Wednesday, September 5, 2012 at 1:56 PM
Okay, this is pretty exciting news, but I wanted to say that we
are very happy that when we checked today the Google search for “news
dissociative identity disorder,” we were the first link on the board! The
secondary link was on the second page. This is a really big deal to me. It was
something I was looking for that would be an indicator that our news site was
being recognized online. The simplicity of those keywords, “dissociative
identity disorder news” is that it is something simple that anybody looking for
generic information might add in their Google search, which would then drive
them to our site. For most bloggers the idea of people coming to your site is
the idea that the more people, the more strength your organization has. At
least that's how we look at it. On the other side of that coin, is to be
developing ourselves at all times so that we are offering a product that people
are interested in - if they find our site(s).
Good, we just got off the phone with a representative from “Sum
Total” named Chad. We had sent-out requests for information to several LMS
organizations requesting information on their services and the cost of their
services. We might've stated this before, but basically, if we have a program
that can build courses such as Adobe e-learning suite, then we have to find a
place to base our course from. Adobe turned out to be too expensive. We
are again explaining that if we have a course or classroom; then we need to
have a school for our classroom. LMS again stands for learning management
system and it allows people who are offering courses whether internal for
business purposes or external towards others on the Internet not only provide a
service to host their site, but other nice things like the ability to track and
score metrics.
I started at the top of the list and from what I have read so
far I am way out of my league as far as getting a service that would be cost
efficient to us. I don't want to sell our courses; I want them to be more like open-online
courseware. That seems to be the first thing these last couple businesses that
have called back today asked, "Are we selling our services?" Both
times we answered no; we would really like to offer a service for free. This
last person, Chad, had only been in the business for a couple of months and so
he had to talk to an account executive because he had not heard of anybody such
as us doing what we wanted to do. We were happy that he asked as many questions
as he had in trying to understand our situation and of course it helps to be
very honest because if they really don't have a system small enough to handle
our kind of business, then we don't need to be talking to them. Best to find
that out right away, so we can move on. We might end up back with Moodle.
I'm feeling like today, I have to get my move on too – because
we are running pretty close to deadline as to leaving for New Mexico in a
couple of days. I really don't want to get started on that project because I
haven't spent a lot of time doing what I want to do on the computer yet, but I'm
aware of those looming facts. I should probably make myself a checklist of
things to do. Knowing me, it would take me longer to make the list and
track it than doing the actual projects.
What has had us so preoccupied this morning has been again revising
the “About Us” section on our main blog, who would have guessed that it could
take so long. There must've been something else we were doing although we don't
recall it at this point. Oh, I know - one thing we spent an hour talking to
Linda and we spent some time on Facebook talking to others about the gifts that
our daughter-in-law Duyen had gotten for us from Vietnam. That package came in
the mail last night by the time we got home from Dr. Marvin's. We were pretty
excited coming up the stairs because on the drive home Rich had told us we had
something waiting for us. It was pretty unbelievable. We opened the box
and we found four different items. They were pajamas and I thought first that
maybe some would be for Rich, but the closer we looked at it – it does appear
that they are all for me - which is a lot. I think our daughter-in-law went way
overboard, but her heart and sincerity are very moving.
We put on one of the pajamas last night - the one with the
leopard skin. I've never had anything like this in my life, but then here it is
and it fits wonderfully and is sooo comfortable and silky. This morning we woke
up with our new outfit and Rich hadn't seen it yet. We got rave reviews. And
then, he took some pictures for us and we included a couple of those in
Facebook this morning. We haven't heard from Duyen yet, but I want to make sure
that she understands how much we appreciate her gifts. Not only did the pajamas
come from Vietnam, but she had them made by her family's tailor. I had
nothing ever made for me like that. My grandmother used to make pajamas - that
was family. It seems like a pretty big deal!
Yesterday, we felt a little strange driving to Dr. Marvin's. It
seems like it had been a long time since we had been there again and when we
actually walked into Dr. Marvin's office it was Anniemi who sat down to talk.
We are familiar with her being intrepid. I think there were other conversations
as well, but the one I remember the best was her talking about going shopping
with Rich on Monday. It was an interesting day for shopping. We went to two
stores. The first store was the Verizon and the second one was Catherine's. It
seems that Dr. Marvin was ready for a long conversation on shopping and he
reminded us that we had had a conversation about it the week before, but during
the times we were writing, we couldn't remember anything about the sessions
before. When he mentioned shopping, he also mentioned laundry, and I guess we
were having trouble with both.
I think that all has to do with our past. Basically, my mother
really set definite limitations on our brain’s ability to handle either of
those situations. We had started washing clothes at the age of seven when we
became a Brownie/Girl Scout, and we were given the responsibilities to be doing
laundry loads from a huge stack of the family's clothes steeped in a pile on
the damp basement floor. We worried about bugs like crickets. For a
while, we had to do laundry over at the Laundromat about a block and a half
away. It seems that it's an overriding theme nowadays, but it was just another
one of those situations that have gotten overwhelming for us. As for the
clothes purchasing situation - we had never gone shopping with our mother. She
worked at Target and so she would pick-up things during or after her workday
and there was never a question of what did we want, or what might look cute on
a child. As we grew older, she would get whatever she got for herself except
for the smaller version and possibly it was in different colors. It was a
terrible way to shop for clothes and for our entire childhood, we felt
embarrassed about her clothing choices.
Both situations were really examples of lousy parenting,
especially for a girl child because it wore on our sense of self-esteem and
value in our self not to feel good about ourselves, or attractive. The first
time we started writing poetry as an adult we discussed servicing the adults
and in both these functions, we were servicing my mother's narcissistic needs.
She didn't want to deal with us and she didn't want to deal with laundry, or
shopping, so she manipulated those situations to be to her benefit and not to
ours. There was no discussing anything with our mother. We were silenced very
early on. We were taught very blatantly that children were to be seen and not
heard.
But then again there is Rich. And Rich is a true gem. He has
been assisting us this week getting past both of these complications. He has
gone through it with us many times before. When I get too overwhelmed with
laundry, then he steps in to help, and then I try to get back on board, and he
makes himself available to go clothes shopping with us so we can handle that
situation as well. This week it took us a little effort to get out the door
with him. Rich made it clear that we needed to buy a few things for the trip
and there was no other time to do it except Monday, and dammit it was going to
be done. Blah! I hate it when he does that although if he didn't, I
don't know if we would ever leave the house. Rich might have realized he had
overdone the day’s events. So he canceled the picnic event for Bob and going to
his mother's house. This made a lot of difference. We had a little bit more
time to not be raced out the door, or to feel the familiar panic.
We stopped at Verizon first. We had talked before going in
although he hadn't really given us much time. He had come in saying the day
before he had stopped at Verizon and he had picked out a phone for me and he
had found out that it would be cheaper by about $100 a month to get the phone
and be on the same service than to maintain two separate services from two
different companies as was the case. I felt strapped for time because there was
only about 15 min. during the morning to compare a couple of phones. We had
slept on it overnight and realized that if he was serious about changing the
phones, then we might be able to also change phones to the iPhone. That
had been a dream once long time ago, but we didn't have access to the phone
because we didn't have AT&T, or we're under some constraint from being under
a contract at the wrong time. At this point, Verizon was selling iPhones and we
had just finished our two-year stint with Sprint, so we were allowed to go
without being penalized. It was just that Rich didn't want to talk about
it. He didn't want to think about it. In his way of looking at it, all
phones are the same, and since they just do the same things, then there was no
problem getting the cheapest phone. But, we're too much of a techie to go down
that simply.
We had been out of the phone market for a long time. It seems
like just yesterday we got the EVO phone which we had really liked all along.
In doing some research, we found a coupon from the company that would allow us
to get the new phone that Rich was suggesting at only $80. He was looking at
the Rezound. From what I gathered on that phone it was an older model phone,
although it did look a lot like our phone and it was made by the same company,
HTC. Because of the amount of time he gave us to get out the door we decided in
our mind that we would make a decision once we got to the store and were able
to compare one phone next to the other. They both seemed to be rated fairly
high. When we got to the store, we did not like the Rezound phone or the
iPhone. We would've chosen the second phone over the first, but we weren't
interested in letting go of our EVO for this, and it turned out the Rezound was
an old phone model (just over a year introduced to the market) and the iPhone 5
is expected out shortly.
Rich got mad at us, but when the salesman he had dealt with the
day before came over, we asked him about what was the most current phone that
was being put out. What was their hot phone? The salesman brought out his phone
and it was the Sampson Galaxy S3. Okay, I have to admit it caught our attention.
It didn't look as cheesy as the first phone, and it was larger than the tiny
screen on the second phone. So, we let him do the sales talk telling us about
the services the phone offered while letting us play with the phone. It didn't
take too much for us to decide that we were going to go with that phone. The
difficulty was with Rich. The first phone was $80, the second phone was
$200, and the third phone was $200 – and he only wanted to spend $80. He added
guilt into the deal where he said he would've exchanged his phone too if we
both got the two $80 phones, but if I got expensive phones, he wouldn't be able
to get a phone indicating that it was my fault for him not being happy. At some
point, I just stopped listening to that kind of stuff. Because we could
recognize what he was telling us, it wasn't anything different than our parents
might've back in the day where they wanted you to feel lousy about the decision
you wanted to make because it's not what they wanted. They didn't want
independent children they wanted look-alikes.
The outstanding deal was that while the salesperson was going
through his processes of switching over one phone to the other after choosing
the Galaxy, he asked if I wanted to sell my phone for $167. I don't think
he would've asked me unless he knew I was going to take it home with me and not
just drop it off with him. Okay, ask me once, but twice, unnecessary – SOLD! So
the phone ended up costing only $32 which I thought was a great deal. Rich had
already dug his heels in the ground, so didn't budge in getting a new phone for
himself, but I was tired of feeling sorry for him because of the guilt he had
been trying to put on us. We figured he could suffer in his own corner. We did
neglect to ask how much the guy would have paid for Rich’s phone. One way or
another, I wasn't doing anything wrong. I hadn't suggested getting new phones,
I didn't decide on the phone that he wanted - true, but we had gotten him a
better deal saving him an additional $47. I was quite pleased with myself, and
we have been going back and forth now trying to figure out new things that our
phone can do without being too overwhelmed by it. I do like the phone.
The next stop was to go to Catherine's. In both stores we used
our walker because I knew I would be standing in front of a counter or choosing
items from the sales floor which meant a lot of standing. Rich wasn't too
displeased by that, but he was hesitant to help in putting the walker in and
out of the car. Again, I felt I was being punished, but I don't think he was
doing this consciously; he might have been preoccupied. At Catherine's we
received poor sales help. They addressed us once when we came in and showed us
a couple lousy items and then disappeared behind the counter for the rest of the
time. They showed absolutely no interest even after we had purchased items,
they didn't help with exchanges, and they were slow at the register. The main
salesperson had chosen two skirts for us that were the wrong size (we had asked
for 3X not 2X), so we had to go back and get the right size which messed up the
time we had spent in matching outfits. At the end, I decided against getting
any skirts, but Rich had come up with the idea of looking for tops for my old
blue jean skirt in the closet which worked fine, and we were able to match
three different shirts that would go with either that or the jeans that we
might be wearing in the evening. We also got a few underthings and we were
exhausted by the time we left. It was WAY too much money even WITH the 25%
discount.
Going back to the Dr. Marvin session, he was really pleased and
he listened to all the slow gory details. We hadn't wanted to go into them, but
he was pushing and prodding. He tried to set –up an example for us when we
asked, “Who could do something like this for fun?” meaning to go clothes
shopping. But then, he related it to the difference of feeling we had
when we were shopping for the phone, and barring the fact that Rich was
grouchy, it had been exciting for us. He said that's how most people feel when
they shop for clothes. Ugh!
I think the next part of this session with Dr. Marvin was going
over the trip. It seems Rich’s mother was talked about the most here because of
our frustration in her needing assistance, which I had related to her drinking.
For example, she expects to drink on the airplane, but doesn't know how she's
going to handle getting on and off the airplane. She just isn't calculating
that the drinking might be a good part of that problem. I have a lot of problem
with things like this. I think she should take more responsibility for her
behaviors. Rich went out to her place today. I think he's due there in about 10
min. He had a meeting first and then he was going to go to his mother's and
pick up a walker and a suitcase so they didn't have to deal with that on the
airplane when they came next week. That is fair assistance given.
And, I'm pretty sure by now you know that we are leaving on Saturday
morning. Why are we repeating?
Rich is now gone for the rest of the day, because today is his
day to play cards until midnight or 1 AM. So I have some time to do things at
my own comfort and speed level but he's got me on a schedule to have my clothes
packed by tomorrow too. I think that Friday he is planning a very busy day, plus
he has the football game, and he wants to leave early Saturday morning – so it
all seems to make sense. I'm not really getting a firm handle that we’re
actually going to be leaving. Most of my trouble comes of course from not
wanting to leave the computer. I am trying to insert thoughts that I will be
using Rich’s laptop over my netbook, so that will be better, but not even that
makes me happy because Rich doesn't have all the features my computer has, and
it's certainly not like being on a couple of big screens with mouse.
Okay, just lost their place. Sorry girls. After we tried
to figure out what we were talking about. I have to admit that one of the top
priorities of the day seems to be in the excitement of getting the Adobe
e-learning suite. I don't know whether it's coming in today's mail, or maybe in
the next couple days, or after we get back, but I am very excited about seeing
the packages in real life. There is so much to do on the computer as to
learning that I could be on it the whole trip and not have everything done. I
think that we will be watching videos about how to use the Adobe program,
although, I'm not sure whether we should bring ear phones or not for Rich’s
computer. It seems unfair to make him listen to what we're listening to, but then
we're able to share somewhat of the good experience as well. I know we won't be
putting it on his computer - there is no use for it there as soon as we get
back. And, he is very sticky about adding things to his computer.
I think it’s all part of the transition going from here to the
car. I know it's going to happen, I know it's going to take some effort, and it
can't be too much further down the road – but I'm not happy about it. We're
going to try avoiding some of the unpleasant feelings of transition. I think
it'll be a good experience being around Jillian and her fiancé, but I am wary
about intruding in their space. I think that she really needs a good dose of
dad, so I am going to try to be as inconspicuous as possible. We would like to
take the computer and sit in the corner like a mouse. I'm really going down
there to be Rich’s companion more than anything else, and I'm aware of that
being my position. I still think there's going to be a lot of family dramatics
that I'm not looking forward to. Like I fret like anything the thought of
Jillian crying because somebody has upset her. She's going to be pretty wound
up – it is her wedding! I hope nobody tries to take that excitement
and specialism away from her.
I am looking forward to a change of scenery. We will be going to
states that I've never seen before. Rich has decided that one of the days that
he's going to be taking me to see the top of the mountain. He says that we will
ride the tram to get there. That sounds pretty exciting to me! But, we told him
he doesn't have to take us to a mountaintop to feel the excitement of being at
the top of a mountain. Well, you sort of got that right? That's enough of
that.
Okay that makes me feel little bit better :-)
I think we’re still over at Dr. Marvin's office; we just keep
drifting off the path. The thing we spent the most time on yesterday was that
we gave Dr. Marvin the chance to read our “About Me” section. I don't think he
was in it more than a paragraph or two before he pulled out his pen and asked
without looking, “You don’t mind if I make some corrections to you?” That sort
of thing makes us giggle. We know he's the everlasting gob stopper of a
Professor. It's funny we don't usually use that term, but if somebody teaches
at a University and he's a doctor, he is probably a Professor too, right? I'm
guessing the people still call him Dr. Marvin rather than Professor Marvin.
Just a stray bullet thought.
There wasn't a whole lot said between Dr. Marvin's readings of
the paper, though he seemed to do it eagerly enough as if we had never asked
him to do this kind of thing before. We did clarify that it had been a couple
years since asking him to read a “history paper” for us. Each time you do one
it's like a reframing of your life. I was curious to find out what he may or
may not already know. He seemed a little bit more surprised this time because
he didn't realize that the Brothers had been such a long – lasting part of our
life. We talked for a few minutes about that, but both of us agreed that we
could discuss those things at another time when there was more time.
We seem to do a lot of time just watching his face to see the
different expressions even though they are minor. For somebody that gives
a straight face, it is pretty exciting to watch his face. I know when things
make him happy, excited, confused, and concerned. I'm guessing it's not
supposed to be the patient's job to read the Doctor, but after 13 years of
being with him, there has had to be some perks! He never disappoints, AND I
would imagine the exercise builds trust.
I think whatever happened in Dr. Marvin sessions the last couple
times there - we've been getting really tired afterwards, even when we don't
seem to be working that hard. Last night we went to the computer after cajoling
Rich to spend more time talking with us – he wanted to watch TV, which we tire
of easily, soon we found our place elsewhere. We ended up going to bed
about 7:30 PM. We got up again about 10 PM and were up until about 2:30 AM. I
think it was one of those mornings then where Rich was up before we were. It
seems to me – oh I know ... He was up because we had asked him to take pictures
of us in the new pajamas and he was sitting in his new office chair already.
Guess he was up earlier for sure.
I feel pretty much like we got caught up now. There really
wasn't anything happening over the last couple days to be over – excited about.
We should let that part of ourselves who gets excited about trips be out for a
while. I can be pretty sure that it is Sarah. I know when someone in the system
gets started, she will be non-stop. We've been working on eating dinner for a
while although it's only about 3:30 PM. We just have like a quarter of
the dinner at a time, so by the time it's about 6 PM or so, we will have
finished eating in total. It's our preference to do this when Rich is not here.
I would like to surprise him and be ready which includes having a good estimation
of what needs to be done with clothing. For example, if we have to wash a
load tomorrow or steam something and to make sure that the house is picked-up.
Shoot, I forgot, we still have to talk to Maury. I might have to run a key to
his house on Friday morning. We'll see. I'm not ready to deal with that now,
but Maury will need to know more in taking care of the cats while we’re gone.
He only has to stop by two or three times during the time we're gone.
Oh, I see how this is going to happen – you are just going to
gradually slide me into planning for the trip? Sneaky ...
Okay, if you are going to be like that, what actually has to
happen? That is it … we’ll make the damn list!
· Take
dishes and garbage out to the kitchen
· put
away various objects in the living room
· wipe
the top of the flat surfaces in the living room
· vacuum
living room
· put
dishes in the dishwasher
· wipe
the kitchen sink and counter
· look at
the sewing room to see if anything needs to be put away
· put
cans of pop in refrigerator so cold for cooler
· look at
what needs to be cleaned in the bathroom
· make
the bed
· get out
the suitcase
· take
out the appropriate number of outfits and pajamas for 10 days (temperatures
look like each day from 60 to 95°)
· check
for clothes that might need to be washed
· Pack
items in the suitcase including
o clothing
o underthings
o jacket
o toiletry
o medicine
o shoes
and slippers
o power
strip
o paper
and pen
· charge
electronics and batteries
· pack
electronics including devices and cords
o netbook
and cord
o Rich’s
laptop and cord
o headphone
o Kindle
and cord
o two
phones and cord
o camera
and cord
o iPod
and headphone and two cords
· pack
books
· remind
Rich to pack money
· give
Rich any assistance he might need in packing, but expect he knows what to do
better than us – give him a wide berth
· pack
blender and Herbalife mixes
· consider
packing margarita mix
· pack
cooler with pop, water, and other
· pack
steamer
· get
from car Walker, glasses, blue pouch, and disabled pass
· finish
sewing last edge of quilt
· go over
instructions with Maury
· get keys
for Maury and wrapping paper for Jillian's gift
· wrap
quilt and pack
· get
ice, or remind Rich to get ice
· Rich
will be driving the key to Maury about Friday noon
· talk to
Carol downstairs about being gone for 10 days, mail, Maury coming over for cats
· repeat
cleaning task until we leave Saturday morning
· take
care of cats including food, water, temperature, and litter box
· be
timely on the computer
· check
the Sprint bill for Rich
·
Remember Rich’s gift to Chris and Jill’s sweatshirts
·
Ask Rich if he has mailed aunt’s gifts, or should they be packed
Thursday, September 6, 2012 at 10:14 AM
Good morning. We are going to continue this note from
yesterday's note, as we just got done editing and it is going to be a very
short note. Rich is gone for a while, and I don't expect him to be back until
about 3 PM - Although, I would not be surprised if he stepped – in for lunch.
My understanding is that he will be here when we get back from Dr. Martin's
appointment this afternoon. I think he is planning on doing some leftovers for
dinner and maybe supplementing it a bit. We showed him the list this morning of
what has to be done by us and he took a few things off the list, but added a
few more. I think at this point his expectation of me is so low, that if I
really go strong and finish some tasks, he would be very happy with us. I'm not
sure though because we still have to get out another pass-through on our news
site before we leave in case we can't get to it while we are gone. More
time will be spent on writing new entries in hope of "capturing" the
trip.
Nothing too exceptional happened last night. After we got off
the computer, we went to eat more dinner and turned on the TV. We watched a NCIS,
and then we watched another, and I think we started watching one more but we
fell asleep. We never made it back to the computer and I'm pretty sure it was
Rich that woke us up after he got home. We had taken our medicine, I believe,
but he had to put us to bed. Rich was up earlier than us this morning. I don't
think we woke until 7:30 AM. We've gone through our e-mail, looked through the
TweetDeck and our editing, and that's about it for the day.
We have revised the list, but then there's also the part about
doing the news and I have to balance this right now. It would be good for me to
do a load of clothes I suppose. And I should start the cleaning. Rich would be
so happy if I had the living room picked up and vacuumed. I think we've been here
before and are now repeating. I think that would really set him up nicely
though for doing what he needs to do next. I know that he wants to pack today
too. Better reason than not to get those clothes washed earlier. Let me stop
and do that now.
Okay, that is done. We put in the dark load and we might throw
the extra white towels in with the white load just to complete the load. I
brought the dishes out to the kitchen too but at this point my back needs rest.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was another load tomorrow, but we would've had
to have clothes found that had been forgotten in either Rich’s gym bag or his
suitcase to do something like that because between the two of us we don't go
through enough clothes in one day to do a whole load. Okay, that's enough
laundry news. Just have to remember to get the load changed at 11:15 AM.
I think this is the only kind of news you really get here today.
I know laundry exciting, right? We are going to have to go to Dr. Marvin's
today so better get started with the blogs and cleaning in increments of times
between that. I know nothing really exciting, but it is real!
4,683/421
AHA!!!! We've been busy and stuff's gotten done!!!
· put away various objects in the living
room
· look at what needs to be cleaned in the
bathroom
· take out the appropriate number of
outfits and pajamas for 10 days (temperatures look like each day from 60 to
95°)
o clothing
o jacket
o toiletry
o medicine
o shoes and slippers
o paper and pen
· charge electronics and batteries
o netbook and cord
o Rich’s
laptop and cord
o headphone
o Kindle and cord
o two phones and cord
o camera and cord
o iPod and headphone and two cords
· remind Rich to pack money
· give Rich any assistance he might need
in packing, but expect he knows what to do better than us – give him a wide
berth
· pack blender and Herbalife mixes
· consider packing margarita mix
· pack cooler with pop, water, and other
· pack steamer
· get from car Walker, glasses, blue
pouch, and disabled pass
· finish sewing last edge of quilt
· go over
instructions with Maury
· wrap quilt and pack
· remind Rich to get ice
· Rich will be driving the key to Maury about Friday
noon
· talk to Carol downstairs about being
gone for 10 days, mail, Maury coming over for cats
· repeat cleaning task until we leave Saturday
morning
· take care of cats including food, water,
temperature, and litter box
· be timely on the computer
·
Finish posting News
copy
Sauerkraut
Cherries and Grapes
Pop
Spot Shot
Shaver
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