1- We are almost back to life baseline. Dryer is working. G (nanny, not kid) is back. However, we still have only one drivable car. This needs to change ASAP. (Also we are probably pivoting to a CR-V hybrid because Josh liked it better than the RAV4, especially with respect to passenger room in the back.)
Hopefully the Prius will be fixed (we do plan to sell it, but are happy to drive it in the interim if it works!) OR we’ll have our new car sooner rather than later because our lifestyle is not one-car compatible.
(Hats off to those of you who manage that! It’s just not going to work for us in this life phase.)
2- Enjoying Sabrina Carpenter’s new release (it came out today and I listened while strength training and then while driving). It is . . . not PG rated, but I literally laughed out loud at some of her lyrics. There was also a slightly Kacey Musgraves-ish twang to a few of the songs which worked for me.
“A little communication, yes, that’s my ideal foreplay / Assemble a chair from IKEA, I’m like, ‘Uh'”
Not going to argue with that! I’m also not screenshotting the album cover because this is a family blog. Not gonna lie, I do wish she picked a different image!
3- I had a meh reading month (2025 books). Actually, that’s not true. I really liked both novels I read (almost finished with Paradise and anticipate will be done before 9/1). BUT the volume was lacking! I don’t know what I did instead. (Well, probably Reddit until I quit again, which has thankfully stuck. I do miss it but I know it’s a terrible addiction for me and I need to just abstain.)
I think I’m going to challenge myself to really increase my fiction reading volume over the next few months. TOO MANY GOOD BOOKS, TOO LITTLE TIME. . .
4- I ended up hearing back about my medical stuff and they are suggesting adding another med. Which . . . I am probably going to at least try. However, now I’m second guessing my choice to do a heart monitor while on call (maybe it was way worse due to the stress and doesn’t reflect normal everyday reality!?). PLUS, I was recovering from illness (over a week out from being really sick, but still). Everything always seems so straightforward when you read a paper or algorithm but when you apply it to real life, it’s so much messier.
One commenter mentioned the difficult roller coaster she was on with one of her kids and difficult medical news. Let me just say I think that sounds SO MUCH HARDER than dealing with my own issues. Truly, I’m so glad this is my stuff and not Josh’s or any of the kids. I am pretty confident I would actually find it 100x MORE stressful if that were the case. (ALL 3 of the kids heart monitors finally came back and were great!!!! Best news.)
5- So it’s fall now right? Jenny and I both took pix to prove it! But no, we are exempt from the cold front everyone else seems to be getting. Sad!!
Also acknowledging the incredibly tragic news from this week. I cried listening to Up First this morning. Lately I have been finding Pantsuit Politics very comforting in their thorough analysis and honest reactions.
16 Comments
We love our CRV Hybrid. Highly recommend!
I owned 2 CRVs and loved them! The only maintenance was gas and oil changes. The cargo space is excellent!
Life has changed now – retired with no kids to chauffeur so I am driving a red convertible which is a whole other level of fun😊
You will not regret a Honda – very reliable.
Don’t think you can go wrong with either a Toyota or Honda. Both are awesome vehicles! I keep half hoping my Toyota van will die (in just sick of it!) but it keeps chugging along with zero issues.
I have thought about you some over the recent weeks. I’ve had an injury that is certainly not life threatening but does mean probably the permanent stop to my running and has left me really limited physically for the time being (though that lpart is hopefully not permanen, just the running). I know it is not as serious as your heart issue but seeing how you have handled this with such grace and positivity (but also not sugar coating it) has been really inspiring to me. Just wanted to tell you…wish you all the best!
oh ali I’m so sorry you have to go through that. No matter what the cause, it’s a hard adjustment. But life DOES go on, exercise-wise! if you ever want to email and vent I can be a listening ear!!
It would be so hard to be a 1-car family. We did it for about 3 weeks 2 Decembers ago when I back our (brand new) Rav-4 into a pillar in a garage…. It was rough. Most of the time Phil and I carpool but he goes into the office more than I do so we need a 2nd car. But our 2nd car is a 2013 model that he bought new – it has less than 50k miles on it! So we don’t use it a lot but we could not go without it without making some major sacrifices!
I have to say that this week SUCKED. And my week was a walk in the park compared to families in my community. I am glad our boys were at my parents so were isolated from what happened but Phil and I plan to discuss it with Paul when we get back from my parents because there’s a good chance kids will talk about it since it happened so close to our school. The coverage has been so heart breaking. My book club friend’s family is very close friends with the 8yo victim and his family. Her kids are 8 and 10 so classmates to both victims. It is so maddening and depressing. But it has motivated me to get involved with ‘moms demand action’.
I’m so sorry Lisa – I thought about you a lot this week. So scary and close to home. My heart goes out to the victims and everyone impacted.
I can’t imagine making it on one car. Even my parents, who are retired, almost always together, and frugal don’t have one car. That’s a game best played in areas with good public transit.
I wish I could ship some of our fall weather down to you and Jenny, because it is delicious. It’s the perfect weather for being outside.
I will TAKE the shipped weather! I wish. Ha!
CRVs are great cars, but car shopping is the pits – at least it is for me. Good luck! Am curious what med they want you on – an ace-I? Apologies if this is too nosy and you don’t want to divulge. I recently started tamoxifen for breast cancer ppx and I had a ton of feelings about it. I finally found a paper that said only 5% of women who could benefit from it actually received treatment, and that actually helped me reframe in a positive way (and magically my arthralgias and insomnia got better too lol). Anyway, maybe you’ll find something like this helps you too.
I don’t really mind sharing – it’s fleicanide, there is data in use combined with beta blocker in ARVC. (my memories of fleicanide from med school is that it’s a scary drug but I’m assuming that is not true when used in the right context – I know my team knows what they are doing). That sounds really stressful with the tamoxifen — but I’m really glad you had symptomatic benefit – that is great.
In the papers I read some ARVC patients went from thousands of PVCs daily to just a couple hundred with fleicanide. If that happens for me, it would be really great.
Yeah it may be worth giving it a try, especially if your pvcs are frequent or bothersome. I’m sorry you’re still going through that! Yay for having good drs and getting good, personalized care! Would love to hear an update (if there is one) about your weightlifting or yoga practice! 🙂
I had about 4500 a day on last monitor
(could be worse but could be a lot better) and sometimes it’s prolonged bigeminy which feels icky so I would love to reduce them. Strength still good and more Pilates than yoga recently but can def do more of an update!
Longtime reader, first time poster. Fellow mom doc, also ironically married to a cardiologist. Took flecainide for idiopathic VT for several years and it was awesome. Helped WAY more than BB did and no noticeable side effects fwiw. Feel free to reach out if you want to chat.
That is really encouraging to hear! Thank you!!
Well, I just have to laugh at that graphic- “Florida not included.” Thanks for rubbing it in!!! Oh well, at least we still get the fall drinks (I don’t drink the pumpkin drinks either, but it makes me happy to see them.)
Yeah, you probably had more stress than usual lately. But I guess you could also say these stressful times are part of your life, so maybe trying the new med is a good idea.
I hope you get that new car SOON. The last time we only had one car, my husband and I alternated riding our bikes to work- you can’t really do that when you’re transporting kids around!
I also had a very down month for reading, maybe something was in the air? Lots of life changes and kids off to school?