Thursday, August 21, 2014 @ 12:36 pm
Shoot Shoot … it looks like we’ve gone by another month+
since really writing and for sure none of our writing is being very
prophetic. *sigh* BUT, Here we are again for another round.
I’m thinking we are probably close enough in time that we
should be taking our 1 pm medicine. Why
don’t we agree to agree and go do what’s necessary, hmm?
Ok, good … and we started the dishwasher and got ourselves a
tall glass of ice water. We’ve just
recently finished a turkey lunchmeat sandwich.
Eh, not the best, but it counts as lunch so we’re choosing to be moving
on.
There’s so much stuff on our mind that even though I know
that sewing is an option and a GREAT option, we’re going to dedicate ourselves
to writing for a while and not the kind of writing that has a whole lot on
cleaning. That’s what we did yesterday,
but many of the recent writings have been going to Dr. Marvin because we’ve
been working on some of our more private relationships with people and we are
trying to be cautious of what goes up on the Internet about it. There are some general notes of where people
we love most are …
- Rich is at work and will stop at the grocery store on the way home
- Linda is still out on her anniversary vacation with Tony in Michigan
- Maury is working, dating and we’ve been enjoying every other weekend opportunities to be with his girls and their dogs
- Joe and Cari have about 7 weeks left of their pregnancy with their first son – WOOHOO date October 11!
- We just talked to Thom yesterday and had a very good conversation – he’s thriving!
- We saw Austin last week and have been figuring out the cartoon Happy Tree Friends ever since ;)
- CS is in the hospital following a fourth surgery in about a month and a half on her shoulder
- We visited my Mother late in July and that turned out real well
- Dr. Marvin has been in and out of the office – but, remains one of our favorite forever people
- AND we pick up KATHERINE AND DAKOTA at the airport in JUST OVER 24 HOURS!!!!!!
Ok, there’s the rough draft J
We’re back to listening to Sarah Brightman and all is pretty
gay! We had to stay home from our
session with Dr. Marvin today because we were pretty overwhelmed. He pointed us in the direction of having to
ground ourselves – hence the sewing, but we are really going into a new phases
in our life and this should be commemorated with some words – whether wise or
not. The big transition of course is
going to be having Dakota as our Service Dog.
We don’t know all of where we left off before, but it was
decided on the way home from MN that the cost of traveling to SD on our own –
two days there and two days back, plus hotel, food, etc. would be more
expensive than just asking Katherine to fly down as she had with one of her
other customers. So, we checked on the
average price and talked to her AND she was game, AND her plane is coming in
tomorrow (Friday) at about 5:30 pm at O’Hare.
SOOOO excited! At first she was
going to come in two weeks from now, but she was worried over all the care she’d
be going through at that time with the twelve puppies that were born to her two of her dogs last month and so the time was moved up and we couldn’t be more
excited. I think of the group of us
Dakota will probably be the most calm!
We talked to Katherine this morning too and it was a great
floaty conversation. We talked a bit
about her trip with the other client and her Great Dane. That gave us a chance to think what it might
be like for her and us in a few days. We’re
trying not to second guess and place the other customer in front of us as
someone competitively better for whatever reason. The fact of the matter is that Katherine is
very non-judgmental and is coming to see us FOR uniting Dakota and us for a
lifelong work engagement … Ok, and he’s going to be OUR DOG!!!! This is a very big deal – and, WHOOSH! There it goes again, but here’s Anns flying
in the clouds again!
We went over a few things like how it will be when we meet
and what Katherine eats for breakfast and drinks – Iced tea! And, yes, she will bring a few treats for
Dakota the first night. We know he likes
some special chicken treats as he’s getting in the kennel at night. I know he’s used to being in the same bedroom
as Kathryn so that will be different for him, and he’ll be right outside our
door. We got a kennel for him a week or
two ago … it looks like this.
(see above)
It seems to be in just the right spot and we’re happy AND
Rich is like tolerating so that’s good enough for us. Missy liked the soft synthetic sheepskin bed
in his kennel, that we got her her own bed too … just its smaller. She is LIVING on that thing now! Who woulda guessed!?
I’m thinking that Dakota is going to like it here, just he
has to get used to a few things that Katherine didn’t think would be a
problem. For example, instead of getting
to roam free in her yard, he is going to have leashes in the back and
front. I think they are each about 20
feet and should then at that length keep him from going in the yard. I’m really sure we don’t want that. Maury came out last week when he brought the
girls and he fixed it so that we could have three leashes in the front and
three in the back. That’s so we’d be ready
for when we had all three dogs staying overnight. Not all the time, but periodically on the
nights the girls might be over. Just
want everyone to be happy. We’ll get
another set of dishes for Dakota Saturday when we go out with Katherine too,
but for Friday night he can share with the other dogs that won’t be here.
There was another problem this last week or two in that we
were having more small bees in our patio area and Rich was saying it was
because of the flowering bush in our corner, but yesterday we sat on our
scooter about three feet from the patio border and were realizing that at that
distance, we weren’t getting buzzed, but that they were hovering around my blue
comfy chair. We studied it a little
while before realizing that they were going up in a section of the part of our
house that stands out about a foot or so – the double windows. We asked and Rich did his best with spraying –
though he ran out of spray because he’d used the can earlier. I will go out again today and study the
situation to see if its gotten better.
ALL summer we’ve been dreaming of being out in our front yard with OUR
dog! To not have that space for
Katherine and us and Dakota was driving us crazy. BUT, we’re hoping the problem is now
fixed. Again we will see.
Hoping so!!!
So where were we otherwise?
Hmm, definitely talking about Dakota and Katherine being
here! We had made previously a schedule
for all concerned over the weekend.
Basically, we will leave here about 3:00 pm to pick them up at the
airport. Their plane comes in about 5:30
pm. It will take some time to get
through, but they will pick up their baggage and we’ll meet them outside the
United area. Yup they will be the ones
with the dog! I know we’re going to have
to go around and around until they get there, and we don’t know if Katherine
will need to or will find a corner of grass for Dakota. We know he won’t eat or drink before getting
there, so she said to bring a bowl of water with us. AND, we said we’ll have a bone J You know … Like getting Leah! Hmm, did we spell that right? ANYway…
If we don’t get a spot for him right away we said we could stop by at a
gas station and give him a few minutes to take care of his business.
Katherine said the arrangements should be the same in that
they will be given a space by the bulkhead where there is more room for him to
be laying down. She talked about him
again being an ambassador for people with service dogs. Some people say they don’t want their service
dog touched, but both Katherine and I have a more open perspective on
that. He will always take care of me
first, but there is no reason people would not be invited to pet him. I want them to know he’s a good safe
dog. I think it will be part of my being
out in public. In the past we have
wanted so much to be invisible, that we were tripping over ourselves not to
leave foot prints. It’s going to be
different and we’re going to have to depend on our general pride over our dog
so that it is ok when people approach us.
Katherine also says that he has a yellow/greenish vest that
will suggest easily that he’s a service dog.
I’m going to be so proud of him.
I brought up the subject of not knowing what to say when people ask what
he is needed for. It’s one of the two
questions businesses can ask – the other is “Is he a service dog?” Dr. Marvin suggested that we tell them he is
to help us with our anxiety levels and Katherine added that the dog senses
chemical and heart rate changes so he will know we’re feeling anxious possibly
before we will and he will use those times to make us feel better. We aren’t exactly sure how it is going to
feel, but we imagine him putting his head on our lap so we can rest and pet him
and in that way more easily ground ourselves.
He would have been very useful today as we are floating around. Helps to be concentrating now … just feel
like we’re pretty highly jacked at the time – WITH no drinking!
Maybe we better be moving on … the next part is that Dakota
and Katherine are going to be driven home to our place. We’ll ask Dakota if he wants to use the
bathroom out back, but our goal is to get him out for a walk or two around the
block with our scooter. I do know the
part where he and she come into our house and get the tour, and by that time
Rich will be tending to his crock pot dinner.
He’s going to make pot roast with potatoes, onions and corn on the
cob. Hmm, we should think about maybe
going out for dessert? NOOOO … too
much. Maybe we’ll have to talk to him
about that. Maybe something simple like
ice cream OR Carrot cake! That’s my
favorite and it IS like a birthday!
HMM? We’ll see … maybe Rich is
already shopping? Yesterday he was going
to have me go with and hope we’d get me an electronic cart, but it didn’t
happen. Thinking maybe today? I’m still in our pajamas. Yup, pretty spacey today.
Anyway beside talking which we plan to do ALL the way home
from the airport, we’re pretty much going to try just settling everyone in with
a routine or two. Katherine said that
she goes to bed early and then gets up I think around 5 am, but we might get
some patio time too if the bees are gone.
I’m soooo hoping so. I just keep
going back to my image of him lying next to us or on the grass as we sit and
stare at the corn field or our Kindle.
This is the happy family feeling we’ve wanted for so long.
The next morning, we are going to have a walk – hopefully out
on the busier road so we can go farther, and then we would like to do some yard
work with Dakota – in learning how he does things like sit and stay and
such. We need to know a little more
about discipline and how to go about training him to do new things. We want to see Katherine doing it. And, THEN after he’s worked for it, then we
will have breakfast and THEN we will go to a pet store – rich says Oswego – but
it looks like PetSmart in Yorkville is closer.
It looks like about 12 miles or 20 minutes. Not too bad all considering how small
Sandwich is J
The idea of going to the Pet Store AND with Rich’s credit
card is that we’ll get the things Dakota needs and Katherine approved. We’re going to look to make sure we have the
right leashes, dog and water bowls, big bag of dry food, treats, and
bones. I still think we need a few
things for the bathroom part. We’ll see
what they have. We also want a few
toys. We have some tennis balls and a Kong,
but we want a tug a war toy, and some special treats for training him. I think Katherine works with praise more than
treats, but we’ll have to go over that too.
I know the optimal is to train the dog not to need the treats, but I’m
not sure of the learning curve. I think
that’s pretty much it at the dog store.
I will go there with the walker.
And, that will be Dakota’s first introduction of it. Then we will go to one of the local diner’s –
probably 34. We will then be at home and do some home training, or if there is
enough energy, we will take a walk on the nature trail. Or at the State Park. I will have to do that with the stroller
though so it won’t be a very long trip … just enough to get Dakota and us used
to getting in and out of spaces with the walker and me having to sit and rest
and such. I will also like to have a
longer lead so he can play a bit while we’re there. I want him to also work on coming to me when
I call. Later that night then we want to
take him to the Mexican restaurant in Sandwich which is better class than the
diner. Hmm, Rich also suggested the
train restaurant – Bull Moose. I have to
admit that be my favorite choice … it’s the restaurant I like the most. We’re not sure of the space. Katherine talked about having the dog beside
the table or bench. Just have to make
sure we don’t distract anyone or the waitress.
I would like to go on another scooter walk with him in the evening. I don’t know how he or Katherine are going to
feel about the bigger street and traffic.
Rich did fix the flags on my scooter, but then he has to fix them again. He didn’t tell me we couldn’t move the seat
and the things snapped off. The story
there is that we called the local county sheriff and he said it was against the
law to bring the scooter on the road, but then he said that it was ok and that
no one would ticket us or anything, but to be the safest we could, we would
need to get a couple reflectors and two 6’ flags. That seemed like pretty good advice. One of my worries such as spooking me or the
dog was the worry about the side of the road and what Dakota would be walking
on – mainly are we going to have pebbles.
Katherine will have to tell me about surfaces and dog feet. I know that some dogs have booties, but we’d
like to avoid that if we could. We get
the idea of walking our dog a lot because of Cesar Milan’s information about
exercise, discipline and then the affection. We want a dog in very good shape and we want
him to be proud of us too. Part of that
is learning to work as a team. I want to
take care of him, and to have him take care of us. We're going to be a team!
We took a few minutes to have a popcorn break and we were
looking for service dog safety signs – like something to put up on 29th
Road in front of our house. Pretty sure
that kind of thing would have to go through city council and I don’t know what
the precedent is. Maybe we’ll stop to
figure that out later. We have to make
sure that Dakota can handle the busier streets as well as us. I think it’s going to be spooky with fast
cars passing us, but he still needs to take the walks and as stated elsewhere,
people and bikes move on the roads so this is in the same category. Site lines are good around here long empty
farm roads – with crops. Just a little
nervous here it’s going to depend on what Katherine says.
Back to the schedule though … I think we got caught up until
Saturday night. I want each of the time
periods to end where we are sitting outside on the patio. We will change locations if we have to, like
maybe sit out back on the back porch, but we’re hoping for the front yard where
the chairs and table are.
Oh yes – we forgot about one other thing – Maybe Saturday
afternoon – we could go to Walmart.
Katherine had suggested the local grocery store and that is where Rich
shops for groceries. The trip will
involve taking my walker and I think it is going to be hard unless we cut down
on the amount of space covered. It might
be better to skip the State park and do that trip instead. One of the big deals of having the service
dog is being able to go to real stores again.
We might go there to pick up some medicine … that might be a good
deal. I think that the pharmacy is
closer to the front of the store. Good
thinking you!
And, then on Sunday – we will do more of the same with
walking with the scooter before breakfast and after dinner. Our treadmill won’t be in on time to see that
through. But, we’ll figure that out
later, there is a lot going on. The
middle of the day stuff is to go with Rich, the scooter and all to
Chicago. I want to walk on the lake
paths up near where we used to live. I’m
ok that the dog park would be too much, but we also asked Rich to take
Katherine through the city up north to Foster Park, and then come back on Lake
Shore Drive. I think it’s one of the
most beautiful parts of Chicago. I don’t
think we’ll have enough time to go to observation point, but that would be a
bonus. I also asked if we could go to
UIC where Dr. Marvin is. We are going to
have to use our walker there because we will have to stop and check if Dakota
needs the bathroom before going into the appointment. Obviously, there won’t be an appointment on
Sunday, but we can do the walk and come in at the back door. I am barely able to walk the distance in the
walkway and we’ll have to use the walker because of the time where Dakota might
be sniffing. We’ll be going in earlier
than normal from now on. BUT, we want to
show Dakota the path so he’s ready when we go by ourselves with him to Dr.
Marvin’s on Tuesday. We’ll have to learn
things like going in and out of doors.
AND, we’ll probably feel self-conscious.
After that we are planning to go to Connies, but there might
be somewhere else. It seemed like a big
open place – kinda fancy, but not excessive.
I’m really hoping that we are going to be able to go into places without
too much problem, but we’re still thinking we should call ahead just to make
sure there isn’t any issues. Maybe a
consideration would be to write a local something in the newspaper on service
dogs so people in Sandwich have some warning.
I’ve never seen anyone else with them, but again I don’t get out much.
Monday morning will be the same start, but we will have to
leave around 9 am to get Katherine to the airport. Her plane leaves at 12:30 pm She won’t have Dakota so it should be easier
for her, but it is still going to be very emotional leaving her and I am
thinking that both Dakota and Us are going to be a little depressed and maybe
scared because it will be easier with Katherine than the striking out of our
own, but I know it is time – because after all … here
it is!
That’s as far into the day as we’ve come. We should probably take a small break and
take our shower so we can go out for the mail, or scooter ride around the block
and to check on the bees. That be the
plan then right? I will want to come
back and talk about a little more, but lets get this out of the way … that be a
good Ann. J
OK, BACK!!! Hmm,
maybe not such a big deal for you, but we’re feeling better J
Should get those clothes steamed though sometime. All our regular shirts are in the steaming
pile. I’m tempted to go outside before
my hair dries, but maybe not … I don’t want to draw negative attention. Just feel like being outside. We’re real anxious about the bees. We have to calm down all over again. Hmm, maybe we should have a service
dog?!! Hehehe ok, you don’t be going
silly on us!
There have been a few other things happening in our life,
but most involve the people we’d just noted before. There was a day out with the quilting girls –
though my sister was out of it because of her operations. We had brought Isa with us and that turned
out to be really nice. Sometimes she was
attuned to me or the group members, and other times she was on her own. It seemed she liked the attention of the
women the best. And, she seems like a
real organizer. For a while the twins
played, good and bad twin and Isa was in the position of a teacher and she had
to correct the situation while the twins gave her some extended trouble. Isa brought her Barbie dolls and shared them
with Ainsley who had come with her mother Emily and her new sister Adley. She did pretty good, but you could tell that
sharing was something she was working on as someone nearly three! Isa remained patient with her and when the time came – was able to hold
Adley like the others of us. She did
really well and was confident. The room
situation was perfect in that they’d gone up in class and gave us the suite
with an extra living space for only $99.
That was a great deal and it was directly across the hall so the
supervision of Isa being in one part or another was good. We had her leave open the door when she was
in the private room.
I think the thing that happened next was that Isa got very
excited at being there and desperately wanted to come back. I got the feel from the others – mainly the
twins and Linda and it seemed they were ok with the idea, but there was more of
my attention that went to keeping Isa engaged than in some of the looser gossip
stuff we usually do. I’m thinking this
was ok, but there is a feeling of loss for it too and I’m thinking the others
would agree. It did work out though in
that while I was taking extra time with Isa, Linda was getting more time to
talk to the twins about the things going on in her life, we’d already shared
with her through our day to day talks.
So this was nice too. I could
listen again, but I think by nature we as people are always looking for
something new. We and Isa talked to her
father, and he talked to her mother, and it seems its been agreed that we can
take Isa again … although it will be during her mother’s weekend. I feel really good that both Maury and Lauren
trust me to have Isa for the weekend out of state. It’s a very big deal and an honor I will live
to keep.
Isa and Ame were here this last weekend and Ame is still
working on the Scalemates – the stuffed animal she’s learned how to make. She’s made two and one other animal and has
given them to friends. She has an event coming up in about a month and she wants to have a stuffed scalemate for each
of her friends, so she, Isa and us went back to JoAnn’s. It turned out the fabric for each was only
$1.75 per each 1/4 yard so that was a lucky break. Ame stayed
preoccupied with it the rest of the weekend and came out for meals, but
otherwise was on the phone, listening to movies and cutting patterns. She’s got a good sense of it. Isa was out in the LR between my computer and
the TV. We also worked on her big heart
button project. She had to let it dry
overnight and didn’t get back to it, but it was moving on its way. Me on the other hand spent more of my time
between cleaning up and preparing spaces to sewing. It was a great sewing weekend because
everyone was busy.
A couple days before the girls got here, Austin was here
too! We used most of the time talking or
being on the computer. He’s got certain
videos we watched with him and we also watched him playing video games. It’s been suggested that I don’t have to be
with him so closely, but its been something that we look forward to in getting
to know him better. He likes a constant
conversation and it is very enriching even for us old folk. His mind and enthusiasm for his interests are
fascinating. Just it’s high energy and
sometimes we’ll ask for breaks to sit back and put our feet up. Now we really realize why parenting is for
younger folk! Everyone seems to be
enjoying Rich’s cooking and we’ve been helping with that, setting table and
cleaning up afterward. I think there is
still a lot of eating between meals, but mostly because Rich has some good
stuff sitting around. One of the days
with the girls – we cut apples for Rich so he could make one of his pies. Everything has been like that all along –
real nice. AND, we feel good about the accommodations. All the grandchildren seem to feel at ease
with the house and the private spaces we give for them. That would have never happened back in the
day of the apartment - Just feeling pretty blessed with the space.
We did spend some of the girls’ time with Rich too. He was outside working on the weed bed
in-between the short shrubbery evergreens in the front yard between the yard
and patio. I helped break down weeds and
dirt and then he got about half the covering and red mulch down (behind the
brick he laid). He was able to keep the
stands for the leashes in their spaces, but popping through the bark and it
looks and feels just right. There is no
doubt there will be lead mix-ups as the dogs are coming between the posts and
each other’s leads, but we’ll do the best we can. The main thing is that we can be out with the
dogs even though we don’t have a fence.
Not perfect, but doable. Now if
we can get some GRANDCHILDREN outside we’ve got it made!
There were two trips – one each day with Ame and Isa and the
Scooter around the circle. Ame controlled
the dogs and I think she was disgruntled to have Isa and us there and walked
quickly in front of us, but we all tried to adjust. She’s at that very independent age and I
think is ashamed of older or younger people.
Maybe 20’s and 30’s people she can take, but the rest? Eh, could take or leave Hehehe.
With Dr. Marvin, we’ve been coming in and out of
things. He had two sessions that he had
to miss and some of our sessions we were at home. Things that are affecting us now is all the
social situations, especially with family and friends we find ourselves
in. Each time we go through a kind of
debriefing to go over the fun stuff and the stuff we’d like to improve. The diet has taken a second seat this last
couple of weeks while he was gone and all the visiting was happening. I have to get back on track, and after about
36 days of being conscientiously signing into MFP (My Fitness Plan), we went
off track and we’re still at 1 day now.
The exercise equipment has been paid for although we are still going to
be paying the lower 2/3rds credit on the card for a while.
The recumbent bike was supposed to come in Friday or Monday, but interfered
with plans for Katherine, so we rescheduled for Wednesday. We didn’t want to interfere with bringing
Dakota in to meet Dr. Marvin on Tuesday.
The other equipment – the trucking place hasn't called with the treadmill yet. I’m thinking pretty soon. Little disappointed in Israel the guy from the Fitness place. I don’t think he put in the order until the
entire thing was paid – not the 70% deal he had stated. Maybe he doesn’t have any pull with that kind
of thing, but he’s avoided me both times we’ve called asking for him. Didn’t expect much more, but it all has to pull
together for us.
Rich has been on our case, because we’ve been off our calorie
counting and weighing in and marking the foods we ate. Maybe we should start again? Let me check that out. What do I remember today?
There, that wasn’t too bad was it? We recorded the food so far today and a
little note about where we are psychologically … just have to continue where we
can. Speaking of … our hair should be
dry enough to brush out and then go do the mail/scooter ride/check bees. We can’t be afraid of not getting dressed. Hopefully we work on this harder than Dakota
to get us out. But for now … it’s 3:17
pm and we’re going to knock it off the done list. I think we had started to say before that
Rich has been real upset that we’re off and feels that we’re going to waste the
cost of the equipment. We can’t buy into
his doubts, but then we’ve got to excite us on our own goals. We can be healthier, right?
BRB
Drat! We still saw 2
bees, but didn’t stay out long because it was starting to rain. One was by the water bottle and the other was
by the chair we use to put our feet.
Didn’t see any around the blue chair directly, but after we got back to
the garage we did call Rich and reminded him to pick up more bee spray. I don’t think there was much he sprayed in if
they are still out there. I also
reminded him since he didn’t pick up my earlier message of what we needed for
Katherine. He seems a little
grouchy. Said something about paying
more for the dog than he had on himself for three weeks, so we just changed the
subject. He was only supposed to buy a
SMALL bag and a bone THAT was it!
Katherine and I were to do the rest.
Maybe he got that confused?
*sigh*
I don’t know that he’s going to be super excited that not
much happened here, but it still looks good from yesterday – though neither the
sewing or steaming happened. It takes a
long time to write a post! The dishes
did get cleaned and that’s the biggest deal for the day. We’ll help him with groceries and then it
should be ok. Just can’t handle all the
grumbles. We’re doing our best just to
balance our mind so that it processes without going in crazy circles. You know?
I saw the neighbor Jerry outside, but he was consumed with
his mowing and didn’t look over to wave hello.
The lady with the really nice yard though said hello so that was
nice. J Nobody else was out and it was warm and
muggy. That’s all we can say for it, but
glad we’re dressed and showered before Rich came home. I guess he didn’t need me to do Walmart
shopping since he was already there, and we’re frustrated, because if it is
raining, he won’t do the front mulch like he promised. I guess neither one of us saw into the rain –
though it was coming down pretty good this morning. That could have been a hint!
There wasn’t too much in the mail, but Rich got a $3,800
check which is always nice. Money comes
in and out for business, but coming in is always good! He couldn’t tell me when he was coming home –
he probably didn’t want to think that hard because he was frustrated. He could have avoided that by listening to
the message I left MUCH earlier! HMFP!
Ok, let’s not go getting an attitude. We are pretty much … what you see is what you
get Katherine! I feel bad, but then we’re
too out of place to be doing much around the house so that even emptying the
dishwasher right now feels too much. It
got quiet when we muted the Rhapsody to talk to Rich too so maybe in general we
are just working hard to avoid things at this moment. Feels like a lot of pressure all of a sudden. Maybe that’s because we know Rich is going to
be a lot to deal with. *sigh*
Ahh she is singing Ava Maria. That gives one a chance to rest
peacefully.
I probably will swipe the dust in Katherine’s room. That would be a good deal too, right?
Right back.
Ok, done.
We shut the garage door too.
We didn’t think it was raining that much, but Rich said we should shut
it and we’d been avoiding it. *SIGH* We don’t do well with these transitions. It’s almost 4 pm. Maybe before Rich comes home we should take
our extra anxiety medicine. That’s a
good idea. BRB
Hmm, done and we emptied the dishwasher. It usually only takes a few moments. Gotta get used to that I won’t actually die
with labor. Besides lifting the heavy
plates, it’s not even hard labor, right?
Hmm, popcorn on the floor.
Think we won’t wash the kitchen floor, but we will sweep it again. We always include the dining area and the
Desk area. Good Ann’s! Tomorrow we’re going to make the bed with one
of the quilts too. That always is nicer
for guests. Think we’re going to do the
fish quilt though – the first artistic one - not the one with deers. Hmm, Rhapsody went off again … guess it is
now raining more, we can hear it on the roofs.
Good thing we shut the garage door.
The windows in the sun room remained shut all day. Have to stop worrying, have to stop
worrying. We did all the right things
AND we didn’t go over with our eating today either. That should make Rich happy. I don’t think he cares very much if we felt
accomplished in writing out our thoughts.
I think he’d think it was wasted time.
Maybe he wouldn’t be that harsh, but he WOULD think I could take less
time with it, but then it wouldn’t be what it is! AND, we haven’t written for over a month.
We ran into another Multiple today. I hope I didn’t further confuse the
situation. I thought she was the one
responsible for Mosaic Minds, but I’m not sure what led us to those
thoughts. She was a little crumpled in
her statement of Astraea. It sounded
like she knew them, but she commented on herself as being just a garden level
trauma-based Multiple. It does then
sound like she knows of that movement just isn’t identifying herself as a part
of it. It didn’t look like she
necessarily regarded them highly. It’s
not enough to start or stop a relationship.
I do like meeting Multiples, just they usually tend to be very busy
people with a lot on their agenda, and we are between agenda’s at the
moment. It will be so interesting to
find how our life changes with the addition of Dakota. I’m pretty sure we made the right decisions
all along, but now the last day without him, we realize too we’ve taken on a
lot of responsibility and as a system – it’s not one of our higher ranking
abilities. You know?
Hmm, just touched bases with FB for a minute and had seen
something for Jim – then we wrote him because we’re feeling so many off-balance
type emotions, and he had on his site a connection to someone named Nina
Simone, so I listened and it was soooo nice and Jim mellow – it was like
getting the hug from him that we were looking for. Life is funny that way, you know?
Oh oh … I must be the part that says – you know? A lot! Hide girl hide!
We’ve kept up the Mind Map most of the day while we’ve been
writing (on the other screen). We haven’t
really been looking at it, but we’ve been feeling its presence. I don’t know what or who it is that is so
much interested in it, but I think because of all the odd emotions, it is
serving as another anchor. It is
something we want to go back to, but it was a lot of work. We have to balance it with Dakota, Domestic
Goddess, Dr. Marvin, sewing, reading/writing and anything else.
Lucky we took our medicine…
We're back again. We've been having trouble sleeping so have been up for the last hour. It is now 11:11 PM. We thought we'd add a short note before posting, and the try to crawl back to bed. We know Rich ALWAYS lets us massage him when we're feeling out of sorts.
When Rich got home this afternoon, we did help him with the groceries, but it took about an hour to get him past being grouchy, and then for some reason he thought he'd wait to eat dinner until he got things done. But, that meant I had to eat alone - well, he was in the room with me, just not eating. He said he wanted to get outside and finish the work before he got tired. That made sense in its own way since he's been getting to tired after dinner to do much else. So, after I ate and we both finished his show, we both went out. Rich did the work, and we just tried to stay quiet and observe. He finished putting in the last few bricks and then filled the area with plastic bags and then put a couple more bags of mulch over it. He didn't like the extra leashes being out when not in use by Maury's dogs, so he took those off their posts and he gave me the task of sweeping the patio. That seemed to make sense, but we're always in a rush when needing to stand so we were like move, move! Not mean like but we had an agenda. Then from our scooter that was parked on the lawn we watched Rich sit down on the patio. He had sprayed for the bees again before we swept and i seemed there weren't any out. SOOOO, we sat down on our comfy blue chair and rested there for a good while while talking to Rich. It was SOOOO nice, did I say that enough? I love our view of the area in front of the patio being open and facing the corn fields. Tonight because of it being overcast it seemed surreal, which was kinda cool on it's own.
We watched one more show - both shows tonight being "The Artful Detective" which is Rich's favorite new show right now although it appears to have been on for quite a few series. After we gave him a massage until we fell asleep, but woke up about 1 hour later and now is now!
There ... finally conceded to needing a bottle of water. Our thirst wasn't going to go away. Can't help the feeling that we are hot. I wonder if Rich turned down the air. I feel it's a bit stifling. Yup yup ... he had turned it up. We both play with the temp trying to get it right. When we went out for the water we found it was still muggy in the sunroom. Maybe now we'll cool off.
All our mind is on the dog right now and having Katherine and him here tomorrow. Maybe it would help if I put together a short list of things to do before 3 pm when we leave for the airport. I'm HOPING its going to be a shortlist.
- Pick-up general things/clutter in the house including folding LR blanket (6 min)
- Pick-up the dishes and run the dishwasher after lunch (3 min)
- Clean the bathrooms (10 min + 10 min)
- Sweep the kitchen/dining/office floors (8 min)
- Make the bed and do one last load of clothes (4 min and 3 min transferring/8 min fold)
- Steam the clean clothes that have been through the wash yesterday (1 hour)
- Sweep the breezeway (6 min)
- Charge the scooter battery (2 min)
- Kitty Litter and garbage out (10 min)
- Clear last few things on the Kitchen counter (6 min)
I think that is about it, but we'll add to it if we think of anything. So far we are up to about two 1/2 hours of work, but of course there will be breaks in-between. There that makes us feel better. Half the job is getting the steaming done. We did all the vacuuming and deeper cleaning on yesterday so am feeling pretty good on time. We should be able to get it done in 3 1/2-4 hours in reality with our up and downs for the bad back, so we should be comfortable taking it easy until 10 am - MAYBE jump start the laundry, dishes and a few other things. I think we're going to be excited to see things get ready for Katherine AND Dakota.
If there is any time left over ... it SHOULD go tomorrow to sewing. That seems to be the lost art of Ann.
OH and we have to take a shower, get dressed and go out for mail/scooter ride. AND, maybe check out the front patio again for bees. Rich said they might not have been out because later in the day.
So now that we're being all organized it's really a matter of how do we slow our brains down enough to fall asleep. Thinking we might take one more of the anxiety medicine. Be a good deal to sleep tonight, right?!
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