uhsir | Entries tagged with personal

Of course it was for a video.

Anything I post here will be just here. I'm not going to do the Crossposting thing. Life is complicated enough, right?

It's going to take me some time to figure things out here.

I'm wondering how many of my friends from LJ are over here. I've already connected with two. Yay! *huggles* I think most have moved on to the other, more instantaneous, social sites or maybe just given up completely.

Okay, I'm going to look around and see how things work here.

Current Mood: curious

My sister lost her battle with cancer. I can't think of anything else to say. Actually my head is full of thoughts but I can't get them out and into coherent sentences.

In general, this whole year has been an emotional mess. In July we had to euthanize our cat, Spot. His picture is on my profile page, greeting everyone as friends.

Okay, so that's where I'm at right now.

The beginning of December we took off on a trip, planning to be gone 6 to 8 weeks. Our son would keep an eye on the house. All was fine until January 2nd when our son called to inform us that there had been 2 feet of water in the basement and most of the stuff he and we had stored down there was now junked.

We packed up the motorhome and started out for home the next day. 1,700 miles. We made it in 3 long and tiring days.

When I walked into the house the smell about knocked me out. The flood water was creek overflow. Smelly, slimy, silty water.

While we were gone there'd been a LOT of rain in a short time and that means the creek comes up close to the house. Only this time, our neighbor told us, it came up way higher than usual. And the ice storm had knocked out power for about 14 hours. We've come up with a couple of possible scenarios of how it could have happened but we'll never know. It doesn't matter anyway.

( I Kept Saying I Needed To... )

It's been a year since hubby's horrible fall. He's doing really great, by the way. We didn't do our annual camping trip to the Covered Bridge Festival but we did do a day-trip yesterday with our son and his fiancé.

On the way home our boy took over the reins and he jabbered the whole time. I got a real sense of how grown up he is when he started talking about video games now versus "back in the day," meaning when he was just starting out gaming about a dozen years ago. I couldn't help laughing. Not making fun of him. I was just deliriously happy about my baby boy being an adult. It was a short laugh though because he was seriously concerned about the downturn in gaming with respect to skills, auto-leveling, instant gratification and a lot more. I'm not going to get any more into it because 1) it's not what this post is about and 2) I'm not a gamer and I understand very little about it. But I was amazed and am proud about everything he said. The conversation moved quickly to his job which he and hubby continued with while we gals started talking about wedding plans. It'll be here in a blink!

My sister started her chemo treatments. She's had two now. I called her and she sounds really good. My mom had a visit with her on Saturday and she suspects my sister is less hopeful than she makes out to be. I told her we'll just have to stay hopeful for her.

I've been sitting here today looking out the window at the beautiful early autumn scenery. The windows are open. A cool wind is blowing ~~stuff off the tables~~ through the house. The smell of burning leaves. That concerns me a bit though because of the wind.

Gotta go now because the Cubbies are playing the Cards. It's a beautiful day for a ball game!

GO CUBS!

Current Mood: peaceful
Current Location: Home
Current Music: The Chicago Cubs

I've been talking to my other sisters and my mom and we're all scared, angry and hopeful.

( Wow, I got a little gabby here... )

Hangin' in there.

My oldest sister just got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It's spread to her liver and lymph nodes. She starts an aggressive treatment next week. She's determined to beat it. Of course she is. That's how she is about everything that tries to get in her way.

I feel like my brain is paralyzed. I feel bad for being scared that she won't beat it. I guess it's good that we live 1700 miles apart because she sure doesn't need me bringing her down. She's the oldest, I'm the youngest of five and she was a big part in helping raise me. Everything I do now reminds me of her.

I want to curl up in a corner and make this not be real.

When I went out to visit my mother in December I told her I would start calling her every couple of days when I got back home. I wanted to be sure if she started having trouble again that I'd be able to get one of us kids to help her as soon as possible. She said that would be fine. We agreed that if she wanted me to cut back to a couple of times or once a week then I would do that. I'm calling her every evening now and we're both enjoying the dickens out of it. We don't talk long, 10 or 20 minutes, sometimes just 5. Mom has good days and not-so-good days. Mostly good though.

I realized today that these phone calls are probably helping me more than her. I didn't have a really close relationship with her growing up. We were quite the dysfunctional family, like most every other family. These phone calls are making us closer than we've probably ever been. I'm not saying my mom wasn't there for me before. She was always there. When I let her. When I didn't push her away.

Now I'm getting to know her as more than mom. Talking every day gives me a chance to find out about what else matters to her besides the family. Sometimes she'll start right out by telling me she's fine and everything's fine and she wants to tell me about something that happened that day or she wants to know what's going on with me for a change. By the time we finish any of our chats she's gotten me to talk a little bit about my feelings.

The other day I was putting on makeup and I thought about a time when I was a young teenager. My mother and I were going to go to the grocery store. I came out of my room and saw my mom in the bathroom putting on makeup. I asked her why do that just to go to the grocery store? She said she never goes out without rouge and lipstick at the very least. I've never been fond of wearing makeup but from now on I'm never going out without at least a little bit of rouge and lipstick.

Current Mood: loved

I had tooth #3 pulled today. First time experience. I was nervous about it but the procedure was pretty painless. I'm sure there will be plenty of pain once the numbing stuff wears off.

I'm hoping with all my might that this will finally put an end to the 30 years of pain and sensitivity this tooth has been giving me. It started when I got a cavity in the tooth and had it filled. I've had several dentists over the years but none of them could find any problem. The x-rays showed that the root went way up to my sinus cavity. Maybe that was causing the problem. I've asked them all to just pull it. "No! It's got a good base!" I even went to a specialist to see about getting a root canal but he couldn't determine which tooth was causing the pain, #3 or #4. I told him do both. He said that's not the way it's done. I'm amazed at how all of these dentists basically just didn't care that I was in pain. There had to be something someone could do to end this pain. Seriously, more than once I considered whacking at it myself but I just couldn't figure out what to use.

Then we moved out here to the cornfields and had to find a dentist. We called all around since we didn't have insurance. This office gives 20% discount if you pay on the day of service so we tried them first. We were very pleased with the dentist and staff. I was also impressed because he suggested I get a mouth guard fitted because I grind my teeth at night and I was catching the inside of my cheek. I'd had that going on for decades, didn't know what was causing it, and he's the first one to mention it. He also took the filling out of #3 and did some stuff to it. It sort of worked and lasted about a year but the pain came back.

Well, he retired two years ago and passed the practice on to a young, married couple, both dentists. She works mostly with the young ones because, he says, the kids are scared of him. I don't believe that. He's a very nice man. He's also very laid back. Maybe the kids wiggle around too much for him?

Last year after my daughter's wedding, I was finally fed up with the pain. I told him I wanted to have it pulled. He said he would do that but he asked if I would try a root canal first. Thank you! I wanted to hug him. I actually got teary-eyed. I think I scared him.

The root canal happened over 3 sessions. But the pain continued. I shouldn't have had any pain when he tapped on the tooth but I would feel a zing on the front side. He looked at the x-ray and saw "something strange" that he wondered might be another root. But he didn't have the equipment to get at it so he sent me to a specialist. It turns out that there was a "tooth bud" in there. Huh? It's a little tooth. Sometimes people get extra teeth growing out, but lots of times they just sit under the gums and usually don't bother you.

So today he pulled it all out. Before he started I told him maybe I could plant the tooth bud and it'll grow into a new tooth he could use to fill the hole. He chuckled at that. When I got up to go, the tooth and bud were on the tray and I said the bud looked like a cute little tooth. He said "Yeah" and then he put on his magnifier glasses and said "Hmmm" a couple of times. Tooth geek! LOL

I think my trouble with posting here is because I feel like I have to write about everything that's happened to me since my last post. I have enough trouble putting my thoughts into words but I also want what I write to be impressive or at least interesting. I also have lousy memory for details. All of that ends up putting me into a sort of panic state when the great big empty "New entry" box glares at me.

So I change that now. I hope. Okay, I'm going to work really hard to change that. I'm not sure how to do it so I'm just going to start somewhere. This will be a work in progress. So here goes.

And the mind goes blank. Deep breath. Relax. Okay here goes.

Last month hubby got released from the doctor and the physical therapists and is free to do any activities he was doing before the accident. Also, my mom got released from the heart specialists because the medication wasn't helping and they feel trying any procedures would be too risky for her condition. So that meant I could get back to life as usual. I felt like I'd just been pulled out of the ocean and left on the beach.

But I'm getting back to life as it was, sort of. I think I need to make some changes though.

Okay, that's enough for now. My head is spinning.

Hubby is healing really good. The doctor told us it would take three to six months. It's been about two and a half and he's able to do things and get around almost like before the accident. His endurance is still way down but that'll come back up now that he's able to do some exercising.

My mom's health is kind of a little roller-coaster right now. On top of the A-Fib she's got Congestive Heart Disease. My sister and I flew out to help her a few weeks ago. Since I got back home I've been calling her almost every day. Now I found out she's not telling me stuff. One of my other sisters, who lives out there, said mom has only been taking half of her medicine and she's propping herself up with pillows to sleep. She's supposed to let the doctor know about that right away. Argh!

Christmas was just another day this year. We didn't decorate. No snow. My son dropped by and he was wearing shorts and flip-flops! Winter is supposed to be cold and snowy!

I found that weight I lost back in October. So frustrating.

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Lizz Wright

On October 9th, my husband was on a ladder cutting a branch when the branch snapped, knocking the ladder. He called out, I turned and watched him fall to the ground. You know how the movies show stuff in slow motion? That's how I keep seeing it, over and over. He landed with his arm under him, smashing his wrist and dislocating and fracturing his shoulder. He also fractured his pelvis in three places. He spent a week in a hospital where they set his wrist with a steel plate and pins. He's home now. He's getting more mobile but he needs help with everything so all of my time is taken up and then some. The toughest thing right now is sleep. I can only sleep when he does and his pain keeps him from sleeping longer than 2 or 3 hours at a time. So it's been a crazy three weeks and I'm not sure how long it'll stay crazy but things are coming back around to normal. Oh, and I've lost weight and I'm getting back in shape, so there's that.

My mother, so matter-of-factly, just letting us kids know that on Friday the 12th she will be "having a procedure where they sedate you and shock your heart with paddles."

Of course I called her immediately because she's 1700 miles away from me.

I learned that she was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation 20 years ago. Why did I not know this before? Oh, because it wasn't really anything. Whenever it "bothered" her she could "fix it with a good cough." But this past week she was having some trouble and noticed she'd lost some color so she went to the nurse who checked her and sent her straight to her doctor and now a cardiologist has her on Warfarin, but hopefully the procedure will "fix the problem so I won't need to take it anymore."

OMG!

Two of my sisters live less than an hour away from her and both have made plans to be with her during and after. One more sister, a brother and I are way the heck far away. Hubby says we can hit the road Sunday and be there by Tuesday.

She lives in a retirement community and knows "lots of people here who have this problem and they're doing fine." I'm not supposed to worry because she's got lots of reasons to stick around for good while.

I trust her.

Current Mood: scared

I'm in a mood so, where did I leave off?... Ah!

( Learning to let go... )

So that cutting the apron strings thing ... I've always thought it was the parents that had to do the cutting but right now I feel like it's the kids that are doing it.

My interest with Jane Eyre was rekindled when I bought a DVD of the 1970 movie (Susannah York and George C. Scott) a few years ago. Bits of scenes and feelings and emotions overwhelmed me. What the heck? Well, I started to watch it but stopped myself because I really wanted to read the book first.

But I had noticed the poor quality of the DVD so I did some investigating and discovered that there isn't any good quality of this movie. Also, my copy has some scenes missing. I'm disappointed but not too upset since I only spent a few dollars on the DVD. So I put the thing on a shelf and promptly forgot about it.

Then a few (?) months ago I downloaded the book from the Gutenburg Project onto my new-old tablet and I set myself on a course to read one chapter each night. The "each" didn't happen but I finally did finish it.

I struggled a lot with the language. I had to keep going back over or digging into a dictionary. It kind of killed the feel a bit but I finally adjusted. Wow, did people really talk like that back then? I will also confess that there were a few times that I skimmed over the really preachy parts.

I'm not going to analyze the book or movie here. There's enough of that out there on the internet.

( This post, my friends, is all about me! )

I'm using all of my free time, albeit not much time, but anyway, to catch up on the past 8-ish weeks here at LJ.

I'm reading a lot of angst, I'm still back in October, about LJ redesigns and pulling out of the US and ????

So I'm thinking it might be time for me to seriously consider signing up at Dreamwidth.

But, well, those of you who know me know how much I dread change.

I know Dreamwidth works on an invite-only basis but also, right now, they ~~are maybe taking advantage of the LJ situation and~~ have opened up signing up for a free account. One of my ~~suspicions~~ questions right now is if there is a difference between this open free account offer and an invite account?

So if anyone has info, be it pro or con or neutral...all is welcome. Need input!

Otherwise I'm sure I'll just shuffle on back into my safe and cozy LJ corner. For however long I may have one.

Current Mood: uncomfortable

I'm on the last leg of my current trip, which means I'm on my way home. This journey started out with our annual trek to the Covered Bridge Festival in Rockville, Indiana. From there we traveled down to Orlando, Florida and spent an amazing day watching Dragon Boat Racing and rooting for dear friend

gatebee! Who knew! I sure didn't, but I figured it had to be something awesome because she has been so completely absorbed by it. So now I'm a new fan. She keeps trying to get me and hubby to join up with whatever local team, and I love her for that, I really do, and I'm really tempted...Ahhhhhh!

From there to New Orleans, LA and a few days, not enough time, with my daughter.

On to Houston, TX and hubby's uncle and cousins, four fabulous ladies who love their daddy to bits! We came away from there with a couple of grocery bags worth of personally-harvested pecans, thank you very much!

Then onward to Sun City, AZ and my mom and two sisters. Hubby insisted we opt for the cheaper weekly rate but I understand that he was saving me from the agony of deciding on how many days to stay. It ended up working out perfectly, details being too teary for me to elaborate.So Saturday night I hugged my mom tight, struggling to let her go until she told me she's going to hang around for a long time. So I let go.

And now we're heading home but I feel like I'm stretching a rubber band way past its limit.

Current Mood: melancholy

Hubby and I just went to see Hope Springs. We've been wanting to see it since it came out but just couldn't fit it in. Then we saw the little local theater is showing it and we promised ourselves we'd get there and we did, today, the last day. What a great movie! Lots of it, little bits here and there, "hit home" and, each time, he or I snuggled a little bit closer together. Dear Hollywood, please make more movies and shows with stories like this!

I've been cleaning up my email archives, which is oh so boringly tedious! I came across an email from 2004 regarding work stuff that I'd sent from home. It was a "note to self" thing all full of programming gobbledygook. I barely remember what any of it means. Sad or glad? A little of both.

I guess I did a good job of breaking my fall. I don't have anything hurting too bad. My neck and right shoulder do a little bit. Yay!

Current Mood: fine

Oh man, am I ever gonna hurt tomorrow.

Walking into the hallway I suddenly found my foot flying out from under me. There being nothing to grab hold of to stop me from going down, I went DOWN! Now, trying to remember everything that happened in that split-second, I stepped with my right foot onto a rug we have there. Said rug has a rubbery non-slip backing on it, which failed. Horribly. So when my right leg flew out from under me I, simultaneously, cried out in surprise, tried to shift my momentum to my left leg and, seeing that was not going to happen, put my hands down to help break the inevitable. Immediate pain points were: right butt cheek, right wrist, left hand and left knee. And now, a few hours after-the-incident, I'm feeling something in the area of my right shoulder and up that side of my neck.

In my anger after falling, I threw the rug out into the garage (this all happened in the entryway from the garage into the house), grabbed a towel and bottle of cleaner and scrubbed the floor over and over and over. Well, it didn't help. The area is still slick as snot!

I don't know what the flooring material is because it was there when we bought the house. It's "wood" but I think it's the faux-wood stuff. Before we bought the house we discussed the "wood" flooring explicitly. We're more the ceramic tile type. I remember saying I was okay with the "wood" as long as the future included replacing it with ceramic tile. Deal. Okay. Sold.

I've never, ever had this slick-as-ice problem in any of our houses that had tile. So...

Can we redo "wood" with ceramic tile now? Sure, if we're willing to skip some traveling. Hmmmm... Grrr, grouse, moan!

On a lighter note!

My cat, Spot (he's the cutey on my profile page), having earlier begged to go out into the aforementioned garage (he claims to be warding off mice but I think it's all about the treats he gets when he comes back inside), is refusing to come in. I have checked on him several times now but he isn't interested. Fine. I put a dish of water out there, told him good night and closed the door. I'll check again before I finally go to bed. Brat!

My weight is up again and higher than ever. I'm not surprised. I'm up to being able to workout again but I haven't been. I'm working on fixing that. I believe my biggest struggle is with behaving around food. I try, really I do, and I'm usually good, but I fail miserably after the sun goes down.

Boring! Okay, okay, I have some exciting stuff this time. Ready???

My son is finally jumping into the ring of battling down his weight. For a couple of years I've been urging, coaxing, begging and [insert every other gimmick a desperate mom resorts to] in order to get him to exercise and eat healthy. I don't know what caused this, I'm guessing it's his EMS/Paramedic classes or maybe his clinical work in the ER, but really, I don't even care! I am the happiest mom on the planet!

A few weeks ago he asked hubby and me to make up a list of things (repairs/maintenance/improvements) that need to be done in and around the house/yard, even if we think he can't do it. Wow, um. okay! Then hubby told me they had a conversation about seeing the doctor about getting on a program to lose weight. So the doctor suggested we sign up for Weight Watchers (WW) Online and come in to see him every month or two for evaluations. He said since this is doctor ordered it'll be tax deductible. Every little bit helps!

So last Sunday hubby and the boy signed up. I did not, figuring I'll reap the benefits of their efforts since I'd be doing all of the shopping and cooking, etc. Well, by the end of the day I was completely stressed out and confused as hell. On Monday, after hubby insisted, I signed up. Meanwhile, the obstinate side of me sought out alternatives and now I'm also signed up at the totally free SparkPeople (SP). I know I signed up at this place some time ago but I guess they purge inactive accounts because I tried retrieving my account with every email I've ever had but none of them hit. Anyhoo!

My plan is to analyze the WW program versus the SP program and decide if the cost of WW is necessary. *giggle* Hmmm, figuring the value factor for the guys is going to be really tough and I'm really tempted to not even bother. Seriously, I know the end result is going to be for them to stick with WW and I'm fine with that. For me though, I've had a week to play with both and I'm not at all impressed with WW.

My biggest problem with WW is the login page. I have my browser set to automatically log me in at both sites. WW shows me the same thing every day. Even today when I moved into week 2, the bottom half of the page still showed the same "Recipe of the Day" and the "Cheat Sheet" that I saw every single day last week. BOOR-ING! On SP there is a "Today's Features" slideshow thingie smack in the middle of the upper portion of the page that cycles through a bunch of new stuff every day.

My second disappointment in WW is the feeling of abandonment. Once I'm logged in there's just nothing on the page to excite me. SP has SparkPoints and Trophies! If WW has anything like that they sure hide it well. I'm guessing the SparkPoints are there for more than just entertainment and motivation and education but right now I'm getting a kick out spinning the wheel.

At this time I'm pretty sure I won't be continuing with the WW membership after my initial 4 months.

After our first week we have each lost some weight. Me: 3, Hubby: 4, Son: 8. We know that's not going to be the norm and it shouldn't be, but it's encouragement, even though WW took away a couple of daily points from each of us.

Current Mood: accomplished

So ever since we finished up mulching around the back deck we've been finding it torn up. In addition, the seed is getting dumped out in piles. We've been blaming the squirrels. We figured they had buried seeds and were trying to get to them. We put grease on the feeder pole and spread red pepper flakes all around the area.

Well tonight I was passing by the kitchen window and happened to look out and was completely taken aback by what I saw.

dirty rotten scoundrel

The dirty, rotten scoundrel is a RACCOON!

I apologize for the darkness. I had to take the picture from inside and through the window. Plus it was dusk outside. I tried to lighten it up as much as Photobucket could go with it.

Current Mood: aggravated

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Page generated July 1st, 2025 07:01 pm

Uh, Colonel?

It's my side arm, I swear!

Entries tagged with personal

So I Made My First dreamwidth Post

Getting Back to Normal

Happy New Year! Oh, And Your Basement Flooded.

Getting Along

A Mother's Work...

I'm Scared As Hell

Looking at Myself in a Mirror

Pain Go Bye-Bye

Settling Down

Coming Around

Could Have Been A Lot Worse

So I Got an Email Today

So This Is What Empty Feels Like

Jane Eyre and Me

Reaching Out For Dreamwidth Info

Emotion vs. Philosophy

Hope Does Spring

Oopsy Daisy!

Again About the Weight!

Caught in the Act!