What Scares You?

Have you ever been so scared about the possibility of something that you just didn't talk about it hoping it would go away? I didn't know I was this kind of person, but apparently I am. Twice this year there have been things that scared me so bad, I just kept them to myself waiting for them to dissipate.

See, I smoked for a very long time, and I quit two years ago. (I must be honest, I miss it...terribly sometimes!) But I did it for my kids, and it's the first time quitting has worked. Probably because they mean more to me than I ever thought one person could mean to another. So here I sit, a somewhat new non-smoker. Then I started having trouble breathing. I noticed that just walking across the building at work to the mail room or another office was putting me completely out of breathe. Carrying my 3 year old to bed put me out for ten minutes. I got a little worried. I started researching the different symptoms I was noticing. And I diagnosed myself with lung cancer. Yup, I figured it out, and I started worrying about my kids and what would happen to them when I died.

But I couldn't talk about it with anyone. I was too scared of it, and I didn't want it to be real. I'm a relatively healthy person, and I wasn't prepared to have something serious wrong with me. But it finally got too bad that my family was starting to worry about my shortness of breath. So I went to the doctor. I didn't mention the cancer, and I down played the symptoms to him, hoping he wouldn't go there. And actually, the first thing he ruled out was cancer. Of course, then he started to worry about my heart...not much of a consolation!! So he ran tests and did x-rays and such. It cost me a fortune to find out I have a touch of asthma. Afterword, I felt stupid for being so scared and not talking about it.

Then here I am again, so scared about something, I don't want to talk about it. Unfortunately, my mom mentioned it the other night, so my fears are out there again, making things more real. See, my mom can't work because of a lot of health problems she has. But of all the things wrong with her, they aren't fatal. So she's been living with me for about 9 years now. The last month or so, I've started to notice she's losing weight. She's not a big person, and can't really afford to lose weight. You know what my first thought was...cancer, again. She's also been kinda sick a lot this fall. You know, a cough, a cold, nausea... Then the other night she said something about her weight. She also told me she gets shooting pains in her left breast, and now there's a hard spot. I know I'm right this time, and I want to be so wrong. And she's worse than me...she probably won't go to the doctor until they take her away in an ambulance!

Why can't I face these things? I spend my life helping kids face their fears and become healthy, stable people, but I can't acknowledge my own fears. I can't stand up and fight my own scares head on. What kind of role model am I for these kids after all? Please God, make it not be cancer this time too!!!!!!

Something I've Observed About Myself...

As the years go by, I'm less and less motivated to wrap Christmas gifts. Don't get me wrong, I love all the pretty packages, and watching the kiddos unwrap and see the surprise on their faces. And in our family, we have Christmas color themes. This year every thing is decorated in silver and gold, and all the gifts are wrapped in silver and gold. It's absolutely beautiful!! The colors for this year were picked last year so we could buy all our gift wrap on sale after Christmas. We found a TON of silver paper and gold paper at Wally World, and now, as the gifts are being wrapped and put under the tree, it's magical. And my mom, Granny, gets the real ribbon and makes beautiful bows on all the presents. People scoff at our tradition until they see the affect. You'd be amazed. We've had color combos like pink and purple (that was gross), black and gold for the Idaho Vandals, maroon and gold for the 49ers, silver and blue for the Cowboys, black and white (one of the most beautiful), green and white for my senior year in high school, brown and blue (you'd be amazed how pretty that was), white paper with red and white checked gingham ribbon, blue and yellow, red and blue for another senior year for one of my girls, baby blue and white...you name it, we've had it. (Next year is pink and orange...I'm not sure how that's going to turn out, but I have found tree decorations already, and it might not be too bad.)

Anyway, back to my issue. I don't want to wrap anything. I'm not a crafty person, and by my own admission, I'm domestically challenged. The only thing I do well around the house is yard work. I grow beautiful roses and lilacs. But scissors, tape, markers, bows...I'm not good at it. It just seems so tedious. I didn't used to be this bad, but this year I don't want any part of it. Not that it's getting me out of doing it. I've just never been quite this lethargic when it come to wrapping. Is it old age? It's not a decline in the joy of the season, cuz I love it as much as ever!! I need an elf to come sprinkle magic dust on me to make me want to do this so I can get it done. With the number of people in my house, and the number coming for Christmas this year, I've got a lot to wrap. I've got 7 kids right now, and I have 7 extra people coming for Christmas, so there will be 16 people. That's a lot of gifts under our tree that need to be wrapped. I guess I should get off this computer and start wrapping huh?!

Well, that's my observation for today. Remember to give of your heart...donate to my site to give a wonderful Christmas to foster kids!

Maybe the test I just took explains a little about me. Try it!

You Are 15% Left Brained, 85% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning. Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others. If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic. Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility. Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way. If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art. Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Are You Right or Left Brained?

School Christmas Programs

Last night my 10-year-old had her Christmas program for school. Now, this is how I remember doing it...the school's music teacher would spend a month teaching each class the song's they were going to sing. About a week before the program, she would start having all the students from one grade practice together in the gym. A day or two before, the whole school would have practices together in the gym. The program would consist of every student in the school standing on those bleacher things at one end of the gym and the parents sitting in chairs lined up in rows throughout the rest of the gym. And it was fun.

Here's how they do it here. Only the 3rd thru 5th graders are involved in the Christmas program. (K thru 2nd have a Spring program.) The kids practice for a month, then the day of the program, they go to the place where it will be held (a building at the local university) and practice all day with all the other 3rd thru 5th graders in the city. That night, they have one HUGE 2 1/2 long program with every 3rd, 4th and 5th grader in the city and all their families. This is crazy, long, and horrible for all of us who have more than one child. Why do I want to sit and watch kids from 10 other schools who I don't know for 2 1/2 hours? Let's be honest, the best part of these programs is seeing your own kid, not the quality of entertainment. Besides, I'd rather watch my 2nd grader, & my 5th grader, and all the other kids I know from OUR school give a 1 hour program twice a year than watch all these stranger's kids for 2 1/2 hours twice a year. (I'll have to go to the Spring concert set up the same way but with all the city's K thru 2nd graders.) Besides, I know my 2nd grader would have thoroughly enjoyed being part of the Christmas program as well, she loves holiday music!!

Let me tell you how much my 2, 3, 4, and 5 year olds enjoyed this whole thing. They didn't. They spent most of the time in the lobby with many many other frustrated parents with little ones. This city is not huge, but it is much too large for this type of venture. It's time to rethink school programs. Oh, and to even further my confidence in the school district's event planning abilities, my 17-year-old had her choir concert last night same time, different place. Ridiculous! (Although, I guess they don't expect families to have children in just about every grade, do they. :-) I can't help it, I'm a foster parent, I don't have control over the age range of my kids.)

Well, that's my observation for today. Remember to give of your heart...donate to my site to give a wonderful Christmas to foster kids!!

I'm Back

Well, surgery wasn't so bad, it's what comes after that sucks! I was virtually ignored in the hospital by the nurses, tank goodness I wasn't more critical!! And then I got home and got very sick.
I had a staph infection in one of the laproscopy sites.
EWWWWWW!!!!!
See, I kept running a high fever, so I went into my doctor's office, and they took blood and stuff, took the staples out of the incision sites, and sent me home. A few hours later, the whole front of my shirt was soaked in puss and blood. And talk about stink! That was the staph infection. Doc said drainage was good, we wanted to get it all out...but he didn't have to smell it! And he gave me antibiotics.

So here I am a week later, and the infection is about gone. Most of the aches are gone too, though there are still some. But what gets me is that I still get so tired so fast. It seems like if you feel better, you should be better. But getting back to work Monday, I was only 3 hours in and was ready to go back to bed. I'm sure by the time we close down for Christmas, I'll be back to normal! :-) (That's on the 22nd and goes through the 2nd of January!)

Story Idea!!

I have an idea drumming around in my head, and I'd like to go with it. I don't really want to tell you what it is, but I had to say it in hopes that it would get me moving on actually writing again. It's been so long since I had any creative flashes...we're talking years...I thought it was over for me. So nag me about it so I'll start getting it down on paper...well computer screen...and maybe something will come of it for a change.

And hey, to all of you out there:

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

If you are looking for a way to be charitable this holiday season, donate to my site and all donated funds will go to buy Christmas presents for kids on the Giving Tree. These are all the foster kids in my region in Idaho. We hope to give them all a wonderful holiday!!

This, That, and the Other

Tomorrow's the day! I've known for a long time now that I will never have my own biological children, but when I went to my pre-op appointment on Monday and was signing all the consents, and the nurse said, now this was says that you know you'll never be able to have children again, it kind of hit a cord. I haven't been outwardly sad about this for years, but I wanted to cry when she said that. I mean, even if I don't have the surgery, I can't have kids; that's been established. But it made me sad all over again to hear someone else say it like this surgery is what will make it impossible to happen. Anyway, boohoo...remember, this surgery is a GOOD thing. No more god-awful cramps, no more vomiting, headaches, no more mess...that's the reason we're doing this!!

Moving on...it's COLD outside! My windows were so frosted I couldn't even scrape them this morning. What a waste of gas to have to have the defroster help me scrape the windows! And we don't even have any snow yet. I mean, all the ski mountains are opening up, but down here it's just dry, bleak, and cold...frozen. I miss living in snow country.

When I was a kid in the Ketchum-Sun Valley area in Idaho, we had TONS of snow. We have this picture of my brother and me inside a tunnel we'd dug from our front porch to the road. The snow was so deep, we could safely slide off our roof into the yard. My brothers would shovel the snow off the roof (to keep it from caving in) so we'd have huge piles of snow in front of the house.

One winter, we couldn't see out the front windows into the street, and I remember looking up at the top of the pile, and our dog, Pepsi (so named so my mom would let us keep him!) was standing up there throwing a frisbee high into the air with his mouth and catching it just to throw it up again. He looked as if he felt he were the king of the mountain. And I guess at the time, he was. What great memories snow has for me!

Well, before I go, I need to plug the Giving Tree. Go to my other blog, "Tales from the Angel Retreat" and use the donation button to give to the Giving Tree, a project to buy gifts for foster children. I'll try to get a donation button on this blog today so you can give here too. All donations to both sites from now until Christmas will go to the tree. Thank you for giving!!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, and Season's Greetings to all!

The Holidays are in Full Swing Now!

Well, we survived Thanksgiving, only to have everyone in the house get sick for the weekend. It started with the baby. (He's almost 2.) He seems to be a carrier, cuz I never got sick as much as I have since he's been with us. He came to me when he was 8 months old. Last winter, I had a flu shot as usual, and I got some kind of stomach virus about 4 times. This year, I've had my flu shot again, and last weekend we all got some kind of stomach virus. Luckily, it was a 24-hour thing, but unfortunately, only one person got it at a time. So first it was him, then my 7 year old, then the 5 year old, then the 3 year old, then me and my mom. We washed more sheets last weekend than we normally wash in a week. (Some had to be washed more than once.) So our usual Christmas decorating fun was kind of hodge-podge. I pulled everything out of the garage Friday. I got the lights all up outside. Saturday evening we set up the tree and the kids decorated it in this year's colors, gold and silver. Most of the boxes were put back in the garage Sunday. My mom's part, the nick-knacks, were about half done yesterday, and a few more boxes put back in the garage. Great fun.

On another topic. I know I just started this blog, but I have to go away for a week. I'm having surgery in two days and will incapacitated for a week. I know you'll miss me. But it's finally time to face the truth, I'll never be able to have children of my own, and there's no use continuing on with the pain I go through each month, so it's all coming out. Thank God for my foster and adopted kiddos! They make facing this a little easier. Wish me luck! See ya later.

Oh, before I forget, go to my other blog "Tale from the Angel Retreat" and donate to the kids. Give it about 40 seconds to load (I can't figure out why it's so slow) and use the "Make a Donation" button. We're collecting gifts for foster kids in our area of Idaho, and your support could go a long way!! Thank you so much!!

OK Scrooges, Time to Shape Up the Attitude!

Something I've never really understood is bad attitudes about the Holidays. I realize there are certain factors that may make the Holidays hard, for SOME, but not for all. For instance, one of my best friends, who was my roommate for 5 years, always HATED Christmas. She'd get all mopey and depressed. BUT SHE HAD NO REASON TO DO SO. Nothing traumatic had happened in her life, nobody died during this time of year, or really ever. (She's one of those lucky people who hasn't had family members die tragically, or out of order.) Her family all celebrated Christmas with their own special traditions, and seemed to love the season. So why did she hate it? She couldn't tell you. She just acted depressed because it's become the trend. People think they are being SO cool by being scrooges, by acting depressed, just because it's Christmas. Get a life!

What is so uncool about loving traditions? About celebrating something? In my family, Christmas is all about the family, love, togetherness. We celebrate having one-another and loving and being loved. We have specific traditions we follow each year because we love them. I love taking my kids caroling in December, and they love it, and our neighbors love it. How wonderful it is to take them around the city to look at all the lights and decorations, to see their faces light up and the smiles on their faces. Our home is filled with joy that lingers most of the year because this is the time we come together and solidify that we are a family.

If loving this season makes me a geek, so be it. I'll take the label, I don't care. If you're going to get all pissed off because the stores are starting to sell stuff for the holiday before Thanksgiving, then obviously you have no real worries in your life, because, does it really hurt you or affect the rest of your life if you walk into a store and see holly and berries, wreaths, and hear jingle bells? Would you melt if you just let yourself enjoy life a little instead of constantly looking for things to complain about? Besides, with all the complaints about the holidays I've seen online, I've also noticed that a whole lot of you have already switched your blog templates to holiday themes...and it's not even Thanksgiving yet!

Be happy, Santa Claus is coming to town!!!

Getting it all Set Up!

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My First Post

Well, I decided to try putting up another site. The other one, Tales from the Angel Retreat (visit me at http://arstories.blogspot.com) is mostly just about my life as a foster parent. I think I wanted to try another one where I felt like I could just talk about other things that come to mind. We'll see how this goes.

But this being my first post and all, I thought I'd introduce myself a little more than I did on Tales. My name is Kelly. I live in Idaho, USA. My degree is in education, I work for a university, and I don't teach. However, I do have a bit of expertise in writing, so might spend some time on here once in a while talking about writing. I keep thinking about getting my master's, but tell me, am I the only person out there who is about middle-aged, has a degree, and still doesn't really know what I want to do when I grow up?

Ten years ago my mom had a bad accident, and can no longer work. I was living in New Mexico at the time, and loving it. But she couldn't live alone anymore, and I offered that she come live with me. We actually live together well. After a few years, she really wanted to come home to Idaho, and I conceded. I miss New Mexico A LOT, but I love my mom and family more than the state, so I'm OK being here. What is weird about living with her, though, is that I feel like a child most of the time. I can't seem to get past this. I look at friends of mine who have families and are living like 30 somethings, adults, and I feel like I haven't grown up. This is something I need to fix in my life. And it's all about me, nobody is making me feel this way, I just can't seem to make myself a full-fledged adult when I'm at home with my mom - and I have several children!

So this is me. Next time I'm going to talk about all you scrooges out there, cuz I think you need an attitude adjustment! It's no longer trendy to hate the holiday season!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!