Margm

Good luck on the weather Kevin. Good luck with the family situation. I dread Christmas. Granddaughter won't come because she and her mom are at (sometimes) a silent war. I'm trying to hold on to a sanity that at age 81 is tenuous. My daughter is mental, my granddaughter is full of hate. Age 24 is not a child anymore, but damage has been done and both want to throw me in the middle. I do not know how to save me, much less anyone else. I wish they would not put me in the middle. Someone is always angry at me because I'm tired. My staying silent makes both angry at me. Families can kill you. My son is angry, and like my dad, it seems to come out to the wrong person. My daughter lives at his house, he wants no part of their anger. Neither do I. I remember marrying Billy to get away from my mom. In 1960, there seemed no other option. Billy knew it. Frying pan into the fire. Made the best of 54 years and I miss my protector. Best years of my long life. It is 55 degrees and sunny. Got to get groceries. Get cataracts taken care of in January. Had cause to go to urgent care, shower made my ear stop up and my aggravating it did not help. I put up with it for three days. The female doc took a lot of time with me just talking. How do you find a doc that will do that anymore? Not medical, just talk. My state group insurance picks places that are "free" and I'm sure my insurance paid it, but it was free for me. You can't say you have a wonderful experience with doctors anymore. I can now. I'm glad it was just an aggravation and not serious. My sister is in her 14th month of chemo. I bought her car. She needed money more than the car. It was her idea. I am her transportation nearly every day. She wants days where she keeps the car and it is in my name, but she is covered under the very expensive insurance that I pay too. There are tear places on the sides of the bottom where she runs over curbs. She needed a jeep. Have I griped enough? Golden years? Someone that was not old made those words up.

I was hoping you would have no problems with it at all. I guess we all fall into something as we get older. Certainly, the road is full of ruts. Just showering one of my ears would not unstop. I withstood it (and aggravated it) for three days before going to the urgent care clinic. Only happened once before. Did not get it infected, thank goodness. Just not being able to hear out of one ear made me think of my good friend who is deaf now. Take care of yourself George, sometimes we are the only ones we can depend on. My family stays sicker than me most of the time. They have to take me in January for the dreaded cataract surgery. After you have had so much wrong with you in younger years, I don't want to be touched. Was glad to have the ear unstopped anyhow. Keep us updated George. I know you cannot lift heavy stuff for a while, so please be careful.

That is what happens when you have wonderful neighbors, sometimes they give you everything. I like waving at mine.

I'm not sure I could do my "business" at 12 degrees either. It is a shame we don't have dog boxes like we have cat boxes. Y'all stay warm. A friend of mine had a raincoat and boots for her pup. It is colder in Louisiana too, but it is 54 and raining.

Yes, I would eat it when Billly cooked it, or his mom. Just didn't like it when I cooked it. We were discussing my cooking today at our Thanksgiving dinner. No one can cook old south turkey and dressing like I can, no brag, just fact. The simple chicken and dumplings I never could master. My nephew was talking about my dumpling (singular) and how it was good once you cut it into pieces. This was true and they all laughed. No matter if I followed a recipe, used biscuits, flour tortillas, no way could I ever fix dumplings. And really, the thing was the dogs would not eat them either.

I remember the cabbage soup diet. On my high starch "diet" I can have spinach and green beans. I can have most underground veggies except turnips. Makes no sense, but tell that to my intestines. They don't like me much anyhow after I let them all get burned up from radiation. I just have to cut out and down. I used to would not cook cabbage but Billy made the best "fried" cabbage ever. Loved cabbage slaw. I would certainly love to have stuffed celery. I miss all our southern soul food and skillet cornbread. But, I sure don't miss what they do to me. Know you feel lots better with the weight going away.

Well, he had asked me to lose four pounds and I did. ALL of my lab work was excellent and that is a pure miracle, with my starch diet. Now he wants me to lose five more pounds. If I don't die soon, I might be at my high school weight in 5-6 years. Maybe longer. Lots of family problems. One of us needs mental help bad, but I think she is narcissistic, so not sure it will help. I think you need to tell the truth to be helped. Still sleeping with the fan on at night, turned away from me but just moving air around. It is 50 degrees right now and I saw a map that showed y'all in the NW area, Canada included (of course) are in for some very cold weather. Think maybe y'all are more used to it than us (I don't know what to call us, hillbillies (?), no hills, rednecks (?) nah, and we are not Cajuns either). Just flatlanders. One thing I do not like about getting to be 81 is that if I look forward to something, I might forget it, and for sure not to buy green bananas. Cover up and stay warm folks.

One of the doctors that trained at the hospital where I retired from is a surgeon now in my home town. His mom was pruning her rose bushes and stuck a rose bush thorn in her hand. She almost died, really, from a thorn from a rose bush. Strange little things can hurt us bad. Billy kept getting scrapes and hurt from moving rocks at our place where he thought he was Jeremiah Johnson. We rushed the nearly 40 miles to the closest clinic more than once. The time we had to rush Brianna, when she was a tiny tot was the last draw for me. We moved away from the beautiful mountains only about a half mile from the clinic. Every little thing I would have Billy at the clinic. Taking his blood pressure I heard skipped beats. Took him directly, no appointment. He was sent to a cardiologist who said it was "normal" (wasn't normal to me.) Living close to clinic did not save his life though.

You have certainly had your share of scrapes, jabs, cuts, dog bites, and wounds. I guess saying "be careful" is too late. I agree, you have slept and woke up from the head hit and know what to look for. Maybe a soft pair of gloves under workmen's gloves would help with all of your activities. When I go out around the apartments I take two hiking stix along with me. Yet, my closest calls have been getting out of bed in the morning, legs stiff, have to sit down a few times and then get back up. We are accidents, trying to just mobilize safely. It is not easy. Of course you are up to date on your tetanus shot, I hope. (I'm not, but will get one next week when I go to doc.)

Showing we "like" the post sometimes seems not enough. My heart is with so many. But "like" is a heart, so maybe we can feel the emotion that goes into it.

You do manage to keep busy up on your mountain. Nothing going on here except it finally got cold. Took my sister for her chemo, weight only 90. She can't get it to come up. That is four more than it has been. Kelli's little fur-baby is 14. She is deaf, can hardly see, and has a hard time breathing. I dread this. At the vet two weeks in a row. They call her a miracle pup. I know Kelli is going to be so sad. We all will be, but she has been her constant companion for 14 years. That's all I have. Go to doc next week, blood work and he listens everywhere. That's about it.

I'm still sleeping under the cooling blanket. It is 73 degrees at 10:40 p.m. I still sleep with the fan and A/C on. We got one cool day and I turned on the heat and I guess the heated dust made the fire alarm go off. I turned it off and have not needed it again. No rain. If she didn't live so far away I'd go see Karen, our weather must be the same. I'm going to be the first person griping though when it gets too cold. Wrap up good. Enjoy it.

Thank you Karen. Honestly, Gwen was so alive in all her pain and then we all worried about the influence of the new caretaker/friend. She was just so here today and all of a sudden gone and it just isn't right. She was not one to go quietly.

Kay, are you talking about Gwen?

Sorry to say, it is. Would tell you about Friday, but I get too carried away. Maybe that is what is needed. Too many people depend on me. Billy said one of us had to stay. I wonder, his sister and nephew are fighting (one a losing battle) dementia. They are about one and three years younger than me. He had (unjokingly) asked me if I ever worried about his "facilities." Of course he meant faculties. I wonder. But, I wonder about mine too. We always had Gwen to try to shore up and now we just wonder where she has gone and if someone is really taking care of her. Y'all take care.

I had insurance and still had to wait about four weeks. I promise you, when they brought in the upper and lower plates they were gray, not even a whitish gray. It was like it was Halloween. I did not even put them in my mouth. Told them it was on them, make another pair. Now, this dentist came recommended to me. About two weeks for the next ones. Never went back.

Sounds like a perfect birthday.

I took a short road trip to see where my grandmother was born. It is just a black and white sign now, no houses but one that was lived in and one brick home that the vines and vegetation we have here in the humid south had covered. It looked like a ghost house but not many years ago it was modern. An old car was sitting there too and I'm sure years ago it was driven. And, this part of the country, this country road, paved, was where my grandmother came from. It was a big family at one time, but no sign of where it could be. The road changed and had Arkansas road numbers. All my folks on that side lived right on the Arkansas/Louisiana line. My depression opens up if I think too much on "what once was" and I was so into genealogy that I would stay up all night just following a clue. But that was before Billy left. Now I never look at Ancestry.com. My cousin took it to great extremes with galleries of pictures (I helped), histories, etc. Once I found my grandmother's baby sister that my cousin knew nothing about (cemetery, naturally). Now it makes me sad. I know I have to buy a memorial stone and have it engraved. I have the cemetery plot behind my mom and dad's, next to my aunt and uncle's but I was gonna wait on them first. They are both 90 and still take short walks each day. Not sure I've got that long. Makes me despondent to do this, but I sure don't want to make my kids have to do it. Well, enough of this feeling sorry for me, going to go read my paranormal books. I tried reading my old authors and was bored. I kind of like the wolf shifters and witches. “Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” ― C.S. Lewis I think he was talking to his niece when he said this, and he did not mean it in the way I am taking it. No blood and guts, you can get them w/o all the romance, and they are free on my Kindle. I think I read seven in two weeks in a series. Weird probably. I am.

My mom always loved learning something new. Even into old age. I still have my "new" senior phone I have not started up. It is so easy to use the flip phone. Got the new case where I can carry it in my big pockets. On top of that our bank/credit union sent out news they would be closed for 3-4 days (we still could use all our ATM's, online banking, etc.) Went into the bank and the tellers were replaced with computer things on the wall, no people. You talk to a little person, real person, in the picture. Does not help, my shaking. But to their favor, someone to help. The picture that was put up about the old woman with the man telling her how to "go on-line" really is reality now. I took my son over to Walmart in the "city" because the meds make him afraid to drive. Know he will not worry about my trips to Arkansas if he does not have to go now. Will talk to my regular doc and see about scheduling cataracts surgery in November. The problem is getting all my sick folks well enough to drive me. Kay, I'm glad your daughter has found someone. I always begged my sister to have a companion of some sort. Can't make someone do something they do not want to do. My kids only have each other (and me). They say they want a companion like me, and their dad had. They lived with us, it was not all roses and tulips. But I sure wish they had someone to help them and be there for them like Billy and I had each other. Happy Birthday Kay and Kodie. Hope today is better. I never liked birthday celebrations. Billy did. Just another year tacked on and those still living born before 1945 are in the 1%. Somehow maybe I ought to feel good about that, but I sure miss a lot of people that did not make the 1%. Somehow Dee, I tried remembering what would take the place of computers if we threw them out the window. We do not have the big front porches anymore waiting for the neighbors to come sit and visit. In a lot of cases, we do not even know our neighbors. That small town living is gone, along with a lot of other things.

(Seems like I told this once before). When the screw in teeth came out as new, my oral surgeon let me know with my dentist's bill it would be $9000. Think maybe they have gone down. No guarantee on the teeth, they fall out and you're out another $9000 if your so disposed. They are hidden/held-in, with what looks like dentures. As it was, I've followed a friend along who had whole mouth extraction and screw-ins. I cannot take oral antibiotics, so I would have had to lose the teeth and go back to dentures and I could not afford it anyhow. My friend put daily happenings with the teeth, and she had a long time of hurting and soup. After awhile she was not putting anything. But my cousin has a few of the screw ins and loves them. Good news for me and my sister. No cancer showed on the PET scan, so she will take a chemo "shot" I think that was what it was, for awhile once a week. Trying to put some weight on. Took my son off the anger med and starting a new kind (actually it is old, but new to him. Got to "coast" off the old one first. Y'all take care.

There are times I cannot write, at all. I have the familial (essential) tremor and sometimes when I'm anxious, if I have to fill out papers my hands won't stay still. I can type (sometimes) but have to go back and make corrections. My job was a transcriptionist and it actually helped me to type faster until about 2014, when my colon ruptured from the radiation, I had had 32 years before. Now my chin shakes so I wear my mask around my ears and just below my chin, which minimizes it. The tremor causes no pain, just embarrassment (for me.) I've had it since 6th grade and it has evolved to where it is now. But anxiety is my constant companion and because of the colon rupture I cannot take (by mouth) meds that will help. Xanax helps, but if you take it too often your body gets used to it and needs more. Illegal to have more. My doc won't give it to me, so I go back to my old clinic I used for over 20 years, and my doc knows I do this. It is inherited (the tremor) and I'm just thankful my kids did not get it, or my sister, or my grandchildren. Karen, after you get used to the teeth, you will not miss toothaches at all. They will rub raw places sometimes and you get dentist to smooth that out. Good luck with that, I think you will be so happy to not have a toothache that you will love them.

For someone who was on here every day, this is a mystery, and this Dee person may have pulled off the perfect crime. Bless her heart (Gwen), she did not have any close relatives, I don't think. And we are nothing but a group of people who knew her closest thoughts, but we all are mysteries to her too. Darn, we knew her so well, but we are all helpless to find her.

If you could do a wellness check with police, I think they would do this.

Dee, hoping all is well with your daughter and I know you are thankful she has a husband to watch over her. That means a lot. Mama never had to worry about me because Billy was right there whenever I needed him. Know that brings back memories to all of us. Karen, I'll bet you feel like a new woman w/o the hurting teeth. My sister needs a lot done, but is too busy fighting the cancer. My son is waiting on VA to finish up on his teeth. He did oral tobacco, like a good ole country boy, but was able to stop. Unfortunately, Billy never could let the tobacco go. Oh well, I can't let my Xanax go either, but if I took more than prescribed, I would need a heavier dose and they wouldn't do that. I think we get time alone sometimes and it feels good, even though we'd rather have someone we miss terribly forever.

I never knew any name but Gwen. We are still fighting humidity and my daughter broke away from the radiation to a Louisiana neurologic and oncologist who will treat the teratomas with a chemo pill for a year. In my memories on Facebook I see my sister has been on chemo now for a year. They are stretching time between it though. She goes to pulmonary doctor and is going medical transportation, and afraid she can't breathe with this weather. My daughter is taking a stretch of steroids and she is already hyperactive. She just came by after going to her family practice doc, the specialist the day before. Of course, Scott is bipolar and the mood stabilizer they put him on is worse than the depressed mood, so he has to go back to doc, but he puts things off, like I do. I'm headed to Walmart to get my prescriptions right now. My son went with me Monday on the long trip back to Arkansas and I drove most of the way up there, but I stopped in Glen Campbell's hometown and let him drive the rest of the way. My taking the curves on two wheels (I'm exaggerating) made him nervous. He has a brace on his right leg though and his speeding made me nervous. All together we drove about 10 hours almost non-stop (trying to make my old home legally in the lease holders name). So, I had to revisit the home and it brings back too many memories. Worried about them all. (I had rather travel by myself). I won't get into the worry about my granddaughter. My son said "Mama, you're the oldest one and it looks like you should be taken care of instead of everyone else." Guess I ought to just be thankful I can still do it. It would have to be a drastic thing to stop me. I keep thinking of Robert Frost's poem that ends with "miles to go before I sleep." Y'all, take care.