GLAD THIS MONTH IS OVER

This month has a been a bit too much.  I will be glad when it is behind me.  Just this week, to give you an idea.

I did get my mom to the doctor yesterday for her checkup yesterday after needing to change the appointment a few times.  I told her to make sure to blame me to the doctor and his staff so they would not be upset with her.  She has a pacemaker and was past due to have it checked, as well as having her blood, etc. checked.  Mom is 89.  She still lives alone in our family house and still drives.  She hates to ask for help; I keep telling her to call me when she needs to go somewhere she doesn’t want to drive to, but until now she has refused to call me.  In this case she had a problem due to construction near the doctor’s office when she went there earlier in the month as she cannot walk distances and would have had to park too far away.  Hence why she called for a ride, I could drop her off if there was still a problem, park and come back, etc.  All was good, although blood work will, of course, take a day or two.  We had lunch together afterwards for about 3 or 4 hours.  We had been headed for a kosher deli - I had to park 4 stores away from it - mom was impressed with my parallel parking, something I just take for granted.  But as we inched along, we (she) stopped at a pizza place and while stopped looked in and thought how nice it was - should we go there instead?  I was not looking forward to a overfilled, overpriced (especially since I knew she would insist on paying) turkey sandwich (least fatty of the meats there).  So I jumped at the change - less for her to walk, lighter meal, and much less expensive.  We each had a cheese slice and diet soda and sat and talked and talked.  (I write like I talk and she talks more and longer than I do.)  It was between meal times and the place was empty or I would have not have stayed, taking up the table as long as we did.

We did go to the Long Island Fair last Sunday to do an embroidery demonstration - and to visit friends we only see at the Fair.  One woman used to be the Supervisor of the Juvenile section for decades and had to give it up due to eye trouble, was not at the Fair last year at all.  (She continued to volunteer after she gave up the Supervisor position.)  I was so glad that she had her son drop her off for a visit.  She was sitting in the Juvenile section and as soon as volunteers heard she was there, we all stopped by to see her.  She is 90.  I was so glad to hear that she was basically well - she had vision problems, which is now mostly blindness and now has hearing problems, but she is the same always in all other regards.  After the day, which was the last day of the Fair, was pick up of entries - my three dimensional butterfly embroidery shocked me and won second prize.  I had seen the lovely and involved pieces that it was competing with when I dropped it off and figured that I would get an honorable mention due to the technique.  That is one project that sat for decades finished.  Now to pick another one to finsih. While at the Fair I was also able to check in with someone who is a mutual friend of a friend who moved to South Carolina and find out the couple in SC survived Florence with no problems.

I was suppose to go to a client this week.  I called her yesterday (while mom was seeing the doctor) to go there Thursday.  The client said it was a problem and could I come on Friday.  (Glad she did not say today as we were suppose to have horrible rain - yes, there was rain, but not as bad as they said.)  I called her today to say that I could come on Friday, but she didn’t really want me there then, either (even though she had suggested it).  Apparently they are filming a movie at her location and her cousin who keeps her company is ill - besides, she tells me, she has had no business all month, so there is little for me to do.  So, I will be going there in 2 weeks and do the September and October work at the same time.

In my mind this was great.  I get another day to catch up on stuff - the bathrooms REALLY need cleaning.  But no, when husband hears that I am not going to the client on Friday, he suggests that since he wants to go to Pennsylvania on Saturday for a wool show, we could go down on Friday for the day and stay overnight.  So, the bathrooms will wait a little longer.

Today was the day I write the newsletter for my embroidery chapter and send it out by email.  I managed to get that done after dinner - normally done in the afternoon, but there was other “fires” to put out then.  I send out 3 versions of the newsletter - the basic newsletter is the same, the email with it changes - one to our members, one to prospective members and one to the other newsletter editors in our region and our region director. 

This coming Sunday we were suppose to go to a reenactment event with our unit, but the unit is backing out of it as too few members can go and the place is changing what it said about our setup. 

Now in addition to writing to all of you, I am doing our laundry.  Will go and change loads between writing this and sending it out.  Dinner dishes were done before the newsletter.  Kitchen sink area is setup with dish towels over the dish rack, the front of the sink, the windowsill behind the sink, and the pots drying on a towel next to the other side of the sink - so husband can come and wash his hair in the sink.  The dishpan I use in the sink is out on a counter with items waiting for washing before we go to bed.  ( I made instant diet pudding for snack - the items needed for such are most of what is waiting to be washed.)  But no - I still have not thrown out the bad eggs.

And next week I am suppose to teach new stitches (my choice) at the embroidery meeting!
                                       
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -

Sometimes it seems that what must be done in terms of larger projects and appointments is coming too often, too much and too fast.  Take it one project at a time, that is all one can do.  Things will get done.

A QUICK TRIP AND I CAUGHT UP ON MY PILE OF STUFF TO DO

Well, I had a bit of a chance to catch up this past week.  The pile on top of my desk which has to be done before I get to the folder of things to do, is down to scanning in articles from various issues of a magazine related to reenacting that I convinced my husband that we don’t need to keep in full.  Much of these magazines are ads for items related to “the hobby”.  There seems to be 3-5 articles of varying length that he wants to keep.  He has gone through the magazines and circled in the table of contents those articles he wants.  I am scanning in the articles here and there as I get a chance - luckily they are not in color so they scan a lot faster. 

We did go away for the day last Saturday to the state sheep and wool festival.  We have never been there before.  It went as our trips go.  The ride there was suppose to be 2 hours.  Husband printed the directions from Googlemaps.  He also turned on the GPS app in his cell phone.  They did not always agree.  The road both sent us on for most of the trip is a picturesque limited access road that curves around and through mountains.  It was so curvy that husband was getting motion sickness, even though he was driving.  We were pretty sure we could not go home the same way as he could not deal with the curves again - especially in the dark with no street lights.  When we were towards the end of the trip there the two sets of directions varied from each other.  The Googlemaps version had us get off the main road sooner than the GPS.  We decided to go with the GPS and stayed on the road.  All of a sudden the GPS froze.  (We eventually figured out that there was no cell service there!)  Now we had a problem.  As we kept driving and tried to remember where the GPS said to get off the road, I saw a sign to the fairgrounds we had to go to and we exited the road.  10 miles to the fairgrounds and no further signs appeared.  I had out the Googlemaps directions and kept looking for roads that were listed on it.  We were approaching one and I had to calculate quickly - turn right or left?  Luckily I guessed correctly and we turned right and not much further on came to the road the fairgrounds were on.  Fair was okay - not a worth a trip back in the future.  (Very limited weaving related items - other than wool, of course, which we could not afford - and weaving items were why husband wanted to go.)  Talk about disorganized - I noticed that people had a small booklet with map and vendors in it.  I walked back to the gate and asked for one - I was told that they hard run out “3 hours ago”.  This means that 3 hours into the first of two days of the event (which ran 9 hours the first day) they were out of their handouts - not good planning to me.  After we drove to a, yes, another Golden Corral about an hour from the fairgrounds and vaguely on the way home.  Dinner was another bust and I will not bother you with the details unless someone writes and asks.  Now we had to get home.  I looked at the (paper) map and found that an Interstate road near the restaurant headed in the general direction of home, that connected to another major road and that just left figuring out how to get to one of 3 bridges after those two roads to get us home.  I have a mapping/GPS program in my other laptop (the good one) which I had brought with me (I generally take it on trips for something just like this) and I am able to find a place by looking at and moving the map and then adding a start, end, or via point there.  I did that with several points so that the route would stay where I wanted it and it had no problem getting us home.  It was much a quicker trip home than the one getting to the area and straight road - no curve after curve.

Just for fun - and my luck, I did get a mailing from Equifax that I am, of course, included in their latest security breach.  I tried to find out how to do all the things I need to do with them as a result, by mail as I will not put my information online and don’t trust doing it by phone.  I sort of got an answer from their recorded info phone line and have sent in to them about this.  Now I will also send in a request for husband as our credit info is mostly joint.  Then I will be calling Trans Union and Experian to do the same with them.  And I have such a unique name that I have been sure that I am the only one with it in the world - now there may be many of me if my identity is being used by others.  What will happen to my 843-850 (it varies some months) credit rating now?

I wrote the newsletter for my embroidery chapter in only one afternoon - first time since we changed to this new format I was able to do so, it was common before.  One member’s email is suddenly bouncing back and she did not return my phone message, so I mailed her a printed copy and asked for her new email.

I am packed, my laptop is charging, and I am going to a client tomorrow.  I have written checks for bills to go out in the mail on Friday.  I have calculated how much I need to transfer from savings to checking to pay the bills and have cash for a trip next week (we hope).  The needed papers are in my “Friday errands” envelope.  I have a deposit slip with these papers as I am due to get a check from my client tomorrow and will deposit it Friday also.         

Laundry is in washer.  First load about to go to the dryer when my cell phone alarm rings that it is time to go down again.

I did so well that rather than take a shower tonight in a rush at the last minute and go to bed with wet hair, I was able to take a leisurely shower before dinner.  Ahhhh.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Work at what is piled up little by little, try to keep more from being added and there will be less left in your “pile” of todos. 

I know my stack of todos will be piled up again soon - especially if we take a short trip next week - but sooner or later it is gone again.

Don’t eat all the Halloween candy - and check what your children eat before they do.  Have a safe Halloween.