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Previous Years Babblings: |
Current 2010
babblings.... January 2, 2010 - A New Year! Happy New Year everyone! The kids were over and we played Uno and then watched music videos and watched the ball drop on "Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve" and my daughter said, "What is wrong with that poor man?" when they would have Dick Clark do a segment. "He had a stroke, honey..." we explained. "Oh, My - let him go home! He needs to sleep!" My oldest son said, "Put him back in his box!" Dick is looking rough, that's for sure. That is all of our fates eventually. At least Dick is still trying. We should all keep trying...that's the key. What was it that Dori the fish said in the movie 'Nemo'?? "Just keep swimming..." That is all we can do. We all just keep swimming!! The kids went home Friday night and tonight my husband is sleeping in his chair and my wee one went to the movies with friends. It's nice and quiet in Sandy's house. (Except for the dogs who are pacing and barking periodically - I assume that is because of the rebel deer that keep eating all my bird food out front.) I think the antibiotics the kind doctor gave me are finally working a little. I have not had a fever since New Year's Eve, or at least I don't think so. The snot is flowing freely - almost reaching self drowning proportions. I have a terrible headache, which I will assume is the sinus infection fighting back against the drugs. Fight the good fight, little pill. Tonight I made a pot of vegetable soup with LOTS of garlic in it, since that is nature's own form of antibiotic. I might stink, but I'll get better sooner! I talked to my Aunt Jean yesterday and she said, "There sure have been a lot of Sundays lately!" That made me laugh. That is what the long weekends feel like - a lot of Sundays. My wee one will not do well the first few days back to school next week, as he's changed his nights to days and days to nights. It will be interesting for a while. He turns 17 on January 5th. When did that happen? Sigh. I hope you all have a wonderful New Year. I hope 2010 brings more pleasant little times and less big bad times for us all. I hope we all see more sunrises that amaze us and sunsets that take our breath away this year. I hope the smells are richer and the sleep is sounder and the pain is less and the joy is more. I know the best we can hope for, however, is to make it through one day at a time - but it would be so nice if we all learned a little each day and smiled about something each day and shook our heads in amazement each day - one day at a time... January 6, 2010 -
My wee one turned 17 yesterday! (Kenny came over to have 'Taco Tuesday' with us and
we had a Birthday Cookie Out of all three children, he's been the most challenging to raise and herd in the general direction of adult hood. Plus, out of all three kids he knows every one of my 'buttons' (some I didn't even know I had) and delights in pushing them often and he uses that talent like a skilled, stealthy ninja. I can be drawn into a never ending argument with the boy about nothing and not realize he's playing me like a finely tuned instrument until some time has passed and he is grinning like a Cheshire cat... (I'm sure my Mom would be saying about now, "Paybacks are Heck, aren't they Sandy??!" because Mom would have never have said "Hell"...) He has been a challenge and a joy to say the
least. He rounds out Since he is the youngest he tends to think mainly of himself and we are trying to fix that. (Sure, wait until after the damage is done!!) He will come around. (First of all, he's male - and I'm not pickin' on the men here but they usually do think of themselves first - being as it's genetic and all and men can't help it.) Second of all - he was spoiled being the youngest and has come to expect too much all the time and give nothing most of the time... He's had his fun so now we are introducing 'real life' a little each day into his food and water supply so as not to shock him. It is raining right now and I will assume freezing on the snow and roads. (At least that is what I just told the wee one so he doesn't drive to school like an idiot. NOT driving like an idiot just makes good sense in any weather...) January 8, 2010 - We had some wet snow/rain/balls of ice the other day and it coated pretty much all surfaces. My son came home from school to announce that all the kids were parked off in a bunch towards the stadium as if they didn't know how to park without visible lines showing on the parking lot. He said in a very mature sounding voice, "High School kids can't do much without defined lines..." At that second I could see him there with a tweed jacket, a pipe, and a large book sitting in an over stuffed chair by a fireplace somewhere. There are moments when the boy has deep thoughts.
My wee one's car wouldn't start yesterday. He had stopped to get gas and couldn't start it after that. He had this issue before a few weeks ago, but a jump from a kind stranger helped him get going again and he and his Dad cleaned the cable connections when the boy got home. He called me as I was almost to the store after work and told me he was stranded. I skipped the store and drove over to get him. The men at the gas station were kind enough to help me push his car out of the way of the pumps. I hauled him home, we got his Dad and jumper cables, then we all came back and to jump his car (it took right off with a jump.) We decided to get the car home, go up and buy a new battery, and stop to get something to eat. Once the car was running we told him we'd follow him home. He left out one side of the gas station and I left out the other. When I went around and saw him ready to pull out on to the main road, I slowed down so he could do just that - pull out so I could follow him. Out pulled the car, I followed. Since I am thinking this whole time the car in front of us WAS my son's car, I kept commenting to my husband that one of his back lights were out. "No, both lights are working..." he replied. "No, there are only three, there should be four..." I said. "What have you been smokin' woman? His lights look fine to me..." I gave up. If my husband couldn't clearly see that the tail lights on the car in front of us was missing a light, then I felt bad for him and mumbled something related to him going to see the eye doctor. As we drove down the road to our house the car I thought was my son's kept driving past our house. I started honking the horn..."Where is the idiot boy going?!!" I shouted and laughed as I pulled in to our driveway. "Who? What?!!" my husband said, "He's pulling in right behind us!" His voice was filled with concerned by now, and I'm sure he thought I was having a seizure or the had gone over some mental edge. Apparently the car that pulled out in front of me on the main road by the gas station was a little red car, but NOT my SON'S CAR. (Cars are cars - I can't tell one little red car from another!!) My son had pulled out in back of us. All this time I thought the car leading the way was my son! Hahahahaa..... Oh, and it was suggested that I make an appointment at the eye doctor today... January 12, 2010 - The urge to roll around with abandon like a dog on the floor is strong this morning. I think we should all do that from time to time - just get down and roll around for no reason in particular. Stretch and roll. I will wait, however, for a back up spotter. Don't want to get down there and not be able to get back up... My friend Kathy and I are back on the Weight Watcher band wagon. We did very well on Monday morning weigh in. We both took a year off practically...not a good thing. I still have not had Stella the hernia fixed and she is beginning to piss me off, being all free roaming like she is, so it's time to get some fat out of the way so they can shove her back in. If I don't get some fat out of the way first, however, I have no clue where she would be shoved in to - since there is no room at the inn as it stands now... It has been cold and winter like. (Go figure, it's Michigan after all.) I like it. When I ran in to town last week for lunch, there was one blue patch of sky peeking through an otherwise dull gray sky. It looked out of place - almost like someone intentionally painted a big blue splotch on a cloud painting. I have always wondered why I like it dark and cloudy and snowy. I do not suffer from lack of sunlight depression like 99.9% of all humans do when it is wintertime. Snowy, dark weather tends to make me giddy. Ug. Being not normal is a curse sometimes. Although I have been very worried about various things, so maybe that is a form of winter depression? I worry about my daughter and college and money - I worry about work and people not knowing what I know and they need to know what I know - I worry that my 17 year old son will never wake up when I yell at him and get out of bed in the morning because he is a 17 year old boy... Last night I went to bed at 9:30 p.m. and last I looked at the clock it was 11:15 p.m. I was exhausted, but still couldn't fall asleep. I can't even remember what was in my head keeping me awake, but I couldn't sleep. Maybe it's because I have a filling coming up on Thursday, and we all know how much I adore going to the dentist... This has always perplexed me - why humans worry - and in particular why do humans choose certain times to worry over others? I know that the brain has to make us aware of circumstance around us to protect us. "Um, hey there lady - I would really start to worry about that cliff coming up that you are driving straight for at a high speed..." or "Errr, uh - I am pretty sure that if you don't chew that better my dear, you will probably choke to death..." The brain is paid well to force us to think things though and be cautious at times. However, some things we cannot control so why do we even bother being upset over it? Humans can drive themselves in to a pit of despair for no good reason other than the fact we, well - WORRY TOO MUCH. Much ado about nothing...Sigh. Oh well. We all fret and worry, so me fretting and worrying is no big whoop. It happens. I will just get down on the floor with the dogs and roll like an idiot - then all things will be better. January 16, 2010 - The warmer weather has melted and iced over the packed down snow paths in the dog pen. I have had countless minutes of fun watching the dogs go out to potty and slide around. Kia just now was trying to pee and was sliding down an incline as she did so...much humor for me. Humans can be so humor warped. I have the same issue when I see things/people fall down - even myself. Sometimes it makes me laugh hysterically to see someone fall. I am not a cruel person, mind you (ok, maybe a little when it comes to enjoying the site of large dogs sliding down a hill as they pee) but there are times when people fall that makes me bust a gut laughing. Sigh. I am not sure where this comes from. Perhaps it's just a primitive thing. Oh, I will help you if you fall and I will bandage your wounds and call 911, but I'm gonna laugh... I need to stop at my Aunt's house to help her fix her start bar on her PC. She has dragged it all over and now is having problems finding it. I tried to talk her through it over the phone, but it's hard to explain such things over the phone. Kudos to all the help desks around the world that can talk people through this sort of thing without actually being there. I have to have hands on to fix stuff. I would be lost at work in my IT area if I didn't have a way to tap in to people's machines and help them. January 19, 2010 - Work yesterday was overwhelming. I drove home in a dazed and confused state. When I got home, my youngest was sleeping so no chores were done and my husband was not home yet. In my state of daze, I started supper and yelled at my son to get his butt out of bed. (Primal scream therapy is not to be overlooked when one is dazed and confused.) I then let the dogs out to do their business and proceeded to shut the screen door on my my left hand index finger, taking a large chunk of skin off in the process. The pain was quite intense. It brought me out of my dazed state to say the least. I held pressure on the cut as I dealt with the pain. I have a high pain tolerance which comes from giving birth to working hard labor in a factory for years, but that intense finger pain was hard to over come last night for some reason. I was silent for a long time as I pushed the pain away with my mind. (Brains are marvelous tools if used correctly.) I ran cold water over the poor finger for the longest time to ease the pain. I couldn't talk. I was just, well - quiet and in dire pain. It hurt so much I was thinking I had broken the poor thing. That is a prime booger pickin' finger - I didn't want to lose her. Once my brain gave the all clear that the pain was ebbing, I could feel the numbness. Ouch. That's all I gots to say about that. Nothing is broken, I still have the majority of the use I had before, and I will make a valiant attempt not to run around in a dazed state from this point forward. I am getting older - shutting things in doors is no longer an option as limbs don't tend to grow back. After supper and the blood letting, I went to the Band Parents meeting. As I was driving home from the meeting I heard a song by Jim Croce ('You Don't Mess Around with Jim') and started crying!!! What the heck!? Not once have I ever considered that song to be emotional in any way (except for, of course, poor Jim - who got his butt kicked in the end by Slim) and there I was crying over it. Ug. Humans - go figure. When I got in the house, I got myself a glass of wine. (I had four points left on WW and decided to use it up in a small glass of wine - which was a mistake as I would have much rather had real food. I am not a wine fan but it was left over from Christmas so I thought - "Hey, why not?" Well, YOU DON'T LIKE WINE AND YOU REALLY WANTED CRACKERS is why not!!) I finished up some work on line that had to be done, then worked on an issue for the Band's website until 11 p.m. Finally got it all fixed. Learning never stops - even if you are minus a finger and crying over a song from the early 70s for no good reason and gagging on wine. Sleep eluded me last night for the longest time, although I feel much better this morning. My finger is fully functional again. I will wear a Spongebob Band-Aid to work to protect the area that is most damaged. I will embrace this day as it comes and not get dazed by what the day contains. I will remember to breathe and take one thing at a time, and I won't pull the mask on that old Lone Ranger and I won't mess around with Slim....... January 24, 2010 - It was a nice relaxing weekend. Saturday my husband had to work and my youngest was at a friends house, so I had the morning to myself. (Finally!) My daughter had asked on Friday to come over on Saturday morning, but I told her "No!" I was being quite selfish in wanting just a few hours of alone time. I did a little house work here and there on Saturday morning, took a shower, and then went in to get my hair cut and my roots colored. As Terri was cutting my bangs (that, by the way, had been driving me nuts all week yet I don't dare cut them myself because I can't cut hair to save my life) I started to cry. Then it finally hit me. I am crying because I am getting my hair cut?? I am so happy that I am getting my hair cut, I start to cry? HORMONES! I am nigh on 50, so it dawned on me this might be related to menopause. That made me laugh. The ladies in the shop totally understood. Being a girl has it's perks, but I can see there are some down sides as well...Once it had been established I was hormonal in some way or another, I felt surprisingly better. I remember my Mom's decent in to menopause and it wasn't pretty. The years I can remember from about age 3 on up, if something went wrong, Mom was on the floor in a heap crying. I assumed back then this was natural for a mother to come apart at the drop of a hat. I know now why she was acting that way but at the time...I had a Mom that DID cry over spilt milk. She would cry about a lot of things if my memory serves me correctly. My mother could have used estrogen therapy but back in the early 60s I doubt that was even considered. I am not afraid of menopause. It is going to happen. (As long as I know what is going on I will be fine. Viva being human!) So, I have my bangs cut - thank goodness - and my roots are colored but the color Terri did this time sort of made my hair darker and red...although I am not complaining, mind you. It doesn't look bad at all, and someone touched my hair. That is the key point - I love to have my hair played with. Terri could have colored it purple for all I care, as long as she touched it. That is the ultimate in relaxation for me. So if I have a hormonal fit and start crying over something stupid, just pet me on the head...it will calm me right down. January 25, 2010 - The temps go up to 41 degrees yesterday, so all the snow and layers of ice in the dog pen turned to mud and the layers and layers of dog crap that had been stealthily building there there reared their ugly heads. I spent a good deal of time yesterday afternoon raking and shoveling crap. What a load of crap! I try to keep up with the poop piles even when there is snow, but apparently there are some that make it past my watch. Once that was done and it was safe to navigate the dog pen once again, I took down the Christmas lights that were hanging on the dog fence. There was also fluffy puffs of white guts from a toy they ate a month or so ago that was all over the ground out there - I did NOT pick those up. I like snow, so I left the fluffy guts stay there as an illusion of sorts. I have to call the doctor today. Sigh. I made a deal with me bum that I would. Seems I'm having issues with hemorrhoids or something up in that general area and I promised my tush I'd call if things were not right by today. Things are still not right. Me bum has reminded me in no uncertain terms that I will call the doctor today. When it comes down to preference, I'm much rather cry over getting my bangs cut than have paparazzi snappin' pictures up my anal area, but whadya gonna do? As one ages, one must have maintenance work done, and since all of your body part's warranties are up, YOU have to pay for it all. Sigh. My Mom had colon cancer at one point in her life, so I suppose I will be good to my lower half and call the doc. Plus, I've only lost 5 pounds so far on WW, and I think it's because I have not 'moved' or done any walking or movement because I'm afraid I'd explode something out the rear - so getting this fixed will be a definite plus to my weight loss, not to mention the fun I'll have describing in detail all the doctor visits. (Oh, I can blame it on the rump, but in reality I've used ALL my extra points every week and then some...I have not been trying too hard...) The week doesn't look too jammed pack with any sort of excitement, but now that I've said that I'm sure something huge will happen. The wee one has exams this week so I will be pestering him to study. The boy never studies. It frustrates me beyond words that the wee one DOESN'T STUDY. He carries a A- to B- in his classes without STUDYING!! (Anything below a C and he loses the rights to his car...) I try to stress the fact he could be an A+ student if he only TRIED. He sees no need to try. (Boys are easier to raise than girls up until about the age of 13, then their "that makes complete sense" logic gene gets over taken by their stupid "Meh-too much work" gene and it's a battle all the way after that...) I mentioned on my Facebook status that the average service cycle of a dishwasher in my house is 18 years, then they tend to move out...I made myself laugh with that one. January 29, 2010 - I went in for a lower region inspection and tire rotation on Tuesday. Me bum is fine. All is well in Sandy's Bum Land. The doc made me laugh - after he started the finger pointing as it were, he said, "Well, we know it's not a fissure!" and I asked as causally as someone can with someone's finger up their bum, "How do you know?" and he said, "If it were a fissure, I'd be peeling you off the wall over there..." Apparently fissures are painful. He couldn't find any issue and we discussed a colonoscopy and the timing of one, but all in all - all is well. He prescribed pain relieving waxy insertions objects and since then, I must say, the pain has been less and less every day. Yesterday at work was a comedy of errors, I swear. It started out with a phone training session with a nice lady in Mexico (who had limited English skills comparable to my limited Spanish skills) that ended up being informative but it took forever to say the one thing we needed to hear and know. Ug. It's amazing how much you can convey with the words 'OK' and 'YES' ... There were times I did say 'YES' or 'OK' to things I wasn't quite sure she was saying so I hope I don't commit myself to anything like putting her kids through college or the like... Then I worked on a printer a customer had sent us (for the the soul purpose of printing some coupons for their products) and failed miserably. It worked at first, but when I left last night I kept getting errors on the ribbon feed. Of course, this fine printer probably cost 12.95 on eBay, and it has the loudest RIBBON OUT warning sound I've ever heard. Ug. I left it on my desk at work to play with today if I get a chance. I doubt I will...I hope I don't. Since it's end of the month, the singing beeping bleeping printer will have to wait its turn. The day was just crazy in general overall and I was doing the best I could to retain some sanity when I got a call from my wee one at home (half day of school due to exams so he was home early) and he said the wireless router at home was not working. I looked at the caller ID on my phone and made a 'Mom' face as if it was physically HIM standing there and said with a sigh after every word that there wasn't a whole lot I could do about that from work. I was, after all, AT WORK. I tried to stress that to him. He tried to explain all the things he had tried and I said 'OK' and 'YES' a lot. Finally I just told him, "You will have to wait 'til I get home, honey. It's end of the month!" Seventeen year olds don't comprehend the concept 'End Of The Month".... Then, my husband called. He never calls me at work unless it's to ask "what's for dinner?" or "My car broke down!" He was eating his lunch and wanted to talk. I know he wanted to talk, but I couldn't take the time right then. He tends to take a long time to get to a point of what he really wants to say so I finally told him I had to go, even though I know he wanted to talk about something... Then he called again at 4:48 p.m. from our driveway to announce he had his W2. He said it in his manly "I just killed a bison for for dinner" voice. Sigh. I told him I would talk to him when I got home but I wasn't doing taxes tonight.. I came home prepared to work on the home wireless router for hours. I did work on the router for hours, but the original problem my son was having was because the cable from the modem to the router had come out. Since I was prepared to clean things up and trace lines and all, I decided I was just going to do it anyway. I coiled wires, and swept behind things, and I taped stuff up and tacked stuff down. I redid all the electrical plugs so they were not twisted around each other like snakes in heat and then dusted off all the items that were dusty. My son still couldn't get a signal upstairs! After all that! I rebooted the router and checked all the IPs and ... long story short, I have no CLUE why he is having wireless access issues upstairs and by 9:30 p.m. I decided it could wait another day since I am sure doctors don't want to come home and perform surgery on small dogs and family members and high sea fishermen don't want to come home and clean the goldfish bowl either... January 31, 2010 - Did you see the full moon on Friday night!? How awesome was that? Wow. Just...wow. Even with the bitter cold, it was worth a half hour in the freezing weather to watch it rise. (I am, after all, self insulated.) I dragged my husband out to look, but he only stayed for 12 seconds and ran back in. I am the proud owner of a new battery. My car's battery decided it was a good time to call it quits. My husband got stranded in my car on Saturday night, but managed to get her to kick in and driver her home before I left to rescue him. After he got home, I went out and started her up and drove around a bit, and she was fine. I attributed the whole ordeal to the fact that my car resented another driver. However, this morning when I attempted to start the car up to go to the store, she spitted and sputtered and ceased to work. I made my husband take me up to get a new battery. When they tested my old battery, she was indeed in dire need of replacement. So, both Fords in our car harem needed new batteries this month. Odd. I wonder if each make/model takes turns? Besides the battery fun and the huge full moon, it was a non-eventful weekend. Well, I did get the router fixed... and my son bumped another car with his car on Saturday night, and didn't bother to tell me when he got home - he just left me a note in the middle of the night...but other than a new battery, the full moon, and a possible issue with him denting his friends car, it was non-eventful. Oh, and I made beef and noodles for Sunday supper along with Weight Watcher's cheese biscuits and my oldest son came over to partake with us. It was nice to see him. He will be back next weekend so I can do his taxes. I hope my daughter can come as well, and I can do her taxes. Getting taxes out of the way is a good thing. I e-filed ours last night. So, other than the full moon, getting our taxes done, fixing my wireless router issues, my new car battery, and my son playing bumper cars - it was a non-eventful weekend. I have taken a hot tub soak every night for days. I am running water as I type for another nice hot tub soak. All of my 'edges' ache like one would ache prior to coming down with the flu. I don't feel bad, mind you - just my 'edges' ache. (It makes sense in my head and really, isn't that all that matters.) Everyone has headed to bed and I will be basting myself in a nice hot bathtub full of Sandalwood bath salts here pretty soon. Not a bad way to bid January adieu...
He falls back on the normal standby of introducing images of water into my dream to try to wake me up enough to realize I'm one step away from self drowning if I don't wake up and go to the bathroom. Images of water just make the bladder alarm go off louder because when one is in a deep state of dreaming, they have no clue they should probably really move and go to the real bathroom when in fact they can dream move and go to the dream bathroom... Once the water images don't work, the geeky guys swears he is not losing this job over some bladder explosion, so he tries another approach - routing me (via my dream) into various bathrooms scenes so I will get the hint. When I still don't wake up, he tells Frank the night janitor, who has worked here for the last 49 years, to grab a taser out of the weapons room and go down to my bladder area. Frank was on lunch, mind you, but hey, it's a taser - so Frank roams down to the bladder area and shocks the soft tissue around it. The pain starts to bring me out of my dream and I am beginning to comprehend that I have very little time to get to a real toilet . (Hmmmmm, now that I ponder it, I think it's Frank's maniacal laughter from the sheer joy of using a taser on someone that actually wakes me up and not the need to urinate... ) Anyway, I digress, but I do so admire the brain... February 8, 2010 - I have been on vacation since last Friday. It feels nice. I have not logged in to nor worried about work since Thursday night. A first for me, I believe. Friday was spent with my sister, cleaning my Aunt's apartment. It's always fun to clean for my Aunt and Uncle because they have such cool stories to tell. After we were done there, we ran up to Wal-Mart and got a few things. All in all, it was a productive day. My wee one had pep band on Friday night for the basket ball game, so my husband and I went out to dinner for a 'date' night.
He was in a trombone quartet. They had practiced maybe three times. He said at one point last week that they weren't going to do it. I was disappointed that he wasn't going to try. Apparently at the last minute they decided that they were going to do it after all, so the whole family went in support. We practiced our "Gee, honey - it's the trying that counts" and "next time you will all practice harder and longer and do better" condolence speeches in the car prior to getting to the school because we were convinced they would SUCK. Plus, and I'm not that proud to admit it, we were all kind of hoping they would do poorly. Why, you ask? Because my wee one tends to get by on his charm and good looks...he tends to just breeze through things without putting forth much effort if ANY effort. The carload of us were convinced THIS WOULD BE THE TIME he would get the wind knocked out of his sails and reality would slap him upside the face. This whole experience would be a humbling time for the wee one, we all concluded in a loving yet I-hope-he-learns-a-lesson sort of way. We found the quartet in the practice room looking very nervous. When it was time for them to play, we all filed in with many other people into the performance classroom. (Friends and other family members packed the place.) When the nice lady announced them, she said, "This is the Wells-Schmidt quartet and half of Vicksburg." That made us laugh. Now, when they played, they did OK. Not stellar. Not drop dead amazing. They did just OK. Better than we had thought they would do since they had not put a lot of time nor effort into it, but not as bad as we had assumed it would be. I tended to glance at the face of my daughter and son, both ex-trombone players, to judge how this performance is going, although over all I didn't need to watch their faces to know that one of the kids up there was way out of tune, and they were making up new notes here and there that I had never heard before nor knew existed. After the performance, the judge said that trombone quartets were her favorite. She pointed out several measures where they missed the mark completely and several measures where they nailed it. She noted that they were off on some notes, but assumed it was the nerves. She also said they play well enough that they should pick something more technical for State (my head jerked up, did she just say STATE?) and she gave them other pointers, such as not verbally counting off before starting, a better way to stand, etc. We all filed out of the room and I said as loudly as I dared, "They had a kind and generous judge today..." which was very true. As we waited for the runner to bring the ratings, we prepped them for a #3 rating, although maybe, just MAYBE a #2 (since the judge raved about them so much.) I was convinced a #2 because there were so many of us in that room, I'm sure she would pad it a bit. The runner came. She mentioned they timed at 2 minutes and four seconds. (The piece has to be at least two minutes.) She handed them the ratings slip. Robbie looked at it and practically yelled, "We got a ONE!" We were dumbfounded. Seriously. We were shocked. A #1 rating? My daughter and oldest son and husband and my daughter's boyfriend all exchanged shocked and raised Spock-like eyebrowed looks. "Are you sure you read it right?" I asked. The quartet was joyous. They were thrilled. We followed them down to the medal table in the lobby, and the whole time I'm shaking my head repeating, "Are you SURE you read that right? Shouldn't you check it again?" Our band director was the medal "hander outter" up front, and Robbie showed him the slip of paper and the director's eyes got very wide, just like our eyes did when we first heard the rating. "OK, then... he said, and passed out the blue #1 ratings medals. I still can't believe the got a #1 rating. Now they get to go on to State Solo and Ensemble. We kindly mentioned they could not get by playing something like they played here...we tried to give encouraging advice in a constructive way, but they were just happy and I'm sure they were not listening. I hugged them all and then we headed up to have pizza to celebrate. We were all in shock, to say the least. This whole 'humbling' lesson went horribly wrong...the humbling was on the other foot... Saturday night was spent doing my daughter's taxes and my oldest son's taxes. That is out of the way for one more year. I did our taxes last weekend. How and why people do taxes for a living eludes me... This morning I was folding laundry and was quite pissed off - the whole inside of the dryer was coated in sticky gum blobs smeared like an explosion at a Wrigley's factory. "I'm gonna kill the boy..." I mumbled to my husband, who has the day off today as well. I showed him the inside of the dryer. I pondered how I was going to get that goo out. "Make him do it!" my husband suggested. "I just might!" I snapped, seething like a good Mom should when one of her offspring does something stupid. I left the goo and gunk for later, took my shower, and as I was getting dressed I felt a lump my jean's pocket. (Mind you, those jeans had been in the goo load I just folded.) I pulled out said lump from my pocket, which turned out to be the remains of some type of pack of gum. The gum goo was NOT from my son's pants after all, IT WAS FROM MY PANTS!!! I remembered shoving gum in my pocket at one point on Saturday...it took me a good half hour to finally admit this to my husband, who had a wonderful time laughing at me. I deserved the ridicule, so it was OK. We went to breakfast with my Mom-in-law and my sisters-in-law and my daughter, and had a marvelous time. Then I came home and spent a good hour cleaning up the mess I had made in the dryer. I had stopped at the store to get "Goo be Gone" or the like to assist me in my clean up effort. My husband would pop his head out into the laundry room from time to time to see how I was doing and to be sure the fumes from the "Goo Gone" had not killed me yet. "It would have taken a lot less time had I checked my pockets before I did wash..." I muttered. I thoroughly frisked all laundry before doing another load this afternoon... Tonight we are having chicken
chili for supper. They predict lots of snow for us starting tomorrow into Wednesday,
which instantly inspires me to make chili for some reason. Tomorrow is back to work.
I look forward to it. After several days off and all this humbling going on
and the whole goo removal thing, I need work to take my mind off of life...
February 11, 2010 - I have been the "live" version of the 'Maxine' cartoon since Tuesday. The only thing missing is the bunny slippers and small dog sidekick. Really, it's not been pretty. I pity those around me having to deal with this whole "I DON'T CARE, YOU SMARMY BASTARD" attitude of mine. It will pass, but in the mean time - please avoid me at all costs. Tonight I am dipping pretzels into white chocolate for a potluck tomorrow at work. I suggested a finger food type Valentine celebration, because I love LOVE and Valentine's Day and all. I love the stupid little hearts and flowers and the whole concept of LOVE. I'm a sucker for LOVE and finger foods...OK, mainly the finger foods. But still, I've always loved Valentine's Day. Maybe in my Maxine type mood, however, it will not be as pleasant as I had hoped. I'll end up beating someone with a dipped pretzel. Yesterday would have been my Mom's 89 Birthday. Happy Birthday, Mom. I miss her tons sometimes. The urge to call her every night is not as strong as it used to be, but I still think of her on a daily basis. Sometimes I 'see' her as I'm drifting off to sleep and will actually call out to her. Sigh. Usually we have an ice storm for her Birthday, weather wise. I believe I remember several Aunts saying that "...there is always ice on Bettie's birthday!..." February 12, 2010 - Yesterday my mouth would not stop. I felt the urge to share with EVERY ONE. However, this should not be done when one is in a 'Maxine' type mood. You shouldn't just share every thought that oozes out of the corners of your brain just because you can. I am fortunate the people around me don't carry loaded weapons... It should be required by law for people like me to have their mouths duct taped shut on 'Maxine' days... Last night the wee one was spending the night at his friend's house, so my husband took me to supper. It was nice. (Although we picked the night at that particular restaurant where they were having little league sign up, so the place quickly filled with families with little kids.) I did manage to control my mouth during dinner so I didn't scare children. I can do that, you know - scare little kids. I'm not proud of it, but it happens. February 21, 2010 - Maxine has left the building...finally. Lordy, that little rampage about killed me. My friend Jane and I were discussing this "mind over matter" issue last Thursday. We know we all have "moods" from time to time. Jane gets down and out seasonally (probably from lack of sun.) She knows the mood will be there and take her over, but she's powerless to fight it. I knew my 'Maxine' was caused by hormones but I couldn't fight my own brain when my own brain was causing the whole issue to begin with. Catch 22 above the neck. I apologize to everyone I was curt with and rude to and brushed off...sometimes it's best to put on blinders and go straight through life for a bit without dragging the masses into your brain meltdowns. I think I've learned the fine art of detaching my brain from work completely the last three days. Only took me nigh on 30 years to do so. I have all this vacation time I have to 'use or lose' and I really don't feel like giving it back to the company, so I've been using it. Friday was a day off. They called twice, but it was easy stuff and OK to call about as my back up had no clue how to fix this. You take the teaching opportunity as it comes to you. Yesterday and today I have total forgotten the place. Honestly, it's good for someone to totally forget "the place" from time to time. One hundred years from now it won't matter, anyway, right? I got a lot done over this tiny break - mopped the kitchen floor (several times - since it's warming up out and the dogs go out to potty and bring in half the back yard) - washed some curtains - washed some rugs - swept under the freezer and fridge (ick/gross) - swept the furniture in the living room - swept under the furniture in the living room - de-pooped the poop pen...I had fun cleaning. It won't last, of course. Humans clean in vain as it's all going to get dirty again in a rapid fashion, but I still had fun sucking up all that filth. The amount of dirt my family produces will always astound me. There is something therapeutic about the process of sucking up dirt. Suck up dirty/empty out dirt/be amazed by the amount of dirt you sucked up...very therapeutic. I made a nice dinner for my oldest son last night. (Per his request we had fresh cooked spinach, BLTs, and scalloped potatoes.) It was an 'odd' dinner but tasted very good. My oldest came over not only to eat but he entertained his little brother (they must have played video games until the wee hours of the morning.) I enjoy the laughter that floats down from upstairs, even if the games they are playing are violent war related, Zombie killing games. They giggle like girls... My daughter didn't come over. She decided to stay put and rest at home as she is fighting a cold. Wise choice, daughter of mine. Rest, precious - rest. February 23, 2010 - One day back at work and I'm ready for my next vacation (which starts this Friday and goes on for two whole weeks.) I believe it's the 'run and hide from it' mind set. It will still be there when I go back after my next wave of time off, however, so I might as well put on my big girl panties and deal with it. My wee one seems to be getting a cold. I can tell, because I'm a Mom. He claims he's fine. I'm the Mom, so I say he's getting sick. I don't want to curse the poor boy but I'm the professional here...his eyes look 'sick' to a trained Mom. I can't believe my daughter graduates from college in May! Holy Crap. Where did the time go? I am very proud of her - but she did all the work and I just stood by and gave uplifting speeches from time to time. I am proud of all my babies. I done good. The herd of deer in the back yard has grown in size over the winter. A deer commune of sorts. They have been digging through and apparently eating from the leaf pile out back that never got burned up prior to snow. They have also moved all the snow in the back yard and mowed the grass for us and pooped and peed and made the back yard their toilet. I am sure this is good fertilizer for the yard. They are not scared of me or the dogs anymore when we step out at night to finish business prior to going to bed...they stare as if to say, "We can take you lady, we have hooves..." I just stare at them now and let them be. Whadya gonna do? We went from several 'rebel' James Dean type deer to a whole herd. Impressive. February 27, 2010 - My friend, Kathy, is in Florida this week visiting her
Dad. She sent me a post card that made me laugh I had Friday off from work, starting a long vacation. I have to use up my days or lose them. I don't feel like giving them back this year, although if they offered the money for the vacation days plus let me work, I would seize that in a heart beat. I did basic cleaning on Friday since the wee one had a basketball game at night and he would do no chores. The house was nice and in order. That pleased me. Thursday night was my son's
pre-festival band concert. My daughter came down to watch it with us. We
picked up my husband's Mom as well. The concert was nice. My daughter came
home with us and we sat up until almost 10:30 telling stories and looking at family
pictures on the computer. I have an awesome family. Flat out awesome.
Every time I would see pictures of flowers, I would point this out to my husband.
"I like flowers!" I would say, hinting. (Our anniversary is
Monday.) He made disgusted noises when I would do the hinting.
Muffy has been acting out or as the kids say, "He's gone cat senile!" Muffy is in to EVERYTHING and playing like a kitten. At least he seems happy, senile or not. When I go over the edge, I want to be happy like Muffy. Suddenly Muffy can 'fly' to all levels of the house where he couldn't before with his bad hip. He has developed super cat powers. When we don't give him the attention he thinks he deserves, he jumps on to the counter and starts pushing items off on to the floor. He wakes us up in the middle of the night from his caterwauling. If we are in the bathroom, he scratches on the door non-stop. He plays with strings and anything that can be batted around. I can't even remember now how old he is. He's old...
Saturday we took our tax refund and went to Art Van furniture and bought us a new bed. With our small house, we had this brainy idea of getting bunk beds back when we were kind of fixing the place up after the 2007 storm that ripped our roof off. (The new roof made us think we needed new siding and that made us want new windows and that made us get new kitchen cupboards and sink and bunk beds...go figure.) It was an effort to save space. It worked, but bunk beds just didn't cut it after a while. The thrill wore off. We wanted a real bed. I tried every bed in the showroom and I knew when I found "our bed." We got a king sized real bed. The saleman said it would be delivered on Monday. Sunday was a HOOT - the kids came over and gave us a gift - concert tickets to go see 'Here Come the Mummies' at the end of the month. My oldest will rent a vehicle that can haul us all to the concert. My youngest cannot go, due to the fact it's 21+ only. I hope he knows how that breaks my heart. He will spend the night with his best friend and seems OK with it. Then they kids took us all out to dinner Sunday night at the Kumo Hibachi & Sushi grill. We went to the hibachi part of it. What a performance. Those hibachi chefs are artists, I think, but then again I have always been a fan of throwing food around and setting off FROOMING blasts of flames on a grill. I adored the whole meal and was amazed that my youngest caught all pieces of broccoli thrown at him by the chef. My youngest hates broccoli. On the way home we asked if he actually ate it and he said, "I had no choice! I had a mouthful of chicken - I had to chew it up and swallow..." Hahahah. It might be the only green veggie he EVER eats in his lifetime. My husband tried sake for the first time. He had never had warm rice wine. It was fun to watch his face as he drank it. The chef used sake to cook with during the meal, and once in a while he'd point the bottle at my husband and say, "You want sake?" and would shoot a stream of it into his mouth. Quite funny. There are twelve chef areas in the hibachi part of the restaurant where we were, but the fun just sucks you in and you totally forget there is a room full of people there, not just your group. I cannot express how much fun that was. We came home, and had cake and ice cream, as the kids got us a cake as well. Fun was had by all. Monday we started to prepare for the arrival of our bed. Sweeping and moving of the whole contents of our small bedroom. We measured and calculated space and where we could put stuff and where we'd have to move stuff. It was a good workout for us old geezers. We went to the store to get king sized bedding. We waited and waited and in the afternoon it arrived. It didn't look so big, really, after it was sitting in our living room waiting for us to put it up. (We had not taken down the bunk beds in case they didn't deliver the new bed...) The bunk beds were disassembled and half moved upstairs, half put in the truck to take for storage to my oldest son's house. Then we set up the new bed. Seriously, it looked smaller than we thought, but in reality - IT'S HUGE. I can't feel or see my husband in it - he's so far away. You can't feel movement when one of us flops around. I am pretty sure the whole Walton family could sleep comfortably in the thing. It sleeps like a dream. I love it. You don't know how much you miss a real bed until you finally have a real bed and you think to yourself, "Man, I missed a real bed!" I have been sleeping so well now at night that I don't feel like I want to take a nap during the day, but here is this cool new bed BEGGING to be slept in and now I don't want to nap! Ug! The dogs are not quite sure what to think of it yet, but the cats have found it quite appealing and have claimed it during the day as their own island. I am pretty sure it's big enough to get it's own zip code... March 7, 2010 - I woke up this morning with a Mr. T mohawk/Medusa style hair thing going on. How can a person sleep to get such a hair style? Lordy! I do remember Muffy snuggled up to the top of my head at one point during the night...maybe that is how it happened. Nonetheless, it isn't pretty and I wouldn't recommend this hair style to anyone. I am getting the hang of this NOT WORKING. I can't remember the last time I was so relaxed. Maybe it's just the new bed? Maybe it is lack of stress? Maybe it's my cool new hairdo? Who knows - but I like it. My eyes have not burned and been swollen for a week now. I think I will ask my boss for a bigger screen when I get back as that might help my old eyes. I LOVE where I live. (The location, that is.) I am in the midst of fields and nature, yet just a few miles from town and main roads. The other morning when I was outside with the doggies, leaning against the house listening to nature, I had to laugh out loud. The sandhill cranes are back already and I could hear them loudly off in the swamp having turf wars with the geese. I could hear hawks screeching and blue jays jaying and the rooster at the farm over to our East doing his best impression of an alarm clock. There were turkeys in the field across the road and the four brother squirrels that live in our willow tree were lined up on a high branch like the girls popping over the water tower in Petticoat Junction, giving the dogs a loud lecture about personal space. The chickadees were chitting at me for being near their feeder. The mourning doves were making their squeak toy sounds as they flew overhead. There were deer walking the property line being barked at by a neighbor's tiny yip dog which made my dogs growl underneath their breath...it was a picture and cacophony of sounds that made me think of a jungle, which made me laugh. The longer I stood there the louder it got and the more I chuckled and realized humans just get in the way of nature much too often... Last night, late, I got the urge to clean the living room ceiling fan, so I did. Hey, I'm on vacation, and if I want to clean a ceiling fan at 10:30 at night, I will! So I did. So there. The High School symphonic and concert bands had district festival on Friday. Concert band received straight 2s but a 1 on sight reading. Symphonic band got straight 1s. Go VHS bands! My wee one has a huge head cold through all of this. Everyone I know has a cold or is getting over a cold or is coming down with a cold. I know the wee one is suffering when he uses an actual hanky for snot removal and not his sleeve. I finally talked him in to taking Nyquil last night before he went to bed. He doesn't 'do drugs' as it were - he will resist any medication, which is wonderful, but there are times when it would help. I don't know if he finally got sick of spraying himself down with snot or he got sick of me harping on him, but he took a dose of nighttime cold medication before he went to bed. The next week I have off is good quality alone time for me. I look forward to it with open arms. I plan on converting all my actual photos into digital versions to store for future generations. I look forward to enjoying the quiet of the day time home and just doing what my heart desires. I plan on digging out my telescope since the southern skies have been very clear lately. Mars and Saturn are to my South, and in prime viewing position. The only thing that would add to this vacation would be winning the lottery. Now that would round out this whole vacation time quite well... March 11, 2010 -
'Tis the day before the last day of my vacation This week has been very peaceful and
wonderful. Viva learning to let go and relax. I must practice this art more
often! I got an email at home the other day from one of my friends and coworker,
Vickie. It said, This tickled me to no end, I must say. Many things have warmed my heart and made me smile this week. It is nice to be able to smile over the little things in life. The six million red winged blackbirds in my front trees make me laugh. I wish I could understand what they are saying. The skunk who now has claimed our back yard as his domain makes me smile, too. Old Stinky seems to have moved right in. The skunk is HUGE! I watched him with binoculars for about an hour yesterday. (Him/Her - I'm not getting close enough to figure that out!!) Muffy the Brave came out with me and took several steps in that direction when he saw movement back there, but turned and came back and hopped up on the car next to me. We watched the skunk together. Even Muffy the Brave is smart enough not to tangle with a skunk, I'm sure. Muffy has chased off horses and Muffy can chase off the neighbor dogs, but Muffy is NOT going to get near enough to a skunk to get sprayed, no way no how. Every time I see a skunk I want to clap and say, "Yay, God!" How cool is the defense mechanism in that thing!?!!! Way cool. Very clever... I also learned a valuable lesson this week, and I will share it with you now. A sedate, fat woman cannot go from being sedate and fat one day to Spider Ninja Woman the next day without the need of a nice hot bath and Ben Gay afterwards. I cleaned my bathroom, my only 'real' goal this week, and I was in positions I've not been in for YEARS. I was up on chairs washing the walls and down trying to get behind the toilet and sideways trying to suck the dust up behind cabinets. #1 fact - the bathroom was so DIRTY and I can't believe I let it get so dirty behind and under things and we're basically PIGS! #2 - Sedate,fat women are NOT meant to do this type of thing without first going through a dedicated training program prior to the event. At one point I was thinking to myself that if I died there on the floor after falling from my perch that it would NOT be a pretty sight for whoever found me. In my mind I pictured the proper ways to fall and break body parts that wouldn't shock the first person on the scene afterwards...I would want to strike a pose that said, "Oh, sure, I feel and broke something, but I MEANT to fall and break it..." Tonight I go to dinner with my girlfriends and that will be fun as always. I read an article that said getting away and bonding with your girlfriends (if in fact you are also female) on occasion is a good thing and is a healthy thing. (I doubt that, if you are male, you should attempt this bonding with girlfriends - wouldn't be prudent...) My children are all older than their children, so I can sit back and wave my hand casually in the air and say wise things like, "Oh, you ain't seen nothin' yet, honey!" or "You think THAT was bad, wait until they are 16..." My eyes have felt SO GOOD not doing computers all day, until I started reading all day instead. I have my reading glasses to ease my eye's burden of reading, but one's eyes can only take so much. I think today I will give the poor dears a break and NOT read anything. I am not even reading this as I type, I am shutting my eyes and not looking and just relying on what I learned in the 10th grade typing class I had many, many moons ago. I think I'm doing rather well, fpmy upi yjomh? I am off to conquer this second to last day of vacation! Viva Life! March 19, 2010 - To the person I mooned this morning while shoveling up dog doo doo in my nightgown - my most heartfelt apologies. No one should have to see THAT, let alone seeing THAT this early in the morning... This week has flown by. If time is relative, then my relative is senile because I can't remember where the time went this week. Ug. The robins are back, and all the birds have been very happy this week. (Birds invented Twitter, you know...they were the very first tweeters...) I have not fed the birds all week, hoping the red winged blackbirds would head on down to the swamp and look for women and start doing what they are supposed to do. The first couple of weeks they are back they can clean out a bird feeder in a matter of hours. I told my friend Kathy this morning that I've been SO BORING lately. Nothing funny nor unique has happened to me. I hope this is just a phase I'm going through and it will end soon. Life is a series of phases, really - learning phases and mood phases and such...but this one SUCKS. This must be my 'suck' phase. March 26, 2010 - I laugh at the fact that updating a blog has become almost a luxury for me. When I find enough time to squeeze in to do it, it feels so 'naughty' and wrong - as if I should be doing something else far more important. This week has gone by at the speed of phenomenal and here it is Friday already. I have been trying to go to bed at a decent hour every night to keep my eyes from falling out of my head. There has been much intense computer work this week, and the poor things are feeling the strain. I will have to cave in and go to the eye doctor soon enough, if I can see to get there. Last time I complained about this at the eye doctor, I was told my eyes were fine, just tired. My oldest came over last night to show me the rental car he got to take us down to the concert this Saturday (that was part of our anniversary present.) I don't know cars, but this one is apparently a fancy Cadillac. I got in the back seat to try out my 'spot' for the trip. I fit. That is the key here - to fit or not to fit - that is the question. He was very happy with the rental car - they gave him a premium car as his requested car was not in "stock" so he got it for the same rental rate. He had just returned from being in Nashville for a week at a work conference. He flew out Monday and on Monday night I got an email from him that described his ordeal on the plane that took him from Kalamazoo to Detroit. They were nearing Detroit when it was announced that the steering mechanism on the plane had a fault. They let the airport know and then they proceeded to take the passengers through crash training. (He said that if one flew a lot that he would expect this to happen from time to time, but this was only his third plane ride EVER and was wondering what the chances were that it would happen to him on his third time up...) He mentioned how quiet the plane had been the whole trip over but after the announcement, people seemed to talk and bond. (I would think that it is just human nature to NOT want to die with strangers...in dire circumstance humans go in to totally different modes of conduct.) People who didn't even know each other an hour before held hands to comfort each other and seat mates that were ignoring their each other suddenly became a new acquaintance to chat with. My son was fascinated by all of this. (Of course I am assuming not only was he beholding the 'human' factor, he was just praying he wouldn't end up on the tarmac in squishy pieces...) He said that our the window you could see the lights of the runway and then a line of lights from the emergency vehicles. They landed fine. The plane could not steer, however, and it was towed to a gate to unload it's passengers. My son said that they were all in the braced position during landing, but he knew they would be OK once the front wheel touched down and they didn't flip out of control. Sigh. However, he is back safe and driving a rented Cadillac of some sort and happy as a bug in a rug. While I was out checking on the car, my BFF called. I didn't see the message until this morning. (Vickie - I'm sorry!) She was calling to talk about my daughter's college graduation which is fast approaching. I had emailed my girlfriends during the day to tell them the news that my daughter had given me the night before - that she was graduating 'summa cum laude.' Oh, sure, I had heard of magna cum laude before and even cum laude, but never 'summa' cum laude, and since I never took Latin, I had to look it up... "There are actually three classes of Latin academic honors in use in the United States and around the world, and most universities use at least two of them. All universities use cum laude, which means “with praise.” Some universities also add magna cum laude, which translates to “with great praise”. The third honor is summa cum laude, for “with highest praise,” used for only the very best students." I was quite taken back to see it in print, and am ever so proud of my girly. She has had to work hard for that. She has supported herself all four years whilst at college, as well. Sigh. The fact that such a determined human like herself fell outta ME just floors me. PLUS she called again to say she has a phone interview with the acceptance board at the school of her choice in Chicago for her Masters schooling...she is quite excited to say the least. All in all, it's been an exciting and constructive week for my family and myself. Sigh. I am looking forward to a 'down' time this weekend, however, and will try to utilize it to the fullest by not utilizing it at all. Smile. March 29, 2010 - The moon is so full and orange in the Western sky this morning. Quite a sight... Contented sigh. I am very hoarse today, voice wise, from screaming and singing along to every song the 'Here Come the Mummies' did at their concert in Fort Wayne, Indiana on Saturday night. That concert was the last of our 30th wedding anniversary present from the kids. My son rented a Cadillac and drove us down there Saturday afternoon. The hotel was very nice. (Packed, but nice. There was a big wedding going on and the place was just full to the hilt of very beautiful and fancily dressed Arabic speaking type people from all over the country and Canada and even from overseas. When they support a family member, they go nuts!) I packed aspirin and ben gay and all the items that old people need to recuperate (from doing something they are not used to doing since the seventies) in my bags. I am ever so glad I did now! Hahahaha. *Here Come The Mummies is a group from Nashville that dress as Mummies since most have contracts with other record companies and cannot let their true identity be known, and they play music those of us from the 70s would enjoy - a Funk/Rock style. The lyrics are tongue in cheek style, double entendre type words you can take anyway your dirty little mind chooses, but the music itself IS AWESOME AND ROCKS* We went to Pierre's night club to see the Mummies. The lines were long and we thought to ourselves, "Ug...." but just as we were walking up, they opened a side door to admit people, and we got in there and into the club in enough time to get one of the few tables available! Hurray. (Another plus for old people - sitting!!) We had to wait an hour and a half before everyone was in the club that could fit, and the DJ announced it was a sold out concert. In that hour and a half I had two "big ass beers" as the club called them, which equates to four normal sized beers, so I was very HAPPY to say the least when it was time for the concert. When I heard their intro music being played and heard the "Argggggggggg" (that is the sound Mummies make instead of talking, of course) as they entered from upstairs, all playing drums and cowbells and such and they came down the stair case right next to where were sitting, I started screaming. My daughter got a video of them coming down the stairs. Awesome. I believe I stated several times loudly how TINY they were. (Meaning human sized - like normal people. For some reason I thought they would be larger. They were so, well - small.) They were dressed up like Mummies (hence the name of the group.) I can see why those guys are so small now. They played for two hours and they MOVED and GROOVED and they worked their butts off. It was a very awesome concert. I of course sang along to every song and danced my large hinder off. By song number three, I was drenched with sweat. If you are larger woman and don't move much, then you drink four beers and move a lot, you tend to sweat. (Sweat is not even a good word...you tend to flood...) I was shaking my groove thing and no doubt spraying sweat on all the poor people around me, but I didn't care. They didn't care. We were all dancing and it was fun. I pity my husband and oldest son, as they were used (by me) as drums throughout the whole concert. It was a hoot. After it was over, and we were headed out the door, there were Mummies out on the floor for autographs and to sell their CDs and T-Shirts, of course. Leave it to me to be loud and pushy. (The nice thing about night clubs is that they are already really really loud, so me being really really loud is lost on the crowd unless you are right next to me....) Java Mummy was standing there and I pushed my way to him out of turn and we got a picture. My daughter and her boyfriend got a picture with Ramses Mummy. I am putting them here for your viewing enjoyment, but remember, I was not pretty and poor Java no doubt was soaked after I mauled him...
All in all it was a hoot, and it was good I brought old people ointments and unguents to treat myself with afterwards... *Trivia - I noticed that Mummies have very good teeth. Must be Mummies have a kick butt dental plan from beyond the grave. I thank my two older kids for a marvelous anniversary gift and their unconditional acceptance of me as their Mummy. This week at work shall be interesting as most of my department is gone on Spring Break vacations. Hopefully other departments are down people as well, so stuff won't break too much while we're so short handed. Plus, I am hoarse and can barely talk from singing and shouting too much. I mentioned on Facebook that since I couldn't talk, I would communicate today through a elaborate system of clicks and grunts.
I have a raw red throat. I thought at first it was from me screaming like an idiot at the concert last weekend, which I am pretty sure didn't help, but the whole family that went to Indiana is sick! My oldest stayed home from work last night due to high fever. My husband is coughing and having severe headaches. I have a burning throat, fever, and coughing. Since we did not lick the tables down there at the night club, I wonder how we got what we got? Oh well. Take two aspirin, call me in the morning and such... I got so much accomplished at work this week, I could cry! It felt SO GOOD to get caught up! The piles and piles that have been lurking on my desk for such a long time are now organized and DONE and it feels wonderful. It won't last long, as we upgrade our software for our main ERP software this year, but for now, THIS MOMENT, I am caught up. Contented sigh. Should make handing the fever and coughing a bit less stressful today. I would stay home but two other's in my department are on Spring vacation, so I'm going in. My daughter called me on Tuesday after her interview with the ONLY grad school she applied to and the ONLY grad school she wanted to go to. She was so worried. "I know I sounded stupid!" I tried to calm her down. At the end of the interview, she said they said, "We'll be in touch..." and she was worried that was a nice way for them to to say, "WE WOULDN'T TAKE YOU IF YOU WERE COVERED IN MONEY." I told her, "Duh!" (See what a supportive Mom I am?) "They say that to EVERYONE! They can't say 'yeah' or 'nay' or give you a clue - they have to be neutral, silly." So I left her to calm down on her own and to pick out appetizer food for her get together after graduation. I thought that would keep her mind off of it... She called yesterday just screaming - they had called back and they accepted her. She was quite excited to say the least. She tends to have a lust for life that is very, well - bubbly. She is a bubbly person. Yesterday she was at a rolling boil, she was so bubbly. When her Dad talked to her, he said, "So, how'd you like my prank phone call about being accepted?" Hahahahaha. Then to bring the mood down, I told her we were all sick, and she said, "Yeah, me too. I haven't felt good since before we went to the concert, I had and still have a sore throat." So now we will blame her for getting us all sick and drop the lawsuit against the night club for giving us Legionnaire's disease or the like, and hopefully now that her excitement is over for the week, we can all rest and recuperate. I have wept happy tears several times this week. Could be due to the fact I am a month over due or so for a cycle, or could be due to the fact I am sick, but it has just been a glorious week even with the fever. I am very blessed. Even when I complain on my blog, I know I'm blessed. Sigh. (If for some reason you see me crying and running down the street naked today, call 911 and tell them about the fever, ok?) Have a marvelous April. Go tip toe through some tulips. April 5, 2010 - It was a dark and foggy morning. (Excerpt from my new book, "The Weather Within Us...") Actually, the sky over head still has stars and the moon and such, it's just ground level that the fog is, well - um....errr - FOGGY. (Please note how I'm ever so creative with words at 6 a.m.) The family was together yesterday for Easter Dinner. (My daughter went to her boyfriend's family for dinner, but she did come over for a while prior to that to hang with us fellow snot sniffers.) It was quite humorous to me to listen to us all talking - it sounded like a bull frog convention. If you couldn't see who was actually talking you wouldn't know who was saying the words since we all croaked the same way. We went through a new box of Puffs with lotion yesterday afternoon between us. Spring diseases bring Summer sneezes? We are all on the mend now, however, so I look forward to a snot free weekend next weekend. Easter dinner was very simple since I didn't have the gumption to do much. Ham, smashed taters, precious and gravy with corn and rolls. I bought an ice cream pie for dessert. Simple. No work on my part. The family didn't seem to mind one bit. So, a new week is ahead of us. I suggest we seize it and run like hell and enjoy the wind in our faces. Smile. April 8, 2010 - (I laugh now at the last statement above - we certainly had wind in our faces on Monday night...) Ah, electricity - not just for dragging your feet on the carpet and shocking your family members anymore! Our power is back on after having a nice storm with hail and damaging winds on Monday night. We were right on the edge of the worst of it, and we only lost a shed to the storm. Many trees are no longer trees as much as they are piles of kindling. A cemetery about a mile away from here had all of it's beautiful pines uprooted or snapped in half. (I do so hope it was just the roots that were 'uprooted' as it were...) I get disgusted with myself that we humans are so spoiled that having the power down for two days can cause such anguish. I missed being shower clean, although one can do a good job cleaning up with a simple sponge bath. I missed doing laundry whenever I felt like it and dishes. Most of all, I missed flushing. We have a generator so it's not as if we couldn't have light and keep the fridge and freezer going, but it's not big enough nor are the furnace and water pump wired to handle generator use. People were so generous and kind to offer their homes to us for showering. (I thought they were being kind, perhaps we just stank? Hahahaha) I had seen the lightening coming on Monday night so I drew water in a big old bowl, so we'd at least have some wash up water in the event the power went out...good thing, huh? It's Pavlov's theory of thunder storms for country folk - See lightening, Draw Water. On Tuesday, our Main Plant at work was down without power and had been down past the life of the server's room battery back up life span of six hours, so all of our servers were off. Nothing shipped or could be done at all since our plant houses all of the servers! Our other plant in town had electricity, but they couldn't do anything except produce parts. The CSRs worked frantically to call customers on their cell phones to explain the situation. Without the main frames we had no way to produce labels, packing slips, etc. I sat at work until three p.m. on Tuesday, waiting for the power to come up - but it didn't, so finally I just went home to no power, then got a call on my cell that the power at work was up, so I was ran back in there to make sure things were up and running proper like. I took advantage of the capacity to flush whist I was there...Yesterday was busy because everyone was trying to do two days worth of work to catch up. Made the day just fly by! On Tuesday morning early, my husband ran out to get himself McDonald's food and coffee. C O F F E E. I have been attached to this man for 30 plus, and he gets C O F F E E and does not bother to bring me a cup? When I walked out from the bedroom and saw him eating his breakfast by flashlight, I was frozen with anger. He said, "What?" I couldn't speak. I just stared at his coffee. I was so pissed I was thanking God that it was too dark to find the knife rack or my husband would have been dead on the floor. I think with my silence he finally figured out the error of his selfish ways. He got up and offered me the coffee saying it was "too hot" for him to drink. (Not likely - he just FINALLY got the whole "Geez, I'm a selfish bastard or what?" hint is all...) So I took the coffee and sat down there and sipped on it, however, when he was getting his shoes on, he tipped the cup over all over the floor of the kitchen. One does not cry over spilt milk, but one can commit hate crimes when one loses their coffee....We discussed this issue later that night. It feels good to tell someone they are a selfish bastard when, in fact, they ARE and he is, so I just told him the flat out facts. He agreed he wasn't thinking. So other than storms, all is well in my little world. My sister's birthday is today. If my calculations are correct, she is now 58 years old. Happy Birthday, Joyce! Remind me I owe you spankings - gentle spankings...at our age being too rough causes things to fracture! Smile. April 12, 2010 - Already it's the 12th of April. Time goes by at an alarming rate. Since the power outage last week, I've kept up with laundry and dishes. I always get this way during 'storm' season. I figure if I'm going to die in a tornado, I will do it with clean dishes and clean underwear. Weird how things like seasons and storms and life in general can change a human's patterns. If I were smart in the least bit, I should put down a supply of freeze dried coffee as well so that whole 'lack of coffee' incident doesn't happen again should we be without power... I think the wee one fell asleep in the shower again. Sigh. We have rusty water, and you can tell when he sleeps standing up as there is a yellowish-orange outline of a human on the wall of the shower when he does that. I will let him prune up good and be late for school this morning. He's a big boy - he can take control of his immediate surroundings. It was a lazy weekend for me. I 'shut' down. I just withdrew from life for two days. It's OK to do that from time to time. Since shouting "stop the world, I want to get off!" doesn't work, sometimes it is just as good to stand down a bit and hide in the shadows. I blame it on hormones and getting older, personally. I was in no mood this weekend to battle my own brain so I just turned it off. We did get the limbs and branches from last week's storm cleaned up and chopped up and moved to the burning area. I really need to get the push mower out and hit a few spots soon, or it will be a jungle in some areas. Nothing smells as good as fresh cut grass. I have several pansies that came up from seeds from last year - one purple and several yellow ones. That made me smile. Gardening made easy! The yard is covered with violets this year as well. Odd, I've never seen so many violets! My Mom loved violets. I will be sad to mow 'em down. I put up my humming bird feeder yesterday. Just in case. I look back on notes in my diary about humming birds, and I see they come back in April (the males, at least) so I am ready for the little selfish boogers. The Sandhill crane Daddy has been up in the yard eating on his own, so I am thinking Mom is on her nest hatching the wee one(s). I kind of like it when it's just Dad crane, as he doesn't yell and such when he's alone. He doesn't even attempt to fly off when it's just our normal everyday actions in our yard. After all these years, I believe he's used to us. It's only when he has his woman and kids around does he holler like a maniac. I don't blame him. Having my family around me makes me holler like a maniac, too. April 13, 2010 - We've been having 'brown' outs since the big storm and massive power outage last week. I am sure it's due to the power company fixing things correctly after getting us all back on line. The power surges are big enough to reset all the digital clocks back to 12:00 and to reset my answering machine back to Sunday (which was actually fine when it happened this last weekend on Sunday, but I digress...) This morning I was sitting here and I could feel a deep vibration in the house and my body. (Moments like that I always wonder if it's the 'big one' and I'm having a heart attack or a brain seizure - but then I realize that it's something outside causing the deep rumbling that I sense.) I looked outside and there was a convoy of power trucks going down the road. Six of them with flashing orange lights just rumbling their way to the next spot to fix up. Kind of impressive. I have to tell my fish story. I have a sixteen gallon fish tank that houses Matthew, a huge fan tailed goldfish, and Red which I'm sure is some other type of goldfish with a huge red head that reminds me of a Vulcan, and Frank who is my algae eater that I got for Mother's Day last year, plus two zebra danios and some tiny red, white, and blue neon type fishies that I have no clue of their breed nor gender. (My fetish with keeping goldfish alive started back years ago when my daughter won two gold fish at a carnival or at the store or something and it's sort of gone wild from there...anyway...) My issue lately is Red's swim bladder problem. He tends to float at the top. I did research on this. It's an issue with his swim bladder, so I have tried various things that I've found to help the poor guy out but then tend to forget what I was doing as they are just fish, after all, and give up for a few days... One of the reasons a fish can have issues with floating like that is due to constipation, did you know that? Apparently that is Red's issue. Last night my husband said, "Is Red havin' a baby?!!" I looked to see something HUGE coming out of little Red. It did look like he was passing another fish! Poor Red was taking a dump that would have killed a mere human. I watched poor Red as he swam around with this debris hanging from him and I felt so bad for him. If it were one of my babies, I would have grabbed the Vaseline jar and a Q-Tip to aid in his 'passing' but that is not the case with a little goldfish. Finally some of the debris fell out/off but he's still PACKED with it. Ouch. He needs a tiny little hot tub and some Activia for fish to start the process moving forward... My daughter is coming over tonight so we can start trying to figure out how she will finance her grad school career. Ug. I don't picture her as a pole dancer, so that's out. Loans - now that is the ticket. Wish us luck! April 20, 2010 - I am amazed how every morning I wake up with Einstein eyebrows. I sleep on my side, for heavens sake, how can I totally obliterate my poor eyebrows so they look like each hair is magnetically charged and EVERYWHERE is NORTH. Medusa eyebrows! I wake up every morning with medusa eyebrows!! Sigh. Good fishy type news - Red has finally learned to poop on a regular basis and can swim like a normal fish. I have switched to feeding the fish just once a day, instead of two times. Apparently that was the ticket. Red must have been quite bound up. He can navigate the water like a professional now, swimming top to bottom with ease and not stuck at the top from a faulty swim bladder. The other fish don't seem the worse for wear from their new diet (although I have received many threatening calls late at night and all I can hear is bubbles in the background...) I was so worn out and sickly feeling last week with the 'relapse' of whatever I had the first week of April that I went back to the doctors last Friday and told them I had to have something in the line of drugs as it was NOT just a virus anymore. They agreed. I got antibiotics. Huge antibiotics. So large these pills are, oy! I was not sure if they were pills or suppositories at first. (Horse Pills, I believe, is a good term for the size of these things.) No matter, I am feeling ever so much better now. I slept most of Saturday away, trying to heal up. It feels good to feel good again. I have been amazed lately at the drama in people's lives around me. I believe we as humans make good drama but sometimes we make too much drama. (I myself am just as guilty as anyone else for going the dramatic route when something has me flustered.) You have to pick your battles, I suppose... How much drama you allow is up to you as an individual. If you live life with too much emotion you miss the whole point of life. If you live life with no drama whatsoever, you miss the whole point of life. Catch 22. I think it all boils down to your core self. If you are OK with your core self, your beliefs and dreams and, well, YOU - then go with that. Don't make mountains out of mole hills as they say. If you do happen to make a mountain, climb it and get over it. Now that I've reached the 'Maxine' stage of life, I see where we spend way too much time worrying about what others think of us and searching for approval when the only one who can make us happy is US. April 26, 2010 - Ah, Monday. What is there about a Monday that makes me want to crawl back in to bed and cover my head up with the covers and ignore it totally? Poor Monday always gets a bad rap. (Monday, I know you are just doing your job. Forgive me for judging you...) On Friday, I had THE WORST ever hot flash EVER (for me, that is - I am sure there have been worse ones in history.) I had heard rumors of these types of hot flashes - but I was not prepared for it. People have asked me in the past if I have had "a hot flash where you thought you were going to die on the spot" and I would say, "No, I've been lucky so far!" BAM - I finally had one. (To all my friends who had tried to explain these things to me, I apologize that I was not more sympathetic.) Cripes. My hair was drenched and water poured from my head and dripped all over my desk. I barely made it to the break room to get two cups of ice to drag back to my office and convert water into ICE WATER. I was chugging that - and then Deb came in and saw what was happening and rushed to get me a mini Heath candy bar she had. (It is common knowledge that you treat a severe hot flash with chocolate, of course!) Stacey had some girl scout cookies - my favorite kind, Samoas, so I ate a few of those (OK, I ate half the box...) Just having contact with other humans helped ease the hot flash away. Lordy, it was scary! I can look back and laugh now, but AT THE TIME I WAS SURE IT WAS THE END OF ME. I was a bit provoked that one can lose total control of oneself at the drop of a hat. Doesn't seem fair, but then again, when has life ever been 'fair' - it is just a long running (hopefully) obstacle course. I was just talking about life changes and hot flashes with my friends last Thursday night. We had our 'girls dinner' and we shared ideas and common sufferings. The neat thing about this whole thing is that you are never alone. There are always people to commiserate with and get comfort from...so that kind of rocks. Ah, the wee one is late to come down for school preparations, and he just had a tizzy fit as all his clothes he wants to wear are in the washer. I feel no sympathy. He's 17 now - he can plan ahead as well as anyone else. However, I'm sick of the morning drama, so tonight I have a feeling we're going through his closet to sort out what he can wear vs. what he cannot wear and go from there. Boys - geez. I believe it's time to drag the boy out to look for work. He's not doing it on his own, so time for some Motherly Intervention. I complain, but you know I will miss this when he's off on his own and there is no one to complain about. This weekend my 'little' girl graduates from college. She is geeked. She is a spaz. She is so excited. I am excited for her. Saturday she graduates and walks at 6 p.m. Sunday we have a little celebration for her. I will give her a few days of breathing room after that, then we will start researching what she needs for her graduate school come this fall. I am ever so proud of her, but she is the one who did all the work. (Oh sure, I gave her life but that was the easy part...I digress...) So, I must go forth and meet Monday now. Viva a new week. I should look upon Mondays as a new beginning - a chance to get things right once again, shouldn't I, instead of dreading it. There, I have cured myself. That wasn't too painful at all... April 27, 2010 - I took the wee one to get a new pair of jeans last night. I must admit it felt good spending time with him. Every son needs his Mom from time to time, but every Mom needs to stay connected with her boys. He is a cheap shopper, so we got out of there for next to nothing, PLUS I got myself NEW UNDERWEAR!! Weeeeeeeee! My old ones were held together by some form of magic, I'm pretty sure. There is no other logical reason for them remaining intact. I got a package of new undies and now I have purple ones and pink ones and flowered ones. I feel so, so - um - properly clothed. Our water is so terribly rusty, it won't be long before I have dingy purples, pinkish-orange, and unrecognizable orange flower-like shapes, but hey - I GOT NEW UNDERWEAR. (For the people at work who read this, I assume you will be seeing them soon, since I tend to get excited about such things land force people to share in my underwear joy...) There was a male mallard duck in my neighbors drive way yesterday morning, and he made a mad dash into my neighbors garage. After that I saw a female mallard duck flying out and he was in hot pursuit. Apparently she was snoopin' around the garage and he felt it was not necessary. They hung out in the back yard for a while. Since I had to go to work, I am not sure where the pair ended up. Today, however, they were back. They were walking down my neighbors drive way looking for bugs and my dogs were going NUTS. They were not phased by my stupid dogs. They waddled along in search of food, and paid no nevermind to the barking things behind the fence. I wonder where they are from? There is a creek down the road and that is the only place I can think of where they would wander away from for a walkabout. After raising Burt the baby black bird in 2007, it's very hard for me not to want to run out and hug wayward birds when I see them. April 30, 2010 - It was my brother's birthday yesterday. (Happy Birthday, Glen!) Once again I had to pull out the calculator, and he is 52 this year. I will be 50 this October. My sister is 58. Viva AARP memberships! Now it's the end of the month of April! Zoooooom...did you hear that? They say you can always hear the bullet... I have today off from work, so I set my alarm last night for six a.m. (I still need to wake up early enough to get the wee one up for school. We've tried alarm clocks with him. He will sleep through them, even if we stagger several throughout his room. He is superman and the alarm clocks are rubber bullets. Nothing wakes the boy up except for the loving yet threatening voice of Mom screaming up the hole in the floor into his room. Did you know that kids between the ages of 13-21 go through some secret internal morphing process that cause their internal clocks to get all screwed up? It is a scientific fact. All of us old codgers went through it, too. I clearly remember my own personal internal clock crisis that took place from 1975-79. Wild horses couldn't have dragged me up on the weekends. I would stay up 'til the wee hours of the morning and sleep most of the day. I don't remember my parents being disgusted with this, although I am sure they were, or maybe by the third kid, they just gave up trying. It just happens to all teenagers. I cannot fight science here, as I went through it, but paybacks are hell...now what was I talking about?...) Oh, yeah - I set my own alarm clock last night for six a.m. this morning. I swear I heard it go off loudly, and I hit the snooze. I swear I thought to myself, "Really, you need to get up now instead of playing the snooze button game for a half hour!" so I got up. I swear I turned off my alarm. I made a bee line to the potty which is required by law at my age when one first wakes up. I sat there looking at the clock on the wall. The clock on the wall said it was 4:45 a.m. I was a bit shocked. I know I set my alarm to go off at 6 a.m. I looked at the kitchen clocks... 4:45 a.m. "UG" I said to myself in my best cave woman voice. As if I didn't believe the other three clocks, I wandered into the living room to look at the clocks in there. Yep, still 4:45. I went back in the bedroom to check my alarm clock. It was set for six, and it was still on. All I can figure is I was having quite the detailed dream about waking up and just THOUGHT I had heard it and smacked it once then shut it off. Humans and their silly brains, go figure. My husband has always used my purse as a mailbox. He still pays all his bills by check via snail mail. My purse has always been the place he places said payments when he wants them to go to a mailbox. (Due to the fact people scope out mailboxes in the country to steal and 'wash' checks, I have always preferred we hand deliver any snail mail checks directly to a government sponsored mailbox.) Yesterday he had put an envelope in my purse to go to a mailbox and it had fallen out of my purse when I left the house. He made a point of calling me at work when he got home to let me know I had NOT taken his mail to a mailbox. "You called me just to say something fell out of my purse?" I asked him. It was a selfish thing to do, and I had him dead to rights. After all - doesn't he travel past many mailboxes on the way to his place of employment in the morning? (That is what I was thinking although I didn't say it at the time.) "No," he muttered, "I called to see if there was anything I could start for supper..." Since he used that as an 'out' I took full advantage of it. I explained to him what he could fix for supper. This made me chuckle. It was nice to have supper ready when I got home. This morning he asked me to put his envelope in a mailbox. He knew I had today off, so he explained to me in painstaking detail where there were several mailboxes I could use near the location I was going to be later this morning to meet an old friend. "Um, don't YOU go by those EXACT mailboxes on the way to work?" I asked. I said it in a very sarcastic, mean way - as that is how I felt and I had not had my coffee yet. "I'm riding the motorcycle this morning!" he snapped. "I suppose I could smash it into one of my pockets and if I have time, drop it off." He stormed in to the bathroom to take his shower. I laughed. I was hoping he would replay that conversation in his head in the shower and be able to see it was similar to the conversations we had with four year old children at one point or another. When he came out, he grabbed it and said he was going to put it in our own mailbox. "It should be safe. Mail lady comes at 10..." he muttered. I looked at him. The older I get the less I can tolerate stupid. I said, "Did it ever occur to you that you leave to go to work and pass the same spots I pass to drop off mail? What makes it so you don't have time but I do? Don't you have expensive saddle bags on your expensive bike you could place an envelope to drop off at a postal box? The time you took to explain to me where those mailboxes were could be spent pulling up to them and shoving an envelope in to them...Why is it that I'm the only one with the ability to stop and insert and envelope into a box? It's not really a special skill. Anyone can do it..." At first I thought he would get mad. Instead he stopped and stared at me, then laughed. "I guess you are right, huh?" It's amazing how you can learn something new every day. Yes, I'm getting meaner in my old age. I suppose my enabling self is just getting sick of enabling people. I will no doubt get worse and be more blunt as time progresses. I will apologize to my loved ones now, but it won't stop the fact I will probably tell you how I feel in a very honest way. I am tired of being a door mat for everyone I love or care for. I played that part for many years and did a fine job of it, mind you, but those days are over. If it's on the floor, pick it up. No excuses. Last night I worked on pulling out all the rogue grass blobs in my rocks. I have a swath of rocks all around the house as a border. It's not even nor does it look professional. Hey, it's Sandy's rocks. They don't have to be even and professional, they just have to be rocks. I got done with the front and around half the North side. After lunch with Tammie and the girls today, I will come home and work on the rest of my rocks. I also put out my Quarry Critter bears amongst the rocks as granite creatures should be with their own kind. I put up my cool wire cranes on the corner. I love working in dirt. I am the female version of Pig Pen. When I finally came in last night my feet were dirt black and so were my hands and finger nails. I know now why my parents used me to plant things in our gardens when I was young - I am a human trowel. I am no farmer nor can I keep plants alive much, but I do like to get dirty. I put my morning glory seeds to soak this morning and will plant them soon. I have all my four-o-clock seeds from last year to try to get to grow. It will be a dirt filled fun spring. They finally plowed and planted the field across the road. The house and everything in it is covered with a layer of field dust. The cars had a lovely layer of it all over them this morning which clearly shows where the cats were mounted during the night and then slid down the wind shield on their butts. For some reason I was worried they wouldn't plant that field this year. I was worried it was a 'resting' year for it. I like stuff growing over there for some reason. My girly girl graduates Saturday from Western Michigan University. Sigh. She's worked so hard and done so well. I am very proud of her. It will be hard to have her in Chicago for grad school come this August. I will miss her something fierce. She is used to being surrounded by family and friends, so she will be lonely too, but she makes friends easily. I know she will be fine. I am not even thinking ahead that far right now, I just want her to graduate this weekend and have her cake and eat it too. Smile. Yummy cake, with chocolate frosting and yellow flowers. Check back for pictures!
What a weekend. Where to start? Hmmmmmm....I think I will start right here and right now. I just got out of the shower since I was covered head to toe with grass clippings and various species of bugs that live in my yard. Prior to the shower I had mowed the back yard. Since I had not mowed the 'back forty' yet (OK, it's just the back acre) the grass was getting tall enough to swallow up small children and frankly I didn't want to have that liability hanging over me, so I decided it must be done tonight. I mowed after picking weeds out of one flower bed and making my wee one walk the dogs. I trimmed a little here and there, too, with last year's Mother's Day cool Black and Decker trimmer. It felt good to be outside. That was today after work, once I had fixed supper and done two loads of wash. I could have done all of that mowing yesterday since I had the day off, but I was recovering from a very emotional weekend. I didn't do much yesterday but sit in the quiet and do things I wanted to do. I needed the down time. My daughter graduated from college on Saturday night. We went over to her apartment early to get pictures before she had to be at the auditorium, but even attempting to get there early was almost impossible. Twenty six hundred people graduated Saturday from Western, so you can only imagine the traffic! They had three different graduations programs, and my daughter's Arts and Sciences was the last group. Oy. Did I mention traffic? In a way all that traffic was good, as it kept my mind off of being all 'Sandy' like and crying like an idiot too early. When we got to the auditorium (finally - after travelling half way around Michigan to get near the building) I thought to myself, "OH NO, I DIDN'T GET HER ANY FLOWERS! HOW COULD I FORGET FLOWERS!?!?!?" Low and behold, they were selling bouquets of flowers at the door. Phew. Her boyfriend picked out the color for me, and getting those flowers made me cry a little. Getting into the auditorium was challenging, and we ended up at the top most tier of seats. Seeing the stage laid out for the ceremony made me cry a little. (So far, mind you - I had only leaked a tad, nothing drastic.) Of course I cried when they sang the Star Spangled Banner. I cried more when the brass ensemble kicked in with the processional. (Still, it was GOOD for ME not to be weeping like I was peeling onions and rubbing said onions directly into my eye sockets, so I thought, for ME, I was doing just fine!) It was when the president of the university told the graduates to stand up and turn to face the audience, then he asked the parents to stand up, then he told those graduates to give us parents a round of applause to thank us for all of our support over the years that I lost it I sobbed. I stood there sobbing with my big old red hanky clutched to my face. Then he had the grandparents stand, and the brothers and sisters stand... the whole while I was sobbing. Other than that and up until then, I was doing very well. They read names for over an hour of the graduates, and I was able to get a little video of my daughter getting her diploma (an empty tube with a nice ribbon, but you gotta give 'em something.) I didn't cry then. I was just proud. For the rest of the ceremony I was good and didn't cry. I thought I had conquered the emotion until AFTER we were outside at our designated meeting place... There were all these graduates, getting pictures and hugs from their friends and family. I stood there in a near panic wondering where MY graduate was. The massive crowd started to fade away. I searched in vain for my baby girl in the throng of people. Finally, there she was, walking across the courtyard and time seemed to screech to a halt. It's as if she was walking in slow motion. Her face was plastered with this huge smile, and all I could do was break down into tears and grab her. They had to peel me off of the poor girl. Sigh. The older kids had plans to go watch my "son in law" play in one of his bands, so they took off in their own direction. I came home with the husband and wee one, posted some pictures on Facebook, then went to bed. Sigh again. Sunday we had a small party for her. That went well. (I was having a hot flash that would kill a small mammal and it didn't end for three hours. Hahaha. I was soaked. Most of the people there have seen me in the soaked condition before. I should have known better than to wear a heavy shirt. Duh.) I was so touched by the outpouring of love and support from those people that I had to sit down a few times to just be in 'awe' of it all. I can't tell you how blessed my family is... I had drank two margaritas right off the bat when we got to the restaurant since my nerves were shot. It didn't matter as I just sweated the things out of myself immediately. My daughter played hostess well, making sure she talked to everyone. I was very proud of her. The whole family came home afterwards and we watched while my daughter opened her cards and read them to us. We have some very cool friends and family and I cried a lot during the reading of the cards. My oldest son bought us a late supper of pizza and we just had a good time being together. I needed my whole family there with me that night. Contented sigh. So, that was my weekend. My grass is mowed. All is well in Sandy Land. And now, for your viewing pleasure, a few pictures (as I hum a stirring rendition of the tune 'Sunrise, Sunset' in the background...)
OH! Lest I forget!! I had the day off last Friday as well, to mentally prepare for the draining weekend to come (and to use up the last of my vacation time) and I got to have lunch with my friend Tammie who I've not seen since High School! We've kept in touch via email and such, but I've seen her in person on any of her trips back home. Grace and Dawn and I met up with Tammie (who was in town for her Dad's Birthday) and had lunch together. We sat down at 11:30 and the time just flew by. It wasn't until we started seeing buses going by that we realized how long we had been sitting there. We laughed so much our faces hurt. I might mention that when she first walked in I grabbed her and hugged her and cried with joy which lead to drooling all over the poor girl's shoulder. Do I know how to impress a date or what? We had such a hoot visiting and it was a lovely afternoon. It was SO GOOD to see her again! And now, for your viewing pleasure, the famous "Lunch With Tammie" pictures... (Something to keep in mind next time you have a friend come to visit that you've not seen in decades - force her to hold a carnation in her teeth and pose for a picture - it makes people feel special...)
May 12, 2010 - I bashed my head on a cupboard the other day when I was standing on a kitchen chair trying to put my Mother's Day cards away in the official "fancy card shoe box" which happens to be on the highest shelf in this house. Bashing one's head that hard that early in the morning is not recommended. I grabbed a hold of the edge of the cupboard with one hand while I said various swear words (loudly)and rubbed the pain away with my other hand. Now when I brush my hair or touch my head anywhere near that area, I am reminded of the fact that my ability to judge distance is gradually going down hill as I age... Mother's Day was grand. My family went to have breakfast with my husband's family. After breakfast, we went to the store and my oldest bought the supplies for my requested supper. (Steak on the grill.) He also brought over a cake from my favorite bakery. Yum The kids spent the day at home and we grilled and it was nice to be together. I took full advantage of this Hallmark holiday by sitting in my lazy boy chair, waving my hand in a hedonistic way whenever I wanted something brought to me. Seriously, I milked out the day like a thirsty farmer with only one cow. It has been raining and raining some more here in Michigan. I won't complain, considering there is no oil washing up on the shores of my mud puddles and our local town is not underwater. The cooler temperatures have been keeping all of us running around to cover up plants or haul plants in at night. The other night (when there was a frost warning) I told my wee one to go get the hanging flower plants and put them in the tented car 'house' that my husband uses to protect his Camero. The next morning I went to get them out of the tent and put them back on their hooks once the sun was up, but there were no plants to be found. I looked in all the sheds - no plants. So I stopped and thought to myself, "Hmmmm, if I was seventeen and my Mom told me to put plants in the tent with Dad's car, what would I have heard instead if, in fact, I was listening at all?" Then it dawned on me - and I walked over and looked in my husband's car that he drives to work. DA DAH. At least he heard the "plant" part and "putting them away so they don't get frozen" part, so he had that going for him... Other than rain, nothing exciting is happening except my continued trek down the hormonal change of life path. Man, I love being a girl. It's a roller coaster of fun that I recommend to everyone who is not a female. (Note sarcasm, please.) This week I've been indifferent to everything. I've said the word "Meh" a lot. (Which translates into "I don't care" or "I don't want to care and if I cared, I'd make a different noise other than what I just made" and in some languages, I'm pretty sure it means "corn"...) So I've gone from Maxine (I will tell you exactly what I think even if you don't want to hear it) to weeping (crying over anything happy or sad) to "Meh" and I don't care what it means, it's just the only sound I can muster at the present. Stay tuned - I'm sure I'm bound to utter other cool sounds before too long! May 14, 2010 - To inspire my wee one to get some summer work or even work during the school year, we've been applying on line at various places. The last place we filled out an on line application was just a hoot. They warned that it would take 45 minutes to answer the questions, and I thought to myself, "Yeah, sure..." but it DID! They asked a series of questions that went something like this and there were 50 questions: When I wake up in the morning, I feel Then 20 questions later it asked the same question (basically) but arranged a bit differently: When I go to bed at night, I feel OK, maybe I am exaggerating a tad but they did ask all of these types of questions that were testing for mental stability. Apparently this one place has had issues with unstable workers in the past. The breeze this morning feels so...so clean and alive. Most likely from all the rain and storms yesterday. It is the sort of breeze you want to stand in and sniff and close your eyes and stretch out your arms and just let envelope you for a bit before moving on with your day. The sort of breeze and morning that would inspire Mary Tyler Moore to stop and throw her hat in the air... May 17, 2010 - The weekend was nice and relaxing. Mowed the yard and my husband weed whacked and it looked quite nice until the maple trees shed six million seed pods, so now the yard is 'brown' again. Gotta love propagation. The sandhill cranes must have lost their baby again this year. Sigh. They are coming back as a pair (for a while it was just one of them and I had hoped the other one was sitting on an egg) with no wee one in tow. Second year in a row we don't have little pitter pat of baby sandhill feet. The dogs were bombarded this morning from all sides. There were deer running around out back and bunnies hopping all over the front and squirrels playing tag to the South and ... they didn't know which way to direct their barking, so they just turned on each other. I wonder why dogs do that? I'm sure it's because they are so frustrated at a situation that ripping your siblings head off seems to be the only answer. I, on the other hand, would resort to over eating from a box of cookies or something if I was presented with such a quandary. Maybe the dogs would too if they had opposable thumbs... May 24, 2010 - Ah, summer. Or so it feels like outside. Heat... Humidity... Black gold... Texas tea... I must say, this humidity has done wonders for my naturally curly hair. Who needs a barometer when you have hair that will go in to auto-fro mode when the least bit of dampness is in the air. "Is it going to rain?" "Let me look at Sandy's head - Yep!" We got the lawn mowed yesterday and I planted a few flowers. I'm afraid to plant too many, as my tulips this year and my lilies of the valley and anything that might look succulent to a bunny has been consumed by said bunny. There are a LOT of bunnies out lately. They multiply like rabbits! The bats were out this morning doing what bats do. Kudos to bats. I thank them for eating mosquitoes and airborne critters that might other wise bite us or get into our houses and bite us later at their leisure. There were three bats that I saw this morning flying strategic patterns in the air. Go bats, go! I had a airborne critter fly up my nose Sunday morning when I was out with the dogs, and my poor neighbor Ron had to witness my attempt to dig it out. (Sorry Ron!) I forget that when I'm in my yard that I'm not invisible to the rest of the world... A busy week awaits us. Tonight is the Band Banquet, then Tuesday is the my wee one's spring concert. This Saturday is the Band Community Day and then of course, the parades for Memorial Day on Monday. The school year is winding down and the kids are hyper and I pity all teachers about now. I doubt I could stand the pressure of a school full of antsy kids just chompin' at the bit to get the heck outta Dodge... The upgrade process has started for the main database at work. We hired out the software company to do this - migrate data and load PTFs, etc. This will be interesting, to say the least. Once they get our data copied into test environment, we get to start testing. We've not updated this software for YEARS, so I'm sure it will all be exciting. Ug. This summer will be spent on line for hours on end testing and documenting. I can't wait. I actually looked for self tanning products on line. I get comments all the time about my neon white legs. I do have neon white legs, mind you - me and the sun don't hang. I get sick in the sun. I try to avoid the sun. I am a hermit, koo koo ka choo. However, my legs, which have the ability to blind you if you come upon them and are not prepared, are blindingly white. Actually, they go beyond the color white to a whole new spectrum. Apparently all the 'good' self tanners (which according to research has come a long way since the Coppertone self tan 'orange' in my teen days) are expensive and all the 'cheap' ones are just plain stinky, so I guess the world is stuck with the the "other white meat" that is my legs. Just don't look directly at them and you won't suffer irreversible damage. May 26, 2010 - I forgot to mention that last week as I was heading to work one morning, out of the woods flew a large turkey. (Remember, turkeys are not known for their ninja like flying abilities.) This poor bird barely made clearance over my windshield, so I let off the gas and ducked down a bit in case the impact shattered the glass. If I was fluent in bird gender studies, I could have reported what sex that bird was as I looked up at its butt while my car pushed the poor thing up and over my car. It survived and so did I, but MAN THAT WAS A BIG BIRD! Along that particular stretch of country road I always have watched for deer, opossums, turtles, vagrant raccoons, and low flying owls - but had yet have an encounter with an aerodynamically challenged turkey. Guess I can cross that one off my bucket list… My daughter has a temporary summer job at the building where I work. This is good as she can start squirreling away money for this fall and grad school. This is also good for her since I can supply her with snacks and lunches on occasion. I brought her in a yogurt for her morning break today and ended up dumping it on her lap, which made me laugh hysterically as I'm known around these parts for such talents. If it can be spilled, I will spill it. If it can be stained, I will stain it. If there is dirt in the greater tri-state area, I will collect it on myself as the day goes on… (Not saying I'm proud of this fact - just mentioning it for the record.) The High School band concert was just marvelous last night. They switched the format up a bit to be more entertaining and unique. Very cool show. I am ever so happy I stayed here in this school district for my kids. I loved this community and the support it gave the children when I was a student, so I'm very happy my kidlettes have had the same experience. I finally broke down and got myself those eye glass holder thingys that you wear around your neck to hold your reading glasses. I resisted for so long as I thought it would indicate old age and poor eyesight, then I thought to myself, "Hey, I'm getting older and I need reading glasses to read anything smaller than a billboard - I had best get myself the eyeglass holder thingys…" The first day I used them I kept losing my glasses because THEY WERE ON MY FACE or HANGING RIGHT THERE. Ug. Sometimes I'm not that bright. I came home tonight and had many beers. Right now I'm feeling no pain. I am not sure why I had so many beers. I really didn't want the bloating. I really didn't 'need' beers. (It has not been easy for me to drink since I 'broke' my drinker in Tucson in 1998. Drinking is a luxury now to catch a buzz. My poor old body can't take the beer input like it used to. Drinking beer can be likened - for me- to pouring the contents of the bottle into my mouth then output it directly into the toilet.) I must admit however, I am enjoying the 'loopy' feeling. I watered my flowers under the influence. I gave my daughter a pep talk under the influence. I sat in the dog pen with the dogs killing ants and enjoyed the loopy feeling. (I am so screwed if God turns out to be an ant. I don't tolerate large black ants well after eating a few in my Lucky Charms some 28 years ago….but I digress.) May 31, 2010 - Red in the morning, sailors take warning, right? If that is the case, we're going to get some storms today. We could use the rain. That will put a damper on parades around the area, however. The weekend has been relaxing. Saturday I helped at the first garage sale for the Bands. We still have a trailer full of donated items left to do something with. There was not a big turnout. I think we made the bulk of money from selling hot dogs and pop and water to ourselves. (The hot dogs were fantastically delicious - they must have been pure beef.) I am not sure if the poor turnout was due to the holiday weekend or not, but I am thinking it was. I saw SO MANY campers heading out of town on Friday night that it was unreal. I must say I did find something that pleased me at the garage sale - a box of the glasses that Arby's offered in the early 80s with the BC comic characters on them! I loved those glasses back when they first came out. I am sure our little collection was killed off by kids or parents doing dishes over the years... They were the perfect glass - the little divots in the sides made the perfect grip. I snatched 'em up half way through the garage sale when no one bought them. There were also milk glass bowls with BC characters on them, and I bought those, too. I remember those from my teens. I looked it up on the internet, and they were offered at Mobile gas stations during the 70s. I put two of the bowls and two of the glasses in my 'pretty pretty' cabinet that I have my special glass stuff in, as both invoke such a good warm fuzzy feeling inside of me. I am not a material person, but I do have some things I attach fond memories to and keep in a special place. I believe the band made around $700 from the garage sale. Not too shabby. My wee one went to play paintball at a friends house Saturday afternoon and ended up turning his ankle. My husband and I were getting pizza for supper when the wee one arrived home so we received a call on my cell phone. "I rolled my ankle and it's really swollen and ..." We instructed the wee one to get some ice and elevate it until we could check it out when we got home. When I got home, I made some comment about "they have to shoot horses sometimes when a horse hurts its leg..." but it didn't go over well with the wee one. I checked both legs to compare the size of the swell. Yep, it was swollen alright. I went through the normal 'tests' to confirm it was not broken. My end conclusion was that the boy would live. So he's spent the weekend with ice on and ice off to help reduce the swelling and on Sunday after mowing the yard, I took him to the immediate care clinic in town. Why, you ask, would I waste such money when I knew it was just a sprain. It was because while I was mowing I harkened back back to the time I was playing basketball in sixth grade. I was playing center and went to block a shot and when I came down I think the pain made me immediately pass out. I had come down sideways on my an ankle. It hurt like nothing I had ever experienced up until then. I know that my parents, at the time, did not have insurance nor did we have much money, so they did not take me to the doctor right away. I do remember after about a week that they ended up taking me up to the doctor since I still couldn't walk and all the way to the doctor my Dad was complaining about the money and saying things like, "You'd better be really hurt!" and such, so for the whole ride to Kalamazoo I was pressing my bad foot down on the floor board to make it hurt more and turn red so hopefully the doctor would see it and say it was worth the trip. When we got to the doctor, Dr. Dahlstrom exclaimed, "WHY DIDN'T YOU BRING HER IN SOONER?" Apparently things had torn and ripped quite well and technically I needed a cast. Since we couldn't afford a cast, she told Mom to go get me some Army boots. So for two months of my sixth grade career, I wore Army boots to support my ankle. That is why after mowing the yard I decided the wee one had to go in to the doctor since I was in no mood to shop for Army boots. Of course it was just a sprain, but I learned something new. The doctor said there was such a thing as the 'Ottawa Ankle Rule" when it came to turned ankles or foot injuries. He explained they had come up with this in Canada since there is so much ice and people were ALWAYS turning their ankles and the country was performing so many unneeded x-rays a year, that they found a fairly good way to determine if the ankle needed an ray or not. My son did not. They put him in a brace and wrote him an excuse in case he needed it to NOT march in parades and off we went. I am pretty sure most visits to the doctor's office are to calm the mother down more than treat the child. My friend Grace was going to have a party at her house after the Fulton parade today so I shot her an email to tell her we were not attending. The wee one was upset he couldn't march in the parade but due to the storms that rolled in he didn't have to miss anything as they cancelled the big parade in Fulton. We decided to stay home with Gimpy and just had a family dinner here. My oldest son came and so did my daughter and her boyfriend. We ate and laughed and it was fun. All in all - it was a marvelous weekend.
Yesterday morning I was in the bathroom getting ready for work when I caught a glimpse of a deer in the neighbor's yard. I pulled the curtain aside to watch and the doe (a deer, a female deer) stopped and proceeded to gag as if having the dry heaves. This made me laugh. (I am the type that laughs when the cats have hair balls...I apparently take joy in the suffering of others.) After gagging the deer meandered off across the road. She was alone, no babies or other deer with her. I had never (up until yesterday morning) seen a deer gagging. One more thing off the bucket list... Before it started raining this morning, Muffy the Brave brought us a present. Sigh. The body of a baby squirrel. Where the head is I am not sure. Muffy was quite upset when my husband took care of the remains without any praise him for his deed (as we do when he brings us a mole or mouse. Muffy doesn't get brownie points for baby squirrels or bunnies.) He was seriously pissed off that we didn't give him kudos for a job well done. The wee one is still "Gimp Boy" and has been able to get out of doing chores since his sprain. I am almost glad in a weird way. My husband and I have split of up Gimpy's chores and have found that 17 year old males DO NOT SWEEP IN CORNERS. The first two days of doing Gimpy's sweeping for him, we filled the poor vacuum up several times over. Last night I got on my hands and knees and did under chairs and in corners. Entire communities of spiders were uprooted. This fascinates me to no end - not just the amount of crap I was sucking up, but the fact I had never forced the wee one to do it right. That will change...the boy's been busted. June 5, 2010 - I woke up at 4:30 this morning and had to use the potty. After that I went out with the doggies and while they were doing what dogs do I stared at the stars for a while and pondered going back to bed. Really, it was too early to feed the dogs and too early to wake up on a Saturday, after all. I ended up going back to bed until 5:45 a.m. (While I was out looking at stars, I could hear the 'rubber band' frogs over in the swamp. Bull frogs, maybe? All I know is they sound like a lot of big rubber bands being plucked like a guitar. This sound pleases me.) My friend Kathy asked me earlier this week via an email why I was so quiet lately. After I read that, I cocked my head to one side and thought about it. I emailed her back to say that I was 'unintentionally quiet' as I had been busy and such, but it has bugged me all week that I have been sort of withdrawn and she nailed it. I've been too quiet... So I asked myself if I was depressed. "Am I depressed?" I asked my brain. "Well, you have been quiet lately..." it responded. The issue of being "depressed" and "sad" and such has always been a hard issue for me to talk about with myself since I am so blessed in life and have no good reason EVER to be depressed in the big picture of things. I hate it when I feel down and out when in fact I have no right to feel down and out. Feeling sad and low makes me mad and angry at myself, which makes me even more quiet and I withdraw. So immediate conclusion says I'm more mad and angry than I am depressed... In the big picture of things in our little world people are just plain stupid, there is still war everywhere, people are starving, no one has a job, unemployment has run out, there are tar balls washing up on shore, animals are dying, fishermen can't fish, everyone is mad at our President, no one is working together because humans can't handle change, humans are greedy and keep wanting things they can't have, and everyone is mad at everything and blaming everyone but themselves... Now that is depressing. The state of the world is depressing overall. Everyone hides from the world sometimes, right? Having figured out that the world in general (and I say 'world' meaning humans in it) has major issues of mass stupidity makes it easy to want to hide from said issues, I started thinking about myself and wondering why was I quiet lately? "You are hiding, too!" my brain offered up. "You can run, but you can't hide, however, I'd like to point that out." My, my - a brain is so very helpful and obvious at times. My mind continued on, "Well, let us review life here, shall we? There are people you love who are down on their luck and going through issues and you can't help them and it makes you angry and sad. It makes you even more angry and sad when some of those people don't even try to help themselves and blame others instead. You want to help and you can't help so you go the opposite way like any human, you don't do anything at all." Mind you, by now I'm mad at my brain but my brain is right. I can hide all I want or I can face stuff head on. I believe the term is "piss or get off the pot" as my Mom used to say... So today I'm pissing and getting off the pot, too. I am taking my sister over to clean at my Aunt's house and then I will mow the lawn if it doesn't rain this afternoon. I will stop hiding today and get out there again. I will do what I can when I can. Really, now, that is all anyone can do...in the big picture of things. OH, something exciting last night, however, that brought a spark of life back to me...there was a huge C-17 that flew over the house! I adore planes and get excited over LARGE planes, and she was just beautiful. (C-17 is a type of military transport plane.) I assume they were bringing in all the super secret security stuff to our local airport for the visit from President Obama on Monday. Sigh. It's the little things like a C-17 flyover that make life worth living... June 7, 2010 - The C-17 came back through again yesterday afternoon. That is a big plane. I stopped my push mowing long enough to see it rumble toward the local airport and be amazed. They must have to bring a ton of stuff when the President goes anywhere. I pray that someone in Michigan doesn't get stupid and try to hurt the man. He has enough troubles right now... So, yesterday we mowed and got that done. Saturday morning my sister and I cleaned my Aunt's apartment. It was humid and the two of us sweat like we were busted pressurized fire hydrants. It wasn't pretty. I moved my Aunt's chair to sweep underneath it and when I put it back, I so didn't put it back in the same exact spot. You know how it is when you are used to something being in it's place, and when it's out of place you can get hurt or trip or ... (like when a pair of shoes are out of place near a well traveled pathway in the home, people WILL trip on them.) My poor Aunt went to sit down and down she went. Sigh. I felt so bad. I helped her up in to her chair and apologized profusely. It is never my intention to kill people when I clean for them!! Sigh. I called her later that night to make sure she was OK still. Sigh. "What did you do today, Sandy?" "Oh, I cleaned for my Aunt and Uncle and attempted to kill my Aunt!" Sigh. My husband and I went to bed around nine p.m. on Saturday night. At 11:45 or so, someone was slapping me on the arm. "Mom, sirens are going off..." I muttered, "What?" "Sirens are going off..." I opened one eye to see my son standing there with his laptop glowing in one hand and him smacking me with his other. "Sirens are going off..." he said in a nonchalant way. "TJ says there are tornado warnings." (He was talking to his big brother via chat on the 'puter.) "Oh, my!" I said and leapt out of bed. My husband got up and started shutting windows. I made my son put his wallet and his Dad's wallet in my purse, and the purse went in the closet in the middle of the house. (We don't have a basement.) I started to fill the tub with water to flush the toilet with in the event the power went out. I drew water in the kitchen sink, too, and filled the dog bowl with water and the tea pot with water. I lit two candles so we'd have light to see in case. The lightening put on quite the light show during all of this. The sirens in town were blaring for a while, then the ones near the newer housing complex to the south of us kicked in and MAN ARE THEY LOUD! I pity those people living near there - there is no way they would sleep through a national emergency or a tornado warning, that's for sure!! My daughter called us at midnight to ask if we were all OK and ready,etc. Nice of her. My son kept in touch with his brother through the whole ordeal via the computer. "This is why I bought a house with a basement!" he announced. Hahaha. We turned on the news and watched Channel 8 from Grand Rapids who has the best radar around these parts. (They just get a tad too excited, however, when there are storms. The radar is worth their babble, though.) We switched it to closer station to watch and their radar was horrible but at least the guy was calmer. We watched a northern Indiana station for a while, but you could tell the weather man on duty there was just too nervous. (Maybe his first real weather "thing" and boy howdy, you could tell!) So back to Channel 8 again and we watched the line of thunderstorms and predictions. I watched out the bathroom window as well. It didn't feel 'bad' out to my old bones, and the area we are in was in a sort of 'void' zone where the weather was passing above or below us. We didn't even get the winds, just a lot of rain. My son who lives about 20 miles north of us got hail, lots of rain, and wind. To the west of us they got tornadoes or microburst that did lots of damage and to the south east of the state they also got some tornadoes and damage. We lucked out Saturday night. After the line of storms had passed, we went back to bed. It was, at least, much cooler then. June 9, 2010 - Two weeks from today I get to see my BFF Vickie who is coming up here from Florida! Woot. Can I wait? No, I cannot. This morning I am sporting some fashionable Spongebob Band-Aids on my left hand. (Yes, please - be jealous of my fashion sense.) Last night I made homemade salsa for my boss' birthday and will haul it in to work today. Nothing is better than homemade salsa. Yum. (As long as it's not TOO hot and melts your face off...) I have to laugh at my salsa making moments. I try so hard at first to chop everything uniform and small and even but by the end I am just whacking stuff in half and throwing it in whole as my patience wears out. (Well, OK - not WHOLE, but you can say my salsa is EXTREMELY CHUNKY to the MAX!) The knife wounds are par for the course on my left hand since my right hand is holding the weapon of mass destruction and staying out of harm's way. My left hand hates it when I think it wise to sharpen my big old choppin' knife before I start... Kudos for taking one for the team, left hand! Enjoyed watching the Kalamazoo Central graduation with President Obama. The man is an excellent speaker. The speech was very inspirational. I am so happy for those kids. They will have a cool memory of their graduation forever - "The PRESIDENT gave our commencement speech!!" All I got was this lousy T-shirt... June 10, 2010 - This guy/girl was hanging around outside on a tree this morning...I love her/his orange striped jumpsuit. He/She acted like she/he was used to people taking pictures of him/her, so she/he is pretty darned vain in my book. I won't feed it. If you feed 'em, they will stay, you know...strays - go figure.
The salsa was a hit at work, and very little was left over. I brought it home and my husband finished it up. People came from far away to get some as they could smell it wafting down the halls at work. Salsa is so good. Onions, garlic, peppers, more peppers, tomatoes, parsley, and spices and .... sigh. You could survive on salsa and be healthy and be happy. Sure, you wouldn't get kissed much and you would probably give off a hideous odor in extreme heat from all the spices and such, but you would be healthy while doing it.
The wee one is officially a senior in High School now that the 2010 grads are out of the way. This fact has not hit me yet that this time next year I'll be hosting a party in his honor (assuming he graduates) and packing him off to head out into the world on his own (a.k.a. I throw him out and change the locks and drive away in my Winnebago into the sunset after his grad party.)
June 14, 2010 - I had a good weekend over all. I am having my monthly, AGAIN. That thing is like, well, MONTHLY and it's not treating me any kinder as time goes on. I think it would less painful if horses were connected to my lower regions by metal hooks then fed large amounts of meth and slapped on the rear end to be sent off in a blind mad run. Sigh. So, besides HORRID PAIN and EXTREME GRUMPINESS, all was well. Saturday I got up early and started to download fixes for my main database OS at work. I had to do it from home as doing it from work practically seizes up the internet connection for everyone else. As I waited for those to download, I cleaned the coffee maker and did a load of laundry. I ran to the store and got a gallon of milk. After several hours, the first download was FINALLY done. I gave up and decided to take a nap. After I crawled in to bed and just started to doze off, my daughter and her boyfriend arrived. They were all excited from going to the Old Car Festival in Vicksburg so my daughter was loud and hyper. She also got her official diploma in the mail from college. She eeked into the bedroom squealing with joy. I, on the other hand, looked at her with fire in my eyes as my head turned 180 degrees and pea soup shot out my mouth and the bed rose and fell... My grumpy mood dampened her spirit. I am not in business to ruin anyone's day, mind you. I don't live to make other people's lives miserable. However there are days, and Saturday was such a day, where I would just as soon you rode off into the sunset and leave me the hell alone. (Hormone induced, no one's fault, really....) Sigh. Gee, for some reason, the kids left early. I scared them away. I do believe I heard my daughter mutter something about "grumpy parents" on the way out. I apologize for that but it was what it was. Sunday was better. I finished my dowloads on line in the morning. I found a stash of Pamprin in my purse so I got doped up and felt much better. (Pamprin is food of the Gods. Pamprin and Salsa could cure all of the world's problems, I'm pretty sure. Pamprin could probably stop the Gulf's oil spill, too - but there were not that many left and I wasn't going to share.) After the pain receded I decided that I was going to mow. So I did. I did the push mowing then got on the lawn tractor and mowed. Well, 'mowed' might not be the correct term...mowing indicates you go back and forth in an orderly fashion and I didn't do that. It was a good round of Sandy Spaz Mowing. (Formerly known as MOVE OR SHE'LL HIT YOU and MULCHING IS THERAPEUTIC.) Seriously, yesterday I flew all
over the yard with no set destination. I was in one part of the yard for a bit then
shot off to another part. I When I got done mowing and after another dose of the magic drug, I made a cake, changed the bedding, did lots of laundry, and made pork chops with a delicious dry rub. I cleaned out a cupboard that was bothering me and did various other things around the house. I brushed the dogs and then made the wee one help me give them a bath. It was a productive day all in all. (To my daughter I apologize for sucking the life out of you on Saturday. To the grass in the yard, well...thanks for taking one for the team...) June 27, 2010 - Tonight I was just standing outdoors with the doggies and I was enjoying the firefly show, when it dawned on me that the only reason they light up like that is to get a mate to 'get it on' with, so in essence that yard full of flashing bugs is one big insect porn show. I came inside...
She was wearing white pants.
Vickie knows how Sandy attracts dirt, so she immediately saw the errors in her
ways. Hahahaha. We spent the afternoon cruising our old stompin' grounds,
having lunch, and finally coming back to the house for a while before meeting old
high school friends for supper in town. I love how my family just accepts Vickie as
one of our own. They've only spent time with her off and on over the years a couple
of times, but they know how I feel about her, hence and We met up with friends in town for supper, and had a hoot. We even got to see a classmate we've not seen for 30 years!! Vickie had 'found' Sherri while with her Dad, who is friends with Sherri's husband. The evening was marvelous, much laughter and I enjoyed it very much. Vickie rode home with Sherri, so my family and I came home and it was just a pleasant "after Vickie" glow. Sigh. I can't explain how I feel about that girl - I just love her to pieces and feel like she's a part of me - my kidneys or spleen perhaps. I have been 'happy' ever since our visit. I wish she lived back up here. Florida is just too far away!! The happy "after Vickie" attitude has stayed with me since, making work tolerable Thursday and Friday. I worked on Saturday for six hours, upgrading stuff, doing a full system back up, etc. When I came home from work, I washed curtains and windows. I had the fever to clean. I steam cleaned the living room carpet and the laundry room carpet. I just went nuts. Every time I steam clean rugs and see the dirt it picks up, I have to show everyone. "Can you believe this came out of our carpets?!!! No really! Can you!????" If my family members are smart, they agree with me that "Oh my, yes, that is a lot of dirt" just so I stop bugging them about said dirt. This morning I woke up and in my pre-coffee stupor was standing and watching out the kitchen window. I reached out to touch the screen because the kitchen window isn't normally open at night, but instead of hitting screen, my hand smashed into the glass. "Oh, yeah - right - I washed the windows..." I laughed to myself. After I turned on the air-conditioning today, I did that several more times, seeing the screen so clearly and thinking the window was open when it was not. Duh. Clean windows can be hazardous to your health... My daughter has signed her name to an apartment in Chicago this weekend. She can start moving August 1st if she wanted. Sigh. Once she called to tell me about the apartment, the reality of it all set in. She will be three hours away from me. She will be in grad school. Ug. This is gonna take some getting used to...
Sunday was just a laid back cleaning type day. I cleaned and swept and cleaned some more. I cannot believe how much dirt this house can accumulate. Sigh. (Although I seem to take great joy in seeing all that dirt in my bagless vacuum and showing it to the whole family saying, "Can you BELIEVE how much DIRT was in this house?!?!!") Today was just a 'don't do anything' kind of day. I didn't do a darned thing that would be considered productive. It felt good. July 8, 2010 - Ah, Thursday. My wee one should start the corn fields tomorrow. I stopped last night and got lunch provisions for the boy. I hope he gets in lots of days of work this time before band camp. I know it's crappy hard work, but it's good for the soul. (If one did not do stuff like work in a hot corn field or some other menial job as a teenager, one wouldn't have a darned thing to lord over one's children's head when one becomes a parent, since "In my day, we went into the field naked and made the corn by hand, then took off the tassels and walked six miles back to the bus in snow up to our necks..." sort of stories are required by law when lecturing your kids.) Today I go to my family doctor about a little flutter I feel in/around/behind my left breast. I am not worried about it. If feel fine. (I mean, I did feel fine until I called to get the appointment and told the lady that it was either my hernia gone wild or something to do with my heart, and she immediately stated, "You have to talk to the HEART NURSE!" and slammed me on hold. THAT scared me...so while I'm waiting I'm breaking out in a cold sweat. When the HEART NURSE gets on the line, she starts asking questions. I answer the questions. (The questions are to determine if you should have called 911 instead because you are dead or if you can wait for an appointment, apparently.) When she asked me how I felt overall, I said, "Well, up until six minutes ago I felt just fine and just thought I should have this looked at, now I feel like crap and I'm sweating and you guys scared me!" She ran down the symptoms of a heart attack in women and told me to seek medical attention as soon as I felt something weird. I promised. After THAT, however, I became ever so aware of the feeling in/around/behind my breast which just amplified it in my head. Duh. I honestly believe it was stress related to begin with now, since it' got WORSE after the whole HEART NURSE, STAT! thing and then over the weekend it was kind of bad in the flutter category because that is all I thought of and worried about. I did some moving around to see how I felt when doing heavy labor and it was fine, really. So now, the last few days I still feel it, but it doesn't panic me anymore. (It feels like a tiny little gerbil in my left boob, running around like an idiot at times.) Nonetheless, off to the doctor I go. I am not a medical professional, although I profess to be to my kids at times. Let someone else listen to my heart and tell me if they hear gerbils or not... I have been ever so mentally busy at work trying to figure several things out. Busy is good, mind you, but it's been stressful for Sandy and I've been perplexed over how some things should be set up, etc. Last night, however, after dreaming about driving through a desert all night in a large 'Mad Max' type vehicle, I woke up and went right to my work PC and fixed something that has been driving me nuts for a week. HOW COOL IS THAT? I love my brain, even though I fight with it a lot. I love how this stuff can 'surface' out of the blue like that. Sigh. Brains rock. July 9, 2010 - I am gerbil free! Woot. Well, that is, my heart is. I went in for my appointment and the minute I got in the room they slapped me down and gave me an EKG right off the bat. I wasn't going to argue with that as I was wondering how they could listen to the heart and know when the gerbils were moving. The doctor showed me what all the lines meant on the EKG. My heart was performing as a heart should and I told him that I could feel the flutter during the test, and he said that is wasn't reflected in the heart. So, where are the flutters coming from? I suggested Stella, my hernia. He suggested acid reflux. I told him I don't have any acid reflux. He explained how you can have acid reflux and not feel the burning. (Due to the way nerves are in the esophagus - how they react to things, apparently when someone feels the actually burning of acid reflux the acid is REALLY splashing up quite a ways. One can have it and have 'flutters' as we perceive them without the burning.) We're going to treat that for a few weeks to see if my gerbils stop moving around. If I'm still having issues, we move on from there. My blood pressure was quite high when they took it. Hahahaha. Gee, do you think I was WORRIED or something? I will also go in for my blood work like a good girl. Another option is thyroid issues....so we'll get everything checked out. You get older and the warranties all expire on your major organs, you know... I went back to work, quite happy, showing everyone my EKG read out (that I demanded a copy of) like it was an A on a report card and I was 12 years old who had not studied for the test. See! See! No gerbils! I got SO MUCH DONE yesterday even though I got in late. It was a fantastic work day for Sandy. Today is Friday already, which is quite shocking since last week I thought it was Friday EVERY DAY for the whole week, so when Friday finally came it was like giving birth. This week Friday snuck up on me. The week has been very humid and hot. The grass looks like it was watered every day, even in this heat. Grass will do that. We want a lawn, but cripes, grass keeps growing and growing. What is up with that? I think I need to get a herd of goats. The wee one starts corn field work today. I am glad he's finally doing it, but wish he'd feel more inspired to get his butt up and find a local job for all year long. His big brother held down two jobs in High School. His sister worked at various places during High School. The wee one is not inspired to do this. He can survive, he claims, on his limited allowance each week. I have been applying on line to all the local stores and such in his name, since he's not been moved to do so. We'll see how that goes. He'll be busy for a few weeks ripping the tassels off of corn and then band camp after that... It's his senior year, the boy has got to find a job! Off I go, I suppose. I bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan...and so forth... July 12, 2010 - I have been listening to a woodpecker peck on my willow trees for days now and finally the little booger managed to fell a branch from the tree! That took a LOT of work! He has been ever so busy. I am not too thrilled at the fact he's destroying my willow tree, mind you, but I am impressed with his hard work. I would have given up on the branch days ago if it were me... So far this morning I've done a load of wash and the morning dishes. My wee one is back to work in the corn fields. He's exhausted when he gets home. (The first couple of days have been FULL days, and he's just out of shape and all used up, the poor guy.) My husband and I have been doing some of his chores for him but we also leave him a few so he realizes that 'this is life' and after work there are always more things to do at home. The wee one and I both have the head cold that was bestowed upon us by my oldest son over the 4th of July weekend. Achoo. I spent yesterday blowing my nose and sneezing. My youngest came downstairs this morning looking like a truck hit him. "How are you?" I asked. "I feel like poop..." he muttered. "Should you call in?" I asked. "No, I want the MONEY!" he insisted. He is dead set on earning enough to pay off his big brother (who fronted him the money last year for his car, and he's only managed to pay big brother off for half of the loan) and to buy himself a new cell phone. Sigh. The way the corn is coming on around here, he might just get his wish if he doesn't drop dead in the mean time. He will definitely be in shape for band came next month! Saturday I mowed the whole yard and did laundry and changed bedding and such. I was ambitious on Saturday. I took the pop cans back, too. (A sticky job no one likes, but hey - I'm not above getting dirty.) My daughter and her boyfriend came over with her new roommate for Chicago - a kitten named Rocko. He is a doll, I must admit. She called us yesterday to announce that she's decided that she'd not having kids. (Apparently Rocko kept them up all night wanting to play and being, well, a kitten. He chewed on their toes and fingers and pounced on them all night and ran up and down the bed and used my daughter's face as a spring board to get to the window...) I laughed at this, in a cruel motherly type way. "Geez, if this is what having a kid is like, I'm not doing it!" she laughed. I bet they didn't get much sleep last night either, but I'll see her at work and get a full update. She moves to Chicago the weekend of August 20th. Sigh. My daughter and 'grandson' Rocko will become city peoples.
July 23, 2010 - I'l like to give a shout out to Aunt Trudy, Reva Thelma, and Miss Vickie, who worry about me when I don't post 'cause they love me lots. I loves them, too. HUG. (P.S. I am OK, just lazy!) ((P.S.S. OK, I lied, I'm not that lazy - I've been really busy at work and overwhelmed and stuff...)) Yesterday morning I saw on the news that a trailer hauling cattle to slaughter flipped over on the highway to our North. The news mentioned that cows were holding up traffic and caused an accident on the highway. Apparently someone T-Boned one of cows. (Wow, how ironic...that just dawned on me....hahahaha!) Anyway, they had a follow up story on it this morning mentioning that five of the cows from that trailer are still roaming free. (And they say that cows are stupid - HUMPH. I can see it now - they flipped that trailer over by running from one side to the other until it started swaying so much that it just flipped the whole thing. I wonder if their faces were painted blue and they wore kilts and as they hoofed their way over US 131 they were screaming "FREEDOM!!!") I believe that if a semi trailer full of anything alive en-route to anywhere to get them dead happens to flip over and lose it's contents, that the survivors should be allowed to live out their lives on a farm somewhere with open fields and an open bar. It should be a law or something.... I have had two cups of coffee already and it just dawned on me that I had been fasting so I could get blood work this morning. DUH. I will have to shoot for Monday morning. I only got about 3 hours sleep last night due to the storm warnings. (I blame it on worrying about that, but in reality I love storms and sleeping through them is never an issue for me, I just couldn't sleep worth dog doo doo in general so we'll blame it on the storms THAT DIDN'T MAKE IT DOWN TO ME.) My poor oldest son - oy!
He's had two storms up by him yesterday (just 12 miles or so to my North) that flooded
streets in Kalamazoo and caused power outages and such and last night at where he works
they had to head to the storm shelter because of a tornado My four o'clocks that I grew from last year's seeds are doing well. Last year I just had a bunch of white flowers and one pink. From those seeds I saved, I have neon pink, stunning purple, and yellow with pink stripes! Awesome. Go seed genetics! They smell lovely, too, and for something that sort of looks like a weed as it's growing, they turn out so pretty. (They will kill you if you eat them, you know -so don't be eatin' my four o'clocks!) My gladiolas are coming on, too. I love glads. I have also been fighting the battle of tomato worms. I found one while watering the other morning, and ripped the goober in half. NO! NO! BAD WORM!! That night when I got home from work I went on a hunting expedition and found two more. Those I flushed after bringing them in to show the boys. "You're not gonna flush those things, are you?" my husband asked. "Yes!" I replied. "Eewwwww" he said as he shuddered. "They are not going to crawl back up and attack yer bum!" I assured him, "if they want to chomp on something, they can chomp on our septic wastes and play Rid-X!" I can bet money that the boys check the toilet before they use it now... I have been freezing my jalepeno peppers since they've come on fast and furious. The whole idea of planting peppers and tomatoes was to make fresh salsa, but so far I've only gotten five tomatoes off the vines and 15 jalepeno peppers! That ratio would melt your innards, so I freeze my peppers until there is more of a balance and it's time to make salsa. Salsa, as we all know, will cure all ills and make you a better human and could bring world peace and...
My gerbil issue has gotten better. I only have flutters on occasion now. I can't say as I miss the gerbil feeling. I rather like being gerbil free. So, it was either stress and by recognizing it and going to the doctor THAT made it better, or it really is reflux and the Zantac is helping a bunch. I would like to think I cured myself by facing my issue and conquering it by sheer mental power, but I'm pretty sure it's the Zantac.... The wee one, whilst getting ready to head out to the corn fields, left LARGE CHUNKS OF DRIED CORN FIELD MUD in my living room. I noticed that Jake the dog was eating something, and it was THAT MUD! Hahahahaha. Seriously, there are chunks of dried mud EVERYWHERE now. Sigh. He's been working steady and long days. He went to bed last night at 8 p.m. which is NOT like him! Poor dude is earning his money...but he's still going to sweep this all up! July 29, 2010 - I have been immobilized for several minutes after typing in
the date here...the I was discussing bodily issues the other day with my friend Kathy, and I decided that if God were to design a human NOW, that He'd probably just issue us all exhaust pipes and drip pans instead of the current set up. Bodies do odd things. Most societies have taught and forced the thought that some things are dirty and unthinkable into their children's minds for centuries and generation so we all grow up scared of what our bodies might do and end up doing, but what it all boils down to is the human factor. Humans poop. Humans ooze. Humans snort. Humans expel gas. Our standard issue internal organs will fail, fall out, or go haywire. We humans just have to go with the flow of it all and accept it for what it is, all humans do it, and NONE of us kept up the warranty contract after it expired when we were 18... The sandhill crane that's been lonely and solo for about two months when his/her baby and his/her spouse came up missing has found a new mate. They were out back this morning together doing whatever it is sandhill cranes do. I am happy he/she remarried. Seriously, this bird was lonely - he/she would stand out back and talk to rabbits and egg on the blackbirds and scream at the top of his/her lungs at birds flying over head. Now he/she is happy with a new date and all is well in Sandy Sandhill Land. My flowers (which are few and not well maintained by this human) are doing pretty darned good considering. I am just so fascinated by the four o'clocks! I can't wait to continue my four o'clock dynasty next year with this year's seeds. Continuation of the species, baby. Woot. We have our own oil spill here in Michigan. One of the pipelines that goes from Indiana to Canada (built in 1969) broke near Marshall and has spilled 800,000+ gallons into the local area and rivers and such. Sigh. Human made things don't last. (OK, the pyramids have been doing astonishingly well, but other than that...) I think the earth's oil is having a revolution. Oil decided that it's tired of being raped from the land and has called an all out jihad against humans. IF YOU WANT OIL, HERE YOU GO! SPLAT! (Oil is obviously female in gender...) Sigh, I think I've recovered from my whole "July of 2010" meltdown. I feel much better now. Life is like a slinky, anyway. You start out with momentum and flop down the stairs of life until there are no more stairs left to flop on, and then you stop and look all slinky like. Sometimes someone has to push you to start you flopping again mid way down those steps, however. That was what happened to me - I just had to push myself to start flopping again.... July 30, 2010 - My legs are covered with a rash of small red dots and I itch at all of my major lymph node areas. Ug. I looked up on line the interaction possibilities with my gerbil reduction medicine to other things in my life, and that type of medicine doesn't state that taking it will turn you into a large,itchy rash ball. So, I'm not sure what it is. I finally broke down and got Benadryl and took that last night. It helped a LOT. I know a virus can cause rashes but I also know I mow like a madman and who KNOWS what I could have plowed through out in the yard at high speeds and with no regard for my own safety... I finally put in for two weeks vacation. My brain is in dire need of 'down' time. I have been with the company for many many many many years, so I get five weeks of vacation a year. I normally don't get a chance to use all the time up. I will attempt to use all the time up before May of next year. Wish me luck! My brain needs it... The place where I got my blood drawn on Monday morning is a lovely shade of purple. It looks like I was shot or beaten to death in that general area on my arm. Very impressive. A good conversation starter! "What happened to you?!!!" "Oh, that's just an old war wound from 'Nam..." Now I am off to conquer my small area of the world. Y'all go forth and conquer your small areas.
So, me in my infinite wisdom reported last Friday that I had this rash BUT I felt fine. Hahaha. Spoke a wee bit too soon. I got in to work and notice my legs and ankles ached a lot around 8:30 a.m. Then the ache spread to my hips and up my back and then down to my elbows by 10 a.m. I got water to sip on as I know darned well that if I am getting any type of flu I need to hydrate myself to the max unless I want total body contorting body cramps. I began to feel 'sick' to my stomach and my lower intestines acted as if they were very unhappy about life in general as well. I thought to myself that I could make it all day, but finally came home at 11:30 JUST in time to evacuate various orifices in a friendly home environment. Ug. I was freezing by then, so I drew a hot bath and soaked in it. I let the people at work know to call me if there was an emergency and crawled in to bed with the phone. I told my son to wake me up at three so I could check on work. (The two people who back me up were both on vacation.) My son woke me up at three p.m., and I did a few things at three for work and then crawled back in bed. The fever had kicked in by then so I wasn't cold anymore, at least. I got a call and finished up the last stuff I had to do for work around 4:30 and went back to bed. I was cold again. I soaked in a hot tub once more. My husband went out to get me soup and crackers and some orange juice. I assumed it was the flu and didn't question it. I just enjoyed the lack of mental functionality brought on by fever and slept and slept and slept. Saturday I got up and felt MUCH better. I assumed it was NOT the flu but perhaps food poisoning or God striking me with a little reminder not to be so cocky. Either way, I took it very easy on Saturday. Yesterday I felt as normal as this old woman is ever going to feel. I defrosted my refrigerator's freezer then defrosted the big freezer. I cleaned. I did a lot EXCEPT mow...I backed down there. I didn't want to push myself in to a relapse of puke. So that was my exciting weekend. Hold me back. I live life on the edge. My daughter was in Chicago yesterday painting her apartment. I am having issues with this whole Chicago thing. I know she will only be 3 hours away and we can get to her in a heart beat if we need to and all...but still. I have been lucky to keep all my chicks in the general area after they move out Now one is going to the BIG CITY and Momma is having issues with this. If she was certified in small weapons use and had taken kick boxing, I would be so worried, maybe? I know she will be fine. Many people live in, grow up in, and retire in Chicago every day. I am just over reacting. Her big brother is mapping out the whole moving day extravaganza. He's taken the controls here. Perhaps he senses my lack of acceptance and inability to cope with this. Perhaps he's just being the big brother and laying it out so it all goes smooth. My kids are close, so I know he is worried about his little sister as well. I appreciate what his is doing, nonetheless. It's a Godsend. Last night it took me forever to fall asleep. I was pondering my wee one. He is 17. He is a "he" - 'nough said, yes? He is selfish. He thinks of himself first. I know this is a passing phase. I know we all went through this as teenagers. Why this strikes me hard when it comes to my youngest is beyond me. I don't want him to be selfish. I want him to think of others first. However, I need to let him get this crap out of his system, yes? When I was curled up in bed on Friday with that fever and unable to determine where I really was and who I really was, he was explaining to me how we were going to have to get his new phone on Saturday and that I would have to come along to activate it, etc. (He has corn field money burning a hole in his pocket, and now that he's paid back big brother for his car, he wants the new HTC Evo - which is a cell phone and not a spin off of Devo the musical group as I thought in my fevered head while he was trying to talk to me...) Sigh. That phone is NOT in stock anywhere, mind you - it's the cell phone industries version of "Tickle Me Elmo" and no one can keep it in stock, so he's going to have to wait. He had his friend Kenny over last night and he and Kenny and my oldest all went to WalMart at 9 p.m. to get an external drive or something for his PC. He wants three monitors to work with his PC. He couldn't live without it. I suggested that he save that money and get school clothes. "It's my money, Mom. Don't worry!" I do worry. I want him to be responsible and make good choices. But, alas, we all know the young are born knowing so much. I have to let this run it's course. Oh, speaking of irritating rashes - mine is still on my legs. My Aunt suggested it might be jiggers or chiggers or tiggers, whatever they are called, so I looked it up. Yes, it sounds like my legs could be covered in left-over chigger feeding areas. Here is what the I found on line about chiggers, for your reading pleasure - this is a good over all view of chiggers from the particular site mdconline... August 6, 2010 - Ah, human bodies. Abused and misused, then tend to break down. And none of us kept up our warranties. Ugh. I went to the doctor yesterday morning for a review of my blood work. I asked him about my rash on my legs too, and he said it looked like I was shaving my legs with too much gusto. I told him I do not do that as the only place on me that gets hairy is my chin, not my legs, so I shave my legs maybe once a month. He then said, "OK, then, it's chiggers." Hahahaha. He showed me my sugar level on the blood test results was in the red. I'm a few points over maximum. He said, "I know you know how to fix that..." and I agreed. He also made me apologize to my pancreas for not eating correctly. I apologized. "I'm sorry, pancreas!" Then, all the other numbers - fats and a multitude of enzymes, etc. were all lovely...EXCEPT when he got to phosphates. I was way over on phosphates. He told me that usually indicates kidney or bone issues. Here is a clip from a web site I found when I researched it: "Serum phosphate levels, if high, are caused due to kidney diseases or a parathyroid gland which is not functioning properly and is producing low amounts of the parathyroid hormone. Fractures that are healing, diabetic ketoacidosis when left untreated, rhabdomyolysis and acromegaly are also causes for high blood phosphates level. In the presence of excess of vitamin D, phosphate levels of the blood may increase significantly. Decreased magnesium levels and pregnancy are other causes for this increase." Well, I can rule out pregnancy right off the bat. I know what causes that and there ain't been no cause for me in a while! He ordered another type of phosphate check blood test and after the doctors appointment I scuttled over to the hospital part and got another blood draw. This test takes several weeks to come back. I will wait. In the mean time, I have some self analysis to do. Sigh. Then he asked how my gerbils were doing with the Zantac. I told him the gerbils were still loose and bothering me and the Zantac for reflux had not helped, really. He told me that the next step was for me to wear a heart monitor for a week. So as soon as whoever is going to call me does call me to set up the appointment, I will go in and learn how to hook myself up to a mobile heart monitor. Apparently I will be required to press a button whenever I feel the gerbils. I don't mind this, and am grateful for insurance and modern medicine. If the darned thing is giving out (my heart, that is) I'd just as soon know it now. PLUS - whine whine complain - my right knee is acting funny. I did not have him check it yesterday. It has been on the fritz for a month now, and if it's not better by next week, then I'll go in for an xray. Let's see, what else could go wrong? Arthritis? Maybe they'll have to shoot me and put me down... Other than that, all is well in Sandy land. The wee one heads for band camp this weekend. I think I will take that opportunity to paint the stairs up to his room. They have seen better days. On Tuesday, I had a visitor in my office all day. A lady at work had given a kitten to another lady at work over the weekend, but she couldn't keep the kitten, so she brought it back. They had him back in the shipping office in a cat carrier. They know I loves the kittens, so they called me back there to see him. I felt so bad for the kitty, locked up in a crate in a loud area of the building! I grabbed his little litter box and the kitten and brought him up to my office for the day. He was an adorable gray kitty. He was scared, of course, but there are so many thing to play with in the office of a person who works in IT, that he soon was prancing all over attacking wires and other things. I had a steady stream of visitors for the kitty. Jane brought him a ball and a long box from FedEx to play in. Vickie wadded up paper for batting balls. He was quite popular. Now mind you, I was so ANGRY that morning and mad at the world, but that kitten sucked all the mean out of me. He eventually was asking to get up and be with me, and he helped me type and such and answer the help desk line, but then he curled up and slept by my laptop where the heat of the fan was blowing out. How cute. I hated giving him up at the end of the day, but there was no way I could haul him home. I sure wanted to, though. Letting him go was a HUGE step for Sandy in the "just say NO" department. (I've been known to adopt a variety of stray animals in my day...I have poor will power and seldom say 'NO' when it comes to food and critters...) August 8, 2010 - The wee one is gone off to band camp, and the dogs have been on Level Orange (High Alert Stupid) since he left. They are worried about him, I know, but COME ON. They barked all night last night in search of their boy. Maybe they were just being stupid or maybe there was a prowler outside and in reality they saved our lives and I'm dissin' them for no reason... Nonetheless, they have been a ball-o-fun the last day and a half, being all dog ditzy like and such. I hope they continue this for the whole week the wee one is gone. Sigh. When we checked in his luggage (they have to search the luggage for weapons and throwing stars and drugs and such) the zipper burst and broke. That poor suitcase has served us well over the years. It's been to Tennessee and Florida several times and Hawaii and Texas and Arizona and Ohio...I got that thing back in 1997 when I had to travel a lot for work. The kids have each used it for band trips over the years or business trips. That suitcase has seen more of the world than I will ever hope to see. Seriously, that old cheap suitcase more than paid for itself over and over and over again. I was not shocked when it exploded at luggage check in, even though I wish it had lasted for seven more days... It deserves a good funeral. The wee one was going to seal it with duct tape and when he gets back from camp, we'll give her a proper send off to suitcase heaven. For my humming bird feeder this year, I had purchased store ready hummingbird food. I will NEVER do that again. I did not have the traffic to the feeder I normally have. I finally made up a batch of homemade sugar water, and now I can't keep the feeder filled up fast enough! I have had tons of the wee little birdies fighting over the feeder. Hummingbirds prefer the homemade sugar concoction much more than the store bought stuff, this is obvious. I have spent some enjoyable time the last week watching the little guys fight over the right to land and drink. (Oh, sure, there are six holes they could drink from and they could all fit there and drink in peace, but NO - they have to fight over it. Hummingbirds are way too much like humans...) I did not mow on Saturday as I had planned. The grass was so wet until after 11 a.m., then my brother in law was over to fix his breaks, and I did not feel like lobbing lawn projectiles into his eyeballs, so I did not mow. I will mow this morning, however. There is no dew or wetness in the grass this morning, so I can start right away. I'm holding off until 8 a.m., however, so as not to piss off any of my neighbors. My tomatoes are coming on at a steady rate. I should be making homemade salsa by the end of the week! YUM! I can't wait!! I make big batches and haul it in to work and force everyone to partake in my salsa. They don't seem to mind much... Well, it's almost eight...so I'm off to mow. I don't plan on wearing a bra. (If you are driving by, it would be best to divert your eyes - it ain't pretty...) August 9, 2010 - I find it humorous that now that the wee one has my digital camera at camp 2.5 hours away, I suddenly find a need for it to take pictures of stuff. Now, mind you - had it been just HERE where I could grab it, I doubt VERY much that I would have found a picture to take. It makes me laugh to myself. Twelve times yesterday at least I thought, "I'll run get the camera...oh, wait..." The thing I wanted to document the most was the barn six swallows that were bombarding the bugs the mower scared up. They were flying with a level of precision unknown to man. I am glad I had safety glasses on since there were several times I swear they were going to make direct facial impact. It pleased me to no end to have a posse follow me about on the riding lawn mower. Mowing can be fun and relaxing and full of surprises. I go on the 20th to get rigged up for the week long portable heart monitor. I have to laugh, because on the 21st I will be driving to Chicago to my daughter's new apartment. (I have never driven in Chicago, mind you.) I can see how that is going to come out on the monitor results! I hope they have a button to push for 'stupid idiot drivers' and 'oh, my stars I hate the big city' ... I know I'm supposed to do something each time I feel a gerbil, but how do explain laughing at something until you pee, or swerving to miss a deer or rouge turkey in the road, or chasing your stupid dogs down the street or...I can think of a million reason my heart would be affected just by my daily life adventures. "I think, ma'am, that you died here..." "No, I just fell asleep on the toilet and the circulation to my body was cut off..." I wish I could see the monitor in real time - see it for myself - such as hooking it up to a computer and watching it work. I would like to know what the old girl does when there is fact a feeling of gerbil movement. Many family members have been reminding me of the awful heart track record on both sides of my family. I'm going in to this race with a handicap already - but we'll just be patient and see what my heart is doing once the results get back! I am at peace with this and not worried. If something is wrong down the road, then I'll worry. I might not even worry then, I might just accept things and move forward. I don't feel winded, I don't feel sick (last time I said that I got 24 hour flu like symptoms, so I'm cursing myself here...) and I feel pretty darned good except for my right knee. I know my Mom's side of the family has bum knees as well. Cripes, anything that can go wrong might go wrong and you just can't sit here thinking about it. You deal with each failing organ as it presents itself. I am just hoping they all go in order, and not all at once - they need to take a number and wait their turn. I was better to my pancreas all weekend. With the wee one at camp, we can have whatever we want to eat without worrying about pleasing him, so we've been eating a lot of veggies and things we like the most which tend to be actually healthier. (I can blame the wee one since he's not here, right?) Last night's dinner was totally vegetables. Yum. So many fresh ones to be had and cheap this time of year if you didn't happen to grow them yourself. Last night, the last potty call before bedtime, I went out with the dogs at twilight and watched the bats do their jobs. I dread to think of what the mosquito population would be like without bats. Thank you, creatures of the night...please just stay out of my hair... Jake the dog has been so depressed without his boy. This morning he stayed out for a long time eating grass and puking. Sigh. Kia is not as upset, as it's is my youngest and Jake that share the closest bond. Jake has taken his departure of the wee one quite hard so far. He will cheer up tonight when my daughter comes over. The fur will fly with joy then. August 11, 2010 - Jake the dog DID cheer up quite a bit after my daughter's visit. She and her boyfriend brought over my grandkitten, Rocko. Rocko was not pleased to see the dogs, but the dogs were THRILLED to see Rocko...and taste Rocko...and contemplate which sides they would order when eating Rocko. The two old cats I have, however, were upset by the presence of a kitten. Immediately they turned into Maxine to the Max and hissed and made those threatening cat noises deep in their throats. Rocko just wanted to play with my cats. He is a brave grandkitten. He would go up to Taffy and dance around, trying to get Taffy to play. Taffy just yelled at him, "Get off my lawn!!" Muffy, king cat of the place, finally just laid out on the kitchen floor and would look up on occasion as if to say, "I've seen this before - this whole kitten thing...damned kids...." and fell asleep. He could not be bothered any further by the likes of Rocko. My right knee was hurting so much at work yesterday, that I got a straight back chair to sit in and pushed my office chair over to the side. When my daughter came in to spend her break with me, she looked at the chair, then me, then the chair, then me..."Did you pee?" she asked. "What?" I said, as I was busy and didn't pay attention at first... "Did you pee?" and pointed to my office chair. I broke out in laughter and said, "NO!" Oh my, I found that so funny. She knows my issues with my hair trigger bladder, and who wouldn't assume that I pushed aside a chair because I wet myself? Hahahahahaha. "I didn't PEE!" I said, "I am just using this chair instead because my knee hurts..." That made me laugh all afternoon. That will be the pass phrase to my next speak easy - "Knock Knock" "What's the password?" "Did you pee?" "Ok, you can come in..." Anyway, my knee was giving me grief, so I called my doctor's office. "I need an appointment for my knee because my body has decided to break down systematically all at once..." The receptionist asked how I hurt it. I told her it started hurting after we did inventory and I was crawling around the cement warehouse on my hand and knees. "Well, then, if it's work related, you have to go to hour HR department and fill out an accident report and..." she explained what I needed to do. "But, just because it started hurting after that we can't say I hurt it at work!" I argued. "What if it's just old age? What if my heart gerbils just have a summer place down in my knee?" They still insisted that if I even remotely thought I had issues from doing stupid stuff at work, then I had to report it there first. So, I waddled out to HR and explained to Brenda what was going on. She had me fill out an accident report and gave me a sheet of paper for the local hospital/emergency room. Ug. I can't tell you how it galled me to do that. I have carried all my babies there and never hurt myself. I have passed a kidney stone while in the last months of my last pregnancy and went to work the next morning after no sleep. I have worked 90 hour weeks and climbed and sweated and WORKED HARD for that place since High School and never turned in a report about getting hurt! I felt...I felt...OLD. I took my sheet in to the local hospital and gave a urine sample (you have to do this when getting hurt at work, of course, to make sure you are not hopped up on goof pills and such) and then had the doctor look at it. He saw no visible signs of swelling (neither had I) and he poked and prodded and asked if it hurt (which it didn't when he did that since I have been poking and prodding myself since this whole thing started and it hurts INSIDE, not near the outside) and then he ordered x-rays. I told him it only hurts when I stand up and walk and it hurts in bed at night. After the x-rays, he said the bones looked fine. "Maybe you pulled something?" he ventured. "Maybe I'm just getting older?" I retorted in a huff. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Crap happens." I can't believe I wasted good company money on that visit. Sigh. I'm such a wimp. No, No I'm not. Really I'm not. I have a high threshold for pain. It was just bad enough that I assumed there was something wrong. Apparently, however, it's not bone related. He sent me on my way with full clearance to 'go back to work' and I laughed. Nothing in my present job would stop me from working with a bad knee anyway. I could work with NO LEGS and be fine...just don't take away my fingers! When I got back to work I emailed the two Brendas in HR and said, "Well, at least when you get the results back from the drug screen, you will finally have to admit that I am THIS WAY naturally and it's not drug induced!" So, that is one less thing as it were. The pain in my knee is pain in my knee. I will ask my family doctor about it when I go back for the phosphate test results, but until then, I will limp around and deal with it. So now there are just two things to resolve and that is the heart gerbil thing and the phosphate thing. The sugar level thing I am working on myself. It's all up to me on that one. I would use that glucosamine and chondroitin stuff you can drink that I see on the commercials that make people happy and run around more, but the fact that is has the word beggining with "glucos..." in it would seem to indicate sugars which would defeat the whole 'apologizing to my pancreas' and all.. OH...before I forget. Did anyone see the wondrous sky after the CME (coronal mass ejection) that happened on August 1st? Oh My Stars! I did not get to see any 'northern lights' as it were, but the sky was alive with flashes of bombardment no the 4th. The two neighbors to my North had their mercury lights on (ug) so I covered myself in bug spray and sat out back to my South and watched the sky. Saw several meteors as well. I was just amazed at the amount of light activity up in the sky! I also said thanked God profusely for our magnetic field. The Perseid Meteor shower will be in full swing by tonight and tomorrow night, so I can't wait for that. (So anticipate RAIN and CLOUDS for the next 48 hours, as that always seems to be case when I want to view a shower like that...) August 12, 2010 - I waddled outside last night (as it was clear as a bell) to look for meteors. I was not disappointed. I was, however, irritated by the amount of flying critters who wanted to partake in a Sandy Blood Banquet. With all the equine encephalitis around nowadays, I had no desire to donate to buggys. Oh My Goodness.....hahahahaha. The dogs just ran out to the kitchen barking and making such a fuss. I went out to investigate. Seems I left the big cupboard door open where we keep the plates and glasses. Seems Muffy decided he was one of the Flying Wallendas brothers...he was happily in the cupboard looking for a place to nap! HAHAHAHAH. Man, when I go senile, will I be looking for a cupboard to sleep in? There is no cupboard known to man that could hold me! Muffy keeps me ever so entertained in his twilight years... Side note: I have noticed all my life that on the days I feel pretty and cute or especially "sexy" and "prowlish" - those are the days everyone says, "Gee, what's wrong? Are you tired?" or "Hey, you feeling OK?" After nigh on fifty years, I just accept this but have always wondered at it. If I look tired and sick when I feel pretty then I must look near death when I feel a bit off...go figure. QUIT LOOKING AT ME, PEOPLE. August 13, 2010 - They had a crane working out front of the building where I work yesterday. They are replacing all the damaged air conditioning units (from a hail storm a while back.) The crane fascinated me. It was HUGE! Go big crane, Go! Maybe it's the whole phallic thing or maybe it's recalling my happy hours as a child playing with my Tonka trucks and such - either way, it was fun to watch. The doctor's office called yesterday to tell me they had scheduled an ultrasound for my kidneys TODAY. Then they told me it was due to my poor second phosphate check which indicated kidneys were to blame for the high numbers. I told them it was not a good idea for Friday as I was without back up at work that day and all next week, so she gave me the number of the radiology place and I rescheduled for the 23rd of this month. (Besides, on the 23rd I can get in at 6:45 a.m. which will make the fact I can't eat or drink anything 8 hours prior more tolerable.) I wonder if it is kidney stones gone wild? I had passed a kidney stone back at the end of 1992 when I was pregnant for the wee one. ('Twas the single most pain I've ever experienced. Far worse than child birth!) After the passing of that stone (and good riddance, I say) I had a sonogram on my kidneys and they said that I had five smaller ones in there and I should have the blasted with a laser or something to break them up. However, that was seventeen years ago and I failed to return to have that done… I suppose that now the kidney stones could have clumped together over the years and compressed in to a supersized kidney stone not unlike a sun in the middle of a solar system, and its gravity is causing all of my issues as of late. Maybe I'm not really fat, either! Maybe I have a 50 pound kidney stone in there!! When they remove it I'll be skinny and after my skin goes back into shape, watch out world! Who knows how much money I could make from a 50 pound kidney stone? I probably would make the Enquirer cover, huh? (Draw a face on it and call it 'Wilson' and let it ride in my passenger seat…) I will not worry about it now, as I said before I'm not going to fret over something I cannot control at this point. As Doris Day once sang, "Whatever will be will be…." I am pretty sure 'Que Sera Sera' means 'She Who Walks With Calcium Deposits Leading to Renal Failure'... So, the week of the 23rd I'll be driving around with a 50 pound kidney stone with a face on it and a heart monitor with medusa like contacts strapped to me and maybe by then a dialysis machine in tow. Most people would be jealous. Last night my husband and I took my daughter to get underwear and socks. Prior to that we went to dinner and had a good time. I lectured her on life. I'm have no PhD in Psychology, but I have many years of life under my belt which of course gives me every right to spew forth all my wisdom all over her during a meal. August 24, 2010 - Finally, an update. What the heck, am I lazy or what?
First of all, I discovered that if you are home in the morning, you get to see
the MORNING GLORIES you planted! Hahaha. I'm on vacation this week and had
the pleasure of being amazed at the blooms which I've not seen until now! Who'd have
thought morning glories would have flowers in the morning? Please note that I
planted them near the satellite dish pole, and they are taking over. So far
reception is still good, but I fear for the worst. No one comes between me and my
Science Channel...
Today I made another huge bowl of salsa. My tomatoes have taken it upon themselves to fill the earth with their offspring and I've been chopping like a fool. I made a huge bowl last week for work and by today I had another ton or two of 'em. I chopped and chopped and froze this batch. My face is still stinging from the jalapeno fumes, so it has to be good. This morning I ran my heart monitor back up to the heart place since I had used up all the chances I had to record my gerbils in motion. I got it on Friday in the morning. I attempted to wear it at work, but kept pulling my leads off and nearly dropped the poor thing in the toilet once. I didn't have a 'gerbil' at work on Friday that I noticed, but I did manage to squish it against my steering wheel when I got in the car to go home. (You only get 12 times to push the button when you feel something, which in my case is a nomadic gerbil...) I had used one push in the doctor's office to learn how to push it and what it would sound like when I did. Eleven more to go...ten after I decided to let the heart monitor drive home on Friday. Duh. It was hot on Friday and I was sweating and the sticky goobers you hook the five leads to kept falling off. I decided I was not going to wear it until I could concentrate on feeling the gerbils (since I don't feel them when I'm in motion or working physically) and not wear it when I was sweating to death or else I'd never get to push the button. (The thing sounded like Rudolph's nose glowing when you push it, by the way. "She thinks I'm cute!") So, I didn't wear it Saturday when we drove to Chicago (more on that to come) and I didn't wear it Sunday since I was in a post-Chicago coma and slept most of the day. I did strap it on yesterday. I plopped down in a chair in a quiet house to read so I could know when I felt a gerbil and push the button accordingly. It went quite well for the most part. I got to push the button legitimately for the 10th, 9th, 8th, 7th, and 6th time. Actual gerbil movement! Woot. Some were good pushes where I could see my heart rate jump by 10 after the gerbil according to the monitor. Some, not so good - I felt the gerbil, but didn't see odd results on the monitor. (Not that I want my heart to blow out of my chest or anything, but I did want them to see what was going on.) Pushes six and five were accidentally done when I was doing dishes. I leaned against the counter while washing them and heard an odd noise. "Mmmmmmm, wonder what that is..." I thought to myself. Then when I did it again I caught on to what I was doing. Duh again. "Good Lord, I hope they grade on a scale..." I thought to myself. The rest of the button pushes were done when I felt the gerbil move last night, so I hauled her back up this morning and reported my boo-boos to the receptionist. "Oh, that happens all the time!" she said. They really just need a couple of good ones to decide if you live or die, apparently. Monday morning I rolled out of bed, showered, and drove myself up to the Radiology place downtown. (After surviving Chicago, driving downtown Kalamazoo seemed like rural roads and the cars were horses and buggies...) I thought they were doing a sonogram of my kidneys, but my doctor had ordered an upper right quadrant view, which is the gall bladder, pancreas, and liver. I watched what I could before she made me move to my left side. "Is that my gall bladder maybe?" I asked. "Yep, I think it's a gall bladder..." the tech said. I was surprised, as back in 1999 they went looking for my gall bladder and couldn't find it. I had a dye test back then and everything and the dye went right from the point of entry to my liver. No one could tell me if I had a gall bladder or didn't have one...and I opted NOT to have exploratory surgery to find out. The sonogram took ten minutes, and off I went to come home. The tech said the pictures would be available on line by the afternoon, so I called my doctor's office to ask when I should come in to review them. She asked the doctor, and he said he'd wait until he got the written results. So, that's another week to ten days we wait to find out if my organs are revolting. Viva the revolution! Sunday was spent in a coma. I only woke up long enough to pee and do petty things around the house. I was just drained from the whole "my daughter moved to Chicago" thing. Drained mentally. Physically, I didn't do much. I helped her unpack her kitchen and such, but the kids did all the heavy stuff. My oldest son took control of this move, rented the moving truck and the whole works! (GOD BLESS THAT BOY!) I think he knew I was having issues dealing with it all...plus he is just damned good to his sister and brother anyway. Saturday, ah, Saturday! Viva adventure. My husband and I went to bed early on Friday night, so we didn't hear the phone call from my daughter at 10:30 p.m. who left a voice mail stating she had forgotten her microwave and asked us to stop by her old apartment on the way out of town on Saturday. When we got up, we woke my daughter up on Saturday so she could coordinate the microwave hand off with her old roommate. That went well... My oldest had rented the moving truck on Friday PLUS a small little car to drive to Chicago. My daughter, her boyfriend, and Rocko my grandcat drove the little car there, and my oldest and my youngest took the truck. The heavy stuff was DONE on Friday by the kids. It was just up to my husband and I to go up there and see her new digs. I printed detailed maps. I practically made individual exit flash cards so my husband could read them to me. I was prepared as I was going to get! The bulk of the drive is highway and toll roads. Nothing to complain about. It's the last half hour that makes you poop yourself repeatedly. I am from a small town in a country setting and driving is not an issue. Even though I've navigated the likes of Austin, Texas and Tucson, Arizona in rental cars once upon a time does not mean I am an expert at city traffic by any means! My oldest son must of had our trip timed out perfectly. He called to warn us that there was a lot of highway work near Gary, Indiana right before we got there, and informed us the lanes were tight, so be careful. I think he was worried about us old codgers a bit! Smile. To be honest, it was not that bad at all getting to her apartment. I was amazed at the number of people out walking and running along Lake Michigan. Thousands at least. Billions, perhaps! People EVERYWHERE. I was trying not to kill us, so I didn't have time to admire the tall buildings that loomed to my left. By the time we were just a few blocks from my daughter's place, my son called again to say they were out in the street and had a parking space all ready for us. It's as if he could see us somehow. This made me laugh. We got there, and I refused to parallel park. I stink at it unless there is eight car lengths between each car. My husband took over, and he took several tries to make it in. People park tight there. I assume when you grow up with that you learn to do that whole 'park like sardines in a can' thing quite well. My daughter lives in a nice looking neighborhood. It had flowers growing every where. It had muscle bound, Mafia-like pigeons walking the streets. Every nation and race was represented on the streets around her apartment. Her place is small but nice, nonetheless. I helped her unpack her kitchen. I played with Rocko. I walked with her and Pat to the grocery store (just down the block to the right) and we got groceries for her. Last week when we got her stuff for her move and clothes and such, I made her get a wheeled cart to haul groceries in whilst in Chicago. I think they were making fun of the cart, the kids were, since they have only seen old people here using them to haul stuff through town or homeless people to move their belongings. However, everyone who walked in or out of that store had a cart like hers. There was a whole aisle dedicated to those carts. (Victory is mine, sayeth the mother!) I may have lived a sheltered life, but I know when pull carts are required for survival. By the time we had hauled back groceries and unpacked the kitchen stuff, and by the time I was done barking orders to the boys to haul out the trash and such, I think all of the kids were ready for us to leave. I was ready to leave, as well. I did NOT want to even attempt to fool myself that I could get out of Chicago in a dusk/evening setting. I wanted full sun for the departure. If I was going to cause an accident, I wanted to see what I was doing! Coming in on a quiet Saturday morning was the easy part. Leaving right before a Cubs game was about to start in the afternoon was HORRID. The inbound lanes were jammed packed with cars. I swear the left lane going North did not move once the whole time I was driving South! The people darted everywhere in their cars, as if to say, "We don't need no stinking lines!" I think my son said it best, "Crazy drivers do OK there, as everyone drives crazy. It's the good drivers that cause the problems..." So there I was, causing problems. My cool 'get out of town' reverse direction flash cards were invalid at some points. We missed one exit and drove around through the side streets to find a starting point again. (Pedestrians always have the right of way, in case you were wondering...) We were waiting for an exit later that never appeared so I just guessed at where I should go, which turned out to be the correct choice. Ug. By the time we reached the Skyway bridge, I had shrunk six inches from clenching every muscle in every part of my body that still worked. We were quiet for a long time, and finally we looked at each other and laughed. "Damn, we're hicks!" I stated. "Yes, Yes we are!" my husband agreed. Hahaha. Sometime this week I plan on going through the entire trip route via satellite to see where we were and how we got out. I need to know, as I assume this in not my only trip to Chicago in the coming years! Look out Google, here I come... August 26, 2010 - This has been a successful vacation as far as 'relaxing mentally' for me. I have only checked on work once, and that was because I was bored yesterday morning when I woke up at 4:30 a.m. I haven't logged on to work at all other than yesterday morning. No one has called (most likely just jinxed myself there...) I have puttered around the house and gone where I wanted to go when I wanted to go there, and have not had a 'hoot' per say, but I've been just plain out and out relaxed. The doctor's office called yesterday to announce what they found on my heart monitor test. (Since it was an office worker that called and not the doctor himself, I was immediately calm about the whole thing. Had it been critical, they would have sent an ambulance over or a helicopter or something...) She said that the doctor said there is a definite flutter and jump in heart rate but this is not totally uncommon. She also said the doctor said to stop any intake of stimulants (such as caffeine.) I agreed to everything like a good girl should. Then I pondered how I could give up morning coffee. I have coffee at home in the morning and then when I get to work. I could give up the work coffee, I decided, but I am not thinking I can give up the home morning coffee. Maybe I will just start buying decaf coffee. My husband said last night if I did that I could just make my own pot in the morning, then! (Grumble murphhhrrrr pleph....) Being the lazy person I am, I think maybe I'll just keep the "normal" coffee can in the cupboard but fill it with decaf. How would he know? Shhhhhhhhh, don't tell. So, the good news, my heart is not going to fly out of my chest at a high rate of speed in a projectile pattern aimed directly at anyone I may be talking to at the time. This is good. I am happy that the gerbils are just free roaming and not life threatening at this point, but I have a whole new respect for the fact that we need to listen to our bodies. Maybe the gerbils are just forewarning of things to come, so I will attempt to assuage the gerbils and make some changes in diet, etc. It was due to happen sooner or later, and I have to fess up to it. Sigh. Now I just wait for the results of the sonogram on my upper right quadrant, hopefully my three organs that were in the limelight in that test show they are OK but just pissed or something. Stay tuned... I bought myself some 'detox' tea that is supposed to help cleanse the pancreas and liver and kidneys. It is a cleanser, all right! After drinking that tea, I was FULL of pee! Hahaha. I peed and peed and peed some more. I made sure I drank MORE water as I didn't want to even get close to dehydration. So drinking normal water made me pee even more, and it was a vicious cycle. The night after I drank the tea I woke up and barely made it to the potty. Lordy. That tea,I decided, I will drink only on occasion when I'm at home and near a toilet and a change of panties. Smile. I have had the greatest time this week watching the hummingbirds. I made a new batch of sugar water on Monday or so, and they've been very good about coming to the sugar pub outside my back door. They are also very good at being possessive. There have been three at a time fighting for the right to sip the sugar water, and they get all 'Matrix' like when hovering and yelling at each other. It has made me laugh several times the way they 'talk' and chest bump and such. I was outside the other morning laughing at the hummingbirds and enjoying the morning coolness when the dogs went nuts and started sniffing the air. Their heads were raised up high and they were sniffing to beat the band. I decided to join them. I, too, went to the front of the pen and raised my head and sniffed the air. "Whadya smell?" I said in between deep sniffs of the air. (I smelled nothing, actually, but I had to try.) We must have looked like the girls from Petticoat Junctions all lined up along the fence with our sniff on. That was about the time Ron, our neighbor, drove by. I would have to assume that the neighbors have seen some weird things with me and the dogs in the dog pen. Hahaha. Poor Ron! Maybe after all these years he's learned to just say, "Eh, it's just Sandy..." and ignore my weirdness. So far no one has called the police... I have been collecting seeds from my four-o-clock flowers for the two weeks. I plan on having a four-o-clock dynasty next year. Bwhahahah. Last year I just had six four-o-clocks and took those seeds to create this years patch, and that will create a whole yard full next year. I can't wait. I love the smell of four-o-clocks. Every time I collect more seeds, I gush over them like Gollum and the ring. "Ah, precious!" Today my sister and I head over to my Aunt's house. I am not sure if we will clean the apartment or just visit, but it will be nice to see them nonetheless. Maybe I shouldn't clean for them - I have a comforter in my washer that just got done with the wash cycle, and I walked out and put in more detergent instead of softener. Ug. This is why I can't have nice things... Late Breaking Update: As soon as I posted this, the doctor's office called. Seems I have GALL STONES! (I didn't even know I had a gall bladder as I stated before. The tests I had done in 1999 showed no gall bladder. UG.) So, I have to run in to the doctor's office and sign a release form to have my information sent to the surgical group that my doctor's office uses (since I didn't have a favorite surgeon in my little black book.) I have that to look forward to now, having my mystery gall bladder removed and I am telling them I want to bring home my galls stones in a jar. Maybe they can fix Stella the hernia if I'm already under the knife anyway, right? The room made by removing the gall bladder will do nicely for all the entrails that have popped out and personified themselves as Stella. I will keep you posted. Lord knows you are all hanging by the edge of your seat on this one! August 30, 2010 - Back to work. I hardly dreaded it at all! The first day back was fine, actually. Like butter today went! Oy!
Speaking of school, my Chicago daughter started classes today. I hope she writes tonight to me to let me know how it went. She called me today at work, and mentioned how BRIGHT IT IS SO EARLY over there in Chi Town. Hahaha. Seems to have Rocko my grandcat all confused. I go to see the surgeon on September 9th for my gall stones. I also called my family doctor today to ask what type of heart problem I really have. (Calling it a gerbil has lost some of it's appeal.) It has an official name - Premature Atrial Contraction, or PAC for short. If you look it up, it's a benign arrhythmia of the heart. That means some of my heart cells fire off before the rest of my heart is ready to do anything, so it feels like it skips a beat or is out of whack, hence the 'gerbil' feeling. If you are going to have palpitations of the heart, this is the one to have I guess, from what I've read...and many people have gotten rid of their PAC man heart issues by eating right, exercising, and cutting out caffeine. See, it's very easy, really. So far I've been doing quite well on the caffeine part. I still have a morning cup, a real 'cup' that is, not a TUMBLER full of coffee like I normally drink several of in the morning. I've limited myself to a normal human sized cup of coffee and no more after that. I did drink a cola tonight with supper, but it was diet cola with no caffeine, which in reality makes one think WHY EVEN BOTHER YOU IDIOT?? There has been a hummingbird moth at my four-o-clocks flowers. I discovered this fact by watching Muffy run around with something in his mouth the other night. The dogs startled him, and he dropped his mouthful which promptly flew away. After that, I saw the moth hovering all over the flowers. I've never seen a hummingbird moth up close! Man, they can MOVE. Last night I dragged my husband out to see it in action, and there was Taffy the cat trying to eat the poor thing. We scolded Taffy and hoped the best for the moth. Sigh. However, I fear the cats will do him in if they haven't already!!
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afterwards, but we will have
all the kids over this weekend for an official celebration.) It feels like no time
at all since his birth (where he decided it was time to come out and did so with speed and
vengeance) yet so much has happened in those seventeen years. Sigh. (I think
one of my favorite pictures of him as a baby had to be when he had chicken pox. His
sister had generously shared them with her baby brother and he was COVERED head to toe,
inside and 
out, with pox. Back then I would amaze
family and friends with the Polaroids of the poor boy's spots almost as if I was proud of
how badly he was peppered with the things...)
our little family well and is
blessed to have a supporting older sister and brother that adore him and also treat him
like a...well - um - BROTHER. (The terms "turd head", "sheep
head", and "poop eater" are still used quite frequently in his 
presence...) The
boy has never had a proper Birthday Party per say with his birth so close to the
Christmas/New Year combo. I believe I will have to rectify that next year when he
turns eighteen. He doesn't seem to hold it against us that we never had a big bash
for him...so that is a good thing. 
All of my
married life (except for those bad years where I wanted him dead and his body drawn and
quartered...but I digress and we won't get in to that here) if I get a 'cool' pen, I drag
it home to my husband. I received one in the mail at work from a supplier, and I
opened it up and saw it was a fancy pen. Immediately I make sounds like Gollum in
'Lord of the Rings' as I squirrelled it away in my purse to haul home to my husband.
"I gots a pen, precious...I gots a pen..." I said later when I gave it to
him. It's my own little pavlovian reaction to a nice ink pens. Odd, but it's
always been that way. I have not tried to figure it out. It's just one of
those things that "is" and I can't change it. Genetic predisposition to
articles filled with ink must run in my family. 
Saturday was an adventure. It was the annual Chili Cook Off and Ice
Festival in my little town. The last two years my daughter and I have gone to Terri
(our hair goddess) to get our hair done, after which we would cruise the ice
sculptures. This year we saw a few ice blocks give their life for the greater good
of our viewing pleasure, but our time was limited. My wee one, my daughter's
boyfriend, and my husband all got their hair cut too. Then my daughter had her hair
highlighted and cut, and I just had a wash and blow dry for the relaxing factor.
Then we scurried home, loaded everyone in the car, and headed over to the neighboring town
for the Band District Solo and Ensemble that my youngest son was participating in. 
Oh, I found this quite funny... in the dog pen there was a trail of crow
foot imprints (see picture on left) in the mud leading up to a circle where it looked like
this bird did a fancy one footed dance in a circle (see picture on right.) Why in
the world would a bird DO THAT?!!! I WANT TO KNOW WHY!! 
out loud. Hahaha. She
also said in the post card that she passed up a lecture entitled (and she was not joking)
"Is Your Bladder More Active Than You?" She is in Florida, after all, she
said. I would have gone to that lecture, because - YES - my bladder is way more
active than I've been in decades. Smile.
On Friday when I was outside feeding the birds, I saw the flower truck
pull up. I laughed. I brought in the huge bouquet and read the card.
"For the 30th time, here's your darn flowers!!" That made me laugh,
too. Our time together over the last 30 years has been a roller coaster, to say the
least. The last few years have been the best, family wise. I am so glad he
finally realized what cool kids he has. The kids are taking us to dinner on Sunday. 
protection. He's 90 pounds of dog. There really isn't room for him under my
desk. I am happy he finds that being near me brings him comfort, but really now-
where am I supposed to put my feet?!?! Actually the whole place looks like an
animal flop house - Muffy is sprawled out in my computer case on the kitchen chair and Kia
is spread eagle in the middle of the living room, Jake is under my desk, plus Taffy the
cat has one of the Lazy Boy chairs. 
This
is a picture of the front of the birthday card I got my boss. When I saw it in the store,
I laughed VERY LOUD and bought a second one for a friend of mine since he appreciates the
use of the word "poop" as much as I do (even though it wasn't his birthday.)
My friends know I have a fascination with that word. It's the word, mind you
(not the act, although I do encourage a regular routine of pooping to keep the innards
cleaned out and such) that gets to me. When did that start? I have no clue.
Maybe it's the sound of the 'oooooo' part or how the "puh" blends so well
with the "ooo" part? Who knows. I just know the word 'poop' - when
used in certain ways - tickles me to no end. I guess if a word is gonna tickle my
funny bone, "poop" is better than "catastrophe" as that would be just
tragic to be laughing when there was one...
have done a little cartoon
that might illustrate (from an aerial viewpoint) how I was mowing yesterday. If I
were the neighbors I would have filmed it and sent it in to America's Funniest Home
Videos. (When the older neighbors were alive and lived next door, I can't tell you
how many times I would see Mr. Tolsma shaking his head as he watched me mow - so spaz
mowing is one of my signature things in life I'm pretty sure, but yesterday I topped all
previous efforts.) Due to my artistic side, I tend to look at the yard as one large
canvas for me to draw on. I have two acres of untouched grass waiting for me to
express myself. Express myself I did yesterday, with gusto, but I was in pain and in
such a mood it was only logical that the grass had to be punished and I succeeded in that
effort. Kudos to me.
My friend Vickie was here this week, and I got to have a Vickie Day on
Wednesday. I had taken a vacation day off from work and we spent the day
together. I never get her for a whole day when she's up here, as she is normally
running around seeing everyone else, so I was so excited. I picked her up at eleven
a.m. from her Dad's house. This picture is of Vickie and her Dad. I love this
picture. She looks so darned happy.
therefore she is immediately family.
Even the pets were all Zen with Vickie. (Zen meaning they are relaxed around her
enough to belch loudly directly in her face and shake drool up and down her with gusto,
just like they do with us.) Taffy just went nuts over her, as Vickie has a way with
cats. 
Saturday
my oldest came over and my daughter and her boyfriend and we all went to the parade in
Schoolcraft. That was fun, and two A-10s flew over which is always cool. We
went from there to get meat products to bbq on the grill. We ate and laughed and
napped and then went to the fireworks. Schoolcraft always has a nice firework show.
My old friend Judie G. showed up to sit with us. It was a hoot. I told
her that if someone wanted to attack the nation, doing it on July 4th during most of the
fireworks shows would be the most opportune time as no one would know they were under fire
until AFTER the finale. 
On Friday morning, I walked in to work to find one of our office chairs
strapped to my ceiling. (My Stewie cut out was also up there with it...) This
was a direct result of tormenting my coworker, Steve. He's been a good sport about
the whole harassment thing. I leave presents for him on his desk or monitor. I
have put Stewie on his car in the parking lot and under his door after he leaves work.
(Stewie has been all over the plant, actually. He's ended up in the chair of
many people. Stewie gets around.) Steve has retaliated a few times by stacking
office chairs on my own chair, so the chair that is hanging in the picture had a sign I
put on the bottom, "Steve, Put Me Down" in case he tried stacking chairs again.
When I saw the chair hanging from the ceiling, I just had to laugh. This was
the BEST to date as far as office revenge goes. Kudos to Steve. My boss
threatened to separate us. "You're just like my two kids, you two!" he
muttered. I find having fun at work (within reason, of course) helps the week go
faster. Maybe I'll give Steve a break this week and not torment him so. (Or
maybe I'll plot something so devious and chilling I'll end up on the front of a newspaper
somewhere! Bwahahahahahahaha....)
warning. There are also pictures of
storm damage on local news sites from storms that went through yesterday afternoon and
weather spotters confirmed a tornado. We,on the other hand, did not get drop of rain
yesterday! It always amazes me how it can be such bad weather just a few miles away
and nothing is happening where you are standing. I went out to water my plants last
night and have every night. It's been very hot and they get very thirsty.
We've not had a decent rain fall in my neck of the woods in a while. We NEED
rain. (Not a tornado, but a nice downfall an pitter pat of rain drops would be
lovely.) The grass is a lovely shade of dead.
My daughter has registered for classes officially and we will be moving
her the the weekend of the 20th of August. Sigh. Her apartment is not that far
away from Wrigley Field and there are games all weekend long apparently. How we will
find a place to park and move her in is beyond me. UG. I dread that part of this
whole thing. Her boyfriend got this picture of my 'grandson' and my daughter taking
a nap. Rocko will keep her company in the big city. Now if Rocko only packed
heat and was a ninja, I'd feel even better... Rocko is already spoiled rotten.
"Grandmeow" bought him a toy to send home with my daughter...
end of July already? The middle of the
year 2010? I'm still getting over writing 1979 on my checks, so where the hell did
the time go? Seriously, time - I know it's relative and all, but there are just
moments like this morning that it slaps me in the face and leaves a mark.
I think I will start with
today's excitement and back up from here, since I'm so far behind on blogging! 
I just got in from watering stuff, and found this tomato (to the left) in
my garden,
and me being the pervert I normally am
thought to make it into something else right away... But I
took the high road and chose option number two, which was a red cat (to the right.)
That is the first deformed tomato we've gotten this year, so of course you must document
it like your child's first school photo. Speaking of tomatoes, I made the best pizza
sauce and froze much salsa last week on vacation. Yum! (I got myself a kick
butt blender that could rip up a rhino in several pulses.) 