Monday, June 12, 2017 @
6:10AM
Good
morning. This is me and it’s an entirely
new week 😊
AND, this is the week that Austin is coming.
With all reality, he’s coming tomorrow, YAY~ must put that in its own
cool private place, but DID want to make that notation as the first thing
thought of. WOOHOO!!!
We
woke up about 40 minutes ago, and it’s taken us that long to get going. Most of it wasn’t to do with my measurements
in the morning. It was due to not being
orientated to my screens. It is a new
couple of days – We hadn’t been on the computer since Friday – It is Monday
now, and while we were gone, Rich shut-down all of our screens. We pulled up the calendar first, then we
thought we’d just throw-out the stuff we weren’t interested in email – since we
hadn’t checked it all weekend, but just toward the end, we hit something
off-key, and all our check marks disappeared.
There may have been a sound like, “oh shit!” Maybe, maybe not – we’re not committing, but
we decided to move on – nothing earth shattering AND it was now taking up my
writing time.
Shoot
… lost a few other moments. I wanted to
make sure my WHOLE right screen was up – Google Calendar, MyFitnessPal, AOL
email, Rescuetime & Trello so it took some time – AND we had to make some
notations over the weekend, so we could start the week fair and square. All together, we didn’t eat too bad, though
we were still off – sorry just did MyFitnessPal last … we had
Saturday
– 1681 cal., 175 carbs, 63 fats, 112 proteins and only 5504 ACK Sodium
Sunday
– 1319 cal., 150 carbs, 39 fats, 80 proteins and 878 sodium – obviously someone
goofed up the scrambled eggs, because we can’t believe Holiday Inn – didn’t
divebomb the eggs with sodium – they are coming out with 0 sodium. NOTHING has zero sodium – PLUS over the
weekend a total of 85 carbs over – that’s like almost adding an entire extra
day – but sodium on Saturday? It’s
registering 64% over for the day BLAH!
Ok,
doing well though hardly seem to be writing.
I just caught the 5-minute timer and took closer to 15 minutes. We made Jell-O for later, we put away the
clothes that Rich had washed from being out, and then we opened checks from the
mail, added them up, put them away and told Rich how much money he’d earned …
that made him breathe easier. YAY! It was a good “up.” We are making adjustments
to Rich being home and STILL being on a schedule. We ran into it this morning when we told him,
we eat between 7-7:30AM. He thought
about it for a moment, and then came back saying, “You eat when the cook cooks!” EEK!
That’s a little scary. AND
THEN! He came back and said it wasn’t
time to serve me coffee yet. Ok, this
kind of thing can get blown out of proportion!
BUT, we did get his kitchen clean and the truth of the matter is that we
write before AND after he makes our eggs so it really doesn’t matter – just so
everything is done before 9AM shower, and we’re not kept starving
ourselves. By 7:30AM it is – forget it! We’re going to get our own cottage
cheese! Yup-yup that’s how we roll!
In
a minute, it’s going to be Dakota’ time though – 7AM AND time to get
medicine. That part seems ok for us to
do hehe
WooHOO!!! We did our first breakfast with Rich and we’re
not too off-schedule. It’s now 7:40AM
and we’re done eating breakfast. We
talked with Rich the whole time and we went over my schedules. He listened ALMOST patiently, but he kept
wanting to come back to being adaptable.
I get that the first time and I don’t like continuously hearing about
it, but he was belaboring the point. So,
we really hit it as to our time spent with him.
I said, we have a half an hour in the morning – remembering he’s at work
first thing, and then two hours around the dinner time area, and then an hour
to watch shows from 9-10PM, and then we sleep with each other – or at least go
to bed together from 10-5:30AM optimally.
So, that’s another 7 ½ hours.
We
did good getting to bed last night, but it was a bit of an adjustment. I came out five minutes early to move the C-Pap
machine to our bedroom. We took a 45-minute
nap with it out in the living room while he was preparing dinner so that he
could adjust to seeing me in the mask while he was slightly focused on other
things. And, so at night, we whimpered a
bit after sitting down on the bed on our new side. He was like just put it on. We didn’t know how to do that with him
watching us directly. We were
complaining it looked like a Silence of the Lambs. He asked if we knew how to do it in the dark. And, we thought, and then acknowledged, we
weren’t ready for that yet. So, he
waited at the light for us to adjust it.
But,
first came the part, we worried like hell about how were we going to snuggle
him. The short-story of that is that we
can still do it – THOUGH we aren’t able to put our chin or nose on his back
because of the mask. There will have to
be some testing and he was willing to try some snuggle time before the mask got
put on, because some time we just like to lay next to him and watch the last
part of TV with him, or talk to him, or listen to some music while
snuggling. I guess we have time to play
with it, but just the first night, there were a few tears. We DID get through it.
There
was one other thing about the mask.
Before our nap – and we did deserve a nap because we’d been up until
2AM, woke up at 7:30AM and stayed up, plus drove the three hours home –
including stopping for gas. Again, we
were ready to take a nap. What we
figured out though was the reason the mask was so uncomfortable, was that it
was all-hooked up wrong. We couldn’t
figure out what was supposed to be happening.
So, we found the directions in our cubby hole and worked the six straps
and two connections from the start and got it all straightened out. I think I have it now, but we left the
directions in a closer place in the carrying container. It felt a LOT better yesterday, then it had
the night before at the hotel. I was
VERY happy about that!
One
of the other VERY nice things that happened last night – OTHER than Rich
calling me out to show me how adorable Dakota was being with bunnies in his
yard, was that he brought our sewing machine and supplies in the house, and
then we moved them to the sewing room.
YAY! Not only did we put the
machine up and the things away, we did some sewing too. That is why this morning, we rearranged our
schedules so that we could be sewing a couple of hours each day. We really needed some sewing time. I was hearing Dr. Marvin not drop the quilting
part like we were doing, and so figured, we’ve excited him to pieces to include
it back in our world.
We
could rearrange the schedule by taking off the Trello option alongside social
time between 4-5PM and moving to that side – so that if we weren’t socializing,
we could organize or read at that time instead of the evening. We figured it was OK to mark less time for
reading, because we had gained with the Audible programs – almost three hours
of reading each week by using our driving time to and from Dr. Marvin to be listening
to books. We can’t do that all the time,
but that’s when we have those other options.
Maybe we’ll free-up a little more reading time on the weekends, and
another option would be to read during Rich’s time at 9-10PM if he was watching
a show we didn’t like – though we’d be sitting right next to him to be doing
it. Perhaps with earphones covering the
bad TV with music. I think this is all
doable, and still MUCH more time to reading than we were squeaking in before.
The
other thing we talked to him this morning about in being flexible with Linda
and the social time, she primarily uses is that we’d open up a block of time
between 1-5PM to give her an hour each day other than the 4-5PM time she doesn’t
like, but that in no way could we go back to chatting in the morning. I know we have both enjoyed that in the past,
but bearing in mind that it is my most productive time, and that now we must
shower and go to the gym also during the mornings, we just can’t do that
anymore. The other things like email,
Evernote and editing, can be arranged around Linda’s schedule a bit. We still like having our hour to ourselves
after the gym to watch TV and eat lunch QUITELY – especially after being out with
people, or out in the car driving.
Hopefully,
that will be more acceptable to Linda. I
don’t think she really likes the structure of ANY time, but there is a lot
happening.
The
point that we must emphasize is that for a long time – the better part of five
years, we’ve identified more with being disabled – and being a “no-work”
person. We want to build our ideal
identity as a writer/publisher – WHICH takes writing and editing and publishing
time. We can’t tell you how happy we’ve
been with the Evernote and other programs that have gotten us back into some nice
tracks. Those parts will continue. Sometimes, we will write about those programs
too, so it will come into our writing a little – but mostly in discussing what
is happening.
Going
back to last night and the section where Dr. Marvin should be so pleased, is
that we’ve laid claim to having REAL quilting time again between 7-9PM. That was always the ideal time to be doing
it. We’ve faced a lot of time talking
about Rich-time and him being able to hold our hand. BUT, we need to be reasonable. Including sleep, Rich already has us for 11
hours of the day! That’s a LOT of time
in all reality! Plus, one of the things
we found last night, was that with me working in the back-sewing room, Rich
found himself ALSO in the back in the room next to me, his office. He wasn’t working, he was doing one of the
things he really wanted to do which was going over some of his fishy lakes on
his computer. Maybe many of the nights,
he will be too tired, or maybe we’ll be too tired to be back there, but it is a
VERY good idea or goal to be trying. We
were sharing the same sounds and didn’t feel so far from each other.
The
part about sewing? OMG! That was SO very nice. We haven’t even gotten to the point of
talking about the weekend. BUT, just
last night? WHAT a wonderful time! We’re still not settled as to TV or music,
but we have both options. Pandora is
set-up to work on the TV in ALL the rooms.
YAY! It is so perfect!
We
were working on our baby quilt, and we’re going to underline here, OUR baby
quilt. We may have discussed this before
because we were working on the project the last time we sewed with the girls
too, but what we’re doing is taking some of my Grandmother’s quilt blocks – she’d
given us through our Mother, when both died one at a time – well, they passed
down this older quilting material. Much
earlier, probably two years ago, we had cut most of the material into 6”
blocks, and then we put together about twenty-some baby quilts, primarily using
the diagonal pattern, and each small quilt was seven squares, by seven
squares. That means that each quilt has
a total of 49 squares. You caught that,
right?
I’ve
given out nearly every quilt, we’ve ever made, so at the suggestion of one of
the girls – probably last year, we decided to put nine of these smaller quilts
together, for one bigger quilt for me.
That might sound selfish, but we are still giving away at least a dozen
quilts. Five of them have already gone
to my sister, who is preparing them to go to Peg, my Mother’s Pastor. Of course, before my Mother died. My mother used to make afghans for Peg to
give to people in their church who had had a baby, or to needy people in the
community, she had met in her role as a minister. Both CS and we have agreed, it is a
worthwhile goal. It is a way to respect
our Mother’s work in that community, and in the state, Connie Sue and I had
grown-up in.
So,
in the meantime – other than giving away quilts to that community, we were
working on our quilt. Well, almost. As it would turn out, CS and us working on a
project on Saturday that benefited one more person. Each time we go to the same hotel in New
Berlin WI – six to seven times a year for about the last seven years, we have
met a couple favorite people.
Especially, a few who work at the hotel – Holiday Inn Express. One is Carol, the manager of the hotel, one
is Debby one of the worker-bees, and then there is another worker-bee who works
at the breakfast bar. Speaking now of
Debby, each time we are there, she comes in once or twice to say hello and to
pet the dog. That is what brought her in
the first time. Her dog had just died,
and she was attracted to our big old silly mutt. By this time in history, she has elevated the
situation, whereas, she has a box of dog biscuits AT the hotel, and she brings
Dakota a snack when we are there to visit.
Dakota loves her and allows himself to lay next to her and she pets him
for the entire time she is talking.
What
Debby has been talking about the most when she visits – is something the girls
will ask her about. She has a
Granddaughter who is now about fourteen months old, and this poor little girl
has been going through hell. The latest
part is they finally took her to Children’s Memorial, and then found a tumor
and the little girl had brain surgery.
We just felt terrible. She is doing
better health-wise now – this just happened since the last time we were there a
month ago, although she is still having trouble because her body does not know
where to put the fluids.
The
other part of the conversation was asking Debby, “How many hours are you
sleeping each night?” She looked at me
like she needed a good cry. She says,
she sleeps 3-4 hours each night and that she and her daughter have been
worrying so much and taking turns staying up trying to comfort this baby. The whole group felt agony over what was
going on in their life. So after Debby
left, we looked at CS, and suggested, you know Connie Sue, if it would be ok
with you, do you think we would be able to make today a baby blanket for Debby’s
granddaughter? Connie Sue immediately
said, “of course.” She is like that.
So,
a plan was formed that was quick and simple.
We had an extra quilt top – we had ten with us, although we only needed
nine to put together our quilt, which was far from complete. We asked CS, and it turns out that she had no
problem not only putting the flannel back to my flannel quilt, she also had it
with her. She had a very soft white to
go with a white background of my top meaning there were blocks that were also
white – with pink or blue patters – EVEN some red hearts. She said, she could make it just like Grandma
did and that she’d practiced beside my Grandmother, even in making the mitered
corners. I was so thrilled. We then discussed how we should quilt top to
bottom. First, she was going to sew it,
which wasn’t a problem for her, but with the help from the twins, we ended up
with white yarn and we tied each of the 36 quilt corners. I was SO excited.
Even
the quilting/tying was a together task. We
each had our own gifts to add, and the other’s area of expertise seemed
harder. For the most part, CS would
thread the yarn to the needle – two of them, we were working those poor
needles, and then we were doing the part where the yarn gets attached the quilt
blocks. It was excellent! It took us a little more time than expected,
and at one point, I tore the fabric a little, but CS cleaned that up. I so very much loved the product and where it
was going and what it meant to both of us to be giving it to Debby for her
Granddaughter.
I’m
sure they already have a blanket, but this one is special in having started at
my grandmother’s will and continued even through my Mother and then my sister
and us. AWESOME! Debby wasn’t there when
we finished the project, but we talked to Carol about it, and then we ended-up
giving it to another Debby in housekeeping, who was going to leave it at the
front desk for OUR Debby! We arranged it
so that Connie Sue would call the hotel to talk to Debby to find out what she
thought/felt, and just to make sure the quilt got to the right place, and Debby
understood how she came about this. We’re
pretty sure she’ll realize it came from her favorite quilters, but just want to
tie it up with a bow! Hehe the twins had
not only gone home for the yarn – they live also in New Berlin, but they also
happened to have a small gift bag and paper to wrap the blanket in. Just couldn’t be happier with the group!
There’s
a lot more that happened than we can discuss in the next fourteen minutes, but
the picture above of Dakota laying on the baby blanket, is a reminder of how
special the day was. As to the Saturday –
maybe we can talk more tomorrow about it, but everything went along as a dream
as most quilting weekends go. The company
and conversations were TERRIFIC! There
was no problems other than a six-minute blip where we yelled at CS for the
trouble she caused over the week in getting to the weekend. I don’t know where it came from, we were good
ALL day long, up until this time. It
came suddenly and was over within moments.
All four of us heard what happened and our profuse apology. Basically, what had got stated, was that we
were angry at CS for the drama she had caused the group. This was simply not necessary. It was ok to deliver the message and perhaps,
it was important to do so, but not in the manner, it happened. We were showing TOO much anger.
As
to how, we handled it previously – the yelling incident was within a half hour
of leaving, well pretty much somewhere in our brain without real thinking being
done, we decided that if CS was having emotional problems, and that her lack of
boundaries and social etiquette, did not give her the proper means to
communicating her emotions, then we would better reward the good things that
were happening with solid hugs. This
happened eight or nine times during the time together. And, we were giving “good-deed” hugs to the
twins too. So, little events like Connie Sue paying
attention to national news, which was GOOD thing for us in being able to
converse another topic with her, then that’s one of the times she was rewarded
with a hug. This time there was a lot of
vocalization – oh man – here comes another hug as we’d scoot across the room to
her. It was fun and enjoyable.
We
did miss Linda not being there, but her being gone did not detract from the
solid time we still had as a group sharing time. We do want to quickly add, in case we don’t
get back to it, that the overnight went well, and we got together with CS in
the morning – because we’d both slept over in separate rooms, but we got
together from about 8:30AM-11:30AM and just talked – A LOT. It was excellent! We’re so blessed to have met this circle of
friends and family – oh and bonus? We
got a private ride with Both Janet and Jean – on separate trips – to picking up
our meals. AND, Dakota learned how to
PERFECTLY lay down a couple of poops ALSO at two separate times, when we asked,
and in a very small piece of land, at a very quick pace. So, gosh darn proud of him. I know what else could have been more
exciting hehe?
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