Sunday, May 8 Happy Mother’s Day!
For May 7 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 35 min with AHI=0.00. Events: 2 CSR, 0 H, 11 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: very smooth, with high SpO2 all night.
John will go to the WTA trail as on Sat. last. He can leave a little later today than yesterday, because all the people except him are staying over in the campground, the tools are already up the hill, and there is no need for a discussion about the use and safe use of maintenance tools.
He was kind to help me slice some Jarlsberg cheese to take to lunch today at Swedbergs across the street, where I am going to celebrate Mother’s Day with our neighbors, two sons, daughter-in-law, granddaughter, and great grandson. I created a special card for the occasion, and am carrying along a few other sweet tummy treats.
I slept in another hour after John left. The wind is blowing hard. 45 mph gusts as John was leaving, and continued until the hour before 10:00 when it went to 48 mph. It was there for 2 hours, and then between 1:53 and 2:53 at the airport they measured 52 mph. WHOA. John made it home at 4:38 p.m.
I’m continuing to file and toss papers and restarted my Seagate weekly backup at 5:13 Sunday, but I do not know how to make it not copy everything. Something is not right.
Monday, May 9
For May 8 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 7 min with AHI=1.14. Events: 6 CSR, 7 H, 14 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 7 L/min). Oximetry: all good all night.
I spent a ton of time and still am not done with Dashboard back up on my Seagate Drive. I finally late afternoon made it through a process for technical support. I started early in the morning by re-registering my Seagate Disk Drive. Then for a couple hours, it refused to recognize my Serial Number, saying it was not in the system. Finally, I guess the 14th time is a charm, it let me on to write my questions and they will provide an email tomorrow to one of my gmail accounts. John is using our joint account to register his, and they would not let me use that address for mine.
Spent even more time worrying with arranging for the CWU retireds meeting in the morning. Now we have changed rooms, so there can be a PowerPoint shown. I fixed chocolate chip cookies from the frozen dough John pulled out of the freezer last night. I have 33 cookies for the meeting and we are expecting nine members, plus the speaker.
I sent out an organizational announcement for the Meadows Place, an assisted living home behind the Rehab where we play music on the second Thursday of the month. I need to request attendance of musicians, so I can give a count of how many arm-less chairs we need to have set up. It’s a weekly chore I have to manage.
Tuesday, May 10
For May 9 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 8 hrs 5 min with AHI=2.10. Events: 6 CSR, 17 H, 16 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 6 L/min). Oximetry was okay for the time it was on. Don’t know why it was off the rest of the night, after a 4:00 a.m. potty break. It stopped after 16 minutes, guess the charge died ??
We left at 8:00 a.m. so we had time to stop at Complete Computer Services to give them my laptop to figure out what happened. I guess the last thing I did last night was to shut it down through the system advanced options. The restart did not work, and I didn’t like any of the other options available. Ryan, the “windows” man, turned it on, had to wait awhile, but it came up fine. Now I think I should have tried before I left this morning. Oh well, he didn’t charge me for the service and that made me very happy.
In rushing out with that and the stuff we were taking along, I left the cookies behind at the front door. We realized it once we got there, and I was going to drive back home. Discussion ensued. Our main grocery store was just 1 mile away so I drove John to Super 1, where he went inside for the goodies, and I called and talked to the young man with whom I left my computer. John went in and found the cost of the amount of cookies I made for the group would have been over $18 – so instead, he bought apple and blueberry mini-strudels. It was fine and “only” $8.00. We were thanked today for 22 months of taking goodies with a $35 gift card from Jim & Lillian Brooks. Perkins is the place. We’ll use that for something special coming up this summer. I came home and froze the cookies I made for today to take next month.
Our meeting went well. The speaker explained his travels and research in Argentina. He was investigating oil drilling and production and why they are spending more money and getting less output. He spent time in an oil boom town, very small and remote. The place looked windblown and dusty, and long time residents were poor folks having a hard time coping. He received many compliments and questions from us old folks.
We managed to leave by 10:45 for our eye exams with Dr. Davis. We both had good reports, and neither of us paid the $44 for refraction. I don’t need the numbers as I have implanted lenses. John’s glasses are fine. So we just needed the medical exam that is covered by insurance. Our eyes, vision, and pressure are fine, and the back of the retina is all right too. The clinic uses
OptoMap ~~Have a look.
The cloudiness in John’s eyes is holding at 2+, that being less than the average for men his age. While I was there, I got a call from Ryan that I could come pick up my computer. On the way home, we did. Got home with not much time to spare, but I grabbed a bite for lunch, changed clothes and went on back in for Jazzercise class. On my way there I picked up some alpine boots, but when I got home, I found they would not fit, so I found another home to share them with, with someone less than 7 miles from our house on Naneum.
On my way home, I stopped by for mothballs at the Dollar Store (to attempt a send off of the skunk), and from there, I went around the block to view a friend’s photo exhibit in the Gard Vintners. Lynne Harrison is her name. Wonderful work.
I got home a little before 4, rested only a short while, and took off again for town, to play music with The Connections at Hearthstone, where I started the day!! We had a nice turn-out and participation from an appreciative audience. I was happy to get home for dinner.
Wednesday, May 11
For May 10 CPAP. Reported figures. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 20 min with AHI=1.26. Events: 5 CSR, 8 H, 15 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 8 L/min). Oximetry: excellent all night.
On my way from picking up Gloria, my Wednesday traveling buddy, we stopped a few blocks west of her and picked up an aluminum tripod and small commemorative creamer from the Spokane Expo ’74 (year we moved to Troy, Idaho) from a person on the BNE group. We went on to the food bank and met a woman there to give me a box of goodies – jars for the mothballs to reside, in order to out-skunk Pepé Le Pew.
Gloria was with me at the Food Bank, joining the singing and dining. Today, in addition to pasta, they served a lobster bisque. I had a large cup of it, rather than the pasta, because the large amount of garlic in it disrupts my tummy. I also took along a small helping of my own made tuna fish / egg salad to replace the pasta. They had a nice salad with the iceberg lettuce I can eat, and blue cheese dressing, with a brownie for dessert. We drove by the Kittitas Medical Supply place for my 3-month refills of CPAP supplies, on to SAIL exercise, and back afterwards to a nearby building to pick up my medical entry paperwork for my Physical Therapy evaluation. That’s to be in 2 weeks. On the way home we stopped by the bread room to partake of some things. We have always been encouraged to take things, but they have changed the hours, and the bread room is no longer open when we arrive for playing music. We both got a loaf of whole wheat bread, she some dinner rolls and I, an Olive Oil Loaf. The local grocery stores donate bread not sold by its best-by date, and the only place to store it is in a semi truck, so the food bank can’t keep it long – and why they encourage people to take the bread, even when they do not need to partake of normal food distribution. Better to use it than lose it to mold. There is always plenty and there’s a limit of five items.
Thursday, May 12
For May 11 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 45 min with AHI=0.52. Events: 0 CSR, 2 H, 17 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 11 L/min).
Finished up giving away (notifying at least) for the BNE seed packets. I have given away 2 of the 4, and those go next week.
Called Hospice Friends and will pick up an egg carton foam pillow for my chair. Got it and it was a better one than previously offered. I have worn that one out from sitting on it.
Our neighbor we honored on Mother’s Day was ill this morning, and once in ER, they decided she had to be transferred by ambulance to Swedish Hospital in Seattle for reaming out her esophagus that had constricted and kept her from swallowing anything. That doesn’t sound pleasant, but if it works, that’s fine.
John went with me to town, driving his car to fill with gas for this weekend’s trip. After letting me off at Meadows Place, he proceeded to get gas from the cheapest place in town on the north side, at $2.32. Then was able to find some cat food at Grocery Outlet on his way back to the grocery store we normally frequent, but where the price of the same can of cat food with a 10-cent off coupon is still 15 cents higher priced. He stopped off at Safeway for his cheaper (89¢/2 liter) colas. And eventually, he came back to pick me up, a few minutes before we ended. Twelve people contributed music, and we had a number of happy people in the audience, including some of the staff, singing.
Friday, May 13
For May 12 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 7 min with AHI=0.42. Events: 3 CSR, 3 H, 13 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: Interesting, between 5 and 6:00 a.m. my pulse dropped to 38 lowest, yet my SpO2 remained high except for dropping to 83, an hour after I went to sleep.
Early in the day we had a little excitement. I looked out the back window and saw our horses where they are not wanted. I found John in the front yard and asked him if they were supposed to be there, after he’d told me yesterday he did not want to let them in the backyard. He was surprised, because he had not put them in there. I looked again and saw two sections of the fence were down. He went around to open the easy gate for them to leave and to get the downed fence out of the way so they would not get tangled in it, leaving. Then he proceeded to fix it. Ancient boards and nails became loose in the high wind. At some point screws will have to replace nails in some of these things. Screws hold better and longer.
First view, left above is Myst with her nose in Raspberry plants, and behind her are the downed sections of fence. Right are the other horses, Cheyenne, Jazz, and Breeze behind the heat pump.
This shows the open gate (left edge) for them to use to leave, John walking toward the fence needing picked up and re-strung, and far right is Jazz munching on a mouthful of grass. Many years ago the boards came from an fence – old then – in EBRG from friends who were moving.
Backyard Horses / Downed Fence 5-13-16
Owen Orvald is 10 today. Need to find a special b.d. card special for him. I sent it between machine down time on Internet connection. What a PITA. Owen is the first child of a student from shortly after we arrived at CWU. Now the family is near Reno.
I have been trying to get some computer work done, but the Internet won’t stay up long enough to write a message.
I did manage to get this sent to a local contest.
I submitted this photo Jeri took of Daisy for Knudson’s Kooky Pooch contest to get 40# dog food / month for a year. Now people have to access Facebook and vote for her.
Go to Facebook – VOTE for Daisy
Saturday, May 14
For May 13 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 20 min with AHI=4.50. Events: 11 CSR, 24 H, 8 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 9 L/min). Bad report, which causes me to wonder why. I must have set myself up incorrectly last night for proper airflow. Oximetry: only on for a couple of hours, because I must have jarred it off my finger in the middle of the night. Not a good recording night on either device.
John leaves early, 5:30 a.m., for North Bend, for Crew Leader College. Unfortunately, he awoke much earlier and could not get back to sleep. I awoke at almost 4:00 and he decided to go ahead and get up. He did find all his gear, pack his lunch, and get out of the house. He had to go to check and put things in his car, so I warned him to be careful and not get sprayed by the skunk. Got a chuckle from him. He printed me the program for today. He will get there for the kickoff, hoping to get there soon enough for a seat in the room, and maybe a donut. His training session is Basic Crosscut Sawing, which he has experienced, so this is a refresher with 2 sawyers he has not worked with. The goals are to discuss and practice a successful log out, types of bind (tension/danger) encountered, dangers in logging out trails, and successful planning for cutting logs so that the trail is cleared with minimum effort.
I stayed and slept for another couple hours, but now have gone out to retrieve a potted hen and chicks plant for a gal to come pick up this morning. There was a pungent skunk odor around the front yard. While out, I fed one of the ferals, Woody. I’m keeping an eye out for the others in the afternoon. The clouds have moved in, threatening, and they were calling for rain where John will be outside working. He found a light rain jacket to carry in his backpack.
I only got 1.5 hrs in for cleaning up my presence and recording the information from the old BNE site, so I can leave and join the new subgroup, based on my Ellensburg location.. now BNK (Buy Nothing East Ellensburg-Kittitas-Vantage). Now the Internet has been down since 9:14 a.m., and it is down all over Kittitas & the whole valley, as well. I tried calling the 1-800 number, for Fairpoint Communications, but they no longer have a local presence and their national one is not being recognized. Yes, I’m royally ticked off. We cannot get anything else out this far from town, and we do not wish to subscribe to cable, even if it came this far out. Service returned about 2:45 p.m., and the phone number started working again, so it was broadly based as John found out looking at outages of Fairpoint across the U.S. today. We were fortunate our landline through them continued operating.
I’m getting by with doing dishes, eating, sorting, and working on the text of the blog. No way we can publish it without a connection. Continuing with cleanup & filing. Charged my phone and oximeter (uses the same charger – nice after the original with the Oximeter quit working a 3rd time. The service company I bought from on Amazon replaced the first two, but I didn’t want to ask again, and then tried my older cell phone one and it fits and works.
John’s saw group finished and was back at the USFS in North Bend by 4, but WTA brass wanted a group picture at 4:30. John called about the time expected, after 20-to-5, and I went right out to feed Lemon out back, and it started sprinkling. I went to the front door, saw Woody on the cable table and her mom Sue right behind. I ran back in to get a plate for Sue. I had only seen Woody, until I walked out. It was starting to sprinkle more, but not bad as it has gotten in the past hour. I managed to feed Woody on top of the table, and convinced Sue to come in the front gate onto the concrete. They both cleaned their plates. Now for John’s arrival it is raining much harder, and I didn’t put up the barrel or buckets to catch the roof water, but he’ll be home soon to rectify that.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy & John
Still on the Naneum Fan