Bustling along with the morning
Good morning … it’s me. We’re at work again … this seems to be becoming a habit. BUT, the good part is that we’re starting earlier to function with the notes to the blog. Now it is 7:35 am and we’re already getting started.
This morning we woke up about 4:30, but then went back to bed for almost a couple of hours. That is like really sweet sleep, because its over and beyond. We did better at getting to bed on time last night and that seemed to help, though sleeping up to 6:30 am really cuts short the time to be on-line first thing of the day. Dr. Marvin asked how our sleep was coming along. I guess it would a success to know that we could sleep through 8-9 hours of sleep. JUST we’re NOT getting much done in the morning and that’s disappointing.
With all that said, not too much happened this morning. We got showered, dressed, took our medicine and was out the door by 7 am sharp and got to work 2 minutes early. WOOOHOOO that’s a change. Usually, we’re at least 10 minutes behind schedule. We had a nice surprise. When we pulled up we spotted sweeties car and then we saw him pull out with the center’s van – to drop off customer’s work. He stopped by and smiled and said a few nice things, which only took up 45 seconds, but made me feel happy first thing. He seems to be in a good mood. I think it has something to do with being up and going so early in the morning. Good for him!
SOOOO, we’re at our computer … typing along … is there anything in particular we would like to say?
Hmm, let’s think back to yesterday, anything there? I think we worked primarily on CARF from the time we last left you on. With a couple of exceptions. We spent an extra half hour talking to a volunteer parent about a new program her daughter is in. That turned out to be a real nice thing. I think she came and searched me out, because at the time we were finishing up lunch with a peer. She sat down purposefully as if not to move, so we resigned ourselves to this was going to be a social time. Had to release a little guilt for not getting back to work, but she really is a nice woman to talk to … she cares about her family tremendously.
Woo HOO little side note here. Sister dropped off our check right away this morning … that was a nice surprise. We’ll have to go to the bank on the way home to make sure it gets deposited. Just checked the account … it looks good. There is still $658 in the account, but we know most of that money already went out. It will be good to get this in right away. I am going to run a little short if we get out money for gas and medicine, so we’re a little worried. We know this next check is already spent on car and rent … the way it is going to go, is that combination will be for $1265, but our regular half month check is for $1217, so we’re $48 short to cover it, which means that out of the first half month check, we’ll need to save $48 PLUS the money that we’re going to need for parking, gas, and spending. That’s going to be tough. I think that we’re going to tell Sister that we would like enough raise so that we are netting $50 more a paycheck. Usually, I think the raises only increase the amount $25-30 a check. I want enough in a half month check to cover the car and rent. We’ll talk to our friend first to see if there is a way to present that. I also have to consider that it would be better to ask for the raise if CARF went successfully. Usually, raises come in at about July. So, there is a little time.
I don’t know how to do the math so that I could figure it out. I do know that it may be some time before another opportunity comes up to be getting another assistant, and she knows definitely that our position could be done with two people, and that I’ve taken back all that burden on myself. I don’t know we’ll just have to put that all together over the next couple of months. I don’t think I’ll be making a unreasonable request. It was not frivolous to by a car, especially due to the amount of problems we were having with the last, which affected us getting to work. This was like having work insurance. And, the one other thing is that we didn’t go unreasonably with our choice of vehicles. We stayed down under $20,000. So, we can’t be faulted there. And, one last thing … we have been educating ourselves, so with that in mind … we are worth a little more I believe.
Pshwoo … ok again, that will need to be worked on.
Ok, good moving on. As to yesterday again. After we talked to the parent volunteer, we went directly into the staff training meeting. The women did fairly well. I think they liked to talk more than have me pushing forward, but that seems to be the best sessions when they talk and get involved with what we are discussing. I’d give the session then a “B” rating. Nice, but nothing really special.
After the group, I had a meeting with a DSP who is having problems with some of the goals. She states that even though we talked to her last week about the goals, she doesn’t remember this week how to do them. I don’t know what’s going on there, but I made it clear that I would take the extra time to simplify what she is doing. I told her that it was more a question of her confidence, and that if she could relax to be learning, then the goals would be found not difficult at all. But, I would go with her through the obstacles that are presented in the goal, her mind, or otherwise. I can see her tension and mental blocking, and I don’t think that is fabricated. It has more to do with her learning experiences. Since we’re here to teach … we’ll go through that too. It is worthwhile to her and the individuals served.
After that I think we went back to CARF work. Let me check that out. Hmm, seems like we had left out last a policy and procedure on human resource development and another on a job description. Why don’t we get out the master sheet and see what we were doing with that, k?
There are two things involved I think. One has to do with getting job descriptions in the little computer, and the other had to do with something on that policy. Ok, now I got it … I think we need to insert a few lines into the policy and then add it to those other policies that contain small changes. Ok, we’ll concentrate on those two coming up. Maybe the policy first then adding to the small computer job description material. Pswhoo … ok, there is a start.
Hmm, we went to the washroom. Good break … you are doing fine girl
We passed by the leadership group where the clients were going over some pictures from the Spring Fling. The individual who had taken the dance pictures was just in and looking at them for the first time. He looked very obviously happy with how things turned out. His DSP was giving him good vibes about it too. So, that was very nice. I’m proud of his work.
Pshwoo … ok, we’re going to make it a goal to start by 8:30, which gives us 15 minutes. We didn’t get to the goals yesterday because of the rush workshop job, but it had finished in the morning more than it having taken the two days expected. That is why we had the staff meeting and it is going to mean we have the Thinking Group today. Other than that, we should be focusing on CARF. The one last thing to talk about for a second was that we had gone to Dr. M.’s.
It was a hard walk to get there and back, but somehow we made it. You are reminded to look at the video in the green box if you’ve forgotten hall long those halls are. Anyway … the hard part of the session is that we had to talk about bills and that seemed to last an entire 30 minutes. I really hate when that happens, but I guess that’s part of the whole. He liked that we’d paid some attention to the matters at hand, but then he was saying something about that we might have to be paying $216 a month for the next 4 or 5 months until the insurance runs out and we try to get back to the grant where it was only costing $50 a month. Obviously you could guess where adding another $170 to our budget might be a problem. It might be ok after the dental bills are paid, but that will be another 2-3 months. I’m not sure how to do it … except not to pay the bills of the collection agencies. Plus there is about $1,100 of debt that isn’t getting paid because the $216 is only going to cover immediate costs.
I really don’t know how we’re going to manage. I swear I’ll put an end to everything before I go again without Dr. Appointments weekly. Well, I shouldn’t be saying that … that kind of thinking will get us in trouble. It’s a flighty second of thinking through that horror again … the appointments are just too important. I don’t like how he’s saying the hospital isn’t able to negotiate past that. I know they can do anything they want, but it is some stubborn person sitting at a desk not willing to understand how much can and cannot be paid. I don’t know … we’ll just have to wait it out. Next month we’ll look at bills again and see where we are at. There’s really not a lot of marshmallow stuff in our budget, and our friend is still covering food, plus some back money toward the $2,000 range. I just know that NOONE but our friend is getting the next over money from the school budget. We are too indebted to him to be comfortable. Especially, because his family needs money and he seems to be still covering his adult children. That’s gotta be his choice not ours. Our duty is to pay back our debt to him. So … that is that.
I just feel so riled up talking about money, because it is so clearly in and out. I think when we ask sister for more money, we are going to be very point blank in showing her where our money is going. Nothing more than can be put on a 3 x 5 card. We’ll have the figures down by then. I know she shouldn’t pay just to cover my bills, but she also has to have a reasonable idea on how much it costs to live, especially to a single person who has to cover everything on her own. Ok, ok … starting to feel a strain behind our eye. Need to stop now on that.
As to other parts of the session? I think we talked a little about getting to bed on time and the value of the C-pap machine. That was good. And, I think we talked about our friend for only 5 minutes. There was nothing new on the boys and he knows what we have left to do for school. I think we talked optimistically about the paper for another 5 minutes. We were trying to remember what it said toward looking toward upward comparisons for self-improvement and looking downward for self-enhancement. I thinking looking bi-laterally worked best for self-evaluations or comparisons. Basically, this is knowing how to keep up with the Jones. He was talking about where that kind of knowledge was leading, I don’t remember it now, but it might have been Kohurt, he was referring to … I’m not sure. Might have to ask that part again. I am disappointed it took the whole hour to get to that point so I couldn’t get to the grand part of figuring out what paper was presenting to us. This is really the beauty of all that we are doing. This is the deep learning from the brightest parts of ourselves. We feel an aching to reconnect.
The balance of the time was spent talking about what we were doing for work. I had brought with our 9 pages of summary of what we’re doing for CARF. I’d forgotten that we had shown it to him once before, but that was ok, because we needed it for a reference point. He acknowledged for us that it was very difficult things that we were going through. I think he thinks we are doing well. We went over the problem again of Sr. and our friend being so sluggish with new change. We also strategized as to what to present Sr. to be looking at over the weekend. I’m not ready to give her all the policy changes because there are about a ton of policies coming up yet. With any luck … we’ll get on to the next section today on students and volunteers. That should be easier, because sister gave me some material on it. We’ll just have to integrate it into the system.
Ok, next paragraph … we’re going to focus here … Ok, just did a very quick skim of the material on my desk to the right. Sr. sent some stuff as we’d expected on the Volunteers. I think that it might have to be written into a policy and or procedure, plus they want one on the dismissal of students and volunteers. That can be written into the above. We are good on the policy of confidentiality, but we might have to add a line to include that volunteers abide by the same rules. And, I don’t think we are required to do background checks on volunteers, but that might be a question worth asking. The nice surprise was that it seemed the sisters from up north have sent some documentation that can be incorporated that will help out with the next section on leadership. With any hope it will include information on corporate compliance, which also of course covers ethical code of conduct … there will need to be something to cover the education of the code to employees. I think it is written into the schedule, but that will have to be checked. Man-o-man … there’s just so much to do.
Oh ... one thing with Dr. Marvin. We did talk about the time spent obsessing on all the editing and just reading over and over again the material. I don't think he suggested anything in particular to deal with that. But, just wanted it noted for the record that it was presented again.
Ok, breathe!!!!! What to do next? I guess I’ve strung out the time enough … I’ve got about 10 minutes to 9 … I guess this counts then as our planning time. We seem to need getting through a certain amount to get to the next part. But, we’re about here. I think we’re going to pause here. We need to think, do we need to post now, or should we wait until the end of the day? I think we’re going to let it go on … that way I can go back and forth … although the other part has closure? Ok, we’ll compromise … we’ll post what we have, but then go on. Ok, fair deal? Good, now you scoot!
posted by Ann Marie @ 3/30/2007 08:57:00 AM
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