Life Lately - so much to pray for

🖥️ My work is in all sorts of disarray right now. I have so many things to work on. I have a list of them but I always end up to too tired and lazy to do anything. I have two weeks to work on them so I can enjoy my Christmas vacation! Aja! 

🫠 Thursday I had my PT session with Coach Nick. I was not able to finish all of the workouts he gave me because I was too full lol. I ate too close to my schedule so my body was struggling to give me energy while digesting the burger I ate for lunch lol. Also I think he progressed me this time. All the leg exercises I did was with 2x 20lbs weights and it was exhausting. My single leg balance still needs a lot of work but I can feel my quads improving. It's just that it's the only exercise I had this week so I was too exhausted after the sesh. We ended 15 minutes early cos my legs are literally shaking haha. Anyway, still thankful cos that's 1 excercise point this week hehe

🙏 Praying for healing for the entire family. My mom has aortic valve stenosis. Her valve is too narrow for blood to pass through, causing her heart to pump harder. According to her doctor her options are:

1. a heart valve replacement requiring an open heart surgery; 
2. TAVI or TAVR (transcatheter aortic valve implantation/replacement) I haven't really confirmed with them but my sister mentioned a transcatheter implant procedure that's possibly less invasive than an open heart surgery.
3. Live with it. Manage her triggers basically. She'd probably have a year left to live though if this were the case.

✨ Options 1 and 2 will cost millions; around 2 million pesos. Which we don't have. So while I'm praying for healing, I'm praying more for financial provision because we don't have that kind of money saved. No one in our family is rich enough to shoulder that. Might need to sell their property just to afford an operation. And for how long? How much more time with my mother will 2 million pesos give me? 10 years? I don't know.

✨ My husband also has a health concern. There was a lump on his neck that wasn't there before. He noticed it one time on one of my vlogs. He was drinking water and noticed his adam's apple is too big. His APE confirmed an anterior neck mass that needs to be checked. An ultrasound confirmed the lumps and the sizes. A biopsy will confirm if it's congenital, but we have yet to see the results. If it is congenital then his HMO will not be able to cover the surgery to remove it so haaay gastos nanaman. I don't know how much that costs but we certainly don't have enough saved for an operation, however minor.

🙏 Oh well. This is the reason why I started attending church again. There are just some things you don't have any control over which will lead you to pray. Health is one of those things. And my personal yearning to seek the Lord more properly this time. The good thing about attending church is that it forces me to wake up early on Sunday haha.

☺️ Alright happy weekend!

Back to Blogger

Alright I'm finally back from Wordpress. After spending some $70 on hosting and domain, I'm back to Blogger lol.

For the past few days I've been busy migrating my Wordpress posts to Blogger. That was a hundred posts I moved MANUALLY because all of the WP → Blogger online xml converters are obsolete at this point. I mean, I may be stupid for coming back to a dying platform but really I just miss being able to control my whole blog without having to pay rent. Nevermind that behind this minimalist theme lies a deep dish of spaghetti code, at least I have full control of the theme down to the very last tag. Well maybe 90% in control because I just downloaded the theme and there are a bunch of obfuscated javascript in there that I didn't care to uncover.

Point is, I miss it here. Despite being totally forgotten by Google, I miss not having to pay for hosting and worrying about maintainance, upgrades, backups, indexing, etc. I thought being able to setup my site on a server was an adult move haha but I was a dolt for doing that. I thought that's what pro bloggers eventually end up doing lol. At the end of the day I still find it more convenient to stay here. I think it's because I understand how themes work and can code a little so I'm not too scared to mess up the xml. 

In Wordpress, every feature I want constitutes to a plugin that I have to install and update and maybe pay for. It's very convenient but also a performance risk. Back there I have a plugin for generating sitemaps, share links, back to top button, Google fonts, SEO, cloud backups, and so on! Even the whole wordpress platform gets updated once in a while and I have experienced my theme getting broken after an upgrade and that was traumatic. I didn't pay to be hassled like this. Everything is plugin based. At Blogger, everything is code based. Which I know makes it difficult for a regular user but I'm not a regular user so I like it and prefer it hehe.

Editor still sucks but other than that I'm fine.

Anyway, that's it for today for me.

Goodnight!

To do:

• Find a way to show the post time in AM/PM at the date link title

And hey I can do emoticons again! This thing breaks Wordpress 👎.

🥰

Test post with lists and bullets

I don't know why but the list items in this blog are not being indented properly. So let's see if it's a theme thing or a copy-paste thing. I'm currently moving my posts from Wordpress to Blogger.

• Here's a bullet item
• Another bullet item
• With a subt item

Alright that should work

1. Now this is a numbered item
2. Another numbered item
3. Third numbered item
1. With a sub item

Okay let's see.

Upon previewing it seems okay. So I guess it's a copy-paste thing.

Back to work.

Giving up on self-hosting

Currently fixing my old blogger site and planning to move everything back there by the end of this year. So much for self-hosting really. I had so much expectations for going self-hosted but all it ever gave me was more work and maintenance to do plus more bills! It’s not paying off. The only thing it gave me was a better post editor but everything else was a pain. I had to install adsense separately, maintain plugins and backups regularly, fix my sitemap, submit important posts for indexing, pay for SSL, and so on. I never had to worry about this when I was on blogger simply because it’s under Google.

So now I’ve decided to go back to blogger despite them not working to improve their post editor and having bad themes. I figured I’d rather do it the old way, at least I have full control of the theme.

Oh well.

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Of rehab and gifts

Yet another exhausting rehab session with coach Nick. Good thing I didn’t workout beforehand cos I’d be doomed! Last time I saw him was last month, and today he was happy with my progress. My patella is now more mobile, more visible, and my range of motion has gotten a lot better. Last week we measured 120deg! I’m almost there! Still working on my strength, balance, and extension but we’ll get there eventually. Still not cleared to do boxing or play badminton.

In other news, I’ve been spending my non-existent 13th month pay to oblivion ever since November came into view lol. I thought I only wanted a tumbler so I got that for myself. But when we went to Subic to celebrate my father-in-law’s birthday, I found myself shopping for new clothes and shoes at Adidas Outlet. Why, how do you resist 50% off and buy-one-get-one deals? Besides shopping there’s also my birthday staycation and our anniv staycation that’s on credit… so yeah I don’t think I’ll get the chance to even see my 13th month (well, half of it) haha. So fun!

I bought myself a vertical mouse the other day because my right wrist has been hurting recently and I thought a vertical mouse would help ease the pain a bit. The one I got is from the same brand as my regular mouse, E-YOOSO. It’s one of the cheapest in Data Blitz, pretty generic brand, it’s also not that vertical too but it puts my palm at a better angle than before. Didn’t want to gamble on a Logitech that’s worth 3k yet so I’m trying it first with this one which is only 650 pesos! 🙂

🙂

2024 Birthday Wishlist!

My birthday is coming up next month. Thought I’d list stuff I want to buy for myself (as usual) and put in some justification for the upcoming splurges lol.

Stanley tumbler

Or more specifically a wide mouth narrow bottom 30oz tumbler with a handle. Something easy to clean and carry around, cup holder friendly, and not too heavy. So far Stanley fits the bill cos aside from checking all of my requirements, its lid doesn’t have that rubber gasket that gets moldy over time. But the lid is also the reason it’s not leakproof, so that makes it a dealbreaker.

Which brings me to another tumbler option – their flip straw tumblers.

The handle looks practical for me. Comes in a flip straw. Has cute color options. It is pretty pricey though for 2,700 so I’m thinking of just getting a Tyeso like this…

Handle looks nice; wraps around the body when set down. Has two outlet options, a flip straw and a regular hole where you can chug. Also fits in cup holders according to reviews. Best of all, it’s like 5x cheaper. It doesn’t have the color I like though, which is cream. So we’ll see hehe. I only ever want to to drink water in this and I’m not too keen on the insulation so I didn’t look at those specs, although I know Stanley has better insulation. And if I ever get tired of cleaning the straw I can just revert to the regular opening. It does have the rubber thing that will need a more thorough cleaning.

Oh well, we’ll see what I’ll pick eventually. Leaning more on Stanley though!

To be fair, I only wanted a new tumbler because our company took away our lockers so I’ve been struggling to carry my 40oz Reduce tumbler with me everytime I go to work (which is really just once a week). It’s not that leakproof, doesn’t fit in my bag, and also won’t fit in the cup holders of our car so I always need to bring it empty so it can lay on the passenger seat without risk. Hassle!

So yeah, looks like that’s all I want this year lol.