Ayn's Multiple World: September 2006

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Ok ... we KNOW we can't afford to shop, but before that ... well, I think we're ready ... Gym Tuesday night!

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Whoops backed up to Sunday sorry

Good morning … this is me. We don’t have too much to say this morning. Pretty much we’re still looking at how beautiful our grandchildren are. Words can’t describe how precious they are … and, now looking at all the pictures with all the other kids, and seeing the parents dot the field, we think … wow. And, all those kids have parents and grandparents that think their children are the most something too. Pretty outstanding. Makes you wonder how could people ever think to go to war. I think it should be a requirement that if a President starts a war he has to send his own children. Hmpf!

Those kids out on the field tried so hard. Our friend says the umpires call this group of kids, “Bumblebees.” That’s because they all hover around the ball. I suppose that is sorta true. They sure are cute as the dickens. I forgot to say too … Our team won by 4-0. I’m not sure how important that is though to the players at this stage. After the game our granddaughter was told they had won, but she hadn’t really known. They do seem to know your supposed to kick the ball toward the goal, that there is offense and defense, and that those little orange cones mean this is the bench – stay there if your not on the field.

*Sigh* so I suppose now I’m supposed to calm down. I’ll try, I’ll try.

Our friend came over after we got home from our sons, but not until about 6 pm and he had to leave by 6:40 pm. He said he was coming back at 9 pm, but at 9:30 pm, he called and said he had followed his son home, because the son hurt his knee. We have pretty mixed feelings about all that. We had stayed up and done everything he told us … he said after being in the rain you needed to take a hot shower and drink tea. But, we hadn’t been a fan of him coming back. We aren’t so wide awake at 9 pm. We were frustrated with the previous visit too. Not much can be done in 40 minutes. And, he spent some of that time putting away some groceries he’d brought over where all we wanted was him to look at our pictures with us. We were pretty grumbly with him, but he said we were hurting his feelings so we didn’t say so much then. Our grumbling was because we didn’t like that he hadn’t made real time to be with us this week. There’s never too much in between visits, cuz he’s so busy and I’m afraid without school, we find ourselves lonelier for him. I think he knows this but his mind is full of lot of other things. He asked if wanted a kiss before he left. We nodded our head and he gave us one on the forehead, but then someone said, no not there … HERE! And pointed to our neck. It’s pretty hard to stay mad too long with kisses being placed on the neck. *Sigh*

So, that was our evening … We talked to Walt a few minutes and then went tiredly to bed. V and us woke up about the same time this morning. We talked about some pretty important stuff, but then after some time went by we got real tired again and had to go back to sleep, then about 8 am about a half hour ago we got up and appeared to have just missed him. We’re going to go to the multiples meeting in about an hour and a half. I suppose we COULD see one of our movies?? That be a good deal, right? Let me see what we have. AHA!!! Chicken Run 1 hr. 24 min perfect!!!

Sigh we’re back. It’s 11:08 am and we’re done with the movie, meeting with the multiples (one) and talking to our friend in IMs. I don’t remember if we ended up nice or crabby. Probably crabby though with our friend in IM because we’ve been kinda crabby lately. He talked about developing a new interest and all we could think was this is something more we’re not going to be able to do with him that will take up more time. I am very happy for him that he finds stuff that’s interesting. Just its something he does at his home, so I’ll never see it. Mistress’ are never really happy when their significant other chooses to spend more time away from them. I’m pretty sure of this. Just means more I have to develop myself so that I can have more time by my selves.

Pretty much its got to be about doing work at home and I have to be very dedicated to it, which will be good practice for being able to go back to school. We are going to have similar problems though in getting projects started. Right now, we have to write reports instead of papers, but they are very similar. Just paper takes things from other psychologists and reports take information about the business.

I think we may have already talked about the new 1/2” binders we got and the plastic cover things. I brought home the three reports that have been completed and optimistically, I would like to write a report today and another one tomorrow. That be very cool. We will have to start that to see how it goes. Keep thinking just 3-5 pages MAXIMUM. Last time we went into like 30-40 pages each. WAY TOO MUCH!

Hmm. Got some more coffee. Think it kinda cooled off. It’s 11:15 am now … maybe we can wait up on work until noon. We’ve got two more movies, but we’re going to hold up on those. One is Memoirs of a Geisha and the other is Lost in Translation. It was totally unrelated how there happens to be two Japanese videos at the same time. We liked Chicken run … but it seemed a little violent I liked Mel Brooks and the tenacity of Ginger. Someone has just suggested that cluck has pluck! Hehehe Ok, bad chicken joke. I think the first two movies are at night time movies.

I think we are going to try turning on the video thing again while we are doing work. It seems to help move the project along and we have to think twice before getting sidetracked. Hmm, we were going to listen to music too. Might want to turn that on now. You know it … it’s all we want to hear … we’ll be playing John Denver. Sorry, that’s the way it goes.

Ok, we put the video thing on that doesn’t seem to be happening so well. Maybe we should make the best of things. Get out some work? How about the music??? That’s better we like the sound of his voice. You probably figured out that part already. Ok, ok … this is progress. Now the next part is to get the books out and start doing the reports. Going to have to start soon anyways. Just one little step at a time. Ok? Good sigh. Turn around and look at the bag. Very good. Now next time reach out for a book and put it in front of you.

Hey, hey! Guess what?? I finished that report … I think it took us 4 ½ hours to write. Pretty stable, because it is four pages long. It really does take that long to write, because you have to gather information and structure it in a manner fitting the paper. We had to keep going over the notes so that it was accurate. I won’t know HOW inaccurate it is until Sr. looks it over. We just sent it to her. Officially, she is signed onto the computer, but she might not be working on a Sunday evening close to chapel and dinner. If I got a response by tomorrow or next week I would be pleased. I only have 5 days left in this month to write reports … sure would be nice to cleanup all but one or two reports and focus most the month on doing the performance analysis the majority of October. One of the reports summarizes the results of the accessibility or actually of all the other reports, and one of the reports summarizes the Performance Analysis report so should be done last. I don’t know how all that will fit in with the scope of the whole. But in my original framework, I knew that I wanted all the reports written by end of October, and I think they need to be submitted before Christmas break. Sister wants all of CARF to be finished in October, but I would think I could go a long way in pleasing her if I had everything done to send in to the inspectors on a preliminary basis. That would give me November, December, January, February, and maybe through March to read through the rest of things making sure folders are all in place and that I have a general understanding of all.

Sister had come in last week and we’d told her what we were doing and how far we were along with things. She doesn’t want to hear anything from the CARF camp, but that we are going to finish it soon. That just isn’t going to happen, though I’m going to push like hell to get the reports section finished by end of October. We’ll see how much we can accomplish tomorrow. Sure be sweet to finish both resource allocation and human resources … two separate reports. Might try a pre-noon and post-noon finish. Oh, I was saying … sister had come in … and I had told her it would be nice to have the Intern’s help for those couple of weeks in December, although now I think she’s going to need that time to finish up the annual schedule that is supposed to end in November. Plus one more week to include the new person we’re getting on Monday. He’ll have to be staffed by October 25th. Means we rearrange the one I’ve already scheduled for that last week and bump the one last week of November to the first week of December. That’s ok.

Pretty much Sister wants the Intern to be working in the rooms and on goals with the clients by the first of the year. She’ll still have to keep up with Qnotes, but we’re hoping like hell, she’s not going to step away from the caseload that I hope to inherit over to her. I am really again the idea of splitting up my case load or the other Q’s. I want off of case load work, so I can do master programming work. I think Sister’s intention is to get the Intern comfortable working with the clients. BUT, I would hate to see her taking over an umbrella position that I’m working toward. It could be a deal breaker, but by the time the Intern is trained, we know that Sister won’t have a need for us. Basically, after we complete CARF we can be expendable. Sister has an idea what she wants to do with a third Q, but she isn’t including any of us in her plans.

I think the hardest part is that sister doesn’t see the value of the program itself. It started from her processor who had a few courses like gym, food preparation, math, and reading. We branched out the program, and I had a good amount of impact on getting the program areas divided evenly into the work of the DSPs. I have also brought in the few formal programs we have in science, life skills, social skills, and work readiness. But, there isn’t or hasn’t been any work done in studying the advancement of our people. Besides the silly ICAP there is no real assessment of them and their skills. No planning that goes into actual learning processes. That is what I wanted to train for at school. I wanted to understand how it is that these individuals learn. I am a far point from doing that now. At this point the clients learn whatever the DSPs are up for. Sometimes its valid and sometimes its not. Like my understanding is because of the transportation system that all our clients have a free period at the end of the day. That means for the last half hour they do whatever they want to as long as its quiet and allows the DSPs to finish their paperwork. I don’t know when that took place, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t’ included in that kind of planning. And, we found out that at the last administration meeting that Sister took me out of the programming hours section all together. She said, she would handle it herself. She has put nothing into training … her training means being disciplined to do what you are told when you are told to do it. If she says dance, you better dance, and if she says fold your hands and pray, you better do that too. She has done absolutely not much as far as learning. I don’t even know how much I’ve done toward learning. We’ve managed to keep objectives fuzzy to protect the center. This year with the help of the Intern, we’ve tried accommodating some real changes. We want to see people grow within themselves. I think that can happen.

I don’t think she believes in CARF and what it helps to implement. I think CARF is much bigger as a business than real teaching too. I think she is more interested in there being checkered table clothes than if a mind is being well used. When we were in disagreement with where the CARF files were to go, we were advocating new shelves in my office where I could use them and be proud of them. Sister said that she had shelf space in her office and so the files belonged there. Then she turned to show me the empty space on her shelf and without realizing it she had filled it up with garbage … it was only then when she couldn’t see it physically fitting that she was willing to consider it fitting back in my office. And, at that she wanted to say that the misfitting moveable library shelving was good enough sitting in the middle of my room or not allowing me to reach my window shades. I wanted to anchor it and I wanted it to be something I could commit to. Not just to get it over with, but to learn from it … use it as a tool. I won that short scrimmage, but her attitude toward the work and me are still very low. She said I could get the shelving, but then when I said thank you, she responded, “You’re not welcome.”

Shoot, shoot … that’s still getting me upset. Even now after having paused to eat dinner. It’s as grating as it is to be told I will pay you $1,000 as long as I don’t have to eat dinner with you. I think its time I took my evening medicine … maybe that would make a difference.

Umm, we stopped here … It is now Tuesday morning at 5:30 am. It seems we’d gotten pretty grumbly here … I apologize for that. It’s just something of late we’re going through a lot. 

Monday, September 25, 2006

Hmm, I thought i had loaded this one already, but I goofed up. This one really goes before V's Birthday Message, but its coming in late. Sorry to confuse things.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY V-STER!!!

This post is a special one that is a tribute to one of my best friends. His name is V. or Vince, and it is his birthday today. We don’t remember how old, but we’re figuring he’s in his early 60’s. He’s aged well. One of those guys that just keeps getting more handsome.

We met V. per chance three years ago. We were used to visiting AOL Journals, but when we first saw his we were very impressed that he seemed to be the most complicated thinker we had met so far. He wrote about philosophers and psychologists and he wrote about Ernst Becker’s Denial of Death. I don’t think I was in agreement with some of his thoughts on Death, but I knew V was pretty darn smart. It was peculiar to me too because my Ex-husband had also hold that author and book in very high regard as his favorite book. I thought this was more than a coincidence. I hadn’t read anyone else on line that was writing about complex psychological theories. It impressed me to all get out.

I remember taking a long time to formulate my first couple of comments to his posts. What he thought of was hard for me, because thinking about hard stuff is not something I come by naturally. I can piece things together, but it is a study that happens slowly. I can appreciate when my mind is being stretched. I had a habit of waking up early so that I could read my favorite journals. I was very happy when Vince found his way back to my journal and left his first comments. I didn’t understand for awhile how faithful a reader he was going to be. He seemed to come back to our journal often and we started seeing him at the journals we were visiting. That seemed to be important in that he was fitting into my life and the community I had come to love.

I think it was early on that we started to IMing back and forth during those early hours. I remember the first couple of times that he IM’d me. I thought Man-o-man. He’s sooo cool, but I thought he’d made a mistake in IMing me in that I was pretty sure the more I talked the more he was going to know how silly we were. We didn’t figure that we were too smart. It was very early on that I figured V knew more of psychology, but it was a while before he told me what he did. I think this is funny now. He was hesitant in letting me know that not only was he a psychologist, but he was a doctor. He didn’t want people to be intimidated by the title. He asked somehow in giving me the information that I not start treating him different. I remember making a choice in that I could meet this person as a friend, or I could gush over his credentials. I felt that he was rather a loner like me and I was drawn to that.

This didn’t keep me from trying to hustle him. We’ve got enough of that “boy-crazyness” inside us that we worked pretty hard in trying to per say, “Pick-him-up.” I don’t think in our multiple way of being we realized the proper way to maintain a sex-free relationship. I don’t recall how Vince did it, but he maintained a boundary that hurt my feelings at first. It was a hard morning when I finally understood that he wasn’t interested in me that way, but he still wanted to be friends. As a female, there is always kind of a let down. I don’t know if he knew of our relationship with our friend before or after this period. I remember him encouraging that relationship as my only love interest. And, I received a feeling that I had had before in that the good guys in my life stick together in not interfering with established boundaries. In that same respect, Vince knew we had a psychiatrist, so he worked very hard not to interfere with that relationship. I think this had to be especially difficult, because I had a strong need to talk about our relationships. Neither our friend nor Dr. spent many literal hours with us. We were lonely. After we knew V a bit, it was another difficult point in telling him, due to his high morals that our friend was already married. I think though that he had figured that part out. He assured me that he was ok with that, but he made it pretty clear … he didn’t want to talk about sex! Shoot, that’s been hard … so, when I am need of saying something in that regard I will write about it in the blog. That was our compromise.

We continued our relationship for quite a while. I knew that we were pretty regular friends when I realized that I could get frustrated with him and he could get frustrated with us. For my first birthday, V. gave us a card saying that he’d be our forever friend. That meant a great deal to us. It took us about 2-3 months before we could handle getting the mail, but point was … we did. Vince has been patient with us, but sometimes he is very stubborn. We didn’t like, nor do we still like that he won’t accept our physical gifts. V. also has his cranky times when he withdraws. I think he talks too much about death and until just recently, he refused to take care of his body well. That’s right there is sometimes a bit of Mother Hen in our relationship.

We went through a couple of really cementing things in our relationship. One was the IMing in the morning, but he’s come in and supported us in other ways. He was a big proponent in not bringing work home, or staying so late at work. Vince was very supportive of the First Anniversary celebration over at AOL and we were exceptionally thrilled when he took us for a dance at the Anniversary Ball. He mixed drinks for the group and was in general, the Mr. Congeniality that he’s always been. Vince picked up the habit of participating in up to 100-120 journals as a time. And, as I became more introspective with our time and attention to selves, V stayed with us along with Deb in being the only two that has read us no matter what. V. was also a strong factor in getting us to think that we were smart enough to work on a master’s degree. He was the only one to read all our papers. When the time came for AOL’s downfall with the advertising in Journals, it seemed natural that we’d both leave to go to Blogger. We had both made decisions independently that we were too insulted to stay. Soon it will be a year of being over to the new blogs.

Another cementing element to our relationships is that we’ve followed his tale with Alucard and friends. I think he had written about 30 short chapters, before we jumped on the “James” bandwagon. V. was patient with us. He knew that it sometimes upset our system to be reading about things that were scary. But, one day we got over our own fears and have joined his story fan club. That was a really good “move” on our part.

I don’t know when or how things got so difficult for us. It seemed like my ease in becoming overwhelmed has something to do with it. I remember at a certain point … maybe 5-6 months into school that my problems were escalating in being able to hold a continuing thought that we were a student, or that we would have to initiate paper writing. V too seemed to be having more trouble writing new paragraphs to his story. It took a while for him to start the second book after he had completed the first and part of that was good in that he was continuing other mediums of writing. Vince has done poetry and stories other than James that allow us to appreciate more his talent and life concern, though we are usually the first one to applaud stories or poems with no indication of death. That’s been a hard concept all along, because it makes us think that our friend was immersed in depression, or that his job of counseling people who were dying was having a negative affect on him. We held onto our markers of the days that were better than others. Those usually were the days he would visit his son and family, talk to his special friend, listen to an opera, do some writing or visiting, and/or eat a Cherry Tasty Pie or Wawa sandwich.

V’s medical sense has always been a concern of us, because we’ve seen him very sick several times, when he has been adamant of not helping himself claiming the impossibility of cost over value for his life. Fortunately, his last bout with Pneumonia, he accepted help – mostly because he saw it as a means of helping his son. At least, that’s our take on it and now this last part with the TIA and the necessary operations he’s going to go through. We’ve told elsewhere that part of the story, so we aren’t going to do it again here. I will say again, and underline the point that as firm and unwavering Vince is, sometimes it feeds negatively into a sense of stubbornness. I think that he must have had very good doctors though, because he came back from this last hospitalization somehow appreciating the value of his life. Vince has started eating right and he discontinued the smoking.

This morning we talked to V, because he got home from work early and we were home as well. V continues to make us incredibly angry about his not accepting our gifts, where he has accepted gifts to others. He did offer us though the alternative of us getting a glucose tester for us like he now has. We will do that, because we want to make Vince happy, but we want to go down for the record of saying although we feel this relationship full of sparkle, we’ve both worked hard to maintain it. Because if the relationship is going to be as real as I think this one to be, people are going to confound each other now and again. I believe that we’ll both get through ummmm “V’s stubbornness.” We know I’m the easy going one hehehe. Ok, maybe not … maybe we’re both stubborn people. But, that seems to be a good thing in a relationship.

I figure that pretty soon, we’re going to need stopping these sets of thoughts. Our mind slips back into appreciation that our friend is having a Birthday today. We’ll hold back in discussing his immediate thoughts, because we figure we have to at least give V the opportunity of speaking for himself. Probably one of our faults that we on the other hand like to talk about everything that is affecting us. What is the likelihood … hmm, maybe here oil and vinegar. I’m such a strange match for the quiet, withdrawn person we know to be V. Hmm, wonder if this is an opposite attraction in our relationship? *Giggle* So V. my immediate gift is giving you what I know how to best do. Just writing. Secondarily, I will get the Glucose meter, and third I will try hard to like you on your birthday … though you get me FRUSTRATED~!!!!!!!

Denver sings … take my hand and follow me. Happy Birthday V! Please continue being a part of me and let me be a part of you. Happy Birthday Forever Friend 

Sunday, September 24, 2006

This is about the time we put in two hours and then got Hawk's note so we took a break and now it's about an hour later cuz we had some fun and ate, but the floor of the Earth isn't going to swoop up and grabme like a lizard eating chestnuts. :)

Saturday, September 23, 2006

I promised my son I would only show a few pictures ... this is not bad - we took 60!

I can't say too much about the day because I'm being policed for good behavior. But it was a VERY, VERY NICE day, EVEN in the rain! Afterward we had something to eat at our sons and ogled our grandchildren a little more. Words can't describe their beauty! Ok, I said my limited best. But, take my word for it ... my heart's still a fluttering!!!

Proud Gramma

Saturday Morning

Good morning … it’s us. We’ve been up for about a half an hour and did some usual waking up kinda stuff. It’s 4 am now. There was just a bad kitty thing. We took care of it as much as we could. But, need to steel our nerves a bit. That’s all we’re going to say about that. OHHH AND noone’s hurt, don’t worry.

But, it certainly deserves a HMPF!

Well ok … we’ll say, but we’re pretty miffed about it. One of our kitties decided to use some plastic bags for you know what … they had been left over from our laundry. So, we threw away the bags and put the garbage bag outside our door, BUT that doesn’t mean it’s over … Bad idea to be using my bedroom for their spot. Thinking I should do something special with the carpet there but we’re not sure what. There we made sure the kitty proper place was picked up too … Didn’t want them blaming us for not doing our part. HMPF, HMPF!

Ok, need to calm down a bit … my back is aching pretty bad from all the bending and carrying. Ok ok … got to settle down… More coffee? Thanks … got a half cup let me finish that first.

We have good kitties right? They were just saying you have to do the litter box more often. We listened … Just not happy. Shhhhhhhhhhhh…

Ok, where are we now. Ohhhh kitty wants to come up and be nice again. Not sure if we’re in the mood for that yet. Damm are they subtle. Ok, he can lay on our arms, but we’re not petting him. ……………………………………………………

Ok, new subject … AND NO, I’M NOT KITTY-WHIPPED!

B
I
G

J
U
M
P

Deep breath … Good girl … another?? Deep breath … very good.

Ok … so now what happened yesterday you ask?? Well, thank you for thinking of us. Ummm anything happen? We had Thinking Group … that was kind of nice. We played games and took pictures. We wanted to mix up the people because I thought they were getting too standoffish by only associating with people in there own close circles. We played games like gatherin all the people who did Karaoke, or all the people who rode horses, or saw an ocean, or ate peanut butter. We took pictures of each. Then we did a game where everyone had to help the featured person come up with a word that matches the first letter in their name. For both the first game and this one … we wrote on a sheet which thing they were responding too. I tried to get everyone involved. And, then we also played a game where three people had to come up at once and find 3 things that were the same between them and the other two. Those groups held signs saying, “Winners!” Basically, we got our ideas from key search on getting to know you games. The last game we did was to play “friends of …” game where we had people who liked others stand up to have a picture taken with them. That was pretty cool too and helped with some of the quieter people who don’t always volunteer for some of the other games. They were pretty proud to have their picture taken with the others who were cheering them on … we also had them say nice things about the quieter people and that sign was in the picture too.

Oh oh … getting tired again. Maybe cuz of warm kitty? Shoot, shoot.

Hmm. We fell asleep for a while … It’s now 6:30 am. Maybe we slept at our keyboard for a couple of hours. We didn’t make it past here.

Ok, umm now about 8:45 am. V finally woke up so we talked for a while, but then I got grouchy all by myself and then I talked to our friend and then cuz we were even grouchier … we cancelled him coming over because 9 pm too late for a date where we don’t make it past the bedroom and then we got Deb’s Pumpkin card and that helped some, but not enough to stay up that late.

We did get the camera batteries out and am charging them and we got a call from our son … we’re going to plan leaving the house at 11 to be there about noon for our Granddaughter’s 1 pm soccer game. Then maybe out afterward for something to eat. Then home … we won’t want to make it a real late night there either. Just wanna see her play. I’ve been thinking of her this week running with her team … Now, we want to see that for real life. 

Oh yeah and V’s definitely signed off. He’s gotta go take care of stuff. Our sweetie has a game this morning, probably some work around the house this afternoon, and his son’s wrestling meet after that. BUT, again we’re not entertaining at THAT time of NIGHT. We can here him now … “be nice, let me go home … I’m tired.” Well, NO FAIR IF YOU START TIRED! Play and run HMPF! In case anyone’s listening this is an old car that needs to be warmed up first! Drop in on me after not talking all week at 9 pm … Yeah, right! That’s going to happen … HMPF, HMPF!

Ok. Ok … realize our bad mood hasn’t improved much. We just got some more coffee maybe that will help. We’ve had medicine, breakfast, and ice water too. Hmm, now I’m thinking of taking a shower. Should I do it now or in an hour. Maybe help our mood now, but then again … so might writing. Hmm better wait … batteries in there and I don’t know if they’d be affected by steam. We’ll give them that hour.

Mind’s not really moving much right now. Feel kinda tired yet. More coffee! Let me see if we can conjure up a thought. Hmm…

I know one thing … you remember that client we had given the CD Collection goal and then we had given her the bag??? About 8:30 am yesterday, we remembered that we had left it on her desk and we figured she’d be in by now. So, we walked over to that room to check it out. Heeheheh low an behold it was the center of attraction. The DSP didn’t know what it was about so she had put it up toward the front, but we said, no noooo that’s HER bag now. Then we explained how stuff was and such. There was some problem in that the room had quite a few people who all of a sudden wanted to work on that goal too. But, I told them that just because one person gets lucky that everyone is. I told them I had gotten the bag free and it’s just the way things sometimes work out. I don’t know how many of them understood that, but we skidaddled out of the room. We saw the girl next walking down the hall to go to the Thinking Group. She had her new bag and folder with her. We had told her, she could bring the bag home on Friday’s, but that it would have to come back again on Mondays. She seemed to understand.

At the beginning of Thinking Group it started all over again with envy over that bag when she showed it for the first time to people in other groups. She was just so gosh darn pleased. Made us feel warm and fuzzy. But, we realized five minutes into the session that she hadn’t put the bag down. She was holding it tightly on her lap. We teased her and said … okkkkk you need to put the bag down! That started off another round of ruckus. Bunch of mother hens those people her friends! I know she hasn’t had a chance to explore the bag proper and that she’ll do it over the weekend. Never did I see a girl more positive in bringing home homework. Her DSP said she would work with her on Monday to further the goal. I just love it when things come together! We’ve been working very hard at making goals that everyone can get into. This particular person has been a little spacey. We are taking that up a notch in helping her to concentrate properly on a subject that is highly interesting to her. We’ve done it before … like with one client who has an interest in science … we’ve structured goals so that he can delve into it and he’s loved it!

We’ve had another goal meeting for a client coming up this Wednesday. It was a hard thing to do, because the DSP started off so negatively stating she couldn’t do anything with this person. Things got worked out within the next half hour, but it was kind of up in the air for a little bit. I had to get over our frustration in that we didn’t think the DSP had given it enough effort, but we continued to listen to her frustration and through that she talked about the things she was doing. As it turned out those things we’re good things, so we captured that moment and built from there. We made formal goals out of things that WERE working for this person. The last time we had met she was only working 20% of the time. The DSP although complaining about the amount of time, is assisting her to do work by sitting with her and guiding her through it. If we can all get past the guilt in taking time away from all for one, it really works out. This person had lost her father a couple of years ago and her mother’s been very depressed. This extra attention is exactly what is needed. And, the calm caused is well worth the effort, because before this that time was utilized by the client in causing her peers frustration through poor behavior due to her displaced anger.

So … that is that. I felt pretty good about what was going on. We have one so-so goal we’re going to continue in getting her to write smaller, but then we have another goal where for ten minutes the DSP and client will just sit together and work out the selection of a radio station that the client might like to listen to. Then at the end of the session, she’ll have to choose from one set of six faces the one that most appropriately covers her mood – you know happy, sad, angry, etc. That is part of the last goal. I had figured before someone can change their mood, they have to first be conscious of what there mood is and what other options there are. Then the last goal is that at least twice weekly for five minutes the individual is going to help pass out papers or supplies and during that time, the DSP will walk her through it, guiding her so that she doesn’t be mean to people or skip them, because she doesn’t like them, or really the case of more displaced anger. She likes to help, but needs more guidance. Soooooooooo. Again, that’s that.

Let’s see next?

Hmm, you already knew the reports had been written at least a couple and that we’d put them in new folders with slip covers. We weren’t able to get back to that, but we did advance a few other things. Sister complained a couple of days ago saying the files should be caught up … We’re only like 19 documents out of 84 in being caught up, but realizing that’s still not good enough, we took the time and called everyone that was concerned after having sent them a letter 2 weeks ago. But, this time … Sister yelled at us for not making better use of our time. HMPF! Next job I have I’m going to want to be yelled at for stuff I’m not doing, not the stuff that I’M SUPPOSED to BE DOING!

So, since officially the Intern is caught up on the Qnotes … After about 3 years being behind!!!!! We decided to hand over the file project to her. We’d made careful telephone notes as to where everyone was at. Now it will be her job to follow through. We handed it over in good shape. I’m pretty sure the other QHSP isn’t this organized and I’m thinking by now the Intern can appreciate being able to learn doing things the right way. I’m not saying I had exactly a right way either, because I was behind, but I trust the Intern or with a little more of our help … will help her come up with a system to keep better caught up. And, in comparison where I have been the last few years, we are in great shape. Before it was a struggle to come up with 4 good files. Now, we are working on about half the caseload of 21 is good files. There will be a little more work too, in that my understanding is that I’m going to get client 22 on Monday. I think it is a guy and that he is going to be going to the lowest group. That’s ok. Just have to double up trying to get him to fit the annual schedule in 4 weeks. There might be a few more too, but we’re ok.

At this point, we only have 9 more annuals for the year … or, 10 with the new person. We handed the Intern back almost all the annual work, except for to do goals and inserts. Last moment we thought she could take over the goals for yesterday’s meeting, but she said she wasn’t ready yet. So, we said fine. After the meeting, we asked if there were questions or concerns about how we had done things. She said no. Unfortunately asking questions is not something she is good at. She said she’s about 80% ready. The part she said she might have trouble with is putting things according to numbers. I told her we were doing it, but I was unsure how. I told her we would watch ourselves this time, and then let her know how we’d done it. It’s part of the problem of being a multiple … we all chip in, but don’t pay attention to who’s doing what. I felt pretty good about that. I think I can teach her the inserts part easier, because she has been taking notes of the meetings and that’s what we’re using for the material put into the inserts. There’s three parts – explaining the clients needs met through old and new goals. Then the part of needs being met in the general groups, and then needs being met from out in the community. There is some flexibility with this area, because a lot of it is going from the information that was stated during the meeting. Only way to really learn is track down the process and then try it to see what works for you and what doesn’t. Takes some major courage points though.

The goal is that by the end of these next 10 clients (second half of the case load) she will be a superstar in knowing the clients and in knowing how to do annuals. I also told her yesterday that since we were handing most the responsibility for the annuals over to her that she would have to make the necessary schedules. That meant that we’d make ourselves available for goals according to her time table. We told her we were available from 2 pm on and that she should just let me know when we are needed. I think that gives her the ultimate control she is going to need. I know it is a pretty big package to handle, but I also saw the firm appreciation in being entrusted to handle and create her own system. I believe she has that much going for her. And, I know it has to be done to release me over to CARF. I also let her know that we were her back-up so if she gets herself jammed up to just let us know and we will intervene. We are still going to be using the annual system of keeping the specific meeting material in folders on top of my desk. I placed all 9 out in the order they are going to come down. I had scheduled and confirmed meetings with the next 5 people. So, she will only need to schedule the last 4. Pretty good.

I was also pleased that she made good use of the meeting she went to Thursday for the ICAP. She took good mental notes and was able to explain what had happened and it seemed she had picked up confidence points. As to between the difference in methods of myself and the other Q, the instructor told her to take a middle ground and use a combination of both as long as there was time. Cool, cool. Good advice. I think the Intern will have a whole different attitude on it now, because she has been specifically trained for it. She was surprised there were so few people at the meeting and that many of those there had been doing the report for quite sometime and noone seemed to have knowledge of doing it proper. The instructor made sure to say … I am going to teach you how to do it my way. I liked that a lot. Shoot … one thing though I forgot to tell her to hand in her certificate is she got one to Sr. after making a copy for herself.

Ok, ok …we’re doing it. We just wrote the intern a little note. We gave her the information about the ICAP and reminders that we were working at home now on Mondays and to call with questions or concerns or write emails. We want to be her #1 resource, but not undermine her ability to do the job. She’s been given a good 3 months training and has learned a lot. I felt a little out of place when I realized staff was going to her to answer questions. I will probably talk this over with Sr. Tess. While its very good that staff trust her, they may be doing it because she is softer than me. On the negative side, I’ve been the one responsible as the trainer and computer person to answer their questions. If the questions don’t come to me, I won’t know what’s going on. On the other side I’m very busy so appreciate not having to take care of the lite stuff, but then on the other hand, I don’t think that Sr. Tess is going to like the DSPs diverting the Interns schedule any more than she had liked when they diverted mine. Ok, ok … feel better about that now too. We just wrote a note to sister. We’ll hand it over to her and let her do with it as she may.

Yeeks. Now it’s 10 past 10 … better get in the shower … brb.

Ahh, refreshed! Sure is nice to not have all the cigarette smells on me. V’s still right on track with that and is losing some substantial weight!!! Unfortunately, we are going in the wrong direction weight wise, but have made headway with the smoking. Monday, on V’s Birthday, we will have completed 2 months!!! WooooHOOOO!!! We also talked with the hypnotist this week … he says we’re all signed up WITH friend for a weight loss session on November 2, 2006 at 7 pm. That gives us about 5 weeks to come up with a healthy eating plan. We might need to devote some of our time and attention to health issues. Pretty sure with V taking glucose readings that we are going to convince ourselves that we need to do the same. Another healthy measure would be to make a doctors appointment. Think it’s over 6 months now maybe toward a year … don’t remember. Just been awhile. I would have to stop by for some standard tests that I didn’t do before … that should be done before the appointment, because we often don’t make it back to the next appointment where she reads the results. And, we haven’t done a few things she told us to like the fasting cholesterol test and the one for sleep apnea. And, I’m pretty sure that test where they can check your last 120 days of sugars isn’t going to go well. It will pick right up on our “Fritter days.” Yeeks … wall just fell on me.

I think something else we should really be doing is to read that one book we bought … hmm, where did I put it? *Sigh*

Yup, yup … it was right behind the couch where we left it … HMPF!

This is the book from the US DHHS Department of health and human service. It’s 340 pages long and called, “A healthier You: Everyday healthy eating and physical activity for life based on the dietary guidelines for Americans”

This is about where we’d gotten to before jumping off the bandwagon. We talked to him and he said that the hypnotist thing kind of requires that you know what kind of diet you want to follow. I figure I should go into the session knowing all about the healthiest plan I can get to know. NO FAD DIETS … we’ll we said that, not him. His plan is designed to work with any diet you come up with. BUT, we want the HEALTHY one. AND, if it means buying our own food again instead of our friend buying it … then that is the way it is going to have to go. Cuz, we’re pretty sure that as easy as it is to pick up a dozen stackables of crackers, cheese, meat and cookies, it’s probably pretty low on the good for you scale. We’d been going with it primarily because it was easy for him, good enough for us, and high on the low maintenance that we seem to require top priority. Ok, ok … we’ll have to work that into the schedule. Today it is pretty gloomy out there. We’re not sure whether or not that’s going to affect the soccer. But, we are going to go for it just in case. I would like to see a couple of movies this weekend, I would think we could take our healthy book and go outside on the balcony to read … Remember, we used to like that. Now that I’m thinking of it – we have one more book we should probably read. It was a comprehensive book on being a diabetic. Gosh, we sure are having a hard time with that one. We are very apt to disengage from it … pretty much straight up denial. Handy when you are as dissociative as we are, but not so healthy. I think that it will be ok … we’re just going to need working at it. By the time of the food hypnosis, we’ll have 3 months of non-smoking under our belt. Most important thing to remember is that we can never have just one more. Because it would start an avalanche. AND, we don’t want that.

Hmm, better put on my shoes and socks. Hold on. Remember to get batteries from bathroom too. Yeah right … this kitty thought he was going to sneak in and not have me notice! Wrong! I’m here and I seen … well, actually I didn’t see him sneak into my arms. But, that would help explain how dissociative we are. HMPF!

Ok, ok … that’s done … still got 15 minutes. Ok, what else? Hmm, I think I should call my son when were about ready to leave and tell him we’re on the way. Then he won’t worry about us so much … ok ok … good idea.

We were going through our weekend plans. I think we should only see movies if we’ve been good. That means we have to do some work. I don’t think though I will get home today until 5 or 6 pm. Not too much time today for work. But, we better watch a movie tonight, because going to your GD’s soccer game is being a good Ann. Let’s see … something else we were playing with that we’d like to follow through on is that specially since we are going to be staying home more, we would like to have the house in a little better condition. We’d done this before with some effort, no reason to think we can’t do it again. The hardest part before was vacumming and so maybe for that our friend would help especially if we did all the rest. I think kind of what we are talking about again is in getting us in better shape all around.

We tried very hard at Dr. M’s to stay here in the present. Someone was monitoring us just for that and we got zapped a few times. Point is that if we are talking about something with someone and it isn’t about that someone specifically, then we are not in the present. As for right now shhooot gotta go … our friend called back and now it’s 11 am and we gotta go. He’s complicating stuff … he says he has to bring food, but now I gotta be home by 5:30, but he says I don’t have to be that he’d just go and come back after watching his son at 9 pm, but we said we don’t want him to, but he said if I want him to go after he gets here we can tell him to go, but we never do that because we want to see him, but we don’t want to see him where there isn’t enough time to sit over a casual dinner, cuz his way there’s only time for sex. We like sex, but not the speed kind  I think we’re going to cry, cept he said we have to be in our good Ann so we can go watch soccer. So, I better go. Whooops call son. 

Friday morning

Good morning … This is me. I just want to write a bit … a little bit stressed this morning. No particular reason. Shoot … I forgot to tell Dr. Marvin that I was out of a prescription that is important. I took the last one yesterday. Shoot shoot.

Whoo … that was too easy. We just went in and called the pharmacy and got the automated machine and I guess there was a refill left because they said it would be ready at 6:45 am. That was very good. I know Dr. Marvin filled my big prescription, but I’m very glad this one worked too. It’s one of those medicines that if I don’t take I get depressed and suicidal within one or two days. Ok, ok girls … let it go.

Hmm, got our coffee too … we’re moving this morning 

It’s 4:18 am now. I don’t know why all of a sudden we’re able to wake up again in the morning, but I am liking that part a lot. It’s kinda funny to think now we’re beating the V. Hehehe HE’S THE BUM!

The biggest thing skirting my mind this morning is Dr. M. We know there were too many parts out that we’re not going to remember much. Just there’s a sense of urgency about getting something down so we don’t forget more. Maybe if I just try remembering one little thing at a time.

I remember that he was late in opening the door and that was the second week in a row that he was late. We told him he’s starting to develop a pattern. So, I think we talked about that and I remember now talking about his assistant, because we still don’t like her. But, as close as we could get to that we told him two times she is like a lizard. Then we thought we might be jealous because she gets to work with him all the time … for free! We thought more on the way home about her and decided another problem was that she had a way of impressing she had intimate knowledge of Dr. M. or us and we got aggravated when she used that at times to express something or bud in front of us when it was our appointment time … she was presuming her business was more important than ours.

Hmm, I think there was a little thought more like she was somehow like the mother person, but I don’t recall why we were thinking of that nor do we want to.

So, then I think we went somewhere where we were grouchy … I think that got talked about and we might have gotten grouchier, but I don’t remember what that was all about. Remember saying when we thought of him with his partner then we felt softer thoughts. Hmm, maybe it had something to do with that he seemed to be pushing us to talk about stuff we didn’t want to talk about. Sometimes we get done with a talk before he gets done 

It was one of those days where we didn’t do so much looking at him. It seems to burn our eyes even now to be thinking of him. We have this incredible desire to want to shut them and shut everything out. That can’t be good. I think we’re meeting up with resistance. I know we were saying something about him not caring again, not sure the contents though. My brain hurts. Something about school too. It came up about our first college. We said a little, but it was pretty hard … Had the sense that we’d disappointed all that … shoot got to lay down … we’re sorry

Friday, September 22, 2006

Sorry about this ... still trying to catch up. This is a video from Tuesday ... This will catch me up with the videos. :)

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Ok ... OK ... and just so I don't forget V's birthday on 25th remember, remember MONDAY!!!

Good morning,

This is just me. We’re up early this morning. Won’t V be surprised! But, maybe he is just going to sleep in today because it is a Thursday. He’s done that before. HMPF! We are a little at odds with our kitty because he decided to lie to the right today and is putting too much pressure on my right wrist. Hard to type. Grrrr. Better move him before I tire unnecessarily. Hmm, did that work? Maybe, maybe. He moved, but his tail is now waving at me playfully like he’s going to cause me trouble. Shoot V AND kitty … too many problems … Double Hmpf!

We were woken up by the sound of the train pretty far away. We first thought the sound was an air raid siren because it was so loud and clear. I remember thinking well if the world is coming to an end … so far we’re not hurt. I guess that is not too bad a thought other than the fact that the world coming to an end is so close to my forethoughts. I know for one thing … The next thought I had was that Chief sure was taking up a lot of room next to me. And, somehow he arranges that when I come to consciousness, I am somehow already petting him. I surely don’t know how that happens. I just know I wake up petting. Darn sneaky cat!

There’s stuff to be said over the last couple of days, but we’re just waking up … so let’s take it one step at a time and lightly, k?

The top of the news this morning is that when I got back to work on Tuesday Sr. was there. The first time we talked to her she snapped at us because of a phone message I messed up. Didn’t intend to, but it had been with one of my old clients and Sister had been talking to them and I hadn’t known that. It was just a two minute call, but I hadn’t known something. Couldn’t do much of that … to tell you the truth, I was still glad to hear that sister was back and in charge again. So, we just got scolded proper and let it pretty much go at that. I don’t think we got scolded too much past that, but Sr. was gone yesterday in the hospital. We only know like the rest of the center that she was getting tests done.

I think the other sister was around first thing in the morning, because I had heard through the grapevine that she’d made a staff decision because someone had not come in. Thought … eh. We’ll just mind our own business back here. Next thing I knew it was about 1:30 pm and we heard Sister Tess on the intercom sooooo figured she was back and all was ok.

Going back to Tuesday though. The BIGGGEST thing that happened is that somehow Sr. decided to come back … I think it was because on Monday, we’d finished that report, or at least it was finalized on Tuesday before work. We had left a copy of it on her desk, and we knew she had also from Friday a copy of the first report. I felt pretty good about it, but was unnerved thinking she was going to complain about it. We were right, she complained, but not altogether in a bad way. I think she was a little exasperated. I don’t know how to do a short so-so paper. We usually error on the side of a very precise long report that covers everything. I think it is due because of our mental illness. We have a different sense of what being complete is about. Soooo, beside that … I think she WAS glad that we were finally doing at least something toward CARF and I think she wanted to encourage that we do more. We had told her that we’d stayed home yesterday and wrote the whole second paper (a lot of copy/paste) on Monday. Soooo then the unexpected part was that she confirmed with us that we could take advantage of work done at home and she wanted to know if we would like to work EVERY Monday from home and we said in a heartbeat … Well, SURE!

We’ve been thinking a lot of that ever since. We can’t believe our good fortune. Ahh, John Denver … Yup yup feeling that good. But Chief is down and now missy is laying on our right wrist … I don’t know what’s up with that, but I know that is her normal way to be. Ahh the words “life is so incredible to me!” Well, its still early in the morning for all that … but three day weekends???!!!! That’s almost to gosh darn nice to comprehend. I still have to make sure to dedicate the time to the center. No goofing off! I would actually likely to guarantee two days to the center’s work. I’m realizing that I do need one sluff off day, or at least that option to sluff or work. It seems that it is needed a lot of times on a Saturday morning when I have things that I want to write or talk about. That’s ok. AND this Saturday morning, we’ve been invited out to watch a soccer match. My Granddaughter is playing soccer and she’s only 5 years old … Whooo. Unbelievable!!!

That’s sorta another thing … my oldest son called last night and we’re still trying not to talk so much about their business, but the gist of things got down to that we are going to try setting up with him a period of time weekly that we get to talk to him. Pretty much … it’s going to be 8 pm or so on Wednesday nights after our Multiple meeting. I’m very excited about that. We talked about our problem of thinking nobody liked us. We know or think from our last talk with Dr. Marvin that it has something to do with being a psychotic break. So, we’re going to have to figure out something more to do with that. But, not this morning. We have a Dr. M. appointment tonight. Yup, yup … once weekly now unless he’s on vacation or away from the office. I think that is going to happen twice in the next month and a half, but we don’t know the dates … he told us, but we don’t remember them. I am going to try being ok with that. For the time being feel so lucky to have more appointments that I’m just going to try being ok.

It doesn’t yet feel like things are quite safe yet … It seems like it could be taken away. 

Ok, ok … enough of that … better switch subjects. Let me think. What else. We’re going to be staying home one more day a week. Hmm, there’s one more thing that is pretty cool. I wrote down on a card the details, but we pushed up our courage and went up front to Sisters to talk to her about getting a bookshelf in our office. It’s a tight fit between our computer hutch and window, but the fact of the matter is that there is JUST the 33” we need. Pshwoo! At first it was like absolutely no way … We tried not to be dispirited. We stayed with it and waited for sister to work through it. It was a lot of money for a wooden bookcase … $460, but it was solid wood and it matched our other furniture … It was 33” where most cabinets are 36” AND it included delivery. I figured that was a pretty good deal, because it was coming from California. The bad part is that it is going to take 3-4 weeks getting here, but we’ve waited this long.

Part of that whole deal was a big switch in Sister’s thinking. I told her that we would then be able to keep CARF back in our office. She was saying that she had room for it up in her office. But, we said that we could work more directly with it in the back. But, then somewhere in there she looked at the cabinet space she had and her cabinet seemed to be overflowing. So, I think that helped because she realized she could rearrange and make use of that space. Then we talked about how inconvenient it was to have the movable cabinet in our office. It is double big having a front and backside but the folders are twice as big as one side shelving, but we’re not using the back, which means wasted space. There isn’t true room in the office for them. They are sitting in front of our books on the window sill and windows so I can’t reach the cord to open and close our window shades.

She said something about checking out for herself to see if there was enough room. That was the first really good sign. Because I’d worked hard on that issue myself. I moved our big cabinet all the way to the wall and 33” is a tight fit, but it is 33”. I think we showed her the same stuff we were feeling. The Intern and I are sharing the same office when she does Qnotes, because it is the only computer between the 3 back there we are using that is able to do Word Publishing. So with the guest chair she’s using and my big chair back to back there is more room crowd. Plus I have folders everywhere. She still isn’t going anywhere as far as having dead files in the office, but she did say that she has to clean her storage space again.

The biggest deal I think is a sense of ownership with CARF … I think the transition has to be made where they are being maintained regularly, which isn’t as apt to happen with the folders going back up on her shelve. That’s what she said at first that they would come up when I was done, but I said and believe that they should be worked on all the time. On Tuesday too, we had placed an Office Depot order that came already by yesterday. We had ordered several things, but the primary thing was to order 20 – ½” white folders. Nothin special about them … they were like $2.20 each … the generic kind, which seemed to be fine.

Whoops the V-ster! Hmm, he’s getting something … will brb. So, anyway our folders came in last night … We put them up right away on the movable cart and imagined them in real shelves. Sister and I came up with a compromise … and umm no I don’t think she realizes that we bought our own folders. She had asked if the reports were going in the big white folders and we said they could go there too, but we wanted them to go in the out folders … the other folders are like 3” and hard to do too much moving around for. We had also got about 400 sheet protectors without the glare, so we took the three reports we’d finished … included the technology report and we put them all in the folders appropriate and made cover sheets out of client pictures. The cover sheets are for the folder covers on the outside (plastic see through sleeve) and one for the binding. Felt real happy to have the reports done proper … made us feel real special like we had done something worth of being seen. Think we said this before … there is a sense of ownership.

I think it is hard to write reports that we know Sister is going to criticize … I suppose it would be natural then for one’s boss to be critical of reports that she says are “Too good?” Then she tells me stuff like the other Chicago center reports are only one page … and I think … ok what’s the point. I figure doing one page is like a writer blowing her nose. Just not much there to see. HMPF!

We got a few other things too. We got about 2,500 note cards. We don’t like it that sister is just handing them to us 100-200 at a time, so I have to keep going back, because then she complains each time and I in the meantime feel like I’m bustin down her sensibility doors. We also for about the same reason got some clips … you know those triangular ones that are a spring and you push two clips in, but backwards and it opens? You know what I mean? We didn’t have those growing up younger … figure they’re a lot newer than paper clips. But, we love them. Just we’re afraid to use them because then we don’t got them anymore. So, we got like 60 of the baby ones, 38 of the mother ones and 24 of the father ones. Yes, I am psychotic, but its ok  I plan on going wild with them!

I got some envelopes too … 50 of them. They are the special kind for sending back and forth mini-tapes. This is so she can send them to us and we transcribe them. Good deal. Then I think the only other thing we got was some pens. We got a dozen of our favorite for about half the price we’ve been paying at the drug store for two, AND for our treat … we got our favorite pens, but in a color package of 7. We didn’t even know they came in colors other than black, blue, or red. And, red was a rare spotting! I like to use best the Pilot Precise V5 Extra Fine Blue. We are getting the intern into them too, but we started her off for Christmas on a dozen of the same pen in black. We figured she could be the more official one and we’d get to use our color! Pretty big deal, hmm? Hehehe … it’s important though. I leave a blue pen with note cards at each computer and we invite her to use them, BUT we sure don’t want to see our blue ending up on HER desk, and Vice-versa with the black! Hehehehe Yesterday, I told her … we don’t want to make her crazy in jealousy, but … just had to show her our new 7-color package … whoo head rush! We told her you need to make sure your office work always seems fun … or it will one day bury you!

Oh oh … there was one more surprise. Because we ordered over $100 (just barely), we got a free gift from Office Depot … LOVE that company … Next day delivery and delivery is free!!! Anyway our free gift was a nice “vinyl” tote bag with a matching phone book and picture/key holder. I prefer my leather cases, but as far as cases go like this it seemed pretty nice. There was an outside pouch to carry the address book … and it was a good size too. So, we figured that it would go to the client we had the staffing for yesterday. We ended up designing a CD Collection goal for her and a reading goal (music), well and science too, but that’s beside the point. With the CD collection, she has to go on the Internet, go to a lyrics site, find and print songs, then write the Album information on a data base. The folder is for her collection of songs and Album info. We left her most the space on her folder cover sheets to do the decorating … But, we color matched it to the light blue color on the inside lining of the bag. Felt real good about all that. We’d put a picture of the client and her name on it AND a couple of black kitties. That was because when she was in she and I were talking about the kitties, and then later when I was in making an observation, she noted to the class that Ms. Ann had two black kitties and that she’d seen them (showed her blog). She was pretty excited about that 

We had gotten this client a bag, because I knew that if she were to get really excited about her goal she would periodically take it home to show her sisters. They are like 18 and 16 and help her stay with the main frame culture of being young women. I was very impressed that when I brought her in to check her reading … she was able to read quite a bit from the song phrase we’d picked out from one of Britney Speres’ songs. She still has to work on what they mean, but that will come too. I was most impressed that yesterday at her staffing she looked at the songs and she was alert and happy and trying to figure them out as the rest of us were talking … she was “into it!” There can be no better compliment then to think you’ve hit home with one of the goals. I am of the firm belief that you should be working at things you like rather than things your not good at. Well, a little of that, but you gotta be looking forward to change to see the real stuff happen. Hehehe we left the bag and folder on her desk in her group’s room. It will be a pretty big deal, because in this environment any one change is so different that everyone’s attuned to it. Every day they go into those rooms and it is spotless with everything in place. I can see them each examining all the pockets now … just makes me giggle to pieces!

Ahh … then there’s our son … we got in a couple of things that are making me think we have all the pieces for the web cam. Yesterday the tripod and tapes came in. So, we got our son’s new address and we’re trying to plan going to the post office by Saturday latest. I don’t know when our friend is coming by maybe either Friday or Saturday?? And, we know we should plan for Dr. M. tonight. So, pretty much a matter of which day can we get there before 6 pm, or 3 pm on Saturday. I’m hoping we can do it … we just have to tape the boxes shut and we have the tape at the workshop. We can do this, right? I’d sure like this to be getting to him. 

Hmm, think that is almost it … we’re running out of time this morning. Ten minutes to shower and we know we’re going to want to read over our notes. Anything major we’re missing? Nope … Ohhh one more thing … we just want to say this for the record, cuz we’re so gosh darn proud of her. Our Intern??? She’s going to have a fun day today, because she is going to her first out of the office meeting today, but yesterday she’s all but a slim two Qnotes from being completely done. She would have finished completely, but we needed to pull her off-task to do an “emergency” ICAP. But, we are very, very proud of her work. We told sister on Tuesday how close she was and I showed her where are case files were and I told her Annuals done by end of November, which would free up the interns time. She said that she would like to see her cross-trained to take over in the rooms or work with individuals on goals. Thought that would be pretty neat to become a goal specialist. I liked the idea of giving her experience directly with the clients. I think that is great training and I will look forward to seeing her with the groups. I think she is shy, but confident so it will be very good for all. She’s too much a gem to keep all to ourselves … She’s going to be a client superstar!!! HEHEHE Oh man … life’s sweet!

This Video is the 5th one from Monday ... there is one more after that ... It is the first and only of Tuesday. After that we're all caught up. Think this morning we're going to try writing. It's 4 am, but already Thursday ... Time going fast.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

We finished five videos this one similar to last few ... about 2 hours long ... The last video will be only an hour

Monday, September 18, 2006

Umm. This is a long section ... most likely going to be a 4-5 video entry ... It's ok

And, a Monday Morning with not much to say!

This is the second video of the day ... It is now 11 am as we try to upload it to Hipcast. The Video before this was recorded earlier up until about 7 am.

Pshwoo ok, we're doing good not daffy yet. This is our third video to upload and transcode for the day. It's now 5 pm. The last one took a while to register. Plus, we just finished recording video #4. AND, after a slight half hour break for dinner, we'll start video #5 - Pretty sure that won't be uploaded/transcoded until tomorrow.

Sunday, September 17, 2006

YooHOOO Another Jacob DAY!!!!!

Evening … this is just me … not sure how long we’ll be on, but it’s already almost 5 pm and we’re thinking it’s a poor time on a Sunday night to start doing homework from work. Not sure if I have anything else to do, but pet the kitties. Nope, nope not a care in the world.

*Silly grin* We just got back from visiting Jacob, finished our leftovers, and have ourselves a nice slushy. Now if it weren’t for the kitty that wants to knock that over things would be bout perfect. He’s trying to be not so obvious, but I know he’s feeling put out … is that a wrong thing to put out your kitty? Slushy is right where I want it though. HMPF! No, we don’t want a V-ruling on that either!

We had a very very nice time. Hehehe We ALWAYS have a very, very nice time with him. We are just soooooo happy to give him a big squishy hug. He’s just sooooooooo nice. Sometimes I can’t hardly believe such great luck in knowing him. In general we were a little fuzzy coming in … few wrong turns when the PDA thought we’d gone off-trail, but otherwise things were pretty smooth. He met me downstairs of his dorm right on time, and we went out to eat, and he played with the new camcorder a bit, and we went up to his room, took care some more talking and talking with his roommate, and we filled out a financial form. YAYYYYY Momstuff!

I think it took awhile, because we left here at 9:30 and now its 5:30. We got there at 11 and must have left around 3:45. So about 4-5 hours … shoot the time goes so gosh darn fast. I’m trying not to talk about everything the boys talk to me about, but there was one subject that stood out far and beyond the others … MORE than which courses he was taking, but he’s got some cool ones like sign language and psych lab! The big news was that he has a friend that did an internship with the State police over the summer and my son is now thinking he might be a State police for a while. Yes, he said he could use his psychology. He said everyone has to do a “turf” thing for a while, but after that he could specialize in special victims, or other areas that my Mom mind wasn’t ready to grasp yet. I think he said something with criminals. *Sigh*

I look at my son and I think … hmm ok … that makes sense too. He says he’d go through a 6 month boot camp and that there’s something coming up in like a week where state troopers will be on campus recruiting and he says that they’ll work something out so the students get a chance to ride with a police unit. He’s says he can do more planning after that. Hmm, like ok … probably should say something mom-like here. “Are you sure?” Thought that was good. He seems pretty sure about it already. I think I’m the last to know … It’s been talked about with his brothers, his friends, his father, and his Grandmother. Suppose I was going to find out sooner or later. I asked, “Will I get in trouble for not wearing my seat belt? Will you bust me?” He said, “Mom, you need to wear the seatbelt.” I thought well that might not be so much a good thing if I am going to get busted by my own son! I don’t know … he’s still thinking about being a teacher too. I think he wants though more experience with something before he starts teaching. If he did something with the troopers, he would know he would be living at boot camp for the next six months. Jacob is the kind of guy who could do something like that and if there was a way possible of perfecting him more, he would take up the good of what was being presented upon him. I think he also liked that it was a solid plan and he liked being one of the guys and meeting other interesting people. He seemed very excited to hear the stories his friend had told him. Jacobs been a good guy forever ... and now that we're thinking about it ... we think of all the good guy bad guy material he has been going over with his computer games and dungeon and dragon and all that sort of thing. He's taken positions on both sides of the law, but most likely the strategy has been formulated for quite a while of bad and good morality. The last thing he said to us before we got in the car was to say, "Don't worry Mom, I will wear my armour." It's like my baby could be stepping into a very real world where knights ride fast cars, the guns are real, and lifes lessons are hard fought.

I don’t know there is so much to think about my mind’s not really registering it. There’s a couple of other things happening too. It’s about 6:40 pm now. Our Sweetie Pie has called and then after that we talked to our Grandmother. We were telling her about Jacob and then she talked about my cousin’s husband. He’s our age, but he put in paper’s a year ahead of time that he is going to retire next year. He’s a general in the Air Force and spent most of his time teaching fighter pilots how to do their thing. She says they are getting some kind of motor home and moving to a lake in Wisconsin. I felt a little like … maybe it wasn’t very big news that your son is going to be a state trooper maybe after all that, but we thought it was pretty big news just the same. I don’t know I kinda forgot sometimes my Grandmother can do stuff like that … kinda hurt some. But, I guess she doesn’t really know my kids. Hmm, thinking about it … I think she did meet them a couple times? I’m not sure. It would have been a very long time ago like when Jacob was under a couple of years old. That’s about the same with our mother. Then I think my mother saw them again once when they were about 10-14 years old, then that is about it. They are now 22-25 years old. I’m not like the kinda Mom that ever did much real sharing with our kids. I didn’t trust them. I still don’t trust my mother … don’t want her to know my kids … and even now I don’t like getting into with my Grandmother the comparison stuff.

It’s just that I just got back from Jacobs and I was pretty excited about it. It’s a pretty big deal when your son changes course this drastically. I was a little disappointed in our friend too because we told him, but he didn’t say too much about it before changing the subject. He said something about his son having wanted to do something like that once. But, then he went on to talk about something else, so after a while we said, well I guess we’re done talking about our son becoming a law enforcement officer and he said well you didn’t say too much. But, we were like … well, it’s hit us as a pretty big shock of sorts. We don’t know how to talk about it yet. So, then we figure we might as well let him change subjects, because we had hoped to think through it with him, but he’s had a pretty long weekend.

Our friend took third place in the fishing this week, so I think he was disappointed in that. We did talk about a few things on his trip, like he said they played cards in the middle of the parking lot with somebody holding a flashlight … I thought that was kinda funny. They must have been having a good time … Think that’s the kind of thing our son is looking at … he’s been hanging out with friends at college for quite a while now … and he’s planning how to do that next. Our friend said nobody fell in the water and they ate, but he didn’t say much about that. He said that the fishing was poor for everyone and that his partner didn’t know so much about fishing, but he was a real nice guy. I think the guy he was partnered with is the “Young one” of the group, which might mean he’s like late 20’s early 30’s, BUT the guy has a boat … so they let him in. I think this is the one that has a tendency to talk too much Heheheh…

Bout the time I got done being a little pouty with our friend, because he didn’t want to talk more about our son, he was getting close to home and hitting that reality like tomorrow morning he has to go to work, which means getting the car cleaned out, clothes washed, socks folded and whatever else might come up at his home. I don’t envy him, because while getting home is a good deal after a long weekend there is definitely some drudgery work involved. We stopped by on the way home (15 minutes to spare) and got our clean clothes from the cleaner … PSHWOO … that’s the deal! We had too much to get everything up the stairs though. We left the stuff on hangers down stairs and brought up the folded stuff. We’ll hope that our friend can help with the other if he’s coming over in the next day or two.

Cool, cool … do you know what? Jacob's friend and roommate, let me have his IM name, so we dropped him a little note and he responded just a sentence or two. We gave him one more … we let him know he could call us Ayn. He’s such a nice guy. But, then again we’ve liked almost all the kids our friends have brought home. We accidentally walked into the roommates side of the rooms first, before being told by our son, we’d gotten the wrong room. Hardly enough time to register whether they both keep their dirty clothes under the desks, because they’d picked up! Hehehe Jacob says he made the bed for us and that’s a pretty major concession.

At the end of the phone call with our Grandma, we told her in the next day or two we were going to try mailing her a package that’s now up to the point of sitting in our car’s back seat. It’s taped up and has the address and everything. We told her about sending the tape recorder and tapes and asking her to record some of the stuff she thinks about at odd times of the day. It seems like she’s going to give it a try. Of course, she’s a Grandma so said, I shouldn’t have and all that, but this is the kind of cool thing you SHOULD be able to do with your Grandma. I’m wondering know if we should ask her some general questions, or whether she might be able to ad lib from wherever her mind takes her. She seemed to be concerned that she might seem all over the place, but we pretty much explained that was the neat part and that we hoped she might. I like the sense of thoughts wondering from one abstract thing to the next. We took the next step too. We checked the post office here in town and it seems that during the week it is open until 6 pm. So, tomorrow I think we have to come home on time to get over there. It’s always hard to park at city post offices and they close earlier.

There was one more thing with Jacob too. We seemed to be thinking about it kind of at an unconscious level on the way out to his place, but we knew for certain after we got out there. We gave him to use for the next semester our new camcorder. It just occurred to us to be the right thing to do. Early on during the conversation, and in our thoughts on the way out, we were worrying about how Jacob was making this transition where he wouldn’t be at school after this semester. I can’t pin it down in our minds when or exactly how it happened … I knew that I wanted right off the top for him to record some pictures of the campus, because we knew he wasn’t going to have it much longer and in our heart I know what it is like to leave the place you’ve come to love. I maybe have in existence 3 or 4 pictures representing my whole time at school working on my BA. Jacob is at that point now … where he is making some of the most important memories of his young adulthood and some of these memories are going to carry him the rest of his life.

I told him that it was still our camera, but we brought it out to show him and as any proud Mom might expect, he wrapped the strap around his hand and I knew the instant I saw him take his first pictures of the geese in a pond we were passing that it was the thing to do. He had started the camera and took a picture of the ride home from the restaurant all the way to his dorm. Yup, yup … like a duck takes to water. And, truth be told although I very much want pictures to animate my blog, it was much more important for him to be taking pictures for him. I could imagine him taking pictures of cool places and his friends and having fun going to football games and stuff … Just wanted him to have a good time with it. The camera didn’t have a real purpose before, but it has a real purpose now. I’ve been worried that because of our inability to get around that we could get out enough to catch some part of the world. So much of the world is here at the computer. I want to use the camcorder to inspire me out the door. But, to see it in Jacobs hand. It seemed like such an awesome blend of mind and machine … *Sigh* This in truth is what we thought of most the ride home. Pretty much Jacob documenting his world. I was even happier on the way out to learn that he’d already made the mental transition to knowing that he would record the videos to computer, and then over to CDs. I’ve never stopped for a moment being proud of this kid. We think, “Good Boy!!!” We’ve always thought … God works in mysterious ways … we’re thinking … just maybe? He did that again today.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Umm as an abstract side note to post ... Guess what's in!??

Umm another abstract detail ... we were surprised as all get out, but the new mini?? She's only 2-5/8"W x 3-1/8"H x 4-1/2"D Weight: 0.94 lb. with battery. Man is the picture misleading! But, for the record ... I think she's cuter than all get-out! This picture of the camcorder is about 75% accurate hehehehe...

Good morning … this is me. I hope this is you otherwise we may both be in trouble. *Sigh*

This is a nice wonderful Saturday morning … It’s about 20 after 8 am. We’re just pretty much waking up … me and Chief. He’s at that happy she finally fed me stage and looking to take a snooze between my arms. Whoops there we go … had to do a little adjusting … but he’s tucked in and his tail is still happy waving. We haven’t gotten our first cup of coffee yet because we’re finishing up on some lemonade slushy made last night and fridgerdized. Life is good hehehe. I haven’t taken our medicine either, but I didn’t want to upset Chief yet … we’ll get to that in short order though.

We got home from work very very late. I think it was about a few minutes after 8 pm when we left. That was like doing a day and a half, but we felt good about doing it. We wanted to finish a big report we were working on and we did. Just that the new sister had come in after about 6:30 pm and we were talking back and forth with her a bit. She didn’t seem to mind at all that we were still there. We had only 3 pages to finish at that time out of 44, but that’s the way those things go. I enjoyed the talking part.

We were real happy the way the report turned out … It is actually more like a succinct version of the Administration minutes – it has all the ideas covered, but the format is different … we write in a different tense and instead of it being a run on narrative, we list the problem, the solution, the date expected to be completed and who is responsible for each issue. I think there were about 700 issues total for the year. So it might sound like …

“Approved for Developmental Training funding confirmed by facilitator” as a problem, then as a solution or really next thing to do … “Look for paperwork documenting changes”

Or,

“Reminder has been given to staff that the first staff member to see an incident must be the reporting party” then it was followed by “monitor progress.” I liked to turn these terribly complex thoughts into simple run-on sentences hehehe. Ok, one more example?

“Looking into extending cement in front of building for more surface area loading and unloading passengers to vehicles, but told that city could not cut down curb for ramp” solution? “Look into alternatives.”

I know pretty goofy, hmm… Repeat 700 times, shake, but do not stir. I had done it like this for the last CARF inspection too … It is not real difficult work, but is very comprehensive and takes about three days to write. The whole thing is called an Accessibility Plan … it is how we plan to take care of things to make everything more accessible to the clients or other stakeholders in the center. I have another equally long report I’m going to write over the weekend that will be the same in it holds some of the same information but in different order. Sooo, we group stuff together, but it will be listed under barriers. So where we have categories now as transportation, safety, or financial, etc. those will get grouped as similar barriers keeping us from providing service so instead of going all the June stuff, then July stuff, then … whatever – we will put all the transportation things together all the safety etc. and we will make a marker for whether things involve clients, staff, or other stakeholders and we will leave a column to include whether or not there are financial considerations involved. Then after that, we will write our 11 reports from the data collected primarily from this next report on barriers and we will try to keep those 11 reports down to 3-5 pages each. After that there will be one more major report that needs to be written called the Performance analysis, but we’ll save you from that explanation … we’d worked on it before so you’d have to go back and find it … or wait till later … that report is the biggest report and takes into consideration where all the client has been as to progress with his program. I’ve got the format I want down for that report, but it could take a month to write it. Pretty tough stuff.

So that’s pretty much that for the time being … I’m not ready to start that report yet. Maybe by about 10 or 11 this morning or basically one or two hours from now … Hmm. Think we’re to that part where since kitties sauntered off to bed we need to get coffee and take medicine … brb.

AHA! Done and found breakfast cereal too!

Well now that is kinda done now too. Ahh back to coffee! Very good.

Hmm, what to write about next? Do you know that it is sweetie pies weekend to be fishing?? This is the last regular fishing trip and then there will be just the one for the winners. This is the one that decides who goes to the final trip … well everyone can go fish, but it only counts for the first five people. Sweetie Pie’s stayed in first place all summer, but he’s up against tough odds this weekend because he has a not so good fisherman partner. Sweetie is not in a very good position because he’s a “back seater.” That means he doesn’t own a boat and is always partnered with someone who does. That’s the same for everyone … you either are one or the other. The boat owner people get to choose where to fish and they get the best fishing spot in the boat because they direct the boat so it will be to their advantage first. Back seaters usually have to fish around the other … but somehow he’s done it and been in first place and he’s pretty happy about that, but its been a pretty pressuresome summer. He says all the top guys within 5 points contention. YEEKS!

Sweetie Pie called us last night, but only talked for a few minutes … enough to let me know he’s not done so good the first day, but he’s still holding out. He said he called to tuck me in. He also said that he called earlier about 6:30 pm, but we weren’t home then … he got ahold of us at 9 pm. We had to giggle and say, are you checking up on us??? He’s so silly! He said he was pretty darn tired and was heading for bed. He said he looked around at one point and said there were ten guys in his bedroom (motel) … I thought that was kinda funny … poor baby fish face. I think these guys are making him feel kinda good.

Let’s see what else in the news … Did you know that Deb had her operation? We heard from her hubby this week that things were ok, but haven’t caught up to Deb quite yet. I think first priority is that you have to stop working so you can be available. Yup, yup … think that’s what has to happen. We got news that V. will be having his operation October 5th, but we’ve been having similar trouble getting enough time with him too. We’re not matching up on morning time and he’s not signing on at any other time of the day or night … says he’s doing extra reading. Uh HUH uh HUH … I think its some kind of denial, or withdrawal. If he’s not on line at least reading blogs … then he’s definitely out of touch and that’s no good. There’s not much accountability. Only get MAYBE a hello message in email, which is better than nothing, but it’s not much! HMPF!

We talked to our Grandma earlier in the week and she seems to be still doing good. If we are being a real good Ann, we will go sometime over the weekend to mail a box we packed up for her. It is only a tiny one, but we put in our tape recorder and a box of 10 mini-tapes. This is so she can record some thoughts she has when she has the mind to do it. She says she wakes up at night with thought on her mind and sometimes has trouble going back to sleep … We want her to put stuff down and then we can write it out, because that’s what needs to get done. I think Sweetie Pie has an extra recorder that I could use if she were to send the messages back to us. Like I said, I would like to go to the post office today … have to deposit check too. Maybe we can get there before 2 pm and then we’ll call and tell her its on the way … That would make us both smile.

One other news … is that Jacob IM’d this morning. He was up til about 5:30 am playing Dungeons and Dragons with his school friends. SHEESH! You’d think he was at the University of Sorcery! Last semester … you got to give it to him! Heheheh. Anyway … he asked if I would like to come out tomorrow and we said yup yup … would like to be there. So, we’ll meet him about 11 am. I think he’s in the same building as he has been, but he said he’s in another wing … so we’ll look for him today to make sure we’re meeting him in the right place. Looking very forward to that … We haven’t heard from the other two sons. But, that’s kinda to be expected. I’m not looking forward to telling any of them that school is on hold.

Hmm, that’s another thing that happened yesterday … we went through some paces about getting school officially put on medical leave. We finally got a call back from the School counselor and we sent a letter to the last prof, filled in a medical leave application, and contacted Dr. Marvin about the email he is going to need submit to the school. Between us we got a release form sent through with the fax and he said he will write the letter on Monday morning. So that makes me feel a little better. It wasn’t a very good counselor, but we progressed the situation.

Hmm … there is some news with Dr. M too … He’s going to have a couple of weeks off within the next couple of months, but officially we are going to be seeing him now once a week. So, that is very good news. We saw him on Thursday. I remember that we took care of some medicine stuff. He is going to change our prescriptions so that we’re getting a little more anti-depressant and anxiety medications. We’re hoping that is going to help. We’ll have to see how that goes. We have to wait until this next week before everything is set up for the medication changes. He says that its been a long time since we’ve changed and also a long time now where we’ve had continuous problems with depression and anxiety. We also talked more about the obsessive-compulsive stuff and about psychosis and neurosis. This is what the dictionary says …

Main Entry: psy•cho•sis Pronunciation Guide
Pronunciation: s k s s
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural psycho•ses \- s zEtymology: New Latin, from psych- + -osis
1 : profound disorganization of mind, personality, or behavior that results from an individual's inability to tolerate the demands of his social environment whether because of the enormity of the imposed stress or because of primary inadequacy or acquired debility of his organism especially in regard to the central nervous system or because of combinations of these factors and that may be manifested by disorders of perception, thinking, or affect symptoms of neurosis, by criminality, or by any combination of these -- distinguished from neurosis; compare INSANITY
2 : extreme mental unrest of an individual or of a social group especially in regard to situational factors of grave import -- compare HYSTERIA 2
synonym see INSANITY
Main Entry: psy•cho•sis Pronunciation Guide
Pronunciation: s - k -s s
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -cho•ses \- s z: a serious mental disorder (as schizophrenia) characterized by defective or lost contact with reality often with hallucinations or delusions

Main Entry: neu•ro•sis Pronunciation Guide
Pronunciation: n(y)ü r s s, n(y) -
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural neuro•ses \- s zEtymology: New Latin, from neur- + -osis
1 : a functional disorder of the central nervous system usually manifested by anxiety, phobias, obsessions, or compulsions but frequently displaying signs of somatic disorder involving any of the bodily systems with or without other subjective or behavioral manifestations and having its most probable etiology in intrapsychic or interpersonal conflict a neurosis or a neurotic fantasy always relates to a reality, and a neurotic expression of a reality is likely to have more force than a "normal" one -- Lionel Trilling
2 : individual or group behavior that is characterized by rigid adherence to an idealized concept of the personal or social organism especially when that concept is significantly at variance with reality and that results in interpersonal, cultural, or political conflict and in the development of discomforting intraorganismal tensions
Main Entry: neu•ro•sis Pronunciation Guide
Pronunciation: n(y) - r -s s
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ro•ses \- s z: a mental and emotional disorder that affects only part of the personality, is accompanied by a less distorted perception of reality than in a psychosis, does not result in disturbance of the use of language, and is accompanied by various physical, physiological, and mental disturbances
Ok, that may or may not be understandable … It’s too hard for us at the time being. The major things we remember is that neurosis has more to do with our states of anxiety and psychosis has to do with breaks in reality. Dr. M. says that when we think everyone is mad at us that’s like being psychotic. But, it’s hard for us to think that …because it really does seem that people get mad at us. We talked to the new Sister about it last night … we said that we needed a system … and that we’d let her know when we thought Sr. was being mad at us and she could help us check it out if it were the case in reality or if we were just being psychotic. I really thought she understood that part and understands our dilemma.

I can’t say too much here because we have major breaks in our understanding of what Dr. M. was trying to tell us. We don’t feel very progressed in understanding the ramifications of being neurotic or psychotic. We’ll have to do more talking. One thing I am pretty sure about at this point. The new Sister is feeling more confident of telling Sr. Tess directly that she is available to take on some responsibilities at the center and that she has the approval of the order. One thing I suggested is that she take part of the Administration meeting and the other part I would like to suggest at this point is that she take on for Sr. Tess the handling of me. We found out last night that the new Sr. had taken on the responsibility of CARF at another place she had worked where there were like 120 clients and she said about 7 Srs. SOOO, she knows what CARF is all about. It would help tremendously my responsibilities if I could actually talk to someone when things came up either with straight up business or with CARF, or with how my psychology was being affected in general with work responsibilities. That way we could be getting things done without all the emotional overload we feel in working with Sr. Tess. I’m not sure if this is feasible, but it is worth thinking it through.

Bottom line is that I would like to work, I enjoy working hard, I like CARF and I just want to do what I gotta do without someone so emotionally involved that she can’t talk to me about what’s going on. I think that this sister can be serious about what’s happening and she really has a handle on stuff. We asked her if she really wanted to do something at our center, basically was this something that really appealed to her. She said that basically, she trusts God to show her the way and that she’s been placed at our center for a reason. She also said that she’s never been happier, in that the change of positions has released her from a lot of stress. I think too that she had personality problems at the last place she had worked with in accordance with the major nun boss, but that she felt that the other sisters had felt her loss of spirit. I can imagine that to have happened, because she is a very strong positive person. I think she really knows what she’s doing too … but, is a person that wants to cover all the bases. She said that she’s gone through all of Sister Tess’ finances and it didn’t take her too long to do it. I think she and the order have a tremendous amount of respect for Sr. Tess, but I like her attitude that she’s been placed her for a reason and that she is willing and excited to work through it. There is one poor stipulation, in that part of the plan with her being here is that it lightened her load to be completing a MBA degree and that places her here for definitely one year, but we don’t know what will happen after that. Also, she is in a position … they all are, that the main Sr. in charge of all the Sr.s here in the US is based up at the northern place here in Chicago, but that her term is up in a year. They don’t know what will happen after that, but they do know that changes occur about that time … so people have to be open to new changes in relation to that. She did give us encouragement that it would be bad practice to have gotten all this money from the Government to just outright do all the fixing to turn her over and sell her. We had told her that would be a concern in thinking through the temporary position or commitment of the big sisters in keeping our center going. Because in reality … it is still a small center with about 50 people to service.

I get very excited now though thinking that this Sr. could be a part of a new future past where Sr. Tess has taken it. It excites me that the Sr. is so strongly into finances and is a very “assertive” money/fundraiser type person. She had no qualms about being out on the street yesterday and today with the Knights of Columbus Tootsie-roll drive, nor in bringing the retired housekeeper and other seniors out there with her to get the sympathy collections. Hehehehe she’s quite the funny one. We teased her and it made her very happy that we considered her now Sr. M&M … when we are acting too strangely … she says something that strikes us as reassuring in telling us that we are just too cute! LOL it makes us giggle. The thoughts are just starting to enter our mind in thinking that we could believe she to be the one to make even more of the center than the physical masterpiece that it is turning out to be through Sr. Tess. I’ve been long bothered by the thought we could only be servicing 50 people … I would like to see more land or home to be converted on the block to be servicing more people. I don’t know how she would feel toward that. I would like before Sr. come back to convey more strongly to her where I would like to see my position going. I think we’ve made comment to her already that we feel the current position to be very close-minded.

Basically, we’re going back finally to the thought that my degree I would like to again work on could and would be used to some higher purpose. Right now there is no one, with the exception of Dr. Marvin who really honors and respects my needs to grow stronger through education and psychology. I don’t think anyone, but Sr. Tess was against it, but … I don’t know … No one was really living in the dream I had tried to carry in doing some new things with our ability to think. Even V who was the only one who consistently read all my papers often thought to comment or discuss what we were processing with the work. We appreciated like the dickens him saying “good job,” but we wanted desperately someone to talk about the stuff with. We should have been able to get that from our peers at school, or the professor, but often we found that they were commenting not in depth, but surface … here I am commenting, but I don’t really want to think about the stuff we were learning. Professors were the least likely to comment. I found myself each course looking for the smartest in the course to correspond with, but I’d get to points where I fell after finding myself dismayed with them too. I wish I could be past the CARF at this point to be going through school efforts with this new sister and with our multiple friend going through school, but who is to say that we couldn’t help to challenge the new sister to go through a doctorate program as well. Hehehe wouldn’t that be just too cool!!! I think I could find encouragement with her and I would really like to at this point talk to her about my dream position with the center, possibly do some work with the center up north or other, but in particular become a program expert, and write books in it.

I think that was part of my problem before … I had lost faith in that what we were doing was benefiting anyone, because I get so little encouragement from sister, I will ever be doing anything beside Q work. It’s not a bad thing to do, but I have thoughts that I’ve done enough about to know I would like to be doing more. I am doing a good job of teaching the assistant, but it is time that I move on or I will stagnate. I would like to make this center and its sisters a place to be put up on the programming map!

Whoops hold on here .. a certain V-person is UP!!

Hehehe ok ok … we’re all V’d-up! He had some very encouraging things to say, but I’m sorry about his son’s girl, because she just lost her Grandpa. Our hope and prayers go out to her and her families. God Bless.

We’re thinking now though that V might try to write some. We told him we’d write if he’d write … Seems in going over his last post and its comments that there are still quite a few people who want to know how he is doing. Hate to go over there and strong arm him! Guys HMPF! He’s like oh nothing’s happening … but if he doesn’t tell and even if he does … V has lost now 12 pounds and is on day 20! He’s into a whole new life … want to here about how things and thoughts are changing. There’s one for-certain positive development that we won’t mention, but … V if your reading … our thoughts are go for it … and go for it with passion!

Smooch!

Hehehe ok ok let the V be. Where were we, hmm?

Ahh yes, programming map. It’s just that while we were young in school going through the first semester we had dreams of writing programming for the center and other centers that would be innovative. I would like to think that we could learn to do stuff that is actually quite extraordinary. Now with Sr. as V says … Sr. Hen hehehe I like that … well maybe we could really do something between other centers too. We’d never had that kind of promising thought with just Sr. Tess and our center, although we were holding tight to the south side of the city. Now there isn’t a southside network because its combined with the north side, so maybe in our mind we’ll have to place the whole of Chicago within our realm, especially because the sister Sister place is on the north side where we’ve been on the south. I like the idea of merging worlds a lot. It has been like with Sr. Tess, don’t bother, I don’t want anything to do with it. But, I think Sr. Hen would encourage it to be used and thought of widely.

It’s kinda sad, but our thinking this very moment?? I think that might be the key in all that’s happened with our school this last half year or more is that I didn’t feel to anyone else as if what I was learning was ever going to make a difference to anyone but us, and that was not enough to carry us through. I know there are a lot of other psychological problems, but this part is a very important one. Somehow, I got the feeling now that Sr. Hen and us maybe might be meant to work with one another. Sr. Tess has been an isolationist, but this other Sister is connected to her order in that she communicates daily about things that are happening. She presents a whole new wider world. It thrills me to pieces that she’s on Order committees so that she’s required to be in Italy every onther year and she’s, I forgot exactly how she said it, but is in the Inner circle of Sisters by being in charge of finances. She’s into the order where we get the impression from Sr. Tess sometimes that she’s putting up with them and tells them only what she needs to tell them. I know she loves and respects them as much as she can, just she doesn’t feel too much need for them, except in a religious sense or maybe for the holidays. I’ve never had the sense that she’s really got any close sister friends, though she knows about all of them. I don’t think any with the exception now of Sr. Hen is in her confidence.

I liked how now Sr. Hen is thinking that she is going to be more direct with Sr. in telling her she wants a part of helping Sr. with the center. I think I would respect her a lot more in being direct. Sr. Tess has never liked game playing and she’s too smart and would figure out what was going on. Last thing you need is another paranoid nun!

Hmm, sure would like to play on those thoughts a little more … Being able to have a higher position with the order than just doing Qnotes. I think our Assistant is doing very wonderful there. We had a new development there as well. She helped me to see that she didn’t really want any of the extra information I gain on what is going on around the center, so I have decided no longer to share that kind of thing with her. Her basic principle seems to be the less I know the more apt I am not to get in trouble with anyone. So, we say …eh … ok … that clears my mind … as long as I know where she is at … we can honor her wishes. We’ll have to work on it a bit though because we like to talk things over. I would much rather work on developing that kind of relationship with Sr. Hen. I don’t know if it will be allowed after Sr. Tess gets back, but for the time being we’re going to hope on those ideas. It sure be nice if Sr. Tess could turn me over to the new Sr. I could see very much working with her. Oh, and I think the intern is right on track so that she has 24 Qnotes to write or two days more work, AND if that’s what she wants to be doing exclusively. We’re of perfect mind to give her that!

I’m a little curious too I find in that she is doing Masters work in business. I have never found business to be so interesting but the thought that there are psychologists who get involved with business management is kinda cool. She says that I probably don’t think ledgers are as much fun as she … hehehe well here we contradicted her a bit. Told her we have gotten A’s in stats, had started out college as an accounting major (lotsa high school accounting), and that we have entire parts developed into statistical analysis. Basically, the message was that Sister, we appreciate columns! LOL I think the big difference is that we appreciate numbers, but not necessarily numbers that are attached to money and business. We like the numbers involved with psychology and in figuring out how people relate, meet goals, and progress. Hmm, sure be interesting if I could run past her some CARF ideas with the Performance Analysis. I’d like that a whole lot. I’m still not sure if she’s going to try taming my ideas too, but maybe she could get excited by some of our dreams, and if that were possible I would be willing to take in some of her curtailing just to the degree of helping me get everything done in time.

We talked about that a bit too. I let her know that I really did like CARF and we both agreed that it would be a must to get the work done. Just I want my work to make a difference. I’d like to think that I’m smart enough or could learn to be smart enough to put good work in effect, but I don’t think that’s going to happen in Sister Tess’ realm. It will be interesting with Sr. Hen to know if she could get into programming needs or if she could connect us to other sisters who were. Be a whole big deal if I thought I could work into a degree and into program management of all the centers here for the 60 American sisters. Not that I would take over in operation, but in development toward skill building.

Just thinking if I could get into all that, I would definitely consider maybe making some kind of deal where I could turn at least 50% of all income earned back into the Sr.’s work. I think that’s a big deal to Sistering efforts. They are always looking to self-support themselves and to still contribute back into the yet even larger sister program. My understanding is unclear … at first I thought there were only 200 sisters total and 60 of them being in the US, but I thought I heard from this sister that there were 700 Italian Sisters. Really have to clarify that. It seems with Sr. Tess, I can’t get over the part of even getting the entire program down for more than my half the clients … where I’m thinking going through Sr. Hen that I could really involve ourselves as a whole learner practitioner-specialist. I think I would turn more money over to them of Idealistic earnings, but I have set in my mind that I really want to make a lot of money … keep 20% for myself … give 30% (10 per) to each of my sons, and give the other 50% back to the Sisters. I think that could make a really really idealistic life.

Whoops Wonder V is slipping off for a good sleep … we don’t want him to over do it. Need to get him through a couple of surgery’s and more and more and more!

Ok, better try the finances once more … Let’s say that I get to keep everything up to $50,000 and I get a new car with electric seat warmers and a computer, and then we’ll do the 20-30-50% splits! Hehehe … need to cover all grounds! Umm, I am somewhere between wanting a Grand Prix or a Honda Accord. We were explaining it to someone I think that we really do need a car where we can continue playing the game … whose the first one to go forward after the light turns green. I really don’t know why my ten year old Grand Am can beat it off the line more times than not against other vehicles, but I am going to want another car that does at least as good! This split will take away all my worldy worries, I will still remain in my apartment, but I will have more toy money to spend and I will need to have enough to be eventually paying back school loans. That seems to be the most concern I have in life over everything. I don’t want to worry about leaving a huge financial legacy to the boys, but it would be nice for example to earn a $50,000 income, get a bonus of $20,000, send $10,000 immediate money over to the boys, and donate the other $50,000 to the sisters. Yup, yup make me feel real good. AND, I should get to keep my office, though we’d be able to put some of the old records somewhere else. Hehhehe OH and I am going to want a new $1,200 chair for at work and at home! Ok, is that it??? Do we have our dream moneyscape down? Hehehe Eh, it works for the time being.

Whoops more coffee … brb … and for the record? We are off normal time-scales … it’s now a quarter to 12 … *Sigh* But, we’re pretty sure we’re not done writing yet. This is the best we’ve felt for a long long time.

Hmm, just looked around our home. Let’s say we have to hire a maid too … Maybe someone twice weekly for 5 hours each and she’d have to run the clothes to the cleaners. Hehehe we’re pretty sure we want a life where we never leave the computer unless the maid is vacuuming underneath it. Hmm. That means about a maid budget for $5,200 plus she’ll need a birthday/Christmas bonus. Let’s say about $6,000 budget for the maid. Ok, so some of you might think this is us being psychotic again. We’ll have to ask Dr. M. for sure, but we’re feeling at the time being … we could make this happen just so. Yes, $6,000 just fine … $100 per week, $300 for birthday prize and $500 for Christmas gift! WooHOOO … feel like we’re having a fine life! Haven’t felt this good for a long time.

PSHWOO some new news!!!!! Better go get lunch first … been sitting in microwave for a while, but there’s new news from school … hold on brb

Ok, ok … still eating, but we’re back. This is what just happened. We got an email from our professor that is holding our incomplete. She’s agreed to do what it takes so that we can turn it in after our leave of absence. We’ve written her back and thanked her … then we forwarded the messages on to Dr. Marvin, our friend and V. What she’s done was to lift the weight of Gilbralter off of us. Last night before we left work we had finally gotten a call back from the academic advisor, not ours, because temporarily we don’t have one assigned to us, but though a little grumbly, she helped us to get through it. She recommended strongly that we get ahold of our professor, and she told us to fill out some on-line paperwork, and get supporting evidence from our psychiatrist. All of that was initiated last night … We sent through fax release to dr. M. Hmm, did we say this before?? Anyway, he is going to write the letter in the morning, the actual request was sent on and now the professor is doing her part. It seems so unbelievable. We’ve been going months and months downhill thinking we were going to lose all of everything we’d hoped for with school, because we got to the point of knowing that something had to happen with our time with CARF and the contradictory hopes to be dead. We’ve been sooo much deprived of our not being able to talk to Dr. M. that everything is just jumbled in worldly cares that make absolutely no sense to us. I feel worst for our friend and the boys and our friends. It is like why shouldn’t I feel equally up to life in their care as much as Dr. M’s isn’t the worth of my life equally as valid as with them?

But, I think it is different for me. I have a harder time holding things in place when we aren’t here … parts switch. When I’m with one of my kids I don’t want to be much of anywhere different, it’s the same as when we’re with my friend, or V. But, there are other times we’re perfectly fine without these, because we either know they are off having their own life, or we are thinking that they don’t care enough about us anyway, at least, as much as it would take for them to care to be with us. But, with Dr. M. … I think we’re better being able to know we can survive without him, but we’re still fighting the part we want to do life without him. It always boils down to the same thing … We still trust Dr. M. the most and we still believe he is the only one that really talks to us faithfully about ourselves and about what ourselves are interested in no holding back, no lack of understanding or priority, and no lack of willingness to go where ever we go. It is a profound sense of partnership that we have never found with another. I’m feeling that more and more with Jacob, and I’m sure I would with the other boys too, they can do it, it’s just their lives are centered now more on other people than Jacob. I can be very at peace with our friend too. I think he’s shown us the most in outright caring for another, though he’s better at practical things like home, car, and food, where Dr. M. is more toward ambition and life meaning, with the exception that making love with our friend has more direct meaning than most other. But, since I can’t keep him in bed, or even at our home for more than a couple hours a week, then it falls back to my mind has to be led in a direction that holds life meaning. Such as when we dream of what we can do through school and work.

Maybe it comes down to the point … where with Sr. Tess only in charge we lose our sense of life meaning. We are continually trying to outsurvive her anger, have no meaning or purpose in the work tasks we do, and we have no sense of the future that our education and our higher minds could make a difference. All that is very deabilitating.

Oh dear … we’re kinda wound up again. Or, maybe we haven’t stopped since we got up to start writing. I’m looking at the clock now. It states its 1:30 pm. I have to do a reality check, because of its closeness to 2 pm. I’m pretty mixed up on the hours now … K … this is where we are. It would be better to deposit check by 2 pm, but maybe it doesn’t matter on Saturdays because it’s still going to go into Monday’s bank records. I need to do banking because I think I’ve over spent again. I’m not sure when the post office closes … I think it were either 2 pm or 4 pm. Not sure. If I could do it … it would help me with my Grandma thoughts. If I could get out that far, I could get out far enough to do my laundry, which is in pitiful place. But, now I’m not sure if its open … Maybe just open from 4 pm-6 pm. Not between 2 pm-4 pm. That’s really going to mess me up next week and even with our son tomorrow. Or, we could forget about trying to meet all those extremely difficult goals and just breath, write. I’m not so close to even getting in the shower to go out … Can’t go out on weekends with wet hair. Oh Lordy … feel like we’re having a panic attack. Difficulty rating up to a gazillion. I got to think … calm down. My fingers are jabbing at the keys and I’m going to cause them to snap and break off 

Ok, trying to think calmly … I called a couple of places. The post office is open until 3 pm and the clothes place is open from 3 pm until 5 pm. That means I should get to the post office by 2:30 pm. Maybe do the banking next and by then the clothes … that gives me an hour for shower and dress and stuff to dry somewhat. BUT, I need money for post office and laundry … Might mean checking my account … will need money for tomorrow with Jacob too. Shoot shoot. Ok, hold on … we can be brave right? Ok, theoretically the bank account says $300. We are going to put in $1,200. That means maybe $5 for post office (small box) and $25 for laundry and about $50 for Jacob … we have gas, but will want to give him a little extra. So let’s say take out $100 … then we’ll just have to figure out whether we keep $20 or give Jacob another $20 … we’re so soft where he is concerned. BUT, if we go to the bank, they might say we’ve already spent the money … better plan on going to the cash station first. Try taking out $100. And, then plan from there. Already 1:45 pm and we need to take a shower, gather clothes and find one outfit we don’t clean … Oh man! This is sooo hard.

Ok, ok … we’re going to stop writing for a moment … Maybe do a quick post … we’ll leave only the picture of our new super duper camcorder that’s come in … Not all the parts mind you, but some … We still have to go through that and we have to go through work stuff, oh mannnn too hard, too hard. Don’t think we can do this. We’re not ready to step away from computer. We need our time off … Maybe this is why people aren’t supposed to work until 8 pm. Damm. We need an extra hour.

Ok, let’s calm down here. We’ve written 12 pages … Would think that be enough?? NOOOOOO.

Shhhhh. We can think, we can think. I don’t think we can do it. Too much confusion … we don’t even know at this point where the post office is … just know its on the other side of town. We’re thinking on Prairie street. Hmm, would mean putting the PDA on … we haven’t been doing that yet. But, all that would take like an hour to an hour and a half. I think we should plan to go out later. Maybe late taking a shower and going out only as far as maybe checking money and maybe getting to do clothes before 5 pm and then also going out to do bank before 8 pm. The only thing that wouldn’t get done then is our Grandma’s package. We thought we’d progressed it by getting it into the box. But, maybe we could call her anyway tonight and just let her know we’re trying to get it in the mail??? Ok, ok … let’s go with that plan.

It’s almost 2 pm now. Our fingers are getting sore, but we’re pretty much ok still on that account. Let’s make then our next shower goal at 3 pm (in an hour) and then our go outside goal at 4 pm (hour before laundry closes), and while we’re out we’ll stop by for money. Just not sure whether or not to go to bank or quick store. The problem there seems to be even thought we have $300 it says on computer bank, we’re not sure if the auto payment money went out which would have over drawn us. We can hold up on not getting our clothes out til our friend gets back, but then nothing to where to work on Monday, OR take our son out to dinner. Maybe it’s a good thing not to take him out???? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO that not be a good thing! But, if we don’t have money should we go to laundry and out to son’s? But, there’s a pretty good chance there won’t be money. So, then why are you even thinking about it??? Hmm, got a point. We’ve seen it before where the computer says we have money, but the bank says no. Whether or not we can take money out … we still probly should put some more money in. But, I don’t want to put all my clothes in a wrinkly bag and bring it downstairs if we can’t clean our clothes! We don’t want to hold clothes back, cuz that means they aren’t getting REALLY clean! Hmm, what about those clothes you don’t really wear any more?? I’m not sure if we’d fit into the jean shorts anymore. Maybe it be worth a try?? I know. Means it’s just 2 pm and we have to take a shower and we don’t want to.

Hmmm? What would Grandma say about that? Rich? V? Dr. M? Jacob? Kitties?

Man. No fair, no fair!

Umm see you in a couple minutes.

Ann Ludford Garvey

Craft yer' jolly roger

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The big sleepy kitty's name is Emelia. She's our new computer kitty to match the love of our new computer friends. Think you could get her to play? Sometimes she will whisper secrets in your ear! She's ticklish.

The two cozy black kitties live with us and run the household. They're names are Missy & Chief, or just Mischief.

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Us talking to Dr. M <--Click

This is my Grandma's family. She is the middle of the young girls

This is my Grandma's Blog - Myrtle T. (Press Here)

This is my Grandma and me August, 2006. She makes me so happy. She is 98!

This is my friend V. He's learning to take better care of himself, cuz he scared all of us and needs to get better ... Neither of us and T smoke any more

This is Deb. She's way up high as loved, cuz she's my forever friend! She works hard to keep us straightened out!

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: Name: Ann Marie; Location: Sandwich (Chicago), Illinois, United States

Hi, we're Ann and all (Aynetal3). We are 58-years and am a Multiple. We have three adult sons and their families and am in a 23-year relationship with our best friend Rich. We have in our home Dakota, our 5-year old collie/golden retriever service dog, and Missy our 19-year old black kitty. Oh, and we keep our psychiatrist Dr. Marvin in business ;) We had been studying at a Master's level Educational Psychology and Adult Education - e-learning, technology and design. We enjoy a strong interest in Self-Regulation and Multiplicity/Dissociation (DID, but w/o so much disorder). We do a lot of curating through reading and writing, and we utilize Word, Mindmapping, Evernote, a few favorite books, and social media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Speakerdeck, and Learnist). We believe in the power of the BLOG and "all of our" ability to validate People, especially through sharing conversation, video, and art/images.

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Directory Assistance 1l ed. December 20, 2005 @ 4:30 am
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Ok ... we KNOW we can't afford to shop, but before that ... well, I think we're ready ... Gym Tuesday night!

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Whoops backed up to Sunday sorry

Monday, September 25, 2006

HAPPY BIRTHDAY V-STER!!!

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Saturday, September 23, 2006

I promised my son I would only show a few pictures ... this is not bad - we took 60!

Saturday Morning

Friday morning

Friday, September 22, 2006

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Ok ... OK ... and just so I don't forget V's birthday on 25th remember, remember MONDAY!!!

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Monday, September 18, 2006

Umm. This is a long section ... most likely going to be a 4-5 video entry ... It's ok

Sunday, September 17, 2006

YooHOOO Another Jacob DAY!!!!!

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Umm as an abstract side note to post ... Guess what's in!??

Ayn's Multiple World

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Reasons Why We Love These Pictures

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