Life is a combination of magic and pasta.

It's 3F out aaaaaaaand my car won't start. I emailed in to attend the morning staff meeting via zoom instead. How annoying. The lights blink and tell me things aren't working but it won't turn over. Chances are it's a wimpy battery but google also tells me it could be thickened engine oil. I got an oil change at Valvoline when I could drive again after the surgery and we put in "the good stuff" so it better damned well NOT be that.

It's supposed to get near freezing early this afternoon so I'll try it again then and if it starts, I'll drive it around for a while but I won't do anything like go to the grocery in case it wants to get bitchy and not restart.

I got a new car last year for what, again? Oh that's right, tariff fears. Though it should be covered by warranty, I suppose. Hmph.

I did a quick video at lunch of filling in a page of the sticker book I got at Barnes & Noble.



I have coloring books I could film too, though these are a little easier.

BTW, yeah, that candle smells just like coffee and it's amazing. They're expensive as hell, though, but Emily got a bit of a discount since she ordered a case of them to give out as Christmas presents at work.

It only took nearly three and a half MONTHS after surgery but the stupid wound is considered healed and I have graduated officially from wound care. I got a certificate and got to ring the bell. WOO to the HOO.

I still have an itty bitty little pothole going on but yes, you can see that it finally has a bottom to it. I'm going to continue with taking the rest of my bottle of collagen gummies and do other healthy things in the hopes that it'll fill in a little better but I'm so glad that I'm done with asking for help with it. It feels odd not to have a bandage over the area too.

Guess Emily can no longer sing "Poking Time" or "Poking Dine" to the tune of "Closing Time." Heh.

I made a very niche video of ASMR brewing coffee here and am trying out capcut for editing since for one, the sound wasn't as nice as I wanted. There's more crunky noises rather than burbly noises from the coffee maker's real life noise. I also was splicing together four different videos and was having difficulty figuring out how to do transitions and stuff. But working on it. I can't figure out how to get the chirpy noises out yet.

In other people's video goings on, TikTok is putting lots of people on my For You page trying to dance or lipsync Raye's "Where Is My Husband?" Love that song

Emily and I just watched the new documentary on Netflix "Breakdown 1975" and wow. I mean I was five, I didn't know that all that gloom was mostly happening in that year. I'm curious about the thoughts of the folks that are older than I and lived through it with more memories and whether you'd even watch it?

I mean this was me, a year later. Not like I was watching Taxi Driver

I told Emily that her doing Lego ASMR would be popular for the channel (and if we ever get monetized, would fund her Lego addiction)

She doubted it but the video we put up just yesterday has nearly 200 views already and two new subscribers


I have part one of another fancy chocolate advent going up tomorrow and there are some JonJon short videos. <3

I'm hoping we can convince Emily's niece and friends to come clean up our cars and dig us out today. I'll toss a little cash their way if so. Also hopefully the small FreshDirect order will come in the 12-2 window that I scheduled the other day and if things stop and we get dug out, hopefully we can go to dinner with friends since they're heading to India on the 19th.

Squeeze a Churu out for the bestest, prettiest (whinest) boy who peed in the carrier when the vet assistant picked him up, whined constantly but was still a good boy and when the awful decision was made and they "sedated" him, tried to bolt off the table when they brought him back to me.

Oh you little chaos monkey. I will miss the absolute hell out of you. Go annoy your sister now.

He did get one last New Rug Day when a runner arrived for the cold kitchen floor on Monday.

I was going to post yesterday with guarded happiness about the improvement in my blood test numbers. Happy because my total cholesterol went from 212 and is now 196, my good HDL cholesterol went up from 46 to 52 and my bad LDL cholesterol went down from 138 to 114. Also, my A1c went down from 6.6 to 6.4 which is back in the safer range. It was guarded because the triglycerides went up from 154 to 173 but they always seem to ping pong all over the place which seems weird. But I figured my GP who convinced me to go on the statin alternative several months ago would be satisfied enough with the results.

Evidently not enough. She had one of her minions call me to ask if I'd be "willing to consider also starting Crestor since my LDL didn't go down as much as the doctor was hoping" of which I interrupted her with the quickness and said NO. Good freaking grief. I am JUST going back to work this week after having major surgery two months ago. Hell, I'm still going to the wound care clinic and still randomly having inflammation.

Woman, cut me some damned slack. The numbers are FINE and once I start to be able to get things more back to normal, they may improve even more.

I shouldn't be surprised. When I was in her office, I mentioned about how Cipro gave me panic attacks but that I'm working with a therapist to get over the worst of things and am stabilizing. Her response "Oh, that's good. If we need, we can start talking about starting (brain meds)" Yeah, again NO. Not everything needs drugs immediately thrown at it, especially if you have someone that you KNOW has adverse effects to many meds.

Way to burst my bubble, lady. Hell, I'm more pissy about this than not getting the upgrade. Zen....ZENNNNNNNNNN

If you haven't seen already, this morning we posted the next installment of blind chocolate tasting that we filmed yesterday.

Then later this afternoon when Emily got home, we filmed the last five chocolates. A teaser about THAT one which will go up tomorrow morning at 10am, it had the top one AND the bottom one. And a hint o'JonJon in the background. Considering today had me in my feels at work, it came through with my attitude whilst filming. Oh who am I kidding? I'm like that pretty much ALL the time. The fact that Emily puts up with my goofiness is a miracle. lol

Thanks to the fabulous veganhothead for the suggestion of a name for our followers, now the Agents of Chaos.

We are filming these a day before posting them so >THIS< was yesterday which went up this morning. I'm glad that Emily spent the money since she's having a lot of fun filming these too. I don't know how Alexandria manages to do a whole advent calendar all at once since five per day of these rich things is more than enough for me. We filmed today's and need to screen before uploading but it should go up about 10:30am while I'm at work. Well, depending on weather.

If I wake up to the sound of ice coming down, I will be working from home on my first day back thankyouverymuch. I'm not taking any chances of jerking my body or falling AT ALL.

Today I had to fast for blood tests which were scheduled for 1:40. It didn't help that my stomach was upset yet I couldn't take any tums so I just sipped on water and distracted myself playing Sims until it was time to leave. Thankfully Emily came home to take me to the appointment since by 1pm, I was getting a bit of the shakes. I had tested my blood sugar at 12:30 and it was already down to 85. I'm going to be interested to see what the tests themselves show. We drove from there over to the other hospital for wound care. Things are going well there too. I think we're in the homestretch. As long as it continues on path, I'm wondering if I'll be done in a couple of weeks and get to ring the bell.

As mentioned before, I may be back to work tomorrow. I'm hoping that no one is planning any sort of bullshit welcome back hooha because the fact that I'm less than 10 minutes away and not a one of my work group popped by. I just want to get back quietly, see my work buddy Noor and start to SLOWLY get caught up. Honestly I could buckle down and get caught up quickly but screw that, I'm going to take my sweet time, especially since I haven't heard jack shit about the upgrade we put in more than a month before my surgery.

Yeah, I'm a little hesitant but I'm going to get started again. Need to save the rest of the tons of sick time for when I may need it later since who the hell knows when I can ever afford to retire. However, if I feel overwhelmed or just need a mental health day before the University closes for the holiday, I have plenty of vacation time that can be used for it. Interestingly, they have us coming back on Friday January 2. You know everyone is going to take a vacation day for that but not me! As long as the weather is fine, I love to go in on the days where it's nice and empty.