Monday is no my favorite day of the week. It is busy at work with reports and pointless meetings. I never get a flow. I feel like I am on roller skates. Monday night is wonderful. My friends come over and we watch television. I make them dinner. We have a great time. It so helps with the Monday blues. Yesterday, I went and saw “I walk the Line” I really enjoyed the movie. It is about the life story of Johnny Cash. I am really looking forward to this weekend. A big group of us from renfaire that are not acting in Dickens Faire are going to go to Dickens Faire not in custom. It will be a fun day! I have too many parties this weekend to attend all of them. It is a busy time of the year. I am glad my holiday shopping is almost done. I need to get two more gifts. One gift is for my daughter’s boyfriend and the other gift is for my best friend. Do not worry, I have not wrapped any of them. My poor closet is full of gifts. There is almost no room for anything else. My question today: How do you like to wrap your gifts? I have these reusable cloth gift bags that I use for most of my gifts. The fabric is a holiday print or festive print. They have special tags that allow you to keep a list going to who gave and received past gifts in that bag. In addition, you tell why you are giving the person the gift. An example would be that the gift was given for a birthday or anniversary.

Good morning! I had a wonderous (wonderous is how wonderful was said in Elizabethan times) time at the Dickens Faire. I saw all my Renaissance Faire friends. I do not act in Dickens but most of my friends do. I do miss them at this time of year. They are crazy and do faires from spring time through December. I have an acting job about 16 weekends a year. I do Renaissance faire acting for 8 hours a day, two days a week we create a village in Elizabethan times. We do this in several locations. I do it for fun and distraction. I am the assistant guild leader of one of the guilds. I do it for fun. It certainly does not pay anywhere near what my real job does. It is fun. I make a lot of good friends. This is live interactive theater, improvisation at its best. I do not know if I would know what to do with a script. My daughter to act with me. Sunday is her and my day together. Two Sundays a month we teach Sunday school and do something in the afternoon. Today is not a teaching day for us. We are going to spend the day having fun, going to the movies, out to lunch that type of day. I am looking forward to it. Not much else to share today. Have a good day.

I slept in until 8 AM. I feel wonderous. I had a wonderful time at the party last night. I do enjoy my staff and the team I have build. I have been lucky to have found good therapist who are also good employees. My Physical Therapist and I have been a team since 1995. We have not always been assigned to this facility either. About two years ago he moved about an hour drive away. He has been offered repeated positions close to home. He considers them carefully and then says to me, "A good boss is hard to find. This is the best work situation I have ever had. Gosh, am I stupid to turn down that kind of money and a short compute to be working with you. You are just the best boss I have ever had." Joseph turns 50 this year and has had many bosses in many locations national and internationally. I do understand. I have had the same boss for 12 years with my company. He makes my work life great. Enough about work. Today, I am going to have lots of fun. I am going again to the cow palace in SF to the Dickens Faire. This time I am going with my daughter and husband. He could not go last time. In addition, my daughter's boyfriends family is going to meet us there. His mother has never been. I am looking forward to the day. I am at a level 10 with 40% as of this writing. If someone looks at my pending submissions I have enough to earn my first show guide. I did write a polite PM to MissRibs. Yes, the show is Topper with Anne Jeffreys. I have enough pending to get her husband and ghost partner Robert Sterling.

Yesterday did not go as I had planned. We did not do triple check. I do not know if we will do it today. Instead I spent three hours in a special training for supervisor compliance program. That actually means prevention of harassment, discrimination and retaliation. I am just glad that I completed it. Now, the only outstanding task that I do not want to do is inventory of my department. I do need to do that today. I did something fun. I got the things I needed to decorate my department for the holidays. I know I did my home but I have not done the doors of the department. I am looking forward to arriving early today and surprising my staff with some decorations. We have the department party tonight. That will be good even if I can not eat much. I am now at level 10 and 29%. I am not getting very many of my submissions accepted or rejected. I have (for me) many that are outstanding, 92 to be exact. I am working at getting my first show guide. In addition, I have many out for people. If someone would look at them, I might have a guide or two. I watched Crusade for the first time tonight. I got in a DVD from netflix. I loved it. I watched four shows in a row tonight. I will not send back the DVD tomorrow. I want to watch them again. Guess that is all for now.

One more day of triple check (check yesterday’s blog), and we did not kill the one team member but we wanted to do her bodily harm. We have restraint or we were restrained. I hope today is as smooth as yesterday but I do hate sitting at meetings all day long. I am an active person and sitting in one place all day is hard in and of itself. How to keep the weight off around the holidays? Like most people I was slowly gaining weight. It did not look too bad; I was a size eight woman with the gain. That was heavy for me but still looked good. That was until two years ago. I went out to dinner and had an awful allergic reaction. I used my epi pen and wondered what on earth I had eaten. I realized I had only two pens left and renewed my prescription that morning before breakfast. I had not needed adrenaline in years but keep 3 of them around in case of emergencies. I ate breakfast and again my airway started to shut. I took the epi pen again and called the doctor. On the way to the doctor which was after lunch, I ate lunch and again needed a shot of adrenaline. Each time the reaction was faster and stronger. We discussed a diet; he gave me a few extra pens. I ate a bland dinner salad, meat, vegetables, and rolls. This time the reaction was half the time. I was eating foods, I had been tested for that I was not allergic to. I was very careful. My doctor was on call and he was scared. He asked me to eat only rice and see what happened. I ate the rice and no allergic reaction. That was two years ago and a team of specialist at Stanford took over the case. I have lost count with have many doctors have been involved. I have the worse allergies to food they have ever seen. Not only the number of foods that I am allergic to but the severity of the reactions. I am allowed about 16 foods. The diet is fairly balanced, bland, boring, and yes I have lost all the weight I gain with the growing years. I am back to my size 4 (that is okay, I am only 5 feet tall) Nice to look like I did in my 20s but the price is food. What is my diet? Rice, potatoes, beef, peas, asparagus, mustard greens, cabbage, sugar, tea, coffee, apples, blueberries, sunflower seeds, fresh tuna, swordfish, catfish. Realize there are no seasonings on this list, no oil, no milk products, or milk substitute, no eggs, one grain. The holidays are hard because all the activities center on food. What do I do when I am depressed about it? I look in the mirror and say, “Ann, you sure look good. Why you look so good you desire a new outfit.” I was really depressed today because of all the little parties and food around work today. I have two new outfits. Now, I am smiling. If you want to loss weight, go on the Ann diet. And remember if you cheat, your airway will shut. You can have all the sugar you want. You can have all the beef you want and all the rice and potatoes you want. No limit to any of the foods. You are never hunger. Anyone want to try it for a week? Did anyone notice that I am no longer a single digit level? I have finally achieved a two number level. My next goal is to become a teen level. I do want to grow up but I am enjoying my youth along the way. Thank you all for your support and making we feel like part of a community.

One more point and I will no longer be a single digit level. This is a precise moment in my TV.com history. When do I lose being a newbie? When I get editorship for a show? Or can I lose being a newbie when I get a second person guide? Okay, I still have not taken the time to learn to do a banner or put fantasy things into by BLOGS. But I do love the simple things. That does not necessarily mean, I am a newbie, just challenged. Today is the seventh of the month and we have not yet done the triple check for the bill. I have the “wonderful” meeting with the Business Office Manager, Medical Records Director, MDS Coordinator and ME (Program Manager) [Politically correct terms for all our departments]. We go over each aspect of the UB9 which is the bill for the patients. We check to spelling of each patients name, their social security number, the Medicare number, qualifying stay, RUGS levels, ICD codes, CPT codes, Medicare minutes, MDS minutes, certifications, orders, lab, medications, all documentation needed for the bill, and other details on the bill. The meeting lasts for hours. The process is a difficult slow one that is tedious. The bigger problem is that one team member is annoying. She does not do her share of the work and loves to blame everyone and anyone else for problems with the bill that are her department’s responsibility. The other three of us just want the meeting to complete as quickly as possible. She continues to interrupt the meeting unprofessionally pointing her finger, yelling at or about different members of the team with “she should have statements”. My gosh, the meeting is called “Triple Check”. We do it because no one is flawless. There will be mistakes found because we are there to correct those mistakes. If we found no mistakes for three months in a row, we could eliminate the meeting. By the end of the meeting we are all ready to kill her. Of course we delight when “Little Miss Can’t be Wrong”, has not completed her work or has made a mistake. The rest of the team work very well together. Monday, I was very busy and had lots of reports to do but more important many patient treatments and patients issues that needed my attention. This staff member would not stop paging me over head. I will not answer staff pages when I am doing resident care or dealing with a family issue. This is proper protocol. The resident and family issues come first. She must of paged me over 7 times. When I had a break in my treatments, I called her back. She was screaming at me. “This is important. I have been paging you. You need to answer my pages. You need to get my this information right away!” It was information for the bill that was her job to get. She, as always, is too lazy to do her job and thinks she can intimidate others into doing her job. I was more than willing to let her know how to get the information but not willing to get it for her. It would have taken me less time to get the information than to argue with her. That is what she counts on to get try and get others to do her job. This lady is salaried. She intimidates others into doing her job, then works less than 6 hours a day and is paid for 8 hours. Our new department heads are all frustrating her; we will not do her job. We will not allow her to intimidate us. As a team we have pulled together and decided to argue with her and put our foot down making her do her job. The poor lady has been very frustrated lately. The administrator has been helpful and supportive of the team. Bottom line, it will be an entertaining day. Three department heads frustrating a four department head for hours. Hopefully, we will get the Medicare A done today. Tomorrow we look forward to doing the HMO bills. My Butterfly is very special to me. I have thought long and hard for its name. Since it is almost alive and so precise, it needs a special name. My mother was a special lady. She was the best mom. Everyone loved my mother. She made friends easily. She embodies what the symbol means. She died in 1991 and not a day goes by that I do not think of her. I will name my Butterfly after my mother, Ethel.

There has got to be a morning after….. I do not know why the company I am contracted to thinks that all the reports need to be completed on Monday. I do not know why Monday is such a wonderful day to add an interview. Monday’s are full of manic because I have to check over all the admissions for the weekend and audit all the charts, interview all the new patients, evaluate any patient that was admitted after my last therapist left, do the extra Monday meetings, extra Monday reports, and deal with whatever family issues came up over the weekend. Once Monday is over the rest of the week is a breeze. I made it through another Monday. I found a wonderful new gal, and we will be offering her the open position in my building. That means the interview time was well worth it. When she comes on board, life will be much easier for me and the rest of the staff. It is hard working short staffed. Opps the new company says we are suppose to call it a “staffing challenge.” The new staff member is supposed to be called an “associate.” No matter, I am glad that I survived another Monday.

I think I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. It was fun and full of activities. Some of the activities were boring and some were wonderful. I got the house cleaned, the front of the house is all decorated, did my grocery shopping, cleaned the refrigerator, empty trash, when through things and thinned out some possession, washed lots of clothes, cut one of the dogs toe nails, brushed the dogs (all three of them), that type of thing. I taught Sunday school which was good as usual. I went to a party on Saturday that was special. I did some work on my site for Anne Jeffreys. I did some submission and a few reviews. I watched an old movie, Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). All and all it was a good weekend but busy. Maybe today, I will get some contribution points. At the writing of this I am level 9 with 46%. I will soon be two digit levels. I still free green.

This is not original. I received it in an e-mail. I thought it was pretty funny. I wanted to share it with you all. Considering we have all been working on bios. Here is a rather comical one. IT IS WITH SADDEST HEART THAT I MUST PASS ON THE FOLLOWING NEWS Please join me in remembering a great icon of the entertainment community. It is with the saddest heart that I must pass on the following news. The Pillsbury Doughboy died yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma complications from repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71. Doughboy was buried in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned out to pay their respects, including Mrs. Butterworth, Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The grave site was piled high with flours. Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded. Doughboy rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times he was still a crusty old man and was considered a roll model for millions. Doughboy is survived by his wife, Play Dough, two children, John Dough and Jane Dough, plus they had one in the oven. He is also survived by his elderly dad, Pop Tart. The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 minutes. If this made you smile for even a brief second, pass it on to someone who kneads it.

Saturday morning, I am looking at the bright new day. What shall I do with my "free day", enjoy it! I do want to finish decorating the front of the house. We have almost got it completed this week. The new lights are up and look wonderful. Last night we light up, the flags are out, the wreath is on the door. We have the light on the snowman, the cola bear, and the polar bear. Today we need to get up the 8' tall Christmas Moose, the reindeer, and the Christmas train. The polar beer is our new item this year. My husband keeps calling him a sheep and making sheep noise. He is a baby polar bear! The baby polar bear is really cute. He is NOT a sheep! I do have to get ready for my Sunday school class tomorrow. I have to review some new Chanukah videos for the class and see which one I like. I need to prepare the wood for the student to start making their menorahs. I do need to type out my lesson plan but since I have been doing this same class for years it should only take about 90 minutes to get all prepared. I made a new educational Chanukah game about two weeks ago. I am excited to try it out on the children. I use to be a teacher before I went into the health care profession. I really enjoy teaching and am glad to have been able to continue doing it at the Temple twice a month with the pre-school students. My class is called Gan Yeldim which means in Hebrew, garden of the children. That sounds so much better than pre-school. My children are 3 and 4 years old. They are so cute. I really love them. I know Jewish gal decorating the house for her Christian husband. I am respecting him and his beliefs. I must admit it was difficult to swallow at first. I grow up with any Christmas item in the house. A good friend of mine is having a party tonight. I am excited about going to it. It is a potluck and I am going to cook something special that I can not eat. I do enjoy cooking even with my limited diet. That is another blog story.