Again, I am starting the previous Sunday. \u00a0Following my first night out in a year, I returned this home this morning in sunshine but with spray from wet roads.\u00a0 My night in Leavenworth, WA was interesting and ended this morning with an enlightening breakfast before hitting the road for home, over Blewett Pass.\u00a0 The valued advice on enhanced vision opportunities that I have been looking for to help my friend\u2019s father, came at breakfast.\u00a0 The gal\u2019s mom has been legally blind for the last 30 years and has to use a CCTV and magnifier to get through life.\u00a0 Being a Library Science professional, she needs more than most not to lose her ability to \u201csee\u201d and read.\u00a0 She shared all her resources from Pierce County and WA State and gave me business cards of key people to contact for help.<\/p>\n
I returned home ready for a nap.\u00a0 I was awakened from a deep sleep by a couple of phone calls.\u00a0 The interesting one was from Sears about rescheduling an appointment for the oven range.\u00a0 It was a recorded message I must call back about on Monday.<\/p>\n
Sunday night Taize\u2019 only had a piano and 2 violins for music accompaniment.\u00a0 We did fine.\u00a0 Dinner after was great:\u00a0 pizza, salad, and two choices of cream pie (Cocoanut & Chocolate).<\/p>\n
Monday:\u00a0 Slept in.\u00a0 Took care of small things off and on all day.\u00a0 Worked on answers to the questions I was going to be asked in the Hospital District interview.\u00a0 I wrote out answers and then read through them a few times to prompt my memory.\u00a0 It was Valentine\u2019s Day, and I spent a lot of time responding to people on email to whom I had sent an animated card.<\/p>\n
Tuesday:\u00a0 Continued prepping for the interview, while it snowed big flakes outside.\u00a0 We got over an inch of accumulation and then it changed to rain and took it all away.\u00a0 I went back to making some shorthand notes with bullets on items I wanted to cover.\u00a0 I took the small piece of paper with me, but I didn\u2019t refer to it during the interview. \u00a0\u00a0I think it went well.\u00a0 There was a younger woman who followed me in.\u00a0 I was in with them for 25 minutes, as planned.\u00a0 They will let me know within a week their decision.<\/p>\n
Left the hospital and went to the grocery for my apple fritters order and old fashioned chocolate covered donuts with nuts.\u00a0 While there, they had another dozen donuts of various types, including two apple fritters, for $2.00 off the dozen price ($5.98).\u00a0 These are all large and nice, with some turnovers and filled ones, and maple bars.\u00a0 What a deal.\u00a0 We can freeze them.\u00a0 Went from there to friends\u2019 house and visited till the gentleman and I had to leave for the nursing home to play music. There were just two violins tonight, his and mine, and a piano player.\u00a0 We entertained with church hymns for an hour and then I came home to a warm bowl of chili.<\/p>\n
On my way to town I went by the house being lifted, and was totally surprised to see how much they have lifted it!\u00a0 It seems to be more than 6\u2019.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have time to talk to the workers to ask how high it was, but I took more pictures for my \u201cstory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wednesday:\u00a0 \u00a0Started out the morning reading emails and looking on the CWU site.\u00a0 There I found that the President\u2019s Office was offering complimentary tickets to the Spirit of the West Saturday afternoon (1:00 p.m.) concert at the CWU Music Hall with 4 recognized western music performers:\u00a0 Don Edwards, Juni Fisher, Doris Daley, and Adrian.\u00a0 I mentioned it to John who was \u201cwilling\u201d \u00a0to attend with me.\u00a0 Also, finally took the pictures off my camera of the house lifting (above the flood plain), and sent off to John to enhance the colors on.\u00a0 My camera takes with overtones of blue.\u00a0 Also, yesterday was a shady day and it was late in the day when I took them.\u00a0 Today is sunny so I hope to get some better pictures.<\/p>\n
[—–\u00a0\u00a0 John notes: The pictures Nancy has been taking over the past two weeks (the house raising) have had a bluish tint or \u201ccast\u201d as it is called by photo folks.\u00a0 We need to change the setting in the camera\u2019s software under the heading of \u201cwhite balance\u201d to fix this.\u00a0 We found the original box within which resides a Spanish version of the manual for the care and feeding of her camera.\u00a0 Great!\u00a0 We either have to learn Spanish or find the English language version \u2013 buried on a counter.\u00a0 While we search, I\u2019ve been using a software package to eliminate the blue cast, resize, and crop the images.\u00a0 Oh well, it is seasonally cold outside and getting colder.\u00a0 By late next week we will be about 20 degrees below normal; that\u2019s going to take us really close to zero by next Friday morning.\u00a0 Not, then, doing much outside, I have been reading on the web about things, including digital cameras.\u00a0 Here are links.<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.kenrockwell.com\/tech\/whitebalance.htm<\/a><\/p>\n Ken Rockwell has a huge site with much good information and an attitude.<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.cambridgeincolour.com\/tutorials\/white-balance.htm<\/a> —–end]<\/p>\n I went to SAIL exercise today, then by the CWU Prez office to pick up the tickets for Saturday, and then off to a lecture that is part of the interview for the first candidate to be brought to campus to fill my slot there.\u00a0 It snowed very hard this afternoon, right after I filled our \u201809 Subaru with gasoline and drove to Dean Hall.\u00a0 I sat and watched the snow for 15 minutes before I got out in it and walked to the building.\u00a0 Tonight, time was spent proofing a handout for a colleague and grabbing an article from the Wall St. Journal for another colleague (see I\u2019m retired but still working), and I spent time sending out job announcement to \u201cmy\u201d jobs list.\u00a0 It\u2019s called Northwest Geography Jobs and has about 500 people subscribed to the list serve.<\/p>\n Thursday:\u00a0 Started slowly by sleeping in. [ I think that\u2019s called not starting!\u00a0 J ] Mostly been doing emails when I should have been cleaning off the table to make way for the oven\/range delivery. It\u2019s easy to put off such \u201cwork.\u201d\u00a0 Nothing much today other than delivering a purchase from Costco to my neighbor, and going to play music at Dry Creek.<\/p>\n Friday: \u00a0Goodness.\u00a0 What started out slowly, ended full of stuff.\u00a0 We both slept in longer than usual, with no early morning 7:30 or 8:00 phone calls; however, we did have a wrong number looking for \u201cLaura\u201d at MIDNIGHT when we were sleeping soundly.\u00a0 Not nice.\u00a0 There were probably two other times during the night that one or more of the dogs wanted out, or John or I had to visit the bathroom.\u00a0 None of us can make it through the night.\u00a0 At least the kitty can go in her litter box, but we have to let out the four dogs into the backyard.\u00a0 We do not have their \u201cdoggie\u201d door operable now in the cold weather, and also cannot operate it with the kitty until she knows how to come and go from the house to the yard and back to the house.\u00a0 We\u2019ll wait for that learning experience till spring and nicer weather.<\/p>\n So, at Noon, I started the day with playing music and eating at the town\u2019s \u201csoup kitchen.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s always a nice full meal \u2013 no soup or bread yet. Today\u2019s chow was a cheeseburger, with tomatoes and lettuce, and other stuff I didn\u2019t put on mine (onions, pickle relish).\u00a0 I had mayonnaise and ketchup.\u00a0 They had fried cubed potatoes spiced with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme (sounds like an old song).\u00a0 And for dessert, pound cake with strawberries and whipped cream.\u00a0\u00a0 Three of us (guitar, banjo, and fiddle) played and sang for 45 minutes and then we left there and went to the Fairgrounds for the \u201copen mike\u201d part at the Spirit of the West, Cowboy Gathering.\u00a0 It was scheduled from 1:00 to 3:00.\u00a0 There we listened to others on the program before us, but we played as a subset of the Kittitas Fiddlers & Friends group at 2:15 for 7 minutes.\u00a0 We squeezed in 3 songs:\u00a0 T for Texas, Waltz across Texas, and Snow Deer.\u00a0 The makeup was comprised of 3 fiddlers (one occasionally playing his mandolin), a clarinet, a banjo and a guitar.\u00a0 It was a subset of our group, but we had fun and did a good job.\u00a0 We stayed around and toward the end there were a few minutes before the ending at 3:00 and the organizer asked us to come up and play some more.\u00a0 We did, without our banjo player, who\u2019d left.\u00a0 We played Blue Skirt Waltz and Never on Sunday.\u00a0 It was fun.<\/p>\n Saturday.\u00a0 Morning cleaning and sorting papers in the den, followed by a brief lunch and trip to the Spirit of the West 1:00 p.m. concert.\u00a0 It was SO good and lasted longer than we planned.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t get out till after 4:00 and then went grocery shopping.\u00a0 Home to email and more cleaning but have had 3 phone calls and not gotten the email even looked at yet.\u00a0 My feet are cold, so I think with down boots and heavy socks already on, I need to wrap them in a blanket.<\/p>\n The concert (names mentioned above) had a 19 yr old from N. California ranch, young girl, guitar player, songwriter and singer with a big booming voice.\u00a0 Second was an older woman from Tennessee, also a very fine singer and guitarist.\u00a0 Next was a Canadian woman who mostly told us stories in poetic form.\u00a0 She was great.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t expect to enjoy her but we both did.\u00a0 Then the last person was a guitarist, songwriter, singer in his 70s.\u00a0 What a wonderful performer with a fantastic voice and great picking skills.\u00a0 He sang two encores\u2014really cool, and his time was more than any of the others.\u00a0 I believe he was on stage for 50 minutes.\u00a0 Notes, pictures, and links here:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.ellensburgcowboygathering.com\/artists.php<\/a><\/p>\n We came home to some interesting mail.\u00a0 I was not chosen for the position I interviewed for this week, as a Board Commissioner for the Hospital District.\u00a0 Just as well, because after prepping for the interview and learning all about the expectations of the job, I wasn\u2019t sure I wanted it, but I gave it my all anyway and feel good about the interview.\u00a0 I do wonder who was chosen and about their background.\u00a0 There was a younger woman following me into her interview.\u00a0 Could be that age (and my health) was a factor; I\u2019ll never know.\u00a0 I guess I will know soon enough who was chosen.\u00a0 No, I do not intend to attend the public meeting the end of Feb. to see who is appointed.\u00a0 Hopefully, I can read about it in the paper. Besides, March has 5 Thursdays and music play dates and I really do enjoy those.<\/p>\n The other piece of interesting mail was from our eye doctor, a check refunding part of John\u2019s $96.01 bill (we had paid $30 at the time, for the Optimap scanning). \u00a0I had paid that recent bill and then questioned when the paperwork came through from insurance and Medicare.\u00a0 It made no sense to me and I thought we had been overcharged, so first I called the doctor\u2019s accountant, who told me I had to pay it because John\u2019s deductible had not been reached.\u00a0 Then I called the insurance company and asked for an explanation.\u00a0 The person helping me was also confused by the numbers and said he would submit it for reworking.\u00a0 I guess I was right, and today in the mail we have a check for $74.01 as a refund, but NO explanation.\u00a0 I need to check my records again to see what the $22 went toward on the bill.\u00a0 Medical charges and paperwork is the most confusing mess of accounting there is, in my opinion.\u00a0 A person has to be on top of everything, and I should have learned my lesson not to pay bills right away until all the paperwork is in, even after speaking to the office.\u00a0 However, in this case, it apparently was their error.\u00a0 What if I had not been paying attention?\u00a0 How do people who are not as savvy as we manage?\u00a0 I guess the answer is a lot of needless bills are paid without question.\u00a0 This is one of many we have found in error over the past 2 years.\u00a0 I wonder how many we missed.\u00a0 \u00a0One charge last year was at my family physician\u2019s office for an office call for me from a different doctor I have never seen and for a date when I was not in the office at all.\u00a0 It\u2019s in a town 30 miles away, so we know when we have had appointments and have them on the calendar.\u00a0 At first they tried to say it was for lab work (hence the doctor on call\u2019s name was on it, but I insisted I was not in the clinic that day and they needed to reimburse my insurance company and Medicare for the false report).<\/p>\n Now I\u2019m sitting here with slightly warmer feet , with the blanket wrapped around them.\u00a0\u00a0 I will end this now and send to John to put on the blog this week.\u00a0 Thanks for hanging in there with us.\u00a0 He will get to it after dinner.\u00a0 He just came back to the kitchen to work on the dinner, baked chicken \u2013 with mashed potatoes and beans.<\/p>\n Hope you all have a good week.\u00a0 We have to work hard tomorrow and President\u2019s Day to get the path ready to bring in a new stove\/oven and take out the old.<\/p>\n Best regards from Nancy & John and all the critters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Again, I am starting the previous Sunday. \u00a0Following my first night out in a year, I returned this home this morning in sunshine but with spray from wet roads.\u00a0 My night in Leavenworth, WA was interesting and ended this morning with an enlightening breakfast before hitting the road for home, over Blewett Pass.\u00a0 The valued … Continue reading “SATURDAY — Keep on keeping 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