Sittin On A Porch

Sittin On A Porch
Our little back porch

Friday, May 9, 2014

Its May

Happy Beltane!  Happy May!!  Happy Spring and Flowers!! And Happy rain!  I spent most of May Day morning sending out May Day wishes.  The traditions of my youth with baskets of flowers and spring poems, maypoles and picnics are not quite the same.  I did fix favorite foods and spent most of the day outside and in the garden.  My veggie garden is coming up, I need to weed, mulch and fertilize it.  With all the rain it could use a light nutritional supplement.  I have plenty of chicken manure and yard trash composting, lots of lovely things to make into a tea.  It is just as easy to hook on the miracle gro and be done with it.  Yes, May Day was wonderful and filled with time outside in the sun.  Being alive and experiencing another May Day.  Beltane, the celebration of life, making new life, bringing new life, a strong reminder to everything on the planet that we are all one and rely on each other for this glorious place to exist.  And to celebrate that with love and joy and oh, I feel like a small child again on May Day.  The only holiday at school that was about nature.  Most of the other holidays were about gratitude.  Gratitude for the soldiers, the pilgrims, being Southern, being Americans.  And I love the WWI songs and the pine cone turkeys, but May Day was grateful for a sunny day, flowers and singing, dancing and playing.  Yes, like My Vicki always says, "We had a perfect childhood"

Today is May 6th and I am not quite sure I can remember everything that has been going on since May Day.  I have not mastered living in the moment and remembering the past.  Like the past 24 hours even.  But I have been having improving days.  I know there were two days, each following two days that I did too much, that I had to do more pain managing through rest and breathing instead of taking more pills and getting sick again.  I know there was one day were I cried a lot.  Sad? not really, more like overwhelmed.  When I simply get too overwhelmed by what I want to do, what I need to do, what I can do and not knowing the answer to any of it. 

My sweet precious cousin, Lori called me yesterday.  I think she may have recently been able to catch up on my blog and was worried sick,  She called the house phone and the cell phone repeatedly.  I was working outside and then I forgot my phone when I went over to the Casa (I like that, it is easier to describe each place as home and casa) I forgot my phone.  I got home just as she was calling again.  She had good news and bad news.  The good news is that they are hiring at a VA hospital that she has been wanting to work at and knew I would be so excited and happy.  I am.  To have my cousin out of OH and the horrible winters there is a blessing.  She is a talented and knowledgeable RN, hard working and very good at her job.  I know, her bad news was about me.  She was worried about me and my transitions in life.  She wants me to rest more.  Sit and enjoy life.  I do, and I will.  But I am just not ready to give up.  I still want to live each day.  That means taking care of those I love and who depend on me.  It means having one place we live and one place we are going to live.  The house is coming along, and I am not going to site by and watch the progress.  No, I don't do much, but I enjoy feeling like I have accomplished something.  It is hard to explain, but living a year resting or six months wearing myself out.  There is no choice for me.  I am going to try and push the six months.

I so spend a lot of time sitting with my chickens.  Gladiola, my alpha hen eats from my hand and follows me around like a puppy.  She simply wants treats, but I appreciate that at least she recognizes that I am the supplier.  George who we still do not know for sure if it is a he or a she, spends a lot of time next to the cage with the babies.  I don't know if she relates to the babies, enjoys the warmth or the noise, or maybe he/she wants to eat them.  I have no idea.  Willie and Lily are much louder then the chickens, and are now going outside to pull on the grass just in front of the coop's door.  They are born engineers.  I think we could get them a job with the Army Corp of Engineers.  They work the mud and dig along one side of the water container until the container tips and lets the water run into a hole which they can then make into a giant mud pit.  At least once a day I have to go out and refill and move the blocks the container sits on to different locations throughout the coop to keep it level.

My silkie, Petunia is acting a lot like a Pete, we will see.  The feathers are coming in and they are silky, and he/she is just the cutest little thing.  The other three banties are still so tiny and cute.  The two giants are now 3 or 4 times bigger than the banties and at least twice as big as the normal size chickens.  Each little flock is unique.  The personalities as they grow and change and interact and as the pecking order adjusts each moment.  George is huge and a bit difficult.  He/she bit Bug and then attacked the red baby feeder when I was cleaning it.  sigh, you never know what each child will be like. 

I am doing so much better.  I have a couple of good days, then a couple of bad days, then hopefully a few more good.  Please do not worry about me.  I am not worried at all, so I do not realize how my words sound to others.  Please forgive me, I seem to have worried people.  Everyone has good and bad days, my just seem more extreme to me.  This is my journal, and I do not mean it to be a medical journal of my progress.  When I am down, I talk about it, when I am happy, I talk about it.  Again, thank you all for your thoughts and visits here to my page.  I am sorry for worrying you.

I truly am not worried.  Bug and I are living with the reality of the changes that occur each day.  We know what is happening, but we try not to let it hold us back.  He does not read my blog.  It is his choice, but I have to say that it is easier for me to not worry about him reading this and getting upset.  It is hard enough to live with this, it just seems cruel to think he would have to experience everything twice.  But when we are caught in the reality of the moment, I feel very calm and peaceful.  It is a feeling beyond words to experience parts of life that I had never thought about.  Time seems natural, and I do not feel fear.  What is to come, will come in the order it is to.  I feel lucky to understand and be here for my husband as he works so hard to fulfill my dreams and I do not grow stronger.

No, I am not stronger, but I can not truly judge pain or how I feel anymore.  On the oxy it changes how your brain reacts to pain, and so now I am not sure of when I am in pain.  I had a sore muscle just above the inside of my elbow.  I thought maybe I was tensing the muscle when I slept.  I made an effort to not do that.  Then I noticed a red spot and it was hot and it looked more like a bug bite.  I took some bendryl and put on some bendryl gel on the spot and my brain checked it off as done.  A couple days passed and now I have a red line running down my arm from the spot.  I have to focus on the spot and then I realize how uncomfortable it is.  I am going to see the Oncologist on Tuesday, we will see if I can wait until then.  See, the pain meds help me get up and live a life, but they mess with my brain so things can go wrong and then move along quickly without noticing.  I just need to stop and check all over each day to see if there is anything of concern.  Then share with Bug if it might be a problem.  Always something.

The house is coming along.  The contractors are done.  Bug and his Dad have been working at the house.  There are so many little things need to be done.  Wall and switch plates to be put on, fans and lights to be hung, painting to finish.  The kitchen looks like a real kitchen now.  It still needs to be put back together and finished.  Each day that Bug is there it looks different.  He is amazing and just keeps going like the Energizer bunny. 

We found curtains for the bedroom, lights for both bathrooms, and a new door knob for the front door.

I have had lunch with Carolyn and Judi to share art and crafts supplies, and then lunch with my friend Phyllis.  Dad gave Mom and I pedicures and lunch out, and we went to Fanny's for lunch.  Fanny's is located at the Goodwood Museum, and I would highly recommend you make reservations or go early to make sure you get in.  We arrived early but by the time we left at 12:30, most of the inside tables were full and all of the tables scattered through the garden were full.  The staff are lovely.  Sweet, friendly, professional and attentive to perfection.  The food was creative, hat and freshly made.  We shared a fried green tomato appetizer, and Mom jumped in and said that we would split the odd tomato.  They were good enough, I appreciated that she was willing to share that half.  We both had the Primo Panini with a deviled egg (delicious) and pickled okra (as good as it gets).  The sandwich was perfect, not too much, but more then I could do in one meal, but it heated up beautifully and I had a second meal.  We each chose the fruit salad as a side and it was fruit cut fresh for our plate.  The blueberries, blackberries, strawberries and water melon were perfectly sweet and ripe with no other sweetener needed.  We had a leisurely lunch and Mom loved it.  May was our waitress and Mom fell in love with her.  I did too when I first met this lovely amazing woman.  She just glows.  Hmm, you know all three girls glow, when I think about it.  Must have been great parents.

Anyway, then we went for our pedicures and they massaged our legs and feet and scrubbed and moisturized and painted our nails shades of pink.  The chair moved up and down our backs pulsating and kneading tired muscles.  By the time they finished with us, both Mom and I were a little woozy with the pampering and we could hardly walk with all the friction ground off the bottom of our feet.  We callus our feet quickly here, but just after having them removed, I could not get any grip on my shoes.  It didn't help that my legs were quite comfortable and didn't seem to mind that my feet were slipping and sliding.  Mom sat in the car. 

We came home and Mom and I spent a little time planning on Mother's Day.  I had wanted to make dinner myself.  I really don't like going out to eat on Mother's Day.  It is the day when everybody goes out to eat.  I also have Garden Circle.  It is the last meeting of the year and I really want to go.  So everyone is working around my schedule.  I appreciate it, and yet feel uncomfortable asking these people I love to work around my schedule.  They of course, have no problem.  I am the one with the problem, not them.  So we will have Mother's Day at Mom's and she is doing most of the cooking.  sigh.  I feel like a burden.  I big clumsy bag of burden.  Unreliable, unpredictable, unwilling to sit down and stop.  I am sorry to all of those I have hurt with my good intentions and a mind and body that do not coordinate.

Tomorrow we will go up to the Opera House for Southern Music Rising.  We are looking forward to seeing, Lis and Lon Williams with Gatorbone records, and Grandpa's Cough Medicine.  We always enjoy them at Suwanee.  There are also a couple of other bands we would like to see, and I would like to see some of the cowboy humor and history.

Today is May 9th.  Day by Day is ticking away.  I started this post on May Day.  It is now the 9th.  I can not tell you which days were good or bad, or where I was on most of the previous nine days,  I guess that is living in the moment.  If so, then I am getting this down.

I am trying to adjust to my brain and how it functions now.  I am trying to adjust to my stomach issues that are much better, thank you, but now new issues to learn.  I know I need to be more observant and proactive over little things that catch my attention. 

I am fine.  I have come back to life.  I am never going to be as strong as I once was.  I prefer to stay close to home now.  Thank you for all of your care and support.  Please forgive me, but if I could use words used by one of you, "real", "raw".  I don't mean to sound cocky, because I can not tell you how much your comments blow my mind, but it is real for that moment, and absolutely raw.  Maybe I am too dramatic.  I am trying to speak with as much truth for the moment as I can.  I do not hope that I am dramatizing this time.  I am with a stage company.  But I am using the only words I have.  Trying to leave a record of who I am, what happened to me, and how I reacted to it.  Why?  I don't know, maybe because this journal is energy and energy is part of all energy.  It can not be created or destroyed.  Is this my way of leaving memories of myself in this point of energy?  Will they continue to be a part of me as part of all the energy?  Will I recognize them as mine?  Will any of this even be of any importance?  It doesn't matter.  Just like I am taking cuttings of plants, I live each day for the day it is.  Tomorrow Bug and I will go hear music and get to see and hear some of our most favorite people.  Joy

Life is hard.  Is it harder when you can remember what you could do just a few months ago, but no longer can do?  I don't know.  But instead of it being frustrating, it is learning about myself and what I can do. 

It is the weekend, and I have posted after trying to write, trying to live through good days and bad days, hmmm, I guess that is just like everyone else.

3 comments:

  1. Yes. It is just like everyone else, only in speeded-up time. That's what I think. You looked beautiful when you came by the other day and the boys had such fun going through the treasure box your brought. it was like Christmas.
    Just keep on doing what you're doing, sweetie. Make yourself happy in any and every way that you can. Good advice for all of us.
    I love you.

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  2. Glad that you are taking each day and dealing with what it brings. You are real. Thanks for having some of us along for the journey. And the house sounds to be really coming along. Take care.

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  3. I stumbled on your blog through a mention by Syd on his blog. I love reading you.

    Please don't talk about being a burden to your loved ones. Let them taek care of you and spoil you and nurture you and love you. It is so hurtful to the once you love to say you are a burden. You are a beautiful woman in person and spirit. Let us take care of you.

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