Lizet's Place

How many pillows do you have on your couch?
1 - Kim's chosen to sleep there rather than her bedroom (thus giving me the bedroom), so that's the only pillow on the couch

How many throws, blankets, lap rugs, what-have-you do you have in your living/TV room?
again 1 - a blanket for Kim when she sleeps or gets cold.

Have you become your parents yet?
yes, but for other reasons. They are something of pack rats and that's passed on to me, but simply because I don't have space for it now, and if I got rid of it, I'd literally have my clothes, shoes, and electronics...and that sounds depressing.

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I don't think I posted yesterday. Well, I know I didn't do the just wondering post I've been doing lately.

After dinner and the 2 or 3 shows I watched with Kim when I got to the room, I turned off my laptop and played on my phone for a couple of hours, and went to sleep. I didn't wake up until 4:30am when I checked my phone for the time and cleared out my email that I saw the message waiting and remembered that I didn't do it. Oh well.

I've not done anything productive today. In fact, I went back to sleep after I did my 7am work and didn't wake up until 10:30am...so I think that was like an hour and a half of sleep that I got.

I have accounting problems that I need to finish before Monday's final. I think something like 10 problems? I'm going to work on them as soon as I finish this entry so that tomorrow and the weekend I can get a couple of review packets...then I'll study for my business law final that I have on the 17th.

I made an appt to have my hair done on the 18th. Originally I was going to have it done on the 21st, but then I realized that was AFTER Christmas Sunday and I ALWAYS have my hair done for Christmas Sunday, so I changed the appt.

I wasn't sure if we were going to have a church service let alone our usual bilingual service because Covid sort of swept through the members of the church, but I've been hearing from my Deacon friend that they're ready to go back to service THIS Sunday since the band and worship team is testing negative.

I think that's far too soon after a negative result. It's like, okay, cool...you tested negative after testing positive...why don't you take another test next week and see if you're still negative and we'll do the combined service on the 20th.

I already made the choice for me and Kim that we aren't going back on Sunday. As her caregiver, it's sort of my choice to make. Plus her sister and brother in law, who would be our transportation, aren't going either.

Speaking of the Christmas Sunday service...I have no idea how that's going to happen. Especially with it being bilingual and there being a limit on the number of people who can attend each service. I'm curious as to whether the congregation will be there for this, or if it will be the worship team, technology team for online streaming, and the pastor and everyone will watch online from home. Nothing has really been said, other than that it will be a combined service.

What’s incredibly cheap and you would pay way more for?
I don't think there's anything I would pay more for if I can buy it cheap (as long as it's still made well)

What’s the funniest TV show you’ve ever seen?
I don't usually watch comedies, but I love AFV when I remember to watch.

What’s the most boring sport, and what would you do to make it more exciting
I...don't know. maybe basketball and the ball warms up when a player has had it too long forcing them to pass or shoot it...

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Not much to add about the people who tested positive from my church from this post, but the youngest to test positive are 3 and 4 years old! and it looks like at least 5 households are affected as well.

I'm mad because it could have been avoided if they wouldn't have gathered! At least 20 people and that doesn't include the musicians who haven't gotten tested or are waiting for their test results and there's a potential for there to be 11 more at risk!

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Class tonight. 6:30pm-9:40pm

I usually mentally check out the last hour of class. I can't help it.

Yesterday a deacon friend at my church told me that the Pastor's son-in-law had Covid-19 symptoms and his daughter, who is pregnant, lost her sense of taste.

They were both tested for Covid and today the son-in-law's results came back positive!

So, in theory, everyone who was at church on Sunday was exposed.

Church tomorrow is canceled. The church band that the son-in-law plays with is going to be tested.

I contacted my Dr's office and they said for me to remain home/limit going out (even more than I already do) and when I go in for lab work on December 8, they will see if they need to also do a Covid test.

I also have to monitor Kim even closer - she's not all there and often time exaggerates how she's feeling. Her dr doesn't have weekend hours so I have to wait until Monday to contact them to see what to do, but I suspect it's the same thing that my dr. told me to do.

1. Where do you get most of your pandemic-related news?
Ummm...I don't? Like I'm fairly oblivious to what's going on, but if someone says something that seems wildly inaccurate, I'll google and search around before believing anything they've said. But I do have the citizen app on my phone that alerts me to a lot of changes on a county level.

2. How do you feel about your local government’s leadership during this pandemic?
It's been hit or miss? I honestly haven't been following along.

3. What does your favorite mask look like, and about how many masks have you accumulated?
My favorite one is a Muppet babies one that a friend's mother made for me. I have 2 or 3 masks. I go out maybe once or twice a week and hand wash my mask after I use it...and while it's drying I move on to the next mask.

4. Where have you most often had takeout during this pandemic?
I've done far too much takeout/delivery from GrubHub. Usually McDonald's, Burger King, Panda Express, a couple of good Mexican places. It definitely contributed to my weight gain.

5. What new interests, skills, or hobbies have you picked up since mid-March?
In April I started selling (or trying to sell) Color Street. I don't go anywhere to show off my pretty nails, but they're pretty nonetheless and I can put them on myself in about 20 mins and they start at $11!


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Earlier I had a migraine. It totally skipped headache land and went right to migraine city. I think this is the 2nd one I've had this year/ever. I took a 650 mg tablet of acetaminophen extended-release and tried to get comfortable. Eventually, I went to sleep for a few hours and was apparently dead to the world until about 5:50 pm when Kim got her daily call from a church friend and I heard the phone ring.


Now it's past where I would be getting ready for bed and I'm yawning a lot, so I should definitely get ready for bed. thankfully tomorrow is Saturday.


OH! That reminds me...Covid is reaching closer to home now, so to speak. My Pastor's daughter is pregnant and she lost her sense of taste in the last couple of days. She and her husband have been tested and are quarantining. They also have 2 young daughters. On top of that, the Pastor and his wife have to quarantine because they have come into contact with one or both of them when the daughters are dropped off while the parents go to work.

Sunday is going to be interesting. The Pastor might not be there to give the message and we are out a bass player and singer. Like I said, Sunday will be interesting, but so far not canceled.

One of my friends thinks he has bronchitis, but he's going to be checked for that and covid on Monday, he's been self-isolating for the last couple of days.

Okay, now I'm really going to bed.

First, we were being self quarantined until the end of the month.

Okay. I had a little issue with that, but I looked at all the things I was able to do to get me out of the apartment and it was going to be okay.

Now it’s apparently a month-long quarantine!

Sunday was church.

Monday was a keep warm and stay out of the rain kind of day…I also did a bunch of research for my original story (and day 1 of self-quarantining)

Tuesday, I went to get a tattoo and bought some dish soap. (Still, self quarantining)

Wednesday…oh…that was just yesterday. Man did the week go by fast!

Today…today I didn’t do much of anything, but I was in an okay mood…until about 3 hours ago.

What happened 3 hours ago?

LA County completely closed down.

Then what seemed like minutes later, the Governor said the entire fucking state of California is closed down until AFTER EASTER! FUCK YOU! THAT’S A MONTH!

I don’t go anywhere, to begin with, but now everything is really basically closed until AFTER April 19! No church on April 5. No church on April 12. No Easter service.

There’s no place I can say I wish I could go to escape this because this is happening all around the fucking planet!

As far as I know, KW still has her doctor appts on April 1 and April 7, but she will need to go to the lab before her April 1 appt and when I called the clinic, they said they didn’t know if the lab was going to be open next week (they only do it 1 day a week). I will have to call the clinic next week to see if the lab is open still.

Postmates fucked me up this week. I used them on the 16th, the transaction cleared my account on the 18th, but the fucking “pre-authorization” charge was still pending and my bank charged me an overdraft fee! The “pre-authorization” is still pending but they charged me the overdraft! “We can give you back $8.35 (of the $35 overdraft fee) right now.” Uhh, the fuck you will! You’re going to give me back all of my money! That “pre-authorization” is still pending so until or unless it posts, I have the money to cover it! Then the bank says that they can give me all of the overdraft fees back if the merchant/Postmates reverses the charge. Okay, great. I send a message to Postmates and they send me the stupid automated response about how they hold the amount of the transaction until it clears and then within 24 hours, it reverses. Well, this bullshit policy just cost me $35 in overdraft fees on a $22 purchase! And I’m currently overdrawn by $54.32!

And then! When my paycheck posts tomorrow, it’s going to be short $54.32 until Postmates removes the “pre-authorization” amount so that the bank can refund me $35!

I’m just frustrated by life now. It’s confirmed that we aren’t having Church until April 19.

Church today was weird. I think because we all knew it would be the last time we saw each other until April 5. Do we hug? Do we not hug? Do we shake hands? Do we not shake hands? Like I said…weird. At the start of our service, for the morning service in English and for the afternoon service in Spanish, there’s a greeting song where the congregants go around greeting/hugging each other, but today that didn’t happen. There was one person wearing a mask, that’s because she recently finished chemotherapy so her immune system and pretty much shot. Everyone else seemed to be okay.

The Pastor told us how service was going to be the next 2 Sundays and I feel a little better that I won’t be completely without anything. They’re going to be live-streamed from his house. Two of his kids, his son in law and two of his nephews are on the worship team so they will go to his house, sing a couple of songs and then he will give a message. 10am for English and 12:30pm for Spanish.

Then after the Spanish service, he told the leaders of the different groups that he would like them to prepare a little message, maybe 10-15 minutes that could be sent out in some meeting app that members can join and listen to during the week. Each group (Men’s, women’s, and youth) would have a different day/time; I think it was Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

It’s also raffle time. I don’t know what we’re raffling off or how much tickets are (I think $10), but the money goes towards lowering the overall cost for our annual family camp weekend trip we have in August. The last 2 raffles we had, we were able to lower the cost by like $25/person. For the weekend at camp, it’s like $175 or something, but that includes the cabins, some snacks/pizza we have Friday night and Saturday night, breakfast/lunch/dinner on Saturday, breakfast, and lunch on Sunday as well as the wood we use at the 2 bonfires we have Saturday night. It sounds like a lot, but we get a lot in return. I’ve always felt it was worth the money because I’ve had so much fun and I’m looking forward to going a 4th time.

After all of this church stuff, we braved the markets! First Wal-Mart neighborhood market. Their shelves were pretty bare. I got some things I needed, but not everything. Milk and bread were left for me to get. Next was to Stater Brother’s. I had a bit more luck there, but NO MILK OR BREAK! Fine…off to Albertson’s. Got a few more things, INCLUDING MILK, BUT DAMN IT! THERE WAS NO BREAD! Friends on Facebook told me a couple of places to try for bread and I’m also going to check the super Wal-Mart that is across the street from where I live. Hopefully, they have some bread, but if not I have other things to have for lunch instead of making sandwiches. It will be a nice change-up for a while.

Now I’m cold/chilly and tired…but 8pm is a bit too early for me to go to sleep. I do not want or need to be up at 4 or 5 am!

Of course, it would take a fucking pandemic for me to post again. And of course, it’s over a year too.

But I’m freaking out a bit. Not that I’m going to get sick or anything, but being cooped up in the apartment for close to 20 days is what I’m freaking out over.

Sundays are the 1 day that I get out for church, lunch and grocery shopping, but I found out tonight that my Pastor and the church Deacons thought it was best not to have services for 2 weeks. We’ll still have service on the 15th, but not on the 22nd or 29th.

And yes, I decided at the last minute to get a tattoo, so I’ll be out of the apartment on the 17th and then the 27th, 28th, and 29th, I’ll be house sitting and looking after my friend’s mother while she goes to Sacramento for her niece’s wedding (I don’t know if those plans have changed)…and KW has a dr appt April 1 and I have a hair appt April 3rd…then it will be April 5th and back to a regular schedule.

Laying it out like that has calmed me down. I won’t completely be stuck in the apartment, and I’ll have to go out anyway for food (if people in my city haven’t lost their damn minds and bought out Wal-Mart and Target!)

Another thing that’s still affecting me is the ending on Hawaii Five-0. It came as a shock to everyone, but Alex made it clear during an interview about the 200th episode, he was giving the show 2 more years and then he was done. Hmm, 2 more years would be season 10, but the show never did anything to let the fans know that the show was ending. No announcement at the start of season 10…in fact they were introducing a new character who would have potentially joined Five-0…and partnered with Danny. HA! Did they really think Scott, who was doing 5-7 fewer episodes a season, was going to continue on without Alex?! *rolls eyes HARD* so the show dropped the ball in letting the fans know so that we could prepare ourselves. And also the writers could have done a hell of a better job in writing/showing that Alex/Steve would be leaving, and I guess that’s what the final 2 episodes this season was going to be, and season 11 would have picked up without Steve…but they didn’t count on Scott and/or the network pulling that out.

Anyway…stuff has happened in the last year. A lot of stuff and none of it remotely important. I’m still tragically single; my brother is in town for work for the next 6 months. We hung out last weekend – the siblings and my sister’s kids – at the bowling alley and then went to dinner. We’re supposed to take sibling pictures to send a collage to my mom for her birthday (April 20) but that’s going to get pushed back to Mother’s Day. I’m hoping we get to see each other a few more times before he goes back to Florida.

There’s a lot of fun stuff with the church for this year. I was more excited about it at the start of the year than I am now. I blame the country shutting down because of COVID-19 and Trump being useless.

I’ve got a grocery list to make up for Sunday and craft supplies to make sure I have for kid’s Sunday School in case there are any at church.

January 16th was the last time I posted. Since then I have finished up spring semester. I did okay last semester.  I passed my classes so that's all that counts. And that's about it LOL

Saw my sister for the first time yesterday in months. I think there was a day when I went by her apartment to pick up my mail and I spoke to her but I couldn't tell you when that was. It felt weird seeing her because she gave me a hug and she asked me how I was doing and I'm just like don't touch me (in my head). It just felt really fake because of all the times I reached out to her and she never returned my phone calls or replied to my texts. Sure there was the odd one when she would say thank you when I wished her a happy birthday or Merry Christmas or happy Mother's Day, but other texts...she would leave me on read.

There are 12 days until my church's Family Camp up in the mountains and I'm really excited about it.

I'm so excited that yesterday, while at Walmart, I picked up some small travel-size stuff that I needed and when I got home I packed my bag. LOL With the exception of some shorts I need to wash and shoes I need to buy I'm ready to go.

The lady I do home care for will also be going with her sister to Family Camp, so I packed her bag as well.

So, our packed bags are going to sit in the closet for the next 11 days. Thank goodness there's a Harry Potter marathon and NCIS marathon to help the days go by faster.

After camp I start the next semester at the local community college. I'll be taking 2 online classes and likely 2 on campus classes. I'm moving forward towards my degree, but I still feel like I'm stagnant about it. I'm taking 3 or 4 classes a semester and should be on track to transfer to the university fall of next year, but I still don't feel like I'm making much progress for some reason.

Also, I turn 36 in 27 days. My niece wants to do something with me and I'm all for that but she doesn't seem to understand that the lady that I care for requires pretty much 24/7 care and I can't leave her alone for 4 to 6 hours to go to a Pirate Adventure dinner and Show like I said I wanted to do. Kim, the lady I care for, could ask her sister to stay with her for that time that I would be spending with my niece but they're still transportation money that I would have to get together and I just don't have that.

Let's see how long it will be before I post again. I know there is more stuff that I could ramble about but I just don't feel like dredging up those memories. That's not to say anything bad happened, I just don't feel like thinking about what's going on to bore you all with.

I was asked by the nominating committee for the new church to be the historian for the new year. Let me tell you, before I found out what was going on, I thought it was something bad. I've been sick for the last few days and forgot some things that I needed to do, so I was nervous. Then when I got there, I didn't know what position I was being asked to be the leader of. For the last 5 or 6 years, I've been the social committee chairperson, but my church's congregation is maybe a third of the size of what the new church is going to be and that's way more work than I'd be comfortable jumping into. However, Historian is much more my speed.

Basically I'd be the leader of the "history" committee and they're responsible for taking pictures and keeping records of church functions and putting on a slide show every 6 months of the events that have gone on during the year.

I didn't even have to think about it. I said yes. I'm having so many organizational ideas. I love it. I'm already thinking of an email account for the position, a photobucket account to host the pictures and videos, I need to brush up on powerpoint too.

And it's an excellent excuse reason to get a new camera! Though, I'm not sure if the camera the current historian has belongs to the church or is her own. I need to ask her about it.

But anyway, it's an elected position so I'm trying not to get ahead of myself. December there's a combined church meeting (the merger won't be official until January 1, but we're getting the church leadership set up now) on December 13th (bummed I'm going to miss the very special H50 that night!) where the leaders will be elected, so I will know then if I have the position. I don't know if they've talked to anyone else, but the current historian is a friend and she told me she was going to nominate me for the position since I'm at all of the events anyway.

Time is getting away from me. I have choir rehearsal in 30 mins.

There are certain numbers, that when they show up on my caller ID, I sort of freak out, but "OMG, who died?" or "OMG who's sick?"

but this time it was different. My friend called to ask if I wanted to go with her to Menifee to drop off some animals (a chicken and 5 kittens) at her cousin's place. Apparently the cousin was supposed to come down yesterday but the engine on their truck blew, so then today my friend was going to go with her parents, but said parents aren't feeling well...so she called an asked me. Cool!

I get out of being at church! YES!

While I do have a bit of work to do, if I get there early enough, I can get a good chunk of it done before she comes, then we can leave.

It takes about 1.5 hrs to get there, then I figure an hr or so getting the animals situated, lunch, then come home. I should be home by like 3 or 4 pm...which would sort of be like last Sunday with all that I had going on at church.

The downside now, is my lack of writing time. and I'm so close to finishing part 2 of Fair Winds and Following Seas. I don't care if I have to stay up all night, I will post it tonight!