Have a new TOY

6.VII.07 - MoM

Sandy came by this morning with a new walker for me to try from her SV Pharmacy. As I have been writing, the original has 2 tiny wheels on the front and no wheels but "legs" with rubber caps on the back that I wear out dragging them. It was very tiring using them on my thick carpets and very noisy on the bare floors. I had to lift the whole thing a lot. And, due to the tiny wheels I had to carry it a lot on some sidewalks. This has 8" dia wheels on the front and about 4" on the back. It also has brakes! The basket is larger and in a more stable location. There is also a seat to rest on.

Sandy dropped it off before Christa (PT) came by this morning. She was able to give it the quick adjustment for my height and was very glad I had made the change. She said it would be better for my leg and take some of the pressure off my arms.

Sandy also looked into wheelchairs and found that the new ones do not weight that much less than my old faithful. I expect to be past needing it before too long. A lot of stores have chairs for customer use. I only used a motorized cart once in Kowalskis -- really spooky. Fine for someone used to a golf cart. I managed to get thru the store with only a couple of near misses of people.

Sandy returned in the afternoon and managed to get all of my 3000 plus slides on CD;s so I no longer have to worry about having my elderly computer crashing and loosing all those pictures. I lost a lot of pictures on an earlier computer when it crashed.

The new "walker" made it much easier to do the first 2 loads of washing that I have done for myself since this break. It also made the deck watering a little easier.

Did today with only 1 regular Advil during the night and another with my mid-morning pills. May follow the same pattern tonight.

Sandy brought by some small cubed slow cooked pork roast. It made an excellent dinner for me tonight.

I had had the AC on from mid-morning today, but turned it off tonight after Sandy left. May have to have it on during the night. It is going to be even hotter tomorrow.

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Daily notes from Saalfelden, Austria.

10.1.87 69.5 Kg Samstag

SANDY'S BIRTHDAY. Did not get as cold last night -- just -12 C. My room was around 5 C. Slept quite well and my neck stopped hurting. Did not take any pills at bedtime. Slept in till 4.00 a.m. Got all the cleaning upstairs done.

Made a new resolution today -- going to set aside the time from 9 to 10 each morning to study German. I just have to make some progress. I also decided that I must concentrate on tenses, especially at present the past tenses. The future will come later. The hour extended into 2 hours as I started working on putting some verbs on the scrambling disk. Making it quite detailed until I get my "have been," "had been," etc., more firmly fixed in my mind. Too bad that I am so bad about grammar terms. Hopefully, soon I will be able to just put the 3rd person of the tenses I am working on.

Worked on the slides in the afternoon, but still have a roll plus to do. It got too dark before I could finish the roll I was working on. There are so many things to do each day and so many things I am anxious to get done. I did not realize that fixing the dinner I had decided on was going to take quite so long. Luckily, it was not "a TV night" so did not matter that it was not done till a little after 18.30. Pounded a couple of pieces of Swiss steak-type beef and pounded an overlap to make one piece. Thawed the uncooked stuffing that was soaking in broth and tried to keep that inside while I rolled it. I kept track of all I did, as it turned out to be quite good. Had good gravy and that was good with mashed potatoes. Took the easy way out with peas.

Read for a little while in bed after the 19.30 news. Did not take any pills at bedtime, even tho I had some gland-type ache in my neck.