When It Rains . . .

I commented to Josh last night that WOW, LIFE HAS FELT REALLY DIFFICULT for the past 6 months. He corrected me — it’s really more like since July.

This has not been my favorite summer. Our house continues to sit on the (saturated, stagnant) market, we had our quasi-fail of a family trip, a month of patchy (and stressful) childcare, and honestly a somewhat rocky start to the school year. G has been sick on and off for the past 2 months — I have been meticulously recording our family’s health trends in my planner and seriously, she had a cold 7/1 – 7/9, 7/14 – 7/18, 8/5 – 8/9, and now 8/25 – 8/30 (ongoing). And this current one is nasty (fevers etc). I am grateful that she is an overall healthy child and actually has not had her first ear infection yet (my other two definitely had more issues by this time requiring antibiotics or breathing treatments of some sort!). I thought perhaps that with two older siblings bringing home all sort of infectious particles from school/etc that she wouldn’t have such issues after starting school, but . . . apparently not. At least so far.

And now, this.

Like everyone else around here, I have been hitting “refresh” on the nhc website every 3 hours, which is when they give their updates. Hurricane Dorian does not look as terrifying as Irma did from my vantage point, but it doesn’t look great, either.

The complication this time around is that Josh and I are both on call (both of us until Tuesday) and (we think?!) he will need to stay in the hospital so that he is in-house for any vascular surgical emergencies if the hurricane plan is activated, which looks more and more likely. They will house family in that scenario, and since I’m on call too (though not sure if my call is considered “essential” or if I would be expected to just remain available by phone?) we may just all bunk up in the hospital. Apparently they give you air mattresses and food.

That initially didn’t sound that bad to me, until I remembered it would be with a (possibly still-sick – but hopefully not!?) toddler (and A&C too of course, but they are easier in this type of scenario because IPADS and MINECRAFT). Oy. The alternative is to stay home (assuming we can get the shutters up on our rental) and our nanny seems to be potentially game to stay with me.

Honestly, I am terrified of being home alone with the kids during the storm. And being on call I know I need to fulfill my responsibilities for patient care, and what if I lose power/internet/phone and can’t even put in orders? Given this, the hospital scenario probably makes the most sense, so we’ll see. I guess on the bright side – at least Josh and I work for the same system now so we’d all get to be together! I think today I need to nail down (from our hospital system) exactly what they’d like us to do so we can plan better.

ANYWAY.

Just . . . overwhelmed right now, and I’m having one of the busiest call weeks I’ve ever had. I think I rounded on 12 patients yesterday including 5 new consults, when normal for us is more like . . . 5 (note: we see outpatients for half the day while on call). I do have a total ROCK STAR of a resident with me currently and that is so helpful and makes me very happy!

I think after all this is over I’m going to take a day off to just organize / regroup, though looking at my calendar I’m seeing that this may not be possible until mid-September. I’m hoping that after Labor Day life is just going to magically reset and stop feeling like a pileup of minor (or major) calamities. And I’m DEFINITELY hoping that this storm fizzles out and we don’t even lose power.

ONE DAY AT A TIME, right?

PS: I know some of you had wanted more of a guide to the Hobonichi Store! I don’t know how much time I will have to publish such a thing, but here are a few tips:

1- They actually put together their own guide this year, and it’s quite nice! I promise, their website is NOT scary and in Japanese. Check it out here.

2- They are releasing some covers for sale on 9/1 (which is 8/31 at 10 pm Eastern time!), some on 9/2 (9/1 10 pm EST), and some on 9/3 (9/2 10 pm EST). The actual planner books will all be available in the “day 1” release. The planner books do not typically sell out, so there’s no need to panic! The only reason you’d need to jump to the specific time is if you have your eye on a specific cover (I do this year – one of the “day 2” designs).

3- Yes, the prices are in YEN. So the only thing that I find “different” about the store is converting to dollars. This morning, the exchange rate is as below. You can always just enter “2847 yen in dollars” in google and you’ll get an easy conversion. It’s typically close to 100:1 anyway (10000 yen = almost $100).

4- Thoughts on avec vs regular? I tried an AVEC one year and hated not having the entire year in one book. It made it a pain to schedule things in July & beyond when it was June, and I also like having the yearly calendar all in one book for reference. But of course – you may feel differently! For me, the weight of the book isn’t an issue – the full size Cousin fits just fine in my bag and my thin accessory notebook doesn’t add much volume at all.

5- Accesories that you ‘need’ if you are setting up your first Hobonichi? Honestly, none really. Other than you may want to consider the thin notebook set (they call it a ‘memo pad set’) that can easily tuck into the cover – I use one of these yearly as my ‘accessory notebook’ and like to have an extra on hand. I also like the pencil board to use as a ruler (must have straight lines!). There are plenty of other cute accessories you may WANT though 🙂

9/1 at 10 pm we may be in the middle of a hurricane but I am totally going to place my order if I have wifi available! One bright spot to look forward to. As of now, I’m planning on getting the A5 Cousin (not the avec), a “Day 2” cover, a pack of memo pads, some washi tape, and POSSIBLY the 5-year book (haven’t decided yet). I love this yearly tradition and look forward to a box arriving from Japan every fall!!