What was your day like?

[Edwin]

I think my day is going great! I ate cooked oatmeal with raisins and milk, and had a cup of hot chocolate! Yesterday Carol fixed hot chocolate for me, and then forgot to give it to me, so I had cold hot chocolate, but it upset her more than it did me! I am actually very easy to please. I then played the piano until Carol left, because Rand is more likely to allow me to play the piano while Carol is in the house, but when I and the doggie are the only ones home, he doesn't want me to play the piano, but wants me to pay attention to him. He will normally let me do the, and he lays on the bed close to me. As long as he can stay close he feels loved. Does that sound familiar? I had a bowl of dry beans, a glass of milk, and a half a dark, slightely sweetened chocolate bar! Rand is happy to be out in the warm sunshine, so I am able to play the piano more today, even though Carol is gone. She and our daughter went to spend time with one of their knitting/spinning friends, so that will be fun for them!

I spent all week working on my income tax! I could have done it in one long, many hours session, but this is winter, and there is nothing pressing, so I worked on it for short periods of time, and that way I never felt frustrated by having to deal with, and look for all the figures! For the first many years of our married life I had an accountant prepare the taxes. Then one year a tax accountant realized that we didn't make much money, and he was a good person, so he told me, "Your taxes are really simple. Go home and do them yourself, and don't pay me what you can't afford!" That was in 1980, and I did my own taxes for many years, until year 2004 my taxes got more complicated with deprecation scedules and buiness information, so since that time, I have gathered the information and taken it to an accountant. Not having the headache, and letting someone do the taxes who knows all the laws is worth what I am having to pay. The accountant is smart enough to figure my taxes out so that I have to pay very little, and I am sure that I save enough to pay what she is charging, and then it is less complicated for me! Anyway I have them completed, and I will take them to our youngest daughter tomorrow, and ask her to deliver the figures to the accountant bedcause she drives right by the accountant's office every day! Then when the accountant completes the taxes on the IRS form for me I will pick up the completed work, and mail it to the IRS. I will have a completed copy of the completed IRS form, and I will worry about that no more!

[Edwin]

When Carol went on insulin a year ago last November, we found it to be very expensive. She wanted the pen which provide a once a day shot for her, and you twist them somehow to set the pen to put out a certain amount of insulin. She is at 85 units a day to try to keep her blood glucose level acceptable. I have a male cousin with diabetes, and he goes to Canada to buy his insulin, as he can get it much cheaper there than buying it here in the USA. With the shock of what it cost to buy the insulin, I started looking for possible help to pay for it, and I found a company that will furnish the insulin to her free of charge, which is a tremendous blessing, because we are not running over with money! I think I bought enough to last for a couple of months, and then I applied to this company, and it was accepted, so they ship this insulin Fedex from clear across the country by air in a small cooler packed with ice. They ship enough to last for 90 days. Every 90 days they ship more insulin, and they repeat that until a year has gone by and then you have to reapply for the program. We just got the application accepted, so we are good for another year which is a wonderful blessing. Yesterday I called them to check on the application, and they told me that I should call today to get a tracking number. I was given the tracking number and told that it would be delivered by 4:30 p.m. So as soon as Carol got out of bed, I told her we were going to town. We had to do the wash first as Thursday is our day to wash our clothes. We had to finish the clothes washing before going to town, so we didn't get down there until about 1 p.m. On the way in to town I stopped at the lumber building store and got 10 forty pound bags of wood pellets as we only had 8 bags left, which means we weren't completely out, but 8 bags is not enough for the long haul. Carol drank a cup of coffee, and I drank a cup of hot chocolate drink, and then we went, picked up the taxes that the accountant prepared, put them in the mail, and went to get Carol's insulin. We went and walked around Home Depot for a while, another building store, because our granddaughter is interested in a guy who works there! But we never did see him. Then we went to eat at the Dairy Queen. Carol and I split a shrimp basket, and one basket gives enough food for two people. Then after that I got a banana split, and our granddaughter got a milkshake that she shared some of it with Carol. We went on back to their place, and visited with our youngest daguhter for a little while after she got home from her work. Sunday evening we will stay in town, and the next morning we will take our grandaughter to her college class, and then bring her home, so that her mother, our daughter can go to Olympia by Seattle with a lady going to a bead warehouse. They will have fun! Then we will get 10 more bags of wood pellets, and come on home! It is funny how things work out, because until I called the insulin place I had no ideas we would be going to town! We also went by the County Courthouse, and filled out some paper work for property tax exemption for this house we live in. Here if you are over 65 years old you don't have to pay property tax for a house that you own and live in, so that is a nice little break. It is kind of funny because when we got the letter telling us about it, Carol got it mixed up with junk mail and she burned it! I woke up at 2 a.m., and realized that piece of mail didn't get to me, but I remembered getting it out of the milbox, so we got out of bed in the middle of the night and hunted for it. I called in the morning, told the pepole what happened, and they said, no problem, just come in when you get your taxes done, and so we got a lot done in town today! I also shoveled the snow away from our front door, so now we can use our front door again for the first time since before Christmas!

[crisipicada]

Today is a very busy day. I can't imagine, a lot of people come and go in the office. Until now, a lot of business men are trying to process their respective business permits. Aside from that, a lot of client submit their application for building permits.

As of last week until this week, the average deposit is 20,000 a day and as of today, the collection and deposit roughly estimate up to 921,000 pesos. Just arrive at the office now from the bank as I deposited the amount collected today.

Some of my officemates conducted lecture to establishments especially hospitals as one of their requirement for PhilHealth Accreditation. Also, some of my officemates, responded a fire call this lunch time.

So many work as far as serving the client is concerned. What a busy day really. So tiring but very fulfilling and enjoyable.

[Edwin]

Crisi, you enjoy your day, and it is fulfilling, but also it is tiring, and that is why you need your rest, good nutrition, and good exercise.

We were going to go over to my brother and sister-in-law's place this morning, but we couldn't talk to them on the telephone, and they didn't get back to us, so we didn't go. It was especially disappointing for Carol as she was counting on that, but she decided that was okay, and we will try another day.

My sister-in-law has lymphoma cancer which goes dorment part of the time, and becomes active, out of remission at other times. She takes chemotherapy part of the time for that, and she tries to be very careful not to catch other people's germs as her immunity is very low when she takes the chemo. We have to make sure she is feeling like company before we go. We might do okay for a period of time, and then it might come out of remission one time, and then she may die, and we never know. None of us knows the time, the day or the hour of our departure whether it is by our death, or whether it is at the Coming of the Lord. We need to be ready to meet with God at any time. As the tree falls there it lays, which means that when we die we face God just as we were when we died, so it pays to have our sins forgiven and under the blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!

So, we watched movies, and I played the piano. I also did a little research on how to remove paint from a tub surround for the benefit of one of the people who live in one of my houses. They are glad to remove the paint, but they had no idea how to go about it, and I am glad they asked rather than taking a scrub pad to it and damaging the surface of the tub surround! It is especially cold to day with more moisture in the air; feeling like it could snow. With the wind blowing the house is a little colder as well. I deal with the cold easier than Carol does. The cold or the heat either really bothers her.

It is almost time to eat supper and watch more movies. With the snow still deep outside, cold, and the wind blowing it is relaxing time. Soon that will be gone, and I will be under the gun to get things accomplished! I don't have to feel too much pressure, but there are a few things that I need to get done, just so life will get better for us!

[Edwin]

Today we got up, and ate our cooked oatmeal cooked with raisins, and milk while we watched another NCIS. We then went over to my brother's place for a visit. Carol tried to arrange to go over there a few days ago, but we didn't hear back from them, and then yesterday they were leaving just as Carol called. But today this morning at 10:30 a.m. we went over and had a very nice visit. They only live a couple of miles, but it was last December that last time we were there to visit. My brother is getting old, and showing his age, which is sad, because he has always been such a strong vibrant person. Well, we all have to get older eventually, I guess?

My sister-in-law is on her second round of cancer. On the first round she took a mild Chemo treatment which sent the cancer into remission, but now it has come back again, and she is taking a stronger Chemo. She said there is one that is stronger yet, but she told us that she is not going to take it, but when her cancer comes back she is just going to let the cancer take her and die. It is kind of sad. She is 9 months older than I am. Any time is too early for something like that to happen, but cancer doesn't care. They have had help with the cost of the treatments, so they have not had to put out that much, but my brother told me that the actually costs of her treatment has been about one-half million US Dollars, and that is just unbelieveable!

We just had a friend who was quite a bit younger than we are, and we got to know her when we lived in the National Park. She just died of cancer about a week ago. She played the piano, the guitar, the mandilin, and she was the music director for the singing programs that we participated in at Christmas and Mother's Day time, in this valley where we lived for that 10 years. We lived just 500 feet or so from the school, so it was really handy to just walk over there for the rehearsals and the programs. It was a wonderful place to live, and we thought we would be there forever, but our employer quit business and laid all of us off. We worked for the next concessionaire for two years, but there was too much bad politics, so it didn't work for us to stay there any longer, although I was still capable to do the job. We will always have wonderful memories of the time we lived there, and all of our wonderful friends that we had there.

[Edwin]

This is the third day in a row that I have walked 6.5 miles. It has been about 3 months since I walked at all because of my cellar job and then bad weather. I am walking on snow, a little slick part of the way, and mud in places to where I sink a little as I walk, and some of it is very nice road surface. I have done fairly well for not having walked for a while. I could feel my leg muscles just above my ankles, and then my feet are not toughened in to the walking yet, but each day I am able to walk, and I will be toughened in shortly, but no running or me, just fast walking. A guy who worked for our neighbors for several years told me that once a day he jogged about one mile a day the same road I walk on, and he told me that he ended up having knee problems as a result, so no jogging for me!

When I was teaching elementary kids I used to read a book to them, "Have you ever seen a hog jog?"

[Edwin]

We did go down for church this morning, and it was so nice to be in church! Our youngest daughter was so depressed with all of her problems that she had that she just stayed in bed, and it made us so sad. Then when we came back by after church, she just said she didn't want to go with us anywhere, but I wrote with her a little while ago, and she told me that she was just so stressed with all of her problems, and boy, she has a bunch of them. She is normally pretty good natured about it all and does a lot of joking, but it was all getting to her, so we have been praying for her, and she is okay now. She has to realize that she can only solve one of her problems at a time, and not get overwhelmed with the weight of all of them!

Our regular number on pastor is on a missionary journey in India, and so the Youth Pastor had charge of the church service. I am embarrassed to say that I found myself sleeping part of the time. I just could not stay awake. I get up unusually early on Sunday morning, and then they had that church heated too much. We keep our house cool, and it was hot in that church. That was no excuse, right? I remember when I was a young pastor feeling irritated with members of my congregation because they were sleeping! Now I am sleeping in church! Well, not all the time, just short sessions when I doze off for a minute!

[Edwin]

When I came back from walking the doggies Saturday, Carol was out picking up some pieces that had blown. She told me the water was off! That was kind of a shock, because we had everything fixed so that it should have been pretty trouble free. Carol asked our granddaughter at the other house if they had water, and there was no problem with their water. So I crawled under the house to where I could go down into the cellar. I discovered 12 or 14 inches of water down there! At first I thought a pipe had been broken, it didn't appear so, so I turned the electricity off at the breaker box. The water covered the pump motor, and I was worried the pump motor might be damaged. The pressure switch was also under water! I think what happened was that once the pressure switch got under water it flipped the breaker off, turned the electricity off to the pump, and no water. I put in long hours carrying water in buckets up a ladder after I took the roof off the cellar. I worked my legs too hard, and I had leg muscle cramps during the night. I also cleaned all the junk out of the cellar from our job working on it. I put more air in the pressure tank because when it was out in the hot sun I let air out, because the heat of the sun caused the air to expand and put so much air in the tank that there was no capacity for water. I intended to put the right amount of air back in the tank when I moved it into the cellar, but I didn't get that done. I worked long hours two days to get the water cleaned up, and today in the middle of the afternoon it was loaded with water again. I carried a couple of bucket of water up that ladder, and I decided to go to town to get a sump pump, and that is what I did. So, we watched movies for a couple of hours while the sump pump pumped the water out of the cellar. I decided to buy one because this is likely to be something that will happen every spring, and I don't want to carry buckets of water up that ladder everytime it happens. The pump is pretty neat. It has a float on it that starts the pump pumping water, and when it is all pumped out the float drops and turns off the pump. So there are not worries there. We will probably put the roof back on it tomorrow, and I will crawl down there once each day, and pump all the water out, until no more water is seeping into the cellar. Saturday I should have gone down and gotten that pump, but I had to see how hard it was to carry water first!

[Edwin]

This morning I got up, cleaned up, shaved, combed my hair and so on. Then we ate some muffins and eggs with jelly/jam and milk. While we ate we watched some more NCIS movies in DVDs that belong to our granddaughter, and she loaned them to us.

Since I started walking the doggies again, 6.5 miles each day, I have been walking just after breakfast. I have been walking again now for a little over a month. We have a late breakfast, and then I get out and walk, taking me about 2 hours, and when I return it is time to eat lunch. So we ate our lunch while watching more NCIS movies on those DVDs. For the last month most of the time I have been playing the piano, and playing here until supper time, but since we had our water trouble that schedule has be interrupted.

Today this afternoon I dug a hole about 2 feet in diameter and 8 feet deep, and let me tell you that was hard! The reason I dug it was that I set a block on it side in the wall so that I could have access through the wall, one for the water coming in, and the other hole in the block I was planning to use for a water spicket of some kind. But, I decided if I use that hole for my garden/lawn hose to pump water out of the cellar using my sump pump, I wouldn't have to cut a hole anywhere else to put that garden/lawn hose through. It worked perfectly, but I had no idea how hard it would be to dig that hole that deep. I used a shovel, a large hoe, and a set of post hole diggers! I thought that I could get that done, get an electric chord directed to where it would be more convinient to plug and unplug the sump pump, instead of crawling down there each time I want to pump water out of the cellar, and put the roof back on, but all I got accomplished was digging that hole. The other little jobs will wait until tomorrow, and that will be fine, so after pumping the water out, we put the tarp back over the lean to roof, and for now all is well! By the time I finished digging that hole supper was pretty late, but that is okay, as I made a great accomplishment. Now we have had supper, watched some more NCIS movies, and I am playing the piano, and doing this!

[Edwin]

Even though last night I slept all night, my sleep was not very restful. My muscles would not allow me to relax, because after that severe digging further than I could reach without getting on my stomach, my muscles were tense. The digging put enough stress on my right hand/wrist that towards morning I was losing feeling in two fingers and a thumb! When I would get out of bed the feeling would immediately return, but after laying back down the feeling would soon leave again. So when I did get up I was very tired. I was even tired on my 6.5 mile walk, which is unusual, but I made it. Yesterday I thought I would get the hole dug, the garden/lawn hose rerouted in the hole, the electric chord put where I could plug it in without crawling under the house, and the roof put back on the cellar. But yesterday all I got done was digging that hole and rerouting the garden/lawn hose, but I was thankful that I got that done because it was a much harder job than I realized it would be!

Today when I started walking it was raining on me, and I decided that if it rained hard enough for me to get very wet I would come back to the house, but the rain let up, and the sun shone through just a little. We had some snow last night, and the snow melt as well as the rain made the road I was walking on muddy. It was slick, so I didn't have good traction, and it was soft, so I was sinking in as I was walking, and I was tired anyway, so today walking was an endurance, but I made it, and it was okay.

When I returned I rerouted the electric chord so that I can plug into the outlet to turn the sump pump on without crawling under the house. Then we put the roof back on the cellar, so things are back to normal, making it easy to pump the excess water out of the cellar so that it does not cover the pump motor and damage it. It felt so good to have that job finished because when the water started coming in, it was almost traumatizing, so now I can relax a little, and everything will be just fine! Good feeling!