AH HA HE'S HEAR and HAPPY WE'VE GATHERED LAUNDRY!!
Hi, just me. It is going to be a short one this time because our sweetie is on his way over for a little bit. He should be here in a half hour. You guessed jumped in the shower pretty quick! He says to be ready, because they got my new glasses ready to put in my frame. Tri-focals. Shoot, shoot … not going to thing old again are we? Better if we are going to do a lot of reading and writing to see stuff? Right? Good idea?? *Sigh*
I am thinking that if I’m real lucky, said friend will help me get laundry to the Laundromat and if we’re REAL lucky, he’ll come back tomorrow and help us bring it up the three flights. YAYYYY for GREAT friends! He said something about pizza today, and that we’d save Chinese until tomorrow. He’ll be coming by in the afternoon, so we’re going to celebrate New Year in Beijing, China! We’re all for that … umm, somebody indicated during previous New Years, we can’t keep ourselves asleep after 8:30-9:00 pm. He’s right, but maybe if we go to bed earlier, we’ll be woken up by the fireworks we can see and hear off our balcony. That be good.
‘Cept, I know he’s been trying to get me to think through my New Year’s Resolutions. Hmmm… I don’t know. Figurin a pretty good one would be to do school on time. The new course just opened today and we’ll start on Monday or Tuesday … not sure which. The new professor has posted a picture of herself and a little about her. She specializes in cultural issues at University of one of the Carolina’s … umm whichever one where the Tarheel’s play. We’ll figure it out. I liked that this prof. gave us a picture and something of herself. The last one failed the first 5 weeks to even indicate if she was male or female. Never told us when our assignments were due either. But, Dr. M. has us geared up to thinking no matter what kind of teacher we get; we have to do our homework.
Hmm, to be convincing maybe we should gather the laundry and leave by door brb … Oh man that was terrible took about 20 minutes and back hurts Had to stop to rest. I only have small white bags, so it took four of them. Way to many towels! Ok, more ready. Put on my shoes and socks. Brushed hair … still have to pull it back. A little to damp yet though. Usually, the way friend and us work it out, is if I put SOME effort into it, he will match me. But, carrying down two bags is a lot better than carrying down four bags. Right?!
I’m hoping he’s a few minutes late, because I need those minutes between the last effort and the next to rest. I think he just wanted to drop my glasses off and pick them up the next day, but they have to make sure they fit, and I would be beside myself a whole day without being able to see the computer. The nice lady had said before, I think, that we come in and they fix them right away like 20 minutes top. It would take twice that time just to drive back and fourth. Hmm, thought I heard car door. It’s going to be ok, it’s going to be ok. Sometimes our friend can get grumpy. My boys explained it to me once. He says that women are always trying to get the men to work for them. Although, I can see his point, but I see more the point, we take care of them, so they are helping themselves! There used to be nothing worse than cleaning and cooking for four males, as they sat around the weekend playing games. I never figured that out. Hmpf!
Anyway … now days if there is a sock to be picked up, I’m proud to say its mine, and rarely do I need to chase them down the living room and other two flights of stairs! YAYYYYYYYYY
Ok, sorry … we just had another mad Mom moment. Dealing, dealing, dealing…
Hmm, we could think of how happy our eyes will be to see again. I think I wrote, but my vision slouched three eye test rows. Though I have to admit although dangerous, I’ve grown accustom to liking all the twinkling lights coming at me driving home in the dark. We try not to focus on them for obvious reasons. I can still remember being a kid when all of life looked like that. There was one spot driving home from either of the Grandma’s houses where we would dip down and then come back up (in car on road heheh) and then all before us was the twinkling lights of Minneapolis. Point here being without glasses its much more magical than with them. The beams of light had shadows and stretched out and merged with one another. Like an entire wall of color! What a beautiful sight it was! Heheh, Ok, good memory good!
Ahh, we made it … he’s 10 minutes late, our hair was dry enough to put up, and our back is rested! YAYYYYYYYYY
Hmm, I wonder if there is anyway, we could convince said friend to go eat out at our old Mexican restaurant. It isn’t the real expensive kind, but they served Margaritas in the pitcher. Probably been 5-6 months now. Darn dieting. Oh oh … he’s here gotta go!!!
Whoops forgot to post Thursday ...
Good morning! Just me. It’s late already … about 7:30 am. I’m having a really exceptional morning. Mostly, because I’m here and not at work YAYYYYYYYYYYY…
I hope you all don’t mind that we’re throwing in music. We’ve never tried to define our journal/blog, just add to it new experiences we are having. Last year the big thing was in finding Musicmatch Jukebox. She’s acting up on our computer at the moment though, so until I get around to fixing her, we’re looking through some other musical arenas. For the record I am still getting service from Windows Media Player, so that’s been nice. I’ve been fooling around with a new site called, MP3Search.ru. They seem to have quite a bit of music and you can really download it. You could at Musicmatch too, but the cost there is 99 cents, where at MP3 it is 10 cents. Musicmatch still can’t be beat I think if you just want to turn something on to listen all day.
Right now we’re listening to some gorgeous stuff we just ripped from a CD V sent on Sarah Brightman. It’s very lovely. Ahhh
Hmm, feeling kind of drifty here … like sitting before a fountain listening to perfect splashes of water falling from the mouth of a tarnished fish hehehe. Light green tarnish of course! We might as well imagine in color. Hehehe
Just thinking today is the day we are supposed to clean. Umm maybe a little later. Haven’t written since all the way back yesterday. Things to think of! We had a really nice visit with our sweetie. It was one of those times you know that he’s just aching for touch so you meet him at the door and in finding him so close you start to unbutton buttons of his shirt. Whoops, ok enough of that! Umm, it was nice
Later, we talked about his son some. He is 27 now. Our friend enjoyed the party more than he expected and stayed all the way to 10 pm. He said that his son orchestrated a full sit-down dinner for about 16-18 people. He didn’t expect that. The conversations we’re upbeat and he seemed to take an interest in some of the people he met. He said, no one was flagrantly one way or another, so that helped his comfort level. He said that it was the start of the house’s 4 day New Year’s celebration. I guess his son is part of a 3-4 person household. The guy who purchased the house was out of town for a while. He enjoyed seeing his son interact with friends. I think as a parent you want your children to be accepted no matter how old they are. He talked with some pride of his son marrying people, though he wasn’t particularly sold on the “religion.” I forget the name, but I think there are a lot of discordant Catholics who are members. It’s a new generation of people who are more free and accepting in their and others beliefs. I am sure there are
“rules” of fitting in … I’ve seen the liturgy at one time on the web, but I’m unsure of most of what I was seeing. It was quite a while ago and fades from my memory.
The one thing I know is that his son loves deeply. I figure that’s the most important thing.
Hmm, distracted a bit … we were doing something, but I don’t remember what it was. I know the last thing was stopping over at T’s place to fix breakfast … SHE’S HOME!!!!
I think everyone will feel better now!
Hmm, what is V pouring?? Better check that out. Mimosa, mimosa, AHA! Champagne! He’s always got the good stuff! He’s just like a Carry Grant!
Well, we’re pretty sure nothing is going to beat this fine meal. Hmm, Sweeties coming over though for lunch. Better watch the drinking … he knows everything! Darn white garbage bags. He spotted that donut box right away … you know then there is the raised eyebrows. Hmpf
We’re going to see Dr. M. today too. We haven’t seen him for a long time. Heaven knows what is going to show up by then. Chances are that he’ll watch the movie though YAYYYYY! It will be a good 5 minutes spent. That’s why he gets paid the big bucks! Hmm, maybe I better get back soon into the HTML lessons. Things seem to be going pretty quick over at Directory Assistance. Just in that, people are finding good things to post that they believe in. With those drinks lucky V is heading over to T’s instead of DA. Pshwoo.
Oh Oh … medicine 2-3 hours late, better do that, give her a half hour and then go try to do HTML. Yup yup that’s a plan. Ok, mark the time 9:30 am now. ½ hour. K got it … well not really, better set the timer.
What’s next …
Hmm, we’ve been wandering again. I don’t know why. Only thing I remember is being at Tammy’s … don’t remember before that. It wasn’t until just now we remembered we’d been writing … It’s 10:48 now. I suppose that meant I lost another hour somewhere. My head feels a little confused. We just poured ourselves some coffee. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with out time. Our friend is coming by for just a short while, and then we’ll go to Dr. M.’s … reading back now. I guess we’re supposed to work on the computer language stuff. But, I don’t really want to do that. I don’t even know where to look for it. I don’t see anything like it in our carousel thingy. I feel stuck.
Ok, what can I think about? Coffee is good. No music and it is dark in here. We’re not hungry. There’s nothing in the mail box. V’s not here. Where’d he go? YAYYY T’s almost back … she had to run to the store. Let’s see do I need to visit?
Ack, It’s about 10 minutes after 3 pm and I still have to get dressed before leaving for Dr. M’s at 3:30 pm. I figure I won’t be home until 6:30 pm. I’m not sure all what we did, though we know our friend was here from 11:30-12:30 pm. Think we were messin with stuff in general. I don’t think we got done with work on HTML. It was more like a day of panic thinking we’ve got so much to do and we’ve got only 3 days of vacation. Shoot, shoot.
Whoops lost it here … Why don’t we start from scratch … *sigh*
Madonna - Forbidden Love (Reminds me of our Sweetie Pie)
There is no telling how far I'm going to go with posting of music and videos, but for now please patient with me. I'm having so much fun exploring options :)
Our Best,
Us
Love is Sweet - The Rainbow Connection
Just a little reprieve from Christmas music ... this is my happy song. AND, even though we're STILL not in bed, feeling pretty happy! AHA ... maybe because our friend was over?? *Giggle* Love is sweet!
We'll call this post "TJ's Commercial" *silly grin*
TJ this one is for you and anyone else interested in some of the recording I've been doing. To check the service I am talking about ... do some looking around over here at audioblog.com. Cool, cool stuff!
All our love,
Ayn
Working Thoughts Through
(Umm, this is someone else's family ... hehehe it relates to having an on-line "family" experience. Physical people are more difficult and involve cleaning, computer friends are a blessing, but our imagination is ace in the hole. Cuz truth, be told as nice as families are, they are a lot of physical, intellectual, and emotional work! Imagine just trying to get four kids to stand still long enough for a "happy" picture, YEEKS).
Good morning! Well, it’s pretty much morning … we’ve been doing some more of that going back to bed after waking up at our unusual hours. I think though the tiredness is most like from the sugar content we’ve been eating lately. It makes us very groggy. So, I guess that ought to be one of our resolutions … NO MORE DONUTS!
It’s about 8:30 am now and I’ve been just putzing for the last half hour. I finally figured out the task I want to be working out today. A little while ago Steven had given Directory Assistance (DA) a link to learning HTML. I think today, we are going to put ourselves through the course as long as we can focus. The lessons each seemed pretty short, but we’ll have to see how time plays itself out as to how much we can accomplish. There are a lot of those short lessons. Good project for the day, because I have absolutely no other plans. Free as a bird!
We had a very good time over Margarita’s yesterday. It ended up being only me and her though, because her daughter had picked up hours at another center she works at. Later during the day her hubby came home, and there was also her younger 10 year old daughter a cousin and a friend. Busy place! Most of the time, we stayed in the kitchen sitting around the table talking. We weren’t missing food! She had made a large bowl of salsa and had some chips, which were very good, so we played around for a while getting used to the sensation of my mouth on fire. But, it was SOOO good! Yeeks, we scare ourselves. Through the day we also had … shoot … not going to remember the names. Umm, the first was those soft things usually wrapped in corn husks with meat hiding inside. Except, this time we were eating from Margarita’s home of Guatemala, so they were bigger and wrapped in banana leaves. Ohhh so excellent! Then later … umm, we hung around into dinner time, we ate um something in the round corn … damn, can’t remember names. You know the stuff of soft shelled tacos? But she had some kind of tremendously good port. Some of the pieces were big enough to cover the whole taco thingy, and of course her specialty rice! This was finalized with a few cookies and we drank about 5 beer at a rate of one lite beer per hour. Sooo, we did pretty good in that department!
We listened a lot to what she had to talk about and asked a lot of questions. She had wanted us to stay overnight, but then there would have been more loss of computer time - comfort zone. I think Margarita likes best to teach me about her culture. We were doing a lot of good learning. Usually, the topics are pretty family orientated, like how they family is taking care of her mother in Guatemala, the nephew who is behind on rent because he has no job, the excellence of their holiday party and the gathering of the family for a big New Years party of drinking and dancing, how the cousins play so well together, this kind of thing. We also find more each time we go over Margarita’s experiences growing up and coming to the country at 18 to work and live with a brother, and other memories that have become valuable. She has very good thoughts on how things should be and likes to share opinion with us, if not about us. And, as an extra treat, we collect notes with her about getting old. We are about 5 months difference in age. Really good old fashioned "Women" talk!
There was only one work reference. She said that our boss had kept a situation involving one of our clients from us; because she thought we’d over-react. The boss told this to Margarita, who is the clients job coach, and the client’s DSP. It made me a bit angry. The client has been missing her mother who has been in Mexico this month and she’s wet herself at the Center or work 3 times. Sr.’s version of handling it was to yell at the girl, where ours was to reassure her. But, you’ve all heard our thoughts of not agreeing with Sr. It makes me angry though to see her yelling at the client as if she MEANT to wet herself, and that she would tell my peers who are below my position that she didn’t want me to handle my job, nor tell me she had taken over the situation. The DSP and Margarita got all concerned before the break, because I saw the client crying and asked if she wanted to talk in my office which she did. Of course, I did not know I wasn’t “in the loop” where they did. My boss has a terrible protocol as to handling people situations both with the client, my peers, and me.
There was one other complaint in that she’s still manipulating situations badly. In one case, there had been a problem with a client, so after working through it, I called the mother because she has stated before she wanted to know if ANY thing was amiss. Sister yelled at me for calling the parent. She hadn’t told me she was “handling it.” Which meant that she yelled at the client and made him cry. So, within a couple days another problem had come up with a different client. So I wrote it out on a 3x5 card and handed it to Sr. I got yelled at for not handling the problem on my own and that I should have called the client's sister as follow-up. She said, “Do I have to handle everything for you?” There is just no clear directive because she is impulsive and often ornery. It makes my job difficult because the boundaries keep switching. And, when I present these obstacles back to her, she gets very angry and screams I have no common sense. Pretty sucky…
Ok, ok … enough of that … Moving on … we’re definitely in need of a vacation from her.
In the meantime, a few moments ago my friend IM’d … He said that he had time before the wake today to stop in for a long lunch (without the lunch). Pretty sure after five days with his family, he’s going bonkers and will need some very good massaging/pillow talk hehehe. Good Good. The only problem is that it means my plans have to change. I’m getting pressure from him to do things around the house before he gets here, but the time for my project is narrowed down so that I only have 2 ½ hours before he gets here, then I will lose about 3 hours in the middle of the day, and usually after he’s been here, we get pretty tired. Shoot, don’t mean to complain here, because we love his company, just there were other things on the stove too that we have been looking forward to. *Sigh* I suppose that’s life, one adaptation after another. I vote that we just handle it.
Plus, there is the part though that we just want to write for a bit. No, not that we have anything to say, in particular, just that we like to do this kind of writing AND we are on vacation!
Hmm, there was one other thing with Margarita. She suggested that we get together again maybe Friday morning. Etiquette says that this time we invite her to our place. But that means a heavy commitment toward cleaning up. Since I don’t spend much time in any other place in the house except my living room where the computer is … there are not a whole lot of messes being generated, except here and the kitchen. But, to do an hours worth of work, means that I’ll have to commit a full day to it, including getting some kind of food. We’ve been thinking that we’ll give tomorrow to that project. It’s a lot of work for 7-8 minutes, rest 15, etc. I love my friend, but know we'll end up in tears by the end of the day because of the pain. We're such a weakling in this regard. I think I can do it, because I’d like her to come over, and maybe that other peer too, but add pain to being away from the computer, just makes us grumbly ... Yeeks turn into a Sr.??? Ok, let’s resolve to do this. It would be the right thing to do and we're always happy afterward to have a clean place and company of friends. But, TOMORROW, not today.
Maybe, today yet, I can put in a small order of food to be delivered tomorrow. I don’t want to think of it now, but there should be something here. At least chips and some kind of lunch. Hmm, or maybe chips at the little store, and order in a pizza or Chinese? Ahh, that’s a good thought. She’ll have a phone with her, so we can make a call out. YAYYYY!! Sounds like a plan. Maybe instead of beers our friend will let us use the margarita mix he brought over last week. AHA! Sounding better! Oh yeah morning visit … well if nothing else we’ve got coffee. Not so sure of getting donuts or not. Hmm, didn’t someone just resolve not to do this?? Don’t remember. Umm, we’ll look it up later
Hmm, seems like we should be making a trip to the laundry place too. AND, the bank. Hmm, will have to be today or tomorrow. We’ll see on that one … Certainly not up to it at the moment. Stop, stop ... enough reality!
Wow, this is a lot of socialization for me. I hope I can handle it. But, for the moment that is enough thinking about it. It’s making me feel very anxious. It was kinda nice to talk though. We’d gone from Friday to Tuesday without using our voice. That’s probably not such a good idea especially considering a major holiday included. Yeeks enough, enough … we’ll be ok!
Margarita though doesn’t talk about a lot of stuff we do or think about, nor for that matter does our friend. Now, when I am here typing along I can think my own thoughts. But, with others we mostly listen, cuz my thoughts don’t make a lot of difference in their life. Especially, since neither spend a lot of time on-line. Margarita just got a new computer 3 months ago (Daughter will graduate from college next semester – so it’s good for the family too), so maybe I can figure out some things to teach Margarita on Friday. I think she is willing to learn. My other friend is pretty computer savvy. He’s got them at work, on the road, and at home. He does a lot of work on the computer, but doesn’t play with it so much. Except, he discovered on-line poker this year. YAYYYYY! Computers are our friends! Hehehe
There is something different though about people with or without computer friends. If you aren’t involved in life without computer friends, it is hard to understand. Like most people think of me as being completely alone, because they know I am here at my apartment, but there aren’t REAL people here. If you’re a computer friend, you realize that others online are REAL. And, most likely have common interests as yourself, because people tend to gravitate to others like them. For example, in doing the video the other day, I realized how many of my friends were Christians. I hadn’t really thought about that before. And, most of my computer friends are open people in that they share themselves through blogs. I don’t think most of my on-line friends spend quite as much time on-line as I do, but they do check in on a fairly regular basis. How do you explain to a new computer person the value of checking email at least daily, or in learning to at least try IM’s? I suppose in the life of many who are more adept at carrying cell phones, the whole concept of computer relating seems awkward. But, I will go down on record for opposing the cost and evil monopoly of phone service providers. Plus, a lot of people I don’t want to talk to want to call me. Like bill people, or my boss. Nope, nope not going back there. It’s computer, delete, and or nothing!
Well, almost 10 am. I suppose I better get to those HTML lessons, or I’ll miss all opportunity. I figure I’ll do a little picking up, especially around the desk in … umm let’s say we set the timer for 10:30. That will give us time to calm down about it and still make our physical friend happy. Then shower at 11:45. Hmm, better eat sometime too. Our friend has indicated he’d be here at noon, or there about. Usually, it means he’s running late, especially if he’s coming from work. Why don’t we plan a quick lunch around noon then. Chances are he won’t be there, we’ll have already disrupted our computer schedule, and if he does come then … it will just give us some sitting up talking time. We’re not planning on having anything more sophisticated then tomato sandwiches. Shoot, it’s our last tomato though Awe, let's plan to handle that too?
Ok, getting on with the morning then. Hope you are all having a fine day too! God bless those who tolerate personal disruptions to be better included within society.
us
Tuesday Morning Notes Prior to a Small Adventure
Good morning, good morning! Ahh, plenty of sleep today … Think life finally caught up with me. It’s now about 9:30 am and I’ve had a couple of naps since waking up at 1:30 am. Yep, yep Gabreael this is what happens as we age. Life gets much too exciting to stay in bed at night! It’s when we old people get our work done … oh, and being on vacation for the week helps too!
I want to thank you all for your very nice complements on the video. I’ve never put one together before, and I can tell you in a heartbeat I had the most fun doing it! Cuz, you are looking at it one tiny frame at a time and getting the most out of it as pictures and sound come together. There was one rough part though were we were a little shaky. We had been using Windows Movie Maker that V says comes with most computers now days. But, I had not read all the way through the left side-bar, where you were supposed to conclude the movie by saving it as a .WMV file. Shoot that made all the difference.
For anyone that would like to try it, I encourage full-heartedly you try. There are frames you can drag and drop in to from your photos at “My Pictures,” then there are buttons for the transitions and effects. And the music is similar to the photos where you drop in a .wma or Mp3 file into a frame. The program then allows very easy editing with your right mouse, until everything comes together just right. It takes a few minutes to get the lay of the land, but most everything you need is on its front page, and you just start messing and WALLAH! Of course, it also does stuff with regular videos, but that is far beyond the stages we are at. Hehehe I can handle saved snapshots though!
The last part and maybe a very important part is we are paying for a service called Audioblog.com. We try to avoid paying, but this service is fantastic and is only $4.00 a month. We had to pay a year up front, but its been very, very nice. It is what is allowing us to add the video to our blog and it allows us to record our voice in an easy to use format. The other music videos we’ve displayed are through free copy code places on the web. Not as happy with all that yet, need to learn who’s who and what’s being offered. I won’t though give up the Audioblog service. It’s wonderful.
Ok, that’s enough technical. I’m really not a big technician. I haven’t even figured out my camera yet. Really need someone to walk it through with me. Heaven knows where the handy instruction book has gone with all this time elapsed. I thought just knowing Steven that something would brush off on me, and now we’re seeing a lot of great camera work over at Tianka’s/Tamara’s web page. I know there are people around who know the business; shoot my daughter-in-law is a photo major. I think she can’t believe how incredibly backward I am in this concern. *Sigh* Maybe we can beg for mercy again now while she’s on bed rest. *Double Sigh*
Well, all in all, it appears we’ve made it through another Christmas YAYY! We got a little online visiting done, but would like to do some more this week. Today’s big event is that we’re going to meet a couple favored co-workers over at their house (mother and daughter) for a couple of beers. Hehehe This is the friend where we pick up some corona’s and she supply’s the limes! Ahhh, and she says she’s got great left-overs too!
Ahh just got done with a cuddle fest from Chief. I think he goes outside for a few moments, chills his nose and has to regain equilibrium. Ahh, they are both being playful now. It’s hard to tell if they are just getting up or what! Funny Kitties. I am really glad I ordered the scratcher thing. There has been more activity of late keeping them away from the couch and I’m not sure if this scratching isn’t their normal pattern while I’m hard at work. Hmmm… Ok, we’re doing the best we can. Let’s not worry.
Anyway back to the get together. We’ve invited a fourth co-worker, but she is not the type to check her emails frequently. So, we’re not sure where she’s at. We’d talked about getting together over the holiday for beers, but without a phone … *sigh*. Suppose I should have gotten her number though, because Margarita has several phones. Live and learn. I guess now when I stop to think about it. Most of my talking with each of these ladies is done separately.
Our friend gave us his blessing on the day, but is having a tough one himself. Today is his older son’s birthday (mid-to-upper 20’s) and the son has invited his Dad to the Dad’s first non-straight party. Hehehe he’s having mixed feelings, but we’re figuring after the original shock wears off, he might have a very good time. His son has a lot of good friends and he’s got a surprise friend, an on-line super friend coming in from New York. So all and all it’s pretty exciting. Our friend says the son is showing signs of maturing, because the party goes only from 6-10 pm. After that he’s shooing everyone out! Hehe
There’s another problem though overlaying this one. He has to go to a wake for his great aunt. He’ll be taking his mother and her husband and I’m not sure how far they will have to travel. His mother is in her 70’s and is blind, and I don’t think the husband does much driving. It’s always kind of sad when people die at the holidays. I think it’s wonderful when they make it past the day itself. They are more at peace, I believe and its harder for the family if it happens on the day or a few before, because there will always be that memory added to the holiday and often it is sad.
*Sigh*
That’s about it for the day’s plans; we’ll know we’ll be over at Margarita’s for quite a while. Better bring our evening medications. When we are over there we just sorta fit into the families rolling plans. EXCEPT, I don’t go visiting relatives with them! Heheh, dear, dear … doesn’t say much for our comfort in strange places. Also I’ve made adjustments to language barriers, but not when the whole group of people are speaking Spanish. Yeeks! Our style here is to watch everything and nod/smile a lot. It’s best to watch the little kids that are always around, because they’re usually the focal point. But, after a while we start to drift off in our own thoughts, and then we just want to be home. It’s a pretty big deal though that someone’s gotten us to leave the keyboard.
Funny, I’m like this at my sons' place too. I max out at about 4 hours away from home. *Sigh* I’ll be one day really easy to slip into a nursing home as long as they have high access Internet. Swing by and take me for a drive for a couple of hours and we’ll good to go for another month. Just don’t know how I’ll fit my couch into the small space allowed. Hmm ...
Ok, moving right along here.
What other thoughts on the day … Been starting to think about school again. Hmm, I wonder if I shouldn’t sign up for the next semester now. Ok, good. That is all taken care of. Officially, I am registered. We’re just going to do the one multicultural course this semester and see where things go from there. Please God, let me get with the program! I want to do school. This is very important to me. Help me figure out how to do what I need to do, when I need to do it. And, let me work ahead of time this semester and not behind. There must be some reason; I should be taking this course again. Let it be the right decision.
*Sigh* AGAIN…
I might need some help learning to think as a student again. I lost that edge. And, as V says … I got to just “do it.” Any help here in this direction will be readily accepted.
Hmm, better figure out my time here. Margarita’s by 1 pm (or fashionably a little later). 12:30 leave to get the Corona’s, 11:30 shower. Ok, that’s doable … just 40 more minutes to write though.
What’s next? Hmm, we’re not going to have a work talk, though I’m sure it will come up this afternoon. At some point, we’ll begin comparing notes with Margarita. She does a lot more socializing with the other staff than me, but is the best at the center for keeping secrets. What I like is the part where I can think through stuff with her … not her giving me secrets, but by what she knows how to better process things. She’s very fun to talk to and we laugh a lot. Unfortunately, she scolds too. :(
Hmm, we’re back now, but its about an hour later. V came home so we chatted and I got my shower in and dressed. Now, just one more half hour and we’ll pick up the beer. We’re doing it, real progress!
Seems like we have a lazy mind now … nothing that we have to talk about … one note, Dr. M wasn’t seen for holiday reasons yesterday, we’ll see him again Thursday night and then Tuesday morning. Umm, that’s just a small note.
We would like to talk about one more thing. This is my appreciation for people stopping by or being in contact. I never felt so alone over the holidays that someone couldn’t reach out to me if I had needed a hand. Deb, Mal, Christina, Bon … I want to thank you for being around. And, too thanks for your patience in getting through the video. I’m not sure if it’s working for Deb yet, but we got to talk to the famed duo while they waited ever so patiently for it to unwhirl using Dial-up. That was very fun, cuz it went slow enough we could talk about some of the pictures at the same time. I’m trying to learn its ok to IM people, but we’re still thinking we’re going to bother someone. I know, we've been told otherwise. That’s one of the neat things about visiting other blogs, you get to get different tones and tempos of others comfort and clarity. It makes me feel more at home, like my eccentricities will be accepted.
Obviously, I’m not one of the most assertive of our parts. Think our hardest part was in getting the IM from Macadam. We’ve left that go in our thoughts with some of your all more reasonable thoughts of the situation, and yesterday, I IM’d for a minute with my youngest son before he had to go and get back into his game. How alike the younger two are; especially in there keen appreciation of the computer. Hmm, I wonder if we’re all like a Nerd family? Yeeks, don’t think so. I’ve never had a need to carry a pocket calculator or anything. Maybe more just like regular folk in the 21rst century. Thinking of the picture that V had in his blog yesterday of the naked man working on a geographical drawing. Maybe people have stretched their mind all through time trying to figure out the next and the next hard thing. We’re taking a slower more leisurely pass through. But, in a week as students again.
Maybe I could finish up these last few moments on those thoughts. I have an appreciation of how people think and feel and interact with one another. I am a little disappointed that I will have to take the easier course, because although it is still very much like work, it isn’t about the mind directly. It is about how cultures interact. I hope that we will find new excitement as we go down that path. So far, we had done 7 of the 10 weeks and we hadn’t done the final 30 page paper. It will be a good time to get down new study habits. We’ve done a lot of playing in the last month or so. I’m pretty sure, you can’t just hand in the same papers, so the idea will be to progress the thoughts, I was already learning toward. I know that I’d had an “A” before, so it is not that part that concerns me. I want to get to the point, where I am reading the suggested readings that go along with the text, and where we’re pulling together that last paper from square one. I do think we’ll keep the outline from before, because we hadn’t started that work.
Darn, I wanted to see if the course was up yet, but I’m going to need to sign off after clearing history, etc. There is not enough time to go through that at this point. Maybe though, we could take a note? We are being motivated enough to check in on the course, and look into the book store to assure ourselves the same book is being used. That’s a step, right?
Ok, better get going … don’t want to be TOOO late
Love you!
Us
AHA~!
Well... We saw V off to work, YAWWWWWWWWWN, Let's go back to bed!!! YAYYYYY VACATIONS!!!!
us's
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year V. and ALL
It is with much love in my heart that I give this gift to V. and YOU!
I so want you all to see it! We're kind of proud of our first attempt. Sr. Rosemary would say, "God works through people!" Pretty darn cool!
Always our love,
Ayn and all
This just sparkled my day!
Christina, I cannot believe the coincidence of your card and our gifts to the Sisters being from the same artist. Out of billions of items for sale, how cool is that! God, sure does work in mysterious ways! It turns out that these lovely items are made from Jim Shore as part of his Heartwood Creek Collection. I learned that your angel is called, "Angel with Nativity Gown." Sister Mary Margaret's angel you see here in blue is called,"Watcher of Villages and Valleys." And, Sister Tess' piece is called quite naturally, "Noah's Ark". Oh, and Shore was the 2004 National Association of Limited Edition Dealers Artist of the Year, and his statues are all about 10-12" high and are made of stone resin.
Woo HOOO, you live, learn, and love every day! Thanks to your friend for her similar good taste!
Christmas All Day Long and Spirit Ever After
Lost Sheep
Good morning and Merry Christmas! We decided we should write this morning because the cable service is for the time being refusing to connect. It is about 1:30 am. We’re going to have faith though that this is the cable company’s error and they are working to fix the error. The cable on my TV is fine. And, yes, we’ve paid the cable bill. The little box though is only blinking one green light. We did our part in disconnecting and reconnecting it for over a minute. That is supposed to help in some situations. We just have to be patient now and give it some time. We’ve gone through this before.
We were sending out cards at the time it went down. So, have to check our mindset. The best thing was that we remembered it WAS Christmas, so we could eat the Christmas cookies made by our friend. Hey friend! We waited until it was the right time!!!
The kitties are pretty active right now. They are playing a game with something. I think they are chasing the top of a milk carton or some other similar object. They want to tell me that it is time to fill the kitty dish. Shoot, maybe Santa would be upset if we didn’t feed them? Better get on that right away. It’s just that I like the sound of them up, and I know if they get the wet food, they will want to go back to bed. Hmm. Think the Santa argument holds up the best. BRB
Ok, that worked out, they are fed and we are all good buddies again. We also started the coffee and poured ourselves some cereal. This is all good.
I want to apologize for the despondency of the last post. And, I want to thank Christina and Deb for giving me another approach. I still don’t quite understand my son’s usage of the word, “bother.” But, we’re working on the part of it as something just said in haste and frustration. We have no idea of how the rest of his life is going. Most likely he felt pressured by time and his busyness and he wasn’t happy at me putting him off. He knows that in the past we’ve gotten depressed by being on our own over the holidays, and as Christina said, that’s about the last thing a male at 25 wants to worry about, plus, the fact that I was over sensitive because holidays are emotional. So, we’re going to let it slide until there is someone to talk to directly. It’ll be ok… cuz, I’m ok … and also as Christina mentions, God is always here with me. She’s right.
We’re already thinking of the Christmas presents and cards, but don’t feel it is the right time yet to be opening them. They are the ones given by others at the center. They hold a special part of the day. Maybe after it gets light out and we know there are people about. AHA! Most likely coffee is ready! Hmm, Missy has decided to sit with me for a while. She’s watching the computer from the back of the couch. I think one of the kitties ate too fast, because there was a little problem on the floor in the hallway. Hmm, poor kitty. Maybe we’ll wait until stomachs calm down and give them an extra meal later. One of them’s tummy is probably empty. L
Hmm, ok, what else … We were thinking today that we might do a little coloring. It has been awhile. Those wonderful colored pencils always tweak our interest and we’ve not colored enough to try out the pencil sharpener. There are other toys yet to play with. We went to work yesterday to pick-up the headset and “Moviemaker,” we’d left there. I guess we were in a pretty big rush to start our vacation, plus we didn’t want to be late for Dr. M.
Casey had the majority of that meeting. I don’t think we’ve talked about it yet. The thing was that the system had decided for his Christmas present, we were going to shake his hand. We are half way through year six and hadn’t been able to do this yet. I don’t know maybe we talked about this already … what is mostly happening now is that we’re imagining Dr. M. again holding out his hand. Casey had told him, he would have to be very still and stand in a particular place. She’d gone through her fears of Grandfather catching us and being able to again see safe images, both before and present. She struggled then to keep Grandfather separate from Dr. M., though she still had problems understanding that he wasn’t “real.” She said she sees him in her head, so that must have meant he was real. I think progress was made in her understanding that at least grandfather wasn’t in the room. His hand looked so steady extended. There was a warmth feeling when she put her hand in his, then the quick release after a few seconds. And, then things went very fast in our mind and we were quickly out the door.
Shoot, shoot … suddenly we feel very tired. I think we need to lay down for a little bit. Maybe when we get up the cable will be working?
We’re up again. It is now 4:30 am. And, we’re thinking V is going to worry about us. There has been some progress made in that there are now at least two lights on the cable box. When we’re up close other lights seem to be on, but I think they are more or less reflecting the lights that are on. Just in case, we tried disconnecting the computer, then signing on again … this was t no avail. It is very discouraging on Christmas morning not to be connected. But, we’re going to hold up.
Damn … our mind is starting to close down again. We sense our eyes are closed and we’re not thinking, ok … 4 or 5 times in a row … We’re going to need concentrating very hard or go back to bed. How about we try some more coffee?
Better. Ok, so Christmas morning. Temporarily, we’re cut-off from people and feeling kind of down. Maybe it is time to open presents? Would that make us feel better. When we used to celebrate with others that is what we would do. Christmas morning was for packages. Hmm, no one is here to tell us different, maybe it would be ok J
Umm BRB…
Awe … that was nice! Hmm, puts a smile on my face.
But, still no cable … no V. L
Ok, there is going to need to be a plan. It’s almost 6 am. The first phase of the day is nearing an end. I have to be thinking the cable could start working any moment, or it could be out for several days, at least until my friend figured out I was disconnected from the world and came to check on me. Ok, if I really opened my possibilities I would go to a pay phone and dial some number. I suppose I could look up Comcast. Most payphones don’t work, and they make you stand out in the cold. How would we put-up with that long enough to be on the cable numbers long hold. We’d need to be able to sit. I used to remember phones that had long cords and allowed you to dial from the car. I have no idea where these are. Maybe gas stations though, that would be the best guess. I’d have to have some coins. A lot if I would be put on hold. Maybe I could just call my friend and ask him to call for me? I think it would have to wait a while for him though, because he’d be in the middle of Christmas with his family.
Ok, let’s think positively. If my cable is down maybe others in the neighborhood are down too, so the cable company already knows there is a problem and they are working on it. True there was one light and now there are two. Maybe they were short-handed because of the holiday. Maybe there were a lot of families trying to connect to their loved ones. Going to need toughening up. Maybe, go into a semi-comotose stage? No … no sleeping on the couch. The computer can do a lot even without being connected. We are going to need distracting our mind a little bit. Still isn’t going to help V. He’ll worry, but most likely figure I’m having connection problems. He won’t be able to do anything to help. We’re pretty much on our own for a bit. We’ll be ok? Hmm, do I have any music without the computer internet? Hmm, how bout on cable tv? Remember those music channels in the 700s? Let’s try. AHA! Christmas music! No interruptions! See, we’re going to do this.
Ok, next …Remember we got a new CD not installed yet? The Organizer? Let’s load that now and see if it has any recording capabilities. Good? K.
We're back to the original post. We're enjoying the background music and feel fit and snug with the earphones. So far the nifty-neato toys are allowing us to write, record our voice, insert pictures, then maybe everything can be slipped over to the notebook in Organizer. Why don’t we try that now :) Shoot, we don't like the first trial. Maybe if we try to shorten the width prior to posting?
Hmm, that helps. But, the audio recording isn't transferring. We are also noting that the recording is continuing from the previous recording rather than starting over with a new note. So, we have to try to think out how the computer programs would be integrated best. I don't think we can copy the organizer over to this document. Let's try that once.
Sunday, December 25, 2005 1:30 AM - 2:30 AM - Wake-up and go to computer.
Sunday, December 25, 2005 2:30 AM - 3:00 AM - Lose Internet signal, start a post off-line,
Sunday, December 25, 2005 3:00 AM - 5:00 AM - Go back to bed.
Sunday, December 25, 2005 5:00 AM - 6:00 AM - Wake-up, try connections over again, decide to open presents, find Christmas music, and set-up Organizer program.
Sunday, December 25, 2005 6:00 AM - 7:30 AM - Start to play with off-line toys. Ran a diagnosis of situation through Word document. Decide we have to not fall apart. Think through some new structures. Check out recording programs along side opening a new One-Note Register.
AHA! That works! I just copied over my schedule to one note. Seems like so far this is the program to carry master copy of everything.
Let's check out that contact list again. I wonder if we can tie it together by date? Ok, ok … Good, that was good playing. We found that we could link most of the areas by using contact history. That seems pretty good.
Audio recording started: 7:36 AM Sunday, December 25, 2005
Audio recording started: 7:37 AM Sunday, December 25, 2005
We're back to writing now so we can concentrate on our slower thinking. Someone found our small bag of little tiny chocolate chip cookies Wooo HOOOO!!! That will help.
Ok, let's frame the new order. It's 7:51 am. According to the calendar, we were scheduled this last half hour to be doing something new. Let's plan out the next block of time. Anything have to get done? Naw, it's Christmas morning! Not a care in the world! Hmm, thinking for a sec of the Diary project, but that is online and got a poor reception from V. But, to be fair, he was on the way out the door. All he said so far was "K." Shoot … that's terrible. No information shared here at all. :(
Ok, next project … off-line project. I could write for a while, no problem there, but I don't have anything special going on in my mind. Kind of eager just to be doing something. If I were on-line, I would have been visiting by now. But … ok, moving on.
I don't want to think too much about Christmas. I do figure about now people all over the world are getting up to open presents and share the holiday morning with each other. We're ok with that .. Merry Christmas everyone. BUT, that's enough thinking about you all. Same goes for families of past both birth and of our own creation. I'm just not a part of all that. What I do have is my home, Christmas music and toys to play with. I know that this is the Lord's Day, but since we are not churchgoers, that avenue, does not suit us this morning either. I know that God know I am here. I know he's here too, but maybe he's peeking in over at the neighbor's to see what's under their Christmas tree. It's ok God. I understand. The Christmas music though was a good touch!
I just feel bad about V. We would have talked already. I'd ask him how he slept, how his Christmas Eve party was, if he got any interesting gifts, what did they have for dinner, and if there was anything happening out in the community. Though it would go on and might cover an hour or two of time. After a while, we would be both wandering off to our separate directions, though my favorite time is when we're both on line, so if anything interesting come up, I could just say, "Hey V!" or him "Yo Ann!" Ahh V's a Saint.
Hmm, I wonder if there is any more coffee. Maybe I'll check that out one more time. BRB … No reason I shouldn't take my medicine too. Maybe that will help more than I can realize. Ok, mark time 8:11 am. We put a dinner in the microwave for a formal breakfast too. Hmm, about 8 minutes. Then after that is over, we are going to need to start focussing on something … We better give ourselves to 8:45-9:00. Give us the advantage of being properly medicated. The ones we really consider important are the anti-psychotic, depression, and anxiety. Well, one more, there is one that helps me to focus. That's like an extra plus. I can feel the affects of the depression and anxiety medicines, but I'm not sure of the affect of the anti-psychotic. Maybe next time we get an new batch, we could read the instructions, or talk to Dr. M. if we remember. We've, of course, tried that before, but the reason we take it always gets a little muddled. The other five medicines are for physical problems *sigh*.
Shoot, here we are wondering if we are going to go crazy and that which keeps us on this side the fence. This can't be good. We're doing better though … regular Dr. appointment in a couple weeks, eyes checked, and memory checked. Yup, yup zooming right along. I don't want to be gruesome and won't go down that track for long, but the eye doctor scared me the other day and I think he did it on purpose. He said the leading cause of blindness in people aged 65 was diabetes. Thanks Doc. Do you think those people take psychology in college, or just tech courses? Now, I should focus on my upcoming blindness?? Ok, ok .. We didn't think that was going to be a good track, next? AHA breakfast is ready. BRB
:) Good stuff. My mind has been wandering. Somehow we got stuck on a very old thread. It concerned an old neighbor. We had met him back 21 years ago. I had a crush on him. He was married with two kids and at home working on his doctoral degree. We would get together outside during the mornings because we had kids that were of similar age and the kids enjoyed playing together along with several other families of kids. I had a crush on him, because he was so nice. He had a nice Boston accent and could talk about everything with intelligence. But, there is another memory that goes with that story. His wife invited me out to a movie at a fancy suburban theatre one Saturday afternoon. She was very business savvy and worked for kodak in an exec. Position. I thought great! I wanted to know her better. The movie she took me to though was some kind of a "dark" picture where somebody wasn't faithful to his spouse and ends up with a terrible life. I think someone died. That scared the hell out of me. I hadn't put together thoughts of being unfaithful, but I could sense how angry she was. Soon after I agreed to the move my husband was pushing. Later he thought I was too close to certain people. I saw the neighbor a few times after that, but I knew I would have to say good-bye.
I'm really not sure why I am thinking of this now over 20 years later. Maybe because I had known he was a friend and although I had a husband, I didn't have a friend in the world. I have it better now, especially because of computer people. I don't need people to talk to me everyday, I do need people who are nice. Niceness counts a lot.
Oh man … My Internet is back up. V's not here. Maybe he is taking a nap. It's 9 am. I made it through. Life is good! I believe in Christmas miracles!
Us
Amen
Son #1 [4:07 P.M.]: hey wanted to wish happy christmas and were going to have to try and get a time to see each other either over next few days mon tues wed or like next weekend
Aynetal3 [4:07 P.M.]: k
Son #1 [4:08 P.M.]: im leaning more towards next sat or sunday wont really be able to tomarrow i have three diff gettogethers but whats your schedule
Son #1 [4:08 P.M.]: what would you like
Aynetal3 [4:09 P.M.]: Not sure yet ... we'll see later
Son #1 [4:09 P.M.]: ok but sometime news year weekend we can you think?
Aynetal3 [4:10 P.M.]: I'm being real confused now not a good time for me ..
Aynetal3 [4:10 P.M.]: can we talk later
Son #1 [4:10 P.M.]: ok im sorry to bother
Son #1 [4:10 P.M.]: ttyl
Aynetal3 [4:10 P.M.]: it was a bother?
Aynetal3 [4:11 P.M.]: i'm sorry
Son #1 [4:11 P.M.]: love you have a good christmas
Aynetal3 [4:11 P.M.]: thank you you too
Son #1 signed off at 4:11 P.M
Pshwoo … ok, we gotta work through this one. A few moments ago after no contact for about a month, my #1 son IMs. This is the son out of the three who usually cares the most. The others won’t contact me. There was no hello, no goodbye. Damn the tears. I don’t know what we did wrong. We don’t understand this. We paused in between to take our medicine. It’s almost time anyway, right? It’ll be ok, it’ll be ok. Ok, mark the time … we’ll be calmer at 5 pm. We fixed ourselves a drink. I’m not much a drinker. Half margarita mix, half water, ice. We’re ok here. It’s ok …
This is the hard part of being alone. It is one thing to be alone, because usually I don’t feel as if we’re alone. We feel ourselves a part of the community. I will see our friend again after Tuesday, people closest have left for parties. Don’t think of parties 4:42. It’s going to be ok. Feel like I just had the wind knocked out of me. Keep wiping away my eyes. This is where we have to be strong, right?
Ok, go over the rules. This isn’t the time to make serious decisions. No ultimatums, no anger, hurt. Things hurt. As soon as I saw his screen name, we got muddled. Had thought we might hear from him sometime, but not like this. How did he get so angry. No bad things had been said before. Ok, we’re not going to panic. I feel like I been shocked. Ok, we don’t have to go there … look around, be here, be here. I look up to see what I could to mark my place. The picture of the boys as children smiling down on me. Oh Lord … what have I done. It came too fast … I wasn’t sure of my footing, felt suddenly too emotional … I thought ok, calm be calm … don’t say anything dumb, but by then it was already over.
4:51 …
Ok, ok shhhh, shhhh … deep breaths. We can do this. I can’t breath.
Ok … we’re better 5:00 pm. The crying has stopped. We’re breathing again. Our eyes are still hot … feeling vulnerable. Hear the sounds of football in the background. See the light, tissues, books, colored pencils. See the keyboard. We paused to rub our hand. Left hand still feels numb. Yesterday, we had our eyes checked after 10 years not doing it. He said I need trifocals. He said with them, my eyesight would improve three lines. He said my eyes are at 400 without glasses. That’s ok, I knew I needed glasses. He said the glasses will give me 20/20 eyesight. That’s the good thing. We’ll use the old frames. I’m ok with that.
Ok … we’re going to have to move on to thoughts not so caustic. If I thought of Christina, she might ask me to consider giving it up to God.
Dear God, help the boys to not be so angry. Help their father. Help me. Help me be good. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost Amen
What a Pleasant, Pleasant Day
Good Morning!
Ahh what a wonderful morning! There is plenty to be happy and excited for. Though #1 on that list might be something like it is one day before Christmas Vacation and 10 WHOLE ENTIRE days off work! Wooo HOOO!!
I cannot say that the last day before vacation is always real productive, but I’ll have the Q assistant here again today, to remind to stay the course. About midday there will be extra merriment in that the Clients will have a small gift exchange and refreshments. Usually, they are given a chance to dance, but I think Sr. has in mind a special holiday movie. At least so says the grapevine! Most likely they will still get their dancing in because is a Thursday which means the dance instructor will be in. YAYYYY!
After the clients settle in, the staff is being treated to a special turkey lunch. I think more in the order of sandwiches and potato salad, AND cranberries! After that we’ll have the staff gift exchange. Wooo HOOO!! I had especially good luck yesterday in that all the Christmas gifts I had ordered came in AND one of the staff’s daughters whom I am well acquainted had come in with her mother and sister and took on the project of gift wrapping! We of course got permission to pay her for the task, though money couldn’t take the place of how happy I was with her work.
And then, after work, we went out to get the last few gifts. We may have indicated before we have this one particular Hallmark store we frequent at Christmas. Oh what fun! I ended up getting four gifts. We found a special collection by an artist whose name I’m not able to remember, but he does I believe a form of plaster? I’m not sure. The objects are very heavy and painted in a great amount of small detail. We found for the nice Sister that stays with Sister Tess an angel whose gown reveals a small old fashioned community centered on the church. It is about a foot tall and is exquisite! We decided on that particular one, because I felt it could be displayed year round, although I had to let go my eye on the other angel who had revealed the Nativity scene.
For Sister Tess we found this wonderful, wonderful Noah’s ark design from the same artist. What a beauty. I noticed the heavy boat first, then on top the deck there is the housed-in area of the boat, Noah and his wife, and some of the neatest little animals. The final selling point was the ark was extended off its platform and underneath the boat there are like five fishes swimming (extended by little metal extenders). Oh, man it’s just tooo nice! Again, it was covered in finely painted detail.
We found one smaller gift for Sister Tess, our co-worker had set-up the Nativity Scene in the front hall, but she indicated a concern there was nothing to “top” the scene where the lights meet. The scene is very 3-D and sits on a table in front of the large window in front of Sr. Tess’ office. It is beautiful. So we found a tree topper that would do of an angel in flight. We thought “Perfect!”
We had one more gift we had forgotten for the little girl (about 10), who we’ve bought for each Christmas since being at the center. We’ve been to her home often and know that she comes in for the party. We had talked to her yesterday about how she would be spending her holiday and other Christmassy matters in general. We were still fretting that we hadn’t found the right gift. The clerks had started the process of finding boxes for the artwork and they’d set out a chair by the cashiers for me to sit. Low and behold!!! I looked up and there it was … the most adorable special Christmas apron, I’d ever done seen! What we had talked to the little girl about was helping her mother bake for the season. She was very interested in the conversation and had said that she could make cakes by herself now, but that she hadn’t baked cookies! Wow! What incredible luck I have!!! I know that her mother too will value the thought of her daughter maturing enough to be interested in baking, she is an excellent cook herself! Wow!
We left the gifts locked in the car and can hardly wait to get to work where they can be looked at once more before being wrapped. AHA! It’s 6 am and V is JUST getting up. We’ll have to give him a little grief here! Well, just a little. I couldn’t connect to him yesterday at work, because all afternoon the assistant was using my computer. And, after I’d gotten back from shopping he hadn’t signed on. Tsch, tsch, tsch… Hmm, he had to take the phone, and then signed off. *Sigh*
Hmm, one more event that was pretty exciting. Yesterday, my love IM’d about five and wanted to know if I would like company in an hour YOOOOHOOOOO WOULD I??? Hehehe, ah bliss, pure bliss. The romancing was something out of this world. Hehehe enough said there. We were ok, until he volunteered to take the garbage out and in the process rested the dirty bag on my clean kitchen counter. YEEKS super monster came out. We caught her in a moment’s time, shoot that was quick … I think we’ll blame it this time on being so highly emotionally charged. *giggle*
Whoops, it’s time … better get goin! Take care!!!
God Bless the patient New Yorkers
AHA V!!!!! What do you think of this one!!!
Moving Right Along Here
Nothing much to say ... Interesting that's always what we tell Dr. M. too, then we just start rattling away anyway ... hmmm.
It's nearly Christmas now!
(Picture prettier when clicked on!)
Good Morning,
Not too much time left this morning. I think we’ve all caught up with the rush of thoughts that happen when you open up your email box to see what the day’s brought with it. For the record, as much as I dislike hard mail, I do love to get emails!
This is the day our big baby is coming home, I hope. We just left him an emergency note for “HUGS NEEDED.” Ok, maybe we’re the big babies! *Sigh*
Everything is going along pretty good. We had a bad space yesterday though. We overate in the sugar and fats areas. We really need our diet buddy back. Oh oh … big CAT at the keyboard. Silly thing. I guess he needs hugs too. Yep, yep … he’s cuddled up between chest and keyboard. Smart kitty leaves our hands free. I wonder how many others across the country have taught their kitties to be computer compatible. Hmm. That’s another thing about my kitties, when I cough they don’t seem to get ruffled. I guess we’ve really learned to adapt to them. And, when they leave the hairballs, we’re right on top of it for them. *giggle*
I want also to say welcome to a new member of my visiting list. Although, I don’t go through the list as often as I should due to time constraints, there are a few people I like to get out to.
Tom is the new person. Stop by his place if you have a moment. I think that
Christina is already a frequent guest over there, so that says yards all by itself!
Tom welcome to our little corner of the world. May we share many memories as time progresses us. YAYY!
Whoo somebody’s kitty has a cold nose!
Hmm,
V’s back on line … Shouldn’t he be going to work by now? Ohhh ok, there he goes! We see
T’s up too, best not worry her this morning. I’m pretty sure
she gets more email than us! I saw again today someone wishing that she were
their Mom. I’m thinking, maybe she could hang a shingle!
“MoM business done here!” She says that
Christina has come down with a bad cold. I feel bad about that. No one should have a cold for Christmas. And that’s coming up pretty soon now … Just think 5 more days! And only 2 more days for vacation. YAYYY. Maybe we can figure out something … hmm, sneaky minds in process. I wonder if
Christina is still thinking she should be going into work. Hmm, that wouldn’t be a good idea. Now every time I think
her name, I imagine
her picture wrapped in a warm car blanket. Hmm, maybe a blanket with goose feathers! Yayyy that’s the ticket!
Whoops, Chief needed his ear rubbed … it was twitching. How on Earth can he look so comfortable laying on my wrists tucked in while my fingers type away. I guess this is the value of learning to type while holding your wrists in one place. Every once in a while like now, he untucks just enough to lift his head. I can’t see if his eyes are open, but we’re thinking he’s reading along and wants to know what we think of him. “Gosh Chief, you sure are a pretty kitty!”
Yesterday, we ordered the Christmas gifts for work as planned. Cept along with our peer, we ordered a cordless mouse for ourselves as well. We figured ummm, we should have at least one gift for sure! Heheheh. Yesterday was good in some respect, like Sr. was happy with me all day J YAYYYY!! She wrote the word, “Thanks!” on something we had done, and she was so mellow at the client’s lunch that she stayed with me and allowed me to say a few things about Christmas. Since she was in a good mood, I figured she should know what our elves were up to. It’s always a good idea to work out these kinks ahead of time. Of course, she thought I spent too much money on fellow staff, and grimaced when I told her about the Client’s gift to her. I knew that would happen and I know its best to warn her it was coming. She is not a woman of open affection hehehe. She gave us permission to hang her murals on the hallway WITH masking tape. I’ve gotten yelled at several times, because I never remember which is ok to use J.
She only complained a little about the coloring pencil gift for the clients. I know she is going to think first off, “I give them enough!” But, I quickly explained this would be primarily just for use during Town Hall and the Thinking Group. My peer was crabby and rushed yesterday, but I outstretched that much too. I told her on the way out that I’d gotten the pencils and pencil sharpener for the client’s and told her if she hadn’t gotten anything yet, did she want to come in with me. Hehehe … this is something we go through every year. I’ve gone a year or two without asking for her contribution, but then she gets yucky complaining about the irrelevance of my gifts to them. Sooo, if she contributes even a little bit, she feels much better J YAYYY! Whose to say, maybe it might not also mean an extra cookie or two as well!
We had a pretty good meeting with Dr. M. yesterday. We talked about this weekend’s work and we talked about school. I think we’re pretty ready to do something. We also talked to the teacher and school counselor. The school counselor let us know what we would have to do, but we’re still waiting on the teacher’s email. It’s been our experience, she’s not the speediest corresponder. Last time we tried to fix things was the 10th, she didn’t respond back until the 16th, and we found her response yesterday on the 19th. Yeeks! We also scolded the counselor for taking five days to get back to us. But, fortunately that inspired her to respond right away yesterday. YAYYY!
I think lack of responses in or out of the courseroom is something I am going to need build into my expectations of this school. Especially, one of the problems I’d conveyed to the counselor is lack of response from the teacher whose course we dropped. We’re only going to take one course over next semester … most likely multi-cultural. That will be ok. There’s a slim chance that I could get an incomplete, but I’m not too sure if she’ll bend that much. We’ll wait and see. She gave me her AOL email so maybe that will help. She’s horrible with the school email L
Another thing that happened yesterday is that Dr. M. decided to push that I get back to the doctor’s to check on problems with the diabetes. This is a pretty terrible thing for us to do, but we had a gaggle of complaints physically, that seem to be stacking up. One of the most serious is the eyesight. Driving home in the dark is becoming a nightmare. I’m realizing that we’re not really looking as much straight ahead as we can. More looking down at the white dashes to make sure we stay in the lines. I worry about myself being a danger mostly to the other drivers. I can adjust myself around the cars immediately around me, but I can’t see forward in traffic as we used to. We’re hoping that will be cared for with our friend’s Christmas gift of going to see an eye doctor. Yesterday, I worried about the hunger cravings again, and the numbness of my left hand that seems unrelenting. *Sigh* always something.
Ok, ok … everything is in the works now … and that is progress, right? Still we think of
Tom’s entries read this morning.
He talked of differences in days where things could get done and then the days where that wasn’t happening. We find that often too. So, when we get the good days, we try to get in as much as possible. Always with the hope that one day we’ll get better at accomplishing things. So, with that … we should be moving along … time for that shower.
Take care all!
Us
*Sigh* Just four more days :)
Good morning,
It’s just me. We only have 45 minutes now before needing to take a shower. It is a Dr. M. morning and we’re looking forward to that.
I woke up this morning with an email from my sweetie … that was pretty neat. Most important is although it will take two days (he drove); he’s on his way home this morning. YAYYYY!!
One more YAYYYY first thing … BEAR’S WON!!!! Thadda way guys! I really don’t know a lot of football, but V says it was an important game. I still love listening to it, but I was way too tired to stay up last night past bedtime. I’m grateful for the news this morning. Chicago is doing well this year!
There was a lot of activity going on at the other blog this weekend. Some good, some not so good, but I figure we’ve gotten past now the first weekend. I think that’s the most stressful time when opening new ventures. One way or another, that part consumed most the weekend. No complaints here though; we feel it is a worthwhile project of our time.
We had opportunities throughout to be meeting up with on-line friends. Seems the popular thread is shopping. Hmm, reminds me better check bank account, hold on. Looks ok, over there. I’m not sure why though it has taken so long for the rent check to clear … looks like it’s almost ready now. Worry most about the cable bill for obvious addicted to this computer reasons. We’ll make sure that gets paid next J.
We’ve explained already our shopping ideas, so we won’t go back over that territory, but I really would like to admit, I am looking very strongly at the Holiday time starting this Friday. We’re hoping that we’ll be ok with school next semester, but we’re unsure and worrying about financial aid. Hopefully, the counselor will call back today, or maybe better I should write an email this morning. Doesn’t do the situation any good to just be worrying over it. We’ll be able to talk to Dr. M. about this morning.
Nothin much else to report from the weekend … Just four more days of work. I think there will be a little holiday party on Thursday, one for the clients and one for the staff. Small gift exchanges and perhaps we’ll share a little turkey for sandwiches. Maybe some pie??? :)
Shoot, feel still sleepy. *Sigh* Maybe its that time we slip into the shower. Ohhhh that sounds good! Take care.
Top Ten Tagged Totally
Man-o-man … We’ve been tag-teamed! First by Christina, then by her mother! Wow! Well, we’ll play along AGAIN … only to the extent, somebody come by and tag themselves! We’re still a little uncomfortable of “impooooooooosing” this on others! AHEM!
I’m not going to look back at the first 10 things, while trying not to answer the manner. I am impressed T with the thought you placed in your answers. Oh Lordy, let’s not hope that this assumed the rest of my evening Hehehe…
One more thing … I am going to STEAL the horsie picture!!!! I figured if V could steal Christina, I could then steal the both of you. I want to stare at that picture to pieces! When I first saw it, I was so confused on who was who. What fortune to have been God-given a matching set of women held Siamese at the heart. Shoot, now your all making me cry.
Yup, yup here goes the rest of my night. What makes me feel happy … today ...
#1 Looking at my new picture saved of the most incredible duo.
#2 Thinking that one day my fingers are going to brush along the cement blocks that have been smoothed over with paint by T.
#3 That one day I will see V and Christina sitting before me in the same glance, T. will be serving lemonade to Bon and Mal … they’ll be on sun-warmed grass and when they look-up they’ll have to guard the yellow elements from their eyes, and people will be explaining to me how to understand poetry. And, we’ll just smile and laugh watching it dancing before us!
#4 Dreaming that one day someone will let me pet her horse!
#5 Thinking one day I’ll run into that Girl Scout Brownie who comes by and cleans up my desk because she has a smile in her pocket!
#6 When we one day meet Bon and Mal, we’ll remember that although they look the same, Mal is taller!
#7 That one day Deb will going to cook for us and it will be a complete seven courser and include family, turkey, and brownies, but then she’ll let me load the dishwasher, while everyone leaves but her, and she puts her feet up to gab with us and chase down our meals with hot coffee!
#8 Thinking I’m going to go into senility one year with our imagination and sense of humor still intact!
#9 That some one of us nerves it up and goes out to get a seafood salad sub for dinner! Maybe it would make our friend feel better if we used just a tiny bit of the emergency money left for us, hmm?? Sure, go ahead and go in your pj’s whose going to know what’s under that nice long coat?!
#10 That we dare step away from the computer for one evening to watch ummmmmmmmm … AHA! No one told us NFL is on Saturdays too! Ok, now let’s plan ahead. Hmm, “You’ve Got Mail” is obviously tempting … YOOO HOOO ok … we’re going football until 7 pm (It’s 4 pm now), and then at 7 PM!!!!!! Sound of Music is on! That’s one of our favorites. It’s the first indoor movie I ever remember seeing and we went with our favorite Gramma who died when we were 12. What a smart woman she was!
Man, do I love Saturday mornings!
Good Morning, good morning!
I woke up this morning and was sooooo pleased to know that Gab was on duty last night! She’s gotten the message through with DA emails notifying people that we are offering this service. I putzed around over there a little, but feel comfortable enough to let it run its own course for a bit. So excited with its opening today.
I’m not sure what I have left to talk about, but since when has that stopped me from a long post on a wonderful Saturday morning! Just have to get my mind in order.
I’ve been pleased to pieces to have T back in town. She’s talking though of multiple trips in the near future. Wow! Does that woman move! Hehehe She says though she’s bringing her laptop with her for most of the next trips … soooo, I guess it’s going to be like we’re all on the road. I’m hoping at least she keeps us up with what’s happening out there. I am looking very forward to hearing her thoughts as she is working on a new mural. YAYYYYY!!! AND, she didn’t seem to be upset with the mess, cuz Vince cleaned most of it up! AND, she brought us all back a new buildings of our very own! Wooo HOOOO!!! She sure knows how to treat us all well!
We’re looking forward to our next purchase. We bought from Amazon speakers and microphone like thingy to post more verbal messages in the posts. You all won’t have to listen to them, but it feels like a really neat way to communicate. I’m toying with the idea of entering verbally the posts that are written so that people can hear them instead of reading, but I don’t know if that isn’t redundant. We’ll have to see. I’m hoping they get here by Thursday, because I have my things sent to the Center and after that I’ll be on holiday! YAYYYY!
My sweetie pie has left another card, and yesterday he left me a message during the day as to how things were going. Lordy … his people can sure shop! I’m not sure if I mentioned it or not, but he’s gone to see his daughter graduate from collage. My thinking is that he is a very proud Daddy!!
I’m not sure if I mentioned Dr. M. appointment … this is an excerpt from an email to sweetie-pie in that regard.
Half of the time with Dr. M. was spent talking about the memory test, I think he wanted to make sure I was decompressed after taking them. He actually brought up the subject where we'd forgotten about it. I'm not quite all that sure what happened, but during part where we were remembering the first MMPI, we got into a bad space of remembering the Clinic staff in MN attacking us and us going blank for quite some time. Just remembered the kicking, thrashing, and head pounding against the tile floor, as they were taking me apart, and then waking up on a mattress laid on the floor in a corner. Alone. In an unfriendly place with the door locked.
It was a very bad experience and was pretty traumatic yesterday again. It had come up in the fear we felt of the MN people having tested us with the MMPI and had told us that we were lying and had purposely thrown the test. We hadn’t. That was the worst about that whole experience there was absolutely no trust in either direction.
Anyway, we’re trying to put that other bad experience behind us. The testing at the U was nothing like that. It was long, but not unpleasant.
The other half of Dr. M.’s time was talking about the excitement around here with the blogs. It used to be that he was asked by us to read all of them, but over the last year, he’s only read a few posts that we wanted him to specifically see. That’s the neat part about him, not only has he got a tremendously smiley personality, he’s willing to do anything within each hour I ask … well, within reason!
We were asking this time more specifically about the ideals in the DA blog. We wanted to know if he thought it would work. I think he said something more where time will tell. Shoot, we wanted a magic forecast! Heheheh. He was still complimentary of the Teams effort and I know he understands our strong views on community. I enjoy talking over the events with him. On the way out the door, we apologized for being so silly during the hour and he looked at is and smiled and said, “Your Happy that’s a good thing!” Hehehe yup, yup.
There’s nothing much to report on work this week. It was low to average in the amount of work accomplished. Pretty much I kept clean the surface, but did not go into much detail. Nothing to do, but try a little harder. We had a pretty neat session with the staff training this week. There were only 4 of us out of their and 4 were missing, so we decided not to hold to seriously a session on abuse, which was the original plan. We had already talked last week about it, so this week, we did a little bonding. We talked about relationships we had past the center and how well that did or did not support the upcoming holiday and time spent away from the center.
During my portion, I talked about all of you and the blogs. I was surprised to see how interested they were. None of them are really Internet savvy, so they didn’t know about rooms, IM’s, or blogs. Shoot, that’s pretty incredible if you ask me! Their familiarity covers looking up stuff on the Internet and emails. We had had a session on that about a year or two ago, when we had advocated to Sr., that all the staff get laptops with some of the government grant that we had gotten. At the center bought my big computer and 11 laptops for either the staff or upper leadership group of clients. It was a pretty big deal at the time and I’m still pleased with the decisions. There are a couple of staff who weren’t there yesterday, but have spent a little more time poking around the Internet, but I guess it takes a certain kind of person to get so involved in relationships over the computer. I sure am glad to think we’re one of that variety.
Nothing much is going on at school. We tried to contact our school counselor on Wednesday, but that’s usually discouraging. She runs characteristically about a week behind efforts to contact her. And, I’m really disgusted with how well she has her people screen her calls. Anyway … my guess is that we are going to fail out of the present course, which may or may not affect my funding. We’ll have to find out down the line. I need to talk to the counselor to know if I can even sign up for the next course starting January 3rd. We’ll have to wait and see. It didn’t come up with Dr. M.
Ok, and as long as we’re housecleaning here. “Yes, V … someone forgot to get her kitties an x-mas present” Shame, shame abounds! We’ll take care of that matter this week! And, as an aside from that situation, I figured out a Christmas gift you could give us. Any possibility I could send my camera and directions to you, you figure it out, maybe take a few pictures, and I’ll pay to have it sent back. And in the process you could tell me how the hell I get it to work! It’s been almost a couple of years now with no progress in that direction. That be a reeeeealy neat thing to do!! Cuz, someone’s kitties are complaining they want you to know just HOOOOOOOOOOOW beautiful they are. Let me know, K? Whoops here is Missy complaining again. Ouch … little jabs!
If I were really daring and knew how to use a camera I might think to take a picture of how vveeeeeeeeery messy my desk gets, naw … we’ll send over the polished image!
Ok, ok … that ‘bout brings me up to date. What’s next, what’s next…
Oops, more coffee and better take the medicine. We’re late …
Ahh better. Hmm, while we were away we figured out there are a couple of things we wanted to check on that we didn’t have time for during the week. Let’s look into that now!!
Wow!!! Just looking over Bon and Mal’s puzzle … I think I understand the gist of it now … they sent special instructions (YAYYY!). Thinking this is going to take one of our smarter minds hmmm. Wow! That’s pretty incredible actually. I figured with the example given (Lori’s) that the top left hand box had to be F or I, but there are sooooo many things to account for! Can you let me know if most people like use a lottttt of scratch paper hehehehe
Woo Hoo … Just had a flood of email mostly through Gab! Man is she fast! On top of everything she is. Sure am glad she’s on the Team. She has a tremendous amount to offer and is always first in line when it comes to taking on more work. YAYYY! All that is settled down for a while, and it is time to get back to my other thoughts. The next series belongs to Bon and Mal.
I just wanted to say thank you guys for sending us the links this week to some of your entries where you talk about getting together. It was especially useful to get your thoughts on how to engage in an excellent relationship. We want to congratulate you for 36 years of marriage. Anyone who has ever been married knows this is quite a feat! I think a lot of people start out in love, but don’t have the wherewithal in making all the necessary adaptations being a couple entails. You two are inspiring. I love it that you are able to be so giving to each other and honor the relationship daily with your best care!
Christina has also blessed our world this week with new thoughts to think through, the latest on colors. I am new to the color world, still working through my insecurities with black. But, I’ve made improvements. The biggest change has been with colored pencils. I think they are a darned handy tool to sit at everyone’s left wrist! We’ve now got a cup of about 36 colors, and a cup of about a dozen colored highlighters sitting here next to us. And, you most likely now know of our gift to the clients this year. I love the clients artwork, because they expose so much of their thoughts through their artwork. But, I still think color is all! One of my favorite songs back about ’79 was Harry Chapin singing/telling a story of a little boy who loved to paint all the colors in the rainbow, though in school he was punished for this. He ends with the statement, “But, I will paint colors … every one!” *Sigh*
Ahh that was just the thought. I didn’t see the song in the purchase area, but I turned on the “radio” part that includes 89 of his songs. Maybe I will hear it!
Another of Christina’s posts caught my attention. She quoted Einstein as saying “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” The next thing I think of is from over at Vince’s in his title of “To Grow is to be Anxious” by Rollo may, Ph.D.
I’m thinking at this point the insanity then would come from refusing to grow by the avoidance of things that cause anxiety. When I was in college the first time, we thought of this from our readings as the “walking dead.” It seemed like the qualification of being alive was being aware and active in the present, and not “living” by default of responding or reacting just to the same pattern or literagy of how things were in the past or perception of things in the future. This is not to say we can’t go back and reflect, or plan toward the future, it’s just that people have to maintain presence and relate directly.
I remember the feeling of being repetitive especially in having grown up with my family and wanting real love from them and the same in my relationship to my ex-husband. In each situation I kept repeating the same kind of efforts over and over again to receive not only love, but some sense of approval. I recognize this in current time by trying to win favor with my boss, especially when she yells. It’s taken a lot of work to be aware of this and try not to “react” as we do in our personality regressions. It’s hard because we need to train our whole system not to buy into her negativity or negative messages that we are less than “good people.” Another lesson learned is in accepting that we make mistakes.
We note this most often when our friend or V try and help by giving good direction. Shoot, we’re trying guys! You’ll notice it when we say, “Thanks! But, umm we’re going to try it this other way whether or not it’s right or wrong just to check out the theory, or figure out to what extreme we can safely go.” It’s sort of like watching your youngster get closer and closer to the curb without rebounding after him or her. I think the best thing is that we’re learning to trust ourselves more as well, were trying to trust our friend and V more in following clues without sticking our hand our hand repetitively in the fire, expecting not to get burned! YAYYYY V!
Ok, enough said here. I think we’ve caught up our longstanding thoughts of the week.
As it is now noon, we’re going to post now and then try to figure out what next to do, if not just start another post hehehehe. Eh, we’re like that!
T!!! We're Home Dear!
Whoa!!! We’re home T!!! We’re back to control central counting down the minutes until we next post
BTW … Is it Happy Hour yet?? Noticing V AND T missing uh huh, uh huh!
Soooooo, we all made it to FRIDAY!!!!! YAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!
We don’t want to think too much of work, but we probably should a little. IT’S OVER!!!! Shhh, shhh … nuf of that!
We almost had a little problem with Sr., but our good sense and pocket psychology rules are helping now. We were doing her a favor by gathering the last clients together to put chairs on top of the chair for Friday night wash the floors time after Thinking Group. Sister appeared out of nowhere screaming, “Why are you putting those chairs against the wall!??” We said, “because you only wanted four chairs on top of each table.” She continued to scream, “Where have you been!!!” Then she took over the commandeering job putting 5 chairs here, six chairs there, four chairs here! Damn she’s got so many rules, can’t imagine how she get to bed at night. But, since chairs REALLY aren’t my thing, I figured my services were at that point nullified, and I left the room! YAYYYYYY Outa dere!
I will never figure her out … I’m capable to lead the thinking group (about 40 clients) ALLLLL by myself, but do you think we could do a simple janitorial job!?? HMMM, I spose not! I s’pose it wouldn’t have been so bad, but we’d worked with the clients during the hour making pictures and murals for the client’s Christmas gift for Sister. Ugh, don’t you hate when that happens? Hmpf!
So, as we said, we moooooooved on!
We decided since someone reminded us next week is only four days, and on the 5th we’re off for the long break, someone better look into the x-mas shopping. Probably like many others our heart is bigger than our pocket book. Hmmm…
It didn’t make things any easier to know we were holding our two week check in hand. Let the record show … we walked away until we could figure it out. I know, I know this is not characteristic for the new me. AND, chances are that if I don’t start thinking urgent thoughts in another direction. Those gifts are going to be got! Somehow we have managed over the last 3-4 years to give everyone at the center some small gift. Now there are, of course more clients and more staff. Shoot. Eh the more the merrier they say.
This year I have decided to do it differently. Instead of giving all the clients some small token to take home, I am going to use their money to get them a gift to be used during Thinking Group. This idea stemmed from the fact that when we went to make the murals, there wasn’t one single way to put color on those murals and that did not make me happy. At that, we had to share 23 pencils. SOOOO, I found one of Sister’s special school catalogues and discovered for about $1.88 per 24-boxed set, we can purchase about 40 sets of colored pencils for $75. YAYYYY. My budget for the clients has always been a hundred, which is not a bunch of much. Sooo, I looked at one more thing … and industrial strength pencil sharpener for about $23, which wrapped up my abilities to squeeze blood out of a turnip. ACTUALLY, it’s not much, and Sr. gives each of the staff a Christmas present, which was today. It's a $100 bill. Woohoooo!!!!
That was one portion of it. Next, came the staff. It is very hard as the staff trainer to not get the staff SOOOOOOOOMEthing! Again, we’re not talking national budget here. I figured about $15 each. Then I went back to the school supplies catalogue, well, actually I did that before setting the budget. Hard part is there are 11 then to buy for. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, we decided to have some fun with it. We found 7 of the niftiest little gifts that would be fun to receive if you were teaching a group on a $0 supply budget. I’m looking at a whole lot of fun little gifts. Like someone will be receiving a box full of a couple thousand pipe cleaners. Another will get 3 sets of combined stickers (to the number of 4000), there is another gift idea of a set of 31 special sparkly markers, and another gift of 2 bundles of large sidewalk chalk, and 3 bundles of regular chalk. Another staff is going to get 3 lbs. of felt. Hmm, anything else? Hmm, two more, let me think. Ohh, I know … there is another funny gift I’m calling the eyes package. This is thousands of little eyes for art projects, such as those little half circles with moving eyes and a package of 1,000 stickers also with eyes. Hehehe, Ok, one more what was the last. Hmm… Oh, I know! The last DSP is going to get a couple of boxes totaling 2,000 blank flash cards. YAYYYYY FUN stuff.
I figure I’ll do it like we used to do with the boys when we needed to shop at the dollar store, because I only had $100 for the three of them. I wrapped up all the 100 small gifts and we sat on the floor around them. One at a time they would unwrap a gift, and then they would have to decide each round whether or not they’d keep the gift or try to trade it. I won’t ask the staff to sit on the floor, but they too can trade and swap. We’ll see if the one with 1000 eyes wants to give up some of her collection for pieces of felt, or such. It’s one of those small good feely things. I don't after all this participate in the grab bag, but they will have that too. The staff is so desperate for art and craft supplies, I'm pretty sure I'll be ok with our gifts. Sister just doesn’t allow for requests in the budget. Each year (Once each year), she gives the staff $30 to meet at a teacher’s supply store. Yeeks! I am having fun now imagining them trying to figure the best values as they think through potential art projects with the odd trinkets. I’ve seen them work miracles!
There are a few more staff left that don’t “do” regular groups. For the secretary and the new QMRP assistant I decided to buy each a box of a dozen of my special pens … I like the Pilot Precise V5 fine tip rolling ball. I know too though that I’m pretty possessive of mine. My favorite color is blue. Just so they don’t mix there’s with mine … they got black. Eh, it was an executive decision. The assistant keeps borrowing MY pens, and the secretary hides her pen, because everyone comes in her drawer to pick up the phone and snatches them. So that should be ok. I figured I should also give the new dance instructor something, since most likely no one else will. So, we got her a spindle of CD’s … I think you can only use them once, but I could get a set of 50 for $18. Yesterday, she was in the office asking if she could print out something she’d saved. And, I thought AHA! Young student -a Computer person!!!! Music ... WALLAH!
The last gift was for my peer, the other QMRP. She has a rough budget like we do, but she also always thinks to give others gifts. PLUS, she always brings me something homemade and sweet to eat for my gift! We went a little overboard, but we got, or will get her a cordless, optical mouse from Logitech. She’s never really used it, but personally it’s a sweet treat too! It’s important too because the other Q’s like me without real family. She only has one brother who lives in California. Chances are also that she’ll ask what I got the clients and might chip in. That way … she too can feel more free to use the colored pencils and sharpener for her one hour Town Hall meeting with all the clients. Good deal!
To cover this, I want to acknowledge that when my friend opened my 2-3 months of mail he found a spare check had come back from the school for $187, which will cover all but about $13. YAYYYYYY! I won’t have to buy books next semester because I am repeating a course. I have now three more areas to cover. I usually spend another $100 on Sister and the extra Sister that live at the center. Most of the staff are fudly dudlys as far as chipping in … All except our friend, one of the old time staff (sister’s spare person), and the other Q. So, I figure $20 from those 3 and I will only have to contribute $40 out of pocket. See, that’s not so bad. AND, there is a chance that all of the above (beside the sisters), can be ordered and delivered within 24 hours and there is on the catalogue a special 15% discount that Sr. won’t use, because the year is almost over and she doesn’t use this catalogue often. Besides it expires December 31. Sooooo, with that $45 spare dollars, I have my out of pocket money covered! SOOO, it’s like so far … xmas hasn’t cost me anything. Well, at least out of the rent/bills money.
I am still hoping to do some of the cost of my friend’s b-day gift for Christmas in the framing of T’s print. That was absolutely the best deal! It is perfect! The only remaining gifts is my sons, daughter-in-law and Granddaughter. Her other family give her an abundance of gifts, so at my son’s recommendation we put money in her piggy bank account. Hehehe. Usually we do something like $50 in quarters. I know it is not much, but she is still at the age (4), she enjoys feeding the piggy. :) For the other three, I would like to buy a meal so we can eat together. This year maybe Chinese over at my oldest son’s. If I could swing $50 each for them, they would think I’d gone over, which I probably will, but they know I do that kind of thing for them. It means just a tiny bit more they can spend freely. Love them to pieces. And, I figure if I can buy 54 people gifts from my free money, I should at least be able to spend $200 on my family. Fair deal?? Then, we’re all done and everyone is happy!!!!!
As far as me? I’ll get those sweets from my peer, a handful of clients’ parents will send a card or small gift, and maybe a few peers … no one gives big gifts at our income level! Nice! One of my sons will get me a little something, and the big gift will come from our friend. He’s promised to help me get my eyes checked and new glasses purchased. To be fair, I told him if it could be done, we’ll use the same frames we have. I have no interest in anything different. Just need to see. So, that’s it! Christmas wrapped with a bow.
I’ve expended about my limits … a couple of trips to the bank, a looksee in the catalogue, and one trip to Hallmark gift shop to find the Sister’s gift. I can trust there is always something nice there. She usually puts the gift somewhere in the center for all to share. This year … the other sister said that she was willing to help. I’m not sure what she meant by that, but maybe she’ll go to the store with me or suggest another. The people at the Hallmark Store have been real nice in bringing out a chair for me, so I can rest between things. They’ve won a real solid good customer in me :)
Ok, so that’s it! Wallah, almost done! YAYYYYY!!!
Hey T’s up! She’ll be happy that we wrote! YAYYYYY T-ster!
