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February 27 seven yearsDon't want to be too morose, but yesterday was the anniversary of my mom's death 7 years ago. IN some ways it seems like it was just yesterday and others a millions years ago. There are days I so wish she was still here.... I miss her so much. I see some of my friends sturggling with caring for their parents as they age and at times I feel a bit jealous. I know they are facing things I never had to face (and many that I did) but some do not seem to appreciate still having mom or dad around. It reminds me of high school when so many kids would complain about their parents and yes sometimes even wish they weren't around. Maybe I just couldn't understand since my dad passed away when we were all so young. Or maybe deep down I knew how fleeting everything could be.
I wish my mom could have been here a little longer. She was 67 when she died. Doesn't seem like enough time, and she had so much more to share. Still, she had no desire to fight the cancer past as long as she did. Mom beat all the prognosis I could find on line, which all said 3-5 months with the non small cell lung cancer she had. She made it 8 months. I think she had taken care of as much as she could. When she decided she was done even the paliative radiation, she was gone in less than a week. Jamie said mom said that she had been happy and everything had been great the last few years. (jamie was the only one who could understand Mom's speech toward the end) And she saw my Dad. That was cool... Dad had passed in 1971. According to my Aunt Marilynn, they had been happy. Mom had only gotten "tough" after Dad died... so to know that they were being reunited after so long and that Mom was happy about it made things a little easier to bear.
Geri was different from the time she was a young girl. She was raised poor, but right. She had told me about never having shoes that fit and eating pidgeons her Dad shot in the yard. Because of the shoe thing, she had only one joint on all of her toes. (like most people's big toes) Mom had done ok in school. I have some of her sketches from high school and beyond. She played half court basketball, becasue girls were only allowed to play that... they were too delicate for full court. As a contrast to the half court, she ran track - against the boys becasue there was no girls' team and regularly beat the boys. At 16, Mom was riding her bike and got hit by a car. She was dragged for some distance and was not expected to walk again after. She did of course. After high school, she worked in Buffalo. I believe she and my Dad met in hgih school. Dad went to college for forestry.... they eventually married and ended up moving down here for my Dad's work. I don't remember my Mom not workign, which was a little unusual in those days, but it's good that she did. She was earning moneyg when my Dad got cancer. Mom fought to bring Dad home when it was clear he would die soon. Hospice was not really an accepted thing and the doctors thought my Mom was a bit "off". She raised 4 kids by herself... we were 9-16 at the time. Mom did her best and did a good job with us. It had to have been hard. She was a single mom when most single moms were thought to be tainted in some way. She stuck up for us when we were wronged and let us know it when we did wrong. We tested everything we could - my brothers were "pot heads" during hs, my sister got pregnant at 19 and I did some random stupid stuff. Now that my kids are older, I see what she got us through.
Mom worked in a factory. She taught many of the engineers their jobs. She became one of the first women supervisors in her plant. Having the name Geri and a low voice, some men she had spoken to on the phone would come for a meeting and be surprised to find a woman in the chair. By the time she retired, she was supervising 5 different shops and had moved some operations to Florida. She was an amazing woman. She was no nonsense at home. When we were in trouble, you knew it. She'd be sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and one eyebrow would be raised. You would have to go in and admit to your transgression if you were the offender. We knew that you could only ask for money or permission for something when she had one foot on the floor. (for a while she worked the night shift and I guess we had tried to slip a few things past her0 I only remember being spanked one time. She was so matter of fact... I remember cleaning the kitchen with her one time... somehow, I was on the floor near her foot. She had stepped on a piece of glass and it was sticking out of her foot. (there was some nerve damage after the accident and she could not always feel things) I gaped at it and finally yold her... She very calmly just said, "Well, take it out!" I did and she bled all over the place... to which she just sat down and put a towel on it. It was the same way when we told my kids about her cancer. We took turns explaining things in a way they could understand. They cried a bit... then Mom noticed it was time for Jeopardy. She just said... "Crying's not going to change anything and Jeopardy's on... let's see if we know any answers." Geez she was tough. Still... the kids all knew they could crawl up into her lap when they wanted/needed to.
I wish I could have done more for her. In the end, though I believe loving her and doing my best was enough. She was proud of us and her grandkids. Love ya, Mom!
Yeesterday, I got the results from the follow up MRI. The fibroid shrank by 30-31%. Not the 40-50% I wanted and most seem to achieve, but I'll take it. Apparently where the fibroid originally was had made my uterus move. The nurse I spoke to said it was moving back into its normal place. Woohoo! I have the measurements pre and post, but will put them here when I find them again. I would like to see the actual MRIs, but that does not appear to be standard proceedure. I might just ask, though it is my "parts". The fibroid is supposed to continue to shrink for about another 6 months. If my symptoms reappear or the anemia comes back I may look into having it done again. It wasn't all tha bad and I would love to have it mostly gone.
Colleen has a nasty case of the flu. She came home to work last weekend and ended up leaving work early on Sunday. I took her to see the doctor on Monday. Dr. Roth was kind enough to give her a note for her professors and a perscription for Tamaflu. It seems to be helping a little, but this thing is bad. So far, her professors have been pretty good about it. Colleen had an interview tonight, even while sick, to write for another blog. Man, this kiddo floors me - she's amazing.
Other than that nothing much new. I am a little better every day. There blues still sneak up on me, but if Jerry and I are meant to be, something will work out. If not, then it wasn't meant to be. I've done what I could do. Who knows, there may be an even better knight waiting somewhere in a few months. If not, I'm pretty good company for myself.
Have a great week and stay warm!
February 22 snow day!!!!!!Woohoo! We have our first snow day today!!! Not a 2 hour delay, a whole day!!! People who live in snowier or colder areas probably think we're ridiculous - 3-5" of snow and school is canelled throughout our area. To be fair to all the superientendants who cancelled though, we are suppsoed to get sleet and freezing rain on top of it. It was fun to get the call at 5:30 this morning to hear we were closed.
Of course, I'm trying to not obsess on the fact that I have this unexpected day off and I've had a headache all day. I did do some good things - continued on a child's afgan I am making and meditated. When this clears, I hope to get some more things done.
I have lost about 2 lbs. Cannot yet figure out if it is from walking and doing Pilates or not eating much the last few days. Normally when something is bothering me or I am upset, I eat everything in sight. Since the Jerry debacle Tuesday night, I have not felt much like eating, even when I make myself. Dumb, I know.
My friends are being great. They are supportive and wonderful. I am very blessed.
Yesterday I had my first liaison meeting. All of the reps were there except my buddy Chris and one of the assistants' reps. The CEO is a bugger. He obviously loves to hear himself talk. And talk he did... and regale us with his humor. We only discussed a few things. Nothing new really came out of the meeting, but I was glad to get it over with without hurling or something. There was really nothing to be nervous about.
Last night we had our book club. It was fun. The group of ladies is a diverse, interesting bunch. I was glad to discuss Comeback , as it had touched me deeply. Some of it was too close to home for me, but I devoured the book. Mia and Claire Fontaine are brave for writting it and I am very glad that they did.
Going to finish my tea and try to read. Happy Snow Day!!!!!!
February 18 preisdents' dayCannot say that I am all that gung ho about Presidents' Day. It certainly is nice to have a day off. And I guess, yeah we should honor the men who have served as our presidents. So, yay George, Abe and the rest of them! And yes I do know that we are lucky to have omst of the leaders we have had.
I did a Pilates dvd I have here at home. My goal is to get back to class 2x a week. I just know right now that they would kick my butt. So I did one that I thought was a simple/aka easy one. Yeah... not so much. It was one I bought for when you've already been doin this for a while and want to maintain the progress you've made. Thank goodness I've taken enough classes to know how to modify the exercises. If not, there's no way I'd be able to move tomorrow! I'm glad I got myself to do it.
Yesterday, I had a good walk around our local park. It was about 35 minutes. Tomorrow I am hoping to fit one in while we have a prep. Since I have a class to interpret tomorrow night it won't happen otherwise.
It feels good to move. I have been in a funk for a while. Since Christmas to be precise. WHen I get bummed out, I tend to not do anything at all. So, my house and my body show it. I have not gotten exceptionally big, just a few pounds. Enough though that I notice it. Back to walking and Pilates again. Who knows I may even make it back into the pool.
There are some errands I need to do tomorrow... getting checks into the back, getting billling and a w-9 filled out, etc. Have to get better at all of the book-keeping type stuff.
Good weekend all in all. I rested more than I probably whoudl have. Jamie is feeling better. Cannot remember if I posted about her meningitis scare on Friday or not. Really it was scarey... and I think the next time I have the hankering to go out there I'm just going to. I don't want to undermine her independence but I didn't like not being there. Since she is feeling better since she started taking the antibiotics, Ihave to assume she had either pneumonia or broncictis. So grateful she is feeling better.
Other than all that, not much new. Have a great week.
Lynsey - goodness... I saw the latest updates about the young girl missing out by you. So sorry that it had a terrible ending. It's such a shame. Glad things are going well for you though. Seems you are in a good place about how you are feeling about yourself and therefore you and J - yay!!!! Very cool. Cannot tell you how thrilled I am. Happy everything! February 16 week ---->This week really did fly by for me. Normally February seems to drag on forever. This year it seems to be zooming by, Maybe that's what happens as you get older, who knows?
I had 2 jobs earlier this week. One was right afetr my regular one with 2 blue collar guys I like workign with in a large company close by. The info I got on the meeting made it sound like they were being trained on a piece of machinery or being re-certiffied. As it turns out, they were being told that they were no longer going to be working using that and another piece of equptment. This was because of a rule that had been on the company's books for years - nearly a decade - and no one ever enforced it. Apparently hard of hearing people can use these particular mechaines but the 2 guys I wokr with noe cannot. They were both trained and certified on the machines. Now, in the course of doing their jobs, if something has to be done that involves these pieces, the guys have to go get someone else to do that. It just sucks. Both have been driving their entire lives and own vehicles. Deaf people visually scan constantly and are usually better drivers then we are. I left that meeting feeling awful. There are no OSHA regulations in place restricting them from doing this part of the job. I'm sure there are some kind of resaonable accomodations that could be made pretty inexpensively. (a light that goes on when the deaf guys are driving to make the machines more visible...) They both spoke up against the decision and with any luck at all their union will do something. This is a part of my job that stinks. I'm not allowed to have an opinion during the communication event _it could skew the messages- and I may not intervene.
The other one was not so emotionally draining, it was just longer than I had expected. We got out of that meeting at 11:40 that night. My regular day starts at 7:35. The next day was tough getting out of bed.
Jamie & I got her FAFSA done Thursday night. What a relief. We didn't even have any problems with anything was different. Weusually have some kind of problem to argue about. It was nice to have that happen.
Hope to walk today and maybe get a few things done. I know Colleen wants to hit the grocery store before she goes back to school. Am looking forward to the long weekend. February 12 1 FAFSA done 1 to goWell... I am very happy - got Colleen's FAFSA done last night!!!! (free application for federal student aid) It automatically gets her application to the state as well, although I have to ammend it when I get the state copy. The federal does not require me to report my mandatory retirement contributionts, the state does... go figure. Jamie is going to do her own. Less work for mom - woo!
We had an early dismissal today. We had gotten a bit of snow 1-2" but there was sleet and ice on the way. I can say I think they made the right decision. It can be dicey getting kids home. The ride wasn't too bad - I dropped my friend Patti at her house, then stopped to pick up a perscription. I was suppoed to go to Whole Foods and get a cake for Patti, but decided not to push it and went home. Since the kids are taking the PSSAs tomorrw (thanks NCLB!) I am going to Whole Foods first - they open at 8 which works out nicely. The sleet/freezing rain/whatever is supposed to go til midnight or 2 am then change to rain so everything hopefully will be clear in the morning.
Last night I went for my follow up MRI. It wasn't bad at all. The tech was kind and very good - she only had to "stick" me once when she put in the contrast. What I was having the most trouble with was trying to relax. My muscles all took turns tensing up. I'm such a baby. I am looking forward to getting the results. I am hoping for a 40% or more reduction in the size of the fibroid. I know my symptoms have been much better but I guess I need a doctor type to confirm it. Before the UFE it was 5-6 cm. With any luck it is a shadow of its former self.
Am trying to ignore Valentine's day.. well I fib... will shower my kiddos with lots of icky mom attention. They are exceptionaly people and I am very blessed.
Since the new semester has started, I am getting used to my new classes. Some are "eh". My favorite is my Current Issues class. The teacher has never worked with any deaf kids before & it is his first year at our school, but I really like his class. He is excited about what he is doing and it shows. Below are 2 examples of some of the thinge he uses in class. Here he was emphasizing how pop culture is involved in the elections. You may have already seen these, but I was pretty stoaked when he used these. The second link includes candidates that have stepped out, but it made a point. (and he HAS been looking for music vids from the republican side, but no luck yet) And no, he is not one of the young, hip teachers - he is a little older than I am but very hip!
Have a great night and stay out of all this nasty weather!
February 10 taxes done!Woohoo. Taxes are done so either I can get my dadburn printer working or I can save everything onto a flashdrive and take it into work to print. Then I can do Col's FAFSA either tonight or tomorrow night. We will make her college's deadline this year no matter what. It's a nice feeling having the taxes done.
I brought home a picture from earlier this school year of the folks I work closest with. What a group we are. It made me think of where I will be at the end of the 2008-09 school year. I've come to depend on my co-workers. They are supportive - more so than my own siblings unfortunately - and always there for me. GUess I will have to be a grown up and do for myself.
I don't feel like a grown up much of the time. Mom, sure.... but since some things have just illuded me, I feel like in some way I'm not a "real" adult. Weird, I guess.
Darlin' Eddie has not been around much. He spends most of his time at his friend Bobby's house. I need to teach him parrallel parking but he's never here. I know most 16 year old guys don't really want to be spending all of their time home with their moms, but this is weird. It's like I already have that empty nest everyone keeps talking about.
Below is the picture of the group from work. It was spirit week, twins day... I am 2nd from the right.
Have a peaceful Sunday.
February 08 Frid-d-d-day!Lovin' that it is Friday. How much better can things be? (ok so I won't go into that!) The week was pretty good, so I'm going to concentrate on those good things.
Jamie's coming home tonight to finish her taxes. This weekend I need to finish mine and Colleen's and get a good start on her FAFSA. (federal financial aid application) We are NOT missing ANY deadlines this year!
I still need to get my poor car's struts fixed. It looks like there are hydrolics on it or something. It is making me feel leary of driving Jamie to/from school and next week I'll be starting an on going, weekly job. At least I know I'll be earning back the money. Will be interperting a child development class at a college about 20-25 minutes from home. Yay, extra money! When I work freelance, the hourly money is pretty good. The classes are 3 hours once a week until May 6. (with one week off for Spring Break) My plan is to use half to play on some bills and the other half to buy oil and such.
Yesterday was my first meeting as a rep of sorts for the interpreters. The "CEO" of our agency acts like a jerk. I know his job is to look at the bottom line, but the whole tone of our entire organization has changed. The interpreters, job coaches and teaching assistants are not in a union unlike the teachers. So we have meet and discuss meetings with him and the head of personnel to come to agrrements with rather than contracts. My buddy from work, Niety, was our laison for at least the past 18 years. She did an excellent job negotiating for us and even got us a separate pay scale from the TAs. They do a heck of a lot of important work, but interpreting does require a certain amount of additional education. Niety has made many inroads in getting us re-embursed for tuition, a $500 addition to our base salary for becoming certified and the like. She has done an awesome job. The meetings up until about 2-3 months ago had been cordial, businesslike and comfortable. At the previous meeting, Niety was asking about a few things... things she had asked about in the past or very similar. At one point this hoo ha gets up while she is in mid-sentence and walked out to talk to the head of personnel. When he came back he was condescending and said that the matters she was asking about were matters she needed to take to the supervisor. Period, end of story. He humilated her. The next day, she stepped down. She will be retiring after next school year and frankly just doesn't feel the need to put up with this type of behavoir. So, that left a huge vacuum. There are only 5 interpreters right now. Niety is out, Brian is student teaching and another interpreter never makes any waves at all. She is a very lovely woman, but she will not speak up for herself much less herself and 4 other people.
That left Chris and me. Even though I only have Eddie left at home, I still have to handle things sometimes and cannot always be available. Chris is a single mom as well with 3 kids younger than Eddie. So, we're doing this together. The head laison commented on there being 2 of us for a 5 person grouping and I am sure the jerko CEO will as well. Oh well. We did not really have that much to talk about at the meeting. Seems either no one has any concerns or people are just scared to say anything. With the layoffs last year, it makes anyone think twice. The negotiations iwll be interesting to say the least. I redden any time I am nervous, upset or angry about anything so that concerns me. I did find out that a surprising number of support staff in ours and surrounding counties are unionized. Could be they faced the same nonsense we have/are. The info was really easy to find the night before the meeting. No one seems to want to go that route, but I keep thinking sooner or later it will have to come to that. I was glad that our first meeting was only the "reps".
I got to walk today. Finally! It felt really good to be moving and made feel good mood wise. Other that all of the aboce nothing really new. Going to go email my friend Robin... we haven't talked or emailed in a while and I miss her. February 04 getting betterIt appears my cold or whatever this is is getting better. Since last Thursday, I have been drinking lots of water. Either that worked and/or enough time has gone by for it to work through its course, but I am starting to feel better. Woohoo! Better right now pretty much means I am not blowing my nose every 3 minutes or so and I no longer feel like I was run over by a truck. Thank goodness. *this part was originally typed on Monday, I am even better now.
Most of the weekend, I just vegged out. Saturday I finished (read) our book group selection for this month, Comeback. Sort of glad I didnt try to finish it at work. I cried a couple of times. It is a moving bool - memoir type about the struggle a mom and her daughter went through after the daughter experienced abuse at a very young age. (not from the mom) It was well written and I was emmersed in it pretty quickly. Yes, I identified with the mom and the daughter. It just did a very good job at looking at both of their exeperiences. I'm glad I read it.
Sunday was more vegging, food shopping and watching the Super Bowl. I didn't even realize I was rooting for th Giants til near the the end. I was pretty much watching so I would know what everyone was talking about on Monday and to see Tom Petty at half time. (he was Liam's first group he liked listening to when he was a little guy) Jamie came and kept me company while she was reading her anthropology. I begged off taking her back to school - she was supposed to sing in the area early Sunday morning, but ended up too sick to go so she missed her ride back. The car is really rocking after it goes over a more uneven part of a pavement and I am feeling less and less comfortable driving on a highway. It was nice to see her and we had fun watching the game and commercials together.
The struts and all are supposed to run about $600. I don't know why, but that surprised me. That's going to hurt obviously. Money really is a pain.
Other than that, things are pretty okay. One day at a time and all that. Happy Today! February 01 it got me!Ick.... I don't like being sick. It's only a cold I think, but I just don't like this. I dont know how I dealt with this when I was preggers or nursing 4 times. I've been cooking something for I dont know how long and have felt crappy since yesterday. So glad it's the weekend. I'm going to just veg out. Hevaen knows this thing should be drowned out I drank so much water yesterday and today. I do think it has helped.
Wednesday, Eddie went to a competition for "technical drafting" (mechanical drafting/drawing). He's known about this since about Nov or so and had been praticing since. His teacher thinks pretty highly of him. Has alway told me Eddie is consistently 1st or 2nd in his class. Eddie kept saying he was nervous about it... and I would counter with, "Hey if Mr. M didn't think you could do well, he wouldn't be taking you". Anyway.. there were 4 kids in his group. At least one senior. (e's a junior) They had 2.5 hours to do a drwaing that Edie said used to take him a week to do. One of the judges was watching Eddie over his shoulder while he did the drawing. 2 of the kids didn't finish and Eddie said the senior he thought was his biggest competition was missing a major part. Eddie won! He is going to the state competition!!! I'm pretty sure it will be in the beginning of April. It will be in Hershey at the Conference/convention center. Pretty cool. Eddie seemed pretty pleased with himself. Mostly, he didn't want to disappoint his teacher. (the thinking highly goes both ways) I'm happy for him... this has been a tough year with him being the only one left and his dad being in jail. It's really nice to see something good happen for him.
Tuesday was Colleen's birthday. She's 19! How could that be already? wow, time really does fly. She's such a cutie. Unfortunately, she did not have the best bday. She got herhair cut.... really badly. It was supposed to look like one of te characters on "The L Word". Col showed it to me - it looked like a modified shag hair cut from the 70s. She took no less than 4 pictures of what she wanted with her. Seems the haridresser looked at it and did what she wanted. I got a hysterical phone call Tuesday night saying she looked like a boy!!!! (Col couldn't look like a boy if she tried!) Also that day, her buddy came over to her dorm to celebrate Col's bday and happened to be asked if the guard could search his bag. Yep, the doofus had whiskey in it. So, he left. The guard called D's dorm security. It didnt turn out too terribly, that guard just told him to get rid of it. That put her into more of a tizzy... thinking D was on trouble. Everything just snow-balled from there. She's not sure about print journslism.... thinking about going into film and media or something... her dad is never going to be able to send a card or act like a normal person for them.... and so on. I felt so bad for her, I just wanted to drive down there and hug her. She wanted to come home and feel comfortable and loved. I told her she was always loved no matter where she was... and she could come home and visit. Ah... it's stinks sometimes to be young and so serious about life. Wednesday night she came up. Her hair did look pretty bad, but on Colleen it actually looked pretty good. That probably makes no sense. She trooped herself into a beauty supply store and bought hair extensions. One of her friends from here was going to put them in for her. (not sure why she didn't have this girl cut her hair for her in the first place, but wasn't going to say that) From what I could see the next morning while she was asleep it looked pretty good. Poor thing. I gotta give her credit though - she went back to the palce where they originally cut her hair and got her money back, then went into the beauty supply shop. They were sweet to her there - showed her the right stuff for her hair and so on. Some of the grils in her hall explained how to care for the extensions and all. She seemed much better today when I talked to her. Whew!
I don't know.. I guess it's just life... but it seems like there's always something. Just when you think you have it figured out - wham! somthing else hits ya... Rose anne Rosanna-danna was right all along.
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