Ankle Issues

Kris got a message today from Alison’s cheer coach.  She wanted us to know that Ali was in tears today at practice when they took their break because her ankle was in so much pain.  She said she wanted to know if Ali had said anything to us about it (which she hadn’t).  And also wanted to make sure we were aware because she wanted to make sure that Ali didn’t end up causing any permanent damage to her ankle.  She recommended taking her to the doctor to get it looked at.

Actually Ali had been complaining about her ankle hurting for some time, but whenever we suggested taking her to the doctor, she refused.  Now she doesn’t have a choice.  We have bought several different types of ankle braces for her and she refuses to wear them because “they feel weird”, or she doesn’t like them.  Well it looks like now she isn’t going to have a choice.  We’re making an appointment to see the doctor this week.  Let’s hope there isn’t anything permanently wrong.

Healthy

I finally got in to the doctor for my “annual” check-up.  I as actually due back in October, but I had forgotten to schedule it, and then due to my schedule, and the doctor’s, I decided to simply push it back to the new year.  I didn’t really have any concerns so I figured it wasn’t a problem.

Everything was cool.  All my blood work was normal, there was nothing new or concerning found on the once over, well, almost nothing new.  The doc did tell me that I have a hernia, but I knew that already, or at least I was pretty sure that I did.  I have had it for almost a year, I h\just haven’t had the time to take off to go and get it fixed.  But other than that, all I have left to do is schedule my 50 y/o guy test, which I am actually dreading.  I am going to put all those things off until we get back from Ali’s Nationals trip.  Then I’ll see about scheduling appointments for all that stuff

Winter Cleaning

Today was winter cleaning day.  That’s sort of like spring cleaning day, except in the winter.  I have needed to get at cleaning the basement for at least six months, ever since we moved things down there during the kitchen demolition.  Then during the stages of the remodel, things just got stacked on top of bins, and other things moved around, and nothing was ever cleaned up because I didn’t want to take the time.  Today it was finally time. 

I had actually started trying to clean off my workbench a couple of weeks earlier, but now it was really time to dig into it and start throwing things away. It took a total of about 10 hours, but at least I can walk around now without tripping over boxes, or bins, or stepping on screws.  I threw our two large, yard trash bags of things that were no longer needed (items from bins that I don’t know why I was saving, scrap wood that came from the remodeling of the kitchen, etc.).  It was a long stressful day of climbing around and cutting up my fingers digging thru things, but I am done for the time being.  I think Kris and I will still need to do some more rearranging since we still have some to store a couple of bins and boxes of Christmas items.  I have a door down there too that I bought years ago to replace the one in the front entry for the closet.  If I can get a free couple of days/weekend, I’d like to rip the old one out, finish putting vinyl floor and new baseboards in the closet, and put the new door up.  But that means having a whole weekend to work on it.  And I would need to get the door and frame sanded and stained first, which would take at least another whole weekend.  I would also eventually like to do some remodeling in the basement and get rid of the folding table where everything is stored right now.  But for now, being able to move around and get at the things I need to get at is a win in my book.

Greenfield X-treme

Today was supposed to be Alison’s first cheerleading competition since their performance at Waukesha South.  I was looking forward to seeing how they are since they have had about a month now to work with their “alternate” who has taken over for the girl who was suspended.  Additionally, I wanted to see the changes to the routine.  They need to start getting some experience with their routine in a competition setting to prepare for Nationals in a month.  Unfortunately, they had to scratch today’s competition.  One of their girls (a flyer) came down with the flu and has a 103 fever, and unfortunately, they don’t have an alternate to take her place.  So the choices were to perform minus one girl, or just pull out of the competition and focus on the next one, which is what they did. 

I feel bad because my mother was driving down just to see her compete and then has to find out that it has to be canceled.  I guess on the plus side, that left an afternoon to sit around and visit, instead of sitting in a gym listing to music that could rival the sound of a jet landing.

CNA Exam

Last summer Sarah completed a CAN course thru the Waukesha Area Technical College.  However, due to changes in testing, and other program issues she didn’t take her final licensing exam at that time.  The program director sent her information on taking her test a few weeks later, but by then her semester at UWL had started and she didn’t want to take time off from her regular classes to study for her CNA test and just planned on going to take it once her semester was over.  She was able to do it at WCTC while she was home over Christmas break.  

Well that day was today.  She had been studying for it for the past week or so.  I don’t know how heavily, but I know she was.  When she graduated from the program, I think she had somewhere in the neighborhood of 97% on her exams, so I thought this would be pretty easy for her with just some minimal refreshers.  Not quite.  I asked her to send me a message when she was done and let me know how things went.  I got a message around lunchtime that said something to the effect of, “it could have been worse, so we’ll see how it went”.  Later when I got home Kris told me that she got a message from the school saying congratulations, so I guess that meant she passed.  She found out later that she passed by about one percentage point.  But she passed, which is the important thing.  People always used to tell me when I graduated, no one is going to ask you if you just barely passed, they just want to know if you passed, which I did.  Same for Sarah. 

Now when she goes back in the Spring, she can see about picking up a job someplace in LaCrosse as a CNA to start banking some patient contact hours.  She has a roommate who works as one at a nursing home, so maybe she can see about getting a part time job there.  That would help with some extra spending money and get her some patient hours.  Congratulations Sarah!  You’re halfway there!

DNA On The Way

Yesterday Kris finally reviewed her instructions and spit in her vile for her 23 and Me DNA test.  This morning I sent it off.  I’ll have to go back and see approximately how long it takes to get results back, but I wouldn’t think it would be more than a month or so once they receive it.  I just hope that it doesn’t result in the FBI showing up at our door because the DNA shows up as a relative of a serial killer, or a bank robber, and they are looking to track someone down.  At the very least it will give her some medical history and who knows what else it may end up telling her.

Nationals Change

This evening as I was finishing putting away Christmas stuff and cleaning up, Kris informed me of an email she received from one of the cheer parents about Nationals next month.  It seems that this year, the Preliminary round is taking place on Friday rather than Saturday.  The official schedule has not yet been posted/published, but apparently, in our division, the girls could perform anytime Friday between 9:00 AM and 8:00 PM.  This is particularly troubling this year because when the team tried to get accommodations at the Disney “budget” resorts, they were told they were all booked up.  Apparently, the coach worked out something with UCA to get into the Resorts Friday, but that leaves them someplace else on Thursday which would mean pretty much moving everything Friday in addition to competing.  It also means that they will most likely spend much of their time on Thursday practicing.  And with them not staying on the Disney grounds it is going to be very difficult to get to and from the practice fields.  It is turning out to be a very difficult trip/competition this year, and I am already resigning myself to not expecting too much.  If they do end up performing well and advancing, I will be pleasantly surprised.

It would have also been helpful to know about the schedule changes ahead of time, such as when they qualified, so that flights and other travel arrangements could have been made right away.  In the past, the schedule was Saturday and Sunday, so some parents scheduled their flights on Friday.  This year, if they are flying Friday, they had better hope for a later performance time, or they will need to change their flights.  Luckily we have always gone down on Thursday and had always used Friday as a “free day” before the competition for going to the Disney Parks.  This year, we aren’t planning on going to the Parks, so it worked out OK for us, but I am still not a fan of the schedule change.

Christmas Is Over

As with everything this year, it seems like we are running late with getting the Christmas decorations down.  Actually, I was happy with it since I feel like Christmas things should stay up until the Epiphany, but in the past it was just more convenient to take it down New Year’s Day.  But this year due to schedules and other things that were going on (like the plumbing fiasco) we made it all the way to the end of the Christmas season.

I had taken some things down a couple of days earlier (like the girls’ assortment of nutcrackers), but the bulk of the decorations came down today.  Kris emptied all of her snowman decorations and I spent the day taking ornaments off the tree and boxing them back up, taking the tree down, and since it was relatively warm, I got the lights off the bushes outside. 

In fact, the lights needed to come down for a week, because for some reason they hadn’t been working since about the 27^th or 28^th.  I assumed that there was a short in one of the wires, or the stake receptacles.  However, as I was taking the lights off the bushes, I was double checking by plugging them into the outlet in the garage, and they all worked.  I even plugged the stake receptacles in, and plugged the lights into them individually, but they all worked.  After exhausting all my options, I tried my digital stake timer.  The display worked, the manual on/off button worked, and the timer even worked.  However, when the timer was plugged in and I plugged the strings of lights directly into the outlets instead of the extension cords, they wouldn’t work.  So obviously something was jacked up with the timer.  I do have a couple of others, but this one was probably about 8-10 years old, so maybe it was just time to replace it anyway? 

The ornaments took forever.  It is always my least favorite part of the Christmas season.  I began the ornament removal process at around 9:00 AM, and I finished with everything at about 7:30.  This included removing ornaments and reboxing/rewrapping them all, and separating them into bins by ownership (Sarah’s, Ali’s, Family/Kris & Mine).  I also had to figure out how to box up all the new decorations we got his year, which required a trip to Home Depot for a few new bins.  And then labelling and restacking everything in an orderly manner.  The tree and lights also had to be disassembled and stored.  The lights were OK, but the bag that the tree is in is cumbersome and I don’t have a very good place to store it.  I think that eventually I will need to get down in the basement and completely clean house.  Hopefully that happens before next Christmas.