Tacoma, Washington

Juli has been in Tacoma, Washington all week visiting her best friend Mandy. Mandy is in the Army and will be deploying to Iraq soon for the third time, and Juli went out to spend some time with her before she goes.

Fifty years ago, I was in Tacoma. Although I don't remember being born there and traveling home to Illinois when I was one year old, it's kind of neat that Juli is there now. She'll tell me all about it and I'll see it through my daughter's eyes.

She says it's beautiful ... and the pine trees are awesome! I'm so glad she got to go, and I wish I could have gone with her. Maybe someday we'll get to go together. I'd love to see where I lived that first year and see the town that I was born in. My Dad was in the Army and Mom followed him out there when she was seventeen years old, married him there, and I was born the following year.

Juli will be flying home tomorrow .... so please keep her in your prayers that she has a safe flight! This little bird loves to travel, and she'll be landing in Indianapolis tomorrow night at 8:00PM. Until her feet are firmly planted on Indiana ground I'll be worried about her!

Be Blessed Everyone.

"Liquidators"

My children are napping and I've had a long soak in the tub, and decided that I needed to do a little cleaning and reorganizing. So I began to go through all the little shoes here in the basket by the back door. There are way too many pairs for three little kids. So sorted and bagged they are, and we're less 18 shoes now. That's single shoes, not pairs. But it is nine pair, which is too many extra shoes to have, that do not fit. Especially since I'm the official "shoe picker upper" in this house.

Looking at all those shoes reminded me of when I was a child of twelve and was very aware of what everyone else in the world was wearing on their feet. They were wearing something that I wasn't, and something that my Mother wouldn't buy for me. Penny Loafers.

After what I'm sure was much harping and whining .... Mom finally decided that I could have a cool pair of Penny Loafers too, and off to "Liquidators" we went. Liquidators was a store in the small little Illinois town I grew up in. It was where my Mom shopped a LOT! Being only twelve, I didn't know the difference in stores, and Liquidators was just like the Ritz to me!

Only today (honestly) did I put two and two together, and only today it hit me like a ton of bricks, ... and only today did I realize that Liquidators was a "sell-out" store or "seconds" store.

It actually took me thirty-nine years to realize why my new "Fake Leather Gray Alligator Penny Loafers" didn't look like everyone Else's did when I was twelve years old, and it left me scarred me for life!

I vividly remember the day Mom bought those shoes for me. I was hard to deal with, mouthy, and wouldn't make a choice .... and she made the choice for me! It was a lesson learned .... but did she have to make me wear them to school? She did.

Be Blessed Everyone.

House of Sickness

Well, not the whole house. Just me. For the past few days I've been getting sicker and sicker and thought I had the flu. What started out as the flu ended up as Pneumonia.

This morning I was so sick I couldn't hardly breathe or get out of bed. ... and I landed on the doorstep of my Doctor around noon. One look at my hot raging self with a 103. degree temperature and a listen to my lungs, she decided I needed to be admitted to the hospital. I just can't do that. ... or what I mean is, I don't want to do that.

I think what saved my butt from landing on a hard plastic bed in downtown, "you're better off at home, than in the House of Sickness" hospital ... is the fact that I'm a IV nurse.

I happen to work for a pharmacy that does IV drugs, so Marlboro Man carted my butt out the door and made a mad dash a couple blocks down the street to the pharmacy, and we brought back a bag full of Goodies, and a IV pump. I got IV Rocephin, IV Levaquin, a steroid shot in the butt, some really good "make you sleep" cough medicine and some nebulizer drugs.

So tonight, I'm home with an IV in my hand, and tomorrow I'll repeat the two IV antibiotics at home myself, start a steroid dose pak, then oral Levaquin the next day. I hate being the patient ... especially when I'm my own nurse. But it beats being in the hospital for a few days.

I am scheduled for surgery in Indianapolis this Thursday for a lumpectomy and exploratory in my breast, and one thing I'm certain though ... I just earned myself a cancellation.

Just for the record, the lump in my breast has been there for years and years .... it's just getting bigger and is having a few changes ... there is no reason for alarm, it's just time to take it out. So I'm ready ... then I got sick. So now I'm going to have to psyche myself up all over again!

One thing I can say .... this flu that is going around is wicked stuff.

Be Blessed Everyone.

Thrice Blessed Momma

NOTICE: The Memorial Blog for Thrice Blessed Momma is now receiving comments.


Thrice Blessed Momma (Helena Kemp) was a blogging friend of mine. I never met her in person, but I met her many times here on my blog, or hers ... or late night telephone calls. We laughed a lot and we built each other up with our triplet stories. See, she too had triplets. Hers will be six years old on March 14th, and they just lost their Mother.

She passed away Thursday morning. Her funeral was today in Pennsylvania. She very recently had a Aortic Aneurysm repair. The surgery was a success, but after many post-op complications, she succumbed to sepsis.

I greatly admired Helena for her strength. She was a single Mother of triplets. Andrew, her beloved husband passed away suddenly almost two years ago, and she was raising Madison, Zoe and Jonathan alone. Her children will live with their Grandmother for the time being.

You can read her blog, Thrice Blessed Momma here. .... and she truly was a Thrice Blessed Momma. Due to the way Helena set up her comment section, no new comments will ever be shown on her blog. Her email account no longer exists. If you've left a comment there, please be kind and come back and leave some "kind words" to her children (in a few days) at a new blog dedicated to Helena and her children, Madison, Zoe and Jonathan. The link will be: www.thriceblessedmommy.blogspot.com

Be Blessed Everyone.

Tanya

Ice

Yes, it glistens, and it's beautiful. But I hate it. We were buried for a few days in snow with ice on top. Everything was thick coated and very slick. Every single blade of grass and every single twig was icy. Including my house, and it's so cold here!

The ice was so thick that it coated the satellite receiver for my internet and I lost my window to the world for a few days. That was hard. So hard. Then, the ice on the trees were acting as a prizm and shattered any hope of internet signal I would get. In between the bouts of no electricity, no television and no internet, I had nightmares of living on the frontier two hundred years ago.

Then noon yesterday, I felt the tremors of a huge rumble and heard the roar of cracking ice, and I knew that this was a good thing. I was about be freed. I ran to the window just as the entire sheet of ice came crashing down from the roof. The only roof that I cared about. The roof that held my satellite dish. It was free.

I instantly grabbed my phone and called Mr. Dairy Wife. In my exhiliration, I was so out of breath that I could hardly talk. I begged him to come home. Come home now. I needed him. Now.

Within five minutes he stood on my doorstep with a look of excitement on his face. I was ready for him, and I handed him a bucket with piping hot water in it, and begged him to satisfy my every need. Then he did.

With a look of confusion on his face .... he slowly climbed up on the roof and poured the hot water on my internet dish .... and melted the ice. Instantaneous gratification. Before he got off the roof, I was online again. I checked my blog ... then my email, then everyone else's blog ..... and it was like Heaven! I was at such peace with the world, and all was well again.

Then, lo and behold .... within twenty-five minutes of becoming a part of the real world, the electricity went off again. And, I sank down in deep despair, and cried like a baby.

What hurt the worst was I saw the smirk on Mr. Dairy Wife's face as he walked out the door. I heard the snort, and I saw the grin when he kicked up his heels, as he slid down the icy sidewalk ... and I started to pray. "Dear Lord ... if I can't have electricity and my internet .... please just let him fall on his butt ... just once. Just once, so I can have the last laugh."

Be blessed everyone and it's so good to be back!