7am: up b/c of doggies. I am watching my boyfriend’s 3 rescue dogs while he is out of town, and they are more restless in the mornings than my own dogs. Fed all the pets, cleaned pet boxes, and made my coffee. Ate an orange, but nothing else.
8am: drank coffee, morning computer time reading emails and Facebook with an old dog on my lap. Got Sunday paper off of front porch. I had just called on Friday to reduce my subscription from Friday, Saturday, Sunday delivery for $19/month to just Sunday delivery for $4.30 per month. My income is very small these days, so the price cut was pretty exciting to me. My BF brought a digital converter box up to me recently that I need to test out with my old box set tvs on a borrowed antenna. Hoping that can let me cut the cable bill all the way out. I just have basic cable, but it still costs me $29/month. I know people with flat screen tvs can use antennas and get REALLY good reception on a lot of channels, but when I tried one of the same antennas on my old box set tvs, I got nuthin’. I need to do the digital converter box experiment soon to save $ if it works. I’ve never in my life even had a new tv. Just old ones. The ones I have now were given to me when other people bought flat screens and there is no reason to PAY for new ones when these work just fine.
9am: to bed with Sunday Morning program on tv. Enjoyed the Puppy Bowl segment. It was on until 10:30am, then more NPR on the tv. Fell asleep during NPR program until noon.
12p: awake and listened to NPR some more.
1pm: talked to boyfriend on the phone about stuff that happened yesterday. Folded laundry from basement that was hanging to dry. I can’t afford to run my electric dryer b/c of how high electricity is now days and the furnace makes the electric bill sky high in winter (even though I have gas heat, the furnace still takes electricity to run the power and fan). Let dogs out to potty again.
1:20pm: walked down to my mom’s house to get leftover spiral ham (yum!) and some cinnamon rolls to eat for brunch since I’d had nothing since the orange and coffee early on. We bought a house a few doors down from me for mom and sis, so they are my neighbors now. She’d like her friend to move into the house we rent to her and my sister. We discussed how it needs to be run by my boyfriend who is co-owner of the house. As landlords, we pay all utilities (except phone and internet) another person living there would cost US more and we needed to discuss this. BF happened to call to ask if I wanted girl scout cookies from his friend’s girls and I ran the new tenant issue by him he said he’d talk to my mom later about it after he ran some figures in his head. We bought the house on my spring break from the school I worked in. I think it took 8 days from the time it came on the market and I spotted the sign out front to closing.
1:30pm: back on computer to waste time. Talked to a friend who has been helping a stray cat in her neighborhood. She crowd-sourced money to help get him fixed and a dental. the cat had a LOT of mouth ulcers and rotten teeth. I did that for a neighborhood kitty here that has now adopted my mom and sister as his new family. Mom is finishing up an antibiotic that he was placed on after getting 2 teeth pulled and for an ear infection. Friend’s cat needed almost every tooth pulled. We’re both so glad that others are willing to donate to animals they have never even met. Crowd sourcing can be such a blessing in this day and age. Our neighborhood kitty is much more sociable than the one she is helping, so it’s been tricky for her to get any pain meds in him. But he is doing well recovering in her barn.
2:30: took some pie down to my mom. G left THREE pies here! 2 peach and a cherry. Took some down to mom to get rid or the abundance. Came home and started to tidy up the house. Cleaned up the catch-all dining table, then vacuumed. Had to fight G’s biggest, usually most calm dog off of the vacuum cleaner. She kept attacking it. One of my dogs will bark at it,but settles down when I tell her to. G’s girl just went bonkers! I had to put her behind pet gates to get the whole house done. Found some X-mas decor that needed to go to the basement tubs and had to curse my head off when I could not get the tubs out of the holes I shoved them into last month. I’m pretty sure I scared the boxes into submission with all the “effity effs” b/c the finally gave. Eldest sibling and I are going to MCL with my dad around 4:30 so had to start getting ready for that at 4pm.
4:45-5:15pm: waited for my family to show up and they finally did.
5:30pm: got to MCL, but they close at 6, so we had to eat fast. Dad has almost no teeth on bottom, so we always order soft food for him and he eats slowly. I just had Dad and my mother and another sister for dinner at MCL last night! But I love their fish and broccoli ( and PIE!) , so it’s no problem for me to eat there a lot. My dad has a medicaid waiver that requires him to be below a certain financial saving level each month, so we go out to dinner to help “spend him down.” The waiver pays for him to have a home health aide come three times a day to fix him simple meals and do his laundry and to clean. Mostly we like her to interact with him. His dementia is scary, but he’s not bad enough to need to be on a locked memory unit or qualify for a full nursing home. We do have him in line to move to a brand new assisted living facility that takes Medicaid (we’l have to apply for another form of Medicaid, but the experts tell us this should not be a problem.)
6:30: got back home and started up doing pet care again, letting all 7 dogs out (BF’s dogs are still here) and then to feed all of them and the cats. A stray kitty I used to feed a lot showed up yesterday and has taken residence in a winter box that I made for the strays. I fed her and gave her some pets. She’s mostly been living on my neighbor’s back porch full time for the last few years, but used to come here daily. She is pretty old; I worry about her. Most likely will have to attend to her “end of life” care at some point, but the neighbors here are willing to chip in for the stray care.
6:45: showered for work tomorrow. I now substitute teach for the same school system I worked at since 2014. I held a position in an elementary school classroom, but this past school year, the class became very challenging for me with a new group of kids and lots of new challenging and aggressive behaviors. I had to resign, but discussed my difficulties with the principal first to let him know I didn’t want to, it was just getting to be too stressful and physically challenging to do daily. I asked to be able to enroll as a sub and they approved it, so since Oct of this school year, I have been able to work in the special needs classrooms filling in for aides and teachers in the elem., middle, and high schools. I LOVE the variety and getting to meet even more kids. It is also a lot less stressful to not be bitten and scratched and hit and have my hair pulled daily like it had gotten with the one class. I like those kids, but there are so many nonverbal kids in there and that results in “other” forms of communication when the kids are frustrated, hence the physical acting out behaviors. Friday, I was asked to sub for a special needs middles school aide on Monday, but that switched to filling in for an elementary school aide by Saturday. And now, I just got a call to switch once more to the middle school for a special needs aide. OY! It is usually not that convoluted. I usually just get one text to ask me to go here and then I do. However, this flu season had been horrible for teachers and school staff. We’ve been very short staffed the last 3 weeks so they have to prioritize and pull people to work around sub preferences. Some subs don’t work in the high school or one particular class. I just work in special needs classes now after having a brief stint in a gen ed room. I’ll stick with what I know!! So, Now I get to sleep in 1 hour later since the middle school hours are different than the elem. position. Good.
7:40pm: want to go watch 60 Minutes. NOT going to watch the Big Game today I have no interest in either team. A kid in the class I work in tomorrow is a HUGE Patriots fan, so I am sure he’ll be on cloud nine after they win tonight.
8:30: missed 60 minutes, but read my library book in bed for a few hours. Then watched a tv show on public television. Tried to kick some dogs out for last potties. Gave Sam’s bedtime seizure med.
11pm: fell asleep