This and that, and of course the usual complaining

As a mom, I had read and heard, often and in a variety of formats, that babies and children Like And Need Routine. Establish a routine for your child, and your child will be happy, expecting the usual events at the usual times. As an adult who is now under a forced routine, I'm not so sure... I believe routine is excellent for babies, but older children, those that start to demonstrate frustration and rebellion toward the established routine... well, I see their point now. A fixed routine is not necessarily a good thing for every 2-year-old, and so on. After almost six weeks of "home-bound" and with two more weeks to go, I can state with certainty that I hate this routine. I am so very tired of these antibiotic IV treatments. When I am done with this, if I never have to open another small, square packet of an alcohol wipe again, it will A-OK with me. I'm pretty sure I'll not want to use the wipes at Buffalo Wild Wings either since they will be too reminiscent of the alcohol wipes.

I am about 60% through my morning dose of vanco... thus the bitching (yet again!). I'm starting to feel sleepy and yukky from it already, so I'm typing this post to hopefully just work my way through it. Trying to ignore the sofa that's calling me to lay down on it's lovely softness.

I have way too much to do today, including working from home for my job, paperwork from home (we haven't got our papers over to our tax guy yet!), and I'm expecting the cable guy sometime... I also have to find the title to Joycie's Rodeo, and something else Kevin requested that I can't remember right now...

As you can see, my day is full.

The sun is shining outside towards the east and the birds are flitting back and forth from shrubs to feeder. Normally, this would make me feel cheerful. But today... today I am focused more upon the gray skies to the west. I see not the beautiful tall oak casting a long shadow, but instead, the huge unattached branch hung up in the top of the tree. I am unhappy with my Routine, and I am crabby.


A cable guy is coming out today because after the cable guy was here for a few hours yesterday, our nice, new 42" HP LCD MediaSmart Plasma HDTV was stuck on some "attention" 587 screen... basically, it would not get any TV channels. The guy installed a new receiver so we can get the HDTV (Kev had to buy a special cable for it, too... 80 bucks for the cable! jeez). When the cable guy called into Dish Network to register the new receiver, he couldn't do it because Dish Network had some huge computer issue... like a part of their entire network went down. The guy was real nice, and left me instructions on how to call into Dish and what numbers to give them, and he even left me his cell phone number for Kev to call him to get the TV settings pristine for HDTV... but after a few phone calls, cumulatively about 2 hours, on the phone with Dish Network yesterday evening, Kev kind of gave up... I talked to the guy on the phone, too, because by this time Kev had the phone on speaker... the end result is that the new receiver must be defective so Dish would send us another one and we'd get it in about 2 days. Sweet, happy joy, as you can imagine. Us Tyrrell's, we like our TV. So Kev called the guy on his cell phone, and now there is someone coming out this morning to fix it all. Kev finally gets his big plasma TV, and it's one big hassle. We love technology.

One thing not to bitch about is that Pam, the nurse who came yesterday to change my PICC line dressing, used a foam thingy this time and now the part of the PICC line that enters my skin into my vein is a little more protected. I've banged it so much that it is so sore, and the foamy bit helps. Also, Pam, who is an older, long-time nurse, wife of a pastor, mother of 3 older children, loud-talking (her talking voice volume is louder than a typical speaking voice), no-nonsense woman, is so nice. She exudes nursing competence, so she makes me feel comfortable. On her first visit to see me, I discovered that she likes sweet flavored coffee, so now each Wednesday, I have prepared for the both us my home version of a White Rabbit cappuccino. Pam always says, "What a treat!" Next Wednesday, however, I will see a different nurse because Pam and her husband will be in Sunny California visiting one of their daughters.

I am also happy about another thing... I finally found, and won, on eBay a gift for my nephew. It was shipped USPS Priority Mail, but it took over a week to get here, so I was nervous... it finally arrived yesterday. I am looking forward to giving it to him, and then I realized I needed something else, too... which I can't tell you because that would ruin the surprise. With too much time on my hands but with too little energy to do much, I've been perusing eBay more than I should, and I've bid on some things that I truly don't need, but would be interested in having. I've also found some things that I would love to own, but cannot justify the cost... like this beautiful fountain pen...

Did I say beautiful?... I meant gorgeous...

Too pricey, though. And anyway, I have a very nice Waterman fountain pen already... oh! and I found some ink cartridge refills at a great price on eBay! Yay.

And now, I give in... a quickie with my sofa has become a must... just a short nap... I'll even set the timer... coz the cable guy won't be here until at least 11am...