Good morning! The coffee’s piping hot on this ridiculously chilly day (at least in my parts), so come on in!

If we were having coffee, I would thank you for the comments from last week’s post. My neck is feeling much better. It turned out to be my pillow’s fault (at least partly). The pillow I was using before didn’t bounce back after I lift my head. So over time, it became incredibly flat, which made my head feel like it wasn’t laying on a pillow at all.

After switching to a memory foam pillow, which does bounces back, my neck began to feel much better. Though now, I have trouble sleeping because of the new pillow (need to get used to it) and because mom begins talking loudly on the phone at 5 AM. I now need to figure out a better alternative than earplugs because obviously, I can still hear with them in my ears.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you I finally went to see my mom’s family doctor, who is also now my family doctor. My former family doctor was a nurse practitioner who only knew to send me to see a bunch of specialists who couldn’t reach a solid conclusion on the mystery of my low white blood cell count (WBC).

It was quite difficult getting the appointment as this doctor no longer accepted new patients. Anyway, after handing him 9 pages worth of my past lab results, he agreed to take on my case and research to help me come up with a better explanation for my low WBC than what the specialists have been telling me, which is due to my short stature. Small person produces less WBC, they say.

My new family doctor told me that’s baloney. He said babies have normal WBC and they’re tiny.

“Right?” I said and isn’t it curious that my WBC was normal prior to my lupus diagnosis in 2016? How does one explain that?

If we were having coffee, I would tell you the ginger I planted back in early December finally grew roots this week. Seeing the tiny roots truly made my week because it’s been purely an experiment from the beginning. I didn’t know whether to keep the soil damp or dry. Some said keep it wet while others said let it dry out to speed up germination.

Clearly it’s wet.

I kept the soil damp while feeding it with a liquid fertilizer every 2 weeks or so because ginger is a heavy feeder. After 7 weeks, roots have finally emerged.

Finally, if we were having coffee, I would tell you I’m getting ready to begin indoor seed starting hopefully next week. I ordered some biodegradable pots last week but when it arrived, it was missing the tiny tools that were supposedly included. I ended up returned it and ordered a replacement. I hope everything is in there this time.

This will be my third round of seeds so far. First round was sowed late December and it consisted of perennial flowers, mostly native to lure butterflies and beneficial insects. I sowed a second round of seeds 2 weeks ago – spinach plants in my Greenstalk planter and indoor started some rosemary. My third round will consist of violas, petunias, and slow-growing leafy greens like broccoli and napa cabbage.

It’s my first time growing violas and I’m nervous about it because violas are best germinated in darkness. I thought about starting them in the garage but fear it might be too cold for them. I’ll have to get creative.

#weekendcoffeeshare is hosted by Natalie of Natalie the Explorer. I appreciate you stopping by and hope to see you back here next weekend.