A Slight Distraction

Wahhh...and Thanksgiving weekend is almost over. That is rather sad since it went incredibly fast. Almost as fast as a normal weekend. But we were productive, and that's a lot to say.

We got into a little cleaning craze this weekend that included putting up the Christmas tree. That is a story in itself, but I'll go there. I'm not afraid. Last year my thrifty husband decided to purchase a pre-lit tree after the holidays in an effort to save money. Which he did at a whopping $6 for the tree. What we didn't do was take it out of the box before this weekend. We now have a Charlie Brown Christmas tree in our living room. Dion wisely stated, "I guess you get what you pay for". Wise wise man. At night it is rather pretty, with all it's pre-strung lights, and the extra color lights we put on. And the carefully (or randomly) placed ornaments by Claire and Nadia. But once it is daylight, the tree takes on another personality of, well, see through. It let's us observe the pretty wall behind it, which is fantastic. So, if you want to see a pretty tree at our house, you are not allowed to come over until it is dark and the tree in all it's bright glory will dazzle you.

Anyway, I decided to try and purge the living are of most of the toys that mysteriously make their way up from the toy ridden basement. I have the whole downstairs family room set up as a play land for the girls with storage bins etc to hold of the toys. It took me hours to do that months ago, and in a single day they managed to relieve the bins of the bothersome toys and sprawl them out on the floor, which is where most of them have remained since that day. The toys that managed to ease their way upstairs needed to ease their way back down. That was my goal yesterday. Thankfully my neighbors had the kids yesterday while I attempted to gain control of our living room and family room again. I loaded toys up in Rubbermaid's and make umpteen trips up and down the steps. I moved furniture around to dig out numerous Barbie shoes and brushes, some Polly Pockets and their rubbery pants and tiny tiny shoes, various tiny stuffed animals that the girls "had to have" and probably had not seen for 6 months or so. In moving furniture around, I decided to rearrange the furniture. Talk about Pandora's box! Long story short, the living room and the family room have changed, and I like it. Poor Dion. He hates moving furniture around, and more than that, he hates change. He did really well and actually helped me with some of the process. I think he is ok with the change. At least he said he was. The funny part is that the girls haven't even noticed that their toys are not up here anymore. How awesome is that?!?

If there is anyone who can help us with this dog issue, give me a shout. Sammie is 12 years old. She certainly can't hear anymore, as I can come into the house and she does not wake up in the least bit. She is not able to last nearly as long for going outside and I have had to clean up some accidents. And the final thing happened this weekend. I was sitting in my chair and saw her pick something up off of the couch and try to eat it. She spit it back out and I jumped up in case it was something not so dog friendly. Are you ready for this? IT WAS ONE OF HER TEETH!! Ew! Ew! Ewwww!!! And not a shiny white one, if I may add that detail. Ugh. So gross. Claire saw it and grabbed her forehead and turned an odd shade of white. Turns out she is not good with some bodily things. Blood? She comes close to puking. And apparently gross dog teeth join the list of no no's for Claire. Although I can't say I blame her. It was bad. So I brought up to Dion that it may be time for Sammie to go to the pearly gates with unlimited doggie treats. We never did finish that conversation. Dion gave me Sammie as a birthday present when we were dating. She has been with us a long time, but seriously, teeth are falling out and her breath is so bad she can clear a room. I don't know.....any suggestions?

I guess that's all for now. I am typing and watching the Vikings/Bears game....my sweet sweet Favre! He is rocking the Vikings this year (minus that tackle that just knocked him on his butt) so I must go watch.

What I am Hoping is From the Wine

Ugh. I have had gut rot all day long. I am hoping it is not some sort of flu type thing, but instead from the high quantities of wine that I drank with my friend last night. Ahhh....good times!

I finally made it back to the gym on Friday. I thought I would have a little more trouble with pain etc, but it went really well and felt really good. Somehow, even with missing a month, I have lost a total of 11 pounds. Woot woot!! That was the highlight of my day! Just about 30 more pounds to go before February. Possible? Hell yeah.

I got a phone call from one of my dearest friends Friday night. Her dad died of the same thing my dad did about 3 years ago. Strange how those things work. We talked about a lot of things. Religion, medications, current situations, and it was absolutely wonderful. I finally felt like I was able to talk about some things knowing that she would totally and completely understand where I was coming from. After hanging up the phone, I felt like a lot was taken off of my shoulders. I felt like my thoughts and feelings were confirmed, and I felt like it was the start of a new beginning. Friends are wonderful.

I talked to my mom yesterday and she said she had to tell me before my sister told on her that she fell in the Perkins parking lot. It took my sister and another woman (thank you to whoever that was) to get her up. I asked why she fell. Are you ready for this one? Really...you might want to sit down. She fell over trying to pick up a damn penny. A PENNY! Did you hear that?!? My sister told her she is not to do that anymore and that she will pick up pennies for my mom from now on. I thought that was a little funny though, Cathy offering to pick up pennies. So today, as you can imagine, she was rather sore and was loaded up on pain pills. Dion, the girls, and I took over the makings for dinner and I cooked up the now famous pork tenderloin. It was delicious again, even if I forgot that I needed garlic cloves (WAHHH!!!) and had to cook it with just garlic salt. Could be worse, I suppose. Anyway, we had a great visit, well, Cathy got mad about something, but that's pretty normal anyway.

Now Dion and I are going to catch up on some DVR'd shows, and here's to hoping the gut rot goes away.

Up-ditty Update

Greetings on this fine fall day. I thought I should give some updates with my mom since I have some new information finally.

I am taking her back to Mayo on Dec 4th to see the new plastic surgeon. They have told my mom that her skin graft surgery will be the following week. As far as how long she will be in the hospital, it really depends on how she is doing. I believe she has to be self-sufficient to go home. So all of that is up in the air, really. I am 98% sure that her wounds are getting bigger, so for this surgery to finally happen is pretty big.

It was a day of non happiness in this house this morning. I thought the girls FPE (remember? Former Place of Employment) fix would get us through a while, but alas, I was wrong. Of course, I have been wrong about a lot of things lately so I guess that is not a surprise. Today Claire turned on the waterworks when faced with the knowledge that she could not go to my FPE. That was fun. If anyone can tell me how to explain to a 7 year old why she can't be with her friends anymore, let me know because I am having a hard time getting her to understand it. She offered some suggestions on how it would be possible, which was kind of cute, but sad at the same time. Ugh. There's not a worse feeling of leaving your kid for school with tears going down her face. It sucks. They were at their home daycare for 5 years, and I had to talk up my FPE to try and make that transition as smooth as possible. And it worked. It went well. So Claire is there for a year and now the carpet has been pulled out from under her. I suppose one can understand why this is not so easy for her.

I have my night job tonight. We are cooking with pumpkins. It should be a good class, but it's hard to go back to work after being home for a couple of hours. All I really want to do is put on some flannel pants and a sweatshirt, but, no can do. In fact, I've got an hour and a half before I have to leave again. High ho, high ho......

I Wish I Had Something to Say

But I don't. Sorry.

But the Pork Tenderloin Was Good

The current issue I am dealing with is as follows. Since I no longer need daycare, the girls don't go to my former place of employment (FPE). Now, on a daily basis, they ask why they can't go (ummm we can't afford it) and they get upset and sad. It says a lot for how the program was run, and how much they enjoyed it. They miss the crafts, games, and the friends that they made there, who aren't in their classes so they don't get to see now. Today was an early release day, so I was asked to help get the planned activities for the community going, which I did. But the girls had to stay at my FPE until I did everything that I needed to do, which didn't take too long. The girls were having a blast, and didn't want to leave. They wanted to go play outside, they wanted to go to the gym to play a game, and to be honest, so did I. I miss the kids at my FPE, and I miss the games and the conversations. I love the fact that when I see some of the kids they run up to me and give me a hug. I worked pretty dang hard to build those, and other, relationships, and it has been hard to not be there. But hopefully they got a fix and that will last a little while. Me? I will never get a fix that lasts awhile. If you know me, you know how much I love being with kids, and that will never go away.

So after we got home I started dinner. Yes, the pork tenderloin. I tried a recipe off of the internet and was a little worried how it would turn out as applesauce and soy sauce were in the ingredients. But, I pushed on, sauteing onions and garlic, adding the applesauce etc mixture and cooked it. DANG! It was good! I hope I can find that recipe again. It was mighty fine, if I do say so myself.

I am trying to figure out what I am going to do for the girls holiday pictures this year. I want to get a little more creative, and I have started to plant the seed for the girls on they type of picture I want to try and take. We'll see though. One never knows....

I am taking my mom to Mayo on December 4th to see the new plastic surgeon. There is a slight chance that she could have the surgery in December, but it always seems to change. I went to her house to change her dressing for her this week, and the wounds are getting bigger. Again she bled through the dressings and her binder. I am looking forward to this being done for her sake. What it seems like now is that they are just going to do skin grafts to try and close up the wounds. I still don't understand how the grafts will hold with the hernia she has, but I guess that will be a question for the doctor.

The week that Claire was sick, she informed me that she knew a bad word. I asked her what it was, expecting her to say fart or something like that. Instead, without batting an eyelash, she said, "bitch". I about fell off of my chair. I asked her where she had heard that and she told me that two boys in her class told her that it rhymed with one of their names, which it does. I just didn't expect that at all. As soon as she said the word, I felt like my little girl had lost a bit of her innocence. It was sad, and wrong. Sigh.......

A Sad Day

Today I volunteer in the girls classrooms. I actually have to go soon to get to Claire's on time, but since I have like an hour to kill I like to go to Blue Moon cafe to just sit and relax. I think I have talked about the atmosphere before. Anyway, I drive by and.....CLOSED. Not just until they open in the morning, but for good.

Like I said, a sad day.

Would I Have Changed How I Did Things?

I don't know. I'm not really sure if I would or not. Sometimes I think "If only I would have...." and then I stop. ***you should know at this point my thoughts have gone in so many directions. I have typed and deleted many things***

But if I hadn't followed the path that I am on, I wouldn't have what I have. Dion, my girls, my friends. And I don't want to sound like I don't appreciate what I have. I do. But is there more? Would there have been more? I don't know. How could I?

What I do know is that I am not satisfied with what I have. The option of having more kids ripped away from me always plays on my brain, poking at it, laughing at it, making it sad. It's not fair. Now, again, I reiterate, I am very happy with the kids that we have. That is not the point. The point is now it is no longer an option for me. Not by my choice. Maybe if I had made the choice and not cancer, I would feel different. No, I KNOW I would feel different. Ugh.

But, I have talked about the whole baby stealing thing before, and it hasn't changed and never will. So why do I bother? Maybe so I can stop buying pets to fulfill that void. That would be a good thing I think. But really, I don't know why I just cant accept this fact and move on. I am worried that in 15 years, I am still going to be blogging about this topic. In the words of someone I know, why can't I just get over this? I don't know. Otherwise I would be.

Wouldn't it be nice to be one of those people who get paid to do something they love? I need that. I want that. Of course I want to win the lottery and retire, but we all know the odds of that happening. There are so many things I want to do, that never crossed my mind as a college student. I think I went into college with the thought that I just needed to graduate. That was my goal since no one else in my family did. Now, of course, I look back and think, man I was stupid. I should have thought things out more. But I didn't and now here I am. You can bet that I am going to suggest my kids think it through a little more than I did. Already I ask them what they want to be when they grow up. Quite often in fact. Of course, Claire's response is the same every time. A cheerleader. Yikes. :) Not that there's anything wrong with that....

Now you may ask why I don't just go back to school. And I really wouldn't mind doing that, but after getting my first paycheck in my new position....well, yeah, that's not an option. Talk about money shock. Or lack thereof. Oh boy.

Anyway, we spent the day outside today, cleaning out branches and burning them. I smell like campfire. Mmmmmm....of course that takes me back to camp days. And back to camp friends. And camp memories. Those were my golden years. Memories of hanging out by a campfire with 10 middle school girls, and loving it. Memories of hiking in the woods and the back 40. The nature, the laughs, the games, the songs, the kids, the friends. All but just a memory now. As an adult, those things are gone. And that is sad.

So where do I go from here? I'm not sure. I feel kind of stuck. Dare I say trapped? That seems like kind of a harsh word, but sometimes that's how I feel. Like there is so much more I want to do, but can't. Does one just settle with what they have? I really don't know. And at what point is good enough good enough? Maybe at the point I am at.....

A Note to the Virus Who WAS in Our House

Dear Virus,

Thank you for finally leaving our house. And while you never did settle down with me (I won't take it personally), I am ok with the fact that you have returned to where ever you came from. You have left a little bit of a reminder with us of your long uninvited visit through a cough the both girls have, but that's ok. We can deal with that.

Anyway, I am looking forward to getting back to our normal family routine. Well, if you can call our routine normal.

With Regards,

Sue Flaska