Sunday, Jan 10
For Jan 9 CPAP. Reported figures, 6 hrs 38 min with AHI=0.00 (perfect). Events: 0 H, 0 CSR, 14 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=11 L/min); oximeter on entire time with high SpO2 and normal pulse.
I sent photos to Olivia at the Adult Activities Center (AAC), and she sent back a thank-you, and a note that she had put many of my photos on the Facebook page for the Senior Center.
Here is a link to the page- open to the public – you do not need a Facebook account.
Cut & Paste the following
https://www.facebook.com/Ellensburg-Adult-Activity-Center-284070647576/
If you look at the New Year’s Party ones, most are mine. Look back to Dec 15, and see more of the Christmas celebration. They put on good parties there (free to members), and they have started depending on me to be the photographer at large.
Continuing daily with medical issues. Changed filter in CPAP. I took a bunch of time to contact Medic Alert to update my database with the new AICD, and now we have had group numbers changed on our Group Health card that I need to report to providers. I still need to finish paperwork for dental before I go down Feb 2. Always something.
John made a nice brunch, and then he concocted a neat stew with cheese-infused biscuits on top (used left-overs) for supper.
Monday, Jan 11
For Jan 10 CPAP. Reported figures, 9 hrs 4 min with AHI=0.00. Events: 0 H, 0 CSR, 20 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min); oximeter on entire time with high SpO2 and normal pulse.
I sent my meds list to Dr. Tew’s Office in prep for my tooth implant consultation, but I still have more to do with them on my records and referral. I took my Amoxicillin and made it in to Carla at my local Ellensburg dentist’s office for teeth cleaning. Good for another 6 months.
While I was gone today, John started the wood stove. It is beautiful but got too warm in the den, especially overnight; and now he has gotten a better idea of how to control the room heat. Later a ceiling fan will no doubt help in two rooms of our house. We have the fans (modest ones by Hunter) for installation when we get the skylight openings built. Each fan needs a support box built to handle the weight.
For ANY of the pictures below, if you want to see a larger image, right click on the photo and click on “Open image in a new tab.”
Here you can see the new screen we are still fiddling with to use. The andirons now are set to keep Rascal (cat) from going around and getting into the wood stove area. Notice the nice fire – it is real. I have learned how difficult it is to take a photo of a burning fire. The horizontal slots across the stove are outlets for hot air. Intake of air is on the back near the bottom. Small fans pull cooler air in there and John built a louvered passage through the tile and the wall behind. The so called living room is on the other side. The inside top of the firebox contains a catalytic combustor that ignites and burns the “smoke” so that about all that goes up the flue are hot gases and much of that is water vapor. A bit of explanation can be found at this site:
looks like a chunk of honeycomb
I have to send notes every Monday to remind people about where the Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends are performing each week. This week it is at the Meadows Place. I forgot to remind them of our Saturday performance this week at Briarwood, so I will need to send another. Two of our players do not have access to email, so I have to notify them by phone. Last fall we made a nice little poster for people to place near their home calendar. That seems to have been a waste of time.
Tuesday, Jan 12
For Jan 11 CPAP. Reported figures, 2 hrs 43 min with AHI=0.00. Events: only 10 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min); oximeter on entire time, 7 hr, 57 m.
I took donuts for Emeriti geographers and went to the meeting where we talked to Jen Stoogle, the director of Hearthstone and another person on the staff there, Mike Probasco. Oddly enough Jen knew me from when I was so ill and in for Physical Therapy at the Rehab facility down the road. We have come a long way since then.
We came back and I drove John’s car to Celia’s for haircut, because as I drove mine out the driveway, I did not like the sounds emanating from the front wheel, at all! Afterwards, I delivered a sweater to a gal down the road from where I had my haircut. I skipped Jazzercise and The Connections. I needed to rest my arm.
John decided to make a red velvet (box) cake to try our new Bundt pan. I helped by washing and greasing/flouring the pan. The activity and result did not please me. The cake was fine – I meant the greasing and flouring part.
John went two days later to buy some non-stick veggie (actually Canola) spray for our next venture. Now, he wants to try the “tunnel of fudge” cake but we are about out of Walnuts – a required ingredient. On the Costco list.
Wednesday, Jan 13
For Jan 12 CPAP. Reported figures, 9 hrs 51 min with AHI=0.91. Events: 9 H, 5 CSR, 2 PP, 16 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=19 L/min); oximeter on entire with high SpO2 and normal pulse.
I called and left a message for my device technician, asking about what might have happening at 11:43 last night and at 2:14 a.m. night before, when I saw the “Latitude” machine transmitter light up and send data from my ICD. Two days later, I found there was nothing out of order.
I called neighbor Kenny about moving piles of snow that John created when moving said snow from around the car and truck and nearby paths. Kenny was kind enough to come back over with his “bobcat” and clear them out. The last couple of little snows have been heavier than those earlier and so don’t push easily with a broom.
No Food Bank or Sail today for me. Instead, I drove my 2014 Subaru to Seth Motors – our long time car place – and John followed in his 2009 one. Because it was making such an awful noise, we realized we needed to have it checked out locally, and not drive it all the way to the dealer in Yakima. That’s a “con” of not having an in-town dealer. Had we gone to the dealer and something needed fixing that required an overnight stay we would have had to come home in one of the demonstrators. Essentially that amounts to a no-charge rental car, filling out and signing paper. Then, there would be the trip back again the next day. The Subaru dealer is 50 miles away, Seth Motors is just 12.
While out, we made a delivery of two bags of clothes and three dresses to a family in town.
More news from our Brittany in CA about her continued field training exploits. Nice to get these photos of her in action. Thanks, Jeri Conklin, for all you do with training and photography. These actually took place on January 12.
Left to right, 1-Missy on point with Daisy honoring; 2-Daisy on point; 3- Daisy watching bird flush; 4-Daisy backing Missy. Daisy’s registered name is Cedaridge Kip’s Camelot Shay Tre’ JH
Thursday, Jan 14
For Jan 13 CPAP. Reported figures, 6 hrs 30 min with AHI=0.46. Events: 1 H, 1 CSR, 2 CA, 2PP, 14 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min); oximeter on entire time, 7 hr, 36 m, with an AHI=0.40. Okay, high SpO2 and normal pulse.
We had 7 people show for our performance and a bunch of audience folks with even one from next door at the Rehab. The activities director served us tea cookies that she made. During the event, she brought some to those in the audience. At the end of our playing, she brought us some and offered to give us some to take home.
John took me to the Meadows Place (behind Rehab) and dropped me off at 1:15. We had a call on the home phone answering machine at 1:45 and later on my cell phone, but I was playing music. John went to Bi-Mart and Super 1 and by Seth Motors to check on the car. My car was done, so he came back for me, and we went back. John had talked to Chad at the first stop, and then, we picked it up from Justin. The $99 bill included $89 for labor and the rest tax. As we had suspected, the mechanic found gravel, mud, dirt, rocks in the wheel. He removed the wheel to get to the brakes and cleaned them out. Here is what the work order said:
“Removed R/F tire, removed brake caliper and cleaned rocks and mud from caliper. Removed rocks from bed of tire, Test Drove Good. ”
Somewhere in there is deflating the tire, cleaning and resetting, and re-inflating.
I was certainly happy to drive the now-quieted car home. The trip to town was quite concerning, as the trip up the driveway had been on Monday.
More photos in the mail from Jeri today. Actually, she’s putting them on my timeline so some of you who are my FB friends will have seen these already.
Daisy in training, Jan 14, ’16: 1-3 on point; 4 honoring from a long distance, the entire photo is hidden behind, and the dog she was honoring was buried in the brush and couldn’t be seen anyway.
Friday, Jan 15
For Jan 14 CPAP. Reported figures, 8 hrs 11 min with AHI=0.73. Events: 6 H, 2 CSR, 16 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=18 L/min); oximeter on entire time.
We decided to drive in good weather today to Yakima, for a couple of stops. First place was to spend our $5.00 Walmart gift certificate, obtained from Stewart Subaru via one of their promotions – Win a new car or one of these other great prizes! We used it on cat food. Then on to lunch at Costco, and a trip through there, for $209 worth of purchases. Well, I suppose $13 of that was for a neighbor. Gasoline was only $1.959/gallon, and John’s car only needed 9 gallons. Home by way of Home Depot, but we couldn’t find a really stiff-bristled push broom, and did not have anything else in mind. Might try on line. I did but John has changed his mind (or at least into pause mode) and will make his own push-broom snow mover with a plank of wood.
When we got home, John started the wood stove and we soon had a lovely fire. While waiting for it to get regulated, he started pork & onions in an iron skillet in a slow oven. Thus, a few hours later we had a great dinner with baked Yukon gold potatoes and beets.
Saturday, Jan 16
For Jan 15 CPAP. Reported figures, 4 hrs 34 min with AHI=1.10. Events: 5 H, 1 CSR (3 min), 7 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=19 L/min); oximeter on entire time with high SpO2 and normal pulse. Reduced to 1.06 with SpO2 added.
We watched many deer in the back and then in the front of our house. John has been providing some food for them, mostly by cutting limbs or falling trees for the purpose of thinning as well as feeding the deer. We were both quite surprised at their interest in the needles on the trees. Most is Ponderosa pine branches but he has cut 2 trees out of a closely growing bunch. In addition, John cleared a place of snow where he can throw apple cores or carrot scrapings. His prime feed are the needles on branches. Almost every morning, several are bedded under the back trees, and one faces the house looking at the patio door to beg.
This collage above shows 3 deer, two eating on the branches of needles, and the 3rd next to the post, eating a branch from the dugout snow bowl for apples or carrots. The middle photo shows two larger does nibbling needles, and a smaller darker one doing the same. He is not the smallest we have on our place, but thus far I haven’t gotten a picture of the littlest guy. Finally, the photo on the right has at least 6 deer in it including the one lying behind the pole watching the door. We have seen 11 at one time out back.
Snowing a lot in the morning. Maybe 5 or more inches. Our roads were not plowed, but I made it to town and back, with only a few “oh” remarks. The roads with tracks and snow ridges are scary now after being pulled off into the ditch.
John fixed brunch – fried eggs, sausage patty, and a split Danish pastry (cherry and cream cheese). The latter came from a package via Costco, so there wasn’t much fix’n to do.
I left early so I could take my time driving. The N-S roads were better than the E-W ones, and when I finally got to the Kittitas Hwy, more black pavement was showing. I made it there in time to meet a gal from the BNE site who tried on my boots, and wore them away, happily. They did not fit my feet comfortably. I am happy they have a new home where they can be appreciated. Here were my “ads” on the BNE site:
The boots collage is on the left, and the orange Meow Mix containers will go to a gal who teaches Science Education at CWU, and is a member of the BNE list, as well as the scholarship luncheon group I’m involved with there. When I advertised for free 40 such containers, this gal said, “These would be perfect for an experiment I like to do at science education outreach events with dry ice, water and dish soap. It would be nice to have a set of 20.” I asked her if she could use all 40 in two different rooms, and she said yes, so I will deliver them to her next Friday at our scholarship luncheon. The little containers were given to us, our cats got the food, and the containers move on. Neat?
My music group is working on the song, Four in the Morning. Several of us tried to figure out the song we have to add to our repertoire, once we get it correctly noted and chorded. I carried along my camera to record the sounds so I can try to adjust the music from the incorrect melody we have on the score.
We had a nice small bunch of folks to listen, with 3 fellows in the audience. One of the guys in the audience is married to our flute player, and he attended to help take care of their little girl, Haley, almost 3 yrs old. You can see her in the Christmas week blog. She has boundless energy, and dances in front of us in circles. The audience loves her. They enjoyed themselves and sang along on all the songs. For musicians playing, we had a few guitars (Maury, Manord, Gerald, & Charlie), a tambourine (Anne), a fiddle (me), and a flute (Amy). We played an entire hour. Then they fed us a great soup mostly vegetables but with ham pieces, punch, and a table with sandwiches (chicken salad and egg salad), several wonderful desserts, and a Jello salad with fruit.
I came home by way of The Palace, an old restaurant in town, to pick up John’s Chicken Alfredo dinner free for his birthday. We added mushrooms, cashews, bacon, and chicken to it. Reheated it and put in the broiler with shredded sharp cheddar cheese on top. The dish had nice fettuccine noodles, zucchini slices, mushrooms, and a nice Alfredo sauce. We did not eat the garlic bread that came with it. We have that and leftovers and left over pork to have for dinner tomorrow night.
Sunday, Jan 17
For Jan 16 CPAP. Reported figures,7 hrs 19 min with AHI=0.27. Events: 2 H, 2 CSR, 14 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min); oximeter on entire time with high SpO2 and normal pulse.
The graph above shows that something (medication change?) is causing my pulse to go below 50 through the night, and the ICD is kicking in to raise it, with its pacing feature. I need to discuss this with my cardiologist when I see him in March, (or maybe before with his nurse). I think I already mentioned this in the blog, but my new device is pacing at 15% and the old one was only pacing at 9% of the time. Last night was a good night, and it only went below 50 two times.
This morning we have snow again. I started out by spending almost an hour on cleaning the kitchen. Then a bunch of time on my computer to acknowledge our Brittanys accomplishments in California. Yesterday, my co-owned Brittany Daisy’s mom, FC KWK Windswept Guinevere of Camelot JH (aka Ginny) won a 4 point major in an Open All Age event with 18 dogs competing at the Greater Phoenix Brittany Club field trial.
Ginny . . . . . .On point . . . . . . . . . . Daisy
Some of the paths and walkways got cleared before it started snowing again. John lit a fire in the wood stove before leaving, and then came back in to fix brunch. Currently, three deer are eating from the branches in the back, so he won’t go back there now. We just finished following the score on the Seahawks game, and now he’s added wood to the fire and planning to go out and cut some more limbs for the deer out front and make his way to the old red barn to make pine kindling. From the center part of an older tree such stuff is called fat-wood, or other names in some places; pitch wood. Do an image search for – fat-wood. Then you can look here: natural stumps of Ponderosa pine trees
Early, we both were working on our computers and heard a noise I first thought was a cat but it turned out to be a lone doe “bleating” while walking toward out front door; maybe calling for her friends. She is still out front making noises.
Okay.. time to publish this, now that John is back in the house from all the outside chores. I’m not sure what the weather will have in store for Martin Luther King’s day, but at least we do not have to drive to town for any reason. Friends east of the Rockies are going to get very cold weather. Stay warm.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan