Letting go

[grandma in pain]

Hi Honeybera. The reason why I say, "would've" is because it was growing/spreading at such a rate that you could see all the necrosis left in it's path.

Anyway, all is good right now My next appointment with my surgeon will be next month and I know it will go well and my next mammo is in July, and I'm sure it will be perfect

grandma in pain

[honeybera]

What a productive day!!!! I found so many things! And I also began eBay...not putting anything up for sale, but beginning to understand what eBay is all about. They actually limit a person just starting out for the first month or so, I guess so that they can make SURE that the person is honest and is not a hacker or something. I'm absolutely the polar opposite of that, but they have to be careful, too. I'm being kind to myself and NOT forcing myself to hurry up into feeling discomfort and being pushed. This should instead be fun for me. I'm selling my stuff, all the stuff that I feel is too valuable to be thrown away.

I also found how to buy my chicken to freeze dry: either at a local store where they sell b/s chicken breasts SUPER cheap from time to time (like $1.38/lb. or even less) and dice it myself, OR buy it in two 5lb. sacks in a case at a local restaurant supply store, but that will be way more expensive. So, the old choice remains: have I got more time than money? Just buying a #10 can of freeze dried chicken is REEEEEALLY expensive, so no matter which way I choose will be WAY less expensive than getting it already prepped.

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So yeah. I can save money to say the least!! And it puts the tasks in my hands. As long as I can get chicken and other meats, a 50# sack of potatoes OR onions, or whatever else I need, I'm good!! I'm reading all the ingredients that they're putting into their #10 cans and calling it something like Loaded Potato Soup, but what's really in it is High Fructose Corn Syrup (the WORST kind of sugar to eat!!!) and a bunch of additives and preservatives!! UGH! Fresh cooked, homemade food is best with a bit of protein and lots of veggies, but theirs is just junk food of the worst kind. I'm glad that I'm doing it this way, by myself with my own freeze dryer.

I was going to call our electrician today, but I slept all day (14 hours worth! - which surprised me but I probably needed it) and will have to wait until tomorrow. But after pricing these things already prepped, I'm seeing the need to call him right away and get this show on the road. Had I gotten the Medium or the Small version of the freeze dryer I could have just used them with my regular house electric setup, but the LARGE freeze dryer (like I got) needs that dedicated circuit I keep on talking about. I'm still glad that I got it, BUT TOMORROW IT IS for the call to our electrician!!! I can't keep putting this off!!!!

WOW! I just found out that FD chicken diced is WAY more expensive than FD beef! I can get already diced beef OR "trimmings", either special or pectoral beef at the restaurant supply store. I need to find out what that means to a restaurateur. Is it crap or is it a premium cut of meat that I could dice, freeze dry, bag up, and store for a LONG TIME? Put beans, onions, the meat, seasonings, + a can of tomatoes (or fresh from the garden) in the old Instant Pot and whip up some chili (served with homemade tortillas) and that's a filling meal! But there's also chicken and rice (with a million variations) to make. I have SO MUCH to learn!!! But that's a good thing, too. Never a dull moment in my mind!!

I've also decided to get a mini sofa for my room, like a loveseat or oversized chair (aka a chair and a ½) so I can sit with my dogs beside me. I have no chair that will accommodate that sort of setup, and I refuse to let them on the bed, so I'll get something that works for all of us. I'll put it across the foot of my bed - it has to have a low back so it won't block the TV from my bed. Avalanche (aka Mittens) is a MOOSE. Boots is much, much smaller. For the last two nights, I've left the dog's pen gate open into the house AND left the doggie door open to the backyard. It's worked out great: if they need to go to the bathroom or hear a suspicious noise, they simply go out into the yard and then come back inside through the house to my room. No more messes or accidents in the house! YAY!

They also aren't barking incessantly either, which I'm sure pleases the neighbors. Their barks are very shrill, especially Boots, my yapper! I can pick 12 lb. Boots up and hold her in my lap (she likes that!), but Avalanche is an entirely different matter! She must weigh 20 lbs. and I can really see the pit bull in her lineage: wide brow, strong, muscular back and shoulders, just a SOLID dog! I can't just pick her up and watch TV or something. What a heavy girl! So I need a large chair that I can sit in with two dogs, one on either side of me. They can come and go as they wish (believe me, they won't go far! They ADORE me!!!), and I can still read a book or watch TV or a movie with them right there and not smothering me on my "lap" or digging a sharp claw into my breast cancer breast while struggling to adjust and balancing on my stomach. Nope! Need a nice large chair, nice and wide, to sit in with both of them. I'm happy, dogs are happy, and neighbors must be thrilled, too! Even better when the dogs and I can all cuddle up together. I also have a very nice round Moroccan brown leather pouf already so I can put my feet up on it as I relax with my dogs. This whole place is coming together. I've had that pouf put away for several years, just waiting for now.

But right now I'm waiting for my bed. So off I go for another night. I may make another purchase with Annie's Annuals soon. I'm going over the list I've already made. She has some doozies up for sale ATM. Very tempting!!

But it can all wait until tomorrow.

Honeybera
And we all settled in for a long winter's nap...

[honeybera]

The reason why I say, "would've" is because it was growing/spreading at such a rate that you could see all the necrosis left in it's path.

Anyway, all is good right now My next appointment with my surgeon will be next month and I know it will go well and my next mammo is in July, and I'm sure it will be perfect

They always say that every cancer is different. You sure did the exact right thing with yours with the speed it was growing. With mine it was medium growth at best, even with the invasive. I'm glad that yours is doing so well now. But there is nothing scarier than the initial diagnosis of cancer, is there? We both got lucky to have caught it when we did: early and treatable.

Honeybera

[grandma in pain]

Honeybera, that's for sure! We definitely were lucky, and I remember that each and every day. I always say, "Celebrate life to it's fullest!'"
Sending safe hugs, if okay, and cheering you on along your daily journey with everything you are doing (((((Honeybera)))))

grandma in pain

[honeybera]

Honeybera, that's for sure! We definitely were lucky, and I remember that each and every day. I always say, "Celebrate life to it's fullest!'"
Sending safe hugs, if okay, and cheering you on along your daily journey with everything you are doing (((((Honeybera)))))

grandma in pain

Thanks, grandma in pain. Hugs are always welcome.

I just tried to figure out why my FoxNation subscription won't stream ATM. Nothing makes me feel so old and stupid and incompetent as trying to troubleshoot my computer. AARRGGHH!!! This is definitely NOT my forte! I just chatted with "Lexter" over at Fox (tech support) and he quickly texted me some huge list of things that showed me the steps of how to turn off my VPN. I didn't know what "VPN" was, but at least this time I found it (SETTINGS --> NETWORKS AND INTERNET --> VPN - AMAZING FOR ME!) , however, I did this very slowly, BUT AT LEAST I FOUND IT. The genius over at Fox "HELP" dropped my chat (aka HUNG UP ON ME!!) - I guess I wasn't quick enough for him. How RUDE of him!!!

So then I realized that I'd just shut off my VPNs! But I also realized that I had no idea what a VPN was...so I looked it up. It means Virtual Private Network and it "describes the opportunity to establish a protected network connection when using public networks. VPNs encrypt your internet traffic and disguise your online identity. This makes it more difficult for third parties to track your activities online and steal data. The encryption takes place in real time." Well, I don't understand Greek, and it's all Greek to me! But it seems to me that it's set up for some sort of privacy and protection and I'd just shut it off!! So I backtracked and turned it back on. I'm just going to wait for DS to wake up and assist me. Trouble is he gets so irritable when asked any tech support question. I may just wait and ask my ODS to help me with this - it's what he actually does for a living. I'll call him later this evening. He's more patient with me.

Just wanted to get this out here - this is often my best therapy. I've got to get some sleep now. It's nearly 9am and I haven't slept yet. I had things to do all night long, but now I'll pay the price for that. Gotta get my beauty rest.

Honeybera

[honeybera]

Here goes another "when I was a little kid" story that I need to dump:

I rode my bike over to a school friend's house in the neighborhood one day. Her parent's both worked while MD was a stay-at-home mom... (No wonder she faulted ME for "being lazy".) and my father had his own business and worked when he wanted to. The little girl's parents had a house just down the street in our neighborhood and she was allowed to stay by herself until her parents got home from work. (Her parents would be hauled away in handcuffs today, but this was way back in the day, around the early 1950s. Things were much laxer then.) She opened the actual garage door to let me in. The garage was a separate building attached to a door leading into a completely enclosed breezeway that lead to another door and a small raised cement step porch just outside the kitchen. It was an odd setup, and the side door between the breezeway and the garage locked from the house side of the breezeway, not the inner garage side. That garage side door had a window up high and was about 12" high and 24" wide, so an adult could look in or out of it, but I was only about 8 at the time. It was considerably above my head!

For some ungodly reason, this little girl decided to LOCK ME IN the garage!! It was like she caught a bug in a bottle. I remember trying to get out in every way I could think of, but the actual big garage door was shut tightly and she had locked it. The side door with the window was solid and was also locked...from the outside. I remember panicking and the feeling of absolute dread. After a LOT of panicking, I spotted a little child's tea table with chairs. It was red and white and very dilapidated. I was screaming and hollering for this girl to LET ME OUT, but she just laughed at me and eventually just ran off. I was SO SCARED and I took the wobbly little red and white kiddie table (to stand on), pushed it up to the door, and grabbed the matching chair and smashed the window out. The glass fell out into the breezeway. But then I realized that I had no way to get up and get through the window! It was summertime and all I had on was a shorts-and-top outfit and my midriff was bare and there was all that glass. I did have on shoes, thank heavens.

Once I was up on the teetering table next to the broken glass, I could look down and see that she'd stood on a kitchen chair to watch me panic by looking down on me through the window before she took off. (Very diabolical, that one!!) I was determined to crawl on my belly across the small glass shards, to somehow get on that chair poised on the other side of the door, and get the heck out of there!! But as I eased up onto the rough broken glass, the table slipped out from underneath me, leaving me balancing there on my bare stomach. How I managed to get onto the kitchen chair I don't remember, but I did and I did it quickly. There was an outside door in the breezeway and it was NOT locked! I grabbed my bike, bleeding like crazy, and rode home in blood soaked clothes as fast as I could go.

MD did nothing. She never called the parents (as far as I know), nor did she call the Police nor take me to a doctor. But the instance really shook me up!! To be trapped like that is UNNERVING to say the least!! And now I FEAR about not being to get out. Not fear of being in a small place (Claustrophobia). That is different than this. This feels more like agoraphobia, more like just not wanting to leave my house or even my room. I think I'll study on that for a while.

======================

As I sit here now...at 76 yrs. old...(Yeah, I made it!)...I find myself reflecting on how I got to be an old lady who doesn't want to leave her room anymore. I've thought about nursing homes for me, but NO. I'm too darned independent and I have a paid for house and a nice little income. I saw what they did to MD. It wasn't pretty. She liked her things her way, too. Those nurses were determined MORE than MD, she'd already had her stroke and the subsequent left side paralysis, and she got pushed around fairly well by all around her including her DS, my DB.

But for me? NOPE. But I really don't want to get out there and SOCIALIZE much, either. As an autistic, I don't care much for socializing. If you saw me or even DS, you couldn't tell the difference in us vs "the normies" (normal folks). Elon Musk is an autistic (we LOVE Elon Musk!) - he has Asperger's. He thinks outside the box, as do we quite often. I love his dry sense of humor, too. We have a bit of a different diagnosis: PDD-NOS.

PDD-NOS, or pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified, was one of five categories of an autism diagnosis.

In other words, we're so weird that they can't find a pigeon hole appropriate to fit us into.

I have it as bad, if not worse, than DS. So did my father, my oldest son (ODS), my DD, and my DB. DB has always denied this vehemently, but recently he admitted to it, describing many behaviors that clinched it for me. MD must be spinning in her grave!!! NO ONE could have ANYTHING "wrong" with them as it would reflect on HER and HER perfection, and that was NOT going to happen! I was supposed to have braces put on my legs when I was a toddler, but she just didn't do it. "YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE A CRIPPLE!!", she'd scream at me...at 2 yrs. old. She was 19 and very full of herself! By the time I was about 10, the damage began to show: I had knock knees (opposite of bowed legs). At the current time, if I stand up straight and put my knees together, my feet are a good 10"-12" apart! STILL!!

How is knock knee treated?

For mild cases of knock knee in children or adolescents, bracing may reposition the knees. Treatment for mild cases of knock knee in children or adolescents may include braces to help bones grow in the correct position.
- www dot hss dot edu/condition-list_knock-knee

We had an across the street neighbor, Carol (and yes, I remember her last name, too - what a memory!) who was about my age, about 3-4 yrs. old. She just happened to have braces. She couldn't run, but she liked to play with dolls on the front porch with the offset, angled front door, which I can still see in my mind's eye. I liked her just fine AND SHE WAS MY FIRST FRIEND, but MD forbade me from wandering over to Carol's house "BECAUSE SHE'S A CRIPPLE!!! We don't want to be associated with them!" It broke my heart. It was about that time that MD had DEMANDED that my father build a 4 ft. tall fence with a lock on the gate around our tiny front yard so I couldn't go over to Carol's house anymore (nor escape up to my Grandpa's house, either). That fence, built to trap me inside with her, with no chance to escape ANYWHERE from her, began my panicky fears of not being able to escape or "get out" of somewhere. God, how I hated that fence!!!

But now here I sit, always in my room with a bed, TV + computer, and a bath (very convenient, like a nursing home or a prison), only leaving to get something to eat from the kitchen. I just don't want to leave my room anymore. What's up with that??! Not even to go to the kitchen! Or to let the dogs in or out. Or to get a package off the front porch. It's like I've...just...stalled. It's sort of like boredom. Or depression? Or maybe like a self-inflicted jail cell? But if DS comes in to say hi (rare occasion) or I get a phone call, it's enjoyable to say hi (kind of briefly please), and then I wish they'd go away.

Same with doctor's appointments. I cancelled them ALL clear back in early September! I never rescheduled, and for good reason. I will go in to the surgeon's office for a mammogram, but that's IT!! After Fauci's/NIH's bad, BAD advice re: COVID, AND what the anesthesiologists did/didn't do during my breast cancer surgery, AND the entire untrustworthiness of medicine in general, and considering their rampant greed, I'M DONE. NO MORE SURGERIES WITH COMPLETE SEDATION. It's just too hard to wake me up! And the risk of brain damage or death is just too dangerous for me. I DO NOT TRUST THEM!

So what DO I want? Well, I want my teeth cleaned right after the first of the year (after the big 2022 year-end rush for people with dental insurance). I'd like my mammogram at about the same date (about 6 months after my surgery on June 24, 2022) right after I check on my diabetes/a1c/etc. with some blood work at the lab. I also need the electrician out here to get the DEDICATED CIRCUIT installed for the freeze dryer and fix the light in my bathroom. And either DS or a handyman to do a whole bunch of chores/honey-do's for me.

I'd also like a HUGE amount of items around here assembled FOR MY USE. I BOUGHT THEM, for Pete's sake, and I'd like to use them!

*Wet-dry vacuum/shampooer to clean my nasty carpet, especially in my room where the unhousebroken Spot stayed with me for the last years of her life, but which is still in the box, UNASSEMBLED AND UNUSED!
*My jogger-stroller so I could take the dogs "for a walk" while having something to hold onto (like a shopping cart handle) and get some exercise, too, while possibly socializing the wild pups who are right now terrified of the front yard or a ride in the car or truck.
*My extra large garden wagon for the outdoors that my "Clean Up Sled" fits into perfectly! I just found out tonight that it even can have a cover for the sled. It's sort of like a hay/straw bale hauler that converts into a soil tote to move soil from one place to another...except that it's STILL IN ITS BOX, UNASSEMBLED! (www dot gardeners)
*MY NEW COMPOSTER!!!! I have a lot of veggie scraps and TONS of old cardboard boxes that need to go into my gorgeous new composter...but it's STILL IN THE BOX and is doing me NO GOOD AT ALL! I even marked the box UNASSEMBLED to get DS to put it together for me. Nope. Did no good.
*THREE TALL GARDEN PLANTERS...ON WHEELS (for garlic and onions and sage and other herbs) so I can move them around in the summertime as needed (for when it gets hot out there ) BY MYSELF. All 3 are sitting in boxes STACKED UP IN THE GARAGE...UNASSEMBLED.
*Plastic can storage (5 of them) equaling storage for 25 cases of 12, or 300 cans of 14.5 or 15 oz.each. Yep! Still in their boxes.

Hmm. I wonder if I put all of these boxes into the bed of my pickup (once I get it running again) and take them with me out to my brother's place and see if he would assemble them? Hmmmm. I wonder...I could ask him and see what he says.
================================
At this late date, now when I'm 76 yrs. old, I can begin to understand the entire reason so many things happened the way they did. Thoughts/remembrances are pelting me daily like plump, constant raindrops pounding down in a heavy winter storm, one after another. My father must have driven MD absolutely NUTS at times. I remember how frantically MD would try to get us kids ready to go as my father sat out in the car and impatiently blew the horn at her inside the house to HURRY UP and get us ready. Life in the 1950s? Perhaps, but she was the housewife and he saw it as HER JOB to take care of coats on and shoes on and for us to have a neat appearance in the end and then out the door in a big rush, into the car, and GONE once he'd decided HE wanted to GO. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!!! "DON'T MAKE ME COME IN THE HOUSE! LET'S GO!! WHAT'S TAKING YOU SO LONG??!!" BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!!!! It must have been like herding cats in a hurry for her!

Appearances were so important to her AND to my father. He expected and ASSUMED that his desires for a perfect life and perfect wife was what he deserved...and she bolstered that idea CONSTANTLY. Her trouble was that life's reality had an irritating way of leaking into their false pristine existence from time to time, spoiling the facade of perfection. He was quite demanding of her and of her time, and he let it be known if he was disappointed in her in any way. But truthfully, she created this unforgiving monster of a husband by creating this fantasy world of hers and sharing with him what it should be like, and he bought it hook, line, and sinker. As she herself would put it, "He rules the roost, but I rule the rooster!" She also said, "You gotta doll up to get 'em, and you gotta doll up to keep 'em!" And the perfectionism!! ALWAYS the PERFECTIONISM!! When he had a quintuple heart bypass surgery when he was my current age, he literally insisted that he be allowed to wear his toupee onto the surgical table! He made such a fuss about it that they let him! He was a VERY vain man. Towards the end for him some 13 yrs. later, he didn't even bother to wear it and saw people with his bald head. He just gave up.

=============================

It's becoming clearer and clearer to me that what I have is heart failure. That sounds worse than it is. It's NOT cardiac arrest - THAT one IS serious! No, this is just having stenosis, a narrowing and hardening of the valves in the heart causing the blood that floods into my heart to sort of pool up in my lungs which makes my heart pump harder to circulate the blood, and eventually enlarged my heart. I had some Kaiser doctor ask me quizzically 3 decades or so ago, "Did you know that you have an enlarged heart?" to which I replied, "No." and that was that. Another decade went by before my current doctor asked me, "Did you know that you have a heart murmur?" to which I replied, "No." and so he gave me a electrocardiogram right there in the office, looked down on it solemnly, and that was that. Once I had the breast cancer, my surgeon INSISTED that I have an echocardiogram before she'd perform surgery on me, so I did. It showed the valve damage...and maybe that's why I got the 2nd rate anesthesiologist that darned near killed me or put me in a coma or gave me permanent brain damage. I was a risk few wanted to take by putting me under.

I tried to warn him. "I'm a 3 [out of 4, with 1 being easy to do and 4 a warning not to even operate on this person!]" He simply said, "You should be fine." But I wasn't!! Thanks Buddy! He was paid a cool $2200, though. I do have great health insurance.

Anyhow, I unfortunately check every box for heart failure symptoms. I quit reading about the symptoms tonight and began looking more at NON-SURGICAL treatments! Even at not taking any more pharmaceutical drugs. I learned a lot! Exercise (SAFE exercise!) is VERY important! It could even REVERSE the heart failure. So is weight loss. At minimum it could somewhat relieve the horrible shortness of breath, dizziness, and leg and foot pain and swelling! Otherwise, it only gets worse until I can no longer breathe! The long laundry list above of the things that I have purchased, but which are NOT assembled YET, should be exactly what the doctor ordered!!!!!!! And they should even be assembled in that order listed above! I'm not so far gone that I cannot shampoo and refresh my 20 yr. old stained carpet that my dear Spot soiled every single day for well over a year and the pups after that! AARRGGHH! That machine cost me over $500! It does everything but the dishes, for Pete's sake, and I can happily run it on every type of floor covering in my house, but not as long as it sits in the box it came in! I may not even be able to do the entire house in one fell swoop, but I can do SOME of it every day. That would give me such a lift!

I tried to get DS interested in assembling the shampooer/vacuum by moving it into the kitchen and marking "ASSEMBLE ME" on the box, but now it just sits there blocking me from reaching my soup bowls. Next to it sits my really nice (blindingly bright PINK) but UNASSEMBLED jogger-dog stroller so I can both take my pups on a walk outside, however it, too, is in its box blocking my plates cupboard. This is MADDENING! I've asked nicely, but no progress so far. DS can assemble these things IF HE wants to. He's really good at it. But I may have to ask my DB after getting the pickup fixed - load everything up in the bed and take them out there to the ranch unassembled and bring them back ASSEMBLED! Whoo-hoo!!! I could exercise then and get some chores done at the same time, getting stronger every day.

====================

OK, my decision has been made! I'm first going to attempt to fix up the dog stroller myself! I watched a video on all of its features and assembly appears to be a piece of cake! Then I read MANY, MANY reviews on it, and boy oh boy, it seems I made the right decision in buying this one and grabbing it when I did. They had this vibrant PINK one on some sort of sale (the blue one was a couple of hundred dollars more) and I'm not that fond of pink, but hey! A savings of $200 is a savings of $200, so I got the pink one...for my GIRLS. On the reviews they're saying that they really like the color. Plus the price has jumped from around $100 to $400!! For the same darned dog stroller!! One reviewer even said that it was "the Cadillac of dog strollers"! See it on Amazon: PETIQUE All Terrain Jogger-Blazin' Berry Pet Stroller, Blazin' Berry, One Size (JG01100103) It's a hoot! And this is the only one that has the regular bike tires on it; all the others have plastic, super cheap tires that would wear out super fast. Last night I ordered the bike hookup so I can ride either DS's bike or my recumbent trike, but that is all WAY in the future, maybe months.

I first have to get my dogs used to THE DREADED OUTSIDE - THE FRONT YARD and THE LEASH and then the ACTUAL pet stroller . These girls are yappy little monsters out in the backyard - they OWN that place, but from the front porch on out, even if I open up the front door, they're TERRIFIED and scurry into the other room, peeking around the corner at me to see if I've shut it yet!!! Their only experience in the outside world is their original trip here to my house at 10 wks. old when Boots barfed, and later on to the vet, also not a good thing or happy experience for them. So I'm going to have to approach this very gently. Maybe just get a folding chair and take one dog at a time, carry them to the front porch, and lovingly sit with them on my lap out on the front porch, collar on and leash attached - and do this for a few minutes at a time for a week or so with plenty of pets and treats, until they don't equate the front door and the car with pain and upset. I may be seen around the neighborhood pushing an empty bright pink dog stroller in my muumuu for quite a while, but nuts to them. They're all assured that we're certifiable anyhow.

I mentioned my decision to attempt to assemble to DS and he liked it. We have agreed that I'll start whatever project (assembly of something in a box, dusting and major moving things around so our electrician can get to the site where the dedicated circuit for the freeze dryer is going in, clean out some MYSTERY boxes from the storage room) and he said that whatever I can't do, he'll finish. I don't know if he really understands how this heart failure affects me, how short of breath it makes me and how out of energy I feel. I even fall asleep in my chair when all I want to do is work. This is all doable, but I simply cannot do it alone as I always have in the past. This is what is expected of me now, even by me until recently, BUT I can at least get things started!

I forgot to mention the setup of my COMPUTER, but I did mention it to DS. I told him that I will clear off my rather messy area around my computer in only a few minutes once he can find the time to help me with the entire chore. I have set this computer up already about as well as I can manage by myself. I began to attempt that project clear back during the breast cancer debacle. As usual, I bought everything, it's still in boxes, but I'm going to need some help setting up the new "desk" (it's really a black folding table, but is the perfect size) AND set up my new printer, keyboard, mouse, and maybe my new 27" monitor, too. I'll use the white folding table I'm using at the moment in the family room next to the new freeze dryer setup. I KNOW where all the puzzle pieces go, I just need to......ASSEMBLE THEM!

That said, I'm going to sleep. I may have managed to wear myself out. YAY!

Honeybera (I really wrote a book this time!)

[honeybera]

I'm taking some time out here at 4am to say hello to you. I am getting a lot done ATM. But OH MY, there is so much to do! The faux plantation blinds that I bought 20 yrs. ago for my front windows and that were put up for me 10 yrs. ago by my friend N (we had sheets hung up until then since I was busy driving/working and DS was barely a teenager and then it just never got done) have fallen into utter disrepair. Yeah, like literally falling off the windows! I had DS tape them back up as each fell over the last year. So we decided to get those two window treatments redone FIRST (to avoid our neighbor's possible stares inside) and maybe address the shades in DS's room (blackout so he can sleep in the daytime when having worked an overnighter - which is often). I began looking tonight in Home Depot first, although we do have local merchants and a Lowe's nearby as well. So that's just begun.

But even more "first" than that is to clear out the empty boxes sitting on the big blue couch (beginning that today!) and then pull out the couch so the installer can access the big windows in the front room. I just bought a really cool pair of Worx electric scissors to cut up all the cardboard boxes into small pieces to put into my (still unassembled) composter so they'll sort of "melt" into compost easier. My arthritic hands are so messed up that I didn't know how I'd manage cutting up so many boxes and into small pieces with a box cutter. It would take forever and create a LOT of pain. I can cut up the boxes, but to cut them into pieces small enough for my new composter would be pure torture! (It's a long and step-by-step process to get this all done. No shame. No stress. No scolding that I'm doing it all wrong or calling me stupid!) Then I found these "electric scissors" and thought, "There's my answer!" They just arrived today and I can't wait to get started!!

Again, I could easily get completely overwhelmed by having SO many things to fix, to clean, to organize! And even worse, having SO MANY CHOICES as to our new window treatments! That IS overwhelming! I'm not doing this ALONE, not this time! I'll ask DS first, and if he's not able to have an opinion, I'll ask around. So I'm going to try and enjoy this, to honestly do as much as I'm capable of doing, and get someone else to do it if it's too much for me, like new window treatments. When I was a dirt poor single parent and on Welfare back in the day, to have my poorly installed window treatments fall down off the window would have been a catastrophe! No one would help me. Now not so much, but I do have to walk slowly through the asking of a total stranger/salesperson with a wad of cash in my hand. "Tell ya' what I'm gonna do for you, little lady! Just sign right here." Let's just say to that, "Um...I've been to Niagara Falls before!" My lack of trust saves me again!

I also got a "safer" Worx Jaw Saw (chainsaw) on order (Amazon) to cut and prune my backyard trees and use the then-minimized cuttings to throw into the composter (once it's assembled). No chainsaw "kickback" that could disable me further will come from the Jaw Saw itself, and it will do a 4" cut. So that is my "exercise": lifting up that 7lbs. saw and cutting the trees, walking all over the yard (no matter how slowly), clearing the boxes out of my front room, cutting them up and putting the smaller cardboard pieces into bags until DS gets around to assembling the composter OR I get fed up waiting and hire a handyman.

I have out there in the garage a nice big particle board cabinet...EMPTY! I do need to dust it off, but it's just fine. It's the size of a large work bench/storage unit with shelves and there happens to be an electrical outlet just above it on the wall. I'm going to put a lock on those cabinet doors and place all my tool kits in there. Right now the various tool kits (drills, reciprocal saws, that sort of thing collected over the years and each in their own carrying case) are in my closet, they're in the hobby room, they're in the storage room, and some are just sitting out there in the garage. They need to be all in ONE PLACE and under lock and key safely (as much as possible these days)! Locked up inside a "work bench" cabinet seems ideal to me. So I'm buying a lock as well - AND hiring a locksmith to set it up for me plus for installing several deadbolt locks inside the house for the storage room, my room, and my closet. Then I can have my room locked when DS is working late, and with a "smart lock" with numbers to push on the outside (the hallway) so DS could get in, but no one else could without the code. Something like that on the garage side door, too. I'm always thinking...

Also thinking about getting the plumbers out here (probably in the next couple of months) to either replace our faithful 20 yr. old tank water heater that came with the house OR installing a new "forever-hot-water" tankless one. Maybe new toilets as well. I am seeing a need for refurbishing our 20 yr. old home, but all in due time. Painting, new floor coverings, and so on. NOTHING on credit!! If I don't have the money at that moment, I'll save until I do. This having a little bit of money to spend on necessary things or to hiring it done is just so wonderful!! On Welfare, I had to just drive on "may-pop" tires until I got a flat! Not anymore. And that is such a blessing!!

======================================(next day)

More and more I'm seeing how all my abuses can be seen as benefits as well. This relatively recent epiphany never fails to amaze me! I used to think that being abused was all bad and gave nothing but bad and useless feelings for me. For me, that is not the case! It has strengthened me and toughened me up in many ways. Many more fortunate people have learned these lessons in an easier way, but at least I've learned them. I'd have preferred love and kindness over abuse, but that wasn't in the cards for me. Fortunately, my feelings of delight and wonder still live within me. MD never did "break my spirit", which she herself proclaimed was her ultimate goal with me. Today, as I started up my computer, the "welcoming screen saver" showed a bunch of hugging meerkats from S. Africa, animals that I'd never seen before. OMG! SO CUTE!! I began to laugh! And it felt good. She never was able to steal that sense of glee from me, that sense of wonder, and even love. So there! I filtered out the bad and kept the good! She never won (and never WILL win!!) as long as I don't allow it. SHE had the problem, NOT ME. As long as I don't own it, it has nothing to do with me, but with old ornery MD instead. She'd get so frustrated with me and say "MY SONG" was Pass Me By...and she was actually right!

PASS ME BY by Peggy Lee or Frank Sinatra

I got me ten fine toes to wiggle in the sand
Lots of idle fingers snap to my command
A lovely pair of heels that kick to beat the band
Contemplating, nature can be fascinating
Add to these a nose that I can thumb
And a mouth by gum have I
To tell the whole darn world
If you don't happen to like it, deal me out
Thank you, kindly pass me by
[Refrain]
Pass me by, pass me by
If you don't happen to like it, pass me by

Feeling blessed and signing off...

Honeybera

[honeybera]

In the last few days all my WORX tools have come in. MD loved to get packages sent to her in the mail to open up. She said it was like Xmas to her. I used to like to watch her get her "presents". She seemed so delighted by their arrival. I guess that's why I like to get packages, too. I got my safety chain saw today, but haven't even looked at it yet. I was working in the storage room mostly today due to it raining all day long. Tomorrow is going to be dry, but for one day only, so I MAY get out there and cut down the HUGE tree like root stocks on my Eureka lemon tree, one on each side of the tree. I'm saving the cuttings because those two 15' root stock growths are the hummer's favorite perches, so I'm going to use a couple of 5 gallon buckets (cheap ones from Home Depot) filled with quick dry cement, quickly stick the branches down in the buckets, and there you go: two FREE favorite AND MOVEABLE "faux" perches for my hummers. Too shady in winter? Move them into the sun. Too hot in summer? Move them into the shade. I'm doing the same thing with the 9' high shepherd's hooks and the feeders (both seed and nectar). Into cement filled buckets that can be moved with the seasons, but up high enough that the dogs can't get at the birds (because they might) AND the rats can't get at the food and eat it all up.

To access the feeders, I can just slowly tip over the buckets, remove and refill the feeders, and then slowly tip them back up into place. Doing it this way I'm assured that the feeders will stay level as I lower them and return them to their original places way up high so my precious birds stay safe. I'm also wrapping the 9' shepherd's hook poles with tulle, a sort of netting used in bridal decorations, around the poles since rats can climb BUT can't stand the feel of the tulle on their claws. Just above that I'll put some ant repellent gel on the pole so the ants can't get to it - that sugar water is mighty tempting to them! I'll be able to sit and watch the birds eat safely to their content, both the little guys and the hummers. I have three 9' shepherd's hooks, each with a little umbrella like cap over the top of the feeders. I've got it all. Now I just need to DO IT and get it all assembled and in place.

Working on the storage room, too. Today I found my long lost puppets for the puppet theater! My Mickey Mouse still has his sales tag on him! Much more to do but DS pulled a muscle in his leg and needs to take it easy for a while.

OH! And I'm going to use a couple of cardboard boxes to begin and raise PURPLE potatoes AND PURPLE sweet potatoes, too!! Kind of an experiment, kind of a welcome addition to my colorful attempt to address fruits and veggies that lower estrogen and thereby lowers my risk of a recurrence of breast cancer. (My current risk of recurrence is a very low 8% without my supernutritious veggies and 4% if I do have them...which I do every day.)

I don't want to keep adding to this every day for a week and make a mini-book out of it, so I'll end it here for tonight. I'm falling asleep sitting up as my feet swell. So time for bed.

Honeybera

[honeybera]

OMG! I believe that I am ALLOWING MD to still harass me from the grave! But she isn't doing it. I AM!! But it's all the same outcome really. Holy cow! What an epiphany!!

Last night I was having particularly bad heart failure symptoms with pronounced shortness of breath due to my narrowing heart valves (aortic and mitral stenosis) in my enlarged left heart. That then causes high blood pressure in my lungs which causes me to wheeze and cough and become exhausted easily when walking or standing (and I mean REALLY exhausted REALLY quickly!) and my feet and lower legs to swell up (and I mean REALLY swell up!) and all kinds of other scary things. I knew what it was. Ever since my breast cancer surgeon INSISTED on me getting my first ECHOcardiagram just before my bc surgery last June I've know about this. I figured I'd deal with one overwhelmingly terrifying diagnosis and treatment at a time and naturally chose the bc. Good call! It was invasive bc and was just getting going ("caught early"). Even so, I barely made it out of surgery alive due to a lousy anesthesiologist! (My surgeon to me: "You went gray on the table." ) So I decided to just take it easy, rest up and heal up, and deal with the increasing shortness of breath (SOB) and other heart failure symptoms another day.

Well, last night was a doozie! I FELT IT! Not real pain (angina), but a recognizable discomfort in my chest just behind my breast bone. HARD time breathing! Nearly gasping for breath. But when I hooked up my handy little Pulse Oximeter (gives a reading of heart beats per min. and oxygen levels in the blood) all reading were well within the normal range. Took my EKG (handheld - within normal range and "no abnormalities") and wrist blood pressure cuff (quite high for me: 177/82). Took it again just now: 148/66 - MUCH better!

I watch a holistic doctor on youtube, Dr. Sten Ekberg, who explains some very complicated health concepts and ideas in layman's terms and he is spot on every time! I watched one on how to lower high blood pressure by breathing. Super interesting! I also remembered that my regular physician, Dr. B, had prescribed Lasix for me clear back in August "for swelling", but I was taking a glut of other medications at the time for the cellulitis I'd caught in the hospital AND for the resulting C-DIFF scare (how did I ever survive all that "HELP"?) and I just stopped taking the Lasix. Well, I was swollen last night (hands, feet, legs...and lungs? Hmm...), so I took one and waited. OMG! Slept and got up frequently to head to the bathroom. It really seems to be helping! So I took another Lasix this morning and began to watch another Dr. Ekberg video.

And as he explained high blood pressure, it hit me!! The above opening epiphany! More unraveling of the fabric of who MD really was and why she had such screamingly HIGH blood pressure all her life, eventually causing her debilitating stroke! Many more pieces of her mysterious jigsaw puzzle fell into place for me today. Yes, I was her victim. Yes, she was cruel to me. YES, YES, YES - but what must HER life have been? Like a cat in a dirty litter box trying to cover the nastiness up with too little sand and failing miserably. So fearful that someone would KNOW, would FIND OUT her dirty little secrets, how she was adopted, how she'd been molested by her own grandfather. He must have been a real piece of work, that one. She always said that she was two, but DB has old 1934 newspaper articles of how the cousins that all three girls were living with at the time in a depth-of-The-Depression migrant's camp ran off their father with a shotgun loaded with bird shot, shooting him in the back as he threw money into the crib on the front porch that all 3 sisters were sleeping in (mother was already out of state GONE with a girlfriend, abandoning them all). That would make MD 5 yrs. old, not 2. Then they were abandoned again to the lecherous GF - all 4 slept in the same bed in a shack and she once claimed to me that she remembered seeing her two sisters, then 7 and 9, being molested, but vehemently said that she, at 2 yrs. old, was spared. NONSENSE! She either blocked it or lied about it. And heaven knows she was a practiced liar!

I know there's a word for this: when...

Wait! It's PROJECTION (I think).

Narcissistic people often resort to projection to protect their self-image. Complaining about how someone else is so “showy” or “always needs attention” is one example of how a narcissist might project. They may also blame others for things that have gone wrong, rather than taking responsibility themselves. As the narcissist projects more shame and criticism onto another person, that individual’s self-doubt often grows, leading to a self-reinforcing cycle. - Psychology Today

I wonder if that's why she became so focused on "breaking my spirit"? She had to be super sneaky to do so. She claimed to want me to be perfect, but she only wanted me to APPEAR perfect as a reflection on HER. And then she got to take all the bows and receive all the praise. That's why at my high school graduation she snatched my diploma and mortarboard out of my hands and posed with it for a picture, saying to me, "I EARNED THIS!", even though both she and my father were dropouts! Her guilt and anger and shame regarding her being a dropout, an adoptee, an "Okie" (a very derogatory term for a person from Oklahoma, especially during the 1930s) twisted her into the monster she became. Should she have brutalized me at will due to her own shame-driven feelings? Well, HELL NO! Of course not. But do I sort of understand the why's behind it? I'm beginning to.

Every meal had to be PERFECT! Every dust bunny had to be GONE...PERFECTLY! Her entire LIFE had to be PERFECT! She had to be the "MOST MATURE" person alive, even though she was a train wreck emotionally. And that HAD TO make me worthless, IMMATURE, UNRELIABLE, unable to even select my own clothing properly, comb my own hair, or help with ANY of the housework (laundry, cooking, vacuuming...ANYTHING!!) for fear I'd screw it up permanently. "GET OUT OF MY WAY! I can do it 10 times better and 10 times faster than YOU!!" And even just doing what she asked of me, "Just shut up, and don't get dirty." wasn't enough. No matter what I did, IT WAS WRONG! If I tried to do something, ANYTHING, I'd get in trouble. But if I did nothing, I was "LAZY". If I succeeded in something, she'd either sabotage it or ridicule it, like my graduation with my AS degree with honors. OMG, that killed her! And I did it ON WELFARE, HOMELESS, with two kids in tow. She eventually L-O-A-N-E-D me $400 so I could stay in a very seedy motel for the next 4 weeks and not lose my kids (which was about to happen because I was homeless and the battered women's shelter had taken my entire AFDC/Welfare check!)...oh god. I'm ruminating again.

Y'know, I just had a dandy idea. I never paid her back the $400. I was on Welfare at the time and simply didn't have the money. I'd LOVE to pay her back now, however, she's DEAD. But I could take the example of the politicians who accepted campaign donations from Sam Bankman-Fried (Cryptocurrency) and donate the $400 to my favorite charity. How freeing that would be! Yes, I'll donate it in her honor. Oh baby!! Yes! Give me a couple of months. I'll plan for it. Oh, what a wonderful idea! Look for it in the Springtime. On May 4th? I like it!!

May the Fourth Be With You!

Honeybera

[honeybera]

Still up after midnight, planning my garden. I ran across one cantaloupe that looked mighty good. In fact, I could almost taste it as they described it! I LOVE cantaloupe! But I've never tried to grow it. This year I will: 20 gallon pot set out on fresh straw and let to go wild. Also a seedless MINI-watermelon, too. YUM! That will require a LOT of watering in the early morning on a potentially 100-110ºF day, but right now with the very blustery storm outside just DUMPING water out of the sky and the wind whipping everywhere, that hot weather concept seems very far away.

One thing did come back in a flash (and was a very surprising trigger) was the little recipe suggestion under the description of the cantaloupe:

The fruits are the perfect size for 1 to 2 persons to enjoy fresh and make a wonderful summertime dessert – simply halve, scoop out the seeds and fill in with vanilla ice cream. Delicious!

OMG! How MD did love that dessert! Or she'd make it into an afternoon snack. (Dad liked avocados with mayonnaise and he'd split one in half, fill the holes with the mayo, and give me one half. I miss my dad.) But MD's favs were a grilled cheese sandwich with Cream of Tomato soup made from milk in a can of Campbell's for lunch, finished off with COOKED Jell-O chocolate pudding, never the instant stuff...this was COOKED! And so good! Maybe a plop of whipped cream on top. But that description of the freshly harvested cantaloupe and filled with vanilla ice cream...I could literally almost smell its freshness. So yeah, I'm ordering some for this year.

And then I actually missed my mother! But then I always missed my mother, even when she was alive and right there! If I went back right now with all my understanding of her and knowledge of her and how her mind worked, it would not be any different, save for me being more avoidant of her and trying to use self preservation and not accepting the blame. I initially wanted to move in with my Auntie J (the one who killed herself) and go to college up there -- but I could barely comb my own hair or dress myself, even at 18. And my parents would NEVER have footed that bill for my education. I was only taught how to "shut up" and stay out of the way (and that was never out of the way enough) and don't get dirty and don't bother anyone (even those who really enjoyed being bothered!!). So how did I expect to go to college? I thought that marriage was the way out and when first husband asked, I said, "Sure!" I had no idea of who I was marrying or what marriage was all about. Neither did he. In fact, he wasn't marrying ME. He was marrying my mother. He fancied me as her, and concluded that I'd be a perfect little homemaker and that we'd have what my parents had! Nothing could have been further from the truth. I was an emotional train wreck! Suddenly I was FREE! I was AWAY FROM HER! I could do what I wanted! And I began to realize that I had NO DIRECTION, just flotsam and jetsam on the sea of life, SOOOOO confused! And at 19, I experienced my first bout of what I later learned was called Clinical Depression.

Oops! Down the rabbit hole again! That is ALL PAST! But what surprised me was ME. I actually missed her tonight! Well, not really HER, but some nice memories from my childhood. And she was there. I amazingly did not hate her! That surprises me. The thought of a vanilla ice cream stuffed cantaloupe was kind of endearing. She hated me, that's for sure! But there are tiny pockets of ancient memories that don't involve ridicule and hurt. And now those are popping up on occasion and I thought I'd like to share those with you, too.

But it's very late. I need to sleep. I'm getting a lot done lately. Little by little. Tried out my new WORX bypass battery driven pruner today to trim up my HUGE and wild looking Rosemary bush, pruned it WAY BACK (I watched a youtube video on how to do that), and this thing worked like a charm! It says it cuts up to 1", and it DOES! Like a hot knife through warm butter!! It's not too heavy for my crippled up hand, so I'm good! Just thought I'd share.

But now it's TIME FOR BED! Before I fall asleep in my chair here.

Honeybera