August 26, 2013

Rainy Days and Mondays...

Are Actually Pretty Good

Monday,  August 26, 2013

The day started with an early morning appointment with my dermatologist.  He is such a nice man.  As I mentioned, my visits to him have been when I couldn't hear, so it was nice to hear him today.  He is a happy man and almost makes going to the doctor a pleasure.  I think I have just had too many doctor visits this year.  He did give me another copy of prescription I lost shortly after my last visit.  That last visit was just before I broke my elbow, had elbow surgery, and had Cochlear Implant surgery.  He understood that maybe I was a little distracted.  He did freeze three spots that have concerned me.  One was a spot in my hair and the freezing gave me an almost instant headache which lasted about half of the morning.  I could hear and understand him pretty well, but I could not understand his nurse.  Again, the sound processor picked up his air conditioning system very well.

Following that visit, I went to visit my daughter-in-law and the grandchildren.  I had made a big batch of chicken salad last night and Barb and one of the kids love it so I took them some.  I stayed to visit for a little while and it was nice to start my work week with smiles, hugs, and cheerful children.

Somehow I had gotten off without my cell phone this morning and though I can't hear to talk on it, I use it a lot for texting, so I returned to the house to get the phone before heading to the office.  As soon as I got about a mile from home, it started pouring rain.  What a blessing to the parched lands in South Texas.  We have had several showers in the last few days, but this was a very good rain.  By the time I got my phone and took care of a couple of other things I wasn't sure I could get to the office because of the rain.  I got about two blocks from the house and the intersection was flooded, so I texted Ron and he said to go back home and wait until it cleared off.  Once I was back home, I spent a little time sewing and in about 45 minutes it had drained enough to head to work.  As the rain slacked off, the birds converged on the feeders.

Due to the rains, I wasn't too busy at the office until after lunch.  I got a few things done and spent a lot of the time in the afternoon with customers.  My sister Janet has been in town since Saturday evening, and she and Mom came by for a brief visit but I got so busy, they headed out to go to the Art Museum and returned later to finish the visit.  She headed back home this evening.


I did run some errands, taking the prescription to the pharmacy, taking some things to my mother-in-law's house and picking up some things from her for my husband to take care of.  Late in the afternoon, our friends, Craig and Rhonda, stopped by to return a plant they had borrowed to decorate for a reception.  It is always a treat to have friends stop in for a visit.  After work, I headed to pick up the prescription and then came home.  Ron ran an errand or two before he came home. 

The evening has been relaxing.  I did spend time with the Immersion Reading.  The audio books are read by professional actors, but each book has a different reader so there is the challenge of adapting to another voice.  This one is a little harder than the last.  The choices in the audio books that are made for this particular format are limited.  They say there are I think about 15,000 such books, but many are not ones that I would read and the ones I am using are not my first choices of books, but are affordable choices.  I think I mentioned the best choices run about $20 by the time you buy both Kindle and audio versions.  But these are alright.

I talked briefly to one of my sons and to one of my daughter-in-laws this evening.  I think this may have been the first time I have done the phone with this son (the one who lives here in town).  The first couple of minutes were difficult but it got better as we talked longer.

Things that should be so simple (like listening to your son on the phone) are not simple.  It gets hard to keep asking for something to be repeated.  As the audiologist reminds me, phone conversations are very difficult since you have no visual clues.  You can't see facial expressions or do any lip reading.  So I just keep trying, as long as they will be patient.