Chuggin along like a choo-choo
Good morning. This is me. How goes it with you? Whoops … that’s the last question that I ask … Umm, we get kind of selfish here … Ok, ok … be nice …This morning it’s already 5:35 am. We were up with the kitties earlier, but since they woke up at 1:30 am that was a definite sign to go back to bed. We then slept until about 5:10 when we started waking up Sweetie. He thought he’d get up faster if I rubbed his back. I know … you must think that he’s got the most well-rubbed back on the continent! *Sigh* But, sweeties are sometimes like that. They need to be a little spoiled. God bless them!
It actually worked a little … after about 8-9 minutes … he said his eyes open and then shortly after … one finger went up … and he said see! I’m getting there.
Fortunately two fingers went up … well, we were kinda giggling by then. I guess that woke up the rest of him. He’s in the shower now. Good Rich.
I think our yesterday was like so-so … but we wanted to talk first about Thom. He text messaged and then he we agreed that he would call after he’d been out shopping. He called back again than about 6:30 pm. I was so happy to hear from him. I had about a million questions. He seems to be doing real well. He repeated several times how much he loved his room – even if it was only for overnight. They need to make room for him somewhere else. Right now he’s staying with the somewhere in-between crowd. They have Marines that need to go somewhere, but they’re waiting to “class-up”. He doesn’t seem to mind that.
He’s got some time to burn. But, they do have to be there and they have to be on base until further directions. I think he’s getting a briefing meeting in a day or two. In the meantime he has PT (physical training) and I think these are the guys that do random work around the naval base – like guard duty, and maybe even picking up. Thom says they might not tell him when he actually starts and that he might have to wing-it for awhile. He says he’s heard of guys waiting for a couple days to waiting about 9 months - could be more.
He says the food is ok … he went in the quick line which was serving hot dogs and hamburgers. I guess there’s another line that serves better. He says the meals cost about $3.50. So, that’s a pretty good deal. I’m not sure if that includes both lines. Yesterday when he picked me up … he was on the way to the store.
There’s an on-base one. He put me down while he was in the store, but he had gone apparently just to buy some garbage bags for his room. That was a real good idea.
I think more than anything he just wanted to get out. Thom says that it’s about 90 degrees and very humid. But, he thinks that is fine … He says he’s just on the edge of sweating, but not quite. I’m sure that will change with PT.
Thom talked about a lot of stuff, especially how hard he’s going to study. He says there are classes you can pick up in the evening that will teach you how to do military things better. He says that will be important to raise his rank. I think that is something he really wants. He also said he’d buy a cheap $2-300 TV. He says it wouldn’t interfere and that he’d get it because he just needs TV. It’s been now a long time since he’s watched it with any regularity so I think that will make him happy. He always did watch about anything. He said he talked to Joe and Joe’s supposed to get me his computer so that I can ship it. I’ll do that from Rich’s UPS store. Maybe I’ll call Maury and see if he and Joe are going to want to go out. I don’t remember if that was arranged before. We’ll see. Hmm, maybe it would be a good time to talk to Maury now. Nope … just remembered it’s his day off today … might as well let him sleep.
I was so glad that Thom had the phone. He says that he’s still going out with Alexis so I could imagine him curling up in bed and talking to her for awhile. That seemed like a good thing. I was really glad he’d have company his own age. I think it’s much better too to have a girl friend, than in stepping out with the locals and getting who knows what kind of diseases. Better he know someone he sees regularly.
Hmm, just checked my banking. I had gotten 2 late payment fees of $34 each. Man that really sucks. But, the money is good for now. I made payments on my late rent and car. I wanted to get those in before I overspent the money. I think I’m going to have to pay to get medicine too. I’ve only got enough of the one to carry me this morning. I’ll be out by tonight. Maybe I’ll do that in a little bit after the shower when I’m taking my medicine. Ok, ok … that’s enough domestic for now.
As to what happened at work? We spent the first hour with the clients. And we made Sister’s sign. Although we didn’t label the foods so she said she did that herself. I don’t think it included the clients … Where mine did. I had them cutting out the foods and then gluing them wherever they thought on the poster boards. *Sigh* She’ll learn.
During the day I worked on the group plan for the Leadership people. I know that I had to get in stuff for Africa … because they’ll have their presentation not next week, but the next. We’re trying to get Sr. to change it to Friday that week rather than Monday, because more of our people will be in. That sounds possible, but she said we’d talk about it later. I also heard that Sue was supposed to be out all next week. Man that really sucks. I hope she’s having a good time. I better not hear any whining when she gets back. She knows she’s putting the center out on a limb by being gone for so long. She doesn’t seem to be concerned.
With the Africa stuff we got ready several elements. I want the group to be making masks and spears to represent that portion of Africa. Then we’ll walk them through serving meals because they are so different going from one country to another. And, we’ve got a menu prepared to go out, but the group will make the menu covers out of drawing pictures of animals from Africa. We also have a map project lined up and there were a few other things. There was this one part where they are going to talk about customs, but it’s a small presentation. I’m going to have that part set up as an interview and I’m going to ask the group questions like they were on a panel.
It should be real fun. Lot’s of work to be doing these next couple of weeks though.
I wrote down the plans in the planner so that worked out good. I think I’ve got the next three days scheduled in, and we’ll have to see where they are at the end of the time before planning next week’s Thursday and Friday. I’ve only got the group on those days and Mondays. The rest of the days all but one member is out working in the community. Oh yeah … and we’ve got planned that we want to do a little cooking … they have this one finger-sized food that I’d like to try making it seemed pretty easy though it will require some frying in the pan. We would hopefully make that on the cooking day. I’m not sure if it would align to the same day.
Oh, and there’s one other thing I’d like to try. Sr. Florine had her group singing words to Michael Row the Boat. That went over real well, so I’d like to try that with our group too. I’d just change the words to reflect our country. I’m not sure if I can do it as to not knowing everything – like Sr. has a much better voice.
It’s loud and clear … plus the singer’s in the first group are better. But, we’ll think through it. I liked that interactive part.
The other group that performed yesterday was Group II … they did a lousy job. The teacher said she forgot the map at home and apparently that’s really all she had planned. She had made 3 small maps that morning and she tried to walk their girls through it, but it was obviously they didn’t know what was going on or were inept at reading. Then she had two girls out of like five at the end of the line who stood up, but did absolutely nothing. It was really pitiful. It hurt to be her even in our thoughts. The other had put out such a much better presentation. I guess when we do ours … we’ll be the only ones so that should be better … we won’t be compared directly to anyone else.
Ahh, we’re out of the shower and have taken our medicine and gotten lunch ready.
Rich is minutes from leaving, but I didn’t want to be hovering over him as he did his final checks on his computer. So, he has to come get me for his kisses!
I’ve only got about 20 minutes left. Hmm, where was I?
I guess explaining my day … that would put me up to about 3 pm. I had been chatting with Lynn on the phone and realized that I was supposed to go to sisters to help, but my heart wasn’t in it … The truth be told … when she called I told her I’d forgotten. That’s a half-truth, because I had forgotten, but I’d remembered too and didn’t do anything about it until asked. That was the 3 pm time. Seemed as if Sister had most of the paperwork done, but she didn’t have the work numbers completed. So we helped her get counts, and then we helped check the work and bag-it and label it. Then we helped her fill the trays and we set up a couple of extra bags to the side. Actually, we were doing most the work, but at least she volunteered to help tie the bracelets that had come undone in my checking. She needed to do everything from a sitting down position. She didn’t stand up … I could tell that it was very difficult for her, but then again she wasn’t trying very hard. She said that her legs had been bothering her.
I kept pushing my way around the tables even though my back hurt. I’ve got this feelin for how things used to be in that I used to move very quickly and I loved it. I’d zoom from one thing to another. This morning we checked our weight and we’re still at 271. That’s ok … I think it had actually gone up a few pounds and now is coming back down the other end. We’ll try to have a real good day today.
Plenty of movement. After we finished working we sat down and casually chatted with Sr. Florine. I could tell she wanted that, but she also wanted to go take a nap before Sr. Theresa got back. She was just too tired to stand up … and she seemed to really need the light chat. It felt a little more distressed then than previously.
I know she had been hinting that she was done, but we kept adding things like … we still need to do this sister … we still need to do this. She didn’t complain, but I know she was being pushed through it. We tried to soften our stance, because we knew it was hard for her.
We worked for about an hour, plus and then gathered up our stuff back in the office and decided to call it quits. You already know the part about talking to Thom and other than that it was a quiet night. We’d had our soup, and then wasted some time scrounging around the news on the Internet, and then after Thom called we settled in to read a bit, until we fell asleep on the lounge. Rich called soon after to say he was just meeting his son and he coaxed us into going to bed. I can’t remember when he got in, I would hope he gave us our kiss, but we might have slept through it.
*Sigh*
And, now is now. Rich just left. He’s such a nice kisser … :)
I suppose it’s about time to get through the day. I’ve got a lot on our agenda today. I’m glad I worked on the plans though there is all the annual work left to be done. I said something that made Sister ask am I keeping you from your work. I told her in part yes, but that training her was part of my job, just that I was behind at my desk work. I also told her that it wasn’t helping that I would be doing groups for a bit with leadership. I said not to worry that Sister Theresa knew what had to happen. She knew that I was getting behind. I’m still worried about things like Qnotes. I’m really behind there too. I’m not sure how I’m going to catch up. I keep thinking that Sue is going to get used to not working and quit. That would leave us short another staff and make it near impossible to get things ever caught up. It really doesn’t help that we’re in the middle of our busy season with the annual meetings. All, in all I would have to say … we’ve got our work cut out for us. I guess the thing to do then is to work hard at putting out the small fires. Sooner or later … we’d have made progress, right?
posted by Ann Marie @ 7/17/2008 06:48:00 AM
Comments: 1
