@MusicCandy @SadMe70 New place to communicate
@MusicCandy Hi! I decided it was easier to just start a new thread. I can't figure out the old one.
I am headed to my mom's tomorrow until Sunday night. Today is the fifth anniversary of dad's death. I couldn't get up there today, so it's the first time I won't be with her on the actual day. I won't be on here this weekend, so I'm writing this on Wednesday.
Yesterday I made my first trip to the mountains in a long time. I hiked to Mary's Rock. It was not crowded and was great weather. It was kind of funny hiking in a t-shirt with snow on the ground!
Today we are celebrating my DIL's birthday. The actual day is Saturday but I'll be at mom's. I am going to make the Korean dessert that I made for New Year's, since their dog ate all the leftovers and she didn't get to try much of it. Then I have some cleaning to do, and some errands to run, and then pick her up 45 min away because my son is here at work near our house. I'm going early enough to drop by my other son's house first to meet his new dog. He and his fiancee are adopting a 2 year old. I need to do laundry to prepare for my trip, and need to write detailed instructions for my pet sitters. I have an old note to work from, but I have a new lady coming one day and I need to make it extra-detailed for her. She is a pet sitting company, so it will cost me, but I need another person in my rotation of feeders. So it's a busy day today!
I am grateful for my spring break this week that allows me to do all these things. I spent the weekend doing very little because I knew the rest of the week would be very busy! I don't like getting home the evening before I have to go back to work, since I won't get laundry, shopping, or cooking done, but it couldn't be helped!
I hope the new thread works out, and that I tagged you correctly so you will see it!
I hope your week has gone well, and here's to five more years of messages to come!
Hello my friend, I had a wonderful time at the flying circus last Saturday. It was nice to see my son and DIL. I do think the babies would enjoy it, so if they come next year maybe we can find a weekend that is not too hot. It's not a super exciting show, and a little hokey, but really neat to see the biplanes do their stuff.
A lady that I work with recently went with her husband for one of the odd jobs he’s been doing to make extra money, and the lady they were helping turned out to be one of both of my sons’ former teachers who is retired. She lives over at the beach, so I got in touch and last night she joined me for my Friday night beach sandwich. She is someone I am actually very comfortable with and we had a really nice talk. She loved my younger son and I can talk frankly with her about all the things he is going through now.
My doctor has given up on trying to get the MRI approved for my knee, so now I’m going to try and get in with an orthopedist. I’m sure I will be wasting a half day off so he can tell me to go get an MRI. I was trying to avoid that step, and have test results before I see a specialist so he can tell me what needs to be done, but oh well. I walked with my two friends this week and my knee is still swollen from it. I haven’t been able to fully straighten it for months and it hurts every day and all night, just to varying degrees depending on what I’ve been doing.
That’s all my excitement for the week!
How did Rachael enjoy her trip? I'm glad you got some things accomplished, and I totally understand the frustration on other days. Sometimes I have a totally free weekend, and could get so much done, and suddenly it's over and I did so little.
It's so nice that you took communion to the lady that no one had reached. I'm sure she was very glad of some company in addition to receiving communion. Do you do that a lot? How is your fiance doing?
I am with you on the wine every day too, though some days mine is bourbon. I just can't stop myself having a drink every night. I know it's so bad for me, in addition to all the extra calories, but it's such a soothing ritual that I can't give up.
As always, I'm so impressed by your stamina and drive. I'm so tired all the time at 55. I'm dreading working until 65, and here you are going strong at 72, doing far more than I do now. Well done!! Also, happy birthday, since I think I missed it!!
We missed our chai last weekend because we had to leave to meet up with our son, but we did have it on Sunday. So, I'm happy to be able to have it both days this weekend!
I hope your week has been good, and I know you are happy to have Rachael back!
@SadMe70 test
@SadMe70
I thought the screen looked a little different, so I tried the test first, it seemed to work OK. I'm glad your week wasn't as hard as it might have been. I would love being outside too, even on a hot day, it's better to be welcoming people who are happy to be there but not in the thick of the emotion. It is strange to still be this hot coming into October. I imagine the rain will cool things off. Abi is the leader for VCU Pride week every year and today was their Festival, and its raining. I haven't tried to call and see if it went on anyway- but its a lot of tents so probably so. she is so good at those events interacting with people, she didn't get it from me!
I'm glad you had a good time at the Flying circus. Like you said, the babies would love it I bet. I did finally get up with one of my 2 friends for a late birthday lunch. She likes Mexican and is a nurse with bipolar- retired now, but we have been through her ups and downs together and her birthday is September also. The waitress noticed the birthday card on the table and just brought the fried ice cream treat without us even saying anything about it, and they sang of course and it wasn't too much. She doesn't get treated a lot so it was worth it for her and I got her picture with the sombrero. I gave the server a nice tip for noticing. Not much else exciting, but I did get in a salt float which is always relaxing for me.
I hope the knee treatment helps in some way. It's hard to keep going when you are in pain. I guess the testing os over now and you can get started really helping the kids who need it. It is so rewarding when they show progress. I didn't look forward to my piano students starting back, but now that they have I'm enjoying my time with them.
I started this at work thinking it would stay quiet, but now its picking up, so got to go. I hope you can enjoy a slow rainy afternoon and some chai. In all this, I'm with you babe.
Hello my friend, just a quick note today. I had to get up early so I can leave my house at 6:45, get to my son’s house at 7:30, so he, my daughter-in-law, and I can get to Fredericksburg by 8:30. We are doing the breast cancer walk. I’ve never done one, but a teacher friend‘s daughter died of breast cancer earlier this year and she asked me to walk with her and another teacher who had breast cancer last year, so I felt like I had to say yes.
My knee is very painful and it’s going to be a tough walk even though it’s only 2 miles, but that is why my son is going. If my knee bothers me too much I will stop and he’ll come get me in the car. I went to an orthopedist this week finally, and I do have a medial meniscus tear as I suspected, and also my patella is off kilter, probably from muscle imbalance. I got a Cortizone shot, which has yet to kick in, and I’m taking prescription level naproxen. One good thing about it is I have been forced in sobriety since I can’t drink while on naproxen! I haven’t had any alcohol since Tuesday, a record for me! He prescribed two months of physical therapy also, but I can’t even get an eval until October 29, so I won’t start PT until the first week of November.
I’ll sign off for now. I don’t even have time to make my chai today! I will write more tomorrow if I can. I hope you have had a good week!
@SadMe70
Well, my friend, my personal recommendation would be to skip walking 2 miles on your torn meniscus knee and make a budget appropriate donation, but its probably too late for my advice. The weather is perfect, still. I hope you don't irritate it even more. Naproxen, I swear I've never stopped my wine with an NSAID, but maybe the prescription strength makes a difference. The labels say one thing but my resolve, that's another. Probably possible liver damage. I hope the event went well for you in any case.
Rachael and I only got 2 walks last week, but she does get some walking at Day Support if they go out which the usually do. I did 4 days of gym, but I always do at least 3. I did the stairs at work today. I looked up my bone density report from last month and it actually improved a bit, and at least still in the osteopenia stage. My other results from the Lifeline screening were good too, I'm more relieved that I had that done. I did some more basement cleaning too, but in the middle of it, fiancé came down "to see what I was up to", so not as much as I would have otherwise.
The rest of the week was pretty normal. I hope you got back to regular teaching . I had nothing unusual, but a flat tire which was fixed pretty quick and just a patch. I still got to work on time. I hope you get your chai tomorrow. It is blessing the animals day in the afternoon tomorrow, but I am not interested in that really. I love my cats, but I don't know about the formal blessing deal, and besides sometimes they aren't all that Good. St Francis lived in the woods so that started it I think.
Next person that asks you to "walk", send a check! Take care of your body, no one else will.
I would really like to get a bone density scan done, but before I turned 50 they changed the recommendations to 65, which seems ridiculously late to get a baseline. I'm glad to hear that yours improved! How often do you get it done?
Good for you getting some more basement cleaning done! Mine just gets worse. I want to get my bedroom painted and the carpet replaced with flooring, but the only place to put all the stuff would have to fill up the living room with it, and I just can't bear to do that right now. The living room has stayed relatively tidy and uncluttered since the babies left in August, a miracle at this house!
I hope your week went well. The weather is just gorgeous. Until next week!
@SadMe70
Happy Saturday, or Caturday at our house, which is actually every day. The kitty who id the softest cuddliest stayed on my bed the whole 5 hours I got to sleep after work this morning. It didn't look like she moved a bit. She always comes right up to my neck to give me "kitty love" when I first get in bed after work and then just moves over politely. Happy Birthday to your mom too! I'm glad you will have an extended weekend to celebrate. I know you will treasure the time with just the 2 of you especially.
Sounds like your teaching did get more extensive, but I guess you just follow the curriculum with more note taking for progress. The OT for Rachael got a "talk button" for her to try out to say her name and "have a nice day", but with a lanyard, its too hard for her to maneuver. with the tremors. I found a watch which is more what I had in mind and ordered it myself and we will see if that's better. They sent a tracking sheet, I remember using them when she was in school with therapists. Also a note that reminded us to use a tactic involving offering help without expectations. They originally had a button that said "I need help", but that one thing she CAN say, and often does even when she doesn't need help! Anyway, the OT and speech therapist are at least trying, and its paid for them from Medicaid - so far. I feel so bad for folks who are losing their jobs to cuts and they didn't do anything wrong.
My week was OK and I did some more eliminating bins of "whatever" from the basement and donated 2 bins of materials I had from doing music camps with Kindermusik. I found a big doombek drum that I forgot I had. I am keeping that for now, but I dont know how I'll pass it on- it's very heavy.
It does help my state of mind to do even that little bit comparatively speaking. I'm glad your living room is still good! Mine constantly has cardboard boxes, but I am using them for goodwill when I need to fill one up. I don't have guests over anyway, which was my original dream for my home back in 2013. Trying to be patient. Things can change and you never know. Smiling for your happy days.
Hello my friend. I had a wonderful weekend at mom’s! On Saturday after we ate our pizza and cake, we played several games with my son, daughter-in-law, sisters, brother-in-law, and aunt. My son and daughter-in-law spent one more night, and left Sunday. Mom and I ended up doing something. We had talked about a while ago, but the timing never worked out. There is a historic railway, not too far from her with four restored coaches and a caboose. They do all sorts of excursions like Easter bunny and Santa, but we went on the train robbery ride. It was so much fun! There were actors on the train for sheriffs and robbers. They gave us jewelry and money for the robbers to take from us. Later the train stopped and they had a shoot out on horseback.
Work has been really exhausting most of the week, but Friday was really nice. Kindergarten always does a “pumpkin patch” inside the track behind our school. They have some relay games set up and each class rotates through each station. The kids get to take home the pumpkin that they pick. It’s so fun, and so nice to watch them having fun.
Your kitties sounds so sweet! One of our cats likes to snuggle with my husband. I get a little jealous, but since I won’t let anything sleep in the bed with me, I don’t get the kitty snuggles.I hope you are having another lovely Caturday!
A couple of the nonverbal kids at school have a device that they carry around. It has buttons for specific phrases, but I think there are also other buttons that allow them to construct their own phrases. I hope that the watch you ordered works out well for Rachael. I’m glad Medicaid is paying for her to get these services. There are a lot of kids at school getting all kinds of services. Besides speech, OT, and PT, there’s also a day counselor that comes in that is paid for by Medicaid. It’s good and so important. that kids can get these kinds of things, and I’m glad that adults like Rachael are able to get it too
I will be so glad for the day when I can start carting bins of stuff out of here! When I walk through my basement or one of the sheds, I look at whole shelves of things, and imagine telling my son, bag up that whole shelf and throw it out!
I did not know the name doombek drum, but when I googled, I have certainly seen that kind of drum. Our music teacher at school has some. Maybe when you are ready to pass it on, you can check with a local school. I can imagine it must havebeen a little hard to get rid of your other music materials. I’m sure those represented a lot of memories.
I did not have chai last weekend since I was away, so I am looking forward to having it this morning. I bought more raw jersey cow milk at mom’s, so it will be nice and creamy! The Amish store also sells a natural freshly ground peanut butter. I eat peanut butter every morning for breakfast, and theirs tastes so much better than the Smuckers that I get at the grocery store. It’s a few dollars more expensive, but worth it to me.
I hope your week has gone well, and that you had a chance to enjoy some of the beautiful weather. I am close to getting out my longjohns for the morning animal feeding! Until next week, my friend!
@SadMe70
How nice that you had extended family and some fun activities with your Mom. That train ride sounds like a "must do" when I have the time. I love trains better than flying and a theme must be quite entertaining. I only got a couple of bins of stuff out this week from the basement. Fiance somehow magically wakes up when I'm doing it although he sleeps a lot otherwise. It seems to me he could be at least trying to do something productive, like listing some of his trailers and who know what on marketplace, but when he's up he mostly watches old movies on TV. Im so tired of it all, but just trying to hang on until mid next year when he can get SS.
It was really nice weather this week and we got some walks and the regular gym time. Rachael actually got on the hayride wagon when Day Support had a field trip to the pumpkin patch. I was happy for her, she usually won't get on anything like that . They took a picture so I know she did it!
The watch just came in but I haven't had time to set it up yet. The buttons on a lanyard didn't work out well. She used to have a gotalk on a board that she had to carry, which also isnt practical. Whatever works for our special people should be no cost. I did pay for the watch, but it is available for exchange if it doesn't work out.
I know you will enjoy your chai, we do look forward to those treats, and the peanut butter too. I read that wine sales have gone down, but not on my account! I look forward to that more than I want to, but we can only handle so much at a time. Work is just getting more and more difficult with not enough people and lack of support from ADMIN. Again, trying to hang on week-end to week-end.
Signing off with thoughts of our friendship and how much it means to me. Take good care of those kids and yourself.
Hello my friend, just a quick note. I am at the ER with my husband. He’s been having some pain for a couple of days and it got severe overnight. So far they only took blood and we are waiting on other tests so I don’t know what is wrong yet, or how long he will be here. I will write more when I can. It could be anything from a pulled muscle to a kidney stone, or who knows what else.
Oh goodness, I know how scary that is, not to mention just NOT where you want to be. I'll say a prayer and hope you get home soon- its always better when you get it, whatever it is, resolved and back in your own bed. Take care of you too.
Quick update. He has multiple pulmonary embolisms in his right lung. An echocardiogram shows some strain on the right side of his heart, but they are sticking with IV heparin rather than a more invasive and higher risk “clot buster” procedure. They are supposed to get him up and walking a little tomorrow, and he might even go home. He’ll be on blood thinners permanently now.
Hello my friend, my husband came home Monday about noon. As I was getting ready to go to bed, he started coughing up mucus with blood in it. We called the nurse line and they said to come back to the ER. He was readmitted and stayed until Thursday afternoon. He’s a bit weak but seems ok overall now. I hope this will get him to move around more and not lie in bed most of the time. I missed a whole week of work, did no exercise, ate ***. I’ve gained a few pounds and feel gross and stressed out.
That’s been my whole week so I have nothing else to report! Yesterday I took about a 45 minute walk and got some fresh air in the beautiful weather. Today I plan to do very little except laundry and a little cooking. I will get back to normal on Monday.
How are things in your world?
@SadMe7O
O my dear friend, Ive been in your world, and I know after the adrenalin dies down, you are left depleted. In the middle of it all, it's just all you can do to keep making the next step. I am so sorry you had to go through this, life isn't fair to nice people like us. It was good for you to get a walk outside and I hope you can keep that up on most days, despite everything else to keep up with. Is our son able to come and help at all? Neighbor or friend? I wish I could do that- its overwhelming.
The one thing I did to help fiancé not spend as much time totally in bed was to bring in the zero gravity chair which had been outside- in- cleaned it and put a lawn chair pad on and a sheet so he could stay half upright some and lie back some if he needed to. I put it in the living room so there was some window light in and it was more like life going on around him instead of being in bed so much. We don't have a lazy boy anymore so that was as close as I could get to not being flat so much. I do those Pulmonary Embolism scans a lot, but most are not positive. I'm glad at least they got to the issues. Fiance is also on lifetime blood thinners and cholestrol medicine and an aspirin, plus a little iron. He is still not moving around as much as I think he should. I pushed him to get outside and blow or rake the leaves from the driveway and he did that, but I have to practically make him. I did work some extra shifts last week and he took care of picking Rachael up and helping her with dinner, so that was helpful. The pool was closed to renovate, but we did get in some basketball and walks- the weather was great.
Abi, Rachael and their Dad are at Massanutten this coming week. I'm glad Rachael especially gets to do some vacation fun activities and a break. At church tomorrow, we have 4 baptisms and I set up the hall for the reception. Daughters of the King are hosting it and bringing food, it should be a lovely time and a celebration of all Saints Day. The interim rector was going to try to get a bagpiper for special music, but I don't know if that worked out. He has a lot of good ideas. The food pantry is emptied out every day now, and there was a thank you note in when I checked which made me cry. NO ONE in this country should have to drive around churches just for food. The government is insane and at least VA has released some funds, but its still not enough.
I will pray for you and light a candle at church for the both of you. Know that I will keep you in my prayers and I hope it starts to even out a bit. Keep in touch, but don't feel obligated to write- I understand.
Hello my friend. My husband seems to be doing better. We had one more trip to the ER on Monday of last week, but things have been calmer since then. This week I finally felt like I was starting to get my brain back to normal, then I got rear ended on my way home last night. I was sitting in a line of stopped cars at a red light in a turn lane when someone plowed into the back of the car behind me, pushing them into me, and me into the next car. My beautiful car is now smashed up in the back, but doesn’t seem too bad in the front. I have problems with my neck already, so of course that immediately flared up. I took some of the leftover prescription strength naproxen that I had for my knee when I got home, and put ice packs on it for the rest of the evening, and a heating pad this morning when I woke up. It doesn’t actually feel too bad right at the moment. I am just really mad at the person who hit us all. The last thing I want to do is deal with getting my car repaired. I’m supposed to go to my mom’s next weekend, and I’m not sure what I’m going to drive.
I hope that your fiancé and my husband will keep taking their medications and start moving themselves around more. I hope I never get to where I don’t want to move, and that my body will always allow me to.
Is your pool reopened yet, or will that take longer for them to do the renovations? I did get some nice walks in last week as well. I was actually on my way to take a walk yesterday on the way home when I got hit.
Did the girls have a good time at Massanutten? I’m sure you enjoyed having the house to yourself! That was one of the few good things about my husband being in the hospital. I wasn’t at the house much by myself, but I appreciated the silence and the peace.
I hope the baptisms went well, and that they got the bagpiper. That would’ve been so neat to have at the reception! When my sister got her masters degree, they had bagpipers march in in front of the professors at the graduation. I loved it!
It is unforgivable that anyone would go hungry in a country full of so much food, and waste of food. I hope that the end of the government shutdown will help at least some people, once they are getting paid again.
I really appreciate your prayers. I am so frustrated with life right now. I feel like anytime I start to make a little progress, something happens to derail me. My husband wants me to go to urgent care today and I don’t want to, so I’m either going to have a big fight with him, and rotten day sitting around at urgent care, or both. It just want to go back to bed and hide under the covers!
I hope you are doing better than I am right now!
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