Well, life continues as usual

On the 23rd of October I fell in my bedroom, and it was quite a fall.  Yes, I hit the crate holding my cross stitch stuff, and broke the top slat, with my head.  I broke the ottoman trying to get to the bed.  And in the end, C had to lift me onto the bed.  He is strong!  And he came because I managed to get the phone (but not the talk-y part which fell behind the bed.)  So I dialed, but then screamed so he could hear me, which he did, thanks be.  My cell phone was, of course, laying out of reach in the charging station.  But the worst part is that I twisted my right knee and ankle somehow, and only now, 3 days later, can I get to the computer and the bathroom without help.  It is swollen so far I can't get my gripp-y socks on.  I still don't know what caused my fall.  Tripped?  slipped?  knee buckled?  It all happened so fast, I really don't know.  I think I tripped on the rug.

I am traveling under a rain cloud, I think.  I have bought online and then had to return:  a skillet, a sweater, and a tacky sweatshirt.  Thank goodness the sweatshirt was bought with PayPal, and I got a total refund.  No more made in China for me!  I have to get another mailing label to send a roll of 35 mm film to be developed because I tried to glue the first label to the mailing bag, the glue soaked through the label and made it impossible to read.  My ipsy cosmetic bag had a leaky top on one of the bottles and it leaked over everything else.  I just cleaned it up with a little rubbing alcohol, at this point I won't send anything back for a while.  I did get my new antibiotic from a pharmacy in VA which cost me $0.00  when the local CVS wanted $75 for it.  But my physician declined having my anti-neuropathy medication refilled, and so there is a phone call floating out there in space, waiting for a reply to me.  This for a drug I have been using for years, unlike the doctor herself.  What a mess.

The day before my fall I made it upstairs (13 steps) for the first time in over a year.  I bumped my butt downstairs after a few hours, but then had to get up from the floor, so not a total yeah team, yet.  No repeat performances for a while.

Time to go, thanks for reading my tales of woe.  Bye!

Nearly Election Day

I always try to vote at early bird polls, there can be quite a line on election day and I can't stand for long periods.  They open on Wednesday.  Not much excitement this time, I will, as usual, vote for the losers.  This is coal miner land, and they LOVVVVE Trump and anyone who speaks up for fossil fuels (even though most of the mines shut down years ago), they think good times are (almost) here again.  I can't bring myself to vote for either Senate candidates, the Republican and the nearly Republican (Manchin), so I will leave that selection vacant.  And a big NO on the disguised proposition to limit abortion by undermining the ability to pay for one by poor women exclusively.  Not that I will be on the winning side there as usual.  Too bad the prop isn't one mandating support of infants and children in poor families.  And who needs Medicaid, they can just get a job (ignoring the cruelty of making someone seriously ill, who can't walk or breathe or anything else, day in and day out, try to find work.)  And no, I don't get Medicaid.

Cruelty is what this country is specializing in, children locked up away from their parents, oh hell, let's bag this.

 The weather right now is perfect for fall, cool crisp days and cold cold at night, the better to get the reds and yellows in the trees.  Next week the forecast is for SNOW, but it won't stick as the ground is too warm for now.  And I hope it won't damage the trees with its weight, bending and breaking branches and even entire trees.

I had my initial knee replacement done in June (of 17), so as to being done with therapy before the roads get bad.  However, this final knee went in Feb of 18 and therapy has continued all this time, so I will be at the mercy of the slick driveway every time we venture out.  Drat.

Thanks for reading this far, I know this isn't very jolly of a post.

I'm done with Christmas shopping

I can't get around well enough to brave the swarms of people who have two good legs in a department store, so online is the way to go for me.  The book for C is the last arrival, and I will have to hope it is OK inside that box because I am not tearing it apart to extract the book, then needing to find a box for wrapping.  This is going to be a different celebration.  I missed Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, my birthday and R's birthday in 2017 - 2018 because I was in the nursing home (or rehab place if you prefer) all that time.  So this year I insist on at least a modest celebration, with one gift for each other and no stockings.  Filling the stockings is really hard, to find some sort of small-sized gift or two, and then fill it with candy, and so forth.  So although buying a regular gift takes some pondering, it isn't impossible even if left to the last minute.  I'm pretty pleased with my selections, I hope they are OK for them.

I have paid for Long-Term Care insurance for many years -- 25 or so.  I filed a claim with them when it became apparent that Medicare and Blue cross/blue shield wasn't going to pay for everything.  Yesterday I got letters from them (MetLife) that they disallowed all the claims for a variety of reasons.  I will file a complaint with them, and if that isn't resolved, I will contact the state ombudsman.  It may all be for nothing, but I will have satisfaction in making the denial hard for them.  The decision by the ombudsman is final and binding on both sides.  It won't be fun to plow through all that paperwork yet again.  I planned to start on it today, but I was incapacitated and did not even make it to the therapy place.  Probably any phone calls I made would have gone to voicemail, because today is a holiday (Columbus Day).  No mail delivery either.  I was looking for a nice big check from MetLife, as my previous words with them were quite encouraging.  I was going to get the dead trees cut down so I won't worry everytime the wind blows hard.   I will call the financial advisor tomorrow and see what I have in liquid funds, I am not waiting until next year to remove them.  Checking online for LTC coverage, nearly everyone has had to escalate their claims to get any settlement at all, so I guess my case is not unusual.  Damn it.

I miss N terribly, especially at night like tonight, just knowing I could reach out and be in touch. It has been 2 years 5 months today.  And it doesn't get better, at least over these months.  When I read the letters from MetLife I wanted to cry, but I didn't want the kids to see me losing it.  So I had to suck it up and cry later.  "Shopping" online helps me cope, although I hold it to a bare minimum so I don't feel like an idiot, especially when I look at clothing.  I mean, where am I going to wear things?  I am at home or at therapy unless I specifically ask for somewhere, like the hair salon.  I sure would like to wear my shoes, but with the swelling in my feet it is impossible, I am in velcro closure slippers.

I still have not finished off the roll of film in the Minolta, tomorrow for sure I will finish up with cat portraits.   I haven't shot film in so long, I don't imagine these will be any great shakes, but I shall see.     Yesterday I walked up the lower half of our stairs, then outside and down the outdoor steps to the garage, my entryway into the house.  I felt pretty steady with Chris helping me.  I have had some episodes of buckling of my knee, but I don't hurry and that seems to help a lot.

I am trying to think up a humorous ending to this, but for now it will have to be this:

Bummer

Well, sometimes my mind wanders and forgets to come back.  These last few days have not been fun; I fell in my bedroom and although I was OK it set me back a bit.  I almost fell at the therapy gym, dizzy for just a few seconds, and the therapist caught me, I think that was due to low blood sugar.  So now I make it a point to eat before we leave home.  I bravely went to the dentist on Tuesday and got my teeth cleaned.  The brave part is when I managed to get up her two steps, the first one is 8 or 9 inches high, but the one into the waiting area is only 2 or 3 inches.  I had three people to help me up that big first step.  On the way out they put down the ramp which was pretty easy to negotiate.  Chris and I will work here at home on the carpeted stairs, since the therapy gym only has two step ups to practice on.  This is so unfair.

The wreath on the front door looks great, here is a photo:

I don't think I have posted this photo before today, but if I have, pass on by.  This decoration fits between the front door and the storm door, so it is protected from the weather.  The bow is the wire-stiffened type, so I can keep it boofy, or at least I could, except that I can't actually reach the landing where the front door is. Sigh.

I have been working on my chickadee project that I plan to send to S,  hopefully for Christmas.  If I don't get it done, it will be ready for her bday in July.  I have to allow time for the framing too.  I will have it covered in Plexiglass rather than glass, so it should arrive unbroken once it is in the hands of the UPS.  I think it is looking pretty good so far.  I plan to have the UPS store pack it too.

The bookmark for H, also for Christmas is about half done, who would have thought something so small would take so long to complete.  It has around 20 different colors, really slows me down to thread my needle so many times, sometimes for only a dozen stitches.  I am really tired of it.

The black/brown outside cat has a respiratory infection, but we can't take him to a vet, we would never catch him, much less administer daily or twice daily meds.  It may well be a virus, in which case antibiotics would do no good anyway.  He is feral, after all; I have never touched him, and he tolerates C only because he is the source of the kitty chow.  I hope he recovers, C would be sad if he died, or worse yet, disappeared under the porch where we would have to pry up some of the deck to get to him.  We've had to do that before.

I got all but one of my Christmas gifts for the kids, yeah me.  I ordered them online of course, but they look fine, not like that crappy "sweatshirt" that I bought and returned.  I have yet to see a refund from them, or the one from LTD for a sweater I returned, from a defect.  No more cheap clothes online for me.  I will escalate my claim with PayPal soon if I don't hear anything in the meantime.


I am sleepy and will head back to bed.  Here is small comic:

Goodnight!