Week 23 Review

Danni is smiling happily at the camera in bed. They are wearing a purple Orange Boy Fan Club top with an orange cat on it.

I am so happy I had a shower! Johan took the photo after I’d been sorted out in bed afterwards.
Mostly had a chilled out week, saving energy for the Sunday as Johan promised he’d shower me if I was well enough, no matter how he felt (after I’d asked him a few times and he didn’t feel up to it). I ate a lot of ham and pease pudding sammiches, because they’re nice and I remembered to buy the ingredients when I did the food shop.

I did quite a bit of sleeping, and reading Reddit/watching YouTube/playing mobile games when not resting. Sammie confirmed that her internet was more stable which I’m happy about.

I had to call Johan home early due to digestive problems, and had issues with my legs and hips due to how long I was lying on them (I have to sleep on my side as otherwise I can’t breathe properly, and though the alternating air mattress helps a bit it doesn’t fix all the pain).

Johan ran the Blaydon Races on the 9th of June, and I was able to follow his progress via his Garmin GPS watch, which I then live tweeted because I could. He told me afterwards that I knew before he did what his time was. Garmin said he took 38 minutes 9 seconds to run 5.6 miles, but his official result was 38:04. As he was wanting to get under 40 minutes he was very happy with this. Afterwards he went out with friends and came back less sober than he left πŸ˜›

A map of Blaydon that shows last part of the route Johan took, and run information such as finishing time.

Sunday was shower day and it took until the evening for me to be well enough, but it was awesome. Found another couple of things I need to improve on the shower chair to reduce pain such as lumbar support and some sort of cushioning on the foot rests, but that shouldn’t be hard.

I do want to find out why I can’t breathe properly when the shower is on my head and neck (and face, but that seems more obvious). We’ve got it on the lowest setting and the temperature is fine, but something about it makes me really breathless. It could just be pain as even on the lowest setting each water drop hurts, but it’s less of a problem below my shoulders. Makes washing my hair interesting but at least with it being so short right now it doesn’t take long.

  • Overall mood – Good, with a normal level of symptoms most of the week, high level Wednesday and Thursday.
  • Average daily sleep – 9 hours 19 minutes
  • Longest sleep – in 19 hours 1 minute from Thursday morning to Friday evening (deep sleep 59%)
  • Clothes changed – 2 (Gender is a Universe top, Orange Boy Fan Club top)
  • Wipe wash – 0
  • Water wash – 1 (I had a shower!)
  • Hair wash – 1 (Shower! Yay!)
  • Books read – 0
  • TV watched – 0
  • YouTube videos watched – Vlogbrothers, Tom Scott, Jessica Out of the Closet
  • Streams watched – Rockhopper penguin cam
  • Music listened to – 0
  • Podcasts listened to – Welcome to Night Vale (Episodes 33-37), Uncommon Sense (Episodes 0-2)
  • Blog posts written – 1
  • Penguins cuddled – Poseidon demanded the most 🐧🐧🐧
  • Johan hand holds – Yup
  • Johan hugs – 0
  • Time on Twitter – 3 hours 59 minutes (average 34 minutes a day)
  • Time on Reddit – 18 hours 17 minutes (average 2 hours 36 minute a day)
  • Time on Facebook – 21 minutes (average 3 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • I had a shower! It had been nearly a year since the last one so I’m still excited.
    • Have discovered most of my penguin bedding has disappeared. I hope it turns up soon.
    • TV Tropes is good to read when not feeling great.
    • Rockhopper penguin chick is called Floof because I say so (and is a big ball of floof). Floof escooped their nest this week, but ran back and hid behind parent when hoomin came.
    • This blog post is late due to payback from shower. It also was posted prematurely as I pressed the wrong button. Twice.

Game stuff

  • Games played – 4
    • Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
    • Cross Stitch
    • Neko Atsume
    • Godville
  • AC: Pocket Camp Level – 105
  • Godville Heroine Level – 54 (80% done)
  • Godville wood for ark – 25.8%
  • Godville savings – 1 million, 63 thousand
  • Cross stitch completed – 5
  • Most played game – Animal Crossing Pocket Camp (12 hours 11 minutes, average 1 hour 44 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • Completed Bumblecubes event with a day spare. Having lots of generous friends in game helps a lot.
    • I miss World of Warcraft and other PC games. I hope to be well enough to play them again soon.

Week 22 Review

Danni is lying in bed with a small smile. The image is tinted purple from the light. Johan is much better at taking photos than I am. Purple light isn’t really that great for selfies. I have stolen his t-shirt though, which makes a change from him stealing mine (the hamster and penguin do a fusion dance and turn into a porg lower down the t-shirt image).

Mostly been a sleepy week. It took a couple of days for the side effects from the extra medication to ease off, but it wasn’t too bad. I was up all through Monday night/Tuesday morning but was pretty productive during that time, updating my care instruction book and started work on a series of blog posts I’m hoping to get done soonish.

Tuesday Johan went to Sammie’s to see if we could stabilise her internet connection. Living in the middle of nowhere there isn’t much we could do about the slow speed but swapping from wifi to powerline adapters seems to have help stop it constantly disconnecting. I helped by buying them πŸ˜› Once I did get to sleep I slept through until Wednesday evening, with small enough antinaps they’re not showing on my tracker.

Not listened to much Welcome to Night Vale as Johan wanted to catch up. He’s now ahead of me but only by a couple so hopefully I’ll catch up to him soon. I did listen to part of a Hello Internet episode but they’re too long for me at the moment (and I didn’t find a transcript so other than there being a zoo, penguins and Star Wars involved I don’t really know what was going on).

Other than sleeping, being very sleepy and working on future blog posts and some spreadsheets, it’s been a pretty quiet week. Was a little bit grumpy on Saturday as I felt well enough for a shower for the first time all year, but Johan wasn’t up to giving me one. I had a wipe wash in bed but it’s not the same (and due to various reasons mostly around not coping with care workers, more painful than the shower would have been). I cheered up by the time I filled my diary in though.

Still waiting on my wheelchair being fixed. Johan says the replacement parts have been ordered, but not heard from them yet so will be prodding him to chase them up soon. I’m wanting to have it back for my birthday – though as the last time I was out of bed on my actual birthday was 2011, I’m not sure how realistic using it is then is. I’m hopeful though and don’t have any big events I need to rest for like some other years.

I’ve decided to start tracking my symptom levels along with my mood, as otherwise it’s just a lot of goods which isn’t very informative (other than now knowing I mostly have good days moodwise). Only figured out I could do that this morning though so it won’t be recorded below until next week’s blog post. I’m glad to get it done on time this week.

  • Overall mood – Good
  • Average daily sleep – 10 hours 51 minutes
  • Longest sleep – 24 hours 13 minutes from Tuesday evening to Wednesday evening (deep sleep not recorded due to user error)
  • Clothes changed – 1 (Johan’s penguin + hamster = porg t-shirt, and cat fleece top)
  • Wipe wash – 1
  • Water wash – 0
  • Hair wash – 0, but did get head wiped during the wipe wash
  • Books read – 0 (I need to remind myself I want to finish this book)
  • TV watched – 0
  • YouTube videos watched – 0
  • Streams watched – 0
  • Music listened to – 0
  • Podcasts listened to – Welcome to Night Vale (Episodes 31-32), Hello Internet (part of episode 37)
  • Blog posts written – 1 (though worked on another)
  • Penguins cuddled –  Lots of cuddles 🐧🐧🐧
  • Johan hand holds – Plenty
  • Johan hugs – 0
  • Time on Twitter – 3 hours 33 minutes (average 30 minutes a day)
  • Time on Reddit – 21 hours 13 minutes (average 3 hours 1 minute a day)
  • Time on Facebook – 19 minutes (average 2 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • Sleeping a lot makes it harder to do stuff. As does being too tired to do much.
    • Definitely think the weather has a big impact on how I feel. When it’s warmer outside I’m in less pain and often feel better overall. If I’m not asleep.
    • My hips are complaining a lot about how much sleep I’m getting. Although the alternating air mattress helps a bit, they still don’t like the pressure after a few hours, and the 90 minutes or so of lying on the other one isn’t a long enough break.

Game stuff

  • Games played – 6
    • Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
    • Cross Stitch
    • DragonVale
    • Neko Atsume
    • Godville
    • Color Puzzle
  • AC: Pocket Camp Level – 103
  • Godville Heroine Level – 54 (38% done)
  • Godville wood for ark – 24.4%
  • Godville savings –  1 million, 9 thousand (yay!)
  • Cross stitch completed – 1
  • Most played game –  Animal Crossing Pocket Camp (12 hours 27 minutes, average 1 hour 46 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • New Animal Crossing flower event – collecting Bumblecubes (cubed bees)
    • Seems a bit harder to get the rarer bees this time for the first half
    • My to visit list in Animal Crossing has reached 25 people. I know one of them outside the game.
    • Happy to get my first million savings in Godville. Only 29 million left to go πŸ™‚

Week 12 Review

Danni is lying in bed with their head on a penguin cushion. The light behind is causing lens flare.

The photo is terrible but was what I could manage. I really need to ask Johan to take more photos of me πŸ˜›

I’m still not quite happy with the blog theme but I’ll get there eventually. At least this one doesn’t have a massive picture on the top (header images aren’t really my thing, as I’m terrible at them).

This week was a bit better than last week. I think I might be coming out of this blehness, though I still don’t know what caused it. I spent a lot of time trying to sleep or looking at cute pictures/reading rubbish on Reddit.

The best parts of the week were having my top changed and a wipe wash with Johan on Wednesday, and having my hair washed with a shampoo cap on Saturday. It was nice to feel cleaner. I also remembered I liked marmalade so had that on toast a few times for lunch, and our favourite pasta restaurant was delivering here again so we got nommy fuds from there on Thursday evening (I love the tagliatelle carbonara and the white chocolate cheesecake). I was asleep for quite a few of the care calls, but by the end of the week I could tolerate the carers being in my room again. Other than a few changes I wasn’t told about (which made me very anxious and panicky) my mood was good.

Johan decided to run to Crawcrook for pizza on Tuesday. He says the pizza, chips and sauce are all just as good as he remembered. I’m a little bit jealous but Crawcrook is a tad far for me to go at the moment. Getting pizza home would also be interesting as it takes nearly an hour on the bus, taxis are expensive and Johan can’t exactly run that far while carrying a pizza.

While Johan was out running I attempted playing Vostok Inc. and Stardew Valley on the Nintendo Switch. Vostok is really fun, but it’s a twin stick shooter and I couldn’t get my hands to do different things so I’d be shooting in the direction I was running instead of at the enemies. I died a few times before giving up. I’ll get Johan to play it for me and try again on PC at some point. Stardew Valley I again struggled with the controls. I think for now the Switch will be mostly Johan’s, and when my hands/concentration gets better I’ll have a go. Luckily we can plug it into the telly so I can watch him playing it πŸ™‚

Saturday I was feeling up to watching things again so I resubscribed to Netflix, as they were offering me another free trial. Watched Nailed It with Johan and it was hilarious. Sal should just never touch a microwave. We had McDonalds as we’d not done a shop since the middle of February so didn’t have much in. It was an awesome day and I hope we can watch more together.

Sunday I had a bit of payback from watching Netflix so didn’t do much. Still felt nowhere near as bad as I did the week before which I’m very grateful for. Hopefully whatever caused that is now gone and I can concentrate on getting up and doing things soon.

  • Overall mood – Good, as I wasn’t as ill as last week
  • Average daily sleep – 7 hours 20 minutes (of 10 hours 18 minutes)
  • Longest sleep – 7 hours 38 minutes from Sunday evening to Monday morning (of 11 hours 20 minutes)
  • Clothes changed – 1 (nerdy penguin and penguin fleece)
  • Wipe wash – 1
  • Water wash – 0
  • Hair wash – 1 (shower cap)
  • Books read – The Wall (53%)
  • TV watched – Nailed It (Netflix)
  • YouTube videos watched – 0
  • Streams watched – Penguin Cam
  • Music listened to – 0
  • Blog posts written – 2 (being late with a weekly review helped with that)
  • Penguins cuddled – Yes 🐧🐧🐧
  • Johan hand holds – Indeed
  • Johan hugs – Not yet. Soon?
  • Time on Twitter – 9 hours 44 minutes (average 1 hour 23 minutes a day)
  • Time on Reddit – 35 hours 14 minutes (average 5 hours 3 minutes a day)
  • Time on Facebook – 58 minutes (average 8 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • Digestive system was bad but not quite as much as the week before.
    • I wish I didn’t find unexpected change so hard. It’s worse when I can’t use my usual coping mechanisms as too ill to move.
    • Johan made me laugh so hard I couldn’t breathe. Unfortunately I’ve forgotten what it was about.
    • Twitter friends are amazing.
    • So is Sammie. And Johan.
    • As are penguins.

Game stuff

  • Games played – 5
    • Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
    • Cross Stitch
    • DragonVale
    • Neko Atsume
    • Godville
  • AC: Pocket Camp Level – 84
  • Godville Heroine Level – 51 (25% done)
  • Godville wood for ark – 13.7%
  • Godville savings – 589 thousand
  • Cross stitch completed – 1
  • Most played game – Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (7 hours 11 minutes, average 1 hour 2 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • Didn’t play games at all Tuesday or Wednesday as wasn’t feeling up to it.
    • Got a Gold Trophy in the Animal Crossing fishing tournament.
    • Second part of the Mario Event started, and I got every item available other than the leaf ticket one.
    • Four more animals were added, and I’ve invited them all to my camp.
    • Elite rift dragons in Dragonvale are annoying. So many fails.
    • I keep missing Hermeowne in Neko Atsume. I only need her memento to have a complete catbook.

Week 8 Review

Danni is lying in bed. The image has been edited with various filters, making it look smooth, have bigger eyes, has colourful circles around their head, and has a hand drawn purple penguin in the bottom left corner.

I forgot to take a photo last week, so took this one today and used the most extreme settings on various filters to see how it looked. Then I drew a penguin on it because penguins! 🐧

Last week was mixed. Some good stuff (going on the Surface and video chatting to Sammie, making a hexahexaflexagon) and some bad stuff (waking up to a strange care worker in my room when I’d been expecting a regular one and had no notice of the change, digestive system being so evil I couldn’t be touched by the care workers during a call as was in too much pain).

The big news was I got my new PIP letter and the back payment of everything they owed me for the last year. I gave some to Johan as a Christmas/birthday present, cleared half of my credit card (0% interest so no point in clearing it all right now) and put half into savings. With the remainder, I bought a Nintendo Switch, some cool t-shirts and stickers, some disability stuff I’d been putting off and bought a celebration takeaway from Portofino in Newcastle, which was the best pasta I’ve ever had (tagliatelle carbonara). I still have some sitting in my bank account that I’m sure I’ll find a good use for.

I have started work on trying to fix my blog. I’m not happy with the theme or the header image yet, but at least it’s not throwing up errors now. I need to figure out getting the accessibility buttons to work properly as well. It’s too difficult to do from my tablet so it’ll be done in bits when I’m on the Surface or my puter.

I was finally well enough to catch up properly on some of my YouTube subscriptions, the ones without too much movement in the videos. I’ve got 3 months worth of videos to catch up with, so far managing three channels. I also rediscovered Vi Hart and made a hexahexaflexagon, which was an awesome stim toy until I ripped it. I need Johan to cut me out another template so I can make a new one. I want a cloth flexagon of some type, but I can’t find any premade online so might need to find a crafty person to make me one.

I’ve started clearing out my chest of drawers, throwing away anything damaged and putting stuff I can’t wear into a vacuum bag. The plan is to reorganise my drawers so the most used clothes (tops and nighties) are most accessible. I do need to get the cleaner to stop piling stuff around it so we can get into the drawers. I’m looking into finding someone to help me organise my bedroom, as though the cleaner is excellent at cleaning and okay at tidying, she is not good at organising or using space efficiently. It’ll probably take an organised person an hour or two to sort in total, but it’s finding that person. I did have a care worker who was excellent at it so I was going to ask her, but she’s injured and I don’t know when or if she’ll be back at work.

This week we’re expecting a lot of snow. Since that means I can’t go out, I’m hoping if well enough to do something nice indoors, or even have a shower. We’ll see if my body agrees.

  • Overall mood – Good
  • Average daily sleep – 8 hours 40 minutes (of 10 hours 54 minutes)
  • Longest sleep – 11 hours 4 minutes on Saturday (of 17 hours 35 minutes, after being awake 28 hours 30 minutes from Thursday evening)
  • Clothes changed – 1 (Penguin made of penguins 🐧)
  • Wipe wash – 1
  • Water wash – 0
  • Hair wash – 1 (shampoo cap)
  • Books read – 0
  • TV watched – 0
  • YouTube videos watched – Lots (Matt and Tom Park Bench, vlogbrothers, floppotron, Vi Hart)
  • Music listened to – Floppotron
  • Blog posts written – 1
  • Penguins cuddled – Yup 🐧🐧🐧
  • Johan hand holds – Several a day
  • Johan hugs – 0
  • Time on Twitter – 13 hours 52 minutes (average 1 hour 58 minutes a day)
  • Time on Reddit – 16 hours 25 minutes (average 2 hours 20 minutes a day)
  • Time on Facebook – 21 minutes (average 3 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • PIP award letter and back payment came through!
    • Discovered the joys of flexagons, and how awesome hexahexaflexagon is to say.
    • Johan accidently dyed the washing purple. I now have purple penguin pillowcases.

Game stuff

  • Games played – 5
    • Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
    • Cross Stitch
    • Neko Atsume
    • Godville
    • DragonVale
  • AC: Pocket Camp Level – 76
  • Godville Heroine Level – 49 (79% done)
  • Godville wood for ark – 8.7%
  • Godville savings – 412 thousand
  • Cross stitch completed – 3
  • Most played game – Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (14 hours 4 minutes, average 2 hours a day)
  • Other –
    • DragonVale event has finished, so am now taking a break.
    • Animal Crossing has finished the crystal event.
    • I finished getting all the blue tulip items in Animal Crossing so now I’m concentrating on purple tulips.
    • I’ve yet to really try the Switch (have slept a lot since buying it) but I’m hoping to be able to play on it. If not, Johan will have to play for me.

Week 7 Review

Danni is lying in bed and smiling. The image has a dark blueish hue.

It’s mostly been an uneventful week. Had flu jab on Tuesday, so have had a sore arm since (it’s nearly better now), but otherwise not been up to much. I finally got over the payback from going out to the tribunal, and on Friday I was able to go on my desktop computer for the first time in months. Did a food shop and updated the spreadsheet tracking which carers I have. It took a lot longer than it should have done as I’ve forgotten how to do things like link to data in a different part of the spreadsheet.

I made the mistake on Saturday morning of attempting to change my own pad while Johan was out. This was a terrible idea and now I’ve got payback from that. I think I’ve learnt my lesson. Picture is a selfie taken while watching my projector, so the light was blue.

  • Overall mood – Good
  • Average daily sleep – 8 hours 50 minutes (of 9 hours 51 minutes)
  • Longest sleep – 9 hours 25 minutes from Tuesday evening to Wednesday morning (of 13 hours 11 minutes)
  • Clothes changed – 1 (space penguins and cat fleecy top)
  • Wipe wash – 1 (Johan helped)
  • Water wash – 0
  • Hair wash – 1 (with shower cap)
  • Books read – 0
  • TV watched – 0 (I prioritised going on puter)
  • YouTube videos watched – 5
  • Music listened to – Mr Voletron (U R Bad Toys!)
  • Blog posts written – 1
  • Penguins cuddled – Yes 🐧🐧🐧
  • Johan hand holds – Yes
  • Johan hugs – 0
  • Time on Twitter – 12 hours 28 minutes (average 1 hours 46 minutes a day)
  • Time on Reddit – 26 hours (average 3 hours 42 minutes a day)
  • Time on Facebook – 14 minutes (average 2 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • Left my party in Habitica, and made my own. Want to do quests by myself for a bit.
    • Doing a food shop is exhausting, even when I’m on my computer so it automatically fills in forms and stuff.
    • Johan changed my bedding on Thursday! Currently have the My Little Pony set on.
    • It was half term so chatted to Sammie a bit. She’s awesome.

Game stuff

  • Games played – 5
    • Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
    • Cross Stitch
    • Neko Atsume
    • Godville
    • DragonVale
  • AC: Pocket Camp Level – 75
  • Godville Heroine Level – 49 (35% done)
  • Godville wood for ark – 7.3%
  • Godville savings – 382 thousand
  • Cross stitch completed – 2
  • Most played game – Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (14 hours 4 minutes, average 2 hours a day)
  • Other –
    • New crystal event in Animal Crossing. Luckily it’s just a collection event so I don’t need to do much extra.
    • Got every dragon and egg in DragonVale again. Once the rose event is over I’ll probably stop playing daily.
    • Bonus image: the cross stitch I was working on last week, completed. The text is amusing to me (your text here)

Image is a virtual cross stitch of a colourful temple with various spires, underneath which it says