And With One Evening Phone Call on Saturday, Our New Year Begins With A Groan
Right now, animemojo is sleeping. Things have been especially rough for him since January 2nd.
I don't know if I posted it here or not, but a month or so ago, my father-in-law's cancer was active again. He started a new kind of chemotherapy just before my graduation (which is why he couldn't be here), because his old treatment was only considered effective for a certain number of rounds.
On the evening of January 2nd, we got a call from my father-in-law's girlfriend. They had been at the hospital since 6am because he was having problems. When M last spoke to his dad, he just blew off any possible health conversation with M. A day later, he's in ICU and his girlfriend doesn't notify M until after she gets home.
I believe her lame excuse was that her cellphone wasn't working in the hospital. I don't know how many hospitals she's been in over the past 10 years, but there's been cell reception at every one I've been in. (And I've been in quite a few.) As a matter of fact, 6 years ago I started noticing signs telling hospital visitors to turn off their cellphones in certain areas.
Needless to say, M has been a little upset. We did get some good news yesterday, when he called ICU and found out that his dad was moved into a regular hospital room. The word today is that all the problems that landed my father-in-law into the ICU have been resolved, but it looks like they were all caused by the chemo. So, there's the possibility that he could be released, then have a re-occurence of the problems and land back in ICU.
I think we're both a little afraid that this might be the beginning of the beginning of the end. Of course, both of our perceptions are a little skewed because our experiences with Big Sis are still fairly fresh in our memories. We both know that we've got to take these things day by day, and it's not really time to get all worried and overly emotional right now.
[M has just gotten up from his prolonged nap and is roaming about in his office.]
The weather has taken a decidedly chilly turn. Our overnight lows are in the 20s. Our daytime highs are in the 40s. There's the threat of snow flurries for this coming Thursday. Neither animemojo nor myself have managed to shake off the last of our vicious winter colds. We ran our 10-day course of antibiotics, so the infections are gone, but we've both managed not to lose our coughs. M's is being prolonged today by the fact that he had to deliver a training session and talk for 2 hours. Mine is being prolonged by working the front desk at the museum, with the cold wind gusting through the lobby every time someone opens the front doors. I did manage to buy a new black sweater (black being the unofficial uniform for museum and theater folks), which I'll be taking to work this week.
The museum work is going well. These last three weeks, I've been receiving training on the front desk, and training on how to open and close the museum. I've still quite a bit to learn, but I was able to handle the front desk alone today without having to ask for too much help. The public schools are in session again next week. I'm sure I'll be learning how to process the school tour groups at the front desk when I work next week.
I've also got to get on the ball and prepare for my NAEA presentation in April. For some reason, I didn't receive an email notification for my proposal being accepted. I think that may've been around the same time I was having problems getting my college emails. About a week or so ago - and on a whim - I received notification that the presentation schedule was up, so I thought I'd check to see if I was actually accepted or not. Oh, yeah ... and in a Friday time slot, too.
So now I've got to get cracking this month on testing my research and writing up a draft of my presentation. Since it looks like this is going to be a chilly month, I doubt that sunny day January activities will distract me from my work in the warm and cozy house.
We did have a nice Christmas. A stack of manga and videos for both of us, and a house guest just after Christmas. The Christmas gifts I've been playing with for the past week have been the Saiyuki Reloaded manga (I'm about halfway through the series now) and the XXXholic anime series (which we finished watch last night). Our house guest was a friend of M's, who used to work with him. He had gotten laid off from the company about 9 months ago, and has had difficulty finding a job. In the middle of December, a software company out in Panama City hired him to start working during that week between Christmas and New Year's. On his way out, he stopped over for the night with us.
Some of our other holiday activities included watching both of our college football teams win their respective bowl games, catching up on our library DVD viewing, and going out to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie in the theaters right now. While not a raucous celebration of the holidays, we did enjoy ourselves.
I also went back to working on one of my crochet lace tablecloths. I'm determined to organize/work down my thread and yarn stash this year. I've been collecting leftover balls of crochet thread from other projects. These thread balls are perfect for working crochet motifs for lace tablecloths. I've had two tablecloths started since last Spring, but - like with my afghans - school kept me too busy to work on them. I've made some serious headway on the fern lace motif cloth. Three more rows one one side and I'll have the correct width (52 inches) for the cloth. Too bad the length is supposed to be six feet! Right now, I've only got about two feet in length.
The other tablecloth is little more than one long strip of a single motif crocheted together. (The one from above is actually two motifs crocheted together, one large and one small.) I might be switching to this one in the next couple of days. These smaller non-afghan motifs are monotonous to work and they have a tendency to cramp up my hands after a few hours. Granted, I shouldn't be spending hour upon hour upon hour crocheting lace, but the lace takes more time to achieve a size substantial enough to feel a comparable sense of accomplishment with the afghans, shrugs and shawls.
Intermittently, I'm also working on some more filet crochet curtains. While a type of lace, I can zip along with filet crochet. I'm hoping to get one large set of these curtains for the side window in the living room, and one small set of these curtains for the kitchen before Spring.
But, the clock on the laptop is telling me that it's time to sign off and get some dinner. I'm hoping that I'll have more time to blog this year. I'm not going to miss all the paper deadlines from two years of grad school but I'd like to continue keeping up with my writing, even if it's only this blog.
I don't know if I posted it here or not, but a month or so ago, my father-in-law's cancer was active again. He started a new kind of chemotherapy just before my graduation (which is why he couldn't be here), because his old treatment was only considered effective for a certain number of rounds.
On the evening of January 2nd, we got a call from my father-in-law's girlfriend. They had been at the hospital since 6am because he was having problems. When M last spoke to his dad, he just blew off any possible health conversation with M. A day later, he's in ICU and his girlfriend doesn't notify M until after she gets home.
I believe her lame excuse was that her cellphone wasn't working in the hospital. I don't know how many hospitals she's been in over the past 10 years, but there's been cell reception at every one I've been in. (And I've been in quite a few.) As a matter of fact, 6 years ago I started noticing signs telling hospital visitors to turn off their cellphones in certain areas.
Needless to say, M has been a little upset. We did get some good news yesterday, when he called ICU and found out that his dad was moved into a regular hospital room. The word today is that all the problems that landed my father-in-law into the ICU have been resolved, but it looks like they were all caused by the chemo. So, there's the possibility that he could be released, then have a re-occurence of the problems and land back in ICU.
I think we're both a little afraid that this might be the beginning of the beginning of the end. Of course, both of our perceptions are a little skewed because our experiences with Big Sis are still fairly fresh in our memories. We both know that we've got to take these things day by day, and it's not really time to get all worried and overly emotional right now.
[M has just gotten up from his prolonged nap and is roaming about in his office.]
The weather has taken a decidedly chilly turn. Our overnight lows are in the 20s. Our daytime highs are in the 40s. There's the threat of snow flurries for this coming Thursday. Neither animemojo nor myself have managed to shake off the last of our vicious winter colds. We ran our 10-day course of antibiotics, so the infections are gone, but we've both managed not to lose our coughs. M's is being prolonged today by the fact that he had to deliver a training session and talk for 2 hours. Mine is being prolonged by working the front desk at the museum, with the cold wind gusting through the lobby every time someone opens the front doors. I did manage to buy a new black sweater (black being the unofficial uniform for museum and theater folks), which I'll be taking to work this week.
The museum work is going well. These last three weeks, I've been receiving training on the front desk, and training on how to open and close the museum. I've still quite a bit to learn, but I was able to handle the front desk alone today without having to ask for too much help. The public schools are in session again next week. I'm sure I'll be learning how to process the school tour groups at the front desk when I work next week.
I've also got to get on the ball and prepare for my NAEA presentation in April. For some reason, I didn't receive an email notification for my proposal being accepted. I think that may've been around the same time I was having problems getting my college emails. About a week or so ago - and on a whim - I received notification that the presentation schedule was up, so I thought I'd check to see if I was actually accepted or not. Oh, yeah ... and in a Friday time slot, too.
So now I've got to get cracking this month on testing my research and writing up a draft of my presentation. Since it looks like this is going to be a chilly month, I doubt that sunny day January activities will distract me from my work in the warm and cozy house.
We did have a nice Christmas. A stack of manga and videos for both of us, and a house guest just after Christmas. The Christmas gifts I've been playing with for the past week have been the Saiyuki Reloaded manga (I'm about halfway through the series now) and the XXXholic anime series (which we finished watch last night). Our house guest was a friend of M's, who used to work with him. He had gotten laid off from the company about 9 months ago, and has had difficulty finding a job. In the middle of December, a software company out in Panama City hired him to start working during that week between Christmas and New Year's. On his way out, he stopped over for the night with us.
Some of our other holiday activities included watching both of our college football teams win their respective bowl games, catching up on our library DVD viewing, and going out to see the new Sherlock Holmes movie in the theaters right now. While not a raucous celebration of the holidays, we did enjoy ourselves.
I also went back to working on one of my crochet lace tablecloths. I'm determined to organize/work down my thread and yarn stash this year. I've been collecting leftover balls of crochet thread from other projects. These thread balls are perfect for working crochet motifs for lace tablecloths. I've had two tablecloths started since last Spring, but - like with my afghans - school kept me too busy to work on them. I've made some serious headway on the fern lace motif cloth. Three more rows one one side and I'll have the correct width (52 inches) for the cloth. Too bad the length is supposed to be six feet! Right now, I've only got about two feet in length.
The other tablecloth is little more than one long strip of a single motif crocheted together. (The one from above is actually two motifs crocheted together, one large and one small.) I might be switching to this one in the next couple of days. These smaller non-afghan motifs are monotonous to work and they have a tendency to cramp up my hands after a few hours. Granted, I shouldn't be spending hour upon hour upon hour crocheting lace, but the lace takes more time to achieve a size substantial enough to feel a comparable sense of accomplishment with the afghans, shrugs and shawls.
Intermittently, I'm also working on some more filet crochet curtains. While a type of lace, I can zip along with filet crochet. I'm hoping to get one large set of these curtains for the side window in the living room, and one small set of these curtains for the kitchen before Spring.
But, the clock on the laptop is telling me that it's time to sign off and get some dinner. I'm hoping that I'll have more time to blog this year. I'm not going to miss all the paper deadlines from two years of grad school but I'd like to continue keeping up with my writing, even if it's only this blog.