Others are buried in snow. We’ve had a trace. The Cascades are getting snow and we can see the hills above 3,000 feet just got some. Local lore says we will have ours in 2 weeks.
Saturday, Nov 15
CPAP report. Reported figures: 8 hrs 5 min with AHI = 0.25.
I, with 5 others, entertained a wonderful group of people at Briarwood, and they in turn entertained us with a great “lupper” (between lunch and supper). They prepared two great sandwiches of meatloaf and chicken salad, cut into halves, a Caesar salad, a nice cut up macaroni salad, tortilla chips, a fantastic cherry Jello with much fruit, and two super great desserts: a blueberry cream cheese Bundt cake and a super good pumpkin cake (normally I don’t like pumpkin stuff but this was magnificent). We had Cool Whip to go along with either.
At the end, I gave apples to a guitarist who goes for a complete knee replacement on Monday, and to whom I also took music today for our December’s play dates. He brought me in trade a very nice large apple storage box. He usually eats 2 of our apples/day.
From there I went to my pharmacy and forked out $80. $70 was for one medication that only is a 2-month supply, 1/2 pill each day. It’s still expensive after a 50% payment by my insurance for the generic equivalent! That one med alone will be nearly $500, which I suppose is worth it, if it keeps me alive. I would rather be on this side of the grass.
John stayed home and cut trees into firewood lengths. We reported on the cutting of the trees in fall of last year. Most are about 9 inches through at the base but taper very slowly. They are great because the pieces don’t require splitting. I put time in on music – getting compositions in a form the group can handle. It is always appreciated, and our clarinet player, who can’t play many things unless I transpose songs, thinks so highly of it that she rewarded me with a hand-made blouse from cloth carrying a musical theme. She locates the material, and I pay the cost of that, but she volunteers the rest. The pattern on today’s shirt has yellow and white staffs. I don’t have a photo of me in it, but here’s a glance at it on a hanger. I actually wore it to two different events this week and received many compliments.
On my way home, I stopped at our former secretary’s home (she retired), and saw a nice canopy on their truck. Her hubby met me in their driveway to pick up the Ibuprofen I got for them yesterday and gave them 10 egg cartons too, in trade for one filled with eggs. Their chickens are not laying as much now, but they still surprised me with a dozen. She was off at the grocery store, so her husband accepted the goodies, giving me some gifts. While visiting with him, I ask about their new tall canopy I saw on their truck. It’s cool and exactly what we need for John’s truck. It is a LEER, made of aluminum, high enough to almost stand in, with a rack on top, and is called a CC model (commercial something, maybe canopy ?). It has two doors on the back (I think with windows). Cost was $2300 from the place in town where I had some reconditioning done on the travel trailer I bought. This likely will be our Christmas or Birthday present this year. Or maybe not. I’m going to shop around for the best price. Below is from the web but the closest I could find to what I remember about his canopy: His definitely had that same rack on top, and the two doors, LEER was written on the bottom left door. I wonder how easily it goes on and off. Remains to be seen. John has front, rear, and side racks so he can carry a cord of firewood. Those are easily put on or taken off. An enclosed canopy has a different purpose and we want to be able to switch easily.
John crashed on the loveseat this afternoon while I worked on email and things. It’s down to 26° outside and going to 19° tonight.
I did not eat tonight except for a special cookie, a macadamia nut one, made by my friend who plays guitar with us. Later, I’ll have a piece of pecan pie with John and call it a night. Yeah — we have a lot of sugar content in our diet. John thinks if we slow down we will have to change much of what we eat. We are (have been & will continue) on very low salt.
Sunday, Nov 16
CPAP report. Reported figures: 5 hrs 30 min with AHI = 0.00.
Sunny and cool, not up to freezing yet at 11:00 AM but almost, (30).
Been on the phone setting up help for our friendly neighbor (and hay broker; he lives about 3 miles NW) needing just about all household items. Found a dryer (still need a washer), BBQ small grill, and older chest freezer (all freely given).
A young couple arrived for wood at 2:30, and left a little over an hour later with a full truckload (although they don’t have racks and are limited to how much they can take). During the time they were loading was the highest temperature of the day (38). I saw only the first part of the loading and came back in the house. John took them farther through the pasture near our big Ponderosa pine). Photo is blurry because I captured it from a video of a few seconds, before my battery died. This is from my old camera.
After loading the wood there, John took them to the spot where he had been making firewood (mentioned above). His discards there finished a load for their truck so they did not need to cut anything today – about ½ a cord. They may have to split some of it, but they can come back and work with their chainsaw on other stacks that do need cut-up.
I am still working on dishes and never made time to switch to cleaning clothes. I took out time to talk with John’s sister, Peggy. A Clarion (home town) friend had reported on the death of a fellow that was between Peggy and John in HS. He had not been sick, apparently, had played a round of golf, came home and went out to fill a feeder for birds. His wife, whom we do not know, found him. Peggy’s area had a little snow but the “lake effect” stuff is an odd creation. She lives south of Cleveland and the wind has to come from the north. This week the wind is more from the west and so the places farther east, where the lake ends — near Buffalo, get the effect. There were wrecks on the roads east of Cleveland. When the weather is bad, she stays home. Good plan. We can keep up on her neighborhood’s weather through a couple of web-cameras just to her west and about the same distance south of the Lake.
I’m still unhappy with all the changes in my meds (that I picked up yesterday on the way home). It took me awhile to insert them into my medicine daily container for the week, morning and night time dosages. I also filled out on a calendar the times I am supposed to take weekly ones and every other day ones. I thought I was under control of daily ones, but this throws a monkey wrench in the proceedings. I was also put on a diuretic for fluid retention, and therefore have to take potassium in conjunction with the Furosemide (generic Lasix). My Dr. changed my Losartan dosage, completely to another Beta Blocker (I think), called Micardis (actually it was filled with the generic, Telmisartan). I hope it does the job intended. I was also put on Vitamin D (50,000 units), once a week, for 25 weeks, and then it will be 5,000 units each day after that (2000 units more than I have been on for the last 2-3 years).
All this is when I’m fine, and do not feel I am having any congestive heart failure symptoms. I know I’m not the Dr., but I still have opinions. [John says the Doctor is “looking out in front” of my cardiac issues. Like driving on an interstate highway and seeing flashing lights way out in front, you don’t cruise onward at 70 until you are just 100 feet away from a wreck.] We still have not settled the Sleep Apnea problem and whether I can find out my O2 level while sleeping to coordinate with the CPAP machine figures and also consider without the CPAP on for the night. I took the overnight Oximetry test and won’t hear until next week what those results were. During the time tested, I had no events and was on the machine and the oximeter for 8 hrs. I don’t think it will be a definitive and valid test, but I’m not the Dr. (as I’m continually told). This is a frustrating experience.
Monday, Nov 17
CPAP report. Reported figures: 4 hrs 52 min with AHI = 0.00. Mask leakage problem noted. In looking at my graphs, the major leak is after a reset of the ramp at the beginning of putting on the mask. The nosepiece has been chafing and irritating me so I have been readjusting and letting cool compressed air out when adjusting the situation of the mask for the night.
This morning John is holding horses for our farrier to trim 3 horses’ feet. It was above freezing. Predicted high today is only 33, but yesterday it was only predicted for a high of 29, and it got to 38. It took them an hour, and John was freezing when he came in, particularly his feet because he wasn’t moving around working; just standing. He has bigger warmer boots – they are in the bedroom! I wrote the check and went out to say hi and ask if our farrier wanted some apples. He did.
Returned to honcho the scholarship luncheon for this week. My friend and I are putting it on, this Friday at noon. I sent an email invitation to 17 people and asked for a response so we can plan. I gave them the details of the menu, checking for allergies.
I also managed to get a photo of a Cedar Waxwing in our Mountain Ash tree. You can see the berries poked at by others, and see the inside smashed on its beak. We think this is a juvenile. There is a lot of fruit on the ground so maybe some of the birds just want the seed. Some say the fruit tastes bitter but who knows what a bird tastes.
Tuesday, Nov 18
CPAP report. Reported figures: 7 hrs 5 min with AHI = 0.00.
Worked on several projects today. Gave away a Metal Tea Pot on the Buy Nothing Ellensburg site that has been sitting around our place for years and not used. I had an interest expressed by 15 people, so I used a random number generator 15 times and then took the most often occurring number. The winner was a gal who lived in North Carolina, loves metal teapots, but she accidentally left hers behind when she moved west. I know it will be loved and cherished. Complete story is in tomorrow’s blog.
Am finishing the list of people coming to the Friday Scholarship Luncheon, so we know how much to cook and how many utensils, plates, bowls, cups to take, and drinks too.
I will be going in a little early to visit our guitar player in the hospital who had a complete knee replacement yesterday. We had a nice visit and he was happy to have the visit. Two others of our musician group had been by to see him.
I dropped by Super One while in town and got a dozen donuts (including apple fritters) at $3 off the usual dozen price. I went on to play music with The Connections at Royal Vista, only 9 miles from our home.
I decided to buy my oximeter, and tonight we ordered it. It is due to arrive next week on Friday after Thanksgiving. I’m going to get this:
Now they are claiming (on Friday night), this pkg left Spokane in the evening. My guess is if it doesn’t make it by tomorrow (we doubt), it will be here Monday, ahead of time of the original estimate. Check below for status this Saturday, when the blog will be published. The trip was from the Lake Shore north of Chicago, IL through the postal service, supposedly to our mailbox.
Wednesday, Nov 19
CPAP report. Reported figures: 5 hrs 4 min with AHI = 0.00.
An early morning email notified us of the death of the husband (70) of a long time Brittany friend; of a heart attack. Unexpected – again; so that makes 2 in the last 10 days.
Food Bank & SAIL exercise.
Food there included more of the butternut squash we donated. Here’s a photo of the offering, which everyone seemed to like very much.
I prefer John’s method of halving and cooking in the skin with brown sugar and nuts, but this was good and easier to serve to a bunch of people. Many of the patrons said they did not know what a Butternut squash is. Maybe that’s not odd, but it seems so to us. Today, I managed to deliver a lot of apples around town. Also, gave away a nice little teapot to my newly found friend from the SE.
I advertised it for freely given, on the Buy Nothing Ellensburg site. Had 15 people interested, so I figured out a nice random way of creating a random.org decision. FYI, here is my different strategy. Instead of using it just once on the number of those interested (1 – 15), I applied it the number of times of interest and then took the largest number of hits for a person (three). That selected only one person. I had 2 others whose number came up twice. What was interesting, however, was that the first number returned was the winner. Amazing. It must have been meant to be. She was thrilled. Her name is Hannah, and I told her my childhood story of my Hanna Softball bat my dad bought for me early in my life, and how he taught me to throw a baseball and a softball, and to bat. I was able to bat left or right handed. An interesting link to follow on the Hanna Company. My bat was dark wood, made of hickory.
I made several stops in town (Briarwood, Hearthstone, Grocery Outlet). In the process, I totally forgot to join Karen Eslinger at Royal Vista. She goes every third Wednesday of the month with her accordion and a packet of music. I usually join her, but I screwed up today with all the other stuff happening. We sing and play and between songs, run around the room getting people on the right page. I know it was more difficult for her without my help.
In the evening, I spent a bunch of time getting music entered in my computer software, SongWriter. The one tonight was “We Gather Together.” We need to play tomorrow to practice for Thanksgiving next week, and then to add to the repertoire for all of December. I have one more song I will add when I have time– Over the River and Through the Woods. Next week, instead of Thursday, we go to Hearthstone Cottages on Wednesday afternoon.
Thursday, Nov 20
CPAP report. Reported figures: 7 hrs 21 min with AHI = 0.14.
Today Dry Creek — was a cool entertainment day. We had a huge group of players, and a large audience as well. We went through 22 songs. We had music-makers on guitar (Minerva, Manord, Gerald, Charlie, Roberta), banjo (Evelyn), mandolin (Tim), fiddle (Janet and I), clarinet, Ellen, and bass (Dave).
Afterwards, I went to Grocery outlet again and picked up more pies, ice cream (for the scholarship luncheon), dog food, some socks, a veggie peeler (we have 2 old-style metal ones but they are hiding), and a new manual can opener. I was able to reach $31.03 (required $30 purchase), allowing me $3.00 off on my bill. Every little bit helps. John tested the peeler on butternut squash, and it works well.
They have gotten a bit of snow in Buffalo. Here is a link that talks some about that. About the lake effect snow.
Someone made a snow sculpture and took a picture on a street with cars and buildings in the background. Then someone took the main items – two feet of snow – and placed a nice wintery scene behind – maybe from a Christmas card. We cropped that a bit and present it here.
I was late getting home, but a beautiful sunset awaited me.
We made Kittitas Cobbler, late, and didn’t get to bed until after midnight.
Friday, Nov 21
CPAP report. Reported figures: 6 hrs 9 min with AHI = 0.16.
I awoke early without having a good night’s sleep.
I fiddled around a little on the computer and then started getting the rest of the stuff ready to take along. I cut up the Zucchini bread made with pineapple. We got the Kittitas Cobbler covered with heavy-duty aluminum foil and into a box with the Crystal Light Lemonade and Pink Lemonade I had put into 2-liter bottles. I packed some stainless steel forks because I was afraid they’d be needed for eating the cobbler. Worked good for the Asian dishes too. Many folks used chopsticks provided by Mary. People were late coming because of the weather, and then a few people whom we thought were coming, were unable at the last minute (five), so we had much more food than needed. We planned for 13 and ended up with only 8. Mary’s staff was happy to share food and a couple of people took home some for their family. I made a plate and dropped it off for Ruth Harrington (the person who started this project over 35 years ago). It funds scholarships for students.
Mary and I are at the table before the festivities began.
Today’s MENU included Mary’s famous Asian Cooking. Mary grew up in Taiwan and came to the U.S. when she was 25. She creates all her Chinese dishes with her own homemade ingredients (sauces, etc.), buying only a few things, such as pasta and veggies. She does not own a wok. The first platter on the table had spring rolls (those came from Costco), served with her homemade sweet sauce. The next dish had cabbage and wood ear mushrooms (only available in Asian markets in Seattle, WA). That dish had a spice for it that she warned us was very hot. Indeed it was.
THIS LINK will take you to a short story about this dish, and you will hear it is “heart-healthy” food.
Another dish she made from scratch had jumbo shrimp, chicken, English cucumbers, red/orange peppers, green some things, with angel hair spaghetti and sauce (the sauce contained her own Apricot marmalade with lemon and lime juice).
Here’s a little story about the cold Pasta Dish with Stir Fry:
Our dessert, made by John and me, was Kittitas Cobbler.
We normally make it with cherries and blueberries, but now we have very many apples, so we used unpeeled apples cubed, blueberries, pecans, and brown sugar, with the cake from scratch (& Almond Breeze, because it is the only milk in the house). Glad no one was allergic to nuts.
Here’s A LINK to my story about the Kittitas Cobbler.
If you want the actual recipe, we can send it via email, as a .pdf file.
Also included between the main dishes was a loaf of zucchini bread made by my friend at Briarwood, from our homegrown zucchini. He adds pineapple, and his is the only such zucchini bread I will touch. John thinks it would be even better with nuts added. I froze this loaf in September to use for a special occasion, and it fit perfectly today with our meal.
Liquid refreshments included cold Crystal Light lemonade, and/or, hot Coffee/Tea.
One last presentation by Mary — roasted chestnuts. And, she provided a little bowl of Chinese candy too. We got our cultural geography lesson today and our culinary tastes and education expanded.
Very little in the mail today. Only a bill for $8.11 from a medical lab in Oregon for John’s recent procedure. It claimed Medicare paid $31. I called and suggested they may not have properly sent the paperwork to our secondary insurance provider. We went around and again before she finally agreed to submit to Group Health. I had to give her the ID number for John and the group #. Mind you, every time we go to the doctor’s office or the hospital we have to provide our insurance cards for the current day. All this was done a month ago but apparently didn’t get into the system. What is wrong with the system? If we go to Amazon.com a screen pops up and has all our current information. The highly touted electronic medical record thing is a joke.
Saturday, Nov 22
CPAP report. Reported figures: 7 hrs 35 min with AHI = 0.00.
Awoke to higher temperatures, sunny day. Warmer temps during the night, interestingly. I have the blog to complete today, and I am sure John will spend a lot of time in the yard, without the icy rain/snow mix interrupting his work schedule as yesterday. However, the weather forecast has changed this morning to a wintry mix expected. I thought it was going to be nicer. The temps were up to 41, this morning at 9:00, then down to 38 at 10:00, but now moving up to 39 at 11:00 a.m., to 41 at noon, and then 42 at 1:00 p.m. Eventually to a high of 44 and no precipitation, so our prediction was correct. Strangely variable weather. Winds have started gusting, still sunny. John’s out working.
Whoopee — our Amazon.com tracker verified my oximeter made it to Ellensburg at 5:20 a.m. this morning and will be delivered today. What a great surprise!
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan