Wednesday, 2/22/2012 4:56 PM
We figure that
we're doing pretty well. We're sitting
here talking to Linda right now. Just
stuff in general. We're both drinking
coffee. We have probably had better
ideas, but for now … couldn't think of a better thing to do with our time than
having coffee with Linda. We haven't seen Linda since before Dr. Marvin's
yesterday, I think - maybe? Did we see
her last night? Hmm, just don't
remember. {**PTPR-good/bad, **PAFD-Linda,
**PACT-talk/speak, **PACT-drink/eat, **PTPR-better/improve, **PTP-ideas/incubator,
**PTP-problem solve, **PA-DRM, **PTP-question, **PTP-remember/memory/retrieve}
The most exciting
thing I could say right now is that we just finished our second Master’s course
final project paper and it was on time. I am so happy and relieved. I spent most
of the time last week on it, and then we had it reviewed by Dr. Marvin, and
then we sat on it for like two or three days. It finally just needed to get
done even though it's not due until Saturday.
Linda seems to have disappeared. I wonder where she really goes. For all
I know, she could be having a mass orgy over there. But, would she really have
one without inviting me? She's been gone
3 min. now, and will probably not even realize she was gone after she gets
back. That's okay… Now we have our trustee Dragon to keep us company. {**PF-excite, **PTP-complete/conclude, **DSM, **DSC-paper,
**DSC, **D-project, **TS-time past, **PF-happy, **PF-relief, **PTP-review/go
back to, **PA-DRM, **SGO-schedule, **PF-abandon, **PACT-interact **PAFD-Linda, **PACT-move/go,
**PACT-sex, **PACT-invite, **PTPR-okay, **TS-time present **PF-trust, **SMS-Dragon}
We talked to Dr.
Marvin last night. It seemed like everything was going pretty good. We’re giving
him a general rundown on how school was going and home and friendship and
all. But then we started thinking about
how we are lost at not being able to keep track of ourselves. The first markers were that we had wanted to
do something on the Internet, and the second marker was it had something to do
again with our writing. It seems like it has been a long time since we've
really written. We know that over the last couple weeks somebody in the system
has been playing with Outlook and OneNote ideas. And sometime in there, we
received our new Microsoft software from Connie Sue, and then last night, we
took out the program and started to think more seriously about it. There wasn't
much time to play with it before bedtime because we were tired, but we knew
that we would wake up again in the morning and go pretty much straight to it. {*PACT-talk/speak, **PA-DRM, **PACT-move/go, **PTPR-good/bad, **PTP-review/go
back to, **DS, **DH, **PAFD, PF-lost, **PTP-remember/memory/retrieve, **PTP-markers,
**DC-Internet, **PACTWE, **TS-time past, **SMS, ** DCS-Outlook, **DCS-OneNote, **PTPR-new/old,
**DCS-Microsoft, **PAFM-Connie Sue, **D-program, **PTPR-serious/seriously, **PACT-play/work,
**PF-sleepy/tired, **PACT-progress}
So that is where we
are today, except to say with all our heart, we have Dragon and we love him.
Dragon is going to be one of our new best friends. And dragon's name is
"Dragon." It is just so nice that all the time that Linda is typing,
we can just talk and things are getting written at an amazing speed compared to
the old days when we used to write all day in the blog. Using Dragon, we have
some chance of actually being able to record things and write without spending
all the time in the world to do it. For
those who don't know, Dragon is short for Dragon Naturally Speaking, and it is
speech recognition software where you speak and it types fast. And, do you want
to know another thing? With just clicking on the cursor, I can speak in both
the OneNote screen and the Linda Facebook message window on our second screen at
the same time and – it's a pretty good deal. Basically, more parts have the
ability to speak and interact on different platforms at the same time.
Sometimes our minds get restless because of their tendency to think quickly
between them. {**PTP-complete/conclude,
**PF-love, **PTP-explain, **SMS-Dragon, **PACT-move/go, **PTPR-new/old, **PAFD,
**PTPR-nice/sweet, **PAFD-Linda, **PACT-talk/speak, **PACTWE, **PF-amaze/astonish,
**PTPR-fast, **PTP-compare/consider/compete, **TS-time past, **PF-restless, **PACTWE-journal/blog,
**PF-hope, **PACT-record, **D-world, **PTP-question, **PACT-direct/instruct, **DCS-OneNote,
**DC, **DCI-Facebook, **SMS, *PTPR-good/bad, **PTP-skill/ability, **PACT-interact,
**DA-platform, **SMS-mind(s)}
We are thinking
poor Linda. She didn't see that one coming. As well, she was writing about one
of her friends and I inserted something about skipping that topic, which isn't
very interesting to me, and then going over to the topic of the other woman'
sex life. That is much more like my interest. I know bad – bad me. It is just
too much psychological weight has been lifted in finishing the paper, and then
having to talk about something that is less than stellar? {**PF-sympathy, **PAFD-Linda, **PF-surprise,
**PF-restless, **PACT-move/go, **D-area-topic, **PACT-sex, **PF-interest, **PTPR-good/bad,
**PF-burden, **PF-relief, **DSC-paper, **PACT-talk/speak, **PTPR-stellar}
Anyway … I'm sorry,
I don't mean to be rude. {**PTP-anyway/whatever/so
what/etcetera, **PACT-apologize, **PTP-mean/meant/clarify, **PACT-rude}
We opened the
Outlook software first, and then we looked for something within the software that
would connect it to the OneNote software, because we figured that if we could
integrate the two, then we would have the better program system. And that's
what it seems like we are looking for. We are looking for a new system. We
talked to Dr. Marvin and the problem seems to be – is that were losing too much
time during the day. We don't know who starts one thing, and who ends the next.
And, we were talking to him about not being able to remember what we were
saying in our school papers from the beginning of one paragraph to the end of
the same paragraph, and how much that was affecting us while we were editing
our paper. We are figuring part of it might be being in a multiples’ system,
but another part might be just because of our brain does not have the correct retrieval
abilities. {**DCS-Outlook, **PACT-order/sequence,
**PACT-look/see, **DCS-OneNote, **PTP-if/then, **PTPR-better/improve, *PTP-add/blend/integrate/mix,
**D-program, **PTP-systematize, **PTP-problem/solve, **PTPR-new/old, **PTP-ideas/incubator,
**PACT-talk/speak, **PA-DRM, **PF-confuse-unsure, **PTP-remember/memory/retrieve,
**PF-lost, **DS, **DSC-paper, **PACT-affect, **SMS, *SMS-brain, **PTPR-correct/incorrect,
**PTP-skill/ability}
We had better luck
finding extra features on the OneNote software, although we found that they both
have a system where you can press an option and then that option takes you to an
add- in place. In at least one of the additions, it seems as if you can add
more maneuverability between OneNote and Outlook. {**PTP-luck,
**PTPR-better/improve, **PTP-choice/option/feature, **DCS-OneNote, **PTP-compare/consider/compete,
**PACT-search/find/discover, **PTP-systematize, **PTPR-flexible, **PTP-complete/conclude,
**DCS-Outlook}
Linda is gone now. Rich
called and said that he had forgotten, but tonight was Wednesday and we would
have to go out for dinner. Not that
going out to dinner is such a bad thing; it's actually kind of nice. But, that
meant that I had to stop talking to Linda. I had to get into the shower, and I
would have to get dressed. None of that sounds like very much fun. But, by now Rich
is home; he's in the kitchen. He's probably thinking were pretty strange –
though this is not a new concept to him, but this time it is because he’s not
used to us talking out loud to our new pet Dragon. But I got my new-fangled
friend Dragon, and he’s here to stay. {**PAFD-Linda,
**PACT-go/gone, **SRR, **PTP-routine **SGO-schedule, **PACT-drink/eat, **PTPR-good/bad,
**PTPR-nice/sweet, **PTP-mean/meant/clarify, **PACT-talk/speak, **PACT-shower/dress,
**PTPR-fun/not fun, **DH-kitchen, **PTPR-strange/normal,
**PTPR-new/old, **PTP-concept, **PACT-talk/speak, **PAFD, **SMS-Dragon, **PTPR-permanent/temporary}
I think I'm going
to write another book again. I don't know what's so special about today, but if
I just keep talking then maybe a book will happen by accident. It can't get
less crazy than that right? {**PACTWE, **DB, **PACT-move/go,
**PF-confuse/unsure, **PF-special, **TS-time present, **PACT-talk/speak,
**D-accident, **PTPR-strange/normal, **PTP-question}
Okay enough of that
moving on… {**PTPR-okay, **PTP-complete/conclude,
**PACT-move}
Let's go back to where we open
the Outlook software and the OneNote software. We found out on the OneNote software,
it would let me see under the -- switch screens again. Okay it's on the home screen. You can write
down like an Outlook task, and then when I press that key or link, it marks a
note that goes to both OneNote and to Outlook. So that was the start and then
this is the happy me. Good enough. Hmm,
it won't type the word Ann for me - it thinks I'm saying "and" so for
a while until I can figure out another way, we're going to our first part’s
name of Mimi. I like that! Wow! It can type Mimi no problem. {**PTP-review/go back to, **DCS-Outlook, **DC-task, **PACT-move/go, **DCS-OneNote,
**PACT-search/find/discover, **PTPR-okay, **DC-screen, **PTP-analysis, **PACT-process,
**PTP-problem/solve, **DC-link/key, D-note, **PACTWE, **PACT-describe/explain,*PF-happy,
**SMS-Ann, **PTPR-good/bad, **SMS-Mimi, **PF-excite}
I better be more
conscientious of the time. It is now 5:13 PM and Rich has set-up that we go out
to dinner at 5:30 PM. So basically what I did is this morning, was that I
played in the OneNote software and I added new notebooks to the left-hand
margin. {**PTPR-better/improve,
**PTP-conscious/conscientious, **TS-time present, **SRR, **PACT-move/go, **PTP-routine
**SGO-schedule, **PACT-describe/explain, **PACT-play/work, **DCS-OneNote, **PTPR-new/old,
**D-notebook}
Unfiled Notes
Personal
Rich
Family
Friends
Mischief (for the
two cats Missy and Chief)
School
AAQ Q.S.O.S.
Quilting
Computer
Household
Downloads
{**PACT-file/fill,
**DC-notes, **S-personal, **SRR, **PAFM, **PAFD, **SC, **DS, **D-volunteer AQ,
**D-quilting, **DC, **DH-household, **DC-downloads}
I had to type that
in by hand because when I said it into Dragon, it took me up to those tabs and
shut them down. This will take some experimentation. In the school link, it
allowed me to put down a tab for how we were doing in school, and a tab for each
of the classes - adult education, then a tab for business grants - the one
which is finishing up now, and then the next tab for the strategy course which we
will start in March. Then, for the first
two courses, both adult education theory courses, we are going to just put in
our papers under the new page. {**PTP-problem/solve, **PACT-type,
**DBP-hand, **PACT-talk/speak, **SMS-Dragon, **DC-tabs, **PACT-process, **PACT-experiment,
**DC-link, **DS, **PTP-allow/accept/reject, **DC-tabs, **DSCM–1/Adult Learning Theory,
**DSCM-2/Business Management for Learning Organizations – Grants, **DSCM-3/Strategic
Planning for Educators, **PTP-complete/conclude, **SGO-schedule, **PTP-analyze,
**PACT-move/go, **DSC-paper, **PTPR-new/old, **DC-page}
For the course
we're just finishing in business, what we did was go throughout the whole
course and list everything that was listed underneath the course headings such
as syllabus, project, references, and the eight separate weeks. It was a lot of
information to add. And then before we stopped, we went back and added all the
information from the forum just under my name.
So, if I wrote a document in the forum or someone had one written in the
forum to me I would copy it down under that week's lesson which is titled
something like 5.1. The first number means which week we are in and the second
number is which assignment during that given week. Again, each course has eight weeks and they start
on the odd-numbered months. From this
point on, I can collect information from the classes in a more permanent spot,
so that I can remember them, and then it should be a good reference for me. Dr.
Marvin and I figured out last night that I have two of my ten courses completed
for the Master’s program and that my doctoral program is - I have to check this,
but I believe the second program has 24 courses. {**PACT-describe/explain,
**PTP-complete/conclude, **DSCM-2/Business Management for Learning
Organizations - Grants, **PACT-move/go, **DSC, **PACT-list, **PTP-summary/evaluate,
**DC-headings, **DSC-syllabus, **D-project, **DSC-paper/references, **SGO-schedule,
**PTP-information, **PTP-analyze, **PTP-synthesize, **DS-forum, **DC-document,
**DC-copy/paste, **DS-lesson, **PACT-label, **DSC-module, **PTP-mean/meant/clarify,
**DS-assignment, **PTPR-begin/end, **PACT-collect/capture, **DSC, **PTPR-permanent/temporary,
**PTP-remember/memory/retrieve, **PTPR-should/ought, **PTPR-good/bad, **PTP-reference/orientate,
**PA-DRM, **DSM, **D-program, **DSD, **PACT-check/look-up, **PACT-order/sequence,
}
I am correct.
Yay! The doctorate program is actually
72 credit hours and at three credits each hour that's 24 courses. The first course
is orientation. The next eight courses are core content courses in foundations
of adult learning, program planning, needs analysis, instructional design,
instructional delivery methods, and assessment of learning program, managing
change, and leadership in Adult Education. The next areas are three research courses
are in foundations of doctoral research methods, qualitative doctoral research
methods, and quantitative doctoral research methods. And then you have to take
one leadership capstone specialization course, and I would be in the adult
education leadership capstone course. Let me read that for the record {**PTPR-correct/incorrect, **PF-excite, **DSD, **program,
**DS-credits, **DSC, **DSCD-0/Orientation, **DSC-core/content, **DSCD-1/Foundation
of Adult Learning, **DSCD-2/Program Planning, **DSCD-3/Needs Analysis, **DSCD-4/Instructional
Design, **DSCD-5/Instructional Delivery Methods, **DSCD-6/Assessment of
Learning Program, **DSCD-7/Managing Change, **DSCD-8/Leadership in Adult
Education, **D-area, **DSCD-research, **DSCD-9/Doctoral Research Methods,
Foundation, **DSCD-10/Doctoral Research Methods, Qualitative, **DSCD-11/Doctoral
Research Methods, Quantitative, **DSCD-12/Doctoral Adult Education Leadership
Capstone, **DSC-specialization/destiny, **PACT-read, **D-record}
EDU 783: Adult
education leadership capstone overview – Adult education leadership covers the
principles and practices of being a leader in an organization with adult
education programs. It provides the knowledge skills and abilities to
accurately and completely evaluate and implement principle strategies and
methodologies for leading adult education programs. The course blends two
instructional strategies. First, the student explores the basic principles and
related practices, strategies and methodologies of leadership and adult
education programs. Second, the student applies these learned principles and
practices in a sponsored synthesizing project applying adult education
leadership principles, strategies and methodologies in an adult learning
organization. {**DSCD-12/Doctoral Adult
Education Leadership Capstone, **PTP-review/go back to,
**PTP-principle/practice/procedure, **PA-leader, *D-organization/business, **DS-adult
education, **D-program, **PACT-describe/explain, **PTP-knowledge,
**PTP-skill/ability, **PTPR-accurate, **PTP-complete/conclude,
**PTP-summary/evaluate, **PACT-implement, **S, **PTP-methodology, **PTP-lead,
**DSC, **PACT-add/blend/integrate/mix, **PTP-educate/teach/instruct, **PACT-apply,
**PTP-learn/study, **PA-sponsor, **PTP-synthesis, **D-project, **DS-adult
education, **D-organization/business}
Sweet! Not that the
words were as understandable to me now as sweet that Dragon just that put it
all down as one strong line in just 3 seconds.
{**PF-excite,
**PTP-understand, **TS-time now, **PTPR-nice/sweet, **SMS-Dragon, **PACT-describe/explain,
**T}
Going back to the
program now after the capstone class is taken, you take a comprehensive
examination from the school of education and then you take a formal proposal
class for the school of education. The next thing is to write the dissertation
which is 16 credits for four classes. The first course is dissertation
data-gathering. The second course is dissertation analysis. The next class is
dissertation results. And then the last one is dissertation final defense. That
is the research end of things. The next part is the writing aspect and there
are 13 dissertation writing courses. The courses are foundations of doctoral
writing, foundations of the doctoral research, structure of the literature
review, developing the research question, structure of the research
methodology, structure of the introduction and the prospectus, initial drafts
of the literature review, initial drafts of the research methodology, final
draft of the literature review, final draft of the research methodology,
initial drafts of the introduction, final draft of introduction, and IRB
application, proposal, and IRB approval. {**PTP-review/go
back to, **D-program, **TS-time present, **DS-capstone, **DSC, **PACT-describe/explain,
**DSCD-/13 Comprehension Examination, **DS-education, **DSCD-14/Formal
Proposal, **DSDD, **DS-credits, **DSC, **PACT-list, **DSCDD-1/Data Gathering, **DSCDD-2/Analysis,
**DSCDD-3/Results, **DSCDD-4/Final Defense, **DS-Research, **PACTWE, **DSCDDW-1/Foundations,
**DSCDDW-2/Research, **DSCDDW-3/Structure of the Literature Review, **DSCDDW-4/Developing
the Research Question, **DSCDDW-5/Structure of the Research Methodology,
**DSCDDW-6/Structure of the Introduction and the Prospectus, **DSCDDW-7/Initial
Drafts of the Literature Review, **DSCDDW-8/Initial Drafts of the Research
Methodology, **DSCDDW-9/Final Draft of the Literature Review, **DSCDDW-10/Final
Draft of the Research Methodology, **DSCDDW-11/Initial Drafts of the
Introduction, **DSCDDW-12/Final Draft of Introduction, **DSCDDW-13/IRB
Application, Proposal and IRB Approval}
While I don't
really want to go through all that right now, it's good information to keep
putting back in my mind. What I would really like to think about is – Is it
almost dinnertime? {
{**PTP-compare/consider/compete, **PACT-move/go,
**TS-time present, **PTPR-good/bad, **PTP-information, **SMS-mind(s),
**PTP-contemplate/conjecture, **PTP-question, **PACT-drink/eat}
Okay, one more
thing about the OneNote software later is that along the top of the tabs with
the first being the school heading, there will be a sub –notebook for each of
our classes, and then down on the right hand column where the new page tabs is
– is where we list all the different sections or weeks of the class. I think we
talked about that earlier, but I'm going to test it out right now. There's a
function on here for searching. Let me give that a try. {**PTPR-okay, **PTP-contemplate/conjecture, **DCS-OneNote,
**TS-time future, **PACT-describe/explain, **DC-tabs, **PACT-order/sequence,
**DC-headings, **D-notebook, **DSC, **PTPR-new/old,
**DC-page, **PACT-list, **DC-sections, **T, **PF-confuse/unsure, **PACT-talk/speak,
**PACT-move/go, **TS-time future, **PACT-test/try, **DC-function, **TS-time
present}
Okay, we tried that
out and it does seem to work. When we click in the search box and enter a word –
we used the word strategy, and then all the applications of that word
throughout all the different notebooks became visible as links. And, then when
I clicked on one link, it took me to the place of the document where that word
was found, and it highlights the word so it's easy to see. Good deal. {**PTPR-okay, **PACT-test/try, **PTPR-succeed/fail, **PTPR-play/work,
**PACT-describe/explain, **PACT-search/find/discover, **S, **D-application,
**D-notebook, **PACT-look/see, **D-link, **DC-document, **DC-highlights, **PTPR-easy,
**PACT-look/see**PTPR-good/bad}
The nice thing
about that, although it is hard to imagine being able to use a source that big,
I can write ten Master's classes plus twenty-four doctorate classes and so get thirty-four
classes to graduate. So that is six classes a year and so school is going to
take me five years and four months. But, all the information that I will work
with from the second course on will all be captured in OneNote. Wow! What a
program. We are calling this section
Mimi's Dragon. For the time being, it is our new blog. I can hardly wait to get
back and start filling out some of the other sections. I am going to have to
get used to the part where Rich can be listening to me talk, and he's going to
think I am pretty darn funny. Or, he'll think I'm just strange – probably
nothing new there. I better go now. Rich wants me to go out to eat. Bye! {**PTPR-nice/sweet,
**PTP-compare/consider/compete, **PTPR-hard, **PTP-imagine/create, **DC-source,
**PTPR-big/large/small **PACTWE, **DSM, **DSC, **DSD, **DS-graduate,
**SGO-schedule, **TS-time future, **DS, **PTP-information, **D-play/work,
**PACT-describe/explain, **PACT-move/go, **DSC, **PACT-collect/capture, **DCS-OneNote,
**PF-excite, D-program, **DC-section, **SMS-Mimi, **SMS-Dragon, **TS-time
present, **DC-blog, **PF-anticipation, **PTP-review/go back to,
**PACT-file/fill, **PTP-complete/conclude, **PTP-adjust, **PTPR-better/improve,
**SRR, **PACT-listen, **PACT-talk/speak, **PTPR-fun/not fun,
**PTP-contemplate/conjecture, **PTPR-strange/normal, **PTPR-new/old,
**PTP-choose/decide,**PTP-routine, **PACT-drink/eat}
February 23, 2012 1:34 AM
This is this is the new Mimi. I know it is very
late, but I stayed up to finish my paper. I cannot believe it is over – this
course is over. 8.1 ended–up being very quick and easy, but it took some time
to read through. I read one and a half pages of the assignment, and then I
stopped because I only had about 40 min. left before was time to submit an
entry. As it was, I was like 36 seconds late – after one o'clock, which was
midnight the Professor’s time. I'm hoping that's not going to be a big problem.
After we got done, then the first thing we thought about is that we wanted to
get Linda a copy. We talked to her tonight and discussed not being very well
read by my peers who included peers at school and peers in my quilting group. I
don't mean to give Linda such a hard time because she's my best advocate really
– it's just sometimes you sit back and appreciate all the work that you put
into a project, and you kind of wonder what's it all for? When you're by
yourself it is very inflating. {**PTP-complete/conclude,
**PTPR-new/old, **SMS-Mimi, **PTP-conscious/conscientious, **T, **DS-paper,
**PF-amaze/astonish, **DSC, **DCS-module, **PTPR-begin/end, **PTPR-fast, **PTPR-easy,
**PACT-describe/explain, **PACT-read, **DC-page, **DS-assignment,
**SGO-schedule, **T-on-time/late, **entry/post, **PA-Professor, **PF-hope, **PACT-move/go,
**PTPR-big/large/small, **PTP-problem/solve, **PACT-order/sequence,
**PTP-choose/decide, **PAFD-Linda, **DB, **PACT-talk/speak, **TS-Time present,
**PTP-acknowledge/perceive, **PA-peer(s), **DS, **PAG-first Saturday girls, **PTP-mean/meant/clarify,
**PF-confuse/unsure, **PTPR-hard, **PTP-compare/consider/compete, **PA-advocate,
**PTP-excuse/justify, **PF-appreciate/value, **PACT-play/work, **D-project,
PF-worry/concern, **PF-alone/lonely, **PF-devalue/cheapen,
**PF-disappoint/weaken}
I guess I must've talked to Rich today about it too,
because he said as a reminder – that I should remember to ask myself, what I'm
writing for, and then to ask myself whether it's for my peers, or whether it's
for myself. I know that he's correct. I have to write for myself, but it is
still hard because there's part of me that wants that recognition – that yes, I
am good. After doing the assignment tonight where I was listing out the general
situation of each of our board and advisory members, I felt even more than
normally insufficient. There were people that that were board officers and
doctors and specialists and other people in big business that were so much
bigger than me. It is just hard to be such a little fish in such a big pond. I
know that if one person appreciates me, it would be Linda, so we will talk to
her about it in the morning – If somebody chooses to wake us up. I have
to fight the temptation not to go back to school – Oh no, oh no - she's hitting
the button! {**PF-confuse/unsure,
**PACT-drink/eat, **SRR, **PTP-remember/memory/retrieve, **PTPR-should/ought,
**PTP-question, **PTP-motive, **SMS, **PA-peer(s), **PTP-complete/conclude,
**PTPR-correct/incorrect, **PACTWE, **PF-respect/esteem, **PTPR-hard, **PF-attention/recognition,
**PTPR-good/bad, **DS-assignment, **SGO-schedule, **PACT-list,
**PTP-general/broad, **D-situation, **D-volunteer AQ board/advisory, **PF-devalue/cheapen,
**PA-board officer, **PA-PhD/doctor, **PA specialist,
**D-organization/business, **PTPR-big/large/small, **PTP-compare/consider/compete,
**PA-little/big fish, **PTP-if/then, **PF-appreciate/value, **PAFD-Linda,
**PACT-talk/speak, **PF-sleepy/tired, **PTP-fight/battle,
**PTP-tempt/temptation, **PTP-review/go back to, **DS, **PACT-stop/discontinue,
**PF-restless, **PTP-obsessive/compulsive, **PTP-choose/decide}
Okay, we're back again. I have been over at school
just skimming through the proposals whatever. It looks like eight people have
turned in their project. I was the fifth one. Everyone is complaining because
they don't like the way the program is cutting off their material. It's just
not sufficient for the bigger papers. I had asked Dr. Hargiss if she would let
me put it under an attachment, because we knew that my charts were going to be
too big, and she said yes, and she said that she understood. So, I did it, and
one other person followed that lead, but the others are pretty unhappy. I can't
do much about that. Dr. Hargiss should know too. She's been around long enough to
know that the software program for the forum is insufficient for the long
papers. It is fine for the rest the stuff, but this has to be an exception. {**PTPR-okay, **PACT-present/attentive,
**PTP-review/go back to, **DS, **DS-grant proposal, **PTP-whatever/so
what/etcetera, **PACT-look/see, **PA-peer(s), **PTP-compare/consider/compete,
**D-project, **D-program, **PACTWE, **DC-material, **DSC-paper/references,
**PA-Professor Hargiss, **PTP-question, **DSC- chart, **PTP-problem/solve,
**PTP-complete/conclude, **PTP-lead, **PF-sympathy, **TS-Time length, **DCS,
**DS-forum, **PTPR-insufficient, **PTPR-okay, **PTPR-exception}
I am eager to be at school tomorrow and do the
reading necessary to get through the bulk of the work. I believe sixteen people
out of sixteen people handed in their 8.1 papers and eight out of the sixteen
people handed in their 8.2 paper. It is really amazing how fast people are
actually getting these done. In comparison to how long and how much effort and
how arduous it was to finish the last paper, this one just seems like very
simple, and I am so appreciative that it is complete. {**PF-eager,
**DS, **TS-time future, **PACT-read, **PACT-play/work, **PACT-count,
PA-peer(s), **PTP-compare/consider/compete, **DSC-paper/references,
**PF-amaze/astonish, **PTPR-fast, **PTP-complete/conclude, **PTPR-effort,
**PTPR-difficult, **PTPR-easy, **PF-appreciate/value}
Rich got up once probably at about 12:30 AM and
complained about me not going to bed. But what can I say; only so much can be
done about that. I am so infatuated with this new Dragon that I just can't
already imagine my life without it. It gives me some fits and starts, but we're
handling it. I cannot believe how well it picks up the sound of my voice,
especially because all my life I've been told I mumble. I've either gotten
better, or the software has gotten better, or maybe a combination of both. I'm
having so much fun; I don't know what to do with myself. It is now two in the
morning and I know I should go back to bed, but we had a few extra hours
sleeping after we got back from the restaurant. {**SRR,
**PACT-count, **T, **PACT-complain (rec.), **PF-sleepy/tired,
**PTP-allow/accept/reject, **PF-infatuate, **PTPR-new/old, **PA-dragon,
**PF-appreciate/value, **PTP compare/consider/compete, **PF-worry/concern,
**PTP-adjust,**PF-amaze/astonish, **PACT-talk/speak, **PTP-unclear, **PTPR-
improve, **DCS, **PTP-compare/consider/compete, **TS-time present,
**PACT-drink-eat}
That turned out to be a not so good event at least
the last 5 min. The first part was all good we were having a wonderful meal but
then Rich mentioned his youngest son and we just lost it. I think it's not
really as much his son as that we were very excited throughout the day because
we are getting so close to finishing the papers. This last couple of weeks has
been very quick and business-orientated. We had the writing of school work, the
transcriptions, and finishing Ame's quilt. There is no wonder that the
housework didn't get accomplished, but even that has had some improvements over
the last couple of days. When we had the problem at the restaurant - like we
said it was only the last 5 min. Rich had already paid the bill and we've
gotten up and left, but by the time we got in the car we were barely talking.
Then Rich showed us how to go through the car wash at the Honda place for free,
which we did, but we didn't want to get out of the SUV when we got home. Rich
came over and open the door for us and then he had to basically pull us out. He
wanted us to open the apartment door because he was carrying in his fishing
boxes, and Rich isn't the type to leave us sitting out in the car. We went
straight to the bed and weren't able to take the medicine. He tried, but he was going to let us rest,
but that didn’t work out either. We were
very lost in the parts that were out.
Rich said we were whimpering and that after a while he came in and tried
again to have us take the medicine. This
time it worked, and then we went back to bed. I'm not sure of the time
exact. I think we left for the
restaurant at about 6 PM and we got up from bed at 9:30 PM. So within that time
spent everything happened.
I don't know what keeps Rich from getting mad at
me. I certainly wouldn't put up with as much as he puts up with. The good part
of us must be really good, because the bad parts are like touch and go. Maybe
it's time. I'm having too many yawns keep my eyes from wandering. It's time to
go to bed. Good night
February 23, 2012 2:02 PM
This is Mimi’s blog and it is now Thursday and we
are waiting for Linda to sign on. Rich came home early, so I don't know how
distracted he will be with the sound of us speaking to the Dragon. But that is
sort of what we built up to. We finished doing as much of the forum comments as
we had planned to for the day, or at least this morning to early afternoon. We
will check back later after Dr. Marvin's appointment to see if anybody else has
left their final paper. I did some of the papers for the eight people who had
handed them in. I was focused on saying
something to each of my peers concerning their final project. I just know that
it's very disheartening to do that much writing towards a final project and
then have no result from it. So even
though it's small just a paragraph or two, I feel like I've made a decent
contribution.
Not too much has been happening today other than
making comments. We did post on Facebook the comment that we were finished with
their second course, boasted about are 99%, and left a picture of the first
page of our grant proposal. We should next be doing something with the
Microsoft OneNote program. I'm not sure what yet, but it is going over big time
in that we started making blog type entries again. It is so fast and fun, I
will probably though have more ability to write with Dragon than responsiveness
toward content. Hey, has that ever stopped us before? No. I didn't think so.
I'm looking at the notebooks in my left hand column now. I could add the new
additions to the business grant class, but I'm not ready to yet. The class isn’t finished yet. I'll wait a
couple more days on that and get more comments as people finish-up. After people hand in their final assignments,
they leave quickly. As to the quilting progress, I'm not sure what to do their
yet it might take a few minutes to figure out. I'm thinking more pillowcases,
but I still have the girls’ things to finish. That should be my main
concentration. It would mean that I
would probably stipple Kari’s quilt first. It shouldn't be too bad after I
start. Maybe I'll make that my goal for this evening. And then after I finished
that I'll go into the other right away. Then, I'll just have three quilts to bind,
but none of them are huge. Wouldn't it be great, if I could mail out these
things or deliver!
As to things that need to get done for the
volunteer project, I think I am going to reserve tomorrow and Saturday and
maybe Sunday to work on the transcripts. We have to figure out whether I can
talk when Rich has the TV on. He just came in the room and down with a sandwich.
He's already turned on the TV, so I tested it and I'm thinking that we can
still talk while he listens to TV. That's a big important thing. As to the
volunteer project, I might want to finish a couple of transcriptions before
tomorrow so that I can ask Amy for a couple more to last me through the
weekend. I am not sure how long the audio recordings are, but I see no reason
why we shouldn't get one or two done by Friday. Maybe, we are going to need
writing her a letter. Why don't we do that now?
Okay Amy's letter is written - next? Okay, it's
kind of funny knowing that you’re hearing all my thoughts. That line was sent
to Rich. He's got his eyes closed and he says he's listening to the TV, but he
looks more like he's sleeping. He says he's not sleeping, but I think he's
sleeping. It happens every time he turns on that fishy show during the
afternoon.
We only talked to Linda for a few minutes today.
She was nice enough to leave me a note on Facebook as to my finishing the
course. When we talked earlier this morning, we talked about doing games with
our grandchildren, and she was saying that Teadora is really good on memory
games. She's three years old now. So, we asked her if she had tried Simon with
her granddaughter yet, and she hadn't. So then, she let me know that when she
was out doing errands this morning, she had stopped by Toys "R" Us
and purchased a Simon game. It was just a small one for $14. I'm so eager to
hear how it goes with her granddaughter. I'm thinking it's going to be a
wonderful toy.
Not much else on the Linda account.
As to quilting, were still back to trying to
figure out what to do. Oh, I forgot I was going to do the daughter-in-law's
quilts first, and then Rich’s pillowcases. Depending on where Rich is tonight;
maybe we can do some sewing when we get back from Dr. Marvin's and after we eat
dinner. That would be nice. I'm also feeling like getting back into the transcribing.
I've been away for two or three days now. It's given me enough time to look at
my pedal foot. I want to get back to playing with the foot, because it was fun.
Let's see – nothing with the cats.
Is there anything interesting with the boys? I'm
thinking here. Well I have three. You probably knew that already. No, I don't
think there's anything with the boys either. I was thinking that I should
invite Maury and his family on Wednesday to come over into the area Rich and I
live, so that when Rich is down south fishing, we could take Maury and his
family out to the Mexican restaurant. I don't know where the money will be, but
it would be a nice Wednesday thing to do, so I don't miss Rich so much. I
thought about it then, and I wondered, shouldn't I take Joe? I'm not sure what
those conclusions were all about, or the methodology behind it, but I'm
thinking I'm more interested in inviting Maury's family out this time. I don't
think he has all the opportunities as Joe and Cari.
As to how things are going on this computer? I
like our new system using OneNote. I should probably get to understanding some
of the special keys it has.
This is a to-do list
This
key is for everything that is important
This
key is for one we need to leave if we have questions
This
highlighter is for remembering things for later
The
green line is for definition
This
one is for highlighting
This
one is to make a contact
Okay, we could go on and on like this forever
thing. There are actually thirty tags that we could use. I have to get used to
the fact that I'm not going to remember them all at once. It would make my mind
feel better if I could remember the commands. And then, it would make me feel
better if I could find a way to use them with my voice.
I wonder if there is anybody I should be writing
to? I suppose I should write to the girls. I haven't written to them for a
while. Okay, that will be next – be right back.
February
24, 2012 6:48 AM
Good
morning,
It is a nice snowy morning. Rich has just left. He
is going to stop by and have breakfast with Bob before he goes to the center.
He's getting pretty excited though about fishing. He will be going to
Guntersville, Alabama next Tuesday. I have to admit I'm pretty excited for him.
The rest of the guys I think are going this week, and then Rich and his partner
Ron will be going from Tuesday through Sunday. I think that it is like the 28th
of February through the fifth of March. Some of that time, I will get to go too
because we are going up to Wisconsin on Saturday the fourth to be with the
girls. You just have to know how excited we are about that.
This morning we have only done a few things. We
woke up at about 6 AM, and had coffee with Rich for about 45 min. I think that
is his time to get his brain organized so he's ready for the day. He usually
talks about what he's going to do and the things he's got coming up on his
agenda. I get help to do this from my cats. They tell me what is on my agenda,
even though I fed them this morning and made sure that Chief got water, they
still made sure I was up. Then as quickly as it took me to walk over to the
couch with my cup of coffee, Chief was on my lap and ready to be petted. I know
their system.
I don't think Rich has anything special planned
today. He is going to see Bob and have coffee, going to the center, going to
Subcom, and then have a fishy meeting with Ron. I think then he is going to
come home, he and I are going to the bank, and then we are going to the
pharmacist. We are going to try and take care of my medicines; I think he has
something to pick-up too, because I had to order something for him. No problem
there. After that, I don't know if anything is going to happen. Since he is
talking to Bob this morning, I don't think we should necessarily be getting
together to go out, although sometimes it is suggested that we do it on a
Friday night. I'm not crazy about going out tonight for one there's the snow,
but number two, we just went out to eat on Wednesday and we had Chow Mein on
Tuesday, and we are still finishing leftovers. That is a lot of eating out for
me.
Maybe if Rich stays home tonight, and we have just
a nice comfortable dinner, then maybe he might want to stay around and we could
play. Okay that was clumsy. Sorry about that – we will just move right ahead.
Tomorrow Rich has got a busy schedule. He is going
to go out to brunch with his two sons, then he's got a game, and then he wants
to go out with his mother, or at least go over to her house. It's important for
him that he sees her before he leaves for the week. Then on Sunday, he plans to
go to the club and take care of his fishing reels. It has something to do with
getting the lines on the reels. Maybe the time after that will be with me. I
know somewhere in there we still have to talk about doing bills, although some
of that happened this morning.
We felt real good yesterday in that, we got our
school loan from the school loan place. It is like $3400 which is very handy. I
figured out the money had been deposited in our account when we paused before
parking at the garage on the way to Dr. Marvin's. So, I called Rich and the first thing he did
was pay the rent. I think the next thing that gets paid is my car. Rich said he
didn't know the date, but I think it was due a couple days ago, and so that has
to happen today. It might be a good idea for me to go through all the bills
today and see where we are at. Maybe that's a little bit too much to talk
about. Maybe, we could do it over here at the computer with Dragon and have
some fun with it. We are still thinking that having a microphone and talking to
it as we both write together is just the best idea in the world. It is so fast
and accurate, and he gives us just the greatest sense of company. Any part can now add in their thoughts
comfortably.
Going back to Rich's schedule for a moment, I
believe on Monday, he is going to put in a half a day of work at the center, and
then he is going to most likely finish-up with his packing and getting that
over to Ron's. Or, that might happen on Sunday. I am pretty sure that on Monday
night Rich will want to take us out to dinner, and then by early Tuesday
morning early, he's out of here. Maybe on Monday night I have to take a nap,
because he might want to be up and playing. That would suit me just fine. Now – now you got to give us at least that
much!
Now as to my schedule, I am sure I am not as busy
as Rich. I wrote a letter to Amy
yesterday, and she had responded back before Dr. Marvin's appointment. We had
10 min. before we parked our car at the parking garage, and her note was really
nice. She said that she would send me a couple more interviews so I would have
as much as I thought I needed over the weekend. She said I was dreamy. Okay,
you know that will turn a young girl's heart. I've got planned three days of transcribing.
You did hear the part about school being over for
the term right? Let me say that just one more time. School is over!!! Eight
whole days, I know this time is going to go by fast, and by that time, I will
be eager to start the next class which is going to be on strategy for
educators. I will probably also stop by at the course room today and make a few
extra comments. I've well exceeded commenting as is required, but I wanted to
continue writing as other people finish their major project; somebody should be
around just to say nice job. People have their own level of tolerances too, in
that some run out of the room as fast as the class is over, and some - like us,
stand around a few minutes and say our goodbyes to one another. I think that
Sally and I were the most adamant as far as picking up a new friendship, but
she said that she has six courses done now out of the ten, and I've only got
two courses done out of the ten, so our paths may or may not ever meet again.
I think that we have been alluding to the part
also that we need to figure out our next sewing project. I am not going to drag
it out here one more time, it is time to make a decision. I am going to do the
quilting on top of the blue quilt. And, I will do this on Saturday night when Rich
has gone to see his mother. There is a chance that Rich is going to say, “Why
don’t you come too? But, he hasn't so far, so maybe he won't. I think it is
more important that she sees him, than it is that she sees me. That will give
me this morning and afternoon to transcribe; time with Rich the late afternoon,
playtime tonight, transcription tomorrow morning, and time into quilting
Saturday night. And then we could transcribe Sunday morning, quilt Sunday
afternoon, and that would leave Sunday night for Rich to be with me. That seems
like a good deal!
I should add in here that were going to be
spending more time with this writing. But I think we already covered that.
Maybe now we can think a little bit about what
happened last night at Dr. Marvin's. I always start out this part as saying, “Well,
I don't really know.” I think last night was good, but it was hard also. The
thing I remember most is that the system was having trouble with flashbacks.
Somehow the conversation got turned toward sexuality, and then we were getting
flashed with a half a dozen or more images of childhood sexual scenes and innuendos.
I don't know which word is more appropriate, or if we need a better word. I
don't think I could remember right now what the pictures were all about, without
trying very hard. And, I'm not sure I really want to do that. It is like
opening up a can of worms. I just need there to be some kind of marker that
something had happened, and that most likely Dr. Marvin will go back to it. I
remember him saying something about this is the kind of thing that happens when
we meet two times a week; I thought, “Oh no, this is going to be hard.”
I am trying to think now safely what can be
remembered from last night without going into too much detail. I do remember
there was a point where he told us that he was going to say something to help
bring me to the current time by asking me a question. I'm not sure what the
question was, but I remember that it was something that was comfortable for me
to talk about. I remember also asking him how I was going to get past all these
thoughts when I got home and wouldn't have him to talk with. Maybe that is what
he talked about just before he said he was going to bring me back to current
time, but I don't know which part he was talking to. If I think real hard, maybe
I could remember at least how we had gotten to that point.
I think it had something to do though with the
emotions, yes that's it. We had been talking to him about the emotions that we
were having the night before with Rich. We had been having a very nice dinner
out with him on Wednesday night, and then something came up with his son and
something in our system fell apart. I know that we had come home, had trouble
getting out of the car, and went straight to bed without taking the medicine.
The part that comes out and makes the strange sounds was out and after some
amount of time, Rich came in and pretty much pulled us away from wherever we
were so that we would take the medicine, and then we went back to bed. I think
I've told you this part before, but it seems like it is still important to our
brain that we have periods of rest. I know that after a while of sleeping, we
generally wake up and can function again, but only remember a skeleton of
details.
So with Dr. Marvin, we had talked about that space
where we were hiding under the blanket and this is the part I think he focused
on. I remember him doing – something about helping me – Sure wish we had the
words to describe that feeling we were going through. I remember after we got
home with Rich we forced our minds to think of what those three words were
again. I should be able to do it again – it is pretty hot off the press. Let me
see anger was one, frustration was two, and I think the last one was pretty
close to that we were feeling invisible, which might have some kind of feeling
of – I'm having a hard time capturing what that feeling might've been – you
know what it felt like. Drat, I hate that when it happens. I think it was
something that started with a "D" but I'm not going to push it right
now.
Part of the problem that we were having was that Rich
was having his own reaction and so when he's busy doing that, but then we can't
always be around to help him because were having our own problem. Or, if we
stop our problem to take care of him – our problem will not get cared for if
not by him, by the other parts. Does that make sense?
We went into that a little last night it was a
strange combination of reactions. Basically, from the night before – the first
thing we remember after leaving the restaurant – and we did leave the
restaurant within about 5 min. after we had the switch that was confirmed, was
that I remember that we were walking out the door and Rich was saying something
like “I don't know why you are being so mean to me.” That's something we talked
about last night to Dr. Marvin - we tried to explain to Rich it wasn't that we
were trying to be mean to him, it wasn't about him. It was about us, and we were having a
reaction towards whatever was being said. But, because Rich likes to take over
people's problems, minimalize them, and then just get back to steady, he wasn't
giving us a chance to figure out what our feelings were and how we are going to
take care of them.
It was more a part of the way Rich used to handle
his family situation. All he would want to do is get to a steady keel where
there were no problems. He’s been taking
care of people all his life. I think this problem started from a very early age
of having to “take care” of his mother who was out and drinking quite a bit. This quiet space he tries to get back to where
there is no interruption to his soul is what we are calling his “Zen-mind of
fishing.” Unfortunately, he did that by trying too quickly to resolve what was
happening by just forcing it to be over. Our system is having problems with
that, and it seems that we revert back to a younger stage anyway, and that
closes out Rich – because they don’t handle this kind of pressure, which he
doesn't like. We don't do it because we want him to be frustrated, it is
happening because - that's what happens to people who dissociate.
With Dr. Marvin and the special time he had with
us concentrating on the part going under the covers, I think the next part was
that we were remembering being under covers when we were small. Again, I don't know which part is going
through that. I remember now that we were talking about hiding underneath the
tent we had built on her bed. We had a small table that was just less than the
width of our bed, and we used to put that on top of the bed, and then we would
put blankets over the bed, table and two little chairs, so we had our own very
private tent. Because of the frontward
position of the chairs, we considered it more a carriage. But, that was only when we could afford to still
be more open. Even though the bedroom
door was closed, it wasn’t like when we hid within the closet. During those times, we just hid in a small private
tight corner behind book shelves with a blanket, pillow, or dirty clothes over
our head, or behind clothes hanging up. I’m remembering the clothes as being
soft and comfortable. Now thinking of it again … sometimes we hid in our
mother’s closet too. We seem to stay in
those spaces for long periods of time and like the situation with Rich, we
would be better after sleeping it off for a while. And, that I think is where we started having
the sexual flashbacks. I'm going to jump over that part right now. I don't want
to think about it just at this very moment.
I think there was another part too that we told
both Dr. Marvin and then Rich later, that was when we were hiding under the covers
that night with Rich in the living room and us in the bedroom, we were seeing
images of rolling the cutting rotary knife over our left wrist. I think we
talked to Dr. Marvin about some level of frustration in that we don't
understand why things like this come into our brain. It is very threatening to
us. It also didn't make Rich feel good, of course. But then again, Rich is
likely to say something like “Why are you doing this to me?” I suppose this
should be considered as relevant, because we were also saying to those parts,
“Why are you doing this to me?”
We needed to switch over to Rich-time because we
had already caught a few important markers, and at that point he needed more
help than us in getting through the experience. I do remember it didn't last
very long and before you know it, he had teased about some kind of special
massaging we now owed him, and we were sitting next to him on the floor and
trying to readjust to being together with him again in an adult more physical manner
like just holding hands. I think the
simple points are that, we had had feelings that needed to be recognized –
though it wasn’t going to happen necessarily by Rich at that particular moment.
The next thing I remember is that Rich and I
negotiated that we could go to the bedroom and we would give him a massage and
that it might lead up to something else, but Rich said this morning that just
about that time, we regressed and fell asleep. That's why I think that tonight
might be very important. Usually, when Rich’s engines get revved up, then we
are good to go. Okay I know too much information. Moving on…
I think that pretty much gets us to where we are
right now. We just glanced over and it's about 7:40 AM and we looked to see if
Linda had been at the Facebook site, but she's not there yet. I don't know what
kind of day she's going to have. I think usually she has sewing days after
Teadora has been there, which would then be like Linda’s Zen of sewing, though sometimes
she does cleaning up after her granddaughter. The last note was left by Linda,
and she said that Adam was so tired after work that he fell asleep and never made
it to his Thursday night event. And she also said that the Simon game was too
hard for Teadora at this time. I'll try to encourage the point of view that it
wasn't a bad decision - just that it needs time to progress at its own pace. Linda will already know this of course.
Okay, were back again. I just took a small break
to refresh my coffee and have a rice cake with peanut butter on it. I remember
that came up when we were with the girls when talking about guilty pleasures. Someone asked me about ours, and we admitted
that this is our guilty pleasure - having rice cakes with peanut butter on it.
It was introduced to us by Rich and now we don't seem to be able to get enough
of it. Okay not a big deal. Just thought
I'd throw that in.
Rich says that right now there is about one inch
of snow on the ground, but if it goes like you have the rest of the winter
there really isn't going to be a lot of snow accumulated. I hear that by Sunday were going to have a 50°
day, and so if it hasn't gone by then, it will be soon. Rich also said
something about it might snow on Monday. I know that he's just getting his mind
ready for the big fishing trip and so he's watching the weather more carefully.
Let's see what else to have to talk about? I think
we have to write a note to the girls again. I might do that in a few minutes.
I'm talking about the daughter-in-law's this time. It seems that we have let
that get out of control for a while in that we hadn't responded back quickly to
them. And now because were at frustration point with the web cam/video, we seem
to have backed away shyly. And, I'm sure that isn’t also what is happening with
the others, plus whatever problems they might also be having in dealing with
each other and the ever present time and money constraints we are all having.
Maybe now with the Dragon, I'll be able to do more with keeping better track of
where everyone is at. Okay, why don't we go ahead and do that now. Hold on, I'll be right back.
We are back. It is now 9:43 AM. We wrote to both
the daughter-in-law's and to Linda and about the time, we were ready to post;
Linda signed on and is now typing to us.
But, we haven't figured out what she wants to say yet. So, we took a
little ice cream break in the meantime. I don't think we’re going to get very
much done for the next half hour or so. I'm not sure where Linda is at and we will
want to find that out. After that, I would soon like to get back to the
business at-hand of having deeper thoughts, but I am not sure if we are ready
yet to make the transition. I would much rather write than have to think about
doing work, although, I like the transcription work after I get started. It's
just that we have to switch parts to get there. We talked to Dr. Marvin a long
time ago about doing personal things before 10 o'clock which still seems to be
a good idea, but it meant afterward that we should really get some harder work
done to consider the day productive.
Okay, let me think what we have done now. We wrote
to Linda, we wrote to the daughter-in-law's, we wrote to Linda from Las Vegas,
we wrote to Amy, we wrote to my mother, and we wrote to a few others such as Rich’s
cousin. That was all done within a couple days. We also went to school and
checked that out. There were about 20 comments and a few were directed toward
me. The two girls who I had asked if they were going to be in the strategy
class were not going to be there, so it is more like a surprise who will be in
the next class with. I wish I could remember which people were in my first
class compared to the people that were in my second class in comparing the two
adult education theory classes, but I just don't know. I don't know even which
people I knew before taking business grant writing class. That's okay; we have
our new system, now right? So, I shouldn't have to worry too much, right?
I think that is the part about writing that is
very important now. It is tied to a comment Dr. Marvin had made about the value
of having two sessions a week. Basically, we can go through things like we did yesterday
and still have time to get us back to normal within the same week. This really
helps in keeping school on track. But also, I think being able to write again
is helping. If I can somehow cope with all the thoughts I'm having, like I used
to during writing, then I'll be able to process more and it will be healthier
for all. I feel more like I'm on top of my game.
I would like to get more involved in some of the
other areas that we noted. It would be nice, for example, to take some of the
e-mails and add them to the new pages from the OneNote program under their
proper notebooks. Maybe, I can start that on the side with Linda typing. We
have to be more patient in waiting, and it is easier if we know we can get
something done in the background while waiting for her comments. Okay, why
don't we give that a try? I think we’re going to do that with the Quilters'
S.O.S. Editing work? I'll be back soon.
Hi-hi it’s me again. We just finished the work of
getting Amy's notes transferred over to the OneNote program. We listed it under
January and February notes. It took a lot of copying and pasting. I hadn't
realized how many communications there have been between people in my course and
us. I'm feeling a little tired. It is about 11 o'clock. I think what I will do
is work on the transcripts now until 1:30 PM, which will give me 2 1/2 hours,
and then, I will take a shower and get dressed in case Rich comes home. He said
he would be here about 2:30 PM. He wants to get to the bank and pharmacy. Whoops,
I better get that prescription called in. After we call his prescription in, we'll
be able to take our time.
Hi again. It's me. We are doing fine, but it is a
little late, and I was still up. We had a rough night as to younger parts being
out. And then Rich put us to bed. We snuck–watched Anderson, and then decided
to get up again. Who knows? Rich took us to bed the next time and he gave us a
massage. And then, he got a massage, and then we got massaged again, and it was
so nice. But now we are up again. We are still so happy with Dragon that we don't
know what to do with ourselves. And then earlier this evening, we were messing
around on the computer. We just wanted to try something new. So, we entered in
the Google browser "software program and production" to see what we
would get.
What we found is a program called Mind Jet Mind
Manager 2012. I like it a lot and it has a lot to offer. But, I will need to
decide because it's an expensive program. I believe it is about $79. That is the least expensive academic and
nonprofit version. The regular program is $400. It is going to cost me a lot
for software programs one day when I'm no longer a student. We are just looking
at the different costs and support it offers. It looks like you can get it by
the month but its $20 a month where it only cost $80 to pay for twelve months,
which just makes more sense. Plus, then you own it and don't have to keep
paying it forward for the first year. It does not cover the cost though of
updated programs. It does have a 30-day free subscription. That probably makes
sense as far as checking it out to see if I could make it work for our needs. I am afraid that Rich is going to catch-on
and say I can't buy the program, or he would use the money that has been put in
the account for something else like bills – yuck. But if I start spending money,
then he can put some really hard limits on what's going on. It's hard to
convince anybody in our system though that we shouldn't get something fun out
of a $3,400 deposit that is there because of us and our willingness to pay debt
later through school loans.
I'm super encouraged because the program appears
to work with some of the Microsoft programs, especially Outlook.
February 24, 2012 11:33 PM
Good morning,
This is me. I am
working very hard this morning on getting everything in place. We've been
working this last 4 to 5 days on the new dashboard through TPAssist and my mind
program. We didn't talk to Dragon yesterday, so we are little out of touch. We
also didn't get a chance to talk to Linda so were a little out of touch in that
direction as well.
Today was Rich’s
big fishing day. He went or is going down to Alabama. He left about a little
over an hour ago. He is just going with Ron and already his second wife, Bob,
called to see if everything was on track. You got to feel a little bad for Bob.
He's the one that has to stay behind. We were doing okay at letting Rich go
this time. We know that we have a lot to do –and he knows it to. We did talk to
Bob and Linda last night for dinner. We
went to Rich’s and our Mexican place, and that turned out nice. The time seemed
to go past very quickly. I'd spent some time eating and concentrating. Like I
would have the chips preoccupying my mouth, so my brain could just figure out
how to get the guacamole and salsa to hang on to the chip. The others at the
table were more focused on Rich’s big trip than I was, because I've been
listening to the trip for so long. I did try to talk to Linda a little bit more.
She's focused on taking care of Bob and her, so we’re still not getting much of
a discussion between the two of us. It's a start though.
As to anything
going on with Rich, it seemed to be a pretty calm morning. He had done most of
these tasks the night before, such as getting out the suitcase, packing his
coffee and getting things ready at the door for the last moments before leaving
like gathering his computer, coffee mugs, hat etc. He woke up a few minutes
before the alarm clock, handled the coffee, fed the cats, and then we talked
for probably 45 to 50 min. About that time, he remembered that he hadn’t gotten
his fishing license ordered through the Internet and then printed it out. So, we
were very quiet while he concentrated hard to take care of that. He's pretty on
edge – to make sure that he gets everything done right. After that, he got his clothes
ready, jumped in the shower, and then we found that he had left his credit card
on my desk. I left it first by his phone, and then I thought it was probably
better to leave the credit card, phone, and book next to his stuff on the table
by the back door with his hat, wallet, keys and other things. And then, we told
Rich what we had done with his credit card and personal belongings, just to put
it back into his mind. Not to say that his mind is not good processing before a
big trip, but there's so many things to be thinking of. I was happy that he
appreciated having his credit card back. He said, "Oh is that out?"
Funny Rich – just hope he doesn't forget his credit card when he is at a restaurant.
This week I've been
into thinking through what it must mean to be living in the Zen of fishing. I
think all this preliminary part with him getting himself and the boat ready, is
so he can concentrate properly on just throwing that line out into the water
and reeling it back in. And then, repeating that over, and over, and over
again. I've watched enough shows to think that it must be orgasmic to finally
catch the fish. There is so much on his mind. Some of his friends went to
Mexico, and they sent pictures back with 8 to 10 pound fish. So somewhere in Rich’s
mind he is thinking that fish in Alabama can be this big. He did a lot of work
preparing his fishing lines and getting them spun onto the reel. He has so many
fishing poles – like ten or twelve, and each is dressed just right to have a
particular kind of lure for a particular kind of fishing scenario. It takes a
lot to be a fisherman.
There's been so
much time and attention these last couple of weeks on his fishing trip that now
I'm feeling a little bit tired of it.
I’m ready for him to go. It's hard to imagine that his world is so much
different than our world - yet we share commonalities.
Yesterday, we were
working on a system of collecting things as per the tutorship of David Allen.
He is our new “important guy.” We were using our Kindle to take notes while we
were reading last night. When Rich came to the living room, he started to give
us the list of things that he was thinking of. For example, he said that for
tonight's dinner we were supposed to have our left over Mexican meal, and then
Wednesday and Thursday, we are supposed to have the Polish sausage rice and
peas, and then, Friday and Sunday we are supposed to have the jambalaya. Of course
on Saturday, we will be eating out with the girls. Looks like Rich left us $146.
He said he was leaving it by my computer where he knew I would see it. That
should be plenty of money and we should have most of the money coming back with
us. I was thinking that money might pay
for the programs! We had to write down simple things like remember to take the
jambalaya out of the refrigerator on Thursday. It must be hard being Rich. He
remembers so much for us. But, in Allen's world, you have to write as much as
you can down in whatever system you use. He calls this collecting.
We told Rich that
we would concentrate on doing simple things like getting the clothes washed. We
thought that was especially important when we watched him dress, and he showed
us that he was wearing his old socks without the elastic in them. It hadn't
occurred to our brain that he might not have enough clean clothes to wear,
because we asked a day or two ago if he had enough clean clothes to pack, and
he said yes. He’s been so very good at
not pressuring me to do the clothes. That shame is on me. He said that he has
left the house in pretty good shape. I haven't really paid attention to where the
house was at. I did know that he gave us new flowers, in that, he took out the
flowers that had died from my Valentine gift, gave the remaining daisies fresh water,
and now they look light, bright, and beautiful again!
Now that he is gone
and I am looking around the living room, I see a cup and a couple socks left
here and there, but he was right – mostly it's picked up. It seems the bedroom
and the kitchen is in the same good shape. He's going to want to be sure to
mention when he comes back if I left the house in the same shape, worse shape,
or better shape. There might be a few
things left on the dining room table but not much. He did remind me that if I
wanted to do something, I could take some of those things out of the box left
over from working because my sewing room looks terrible. Ok, write that down on
the dashboard too. We'll talk about that more in a few minutes.
I do want to say as
far as this David Allen goes – oh yeah I should say, I picked up one of his
books through the Kindle. I don't know if it's a regular size book or not, the
last writing that I got from him, I had paid six dollars for and it was a little
light. So, I'm not sure if this $12 book is a whole book or just a partial book.
I’m a little money jumpy right now. Basically, David Allen is a productivity
speaker. He is supposed to have several million people following him on Twitter,
and you know us, it pretty much means we’re thinking he is a superstar. Okay, I
have to come back to David Allen in a minute.
Our alarm rang, and
it told us to get our medicine, and then while we're in the kitchen, we figured
out that we should count the medicine. It was one of those small tasks we had
to take care of. It turns out we have about three weeks of medicine, our
Ritalin needs a prescription refill, and that we have to stop by at the
pharmacy to check out the new program. It might be a case of overkill, but I need
to talk to the pharmacist and find out what the program is all about. Plus, I
wanted to get Dr. Marvin a new prescription list that he could keep for the new
program. Or, maybe it would be a good
idea to bring the list home, scan it, and then e-mail it to him so he doesn't
have extra paperwork sitting around. I think that I'm very much like Dr.
Marvin, in that our worlds revolve around our computers. He's much better at
getting up and living his life including talking to people and doing productive
things, but I'm pretty sure he has his computer and iPhone organized. I made
the necessary changes on the dashboard like remembering to take my medicine. I
think that's it of the direct interruptions. Let me go back to thinking about
Mr. Allen.
Shoot, we were just
having words with Dragon. I'm learning to do things that I don't know how to do
yet; I'm trying to be patient, and take the time, and to learn it right way –
especially, in learning to solve problems like spelling correctly words that it
doesn’t know. It's a matter of first getting back to the word, and then
highlighting it, and then giving it the command like to D E L E T E. I can’t say that word I just spelled, or it
will follow the command and erase anything I just said. The spelling part is to
get Dragon to figure out which word I didn't like by highlighting what was
typed, saying “spell that”, and then choosing an option that I do like. Okay, enough of that!
I don't know enough
about Allen to really philosophize about his work. The most important thing
I've learned so far is that we need to collect all our different thoughts and
pool them in an easy-access location within our world. This part suits me as a writer – and is part
of the intent process of writing in Mimi’s Dragon blog – to collect the
system’s thoughts. I came up with this idea of blogging, naturally much longer
then the goal established by Allen, a lot of people did, but it seems if we
want to forget about things that are encumbering on our brain, then gathering
and depositing them in a thought bank is an idea that just makes sense. He says that we are to make a collection
source that we can trust as a repository of all these ideas, questions, tasks,
goals, or whatever, so we can work on them later. He does add the tasks that
can be done under two minutes could or maybe should be done right away.
Whoever wrote the
TPAssist program also knew about Allen’s collection habits and wrote them into
the program. Although, I don't know a
lot of Allen, I do know a little bit then about the kind of thoughts he has
people processing. Yesterday, I fully invested and paid for both the Mind Jet
Mind Management program and the TPAssist program. There is no doubt in my mind
that I want to make it work. We used a very small amount of the school loan
money, though it seems like a lot. I'm
trying not to abuse Rich’s common sense nature, but I figured it was worth the $120
for the combined programs. Both of them are renewable in a year or two, I think.
I didn’t want to invest in more than a year, because I know the programs are
going to be revised, and I don't want to get stuck with having the old copies.
One of the programs had offered as a forever contract, but I think it only
included minor updates. When I went to pay for the Mind Jet program, I had to
talk to a real-life person, and he said that they were updating the program in
not too long. I think I bought into the extra security to get the update, but
again I was coming in under the wire in getting a student copy of the more
expensive program.
I read a little of
Allen last night and I took notes. The first one is to clarify what I would
like the outcome of my goals to be – addressing the tasks and things I need to
get done, and then the next step is naming what our next physical step is going
be, and then the last step is to trust that we have a system to put the
information in. Another thing that we
figured out by him was that we could train ourselves to be like a faster more
responsive “athlete” by being proactive and more focused in our knowledge work.
I heard about knowledge work before through my school textbook reading - I
think it comes from Peter Drucker who I think of as an older major player back
in the days our kids were first born in the early 80’s. Knowledge work seems to
be those things that get done with our mind - without having to be doing
physical tasks. Within our minds and
through follow-through, I believe people can move mountains, and the work in
general seems to be progressive. I will get back to this better later on, but I
do like the idea that things happen within our minds outward. Such as my first
book was a product of my mind in that we wrote down the things happening, and then
we could distribute those thoughts. It
works for me.
There is a little
break here to take care of some maintenance tasks … you know? Okay, let's be
moving on.
I'm stopping to
give the kitties a pet. Missy finally got our attention, but now she made enough
commotion, that we have the full company of Chief as well, and he’s standing on
my drafting table looking a bit “put-out” for his troubles. They aren't being
very cooperative. I don't want him on the drafting table knocking things off.
Good, just that we knocked him off first.
Sorry Kitty. He didn't go down easy. Now, he's trying to push around the
pen on the floor because he knows that annoys me. I don't know where they are
coming from to be upsetting the middle of my morning – most likely they want an
impromptu pet. We thought we’d buy some time by opening the drapes and letting some
natural light get in here. Wouldn’t that be nice if that was the only thing
that was on their minds?
Okay, clearly here
I have lost my train of thought. I might have to reread a little bit to find
out where I left off, seriously.
Shoot, or maybe we
are going to be less serious. The last
coherent thought seemed to be on David Allen. I don't know what else to say
about him right now, because my minds are discombobulated, so I think we're
going to pause on that part and then just go back to our newer thoughts on what
is happening on my new dashboard which is part of the new program. Actually “My
dashboard” and “My life” are two parts of the TP assist program. They're both their
own "tree."
I think I'm going
to just shade in an outline and let you know what kinds of things are happening
there. I don't think I'll get to the My Life part just yet. I might, I just don't know what I'm doing for
time. Just let me peek for a second - I
think by eight o'clock I was supposed to write Linda or check on some
parts. Something is happening on the
schedule, so I guess that fits just in line with what want to do now want in
checking the global aspects of what we’ve done so far with it. We did go over things a little this morning,
and we have it to a point that I think is good for us, but it's still new enough
so there's more to be learned than I could possibly know at this time.
The first section
is the in-box/in-tray/in-basket. Any of these will do. For now the in-tray is empty and that's where
you want it to be. It means you’ve processed whatever has come in. To get
things into the in-tray or to some of the other sections we press a button that
says TPAssist Capture for the Mind Jet. This is a nifty little window that
comes up and it gives you a space to put down any thoughts that you're having,
and then it gives you your preset selection of locations for the idea, text, note
or whatever element you want it to capture and then it will place that element
in a space considered a location such as to strategy, outcomes, calendar,
actions, incubator, reference, or in-tray.
This also works for
adding other things to the dashboard. So, that if I say, “Remember to vacuum
the floor,” and then, I hit in-tray it should go to that safe place (somewhere
you're not seeing it), and then when I get back to the dashboard program, I
press "process" and then my note to vacuum the floor will appear in
the in in-tray within the dashboard when I get around to processing the idea. I
can move the item anywhere on my dashboard tree. I think right now, I am going
to drag it down to the “at-home” section of my “actions.” And so, when I go
back and review that section, it will tell me all the things that I was posted
to section that all have something to do with being at home. At the present time, I've got five items on
the at-home list. The items are: (1) get Duyen's sewing machine ready to ship, (2)
engrave Rich’s fishing shirts, (3) consider what to do with the seasonal tree
(left over from Christmas), (4) unpack a couple items from the work boxes in
the sewing room, and now (5) vacuum the floor. I decided that if I still need
to consider it throughout the day, I will keep the branches open to those
reminders, if not I will close them. The
next morning I will open items under “my actions,” and then “my home” by
pressing the + buttons. It should then be
easy to know whether the list task was accomplished or not. There are further
more in-depth assists I will talk about later that will help me to process that
such as putting to-do reminders on it or assign it priorities. We're going to
go through the whole thing once just to give you a general idea and then I'll
try not to belabor it so much.
Okay, we went to
the in-tray. At this time, my in-tray is empty again because I just put the
vacuum note under the “at home” action. The next part is the “task summary.” In
this area we are collecting items in the categories of: (1) things that
happened in the past, (2) things that don't have dates, (3) things that are
happening today, (3) things that are happening tomorrow, (4) things that are
happening in less than one week, (5) things that are happening in less than two
weeks, (6) things that are happening in less than one month, and (7) things
that are happening greater than one month. This is part of the beauty of the
system – when I had been working at the center, I had written a system where
different colors would mean about the same thing. So red –red meant sister was
hot on my case I had to do something immediately, the color red meant that I
was supposed to do it within the day, Orange was 1 to 3 days, yellow was within
a week, blue was within two weeks, green was within the month, and black was
things that were already accomplished. In some ways I might have been inventing
the wheel because other people may have had something down before that that
would've helped me organized, but what it did for me was organize my mind to
think in certain patterns, so when I saw this system it was like yes this is
the one because it contained all the elements of things that I've been trying
to do in the past, except it was easier and more fun and more proactive.
We’re going to let
go of the things that happened and all the other times beside no date and
today. All the other time periods are
close because I really don't need to be watching them all the time after I get
done the first time first thing in the morning make sure everything was the
right spot then the things I don't need I close so under the no date I have
that note about remembering to clarify the outcome, the next physical step, and
trusting in our collection spot. I also have things like check mail meaning the
mail downstairs, getting laundry back on schedule, something about being a doer
and not a dawdler, and then not to drive myself bonkers. These notes could've
come from 1 million different things, but let's just say for now that they
found their way to the no date section. I'm thinking that no date can mean that
they're things that I need to be thinking about on pretty much daily basis so I
want to keep it up.
The next section is
on the things that are happening today, and here we have things such as I need
to check for my tax money I expected to come in today or pretty soon from now
because it's within two weeks of it having gone out. That I haven't longer
known about completing the next interview and because I wanted to get it all
down right it was from when I was reading the book last night it says completes
the next interview on NY 11201.001 Fisher by sitting down with earphones and
foot pedal. Open Dragon, transcriber and word. Format a sheet. Close original
and load eight audio recordings to transcriber and assure Dragon is on first so
that it can transcribe in the background. Begin audio, type and relax. This is
one of the main task that I have today. The other things that it says on my
list of things to do today are to remember to eat the chicken for lunch, to do
something to get rid of the Outlook
reminders, finish Duyen's quilt by putting on the binding and then to
remember that tonight's dinner is the Mexican meal leftovers from last night.
Then we skip down
to our next major section on strategy and outcomes. The main headers in this
section are purposes and principal, vision, goals and objectives, areas of
focus/responsibilities, projects, and waiting on from Rich. This is a major
very heady section and some of the things here are less likely to have to be
done right away but kind of like setting our perspective on things that are in
our life. For example under the purpose/principles we went back and took
something from our mission statement from probably about nine years ago. It had
been one of the first few pages in our blog book in 2003. It states:
I will respect
myself by being honest with my thoughts and feelings. I will love myself, my
God, my family, my friends, and people I meet along my path. I will honor my
freedom and independence and cherish my right to make his choices. I will
strive to be capable. I will be responsible for happiness, and I will share
whatever wisdom I learned in offering help to others. I suppose by this time I
could go on redo that statement but so far it still works for me so because I
don't have to think of that all the time I'm going to close that window.
The next paragraph
is the vision I've only got one thing down here so far and basically it says
that I want to make everyday happy and useful but even if we are an unhappy we
still would like to strive to be useful if not to ourselves at least two
others. The section needs more work but I did want to dwell in anything right
now I can handle it later on.
This next section
is very big it's the goals/objectives. Basically of the outlines what a typical
day-to-day schedule look like so that:
By 5 AM – I will
wake up, grab a coffee, and either check in with the computer with Rich or
Facebook - especially through the Kindle
By
5:45 AM – I will go to the computer and check my – but priorities more towards
the computer. By this time I'm thinking Rich is getting in the shower or is
getting ready to leave and I have to re-orientate myself to being in my office
By 6 AM – I will copy
today's priorities under the test summary
By 6:15 AM – I will
start my blog entry and take care of all other correspondence
By 7 AM – I will
take my medicine
By 8 AM – I will
try to write a note to Linda/or talk with her – check project actions and day-to-day
By 9 AM – I will
start laundry
By 9:10 AM – I will
try to do the first thing on my list followed by the next. This is the major
meat of my day
By 11:30 AM I will
have lunch and finish laundry if necessary and here I am supposed to think
about the Flylady
By 1:30 PM I have
to check the dashboard again especially the actions press enter by 2 PM I will
check in with Linda and maybe have some popcorn
By 4:30 PM I will
be closing down my projects
By 5 PM I will try
to be eating dinner
By 5:30 PM I would
like to be moving toward sewing
By 7 PM I would
like to check in with Linda, take my medicine, and then check my schedules and
priorities
By 930 I would like
to be reading
And by 10:30 PM I
would like to be either going to bed with Rich, or deciding that it'll be a
late night and then plan accordingly
Pretty hefty list
of structure for me, but I had to do something because I was getting ahead of
myself I couldn't I couldn't figure out with all the things that I needed to do
what to do for second now I can at least just check on my list and think him I
at least in the ballpark, or it gives me permission to be okay with whatever's
happening at the time because I've made a literal choice, I'm not just randomly
doing things. Of course I love to do random things but I'm not getting things
accomplished her feeling good about what's happening.
The next section is
areas of focus and responsibilities and here we have three items right now one
says school meaning Jones international University and then the second one is
the alliance for American quilts Q. S.O.S.
Then the third item is the part about being an athlete that we have to
train ourselves to be more proactive and I think that has to do with just our
system of organization.
Under the school
section we have the three classes that we are involved in right now meeting
adult education theories by Prof. Knowles, the business grant program by Dr.
Hargiss, and the strategy class that is coming up next. Under the Knowles class I put things as far
as an intro, and then I listed update separate weeks that we would be in the
program. And then under each program week I put down with the link the two
papers that were written that week that I had stored in Word program. With the
Dr. Hargiss program I also listed a conclusion which is something that reminds
me of how the final class ended up and any final notes I have to do to be taken
care of it. Such as right now I feel like I have checked in for the last time
and although the room is open for probably a week I've recorded everything I
want from the program to OneNote, we recorded the nice comments that Dr.
Hargiss left us at the end and we notice that we got 100% on the class which
means we had 995 points out of 1000. I will take that any day. It also reminds
us that we have to go back and follow up with the survey at the end of the
course. We haven't done that so far but I think it's something that's
worthwhile. The reason that it doesn't get done is that it's rather
intimidating is 35 questions long.
The next area of
focus or responsibility is our situation with the alliance for American Quilts.
What we did with this section was to list things under two things right now and
I'm sure more will go on to it later like maybe correspondence with Amy. Maybe
I can do that now. Good there are two
transcriptions that are complete and the second thing is transcriptions
to then the transcriptions were completed for Testa, but McCoy, Carter, and
Wasilowski. Behind each of them I have a link that goes directly to the
recording that we had on them, and it also includes the transcript that we
typed out from them. The next set of
things under transcriptions to do we include the name and recording for
Alexander, Brackman, FindleyWolfe, Breland, Lynch, Michalski, and
McCarroll. These are the people that we
need to do next. These come after the interview we have to do today on Fisher.
And then of course we have the item which is centered which is correspondence
with Amy, I think that we have her on one note, let me check that to me sure.
Cool I just linked it so no correspondence with Amy goes back to all the
letters that we grouped together in one note that she wrote to us or us to her.
This is what I'm talking about as far as efficiency it is wonderful.
The next major
topic is projects. We don't have a lot in this category yet but what we do is a
good start. This project includes things that are number one doing something
special for Rich every day and then I said in February and then on the specific
date which was entered as letting him go fishing and reminding him to be happy.
I think that doing something nice for Rich every day is a project. The next
thing I have is quilting which list out all the different items that I can
think of are projects. And nonetheless project that was there at this point is
housekeeping will fly lady. This is where I think I'm going to go back to her
Flylady Journal I think it is called the control Journal, and when I'm on top
of my game enough to be thinking about fly lady means doing things and zones
like particular rooms that need to be cleaned or habits such as making the bed
getting dressed in the morning taken a shower cleaning the litter box all those
kind of fun things are not good to get into all that today but just to know
that it is under projects wide or just close that window up. Anyway the time
now is 8:30 AM.
And were moving on
I do want to say something about the various topics. It starts off in the very
center with the dashboard and that is colored in green dark green baby forest
green. I did the color coding of this couple days ago. And then the next
sections when inclined the main topics like one were talking about now under
strategies/outcomes is in a deep red, and then a late purple followed by a
pinkish purple. The links aren't as special as in color just that I want to
notice that things are progressing by step and I want to be able reference
later by which color. I think also now looking at it there's a lot of white
links and that's things that I've had it since I was doing the coloring. I
think I might save this for maybe two times a week I'll go back and I'll
recolor the new one since if it's center maybe if I can be calm enough I can
wait for a specific day once a week- once a week would be good when we make
this something that we do on a Sunday.
The next air we
have is a small one and this is the things waiting for Rich litter this we
generally have about five sections right now one is Rich to go fishing and then
I have a little special note that says day one Rich leaves at 530 and on time I
might go back and add another link to it so that I'll do that now. Okay what I
just did was I put down the Alabama trip I forget the city now I might remember
that later on but then under that I put day one Rich leaves at 5:30 AM and he's
on time all that other little notes that I think about towards Rich as I go
along and then I'll be able to add all the different trips that he goes on with
the club or on weekends so this'll be just special respects and keep up-to-date
with what he's doing the other four sections are things that Rich has to look
at, things addressed to Rich talking to somebody like right now he needs to
talk to his accountant, things that Rich does inside the house, and then last
things that Rich does outside the house like Wendy's doing his errands and
such.
The next major
section is things that might show up on my calendar. I don't really know how to
distinguish this between the task list or not that young the upper part on this
one has though two subheadings in one those things that are day and time
specific actions like right now I had Bob and Linda for last night and then I
have Dr. Marvin appointment for today and then the other main one is day
specific information which is things that are coming up like I knew that I had
to buy today get some information from the pharmacist for Dr. Marvin and we had
to we need to stop by at the pharmacist to check with their drug prescription
program that's.
That's all there is
to that section and then now the next section is a big section it's on actions.
I think some of the actions are going up to the upper part -as far as the to do
list but I don't have it all figured out yet.
The main sections under actions are things such as calls, computer,
office, home,, anywhere, errands, and review. Will try to be a little bit the
sink but this is a very important section because it includes a lot of things
that are happening pretty much by area. My call section has things like I have
to call the hospital financial people and see if things are on track with my
Medicaid they had a task to do and I need to follow-up, I need to call Dr.
Knowles asking her to talk to Catherine to resolve problems of getting my other
class registered, and I have to call Catherine about the classes if I don't get
a hold of Dr. Knowles or even if I do that I need to keep with that track. And
then under her computer I just have a right now that I have to remember to blog
which is what I'm doing right now I would like to say something there in that
we're setting ourselves up with the Dragon to be able to get things done on
paper very quickly, have a specified time in the morning, and really get our
thoughts down on paper.
The home section is
things like I need to get Duyen's sewing machine ready to go with Kerry and Joe
which might take some forethought, I wanted to get Rich is sure to engrave,
although that's the shirts that he is wearing this week, so won't happen this
week. Some of these things aren't really specified to go up on top yet it
doesn't have a lot to do part and effect I think that might be something is
when I make these things active maybe that's when they're going up onto the top
I also have to consider what to do with the tree. I have to unpack a couple
items from the work boxes in the sewing room that was Rich’s suggestion before
it left. I think that's about it for the home section for the school section I
just have down that that I'm going to start my new strategy course on Sunday,
March 5 and that I have to skim the table of contents. Somewhere down the line
I put that is a to do item for when I go to Dr. Marvin's if I take the book
with I can skim that in the 1015 min. of waiting for his appointment.
Under the anywhere
topic I have just listed right now the sewing weekend for the girls and that I
broke that up between things to bring and things that I am working on for
projects so as far as things to bring I remembered the blocks the cutting boards
space and Rotary cutters and that I have to remember to bring the computer
programs Microsoft and Dragon for Connie sue to second put that on her computer
and that's all I've really got list of right now I have to get back to this one
later on this is part of David Allen's program though is that you get things
down and then you progress someone you're there when you think about it and
then you have to be thinking about it and he wants to have people with open
minds and it's like I think he calls it mind like water means it's open and
flowing so you can take care of anything that strictly in front of you and he
relates that to karate.
The next section is
on errands and right now I've got to errands the first one is that I need to
deposit three checks from Rich and those are sitting on my desk already signed,
and then the second item is that I have to go to Best Buy and look for USB
adapter that is big enough to hold six or earplugs because my system next my
computer is just totally unruly. The last section is review which is a section
entered under scratch. I think that meant that I had a note that I need Rich to
look at to see what he wants to do with. And then there is something an invoice
from central center that I have to have them look at and see what to do with
it.
I do have a waiting
for others section is a maiden section after actions. But I don't have anyone
right now I'm waiting for this be somebody beside Rich. At this point were over
to the left side of the dashboard when everything's closed up the both sides
are balanced and I do want to say that I have a picture in the background and
its picture of a couple shelves on Ann's shop – the quilted basket. Basically I
just wanted a nice gentle background that wasn't too demanding. I love the
fabrics on this particular study shall since the blues for her Civil War
patterns it's very calming.
Okay now back to
the red topics. Under the main one I
have agendas and I think this is different from some of the other things but I
haven't really figured it out yet I know that it allows a space for somebody's
name and then listings down for that person under one part of it is a agenda
for one-on-one conversations and then underneath that is one-on-one
conversation for meetings and then I put underneath that one-on-one for
vacations. Under the one-on-one and I have listed Linda for one thread and for
that I have to apologize to her for being so much off schedule, and then the
next item I have to do with her is Dr. about what needs to be done over the
weekend. And then I've got underneath the twins I have to write them a note
asked him about staying after we get done sewing on Saturday the section under
meetings I just have listed one meeting here of Dr. Marvin at 4 PM where the
other notes that I had with Dr. Marvin were things I had to do in getting ready
this is something that is just you know what I have to do. And then the last
section under vacations I've got listed things like going to Minnesota with
Connie sue on April 13 to the 17th, the first Saturday sampler, and for
Saturday with the girls. I have to work out the space to in that I think I've
got them over on the right side for something or another but under no clarify
this part later right now it's getting closer to nine o'clock I really want to
get a jump on jump I really want to finish what I'm doing so I can move onto
the next significant that laundry scheduled at nine. I can't believe I said I
have not I have to leave writing for laundry.
Wow! This must be the new me
because it certainly wasn't the old me.
The next red button
under the main section is TP assist and that has to do with the program itself
I'm I want to go back and was later that set of instructions. Looks like it's
got a space for instructions and notes but will think about that later there's
another major red section none of these have as big a section is what was going
on over on the right. The next red one though is the incubator. This is for
things that I want to do some day and door this calendar start for later on
like I'm I want to press down that I'd like to make it to Minnesota this year
to see my mother but I don't really have it down when to something I've got on
the back of my mind we do have one thing down there right now and that's that
we want to check on if there's anything I should be paying attention to with
the kiddies because we're just think it through this morning that there are 14
years of age almost and we have to figure out I mean I think Scan old at about
18, so they might be in the elderly ages now, but it might change how I start
to think about them and how to process the next stage of their life. Anyway
it's an incubator that's that something and thought but it's nothing concrete
right now I can close that window.
I don't know what's
going on with this next section there's a journal section and that's pretty
major section are supposedly it collects all the different things that are
going on during the day but I'm not sure I would just tried to press enter a
few times I'm not sure what it takes to get that moving pick right now it's
only list out the 2012 and then February and then the dates the 26th and 27th,
but it hasn't listed anything for the 28th which is today so I'm not sure what
I have to do to get that moving. I just tried a few things but I'm still not
sure where I'll have to look it up when I more time later on but Tom things
that might include be included on that is things like yesterday we had Journal
items for watching out for the tax money I needed to finish the daughter loss
quilts needed to finish Nikki Scott I think it's like things that I changed it
looks like the things that were being changed was action strategies my life so
I don't know what comes with that I have to really think about that later auto
relievers also note. Okay that's the
beauty of the system like this is that it just allows you to put down things
you don't think about things, because you're your unconscious is just
processing over and try to get you to finish those things because there's that
gestalt thing where you want to complete things and so this is part of it is
allowing you to do that under whichever section I just press on tour I think
what I was under my dashboard was that a close some of my topics. I'll get a
handle on that later I will have to open up some windows. But now it's 906 I'm
really watching my time I said laundry 9 to 9:30 am but I'm getting close.
There are only two
major color red topics left. One I haven't come up with too much use for yet
but that is supporting materials. The only thing there so far is I've got a
link to the 2012 receipts that I was working on yesterday it went all the way
through January and February. It is on Excel and in general those categories are
written down in two worksheets. The first worksheet has all the different
receipts according to date so generally first obviously comes before February
23, and in general I put the date to the time because as a generally on
receipts and then I put down what the store was like Walgreens or Wal-Mart, and
then I start listing the items that were purchased by the codes that are listed
on the receipt and it goes all the way across like probably about 30 to
40columns a crossed of just item labels on the first line and then on the
second line there's prices and there's a line in between each of those
different roles so that each general row has the item number the price number
that a space before you get the next days and next stores same thing. I hope
that makes some kind of sense. But then at the end of the line I've got
different subsections that might have a sort of like totaling such as there's a
column for discounts column for the subtotal there's three different tax
columns I think that's for state tax local tax and county tax most items don't
have all three but there's a few that do so we had include all those areas that
I have one column for tips, and one less column for the totals. So then at the
bottom of that I have inspection section for adding up the numbers. So on the subtotal
I have about $1120 for items before taxation and I have about $1170 for totals
after taxation that sentiments above $50 I mean that's bad but it's paying for
something important right.
On the section sheet
I’ve got the same information but it's put a little bit differently it groups
things by the kind of item store it is. For example my categories are for
number one car gas and merchandise for the car that would also include repairs
anything to do with cars. The next section is for eating out we don't have a
lot there because Rich hasn't collect a lot receipts and then after go back and
check his credit cards for a lot of this to fill-in to make these things really
accurate the next section is on pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS. Then there's
a section on sewing with get items are from both the quilt basket and Joann’s
which seems to be my primary stores I shop at and then there's the biggest
section which is the groceries and merchandise primarily from Wal-Mart, but it
will include two loss: Dominick's food for less wherever Rich happens be
shopping. I think as far as cash receipts this is area that Rich’s done the
best in collecting because he is very conscientious of getting things recorded
for the modern money he's spending on groceries or at the grocery store on all
the things you notice it includes cats and cleaning goods and all toilet papers
all that kind of stuff for that section for the last two months it looks like
we've spent $700 before tax and $726 after-tax so like I said including all the
dry goods, cleaning goods, bathroom needs like toothpaste and cats, this is
probably not a real bad thing it means that were spending about $350 a month on
each of those items good thing to know somewhere I would've thought it more but
I was budging just the groceries alone to be about $400 so I'm not really a far
off from what I was including against. Rich is really atrophic shopper I saw
through the items were going through one at a time that really the most costly
items were things like what I liked like my fruit cups and my peanut butter and
my grapefruit juice and then items spray cost a lot more than water and not to
go too far into that but if it cost more money is probably one of my items.
That makes me feel
good the last section is called the reference section and originally I thought
that might not hold so many things but it really does because this is where all
of our bills ourselves we have a section over on the right with the test
summary I guess section in other says that when it comes up that I have to pay
bills and that it will list out all the bills that I have to pay but after that
the bills go down to into the reference section now I'm just wondering. I had five bills under Rich’s name or under
bills and now that I erase something I might have a race that I might have to
come up with a different system so that's not so easily to lose but over on the
main section were all the bills paid for the months of January and February are
I have a lot of different things but they're broken down like almost everything
else by category. My main categories are
income or banking, medical, government, home and cars, and leisure. Under
income and banking I have listed everything is happening with First National
Bank of Brookfield, American Express for Rich, St. Rose center for Rich, Jay's
cash receipts, the game checks, and that I've got one section for the 2011
taxes and another section for retirement.
Under the First National Bank of Brookfield I list the four different
accounts and in each of these counts what you end up with is all the documents
that belong to that like there's those receipts to get from the bank and then
there's the receipt that you get month by month I've got a copy that went to
the scanner of all those things and they end up in one of those four counts
because as our bank accounts.
The St. Rose, Jays,
and games those are the different income sources from Rich he's got a few more
that are getting recorded yet like he gets his retirement check from JV us, but
we'll have to figure that out later. It's an auto deposit to his bank so maybe
I'll pick it up during that when I look at the bank accounts specifically. The
American Express is self-explanatory and it's I think Philip credit card that Rich
is really using a thing he's got one more credit card for Bass Pro which is
your garlic in the thousand dollar limit on it but that something us no matter
affect the change that the breath ever made thousand Island dollars down to
$2000 because he didn't want so much hanging on his credit but those are
self-explanatory. I don't have anything listed under my 2011 Texas because it
will regard to the accountant but I've got all the papers collected in awe
every like is that everything on here is not the to scanner and then the
retirement accounts they include things like whatever Rick has and I have like
if I have something on my pension it would go in that area.
The next sections
are not as big I think but maybe so I think it doesn't goes deep. Like right
now the medical it has a section for an section for Rich and then a section for
pharmacy or drug store and that basically is just a list out all her different
bills we have in each and then under the government section I've only got a few
things in here so far because nothing's really come in for the first two months
but that might include the SSI or the disability checks anything have to do
with the government. The next section major section from the references our
home and cars and this includes one section for the cars and SUVs, one section
for insurance one for furniture one for utilities. The utilities account covers
things like Comcast and phone and the electric bill. Under the furniture, we
are Smith got Ashley's which is where we got our bedroom furniture enriches
still making payments - payments under insurance we have pretty much different
to different accounts one for Rich and one for myself from State Farm were not
in the same category yet. And that Unalaska category we have cars and SUVs.
You're probably aware by now that we bought cars in early January well maybe
are not but we but cars in early January so got one section for general things
with cars like repairs and other Stuff than that of God things different
divided between the pilot the civic the CRV and then the Highlanders under the
Toyota brand so I'm in a close up a few those windows deceived 21 a look at
those sections
Wow. That was a lot
it's now 9:29 AM and I'm wearing about word Linda might be at I haven't got a
chance to talk to her for a couple days so want to get the laundry done so I
can get that looking over my general schedule– I've got to get the laundry
going and that I wanted to start doing things on the list that I haven't talked
Lindy yet so maybe what I'll do is assemble and copy of everything and so she gets
idea what we’re going through but I don't know if it's particularly interesting
to her and I don't know what Lynn is been doing I would want to spend at least
half an hour getting caught up there some a BA underdog just as and when she's
online the next part is having lunch finishing up the laundry and then were
going to want to work for a couple more hours check the dashboard again and
then we have to we might want to check and see what needs to be gotten ready
for the trip to Dr. Marvin's basically. I and to the pharmacy and the USB cords
can we do that after Dr. Marvin's what will we need. I know that other people
have busy minds to and certainly some of the things they may be doing a more
important but it does kind of blow me away that there's so many things on our
minds go through and sorting out one schedule from the next. I'm going to keep
this note in the background may be minimized. I want easy access to one note
because I wanted to be an important software for us but I need to get this out
of my mind to and be doing something practical not that writing a book is
impractical yes yes yes that's what this is all about were writing a book what
you thought it was more technical than all that. Just a matter getting our
thoughts out right now we feel about as empty as we get. Till later -bye.
Wednesday,
February 29, 2012
Good morning,
At least I think it
is a good morning. I have been trying to get through with the school whatever
it takes to get my grade registered from the first course. I sent out the
following letter this morning.
Please Dr. Knowles and Catherine,
I feel desperate
here. I know Dr. Knowles that you sent in the grades on February 7th and
Catherine I've waited very patiently as you stated it might take a couple
weeks. But, my grade for the Adult Theory courses still hasn't been registered.
Dr. Knowles I've tried to follow up as much as I can. I talked to Catherine as
a special request to assist me in staying where I need to be with the school.
So twice a week we've been following up with what is happening in getting this
grade registered. It is still not registered - at least it still states on my
dashboard that I have 0 credits and that I failed the class. I did very well
with the class; I need both of your help to resolve this issue. Catherine says
that I should ask you Dr. Knowles to contact the university again and let her
know what happens - I know Dr. Knowles that you've already done this, but I
don't know what to do other than to ask could you follow-up on it again to
assure things went through. I'm not sure why you should call Catherine other
than you being called by Catherine and I don't understand not being given
another resource to contact as far as making this happen. It is my
understanding that the registrar doesn't talk to students, and I'm not being
given another reference number other than the two of you. Please help me before
something happens to my financial aid. I'm afraid Dr. Knowles that Catherine
states she's been in contact with the registrar and believe that the next
action must come from you. I feel very badly for imposing this on you again,
but could you please follow-up through the registrar and Catherine ... whatever
you send to the registrar please also send to Catherine. This is something that
matters greatly to me. Thank you very much
Ann M. Garvey
I don't know what
else has to happen to make this work for me. I feel that it is unfair because I
did for eight weeks’ worth of course in eight weeks before that eight weeks
before that and still not being registered except for under the first two
attempts to fail. Catherine is telling me that it is all my responsibility, but
I'm in contact with her, and I have been in contact with Prof. and I've been
following up twice a week. She states she has been in contact with the
registrar but I don't know if that's happened more than once or twice her
information doesn't seem very new. And I've been told that the students cannot
call the registrar's office direct, but I'm thinking I have to go over some
buddies head. I just don't know how to do that yet. If I don't get a response
in the next several days possibly by next Monday then I will try to connect to
somebody higher than Catherine when I am contacting at the school switchboard,
and I might try going through Dr. Hargiss to see if there's anything she can
do. I don't want to put either Catherine or Dr. Knowles in that position but
I'm very frustrated. I can't afford to lose the course. I don't know if it
wouldn't cause me to fail at the school or fail with student financial aid, but
both those options are not acceptable.
Boy, it sure
doesn't feel good to start off with such negativity in the morning. It doesn't
make it much better also that I woke up later than I would've wanted. The cats
finally got me up at about 6:30 AM. I found there was a pretty deep scratch about
1 inch long on my left forearm. I can't say I remember getting it but I'm
pretty sure I know who did it. I've been kind of stumbly. I had some leftover
dinner from last night that was left over from the night before. And, certainly
we got ourselves another cup of coffee.
We left the TV on very low last night because it bothered us to go to
bed without hearing something in the background. Usually, we have Rich to go into in our
bedroom and so without that, it makes it feel lonely. I do have to pat myself
on the back that we got to bed. In the
past, we would have never made it past the couch.
The next thing I
did after writing the note and checking my e-mails and Facebook, and by
Facebook I mean slightly, I just check the message section, I did not check the
home section, was to go to the mind jet. It has moved a few things around on
me. I don't have the mental stamina enough to deal with that yet. It seems to
have moved some of the work from areas of focus responsibility to the task
summary area. I am not sure if some of the things that disappeared from the
summary area went fairly, or just disappeared. I noticed that the AAQ entry I
had marked as the fifth one is now missing. I will have to go back over and
figure out as far as which ones I'm considering task it seems to be adjusting
the task once I'll have to look again to find out if there's anything missing
also from the other task mentioned the previously – again, this too much for me
right now.
I feel like I had
drunk the night before but I know I had not – there's no real alcohol in the
house beside some margarita mix that I know I didn't taste. There have been a
lot of yawns too. I would like to say that I got a note from Duyen. She said
that she and Thom are real busy. Tom is doing very well in school and received
A's in his statistic course. Duyen has been doing school also and has been
looking very hard for job. She seems to have gotten something in an ATT store,
but she only has 13 hours which is not enough for her. And so now she's doing
very well in the interviewing process of getting a new job possibly at a bank.
I hope she does well I just worry about her getting too much to be doing. I
would hate to see her lose her efforts at school just for job.
I think she's more
worried about working than anybody else. You know how much I would like to see
invested in the school. I was also afraid because she said something about Tom
drinking alcohol to help him get through his life and that worries me a lot
especially because alcoholism runs so rampantly in both Garvey and Ludford
families. I think that my daughter-in-law was smart to say something to us. It
is not that we can do much about it except recognize it, and try to assist when
possible. We really do have to wait for an opening to do that. Right now we are
not really in too much contact with Thom. It feels like just knowing he's there
is enough, and that much more contact would be overwhelming.
I didn't hear from Rich
this morning, but I'm sure that he was up busy very early. He did call last night.
I had first come home from Dr. Marvin's and had eaten dinner. Then that a few
minutes after 7 PM I went to Facebook to see if Linda was there. After a few
minutes she signed on, but she had Internet problems and I did not have the
endurance to stay with it. I had to lie down on the couch and fell asleep until
Rich called. Apparently he did not get a chance to go fishing. I think he got
in about 5 PM. He talked about there not being very many good restaurants in
town but there were a lot of people. It sounds like there are houses all around
the lake. He seemed pretty relaxed all told. He was sitting towards the back of
the motel where the lake was and talked about there being a dock so that they
could actually pull up to the hotel and go to the bathroom in their own room.
That's a lot better than trying to find a tree in a crowded area. *Laughing*
Oh Lordy, I think I
might have not only the yawn problem, but I also seem to have a few hiccups.
That can't be good. This time while
writing, by the way, I am working directly in Word and I am trying to be better
at correcting mistakes as I go, because yesterday was a lot of time spent
fixing errors afterward.
Okay going back to Rich
now. It sounds like he and Ron had a good trip and that the conversations were
easy and comfortable. Ron then Rich gets along very well. Rich says that Ron
invited us to his 50th wedding anniversary; I think it is June 15. And, Rich’s
mom appears to have invited us for St. Patrick's Day dinner I believe on March
18. He says that Andrew one of her grandchildren will be there also. I know he
loves to cook, but I don't know if she's serving him, or if he is serving her,
or if they are working together. I believe she is having corned beef which
sounds about par for the course. It has been a while since I've been at their
house. It just seems or so much other things to be doing, but I know that's not
fair to Rich.
I seem to have lost
my train of thought again. I needed to take a break from him to fill up coffee
and other. I don't know if I everything I needed to say anything else about Rich’s
call. I guess for now we should just move on.
We saw Dr. Marvin
last night. That seems to have worked out pretty well. I remember telling Linda
last night in the briefest of messages that we had adult parts out with Dr.
Marvin most of the session. There was some rocking at the beginning while we
were waiting for him to read the paper, but other than that we did very well.
That is, if staying in adult mode, is the whole deal. The first 15 min. of the session
were about catching up and doing things like taking care of medicine and
pharmacy needs with the new Walgreens program. The next 15 to 20 minutes was
with Dr. Marvin reading the transcript from yesterday. There was about 10 to 15
min. talking about the material we had just gone through with him in reading
the transcript. And then there was a definite 15 min. The time, I remember
looking at the clock where we specifically about what it going on last week
with younger parts. It took us a few minutes to go back to remembering that sex
had been talked about on cue from Dr. Marvin. We couldn't remember what the
stories were but we knew that there had been incidences of things being
remembered the week previous and that we felt we should be going back to that,
so lightly. Dr. Marvin brought back one memory in that he said Barbie dolls and
those had had sex. That was about enough to overwhelm my senses, so we didn't
really go into any depth with that except for to acknowledge that it had
happened – only that we could remember saying those words.
It is hard to
figure out what to do with that next, but I think we were talking to Dr.
Marvin, or he was talking to us primarily about doing that kind of conversation
where we could step into them and out of them without losing too much time. It
is very threatening to the system that we could get lost in those kinds of
thoughts. I think he was staging that we might do it, and I think we
interpreted the word "safely."
I had the sense that we had really never gone into too much depth with
the child experiences of sexuality. It seems that we have gotten to this point
before where we were thinking about it, but life always seems to derail those
thoughts.
Well, we are back
again. We seem to have had some trouble in getting around Dragon. Sometimes he
can be a testy beast. We tested inserting of responses in case Linda signs on.
We don't have that magical clue yet on how to get things to respond in the
write a reply box, but sooner or later we will figure it out. It sounds like
Linda must be having a busy day because her friends husband is going in the
hospital for surgery, but we don't know what that's all about right now. I'm
glad that Linda's friend has someone to go sit with during the surgery. I hope
it's not long or complicated or dangerous. The nicer still would be if it was
routine surgery and it's just in and out.
I think, we somehow
also avoided because we were starting to talk about Dr. Marvin thoughts, and
was getting a lot to be processing. I don't know where to go with that. Maybe
it's time to move on? I hate to leave it so vacant though. Okay where were we
at? You have the general time frame. The medicine part and general catch-up was
necessary, but never as much fun as getting into things that I want to talk
about. We enjoyed very much watching Dr. Marvin go through the good morning
note that we had left from yesterday. We won't have him do that often but we
needed him to see what our new system had been and how we were trying to
organize our thoughts. It was a major paradigm switch. He didn't say anything
about us being too overwhelmed with the new system, though I'm sure that is on
the back of his mind somewhere. I think there is some magic involved when we
come in several sessions with the problem, which we had been trying to
organize, and inputting things down on paper, and then coming up with a system
to take care of just that. It speaks to the endurance of the multiple systems.
I hope I left a better impression than not with the Dragon. We seem to be doing
it more productively today and that were watching over what we are saying
instead of just blindly talking into it, so some of the edits are getting done
while we are talking. We had to do something because yesterday the amount of
time in edits was just astronomical. It would be great if Dr. Marvin got the
program and he could help us learn more about it. You just have to imagine that
he's a very quick learner.
One of the nicest
things about Dr. Marvin reading beside he is picking up information very
quickly and very accurately as to our ability to translate what is happening in
our minds, is that we get an opportunity when he's reading to watch his face. I
cannot believe how well we do and transcribing the thoughts we believe he's
having. Not as much as what he's thinking, but that he is appreciating what
he's reading in some aspect or another. I think we live for the times when his
eyes curl up just slightly and that his mouth switches over to a slight
wavering smile. He's not overly obvious, but I suppose after so many years we
can read some of the things that are affecting his emotions. Plus we love to
please him so when he smiles it's very encouraging to us. Okay that's almost a mushy part about us and
him. It's a little too sensual and that we talked about his mouth at the same
general time span as we are talking about Barbie dolls and sexuality – if you
want to flood someone system that would be about how you would do it.
*Pause* we had to
have slight break there, in that all of a sudden we needed a desperate ice
cream sandwich. I would suppose that meant that it was overwhelming someone who
eats ice cream sandwiches in our system possibly, and that it could possibly be
me. Just want to check in too. It is about 9 AM, so we might be thinking that
we should be moving on, although certainly, we are not ready for that yet. We
are just barely stumbling through our Dr. Marvin thoughts. Seems to be that we
are having as many thoughts as we are trying to avoid – I don't think you can
appreciate enough how difficult this is to think and write through.
Dr. Marvin seems to
be thinking that in general, we are ready for this new phase, which is my
terminology and not his. We don't have his exact words or thoughts; I do know
that we talked about were memory and memory processes that we have. I think he
said something about us not being able to bring things to recall, and we talked
about the dissociative processes and associative processes, and I think he said
like we don't associate like most people in that one thought leads directly
back to another and another, we seem to spend a lot of time switching to avoid
one thought from the next, perhaps that is what is happening here as I try to
write one coherent set of thoughts. I don't know any other way to process life,
so I can say it's more complicated than anybody else goes through with their
own difficulties, but it does get frustrating in that we are trying to think of
one specific thing and our mind is doing everything to avoid it. In a –
That was very
funny. The other Linda called a minute ago, and she said, "So to you know
what today is?" I was like shoot
it's Wednesday right? And, she said that
it was Sadie Hawkins Day. And, I didn't know if that was, so she explained that
this is the day that women ask men to do things like go to a dance, or get
married, or all that – and that it only happens once every four years, so this
must be something for leap year. We told her we would let Rich know and I was
sure that he was can appreciate her good advice. We discussed briefly how much
more relaxed he might be now that he's into good fishing time already this
spring, so we might be able to spring this other news on him. *Laughing*.
Okay, trying not to
avoid the real discussion. Let's go back patiently. Somewhere in this
conversation we did discuss with Dr. Marvin also our grades, and we talked
about that being very confirming in that when we were able to give it our full
attention that we got such a good grade. The last course was 100%. Okay, we are
still having problems with lost five points, but 5 pounds of out of 1000 is
still 100% which is terrific. I know that intellectually, but perhaps not
emotionally. It allowed us to have another little conversation on becoming a
doctoral student and that now we are two courses done with 34 which is 6% of
our school life. The only other way to stay in learning is for us to become an
educator, and I suppose that's what I am going to be doing. I think in one way
or another Linda tried to pin us down to what are we going to do when we grow
up – not exactly but so to speak. It's now getting to be a pattern where we
explain the people we are not going to grow-up for a long time. We are going to
keep going to school until we go bust. Our way of thinking is that if we can
handle the emotional overload, just how cool would it be to keep getting 100’s
one time after another time after another time. I think intellectually speaking
we might have that in us.
Okay trying to get
back to Dr. Marvin thoughts we are as darned confused as what is going on in
our brain as anything. I remember having thought that before this part where we
tried to write about Dr. Marvin, was like the old days we used to write in our
blogs. I think in talking to Dr. Marvin that got good reviews – that is, doing
the blogs over again. We both know that I need some kind of system, and I have
to do with our memory, and we are needing to trace back thoughts we are having
because everything seems so lost after we speak it or think it. I have the
sense that we are going to be going through something totally new, but I know
that we've tried doing this before and we've never gone all the way through.
Now Dr. Marvin
seems to think that we're in the right position to do so. We talked a little
bit about where St. Rose had left us … Mostly we were so overwhelmed with the
system of what was going on there that we had little chance to do something
that was psychologically much more sound for us. Dr. Marvin is very good in
helping us get through those feelings of shame or whatever it is that makes you
feel that so many years were wasted. I think I came up to the conclusion; that
if I had not of have those thoughts and experiences, I would not be able to do
what we did. And, it somehow set the structure or scaffolding for maybe what is
to come, so that would be a good thing. I think it is in the little ways that
our brain used to process things especially things that were difficult for us
on an emotional level with all of sister's ups and downs.
I know that the
work itself became very discouraging, because so much of it was doing work that
had no meaning for sister, so while she was giving us one assignment, she was
thinking that we should be doing something else, and the time constraints it
put us through became too impossible to work with - like knowing that we had
CARF to work on and then giving us very time constricting things like three
groups of circles during the time we should've been working with the other. Okay,
that is way too much on this. We are going to drop again St. Rose business like
a hot potato.
We’re back! We were
talking to Linda for about 40 to 45 min. She says that the surgery for her
friend’s husband is just outpatient which is good. And then, she had a lot to
say about the vacation. So it sounds like she will be back around 4 PM. So we
will look for her then, and we will look for her again about 7 PM. I hope her
day is very meaningful.
I think our
thoughts are so far gone. I found myself drifting while waiting for Linda to
type. It's just that I didn't know where to go while waiting for her to
introduce the next points of her conversation. When it comes to vacation time,
it's a lot more just reporting of what's going on, not so interactive. It sounds
like she's going to have a good time. She's worrying about her mother-in-law,
and whether she'll be able to travel with them around the city, or if she will
need to stay home, hopefully she'll get out one way or the other. I know it is
hard for Linda to not have plans and that the extra variables like her
mother-in-law being hurt. It is difficult to handle and it would be for anyone.
No one gets enough vacations so that you want them not to be as wonderful as
you could dream them to be.
By now we are about
11 pages but double-spaced pages done and we had stopped to read what we had
written. When we don't edit in between times, the volume of work just gets to
be too much at the end. The writing and the editing have to be balanced. I also
can't help that today we seem to be very tired. We had enough sleep last night,
so I'm not sure what the problem is there. I can't say enough how much the
doctor appointment seems to have affected us, or maybe it is all the work on
software that we have been doing over the last several days. Or who knows it
could be anything.
I think also that
our brain tries to avoid, so now what we should probably be moving onto the
next thing, we find ourselves still holding back because it feels like we don't
have everything down that we need to put down for this exact moment in time.
Okay, we will try
this one more time. We were with Dr. Marvin. We had a reasonably good time. We
got through the business at hand with the prescriptions and general lead-in to
the session and then we went through the processes we been under for the last 4
to 5 days. Then there was a little bit of coming out of that, and then, we seem
to have the time necessary to go back to the session from last week. This is
the 15 min. that seems to be giving me a real feeling of being in the middle of
an obstacle course. I suppose if I was being a real nice part, I would just let
it go. So I have to ask myself, why is there that push? Why can't we know what
was happening? Most likely it's some kind of defense mechanism. Moreover, what
Dr. Marvin had been talking about as to not being able to associate thoughts,
and how dissociative our mind is? This is nothing new right? We've been
dissociative since before the sky was blue. We still get frustrated with it.
Because we think that our thoughts are being blocked from us. We would really
like to know what they were. How'd we get over something that we don't know?
This could be a problem. We don't even know what it is that is there, so how do
we know when we're getting over it or not.
I didn't really
mean to be talking just about the frustration, that's all you've really gotten
so far. Have you ever had to sit with the block between one part of your brain
and the other? It literally feels like a great big cold concrete block has been
put down in the middle of my brain, primarily in the four head region. I'm
thinking now, what is it that I have to know? I know things are safe. And that
no matter what happened in the past, I'm okay here in the present. Dr. Marvin
said that we would work with a system of being closer to the top of things, so
we can come back and forth with less stress. We both know I have to be able to
walk out of that office at the end of the session. That seems to be something
that's very ingrained in our brain.
So what is the next
question, let's think. There seems to be a little bit of question about Dr.
Marvin. I mean I think that sounds like the stupidest thing in the world
because we've learned to trust Dr. Marvin over a very long period of 13 years.
Why should we be questioning his judgment now? Is that judgment? Or, is that
abilities? Or, is it something else? I know we talk something about building a
structure. I think that was more on my thoughts than his, although he seemed to
understand what I was saying. I remember one of the books I had read where they
had a safe almost like a clubhouse where parts would do their transitioning. It
seemed that there was always some question as far as it being a middle ground
to converse with the individual parts and their therapist before opening and
shutting the door to this other side. I don't want to make a system more
complicated than it really is. Perhaps, there is something in a visualization
that would make it feels safer, a little bit more distance from the real problems.
I think were afraid to find out what's really there. There's this part of us
that would like to believe that nothing is there.
I can hear some
part in the background of my brain saying, come on just get over it! Like so
what? What is it that you want me to get over? By now I'm raising my voice, and
we are sounding a little bit more excitable. Help me set the stage here. What
is it that you want me to be doing exactly? That seems interesting, in the past
when we wanted an answer, all we had to do was ask a question and then wait.
And someone would respond back to us. Is it like that now? Okay, let's assume
it is. What question do I want to ask? Okay, thinking here very hard again. It
seems obvious that somebody needs our help. Can we have a name of which part
needs our help exactly? Kelsey seems to be the first name that comes up. Okay,
what does Kelsey need? Seems she needs to get back on schedule. I think she
wants to do transcribing because that's the part that keeps coming back
into our head as something that is not being done. It does surely feel like we
are trying to avoid the subject.
This is very interesting. What happens if some of the
problems that we have of doing things on schedule, or being in a position to
help our parts was really about our inability to be responsible - and for doing
that next thing without so much hesitation. Thinking here again of David Allen
and his suggestion for being in the present as much as possible. That is why we are writing so many things now
at this point of time. Allen said that
we need to leave our thoughts questions anything that's going on in her mind in
some safe place like through writing, so we can let it go and move on to other
things we want to see. We want to get to the part of the flow directly in front
of us because that's where we can fairly interact. Would that seem very
logical? So, possibly could this wall of frustration where we don't feel we're
getting to the bottom of things – could this be a brain shelter for doing
something responsible? What is it that we’re afraid this could happen there?
Maybe we are going to have to do this kind of a middle ground where we write,
think, do responsibilities, all the time at the same time. Could we do that? We
would have to test this out. It's now 11:11 AM, if we went to our mind map
where would we be? Why don't we open that up?
It seems the goals and objectives time schedule which we are
supposed to be following, states that we were supposed to wake up, and have
coffee, and go to the computer. That part seems to be done. We were supposed to
handle the dashboard a little bit, but it seems past that for the present, t
because we feel too much behind. And also, we could consider this part of the
regular session with the program and just attach this document to the other. We
do seem to have some difficulty in letting it go. Letting go of things that are
safer, like hiding in our brain and actually doing something physical like
transcribing, because that would take us into responsibility land. But what
happens then what happens if we are responsible? Is something going to happen
to make that a bad situation? I don't know we might need to trust our next set
of thoughts. I want to just check one more time if it's really Kelsey, and if
it's really Kelsey wanting to do the transcribing work. Let me just take a
second. Okay, I think that's good she did say something about leaving the
windows open so we could get back to the writing when and if necessary. So the
next part is going to be about setting up Windows. First thing we need to do is
minimize this window. Then there were three parts that we had to get out. We
need the Dragon first, and she started right now. The next thing we need it was
the transcription program. Okay that part of our situation is called express
scribe probe and we don't need the part up with the other dictation names so
were going to say those are done. Okay now we're doing the part where it's
supposed to be loading … we just then have to plug in the foot pedal, and then
open a new Word document, and then push the pedal down and type, right? Yes … we can do this too! For now bye!
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