A Lovely Afternoon

Spent a lovely afternoon at the Mercy Center to hear a friends poetry reading as well as music and art.  Each of them experienced life threatening events and learned how to deal with it through different aspects of art.  It really was a lovely way to spend a rainy afternoon.

The only downside was I had been sneezing and sniffling through the entire day and I just was beginning to feel miserable.  It all started before I left for bingo.  I am thinking that the pollen and the rain started it all for me.  

I left the house just after 8:30 my plans to attend an early mass went out the window and so I headed to Dunkin donuts for breakfast.  I went to the nursing home and had breakfast and then went in and hung around.  I was there before everyone came in.  AFter awhile people came in and so I spent time chatting.  Time sort of just got away from us and then we got ready for bingo.  We did start on time and finished on time.

I came directly home and Mom was multi-tasking.  She was starting to get our dinner ready for when we came home, and she was getting directions for the ride to Madison.  We also had lunch and then we took off.

As we got half way there Mom remembered she had turned the oven on (low) and left the food on the top of the stove.  We just continued to the Center.  When we got back after the program she put it in the oven and I went to the store.  We needed vegetables for the secondary dishes.

While the dinner was still cooking I took some cold medicine and slept for a while.  Unfortunately just before dinner was being served I got sick and so I had to clean everything in the bathroom. So Mom delayed dinner until I was done.

We had pot roast and it was quite delicious.  We had potatoes, and roasted vegetables and peas for dinner.  it was a great meal for a rainy afternoon.

The rest of the evening was spent watching TV including the season finale of Call the Midwife.  It had the feel of a season finale even though at the time I didn’t realize it was until I looked on the PBS site.  

I just have a few more emails to send out and drink some Chamomile tea and then I will be going to bed so that I can be up early to start the week again.

Got up early

I decided that it would be prudent for me to get up bright and early this morning and get my laundry started as the guys were going to be here sometime after 8 am to finish the painting job. That would be the room formerly known as the blue room. Did I tell you they took up the rug in the study? Mom loves it. Unfortunately would cost even more money to refinish it. Oh and didn’t I tell you the painting job would be done by the end of the week? What I didn’t tell you was only the living room and the stairwell and the upstairs hallway was done as well as the first two rooms. As I said to Mom last night I had told Dave the entire downstairs was going to be done.

I received a strange phone call around 9:30 last night. Someone wanted to do a survey or poll. I cut the guy off before he could go any further. He started to apologize for the late hour and I told him he was right and that I am not interested and that he lost the opportunity. I ended up hanging up on him. I posted to my twitter page and to my Facebook page as well. I had some interesting responses.

I have been perusing some of my favorite blogs and one of them is the :: THE BIG E :: The Blog talked about things that were going on right now on the fairgrounds as well as the webpage being renovated. The website is really cool (I always like to see what they have done to the site) and the blog discusses which of the acts have been signed up for the week. The entry I read today discussed the revisions of the website. One is for the actual thirteen day fair and the other sites will focus on the year round activities held there. The other one is about the village as well.

Mom got up around 8 and was in a hurry to be dressed and ready for the guys’ arrival. She made plans to help out at Mike and Tessa’s office for Dan Malloy this morning. I am doing my bit tomorrow afternoon after church. She was so tired and achy. I know she did a lot of painting last night.

I am going to check on some laundry and do some stuff before getting ready for the picnic this afternoon.

Busy start to the week

It has been busy start to the week. As you know this week the painters started the paint job and have been doing an awesome job. They ran into a few electrical problems so the electrician came today. They saw a deer in the back yard and told Mom about it.

Work has been going really well. I have managed to get as much as I can done each day and if I don’t then I finish it the next day. I make sure if I get campus mail for other departments they get to those departments by the end of the day.

Several people came back to work earlier this week from vacations, and maternity leave. That’s right Becky came back this week and looks just great. The kids are at day care and quickly getting readjusted to Mom going back to work.

I had my PT today and the guy was great. You can read about it here. It has made me more tired than usual. I am going to go to bed a lot earlier than usual.

The Creative Writing Contest Reception

The creative writing contest reception was held at the First Baptist Church in Milford tonight. I arrived a little after 6 and Telka and several of the girls from the girls club and Donna and Jolyn were there. I met Jolyn’s 82 year old Husband Judge and he was just so nice. I had the cream puffs and Donna put them in an aluminum tray. There were assortments of treats there. I avoided the chips and crackers but had plenty of sweets.

The winners and their families and friends started arriving after 6:30. Among them were Alberta Jagoe and her family. She even was greeted by Telka in her opening remarks. Alberta’s Granddaughter was one of the winners. There were at least 20 winners and they all brought up to seven people to watch them.

The whole ceremony lasted about an hour. There were pictures and chatting going on for brief time. We cleared out the place and then I left around 8 to go feed Junior. All in all we had a good time and turnout.

On the way home I stopped and fed Junior and played with her for about 15 or 20 minutes and caught some NCIS while I was there. I didn’t want Junior to feel neglected as I hadn’t been there last night (I did go this morning). I was home just before 9.

Mom was home from her meeting just before 8. She had gotten into her pajamas and was watching TV well actually the TV was watching her. She woke up when she heard me in the kitchen trying to find a vase for the carnation I got from Telka tonight. I told Mom how the reception went and that I saw the Jagoe Family.

I came upstairs and got changed and watched NCIS on USA and ION TV. The episodes on USA are from second season and the two on ION were from Season three.

Anyway, I could feel my legs and hands get stiff and sore so I took the plaquenil and hopefully they will stop the aches. If not I could always take the ibuprofen. I am going to give it some time before I do.

I had a good day at work. I got almost everything done but the lobby mail. I just ran out of time. I spent a lot of time on the readdress mail. That was only because the other mail was running late. Those piles are getting smaller. The things that are considered readdress are usually authorizations the Dr.’s need to see, seminars, conferences, and sometimes personal stuff. If they are medical reports I just send those off to Medical Records.

Mom and I had a visit from Claire D. She is an old friend who we have known for years. I first met her when she was a lunch room aide while I was in elementary school. Mom met her at the literary club. She would later teach Liz’s kids at Platt Tech. Her husband died in the last year or so. She has a reputation to be obnoxious and isn’t really liked. When I drove up to the house I didn’t recognize her. Mom had no idea she was hear (the stupid door bell was flaking again) Anyway she wanted to catch up with Mom and asked about Liz and the boys. I can’t believe how different she looked. I really didn’t recognize her until she spoke.
She didn’t stay long as Mom had to get ready for a meeting and had to be out of the house by 5:30. I had to get ready myself. It was very sad really.

Mom says the guy came and gave an estimate on the paint job and it will be rather expensive $36K. He will do all of downstairs and the hallways. He has convinced Mom to take the wall paper down. Mom didn’t show him my room because she wasn’t sure what they would fine. I am glad too. He isn’t going to start until June and it will take about a month to get it done. I am not sure if he is doing the bedrooms or if we are. Who ever does it I need to start getting rid of stuff that I am not looking at or looking through. I may have to record them in log (if it is pen pal stuff) and other stuff like that.

I will start that this weekend or so but for now I am going to bed.

We are going to paint the House

It looks like Mom is going to get the house painted. At least indoors she wants to have painted. She had been entertaining the thought for a while and I guess is moving along. She wants to take each room at a time and start in the blue room. I think she also wants to do it all in white. I am not sure what to expect on that one. It will take a long time and I am not sure if we are doing it ourselves or someone will do it for us. Either way I am going to have clean this room up again and perhaps throw stuff out again.

I have to say I am not really feeling well. This morning it started but it went away for a bit after I had several golden Oreos. Late in the afternoon and after lunch I started feeling bad again. I sent an email to Telka to let her know I wouldn’t be coming to the meeting.

AT lunch time I went to the bank so that I could pay my IOU at Paula’s and get gas later. It was really cold and rainy. I had to throw my umbrella away because it was really getting destroyed.

It was nearly 5 when I got home. I didn’t feed the cat tonight but I knew it had enough food. I spent the evening eating lightly and watching TV. I did take the pink stuff and it did make me feel better. I got the garbage out as well.

Mom came home around 9. She had a meeting in Wethersfield at 4. She said the meeting was very interesting. She was tired though and got into her pajamas. I got ready for bed

Now that I am ready for bed I am going to say good night. I want to get up early and get to the cat and get to the office fairly early.