Spring Break, Oh Really?

Spring break..what is that anyway? Not a break this time, but I really can't complain. I shouldn't have expected it to be any different. After all, it is NCAA time...it could be tornados, but instead it's wintery cold and even a few flakes of snow. I can't complain for another reason. I'm having to finish up a research proposal for my current class which involves a massive read of quantitative and qualitative research articles and my own proposal driven from the readings, which fortunately I don't have to act upon in this so-called survey class. I feel a little better having attended class tonight and receiving some answers to my many questions about how to proceed from here. I've done little but sit at the computer during this break. I always mentally work ahead, I stress over it, and usually discover as I did tonight that I'm actually a bit ahead of myself, thinking the rough draft was due for a peer critique this coming Monday, only to be reminded by my peer that it isn't due until a week from Monday. Ahh..relief. My so-called Spring break has thus turned out to be a gift of time I desperately needed. Now, to keep working plus get my school plans in order. I've got my eyes set on the trip to New Orleans I recently won. This will all be over then, making it that much more enjoyable.

Bad, Bad, Bad Blogger

I seriously wrote last on July 4? It was a bad sign when I was reading my daughter's blog from Australia and I realized Oh yeah, I have a blog too and proceeded to link to it from there. So no one really wants to read blogs about not having blogged and why, but I guess I'll do it anyway and move on. It will be good therapy.

I've been a caregiver for my mother-in-law since last spring, along with my sister-in-law, my husband to the extent he can, and in time there was also a person we hired during the day. Kelly (the caregiver, not my daughter..we call her Nurse Kelly) was a lifesaver to me. Not only did she help care for my mother-in-law, but she helped care for me as well. I'm not going into everything about being a caregiver because it is very hard and it is very depressing, and I grieved in a lot of ways; at the same time it is a blessing to be privileged to care for someone that way (and only a caregiver would understand what I mean by all of that.) The feelings are illogical but they are real. About a month ago, my mother-in-law had another stroke (her third I believe in the past eight years or so) and she has been in rehab since then. She is at our house today as I write, sleeping in her recliner behind me. She is very weak. We can barely get her to take a step or try to move. She is also very noncommunicative. Her speech was impacted. I can't imagine her recovering to where she was before the stroke, and she needs to show some substantial improvement to be back here in her home. I of course have mixed feelings about that. She's 89. She deserves to do what she wants, and if that means she just wants to eat and sleep, then she should be allowed to do that, but I don't think it will happen here, because there is a lot of heavy duty care involved in getting her to move about. 'Nuff said. God is good and I know he will take care of her and me and everyone. It has been a tough time on me emotionally...I was going through my own level of depression from the loss of my freedom, and started seeing myself from the outside in..and I had lost my positive nature and my smiling face. I'm trying to get it back. I'm trying to prepare myself for the possibility she could come back too, and I'm determined to be ok with it. The whole process is one of evolution.

I'm also only take one class next semester.

Right now I cannot wait for Thanksgiving. Mary will be home from Australia and I miss her so much. I'm just holding my breath until she is safely back home and I get to hug her. Her term there has been amazing. I can't wait to have my family and good friends (who are a part of the family) Kathy and Joe, around me on that special day. I have so much to be thankful for, so I keep mentally smacking myself and reminding myself of that. How dare I be depressed about anything in my life.

What perked me up a lot was my good friend Debbie who visited from Chicago Friday night and Saturday. Together we had a glass of wine and talked about good times. Where do the years go? Her little boys and my little girls are almost all grown up; it seems just like yesterday they were running down the backyards, playing dress up, running through a sprinkler; and Ed and I might be found sitting in their hot tub on New Year's Eve with icicles hanging from the ends of our hair. Debbie and I spent some of Friday evening and most of Saturday (with Ed's help..thank you!) boxing up packages of supplies to be sent to her nephew in Afghanistan and my school's secretary's nephew (also serving in Afghanistan). As I said, I have NOTHING to be sad about when I think of what it is like for them in that desolate place and for their families left behind at home. I watched Mrs. Miniver on T.V. last night...surprisingly I've never watched it since I am a major old movie fan...and it brought home the same idea, only the story took place in England during WWII.

That's it for now. I'll try to catch up and get back in the swing. I wish I could have kept writing through the past few months. I know it would have helped me a lot; but I literally have spent every waking moment on the computer doing work for my classroom or work for my classes...and there are just some things you can't blog about anyway.

It Will Happen To You

When we got home from church today, it went something like this:

Me: I need to run to the store for a couple of things I forgot.

Ed: When you go, would you pick up some hand soap refill? You know...it's on the hand soap aisle.

Me: REEEAALLLYYY? WOW! They keep the hand soap on a hand soap aisle? Gee, someone is really thinking.

Ed: (now sheepishly grinning) Yeah, isn't it amazing how they do that?

After the trip to the store and at lunch time, I prepared a sandwich for his mother and asked him if he wanted one. He said maybe half. I said ok, if his mother only wants half (which she usually does) he could have the other half. I made the sandwich, delivered her half, and told him his half was ready. He came to sit down and there was more conversation.

Ed: (lifting up the top piece of bread) What's on this sandwich?

Me: (perplexed..I mean look at it) Well, it has lettuce, tomato, mayo, cheese....(I stopped to look at him lifting the bread)...oh...I forgot the meat. Your mother just ate a cheese sandwich not a turkey and cheese sandwich (and the turkey was still sitting on the kitchen counter...I just had forgotten to put it on). She must not have noticed or I would have heard about it.

Ed: Uh, now you might be able to understand why I was explaining to you where you could find the hand soap.

Me: Ok, you got me...this time.

The Pain of Motherhood

Ugh...it never really goes away..the pain of motherhood. And I'm not talking about giving birth. I'm talking about doing what you as a mother are supposed to do..let go. I appear to be good at it, but I don't know. I have to be brave, but I wonder how much of it is a facade.

There's a tightness in my belly, an ache around my heart, and a tear in my eye. My youngest, Mary, is leaving the country. I've been through this before, but not for such a long journey and for such a long time. She is going to Australia to study abroad for a term via DePaul University. She will be housed at a university outside of Melbourne. I know it will be wonderful. I know she will work hard, and I know she will have fun. Kelly (daughter number 2) studied abroad in Ireland...I went through it then.

I really should be able to get used to this. The first occasion was dropping the first born (which is always the hardest because it is freshest for you as a parent) (at only eighteen years old!) in New York City. But somehow, it never gets any easier.

So whenever I hear a young mother talking about labor (as I also did), I just smile, nod, and think to myself....just you wait.