Our second jab is this morning, so I’m writing this post earlier than I usually do.
Don concocted something tasty in the crock pot yesterday, so we’re set if we end up not feeling well. But I trust we’ll be fine. It’s going to be rainy today and tomorrow, so we’ll kick back and take it easy, if I don’t go mad trying to complete the tricky jigsaw puzzle I’m working on.
I think we’ll both feel greatly relieved when we’ve had the second shot. I imagine those of you who have already been fully vaccinated felt the same thing. We had to wait four weeks between our first and second shots, so it’s been a long time coming – at least, to us.
More egg cups, in the Harlequin pattern by Homer Laughlin, circa midcentury or earlier. I’d love to get a couple more in other colors. Two of these were gifts and soon after I received them, I found two more. And that’s a Bakelite napkin ring.
I very seldom decorate for holidays – the exception being Christmas. But I usually display my fabric Easter eggs. For some reason, I haven’t done that this year. But I need a splash of pastels, so I’m going to get them out this afternoon.
Okay my friends. I’m off to make more coffee. Sorry this is so short!
Stay safe.
Happy Wednesday.
Good luck today!
Wishing you both a cozy rest-of-day once back home with crockpot :)
Thank you, Naomi!
Stay safe.
1) you know I love seeing your egg cups! 2) good luck on your 2nd shot – my appt for my 2nd moderna shot is at 9:40 am today . I am so ready to be fully vaccinated, but also fully intend to continue to mask up, social distance, etc too. I am taking no risks! I hope, like you guys, that I don’t have any ‘side effect’ from the 2nd dose; I had sore arm, fatigue 1st shot but no biggie! So Good Luck to you guys today too!!! HAPPY DANCE – we will be fully vaccinated !!!
Yay! Congratulations!
Stay safe, Dawn.
It is a big relief to get the 2nd vaccine. I hope it all goes smoothly for you and you don’t have many side effects after. We had very minimal effects…sore arm, a little fatigue after.
Take care
Thank you, Marilyn!
Stay safe.
Hooray for Vax No. 2! You both certainly worked hard to make this happen. Enjoy your low-key day knowing that there is some light at the end of this long tunnel.
Thank you, Nora.
Stay safe!
Good for you getting your 2nd shot! Rest easy…..Enjoy a relaxing day!
Thank you, Mamey!
Stay safe!
I had Pfizer… a couple of days ago. No trouble at all: after half a day the arm started to hurt and that kept on for 24 hours, nothing more. Now I’m all set for the second jab — in over five weeks from now, ouch.
Hope things go smoothly with you!
Thank you, Petra!
Stay safe.
Good luck with your 2nd dose! I am on a will-call list (I was a walk-in for my 1st dose) so when they have an extra they will call and I will pop right over. I live nearby. Hoping it is soon!
Hope it’s soon, Ellen.
Stay safe!
I love your fidibus. :-) I wish I had one.
Thank you, Regula!
Stay safe.
I had my second shot and only had a little fatigue. Took a nap for about an hour. Woke up fine. Good luck.
Thank you, Cindy!
Stay safe.
Good luck on the second vaccine! It is a great feeling to be fully vaccinated. I spoke too soon when I said I did not have any issues with the 2nd dose. It hit me pretty hard the day after. But by the next morning I felt fine. Using your crockpot is a good idea just in case! Have a wonderful day!
Thank you, April!
Stay safe!
I too get my second dose today. I think I’ll get some champagne to celebrate. In two weeks, I’m headed to Tennessee to see my 23 year old son, who I haven’t seen since Jan. 2020! I can’t wait!
Congratulations! We’re celebrating with sparkling cider this evening!
Glad you’re going o get to see your son, Kim.
Stay safe!
Hope all goes well today…and afterward! It was a good idea of Don to prepare a meal or two for the upcoming days. I had a couple meals in the freezer if necessary….but it wasn’t. There was/is a huge relief afterwards though. I was surprised. Course, there is the two week waiting period til we are totally immunized. If we have to mask up and continue to social distance, it’s a small price to pay for good health in my book. Stay safe! ;)
Thank you, Donna.
Stay safe!
Hope the after effects are minimum for both you and Don, Claudia! I was slammed for two days with body aches, fever, and fatigue after my 2nd Pfizer. My daughter gets her 2nd Pfizer this morning. Your egg cups are wonderful, but i really like the Bakelite napkin holder…I love birds!
Thank you, Wendy!
Stay safe.
I hope you have a little chocolate around to help celebrate your second vaccination! I couldn’t believe the relief we felt after getting our second shot. Of course we still mask up and social distance and will do so for as long as needed.
Good luck to you both and have a wonderful day.
Thank you, Cathy!
Stay safe.
I love the Harlequin egg cups. The colors are so pretty and I would love to get more also. I hope you feel fine after the 2nd shot. I felt fine the day of the shot but the next day, not so great. However it passed quickly. It’s raining but I have an errand so off I go anyway. I am full vaccinated and it’s been over 2 wks since my 2nd shot and the relief is real! Stay Safe!
Thank you, Linda!
Stay safe!
I felt as though a thousand pound weight had been lifted from my shoulders — and even more two weeks after. I had a low fever for a day and tired, a headache but not a killer one. You’ll be fine.
Good luck with it all. I’m in love with the Homer Laughlin egg cups!
Thank you, Jeanie!
Stay safe.
I got my second yesterday. I slept through the night and my arm is sore and I have a slight headache. The headache is semi normal for me. It could be from something else. And I do feel less depressed.
Love the picture of the matches. So lovely.
Congratulations, Jan!
Stay safe.
So strange to hear of people’s side effects if any on the second Moderna dose (I don’t know much about Pfizer’s; my family-care physician had her Pfizer second dose WEEKS ago and her only real side effect was utter fatigue, temporary, which is a common refrain I hear as well with Moderna (and I did experience a few hours of it on day-of the jab, but it was so manageable, and I’d planned for it, so I just laid down on the sofa and took it easy-peasy).
Talking to a friend on the phone yesterday, her husband didn’t have a one effect, works full time at an office (age 75), got his second injection at end of one day and was back to work early the next; she had, and I’ve never heard this before, the oddest sort of bang-pang (flash of) pain to her ears, only lasted randomly over a couple of hours, first in one ear, then after a bit of time, the other; a back and forth with no real rhythm. Made me think of the people who get migraines with the virus or the vaccine. And, see, my husband had a pulsing sensation, as if blood was coursing thru his body or was he hearing his own heartbeat?!! (Of course he did have the body aches the second time around as well as the fever/chills, but he just went to sleep for 15 hrs[!!] and bounced back like a healthy kid. Then, I was reading about the TV food cook Sandra Lee (who I think had been in a relationship some years ago with the what-seems-to-be-sadly-disgraced Andrew Cuomo), and I think this short article came out of Prevention magazine online, who either got Covid or the vaccine, I didn’t read it well enough but I think it was the actual virus, but who experienced weird pinging pain. As if the ‘inside of [her] body felt like a pinball machine had gone off … with the metal ball pinging all over the place’, from stomach and what apparently felt like straight thru the heart, just making a continual loop.
So, my husband’s second jab was this pulsing, Sandra Lee got the pinging, and my friend got the panging; wth? My husband’s sister is a former trauma/ER/surgical/ICU nurse who was on the front lines with Ebola and she told him that this pinging, panging, pulsing effect is from the brain; a nerve bundle at the base of the brain, which swells and makes some of the nerves in the overall body be extra sensitive. That’s not a doctor’s explanation; just hers. But, wow, this virus and its antidote of the vaccine is one strange beast.
You are in my thoughts today, you and Don; just rest up and I pray you just sail thru as I did!
In the meantime, I’m in violent Santa Ana winds and it’s only 10:45 am PST but we’re already 80 degrees. Ugh.
Thank you, Vicki!
Stay out of the wind!
Stay safe.
I had to also wait four weeks between shots (I don’t know anybody who didn’t; I guess Pfizer folks had three weeks? [most of who I know had Moderna in my part of SoCalif, which is the 4-week interval]) but, I have to admit, and I don’t mean to be a killjoy, maybe because I’d gotten so amped/anxietous over months of whether or not I’d ever GET a vaccine or, if I did, react horribly to it due to my health history, but also because I had no trauma in the process because my doctor arranged everything and made it so incredibly easy for both my husband and I to get vaccinated, with us essentially being held by the hand thru the whole thing at a medical clinic (very lucky in this regard and I don’t take it lightly), getting vaccinated became, for me, a real anticlimax. But maybe what you wrote in your post today will make me examine this further of why I feel this way.
Okay, so fine, I’m vaccinated; maybe it’ll mean I won’t die now; that if I somehow still get exposure with Covid or a variant, maybe I can stay out of the hospital. In the meantime, we learn to live with ‘pandemic’; as my husband said last night, this is all probably going to be part of our lives now, maybe as an ongoing thing, if not Covid, something else; so, we learn to live with a threat, cope with modifications to daily life as we’ve learned to do now. We’re not unique! People in other countries try to go on with their lives amid war and other pestilence, right?!
My husband did FINALLY (yesterday) get a haircut (he’s only had two haircuts in 15 months, and he has a wild head of hair for an old guy/abundance of hair on the head); so, that’s something new for us; that’s a new choice post-vaccine; we may even for the first time in ‘forever’ go inside a grocery store this week after SO many months of curbside pickup or instacart and other types of home delivery. (I’d like to go pick out my own food for Easter dinner. I simply MUST have hot-cross buns from the local bakery.) These are the differences in our small, quiet life. We’ll take it one step at a time.
My aforementioned friend is tentatively planning two small/modest vacations, all within our California, over four months after July, but she’s leaving it subject to change and has reservations with good cancellation policies. (She’s also gathering at Easter; eleven people, all her family, everybody’s been vaccinated; dinner at her home. Her husband and she celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last week at a local, fine-dining restaurant with an outdoor patio, well-distanced from any other patrons; only a party of eight at their table, and all four couples were vaccinated; the servers were masked. Made me nervous; then I had to think of why and remember she’s not doing anything the experts have said she shouldn’t So, again, tentative steps, but I think we’re all poised to be flexible on the entire subject.)
If we have to lockdown to a larger degree again, we all know we can cope with it; we are very familiar with the drill now! (At least us retirees who have the privilege of being home. It’s the rest of folks, and I have them in my family, who it impacts so much more; having to go out every day to a job, deal with kids in school or then out of school; who are still trying to do volunteer work, etc. Too many of them are still not vaccinated for a variety of reasons.)
Anyway, this is how I’m feeling today, but my feelings/emotions/thoughts are often all over the place in whether I’m safe (to what degree), how to stay safe, where can we relax (like on what), etc. I don’t know how I’d feel about getting on a crowded plane, subway, train or bus; I don’t think I’m ‘there’ yet but, thankfully, I also don’t really have to do any of that; I’m fortunate. My husband is back at work today, his old job, helping out at their request; but he knows the task at hand, he’s not near a lot of people at this point with the work (if he just doesn’t get too caught up in it and forget to distance himself with those people who ARE there, but he was assured they’re being careful, too; it’s a mutual respect, so this is a do-able situation; that may change, and he has two major freelance jobs that are beginning to go off ‘hold’, so these are decisions still to be made as to just how comfortable he’ll feel, although we need the money; the supplemental income which was hoped to be part of our retirement [and frankly, he needs the ‘activity’, but not at his health risk {like, one of these jobs is out of state; one is out of the country; for us, these are BIG decisions ahead of us yet in 2021}]). For my husband and I, we’re still pondering the re-entry, keeping an eye out and an ear open; isn’t everybody?!!
So I have to keep coming down to Earth and remembering again, okay, I’m fully vaccinated. This is necessary protection. We’ve tried to do everything right all along the way to protect ourselves and others. And that’s just the way it will still go. But, like, having that home inspector in every room of my house on Monday, as we come nearer to the conclusion of our mortgage loan refi? I could never have endured that pre-vaccination (or six months ago); I would have been ‘way too scared to have her in my home. She was careful, we were careful; a year ago, we all still didn’t really know what to do; now we do. There is definitely that sense of relief of being at less risk, so I don’t know why exactly I think ‘things’ have seemed anticlimactic. Maybe it’s just an emotional letdown in a good way. I dunno; don’t listen to me!! It’s still all feeling ‘new’ as we only just got our second jab three weeks ago, and most of our focus has been on our loan refi and the photographing of our home with that lender.
I came upon the sobering paperwork where I’d written out something of my husband’s and my conversation in March 2020 as to where things stood with us and how we were going to proceed with ‘life’ in a vicious pandemic, and I wrote down that it was entirely possible we’d die due to our scary underlying medical conditions which would make the virus in us a likely fatal enemy, at least for me more than him, so what did I need to find for the relative who’s my power of attorney if it couldn’t be my husband; were our end-of-life matters in order; who could know what to do with our dog, etc. It was a lot of fear. But I’ve faced fear and death before as I’ve dealt with significant, life-threatening cancer. You don’t go crazy; can’t ‘lose it’; have to just deal and find your strength, but I can get very methodical /rational and calm about it for as nuts as I am with other things which have happened in my life. I guess my point is, what a diff a year makes, and indeed a feeling of a solution to the problem by way of a vaccination to help defeat the enemy virus. Action and a solution are always a good thing. The wallowing and in-limbo or lack of decision-making is what drives me off the cliff.
You know, I’ve had so much hair loss this past year; I’ve got your fine hair, Claudia, but I’ve always had A LOT of it on my head; boy, not now. Ongoing wads of hair in the hairbrush; in the shower. I’ve talked to the doctor about it when it was becoming quite apparent last summer of Covid, so she’s fully apprised, I’ve had some tests; I was sure it was due to one of my prescription medications; she said it’s happened to a lot of her patients; it’s stress. I don’t like this thin hair and who knows if it’ll grow back. On a similar kind of note, I have a friend who’s spent all this time very alone in her house and I was shocked when I saw her in a curbside drive-by when I dropped off a gift to her because she’s gained a worrisome amount of weight; stress-eating and the Covid Weight Gain. If you’re not a person who can manage stress well, and I’ve never been adept at it, events like 911, pandemic, threat to democracy, etc., are … difficult (when you’ve always already got some level of worry hovering on any number of issues).
I was in some limited grief therapy around the time of 911 and the family counselor I was seeing said that watching 911 on TV, day after day, week after week of stories and news, was about the worst thing for a person who was already diagnosed with depression and/or anxiety. So, a lot of people were hurting. There’s always another person who’s been even more affected by it, but everybody’s got their own hot buttons for stress. I’ll get annoyed with myself because a lot of what I get jacked up over is nothing compared to others who’ve lost loved ones to the virus; who are frontline workers; who’ve lost small businesses. We will all have a story to tell but I do think we’re changed; I can’t see that humans will live as they did pre-virus; but, again, who knows; the memory can be short.
Can’t predict the future, so it’s back to what always matters; to make today count.
If we’re at the beach, sitting in the car, and a bicyclist or jogger goes by without a mask and coughs right into our car window, I don’t think I’ll be going into some kind of frenzied panic like I did some months back. That’s what the vaccination protection does; it helps tamp down that rabid fear of a still-unknown foe (virus) whose aim is to kill and maim. I’d really like to stop disinfecting items coming into my home, like the grocery products; letting the mail disinfect for 24 hrs, all of which we continue to do; I’m totally sick of it of course. We might break down and finally pick up a fast-food, fake-meat burger soon; have a treat. Oh man would I love a french fry. But I don’t see myself going out and hugging a line of strangers; I wouldn’t have done that before Covid anyway. There was always flu to worry about at certain times of year. Etc.
I’ll shut up now. I need more sleep and I’m rambling rather than having any kind of cohesive comment here. It’s just that you often post about stuff that hits right to the core of the moment, Claudia. This blog is such a touchstone.
We had Pfizer, and most Pfizer vaccs are three weeks apart. Ours were not, most likely because of appt. availability.
I took a nap and woke up fully aware of the enormity of what just happened. One year and two weeks after lockdown, we are fully vaccinated. And then I thought about the over 500,000 people who weren’t so fortunate. And I’m humbled.
Oh, Claudia; you almost just made me cry; you’re always so eloquent. I’m so glad you’re vaccinated. And you’re right; we can never forget a half million of us dead; it is too heartbreaking to sometimes even try to contemplate, understand, come to terms with; and to think of the devastated families left behind. No other word but tragedy and heartbreak. You’ve humbled ME. Your perspective is always spot on. Best to Don as well.
xoxo
Had my 2nd jab on Monday and so far no side effects, maybe just a tad more tired. Hope you both do well!! Enjoy your crockpot dinner. Jen
Glad you’re doing well, Jen!
Stay safe.
Congratulations on your 2nd shot!
Your photos today are fabulous.
Thank you, Janice.
Stay safe.
Congratulations, and welcome to the ranks of Fully Vaccinated (at least for the moment)!! Hope all went well and you are both getting some rest. Only 14 more days to have the best immunity. Our numbers are going up again, of course, but I seem to be handling it a bit better. Our kids get their 2nd shots in 2 weeks. Will be so happy when they are completed, as well.
Take care!!!!
Thank you, Chris!
Stay safe.
I had Pfizer also three weeks exactly.
Again Indiana did a fantastic job. Florida not so much.
I was told to drink tons of water and stay active. Take Ex s Tylenol
I did it all and did fine
Was a little tired after second but prob from packing to move. It seems the more active one is the less soreness etc. at least my family, friends, and I have found this advice to be worthwhile. Good luck
I always drink a lot of water, so that was no problem for me!
Thanks, Brenda.
Stay safe.
Reading how many of us are vaccinated now gives me hope for the future! It seemed like a long time coming and now there is more than a light at the end of the tunnel, there is an actual end of the tunnel!
Like others, I’m still going to be very cautious and intentional in my choices. At least I won’ t have to worry than I’m risking my life by grocery shopping!
Our second Pfizer had less side effects than the first–go figure. Or maybe we were fully hydrated and did some heavy lifting that mitigated the post-jab effects? I hope you and Don are equally lucky. Enjoy your easy dinner and relieved minds.
We’re fine today – just a sore arm. Drinking lots of water, but I always do that.
Say safe, Roxie.
I am so very happy that you have had the second shot! Mine is on the 10th. I am so very extremely grateful to have gotten the first and will be even more so with the second, but I don’t forget for a moment all those who didn’t get this opportunity. I read the Faces of Covid everyday to try to pay homage to those who didn’t make it. May they all rest in peace.
Exactly. We need to honor all of those who were not as fortunate.
Stay safe, Donna.
it’s after 10 pm here so i am thinking you and don have had your second vaccinations, enjoyed a nice crockpot-ready dinner, cheered and maybe are conked out for the night.
i’m hoping that the vaccination process went well for you both, that you’re doing well with no side effects except immunity. congratulations! i am very happy for you, don and everyone else who’s been vaccinated and relieved that includes some of my family.
iowa is to make vaccines available to anyone 16+ starting next monday. with appointments already tough to get for those 65+, it boggles my mind why they will make that process even tougher by opening it up to such a large group of people (48 years worth of ages).
there’s a chance i might get my first vaccine this friday in a small town about 45 minutes from here (many thanks to my sister for helping me with that) and she gets her first one tomorrow … yay! it might hinge on the reaction i’ve been having to those bone-building shots for the past three months, that i will have had them again only four days before this covid vaccine and the decision of whoever will (hopefully) give me the first shot. my primary doctor and osteoporosis doctor have no problem with me getting the vaccine, but at this point i have nothing in writing to show someone on friday. praying!
pretty photo of the match striker in the sunlight. was that a souvenir from paris? and are the match heads green (as they look on my phone)?
need to go wash dishes.
hope you are well, having a nice night.
kathy in iowa
Yes, to open it up to so many age groups at the same time is not the wisest way to handle vaccinations! I’m so hoping that you get vaccinated this week, Kathy. That would be wonderful!
Yes, we got the match striker in Paris and those are green match heads.
Stay safe!