Wayne is having more and more problems with the people at ETMC - he was called in for a case and they accused him of taking 45 min to arrive! At most it's 20 min from here to the hospital. Turns out that, altho he's been there for a month, no one told him that they expected him to scrub in, get the room ready, and then scrub out to go down to help bring the patient in! He's never been anywhere that he was told to break scrub and do that. I suppose they think he should know what they want from him by osmosis. Grrr! So when the nurses didn't see him right away they assumed he wasn't there. He pointed out that if he hadn't been there the room wouldn't have been set up, Mayo stand and back table. I think they got it sorted out but they're really ticking him off.

The other tech, Crystal, is putting in her resignation at the end of the week and leaving in 2 weeks. That's good since it will help Wayne get more cases - most days he's through for the day by 1000 and bored the rest of the time - and the tech he was subbing for will return on the 21st so work won't evaporate. Also, it's possible that they will ask him to stay on a couple extra weeks, which would be good for us paywise and travelwise to New Orleans for the AST convention. Wayne would grit his teeth and do it. It would mean that we didn't have 2 weeks in Springfield, but would have to make it a flying trip back to get the stuff in storage. I'm considering donating the furniture we have in storage to GoodWill or friends rather than let it moulder. That will be a hard sell to Wayne, though....and I love my leather wingback chair! Still, it doesn't look like we'll be living in a stick house again any time soon...

We've been having thunderstorms at night and afternoon for the past few days. I love going to sleep with the sound of rain on the roof. Puts me right out. Tomorrow it's supposed to be sunny and 70 degrees...and probably humid as well. I replaced the screening on the screen door that Daria had shredded from climbing - it was getting large enough holes for bugs to come through. And I ordered a heating element and anode rod for the water heater. When they come in I will replace them, with Wayne providing the muscle as I suspect them to be in there tighter than I can easily remove. So I am not totally helpless and a leech.

Talked with the realtor and she was out showing the house this morning, which is good news. The person who wants to buy it has to sell his starter house first, though...and who knows how long that will take? If we could sell it I could use some of the $ to sign up for the med trans course. Amazingly enough, a woman down the row from us is taking a med coder course from the same company. She seems to be satisfied with it. Wayne will call tomorrow to check on me using his eligibility and I will be going down to VA on Friday with my DD214/215 copies to get registered. I'm pretty sure I will get atleast 10% disability...maybe more. Perhaps I can get retraining through VA as well. Sent in to get new certified copies of the aforementioned documents and got an email from them saying the normal wait is 6 months from request to receipt. Amazing!

I have a pot of alliums (green onions) that are blooming now. They have pretty flowers. The amaryllis broke dormancy last week and I have them in the sun. They're leafing out and should be putting out flowering stalks soon. I usually get atleast 3 or 4 stalks. And the pot of pansies I had from Oregon are still flowering even after traveling in the undercarriage all that time. Tough plants. Of course the bay shrub is indestructible. I'm kinda thinking of growing a pepper plant also. Green, yellow, red, orange peppers are so expensive in the store! If I can find green peppers for 50 cents each I buy several and cut them up and freeze them. Tish is talking about having a garden and I'm sure it's a great idea and will be good for the family to have fresh, unsprayed veggies. Don't know if she's building raised beds or just rototilling the earth but I'm sure she can get some compost for it, and she could spread manure on it over the winter and let it sheet compost for spring to build up the soil. Write to me with the particulars, Tish! I can vicariously garden through you.

Hope that Kat had a great visit with Rob this past weekend but haven't seen her online yet to ask after him. Will be glad when he gets orders for her to act on.

I dug out my basket with the Yule placemat that I've been meaning to finish for the past couple of years. I think I will finally get it done. Found a book on embroidering flowers and such and it has inspired me to want to tackle some. This place doesn't have a crafts store so I'll have to find a good online shop with canvas, transfer paper, and silk floss to order from. The very first bit of needlepoint I ever did was filling in the background for a pot of african violets. I still have that, framed. I was in high school. It's hideous, frankly! I wonder who I'll inflict...I mean, leave it to! Heh heh!