C25K Day One

It rained today. We have dirt roads out here and running wouldn't be a joy. I have put it off until tomorrow.
I don't know if I am looking forward to it, but, I need to start.
I guess I am looking forward to the person I hope to become.
Here's to new beginnings...

PS to the post below

If anyone read the post below, I am sorry, I can't continue.
I know that a blog is supposed to talk about everything going on in ones life, but there are some things I just wont expose to the world wide web.
To do the teal deer thing... in one week I lost my brother and my dad.
My dad didn't die, but he and his wife made it very clear I was not to be a part of their family.
I don't mourn for that. I mourn for the time I no longer have to rebuild the relationship we could have had with my brother. I mourn for his wife and kids. I mourn for my mother who lost her only son.
Thanks for reading it.

There are no words

But I will try.

January 12th, my brother, Rob, came home on leave from Afghanistan to his family in New York. On January 15th, while at a party, Rob collapsed. It was determined while he was in the hospital in New York that he suffered a stroke. He used to be a paratrooper, yeah, he jumped out of perfectly good airplanes, until he broke his leg a few times. Separate times. "They" think that clot that caused the stroke came loose from the breaks.

Rob was transferred to Walter Reed and while he was there they found that he had cancer. Further tests showed that it was stage 4 pancreatic cancer with liver and spleen involvement.

They moved him to Mankato, our hometown to be closer to family and friends. The goal was to fatten him up and make him stronger so he could have chemo. He lost 50-60 pounds while he was overseas.

After a few weeks of being in the Mankato hospital, he was moved to a swing bed facility at the Waseca hospital. He was there barely a week when he another stroke. One that incapacitated him. His breathing was down to two breaths a minute and his heart rate was at 70. That was when he was put on hospice care or palliative care.

On February 21st the nurses decided to get him up for a shower (the man couldn't sit up by himself, I just don't know how they were going to give him a shower) and his heart gave out.

Ok....so that's the time line. Now here come the touchy feely part.

I went down to Mankato when my mother went because she wouldn't be able to handle it alone. She wasn't allowed to be in New York with her son. I KNOW! Why? I don't know why his wife told her not to come. So, she was finally able to see him when he came to Mankato. We got there on Feb. 7th, my birthday. When we got there, we could tell we were not welcome, but we wanted to help out in anyway we could. It was hard to see him the way he was. He couldn't get comfortable. He wasn't given enough pain meds, that's for sure. When he was moved to Waseca, I took mom home. Her depression was so bad that she just couldn't keep up with her cleaning, something I know WAY to much about. She was also battling some alcohol abuse and health problems with no insurance. So while I cleaned her house (including fixing some leaks in the plumbing. Oh yeah, I am that good.) I also found her some free health care and very low cost counseling.

We had planned on going to visit Rob on the next Thursday but we got a call on Wednesday by the social worker, telling us that we need to come and see him right away. He had been declining some before the big stroke that doomed him right before we got the call.

I packed up everything, I had planned on going home that Friday anyway, and made the reservations at one of the local hotels.

The trip there was uneventful but when we got to the hospital, it was more of the same. We were treated like we were unwelcome.

More later. My damn fingernails are too long to type more.

'Twas a few days after Christmas...

and all through the house, I smell something burning, OMG is that a mouse!?!?!?

I had to clean out one of the barely used cupboards in the kitchen today. It shares a wall with the water line to the toilet. There was mouse droppings, but no mice. No burning mice either. That was boxing day dinner. Not a burnt mouse, silly... I accidentally burned the roast a little. It was mostly just the flour/mustard rub, but it dried out a little too much to really be enjoyable. OK. back to the cupboard... I cleaned it out and set one of the little heaters in there. Hopefully it will help thaw out the line so the tank to the toilet fills up. We did get the flushy part cleared of the spoon that was clogging it. The guys replaced the wax seal and wrapped the line with heat tape so it wont freeze again. It flushes when one pours a bucket of water down it.

KNITTING!!!

So here is the latest finished project...
Please don't pay attention to the unclean person behind the wool...

This is the acorn pattern from: http://peasoupoftheday.blogspot.com/2008/12/tiny-knitted-acorn-pattern.html only beefed up in size. Fellow Punkymom Mayim asked me to make it for her daughter who fell in love with the movie Ice Age. I actually made it in time for it to get there for Christmas! Take that procrastination!

I am happy to report that the child has yet to put it down.

My house is way too full of kids. It's not warm enough for them to go outside so they are all indoors playing video games. I think the mean bad mom needs to speak up and make them clean their rooms. Grrrrrr...

Money saving thing I did today?

We got on the keep-fill program with our propane service company. There is a sensor on our tank that sends out a radio signal to a little box in our house. When the signal tells the box that the tank is about 30% full, it will signal the box to call the company and let them know that we need a shipment. Oh yeah. Not only money saving, but time saving.

Dumb thing I have done today?

I don't know what the hell I did to my thumb but it's hot like it has an infection, kind of itches and has reduced feeling in it. Almost like I frostbit it.

Not sure what I am going to make for dinner. We have a bit of ham left from Christmas Eve dinner. Ham and cheese omelets? I have to be careful what I eat... I don't want gas on New Year's Eve. I would rather be gas free at the party. Oh... party. I need to find my Fashion Bug gift card and get a new top. The boys (they are in charge of laundry) have shrunk my good tops.

My son is playing some kind of Mario game in which a dragon has 3 eyes and many dagger like looking nipples.

That is all!

You know the words... let's dance!

Long time, blah blah...
It's been a struggle to keep my sanity lately. I think many people have this problem at this time of year so I can't say I am unique. I do have to say that now that I have had my hysterectomy, my depression isn't as bad as it once was.
We are officially homeless. We are staying out at our cabin, but it doesn't have hot running water and the furnace didn't work until a few days ago. There is a shower out in the garage with hot water so we are all smelling just fine, when the kids remember to take a shower that is. Heating up water on the stove for dishes really sucks. The water line for the potty froze so we have to refill the tank by hand. Kent got it unplugged yesterday, only to have it plug up again later. Now we are dumping hot water down it to try and move the frozen poodam, again. Do you know what smells worse than a bowl full of excrement? A bowl full of boiling hot excrement.
We do have to travel into town each day to take the kids to school and for Kent to work which ends up to be about $10.00 each day, if we take just one vehicle.
My MIL is fond to say that others have it worse so I shouldn't be too upset. Well, that's what keeps me going. At least we are not living out of the cars.
My house doesn't look a lot like Christmas. I am boiling some cinnamon sticks and ground cloves in the toilet water to help the house smell like Christmas. There are not a lot of places to put even a small tree. My chore for today is to clear up the mess on top of the entertainment center and the credenza so I can at least put up the village.
The kids are adapting pretty well. The younger two have the councilors at school to talk to. The older two... they have their moments, but they are pretty flexible.
I am doing a few commissions, a set of 3 mittens and an acorn, that need to be done by Christmas. I have a commission of a few doggy sweaters that can be done after Christmas. I have the mittens done, I just can't find them all! You know when you set stuff down in a safe place so you remember? yeah. My mind doesn't work like that. I forget where I put the stuff. I am going to have to get some push pins and tack them up on the walls for me to remember.
Pictures will be taken of them once they are found.
I did finish a couple of hats for an old friend who is going through cancer. I heard from her husband that she loves this one...


I am so excited that she likes it! It was a great stash buster. I sent her another one... it's supposed to be a kitty one.




I bought some silk/bamboo for a project for my grandmother but when I heard that Kate needed a hat, I used it. The purple is held double but the white is one strand of the silk/bamboo and one strand of soy/acrylic.
My lovely daughter was feeling goofy the night I took these.

Hockey season is in full swing here in the Minnesota arctic. I am no good at the political stuff that inevitably happens when you get a bunch of adults together. I don't suffer fools and idiots gladly, or quietly. However, if girl child is going to continue to play, either Kent or I will have to be on the board. There are not enough parents of 14U girls or even the 10U girls on it. There are other things wrong, but that's a subject best left for the next meeting.
I love watching the girls play. Each game they get better and you can see the team spirit growing.

I will post recipes and other pictures later... probably not a good idea to post them after talking about poo.