The Daily Positives

[cariad]

A book store gift card?  A big chain like Barnes and Noble has books, cds and dvds, so he's got a really big selection.

That's a great suggestion! I should have thought of that. I'm one of those 'buy local even if it costs you more' dorks, so I completely forgot about the 'all things media' extravaganza at the big book sellers.

Thanks, Paris! He certainly earned it and I hope he has fun spending it.

[MooseMom]

This is such a nice thread to read.  I enjoy hearing about the nice things that are happening to people!

I'm getting through my Teaching Company DVD set "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music.  I've just finished the sections on "Fugue" and "Baroque Opera."  So much to learn; so little time.

[Sunny]

My 19 year old daughter is home for the summer from college. Now I have both my kids at home and I am loving it.Got to enjoy this while it lasts.

[cariad]

Wonderful, Sunny, enjoy!

Sounds interesting, MM. I am a complete ignoramous when it comes to music. I blame it on my favorite excuse: hospital baby switching. My grandmother went to Julliard and owned a music store, and I grew up with two baby grands in the home and a decade of music lessons. It's pitiable. I do, thankfully, know what a fugue is, thanks to this cute little YouTube vid I stumbled upon when researching the origin of the term 'fugue states'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgDcC2LOJhQ&feature=PlayList&p=A29FE1312DF66C42&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=1

I'll have to think of a positive for the day and return....

[monrein]

Moved some pretty large rocks around among my hosta collection and planted three new ones plus a division clump.  Also made a low stone bench to hold a planter pot that has yet to be designed.  Came in and made a pot of red lentil, ginger, coconut milk soup but went out for sushi dinner.

Early morning appointment with the dermatologist to remove odd looking things that appear periodically but none was suspicious.  Quite often they are sent away to the lab  although none have ever been a problem.  Doctor told me she thought I looked as healthy as any of her patients and way more so than many.  Excellent little day all around. 

[MooseMom]

monrein, I like your dermatologist!!

I have a hosta collection, too!  (Mostly because nothing kills hostas, not even me.)  They are great plants for the horticulturally lazy...that's me, too.

[paris]

Hostas are truly a gift from God!  My daughter in law just stopped by and she couldn't believe how huge some of mine are.  Some are a tiny variety and I have all different colors. (well, as different "colors" hostas can be!")   They give so much and ask for so little.   I must divide them this year, though.  I have lost a little stone path amoung all their folliage!    Monrein, when is the best time to divide them?  Any tips would be appreciated.   

[jbeany]

Hostas, tiger lilies, hen and chicks, and decorative fescue grass - all things I can keep alive.  Everything thing else - not so much.

My car has new brakes today.  My adorable mechanic told me it now drives like "a knife thru buttah".  Not sure when the native bred Michigan boy started channeling the Jersey shore, but it made me laugh anyhow.

[monrein]

Paris, I divide them whenever I want or need them in new places.  They're tough as nails except for many varieties being slug bait.  I wait till they've grown in and are nice and strong but no special time to divide here.  I have one that overwintered, bare rooted, tossed on my neighbour's compost heap.  I rescued it, planted and it's still going well about 15 years later. 

[Des]

Love is......

It is bitterly cold here in South Africa and I was at dialysis until 21h30 last night..

Hubby fetched me and on my seat he had a warm been bag. (you heat it in the microwave) He is really such a honey! I love him to bits.

He is the reason that I sit through dialysis day in and day out.

 

[galvo]

I attended the cardiac rehab unit at the local hospital and was impressed with the professionalism of the staff and somewhat dismayed at the sight of the evil machines - bicycling things and walking things. I start rehab next week and am, oddly, looking forward to it.

[monrein]

As weird as it might sound, cardiac rehab is a great way to start a regular habit of exercising and that often helps us feel better all round.  Good luck Galvo and I hope the evil looking machines become your friends. 

[jbeany]

Gram's house is spotless and empty.  Ahhhhhh.  The pole barn and the 3 car garage, however, are packed to the gills with things I need to tag for the estate sale.  At least the trash is gone, or most of it.  The 20 yard construction dumpster left, nearly overflowing, on Monday and was replaced with a 10 yard, which is so far only partly full.  Two weeks to mark a million things, although the number gets smaller with every friend who comes to help - they keep taking it home with them!

I applied to college today, and got my transcript sent from the uni where I got my degree.  I made an appointment with an admissions adviser for next week, to be done by phone.  The aide who made the appointment asked me if I could send a computer file of my original degree transcript to the adviser before the phone appointment, in case the official one isn't sent in time.  I had to laugh.  My "official" student copy is on tear-off dot matrix printer paper.  "A Windows compatible file, please." -yeah, right!  I said I'd scan it and e-mail it as a pdf.   

[Pam]

My positive for the day.....I am finally on the transplant list at Henry ford, Mich!
Pam

[cariad]

Congrats, Pam. That is huge.

Jbeany, what an accomplishment.

Good luck to you, Galvo. It sounds like you're off to a roaring start.

Loads of little positives today. We received a reimbursement check from the transplant centre for a hotel stay back in February. I received my refills on all my meds, although one of my meds has been stopped. It's the clotrimazole, which never gave me any side effects, but as it's a dissolving tablet, I always had to wait an extra half an hour to go to bed when I would take it - no food or drink for 20 minutes, and must brush teeth within an hour of taking it. That hassle is over. I took a nice long walk in the glorious sunshine this morning.

We received our first CSA drop, containing pole beans, spinach, basil to die for, one quart of maple syrup (with the option to buy further quarts at the absolute bargain price of $10 per), cilantro like manna from heaven, lettuce, and strawberries.

I opened my email this morning to find a Groupon for a mobile car cleaning service that uses an eco-friendly and low-water system. I purchased a $25 car wash for Gwyn for only $10, and I will give him the voucher for Father's Day. He can make an appointment for the company to come to his car at work.

I received the other Father's Day gift I bought for Gwyn already. Custom mousepads. (Don't laugh, we have none in the house and it is really annoying!) One is a pickie of the boys, the other is the owl that he photographed, and I think it's a stunning photo. Check below. I used the photo of the owl on the branch rather than the one of the owl looking out of the nest. I just love the regal look of the owl, and how you can just make out the eye, seemingly watching you....

Fab day!

[jbeany]

 
My 3.57 GPA from my Bach degree means I qualify for a scholarship of $4000 a year.  Basically, for every 3 classes I take, one of them is free.  They are still waiting for my official transcript to arrive from my original school, but I've already been preregistered for the classes I want.  It's going to be a great schedule - everything on Tuesday and Thursday, back to back from 10 am to 3:30.  That leaves the rest of the week for a job, so I don't have to crunch through my savings while I'm studying.

I've got half the pole barn full of estate sale clutter marked.  I'm hoping to finish the other half tomorrow, and finish off the garage on Friday.  My sale ad comes out in the paper on Saturday, to run for the entire week, and I'd love to have everything already marked and locked up before the collectors and antique dealers start swarming around hoping for an early look.

[cariad]

Excellent news, jbeany. Four thousand is serious.

I have accepted the treasurer position on the PTO board at my son's school. The president of the PTO was one of the parents we really relied upon during the transplant period, and she has been doing both positions for a year. No one else wanted to take it up, so now that I'm feeling more stable, I think it will be a great way to get involved with my son's school and start learning about the behind-the-scenes of it without being exposed to germy children. We have our first meeting next week. This is rather a big deal for me - I want to get myself back out into the world but my confidence in my abilities has been shattered. This will hopefully ease me back into job-resembling duties.

[monrein]

My sister-in-law/ donor arrived yesterday with my niece and nephew (12 and 16).  The kids will be here for a month and Kathy for four days now and four days later.  They are so much fun and best of all they love hanging out with us...since we have no kids of our own, this is very special.

[MooseMom]

cariad, that is an enormous step forward that took no small amount of courage.  Good for you!

Monrein, you have a 16 year old nephew that likes to hang out with the old folks like us?   How rare?  My 17 year old stepson is a great kid, but he has his gormless moments, mostly while he is texting his friends, which is, like, soooo all the tiime.  What do you have planned for the kids FOR A WHOLE MONTH? 

[fc2821]

    My wife, who had her knee replaced Tuesday.  She is doing fine and was told today she will get to come home tomorrow. 

    Also my step daughter and her sons are here and today they were thrilled because while I was gone men from the public works commission parked beside our house and off loaded a tracked (tracked) ATV to once again check the creek which runs behind the hiouse. The little guys, ages 3 and 20 months were enthralled for over an hour watching them.  When my step daughter picked me up to take me home the 3 year old told me all about it!

[monrein]

MM, it's constant busyness.  Both kids love sports and so there are several baseball games (Blue Jays) planned as well as a special one where Lee has arranged for my sister-in-law and niece to be on the field for batting practice.  They'll also likely go to a Lacrosse game or two.  They are also serious "foodies" so much time is spent planning meals both at home and in restaurants.  Summerlicious is on, starting July 9th and that's a great opportunity to try great restaurants for 3 course prix fixe menus at fairly reasonable prices.  We make a list of contender restaurants and then select a few, based on consensus.  Then there's the jazz festival, so we'll likely take in some music there and also Angelique Kidjo is playing on Canada Day so we're going to that for sure..their Mum's brother is the sound mixer/producer/engineer/tour manager for a number of artists (Jackson Browne, Richard Thompson, Rosanne Cash, Marc Cohn, Shawn Colvin, Duncan Sheik, Aimee Mann, Suzanne Vega, David Garrett, Juliana Hatfiel, Kathleen Edwards, Ben Kweller) including her, so he's in town for the show and we get free tickets.  We'll of course try out a new restaurant with him the night before.
We'll spend a couple days here and there at the cottage (altho they much prefer the city because they live in a small town in northern Florida and they like the change), go to some art galleries and art shows, the museum, take in some movies, hopefully at least one Imax experience, they'll go to Canada's Wonderland (roller coasters and such) with a friend's daughter they've become friends with over the years, go to other friends' houses for barbeques and such, they each have a month's pass to our gym where Al is old enough and big enough to work out and Syd can take some squash lessons and do some cardio machines.  We might do this about once a week I guess.  We also visit some relatives, check out interesting parts of town like the beaches, the Greek area, China town, little India etc.  Tomorrow my husband is driving Al and his Mum to Waterloo where he's meeting with some professors (for the second time) to discuss the program he hopes to do there (engineering and robotics).  Al will also do some techie stuff around our place like upgrade the computer's hard drive to accommodate more music and buy and hook up a better TV cable for my 91 year old mother-in-law's high def TV.  She takes us to some pretty special restaurant outings so time spent with her is built in to every visit...and they come twice a year.
In the down time ....haha....we play scrabble, rent movies, go for walks (they like night time strolls on city streets)  and I make them help me with some garden chores and they laugh at the names I have for my various plants.  We might also head over to Ottawa for a couple days.
Their Mum is leaving on Monday for a ten day trip to Newfoundland and Labrador the she returns for 4 days, leaves again for Florida and work at the clinic and then my brother, who is holding down the fort back at the vet clinic, will go with the whole family for a week in Maine where she's from.  Gosh I'm tired just typing all this stuff...but we only do one day at a time.  What's lovely is how often we comment on the difference now with my transplant compared to the trips when I was dialysing and they'd come in to pick me up there, too bushed to be fully myself. 

[cariad]

Aside from the news from the transplant centre, for the first time in their lives, my kids both had field trips on the same day. My little boy went strawberry picking. Of course, most of the berries were totally smashed by the time he got them home to us, so we made jam which he can enjoy come the weekend. He was so proud of himself!

We took delivery of our CSA drop. Gwyn and I managed to use almost everything from last week's box. I made a few dishes, including green bean pate with the pole beans, salsa and pesto with the cilantro, and many, many salads. At the moment I am obsessed with spinach salad with diced gouda, dried cranberries, soy bacon bits, and chopped marcona almonds. I don't really care for salad dressings most of the time, and this one is perfect without. Our new box contains spring garlic, radishes with the tops still on, strawberries, lettuce, more gorgeous cilantro, cucumber, and mushrooms.

[galvo]

My haemoglobins have risen to 99 after Wednesday's 2 transfusions. Good but not great. We'll keep monitoring.

[Des]

Yesterday's positive.... Our tv broke as I walked in from work.. Yes it is a positive! The family spent time around the table playing poker, black Jack and Roulette...! The looser made coffee.... it was the most fun we've had in a long time.   At 10h30 we only realised the time....

This was fab!

[cariad]

Oh, Des, I just love it when things like this happen. It makes one realise how the technology that we all find so entertaining may actually be keeping us from the real fun in life. I have many happy memories of playing cards, especially hearts, with my family as a teenager.