Monday, Oct 5
For Oct 4 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 21 min with AHI=0.47 Events: 3 H. No major mask leaks (max=14 L/min); no oximeter.
Finally got last week’s blog published at 12:05 a.m. today.
Rain in South Carolina. Oct 3, 2015. This is my cousin’s daughter’s backyard in Mt. Pleasant, SC where they got 24″ of rainfall.
Check this site for some history of flooding in South Carolina.
Click this link.
John taught me how to put links for html files and you Tube videos into wordpress tonight. Now I have to learn how to enter pictures.
I put out the announcement for Fiddlers & Friends for this week to get a count for the number of armless chairs needed.
John wrote a note to the installers of our wood stove next Monday, and I sent it off.
(Sadly, they never responded and I’m not sure they even saw it).
Received a call from Jason B. at CWU Surplus that we did receive the pallets we bid on last week. John has to unload a few things from our stock trailer and then we can pick them up. Probably, he will do tomorrow while I go to Jazzercise. Our cost (with tax) is just under $75. We’ll have to get a full count when we go to load them. We got the count as 82 but there were also 3 – ½ sheets of qtr.-inch plywood. Not quite true – 44 inches on one side, not 48.
Call from Tanya returning my msg. We can merge our schedules and go for apples Tuesday morning. Made cookies, started clothes, and then put them in dryer (not the cookies. Cookies were a test bunch for using frozen dough (Pillsbury in a bucket) to make cookies for the retired geographers’ meeting next Tuesday. It worked all right but might be better if I bake them at 350° instead of 265°. John noticed. Don’t know why I did that. There are no instructions on the bucket, and I was just remembering incorrectly.
Sorted out my CPAP materials and the nasal pieces to return that are the wrong size. Now to find the address of the new place in Ellensburg. Luckily, they got back to me before closing, so I know right where the office is. Fixed up my new mask, nasal piece, and tubing. Packed away the rest. Sorted some stuff on table and boxes next to my recliner. Slow but steady progress.
We made the chocolate chip cookies and are having some with ice cream and going to bed. They’re not bad, even after having to be put back in the oven to finish cooking.
Tomorrow at 9:30 we’re going for apples across the valley.
Tuesday, Oct 6
For Oct 5 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 10 min with AHI=0.12 Events: 2 H, 4 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min); no oximeter. Maybe the new stuff made a difference. First night with new mask, nasal piece, & tubing, and new CPAP filters of both types.
Well, we left a little after 9:00 a.m. to drive to the other side of the valley to pick apples. We took lots of boxes, not knowing how loaded the trees might be. We picked mostly Honeycrisp and filled the back of the truck and put a final box in the crew seat. John sorted out some to take to the Activity Center where I was going for Jazzercise, after already being tired from 2 hours of picking (with the help of our friend Tanya and her 4 yr old son, Michael. We were picking from the Eberhart’s Orchard. We were welcomed at the AAC and many people there took some apples home with them. Tomorrow I go back for SAIL exercise, and will take along more, a larger box this time (actually two smaller ones so I could carry them), and I also took some to the Food Bank, and by the Meadows, an assisted living home. Everyone was thrilled.
When we left there, we went to my friend’s home to pick up her mail, water her plants, and clean up after the cat. Our own mail brought the good news that my mammogram showed no sign of cancer.
On home to more sorting of apples by John, and delivery of non-perfect ones to a neighbor to make applesauce for his parents.
Here’s the back of the Ford pickup with all but the forgotten box behind the driver’s seat.
I took photos from the ground, but John went and got a ladder to stand on and take a bird’s eye view (well, maybe if the bird perched in a tree).
John shopped for stir fry materials, and made a nice dinner.
Wednesday, Oct 7
For Oct 6 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 47 min with AHI=0.23 Events: 2 H, 10 REPA. No major mask leaks (max=16 L/min); no oximeter.
I waited to take a shower when the electricity went back on, which thankfully was less than 1/2 hour. We don’t know the reason for the outage (see Friday’s entry), but we have seen them working several miles down our road putting in new power poles.
Today was full of chores for me. On my way to the Food Bank, I dropped off a small box of apples for a friend (note later in this blog she gave us a dozen of two different kinds of cookies–caramel/nut and peanut butter), we had nice play day with an unusually responsive, appreciative, and involved group. Lunch consisted of spaghetti, salad & bread for lunch, but the best part of the lunch was an apple pie made by one of the volunteers there. I also dropped off a fiction book (by Jance), near the Pasta Co, went on down by a new CPAP office in EBRG of my provider from Yakima, to drop off some wrong-sized nasal pillows. I drove by an assisted living home where we will play music tomorrow to deliver a box of apples for them. On to SAIL with two more boxes of apples, much appreciated by the folks there. I stayed for our exercise class, but had to leave promptly for a 2:45 check in to get a Holter (heart) Monitor installed, then pick up mail at Rosewood.
John stayed home working on chores around the place, and getting the horse trailer set up (cleaned out and hooked up), for going tomorrow to get the pallets.
Thursday, Oct 8
For Oct 7 CPAP. Reported figures. Reported figures. 7 hrs 59 min with AHI=0.75 Events: 6 H, 2 CSR, 13 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min); no oximeter.
John and I went to town for couple hours to pick up a load of pallets. We got 82, with a few ripped up ones, and a few excellent hard wood ones, a couple of unique plastic ones for food service, and a bunch of good usable pallets. It took us two trips. One with the horse trailer full along with the back of the pickup. We came home, and he took off the trailer, unloaded the pallets from the truck and returned by himself for the rest, which would fit in the pickup bed. From there he went to a meat sale at Super One, with good reduction on prices, and bought $100 worth of stuff. The only non-meat w diced tomatoes – 12 cans..
I stayed home and got ready to go to play music. We had 7 group members there today, and a new person who plays the flute, joined us, with her 2 yr old daughter. We were at the Meadows Place. They had a good crowd, and I had called ahead to have my friend who is a resident there be sure she knew we were coming. The activities director made some pastries for the audience and us. I brought two home for our dessert tonight. From there, I rushed off to the KV hospital to have my Holter Monitor removed. Turns out one of my connections came off at 2:45 toward the end of our playing music (I thought that might have happened), but it did not affect the results enough to redo. I’m grateful for that.
After that, I went by my friend’s house again, and cleaned up after her cat, took some photos of her lawn (questioning if she needs the service now), and picked up mail, plus found a bill hanging on the door knob for irrigation water winterization, and a delivered package stuffed between the front door and screen door. I imagine it came from a UPS or Fed Ex delivery and I wonder if it were bigger where it would have been delivered. Maybe it was from the post office and their boxes are not large enough for more than flat mail. It cannot be more than 2″ (if that) high.
John took a couple of neighbors some apples, and got some Asian pears in return. The others we reached by phone, while they were elk hunting. They will be home after dark, so John left them in their garage shop, to keep the local deer out of them. Our resident deer, particularly the little buck, were very interested in the smell emanating from the boxes of apples under cardboard that John left in the truck Tuesday night.
Friday, Oct 9
For Oct 8 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 56 min with AHI=0.56 Events: 5 H, 7 CSR, 15 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=20 L/min); no oximeter.
Well, we didn’t stay home today. Started by delivering apples to our neighbor as he came by the end of our driveway, and then another neighbor a mile away came to look at our Yanmar Tractor we wish to get rid of. From there we went to the Kittitas Public Utility District for an appreciation day. It is where we get all our electric power. They had door prizes, promotions, demonstrations, and food. We picked up an Embertec Free Energy saving power strip (worth about $40), and found out we could go back in the truck later for a large cable spool (or two) free. Our big one has seen better days. While there, we visited with the staff and got a bunch of goodies. We entered a raffle and hope to win a headlamp for John’s hat for night feeding of animals. (It’s now Monday night, and we did not receive a call, so neither of us won the raffle). We had a large hot dog, chips, and ice cream, and got to visit with some friends, whom I know from the Adult Activity Center. She had gotten some of the Honeycrisp apples we took to the AAC, and wanted to know the location to go pick some more. She grew up near an orchard. The orchardist is our friend, and cannot afford the insurance for people to be coming for U pick. So, when she will be leading my SAIL exercise class on the 19th, I will take her a special box to make her happy. Here I am in the picture below (taken by the PUD fellow for putting on their Facebook page).
[John talked to a lineman about the power outage we had on Wednesday. If they know they will be shutting the power off they will notify all the residents. This time they had an unexpected (glitch) event but it lasted only a few minutes. If an errant tree or driver hits a pole the down time is usually close to 4 hours.]
In the photo, I’m displaying my gifts, a nice coffee mug, a little carrier with 5 Band-Aids, actually from the kids table, but John and I both got one; him for his backpack for trail work, and I for the glove compartment of my car. The hat was a gift for a donation of $3/month extra on my electric bill to pay into the fund that goes to needy families, who are approved by HopeSource, to help pay their utility bills each month. I know of at least two neighbors who qualify. I particularly like the style of that baseball hat, and it feels nice and smooth. The other nice chance meeting was with the person in charge in the Engineering building. I admired a newish wood cable spool we use for tables, and sought him out to request one, or to be put on a list. He said the list was for telephone poles they take down and goes out for 2 years waiting, but we could drive our truck in and get one of the cable spools any time — just ask for Bryan. Therefore, I called John over to meet him, as he will be driving our truck in to pick it (them) up. I think there might be room enough for a small one too. One more wonderful connection (pun intended), was meeting another person on the staff and having John tell him the story of the pruners coming to cut the trees at the front of our property which potentially affect our lines. They discussed it and amazingly someone came out in person on Monday (10-12-15) to review at the situation and told John we would be first on the list in the spring.
We left there and went for gasoline in my Subaru, and the price was up to $2.34, cheapest in town. I guess next week we will go to Costco and find it a lot less. Actually, damn, I just checked, now today it is $2.19/gal. Only 30+ miles down the road from EBRG. Phooey. I guess we will take John’s car next Tuesday. I should have thought today that I would be going down Tuesday and not filled up. Dang.
We need to make progress on the den, and so far that hasn’t happened. Getting off this computer would be a beautiful start, but I still have things keeping me busy.
Saturday, Oct 10
For Oct 9 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 24 min with AHI=0.31 Events: 1 H, 1 OA, 8 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min); no oximeter. Back to sleep w/o CPAP for 3 hrs.
Slept in but have to work hard today. Two hours of computer problems now resolved. Nice call from Peggy, John’s sister, but sadly he was out working on a fence construction (triangular rock crib) from the pallets to support a substantial fence for horse access to the heated water tank during winter or when their water source through the irrigation ditch will be shut off. Yet another use for the pallets we got on Thursday, now all unloaded.
Back to the den work.
Speaking of dens — if you have a Facebook account you will be able to see this scary video of a Rattlesnake Den in Montana.
Sunday, Oct 11
For Oct 10 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 5 min with AHI=0.42 Events: 3 H, 1 CSR, 3 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=21 L/min); no oximeter.
Catching mice in garage and in house. Need more or better-working traps. Or maybe stop feeding the cats store bought food. Sometimes the bait is eaten but the release doesn’t let go. The traps look like old style ones but they are not exactly the same. Maybe this is just a memory thing – old was better.
I stayed off the computer after 10:40 a.m. for almost 8 hrs. That’s a record when I am home. We worked very hard organizing, packing, tossing, recycling, and moving boxes and furniture. John brought the stock trailer recently full of pallets (now emptied) to the back of the house near the patio where the wood stove needs to be brought into the house. He moved out the structurally failing 2-cushion couch (aka love seat) and a very large table that took up much of the center of the room. We will replace it with a smaller dining room table with 4 chairs, and not sure what chair we’ll put in for a replacement of the love seat. It came too close to the stove alcove. We’ll have to wait until later to determine what happens.
Sad part of this is that the boxes loaded into the trailer will have to be re-handled again to put into their appropriate place. We were just out of time, and had no choice. [John says – this movie is getting repetitive.]
Monday, Oct 12
For Oct 11 CPAP. Reported figures. 4 hrs 20 min with AHI=5.32 Events: 22 H, 1 CSR, 1 OA, 8 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min); no oximeter. I did not have a good night and now I know why. Maybe I was too full of dust congestion, and exhausted. Clearly, the worst AHI ever. Whoa.
Still haven’t heard when the installers are coming. So I called and Fosseens is checking with ACT. Jeez. Tomorrow will NOT work, so it had better be today.
Well, I actually emailed too, but sadly, they did not return the call and emailed me instead. We were not scheduled for today, but tomorrow. I was not happy, but John decided to go ahead and stay home tomorrow and I will go on my own to all the events.
Instead, today, we cleaned a little more and put more boxes in the stock trailer, and then went to town for cookies from a friend, and to buy potatoes (delivered from the basin to the front yard of a couple on the west side of town). We took boxes and chose from large bins our potatoes for 10 cents/pound. We got 110 pounds {$10.10}.
On our trip over the skies were beautiful and the lenticular clouds were exceptional.
The photo on the left was taken straight out the end of our driveway, through the windshield, and the right one was taken a few minutes and miles later, looking north. Mt Rainier is known for this type of cloud but we do not get them that often over here.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan