Another Monday

Thursday, I had a garden party!! A first for me. I can't believe how far out of my comfort zone I ventured that time. It was a Pampered Chef party. I invited almost 100 people, 90 to be exact. I had ONE show up from my guest list. Of course, I had 4 there that, even though I invited them, I expected to be there. You know, a given? You expect your close friends & family to show up to support you. It was a luncheon & a lot of people work, I know that, but .... anyway, if I'd had a lot of people I would have panicked. The "boys," Don-Mike, Nick & Zach, showed up at one time or another, except Eddie, who was in school. But as far as paying guests go, it was a bust.

We had a yummy potato soup complete with potato skins which are high in potassium. And I'll definitely make it again. In fact, I have it scheduled for a meal in September. I'm proud of myself, I beat Don on planning September's menus. Usually he has his meals scheduled & I just kind of stumble through the month, sigh.

Saturday, Mother & I finished the errands we started on Wednesday. I ran out of energy & didn't get them all finished. I will try again next week.

A friend from Facebook gave me this advice:

a friend with heart problems once told me.... " Go from your personal point A to point B and stop..." " some days the points may be miles apart and sometimes they may be touching each other ..."" and NEVER LOOK BACK..." What ever you were doing will always wait for you... if not.... to bad....'

Very good advice. She went on to say, "I love that advice.... ...even tho I rarely heed it...." She & I are a lot alike, though I think I may heed it better than she does. Her son says that she schedules her illnesses, LOL.

Nick doesn't always like it when I tell him I can't do something. He woke me up at 8 o'clock this morning & said he needed new shoes. His shoe lace had broken. He wanted to go to Logan & buy his shoes. He said he hadn't worked out the logistics yet. I said I had to work today. He got huffy & said I didn't need to bite his head off.

I thought about ALCO, here in Preston, I know they have shoes. I told him to go check them out today & let me know. Meanwhile, I asked him to let me look at his shoe. It wasn't as bad as I was afraid it was. I took the shoe lace out, rethreaded it loosely & handed it back to him.

Today Vicki Atkinson, job share partner, & I plotted out when is the best time to have my gall bladder out, Monday, Sept. 21. I guess I'll call Dr. Broadbent's office tomorrow & schedule it.

Hypokalemia

I went to my oncologist, Dr. Broadbent, this afternoon. I had my normal blood check at Cache Valley Specialty Hospital. I called Nick & see if he wanted to meet us for lunch. He said he was already in Smithfield & how about eating at A&W. I said, fine. I wasn't feeling very good, so I thought I'd just bag the rest of my errands. Mother wanted to go Dollar Tree in Smithfield, so I thought we'd eat, then go to the dollar store & home.

Dr. Broadbent called me as soon as he got the results from my bloodwork. We were just getting in the car after our lunch. Scared the crap out of me. I thought my cancer markers had skyrocketed or something. Nick had already left to go back into Logan to get gas at Sam's Club. We were supposed to meet him there.

Dr. Broadbent told me my potassium level was critically low, I needed to take potassium pills STAT. He told me that a couple of times, then told me to go straight home & call my doctor ASAP. I go to a nurse practitioner. I asked him to call her. The oncologist told me I could drop over dead.

Scared me so bad. I was thinking that I've had low potassium levels before. Maybe I could just have a potassium infusion like I did last time. I decided I'd meet Nick, called Don to meet us at Sam's. I thought he could take Mother to the dollar store & I'd just drive myself home. If I was going to drop over dead, I wasn't going to have Mother in the car when I did.

Mother & I had talked about dying on the way down. I said that I had read a quote

"I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens."

— Woody Allen

Mother said her dad, Grandpa Porter, always said he wasn't afraid to die, he just didn't want to have to go through what it took to die. Grandma Porter died of pancreatic cancer & suffered a lot. Most of our family have died lingering deaths.

Don met us at Sam's. Mother was crying. Nick had a "scathingly brilliant idea." Luckily he was thinking clearer than I was. He suggested his dad take Nana home. I could leave my car at ComputerWise in North Logan & ride home with him. Don agreed. Nick decided it would be easier for Nana to get into Don's car. Mother didn't want to shop anymore.

I called Roxanne (Froeher, Nurse Practioners of Preston) on the way home. She's so level headed. I love this lady. When she said my potassium level was 2.7. I laughed in relief. I told her that my potassium level had been a lot lower than that & I was still alive. She told me people could die at 2. I told her mine had been below 1 before. I'd had an infusion, but lived to tell about it.

When we got home, I took 40 meqs of potassium. Since we don't have a couch in the front room, I laid out on the swing on the porch. Nick pampered me. He got me a pillow, took my hearing aid & glasses. Don went to the store & bought bananas for me. I'm feeling much better. But I'd better not push it & go to bed early. I've been SOOO tired & feel like I'm going to pass out every time I stand up.

Other findings from my visit to the doctor today. My gall bladder is not going to get any better. I was told to check my calendar & find a week that I could take off & have it out. Don't wait until I'm full of infection. Dr. Broadbent checked the depression behind my left ear where the bone was taken out & stomach fat put in when I had the tumor removed. He told me to check with my ear, nose & throat doctor. It is noticeably sunken.

Mother's INR level was perfect for the 3rd time in a row, which is 6 weeks!!! It was 3.0!! How cool is that?

Facebook

Facebook is a passion. It is such a time waster, but also a great way to connect with people. I was thrilled this afternoon to get a friend invitation from a friend in Indiana.

To sign up, go to www.facebook.com & fill out the simple form. Name, email, password, gender & correct birth date.

Facebook requires all users to provide their real date of birth to encourage authenticity and provide only age-appropriate access to content. You will be able to hide this information from your profile if you wish, and its use is governed by the Facebook Privacy Policy.

That's it. As with any of the internet communities, there is a learning curve. You can share as much or as little as you like. You don't have to share the year of your birth.

I just used Facebook to invite people to my Pampered Chef party this Thursday at 12:30 p.m. in my yard via Facebook's Events feature. I wrote my address & it shows Google's map & what my house looks like. Kewl, huh? Ya, I'm a little slow & I don't think the 40-some odd people I invited will come. In fact, I've already got 2 definite no's & 2 maybes.

I couldn't decide where to hold it & really want to renege on it, but ......... I'll tough it out. Don says the weather will be good. Carolyn, & any other readers, you are welcome to come, just let me know. Pampered Chef reimburses $15 to the hostess for food for the light luncheon.

I bought the best Italian bread at Wal-Mart for Sunday dinner. Yum, it was all gone before I came home from Mother's & I still had half a loaf of French bread. I think a loaf of crusty bread will be on the menu Thursday. Maybe Pepperidge Farm's French bread, which is also good.

Another reason I like Facebook is the photos. In fact, that's why I joined Facebook in the first place. I was enticed by someone saying to come to Facebook & view their photo album.

Party pooper

I am such a party pooper. I said I'd do the Pampered Chef party. I love Pampered Chef. I love to GO to parties, I just don't like to GIVE parties, grrr. I was hoping to reschedule this party, but I'm a week off. I don't have to work next Thursday, it's the week after, Thursday, Sept. 3. Labor Day is Sept. 7, sigh. It also means that I have to cook Sunday.

I hate always being tired & never feeling well. I spend a lot of time vegging in front of the computer. If I had my way, I'd never leave the house. But ... luckily, I don't. I have to get out.

Tonight the whole north end of the valley smells like one big bonfire. It has since last night. There was fire up Cub River yesterday afternoon across the road from Deer Cliff Inn.

I finished Life Among the Lava Beds by Leonard Stephenson. A fun memoir of "growing up in rural Idaho in the 1950s." He describes my Uncle Carl's family as "devoutly religious," but says my cousin Richard had no conscience. I think Richard has outgrown the no conscience.

I also picked up Plum Spooky by Janet Evanovich last night. I was going to go to bed at a fairly decent hour, but knowing what I'm like when I pick up a book, I should've known better. I knew it was time to go to bed when I started looking forward into the book. I didn't look too far, just found a piece of paper to mark my place & put the book down. It was 2:30, by the time I put the book down.

I went to bed, & as I was getting comfy, I remembered I hadn't finished my evening chores. I got up & did those by the dim, dying light over the stove & finally got back to bed at 3 a.m.

Today, I added the books I've read in 2009 to a bookshelf on my Goodreads shelf. I have only read 10 books so far this year. But compared to the last few years, that is a bunch, LOL

I'm off to finish Plum Spooky. I have Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees out from the library & today I picked up #3 in the Elm Creek Quilters series by Jennifer Chiaverini, Cross-Country Quilters. Mother listened to The Secret Life of Bees from the Idaho Library for the Handicapped & liked it.

Summer's winding down

Teachers in the Preston School District started back to school yesterday. Classes will start Wednesday. Franklin County High School classes start Monday, as does the West Side school district classes. That Famous Preston Night Rodeo is over for another year, the Franklin County Fair was a week earlier than usual.

This year they had a car show on the last day of the fair. Don-Mike entered Nan's Am in it. There were 85 cars, with the majority being from within the county. I wish they'd had a cruise in like they do in Logan, it would have been fun to see a car parade.

The Eastern Idaho State Fair is coming up. It is usually held over Labor Day Weekend. Eek! I just remembered that I have to work Thursday, Aug. 27, & I scheduled a Pampered Chef party that day. I'll have to call & reschedule. I've been dragging my feet on even getting started on the party.

Just read in the paper about giving your dog plenty of shade & water because they can die of heat stroke. So glad Shari & Kim have Mufasa at their place in the shade. I was sure worried though when we had the big wind storm. I was afraid the limbs would come crashing down on him. I also worried about their outside dog Boots being blown away.

Don-Mike has been working hard on his derby car. The demolition derby is Saturday, Aug. 22. I'm reluctantly planning to attend. I see no rhyme nor reason to a demolition derby. I bought him a mouth guard when a neighbor said to do it. She said so many of the guys don't & they get their teeth knocked out when they hit the steering wheel with their mouth.

Wednesday, Aug. 5

I posted this on Facebook earlier today:

Did 3 batches of laundry - Don-Mike's work uniforms. The dryer at their house doesn't work. Holli, tell your grandma her rental has a dryer problem. Mother doesn't dare. And those stupid apron ties wrapped around the drum & I was ready to commit Hari Kari, & rip their guts out.

It took almost half an hour to get that batch of clothes out of the washer. I wondered if I was going to break the agitator fins trying to get the clothes out. I even folded or hung those 3 batches of laundry, w00t w00t

Nick couldn't figure out how come it took so long to get lunch in the oven. I started explaining to him & Don-Mike came in & said the ties from the aprons wrapped around the agitator & the pants. Yup!!! He's been there, done that. I wondered how Mother gets them out of the washer when they do that. They're black & she can't see anyway. I was ready to come in, get a knife & just hack those darned aprons right up.

When I started this morning, there was a batch of my garments in the dryer that I took out & put on the bed. Now, before I can go to bed, I need to fold them. I also need to go to bed before Don does, so I can do that, or they'll get thrown in the chair or the hall, sigh.

I folded Nick's clothes & put them on his bed, along with a pair of denim shorts that are too big for me. I told him I only buy men's denim pants. They're the same size as the pants we are washing tonight. I folded mine & Don's shirts & pants & put them on our bed. But, I hung Don-Mike's clothes on a couple of pant hangers, took them out & laid them on the passenger seat of his truck. I hope he takes them in.

We have another batch of clothes in the washer tonight. Nick wanted his clothes washed. He told me when he found out I had washed blacks & reds (a red batch at my house includes pink & orange), I should've gone out & told him I needed his clothes. He was wearing a fluorescent orange shirt & black pants. I can just imagine the reaction I would have received. And believe me, it isn't pretty.

I also did a pretty thorough job of swishing & swiping the toilet. How can a toilet seat get so dirty in less than 24 hours??? I can understand the wash basin. That needs to be swiped every time the guys wash their hands. And how do they get black gunk on the mirror or the window over the sinks??? There's the floor too.

All, in all, it was a pretty productive day, for me. I didn't feel good this afternoon, kind of wobbly, but I knew if I gave up & laid down, I'd be down for hours, so I just kept plugging along. Don cooked supper tonight. I'm so glad. I don't think I could have done it.

Monday

Well, here it is Aug. 3 & the calendar still says July. Still have 4 pages to do tomorrow on this week's paper, but that's because I took an hour for lunch. I ran over to the DUP training seminar, stood in the doorway of the chapel long enough to hear Carolyn (Smart, president of the Franklin Company) talk about writing our own family history, got a peek at her father's diary on the table in the foyer & picked up a handout she had laying on the table. Knowing I had errands to run & they were going to have a musical program, I left. When I got back, they had broken out into departments & Beth Gunnell, from our camp, had picked up my secretarial packet. I tracked her down, in Carolyn's class. I wanted my packet sooner, not later, LOL. I'm going to hit the ground running this year in DUP.

After the meeting, Debra Baldwin came over to The Citizen. She wants to do a historical column each month in The Citizen. Rod was getting ready to turn her down, I could tell. My computer is just to the side of Rod's desk. His desk faces the door, my desk faces the wall. I turned around & said we already had the 3rd week of the month set aside for DUP & she could have it. They had told me that I could only have 350 words, but I didn't remind him of that. I suggested keeping it within 500 words. I asked Debra if she was outreach for the county, but she said she is outreach for the LoPine Camp & works for USU teaching Islamic history or something like that.

I'm excited that she did. It wasn't the best timing because Monday is a production day. But if she'd have waited & come in or call, he'd have turned her down out of hand. This area is so rich in history & it's being lost. He suggested pictures to go with it!! How cool is that?

As far as laundry goes, nothing happened on that front. I did get some errands run during my lunch hour. Yes, I took an hour. I don't know how long it has been since I did that. Picked up the rabies tag for Mufasa, paid McKenzie Law Office, got a sandwich at Subway & ran a couple of empty pill bottles over to Preston Drug to have refilled.

According to the computer clock, I have 1 minute before the witching hour.