PILE IT ON

    I should have figured it would all eventually catch up to me, right? I've had such an easy go of life over the last few years (I mean, not including my 20s, I guess) compared to some people. You will always find people worse off than you so there's no point in compaining, I suppose. At least I have a roof over my head and money in the bank. But hot damn, when shit hits the fan it really does, doesn't it? Like, could we not like, you know, spread out the bad luck over a couple of years? Did it all have to happen at the same time?

So besides the fact that my mom is in the hospital with an unknown ailment, undisagnosed for several months, and my dad is sick at the same time and still kind of recovering from quadruple bypass heart surgery back in April, our amazing cat Daisy (who is Patrick's but now also mine by proxy) was recently diagnosed with metestatic lung cancer and has only months to live. There's nothing we can do for her but love on her and keep her comfortable until it's time we make the hard decision to say goodbye. She is 18, so she's had a good, long life, but the road ahead will not be easy, and it breaks both our hearts to know that we'll have to see her begin to suffer soon and need to decide when to say goodbye.

 

 And now to top that beautiful cake, my little toe did the splits on a piece of furniture and I heard a pretty sickening crack. Although it didn't hurt any worse than it usually would when I do that, the crack is what sold me that something was definitely wrong. Plus, it continued to hurt after the fact and it started to bruise between my toes. Oddly enough, it didn't hurt when I pulled my toes apart, but only if I applied pressure downward or moved them in an upward way. I had tried to go to urgent care Sunday night to get it taken care of but it was too late. It was 6pm and they were already seeing 8 people, so I was turned away. It wasn't serious enough to go to the ER for, so they told me to come back at 8am on Monday.

    So now I'm missing work, and even at 7:45am I'm the 4th person in line. It's crazy. Before Covid, as medical professionals, we'd get super annoyed at people going to the ER for stupid, not emergent things and clogging up emergency staff for shit that aren't ememrgencies, like stubbed toes. This is what urgent care is for, we'd say. Well, now it's working, and we see the result. People know now that Covid is clogging the ER, and they're also afraid to go to the ER, plus they're going to UC for Covid symtoms, so the UC is being overrun and it certainly shows.

    Anyway, turns out I have a small fracture in one of the bones further up my toe, which is why my actual pinkie toe doesn't seem to hurt at all, and I have to wear this sandle that's supposed to keep my foot flat but all it actually does is make my foot extremely cold, as if my feet weren't cold enough :-\ I mean, at least it doesn't hurt unless I step wrong, so there's that. But I gotta wear this sandle for 4-6 weeks ffs.

    Work isn't taking it easy on me either. Being in healthcare right now is a shitshow. Everyone is understaffed everywhere. And when you work in cancer, everything is now-now-now, and nothing can be done in a timely fashion when everyone is understaffed - including your own clinic. Now people here are leaving for better opportunities, and I'll be stuck doing the job of 3 people, and I need to be highly medicated in order to make it through the next few months.

    So like, can Murphy leave me alone now for a little bit and go bug someone else? Kthxbi.

Cirkul Review

Originally Published on Aug 11th, 2011 

I know, I barely blog anymore, but my life has been really hectic; a lot of things have been going on. I might write about it if and when it all settles down but right now I can't. Most of my friends and family know what's going on, though.

Anyway, I wanted to start back up writing about my life again, so I figured I'd start with another review (and maybe publish old blogs that I never finished! They'll be way out of date, now!)

I just bought myself a Cirkul. It's the weirdest name for a product that really has nothing to do with being a circle. I mean, it's a lid with concentrated packets of flavor inside, that you can attach to your own water bottle or to one of theirs. You can change the intensity of the flavor, and it doesn't change all the water itself - it only flavors the water as it passes through the Cirkul and into your mouth. This review will take a while to finish because I want to personally review each flavor I bought and so far I've only tried 3. I bought 12.

Each cartridge is called a "Sip", and there are different categories of Sips. 

LifeSips are enriched with B vitamins

FitSips have electrolytes

GoSips have some caffeine

PureSips have all natural flavor with no added sweetener (similar to just putting fruit in your water)

And then they have TeaSips and BrewSips.

I honestly did not care about whether any flavors I ordered had caffeine or anything else, I only cared about flavor.

Each Sip can last around 6 fill ups - in which they mean their 22oz bottle that they sell, and it depends on the flavor intensity you set it to. So that's 132oz, and so for my 40oz bottle that I attach it to, that's roughly 3 servings. They cost $3.75 a piece. I'm hoping it'll last longer because I set the intensity to 3 out of 10. 

Now before I get into reviewing specific flavors, I did want to mention a few things. So, first of all, the product itself is very wasteful. Each Sip is an entire drink top. It includes not only the packet of flavor, but the intensity dial/sip thing.
The company says that they are environmentally conscious about it, but I would like to see them change their product to just have the packets of flavor that you insert into it, even if that means kind of taking the thing apart to do so.

Now you can, supposedly, buy your own like, Crystal Light squirt bottles and fill up the packets yourself. If there is a particular flavor of Crystal Light you really enjoy then that might work for you. But if you end up doing that, then you might as well not even use the Cirkul at all.

I saw Freakin' Reviews review of it and that's how I discovered it. I generally buy the powder packets because they're cheaper, and for some reason, I find their flavor more pleasing, especially when it comes to flavors that use citric acid (like Cherry Limeade). But the powder packets have a number of downsides. I can't change the amount of flavor; I can reduce the amount of powder I put in but then I have some left over which is a pain in itself, and sometimes the flavors are just so intense that doesn't help just to "use less". (It's hard to explain, but Cherry Pomegranate has this problem).

Another issue is the residue. Powder packets leave a residue all over the inside of the bottle, in the straw, in the silicone, that builds over time and is impossible to clean. That might make using the Cirkul a huge plus because although it's wasteful to throw away the whole suction part, it also means I don't have to worry about cleaning it. And if you've ever seen my water bottles covered in dark crud from months of constant use, you'd wonder why I wasn't dead.

Another plus that people probably don't think about is the dye. Cirkul apparently doesn't put any dyes in their products (I'm drinking Lemon Lime right now and there's a slightly greenish tint but nothing heavy), unlike the powders or the squirts, where they are generally heavily dyed. I HATE dyed flavors; they're completely unnecessary and THEY WILL STAIN YOUR TEETH. I use Straw Lids for two reasons: Number 1 I just enjoy drinking through a straw, I think I end up drinking more water this way. And number 2, I do it so I don't stain my front teeth. Cirkul has me drinking through like a squirt bottle lid that requires me to tip the bottle up and suck in order to get the water out. It's not my favorite method, and it does require the water to go over my front teeth, but as long as it's not dyed then it shouldn't be a problem.

Another reason I decided to jump into buying this was when I was scrolling through the flavors, I saw Lemon Lime. The Great Value (walmart) "Tropical Lime" flavor is my absolute favorite, and of course they decide to discontinue it. I've looked everywhere for a replacement but specifically just "lime" flavor doesn't really exist, unless it's True Lime, but that doesn't taste anything like this. I've tried making my own to no avail as well. I was really hoping that "Lemon Lime" would be my new sub.

So now we'll get into flavor reviews. The flavors I purchased are:

LifeSips

Mango Grapefruit (Stevia) - I don't like this one much at all. The grapefruit is very sour tasting, but not in a citric acid kind of way, if that makes sense. I normally love sour flavors, I will add citric acid to lemonade. But this... nah.

Lemonade - It's a bit too sweet for my taste, but I'm also a little weird; I like to add citric acid to most artificially sweetened lemonades. I like them really sour. I'll still order it occasionally if I get bored of the other flavors.

Peach Mango - This is the best "peach mango" flavor I have ever tried. It doesn't even taste artificial to me at all. Very peachy. I like it a lot!

FitSips

Lemon Lime (Stevia) - Unfortunately, this did not turn out as awesome of a replacement for Tropical Lime as I had hoped. It's a decent flavor, but it tastes like Gatorade. Maybe it's the Stevia? I probably won't be ordering this flavor again. Sad Pandas.

Tropical Blast - It tastes like pineapple/banana. It's... not very good, imo. The flavor is just... odd.

White Cherry - Not... my favorite. I'm not sure why. The flavor seems.... flat? I don't know. I love cherry, and I've never had "white" cherry before, so I didn't know what I expected it to taste like. But I won't be re-ordering this one.

GoSips

Citrus Twist - This is an excellent flavor. I don't think anything can replace my Tropical Lime, but dang it, it's good. Will be re-ordering this one for sure.

Cherry Limeade - Very tasty. Tastes like Cherry Limeade. Not as intense as the powdered stuff, but still good. Always looking for more citric acid, which these seem to lack.

Black Cherry - Super yummy. I don't expect a citric acid kick from a flavor like these, so I like this one a lot.

BrewSips

Vanilla Iced Coffee - WOW. I was really hesitant to try BrewSips but holy crap it tastes like Iced Vanilla Coffee and I can't get over it. I'm so excited to try the other versions.

Mocha Iced Coffee - I like this one. It's not as good as vanilla, but I can definitely swap them!

Caramel Iced Coffee - It's too weaksauce. The flavor is pretty good, but I had to turn up the dial in order to get the same flavor intensity as Vanilla. I won't order this one again most likely. 

I will update this list when I finish trying all the flavors, but this is what I have for now. If you would like to purchase a Cirkul for yourself, I do have a link that will give us free Sips if you use it (No pressure though. It's not like I'm getting paid by Cirkul to promote their stuff!)

https://drinkcirkul.com/share/Amy-V5457910464602