Thursday, November 19, 2009

Dishes

After 146 pages, 25,000 words and nearly 11MB, it’s done.

Our marketing group finished the paper last night. Our print shop here at work bound it for us for free, because well, here in the country, people are kind like that. And there’s a matching PowerPoint to go with it. I did that piece. I actually did a little bit of the paper, but the other 3 ladies in my group made that thing happen.

And at 6pm tonight we turn in this behemoth paper and present the PowerPoint. By 7:15, we have our lives back.

And while writing right now sounds like the absolute worse thing to do ever, I am taking time to write this. Because I’m happy it’s done. And I have great ladies on my team. And we’re all coming back next term to get through the capstone course together. We figured if we did well this time, why not go for the repeat?

So when I get home from class tonight, I’ll get on Facebook and check my farm and do all of that. And then tomorrow I’ll come to work and manage all the piles on my desk. I very well may just make a bunch of to-do lists for each project. I know there are lots of little odds and ends I need to accomplish. Tomorrow night will be heavenly. I have some things I need to get done, but I’m not even stressing about it. Saturday we have NOTHING on the agenda. Wow.

This means I’m going to have to do dishes, doesn’t it?

Sunday, November 15, 2009

nothing special

Just a quick post to say that life is good, today is good and marketing is over on Thursday at 7pm, when our presentation is done.

Sleep and time offer fresh perspectives on things. And that always helps.

That and a clean kitchen.

Friday, November 13, 2009

and one more...

Oh, yeah, there’s one more crisis. The garage door opener broke. Gave up the ghost.

It’s OK. They were broken at our last 2 houses and we didn’t care. People here all ask so when will you have it fixed?

My answer is always in 3 years.

They just don’t get it down here!

updates

First of all, I scheduled my apicoectomy for Monday the 23rd at 1pm. I start my day in Chicago and end it in the dentist chair. What fun. I decided to pay for it by not paying any bills this pay period. While this does not make me happy, neither does tooth pain. Somewhere in there, I will make sense of the money situation.


I could schedule the dreaded apcioectomy because next week holds 4 presentations – 2 for work and 2 for class. There’s one more on November 30 and that is all. But all of the ones next week are officially a big deal, so to have them out of the way will be nice.

One crisis solved.

Since I made the executive decision to not do the final case for my marketing class, I have felt a huge burden lift from my shoulders. It was even better when the rough draft of our group project was returned to us last night. We were afraid that we had headed woefully down the wrong path. Instead, we are very much on the right path. Everyone is relieved, assignments have been doled out and now it’s crunch time. We can see the end of this nightmare. We’re the first group to present and we are elated to be done!

Second crisis solved.

I finally was able to talk to my sister on the phone uninterrupted for an hour this week. We’re all caught up and have solved all the world’s problems. She’s Republican. I’m a Democrat. We work well together, just as long as she never has to touch raw turkey.

It was good to talk to Kim about various things. We used to live 4 blocks apart. Now we live 2 hours apart, but through the miracle of the internet, I can still read the local papers and keep up on that stuff. So I still know all about the school board and the latest library news and all of that jazz. While technically not a crisis, it was good for my soul.

So, third crisis solved.

I did rearrange my schedule this week to make it to an H1N1 clinic. I have now received both my regular flu shot and my H1N1. My arm is sore. I got Renee her first round of H1N1 – she still needs another one of those and then a regular one as well. Lucky her. Ted is unprotected. Gotta fix that.

So one crisis sorta solved.

Speaking of sewing, none has happened, but that sounds like a plan tonight. I need to sew for my mental health. Yes, I know my house is cluttered and that this next week will be crazy with school and that people are coming to stay overnight before the big trip to Kansas . I need to sew. Sew be it.

A fifth crisis to be solved.

And a few to-do’s:

Roast some pumpkins and their seeds.
Mail that baby gift!!!
BBM that check.

I lead such an exciting life.

Monday, November 09, 2009

more plodding

It’s another day in the life. I didn’t get any sewing done this weekend, except for marking up those denim circles. I was just overcome with that tired feeling and I went with it.

I’m having an exceedingly hard time in one of my grad school classes. Last Thursday the prof announced that if a student was satisfied with their grade prior to the final, they did not have to take the final, which is a very large business case. The points in the class are divided 50-50 between individual performance and group performance. Group work brings my grade up and individual work brings my grade way, way down. So I have made the executive decision to end my grade once the last coursework is turned in. If I try the final case, I will no doubt bring my grade down. I don’t know if I will end up with a C or a B, but as long as it’s at least a C, I’m OK. My math has my grade at a very low B.

And so that is my executive decision. Now to finish off my part of the group work, which will be all complete by about 7:30pm on 11/19. (But who’s counting?)

Sunday, November 08, 2009

general stuff

It’s now the weekend and I am happy to report that I have gotten many wonderful hours of restful sleep because Ted is home. No one can make me feel more relaxed than him. It’s been this way since Day 1. So I’m doing pretty good after 2 nights of 11 hours of sleep each. I then promptly went to breakfast with some friends and that also did this body good.

I’ve figured out with my tooth that if I medicate with over the counter pain medicine BEFORE I start eating for the day, I can cope much better. Once the jaw starts working, it’s not fun until the pain meds kick in. If I can keep this regimen up after the antibiotics cease, then I can buy myself some time.

I also have put up 7 cups of parsnips and turnips for stews this winter. I still have 4 pumpkins to put up. Lucky me.

I have decided that the next step is working on the denim quilt. I went ahead and cut a bunch more circles out this week while Ted was gone. Then while the move Akeelah and the Bee was being rerun on Disney this afternoon (probably the only time that I actually condone watching Disney), I went ahead and put the squares on 50 circles. That will make 2 denim blocks. I need 25 and I think I have 3 done already. Slowly but surely.

For my next quilting project off of my UFO list, I will work on one of my reversible items. I’m not sure which one, but it will be one of them.

As long as the calendar says 2009, I get to pick my UFOs. Once the calendar rolls over, then the random number generator is involved.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Plodding

Today is yet another day in tooth purgatory. Today my sister told me that her two front teeth (one of the front ones and the one to the side) are definitely dead after the she fell and faceplanted in July on her hardwood kitchen floor. My tooth is giving me a dull ache. I’m on Aleve and antibiotics. Such is life. She and I are singlehandedly putting endodontists’ children through college.

Last night, our local Schlotzsky’s hosted our Brownies troop – all 22 girls and the 4 moms. They really understood how to give a tour and we all made our own pizzas. It was a wonderful way to get dinner, have the troop do some fun activities and for everyone to socialize. Not everyone is willing to take a troop as large as ours, but they did it right.

Ted’s gone on another business trip today, so it’s girl power over at my house. Tonight we have a riveting installment of Market Day pickup and then we are coming home to pork chops in the crock pot. It’s nice to know that one aspect of my life is under control and that is making dinner.

I haven’t done any more quilting since I finished the binding on the curtain panels. (They are neatly folding, waiting in the living room to be hung up.) I have, however, kept my main floor clean, which has brought me much peace in this time of inner tumult.

Maybe I’ll work on my denim quilt. Cutting circles out of jeans may be about my speed for a while.

Monday, November 02, 2009

God has a sense of humor

“God has a sense of humor, Kathleen!” my co-worker Ann once said. Ann is (I’m assuming here – we’ve lost touch) a loving Christian. She’s also a stealth Christian – no one knows until she reveals it. Many think she’s just this quirky lady in accounts receivable – nice and fun, but quirky. But work with her, especially through adversity (any installation of Oracle Financials counts), and you learn quickly that Ann believes in the power of prayer. And God’s sense of humor. And fantastically airbrushed nails.

It is times like these with my stupid tooth that I remind myself that God has a sense of humor. Which always reminds me of Ann, but that’s besides the point. The point is that in times like this, with a recovering sick child, a husband leaving on a business trip, a car that desperately needs an oil change and an ailing tooth, I need to remind myself that God has a sense of humor.

Now if I could only figure it out.

That’s the struggle I’m having now. I get there’s a joke in there somewhere. I just can’t figure it out. I’m pretty clear that some of it, if not all of it, is a huge plot for SILENCE and STILLNESS. My life has gotten too busy. I realize this and have started to say no to things – at least I am not making it worse. However, my body is choosing to revolt against me and force some silence and stillness. If I can’t move, then I must force myself to be silent and still. More than once this weekend (I stayed home sick on Friday) I was so worn that I count not even do any hand binding while watching TV. I just sat and watched The Closer a lot.

Meanwhile, December 10 cannot come quick enough. That evening is when my last final is due. It’s a take home case that we will have like 2 weeks to work on. I’m doing downright horrible in this class – I just don’t get it. This is not helping my mood. My other class makes sense, but we are on a project for which I am not in control, which is fine, but the person in control has lost control. (Ann reference – she’d pull her hair back into a ponytail at this point. If we all had our hair back in ponytails, programmers ran for cover. We meant business.) I cannot plan for this tooth procedure until I can determine when all of my class deliverables are. Once I can determine when everything is due and what I need to do to make them due, I can then think about silence and stillness.

I need to be silent and still. I need it badly. I also need money for my tooth.

So right now I pray. I pray for silence and stillness around me. I pray for wisdom. I pray for plans to be revealed. I pray.

More Toothiness

I could just cry. And this time, it’s not from the pain.

I just came back from the dentist. For the record, I really like this dentist. He caters to cowards. Even crazy middle-aged women who are terrified of needles and just want to go to sleep and wake up when it’s all done. See why we get along?

Recently, he did yet another root canal and crown thing. Each one of these is pretty pricey, because I need $1,000 of sedation (seriously – 4 appointments’ worth). I cannot be awake. I seriously can’t. I’ve tried and he’s stopped and rescheduled because I tried and I’m not making it up when I say I can’t. Sedation is my friend. (He told me I was really brave for trying.)

Well, we got through this last root canal and the world was golden! I could eat again! Yippee ki yay! I was so happy!

And then Thursday morning the pain started in an unbelievable way. By Thursday night I was on antibiotics and vicodin.

It is now Monday morning and the pain is not necessarily when I bite, but it’s all over the place. In the upper gums. Feels like the sinuses. Whee. So at this morning’s appointment, he poked and prodded and percussed and asked a lot of questions. Took some x-rays. Asked some more questions. And then he explained things to me.

I need an apicoectomy. The root canal I had is really a misnomer. I had a nerve removal. The roots are just cleaned out; they’re still there. And the roots in some people are porous and those porous pockets can hold a lot of infection. He needs to cut open my gum and snip off the bad root parts. This happens in 3 to 4 % of the population. It’s a genetic mutation.

Hi! Guess who’s a genetic mutant?

While I don’t mind being a genetic mutant, it is expensive. Like ANOTHER $1,300. Um, yeah, where am I gonna find that?

All I want for Christmas is pain-free teeth.

Sunday, November 01, 2009

Sickness Sucks

Well, it's been fun since my last post.

My tooth pain has been moving around into my gums, but it has also started to subside, as the anitbiotics have kicked in. So that my portion of the weekend.

However, Renee has the worst time of it. By Thursday at 4pm, she had over a 100 degree fever and she had that seal bark of a cough. After many harrowing incidents this weekend, including getting all dressed to head to the ER, her bronchitis has subsided and her fever has broken. Like it or not, she returns to school tomorrow.

Meanwhile, her parents are exhausted. It's been non stop laundry, cleaning and disinfecting. We've also been sleeping a lot - all 3 of us.

On a quilty note, the 2 curtain panels are DONE. 11.02 yards busted from stash! YAY!