Weekly Update #2
An exciting week, full of driving around and anticipation of change.
Time for another weekly update. Not that my life is so packed with events that it warrants a weekly post about what’s going on. This week, however, was pretty exciting.
Vaccinated, Part 1
Just over a week ago I received an email from Washington Health Department that all of a sudden I’m eligible to get my COVID vaccine. This is not the kind of situation where you ask ”why” or ”are you sure?”. I immediately went ahead and tried to book an appointment. The only place that still had one was Walgreens in Bremerton. Bremerton is a town around Naval Base Kitsap; it’s about 50 miles and a ferry ride from home. But if it’s literally the last available appointment within 50 miles from home, I’ll take it. And so I did. I took a day off work, and all in all, got myself a nice little road trip, 2 cruises (go ahead, convince me that taking a ferry is nothing like a cruise, I dare you!); I had my shot, lunch in a nice restaurant, and a ton of awesome pictures. My next visit to Bremerton for my second shot is scheduled for May 4.
A couple of quick notes about the shot itself:
The injection site ached for about two days as if someone punched there with their fist. If you don’t touch it or make certain moves that engage those specific muscles around the shot, it’s easy to forget that it’s there.
I felt fatigued and sleepy the next day, this wore off entirely by Day 3.
Other than that, my first shot was entirely uneventful.
House hunting
We are still doing this wierd house-hunting thing. As I mentioned before, the market is absolutely wild: buyers are either desperate or have way too much money, and sellers are listing houses with the expectation that they will have dozens of offers and will sell for at least 100K over their initial asking price. Real estate agents are not too interested in “difficult” buyers. And we are very much “difficult”. We don’t want to overpay, we have a set budget, a set of reasonable requirements for the house itself and for its location. But being reasonable can’t compete with wild Californian money and desparate folks who’ve been hunting for a house for half a year, had dozens of their offers rejected and will do anything to get a house.
We are not in a rush, though, and are able to keep hunting. No results so far.
We are still exploring both buying and building, but chances are that we’ll have to make a decision one way or another sometime fairly soon.
Home school?
Another development that I’m consumed by at the moment is withdrawing our son from school. Since before the pandemic he struggled at school, and this past year only made things worth. And since schooling is not going to change dramatically for him even when we go full in-person, we decided that we’ll take matters in our own hands. So far it seems like a very doable and rewarding idea, yet it presents a bunch of challenges that we are not yet sure we know how to approach. One of the difficulties that I’ve encountered so far is that most homeschooling happens for religious reasons and many materials and advice based on the assumption that parents are looking for some sort of religious angle in education. Not our case, so we are looking around. Still, it’s interesting and exciting. I’ll keep you posted.
New therapist
I started seeing a new therapist using Talkspace. I’m lucky enough to have it covered by my health insurance, and it’s really convenient since sessions are all video/text in the app. So far it looks like we’ve connected really well, and that this new therapist is a better match for me. I guess what I’m trying to say is that sometimes it takes a while to actually find a therapist that you just “click” with. And I promise you, it’s a very nice feeling.
That’s it for today. This next week is going to be even more exciting. Can’t wait!