Good morning. This is just us. Not too much spectacular to be writing about this morning, but we’re trying to face-up to some thoughts on us being organized to be doing all that we want without skipping out. Basically, we’ve got some major interests and when we are looking at what to do next we’ve been finding ourselves overwhelmed and then falling asleep.
That was a big part of our conversation with Dr. Marvin yesterday. Basically, we started that we’ve been falling asleep a couple hours after we wake-up, and we’re tired and crabby at nighttime, and that we have the things we really love doing which now includes our blog, the multiplicity work, reading , sewing, piano and even taking care of the household, but when we go to ask ourselves what come next we do a little freaking out and then nothing really gets accomplished. It seems that when we do one thing, then something else is getting forgotten. And, then some things that we don’t mean to be doing a lot of like our time spent in going through Facebook seem to override some of the other things we PLAN to be doing. I think it goes back to our work and thought on self-regulation. Basically, that means doing the things that we plan on doing.
Dr. Marvin summarized in one word something that we’ve been hearing about for a couple of decades. Basically, if you want to get something done, just “do-it.” No rocket science involved here, just we seem to have a misconnect between one thing and the next. So we thought this morning we would start off fresh and follow-through on a schedule that we’d like to be on. Just a general one that has to adopt to the in and out things going on in our life … such as a day going into the city is going to look different than a day staying at home. BUT THEN … the first day comes along and the next thing you know Rich is waking us up and asking if we had any idea it was already 9:30 am. LIKE WHAT! How the hell did THAT happen?
Another thing that we talked to Dr. Marvin about … didn’t see it coming, but we talked about a slight change in the medicine. He thought that some of what was happening, might be because we didn’t have enough of one of our medicines. Basically, what we were taking was fading out too soon and it was leaving us tired and cranky. SOOO next week, when we refill our medicine, he’s going to give us 10 more milligrams at 5 pm. This is the Ritalin medicine. We take 20 mg in the morning (around 7 am) and then 20 mg in the afternoon (around 1 pm). He didn’t want to give us so much that we were having trouble being able to fall asleep, but something enough to help us be more alert.
We had a little extra in the bottle so we took one – should have cut it in half, but just to see what would happen. We did really good staying up until about 9 pm, and then went to the bedroom to massage Rich, and then soon after we conked out. We got up once during the night for washroom and we switched over to the couch, but again then slept until 9 pm. We’ll tell Dr. Marvin about the results, but first we’ll take just a half dose tonight at 5 pm and see where we go from there. I’m hoping not to be so tired.
The other part of this is that we’ve been going through spells of depression. I think in part because we haven’t been getting everything done that we want to. We’ll check out this next part with the medicine change before we worry too much about doing anything else. Just we have so many good things going on. Dr. Marvin did suggest that as much as we’ve been loving the piano that it might be associated still with some of our negatives growing-up. We haven’t taken much time to explore that, but we’ll now keep that in mind too.
We stopped for a second to listen to a little boy who was five at the time of recording, but was a grand pianist already. We found it while scrolling and then shared it to our page. Talents like this just amaze one’s soul. Yup yup … we’re much closer back to three blind mice. Hehehe
Actually we had another lesson on Wednesday – it is already Friday now, but it was again enjoyable. I got there about 5 minutes early and we started right away. The teacher just asked me how we were doing with the three blind mice and we said good, and she didn’t need apparently to hear me and we moved on. She did some shuffling with music, but in general was looking for things that started in the key of “C,” where we’d keep our hands on the initial position with both thumbs on middle C. Then she had me play a couple of songs. She corrected my hands being curved once, but otherwise said good and at that point she pulled out four single sheets of music and then two books all with the “C” range and then another when we were starting with C also in our left hand. One of the books was a Christmas book and the other was something with other tunes – many of which I didn’t know – just scraps of music.
I was appreciative of being given more music and that it wasn’t going to get overly hard too quickly. She did say something about finding things with more difficulty and that scared us a bit. Most of the music she was pulling now had notes on both treble and bass, but usually there weren’t notes played on both at the same time. When she happened to pull that – more music on both lines we asked her how to read them both … she said that would come naturally, but then decided not to give me that much different and instead most the music – flowed from left to right, but didn’t require reading both lines at the same time – you know when we went to the other staff, then the one hand was resting.
It seemed like many minutes during the lesson were her paging through books and papers to pull out the right thing and then she was talking about things that we should remember … the one we remembered at Dr. Marvin’s is that she emphasized when we played we weren’t in a concert hall or anything and that we should take it like “practicing.” I think Dr. Marvin was saying something very similar in that we should take our experience as practicing and that we could adapt to changes as we go where one thing can be done over again until we became more comfortable with it. Dr. M. liked what the piano teacher has said. I think along with me getting to know her, Dr. M. is testing her out too. So far, we both like where things were going.
After our lesson which ran about 5 minutes late, there was another person coming in for her lesson. She was with her mother and only about 4-5 years old. We had this uncomfortable feeling that the girl would play better than us. I guess we were figuring with her eagerness to get in the lesson that she would just have been playing longer and coming along more quickly. Trying not to get spooked, but this little five year old in today’s facebook – well probably not something we should be TOOO concerned with. He plays better than a LOT of people, right?
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=678100682234291&set=vb.166337376743960&type=2&theater
Hmm, we just took a little break. I know we really weren’t working hard enough for that, but it’s a matter of adjusting and getting comfortable with what we’re doing again. It’s now just after 12:30 pm. We had our popcorn break and we recalled another assignment of the music teacher. She asked what kind of music we like … and then she said to let her know what kind of singers we liked so she could pick out a piano book. We’re thinking just easy. We told her we used to play Hal Leonard. She knew of him – that kind of music, but pretty much outdated ourselves. I think if we were to have a category it would be pop-vocal. I like to listen to music that is sometimes moving, but ALL the time where we can hear the words and possibly sing along. We also like things from the 50’s. I didn’t know what to do when she asked for names, because we don’t have that kind of memory. Like now looking at our Rhapsody playlist we know we like Sarah Brightman, but we couldn’t remember the name when she asked. It just works like that. So this week, we’ll pay attention and write a short listen. I think we tend toward female vocals, but like things like Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban … so maybe that says what? We like tenors singing modern songs? Duets are good J and we like harmonies matching.
Better be moving on. I don’t think we’re stable enough to be doing housework, but this seems to be the stance we take in getting to there. Maybe we should do a quick assessment of what has to be done. Let me think.
Hmm, that came out as sort of a list. This is the stuff that I would like to use the mind map for. Ok, good … we caught that up, but now we have to again process without being blown away because there were other things listed that we seriously had to be also taking care of like our own medical paperwork. Maybe just keep the short-list up … hmm, it automatically turned the page. How did we get that back?
Good good … just did some good work. We did the dishwasher, blankets, table/counter tops. Next would be another cycle of clothes and then bed and litter/garbage. After that … what’s left? I guess sunroom carpet and fold/put away second load of clothes. Rich has been busy on the phone working through ordering a dishwasher – longstanding process but it is for cleaning trays which will help his income.
Piano, we will work on toward 5 pm. It’s already 2 pm, and we’re only up to an EASY page 5 – included a list. Shoot think machines are already done – laundry. There isn’t enough dishes for dishwasher.
Pshwoo! 2:15 pm now we did the cycle of clothes and bed/bedroom, but we didn’t get to the litter box. Maybe in another 15 min. Things are looking good again, but might have to do the bedroom carpet too and now the sitting room is already picking up signs, but our thoughts here are not to push it too much. Just some stuff every day. Like tomorrow we won’t have enough dirty clothes to wash.
I suppose that we could do this day as a catch-up and try to do some of the paperwork instead of the Multiplicity. That would leave tomorrow more clear. I like that idea. Rich is doing well on his business paperwork right now and we don’t want to slow him down. We’ll see if we can handle it after putting away clothes and vacuuming. It might be too close to dinner and piano. We missed that this morning, so we’re not going to want to miss it today. I think this is what Dr. Marvin was talking about when he said that the schedule should be adaptable to whatever comes up like PEOPLE SLEEPING IN UNTIL 9:30 PM. Whoops forgot afternoon medicine … better get that done.
There there! Took medicine and did litter/garbage. Now just clothes and carpet, right? You see we got this problem of remembering what we are supposed to do even if we looked at it 15 minutes ago. So we keep reviewing and reviewing. Eh, it’s a system.
Just looked over the list again and crossed a few more things through. I’m wondering now if after we vacuum the sunroom and fold clothes in dryer if we shouldn’t try to pin and cut the sheers before going into paperwork. 2:30 pm. We should be done with the first by 3-3:15 pm. Linda recommended a lot of pinning because we complained that the fabric is really slippery … it is lacey. Thinking then there won’t be much time … we can do the sewing part later tonight, but I guess we’ll have to judge whether we start paperwork or go to the music. Maybe part of that will be where Rich is at … he’s been on and off the phone all day. I’m leaning toward the music right now because I feel it’s been forever. We did bring the music with us in the car and practiced on an invisible piano. We got through one song book – the Christmas one. We could tell when we hit the wrong note and kept playing the songs over again until we could do it without mistake. We should probably set another rule where we have to get it perfect three times before we can go forward. That would get us to concentrate Hehehe.
I like being in the picked-up house again. Yesterday we came home from the trip out and it was a mess and it kind of deflates you. We not only went to Dr. M’s, but we also went to his mothers, the bank, out to lunch, to the gas station, and to Walmart. It’s what it is like getting on Rich’s schedule for the day. Sure is nice not driving AND having the company. Besides falling asleep there and back it went pretty smooth. Not really talkative, but absorbed in various thoughts - nothing too heavy.
So what’s next? I do feel bad about not getting to the first couple weeks of January … Not really sure now what happened with all that time - maybe, not so important to go back? Hmm, thinking I better wait until after Rich’s business day to talk to him about needing $134 for curtain hardware. That’s not going to make him happy. He did mention that he was going to stop over and talk over some business stuff with Doug on Sunday, but don’t know if there isn’t anything else going on over the last day. He also talked with his other friend Jack the other day. I think mostly he was planning on going over for Super bowl Sunday. He must have done a clean sweep because he also talked to Bob … it’s his birthday tomorrow. Not sure if anything will happen there. It would be nice to get together with him and Linda. Not sure how the schedules are going. Soooo that’s the catch-up with Rich - I’m sure he appreciates he’s on our daily agenda. Feels like a matter of keeping track of him. You know?
Hmm, just go caught up with Linda. She appears to have written an hour ago, and then it was my turn to write again. She seems pretty busy too and is accomplishing things on her list YAY!
Hmm, found ourselves looking at what some of the benefits of Amazon Prime is all about … we seem to have gotten it for perfectly no good reason AND it was expensive at $79 and BLAH … we pushed something that said sample, and then it came out of our account before we could unsign up for it. BUT, Laundry is about ready now and we wanted to get to that floor in the sunroom. Rich is on the phone, but he should be bothered with the door shut, right? Ok, here we go 3:15 pm time to clean up for the day J
AHhh … there you go! We’re done with housework, AND we also did a quick run through the sitting room and bedroom as well as the sunroom. It took a couple of turns, but worked with putting away the clothes. Fell pretty good that so much got done with housework. Not so crazy about what didn’t get done … It’s about 3:45 pm now so the last tasks took and extra half hour. But, because some of the tasks were sitting, we could stretch out the time and keep working throughout … that part felt very good. Now we’re listening to Adele and need to make the choice between shower first or pinning/cutting fabric. The latter seems to make more sense as to it being something that needs to get done before we lose the sky to darkness. It’s been heading there all day … Just kind of cloudy. Tomorrow we’re supposed to get 3-5” of snow between 6 am and 6 pm. So that’s how that is going to go.
I’m kind of dreading doing the cutting on the sheers. We played with it when we were sewing last time and it wasn’t fun. Maybe I could do some of the pinning here where there is a bright lite that would work, right?
Pswhooo… cold fingers! I put on our slippers, but that was hard. We pinned as best we could by putting a line every 2” on the bottom and the side while we were in the sewing room which was cold enough, and then we took it out to the table in the sunroom … that’s where we pick-up the cold part. Pswhoo!!!
Rich is still working on business, so I think we have some time. It’s now 4:30 pm. Seems hard to get so much in on one day … and we’re only up to page 7 on the blog. We’re going to need getting to a point there is more context. But for now … we’re just moving her along. We’ll sew the sheers tonight hopefully, but now it’s time to warm-up so we can take a shower and then after that the piano. We should ask Rich when dinner is. Hold on.
AHA! Dinner is in about 45-60 minutes … it’s now 5 pm and we’re out of the shower YAY!!! BUT, the shower, curtains, blogging, AND housework are done, AND we are set-up to sew the sheers tonight. We’ve got the sewing room door open so we can warm it up there again, and it was RICH who suggested at 4:30 pm, we should turn on the fire. He was between that and the open French door to the sewing room. Go figure. Hehehe
I think we’re going to make that bold statement now in posting to get to the piano. It seems hard for us to post because we mean to get to something significant, but we’re going with morning blogging and housekeeping and THEN maybe to Multiplicity too along with piano and sewing. We’re going to handle this, right? Sorry though about the not much interesting part. I can’t imagine its very exciting having me go over and over the part where we are trying to get something down on paper while we clean. I don’t know … the positive? It DOES seem to work. The house looks beautiful! WOOHOO!!!!
Oh and for dinner we’re trying pot pies. Rich says they need to cook in the oven for about 45 minutes. Good times ahead!
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