My friend’s daughter started Kindergarten this year. When she came home from her first day, she told her mom that the teacher was very nice and that she didn’t even correct the teacher when she was wrong. Mom asked her what the teacher was wrong about. The adorable little girl replied, “The teacher told us that paper comes from trees when everyone knows paper comes from WalMart.” So Cute!!
I got an email from the migraine forum I belong to that announced a migraine poetry contest. Apparently in the middle of the night my brain was inspired and I wrote a poem on a page of the magazine laying by my bed. That was at least a few days ago because I have been staying at a friend’s house. I mentioned it to someone once since then, and then forgot about it until I saw the magazine a few minutes ago. My sis has been guilting nudging me to post so I figured what better way to start than with something I wrote in my sleep. (grin)
The Wolfmen
The wolfmen sit in a wild pack,
perched and ready to attack.
You sit innocently idly by,
Not one beast will catch your eye.
You go on with your daily life,
Unaware of the impending strife.
You catch a glimpse and turn to see,
The wolfman pouncing down on thee.
I remember there was more, and I was too tired and too slow to get it all down. Maybe I will sleep write again another night and finish it!
I am such a quote person and when I read this one I laughed and laughed because I so identify with it. Actually I think most people would.
Right now I’m having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I’ve forgotten this before.
– Steven Wright
For a card contest at Splendid Stamping. They send a stamp each day and then you create a card with it. There are all kinds of really cute cards and hopefully I will be posting a new one each day.
For my grandson who got tubes in his ears today
I spent about two weeks one step above dead with my migraines and chronic pain. Each day I watched the clock waiting for it to be a reasonable time to go to bed, knowing I had survived another day and it was over. I was missing a lot of work, got sent home from two classes because I looked so awful, and was barely up for taking care of and entertaining my dog as I knew I should, etc. Finally one morning I realized that this was not living, and it was barely even surviving.
I had been toying with the idea of uping my pain medication and yet I was having many fears. Tolerance, dependence, am I giving up, would it negate all the other medicine and procedures I had gone through, if I become tolerant and they need to increase the dose and then I have surgery or something and need stronger pain meds would they be effective???? and on and on and on….
Then I convinced myself of the realization that the future is too unknown and I cannot make all my decisions based on ‘what if’ in the future. If I continue to suffer with the pain, and compromise my quality of life for fear of what could happen, and then I die in a car accident next year, or they come out with new medication or better procedures, or hey, a cure, then all the suffering, the unintentional martyrdom, will have been in vain. Why can’t I ‘what if’ toward the positive?
So I decided to apply the pain patch that had been offered to me and see what would happen. Let me just say, in reference to my life as it has been, this ranks right up there with the magic bullet that Botox has been. I sleep less, function more, think clearly, connect, laugh, play, make decisions, etc. My head is soooo clear, it is shocking. So much so that I have had conversations with my pain psychologist, my docotor, to see if there is anything in it that would be like speed; something that would make me hyper or falsely engergized. The answer was no, it is just that the pain is relieved and the pain was causing so much fatigue, nausea, malaise, etc. that relieving the pain relieves all the secondary effects of pain. I was feeling so good that I was still in disbelief. Could the pain really be causing me to feel not only the severe pain, but generalized yuch (mild flu, hit by truck)? I went and questioned two different pharmacists and got the same answer. No, it is just that your pain is being relieved. I couldn’t find anything about it on the web. In more than five years of dealing with this, no doctor has ever conveyed this information to me, including my pain specialists??
So now I am of a mind that life is WAY too short to suffer needlessly!! Yay pain patch. And I think to myself, “This must be what most people feel like.” May my doctors never restrict me!
Once Christmas is over, Santa’s elves are laid off for ten months. They wander about seeking employment and odd jobs. If you should meet up with one of these elves, be sure to help him out. Remember…
Another year older, another year merrier! This is the first time in years that I spent Christmas away from my immediate familly. I can’t recall ever spending it without my boys. And it was still a good day, blessed by the Baby that came so that we would not have to suffer forever; the Baby that came so one day the lion will lay down with the lamb. Which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:
I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. ~Charles Dickens
This year I spent Christmas with my SO and his family. So nothing unexpected and possibly ugly would happen, I drugged myself well. I am so thankful to the medical field, that that is available to me, and even more blessed that God allowed it to work.
My baby girl, Tootsie, was with me but one of the other family members has three dogs and one of them is an alpha female like Tootsie. Bran Dee absolutely was not happy about another dog invading her territory. When she growled at Tootsie, Tootsie thought she was playing so she would let out this cute little bark and jump at Bran Dee and Bran Dee, not intending to play would snap at her and the tussle would begin. Tootsie also kept climbing on my SO’s bad knee, so I decided Tootsie needed to go visit her sister and her other mother.
At the last minute this morning, one of the families canceled and they were responsible for the vegetable tray. The tray was all we had planned for vegetables with the meal. Since I was going out already, I got designated to find an open grocery store to get some kind of vegeys. Yay Safeway! Though far, they were opened, and packed full of people!! I got about six phone calls on the way with more things people wanted. I got the last vegetable tray, the second to the last bag of marshmallows for the sweet potatoes, forget tortilla chips, and no sugar free candy!! Thankfully they had what I needed because they got wiped out at the table.
Then it was time for presents, more food, and then the annual Christmas tradition, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation!” Though I wish they would do a version without the vulgar language, the movie is hilarious, especially when the cat gets fried under the Christmas tree.
Everyone went home after the movie, MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!! (oops, wrong movie, but the sentiment stands!)
I am home from Sedona and officially back to work (ish). Our time was mostly great. I was in pain infrequently due to the pain patch, my new best friend. I took jacuzzi baths every night and the new jacuzzi tubs have colored lights. 
What a luxury!! I mostly used soothing blue, though a couple of times I used lavendar. SO delightful! Did way more shopping than I wanted to, and everyone got excellent bargains on stuff we weren’t looking for….hee hee hee. One friend did almost all of her Christmas shopping. She was so excited. My crafty friend and I had a fabulous time almost finishing my Christmas ornaments. Did some reading and some napping and LOTS of eating!! It threatened to snow, and all that came down was cold rain, 
brrrr! It was very sad to leave, we would have loved to stay the rest of the week. Back to reality though….
This is too good to not be shared, even though it happened a couple of weeks ago. My friend and I like this scrapbook store that is up in Anthem, Scrapbooks to Remember. On Black Friday they put out an ad stating that they knew they couldn’t compete with the giant retailers for the sales of the day so they were closing for the day. They were also having a reverse Black Friday and having special sales throughout the evening. From 8 to 9p was 10% off; 9 to 10p 15% off; 10 to 11p 20% off; and 11 to 12p 30% off everything in the store.
We thought the would be fun though neither one of us is usually functioning well at that time, we were going to throw caution to the wind and go for it. Arriving at 10:30p so we could make our selections ahead of time, there were no lights on the outside of the building and only one car in the parking lot. We were afraid they were closed. I got out and checked a note on the door, they were in fact open. As we entered, a woman from the back came and greeted us. We told her without the lights on we thought she was closed. She said the sale didn’t turn out to be as good an idea as she had hoped. Mind you the two of us are the only customers in the store.
We grab a basket and start to fill it with our selections. About fifteen minutes later the owner comes back over to us and hands us a ticket that says 20% off. We tell her that we wanted to shop until it was 30% off. She said that it goes according to when yo enter the store, “other wise how would she keep track of everyone,” (remember my friend and I are the only ones in there) and how would she keep people from staying and shopping all night? (and that would be a problem??) So we ask her if we can leave and come back after 11. She shrugs her shoulders and says, “Sure.”
To kill time, we decide to go across the street to WalMart. We strolled through the craft section and I found everything I wanted and the price ended up being less overall than had we gone back to Scrapbooks to Remember. So the owner has two customers show up during the evening and she sends them away to avoid giving an extra 10% discount. I wonder if they will be going out of business in this crunch time??
Besides the demands of managing school, chronic illness, and some social life, this poor blog has been left behind again. Then on top of that I have this mental block against starting. Where? What? When? How? That keeps me from journaling also, and I love what happens when I journal, but how do you start??
With guilting prompting from my loving sister, I have finished school and now am returning. Did I mention I got 100% on my Algebra final?? So I decided I don’t need a special place to start, I just need to start, so here I am.
Today is my birthday and I am sitting in the hospital with my SO who is getting total knee replacement surgery. His blood preesure was 218 over 118 and they threatened to call off the surgery, but the anethesiologist was confident she could control it so in he went. Telling all the loved ones I needed to tell, I started get anxious so I took myself out for my birthday lunch.
One of my gifts was this fantastic little laptop that only weighs 2.3 lbs with the big battery! I love it! The reason I didn’t carry my other one around was because it was so big and heavy on my bad neck and shoulders. This is great, it is about the size of a Bible cover and goes everywhere now. It is an Acer Aspire One, and it’s PINK! My phone has WiFi so I am set to go almost wherever I want.
So I wait with all the other friends and loved ones of all the other patients, waiting for some news from a surgeon. It seems a sad time of year to be in the hospital, especially unplanned. Many galbladders coming out today. I am thankful that there are hospitals though to give us relief when we need it.
Tonight it is off to Sedona for my annual slumber party. 
Looks like there will be 7 women this year; and lots of relaxation in front of the fireplace!!! May have snow as well and that will be beautiful if we don’t have to go out in it. Hopefully I will be able to get phone reception so I can continue my blogging….or I will have to face my sister!!