I'm Sorry That Last Weekend Didn't Happen

Last WEEK was an insane week for for me.

My nurse, who takes care of me during the week, started the week with the flu. How do medical professionals gets sick? Isn't that impossible? That pretty much much had her out for the week. The feeling sick part was over and she'd come in for short stops to take care of the basics”weak as a kitten" during therecovery portion.

Add to that a sick husband during the first half of the week. David didn’t have the flu, just a REALLY bad cold. " Husbands aren't supposed to get sick either, right? No, wait, that's moms. Moms aren't supposed to get sick according to the commercial. I don't know if that's a fail as a commercial because I don't remember the product, I just remember that moms aren't supposed to get sick. Okay, I do know the truth that when husbands get sick they turn into big babies. When are husband of a disabled spouse get sick, he retreats into a sleeping and coughing shell.

So it's been a very rough week for me because it's been a rough week for the people around me.

I finally had some private time where I could actually do phone calls to go with the research I've been doing all week. After an exhausting five hours of answers that were the opposite of what I wanted to hear, Yannie, my nurse, was here for about an hour and a half. (she usually does a LOT more than nursing stuff for me) and then after she left I drifted into a semi defeated nap.

The greatest understatement I can make right now, is it my social media mojo, heck, my mojo in general, is kind of not there.

I did have a couple how long phone calls with family members, friends up in Michigan. That was good for the soul, as it always is. But right now things aren't generally fabulous for any of us. So at least for now, the two hour phone call with one of my to beloved butt kickers didn't even push me in the direction of solving my problems. She just presented me with a few more avenues to use to look for help. I'm grateful for that but it's more work, maybe better answers. I have two sisters that have been in my life for a long time, who have traditionally grabbed me by the shoulders faced me in the direction of the better choice of the ones I'm considering and kicked me in the butt to get me moving. Unfortunately what I'm dealing with right now isn't that simple. So a couple of calls felt good but it didn't inspire my creativity… Yet

Stay tuned - I'm planning to do last weekend's Friday by Request and Weekend Playlist this coming weekend.

Christmas II

12-25-2017

Pop and Aunt Judy tag-teamed to get my slipper-boots on me to leave.

After spending a day in the wheelchair with my feet down for most of it they were swollen and putting the boots on was much more difficult than it was when David put them on at six in the morning. But they did get them on, David scraped off the van, we got our goodies to take home and with loving goodbyes we were homeward bound.

The surface streets were slippery and snowy but not so bad once we got on the freeway. The freeway was full of cars headed south on Christmas evening after a seasonally early sunset. Crowded roads were probably a good thing because lots of cars and lots of tires helped keep lanes clearer, but it was mostly the common Michigan practice when it snows, three lane sections of freeway become two lane sections. There were some slick spots but we got back to Toledo okay.

Really our driveway was the most treacherous snow we had to deal with! David tried backing in and that didn’t work so we pulled back out and went in front ways through the drifted snow David did some tricky turning in the backyard to line up my door and the ramp so I could get in the house. He shoveled off the ramp and I put my chair in high traction gear and I got in safe and sound.

Marco greeted us at the door, acting like we’d been gone forever. Christmas day this year is the longest he’s been alone in his entire life. He went from being with his Mama and littermates to having a human Mommy and Daddy and two older sister-cats. He hadn’t been alone more than a couple of hours since Carla’s passing and today had been 14 hours. To a kitty brain, that’s almost a week!

David went in to the living room while I was taking off my cape and immediately discovered some of what Marco had busied himself with during the day!

I’d done a pretty good job of keeping him off the table and not chewing the little tree for the time it had been there

The tree is about 2-1/2 feet tall and was a gift from a friend who helped out in an aide capacity in November and December. I’ve said before that I need those lights, the warm glow of a tree, to feel holiday cheer. She knew what I meant and brought the tabletop tree, lights, ornaments and everything as a gift a couple weeks before Christmas.

After righting the tree and getting the rest of our packages inside and getting something to drink, we opened presents that were around our tree.

I always love giving David an Italian chocolate hazelnut bar. It’s a large candy bar and David absolutely loved it the first time my aunt gave us one in our gift when she and my uncle visited from San Marino in 2009, when we were iced out of seeing everybody. So much of the food I grew up with doesn’t match David‘s palate, so I enjoy making sure he gets that candy bar at least once a year so I can share a little of my heritage. I also got him a sweater in a yarn pattern he seemed to really like and a copy of Stephen Colbert‘s Midnight Confessions.

We agreed that that’s one of our favorite recurring segments on The Late Show and when the book came out that it would be a fun coffee table book.

Yes, that is an area where with the laugh and a smile I admit I’m old; my husband and I tune to “Colbert” before bedtime the same way my grandparents said “let’s see who’s on Johnny Carson.“


Edna was so generous! (she always is) I was a good girl and waited to open the box she sent until Christmas. She sent a message to me not to open the mailer, and that box was the base of the gifts around the tree, protected from my anxious inner chid by the fact an aide put it just out of my reach. Edna gave a bunch of sweet gifts, highlighted with her 2018 calendar. I always look forward to seeing the photos she chose for the year. She’s such a talented photographer! There was also a train DVD for David and sweet squirrel ornament. David added the ornament to the tree because Marco wanted to add my squirrely to the squeaking cat toys Pogo sent him.

The marquis gift this year was the bed doll in a hand-crocheted green dress.

The pic is before her hair was un-messed from shipping and I’ll get a better pic on my made bed sitting on my prayer quilt as soon as my 2018 remix is in full swing. She kinda looks like me in the messy hair shot, well, except that I have a bit more gray. I would so have worn the green dress in the pre-gray and wheelchair days!


After enjoying gifts and taking some time to assure Marco we never planned to abandon him, a fun but long Christmas Day turned into a cozy and exhausted slumber.

Thank you to everyone who contributed in person and in heart to a wonderful holiday!

Off To A Slow Start

It's January 5 already. Ugh.

I had plans. I actually had a lot of things already set in place the kick off 2018. And I haven't given up on those plans. I’ve just chosen to push them back a little. Well maybe things were chosen for me. (— makes erasing motion in the air in front of me —) Things weren’t chosen for me; challenges presented themselves and my response to those challenges requires a little extra time. Therefore I'm pushing 2018 back a little. It's my hope that I'll find the elements I need by January 15. I might even try to get that schnapps I've been looking for since the beginning of December and do a countdown and toast on January 14.

But I'm getting ahead of myself

Right now in my mind it is still the end of 2017 and I'm making plans for 2018 to kick off in a much more controlled by me way. Right now I feel like I'm still standing in 2017 and I need a scraper to get the year off my shoes. I hated 2017. We lost two cats. I was taken off MS medications because my liver panel levels we're too high and they're still too high. The doctors haven't been able to figure out why and until they do no MS meds for Nani. Where that is bad is that I'm starting to experience more or worsening MS symptoms. The biggest thing that means is that numbness from the elbows down I'm both arms that I talked about before. That makes blogging, scrapbooking, even writing in my own personal journal very difficult and some days impossible to do. The cost of aides, which is in no way covered by my insurance, has depleted the most of my retirement savings and there was a scare that that wouldn't even be something that was tax-deductible anymore. At least that was saved in the reverse Robin Hood tax bill. There were enough people that wrote to their members of Congress and told them "if you let this happen I'll do everything in my power to make sure that you NEVER have a seat in any kind of government again.” (--whistles and looks to the sky--not that I'D say anything like that to a member of Congress that represents me) My aides alone cost close to half of our household income.

My biggest regret in my life as we start the year with a greater threat of nuclear war than there has ever been in my lifetime, is that I didn't register properly and didn't campaign harder in 2004. With the campaign slogan I created in 1983, “An End To War In 2004,” if I'd been serious and louder I might've at least gotten some influential people laughing at the little 30-something who would be a write-in President Of the United States, but giving some thought to what she was saying. My health plan was still better that anything Washington has come up with since then. And getting rid of the designated hitter was part of my platform too. I also still think that's right but it's part of my platform I’d have given up for the healthcare. (—shaking head—) Too flexible to be a politician.

But seriously, my biggest challenge right now happened on New Year's Eve. Not only did one of my regular Agency aides get into a car accident, that thankfully didn't harm her, that totaled her car, but the friend who is going to be my aide on a regular basis starting January 1 also got into an accident that total the only car she and her husband shared. She is fine but she is no longer able to be my aide. In the first four days of the new year there's been someone into help me once. I'm not saying that David hasn't been help when he's home, but that he's not home all the time is why I need an aide in every day. I've been feverishly looking for a couple of aides that I can afford. Sticking with the agency is really not an option. That I can use them at all now is through a grant from the MS Society that now is barely going to last until the 15th. I do have someone coming in almost every day next week. This is the biggest challenge and why I am pushing 2018 back a couple weeks. I simply refuse to allow this week especially to be part of the new year I had so much hope for.

I do have a great hope for 2018… when it starts on January 15. I contacted some potential caregivers from care.com. I don't know if it's nationwide that there're lots of ads for care.com, or if it's just the TV channels I watch. But I've interviewed a few decent caregivers and it's on my schedule to interview a couple more with a job post still running on the site.

My other great disaster in 2017 was that my scrap booking extended hard drive broke. The information is still there but the physical input to the drive came out so I can no longer use the drive with my computer. That means either someone door company that does disk retrieval we'll have to try to save my information or almost 50 scrapbook pages will have to be redone. They hadn't been transferred because of redundant disc yet. The worst part is my scrapbooks we're done until 2017, completely finished. The plan was to start 2018 with just the last of 2017 to finish and I would be scrap booking current and memories that I wanted to scrap. But if I can't save the data from that drive, I'm still 50 pages behind.

The 2018 prep is rescue the data! Finding some place to get that done hasn't been easy. The only place locally the does anything like that gave me a brochure for a place in California but does disk retrieval. They can do it for $700. I call and get a case number but I can put it on my desk and mail it to them. The good news is if they can't retrieve my data there's no charge. The bad news is if they can retrieve my data it's $700! There's a place in St. Louis that will do it for $400. My creative time alone might be worth that much. That’s about $8 a layout. Figuring the faster layouts take a good four hours to do, plus purchased scrapbook kits on that disk, it probably is worth it, but I can print two books for that price. David offered to make retrieving the data my Christmas present. I said no because it cost so much. Dammit little angel on my shoulder. LOL

One of the lost pages. 

Print-quality pages trapped on the drive include 

3 Christmases, the congressional softball game, 

“Nani at 50” pages and the Kaline tribute pages.

It still makes me wonder if I shouldn't have pursued the geekier part of computers instead of the creative. I am the geekiest member of our household, but that and $400 will retrieve my creative data from my drive!

Christmas

Pop's and Aunt Judy's tree

*decorated byTori*

Christmas blessings were abundant this year. In a year where health, finances and time left me giving a little less in some areas than I usually like to, I still seemed to receive a lot. I think what hurt the most was that we didn’t do Christmas cards this year. We always put the kids on our cards. If not having Kaline on them didn’t hurt enough, we knew Carla was sick at the time I would’ve been making the cards and I couldn’t bear to even think of whether not to put her on the card. I’ve also been in constant back-and-forth arguments with the insurance company about how much money out of pocket I’ve spent on my healthcare this year since the end of September.

But onto the happy stuff! David and I woke up at 5 AM yesterday to forage north to Pop’s House for Christmas. It had snowed a little and it was very cold but our drive was relatively uneventful. The main road off the freeway and the dirt road to Pop‘s house was our biggest snow challenge. The last of my cold still lingers, so I couldn’t smell Pop and Aunt Judy’s citrus pine, but I sure could smell the bacon cooking! Tori was busy at the stove with a couple packs of bacon cooking and cooking. “Papa said ‘just cook at all.’ I have a small stack of wimpy bacon for Uncle David t oo.” My love of crispy bacon is a family trait.

Then it was present opening time. It was Rina's and Tori‘s suggestion a few years ago that we draw names instead of buying for everybody. It gives you the opportunity to really shop for thoughtful gifts for one person instead of trying to spread the budget around two gifts for everyone. It worked out great. I know in the past few years I’ve given and received some wonderful gifts. This year was no different.

Rina's boy, Basil, sitting next to his great-uncle.

Ya know how cats are drawn to non-cat people?

David is not a dog person, but this started 

with a nap together before breakfast.

In drawing names it was strange this year that fathers and first daughters traded gifts. Pop and I had each other as did Dave and Rina. It was Star Wars for Dave and Red Wings for Rina and their Exchange and mostly food stuff between Pop and me. Keeping in mind that this is the 52nd Christmas Pop and I have celebrated together, choosing gifts wasn’t difficult, but it seemed that knowing when to stop was for both of us! Pop gave me a wonderful vibrating kitty neck wrap that I’m looking forward to trying tonight, As well as some warm slippers and a beautiful bracelet. And the food, wow! I got 4 solid large persimmons and some ambrosia apples to help them ripen, an only raisins panettone, lemon pizzele and some other tasty treats including two packages of my favorite breadsticks that can only be found, that I know of, and his Italian store. Among the things I found for him, to go with the stories and recipes from American immigrants cookbook, were an 18-pack of Pocket Coffee (dark chocolates with a liquid espresso center) chestnuts in a 1 pound block of aged 3 years Parmesan Reggiano cheese. We had a fun and yummy exchange! Tori was beyond happy, Especially about 2 poetry books from Ucle David. Between Rina, David and me for the information and finding the books, we did really well with that one!

It had been snowing a little bit while we were opening presents and there was already a thin coating of snow on our van when the Indianapolis family headed back home A little before noon. We made sure to have them call when they got home. I guess the worst of the snow was in Michigan for their ride.

Our annual Christmas 3-shot

Rina, Nana, Tori

Around 3 o’clock my cousin, Lisa, and family arrived for dinner. The snow was falling in heavier squalls by then and when Lisa’s bff, Annelie, and her kids got there they were commenting about the roads being pretty nasty.

All. Freaking. Day.

David and I have usually seen Lisa‘s kids a few times during the year between Christmases. I usually see Lisa’s kids more than we see Lisa! This year we hadn’t seen the kids all year and in a year her oldest, Owen, looks like quite the young man and as completely sweet and giving as he’s always been. Her twins don’t look like kids anymore either. At 13, they are definitely teenagers. Audrey is a beautiful young woman who looks more like her mom every day. Ethan is 100% teenager, showing off his new smart watch, but he made a point of engaging everybody, making you feel like his favorite person when he was talking with you. (What a magical gift!)

My awesome cousins

At the end of the evening when we were all packing up to go, Annelie sent home half of her homemade apple pie with us, we tried that apple pie for the first time at Thanksgiving and OMG it is wonderful! Before they were ready to leave Lisa‘s husband, Tory, shoveled off the ramp so we wouldn’t have to do that to leave. I’ve always said and I’m always proven right; my family chooses and breeds the best!


More Christmas to come...



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Happy Solar Eclipse Day!

There will be a total eclipse this afternoon. Here in Toledo we won’t the see the full effect of the total eclipse. The nearest place in the path of totality is between Knoxville and Chattanooga, Tennessee. They’ll be in total darkness briefly this afternoon. We'll be just kind of dark.

A total eclipse is when the moon is close enough to the earth to appear bigger and completely block the sun. In May 1994, it was an annular eclipse that was the last time an eclipse that was visible in Ohio or Michigan, where I was in 1994. For an annular eclipse, the moon is farther. away and appears smaller, so a ring of sun is larger around the moon. Asking my husband about something he knows more about than I do because I'm only interested in when it's a current event, gets you an exasperated sigh like I'm sure I got from my mom in 1973.

When we started talking about the solar eclipse this year I had a memory flash. There was an eclipse on January 4, 1973, just after Christmas break, but the patch where it was visible was in southern South America. But there has been talk about it on the news and my classmates and i were in second grade. I remembered just after lunch, a boy in our class got up and closed all the window blinds so no one would look out at the eclipse and go blind. It seemed like s nice thing to me at 7, to protect the whole class from the eclipse seen in South America.

A good test for checking your eclipse glasses is look at a florescent light with your glasses on. If you can't see the light, The sun won’t blind you. If you’re in an area where you can see the eclipse, experience with care and enjoy!

But Now My Kitty Sunshine's Gone Away

Alexis Kaline Patch

2005-2017

50 ended with tears. We said goodbye to our Kaline, just a couple weeks before her. 12th birthday.

Early in June she was taken to the vet to look at her because of severe weight loss in a very short time. It was then, on June 8, that she was diagnosed with kidney failure, something that there is not a cure for in cats. It's also something that is, while not common, it's not uncommon in house cats. Her vet told us it may be months, it may be years, but there is nothing that could be done to reverse the damage.

I prayed that she'd have years, but she lost 25% of her body weight in about a month. David got prescription food and I made cat-recipe chicken broth to try to get her to drink more. She did eat the food, but just a little each day, and wasn't even interested in the chicken meat, let alone the broth. She still cuddled and purred with me and crawled on David's hip for morning scritches, but she was still losing weight and seemed to be slowing down. Last week she was struggling to get up on the furniture or the cedar chest to look out the front window. She was spending most of her.time in the sunny spot in the upstairs hall – it had always been one of her favorite places.

For the last couple of weeks, when I sang the song I always do when I'm giving evening treats, she still came running down with Carla and Marco, but she became even more finicky than usual, only eating her favorites. Then this past week she'd run down but just watch the treats tossed and her brother and sister eat them. When it had been a couple of days since she'd eaten and David gave her a bowl of moist food with lots of gravy, which she loved, she looked at it, put her tongue on it for a test, and then shook her head and walked away. That really was the sign we had to accept. It seemed like she was only holding on for us. Her once shining coat on her strong body was just hanging off pretty much her skeleton.

David came home from work early Thursday. Uncharacteristically Kaline came downstairs as soon as he came in. She halfheartedly struggled when he put her in the carrier and when she was in the carrier she gave three scratches at the floor where her usual was she try to dig herself out for a while. There was meowing but not as robust as usual. We were about to take the longest and most painful ride we've ever made to the vet. You see, when it's been the final ride with our cats before we didn't know that was the last trip ahead of time. Even with Baggle, we knew he was sick and that day was coming, but we didn't know that was that day when we left home. For Kaline we knew.

Cats purr when they are happy and content or when they are nervous and afraid. We both cried a lot during the last couple months and even more during that ride to the vets office on Thursday. We were in what was set up to be the crying room at the vet's office, lots of seats around the exam table and the feel of a room at a funeral home with a box of tissues on the windowsill. Kaline purred while we pet her. She sat on my chest, the "cat shelf" she discovered as a kitten and never accepted that she'd outgrown, one last time. When the vet's assistant came in for us to sign paperwork, she was teared up too. The job and the crying pet parents never gets easy, even for the people who do it professionally.

After she stopped purring and her labored breaths stopped, we left the office. We stopped at the desk to let them know the tissue box was empty.

On the way home David noted that it was sunny out. Unsuccessfully choking back tears I said "That's because there's no more…" and broke into an uncontrolled loud sob. He said he didn't understand what I said but then said, "I think I know what you said” and joined me in more tears. I tried to say "kitty sunshine" again unsuccessfully. I sang "You Are My Sunshine" with the kitty sunshine customized lyrics to her since she was a kitten. I couldn't sing that song since her diagnosis because the last line, "please don't take my kitty sunshine away" was just too painful to sing to her.

There will be more tears for a few days that will fade from tears into happy memories. But right now her song is over and I just wish it had been a more extended cut.

My Mouse, My Friend

For the past two months I've kept up, and then some, with my page-a-day scrapbooking goal. Now, almost a week into July I haven't scrapped one page. I actually have three pages started in Photoshop on my computer, but right now I can neither finish them nor start any new ones. My old faithful, wonderful, comfortable mouse really is dead this time.

The Logitech Bluetooth mouse has been good to me. I often go through mice, mouses… What's the plural of a computer mouse? Anyway I go through them like a serious coffee drinker with MS hands goes through mice… mouses. The mouse pictured has been with me since September 2015. Aside from other regular mousing duties, it faced many battles that usually kill the modern-day mouse. This mouse sat on the table when spilled water surrounded it. I dried it and shook it off. Of course it didn't work. But that was before dinner. After dinner it worked just fine. There was the time I reached over to grab the mouse and it slipped out of my hand and fell in a bowl of salsa. I cleaned it off, opened the battery compartment and got the salsa off the batteries. I was sure it was dead that time. But then I turned it back on and the pointer started moving just like it's supposed to.

Last year in October I grabbed and dropped it. The mouse took a bath in a cup of coffee. Stupid slippery MS hands. Well totally immersed in a cup of coffee was undoubtedly the end. I wrapped up the mouse in paper towel and ordered a new Bluetooth mouse from Amazon. I used an old wireless mouse that I had that wasn't Bluetooth so there was a receiver that took up one of the 2 USB ports on my computer. I back things up on two hard drives and if I have anything on a disk I need to have a port for that drive too, so I'm kind of Bluetooth spoiled on my mouse. Thank goodness for Amazon Prime, two days later I had a new mouse. And the new mouse wouldn't communicate with my computer! It wouldn't show up on the available Bluetooth devices for my tablet or David's computer either! But you know I did show up? “Logitech laser mouse” yelling “not dead yet!" in beautiful binary zeros and ones!

So this mouse was a stud, invincible! A mouse that could withstand all that, even getting dunked in a cup of coffee? Coffee has killed so many electronic devices in my life that I am on the floor praising this mouse for its impervious power. Imagine my shock on the Fourth of July when I opened the computer to make a July “Nani at 50” scrapbook page. I grabbed my good old mouse and nothing happened. The pointer on the screen didn't move I dragged my finger across the pad in the middle of the keyboard and the pointer moved, it did everything my finger told it to. I checked the Bluetooth connection and couldn't locate my mouse. My mouse didn't show up in the available Bluetooth Devices for my iPad either. It's gone! Oh no, it's really gone!

This time I wasn’t able to locate the receiver for the wireless mouse so I haven’t been scrapping for a few days. I think I'm going through withdrawal. The new mouse is due today so David will probably be bringing it in after work. I think I might scrap a little tonight.

I'll be back tomorrow to talk a little bit about the “Nani at 50” pages.

A Carnival Fights Blog-Block

I’ve been in a writing funk lately. I'm going to try write my way out of it. We’ll see if it works.

Today's been a pretty good day. It's Carnival weekend at the church kitty corner from us. I asked my aide to crack open the window on the side of the house so I can hear the carnival. I hope that doesn't sound pathetic, it shouldn’t. I'm not disabled and hearing the sounds of fun I can't have. The truth is I find this sounds to be inspiring. I've always loved listening to the rides and people laughing and having fun. When I used to go to the park and walk every day the absolute greatest day was when it was just warm enough for moms to bring out their kids to play in the playground. It made me even more relaxed and happy to hear the sound of the kids outside having fun. This carnival weekend has been awesome for that reason ever since I moved into this house, 10 years ago. I've never actually been to that carnival. I’ve never really been a carnival goer as an adult. But I love the sounds of crowds of people having fun. So right now the setting sun is shining in my window and over me, I'm toggling the TV remote between three baseball games, and the fresh smell of outside with the sound of two crazy rides that I can see through the window make it a pretty great evening.

The Reds game tonight against Atlanta, is the first game since the off-season trade that Brandon Phillips has been back in Cincinnati. In the top of the first inning, his first at bat, Reds fans gave him a standing ovation. Bronson Arroyo stepped off the pitching mound to allow Phillips an opportunity to step back from the plate, take off his hat and salute the crowd. After 11 years with the Reds, Phillips’ contract gave him the right to say “no” to any trade the team considered. He used that right a couple of times, but the only team I'm sure he would've said ”yes” to would've been Atlanta, to go home. I admitted I choked up a little watching the whole thing; the welcoming ovation, Arroyo’s gesture, Brandon acknowledging the crowd and the fact that both pitcher and hitter we're visibly moved.


Maybe the carnival is helpful. The biggest problem that I've had when I've been writing lately is that when I start writing and I think I'm writing for the blog, I start getting very negative and very hostile, so it just ends up being writing that I put my personal journal. Remember that I write to get negative feelings out and put away. So I have enough things that are bugging me right now that everything I write turns into a page or two of grumbling and ranting. Even my scrapbooked daily blurbs have sometimes turned into a page long growling sessions that I've had to cut and paste into the personal journal, and write my daily comment shorter or about something else entirely. So I've had some demons that I've been dealing with. I won't say anything more about that lest this turn into another attempted blog that ends up going into the file that will only be opened after I'm gone.

I hope somebody does read it. It's not all negative stuff, though I do think, especially for those that know me, that seeing, understanding, the things that really got under my skin and how I dealt with them is a good thing. But there are fun things too. I put the text from my blogs, comments that I make in different forums, and even silly one liners. I also occasionally address the reader in the things that I write. What's the point in doing that if there's not going to be a reader someday? My scrapbooks and the complete and uncensored Chronicles of Nani will be my legacy. I'd like to be remembered for a generation or two after I'm gone. (smiles)


We celebrated Marco's fourth birthday yesterday. He's the only one of our cats whose birthday we are sure of. Marco and his litter siblings were born in our friend's garage on June 1, 2013. The girls’ birthdays are educated guesses. I'll do a scrapbook page for his birthday and maybe a "Christmas in June" page or two. I'm scrapping June for 2017 but December for every other year right now. Yes, that means I'm finishing books now! More details on that soon.

Conquering Naniland

I'm going to blog more often again when I can organize myself to be able to use my computer again. I finally have the padding figured out to be able to stay in the current wheelchair without pain. There is a support post for the back of the chair that hits my tailbone in a way that pushes it in and up. Remember, I use a wheelchair because I have little to no movement in my legs and hips, so moving around to relieve the pressure is not an effective "easy fix." Add to that it took a while to identify what point in my body the pain was coming from and what part of the chair was responsible for the pressure.

So now that I know what kind of padding and where I need it, I can spend the day in my chair. Now I have a new problem to solve. The mechanical base necessary to make the chair do what it does makes it too high to fit under a table. That doesn't just mean I'm challenged setting up a computer working area but sitting at a table to sort through papers or bills without things dropping all over the floor or eating a meal present obstacles. I also don't go out much. As much as the chair is supposed to give freedom and mobility, I don't like going places alone anymore. Sitting at a table in a restaurant when I must tilt the chair forward to reach the plate is pretty embarrassing. The humiliation is still there, but it's easier to deal with if I'm not alone.

I started physical therapy on my legs. In the over a year to get the chair including 5 months that I couldn't sit in the old chair that caused my out-turning hips, my legs and hips have become too weak to use a slide board or to stand and pivot. I just started in-home PT with the therapist showing David and the 4 aides that are here most often the exercises so I can do them every day. My immediate goal in the next few months is to be able to use a grab bar to stand for just a little.


Television

I love the ad for the Volkswagen Atlas! It's set to The Birds and The Bees and starts with the Beetle rocking with steamy windows and the young couple upgrading as their family grows after seeing the new cars "rocking." They show you the source of the rocking in the Atlas; a family of five with a dog and squealing happy kids. I think the ad is incredibly sweet.



I've read articles criticizing the use of innuendo or nitpicking that innuendo. Oh please! It's a cute way to show 5 different models of different sizes selling the largest one as a family car. Is it risqué? Um, considering that drugs for erectile dysfunction are on TV in all their "you know you want it" glory and the Go Daddy girls, no, not risqué at all. And as far as nitpicking "logical sense," it's a commercial not a drama. -eye roll-



The Handmaid's Tale

I decided not to put my book reviews on The Chronicles of Nani. I still post my few lines of non-spoiler thoughts with my rating at Good Reads. I'll link to those reviews here if you'd like to read them.

I just finished The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwell. I gave it 5 of 5 stars. You can see my review here: my review



That's a little bit of what's going on in Naniland, a world I must conquer daily. But I do conquer it!

The Creative Process

I've been doing my Project 365 as a scrapbooked diary for a few years now. I do the layouts with the daily journal entries and an assortment of photos, clip art, memes, cartoons and scrapbook elements. NFL playoff scores in early 2015 was the first appearance of the character I knew in my mind as "the Foxborough Fox." The fox was included three times in 2015 by the Pats' post season scores finishing sitting on a football near a “We’re #1” banner and the Super Bowl score.

As the Patriots started into the playoffs last January the Fox was back with the Patriots scores. I decided to have some fun with New England promotional items from the web. In one of those 2016 playoff results pics he's holding a Tom Brady doll and his name changed and his identity formed. He became Brady the Patriots fan and the image of a boy under ten years old. Giving him a personality gave me direction for molding him to be more than just a logo element. The Foxborough Fox was the same expression holding a Patriots sign. Brady is a superfan with all of his football fan stuff and the exuberance and team loyalty of a child.

I'll make a note of a couple things at this point. First off I'm creative and artistic but a different kind of creative and artistic than someone who sets pencil to paper and draws cute animals. My dad would always draw horses when I was a kid. It was just something he doodled. Every time I tried to draw a horse it looked like a dinosaur. I've been doing creative things for a half a century now and if I i try to draw a horse it still looks like a dinosaur… like a five-year-old trying to draw a horse, dinosaur. But I do well manipulating images. The Foxborough Fox is an element from a kit called Falling 4 U by Keystone Scraps.

The other thing is that I absolutely adore is watching young kids at sporting events and the unconditional love and loyalty they have for their favorite teams and players. So it's not a surprise that I would find an element that I really like and start manipulating that to turn it into it the character of an eight-year-old boy.

As this your started, I made the conscious decision to follow my #2 sport more closely and was therefore, even as the baseball season was ending, making a point of paying attention to MY favorite two teams. Brady was going to present both the Patriots and Lions scores every week. I started thinking, or may be overthinking but that's what I do, that Brady needed a buddy to watch football with and maybe it would be a good idea if his buddy was a Lions fan. So the search for Brady's best friend began. I found Brady’s BFF in At The Zoo by Mags Graphics.

As the season went on the characters developed, their friendship developed and the entire story of Brady and Ford formed and is still forming. For me it's just fun. “Knowing” the story of the week adds to creating the scrapbook vignette.

Brady and Ford are eight-year-olds in Toledo. They are 3rd graders in the Toledo Public School system. They live in the same neighborhood, just a few houses apart and are best friends.

Brady is an only child. His parents were originally from New England and they moved to Toledo when Brady's mom had a great job offer. Brady's whole family are Patriots fans and they get the NFL Sunday Ticket so they can see the Patriots games every week. Ford and Brady watch football games together at one of their houses. They often go to Ford’s house for the Lions games and Brady's house for the Patriots games.

Ford's dad works in Michigan and his mom works part time but she’s home in the afternoon when Ford gets home from school. The boys spend weekday afternoons at Ford's house. Ford has a big brother in college and a high school senior sister but, "she doesn't like football so she doesn't matter anyway."

That's pretty much the whole story right now. It grows as it needs to for the single frame cartoons with the football scores. David helped me develop Ford's family with Ford being his parents pleasant surprise baby. This came from a discussion that we had because he was surprised that my characters went to Toledo Public Schools. But they had to go to TPS because it was snowing on the Sunday that the network decided they weren't going to show the Lions game. I needed a reason for a snow sculpture. LOL

Week 16 was great fun for Brady who watched the game with his cousins when they were back East for the holidays.

It was a little rougher for Ford. No school meant he got to stay up to watch Monday Night Football but the Lions lost.

The creative process can be a never ending source of imagination and fun!

Billy Bob Can't Say That

Back in June, when the power chair was new, I fell asleep in it. I’d been having trouble sleeping and David let me be for the night. The chair reclines all the way back, tilts up and the feet lift. It’s almost totally flat and in the right position can be pretty comfy. After a few nights of MS insomnia, it was a deep and restful sleep, aaaaahhhhh. I fell asleep with Buddy Bat, my iPad, on my chest, which eventually slid off of me. I vaguely remembered feeling it slide to my stomach and down my legs. I knew I’d have to upright the chair and fish it off the ground with my reacher.

I moved the back of the chair upright and grabbed the reacher. Then I started moving the leg supports down, “woooo…ooo…ooo…CRUNCH!” I immediately stopped the chair. The motor doesn’t go “crunch.” Buddy Bat didn’t fall to the floor. Buddy Bat slid onto the working parts of the joints in the chair.

I’m pretty dependent on my tablet. It’s my library and my game console. I have an app with all my medicines that automatically searches for potential drug interactions when I add a new one. My calendar is in it, my daily journals, notes for my doctors and even my grocery list app! Keep in mind that I really can’t write legibly or turn pages while not dropping a paperback. My tablet really has become my most important assistive device for daily living!

So Buddy Bat had to be fixed or replaced. The tablet worked fine, every app, and swiping across the screen accessed everything although half he screen was a bit difficult to read. Also, every time I swiped the screen I got tiny shards of glass on my finger. My replacement insurance expired back in April and it couldn't be renewed anymore because they don’t make the iPad 2.0 anymore. But I was able to update to the 4.0, faster and more memory, for less than I paid for the original one. That my friends, is the silver lining. There is always one of those if you look for it.

The New Buddy Bat is the gold one!

So I had to move in to the new tablet. Much of my stuff was available from the cloud. Every app I’d downloaded and my music library was transferred with my sign-in. I imagine that’s the same with any tablet or smart phone, that you sign in to whichever store you download apps from an you can download he apps you use on your other devices. The apple apps had the info and setups as I was used to, my calendar was intact and I had my notes, but some of the non-apple apps had to have the info put back in. Mainly, I had to re-enter all of my medications in my Rx app. I also had to re-train Siri. You know, I had to remind her that David is my husband and “Lee” is who I mean when I say “message Pop .”

I also had to give her the alternate spelling of my name. Siri looks at my name and pronounces it “Nanny.” My nickname is pronounced like the Hawaiian word for beautiful or the Japanese word for huh? But Siri is neither Hawaiian nor Japanese!

Back when I was a teenager, there was a talking computer at the pizza place we used to hang out at. It was Showbiz Pizza, which was a knockoff of Chuck E. Cheese with a little better pizza and a bear named Billy Bob. The little kids weren’t into the talking computer so much, but we teens were! Remember, it was the early 80s. Typing a sentence and hearing the computer voice read it back was a cool new thing that you didn’t get to do at home. Of course we wanted to hear it try to pronounce our names. But we found out the when you typed any profanity the computer said “Billy Bob can’t say that.” We were good kids that hung out at family restaurants, got along fine with parents and played video games with the kids. But we were still teenagers. It became our mission to figure out how to make the computer swear!

We tried just typing a few lines of random letters with the profanity in the middle, like “jdkifnxyskmassholejfdikjkn” The computer voice sounded like it was mumbling with a mouthful of marbles and flow right into “Billy Bob can’t say that” and continue to mumble. We laughed at each failure, as did the preteens who weren’t waiting to use the machine but just waiting for us to win. We finally discovered that phonetics, dashes and spaces worked. Yes, honor roll students and early PCs made for the discovery of the likes of sh-it, you beech and what made us preteen heroes for a while, if you use ah sandwiched between the f and k in a single word, it sounds just like a soft u. Every time the computer swore we laughed and cheered and the preteens took notes.

I used this trick to teach my first Mac how to say my name in 1997. Nah-knee, but when I changed my name in the first iPad, Siri said “nah” with a harder a, like ant. See our devices don't have computer sounding voices anymore. Siri is an actual person’s voice with sounds formed on an algorithm that works with a script of normal sounds. Siri and I had a talk about pronouncing my name and she decided to spell it “Nonny.”

It kinda makes me wonder if today’s text slang comes from smart phones telling teenagers how to swear.

I’ll be 50 in a few days. I’m allowed to make an occasional “we were better” comment. ;)

Hello Blogland!!!!!

My signature for July at GingerScraps

Long time no see, right? I got my new wheelchair just a little after Memorial Day. If anyone wants to grouch along with me, that’s just over a year after I was originally measured and an order put together for a new chair. But I have the new chair. Now I’m about the task of relearning how to have an actual life. That’s kept me busy and tired every day.

My phrase for the beginning of my 50th year is “baby steps.” My friend and former coworker, Mary, put that gentle and valuable bit of coaching in my head when we worked together. You don’t reach goals if you can’t appreciate the little victories. At that time it was just her telling us to take it easy if we felt frustration at work, but now when I sarcastically cheer myself because I made my own salad, I hear her voice in my mind and, with a smile, I do recognize the little victories. I might not walk, but I’m gonna rock that chair and what are the little victories now will be everyday no big deals.

Hey, yeah, 50th year. Nanifest L starts next Friday! My fiftieth birthday is on a Friday, so the festival is on weekend rules; if my birthday is on a Friday,Saturday or Sunday, the festival runs from 5:00pm the Friday before until midnight the Sunday after, two weeks and three weekends. I think I probably would have extended 50 for the extra week anyway. More about the festival coming very soon!

Before I sign off, I’ll share the scrap-page I did for last year when the van we call “The Blue Meanie” came home. Right now it means David and I can go places to photograph trains, see baseball games or even visit my dad in the Motherland!

Credits: Off Roadin’ by Little Rad Trio, template by Digitalegacies Designs

Of course “template by Digitalegacies Designs” means a freebie! Call it my reopening of my cyber coffee shop gift. Click on the preview to download the template at Mediafire.

Thanks for visiting again!!

http://www.mediafire.com/download/a5fbz0i5z8h1f7v/digitalegacies_July16Template.zip

What Are You Wearing?

After a false alarm on my new chair, I haven't been bright and chipper me lately. The chair visited here last week and I sat in it, even drove it a little. The steering is just awesome and I can't wait to get out to a nice even parking lot or even the mall on a slow day so I can try out tilt-a-whirling with it! The seating system it's going to take some serious learning of the new controller but it seems like it's going to be really great to. Unfortunately the ability to actually sit up straight needs adjusting. There's no way that I could eat or drink and hope to swallow without choking in the angle it leaves me at in the totally upright position. It had to go back into be adjusted. I'm waiting now to find out how long that's going to take.

Well I didn't get to go to Indianapolis last weekend Tori texted me the link to watch both the baccalaureate on Saturday in the commencement ceremony on Sunday online. Upon seeing the seating area the truth is I probably had a better view than I would've had in person. I certainly wouldn't have been able to get this:

VERY proud Nana we'll be dragging out her chauffeur, AKA Uncle David, to visit Tori and take her out to dinner very soon after the new chair comes in to stay.


In the meantime I've been in a little low and without enthusiastic desire to do a lot. That includes reading and writing. I've been very slow about the book I'm reading, even though it's a good book, and when I've read blogs, I'm somehow without the creativity or energy to comment much. Of course I haven't been up to writing a blog much either, except well, I guess I'm writing a blog right now. *smile*


I present 5 questions to wake up my mood and mojo. Please feel free to share your answers in comments or on your own blog!

Life Inventory:

1. What are you wearing?

Knee-length cotton dorm shirt with donuts print.

2. What's the last thing you ate?

The last of my daily carrot and celery munchie bowl. Yes, I finally got David to pick out celery for me to go with my carrots. He does a great job!


3. What are the first three songs on your music playlist? (or your current favorite 3 songs)

The first three currently on my iTunes, starting with what’s playing now:

Say It’s Not True - Lionel Cartwright
Ho Hey - The Lumineers
Fall - Clay Walker


4. What is the last purchase you made that was something you wanted, not something you needed?

I spent three months’ saved scrap budget at Ginger Scraps to kick off interNational Scrapbook Day weekend at the beginning of the month. (Great sales!)


5. What's your favorite electronic game? (phone, computer or game console)

I've been playing Toy Blast often lately but my favorite is really Jigsaw Bug. I love jigsaw puzzles on my tablet because no pieces get lost! (or become cat toys)

I'll Be With Me Shortly

Lately my world has been busy enough to need to take a number to have time by myself! Pretty good for someone who can’t move from one place to another on my own, huh?

I sent David off to visit his brother. His brother and family are in Florida now, so it makes for a nice respite on a shoestring. Every now and then he needs a caregiver break from me and honestly, by the time he needs a break from me, I need one from him too. When he gets grumpy, it stresses me badly. Between a few hours more a day for the aides that help me out, home visits from health professionals, friends who drop in to check up on me and nearly constant calls, I’m alone more when David’s home! I appreciate being looked out for but I like my alone time too. I would love a balance between the two all the time.

I’ll have the new power chair in the next couple of weeks. I can’t wait! I know I’ll need help to transfer and dress. I’ll have to re-learn how to stand and use bars to pivot or pull myself. I’ll need to learn the controls and clearances of the new chair and I’ll have to relearn using the transfer board and even what my new limits for reaching things are, but I’m dying to get started! Physical and Occupational Therapy will start again in earnest as soon as the new chair gets here. My first destination goal will be the hospital for an MRI. I need the MRI before I go to Cleveland in June.

Undergrad Degree; Check!

My next planned event out of the house will be much more fun. Tori’s commencement ceremony for her undergrad degree is at the end of May! She’s selected her grad school as she moves on to the next step of her education and will be going right on to work on her graduate degree. I am so proud!

She does have the Cinderella dreams about a wedding someday, but I hope she cherishes the graduation days and the celebrations of her own accomplishments as happier days than an eventual wedding day. I know my opinion is not in the traditional loop, but I would love there to be a day where the “happiest day of my life” for women is a graduation, promotion, opening a business, your own practice or becoming a partner in your firm rather than “becoming a wife.” For me, getting married was a special and happy day, but it was not a day that defines me. It should not be a day that defines anyone. For Tori, next month will be the first of “HER days.” It will be the one of many remarkable achievements she’ll earn in defining who she is and how she’ll contribute to the world. I hope she always cherishes every accomplishment as the most important and happy day of her life so far.

Colors from my flowerbed

We had some rain this week and now it’s just gray and dreary. My aide Wednesday morning freshened up my glass of flowers from my flower bed. I have a fresh daffodil and a couple of my tulips. The tulips are the last of the perennials I have planted. Kelly and I planted Spring perennials in the fall of 2010. Then I spent the beginning of 2011 with all of the test thats eventually made way for my MS diagnosis in June. That meant there wasn't any spring planting for the summer and fall flowers. It also ended up meaning that there were a lot bigger issues than planting flowers on my plate. So for the last five years the crocuses of bloomed, then the daffodils bloomed as the crocuses faded and the tulips came in at the end of the daffodils. Then the weeds grew in filling the flowerbeds for the rest of the year.

It was really my plan, at least my hope, to finally get the rest of the bulbs planted this year. Well, the new chair is going to get here just late enough to have to postpone that one more year. You see the original idea for my flower beds on the side of the house was that in March the crocuses would bloom, snow or no snow, then the daffodils, then the tulips, then something that blooms in June followed by something that blooms in mid-summer and so on until the first frost. So I’ve bookmarked the bulbs I’m going to plant next spring.

Growing in with the last of the tulips and through August will be Stargazer lilies.

I’m going to plant gladiolus to grow in July and August.

There were a few gladiolus in the area that's now my flowerbeds already growing when David moved into this house. He used to cut stems of them for me as presents before I even lived here. They were beautiful on my desk at work and they attracted a lot of attention too. But when we had the basement waterproofed in that area was dug into, we lost all that one of the glads. I plan to add more to the one remaining light purple one.

Asiatic lilies will bloom later in July through August.

My spring planting next year will finish the year’s flowers with dahlias and begonias which will bloom from midsummer through the first frost.

I’m having a ton of fun going through all the different flower bulbs and imagining the colors I'll order them in and how great the flowerbeds are going to look all year next year. And it will be fun next April to do that planting and it will really be fun watching all the colors that last from snow to snow!