Break Chronicles: Day Five - Relaxing and Resting in the Best Place in the World!
I spent a very long day between Sunday School, church leadership, driving to the airport, and then 7+ hours of traveling, but I made it. My sister brought my mom along on the drive and picked me up at almost 11 pm their time. We then appreciated the holiday lights and chatted for about an hour before heading up to go to bed. We then woke up somewhat later than usual (at least, for me), and we celebrated our holiday with gifts and a good meal. Mom and I went upstairs early, and I was able to finally connect my devices to the internet to catch up on all the holiday wishes from various companies I am connected to. It is nice to know that the gas company wishes us all a happy holiday season!
We have plans for today, but I am hoping that none of them involve leaving the house for any reason whatsoever! My mother has a friend from her childhood coming to visit on a drive-by encounter during the trip from her child's house about an hour and a half away from here. She and her husband live about 5 hours away from here, so we are conveniently located. It will be nice to meet them.
The cat has come down to investigate who was flushing the downstairs toilet, and now he has settled on his favorite pillow to watch me as I type. The cat, whose name is Walter, is a cuddly cat. He prefers to be sitting on my sister when she is near, but he is currently stuck with me. I am trying to entice him to play with me. He doesn't usually play too much with the others, but he will often play with me, so I bring that game into his life. He seems to enjoy watching my fingers type - he sits on top of my mother's hands when she is at the computer every day.
I am happy to be in a place where there is little to do except for rest. I did not bring all of my passwords or logins or even my ideas book with me, so I can spend some time just enjoying things as they occur rather than stressing about things that I need to do. I find that I can only truly relax when I am here. There is something about being at home that just makes things more simple. I don't have a car of my own, so there is nowhere I can go without someone else around. I sleep better here than any place in the world. It is home for me.
During this break, I have a couple of quests. The first is to convince my mother to get a new computer. Hers goes "ca-CHONK, ca-CHONK" on a very regular basis and is so old that nothing really works anymore. She is very resistant to the idea, but it really has to be done. What I would really like for her to do is to buy a new one, but this one was cobbled together by my Dad, so she might be a bit resistant to the idea of scrapping his work altogether. The second-best outcome would be to replace the things that are obsolete and keep the framework that was Dad's. Her major objection is that everything costs money. I get it, but she will miss her computer when it dies, and I would rather have a new one up and running before it gets to that point. She tends to respond best with subtle cues and discussions rather than to-the-point lectures, so I am trying to finesse the subject as much as possible with the urging of my sister. We are also going to plan a trip for this summer.
Each of us has a meal to cook for the others to decrease the number of times we go out to eat. We had one of our favorites, tuna noodle casserole, yesterday. Today, my sister is gong to make lazy lasagna, and I will finish up the week making Crepes Ensenadas at some point. There will be lots of leftovers which might keep us from having to go out to eat every single day. My digestive system cannot tolerate restaurant food all the time, so this might help with all of that. We will see - this might be a new tradition. Who knows?
I hear things creaking upstairs which means that my mother is awake. She has fallen into a pattern of awakening and then going back to sleep. This is a bit early to expect her to come downstairs to socialize, but she might surprise me. The cat is dreaming about somethings and is twitching his whiskers and paws. I am enjoying the creaks and gurgles of this house in the predawn hours.
Today is Tuesday, right?
Should I do a TME Tuesday part of this post? Probably. Okay, here goes.
I got a one string, learner's guitar yesterday as one of my gifts. It is shaped like a triangle, is painted in rainbow colors, and has only one string. The frets are color coded up the neck of the instrument, and it looks like a great instrument to teach the concept of note changes to novice instrumentalists (of which I have a plethora at work). It will lead to the development of several TMEs. I am thinking about using this for adaptive lessons as well as for theory concepts. We can talk about pitch as well as melodies while also strengthening our fine motor acuity. I brought my jump drives with me this trip, so I will be able to work on ideas in that format, if I want to do so. If not, the ideas can wait until I get my gift box in the mail after I get back to the cold climes of my current home.
I get to experience two Christmases when I come for a visit out here. The first is on the actual day. The second is when I get my boxes in the mail and can see what I got again. I always forget things. This year, I also received an almost-full set of my favorite Corelle - the ivy pattern. It is going to be expensive to ship, but that is part of my budgeting every year, so I am not worried. It just means that I have to buy less things to ship home while I am here. I will try to restrain myself, but it can be difficult to do while on break.
I am hoping that the worker's compensation coordinator at my new orthopedist's office calls me today to set up an appointment. I was told that she would be back in the office today, so I am keeping some of my fingers crossed while waiting. It would be beyond perfect if I could get in on the 2nd, but I am not thinking I will be that lucky. We will see. I am more than ready to start playing my own guitar again but I have not been released to do that yet. I have so many songs that are waiting for music, and I am not as good at composing said music when I am restricted from using my left upper extremity. I miss the instruments that I love.
I need to get my medications, check in with my Mom, and figure out what I am going to do next. Since my schedule is different from my mother's just because I come from the future (AKA, the central time zone), I have to do things a bit differently while I am here. That's okay, but it means that I have to figure out how to get what I need to do as part of my daily routine in a way that doesn't disturb her daily routine. The cat has gone upstairs to see what is going on with her - and to drape himself over her computing hands - so, I can head on up, get my meds, and check in with her to see if she will be going back to sleep anytime soon. If so, then fine. I will come downstairs and play with my toys. If not, that's fine, too. We never lack for things to talk about.
Happy Tuesday, all!
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