Answers to yesterday’s The Friday Five questions! Picture from Pixabay, because it’s pretty and because for once we’ve been having snow for the past two weeks or so 😀

1) How is your year going so far?

So far so good. I’ve felt terribly exhausted since early December, even more than my normal, but yesterday was a good day and today I’m also feeling okayish so far. I would even go so far and say I’m feeling rested yesterday and today 😀 Beginning of the year is always interesting, because I have my Crohn’s Disease yearly check-up in January/February. I had the blood and stool tests done last week, and will see the doctor on the 9th. The blood tests results were kind of weird, about half of them were either just above or below the normal range. But luckly ALAT and AFOS were okay (ALAT has been considerably elevated the last several times), and CALPRO is I think okay for a IBD patient but clearly higher than a healthy person’s.

Otherwise it’s just the same old, same old. Wearing masks and social distancing, staying home and try and do something creative every day, because that brings me pleasure and eases my mind.

2) Have you gotten vaccinated yet? If not, when do you think it’s likely to happen?

Not yet. I’m in one of the medical risk groups, not sure whether the higher or lower one, and currently it’s estimated that those vaccinations will begin in March in my home town. But delays are very possible due the delays in Pfizer-BioNTech has been having lately delivering the vaccines to EU/Finland.

3) Are you bored or are you busy these days?

I’m mostly tired, and sometimes bored. Never busy. I’m also a little worried about my Mom’s upcoming hip surgery, what with the virus spreading in some wards in some hospitals. But the alternative is for her keep going on in pain for who knows how long, and that doesn’t seem like an option either.

4) Is this pandemic good or bad for your finances?

About the same. I usually couldn’t afford even in normal times to go out to eat, to movies etc. Not that did that a lot when I was working for longer bits and could afford things like normal people – I’m more of a homebody, really, and never did appreciate those things so much. I’d much rather buy books and computer stuff, and recently fountain pen and art/crafts stuff when I had money to spend/saved up to. I live alone and don’t have children or anything like that, so pretty much the only additional expenditure due to the pandemic has been having to buy surgical face masks . But luckily I found them for cheap on Amazon.de last year so it didn’t cost me a lot.

5) What are you missing most these days?

Seeing my friend and my Mom without worrying about Covid-19; we only saw a few times last year in person and none so far this year.

Going to to the shops and using busses (I don’t own a car so I have to use a bus) without a mask and keeping a distance.

I guess just being carefree about going about in general.