Much to be thankful for ...

I have much to be thankful for this first Sunday in May. Last Wednesday, April 27, parts of my town of Ringgold, Georgia were mangled and in many instances destroyed by an EF 4 tornado. A short fifteen minute drive from my home and my daughter's, Ringgold is where we do most of our business - my grocery store, bank, chiropractor, pharmacy, beauty shop, etc. - and there are many lovely older homes. Eight members of our community, four from one family, were killed.

But here at my home we simply had very high winds and much lightening. My husband was out of town, leaving me home alone with three dogs, a hamster, and a fish, and me trying to figure out, amidst the many watches and warnings, how I was going to get a muzzle on the forever battling Eva Jean and Charity, or attach little Oliver to my body (maybe put him inside my shirt?), and getting the four of us in the tub, in a split second. Melody and I were in touch every little bit via text and phone calls, but the four minutes between our homes seemed very far indeed under the circumstances. After one of our calls I told her with a catch in my throat that I loved her, and she, with a shaky chuckle, said she loved me, too. Neither wanting to voice the real fear beneath the surface, that 'just in case this is the last time ...' fear.

Meanwhile, Julie at Midlife Jobhunter was worrying about her son, Ian, who is a freshman at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. And Dinah at My Aimless Infatuation was dealing with her own fears near heavily damaged Rainsville, Alabama. I'm glad to report that they are both fine, and I'm sure Julie and Dinah will both have a post soon on their experience with this historical storm.

We still aren't allowed into Ringgold because of the damage. In the meantime, as I walked my yard this weekend, my heart was full of wonder at how lucky I am to have an intact yard, especially in light of seeing the forever changed landscapes on the news. I took these photos before the storm, but all remain as you see here. Spared. And I am so grateful.

(As a side note...can you find the camouflaged object in this snow photo?)

If I had been posting, Part 2

If I had been posting, I would have told you that I had been having computer problems since Nov. 11. Those computer issues have been resolved, and for the first time in two months I can start posting again! I don't have anything prepared right now, but I just wanted to check in and say a belated HAPPY THANKSGIVING, MERRY CHRISTMAS, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I look forward to catching up with everybody, and want to thank those of you who checked in on me while I was 'gone'. It was very frustrating to not be 'connected' with my internet friends, though I did do some quick reads when I had a chance to get on my husband's business computer for a few minutes here and there. Since the beginning of my computer problems, there was Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, two snows, and miscellaneous personal events...and now here it is 2011.

A lot of you have had snow and ice this last month, and we're no exception here in northwest Georgia. We had a white Christmas, and the snow this week brought about eight to ten more inches. This was initially a problem for our little chihuahua, but he did much better than I would have expected. The boxer, Eva Jean, was a different story! At one point I had to rescue her when she went to the very back of the yard and got somewhat stuck in the depth and cold (I think because of her hip dysplasia), so had to go lead her back to the house. And my old enemy, the mockingbird, has been extremely territorial over the foods I've scattered or hung around the yard...you'd think there were four of him instead of only one, as he has every quatrant of the yard covered, and is even chasing away my cardinals!

Anyway, like I said, I'M BACK, and hopefully I'll be able to get my brain back into blogging sooner rather than later. I've said before and it still holds true, the longer you stay away from the computer, the easier it is to stay away from the computer. In the meantime, here are just a very few of the photos from around Christmas.

It was such a treat to see a blanket of white out the window on Christmas day!

The sun was spotlighting Miss Lady Fish, who hasn't been doing well, so I took this photo in case she died. She's hanging in there, though I think she has some kind of neurological damage. (yes, I actually said that)

How quickly can you find the out of place items in these two photos? I let the two grandsons have free rein with the village, and these are the kind of things they come up with! (And honestly, it's one of my favorite things.)

Our daughter and two grandsons, my husband and me, on an awesome, snowy white Christmas day. (No, Conner's hasn't had too many egg nogs, he's probably just frozen. )

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

(This post was originally published in October 2009, the 25th anniversary of NBCA month, but the message and the stories remain the same. The first nine comments are from that original post, and I included them because of the "conversation" between myself and my husband's niece, Wendy, regarding her mother Sandy, who died of breast cancer.)


October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. It's a call for us to recognize that we need to be vigilant in our attempts at early detection through self examination and regular mammograms, to bring attention to the need for improved testing and treatment, and to honor those of our ranks - family, friends, and strangers alike - who have battled and survived... and battled and lost.

My life has been touched by the breast cancer diagnosis of four women:

This lovely lady, above, is my stepmother, Ferne. She came into my life as the third wife of my dad, and she was the mother that I had always wished I had had growing up. If I were to be asked to use just a few words to describe her, it would be sweet, loving, soft spoken. I only saw her once a year after the first few years of their marriage, but she never failed to treat me as a treasured member of her family. She had her first diagnosis of breast cancer in, I think, 1987. (I say I think because they didn't tell me that she had or was going to have a masectomy, because they didn't want me to worry long distance. Of course, I took umbrage with that, telling them that, instead, it made me feel out of the loop, but that's another story.) I actually am totally ignorant of her treatment, don't know if she had chemo or radiation or anything, that's how far out of the loop I was.

In the spring of 1993, it was found that Ferne's cancer had metasticized to the brain. By July I was in Texas sitting by her side 24 hours a day so that my dad could get away from the hospital for a bit, and it was then that I saw, for the first time, what a chest with the puckered scars of a double masectomy looked like. In October she died, and I think she was 73. But look at the statistic there ... she survived, and lived well, in the six or more years after the original diagnosis. She was a daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother.

This smiling lady is Sandy, my sister-in-law. She was one of the funniest people I've ever known, and the most talkative! She was known for her talking, her easy laugh, her love of sewing/decorating/crafts, her kindness, and her clutter! She would much rather be doing crafts with her kids than keeping house, and she was a wonderful mother to her four children, though she didn't always have an easy time of it. Once again, we were not around to see how she lived her life with cancer. I couldn't even tell you when she was first diagnosed or if she had chemo or radiation (although I'm thinking she didn't). She did not have an easy time of it, but she lived her last years to their fullest and on a journey of self-discovery. She died at the home of her mother in March 1997. We had called her that night as we hadn't talked to her for a while, and had been told that she wasn't doing well. Her brother Corey answered and said he'd take her the phone... then he came back on the phone and said: "She just died". You never know when the last time you talk to someone will be the last time you talk to that someone. Sandy was 50 years old, a daughter, sister, divorcee, mother, and she did not live to see her two beautiful grandbabies, Joey and Kam.

This blurry lady with the Tweety shirt is Charla, the wife of my husband's cousin. This photo was taken when they came to visit us here in Georgia from Colorado. We had the best time. She was truly a lovely lovely person, and we discovered, she and I, that if we lived closer, like we had for many years but didn't know each other, we would probably have been best friends. We talked so easily, shared secrets even. Within a year of this photo, Charla would be diagnosed with breast cancer. We saw her in Colorado a few years later for a family reunion, and she was a mere skeleton, and I hardly recognized her. I asked her what it felt like, what did she think and feel, knowing that all treatments had failed in this very aggressive form of the disease, and she said she had no choice but to take each day as it came, and took what joy from it that she could. She died at the age of fifty-seven in August 2007. She was a daughter, sister, wife, mother, grandmother.

Delores is the wife of my step-brother. I don't have dates here, but she was diagnosed with cancer maybe ten or so years ago, and had a masectomy, chemo, and radiation. She's had several scares in the years since, but it appears that she is currently cancer free.

There will be many activities this month in recognition of breast cancer awareness, on small and large scales, in schools, churches, communities, and cities. If you get a chance to participate in some way, please do. If you don't want to 'walk', then maybe you could just do an extra donation for research and free mammograms this month, or remind a friend, sister or mother to do a self-exam or get a mammogram. Or make an appointment to get one yourself.

"When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better. ” Maya Angelou

http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/How-To-Help/Fundraising.aspx

If I had been posting ...

Donna at Mystical Journey has a new grandson, the other Donna at Starkey Hollow had to have her doggie, Sam, put to sleep, Cheryl at Scrubby Bush is having trouble with a randy kangaroo repeatedly having his way with her pet roo (how many people can say that?), yaya at Whispering Pines lost a dear sister-in-law and now herself has a finger in a splint from putting a fitted slipcover on her couch. Jeanne's dog Dodger is getting the cold shoulder from the little corgi down the street, Susie of City Gal Moves to Oz is raising a herd of guineas who are growing too fast while she's off working, and Middle Age Woman almost lost her adult son last month. Life is going on all around us! It's been going on here in my corner of the world as well, and if I had been posting this last month I would have told you about it.

If I had been posting, I would have told you about our battle with lice and fleas at my daughter's house and mine, and how I have done so much laundry between the lice one week and the fleas the next that I think I should be qualified for some kind of special laundress award! Conner brought them home from kindergarten, and keeps getting re-infested with nits, but we can't figure out from where because they also spray and wash at school! As far as we can tell, none of the other of us has had them, except for a few nits on Melody early on, so it's got to be something that hasn't been sprayed or washed at school.


And I would have told you that Eva Jean had such a bad reaction to the Frontline flea application after being off it for six months (do you know how expensive that stuff has gotten?)that she frothed at the mouth, couldn't stand up without falling down, and had a seizure. Scared the crap out of me, but I hurriedly washed it off repeatedly with a wet towel until she came around and stood up and walked off like nothing out of the ordinary had happened except that Mom was freaking out about something again.

If I had been posting, I would have told you that Connor (left) turned five years old in September, something he has been looking forward to since he was four and a half. For his birthday I got to go to his muffin and juice party in his kindergarten class (which was a hoot, especially with eleven boys in the class and only a sprinkling of girls), and then that night the family met at the park after football and soccer practice for cupcakes and some playtime. Most of it was in the dark because the park hadn't yet changed their automatic lighting to 8pm instead of 9pm, but we had a good time anyway. His big gift was a DS because his brother and two cousins each have one, so he was always odd man out.

If I had been posting, I would have told you about how Connor and I and then Garrett and I, on separate occasions, spent time at our nature trail and creek. It had been way too hot to do that this summer, and even now the mosquitos are horrible. The day that Garrett and I went we took Oliver, and had the best time for about an hour, until he started feeling sick and wanted to go home. Turned out he was cooking something, and threw up at Connor's birthday party and then missed three days of school (plus the weekend) with an upper respiratory thing. I had to take him to the doctor twice, with the last one having a change of antibiotic and a nebulizer, both of which did the trick.

If I had been posting, I would have told you about our mouse infestation, which we get several times a year because of the field behind us. Cute little things, but the cuteness wears off real fast when they poop and pee on everything! I had to put all the cereals, crackers,popcorn, cake mixes, etc., in the oven until I could get plastic containers that are mouse-proof (I keep these things on wire pantry shelves on the door in the laundry room), and forgot one night and turned the oven on. Luckily, I realized what I had done when I smelled plastic burning, and the only damage done was melting the cellephane wrapping of the snack crackers. It's actually been a nightmare because killing them with the traps wears on you after a while, especially when they aren't completely killed (I won't go into detail on that one), but we've tried all the no-kill traps and they aren't as effective or they flat out don't work.

If I had been posting, I would have told you about my new babies, Hannah and Henrietta McHamster. (Yes, I see the irony of that in light of the above paragraph). And they, also, are cute little things. In fact, I'm quite enamered of them and spend at least thirty minutes every night (what would normally maybe have been my blogging time) freshening their cages and playing with them. The idea was that I had hamsters growing up, as did my daughter, so it was only fair that the grandsons should have the experience...but with the hamsters staying at my house. So I bought two girls, who I separated into two cages so they wouldn't start fighting, and they're right next to each other above me here at my computer desk. The boys adore them (though the thrill has worn off a little as the weeks have passed), and I've no regret that they (the hamsters) have added work to my already busy day, cuz, like I said, they are so cute and entertaining! (My husband says that if he didn't know that the hamsters were in the bathroom with me, he'd worry about my sanity because of all the talking I do!)

We had one near disaster, feeding my fear that the dogs will get hold of one of them. I was sitting here at the computer, saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, and looked a scant few inches to my left at the bookcase , and who should be staring back at me from the top of the photo albums but Henrietta! The masking tape holding the door to her nesting box on top of the cage closed had curled, allowing it to open when she was up there, nesting. I've tried imagining what she must have been thinking as she peered over the edge, if her mind was on the great escape or 'hey, there's mom!'. Be that as it may, I quickly threw the dogs out of the room, slammed the door, and got her safely back to her now super-reinforced cage.

If I had been posting, I would have told you that Lewie the Bluey died, and I'm convinced that he never recovered from the tomato sauce incident. I stopped to look at the fish when I was at Petco to get the hamsters, and ended up going home with another betta, Miss Lady Fish. She runs to the front of her bowl and swims in excited circles when I come near, which actually means nothing more than that she wants food, but I like to tell myself that she's glad to see me.

If I had been posting, I would have told you about and had photos of my garden, or lack of. A few things, like the zinnias, salvia and cone flowers, did well, but most everything else just died on the vine or went into self-preservation mode by shutting down production of flowers. It was so hot and dry here in Georgia that there was little inclination to even go outside to tend a garden. So I have no photos of baskets of tomatoes, beans, or peppers to show you. Of course now that fall is here and frost not far off, everything is growing prolifically with no chance of reaching full potential. Except the cone flower, which has re-seeded everywhere, including the middle of some of the perennials.

Finally, I would have told you that my daughter's fifteen year old cat, Jasmine, had to be put to sleep. She was Melody's first pet that was all her own when she was in college. Her boyfriend now husband brought it to her as a teeny tiny kitten, so Jasmine was actually her first 'child' and my first 'fur grandbaby'. She and the boys and I gathered around Jasmine's body before we buried it, with Garrett writing a poem in the center of a heart (Roses are red, violets are blue, even though you're gone, we still love you.), and Conner drew a picture of a cat and some writing I'm not sure what it says that he put on the mailbox 'so everyone would know what happened'. He then sang his 'I love you song' (a rendition of one I taught him as I have a song for everyone), then we buried her with the poem under a tree in the backyard. I was so proud of both of them as this is still early in their experience with death, even though they have experienced it before with my pets.

So, that brings you up to date on my life these last five weeks. I'm so pleased to say that Fall has finally arrived to our neck of the woods, and I have spent more time outside the last week than the entire last three months. I can't think of a summer I have enjoyed less than this one we just had, but it is over and gone and good riddance! Unfortunately, Fall is arriving on the wind, and wind and I are not friends. Any change in the barometric pressure, especially when it's windy, makes every muscle in my body feel like one big bruise, as well as causing a pins and needles tingling that drives me to insanity. But at least it's not HOT!

Now, here's hoping that I can now get back on track with my posting so that I don't have to write so much at one time! I wish I had something philosophical or intelligent, passionate or artistic to write about, but, well, I'm just busy putting one foot in front of the other, and I suspect that's what most of you are doing as well. Getting through each day as best we can, delighting in the simple pleasures of hamsters and fish, grandkids and pets, and.... well, whatever gets us through these times with a semblance of normalcy and sanity.

Changes, Frustrations, and Joys

Several people emailed me this week to ask if everything was ok because I hadn't posted in several weeks. I replied that yes, all is fine, just have been busy with a schedule change and some frustrations. Which got me to thinking about what, indeed, is going on in my life right now.

For one thing, my daughter has gone back to work as an elementary school counselor after being a stay-at-home mom for the last two years. Before she quit work, I had been the babysitter for the two grandsons for three years, so when she was home my 'job' was eliminated. I had thought I would go back to work, but jobs around in our area are scarce, and I'd been out of the work place for three years at that time. Besides, I didn't know what kind of job to look for as I have some 'brain quirks' that make my choices limited.

I began cleaning house once a week for her sister-in-law, and then later going every day twice a day to walk and play with her(the s-in-l) new dog, a high-energy min pin puppy, which turned into me being a working mom's assistant (doing a quick kitchen clean-up and house pick-up while letting the dog play, and then cleaning on Fridays). The rest of the time I just played happy homemaker in my own home, watched a lot of tv, worked in the yard, interacted with my dogs, and spent waaay more time than I should have here on the computer. Basically, I made my own schedule and didn't have to do a lot of accounting to anyone. And I make enough money each week to at least pay for my meds, or buy Eva Jean's special and outrageously expensive dog food every four weeks, or do something with one or both boys.

So, back to the present. Like many families these days, we're all suffering greatly from slow downs with work and being in financial distress. I won't go into all that here, but suffice it to say that we are all incredibly frustrated. When Melody decided she had to go back to work (kicking and sceaming the whole way), it also meant a specific schedule change for me. It goes something like this:

9:30-10:30 walk Max and clean kitchen (I take my Oliver with me so they can play)
10:30-12 clean daughter's house (kitchen, vacumn, laundry, or whatever needs to be done)
12-1:30 my house
1:30-2:15 walk Max and play with him
2:30 pick 4yr old Conner up from school and go to his house
3:15 Garrett gets home by bus
3:15 til 5-7:00ish sit the boys and cook dinner for them and enough to take home for us

The joy of this schedule change is that I get to see the boys every day, and get to interact more with my daughter and her family life at her house as opposed to the boys being dropped off/picked up from my house. She doesn't pay me a salary like before, but reimburses me in sooo many ways throughout the year/month/week/day, more than any daughter should have to do for her mom and dad who are still ambulatory (though becoming more decrepit every year!).

The other change that comes with this schedule change is that I will have to pick up some of the slack in some of my daughter's other obligations, such as in a business that she's involved in with her dad and husband, which is fine, except that I'm afraid I will screw up and disappoint them because of those 'brain quirks' I mentioned before. I'm not sure they actually realize how scrambled my brain is sometimes, though I've certainly told them about it often enough, and I sometimes wonder if they think that I just use that as an excuse to not do some things, or think that it ties into my irrational belief that I'm basically a screw-up. Be that as it may, it's not a huge effort to do what's basically secretarial work, just the frustration (and fear) that I'll screw up something important and disappoint them because of my huge inability to follow or remember directions.

Also, and this is something I don't know how she ever managed to do with the kids running around plus the time consuming business stuff, I have taken over one of her PTO duties of entering Coke product codes for school rewards. Seriously, bags of Coke bottle tops have to be entered on the computer one.at.a.time, and it is the most boring and time-consuming task imagineable! Could Coca-Cola have made it more difficult to earn rewards?

Ok, all this sounds like a cake walk to those of you who have four kids, two jobs and an aging parent to take care of along with your own disabilities! But it's a change for me nonetheless, and we're still in the process of fine-tuning it. I'm having to redefine my priorities as far as just getting the basics in my own home done in a timely fashion, in addition to semi-running two other households...especially since, as you might recall from my previous post, I am the queen of procrastination. If you ask me to do something for you, I may happily and willingly say "sure, no problem!", only to forget about it for the next two weeks, so I'm having to remember that there are other people involved now.

But here's something that I realized this week that I guess could also be put in the joy column. While I was berating myself for only being capable of doing fluff work like housecleaning and babysitting (as opposed to, say, nursing or teaching) to bring in some money, I realized that I am contributing to the quality of life for two families with a mother who works outside the home, the absolute hardest job in the world. When my daughter and her sister-in-law get home from a day at school, they walk into a clean kitchen and a straightened up house, giving them time to spend with their kids and doing other important stuff, instead of walking in and being slapped in the face with all the crap that's left over from dinner last night and breakfast that morning (not to mention the mess that three indoor dogs and two cats can make in a twenty-four hour period!). And probably just as importantly, my daughter knows that when those two little boys get home from school, the person who greets them and makes their snack does it with love.

And I've realized that this is something I do well, being a working mom's assistant, whether it's cleaning up a kitchen or cleaning out the kitty box, throwing in a load of clothes or scrubbing a toilet. I used to have my own house cleaning service (which means that I cleaned a bunch of houses by myself), but let it fall by the wayside as it's really.hard.work by yourself on a regular basis, especially if you have a bad back. While my own house is far from being clean, uncluttered, or organized, I have a natural impulse to walk into their houses and head straight to the kitchen or straighten a couch. I also had a very lucrative petsitting service which I gave up when we moved here as I didn't have time because of the grandsons, so it's nice to do that again.

But here's the really nice part ... my 'brain quirks', my inability to focus on a particular task and see it to it's finish, or my inability to even understand the steps to do the task, don't matter! No boss is going to say to me again: "Linda, if we didn't love you so much, and if you hadn't worked so hard, we would have had to fire you a long time ago because of your memory problems". (Well, unless I forget to walk Max, or to pick Conner up from school, or be home when Garrett's bus gets there, or enter the reward codes, or check the email for new orders, or forget to enter those orders, or ... hmmm, maybe I better not get too cocky!).

So, to make this loooong explanation even longer, I'm still reading new posts on my blog list every day, but if I don't publish my own post it's because I'm not managing my time well in my new schedule!