Sick Child Again

It seems to me that we almost had Eric back on his "feet" and he got sick again last night.  He created 4 additional loads of laundry over night. I really wish that I could do a better job of keeping Eric healthy, but the sad reality of it all is the moment I send him out the door I have to trust the world. So to that end here is a letter to the world. 

Dear World,

I really need your help to makeup job easier.  At this time I very humbly ask you to Stay at Home if you are sick.  Please don't send your sick kids to school or their programs. Nothing is more important than the collective health of everyone.  

This one little request could make my life so much easier. I appreciate any help that you are willing to give.    I would also like to note that it might make your lives better too.  

Thank so much,

Sheri. 

A Very Busy Weekend

From Saturday morning until tonight has seemed to be a total busy blurr. Saturday I had the homemade brownies in the oven by 6 am to beat the heat of the day. It did not hurt that they were cool enough to cut by the time we left for the poker party at 11am. I finished one scarf on the way to the party while John drove. This was Eric's first poker party and he hung around with the ladies. I could tell that he was very busy trying to keep track of all that was going on,  even with the guys playing poker in the next room. I did get some spinning done on on spindles.

When the wives get together you never know what we will talk about. For some reason we got around to talking about copyright when talking about Karie's paintings. She managed to sell 2 last week. I also took a small spill off a chair when I bent down to pick something up. It kind of went like this. I leaned forward and the chair tipped out from under me. My fall was partially broken by the rear wheel of Eric's wheelchair. Luckily my head hit the wheel while my elbow and hip got the tile. This left me rethinking about putting tile in the kitchen. John took care of getting dinner for us. By bed time I was all right. All I have left is a few scrapes on my elbow and a couple of small bruises.

Sunday had a very slow start. After lunch we went to the Memorial Service for Rabbi Joesph Weizenbaum. All I can say is that as a family we thought Rabbi Joe was a great man. He even found time for Eric and made us feel so welcome at services. Eric used to roll his chair up to the bima to be closer to Rabbi Joe and Cantor Karla, smiling the entire time. Rabbi Joe was also one of the first people to give Teri encouragement when in 7th grade she decided to be a lawyer. I wish I had a book of Rabbi Joe's sermons because they were so on target, sometimes I felt he wrote them just for me, yes I know this was not the case but it really felt like it. Rabbi Joe was also big on ethics and passing them down to your children in the form of an ethical will attached to the monetary will. I have to say that I have not done that yet, but ethics were a big part of our dinner conversations when Teri was growing up. Rabbi Joe had a great and wise soul. He will be missed by many people.

Sunday night Eric had night terrors so I spent most of the night just holding him and telling him that everything would be OK. I was up until the wee hours with him and then started the day around 7 am. With the aid of plenty of caffeine I spent the day cleaning and doing laundry. The first load went in very early this morning and the last load will go into the dryer before I head to bed. My excuse being that I don't want to fold another load of laundry today. I lost count some where around load 8 or 9, all I ask is that you do not tell Eric that I am caught up on laundry. He does feel it is his job to make laundry to keep me busy.

I did manage to finish one more skein of yarn on the spinning wheel this evening. It will come off some time tomorrow and because it is Tour de fleece I will try to get another one started right away. No knitting got done today.

I think it is time to call it an early night and catch up on some sleep.

10,000 Steps

Today was the first time since my knee injury that I did 10,000 steps or 5 miles.  I am to tired to write more. 

Exploding Soda Cans Part 2

Today was devoted to cleaning up the last of the exploding soda cans. Everything came out out of the pantry. Scooba spent 45 minutes locked up in the pantry mopping the floor, yes an entire cleaning cycle. John washed everything that needed to be washed by hand.  This saved me about 30 minutes of cleaning. As usual with any cleaning project of this type around here it lead to cascade cleaning. Two shelf's in the kitchen got redone. More tea moved off the counter. All the paper goods, plastic ware and chop sticks are in a box. This box is now in the garage. I also got rid of all the old salt and pepper packages that come with the silverware. I cleaned out part of a shelf in the garage this afternoon, after 30 minutes I was dripping in dew.  I decided to do more when it was not 104 outside. John also organized a shelf for me so I would not have to get a ladder out. I just love having a taller half.

I went back on my promise to myself not to put anything on the floor of the pantry. While finding a place for the paper goods box I found a lot of boxes of Ziploc bags in 4 different sizes and 6 unopened boxes of trash bags. I moved them into the floor of the pantry so that they would be easier to find. In about 6 months I expect that there will be a lot less and hopefully confined to one box on the pantry floor.

One thing that I always find amazing is how much get recycled and thrown out when I get into these deep cleaning jags. I also find it amazing that the house gets easier to keep clean. John does not seem surprised by this at all. I also love how John is always there at the right time and has figured out what I really don't want to clean. He just does it, with no questions asked.

I have 2 major areas left to clean, the garage and the craft/sewing/guest room. These will be done a little bit at a time. For right now I think I pushed my body a little to far and will need to let it have time to recover.

Only a few minutes of spinning got done today. I used one of my drop spindles.

For my readers in the USA please have a save and happy 4th of July. Please remember to party safely. Leave the fireworks to the professionals and above all don't drink and drive. Please take time to also give a small prayer for the safety of all our Troops over seas. Remember that they make our freedoms possible.

Exploding Soda Cans and More

Well I was going to write about spinning and the Tour de Fleece tonight after all I did have a very good day of spinning. After some cleaning this morning I managed to spin for most of the day. No, I was very good and did not spin or knit while I was in Eric's ISP. I spun and plied new yarn until my hands were to tired to spin.  I was going to post a few pictures. Maybe even comment about how yarn drys faster when the outside temperature is 110f with a humidity level of 7 percent verses 102f with a humidity level of 24 percent.

That all changed when I was about to rotate the soda in the pantry tonight. Lets just start out by saying I did take the soda out of the pantry but none went in. I had 1 case of Serria Mist that had managed to leak. One can even had no visible signs of leakage or holes but was empty anyway. By the way when the soda gets to that point it smells yucky.  The mess on the floor was like someone had poured simple syrup on the floor and walked away. With 409 I did manage to clean up some of the mess. I check the other  case in the pantry and it seemed to be going bad too. So I drained all 24 cans, yes I did save the tabs for Eric to take to the Ronald McDonald house.  Then I went about dragging everything out of the dining room, kitchen and most of the laundry room floor. I then locked Scooba in the pantry for a few minutes and he is now busy cleaning the freshly mopped floor again today.

So my game plan for tomorrow is to completely empty the pantry floor. I was not about to start that project at 10pm after a busy day. I will clean or toss everything that is removed.  I will again lock Scooba in the pantry and let him do his thing. After all that is done I plan on finding a different place for everything on the pantry floor. If I can move after all of that then and only then will I spin some yarn tomorrow.

The lesson that I am taking away from this is not to store soda on the pantry floor if the pantry is too hot to put things like chocolate in it in the summer. Also don't buy so much soda at once even if it is on sale. And for goodness sake keep track of the expiration dates. Don't assume that just because you did not open the case yet that every thing is good.

I am now inclined to let Scooba go about his business and call it a night. I will deal with the mess in the morning.

Tour De Fleece Day 2

Well it is that time of year again. Time for the annual Tour De Fleece. I think I signed up for a couple of teams. Yesterday got off to a rocky start. However today was fantastic. I spun, plied and washed over 200 yards in mini skeins. A mini skein is when I start out with any amount less than 1 ounce. Usually in the 1/4 to 1/2 ounce range. I have 9 mini skeins in the garage drying, I am sure they will all be dry by morning since the high was over 110f today. 

After everything got plied and washed I started spinning again. I am using my Louet spinning wheel for some larger skeins and every one of my spindles. If I can't play with all my spindles during the Tour De Fleece when can I get away with having so many spindles out at once?

My goal is a lofty one this year. I want to spin enough yarn to bring in at least 1 of my overflow bins of roving and fiber in from the garage. I am thinking of putting all the Tour De Fleece yarn in a basket to see just how much I can spin in the next couple of weeks.

This does bring up the conundrum of the Tour De Fleece. I am still on a yarn diet and for the most part doing very well, but the Whole idea of Tour De fleece is to set a goal to learn something new, this is not going to happen with Eric on the road to recovery. Perhaps spin a very special skein of yarn with some wonderful fiber that I don't spin often, I don't have the skills or have planned for that one. So this basically leaves volumes of yarn spun. I guess I will have lots of yarn for very creative projects in the coming months.

Well I hear the washer and dryer calling my name so it is time to call it tonight.

Customer Service Tongue and Cheek

I would like to send out a huge thank you to a national company that manages a slew of shopping malls across the country. The one that if you give you them your e-mail address they promise to send you out an e-mail you can exchange for a mall gift card for your birthday along with a weekly email of sales and coupons. This year they did something very different than in the past. They put a limited number of days after your birthday to exchange your email for the card. That happened to land when Eric was very sick. I tried to explain that I was home taking care of a very sick child and missed the days.

What happened next was to say the least very unexpected. I was treated very rudely and harshly. More like a criminal than a customer. There were no exceptions for sick kids. I really left that office hoping and praying that she was not a mother of any child. Her tone of voice, body language and words were very harsh. This left me very upset. I have done a lot of shopping in that mall. I usually get the gift card and spend more than they give me along with shopping through out the year. I left their office very upset about being treated so poorly.

So I walked around the mall and thought about this while I racked up steps and did no shopping. I also thought about how with the growth of e-commence, that this was a very stupid move by the mall. Why go out when the outside temperature is over 100f?  I can just order everything I need on line and for the most part save money and not pay for delivery. I can also save money on gas. I wondered about what their merchants would say and do if they knew that the mall that takes a nice chunk off their bottom line in rent would say. I think I now know why small local businesses are no longer populating that mall.

I would like to think that in this age of a stagnate economy with a very slow recovery that a  national corporation who owns and rents retail space across the country would go out of their way to be nice to the locals. With each location costing millions to buy, renovate and manage, that they would be the first people to make sure that their customer service was the best in the industry. I might just be one customer going out to pamper myself. I would have spent under $100.00, but think of the domino effect of ticking off customers. How this will effect the merchants bottom line which in turn will effect your bottom line. What will Wall Street think about your shrinking bottom line.This current crop of analysts needs instant gratification. They want to see the money now, not 6 months from now. They don't care what you did for them 6 months or a year ago, they want the money and profits today. Not to mention that a shrinking bottom line will negatively effect the price you pay for interest on your loans and bonds. Which might in turn effect your salary and bonuses.

I have to say that the only person who was truly happy about the events at the mall office today was John. There is only one reason for that. I only bought a drink which I had a half price coupon for. I spent less than $2.25. I still came home relaxed after the walk and racked up over 8,000 steps today so far.

I have decided not to publicly name the corporation in my blog today, I really, really wanted to. My reasoning is that I would really be embarrassed to have my company called out for such horrendous customer service. If you happen to be upper management at the national office of a large company that buys and rents out mall space I will only give out the answer to the unmentioned company's upper management and no one else. After all everyone has a bad day now and then. It is also my sincere hope that the rest of your company is run much better.

On a different note. Eric is still home sick and spent much of the day sleeping. The stomach bug took a lot out of him, but the post viral asthma is worse. He is almost up to his normal feeding rate via the g-tube. It is my sincere hope that he can go back to his day program on Monday. Please send positive thoughts his way.  I think I have enough yarn and fluff to get me through. I have also figured out I can walk around the house for 20 minutes per hour 5 times a day to get close to my 10,000 steps.

Well it is time to go cook dinner.