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The last week has passed in a blur of inactivity… my motivation and energy levels have hit new lows and honestly, I'm having trouble dragging myself back to the land of the living… and barely care if I do… Usually by now I would be sick of myself which would somehow help to realign me… that is not happening at all… well, maybe I have a modicum more caring today than I did yesterday, but will it be enough to get me out of bed tomorrow morning?

I haven't been on the treadmill for days…

I know some of this is seasonal but I also wonder how much of it is tamoxifen… I've been running numbers in my head to suss out where the risk/reward line lies for me, at this point I might ask the oncologist about stopping it for a month or two to see if my mood improves and other side effects abate. I see him mid-February so still have lots of time to weigh my options. And who knows - maybe I'll feel great this time next week!

Thank goodness for the giant pot of soup I made last week as I've not been cooking much… tonight I dug out a soup from the freezer, so yes, more soup. I will be forever grateful that Carm loves soup and would not complain if I served it to him night after night. I'm not so far gone that I don't appreciate that I have it pretty good!

We've been binge watching ‘Rick Steves Europe’ for the last few weeks - I've learned so much art history!

Awesome!

“half way through January”

well into 2025 already

It's obviously been cloudy here for ages as yesterday was the first day in forever that the sun was shining in my eyes while I sipped my afternoon tea on the sofa. Yes, full blazing sun! It's fantastic :-) And here we are, well into 2025 already!

We celebrated the arrival of the new year in traditional fashion. Cathey, Jim, Trudie, Leo, and Pat, joined us for an evening of eating and laughing. It was subdued compared to some of our more recent NYE, as we were without Olaf & Steph to liven up the party. As usual, I made too much food. 

I made the fig & caramelised onion goat cheese dip with focaccia again. We had wings, roasted carrots wrapped in prosciutto, stuffed mushrooms, lots of veggies & dips. I made a ‘dirty martini’ dip with blue cheese & gin soaked olives which was good. We made food that never got served! No complaints though - it was great to have leftovers for 2 nights!

Last Saturday we made the trek into town to celebrate Stephanie's birthday. We couldn't remember the last time that we had driven into the city at night - it was probably years! Of course it was snowing… But we did it, and it was nice, although we probably won't return to the same restaurant - it was easily a 1 star meal!

Aside from all of that, there's been an awful lot of malingering on the sofa… I tried fasting two days ago but only made it to the 24 hour mark before binging on all sorts of unhealthy foods - I just can't seem to get back on track no matter what I tell myself…

My energy has not returned, but I have been forcing myself to walk on the treadmill or ride the bike… I've not been going hard at it yet… I'm wearing a holter monitor for 2 weeks so I have (!) to cut back on some of my plank exercises as the monitor and wires get all tangled up! Or that's my excuse…

I never did get much ‘Christmas’ distributed around the house this year so it was a simple task to wrap the tree in its sheet and get Carm to carry it back down to the basement and voila! most of the cleanup was done… oh, there are a few tiny trees left which will only take a few minutes to put away but I'll wait till February or March. 

I would really like to ‘care’ again…

Last night we had a lovely winter dinner at Trudie & Leo's. In years past this would have been a weekly occurrence and the nights would have been late with more than one bottle of wine emptied. Now it's much less frequent and not even half a bottle gets consumed. 

Today, after a quick haircut in the village, we dashed to liquidation. I picked up a few random things, and Carm got a solar light, but honestly, there's not much interesting… HOWEVER on the way home we saw a wolf on the side of the road. Carm stopped and backed up - we stared at each other for quite a while before it ambled off.

Awesome!

“a bit of sunshine”

“dogs asleep in a sun spot”

“welcoming in the new year with friends”

“getting home after a snowy drive”

“a wolf!”

Christmas

Christmas and Boxing Day has come and gone… we started Christmas Day dusting, vacuuming, making focaccia, and meal prepping for dinner - Olaf & Stephanie were coming sometime in the afternoon so we wanted things to be ship shape, and mostly in hand before they got here.

They arrived mid-afternoon, not too long before the focaccia came out of the oven. On FB the other day I'd seen a ‘reel’ of a recipe for fig & caramelised onion dip - it looked delicious so I added the ingredients to the shopping list. First step was slicing the dried figs and simmering them in marsala with a bit of water. Then I started caramelising the onions, which never seems to take less than 45 minutes. The figs were strained and added to the onions along with a bit of rosemary (I think thyme would be nice too). I crumbled a log of goat cheese into an oven proof dish and spread the onion/fig mixture on top. This popped into the oven for 20 minutes to get things bubbling. It was worth the effort and raised the focaccia to a new level!

And then there was supper: a giant striploin roast with all the normal beef dinner accompaniments… all good right… easy peasy… well, there was some sort of malfunction on my meat thermometer and the meat way way overcooked. I was so disappointed but to this day don't know what happened. Then the yorkshire puddings overbrowned! This has never happened to me before - my yorkshires always turn out almost perfectly. Bah humbug!

Food disasters aside, we had a lovely evening :-)

Boxing day morning arrived way too early but we had a busy day planned - we'd be 14 people for lunch here! Olaf & Steph pitched in and we were ready exactly on time. Soon the house was filled with happy voices as almost the whole family gathered for another Christmas. There was lots of food and everyone seemed to have a good time. 

In the morning, Olaf harvested a bunch of hot peppers, then got to work making some hot sauce - a bit of this and some of that and wow, very nice sauce with exactly the right amount of heat. It was amazing with a bit of lingonberry jam on the turkey sliders! I think we have a new tradition!

Today we are both chilling… although Carm tried to fix the display led on the stove, but the replacement was a dud so he had to put the original back. It's got a few bars burnt out so the display is wonky.

It's crazy, but I haven't written here since December 17th… that's 10 days… what did I do during all those days? Well, not a heck of a lot. I had an echocardiogram. We had Tina & Bruce here for an overnight visit last week - that was fun and I really needed the social break. 

But aside from that I've been a log on the sofa. I spent a few days in my pjs in bed for no reason other than I couldn't be bothered to get up. I forced myself to do some cooking and baking in prep for Christmas & Boxing Day. I haven't been on the treadmill for 2 weeks - I'm trying to psych myself up about getting back into the groove Jan 2nd. My diet has totally gone backwards and I'm gaining weight by the day… but I can't even really care, although I do care very much! It's not a don't really care cause I can't be bothered, rather than a self love.

I'm trying to keep notes about how I'm feeling for my appointment with the medical oncologist in February as there are times that I'm not even sure if the side-effects from tamoxifen are worth it. I wouldn't say I'm depressed, but I don't have energy or motivation for anything and it's just getting worse. This is a well-documented side-effect of tamoxifen so not totally unexpected, but I have to decide if it's worth it or if the cancer fighting benefit of continuing the drug isn't enough to spend the next 4.5 years dragging myself around. I'm hoping that some of it is just my normal mood variances - hopefully I'll have that figured out by my appointment.

Awesome!

“family together”