by Sarah | Oct 5, 2011 | All About Denver, All About Erik, All About Family, All About Home, All About Kennedy, All About Marriage, All About Me, All About Molly, All of Us, Crap
[flickr id=”5293689107″ thumbnail=”small” overlay=”true” size=”small” group=”” align=”left”]Cross Country season is drawing to a close. The final (County-wide) meet is in less than a week. Coming up there is nothing but PTO meetings, Parent/Teacher Conferences and life in general.
This also means that the teen will be home before 4PM every day.
I always thought once the girls were both in school I’d go back to work. Nothing so dramatic as full-time day jobs (and definitely NOT banking again ~gag~). I figured I would return to waitressing. With the teen old enough to babysit in short spurts, I’d be able to get a job at a real restaurant with real tips since I could now actually get into work before 6PM. Maybe we could get a (slightly) steadier increased income. Maybe we could leave SSI and its unreliable, and ever decreasing, amounts behind. Become self-sufficient again. Maybe even one day live the dream of giving up Child Support (or actually putting that in savings).
Now that day is here.
Yet we hesitate.
Last year Angel ended up in the hospital for the first time ever. It was five days where our only focus was her and making sure we saw the other two kids. Last year she wasn’t even in school. Only exposed to those hundred of viruses on the periphery.
It could happen again at any time.
We are six weeks into the school year and Angel has already missed five days due to illness. That’s one week out of six. Most of them in the past three weeks.
So now we toss up in the air whether I would even be able to maintain a job or if I’d constantly have to take off for illness or hospital stays or whatever.
I know, we can’t live life hanging by that ‘what if she gets sick’ thread…but it is a fact and a factor in everything. Having to weigh the consequences of not just being away from home several evenings a week – versus the likelihood that I will have to call in at least a couple of times, maybe more.
The thought of working again only scares me peripherally. I actually like the thought of having adult interaction, even if it is only as server to customer. I worked in banking for about eight years. It sort of ripped out my soul and stomped on it and I never wanted to work again after it. But I did, and I found a job at Bob Evans (the only place that would hire me w/ the hours I could work). The tips weren’t horrendous, but they weren’t top of the line. BUT. But…I loved my job. Even when I didn’ t like my new manager, and the employee turnover brought in some people that weren’t my favorites…I loved what I did. It was fun. It was interactive. It made me happy.
There are positives, many of them, to me going back to work…
But there are so many balls up in the air I’m afraid tossing in one more would be too much. Plus, I’d really hate to get a job I love, maybe even start earning enough to lose SSI…only to lose that job because of things well beyond my control.
We can’t live in the what-if’s…
But we can’t ignore them either.
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 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.
by Sarah | Sep 10, 2011 | All About Family
I posted this last year and the year before at this time. I’m re-posting it. I will always repost it every year at this time…
I know what tomorrow is. I know what it means to our country. I remember every detail of 2001 in vivid detail…but since before 2001, this date has been difficult for me, for my family…in 1996 my family’s core was lost, the heart of us…my grandfather…so my post on 9/11 is for him. Oh, and at surface glance I hate this picture of me, but then I see the pure joy on my face dancing with my grandfather and aesthetics be damned, it’s my favorite picture.
It was his birthday. I was young and such a very short kid…and he was TALL. I remember watching him put our coats in the closet and staring up, up, up at him and asking, “How tall are you?” With his sparkling eyes and laugh he informed me that he was over 6′. My eyes grew wide, and all I could say was, “But you’re so close to the ceiling! If you have ANY more birthdays you’ll go right through!”
His chair sat by the front door and the minute he sat the race was on – who would get the privilege of sitting on his lap, carrying on as deep a conversation as a child was capable of. Who would get to play with his round pot belly, and listen to his laughter.
He worked for GM and he was proud of it, and so were we.
When I close my eyes I can still smell his pipe and see the pipe carousel on his dresser. I can smell the cigarettes that he and grandma smoked.
I remember that after he retired he would watch soap operas during lunch.
And I remember the weddings – when my cousin and I would trade off and share him for the dance. “Grampa” by the Judds.
I remember his smile.
I remember his belly.
I remember the strength that he always carried in his soul and body.
I remember the pain that shot through my heart at the word…”cancer”. Once it was uttered it was less than a year. 10 months.
I remember the first time I saw him in the hospital-and how I had to run from the room because it made me physically ill to see my big strong grandfather lying in a bed weak and hooked up to tubes.
I remember his fight.
I remember when it was acknowledged in our hearts that the time to fight was over.
I remember how he held on – hours past when we thought we would lose him – because he would not let go until he’d gotten to hear the good-bye of all of his grandchildren, and my brother had been in surgery for his shattered wrist. Half an hour after the final phone call, he was gone.
I remember the sound of the tennis balls scattering across the hallway when my professor’s assistant walked up asking if she knew where I was…and all I could do was run to my car to get home as soon as I could.
From there it’s a blur…a long car ride from NC to NY. The arrangements. The funeral home. The droves of people I didn’t know, but who all knew him, overflowing the room.
The pain has lessened, resorted to a memory. For the most part I remember the love, the good things, the joy. But on this day every year the pain comes back to the forefront.
This year the pain seems so much stronger – now that Grandma has gone to join him. Refreshed and renewed. Now they are together forever, but they will always be here in our hearts.
We love you still, and will always love you, Grampa.
