Sunday Up with Mama Eagle

[DeeClutter]

Love those little stories, Okay. That's what makes our village so homey. We share everything, from an exciting milestone, to deaths, to a recipe, and on and on. Just like in a RL village. I enjoyed it! Glad LO inherited all those legos. Good luck sorting.

The worst example I can think of is when he called me from the other side of the house because one of his cousins posted a recipe on facebook that looked good. Sigh.

Oh yes, I know of what you speak, Harriet. Many the time dh has brought his k indle to show me a video or a note on FB. And I will think "I dropped what I was doing for this?" But -have to love him!

After this bin of paperwork has stared at me for the past few months, I finally finished sorting, filing, purging, tossing, etc. The medical file for last year is inches thick however. I will probably go through and sort that by facility, etc. and put it all in a folder to be tossed in a year or so. At least I can access it if needed. (probably not). I have a 'travel file' and everything was fitting in there but all the medical stuff. Decided to just keep it in a separate folder and start putting 2014 stuff in the travel file..

Just heard the Blue Angels flying over. Must have their show. Shoot fire! I was going to drive over to L akeside V illage and watch. Got engrossed in what I was doing -not a bad thing.

[Twins' Mom]

Echoing Harriet's sentiments about men-folk calling us to see, hear, listen to something they find of interest. I often have dh asking me about something I can't place into context that comes out of left field, shall we say.

Busy day for me here. I really didn't do a good job of getting big things done this last week, altho I did think I was being fairly productive at the time.

I was up at 7 this morning to complete separate parts for the annual meeting notice - when temple secretary sent me text that she couldn't be there until noon, I kept working and basically had it put together and emailed before we got there. We spent about 1.5 hours polishing it and inserting current photos and sent it for proofing. I will also proof again this evening, she will print tomorrow afternoon, and I will assist in folding and mailing on Tuesday.

I came home and read the paper, napped about an hour, and now am starting the next round of procrastinated upon temple biz - making phone calls. Dh has gone out to bowl this afternoon while I work.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

On edge here after a good day. Should have had a nap, I might seriously regret skipping it.

Good early service (not mine, I just did some announcements.) Great coffee hour. Quick lunch and surfing the net. Annoying board meeting. Great afternoon service and fellowship time. Love my retirement home congregation and I don't get to preach to them for 3 weeks!

Got home, and dh watched the end of the movie he started on Friday night which was interrupted by dd.

I surfed some more and finally got over the FB. My sister had posted at 10 and again at 3 that my dsil is in the hospital in ICU. She fell off a long-distance bike 2 weeks ago. She's been taking spinning lessons and signed up for a 300 mile ride in the spring so wanted to get out on the road to start training. It was her first time ever on a bike with clips and it was a major snow storm. She's hanging with a group of really over-the-top fitness people so didn't think safety and of course fell. Then did yoga and her kick boxing workout after.

Her wounds from the fall have never healed and are now infected. My sister has been ragging her about caring for herself (duh) and that has been spilling over onto FB. My dsil complained about being in the dog house yesterday but finally the infection got too much for her to fight off and my sister was able to get her to a doctor (how, I don't know, since she doesn't drive.) This new round of antibiotics (which implies she has been to a doctor before) made her ill and hence the trip to the ER and now into the ICU.

Her blood pressure is so low, they have a stent in her jugular to pump in drugs. They have no idea what is wrong but are now thinking it is some sort of infectious disease.

So I await an update from my sister. I called and left a message on her cell (in Canada cell phones have to be off in hospitals.) I've offered to go down if she wants me to which will mean I'll need to arrange another car for dh. And pack and a load of other things. Clothes are clean and there's food, just not the food on the meal plan, but that's no big deal. It is a pretty clear week so except for the arrival of my new laptop and a number of pickups of things for freecycle. Must remember to put the wheelchair in the car if I take off in a hurry - it might come in handy.

[Harriet]

Oh, ((Kathryn)), what astonishing news to read - much concern there - will be praying for ((your dsister and dsisil)). I know you have mentioned before that dsisil's bettering of health has sometimes come along with extreme pushing-the-envelope of her fitness level. I'm so impressed with her better fitness, and in a way I hope that the ultimate diagnosis doesn't point the finger at the biking injuries. Still, it could not be good news, no matter what, and I pray she will be helped to healing soon and your dsister and she can be reassured.

It's nice to know where The Blue Angels are, Dee! Nice to think you could've waved! They say the National Quidditch Match was played in SC yesterday. Hmmmm... ... I got the giggles thinking that if the players DID get airborne (they don't) it would be quite a surprise to air traffic.

I hesitated pulling out of our road today to allow a police car with flashing lights to pass. No sooner had I then pulled out than the fire marshall car flew up and passed so close to my rear bumper. When I think of the speed he must have been hitting to be on top of me that fast, I'm amazed. Fire trucks right after them. On into the town and their emergency equipment soon were heard as they joined, I suppose.

[Ivy]

Kathryn, I'll be thinking of your dsis & dsisill, both.

Dee, I saw the Blue Angels on our TV news. Last summer, they weren't allowed to fly at Seattle's Seafair, for some reason. I forgot why. Oh! It was because of the Sequester! I remembered now! The news is happy they're returning this summer.

I had a rough morning, I must have gone through a dozen tissues, crying. I felt awful, talked and talked to DH, then did s2s, because he said, "That's a good place to start!" I did, got dressed in plum jeans and a magenta v-neck pullover, and guess what happened? I fell asleep for 1 1/2 HOURS in my recliner, beneath a thick warm blanket I'd bought my Ddad when he was alive. I conked out so soundly. I must have been way overly tired this morning. Once I got my nap in, I felt a lot more human and more like my cheerful self.

Now, I'm reading on a book, I wrote a bit over 1,000 words on a short story, & I'm washing socks and underwear. DH is putting a nice large pork roast on with orange marmalade on it. We'll get another pork roast for Easter to have the same dinner. DD will be coming alone because the "friend" idea didn't pan out when he got overly-jealous over her having dinner with a platonic man friend she's known 2.5 years, who helped her move. This other man (who got insanely jealous) and her only kissed, weren't romantic, and seemed to be just friends. My, oh my. Dating in these modern times is so full of strange situations. Once, through a dating website, DD ended up dating a man, to come and find out, he was married, but "separated" from his wife, but his WIFE lived WITH him, in an open marriage, both giving the dating site info they were both divorced people. I wrote an awfully cute short story about it and it SOLD! All you need to do is watch the TV news, listen to your adult kids or talk with your own friends, to come up with cute, romantic, and stories that are enduring, too. It's so enjoyable to take 1 person from life, then take someone from childhood, mix them up with something heard on the news, and voila. You have an interesting story. It's so cathartic and therapeutic. I love it and now I'm doing it again, only with poetry. It's fun to write poems, with sentiments, which may show up on a greeting card someday. It's rewarding and fun. But I still do get some rejections now and then, too. But all in all, I learn from them, which is a good thing, as Martha would say.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

My sister reports that dsil in sitting up now. She has written a poem asking the nurses to let her go home. And was writing a lesson plan when my sister arrived back from dinner.

Yesterday one of her friends responding, to her post about starting more antibiotics, asked if she'd be on the long-distance practice ride today. (At that point, her FB status also showed the 101 fever.) Today, one of them, when informed she was trying to escape the hospital was cheering her on. People don't get it - she is so single-mindedly driven to extreme exercise and diet that cheering her on is like offering an alcoholic another beer.

Since losing the excess weight (and she lost more than dd weighs), she has not been well or happy at all. Nor does she look well. Perhaps she would have had numerous undiagnosed issues if she hadn't lost the weight but I wonder. I seriously miss her smile - she used to smile all the time and now she doesn't (I stayed there for two nights and didn't see a smile at all, although, then again I barely saw her since she was up at 4, off to gym, home for breakfast, then more gym and out for the day, finishing up with more gym before dinner (specially cooked meals for her), then bed and repeat. Once she went back to work after her sabbatical (which is when she lost the weight), there was less gym but she still managed to take up kick boxing and spinning.

She has something wrong with her but they don't know what. The symptoms, though, meant they had to repeatedly put off her excess skin removal surgery. That did get done over the summer though and she took a whole 2 weeks off active gym work although she took up hot yoga around then. She is a slave to her schedule which means they don't go away any more because that would take her away from the gym. They do go out on occasion but not as often as before. They don't even go to the same church services any more (conflict with her exercise classes.)

It is a real shame. My sister started dieting at the same time but skipped the gym because she wasn't able to keep up and wasn't interested in spending the money. She did start to walk more and lost over 30% of her body weight. That solved numerous health issues my sister had, and suddenly she was interested in travel and doing things. But by then dsil was addicted and the downward spiral began.

Goodness knows what will come of all this. At this point it is addiction and those of you with family members who have suffered addiction know how frustrating it is to watch.

In my case, I'm one-degree removed since I don't see my dsil regularly (actual at all) any more. So I'm only seeing what my sister lets me see. The changes in her are tough to watch as she is behaving as if she is psychologically abused. She is certainly trapped in the relationship for now, even more so now that my dsil is in the hospital.

[Harriet]

I am S2slippers, in preparation for an out-and-about morning that will include appt with the hormone dr. I'm wondering if there is anything he will say or do that will light another proverbial fire under me regarding sticking with healthy habits better. Sometimes he has managed to pep-talk me, lol. I was slipping when dfil got ill, slipped further during his illness and death, and had not yet really "climbed" out of that before Sammie died. Have been surprised that Sammie's death just ended the healthy/fitness thoughts completely. HRH just this second walked by me and said, "This is killing me. I keep going to feed the dog." So we are both affected, of course.

Kathryn, do you ever post things on her fb page? Maybe your more caring thoughts could counter some of this inappropriate encouragement to rush to activity. I know you don't want to climb upon a high horse, but sheesh! This is not loving herself. Find out what is wrong before putting more physical demands upon a healing body.

Glad you started feeling chipper again, Ivy. That's a nice description of story writing.

[Harriet]

blessed's posts in the other forums remind me that I neglected to tell I had a migraine Friday. At first I just thought "headache-y". Ultimately I had to lie down in a dark room with my nightgown over my face just to get through the minutes/hours. Not really gone until I awakened the next morning. I had cried quite a bit (day after Sammie's death) and I wonder if that had anything to do with it. Also wonder if I got dehydrated. Anyway, hoping blessed is relieved of her migraines, too.

[Ivy]

Harriet, Ddil gave me a mask with herbs and lavender inside it, for my eyes, to sooth me if/when I get a headache. It sure helps to sniff in the lavender. I wonder if a mask would help your migraines go away quicker. I rarely have migraines, but have had them. I get occular migraines, which have no pain. I'll get twinkling lights in the upper left or upper right train of vision, followed by a Saran Wrap-looking squiggling star-type of wiggling "thing", which travels from one side of my vision to the other. It lasts roughly 30 minutes. They say they don't know what brings them on, but 1 optometrist told me they were stress-induced. I started getting them when DMIL passed away in Jan. 2002. They rarely come on me now. DH has a cousin, in CO, who uses herbs to help control her migraines and did acupuncture, but after her last acupuncture appt., she came home and a migraine hit her out-of-the-blue and she had it for a week! She works outside the home, too. I hope you and Blessed get relief from them. They're not fun at all. When I had my hysterectomy, I was on HRT for 2 years afterwards. I noticed on sunny days, how I'd get migraines. When I stopped HRT, the migraines disappeared. It was weird, but really nice.

When we had Molly Dog for 15 1/2 years, she'd gotten Cushing's Disease in Dogs. She started going into a trance-like state, didn't know where she was, and couldn't move. It came to the end where we needed to put her to sleep the day after Easter in 2002. We lost my DMIL AND our beloved Molly Dog that same year. Molly used to lick out our empty ice cream bowls, Jell-O or pudding bowls. When she heard the click-click-click of the spoon, upon the bowl, here she'd come. She's been gone for 12 years now, and do you know, we still think of her, when we come to the end of our cereal bowl, etc... It's amazing how their memories follow us. I'm so sorry about Sammie.

I've been writing DD a letter, which has ended up with me being on page 5 of 8 1/2" x 11" paper. But I had so much news. ♥

DH is watching his favorite shows tonight, I'm doing snail mail, will write out a week-at-a-glance to do list tonight, to plan the routine items I do everyday. I'll put out my pre-Easter cleaning list, with it, too, because in essence, it's like a Spring cleaning list, both. DH made the most wonderful delicious tender pork roast with a bone in it, with marmalade on it, for our dinner. Often times, he'll dice the leftovers to make fried rice the next day. We'll have pork roast on Easter, like this, too. It was a very good meal.

[ellyphant]

Hello, all! I continue to be entertained by everyone here. Forgive me for not jumping into the conversation anymore, but I must respond to Harriet's question! If it's fresher than Bost, it's still in the OVEN!! I grew up watching Arthur Smith and the Crackerjacks each week on tv. I remember Little Wayne Hass, Maggie somebody, Tommy Faile, and a brother and sister duo called The Schulers (Dick and Jackie). Maybe Maggie's last name was Griffin, not sure...

Best wishes to you all.