Ok, we're on a week-day roll
Good morning. I’m here! Today is already Thursday though. It’s ok, right? Just that it’s Thursday and Dr. Marvin isn’t going to be here today. He’s still on vacation. We asked and he said that this time it was pleasure and not work. Maybe when he gets back we can ask him where he went? He will usually tell me that much.
We’re trying not to be having a hard time when he is gone.
Yesterday was a good day in as far as we only had two groups for a total of 1 ½ hours. Today, Friday, and Monday, we will have the large group. Today we have to be thinking in that … tomorrow is the group presentation. We did a newsletter article yesterday about the group project of Africa. I was disappointed though in that we’d forgotten that it was a presentation day and sister had not announced it over the intercom, so we missed hearing the presentations of groups 3 and 4. I didn’t catch it until later when they I saw they’d posted their countries out in the hall. Sister has display tables set up so we can set up our things. From the appearance … it looked like those two groups had put a lot into it. And, we ran into Sr. Florine who said that Kathy especially had a very good presentation and had given the groups good information on her country – Italy.
I don’t think our group has it as polished as I would like, but our group was high enough functioning so that most the work came from clients and not as much from the staff. It shows in some of the unevenness of the pictures cut out on the posters.
I am proud of their contributions, especially on the masks and the menus. We’ll have to work harder at it today to finish up the presentations. We’ve only got until tomorrow at 1 pm. AND, we’ll be presenting on our own so there will be time to spend.
Just wish I’d caught the presentations yesterday.
As of this morning … we’re proud to say that we are officially 40 pounds lighter since May 14th, and we’re 70 pounds lighter since January. I think that is a good deal. We’re proud to have hit these marks. We’re at 267, which is the lowest weight we’ve been in years. Hmm, I found what we were looking for. We’d written a small entry for Wednesday, August 27th, 2003 - yup, yup 5 years ago. Apparently at that time we’d weighed a high of 297 and we’d lost since May that year 22 pounds.
So it would seem that was about the lightest we’d gotten. That would have put us at 275. From our vague memory, we stopped going to the Y shortly after we’d posted about it in the AOL Journal. We might have gotten down to 269, but about then we freaked a bit and started slowly gaining our weight back.
I’m figuring though that we’re doing pretty good.
We were lookin at a few other entries made way back when … as I read them I have the sense that they were written just yesterday. I’m surprised in how many entries have been posted and that they fall anywhere within the sun’s radius. But, that all exploration will be saved to another time.
We talked to Maury and Joe AND Thom yesterday. We talked to Thom about a picture of a hawk he’d taken a picture of. He explained that the hawk had come down and swooped up a squirrel, but that the squirrel had worked himself free mid-air and had dropped to the ground and before the hawk could regain his prey, the squirrel had run away. He had a lucky day. It was cool that Thom could have seen all of that.
I had known before though that his eyesight was good. It shows in the games and being able to shoot a gun.
Hmm. Ok, that didn’t last for long. We snuggled in with Honey bunny for a bit … It was 4:15 and we thought he was going to get up, but he stayed in bed until 5 am, and then showered dressed and left a few moments ago at 5:30 am – so, we stayed in bed sleeping until then. What a bum we are! Damn he’s got a cozy bed though!
So … ok … where do we pick it up from here. I think we missed a day of writing yesterday. So now we need to think through both days. I think there are a couple important notes, in that the CARF books have come in. For the record that’s 10 pounds of reading material, Yeeks! But, we’ve made a little dent. Pretty tiny little dent, but something nonetheless.
We stayed at work yesterday until almost 7 pm. We’d gotten into what we were doing and didn’t want to stop. It’s so hard to get time to do the work on anything beside the group that when you get the time it’s very hard to stop. We got out the paper tiger again and we added a couple sections into the computer on leadership and governance boards … that is the first two areas this time. We added mostly from the standards book, but as well also from the survey book. The one states the standard and the second asks about the standard in question form.
We wanted to see if we could figure whether it was going to be really handy or not to go through the work of putting things through the tiger. So to do that, we figured we’d ask a couple of the survey questions. We got some very good information and detail. It pulled together reports and documents that I would have never in a million years been able to come up with. We were just practicing with it by scribbling out notes on sections we found to include in answering the questions along with some document numbers … so we might write down survey report doc521, or Consequent of keeping minutes of the board meeting, doc235. The doc references will give an exact location to look for the information. That’s a very handy thing to have.
I think the system is going to work. There is a third book that is pretty much like the standard book, except for in a different format. It gives just a couple of lines for each standard and it puts it out in a form much different than the outline in the standard. It’s worded though more like the standard than the survey. And, the other handy thing about it is that it gives a numbering system so that you can rate the strength of the survey response. This is very handy as a checkpoint in that we can come back later and bring the numbers up from a 1 low level to a 4 high level. I think I’d like to make a copy of the book though along with the survey book. Sister says she doesn’t need the standards manual, which is the most important of the three books. I think that if we wrote our responses though not in the book, but wrote it in the paper tiger book, it would be easier for sister to take and copy to her book.
Sister came by yesterday right before we left and we were talking to her about what we were doing. She had thought it a good idea I think and she’d said something about it would be good if we could just go by my notes and in that way she could read without doing the work of typing everything out on her own. I think that would be a good idea as to work load for the sister. I know that CARF is hard on her, but we’d have to do it quickly enough so she doesn’t worry about the time it is taking.
I think we’d put it in a format where we’d line up the standard next to the survey on our print-outs so that she can have the extra space to add comments that we could include in the work. I like it because it is the best method of changing and adding to things as we go.
I did show Sr. Theresa the stack of about 1 ½ inches of material that we’ve yet to enter into the data … And, we would still have to write summary reports and we’d have to analyze them in yet even bigger reports. PLUS, we have to do a lot toward performance reports. I think I’m going to have to go with an easier method of keeping track of client progress. I liked the method before, but the rating system wasn’t very keen. It would take a lot of special time to use the old system on ALL the clients. Last time I included just 3-4. I’ll really have to think my way through it, but at least this year that part of the report is on section M and N – way back into the report. I like starting with the leadership first. It makes more sense … even though I know that CARF is going to mess with it again next year and put it in some other form.
Whoops better get a shower. Rich reminded us that we have administrative meeting, but we also have a group. I’m hoping because there will only be 4 people in the group at that time – 2 will have gone to work, that they can just take care of themselves during that time. I would very much hate to miss an Administration meeting because I was doing something else. I think of the Administrative meeting as one of the singular best things about my part of the program. It’s where we talk about things such as CARF and all the other business and program aspects.
Ok, back from the shower and we’ve gotten our bag packed and medicine taken … at least some of it. We’re almost out of all the pills and are out of some now. We called in the prescription yesterday, but knew that Dr. Marvin was going to be on vacation … we were hoping that someone else would approve the medicine. I’m not sure when he’s getting back, but the drug store said they might be able to give me a little medicine until he returns. I should think of these kinds of things before he goes, but then he coulda helped too. I know, I know … someone like me has to be responsible.
That’s Rich’s favorite expression to us. He asks for us to be responsible when something needs to be taken care of and we just want to complain in our smaller voices. It’s like I know you’re not happy about this, but something has to be done and it should be done by you! ARGH!
Ok, little more time … about a half an hour, where do we want to take this? I’d like to be thinking of CARF though I’m not sure there is much more to think out there. I know that I’d buried my desk in paperwork, and the only result of doing something is that something else is being left undone. Working on CARF, good! Not working on schedules or annuals bad. We did have another annual this week. I think it went pretty good. Cathy carried the session, we had the quiet CSO person and the mother was agreeable to everything. In those situations, it is just a little too easy. We only had an hour to prepare for it though, so I can’t say that’s real good. The job got done, just it’s a lot of pressure on the situation.
Hmm, as to home? Rich didn’t get home until 11-12 pm last night. We were sound asleep and didn’t hear him. We had watched a movie on Marines of Lima Company. It was more like a documentary, but focused our attention. I don’t know what to do with feelings and thoughts of how some of the guys had died. It upsets me to no end to know that Thom could be burned to death, or shot and shrapnelled to pieces. I think it’s kind of morose to even write about let alone think about, but those things are inevitable I believe. I’d always hoped that I would go before my children to think any different just feels crazy. Thom it seems is trying to up the odds.
I had stated earlier I had talked to all the boys. Maury and I talked about the new TV and making cable connections. He knows that a cable guy is coming out Tuesday and that it could be him. I’m not sure though, because we’d left a note saying we needed the Internet speed checked too and I know that he’s not working on that so far. It would be neat to get him. He talked about making formal complaints of a couple of his peers for shoddy work, or not showing up at all. I think he is serious about maintaining the reputation of a company he is going to want to grow with. I know that he won’t gain friends that way, but put in his situation, I would have done the same thing. He said he likes the guy enough who had done the shoddy work, but not so much that he’d cover bad work. Maury took pictures of what he’d done. So good for him.
He’s a little worried that I will get a bad tech. I appreciate his concern and that he said he would come by to check it afterward. He said though I have to talk to the apartment people and get permission to drill holes if I’m going to get the job done correctly. Maybe I can do that on Tuesday the day they are coming out. I think I’m going to try working a half day – to 11:30 am lunch time. I just have to be back here form 1-4 pm. Maury also warned me that a lot of times the guys are late and won’t call. So, we need to prepare our frustration levels for that.
Now as to Joe! He asked if I would like to come watch him and his karate school participate in a competition nearby. Of course, we said YES! I’ve enjoyed being there for him in the past. I have to be there at about 9 am Saturday morning, maybe a little before. I would really like it if Rich could come too, but I’m not sure if he can make it or has made other plans. Most likely that is the case. I will bring my camera and use Joe’s camera too to take pictures. I’m glad I could do something useful.
Hmm, that pretty much catches me up. I know there is some work stuff we’ve missed, but not so much that I’m going to worry about it. So, what should be next?
Nooo, let’s not do CARF again this soon after!
Maybe I could write something of how we are doing in general. I realized this week that there was a bit of hesitation, especially on Monday when we didn’t want to go to work. Sister says that there is a new guy that she’s interviewing. I think that we wrote about that already. He’s about 55. That’s all we know of him so far. I’m so scared of the eccentricities of various employees, I can only imagine what might happen with the next one. Sister and I talked a little about it last night. She’s only playing with thoughts and ideas as to him splitting his time between Q work and DSP work. I worry that he won’t take the job because he’s got a Master’s degree and should be paid so much more for his time. I wonder about his ambition if he took this job. I think I’d feel a lot more comfortable in meeting him first. It makes a lot of difference, because he would be back in our space and most likely sitting at the desk between Rich and us. We would also have to sign off on his work, because sister doesn’t want to go through the whole rigamorooo of getting him licensed.
For the record, I think getting a guy in would be a good idea. Just I don’t know if we could have enough that he’d want to stay. It’s hard to do training when they leave so quick, but then again sometimes you get to be so happy they leave that you just say fine!
It’s been a while since we thought of Candice and all we can say is Pswhoo. Nice that she’s not there, we don’t miss her. We did say something about Sue being gone now too, didn’t we? So for the record, we’ve lost in the last month or two … Brandy, Sue, Candice, and Sr. Mary Patricia. That’s a lot of staff turnover. We’ve gained Sr. Florine, but otherwise … we’re all trying to cover for those who have gone. I’m in group 1, leadership and have taken over Candice’s load, and as mentioned earlier, I took on Group IV for about 45 minutes yesterday. There really isn’t enough time to be getting my work done. It explains why my desk is so messy.
I’m really starting to worry about the annual reports not getting typed and all the Qnotes. Pshwoo there’s a lot to be done.
I’m thinking that maybe I can get a few things done today while we’re watching the movie Born Free, but then again, we could see the movie tomorrow and more people would be able to appreciate it. Hmm, but then again we could do it today during the Admin meeting, but then it’s a matter of 4 people seeing it rather than the full 9.
I really think we should then wait until tomorrow.
I haven’t really thought out too much of today. I know that we have to work on the Interviews and maybe think through the presentation of the food servings. I haven’t gotten it all worked out yet. Hmm, I wonder if the Admin meeting is actually tomorrow and the staff meeting talking about workshop jobs is today. Did Rich get that right? Better check into it first thing once we get there. We also have to be concerned about goals. I’m trying to get them in, and am finding that Holly is really no help.
Hmm, ok … we’ve gotten dressed now and should probably be heading out the door.
It’s a few minutes early, but not too much. Thinking it’s best we get through this day … and head toward the weekend! WOOHOO!!! Not sure beside Joe’s karate what’s going to be done there, but we’re lookin forward to it being a weekend none-the-less. Maybe we can get to some kind of writing that is more thought provoking than just processing what’s already happened. Too, we would like to get some of the work done in editing the book. I’d very much like to see that project progress. K?
Let’s set some goals and get to it!
Lost it to the bed
Good morning … this is me … and we’re trying to be brave. I know that we have to go to work this morning, but our heart’s not in it. Feel scared. I just want to stay at home. I think part of it is that we have an annual coming up and it feels like too much for me right now. Going to work and being with a group almost every day is wearing on me too. It seems ok when I’m actually doing it, but I get scared that I won’t be able to do it. Now I’m wondering if this has anything to do with Dr. Marvin being gone. I wish it were me that was gone … Ok, no you don’t don’t go there.
Why you feeling so depressed dear? All is good, right?
We’re back … we went in to talk to Rich and he made us take a shower and take our medicine. Missy won’t stop meowing. Hmm, Missy got put in the back bedroom. She’s gotta realize her meowing takes a toll on people. We’re still not feeling good yet. Rich thinks that maybe it’s because of the TV as a distraction. We’ve had it on pretty much all the time. We want to get used to it though. We don’t want to waste it. He says it’s not a waste if we turn it off, but then we think of all the expenses that we’re looking at now between Comcast and Netflix. Maybe that part is depressing too. We probably spent too much money. I know this, but I don’t really want to think about it yet.
I think yesterday we succumbed to the TV after getting back and taking care of Thom’s bills. After that, Rich came home and then we watched a movie together. I’m not sure how I feel about that because we didn’t really talk much, ‘cept he was explaining to us what was happening cuz we watched a pirate show to the end of Earth or something. We didn’t understand it too much cuz there was lotsa stuff … and pretty much we got confused between all the different captains and boats and stuff.
It’s ok, I don’t understand, right?
I just want to curl up and go back to bed. No, you can’t do that.
Hmm. Let's not go to work ... maybe tomorrow
Good morning. This is finally me. We’ve been wondering around for about an hour and a half. It is now 5 am and I think that Rich is going to come in for a few moments before he leaves. At least I hope so. He’s been up for a half hour and he’s taken his shower and it sounds like he’s getting his coffee.
I had a hard time not appreciating the brand new TV. So, we’ve got news on in the background. We’ve discovered what it means to have HD TV. Wow! It’s GREAT! I guess we’ve been in the old times for so long that we didn’t have any idea how nice it could be.
We’re pretty distracted though this morning. I think it’s a big new deal to have the TV and to have it turned on to news in the morning, but I think it’s going to be lousy for our writing if we can’t control it a bit. It’s hard to explain how I want to hear TV in the background, but want to in the foreground be writing.
Hmm, I’m back. I haven’t made much progress this morning. It is about 10 am and I am still at home. I’ve been busy most of the time though. Rich had been here long ago. He left about 5:15 am. I was up for a little bit, but I found myself in general curling up on the living room couch and squishing my dog until we both fell asleep. It wasn’t very long … as to stuffed dogs go to sleep quickly. We woke up around 6:30 am when Maury called to say he was coming over and would drop off Thom’s bills. That got us going in about that direction. I think we did something … I’m not sure … we have the TV on still, but we haven’t been directly watching it for quite a while. Oh oh … I forgot to take my medicine. That’s probably a bad thing.
Better BRB
Ok, that’s done. I have to convince myself that we really want to be up … if I were doing anything it would be a desire to be typing. We are on hold now from COMCAST … this fits our general trend of working through issues. I have to bring my car into the shop, pay my ticket, get my new vehicle sticker and check on my cable system.
We’re going to update the service so that we get Rich’s fishy channel. I doubt very much they can get anyone out today though … It sure would be nice. We’ve been on hold now for 17 minutes. I guess Monday morning is a terrible time to call. They don’t even give you music anymore … they say your phone will have no sound. I love not getting piped music, but I think this is probably a means of making people wait that much longer in that the waiting goes on and on without note to anyone.
The car and ticket and license are all self-explanatory. They were things that had to be done from a home day. The other thing that we did was to work on Thom’s bills. We did pretty good. We still have to get called back from the car insurance people, because they are working up a new plan. Then we have to let them call the car loan place, because it is required for that situation to have insurance. We paid one credit card bill – the amount I figured, which I hope is ok, but figured needed a good size payment so we could take down a $3500 cost. We couldn’t get the Mustang total due, but I’m thinking that it’s just one payment, so we made that and we made the payment on Joe’s car. He has a few hundred from one special funding account … so just had to monitor that. We checked and got an additional 6 month deferment on his school loan. They wouldn’t change addresses, but they said they’d send through the paperwork. It looks like he has a balance in his checking account, but we’re getting that’s a bit lower, because he’s paid me money to cover his accounts. We also had to look into his car insurance, because it appears that it had lapsed back in April. Maybe he had cut it off, but according to his car loan, he can’t do that.
So, that’s pretty much it of that. We still need to check on our car, and take care of the ticket and vehicle sticker. The long part was an hour and a half updating our cable service. And, just about as we figured about the time that was done … Rich called. He didn’t know I was home, but sorta accepted that yes I had things to do, but he wasn’t happy. Then I had to tell him about the cable bill. It’s going to be about $172. Pretty much then what’s happening is that we’re getting the Standard cable preferred account, which gives us about 80 cable channels and HBO.
She said that we could get one movie channel with the deal. I didn’t think we needed a movie channel, because we have the service with Netflix, but it was part of the deal. Rich tried to convince me that the HBO was different, but I was sure what I had heard. He says they try to oversell you. I didn’t have a good sales person, but she was sufficient … I can’t vouch for the above, but I still think I only got what we needed.
But, the cost for that was $85. That seems to be the cost we’d thought it was. We also got DVR service for $10. I guess that includes getting the box. The Internet service was $43, but it went up to $70 when I went from 6 megs speed to 16 megs. We told them we didn’t see a noticeable change so she said she would put on our work ticket that we needed it checked, otherwise we’ll cancel the $27.00. The other part of the deal was that the service guy is going to connect the cable to the TV in both rooms. We didn’t get an extra box, but it seemed that it wasn’t going to be an extra charge. With the cable connected, we don’t have to worry about the government changes to TV in February, they will both continue to work and they will both have the channels that are on the front TV. Rich gave me static there too, but it seems that while the guy is out here, he should do the whole deal. I reminded Rich that he said that we’re making the back room into an exercise room. Then he hem-hawed saying, but not right now … that will come further down the line. But, now I’m sold on the idea and I’m looking forward to it. If we don’t get the old TV’s connected, they will be no good, but REALLY good enough they shouldn’t be thrown away because they are taking up space.
The deal as I figured it is that I’m going to be paying $85 and Rich is going to be paying $85. He says basically than I’m just paying for Internet. We’d like to say that we’re at least paying for Internet and the DVR. He’s then paying for the cable service. I’ve been paying cable and electric for the last 15 months, so I didn’t think his $85 was a big deal. He said he wanted the extra channels so he could get the fishing channel. He is now saying that since he’s paying for the cable TV that he should be the one that makes the choices. We didn’t beg the point, but basically, I still feel that it’s up to me to make some decisions, because if we waited for him, things would not happen. And, you know what I am like as to waiting around for stuff to happen.
I don’t think I paid for much more than was required.
Hmm, I took care of that. I’m back from being out. I did the vehicle sticker and the ticket. Then I drove to the driver’s license place to update my driver’s license, then I found it was closed so, I looked at my driver’s license and figured out that the front looks expired, but that they had given me an extra sticker to put on the back that makes it good for four more years. WOOHOO!!! I had been worried, because I didn’t know if I was going to be renting a car where they would need a valid license. I know that I had had to use it a day or so ago, and they wouldn’t take it because it had an old date. Now, I realize I just have to add 4 years onto the date already there.
Then I went to the car body shop. They say that it is going to cost $721. YEEKS!
They gave me a date something like August 13th, to bring it in. It is going to need being in for 3 days, and at THAT time I will need a rental car. He said I didn’t have to pay the $500 deductible until the time I pick it up. That was good because I don’t have it. Now that my insurance company has a cost, they will go after Geico the other guy’s insurance company to pay the claim – both the deposit and their part. I don’t know if they charge extra for the bother they are causing all of us.
WooHOO!! It's my birthday all over again ... better add in Christmas too!
Good morning. This is me. Sorry for the abrupt cut-off yesterday, but as you know things happen and people sometimes get lost in space. I suppose I’ll have to really think through what happened … cuz at this moment it’s a little spacey.
I’m a bit worried about today, because it’s Sunday and honey bunny is going to be with me all day. This is my treat for not seeing him around for the longest. I think he got home last night about 10:30 pm. I was still up, but we were heading to bed. He looked in reasonable good shape, but he’s admitting to at least 3-4 drinks so we’re not quite sure what the final count was. MAYBE he’s telling the truth.
*Giggle* well, at least we’re pretty sure he didn’t dance with anyone … he doesn’t like to dance, though we’ve had a couple real slow dances with him where I’m nuzzling his ears. AHA! That be the way to go!
As for now … it’s about 7 am and he’s in bed. His alarm clock made a mistake and woke him up about an hour ago, but naturally being a Sunday with nowhere exactly to be going … he went back to bed. WOOHOO … a nice WARM cozy bunny.
Hmm, figured if we’re going to be tolerable that we needed to take our medicine. I think we’ll wake him in 30-45 minutes … but that’s because of his favorite show he likes to watch at 8 am. Ok, we’re all good now. I heard that he’s going to want to clean after his show and that’s like a no-don’t-want-anypart of it on my account. I KNOW I’m going to need helping … with both that and laundry and maybe grocery shopping, but I have to work now on not going down kicking and screaming. We should TRY to be in a good mood about it. After all it’s for my benefit too. Just it seems like good time lost that could have been spent on other things.
I know, I know … she certainly isn’t big on cleaning is she? Nope, nope. My idea is to use as little space as possible so things DON’T get dirty. Just that those silly cats and dust bunnies are leaving bits of their hair and fur over EVERYthing!
YEEKS! I’m going to get a CLEANER animal next time! Maybe a sea horse
Hmm, ok let’s get on with it. If you looked around and saw yesterday’s post – you may have noticed that we made references to someone named Randy Pausch. He died yesterday of pancreatic cancer at the age of 47. I very much feel for him, because I’m now 49 and would have hated to lose years of my being. He left behind a wife and a young family of three children two boys and one girl. I had picked it up under newsmakers when I was reading through AOL news. I was curious and had a few moments, so I decided to listen to his “Last Lecture” even though it was about an hour and a half long.
That decision paid off well. It was a very good lecture and I’m glad I spent the time with it. He talked about his life and basically he was leaving a marker for his kids. If you will a roadmap to follow. We also listened to another video of him that he did on time management. I’m sure in the end – he thought he hadn’t gotten things done enough because there’s just so much of life to fit in when it is cut so short.
Randy was a computer science person and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He worked on virtual reality and programs that mixed performance – theatre with 3D animation and computer graphics for the purpose of entertainment. He also co-produced a couple of programs that are given freely to the public on computer programming called, Alice and then Storytime Alice. It was to help young kids learn programming. And, it is free. I downloaded the programs yesterday and played around with one of them. It’s pretty cool, but there is a lot more room to play.
To download the programs – go to here …
http://www.alice.org/index.php?page=downloads/download_alice
It’s a really cool program and it came about from Randy’s quest to help himself, his students, and then a much wider crowd – thousands of people have tuned into him and his projects. His site where the video’s are of his presentations have over 6 million hits – people watching him present. It’s really amazing and I can’t emphasize enough to go check out the links.
Ok, ok … probably should be moving along now. You’ve already gotten the message that we’ve been impressed and are encouraging you check it out. Now I have to step back and just let you decide if your going to give his space some time. You won’t be disappointed.
Hmm, maybe then we should figure out what is next to be writing about. It’s about 7:30 am now and we figure that we’ll give Rich another 20 minutes, and then we’ll sneak into bed with him and wake him up with massages.
Oh man – it should go with note … that we had a little free time between his games and him leaving for his friend’s daughter’s wedding. Well, we’re not going to go into the details, but suffice it to say … it was time VERY well spent. WOOHOOO!!!
That a boy Rich!!!
Hehehe ok, silly goose … enough of that talk … but, it WAS really, really nice!
Hmm, now gotta work hard to think back and figure out what else happened yesterday.
Randy’s stuff really overtook me. Maybe if I try to figure out times … hmm, I know maybe I should go back to the entry posted from yesterday and figure out from there where we left off. Ok, hold on.
I can see now … that we must have pretty much gone over the day. I think we got to the parts where we were talking about what happened at work on Friday. I don’t know if there was more material to be covered, but it might be almost enough. Want to check though on my “kids’” stuff to see if I got fully updated there. I might be missing some time being or talking to them. Seems like I got through most of the day … and I talked about Thinking Group, so that covers the hours up to 2 pm. Did I do anything else that day? Ok, got the part where we were getting the Netflix package … what else? Oh yeah did the part of having had our car hit.
Anything else there? Maybe a little … when Rich got home yesterday, he reminded us that we needed to call our insurance agent. We talked to that lady and gave her a full accounting of the situation. She said that we should talk to someone else from State Farm today … I think an adjuster. He’s going to ask me the whole entire story again … which is ok, I like the part where we can voice our complaints. Doesn’t seem fair that I should get hit when I’m minding my own business. Oh, there is one other little side note. I got a ticket yesterday or the day before. The Brookfield police are very good at catching people who haven’t updated their city vehicle sticker. That too happened when I was parked out back. They come into your parking lot just to ticket you. I have to remember to tell that to Rich today … because if we’re going to be out … we need to go AND get our renewed sticker. REMEMBER that ok?!
Ok, I see … we got to the end of yesterday’s post and it appears we left off on having just talked to my mother and sister. That was good to finally get those calls taken care of. It meant however a couple long hours getting caught up. They both asked a few questions on how I was doing and I voiced my complaints about being hit, but otherwise there wasn’t a whole lot of information going out. My sister did ask about the weight loss as did my mother, but even that wasn’t spoken about in any great length.
My mother’s husband is going through some problems with skin cancer. We’re not real positive we know much about that situation. We know that he has a couple of doctor appointments and a funeral to go to this week. We should call again in a week or two to get an update.
With my sister … we spent a long time going over her life situation especially their financial burdens from Mark being out of a job. Apparently, the school he was teaching at went bust. However, he was in a good situation in that … he’d won a grant to go to Denver to learn how to teach in schools environmental science. CS stated it as he was learning how to go green. I thought that was an exceptional thing. Apparently, too they are going to pull in some resources from an early retirement account, so they are going to have some income soon AND still have a good chunk put back into retirement savings. I think the most positive was that Mark did some networking and found some job leads. There was an offer from Denver, which would mean they’d obviously have to move, but then also there were leads back in Milwaukee around the area they now live – which would mean not being too separated from their son Nathon.
Whoops, gotta take a break here … It’s time to go massage my funny bunny. Be back soon.
Ok we’re back for a little though traditionally this time between 8 – 9:30 am when Rich’s show is on … hasn’t been one of my most productive times. I’m really worried about my writing time. It’s already 8 am and I’m still about page 3. That’s really slow. Shoot, did we sleep in or something? Yuck I turned on the TV for Rich and am listening to an ad on Dino-somethings. It’s so loud! I know some story or another will catch my attention, but consciously we’re going to try making the most of this time. Rich is already into his cleaning mode. He’s downstairs putting the white load in the washer.
Oh good Charles Osgood is back. Ahh … we’re in a biking revolution.
Hmm, we’re back again … we’ve watched the whole news show with sweetie though I never left my computer. And, do you know what? Their very last piece was on Ranch Pausch the guy that we just watched and have been talking about. Rich was here and we said, see, see! That’s our guy … and he’s so important here he is on your favorite show … and we’re going to listen to him just today! I’m glad I downloaded his video, because there’s going to be a lot of people watching his stuff on-line today. Wow! Can’t believe they did a segment on him after we’ve been just crooning over it the last 12 hours.
We decided to look over at the Storytelling Alice – this one is meant for grade-schoolers like the regular Alice is for teenagers. Hmm, seems to be taking a few moments to load though. I guess we have to wait and be patient. There were a couple other good segments, followed by some I wasn’t as interested in … one was on riding bikes and the other was a famous lady who lip-synced back in the olden days.
Ok, we’re back … it’s really some time now later. It’s still Sunday, but it’s 2 pm. Well, now about 2:18 pm. I took a moment to dust too! Yup, yup … Rich caught me in a cleaning mood. We had set aside with him some time to move around furniture and by that I mean that he was moving the furniture and we sat on the side trying not to be discombobulated. Pshwoo. That was tough. And, then when the steam had subsided we kicked him out so we could do some real cleaning. He had though vacuumed … I might vacuum for him, because he leaves out the vacuum saying he’s going to do this or that and the machine sits there for a long time. It’s really not any trouble getting it out of the front closet. Hmm? He started the dishwasher, cleaned out the litter box, and started some stuff in his bedroom. I don’t think he got very far there. We put away a whole lot of stuff in the living room, especially the stuff that finds its way to the bookshelves. We have some desk and pretty stuff – colored tins and candles out on the shelves in front of the books, but it had gotten so anything could land on those shelves. Same went for the coffee table in the middle of the floor. So, we cleaned that up washed surfaces or dusted. One way or another it looks much better now.
We also did a few other things. We made sure the back bedroom was picked up, we cleaned up that poor suitcase that been sitting there since California and we cleaned up the back kitchen table, and chairs, and our desk. Hmm, now if I can vacuum AND unload the dishwasher … just think how surprised Rich would be. WOW! He had only really asked that we do the suitcase. This is a case of not micro-managing so your workers could surprise you. Hmm, two of my speakers are gone … where’d they go? Better ask Rich about that .. we’ also couldn’t find the quilt for the big bed. I wanted to put it over the chair, but now it’s disappeared. We’ve looked everywhere.
Hmm, maybe then we could take a shower too?!! We didn’t ever get that done. We weren’t really suffering though. Both Rich and I had a large 36 ounce drink while we were working. Oh, and we washed and folded and hung up 3 loads of clothes. It really is much funner to clean when there is someone else to help. I’m a little disappointed about the bedroom though. He’s got too much stuff sitting around … maybe he needs more space. I think he was going to put the rest of his ball clothes in the front hall. He’s got most of that closet and we’re going to give him the back-rear closet … He’s going to use that for his fishing closet. He really needs some room, because the way it is now the fishing poles are in his bedroom, which might be ok for him, but a little too woodsy for me. I’m also telling him that I really want his map pictures out on the front wall in the living room. We need to have more of him and less of us. Hmm, thinking too. Maybe we could put some of his map books either up on the shelf or maybe under the coffee table. It’s got a nice glass top circled in wood and it’s got a beautiful ledge under it for showcase items.
I don’t want to start doing maps though, because I want him to have some sayso in how it goes. Plus, he will know the maps that should be showcased the most. I told him that it was almost neat enough that we could be inviting Bob over. He said, again, no not yet, but I think he’s getting close.
Hmm, do you want to know now where Rich went??? He had to do some grocery shopping, but he also went out to buy the new TV set. Well, at least that’s my version. He’s like maybe I need to do some more looking around. And, I’m like YEEGADS! Just take out some money and say, I want the best! I hope he’s not too tired for it. AND, I hope it’s not so big he can’t squeeze it in his car. Maybe he should have taken mine without the wheel chair … and then he could have put down the back seats. We might call him up and remind him of the option. I think he has big back doors, but I’m thinking that usually his car is pretty filled-up. I really hope to hope to hope that he’s going to get it tonight. It would be the proper climax for all this fixing up in the living room.
I’ll take some pictures soon, but mostly he broke up the big U-shape of the couch.
He put the one long side along the big wall, but then he took a middle side – can stand up for itself – and my chaise and he put it on the opposite side of the wall in front of the big windows. Then he placed my rocking chair on the long wall next to the long couch. It’s a big wall and all of it fit. I really like the new place that my chaise is … though I really liked the old place. I’m going to be missing the bookshelf ledge next to it where I used to put stuff. No, not that it looked nice … just used to be handy. We moved the light in back of it for my reading in front of the curtains in the middle of the two double doors, yet in back of the couch. I think it looks nice, and I look forward to seeing it at night ESPECIALLY with the new TV. I know he wants to get a big HD flat screen. I decided that I shouldn’t go because it would only interfere. I would say just get the biggest and the best we can do. He’s going to want to be practical and budget it in just right.
We’re still giving him a hard time because of our desk chair. It’s a nice leather-like back chair, but he got it cheaper and it never got it’s arms. It was manufactured and packaged poorly. I’ve long since gotten used to it and the fact that I can’t lean back on it because it doesn’t have the right supports, but I still know it is a chair that’s not worth much especially in its present condition.
Oh, and you know what? He said he wanted ribs tonight so he’s bringing some back.
I told him that he should just get a regular dinner and I’d just have a little bit of it. I love rib tips, but again … it doesn’t take much to fill our stomach. I think with all of that he’s not going to be back for a long time. That’s why I was thinking I could still do the vacuuming AND do the dishes AND take a shower AND write. Just have to be conservative with my time. I was really really glad I got in a cleaning mood. Do you ever do that after you’ve moved furniture around? You get to feeling like you want to fix everything so it really looks impressive. I remember doing this kind of stuff long time ago. I really liked moving stuff around in my bedroom growing up. I like the feeling while you are doing it of sitting taking small breaks and feeling it out – and then the period like now when everything is so good and you can then live in the space. It’s so big of Rich to be doing stuff. It makes me really happy.
We had to budget this time though. I think we’ve stated before he was gone Friday and Saturday. When he asked me what I wanted to do on MY day … It was to get the TV and take care of the moving stuff. I can’t believe it’s before 3 yet, in that it seems as if we’ve been working all day. Pswhoo. We done good!
Wow! I did it! At least part of it. I vacuumed at one time both the bedroom AND the entire living room. There was a time not too long ago where that would have taken me an hour and I would have had to break it down into 3 stretches. That’s pretty cool. I feel very accomplished. Unfortunately, my back really hurt at the last of it. I had trouble bending over to pick up the cord. So, I’ll rest for 15-20 minutes and then I’ll try to do it again – in that We’ll empty the dishwasher.
Maybe all at once, or maybe broken down two times. There’s no sense in being silly about it. Hmm, I kinda miss having a smoke now that this much has done. I always used to have a smoke in between cleaning stretches. But, that’s a dangerous thought … better stop that … the big lie is thinking that you can have only one. That be a terrible expensive habit to pick-up and it wouldn’t fit with my new healthy self.
Rich and us talked about it this morning. We’d like to make it a goal that I can one day ride my bike the 12 miles to work. Wouldn’t that be something? I could see it happening if I lost enough weight. I got it from the show we were watching.
They said throughout the country less than 1% ride their bikes to work, but in Portland, Oregon, it is up to 6% - those people really did a super job. I would still have to drive a car during the winter months and on rainy days, but it sure would be fun to get to work after sprinting through the city. I think I could go the back streets and totally avoid of course the freeway. That be the thing – riding through the city. I think most of it is fairly safe. You wouldn’t want to sit around a lot, but if you had some serious bike gear out … I don’t think too many people will mess with you.
I’m having some really good memories now. We used to ride to my father’s gas station all the time. It was about 9 miles and we would also ride to my mother’s work which was 6 miles. I used to ride up to the high school 3 miles and of course to my friends’ houses. It would be so free and liberating. Man … what a cool thing. AND, to think that I could be saving the planet too! Not to mention my gas tank. YUP, YUP … I think I’m going to make it a goal. I know that it is a lot easier for me to ride a bike than to walk or run. Just have to build up our endurance – and become light enough I can sit on a seat proper. I could get one of those lightening fast racing hats, shorts, shirts, and shoes. Have to get a back pack too. Wow … I’m really seeing this. I think we’re going to have to agree with Rich that I need some kind of peddling devise. We’re going to need those special boxes on my two old TVs, but I don’t see why we can’t use them yet.
I’ve got it imagined that the back bedroom will stay pretty much as it is, but that the double bed back there will be on its side. That way we could have enough floor space to keep the walking machine AND the bike … WOOHOO … wouldn’t it be something if we had two bikes? Then rich and us could be riding around. The TV in the living room now could go on the long dresser easy. Rich has got the other TV on his tall dresser now. Every once in a while … we’ll both end up in there laying on the bed and watching it, or if one of the kids dropped by … sometimes Rich will turn on the TV back there. I think he’d probably turn on the TV too if he were cleaning the room. I think it’s to a point now that if we could get the book stuff out of there and the pictures of the framed maps, that he’d have that much more space. I think that my stuff is just in the one closet. Otherwise it is all his stuff.
We asked today again about getting his stuff out of his wife’s place. He talked about all of his grandfather’s books. He made it seem that his grandfather might have as many books as we do. Yep, you could see my eyes light up. He said they aren’t worth much, but we adamantly disagreed. I look at my books as my whole entire life-time. I’ve lost books, but have carried some of my books since elementary days. Me having the books is a big deal and I think that Rich would feel totally blessed to have his grandfather’s books and thoughts surrounding him. If we’re going to stay here a while, it would make sense to get rid of that bed in the backroom all together and put book shelves back there around the exercise equipment which will take the center of the floor. I also think that the wall behind the TV where the equipment will face should be a big mirror. That will leave the entire long wall in the back for books. Hmm, might have to get rid of my dresser? Well, maybe it would be enough to give up 9 feet of books. Maybe we could put them along the wall under the tall windows too. We could maybe get some specially made, or at least purchased. I think they have at most places 2-3 shelves … that would be good.
Man now I got the bug. I wonder if we could do this. Maybe if I saved I could get Rich a set of bookcases for the back room for his birthday and Christmas gift. I think he’s putting up a stink about the books, but the truth is … he’s never thrown out the books. I know that Rich loves books. We are both readers. Why not have books from the front to the back of the house? Hmm, let’s check out a few things now. BRB
Hmm, that is better. We’re back. We moved some books and maps. Rich’s books fit nicely on the bookshelf. The pictures would be better on the wall. But, we really need him for that. We brought them out which is part of the battle. Maybe we could ask him to surprise us. He did say something about going out on an overnight trip next weekend that was a surprise. I will have to do some searching. Rich wants someplace along Lake Michigan in Michigan but somewhere different than we were with Saugatuck. That’s going to be hard … especially given the summer season. I really don’t know of destination spots. I guess I’ll have to look up special tourist type stuff. Wow! Turned on the music and we’re getting a Pink Floyd … how can you do this without wanting to be high. The draggy tunes send me spiraling!
Rich just called … he was going to let me down and still might by explaining tired-like that the TV he wants is too expensive. It is $900. I had to talk to him awhile about that because he wanted to say that it’s impossible because he only wanted to spend $500. We encouraged him strongly, but mostly on the motherly-side, but still … this is what you gotta do. We said that it is not very much considering what TV’s can cost. We reminded him about Thom’s $3000 TV’s and I know you can get them for around $10,000 and more. TV has always meant to be a big expense. AND, Rich seems to know what he wants. Someone has talked to him, or he has read about pixels. I think that he’s looking at if a 37” TV would be worth what it cost. I thought he’d wanted to go like 47-52”. I thought when I left him that he might go out and get one, but he’s just as likely to get some groceries and ribs and that will be the end of it.
I think I got some rights since its my birthday present, but I told him to go with the better one and we’ll consider it his gift. Maybe we could consider it our Christmas gift this year and then he could just give me the bike for Christmas … I think we can safely get one of those for under $900, though again … I’m sure more gets you better. We didn’t tell him we did all the work yet, because we wanted it to be a surprise. I’d call him again and give him more thoughts, but I know that he’s gotta sort this one out for himself. He’s also looking at needing another vehicle soon enough and about getting his boat, etc. I know that costs here could affect costs there. Poor Rich … he’s such a Bohemian. No … not kidding … he really is a Bohemian … it’s his nationality. It’s against his grain to spend a lot of money. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I love him though. He’s more safe and secure than most.
Well, God Bless him, for whatever he decides hehehe though I told him if he comes home without a TV he’s just going to be tossing and turning more because he’ll be fighting the disharmony of value over cost without having the time to go back out soon. Just build up more resistance. I haven’t had too many TV’s in my life. The one I got I bought with the boys when they were still younger and the other one is a 1984 that came from my father’s estate. *Sigh* We’ve probably gone over this before. I asked Rich how he was going to get a TV up the stairs. That was earlier when I was still resisting the thought of getting ANY TV for a birthday present. He said he would worry about that when the time came. Thinking now that I spent about $900 for both my camera and my video camera which I gave to Maury. That wasn’t even like a whole TV. Or that I spent a couple thousand on books. He’d just gotta work through his difficulties. We’re still at the point that almost everything in this house was purchased by me. That is except the toaster oven. I think he is going to have to bite this bullet or live with the problem of not being satisfied. Pshwoo.
Ok, better let this go. We’ll see how it turns out.
God Bless, bless!
Mmm, I’m starting to get hungry. I hope he doesn’t stay out too long. I don’t want to fill up my tummy with ribs coming home. BUT, it could be another couple of hours. I didn’t eat lunch. Hmm, when in doubt I always say … eat a fudgicle! BRB
*Sigh* Much better. I took care of that fudgicle and I went in the kitchen and took care of the claim with my insurance company. Then after that I caught the call from Rich. HE DID IT!!! He got the TV. He seems to have had a dickens of a time fitting into the car … I think he’s pleased even himself – though he’s not giving himself much a break. He talked about it being MY TV and MY ½ rib dinner. I thought EEKS! I better tell him how good I was when he was gone. That might have rolled off his back not sure. All I know is that he’s got groceries a TV AND ribs!
AND, he’s almost coming home very soon!
I jumped in the shower cuz I figured I better be squeaky clean for this kind of high ratings. He then said something about how were we going to get it up and running.
Umm, I stalled … don’t you want to do that? Well, at least that’s what I thought.
I think he realizes that he’s going to need figuring it all out … it’s kind of a male dominance thing. Just I know someone’s going to have to give a VERY BIG BACK RUB!!! Whoo … might not sleep tonight it will be backrub to 3 am. I’m pretty sure we are going to owe him at least that much a favor.
I think the excitement is starting to build … He knows that he’s going to need coming up and down those stairs for a bit AND he’s been out AND he was working all day on the house. Well, except the part where he was having a Margarita. YEEKS!
Just thought of that … maybe it is going to be thought of as “Plying him” to have fixed the drink. I don’t know though … I didn’t volunteer it first. He was the one who suggested someone should be making him a drink. Yup, yup … it was like that!
Pretty good day - look for Randy Pausch's videos and story
Good morning … this is me. It’s been a while in getting here. I’ve been up since 4 am and it is now almost 7:30 am. Sheesh … you would think the path be straighter.
We had problems with our computer … she crashed a little and it took awhile to revive her. And, then I thought I’d calm down with a little music, and I found that my music devise had changed. It was Yahoo Jukebox, but now it is Rhapsody. I think they realize they get more money from me the more frequently they change. I’m not convinced they are a better service for being a new service. I turned on the songs “Like Sarah Brightman” and they threw in Tom Jones. YEEKS! What’s up with that? I have to keep it up just to bypass him when he does come up. It’s not often, but enough to make me wary.
Rich got up shortly after 6 am and showered soon after. He left about quarter to 7 am. He had to be ready to play the game at 8 am. Hmm, reminds me too that we haven’t taken our medicine. Seems to have been enough things to calm me down with some common sense – umm the meds. Shoot … I finally get here, and I have to go?
Ahem… I know, I know…
*Sigh* Still having computer problems. I’m back now from the medicine, but had to close down AOL because it had become frozen again while I was checking out a message on mybarackobama.com site. It’s really bogging down today and is very irritating.
Shoot, I restarted the AOL, but I’m having the same problems trying to switch sites on the Internet. It gives me the signal for (not responding). I think … yes, I know that. Please focus!
Eh, I’m going to ignore it maybe it will either correct itself, or go away. HMPF!
Hmm, I need to find myself some kind of groove here … Let’s see what we haven’t covered of the morning yet.
We got to the part that Rich has gone … he is going to be out the majority of the day. He’s got two baseball games this morning. It’s been a while since he’s done baseball. He’s been so tied up in this other job contract that he had to scale back. And, then after that … he’s going to come home and change, and then he’s going to be out the rest of the day on a wedding of one of his friend’s daughters.
He’s supposed to be going with another friend of his … these are two of his best three friends. I’m glad he’s around to support them like this. We’ll have to sit back and see how it goes … Always the bridesmaid and never the bride. That’s pretty much how I feel at being left behind so often from Rich’s adventures. But, I support him having a life independent of me too, so we have to take care of ourselves and the pity we raise being us. *Sigh*
That being said … let’s move on … well maybe not really on … need to say that Rich was out last night too. He had stuff up north, which included meeting up with his son. I didn’t hear any of that. We were in another not so good place when he got home. We had been preoccupied in doing some viewing of news on CNN.com so were absorbed. We followed Rich into the bedroom and we found ourselves massaging him again. Just that we were somewhere else. Rich suggested that we watch a little TV together, but then he was just cruising around vague channels, which wasn’t to my liking. I felt restless, because I didn’t like watching “stuff.” I would have rather been back at the computer or reading. But, then he wouldn’t be getting a massage, which is what he was looking for. I love my bunny friend. I don’t want to disappoint him.
I had been put off a bit too because someone decided to tell him that we’d picked up our old service with Netflix and we’d gotten a box to connect their automatic movies without leaving home. They’ve got about 10,000 movies to be automatically uploaded. I’m sure they aren’t all great, but we’re looking forward to choosing ourselves what we’re going to view if we’re going to be watching television. He didn’t like that we’d spent money again, and we didn’t like getting scolded for the same old thing. We told him that when we get our new TV and cable service that we were going to have real choices.
We ordered our first set of movies. I’m not sure what they all are, but one of them is the movie, Born Free. I hope it’s there by the time I get to work on Monday. I got it so that we could watch an “African” movie with the group. It’s only an hour and a half, so we should be ok. I hope the group likes it. Because that’s a long time to sit if they are going to be restless. I remember seeing it though when it first came up … looking at the dates now … it was released in 1966, so I would have only been 7 years old … pretty amazing memory of it then. I haven’t seen it since, but still remember being taken in by it. In that respect, I think it will be simple enough for the group to enjoy.
I think one of the movies was on Marines, and I have no idea of the other … maybe one of the cartoon movies? We got some time travel for Rich in the Queue and a variety of other things including some action pictures. But, maybe tomorrow we can have Rich look around so that he can pick out something he might really enjoy. We got the subscription for about $18 where we can have up to 3 movies out at a time.
When we finish seeing a movie, we mail it back and then they send us another. Plus, again we’ve got those 10,000 instant movies to watch. What a blessing that will be. I have thoughts of watching instead of reading and so forth, but I have to admit, I like the graphic stimulation of movies and news videos.
I’m not sure if I mentioned that before, but we’ve taken to playing the TV on our phone on the way back and forth to work. For the most part we only look down at it while waiting at lights and such, but we take quick peeks too. I haven’t ran into any problems with it so far and it makes the trip that much more worthwhile. We’re listening to CNN Mobile. I don’t know and I’ve questioned my usage patterns as in … what is wrong with listening to news on the radio. I’m not sure why that doesn’t fly with me, maybe it’s just the novelty. I’m not sure, or again I like the visual stimulation. That’s not a bad thing.
Hmm, just got out some Lasagna pasta from Chef Boyardee. I’m really way too much into can stuff. But, it’s a remnant of our childhood. I remember when we were 10 years old for our birthday, my father got us a whole case of spaghetti from Franco-American. I thought it was one of the best birthday gifts ever. I’m like addicted to anything with tomato sauce. I’m afraid though, because Rich is noticing our heavy usage patterns and is thinking we are eating too much of it. I’m worried because I think he’s going to stop buying it then. That be disappointing to us, though we’d be probably eating more healthy.
Hmm, just ate about ¼ can better slow down. I would like to think this is going to stay in my tummy. We put it aside now.
Ok, ok … did we get last night down yet? Hmm, we should say one thing … after we got scolded we pretty much disappeared, we stopped talking and then after Rich teased us back by pulling out younger parts, we got really whiny. You should understand us here when I say whiny … I mean like irritatingly scraping fingernails across the board. Our part complains about everything like not being tired or wanting to go to bed. Poor Rich is wonderful with us. He helps us through our tiredness and coaxes us gently to bed. I can know this is happening, but when we’re in it … we can’t get out of it. I don’t know how all that works. I can hear us trying to discipline ourselves … just listen to him we think to ourselves. Don’t be argumentative – let him put you to bed. It will be ok. I don’t know why it is so hard to get us to bed, but that fact remains, so we’ve nothing to do, but watch it and continue to try figuring out how it works, and if we can break some of the spell. Most nights we go to bed as a younger part when Rich is here, but only sometimes when we’re on our own.
Rich said that we should figure out what we would like to do tomorrow. I know he is going to wake up and want to do things like laundry and picking up. We might think of doing a little bit of that today so as not to waste too much of his time. I know it’s been a while since there was any vacuuming or floor washing. But, I hate to spend my only time with him doing domestics. Part of that again is getting complainy younger parts out. I think that our older parts rebel too in that they don’t want any part of cleaning. This is not such a good thing. We’ve got to be more responsible. Just regret being told to do this or that, when our heart is aching to get back to the writing. Even now we can hardly type fast enough to keep our minds content.
We stopped by Marineparents.com this morning. We just wrote a short entry. There are a few things going on like one of our members had a small heart attack. That worries me a lot. I think that this person is one of the really good ones who worries over things he doesn’t have any control over. I know that he is poor and living out of a motel right now living paycheck to paycheck. His son calls at odd hours of the day to complain about his life, and that leaves this father worrying in excess. I think he tries very hard to be an ideal provider and he’s the type of guy that would give you the shirt off his back. So, we’re sending out extra prayers to him and his family.
I try most often to keep that world a little more private, but sometimes something will bleed over. It’s really a good group as a whole. I think many though have pulled back. There just isn’t as much going on – and there is only one conversation at a time where before there was many threads to respond too. I don’t know if people just stopped coming as their sons moved on, or if they are just reading and hanging back. I know of a few for sure doing that, but I’m not positive of the whole. I think that was one of the draws for me before – was the sense of holding a very big group together. I’m sure they could have done it without me, but I enjoyed my role.
I think then … this and more gets me past where we were last night. Maybe not in too much length … we should do a brief update of how the day went yesterday, and then I’d like to be more forecasting of our thoughts now and toward planning. It’s been awhile since we’ve done that. Hmm, yesterday morning … we started with the Leadership group. There were just a few people at first … so we waited going into the room to lead until 8:30 am, when there was more of a crowd. The room was very full in the end yesterday. All nine clients were in. There’s really not enough room for all of them – it’s a small room, but we make do and there is a lot of switching chairs trying to get everyone toward the computers where they want to be.
We did an evaluation or summary of the day when we first got in there. And, then we went into some material from Jane Goodall and her research into chimps – in Africa our theme for now. We had some good pictures from the National Geographic. The group has a harder time in listening and in discussing things that have to do with others. They are very self-inflicted. I’d like to do more to change that and I don’t know how other than to keep presenting them with news from outside their world. I’d like them to be more interested in their world, culture, and environment.
After that we worked for a half hour on goals, which was to become the theme of the day. I really wanted to get some of them in. At 10 am, we switched over to food preparation. We were going to try a light snack from Africa. It was made of flour, oil, sugar, salt, and chili pepper (cayenne). The group was optimistic, but the food didn’t really turn out good. It didn’t hold together well, so was impossible to snip. The frying pan didn’t really work well and I couldn’t get enough oil on the pan to fry it proper. The group tried it and tried to make the best of it, but it was dry and overly flour-ery. Two of the group took extras around to the other groups to try, and then the balance of what wasn’t eaten went over the fence out back for the birds to eat. I felt bad though … after it had been done … one of the group reminded us that it would probably draw the attention of the city’s BIGGG RATS! ACK! Why don’t I think of this sort of stuff before it happens?
After that we went outside for a little bit and then finished the time looking at a book sister had put together on the year in pictures and comments. It was sitting on the staff table for anyone to look through. They enjoyed seeing themselves in so many pictures.
We still had a lot of goals to get through so I told Holly I would continue to take people until I had to stop and plan the Thinking Group at 1 pm. Holly this time must have felt guilty, because she too took people for goals. There is only really one more person to go … and he’ll be back on Monday. Maybe I will take him during the movie if that comes in. Let’s hope for the best. And, then I will want to get started on it again earlier this time to get everyone in. I don’t want poor Sue to be startled if she comes back. I do pretty well with goals as long as I can get toward it, but I’m not real good planning for other things for the group to be doing while we’re doing goals. It really cut into our time to be doing anything else.
But, of course, 1 ½ hours of cooking can really take a bite out of your schedule too.
Ok, good … fine … just keeping track of us. We’re moving on.
We had Thinking group yesterday. I can’t say I was real pleased with the results.
The group seemed to be going good and I was exceptionally happy to be as limber as we were. We spent almost the entire time up on our feet and moving from one spot to another. We felt much lighter than we have in any time near present.
We did a group on looking at individual’s characteristics toward volunteer work. We had about 20 questions or statements, such as, “I can get along with people who are different from me,” or “I am good at communicating.” They did the X’s on a table.
Although the group has done this many times in the past … there was a void in honesty I believe. Mostly, just because the vast majority … other than 4 clients filled in the paper in all positive terms … they did everything right. That didn’t serve any purpose other than it got them to think through things. I chastised them a bit … gently of course, but I said you all are marking it down like this … X X X X X X all in one long straight line. Does this mean you are all perfect? They responded, “YES!” ACK!
Hard one to deal with, but believe me I’ll come up with a way to do it soon. Maybe we’re going to have to do an exercise in just charting tables or graphs where they NEED to fill in other columns, but the “just positive one.” I’ll have to think that through. Maybe when we get a bit stronger, because it’s going to take some walking around making sure everyone does as they are supposed to. Maybe have something like, “I agree I look like a gorilla,” or “I disagree Ms. Holly isn’t green,” agree and disagree of course being in two separate columns – where they can’t put everything going down a straight line – it should cause them to listen more carefully.
Hmm, that should solve that problem or at least give light to it. I also have to come up with a way of getting them to think of themselves in degrees of “good and not good.” Not sure how to do that one yet. A lot of this group has trouble thinking of things in the negative, especially about themselves. They think they do everything right and are really surprised to find differently. I think Sr. Theresa really had a lot to say about that in that … she was very crabby yesterday and verbally reprimanded everyone she came into contact with. That never helps. We talked to Rich a little bit after the group while we were up front checking on Sr. Florine’s chrononotes. Other than that … we tried to clean up our desk area a little and we finished our own chrononotes.
Hmm, we’re still bogging down. I have delayed reaction to the typing. That’s pretty irritating. I usually like to see my words progressing on the screen. It helps to cut down on the errors too. I’ve turned off everything, but the post and the music and American Online. I’m trying to turn off American Online now too just to see if that’s the problem … next option is to turn off the music. Hmm, seems to be better all ready. Let’s type a bit and see how it goes. Maybe I’m going to need doing Internet Explorer at home like I do at work now. AOL is a pain in the rump sometimes. Seems to have been the problem. Everything is good now. Ok, now let’s try IE to see if it’s the Comcast Internet connection or AOL. The music is on-line and that’s not causing a problem though. It could be my computer too. OR, the new speed feature I tried to put on-line … not sure if that was a good decision, but I’m going to wait until the new TV comes out and the Neflix get’s hooked up … we’ll also have a Comcast guy come out and put on new cable. If it doesn’t straighten itself out by then … we’re going to scrap the speed costs. Because as we say … just not sure why she’s bogging down.
Hmm IE is slow to load too. Hmm, might be the computer, because it took “my computer” a while to load too. It says it’s 77% capacity … might want to clean up the computer – frag it today.
Oh MAN! I’m really frustrated now. One of my neighbors came up and knocked on the door to say that my car had just been hit. He had the driver’s license and make of the car. I think that his wife had seen it. They knew the color and which way the car had headed. I went down and took a look at my car WHICH IS SITTING IN ITS OWN APARTMENT PARKING LOT. It wasn’t dented in as much as it was scratched/scraped up on a space of about 1’ x 1 ½’. It is going to need being touched up. We gave the police officer we called the information, pointed him to the neighbor’s apartment who’d seen it, and we gave him our insurance information.
The police officer said there was already police looking for the car. I looked out the window a minute ago and there was already a second police car out there. He’s still out there. I don’t know if the first police is still talking to the downstairs person. I suppose that I should get a picture too. Next time down – I’ll get a picture with my phone camera. If it’s not clear, I will get another with the real camera. Man … it’s just frustrating. The police officer said they would find the car and they’d issue some tickets and connect the insurance people. I said it wasn’t a lot of damage, but its still going to need being fixed. I asked … This is a hit and run then, isn’t it? He said yes and there would be some tickets issued. We know it wasn’t anyone who had lived in the apartment next door. I think the officer’s name was Hahn. But, I have a very bad memory. I can’t believe how glad I am to have the other person’s memory having seen this. Man … she got license AND make of car. That was quick! I’m really very thankful.
Hmm, just had a reality check – I made a couple of calls. I didn’t get a hold of anyone, but I left a few messages.
Ahh, we’ve made some kind of progress. We got a hold of my sister … we’ve been meaning to do that longer than I want to admit.
SPEND SOME TIME WITH THIS GUY - HE'S TREMENDOUS. ESPECIALLY LOOK FOR HIS VIDEO LECTURE ON "THE LAST LECTURE" AND "TIME MANAGEMENT." HE WAS A PROFESSOR AT CARNAGIE MELLON WHO DIED JULY 25TH 2008
http://news.aol.com/article/man-behind-last-lecture-sensation-dies/100948
http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/shortsummary.html
http://www.cmu.edu/index.shtml
http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/Randy/oldRandyPage.html
http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/
http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/
http://download.srv.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/news/index.html
Ok, trying to look forward to it being Friday ... work ahead.
Good morning. This is me. I’m up about 4:30 am this morning, but it’s now about 20 minutes past that. We talked to bunny-face a few minutes. He is in the shower now. He’s doing VERY GOOD on his diet. I’m really proud of what difference a week made. He’s now at 282 where a couple of weeks ago he was 10 pounds heavier. I think he lost water weight first, because it came off quickly as he started, but now the idea is to not get frustrated if he sees it going up or hovering at the same amount.
I think one of the tricks I use is to focus on the low weight. Like today we’re at 270.0 and that’s a low weight for us. I might go up a few pounds before I lose again, but the idea is to keep thinking how I’m never far from my low weight. I noticed that I gain a pound or two before clearing the weight for good. At the same time – right now – I’m looking forward to getting into the 260’s. WOOHOO!!! I’m working at it. Ok, this is going to work, right? 3 more pounds and I’ll be at 40 pounds weight loss since surgery. That makes THREE goals. I want to break my low weight, I want to get in the 60’s, and I want to get to that 40 pound mark. This is well worth some effort!
Honey bunny is out of the shower now and is getting dressed. I made the coffee and poured him some. He doesn’t have long in the morning, but maybe we’ll sneak in a few moments.
Last night he didn’t get home until probably about 9 pm. We were still up and at our computer. We didn’t take the medicine until late. We had gotten some mail from Barack’s camp and we saw that he was sending a current video. So, we watched that and a few more. The main one was his 25 minute speech in Germany yesterday. I thought it was good, but I was nervous that he may insult the people of Germany … there was quite some talk about the war and us being allies, which I thought of as a strange set of statements, but he obviously looked at Berlin and the aftermath where we were working to build West Berlin. He also talked about the cold war and being at odds with communism. It was hard to think he was talking about things that could be upsetting to other world leaders. I like the impression that there is room to negotiate – even with communists such as had happened with Ronald Reagan. But, overall, I think he was well received. I appreciated the cheers and clapping during many points made during the speech. I think that to me Barack feels like a national level candidate. He looks intelligent and as a good representative wherever he goes.
As part of that experience I hung around the my.barackobama.com site. That seemed very warm and inviting. I guess I’d been there earlier in the month, but had only a small trace of that. Last night we hung around for a couple hours discovering stuff. Like we added new friends or at least invited people to become friends. We chose from a group of people in Brookfield. We also blogged and checked out events near our area. There really is an excellent set of people to get involved with.
Everything seems to be about either making donations – which we thought we should, or about making stronger networks to others who believe in Barack like we do. If you haven’t gone there yet … try my.Barackobama.com – it’s really fascinating. I’m tied for 159,677th place as to points on the board. Everytime you get more involved, you move up on the scale. It’s fun.
As to other things happening yesterday? Hmm, we did the group in the morning, the other group after 8:30 am, then we did staff training in the afternoon, and we did work on our chrononotes after that. We have thoughts on Sister’s situation … Sr. Florine, but that wasn’t all positive. She came to the session in the afternoon, but sat there and gossiped to start the meeting, said toward the meeting sarcastically – “Yes, teacher.” And then kept the group 20 minutes grandstanding an audience. Sr. Theresa said to release them 15 minutes early … and that time just went up in smoke. She’s already publically starting to undermine Sr. by portraying her as old and a bit unnerving. Like “I need to get home in time so Sr. doesn’t get upset.” I think what good does that do the staff. She’s trying too hard to be popular. I don’t think she’s going to get there from where she is going now. I don’t like her direction. I also didn’t like being “dismissed.” After the session she stated that I didn’t need to come to the front “to help her out.” While this is positive as to independence, I have not decided that she is worth cutting off quite yet. It was just earlier this last weekend and Monday that I was making all the corrections to her work.
I think she has feelings that aren’t pro-Ann. She’s most likely seeing that I can be a bit sticky. I think she’s resisting being taught. I did make one sour comment that could or couldn’t be taken positively. She complained about the one client voluminously … later with all the Sr.’s chattiness … we thought that she wasn’t any different that the client. We said that somehow not quite the same, but really close. It only made her pause as she then picked up the speed and was talking all over the board again. It seemed like she was entertaining and that fed the “lazy” parts of the staff who would enjoy sitting there laughing over sitting there learning. Unless you could consider they were learning about sister.
I think to be honest … we didn’t have a plan yesterday … when Sr. started making jokes of the client’s and the other sister, I laughed too. It was funny, but it was also mean spirited. I started to regret what was happening that much farther into the session. I’d called it off quarter too, but people continued to listen, I couldn’t give up my seat, because then it would be totally out of control in that I wouldn’t know what she was saying. It was like she was holding her own meeting. I think she liked that kind of power and I think she needed some humorous relief from the clients and the sisters in general, but I don’t think she realizes that it implements the staff to think that that kind of behavior is appropriate. I feel bad this morning, because even though I slipped her a couple of “slow-down” messages, she seemed to roll right over them.
This morning while showering I thought about where do I put on the breaks … is it a good time to be talking to Sr. Theresa. I don’t want to lose trust with the Sr., but I think she needs to know my allegiance. It seems to me we always get to this point, and it is usually sooner, than later. I feel as if I should talk to Sr. Florine first, and I think I might try, but already from having corrected her twice she’s giving me the brush off. We’re going back to being dismissive of telling me I didn’t have to come, instead of me releasing her. Maybe what is happening is a bit of a power struggle. But, I don’t think I can afford to have her take over the relationship to the staff where she is in charge. In that respect I should be talking to Sr. because it is not for me to be working against a sister. Especially, one without personal boundaries. I think today that we’ll go to talk with the Sister after the program hours, whether she likes it or not. We need to talk about the meeting and expectations of each other. I can appreciate she wants the camaraderie, but she shouldn’t get it by putting the clients, me, or Sister down.
It doesn’t look good for us and it certainly doesn’t speak well of her.
Ok, that’s enough of that … Otherwise … regular kinds of things went on yesterday.
I worked with the one client in the morning from being over-talkative … I don’t think she liked it at first, but she seemed to come back later. The point was that after non-stop chatter, it was time that the group has some quiet.
With the leadership group, we went through and worked first on getting our thoughts out as to the groups’ working situation. We ask, “How did it go? Did you learn anything, and Is there something you want to improve?” I copied down their responses, and then we saved it to be typed later. We then went over a story in the news on Africa about pirates near Somalia. We took down their general impressions.
I think the group had a hard time following along the story. It seems that it was farther out of their realm of interest. Given some discussion time though they started adding in their thoughts on pirates. They remembered the movie Peter Pan and Pirates of the Caribbean. They also remembered small things like pirates making enemies walk the plank. I think they were confused as to whether or not the pirates were good guys or bad. They seemed to have a glorified view of them.
Afterward, we worked on the Interviews … we finished writing out the dialogue and then practiced. We’ll work on it again today.
Afterward, we decided we better work on the masks. There was one client who had already done it, so we gave her the opportunity to be on the Internet, which is one of her favorite things to do. The other three people worked on first a practice mask, and then a real one on the cardboard. They did a real good job. They finished the work after lunch. I had planned things to be doing afterward, but I had forgotten Holly was going to be taking the group. She actually only had an hour, because the group went to Town Hall. I had asked her specifically to work on goals, and she said that’s what she was planning on doing. But, she didn’t do that. Instead she worked with one client on drawing in the animals for the menu. I think that might have been nice for the client, but in the meantime, she disregarded the other clients … who she just set up to work independently on the computer, and she didn’t get to the goals at all. I was very disappointed.
I think that today, we’re going to need making up for the lack of progress with the goals. There will be a big group today. We also are going to be doing cooking.
Sr. didn’t seem to think it was a problem to pull together some of the basic ingredients we are going to be using to do food prep. We are going to work on an African snack. Hmm, good thing I remembered, because we needed to remember bringing a spice that we figured we could use from home. It’s been a while since we did food prep, and it’s going to require a frying pan, but we’re trying to remain optimistic.
Well, I think this is about it for now. We need to get going. Everything is ready with the exception that I need to get dressed and head out the door. Let’s make it another good day, k?
Pshwoo ... lot's to be working on.
Good morning … this is me. We got a little time, but we’ve wasted some this morning. We were checking on the phone bills and bank transfers. I had changed some services in Thom’s bill and we’d gotten some money from him, so we opened another account so that we could pay for some of his bills through it. We need to talk to Maury about getting his bills from his father’s house. Think right now though that he is sleeping … He doesn’t work on Thursday’s. In time, in time…
We talked to both Joe and Thom last night. It seems that Joe is most likely not going to get the other building yet. He is thinking that it might be better to buy out Steve before he concerns himself with opening another place. It scares me that he would do that, but I know he’s being a good business manager. It’s a gutsy thing to own a place like this. I think that he is worrying too that Steve is not being around very much. I think Joe would like Steve to be teaching a couple of classes – something to show he’s interested in the students and the Dojo. Joe would have to open more classes if he could think of retiring from his present job. I wish he had someway to secure his income while making that change. I don’t think he could do it without a loan – which is just putting off the inevitable that he’s going to need paying out to live. He’s trying to think through though what he would have to do to open for more hours. He’s seeing a full Steve class and a couple private lessons as being very valuable.
I think the thing I worry about most is that he could lose his other Sensei’s … he depends on them a lot to be teaching classes. I don’t think they are charging him for their services. If he had to pay them, or if they would like to get paid … he might be running into trouble. I think in the meantime that I would like to continue looking at the homework situation. I think that’s still workable and I think that Joe is still thinking about that and that he would be able to do it with his present space. I don’t understand that part, but I’m willing to follow his lead. Maybe he could start it with a few clients while he figures the ins and outs of the deal. I’d be willing to support him, however. If it would make a difference to having me be there, I would do that too - anything for the Joe.
As to Thom, we just had a nice IM conversation. He teased me for being motivated.
He had gone to the chapel, but he only said about that that he knows that the chaplain likes to see both of the couples. He’s working hard to get everything pulled together for a wedding and he now has an 08-08-08 date set. That’s coming up real soon. I think that Alexis is planning on going to Florida on the 4th or 5th.
I would like to do something special, but I don’t know what. I’m really limited to money … in that if there were extra money, I would be putting it toward our trip down there. I think even if we were invited, it would be a pretty sudden thing to get down there that fast. We’re talking two weeks from tomorrow. I don’t know if Rich’s budget would allow us to do all that. I’d like to witness the wedding … but, I don’t know if that would set other’s up as not being invited. And, I don’t know if we would be invited – in that maybe they want to do this on their own. Thom said something about Alexis and him just wanting to do it at some desk or another.
He went on then to talk about his PT score. I guess it was pretty lousy as were the other new guys, because they didn’t do any PT while at MCT - PT again being physical training. I know that he is working on it and thinks he could be back to normal in 3 weeks. It might be pretty guy-like to be getting all buff for his wedding. I sure wish it weren’t going to be THIS small.
Hmm, I just called Rich we only talked about 45 seconds, but he said going to Florida in two weeks might be tough and we might have to respect their wishes about it being private. But, then I wouldn’t be a mother if I didn’t want to see my kid getting married. I wonder if the other parents are thinking the same thing. Rich said that we’d talk about it tonight, but I’m thinking he’s not going to buy it.
Plus, he’s going to be out tonight until late … He’s going to a meeting up north, see his friend, and see his son who won’t get off work until 7:30 pm. He won’t be home then until 9 or 9:30 pm. By then I should reasonably be in bed.
I worry about Alexis being so private and shy that she pushes Thom to disconnect from me again. I’m sure she was somewhat involved in all those years Thom didn’t connect with us. Primarily it was on Thom, but she would have been a factor. I know they are talking a lot on the phone or with text messages. I think it might be an all day and into the night thing. I saw just the front page of his bill when I was trying to figure out his service this morning. I saw when he connected to me too, and in comparison there were 20-25 messages between them to every 1-2 of mine.
I think that is what should happen when you’re young and in love. I just don’t want to lose my 1-2 messages to none. I hope he stays liking me. After such a bad experience I feel easily threatened by what my boys can do to our relationship.
Ok, but then that would be thinking overly negative … I need to somehow let go of that space. Maybe it’s something else that Dr. Marvin and us could work through.
That insecurity of being not allowed to be a mother.
Ok, now looking at the glass half full … where are we at? I think we had another day that had unproductive time. We’ve watched the group in the morning and hmm, think it was the day before when we watched the back-part of the lunchtime. I know that we had some trouble with another of our clients. This one who cries out of control when she let’s go. I think that it had something to do with the other staff who was in there. I am cursing our memory.
We just had a quick glimpse through the door about the situation. It seemed as if the staff – Stephanie had Alma pretty much pinned to the closet doors. Maybe she was trying to get her to stop from hitting another client. That’s all within the realm, but I had THOUGHT I’d seen the staff cup her hand as if she was going to give her a back swing. Instead of waiting that situation out to see if it were really accurate, I quickly opened the door. The staff was pretty riled. She grabbed the client’s hand and held it out to me saying you’ve got to get her out of here. I just took the hand and left. Within moments of being in my office … she was back to being ok. But , she’d been shaking the walls for me to have heard her all the way to my office with their door being shut.
I had gone because it seemed so loud, and it had been the second time in the same day. I wasn’t going to chance that the staff might hit her by letting that situation play itself out. But, I think to day I might have to talk to Sr. about it. The staff was pretty jarred. Almost as soon as we’d open the door to leave, Cathy the regular staff had gotten to the outside of the door, so I left the room with Kathy back in charge. Stephanie is just an assistant. I wouldn’t trust her to remain calm, because I think easily of her being a hot head. Often she’s acting “nice,” but I see it’s a strain on her. She’s easily pressured.
Hmm, we’re going to need taking our shower in a few moments, but the other thing I wanted to mention was that I’d worked on the last part of the day AFTER working with Sr. Florine, on completing my notes for upcoming courses in being with the Leadership group. I didn’t want to get over involved because Sue might be back, but in case she weren’t I thought, we should be ready. She’s used up her vacation and sick time for the year … and the New Year just started this month. I had a dream last night that she quit as soon as her time was used up.
I didn’t really have a great positive experience with the Sr. Florine. I had complained about her notes and showed her the errors, but then she continues to write in the next set of responses without checking. I had also told her that it was expected that she be more thorough on the course planning. She’d been writing in some numbers like 117 language, but not listing what she was doing for the exercise. I asked her to go back and refer to Sue’s notes in the same book and how details about the lesson were given. I think the Sr. took it poorly, in that she might have seen me as stepping on her toes. I didn’t mean it to be like that … it’s just that she was ready to say she’d been put out and had done enough work. She was frustrated that she’d have to plan that much in advance, because so often things change. I had told her she should write the plans a month out, because that was sister’s standard.
I’d also tried to explain that things should be done in series. For example, if she knew 5 of her clients could do the hour time, but 4 shouldn’t, then the lesson should be geared toward the two separate conditions. I told her the objectives should build on each other and I told her about Bloom’s taxonomy. I told her I couldn’t expect it from her to be better, because it would put her above the others, but I told her that she was intelligent enough to really make a go of it – as to the client’s really learning from her. We also talked about the clients learning the surface material and then the presenting the undercurrent, which often undermine the problems they are having learning. They have life issues and communications with themselves, the staff and each other as peers. This is where all the behaviors come in that seem undisciplined to her now. I think of the one client explaining she was to act like a girl – and in that way she drew out the experience of being submissive. I think that there is a certain amount of intolerance from them toward each other now. We’re trying to break down some of those barriers. As long as she’s thinking of the one client as BEING the barrier … she’s not really in a good position to teach.
Sr. did poignantly add that she hasn’t been a teacher since her beginning days as a postulate. That could explain some of her frustration. I think she thinks of this work as being difficult, maybe because there are so many emotional obstacles. But, I think that her frustration is part of the obstacle and we have to work with things from that level. I’ve got to do my best in helping that out, by giving her examples of not being frustrated, but by looking at the work methodologically. I think she’s smart enough to do it … just has to look out for that being “obedient” or expecting the clients’ of being obedient. I hope she doesn’t get too frustrated with me for looking at these things, but then I think it’s better if she projects her frustration on me over the clients.
She’d given me some static toward like the others as to how to treat individuals while you are working with the group. And, I said each is a bit different. I asked her to give me an example. She brought up one client who is easily distracted by her own playing. I told her the main trick on that one is to get her attention. I told her not to speak to her with expectation if doing so from across the room.
With this one, you need to stand close to her if not directly in front of her and you need to sometimes even hand over hand tell her that it is time to “put away her things” and for her to get out something you want her to be getting out. Because this one zones out on so many things – you have to get her attention first and teach her how to respond first. Sr. didn’t offer anything negative about that one – so maybe it was a good clue for her.
Teaching is by no means easy, but I’m telling her because of the undercurrent you need to practice communication skills with them while they are having the problems.
She brought up the transition problem not by name, but by circumstance. She smiled stating that she is letting them know 5 minutes in advance that she wants to start a new project and to put away the last. We told her that was excellent, but the next step is helping to guide them through it if they are having obstacles. There’s a way of making a statement to do this or that, but then instead of thinking you have five minutes transition time too, you need to consider that there are those who are going to need assistance. The clients will listen and respect if you are working through problems with individuals as long as they can sense the whole picture coming through. So, you might have to remind one to close the book, and another not to start a talk session, or another to assist a peer because they were quicker than the other. Whatever further instruction is necessary should be given. If you can scan the room and things are working like clockwork – then you have no problems – sit back and enjoy. Remembering of course to compliment them after their process is complete. Tell them what they are doing right to reinforce good habits.
There are about a gazillion things to learn and I can’t say that I know them all. I try to watch though what each is doing that is positive or negative, or to learn from my experience. I hope that Sister makes it. I think the work is hard and she feels like she has other gifts that could be utilized. I have seen her talking to others about this while on the phone. And, she’s partially admitted to me. But, I’m thinking at this point, she is realizing that someone is actively trying to train her … and certainly at 65 years of age … there’s some resistance, because you want to think of yourself as capably knowing it all. I don’t blame her, but she is at the same time admitting it is new. I just have to remember myself to compliment her on things that are going well.
In the meantime as I may have alluded to previously … one can’t throw stones if living in a glass house. I came back enthused enough to be working on my own planning book. I took it up to next Monday. I really expect that Sue is going to be coming back … if not I think we’re going to hear about it soon. Both Sr. and us are on the defensive. Hmm, that’s one other thing we did yesterday.
We were asked to watch group III while the staff was going to be gone an hour.
Usually, I guess they just leave the door open and the other staff peers in, but the other staff was out on an outing. When I first walked into the room I noticed that everyone was pretty much doing their own thing. Maria the staff tried to explain that they were each working on their goals. I thought Lordy … I’m going to have to figure out 9-10 goals? So, I started asking questions as to what each were doing.
The staff hadn’t really thought she’d have to explain it to anyone … So then I thought I’d make it easy – just show me the goal book and I would figure it out.
But THEN, she showed me that the other Q’s clients didn’t have anything in the goal book and that she’d taken them all out and said she was working on them. So, then we sighed HEAVILY … and thought … ok, we’ll just have to wing it, but the staff really needed to leave, because her hovering wasn’t helping – due to her not giving much information. She did set up specific clients to be on the computers. We asked her to pinpoint the computers that were working. Then we went around one at a time to make sure everyone was doing something.
The one client couldn’t read the letters to type because she didn’t have her glasses. So we took over the staff position of reading to her the letters. Another client, she’d set up on typing from the typing tutor program, but it was easy to see she didn’t know what she was doing, because she was just hitting keys. So, we tested her too to see if she could recognize letters, but we found she couldn’t. So then we found another program where she was asked hand over hand to trace the letters and then match the letter on the screen with the same capital letter on the keyboard. We did this a few times and was very satisfied with it as a training tool. We went to another client … and found she was also typing gibblety-gook. So, we walked her through some direct typing per dictation. We discovered she couldn’t do certain letters, such as e, c, and t. So, we made our notes here too and we figure that should be addressed separately, and soon.
After people finished their work with me … and some of the others were just loosely looking at magazines, I pulled together 2/3rds of the group to listen and talk about a story of “Little Bear” that I’d brought in. That was a favorite of mine from our youth and I’d had some copies in my office. Later when the staff got back she said they were reading from Winnie-the-Pooh which was a book I’d brought in for another client. I thought that was great! More reading and interest in it was good.
The one other thing I wanted to note, was that Holly came in and started interfering with my plans. She went directly to a client I’d already set up to work independently and she started to “take over.” We asked her if she was coming in to stay. She said no, and then we told her that we had the clients and that she didn’t need to help. She got real huffy about that stating on her way out that most people would appreciate the extra help. We let her know that getting the goals where they belong would help the most. She was pretty cranky as she hit the door. But, it was like don’t come in here doing MY job, when yours is so blatantly behind.
ACK! But, now I got to get going. I’ll be back soon.
