Focus on This: Collection

Just a sampling of my collection of dolls....

 

Retrospect

    Have you ever realized that it is usually in retrospect that something that sounds like a grand plan at the time is actually fraught with stupidity?  There are some things in my past that are just too damn depressing to keep writing about.  Personally I really would rather not go there.  I would rather write about some of my past exploits and adventures that at the time I should have never undertaken, but didn’t realize until after the fact that perhaps it wasn’t the best idea.

       For example, there is that whacked over idea that once my parents died there place was at the cemetery even though between you, me, and the bed post I KNOW only their remains are there.  Their souls took off to heaven or wherever they go when they drew the last breath.  Technically I can’t follow them to heaven for a visit, so I do the next best thing and march my happy butt out to the cemetery.   My folks loved the twinkle of Christmas lights.  They both used to deck the halls to the hilt so when my mom died it seem appropriate to take a Christmas tree to the cemetery and light it up with Christmas tree lights on Christmas Eve night.  My dad attached huge batteries and had it down to a science so that Mom’s little tree would remain lit most of the night despite the cold which can be a real battery sucker.  After she died, my family would visit the cemetery, light her lights, then head to my Dad’s house for a huge Christmas feast followed by the opening of mountains of presents.  On the way home after the festivities, my husband and I would stop by the cemetery to retrieve the tree.

         After my Dad joined my mom at the cemetery, my husband and I were determined to carry on the tradition.  The only problem was that we were no longer out and about on Christmas Eve.  We would bundle up and take the tree out to the grave site about 5 PM and then go home.  The year my Dad died, I waited till almost bed time Christmas Eve night and decided I would go pick the tree up.  My daughter decided to go with me, and my husband elected to stay home.  To me, up until that point, going to the cemetery was the same as going to my folk’s house to see them.  Maybe a little colder and a little darker, but you get the idea.  It was no big deal.  I pulled into the pitch dark cemetery and drove back to where my parents graves were, parked, and my daughter and I got out and leisurely strolled out to their tombstone in the moonlight as if we didn’t have a care in the world.

  

       I stopped before their stone and with tears in my eyes I wished them both a Merry Christmas again.  As I picked up the tree, I distinctly heard voices say Merry Christmas.  I glanced at my daughter, and she glanced at me.  “Did you hear that?” I asked nervously.  
         Her eyes were as big as saucers as she answered “Yes”.  There was no one else around.  “Mommy?” she said obviously terrified.

          I freaked out, and by the look of my daughter she was on the train to freak town right along with me. A chill ran up my spine.  Holding the tree in one hand, I grabbed her hand with the other and raced hell bent for election through the snow and obstacle course of tombstones to the car.   As we ran we heard other voices whispering “Merry Christmas!”  I can honestly say that the experience scared the living be Je$us out me.  I almost $hit myself.  We got in the car, locked the doors, and sped out of the cemetery as if the hounds of hell were licking at our tires.

         In retrospect, I realized the tree could stay where it was till morning.  For every Christmas since, the tree has remained at the cemetery until Christmas day and when the roads were especially bad and the snow deep, it remained till after New Years.    In retrospect, you locate a few brains, gain a smidgeon of common sense that you previously didn’t possess, and learn not to provoke the bloody ghost of Christmas past until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.

Wordless Wednesday

Listen to Your Heart- BFF 229

     While I have learned throughout my life to listen to my heart or gut in most matters, yesterday I got the wake up call of my life.    For the past week I have not felt well and not been myself.  I went to the emergency room for one problem that I shall call George, and walked away with a much bigger problem to face and the answer to many problems that have plagued me for quite a while.

 

      My blood pressure was sky high and has been ever since.  I was put on blood pressure medication which has wrecked havoc on my system.  While it did lower my blood pressure some, it didn’t lower it enough so the chest pains, shortness of breath, and feeling of exhaustion went away.   While I was supposed to follow up with my doctor, I was not able to right away.  His office gave me the run around all week.  The lady answering the phone was a complete nightmare from hell and continuously hung up on me when I called in to find out what I should do and when the doctor would return.   My first reaction to that was anger.   Because of her, I put off going and my condition continued and got no better.

        I finally went yesterday in spite of her.  The doctor listened to my heart, and looking grave ordered an EKG.  Fortunately for me, I needed to go no further than right across the hall.  I donned a hospital gown with my cow udders in full view.  To think people pay money for b00bs like this!!  All I had to do was have a baby.  One minute I had next to no b00bs at all and the next cow udders which continue to sag south the older I got.     I refused to breast feed because I was sure if I did I would end up with cow udders and guess what?  I got them anyways.   The nurse attached all these sticky things with wires to my exposed chest and ankles and then printed out not one but two graphs showing just how my heart was ticking.  I was told to get dressed and the doctor would soon return.

        Instead of heading for the round swivel seat my doctor usually prefers, he surprised me by sitting down next to me with a sad look on his face and a deep heart felt sigh.  He explained that the EKG showed that my arteries were starting to fill and not only did I have to battle hypertension but heart disease as well.  I am just like my dad in this respect.  Not only did he battle heart disease having a couple massive heart attacks, he eventually died from a stroke.  Immediately some things became crystal clear.  I wasn’t suffering from migraines all summer; I was suffering from high blood pressure.  I was forgetful and three sandwiches short of a picnic because my blood pressure was high.   I felt my eyes grow damp as a single tear fell as I faced the reality of it all.

        I approached a pivotal moment in my life as he told me this was my wake up call.  If I proceeded on the same course I was on I was guaranteed that I would not be here.  I must lose weight he told me.  Panicked with despair I wailed in frustration “I have tried!!  I have even gone out walking with my kids!!  I have walked 5 miles!  I have tried to watch what I eat, but it so easy to just keep eating.  I simply can not lose weight!”  He looked sadly into my eyes and patted my leg again and informed me “You have no choice! You must lose weight, and you must do it through diet alone because your heart can not take walking 5 miles in the cold autumn air or any form of vigorous exercise.  You must or you will not be here.  This is your wake up call.  Seize it and change your path.  This is not a death sentence but a warning!”   He advised me to listen to my heart.  If I am tired or short of breath, I need to rest.  Above all, follow the diet to a tee.  He had lost 40 pounds already on this diet and I could too.  He upped my quantity of blood pressure pills per day and told me to come back in 2 weeks.

      I drove home with tears streaming down my face damning the fates that put me in this predicament, damning the hereditary tendency that made me susceptible, and damning myself for enjoying eating entirely too much.  I gazed at the diet sheet and bawled wondering how the hell I would survive on this little to eat.  G0d forbid some of this crap I didn’t even know what the hell it was!

     I started my new life today.  With diet sheet in hand I surveyed my cupboards and refrigerator and then made a beeline for the store determined to strictly follow the diet and its restrictions.  When I grow weary, I will rest.    I will follow my heart because if I don’t, it will beat no more until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.
        

Kmart’s Big Layaway Giveaway Makes Christmas Wishes Come True!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Kmart for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

   

   Can you believe it?  Christmas is coming up fast and because of that some retailers are offering layaway plans to help make your family‘s Christmas wishes reality.  While other stores like Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Toys R Us offer layaway options, only Kmart is sweetening the deal with  Kmart's Big Layaway Giveaway.  Between September 9, 2012 and November 17, 2012 you could win the option of your layaway balance being paid in full up to $500.00!  If you mail in a free entry and have no outstanding layaway balance you will win a $500.00 gift card to use at your favorite Kmart store or at kmart.com if your entry is drawn.  How’s that for making the Christmas season merry and bright and saving big on holiday gifts?

      There are three ways to enter.  You can layaway your purchase online, place a layaway at a store near you, or mail in a free entry.  Each week every Kmart store will draw one winner.  That equals 1235 entries per week and 12350 prizes, so there is plenty of opportunity to win!!

      Setting up a layaway contract at Kmart is easy and takes little to get started unlike Best Buy and requires no minimum purchase unlike Wal-Mart.  To get started at Kmart you simply shop and then pay a $5.00 service fee and a down payment of $15.00 or 10% whichever is greater.  After that you make easy affordable payments every two weeks either online or at any register.  For purchases made of over $300.00 you have the option on in store purchases of having a total of 12 weeks to pay off the balance.  Those layaways require a minimum payment of $30.00 or 10% down plus a $10.00 service fee to start.

  

     Participating in Kmart layaway makes those big ticket items on your family’s wish list a little more doable.  Not only that, by opening a lay away now you could win and have your lay away paid off in full which is like getting what you want for free or like having a free layaway!  How cool is that?    I would love a new camera and my kids have been drooling over the new Nintendo 3DS systems.  Unfortunately high tech electronics don’t come cheap.  With Kmart layaway I can make those Christmas dreams come true by making affordable payments instead of having to come up with the whole amount at once!!  I bet with the Big Layaway giveaway Kmart just got a permanent spot on Santa’s nice list.  That is a HO HO whole lot to be happy about this Christmas season! 

Wordless Wednesday

The Ordeal of the Bottom

     Over the past week I have been plagued with a very painful thrombosis hemorrhoid.  Ever since I was pregnant I have experienced hemorrhoids occasionally but never like this one.     An a$$ bubble has overtaken my bottom and has been sucking my will to live.   I have decided to name this thing George.  It is kind of weird, like that odd moment when guys name their penises and everyone in the free world wonders why.  You go through a rite of passage and suddenly this appendage on your body has a name.

       Yesterday George was mad as hell and finally blew a gasket.  My a$$ bubble had taken on a life force of its own.  It grew so big that it exploded.  It was not a pretty sight and lets just suffice to say that the aftermath scared the living be Je$us out of me.  My bottom never in recent memory ever hurt so badly.  There was blood and a lot of it.  Naturally I freaked out.  What to do?  I called the doctor.  He didn’t have time to see me and told me to go straight to the emergency room.  The thought of explaining to perfect strangers just what my damage was didn’t appeal to me.  I called “Ask a Nurse”.  That lady freaked out and was ready to dispatch an ambulance.  Oh hell no!!  I had visions of fire trucks, police cars, and an ambulance speeding to my house with sirens wailing and flashing lights and the whole neighborhood turned out to watch the spectacle with flipping cameras and popcorn.  No thank you!  I would find a way to get to the hospital myself.   The only problem was I was dizzy from loss of blood.  Could I drive that far?  Did I have a choice?  In the end I drove to a friend’s house and she took me while offering her husband up as a baby sitter.  Thank G0d and sunny Je$us above for both of them.

           When I finally reached the emergency room I was at a loss for what to say when they asked what exactly was ailing me.  I had no words.  Fortunately my friend has had some medical training and promptly saved me by telling the person in charge piously I was bleeding from the rectum.    When it was my turn to meet up with a doctor he told me the worse piece of news yet. 
     
        He was going to see what was going on down there.  Nervous in my service I explained that I was mortified that the first and probably only time we would meet in this lifetime he was going to have to look up my a$$hole.  He took it in stride.  The nurse asked the doctor “Would you like to lube up first?”  He calmly replied “No, I don’t think so.”  What the hell and sonny Je$us?  Are you kidding me?  To say I freaked out is an understatement.  I frantically pointed out that excuse me there was ALWAYS time for lube.  I didn’t even go to medical school and I have enough sense to KNOW that if you are going to stick your finger up some poor soul’s a$$ you should lube up.  My frantic pleas hit home and he had the good sense to lube up before invading George‘s personal space.

      They took my blood pressure and that is when hell broke loose.  It was dangerously high and in that instant George was almost forgotten.  Blood work was ordered along with an IV.  The lady paid to take my blood arrived on the scene first.  She took one look at me and decided the person starting the IV could have the pleasure of poking me and left as quickly as she came.   In strolls the lady prepared to torture me.  She searched for a vein and couldn’t find a single one.  I made fists as she smacked my arm around and then my hand.  Not deterred she left and returned with a hot towel and wrapped it around my arm.  After my arm was thoroughly hot she proceeded to go digging for veins again.  After several painful pokes I couldn’t help but ask if she had found a vein yet.  At that point she said something that startled me even worse than the thought of my sore a$$ being probed.   Evidently my veins were running away from her and she couldn’t get them threaded.  What??  Veins run away?  Where the hell are they going to go?  I quickly spoke up “Obviously my veins don’t like you if they are running from you.  You better FIND someone else to have a go!”  The expert was called in and she had no problem managing to draw blood with one poke without batting an eye.  They obviously gave up on the IV which was fine by me.

       Finally the doctor returned to inform me just what he planned to do about my conditions after assuring me there was no sign of cancer, liver or kidney damage, or internal bleeding.  He ordered blood pressure medication which I probably can look forward to swallowing for the rest of my life since my numbers were so alarming I was on the verge of a stroke.    He informed me he didn’t make a practice of slicing off hemorrhoids so George was safe to fade away on his own.  Armed with a strategy to conquer and defeat George, prescriptions for more blood pressure and pain medication I was sent on my merry way.

      It was an all time low for my bottom.  Slowly and surely I will heal and regain my strength.  I thanked the doctor for being so kind.  I thanked my friends for helping with my kids and helping me face an ultimately embarrassing ordeal that needed to be faced.  I thanked G0d that I now know I will not die from my a$$ bubble.  That would just be more than this ole heart could bear until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.
         

This Too Shall Pass-BFF 224

      There are times in life when nothing seems to go right.  Money comes in short supply despite the fact that bills keep right on coming in at an alarming rate.   Maybe the job that you were so excited to get begins to lose its luster when you realize what the word “sub” really means.  Add in constant migraines, a killer backache, and a splattering of other health issues and you discover more reasons to wish that tomorrow would just never come.  You go two steps forward only to fall five steps back like some sick and twisted real life “Chutes and Ladder’s” game.
  

       No one wants to hear about it really.  They have their own problems and issues to deal with.  No one wants to hear non stop doom and gloom.  People want others to be light hearted and happy soldiering through life’s turmoil with a smile on their face and a song in their heart if for no other reason than so they too can have hope in their own journey through life.  Why else when asked how we are everyone tends to lie through their teeth by saying “I’m fine!”

       Growing up my mom and dad had a piece of advice they dished out for almost every complaint.  They would embrace me in a hug and say with much tenderness “This too shall pass.”  Over the years I have found comfort and solace in these four words.  I also realized that they were loaded with truth.  Time is constantly passing and ticking by.  Things are continuously changing.  The fact that life seems especially bleak at the moment doesn’t mean that it will always be so.  I may walk around with a little black rain cloud hovering over my head now, but tomorrow the sun will come out.  I will find another reason to smile.  A person must have faith.  Things never come in our time.  They always come in G0d’s time.  By the time that happens we have learned from the struggle and appreciate even more the reprieve.

       Now that I am a parent I find myself uttering these words of wisdom to my own children.  It is the one thing a person can count on for certain especially when riddled with pain.  You will either get over it, or you will die with it.  Regardless, this too shall pass regardless the outcome until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.