Spring has sprung . . .

Spring has sprung
The grass has riz,
I wonder where
The flowers is?

Not sure how well known that little spring verse is in your part of the world, but when I was growing up in the fifties, Iowa, it was a big spring time hit. You would hear it often recited by as many adults as children while they chatted over fence lines and clothes lines on some of those first warm sunny spring days.

And today, as I sit here working at my laptop, the sound of our riding mower and that of our neighbor’s riding mower, are humming away outside my open window. So nice to have the windows and doors open, airing out the stuffiness of a long hard winter. The lilacs are working on blooming--they’re just beginning to “show”, and I’m sure before the weekend is over, their fragrance will be wafting through the house carried on these gentle spring breezes.

All the apple trees, including the Crab apple trees, have been in bloom for part of a week or so. If you go anywhere near them, their scent will intoxicate. Funny how they don’t quite “broadcast” as the lilacs do. However, if you’re out driving with the windows open, once in a while, when you’re passing a large grove, their fragrance will sweep through the car, and your head will immediately turn in their direction, and you will be rewarded with the sight of their white and pink blossoms en masse along a hillside.

Mm, the smell of freshly mown grass has just gotten up to my second-story window. All that mowing is paying off in olfactory delight. For my dear hubby, all of it amounts to heading straight to his antihistamine supply. But for me, it fills me with sensory delight, and memories of a very happy childhood sprawled out on a blanket in our big backyard, watching the clouds roll by. Nothing quite like the contentment that would come from spending a lazy spring day soaking in the warmth of the sun after a winter of little sun, and being bundled to the hilt to stay warm.

I do believe my outdoor flower pots are calling. Today will be a good day to head to the local nursery and pick out my tomato plants, some flowers for my big barrel pots and some to line the garden path borders. Once home I’ll get last fall’s residue of late coming weeds and this spring’s early weeds out of the garden spots around my house. And I can work up the flower pots so they’ll be ready to plant tomorrow.

Ah yes, Spring has sprung, and I know exactly where the flowers is! Ain’t it grand!

Life's Little "oops" . . .

I’m not sure if it’s my age, “the” age we live in, or . . . ? But it seems in the past few years there have been more “surprises” thrown at me.

I know some of it has to do with the age of my mother, and her going in to a nursing home. All those little Life surprises that my two young sons used to bring into my day, have now been replaced by all those little surprises my almost 99 year old mother seems to add. This week, on Monday, bright and early, I received a call they were taking my mom via ambulance, to the hospital. That sent me into a scrabbled morning as I tried to cancel and/or re-arrange MY Monday, and get going on the road to cover the over hour drive to the hospital, so I could be there with her.

And that is kind of how the rest of the day went. There was a lot of hurry up and wait, of course, once you’re in the E.R. and they’re working through tests to determine what’s up. As I entered the E.R. room one of the blood lab technicians was working to get three vials filled with Mom’s blood. Mom is a tough one to find a vein, so the gal was having problems as they’d already started an I.V. in Mom, and that was her one fairly “good” vein. I walked in the door, and as Mom looked up and realized it was me, she let out with, “Thank God you’re here, they’re trying to kill me.”

She had already endured being temporarily catheterized, simply to get a urine sample, which later she sat on the bed pan and could have freely given them all the sample they needed SANS the invasive procedure. I tell you folks, it’s not a good idea to be in the hospital without someone “healthy” and vocal with you--they just take over and do things to their heart’s desire, and you’re just “at their mercy” so-to-speak.

It was finally determined she had pneumonia, and they admitted her into the hospital--and, of course, there went the rest of the day. And there went the next day, and the next. Gratefully she is responding very well to the antibiotics, and they determined they could switch her off the I.V. administered antibiotics and put her on orally given medication. That meant she could go back to the nursing home today. And that meant all the things I was suppose to be doing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and today, are being done TODAY as best I can get to them. Needless-to-say, some of it will be finished up tomorrow along with the “usual” Friday venue.

I’m grateful it wasn’t a bigger Life “oops” and that Mom is responding to the treatment very well. I’m grateful that other than being inconvenient driving the two plus hour round trip three times this week, spending money on gas that was not in my weekly allowance, and eating out with funds NOT in my budget NOR in my “allowed” food’s list, things weren’t any worse, and it’s all been covered.

I really need this weekend to be peaceful. I could stand to take the weekend “off”--but I see that spring has finally sprung and the grass is growing up, up, up. Translated, that means I’ll be spending a great deal of Saturday astride my trusty lawn tractor, mowing a fourth of our town (well, our family members own a fourth of the town, so I’m the one who mows all of our properties). I’ll be singing at the top of my lungs as I merrily buzz along. It is just as good if not better than singing in the shower! And in truth, it will probably feel pretty darn good being outdoors instead of sequestered in a hospital room as I was much of this week.

Viva la Oops! As I live through them, I become stronger--well, at least I become more grateful for all the non-oops days.

What was that . . . ?

This morning, April 28th, I got up, headed downstairs and went to the kitchen. Outside were three of my four dogs, all looking at me through the French doors with rather sad puppy dog eyes. My DH had evidently let them out, but had gone off to other chores, and now they looked very cold and weary of all the “fresh air”--time to come in.

As I opened the door and stepped adroitly aside so as not to be run over by the horde, my attention was drawn to the skies--what was that? It was snow--only a few flakes flitting about--but what in the world . . . This is April, no time for snow, not even a few flakes!

We have been having some fairly decent temperatures. However, the extreme amount of rain has been making streams and creeks over-flow their banks, flooding fields, flooding parks, and then glutting the larger rivers like the Mississippi River turning them into muddy roiling messes.

But today, after putting up with all the wet mess, we have to put up with snowflakes. Granted, they haven’t amounted to anything (I’ve been told they did accumulate up in Minnesota, which is a very good reason NOT to live that close to Canada). However, let me say, when I’m figuring out where to put my new blueberry bushes, and whether I want to put in a new section of garden this spring, I do NOT want to see snowflakes. I’m really done with winter--really truly deeply earnestly DONE with WINTER and any sign of it.

Oh yes, and if snowflakes flitting about wasn’t insult enough, I had to put on warm clothing today before I left the house. I had already broke out my Capri pants--my short-sleeved shirts--my light-weight socks. I had put the snow scraper in the trunk of the car and had thought seriously about bringing my spare coat and my gloves back in to the house for summer storage. And they say tonight will be a hard freeze--please, enough already with the cold.

For those of you living where the trees are fully leafed out, where the flower buds are beginning to make their appearance, where you actually have flowers not just poking their stems up out of the ground, but flowers blooming, ENJOY all of it. Just the minute it gets to Iowa, I intend to drink it all in and relish every moment of it--right up until it turns humid and sticky and sultry and bugs are every where and you can’t sit outside in the evening because the mosquitoes will drain you of your life’s blood . . . Then I’ll be missing those little snowflakes I suppose.

Country Folk and the Big City

There’s a great concert going on in Chicago April 30th. It’s suppose to take place at the Navy Pier Grand Ballroom--on the Lake front downtown Chicago from what I can tell on the map. It looks like an amusement park of sorts, and the event is in the ballroom at the end of the pier.

I really wanted to go. I probably had enough warning that I could have secured some pretty decent seats, up close where I most enjoy being in a concert. Money for gas and food and lodging would have added significantly to the cost of the event--but it’s a group of performers I would truly like to see LIVE. AND, it’s going to be video-taped, so eventually when I would buy the DVD, I would know that I had been there in person and witnessed the entire event. How cool!

HOWEVER, in the paper recently, as in as recent as this past weekend, there were something like 26 shootings in Chicago. And that, according to the article, is NOT unusual there in the area. They cited how many shootings there had been in the past couple weekends--all double figures. The shootings were not all in one place--they sounded over-all gang related, yet it was not only gang members that were the victims.

I understand I’m a country gal, so I’m not a big city fan--but really, why would I seek out going to a place where they have THAT kind of thing going on regularly? I know there are a lot of great events going on in Chicago--many of them I could see me wanting to take part in. BUT, why would I put myself in that kind of danger? Is there really nothing that can be done?

The article, if I remember correctly, quoted a police officer as saying there were just too many guns in the area for anything effectively being done to curtail the shootings. When I finished reading the article, my impression was: too bad about it, but we can’t do anything to really get it stopped, so this will no doubt continue, and probably escalate.

Is that acceptable? Is that attitude acceptable? I know I’m Miss Small town and Rural Girl’s poster child--but I just can’t believe big city folk would be willing to accept that kind of response considering this is where they live, work, recreate, and function daily. Is it true that NOTHING can be done?

Anyway, I’m not going to my big event. They will come somewhere else I can get to without thinking my life is at stake to see them. In this world today I understand there are always risks being out in public anywhere, even Small town U.S.A. However, there are cities that appear to be keeping their crime to a dull roar--where a person can go to an event and expect to live to tell about it. Color me old fashion, but I choose to believe the American public should expect better living conditions whether living rurally or in the big city.

NEW FACE

OK, it’s the same face I’ve had for a very long time--however, today I ordered new glass frames--and that is kind of like getting a new face. At least it will change my looks--kind of sort of . . .

I say kind of, because it amazes me how many times friends and family members have gotten new glass frames, and I’ve not noticed. This could be completely me, Miss Non-observant. However, I’m sure I’m not alone in this department. Am I?

Of course, there are some glasses that just draw your attention, whether they’re “new” or not. But many people I know that wear glasses really don’t try to have “outstanding” frames, but rather ones that blend in to their face, or at least don’t make a spectacle of their face (OK, I could have helped myself, but I didn’t--it was a blatant use of the word to elicit a smirk, giggle, chuckle . . .).

As a very pleasant young woman helped me with my frame’s choices, her first response to the frames I liked best was that they were “too large” for my face. She said that the top of the frame covered up my eyebrows. I told her if she’d look closely at my eyebrows, that wouldn’t be considered a bad thing. I also told her I have rather outstanding peripheral vision, and that small frames tend to stay in my sight and bug me as I’m attempting to look out at the world (not at the frames). I also thought the color went well with my hair (as in marble-looking white frames matching the increasing white mixed in with my past-prime brown/auburn hair).

AMAZINGLY, the store manager and prime sales person immediately began to see my point, and could see all my points as being VERY well-thought out. At her quick concession speech, I reached for my cell phone and called my cousin, who was elsewhere in the store shopping, to come give me HER opinion!

The first words out of my cousin were: “They go really well with your hair.”

I felt that was good confirmation, as I have to say my very first thought on trying on the frames was that they went well with my hair.

NOW, how good is it that frames match one’s hair? Is it a valid selling point? Possibly not a primary one, but then again, they were large enough NOT to affect my peripheral vision (you do remember that good point, right?). And did I add that they were from the Sophia Lorenz line of designer glass frames?

I have to say, as the conversation continued to come back to the size of the frames on my face, I finally had to let the young woman know, I have worn glass frames MUCH larger than these in my life. Back in the tortoise shell plastic frame days, I looked like I was wearing massive underwater diving goggles. And during the early sixties, the “wings” on my glass frames rivaled the “wings” on my dad’s car (fins they were called on the cars--but the affect of the sweeping upturned expanded metal was pretty equivalent on both the car and on the glass frames).

Of course, during the end of the sixties, the turn in design had been in large part due to John Lennon’s “granny glasses”--which were pretty much duplicates of Benjamin Franklin’s half-glasses I think. John had pink lenses in his, other people had blue, and yellow, and purple, etc.--but they were tiny and a direct revolt against the wings of the early sixties style. I had them too--no colored lenses, but they were barely large enough to look through--which must be true as I think they were forever hanging off the end of my nose and I looked over them more than through them.

And in a week, I’ll be wearing my spiffy new Sophia Lorenz designer glass frames that go with my whitening hair. You can see some of what’s left of my eyebrows, which are also whitening. I think I’ll be very happy--with the glass frames and my new face.

Back Aboard

I had been on a roll. I was looking at that big 100 mark, and thinking what I might post for my 100th blog entry. And then . . . And then the bottom seemed to drop out of my little world and voila, it’s been almost two months since my last post.

And what “bottom” dropped, you ask? Well, my doctor (my new doctor), decided to do a complete blood workup on me--and since I’d not had a complete blood workup on myself, as in NEVER, I decided to let him. So when he said “type two diabetes”, he might as well have hit me over the head with a loaded two by four. I did NOT take the news graciously.

His answer was to begin going down the “type two diabetes” hit list. There were medications to help prevent any damage to my heart. There were pills to lower cholesterol. He had already gotten me on a blood pressure pill before we even got to the blood workup. And once he had his final figures from the month of doing blood sugar daily testing (four strips a day, on rising and before and two hours after two meals) he was prepared to put me on insulin medication and/or some other diabetic medication. He had his “list” and I listened to all of it.

As soon as I got the blood workup results (a full four weeks before my next doctor’s appointment where I knew he would indeed begin giving me his roster of diabetes to-do list items), I got to work doing my research on Diabetes Type Two! I’m a teacher and a writer, and the thing I always start with is RESEARCH. I wanted to know everything I could about this named adversary--if at all possible, much more than my doctor would know, because I’d be looking at what one could do sans medication. And since my research assured me it was my eating and habits that got me into this mess, I was equally sure eating and building new habits would get me out of it.

God has blessed me with a very good doctor. He has stuck with this old broad now for two months as I have made major over-hauls on all aspects of my daily life--my eating and my exercising. He hasn’t pushed his list down my throat. Now, I do believe he may well have felt I’d be enthusiastic for a month or so, but that soon my old habits would resurface, and THEN we’d go to his list. But week after week he’s watched my weight going down. And week after week he’s watched my first blood sugar reading of the day lowering and lowering, and my daily readings lowering and lowering. To the point where he’s finally decided to let me go for two months “on my own” and then we’ll regroup for another full blood workup and see where we’re at. As it is right now, my numbers put me OUT of the Type Two range, but I’m still in the “pre-diabetic” range.

Of course, Life seems to bring things in bunches, so I’ve not been able to just concentrate on “me” and changing these quite well established daily life habits. No, I’ve had my 98 year old mom having health problems that have required quite a bit of time and travel getting her to her doctor and seeing to her specialized care. And I’ve had another close relative pass on--so was able to be with her as she passed on, and then be there for the family for her funeral and the time since as we all make our adjustments to her loss.

A number of you dear blogging buddies have sent me notes asking after my well-being, and have also expressed missing hearing from me. I cannot express my gratitude to those of you who took time to send me these thoughtful notes. I’m not sure I have much to say of import, but you’ve all blessed me by taking your precious time and reading and responding to my posts ever since I began blogging. Thank you one and all!

Hopefully I’m back and will be up and posting again regularly. I’m SO close to that 100th post--I can “see” it coming. Again, thank all of you who gave me encouragement to come back to the blogosphere. I’m so grateful for all of your support.

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES

It had been an interesting supper hour with my son. Last week we were on a day of errands together and decided to stop for a nice meal at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants. Good food, pleasant atmosphere, and rather one subject leading to another from conversations that had been going on during much of our car trip that day.

My son is now 31 years old. He has been observing me, therefore, for a very long time. He has gone through many years of growth, experiencing me as a child, a youth, and now a young and maturing man.

He is a unique soul, with his own take on the world, people, and spiritual matters. He is so singular in many areas, that his teachers finally defined one of his habits as “well, he’s doing it in ‘Zach-time’” which is because Zach has one speed--HIS speed. And whether you want him to snap it up, hurry along, work as quickly as possible--well, he’s going to be doing it in Zach time and you might has well cool your jets or risk an aneurism, because you can bet Zach’s not going to move faster for all your persuasions, threats or cajoling--if anything you may well slow him up.

One other thing about Zachery, are his opinions of his father, brother, and mother. And, naturally, I am rather invested in the subject of his opinions of his mother. Even when I feel I want to correct something he’s said, or relate something I think will influence his thinking--you know, Paul Harvey’s “the rest of the story”--often I’ve learned to just shut my mouth and listen. I can learn a lot and have learned to change some things thanks to listening to him.

Now I’m not saying I agree with all of his opinions and observations of me. However, just realizing he has these ideas about me, and listening to what he has observed that brought him to these assumptions about me, HAS helped me. If he is coming to these ideas about me, then probably others react to me sometimes in similar ways. And if I don’t like what I’m hearing, if that is NOT the impression I want others to have about me, then I am grateful for the head’s up and the opportunity to change.

Of course, sometimes what he comes up with amuses me (as in it doesn’t always make my toes curl in my shoes, my hair sockets cramp, and my nerves jangle). One of his continued assessments is that I am a powerful woman. This one always cracks me up. I truly wish he’d been able to express that to me when I was younger. There have been times I felt the world was mopping me up, or people I was attempting to help were walking right over my prostrate body. It would have been so good to know much of the unkindness was based in their “fear” of me. This is Zach’s assessment.

He tells me that when I walk into a room, my very aura says “I’m in charge”. And sometimes others react by immediately stiffening their necks and rejecting anything I say or do, because they’re afraid of my controlling them.

Wow--to think I’ve been wielding that kind of power all these years, and I felt when I walked in a room and slid into a chair at the back of the room, everyone was either NOT noticing me at all, or thinking “who’s the strange little broad with the out-dated clothing?”

Now it’s true, back in my stand-up comedy days, I did a bit on my being Super Woman. However, it was done for comedic affect--as in, those who were looking at me on stage could tell I was anything BUT a super woman. However, my son, who was VERY little when I was doing this bit, says the humor was that I was making a joke out of “the elephant in the room”--everyone KNEW I was Super Woman, and therefore I could make jokes about myself because who was going to challenge Super Woman?

OK, I will admit, my pastor at the time called to tell me he’d gotten a call from his son’s school. Seems his son had told his class that Super Woman went to his church. The teacher tried to explain there was no such person in reality, and if there were, she wouldn’t be going to his church. No dice. He was very adamant. So much so, that it became a brouhaha with his teacher, which got him sent to the principal.

The principal wanted to know what the minister was going to do about it. He told them he wasn’t going to do anything, because Super Woman DID go to his church! I had done my bit for a church teacher’s appreciation dinner the Sunday before, so, of course, their son believed Super Woman did go to his church. After my talk, even some of the deacons offered to put a telephone booth downstairs by the back entryway incase I had to make a quick outfit change and fly off to fight crime!

In the years since my Super Woman era, I think I look less and less like a super hero or person of power. Yet my son sticks to his opinion, his mom is pretty amazing. I really don’t want him to have a false opinion of me--unrealistic. And yet, having your son think you’re extraordinary, singular, accomplished . . . Not such a bad thing, is it?

He does feel, as I age, I’m losing some ground. Some of my super powers are slipping. He feels by the time I’m ready for the old folks home I’ll be “ordinary”, maybe even fall to the state of “average” if I really get old old. Guess I can live with that. Just wish I’d known when I was younger that I was so powerful--I’d have done things differently!