Monday July 25th 2022

Tweety, BSN, RN · Jul 25, 2022

Good morning!

Joe, hope you have a good day.

Got up to feed the dogs and went back to sleep another hour. Did some cleaning. Going to make a tofu dish, go to the gym, clean the bathrooms. Exciting day planned.

Have a great day!

Ado Annie, ASN, RN · Jul 25, 2022

Sounds like a pleasant day, Joe. Hope your workweek is wonderfully normal.

Tweety, it always feels good to get the stick that someone else couldn't. But, yeah, then you get humbled every now and then.

Saturday I spent the day thinking I was going to an 89th bday party for an old neighbor, then to my book club which was also doing a baby shower. Checked my facebook events to verify locations, etc. and saw that the neighbor's daughter had canceled the party because her husband has Covid. Did go to the book club meeting/baby shower. The baby was born at 25 weeks and is now about 9 (?) weeks old and doing really well, about 4.5 lbs now. He did have surgery for a PDA and he still requires oxygen but no ventilator now, and requires a feeding tube as he's still not managing to eat. Still expected to get to go home around his due date. It's amazing to me (and happily so). When my boys were babies, I participated in a "Mothers of Multiples" group and knew some people who'd had very premature babies and most of those stories were heartbreaking.

Twin B and I went to the pool (nearest public pool is nearly 20 miles away) and enjoyed it. A woman was taking a possum to the wildlife rehab when she had a flat tire near where we live so I picked up the possum and drove him the rest of the way to Wildcare.

Had a text early Sunday that there were 6 patients on the floor and only one nurse scheduled that night.. could I come in? I probably would have done it, even though we had plans to go to the pool and I was planning to go to Wildcare, but it turns out someone looked at the schedule wrong and they were covered.

Now trying to get things wrapped up before heading to Vermont on Wednesday.

No Stars In My Eyes · Jul 25, 2022

I got up at 10 AM so I could sit down with both checkbooks, called the automated teller to get the balances and mark off all the checks that had cleared. Then figured out what bills to pay, and what auto-pay withdrawals had been taken out and what will also be taken out before the next SS check arrival. Then I wrote the checks out to mail off, stamped them, and off to the post office and the bank. It only took me about 3 hours (!) because I had to review my math at several points. I have to do all this on paper, because that's the only way I can do it. Short-cuts and on-line stuff drives me NUTS, and that is worse than the frustration of when hubby throws me off by coming in and asking me questions, the last one of which was "How come it takes you so long to do that?" Well, every time he comes in it interrupts my train of thought and derails the process. I swear, I thought that by getting up and starting it early that I would avoid being interrupted. Haha. Four times today! I told him I would be happy to let him take care of it next time, but gee, he declined. Imagine that!

Anyway, it is done and done. Now I am waiting for my updated Driver's License to come in the mail. I did do the renewal on line a while ago, because NCDMV actually has an EASY on-line process, but I still have to wait for the snail-mail to get the new one to me. I had wanted a new photo, but have no patience for waiting in long lines at the DMV, so I said WHO CARES if I don't look like that any more. Besides which, I have the camera lens of the laptop taped off (on purpose) 'cause I didn't want to have a self-photo on my 'puter.

It is (again) HOT, and very big clouds are overlapping each other, piled high, in various shades from light gray to heavy deep-dark gray. Perhaps we will get some rain? I hope so!

Nannie is conked out asleep with her head sideways on her right shoulder. Hubby will be bringing back an early supper pretty soon. There is another ballgame this evening. We lost last night -- the scores were reversed from the day before yesterday (Where we won 9-2, then the other team won 9-2 last night.)

I remain weary; so what else is new? Not much!

nursej22, MSN, RN · Jul 25, 2022

Hi, it is getting warm outside. I just got back from accompanying my sis with heart failure to the cardiology office. The NP was fussing about why didn't the hospital do a cardioversion while she was at the hospital. I pointed out that the electrophysiologist was consulted, but I don't the NP believed me because there was no note in the computer. I pressed about who was going to follow her heart failure, and now, 6 weeks after discharge, she is being referred to a heart failure specialist. First available appointment is Aug 31. smh. And she has no refills on her 6 new heart failure meds. I also took her to get a blood draw. She is still weak and dizzy, and her legs are still mottled. And she feels like cr@p. The NP is convinced that cardioversion is going to fix everything.

Dh is scheduled to do a tele-visit with the GI office to set him up for a colonoscopy. I saw that he left the forms and a list of his meds on the table, so I assume he is going to come home to do that visit.

I dropped off a quart of fresh blueberries to youngest grandson. I will still have plenty to freeze for later :).

I have been seeing so many deer and bunnies when Angus and I are out on our walks, which accounts for the lack of tops to dh's tomato plants, LOL. There are still some fruit forming, but likely won't ripen until next month.

Nothing else going on except work, water plants and sit in the shade. Ahh, Summer.

nursej22, MSN, RN · Jul 25, 2022

Our local post office is so under staffed and overloaded with Amazon that we are lucky to get mail twice a week. As I look at Medicare options I am very reluctant to go with mail order meds.

Tweety, BSN, RN · Jul 25, 2022

Stars, I can't for the life of me understand why you'd want to spend three hours with a checkbook. But you can do you. LOL

J22, I'm hearing you are getting a heat wave.

And I have Covid. Ugh

nursej22, MSN, RN · Jul 25, 2022

Oh, Tweety, that just blows. I hope your recovery is smooth and uneventful.

Heat is a-coming. Maybe 90 tomorrow? With 50% humidity so it will be a little sticky.

No Stars In My Eyes · Jul 25, 2022

1st of all OMG! You have Covid! ? I hope it is not too, too horrible. Is it a 'light' case? ((((((Tweety?))))))

Secondly, as I was typing that post, I knew you'd say something about my financial so-called 'methods'!?

It was actually two checking accounts, Nannie's and ours, and 8 bills. And I also have payments that are set up for "automatic withdrawals". None of Nannie's stuff is set up on line, and never has been. (We had to take her computer away many years ago, as she got skunked out of $2,000 by scammers.) Also, I have a husband who is not very good at writing purchases down in the checking log, and often forgets to get receipts for the debit purchases, so I have to chase stuff down. I never-ever wanted to be the one in charge of the 'accounting', but have ended up with it (along with other things he doesn't do or can't do anymore.) It wouldn't have taken me 3 hours if I'd been left to my own devices.

Last week I totally balanced both checkbooks to the penny; must've been a BLUE moon then, as it doesn't happen very often. And I am horrendously bad and frustrated at using the computer for MANY things, but especially to "do" any of our stoopit business transactions. I have tried, but ended up messing things up worse! And I dread when I'll have to give up my flip-phone and get a smart phone, cause I hate those things, too! I am being dragged kicking and screaming into the future against my wishes! (Wah-wah-?Wah!)

I know when my throat closes up that I am about to cry, and I'd really rather not. Can't throw the laptop across the room. What I need is my very own CPA, but who can ya trust any more these days? If any mistakes are made, at least I know they're mine. Oh well. All done until the end of next month.

We just had a *flash* thunderstorm -- one huge roll of thunder, ten minutes of rain so thick it was hard to see anything, and now it's down to a reasonable rain. Earlier the air was so thick it was hard to breathe.

Time to turn on the News and listen to Nannie saying "It just gets worse every day!" every minute and a half. Also " I LOVE this TV.", "Look at all those colors.", and every commercial where there is a child or infant: "Loook. Loooook. Isn't he/she just PRECIOUS!" Also....the usual confusion about the baseball game: "Is the game over?" at the end of each inning. "How long will it go on?", "There are so many people on the field I don't know how they know what they are doing." (ETC. ad infinitum)

So long! Fun, fun, fun!

Ado Annie, ASN, RN · Jul 25, 2022

Tweety, I'm sorry. Hope you don't get very sick and that you recover soon.

Covid is hitting our staff hard. I just learned that 2 full-time ER nurses and one PRN are out. How we're going to manage that is a big question. The CEO and I are both going to be in Vermont unless it makes sense to keep one of us here. I've filled in in the ER in a pinch but I'm not an ER or ICU nurse. The CEO has worked ICU but not ER and it has been some time since he did. So we're not the best solutions to the problem anyway. The nurse manager can't do 24/7. Or even 24/1.

Stars, our finances are really haphazard. Hubs won't deal with anything that requires actually writing and mailing a check. So anything that can be paid online is paid online, and it has tripped us up a time or two to have scheduled payments that we weren't planning for.

Gma's meds are mail-order and it has worked pretty well, even here in small-town OK. I am not looking forward to having to figure out what to do with Medicare, but Hubs is 63 1/2 so it's coming.

No Stars In My Eyes · Jul 25, 2022

Braves are playing the Phillies. Nannie asked :"Why does the other team have PEE on their hats?" ????

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(It actually is the letter "P")