by Sarah | Sep 22, 2011 | All About Denver, Cross Country
[flickr id=”6083043811″ thumbnail=”small” overlay=”true” size=”small” group=”” align=”left”]In the past several weeks, Brandon has gone from being improved over the previous year and turned into a DYNAMO.
In just two weeks he’s gone from a best time of 12:21 for the 1.9 mile race…
To a best time of 11:40!!!
40 seconds improvement.
While watching the race today, several of the female team members were standing near us (near the finish line). As the runners came in, our team was in 1st, 3rd, 5th…and then several more runners started trucking in. As they came into view the girls were saying, “Oh, there’s one of ours. It must be…” And they rattled off another kids name. Once he was in full view they all gasped, “It’s BRANDON!!”
Shocked and thrilled, screaming for him like we were.
He’s now 4th on his team. He’s competing in ALL the meets, where last year he had to sit out because they only let in the top 7 runners.
He’s kicking ass. Competing against himself and winning.
And we couldn’t be more proud.
So expect to keep hearing about it for the next couple of weeks.
(Don’t worry. The season is over by mid- October)
by Sarah | Sep 21, 2011 | All About Me, Random, Story of Me
Once upon a time….
I was having a miserable several years in teen land (as many of us did). In 6th grade I went from having a decent amount of friends to being tagged as the biggest nerd in the school. The sudden shift was shocking and painful. It was aided by braces, glasses and the world’s worst case of acne.
In essence my self esteem was in the toilet (and still suffers to this day).
Summer before my freshman year my bro and Dad went college visiting one weekend and my Mom thought it would be a great idea to take me to her friends campground.
I was less than thrilled.
I didn’t realize it would change so much.
That weekend I met Kathy. She was pretty, confident, popular…everything I wasn’t. In that weekend, in that place it seemed like what I was back home didn’t matter.
We became fast friends.
For the next several years Kathy and I talked almost every day for about an hour and a half, and every weekend hanging out with our campground buddies. When school started we were on the phone every day after school. Met up on holidays, spent weekends at each others house.
It was a sorely needed friendship for me. Probably more than she even realized.
As time often does, it moved on. Life pulled us apart. I moved to Indiana (the first time). Then I moved to North Carolina, and when I moved to Virginia she went to Florida. We lost phone numbers and contact info. We drifted apart.
She found me 9 years ago and we managed to reconnect briefly. But it was one, maybe 2 phone calls and life got in the way again. We both had kids and husbands and jobs and were living life.
Just a couple of days ago after an exchange of a few facebook messages my phone rang.
It was Kathy.
9 years after our last conversation. 13 years after the last time we met face to face.
We talked for an hour and a half, just like old times. We talked about everything. Big and small.
Our conversation was about budgets and babysitting, home and family, jobs and mothering. A far cry from our conversations about boys, homework and school.
Yet, it was exactly the same.
We ended the conversation in smiles, promising to do it again soon and proclaiming each how it felt like absolutely no time had passed at all. That while life had led us in different directions that core of our friendship still held on strong. A chain as solid as steel, forged in the difficulty of teen years.
True friendship lingers even when life pulls us apart.
by Sarah | Sep 20, 2011 | All of Us, Crap, Random
[flickr id=”6038515587″ thumbnail=”small” overlay=”true” size=”small” group=”” align=”left”]The past week has been a jumble of words and laughs and stress and cheers.
For all of that, you get the most fun thing of all. Bullet list of randomness!!
- Brandon is excelling in his Cross Country running this year. He’s beating his best times, and has always placed in the top 10 except the one meet that had about 8 teams there (in which case he was 12th). So far his best time in the 1.9 mile race is 11:59!! We’re exceedingly proud of him.
- Brandon’s Boy Scout popcorn selling days are upon us. Have I mentioned that I am not a fundraiser type of girl? Yeah…school fundraisers never come out of envelopes. This is a big thing, though. If he sells enough we don’t have to pay yearly dues – if he does even better he gets to go to Scout Camp free which…would be awesome.
- Angel got sick last week and missed 3 days of school. It lingers this week w/ some random coughing and moments of exhaustion (she took a nap yesterday, a long one). We keep an always worried eye n her.
- There are things of stress that can never be blogged. Things that pure panic caused me to overreact and delete my blog a couple of years ago. Things that disappear into the night only to run up behind me with an evil clown mask on and say “Remember me?” We are in the midst of one of these things now. We are stressed.
- In a subject to be blogged about very soon I got a phone call yesterday from a very old and dear friend. It was the highlight of my day and a wonderful way to spend a morning.
- I am actually going to a PTO meeting tonight. I’m feeling awkward about this as I am not a typical PTO mom…but I keep hearing talk about the ‘big changes’ coming up in our district…and now knowing that I don’t have to be a PTO member to vote on these things I think I’d better get clued in fast.
- Every once in a while I realize that very soon my eldest will be a Freshman – and that he is already taking a high school level class that will demand high school exams. And I feel OLD.
- I have been writing. A LOT. I’m also still reading, a LOT. I take great heart in reading Stephen King’s “On Writing” where he mentions that his writing goes similar to mine…dry spells that can last for months that turn into cramming, crazy writing once the inspiration strikes. I may never be Stephen King, but I don’t feel so bad about my recent 6 month dry spell.
- It’s fall. I’m still baking. Breads mostly (including English Muffins, YUM)…but the occasional sweet.
- That also means Halloween is coming up. I am so unenthusiastic about the whole costume & trick or treat thing. It fills me w/ dread that the girls are well aware of Halloween & the implications this year. Save me?
- I’m still fighting off heaving bouts of exhaustion myself. I try not to complain about it and push through. I got tired of myself whining to the hubby all the time, I can only imagine he felt the same. My physical is in November. If it’s still around I’ll mention it to the doc.
That’s it for now. Trying to get back into the swing of things again. At least to come up from air from my current manuscript. I don’t like making the hubby jealous with how consumed I can get by a story.
by Sarah | Sep 15, 2011 | Challenge
Indie Ink time again!
I almost didn’t make it this week. The day I got my challenge email was the anniversary of my grandfather’s death. To top it off, the challenge I was issued (via Chaos Mandy) was “Time of Loss and Change.” Needless to say, neither I, nor my muse, were inspired for anything but depression after that.
However, just under the wire tonight, I got inspiration for something a little more light hearted. Thus you have my bad country song cliche…
*~*~*~*
Is there a big scarlet ‘L’ on my chest for “LOSER”?
Everyone is staring at me. I didn’t change, so why is everything so different?
Maybe I did change. After all I’ve become the poster-child for a bad country song.
I lost my dog.
Hit by a car when she slipped out of her collar. My ex swears it was an accident, but he never put that collar on tight enough.
I lost my man.
Of course, my sister would tell me that I shouldn’t call that bad news. The eternal optimist (and champion defender/big sister) in her would see fit to remind me that he was an ass. That he cheated on me, stole money from me and was in general emotionally abusive.
I lost my job.
I worked in journalism. Newspapers are folding all over the place, don’t you know? I’ve been searching for a new job, but with this economy and the job market? I’m waitressing at the greasy spoon down the corner. Making a whopping twenty bucks a night in tips. Did I mention greasy spoon? The place is a dive and no one comes in. I don’t expect to keep that job long either. Way my luck is going the health inspector will shut it down.
I lost my house.
Okay, it was an apartment, but still. It blew up. Yes. Seriously. Turns out my neighbors two floors up were cooking meth. Whole place went up in smoke. Oh yes, as my sister cheerfully reminds me – at least I wasn’t in it, right?
“It’s a time for renewal! You get to start with a clean slate! Emerge like a butterfly!” I swear my sister is risking getting knocked in the teeth when she says that. I mean, really.
I’m 35. Who the hell wants to start over at 35?
*~*~*~*~*
In turn, I had to hand over my challenge, and it went to R.L.W. Head on over to see what this inspired (I love it, BTW):
Twenty years have passed. Time has flown, but nothing has changed. The ghosts are lingering, and have gathered the strength to answer your questions.
Join the Indie Ink challenge…it’s great – you never know what you’re going to get!!
by Sarah | Sep 12, 2011 | All About Denver, Cystic Fibrosis
[flickr id=”5888954984″ thumbnail=”small” overlay=”true” size=”small” group=”” align=”left”]It’s been a couple of weeks since the appointment I didn’t want to go to. Time to process. Time to settle into acceptance.
Oh yeah, and time to be swamped with school stuff.
Just last night I realized I never told you what was determined. What the “Final” conclusion is.
After the weird.
After the tests.
After more questions.
After nothing.
The pulmonologist said that once the test (that new ‘gold standard’ test) was sent to the official lab to be read by the person that is the know-all and be-all of it, he demanded more data. All of Brandon’s records were sent…and the conclusion THAT person came to was…
Brandon has CF. While his test ‘looked’ normal on the surface, a deeper examination plus looking at his medical records the conclusion is CF.
So our final official diagnosis for Brandon is “Atypical Cystic Fibrosis.”
We have our answer.
No more tests.
No more ‘but’.
Maybe one day it will change in the distant future. For now, though…for now we move forward with an answer. With the comfort of the likelihood being that he will not see some of the worst aspects of this disease. That there is a hope that he may never be seriously affected by it.
But there is an answer.
That is so much better than never ending questions.
Plus, the answer took so long in coming that by the time we finally settled into it, Brandon was not a wreck over it. He’d already adjusted to it being a likelihood. He’d done his research and made his peace.
And that is the best part of all.
