2023 ~ April Recap

 

April ended ... time for a recap!

• Weather/Nature: Can you believe there was a SNOW day, in April? School moved online and Colton's basketball banquet had to reschedule. A little later in the month, we had some lovely showers with a rainbow though. Mid-month, all the grass seemed to turn green. Gray and Jen went and walked around the Capital to see the cherry blossoms in bloom. 
• Staying Active: We are pickleball people again, starting up our weekend sessions outdoors again. Jen is still Zumba-ing (with a little break this month ... yeah for backup teachers!) and she, Coop, Colton and Landon share the home gym. Gray has been hiking, and biking. Symphony Homes has a hiking challenge going, and Grayson wants to be king of the mountain!
• Basketball: The high school season officially ended with the end of year banquet and awards. Colton has been training with Coach Scott on Mondays and some Saturdays, with Metro every other weekend, and had his first travel tournament in Arizona (traveled with the team). 
• Gray's Getaways: Grayson and Landon flew out to San Diego to have a weekend in the sun and have a little fun. 
• ER Again: Jen fell down and broke her crown. Again. Details here ...

Other activities this month ... four of the SuperSmash(Blackham)Bros went to see the Mario movie, Aunt Olivia made a haircut housecall, Colton had Prom and there was some Blackham Blackjack in play. On the Westra side, it was McKenna's baby shower, and it was fun to see all the updates to the Havenmoor House and visit with family. We had some annoying power outages (Power Ponderings). Lots of family bought expensive FunkyPop Popcorn (Colton's basketball fundraiser), we had Skookie and ate the last of the shaped Reeses (now we have to wait until the pumpkins come out for Halloween. But that should be ... July?)

Here's a look at the month - one second style

https://youtu.be/G_vjrW4ZQwI

Power Ponderings

 

Monday, April 24, early in the morning, there was that sound ... "shvooom" then silence. Everything in the house had powered off. It only lasted a moment, then "shvoom" and things powered up again. Lots of beeping. A grinding sound from the ice maker. The washing machine was agitating again on it's own. The clothes dryer required a manual restart. My laptop re-booted, but still needed a nudge to bring up the monitor. The older desktop computer was off, and I knew it's restart would probably take 10 minutes. It doesn't like not being turned off correctly. 

I moved to the microwave and hit the required buttons ... clock, the numbers for the correct time, clock again. At least it's easy. Next up, resetting  the stove. Let's see ... clock, start, 3 for a.m., now input the time, now clock again and done.... and "shvooom". Really? Again? I'm glad I hadn't even tried to turn on the desktop. I was heading out for a little while, and hoped things would be back on when I got back. "Shvoom" ... the power was on. That was good, as since Grayson changed out the garage door opener I'm not sure how to detach it and open manually to get the car out. 

When I got back a while later, the microwave was blinking. I'd reset the clock there before I left (again) so the power had shut-off at least one more time while I was gone.  It continued to happed a few more times during the day. Once, while Cooper was on the treadmill running at a good speed. That is NOT a good time to have things come to a sudden stop. Luckily he was able to catch himself without injury. There in the home gym, the elliptical and the recumbent bike aren't plugged in, so even without electricity, one could work out with them. Of course normally we have the television keeping us entertained, and a fan blowing to keep us cool. 

I remember the tragedy of a power outage when the kids were younger. "What can we do?" I think I even had a list of things (play a board game, battery powered games ~ this was when the handheld Nintendo devices were popular. Now, everyone has an iphone, hopefully fully charged. Read a book, play ping pong, take a nap, play outside. This would also be impacted by the time of day (or night rather ... candles or flashlights needed?) and temperature (no a/c, thermostat) could be a complication with any extended outage. 

The off/ons continued Tuesday. Social media can help determine how widespread the issue is. This time, it seemed to just be our little neighborhood loop. Someone said they had made a call to Rocky Mountain Power to make sure they were aware and looking into the issue. Every time the power would cycle, the router would take several minutes to get back online. Thank goodness for cell service. It was also a perfectly nice day weather-wise. Not to hot, not too cold ... which made us wonder WHAT was going on as wind/snow/heat wasn't part of the problem. 

I was glad it was a "make" day for sourdough, as this would have made baking difficult (I did do some baking on Tuesday and had to turn the oven back on once after an outage to finish up my bread). The ice maker had been malfunctioning, and as I heard it "griiiind" every time it powered back up, I rather hoped this might kick-start it back into functioning (limited success here, it did start pouring water in, I got a huge hunk of ice). It's funny to notice the random little things ... like the heated toilet seat. So spoiled! You never know the joy of a toasty tushy until it's turned off. The master shower had recently been renovated and these power stops and starts screwed something up with it. Sometimes we can get too technical ... there are no knobs to turn the water on manually! It was able to get back in business after being unplugged for a bit. 

While this was really a minor inconvenience, it was annoying. I went ahead and restarted my computer and was writing an email to Gray to give him an update and 'schvooom' ... oh, I hope it had auto-saved my email! 

Power ... it's powerful. Happy that 99% of the time it's smooth sailing.

Oops - Jen Did It Again

 

Early in 2022 ... we had a medical scare when I blacked out in the kitchen one Sunday evening.  I smacked my head as I fell. We weren't sure if it was a seizure, there was some shaking, but it was hard to know what was related to blacking out, and what might have been a result of hitting my head. That accident was documented here on the blog (Jen Fell Down and Broke Her Crown). Trying to look at the positive side, at least it happened in January that year, and then after we'd paid a number of bills, we hit our deductible and out-of-pocket for the year. 

There were a number of follow-up tests ... an echocardiogram to check the heart, a consult with neurology and an EEG and MRI. No red flags, no explanations. I recovered with no ill effects and we hoped it was a "one and done" ... but alas, it happened again. 

It was a Saturday night, Easter was the next day. I figured I'd make a quick run to the store to grab a few things. I'd been at Smiths about 15 minutes; I was pretty much done with the shopping. The next thing I knew, I was in the Emergency Room. Gray and Landon were there. I couldn't believe it had happened again ... not only blacking out, but also cracking my head. Ambulance. ER. The whole thing.  While the head laceration seemed to be a bit worse than the January incident, and I had no memory for a full 40minutes, overall it didn't seem quite as bad. There was a little nausea, but I didn't throw up. I had been unable to move for hours after the first fall and was feeling absolutely awful, but this time I was able to talk, joke around a bit, and was discharged after a couple hours. At home, I took a shower and then headed to bed. 

While Jordan Valley Hospital is nice and close, just a minute away from both the Smiths store and home - it is NOT an in-network hospital (something I am all to aware of, dealing with an insurance issue from last year ... remember how I said everything else SHOULD have been covered for the rest of the year?) I think this was one of the first things I was concerned about once I regained lucidity. It should be okay, as it was an emergency, but it's always stressful dealing with medical bills and insurance. We are lucky we have a decent plan though.

We had a pretty low-key Easter Sunday ... there were no Easter baskets laid out, although there was a mysterious "Easter Emergency" bag with some Reeses eggs. I had an impressive bruise on my arm where I'd had the IV, and a blood blister on my finger where the pulse ox had been monitoring. I had a bit of a head ache, but nothing extreme.  After the Jan2022 boom, my jaw was super sore and my tongue was aching where I'd bitten it. I hadn't felt anything like that this time, but when I went to try to eat and drink, I did have some difficult and realized I had bitten my tongue pretty good again. 

Things were pretty much back to normal on Monday, with the guys going to work and school. I did NOT go to Zumba, but I did still prep the playlist and one of the gals came and picked it up and lead the class (and delivered the bread, that I'd still baked on Easter). I went ahead and made some more sourdough too. I was quite cautious for a while, staying at home, I tried a little treadmill walk after a few days. Slowly got back to life ...

As the incident happened at Smiths, we (and the police) had looked into video footage. We were able to get a copy and have that forwarded to my doctor if that might provide any clues as to what steps are next. Got the stitches out after two weeks. I hope my hair will cover up the scar ... Grayson has a couple small scars on his head that are visible, because he doesn't wear his hair long (what hair you say?) I've got a LOT of hair, but it is a bit on the natural part, and so far has still been showing. 

Hopefully we'll get some answers, and something to stop this from happening again!