Jimi Kelli Avery Evan Andrew: January 2022

I did all the things I wanted on my birthday:

eat lemon pie, exercise, not drive to Bellingham, eat at Peace Arch Cafe with Jim, lay in bed.

Have my family hide behind the couch and yell "surprise!" when I walked in the room.

(there was a lot of mumbling, not a lot of yelling "surprise", but I got the idea).

Sit with Lisa on my couch and talk about Eve, The Fall, and other fun topics.

(after Jim and Evan left to Evan's FIRST young men activity!)

Get a foot massage from Avery.

Watch a pretty sunset.

I couldn't see it from my neighborhood, so Lisa sent me a picture.

Then I drove down to the bay to pick up books from bookmobile and watched the colors change in person.

Hike through the forest (on Friday).

Get sprayed by a waterfall.

One of the waterfalls washed out the trail. There so much water everywhere!

We were on this exact trail when Jessica told us she was pregnant.

Now she's in her second trimester. Hello little baby in there.

A birthday bonus: Have the sun shine on my face.

There was just one spot on the whole hike that wasn't shady or cloudy.

We stood there forever. It's been a very long time since the sun has come out from behind the clouds. It's a special treat to see her as she says "hello, goodbye".

It's that time of year when I realize what a miracle the sun is. A MIRACLE - it's placement, my rotation around it, my dependency on it.

Do a puzzle.

Roxanne gave me this hardest puzzle in the whole world.

Me and Avery worked on it together and it was so fun!

We were obsessed for a few days while Jim has been out of town doing his last bit of training.

And

circle round a beach fire.

Every single thing I wanted to do, I got to do - with my favorite people.

I love it so much.

JANUARY

Here we go.

I can't even remember what happened in 2021.

I went back looking for pictures, and this one gave me a feeling of pure terror.

Please no, COVID. No more.

And then I found a thousand pictures of us getting out with our kids for pe/field trips, and remembered how great that part of COVID was.

Andrew said the other day "covid was good for the Homies" (that's what he calls the cohort).

And that is true.

FEBRUARY

And I remembered this trip to Florida. It was my very favorite vacation. Ever, I think.

It was just so FUN. Every second, every activity, every person.

We even did some stupid online school during it.

MARCH

And then I also remembered another great thing about this year: I climbed a mountain every week.

It became a mandatory thing to maintain my sanity.

Now that the kids are back in school I haven't climbed as much.

Necessity is the best motivator.

Also the weather was amazing in first three quarters of 2021

More field trips.

We didn't know Jim's time as an FO would come to an end this year.

APRIL

Spring break in St. George/SUU/Vegas

Andrew's baptism.

I have to tell you about this month when I (most likely) got COVID.

The night before my parents came for Andrew's baptism, I started feeling weird and feverish in the middle of the night. I had the worst sleep thinking about if I should call and have them abort their journey. It was a weird night. In the morning they were already on their way, and I decided it was just a cold anyway. I felt ok...just a stuffy nose.

I took my temperature a million times, and every time the temp was normal.

So I went ahead with the baptism and visitors - my logical brain suggested it would be ok if I did have covid because everyone vulnerable was vaccinated.

My parents came, Jim's parents came.

I took ibuprofen during the day so that I didn't feel too crummy, and we did all the activities and it was great.

I spent a lot of time in my head wondering what to do, but I also knew I wasn't going to do anything:

I just kept track of how it progressed. Nothing terrible was happening to me.

There was NO WAY I was going to get tested. If positive, my kids would have to stop all their school activities and sports, and I knew "normalcy" was top priority at this point in their little lives.

Plus: all their teachers had been vaccinated. The vulnerable were covered.

A hundred times a day I smelled my armpits to see if I still had my sense of smell/taste. I chose my armpits as a base line because they are always available and always offering an odor (good or bad).

I never lost my sense of smell, so I continued to assume this wasn't COVID.

I took a lot of vitamin D and sat eyes closed, face to the sun a lot. I snuck in naps when no one was looking.

It was at night that I got feverish feeling, but my thermometer always read 98 degrees.

After the visitors went home (and nobody ever got sick!) I continued to feel crappy. But I also continued to pretend I was fine (because I kind of was). I went on a temple trip with the youth (I wore a mask in the car the whole time. Two of the adults said "you can take the mask off...we are vaccinated").

Then one day my fake tooth fell out (the maryland bridge had wore out) and I was such a hot mess.

I have such shame and embarrassment about this dumb fake tooth. You have no idea how many nightmares I have about it falling out, and then it DID. Imagine if you had one of your front TEETH missing. It's the ugliest thing possible.

One day at Avery's soccer game, I sat next to Lindsay with my fake tooth wedged between the other teeth. (It was a temporary fix.) I remember I brought a giant blanket to wrap up in because I had the chills.

I wore a mask and told her about my secret shame - my missing front tooth

(I kept my other secret shame - that I probably had covid - a secret. But also Lindsay was vaccinated).

I would cheer for Avery and my wedged tooth would pop out every time. But the mask I was wearing caught the tooth so that it didn't go flying across the field.

So the mask served double purpose: contain the tooth and the covid.

One time I was sitting with Lisa at Evan's baseball game. I DIDN'T have a mask on, and I was talking to her and my tooth popped out of the wedge, and I acted such a fool, catching it in my mouth mid sentence before it went flying across the bleachers. Lisa looked at me and asked if I was OK? I was acting so weird trying to live with this tooth wedged in between my other teeth. I laughed and cried and

told her about my tooth secret.

But not my covid secret.

Then I put a mask on to catch my tooth in case it went flying.

Anyway, I finally got a dentist appointment to get the tooth reinstalled.

I told them I was healthy when they asked about any covid symptoms. I knew they had all been vaccinated.

haha.

I can't believe how many times I lied about covid symptoms: to the dentist, to the temple workers, to my friends, to myself.

Anyway. My armpit continued to smell, so I continued to think maybe it wasn't covid.

But I also had zero appetite and lost around 8 pounds.

Then I went and got my first vaccine shot and lied to the pharmacist when he asked if I had any symptoms. I had researched what would happen if you got the vax while sick with covid, and it would be fine. Everything is fine.

All the while Jim was the only other soul who knew about my covid.

"Don't you want to know if you have this historical worldwide virus? We will never know."

One week, then into two weeks of feeling crappy and tired, I began to think that maybe definitely this is covid. Especially when I started getting short of breath.

We went up to Baker to go sledding with the youth and I wanted so badly to mess around on the mountain with Roxanne, but climbing up the hill with my sled in hand winded me so bad. haha. I mostly just sat in the snow at the top of the hill and watched everyone else have fun.

Then one night, about two weeks into it, I wondered about my thermometer. Why was it always showing 98 degrees when I felt so weird and feverish in the night? So I tested it against when I felt fine and on Jims forehead, and guess what? it was about 2 degrees off. So when it registered 98 degrees, what it really meant was something closer to the 100s.

haha.

There was so much cognitive dissonance going on, I talked myself into thinking that thermometer was accurate, and my body feeling fevered was inaccurate.

Anyway.

The end of this thing is my favorite part:

One night, a few weeks of feeling terrible and feeling conflicted and nervous and all the things, I prayed very hard. I said "using what ever priesthood power I have in me, please help me get better."

and then I got this distinct idea in my brain: "don't take any ibuprofen tonight. your body needs to fever."

I had been taking all the medicines to help me sleep at night.

But this night I didn't take anything, and I cooked. I cooked and cooked and had all the weird fever dreams.

Then in the morning, my fever broke on its own and I began to feel better.

ps no one in my house ever got sick. not even Jim sleeping next to me every night. It's so weird.

Dear Diary, even though this is published on the internet for all the people to read, I am going to pretend like no one else is reading it and judging me because I don't care about anyone else's opinion on how I handled my experience with covid. This blog post is just between you and me. Thanks for keeping my non-shameful secret a secret.

Love, Kelli