Ayn's Multiple World

Hmm, more work than play today

Good morning … This is me and it seems that we’re ready to go. I’ve been up for a couple of hours and it is now just 4 am. Hmm, that’s not so good, but it is a Saturday morning and you know what we feel about all that. This morning we listened to Britney’s album – we are playing it a second time … I had sent Rich an email earlier saying do you know she rolled over her second foot in about as many weeks, but this album is really good. It’s going to appeal to a lot of people if they can get over the trainwreck part. She’s really doing something for modern music. I’ve been thinking that its pretty much seamless. She puts things to music of her life that are pretty magical. I don’t want to like her too much though, because she is too far gone for me to understand her well. I don’t think she does a good job taking care of kids, in that I never see pictures of them with happy faces. They seem damaged already, but she sure can sing.

That finished so we turned on Josh Turner. I never heard of him before, but he was pretty good lookin. From Britney to deep country western is a big stretch, but it seems we’re going that way. We’ll see how the road turns.

I think that this morning we are fighting the part that Rich is not here. I don’t know if we said before that he was going to head out fishing. Rodecky and Bob and Mike … I think there are more people in the party, but those guys are going as partners. You all know Bob – and I think that Rodecky is more Bob’s friend and Mike is a friend of them all from the club. I think they are going to be fishing about 3 hours south of here. The plan was made rather late in the game. The trip was being arranged, but there seemed to be some feelings up in the air that needed to be accounted for. I think Rich is fine, but just the same he decided to go down separate. The biggest part was that the others were going to be able to jump him on time for 3 hours. He had a 10 am meeting he couldn’t miss Friday morning, but he was going to leave from that. I had hoped to hear from him last night, but he probably got caught up in a late nite of cards.

Hmm. Just had a relapse it’s now 7:20 am I’m just waking up because Sweetie Pie called. He called to say good morning. He had climbed up a hill to get the reception. He said the others were packing the boat so he had to go pretty quick, but I’m so happy that he does stuff like that. I was smiling big the whole conversation. No reason … just my Sweetie Pie. He didn’t say if he was up all night, but he did say that he rode with Mike so that is pretty good – they could keep each other company. I guess Mike couldn’t get out as early as he had wanted.

I asked him what was wrong, because I wasn’t sure if he sounded happy, but he said
if I looked outside I would see that it was just getting light out … Hmm, I thought fishymen woke up at 4:30-5! Then he said he was just waking up and we confirmed he had his cup of coffee. It was kinda funny because when he said that he was just waking up, I could picture it … I knew what he was talking about because I’ve seen him waking up and not knowing how to speak so good. He warms up nicely though … just gotta give the man something to do.

*Sigh* Good fishyman.

Hmm, good Chief too … he can’t get enough of this co-sharing of space. He’s a nice companion cat. But, it is harder to type around him. You know that though, right?

Probably you know about everything about me. I don’t know if we’re simple, but we’re pretty consistent about what we write about. Yup, yup… It must be the 5th paragraph … she’s mentioning that cat as if he hadn’t existed before. It’s just that I look down and it occurs as if new to me that he’s still being the center of my arms … it takes him a bit to get crabby enough to move. I think he usually comes up when he sees a pause in the typing like when I’m reading, then he stays over because he is so stubborn. Don’t you ever get like surprised that people keep loving you know matter how many putz, or other bad manner things that you do?

Ahh … I just gave the kitty a real good 10 minute pet … and then shooed him off the table. He is sitting over at the open glass door now thinking of it. I think he’ll be ok. It’s sorta funny how they can lift their leg or arm to give you a better petting position, you know – hold it up in mid-air for a while, without giving it a single thought, or look of effort? Must be nice to be a kitty – light legs! So that is that … don’t think I did much thinking just drifted in how fuzzy warm he was … good kitty.

But, now I’m going to need moving on … Let’s see … quarter to 8 am. If I were being good, I would go out and get my records and start up on the Qnotes already, but I’m not sure of that yet. Seems that I get some time to free think, right? Well no, I wouldn’t ask you if I could think freely – um its more like no matter what you think, we’re just going to go on and on a bit. No, I wouldn’t want to be disagreeable. Hmm, I think we’re still suffering a little from yesterday. I’ve had that same reaction hundreds of times – about not fitting in because we were too serious. We really did do our share of laughing. One point, I stopped things and said, “Brandy, focus, do you know how much personal information you are giving out?” I wanted her to be conscientious of herself being out of control. I didn’t mean to embarrass her, but then I usually am the one she comes to later frustrated she made a fool of herself. Because everyone was getting off of her silly stories, I was the one that looked frustrated, but I feel a responsibility to watch over even though they don’t think they need that kind of protection, but obviously I wasn’t effective to them or as Sister’s guardian.

I know they look forward to Keith being there, but you would think they wouldn’t have ever met a person of the opposite sex. There was one staff – Stephanie – she got into this whole thing about whacking off her husband. Obviously she was showing some anger issues. Holly was like during the buzzing stuff like hey – don’t hurt my feelings – include me. I felt like that too, but I didn’t want to cross the line.

Once I inappropriately said something - just like one line about taking 15 pills.

I don’t remember the contents, and another time I said something about Joe’s knock-out. I don’t think I gave any other personal information. But, that was bad enough. Kathy stays the quietest and Sue was another serious player she kept bringing up incidents with her mother, which is as appropriate as everything else.

People get a chance to talk about their medical concerns and they do so. There were so many thoughts, but I don’t want to keep thinking of all this – it’s too much this morning.

Overall, it’s a sense of rejection that I’m going through now. There were a couple other things I said something to Maria when she started crumpling up like she was sleeping right before lunch. That wasn’t appropriate of me, even though she reminded me of clients who tried to close down during meetings. And, there was one other bad Ann point when I asked Sue several times if she was alright … she was sort of spacey and went over things already discussed – late affect and she was having trouble not being in her mother space. She didn’t see it, but I was seeing it and was obviously concerned, but as informal as the time was appearing … I probably didn’t have that right either.

Other arrangements should have been made to get Keith out of there during lunch – it was just too informal – and his presence just kept promoting the silliness … no one had a chance to calm down or process it. Ok, ok … I’ll stop … nothing to be done now. These babes are flying on their own and that’s the way they prefer it. Maybe I can fix our thoughts by tomorrow. Hmm?

I guess I’m not too chatty … we need to get our bearings. It’s 8 am now … we’re watching the clock. Hmm, time to by now take our medicine. Maybe if I clear the desk now I can bring that work in and start processing it? Hmm?

Ok good … 8:40 am … medicine, coffee, washroom, work, and got pictures to the “J” drive. AHA! Now it’s about 25 minutes later. We tried to send the 70 pictures of Halloween to Rosa, but the files were too big at 18 pictures per email. But, it did allow me to send the four files to Sr. Theresa. I don’t know which day she is leaving, but with them on the flash drive I can print them at work, and sister has a copy at least … she can do with what she wants. Ideally, Rosa would get a copy so she could take out one or two for some kind of photo opportunity, but I can’t do much about that. I refuse to go through it again … It takes too long and would be too confusing to Rosa. Unless the last set with only16 pictures goes through and she asks. I think someone else was taking pictures too, cuz there was already some on the board. I didn’t look at them closely to compare shots. Eh, that’s like a Mon/Tues thing to do. We’re done with that project for now. Hmm, remember too that we have to recharge the camera batteries – ok?

Hmm. Thadda girl. No time like the present … I have them recharging and we got a fresh cup of coffee. Doing well this morning so far. 9:15 am. Ok, what’s next.

I’m not quite up to doing the work yet. Maybe we can set a goal for 10 am. That seems reasonable. Hmm, just looking though over the Chronological Notes for the first 3 clients of 10 … I don’t know why that set of forms fascinates me so much. I think I spent most of my free time over the last couple of days trying to gear myself up for the project. It is going to be like a major change in the way we do business. We’re still trying to get over being in the groups for 2 hours each day.

I certainly do spend enough of my time with other things anyway … it will be good for me, plus there will be time getting it into the machine. I could go down to one hour a week, there is no rules here, but then I take out the opportunity for time I might need to be doing tests. I don’t have a range of things I might want to test for unless I go back to the curriculum design of the Illinois state exams. Looking over my information now, I would say … that I could use it for a guide, but for the most part the reports are so abstract that it wouldn’t work. I don’t want to get past the idea of leading from the inside out, meaning that I want to record what our center is teaching rather than from the outside … what a traditional school curriculum would teach. The needs of our people as adults is different. I think its going to need being felt through different.

Hmm, looking at the State curriculum now they seem to have standards for:

English language Arts
Mathematics
Science
Social Science
Physical Development & Health
Fine Arts
Foreign Languages
Social/emotional Learning

Man … it’s not all that St. Rose has to teach, but if I could figure out the curriculum it would good to use it as a goal. It has a lot of good stuff and there are specific tests that you go through or assignments, however you want to set it up.

Hmm, that was too much for me, but enough to get me somewhat excited. There are a lot of practical step by step and aerial things to be used there … It might set some of the standard basics as a framework. We would have to spend some time there … maybe I could use it to test in the groups or as a big lesson in learning during the thinking group.

Hmm, just as an aside it would be interesting to look at the foreign language … I wonder if we could teach more of the groups to have a basic understanding of Spanish … it would be very, very cool and something we could use as a grant stimulus. Hmm, maybe that is too complicated … you would have to have one of the teachers with specific knowledge of things like asking questions in Spanish or recognizing basic language patterns.

Whoops … Maury called. We talked about his work, some of my work, and some on his birthday. It was hard to listen after a while, because Ms Ame was acting out. I think she wanted his attention … he had called her up to eat, so probably hungry. I think girls operate differently though, because I don’t think boys scream. It’s a pretty noisy period of one’s life. I don’t think Isa does it as much, but she’s probably learning from Ame. She’ll definiately tell you when something is going on that she doesn’t like, but I think she’s more reflective than Ame. I think that Ame is jealous of sharing her Daddy with others. But, who knows maybe she’ll grow into the most patient person. Grandchildren are tough. I don’t think I will elaborate on that … we’ll say a God Bless though for Maury … He’s handling things well. One more thing that I would like to say is that I admire his business confidence and good sense, especially in and around his Uncle Chris – the boss. I think Maury has good common sense.

Ok took a little break there to have some cereal. Didn’t think much … I have the love stories on again. It seems that I need it a lot lately pressed up against my ears. Not sure why … maybe something to do with parts. We might be able to do something with Maury tomorrow for his birthday. Ouch. I looked at the bank account $120 in insufficient fees service charge. There’s like $978 in there now, but this is supposed to cover rent and car. Take $870 out for rent that means I have $108, which means that’s all the money I have to survive with, PLUS somehow I gotta get out another $395 for car. So … in general … I’m about $300 behind IF I didn’t spend anything. But, it’s Maury’s birthday. I gotta treat for dinner AND come up with a little something for a gift, or most likely gift money. The lowest I feel I can go is $50, but that plus dinner is going to put me another $100 behind. I know insurance is going to come up soon. Oh man oh man. I’d like to give Maury a hundred and then let him pay for dinner – keeping the rest. That would make me feel better. I could take $100 from Rich’s book, but that would leave him with only $200 … why should he have to pay for my son’s birthday. I don’t know how many months we’re going with him not paying the extra $400. I’m hurting pretty bad with school loans – there, but now on deferment till I can work that through. I don’t see me being able to do anything – but just survival stuff.

I think we’re going to need doing something special or we’re never going to publish and have extra money so I can get my kids gifts. Rich said he had a real good month, but I don’t know what that means. I don’t really want to know either because then I would have to worry about me spending it. I left it up to Rich as to when he gives me money for his share of rent. I thought last time he said he’s caught up until Mid-November, but the car money is going to come sooner. Basically, I am going to need money to pay for the car AND Maury … So, that means I’m going to be $4-500 behind? I don’t think its fair to cheat Maury out of some kind of birthday be nice. It’s the difference between 4 and 5 hundred. That would leave a $100 in the account to be there for that $70 insurance bill. But, likely with only $30 in there I am going to fall behind again. Ok, ok … can’t do this … too much stress.

Hmm, Missy just came and sat down to my left with little meows’. I think she’s saying … shhh, shhh it’s going to be ok. Damn why can’t I get things figured out.

I don’t know why I’m working to break only even. This is terrible. Ok, ok shhhh.

Just think if we didn’t work how much money in the hole we would be getting. I think Sue might be worse than me though. She and Theresa have been picking up stray animals. Mostly cats and Theresa says she paid $1000 to keep a cat alive she just met who then went and died. Sue is paying money out to keep kittens alive too who are dying … three animals on her account. I said, Sue, you can’t do that … I know you don’t make that much money. Then I said, how are you doing it. And, she just shakes her head and says that its going on her credit card. To be paying out big money on Vet bills for animals with incurable diseases. You just gotta step away.

I think we have staff with big hearts and no sense. I don’t think I’d be much different if I saw the kitty, but I know better, I won’t even look at it. I know that Rich would scalp me, I’m not good at litter boxes, my cats would kill me, and I would have to do even MORE petting! Nope, nope … just not going to look at stray diseased kitties.

I think it would be nice to have a financial person come in to do a staff training.

But, none of the staff have like money to invest … just maybe some woman who could come in and teach us how to say No with our money spending habits. Each one of the staff with low money meaning DSPs had money to go out and get costumes and such – probably dress their kids, but where is the money coming from. Yeeks! Ok, ok, not my problem, right?

Hmm, just did a couple of things. Mostly, we just checked a money management firm.

They have training services and a branch, in Chicago, of course, so if I like what they do, I can ask sister if we can invite them for a free educational lesson on money management for the staff & US! I called a number and the lady gave me the information, she would need me to gather such as income and expenses. I think they also check your credit. Hmm, they check your expenses and your debt. I would suppose they have a general formula for how to help people getting out of trouble.

It’s a program offered internationally, and they are non-profit that got my attention. They have a lot of information – well developed web page with good practical information. So, then the next step would be going through the money … what we’re spending. I suppose I could go through bills and such. Rich just brought some more up. But, that then promises to take up the rest of my morning and early afternoon. Do I want to give that much time now? They have 24 hour service 7 days a week. Maybe we’ll work on it later when the calling volume isn’t so high … the second time I tried to call back there was a waiting line.

The next thing we did was we got our mask for easier breathing. I don’t know if it will stay on long though because its messing with our glasses. We have to hold our head in a certain way to see – trifocals. Ok, we’ll that last one go for the moment.

I think we will save that part until later. For the record though … that is where we’re at … I would like to have $100-200 and then the rest of the money they could have. I think you send them a monthly check and they do all the bill paying. I’m very ready for that. I guess we should think of waiting to check-in with Rich, but he hasn’t been able to help me. I need to consolidate on some things like Dr. Marvin’s bills and hospitals, and then just make payments. It would be nice to have prices down enough so I could have extra money. I tried to do it on my own by putting automatic payments to the bank, but I’m just flailing in between. I give money to the bank and I don’t have enough for Maury’s present or to pay the car payment. That is just wrong. I just want to keep going and not think about money
… They talk about establishing accounts so you have 3-6 months of income set aside for emergencies. That would be a tremendous goal – not to mention a terrible burden off of me – AND Rich for that matter. I need to have enough to eat out once in a while, pay kids presents, gas and parking. I wonder how adaptable they are … like would they cover electric and such? Oh man … can I get off this cause, or should I check it out … hmm, close your eyes for a second, think. I could do it and should do it anyway with bills and bank account. I should know what I’m spending right?

Ok, good … I’m back … I was right that took about 3 hours out of my life. It’s now about 2 pm, but I did some very good Ann’s. I am working on finances. WHILE Rich is on vacation. There was trouble at the bank, in that there were two unauthorized payments totaling $200. One was like a $30 charge to a convention center, and the other was a $170 payment to T-Mobile. It took me a few moments to realize that I have Sprint not T-mobile and as it turns out – I actually don’t REALLY have an account there. We get frightened thinking someone of us dreamed up something new.

So the bank is investigating. The problem there is that my card is no good any more. They canceled it. That’s ok. They said that if it turned out on my side they would waive the $133 they charged me in going over my account limit fees.

We’ll see … $333 would be a significant amount of money to receive back. In fact, it would almost pay for the car bill, we are behind. Problem is that its going to take 10-40 days. I’m hoping that Rich can cover me … and we still have those boxes worth another $325 in our car. I would be doing better with that money.

I am still going through with the money management company. The whole thing is getting worse by the moment. I figured out for them what my monthly bills are and who I owe money to … at least some of it. I don’t exactly know how much I owe school and hospitals, but they say that they can check that out through the credit company. I think they are operating on a sliding fee. But if there is significant debt they don’t charge at all. I’m hoping to fall in that category. This thing is way past Rich and his blood pressure. It’s so silly … I’m hoping to get $200 spending cash a month even though we make $2565 – or at least clear that. All that money is just gone. So let’s say that they take all my money and start just paying for me … could things be arranged to cover school, hospital, Dr. Marvin, medical machines, pharmacy, past due medical, phone, electrical, cable, music, insurance, dental, therapy, social security, and some little bucks to rich and Sr. AND Get Maury a birthday present. Well, if they could take all that money and I could get that much, I would be very grateful. If I could just get a couple of other monies I would be ecstatic. But, then again if I could give that all over to them and just live off of Rich’s $400 that would be pretty good, but I worry about other expenses I might incur. Especially with the medical. Savings … it’s like what’s that?

Hmm, maybe lunch is ready? I’m way late and way tired of money matters. I work, I think to break even to zero.

Mmm Rich made some dinners for me before he left.

Ahh, that was good. Now back to work. Did a good job with the money. At the very end, we sent $900 to pay for rent. Figured that we might as well pay the extra $30 just to get the water hook-up. Rich said that he had a good month. I don’t know if that means we can get the washer or dryer or not. I will show good faith, by making sure the dishwasher is clear. We are still thinking that we can take over a significant number of hours by folding clothes and sticking them in the machine. If I could save Rich 3-5 hours working over the laundry, then that should be a significant help to him. If I could drop off his shirts and pick them up, I’d be even more helpful. Yup, yup washer and dryer would be good.

I don’t think I’m planning to go much into housekeeping other than that this weekend; I might gather clothes and straighten couch pillows. Hmm, better look at that kitchen table too. That might need some straightening. No, my real work and that which I’m avoiding is the work that I brought home with me, which is silly.

It’s within my ability. We were the ones that wanted to get caught up, right? Need to have a little break though that was a lot of work to look at bills. Keep thinking Rich would be happy if we just got it taken care of. Then I could start from scratch. I’d be livin on $400, but that might have to cover Dr. Marvin’s parking ($40), medicine ($200), and (100) gas. Hmm, that wouldn’t be so much though. I guess we just have to wait and see what they say. He made me an appointment to talk to a credit counselor on Wednesday, but then he said I could call back any time 24 hours a day to see if there was anyone available. He thought that was a better chance this evening, so I will try then. I am thinking if they could negotiate with the hospital, they could save bucks there. Several times they’ve offered pay half up front and we’ll clear the balance.

I don’t know what they could do with Dr. Marvin’s fees to keep everyone happy.

Maybe if they could settle to pay a constant amount through the year even while we were on the half where the insurance wasn’t covering. I don’t think we are covering enough, but I’m not sure. I’m paying $100 2x I think they were looking for $54 each week … oh man I gotta quit worrying this just isn’t working well.

I’m pretty sure that I have to tell Maury that I can’t do anything for his birthday. This is the part that is killing me. Better leave this alone for now.

We turned the air back on. We’d stopped to sip the last of the coffee, but feel better with it on. Just let things go for a while.

I think I’m going to take a nap … 3 pm checking out.

Ahh … 1 ½ hours later. We’re up now! Think we would have slept later, but we were a little cold – had to go to the bathroom a little though, so we didn’t sleep as long as we could have. It’s ok, just a little baby nap. We missed the music too.

Now we’re thinking we better clear any thoughts … hmm, wonder if that place has counselors now. We’ve plugged in the phone to make sure that it goes for awhile.

We’ll give it a little more time … we want to be sure everyone is into dinner – that would be a good time to call. Not sure about people on the west coast.

Hmm now it is about 6:45 pm. I’m thinking of turning on TV in the background as a change up from the music. I didn’t call the financial people, but I have been working on the Qnotes. I think I’m about half way done. Nobody has had a lot of them to be working on. I might check that now … where the rest of them are. I am completing the notes I write in October and any that have not been done before. Let me check. Oh by the way … we are going to try NBC … so it’s Bionic woman, chuck and Law and order SVU … I use to like the SVU in rerun, but I’ve not watched the other two. I think both are fairly new, right? Ok, first how many Qnotes left?

Oh man … that’s sweet … I am more than 50% done … more like 60% … I have 4 more to do through the September ones, and then 2 have sheets in already for October. So after that I will just collect 8 more and then be done for this month too.

WOOHOO!!! Ok, this is an obtainable goal. I think they generally take about 20 minutes per more or less. That means about two more hours of work. It’s almost 7 now, so the goal will be to finish all the Qnotes I have by 7 pm. Man, I thought I was way back. How did I do so good?! This is super!

Maybe then what we can do tomorrow is start earlier – like around 10 am and then try to finish up the annuals and at least most of the goal work due them. I really hate to be behind in goals because it slows down the DSPs and cheats the clients. I didn’t get a call from Candice today … so that sounds like trouble Monday morning unless she really gets some work done over the weekend. I gave her glowing reports from the last 30 day, I would expect that this next one could or should be as good.

She’s got one under her belt that’s a start. I still think she’s not thinking too much. She’s just copying … sometimes sentence to sentence. I think that I’m going to put my other project on hold for the week and concentrate on getting her Qnotes caught up … that’s if I can get my own annual and goals done. Someone else will have to worry about Holly’s clients. But, I know that I gave her about 10 clients – and most were behind. I will that out. I feel good about that.

Ok, I’ve had dinner. I’m going to speed ahead. BBL

posted by Ann Marie @ 11/04/2007 08:39:00 AM Comments: 0