October 31st in The Day To Day Ramblings

Today is so gray and rainy and October-y. The leaves are sticking to everything and there's a breeze and other than the uncharacteristic temps in the 60s, it is mid-autumn through and through around here. I'm hopeful the rain starts to taper off by trick or treating time as I bought a bunch of candy and an awesome outfit to wear (see below) and even got Claire a "rufferee" costume. It even has a little yellow penalty flag! Worse comes to worse though...it'll be me, a big bowl of candy and a ridiculously comfortable (and forgiving) onesie tonight. ;)

In other news, Rob got back some more blood work results yesterday and his cholesterol came back at 303. Goal is under 200 and anything over 240 is 'excessively high'. 303 is off the charts, especially for someone his age. I'm hoping it's a wakeup call to make some lifestyle changes but, again, it all rests with him. His doctor wanted to start him on meds but I really pushed back on that. He's 31 years old. He's also 100 lbs overweight. If we fix his weight, I am confident his cholesterol will improve drastically as he will need to fix his eating in order to lose weight. He's headed to the gym tonight with a friend (first time I have ever heard of him going to a gym - so a great first step!) thus my doing candy handout alone. There is nowhere else he needs to be more so I am more than willing to take over Halloween. I'm eager to hear what he thinks of it and we decided he can have a flat screen TV in the garage (something he has asking for since we moved in last year) if he loses 40 lbs. It's a reasonable goal and definitely a reward he really wants. Time shall tell!

Beyond that, I spent a long time reorganizing the house yesterday and finding spots for things that had just been clutter for the past few weeks. I actually went to Target (ahhh! My favorite place!) and got a bunch of those plastic bathroom drawers that go in cabinets and I put the miscellaneous bathroom accessories into each drawer. We have a first aid drawer, a nail care drawer, extra travel sized things drawer, etc. It looks so much cleaner and just being organized lowers my stress level. I also have a large pile of things to drop off at Goodwill and doing that is such a win win. I'm happy to help out a community program but also thrilled to rid my house of so much STUFF. Where does it all come from?!

I may or may not have also scored some red flannel king sized sheets on sale for $25 at Target. Putting those on next week and am already eagerly anticipating the first cozy snuggle in them!

I'm working all weekend and quite looking forward to it. Every new month during this time of year is one step closer to everyone being universally accepting of my Christmas music listening. I start officially listening on Oct 1st but I get a lot of pushback to listening to it in public...but November 1st and especially December 1st I get more and more people on board. By mid-December that's all you'll hear floating from the Pandora stations around the ICU. It isn't all strictly Christian music either. There are plenty of holiday tunes or simply choral music that just sounds gorgeous and lightens the mood in a stressful place. It never fails to put me in a great mood so I hope it brings cheer to patients and families as well. Some people eat chocolate or smoke cigarettes or drive really fast...I listen to Christmas music as much as I possibly can to manage my stress. To each their own, right? ;)

Happy Halloween everyone! May it be dry and a little warm and may you feel festive in your outfits! :)

P.S. I'm also thinking of doing a 'daily gratitude' type of thing on here in November. I won't be writing every day but I'm thinking I'll bullet point them at the bottom of my normal entries, just FYI. Feel free to join in - the more gratefulness, the better :)