Monday, January 29, 2024, MN

 The sun is shining for the first time in many days and it gave me a bright and happy feeling just as soon as I opened the blinds and sat down with my coffee. I’m looking forward to my morning walk once Joey drags himself out of bed.  He usually stays in bed for quite a while after I get up and then he falls asleep next to me while I read the news,  I really like that about him because I like the quiet morning solitude before getting moving.

The last three days have been recovery mode, I guess, as I was feeling exhausted from my ordeal on Wednesday.  I feel like I did the right thing but also am confused as to what was really going on and it hasn’t shown its ugliness since then.  

I’ve been working on some needle felting projects and this is the latest.  Guess I better make another bird to go with it.  I’m also working on some valentines. I was running out of a few colors, so I drove to the StevenBe Yarn shop yesterday.  That is an incredible store with absolutely beautiful materials for anything related to fiber.  Genevieve told me about it and I’m thankful for that. It’s an experience just going through the two floors of the incredible colorful and friendly place.  There is a large, ell stocked area of colorful wool for felting and it is sold by the ounce - so nice to know what you are getting rather than taking a chance on buying it online.

I got an email from Rudy this morning, thanking me for my empathy and letting me know that they put Sonja to rest on Friday.  He says that he is fine, with lots of loving family and friends to help him through this and adjust to the emptiness.  

Thursday, January 25, 2024, MN

 What a turn of events the last two days.  I woke up at 3 am yesterday with a very uncomfortable pressure pain in my chest, especially when taking deep breaths, and also indigestion.  I sat and contemplated what was going on for a few minutes and decided it might be something serious, so I called 911, grabbed my ‘to go’ bag, unlocked the door, put Joey in his crate and waited. I got a ride to Methodist Hospital ER in an ambulance where Ben met me and I spent the rest of the day getting poked and prodded and tested to figure out what was going on - symptoms were typical of blockage of arteries.  I had chest X-ray, Covid, RSV, and Flu tests, EKG, Ultrasound of heart, and angiogram, and several doses of nitroglycerin. A heart attack and blockage of arteries have been ruled out but I’m still confused about the pain with deep breaths and that it dissipated with nitroglycerin. 

I was admitted for observation and crashed once I hit the bed in spite of the person in the next bed who was loud, needy, and her tv and lights were on all night long but I was able to sleep through most of it.   She is an impatient, demanding, sometimes rude, and grumpy lady.

The cardiologist visit this morning informed me that the pumping action of the muscle of the left side of the heart is weakened (can be age related) and an additional medication should help that. Follow-ups are scheduled a few weeks out with cardiologist and general practitioner.  The next step is to investigate the esophagus and intestine because the pressure pain from those areas is similar to that of heart attacks.  Deep breaths are still painful.  What a day!

Monday, January 22, 2024, MN

After all of the years that I have been a plant lover, have had a few Orchids, this is the first time I have ever had one rebloom.  I keep it on the north facing windowsill and it never gets at direct sunlight, I fertilize it with my regular houseplant fertilizer, and it gets one ice cube every 3-4 days - but it must be happy there.

Saturday, January 20, 2023, MN

 It’s been a cold, cold week (lows between 0 and 10°) with very short walks with Joey.  We’ve attempted to go around my building complex a few times but he ends up with cold feet and I have to carry him back inside.  The forecast for next week is looking much better, heading back to the 30s.  I’ve been sticking close to home with the exception of a haircut on Monday, Charlotte’s 6th Grade Choir concert on Tuesday, and volunteering for food truck on Wednesday.  Yesterday, I had enough of feeling cooped up, so I dropped Joey off at doggy day care and did some shopping and stopped for a taco at Taco John’s.

This ad came up in my Facebook feed this morning and it brought back some memories.  We had one of these back in the early 70s while living at Grandma Bridge’s house on Dayton Street in Madison.  One memory is of a trip to KC and we took my Dad along.  On the way back home, we hauled a heavy wooden antique hide-a-bed that Bob was storing for us, it was opened up in the back of van (where Pat and my Dad rode). The van overheated just past Dodgeville & my Dad plugged the leak in the hose with Pat’s gum and we made it back home safely.  In those days, a trip to KC took us 10 hours to drive as there were no interstate highways yet.

It was a chili kind of day, so after a little nap this afternoon, I made a pot of chili and invited Deb up to join me.  We always have a good time chatting and find plenty of topics to cover.

Saturday, January 13, 2024, MN

 Well, there has been a strange turn of events.  Ramona, whose home I just cleaned on Thursday passed away today.  She was in great shape on Thursday and I was looking forward to repeat visits and learning more about her and hearing her stories.  Sad news.  I guess you just never know.

Winter is here.  The forecast is for -25° chill factors for the next few days, so Joey and I will be taking short walks.  He really needs some running, so this morning I took him to the library, shut the doors and played ball for a few minutes.  He’s really good about returning the ball if I have a handful of treats or another ball to relay.  I dug out his jacket and he doesn’t like it at all, thinks he’s being punished.  Too bad.

I went to want Norah and Camille play basketball this morning.  They have really improved, and played hard and good defense, but they lost 32 to 12.  Camille got two of the baskets. 

Thursday, January 9, 2024, MN

 As I was heading for my walk with Joey this morning, it was about 17° out but the sun was shining and that made a big difference.  I heard some chirping, so glanced up into the crabapple tree next to the sidewalk and it was full of Cedar Waxwings. I was really surprised to see them this late into winter, as they usually pass through in the fall on their migration to warmer areas.  I guess they are confused with the warm fall-like weather we have been having. I hope they make it to somewhere warm before long, as the weather is turning quickly.

I started my new cleaning job for Ramona (the first Ramona I have ever met) and all went well. She is a sweet 93-year-old who is sharp mentally but has some physical challenges.  A daughter lives with her but works full-time, so doesn’t keep up with the housework. Ramona also has personal care, nursing care, and another gal who does errands and other jobs around her house, so she is well cared for.

I noticed this great carving on a tree stump on my way to Ramona’s house, so when I headed back home I had to stop and take a photo.  I also spotted these two deer peeking through the trees at me - so nice to see this right here in the city of Bloomington.

Monday, January 8, 2024, MN

One day a few weeks ago, as I was looking for something on a past blog post, I realized that instead of a photo, there was a blank square with a ? in its place.  I did some research, sent a question to Google support, asked my son and still couldn’t figure out what was causing this.  I looked back even farther and found that it all started in March of 2023.  Finally, last week, I learned what the issue was - Google no longer supports the photo addition part of the app (BlogTouch) that I was using for my updates. I learned this because I actually got a reply to a follow-up message to Blogger support.  What this all means is that I now have to write my posts on the actual Blogger website and not use the app. I also need to go back and manually upload all of the photos again and that will be a big job. It is how I used to do the posts, but since my laptop computer died, I use only my iPad and the app was easier to navigate. Enough of techie issues.

Last week was pretty slow paced. I didn’t have a lot going on.  I decided to give my bathroom a good cleaning, so took everything off the walls and started to scrub.  I accidentally pulled the pull cord on the wall, immediately shut it off, expecting that it would cancel the call to the fire department. NOT.  It wasn’t long and there was a loud knock on my door and I opened it to find 3 firemen there to check on me.  I felt embarrassed and apologized - they said that it happens all of the time.

I helped out with the food truck on Wednesday and the great thing that we got was frozen blueberries. They are big and beautiful and there were some leftover so I was able to get a couple of bags for Ben’s family.  A few weeks ago, we got frozen apples and I didn’t know what to do with them, so I made some yummy applesauce.  We also got frozen strawberries, big, beautiful strawberries, so I made jam from them yesterday.  I didn’t realize how much sugar it took to make jam but it is equal amounts of sugar and fruit plus the pectin.  I may have to find a low sugar method if I do it again.

 A gal who helps out one of my neighbors asked if I was interested in a house cleaning  job for one of her clients, so I went to meet Ramona last week and I took on another house cleaning job starting on Thursday.  I’m in good physical shape yet, so why not?  She lives just a couple of miles from me, her house is already clean - needs a touch-up every two weeks and she seems like a very nice woman.  

I finished another needle felted bird project this week.  These two are going to Randy.  I’ve just got to have something to do with my hands in the evening, rather than sitting and playing games on my iPad, so this one is keeping my interest for now.

Thursday, January 4, 2024, MN

This year started out slow and lazy and then I had a nice long walk with Joey in the morning.  I took a one-hour nap in the afternoon and then stayed on the bed for another hour, reading and browsing the internet.  Dinner was even lazy - leftovers from the night before.

I got my new crown on Tuesday and it is feeling very good and comfortable.  I’m really happy with Dr. Brar and hope that my new insurance enables me to keep going there for my hygiene appointments.

The food truck came yesterday and I helped out with that.  When I got back home, the new coat that I ordered from Land’s End arrived (I used the gift card that I got from Pat for Christmas) but it wasn’t the same as the one that I tried on at the store - it was  below the knee and I didn’t need it to be that long). So I took it back to the store and got a different one.  Good thing, as I apparently didn’t use the sale code and paid more for it than they were selling them for at the store,   I think this is the nicest an warmest winter coat that I’ve ever had ad the price was right - marked down from $239 to $84. Amazing!  And thanks to my dear son, Pat!

The last time the food truck was here, we got a large bag of frozen apples.  I didn’t know what to do with them, but last night I cooked them down into applesauce. Boy, did that turn out nice and yummy.