Couch 222: Create, Cooperate, Harmonize

Yeah, I'm safe right now. I'm at work for the next 5 hours. I did some boring tedious tasks which kind of made my mind go blank and stop thinking about stuff. So that helped. Yeah, I might contact T.

The IT Crowd is awesome, I finally got to see their goodbye episode last week on Netflix and it was still funny after a few years away.

Norsemen has been on my list for some time. I’ll have to try it.

But they could always swipe...which ever direction is a no (the dating sites I used predated Tinder and such, so...). Oh, and I tried eHarmony ages ago (like maybe 2002-ish), and they couldn't find me any matches in my area...like the closest was 90 miles away (and I live near a couple major cities). It was like, "You're too much of a weirdo for us to match with anyone."

I love David Mitchell. I've been watching a lot of Would I Lie To You clips lately.

I agree. Aren't these apps very visually oriented?

I did! Thank you for the idea! It turned out quite lovely, although I admit to being very biased about the subject matter. I was also working on ToddlerManatee's baby book this morning, the kind where you fill in the blanks for the kid's first word and details of their first birthday. I have been digging through old texts and looking at old pictures to jog my memory. If I ever do this again, I'll try a little harder to fill in all this stuff as it happens!

I figured out how few clients Liz must be seeing in person right now when I finally broke down (pun intended!) and asked her how I am supposed to blow my nose with the mask situation. She looked at me like, "Um. I don't know?" She decided the procedure is to open the door for me (so I don't touch anything) and then have me go into the hallway outside her office. Weird times.

I just saw that gingerbread oreos are a thing! must find this delicious-sounding limited edition delicacy.

I don't know if I have ever had gingerbread.

I just had cranberry sauce this year (from Denny's). I have to say I was not impressed. I don't get why everyone gets all excited about it. Maybe it is better homemade?

That's really awkward. It's one of the things I'd be worried about if I were to go back in person with masks required. I cry a lot during therapy. It would be totally awkward if I had to leave the room anytime I needed to blow my nose or wipe my eyes. I think it would lead me to avoid any emotional topics.

Out of curiosity, are you allowed to take a drink of water (or coffee or whatever) in there? I also tend to drink water some during session, so that would be an issue, too. I told Dr. T at one point that if the options were in person with both of us wearing masks or virtual, I'd rather just stay virtual, I think. (I mean, maybe I'd try once with the mask.) But he and I both seem pretty freaked out by COVID, and numbers are rising in my state (after a long general plateau), so I don't see him even trying in person anytime before, say, April.

Do you have a Whole Foods near you? Not certain they still have it, but they make good gingerbread at the bakery. It's quite good. If you've had pumpkin bread before, it's sort of like that but without the pumpkin.


Now I want some gingerbread...

My brother has been sending me a tin of german gingerbread every year around this time. It's delicious!! Much different from the sweet, hard/crunchy 'gingerbread men' cookies here in the US. It's more cake-like, not as sweet, and has like shredded ginger in it (I think, it looks like that, I can't read the labels as they're all in german) My sister in law sent me her recipe but I haven't made it yet, it's pretty labor-intensive.

I wonder if anyone makes gingerbread bagels. Yum sounding!!

When we started to go back to in person, I was worried about the crying situation and masks. T said we're trying to protect each other the best we can, if we need to blow our noses or something then that's okay.

Now that I've been back to in person for quite a while, I mostly just get my mask wet when I cry. He has never mentioned it. But I also don't usually blow my nose when crying... I also don't drink or eat anything there, but I never have been doing that.

Finished my assignment that's due tonight and got it turned in. One more class meeting woo! And one last assignment due a week from today. I see the light at the end of the tunnel and it's not a train! It's daylight! double woo!

Ready to take a semester or two off from school and start cooking again. I have 3 cookbooks sitting here on my desk I've started browsing through for meal ideas

*flops onto couch, whimpers*

HUGS @LostOnTheTrail

No, no whole foods. I live in a town. Like not a city. And it's kind of rural--think lots of horses. I think the nearest Whole Foods might be an hour away or more. I've never been to one. We don't have Trader Joe's either. I do like pumpkin bread so maybe I would like gingerbread.

I'm going to do more toy shopping! My Church is doing both Christmas Dinner Baskets (though it's in a bag, I don't know why we call it baskets) and a Christmas Toy thing where we signed up neighborhood children to receive a toy like 5 days before Christmas. I wasn't too excited about the food baskets even though I usually donate to the food distribution each month but I was way more excited about the toys. I already had adopted several families. I told the youth minister who is in charge of it to let me know if she still needed someone to adopt families and she had three families still that needed adopting, so I took another family--they have 5 children, so as soon as she sends me the gender and ages I can go Toy shopping! Most of my sister's children are too big for toys. Only the younger two still get toys for me so I am excited about buying toys.

D (coming down stairs): "Get out of my way!" Me: "Say 'excuse me.'" D: "EXCUSE ME! I'm coming through!" Me: [sigh].

I don't really mind the hallway thing because there has never been anybody beside us in the office suite (maybe the entire building?) when I've been there. I usually let the tears fall behind my mask, but my nose often starts to run when I'm crying. Even so, I'll only need to blow it once or twice a session, and she might develop a less awkward protocol when she has time to think about it.

I'm pretty careful in general, but in person therapy is just so much more productive for me, and I do feel good about her practice's precautions. That and using daycare are our only two risky activities.

I'm not sure about drinking. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have brought water to session. I feel like using a straw might be okay but probably not anything that involved taking off my mask.

Sounds like my nieces and nephews!

It's fun buying toys for things like this isn't it? The past several years I've been helping my friend with the Christmas in July thing the non-profit her step dad works for puts on every summer. She and I have been going out and buying toys for it and then we both help with the event. We didn't get to do it this year of course because of stupid Covid. Boo! Instead they're doing a scaled-down version next weekend that I'm going to go help with, I don't think the kids get to come this time - probably just the parents will be coming to pick up gift bags for their kids. At least it's something, but the July event was always SO much fun - the families who signed up would each be assigned times to come, so that we would have staggered small groups of kids going into the 'toy room' and we'd direct them to the table of age-appropriate toys and they got to pick whatever toy they wanted. I loved seeing their eyes light up when they saw the choices! My friend and I are always fierce with our clearance/sales shopping so we could get the most good stuff possible with the budget we had.

Last night i dreamed i was in relationship with the T is saw twice last year. We lived in a house with strange outdoor rooms it was weird