Happy Mother's Day...

This year was the first Mother's Day I have spent with BOTH my children since I can't remember when!

We are getting ready to move into our 5th wheel camper full-time next month and are thinning out our possessions.  Michael came down from West Virginia for the weekend to pick up the things he wanted.  Along with my dining room and some bookcases, he surprised me by asking for china and silver and loved what he termed my "retro" Corning Ware!

Rebecca, Davis, Katie and Jackson came up for one day to visit, so I had a house full...and loved it!  The kids ran wild, explored every nook and cranny, made a fort under the staircase with blankets, took the dogs on a walk around the pond and worked on crafts for Mommy's Mother's Day gift.  I cooked a nice dinner for everyone...the pork tenderloin with apricot glaze was really good, if I do say so myself ;) but have to admit the asparagus were a bit overdone.  In her exuberance pointing out which slice she wanted on her plate, Katie knocked over my beer...right into my lap!  No big deal...clothes wash. It was an exhausting day, but I enjoyed having all that vitality and activity in my house.

Katie gave me a lovely Mother's Day card that she created on the computer.  Then Jackson handed me his, pointing out: "That one's made on the computer, this one is handmade."  They are both proudly displayed.  Just love those kids so much.

While he was here, Michael fixed Jack's smartphone and introduced us to the wonder of connecting our computer directly to the TV.  So cool to see everything on a 46 inch screen!  Apparently I can even download movies to my laptop and watch them on TV.  He left us an HDMI cord and may have created a monster!

I was surrounded by the people I love most, my children, my grandchildren and my Jack! It was a wonderful weekend and the best Mother's Day! 

Retired...

First day I didn't have to go to work!  Got up, drove to Wilmington and spent the day with my grandkids...something I've greatly missed.  They were both delighted to hear that Grandma is finished working.  It was fun and tiring, and I'm looking forward to more days like it.  Tomorrow will be a lazy day.  I turn 63 tomorrow.  I don't know how I got here...20s...30s...40s...then boom, 63!  I don't feel old, but it sounds old.  Wish life had do-overs!  Anyway, tomorrow's my birthday and I'm going to chill.

Work ended with a bang.  Busy on call weekend, two deaths and I was out all Sunday night.  Both families were very nice and told me I really helped them get through this most difficult time.  I left feeling that I've made a difference in people's lives.

Have a bunch of things to do next week, then off we go.  Heading to Indiana to pick up our new fifth wheel RV.  The adventure begins...

Late Night Thoughts...

Having one of those nights when I can't sleep...just can't turn my mind off.

Two more weeks of work left (plus a final on-call weekend), then the paychecks stop.  So does the health insurance.  Going to have to file for my Social Security.  Need to find out about COBRA insurance, but have serious doubts about whether I can afford it.  Two years until I am eligible for Medicare.  My Social Security alone isn't going to be enough to subsist on.  Jack will have his VA benefit and Social Security...but he will also have alimony to pay.  Still waiting to see what happens re: his ex's health insurance.  Will be a real kick in the teeth if he is forced to pay for hers while I can't afford any!  Worried that the courts may take half his income for her...she could end up with more income than he has!  Men do not fare well in this state when it comes to divorce.

We are getting ready to make a huge life change.  It is exciting to contemplate, but scary too.  Wondering what expenses will be like and how well we will be able to manage.  Live safe or take a chance?  We are opting to take a chance. I do fine with some risks, but financial risks are hard for me.  We could try and live a quiet, safe life in Wilmington.  I would be near Becca and my beloved Katie and Jackson, but we wouldn't have much going on in our life.  It's not likely there would be money for travel once we paid all our basic living expenses.  I don't want to waste away on the couch.  So we are opting to take a chance...take the risk...and put adventure into our later years.  Exciting but scary.

Keeps me awake some nights... 

Catching Up...Part IV

Summer was devoted to Jack's medical issues and to my learning a new job and adjusting to being in the workforce again.  Then came September...

As Jack was waking up from his emergency cholecystectomy (gall bladder removal), I got a call from his sister Mardell...with bad news.  Jack's younger brother, Robin had been found dead at his home in California.  He was 51.  I hated having to tell him that.  As more details emerged, we learned he had been murdered!  (details here)  Stabbed seventeen times!  It was horrible.  Two weeks after Jack's surgery we flew out to California for the Memorial Service.  I think Jack needed to be with his family at that time.  It was a nice service and a good family gathering but we were exhausted.  We flew out and back in less than forty-eight hours.  Not something I want to do again!  Talk about jet lag...

In Novemeber we had tickets to a race in Charlotte.  Bought them and made reservations months earlier.  We were almost too tired to go and might not have, had we not already had the tickets.  While there we visited Concord Mills, a huge outlet mall.  We were looking in a jewelry store (a favorite pasttime of mine) and saw a lovely solitare at a great price.  Jack asked me if I wanted it.  I said "of course" and asked him if he knew what it meant.  He said he did.  I told him he hadn't asked the question...so he proposed right there in the jewelry store!  I'm so glad we went to Charlotte!  Oh...the race was fun too.

 

Novemeber rolled right into December...and Christmas...and color coordinated casts for Katie and Jackson! 

 

Just before Christmas, Jackson experienced his first broken bone.  He was racing Katie on his scooter and got his foot stuck...as he put it, "The scooter stopped and I didn't."  He flew over the top and landed on his right arm, fracturing both the radius and the ulna.  Damn, that must have hurt!  He said, "I tried not to cry, but I screamed."  My poor sweet boy.  At the same time, Katie has been experiencing pain in her right heel.  Turns out the growth plate is inflammed, a rather common occurence among athletic children (Sever's Disease).  It goes away when they stop growing.  In the meantime, resting it helps the pain, so Katie's right foot has been in a cast for the last few weeks to let her heel rest.  The hope is that when the cast comes off, the pain will be gone...and not come back.  Hope so!

 

That catches us right up to the present...awaiting the New Year. I am sure there are all kinds of things I've missed and lots of topics I could explore, but for now this will have to suffice.  Until next time...

Sandy Hook

The tragedy of Sandy Hook has affected me like no other.  I can't wrap my head around it.  The first two days after it happened, I couldn't watch the details on the news or look at the pictures of the victims without feeling sick to my stomach.  On Sunday, I finally brought myself to read the details and look at the pictures of the twenty children and the six adults who died with them and it still made me feel sick.  The funerals are beginning now and seeing those little coffins and grieving parents brings me to tears.  When I see pictures of their little smiling faces, I can't help but see my grandchilden's faces...and can not imagine a world without them.

What kind of monster guns down his own mother and then goes on to slaughter 20 six and seven year-olds in their classrooms?  Children are supposed to be safe in school.  My daughter drops her kids off at school every morning and goes about her business without worry.  Imagine the horror of learning your child was gunned down in kindergarten.  What of the children who survived seeing their friends and classmates murdered before their eyes?  Terrifying can't begin to describe it.

What kind of society are we, when there are people more concerned with their "right" to own guns than they are with the loss of these children?  The response of decent people is horror and a desire to prevent something like this from happening again, which naturally draws gun control into the conversation.  This is when the gun nuts come out of the woodwork.  There have even been suggestions that we need more guns and that teachers should be armed!  Where is reasoned thought and compassion?

This is not the first mass shooting; there have been others...Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, CO, Oregon mall, Gabrielle Giffords...all in recent memory.  Somehow this one feels even worse.  This one feels personal.  Two mothers wrote a piece examining why, entitled What Six Looks Like. It really hit home.  I too, know what six looks like...it looks like my precious grandchildren and that makes it personal. 

Catching Up...Part II

With April came our long-awaited California trip.  Ten days on the west coast...and meeting Jack's family.  We flew into San Francisco, picked up our rental car and headed north.  Instead of the small car we reserved, they offered an "opportunity" to upgrade to a Jeep Liberty...at a price of course.  Jack jumped at it and fell in love with that small red SUV.

Jack, Stacey and Jack

On our first day there, we saw Jack's son Jack, along with his wife Candice and their two daughters, Chanoa almost seven and Sienna the newest addition to the family at only two months old.  Later that day his daughter Stacey, her husband Brian and their daughter Kayla (almost ten) arrived.  We all went to dinner at Murillo's Mexican restaurant...a place Jack had good memories of...but the food was disappointing.  After months of hearing how West Coast Mexican food was so much better than East Coast Mexican, it tasted no better than what I've had 'back East' and not as good as my favorite place!  Jack said the place was not like he remembered.  But...we had a great first night with kids and grandkids!

Jack's brother Melvin and his wife Robyn held a family get together at their house and Jack's sister Mardell (who I met the previous summer) and their brother Terry came up from Fresno.  Sadly, Jack started coming down with something and had a hard time keeping up with all the activity and visits.  I felt just awful for Jack, but I had a great time meeting and getting to know everyone.  They liked me and I liked them...a success all around.  Now he had to keep me!

We visited the Jelly Belly Factory and I bought candy and 'stuffies" to take back to Katie and Jackson.  We also spent a day driving up through Napa to Calistoga, had a nice lunch and saw some beautiful country.  Jack introduced me to his favorite steak place, The Cattleman. We had an excellent dinner there with Melvin and Robyn. Made him promise to take me there again on our next visit!  On our way back to the airport, we did a quick visit to San Francisco and walked around Pier 39 on Fisherman's Wharf, but by then Jack was feeling miserable.  We stayed just long enough to buy some souvenirs for my grandkids and have some dinner before going on to the airport.  It was a long red-eye flight back home for a very sick Jack.

After we got home, I took Jack to Urgent Care and we found out he had pneumonia.  He spent two weeks at home recovering and was still tired and coughing when he returned to work.  It was at least a month before he was over it.  This was just the first of his summer health problems.  June brought a hernia repair and another few weeks of recovery, but only one of them at home.  In July it was cataract surgery.  Then there was a diagnosis of anemia thrown in somewhere along the line and a GI work-up.  They found some asymptomatic gall bladder problems in July that became troublesome.  By September he was feeling bad, ended up in the ER and went straight to the OR for an unscheduled cholecystectomy and another week at home plus several more to recuperate.

Now all that's left are the medical bills...

Next up...a job?

New Year, New Beginning...

Well, three weeks into the the New Year and I'm getting used to it being 2012.

I will turn sixty-two this year, which means I will be eligible for Social Security benefits, should I want to take them.  It rather boggles my mind.  I've never been able to imagine being old enough for SS - it's always felt like it was off in the distant future.  Realizing it is upon me is a bit of a reality shock!

No New Year's resolutions for me.  I've never had any luck with them.  While, in one respect, the New Year can feel like a beginning, in most ways, it just feels like a continuation of winter...and I usually can't find any good reason to want to "turn over a new leaf".

This year the New Year actually is a beginning; it is ushering in the start of a new chapter in my life.  I am moving...to a new life in a new city (town?)...moving in with Jack, into his townhouse in New Bern.  Seventy-five miles and ninety minutes from home...and from Becca, Katie and Jackson.  I never expected to move even a short distance from them, so this is a good indicator of how much building a life with Jack means to me.  I'm going to miss them a lot and plan to make that drive between New Bern and Wilmington on a regular basis.  I'm going to miss Wilmington too.  New Bern is quite lacking in things to do, places to go, and good restaurants; Wilmington, on the other hand, lacks Jack!  It is a temporary move, to be sure, only until Jack retires in the next two to three years...then we will return to Wilmington.

I may be nearing sixty-two, but falling in love makes me feel more like twenty-two.  Right now life feels good and I'm happy.      

2011 Comes To An End...

Wow!  Haven't written in a long time!  It is the day after Christmas - the holidays are coming to an end - weeks of shopping, cooking, decorating, wrapping are all over.  Nothing left to do but take down the tree, ring in the new year and forge ahead.

The holidays were...well, holidays.  Spent Thanksgiving at Susan's (Becca's mother-in-law) as we often do.  It was good...except Jack was coming down with something (and stayed sick for a week) and I, apparently, offended Susan (unintentionally) with an offhand comment on Facebook!  I emailed an apology, but never received a response, so...who knows?

Made a visit to Greensboro to see my brothers on the fifteenth - mainly to celebrate Glen's turning sixty.  We had a nice birthday celebration and a nice visit - even got to see Ciera perform in a gymnastic meet.  Then I fell.  I was shopping with Ciera and my foot hit a place where the cement was uneven...and I fell flat on my face!  My left cheek is swollen, bruised and abraded.  Also ended up with a break in my pinky right where it joins the hand!  It hurts...a LOT!  Thank goodness it's my left hand!  Face is improving...the hand is in a splint for 6-8 weeks.  It's only been a little more than a week and I'm already sick of trying to do everything with one hand!

Katie
 in costume after a performance

Christmas was good - and a bit special this year as it was Jack's and my first Christmas together as a couple.  We went to two theater performances.  Katie was in her first play - How The Grinch Stole Christmas - she was a wonderful Candy Cane Who!  It was put on by a Youth Perfomance Theater.  Jackson liked it so well he went to three performances - one with Mommy and Daddy, one with his Grandpa, and one with Jack and me!  The same weekend, after a nice dinner at the Front Street Brewery, Jack and I went to see the Santaland Diaries at City Stage at Level 5.  I always love that show and it was a great production!  Jack had never seen or read it before and really liked it.  We had a great time.

We had a nice Christmas celebration with Becca, Davis and the kids at Lee (Davis' dad) and Karen's on Christmas Eve.  They always have a nice Christmas Eve party...and make fabulous chili!  Christmas Day was Doug's turn for Christmas at Becca's, so Jack and I had a quiet Christmas up at his place in New Bern...which is soon to be my place too!  Yes...we're moving in together the end of January!

Starting a new life in the New Year...        

Trick...or Treat?

I went trick or treating with Katie and Jackson last night - just like I do every year.  It has pretty much become a tradition; I've missed only one Halloween - in 2007, when I had to rush to Pinehurst because one of my parents had been hospitalized.  I don't recall whether it was Mom or Dad as it was a frequent occurence for both in their last years.

Katie was a Zombie and Jackson was the Pirate Jack Sparrow.  Every year I've found myself calling out "be careful" dozens of times; this year I didn't say it even once.  They just seemed so much older - going from house to house, staying with the group, waiting for the others when necessary, even using umbrellas when the rain came -lots of excitement and no meltdowns!

My ex came to see the kids this Halloween and was already at their house when I arrived.  As I walked in, Katie came running up to me, shouted out "Grandma", leapt into my arms and gave me a big hug!

She then quietly whispered, "Would you like to see your used-to-be husband?"

I'm still trying to come up with a reply!