Confusion

How many people do you know know anything about medical disorders or even care?
I suspect most healthy people do not unless they work in the medical field.
But many who are associated with different non-profits in any capacity or have family members who are ill but not necessarily themselves then they too would want or care to know something in order to help their loved ones or even the strangers that they are volunteering to help, correct?
That said and not ever being a medical student unless the fact of reading about things that I need to know about for myself or others I have been able to glean information on many topics that have effected my family or myself.
I believe my interest was spurred by the sudden death of my mother when I was thirty-one and married with two sons, not that young but traumatic to anyone who loves their parents, my father died also from a stroke four and half years later.
Yes, within eleven and half hours my mom only seventy at the time, a week from her seventieth-first birthday had a major massive stroke that killed her instantly but machines kept her alive for those additional hours. One thing I was relieved about was that my father was still here to make that final decision of shutting down the machine, with a DNR, ‘do not resuscitate order’; I was off that horrendous decision roster.
To this day I wonder if I would have been ever able to make that choice for her.
Anyway, my mom had rheumatoid arthritis and survived breast cancer when this occurred, both her knees needed to be replaced and she used a walker and refused anymore medical intervention although my parents had excellent medical insurance Blue Cross and Blue Shield of NJ.

And so with my devastating loss of her; I wanted to know why?
My mom’s good girlfriend suggested “why do bad things happen to good people”, but I never ever did read that…I knew it just does but the physiological part is what I wanted to know, you understand that?

So I started reading about medical issues, which also took me in many other directions in that realm, and so for thirty years now I have been an avid reader of such material and that is why, but now it is so much easier with the internet and legit sites like mayoclinic.com and the clevelandclinic.com, and don’t forget cancer.org, nmss.org, arthritis.org and the like…any of these places will give you answers you can trust.
I suppose having bad genes is another reason for my interest.
Today though thankfully the medical field has made much progress!
And a lot of ills that we used to die from are being treated or even cured daily!

My optic neuritis though was baffling to me, since so far there is no cure even when it has been treated like mine with IV infusion therapy of Solu Medrol 1000 mg and that so far has not helped. Even on the news they are finding a way to help people with blindness and other eye disorders such as macular degeneration which is nothing short of miraculous! And I was confused by the initial blurb on the news that the story was going to be about a whole bunch of eye disorders and I was trying to listen intently but unfortunately I must have missed it! Or it was just a brief segment.
But I am hopeful, I keep thinking the treatment I had could take as long as six months to work and next month it will be six, even though my doctor was not so sure; so we will see…GOOD CHOICE OF WORDS HA!


My confusion nightly is also at issue here. In the respect of what enthralls you to read my blog? Some nights I meet your reading needs and desires and other nights I seem to fall short. I suppose it is like the flavor of the month club only mine is nightly…
Any-who I guess not everyone can hit it out of the park every night but I sure would love to try!

On that note of mystery to me… let me be the first to wish you a very happy good night and to all count those blessings and kindly share those overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

Reliable

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to have the ‘work ethic’, down pat and others have what I like to call the ‘Mañana Attitude’?
You all know what I mean, right?
Nothing is that important to them that can’t wait until tomorrow or in some cases indefinitely!
Well, anyone who knows in business that can’t work most days because we all have to get things accomplished and not doing some things on time are paramount to losing out on your businesses efficiency and reputation.

I was a very work oriented person when I was working for the buck and would never gold brick I felt that daily I was there to earn my keep!
And make no mistake that is what anyone is doing whether working for someone else or themselves it must be with a mission to produce whatever you are told or know that you must do for your customers, because even we entrepreneurs answer to someone and it is all our clients as well as our potential ones. And they have the power to let us know by not dealing with us!

And so I must admit I would very much like to let Tanya at my local State Farm office on Kings Highway in Port Charlotte know that we are happy to know that she did her part by keeping her promise to me and Hubby by getting back to us with a much better manageable legit value to our home for our replacement and flood insurance. Now we hopefully will not see that ridiculous increase adding on to our monthly bills! Thanks to you, Tanya Yont!
Relief! She is originally from Virginia, which I have found to be a producer of good workers with that work ethic I mentioned; many other states have it too!

When I was in my last work position as a district manager I recruited and hired constantly, either they didn’t meet the initial requirements and produce or had no concept of what we were trying to accomplish. And I did train many for hours and some for a couple of days and I did have the top five sales people in a worldwide environmental safe products company monthly!
That was hard, I mentioned it before.
Having to change the guard so often….

Moving on…
So even in these years which I occasionally call my bum years since I haven’t worked for the last few even as a volunteer which is so unlike me; it’s mostly the vision eye thing and not walking thing. And I do love the public at large and so I don’t want to endanger them on the roads with the driving thing!

If any of you read my blog a few nights ago entitled ‘Edit’, you may have an idea what I go through just to do this nightly and not being grammatically correct is sad and I am so sorry! On that one I did not apologize, but I should have. I made many excuses for my inabilities but the worst is so many typos that constantly have to be redone, which I find sometimes months later. Fortunately, this spell and grammar check seems to work erratically, and uses bright red underlines to let me know when I have goofed!
I think it helps a little.
I did try one of those online grammar ones but it seemed a bit complicated for my not too bright mind and I gave it the heave ho!

Anyone out there know of one compatible with this older Microsoft Office Word program, vintage 2003?

On that note of a small update that really is a big help to us financially! And again begging for your kind understanding of my desire to get this better and right, I think I owe you all that.
Let me be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and to all count those blessings and kindly share those overages and we will too!

Next time please be here or be square, ya hear?


PS One of the most reliable people I do know is my Hubby for he said he was going to cut back our palms and weed our front gardens and he did it all yesterday!
And he was still tweaking all of that today too.

Jackson!

After months of trying hard to determine what our dear sweet Haley’s baby boy’s name was going to be and when exactly he was going to get here, today was the day for both!
Jackson is her baby’s name, John her Hubby and she and their BIG Baby Boy are probably over the moon right now, or more than likely exhausted. Jackson is at eight perfect pounds and 21 inches long and he and his parents are doing just fine according to
Haley's colleague and good friend Jamie Yuccas who reported this earlier today to all her Facebook friends!
And we are all elated with the news!
But nowhere near what both the happy parents must be, but for us just knowing all is well is more than terrific!
And thanks to Jamie we did.
Our joy is now named Jackson, hip, hip hooray!
And an enormous hug to the entire family with a boatload of congrats too!

Moving on…
Sadly my mind shifted to not so nice thinking today, I took a short trip to my dark side when I spent some time on the phone for a few different reasons. I received a wrong number from a local senior home, but here’s the kicker they were trying to reach someone I knew.
My old chum from the Arthritis Foundation and how they got MY NUMBER is beyond me, when they had hers as well.
So I did tell them that the second number they had was correct, but they did take me aback when they at first thought I was her daughter who wouldn’t allow me to speak with her and since my friend had, had so many joint replacements due to her Rheumatoid arthritis and the last one was having her head literally attached by a rod and so she had to use a speaker phone which made none of my calls to her private. Her daughter was known to listen in.
The whole conversation brought up old horrendous feelings, since her surgery I said how she shouldn’t drive since she could no longer turn her head from side to side, but later on she did get one of those back-up cameras. And that’s when her daughter came down on me for saying that! I felt since this forty-something child moved in that perhaps now she could drive her Mom where she needed to go. But she was going back to school on her Mom’s dime which was extremely thin…and I also foolishly felt that was wrong too…this was maybe two or three years ago, I think.
The Mom also was the first one I called when I found out that both my niece and brother had died, but she was at work, ha, as a volunteer, (only recently did she become staff after I kept saying they should pay her after her volunteering for nearly forty years) and she could not listen to me since her latest medical bills were her priority! (In retrospect that was her worries and it should have been her first priority, but she appeared to ignore what I was saying and at the time it hurt quite deeply!) But her daughter wouldn’t even work while going back to school! Too difficult and then she didn’t even know what she was going to do! We all worked when in high school and college that’s including our sons and they both had academic scholarships and hubby had student loans, which we paid off years later with our wedding money and my parents paid for my college but I was eighteen and I still worked!
You see, I have come a long way since then… now I know it is none of my business after all I was just a friend not family, no business of mine at all…boy then why was I so darned pissed by the mistaken identity!

Any-who the other call was to our bank that decided that all our insurances and taxes were going to increase substantially to over one hundred and thirty-five more dollars a month, yes you heard that right, a month… and so I felt that they made a mistake and thus a call to our insurance company who is working diligently on the problem and has assured me that it will be cleared up by tomorrow. Our homes value went down like most everyone else’s in the country and the value to rebuild should not have gone up to tens of thousands more in one year? As I keep saying it is a tiny house, plus we are DIYers and we know what things go for, we have built homes renovated added on etc…
Well, who knows what will happen but I am hopeful.

Good news for my payment plan for my eye and tooth surgeries those will stay completely interest free with the amount that I determined to pay a month on both of them, until both are paid off in June of 2012! That is with Care Credit a GE company apparently, not a hospital or doctor or ambulance company who are not allowed to charge interest, and who I am still paying off too. I sure wish it was a health insurance premium instead but as you all know. Gosh, I don’t know what to say but the news today said that us pre-existing peeps are 129 million strong, well not strong, because most of us are really ill and no one wants us, and we are not at all insured so I guess it is safe to say I am not alone…

You see, this is why I question everyone’s wanting more of the pie, and feel guilty every time I do this or that, no way to live, huh?
I suppose I am not cheap just being careful.
I am more than willing to pay what I owe but not anymore than that, am I so wrong?

On that note of not escaping my Debby Downer persona, so sorry!
But let me still be the first to wish you all a very happy good night to all and to all count those blessings and kindly share those overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

King!

In a world where our surnames are determined by our heritage or in the case of us old fashioned women by our spouse’s family names; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a man whose family had no idea that he would grow into his with such a worldwide dynamic of what the name stood for and that he would become a ‘King’ among men in the sense of his leadership, and bring to our family of men and women a legacy that any of us folks could be proud of from whence we came.
And so today we honor that man of our history who brought about a unification of all races to know that we as a unit of beings will be better at working and accepting one another and freedom should ring true for all.
A blessed person loved by all except for the one lunatic who cut him down way too soon in his prime of life.
Thankfully our children and grandchildren have been taught to continue Martin Luther King Jr.’s bequest of liberty for everyone no matter what the color of their skin.
I do believe that we have made quite a bit of progress on this forefront but have a ways to go, you see, we still hate too much here in this country and until that stops completely his words will not be fulfilled!
And so I beg of all Americans and all people of the world to listen closely to what this man’s words were, you can copy and paste this site: http://www.mlkonline.net/quotes.html for he knew what we all should do and felt we had the capacity to accomplish it all…and now more than ever we need to try harder!
Thank you Mr. King we all have much to thank you for!
His actual birthday was Saturday the fifteenth when he would have been eighty two years old.

Today is actually my mother-in-laws ninetieth birthday and sadly she more than likely has no idea that it is, and she is in a nursing home up north by her daughter who no longer communicates with us. You see, Mom has extreme dementia and cannot remember anything or anyone, but it is not Alzheimer’s since there are many other forms of dementia.

Also on this glorious day of renewal of the soul and of all mankind’s promise to one another to be kind and just Hubby due to our showers watering our flora to keep it colorful like nature asked for…he took it upon himself to chose an indoor project which he scheduled for himself a repair and repainting job of our closet doors.
He drove the car out onto the driveway to get washed by nature’s gentle touch and set up his saw horses in the space where our car would normally be parked, got that?
You see, since we went to tile in our bedroom a few years ago from the carpeting which had been replaced after the hurricane but how should I put this, Skipper was still a pup and learning to control himself and stupidly I had chosen white carpeting, our closet doors which are the shutter wooden style needed to have the bottom notched to fit into the space which is larger than before, and due to my walker that when I park it alongside my bed I suppose I nick the paint on it on occasion, but now it looks like all brand new. And the best part is we still had the semi-gloss white paint and so it was another freebie job!
I did laundry but even Hubby helped with that. Some days we are a better team than others, what can I say?

On that note of keeping my public informed, ha! I would like to be the first to wish you all a happy good night to all and to all kindly count those blessings and share those overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

Edit

To speak without encumbrances is divine, but not always grammatically correct in my case.
My longtime dissertations have not had the advantage of an editor, as anyone who knows their stuff can easily tell.
Sadly, I am not that smart to edit my own works that well since I do not have a degree in English literature or any of the other dynamics that have to do with writing; none at all.
As far as formal writing education goes I had a few semesters of journalism in college and one creative writing workshop!
But all you true wordsmiths know that by now, no fooling you!
In reality I have never ever said that I knew what I was doing would be accurate, but not doing it properly grammatically be assured that is done without doing it on purpose. Or if I ever did meet with the real people who do this work daily as journalists, in print or visual media capabilities or knowledgeable abilities that for me to claim as my own would be unjust and a complete unadulterated lie and so I have never ever done that either. Although, the local newspaper did allow me three by-lines and whenever I write any editorial comment it has been printed, but they are extremely liberal with that sort of thing allowing everybody I think, and since I have been writing this I have hardly written to them. So it may have changed. I also have five murder mysteries that were never edited properly and were almost published back in the late nineties all five as a series, by a publisher in Michigan, Gardenia Publishing, I think, but unfortunately I asked the wrong people about the company and blatantly told her what they said, oops! Later they were proven wrong and I was black listed I believe, if there is such a thing. (Oh, the devil in me…)
I truly believe I have never ever misled any of you and this is by no means an apology.

And so even though I feel the need to make that clear to all of you, my reading public; I somehow feel guilty that I am not providing the quality of workmanship that you all deserve. The only thing I do have going for me is my perseverance and prolixity, ha!
I do know myself and have my own number, so to speak, when it comes to this, which I do know at times goes on to nowhere significant. Remember me constantly referring to the Seinfeld Show, huh my logic?
Blabbering is a habit that I had acquired as a small child.
But isn’t that from where great story tellers come from?
Talking in some cultures is considered an art form, correct?
And for that logic here I am for any of you who so desire to try to figure any of this out nightly...

Any-who…
Today we did get out once again!
Boy are we exciting or what?
And we also treated our little darling Skipper to a trip back over to River City where there was an antique and classic car show riverfront.
Again our weather here in southwest Florida gave us bragging rights with Robin’s egg blue skies and temperatures in the mid seventies with very low humidity!
Haven’t I told you before that we live in paradise?
So come on down!

This time it was across the Tamiami Trail at our waterfront park called Laishley, which was named for the prominent family who donated the land and own the many marine shops in our area.(Correction:just one observation/correction to offer -- Laishley Park was named for a former mayor of Punta Gorda (Phil Laishley); the family never owned the land, thus didn't donate it. The entire waterfront was designated for public use back in the 1880s when Isaac Trabue had the settlement platted (as the town of Trabue); that piece has always been public land. (And, btw, the Laishley family didn't start out in the marine supply business -- they had a farm and feed store on Taylor Road. When the agricultural industry went downhill, they closed that business and began catering to recreational boaters and sport fishermen).All above information thanks to Lynn Harrell a native Punta Gordian and friend. At this area there is a marina and Crabhouse restaurant, ice cream parlor, and offices and a fairly new shop called Creator’s Touch (which is privately owned by Larry and Audrey Freshman) their saying is that “Talent is a gift”, gee I wish for that nightly …moving on…it appears after speaking with the owner that most all of their wares are creations of our incredible pool of local talent of artisans.
Their physical address is 150 Laishley Court (no surprise there, ha!) Laishley Marina (Ha), Unit #16, Punta Gorda Florida 33950, Phone number 941-575-0022. But let me just say for ease of finding them they are to the left of the entrance of the Crabhouse!
You will not be disappointed for they carry everything from paintings to sculptures to jewelry and for us physically challenged peeps they are ADA accessible, which is great and so I breezed on in, in my electric blue motorized easy rider who I will soon come up with a nickname for, any ideas? Yep my mobility scooter, to get a gander while Hubby took Skip to the car! Unfortunately, he would be a little like a bull in a china shop so I suggested they wait elsewhere, but they did have two comfy looking Adirondacks chairs outside for just that sort of thing, but Hubby chose the car to wait and so I tried not to take too long.
My reasoning for naming my assisted living necessities is then they don’t seem too intimidating, what do you all think, it is just a theory and if you have any ideas for naming it let me know, OK?
I do know that when we were teens, back in the 1960’s we thought naming your car was a cool thing to do, huh, who remembers that?
Oddly and suppose a wee bit bittersweet many of those so-called antique autos were younger than us! Thus the elderly sensation taking me over but nostalgia too, ha I caught myself!
Whoa that was scary for a second…

Before I descend too far where I cannot come back from let me be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and to all count those blessings and ask you kindly to share those overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?

How?

If any of you recall how I mentioned that I was looking for my joy; well I think I am trying to find it and looking in the right direction.
Mingling with living breathing people and going out into the world!
Simple enough, I hear you all saying, why most of you do that daily for this I am pretty darn well sure.
Since I am sure that most of you are gainfully employed… it is inevitable that you are out and about, correct?
How I do miss so much the ability to just go here or there whenever my heart desires to go…
But alas I no longer drive; it is for the safety of the world, at large; that is!

Any-who, fear of a ‘Debby the Downer babe’ falling off my wagon, tonight’s blog’s journey is making me check my words more carefully tonight…is that a good thing or not?
Well, let’s move on to what Hubby and I actually did do…after accomplishing all of our normal morning chores we left the homestead before eleven a.m. and moseyed on down to the riverfront and River City and into our event’s and conference center for their bi-yearly Home and Garden Show and from there to the street fair and farmer’s market, which started across the street from the center but went on for several blocks! The weather was just perfect then; not too hot or too cold just right to really get out for the best of our day and have plenty of fun!

Quite a full morning and early afternoon too since we didn’t get to eat any lunch until nearly two p.m.! It was difficult with all the crowds at the street fair to find a place that we would enjoy eating at since the lines were extraordinarily long! And so we chose to get back into our car with my scooter and go over to Fishville to eat where we knew we would take pleasure in our meal. I suppose the multitudes spilled over to that arena as well since Fishville too was packed, and so we had to park around the corner where we seem to find our perfect spot when all else fails and is filled, shush, don’t tell anyone, it’s our little secret.

We ate at our favorite seafood restaurant and I had a crab salad and an iced tea un-sweet with lemon and Hubby had a seafood casserole with onion rings and coffee.
It had cooled off by the time we arrived and so without our noble canine pal Skipper with us, (you see, the event center does not allow dogs) we ate inside instead of on the decking facing the harbor. But we were seated in front of the window inside, facing the water! Just right, warmth and a wonderful view; what more could anyone ask for?
In reality it had gotten warmer according to the digital computerized thermometer in our vehicle, but apparently the sun had gone in making it feel colder.
And Hubby went back to the car to grab our jackets to mull around the shops at Fishville and to see if anything was new or different; once convinced that we saw it all, we left.
Hubby stopped at the grocery for only two items, milk and a refill for our Dawn dish detergent and so I waited in the car.
We arrived home just after four p.m. satisfied with our day’s journey and exhausted from all that fresh air.
Our canine son was not wasting anytime with his usual enthusiastic greeting!
Don’t dogs make you feel so terrific with their joy of whenever you come in, even when you might have only gone out the door and came right back in?
Ha, that’s what we all need is that kind of unconditional love…

On that more than truism I would like to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and to ask you kindly to count all those blessings and to share those overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, OK?

Joy

How does one go about finding their joy again?
Harping on my ills has chased the world from me for that I am sure and I am also so afraid of that realization!
Why does my body remind me daily of what I would much rather forget, and why do I forget what I much rather or would prefer to remember!
CRAZY!
I love to be with people and yet I appear to have become a ‘Debby Downer’ when I am.
Partially, I believe, it’s because I do not go out enough to have happy joyous things to talk about. I used to read voraciously but not anymore, which is another topic for discussions.
I used to be way more fun than this, why you can ask my sons?

We used to make sure they had fun too with dinners and movies out weekly when we both were working (and them too); it was a renewal of our relationships with one another.
And we went camping and to museums, on trips to here or there, fishing, swimming and took them out on our boats water skiing and watched as they would surf on the ocean across the street from where we had lived!
They both played instruments, the piano/keyboard and guitar; our younger son even had a rock band called Sound Seduction, and he was in school plays.
I miss that type of joy.
They now live far away, in two different directions from us and each other and have private lives and we hardly get to see them anymore.

Hubby and I are too careful with our money and health, maybe too much so.
And I believe that we must still have some fun and I am on a mission to find it wherever it is or could have gone.
Suggestions from you all would be lovely.
You all do know what our health issues are and I am sure the area here has been well defined by me and others.

The news just had the fact that a proposal for a water park to come to our county is under consideration not too far from our home only about five or six miles!
Not that I would be going to it but it could mean many more jobs for our residents and something for the kids to do! Not to mention the taxes that would come from that and better roads and infrastructure, more hotels and restaurants, this translates into more of more jobs!
And that alone could lower the crime rate or raise it…no, if people have gainful employment they are usually happier thus do not commit crimes and instead will spend more money, which adds to the tax base and creates a much better economy!

Wow, I am pumped and now very excited with the possibility of the concept and I will probably not have too much to do with any of that… but the fallout could improve the value of our homes or lower it, or raise or lower our taxes. I’m just saying that it could go either way. Many areas in this country have amusements that do help with the local economy and with us already being a vacationland we will be just creating more for people from all over the world to come down to, yea I’m happy!

You see now that could be something that people will want to talk about I bet?
Not so controversial, huh?
I doubt that many will find fault with this idea, but who knows… there could be ‘Debby Downers’ for water parks too; I sure hope not, they would have to sink mighty low for that, really!

On that note of hopeful optimism I would like to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and to all count those blessings and ask you kindly to share those overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, OK?