On We Go

The rush of Christmas is over... even at work.
The New Year's Fellowship Meeting is behind me.


The one thing looming on the horizon now that always before I dreaded (in the past, even more than the Christmas rush) is inventory.  It's next Saturday.  But, not being a department head is going to take some of the pressure even out of inventory.


It looks like the most adverse way that is going to affect me is that on Monday and Tuesday I have to BE at work at 5AM.  That means I'll have to leave home by 4:30, which means I'll have to get up at the very latest by 4 and possibly sooner than that.   BUT, I get off at 1:30 (supposedly).  Monday may be harder than Tuesday.  Monday evening surely I'll be tired enough to go to bed earlier.   


I can't even phase myself into it by going to be earlier tonight because I'm scheduled to work until close tonight and that means it will be AFTER nine o'clock before I even leave down there.


I didn't help myself by staying up later than I usually do last night.  Not even for a good reason.  I was reading about Dr. Asa.   I hear him ever now and then on the radio and at first I thought he was interesting, but after I'd listened awhile I began to think, "This guy has the same answer for EVERYBODY's problem."  Do these four things and buy my book.   But I hated to think that because he sounds so nice.   Anyway, he turned up in a search I was doing for something else on You Tube so I got on his trail.  I was actually trying to find out his credentials.   As it turns out, he is just good at talk.   I'm not sure what the outcome of the review will be, but he's in danger of having even his legitimate licenses taken away from him because of the way he is misrepresenting his expertise and because of practicing naturopathy.     (I found that in an article from Nashville's Behind the Scene.)   His response to the article's information didn't substantiate his credentials any more than he had done before.  But the thing that "got me"-- as my mother used to say-- was that he had such high employee turn over and made his employees sign statements saying they'd not say anything negative about him when they left him or they would have to pay him a $75,000 fine.   Can you imagine?    I won't be listening to him anymore.   Although, as I said, I had already decided there was something fishy about the fact that he told everyone, no matter what their issue to do the same thing, which amounted to buying his products and his book.  Same products for everyone. 


I had a mammogram at the end of December and I got a call and a letter that told me I need to make another appointment for further  "imaging".  So, I'll need to do that.  I got the letter on Thursday.  I knew my doctor's office was closed on Friday, so I didn't call them as (Jeni said) my message asked me to do.   (It was too late when I got home on Thursday.)   And Monday I go into work at 5 AM.  I have a tendency to forget everything but what I need to get done at work while I'm there, so I probably won't even think to call for an appointment until they get done with me.  


Hopefully, it will turn out the same as it did several years ago when I had to go back in for more imaging.  Back in 2006, they had the same concerns and I had to go in to get the mammogram redone.  When it was redone, they were still not satisfied that there wasn't need to check further so they did ultrasound.   After the doctor looked over the results of that, he told me that on a scale of one to five, I was a three, With one being NO reason to be concerned and five being a definite cancerous condition, I am a three. They saw no reason for a biopsy but suggested I come back in 6 months to a year for another mammogram. I opted to go back in six months and that was the end of the visit.  I must have gone back, because when I went this time, the nurse mildly chastised me that it had been 2 years since I'd been there.   And two years ago there was no word back except that things were the same.


Thinking you might have to deal with a REAL issue, makes you stop and think what ways that would cause you to have to make adjustments in life.   And knowing someone who just last year only found out how bad off she was about three or four months before she died, doesn't actually reassure you about the situation.   And the truth is, after she got the diagnosis, she really didn't even have four GOOD months.   She probably didn't have but about a month  of just feeling-like-doing-normal-things days, if that.  However, I don't really know if she was already feeling bad.  That may have been one reason she got checked.  Or it could have been because of a lump she found.  My memory is NOT helping me out here.


It probably wouldn't hurt any of us to stop and think what we'd do if we were given a short time to live.   It might be a good idea to incorporate a lot of those things into the life that we continue to live. 


Changing the subject:  The mechanism in the door knob on our back door decided to  go bad yesterday.  Actually, it gave fair warning on Thursday night.  When I got home, Sam called from within the entry, "This door is messed up.  It won't open."   Well, I got it open and didn't consider it an issue I needed to tend to right then.  But that may have been the last time it actually did open.   On Friday, we couldn't get it to open at all.  We had to go out the laundry room door (which has rarely been used in years).  When I pulled on that door knob to open that door, the knob came off in my hand.  However, I was still able to get that door open.   And we used it to go in and out.


We had decided to go to town.  I wanted to buy a cross cut shredder with my Christmas Target gift card and Jeni wanted some yarn from Hobby Lobby.    So we pretty much shot the day.  Later, I decided to work on that entry door to get the thing unfastened.  I worked over an hour.  I took the knob off.  I did everything I could think of to do.  But I could not get the part that goes into the door frame to release.   I finally decided I was going to have to turn that job over to Jef.  I'm not a quitter when it comes to things like that, but I actually exhausted my resources.   I didn't want to tear the door frame out.


So  today, I need to get some new door knobs for both of those doors.   And I need to do some more organizing in my room.  And I need to be at work by one.   And I got up at 7:30 after going to bed at 1:30, so I figure about the time I leave for work, I'm going to get sleepy again.  Of course, considering all that I have to do, it was important that I take time to catch up my blog.