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Blessed

As 2011 draws close to her end I, as I always do, cannot help but reflect on the outgoing year.  Certainly, I had some struggles, mostly of the heart/emotion kind but I absolutely had more blessings than difficulties.

The lows would be a typical mix of what many, if not most, other people deal with too.  Betrayals and lies by people thought to be friends, thought to be kind, thought to be honest.  Who doesn't deal with that?  Who doesn't have people passing in and out of their lives who choose to use a grain of truth mixed with a mountain of lies for their own personal gain?   Sounds dramatic, I know.  But think about it, is it not true?

 There was even one person, who told more lies than truth, while hiding behind a BIBLE (of all things) that really tried to purposely destroy my happiness.  I spent way too much time trying to figure out what makes a person like that tick ... and ultimately decided they are answerable to God, not to me.  

So those silly incidences aside, just how 'ugh' was my 2011?  Not so bad really.

Especially when I look at the news.  When I acknowledge the tragedies shared there, every.single.day!!!   Blessed, I am.

Locally speaking many people I know and care about suffered great losses in 2011 or fought/are fighting serious, serious troubles/illnesses.   They too, focus on their BLESSINGS and that inspires me,  blesses me. THEY inspire me.

So, this note is shorter than last years because I am focused on one thing:  blessings!!  I cannot list them all -- there are simply too many.  But a few would be (in no particular order):

• My family:  Losses and struggles ocurred and my heart focuses on two.  The loss of Heather and the pain I know her kids, husband and mother endure and the battle my brother fights every single day.  I pray for Heather's immediate family and her friends.  I pray for comfort and peace.  I pray for strength for my brother and guidance for the right choices.   Mostly, though, I focus on the amazing love within our family and how, no matter what, we end up always being there for each other.
• My friends:  Daily I reminded just how BLESSED I am here.  I feel very sad for people who cannot let others in, cannot have real friends.  They are missing one of the most amazing and wonderful blessings that exist.  I love my friends and I just hope I bless them as much as they bless ME.
• My Job:  Certainly struggles remain there, no job comes without those!!!  But we have a fabulous new "boss" who I feel will help guide our amazing team to amazing things.  I look forward to 2012.  I am forever thankful for a good job that supports my financial needs!  
• My kids:  Yes, they are "my family" but they certainly warrant their own separate line, don't they??  I have well mannered, sweet natured and funny as heck kids. I love them with an intensity that is indescribable.  The direct personal attacks on them this year, thought hard, also helped me to understand just how much I DO love them.   I am also forever thankful, that their father and I, continue to work together to parent them.
• Luxuries:   Yup, call me greedy but I am thankful for things like my smartphone, computer, air conditioner-- things we too often do not realize ARE luxuries!!
• The Minor Hardships I briefly mentioned in my opening:  Life has to have lessons and as hard as they are they do teach us, if we allow them too.
• God:  He who provides all those things listed above and much, much, much more!
  
  Ok, so yeah, this really wasn't shorter than last year's was it?  HA.  Nobody should be surprised at that!!  
  
  I'll end with one of my favorite quotes of all times as a wish for you all for 2012:   "May the best of your yesterdays be the worst of your tomorrows."

Blessings and love!
~Me 

2011

As 2011 draws near to the end and 2012 sits in wait, I cannot help but reflect.

I'm thankful. I look at the world around me and I am just thankful.  For what is, what is not.

Thankful for a God that provides the strength for the hard times and provides the joy for the good times.

Thankful.

girlchild update

Girlchild had both eyes flare up again over the weekend.  One Saturday and the other Sunday.  Started "the" meds (after calling dr) and were told to go in Monday for a check.

The doctor told us that it is evident that she cannot be weaned off the meds - for now.  So now she takes them every day until her rheumy puts her on meds.  Even then it could be months since the vast majority of those meds take MONTHS to work.

Because of the side-effects she has to be checked monthly to make sure her pressures stay normal.

In Memory of Margaret

“Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.” ~ Eskimo Proverb

Hello September!

Wow, really?  September already huh?

I haven't updated in a while, even though, "stuff" has been going up.  I don't really know why I haven't been back I just .... haven't.

So here are some rambles, in order of occurrence:

• I went to NY!  I met up with 4 fabulous friends for a weekend of friendship, goofiness, food, and drink!  It was WONDERFUL.  Absolutely wonderful.  NY is beautiful and the temp felt soooooo good.  Of course, in another month or so they could very well have snow there (we were in Albany) so I'm good here, lol.   The next "meet-up" is planned for March, HERE, in SE GA at my house/my sis' house.  I am VERY excited about that.   
• There was a shooting incident here in our town.  My son (the po po) was there but not inside where it occurred.  He was outside, where a different man was being arrested.  Not that this matters apparently, because "street talk" has him pegged as "the shooter" and he supposedly has a "hit" on him.  This has been very stressful as a mom.  VERY.  People outside of the LE life have NO clue how stressful overall life can be.  It isn't just about the *little* usual things like them getting up from dinner just as they sit down, having to cancel a movie because something happened at the end of their shift and they have to stay, them having to get out of a sick bed to go to work, not being able to go out of town for holidays and even not being able to evacuate with the family for hurricanes ..... all of that (and more) is just the typical stuff you "get used to".  Death threats are a little harder to deal with.  Especially in today's world of cops being targeted and KILLED.  We've lost more LEOs this year than we EVER have in this nation.  A lot of those were targeted kills.   The name of the officer who did shoot the man (this was during an arrest warrant) has been kept silent because of the "uproar" in the community over his shooting.   I have been a LE family member for over 20 years ...and being the "wife" was hard, hard, hard ......    being the mom?  Wow.
• Girlchild went to the Mayo Clinic last month.  It was an all day thing ... but OMG what a well organized machine that place is.    She did have another eye flare before this visit (went to eye dr) and another kidney stone.  In fact she either had two stones within a 2 week period or the original one was still and then decided to move again.  The second one was horrible.  Absolutely horrible.  That one landed her in the ER for 10 hours.  They gave her a shot of morphine not long after we got there and it took an hour before she felt relief.  :-(     Anyway, the MC dr did more blood tests, urine tests (including a 24 hr test) and a chest x-ray.  The results are posted online but they mean nothing to me.   I know her ANA was positive, as it was the first time.  I know her CRP (which measures protein which measures inflammation) was 17.6 and the norm is 0-8.   The urine stuff I couldn't even begin to decipher.  The x-ray results were not shown online.  We go back Oct. 3, to discuss the results with her rheumy (who ordered all these tests) and he also requested she see the ophthalmologist there as well as a nephrologist there.   So she has 3 appts that day: 8 am, 10:45 am and 4:15 am ... a LONG day huh?   The rheumy didn't really offer any insight on that first visit .. said it could be a lot of things (Lupus, fibromyalgia, etc) or we may never know.  Today she woke up with her eye swollen.  It doesn't hurt so for now we'll just watch it.  She's also started having headaches the last couple of months or so.  She had one yesterday.  
• The rest of life is same ole, same ole -- work, friends and family.  I remain blessed.

A month!

Over a month since my last post.  Wow, can't even think what's different!  LOL.  So here are a few rambles!

• Girlchild had another eye flare and had to restart her eye drops.  The re-check was good and they are, again, weaning her off the drops.
• The day after this flare started she developed a kidney stone. Rough week for her.
• Her appointment at The Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL is in 3 weeks.  I pray for answers and help.
• She left this morning for cheer camp and I really hope and pray she makes it through unscathed.  She's still tired and drained from this last flare.
• I fly to NY in 9 days.  I'm excited.
• Boychild is doing well.  He had a deposition this week.  I've spoken of his accident on here -- where he was a passenger in a car that did a U-turn in front of a semi ..... Anyhoo, the driver of the car he was in is suing the truck driver.  The truck driver subpoenaed him.  Not that he remembers anything about the wreck .. all he recalls is the phone ringing.  A friend of theirs telling them she had been clipped by a hit-and-run, pulling off the road and waking up in the marsh.   He doesn't, however, support the decision for the driver to sue the truck driver.  Praise Jesus that driver was NOT speeding.  The end result would have been much different had he been.  With all that we've been told since the accident, this man, did all he could to avoid an accident he did not cause.
• Nothing much else is different in my life -- same ole same ole.  Some good, some not.  But I try and focus on the positive.
• SIL is hanging and fighting the cancer that is trying to invade her being.
• Work is work --- ups and downs -- but I remain thankful for a steady paycheck.
• Brother is in jail - again.  The previous arrest was a probation vio and he was arrested for that.  He had an attempt of some sort --cut himself with a ink pen and had to get stitches. I believe a quest for pain meds.  I dunno.  All I can do is pray for him.

Rambles on a Wednesday Morn

I think the last time we "spoke" we were waiting on the new rheumy to review girlchild's file and decide if they would accept her as patient or not.  It took over a week for them to call the eye doc back and say she was too young.  They don't see patients under the age of 18 and suggested she be referred to a pedi rheumy.

Well -- there are a couple of problems with that.

1. She will be 18 in 6 months and then would have to find a new reg rheumy as the ped would no longer see her.
2. There is NOT one pedi rheumy on my insurance provider list.  If I found one willing to see her that was no on the list they would have to write a letter requesting to see her in network and it would take 2-3 weeks to be approved or denied.
3. The closest on our list are 4-5 hours away.

To make a long story a little shorter I'll just say we (the eye dr's office staff and I) called around and got the same response (no patients under 18) from everyone.  I logged onto The Mayo Clinic's website and filled out a form under the "request an appointment" link.   I did this on a Thursday night around 6pm and was called the next morning before 9am.  She took her history, etc and then told me the dreaded words:  We only take patients over the age of 18.   She said she would send a request "upstairs" and see what happened and told me to expect to hear back the middle of the following week.  Instead, she called me back less than 10 minutes later and said we were IN.  She goes in August.   

More good news:  Since she quit with the steroid drops in her eyes she has NOT had another flare.  YAY.

In less good news: SIL is not doing well.   I really don't know what else to say here other than that.  Cancer is so brutal it really is indescribable.  Those who have witnessed it understand.  Those who have not, cannot.  Just pray for her and her family.  Please.  She's a fighter and she's fighting hard!

Summer is here in SE GA and the heat is unbelievable already.  The current drought is really making the massive wildfires impossible to really contain.  The firefighters are working so hard.  So incredibly hard.  Prayers for all.

Work is work.  I remain grateful for my job.  Grateful I enjoy the kind of work but cannot deny the frustration I have for all the BS that is so abundant.  I suppose it is everywhere.

I fly to NY in August to meet up, for the weekend, with a group of wonderful women.  I am very, very excited.  :-)  

I am still working on some anger issues I have about a situation (or two) and this frustrates me.  I am not an angry/bitter kind of person but I do not know how to make it go away.  Pray?  I'm praying. 

That's not me

I went to see my sil the other day and while there she answered her phone and I heard the conversation.

The person calling was an old friend she hadn't talked to in years who heard she was dx with cancer and given a year.

I heard sil say, "No, that isn't what they said.  What they said was people who have my kind of cancer usually have that long but that isn't me.  I'm fighting and I'm fighting to win.".

I have to admire her fighting spirit and strength.  Pray for her and her family.  God hears. 

Let Go and Let God

Yesterday on my facebook page I had this as my status:   <<<< ----- has allowed herself to be frustrated by people and their "stuff" too much this week. I'm not going to allow myself to be lose focus of my blessings and gratitudes. Life is TOO short to be bogged down by anger and frustration ... so join me in CELEBRATING your life by listing 5 things you are grateful for.

I really enjoyed reading my friends' gratitudes and blessings.  I needed to read them. 

I've posted a lot here, on this blog, lately about recent stresses affecting me.  A few I have kept private because it is, after all, a public blog, lol. What I say here is probably about 60% of what is really happening in my life.  One of many things I have not taked about is situation this week that caused me a lot of pain, frustration and anger. That whole "mama bear" thing again, in part, triggered a lot of my emotions and reactions. On top of everything else going on, it really just left me feeling exhausted.  EXHAUSTED. 

But, as my status indicated yesterday, I KNOW I am blessed.  Also, I look around me and I see people struggling with a lot more and a lot BIGGER issues than I am facing. 

I think searching my soul and focusing ON these blessings led me to my thought this morning of LET GO AND LET GOD.   He has me and all my "situations" IN his HANDS.     I have to stop obsessing and tormenting myself with doubts, fear, frustration and pure 100% stress.   Let go, Let GOD.