This is no time for a Blizzard!

So Christmas went pretty well. We went to Tim's parent's house and we left shortly after
his wicked sister-in-law and family came. Tim's stomach bothered him from eating a
big meal, which he hadn't done the whole time he was sick, and we were all tired so it
was a good enough reason to drop out of a very uncomfortable situation. I was in jammies
by 7:15 and that was fine with me. Today, however, we are getting our first blizzard of the season. Could have done without this right now. Tim was out in the garage twice today with
a new snowblower(well new last season) that won't start. My brother-in-law will come over with
his plow and that will get the lion's share of both the driveways done but I have over 150 feet of
sidewalks to shovel, plus the walkways, and they're saying we'll have 12 to 18 inches by morning. Just swell. I have to somehow keep my husband from going out all day in this. He is not completely over his pneumonia and today was the last day of the antibiotic so we don't need him relapsing. He NEVER listens to me though. It's very hard for us to accept help but we have to. His dad offered to come help tomorrow so hopefully we can keep Tim inside as much as possible. I usually love snow but now with the rental house, I don't like
these big dumpings anymore. Both driveways are huge and throw in the sidewalks and you're talking about some real insults to our bad backs.
So I 've been reading the MM blogs and I think that this holiday season was a trying time for a lot of people. Really a shame. I hope that 2011 starts shaping up to make up for that. I'm a little less stressed myself going into the new year as we have a lease on our big apartment and the woman seems SO DARN NICE. The upstairs should not be hard to rent so hopefully we get that rented soon. So, 2011 better be the year I start taking better care of myself. I've said it for too long, I have to DO it now. I'm wearing myself out and getting nowhere fast. Time to get treated for the sleep apnea
and begin an exercise program. I know it will help my energy levels and I'm hoping it will help
the mood situation too. Can't hurt. Happy New Year everyone!

I DO NOT recall this being on our wish list

Well, a doctor's visit with Tim turned into a stat chest x-ray and TADA! he has pneumonia.
First time since he was 12, I believe. I am on the upswing, but Olivia started coughing again, after getting over a minor cold over a week ago, and now it looks like this may be the Christmas that never was. If we don't make some miraculous recoveries and the doctor can't assure me it's safe to be around others, looks like Christmas at home with Vick's vapo-rub smeared on all our chests. Yeehaw. On the bright side, our big apartment is rented, I have a maybe on the smaller one and we're not crying over the fact we may not see Tim's jerk of a sis-in-law, which we were not looking forward to after her behavior last year. Tim's GP wants to know why the heck
a myeloma patient has not been given a pneumonia shot every year. We were told about the flu
shot but nobody EVER said anything about the pneumonia shot. He said this is standard procedure for MM patients. I wasn't aware he was an oncologist too. Another question to ask
the head cheese. Happy Christmas y'all! and if you're overcome by the smell of menthol, that
would be us. I feel a Christmas poem coming on.

Mangy mutt

I think Lacey has a skin condition. Tim always thought

she itched a lot and the vet said that's common in puppies. "Cept now she is starting to look

sparse in a few areas. On her legs, around her eyes. And I SWEAR she has not gotten into any Melphalan or anything. My neighbors' dog had something like this

and they showed me the shampoo the vet gave them. Holy Moley, I read the bottle and they're bathing the dog in straight pesticides. Now me, I am one of "those" people. I have a problem with exposing my family to proven carcinogens and things that damage one's central nervous system.

Call me crazy but while everyone around here has lawn services that spread agent orange on their lawns several times a year, 'round our house, we're looking at more types of weed in our yard than was floating around Woodstock way back when. So now I am looking up natural remedies. I'm thinking of using a lice repelling shampoo with rosemary oil that I used on Olivia

when her school went on a 3 day class trip that sent half of them home with lice. That was seriously gross, let me tell ya!!! I'll have to get her to the vet and have a look-see(the dog not Liv) as soon as I

stop coughing my fool head off. (Off topic, I have bronchitis and possibly pneumonia now but it's the dog I'm worried about)Any of y'all have any tips about this skin stuff? Her skin actually looks beautiful and I don't see any scabby things or eruptions at all. Right now, Lacey is watching us decorate the Christmas tree(um, from the sofa I should add) and she is very confused as to why she will drag a branch 5 blocks on her walks and then doesn't get to bring it in the house and we get to bring in a whole dang tree!!! If anybody needs kindling for the fire, I've got a whole bunch of branches in the yard she's dragged home. So breaking out an old Christmas memory: today, I was reminded of going to Mass on Christmas Eve each year with a family we were quite close with for many years. Every year we would come home for lobster and pasta dinner and their son, who skipped church most of the time, would be sitting in front of the TV watching the Yule Log burn stoned out of his mind. Come to think of it, I recall the few times he came to church, he always giggled through the whole thing. Probably stoned then too, I'm just realizing now as I write this.

A few years back, he did some work for a divorcee that lived behind us. One day, Tim was working outside and smelled the distinct scent of reefer wafting over the fence. He ran into Richie weeks later and when he told Tim he was seeing a woman who lives behind us, Tim

said, "NOW I KNOW who was blowin' joints on the other side of the fence!" Wonder if Rich still watches the yule log at Christmas. I'll have to ask him.

Speaking of stoned, this is the final cut that made the holiday card. I couldn't figure out how to get rid of the dog's white eyes. The red eye thingy wouldn't work. Now we are fielding questions about whether Tim was stoned because his eyes look just a tad loopy. Nope, but this was after Thanksgiving dinner and he sat next to my dad polishing off a large bottle of wine with him. He was feeling pretty loose. Tis the season and all that.

Fire and brimstone

Yesterday, we attended a funeral for a close family friend on Tim's side. Joan was 73 and had alzheimers(we think). She'd had a pretty tough life but was a devout Catholic. One of her sons
died in a car accident at 17 right after getting his driver's license. His parents were away when it happened and my father-in-law had to identify the body. It was indeed a hard time. On Friday, at the wake, a priest from her church came to speak at both the early and later visiting times.
Oy, that was one of the hardest sermons I've ever sat through. Their favorite priest was away and apparently, this one had no idea that their son had died at 17 in a car wreck. Normally, pastors only read a few short verses at wakes and say a few things, this guy went ON AND ON
about making ourselves ready to meet our maker. Told everyone they should be reading scripture and listening to Catholic mediums on radio for at least an hour daily and whenever possible, at work, etc. That we had better get right with God as we could be called to face him at anytime. Then he went into telling everyone that Joan was blessed to live to her 70's and to think of all the younger people who die.
Look at the kids who die in car accidents. We all thought, OH NO DO NOT GO THERE! But he did. Stated several recent incidences and obviously did not know that this family and group did not need to be reminded of those particular tragedies. We all squirmed and my father-in-law leaned over to his friend next to him and said, "somebody get the hook."
We laughed it off later but this was really not what everyone wanted to hear at Joan's wake.
DEFINITELY NOT what Ed, Joan's husband, needed to hear as he prepares to bury his wife next to his son. The priest went on forever and people actually got up and started walking out. At the later viewing, those who had already sat through it earlier,or even just heard about it, left the room when he walked in. He said the same things all over again. It was painful. While I know that it's part of his job to be a fisherman for saving souls and all that, wow, this guy really needs to tone it down just a tad. And a little homework on the family involved would not have hurt either. Anyway, I found out something yesterday about Tim. I noticed over the years that he gets melancholy in church and I don't bug him to go. Yesterday, they played, "How great Thou art" and he teared up. He told me that church reminds him of Freddy's funeral(Joan's son who was like a brother or maybe a cousin to Tim) and also of all the funerals since, including a grandmother of his that we were very close to.
So I finally know why. I wish he wasn't so private sometimes. Freddy's death obviously affected him quite a bit. Their families spent a lot of time together even going on vacations together and such. Tim was only about 2 years younger than him and he stops by Freddy's grave when he is in the area. I guess some things in life, you never quite recover from. Olivia accolites today and Tim always goes to those services. With this funeral just hours past, I may urge him to stay home or at the very least, distract him a bit at church. So on to happier things. Today, we get
our tree. Gotta put in a big effort to get these gears switched and get into the holiday spirit!
If only today's rain were SNOW! (sigh)

Dear Santa, Send Prozac!!!

I've heard for years that the holidays are a very depressing time for many people. I totally get that now. While I have always LOVED Christmas, I see now that if your life is not what you want it to be, the holidays seem to magnify that. It's been tough trying to get in the mood each year since Tim's diagnosis when you wonder if your family will be intact next year. You're supposed to be happy and merry and all that jazz. If you're not, you feel like you're not measuring up. Last year was quite fun when I got Tim his new truck but there is always that backround noise that reminds you that nothing is ever REALLY GREAT anymore. There is a BIG problem that looms over everything. These last few weeks have seen me in a funk and Tim is warning me to de-funk. I don't know how he does it. The

man has cancer and you'd never know by his attitude. He has old high school friends who are drinking themselves to death and other guys we know dealing with depression due to job troubles or whatever and Tim just does his thing and never complains. I feel a real depression

in myself lately though. It is hard to live this double life. I put the game face on for him and Olivia but the reality is, I am obviously not happy. I feel that there are such difficult times ahead

and it's hard not to feel doomed. I am not at all happy about the lack of support and concern some people in our immediate circle have shown these last few years. It's hard not to be bitter.

I am starting to dread being around these people this season. Add to that that my Mom seems to be slipping very badly memory wise. It's a scary thing to watch. She has not been diagnosed with anything but they do have her on Aricept(sp?) which they use for Alzheimers.

We just had a family friend die yesterday and I have another funeral to attend where some of these toxic people will be. It's not helping matters that both of our tenants are moving and I am running back and forth showing apartments and stressing about all that. I'm trying to get out of this funk but it's hard. I had a spell myself the other night and almost fainted in front of Olivia

and scared the heck out of her. Tim was at Home Depot and she called him to come home but it

broke my heart to think of the crappy deal this poor kid got. I've been spending a lot of time doing church things. It relaxes me and I've met such nice people and I think it's helping to counter balance the anger I have at others who have really let us down. Well, I think I gotta go watch something funny. Olivia has a terrible sore throat so it seems things may get even worse this week and I had better BUCK UP. I have no idea what the doctors will do if she has strep since she is now allergic to 3 large classes of antibiotics. I think I should go get a darn nursing degree. I need it just for my home life. As Charlie Brown would say, "RATS!"

What's your favorite Christmas albums?

So I had to post ASAP to get something else up other than that very dark, "story of my life" in poem form that I wrote yesterday. Today I am trying to lift myself out of my funk. So it's time to start baking for an open house party we have after our town parade and tree lighting tomorrow night
and queuing up some of my favorite Christmas albums on the CD player. So here's the mix.
James Taylor(A Christmas album) OF COURSE. Gotta have my JT. The Polar Express soundtrack. Great movie!!! Sarah McLachlan, (Wintersong)Not sure if this is too good if you're in a funk though. Some of her stuff makes me cry. Luther Vandross(This is Christmas) Luther, we miss ya man. And lastly, Dolly Parton(Home for Christmas). OK Who's laughing out there now?! I love Dolly. Actually made Tim take me to see her in concert a few years ago. Still sounds great
and Tim didn't complain. The only chance he'll ever get of being near a set like that!
So what are y'all listening to these days?

Bad days

Slammed doors-hurt feelings-selfishness.

Old wounds-backstabbing-lack of respect.

Obnoxious in-laws, fair-weather friends, fights about money.

16 years under construction-blue tape

cursing-yelling-being taken for granted.

Did I mention selfishness?

Folks dying around me-hormones-family rifts.

Straws and camels' backs.

Troubles you can't run from.

Questions that have no answers.

Fates that make no sense.

Children who suffer-mourning-CANCER.

Scapegoats-irresponsibility-jealousy.

Weight gain-lack of sleep-high blood pressure.

Skinny jeans collecting dust.

The almighty dollar-greed-recession.

Betrayal-lies-SELFISHNESS.

Bad tenants-teachers who shouldn't be.

Bullies-nice guys finishing last.

Plane tickets to I don't know where.

Disappointment- depression-mental fatigue.

Nobody listens to me!

Scary futures-sad pasts-desperately hard todays.

It's been a hard freekin' week, I wanna run away, and unfortunately, a pint of Ben & Jerry's just can't solve it all.

Thankful Thursday, a day late

Well yesterday was a success. The food turned out well and everyone had a nice

time. It was not a big crowd(11 including us) but enough to make it a party. It rained here but not until the afternoon and so Macy's in NYC got their parade in and we watch

it every year whilst getting ready for company. So here are the things I am thankful for concerning yesterday.

1. That I used a meat thermometer in the bird which was done 2 HOURS before it was supposed to be. I really have to get an oven thermometer. I think my temp is way off.

2. The gravy worked!!! Ya know how sometimes it thickens and other times not? Well it was a

smashing success yesterday.

3. That my nephew and the dog did not get into any real scuffles. He thinks kicking her is funny.

She's not smart enough to stay away. When you tell him to stop, he sticks his fingers in his ears so he can't hear you and says, "I not doing anyfing." Like the puppy, he's too darn cute to stay mad at.

4. That I did not eat too much to make myself feel sick but nonetheless, thank goodness for stretch fabric pants.

5. That out of the million pictures that were taken with 3 cameras of the 3 of us and the dog, we

have ONE that will be good enough for a Christmas card photo. Unnerving how hard it is to get a good photo of us.

And to get down to the serious stuff.

I am thankful to have my husband here. Having just heard of another devastating loss of a

valiant and beautiful man to MM, not a day goes by when I don't realize how blessed we are to

have Tim doing well.

I'm so glad my parents are here. I know that not everyone gets to have their folks around into their own middle age so I am so thankful for that.

I'm grateful that during this economic depression, my family is all doing OK. Many are not and that is very sad indeed.

Things are not perfect around here to be sure. It still hits me like a ton of bricks all the time what the reality of our situation truly is. I am amazed that the 3 of us are able to live a somewhat normal life despite that but it really is due to the remission. I know that someday, this reprieve will end, but if cancer does anything positive, it makes you look real hard at your blessings. You don't take even the simple things for granted. I am saddened by the rifts that are in both of our families right now but realize that we do have to keep ourselves away from negative people that bring us down. I am glad that we have others in our family, neighbors, and friends who are all so supportive. It is very hard to always feel thankful when the cancer cloud hangs over your head but one learns that the price of not counting your blessings and finding some kind of peace is to go to a place emotionally that none of us want to go to. 2010 has been a pretty good year for us. A far sight better than a few of the years before it. I hope that 2011 is just as good and I sure hope these scientists that are working so hard to find the cure for MM are gaining on their goal FAST.

Today, we decorate the house for Christmas. I just love days like this. Happy holidays y'all!!!

Puppy pix

So Ms. Computer Illiterate finally stumbled upon how to get my new computer to read our cameras. It was pure, dumb luck. Here are some shots of Lacey or as I commonly call her

Miss Trouble. She was just 7 pounds when we got her at the end of Aug. and could barely jump

up a step as it was as tall as her. Now she weighs about twice that and reaches the kitchen table

on her tippy toes and can jump on the sofa and our beds. Hard to stay mad at her though with

this little face. I love the skunk stripe down the back of her neck. And when her tail is wagging

fast, it looks like she is waving the white flag. She definitely got on the cute line twice but we're starting to wish she had at least made it to the brains line one time.

Landlording again

So one of my tenants gave notice the other day. I am thrilled. He does not "play well with others" and has been a decent tenant in some ways but a pain in the arse in others. He was supposed to give 60 days notice to end his tenancy and didn't but I'm glad to be rid of him and
it's a Christmas gift to us and the upstairs tenant, who he has driven nuts, that he will be gone
by mid Dec. I've gotten a ton of action on the place from a Craigslist ad but so many people have
pets and I'm not going there. We showed the place to a couple last night. They loved it and said
they definitely wanted it. Funny how now that it comes down to listing references and checking their credit, all
the sudden they changed their minds. I've seen this happen a few times now. Sometimes I tell
people on the phone before I even show the place so I'm not wasting my time. I actually had one doofus a few years ago, call about an apt. and ask right out, "do you check references and credit?". Like I was gonna say NO to that. So I said, "yes." And he said, "OK thanks" and hung up the phone. Not too obvious, right? This couple seemed real nice last night
and both have jobs(he even works at the hospital where Tim is treated), but one never knows how people
manage their money, or don't, and I'd much rather have a vacant apartment instead of tenants that don't pay rent and have to go through the whole eviction process in court. Would
you believe that in NJ, if you evict someone, you have to go to one court to evict them and then go
to court AGAIN to get a judgement for any money they owe you. Maybe it's like that all over, I dunno. Luckily, this has never happened to us but with this longstanding bad economic downturn(which I feel is the depression of our generation, THANK YOU GREEDY banking companies) we have to be careful
as there are a whole lot of desperate tenants going from place to place around here. The timing on buying this 2-family could not have been worse. We closed on it 10 days before Tim was rushed to the emergency room and then dx'ed with cancer. It's a good investment and we've done some great renovations on it but the stress and extra responsibility is not fun sometimes and there are times I wish we could just sell it. I don't want to do that in the current real estate market. I just hope that we do not have anymore tenant issues like we did in '08 and that someday, we will be glad that we bought this place.

Puppy issues: so our little stinkpot got on her tippy toes yesterday and stole part of my lunch off the kitchen table while I was in the other room checking my e-mail. This little girl is giving me a
run for my money. Tim's mother called from VT last night saying they are taking care of an injured, stray dog. They are trying to find the owner. When Tim picked up the phone, she said,
"do you guys want another dog?!" and Tim said, "HELL NO, I don't even want the one we've got." Yeah right, Mr. Toughguy. As soon as I figure out how to get this new comp. to read my
cameras, I'll have to post pix of Tim snoozing with the little brat. (and I mean the dog, not me.)

Holiday CH-CH-CH-Changes

Nothing too exciting going on lately.I'm getting ready to have Thanksgiving at our house again. Our pain-in-the-butt tenant gave notice today so he'll be gone by Christmas. YEAH. I put the ad on Craiglist and have had 3 bites in just a few hours.
Tim goes to an allergist tomorrow. I have no idea where this came out of but he has been having
asthma reactions for a few months now. He seems to be reacting to a multitude of things and this
is so weird for him. He has NEVER had this before. I think I may find out soon that what I thought had been chronic sinus problems I've had for years may actually be asthma. Just great. Not only
is Jersey the cancer capital of this country but also the asthma capital. What the heck are we still
doing here? My idiot sister told off my parents so, setting two less plates for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Ah yes, doncha just love the holidays? I'm already in knots about what we're going to
do with Tim's family this year. No one in my house cares to be anywhere near the sis-in-law
that ruined our holiday last year. She is just unbearable and if there were going to be more people in a bigger area, maybe she'd be diluted enough to tolerate but such is not the case.
I would love to go away but in reality, we have no reason to desert my family and what would you do on Christmas day when everything is closed and everyone is celebrating the holiday. Today, I thought back over some of the very unpleasant things that have happened at the Christmas day celebrations at Tim's parents' house and wondered how many holidays have to be
ruined before we stop going. My daughter actually said to us last week, "we don't have to go if you guys are going to be uncomfortable." I almost cried. A 12 1/2 year old who is selfless enough
to give up a Christmas celebration with her cousins all because of what that witch did to us last year. Very sad. I just don't understand how some adults think it's OK to have temper tantrums and ruin things for everyone around them. It's childish and selfish if you ask me. If you're in a bad mood, suck it up, put on your game face, and don't take it out on everyone around you for Pete's sake!!! Some people just aren't happy 'til they've made everyone else as miserable as themself.

A Thanksgiving themed quote....It's hard to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys!!!

Damn flu shots

I know they say you can't get the flu from the flu shot. It's a dead virus and I get it. What I don't get is the people I know that get sick almost every single time they get one(including my mom) and why my husband was fine when he got his shot yesterday at 2 in the afternoon and then woke me at 3:30 am with a fever. We have Livvy's final soccer game and ice cream party today and her big cheerleading competition tomorrow and Tim is TICKED about this fever. Olivia got her flu shot a week ago and had a large hard swelling in her arm. Her arm was really sore for several days. I think next year, we'll just move to Tahiti for the cold and flu season.

Jumping on the "thankful Thursday" bandwagon

So Mr. Brabbs has started this thankful trend for Thursdays and I think it's a super idea. If it
were not for the fact that I started to force myself to look for the silver linings in life, both
now that we're dealing with Tim's MM and years back when I was dealing with my own health
problems, I think I would have lost it completely long ago. There are many things you can change in your life if they are not working for you: your job, relationship, where you live. But when something pretty bad happens to your health, it's not something that can be changed either easily or at all. There is just no running away from it.
That's when you have to dig real deep. You need something to believe in, hope, and most of all,
a thankful heart. There were times in my past when my life was so messed up from an undiagnosed health problem that I told Tim that it felt like the only thing I had to be grateful
for was that the elastic wasn't shot in my underwear. But, sometimes, you just have to start from there and work up. My life was very difficult but I thought, I can see, I can walk, I have a roof over my head. Despite
my problems, there are countless people who would trade places with me today and swap the
cross they're bearing for mine. This point was driven even further home for me when Christopher Reeve was paralyzed on our wedding day. Sounds morbid but as the years passed in our marriage, I was still dealing with my health problems, but I was always mindful that this man had been unable to walk or even breath on his own for all that time. So, with all the hardships we've faced, that is how I get myself
through. I tried very hard not to fall into that depression that comes from feeling sorry for yourself. It's certainly not that you want to see people worse off than yourself, it's the fact that
no matter what you're dealing with, there is just about always something to be grateful for. I just read a post over at another MM blog(walking with the big EZ). It's a beautiful post about this man finally getting to visit his parents on their 300 acre mountain home. And I thought after reading it and seeing the photos, "MM or not, this is a blessed man and family." So today, I am grateful for my family. For my parents who have done whatever they could to help despite the heartbreak they feel. For my sisters who have been my shrinks through all this. When there is not always a whole lot that people can do to help, just letting someone vent and unload some of
the burden they have is enough. It's a lighter cross when you've got folks helping you carry it.
Here's hoping y'all have folks with strong shoulders walking with you on this journey.

I don't think I have another puppy rescue in me

Well, I have to say that I love my new doggie but I think she is trying to kill me. I blew out my back a few weeks ago and it is still not 100%. By last week, it was just getting back to normal when Lacey shot out the back door and made a break for it. I live on a busy road and her best doggie friend lives across that busy road. We have a fenced-in yard but the driveway goes into the back yard and so the gate on that side of the house stays open so we can get our cars in and out. Of course, she ran right for the driveway. If it were not for the fact that she caught a scent and hesitated, she'd probably be in doggie heaven right now. I still had to dive down and scoop her up thereby re-injuring my back. I came back in the house walking like the hunchback of Notre Dame and cussing her out. By today, my back felt pretty good. I had to pull youth group
duty at church today and even took part in the relay race with the kids. Then we took the dog for a walk and stopped at our rental house where Tim was doing the leaves and Olivia was throwing a stick for the dog and the leash slipped out of her hands. She and I started chasing after the dog in the front yard while the dog was cutting and running like crazy. The neighbor I had been talking to stayed by the sidewalk playing zone defense in case she went for the street. This road is nearly as busy as mine and there is a bend in it before our rental house. If we didn't catch her quick, she'd be a goner. So I made a leap and threw myself out towards the dog in a full body slam position missing the quick little "pain in the butt" but landing on the leash and slowing it just enough for me to grab it. So, needless to say, the old back could have done without that tackle. My brand new pants now have grass stains on the knees. I was so worked up I told Olivia that mistakes like that CAN'T happen and if she can't handle this dog and she gets killed, we won't be getting another. And if Tim says, "YOU wanted a dog" to me one more time, I'm gonna tackle his ass too. I am just too darn old for this.

They're driving me CRAZY

Well, it's another one of those times when I feel like taking off for a vacation all by myself before I completely lose my mind. I have never done this, by the way, hence the mind left long ago, no
forwarding address. The not-so-subtle hints to my husband and child that they really have to
stop dropping things in my lap that they are capable of and/or responsible for have failed miserably. All efforts to clone me 2 or 3 times so I could spread my duties out amongst several Denises have (been vetoed by those who know me) failed so today, in a last ditch effort
to make my housemates think and do for themselves, I have posted the following sign in a prominent place in the kitchen.




OPERATION INDEPENDENCE

Our new policy, beginning 11/1/2010, is to try to handle tasks ON YOUR OWN before asking MOM/WIFE to do it for you. If you have made an honest attempt to do something and find that you need help, then you can ask for her assistance. All efforts to help Mom/Wife keep her sanity intact(what's left of it) are greatly appreciated!!!

THANK YOU!!!

I don't know how much responsibility you can heap onto someone before they go completely bonkers but I think I have come frighteningly close to finding out these last few years.
I am tired, over-worked, under-appreciated and must be speaking in tongues as nothing I say seems to get through to anyone around here. I'll bet Wisconsin is nice this time of year.

Cuckoo for cocoa puffs

I have been walking a lot with my puppy and I have to ask, is it just me or is it a little weird when strangers let someone else's dog lick their entire face? Now don't get me wrong, I've been
sportin' "eau de puppy breath" ever since we brought this crazy girl home. She can't hold her licker(get it? liquor). But she's mine. Kinda like you don't mind changing your kids' diaper(most of the time) but you get a little gaggy changing some other kid's. And, even if I
do say so myself, this dog has got a WHOLE DARN LOT of that cute thing going on. We can't
go anywhere with her without being stopped constantly for folks to meet her but yesterday,
I walked her to the post office. I live just a block from our little town center. This
pretty woman all dressed up in a black pantsuit, make-up on, hair done and all, bends down to meet
Lacey and is going on about how cute she is and proceeds to let my dog give her a complete face wash with her tongue. I don't mind a little puppy kiss from a strange dog but you don't know how many people have let Lacey just kiss the bejeezus out of their whole FACE. And I am thinking to myself, you have no idea, crazy person, how many times my dog sniffs out the rabbit
poops in my yard(I call them cocoa puffs, like the cereal) and eats them. I know there is that saying that their mouths are probably cleaner than a human's but I see what that doggie does
everyday, I'm thinking not.

What in the world is going on in Jersey

I'm telling you, there is just way too much stress in this state. The other day, a guy that works
for the same company my dad works for, shot and killed his 2 little kids and himself at his mother's house.
Of course, the next thing you always hear is that he was going through a divorce. WHY WHY WHY do they take the kids with them? If you can't stand to go on, go out into the woods and do what you gotta do. Why kill the kids? Unfortunately, the answer to this usually is that they know this is
the way to get back at their wife. Nothing will hurt her more than killing her kids. We had this same thing happen just a few years ago in a town right next to us. Then yesterday, a police officer we know came to our house on the police harley davidson. We know
several guys on the force and Tim has done wood floors for a few and the chief. I'm always wondering what the neighbors think when cops stop by here but most know us and the new ones
next door were out later and I mentioned it was a social call. Actually it was not but I didn't want to say why until it hits the papers and is general knowledge(which will be today). Seems a port authority police officer who lived a few blocks away from us killed himself in his
home at 4 am yesterday. The port authority is having the house dealt with and they asked the local cops if they knew a wood floor guy to replace and re-finish the floors they were cutting out.
They said they did and came right over here. My husband had to go to the scene last night to take measurements and see what had to be done. He came home a bit bummed after seeing the family photos on the wall. Seems this guy did this with his 7 year old kid in the home. The little boy went up to a cop we know and asked him if they were going to be able to fix his daddy. Ya know, I can't say I have ever been in the type of depression that you hear about where people just can't go on. I don't know what this guy was dealing with but really, did you have to do this to your boy?! I have probably mentioned before that Tim knows a guy that he was friends with in high school that is drinking and drugging himself to death. Another was having marital problems and wound up hospitalized twice with what appeared to be suicide attempts. My brother-in-law's brother-in-law killed himself a few years back this time of year over a job problem. It makes me mad when my husband is sick and wants to live and all these people are throwing their lives away. Life is precious. I certainly understand when people have horrible, painful diseases and can't bear it anymore. And I know I can't fathom the kinds of problems some have dealt with. I know I have dealt with and am dealing with a certain amount of depression with our situation. How can I not? I still have plenty of moments where it hits me like a ton of bricks that my husband has cancer. The thought of losing him makes my blood run cold. BUT, especially when you have kids, you go on. Even if you don't want to, and believe me, if something happens to Tim, I know I would be lost, but I would put one foot in front of the other for my kid. I would do what I have to do to try to give her the best life possible despite getting a pretty raw deal. Though I certainly feel empathy for someone who is so lost that they take their own life but when it involves kids, and they kill the poor kids, I get pretty darn pi**ed off. Is there anything more selfish than that? There was a woman on Oprah a few years ago who begged a judge not to give her ex-husband unsupervised visitation with their kids as he had threatened to kill them. The judge refused to listen to her. Her ex killed all three of their sons. How this woman goes on, I just don't know. This world is a screwed up place. Somedays, I wanna go live on an island with no one else around. It's just too much to see all that is going on around us some days. Whack jobs like this enjoy good health while my husband gets cancer. My husband is trying to live to raise our daughter and these idiots just chuck it all and kill their innocent kids or destroy their lives in the process. Doesn't seem fair, most of all to those poor kids.

Oh my aching back

So here's a helpful hint for anyone with a bad back. NEVER cough while you are bent over. I made that mistake this morning while I was getting recyclables ready to go out and threw out my
back in a BIG way. Been in agony ever since. Can't even tolerate a 12 pound puppy pulling on the
leash, it's so bad. I am a cough-o-holic due to some weird, chronic sinus condition and it's no fun coughing when the back is already blown out either. It's always something around here. I tried
strolling to the bank today. Between the back and the inflamed nerves in my foot, I looked like
a little old lady. Feel like one too, dag-nabit! On a brighter note, Livvy got her first goal ever
in soccer and they won their first game on Sat. YEAH!!! Last year, she started playing soccer and wound up on the worst team in the league with girls who just were not into it and refused to run
and break a sweat(why their parents sign them up is beyond me). Our team got creamed the whole season and in the last game, the opposing coach, who knew we got killed in every game,
chose to cheat in the last game of the year. I called the soccer board. This man had already been banned from coaching several things. He now is banned from coaching soccer. I hate cheaters and coaches who can't control their egos. Olivia had a bunch of "assists" last year and this season too but never scored a goal. This year, our team is a little better. The coach is much better also. We are still probably the weaker team in the league but our losses have been only by a goal or 2. This past game, Olivia made a super goal and they won. Thank goodness.

No accounting for taste

Tonight, I had some chopmeat out to make dinner. I have had it with cooking for a long time. My kid hates everything 'cept pasta and ice cream. She usually complains about what I'm making while I am still cooking it. I've seen her say she doesn't like something before her taste buds have even had a chance to register. All her life, she has stopped eating foods that she used to like but never really adds any foods to her repetoire so she is just ridiculous to cook for and my days of making 2 or 3 meals every night to please everyone are over. Now, I could eat pasta every day but Tim is not a pasta fan. I have IBS
and a laundry list of food sensitivities. None of us eat seafood. I used to, just not in a long time.
I prefer not to eat pork though I can't resist putting crumbled up bacon on my potato salad. Tim is now starting with some weird allergies that are making him wheeze. He thinks peanuts are one culprit. Just great. When you put all our can't eats and won't eats together, it's a long list. We have been getting take-out(everyone can order whatever they want)
sometimes 2-3 times a week but it gets pretty pricey. We had hamburgers recently and I was
not in the mood for meatloaf. Had that a week or so ago too. So, what to do? I take out a package of spanish rice and start that going. I brown up some chopmeat and add chili seasoning to it. I grate up some cheddar cheese. I figure this is a little like a hamburger helper /taco salad type of thing. I mix up the seasoned beef with the spanish rice, plate it and put cheddar on top
and top that off with salsa and some tortilla strips(I have to admit this was a little pouch from Wendys that was never used). I eat it. Well, I think, not so bad. By the time I'm finishing, it's tasting pretty bland and I'm thinking, I'm never making this again. For one thing, it's gotta have about a billion calories. For
another, I'm already retaining water. There's so much salt in this dish(I did not add any) that I'm gonna look 3 months pregnant by morning and lastly, I'm wondering if I can get through my
dog's walk tonight without jogging home to the loo. You think that's funny? You try jogging with a 4 month old puppy who doesn't know to stay on one side so she shoots back and forth in front of you and then stops on a dime 'cause she smelled something. I've done it. Very
difficult. So I figure, that was a dud, and then Olivia chimes up and says, "I LOVE THIS. THIS
STUFF IS GREAT!" Tim then says he really likes it too. My poor family. I guess it's been such slim pickens around here palate-wise, they think this pathetic excuse for dinner was just terrific. Go figure. If I ever hit the lottery, the first thing I'd do is hire a chef. Oh and a masseuse. Oh yeah and a housekeeper. And don't forget a grounds keeper. And a personal trainer. A yoga teacher. And definitely a psychotherapist, I really need one of them. Wait and a carpenter to finish my house. Oh well. Back to the real world. Off to walk the puppy.

A word on the news story out of NJ

I'm pretty sure it has become national news about the college boy who committed suicide after
2 other college kids put a webcam in his room and aired a homosexual encounter on the internet. This kid was from a town that is just a 3 or 4 mile drive from us. There has been a big movement going on to try to stop gay kids from committing suicide with celebrities posting you tube messages and such. The parents of this boy are getting a lot of support from their community and their son's former high school classmates and friends though I'm sure they just want their kid back. It is so incomprehensible to think of what goes through the mind of someone who laughs while they are destroying someone's life. I just can't understand the cruelty and lack of empathy. I hope that the two people responsible for this are punished severely and it stands
as a warning to others who might think of doing something as depraved as this. Our pastor gave a sermon about this 2 Sundays ago.
Ironically, he based his sermon on something I said to him at bible class. Though our division of the Lutheran Church stands with what the bible says about homosexuality being wrong, he
felt he had to speak out against what was done to this poor guy. It is my own personal opinion that homosexuality is not a choice. I believe people are born that way and they are a child of God no matter what. I don't agree with people judging others for their sexual preference because it is none of their business and the bible also makes it VERY clear that we are in no position to judge ANYBODY. It is God's place to decide what's right or wrong, not ours. It is not OK to play God and go around deciding for yourself who is a sinner or not. We all are. And who's to say that God hasn't changed his original stance on the subject anyway? He is creating these people just like he created you and me, after all. Maybe this is all part of teaching us a lesson in tolerance of differences in people. We have several gay couples living in our neighborhood. They are wonderful folks and great neighbors and though there are a few straight folks we wouldn't mind seeing move out of here, nobody has any problem with our gay friends. There was an attack in NYC on several gay people last week that was just brutal. I read in the paper that one person involved was seen torturing a cat recently in front of friends who were all cheering. Some kids today grow up so desensitized to violence and cruelty that they have no feelings for even the most innocent and vulnerable of God's creatures. It makes me sick to hear about these things. Until this country gets serious about throwing the book at people like this, getting rid of the loopholes that let criminals off the hook, and putting people away and KEEPING them locked up, the quality of life in this country will continue to fall. Our judicial system is a joke and it is the main reason behind the high crime rates in this country. Pedophiles, rapists, and murderers are let out of prison to live amongst us and stalk their prey over and over again. Or they never go to prison in the first place because this country has so many rights protecting the guilty that the innocent get screwed. I don't get it, why is a dangerous criminal entitled to be let out on bail? Why do people who murder someone get a second chance after 12 years? It's not like the person who is dead gets a do-over. Why do people who torture/kill animals get off so easily? Getting back to what happened here at Rutgers College, all this anti-bullying stuff in schools isn't doing a darn thing. Bullying has gotten worse because of the internet and cell phones. A bully can humiliate someone in a public way reaching so many people just by tapping a few computer keys never having to ever say anything to anyone's face. It is the ultimate cowardly act. I'm sure this young man who killed himself realized how very hard it would be to live this down. Aside from changing his identity and appearance and moving away somewhere where nobody knew him before, how would he get away from something that was put out to the whole world? Kids are just as cruel as ever if not more. Are parents talking to their kids about how wrong it is to be mean? I have talked to Olivia over and over again about such things and she has been severely punished just for being rude to another child some years ago. We need to get a whole lot tougher on bullying and crime in general. We can't have kids getting bullied in school and seeing their lives destroyed without severe punishment for those responsible in hopes of deterring all bullies in the future. Bullies should be suspended the first time and expelled if it continues. Maybe mom and dad will get serious about getting their brat under control when they have to pay a tutor because "Junior" was tossed out of school. Until there are real consequences for bad behavior, it will just continue. When we see the news and someone is murdered, maybe a child was abducted, violated and killed, it is NEVER done by a first time offender. It is always someone with a history that has gotten away with their horrible acts before. Wake up America! Streamline and fix the judicial system. Build prisons and stop making the rest of us live amongst these
whack jobs! It's time this country starts "throwing away the key".

Feel good story of the day

I had a rotten night last night. I'm at the end of my rope again with stress. It's way too long a story to get into but suffice to say, I have too much responsibility, am tired of other people dropping their responsibilities in my lap and am also tired of paying the price and cleaning up

the fallout from the bad decisions of others that REFUSE to listen to anything I say. I'm at

a point once again of feeling like I need to take off somewhere by myself. I never will but I feel I should sometime. So just now, as I sat

with my sleeping puppy on my lap trying to regroup for a huge task I have to start, I thought of

something I witnessed 2 years ago and it changed my whole mood. I don't know about where y'all live but I can tell ya that a lot of kids in our area are not taught manners as we were when we were young. Many are bratty, disrespectful and downright irritating to be around and their parents are really to blame. They are undisciplined and get away with murder thereby taking no

responsibility for their behavior. We are dealing with this now with the teenage girl coaching

Olivia's cheerleading squad and that was one of the many things that set me off last night. So,

this is the flip side of that. My daughter moved on to a different school in our district 2 years ago where kids from 2 towns were brought together. I volunteer for as much as I can with Olivia's school and sports programs. I feel grateful to be able to be a stay-at-home mom and despite the fact that I know I would not have the patience to deal with kids all day, every day like a teacher, I love coaching and volunteering and getting to know them on a smaller scale. So I volunteered for field day at the beginning of the new year. The kids do all sorts of sports competitions outside. I was working the obstacle course. I would split each group in half for 2 teams and then they would run this course with jumps and different things and try to get their whole team to finish it first, like a relay race. There was a boy, whom I did not know, who had some severe physical disabilities. I don't know what the cause is but he walks

with much difficulty and seems to be very compromised on one side of his body as if he'd had

a stroke or something. But he is a sweet, handsome kid who always has a smile on his face. I worked with a bunch of different groups that day and kids can be SO competitive, especially the boys. They can get downright mad if they don't win and some even cheat to try to win or yell at other kids that slowed their progress down. So near the end of this one race, up comes this cool little guy with the disabilities. That trooper did the whole course, trying to do everything he was capable of doing and then I hear all this yelling from the kids. I look back to where the groups are standing at the start line and BOTH teams are just screaming this kid's name and cheering him on. Nobody cared who won anymore. They just wanted him to do well and yelled like crazy for him. I looked back at him and he was grinning from ear to ear and just chugging along as best he could. I teared up immediately and thought I had never seen anything so darn cool from a group of kids. It warmed my heart. Some months later, I was in the mall with Olivia. We were waiting on a check-out line at

a teen clothing store and that boy came up and spoke to the woman in front of me and then walked off and waited in the store for her while she was on line. I figured it must be his mom. I hesitated for a minute and then thought, parents of kids with disabilities so often get to see the bad stuff, the teasing and stares, the bullying. I felt that I had to tell this woman what happened that day. So I asked her if she was his mom. She said yes. I told her that I had to let her know what happened at field day in the fall. I'm sure at first, she was worried. Then I told her the story. I got choked up just telling it to her and she got emotional too. She was really moved and thanked me very warmly for letting her know. I'm sure that little boy's life has been marked with pain, both physical and psychological. But he has a beautiful smile on everytime I see him

and he teaches people important lessons everyday including this old jaded cynic.



I'm not sure if I have told this story on my blog before. I've been blogging so long now, I can't remember and may be repeating myself often these days but this story is worth repeating anyway. Sometimes, people drop their guards just long enough to show the real love and compassion that is hiding under their rough exteriors. We all bear crosses in one way or another. So I'm back to the kitchen table and a stack of bills and paperwork to bear. RATS!

But at least I feel a little better having recalled that miraculous day.

It's official, she's a homewrecker

One of the biggest fears we had about getting a dog was getting a "chewer." Well, it has happened. Our dog is not getting it that the toys are the only thing she can chew. It's been 4 weeks now and though my flip flops are still intact, there are tiny chunks missing and Lacey does not stop biting everything in sight, including electrical wires. She cannot be out of your sight for a minute. Our beloved Sophie was SO good about chewing. She realized right away that she was only allowed to chew toys and bones and did not
ruin anything in our house. I am literally praying that this pup grows out of it. Although she is
OK in a crate(Sophie never took to one), I don't want to have to crate my dog every single time
we go somewhere forever. We have no choice now. Even blocking her in the back of the house
where it's all tile is no good. She bites at the bottom of the kitchen cabinets. I've watched training videos, even one by Caesar Millan. I've been watching the "It's me or the dog" show,
which Tim swears we'll be on soon. I haven't seen a whole lot at all on the chewing thing.
At the insistance of several people who swear it works, we got out a water bottle. We've squirted the pup a few times. I don't think she has a clue why we are doing it and I think every
new action seems like a brand new game to her. I bought some bitter apple stuff to spray on things. Now if I could just find where I put it. Several folks have already told me it doesn't work though but I'll try it when I find it. I have to get a coffee can and put change in it to shake. Some say this works because they hate the sound. I really don't like caging animals and want her to be able to have full run of the house but she is biting at shoes, clothes and all the furniture including the oak, antique pieces and that just won't do. She is cuter than anything though. Once I figure out how to get my new computer to read my camera, I'll post some shots.
She gets swarmed with attention everywhere we go. I should have gotten a taller dog though.
If one more woman/girl bends over to pet her thereby flashing her chest to my hubby, I
SWEAR! Our outings have all become R-rated now.We walked into town the other night to get ice cream
and this blonde bombshell steps out of her car and walks up to me cooing and all and says in
her 3 octave too high, squeaky voice "OH I JUST HAVE TO PICK HER UP" and down she goes and we all get the full frontal of her very obvious silicone-enhanced set. TA-DA! She starts talking away not making any sense(Tim and I both got the impression she might be a little tipsy, both due to alcohol and the weight distribution problem ) and
as we pay for our ice cream and are leaving, she starts after us on her stiletto heals saying, "OH I HAVE TO HOLD HER AGAIN". I kept walking and said, "sorry, we're going now." If the word gets out, I'll have every man and teenage boy(kinda the same thing doncha think?) in town wanting to walk my puppy. Oops gotta go, just got a call that my minivan has a damaged rear axle and has to have a repair due to the recent recall on this and I gotta go rent a car. Too bad they won't cover the cost of a convertible sports car. I feel a middle age crisis coming on.

Dr. appt. nerves

Tomorrow, we go for Tim's check-up. I don't know if it's just my nature or what but I always
expect to be seeing the other shoe drop when we go to these things. I start thinking how tired Tim has been
and wonder if the MM is back. Last week there were just a few bubbles in the toilet after he had
gone and flushed and I asked him if he has noticed his urine being foamy. He said he doesn't pay attention and doesn't care. I never get used to these appts. even when we were going
every month. I bring a book to read in the waiting room but I am so antsy
that I can't concentrate on it anyway so I don't know why I bother. I usually wind up seeing someone I know and talk away the time which always helps the old nerves. Last night as I waited in my car for Olivia to get out of cheerleading practice, I had one of those "ton of bricks" moments as I
was listening to one of our favorite Springsteen songs on the radio. It just hits me out of the blue that "oh yeah, my husband has cancer and he could die." My husband must have these moments too but he never shares them with me really. The other day, he said something that
was so sad though. It was the day we celebrated 25 years together. He surprised me by bringing home a little package from the jewelry store. It was a pretty ring with a little diamond and he confessed to being totally stuck for ideas for gifts but I was touched. We were not doing anything to celebrate this day 'cept just remembering it but I guess the last few birthday IOU's
I've gotten made him think a gift from him was in order. It made me pretty emotional but I sucked it up and then when I said something about "can you believe we've been together a quarter century?" he kind of muttered something about him "being outta here now though." I said that
he WAS NOT outta here but it broke my heart to realize that he is thinking about the fact that he may not be making certain anniversaries and I WANT HIM TO SO BADLY!!!!! This is so hard to live like this. We are not alone in this but it still feels like such a lonely journey. A guy who was my neighbor growing up is in end-stage liver failure right now from a genetic liver disease he was dx'ed with 20 years ago. He is just a few years younger than me and they have
4 kids. His older sister stepped right up and got herself tested to donate a part of her liver to save him and I just heard that she got to the last series of tests and found out she was not
a match. Ugh, it's so sad. They kept his disease secret all these years but now I know why his
wife broke down on me when she heard about Tim's MM. This really sucks. I can't stand seeing and hearing about all this misery sometimes. It's too much. As the holidays approach, I find myself again wanting to go on vacation somewhere and bow out of the normal grind. It's so painful sometimes to be going through the same old motions when nothing is the same for us anymore. Tim and I don't even want to lay eyes on his sister-in-law after what she did last Christmas and wonder how to accomplish that without depriving Olivia of celebrating the holiday or reliving the whole mess ourselves. I gotta get better at this "one-day-at-a-time"
thing. My life just seems too overwhelming to me when I think of all I have to do and be on top of. Well, I'm off for a little walk with my favorite pre-teen and puppy. Gotta unwind a little bit.

Nurse Denise/Lunch with Lori the language-challenged

So today is not starting out much better than yesterday. The Chihuahua attack has left our puppy with an infection in her eye and stuff oozing out of it. I've been rinsing it with warm water and smearing antibiotic ointment in it. From what I can see, I think she got cut on her lower lid where it meets the eyeball and there is a little bump there. She has a vet appt. tomorrow morning for shots and to get her spaying stitches out and hopefully this eye
is cleared up by then or the doc tells me it's no big thing. I took Lacey out a little after 5 am
this morning. I don't get this. She peed outside and then came in and pooped in the diningroom. Dang! Then we went back up to bed where Tim was in the throws of another allergy/asthma reaction. So I got him to take a Zyrtec but we didn't really get back to sleep today and he is exhausted. Then Olivia woke up with ANOTHER stomach ache and said she couldn't go to school. I gave her some dry cereal and water to drink and told her she would have to go when her stomach felt better. If this doesn't stop, I may have to have her seen by
a gastroenterologist. I drove her to school about 20 minutes late with a note. Ugh. I feel like a nurse 'cept I'm not making 70 thousand a year. On a lighter note, my older sister Lori is on vacation in Columbia this week. She has friends from there whose family still lives there. Lori is quite the traveller and she knows a good amount of spanish. Working in a field with many nationalities and travelling to CA for business alot has kept her pretty brushed up on it. What she lacks, I guess, is the proper accent. She is a pretty smart person, booksmart I guess you'd call it, but when it comes to sticking her foot in her mouth, well.... she has made it an art form.
The other day at lunch she decided to ask her friend's sister(friend speaks English, sis that lives in Columbia does not) how her trout was. Lori probably thought she was hot stuff knowing how to say trout. Well, it turns out if you do not pronounce the word for trout just right, what you wind up saying is the word for body odor. The woman made a strange face and didn't reply.
Someone enlightened Lori and I guess there were no hard feelings 'cause the woman sat next
to my sister for lunch again yesterday. Lori figured she had it licked because the woman was having chicken and she'd seen "arroz con pollo" on enough menus to feel confident. She again goofed with the pronunciation and wound up asking the woman how her ass was. They all cracked up laughing and made a scene in the restaurant so I guess there is no offense taken from the language-challenged gringo. I think she better stick to por favor and gracias.
I almost forgot. Today is 25 years since Tim's and my first date. Wow, a quarter century. Time just FLIES, doesn't it?

I think I have to go back to bed....

and pull the covers over my head while I'm at it. So today, I get an e-mail from my tenant.
Her dog is going to be put to sleep on Wed. She has been dreading this for a long time and
they just finally figured out what was wrong with the dog and Gertie is now in an advanced
stage of lymphoma. I feel bad for them and our tenant kept telling the vet something wasn't right and they missed the diagnosis. Not that this is more important at all, but I will probably be looking for
a new tenant soon too. The dog was the only thing keeping her there(you cannot find nice apts. around here that take animals. We normally don't, but made an exception for her.) She wants to get away from my downstairs
tenant, who is a pain, and they apparently had a little fling which ended badly so I think she'll be
off to a garden apt. complex soon. She's the best tenant we ever had and we'll be sad to see her go but as for her affair with Mr. "going through a bad divorce" there is a quote in the movie "moonstruck" that says, "Don't shit where you eat."
My apologies to sensitive ears. But really, did either of them really think it was gonna be "happily ever after" jumping into something on the rebound or that it would be fun having to live in the same house with an ex lover? So, then I take my little pup off to the park where she is attacked
by a Chihuahua who is not on a leash. It was the saddest little thing and I would have liked
to shoot the woman 'cept she is a damn neighbor and swears her dog has never done that,
even though he snapped at Lacey just a few minutes earlier. THIS IS WHY THEY MAKE LEASHES PEOPLE. The damn dog get her right in the eye and Lacey was screaming when it
happened and crying afterward. I swear if I did not get them seperated, I would have kicked that darn dog a mile. Now I wonder how Lacey will be with other dogs and who could blame her
now if she is afraid. The other day, we were at Olivia's soccer game and some woman was walking 2 HUGE pitbulls on a single, Y-type leash and didn't see my pup on my lap and her dogs came right at me and almost jumped on top of us. I was not happy. I'm afraid of those dogs and after the one killed Tim's aunt's dog, I am very wary of any large dog around my puppy. There are just some larger dogs that see small dogs as prey and there was no way that this woman would have been able to control these huge dogs if they decided to attack. I had 2 dogs rush up to Lacey last week too that the guy didn't have leashed. He apologized and leashed them but for Pete's sake people, there are leash laws here and they're for everybody's safety.
What's that saying, there are no bad dogs, just bad owners. I'm starting to see that now. So then I got on the phone with the place that did my sleep study. It was almost a month ago and I still have
not gotten the report on whether I have apnea or not. Turns out the pulmonologist they sent my file to has been the hold-up and he is not the one I specified that I wanted, he is this quack that
my primary care doctor recommended instead and the same idjit that told me I had a pulmonary embolism 7 years ago and could die, have a stroke and yadda, yadda, yadda. He shot
me full of blood thinners and my cardiologist came in and told me he was wrong. There was no
blood clot. My neighbor, who is a chiropractor, told me this same doctor told one of his patients
she'd had a heart attack and he was wrong. So I just told the sleep study place and my primary care doctor that I would not even be in the same room with this quack, let alone let him handle
my medical care. Now please send my file to the doctor who I specified!!!! I'm not happy about
how this day turned out. And I was supposed to start a diet today. I'm going to pick Olivia up from school and we are heading straight to Dairy Queen for ice cream and I'm gonna spend the rest of today kissing my little doggie. I need a happy fix.
P.S.
SO CLOSE!!! We got to the DQ and as we walked across the parking lot, Olivia said she had a stomach ache and we went home without. She is still getting these tummy aches and if it doesn't stop, I may have to ask her doctors if further testing is needed. This has been a bad day!
But when everything turns to cr**, there's always chocolate. Olivia seems to be feeling better already, she just grabbed a chocolate donut from my stash. Would it be too weird to put my pajamas on at 3:00 in the afternoon?

A day in the life of a carp

Today, we went in for Tim's blood draw. We will see the doctor next Friday for the results.
Everyone that works at the myeloma dept. at this hospital could not be nicer. They are always
smiling and polite. I sometimes think that they must have employee meetings where they are
told by their bosses that they had better behave this way towards the patients OR ELSE. I've even thought that they must get to thinking the old, "there but for the grace of God, go I" type of thing being around cancer patients all day, so they have that grateful thing going on all the time. I know Tim's doc, in his sometimes tackless manner, told us once that myeloma is a cruddy disease and he walks out of work often thinking he's glad he doesn't have it. Thanks doc. That's an obvious piece of information we didn't need put into words. But there is one guy whose personality stands in stark contrast to everyone else there. Dino. He spends his days taking blood all day. He takes blood, receives 24 hour urine
samples and walks them across the hall. Boring job, I admit, but gosh, make the best of it pal.
It's also pretty low stress too. You don't have to make life or death treatment decisions. You don't have to give people bad news. I swear he just has no personality and always looks like
he's just a little miffed about something. He speaks in a monotone. In 3 1/2 years, I don't know if I have EVER seen him smile. You try to make conversation and show some interest in him and you get one word answers. Today, Tim sits down for his draw and it goes like this:
Denise:How long have you been doing this?
Dino: Too long.
Uncomfortable silence thinking he is going to give me the real answer. He doesn't.
Tim:Did you get away anywhere for vacation this summer?
Dino: Not really. My wife gave birth.
Waiting for details that never come. Didn't even smile when he said this about having another child.
Denise: OH that's great, what did you have?
Dino: A boy
Waiting for more details and maybe a smirk or something.
Denise: How nice. One of each now(he has a girl). What did you name him?
Dino: Luca
Denise: Ah yes, very italian(goes with Dino of course).
Dino: Yup
Waiting for more details. Anything. A glimpse of emotion. Nothing.
Tim: When was he born.
Dino: the fourth of July
Tim and Denise: OH How cool!
Dino: grunt
For those non-USA'ers the 4th of July is our Independance day which is when we apparently told England, "You're not the boss of us. We can do a great job of screwing everything up all by ourselves."(and we did)
Then Dino asked Tim the same thing he always does when he realizes he's being asked to partake in conversation.
Dino: How's business?
Tim goes into his medium, short version of this answer and I am always shocked that Dino asks him this 'cause Dino got an estimate from Tim when he bought a house a few years ago
but went with a cheap(what we call hacker) flooring company instead.
By this time we were done and said our good-byes but I swear I have never met a duller, more un-friendly guy. I mean he had a baby for heaven's sake and you have to pull it all out of him like he's not even that impressed or happy about it. I said something joking around one day to
the doc during Tim's appt. and they laughed at the idea I'd met carp with more personality but they agreed. He's one heckuva Eeyore for sure. I feel like shaking him sometimes and reminding him that this ain't no picnic for the folks on the other side of that needle either and
he could perk up just a little. Wonder what his wife is like. I get to feeling mopey just being around him for 5 minutes. He's a disgrace to
us Italians. Heck, I'm only a quarter Italian and I can barely wait on a line without striking up
a conversation with someone. This guy needs some happy pills or something.

Most important lesson learned

I just read something on an MM blog I follow that shocked me a little. This very funny guy got a private e-mail from a woman who was a little miffed that he would joke so much about MM.
She is quite upset about her dad's diagnosis and can't understand the humor so many of
us use to cope with MM invading our lives. I left a pretty long comment on his blog
but I think this subject deserves its own post on mine. Needless to say, and I have blogged about it before, Tim's diagnosis was a horrible blow at a bad time. For some time afterward, I found myself mourning. I was mourning our life as we knew it. It would never be the same and it takes some time to get around to accepting that. I cried a river(mostly in private) for a long time. I cried in the car, the shower, dark movie theaters, you name it. If crying burned calories, I'd surely have gotten back into my skinny jeans. Tim, on the other hand, in a show of courage that I could never have imagined, accepted the hand he was dealt and got on with it. He told me that he was not going to spend what time he had left crying and moping and he certainly hasn't. I feel that it would be selfish of me not to buck up for him then and try to keep my spirits up. I also believe that if the mom goes down, the whole family goes with her so I put on my big girl pants and have been stronger than I have ever been for the sake of Tim and Olivia. I realized during all those tearful breakdowns that I could not function as a wife, parent, or caregiver when I was like that. I also know that it bothers Tim to know how his cancer diagnosis affects his family so I don't want him to feel worse about that. More importantly, I learned one of the biggest lessons I had to learn from this journey and that is this: YOU SHOULD NOT MOURN A PERSON WHO IS ALIVE. I think that was part of what was behind a lot of those tears. I was so worried about what the future held, I was "what iffing" myself into a miserable existance. If you are going to lose a loved one, as one blogger put it, there will be time for weeping and wailing later. It struck me that to mourn someone that was standing right in front of me was the biggest waste of precious time imaginable. I decided instead to make great memories and try my hardest to live in the present. Hence Tim's brandy new pickup for Christmas. Seize the day.
Some of these blogs I follow are written by the wittiest, most hysterical people and so many times, they have made me crack up on a day that I really needed that. The shock of a cancer diagnosis will send anyone reeling and some days it is really hard to be happy. But I do know that I would really regret not making the most of our time together no matter how long that is.
Some time ago, I stumbled onto a blog about a boy in Mass. who has relapsed neuroblastoma which is fatal. He was dx'ed when he was 7 months old and has been on chemo his whole life.
He just turned six. As bad as our situation is, I can't even imagine how hard it is to watch your child suffer and so many of these kids with NB have died. I just read a quote that this boy's dad
posted on his blog and since I was unable to figure out how to cut and paste it, I will just paraphrase it and you can look it up yourself if you desire. It's by Robert Brault and basically, it says not to worry about life expectancies. It says that instead of ticking each day off from some "allotment" you think you may have, you should consider each day of your life as a treasure to add to your
chest and with each day lived, your treasure will grow, not diminish. It is so hard not to obsess about the future, especially when you're in the position we're all in with cancer affecting ourselves or our spouse. But I can see no way to be somewhat OK right now unless you try to live for
today and make the most of it. And laugh whenever possible. Tim's doctor is a riot and we are always busting each other back and forth. We appreciate it and wouldn't have it any other way.
Even during some of the worst of times these last few years, Tim and I have joked with each other to break the tension and some things that have happened have been downright funny.
As I always say, laughing beats crying anyday.

Losing friends

Yesterday, we got some terrible news. A man we know very well was killed in a car accident
Sunday at the age of 58. His brother was driving and survived with injuries but Billy did not
make it. We are stunned. Tim has known him for over 30 years and he owns a delicatessen
in our town that we go to often. Tim and I get in arguments often when he is driving. I
do not like long car trips and am a worry wart through and through and Tim does not drive
as carefully as I would like. Despite his MM diagnosis, he still goes through his life thinking
bad things won't happen to him. I, unfortunately, have had so many cruddy things happen to me, that I expect the worst all the time. NJ has such busy roads with scads of obnoxious drivers
and the cell phone issue just makes it more dangerous these days. I am paranoid of the time when Olivia is old enough to drive and told Tim yesterday that I think we should move to a more rural area when that time comes. About 5 or 6 years ago, we were going to so many wakes
that our neighbors couldn't believe it. We live 2 blocks from the most popular funeral parlor in our area and it seemed like Tim and I were always walking down the street in our black clothes with our neighbors seeing us and saying, "not another one?!" As we saw a lot of our friends losing their parents, we feared losing our own. Many of the deaths we saw were very sudden and sadly, some of these people were in their 50's or early 60's. I told Tim at one point that I felt like we had moved into a period of our life that would be marked by
losses. He was pretty upset yesterday after we got this news and told his mother on the phone that it just felt like we are all dropping like flies. Tim's ex-boss, who is someone I've known since I was a child because I grew up being friends with his daughter, died quite suddenly from
an aneurism about 4 years ago. My father has an aneurism in his head that was found just a few years earlier when he was CT scanned after he was rear-ended by a truck while driving. At that point, I really started to worry about my own parents and I can remember very vividly thinking that the wind would surely be knocked out of my sails to lose them but that as long as I had Tim and Olivia, somehow I could muddle through. They are my world and I literally build my life around theirs.
Needless to say, Tim's cancer diagnosis brought the mortality thoughts even closer to home than I expected. Events don't always happen in the so-called "natural order" of things. The older generation doesn't always go first. I hate going to wakes. I hate when Tim is going to wakes. I hate that life is so damn fragile that a split second on the highway wipes out a life and destroys
countless others in the process. I hate that kids get sick and parents see their children suffer.
There should be a natural order of things. You're born, you live, you get old, you die, you go to heaven and see all your loved ones that went before you. PERIOD. Anything other than that makes no damn sense to me at all.

Puppies and puberty

Well, it's been an eye-opening few days with our new pup. She is a total love but housebreaking is going to be tricky. She does know what she is supposed to do outside but because this poor thing had been stuck in a cage, she is not even crate-trained because all her life, she had no choice but to go potty in her crate where she was sleeping and eating. I think I will go buy some
stock in the company that makes our brand of paper towels. She is teething like crazy too and bites everything and nibbles on us too. The scary thing is Olivia had an allergic reaction the other day all over her face and I had to give her allergy meds. She has never been allergic to dogs but I have to assume that having scratches on her face made her react to the saliva(this dog is a big kisser). Liv has a doctor's appt. today so this is one thing I will be talking to her doc about. Liv has been having stomach issues. I swear that this is all about her hormones kicking in. I've had IBS and food intolerances forever and it always seemed linked to my hormones. She
started getting headaches too. I just got out a little care package the girls were given in school.
Being the always prepared type, I am going to give her a little pouch of necessities to carry in her bag in school just in case "the curse" shows up. So I just read the pamphlets that were included in this kit. I had to laugh. I know we need to look at this as a happy time(though it never was for me thanks to severe cramps and endometriosis) but this stuff was too funny.
They included a "HAPPY KIT" which contained small pads. Honestly, opening that gives me
no feelings of joy whatsoever. They have questions and answers about puberty and periods and all the changes your body makes. One question is "When will my breasts stop growing?" While
I can't see a girl wanting to know that, unfortunately, if Liv takes after me the answer will be
"about 20 minutes after they start growing." The book says, "you will start thinking and behaving more like an adult." Yeah, I'm not holding my breath on that one. Has the author of this booklet actually been around 12 and 13 year-olds lately?!!! It says that wearing a bra will provide support and coverage and make you feel more comfortable. It's been 95 degrees here this week. Any woman who lives where it's hot and thinks having that slingshot on makes them more comfortable, raise your hand.......anybody?....I thought so. You can paint a rosy picture all you want but sometimes these things us women have to deal with just stink. The booklet shows a calendar with 3 days marked "I have PMS" and then 5 days marked, "MY PERIOD'S HERE!!!" Somehow, I don't think most of us have that kind of enthusiasm though after skipping a few cycles myself and one pregnancy test later, I must admit, I almost wrote that on the calendar myself this month. 'Cept I had PMS for 2 and 1/2 months. I warn Tim that these next few years may be interesting. Olivia's hormones are ramping up just when mine are giving up. I guess delaying motherhood until the 30's has this backlash of putting you in a hormonal
flux just when your kid(s) are too. Bad planning. Hopefully, our daughter does not have the terrible pain issues I had. There is a question that says, "what should I do if I have cramps?"
I am an old pro at this. My advice: Take pain meds around the clock and score a few days off
of school. If necessary, book a flight to the UK and give Bernard a little shot to the shins. ;o)
"What to do if the cramps are REALLY bad?" Kick Bernard's car.

Just kidding B!

Ugh, the puppy just peed the floor again. I gotta figure out how to strap those darn pads to
that little whizzer.

We are a dog family again

Well today, we went to pick up our new puppy. It was a long day. We left the house just after 9:30 in the morning and hit a ton of traffic because it was a beautiful beach day and the rentals
down the shore run Sat. to Sat. so we sat in traffic for almost an hour and got to where we were
going about 40 minutes late. We didn't make it back home until after 5 this evening. But, we fell in love immediately with this tiny, little bundle of love and
kisses. It is the floppy-eared beagle mix shown in the last post but she is tinier than she looks
in the photo. She weighs only about 8 pounds. She got car sick on the way home right after we
switched drivers and Tim had to clean it up. He was thrilled but this is also why we took my car
instead of his new truck. We were prepared though and had everything covered. She is still a bit queesy but other than that is doing really well. She's had a rough week.
They got her in after some woman took her away from a backyard breeder. She'd been stuck
in a cage in their back yard. She is so happy to be with people, her tail wags constantly. She just
loves everybody and when we stopped at a rest area everybody walked up to meet her. She makes everyone smile, she is that darn cute. Olivia is over the moon. The puppy is glad to have a family and a real home. Now I just hope she is OK when I take her to our vet to get checked out on Monday. Her tummy is still not
right and I am hoping it is the just leftover motion sickness. This poor thing has changed homes several times this past week, had all her vet work done, spaying and shots, so it's been a
tough few days for her. Then she spent all afternoon in a car and had a bath in the kitchen sink when she got here. What a day. She is now zonked out on a dog bed that is WAY too big. Hopefully, she gets her appetite back tomorrow and feels better. She's going to her first "dogfest" in the park. Should be fun. I'm sure she'll be the belle of the ball.

Ah yes, the pet adoption run-around

So I get an e-mail back yesterday from the dog shelter in CT. It said, "congratulations, your
adoption is approved but so sorry, that dog is spoken for." GGGRRRRRRR! I wrote back and
asked why I was told the dog was available and got an explanation that was either all lies or
meant that they already had people interested in the pup when they told me she was available to us. This brings back memories of 1995 when we were looking for a dog. The old bait and switch tactics are still being used. I like to rescue a dog
because I find purebred dogs tend to have more health problems so I like the mutts(though Sophie cost us a lot of money in vet bills in her lifetime). Oh heck, I woulda given that dog my kidney if she
needed it. Anyway, the problem with rescuing dogs is mainly the amount of pitbulls or unhealthy dogs they are trying to unload. While I am sure there are many good pitbulls and staffordshire terriers, they are not for me. I have heard too many stories and they scare me. We had a woman killed not far from here a few years ago and Tim's aunt's dog( a little poodle)
was attacked and killed by one out in CA last year. I don't totally believe that they have to be trained to fight as too many that are involved in attacks were not. We had several shelters call us back then telling me they had lab mixes(which I specified was all that I was interested in) only to drive out there to see a litter of pits they were hoping we'd
fall in love with once we saw them. One time, after several of these episodes, I had a shelter call me and say they got a batch of lab mix puppies in and I better come quick because they would go fast. I told them straight out that my husband would have to cancel an estimate and it would take an hour to drive there
so they better not show me pitbulls. She said, "oh no, these are labs." He cancelled his appt. and we drove out during rush hour to see a litter of pits again. I let them know I was NOT happy with them. While I have all the respect in the world for folks that give so much of themselves to
help animals, these kinds of tactics are just wrong and give them all a bad name. Too many of
these people are not above lying and telling people what they want to hear to get rid of an animal only to complain how many are turned back in to shelters. Well, DUH! This is not something I want to do especially with our kid involved. It takes us 3 seconds to fall in love with an animal so I am trying to get as much useful information out of these folks as I can before we lay eyes
on more than just a photo. So, though I am second in line, that first shelter said, to pick from the litter that the other pup was from, I'm not sure I want to deal with them now. I'm also a little afraid of how muscular in the front legs and the chest the pups look to be in the pictures as that is one way you can tell you have pit in there. Also, they are being trucked up from Georgia so I really don't think they know much about these dogs at all other than what the mother is 'cause she was rescued with the pups. I thought these dogs were found in CT. We found this other pup(for now we'll call her Plan B) but we have to travel 2 1/2 hours one way to see the little thing. The woman I'm dealing with seems pretty nice so I hope she is being straight with me. I've got better things to do than drive 5 hours to get ticked off. Heck, I can get ticked off at home.

the puppy problem

When we lost our Sophie dog 2 years ago, though we were definitely devastated, it opened up
opportunities in travelling that we did not have before. Our dog was a very anxious animal and
we feared she could never tolerate being kenneled and had no other options other than the in-laws to watch her. (everyone else had pets and she was quite anxious around other dogs too and she chased cats)
I swore it would be awhile before we got another dog and yesterday, I fell in love with this little
border collie mix in CT on petfinder.com. Though I am loving being able to travel to new places with Tim and Olivia, we are not loving being sans dog. We are all animal lovers and to wait a few years makes
little sense in a way as Olivia will be out with her friends more than at home by then. On the other hand, I know of about 4 families who got dogs in the last few years that are not so happy.
The dogs either never house trained or ripped their furniture up and they wish they never did it.
A girlfriend of mine actually tried to get rid of her hyper yorkipoo several times. Sophie was great that way. She never trashed our house and once trained, she never went in the house till she was so ill at the end. It's a hard decision. Olivia keeps saying she'd rather have a dog than go on all these vacations but that is
easy to say. I have to believe that we can get a dog that is not so skittish this time. We have a wonderful,
family-owned kennel just down the street from us and friends and family that we can trade dog-sitting with too as long as this one gets on with other varmints. For once, Tim has shown some
softening in his resolve not to get another dog. He was so upset to lose Sophie that he actually
told me it was harder than being told he has cancer. Then there is also the hope that the vet bills would not reach what they did with Sophie but I think I would buy insurance this time. Sophie
blew out both her ACL's 2 1/2 years apart(she thought she was a football player, I guess) and the surgeries cost us 5 grand.Total vet bills over her life probably hit about 10 to 12K. We need to think very carefully about this but all resolve goes out
the window when you lay eyes on this little cutie. I just think it would bring so much joy to us all.
And they say being around animals lowers your blood pressure. I guess I should adopt a baker's dozen of them then. And a llama. I definitely want a llama.

On bumbling birthdays and being low maintenance

I celebrated the 17th anniversary of my 28th birthday on 8/8 while we were away in New Hampshire. I am not easy to shop for. I am not materialistic, hence no long list of "I wants" hanging around, heck not even a short list. I am more into getting rid of stuff cluttering up my house instead of bringing more in and lets face it, after 25 years together, you run out of ideas for each other though the last 2 gifts I gave Tim were a big, flat screen TV and a brand new truck so I guess I had a few tricks left up my sleeve. So Tim told me while driving to NH that he wracked his brains for weeks and couldn't come up with anything. I said, "don't worry." He said "buy whatever you want on vacation." How romantic. For about the past 10 years my answer for the "what do you want" question has always been, "I want my house finished." 15 years later, he never finished the renovations he started. Yeah, it's mostly just trim work that's left but I'd sure like to see this place completed. No such luck. So I get cards from him and Olivia on my birthday. I'm glad to be in gorgeous New Hampshire with them and my whole family calls me on
my cell while we're sight-seeing that day(I share this birthday with my younger sister by the way.)
And Tim's mother calls me a day later, sheepishly admitting she forgot, and said "we'll do cake when you guys get here"(we spent the 2nd leg of our vaca at their house in Vermont). Later during the day of my birthday, Tim does something that really ticked me off. He and Olivia have
a habit of never listening to me and then when something goes wrong, I am the one who has to
fix it or suffers the consequences along with them. This aggravates me. So I told Tim that what I should have asked for on my birthday was one day of them listening to me and not causing me grief. We get to Vermont a few days later. My mother-in-law and sis-in-law are there. I guess the cake thing just wasn't that important 'cause they blew it off. Then, my older sister and brother-in-law come up to their VT house which is 15 minutes away. They have become good friends with my in-laws. That day, the 13th, was my brother-in-law's birthday. My mother-in-law invites them over for dinner and decides a cake and candles and singing are in order for my sis's husband. I'm thinking now, "Hmmm should I tell her?" I've known my b-i-l since I was 13. He HATES his birthday. He REALLY HATES being the center of attention and being reminded of getting older. So I tell her. She says, "Oh OK I'll make him a chocolate cream pie 'cause he likes when I make them and nix the candles and singing." Note: No, I did not tell her this because of any shrugged off celebration of my birthday. My b-i-l would have cringed down to his very core if they did this. So they celebrate Rich's b-day with a bar-b-q and pie. Today is 8/18. I have yet to have a cake for
my birthday so I am making my own damn cake tomorrow. I did buy a piece of cheesecake to go from the restaurant we ate at on my b-day. It was good until I accidentally tipped it over on the rug in the hotel room. 5 second rules don't apply when it's a hotel room carpet. YUCK! BUT things could have been worse. I came home from vaca and called my younger sis the next day(we hadn't spoken since our b-day.) Her husband had no idea it was her birthday and completely forgot. Obviously, her 7 and 3 year olds then did not know either. Holy moley!!! I said "COOL". And she's like "Yep, howdaya like that?" I thought she was gonna tell me that she didn't let on and the whole day went by without them knowing but my mom called her to wish her a happy birthday and make arrangements to go out for dinner together and asked my little niece on the phone what they were doing for mommy's birthday.
So my niece then went in to wake up daddy (around noon) and tip him off. Pathetic really. I said to my sister, it doesn't pay to be low maintenance. If we were those type of women who expected SO much from people and got their feelings hurt at every little slight, real or imagined, this stuff would never happen to us. So despite the fact that my arse does not need birthday cake, tomorrow I am baking one up anyway. Cake anyone?

P.S. Since I always kvetch that nobody listens to me, I saw a man wearing a t-shirt in Delaware last month I just have to find for Tim. It said. " My wife complains I never listen to her....
or something like that." Perfect!!!!!!