January 11, 2016

One Christmas Tree Down

January 11, 2016

Our trees filled with Cormorants 

 

This morning I woke about 7:00 a.m. in the recliner, having slept there all night.  I started taking the ornaments off the sewing room Christmas tree and packed them all away.  It was this evening before I took the tree down and boxed it up, but everything is done and put in the proper storage places.  I have even vacuumed the floor, but need to clean it good.

At the office, the morning was slow and the afternoon busier - the opposite of most days.  I got the reports in the mail for the accountant and wrote a couple of note cards to people and got those mailed.  I spent time shuffling papers.  At least that is how it seems.  I go through one stack and they seem to reappear on the other side of the desk.

During the afternoon I prepared a deposit and around 4:00, took it to the bank and then made one stop on my way home.  When I got home it dawned on me that I did not have my phone - I had left it on my desk at work.  I tried to call Ron to ask him to bring it and the house phone was out of order.  I finally posted a note to one of my sons on Facebook and asked him to call his dad and tell him.  It worked!

Our son and daughter-in-law in New Mexico think they may have found a house to move to and are excited about how God has worked this out.  We do have an amazing God!  They will know tomorrow night for sure about the house.

Today was cloudy all day, but the predicted rain never came.  As I arrived home, I saw that the eucalyptus trees were filling with birds as they had been doing for several days or maybe weeks.  From our yard, I have not been able to tell for sure what they were because they land in the side of the trees facing the water.  They sound like bull frogs - LOUD bull frogs.  But tonight I was able to get photos of some of them.  They always arrive just before dark so that makes it hard to get the pictures.

January 10, 2016

Sleepy Sunday

January 10, 2016

One last look at the sewing room 

Christmas tree before I take it down.

 

I am working to get off some medications that I am taking.  When I went to the heart doctor this past week, he took me off the blood pressure medication they put me on in the hospital and the baby aspirin that I had also been put on at that time.  The blood pressure medication was making me retain fluid and it is now nice to see that my feet are normal size after stopping that medication.

Three other medications make me sleepy and the problem is, they work well for their intended purposes.  The doctors have changed the hours when I take them so that may help, but so far, I am still getting very sleepy.

This morning I did get up about 6:45 and started working on a stew for lunch.  I made two big pots of it so that we could eat on it for a few days.  They both turned out to be perfect and I now have lunches for work and at least a couple of suppers. 

The weather is "stew" or "chili" weather.  As we pulled out of the driveway to go to church, the temperature was 40 degrees.  It was a gorgeous day with a crystal clear sky and just a slight breeze.  Sunday school was well attended and the worship service was very good.  The past few days they have had a young man here helping redo our sound system at the church.  I think it was better this morning, but I did talk to the music director after church to tell him the piano mic is drowning out the other things.  Ron told me that the man working on the system detected that problem and worked on it today.  We are thankful for this young man who came to spend time here to make things better.

There are so many mission projects going on at the church.  That makes it exciting.  We know God is moving in hearts.  Our Christmas Lottie Moon (foreign mission) offering goal was not real high, but we exceeded it by over $3,000.  Many people filled shoe boxes, earlier in the year buckets were filled for another mission project.  So many good causes are being addressed.

After church, Ron and I came home and had a quiet lunch of the stew and French bread.  We had a relaxing time just chatting.  I napped and he went to a meeting at the church, then to his mom's and back to another meeting at the church.  I got the boxes out for the Christmas decorations in the sewing room.  That is as far as I have gotten.

Our son in New Mexico called and we talked for a while.  They are still seeking the best place for them to move in the next couple of weeks.  He has many boxes packed, but many more to go.  The new wireless Cochlear phone clip is working well.  I am having better results with it than I am with the mini wireless microphone.   I spent a little time in the yard checking on my flower bed and all looks great. 

January 9, 2016

Saturday Working in the Yard

January 9, 2016

Saturday was a beautiful, comfortable day, just right for working in the yard.  I was up about 7:00 and after a bit, I went to do my grocery shopping at the new Wal-Mart not far from our house.  After doing the shopping, of course the things had to be put away. 

As I had left for the grocery store, I backed the car out of the garage and just had to stop it and take a photo.   Here I was stressing over getting my Christmas trees taken down.  I love the big tree with the abundance of ornaments and a focus on red accents among the countless ornaments we have collected throughout our 50 years of marriage.  And there, beside my driveway, God had adorned my hibiscus bush with red ornaments - beautiful red blooms all over the bush.

I will continue having the red and green of the holidays throughout the year.  I still need to take the tree down, but I think that in the future, I will often think of Christmas as I back out of my garage every day and I see this bush.

By 11:00 I was in the yard working.  I had put in a flower bed for roses about a month ago and had more to plant, but had not gotten around to it.  The time had come.  I started digging and before long Ron came home and helped.  He dug up part of the bed and I told him that was enough, so he moved on to other chores.  Then I remembered that in each container of miniature rose bushes, there were 4 small plants, so I had to enlarge the bed some more.  As it is, I have probably made the bed too small, but we will see how many of the plants survive.

A chrysanthemum plant that I had thought was dead.

 

I finally got all of the new plants in the ground and I am so delighted with the ones I had planted earlier; they are looking great.  I am hoping these do well.  I had spent some time on the ponds and bird baths.  While our youngest son was home over the Christmas holidays, he worked cleaning one of the ponds and reworking the waterfall.  It is doing well and all I had to do was remove an assortment of fallen leaves.  I filled all the ponds and birdbaths after using a net to get out the leaves and twigs.

Then I started cutting back some of the plants.  I know this is not the time of the year for a good pruning, but some were in the way.  Ron was working on some large fallen limbs and two fallen trees out near the water.  After 3 1/2 hours, I took a break for a snack and soon returned to the yard for another 1 1/2 hours.  I started trimming some plants that had overtaken a large section of the driveway.  Ron joined me and he started cutting while I hauled.  By the time I quit, I was exhausted.  It had been a wonderful day to be outside.

The yard needs constant attention and it seems lately the rains have some on weekends, cutting into our time to trim the rapidly growing plants.  It was a very nice day spent in the beauty of God's creation.

January 8, 2016

Foggy Morning

January 8, 2016

The morning was a continuation of the foggy conditions from the night before.  By around 10:00, the fog had burned off and it was a nice day.  Like the previous day, the morning at the office was very busy, but the afternoon was very slow.  I spent time finishing the monthly report after the mail came with the bank statement.

After balancing the checkbook, which went very smoothly, I gathered the assorted papers to send to the accountant.  Thankfully the one paper I was waiting for arrived during the afternoon.  One customer had forgotten to bring the paper a few weeks ago and I needed it to finish the report.

Getting those things done always makes me feel better.  I spent time locating a couple of missing papers and finally located all of them.  I had printed out receipts yesterday and took time this morning to cut them to the proper size this morning - well, about 1/3 of them.  I had printed about 1 1/2 reams of papers, so it will take a bit of time to cut them.

We were to meet our friends for supper at a place we had often gone to a few years ago.  I arrived first to find the owner working on the parking lot.  He said they had a broken water pipe so they were closed.  We called our friends and agreed to meet instead at the place we have been eating the last few months. 

The restaurant was almost deserted when we arrived, but they had two television sets on and the noise from them and the air conditioning, made hearing difficult.  I used the Cochlear mini microphone with my friend, but it seemed to cut out sometimes.  It may have just been all the other noise.  It was frustrating to not have the same results I had gotten earlier with the wireless mic. 

Once we got home, I read for a while before going to bed a little earlier than usual.  I had wanted to try some quilt patterns I had downloaded this afternoon, but was too tired.  Maybe tomorrow.

January 7, 2016

Foggy Evening

January 7, 2016

Christmas decorations still need to be packed away.

Several of our customers have expressed the same things I have been feeling this week - confusion.  The last two weeks we had 3 1/2 day weekends with Christmas and New Year's Day falling on Fridays.  That is making this week seem long.  I woke up thinking it was any day except Thursday, but I had to go to work anyway.

At the office, I continued working on "end of the year" activities, and there are a lot more to come.  All the past year's files (bills, insurance policies, etc.) need to be boxed up both for the office and my personal files.  I hope to get to that next week.

Thursday morning was very busy with a lot of walk-in traffic.  The afternoon was slow.  Ron was out on some jobs.  I got bills paid, checks posted, and all those normal business activities.  When asked, all of our customers have said their Christmas was wonderful.  That is not always the response I get.  Interesting.  People seem to be in a good mood.

Can you believe I have still not finished my Christmas cards?  There are still a few to send out and I just keep not getting them done.  Maybe next week.

Ron and I met Mom and Jim for supper at Jason's Deli and had a nice visit.  When we left, around 7:00, it was getting very foggy.  It had been a while since I had seen the fog in town that thick early in the evening. 

Once we got home, I wasn't feeling real good and went to bed early (which is why this blog is late).  I slept most of the next 12 hours and feel great today (Friday).

I still need to take down the Christmas trees and assorted decorations and I would like to spend time working in the yard this weekend.  Don't know which activity will win out.

Lately there have been a bunch of the green parakeets (small parrots) flying around town and I love rolling down my windows in the car and listening to them.  Going out to get the paper in the mornings, the birds filling the trees are chattering.  I love being able to hear those sounds with my Cochlear Implant.  I know the most important thing to hear is voices of family and friends, but I sure enjoy the bonuses of hearing the birds, water flowing in the ponds and birdbaths, laughter, the wind through the trees, and thousands of other sounds every day.  Life would have been so different without the Cochlear Implant.

January 6, 2016

Lots of Work to be Done

January 6, 2016

Current quilt project.  Almost finished.

The start of a new month always brings me extra work at the office.  The start of a new year increases that normal new month work load.  Today I did a stack of filing and was actually caught up on that for at least 30 minutes, before a few new papers showed up in the "To be filed" box.  I often wonder how the two of us can produce so much paper work!

This morning I got up about 7:30.  I had hoped dropping the blood pressure medication would make me feel more awake, but so far it hasn't.  I got to the office about 9:30.  Ron had a 10:00 job scheduled.  He returned from that about 12:30, just long enough to pick up a different set of tools for the next two jobs. 

One of those jobs was at the island, so he was gone most of the afternoon.  I did the filing, closed out several files from last year.  Now I need to box up all of the papers from 2015 for storage.  I am waiting for the bank statement to finish the reports for the accountant.

There were plenty of customers to keep me busy.  It was late before I had time for my lunch and then the afternoon went by in a blur.  When Ron got back, he finished the inventory and was going to send that information to the accountant.  I stayed until after closing time, running checks on Ron's math on the inventory.

When I got home I fixed our supper and he arrived about the time it was ready.  After supper I read for a while and then fell asleep in the recliner, waking up about 11:30.  I had a message from our daughter-in-law in New Mexico that she was still up if I wanted to chat.  I called her and we talked mostly about their house hunting.  They need to move by the end of the month.  They have not found a place yet that meets their needs.

While we chatted, I worked on the binding on a quilt and I just have one side to finish on that quilt.  It is always nice to be able to see "the light at the end of the tunnel."  While chatting, I was using the wireless phone clip for my Cochlear Sound Processor.  It does make a big difference in being able to hear on the phone.  I am so glad they keep improving and inventing new tools for the hearing impaired.

January 5, 2016

A Doctor Visit and

A Cousin Visit

January 5, 2016

My cousins came to visit.  What a treat!

 

This morning I was up early.  I finished doing some picking up around the house.  I love having time to do my cleaning in the mornings.  I had a 10:20 appointment with my heart doctor.  He is a very nice, gentle man and it was a good visit.

When I was in the hospital a couple of weeks ago with chest pains, I was given a couple of new medications.  One of them was making me retain fluids and one was causing a lot of bruising.  I asked the doctor about both and he said to drop both.  So that was good news.  One also makes me very sleepy.

From there I went to Mom's house again, to visit more with my cousins.  We chatted for a couple of hours before going to Oyster Bar for lunch along with my brother-in-law, Jim.

I used the wireless microphone for the Cochlear Implant both at the doctor's office and at lunch.  I worked VERY well both places.  I did not have to ask the doctor to repeat anything.  At lunch, it went well, but there were a couple of minor disadvantages.  I gave it to my cousin Ann while we were at the table.  I was able to hear her very well, but it made her louder than my cousin, Jean, who was sitting next to me.  The other thing was, Ann received a phone call while we were eating and excused herself to take the call.  She was about 25 feet away and I could hear every word she was saying.  I will have to be careful of situations like that.  It was not a highly confidential call, but it could have been.

Following lunch, we came to my house and visited for a while.  I showed them some of my quilts and they enjoyed seeing them, but neither one of them was ready to sign up for lessons.  After a while, we drove around town looking at several places familiar to them before coming back to my house for a few photos before saying good-bye. 

My cousins with my mom.

 

When we were little, Ann, Jean, and I enjoyed our limited time together.  We did not see each other very often, but always had fun when we were together.  I appreciate them taking time to come visit.