Wouldn't Wish This On Anyone!

I believe since the day after my last post I have had sciatica of one intensity or another. This is not something I would wish on anyone! And I now have complete empathy with anyone who has it or has had it! One friend said she "felt my pain in her butt", since she's had the same thing. True empathy!
From out of nowhere came the burning, cutting, stabbing feeling to the right of my tailbone over to the right hip joint and down the front of the leg to the knee. Wish I could at least say I had been climbing Mt. Whitney at the time! Nope, just doing normal everyday stuff. That lasted for 10 days. Didn't matter what kind of pain pills or whatever I took, it stayed the same. No sleep.
Then gradually, gradually, one pain pill seemed to help, ice seemed to help and I kind of sort of got some sleep. Now on day 15 I can say that I have slept 3 or 4 nights in a row (with chemical help) and the pain has changed to a feeling like I have been kicked by a bull in the right hip. I guess that's progress! I can walk around the house for about 5 min. before the affected muscles get really tired and I have to sit/lay down. Hmmm, at this rate I may be able to be back to normal in several months!
The best thing is I was able to go to the KH Tuesday night. I just hobbled in, sat down and did OK. Sitting seems to be what I do best right now!
So, that's my current situation. I know many people have much worse ailments and that makes me very sad. Hopefully I can write something much more encouraging next time!

Mr. Toad & Getting Up Early

A week or so ago I raked the leaves out of our little garden area on our patio. I was trying to make a larger dirt area for Kobe to do his business! Apparently I disturbed our resident TOAD when I raked up the leaves! We thought we had a toad or a frog this last summer because he (or she) would makes it's song every evening, although we never saw it. Kobe discovered the kind of medium sized amphibian and thankfully didn't try to eat him. Michael brought it inside for the night. He thought it was sick but I think it's body was just confused about whether it should hibernate or not. Nov. was mostly cold but now it's in the 50s. The next day Michael made a burrow in the dirt next to the pond for him and covered it with leaves. Hope he survives until spring!

When you're not used to getting up early it's hard! I had to get up at 3:30 a couple of days ago and it was weird! Of course just knowing I had to get up at that time had me worrying and looking at the clock all night. Then the cat was being very irritating and there was construction going on on the highway not far from the condos which we could hear quite distinctly. Blah, I pretty much didn't get any sleep and then had to function until 10 pm the next day. Once I got to the job site (health fair/flu shots) my brain was supposed to work......guess it went OK. No complaints so far! I don't know how night shift workers do it!

Our S.A.D. was great. We had one from our congregation get baptized. There are many interested people attending our meetings lately. It's great to see! Hopefully next year we will be building a new Kingdom Hall right next to the one we attend right now. That will be fun to take part in somehow and there really is a need in our area for it.

Hope everyone is well and doing fine. Until next time.......

Alarm Clock

Ha ha.....last night I set the alarm clock for 6:30 AM because Michael needed to be at Elder's School at 8 AM. It went off, we both jumped up and did our assignments. Him to just get ready and me to make coffee and lunch. After 1/2 hr. I went upstairs and noticed that the wall clock said 6 AM not 7 AM as I thought it should. Yep, we got up an hour early because I set the clock wrong! Michael laid down in his suit for a few more winks and I went back to sleep until 8. It's a good thing we both thought it was pretty funny! Also we saw a very bright star or comet on the horizon as the sun was rising so that was a bonus for getting up way too early!

Cold weather is setting in and Kobe can't be outside much since he has virtually no hair or body fat. We zip him into his fabric kennel when we leave the house but lately he has found a way to unzip it! Then he proceeds to find things to destroy. Mike's leather meeting bookbag, two couch pillows, various cardboard things. This is not good. And winter has just begun. Now we are securing the zipper!

With the Elders School, Spanish C.O. and S.A.D. coming in rapid succession now our meetings are all over the place. Will I ever remember when they are supposed to be when things calm down? Time will tell :)

I have had quite a few nursing assessments for long term care insurance policies lately. They are quite time consuming in that I have to make sure I use objective language until my opinion is called for. I have to go over and over them before I send them in! Mostly I would like to say "Just give them the insurance; they can't take care of themselves anymore!"

I really don't know if anyone besides Darci and Richard reads this blog. Any other readers out there? :)

Snowing on Mt. Rose

It was pointed out to me today by my blog fan club of 1 (you know who you are) that I haven't posted in a while. So, I'll try to think of things we did in the last month that might remotely be interesting.
We took the Chateau A Go Go out to Washoe Lake 15 miles from our house about 3 weeks ago. That was probably the last time this year since we have a winter storm coming our way. Washoe Lake is a deserty and flat area but the campground looks straight across at the Sierras, so we like that. There are no big trees, just big sage brush that smells good. Our objective was to star gaze! We had a nice campfire and sat in our camp chairs staring up.
First the sun set behind the Sierras which was very pretty. Then the stars came out one by one until it was a full blown Milky Way extravaganza......awesome! Only 2 shooting stars but one was very low and lasted a long time. And 3 satellites. We like to look for them even though they aren't made by Jehovah. :) Just one night there but it was quite enjoyable.
Kobe is not much of a camper. He is a condo dog. He doesn't like dirt. He just acts miserable and whines. Or maybe he just didn't like this particular campground!
Last weekend old friends from Palm Springs passed through Reno and stayed with us for 3 nights. Tom and Sherry Cardona. We've known them for 25 yrs. We didn't do anything special. Mostly sat around and told stories about things we've done together over the years. We did go to the Sunday meeting. Then on Tues. they were off to wine country and the coast of California below San Francisco. I don't even know if they are back in P.S. yet.
Next month will be a blur of activity. C.O. visit to start the month, 2 day Elder School for Michael mid month and our Special Assembly Day on the 28th. Sounds tiring but fun!
So that's 30 days condensed. Till next time!

A Visit, Etc.

Brooke and Michelle arrived last Sat. night. Brooke from Palm Springs and Michelle from Corpus Christi. Poor Michelle had a lay over of about 5 + hours in Denver but finally got here about 11:30 PM.
On Sunday we got the Chateau A Go Go up to Nevada Beach at Lake Tahoe for them. We were there parts of two days only. Too much stuff to do down in town last week.
I think they enjoyed their short time being at the Lake. The crowds are certainly gone now. They practically had the beach to themselves! Also discovered that on one end of the beach they allow dogs, so Kobe got to go!
I had work almost every day last week. Not that it's 8 hrs. a day or anything but 2 to 3 hrs. I don't think I could do 8 hrs. a day anyway! Last night we went to sleep at 10 pm and slept till 8 am.! We were exhausted. Getting old.
Looking forward to more service this week. And yesterday was a nice day in the territory. We need to get the mountain side territories covered before the snow flies!
Michael gives the public talk today. I just gave him a haircut so he'll look purty when he's up there!
Till next blog....

Convention and More Camping

We had a wonderful time in Sacramento for our District Convention! I would give the venue, hotels and surrounding neighborhoods a 9 out of 10 points. The only drawback was that all the seating was on one level so it was hard to see the stage. Oh, and by the way, our hotel was indeed only 3 blocks from the convention center. Super convenient!
Our favorite talk was given by someone in our very own Kingdom Hall on Family. It was a lot of people's favorite talk since almost all of us are dealing with the subject matter.
We were asked to work in First Aid this year. It's been a long time since we've been in this dept. Gone are the days of practically delivering babies, thank goodness! But we did have some interesting problems come through. We would just size up the situation and say bye-bye, off to the ER or home or wherever with you!
We had a 2 & 1/2 day camping excursion planned for the weekend after the convention. The weather dudes were telling us it wasn't going to be summery and it wasn't! Cold temps, wind, rain and possible snow in the mts. In Aug!! All but the last actually happened. Good thing we had Chateau A Go Go with us. Stayed inside a lot of the time with the heat on all day and night! We're going to have to get Kobe some little sweaters. He doesn't have an ounce of fat on him!
One last camping trip planned for Sept. 14th for 3 days. Actually Brooke planned it. She will be coming and meeting one of her friends from Texas here. Camping at Tahoe. Wonder if it will be snowing by then!
Would love to hear of your conventions and summer adventures!

Convention Coming Up!

Wow, here we are in the second week of August already and our district convention is coming right up! Before that there is an open house at the Adult Day Care where I work, the Pioneer School lunch is on Friday, there is still invitation work for the convention and an assessment to do in Carson City, bla, bla, bla.......but I'd rather be busy than just sitting around!
We have done a few things to our Chateux A Go Go lately. Ripped out the ancient carpet and put down stick on tiles. Now we will at least know what we are putting our feet onto! Also painted the walls in the tiny kitchen bright orange! Livens it up a bit.
Oh yes, our little doggie Kobe ran away yesterday and was probably out on some dangerous streets for a couple of hours! A very nice young lady and her mother stopped and coaxed him into their car so he wouldn't get run over and called us because our phone number is on his dog tag. They even brought him to us. Thanks again to the unknown ladies!
The weather has been so pleasant lately. Only in the low 80s and 40s at night. "They" say it's going to be 100 by the weekend though. Hope that's not accurate!
We found out that instead of our hotel in Sacramento being 3 or 4 blocks from the convention center, it's 10 blocks! We will check it out Thursday when we get there. How far is 10 blocks, a mile? We may or may not have the energy to do that walk morning and night for 3 days. :) Maybe there will be shuttles!
Hope everyone is well. I will write again probably after the convention.

To the Sierras and Back!

We got back a few days ago from our 8 day camping trip in the Sierras. It was a lot of fun; especially seeing Brooke and Carl and having Mike and Jess join us for a couple of days.
We have traveled the 395 hwy. for decades between southern CA and Reno but haven't really spent the time to go off towards a lot of the camping areas. Now we're getting down to business!
Our first two nights were at Twin Lakes campground, 10 miles off the 395 at Bridgeport. This was a last minute reservation and it turned out to be our favorite spot of the trip. We had an awesome site right on Robinson Creek and we could walk just a short distance to one of the lakes. Next time we have to get a fishing license. People were just standing on the shore reeling em in!
Then we went to a private campground on June Lake. It's only redeeming feature was full hookups. Carl helped us a lot to learn how to make things work on the motorhome. By the end we were taking hot showers in our miniature bathroom!
The private campground had trailers packed in so tight it was amazing. It took some people 15 min. to manuever their units into the spots! Why do people want to cram into little "camping towns" like that??
From this campground Brooke took me on a hike that was supposed to end at a lake in the Ansel Adams wilderness. At about 2 miles we were supposed to come to the lake but after 2.5 miles we still weren't there and decided to turn back. It was very pretty any way and I was quite proud of myself for going 5 miles!
Our last campsite was at another area called Twin Lakes but it's at Mammoth. That was very nice. More spread out. Right on two little lakes. There was a big waterfall gushing into one of the lakes. You could hear it all the time. We kayaked on these lakes a bit.
Kobe is a trooper at camping although it was pretty cold at night and he would end up in the sleeping bags with us!
When we got back to Reno we unloaded the camper in 100 degree weather.......shades of Palm Springs! Yuck. It's cooler now thankfully.
I put up some pics of our trip on flickr. If you click on the slideshow to the right it will bring them up.

Countdown to Camping

Tomorrow morning we're off for a week of camping in bear country! At least we will have 4 aluminum sided walls and a roof around us. Kind of like a tin can! We will just ask directions at our campgrounds as to whether we need to put our food in the bear boxes or if we can keep it inside. We will also watch Kobe so he doesn't become an appetizer!

We had a very good meeting today. The talk went right along with the WT and everyone was getting into the discussion. By the way, does anyone know what the center picture was in the WT study? Everyone was having fun guessing.....tubes with smoke coming out of them, a book, ?? Just shows we don't do very well with pics of stuff we shouldn't be looking at anyway!

OK, I will write after our week of camping in the eastern Sierras (Bridgeport, June Lake, Mammoth) and hopefully have some pictures too!

Assembly and Misc. Observations

Our Circuit Assembly was excellent this weekend. Our C.O. and D.O. are very different and very motivating. The C.O. is rather loud and emphatic and tells it like it is and the D.O. is more mild and emotional. A good combination. We heard about 9 ft. tall blue people and vampires and how they are not our friends. Clubbing and "girl's night out" are not good ideas either. I concur and always have! Although the 9 ft. tall blue people are something new :)

OK, then.....on to my gripes. What is with supposedly "professional" people these days??? They haven't learned the common courtesy of returning a phone call or an email until you get their supervisor involved? Or maybe they are the supervisor which means you will never get a call back! Unbelievable what's going on in the business world these days. If we had run our business like people do now we wouldn't have lasted 6 months.

Today I had to force someone to communicate with me by going to the corporate office and reporting her. This person is a regional manager for a big company but has gone 2 weeks without getting back to me on something important! I have had two calls in to 2 different business owners since last week on other matters with no replies. Also we needed to set an appointment to see something last Friday. This was agreed upon in advance. It is Monday; no call about that either even though I've left a couple of messages. Crazy. Maybe it's because they don't want to tell you something you might not want to hear, I don't know. But get over it. Conduct business, keep things moving. Sheesh.

Kobe was a very good boy over the weekend when we were gone at the assembly. It was nice out so we left him with all his toys, bed, food, water on the back patio. He did great but was quite overjoyed to see us at the end of the day!

Hope all is well with everyone.

Strolling With Kobe

Yesterday it was about 70 degrees out (today it's about 55) and we decided it was time to take our new little doggie on a walk downtown by the Truckee River. A lot of other people had the same idea! We probably walked a mile or so up one side, over some bridges, down the other side. Sat on a few benches too.
Kobe is a very pleasant companion on a walk. He doesn't try to choke himself senseless on his lease, he just trots along beside us and meets humans and dogs with much interest! He met various big dogs who were busy jumping in and out of the river, two Beagles who were very sweet, a Boston Terrier and at least 4 fellow Dachsunds! One was a baby miniature Dachsund! Probably the cutest thing I've ever seen! Of course my camera was in the trunk of the car :(
When we got back to the car, Kobe got in his bed in the backseat and was asleep instantly. Really! One mile on those little legs must have been like 10 miles at least to us. He slept very well last night!
Next time we do the river walk we will be equipped with tracts with our names and phone number. We met lots of nice people and we will probably see them again.
Today we decided to try doing some RVs between 2 and 3 pm. 4 out of 5 were home! Everyone was very pleasant too. So afternoon RVs and dogwalking are our new plans for service this summer. :)
I have gotten a few nursing assessment jobs in the last couple of weeks. A company hired me without seeing me.......they don't know how old I am! Unfortunately, that seems to make a lot of difference these days. But I'm happy to be doing something at least.
Tonight we are going to Virginia City to see a music group that we actually last saw about 1968 up at Tahoe. Ha ha.....they will probably have their walkers propping them up!
Hope it's actually springtime somewhere and that everyone is doing fine!

New Family Member

This week we welcomed a new family member! No, no human babies......a 6 month old male Dachshund! He had another name but Mike wanted to call him Kobe, so Kobe it is.

I have to say this little doggie is smart! He already knows he is to stay in his bed all night and sleep. His bed is in our room so he can see us. We don't have the potty thing perfect yet but almost. One funny/smart thing he did this morning was to jump up in a recliner we have in the living room. How he jumps so high is another amazing thing. He wanted to be more comfortable so he pulled the blanket that was hanging over the top of the chair onto the bottom of the chair so he could snuggle in it!

Now when we go to parks to take walks it will be more fun with Kobe running and leaping beside us. :) A good way to meet people too. People who are never home, if you know what I mean.

We already took him to Portola because we had to deliver something to an old friend of Mike's over there. Mike's friend also has a Doxie, so Kobe and Surf are now best of buddies. Kobe is the black and brown doggie in the picture. He traveled very well; just slept in his bed in the backseat.

Our weather is getting better. Maybe now we are over the 80 degree thing with snowstorms the next day and it will just gradually become summer!

Coldest Ever!

We had a very nice Memorial celebration at the Grand Sierra Resort here in Reno last night. I have to say though that it was the coldest weather we remember for the occasion of the 37 times we've gone! It had snowed off and on all day but was just plain freezing when we left the house and was a total Arctic blast when we got out! Forget the pretty spring dresses......wool with heavy winter coats was the order of the evening.
We met with our congregation, an English cong. from the center of town and the ASL group. A total of 430 in attendance. Our speaker was from Brooklyn Bethel. Lots of interested people were there!
It would be nice to hear about other Memorials if you'd like to drop us an email. :) I recently lost a lot of email addresses so it's up to you now!
We have a couple of short camping trips planned for the summer. One in June and one in July. Then our district convention in Aug. So those are some things to look forward to during the summer. If we ever get summer!

Family Fun

Well, Brooke and her husband Carl were here for a week and we had a great time visiting with them. They weren't actually here in Reno but were mostly at their time-share up at South Lake Tahoe. The Sunday they arrived Jess and I drove them up to the Lake and we spent the night. Why are hide-a-beds so uncomfortable?? Jess and I didn't sleep very well that night. There was also a funny sound that we thought was a rusty iron gate opening and closing. Turns out it was the elevator cables! Their room was right by the elevator. Big old fancy room by a squeeky elevator. Go figure.
Mike and I went up again on Thursday and spent the night. Had a great Scrabble game and a steak dinner in the condo. As the elder statesmen of the family we took over the king sized bed this time. Didn't make much difference.......squeeeek, squeeeek!
Then we saw them again on Sunday and Monday as they came down to Reno before they flew out. Very nice to see the Brooksters and Carla!
Looking forward to the invitation work starting on Sat. The weather is supposed to be near 70 starting about then. I'll believe it when I see it. 20 degrees tonight!
Hope everyone is doing well wherever you are. :)

Skiing!

I was finally able to go skiing last Wed. I and two other sisters had been trying to coordinate a day that would work for all of us plus it had to be a beautiful day.....we are fair weather skiiers only! Wed. fit the bill exactly. Unfortuantely one of our group had to deal with health issues with her Dad and couldn't go with us, but Heidi and I went anyway because we had already made the arrangements.
We went to Sugar Bowl which is by Donner Lake just over the border in California. About an hour and 15 minutes from Reno. In all my years of skiing around Tahoe I had never been there. It is a very nice resort! The snow was perfect, the ski was bluer than blue and the sun was out. What more could you ask for?! Oh yeah, and my ticket was free!
I find skiing to be like riding a bike. I don't think it's something you forget how to do. I haven't been for 2 yrs. but was able to ski non-stop for a couple of hours. Then I decided not to push it and ate lunch and sat in the sun for another hour while Heidi kept skiing. Her son came with us too. He sat with me and waited for his Mom. A very nice day was had by all!
On our day of skiing it was 65 degrees in Reno and about 55 up on the mountain. On Sunday we had a record breaking snowfall here in Reno! 1 to 2 feet in town depending on where you live. Crazy. And the really funny thing was that it didn't stick very much to the roads. Maybe the pavement was heated up by the days of warm weather preceeding the storm. At any rate, we had no meeting on Sunday :( This afternoon it's supposed to start snowing again, but we'll see on that.
Our daughter Brooke and her hubby Carl are flying in on Sunday afternoon for a week of skiing at Tahoe. We will take them up Sunday afternoon and we get to spend the night at their time-share. That should be fun!
Hope all is well with everyone no matter where you are!

January Summary

I wasn't kidding about not posting very often any more.....it's been almost a month! But I know some of our friends keep up with us via our blog so I'll try to catch you up.

January was a cold wintery month which makes sense, since it is winter! On the days we couldn't go in service we both worked on our "projects" for bringing in some income. My home companion agency is very slow but the owner had the idea that she could refer actual nursing cases to me as an independent nursing contractor. So, I got all the necessary licenses ($) and insurance ($) made some cards and a free website and I R in business! http://www.renohomenurse.com/
Fran, the owner of the the home companion agency has gotten me two little gigs, as she calls them, so far. One I do every week until the family decides otherwise. I set up a ladies pill box for the week, scour the house for where she has stashed the pills, pick up prescriptions and advise the family on what's going on with their Mom. Mom is a very nice lady with Alzheimers that doesn't remember anything from one minute to the next. And she has 13 cats! Last week she gave away a new full bottle of Nexium to someone.....we don't know who or where.

Yesterday I drove waaayyyy out into north Sparks to assess an elderly lady for admission to an assisted living facility in California. It didn't dawn on me how old she was until I got home....she was born in 1915! Sharp as a tack with a few health issues but she still enjoys life.

Jess and her Michael were in Michael's younger sister's wedding on Sat. Everyone was lovely and it was a very nice affair. About 75 people at a local hotel. We were real party poopers. Left after dinner because Mr. Mikey was about asleep in his soup! We just disappeared out the side door and no one missed us at all. Well, maybe a few people. :)

We have a couple congregation members in hospitals today so now we're off to do a few visits. Hope everyone is well!

A Bit Warmer

Thankfully it is a bit warmer this last week. Not much snow on the ground now. It has rained a few times which probably helped wash some of the snow piles away. Weirdly it has been warmer in the mountains than down here in the valley. The inversion layer keeps the cold air at ground level, so "they" say.
We found out we are going to Sacramento for our district convention! Everyone is excited about this. It's closer and all the hotels seem to be very close to the convention center. It's only 7 & 1/2 months away!
Michael and I are still trying to get some income coming in. I have a couple of projects I'm working on and so does he. I was hired by a home care company but they haven't needed any nursing services so far. Something will work out!
Mike started a study with an old high school friend yesterday! They studied for 4 hours. It was OK because Greg wanted to. He wants to get into the book of Genesis first because so much happened there that he doesn't understand. What a good idea for a starting point! He was very appreciative. Greg was the person that got Mike interested in the Bible 35 yrs. ago!