Keep your heart open;.
True beauty is felt, not seen.
Obstacles persist.
KEB 10/21/15
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Let's Talk About Today
My day began early and with the following two posts on Facebook:
1. "The time needs to change. Getting to school in the dark is just not right."
2. Note to self: Beginning a 7:30 ear training class with harmonic dictation in the minor mode is not a good way to start the day.
And so went my day. It had an early and rough start, but by my 9:00 class, things were moving along fairly well. Five classes later, I was done teaching for the day and more than ready to come home.
Weber has been home from school for two days because he has Shingles on his face. The worry was that it would go to his eye, but thankfully that hasn't happened. I think that we were fortunate to have caught it relatively early and he started the anti-viral meds before it got too bad.
So how is the best way to spend the afternoon when one of you is exhausted from a long day that started early and the other has Shingles? Meet with your estate attorney to rewrite your wills, powers of attorney, medical directives, and HIPAA releases. It's no fun, but it is necessary. Fortunately, we found a great estate attorney who was helpful, efficient, and had a great personality. I consider a "hat trick" with an attorney to be pretty darn amazing! So now its all done and we don't have to think about these things any time soon unless we have some major changes in our world. Hopefully that won't be for a long while!
One piece of advice that the attorney gave us is to make sure that you have a HIPAA release form. THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS A MEDICAL POWER OF ATTORNEY!!! We all think that a medical power of attorney gives us the right to all the medical information related to a loved one. With the passage of the HIPAA regulations in 2004 (I think) this is no longer true. The medical power of attorney may give you the right to "pull the plug" perhaps, but you may be making the decision to do so without a complete picture of your loved one's medical condition because you are not listed on their HIPAA form as one who can receive specific details of their medical condition. Crazy, but true. I ran in to this with my dad.
When dad was in the hospital the last time, we needed to begin making arrangements with hospice. Because I did not live close and was not there day in and day out for my dad's treatments, he had not specifically listed me on his forms as one who was privy to all of his medical information. During his final week when I told him that he needed to do that, he said that that was ridiculous. Of course they would give me all the information; I was his daughter. Wrong! He had to specifically inform them in writing that it was OK. Doctors risk an expensive fine for each instance in which they violate the HIPAA laws. Even if you are not ready to write your will, you may want to consider consulting an attorney for at least this one form.
None of us wants to think about estate planning and end of life issues, but it is a lot better to do it before it becomes absolutely necessary. Doing so is one of the greatest gifts that you can give to your family ,and really yourself.
On to happier things...pumpkin bread and a cup of coffee before I go to bed, relatively early for me!
Today;s photo prompt was "repurpose." At our house, every cardboard box is repurposed as a cat bed.
Monday, October 19, 2015
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Time Passages
Yesterday marked the year anniversary of my dad's death. In many ways it feels like just last week rather than last year, making me painfully aware of just how quickly time flies. When I look back at my posts here as well as my own journaling, I realize that time really is the overarching theme in my life right now, with the majority of my thoughts being about how I spend what time I have.
I am definitely one of those people that lives up to the rule of the more one has to do, the more one gets done. My personal dilemmas come when considering the list of things that I "have" to get done. I spend an enormous amount of time on prepping for teaching my classes. You would think after doing this for thirty years that I would not have to spend much time preparing, but each class is different and requires different things from me. And, I'd get terribly bored doing the same things over and over again year after year. Although, if I did that, it may make it feel like time wasn't passing so quickly! Hmmm...
For the first time, I am starting to think about what it might be like to retire, not because I don't like what I'm doing, but because there are so many other things that I would like to do and simply don't have the time. As it is, I function on minimal sleep, which I know is not good for me. Short of more hours in the day, I just can't do it all. Then I have to start making choices regarding which of the things I want to do can get done and which ones can''t. I don't like making these kinds of choices! As Weber will tell you, it frustrates me and makes me really grouchy.
I trust that the solution to my time issues will come with much serious soul searching. Everything will be as it should be when it should be. Hopefully this will happen while I still have time for all the things that at this moment are simmering on the back burner to actually come to a full boil.
Recently, I did take one step toward doing something that I have wanted to do for a long, long time and have kept putting off because of...TIME!
Ever since I took the first semester of music history some thirty five years ago I have been passionately in love with the music of the Renaissance. Sadly, the clarinet repertoire does not contain any such music:-) All through graduate school I played recorders and crumhorns in a Renaissance consort and loved every minute of it. Back then, I had this unrealistic dream of someday learning to play the lute. That certainly wasn't going to happen while I was getting my theory degrees, or raising two kids, or teaching, or...and the list of reasons goes on as has time. A few years ago I started thinking that learning to play the classical guitar was a more reasonable and perfectly acceptable alternative to learning to play the lute. Mostly that thought swam far below the surface of my everyday thoughts, bobbing its head above water only every now and then...until a few weeks ago when it started to do the survival float. It was right there on the surface all the time. I have learned never to ignore this kind of nagging thought. I did some research and ordered a guitar. It came in on Friday.
I am excited to learn how to play, but I think the important lesson for me here is to return to that state of being a beginner, taking everything slowly and carefully and appreciating every little accomplishment no matter how small. No longer does everything I do need to be about perfection or even being "good enough." It is about pursuing lifelong dreams before it is too late.
I have no desire to be a great guitar player. My goal is to simply be a happy person.
Peacefully playing
One at a time, a few notes.
Harmony will come.
KEB 10/17/15
Thursday, October 15, 2015
Fall and Incompetence
After what has seemed like an unnecessarily busy week, I finally had a few minutes to stop and take in what is passing at the moment for fall in Texas. Though it is still hot, the trees are starting to lose their leaves. The leaves themselves aren't the beautiful yellows, oranges, golds, and reds like can be seen on the east coast, but if you catch the sun and the brown leaves at just the right time of day, the setting sun helps to give the fallen leaves a bit of color.
Here is another hint of fall.
One of the things that has made this week so stressful is having to deal with agencies and people who seemingly are incapable of doing their jobs. Let's just say that the Delaware Division of Revenue is totally incompetent. I got a letter about six weeks ago saying that they were missing one of dad's tax payments for 2014. I was 100% sure that that was not the case. I tracked down evidence of the missing check that they had indeed cashed, sent them a letter pointing out the error of their ways and of course included a copy of the check. This week, I got another letter from them saying that the issue had not yet been resolved. This time I called and spoke to a reasonably helpful person who told me that they had received my letter and the situation had been corrected. BUT, she noticed that there seemed to also be a problem with dad's 2013 taxes. A quarterly payment was missing there too. What? I said to the woman that there had been no correspondence about this issue in over a year. How could there possibly be a problem? Again, she told me that I would have to produce a check...from 2013, way before my dad even got sick. WTF! I was bound and determined to find a copy of that check.
Fortunately, my dad was very organized and methodical in his record keeping. Sure enough, I found his record of payment and called the financial institution and they are sending me a copy of the check with the Delaware Division of Revenue deposit stamp on the back.
How in the world can the state division of revenue lose two checks from the same person two years in a row? That is totally unacceptable! I am not one whose thoughts normally go immediately to seeing the worst possible scenario, but it almost feels like they realized that dad was deceased and were banking (no pun intended) on the fact that I wouldn't be able to produce the necessary documents and would thus have to pay (again) the amount they said was owed. I wonder how many people have been forced to pay tax bills that they didn't really owe because the tax office "lost" their payments?
Thank you dad for being so organized! I was able to find everything that I needed. I have learned an important lesson from you regarding keeping all those statements and check registers!
Though things are under control now, I was not at all pleased to have to deal with all of this. My week kind of felt like this chaotic mess of spider webs.
Thankfully it has all ended on a sweet note.
And tomorrow is Friday!!!
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
In Search of Peace
Lately I have found a few moments where my body is still, but in that physical stillness, my mind continues to race furiously onward. In fact, my mind seems even busier when my body is still. This cycle of never being at peace has been tough on me this week. It seems that for every step that I have taken with the hope that it will bring a little calm, there is a stronger force that pushes me backward and my frantic mental movement continues. This is not a good place for me to be. I realize that I am trying to do to many different things, all of which I enjoy, but taken together cause my actions, thoughts, and intentions to be disjunct and unfocused. Something has got to change. I'm not sure what, but something...
Thursday, October 8, 2015
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