Saturday was the coldest day in 137 years here. Wind chill values were -23 ish. I was, of course, out delivering mail, in a truck that had no heat. The Hubs texted me to see if I needed anything, to which I replied hand warmers, since the truck 's heat was broken again. I took the time to text management as well, noting that when it got bad, I would switch to package delivery and come back.
Then my phone died from the cold.
Hubs, God love him, drove around for well over half hour to give me the hand warmers. You'd think it would be easy finding a loud white truck with flashing lights, but no. And thankfully, by the time he found me, my heat had kicked on. Once back at the office, I reported that it was so cold that while opening a mailbox, the weld actually came off clean from the front of the box, leaving the handle in my semi frozen hand. If they called to complain about it, I didn't care.
Once home and did my taxes and the hits kept coming. The combined stupidity of BOTH the Trump and Biden regimes has resulted in NONE of the middle-income tax breaks being reinstated and we owe again this year. It seems that claiming withholdings of the actual filing status, PLUS an extra ten bucks a week is not actually enough. *sigh* So yeah, I changed our withholdings again, and have saved the actual filing of the taxes until I can figure out where the cash is coming from.
Monday, I went to the big city to see Oldest for lunch. It was a beautiful day, despite having to pay $23 for parking, but I didn't lose the car in the massive garage so that's a plus. It was also convenient because Youngest had his consult with the surgeon in the morning, so I was already halfway there.
There was a cancellation in the surgeon's schedule so Tuesday brought us right back in at 8 am for the reconstruction of Youngest's right index finger. His detox from pot left him with an enormously different reaction to waking up from anesthesia than the last time. He's had several panic attacks and is managing the best he can on Advil and Tylenol. He got himself properly toasted before bed which he felt would be a better option than the oxycodone they prescribed. A decision I was in agreement with. It will be tough, learning how to do everything with one hand, left-handed. To add insult to injury, the new electric long board he ordered back in December finally arrived an hour after we got home. Poor kid can't even outfit it himself with the special accessories without help. *sigh* Baby steps... Wednesday we were back in for his permanent splint, he's still in a ton of pain, but found things to do all day. He did some grocery shopping, and then headed to the big city for what I think was a date, he was kind of vague. Thursday morning, he was supposed to start PT to get the tendons moving, except the woman was out sick. Knowing that the surgeon was VERY specific about him getting seen before Friday I franticly made back up appointments to ensure that he would be seen. It was crazy, difficult, and Youngest was less than happy about all of the switching. Thankfully a hand therapist came in on her day off just to do his evaluation, he was seen, and he can move forward with his original PT program. His physical rehab and his mental rehab and not going so well, so I think he's going to step back from his therapy sessions until he's at least out of extreme pain and the stitches are out. It's not ideal, but clearly something has to give.
My surgery is Wednesday. I am struggling mentally and physically. While I know I will be fine the stress of everything is all closing in.
*sigh*
It's weeks like this I wish I had a crystal ball.
Sending so many hugs and much love! Take a deep breath. And try to let some of that stress go (I know, easier said than done); you can only control so much.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine being out in that cold with no heater in the truck!! That's horrible!! I absolutely know how cold that is. OMG!!
ReplyDeleteI hope all goes well with son's finger and also with your surgery. Too much to deal with at once...why does it happen that way so many times? Awk!! Hang in there! *love and hugs*
Boy, what a gaggle of messes... those trucks (if their like ours) can't be warm in the best of low-temp circumstances. Our only tax problem was that I was so unhappy with the online prepper that I used (the one we've used for years), I gave them a blistering opinion on their how'd we do survey and did Laurie's on another. That one I managed to slow things down because "you can't have a space between the state initials and the state ID number" even though it has one on the w2. My elder grandkid got scarlet fever last week, the younger is looking at possible ear tubation...But at least I made 33 bucks on the Super Bowl on Draftkings! Carry on!
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