We found these when reading our email today ... they are from the blog of Harold Jarche. He wrote a really good article with a slide show called, "Traditional Training Structures are Changing," and "Whats working and what's not in online training." This has a lot of validity to us, because we are still considering ourselves in training to be knowledge leaders. Maybe when we come back we can process blogs too, right? That be like earning our keep! Social Networking is where it is though at!!!
Friday, October 19, 2012 @ 1:26 PM
Good morning … Can’t believe it’s almost 1:30 PM … we’ve
done so close to absolutely NOT MUCh. I
might have expected this in that we didn’t crawl out of bed until 9 AM. What a SLUGBunny!
For the most part, we haven’t done any Domestic Goddess
work, but we’ve spent a lot of time on the computer and pretty much just
calming ourselves down from all of yesterday’s work putting together our life
and holiday season. It is SOOO exciting
knowing that we will meet with people this year. So much going on …
I think one of the most exciting things is that Maury committed
to a date – two dates (or at least NIKKI committed – Hehehe). Maury was a bit fuzzy where Nikki was
sharp. They and the Grandchildren will
be coming over Saturday, November 24th, and Saturday December 22nd. It is hard to be even more excited than that,
but there is some more! The next thing I
wanted to say though is that we talked to Thom last night while parked waiting
for Dr. Marvin’s appointment. This then
is the sad part.
I’m not sure if Thom and Duyen are going to make it as a couple. There have been some pretty major battles and
I think Thom wants to call it quits. I
don’t want to say anything else, except that we are deeply sorry for both of
them because we love and respect Duyen. In
the end though, it’s between the couple not the Mother or MIL. The other part of that news is that Thom didn’t
think he was coming home for the holidays.
That was disappointing too. Our
concern of course, will be for Thom and that he finds some joy in this holiday
season.
While it closed some doors, it opened other doors. I will ask Laura when we see her and Austin on
the 28th if she would like to come for the holiday events on the
above two days that we are inviting Maury and his family, plus Joe and
Cari. I would very much like for Austin
to meet the cousins. I’m still worried
about the space because it would be twelve people in the apartment which would
cover all the chairs, BUT we’re thinking we have a few folding chairs in the
front hall closet that can be brought out.
We also might think of bringing the high chair out for Isa or one of the
girls which would free up more adult space.
I’ll really have to be patient though, because I’m not sure if Austin is
ready for that kind of crowd. We SURE
would like him to be here though with his Mom.
And, there is a LOT of people who would like to know them!
That would be the two family celebrations with our
family. CS my sister has indicated that
she’ll have too much problems at that point because of medical problems. She’s having tests done now in West Bend and
will be living there sometime in December and it looks like her MIL’s place in
Rochester, MN will be sold – if that’s the way it is to work out between CS,
Mark and his sister. CS tests seem to
indicate that she’s going to need a couple of neck, upper back and lower back
fuses. I’m not sure how that is all
going to work into their schedules with holidays and packing/unpacking. We also don’t know where Nathan will be
during all that because at this point he still lives in CS house and he and his
girlfriend are now looking for something different, though might end up
doubling with his parents until that comes about. We’ll have to see … Might mean a trip or two
up to Westbend for me to help CS, but I’m thinking that it might be too
overwhelming for me because things up there seem so up in the air at this
time. Somehow we should be able to share
some holiday, but our thinking is that she’s not going to be able to come here
due to her back and us having just a couple couches AND stairs.
ON THE OTHER HAND … There’s a really good part. We got into a very assertive mood after
talking about all this kind of stuff with Dr. Marvin, and on the way home, we
called Jean (and Janet) and was pretty insisted that they come down sometime
between now and the end of the year to do an overnight retreat at Club
Ann. AND, they said they will try to
make those arrangements on one of the Sunday/Mondays coming up in December. OMG … I was just so excited. It can’t be anything other than just great
fun and frivolity!
The poorer news is that we talked to Linda and she won’t be
able to do Club Ann yet. That all is
more complicated.
We talked to Rich about all these things last night and the
part of his friends coming too. They
would be scheduled over on Sunday, November 18th. That leaves most likely his mother for
Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day.
Christmas morning is just Rich and us though it be fun to drop in on
Maury and Nikki too! We didn’t ask about
that nor do we want to overload them on a VERY much inner family day, but it’s
always exciting to be around kids - Maybe for brunch before going to Rich’s
Mom. We’ll have to check with Maury to
see what he feels about that. I think
his girls are supposed to get there that morning, but we don’t want to invade
that space either because the activity is hard enough with all the emotions of
a Christmas morning. I’m guessing though
that the girls would get there about 9 am IF there mother were on time, which
we here isn’t often the case.
Along with Rich’s Mom might come some of his relatives like
his brother, nieces and grandnephew, plus there is also the chance that Jon
might be there, Rich’s son. I’m pretty
sure that nothing will happen between me and Rich’s other son, though Rich will
most likely make time to go over there too.
He has a brand new Grandson now to spoil. The other thing left up in the air is that
Rich thinks that Jillian and Chris and Natty won’t be coming up during the
holidays. I was really concerned about
that, but Rich said that Jillian and her Mom aren’t getting along again. I wish there were enough money to rent a
hotel for them in Chicago at least some of their holiday time so we could still
see them. Jillian has others she’d also
visit up here, but it might not be worth her trouble. We would love to share either of the holidays
with them, and my boys have no problems if they were to be included in anything
here. Just have to fit in a few more
chairs.
I’m still not sure how to get Rich out of the kitchen. He’s actually another station in as far as
anyone could pool in the dining/kitchen area and talk while he’s cooking, but
usually he’s concentrating pretty hard.
I know Rich would try to have things fixed before that, but it’s going
to a very busy time with all the visiting.
I’m thinking that the kids will be able to sit at the kitchen table, and
the adults will have to hold plates on laps.
Rich might be up to his ears in turkey this year! I think with all that, especially the
conversations AND the help of a football game or two on TV OR Christmas
specials it will be a lot of fun and merriment.
I’m looking forward to this season like I never have before. We should probably call in the next day or
two my mother as well to assure that she’s got plans that are going to help her
with the season. I could actually see her get on a plane, but
it would mean someone driving a couple of hours to get her to the airport and
she would have to do three flights of stairs here – and more if we were to go
out, and from what I see … she has good enough trouble trying to do one flight
of stairs to their basement. She’s
always been particular too about people not traveling to see her in the winter,
because of the bad roads in Northern MN, but that’s not quite fair either.
I would have thought SOMEtime this last year we would have
made it to my mother’s or sister’s places in MN, but it didn’t look like the
cards had fallen in place. Rich had lost
a couple of positions at work and started his own business, but everything has
been time and money inhibitive. Guess
there is not too much more to be said about that. I don’t think I could have driven the twelve
or more hours ourselves – maybe with a break to stop at my sisters, but now she’s
going back to WI … that won’t work either.
Something or another will shake loose sooner or later.
Maybe we just need to apply more pressure … Hehehe – Jean caught
the part where we repeated that she was talking to ASSERTIVE Ann!
The other big news with all that had been started last night
was that we talked to Nikki and she was going to talk to Maury, but we told her
that we’d like to work it out so we saw each of her girls and Austin one-at-a –time
once a month. She thought it was a good
idea, and that it had come at a good time for the girls and family. We’ll ask the same of Laura after meeting her
and Austin. I wanted to underline, I
wouldn’t take them far, and for Laura, she could come too as long as she felt
that was important, but basically the time is to get to know all the
Grandchildren better without a competitive audience. I’m soooo looking forward. That will be the highlight to my mother’s
conversation is to let her know how we’ll spend her birthday gift this year. That should start in January.
We did talk to both Dr. Marvin and Rich last night
thoroughly about the plans. Neither of
them could come up with any complaints.
Rich was very generous of saying that what we did with my mother’s
Christmas gift would be up to me and that he thought it was a good
expenditure. We still have to come up
and save money toward the time after her Christmas check wore off, but just one
thing at a time. We’re figuring the cost
is going to be between $100-125 a month so we could conceivably run out of that
fund in four months’ time. I don’t want
to take the girls to McDonald’s, but maybe Maury can help us find some coupons
that would work on a regular basis that were close to his place or Villa
Park. He will understand. In the meantime … Rich said that I could have
a couple hundred a month, but $80 goes toward Dr. Marvin’s appointment so this
would take the rest which wouldn’t be a problem, except that sometimes I need
money for birthdays, books or quilting.
I don’t know it will work out. Linda made a suggestion that yesterday left
me with my mouth hanging open. She said
that she might donate the quilting of the Marine quilt as her donation to a
worthy cause for the year. She said that
she’d tried donating directly toward the valor quilts, but they had inserted
too many rules. I can’t say how grateful
I would be. It would mean that the $50
that was sent by two of Julies friends could go toward the purchase of a quilt
back. If we got it really in gear, we
might be able to buy that then at Quiltfabric.com our local store. Hey they got a new bigger store and it’s a
little more convenient! Just the perfect
thing … I would like to go there soon!
It is now at the intersection of Ogden and 83rd. YAYY!
That’s about the corner where we turn to go north and see Joe and Cari!
Hmm, we just talked to Thom.
He’s still having problems. Hate
to say this because I’m not sure it would help, but I would sure love it if he
could come home after he leaves the service in March. He’s still looking at going back to Japan
next October, but maybe he could stay too.
Ok, we’ve been lost for quite some time … we were reading
information on the Chicago FBI agency.
It is now 5 pm, so we ate dinner which was a sausage and we checked
email, FB and Twitter. Yup we’re still
registered as being alive J
Guess you know where we were going with that idea. We sent the FBI link to Thom. Sure would be nice if he were home…
Now it is already 5:15 PM.
We’ve just be meandering through our day and a little bit with trying to
keep warm. I hadn’t realized how cold my
fingers had gotten, but we pulled a blanket over ourselves. We’re thinking that we should probably take a
break and go look at the sewing in the backroom. That would space out our day a little more
evenly. No housework was done in the
making of this blog entry L Sometimes it happens like that. Rich had said when he called during the day
he wouldn’t be home until closer to 12-1 AM.
He has to go A FAR WAY with the guys to do the game. I hope it isn’t raining up there for them
like it had down here. I did see that he
grabbed his long johns so that was the good news. This morning I hadn’t woken up in time to see
him, so we’re feeling a little lonely.
Tomorrow he has a officials’ meeting at 8 AM and then he’s got two
football games on Sunday, though I think they are closer. LONG weekend.
We did get a chance to talk to Linda today – she’s been out
with Tpony and going with him to a coin show tomorrow. It’s going to leave for a quiet day here
because we’ve adjusted to all the visiting lately. I really need some quiet time too, but we do
worry some when our plans just meander … It’s like whatever comes up we pay
attention, but over the course of the day nothing really gets done. It is about dinner time. Even though we ate … maybe it would be a good
time to watch a little Anderson Cooper, hmm?
As to Dr. Marvin … pretty much what happened there was going
over the friendships we had in high school again, and then talking about the “Good
Ann” things we got done yesterday. I
always like listening to Dr. Marvin. I
think most parts do, but yesterday we were giving him some problem about
believing that we were very smart. So
then we had to talk about that. I can do
it intellectually, but not really believe in it and we worry over the damage
done to our life because of being so dissociative and how that continues
on. It is very wearing like having a cellophane
ceiling. I don’t mean to feel sorry for
myself because there is so many things to appreciate. Just think at the moment we’re feeling
down. Rich like Dr. Marvin yesterday had
good things to say about all that had been thought through, but then after a
while it was just nice to lay back and give the man a massage until we fell
safely and soundly to sleep J
Maybe we should have taken our afternoon medicine. Why don’t we do that on the way to the sewing
room, hmm?
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