July BP

 

Scheduling and the Tracfone Blues

I have finally figured out that I need to develop a schedule for myself in the morning. In this way, I set a morning routine for myself that I currently don't have. I can get stuff done that I want to get done and still have free time for whatever.

I have been getting up at 7:00 and that seems to be a good time for me. I have set my morning walk, which is an essential activity, for 8:00AM. Today I increased my walk from one mile to 1.6 miles. That is twice around the park. My time was 33:17. Once I get below 30 minutes, I shall increase to two miles.

I am scheduling some time at the piano for 9:00 to 10:00. I don't know that I will spend the whole hour but that will be my goal.

Beyond that, I will do some little bit of house cleaning and/or organizing. Then I will try to establish a project for the day. It might be something simple like, move all of Mom's pictures upstairs so they are out of the way. 

There are a ton of pictures to go through. My plan is to go through them, sort out the keepers and scan them in to my computer, and then to a DVD. The really difficult part is deciding what needs to be thrown away.

That project is a way off yet however.

I just got off the phone with my cellphone provider, Tracfone. My old phone is getting very crappy reception here at the house and I think it is time to upgrade.

I bought an LG Rebel which is also the model name for my Canon Camera. The big upgrade I am making is memory. I have been stuck with 8 gigs in my current phone and that is simply not enough. The new phone has 32 gigs.

Okay! It is after 9 and I'm not at the piano.

Good day!

 

Gaining and Losing

Since getting out of the hospital, I have lost 11 pounds. I have done a good job of keeping it off...until last night. 

We went to the Texas Roadhouse for Susan's birthday and I gained three pounds. I've gained almost six pounds since Saturday. Time to reverse this trend.

I'm heading out on my daily walk and then getting to work on some basement organizing. My new (to me) beer fridge is coming today.

After Walk: Ahhhhhh, that was a good walk and I accomplished my first goal. I walked the mile in under 20 minutes. That means I'm going to expand my distance. I can feel that it was a good walk because I am sweating. My time was 19:33. That beat yesterday's time by a minute and a half. It must be from the energy all that salty meat gave me last night.

SSA Application

I am well into my second week of retirement and I don't think I'm doing it very well. I'm not completing a task a day on the house, like I hoped. I am getting little things done but I just don't feel the stamina to do anything major. Today, I'm cleaning out the basement refrigerator because I'm bringing in a better one from Mom.

I'm going to pull it out of the basement and put it one Craig's List for free. I have to remember to time it and see how long it takes before it is gone.

I finally got through the application for registering for Social Security. The on-line application is pretty straight forward but it won't allow you to continue until you have completed all the questions. I kept passing over something and then it was hard to find the spot to fix.

Now that I've had the experience of signing up. I would probably do better the next time.   

Retired Person

It's been two days since the ablation and there has been nary a bad heart beat. They are setting me free today. I am still weak and sore but looking forward to my own bed.

In the course of all this going on, Susan has made an executive decision. I am retiring. I was planning on it in eight months but I'm not fighting her on it. I would like to keep working but I am not sure I can. Also, I think that if I had not made the decision, Screen Tek would have made it for me.

So, on top of dealing with all the stuff concerning cleaning up Mom's affairs, I shall be applying for Social Security.

Additionally, I'm not allowed to drive for three months.

Ablation Day

 Today was ablation day. We just didn't know when. Turns out, they took me down into the bowels of the hospital about 5:00PM. It took about 2 1\2 hours. They thought it went well but it was hard to tell.

They would observe me for a day or so and see what's going on.   

Hospital Continued

I have been in the hospital for three days now. There have been no events. The heart cath showed that one of the heart grafts from the bypass in 1998 was nearly closed. They wanted to schedule an ablation but it was Friday heading into the Fourth of July holiday weekend. It was looking like an ablation would happen on Tuesday.

They moved me out of ICU and into a double room late Wednesday. Over the course of the next few days, I would have three different roommates.

It was a long and boring weekend with a very sore chest. Fortunately, no ribs were broken.

They decided they would fit me in for the ablation sometime on Monday.