A Day in the Life

  My friend Lisa once said that i could accomplish more in my nightgown before breakfast than she could all day.
  Yeah, well, you be the judge.
  In my ideal life, i would go to bed between midnght and 2am, then get up no earlier than 9.
  In my REAL life, on a good day, i can sleep in until 8:30 am.
  Today
is  good day.  At least on that score.  There is nowhere to go and i can concentrate on homestuff and cook that fresh chicken for lunch.
  i won't often subject you to this, but here is the minutae of

How i am Spending Today At Home

   At 8:30 woke up for the day & prepared to get out of bed.  This means: disconnect the CPAP (apnea), remove the arm splints (worn for carpal tunnel syndrome), do leg lifts and stretches so that i won't stagger too badly when i actually stand up.
  By 9:15 i had finished in the bathroom & changed from nightgown to pj pants & baggy Tshirt.  After consideration, i went to the computer desk & changed an appointment.  We'd made the next psychiatrist appointment for Max for 8:30 on a morning next month, then learned that Vocational Rehabilitation will see us at 7 the same morning.  No way are we going to try both the same day, so the dr has to change.
  But it seems impossible to sit at the computer and not check mail or something.  Here's what i did while here:

• Tried for the 3rd time, and finally succeeded, to print a document sent by The Arc of Indiana, The Model Seclusion and Restraint Policy, issued by The Indiana Department of Education* , effective 8/1/13.
• Checked the mail on my main account.
• Collected graduation photos into a  single file so that i could better determine which ones Max had asked me to print.
• Checked stats on this blog.
• Fixed a photo that will soon (i hope!) introduce a new Saturday Sister.
• Tried again to rearrange text and photos in the crayon melt instructionsin someone else's blog into a more printer-friendly setup.  (i put photos & related text into tables so that i don't have half a blank page next to a photo & resize some text.  Often this saves me half the pages that would otherwise print.   i'm still fighting with it, but down from 15 to 9.)  (Actually this is a project i keep returning to several times before i can get a print & discard the document.)
• Got Max's attention, & settled on which photos to print.
• Emailed the school board secretary about the promised copies of approved board minutes.
• Started the photo print job, and fought with the printer.  It keeps showing me an unfindable jam, which disappears when i attempt to locate it then ask it to continue the job, only to refuse after another page or two.
• Worked out some details with my Study Buddy for our next meeting.

By now it was after 11.  Clearly time

for my breakfast.
  Out of orange juice.  So, in between assembling the cereal and milk, i mixed another pitcher of oj, then joined Max in the LR to eat the Corn Bran Crunch.  i read the Seclusion & Restraint article while eating.  Thought about writing about Max's restraint experience today, but i think that will come later.  (It would NOT have fit these guidelines.)
  Still hungry, i had some generic cocoa puffs afterward.
  By now it's noonish.  Boom, still sleeping, and i may not be ready to think about lunch, but Max has been up since 6 or 7.  HE's ready.
  So i start de-skinning the chicken legs.  This is his favorite piece, but removing chicken skin is a very time-consuming process.  It's after 12:30 by the time it's done & i can put enough in the oven.  i start those, then skin another few for the freezer.
  Time for another go at the computer, jousting with the  word processor and printer.  They were still uncooperative when i needed to return to the kitchen.
  More chicken deskinning.  Now it's after 1:30.  i start the rest of the chicken legs (not the ones in the freezer - it was a huge package!) for lunch for me & Boom, then begin deskinning the chicken thighs, a couple for our lunch and most for the freezer.

  Max gets his lunch at 2:00,

way too late for a morning person.  i start the dishes.  There's a ton of them.  There weren't any when i left for book club last night, but the chop suey they had without me is a very utensil- and bowl-intensive meal, so there was a lot just with the meal.
  Our lunch was ready.  i woke Boom up.  Or maybe just called him - at any rate, we hadn't seen each other yet.  While we were eating our lunch, Max started saying "Graduation" repeatedly. 

The Conversation Loop

  Sometimes this happens.
  For several days, Max has been telling me, "Graduation."  i've thought this meant he wanted more graduation photos, which is why the print job.  But apparently this isn't it.
  We both nearly lost our tempers today.

  Max expect, probably NEEDS, a lot from his conversation partner.
  He kept endlessly repeating, "Graduation" for nearly an hour, in increasing intensity and desperation.
   i talked about photos and printer difficulties, writing out what was going on with that.
  He seemed to appreciate the information, but that wasn't helping.
  i wrote that i wasn't understanding anything beyond "Graduation," and i knew that he meant more.
  i wrote that i was getting angry with his repeating the word endlessly, and that wasn't helping us.
  He starting standing, as if wanting to go somewhere.
  i finally asked if he wanted to go to his graduation again.
  BINGO!
  He said Yes.
  i said,

But i can't take you to what isn't happening.

  i wrote that too.
  At that point Max got thoughtful and quiet, staring at my little notepaper.
  Boom and i finished our lunch. 
  i cleaned up the bones & washed some more dishes.
  i changed the pets' outside water & took the chicken bones to the garbage can.
  i asked Max if all was ok now, & he said yes.  He'd started playing with his Franklin Talking Dictionary again.
  At 4 i came upstairs & started slogging away on the same old computer projects, as well as beginning to compose this post.  It's 5:30 now.  i'm going to set this live, maybe add some links later, but basically it's done.
  Oh, and maybe i'll shower & dress sometime today too.
  Right now, i need to get back downstairs & cook dinner so that we can eat before Boom needs to go to his drama rehearsal.
  Maybe sometime today i'll get to do some more pencil play - haven't done any since Sunday, & it's all i want to do lately.
  Sometime, around filling in that paperwork for the rheumatologist tomorrow.  It never ends.

Update, 7pm

  Well, i don't know if we got the Graduation thing right or not.  He's still on about it, but not so much.
  i decided to forget about adapting the crayon article & just print smaller.  i put way too much work on formatting it perfectly.  Turns out that paper jam was mythical, or related to my cardstock, or something else.  Not a paperjam - the article is printing just fine on plain paper, without having cleared any paper jam.
  And the dishes are not yet done from before, plus a whole bunch from tonight's dinner.   It never ends.  (That sounds familiar.)
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*Wow, just visited the site for the first time since Superintendent Ritz's election.  Can you imagine Dr. Bennett having a link to set up a meeting with him so prominently featured?  Check it out!