Man With Two Dogs (and no wife)

'Twas a bad week for grandparents. Roger's grandma is eternally downhill (thanks, dementia), although keeps telling me it's not time yet. Rogers other grandpa got back from a few surgeries in the hospital and is getting ready to go, so we spent a lot of time with him, hearing memories and taking what waking time we could (and eating grandma's bread). And Grampy was also in the hospital. Nobody's surprised. But here's a nice picture of him and his wife (thanks, Jenny). 

Roger: "Look how happy he is!"

It was another week of work and my schedule is slowly filling up. Which isn't a bad thing. Except nobody wants to wake up before 11. AND that I covered for Cottonwood/Sedona again and they screwed me over. That will not be happening again, but I made it work. Other than all that, work is going well. 

A hat + snakeskin band that Roger made fore his grandpa.

It was a holiday weekend and Roger decided that we WOULD be attending his tri-annual family reunion. (Meaning they are held THREE TIMES PER YEAR, not every three years, in case you were confused.) I agreed because it was our temple week and the reunion was 20 minutes away. We drove out to Woodruff and slept under the stars at the old brick house his relatives built from scratch using dirt instead of insulation to fill up the walls. It's definitely a cool piece of history. 

Man with two dogs (and no wife).

And, not five minutes away from the house, there's tons of petroglyphs carved into the rocks. Literally everywhere. We took our nice camera and got some better pictures for the sake of preservation. I played so many games of cornhole and ate until I was exploding. But it was all good food, and mostly courtesy of Nedra who pulled up for this. 

This is Roger, aka Shaggy. In his favorite outfit. 

What the crepe

 The job is going fairly well. I was being sent to Cottonwood 2x/week while the married PTs were on vacation, including this past Monday. When they scheduled me a SOC (takes 3-4h minimum), 4 other visits, and one additional visit back in Flagstaff. BUT they didn't tell me until Sunday night at 10pm. So we're all mad, the documentation wasn't great, and I was told not to go back to Cottonwood. 

The worst part - the PTs weren't even on vacation anymore! What. The. Nuts. But, those same married PTs are also quitting in a week, so we will have to help out for a few weeks. (I was told TWO weeks. We'll see.)

May new favorite seasonal eatery.

Otherwise, the job is going well. I feel pretty comfortable with everything. Although I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I have to see a full schedule since 100% of my patients will only see me after 11am. And I will not be working in the field past 4pm. And I have to see them for at least 40 minutes each. And drive all over town. Fun, fun. 

What else. Ahh, Amazon has a print edition and ebook edition WITH SONGS of Grampy's book for anyone with an android device. Apple users, stay tuned. I am fighting so hard to get this out there. 

Roger's first crepe ever. (Savory).

I went on a date Saturday night to downtown Flag. We went window shopping and tasted some yummy gelato and crepes and a lavender lemonade. We found all the bookstores and sports stores. It was a good time. 

Rog and I both spoke at church on Sunday. It went well. We both like to tell stories, so all ten people at in-person church were awake the whole time. We also met with the missionaries again, who I swear, think we're less active. But they also like talking to us because they're the Spanish Elders y hablamos espanol. And we got a delivery of cinnamon rolls from the Fishies. Thanks. 

Normalcy? (And some clay fish pins.)

I'm starting to regain a sense of it, but I haven't felt normal in so long that now it feels weird. BUT. I am going to the gym daily and doing my weekly runs and vball nights. I have time to do dishes and laundry and cook - and best of all, think. I still have projects - like some final editing and working on that ebook for Grampy - but I have extra time. Which is nice. 

This man finally listened to his music (and LOVED IT) 
and had the AUDACITY to ask for a CD. smh. 

I did some meal prepping and tried to force feed myself a normal amount of calories with a higher percentage of protein. Which is only hard because I am rarely hungry (but I can eat, said the American). And I convinced Roger to go on a ridiculous date where we determined the best crab rangoons in Flagstaff (where the Chinese cuisine is definitely not a tourist attraction).  

Only 5 places had the goons. And to our pleasant surprise,
China Star won with the cheapest AND best goons. 

I did not eat these alone. 

And then we went to church, where they still think we're less active (or they're just being suspiciously friendly and pushy). And I ran into my long-lost cousin that Mimi's been trying to get me to meet for ages. He's a Weinzinger and my second cousin. And also his family and Roger's family have been good friends for a while. What a world. 

Proof. 

Also, HMD Mama Sama. À la Pacheco. From 90% of your children (and extras from some of us). Can't wait to see you wear all these pins AT THE SAME TIME. Pics or it didn't happen. 

So proud. 

My Butt Hurts

 Home health is hard because it's all Medicare patients and you have to do a lot of extra steps to prove that your patients really need your care. It's also challenging because there are a bunch of team members working together - PTs, SLPs, RNs, OTs, and office staff. And then you factor in a ridiculous documentation system (created for your ease, once you learn it). And so, they sent me to Tucson. 

My favorite kind of salad. 

This was my first business trip and it was rough. A lot of what we had to do was just learn the iPad system of documentation and the extra hoops - which meant 8 hours of chatting daily, iTrains at night, and a whole lot of sitting. (Not to mention the drive...)

Making the most of my time on the iTrains. 

It was fun, Erika was a great tutor, and now I feel only semi-prepared to handle this in the field and will probably spend a few extra hours at home finishing documentation after each visit. But they're trying to make me self-sufficient by Thursday, at which point I will be desperately needed in Cottonwood. Good luck to me. 

The sun making an appearance for a few minutes. 

I was looking forward to the trip because it is warm and sunny in Tucson 360 days out of the year. Well, guess which FIVE DAYS I happened to visit on. The rainy and cold ones. But that's fine because I just hiked several miles through the desert with my sweatshirt and rain jacket on whenever I could. And I didn't even die. 

The sperm petroglyph, a classic. 

I met up with Abbie and John Robert one day for a short petroglyph hike and then dinner and we had fun catching up on our new lives as practicing clinicians and PAYED employees. Hallelujah. They are good people. 

The best nachos. (Also accompanied by iTrains.)

I did end up finishing my training early, so I was able to hang out with Maddy and her PHX campus friends for a bit on my way back to Flagstaff. That's the point where I found out that instead of a 3-week ramp-up on my caseload, it was going to be a quick trial by fire kind of deal. Love that. (Again, the PT part isn't hard. The documentation part is.)

It's nice to be able to create semi-professional looking images. 

Whenever I wasn't working on stuff and when it was too dark to be hiking around, I was trying to finish up my new YouTube page - geared towards aspiring PTs to help simplify some complex topics into JUST what you need to know for the boards exam. Anything extra will depend on the setting you're in. 

Aye, avast!

Unfortunately for my booty, as soon as I returned (but AFTER I went to the gym), Roger and I headed up to Page to see Stu's pirate play. It was pretty decent for a HS production, especially one that got shut down by the school and picked up by the community. And it reminds me that I want to be in a theater production one day, and probably only one play. But it's a bucket lister I plan to check off sometime.