greeting cards

All posts tagged greeting cards

Twister is now 25 years old. I’ll let that sink in for a moment.

Published May 16, 2021 by Malia

I’m really surprised at how fast Tom seems to be recovering. I don’t know if it’s because in the past every family member I helped care for post-surgery/coma weren’t as young and healthy as Tom, or if it’s because the robotic surgery is a little less traumatic than traditional surgery. Maybe it’s a combo of both.

On Thursday, after the surgery was complete, I met with Tom’s doctor who informed me that everything went as expected. Immediately after, I went back to the waiting area and I made the mistake of sitting down for a moment to collect my thoughts.

And then I tried to stand up.

All of a sudden, the sheer idea of standing up was so completely overwhelming, my body refused to cooperate. It was like a physical wall of exhaustion slammed into my body. I ended up sitting there, texting family, “I think I live in this chair now.”

Finally, after almost an hour, I got so nauseous because of dropped blood sugar, that I forced myself up and down to the cafe for what ended up being a really delicious bowl of udon noodles with chicken.

Yesterday, Saturday, Tom rested and played video games, while I worked on cards for some orders that came in over the last few days. Mid-afternoon, I got so tired I crashed in bed for a few hours.

Last night, I watched This is a Robbery on Netflix. It’s a documentary series about the big art heist in Boston back in the 90’s. It was interesting, but the music was unnecessarily creepy. I was quite glad Tom was home, since I watched most of it after nightfall.

Not much on tap for us today. I’m waiting for Amazon to drop off the new blade for my Cricut so I can finish the orders I was working on yesterday. I keep threatening him that I’m going to put Twister on because he doesn’t love it like I do, and his only escape is napping 😅

So, medical bills are super fun…said no one ever.

Published May 11, 2021 by Malia

(The following post contains shameless self promotion)

The bills have started rolling in from the kidney cancer fun (and the surgery hasn’t even happened yet).  Yes, we do have insurance.  We’re already facing fights with them to cover things that absolutely were necessary, but they have determined were not.  Personally, I’m not sure how a CT scan to get images of a giant tumor and decide if surgery is needed can be considered “Not medically necessary.”

Things were already a bit tight, but we’ve been really careful. I’m not yet at the point that I can return to working a traditional job. So, I’m getting creative in an effort to help bring in some extra money.

Introducing my revamped Etsy shop, Made by Mannaberry.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/MadeByMannaberry

Right now, my main offerings are what I’m calling “In A Pinch Card Bundles.” The idea came to me a few months back, when I once again forgot to get a card for an event until the day of. There is little I hate more than going to the store on Sunday afternoon. It occurred to me that having cards ready to go at all time would save me from last minute Walmart visits. I realize that I cannot be the only one who constantly forgets to buy a card. Hence, the In A Pinch bundles.

Thanks for reading my plug for my shop. I promise tomorrow I’ll be back with a regular post.

May we all live in uninteresting times.

Published May 6, 2021 by Malia

Behold my glamorous life…

I’m doing the slightly monotonous work of making inserts for greeting cards. I have all this really pretty cardstock paper that I’m cutting down into correct size.

I’ve also got New Girl on in the background. I realized yesterday that I fell off the show, completely unintentionally, after the second season. And since my memory sucks and it’s been a few years since I last watched it, I started it over from the beginning. The show is quite a bit funnier than I remember it being. One small problem though, since I spent so much time throwing up, my abdominal side muscles hurt super bad every time I start laughing. On the bright side, I still haven’t thrown up since before I made my non-post post yesterday. And I realize that is way too much tmi about my bodily functions. The whole point is, this show is making me laugh so much, but because it really hurts to laugh, my laughs start out normal and then quickly turns to me going, “Ow, ha, ow, ha ow ow ow!”

Tune in tomorrow for another exciting installment of “Malia is either actually getting stuff done or she’s been disassociating for the last 8+ hours.”

P.S. I do have regular dissociative episodes that frequently involve me just staring at a wall for hours on end. I frequently deal with my mental health issues by making jokes about it.