Gorgeous Day Blue Skies Clear Cool Air..:)

Such a gorgeous day!....It's as if Mother Earth washed her hair and shook the earth clean. So cool, clear and sunny...love it. Hurricane Irene really did a number on the East coast of the states...everyone is now busy picking up the pieces.

Here, in Howard Beach, flooding did occur - it was just luck or whatnot whether your street flooded or not. Trees came down, people lost power...major thing Crossbay Blvd on one side there is a deep water inlet that leads into Jamaica Bay...the whole thing overflowed for blocks and blocks. All the stores got water into them, they mostly lost power...you could see from the different video's that people took the cars had water up to their windows..
That was at high tide on Sunday around 9 am when the eye hit us...the night before the winds were howling like a deranged Banshee in the mountains. Alisa, mama lioness that she is, stayed up all night on Saturday protecting her flock....worried about the tornado warnings that were posted all night. She was exhausted....trying to entertain the kids so they wouldn't be frightened...this was the first major hurricane they have ever experienced it was unnerving for them. John had made all kinds of preparations for the storm..he put everything in their yard away, harvested his plants...and just made everyone feel safe.
Alisa had tried to get extra candles etc...but everything was sold out...so I made some old fashioned oil lamps....using paper salt wicks, olive oil, my "stones", silver wire to hold the wick and raise it, and several "ball" canning jars.....so Alisa is calling me "McGruber"!! Hey, if there is a way to do it....it can be done.....
On a side note....I am feeling much better, finally got the supplies I needed to do the glucose testing, am learning how to do the insulin shot...each day I am losing more weight....down seven lbs already...am still swollen from the steroids, still on the step down process...surely but slowly. The visiting nurse suggested that I delay flying home till the meds are out of my system....they cause my feet and legs to swell and that is not good to fly with. Luckily, I had taken out flight insurance so I should be able to move my ticket without extra cost.
Yesterday was marvelous...Alisa had taken a vacation day..so she took her four daughters, myself and her neighbors daughter to get haircuts & manicures.....to a place in Brooklyn, the woman's name is Wu...very nice..had my hair cut, permed and colored.....so now I am a curly top! It felt wonderful...with so many it took almost five hours of non=stop beauty treatments lol.....such a day.....

Lord What A Difference A Day Makes....

Going to write in blue...cause that's my mood right now. Everything was going along pretty good, having fun with the kids...painting, drawing and jewelry making. Next up I planned to teach them how to crochet and knit....
Last Friday threw me for a loop, I felt a sinus infection coming on last Tuesday, so I had some antibiotics with me, started on them..and watched myself but by Friday morning I was in real distress with my breathing due to the COPD.
It scared Alisa so we went to Mercy Hospital ER and they admitted me right away...I was one step away from pneumonia, which in my case could be the death of me.
Spent the next five days, poked, prodded and pinned...yuck. Got released last night thank God....on the mend. Hell of way to spend a week of vacation this way. Now trying to build back up where I can get off oxygen or I can't fly home easy....also the steroids they had to put me on spiked my blood sugar to 368...bouncing all over the chart for days, I'm on a step down process now...but it's going to take ten days to come off the steroids. So, now I have to be full insulin injections too. Can't catch a break.
In the hospital they put me on a restricted diet, 1200 calories a day...no salt, no chol, no sugar...or sweets. Now when I first felt sick I ate only chicken noodle soup, crackers since last Tuesday...and with the diet restrictions in the hospital...eight days and my weight dropped 1/2 lbs.....sucks to be me. Of course, it's probably the steroids holding water and stuff in....but it would of been nice to see the gauge go down on the scale.
Then, of course, I hadn't had my computer so I missed the Jland Anniversary thing on Sunday....got a lot of catch up reading to do....crap this week better get betterer.....:(

You Can't Go Home Again.....

I thought it might be fun to type in melon..lol...it's kind of a melon day. Alisa & John are both back at work now after a whirlwind vacation. I know the kids loved having the two of them available to them full time...what kid wouldn't?

My grand babies have grown so much..and they are all sooo smart. Brittany has won honors in school and a scholarship to St Francis Prep, a really great school.Top that off with how beautiful she is, she is one great kid. Sabrina is an extraordinarily helpful eleven year old, you almost never have to ask her twice to help out, she's following in her Mom's footsteps learning how to cook from the master chef...and she does pretty good. I look at her and I see her Mom so much it takes me back years. The twins are a hoot....two totally different personalities yet so much alike in appearances. Ashley is outgoing and gregarious, yet does not like to be kissed or hugged too much (wipes the kisses off as I did oh so many years ago lol) Sophia is shyer, not that she's quiet - she can give as good as she gets when playing. I think her feelings get hurt easier than her twin. Both are so gorgeous....I think as these girls grow John will need a baseball bat to keep the boys away......John and Alisa have done a wonderful job raising these girls..they should be very proud.

New York, New York

Oh I am counting the days till I board a Jet Blue jet and jet away, jet away..lol...always want to say fly away, fly away. I have not been up there for a little over two years and I've missed so much of the little ones growing up. My eldest grand daughter is now 13 and ready for high school! It just seems like yesterday she was a new baby in a bassinet, all newborn pink and squeezable cute.

The twins are just seven and really smart...Sabrina the middle child is a hoot, she never fails to IM me and she is very excited about Grandma Sandi coming back up there. I do expect to spoil them, after all it is my right...lol.....

I am going to bring up all my jewelry making supplies and work with the girls making things I think they will like it.

I also found a cookbook that has some adorable recipes made simple so kids can participate in the process.

I"m also bringing my art supplies up, all of the girls love to draw and paint so we can have watercolor/acrylic classes and I think we will have a tremendous amount of fun for the summer.

It will be a much needed change from the past seven months of trying to help my sister & her husband with his fight against mouth cancer. I think I just need to be around young people for a while, perhaps it will be a soothing balm for my soul....sometimes children's laughter is all you need to feel young again....

Anniversary

A blue day, write it in blue....Anniversaries are supposed to be happy but this one is not. Joe & I would of been married thirty=two years today, and I look back and it seems to have happened only yesterday. I can still feel the jitters as I stood at the front of the altar, holding his hand...trying to place the wedding ring on his finger as he had placed it on mine. I was shaking so much, no reason for it either...probably lack of sleep, stress and not too sure of the future.

We had good times, bad times and some times that were just that mellow fall in line everything is fine times. We didn't fight often, but when we did it was sort of a stand off...he would bellow and I would bluster...but in the end we never went to bed mad. The minister that married us told each of us that we would at times feel that we were giving 95% and the other person only 5%....it was so true.

I need to write some of his stories down before I forget them, Joe was part Irish but with such a gift of gab you would think he really kissed the blarney stone....I often accused him of doing just that!

I miss him.

Lazy Sunday

Eventually I do want to get back into drawing and painting. It is so relaxing to do, even if you are not highly talented....it soothes the soul.

I love this little fairy painting and would love to copy this style, my sister Charlene purchased a book on how to paint fairies...that should help.

Of course, I can't really get into anything I want to do until I can get back to my own house.

We still have a way to go with Larry. He finished chemo/radiation about a week and a half ago and actually the after symptoms are worse that anytime during the seven weeks he was undergoing the treatments. He finally caved and asked for pain medication...but as Charlene had told him he waited too long for the morphine to work right. Evidently when the pain level is lower is the right time to start not when it's at it's max. So he had to get another type something that is in a time released patch, he can wear each patch for three days. It seems to be helping him at least take the edge off of it without making him loopy.

What made everything so much worse was that he developed mouth ulcers on his tongue and gums...making it impossible to eat anything except a liquid drink like Ensure. He has lost additional weight bringing him to 220 lbs, it was a good thing that he was overweight. They had him come in this Saturday and Sunday to do a Potassium drip just to boost his fluids a bit. I keep on hoping that he will wake up and be out of pain and able to eat....:(

Well, I am excited for this coming week, I get to see my baby boy...Joey will be flying in from Portland, picking up "Big Red" and his two friends then driving back to Portland. It is an exciting trip that he has planned, they will leave St Pete on the 19th of March, stop in New Orleans for one night, then drive to Austin, Texas to visit a friend, then up to the lower part of Arizona and the Grand Canyon with it's fantastic views. From there I am not sure whether he planned to follow the coast up to Portland or take an inland route. It's a quick trip, just a smile & wave at Mom :(....but I will take anything that's thrown at me right now...:) So I told him to take a lot of photographs....

Then in the beginning of April, actually the 7th, we have a dear friend coming in from Arizona with her boyfriend who we haven't seen in 24 years, and our sister Charlene is coming in for two days with her grand-daughter Liz (she is treating Liz to 5 days of Disney, then coming here)...and they all arrive the same day Laura's 22nd Birthday!...busy, busy....

Days Moving Slowly

Maybe if I write in red things will move faster...lol...I guess not! I feel as though I have traveled through the rabbit hole, falling into a deep, dark abyss except I am not following any dam white rabbit!

Alice In Wonderland I am NOT! I guess it's just the mental state I am in right now....the last two years have been exceptionally rough, physically and mentally. If all this crap makes you stronger I should be coming out of it like tungsten steel..lol. Hey, my first husband sold steel, some of his customers were West Bend and Werner Aluminum Ladder Company...in fact the owner of Werner (Leo Werner) came to our wedding in Japan. Oh, so many years ago.

When Tom & I moved back to the states and bought our first house in New York, Leo surprised us with a delivery of every type of ladder you could imagine that you would need to work on a house...little ones for indoors, larger ones for painting and huge ones for working on a three story house! Leo was one of the nicest millionaires that I ever met in my life. When he opened the new plant in Ohio Tom & I visited for the opening ceremonies, it was a beautiful building. Later we met his wife at his house and viewed his huge, huge bottle collection..it was awesome.

Sometimes I wonder if I look at possessions the same way as others do. One by one, down the through the years the ladders disappeared. Either lost in a move, forgotten in the packing, until almost forty years later there was only one left. It was my favorite ladder too, it was the one that I stood on to hang curtain rods, to paint & wallpaper my babies rooms, the kitchen, living room. The ladder was ugly to look at by this point, with bits & pieces of paint flecks and other more insidious droppings of Spackle, etc. But it was my favorite, easy to fold and carry, and lightweight enough for me.

However, at this point I was married to my Joe and he was a carpenter. That being said he loved tools, big tools, little tools and my dam little ladder. So it was on a sad day about three years ago...I lost my last, favorite little ladder...he left it on a job only to return the next day to find it gone. So Joe went out and bought me a new version of the Werner Aluminum Ladder.....it paled in comparsion to my little ladder. But I accepted the offer and it now sits locked inside my shed...keeping Joe's fold-any=which-way ladder company!

Funny how one word - steel - can take you back.