Recovering...

Just a quick post today.I have a thick brain fog today, and honestly all I want to do is take a 12 hour nap.

Until last night, I slept 6 hours in three days. I am calling it a slight case of insomnia, as I do not know what else I could call it. ( It started the night before that coffee binge, by the way, so that was a by-product, not a cause lol )

I had two nights in a row of less than three hours of sleep, and getting up before 3 AM. Last night I took two melatonin  and went to bed at 7:30 PM. I slept...albeit not deeply, until 6:30 this morning. I got up a few times but the meds made me groggy enough to be able to go back to sleep.

I am still dragging today, from residual tiredness and brain fog, so I am just chilling out today, not doing much of anything, except yawning a lot.

I do have some potential good news. I think I was approved for medicaid today, starting next month. If that is true, then my life as far as healthcare goes will change drastically, as I will finally be able to go to the doctor for my myriad of health issues, and have the tests I need done so I can get help finding out what is wrong and how to fix it. I also heard back from the MJF foundation, and it seems that they are going to help me as well, so that  is great news.

Jack has to have another MRI, as he is having some serious pain a little higher up on his back. Still related to his work injury. Also, the PT people stopped his appointments, as he is not improving even after 8 weeks. So back to the drawing board for he and his doctor. You know, it is really terrible that a man who wants nothing more to go back to work can not do so, and there are so many people out there riding that clock out so they do not have to work. It just does not seem right.

We did finally get to go to the grocery store yesterday, and scored a bunch of stuff in a sweet sale at one of our local grocers. Few things make me happier than having a fully stocked kitchen. Except my net being paid. One down, one to go *Grins*

This weekend I intend to clean the house, and next week I will be starting on Alex's room. It is time to weed out her toys and clothes to donate, and do a little rearranging. Then it will be time to paint, and I am excited about it. It will be a drastic change, and I will take before and after pics if I can remember to get batteries for my camera! I need to invest in some good rechargeable ones, since I already have a charger for them ;)

However, today I  rest. So there.

What are  your plans for the weekend?

A little bit of this...a little bit of that.

Howdy folks. Look, it has only been a week since I posted last, woohoo!

The school year is winding ever closer to being over. Part of me is thrilled, part of me is terrified. Jack and I are going to have a hard time finding stuff to keep her entertained this Summer, I can tell already lol. With him being home for at least 3 more weeks, hopefully we can get some beach time and other fun stuff in. They get out Thursday the 31st and I am so looking forward to not having to get up at the ass crack of dawn for a couple of months!

It has been a busy couple of weeks. Last Saturday we went with my two oldest kids and my 15 year old's boyfriend to the lake where said boyfriend lives. It was nice. There was a little party that we were there to basically chaperon, but we had a good time swimming.It is a private lake, only accessed my the homeowners, with a locked gate, and we were the only people there all day.

I have been working on a gift for my Mom and my two older kids. Mom bought..the gifts...and I, along with Perth, have been using our talents to improve said gift. I am being cryptic since my eldest girl sometimes reads my blog, and it would be my luck this would be the one post she sees lol. We are going over tomorrow to give the stuff to them. They will be very happy.

Last week Perth and I decided we would have a cookout. Perth would buy the food and Jack and I would prepare it. Perth and I went food shopping Friday, and Saturday I got up and started prep work. Our menu consisted of Steak, green pepper, onion, and whole mushroom kebabs, Chicken, pineapple, onion, orange and yellow pepper kebabs, fresh corn on the cob, Hawaiian rice, baked potatoes and Parmesan garlic bread. All grilled. Steak was marinated in Jack Daniels steak house marinade, and the chicken was in a Tropical marinade. I also baked a homemade lemon cheesecake. All the food was divine, but I was in the kitchen for 8 hours, not counting clean up later. I enjoy prep work in a kitchen, but by the time it was over, I was almost to tired to enjoy it! Still, it was awesome, and the company was great. We watched the Will Smith movie "Seven Pounds". It was good, interesting, but it left me very confused for most of it. It is very emotionally charged, but it moves very slow, to the point of being frustrated. I am glad I saw it, but I would not watch it again for that fact. Still, it was a good day, with great food and great company.

On a more somber note, my Dad had to return to the hospital last week. His pneumonia came back, and he could hardly breathe or function. He was unable to walk, and he was put on a large dose of oxygen just to be able to get from the bed to his chair, or to the bathroom and back to where ever he was sitting. Mom called me today and told me that he was getting worse, and to prepare myself, because it looked like he might not make it out of the hospital. He was facing a surgery to drain the fluid in his lungs, but he would have to be put on a respirator to breathe for him for a couple of days, and both my parents have a no artificial means to live clause in their wills, as well as a no resuscitation order. So I started the mental process of losing my father...for the second time this year. A few hours later, Mom called me to say Dad called her ( which is saying something as this morning he could not even talk, he could not catch enough air to do so ) and told her that the doctors put him back on his Lasik, I think it is called, which he had been taking for his congenital heart failure for years. It takes fluid from the body, so it does not build up around the heart and lungs. Well, when he was undergoing his cancer treatment, he got very dehydrated all the time, so they took him off of it. As of yet they had not started him back. As basically a last resort, the doc put him back on, he thought MAYBE it would help draw some of the fluid that he could audibly hear bubbling in his lungs out. Dad told my mother that after they put him on it, a few hours later he had to use the bathroom. A bit of TMI here, but he told her that he passed two QUARTS of fluid when he went to go urinate. Two...QUARTS! He said the nurse was stunned. ( They had one of those measuring cup things in the toilet and she had to verify how much he passed each time he had to pee.) A couple of hours after THAT, the doc came in and listened to his lungs and said there was NO more bubbling, and that he was moving air once more. ( Not at full capacity, but much better than he was before the meds. ) So they are going to keep him on that, and run some scans tomorrow and see how that worked. But he told Mom he felt a tiny bit better, and he could breathe just a tiny bit better, so I am hopeful that the Lasik will continue to help him, and with his heart issues, after he stopped the radiation and chemo, in my opinion he should have been put back on the damn stuff to start with! But that is my opinion. 

Jack has his last physical therapy appointment Tuesday, and he goes back to the doctor on the 18th and hopefully they will finally let him go back to work. The physical therapist, who is a dingbat little chick who is about 23, keeps scaring Jack, telling him she does not see how he can ever go back to being a mechanic. She is seriously pissing me off. After every appointment he has with her, I have to talk him down from a near panic when he gets home, and remind him what his SURGEON says, which is that he CAN return to being a mechanic, he will just have to be more conscious of how he moves and bends in the future, and that he is still not back to where he was before the accident, and to give it time. The first doctor said it would take a full year to be back to normal, and it has only been 5 and a half months, and only 3 months since surgery. So I am VERY glad that after Tuesday Jack will not have to see that little twit any more. I have seriously wanted to go talk to her supervisor and tell them to have her do her job but keep her opinions to herself. They were supposed to be encouraging him to return to normal, and helping him to do so, not speculating and scaring the crap out of him. I know she is not being malicious or anything, she is probably not even aware of what she is doing, but I still do not think it is right.

So that is what has been going on around here over the last several days. Nothing much, but busy at the same time lol.

What are you folks out there doing this Summer? Any plans?

Life goes on...

I have so much to write about I do not even know where to start. 


I have never been so glad to see a month come to an end as I was when February came to a close. It was the month from hell. I almost lost two of the most important people in my life, my Mom and my husband. Both are fine now, and doing well, so thank goodness for that.


Chaos came so fast and so hard last month, never giving me the chance to process one thing before something else hit. January was not much better since my Dad almost bled to death after having some stints put in. Just when I thought I could sit back and deal with the pent up emotions the ordeal with my Mom caused, Jack was in the hospital, facing his own fight with death. I was on auto pilot for the whole month, and even after everyone came home and no one was going to kill over, I was so numb that I just could not handle anything else. Combine that with hormonal issues, a massive bi-polar down swing, and minor depression, and it was all I could do to get out of bed in the mornings.


The house was a wreck, ( and everyone knows how anal I am about the house being messy ) laundry was piled up, I did not want to cook, or blog, or be online, or be offline, or be in my own skin most of the time. Nothing I did helped. Grounding, meditating, sleeping, talking to friends, nothing. Music therapy did not even help, which was a shock. In fact the thought of music made me feel worse. Music is my life, and every time Jack would turn on one of the music channels on TV or turn music on the stereo or computer, I would have to leave the room.


Alex is still not back to her normal self either. Her routine and comfort zone was smashed to pieces by me not being here when Mom was in the hospital, and then not having her Da here when Jack was in the hospital was more than she could take, and she had a lot of meltdowns and crying jags. 


I envied her.


She could release those pent up emotions through crying or getting angry, when I was to numb to do either of those things. I should have been relieved that everyone was fine after it was over, but even then, it was a constant feeling of "Whats next?" I was afraid to let myself deal with it, for fear that as soon as I let my guard down something else would come out of left field and knock me down.


So I did what I do best. 


I went into hermit mode.


I withdrew from everyone, even my mom ( which I felt guilty about until I finally told her what was up and she totally understood and said something to make me feel better..) I stopped playing around on Facebook, I stopped blogging or writing in my journal, I stopped everything except playing sporadically on the PS3 from time to time. I withdrew from friends on the computer, since I could not stand to sit here long enough to carry on decent conversations. I did not hang out with Vicky very much, but she understood. I just went into my cave and waited to heal.


It is slow going, but it is happening.


My hormones are balancing out, I have slowly started talking to friends again when they are available and I can sit here for any length of time. Everyone understood, no one faulted me for it, and for that I am eternally grateful. I have hung with Vix and Steph for the last couple of days, and Vix alone today, as Steph had to go back to work. I cleaned my house, got all the laundry done, and tried to cook something that required more effort that Ramen Noodles. We are going to see my folks tomorrow. I put on some make up, did my hair, and started to feel more like someone alive than dead inside.


I am not whole, but I am working on it.


I have had a life change though, as in the things I do and feel about in my life, but that is a post for another time...


Baby steps....

Enough

I have had enough. I have had more than my fill. Bella needs a break.


I am really starting to dislike February. 2 weeks ago I find out my mom had to go to the hospital. She was talking and "normal", just having serious breathing issues. The next day my Dad said she was not going to make it.


I called Jack home so he could tend Alex and I hauled up to the hospital at noon. Mom had crashed. She was having a hard time moving air, she was unconscious most of the time, and when she was conscious, she was delirious. She thought she was in North Carolina, and thought I was someone named Betsy. They did not expect her to last the night, and told us all to prepare. Her friends came in and out of the hospital all day, talking to her, rubbing on her and telling her they loved her. I sat quietly in the corner. That evening my Dad, who was sick himself, he JUST got out of the hospital from having stints put in not a week before, was exhausted, and mom was maintaining at that point, still terminal though, and I sent him home. I stayed up there for 26 hours. At 9 that night I had the nurse help me run all her co workers off so it was she and I alone, she needed to rest. I ticked a few folks off that night. I sat with her all night, she was trying to crawl out of the bed, ripping her oxygen tubes out, her blood pressure cuff off, her saturation meter off, and kept clawing at her IV...it was a long night. The CSICU was short staffed so it was me who tended after her for the most part.


Later that night the awesome nurse Jeremy told me that if I wanted to, they could give her a little bit of morphine to settle her down. The danger with morphine however, is that is suppresses breathing, which is not something mom could handle. I thought it over for about an hour, and just before midnight Jeremy came in and told me that the amount they would be giving her every hour was not enough to suppress her breathing, and it would not hasten her progress towards death. I made the hardest choice of my life that night, which was to give her the medicine. She got her first dose at midnight. Shortly after that they came in and gave her a breathing treatment, and she actually rested. I kept on Jeremy all night, every hour, about her meds, I know he was probably tired of me, but as it started to wear off she would start trying to rip her lines out and crawl out of the bed. At one point she got a breathing treatment and a shot of morphine at the same time, and it did wonders. She actually rested mostly comfortable. I still expected her to go at any time, the doctors gave her less than one percent chance at making it.


The next morning the hospital Chaplain came in while her boss was there visiting her, and we prayed over here, well I sent healing, they prayed. She had prayer chains going all over the world for her. Later that morning, about 10, one of her friends came in to relieve me so I could go home and get some rest and take Jack to his doctors appointment. I had to stop my moms to drop her personal belongings home, and I was so out of it and exhausted I have no clue how I made it home. Jack and I had errands to run, so I changed clothes and we did all that until we got home at 2...I took a 2 hour nap and got up and headed back to dad's to feed him and the kids, dad was sick and distraught and could not do it. I called the hospital after dinner and was told that she had come to a little, and had recognized people. Her friend told me she would stay the night with her when she learned I had no sleep.


The next morning I called and found out that Mom had woken that morning, fully alert, wanting to know what happened, and what her prognosis was.  The doctors were honest with her, it was slim and next to none. Mom said " Apparently you do not know me that well, I am a tough old bird." I actually got to talk to her and tell her I loved her and she could talk back to me. I called the nursing staff ( of which I got to know very well while I was there ) and he told me " Angel, I do not know how, but I think she beat it, I think she is going to make it!" 


I cried.


I went up there that afternoon when Jack got home, and she was sitting up in the bed talking to my dad's best friend who was visiting, and I walked in and just said " I love you" and gave her a hug. I sat with her for a few hours, filling her in  on what happened while she was out of it. I went back the next day, and the next. I brought her home Thursday. Let me clarify. Monday she was dying. Thursday she came HOME.


I believe in miracles.


It was the hardest week I have been through, facing my mothers possible death and the driving and taking care of everyone. I took her to her doctor this past Thursday and he gave her a clean bill of health. ( Clean as it can be for someone who has half their lungs anyway. ) He gave her the go ahead to return to work, but she is going to work from home this coming week, as her strength is not 100% yet. 


So all that was over, and I had not even processed it all yet, I was wanting to rest so much.


Not in the cards for me.


Jack has been having stomach pains for a while now, but the cost of co-pays are very high for the pitiful insurance his company has, so he just dealt with it. He went to his doc after we got our income tax in, and they sent him for X-Rays and blood work Friday. He came home, and he could hardly walk, he was feverish and freezing, and looked horrible. The slightest pressure on his stomach would make him cry out in agony. 


I loaded him up in the truck to drive him to the emergency room, stopping off to drop Alex off with my parents along the way. Just the short drive over there was agony for him, and we decided to call an ambulance at my moms. They came and got him and I followed. About 10 minutes later they flipped the lights on and left me in the dust. My heart stopped. I called my mom, shaking, telling her what happened, and she was like just be calm and don't wreck. After what seemed like an eternity I finally got to the hospital I spent so much time in over the last two weeks and ran inside. It was 15 minutes before I could see him. They gave him pain meds and fluids, he had to fast the night before for his X-Rays and blood work, so he had nothing to eat or drink for over 24 hours. Then they took him for a CAT Scan, and the doc told me he had a really bad infection from his Diverticulitis. They were going to keep him overnight. 


He finally got put in a room at about 10:30 that night ( we got there at 3 that afternoon ) and I finally got someone to tell me what was going on at midnight. The computer system was down but the awesome nurse showed me the orders for Jack, which was a lot of antibiotics and pain meds, and a consult with a surgeon the next morning. I was scared. I got home about 1:30, ate a sandwich and went to bed. I woke up at 7 and hit the road, I got there at 8. The doc came in about 9 and said that Jack would be in there a few days, on medication, and if he got better then he could come home, and if he got worse he might need surgery. He is on a morphine pump so he is sleeping most of the time. I stayed until almost noon, and when we woke he told me to go home and get Alex, who was upset that we did not come back and get her the night before.


I left and spent about an hour at Moms and then Alex and I came home and she took a nap and I talked with my neighbors turned awesome friends Vickie and Steph, which made me feel better.


So I am riding solo for the next few days, and I am not looking forward to it. The house does not feel right without him here, and Alex keeps asking when he is coming home. We are going to go see him in the morning, and hopefully after they take the X-Rays for that morning it will show he is improving. I want my Jack back.




I have had enough of February.

Super Plague of Doom...

Yes, that is what I have. 


After being sooo sick it sent me to the emergency room a few weeks ago, I thought I was finished with my super bad illness of the year thing for a while. Apparently 2011 decided to take it's allotment from the start of the year, instead of the end as 2010 did. I have been sick for 4 days now, and it came upon me out of the blue, and hit me like a ton of bricks. Full on flu. I must have no immune system at all I swear. Alex has a cold, and it mutates into the Plague of Doom in me. Jack has not been to work all week, he has...get this...SHINGLES of all freaking things. That would be adult chicken pox by the way. What is itchy and annoying in children is apparently agonizing in adults, and even potentially lethal in some cases. He has been in severe pain, and the docs have him on the strongest Vicodin they make, and he still hurts. So he has been home, Alex has not been to school this week, and I feel like crawling in a hole somewhere and croaking. Not exactly a fun week. 


Also, my Dad ended back up in the hospital most of last week. He had to have 3 stints put in after having a heart cath done. Then he kept bleeding from the incision in the groin and he bled for 3 days before they bothered to fix it. My Mom had to threaten to take him to a different hospital to get them to be concerned about it. So they sew him up and sent him HOME THAT DAY, after he had been bleeding for THREE days! He started bleeding again that same night, and had to go back to the ER the very next day, but they went elsewhere this time, had all the shoddy stitches taken out and they started all over. Now he is no longer bleeding. 


So needless to say it has been a trying week. 


I will be back soon, once I can get us all well!

Oh what a weekend it was...

Howdy folks.


It has been a most interesting weekend, to say the least. Some bad, some good.


The bad? Well I have been sick for about a week now, and Friday morning I got up and could hardly get to the bathroom. I was gasping for breath and I had to stop and rest 2 feet out of my bathroom door. Jack could hear me wheezing from across the house, and as he came around the corner to check on me, he stopped in his tracks.


"Go get dressed, I am taking you to the emergency room." he said.


"I...*gasp* do not *wheeze* need to go *gasp* to the ER *coughing fit*" I protested.


" Yeah and I do not want you to die. Your sick honey, your getting worse and your lips are blue. Let's get Alex on the bus and I am taking you in, go get dressed."


As I grumbled on the way back to my bedroom, I was coming up with all the reasons I did not need to go to the hospital. I hate hospitals. Alex only had a half day at school, and there was no way I would be done in time, and I had no one to get her off the bus if Jack was with me. My Mom was at work and my Dad would not have done it. I hate hospitals. It is expensive, since we do not have insurance. Well, I do not anyway. They never give me the right meds, they just tell me I am sick and go have some over the counter meds, here is your 1000 dollar bill and have a nice life. I hated to make Jack miss work because of me, as he is out of vacation days. So on and so forth.


I tried to voice these reasons to Jack but he was not having it. " Your going, if I have to tie you up and throw you in the truck and force you to go. Take it from someone who has chronic lung problems, you NEED to go, end of story."


Me: 'FINE.'


So we take Alex to the bus stop and away we go. I get in there pretty fast, and the doc came in, had a listen to my chest and told me I has some serious wheezing going on.


Me, internally: Brilliant. I would never have known that. *Sighs* I hate hospitals.


So he orders me some breathing treatments which were lovely, helped a lot, and after asking me did I have someone with me to drive me home, he have me a double dose of Hycodan. That is Vicodin laced cough syrup for anyone who did not know that. Great stuff. I had been coughing so much and so hard for days, my entire upper body felt like I had been beaten. It was nice not to hurt for the first time in a week. He also ordered a chest X-Ray which showed the junk in my lungs, and after a few more breathing treatments and checking me for flu by shoving a 5 inch swab up my nose, which made me all but crawl off the table, he let me go a few hours later with a Rx for a bottle of that cough syrup, a round of antibiotics, and an inhaler.


Due to the insane price of medication, I got everything but the inhaler, since I had a couple here already that are Jacks that he had last time he got so sick. I sterilized them and have been using them instead. The cough syrup was a trial and error experience let me tell you. It had been several hours since the dose they gave me in the hospital and the time I got my Rx filled, and I was coughing like crazy again. So stupid me gets in the truck when we got it, cracked the top without bothering to look at the dosage, and took a nice swig of it, like I would an cough syrup I needed right away. About 15 minutes later I started to feel great. 30 minutes after that, when we got home, I felt a little ill. an hour after taking it, I was pretty sure I was going to die. I was so high, and not the fun kind of high, I mean the "Omg I am going to die, I can not stand this feeling, I want to come down now" miserable kind of high. Kind of like the ONE time I tried a pot brownie and I was high for 2 days. MISERABLE. This coming from a former addict, so that should tell you something lol. I even tried to make myself throw up, I was that miserable, Anything to get it out of my system, but to o avail. I could not manage to hurl. So I had to ride it out.


Turns out the normal dosage is 5 to 10 ML...which is like a tablespoon to two tablespoons...and that swig I took was about 5 times that amount, I mean I had a mouthful. So you can imagine how bad I felt. I was nauseous and my head was hurting and I was all twitchy. Even after I "came down" the next day, I can not take a full dose. It makes me sick. I am supposed to take the 5 to 10 ML every four hours, but I only take a little less than a TEAspoon every four hours. That keeps the coughing at bay without making me feel all jacked up and icky. It is funny now, looking back, but man I was ready to go BACK to the ER to have them get that crap out of me lol. Needless to say I am much more careful now, and will be reading all dosage instructions on anything with a narcotic in it from now on lol.


The good thing is that Jack was the sweetest guy ever the whole weekend. He took such good care of me, he went out of his way to make me feel better. He even went to the store Sunday morning and got the fixings for my favorite meal: Steak, baked potatoes, salad and English peas. He cooked all weekend and made sure a had anything I needed. He was with me just about every second for three days and I missed him so much this morning when he went back to work!


I am feeling much better now, and better every day. I am so excited for Friday, since our tradition in my family is to open gifts on Christmas eve and then have dinner on Christmas day, and the kids are going to be so excited about their gifts this year!


So that is where I have been since I got my net back. Now I am doing my best to stay up for the lunar eclipse tonight but I am having a tough time. I am not used to being up this late anymore lol.


Hope you all have a great week!

Week One of Walking!

Well I made it the first week!

Today marks one week since I started walking between 2 and 3 miles a day. I admit, there have been a couple of days that I did not want to go, Friday especially. For some reason I was very sore and just did not want to go. I was confused as to why I hurt on day five instead of day one or two, and I just was not feeling it. I went anyways, and felt much better when I got home.

We went to my parent's house this weekend ( which is now the norm and I love it! ) and I weighed myself on Mom's scale. ( I do not own one ) I weigh myself over there every weekend, and I have lost a little over a pound in a week. Not much, but it made me happy. What made me really happy was today, when I put my jeans on, they were a little looser than they usually are, and they were fresh from the dryer too! ( Ask any woman, jeans are tighter right out of the dryer lol! ) I kept having to hitch them up as I walked this morning, much to my delight.

I have been utilizing portion control, and eating snacks ( under 100 calories, I went shopping for low fat, low calorie stuff Saturday night..) a few times a day, which I have learned that is what people with slow ( or damn near nonexistent in my case! ) metabolisms need to do. I did not walk formally Saturday, but by the time I got through walking around at Mom's, and then walking all over Wal -Mart for 2 hours, I got an extra mile in according to my pedometer. Yay!

Sunday was "cheat day" but I hate calling it that. I am not cheating, I am consciously taking one day a week to eat what I want and enjoy myself. We grilled out steaks that night, had baked potatoes and green beans. I did notice that I could not eat as much as I could before I started this endeavor, which pleased me.

Tonight I am making chicken stir fry, and I have my three bean chili in the crock pot so we can have it tomorrow. Jack will be home late tomorrow so a one dish meal which can be eaten whenever he gets home seemed like the thing to do.

Normally I walk down the long dirt road adjacent to my road, but it is like walking through sand dunes at some points in the road, they have not graded it in forever, and it was causing me a lot pf pain in the arches of my feet, which was not helping me get motivated, since I knew I was going to be in pain halfway through it. So today I walked down the highway instead. I live on a back road anyway, and there is not a lot of traffic down the paved road. It was better for my arches, but I felt the burn in my calves more, which I can deal with.

I was talking to Mom and she said one of her co-workers is also walking to lose weight. She weighed about 220, and she has been walking three miles a day for just under two months, and she has lost almost 30 pounds. That was exactly the encouragement I needed to hear let me tell you!

I am proud of myself, for sticking with it. I know it has only been a week, but in the past, after a couple of days, I would have started finding excuses not to go. I am doing my best not to sabotage myself this time. It takes kicking myself in the ass some days, but I am doing it.

I have found that since I have been walking, I am super pumped up with energy when I get back, and it has really got me in the mood to start on those house projects I have been putting off. I was going to tackle Alex's room today but this is one of those creative days, I want to cook and blog and do fun stuff, and I have learned that in order to be happy, I have to allow myself to do these things when the mood and inspiration strikes, instead of hoping it will be there later after my chores are done. SO I made the living areas presentable and did a quick pick up in my room and closed Alex's door LOL. It will still be there tomorrow!

So I guess that sums it up for now. I am sticking with it, even if I have to drag myself kicking and screaming out of my comfort zone!

I hope you all have a fantastic week!

Still sick..

Just a brief update...

Mom is still in the hospital, and will be until at least tomorrow.

I am sick as all get out right now, and Alex has the start of it as well. Horrible chest cold, sinuses all blocked up..and I started sneezing today.

Sad part is we are out of adult meds and no money till Friday..Bleh.

So I am going to crawl back in my hole now and will poke my head back out in a day or so...

For the Silver Moon folks...I will post as soon as I feel like sitting here and typing a lot at one time lol..

I was, but now I am not...

Well I was going to post today about how awesome my weekend was...because it totally WAS, and about what I did and plan to do with my house and show some pics, but my mom is currently in the hospital, her blood pressure dropped drastically and she was having issues breathing. ( She had a double lung reduction 6 years ago, she only has the bottom half of each lung ) She and my Dad and my older kids have been sick and she went to the doc today and while she was there her blood pressure took a dive and did not elevate to comfortable levels so they called an ambulance from the docs office and took her to the hospital, where they are keeping her over night. I had to drive into town when Jack got home and go pick her Jeep up from the docs office and drive it home.

Now I am coughing my lungs out today for some reason and am just feeling a bit tired and bleh, so I will post about the weekend tomorrow maybe.

Hope everyone is well :)

The Bloggest Loser

While I was perusing blogs today, I came across a post over at Crazy Squirrel Lady, and after I checked it out I wanted to share with you. I am sure most of us have heard of "The Biggest Loser", and this blog brings together bloggers and readers alike to form a support community!

I do not know about any of you, but I spend 90% of my time in front of the computer, so weight has really become an issue with me since I left work  2 years ago. I am comfortable with me now, but I do want to be healthier ( hence me stopping smoking ) and if I lose weight, hey, I do not mind!

So please, check out Hyla and Kris and join in! I think we can all use all the support we can get!!

Check them out at: Bloggest Loser  

Ok Universe, I get it.....

Hello guys and gals. I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend. It has been a very very rainy one for me, but that is ok, we needed it and it kept things cool today. It also gave me a lot of time to reflect upon some very obvious signs the Universe has been hitting me over the head with.


For the last few weeks I have been trying to mentally and emotionally heal from the passing of 2 family members, being sick, quitting smoking, and some parental strife (between my parents, not Jack and myself lol). I have been longing for Fall so much it almost hurts. Fall and Winter are when I come alive. The colder it is, the happier I am, the more energy I am filled with...this Summer....hell, this whole YEAR... has been a tough one...and I am over it...ready for the next phase.

Many people "Spring Clean" every year. I "Fall Clean" instead. As the temps tease me by getting into the mid to low 60's a couple of nights a week, my thoughts have turned inward again, as they do this time of year, when I start planning my mental lists of things I want to get done. A huge part of that every year is trying to de-clutter my house. I see articles about it everywhere, I see things that remind me of the projects I want to get done, and then I find this post over at The Domestic Witch, and it really made me stop and think.

This year I have so much more to get rid of than the usual accumulation of crap hanging around. I have a lot of mental, emotional, physical and spiritual clutter to get rid of. A lot has happened over the last year, some good, and a lot of it bad, but all of it has left me cluttered up inside. Things happened so fast I had no time to process one thing before the next one happened. So instead of trying to work through it at all, I just kept pushing it down deeper and deeper inside of me, adding more and more on top of it month by month, until finally I felt like I was literally up to my eyebrows with internal garbage. I tried to finally start working through everything, and I found that I was unable to. I was numb. Totally devoid of emotions other than apathy. I could not seem to care about anything. I did not want to talk to anyone, email anyone, chat with anyone. It took Herculean effort to answer even the shortest of emails. I started avoiding everyone, I just could not deal with one more thing, no more drama, from my side or from anyone else either.I was/am tired of hearing it. I had nothing left to give.

The same day that I read that post from The Domestic Witch ( Not to be confused with Domestic Witch lol ) both my husband and my best friend asked me when they could have the old me back. This really shook me up, and I ended up spilling my guts to my best friend and bawled my eyes out. I felt a little better afterwords, and it gave me enough release so I could think about what was wrong and how could I fix it.

The answer is, as the one woman said during the banishing scene in Practical Magic: "Let's clean house!"

Not just my physical house, although it needs it too, ( and I was working on that at 2 a.m. this morning lol ) but my mind, heart, and spirit. I have felt so lifeless and apathetic about everything in my life, moving  through my day in a fog, not really focusing on anything. I have not felt like anything was magical in my life, or took steps to create magic in my life, in SO long. I do not like the person I had become, and as the energy I feel this time of year starts to slowly ( achingly slow!) fill me up, it is time to let go of all that has been building up inside of me, choking me of life.

I took steps to start that process over the last 24 hours. I spent time last night after everyone was in bed cleaning. Dusting, running the vac, sweeping and mopping, dishes, deep cleaning the stove, cleaning the glass and  bric-a-brac  we have, and I cleaned and refreshed my living room altar for the first time in ages.

Today was my 11 year old son's birthday party, which was nice, and all the kids stayed at Mom's so Jack and I got a very rare chance to be alone. We left there and went to the flea market (We got some squash and zucchini, 4 books, and I replenished my Nag Champa and Egyptian Musk incense) and then we went grocery shopping together (which hardly EVER happens) and really got a chance to reconnect with each other. Later as we were watching the race, he even got up in the middle and whipped up some fresh egg salad and we ate it on crackers lol. It was a nice evening, and long over due.

So in conclusion, I am about to start the de-cluttering of my life phase, and it might be a little rough at times. There is some pretty heavy stuff I need to let go of, and part of me is very afraid to do so, because once I let it go, I am scared that I will forget...and that a part of me will somehow be missing. I know that is not actually the case, but it is still a formidable thing to face...

Skeletons in the closet, Demons of the soul, Monsters under the bed...joy, love, hope, pain, agony, defeat, anger....all being reflected through my eyes back to me as I stare in the mirror....

Have you looked at what lies in the space behind your eyes today?


*Music of the Moment: Southern Cross ( Jimmy Buffet version)*