and the beat goes on

Almost a month and no blogging....getting complacent?  I guess I think that I am done writing because I am finished with last year.   However, the evidence that my body has been through quite a battle is very apparent.  Not just the scars that have replaced my breasts, but my aching joints from the anti hormone drug that I am on and NOW, my eyelashes are falling out again!  I am down to about 5 on one eyelid and maybe 6 or if I am really counting, maybe 7 on the other.  My friend that went through the same thing a few months before me had just told me a few weeks ago that her eyelashes were falling out again and I wondered if that would happen to me as well....well, wonder no more....chicken eye lids!

If you were tracking me, you would notice that my foot prints have been very zig zaggy for the last month or so.  I have been the great wanderer trying to find my right niche again.  I have not really been trying very hard to fit in any where but I was feeling a little confused and sort of lost there for a while.  

I have started spending my first waking moments in prayer and asking God for guidance for the day.  After prayer, I read a psalm and do a study on what I have read.  It seems to have brought my focus back to my first love, God, and taken it off of the almighty ME.  It feels right.  I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me.

Every day seems to bring me a little bit more of emotional strength and mental clarity.  I have a tendency to isolate because I don't want to reveal anything to anyone that they may use against me at a later date ....just as I am typing this I realize that paranoia has been my close companion for a little while as well.   Geez, talk about a looney tune! 

As I write this, I know that I can now say, " Last year was a very scarey time for me ".  I know that I was not alone but you know what I am saying...Little Miss Much Afraid...that was me. 
I can now say that I made it and it was ALL because of prayers and God's mercy.

So moving right along- Mark and I have been busy with little finishing touches on our little pad.  I feel alive again with anticipation of the future. I am not 100% yet but it feels so good to be alive and feel like doing something around here.  Mark and I do our 'busy' work around our nap schedules so it is slow but our home will be finished soon.  Then it is time to work on the patio....

Thank you Lord for my life.

I am Woman...

Happy Valentines day!  Today is the day!  Well, maybe this evening is or maybe tomorrow but I am one step closer to squaring off with one of my unrealistic fears....I am making cut out sugar cookies!!!!  I have only made them (or attempted to make them) once in all of my life.  It was a disaster!!! As I recall,  the making of the dough took way too long and I had a terrible time getting the dough out of the cookie cutter.  This year I bought a very pretty, bright red, heart shaped cookie thingy.   My life has been a little on the busy side so I did not get the cookies made before Valentines day.  I had grandiose plans of gifting my little treasures on this day but obviously I have found other things to do to keep me away from my fear of failure.....like blogging when I have nothing of interest to share :)  See how this works....procrastinate long enough and I don't make Valentine cookies until next year.   However the dough is made and it was remarkably easy.  It is now in the refrigerator for 3 hours as per the recipe.  Let's see, that will be after my bedtime which is 10:00 and I still need to roll out the dough AND then cut them out AND bake them!  Way too late!  I DO need to take care of myself and get a good nights rest.  Yes, that excuse is perfect!

HEY!  Fruit pizza!  I use sugar cookie dough for that!  Easy peasy....or.....I could cut out Easter egg cookies :(
Maybe shamrocks for St. Patrick's day....how long does cookie dough last in the frig?

A very peace filled day today.  Oh how I wish I could bottle my peace and share it.    God has given me another chance at this life and "live it" I must do!  So many hurting people and that burden is not for me to carry.  I need to lay all of this that scurries around in my head at the foot of the cross.  God is the only one that can do ALL things.  What a relief that is...

I need to go and ponder what I will do about the cookie dough that is calling out to me from the refrigerator.

Again, Happy Valentines day to you all!

What a month this has been!  Mark and I have been cleaning out Steve's apt. and putting some of his things in storage so his kids can go through them at a later date.  
Steve's funeral service was packed with so many people that he had touched in one way or another.  Mark and I were asked to be 2 of  the pall bearers.  We were honored to help carry his earthly body to its resting place. 


It still seems very unreal to me that we will not see him here again.
  
One morning I woke up with the thought that it is time to move on.   I think it was the morning after we had finished cleaning his place and gone out to dinner in his honor.  We were all pretty grubby but we did not care because we were finally DONE!  We took turns sharing stories of the outrageous stuff that we have experienced at the hands of Steve Seidel ;)  Once in a while I would notice that someone would get a little misty eyed but quickly recovered with another belly laugh.

Anyway, the morning after, I felt that it was time to 'look to this day for it is good '.

Tonight Mark and I are playing grandma and grandpa and it will be fun!  Life does go on and guess what?  So does Love.  Our love will go on for Steve even if he is not here with us physically.

Our new digs are coming along nicely and my sister is working on some tile designs for the back splash around my kitchen counter.   Sounds very ethnic!  I have chosen to throw in a little Mexican flair here and there...surprized?   I have absolutely no artistic imagination so I am sort of at her mercy....which I hate.  I am the big sister you know.

In a couple of weeks I go in for some blood work to see if all of the cancer cells were killed with the treatments.  I am confident that they are dead as dead can be but I guess I will have to go in every 6 months for check ups for a while. 

I am not feeling 100% yet but pretty dang close!    There are daily reminders that I have been through quite a battle and that I cannot get complacent about my recovery. 


Guess I gotta get off of this because I just lost a very witty paragraph and I can't remember what it was.  Wonder where it went? I pressed the wrong key maybe.


My grand babies are ALL gorgeous...all five of them!  


Good night all!
 

Life truly is but a vapor

Our brother and our friend went in for emergency open heart surgery yesterday.  He was a young man of 55 and now a days (to me anyway) open heart surgery is an every day occurrence!  His words were, " I guess my aorta is leaking into my chest and they need to do a little valve replacement. I will be here for about a week. " He did not make it through the surgery and we are all in a state of shock!  The waves of gut wrenching sobs just keep coming.  They are inter mixed with the laughter of memories of this dear person that one minute you could wring his neck and the next there was nothing but love for the kindness that came from him.  I like to think of him as the little cartoon character, Pigpen, in the Peanuts cartoon....  He would laugh at this as well.  It was common knowledge in our/his family that Steve was 'an accident waiting to happen'.   He was like a faithful little mutt that was so happy to be a part of a family that loved and accepted him with all of his little quirks.  He did the same for us.  No matter how bitchy any of us were, he just kept coming back and with a couple of packages of his homemade baklava....and shallow as we are, all was forgiven :)
A missing piece of puzzle that makes this family what it is ( complicated and very hard to understand) is missing and we are all floundering.  We take turns crying and then getting strength  from the gales of laughter that escapes from our fond   memory of Steve Seidel. 

I don't understand this at all and my eyes are swollen from the salt in my tears...God, please help me to understand what the purpose is in this. 

I realize that I have depended on this quirky, mischievous, caring  man for a lot of things.  My main dependence was that he kept tabs on Mark as closely as I did.   The roles switched when Mark started having brain seizures.  By the roles I mean the one between him and Mark.  Mark had always been the 'big' brother and Steve the little one that was forever getting himself into "fixes" that Mark had to get him out of.  Steve quickly 'grew up' when Mark needed someone to watch out for him when I wasn't around.  He would text me secretly when he had a concern for Mark and I would do the same.  Oh, now, DO NOT get me wrong --there were times that I wanted to knock him out--but mostly, he was my little brother and Uncle Steve to my girls and grand kids. 

My mom called him 'el hermano' when she lived with us.  She considered him part of our pack as well.  She loved Steve because he loved us.  She loved him because he loved to eat like all of us do : ) She loved him because she thought he was a good man.  She loved him because WE loved him.


I did not realize how much we loved him nor how much I love every member of my family and my friends.   I do not want to wait until any of you die before I realize that.  I am NOT ready to have family gatherings without our brother.  I weep because I will not ever see him on this earth again.  I smile because I know that he is peace filled and worry free.  I am so very happy that I told him that we loved him and that we were all praying for him...my last words to him were....'see you soon' !  

So much to process...the veil between life and death.  I want to just shake God and ask "WHY!!!" and 'what does this mean?'  How much more God?   Cool side bar here...today we had to go to Steve's apt. and his bible was on his bed.  I took it for a sign (because I like signs) that - it's all good! 
 
Tomorrow is a new day so perhaps I need some sleep because the bible says that  "Joy comes in the morning".  Amen :)