The Time Is Counting Down

It is almost 8 PM here and in just a few short hours, this year is over.  And try as hard as I might, I have to finally admit that I am sick. Not the way I wanted to bring in the new year just in case that old saying that what you do on New Year’s Eve is what you will be doing the next year is true. Fever, headache from H, sore throat, chills and breathing is way off…having to keep the oxygen on 24/7 right now.

I wonder if there is a return center for viruses or infections?  I would be standing there in line, dragging my oxygen with me. I could see it now…reason for return..”I tried it and I don’t like it”. Son has tried to entice me to eat but I just am not hungry, so I am going to head back under the covers and turn the lights back out and lay here and stare at J and J and see if it will put me back to sleep. Jack has been standing guard at my bed. He does that when I am sick…like he knows something is wrong.

I wanted to be up to see the year come in but just can’t do it…..so you all whoop and holler and pop the cork on the champagne and sing the song for me. ok .:)  Happy New year to all

Traveling through Friends

I am so blessed by friends who take me with them on their trips and show me sites I have never seen before.  My friend Sassy takes me all over the United States on her travels with pictures and videos and it is such a joy. Just because one can not do things the normal way, does not mean we can’t find new ways of doing them.

I have been around England and thanks to a dear friend in the UK….Helena..I have dipped my feet in the water at the sea at Cornwall through this video. She made this video for me. They have traveled all over and I have loved seeing the pictures from their adventures.

video by squidlynoodle

I have been on the cruise ship with friends, traveled by internet to the Bahamas, watched the dolphins in the ocean, walked the beaches in other states, been in Churches in New Mexico, been up north in grand Hotels and seen the beautiful views from the high-rise rooms…all through pictures and videos. All because friends care enough to carry me with them.

What a gift that is to let someone else be part of your travels and fun. I had a friend named Audrey five years back. She died of kidney cancer but she and I talked daily for months and months as she was going through her battle. Sometimes we talked two or three times a day. She carried me by phone to concerts and held her cell phone out so I could hear it with her, she sent pictures of videos and talked to me while on vacations. It was such a wonderful gift for someone in her shape to do.

Next time you are traveling, think about those you know that can’t get out and share with them. It is so exciting and makes someone who is home bound or mostly home bound feel like they are part of life.

Life and Expectations

Is is 5:30 AM and all is well. I love this time of day when the hustle bustle is quieted down and the darkness is starting to lift and it is quiet and soothing to the senses. Jack woke me to go outside for a few minutes and is now back in his bed, snuggled under his covers and already I hear the soft hum of his snoring.

Son fixed the small music box in here on Jack’s hut so I could play CD’s or even records if I wanted. Sometimes I just have the radio on in the background. Being as sensory as I am, music seems to fill me and I feel the beat within me coursing through my body. It energizes me.

I am so looking forward to Mama’s visit. We have been looking at places to visit while she is here.  Mama (my aunt) lives in St. Louis. I think that is a pretty area. I went up in the golden arch a few years back and that was quite an experience. I also rode on the steamboat. I loved it.

We all have expectations in life. Some actually turn out like we envision them and others go way off track. My expectations of Mama’s visit is that it will be great and I don’t anticipate it going off track either.

But sometimes our expectations fall short and we are disappointed and hurt. I have seen many like that lately and I wish I had the miracle cure but I don’t. I think when that happens, two things happen. We become disappointed that something we believed in so much turned out to not be what it appeared and then we have acceptance that this is just what it is and we move on past.

(click on the images to enlarge them)

Life is all a journey and the only life you can really save….is your own. Many will follow destructive paths and you can’t do a thing about them but you can do something about the choices you make. We are all given clarity on life at different times and so we don’t all come to the same conclusion at the same time, therefore we have to follow our path and just hope that those that are still behind begin to see the way.

Sitting here watching a travel show on how to visit on $40 a day. Much as I would love to visit Italy again, I do not see it happening any time soon. I wish someone would send me to check out places and spend $40 a day on food.  LOL

I was blessed to go with a church group to Italy. We went to Rome and Assisi and it was awesome. OMG. My dream is to go back one day before I die. The story is if you throw your coins in the Trev Fountain, then you will return to Rome. Oh Roma my Roma.  Well, you can be sure I did throw a handful of coins in.

We also went to the Pantheon. Oh my this whole area is rich with history and the architecture is to die for. I was totally on a spiritual journey. For many on this trip it was a shopping spree. For me, it was the journey of a life time.

We went to all the Cathedrals and to Assisi too. What amazed me most is the artwork. It is everywhere…on the walls, on the ceilings, on the floors.  And to see these things still preserved is awesome.

I would get lost in the beauty and they would have to come find me. But I would not trade ONE moment of that trip. I am disabled and it is hard for me to travel and right now I travel by watching it online or on the travel channel. But one day….my dream is to go back to Italy and see those places again.

Your life is YOUR journey. Are you making the most of yours or is it being side tracked by what others do?  Remember, you can not control what others do but you can control how you react to what they do and you can control what they do to you by avoiding those that bring negativity to your life.

So, the sun is shining and I have had my coffee and enjoyed a nice leisurely morning filled with peace.  I hope your morning was too.

MIddle of the Night Ramblings

Wow, woke up with horrible muscle spasms in my legs. This is when I sound like one of the horror movies as I try to walk with crutches and one leg just won’t work. Son says I do the “thump”  ”thump” “drag”  sound. Once the spasms let go, I can laugh about it. But until then, is no laughing matter.

I kept dreaming a dream of jury duty, Casey Anthony and other trials.  Now, I know this trial is a civil case and not a long trial but it sure was a crazy dream time. I was probably as shocked as everyone else with the Casey Anthony outcome but trials of late have me worried about our jury system. I see Juries trying to “make a statement”  when their job is to uphold the law and carry out the judicial system. I see Juries who convict because they didn’t like the person got off the time before, even if there were not enough evidence. So, my faith in this system is really low. Perhaps this is why I feel obligated to go down there for jury selection.

Is nice to wake up with a cool house. We got our electric bill from the month of the 5000 BTU air condition and swamp cooler running. It was 250.00.  I was not surprised for that little AC would not even shut the compressor off as it could not cool the house.  Next month will tell us a lot. But meanwhile, I am where my eyes are clear and I can breathe without struggling so.

I hear Jack over there snoring. He raised his head up once as if to say “Mom, what are you doing” as I thump thump dragged around the room and out into the LR and Kitchen. Waking to such severe pain on the inner thighs is like waking up in hell and you can’t get your brain cleared enough to think. Thank God, I have reflex that helps propel me from the bed and onto the crutches for that is all that will get that part of my spine to release the pressure on those nerves.

I love the quietness of this house. I have learned through the years that there are certain things that accelerate my pain and noise is one.  Bright lights and crowds are others. So, the peace in this house as we get it set up is so nice. I actually sat in the recliner in the living room last nite and son and I just talked. A long time coming that was. It is a joy to use all of the house for the first time in years.

And the red headband is still on and I am still in fight to survive mode. Is how I keep rocking and rolling. How I keep from giving up and just quitting. I am too stubborn to just lay back and do nothing. And besides that…there are dreams to work.  So, back down for hopefully a couple more hours sleep before that trip to the courthouse and that ride on that magical metal lift up those courthouse steps as they sure are a climb. I know..I did it yesterday..probably the reason for the spasms tonite. And as son says, my guardian angel was right behind me to keep me from falling up or down those brick steps. And they were not even yellow bricks like in the Oz.

A Very Frustrating Day

We have spent most the day with the internet going off and on, off and on.  We have already had the cable people out here once and they told us it was a system problem. Today was the worst ever. By noon, I think we had been “off”  fifty times. The guy called me from the field and said he was working on it. Son had already talked to him once. I answered the next time and told him I was beginning to regret using this company and he assured me he was working on it all day and all weekend to find the problem. He had me call him every time it went off and every time it came back on. He said I was faster than the system monitoring device. I felt like I was dating the man after about the twentieth call and we continued this up until about 8 last nite.

While I was monitoring the computer and calling, son brought in another load of boxes and more concrete statues.  He was busy unpacking and I was busy being the relay person and getting very frustrated that I could not get on my site. But it was exciting to have things brought in and see things we have not seen in over a year for we have been packed up that long waiting to sell and move.

Son and I both are very eclectic in taste and nothing in our home is like the soap opera houses where everything is beautiful and matches and looks perfect. What good is perfect if there is no joy or life in the home? My glasses do not match. I like that. I like having a different style glass every time I get a drink. Our pictures on the wall range from Norman Rockwell, to paintings by family members, to signed prints from historical societies, to copies of famous artists like Rembrandt. Did I say eclectic?  lol

We both are collectors. I collect old dolls, vintage jewelry , and that kind of stuff. Son collects magazines, cooking items like brown stoneware dishes, and that kind of stuff and we blend it into a very eclectic household.

I was thrilled when he brought in a box as I sat here watching the computer and said “look…your big raggedy ann and andy dolls. I bought them at a yardsale for five dollars each. They are vintage/antique and a lady in a shop I know offered me three hundred for them. They are originals and their clothes are too and are three feet tall.

 Son was busy in the kitchen unloading stoneware, bottles and mixing bowls and finding places for them.

The dining room, as you can tell is minus the table but getting closer to being done. The corner cabinet will be here soon. It will be a hard one for son to move on his own as it is heavy and wooden. He wants to put his great grandparents red and white dishes in it to display them. Right now they are under the wine rack. It felt good to hold them in my hands again for it was like feeling them here with us. And for some reason, I grew teary as I thought of the pioneers who crossed these mountains and had to throw out things like their great grandparents dishes or rocker. Not huge things but so sentimental.

My beautiful deep red and black dishes are on the safe shelves and really look great there. I can’t wait until we get the breakfast nook table here and can bring the stone table into the dining room.

I love the old vintage/antique metal trays. I think they are beautiful and a lost art.

And I so love these kitchen cabinets and having a place to put pretty items on top. If you look under the cabinet and in the back of the picture you will see all the junk that has been pulled out and is going back to storage. Son had the counters coverd with things but finally got them in cabinets and put up.

Son bought me this little shelf in the shape of a dog. I think it is so cute and holds some of my little nick nack items I like to collect. I love the little figurines…the old ones.

As you can see, we are definitely not rich. We just like to make our home special for us. We don’t do it by what the decorating books say but by what gives us pleasure to see. I want to add a picture to this post in the morning of the new statues, especially the beautiful painted one of Mary. it is nice to see them in the yard. So, check back later and see if I got it on.

Son has almost emptied one of the storage units. If we can do that and get it down to one, we will be very happy. Below is a box that feels like it is made of stone. I keep my sage and burning bowl in there to burn to remove the negative and keep the positive in this house and our lives. What peace this house has now. I love what it says on top…for faith is what it is all about. Have faith in yourself and in your dream and step out and go for it. When you reach the point on the big life changing dreams…that you are willing to give it all up to live a more simpler life for example, or for what ever that dream is…then faith will carry you the rest of the way. Remind yourself often…possessions are just that…things…and can be replaced.  But the dream of your life…is worth giving it up for.

The box says on top:

FAITH IS THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS

HOPED FOR, THE EVIDENCE OF THINGS 

NOT SEEN

If you have to have all the answers before you will step out with your dream….you may never get there. We moved out here and over the mountain this time with the faith that God would provide our needs and that need was a home…and He did.  He does not provide all our wants…but He does provide our needs. I have seen that too many times through the years when things happened and I had no answer for how ….I just knew it was Him. People asked us…you are moving over this mountain and don’t have a house to go to yet?  And I told them no we were doing like the baseball field….if we go..the home will be there.

A Day of Surprises

Yesterday was one of those rare days where it seemed like everything was coming up roses. It was a day of accomplishment as removing that grungy stove hood and installing the new one was completed. Son and I both were dousing ourselves with GERM X because that thing was so nasty. *shudder*   And we finally got it off and into the box the new one came in and out the door. Then we had to scrub the surrounding area. Son also had to rig the exhaust tube as the size of the tubes did not match. Here  is the old one:

And here is the new one in progress. OMG, when son pulled it down this whole nest of stuff fell on the stove.  He had to enlarge the hole so that the wider tube would fit and go get additional parts to change from one size to the next. Just the pieces cost 35 dollars and son was shocked.

AND here is the finished product.  I love it. I woke up this morning and went to get coffee and just ran my hand across the hood thinking how nice. And then realized…my hand did not stick to it nor was it gunky. And son says he can now see what he is cooking. LOL

Yesterday morning I was talking to a friend on messenger when she asked me what I was doing. I told her I was sitting here talking to her. She said..well I sent you a package and the tracking says it is at your front door. Squealing with delight, I hopped up (haha now that is a visual on crutches..giggling)  and went to the front door and sure enough, there was a package. I had to slide it back to my room cause carrying is impossible on forearm crutches. When I opened it, I cried. There inside was this absolutely beautiful blue quilt with “work the Dream” at the top and pictures of my mountains for the squares. It was soft and you could see the care put into every stitch. I was messaging my friend, Sue Gottscho from Florida, all but sending squeals across the internet. It was such a sweet and caring thing to do and touched my heart in a way that is hard to explain.

Have you ever been doing some kind of work, whether paid or volunteer and you start to feel unappreciated and wonder if all the work you had been doing for months had been for waste and was unappreciated?  That is how I have been feeling lately. I am the kind that will stand up for what I believe, even if it is in disagreement with those over me. Being against a concept is not the same thing as being against the person but not all feel that way.  Anyway, the note Sue put in with my quilt told me that I inspired her and those words were like balm to a wounded heart. I wish I could truly put into words but I think you all get the idea.

So, here is my gorgeous quilt with close up of some of the squares. I love my mountains out here. And yes, my heart still wants to be in the mountains, but my mind knows this house was a gift from God and we are letting him lead. A big thank you to Sue for my quilt and for the timing of it. Many hugs friend. I have a rod in storage to put it on but for now it is penned to the wall.

You might recognize this picture and she put Work the Dream on it.

And this picture

The angles of the squares are my photo taking, not Sue’s work.  I was trying to balance on one crutch and take the pictures while it hung on wall.

and of course my real mountains….:)

And last but not least, it is so nice to put things up that make it more home like…like on my kitchen cabinet.

And for my friend sassy…a subliminal message.  Ok ok..not so subliminal. hahahah

OMG son is so excited over the new hood and seeing what he is cooking, he is out there cooking breakfast and look what he brought me. We may need a diet plan for this new hood…giggling.

And here is Jack, who wants to share breakfast, laying between bed and my command central.

Wow, I Didn’t Remember We Had This….Opening Packed boxes

The morning started off with us sitting outside to sip our coffee and eat toast. It was so funny as no matter where son went, Jack was begging for that piece of toast with jelly.

 And, after he decided he was not getting any (which he wasn’t), he and the neighbor dog across the field behind the house decided to have a conversation. Poor little dog is in a kennel cage. He runs in circles sometimes.

We knew we had to stick close to home for the Bresnan man was due between noon and five and I wanted that internet fixed. Turns out, they say it is a system problem and they are “working” on it. Then the cable guy started working on the DVR box, which the one he brought in was also defective. So, we are rescheduled for Monday. This poor man stood here for a couple of hours, waiting on the main office to call him back so that he could proceed. They are much slower on this side of the mountain. We had excellent service and care on the other side. So, the internet is still going on and off, on and off and we have no solution.

Son has started bringing boxes over so we can start putting things up. Today we hung some pictures and what a change it brought in the house. Things are going slower now and it may take us all summer to get things put up like we want but at least we do not have to rush. It was so nice to have some of our possessions and see familiar things. That really make a place feel like home. Son brought over a few of my outside statues and he said he had forgotten how heavy these concrete statues were. He called them hernia boxes. Lol

The dutch boy and girl came from a vintage shop. They are very fragile and suffered from the journey over the mountain, but I plan on fixing them. The St. Francis statue is quite big and I left the dolly handle showing to show how tall it is. And this boy and girl in rain coats has an umbrella packed in a box that goes over them. It is really part of a fountain and son hopes to get it set back up as a fountain too.

It felt like Christmas to open some of those boxes and see things I had in my bedroom on the other side of the mountain. I love dolls and collect them. I like the older and unusual ones. The Little Lulu doll is like one I had as a child. And I especially love the little things from my sweetpea from her little note to me and her pictures. I sure to miss her.

But it also felt good to put things on the walls and to have things on the chest of drawers and tops of things. Although my room is not totally set up like I want it  yet, it felt like I was in a real room instead of a white box. That is a super thing for now, for feet and legs are swollen and I will be laying here with them up in the air for a few days.

Oh, and the new hood for over the stove came. I am so excited and so is son. The only thing we are not excited about is that the one we are taking down is covered in so much grease and grime we hate to even touch it.  Tomorrow (which is actually today as it is three thirty in the morning) son will install the hood.

And I patched the first hole in the house. I am the sheet rock and mud person. I sit on a stool to do this work, but was so proud of how it came out. And a big thank you to my other son back east. I know if he were here, he would be helping get this done, but he is miles and miles away from us. So, he helps by phone and told me a new way to put the piece of sheet rock in such a large hole. There was a lot of violence in this house. You can see the kicked and punched holes all over. Here is my first patch of one of the big holes. The patched place is above the trash can and towards the curtain.

Some are child height and some are adult height. I literally could make a fist and put my hand beside some of these holes and the outline of the fist is there. To tell you how many holes there are to patch, we bought a five gallon bucket of mud to use. My bathroom alone has four holes with little stuffed animals sticking out of them. The dining room area has three or four big (and I mean big like a basketball) kicked and punched holes and the living room has a couple. I could keep going but you get the picture. We had to replace the door frame into my bedroom, the master bedroom, for it had a deadbolt and the door had been kicked in at some time. A few of the hollow inner doors were kicked in and broken. For now, we just threw them away and will replace as we go along. It runs into a lot of money when you start repairing all of these cosmetic things.  The kitchen counter has places that looked like someone hit it with a hammer. We saw this new treatment you can put on formica counters to make them look like granite, etc. We are going to do that down the road.

Son and I are amazed at the peace in this house since we saged it to remove any negative energy. This is such a quiet and peaceful place and the more we get done, the nicer it is. Is it a mansion?…no. But it is ours. And it is a nice home. I have enjoyed seeing son come in excited about meeting the neighbors. It is good for him to get out and meet people and have other interests than taking care of his disabled and sick mother. I believe he has met several of the neighbors, visited at their houses and really enjoyed himself.

I love laying here and listening to the tinkle of my chimes and now the melodic bamboo sound from the bear chimes I got.  The room is very much my room now and one that I can relax in and is my sanctuary of peace. Jack has the chimes over his hut but he seems to like them now that he has determined they are safe. With the fan blowing in the room, the soothing sounds play all the time.

And of course, I must show a picture of my mountains today. We were riding out to see the guys at the Rio and quess what we saw walking up the street only a few streets from our house?  In the middle of town no less.  A DEER! I told son with our feeders outside, we are liable to wake up one morning and see one in Jack’s little penned in area. And that would be so cool. I was so mad at myself that I forgot my camera and didn’t get a picture. We rode out to see Leroy and the guys and pick up a present from my friend sassy….a crepe myrtle tree. I was so excited. It is now planted in front of the porch and one day in the near future will make shade for that porch plus lovely color.

 

I thought I had taken a picture but will have to do it on tonite’s blog. Son here is always trying to make things easier for me. Because of the heat it puts off, my oxygen machine sits around the corner in the LR. This means I have this long hose that keeps the door from shutting unless I drop it to the floor and then shut the door. Son took a piece of pvc pipe and drilled a hole at the top of the wall near the ceiling and put it in so that the hose from the machine comes through the wall instead of the door and the excess is looped behind the door where I can take it down on those days I need oxygen on during the day a lot. Now, how smart and cool is that?

And now I am getting sleepy again and think I will lay back down. It will soon be morning and another day at the Blu Moon Inn will start. Don’t you just love the name of our house. I picked it out.  I have a lot of paperwork to get together and to fax to the lawyer as the hearing is the sixteenth of this month. I am hoping justice will prevail and that those people who acted so horrendous to a disabled person are reprimanded. My lawyer is making the five and a half hour trip back there to be in the hearing. He was livid.

And I am exited cause I have a package coming today.  Someone told me they shipped me something they made and it will arrive today…so that puts a smile on my face.  While son will be hauling stuff again, I will be here looking at my sausage toes, laying on this bed with my feet up in the air.  But don’t worry…I am part goodyear and part dupont. I bounce back. Life is too short to spend it filled with worries and frustrations. It is also too short to spend it letting others hurt you….life will be filled with pain, sorry, hurt, betrayal, and ugliness…it is a fact. What you do with it..is up to you.  I choose to not let it invade my personal space anymore. And I do not let my health nor the pain I live with daily keep me from living life. Every day can be an adventure and when you are following your dreams…what an adventure it is. Some thought we were crazy to sell our house, pack up and move here but we would not change it for the world. This little sleepy town is exactly what we wanted. There is still community spirit here and yet still privacy..even being on the edge of town. And I can still see the tips of my mountains. The dream is unfolding daily. What about you?  Gone after any of your dreams yet?  Every day that slips by is one day less that you have to live it.

 

When Do You Make The Step?

Dreams come in all sizes and packages from those of the small child to the small ones of adults and the lifelong dreams we have. Today I was asked when do you know is the time to step out and go for the dream.

Going after your dream is a scary thing. We sit an imagine all the scary things that can happen especially if it is a life altering dream, like moving to Colorado was for us, or selling the house and moving over the mountain was. All the what if’s hit you in the middle of the night. What if we lose everything? What if we make the wrong move? What if we fail? What if…what if…what if.

Someone once gave me a card that said “Go for your dream, for if you don’t you will spend the rest of your life wondering what would have happened had you done so.” That card led me to get my CDL..which is a commercial truck driver’s license. That dream was something I just wanted to do and was terrified for fear I would fail.  That same card led us over the countryside and into the Rocky mountains and eventually led us to here, at the base of my mountains.

I realized with dreams, the major question is “how much are you willing to give up to have your dream?”.  Are you willing to risk losing your financial security?  your home?  your possessions? Are you willing to risk the possibility that you may have to start over or live in something that is not quite what you planned to get there?

By the time I reached my fifties, I had realized that possessions are just that…they can be replaced and the longer I live…the less I find I need. Give me my computer and my room and I am good to go. Son here is the same way..we each would have been happy in our own one room cabin in the woods.And by the time I reached my sixties, I have realized that I need less and less material things.

We start off wanting everything…the home, the car, the fancy furniture, etc and we go through life upgrading and investing more and more money and time into these things. And yet, the one thing I hear people tell me is “I remember how happy I was when we lived in that tiny bungalow starting out and life seemed so much easier.”  And it was easier in the sense that we owned less possessions and possessions are a burden and a financial strain. If we put as much time and money into relationships as we do possessions, the divorce rate would probably be nil.

So, how do you know when to step out on faith?  I think that is the crux of the problem. We say we have faith but we are afraid to step out and faith is doing it not being able to see what will be down that road. We have faith in God even though  we can not prove His existence because we believe and when you believe your dream so strongly….you will step out and make the step.

Son and I decided to move to Colorado and it took us 8 months to get the money up to pay for the move and for his flight out to find a house to rent and a job. We had picked where we thought we wanted to be only to discover when he got here that it was not as it seemed. He called me and said he did not have that gut feeling about the little town and what should he do. I said “pray son and I will pray and in the morning, let God lead you.”  And that is what we did and he got up the next morning and said “I think God wants me to go here” and that is what he did. When He got to the town, in one day he found a house and a job.  I have learned that when things fall into place…it is the Lord leading. When we beat our heads against a brick wall to get what we want…it is us leading.

We wanted the house to sell so desperately and the marked crashed. Nothing we did sold that house and two years went by and we both began to wonder was moving to this area what we were supposed to do. And it took us reaching the point of realizing all things happen in “God’s time” not ours and we said “ok God…you lead and we will follow”.  And the rest is history.

The house showed one day and in three weeks it was sold, and we were on our way. We came to a motel that had old friends that took us in and treated us like family and watched over us while we found a house and the right house just opened up and we now own our home and are fixing all the cosmetic things and living here at the base of my beloved mountains. Everything seemed to fall into place with ease….and I knew who was leading then.

Don’t throw your dreams away because you think you can never do them. You may have to adjust them a little, like we did with this house but you can find a way. Get out and do those things…step out on faith. Plan and work for that dream for it is the most delicious wonderful feeling in the world to feel your dream unfolding for you…whether it is something as simple as taking up painting, writing a book,going back to school,  traveling to a certain place…whatever. Dreams and hope are what keep us going and as long as we have “hope”…we can have dreams.

 

Step out on faith and know that your guardian angel is watching over you and have faith in what you want to do…and just do it.

Home–My Sanctuary and Yours

It took me many years to realize that home should be for the ones who live there, not for how it looks for visitors. Most of us have probably done the “decorating” to make it look great for those who come to visit and don’t always think about our own needs or comfort.

I learned this when I had to make my house more handicapped accessible and room for a scooter to move around and I started removing furniture to make it easier for me. Yes, I had friends that said ..*where is your couch??”  and acted offended that we did not have it there for them. At first, I felt guilty and then I realized this is my home and it should be set up for me.

Well, today was one of those enlightening moments.  We had hoped to replace the sliding glass door as it is a heat magnet. I have been having trouble with my breathing because my room is on that end of the house and we can not get the temp down below 80 degrees, which is too hot for me.

This morning a friend reminded me of what we call “redneck sun block”  for the windows….plain ole aluminum foil. Well, son and I decided that what happened inside the house was more important than what it looked like outside the house and so…needless to say…the sliding glass doors are covered with foil…and man does it work. Dropped the temp in my room five degrees instantly.

 And this is my favorite one….Jack likes to pull the tissue off the roll, so I had son put the holder up high. Is easier for me and takes.care of the jack sitch. LOL…my home…my bathroom.

while I have you in my bathroom…LOL   look at my lovely garden tub. One day I will have bars for it so I can use it too. Doesn’t it look pretty.

This is just a peek into my bedroom at Jack’s hut. He is so funny. He likes to be inside something only does not like walls around it. So, we fitted a cover that looked nice but he could go out the side too.  Got the vintage rug down and going to put some colorful window scarf across the top of the window. Also going to paint my hospital bed so it does not look quite so institutional.

Today is one of those days that feels like Christmas. Son installed the new command central with dual monitors and my tv is on a swing arm and tilts down, making it easier to see laying here on the bed.

He found this neat bracket that not only swings out but tips all angles to put the tv on.

Might be disabled but there is usually a way to do something if you are creative enough.  I remember once my son telling me he had never seen anyone use a power chair like me…that it was almost like it was part of me. I told him..it is. Between son and I, we are pretty creative at figuring ways for my life to be productive and as as less pain as possible.

Here is Jack on the vintage rug that he thinks we put down just for him.

Our little breakfast nook. As you can tell, we have one window done with redneck window tint…LOL..and the other not. Still working on that. But I love the little nook. Son is putting my old computer there to use for artistic things.

And I say thank God for crock posts, a chunk of meat and some vegetables. For these two weary..new home owners…are exhausted.

We decided home was for the owners and we fix it for our comfort and ease not our visitors. Visitors are wonderful, but they are just that…visitors into our domain. So, beware if you come visit at our home…cause we be part redneck. LOL

There Are Dreams And There Are Dreams

Son staggers to the bedroom door, his eyes half-open and says “do you think exhaustion causes weird dreams?”   I told him I definitely did. He said he dreamed that I made him put up these hideous yellow colored awnings on the windows and then stick all these tacky broken purple and pink flamingos in the yard and that he was arguing with me the whole time saying ….”it’s fugly mama. it’s fugly.”   LOL   As he walked off, I casually said  ”BTW, son, the flamingos are in the shed”. HA HA HA.

Dreams come in all sizes and we dream from the time we are little. As kids we dream of what we will get for Christmas, of that special doll or bike or whatever. As adults, our dreams take on what we desire in our hearts for our lives. This house was a dream. Yes, we have some working against us on our dreams…the social service people from where we moved..and that is ok. Justice I believe will prevail at the hearing on June 16th.  But we had and still have other dreams that go along with this.

This can below holds a dream. I carried this can as if it were treasure over the mountain. Made sure it was not in the heat, kept protected and rode in the van.

Does not look like much inside, does it?

The can contains packets of seeds…Heirloom seeds. Each pack contains a different variety and it is our dream to plant our garden with these. It is time here to start planting. We don’t usually start until after the end of May.

Heirloom seeds are not touched by genetic altering like plants we get today. Every tried to grow plants from the seeds of the plants we buy today and get those deformed little plants that do nothing?  That is why.  With Heirloom seeds, they will reproduce from the seeds and create plants like the first ones you plant. We harvest the seeds just like we harvest the crop.

Many people do seed swaps because finding these seeds is so hard. We bought ours this time from someone who specializes in heirloom seeds and we were lucky to get them for they are hard to get and she lets you know that after a certain time, the seeds are no longer available.  I want heirloom flowers too. I used to have many back east where we lived but when we moved here, my seeds got lost.

 I have other dreams too…both son and I do.  We both dream that all the work and moving will be done soon and we can relax. I also dream of simple things like finishing my other blog, learning on the Rosetta Stone program, setting up my art easel, planting my flowers and seeds….we all have dreams. What are yours? It is dreams that keep us going.

Now, to show you how creative we can be.  I can not stand the unfixed holes in the sheet rock. I imagine all sorts of bugs and critters crawling through.  *shudder*…So one day, son comes in and asks me why he sees dinosaurs sticking out of the wall and other critters. I told him that it is my new decorating theme. LOL

Well, even dreams need help sometimes, don’t you think?  Lol

Poor Jack…he is indignant.  ha