Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Heartbroken

I still can't say a whole lot right now without falling apart. I have been absent from the blog for a while. Saturday, February 11, my mother had been going through her day. Nothing out of the ordinary. They had gone to a funeral for an elderly neighbor. They returned home, changed clothes and started pulling out items for an early dinner. After a phone call, my mom told my dad that she wasn't feeling great and was going to lay down for a bit. My mom went from a perfectly healthy person to unconscious in a matter of hours. My brother and I raced to their town to find she had experienced a stroke which resulted in a brain bleed that was inoperable. The next day, the neurosurgeon gave us the devastating news that the catastrophic bleeding had damaged her brain stem beyond repair. She was gone. In our fog and despair, we worked with our state's organ donor service and filled out the necessary paperwork to donate any and all organs and tissue and blood vessels that could be used. It truly felt unreal...walking through a nightmare from which we could not escape. It still feels that way. My brother and I stayed with Dad last week while the hub and the kids went back home. We have been surrounded and embraced by many friends and family. We had a beautiful celebration of life. I have lost my hero. Did we have our clashes? Yes, but what mother-daughter duo does not. She was the best person I have ever known. I still can't talk about her in the past tense. My brain cannot wrap itself around all of this. Probably never will. I'll say these few things and then be done for a bit.

1. Hug your loved ones. You never know when it is the last time.
2. Consider being an organ donor. For our family, it is one of the positive things in this nightmare that is helping us through...the fact that our tragedy can give another family a second chance since Mom was so healthy.
3. The suddenness of this is devastating, but I am so glad she went quickly. The thought of my super active vibrant mom being disabled and dependent on others is one that she would have never been able to be at peace with. She slipped away peacefully next to my dad.

There are many other things, but I just can't do it right now. The two most difficult things I have ever done in my life I have done in the last week: kissed my mother goodbye for the last time and kissed my dad goodbye and left him alone in that big house of theirs.

I keep thinking we'll all wake up, but I know we are living a nightmare. It will get better. Day by day. WIth God's help, it will get better.

Night all.


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Friday, February 10, 2017

Not much to say

I am currently frozen and am in need of boiling myself in the shower. Sorry for that visual. The hub and I stood outside to order food from a food truck and wait for their square to accept our card. While his burger and my Cuban sandwich were tasty, I got so cold that I could not remedy said problem by zipping up my coat and willing myself to be warm. While I would normally rely on the kindness of one of the children to snuggle up with and warm up their mother, they are all currently occupied with friends for a few hours. SO I am left to rely on the strength and constitution of our water heater to provide boiling H2O in which to fix the chill.

The mirror is fogging up, so I think we are good.

Night all.


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Thursday, February 9, 2017

Oops

My child wrote the blog post last night, but I didn't post it for her. Whoops. I was so out of it last night, I didn't know what was going on. We've had a busy day of errand running, bunny building and pancake making. My two extra sons(friends of S's since kindergarten)and their cousin came over for pancakes at 10:30 this morning. Their parents had to work and I had buttermilk that needed to be used, so they put away some pancakes and provided some comic relief before leaving to go to soccer tryouts for school. I had to do some work at work this afternoon and I also indulged and watched Boo! A Madea Halloween this afternoon. I laughed so hard I cried. True story.

That is about the extent of my day...oh and the oldest and I went driving in a new area. And we didn't kill each other.

Night all.


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Wednesday, February 8, 2017

One day of school

Hey it is G. I am writing the blog for Mom. She is really tired. I only had to go to school one time this week. It was cancelled Tuesday and Wednesday. But due to sickness we can not have it at all this week. It is nice not having school because you can actually go somewhere. Without being stuck in the house all day due to snow. But I do feel bad for the people that have the sickness that is going around. Sometimes I like being out of school, but I miss my friends when I am out. Today we went out and had lunch together. Later while we were going to church, S thought she left her jacket at Salsarita's. We have no idea where it is. So if you find it report to me!!! :)))))


Night all!!!!!!


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Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Day One

So here we are in school sponsored sick day number one. My sinus infection reached a new yuck point and the kids were ready to enjoy their unexpected day of freedom. The boy enjoyed some online gaming with his buddy on the xbox. The girls enjoyed sleeping in and then making plans for the day. I was able to sew up a few bunnies to prepare them for stuffing. I hit the wall by about 11:00am...just about the time the kids were ready to get crazy. Unfortunately for them, crazy turned into a trip to the grocery for more meds and a trip to Hobby Lobby to get more poly-fil to stuff bunnies. I can sit and stuff a bunny and cough and lay my head back for a little while. Then G helped me get crazy and put some stickers on the back of my car. I've had one of those removeable stickers on the inside of my back window, but nothing else. That's how boring of a day we've had...but I am totally fine with that. Currently, one has gone to the movies, one is xboxing(guess who) and one is asleep on the couch. Party animals we are.

I'm going to take some more meds and get another layer of clothes on.

Night all.


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Monday, February 6, 2017

Well, that is interesting

I got a panicked but hopeful text from my oldest this afternoon. "Is school really out the next two days?!?!?!". I was confused since there was no snow on the ground. No tornado damage knocking out power to the schools. "Not that I know of...let me check around." SO I checked Twitter and the different news websites and the school website. Nothing. Then the 12 year old texted and stated the same material. "I don't know. There is nothing out there for public consumption, so I have no clue." Then more panicked, but excited, texts. One had already been invited for a sleepover at a friend's house. "We don't have sleepovers on school nights...you know that." "But MOM, the teachers say that it is cancelled....so I can spend the night?". Ugh. Finally, an adult person with credibility beyond hearing rumors in the hallway texted that school was indeed cancelled for the next two days due to illness. Lots of the counties around us have been closed and teacher, student and substitute absences warranted a shut down and deep clean of our school system as well. I think the cheering volume level just about blew the roof off the schools. Mine are certainly happy...especially since we are having a tropical winter and those snow days are just sitting there unused.

So we will get to sleep in and I can sleep off some cold medication. Thank goodness.

Night all.


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Sunday, February 5, 2017

Super Bowl Snoozeday

I did not sleep well last night or at all. Then I made the choice, questionable as it turned out to be, to take full strength Sudafed before work this morning. Not the Sudafed light, but the stuff you have to show ID for and soon, at least for our super meth making state, will probably have to give some sort of urine sample in order to purchase. The whole morning I felt like I was watching myself work while worms crawled through my hair. It was not pleasant, because I had to try and communicate with others. It was a challenge for sure. So when I got home, I really wanted to have a nap, but remembered that the Valentine's Dance is this coming Saturday and I needed to get the girls each a dress. Got that done and then I sat down to watch the Puppy Bowl with the boy. Let's just say, I watched enough to hear the one legged dog was from Tennessee and then I conked out hard for 20 minutes. Because of that indiscretion, I will probably not be able to sleep tonight, but boy did it feel nice. We rounded out the afternoon by helping the hub clean the rest of the garage(mouse count up to 7 caught in there...yuck). The girls are currently at church at the youth Super Bowl party. The boy, the hub and I have consumed pizza and are watching from the comfort of our couch. I was in pajamas before 6pm. There's no shame in that. In terms of commercials so far, the favorite so far being Terry Bradshaw with the stain on his shirt. That's all I've got.

Going to go snuggle with my boy and see if I can make to half time before cooking out again.

Night all.


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Saturday, February 4, 2017

I'm Kinda Tired

We had our big fundraising dinner this evening to benefit the youth summer mission trips. It was quite the affair with beautiful table decorations, a silent auction, wonderful entertainment and gourmet food. S and I went in this morning to help with food prep. I can honestly say that the two of dealt more with sweet potatoes this morning than we ever have in entire loves. S peeled five gajillion potatoes and I chopped and peeled that many as well. We both have the inconvenient blisters on our fingers to prove it. We chopped apples and made stuffing for the pork loin with our favorite dentist. How funny is that? Yesterday he was cutting half of my tooth off to make way for a crown and today he was instructing me on cube size for sweet potato pieces. He did stop to check and see if I was experiencing pain from yesterday. I fibbed a little and told him I was fine. It may just be residual tenderness from the numbing and work that went on in there yesterday. Hopefully that white lie won't come back to bite me in the form of a root canal. Serves me right if it does. If only I could relieve my stress a different way other than clenching my teeth. Crack..crack..CROWN ME!!

Anyhoo, enough about my screwed up dental work. The entertainment was great. I enjoyed seeing my oldest get up and play her ukulele along with another player and a singer. Elvis is always a hit and I think they were successful. My favorite magician performed tonight. If you want to look him up, go to YouTube and look up "Ed Ripley Cups and Balls" and you can see him. I usually don't use the full names of relatives or friends on here since they might not want to be mentioned and I am usually writing this at night. So if I were to call relative X up at 10:30pm on a Saturday night, they would answer the phone with "What's wrong?!?! Do you need us" and not "Am I on the blog tonight, because yes you can mention me thanks for asking." It might make Thanksgiving dinner a little strained, so I just refer to them by their first initial. But Ed is an entertainer. He's also a nuclear metallurgist, a musician, a crafter, a genius and a gifted magician. He has several patents. He is friends with one of the top balloon artists in the world and he has created tricks for some of the big Vegas magic acts. And coolest of all? He's our friend. So whenever he is doing any part of his act, buddy we are THERE. My kids think he is the bomb diggity, so naturally, they enjoyed the heck out of him.

In the midst of all these preparations, my sainted husband was at home cleaning out the garage of all the crud that is providing refuge for apparently the whole mouse population of our neighborhood. As of 9:50 tonight, we have caught 6 mice in two days. He got all of the sawdust out and the old lumber and crap out and took it to the dump. So now, when we pull into the garage, we can easily see the carnage from the t-Rex mousetraps right on the middle of the garage. Yuck.

After all that, I just want to say thank you to all those who came to the meal or helped with the meal or brought something for the auction. It all is helping these kids with the opportunity to go minister to those who need God's love so desperately. What a gift all the way around!

Night all.


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Friday, February 3, 2017

Time in the Chair

I spent some time in the chair this morning. Two hours almost. I got numbed and then numbed again. I don't think I've ever had a needle in the roof of my mouth before today, but there's a first time for everything. Even with the suction, my panicked swallowing probably netted me a good cup's worth of ground up tooth powder sludge in my stomach. Yuck. I now am the proud owner of a temporary crown and a sore mouth. But at least the crack and hellish pain are no more. My dentist is the best and thank goodness he is a patient man. I behave when I am there, but it did not feel good. At all. I'll go back in a couple of weeks for my permanent, pretty crown.

The girls are gone to the movies and a party and the boys are messing with the xbox. I'm listening to a documentary about a prison break in Ohio on Easter Sunday. Really uplifting stuff.

That's about all I've got. It is getting close to bedtime.

Night all.


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Thursday, February 2, 2017

T-Rex Strikes Again

Sorry to all of you out there who are against any kind of animal killing. This post will not be for you. We have a garage that is unique in that it has a door at the front and the back. Since it only holds one car, it has to have something in it to make it more palatable. The mechanism of the back garage door is held up partially by a 2x4 that runs from one side to the other. Every so often, we will see a little creature run across the 2x4 to another location. This is kind of freaky and makes us not want to be in the garage all that often. We do have woods behind our house and the neighbors have a wood pile and a yard they never mow, so there are plenty of little rodents hanging around. The pest control guy came on Wednesday and put two mouse traps called "T-Rex" traps on the 2x4. Since then, we check the status of the traps. They have not moved since they were put out...until tonight. We opened the garage and, eek, there was only one trap. Where was the other one? I was not going to look. I'm a chicken. I told the hub who said he would check it when he got home. I got a "We got one!" Text. Kind of reminds me of Ghostbusters. So glad we got it. I have no life.

I get a new tooth tomorrow. I pray I can make it through the night tonight, O thought I was going to tear the house apart it hurt so bad last night. Clove oil rescued me.

Night all.


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Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Laundry Lady

I was a basement dweller today.  Laundry was taking over the entire house and I had to address the problem.  SO, I took the ipad and laundry down to the dungeon and got things started.  While waiting for the load to be done, I watched a documentary and sewed a bunny.  It is closing in on bunny season and I need to get to sewing.  I need stronger glasses to thread the needle, but it is always nice to get back in front of the machine and create something. 

I did get the laundry done and even snuck into the oldest's room and got hers done as well.  She was in dire need of clothing, so it was a good thing.

Now I am going to finish up at work and go to bed.

Night all.