The weekend went by fast.

12/1/06 Friday
We are at the VA hospital now. I am running a little slow but that’s not unusual when I am in strange or stressful situations.

12/4/06 Monday
Well the weekend came and went and it’s already Monday. The VA hospital visit went well. We were both wondering how it would go because of my experience with the Toledo VA clinic. The doctor, who’s name was Amaod or something, was very efficient and did not give me a hard time about anything. In Toledo they seemed to doubt whatever you said, a total lack of trust. Part of that seemed to be to save money anywhere they could. I understand the VA’s budget has been cut many times from the government so that makes things tight but… The doc didn’t hesitate to prescribe some pain medication when I described how much my pain has increased with working on this house. It’s weak stuff but it’s not the 800 milligram Ibuprofen Toledo had prescribed. That stuff is hard on the stomach.

They are going to do a battery of tests that are your standard look for things wrong stuff. Part of that is a three day diet without beef, broccoli, and a few other things followed by three days of giving poop samples. Not fun but you gotta do what you gotta do. If it detects some kind of cancer or whatever it’s for that’s a good thing.

I’m having another petite seizure. Sometimes I have several in a day. This one is coming with a headache like it did the other day. I took the stronger Migraine pills the doc prescribed (See, he’s doing a good job) and hope it will head it off. This pill did so the last time. Sometimes I have several of these petite seizures, that I usually call slow downs, in a day. They are different in severity and type so it can be confusing to others. Some are physical, which affect the partial paralysis, and some affect my ability to mentally process what’s going on. Some have lasted all day and some only a few minutes.

I started making the clothes hanger yesterday or the day before. How I love and miss woodworking. I was in hog heaven to get out the tools I have been lucky enough to accumulate. Used my jig saw, miter saw, both sanders, and finally unboxed the planer I got such a deal on in Toledo I couldn’t pass it up. There has been some confusion as I struggled to learn again what I once knew so well but I figured it out. This morning however I was disappointed when I tried to plane the braces I glued up yesterday. The glue just didn’t hold at all. Hmm? Better read the directions. YEP, that’s it, doesn’t work well below fifty degrees. I just redid them.

Speaking of that, it’s been real cold here. This morning they broke a record when the temperature dropped to seventeen degrees. This is hard on Cherie. I know she’s from up north but we can only heat a couple of rooms at a time. She won’t doesn’t her hair when it’s this cold. Can’t blame her. We bought another space heater some time last week and it’s working good. It is a radiant type that doesn’t have a fan like the two others we have do. Makes it easier to sleep as it’s quiet. We’re not anxious to see the electric bill. It’s the last thing on our budget we’d like to get a handle on. Between the well pump and the space heaters this may hurt. Cherie has decided to look for work now. We were both hoping to spend our time working together on this farm but it’s getting tight.


I decided to lay the carpet out in the back room. We’re not going to fasten it down because I will have to pull up the floor boards later and can’t even afford to get padding so will just lay it out for now. I had started pulling the baseboard in preparation when the slow down came. Those often drain me and I have to lay down so I haven’t finished. While pulling the baseboard I had to remove this example of fine workmanship. The receptacle's power cord came out of a hole where another receptacle was and had insulation stuffed in it. At least they screwed it firmly to the floor, damn-it. Had to make it hard to move didn't they.

Cherie went to Midland to do the laundry. It’s a shame there isn’t a decent laundry in Stanton so she has to make the thirty five mile round trip journey to Midland.

I finally figured out how to upload to my blog. It seems that the Microsoft Explorer doesn’t work well with the cell phone card but my Mozilla Firefox does quite well. Think I’ll go online and post to the blog despite being a little rough. The headache is increasing in spite of the pill.

Oh yeah, that Green Power deal looks a little scamy. I went online and found a bunch of stuff that just doesn’t add up well. Wrote a letter to them about it so it will be interesting to see if they reply.

I emptied the burn barrel into what will be my compost pit. Unfortunately there were some hot coals still there despite the fact I hadn't used it in days so here's the result. It took two days of water and shoveling to get it to go all the way out. I'm always learning out here.

This cell card disconnected me again so I suppose i'd better get used to that.