Friday, July 12, 2013 @ 9:02 am
Good morning. This is me/us - you know the ones that write in this blog! Ok, and maybe too just a little on the silly side.
We just finished writing a note to Nancy Preston the woman who wrote the book of letters from Shirley Mason (Sybil) to herself. I waited to write until after we read the book. It was a good one. It wasn't overly long, but direct and to the point. The book contains images of some of the notes between them, but as well dialog from the author on the relationship between her and Shirley. I'm very glad that I read it. I think it is an important book for multiples and others as well. I'd like if Nancy wrote back, but too I'm thinking that she must have a lot to be doing in her regular life. Ok, seeing now that comment is the part of us as a multiple who might not necessarily think herself worthy of being written back. We don't like to erase what we write, but can say that we are conscious of it. It reminds me of Nancy noting how conscious Shirley was of her handwriting and spelling. Hey you ... it's perfect enough!
Anyway, finishing the book and writing the note made the first part of our day go by pleasantly. YAY!!!
I did stop to have cereal. I'm afraid it is becoming another of Chief's habits, but he's figured out how to get up on the pass-through by jumping up on one of the tall bar stools. Not as easy as it might seem for a cat that's almost 15 years old. Anyway the basic thing is that Chief seems to want milk for breakfast too. Blah on THAT idea!
WOw!!! Another surprise!!! I just got a pre-birthday call from Joe! You know youngest son Joe??! Ok, literally, we're pretty excited :) We talked to Joe about what he was doing of late and especially noted that he is doing a fantastic job with his wife on the "bootcamp." We had seen a video that Cari had posted of one of their groups. From what Joe said, I think he's doing almost one bootcamp a day ... just so excited about the concept of having people come in for free to work on moving their bodies. I would never be able to handle that much movement, but we love the concept. If I didn't have the arthritis I would want to join one of their groups. They just seem to have a really good time and the groups are offered during different times during the week so that there is a good chance one could find a schedule that worked. He said some people connect to his karate or his herbalife groups, but that's only part of it ... if you never connected at all to the money things- that seems to be alright with them too :) Good Joe!
Joe let me ask a few questions too about his brother. I haven't seen or talked to Thom since early this year. He's gone into hiding ... Joe says he's very depressed and didn't talk about drinking, but we're thinking that's part of it. I think he's still looking at the job in Japan, but nothing solid as to if that is what's happening for him ... It's just a hunch. We did talk to Joe about the unfairness to Austin for not having Thom connect to his life. He's ONLY a kid dammit. Should expect better than that from Thom. He just can't imagine all the troubles it causes in a kids life not to be functioning positively from all necessary angles. Anyway ... said our peace there ... We're figuring Thom feels worse than anyone about what he is doing or not doing. Just it's only him that can break this current cycle.
We also stopped by Maury's fb and added a few lines to his pictures of two of the girls being out in Chicago with their cousin Austin from Arkansas. I think he has an extended stay and we invited him to join Jasmine on an overnight. I don't know if that would work out with him, but we think it could so offered. I really owe Jasmine a night. I think it might be easier to share time with a cousin then with her step-sister. I'm having a tough time with her stronger interests to do things we can't do.
Anyway ... we'll play that one out. Looking back at the blogging it seems now that we haven't written since the weekend. I think we were still getting over a few things. I know that we'd gotten upset because of Rich's mother and the alcoholism. And, we've done pretty good with that during the week. It took her a couple of days before she would talk to Rich, but he held strong and she finally had to be ok with it because she wanted him to take her smoking. I think its a better deal now too in that although I don't like her nursing home, they seem to have agreed that once a shift, someone will take her out for a smoke. That relieves Rich of some of the tension. She still is using the electric cigarette and that helps too. Rich reports that she's having a pretty good week. We still have not been in to see her and the latest report from Bud when Rich saw him on Sunday was that he doesn't want anything to do with her.
Rich thinks that between the two of them, neither will ever be able to take on their place on their own or with each other. We also know that at least one of Bud's kids, Freddy, thinks the same way and he is saying that his Dad will come to live with him after he gets as much therapy as he can from the nursing home. Freddy is the one who is a police sergeant a couple of towns over. He's married so it might only then be the three of them. I think their family is very much against including anything that puts Bud back in touch with Rich's Mom. She's learning to deal with it though it's been now 7-8 weeks since she talked to her husband. She's also dealing with nobody on that side of the family will ever want to talk or DEAL with her either. She seems to know when she's pushing people, but doesn't know how it is isolating her. Also the nursing home that Bud is now in has rejected her from their care - so she's dealing with that too.
When she had a chance to be with her own family meaning Rich and his brother and Mark's kids and grandchildren, she did nothing to actually be with them, ask them how they were doing. She asked people to do things for her like get her food, shoes, cigarette, AND booze, but that was her only connection to people. Basically, she treated them as if they had been a caregiver in the nursing home. Not someone to talk to, but someone to service her. And that is a role that I don't want to get into with her. I felt it when she was here during the flooding. Do this, do that. I think there was more conversation if I would sit with her while she was having a smoke, and then some conversation could be had, but almost all of it related to her. Due to similar problems of having been raised by a narcissist mother, I'm rebelling going back to a daily relationship that is all about her. I think my biggest gift I could give her is to not complain about how much time Rich takes away from our own household to be taking care of her. It's not only about late dinners and socialization, but Rich isn't getting to much as to home improvements. It started off that there was a big list of things needed to be done, but then it was just forgotten as if the house didn't need help.
Hmm, now thinking of that - house projects. I think we've fallen away from some interest in the house too, because I don't like it that I am put out as the only one doing things for it. Rich still does groceries and cooking, but that's pretty much it. He didn't even finish the weed job that he took on in exchange for me mowing last week. I know that during a good part of the day he has to take care of business because we still need an income past my disability and that other than income it is part of his identity to work. I know I have more free time because we're not working, but we have projects that we do like this blog writing that nee time too.
Actually, it was a big part of our talking with Dr. Marvin yesterday - basically, how to balance the needs of our various parts. We want to do the writing AND more reading - especially of others' blogs who are also multiple, and we still want to do the household (indoor/out) and still have time to quilt. This weekend was a heavy quilting weekend so things got put off. Housework is taking the worst hit.
Part of our weekend was to really first read Nancy Preston's book on the letters that were written to her by her famous friend, but also to be going through and making updates to the two blogs. The first thing we did was go through and remove anyone for a year or over that was on the blog lists. We added them to a section on the NEWS blog as to people who were multiple that wrote a blog longer than a year ago. And, then we checked Sarah's blog to see if anything new had been written there. Most of the contacts we had, but some were new. We are still taking only the blogs of people who are multiples. We opened each blog on her site and determined where it went, or if it were to be disregarded like the blogs that were closed or password protected we didn't do anything with. Our list contains only multiples who are public. I'm sure there is a lot of good stuff with the others, but in principle I'm into more communication not less. We also did not take anyone that was simply dissociative or was working through PTSD, or anyone in the social service field. It is not that these people are not valid or even critical to understanding the whole, just that we had to draw some boundaries to assist us on not being totally overwhelmed.
In the process we rekindled an interest in a blogger that had been on our blog roll named Kate is Rising. Although we'd seen her before, we'd not realized what kind of a resource she had become for multiples. We made sure to add her resource page to our list of blog links at the bottom of the Ann's multiple page. She has a giant list. I will go back there for sure. She comes at multiplicity from all directions and it is useful to those with AND without multiplicity. We've since been in contact with her. We asked if she was interested in connecting our blog "lists" to hers. She reminded me of Sarah's blog, and then we tried to define better the differences, and then she returned a note stating she would put it on her site soon. It seemed that she's had access problems connecting to a computer at home, but that was soon to be changing. I'd be very grateful to be included on the list because we really do feel a part of the multiple community and wish for that kind of recognition.
There was another connection we made from looking into the blogs of multiples and that was to an online organization named Mental Health Writer's Guild. It seems to be a good group though there are not many multiples listed. The person who seems to take care of the site, at least the intake of new members name is Kevin. It was one of those things where you could submit your blogs' names and then he would let you know if you would be eligible for membership. I got the same form letter back as others, but we were accepted for Ann's Multiple blog and the NEWS blog so that made us pretty happy.
Now thinking about it there were other connections made, but we're being reminded of them by clues left in our email box. Otherwise we might not have remembered. The next part of that cleaning up of our blog lists was to go through every single blog that is listed in our role and then investigate if there were other multiples out there that we didn't know about yet. And, there were! We found out in the end that the number of blogs we removed for lack of blog writing was almost equal to the new blogs we found who were writing. YAY!!!! That was good news. Naturally, I would have liked to find more, but I consider the collection worthy of itself. But searching through all these blogs, besides taking the weekend and Monday were also how we came up with some of these other connections. Such as:
More multiples on Twitter
Fort Refuge for Abuse Survivors
Back to Many Voices (and the death of its long time leader)
The Dissociative Initiative
Ivory Garden and hooking up again through
Bravenet and
Yahoo
There may be more ... hmm, hold on a sec some other connections we made were through
Cycle of Healing
Mosaic Minds and
Sanctuary and Serenity
There are others too, but most I'd been to and was just again familiarizing ourselves. There was a lot of work in processing all of this information out there. Every time you find another resource for multiples or other people who have been sexually abused, it is like finding a desert mirage, but they are real. Most places I'm real spotty as to returning too because I don't want to become over invested in someone else's work. I think that happens a lot especially with message boards whether they are for multiples or quilters. I've found them for both and like to know though that if I need to talk to someone, usually someone will respond back to you. I guess our first love is writing and then reading - and the longest running cycle of this revolves around the multiplicity.
Shoot ... we feel kinda bad ... Linda has been in and out fast this morning and we didn't get a chance to catch up to her though did leave a message. She said though that Tony was getting his camera ready and she was ready to leave with him for another photo shoot! WooHOO! On the positive side we are writing and so that allows us to continue. We're just feeling an inability to keep up of late!
Wanted to mention before we get too far here is that we did have a couple of nice days for the "quilting faction" of us. We were with the church quilting group on Tuesday and Wednesday before going to Dr. Marvin's yesterday. Those weeks where so much time goes into the quilting - the rest of the stuff we do gets a bit neglected. We try to make ourselves available to Rich, but that is about it ... housework doesn't meet priority #1 either.
I'm not sure if we mentioned it or not, but last night was a nice one with our sweetie, and yes I'm sorry we're jumping in and out with the parts and memories. It's like everything is up for grabs because no one is sure when they will get their turn. But, last night after Rich got back from his mothers we read a while, but then finished up making dinner with him, and then we kind of laid on his lap awhile so he could just hold us ... the we in us were tired and a bit lonely for him. Happens too when he starts talking about the next trip. He's going to probably leave next Wednesday and be gone through Sunday. We weren't able to talk much about Dr. Marvin with him - couldn't remember what happened and then we had dinner and talked, and then we asked him if we could massage him in bed ... no seriously that was all! I think we kept it up for about an hour, but as all those kinds of cozy feelings go we fell asleep ... I think the massage lasted from about 6 pm - 7 pm and except for using the washroom we didn't really get up the rest of the night AND woke at our normal time. It was very nice.
As to the quilting part ... we of course weren't quilting, but at the church helping the quilting group. We've told you the generics of this situation before, but mostly we help get quilts the church is making to the Lutheran World Relief program. We aren't a member of the church yet, but if we were to join a church it would probably be this one. Our regular part (since April) is to put quilt kits together from quilt blocks that another guy - Don cuts. Other groups rip fabric or put backs and middles to the tops, or tie them or bind them whatever ... Usually people come and go during the two daytime shifts, but they stay pretty even at 12 or so. Last month we put together 33 quilt kits and the time before 37, but this time we only had 16 quilt kits to put together. One of the guys that helps with cutting between dates was having a knee operation after his vacation and then had other medical problems.
It gave me a chance to switch positions a couple of times. The first one, I just did some cutting of 4" x 2" rectangles to be made into tabs for the school backpacks. I cut AND sewed a lot! At least about 3/4 a gallon size plastic bag. I have a few more to sew, but got about 80% done by the end of the session. All you do is fold the long to ends to meet each other in the middle then you fold one set of quarters on top the other so it is about half an inch wide. Then you sew down the middle ... when they are used the will be folded in half - the long way as tabs in the bottom of the school bags. Someone later then runs about 4' of cord through it and then another team fills the bags with some school supplies. AND, then those get mailed to missionaries around the world. It's really a good cause and quite a few Lutheran churches do this kind of work.
The next day when we ran out of work, we did some ironing for Don. Keith had come in for lunch, but he had to leave before and after that. I think Don was looking forward to Keith's time when he came in for lunch, but he settled for me. He stopped us then about an hour before leaving time to get everything put away right. During the day, we kept up with Don's contributions, but there weren't many ... the cutting just takes time. We did get to talk to a few people. We met a new lady to us in her 80's who was doing seam ripping, and it turns out she's a regular quilter, but doesn't do as much as she used to. We talked/listened to another new lady to us though we've seen her a few times now. Her name is Kathy and she's a home ec teacher. She seems real easy to approach and is on the younger side like us. Then we joked and teased this other lady named Loretta ... she's 95 and we really like her. She's the one that ties all the baby quilts we make and we and a few others like Kathy and Mary Ann are keeping her busy!
When everyone is doing their work, we fade in and out of listening to different conversations. Ellie we talked to too and that was the most fun to talk to. She's pretty wild! Her partner Connie has been out the last few times. She's married to Mike the one that had the knee operation and then had to go back for obstructed bowels Tuesday. So Kathy worked with Ellie and spliced in her regular sewing job. There are a few that sew. First is Carol the lady in charge, then Doris, and then Mary Ann, and then Kathy. Maybe others sew too, but these seem like regulars - at least during the summer Kathy can be there. I liked her and Mary Ann and us talked before and after the Tuesday session, but she wasn't there on Wednesday. Ellie I felt bad for they were going to be leaving for vacation and didn't have a sitter yet for their animals. I'd think of volunteering, but her cat needed shots and was still half-wild, PLUS she has horses, sheep, chickens and pigs and who on EARTH could handle all of that!?? I know another farmer, but most likely not us.
I think of Ellie as a sturdy woman! Just she's small :)
Anyway toward the end of the day we realized that we weren't going to bring home quilt kits because there were so few done and so many others that work on them. I figured I could use our own fabric, and then we figured that we could work on some of Carol's school back packs. So we followed her into the sewing closet and came out with a stack that reached 42 when counted out. It was like Eh? we'll do as many as we can and we can always bring them back when the group gets together again on July 29th - 30th.
I'm going to be with the other Carol - the Dekalb Carol tonight so we're going to bring the school bags with us. They first step is that they all need to be ironed so that is what we'll work on first. I'm not sure how long that is going to take, but as a back-up, we will bring our flannel fabric box from our mother and work on cutting that. If we finish early, we can just go home or sit around and talk, but I'm thinking that's way plenty of work to do. We won't then bring our sewing machine, but instead take our ironing pad and cutting board. The object is to bring no more than you can carry in one load. I know we're like that. We'll leave the fabric in the car - because that would be a second load and we may or may not need it. The other difference is that we're shutting down at 10:30 pm instead of midnight so that only leaves 6 hours to get things done. I'm pretty sure I'll be fine.
We still haven't taken a shower yet and it is already 1:30 pm. We will take a shower in an hour, and then Pack, and then leave by 3:45 pm. WooHOO ... we're good to go ... though for sure will not get to the lawn today. Maybe then it is a tomorrow thing to do. Austin is now coming for sure. He'll be here around noon. So we either make cutting grass something to do with him or get it done before he gets there. I really hate that there's so much to do with so little time to do it. My stuff just takes way too long! *sigh* but its so much fun to do each!
I guess that sort of brings us up to at least part of the meeting with Dr. Marvin yesterday. There was only one meeting today because of the church quilting, but it seems like it was a well-deserved meeting. I will have to work really hard at piecing more pieces of it together, but I know that sometime in the middle and again at the end we were talking to him about balancing all the things we would like or need to do so that parts and projects do not feel so crunched for time. I don't know if there is reasonably a way to do this, but it seems to be the hot button project of the week. The Thursday before yesterday Corey had talked to the system about time to write and then there was time made to let her/us write, but then things like housework and lawn work went downhill. Sewing would have too, but there was the two days built in. I think we talked to Dr. Marvin of us having tried to make schedules, but that they fall through. I think he said that we might make longer "project days" like we do with the quilting group and him.
I think one of the hard things to do there and there will probably be many is that we don't know when it is we're going to be super tired. Linda did mention yesterday while messaging that sometimes we get very tired after Dr. Marvin's. We may have realized that before, but not recently. It does seem to make sense. Part of that might be the long three hours of driving, but another part is the session itself, especially when there are more parts out trying to get some time with him. One other part we talked to Dr. Marvin about was how tired we can get especially during a session if we stop by for donuts before getting there. we'd gone several sessions without, but yesterday needed to stop for gas and then that was that. Way too hard! We kept yawning and I felt bad for the shape we had brought in.
Anyway like mentioned earlier - we went into the bedroom about 6 pm, and didn't come out for 12 hours. MAN if there is ANYTHING going to mess with a schedule it is that. Because the parts who had intended to iron last Inight didn't and then that sets our schedule of today. And, then of course trying to get things caught up on the computer/writing/reading unsettled us too. I don't mean to be complaining about things just the part about finding balance hasn't been done yet. I think maybe the next time we get real time to write we'll do more with it, but we've only got 45 minutes left so won't do much of it today.
I'm trying to think now what kind of stuff was talked to Dr. Marvin about. It was late in the session before we remembered to bring up Nancy Preston. That part was very exciting going over with Dr. Marvin ... he is excited for us and is crediting us for having done the kind of work that could get us noticed by someone like her. We keep thinking - man we touched basis with someone of "Sybil's" level. It seems less surprising now days then in the past where we meet someone who wrote a book, but you have got to give the woman credit ... she knew the underneath part of Sybil held onto it privately for the majority of their relationship, and then shared it with others so that more people could understand - especially her life after being integrated. We explained in our note to her that we didn't do the integration thing, but believed in co-communication. I don't think she stated a position on that, but seemed to know there was that difference of acceptance in the multiple community.
Nancy's site counter - since I'm guessing about February this year is at about 106 thousand so it seems that there is some real interest in her book or topic, or in Nancy herself. In comparison we've only had just over 20 thousand visitors since late 2010. It's a different arena she's in. If anyone were to be noticed by the multiple world - it would be someone connected to Sybil. As mentioned in our note to her, she's the quintessential multiple to beat all multiples because she was the FIRST to gain widespread world notice and she set the standards for all that came after.
I explained briefly to Nancy in our note that I didn't think as much of Dr. Wilbur having the kind of life she did with Sybil afterward where Sybil became her health care worker and the person to take care of her household. I could see if put in the same position of taking care of Dr. Marvin, I would do it in a heartbeat, but I know that he wouldn't allow for something like that. As explained there is an imbalance in relationship power between a therapist and his/her client. It's been mentioned in several books where we've read about Sybil (Shirley Mason) that the roles reversed and where Dr. Wilbur had taken care of her, then she took care of Dr. Wilbur. But all the time they were together, Shirley was taking care of Dr. Wilbur who by far had the greatest notoriety because of Sybil where Shirley never got that attention or accolade, and then instead of coming to in her own right, she was put in a position of lifelong shadow of Dr. Wilbur. As to "taking care of Shirley" I don't think that point was done justly.
I'm guessing that Nancy thought differently too though she was careful not to overreach that position. This was generous of her. I think both Dr. Wilbur and Nancy tried to maintain a protective stance over Shirley though there was a power difference there all along. Shirley had been Nancy's teacher where Dr. Wilbur had been the psychiatrist. Really uneven. One more thing said there and I guess this is part of the last point. When Sybil's VERY abusive mother was dying she made Sybil come back from her opportunity to be in college to be taking care of her and watching her die. I think it was unconscionable that Dr. Wilbur really put her in that same exact position where Shirley's life was secondary to her own. Just think boundaries had been blurred.
But, we can move on ... we didn't go through this in much depth with Dr. Marvin yesterday, but he did know and felt excited for us to have come this close in relationship to Sybil. I would love to write back and forth to Nancy because she has such a nice role now in the community and probably has great insight to the large part of life connected to multiplicity. I also think that she should be given more credit for being a writer and having poured so much energy into her writing project with Shirley and Dr. Wilbur and then have it cut off so cleanly. It wasn't fair to her ... and it reminded me of how an abuser cuts off his victim from his/her world to make him feel more confined and dependent on him/her. Hmm, I guess we're still a bit tiffed by that. BUT we can really move on. Let me try to think of something else we talked about to Dr. Marvin.
I know he tried to bring up the depression/suicidal parts that had been out recently. I'm not really sure how that all went or how many minutes went into the conversation before we could divert from that topic. I do know that we were and are feeling strong feelings of hiding that from too much out loud thinking. I remember Dr. Marvin reminding us that after heavy contact with our mother it was more likely to happen, but we remember telling him we'd diverted our attention with the quilting and the sorting out of the blog rolls and reading Nancy's book. I think we talked about the part we know something of which is hard to catch in our fleeting brain, but had something to do with believing that to get over the regressions, we would have to do some work in remembering the feelings to some of the stories we know and have yet to know. It seems like most of the 14 year relationship to Dr. Marvin has been avoiding what we can guess to be painful. I know that we held for a moment the session before the feeling that we were close to Annemarie as if she were standing at the switch as to us remembering that we had feelings back during her time as a child. I'm guessing that she is scared if she released some of those feelings, she might blow away people or herself. I know it is a quick turnover to have her thinking she'd rather be dead. I guess then one of the questions would be - you'd rather be dead than what? I'm guessing that it was related to grandfather, mother's or father's abuse, but we still have yet to know which was the worst for Annemarie who was the center of us escaping through the parts. Not much more time to go into that more deeply, but we'd like to keep an open ear to finding out what the core of Annemarie is trying to protect.
I know that's probably asking a lot ... but then what if we found out? Would there be no more need for Dr. Marvin? We're certainly not ever wanting to feel that he could leave us as our psychiatrist. I'm thinking if Dr. Marvin was here having this conversation he'd convey somehow not to worry and that he wasn't going to go away for a long time. We often find ourselves wondering if we could see him from the start of his career to the end of it. I think in many ways we have an attachment to him like we should have had with the mother - although Dr. Marvin DOES NOT do the physical emotional things that would be improper for a doctor. Like he doesn't give hugs, smooches, or tell us that he loves us. If he were to say he loved me/us it would be a part of how he loves humanity as a whole. Maybe we hold a little special part in his heart after all these years, but we know he wouldn't do anything to hurt that ... so he will continue or end the sessions with that end in mind.
I don't know if we will ever be the same after either he or Rich or one of our kids/grandchildren were to die. Hmm, that's interesting ... I think that came up with the part(s) that were holding Rich last night ... they were worried that he might die one day and then where would we be. He's pretty sure we'd get ourselves food, but I can't imagine going on without either him or Dr. Marvin. I know much too deep with only 15 minutes left. :(
I guess we should close-up a bit yet. One last chance - what else do we remember from Dr. Marvin's? We see him twice next week on Tuesday and Thursday at our normal times and on Thursday we need more medicine. That we remember.
Hmm, we did talk a little about our birthday I think, but I don't remember about what. I don't think we talked about Rich not being here, but we do get Dr. Marvin on our birthday and that's an important thing. We didn't remind him we'd just past our anniversary of seeing him. We're confused with the numbers, just know our first day was July 6, 1999. And today is July 12th, 2013. Can someone do that number? I'm not sure on the anniversary date we go to 14th year celebration or if we say it different ... like now after the date have we known him for 14 years or more? We are really crazy dunce when it comes to things like this ... we'll have to ask him and THEN we will know.
Maybe we'll remember more when we write later this week. I know though that our eyes are turned to Tuesday when we get to see him again. Other than tonight being at Carol's and Austin coming tomorrow ... there shouldn't be too much that happens between now and then. We're feeling anxiety now as we think about leaving the computer. We're going to leave it up though for a little bit. We will take our shower first, and then get ready to leave, and then if there are any moments left we will come back to continue our thoughts. You might think we'd stop and do some of the little housework, but we're like way to anxious for that. I think that's part of the combination between Kelsie and Corey and writing and our multiple thoughts. AND, we're still wearing the dark cape of not being able to get closer to our Dr. Marvin thoughts. We've known for a long time the parts aren't always considerate in sharing thoughts, but to not know what's happening to us through the individual parts is very hard on our brain. We can feel our eyebrow furl as we struggle to listen for the unheard parts. Maybe one more time we can ask. Is there anything that happened at Dr. Marvin's you might want to talk about?
I guess not ... just the part where we want to see him again. Sometimes everything else is just the stuff that happens getting to the other. Why we feel so alive there - anyone's guess ... maybe just the allowance of being whomever there no matter how strange.
Ok Hi ... we're back. We've showered, gotten dressed, and loaded the car. Only thing now is to grab the keys and phone and go... Also have to remember our $10 to pay for dinner. It is already in the car, but we want to remember to get it out FIRST time into the house. Right?
I'm thinking we'll just do the bags, but thinking if we went at it a straight 6 hours it would be one completed every 8 1/2 minutes. I don't think it takes all that time, maybe close, but there will be time set out to talk before, during, dinner, etc. so maybe that will be it. We'll have to decide when we finish the ironing if that will be enough and we should about then leave, or if we want to bring in the separate project. Thing is if we bring in the second project - AND EVEN take out some of the first ... we might have two armloads of stuff because the box of fabrics, ironing bag and cutting table would go out last AND that's a big handful. We'll see ... I'm sure we'll know at the right time what we should do ... Thing is at this point when we can't gauge the length of time to iron - that at least we have options with the second project AND we don't have to bring in our sewing machine! YAyy
I think getting a break where we go out to a friends' house is good for us though days like today when we feel so homebound, it is hard to leave the house to go anywhere. Rich won't be back until well after we leave. He was going to bring the bead job to a DD workshop he hadn't been to in a long time, but we were hearing in the background how excited the woman was to be getting work, and that made us feel better for him. More work is GOOD! I think he had a few stops and then was going to stop at his mother's and then maybe home and I think he was going to work on piece parts tonight. That's what he did last week so he was still working when we came in about 11:15 pm. Next week Carol will be off, so we'll get together the next week - whatever last week of July is ... think about the 26th. Works out. I might be lethargic and feel sorry for ourselves on our birthday so will want the option of staying in. Joe said something about Fridays being best for him, but then I think he said the next couple of Fridays are busy. Maybe I can sneak in for a lunch. I think he said he was doing some kid sitting. Not sure of what all that is about, but as stated previously he was laid off his job when he was on disability for his torn meniscus surgery.
As it turns out ... that is one of Rich's problems too. His MRI got back yesterday and he visited the doctor and the material said two things. 1) torn meniscus, and 2) arthritis. BLAH HUMbug! Rich let himself dream this morning he could be an employee of this workshop enough to get insurance, but the likelihood of that is very slim. The insurance though would get him a replaced knee. I'm not sure if the meniscus could be taken care of by arthritic surgery, but we're talking many thousands of dollars down the line. Probably best to leave that slide for the moment.
At least he knows what is wrong with his knee and a good idea what has to be done about it. I don't think it's something done for free at county ERs. Double Blah!
Just don't know how to handle it yet. He did get him back on the medicine that had worked better from the old doctor, instead of the stuff for regular pain at 800 mg. Just its hard to see him because it affects every move he makes particularly standing and then sitting down. It's better for him after he gets going. Joe also had the torn meniscus and he seems to be doing very well with it. He says he's pushing it so that he can be doing karate things an running and all the extra stuff his healthy body is used to. He says it's hard to teach a five year old karate without showing him the moves.
Half hour left.
I might almost be done with conversation?
Not much for mail today. Maybe I should think of putting something in my facebook, AND I think I have one person who sent me a note in one of the groups. Wonder if I could find it again, hmm?
Hmm found note and responded - it was a Fort Refuge note, but even though we're now allowed to do chat we couldn't get the plugin - java or other to work in chrome so we could open the chat room BLAH ... have to start again later ... otherwise - time to go!
(10,919/4,723)