Month: January 2012

Okay. So I have this ear infection, which I had last Friday and went to the doctor for. My hearing is actually worse than it was a week ago. I can hear absolutely nothing out of my right ear. My left ear hears okay, but having one hear plugged causes some interesting side effects, such as the sounds within your body, particularly your mouth and throat are greatly amplified. (Try plugging your ear and talking or clucking your tongue.) The other thing is that apparently your brain has trouble sorting out the sounds, so it amplifies some sounds and not others, or so it seems. So if I am in the office and people are talking behind me and someone is talking to me, the sound of the people behind me will actually drown out the sound of the person talking to me. And certain pitch levels are so loud they are almost painful – clanging sounds, for instance. And other pitch levels are totally drowned out by the ringing in my other ear that happens if your ear is totally blocked.

Can you tell I am very, very frustrated? I’m sure glad I don’t feel sick besides.  The antibiotic the doctor gave me a week ago took care of the sinus infection, so my head is cleared out and I don’t get headaches as often. Sometimes my ear still hurts, though. But I have lots of energy and am in good humor. I’ve been able to do my exercise classes all week, which is good. The bad side of that is that with all those people talking to each other, plus my music, it is just an indiscernible roar in my head.

On the positive side, I am learning first hand what it is like to be hard-of-hearing. People have told me about the intrusiveness of background noise and now I understand what they meant. They’ve told me about different pitches being easier or harder to hear and now I understand. And I understand the frustration of not being able to fully communicate because of being unsure of exactly what the other person is saying, but not wanting to bother them with repeating it one more time for you. So you withdraw a bit from social life.

But for me, hopefully, it is temporary. Some people live like this all the time. It isn’t fun.  Giving lessons is not too bad. But accompanying the musical is very difficult, because they are hard to hear way up on stage, even with good hearing. Now I can’t hear them at all and have to watch for visual cues that they have stopped. And I just hope they are staying with me.  Not the best situation for an accompanist!

But I’m on stronger medicine now, so I hope I’ll be better by next weekend.

I know it has been a while since I posted, but there is really nothing going on around here. We are both trying to get over these darn colds. I clear out my head with my neti pot and it promptly fills up again – I just can’t get ahead of it. And Dad is not totally over the cough and he was sneezing and afraid he was getting what I had. Ah, me…

I think I may have mentioned playing for Grease at Bloomer High School. That takes up my Monday, Tuesday and, for now, Thursday evenings, plus a good chunk of Saturday and Sunday. Plus the time I am spending trying to get the practice cds done. Then there is middle school solo/ensemble, which is Friday. I’m only playing for 8 kids/groups. 4 are in the morning before 9:30 and the other 4 after 2 in the afternoon. I was going to go back to work, but now I am also playing for a funeral at 11:00, plus we are looking at a house near Cameron at 12:15, so I won’t be going in to work at all on Friday. That is what vacation days are for.

More later if anything happens other than cold weather and a little snow!

This is our weekend to head to Waukesha to tend to my mom’s toenails. The weather looks like it will cooperate, so we’ll head down tomorrow (Saturday) morning and return Sunday evening. Have a great weekend everyone.

I got a call from someone at Bloomer High School Saturday, asking if I would play piano for rehearsals and performance of “Grease.”  It sounded fun, so I agreed. It isn’t a very long drive and the only thing the rehearsals and performance conflict with is New Auburn Community Choir, so I’m not doing that this spring. I went to practices both Saturday and Sunday. The show isn’t actually until the end of March, so that will make my winter go by quickly!

The weather has been so unbelievably warm that we could work outside on Saturday. So, we got the siding back on the house where the old windows were that were replaced by the new windows a couple weeks ago. I wish I could find a before picture. I’m sure there is one in an old post, but I can’t figure out how to get it. At any rate, the old windows were a bit wider, but not as tall, and on the east side the window was more centered in that section of the wall. We like the look better, especially from the inside, when the windows are grouped like that.  Then the piano will be in the part of the room away from the windows and the seating area will be by the windows. Can’t wait!

I just checked and there is a picture of the front of the house on the May 16, 2011 post.

It was great to have the day off yesterday and just rest up from the busy week. Dad wasn’t feeling too well – had Isaac’s cough. But he worked over at the house a while. I just cleaned up the house a little and did laundry and other odd jobs. I really just felt lazy!

Today was back to work. My car is at the garage, but it isn’t a very difficult or expensive fix and we should have it back tomorrow afternoon. Dad took me to work today, so I had to wait until he picked me up at 5:45. I did have two lessons, though, at 4:00 and 4:30, and I worked until 2:45, so I only had a couple hours to kill.

Dad checked in with the doctor and came home with the exact same medicine Isaac got, only in pills. He is actually feeling a bit better tonight, but I think he will go to bed early again.

I have lots of bills to pay and receipts to record, but I think I’ll just wait until tomorrow afternoon when I’m feeling more energetic. I think tonight I’ll just watch a movie and relax. (By the way, if you haven’s watched “Mrs. Miracle,” I highly recommend it!)