So apparently, my body saw all the decluttering I’ve been doing and decided to get in on the act. “This appendix is useless. Why have we kept it so long? Let’s get rid of it.”

Thus, after working 8 hours on Sunday 2/25, instead of crashing out and going to sleep, I found myself in the ER. The appendix was determined to be inflamed and surgery was attempted. However, my lungs had a weird reaction to the air that’s pumped into your body during laproscopic surgery and they had to stop (my blood pressure dropped, etc.). The next day, traditional surgery was performed and went fine. The day after that, they made me get a heart catheterization to be safe. So that’s two times I went under plus a mild sedation. I think that’s what led to all the crazy dreams I had while there. All told, I was in the hospital for almost five days and felt pretty miserable for most of it. I was thrilled to finally get out of there (even if it was smack in the middle of a wild nor’easter).

So now I’ve been home for a few days, I’m feeling a lot better… and I’m bored. I keep thinking about work, I want to go back! But I have more healing to do.

I am soooo grateful for the help I’ve received from my parents, sister and brother in law, brother and sister in law, MIL and FIL, and all my wonderful friends. And my husband, of course, who had to hold down the fort. Food, flowers, cards, cookies, fruit baskets, help with the kids, oh my! Getting verklempt.

So the rest of this post will be stuff I wrote B.A. (Before Appendectomy).

***

The other morning, I woke up coughing around 5 am and couldn’t get back to sleep. Somehow while lying there I started thinking about my engagement ring and what a symbol it is of everything I’ve learned not to do.

Around the time that my husband and I started talking seriously about getting married, he started asking me about what kind of ring i’d like. I always answered “solitaire.” for a few reasons. One, I just didn’t care enough about that kind of thing to draw sketches or look at rings in stores or otherwise put effort into it. Two, my mom always had a solitaire ring (though not her engagement ring). Three, I thought that would make it easy for him. If it had been 2018 instead of 2004, I would have sent him a diamond ring emoji as my answer.

So right there is a lesson. If you don’t care about rings, don’t get a freaking ring.

In fact, I may have said something to that effect at the time, but hubs was all about the ring himself.

in due time, he proposes, I accept the ring, tra la la. At some point, I forget when exactly, the zales credit card statement makes its way into the stack of monthly bills to pay. Oh my, that was an expensive ring, and it’s going to be a while before it’s paid off. This leads to feelings of grrrr on my part.

Much later on, I have the ring appraised. Oh hey, the ring is not worth nearly what you paid for it, says the kindly appraiser. In fact, there’s a class action suit against Zales because they were pulling this shit all over the place.

Being too busy with other issues to seek out the class action suit, I just grrrr some more.

Flash forward to 5 am, February 2018, and the ring, still very pretty, is ensconced firmly on my finger, so firmly that only a saw will get it off. So for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, I’ll be wearing this ring til death or massive weight loss does us part.

To reiterate. One: don’t have an engagement ring only because you feel like it’s what you’re supposed to do. Two: don’t go into debt for one. Three: if you must have one, buy a vintage one and don’t support the terrible diamond industry.

I’m not blaming my husband (not really) because he was just a young dude trying to buy a ring and I’m sure he learned a thing or two as well. I hope he doesn’t mind me telling this story. It was going on 20 years ago so I consider it fair game.

***

My job is going well. I’ve been working about 25 hours a week. I’m currently in second place out of us 10 shoppers, for speed. Maybe first place after the very good shift I had yesterday. Competitive much?

I finally started consistently bringing one of our Kleen Kanteens to work, so that I wouldn’t buy bottled water there. It’s thirsty work. And I’ve been pretty good lately about bringing lunch and snacks from home, so I don’t buy food there. Spending $10 each shift on lunch is not sustainable at all. They gave me a T-shirt, my sneakers so far are keeping my feet fairly comfortable (I might yet invest in server shoes or something), and jeans are A-OK to wear, so I’m good in that department. I use Wegmans Wi-Fi so I’m not using my data while there. Instacart even made a change recently that cuts down on the number of texts they send us, which I appreciate, since I’m still doing a pay as you go cell phone. I did buy another $5 worth of texts (1000) the other day, which is my second such purchase since January 1, I think. But texts are all I really use. I hardly touch my minutes or data.

Seeing my paycheck in my bank account every Friday morning is a wonderful feeling. I had forgotten how nice that feels. 25 hours is a nice amount to work (you can’t work more than 29 anyway). I look forward to work and appreciate my time at home too. On my days off last week, I baked banana bread one day and applesauce + sweet potato muffins the next. Those served us well when work started up again.

I did some food shopping on one of my days off, and I took a picture of the haul just cause I was so darn proud of what I got for the money. This was at Shop Rite. Upon entering the store, I found a coupon for a free dozen eggs in the cart. After that, I had “‘Cause I got a golden ticket” in my head the whole time. Thank you, whoever left it! I also had a $2 coupon for the fish sticks that I remembered to use. The total was about $48 if I remember correctly. Not too shabby. Of course, I wish it were more organic/local/natural/humane. Someday we’ll get back to that… Only like 6 weeks til the farmers’ market returns, at least!

I find myself unable to stick around Wegmans to food shop for myself unless my shift is like 5 hours or less.

***

Back to life A.A….

Naturally, while I was in the hospital, I had like three eBay sales and some other inquiries. One of the first things I did when I got home was to get packages ready and off to the post office. I sold a pair of shoes, an infant Easter dress, and a sundress (one of my Goodwill outlet scores). For a total of $20 or so in profit. While on the couch this week I did a bunch of cross posting — making sure things I had on eBay were on Facebook and Poshmark, and vice versa.

There’s not too much else I can do right now. In a few days I might get back to work on my eBay clothes lots. I was close to getting them posted before this all happened. I also have PTA stuff I can work on. I spent much of last week just making phone calls, sending emails, trying to right things that got messed up while I was gone, etc. Next week I have a follow-up doctor’s appointment and a conference for Sebastian, and the kids have half days every day except Friday, I think. Hopefully I will feel closer to normal next week.

I hope you are all well and holding on to your internal organs.