Ethan’s Journey

 I woke up pretty sore this morning. I was moving slow and everything hurt. I didn’t take the dogs for their walk up the street, they went for their “do your business” walks outside the camper.  Paul had decided to stay up at camp with a couple dogs. I decided to leave relatively early and my plan was to have a couch day. Diane had volunteered to drive me home in my car. Normally I would had just pushed through the pain and tough it out. My aunt had mentioned that as a possibility early. The seed had been planted and I took Diane up on her offer. I knew the rod was going to suck. It would suck less if I could recline and get comfy. In the car I found a position that was tolerable and we listened to some true crime podcasts casts. It made the time go quick and we were able to guess the motive prior to it being introduced. We also critiqued the murderers technique and pinpoint their sloppiness. “Everyone knows if you are going to google how to poison someone, you don’t use your ...

 I took the dogs for a walk. Later I took Moe and Penny for a bike ride up the road. I ran them pretty hard. Moe went in the lake and had a bath. Penny was still being wild. I took her for another bike ride up the road. She loves it.  I got about 2/3 RD’s of the way up the road and a car started coming. Darn it!  I had to pull the bike over and I reached down to pick Penny up. I felt a lightening bolt of pain through my back.  This is not good! The car passed and I leaned over a little to let Penny down and another lightening bolt of pain shot through my back.  I painfully got on the bike and road back to the camper. When I arrived, I immediately laid on the floor on a tennis ball. The muscles in my back were in one knot. Well…..this is the worst. I did stretching, twisting, more stretching, more tennis ball and nothing was comfortable. I decided I needed to keep moving.  I did what anyone would do in this situation on a hot day. I went out with everyone on...

 This morning I woke up and took the dogs out. I hooked up the leash to Penny and Ferguson and put Moe’s zap collar on. We were going to go for a walk up the road.  Penny went down the stairs and as I lifted Ferguson out of the camper, Moe bull dozed his way out the door, sweeping my feet from under me. As I started to fall, I spread my arms out and landed on my right forearm and landed on my right butt cheek. It was not graceful note did I appreciate the blitz attack. A series of words escaped me that could make a trucker cry. Moe was corrected and returned to the camper. We then we practiced sit/stay at least 10 times. Ouch, that hurt a little. I could feel the bruises forming. Stupid dog. Another task we will be practicing this weekend. I worked throughout the day. I had the dogs outside to enjoy the fresh air. These two stooges enjoyed the outdoors.  I finished just in time for happy hour with my aunt and uncle. We discussed our dinner plans and I was easily talked in...

 I decided that I needed some lake therapy. I started to pack up the dogs and noticed a smell. My power nose smelled bacteria, specifically infection. Where is THAT smell coming from. I inspected all the dogs and found the culprit. Moe had a hot spot starting on his neck. It was oozing and red. His collar was rubbing on it.  I had to “clean” it. I got out my clippers to shave off some fur so the air could get to it and start the healing process. When I turned on the clippers, he reacted as if I was going to remove ALL his limbs. Super dramatic. Unfortunately Moe has not yet learned that it is easier to just submit and let me do what I want. Paul is still learning this too. Since he is “special” I had to work with him and desensitize him to the noise. I wanted him to realize I wasn’t going to hurt him and he needed to trust me.  I turned the clippers on and we did fight for a bit. It took a lot of treats and patience. I touched the handle of the clippers to him just to tou...

 At work we are inching closer to our territory change as well as taking in a new work flow. We all will have new hospitals to recruit for and it will be a stressful time. However, I am trying to view it as a change that will introduce me to something I don’t even know I need in my life. Whether it is a person or people I need to meet, or some sort of lesson I will need to learn.  We have all these new team members that I don’t know well and we will all have to lean on one another to get through this time of transition which will undoubtedly build a strong bond. I worked a bit late today so that tomorrow I can go to camp with the dogs. Paul will meet me at some point. I am hoping for a fun weekend!  I was able to finally make Ethan’s dermatology appointment. I felt accomplished getting that taken care of. However, it isn’t until almost February. But it is made. Sometimes easy tasks seem hard. Now we can add dermatology to his long list of specialists. We met with the neph...

 Man the weather at night is really wonderful for sleeping. I woke up this morning and took my medications on time to avoid another mid afternoon bread incident. I started diving into all the hoops we will have to jump through to fight this $12,000 fee. I am not looking forward to it. The worry, the head aches, the frustration…oh my! I had a dentist appointment this afternoon. I don’t mind going to the dentist because my hygienist rocks! She makes me laugh. We were laughing about how Physical Therapy has become a place to see your friends and meet new ones. You neat 50 and that is the equivalent of a play date. We are all out of shape people in pain. What a delightful group. It’s kind of like an AA meeting, “Hi, I am Patti, I am here for my back.”  Then everyone says “Hi Patti”. We all state our names and ailments. I guess it’s a right of passage? We were chuckling at the ridiculousness of aging. Anyone that can make you laugh while putting sharp objects in your mouth has a un...

 Ugh! Today was the Monday-est Monday I have had in a long time. I had 6 interviews reschedule and even though that freed up 3 hours of time, I still ended up working 3 hours late.  Early afternoon I realized that I had forgotten to take my ADHD medication. No big deal, I had made it almost 48 years without it. I decided to just skip today so that it wouldn’t goof up my sleeping, otherwise I don’t sleep well. I stepped away from my computer mid afternoon for a few minutes and heard my coworker calling me. I quick ran to my computer and answered. She was asking me questions about her expense report. CRAP! I forgot to do mine.  I even had it on my list and I still forgot. How did that happen? What was I doing when I stepped away you ask? Preparing to bake a loaf of jalepeno bread. I got side tracked. I guess those meds do help keep me on track.  I did end up submitting it but had to work a bit later due to my poor decision to bake a loaf of bread in the middle of the a...

 When I woke up on Saturday morning, as I walked out of my room, my eyes scanned Avery’s room. There is no bed. Most of her belongings are gone. It felt empty. I had a wash of sadness. There she goes. It really happens in a blink of an eye. I don’t want to focus on the last. That was the last night she spent in her bed, in her room as my little girl. This is the first. This is her first apartment. Her first “home” she can decorate with her own furniture, dishes, silverware etc. this feels more exciting. It IS exciting. You work really hard as a parent to help teach and coach your kids to be functioning and sustainable in society. Kendall has become our family and I am proud of them both. Now is their time to navigate adult things with us close by. If we need to step in and help, we can, but otherwise we are just in the wings providing love and moral support with a side of sarcasm and humor. I did more meal prepping today. I want the boys to have options. I have make a lot of differ...

 I woke up yesterday morning with excitement for Avery. I went to physical therapy and “worked out” my back. Not such a good plan on moving day. When I returned home, I logged into work briefly to do a few things. I also had some coffee. Avery and I were chatting, she wanted to make sure that we left the house with plenty of time to arrive at the  office at the apartment complex, so we weren’t late. She said that she wanted to arrive a little bit early because she was one minute late in February when they signed the lease. she didn’t like how myself and the leasing agent made fun of her for being one minute late. She has held onto this for months on end and now wants to make sure that she arrives early.  Her desired departure time would’ve put us at the leasing office at 8:45 in the morning when our appointment was at 9 o’clock. I had a few things to catch up on for work so I told her that we would leave in 10 minutes.  Which would have given us an arrival time of 8:...

 No post for today. I need to collapse after a long day of moving.