YESS!!

First off, I can't wait for you to hear this.  Are you ready??  Really, really ready?

I feel GREAT!  

YIPPEE!!!  YOU of all people deserve to hear me say that very statement.  Finally, the side doesn't hurt much at all - the pain well on the road to being GONE forever, the thyroid is under control and the hayfever attack finally left me.  I FEEL GREAT!  Thank you all so much for hanging in there with me, sending prayers and loving me.  I feel like dancing!

Now for some other really big news... well, at least to me it is.  Do you remember the big unit that Steve built in Tulsa, the one he designed and worked so hard on?  He got his picture printed - on a company folder!

Here he is standing in front of a tiny slice of 'his' unit!  Yeah, I know, it is the company's unit, but  I am so darned proud of him!  He came in this morning and just flopped it down on the table in front of  me like it was nothing - NOTHING!  He is on the front of a folder for a world wide company!  

I had to take off all the details, but I think "WHOOT!!"  says it all.  I love you Steve and I am so proud of your accomplishments - even if no one says it, I think the company is proud too - heck, you are now PRINTED!

Ok, so that is my excitement for the day - both things, I am pretty darned proud of.  I am working on switching computers, so soon, very soon, I will be haunting these pages again.  Beware  :-)

 Finally, I am off to Chili's.  I get my fix.  

Haze Warning! :-(

But if it smells like smoke, looks like smoke, and breathes like smoke, and drops ashes like smoke (think sugar cane season in Louisiana) - then I say to heck with haze - it is SMOKE!  

I have been having a hayfever attack since I got back from the states - you know, the kind that makes your eyes water all the time and you cannot quit sneezing to save your life?  It appears that Indonesia is having a burn off and it is affecting us - and our view, but on our environmental site, it does not say our air quality is bad.  However, take one look at this picture:

And then compare it to this picture:

You might see things from my side of the window.  Can  you see we have a problem here?  lol... 

It is so early in the year to have burn offs - what the heck is going on?  And our little island is so dry!  Where is the rain?  Can someone send it in please?  I would love to be able to open my eyes again, not sneeze and actually breathe.  

Look at the school yard - it is supposed to be green  :-(

It is so dry here!  I hope I didn't make you cough and gag just by looking at these pictures  ;-)  In Singapore, unlike in the US, we cannot get over the counter meds.  There is no Zyrtec, Benadryl, Tylenol, or Robitusson readily available to us to swap out and find out the one that is going to knock this ick out of us.  Sooo, Benadryl is not working for me.  I have taken 5 Prednisone pills and stopped - prescribed by my US physician - I didn't just do that, but it didn't cut it anyway.  So my next request is for you to pray for rain  :-)  I want to play outside!

My side is sssooooo much better!  I went back to the Dr and he has determined I had several things going on.  One was an ulcer gnawing at my side. Secondly, he believes I did have post infectious Gastritis from the food poisoning last year.  He has treated me for both and I had immediate relief.  PRAISE GOD!   About the Gluten Free diet - he wants me to keep a log on the food I eat and pay attention to symptoms like the rash.  He thinks this may just be a food allergy and not so much gluten.  I bet he is on to something - we shall see.  However, my side is healing, and I feel much better that way.  Now to get the hayfever under control and I will be playing all day again  :-)  Watch out Singapore - here I come!  Just bring on the rain!

Bringing you up to date on our brother... he is now out of the hospital and home sleeping.  It has been a rough few days on him; his back is not in good shape and laying perfectly still has not done well for him.  However, if he is good and takes it really easy for 2 weeks to let his heart heal, they think there will be little/no permanent damage - so our prayers have been answered!  This has been a really rough lesson on him and he says God saved him for some big plan so he is going to figure out what it is and get down to business working on it  :-)  Thank God and you for answered prayers.  Please remember to say a prayer of thanksgiving for us.

I have not been able to think straight, answer e-mails or stay at the computer through the tears, so please just bear with me, pray for rain and be patient.  I am also in the process of changing computers as this one (the old one) keeps shutting down and the new one is in the living room.  That is also taking some time.  I have e-mails going here and there and cannot seem to figure out how to get them all going to one place.  It is probably due to the lack of oxygen getting to my brain at the moment - but I will get there.  In the meantime, I miss you, but I am here - just lost in the blubbering tears and sneezes  ;-)

A Quick Update on Danny

Danny seems to be getting back to his normal self.  He is feeling much better and doing well over all, however, we have yet to get an update on how much damage was done to his heart.  We do know he still has a 100% blockage, but we don't know if they will need to correct it or not.  Looking at the scans the Dr gave Liz, the new pathways are far from formed, so we feel like they may need to - but hey, we are definitely not Drs so we honestly don't know - it is just a sheer guess to uneducated eyes.

He was in the middle of a major heart attack when they took him to the cath lab, so I doubt they wanted to do much more than the necessary fix while they were in there. 

We appreciate the continued prayers and will update you as soon as we know something.  He is supposed to be hospitalized for several more days.  Wish the nursing staff luck... roflmao... they were certainly need it.

Simply Siblings

As most of you know, I am a scrapbooker.  Liz (my sister) and I have started scrapbooking pages from when we were kids.  We have every intent to scrapbook all the pictures from when we were growing up.  Last night, staying on the theme of family, I decided that I would like to share a few pages from our scrapbook.  

So digging through the scans I came up with one to share today.

Liz did the journaling on these pages and I can honestly say, I read them again for the 'first' time today.  It warms my heart.  I don't think it can be read, not sure if I scanned it at a low resolution or what, but here are the individual pages.  Simply Siblings is all about how close we were as kids.

The journaling on this page says:

"While we certainly had our fair share of sibling rivalry, by and large when you saw one of us you saw all.  Circumstances contrived to keep us close, and we shared all the the joy, sadness and angst of youth."

"Shari was the quiet one, though when riled, you found us all running.  Danny was rambunctious and a comic, and Liz was, well, Liz and Euvah was sisi, which just about says it all."

Liz is not "just Liz", she always tried to please everyone - much like her sissi. She loved to sit a draw or color and has always been artistic.  Liz, being bombarded with the twins sometimes got lost in the shuffle of things, but I always thought it was her and I against "them".  The twins were born a team, we had to team up together to keep the other two under wraps, even though Liz and I were 8 years apart.  It was not really that we are against them - it was more self defense... lol... 

I honestly don't know how we did it.  It is difficult for adults to handle twins.  Mom had a nervous breakdown (that is what it was called in those days) between Liz and the twins, and basically checked out.  She also had a bad car accident during that time which broke her back - but we didn't find that out until years later.  She was not allowed to go to the Dr, but she was in a tremendous amount of pain.  She did what she could, but we did a lot, too.  Dad left when the kids were under two.  What an ordeal it all was - but as I have said before, we were all survivors - we did it!  Mom included.

Danny was indeed the rambunctious one; always in high gear if he was awake and always kept us on our toes.  He always has had a knack for keeping us in stitches - laughter with him is easy even today.  He has always been loud and boisterous - in a good way.  As most of you know, cops and medics (of which Danny was both) have to have a different personality in order to deal with the nasty stuff.  That fits Danny to a "T".

Shari, aka Ms Orderly, was also Ms Peace Maker.  If things weren't going right, she made it right if she could.  She always tried to make everyone get along, but she was good at stepping back and taking note.  She was incredibly quiet, too.  I recall one time, Dad sitting at the kitchen chair and hearing Danny clumping down the way towards him.  I was sitting beside him and we both reached down to close the tool box, only to find Shari digging it in already and teething on a wrench.  We laughed about that forever! 

The journaling on this pages says:

"Age became a chasm as it sometimes will, and returned sisi to Euvah.  For a time though, to this day, in times of pain and strife, we all revert to the comfort and still familiar "sisi"."

"We were (and still are) uniquely close to one another, and especially "sisi" as Euvah was called most of our youth.  I am not actually certain that we knew Euvah was her given name for a considerable length of time, though I distinctly recall hearing, "UBA, my CRUCK!" from Danny on a regular basis."

Indeed danny did call me Uba - and more often that not, Uba Dail - as my name is Euvah Gail.  Apparently, he heard someone calling me by my "your in trouble" name more than once... lol... And to this day, those are the only nicknames I love, Sisi, and Uba Dail - all because they are said with love.

And as you can see, I surely love my siblings.

My Brother Had (Another) Heart Attack :-(

This is my brother Danny.  Most of you have heard of him even if you don't know him.  Today he had his fourth (you read that right) heart attack.  He is 40.

Danny has survived many things.  He was watching the Challenger in Florida when it exploded.  He was in Germany when the wall came down.  He was in the Pentagon on 9-11-2001 where he was a first responder.  And so far, he has survived 4 heart attacks.

Danny is my brother, but you see, to me he is more than a normal brother - he, like the rest of us - survived every bit of the crap we were dealt when we were kids.  We were all abused in many ways - and in all ways.  I don't think there is much we didn't survive.  Our mom loved us, but she was in an abusive relationship and when she got out of it, went to a worse relationship.  Oh I don't have to get into the gory details... there is no book long enough to tell you all the crap we went through - and as I have said before, I have no desire to revisit it.  However, suffice it to say, mom made some bad decisions and we suffered for them for years.  Finally, she came around and saw the light, but we had lost our childhood, our security and our innocence by that time. 

During the times we were going through that mess, we were a team.  All four of us kids were a team fighting for one another.  It was 'them' against 'us'.  We fought against each other occasionally, but mostly for each other.  We protected each other when we could and leaned on each other to get through the tough times.  We were a team.

 

Some (including my husband) did not understand our strength between us.  We had to be cemented at the sides to get through all that we did.  And we were even after we separated.  I had become 'mom' to the kids, not taking over mom's role - heck I was too young to know *how* to do that, but being the protective one, I was the one they turned to when times got tough.  Mom resented that, but she had not yet turned her life around or earned it back yet.  So, when things went right, wrong or indifferent, the kids would call me.  We were a team.  We could conquer anything as long as we could hear each other's voices and the voice on the other end let us know we are/were not alone in this world.

As I said, mom changed and things turned her life around and we did come to call her for all those good and bad times - but that was years later but the protector 'mom' in *me* never left - does it ever if you have protected your brother and sisters for your entire life?  Fast forward a few years.  Remember with our rocky start, I was one of the lucky ones.  I was a survivor and I had a goal.  My goal was to get an education and get out of harms way.  I intended to take my sisters and brother with me, but of course mom would have none of that.  As a punishment, she would not let me see them.

I met and a few months later married my knight in shining armor and with a heavy heart moved far, far away.  Eventually, Liz went to live with my grandma and aunt.  Danny went to live with my dad, and Shari lived with Linda for a while, then came to live with us.  We made it.  Each and every one of us made it - and mom did turn her life around and we all came to love her more than ever before.  She was our mom and we had all come out super strong and solid as rocks despite our rough start.  It all worked out - and we remained in touch.

As I said, I met a super man, who spent years trying to understand what we had gone through.  He stayed through thick and thin and nearly 33 years later, we are still together.  Shari found another 'rock' and they worked through some of the same crap that we did - but we all did it.  However, Liz and Danny have not had it as lucky.  Both have been in and out of relationships, Liz has borne a child and buried her child, and neither have yet found the 'comfy' zone with a significant other in life.  Good solid relationships have not come so easy to them.  I can only hope it turns around - they both 'deserve' that comfort in life.

Now that I have some of that mess out of the way, you can understand the fact that we are a team.  I cannot imagine life without one of my team, heck - we can't go without calling each other for even a few days!  We are not stuck up each other's backside - we truly care about one another as I think all family's should.  We didn't get here the easy way and we are certainly not going to lose touch with one another after all these years of being so much support for one another.

 So this man, Mr twin to Shari...

Mr Our Brother and Big Hero:

Mr Tough Cop:

 

Mr 'Snake Eyes' Trying to Be Serious (not working):

Mr Can't Stop Making Us Laugh:

Had better get well and take care of himself.  

We conquered what most kids wouldn't have. We didn't make excuses, we beat out a path and knocked down the obstacles.  We succeeded in different ways - but we did succeed, we are still here, we are still tight, and we still love each other.  And let no one get between us.  We are a tight team.

Now, I want to go to Silver Dollar City with him and my sisters so we can laugh at all the crap life dealt us and we defied letting it take us down.  And for once, with my siblings, I do not want to sit outside babysitting them while others went in to have fun, but I want to walk into the amusement park with them and be the ones having fun.  Our picnics outside the gates waiting were great, but it is our turn as a family to walk in.

Oh what an great time we can have; healing, loving, laughing and living.  Just the four of us. 

Get well little brother.  

I love you.  

So 

Very
 

Much   :-)

Round and Round the World We Go

The flights to and from the states are long.  I have said that before, but I thought if I showed you, maybe there would be some grasp at just how long they are.  This time we went through Moscow - I don't know if it was a better flight or not, and I may not know for several days.  Right now, I think not - but we all know that as tired as I am, I am not thinking clearly either.  I was not thinking so clearly at the beginning either - I didn't start in New Orleans.  

Anyway, here are a few shots of our flight path - they are not clear but you can see where we went:

This was taken over Norway - isn't it amazing?

This was taken just before we got to Moscow:

The plane had to get de-iced in Moscow.  It was a bit cold there:

I think it was at this point that I decided I didn't need to continue to take pictures, we just needed to GET there.  I took 'long' shots... lol...

And finally, back to Singapore:

Anyway, I hope it helps to understand how long the flight is.  We expats that do it all the time understand, but I really don't think there is any concept of just how miserable the flight is unless you have been there/done that.  29 hours in transit this time - much too long.  

Frequent flyer miles?  People have asked about that...  Yeppers, we have a few.  Steve is platinum, I am only gold - and that is ok.  It means he flew more than me and I *really* don't care!  roflmao...

We have flown completely around the world now - our 'normal' flight path is through Japan and over Alaska.  Let me tell you folks - it is a big world and there is a lot of land not yet used  ;-)

However, looking at Norway - I think it may just have to stay that way. 

Finally, I am Back!

After hours and hours of working on trying to recover my blog, I got it back!  I had it linked with a closed account, had changed it before the old account closed and thought I had worked out the issues.  However, after much research and no help (thankyouverymuch) from Blogger, I found out it had linked to the wrong e-mail address.  Now to fix that.

However, now let me catch you up to date.  After a very long trip home and back, the house is sold to new owners.  It was no where near as glamorous as I thought it would be.  The new owners are terrific though - so I am glad I can say that.  

The closing... well, let's just say it should have been smoother, but it was no fault of anyone's - except maybe the government and one financial institution involved.  It had nothing to do with our Realtor or the attorney.  The forms had changed and that put a kink in our works - the forms sent out by the lending institution where the old forms.  The attorney caught that but not before some of them were signed - and the new forms were coming off the printer as we were signing.  His secretary was running back and forth one or two pages at a time... us signing and the new owners signing, and repeating the process.  Again, it was really no one's fault, just stuff that happens.  However, I being the perfectionist that I am, was a bit rattled by all the paperwork flying and the lack of check... now for that story.

The big problem was that the lending institution wanted us to sign papers saying we had received our money in full - but we had not received a dime  :-(  Heck, we had not even SEEN a check.  Maybe it was because it could not release the money without our signatures... HELLO?  Houston, we have a problem... lol... 

I have no idea how all of that got worked out, but after 3.5 hours, we finally got a check handed to us and sent on our way.  It was late - dusk in fact, and no one could go to the bank.  Such a huge letdown after such anticipation.  

We had to race to Mike's to get our camper, hook it up, take it out to the lake and set it up, slap the stuff from the truck and car into it and then out to 'celebrate' our sale as we had planned previous to the sale.  After the wait, the camper set up and the late hour, it did not seem like a celebration at all  :-(  We ate and that was that.  

I guess the good news is, the sale is final and I am excited to have sold it to a young couple looking forward to as many years and happy memories in it as we have had.  It feels so good that it is going to someone who seems to already love it.  Thank goodness for that.

I hope to show you their picture soon - I just need to get their permission first  :-)

However, I can show you this...

We tried to make the move as pleasant as possible for the new owners, we wanted them to feel welcome:

We left a folder with all the information on colors in the house, warranties and pertinent information - including amounts of the utilities bills for one year.  We left a disc of the shell of the house (before sheet rock) from when we were remodeling so if they needed wiring information or to find out where the studs are, all they have to do is pick up the disc and look  :-)

We left a basket of goodies including wine, bread, grape juice for the children and Raelee bought Crayons and coloring books for them.

And finally, we left this note for them:

We said goodbye to our home and good luck to the new owners.  We wish them many happy memories under "Mr Oak" and we begin a new journey.

Our new 'home' in the states is our camper, and our permanent address is 'now' in Singapore.

Did I really just say that?