Today’s Activities
- Shower. DONE.
- Cat duty. DONE.
Log
07:00 AM: I’m up.
07:15 AM: Facebooked for a bit. Friend count: 594 (unchanged). Fan count: 112 (unchanged).
07:45 AM: Leaving now with sister Jojo for Friday shopping, dining, and Mom visiting. Back later.
08:45 AM: Just finished shopping at Wal Mart. Picked up some cat food, cat litter, fruit, oats, diet Pepsi for Mom, and some tear drop blue LED Christmas lights.
09:05 AM: Next, we stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts for some coffee and (what else?) donuts! I particularly like their Bavarian cream pastries.
09:25 AM: We just arrived at the nursing home. Mom is sure to still be in bed. However, sister Jojo wants to get back home earlier than normal today, so she can clean her house thoroughly before her kids get home from school.
09:30 AM: I talked to the business office about the seemingly high balance on Mom’s monthly bills. I told them that I verified this week that I agree with what they say I’ve paid them throughout 2011, but that I’m concerned that we still have such a high account balance. I asked if we could have a face-to-face meeting sometime in November, to discuss, line-by-line, all the charges and credits that Mom has accrued since she began residing there in late March, 2011. They agreed. So it appears like this issue will remain open for another couple weeks anyhow.
11:00 AM: We visited Mom after leaving the business office. Yep, she was still in bed, although she did sit up on the bed edge to talk to us. She’s experiencing what appears to be neuropathy pain in her legs once again. This is surprising because she has not felt this discomfort since January of this year. It could actually be an encouraging development; perhaps some more nerve function is returning to her legs and perhaps she could, if so, learn to walk again.
12:30 PM: Once we finished with Mom, we headed to Panera Bread for lunch. I enjoyed a baguette and Asian chicken salad, while sister Jojo munched on a sandwich and a smaller chicken salad.
12:45 PM: We then stopped at Lowe’s to look for more of the glass door knobs that sister Jojo purchased there last week. However, they were out of stock, and could not tell us precisely when they’d be getting more in or if even they WOULD be getting more in.
01:30 PM: Next, we stopped at The Home Depot to see if THEY had these glass door knobs. They did not, unfortunately. So, sister Jojo will either have to wait until they reappear at a store in this area, or look for them on the Internet. I however, had a much more fruitful shopping experience at Home Depot, as I picked up two rubber outdoor door mats for the house here, and a third mat for inside, at the west door. Hmmm, these rubber mats would make a good, non conductive surface to place at my work bench in the basement, to reduce the risk of electrocution when I’m working with electrical appliances and Christmas lights. I’ll have to pick up a couple more of these mats when next we visit The Home Depot.
02:15 PM: I’m home and all groceries have been put away and the mats have been laid out. Nice.
03:00 PM: Disassembled and cleaned the insides of the gas heaters in the basement. Yep, it’s time to fire them up. It would be nice to add a gas valve that’s operated by electricity in parallel with the built-in thermostatic valves in each heater. That way, I could install thermostats upstairs that would activate the heaters when it get’s chilly.
07:00 PM: Worked the Christmas Lighting: 2011 project.
08:10 PM: Watched tonight’s episode of NBC’s Nightly News via the DVR.
09:00 PM: Downloaded the latest batch of fifteen songs from Promo Only’s EA DFF music subscription service.
11:00 PM: Talked with [Emmy].
12:00 AM: Watched Star Trek, the original series episode: The Enemy Within, where Kirk is duplicated by a defective transporter. Spock and crew must figure out how to put Captain Kirk back together again without killing him.
12:05 AM: The daily traffic stats from yesterday for my blogs. The monthly keyword hit count fell this time, and currently stands at 988, which is down from 1009 at last check. The record high for this dimension remains at 1788. The next goal: 2000.
01:10 AM: I’ve been experiencing a steadily increasing anxiety since Mom has left that reached an uncomfortable crescendo this afternoon. I tried with some success to reduce it by working on the Christmas lights and talking with [Emmy]. But it returned after all that was finished. So I spent the last half-hour journaling about it. What is apparent to me now is that this sadness has multiple contributing factors, and in tonight’s journal session, I identified all the obvious ones, and will set to work in the coming days and weeks to address this. In short, the bottom line is that I spend too much time alone, and have too little perceived control over how my life is unfolding. While it’s true that I like being by myself much of the time, I still need SOME social interaction with others. Also, while I’ve conceded long ago that we humans have only marginal control over the turns our life’s journey makes us take, I’m frequently frustrated that we have SO LITTLE control. Will discuss both these facets more when I come up with a plan to deal with them.
01:15 AM: Headed for bed. More tomorrow. Good night.
Tom Hesley
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Good night.