Sunshine and Psueudoephedrine Make Me Happy!

So for the past three days I have been fighting off the remnants of my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad cold with the assistance of Tylenol severe congestion and soaking up this long-awaited warm, sunshiney weather. Day one I realize that there is a very good reason that they have started putting drugs with pseudoephedrine behind the counter and making you show ID as well as sign your life away for it. That stuff is pretty good, possibly the new gateway drug (yikes! Someone should warn the Tylenol company). An hour after taking it, not only could I breathe better but I just didn’t even care that my lungs were full of mucus in the first place. I was sitting in the parking lot of the bank after paying the $2.19 balance on my Visa thinking ‘maybe I shouldn’t drive anywhere for a while’. That paranoid feeling came over me like when you’re 17 and you’ve had a few sips of a Smirnoff Ice for the first time and somehow you know the cops will find out. Otherwise the rest of the day was just all together very pleasant. I believe that the first full sunny day of the year really brought me out of a dark, cold, winter funk and I spent the rest of the daylight hours outside playing with the dogs.
Later that night, my husband and I took in a stray. This little dog that couldn’t have weighed more than 5 pounds was walking around the parking lot with no obvious destination planned. Feeling a little sorry for the thing we took it in with the intention of trying to find its owner the next day. After he marked our trash can, he was escorted to his accommodations for the evening in the bathroom. This dog is ugly by the way. You know the ones that are so ugly they are cute? He’s not one of them, he’s just ugly; eyes bugging out of his head the size of half dollars and a row of crooked teeth lining his obvious under bite. The next morning we went to the leasing office to find that no one had reported a lost dog. However on our way back to the apartment I noticed a lady in her SUV paying obvious attention to the dog so I decided to ask if it was hers. She hesitantly looked at me and at the dog before replying ‘it looks like him’ in a confused manner. Unsure of what to make of the comment I clarified “So, he’s yours then?” She said yes and reluctantly reached for the dog and put him in the passenger seat. The whole interaction was odd, maybe she was taking Tylenol severe congestion too.

Yesterday I decided to drive up to meet Ken for lunch since we haven’t seen a lot of each other over the past few days and we decided to hang out by the Broad river for a while. It was so nice. The weather was not hot and not too cool, there were all these really soft sand banks and seizing the opportunity to be carefree we decided to lie by the water and just relax for a while. In case I’ve never mentioned it before, I am so in love with this man. I don’t deserve such a wonderful husband but there we were by the river pretending that the ‘real world’ wasn’t eagerly waiting to end this moment of simplicity. We talked about fun memories from when we were dating and where the future might lead. I took pictures of our wedding rings in the sand (I love taking pictures and actively look for opportunities/things to photograph). It was just peaceful and wonderful and exactly what I needed. I hope we always take time to do nothing together.

For Granny

My Grandmother has dementia. She has had it for a while. Mosby's medical dictionary defines dementia as a progressive organic mental disorder characterized by chronic personality disintegration, confusion, disorientation, stupor, deterioration of intellectual capacity and function impairment of control of memory, judgment and impulses. To put it plainly; Granny is losing it. We (her family) all knew this was coming, it began slowly with her repeating herself a lot and asking the same questions within a 20 minute time frame. Gradually it got worse, she began forgetting names of family members she didn't see very often and talking about family members that have been dead for well over a decade as if they were still alive. Some days are good but some days are very bad. She forgets that her first husband is dead and that she is married to her now husband (who is in a nursing home). She looks for her children to come home at night, forgetting that they are grown and have children and grandchildren of their own. I try to spin all these blogs from an entertaining if not funny angle and believe me, Granny inadvertently provides laughs from time to time but sometimes you ahve to laugh to keep from crying. It's funny how things come full circle. As a child Granny kept me and I never went to daycare when Mama and Daddy had to work. Now I sign up for my day to keep Granny. We don't call it that in front of her because she gets very angry is she thinks we are there to babysit her. I now watch over the shoulder of the woman who helped teach me how to cook, to make sure she doesn't burn herself or forget to turn off the oven. My mom now 'tucks in' the woman who used to tuck her in as a child and sets the 'granny monitor' before she leaves so she will know if Granny absent mindedly walks outside of her house in the middle of the night looking for her kids. Understanding how this disease works, we know that her condition will only continue to deteriorate but I like to remember the woman who helped mold my childhood. She was a hard worker and always put her family first. She was kind to everyone and always lent a hand. She was amazingly talented as a cook, a seamstress and gardener. She made quilts and crocheted afghans. She created elaborate Halloween costumes and patched, hemmed, took in, or let out countless numbers of pants and shirts. She raised four children, eight grandchildren and a growing number of great-grandchildren with one great, great-grandchild on the way. She was and is so much more than I can put into words. I love this crazy woman and even if the day comes that she doesn't remember me, I will always remember how she played a part in making me the woman I am today.

Sick Days...

I have officially used my first sick day at work. What started out as a sore throat on Wednesday, snowballed into everything but a fever by Saturday. I got up and went to work anyway with a few non-drowsy meds on board but by lunch time they had worn off and the sore throat, cough, sneezing, runny/stopped up nose, chest and nasal congestion had returned. I forewarned my superiors that I might not make it in the next day and alas, after no rest from not being able to comfortably breathe I called in at 3am. How is it that your nose can be ‘stopped up’ and yet still continue to ‘run’? This contradiction boggles my mind. My wonderful husband cooked me some breakfast before heading off to church and my usually mischievous children (the dogs) were actually good while he was gone, allowing me to finally get a few hours of sleep. One day later, here I am, still having all the symptoms of my cold except the sore throat but thankfully to a lesser degree which tells me things are on the up side. I just hope Ken doesn’t get whatever I have. I do find it funny however that on my one venture out of the apartment yesterday, I was in the cold/allergy meds aisle at Target and a polite stranger informed me that the actual medications in the off-brands were the same as the name brands; they just charge more for the name. She then asked me what my symptoms were and what I had been taking for it, dropping in the fact that she is a nurse. I never bothered to tell her that not only did I already know everything she was telling me but I am a nurse as well. Whether she enjoyed the idea that she might be helping me or that she thought she knew more than me I will never know but either way, who am I to rain on her parade?

What the CRAP?!?!

So in our last encounter I told you about Lexi’s less than savory bowel issues and since then thankfully, they have resolved. On Wednesday nights Ken and I go to discipleship class at church that starts at 6pm. I have to leave around 5pm to get there on time and since the class usually last about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, I usually get home around 8:30pm. All of this is fine except on nights when I have to work the next morning. I have to get up at 4:30am and so I try to be in bed by 9:30pm. But when I get home from church at 8:30 and have to cook supper, I’m rarely in the bed by that time. This week I thought I would make a chicken stew before I left for church and leave in on simmer so that it would be ready and waiting when I got home. When I arrived at home I was looking forward to the smell of hot chicken stew greeting me as I walked it. That was NOT the smell that greeted me. As I turned the corner into the bedroom where Judah’s crate is, I realized he had had explosive diarrhea while I was gone. I mean splashing out of the crate onto the carpet and the wall. Not to mention EVERYTHING in the crate was covered with doo. What is it with my children and their apparently over-sensitive digestive systems?

On a different note, on our tight budget I have become an amateur hair stylist and chef so I’m including a few pix from where I cut Ken’s hair and the fruit pizza I made. Not too bad if I do say so myself.