Trolling Around

Big Pete

Yesterday my husband caught up to me again, age-wise. To celebrate we went to see MJ The Musical Sunday after going out to dinner. But on the actual b-day we decided to go hunting for a troll in Charlotte. We had been reading about Big Pete with the big feet since he was unveiled in November of 2025. One of artist Thomas Dambo's "Trolls of America", Big Pete is the only one in Charlotte.

Dambo's dream is to have at least one troll in each state. They are made of recycled wood and other materials, and are built by local community members and placed in nature. Dambo is an artist who was born and lives in Denmark, and since 2014 he has become internationally known for his large trolls.

Big Pete is one of the larger trolls, measuring 65 feet in length. His feet are 7 feet tall! There was no one there when we visited, making it easy to get pictures of him with no one in the way. We did want a couple photos with one of us in it for scale though. That is when you can truly appreciate how large this art piece is.

Seeing Big Pete has whetted our appetite to see some of the other trolls. North Carolina has an additional five trolls in Raleigh, and another one in High Point. I sense a road trip in our future.

Lantern Time Already?

Every October for the past five years my community has entered the Mount Holly Lantern Parade. The theme for this year was announced at the end of last year's parade, and it is "The Wide World of Sports". I'm not going to lie, none of us are excited about this theme. Our goal is always to have something that engages the children along the parade route, as well as having enough lanterns for the many residents in our community who want to walk in the parade with us.

We really struggled with coming up with something that would be fun for us to work on. We actually considered not participating this year. But finally we came up with an idea that we thought would work for us. I doubt that any of our competitors read this blog, but nevertheless I will keep what we are doing a surprise. It encompasses many sports, so I think that will appeal to a lot of people.

We have begun deconstruction of our larger lanterns from last year. We repurpose the interior framing and light packs when we can. I took one last picture of all the sharks together for posterity's sake.

Baby Shark & family

Speaking of surprises, my husband will be turning 70 this year. I had planned a surprise trip for him, setting up an activity that he really enjoys. I have kept the secret, and all he knew was that he would need his passport, and to dress for warm weather. But yesterday, the group that I organized the trip through sent out an email to HIM and not to me. They were aware that this was a gift for Jim and were told not to contact him. So much for the surprise!!!

I am really aggravated about it, and am trying to get over it. They have yet to reach out to me to apologize for their error. But I don't want our trip to start out on the wrong foot, so I'll need to be gracious about it. Jim is excited about where we are going, so in the end that is all that matters.

Thyroid Void

My physician wanted me to come back to see her and have my blood retested after six weeks of taking the thyroid pill she had prescribed for me. After a slight delay due to the ice storm, I went in on January 28th. I'm not sure exactly why I had to see her in person, but I guess she wanted to make sure I was tolerating the medication okay. I told her I have not had any problems with it, and have adjusted to taking my vitamins at noon instead of first thing in the morning. 

Thyroid medication has to be taken when you first wake up, and then you need to wait 30-60 minutes before eating or drinking anything except for water. You shouldn't take certain vitamins until at least four hours after the thyroid pill because they interfere with absorption. So it has just seemed safer to take my multivitamin and calcium pills after the four hour mark.

After meeting with her, they drew blood to test the level of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) in my system. This time the test showed that my TSH level is too low. This indicates that the pill she prescribed is too high of a dosage. For now she suggested that I take the pill six days a week, and skip the seventh day. Honestly, I wish she would just give me a new, lower prescription. Skipping one day is a harder routine to remember than taking a pill every day. I have to go back in six weeks and have the blood work repeated. Apparently it is pretty common to have to play around with thyroid medication until they see what works best for an individual.