A day at the lake

Yesterday I spent the day at Mirror Lake.  I have a two friends that live on the lake.  Gratia owns the house and lives on the top floor and Vicki, my other friend, rents out the lower level.  Gratia was away visiting relatives but Vicki invited me to come over for the day.  

She fixed a nice pasta salad and we journeyed down about 70 steps to where the pontoon boat was docked.  We took a cooler with cold drinks and planned to tour the little lake and just relax.  She had on her swim suit...but I didn't even bring mine since I figured the water would be cold since we have had some chilly nights recently.

So we untie the boat and get ready to take off and when she turns the key...nothing happens.  She checks that she had it in neutral...tries again and nothing.  We check the leads to the battery...and everything looked okay.....so I figured it was a dead battery...even though the solar panel was hooked up.

We decided that we would tie lines to the boat and just let it drift out a little...she wanted to get in the water and near shore it is mucky.  Well sure enough when she got in the water was cold!
So we did enjoy some cold drinks and some good conversation and we each got a little sun.  It was a-okay with me. 

While sitting there I noticed a beautiful water lily.  Took this picture but it doesn't do any justice to the beauty....it was white with a bright yellow center...not so much in the picture.

This is what the neighbors yard looked like....notice how steep it is!

Well not nearly as steep as Gratia's ...hers goes straight up...wish I had taken a picture of the steps!

These are two pictures across the lake...

For dinner we headed out to the Artisan Wells Restaurant.  We called ahead because this was race weekend....and if you know anything about Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, MI you would know how traffic and crowds can be on race weekends.  It is always crazy.  Anyway we were able to get a table and had a good meal.  Artisan Wells is like a Harley Davidson restaurant with lots of motorcycle stuff and sports things all around.  

It was a very nice day and I was glad to get away from my little apartment and just relax with a good friend.  

Today I am cleaning and packing for tomorrow....it will be a very early morning and I have to be out the door at 5:15am....tough for someone who likes to sleep in.

Have a great day and of course I appreciate your prayers for me tomorrow.  

Today I had a wonderful lunch with my school teacher and her daughter, Caitlin.  

They took me to Coast-to-Coast Deli.  It is just around the block from where I live and I have never been there.  My sandwich was delicious.  We talked about our summer, my surgery, and the up-coming school year.  I think I have the best teacher of them all...and boy did she look skinny today.  Over the last couple of years she lost a lot of weight and this summer she had the skin on her arms and tummy tightened.  She looked wonderful!

Later in the day the hospital called and said my surgery time was changed.  My heart sank...another change....but hey, they moved it up two hours so now I have to be at the hospital at 7:30am.  And the nurse said...sooner is better because then it will be over with sooner.  Makes sense.  It's just that the hospital is two hours away so I will have an early morning on Monday.

Tomorrow I am going to visit my friend Vicki.  She lives on a lake with our other friend Gratia.  This week Gratia is in Seattle visiting one of her children so we have the place to ourselves...maybe even get to take a boat ride!  So I am hoping for a little warmer weather.

Have a good night and sleep tight!

Good news!  My hemoglobin levels have increased!  My kidney functions are stable and I guess I am good to go for surgery next Monday morning.  I am a little afraid..or should I say nervous but I guess maybe that is a normal thing.  I wish I hadn't read the book that tells pretty much exactly what they do.  When I read I picture everything in my mind and sometimes I think things get exaggerated.  So I am trying to tell myself that the surgeon has done thousands of these....most successful I am sure.  Total knee replacement is a pretty common surgery now.  I also have to tell myself not to expect to get up the next day and be able to walk perfectly.  It is only a couple of weeks until the start of school and I am hoping to be able to start the first day.  Someone told me today that might be a mistake.  I will just have to wait and see how I do. 
I had to stop taking Celebrex today....and I guess I am supposed to wash with Dial soap.  I hope it doesn't irritate my skin, because I remember in the past that it did.  

Last night my son sent me a text at 12:30 am....I guess he forgets that we are three hours different.  Anyway it was a little video of my grand baby Ryleigh.  She was laughing really loud.  So cute.  I tried to download it onto my computer.  Talk about problems....a Microsoft warning came up....trying to help and I got scared and backed out and I think everything is now okay.  I wish you could have heard her laugh.

Tonight I had my first summer sweet corn for dinner.  It was delicious.  I only bought two ears and saved the remaining ear for tomorrow.  I also had one sliced tomato and a hamburger patty.  It was all delicious.   Later tonight I will have a small dish of strawberries for snack.  I love eating fresh produce.  What is your favorite summertime meal?

Test completed

Hailey, my grand daughter (pictured above in the darker pink dress) arrived at my apartment this morning at 7:15 am.  Her mother dropped her off as this is my son's weekend with his daughter and he was working.  This saved him a 20 mile trip to pick her up.  

She has been ill for two weeks and I was hoping she was better.  She sure looked cute in her little black lacy skirt and turquoise top.  I wish I would have thought to snap a picture but I was thinking more of my various medical tests which I had to get to by 9 am.  
She didn't know when she came that she would be tagging along with her Nana this morning.

She sat and waited in the waiting room while I had the EKG, the urine specimen test and the blood draw.  Everything went well and I should hear back sometime next week about the results.  Maybe they will be better than my last ones were. 

Afterwards we stopped at Burger King because I wanted to treat myself and her to a breakfast.  For me...a warm cinnabon and for her some pancakes, sausage and hash browns.  I ate all my cinnabon and could have eaten another, but she stalled out on her first pancake saying she didn't feel well.  I asked her where it hurt and she said her stomach.    She had seen a doctor previously and they thought it was acid re flux ..then when she didn't get better they found out she had a bacteria infection which I now learned was strep throat.  She messed up on her dosage and had just finished taking the last pills this morning. 

All afternoon I could tell she wasn't feeling well.  She simply laid around and watched Netflix.  Finally my son got off work and came and I told him to do something...not to let this go by.  I almost insisted that he take her to the doctor.  He wanted to wait and see if she was better and maybe go to the emergency room if necessary.  I told him that wasn't a good idea....surely there would be a much larger co-pay...than an office visit and why wait.  So he called the doctor and was told to bring her right away.

I just heard from him by text and she still has the strep throat.  So I have been busy spraying lysol....taking a hot shower with dial soap and praying that I don't get it!  Of course I said a prayer for Hailey too...

Then I went down to get my mail and visited with some people in the lobby....now I am starving and need to fix something for a late dinner.  Hope you all had a nice day. 

Thursday, August 8, 2013

The inspection was really ridiculous.  They started on the 7th floor at 9am....I live on the 4th floor.  There are about 18 apartments on each floor.  At 10am I could hear them down the hallway knocking on doors.  I was ready...up, dressed and the apartment looked presentable.  So they knock and tell me they will enter in a few minutes.  Knock again....I answer come in....Doug the head of maintenance comes in...walks over to the smoke detector and presses the button....the alarm briefly sounds and he turns to leave.
"What?  Done already?"  I ask.  "Yup, you are good to go."  he replies. 

Didn't even look around for any overloaded sockets...or wires strung around across pathways...never even glanced into the bedroom or the bathroom....not really an inspection at all.

So I played a couple of games on my computer then remembered that I hadn't heard from my doctor's office.  I called  and luckily got the same gal.  She didn't seem to even remember my call from yesterday so I had to go into the whole explanation again.  She didn't think I needed to be retested....oh, but I said that the other nurse for the anesthesiologist said differently.  Luckily I had her phone number right in front of me.  Ten minutes later she returned my call and I am to go in tomorrow for another blood work-up, urine and EKG.  I am glad I called and got things going again.

I went out and did a little shopping....and now I am tuckered out...so much so that I missed the community pot luck tonight.  
I guess I should drink a few glasses of water....last time they had a difficult time with drawing blood...said I was dehydrated.  Of course I can't have anything to eat or drink after mid night. 

Oh ....remember when I said I was working on my closet.  I made it halfway....have one huge garbage bag of clothes to donate...already in the trunk of my car.  Now that half of the closet has a little breathing room!  Next week I plan to continue on the other side...then the floor and lastly the two shelves above the clothes.  One step at a time.

More tests?

Maybe it is because I haven't had many hospital procedures but all of this just baffles me.

Today the hospital where I am going to have surgery called to go over things with me.  Everything went well but then they said that I had to go back to my family doctor and re-do my blood work, my urinalysis and EKG...because they are more than a month old!

I took it well...called my family doctor and the nurse that said she would get back with me??  She didn't today...hopefully tomorrow. I am losing faith in medical people.

Tomorrow they are having a maintenance inspection in the building.   That means they will go through everyone's apartment checking smoke alarms and entrance and exit doors.  Then on the 22nd MSHDA will inspect apartments at random...last time they hit mine.  Then on the 27th HUD will be going through the apartments.  For those who don't know I live in a low-income senior housing hi-rise.  Of all the things I don't like about living here these inspection are on the top of my list.  You have to have your home walked through by strangers....and nothing is supposed to be out of place.  I think it is kind of an invasion of privacy but I imagine if they didn't do it things might get out of hand and we wouldn't have a very nice place to live.  I won't be here for the later inspections and I am thinking that I might want to get out of here in the morning too.  That way I won't convey a wrong attitude.

Hoping all is right in your world....

I will leave with this quote...

Terry Bradshaw - “You can't dodge them all, ... I got hammered plenty of times through the years. But you just get up and keep playing. I can tell you from experience, though. Sometimes it hurts like hell.”

Another day done

Today seemed like the longest day.  Nothing bad happened...and nothing overly good either.  I decided to try to do one nice thing each day to create a more positive attitude in myself.  So yesterday while cleaning and sorting,  I discovered a superman ring, an action figure and two care bear movies in my possession.  I decided to give them to my new neighbor.  I met her and her grandson in the hallway the other day.  He seemed a typical kid to me.  Hanging on the wall railing...and running down the hall to beat his grandma back to the apartment.  When he went in the apartment she mentioned that he has a hard life...I don't know exactly what that means....it could mean that his family is poor...or he has had a deep sorrow...or someone is mean to him....but I just wanted to do something.  Does it seem right for a six year old to already have a hard life?

So I dropped off the movies and toys this afternoon..and my neighbor Carol was appreciative...luckily she has a VCR player and says that she enjoys showing her grand kids movies...(mine are too old now for Care Bears).  We chatted for a while and then I wondered down to the community room to visit with whoever was there.  There were two people not playing cards so we visited a while and I came back upstairs and played a game on my computer.  

I decided it was too quiet so I checked out what was on tv.  Nothing I wanted to see.  I have eliminated a lot of channels because of my finances...then Dish is warring with CBS so there goes some more channels.  Frankly I think when this happens they should have to put a premium channel in place of the ones that are blacked out...after all, you are paying for a certain number of channels and aren't able to receive them.  

So I tried Netflix.  I have a hard time finding things I like on Netflix...I guess I need my grand son to come and give me another lesson on using it.  So I settled on a series called The Lying Game...it is about two twins separated at birth...they reconnect and switch places...so the one twin can go and search for the birth mother...Kind of teenager-ish, but, besides that, it is interesting.  That has been my day....I am discovering that living alone is not always fun...especially day after day...with no job to go to, no money to travel about and no one stopping by it makes life kind of deary....I have been cleaning my apartment because while I am in the hospital there will be two inspections here in the building...and besides when I come home it will make a nice homecoming to have everything tidy.  Tomorrow I am going to tackle my closet....try on clothes and decide to keep, sell, or donate...so wish me luck.

Got out today and stopped at the farm stand and bought some tomatoes.  Michigan tomatoes aren't ready yet...the gal told me that these are from Ohio....now Ohio is right next to Michigan so I might guess these are greenhouse...but I ate one and it was pretty tasty so who knows?

I was reading today about juicing.  Have any of you done that?  I don't eat enough vegetables so I am wanting to give it a try but juicers are expensive so I am afraid that I will buy one...use it for a short time then it will sit on a shelf somewhere.  What do you think?

Good news...my knee surgery is scheduled for August 19th.  My knee has actually been feeling pretty good lately...so I debated whether to even have the surgery.  I am bone on bone, but if it isn't hurting than maybe I can go without it.  So I left my apartment and did some walking (through Kohl's)....after about 1/2 hour my knee started hurting....so I guess I am doing the right thing.  It's either that or stay at home and rest all the time.

I have been missing my grandson that is visiting his mom in Florida.  Here is a picture of him with his brother...they really like each other a lot and look forward to having summers together.  

Have a great evening!