by Sarah | Apr 18, 2011 | Crap, Random
Oh, hai…I have a blog? Well gee…time to pull my head out of the clouds and use it, I suppose. There are birthdays this week, and so much other stuff going on that in my first post in a couple weeks you’re stuck with random bits & pieces…
* I had major dental work done last week. This TERRIFIED me. To waylay that I got some GREAT drugs (Hello, Valium…you handsome sonofabitch), had them knock me out…and wore my CUTE new shoes *points to the left* Outside of a couple of bad points (sorry again for yelling at you, dearest husband)…it went smooth. I go in on Wednesday for a crown.
* Hubs & I got to sit in line for 10 minutes at the car wash while an idiot in a stretch SUV limo tried to get his limo through the carwash. Someone that stupid should not be given a license. Seriously. (In case you’re wondering, he did eventually succeed after nearly driving off down into the gully. Makes him no less an idiot)
* The kids also had a dentist appointment. No cavities, just some janked up teeth…thank you genetics for passing on my crazy buck-tooth issues to 2 of my kids.
* In HAPPY news…it looks like I get to see my BFF again in a couple of months. In even happier news…this should occur right around my birthday. This? Gives me giddy giggles…and is sending Archie running over to our neighbor Moe’s…where he’s threatened to sleep the entire time our tiny little house has several more occupants 😀
* I managed to snag the AMAZING defunct HBO series Deadwood on Blu-Ray for less than $100…and we have been re-watching it slowly, savoring each episode. I am deeply ashamed of HBO for many things (see also: True Blood massacring a great book series)…but cancelling this show? Was a STUPID move. Shame on you, HBO…SHAME.
* Thanks to the aforementioned CUTE shoes…I think I may be becoming a tiny bit of a shoe addict. This is not necessarily a good thing…I want to go shopping and find more more more…we have neither the room or money for such an action.
* Ooooh, my time on the wait list is over!! Very soon I’ll be meeting with the artist to design my tattoo. I should also have that by my birthday. It’s my birthday & mother’s day gift all wrapped in one painful, but pretty, bow. In other news – Archie still doesn’t think I can handle the pain. I admit to fear, but I want it…have since I was 18…I just only now figured out what it is I want 😀
* Brandon handled the news of his diagnosis well. He is running track now and it hasn’t altered his life at all. We meet with the pulmonologist next month to get down to the nitty gritty of what he’s going to have to do, and new drugs and assorted stuffs.
* I registered Angel for kindergarten. This has made me very sad. She’s my baby…and she’ll be going to kindergarten in a few months. So not right.
* And on that note – school ends in a month. May 27 we are all done. Not ready for summer!!!
Okay, I’m sure I could go on…but that’s it for now…so many things to do.
by Sarah | Apr 3, 2011 | Photography, Weekly Winners
All taken w/ Canon Rebel XS.
My computer went kapoot & so my blog was neglected, as was my photo editing. So this week I have a little mix of here and there things I did when w/o my computer. Celebrations, storms, and more Cheetahs…
Another Year
* Dad’s bday was a couple weeks ago. My favorite picture of him that day
Support
Storm Front
*I just loved the way the sunlight made the trees white against the dark sky.
Ray of Light
Dressed for Success
Honor Bound
Honored
*National Junior Honor Society. We are all so very proud of him!
Profiled
You look…Yummmmm….
*On this trip to the zoo, the Cheetahs were more active…walking right past the glass where we were watching. This was a fast snap I captured…but I loved the flash of tongue and the focused gaze.
You can find more pictures over at my flickr account.
That’s all for this week. Head on over to Lotus‘ digs to see more!!
by Sarah | Mar 31, 2011 | All About Denver, All About Kennedy, Cystic Fibrosis
The stopwatch was never ending.
Just a few weeks ago I lamented the never ending ticking of time.
Over four years of non-answers for two children, going on months for the latest.
I just wanted answers. One answer.
Today the stopwatch started beeping, signalling time up.
It sounded strangely like a ringing phone.
**
Yesterday we took Brandon for his “repeat sweat” test. It was to rule out error in the initial (low) abnormal score. Accounting for the test having an error and his numbers actually being in the normal range.
It was a formality.
Except, it stopped being a formality when the doctor’s office called us to give the results…instead of waiting for our call.
This time the numbers were different – but they were in the positive range.
Add in the ugly appearance of his lungs on the x-ray for December.
And the appearance of staph on his sputum culture.
And the odd result of his genetic test.
They’re calling it.
Brandon…
He has Cystic Fibrosis.
Which gives Angel’s odd course to diagnosis even more credence.
I asked for answers.
Now we have to figure out how to give answers to my 13 year old son.
Angel is growing up with it from the age of 1…to her it will be ‘normal’.
Brandon is a fully functioning, exceptionally brilliant young man…with a bad case of the worries.
His life today will not change…he’ll have more meds, and will get a chest compression vest/machine of his own.
But getting him to understand that.
To understand its not a death sentence.
That his life will be full…and probably very long.
Somehow we’ll make him understand.
Once we get our heads around it.
by Sarah | Mar 22, 2011 | All About Me, Crap, Writing
Feel no pain, but my life ain’t easy,
I know I’m my best friend.
~”Escape” by Metallica
I’ve never understood it.
Why I am like I am.
I know my parents didn’t understand, but they tried.
I remember visits to the psychologist at UB-Amherst.
I remember the embarrassment I felt about those visits.
I remember keeping my truth hidden.
The truth I feel inside.
It was blamed on teenage depression (though no meds were used – not that I’d have taken them). A reaction to the teasing and bullying I was subjected to.
It was an acceptable explanation. Reasonable. Everything made perfect sense to them.
It didn’t make sense to me. I’d felt it so long before the teasing started. The disconnect. The sense of being…different.
While I would play with the other kids, race around outside, laugh, swim in the lake, in pools, dance in a group or solo, lived life like any normal child…
I felt like an outsider. Looking in on these events.
There was only two places I felt complete.
The first was on the stage. Expressing myself in dance and movement. I knew there was an audience, but I couldn’t see them. It was me and the energy on that stage, wrapped in lights and confidence I felt nowhere else.
The other…oh, the other was such a cause for turmoil.
It was in my head.
In my room, buried in books. Buried in worlds that weren’t here. Weren’t pressing on me. Weren’t all around. They were safe, in my head. Oh, there were dangers, adventures, worlds unlike any other…but there I was in control. There I wasn’t the odd duck in a sea of normal people.
It wasn’t until high school that I truly found the release of creating my own escape instead of reading the escapes created by others.
When I am in these other worlds, creating them, reading about them, my brain stills.
In every day life the pressures, the chaos, the thoughts in my head swirl and turn until there is no escape. The smile I wear is genuine, I’m not completely lost to the chaos. When I am in life I am happy.
I can’t call it depression because that isn’t what I feel – it’s just a never ending chaos. It always has been. For as far back as I can remember it seemed as if my mind never stopped. When others could sit quiet and relaxed, my brain was still turning over possibilities of life, problems needing answered, questions needing asked. There is no true being still for me. My mind is not happy with ‘still’.
There are times when we are all sitting as a family, but my head is millions of miles away. I get called on it by my husband. Wondering where I am because I am not “here”. It can go on for days sometimes I get so lost. So far gone.
It frustrates my husband. Even when he knows I always “come back”.
I feel so bad for that.
That when I am here…writing…reading…focused and intent…I am lost.
Lost to him.
Lost to my kids.
Lost to this real world that is so chaotic.
Because here is where it is still.
The thoughts stop.
I am in control. Focused on making the lives created under my fingers into something worthwhile. Fleshing them into real people I could never be. Worlds I could never live in. Adventures I would never see otherwise. The chaos there is planned, expected, created by me.
Some days it is hard to pull away from the peace.
And that is wrong.
Real life should be more appealing.
But my ‘daydream’ moments pull far too often.
I’ve never been able to stop it – just ask my parents. I was often chastised for escaping to my room and my books. My Dad feared that it would lead me to a life of addiction like he lived through.
And it has.
Addiction to writing. To the internet.
To the “other”.
I’ve never understood why I am so different. Why it seems like the way my thoughts function is so different from everyone else. Why my social anxieties seem so extreme. Why they only go away at the theater (I’m the life of the party at auditions) or online. Why I turn into a blazing ass trying to be nice and “fit in” with the cool kids when I meet others in person.
I don’t know how to change it. To live in the real world. To form “real” friends that I communicate with face to face instead of keyboard to keyboard.
Effort has been made.
But it’s painful. Frightening. Anxiety inducing. Being face to face.
I don’t know how to find an acceptable balance.
But I know that I need to.
by Sarah | Mar 21, 2011 | All About Family
We fought like cats and dogs.
He loved sports.
I loved dance.
There was no middle ground.
I was a tomboy, but I would wear a dress every day if you let me.
I didn’t understand him.
He got frustrated with me.
Mom said we fought because we were so alike. I thought she might be a little bit crazy. Dad and I were nothing alike. In my mind he didn’t support my dancing, he thought it was frivolous…not like sports. He got angry at me for getting straight A’s & B’s – while my brother barely brought home C’s. For some reason it was never good enough…it was always, “Well, this 95 is good, but why wasn’t it 100??”
It took way too many years.
A happenstance turn of events that left it so that it was just us.
Me & my Dad.
For 2 months while Mom tried to sell our house in Buffalo I lived here alone with my Dad. Went to school. Made dinner. We watched TV, made s’mores in the microwave.
Talked.
There was a shift during that two months. My older brother wasn’t around (it was his senior year, he finished it in Buffalo & then stayed there). My Mom, usually the mediator, wasn’t there.
We got close.
From that point on the fighting lessened. It didn’t disappear…I mean, Dad and I are both hot-heads. Blow ups are bound to happen…but things eased up. He took me to the theater. He was great around my friends – even taking us camping on several occasions.
He’s my Dad.
Now he’s turning 62.
In the past few years he’s been battling illness, and fighting to get time with his family. For his grandkids to see their Papa as the strong, smart and stubborn man that my brother and I knew growing up. I know that some days are harder than others.
I don’t think I’ve told him enough how much I admire him for all he did RIGHT when we were growing up. Or thanked him for trying to push me to work harder (just because it didn’t work doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the effort).
Happy Birthday to my Dad.
The impossible, stubborn, bull-headed, strong, smart, hard-working, hunting, playful, supportive Dad that both frustrated me and held me up in an esteem I didn’t realize soon enough.
I love you Dad.
Oh, hai…I have a blog? Well gee…time to pull my head out of the clouds and use it, I suppose. There are birthdays this week, and so much other stuff going on that in my first post in a couple weeks you’re stuck with random bits & pieces…
