February 25, 1978- February 25, 2023

 I did not know if I was having a boy or a girl.  Very few people knew back then what they were having. "As long as it's healthy"  we all said.   I got my girl and I was so happy!  Still am 45 years later.

It's Brain Tumor Thursday

 It's brain tumor Thursday.   I don't know why that is a thing.  Brain tumors don't care what day it is, or who you are, or how old or young you are.    They don't "know" anything.  They just "are" Dammit.

Nine years ago I started having headaches.   And just feeling kind of yucky.  I remember Nick and I walked to the neighborhood Starbucks in the snow.  We always enjoyed taking walks in the snow.  I sat down at a table waiting for Nick to get our drinks.  Another lady was sitting at the same table waiting for her drink.  I felt lousy and said to the lady "I think I have a brain tumor".  Little did I know at that moment that I actually did have a brain tumor.

I was still pretty active as a Lactation Consultant, and so, I had to have a negative TB test every year.  Usually the nurse administers the test and then when you go back in three days, she reads it.  This time, I asked if I could please see the doctor. He listened to my concerns and had some suggestions for de-stressing that he thought might help.   When I went in to have the test read it was negative by the way) I wanted to see the doctor again.  This time he sent me to the hospital for a "stat" MRI.   The MRI tech said that she had spoken to the doctor and he wanted me to come right back to his office.   She said she "saw something".

And that is how I learned that I had a brain tumor.  Tada!

Maybe I am not good at facing reality or something, but I don't recall being upset or scared.  Worried yes,  Feeling like I needed more information.  Yes.

So, in 2014 as I was contemplating turning 60 years old, I learned I had a brain tumor.  I was no longer obsessing about getting older.

I will be 60 in a coupe of months.  Ever so much closer to 70.   What's next?    Something good I hope!

Thoughts I have borrowed

 This was on Facebook today and I copied it to post here.  So often I reflect on how I could have been a better, kinder mother.

March 10, 2023:  I am not sure what I thought I copied and posted.

Losing things

 I don't usually lose things.  But this week is an exception.

Thursday evening I led a La Leche League meeting.  We met in a church nursery room on Thursday night.  When I was leaving, I was talking and carrying things and not really thinking about my cane.  It was only after I had left that I relized that I had left it at the church.    It's too isolated and dark to go back on my own to get my cane.  I left it there and I emailed the church.  They founf it and are holding it for me!  Hurray!

Yesterday as I was going out, I stopped at Walgreen's and bought myself a new cane.  Red. 

 Today Nick and I drove to College Park, Maryland.  It's over an hour drive.  I was meeting a lactation consultant friend to do some banking.  Speifically, I was hoping to turn over our group's treasury.   The bank was short staffed and we were told that we would have to wait,   So we waited for over an hour before we left.

Only after Nick and I had gone thorugh a drive through for lunch did I realize that I had left my new cane inside the bank.  But, they were closed.   I banhged on the door, but nobody came.  So now I am down two canes.   I know it will all work out somehow, but right now I am feeling dumb/absent minded.

I visted my friend Shannon yesterday.  HSe lives over an hour's drive away.  We visted and just chatted about health (mainly her's- she is sick) and knitting and kids.  We have not seen each other in so long it felt good to just sit together in person.

And now to adult kids.  Chance bought a house this week (with help from his parents).  It's a very old house in West Virginia.  Needs some work, but mostly it is pretty cool!   He will be moving in gradually as he gets furniture to live with and does some basic cleaning.

Austin left for Thailand by way of Istanbul.  He left this evening, flying our on Turkish Airlines.  He will land in Istanbul  and then take another plane to Phuket Thialand, where he will meet up with his [girl] friend.  They will be travelng for about a month.

It's funny how, when your grown kids are lving on their own you don't really worry about them like you did when they were little kids.  But then, when they are living/ staying with you, you worry as if they were little kids.  I suspect that what is a new discovery for me has been happening for more generations than I can imagine!

Now I need to sleep.   I will try to get my cane tomorrow.  We'll see!

A beautiful February sunset

I'll get to it later. And, I am always waiting for something

 Doesn't every crafter have WIPs?  (works in progress).  The things we will get around to doing "one day"  when I have the time"  "I'm too busy".

Yes and no.  I am sitting here in front of my computer and not doing other things.  I could be sweeping the floor- it's a mess and it bothers me.  But I don't feel like it.

I finished my last knitting project- a pair of mitten for a friend.  Now I have picked up a scarf that I have been knitting for a couple of years.  But since I don't know even why I am knitting it I feel kind of like I don't know why I am doing it.  I guess I am doing it so I can finish it up and start on the next thing.

But, how many things are there?  There's the sweater I started for myself in 1997.  It's really beautiful.  I have finished half of the back.   My excuse?  I cannot work on it when there's anyone around who might distract me.  It takes a lot of concentration.  Ha!  I have had lots of times when I could have picked it up.   Funny though, I know that it would have fit me when I started it, but I know that it will not fit me now.

I could finish that sweater for my daughter.  I know that she would love it.  I love knitting for other people.  I know that my knitted gifts are well received.  But then I worry about how appreciated they really are.  Will they find themselves in the bottom of a drawer smooshed up and wrinkled.  

There is always that elusive something.  I'll be more patient with my next child.  Am I?  Was I?   Does it matter?

And it's fun to make fun of people who care about the things I care about.  Not directly at me, but the fact that I like sheets and clothing done a certain way.  I fold things.  I love folding the laundry.  I honestly don't put a lot of thought into it, it's just something I do.   And I like a clean house.  I remember a bumper sticker that was something about how women with clean houses have empty minds.  

I don't know what I am getting at.  Just feel like writing something.

And now, it is time to get ready to go out.  I have a LLL meeting this evening. 

A little bit of my thoughts about Thailand

 I wrote a letter to a friend last night, telling her about Austin's plans and also explaining who some of my special Thai friends are.   She asked me if I had blogged all of this, and if not, I should.  I may have written all of this before, but here it is (again?)

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

Austin is gearing up for his trip to Thailand.  He leaves here on the 18th- just ten days from now.  he has corresponded with Ampia, my one time maid and best friend when we lived in Bangkok.  I have been to visit her a couple of times in Thailand and her daughter stayed with us in Australia for a couple of weeks when she was around 13.  

When we got to Bangkok, it was our first Foreign Service posting.  Nick and I had studied Thai for 10 months, so my Thai was very good.   I was at home with Ampai pretty much all day every day.  We are the same age, so, even though she did everything (cleaning, shopping, cooking), we hung out a lot.  She was there when I lost my first baby.   Even though she had a visa to go to the States= she was engaged to an American -who she is married to- but she refused to leave me when I was pregnant with Courtney.  She stayed until we left when Courtney was 4 months old.

Anyway, Ampai has been in touch with Austin and Ampai's daughter- who was born in the US so is American and Thai, is going to act as tour guide for Austin and Kristen,  They are invited to stay with Ampai.   I am attaching a picture of Ampai and Ashley. 

Also Alex (pronounced Aleck) and his wife Julie are in Northern Thailand.  They are a married couple who were our maid and gardener.  His mother came to the US to be the nanny of an American State Dept family and she got Aleck and Julie to come to the US too..  Aleck worked as a mailman living in Springfield, VA for 20 years.  They now have a US Post Office pension and are back living near Chiang Mai.  

Austin and I face timed with them this morning.  They remembered when Austin and I visited them in Chiang Mai (before the moved to Virginia).  Austin was 2 at the time.  They had a little dog and Austin kept feeding the dog hot dogs and then laughing and laughing.   Good memories!   Their daughter, Ann, was Courtney's playmate and best friend when we were there.  Ann if going to arrange all sorts of sightseeing for Austin and Kristen.

We took them (Aleck and Julie) to lunch in March 2020 just before the pandemic hit and as they were getting ready to move back to Thailand.

I am attaching a picture of Nick and I with Julie- I think Aleck took the picture!  They are the ones who told me that we raised our children like Thais- sleeping with them and nursing on demand.

I am somewhat envious.  I wish I was going.  But honesty, at the moment I don't think I could handle a trip like that.  It must be nice to be so young!

Well, this is much longer than I planned for it to be.  I guess I had a lot to say after all.

 

 

And then there are good thngs in life

 

You never really know how far reaching your helping moms goes. I had my very first LLL Group as a Leader in Chiang Mai, Thailand from 1981-83. One of the moms in my group was a first time mom expecting twins. her babies were born premature and she had a rough time. We had just gone on home leave around the time the babies got out f the hospital. En-route to Virginia, we stopped in Hawaii. I called the local LLL Leader there and had her mail a breast pump- non-electric to this mom .

When we returned the twins were nursing well.

Today I was chatting (PMing?) with that mom- whose twins are now 40. I told her that I am still an active LLL Leader. here's what she said to me:

Very glad you get to be with babies still! Thank you for caring for us with La Leche League those years ago. It was so deeply helpful to me.

I am adding two pictures, one of Esther nursing the boys when they were three months old.  And a second picture when they were around 8 months old.

 

 

 

 

Frustration

 Someone wrote on Facebook once recently "why do women get angry when they clean house".   Well, who knows.   But the feelings are really there.  I think that some of it is because we do things that we don't feel appreciated for.

For example:  Yesterday I cleaned off the stove top.  I removed the knobs and the cast iron parts that the pots are placed on (I'm sure there's a name for them).  I really cleaned a lot of grease and grime.  And I polished.  The dirt has been bothering me for a long time and I finally decided to do something about it.  here's the thing- nobody even noticed that it was dirty.  Or if they did, they didn't care.  And I am reasonably sure that if I had not pointed out to Nick how clean the stove was, nobody would have noticed.   Yes, I did clean it ostensibly for myself.  But why then does it bother me?  

Dirty Stove-top

Clean and shiny stove-top

 

When we first came back from Thailand, when Courtney was a baby, I used to clean house every day.  Bathrooms, kitchen, vacuumed the rug .  And I made lists of what I had done every day.  I wanted Nick to see when he got home from work that I had been working too.  I don't know if I felt unappreciated. or what..  I think I felt like I was working really hard and none of what I was doing, what I thought was important,had any value to anyone buy myself.   Maybe that should be good enough.  

I have always, since kids, tried to keep the house clean.  Laundry done and folded and put away.  Tables and counters wiped down.   I know I did it because it was important to me.   But damn it, doesn't it matter that it is important to me .

It feels like I am not respected for working so hard.   There are no prizes.   But, on the other hand, there is such a rewarding feeling to get all of the household work done.  A pile of white, clean diapers being folded up is so nice.

Here's how my mind works:  if I died tomorrow, nobody would ever fold laundry again, or clean the floor, or empty the refrigerator and clean it.   Or clean the stove.   I find these to be important tasks, but when I am gone, nobody will even notice the things that I did to make a nice house and home.

I know everyone is different.  Everyone has the things that they feel are important.  Cleaning and organizing are important to me.   I am not sure what parts of me my kids have inherited.  They are all smart.  They are caring and compassionate.  They are all wonderful and good people .  I am proud of all of those things.   

My mother was a master clothes folder.  Even after her stroke she folded her clothes nice and neat before putting them away.  She didn't like spots of water on the kitchen counter.  As a kid I don't think I noticed except to complain when she told me to keep my feet off of the coffee table.  Well, I still put my feet on the coffee table.   But, aside from that, I inherited her clean gene.   I think it is so much in my genes that even if I had been adopted into another family, I would still have to fold my underwear and sheets and towels and put them away "right".  

I am rambling, but I feel better.  I have felt so down all day.   

We have this huge house and we are only living in a third of it.  The upstairs is occupied by one Sherwood adult child and the basement is occupied by another adult Sherwood child. 

I love my kids with all my heart and soul.  But I look forward to them being settled into their places.  Soon.  It will be soon.

It really isn't like having your kids around when they are little.  Then you can treat them like kids.  But now they are adults and I don't know how to act I guess.

And now I will invite Nick to fall asleep in front of the TV while we "watch" something together.

This and That

 So many things I want to write about that I don't know where to start.  A familiar dilemma.  So often I think about writing but then I think- nah I'll do it tomorrow.  Then it's tomorrow and I cannot remember what it is that I wanted to write about!

Austin and Nick returned from their travels.  They were gone for almost a month, on three different cruise ships on three different cruise lines!   That's a lot of cruising!

 Austin saw a miniature treadle sewing machine in a gift shop in Cartegena, Columbia and he bought it for me.  I posted pictures of it on Facebook, and over 400 people on my Antique Sewing Macines group have said that they like it!

I love it!

Nick bought me a really pretty necklace make with crystals in the setting.

My men do love me!   (is that a silly thing to say?)

A few months ago I knitted a cute sweater and hat for a friend's grandson.  Kathy Y has been a friend since 1983 when we moved into the neighborhood at the same time and were next door neighbors until 2018 when we moved to Aldie.  Her son Steve was good friends with Austin and Darcy when they were little and played baseball together.  Steve is now married and has two kids.  I knitted a sweater for his daughter a couple of years ago and now this set for his son.

I think he is too cute to only have one picture here!

Last week a couple of old friends, Lea and Joanne, both of whom I have known for over 35 years, and I had a Zoom get together.  I was great!  Really great.  I met Joanne when I was pregnant with Austin and Lea shortly after.  Lea's son and Austin were born just two days apart!

When I think of my friends, all over the world. the vast majority of them are women I know because of La Leche League.  I have been a LLL Leader for over 40 years and have met and helped and worked with women who have become my closest friends.  (Of course my sister is my best girlfriend, but she knows that!).

My big LLL connections these days are through the Friends of la Leche League (formerly LLL Alumni) and Power Surge- my wonderful group that started online in 1996.   

In fact, one of my PS friends was a LLL Leader in Virginia where I first met her.  She and her family moved back to Minnesota a few years ago. 

She has had a lot going on in her life lately.  Her sister was ill and moved in with Kathie and her husband where she lived out her life under hospice care until she died.  I looked at Kathie's Facebook page and found a picture of her family there.  I had it made into a blanket for her.  She just received it, and it came out even better than I had hoped.

The family blanket with Kathie;s dad sitting next to it.

 

With Nick and Austin back it's not so lonely.  Not that it has actually been lonely because Chance has been here.  I guess I mean that the house feels full right now.

Chance is buying a house in West Virginia and goes to settlement in a couple of weeks.  The house was built in 1900 and needs some work, but for the most part it is a really great house!  I like it.  And, there;s a great Thai restaurant right around the corner.

And speaking of things Thai.  Austin is going to Thailand!  He met a young woman on one f the cruise ships and they really hit it off.  So he is flying to Thailand and she is flying there too and they will meet.  I have already connected him with one friend in Bangkok and have contacted another friend in Chiang Mai who is looking forward to seeing him and his friend.

Okay, that's enough for tonight.  It's almost 2:00 AM.  I need to go to bed.

Good night!