gReAt dAy!

Ok so what a great day today was!  As of late I am groggy waking up.  Don’t know what’s going on there.  Some days I am wide awake other days I am in a stupor for half of the day.  I am thankful that I had washed my hair the day before. 

I think that is about all I got accomplished yesterday, but hey, it’s all good!  Oh Oh!!  Yesterday I finally finished unpacking my bag from my trip to Grandma’s house.  Today I realized that I need to start packing it again tomorrow for our next trip.  Yikes!  Jason’s back to work at the hospital and we get to see our friends!  Woot!  I’ve got two days to get lots of gals called! 

So today, it was a beautiful day!  It was warm outside it wasn’t windy at all!  It was sunny and wonderful!  I made it out about 2:00 pm I sat outside and did my exercises outside. 

Getting started doing my ab breathing exercises,

Adding in the football!  I always wanted one of these, although I never thought this is what I would use this for.

The boys and girl enjoyed it too!   I didn’t get pictures of everyone, just Luka… the natives got restless and I had to put them back inside before I had my phone in my hands to take pictures. 

Luka hanging out in case I need some help.  Yes, he wears a pinch collar.  I know, it looks horrible.  He begs to wear it.  We’ve had to use this as somewhere along his life path, he lived with a cat, didn’t mind the cat.  Then somehow some where later, he was told it was alright to chase the cat and try to eat the cat.  So now he wears the lovely pinch collar, so I don’t get drug down the street when he sees a cat! 

Yea, he’s 110 lbs I am 120…. I don’t stand a chance except for this collar, and after more than a year he listens to me much better now, isn’t likely to try to drag me down the street, although he does still sometimes get so excited that he finds it very difficult to stay still.  Other than that we get along perfectly!  So we’ll keep working on the cat issue!

Luka’s only other issue is he loves little dogs!  All dogs really but the little ones for sure!  Crazy!  But he is doing so much better than before!  He does manage to do his job quite well!

Well enough in fact that today I was asked if kids could be trained to behave as good as he does.  I said I am sure they could, wink!  She said, I am just to busy for all that, do you train them?  …… time to walk away!!!   Yikes! 

So today Luka and I after our backyard adventure we made a trip to the bank Melanie, Deb, and the other gals were very cheerful today, then to the post office Brian was there!  Yea!  We sure miss having Brian at our post office!  The new gal Kim is nice too! 

We walked from store to store!  It was so great!  A nice day and I was feeling well to boot!  Yipee! 

The new clothing store was closed, boo!  But the gifty store was open of course, Mary was even there for a bit!  Pretty fun, the last time I’d seen her was at my friends funeral.  We sat together.  She was of course amazed at Luka’s stellar behavior!  They had the cutest hats in!  Not my size they were for babies, but maybe I can figure out how to make one for me!

Speaking of hats!  One of my most favorite blogs has their new shopping site up and running.  It isn’t perfect yet but it is almost there!  Check it out!  She makes hat’s and purses and sells patterns so you can make them yourself too!  Another one of the Australian Bloggers I love!  Her blog is wonderful as well!  BLOG!  I look forward to seeing all of the great things she comes up with! 

My journey continued today, since I was doing so well, I didn’t want to go home, it was about 5 or so now, and I was remembering a conversation I had before I hung out in my backyard?  My neighbor came by, shared that she was off to visit her hubby at the nursing home.  So I thought to myself, it’s been a long time since I’d gone down to visit him as well.  I’ve got the time and I don’t want to go home, Luka and I are doing well, and he had yet to go to the nursing home! 

I think they get therapy dogs in there!  The residents didn’t freak out at all!  But the sure did reach out and try to pet him.  YIKES!  Couldn’t let that happen!  To much commotion!  Can’t get him all excited now…  Gotta go see my neighbor, so we moved ourselves along a little quicker.  We sat in a high back chair for a while with him.  He’s almost blind, dumb macular degeneration!  Two of our friends have that!  (Onyx’s Momma has it too)  We stayed until he went to supper.  It was nice to get caught up!  Thank goodness for the high backed chair that I could curl up in! 

After that, I remembered that the dog food would run out tomorrow… and for our next trip I needed to have a bunch of it ready to go.  The allergies have for the most part dissipated.  Luka is having less and less hot spots and so I know we are on the right track.  I am still hoping to find a dry dog food that works for him too, but for now having to cook his food takes forever!  It however is good exercise for me I am sure!  10 lbs of potatoes takes some doing!  I have very sore arms when I stir those and standing while they cook well let’s just say after I do this I am resting!

He is also looking better too!  I add some of my Isagenix to his food as well.  It seems to be working!  So well in fact that Jason suggested that Ozzie be switched to the same stuff to see if he will add some pounds!  So far so good!  I don’t have a specific recipe but I just follow the foods that our vet suggested.

Luka has not had to wear booties for several weeks!  I am so grateful, as winter is coming and the snow, and water, mud, ice, etc. is rough on sock wearing!  Not to mention no one wants soggy socks squishing all over the floor. 

Yipee!  So we went to the grocery store after visiting the nursing home.  We talked to everyone in the store I swear!  Since we don’t get out much he and I are quite the novelty.  Even people who know me from before wonder what is going on.  Since I haven’t seen most of them for years. 

I may not have met many of them or then again I met so many people, that all over the county in which I live people at least know my name.  Weird and Cool!  I think more people know me here than where I grew up.  That is strange too, as I think I was in the newspaper every other week for something while in high school. 

Having gone back there a couple weeks ago, I remember how I can’t go anywhere without knowing someone!  Weird too as I’ve been gone over 20 something years!  It does give me a good feeling as I really like almost everyone I have ever met. 

So at the store, I was thrilled to see the laundry detergent on sale!  We stock up when this happens!  I would have bought more, but I don’t want to put us in the poor house, oh, wait, we are already there, hee hee!!!  WINK!

I also managed to get a good deal on fabric softener too!  I love it!  It felt good to do that.  I also found some brownies and met a gal in the store who shared with me how to make monster cookies quickly!  I can’t wait!  Boys in Iraq you are going to each get a box stuffed full of goodies!  Can’t figure what else to send to you besides food!  GRIN!

After I checked out a different neighbor came in to shop, we chatted for a while, that was nice, he’d been out mowing his lawn all afternoon.  Luka just laid there and waited watching all of the people come in and out of the store.  He is quite the topic of conversation… I find if I look people in the eye it gives them a lead in to ask all sorts of things.  so this is where the comment at the beginning of my post today fits in…

If I keep my eyes diverted I get away with less conversation.  Which has been most of my trips.  Today was different, I was doing so well today, I had the energy to talk to people.  So I could walk with my head up, taking my time to answer questions and talk to people.  I don’t mind this for sure, provided I have the energy to do it.  In fact I really do like the interaction.  That is one of the things that I miss the most.  I used to meet and talk to people everywhere!

Most day’s I am on a time crunch till my body starts wearing down and giving me fits.  When the pain becomes to great, my groceries will be left in the car to spoil, and so since I’ve spent Jason’s hard earned $$ on it I make sure to keep focused on getting home and things put away!

It was a fun day!  Be sure to check out my other blog!  The rescue is REALLY REALLY needing more people to step up and foster a dog!  I am sure that ours isn’t the only one overflowing either!  I know that the one my friend volunteers with is always looking too! 

Tomorrow will be another busy day!  That’s the plan anyway!

Blessings! 

DReAmINg Of ThE PoSSiBiLiTiES!

Pretty good day today, I've been to my regular Dr. to get some things sorted out. That is always a good thing. She is so great about listening to me and helping me solve what problems I am having!

Then we traveled into the city, we grabbed some lunch went to the bank the auto parts store and Petsmart for MORE dog food! Geesh dogs eat allot!

Each day I get up, I hope to learn something new, to push myself a little more and to squeeze more into my day or more out of it. Focusing on this really helps me keep motivated, keep my spirits up and helps me to improve myself.

Even if it is a little each day, I might not finish one task in a day anymore, but over time I am able to finish anything! I like that, it has really made me focus on finishing what I start! I have an idea to finish all of my projects before I really start taking on new ones.

In fact, I've even been finishing some projects that my mother had started when she was alive. I love my mom, but she had issues with finishing what she started, I think somehow she shared that gift with all three of us girls. We each struggle with it in different ways.

Right now I am fixing a quilt that I made for Jason, it is a pretty cool quilt, at least I think so, I cut up all of his old tee-shirts the ones he would wear when he was a rock star, and I made a king size quilt of them all so they would be preserved. Some of them had been getting quite thin.

Well this king size project was my first quilt, and I missed a couple of stitches here and there, so I am going back over it by hand to make sure the seams are all sturdy. I love this quilt I made it prior to 2004 thank goodness, otherwise I am just sure that I would still be working on finishing it! My friend Jen and newer friend Jen go on these trips with me and others pop in occasionally. Jen has helped me in this endeavor to make Jason's quilt, at least once a year we do a ladies weekend! We go for 2 days and just focus on quilting, crafting, scrapbooking, reading, or whatever. This was one of the projects I worked on on our weekends together. Their quilts are much fancier ones, but I am happy with the one I made. It suits Jason, lots of flannel, and a heavy cotton batting, it provides great snuggle qualities!

Now on these weekends I bring smaller projects, as my need to finish what I start is the goal! This last one, I just went to it with the intention of helping them with their projects, but mostly sat on the couch watching them work and enjoying their company. It was a good break for me that month, I hadn't been able to get out of the house much as Jason was working his ass off! My friends provided a perfect outlet to have some girl time! It is so great that they put up with me even though I am definately not as much fun as I used to be.

I can't wait to get back to being able to travel all over! That is one of the things that I have always planned my life to do. Don't get me wrong, I love to be home as well, even more than I used to I will admit. Before my accident I was NEVER home! I was always off doing something I found to be fun or exciting, mostly involving my work. I loved it! Jason would go with me when he could, and we just planned our lives to be lived on the go!

He loved that too! As his job provides many days in a row off each month if we would choose, so we could take many mini vacations, and even some for a month! I remember our last big trip to Brasil, Jason had never been to the ocean before, and I was able to take him to the Atlantic Ocean off of the coast of Brasil after having traveled around the country for three weeks, come home and with in a week of having been in the Atlantic, we were in California in the Pacific! A dream come true for him! How cool was that?

I don't write these things to be braggy, but just to share how much fun we've had traveling, and how much we love to do new things. We both watched the movie "The Bucket List" receintly, I think we each have one of those, while not clearly defined at the moment, we will be working on what we want to do or accomplish before we die. Not from a morbid prospective, but a list filled with things that will bring joy to others or enrich our lives. Jason's list includes things like walk on the moon, fly in Airforce One, cruise the Nile, ... the list is infinate. Mine, well mine will be more defined I think before mine might have included many grand seeming things, but now, well, one thing I definately would like to do is open the eyes of others so that they may experience life at a different leval, Ok so I know that doesn't make much sense and it may not seem defined... but here is one small example of what I mean.

Our teenage friend who's living with us, her life hasn't always been the easiest, I don't know if easy is something that should even be someone's goal, I have always found that the things that are harder to obtain, that require more of yourself, that push your limits are the ones that are to be the most treasured. But still when you are a child you should be allowed to be a child, not have piles of adult responsibilities heaped upon you. So while she is living with us, we are trying to open up her eyes to a different world, a world which isn't easy to live in either, but a world that is full of possibilities! Endless Possiblities, all she would have to do is make a choice of what she would want, and then work to make it happen.

I see so many people give up on their dreams, most of the time, they are almost to atain them, and then they just let everything fall away in to nothing. It has happened to me earlier in my life. It is a great learning opportunity to pick yourself up and hold yourself high and give it an even harder effort in achieving your goal. Never giving up!

I want her to know that she doesn't have to live the life she was brough up in, that she can choose the type of life that she wants and make it happen for herself. And while learning and growing each step may be painful, but the successes that she would experience while getting to her goal would be personally gratifing. I don't care if her passion is to make minimum wage or if it is to make a million each year, but she should know that she can choose! She is the one who settles for what is available easily, or works hard to get what she has her heart set on.

So many people settle, they stop fighting just before the greatness comes into their lives, and so many others, never even start on the path. Few people it seems actually finish what they've started. While you may think that getting the prize at the end is the reward, the reward is actually all of the times you've learned to pick yourself off, hold yourself high, and keep on going, having learned from your mistakes so as not to repeat them. Moving on to different mistakes or different ways of seeing the world or percieving the world.

That is what I wish I could watch everyone experience. That is what I wish I could be apart of others experience. That is what I miss most about my travels, the people, the women, the families, and the children, learning that they can dream, and that thier dreams can become their reality! Whether in Cuiaba, Kansas, New Hampshire, Sao Paulo , Hawaii, or at home that I was able to impart this message to them. The scenery was just a bonus for me!

I am dreaming!