Welcome to Esther!
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Home, Relationships
I’m a Mémé! Otherwise known as a grandmother 🙂 My baby girl had a baby girl on Sunday, September 11. Little Esther is absolutely beautiful, of course — she looks a lot like her mother did as an infant.
Both Momma and baby are healthy. I’m fortunate enough to be in Omaha with them for now, and I’m enjoying every minute of my time here. There’s nothing else like the smell of a sweet, clean infant. It’s definitely worth all the sleep loss.
We’re getting lots of good singing and reading time together. I was very happy to be able to find Pamela Ballingham’s Earth Mother Lullabies from Around the World series (volumes I
One of the first books I bought for her? A is for Activist
Tags: Esther
Addition: Task Card Template
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Announcement, Home
I’ve updated the article on our card system and added a Word document that has blank task cards, to help people make their own cards. That has been requested by several different people over time, and I finally found the original Word document, which made it easier to do so.
I’m considering further updates to that section, as some of the resources I originally linked to have disappeared and it seems to need more explanation. I’ll think on it a bit more, though.
What is the first thing you see when you walk in your house?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, Critters, Home, NaBloPoMo
The NaBloPoMo prompt for today:
What is the first thing you see when you walk in your house?
Right now, the first thing anybody sees is Sam’s desk. No, that isn’t precisely right. If you’re looking straight ahead at the wall, you see a collage by Katie, which is much lovelier.
Tags: Art, cats, Home, Katie Armistead, NaBloPoMo, Sam Chupp
How do you feel when you return home at the end of the day?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Health, Home, NaBloPoMo
The NaBloPoMo prompt for today:
How do you feel when you return home at the end of the day?
I’m not sure I should have answered this one, as I doubt that my answer will be in sync with the intent of the question. I don’t leave home every day to go to work, or leave home every day, period.
However, when I do leave home, how I feel when I return depends on many factors. How did I feel before leaving? How long was I gone, and how much physical, intellectual, and emotional energy did I have to expend while I was out? Did I have to deal with anything unexpected, good or bad? How many people was I around? Were they strangers or people known to me? Did I encounter them all at once, or in small groups of one or two at a time? Was Sam with me as a buffer? fHow’s my blood sugar? Am I well hydrated? What was the weather like? Did I remember to take my regular medications? What about taking breakthrough pain medication, anxiety medication, or a muscle relaxant before I found myself in a state where they wouldn’t work very well? Did I use my scooter if there was much walking? How noisy was the environment? Was it drafty, or overly hot or cold? Did I have to drive? Was I out to do something I wanted to do, or was I doing something I had to do?
Frequently, I’m so dog-tired that I can barely drag myself in the door. I have actually fallen asleep sitting in the car, in the driver’s seat, more than once. (There are plenty of reasons that I do not drive much any more.) Dealing with the security system seems an intellectual challenge designed for Einstein. I’m easily confused and my memory is beyond poor. Even if I am dehydrated or I need to eat, I’m too tired to be interested in food or even water. If I was out for too long, or if it was a particularly stressful period, I get a fever and my body reacts as if I’m in shock. I feel like I’m freezing, no matter what the actual temperature around me is, and I start shaking badly.
So that’s how I feel most days when I return home at the end of the day, if I’ve had to leave home. I think that should go a long way towards explaining why I’m such a homebody these days! I am fortunate in that I have Sam, Katie, and others in my life, so I am able to have a fulfilling life without being very adventurous.
Tags: chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic illness, fatigue, Fibromyalgia, Health, Home, myalgic encephalomyelitis, NaBloPoMo
Fall Cleaning
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Family, Gratitude, Health, Home
It has to be fall cleaning because it’s September, right? I haven’t done spring cleaning at any time since we’ve lived in this house, honestly. I haven’t been able to do it. But between a new pain specialist who isn’t all the way on the other side of metro Atlanta (who actually listens to me and treats me like an adult human being who might know a thing or two about who own body, even!) and new, apparently much more effective dosages of two other medications, I’m feeling better despite that other new pesky health thing. And Sam and Katie have been wonderfully cooperative, as much as they can around work and school obligations.
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That A/C thing
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Home
Apparently the filter for the unit is missing, and the coils need to be cleaned. There’s no obvious sign of mold/mildew, but Sam says that fresh air is coming into the bedroom via the unit, and our neighbors on that side have been burning something in their back yard.
I found the web site for the manufacturer, and of course the manual for our model isn’t there. The self-service section of the site does mention that the coils need to be cleaned, but doesn’t say how to do it. I suspect that it involves coil cleaner and a hose. Coil cleaner seems to come with a/c service people. I’ll have to ask my father if we can get some and use it safely.
Sam remembers a filter, but hasn’t seen it since we moved here, so we may have to order a new one from the company. Of course, their not-helpful site doesn’t have any information about parts, either. So I sent them an e‑mail, and hope that they’ll reply.
They asked me to do a review about my experience with their site. That was probably a mistake on my site, but I did it. Their ratings may have just plummeted.
Now the girl and I need to get to work getting the house ready for our Dragon*Con guest next week. I hope the “guest room” isn’t too hot for him! Maybe I should put up a Freecycle post looking for another window unit?
Tags: air conditioner, allergies, window unit
I’m Allergic to Our Bedroom
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Health, Home, Reading
More specifically (I hope), something in it. Not Sam, happily, but every time I go in there, I’m all stuffed up within a few minutes.
We keep that room closed and have a window a/c unit in there, because the house a/c just doesn’t keep up so well.1 I’m wondering if there’s something about the air not circulating to the rest of the house that’s causing dust to settle in there?
The cat is seldom allowed in the room at all, and we don’t have any other pets. There aren’t any plants in the room.
We haven’t been using the air cleaners, because I can only get their filters by mail-order and just didn’t get around to getting new ones. I guess I need to order them and see if that helps.
Bah.
In nicer news, the girl and I went to the nice library today. I had gone through my “to-read” shelf at Good Reads and requested a bunch of books. More of them than I expected came through all at one time, whereupon I learned that they allow a maximum of 75 books to be checked out at once. Whoops! I had to put two back.
I have plenty to read now, though!
1 We had to put a unit in Katie’s room, too–it really wasn’t factored in to the tonnage on the a/c unit when someone finished a former garage, and it doesn’t have enough ducts. Now we need one for the guest room.
Tags: allergies, Books, library
Readings & Socializing
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Family, Home
Note: This entry went in a totally different direction than where I thought I was headed! It got very long, and wandered around a lot. I got into something that’s really been eating at me for a long time, though, and I’d really appreciate some feedback.
I should have my microphone taken away. I recorded several more poems for some reason, but haven’t posted them anywhere because I really love hearing them with the music Sam adds. His editing expertise always makes me sound much better, too! Sam got me worried about copyright issues, which is why I haven’t posted them to Live Readings yet.
I miss readings. Live gatherings of people, closely or loosely connected, who come together to share passages of prose or poetry with each other. Not the sort where people get up at a podium, or an event arranged for a particular author, just friends and acquaintances sharing the joy of the word. If there are authors in the group who share passages of whatever they’re working on, so much the better! If not, well, there’s a wealth of material out there that just begs to be heard, that cannot be fully appreciated on the page. I owe my discovery of G.K. Chesterton to such a group, and a renewed interest in Mark Twain.
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Tags: fellowship, readings, socializing
And That’s the Week
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Family, Health, Home, Love
I consider Sunday the first day of the week, rather than the last.
It was a week full of appointments for the girl, and getting paperwork shuffled to various bureaucracies. Sam and I had lovely dates Wednesday and tonight, although both of us were so exhausted Wednesday that we turned in much earlier than usual.
Tags: aggravation, chronic illness, doctors, health care, Katie, Love, medications, migraines, prescriptions, Rant, Sam
Sam and Saturday
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Family, Fun, Home, Love, Parenting, Relationships
Yes, it was another date night. Yay! (They are the highlights of my week, with good reason.) The girl went out on a date, so we had the house to ourselves.
It still feels odd, at times, not to have any kids around, and not to even be worried about picking them up. We like the young man she’s dating, so we feel fairly good about her being out with him, and don’t get very nervous. Still, there’s a certain level of awareness that never seems to go away when you can’t personally verify your child’s immediate wellbeing.
In any case, it was a lovely evening. I do love my Sam, and he never does stop spoiling me.
Tags: date night, Katie, Love, Sam