Thoughts for my Journal

          I cannot believe tomorrow is Mother’s Day.  The weather isn’t speaking volumes of how Mother’s Day has looked in years past.  Yesterday we had sun showers all day.  The rain has been pouring all night and this morning.  Not to mention the hens have been cackling.  I can’t sleep with that!  Nobody rescued them from whatever they were cackling about nor did the rain drown them out as they seemed to be louder than the pounding rain.

https://funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/1577805/Chicken/

         I must have slept at some point – and hard as I had another weird detailed dream.  I don’t know where Richard and I were or why.  The neighborhood was not one that I remember.  Somehow we got separated and I went to a house in which I know the woman but chose instead to go to the house next door to wait for Richard when I heard his voice inside of the first house.

         I went to the door and was greeted by one of the woman’s relatives.  I had remembered meeting her before  and apologized for my interruption.  I was led to another room that somehow continued to get larger as I looked around and saw many people – some eating food and visiting while others sat with dark expressions giving off vibes that they really didn’t want to be there.

         I sat down and observed and spotted a couple from my mom’s ward who I have not seen for almost twenty years.  I went up to them to ask how they were doing.  They didn’t seem to recognize me.  I said that we had lived on the same street when I was living in Midvale.  Some facts were distorted in my dream, but I somehow woke myself up remembering more details – and what I could have said.  Like I had served in Young Women’s with their niece and how we had dressed Tom and the bishop up as Ladybugs.  I also thought about the time when I was pregnant with Jaime and Pam and Elena had offered to throw me a baby shower (which Jaime attended when she was almost two months old).

         I have no idea why I would have dreamed about them. 

 

Jaime has her prom tonight. We are going to the salon to have her hair done.  I hope the rain doesn’t damage.  I really hope she will enjoy herself and have positive memories of the night.

Tomorrow will bring some interesting meetings.  More on that later.

The Sound of Rain

          Even before Bonnie came to live with us, Jenna found a comforting sound (to her) to drown out the noise of the chickens and roosters who crow all hours of the day.  She turns the phone setting to rain falling.  I don’t recall having heard it until after Bonnie had come to live with us.  That is because Bonnie snores loudly.  LOUD.  Like “wake up the dead” kind of loud. Jenna has turned up the volume in order to drown out the noise.

Strange Night

          It’s rare that Roland will go to bed before I do.  It was quite the opposite when we first married, but for some reason he feels impelled to stay up and watch TV even though we have the capability of recording his programs.

Sometimes I will hear him come in, but not always.  I am usually fast asleep before 10:00 although last night I was in bed playing on the kindle that Caroline had given me.  After he got in bed, I set the kindle aside.  I don’t even know what time it was.

Earlier this morning Roland had evidently hit the remote button which caused his legs to rise in the air.  He doesn’t like that setting, but could not find the remote to undo it.  So we get up.  1:30 a.m.  Before he found it, I offered to trade him sides as I knew where the remote for my side of the bed was. But he eventually found it.

         

          Amazingly he was hot and asked if I could turn down the heat (or off as I don’t believe it had come on) and by that time I knew I would not be going back to sleep.  I grabbed the kindle and played on it for about an hour and a half and then returned to bed. 

          Just after I had settled myself in, I heard Jenna get up.  3:00 a.m.  That’s her usual wake-up time.  She’s not like most teenagers.  If the girl sleep past 6:00, she is sleeping in.  She has ALWAYS been an early riser!

          Roland has programmed Jenna’s Echo to go off at 5:15 and will say, “Alexa, Stop” each morning and she does.  Only this morning he had to say it twice.  I tried to ignore the sounds and remain asleep.  I think I slept for another 30 minutes before I got up.

          Will be reading today.  The second book of the “Land of Stories” series. 

The last two or three chapters have felt surreal as the twins have been put in quarantine and after making it to the land of stories hear no sounds.  The world is too quiet.  I have experienced some of that myself.  Except instead of corona virus there are vines and thorns. Interesting read. 

I also predict that I will be napping.  Meanwhile Jenna has made another headband.  She use large pink buttons.  She misses the yellow ones. 

Her hair is getting quite long.

The word STRESS

What causes stress?

            Moving causes stress – especially when the moving date has changed and you are not prepared as you believe you have more time to pack everything.

            It is stressful looking for a house to move into.

            A job can be stressful – especially one that lays on the pressure for an academic advisor to reach the unreasonable goal of ten starts each month.  How can an academic advisor seriously be accountable for a student changing his or her mind?  Especially when the referrals given come from people who were searching for jobs and filled out a school interest on accident as they believed it was a part of the job application?

            Stress is trying to fill out a job application online or take a test for school when the Wi-Fi seems to have troubles staying connected. The very words “Blackboard Collaboration” give me stress.

            Stress is dealing with unreliable transportation.  Perhaps you were in an accident or you need a transmission and finances are tight.  You take public transportation but get stuck waiting for the bus that doesn’t arrive on time because it’s been rerouted.

            Bomb threats, fire drills, lockdowns.  Trying to believe it isn’t real but just a routine. But what if it’s not?

            Finances.

            Stress is dealing with a parent who used to have an active mind have distorted memories and her reality is quite different from your own.

            It is also stressful to have another parent who needs 24/7 care and sleeps while you’re awake and vice-versa.  You become stressed because you feel weak because you have lost sleep with worry.

           It is stressful to watch your children make poor choices and live soap opera lives.  It hurts when you don’t even know them.

            Cell phone provider.  Cell phone itself.

            A court-happy Ex-spouse           

            I can also stress something that I feel is important.  To stress something is very different than to feel stress or be stressed.

Too Much or Not Enough

I find it interesting that the topic of my last class focused on Medicare and social security.  The topic of my current class has been the brain, stress and this week’s topic on sleep disorders – which I have had my entire life.  Thus I’m making discoveries.  I am also getting the feeling that I need to put my affairs in order and start throwing away mountains of stuff so that Roland and Jenna won’t have to do it in the event I leave this earth.

          I’m not saying that death is around the corner.  It just feels like it in some ways.  Perhaps it’s just the side effects of still trying to heal from bronchitis and still coughing and not breathing right.  I was told at the doctor’s office that my breathing was off.  I don’t think it’s the bronchitis that’s to blame.  My breathing has always been off.  I think more off as I age.  My pipes are small and seem to shrink with each passing year.  No, I don’t have anything to back that up.  Just theory.

          I’ve been reading past memories of mom and dad and their good health somehow shattered.  Dad’s was physical and mom’s was mental.  I think I have a little bit of each going for me right now.  My sleep patterns are horrible.  But they have always been horrible.  Mom said after she gave birth to me, I was always asleep when I was in the hospital.  She said she never saw me awake until she got me home.  I was her first child.  She didn’t know what to expect but thought I ought to be sleeping more than I did.  She said it was as though I had slept in the hospital enough to get me through the next five years. 

          Patrick was the opposite.  He slept the normal hours a baby should.  Mom said he had weird breathing patterns though – or maybe it was just paranoia on her part.  After all, she had dealt with a non-sleeping child for two years before Patrick came along and slept beautifully, but she would have a hard time falling asleep because she wasn’t used to a sleeping baby and would place her hand on top of him to make sure he was still breathing.

         

          I don’t know when I started sleeping in an upright position.  I do sleep better than when I am trying to lay flat.  I still snore though, but perhaps not as loudly.  I don’t know if anyone else in my family snores.  It’s a wonder that any of my family were able to sleep with me in the house.  Though I’ve never heard myself, I understand that I am loud.

          For the most part, whenever I have drifted off in a recliner, I will wake up in the same position in which I fell asleep.  If I try sleeping in bed, I am all over the place along with the sheets and whatever other bedding started out near me.  I rarely ever have blankets on.  Sometimes I may use just one.  But I am usually too hot.

          My feet and ears get cold and I will wear slippers and sometimes a hat or headband.  I usually remove the headwear long before I wake up. 

          This week, as part of my assignment, I am supposed to turn in a sleep schedule which I have yet to create and stick with.  Especially since the bronchitis and antibiotics and cough and phlegm.  I get worn out so easily.  A trip to the mailbox does me in.  I have taken more naps in the last two weeks than I have ever taken in my entire life.  Perhaps it’s wrong to call them naps as I often sleep longer than I do through the night.

          I think the weather may upset my sleeping also.  And I don’t think it would matter where in the country or probably even the entire planet right now.  The weather has been experiencing some violent mood swings.  I like the weather right now.  I want to be a part of it.  I want it to stay where it is.  I don’t want it to warm up again.

Surely We Can Simplify

          Why is it that the accounting language is so wordy?  Don't use two paragraphs to tell me what can be said in only four words.  Do they make an accounting book that reads like "Dick and Jane" - not that "Dick and Jane" was much fun to read, but at least it was simple.  

                One of the objectives of this project is to create a single set of accounting 

                standards to stand at the base of the "production" and at the constant flow 

                of high-quality information, clear and compatible in financial situations and 

                in other financial reports created for SMEs. (Ristea, 2010)

          47 words creating confusion.  Why?  Surely there is a simpler way to say whatever it is that needs to be conveyed.  I think that must be how I'm supposed to write.  Now, I haven't had the privilege of writing essays in any accounting class until this course.  They want 750 words.  I suppose if I were to write 12 run-on sentences like that above (which by the way is NOT an original thought from my head) I suppose I'd be half-way there.  

          I had worked on my assessment today (figuring that all school work is at a stand-still for tomorrow - being Independence Day and all) and had less than 300 words.  What the heck?  More research.  More zzzzzzzzzz's.  I'm sorry this post is so boring.  You didn't have to read it.  But thank you for your interest.

https://www.picgifs.com/clip-art/sleeping/sleeping-clip-art-activities-687190

 Ristea, M., Doros, A., Ioanas, C., & Morega, D. D. (2010). SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED ENTITIES BETWEEN THE ACCRUAL BASIS OF ACCOUNTING AND CASH ACCOUNTING. Romanian Economic and Business Review, 5(4), 208-220. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1131899843?accountid=41759

Did this post make you puzzled?  Do you not get the gist of it?  That's how I feel about accounting as a whole.  It's kind of sad to feel the need to nap before the assignment is even halfway finished.  Accounting puts me in a coma - seriously.