Entry for October 23, 2006

Sick.

            Germs.

I'm so sick of germs and we are not out of October yet. Teaching youngsters it a rare treat that not many get the opportunity to have in their lifetime. Other folks' youngsters. I have done it for 20+ years now. There are but 2 drawbacks of teaching the most precious of our world's comodoties.  1.) Management 2.) Germs

I took a cold about 2 weeks into the school year. It hung for 3 weeks and then I was sick. Fever, chills, the works. I went to the doctors and got some antibiodics. My cold had progressed into a sinus infection and an ear infection. I took the antibiodics ... I felt better, but my ear still hurt. I carried on...

I wound up back at the doctors. Now it just didn't hurt. It smelled bad, I was getting dizzy, and IT HURT. More antibiodics, I finished them yesterday. It hurt so bad today that I called the doctor....again! I have not suffered an ear infection since I was 14 years old. Now at 45 I have one that refuses to go away. He gave me nasal spray and told me if it's not better by Wednesday I need to see the specialist.  I'll need tubes in my ears. This is crazy.

So I stayed home from both jobs today, doing what the doctor told me to do. resting. This is historical in itself. I never off both jobs. I usuallt call of my teaching job, it takes so much energy to work that job, and go to my other one where I mostly sit at the computer. Today, I called off BOTH jobs. I feel guilty, but I gave myself a pat on the back too. After calling into work I slept till 1:30 in the afternoon. I got up and went to the doc's for the prescription. I got it filled, came home, slipped back into my footie pajamas and had some soup for supper. I read some and now I am taking care of my 'puter stuff I want to get done.

The craziest thing is that I'm still tired. I will go to bed early tonight. After the Antiques Roadshow goes off. I love that show. I dream of the day one of my pieces of tresure is determined to be a fortune that I can say "SOLD!" to. I haven't seen anything I own on that show yet, but I still persist in watching it... one day my junk will be on it, I'm sure of that.

I feel tired, and hate germs....

but yet I smile....

love me later ~ tj

Entry for October 15, 2006

Autumn is exploding around me. The colors so vibrant. I look forward to my weekends. I work 13 hours a day, 5 days a week. I brought paperwork home to do this weekend. I got half of it done. Still need to clean and today for the first time in a month I'm turning on the oven. I am feeling rather domestic on this brisk fall morning. I slept in. What a feeling. I felt naughty, but I did it anyway. By the time I got up I had 4 messages on my phone. I had turned it off last night so it wouldn't wake me. I called my son, then my daughter.  Scott is coming home next weekend, and my mom is going to see Becky and my sweet Boog on Thursday so all is well and good. I miss his cherub's smile, his sweet coo's and joyious belly giggles. He's 7 1/2 months old now, and getting bigger and doing more, and I'm missing it. Becky fills me in on his development and bless his heart he loves the phone so I hear him "talking" to his Yaya often.

My friend and I had a discussion the other day. Actually he discussed and I listened. He said he's not crazy over the lable 'friend'. So I asked him what I should call him when I refer to him. I asked, 'Boyfriend? You are not a boy, you are a man.' 'Manfriend?' That's silly. He said just call me what I am, your fiance'. So that's what I will refer to him as.  (side note... the lable husband is in the far, far future in my mind...I'll know when I'm ready for that, and it's not anytime in the  near future.) So my fiance' is at his house with some buddies filling up a trailer full of his belongings to bring back here. I'm supposed to be moving furniture and deciding where everything is going to go. I figger I'll wait till he gets here with it and as we offload it we'll just put it. It can be moved around later, and again if we don't like where it is. 

We took last Saturday off and drove off into the most wonderful autumn day I have expierenced in a long time. We went to the apple orchard and ate warm fresh donuts, drank cider, bought apples and applebutter, listened to some musicians play and smelled the most delicious smells mingling in the air. Bar-b-que, donuts, apples, pumpkin pies, MMMM-mmmm. Then we drove off and went antique-ing. I love to look at the old things folks call antiques. Things like the toys I played with as a child. Now isn't that a fine how-do-you-do?  Sorta the same feeling I get when I hear Bob Seger on the 'Oldies' radio station. Jeez. I laugh. The music I listened to and the toys I played with are 'antiques' but I'M NOT!!

Well I have got to get to my paperwork I mentioned....my classroom lessonplans are in dire need of my attention, as is my house, and my cooking, and this furniture moving....hmmmm Maybe I'll blow it all off and sit and write on my story, the one I've been working on for a year, the one that was supposed to be a 'short story', I have to vist it and see what's been happening while I was away. Catch up on old times with my characters (who have become real friends to me).  Naw, I think I'll get busy instead...be responsible and trusthworthy.... UGH!

but I am smiling....

love me later~ tj

Entry for September 25, 2006

I had my kids home this weekend. It was wonderful. I hadn't seen my Boog in 22 days, since my daughter's husband decided one day to move 5 hours away. It was so enjoyable seeing them come, it was bittersweet watching them go.  Scott is 2-1/2 hours south of me, Becca is 5 hours north of me. I will miss them. I will miss the baby.  My daughter celebrated her 1st anniversary yesterday. I couldn't find a card appropriate for my feelings (Happy Anniversary, are you divorced yet?) so I was kind instead. I came to a peaceful realization this weekend with my daughter. She is happy. No matter where she is so long as she is with him. She's a terrific mommy. She is so in love with her husband. What more could a momma want for her kids than that? To be happy and far away.

I have been going through my friends things. He and I have been  deciding what we are keeping, and what's going. Merging two households together. We have been EBaying alot. Hopefully by the time we are through we will have Ebayed enough to get our new dining room set. We are halfway there now. Yippie! The new bedroom is shaping  up as well. He is doing what he can. Since the fall a few weeks ago, he takes his days slowly. He cannot work anymore, at least for the near fuyure,  the accident did that to him,  so he has time on his hands to take care of himself and get things done around the house.

Between working both jobs, Ebaying, and worrying about my daughter, my days have been too busy and full of wrought. This weekend brought me a sense of calmness about my daughter that I didn't expect to have. I am tired but I am happy for her, for me, and for my son who is doing so very well. My friend is mending, his days are still driven around pain, but that eases up for him some, and that gives us hope.

and I am smiling.....

love me later~tj

Entry for September 08, 2006

Well, it's another week over. My classes start on Monday. I get all those cherubs and all those germs bombarding me on Monday. I have worked more hours than I can count at the school, on home visits and at the sign shop. The one thing, that one thing that made every moment away from home easy, was walking through the door every night. He was here, waiting for me. I delighted every day in that look he gave me and that, "Hi honey, how was your day?" Precious moments in the everyday week. I sit here writing as he talks on the phone with his brother. I have been seeking this ...this comfort of having someone who cares, is here, really here with me, for me. We go back to the doctors on Tuesday. Hopefully the new MRI will prove he is healing. I see it in the way he moves now. His days are boring him senseless, but he feels it too, he is resting but he is healing....

and I am smiling.........

love me later... tj

Entry for September 02, 2006 ~ Home is where the heart is ~

Home is a good place to be. I was able to bring him home yesterday. I packed up some of his things, well I thought it was a few things till I loaded the truck.

It took up the bed of my new truck. During the last week I found and bought a truck since my car took a dive after someone whammed it in the parking lot at my part time job........It was just another thing to contend with. I dealt with it well, happy to be driving a truck again. The last truck I owned was given up for a respectable vehicle that could fit a car seat oh so many years ago. I used part of Thursday afternoon at my part time job and called dealerships to bring vehicles to me to look at. I didn't know they would do that for me, but I didn't want to leave work, I had so much to catch up on. I was specific in my desire. I wanted either a little truck, or a Beetle Bug. I drove 2 trucks and one VW Bug. This little white Ranger stood out and called to me. I signed the right papers and drove off in my truck Thursday night to pick him up. Crazy how things always seem to work out. 

We left yesterday afternoon to come home, we made a stop at his daughter's house in Taylor and by the time we got here he was tired of sitting. The brace contraption he needs to wear is unusual, big and bulky. His posture is poker straight in the seat, so stopping to stretch at his daughter's was good. I haven't seen her since she was about 13, we were able to catch up on life for a couple of hours, after we ate lunch. She was able to see that her dad was really going to be okay in time.

After we got home I was able to do mundane things that make life normal and peaceful. Pancakes and sausage at 9:30 for a late dinner, toss a load of clothes in the dryer, and listen to his voice as he chatted while I busied myself in the house. After the past week, I know precious when I hear it. I know peaceful when I feel it. I was calm for the first time in a while last night as we shared a snack tray to eat pancakes together.

At home, together.

and I am smiling....

love me later~tj

Entry for August 29, 2006 ~In a Moment~

just because he fell......

I learned a new vocabulary. I learned words and phrases like traumatic brain injury, spinal cord trauma, neuropsychological impairments, brain infarc, left frontal lobe hemotoma. I have spoken with people I never dreamed I would ever have the need to speak with. Neuro Surgeons, Trauma specialists, ICU ward nurses.

I had a very intense, hope filled weekend. My friend's weekend was filled with morphine, dilantin and prayer.

I have felt utter fear and great relief within moments of each other. "No indications of permenant damage."

By God's sweet grace, I am confident in his full recovery. I left him this evening in the good hands of the Neuro Surgical Team. I had to leave, I hadn't left since Friday. Time and again the staff told me to go. Time and again I told them no. I finally did leave, at the protests of my heart I left him there in Flint at the Trauma Center. They will see him through this medically. I will help see him through this emotionally. I will be back there on Thursday, maybe by then he can come home....

where he belongs.

love me later ~ tj

Entry for August 20, 2006

What a sweet repose. I got an email from a friend yesterday. Not just a friend, but my best friend. I haven't heard from her in over a year. That isn't unlike Jo. She occasionally drops off the face of the earth. I respect that about her. Since her son committed suicide 8 years ago, I give her all the room she needs. I’ll never ever forget that day she called me. "My baby is dead". Her sweet, uncontrollable, genius, baby at 21 took his life. Cor was a child born old. An Indigo child. He felt life more than others do. So very sensitive and so very intellectual. He caused her grief while alive. The grief any mother would rather live with than the grief she suffers now. She and me been together since we were teenagers. To hear from her yesterday brought a rush of memories, old ones, the Mustang Lounge, new ones, the biker rally in Fenton, Mi a couple years ago. Yikes~ the stories we could tell after those three days! I intervene on her hermitting when I think she needs me, or when I need her I'll find her. I know her hangouts. I know her, and she knows me. We have to be best friends, we know too much about each other not to be. On top of hearing from Jo yesterday, I hear from Fred today. He is one of the three who know me best. I haven't heard from him in a coons age. He told me he just wanted to hear my voice and to know I was okay. I told him I'm better now that I spent an hour with him. It's the truth. I am very utterly selective in the friendships I make. In the friendships I keep. Sure there are those folks in life that you'd miss if they weren't there. The daily friends you work with, share a laugh or two over coffee, but then there are those friendships that span the years in a life. To hear from them back to back, after hearing from a dear friend just last week, one I didn’t think I’d ever hear from again, one I thought I hurt to badly to..... then talking with his daughter, a dear, sweet, true friend ... well it was a sweet repose.

Friends, what in the world would I ever do with you? You are the stories of my life that weaves the tapestry of our friendships. You are the colors and the hues that bring together a design which is me. Because of you, my friend, I am a more beautiful me.

... and I am smiling

love me later~tj