Ayn's Multiple World

7 Minutes and Counting

Good morning … we’re back at it again. We’ve been doing our start-up things here at work and decided to write ourselves into working. I know that I want to clear up some tasks I uncovered on my desk yesterday. I was really happy with doing work at work. I should do it more often. I had this passing thought with – hey maybe I should get a job like that. I believe if there wasn’t CARF I’d have a much pleasanter series of work thoughts. I’d feel good about it again.

My understanding is that this will be our last year with CARF – most likely. Sister is tired of it too, tired of the cost – well over $5000, and she is tired with the trouble of it. It’s no longer required either. By opting out of CARF we opt into a 3 day survey with the state, but at this point will push toward that end.

Hopefully, they’d give us some guidelines, but then we’d get THEM for 3 days *sigh*.

I left a message confirming with CS that we’ll be coming up around 5-6 pm on Friday night and that Uncle Marky should have some sparkly mountain dew on hand … yup yup that’s how we roll 

Good good. Tomorrow it looks like we’re going to have more volunteers come in from DARST the palce with the groups of younger volunteers. It’s a really easy assignment about now and lots of fun because not only do you meet the kids, but you also get to hear some reaction toward what they think of meeting St. Rose. I look forward to the events.

What else is on my mind. Hmm, maybe a little toward sewing – I can’t remember exactly where we are, but there should be some progress on it every day. Rich said something not to get overly excited if CS isn’t into the coloring as big as we are.

But, I know with all the colored pencils and markers – she’s happy about that kind of stuff too. Ok, maybe not AS excited as we are, but probably close.

I sent an email to Jinny Beyer and I’ll be interested to see if we get a connecting letter back today and if so what nature would it be. We wrote to sales about concerns of sponsoring a site with the Quilted Moose – Sisters Sewing on Spruce where the materials would be featured with our designs. It’s probably too small and unknown – because its still in our head for them, but I threw it out to CS and she finally got back to me saying anything was possible. We’ll have to think through all that over the weekend. I’m really looking forward to going up and talking sewing.

I’m a little fearful of being up there because the last couple of times weren’t good, but I think CS is getting past all the illness things. At least she’s putting some time into sewing again which is I believe good for her as it is for me. I think it connects both of us more to reality. We both texted for a bit while I was waiting for my headlight to be fixed at Jiffy Lube, and then when I got out to the car again, I gave her a call and we talked over a few things.

Hmm, why did I start that thought? Not sure. We’ll make sure though we are checked out with Dr. Marvin before going up … we’ll try to make it as safe as possible. I think part of our problem before was that by going up with Rich and being dropped off – we didn’t have any way to get out and so felt trapped.

Oh, I know what I was going to say. CS said and was trying to push me toward going to a sewing class with her and Emily – a woman we’d met at the retreat. I didn’t want to go, but encouraged her to go and that we’d be fine at home. We made sure she knew that we’d like it if Emily came back with her, but I didn’t want to go and talk about a project that I wasn’t interested in – especially by the woman who was leading the class. I think she’s a really good seamstress and most likely could teach me something, but not when her time is divided … I don’t think that much of her people skills. I believe everything you do at Ann’s involves a cost and she’s primarily interested in the income and then secondarily interested in the people, but that would be only because people bring in money.

I’m also interested in that CS met someone at a quilting show who had sold her big quilting machine and that she and Emily had both listened and she thought she could come pretty close to getting it going. I wouldn’t mind stepping into that too especially if Emily could come over and offer her advice. I really thought a lot of her … she’s the type that’s just gosh darn sweet! And, I thought she’d be good for CS.

Life would be a lot better if we all learned to use the machine. Right now you get stuck on the final part and that takes down some of the excitement in finishing.

It’s been about ¾’s a year since CS got serious about it and I’m glad to hear she’s been downstairs the last couple of days working on it. Good CS!

What now to think of our sewing “business”

Ok, that’s enough of that … we spent a little time on the Internet looking up things related to Jinny’s fabric. We didn’t find a whole lot interesting. I really think we could do something with it with CS and us, but it would take some work working at a website and coming together on ideas. I’m holding out on the thought that CS has enough room and time to handle a mail ordering business and for the moment we’re thinking more of color balances.

I’d like to be able to offer designed kits where we sell fabric and designs. I think the mark-up for fabric shouldn’t exceed Jinny’s, but I don’t know if there is a locked process where basically you can’t undersell her own shop wouldn’t make much sense though why anyone would buy from you if there was a mark-up on it from the traditional $9 mark. So, in a sense you’d only be selling the color scheme and that you would order for them at the right sizes. There would seem to be another addition and that would be if you precut the fabric, but that would be too time consuming.

The cutting system CS talked about in the past was too expensive and bulky to work – though as to space we still have that second bedroom. Just I don’t think as Rich would say that you can really make money by doing laborious tasks. Someone will always be able to undercut you.

Ok, that took a few moments … we scanned some material for opening a store in eBay.

The two reasonable costs are like $16 and $50. If we opened one it would have to be at the $16 level. The cost is low enough that we might open a store just to check it out, but it would have to be something that CS and us would do together. There’s quite a bit of information to go through so it would be a weekend project. But, especially, CS and us would have to consider what the store is selling. I think you need to sell objects more than services. I don’t think there is a whole lot out there on Jinny. Sometimes they seem to be selling a particular fabric – but, like one or two from a palette and usually short odd amounts. I wouldn’t want to be doing that.

I think the closest we can come to an idea is selling the service of delivering?

Hmm, maybe we’d do better off on selling designs. We could work it out with CS as to the means of doing patterns, but in general they would be something sold for about $10 and they would be downloaded to peoples emails or we’d publish some brochures and stick them in envelopes. I think the basic thing is that you have a color print or too on glossy paper, and then you have several pages of directions and I think you’d give the option of cutting blocks or doing pieces. Maybe we could do that part – it wouldn’t be as time consuming. We’d have to talk it over with CS. One way to really assist with the project would be to sell any one given item in at least 3 different sizes.

I’m thinking now that we’d be able to work more on providing the directions and color schemes – we could do that too offer any one product in a variety of colors.

Thing is that part of what you are buying is that we have picked out the materials.

And, then we suggest the items they need to order directly from Jinny. We’d have to make sure that the fabric was in stock. And, if they wanted us to order for them we’d add a $10 charge. That would seem fair.

We did this earlier just as a reminder of where we’re at with all of that. I’d like to think that maybe what we could do is offer 3 categories. We could do one for Jinny, one for MODA and one for Thimbleberries? Then we could offer one of them as a mix of the three, but then that might be pretty hard our libraries can only hold so much. Hmm, that would have to be it then … I think MODA has a lot of fabric and it seems to be designed around type of print or solid, and then they seem to have new collections coming up in April – probably most designers will have new stuff up for spring. Connie Sue knows a lot about collections. Maybe part of it would be looking for similar patterns, but choices of color from each of the three manufacturers. I believe I could be very excited coming up with different things.

I would have to ask CS about different computer programs … I’m thinking that Jinny works with a different one, but now not remembering where we read that.

Hmm, nothing stands up in a 10 minute review than EQ6 CS’s program. I’d have to hunt down what else was mentioned by JB, but probably won’t look very far. I’m just a little frustrated that some of the patterns go to infinitesimal lengths so it show up as for one form repeated 4 times – 4 separate measurements instead of one. I will have to look into that further and maybe piece by a different method. I know that it has a lot of blocks already preprogrammed that would avoid that, but that’s not as satisfying as doing it yourself. They tend to have overly simplistic designs, where I’m going to want to access any of Jinny’s 4050 designs she’s going to show me when the new book gets here.

Hmm, just looked around a little more for designers and patterns – there’s a mixed bag of nuts out there. Some shiny and others not.

Hmm, just used the washroom and then had to walk through the meeting in process in the leadership room. It was for one of our more problematic clients and families.

I looked at Sr. on the way back and she didn’t look overly happy. I heard the CSO person Kathy leading the conversation and she was mentioning looking at other programs. I don’t know seriously if the sister is thinking of shopping around.

We’ll wait and probably hear more of that later.

Ok, put that out of mind … it drives me to frustration even to think of other peoples’ problems … don’t get involved where you don’t have to should be my model.

Yup yup ok, back to thoughts.

Hmm, I’m wondering … If I’m thinking it be nice to look at the quilt pictures, I wonder if someone else would too. Still thinking of the spring fling and if CS and us could do anything more. She’s very good at cards, but I think that would compete with the clients doing it … better not go there.

Ok, did some work for a bit … back to not doing work. I don’t know how to think of those other CARF like thoughts. Maybe we’ll go over it with Rich. Or, maybe ourselves. I don’t even know if we have a desk reference of CARF standards here.

Better look.

Yes, we do! Maybe look up that policies and procedures sheet too. I don’t know where it went though.

Ok, that’s a start … we got a hard copy on our desktop now. Maybe we should look that over with Rich if he has time. He said something today or yesterday about keeping the center in the loop.

Good good … that was like work. I copied the 5 pages onto an A drive thingy and I brought it up to Rosa to print out a couple of copies. I’m ready then for a meeting with Rich. Maybe he can help me structure things. I think at this point sister would like to know that things are getting accomplished and that it’s not just in Ann’s head.

But, I’ve done about as much as I can tolerate for the moment. I moved the material from the outside of the screen to the inside, but I’m about to bust its so extreme.

Just gotta take it easy. Ok, shhh let’s not go in to all that we’re stressing the system out. We did also before we came back – checked out our todo pile on the desk … it doesn’t look too bad, but as well there are things that need to get done that aren’t … can’t can’t can’t … above now V is having a fit … damn girl … just do it!

Ok, V if you’re reading this NO COMMENT!

He’s like the silent minority.

And, we’re like the loud majority which is probably why things aren’t done. STOP, shhhh … ok let’s stretch here.

There we covered up that nasty business Rich will help, right? Better give him a call. Ok, good that’s done … we’ve talked to Rich and he says he’s too busy with paperwork to come in today, but we’ll have a meeting tomorrow and he’ll help me then. I told him DARST was coming in too, but shouldn’t take up too much time. He seemed good with that – although he reminded me before that I had a problem the last time he tried to help. We’re like over that though. Probably will have an argumentative time with him, but we’ll talk about arguing before he gets involved in the thoughts. MAYBE we can work together.

Be nice to have something good to report to Dr. Marvin. Hmm, remembered to plug in my headphones too. Not sure if the iPod is plugged in, but this seems to be the pattern. I remember or progress one thing and we’re gently reminded that we have other things we were going to or wanted to do to. But give us too much of a flood and we’re headed for high ground. I don’t know if I will ever forgive sister for giving us CARF. I’d like to think that it isn’t beyond us intellectually, but responsibility wise – it is a lot more than we have been able to handle. Just we got to push things forward. The deadline for CARF is May 5-7th.

Ok, ok – what did I say? Enough enough … we progressed it … no more!

Well maybe more later, but not now. I think we have to play the clock game. Hmm, we haven’t done that in a while. Basically, we checked it out and it worked where we reminded ourselves by using the timer when an hour is due. We used to do that with school and housekeeping too when things were way overwhelming. We couldn’t do it right away, but maybe we could in the time the system has agreed to. I checked it out if we could do it in less time, but it was too stressful for the system.
Maybe we could push it a little though in that we prepare something? Hmm this was giving us those hard feelings. Ok, let’s do this … why don’t we come up with what exactly we’re going to do when the timer rings. We have to come up with something we can accomplish in 3-4 hours time. That’s a pretty big block of work time for us. How can we skim that paper and progress it without letting it bog us down?

I kinda think that with Rich we could go through whether or not we’re covered in the many areas. Maybe two minds can think like one. Another thing we were thinking was to come up with something as an outline, like does the book itself give us any suggestions. Maybe that’s a good idea than … we can look for direct clues from our list from the book. Then we just have to report it in a manner that is acceptable and maybe it will become more concrete as we present those ideas to sister … maybe after a week or two we can have a meeting. And, then after that’s done maybe we could put together that survey book since the documentation would be good. I want to think of this as little as possible.

We also got to figure that Rich is going to come up with his own style. We’ve got only about 2 months now. Have to do something for three years not working on it.

I’d like to have things cleared so that the last part of our time is only working on the performance analysis. Maybe take one week to right reports … ok ok … getting overwhelmed slow down girl.

Ok, we had to blank out both screens so we weren’t getting bombarded. We’ve got some time … better slow it down. I know we’re not matching others’ standards, but we’re doing the best we can.

Think of Dr. Marvin talking about people being in reality. I don’t think we like to be here very much. It hurts our brain. Just had a pudding … that’s one thing that’s true too when we get upset or excited we tend to eat. Just gotta slow it down.

I’m a little worried that Kathy is going to come in before she leaves and want to take up time. I hope not … usually its ok, but I’m not ready for it today. It’s a different pace.

Shhh… It’s going to be ok.

I’m not sure why this is happening to us – that it would seem like such a crisis to be thinking more directly of work. I don’t think it works just to tell us we’re thinking about it more than doing it. Knowing that we haven’t been thinking and yet the doing it isn’t happening. We did realize over the weekend that we have to be doing or working on something contrary to what’s supposed to be getting done. How long were we focused on the house? And, then when that became over … we just jumped into the next thing which became back to sewing and then over to the Jinny books and coloring system along with the EQ6 and even the iPod.

It seems somehow something familiar that we’ve done in the past. I seem to be focusing now on systems or systems of thought. I suppose that’s pretty much the unremarkable event as to being a multiple. I don’t really think too much how our system internally works. I know that we dissociate from things we don’t want to be doing or think too difficult for us. Maybe then it’s just that some parts are more scared of the work we do than others, but then the others that can do the work are avoiding it too like no man’s end.

Hmm, I didn’t catch that before … it seems that we’re using our emails as a sort of reward. We get excited to think something might be there and seem to be looking forward to getting something personal or toward one of our ends we’ve been meaning to.

Hehe I guess I’m an analytical part. Sure be nice to figure out something in that direction and then work the system so we are working … timer right? I progressed that a smidge .. we put the timer so we could see it on the computer desk. If it gets to be too much … it goes back to the other desk. Ok, see … we’re working it through … maybe the system is “OUR” system as to the different parts. Maybe if I focus to some degree on where we have to be in 41 minutes and 40 seconds then we’ll be able to tackle some of our doubts and fears.

One of our fears seems to be that someone will come in and catch us not working.

We’re tremendously relieved after 2-2:30 pm when we figure sister is going to the back for the rest of the day. Usually about then the lights in the hallway are dimmed too and we feel a little more stealthy. Looking down at the time now seems to be a bit of negotiating. We see the time and then try to handle it. It’s ok there are 40 more minutes. We’re going to be ok. There has to be a lot of assurances. And, there seems to be a need to calm the mind.

Maybe we’ve been working on this in that when I focus on sound, I realize we’ve been playing our most calming music … we call it Ambience 3 days. Guess that’s self-explanatory.

It seems in fits and starts we need projects to hide in. We don’t seem to want too much clarity in what we’re hiding from. I’m thinking now that this kind of thing seems to happen periodically and this is the kind of stuff that gets us started in systems like through the outlook program. It’s kinda like trying to remember what we do again. I’m going to try opening that system and see what happens. Washroom … ok we’ll slow down to that degree … let’s go to the washroom so we can sit down for a while again.

Oh man that was terrible … we ran into like 4 people … usually we don’t handle that much. Oh wow … it seems the last time we were at the Outlook stage of us being us … it was half a year ago. Oh man how does time do that to us. Ok, shhh try not to fret. Let’s just try to involve ourselves, k? 31 minutes left.

Just deleting things now. 1400 some saved emails?

Ok, deleted everything that was there. I know I need more constancy, but it would be confusing to note what happened with that much time … just wouldn’t know what happened. And, if we weren’t remembering the system then maybe it was too cumbersome. One thing I noted was there was a lot to do with personal business mail. Now thinking of it … Rich has been doing person bills for us since October last year. That’s the marker we have as to when he took over.

Ok, we got rid of as much stuff as possible. We cleared out all the mail … Oh man my head is so clouded.

We just cleared all the categories and follow-up notices in the business contacts. Some of those people I don’t think we ever got back to or just waited until problems resolved themselves. Something happened though with the old information. It all disappeared. I’m not sure why that happened, but I think some of it had to do with switching or sending information back and forth from one computer to another.

There is breaking news that a tsunami alert sounded on the quake-hit Chilean coast after strong aftershock. Those poor people have gone through enough I’d think. No more information – it’s just breaking. They’ve had about a hundred aftershocks.

My brain feels like it’s holding a blue-gray slate across the front end.

That’s strange we had to use the washroom again … I think we counted at least 3 times today … how many times is usual? Just remember because each time Margarita was in there doing something. Strange. And, then there was the sister – the other one who lives with sister and is a seamstress. I can never remember her name.

Sometimes she will visit … so we talked a few moments and then I showed her the quilt on the computer behind my screens and then I showed her the FB one – the bigger single shot. She liked it very much, but said it would be hard to sew. I think she’s right. CS has indicated the same.

It was funny the sister commented on the bright colors … most of her work is sewing black habits for the nuns.

I felt somehow safer talking to her of quilts than being here where we’ve been trying to be more real.

Hmm, I think the timer must have gone off while we were gone, because it said 8 minutes and I thought pshwoo some more time, but then it said 12 minutes … yup yup going the wrong direction now. So stop think what are we supposed to do? I know it has something to do with CARF, but I think it would hurt my brain to look at it more closely. It feels like we’ve had a mental breakdown, but thinking at this point its been happening for a while and its been in everyone’s plain site, but they haven’t seen it.

I wonder how long it would take me to clear out all the stuff that is in this office if I were to go. Not saying I am going, but if I had to go. There should be some kind of plan for exiting, but I don’t know how I’d do it. Probably not the time for cleaning house -but, whether we survive CARF or not, we’re going to I think start clearing out some stuff here – my thought is that it would be like clearing out the Outlook file. Just a bunch of stuff there we don’t use or understand any longer.

It would be like starting the job all over figuring out what goes when and where.

Ok, those thoughts are too hard. That statement is very familiar to me. I look at the clock on the computer and it says 1:12 pm and then the clock is stopped at the timer as being 12:30. Maybe I should start it again. I think we were doing something to get toward a point. We’ve reached the point? But, I’m not ready. I set the timer again for 17 minutes. That will get us to 1:30 pm. Maybe that would be a better time to start? I wonder if we could talk to Dr. Marvin in an email? I think that would make me feel better.

We got lost on the way to the email it’s now 1:22. We’ve been wandering for then about an hour. We came back here, because we didn’t know where to go. I don’t know what I’d write to Dr. Marvin. What would I write him anyway? I know about whatever I’m thinking, but wouldn’t that just waste his time? Probably anyway he’d say we’ll talk about it tomorrow and then he’ll want to talk about it, but we won’t have anything to say cept we are having hard feelings.

Doesn’t anybody care if I’m hungry? Ok, thanks that helped. I like the mixed cherry fruit cup. 

Doesn’t mean I wanna do anything for you. But, I do appreciate getting something to eat!

Oh man … I just turn over to write again and it says we were just at 1:22 and now it is 3:45 pm. I know we were doing a note to CS and checked mail again, and we did look up some stuff for Obama I guess. Maybe that’s what’s happened to this last time.

I had thought about staying later, but there’s really not any reason for it. I don’t seem to get anything done anyway. Rich did call a couple of hours ago and he reminded me that he had a card game tonight, but would have dinner ready for me at 5 pm if I came home by then so we said we would be. Might be there a few moments before not sure. Just gotta deal with stuff here for 13 minutes. But, then what’s time to us?

posted by Ann Marie @ 3/03/2010 03:48:00 PM Comments: 0