Off to Vermont again

Well we're off in a few hours to Vermont. This will be Lacey's first vacation. I can't wait to see the look
on her face when she meets cows and alpacas for the first time. I feel bad that she will not be able to be
off leash even though both my sister's house and my in-laws' have acres of property. She is a beagle and they
run. She's also a "flatlander" as they call us cityslickers up there and I'm afraid if she catches a scent or
chases a varmint, she'll never find her way back out of the woods. We'd all be heartbroken if we lost our
doggie so a 20 foot leash with one of us running behind her is going to have to do. We'll be in the parade again on Saturday. Liv loves it. One time in Vermont, before we had Livvy, Tim and I drove nearly an hour to see a 4th of July parade in a town called Barton. Boy were we surprised. This was the parade. A couple of
WWII veterans carrying flags(one happened to be an old friend of Tim's late grandfather), two girls on horses, and a very small cub scout troop. The whole parade fit in one picture with my camera. Tim and I kept looking down the street to see if more were coming but....nope, that was it. Small town America.  Happy Memorial Day to everyone and thank you to every man or woman who ever served in'the military and the family members who sacrificed their sanity when they did. I can't even begin to imagine how hard it is to do either.

Still in the fight

It occurred to me awhile back that people all around us have gotten the word that Tim has been in remission and apparently, they all think he's cured. While I am so very glad that Tim looks great and our life has been
somewhat normal, I have always known that we are still in this. MM has taken a union break but it has
not left the building. We were at a surprise 40th b-day last night for a friend who is like a cousin to me.
Our dads have known each other since they were kids. Her sister's husband heard me say something about
still going to Hackensack Hospital and he looked at me puzzled-like and said, "Still? I thought he was in remission and done with that."  I had to explain for probably about the 10th time this year that MM remission is not the same
as other cancer remissions. It's still there, just too low to be detected. Now that answer has even changed,
since it is peaking out now. Obviously, folks are disappointed to hear this. I started awhile ago to explain
his situation as "stable" so it gives people a better idea of where we are. It's never fun having to give bad news so I'd rather just use the stable word and avoid further explanations later. As for me, I tell ya, if you do not have hypochondria, you get is as part of the package when your husband gets ill and you have a young child. I already had lots of yucky health issues and close calls over the years so was too tuned in to begin with but I've been feeling pretty cruddy lately and had 2 very bad near fainting spells out of nowhere
in the last few weeks. One was just yesterday, standing at the counter at a deli with Liv. Suddenly, my temples started to pound, I felt a little oxygen starved and I knew what was happening. I came pretty close to a full "gray out". We walked home with me giving Liv quick instructions to dial 911 if I passed out
and no one was around. I came home pretty upset. This poor kid wound up with 2 parents with health issues and I don't know why this is getting worse for me now. Hormones, being out of shape, blood sugar issues? I dunno.  Just when I was going to go to the doc and finally admit I probably need blood pressure meds, this happens. These docs have no idea how my fainting spells
and weird heart rates are going to be affected by meds. It does NOT give me a lot of confidence when a doctor who has been a cardiologist for MANY years, is afraid to medicate me. So I ordered my positional sleep apnea belt and have tried to promise myself AGAIN that I will start exercising. I started taking vitamins and had better start drinking more too. Water, not alcohol,though I'm not sure I wouldn't be better off with the latter! I think it's time for a full physical too just to make sure I just feel like I'm falling apart and not that I really am. I HATE going to doctors. UGH.

The older I get, the smarter my parents are

Isn't it funny that you realize more and more how smart your parents are as you age? When you're Liv's age,
which is 13 TODAY!!!!!!, you think you know it all and your parents are so clueless. Then in your 20's, you really think you have it figured out. You hit your thirties and you realize you didn't know diddly squat back then and then in your 40's, you realize you still had a lot to learn in your thirties. There are SO many sayings and cliches I love. "Too late smart," is just one of them. So many times I wish I knew back then what I know now. The different choices I would have made. The things I would have coped with better. If you've been reading this blog, you know that we've had some issues with a certain sister-in-law. Well after years of witnessing her behavior, it just dawned on me yesterday that she has spent the last 30 years trying to make everyone in Tim's family hate each other but like her. Of course, I saw part of this all along, but the whole picture just became crystal clear to me this past weekend. She has tried to pit everyone against each other so she could be everyone's one and only "friend". She has indeed succeeded in causing hard feelings between a lot of us. What a shame and SO childish.
This is exactly the kind of thing that is going on with girls in the seventh grade where Liv goes to school.
It's all about insecurity and attention seeking. A girl like that wants everyone to be her friend but not have any other friends though. So she does whatever she can to torpedo their other relationships so she has her friends all to herself. Despite telling the  ex s-i-l to stop contacting us before Christmas, she
called Tim's cell phone the other day to ask him to reconsider and go to Jim's b-day. Not even a possibility now as we planned Olivia's party with her friends for that night and needed both of us to drive them all to the theater and back. L-A left a message and STILL refused to apologize to him trying to blame me for her actions and claim that Tim is just backing me. She just doesn't get it. Tim is not backing me. Tim rarely listens to me, as you all know.  HE DOESN'T WANT HER IN HIS LIFE. She has backstabbed everyone in his family, us included, and he's had it with her. I was all ready to respond to her again to set her straight when something my father told me a long time ago popped into my head. He said, "Denise, don't bother arguing with someone who is dead wrong. It's a waste of your time." So Dad, who is cruising with Mom to Bermuda right now, you're right again. There is no way to talk sense into this woman. She NEEDS to believe things no matter how far from the truth they are. That old cliche could not be truer, "people believe what they want to believe." That is so spot on with what is going on with this whole issue in Tim's family. Tim is concerned that his family thinks that I am calling the shots here. That is SO not how our marriage works. It's always been how his brother's marriage works with this woman, but not ours. To heck with it. Let them conjur up whatever myths they want. I don't have the energy to try to set them straight and realize, thanks to Dad, that it would be futile.They don't want to believe that Tim has seen things for himself, his priorities have changed since his diagnosis, and he decided that he's not interested in being involved in this mess. Someday, they may figure out the truth. Then again, maybe not. Some people just plain "can't handle the truth."    Moving on.

Oh, I'm stressed

It's another one of those "I wanna run away" weeks. May is always insane for us. Tim is always
overbooked with work. He is turning down jobs at this point. I host mother's day and we celebrate Olivia's b-day on the same day. We're doing a party with her friends Friday night. We go to VT for Memorial day. We coach softball all through the month. There are always multiple other social engagements in May. AND if that wasn't enough to contend with,
I just found out that the program that my church and Lutheran school uses to print the reports that I use to do the budget and treasurer reports has a problem and my treasurer report is wrong due to this glitch and I have to go back and audit 9 months
of income and expense reports and try to find out where the program is messing up because the
secretary that does all the bill paying, etc. has no idea what is wrong. SPLENDID!!! I have been
a lunatic on top of all this because my kid and my husband apparently are completely unable to
do ANYTHING for themselves even when given explicit directions. AND my father-in-law decided that it was the right time and place to bring up this family rift with Tim's sister-in-law, and evidently now his brother, with my husband right
after our first softball game on Sat. right by the dugout with the girls and families all around.
Wh-wh-WHAT?!!! Apparently he is not happy that we are not going to Jim's 50th b-day party. You know, the brother who is not talking to us. The party thrown by the wife who we do not talk to. I walked up to them all happy that Olivia had just pitched 2 fantastic innings
and I hear Tim all angry saying to his father, "It's done, this is NOT up for discussion." and he
walks away. I was like, "what is going on?" Then it dawned on me what they were talking about.
I looked at my father-in-law and said quietly, "Oh, you did not just bring this up now." I walked away shaking my head. At this point, my husband is furious with most of his family. If these people don't stop with the BS, I'm afraid he is never going to want to be around them. He already prefers to spend time with my family because it's always fun and lighthearted and he knows everyone in my family has his back and has done nothing but support us through this whole MM business. He should not be having to deal with this garbage from his own family on top of MM. So that set the tone for the rest of the weekend and is still affecting us now. I am overwhelmed with all I have to do and moody and upset for Tim. Then I still have the problem with nobody in this house listening to anything I say. I went to church on Sunday. Olivia woke up with a face swollen with allergies so I let her stay home. Tim was in bed too. We had a pitching lesson right after church and I had to tell Olivia and Tim to make sure they were ready to hit the road as soon as I
got back. A few days ago, I had to take Liv to her doctor. She has had a plantars wart on her foot
and is having problems with her ankles too(growing too fast I suspect). The doc tells me to buy this stuff and use it every night for 6 weeks but MAKE SURE you don't get it on any other skin than the wart or it will irritate the skin. Cut to Sat. afternoon and Olivia tells me 5 minutes before we are leaving for the ball game that she woke up with her toes all itchy and they have bumps all over them. I say "why didn't you tell me this morning?" She says, "I forgot." I said, "you can't do this with medical stuff"(she's been told this a million times.) I look at her feet and they are all bubbled up.
She either has poison ivy (I think I have a bit myself on my arms) or I don't know what. I said,
"we have no time to do anything now, put some powder on it to keep it dry and sooth it."(her softball socks are very thick and hot). So before church on Sun., I give her these directions, " Eat something now and take a Zyrtec so it kicks in before your lesson. Go upstairs and wash your feet with warm water and soap. Have Daddy get the Calamine lotion out of the bathroom cabinet and put it all over your toes with a cotton ball." So later, after church and her pitching lesson, I am running out to pick lunch up for them. I find out that she once again was not paying attention to me and she had Tim help her put the medicine for her plantars wart(which was on the kitchen counter NOT in the bathroom cabinet), that was not supposed to touch anything but the wart, all over her feet!!!!!!!! On skin that was already irritated from either poison ivy or some kind of rash. I lost it. Tim wondered if this was the right thing to do when Olivia told him. Could he not read the darn box? I told Olivia to go wash the stuff off her feet and took my puppy for a long walk and once again thought about hopping a plane for Savannah. Tim pulled another "never listens to me" thing just a few hours later and I told him I was going to quit talking altogether as it's just a waste of my breath. He said, "good." Some days, I just want to quit this job. :o( Neither one of them does anything to help me around here or anything for themselves for that matter. I've tried to join things and do something for myself so that I am not just being a caregiver 24-7, and now all I've done is make my life harder because they can't function unless my brain is here. My daughter called me mean the other day several times and does not seem to see her role in the problem. I'm sure she REALLY thought I was mean when I then sent her to her room and told her the computer was now off limits on school days. When I went for my walk with the puppy Sunday while they ate lunch, I asked her when I got back, "did you and Daddy talk about anything while I was gone?" She said, "no." I said, "He didn't say anything to you about this not listening business?" She said, "oh yeah, that. Yeah we talked about it." I said, "well what did he say?" She said, "I dunno, I forgot." I give up.

Bowling with Buddy the Cake Boss

What a cool night we had last night. After our first softball game(we lost but Olivia did GREAT the 2 innings she pitched and the head coach had NO idea she could pitch like that and said if
he had known, he would have put her in sooner and we would have won the game. I don't know what posessed him to put 2 girls in before her who do not take lessons. One girl gave up 7 runs in one inning. We were winning prior to that. I also don't know what posessed him to put 5 girls who cannot bat all together in the line-up. Hopefully this game was a learning experience for him as he never coached these 7th graders. He needs to pay more attention at practices to the girls he doesn't know instead of favoring and goofing around with the ones he does). Anyhow, Olivia's friend invited us to go to a bowling alley/sports bar, where her uncle owns the food concession,
and meet Buddy, the Cake Boss from the TLC show on TV. Liv loves watching that show
and this is the first time she ever met someone famous. We were so excited. They were filming
for a show that will air in a month or so and WE GOT PIX of Liv and her friend with BUDDY and
his sister, Grace. Buddy said hello to us several times, as did his sisters. We had a table right by a room they were using to change, eat, and "mic up." Mauro even asked Tim where the bathroom was. What a nice family and even better looking in person. We left before the cake came out because it kept getting pushed later and later and we were tired. They were originally supposed
to show up by 5, then it was 7. We got there at 6 and they didn't show up till almost 9. They all bowled
awhile and then started to film for the show. I am having a problem downloading pics onto my computer but hopefully I can figure it out and post some shots. What fun. I don't know
how this family doesn't kill each other all working together like that. I watch the show with Liv
and they do have their gripes to be sure but they seem to be really close and loving. I worked for my dad for almost 3 1/2 years and quit on him one day. He regretted losing me and knew he'd screwed up but he was a pain to work for and I'd had enough of his moods. It must be nice to come from a big, loving family and know they always have your back. I get along great with my
dad but working with him was a totally different thing. Anyway, it was a great time. Olivia
was so star struck. Buddy had his arm around her and Liv was just blown away.
He was very gracious to the kids. They all were. They posed for a lot of pics. A very memorable night indeed.