MORE PT!

7 am

                I finally updated to Windows 8.1 and now – I can no longer scroll using the touchpad, and the page for writing here takes up the entire screen. It is very odd. Ok I suppose, and I probably just need to do some v simple thing to get the scrolling back. Also, I am sitting here in the chair in the living room w/o my glasses and so all is quite fuzzy. There was a time not that long ago that I could readily do close things w no glasses. Sigh. All changes. I have an appointment next week to see the eye dr and then will probably get new lenses as I think I need stronger. I am back to people being fuzzy when I am trying to talk to them. I will stick with the same frames, so that will not be too costly.

                I saw the Dr yesterday and have now moved from PT (torture) 5x per day to PT (torture) 10-12 x per day. Joy. Shorter more frequent is what he said. Still, it will take more time. It will mean that really that is pretty much what I spend my days doing. He wants me to get my full range of motion back. Arm over head is not bad, but to the side really sucks and I feel like it is going very slowly. We took a walk last night after supper and it felt so odd just trying to swing my arm normally. And all the neck and back muscles really hurt. The other thing we did manage to do last night was to finish plucking/cleaning up Bart. So that is very successful. Now I will have to get K to help me with all the others. Basically he held, I plucked, brushed or clipped.

                I also met G at Goodwill where she found great boots for herself, and a GREAT body suit for me! It is a full body zip up overall to wear come winter for feeding buns. Easy and warm and great.

                I tried something last night…. Back story: we got a pamphlet for those cd/DVDs of Great Courses, and as my neigbor said she does, I marked the ones that were interesting, looked them up in the library, and requested some. One is about exercising your brain, which I am feeling like I really need, especially in terms of word use and finding words. I am starting to really lose words and assume it will only get worse and worse. So … I decided while I wait for the dvd to arrive, I ought to try my hand at some crosswords. I did two on-line. They were actually fun! Probably because they were super easy. None of these obscure words that one must look up in a crossword puzzle book. Just usual words that I knew. And to be honest, they were still kind of hard for me. It is hard to think of a word just from a sometimes not very good clue and a few letters. But then if a get another letter or two, I can get it. Satisfying. So perhaps this is something I can do of an evening.

                Well for today, what? I have so much food cooked. But still so many vegs. I may do the eggplant pizza which sounds good. Have the soup, hummus, pita, salad for lunches. We have a woman who will be renting a room at the rental house staying in the basement for a few days. She seems quite nice, but I hope she keeps herself plenty occupied. We need to get M’s room cleaned and fixed – the old skylight needs to be sheet-rocked. And then I need to talk (text) to K about her plans as I will need to have some time to clean up there before the new renter arrives, which I assume will be Mon the 1^st. And I am supposed to go to the farm for the weekend. It might have to be just a Saturday trip.

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Trying to DO Things with a sore arm

6:45 PM

                Well here’s something new and different – Evening Pages. Not a bad idea actually. K has gone to meet a potential renter, and I am here writing. Lovely. Only first I am going to look up 2 things that I carefully stashed in my memory house to remember to look up: how the moon’s plane of orbit relates to the earth’s, and what is that dark green thorny plant growing out of the compost bin….. and perhaps I will look up the movie Boyhood that I saw last night.

                Well that was interesting. I did not find the plant, but think it must be some kind of nightshade or eggplant. And I got what I needed re the moon. It’s plane of orbit is 5 degrees off from the earth’s, so somehow that means that the moon appears to travel north, then south in its elliptical over the course of any month. And how much it travels varies over something like 18 years. So there you go. Did not look up Boyhood. Will do it later. I am tired now.

                Was a busy damn day. PT which is exhausting all in itself. I actually drove. I guess I will drive myself to Dr tomorrow, though I am not that thrilled about it. It is actually hard to drive as I really cannot use my right arm very much. I think I will leave early enough to go to the dump to drop off all the accumulated stuff. Including some of the fire damaged books from….. 20 years ago…. I have saved out some of them and spent a while today looking up places that do repairs. I will call a guy in Sept who might be able to fix them. I must see how much it would cost. And I could have someone do the Just So Stories too. And maybe the copy of Two Little Indians. I sure would love to get all those fixed.

                Other thing I focused on today was cooking. I made some hummus, and some pita bread. We can eat those tomorrow. And I made soup for today’s supper since it was pretty chilly today. Still barely made a dent in the veggies! The pita bread worked up well, so I think I will be ok with making some pizza dough and making a nice eggplant pizza. Maybe Friday.

                Yesterday I managed to flesh the hides that I had put to soak in alum and salt. Then I put them to soak for another 5 days. By which time they should be done. Trouble is that these hides have really matted hair on them I suppose I should have removed the hair first and just done these as skins, but too late now. I suppose the best thing will be to clip the matts off once they are done and dry.

                Poured with rain today. Actually good as we needed it. I think tomorrow will be nicer so maybe I’ll be able to clip more grass/alfalfa/weeds for the bunnies.

                Ok, my arm aches. Time to stop.

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Goodbye Sling!

6:45 am

                Sling is off!!! Goodbye sling. Now I must get used to being without it. And I must actually use my arm for things like eating and typing (as I am doing right now). I had it off all yesterday and it was ok though sore and hard to get comfortable. And it was hard last night. I started out in the bed, but then it was hurting too much so I reverted to the recliner again. I guess that will take a bit of time. Not that I mind the recliner at all. I actually quite like it.

The day looms ahead. I am turning into a total slug. Yesterday I went to pt at 8, then a meeting re the Ag Ed area at the fair, then on to the Univ to pay the tuition bill (next to last one!) then I took the bus home and by then (noon) I was totally beat and spent most of the rest of the day vegging. The fridge is now jam-packed with (so to speak) veggies, and I do need to deal with them today. And at the end of the day yesterday I attempted to finish plucking Bart, which I had started last week. Well it was really hard and I have to be careful not to yank my arm or end up using it too much. I think most of what is left will need to be clipped off. And then there are Dylan and Ethyl who will also probably need to be clipped, and Gnatalie, and then Amber who I can probably pluck. And then there is Gimli. Bad news: Fantasia has a bad case of Pastuerella. She is really wheezing. It is really sad. But I cannot just put her down bc she has two really pretty babies. I guess I won’t be able to keep or sell them, but I want to get them weaned before I put her down.

                Being a slug is actually rather comfortable. Satisfying, well I suppose not because I so identify myself with what I DO. And if I don’t DO a lot then what am I worth? But so much of my time the things I do are mostly just busy work. Today I will have to put a lot of effort into dealing with vegetables. And who the hell will care if I cook up a bunch of eggplant? The last batch I cooked I ended up throwing half of it away bc it went bad. Well I’ll do the best I can.

                And soon too soon my sluggishness will be moot as work will start back up and then it will be all just craziness. I need to get the labs out and read them over and start planning out the prep work etc. I hope things will be ok with my arm fairly useless. I guess they will have to be.

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