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.

Fighting A Battle

Today is chemo treatment #2 for Larry - this morning it was radiation as usual he is in his fourth week of radiation for throat cancer. His prognosis is good..they give him an 80% cure rate. It is an uphill battle to keep his weight up, so far the radiation doctor is happy with his weight, Larry wants to avoid having a feeding tube placed at all costs, doesn't want it.

It is actually a good think that Larry was overweight to begin with. He started this whole cancer trip at about 260 lbs....today he weighed in at 232 lbs. The radiation/chemo treatments are rough on your system, the fact that the tumor is at the back of his tongue doesn't help with the eating/swallowing factor.

Larry is kind of a straight up guy, made hardened by the mean streets of New :York...he calls it as he sees it. Refuses pain meds, even after having to have his teeth removed in order to avoid major problems from the radiation. I guess if the pain gets really bad he will cave - maybe.

Anyway, Monday to Friday for seven weeks...radiation therapy and on the 45th day the last round of chemo.


we all are on edge trying to do our best to keep his morale up, feed him well...and keep him alive. I feel at least Barb has a chance at saving her hubby, I didn't get a chance....

Sent to Mary Focarino Gallagher

Written by Joe Doscher as a thank you to Mary & Coleen...

I left it the way he wrote..in his own way, his way of talking.....


‎"year's ago i met a lady,a person of brightness.she alway's looked for the silver lining.time's would be bad or worse,but she would still smile like a candle on the darkess night.proud to stand with her.we have had our time's.good bad terr...ible and great.three did we raise,three that i am proud to call our's.our daugter while growing up,alway's had her friend's over.show up anytime,stay all the time,sleep over.they would drive me out of my mind.never knew who would be in the house.morning would be a trip,really steping over them,because they stayed up alnight watching t.v..my lady would only smile at my complaint's,who ate my lunch ,who's pant's are these,what happen too the cookie's,what do you mean i have to pick them up.drove me crazy.smile she would and a small laugh,my lady would say they are here,they are good what more could we ask. 20+year's have gone bye,while vist'ing our daughter suffer'ed heart failure.these pain in the ass,rotten,loud ,annoying,girl fiend's where there.ladie's of brightness they had become.long drive from picking me up at the airport,not a short trip,a hard hug and a tear,a small smile of hope.stood tall they did.helping,in every way.with them there i knew my daughter was in good hand's.the comfort they gave just by being there. thank you colleen and mary may you have children who have friend's like you. thank you" Joe