7-12-18 Thursday

Good Morning.

Too hot to plant grass seed. Too hot to grow grass so I am not mowing. The AC is on in the shop so I am organizing and making a little sawdust.

Eating remains on target. Mostly eggs and watermelon. I know that does not sound good but I do not eat them together. Most of the time.

Baby Adalyn has her 6th ear infection and she is 7 months old today. This time it is both ears and add in a little red throat. We see the ENT soon. A friend came over and saw her. Said she was spoiled. She may be a little but when 6 months of her life has been crying, fever and feeling bad, it is know better as survival . One becomes very in tuned with what will make her a bit happier. I can not help it if she has grown accustomed to the attention. I can make her world better by picking her up and walking around in the yard or down our little road. It would be great if that was all you had to do to make teenagers happy. She is growing so fast.

More later, David

Good morning,

Watermelon goes with everything. I think of you when I fill my fridge with yogurt. Perhaps my new jag will be eggs (I have been there before.)

Poor Adalyn! Of course she needs comfort!!!!! Poor thing. My DD is precariously stable right now. (Sometimes I think I can see her wavering, just about to plummet off the cliff. And then she sort of catches herself with and is stable again. Very odd.)

I don't know if you saw another post, but I think more and more that you might want to look into the book the Overstory by Richard Powers. Very, very tree-y. I'm listening to the audiobook and for the first 16 hours I thought the reader was even trying to sound like a tree with her slow, low cadence. It turns out that I had it set to 0.75 speed. I don't recommend that speed.

Off to work out. I looked for excuses not to go but my body feels fine. I am up. Dressed. Caffeinated. Maybe my car won't start.

Have a great day, all!

Shel

I finally signed up for audible. Overstory is on my list.

Good morning my family of choice ! I returned home from my 90 year old mom's TAVR valve replacement yesterday afternoon. They were able to place a smaller mechanical valve inside the cow valve she received during open heart surgery 24 years ago. The surgeon encountered what he characterized as a "surprise".. a hole above the original valve. The reflux on all of the echos was attributed to the deteriorating valve ( the flaps were basically just fluttering). Initially, he thought he'd keep her in recovery and scoot her back in for a second procedure to place a plug in the hole. They had some challenges with low blood pressure in recovery, then the plan was for the following day (yesterday). When he came in yesterday, he said he'd conferred with her Cardiologist and they'd both reviewed older echos and had come to the conclusion that the hole was most likely a dropped stich from the original surgery. They decided that it would be most prudent to let the new valve "seat" and see what kind of quality of life improvements the new valve provided before putting a 90 year old through another procedure.

I'm trying to catch up on posts I missed while gone. Habits sure are the key to weight loss/maintenance. Tuesday night I had a hotel room adjacent to Destiny USA (largest mall in NYS). (While I could have stayed with my brother or sister, we were ALL exhausted and needed some down/alone time to regroup.) The old me would have stayed in the room and pigged out on room service to self soothe. My first thought was to get into that mall and get 4,000+ steps ! Yesterday, after my 2+ hour drive home, the first thing I wanted to do after loving up the dogs, was mow the back yard and work some kinks out. I see my youngest DD struggling with self care under career pressures. She is the preceptor for nine fist year pharmacy residents at the hospital. As new doctors, they are not licensed to practice yet, and every decision has to go through her. She is on call 24/7 and everything they do is under her license. At least she walks to and from the hospital in Brooklyn and gets that think/exercise time...unless she gets a page.

Love, Love the concept of separate living areas/residences for partners/DH/DW, and think I should deactivate my "joyful" Amazon shopping button.

Paula, we're all with you as you continue to plow through that paperwork ! I remember having to request additional death certificates several times for utilities, creditors, etc. after my Dad passed. It is AMAZING !

It sounds like the surgeons are being careful with your Mom. At her age, that is probably a good thing.

Hope the healing goes well. Sounds like a lot is going on with your mom s heart. My mom had valve replacement and says she does not want it again. Difficult decisions. My mom is 87. Totally with it. I am her medical power of attorney. I have tried to get all the information on wishes and desires. It is hard. Other than her blood pressure and macular degeneration is relatively healthy.

I feel for your preceptor daughter. What she is doing is EXHAUSTING even with just one resident. I can not imagine 9!

I'm glad you are taking care of self care. I have been able to make a shift in my travel behavior, too, even if I am alone. I am so grateful.

Prayers for your mom. I think she must be *****y 90 year old? Best wishes that quality of life is better and an extra procedure isn't needed.

Poor Adalyn ! You CANT spoil a hurting baby !!

David-sick babies break my heart

Diane O.-hope everything is going well for your mom

Weight: 167

I had a brilliant topic to write about as drifting off last night and now I've forgotten it.

I feel a bit like I'm in survival mode when Rich is gone. Becca is wonderful, but requires a lot of attention. It's hard for me to give attention to things like the house, the plants, or the pets, much less myself. Maybe that's the hard part of becoming a mom. I'm still not accustomed to me time being very last. And I don't mean for that to sound so "poor old me" because it really isn't, I'm happy to do it, but it's just not my nature yet.

Sister is back from Europe trip. Happy to be home. We're happy to have her. She made such a fuss about gaining weight and now she's back and I think she looks great.

One thing that really stung yesterday, and I'll share it because it's been heavy on my heart, is that DH's old job just posted a listing with his former title. Okay, not exactly since he was in management. But it was the title he'd have received if they'd demoted him. Trying to decide if he should apply--seems pretty futile, on the other hand not much to lose. Actually, a friend of ours just had her job offered back. Maybe they thought he wouldn't take a demotion? I'm so mixed emotions. Regardless of whether he applies (and I'd put his chances of getting the job back at like 5%) the mere fact that they posted this just 10 weeks after layoffs is kind of crappy. Maybe they realized the needed more support in that role. Ughhhh it hurts. I guess sometimes corporations just want to mix up management to give the appearance of change for change's sake?!

Oh I remembered what I was thinking last night. I don't love food like I did presurgery. Almost all foods were delightful then. I could eat into abandon almost. I wasn't picky. Maybe that was a problem. Because I notice myself being much pickier and disappointed with food now that I've had surgery and so little space. I feel like I eat many more disappointing foods because of it.

I hope DH doesn't take it personally. It seems to be the way companies are handling restructuring these days. That's what happened in my department essentially. Because the job definitions changed (but the title didn't necessarily), the people in those jobs were laid off. Of my group of 4, 2 were happy to retire, 1 wanted to leave anyway, and the 4th was a great performer who they shouldn't have lost. After she was laid off, there was some contact suggesting that she apply but she didn't want to go back at that point and has since landed a great job closer to home and hopefully with more challenge/less frustration.