Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Tuesday morning

I have a new great nephew born yesterday.  Welcome to the world Baby Jack!   Babies are indeed a reminder of hope and renewal!

So why am I in a funk today?   I just don't know, but I am feeling sort of blah and sort of blue.  Like I would just as soon stay in my pajamas all day and watch Law and Order re-runs on TV.

Got to get moving.  I have places to be and people to see. 
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Mom’s Schedule 9-23 through 9-27, 2013


Monday            Gym @ 11:00 am

                        Women’s Group 7:00 pm

Tuesday            Orthopedist 10:10 am

                        Starbucks 1:00 pm
                       
                        LC Call 4:00 pm

Wednesday            Gym 12:30 pm

                        Chiropractor 5:15 pm

Thursday            Therapy 10:30 am

                        Oral Surgeon 1:30 pm
                       
                        Help Carol pack for her trip- evening

Friday              Dentist 11:40 am
                       
                        Gym 1:30 pm

**********************************************************************                                                   

Household Chores:

q       Unload and re-load the dishwasher

q       Sweep the kitchen, front hall and bathroom

q       Vacuum the front hall carpet and the family room

q       Wash the family room window




Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Been knitting and sewing

My niece has a little 3 year old daughter and is expecting a baby boy any minute now-she's actually a couple of days overdue.   So I made two sweaters, one for big sister and one for little brother.









My sister is going on a cruise soon.  I have a sarong that I bought in Australia a million years ago.  It is just a piece of fabric that I tie around myself to wear over my bathing suit.   Today I went out and bought a piece of fabric and made a sarong for my sister to take on her cruise.  These are not the best pictures of me, but they are fun and they show what I made today.






Before & After













 Nick and Nancy 1970.  Young & in love



















Nick and Nancy 2013 Older & in love

My week


Mom’s Schedule week of September 15-21, 2013


Sunday:

Church 11:00


Monday:

Gym 11:00am

Women’s Group 7:00 pm



Tuesday:

Chiropractor 10:45 am
Starbucks 1:00-3:00 pm



Wednesday:

Therapy 10:00                                             

Gym 12:30 

Hair cut 2:00 

Thursday:

Mom & Dad dentist 11:30 am
Mom LLL 7:00 pm


Friday:

Gym 11:00 am
Chiropractor 3:45


Friday, September 13, 2013

Dear Life....

 


This somehow feels apt with the stuff I  have been going through lately.  I sometimes feel like I am one crisis away from total pandemonium!  Am I sick?   The doctor speaks of the tests I need to have done.  The importance of the tests.  I go to see him and he's sort of "eh" about it all.  And then he orders a whole new set of tests that have nothing to do with the issues I am most concerend about.

I am baffled about how one knows when one is old.  I feel "old" sometimes like when I have trouble getting up off the floor.   But that is also due to my weight.   I know that I am old enough to be the mother of all of the moms I go to help.  I am often older than their own moms.   Yet Ia m not a grandmother.  Does that keep me young or make me old?

When I relate my own breastfeeding experiences to new moms, do I sounds like someone they want to learn from as a mentor.   Or do they hear a crazy, old lady?   Maybe a bit of both.  I know that moms trust me.  They know that I am gentle, kind and competent.   Sometimes I feel like my family, or some of the family some of the time, feels that I am a nutty, silly person.  I think that for the most part they respect what I do and appreciate how much good I do in the world.   I just doesn't necessarily translate into day to day drudgery.   

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the unfinished things, projects, jobs in my life.   I knit and occasionally sew.  I cook, but not as often as I used to.   I don't do housework as much or as well as I would like to.   I sometimes feel like a little kid running around in a toy store not knowing what to look at first.   Life has so much to offer and I see it and I want it and I want to do and make everything I dream of.   And I get stuck on a carrousel not sure where to get off or what to reach for.

I guess since it is 1:30 am, I should reach for my bed and sleep

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Time and Life- no, not the publshing company

I wish that there were more hours in the day.  Or that I could stop time for a while.  I want to be able to do everything I need to do and have time left over for what I want to do.

Today I have spent time (several hours probably) in my pajamas. Doing "nothing".   Watching TV.  Knitting.  Drinking coffee.   All the while feeling just a smidge guilty about the things that "have to" be done.  Pay bills.  Sort laundry.  Change the sheets.   Wash laundry.  Dry laundry.  Hang things that shrink.   Fold laundry.   Get laundry upstairs.  Put laundry away.  Can you see a theme here.  

I want to clean the kitchen.  There is crud on the counter.  Smears from hand-making sandwiches without a cutting board or plate underneath.   Clean pots and pans, dry or drying.   The top of the stove is glass, but it doesn't shine like I wish it did.  It too needs to be cleaned.  The white sink has crumbs and greasiness and some sort of other stuff.

The list just goes on and on.   I am happy when these things are all clean and spic and span.  I may not be 100% done with all of the blues in my life, but the sight and smell of a clean house is such a wonderful perfume to me.   A shiny sink or floor is the best jewelery. For me anyway.

I am sure I didn't keep the house as clean as I remember in my imagination.  For one thing, when the kids were all living at home, we had a kitchen floor that was 80's gold.  The kind that doesn't show dirt.   I do know that I kept the counters cleaner than they are now.    And for another thing, most of the time the kids were little we didn't have cats and dogs.   Cats seem to have the need to puke a lot.   And they scratch the furniture.   The dog has accidents.  Not as much as when he was a puppy, but shit does happen.   And all of them have way more hair than our floors and furniture need.

When the kids were at home, it seemed like we were feeding an army.  Five kids is almost an army.  But there were their friends.  Oh how I loved having all of those friends here with us.  Eating with us.  Making noise and laughing and running around the house.

Now we have different expenses.   Car insurance for four of us.  Cell phones and data plans.  Internet and cable.   Four cars.  Wow.  For the first 15 years of our marriage we only had one car.   When the fourth baby was on the way it was clean that the 1981 (?) Volvo we had was not big enough for four kids in the back seat.  So, we got our first mini van.  And our first second car.  We went back to being a one car family for a short while when we were in Taiwan and China.  When we came home from China, our Ford mini van was on it's way back to the US, but we needed a car in the mean time so we bought a big old Oldsmobile station wagon.

My thoughts are everywhere today!  I am not used to writing in the daylight!  I usually stay up past midnight (way past midnight).  If I am going to write, that's usually when I do it.

My body has not been very kind to me lately.   I have had chest pains that turned out not to be my heart.  I have rashes/ hives that start up and don't stop until I have scratched myself into a giant welt.  My thyroid is huge.  I feel it, it hurts.  I am told one day that the isthmus of my thyroid is so large and thick that it is causing me to have difficulty breathing.  I get tests.  I worry.  I am sure it is dangerous, even fatal.   My sister and my husband both go with me to the doctor to learn my results.   I am sure I will need their support.  And the doctor says I am fine.  I don't need an endocrinologist.   He treats hundreds of people with my problem.  I need an allergist and I need to lose weight (duh).

So I still worry, but I don't think I am dying this month.  It is a relief and a let down.  I wanted an answer, or answers.  Instead I feel like I got a pat on the head.   On some weird level I almost want something to be terribly wrong.  Then maybe all of my children would want to be in touch with me and would be sorry for treating me badly.   And maybe then I could justify having maid service.   Oh well.  Be careful what you wish for they say.

I am not someone who cries easily.  But recent "stuff" has made me more tearful than I want to be.  I know (I hope) that everything will work itself out between myself and the child who needs to separate himself from me right now.   But it makes me feel so hurt and vulnerable.  It is a kind of grief.

I asked Nick the other day if he thinks that grief ever goes away.  He said no, it just changes.  I guess you just get used to it.   And it doesn't weigh you down constantly, every second after a while.  Or it does and you don't notice because it becomes your new normal.

And we were talking about something I cannot recall.   All of a sudden I felt tears and I missed my mother so much I couldn't stand it.   I got her for almost the whole first 50 years of my life.  I guess that's pretty good.   I just wish there had been more time.   She did too.  When she knew she was dying she said "it's not fair".  She was crying.   She was cheated.    We all were.


Thursday, September 5, 2013

Health and stuff

Health is a pain.  Or, maybe what I mean is dealing with health problems is a pain.  I always seem to get the exotic stuff.  I don't know why.  Maybe I am good at being a patient!

A couple of weeks ago I drove myself to the hospital because I was having severe chest pain.

Most of the tests came back very normal.   The only discrepancy  was my large multi- nodular goiter. 

So, all of my blood work came in"normal" or at least not any changes to my medications need to be made.

Today I had a CT scan.   It was quick and pretty painless.

The nodules seem to have a life of  their own.  I fill feel one poking on my neck below the jaw.  It feels like being poked by a finger bushed really hard on you  And mine are shape shifter,

Right now I am am old married lady who needs to get some sleep.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Meh

Last week I felt like I was 59 going on 20.  This week (so far) I feel like I am 59 going on 90.