in a big-picture way. The twins were able to go without me to get registered to vote, and they arranged for absentee ballots for the primary, and that matters more in a big-picture way.

And of course the usual “They are alive, I am alive, we have a roof and we have food, therefore everything is okay” perspective, though that zooms out a bit far. I have a co-worker who, when confronted with even a rather serious work kerfuffle, will say “Nobody died, nobody died,” and I get that this is partly a recentering/coping thought for her, and also that she is trying to counteract some of our coworkers who do indeed get a bit overwrought about things that are temporary and fixable—and yet, “Nobody died” still zooms out too far for me. YES, okay, nobody died, but we do still have water pouring in through a leak in the ceiling over non-fiction, and oops now there is a second leak in Children’s, so can we flip out a little with tarps and garbage cans NOW and count our blessings LATER?? Yes, it is true we are all alive, but we also just found out our raises this year are 1.5% and meanwhile the cost of living increased 8.7%, meaning we are all getting paid LESS than before, so I think we do still get to complain about that, even keeping in mind the unfathomable blessing of life.

I am still sick. The flu part is getting a little better each day, I can tell: it’s still gross, but I am up and around more, and my appetite is significantly better, and I have more ability to do things. Before, I had to pick the number one biggest priority for each day (“scoop litter box”; “pay college tuition bill”) and try to do that, but now I can do extras like bossing the children to clean the kitchen, and bossing them to help me take down the Christmas ornaments. Paul is still handling dinners each night, and after a couple of weeks of this he’s getting all frustrated and worn down and out of ideas and tired of cleaning up afterward, and I am like I KNOW RIGHT.

Right now the main issue is my ear. Last night it hurt so badly I couldn’t sleep, and I was worried Something Was Going Terribly Wrong. That was WITH ibuprofen. I took two benadryl, two decongestants; it still hurt too much. Finally the previous dose of ibuprofen wore off and I took THREE ibuprofen, and that was enough to let me sleep for a few hours. The earliest my doctor can see me is in a week and two days; the earliest the office’s nurse-practitioner can see me is tomorrow; I took the nurse-practitioner appointment but may need to instead go back to Urgent Care today. But this morning it feels enough better that I am second-guessing. Not SO much better (as in, maybe the ear drum ruptured and now it feels so much better!) but not terribly painful either. Just the usual sore, clogged, and I can hear nothing but my pulse. I’m letting the ibuprofen wear off on purpose (which might be a bad idea) so I can further assess the pain levels.

I am worried about taking so many NSAIDS day after day, week after week. Each doctor so far has said to take ibuprofen, but once a day or so I take acetaminophen instead, in case that’s a good idea. I remember seeing somewhere that acetaminophen and ibuprofen are processed by different organs (kidneys/liver?), so maybe it helps to give the liver/kidneys a break and let the kidneys/liver take one round.

Speaking of liver, I never do Dry January, for reasons ranging from not wanting to do unpleasant things just for the sake of doing them, to feeling that January is plenty grim enough—but I notice that because of being ill, I have not had a drink since December 23rd. (I’m not sure if I DID have a drink on December 23rd, but I know I DIDN’T on the 24th or since.) So I have a very nice head-start on doing something just for the sake of doing it, if I wanted to! I had coffee the first few days of being sick, but then stopped because it was making me feel worse, so I’ve also been coffee-free since, say, December 27th or 28th. I had expected to see more of an amazing transformation of skin and/or mental health and/or sleep from cutting out both alcohol and coffee, but I guess flu is interfering with that.

I read Lessons in Chemistry (Target link, Amazon link) only after more than one person declared FERVENTLY that both the cover and title did the book a disservice. A library patron told me it was one of her favorite books of the year, and that she NEVER would have read it except that her friend told her to, and she put it on hold without noticing the cover, and then she felt obligated to at least try it.

(image from Target.com)

I was hoping I wouldn’t like it, because then what am I supposed to do with the million other bright-pastel covers with slight-boring-wordplay titles? All the other cartoon women looking sideways, arms crossed or hands on hips, with or without sunglasses, with or without visible men to look sardonically at? All the other cartoon women in lab coats with charmingly messy updos, so smart and nerdy, probably clumsy and probably they snort when they laugh like Sandra Bullock or Anne Hathaway trying to be nerdy; and SO hoping to take their glasses off and let their hair down and get some boring guy to like them and make their sad independent accomplished lives complete?

(images from Target.com)

Unfortunately I thought it was great. I liked the protagonist, who was not clumsy and did not snort, and did put her hair up charmingly but was not looking for love, and did not have to go through some ridiculous set-up (she can’t have the desirable apartment unless she agrees to let the landlord’s son have a room! she has to pretend to her family to be dating some guy she just met and finds So Annoying…and wishes she didn’t find So Attractive!) to find it. (She did have to have the Initial Poor Impression meeting, but that seems literally unavoidable in fiction right now: it’s either Meet Cute or Meet Huffy.)

I didn’t think the romance was too much. There was a precocious child, but I found her not only tolerable but appealing. There was a precocious dog, and I loved him to the point of frequent tears. I also loved the neighbor, the pastor, the obstetrician, the friend/supervisor. When the book’s plot was described to me, I was not interested; but when a middle-aged woman in a bookstore told me vigorously that I should read it despite the cover, I obeyed. Let me be your middle-aged woman in a bookstore.

I have been sick, and I am still sick. The level of sick I have been: I have not been at my computer; I did not for many days feel up to having my laptop up in bed with me either; I lost my Wordle and Waffle streaks. At one point I wanted ginger ale, and I needed to text Paul to bring some to me, but my phone was on my bedside table and I would have to reach my arm out from under the covers to get it; it took me over ten minutes to achieve that. I got into the shower one morning, and I could not finish the shower: I had to just sort of wrap it up halfway and get out and dry off, and then I had to put my towel on the bed and lie down for awhile before I could get dressed. There is a particular category of illness where one lies in bed, not even bored, just sort of lying there doing nothing hour after hour, and this was that category of illness. After a couple of days, I was able to start reading People magazines. Now I am up to Light Novels.

My main symptoms were fever, cough, runny nose (at first a ton of sneezing, then just running/stuffy), congestion, exhaustion, loss of senses of taste/smell, plus body aches and chills and so forth but I file those under fever. I went to urgent care not for those symptoms, but when the pain and pressure in one ear became worrisome. The doctor was distracted by the ear (he diagnosed an ear canal infection, which led to an Unpleasant Procedure ((A WICK!! A WICK IN MY EAR!!)) and then seven days of ear drops), but said that even with the suspicious taste/smell-loss symptoms, he did not think it was Covid, he thought it was flu. (It had been too many days since symptom-onset for it to be worthwhile to do a flu test.) He said my symptoms lined up with a type of flu that was currently rampant in our area.

I had to go back two days later to have the ear re-evaluated. I saw a different doctor, who confirmed the first doctor’s assessment of the ear, and reassured me that yes, it would still be hurting badly enough to wake me up in the night, even with the wick and two days of antibiotic drops. He also asked about my other symptoms, and not only agreed with the doctor that it was likely flu, he narrowed it down and said he thought it was novel influenza A. In case you are someone who likes to know the virus. He said it’s everywhere in our area, and that it seems to be lasting “a good two weeks” for most people. I am not sure whether to count from the very first symptoms (a feeling of “maybe coming down with a cold” on Christmas Eve) or from the first serious symptoms (feeling very bad on Christmas Day evening, happily after all the important Christmassing was done), but either way I may be within sight of the end of this.

I still can’t smell or taste things, which still seems suspicious to me; I have taken four covid rapid tests, all negative, but I worry they are not sufficiently effective at diagnosing newer strains. I sprayed some foaming bleach spray into the toilet bowl and onto the shower curtain (I am not up to cleaning, but I can do some quick killing), and I could not smell it at all. I lit some matches and blew them out: I could not smell them. I cannot smell Vicks VapoRub!! And I can’t hear out of the ear that is infected, except I can hear my own pulse. My whole head feels wrong. I feel semi-disconnected from reality.

I have missed two weeks of work; I don’t know the last time I was sick enough to miss two weeks of work. Never? I did get flu once before, but it was when I had small children, so there was no taking time off. I remember putting out a bunch of sippee cups of milk and a box of dry cereal, putting the TV on some kids’ channel, and then curling up in a recliner and trying to stay alive.

The last time I got flu, I was vaccinated at my doctor’s office. I asked the nurse how painful the shot was that year, because it seems to vary from year to year. She said not to worry: she had a particular technique that surprised people with how painless it was. She told me that people say to her, “Wow, shots usually hurt, but not when you do it! My arm wasn’t even sore afterward!” I watched as she gave me the shot, then pulled the needle out with a flair; the vaccine liquid made a watery arc through the air. Her shots didn’t hurt because the fluid was not going into the muscle. I did not say anything. I got the flu. I wonder how many of her other patients also got the flu. I wonder if she is still giving completely ineffective shots and feeling proud of her technique. I hope at some point they gave her a student trainee, and the student trainee said, “But…the shot went into the air.”

This year I wonder if it was because I got the flu shot at the same time as the covid shot. They said it was okay to do that, but I don’t trust them not to say something is okay if it’s less than ideal but they think more people will get the shots that way; I might make that same call, if I were them. But also, I know the flu shot doesn’t cover all the strains, it just covers the predicted strains; I also know that even if you get the right shot for the right strains, your particular body might fail to take up the sword. Edward got both chicken pox vaccinations, but when doctors did a blood test before starting the Remicade, it showed no immunity to chicken pox.

So who knows why, but our whole household got sick. Our timing was very lucky: Paul was sick BEFORE Christmas, but was better by the day; the rest of us didn’t feel really bad until AFTER Christmas; so Christmas was not ruined, and also there has always been an adult who feels well enough to go to the grocery store and/or pharmacy. Three of the six of us have had ear complications requiring antibiotics (two of us got drops, one of us got pills), which I think is interesting. One of us had sinus complications that might have become serious, but they used a sinus rinse (Target link, Amazon link) and did steam treatments (leaning over a bowl of just-boiled water with a towel tent over the head), and those seemed to beat it into submission.

One reason I am telling you about this recent/ongoing illness is because misery loves company: now that I’m well enough to use a computer, I’d love to hear about it if you’ve been sick too. Your symptoms! Did you stay in bed for some of it? DID IT GET YOUR EAR?? The other reason I’m telling you is that I’ve noticed that ever since the pandemic, people seem to be more secretive about being sick. I remember people used to complain all over social media about it! But now it’s as if it’s something shameful: if you are sick, it’s maybe that you weren’t being careful; maybe you were socializing irresponsibly; also, maybe you got other people sick. A feeling of blame. But there sure is a lot less of that once someone starts the ball rolling! I said on Facebook that we’d all been sick, and a BUNCH of people commented that they’d been sick too, and my impression is that they were commenting with RELIEF: it’s not just us! other people are sick too!

I packed up Rob’s gifts, then had to repack them because the box wasn’t big enough, then had to repack them because the bigger box would have been $58 to mail and it was actually cheaper to use two flat-rate boxes, and the USPS is no longer a service but a capitalist organization that gives extreme discount prices to giant businesses and passes those expenses on to small businesses and individual citizens—but anyway I got them packed and dropped them off at the post office, and this is just what it costs. That piece of Christmas has clicked into place, or perhaps it will click into place when it arrives successfully at Rob’s apartment; anyway, my part is done.

I acquired a gift and a gift bag for my annual friend-group Yankee Swap, and now the party and gift are completed, and one of the first celebrations of Christmas has been a lovely success. CLICK!

I assembled the gift box for Paul’s sister, and went out to get a couple more things because it had empty spaces, and I filled in the empty spaces, and packed it up and took it to the post office. Now the piece of furniture that was covered in shipping boxes (for my parents, for Rob, for Paul’s sister) is cleared! CLICK!

On that same shopping trip I picked up a couple things for my workplace Secret Santa assignment, so that is now assembled in a gift bag for whenever I feel like bringing it in to work (I feel like waiting until a little closer to Christmas). Not a CLICK yet, but a click in launching position.

This weekend is the drop-off for the local Christmas organization, so tomorrow’s task after work is taking all those purchased items and assembling them as specified by the organization (a surprisingly layered process, including labeled/numbered bags within labeled/numbered bags), and filling out the organization’s inventory form, and making sure I remembered to print out gift receipts for everything, and remembering to include the rolls of wrapping paper and tape, and so on. I am looking forward to this (last year I got a HUGE rush of Happy Community Feeling from it), but also I am looking forward to having all those boxes and bags cleared out of the house!

Then, let’s see. Wrapping the rest of the kids’ and Paul’s gifts, and checking to see if there are any gaps that need to be filled. One more thing each for my brother and for my sister-in-law, and then wrapping the presents for them and for my niece and nephew, and arranging to meet my brother halfway between our houses (we’re about an hour apart) to exchange bags. Going to Trader Joe’s to see if they have Kringles for Christmas morning (we got an almond one and put it in the freezer already, but I am hoping for a seasonal flavor). Putting gift cards out for various delivery people. Sorting through the piles of stocking stuff.

Is this actually getting wrapped up? I wonder if my stress always ramps up RIGHT before everything starts sorting out nicely. What are you working on, if applicable, and what still looms?

I should start tracking this to see if it’s the same every year; I can say that THIS year the change from “This is fun; I’ve got this!” to feeling overwhelmed/stressed happened right around December 11th. I am hugely grateful to Past Swistle who got all the cards done early, as well as the all the shopping for the two kids from the local Christmas program, as well as quite a bit of other shopping.

I am having my usual and apparently ENDLESS/LIFETIME struggle with thinking I have to do The Most Important Thing FIRST, and then getting stuck because I can’t do that most important thing yet. Fortunately I am also having my usual and apparently ENDLESS/LIFETIME rediscovering of “If I can’t do The Most Important Thing, it is helpful to do LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE.” This means that a week later, when there is a new Most Important Thing, sometimes I have ALREADY DONE IT when it was not yet a priority. It can feel a little silly to be shopping for Target gift cards for the mail carriers when it is still a month until I need those and it is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT to get Rob’s gifts purchased and into the mail—but it doesn’t feel silly when it’s a week until Christmas and shipping would take 10 days and I wouldn’t want to go into a store, and instead I can just reach into my gift cupboard where the cards have been nestled up and waiting for a couple of weeks.

It is making me clench my teeth to see so many shipping estimates already after Christmas, especially a day or two ago when there were still TWO WHOLE WEEKS before Christmas. You know I have a persistent goal of trying to cut back on Amazon shopping (I am not in any way trying to eliminate it entirely), but there are times when Amazon can get something to me well before Christmas, and the company I’d rather order from is saying it will be January 3-10th, and in those cases I am not feeling even the slightest inclination to self-scold. Oh, I suppose you could get stroppy about it and say “Well, you should have gotten yourself organized to order it back before Thanksgiving, then!!,” but I do hope none of us would be like that, either to ourselves or to others. Not at this festive season.

And things ARE still festive! I don’t mean to imply I am now a roiling mass of stress and nothing is fun! No! I am enjoying the Christmas lights, and reading my Christmas books. We are watching a Christmas show or part of a Christmas movie each evening. I am using my Christmas mugs, which is one of my favorite things; and Henry has been on a pre-bedtime tea kick, which I have joined, so that means choosing an extra Christmas mug each day. Over the weekend I tried a festive cranberry cheesecake recipe, which I was going to save until closer to Christmas—except I remembered we always have PLENTY of sweet festive foods close to Christmas. So I made it at the perfect moment, which was just in time to start stress-eating it.

I am enjoying the feeling of ticking things off the list. At this point, the rising stress is what helps me finally click the order button on things I’ve been waffling about. There is no more time to browse pages of earring possibilities for your niece, it is time to click and purchase! You need one more gift for Paul’s sister before you can ship her box, so you’d better pick something now! A little surge of stress, followed by the satisfaction of having successfully Done the Thing: the earrings ordered, the gift chosen and bought, the relief of no longer waffling.

It is pleasing to track the package I mailed to my parents and see that it will be there today; once it’s there, that part of Christmas clicks into place. This weekend we will fetch the twins, and then all of us who are coming home will be home, and THAT part of Christmas will click into place. I will select a gift for my workplace Secret Santa exchange, and I will put it in a pretty gift bag and sneak it into work and put it somewhere they’ll find it, and there will be another click. Click, click, click, it is getting done!

FOR A VARIETY OF REASONS (management shake-up, literal building/structural chaos, an unusual number of employees leaving and being replaced but not soon enough so there has been scrambling, and then of course there are New People), my co-workers and I have recently been under noticeable levels of occupational stress. “This is fine,” we say to each other numerous times per day. “It’s fine. We’re fine.”

Also: in December, it is common for some of us, like maybe a third to us (which seems like the perfect percentage to make it easy for each person to do it or not as they prefer), to give out a small giftie to each of our co-workers. Last year, I handed out treat baggies containing a packet of cocoa (cinnamon, which was the best, but that’s discontinued so I’ve linked to pumpkin spice which is also good), a tea bag, a lil snack (these look nutritious/breakfasty, but they taste like big delicious cinnamon/oaty creme-filled cookies), and several little candies.

(image from Target.com)

THIS year, I would like to do something with a little bit of a calming / stress-relief theme. Imagine the same baggies, but filled with:

• a face-mask: they were on a 50%-off-plus-$10-gift-card-if-you-spend-$30 deal, I’m sorry, I should have given you a heads up but it all happened so fast, but anyway I acquired enough to give one to each co-worker

• a soothing tea bag, maybe a second soothing tea bag

(image from Target.com)

• a piece of chocolate, maybe some soothing cookies

And probably that’s enough. But does anything else spring to mind? I want to be careful to avoid the Wedding Favor Trap, where one starts to buy things just to buy things, and ends up spending quite a bit of money on multiples of things no one actually wants, so maybe I should just stop right there: if I were the recipient, I would enjoy those things but not, say, a stress ball purchased just to hammer home the concept of stress relief. And something like calming lavender hand lotion is nice, but too expensive when multiplied by more than a dozen coworkers. I would LOVE to do some tiny liquor bottles, but I am aware of several coworkers who do not drink.