Online AGAIN tonight.

This time trying to buy an infant stethoscope asap. There was 1 in San Diego but that store closed at 5. I was calling at 4:30 and Larry doesn't have the time to go get it.

So I'm looking at buying one and having is shipped. And the site I'm using is having hiccups. Or our credit card is. And considering that we had to cancel all our cards AGAIN last week because Larry's wallet walked away from his computer at work. It could be our end. Seriously. We are in the running for absolute worst luck in credit card theft.

It was eventually found/turned in, but at that point we'd cancelled everything. The one thing it did save was the process of trying to replace an expired out of state drivers' license. Larry was given an extension but was told he had to go in to the DMV to renew. In VA. This of course is a little problem. I face the same fate in 2014. We'll be looking to change residency status in the next 2 years, I think. Although this year our vote supposedly counts in a swing state. I say supposedly because the whole mail in your ballot process doesn't really give you a warm fuzzy feeling that they're actually going to count it.

But the one thing that strikes me this time of year is that life in the military, particularly life with Marines is different. Honor, patriotism, and protocol. And you see it from a young age.  For example- at the movie theater on base, before they play the movie they don't play commercials- they play the national anthem and the Marine Corps hymn. And the entire audience stands silently -from an early age. There's occasionally the random toddler that makes noise but it's not too common.   And at soccer these days, we're on the field at Colors - when they play the retiring music and lower the flag. Practice comes to a rapid halt, everyone freezes and faces one of the 2 flags on either side of the fields and stay that way until the tune that releases everyone. Sometimes the colors song has ended, but they're still folding the flag and that 'you're free to go about your business' 10 note tune seems to take for.ev.er. but no one moves. It's kinda cool in an uniquely patriotic way.

I was sitting in our car tonight. And after all this talk of protocol, since I would *hear* the music if I was listening hard or had the windows down, I was supposed to get out of the car and stand at attention, too. But I wanted to take a picture of it, and there's no way I was going to get out of the car and do that - move? during colors? what a newbie mistake. lol. I did it before. Not colors, but I didn't realize the Marine Corps anthem was also sacrosanct. Now I know.

playing before colors star

Frozen at attention, the flag is to the Left

The other flag.

So the pictures are there.

And I'm off to finish what I was supposed to do.

Can't sleep

Which is kinda ironic because if Larry's home watching Netflix, I have no trouble going to bed to sleep. But with him gone every creak in the night makes me awake. And I make huge grandiose plans of what I'm going to organize when he's gone, get 1/3 into a wheezing and sneezing fit, sit down and turn on the computer and drink herbal tea waiting for the claritin to work it's magic.

And last night the artillery was blowing stuff up that did more than a little window rattling. However it didn't do alot of banging, so with only the window rattling, it was sleep with the light on sort of night.  I was talking with a fellow wife who said she loved having her big german shepherds when she was alone and I realize.. no. I'm ok. I don't want a dog. or 2. especially large hairy ones. I already can't breathe and the cat lives outside.

The cat. I haven't told you about that.

You see, Kayla batted her eyes and did a "daddy, I really want a cat" thing and we were finding rats outside with our neighbor's apple tree... so we went on the get a kitten hunt (think I did mention this) anyway.. kitten goes out one night and doesn't come back. Still hasn't. And another cat went missing that week also. I suspect there is a crazy cat lady somewhere.... anyway..

Because kitty was cute and sweet and I felt bad I said we could get another one. Larry, on the other hand said no, we're not going to get another and spend money on it. To which I reply, what if it's fixed already and free? To which he agreed.

So I go online a few times and find a cat. Free. Fixed, has his shots. And.. Orange.. which was the color we were originally trying to get because Kayla's fixated on her "stripey" the orange beenie baby cat she's had since she was 2.

And Violla.. She sends me a picture of this younish cute orange cat. Says he's a little shy but great with kids and playful like a kitten.  I ask, is he short hair, she says yes.they have a baby and can't devote the time to him... (really. it's a cat. how much time are you talking here?)

So I show up. The cat is long haired, 45 lbs, and nearing the end of it's life. In fact I'm pretty sure I caught a glimpse of the tunnel  of light it was supposed to travel down. Cept it was too fat and lazy to get down that tunnel.

Mistake #1. I had the kids with me, Larry was somewhere overnight and I thought maybe if the cat was settled in when he came home it would go over better.

Actually that's mistake #1 and #2.

Mistake #3. I didn't say "are you sure this is the same cat you were talking about? he looks 8 years older than his picture you sent?" and walk away. No stupid me let the girls go "AWWWHHHHHH mommmy! it's a cat! can get really have it?!"

So Cat came home with us. A sign of how "loved" he was might be when I asked his name, she said "we just call him fatty"

It stayed under the couch for a day. I'm surprised it got under the couch.  Then it went under a bed for a day when we moved the couch. And when it was under the bed (we had extra kids sleeping over, to boot) the kids got hysterical- at 11pm- that the cat smelled and they thought it pooped.

Mistake #4. having friends over the weekend the new cat comes home.

Move bed, get cat, make sure the floor is clean and move cat outside to the garage.

It's been outside since. Once I realized it did nothing but sit on the shelves in the garage he got evicted from that, also. He's now an OUTSIDE outside cat who sits at the door and meows that he thinks he's an indoor cat.

He catches nothing. But he has lost enough weight that he could climb over the lower fences in the back yard. This is an improvement- before he couldn't get 3 feet off the ground. Did I mention this cat was Obese?

And he's named Garfield now. It fits, fat orange lazy cat...

The one almost good thing he's done is to sleep at the front door and fight with the across the street cat that sprays our front door. But he's only stopped him twice in 2 months. So can't say he's really earning his keep.

But it's minimal upkeep, throw some food and water in a dish once a day.

Still have most of our other animals - Pet rabbit, 9 chickens remaining after rooster was re-homed and 2 died in the 110+ heat we had last month. I haven't counted the quail. Cages get opened and not re-hooked good so we've lost to nature probably 15 that way.  Some wild animal has attacked and killed another 12 and another 6 went in the heat and 12 went in the freezer... But we still have dozens of quail left.

But really.. farm life is messy. It's not all cute cuddly creatures and yummy veggies. It's life and death and vermin and weeds and bugs and, and, and... kinda like Genesis says life would be difficult to live on the land.  As much as I live in paradise, we still live in a fallen world.

So I won't blog about the kids today

Lemme take a minute to tell anyone out there that thinks electronic medical records will improve life for doctors a little story.

There was once medicine. It was practiced where the doctor looked at the patient when they were talking, maybe took a few notes.  The patient and doctor did their best to figure out what was best for the patient and sometimes lab results went missing, and charts took time to file, but that was part of life.

Now, the computer screen is being watched, the "provider" is not seeing the patient because they're looking for the 6pt clicky box to check for each symptom the patient is mentionings, and in going between screens missing about 10 symptoms- both in documenting and in hearing.

The computer crashes and there is nothing you can do aside from scribble notes on a piece of paper. You can't write prescriptions because no one has prescription paper pads anymore and the controlled medication prescription papers need to be filled out by computer.  And if you need to go over labs or results... for get it.

And then.. the best part... you get rated on "quality of care" no longer do you get to discuss the options with your patient and decide what's best for them- nope. You get graded on percentage of your patients that have government clicky-boxes checked. When you hear the president talk about "we're going to pay the most efficient doctors" or that sort of wording, just remember they're treating you like a multiple choice clicky box and if you refuse the flu shot your doctor will be graded as incompetent.

As you might guess, there's a bit of a bee in my bonnet this week. I got my "random audit" of my August visits. And would you believe I failed 100% at giving my patient the flu vaccine in August. uh, HELLO? govt audit agency? We don't HAVE the vaccine to give in August.   And today, of 15 patients, I had 3 say "yes, I'd love to pay an extra $20 and get the flu vaccine" the rest said "are you kidding me? it's 100 degrees out, I can't think of the flu right now and I never get the vaccine and I never get sick" so my audit this month will be crap, too.

Not to mention that 11% of the patients I saw had a Hgb A1c of >9%. uh... for 1, I'm seeing the person for the first time, so it's not like anything I did had any effect on the previous 3 months and their current A1c. For 2, dear govt agency, do you realize that a vast majority of our patients show up with meds from other countries and cross the border all the time for their care?

For example, I saw an immigrant who brought in her metformin and glyburide and tells me she's taking 1000mg of metformin bid and 20 mg of the glyburide bid. yep. When was the last time her sugar was checked? 1997? We've seen her for 4 years and never before had she mentioned she had diabetes, but her overseas source of her med dried up and suddenly she's got a random glucose of 300+ and would like her meds refilled. Oh, yeah, and she doesn't feel good.

Don't cha think mentioning to your doctor that you have diabetes might be a good idea?

Similarly, a woman presents for a mammogram. Ask, are you having any problems. "well, yes, I'm having pain" (this is of course in spanish) ok, well, let's take a look and WHOA nelly.. uh, this is a surgical site. did you have surgery here? Yes, 2 days ago.

For one... dear MA's rooming patients, I know you're pressed for time and don't have time to find the right clicky boxes in the medical records for this, but alittle heads up of "she had surgery 2 days ago" helps. ESPECIALLY if she's there for you to re-dress it and thinks you're taking her sutures out. A little help with my spanish to explain you don't take sutures out of anything 2 days after major surgery.  And if you think this is rare... it isn't. This is in fact the second time in 6 months that this has happened. Apparently you go to mexico to have the lump removed, the doctor there says you need a mammogram, but in mexico  you pay for your mammograms. If you come to CA, the state pays for it.

No one should wonder why we're bankrupt as a state here. no one.

BUT back to our dear government standards... so they're going to require medical persons to do testing and treat beyond side effects and patient desires to get numbers where they are, they're going to require us to put everyone on certain meds because that's what certain studies say is best, regardless if the patient wants it or not, and then they're going to make sure the government taxes us to pay for it. I mean I understand there's some logic there, but not really. Can't some of us make decisions for ourselves?

If any of my kids tell me they want to go into medicine, I'm going to steer them to plumbing- the hours might be worse but the autonomy and pay is better.

Why don't I blog anymore?

In case you're wondering and haven't asked:

I'm more unplugged from the computer these days. Sure I have one, but I don't have to BE on it with the business stuff and not turning it on is the first step in getting unplugged from it. It's a good thing as far as time management goes. 

I'm not at home to be on the computer- this whole start a job thing means I'm dropping kids off at school, going straight to work, going from work to the store to buy a gallon of milk and bread, dropping that off at home and getting back in the car for pick up time. We get home, get snacks, changed and suddenly we're back in the car and on our way to soccer. Then dinner, finishing homework, bathing, bedtime for kids then laundry, cleaning and bedtime for me. The second I throw the computer in there my bedtime gets pushed back an hour, if not more. Since I'm getting up before the sun these days, late bedtimes are not good.

I have less to say, or perhaps more accurately less positive things to say. I have alot of stuff to rant about but in an effort to not be NancyNegativity I try not to dwell and write about that. Try. Go ahead and point me to the archives here, I know. This is a work in progress.

But today we don't have Soccer, Sonia is getting a ride home from band practice and the remaining 3 are at the neighbor's house and I have 15 minutes where I turned on the computer.

So in a real quick synopsis of the time since school started:
JM has moved from his kindergarten class to a K/1 class- not that it is necessarily more advanced than a K class, it did get him out of the class of 30 kids with the teacher that seemed like she was 6 months past ready to retire. His new class only has 24 kids. Their school does these combo classes when they have too many students for the grades but not enough to fill a full classroom- so they had 1/2 a classroom of K and 1/2 a classroom of 1 so they combined it to a K/1 class. They also have a 2/3 class. His teacher still calls him Jon. As does his coach. And he forgets that's him, so he tends to ignore them. He also ignores me when I call him JonMichael, so perhaps it's more than the wrong name thing.

Soccer has hit full swing. And Sonia actually LIKES soccer this year- and runs and puts in effort. She's in better shape than I am at this point. Kayla also likes soccer (after the whole protest that the girls didn't' want to play when I was signing them up...) and is one of the 2 better players on the team. JonMichael is a born athlete, so it's ok that he's not past his first sight word list, I guess. We all have different strengths. And he hangs out on the side of the soccer field playing with the other siblings during his sibling practices so he's gotten a ton more practice. As has Kayla who's played along with Sonia/Joey's team. Sonia and Joey's team is VERY competitive. I guess this is the first year they have playoffs and rankings so winning is everything. They're ranked #2 and still undefeated. They have a great coach and I think that helps alot with Sonia liking soccer. Joey's always liked soccer and excels in pretty much any sport he tries. Except baseball. We didn't go great there, but a big part of that was we don't have a backyard for practice. In fact our neighborhood kids are here playing all the time and we've had near misses in neighbor windows up to 2 yards over. Thus anything harder than a pom pom has been confiscated.

School this year aside from JM- Kayla has Sonia's 2nd grade teacher who she adores. Joey had a new to the district teacher and so far loves that he gets 1/2 the nightly homework he used to get last year. This is the first year he gets less homework than Sonia on a regular basis. He thinks this is awesome. Sonia has a young teacher, but she seems to be doing fine. She's still mostly a loner when it comes to playing with kids at school, but I think I'd prefer a loner to some of the nonsense the 4th grade girls are getting into already. Besides she's a smart loner and doesn't think this is a problem. 

JM lost his first tooth, and in a miracle it wasn't from him jumping off the top bunk- it was just a normal wiggle loose tooth. Joey has his first orthodontist apt this week.

For fun we went to the Air Show again. Joey took tons of pictures.

I'm now on Shutterfly because that's where we share team and class info, so my pictures are there. If I can figure how to get them to share with a link, I'll be posting it. I could put up a share site and invite whoever, so that might happen next.  ok, we'll see if this works  shutterfly pictures link

ok if it doens't work let me know. it takes a year and a day for me to get pictures to loan on the blog and it's now 5 min past my 15 minutes of allotted time, Sonia is walking in so it's time to start to hit the homework before dinner and growth group.