Heat Wave

It is hot in Chicago. At one point it was 105 at 2:00 PM. Then the rain came and it went down to 80, but very humid. Right now it is 95 and the heat index is 101. My A/C is set at 75, but it is 77 in the house. It is comfortable, but the A/C is running constantly which is pushing up my electric bill. I am on the budget, but it will hit at the end of the year unless I can "conserve" some place else. (Wear my underwear two days in a row to cut down on laundry?) Luckily I have gas appliances and not electric.
My bathroom sink and bathtub were draining very slowly. I took the day off to have the plumber come and rod them out. I usually have a repair man come in the morning and then go into work, or have them call me and run home to meet them. When I have them come in the morning and plan to go into work later, they come late and I only get about 3 1/2 hours of work in. Since I took the whole day off, he came around 9:00 and was gone before 9:30. At least I had the rest of the day to myself.

Before he came I had the bathroom clean and had vacuumed the living room. Of course, after he left I had to wash the sink, bathtub, and toilet again. I also used a wet swifter to clean the kitchen floor that could be seen when entering the bathroom. The kitchen table is full of papers that are piled (I like to recycle, but I don't do it very often), the floor needs to be swept and moped, and there were pans and dishes in the sink, not to mention the crap that was on the counter. The plumber, of course, had to come in the back door. I opened the front door and when he had to get anything out of the truck I had him go out the front. After he was through, he wrote up the bill on the counter in the kitchen!

Before I go to bed tonight, I will have the dishes in the dishwasher and wash up the pans. Then all I have to do is dust the living room and wash the kitchen and bathroom floor. Since they are predicting 102 for tomorrow, I probably won't go grocery shopping (no A/C in the car), but the heat also tires me out by the time I get home and I don't feel like doing anything. It looks like the rest of the house won't get clean until the weekend.

One other thing. Since yesterday was the 4th of July, I can understand the fireworks being shot off. It lasted until around 1:30 in the morning. The thing I don't understand is why someone would start shooting them off at 4:45 AM and then again at 6:00 AM.

Oh well, I have to get up and go to work tomorrow. I worked Monday, until 1:00 PM on Tuesday, and then working on Friday. Needless to say, no matter how much I get done this week, it still seems like a wasted week.

Homeowner

It's official.  I now own my home.  My brother picked up the paperwork from the lawyer yesterday.  I am not the sole owner.  My brother is on it, too.  But I am the one living in the house, paying the bills, and responsible for the upkeep.  It is scary not only having this responsibility but the fact that my mother's name is no longer on the house.  Her name is still on all the bills except for the gas bill that some moron put their name on my address.  It took me three months to realize this and I paid it all along so there was no problem with the gas, but I did have to put my name on the bill since they wanted to speak to my mother to put her name back on.  I guess I have to move on to a new phase and accept home ownership.  Wish me luck.

A Start

It was 3 years ago on March 1st that my mother died. Today I cleaned out her stuff from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and the linen closest. All except for her face powder that I could not throw away. I don't think that holding on to one item is so bad. There was a few other things that I kept, but those are things I will use now that I know they are there. I just wish I had taken out stock in Band-Aids. I must have about 10 boxes. It seems that my mother and I both use to buy them and then forget they were in the back of the linen closest. I don't know if I will ever use them all!

This is a start. I now know that I can get rid of my mother's stuff and not have a melt down. I hope that this is the same when I go through the stuff in her bedroom. Oh, I know there probably be some tears shed and there will be somethings that I will not be able to give away, but I know that I will get through it. I now just have to get my self motivated, but that is another story.

Becoming Directionless

OK, they gave us the go ahead to spill the beans at work. Our Executive Director has resigned. It seems to have been a mutual decision, but we will all miss him. He has brought our association a long way. When other places were laying off during the recession, we were told that we were going to tighten our belts and ride it out. We did not have to lay anyone off and the positions that did become vacant were filled instead of just overloading everyone else. There were even a few new positions created. My hat is off to D (not the same D I walk with) for a job well done.

To those of you who knew me at my last job, no I did not drive him out. At this job I have only had two managers, the second one was promoted to director, and two executive directors and I will be there eight years in April. So take that, former job!

Update

Well, this has been an interesting month so far. I did learn from my doctor that most of my "illnesses" over the winter were probably the result of high blood sugar. My A1C was 7.9. I don't remember what is was the last time, but she said it was up. My weight was down, but I have been eating candy again and going out for lunch, so it has gone up about 1.5 pounds in the last two weeks. Just have to get back in the habit of testing again. D and I are back to walking again. Not as far as we were during the summer, but getting there. Weather next week should not be too bad, so we should be able to walk this entire week. I just have to start doing it on weekends. The weekend after my doctor's appointment was devoted to chilling out after blood tests and visiting the doctor. The 1st was also the 2nd anniversary of my mother's death.

This past week has been another tough week. On Wednesday morning I woke up and thought I was really cold, so I went back to bed for a half hour figuring that the heat would kick in and I would be warmer. When I did get up I made my bed, which did make me warmer, so I hoped into the shower. It was still cold when I got out, so I went to kick up the furnace. It was then I found out it was 57 degrees in the house. It was set as 68, so I knew something was wrong. I put in a call to the heating people at 7:00 AM and an e-mail to work to let them know I would be late. I also had an e-mail from a member of the society with information for a conference call at 2:00 PM. I had to e-mail to see if we could postpone the call. I also had to cancel my massage. This is not a luxury, but a necessity due to neck problems which were not made any better by the tension of the morning. The heating guy finally came about 11:30 and had to go to the shop to get the part since, of course, he used the last one he had on the last job. It was not that far and he got back, installed the part, and was gone before 12:30. I went into work, stopping at Wendy's on the way, and got in at 1:00. I had an e-mail from the guy about the conference call telling me he got my e-mail and could we make the call at 1:00 that day! I told him that 1:00 was my lunch hour since I covered phones from 11:30 to 1:00 and then again at 2:00. After all of that I come to find out that the whole problem is the fact that they have not sent in the materials we need to finalize their courses. I went and got a manicure before my TOPS (taking off pounds sensibly) meeting which we went out afterwards and had desert!

The week was not all bad. On St. Patrick's day I went with my brother and sister-in-law to the Irish Heritage Center. Saw a couple of good bands and had my corn beef and cabbage dinner. It has been awhile since I had that.

I do wish I could write about what happened at work on Friday, but we have been asked not to talk about it outside the office until at least Monday. It was not good. I did check my e-mail from home and did not find anything about it or on the web site, so I guess I shouldn't say anything yet. If I do blog again, I will.

That's about it for now. Hopefully the rest of the month will go smooth.

San Antonio

I just got back from San Antonio. The association I work for had their annual conference there last week. As usual, there were some glitches, but nothing major. We got everyone registered and they seemed happy to be at the conference. I got to see some old friends and meet some new ones. The members are from the medical community and are really great to work for. The worse part for me was I got a blister on my little toe. Being diabetic, I do have to keep an eye on it, but it is already getting better.

On the bright side, before I left I tried on a pair of pants that barely fit. When I put them on Wednesday, they fit. Oh, I still looked fat in them, but they zipped and buttoned up without my laying on the bed. That was a real good thing because the bed was supper comfy and I was up early and working late every day.

San Antonio is famous for its very large crickets. Of course there was one in my room. I was getting ready for bed when I saw something crawling along the floor. After eliminating centipede and cockroach, I figured out it was a cricket. So there I was in my pj's trying to figure out how to get it out of my room. I finally decided to put my robe on and grab a piece of cardboard and shove it out. I got it headed for the door, but pushed it back against the wall since it was too big to go under the door. I got it around the door and then shoved it out shouting "get out, get out." I shut the door as soon as it was out and prayed that no one on the floor was calling security on me. Thank God, they didn't and I was able to sleep without hearing a cricket all night.

People in San Antonio are use to them. I even heard of one man eating and having a cricket fall on his sandwich. He picked it up, threw it on the ground and proceeded to eat his sandwich. Supper yucky!

My room was on the 14th floor of the Hilton on the Riverwalk. It was very muggy, but I was able to sit on the balcony and there was a beautiful breeze. No mosquitoes or moths. I don't know how they keep them away, but I was grateful.

Had a lot of Mexican food, but not a lot of barbecue. The next time. I do plan on going back. Just have to stop spending money and get my new windows and do some more things around the house. It looks like it may be awhile before I get back.

Update on Me

This week I went to my first wake since my mother and aunt died. My friend from high school lost her mother to rectal cancer on Wednesday. My friend lives in Florida and came in with her family for the wake and funeral. I spent a few hours with her on Friday at the wake and then went to the mass on Saturday. This morning we had breakfast so we had some time to talk without interruptions. She was the friend I would call in the evening after we spent most of the day at school, talk into the night, and then take up the conversation the next day. I hadn't talked to her since she came to Chicago in 2008. That was a year before my mother died. Her mother had gone through the same thing that my mother went through with hospice, but she was at home. My mother was in the hospital. We did have a lot to catch up on and I am sure that we could have spent a week and not have told each other everything that was going on in our lives.


I also had dinner with my cousin and a friend on Saturday. We have been getting together as often as possible, but we keep going to the same restaurant. This is one of those restaurants that we made fun of when we were younger. The "old" people go in the afternoon and leave with doggy bags. We went in the afternoon and left with doggy bags. We finally had to admit that we were getting nearer to "that age". Of course we are not old yet!

My friend and her son left this evening for Florida. I have been tracking her flight. She has 10 minutes left and my laundry is done, so I guess that is my cue to go to bed.