Better over better.

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I can usually walk without more than a slight limp and mild pain.  My torso has started hurting, mildly.  Not organs, just general pains, like after doing windsprints after a summer off.  The headache which developed over a few days, a new and different symptom, seems to have passed.

I did a few minor tasks for mother today.  Waking early, but going on back to bed early.  Then getting up for supper.  Doing a few more jobs.  Plus, keeping up on water and ice, rotating and checking kefir, and making plans for a bit of work each day going forward.

Better, if still rough.

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Wasn't able to sleep as warmly as yesterday and the day before.  But I wasn't bitterly cold either.  As well, I was able to get a decent bit of sleep in, if not as much as I had hoped.  Pains returned, internal.  In the torso.  And the feet were still slightly pained.  Better, though.

I am improving, slowly, incrementally, and with occassional hiccups.  Three steps forward, with a step back here and there.  A bit frustrating, but better than the doldrums of suffering I had known oh too well for far too long.

My feet are murder!

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Did I break them, fracture them, or are they somply not getting enough blood flow, so hurting from the cold?  A mixture of a few of those things?  Walking on them is a horror.  The knuckles, of both feet, ache... that without any weight applied.  Up on them, I end trying to walk on the outer sides of my feet, for the terrible pains.  Not possible, fully, in shoes.

I have been sleeping cold, no matter what I have done.  My feet and lower legs the coldest of all.  I tried a nightcap, literal, not a consumable, tonight.  Not sure if that was a good call, or just a rare warm natural sleep.  Will try it again.

A few problems being worked.

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The checks, sent to closed accounts, were... problematic.  First, two of the five were sent to accounts which have been closed for years.  Second, all of them were dated in January.  But January 2025.  No good.

I called the title company, to zero effect.  Absolutely dogmatic.  We will only reissue the checks if you come to our office.  We will only cancel the two dead accounts if you can prove those accounts are paid in full, maybe.  Both of those accounts were paid off, and ended, years ago.  I have no proof, and no way to get it on two year dead accounts.

I called my bank.  They... helped.  Made it so if I voided and ripped the checks, took a picture, and texted that, that would work.  To the best of my knowledge that suceeded.  However, they will reissue, with the correct dates, but to the same accounts!

I was told to sinply send them to the accounts, then wait for a refund.  Fine.  So... now I just wait for the new checks.

Then I got a call from one of the construction companies.  It ISN'T on auto pay.  Wasn't.  A bit late, but not too late.  I was able to catch up, pay this month, then automate payments henceforth.  Now to check on the other construction bill.  Pay it up, if needed, and automate it too.  Ugh.

One thing at a time.  But getting there.  If I can get it all done, then I can really rest for a while.  Wasn't planning on working on these things until Monday.  But... just...  saw an opportunity and hopped on it.  Very nice.

My last pain, the left foot, did well last night.  But hurt hellalot again when I woke and got up today.  Still, the first solid non-paimful sleep in... weeks.  Painpills are helping.  But I can't, won't, dose daily.  So tomorrow and Sunday I must simply suffer.  Every third day I will dose, once.  It's how I do.

Oh.  I made cornish game hens the other day.  One for each of us.  Excellent, according to both of us.  My mother is impressed with how well I cook birds.  We each saved half our bird.  I made a chicken stew tonight.  It was excellent.  Mom made ice cream, but using a new recipe I sugested.  It didn't work.  The first recipe was flawless.  I may have a fix for it, will try later tonight or tomorrow.

If the heloc update finishes going through, I'll be able to get on the electrical updates and upgrades, and the electric and gas tankless water heaters.  As well, begin getting quotes for hvac needs and make connections for a concrete driveway, three new exterior doors and screen doors.  Oh, and getting the kitche flooring installed, and paneling in.  Ugh.  Double Ugh!

Spend, spend, spend.  But... living in a warmer, cleaner, better, safer home?  Okay.  It isn't even just for value addition, or sales potential, at this point.  It's about better quality of life.

An successful experiment.

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Fudge.  I found an "easy" recipe.  Chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk, butter, vanilla, and salt.  Okay.  But I was almost certain that could be made in keto form.  Went looking.  Sure enough, one of my favored keto gals had both the sweetened condensed milk and fudge recipe, all together in one video.

Would it really work?  Would it really be keto?  Only one way to find out.  I had to buy chocolate chips, of the keto sort, too.  And, unsalted butter.

All done, then to it.  It took forty minutes, maybe ten to fifteen minutes more, to reduce the cream and butter, with powdered allulose, and two to four drops of liquid sucralose, to produce the sweetened condensed milk.  My dogs are still rough, so it was a painful challenge.  I need a tall chair, for cooking!  If my feet are going to be bad like this this often, for this long.  Ugh.

Still, I sweated through it.  Then added more butter and the chips.  At first, I didn't think that was going to work.  Patience, Grasshopper.  But my dogs were making patience a challenge.  Finally, after fifteen minutes, it started looking... possible.  Then vanilla, a few last stirs to swirl it all even.

In the pans, I added walnuts to most of it, and stirred those in, or pushed them down in.  Some left plain.

Poured into two 8" square glass baking dishes, with oiled parchment.  Then set to cool.  Liquid, still, after an hour?  Freezer!  It never did get to where it could be cut.  Spooned out.  After days in my very hard freezing freezer.

However, the taste was fantastic.  That is some of the best fudge I have eaten.  Was it keto, though?  I had serious doubts.  Mother quite liked it too.  We gobbled those dishes up in less than a week.  Some daily, more some days.  I refused to test my blood sugar, for fear.  Though, on the evening, after I ate my last portion... so last evening, I broke down and bit the bullet.

Blood sugar was 89!  A fluke?  Was the test strip old, too old?  It was the last in that pack.  So, this morning, with a fresh pack of test strips opened, I checked again.  It was 99.  Nice.  Thar HAS to be solid keto.  So rich, decadent, and yet didn't cause the mildest of glucose spikes.  And, it tastes like regular fudge.  Could not differentiate, and I am very discerning.

I still have the mats to make regular fudge, but I think I will toss that.  Or leave it for mom to use, in other things, just for herself.  If she really wants more fudge, I'll get more keto mats.  For me?  I am done with fudge for... another year or two, three maybe.

As to health?  Better.  Mostly needing sleep, to recover.  That broke me pretty hard.  My left foot remains in serious pain, but my right foot seems healed, mostly.  And my internals, from the illness to the biopsy, seem better.  Just... tired.  I was exhausted before I got sick and damaged.  Healing kept me from resting, even while resting.  Everything was going toward healing, not resting.  Maybe now I can begin catching up on sleep and such.  Or die.  ;p

Later.