I never win anything...

But I did! I did win!!

In March, my husband and I were in Grand Rapids, MI for a convention. It's about a three-hour drive from home and on the last day of the convention, Jim had to help with the tear-down. We had decided, ahead of time, to stay that last night and, hopefully, visit the Gerald Ford Museum the next day before we headed home. You see, besides the fact the President Ford hailed from Grand Rapids, MI, he was also an Eagle Scout. As scouters, we were quite interested in learning more about him. Growing up, I was not really interested in politics and my parents (at least my mother) were Democrats, and, well, politics just wasn't a big topic of discussion in our house. Aside from the situations that arose when he became vice-president and then president, I did not know much about Gerald Ford. He actually lead a very interesting life. Check it out if ever you are in Grand Rapids!

A few days ago, a large envelope came in the mail from the Gerald Ford Museum and it was addressed to me. I assumed that I was now on a mailing list and handed the envelope to Jim to open. "Look at this," he said, "you won a dvd!" Well, I never win anything so this was a pleasant surprise.

I vaguely remember filling out a form for a drawing, not really thinking much of it because, again, I never win anything! I'm thrilled! I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, but, since I'm laying low with a cold this weekend, maybe tonight's a good night. My view on politics has changed greatly in the past several years and I am really interested in learning more about the life of Betty Ford!

It is what it is...

We say that a lot these days...It is what it is. Mostly in regards to my mother. We wish that our mother (in a nursing home) would get out of bed, into her wheelchair and enjoy life. It's painful for her, we understand that. We wish we could take the pain away, but we can't. As she has done less and less, finally to the point that she only gets out of bed for bath day, it is less likely that she will get out of that bed. Period.

Yesterday was no exception. She has been looking forward to her birthday (#77) for the last two months, planning what she wanted for her dinner (Chinese), wanting a peanut butter pie (which I happily made), then deciding that she wanted cake too (which we bought).

It seemed so important to make this birthday special for her. We don't know what the next year will bring. Will she know us on her 78th birthday? (whispering -- will she even be here?) I wanted to give her a good day. I wanted to forget about how she has been acting and how she has treated us, the aides, the nurses and social workers lately.

The plan was a double-header on Sunday. We would celebrate my nephew's little boy's 3rd birthday and then head over and celebrate Mom's 77th. We reserved the Garden Room (a lounge with a table and chairs) so that we could have a real party. I had made the pie, bought cake and ice cream, had snacks and decorations ready to go.

Okay, so my mom cannot stand on her own anymore, even though she insists that she can (the last time we saw her try was in December...unsuccessfully). I must say here that she is constantly being offered physical therapy, which she constantly refuses. There are two devices that they use to help her. She prefers the lift where she is putting some weight on her legs with support and they can pivot her over to her wheelchair. The other is a hoist that, with a sling under her bottom and around her back, they can lift her and lower her into her wheelchair. The hoist terrifies her (understandably) and it causes her pain, but it is do-able. They have used it before. They wouldn't normally use the lift on someone like my mother. She is very heavy with very weak muscles in her legs (from non-use). But she refuses to use the hoist. So, once a week, on bath day, when the head nurse is in and there is extra help, they use the lift. We didn't know until yesterday that they have to specifically have permission from the head nurse to use the lift. It was Sunday and the head nurse wasn't in. We understand the reasoning. There are liability issues. It has been allowed on bath day because this is the only way she allows them to get her up. Otherwise, she refuses her bath...

She would not get up yesterday for her party. Her favorite aide (who is a saint - I have seen her work with my mom) was working and even she couldn't convince her to let them use the hoist. My mom told us that they would not let her get up. Well, that's not totally true. My mother wanted to stand and pivot. That is not possible, even though she tells us that she does it all of the time. It would be dangerous for her and the staff to even try it.

And so the nine of us partied in her room. It was a much scaled-down version of what I had planned, but it worked. She complained that we must have told the Chinese restaurant to make her Szechuan Chicken spicier than usual (no we didn't). My sister gave her special chocolates as a gift, I gave her several little snack bags of crackers and a couple of other little things, my daughter gave her her favorite heart-shaped brownies with a glaze, which she loves (she complained, on Mother's Day that Jamie didn't make them for her) (we are quite limited as to what we can give her and she has at least 30 nightgowns!) and she complained that no one gave her mints (which she told us a couple of weeks ago to quit giving her as it makes her blood sugar go too high). Now, it was a little risky giving her all the sweets we did give her. She is diabetic, but if she doesn't eat them all at once she is okay. Hopefully, she didn't eat everything after we left. Lastly, she complained that we didn't get her a cell phone. We have discussed this. She has a phone there, but she is constantly pulling on the cord and keeps pulling it out of the wall. She doesn't understand that she has to plug a cell phone in to charge it and, if it pre-paid, she may be limited to how many minutes she can use per month.

I know I'm rambling here, but I wanted to give her a happy day that she would enjoy and I failed. My brother said that it is what it is. She doesn't want to try to get better and we have to just accept it. This is her choice. As difficult as it would be, she would have to choose to work through the pain and, in the end, would be able to walk again. He's right.

I came home and had a bit of a cry...

Talk about a heart attack!

Let me tell you a little bit about my mother-in-law. She's a wonderful woman. She's very giving, loving, and caring. She raised four good children and all four of them still live very close to her. By very close I mean that she has a daughter right next door and another daughter and son down the road. My husband and I live the furthest away and that's about two miles. You could walk into any room in her house at any time and it is spotless. And this is a woman who is a collector and hates to throw anything away! I love my mother-in-law even though sometimes she drives me crazy. She has done some things that, although she thought she was helping, really made some situations worse. It has, at times, put a strain on some relationships that she has. She is an eternal pessimist. It's been impossible very difficult to let some things she says go over my head. I'm sensitive and take everything personally. Maybe it's just because I've always wanted her to accept me and I (after 27 years) still don't know if she has. But still, I love her because she raised an amazing son who became my husband. After I recovered from my pneumonia last year, I sent thank you cards to some family and friends who had made meals for my family. She made chicken noodle soup and when I wrote my thank you, I thanked her for being such a wonderful mother that I didn't know what I would have done without Jim to take care of me after I came home from the hospital. I hope it meant something to her. I should have done it years ago.

My father-in-law passed away almost six years ago. I loved him like a father. I saw him a lot as he still came here to work (with Jim or on his own projects) every day, even after he "retired". He was like a kid. He was a man of few words (which he passed on to his son and grandson), but before Jim and I were married he told me that he was happy that he was finally getting a granddaughter (I had been married before and had a daughter) since he already had four grandsons. That made me feel as if it was his way of telling us that he was happy that we were joining the family. Jamie was always his only granddaughter (till the greats started coming along). There were three more grandsons born in the family. Six of his seven grandsons are Eagle Scouts (the seventh will be soon!) and his only granddaughter is a Gold Award Girl Scout! There were three grandsons that were closer to him than the rest. They were more like him. Our son was one of them. They were best friends. Some of Jon's favorite memories are those spent with his grandfather.

We all call them Ma and Pa - their sons and daughters, sons-in-law and daughters-in law, all the grandchildren and great grandchildren and quite a few family friends.

My mother-in-law called this morning. Nothing wrong with that...except that it was 7:15am and she is not a morning person. Don't get me wrong - she is the least lazy person. Ever. Honestly. She will be 81 soon and still keeps her house spotlessly clean and does most of the yardwork. She still mows most of her lawn with a riding mower. She has to keep busy, without that she would not live. She just does not like to be up early. She does, however, stay up half the night and gets up later in the morning. So, when I saw that it was her number calling, I panicked. As it turns out, (her brother-in-law passed away on Monday) she has been awake since 5am worrying about how she will get to the funeral home for visitation. She doesn't drive far anymore and is going to the funeral tomorrow with one of the daughters and her husband, but she didn't get to go to the funeral home with them last night. Are we going today (?), she wonders. Yes, I assure her, not to worry as we are going today and she can go with us. Jim had a meeting last night, so we decided to go today. She could relax now...a little.

I think my heart was racing for a good twenty minutes after I hung up!

My songs...

I've added songs to my playlist. Feel free to turn down your volume if you don't enjoy them.

Each song from my growing up years and beyond trigger a specific memory. A simpler time? Perhaps. Although I cherish those memories I love my life now.

And here we are again

I always have things to blog about, but don't take the time to just do it! So, here's what's on my mind today...

Does anyone else see the economy turning around? Here in Michigan...maybe little tinges, but we are also in what is probably the worst county in the state. Our business depends mostly on new construction. There's been none of that around here. Two summers ago, we were able to keep busy with some nice geo-thermal drilling jobs, last summer people wanted replacement wells. I don't see any of that happening now. So far, we're staying afloat, but I really see this next year as our worst (unless something drastic happens). Let's hope that we can keep this thing going till things turn around.

I have been feeling so much better lately. So much energy. Hooray for Vitamin D!!

With energy come catching up. I have honestly just been doing what needed to be done. I had no more get up and go than that. Well, in the past couple of weeks I have cleaned all but one closet, gotten rid of a lot of stuff in the garage, caught up on some office work that I had been constantly putting aside, and gone to the dentist, the gyn and had my yearly mammo.

With my yearly mammo comes the call I dread, which came in earlier today. They want to take a closer look at my right side. This has happened before and they are always satisfied that it has not changed shape or grown. But, I always have this scary feeling till they tell me exactly that! I go in on Friday for my re-mammo.

My mom's dementia is getting a little worse. We have noticed that when she confuses something now she doesn't seem to have the ability to cover it up like she did before. It makes me sad.

I have gone to three "events" having to do with Laura Ingalls Wilder in the last few weeks! First, a presentation given by a "Laura friend" of mine. I've seen it before, but it was nice to see her and talk before and afterwards.

The Laura collection that is housed at the Detroit Public Library was recently on loan to another library. I had to go see it again. It was all in glassed-in showcases, but that just meant I could look and read as long as I wanted to. And I did. There were also some things that I hadn't seen before. Apparently, the archivist hadn't thought I'd want to see the prints of the original illustrations. Plus, there were three little dolls that are kept in the children's section that I didn't know about. Jim took lots of pictures for me!

I had heard about a genealogical society that was having a guest speaker who would be talking about the travels of the Ingalls/Wilder families and how it is possible to trace a pioneer family's genealogy. He had so many Laura facts wrong. Jim nudged me several times and whispered, "Raise your hand!" I guess I didn't want to embarass him, plus we were guests at an actual meeting of this group and I didn't want them to turn on me! I bit my tongue, but I cannot let them pass. If he is giving this same talk to different groups then he needs to be giving the correct information.

I really appreciate that my husband went with me to all three of these. They were each about an hour's drive away. I could easily have driven to the first one. I don't mind driving in that area north of us. I was a bit afraid of driving home that far in the dark as I am night blind. The other two are in busy, heavy traffic areas which just throws me into a panic attack. Business is slow and Jim has a little more extra time these days and so he offers to go with me...or is it that he is really interested in the subject matter? :)

Okay, I'm going to stop my babbling!