July 9, 2014

Long, Busy Day - But Nice!

July 9, 2014

As with several recent entries, this is a day late.  Yesterday was a long day for me.  I had to get up earlier than I have been lately and be at the office early because Ron had told me he had to take his mother to the doctor.  When I walked in the office door, he said, "Oh, Mom's appointment is tomorrow.  Sorry."  So I was at the office and so was a salesman that Ron had forgotten to tell me would be coming.

There are certain items we order from particular suppliers and the one that showed up Wednesday is one that I buy novelty keys from and accessories: key rings, colored caps for keys, key hiders, etc. Usually I need time to inventory all of that before the man comes.  I spent the first hour going through those things to place the order and then got to work on my things.  I had several letters written that needed to go in the mail and a bill or two to pay and have ready when the mailman arrived.  I needed to get my monthly reports in the mail to the accountant; he has retired and moved to the hill country, but still does my books each month.Ron

At the office, I set up a sewing machine a few months ago and I had brought some things to work on thinking Ron would be out of the office all morning with his mom.  I did work on my projects later when he left for one job.  I was experimenting to see how the machine at the office would work on applique items.  It did pretty well.  I was pleased with the result of the ice cream cone on a dish towel.

Ron went to the business that had messed up on one of our checks yesterday and picked up their check to repay us for the error they had made.  I worked on my desk again - a never ending job!  I got one section cleared, but the rest is still a mess.

Around 4:00 I left the office and went to the grocery store to pick up things for supper at our son's house.  I got rotisserie chickens and the most wonderful French bread I have found in ages, along with salad fixings and broccoli.  At our son's home, my mother had been caring for the kids all day.  As you know, our son changed jobs recently and this is his first week on the new job.  His wife is out of town with her  sister to be with their ailing father in Kansas.  That makes for some interesting days.  

The oldest grandson is in California at a camp with a friend.  That leaves six grandchildren at home.  Jeff leaves the house very early for the one hour and 15 minute drive to McAllen.  So Mom has been spending some days this week with the kids. We fixed supper and it was perfect!  The kids ate well and when Jeff finally got home about 7:15, he enjoyed his supper while we visited a little. 

Ron had supper with us and as always, took care of keeping the baby's plate filled.  I must stop calling her "the baby" but she may always hold that title.  Ron took the oldest granddaughter to the church to practice with the praise team for Vacation Bible School and took the second grandson to the church to help with construction of the backdrop for the assemblies.  I went to pick them up about 8:00 but they weren't ready to leave until 9:00 so I took a few photos and relaxed.  

The man from our church, Don, who picks up the older grandsons on Fridays is in charge of much of the construction for VBS and as always he was working hard last night with the other volunteers.  There were workers in the gym and the auditorium working hard to make covered boxes look like assorted props for the events.  

That is our grandson on the left in the white shirt and the young man in the black shirt is in medical school and in his little time off to be home to visit his family, he is working hard constructing scenery.  Way to go, Wesley!  When we left the church we returned to my son's house and I helped Mom finish cleaning the kitchen.  Our son was bathing the baby and when she got out of the tub she had her princess towel around her.  She is a sweet little princess.  

 It was 10:00 when I got home and I spent a while in my kitchen and then took my Kindle and went to bed to read myself to sleep and it didn't take long.

As for my hearing during the day, things went well at the office, but at the table at supper with a lot of giggles and chatter, it was harder, but I did fairly well.  I found at the church when talking to the workers, having no idea where the conversation would go - no advance clues - it was a little harder.  We were in huge, open rooms with very high ceilings and I found it a little hard to hear.  I had to have most things repeated.  

Our friend Don, who works with our grandsons, may be a candidate for a Cochlear Implant some day before too long.  Don has been very hard of hearing for most of his life, but his high powered hearing aids are not helping as much as they used to.  He has been very curious about mine since the beginning.  

A clue for each of you as to how hard of hearing a person is, can be the volume at which they speak to others.  We can't hear our own voices well, so we may not speak at a normal volume.  We may speak louder and louder trying to hear ourselves.  I do that when I don't have my sound processor on.  I had been doing that for several years and didn't fully understand how loud I was.  A major problem is that as we (the hard of hearing) get louder and louder, others may think we are angry and we probably aren't.  We are just thinking we have to be louder for others to hear.  (If I can't hear me, how can you hear me?)  But that is not the case.  You are hearing us, but we aren't hearing "us".  Even when we know what is going on, it is almost impossible to make our voices stay at the right volume for others to hear.