Ok

Trying to establish normalcy again.  On a scale of 1-10, with "10" being the best, I was *hoping* that the Holiday break period would have ended up as a "7" or perhaps if lucky, an "8". 

Now that this break period concluded, I would say it was *ACTUALLY* about a "3.5".  

Positives:

• No one in my immediate family died.
• We (with reasonably adequate results) hosted Christmas Eve celebrations for my wife's side of the family at our home (we had 32 people in total). 
• I continued to run.

Negatives:

• The difficulty we had with the "subject I cannot speak of" here.  
• The significant amount of work and effort expended to host the Christmas Eve celebrations for my wife's side of the family at our home.
• My Mother-in-Law's fall, injury, hospital and urgent care stays, and hallucinations.

So, after the last several days of of my wife and I shuffling time to be with my Mother-in-Law, and my wife staying overnight for a week with my Mother-In-Law, she has now been hallucination free for a number of days consistently... and Sunday we felt comfortable in having her stay overnight unobserved.  This meant that my wife was home in the evening. 

Unfortunately, my wife was tired.  As we were doing some of our normal tasks around the house, she snapped at me.  And, equally unfortunately, I do not handle being snapped at very well at all.  Being snapped at is something I have not yet figured out how to successfully navigate through in the moment.  It has been primary fuel of virtually all disagreements my wife and I have ever had.  Fortunately, it is not a common thing for my wife to snap at me.  

But yesterday she did..... and because I have not yet figured out how to successfully deal with it in a positive way....  I snapped back at her.  Of course, that never ends well.  For then, basically, even if we talk things out (which we did), there are usually hard feelings for the rest of the evening (which there were).

So, with the break being a 3.5..... I am viewing being back at the U and its routines as a POSITIVE in comparison.  And, that is damn sad. 

* * * * * 

• Running - 10 miles (~16 km) this morning.  
• PCS = 7.5

* * * * * 

Addendum

Answers to a couple of comments recently:

• Anvilcloud wondered about the fall and worried about that issue...... my Mother-in-Law fell, unfortunately because she was choosing to not use her walker nor her cane at that moment.  Because of her lower back stiffness, she walks with her feet splayed considerably, and likely caught her foot on something.  We have convinced her to begin physical therapy again.  We will see if she actually accepts it when they come.... she typically refuses, even after agreeing.  
• Pat mentioned that due to the challenges, I had apparently forgotten about pipes..... no, actually my PCS has been fairly stable in the 7-8 range through most of the break period.  I just did not mention it in the last few posts because I was trying to just get the critical information quickly onto "the page". 

PipeTobacco