To 2004
Happy 2004 people. I hope this year is better than last year for all of us. I am glad we are all around to see the ball drop.
My New Year's resolutions include: be happy, breathe deeply, smile more, love even more, drink more water, worry less, drop assloads of weight (literally) back on the straight and narrow Vegan/ living foods path to wellness, practice flute everyday, and pay off more debt than I create. I have to work hard on that last one. It is a good thing I went to the furniture store today and not tomorrow. This is the year for art and music in our household. This means that when I cleaned the garage today I left the big toolbox of airbrushing supplies out for Terry to use. He has two new lenses for his camera too. Savannah and Hope now have an easel in their room, chalk, paints, and a new computer. I have learned to play the pentatonic flutes I bought for the children so I can now teach the girls. The children's lyre is on my list of things to get a new string for and learn to tune and play within the next month. Logan has his new electric guitar and some new software to go with it. I bought a big huge computer and writing hutch/desk that will house all my geek toys and my scrapbooking/digital picture sorting/picture printing stuff so that I can get that going, and I am playing my flute several times a day. I think I am actually even improving! This year I may even buy a new flute since I have been playing this one since I was in fourth grade and it is now extremely old and not quite wanting to let those F sharps and low Cs out at all.
Posted by gwendolyn on December 31, 2003 at 11:48 PM
In Their Own Sweet Time
The girls and I have spent the afternoon making story books. They draw. I write down what they say the pictures are of. I write Hope's words for her. Savannah rewrites her words from a different paper that I write them down on onto her story paper. Hopefully something lasting is coming from it. Little building blocks. They definitely don't lack creativity. Sometimes it is hard as an unschooling parent to put so much trust into these little things. Just hoping to encourage enough but not too much pushing. It is like growing a garden. It is happening slowly but I see them blossoming. It is such a sweet feeling to watch their little hands work with purpose. Their own purpose. I can't wait to show them their books when they are my age.
Posted by gwendolyn on December 30, 2003 at 04:52 PM
Nothing A Little Jagermeister Won't Cure
I have accidentally passed my stuffy-head-so-you-can't-rest to my Mr. Monkey. He is so friggin' grumpy when he is sick! That makes four of us now with icky noses and mildly scratchy throats. Thankfully it is not a full blown flu. Mostly we are all just snorting a lot. It doesn't irritate me when I have the sniffles but it irritates the hell out of me when anyone else in my house does. I guess I better go buy stock in Kleenex. Logan is the only one who isn't snorting and whining. Poor kid. He may well be taking care of us all by the end of it.
Posted by gwendolyn on December 29, 2003 at 11:45 PM
Flashbacks
I had a big sentimental moment today.
Terry's mother sent us an 8 x 10 picture that was taken when we were up there of Savannah slow dancing with Terry's brother Tim. She was standing on his feet. I had a small flashback of one of the houses that Terry and Tim lived in when we were teenagers. We used to have so much fun. Terry had a huge bedroom but his window was over the front porch and faced the street. Tim's bedroom window was on the back of the house and the window was over part of the back roof. So when no one was around we used to climb out of Tim's bedroom window and sunbathe nude on the roof. In the middle of town. Houses all around us. We were crazy kids. We just didn't care.
Tim and Terry would fight over who was using their mom's car for our dates on Friday night. Even back then I just didn't realize the hugeness of us all being a family. We have been a family for over half my life. I just miss those days a lot. The days when we all partied together and got drunk on Busch beer and made pyramids with the cans and were just kids together. We were all so young.
I wish my kids could be with their grandparents and cousins and their Uncle Tim and their Aunt Shannon. I was thinking all this while the rest of the clan was waiting for me in the car and I was putting on my jewelry in front of my bedroom window as the sill is one big jewelry box. Then I noticed that the diamond bracelet that Terry got me about five years ago has a worn out clasp and several gold parts that have long since worn away. It has seen better days and probably will fall apart any minute, and it was just kind of symbolic to me of how long ago everything is. How nothing is the same. How much I miss.
Posted by gwendolyn on December 27, 2003 at 10:15 PM
Bless Me, I Am Gonna Need All The Help I Can Get
I have never ever sneezed this much in my entire life.
The lower part of my lungs had collapsed while I was in ICU last October and then the right one partially collapsed again several weeks later. I went through a lot of forced air breathing treatments. A large machine with hoses and mouthpieces and medication and a nagging person in scrubs visited me several times a day and made me basically suck on an air compressor and take in as much pressure as I could for as long as I could as many times as I could. All while splinting my slit middle section with a pillow to avoid popping the forty-something staples out that held all my stuffing in. The point was to expand my lungs again and also to force the fluid that had built up around my lungs to be reabsorbed into my body and out of my lung cavity. This allowed me to escape the alternative plan of extracting said fluid with a very long needle and catheter through my back just below the shoulder blade between two of my ribs, with no anesthesia. Yeah. Still makes me hurt to think about it too. I also had months of rehabilitation with an Incentive Spirometer. So even though I probably have about 80% to 90% of my lung capacity back I can still tell that I am not 100%. I noticed this summer that I got winded easily while swimming. I figured it would get better and better with time. Hasn't seemed to though. If i try to inhale as deeply as I can I start coughing and my lungs kind of quiver. Very strange. I always try to get Terry to put his ear up next to my mouth when I do that so he can hear my breath when I do that but it freaks him out. Since that whole experience I have a gripping pain under my entire ribcage when I yawn. Like all of my ribs are bruised. Enough to make me say "Owww!" every single time I yawn. Most of the time I don't even realize I say that now. I am pretty used to it. The doctor has no explanation as to why this happens. Which brings me to the point of mentioning this. Sneezing is a complete bitch! I thought yawning hurt! I have probably sneezed fifty times today. So my ribs feel like I have been someone's punching bag. Very odd. At least it takes my mind off the horrible congestion behind my eyes and nose. Okay, enough whining.
I woke up at 12:30 this afternoon in a post medicated haze. I hate that. Groggy. Filmy. Icky.
We then decided to take a lazy drive over to the beach. He took pictures. I DJ via iPod. Then some dinner where I guzzled two frosty mugs of beer as it was a twofer. Nice lil buzz.Then Starbucks. Now we are home. Comfy on the couch, playing with my new iSight.
Incidentally, we just happened upon some television show about Jesus and what some people think he might have looked like and different people from the Bible and what some believe the relationships of these people may have been to Jesus. They were showing different paintings of scenes with Jesus and Terry made the comment that one of the paintings looked more like an orgy. To which I replied that Jesus was a player and that that made Satanists player haters. Then he proceeded to move a few inches farther away from me as I would most likely be struck down by lightening any minute. I thought it was mildly amusing so I thought I would share.
Oh quit looking at me like that. I was joking. Don't be hatin'!
Posted by gwendolyn on at 09:20 PM
From My Tribe To Yours
Merry Christmas!
Posted by gwendolyn on December 24, 2003 at 08:12 PM
Buddy The Elf, What's Your Favorite Color?
We tried to go to the wood furniture store today to look for a nice big desk for my piles of junk, and possibly some sort of shelving unit to put around the television in the living room so that I could hide various piles of junk behind cabinet doors. The kids have suddenly forgotten that in order to avoid coal in their stockings they must use their powers for good instead of evil and our shopping trip was short lived.
Then we went to a little diner we had never been to. We proceeded to spend the next two hours with Buddy the Elf crossed with Jim Carey in The Grinch crossed with Jack from Will and Grace who looked remarkably like Al Franken. It was both scary and extremely amusing. He was perhaps the strangest waiter I have ever met to date. On top of being highly quirky he basically told the kids they could not have Coke because it would make them too hyper and then brought them three mugs of cocoa with whipped cream and chocolate syrup on top. He randomly talked to himself and was generally loud and annoying to his co-workers. He repeated things over and over under his breath in a distinctive flaming tone. He made smart ass comments when we asked for things and could not keep himself from acting generally creepy. He nearly sat on my lap while we ordered but I suspect he was more interested in my husband more than me. Then after we were finished he made sarcastic comments, half under his breath, about the fact that neither Terry nor I finished our steamed broccoli. Nearly everything he did or said made us look at each other and laugh or at the very least raise our eyebrows in silent understanding that he might just be a little mentally ill. Someday we may visit him again. Maybe.
We then went to the mall. Just to see fake snow and sparkly stuff and faux Christmas cheer. Instead we fought mobs, screamed at stupid teenage girls for nearly running over Hope with wheelchairs they very obviously didn't need since there was a stack of girls on each one, and basically got about half way through the midway and decided it was not such a good idea. My boots were killing my feet for some reason and if I didn't get out of there I was going to start knocking people's heads together. Not very cheery like.
So then another hour grabbing last minute food stuff in Publix and we finally got home. A foot massage and two rum and cokes later and I am better.
Ho freaking Ho.
On the bright side, we have the next couple of days to relax, eat, sleep, cuddle and be generally merry. Just need to get the gifts wrapped and we will be okay.
Posted by gwendolyn on December 23, 2003 at 10:06 PM
Somebody Fix Me, Please
I have spent several cozy days with my other four family members, making iced sugar cookies from scratch for the children, decorating the house, shopping, driving around, going out to eat comfort food that won't make me sick, drinking various warm beverages with the seat heaters on and the sunroof open for that very perfect mix of cool and warm that is so hard to get in Southern Florida except for these few precious weeks in December and January.
I am pretty happy. Anything to be with my family. Here. No Morphine.
Still there is something really bothering me.
First I have to just emphasize that I am so grateful not to be in the hospital right now. One year ago I was just sitting there with no hope of improvement, drugged up on Percoset, coming down off Morphine, uncomfortable, just trying to sleep occasionally (sitting up at a 90 degree angle), trying to breathe into my little plastic tube and make the ball stay up above 400 and promising the Pulmonary doctor that I would get it to go all the way up to the top when really all I wanted to do was just cry and stop trying. Crying took too much energy. Daily grind of shots in the stomach, bruises, blown out veins, no blood left to give the angry woman at 5a.m., bile eating my skin up where the tube was taped to my nose, teeth and ears aching from three months of NG tubes. The blur that was my life. It was nearly Christmas and I still did not know when I was going to go home or if my guts were ever going to wake up. Even if they did I would have to go through several more months with my intestines sticking out of my side and yet another surgery where I could just finally die. There is so much to be thankful for this year. It has been such a hard year. It has been such a bittersweet year. So much bad has happened and so much good has happened it is such a strange mix.
I know you have heard all of this before. Tough shit. My repetition is a good reminder of what you need to be thankful for. The ability of all of your organs to function normally, love and support of your family, drinking and eating without tubes down your nose and throat, eating healthy food and going to the bathroom like a normal person. Mostly in that order. Yeah, something like that. Anyway...
This is the situation though. If it weren't for my ever growing pants size and my inability to consume raw fruit and veggies without causing my digestive system to freak the hell out, life would be perfect. My picture is changing again. It is like hitting the button to rewind three years and add back on the forty pounds I lost. Only instead of the hell that was seven years of agonizing gall bladder disease and attacks, complicate the picture by the residual problems of the last two years of trauma to my internal organs, muscles, and skin. I am trying so hard not to get totally depressed by it. In fact, I just keep ignoring it. However, I am not fooling myself by just being thankful to be alive. I want to be healthy and feel good too. I shouldn't have to settle for this. I have worked so hard to just exist. Why can't I just function dammit?
I am back to avoiding the mirror, avoiding having my picture taken, hiding as much as I can. I hated having to buy new jeans to wear to Ohio because I have a closet full of clothes I am no where near able to fit into. I am just trying to avoid the obvious toxic state of my being because I have no idea how to fix it. I have given in to the fact that the only way to be able to get along in daily life and have some relief from the constant digestive hell is to eat in a manner that slows my digestion to a pseudo-manageable pace, literally congesting my system on purpose. I know if I eat lots of bread, pasta, meat, and potatoes and not much else that I may not have to spend the night trying real hard to do lamaze breathing and relaxation techniques while I grit my teeth and my body turns itself inside out. Eating heavy keeps my nightmare episodes (symptoms akin to Colitis, IBS, Spastic Colon, Crohn's Disease) to as much of a minimum as I can possibly manage and when that doesn't quite keep it at bay I take drugs like Bismuth and Immodium AD to slow it even further. When I say take, I mean drink several doses a day of Pepto just to be able to go to the grocery, to the park, and all of those other places I can't seem to get to without getting sick. Then if I take more than half of one Immodium pill my digestive system shuts completely down, for days at a time. Sounds like a fine alternative until you have eaten several meals without eliminating. Then you are just toxic. If I move around too much I just kick start the whole problem. So going out for a brisk walk is pretty much out of the question most days, pasta or no pasta. Sometimes I go for a week or so being fine. I am so thankful for those breaks. Then I have days of sickness. It is unpredictable, uncontrollable, and unbearable pain. Being sick takes a lot of energy. You would be shocked at how tiring it is. So going out for a brisk walk is pretty much out of the question most days, pasta or no pasta.
The ultimate problem with the way I have to eat and live is that it doesn't matter whether I am constantly eliminating or constantly congesting and sedating my system, I am still gaining weight rapidly and I just don't know what the fuck to do anymore.
Posted by gwendolyn on December 22, 2003 at 01:19 AM
Cute Nog
Me: Do you want nutmeg in your eggnog, Hopie?
Hope: No tanks. I don't like nutmog.
Posted by gwendolyn on December 17, 2003 at 11:57 AM
The Panties On Fire Show
I just got my sixth row center ticket to see Henry Rollins in a teeny little venue in January. When I say teeny, I mean so small it used to be a bowling alley. This is a very good thing. Nice and cozy. I am all excited. I went to see Ian Anderson in the same venue and was like 18 rows back probably and since it was such a small place it seemed very close. Imagine what the sixth row is going to be like! Too bad he isn't going to wear his standard concert attire for the spoken word tour. Anyway, Merry Christmas to me! Merry Christmas to me! Uh huh uh huh.
Posted by gwendolyn on December 16, 2003 at 11:05 PM
Those Who Cast The First Stone...
Today at park day a conversation came up about celebrities and about a few celebrities that you think are stupid or superficial and really they are nice people who do lots of charity work and are activists, etc. Then one mother thought to point out the fact that Madonna has now written children's books dealing with issues she considered to be moral issues when, in her opinion, Madonna is a mother that clearly has no morals.
This, of course, initiated a whole Gwen Sermon. In essence I clarified for her, and the whole group in the process, that being a mother is not an automatic shut off switch for being an individual person. They are two different worlds. Would you judge a woman's mothering skills by how much she likes to be an exhibitionist. One has nothing to do with the other. They are all women, don't they know this already? What Madonna does with her own individual person doesn't mean she is not a good mother. I am glad I finally said something for once. I sit there every week and keep my mouth shut and appear to be the good little Gwen that I can be for these people all the time. Sometimes they need to just get the fuck over themselves. Prudes.
Posted by gwendolyn on December 12, 2003 at 02:51 PM
Use Me, Please
Over the past weekend I had a conversation with another mom during which she was telling me all about how icky it was going to be to try to go holiday shopping for her child in the evening time so I brought up the possibility of taking care of her daughter for a few hours one day during the week so that she may shop for the upcoming holidays without gift recipient in tow. I suggested we swap a day. I thought maybe it would be a nice little exchange. Help a momma out kind of thing. Granted I have three children but my children are polite and well behaved at other people's houses. She knows this so that was not an issue. So she seemed really excited at the idea and had planned on bringing her daughter over on Tuesday from noon to four. Then agreed she would watch mine today. No problem. I cleared the whole day. I made sure we were all ready when she got here. I told her to take her time and that she could leave her as long as she needed. As the afternoon went on and the kids were all playing I made fresh lemonade (even with slices of lemon so it would look all pretty) and made the closest thing to homemade kettle corn (that sweet and salty thing is so good!) that I could, thinking it would be nice thing to do for her after an exhausting afternoon of toy store shopping to relax, have some snacks, maybe hang out and chat for a few minutes. You know, be nice. Be friendly. Not make her think she had to pick her daughter up at the door and get the hell out of here. I think mostly I didn't want her to get the impression that I was just doing it for the baby-sitting and that I really was trying to be friendly.
Today I finally got ahold of her at 11:30. She wasn't dressed yet. She said she had a lot of things to do today but if I really needed her to she would watch them, since she had already said she would. I could tell that she really didn't want to be bothered by the whole thing and, as cheerfully as I could, told her that it was okay, not to feel bad, and that I didn't need to go that bad and so she stumbled around the conversation until I think it dawned on her how shitty the whole deal was and she made herself feel guilty and told me that if I wanted to go ahead and bring them over she could run her errands later this afternoon. I went ahead and did it even though at that point I really felt kind of put off by the whole thing now. Still I had one large item to pick up and bring home and I couldn't do that with the children. So I bit the bullet and I was gone about an hour and a half total. I rushed to the store, rushed home to hide it, then rushed back to get them, made sure they cleaned up everything they played with, and that was that.
Maybe it shouldn't have been a big deal that she was so eager to have me babysit for her and then totally made me feel like shit for expecting her to live up to the bargain. I don't know, maybe I just have very high expectations of people. I think people are really nice and they seem to make an effort to be friendly and then it seems to always end up being all about what I can do for them and not much else. It happens all the time. I have a big sign on my back that says "I love abuse." or something.
Maybe I am socially stupid and I just don't know how people are supposed to interact with each other.
Posted by gwendolyn on December 11, 2003 at 05:00 PM
The Rush
Once upon a time he told her... "Just come on. Please? For me? You won't get caught. Even if you do it doesn't really matter anyway. Nothing matters. We'll have such fun. I promise. You know I would do it for you."
So she did. All the time. She couldn't say no if she wanted to. It was another world. A perfect world. She always just barely got away with it. but it never stopped her from doing it the next time. It didn't matter. He was worth every minute of it. Nothing else was important. Nothing else mattered.
Fifteen years later they are playing the same game, only in reverse. Life still goes on around them and even though they had to grow up sometimes that world is still the only thing that really matters and it is such a very perfect feeling.
Posted by gwendolyn on December 10, 2003 at 03:36 PM
Carb City
Last night I made pizza dough in the bread machine. This afternoon I am making a loaf of white bread. As soon as it is done I should probably throw in another batch because I just can't seem to make enough each day. I could spend my entire life putting ingredients into this machine. I made bread by hand all the time when I lived in Iowa. I loved it at first. Then I got sick of it, just like when I decided not to use disposable diapers when Savannah was a baby. The same goes for hand washing stuff. I would kill for a lingerie washing machine. I wonder if it would still destroy an underwire bra like the big machine does? I have no clue how those Amish women keep their shit together. They get to do both every day plus a hundred other back breaking chores. I have a lot of respect for their patience and devotion. If I had to do everything they do I would be one cranky bitch. Anyway, the bread machine, it kicks booty in a big way.
Posted by gwendolyn on at 01:09 PM
Santa Baby
Dear Santa,
I know I haven't been the best girl this year, in fact, I have been pretty naughty. Sometimes there is a very fine line between that whole naughty and nice business, Santa. If you give me a call I will explain it all to you. It might put that whole thing into a different perspective for you. You might even feel less inclined to leave coal in my stockings, er, stocking. Yeah, the furry one with my name on it. Not the thigh highs with lines down the back. I will try to remember not to leave those hanging anywhere on Christmas Eve so you don't get all confused. Oh, and I will make sure I am in bed when you come. Don't worry I will leave the lights on for ya.
Anyway, a girl could feel a whole lot nicer if she a got a lil sum'n sum'n under the tree. You know, got left with a little present on Christmas morning. I'm just saying...
Something small and sparkly, something soft and frilly, something fun to play with. I will leave it up to you. Please, be good to me Santa. I have had a rough year.
Are you blushing Santa? Focus, man! Sheesh.
Posted by gwendolyn on December 08, 2003 at 12:04 PM
Garlic, Baby
I got lucky and inherited a bread machine while in Ohio. So yesterday I spent a couple of hours in the baking section of the grocery store picking up various flours and yeast and such. Due to some technical difficulties I didn't get around to putting all the components for a loaf of rye bread in the machine until about eight o'clock but we were impatient to see how it would turn out so instead of delaying the baking time so that it wouldn't be done until morning we went ahead and set it to immediately do it's thing. As I sat in bed clicking various buttons on the new portable DVD player, trying not to wake the snoring monkey, smells of a bakery wafted through the house. He even rolled over to briefly comment on how good it smelled. However, since I had to improvise with a recipe from the internet because I don't have the recipe book that came with the machine I am not sure if it all worked out like it was supposed to. The taste of the bread is good but the loaf ended up being a lot shorter than what I expected and the crust was a bit too hard. There were several different factors that could have caused this result. I will just keep experimenting until I get it right. It would be better to try to get the original recipe book though since my research is suggesting that some recipes won't work with certain machines. I will just keep working on it.
Since stepping on the scale at the grocery store entrance proved without a shadow of a doubt that eating lots of cheeseburgers and junk food while road tripping will just make your ass even fatter than it already is in just a week prompted much veggie and fruit purchasing. I have grand visions of giant vegan fruit smoothies for breakfast and freshly baked bread with homemade roasted garlic spread and fresh raw veggies to crunch for lunch. Maybe throw in some roasted red pepper hummus for dipping. Since I will make all of this from scratch it takes planning and time. This morning chocolate banana smoothies and dense rye bread with a thick tough crust was as good as it got. Besides I am the only one who loves hummus and large quantities of blended roasted garlic with thyme, olive oil and sea salt smeared all over my bread. Emeril and I would get along just fine.
Posted by gwendolyn on December 02, 2003 at 10:37 AM
I'll Have A Bottle Of Captain Jack
If you were like me and ran out to a particular corner drugstore at precisely midnight last night specifically to pick up your copy of a certain pirate movie and you happen to stay up, as I did, until three in the morning watching various bonus features and happened to catch the deleted scene called "The French" and got all of the various references because any Depp fan would, you would most likely agree with me that it was priceless and they really should have left it in the movie because it was funny, especially when he started in on raisins being just humiliated grapes as it just happens to also be one of the best lines ever, from Benny and Joon, of course. I am sure his girlfriend Vanessa would have found the little shout outs amusing also. So I am sure you are also as tired as I am this morning, that is, if you are anything like me..just a tad bit sad and crazy.
Posted by gwendolyn on at 09:08 AM