4 posts tagged with "covid"

As I'm (hopefully) winding down this bout with COVID, I'm excited to start my second season as a dad and dancer this month. My youngest son, Atticus, has danced professionally for a number of years, and one of the opportunities his dance company offers to students and their families is called Dads and Dancers (I like to refer to it as DnD). Basically the students and their dads (or another family member) practice up a dance piece every week over the winter months and then perform it a few times during competition season.

No "newbie" jitters this year​

Last year was my first year with DnD, and I was nervous! Not so much that I couldn't handle the choreography, but because Atticus is super competitive, and made it clear that I better "bring it" or I'd basically be a huge, embarrassing failure - not just to him, but to the whole dad group, and essentially all humankind.

Even though the weekly practices weren't at my favorite time of week (Friday nights), I had a great time getting to know the other dancers and their dads. I especially enjoyed the "safety meeting" we had after each practice (which was an off-site hangout with pizza, wings and beverages :-). And heck, the dancing went pretty well too! Here's a shot of me doing my best to hoist Atti in the air so he can show off his splits:

This pic is hilarious to me as I get ready to start this year's DnD season because Atti is as tall as I am now. Maybe he'll hoist me in the air this year!

COVID diet continues​

I mentioned that over the past few days I've had a very limited appetite thanks to COVID. I'm a little concerned because today some foods taste...odd. Specifically, tonight Aimee prepared some chicken for dinner. That tasted fine, but I always eat chicken (and pretty much every other food but scrambled eggs) with an obscene amount of ketchup, and this time the ketchup tasted like copper! I almost spit it out onto my plate! I sanity checked this by having Cam and Aimee taste test the ketchup, and they thought nothing was wrong with it. This is the only food that has tasted funky, and my sense of smell is fine. So what does that all mean? No idea. But it's kind of freaking me out. Anyway, today I ate:

• 1 mint cocoa

• 1 caffeinated ice

• 2 pieces of pizza

• 2 chicken nuggets

• 1 apple

• 1 taco

A friend asked me, "What exactly constitutes your so-called COVID diet? Seems like you're just eating smaller amounts of unhealthy foods." Exactly, friend. Exactly.

Rolling into day 3 of COVID, my wife and I have been comparing side effects. One (and I know this may be just a coincidence) that's unique to me is I developed two huge canker sores directly under my tongue. Fortunately it only hurts a lot when I talk, eat food or drink. With limited appetite this is not really a problem, but then I got the b-day present my parents left for me while I was out of town:

The Skitt-dilemma​

Skittles and Starburst are my favorite candies ever. But to even look at them in packaging right now is making the back of my mouth fill with bile. However, we recently got an air fryer, and I found quite a few videos on using one to create freeze dried treats. Maybe out of sheer morbid curiosity I'll make a batch tomorrow and then enjoy them when the canker sores clear up. Of course...that's probably just inviting a new batch of sores to setup shop in my mouth, so maybe I just take the plunge right now?

Appetite is still jacked​

Only things I've found to sit well in my stomach today:

• Mint hot cocoa

• Pepsi

• Bag of lime rice

• Bag of trail mix

• Cheese stick

• A couple apples

COVID = no joke​

Let me be clear: COVID has not been fun and I'm not making light of it in any way. The Mrs. was exhausted - hibernating under covers for most of the daylight hours. She got exhausted from even a short walk around the kitchen. Also, I know this illness hits people in strange ways - and for long periods of time - with a potpourri of symptoms and complications. That part still freaks me out.

Fevers can be fun?​

But (and maybe I'm going to curse myself by writing this) one good side effect for me has been this constant light fever that I can tell is making my heart race juuuuuuust a little bit. The reason I consider this a good thing is it has kind of put me in this mellow, chill state of mind even though my body feels like literal hot trash. I've found myself feeling optimistic and thankful, which isn't crazy out of the ordinary or anything, but often when my mind is in neutral it says things like, "Hey, mind if I bring up this memory from 15+ years ago where you really hurt the feelings of someone you haven't seen since and probably hasn't thought of you since? ROLL THE TAPE IN HD PLEASE!"

Just call me Tony Robbins Jr.​

I get super easily annoyed at those overly peppy, "Go get the world by the tail!" life coach types, and I hate to say this but...I kind of feel like one of those today! I'm sure I will come to my senses tomorrow, but in the meantime I wanted to share an exercise I learned from (checks notes for source...and can't find source) about simple ways to get a tiny mood boost - and that is by regularly, either written or verbally, rattle off a freestyle list of things you are thankful for. Then end each one with "I'm thankful for that." That's it. No matter how small, simple or funny. Just do it. Here's one I started today:

• Both my eyes work. I'm thankful for that.

• I breathe without assistance from a machine. I'm thankful for that.

• Outside of, you know, COVID, our family has been very healthy. I'm thankful for that.

• My legs and arms work great. I'm thankful for that.

• We have good jobs that provide food and school and clothes and shelter for our boys. I'm thankful for that.

• We've got a neighbor who is like another dad to us and another grandpa to our sons. I'm thankful for that.

• I got to celebrate Christmas with a ton of great friends and family. I'm thankful for that.

• A situation that looked like it was going in the toilet today completely turned itself around at the last second. I'm thankful for that.

• ...and so on and so on...

From the "nobody cares" dept.​

Like I said yesterday, I promised myself I'd log my food intake for a bit in the new year - just to hold myself accountable and try to drop some poundage. Pretty proud of the list below, but can pretty much blame (thank?) COVID for my screwed up taste buds:

• Mint hot cocoa (yes, I'm addicted, mom. Back off.)

• Mountain Dew (yes, I said I'd stop Dews in the near year and I didn't mom. Back off.)

• Bag of trail mix

• Chicken noodle soup

• 1 piece of toast

• 1 apple

• 1 cheese stick

Why restart your blog? Nobody reads blogs anymore, right?​

Last year, after my wife's Facebook account was hacked (and recovered - read about that here) we had two scary realizations:

1. Facebook support is absolutely awful (unless you're famous or an "influencer").

2. Her Facebook account is probably the best log of our family's major life moments since our kids were born.

So this year, I wanted to publish some posts from my perspective and be able to easily download backups of everything just in case, God forbid, the site is hacked. (For nerds: this site is hosted by WPEngine which has been phenomenal so far.)

And yeah, maybe nobody will read this except me. That's ok, I just enjoy writing!

New year's resolutions and sicknesses​

My wife and I ended 2023 on an extreme high and low. We took a long weekend trip to Arizona sans kids so we could have some date nights - and also so I could do some indoor skydiving (all my posts on this topic are tagged with iFly) coached by Nik at AXIS Flight School. It was amazing! Check this out:

On the way home, we talked about how 2023 was kind of a rough year, and set some goals for 2024:

1. More patience with our parenting

2. Get to a place of peace more quickly when things are going south

3. Drop some weight and gain some muscle

Well, one day into 2024, I'm excited to say that #1 is going perfect (the kids are still at my parents' place :-), but #2 is already ruined. After both of us had a bout with coughing, runny noses and fevers, we took a COVID test and (drumroll please)...

Yeah, so that was a fun thing to celebrate! However, the silver lining here is that COVID has thrown off both of our appetites, which means that the 'rona has helped us start tackling goal #3! It's amazing how healthy eating comes easy when you have no appetite whatsoever. Can't taste or smell much.

Movie marathon​

I'll try to get some "formal" movie reviews posted, but here's what I've watched in the last 24 hours of being couch-ridden

• Saw X

• Upgrade

Food log​

File this under "nobody cares!" but towards the end of the day I got some taste back. Here's what my weird COVID appetite was able to handle:

• Mint hot cocoa from Caribou

• Bag of trail mix

• Bag of uncle Ben's lime rice

• A Mountain Dew

• A mountain of water

• Chicken noodle soup

• 2 Ritz crackers

Not the way I want to start losing weight in the new year but...umm...I'll take it!