Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Life Lessons

Nothing seems to put life in perspective for me like working a day in the field office.

I have to admit, I have been having a gigantic pity party for myself and now I am having a case of the guilties.

Today, I had a man walk into our office. He is 72, his wife is 70, they have two adopted sons still living at home, one is 15, the other 18.

He starts out by telling me he sure hopes he has everything he is supposed to, that he is a bit lost because he had never had to do anything like this and wouldn't have known how to anyway because his wife always took care of that kind of stuff. She went to the hospital for chemo last Monday and they kept her.

When I asked if he was a Veteran, he said yes, Korean war; when I asked if his wife was, he said "No, but she might as well have been, all those nights she worried about me".

When I asked his highest level of education, 4 years of college, when I asked about his wife's he said, "She graduated from high school, don't think she snuck anything else in there and we've been together since she was 14".

When I asked what kind of cancer she had, he said it was a bone cancer, it is attacking her entire body, the worst part so far as been a big spot on her jaw. They had to take out part of her jaw bone, and honestly, part of her face. He said the plastic surgeons had told her they could reconstruct down the road. The gentleman said "I just told her she can do what she wants, I just want to get to keep her."

He then proceeded to tell me about the special bed they had brought to the house for her. It some kind of "wound" bed and has continuous movement in it. He said he doesn't see how she can get much rest in it, but it hurts her to stay still.

God has a way of putting us in our place pretty fast. I have come to the conclusion that having to know where the nearest bathroom is, having to stick my finger, and having to make sensible decisions about what I eat isn't really a big deal and the lesson that God taught me today is that it never should have been in the first place.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

In Due Time

I know, I have been avoiding my blog, on purpose. I was running the little gamut of "the stages of grief" apparently over my passing youth. I was told Sunday that I am not handling the changes in my lifestyle gracefully. Hmmmm.....yep, it made me mad, it was my mom who said it, was she right? Yep, she was. So another few days and maybe I will be ready to make the full fledged report on what is going on with me without it sounding like my own little pity party. I have more blood tests on the 26th and a heart sonogram on the 29th. That will be the last of the tests. I was expecting one thing to be wrong and at the moment they are trying to tell me there are at least three things wrong with me: ulcerative colitis, diabetes and this stupid calcium and vitamin d deficiency. I received the report from my stress test, eventhough the whole test came back as "Normal" there are two places on it that has "defect noted", don't know what that means, am assuming it's not serious or they wouldn't say the test was normal. My blood counts are all over the place but my blood count itself is low because of the colitis. Not complaining, just sayin'....

Enough of that for now,

The bathroom is starting to amaze me. It is truly going to be the bathroom of my dreams and Andrew is doing 100% of it himself (with his trusty sidekick, Robert who is being taught as they go). I am so amazed when I come home of an evening. We have LED can lights in the ceiling over the ledge for the tub and shower, domed can lights in the shower (with regular light bulbs because of the moisture) and there will be more LED lights over the tub in a few days. He is building a small cabinet with storage in the bottom and shelves on top, two purposes there, to hide the access panel to the shower and to make some room for my makeup/ blow dryer/ curling iron, etc, when I move to the back bath. It will also just make room for some knick-knacks. We had always planned on putting Andrew's elephant collection in the bathroom, not sure weather I still want to go that direction or not. His elephants look pretty good in the family room. We'll see. We bought a skirt for the tub, got it home and we both agree it looks cheap and cheesy. Andrew is going to build a box for the tub to sit in, which truly was what I thought would be cool all along but he has bent over backwards to do stupid little things that take a lot more time just because I wanted them, I was fine with the skirt---until I saw it. I am really glad he was the one that decided it wasn't good enough though.

I think we are going to buy tile and the shower door tonight and probably the heat blanket for the floor. I am thinking we might as well buy the sink too because that would finish all the major purchases but it is up to him.

Taking pictures along the way, but will wait for the "reveal" to post them :-) At the moment, he is still shooting for September 1, my "craziest" day of the year, as his finishing point. I am still saying, I don't care what the rest of the room looks like, as soon as he has my whirlpool operational and everything around it is safe for me to use, I'm using it! He told me last week it was probably about 3 work weeks away. We are going to his Grandmother's on the 30th so that takes out one of his weeks, I am shooting for my birthday--the middle of August.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Newton Marching Eagles Card

I have already told you the Marching Eagles are going to have a SPECTACULAR year!! Now, here is a way you can save yourself some money and support the band all at the same time.

Just $10 each and savings from Newton, Effingham and Robinson! Use it everytime you visit your favorite merchants, expires June 30th, 2011. Let me know if you want to purchase.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Happy Birthday America!

In honor of our nation's celebration of independence, please pause a moment to read the Declaration of Independence. We take so many things for granted.



IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.