To my Dearest Love,
Today is our Fifteenth Anniversary and I love you much more than I did then. I loved you with a childish love, irrational and selfish; I love you now with a purer love, refined by adversity and maturity. You are my golden dawn and my silver moonlight. You are my true north and I am hopelessly, boundlessly, eternally devoted to you.
Happy Anniversary to my best friend, my knight-errant, the Captain of my ship.
Today is the 5th anniversary of my foray into the Blogosphere (though, I did have a Geocities website long before 2005).
And what was that very first post of mine?
"Everyone Needs a Little Love":
These cinnamon mints I bought last week at Jo-Ann's Etc. are tasty but I really bought them for the TIN.
The accompanying photo has long since disappeared into the vapors of the internet, but the tin is still going strong in my purse as an impromptu (and inexpensive) pill box.
I seem to be celebrating important anniversaries left and right lately.
Last November, it was the 10th anniversary of this little homeschooling adventure of ours. Who knew that those early days of phonics and addition would lead to Dante's Inferno and polynomials?
And my husband and I will celebrate 15 years of marriage this summer. Phenomenal!
But today I fondly remember that single sentence that propelled me into the land of blogs and posts, of navel gazing and soapbox minutia.
Hundreds visit my little part of the internet every day and I appreciate each and every one of you.
Thank you all for stopping by.
May your day be filled with...
It is very sad when a blogger must be reminded by her son to post. It's not really that I forgot, though; I've just been so occupied lately.
Spring fever has hit me and I keep thinking all the time about planting and growing.
Also, I've been terribly busy outfitting my rapidly-growing children. But I only enjoy shopping in theory, so let's return to the topic of planting.
I have this wonderful husband who actually buys me dirt. Buying dirt is an activity my children still find perplexing, but it is impossible to do anything much with all the sand we have lurking beneath the surface in this neighborhood.
My husband also bought me seed packets: True Lavender, Yarrow, Snow-in-Summer, Blue Flax, Mammoth Sunflower, and Black-Eyed-Susans. It is one of my life goals to grow my own sunflowers. It's another life goal to eat sunflower seeds I've grown. Kissing the Blarney Stone is yet another goal, but that's a tale for some other day.
In addition to all these seeds, I planted my Grand-MIL's amaryllis bulbs. Now, she said they were amaryllis, but it seems many bulbs of the Amaryllis family are erroneously called "Amaryllis". All I really know is that these bulbs grow lovely flowers.
This is what the flowers looked like when the plants bloomed back in April of 2006.
So, it's not that I've forgotten y'all. I'm just busy at the moment cleaning the dirt from underneath my fingernails.
I'm home this Easter morning. A family member has come down again with the Spring Plague that is going around. I'm home and there are so many other places I wish I was.
I wish I was in church. I wish we had a church. I wish I wasn't in constant pain. I wish I didn't have to take medicines that cloud my faculties. I wish I was not so impatient. I wish I didn't cry at the drop of a hat. I wish I could spend just one day healthy.
I wonder if Christ had wishes, that night in the garden, the night he sweated blood.
How much did he know about what was to come?
Did he know just how much he was going to suffer? Was it the pain of torture that hurt him so or the betrayals and abandonment? Which was worse: the nails or the broken heart?
I don't know, but I do know that when he exclaimed, "It is finished," on the cross that it wasn't. It was far from finished.
The story didn't end on the cross, in the darkness, in the midst of a coming storm. It looked like the end, but things are seldom as they appear.
And as much as we are persuaded that the story ends with sunrise services, with frilly dresses, with fancy brunches, with pastel eggs, with fluffy bunnies, that is not the end either.
The end has already been revealed; it is no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. The end is no more pain.
Today is not the end; it is the remembrance of things past, the celebration of things to come. Today is the reminder of Christ's promise to those who take up the cross and follow him.
Our story doesn't end alone in the dark; it ends with jubilee.
I've always wanted a Hobbit home. I think it has something to do with the round doors. I prefer round things, curvy things. They meander gently, without the sharpness of angles.
Knowing my fondness, my daughter made me a tiny Hobbit hill with a minusucle Hobbit house.
Isn't that so sweet? I'll completely overlook the fact that she made this whilst she was supposed to be engrossed in schoolwork. Ahem.
Really, though, who can be mad at her for long? She is such a sweet lass. And her left eyebrow always rises when she laughs. Just like her father.
He has very curly hair and promised she would too. He swore she'd have a head full of delicious baby curls.
Imagine my surprise when the midwife handed me a nearly-bald baby girl. But my husband promised me...and I've been bringing that up for fourteen years.
Yet, the poor child still had nothing but straight hair.
Then, suddenly, these springy spirals came from nowhere. I still can't believe it and I can't stop making them go boing-boing.
What an obnoxious mother I am!
But, honestly, could you restrain yourself around such angelic ringlets?
It took quite a while, but my husband did indeed keep his promise and gave me a beautiful, curly-tressed daughter.
But I supplied the freckles.
Our backyard is ajacent to a trailer park. No offence against people who live in trailers, but that park is a continual source of problems. Usually, it's petty robbers. The largest problem was the teenage serial rapist. Thankfully, he's in jail now. But, we're back to robbers now. One neighbor was cleaned out. Another neighbor had a broken fence to repair, but nothing stolen.
Then, there's our house.
Two bikes were stolen.
But, I'm not that upset. One bike was much too small for my rapidly growing son. The other bike had such a brake problem that multiple people were not able to repair it. Both bikes were headed elsewhere. They just made it to "elsewhere" a bit sooner than planned.
I am a bit peeved that a fence slat is broken and my husband will have to repair it.
That someone entered my domain, however, makes me downright livid.
This is my home and my yard. How dare some pipsqueak bike thief enter my realm! I'm considering my options: gun, viscious dog, barbed wire, electrical fence, attack skunk. What do you recommend?
Perhaps, I can learn falconry like the boy in "My Side of the Mountain" and train one of the lovely hawks that like to watch the Dawn rise while perched on my back fence.
I hope the poet of succinct apologies will forgive:
This is just to say -
Love means never sharing Strep -
Cough, Groan, Sneeze, Sniff, Moan
I think I might have actually improved upon the original, what with my homage to "Love Story" and inclusion of alliteration and onomatopoeia and all that. Please pay no attention to William Carlos Williams rolling in his grave.
I suspect this is just the sort of missive a pencil-pusher at the CDC sends to his loved ones. The royalties from Hallmark should come pouring in soon.
'Til then, I'm pushing pills and passing out tissues - as we all have Strep Throat.
Have you received your 2010 Census Form? Be sure to fill it out and send it back. Census records have always been an important part of genealogy and I want my descendents to be able to look me up in 72 years.
At my house, we have 2 White Puerto Rican guys, 1 White Puerto Rican girl, and 1 plain ol' White girl. In truth, we're a bunch of ethnic mutts here at my house - something we're proud of but something the census, unfortunately, does not capture.
So, here's my Census 2010 addendum:
1 male Spanish/French/Basque/African or Puerto Rican Indian
and
1 female Irish/Scottish/English/German?/American Indian
married with a boy and a girl
The census asks what color our skin is but I think the bigger question is whether America is a melting pot or salad bowl. I was taught by a teacher in high school that we are a salad bowl, but I am sure now that America is a melting pot. Why else would my little Puerto Ricans eat Colcannon on St. Patrick's Day?
Much like Emma Woodhouse in Jane Austen's "Emma", I love to make plans. I don't always follow them, but I sure do enjoy making them. Schedules and routines are some of my favorite plans to make and what better way is there of finding new schedule ideas than peeking into the schedules of four moms with a total of thirty-five kids.
The moms linked below have kindly offered a view into their lives and detailed their daily schedules:
I suddenly feel a planning yen coming on.
As of July 1, 2010, all Puerto Rican birth certificates will be invalid. This is because of a law enacted by the government of Puerto Rico last December.
It seems it was a common practice for Puerto Rican schools to retain a child's birth certificate while the child was in attendance at the school. Some criminal groups saw those unguarded collections of birth certificates as a way to easily provide illegal Hispanics with American birth certificates, as all Puerto Ricans are born Americans. After many schools were robbed, the government of Puerto Rico decided invalidating all birth certificates and issuing new ones was the only way to prevent fraud.
The new birth certificates will not be available until July 1, 2010 and will cost $5. The fee will be waived for those over the age of 60 or for veterans.
Those living outside Puerto Rico (as does my husband) will need to write the Puerto Rico Office of Vital Statistics on or after July 1, 2010 to request a new, state-of-the-art birth certificate.
More details are available in this PDF from the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration.
Monday we participated in the GBBC 2010 and enjoyed ourselves much. This was the most I have exerted myself since my brain surgery in November, so I was very tired afterwards. We stayed in our own neighborhood and didn't travel the local trail, as we usually do. Because of this, we didn't spot as many birds as in past years, but I think we still did well.
Here's our tally:
See? Not too bad. As you can see, we found many water birds - thanks to the three ponds in our tiny neighborhood.
The best part of the bird count was that we got a chance to see a newly laid clutch of Muscovy eggs.
A few photos from the bird count:
After H got home from work yesterday, we went to visit his great-aunt, Titi Pepita. The photo above is from four years ago, when she flew here from Texas. Back then, she was still able to play basketball with my kids. You might remember my mentioning her before. She's 104 this month and as fit as a fiddle, save for her hearing aid. There was a big scare a while back when she caught pneumonia and was very near death. At that time, I asked for your prayers. Y'all must have caught God's ear because she recovered and is as chipper as before. She is always happy and high-spirited. Even yesterday she was jolly, though H's grandmother who recently passed was Titi Pepita's best friend since childhood. Her vitality amazes us all.
Well, Titi Pepita is flying back to Texas tomorrow to see her sickly daughter and I'm sure she'll be detained by some ignorant TSA agent. If Joan Rivers is a danger to security, what will they think of a short, old lady from Puerto Rico who can't speak much English and can't hear? I just hope they don't confiscate her hearing aid as an incendiary device.
Titi Pepita says she'll return later this year and we look forward to seeing her again.
After visiting with Titi Pepita, we happened to drive by a hole-in-the-wall BBQ joint we have passed for ages. It always smells delicious from the road and we say each time we pass that one day we'll have to stop there. Well, yesterday we made a u-turn and seized the day. Let me tell you, the BBQ was as delicious as it smelled. The people inside were so pleasant, too. They even gave the kids free drinks while we waited for our to-go order. It turns out that the place is run by an ex-football player from the Buccaneers (Go, Bucs!). We tried a combo of pork, beef, sausage, BBQ beans, potato salad, fries, and their special sauce. All was so, so good - much better than the chain BBQ place, Sonny's. I was rather sad to let go of the leftovers so that H could take them to work today for lunch. If you find yourself near the Tampa International Airport, stop by Jazzy's BBQ. You will not be sorry.
And that is my "Carpe Diem" story for the week.
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's. We managed to have a good holiday (as you can see from the children's glee shown above) despite illnesses and a death in the family.
If you follow my Twitter, you already know that my husband's last grandparent passed away right before Christmas. This is the same grandmother who gave me so many craft materials over the years, including the plastic canvas S used recently. After her death, all of her crochet yarn and metal hooks were brought to me, as she had requested. I also have many other items she had given to me over the years. I feel honored to have so many of her treasured things about me and I'm happy that she is once again at the side of her beloved husband who passed nine years ago.
Between her death and my brain surgery, I seem to have been slapped with the truth that we are all here for but a moment. It's not that I didn't take death seriously already, it's just that death is brushing too closely by me lately.
The night she passed away, H and I were sorrowful. We had not visited her as much as we should have. But while it's true that we should have made more time for her, I knew that we had always brought her a lot of joy and had worked hard to give her a close relationship with two of her eleven great-grandchildren.
Sometimes your best is not all it should be, just all it could be.
A post like this usually ends with a plea to spend more time with those you love, but I won't tell you that. Until Death comes riding down your street, such platitudes are empty. I will tell you, though, that regrets are many and days are few. Too many die with "I wish.." on their lips, but Carmen died with joy. I hope when my time comes that I do too.
Look what I got this weekend. H and S built me sewing cubbies and I am so glad to finally have a place for everything and everything in its place.
I was also productive. I whittled three large Rubbermaid containers, a laundry basket, and a baker's rack down to what you see in the cubies.
Even though my sewing desk is in the family room, I now feel as though I have a real space of my own in which to be creative.
On the top, you see candle holders from H last Christmas, a basket for my camera, the Royal Game of Ur we made, the children's woodwind instruments, my nature study box.
In the middle, you see cloth, a round tin of pants' patches, a square tin of trims, a picnic basket of ribbons, my white sewing basket, my brown crochet basket.
On the bottom, you see a picnic basket of quilting pieces, a crocheted bag of buttons, my craft books, a pink bag of crochet pieces, a hat box of cross stitch and embroidery thread and hoops.
I'm really excited. Can you tell?
H also built cubbies for S's bedroom closet, which made it possible for S to finally clean his room. It turns out there's a floor in there. Who knew?! Sorry, no picture.
And for a finale, H and D built this late yesterday:
Nope, not a furniture crate. It's the frame of a window seat - with lots of storage space. Ever since H built our family room, I have wanted a window seat in this spot and soon I'll be able to sit and watch the birds visit our birdfeeder. The storage space will, of course, allow me to hide a multitude of crafting materials. ;)
I have no idea what made H so industrious this weekend. I suppose it must have been the turn in the weather. Whatever it was, I sure do appreciate it.
Since I'm still recovering from the whole brain surgery thing, my sister-in-law invited us over for Thanksgiving. My neighbors heard and surprised us by ordering Thanksgiving for us so that I won't have to leave the house. Isn't that so sweet?
My post-surgery update:
On my Free Things page, you can find my Thanksgiving Menu - if I was able to cook.
I hope to post again before Thursday. If I don't, here's Tennessee Ernie Ford singing one of my favorite harvest hymns:
This is my first time back on my computer since my surgery. I am still in great pain and am waiting to decide whether the surgery was worth the agony. I spent four, unpleasant days in the hospital. Since coming home, I have spent most of my time sleeping or watching TV. I haven't felt well enough to even read. The family has doted on me greatly and I have enjoyed having my husband home with me all these days.
The surgery was harder than I expected. After opening me up, my neurosurgeon was surprised to find my arachnoid membrane to be opaque and discovered that my trigeminal nerve was surrounded by scar tissue. It appears I must have had Meningitis as a child. The surgeon said it looked as though glue had been squirted all around. He removed the scar tissue and separated the trigeminal nerve. He also sectioned the nerve to cause numbing so that I won't received so many pain signals.
Right now, I have the pain from the trigeminal neuralgia and the surgical pain, as well. My jaw keeps popping out of place. My numb eye leaks and needs eye drops. It's difficult to open my mouth to eat. I have to be careful when I swallow because part of my throat is numb also.
I do feel a tiny bit better each day and hope I will eventually think this was all worth it.
My surgical tape fell off yesterday and we all got our first look at my wound:
D said it looks like she sewed me up (and she didn't mean that as a complement) and S cried for the first time of this whole ordeal. The one good thing I can say is that my long thick hair covers the wound perfectly. With my hair down, no one can tell I was a patient of Dr. Frankenstein.
Another good thing is that I received three bouquets of lovely flowers and that many kind people have called to see how I am.
I hope I will be able to return to my blog more and that my health will continue to improve.
Thank you all for your kind thoughts and prayers.
Okay, I'm heading to the hospital tomorrow to try this surgery thing again. Once again, I beg your kind thoughts and prayers.
I leave you with a photo of the lovely sunflowers my Mother-in-Law picked for me from her friend's house:
Can you believe such beauty was growing wild? Amazing!
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Refrain
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
Refrain
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Refrain
For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.
Refrain
Refrain
And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.
Refrain
I'll be frank here: I am the world's worst correspondent. Honestly, my closest relatives have to call me to find out if I received their important emails. And don't ask the age of that lovely stack of unused stationery on my desk.
However, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Below is a recent comment from a visitor and I'd like to respond in a new post because I have had many visitors lately with Trigeminal Neuralgia.
Dear TNFriend,
Thank you so much for your comment. It is wonderful to hear from another Trigeminal Neuralgia patient. I hope you are currently doing better than when you wrote me.
It is now a little over three months since my surgery. I know my scar photo was rather gross, but what looked so terrible was mostly surgical glue. The scar is much better and less Dr. Frankenstein now. It's also very smooth. My hair, like yours, covers the scar and the indentation in my skull. I don't touch the area because doing so makes my ear ache. As for the rest of my recovery, I feel normal again, though I don't have as much energy and it's unpleasant to hang my head down. I'm certainly not as afraid now of brain surgery. I feel a bit like a wine bottle with a popped cork.
I am so sorry to hear that you are not painfree, especially since this is a most horrible pain we live with. And it is terrible to have your hopes dashed when you expect the surgery to cure you. As to the success of my Microvascular Decompression: practically none. I'd say none at all, but, truly, I can eat and smile and laugh with a bit less pain than before my surgery. I think I have had far less improvement than most patients of MVD because of the fact that my trigeminal nerve was not in a typical situation for this problem.
As to side effects of the surgery: the attempt to deaden the nerve a little means I often use eye drops in my left eye and for a while I heard a frequent ticking noise in my head; now, I sometimes hear a roaring (like the sea) in my left ear. I've been told that healing can last more than six months. My surgeon has suggested that we try Stereotactic Radiation Therapy, but I am still waiting to see if I have any more improvement - to the chagrin of my husband who would like me to stop hurting.
I'd love to hear from you again. I'm also on Twitter, if you'd like to chat there. Thank you for taking the time to leave me a comment and I appreciate your prayers. You are in my prayers also.
Blessings,
Mrs. Happy Housewife