Catching Up

We have had 7 baby calves and 4 more to go.  I love watching them play.  Those babies jump out of the womb and start kicking within an hour!  It is crazy to watch!  

Something many don’t know is that other cattle babysit a pile of babies while the other moms eat.  Usually one cow, or donkey, or even a bull, is put babysitting the babies for a bit, then they are relieved by another cow.  We see this all the time.  I love looking in pastures and seeing piles of babies with a babysitter.  Keep an eye out on pastures - you will see it too.  My father-in-law says they have done that since the beginning of time.  

This is kinda what our pasture looks like between babysitting duty!  Most of the time babies are nursing.

This is our total count as of today.  And yes, we name our cattle.

I finally got in to a neurologist, who took all my symptoms seriously.  She took an immediate eeg, will get my records from the various places and I go back in a week.  Finally, I felt like someone cared!  Updates later.  I don’t know anything other than a Dr didn’t blow me off.  ❤️

I just got a call from my hubby.  He lost a tire in the bike today while riding.  He thinks he hit something at a truck stop that punctured it.  Anyway, the guys have all been picking at him to get a new tire.  Steve is known to get every bit of goodie out of a set of tires.  This time, it caught him, but thank God he is ok.  

And with 3 couples with him, he will never hear the end of it - but it won’t be coming from me!  😂

Later gator.  Damn I miss Louisiana.  🐊 

 

Jewelry Boxes

Raelee and I went to a garage sale last summer and there were two old jewelry boxes on the table.  I peeked in them and sure enough there was jewelry.  Lots of jewelry!  I asked how much for the boxes and he said $60.  I asked him if he realized there was a class ring in one and he said, “I don’t give a shit what is in them - it was my ex’s and I don’t want anything to do with any of it!”  He was standing next to his lady who was just as nice hateful as he was and she agreed it needs to go!  

So I said, “Well, I won’t give $60 for them, but I will give you $40 for them.”  He agreed and off we went.  I figured we would go through them, find little of interest, try to find the class ring owner and sell it all if we couldn’t.  Laughing, Raelee and I agreed to split the profits.

In the jewelry boxes were name tags for places she had worked and bank membership cards - but the bank was no longer in the area.  There were pictures there and a half dozen or so of one girl, so I assumed it was probably her.  I tried to find the owner several times - even reaching out to the school alumni with little response other than they would “see if they could find that person.”  Never heard another thing.  Occasionally, I would stumble across the jewelry boxes and try again.  

Last week, I once again put her picture in a local social media group for her city.  Lo and behold, someone tagged someone and I get a PM “Who are you, what do you have of my daughters, and why do you have it?”  Momma bear claws.

I explained the situation and how I got them, she asked many questions and finally realized I was legit. When I said it had employee name tags she said, “For Target?” And it was then, I knew we had found its owner’s mom.

Long story shorter, mom picked it up, reimbursing me the $40 that I paid and she and her daughter, Missi, have thanked me profusely.  Last night, one more message came through that mom had gone through the jewelry box and there were many family heirlooms in it - not just the class ring.  

I could have never sold it and would have tried until my dying day to find their owners.  There were too many memories tucked in those boxes.  I was blessed to find its owner.  The smiles and words we have exchanged since?  Well, I am glad these boxes will soon be home.

Oh, the things we considered precious when we were young and the things we didn’t think we’re important until they became a memory… they do matter.

 

Another Calf!

I was gazing out the kitchen window and Elsie, right before my very eyes, dropped a calf!  I didn’t see her clear it’s face, so I took off running outside.  While I was running, I was yelling for Steve… which is seldom a good thing considering everything we have been through with me.  However, once he saw where I was looking, he reassured me that it was Elsie - she is a great momma.  Sure enough, little Jim is fine.  

Steve always calls all the cattle into the round pen to feed every evening - it makes them comfortable to be there and they load easy when he needs to take them into the vet or to the stockyard.  However, the new mommas don’t come to the pen, they are protecting their babies.  We walk a bucket of feed to the new momma and admire her baby, check them both out and see if we have a boy or girl.  This is the events BOY in a row!!    We are going boy crazy!  Lol… 

As you can see, Mrs Elsie was ready for little Jim - she always has so much milk!  In a few weeks, she will gladly be sharing with any calf!  😂

Little Jim is about an hour old here…

Do you see a rabbit in the hay?  I just glanced that way and did a double take!

Oklahoma has the most beautiful sunsets!  Just sharing this one with you.  It literally made me gasp.  I am so thankful to be alive.  Looking at the baby calf looking for his momma’s teet, then seeing this… I have to wonder how you can’t believe in a God.  How does that cow give birth to a calf, and how does that calf know where his supper is?  And who can mix those amazing colors and call it sunset?  

There must be a majestic God!

This man makes my world twirl.  He cares deeply for me and shows me over and over every day.  It pains me that I am always sick, always struggling and always so darned tired.  If I didn’t have him and our mighty God, I would simply toss in the towel.  But every day, both keep nudging me on.  There has to be a reason for me to still to be here, so I keep looking for God to show me His need for me to be in His world.  It can’t be Steve - it is much to comfortable to be with him,  He makes my life worth living - but I want to do the same for him; be well, be fun and be who I used to be.  I feel so lost in my space.

And this is Jake in HIS truck with HIS dad.  😂

The only way he comes in every night is after his ride!

He is pretty serious about it.  Can you tell?

**********************

Today was the sinus Dr.  He needs another CAT scan, a culture and wants to wash my sinuses with antibiotics and steroids.  He added an antibiotic sinus rinse (like I need more sinus rinses every day), and 2 more sinus meds.  🤢

The headache and fatigue never quits - but I got my 10,000 steps in.  5-10,000 every day whether I feel like it or not.  I try and mostly succeed putting one foot in front of the other.  😊

Also, got an appointment with a neurologist for the shaking next Thursday… unbelievably quick.  🎉 

*****************£****

 

Sadie Had A Boy!

Yesterday’s bike ride is still kicking my butt today.  

I held an iPhone class and our daughter-in-law and son helped by hosting an Android class.  They did terrific, but I was floundering.  I am sure the ladies learned something, but I was not on top of my game - but we got through it.  

Sadly, I still wouldn’t have given up that ride.  It is hard to give up things you love.  I want to be a part of OHCE, the bike and outside world plus do regular chores and shopping, but I am seeing that my body just can’t keep up with my ‘want tos’.  I am struggling enough that I am beginning to finally see it, trying accept it and know that a ‘normal’ life is impossible.  

Crafts; I love doing them.  Today, I tried to stay after my cell phone class to help make centerpieces for our Monday night OHCE banquet, but I cratered.  I was so overwhelmed with the mass of flowers and craft paraphernalia, that I couldn’t make sense of it.

I didn’t even feel like driving my 25 minutes home, but I packed up, drove home, left everything in the truck, walked in the door and crumpled into my recliner.  I was too tired to even sleep.  I just sat.  No texting, just coloring, no real tv, just mindless noise.  I sat and thought of all the things I should have done/said.  And then once again I realized I am trying to live in a life I no longer belong in.  How do I give it up?  🤷🏻‍♀️

After resting several hours and letting the sun go down  (lupus), I went to meet our new bull calf, Jason, born to Sadie.  He is extremely tall!!  He is not as dark as most of them, and a little grayer than the others, but they always turn black soon anyway.  Yes, we have special requests for names.  Steve’s friend Jason wanted this one named after him - so Jason he is!  

Little Jason wandered in the bull pasture while his mommy was eating, so Steve had to carry him back to the mommy pasture.  He thought that was a scary place!  Those big boys have to bully little guys around to show them who’s boss!  He was glad to see mom again and she sure fussed at us all!  Little Jason got his first scolding!  I think she got his attention!  😂  

Meet little Jason and his mom Sadie:

That was the excitement in our day!  Farm life.  ❤️

I got a call from a neurologist today and am scheduled in for next Thursday to evaluate my shaking and drunk walking.  We will see how that goes.  Hopefully better than last time.  Praying they find an easy fix and he doesn’t blow me off like the previous jerk.  

Tomorrow I go in to my sinus Dr. 3 month recheck.  He told me before my surgery I would hate him after my surgery and be his best friend 6 weeks after my surgery.  3 months later, he still isn’t my best friend, I have a sinus infection and a blockage still.  

I will tell him he isn’t the first Dr who can’t consider me a success story.  Many have come before him…  😂

 

I Withdraw...

When I am not well, I withdraw.  I guess I never realized it, but my friend, Brenda, kept asking if I was ok.  I really wasn't physically ok, but I am so used to 'dog paddling' that I keep putting one foot in front of the other, doing whatever I had planned to do.  If I stayed home when I don't feel well, then I would never walk out my door.  If I rested in bed when I don't feel well, I would never get out of bed.  Honestly, I never feel well, so my way around that is keep on keepin' on.  I did that even when I was young.  Edith would find out I wasn't feeling well, and she would suggest just staying home.  I would respond with "I am not contagious and if I stayed home I would just keep thinking about how crappy I feel.  I would rather get out and enjoy my day."  I still feel that way.  

However, I try to not be withdrawn - but it is difficult.  When you struggle physically, it is so overwhelming; trying to figure out how to get to feeling better quickly, what caused me to tank all the sudden, how to get on top of it and let's just enjoy the moment/day/occasion. 

This is a new friend and we are still getting to know each other.  I guess that was what she was seeing... me withdrawing.  We had been riding bikes the day after my infusion - I should have known better, but I want to do what I want to do.  My infusion yesterday caused me to have major nausea, but my headache was only mild.  While we were out this morning taking our quilts to get quilted, Brenda mentioned that it was a beautiful day - let's ask the guys to go on a bike ride.  Still only having a mild headache, I agreed and we did.  What a wonderful ride!

About halfway through, after sitting in the sun for a bit chatting (it was not hot), my head started throbbing.  By the time I got home, I was miserable.  I came straight in and leaned back on my recliner and fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.      

I cannot begin to tell you how frustrating it is to want to LIVE life and enjoy every second without PAYING for my decisions to have fun.  Every.  Single.  Time.  It is so maddening.  It pisses me off.  But I continue to try and try again.  And it never fails, I suffer.  

I was given my death sentence in 2016, but I am still alive - and I intend to use every freaking minute I have enjoying it.  I will not give up, give in and toss in the towel, but please tell me how to accept that I will pay for every one of those decisions.     

This is me looking in a mirror.  I only see my moma looking back at me.  She was also sick.  I know how she felt.  She just wanted to sit, but she didn't have money to go anywhere, so that is what she did - sat.  She listened to my stories of kids and camping, my sister's stories of her moves and her kiddos, she listened to my brother's stories of Germany and my other sisters trials and tribulations.  And she did a lot of praying for us all.  I see what happened, she was too poor to go out and enjoy life, so she sat and thought about how sick she was.  She lost the will to fight any more.    

Come to think of it, I see me looking back and defying the odds.  I see me fighting like a banshee and continuing to put one foot in front of the other.  I see me crashing when I poop out and then getting up to do more.  I will go in the hole fighting to have one more moment.  I have to remember not to withdraw though.  

Primary immunodeficiency sucks.  Lupus sucks.  ICL sucks.  All together - I will thrive and survive.                 

Sleet and Crafts

Today I felt crafty.  Last week, we found quite a few antique spools of thread in the church sewing room.  I didn't want them to sit in a box, so I bought a little shelf at Hobby Lobby and painted the little board on it blue.  I made 2 tiny quilts to hang from the back (one isn't bound) and will take it to hang it tomorrow... well, I guess in two weeks.  I think tomorrow will have too much ice on the ground.  Anyhoo, here is my little shelf with some of my antique spools.  

The ones at church are the small spools.  Hopefully I will finish the other quilt tomorrow.

Then I painted a canvas yellow, then a blob of blue, then dots and I grabbed a pretty napkin I had picked up and modge podged it to the canvas.  Gonna make a few more and hopefully sell at a country store for OHCE to earn money to host next years District Meeting.  I hope they sell...

The reason I felt so crafty?  About 2" of sleet, then an inch or so of snow.  

Have I said I feel like we live in a park?  I love this place.

Tomorrow I will be crafty again if they cancel the sewing group, which I think they will.  I am enjoying crafting.  I am finding myself more and more each day.  

Maybe that concussion found me.  

Later gator.

 

Us. All of Us

I explained mom, her boyfriend, my bestie who was her boyfriend’s daughter, and Norma, her boyfriend's wife in my last post.

Norma was the best cook ever.  I wish I could find a picture of her.  She was comfortable to be around.  She was caring and quiet.  Calm.  She was OCD before it became a ‘thing’.  She would place something on a shelf and move it micro inches over and over again.  She was patient and kind.  How she got involved in the Peyton Place drama, I have no idea.  Her previous husband had been shot.  

I don't know her story about meeting John, but John was a demanding jerk. He could be next to the telephone and would yell across the house for one of us to answer it.  When he disciplined us, it was 5 hours of bullshit reiterating a hundred times what he was trying to drill through our head.  He hit us.  He abused me every way possible.  He shared me with his friends.  I cannot tell you how much I hated him.  In the same breath, I cannot tell you how much I loved Jeanie and Norma.  

I always wonder why people go to the depths he did.  How do they get there?  What happened in their life that turned them into a demon?  I honestly hate him, but I also have... not compassion, but an inquiring mind, I guess.  I don't understand people who have so much hatred that they have to abuse and take others down their morbid path.  Where did it start?  Where they born like that?  Where they abused?  

I was abused and I did not carry that kind of abuse on.  I dug myself out of that hell hole with my husband and I have found out who I really was.  I have found me, and I love me.  Sure I make mistakes and have regrets.  I would love to get a grip on my weight, but even so, I am finally comfortable in my own skin.  

But it only takes one word, one visual, one touch, one thought to take me right back to "then" - absolute heart stopping terror, still to this day.

As I said, I took the kids under my wing, and mom and I kinda battled back and forth.  She was the adult, so she should have taken control, but she didn't.  Maybe I was strong willed then.  Pretty sure I was, in fact.  I tried my best to protect my sisters and brother from the brunt of what was going on.  As a child, I am sure I did everything wrong, but my heart was in the right place.  

Liz was the second child, my little sister - 8 years younger than me.  She and I were tight as kiddos.  That was a somewhat calm time in our life.  She was always the type of kid that needed more attention.  We played jacks, marbles and I read books to her.  But I was not enough.  I was sissy, but she needed more.  

Then came the twins.  Liz got bumped back a bit which caused her to be more needy, Danny just cried all the time as a baby and Sherry threw up sooo much.  We had no idea how to handle the twins and spent so much time trying to fight those battles.  We finally figured out Shari needed a different milk, and Danny eventually settled.  

     Moma, Shari and Danny, the twins were 2 months old.

                                                         

                            Liz, Shari (newborn) and moma.

We got through it, but it was not an easy task. And Liz... well, I remember at one time, mom and I sitting in the living room and the three little ones were this way and that way.  Mom looked at me and she said, "Which one are you going to grab?  I will get the other two!"  😂

Fast forward a bit... Liz had become even needier.  Obviously, the twins took a lot of time.  Liz needed to be noticed, and I tried, but I think she actually needed mom and dad.  Dad had checked out, mom was here and there, so it was mostly me.  I don’t think I was enough, but I tried.

It was during this time that things started to shift with mom.  Somewhere in here, mom had a car wreck because dad ran her off the road.  She rolled the car, had no seat belt on and once she was out she was terribly hurt.  He would not allow her to go to the hospital.  Years later, when she was living with me, the Dr asked her when she broke her back... her answer was, “I rolled the car years ago.”  :-(  The wreck caused her not to be able to do much with us 4 kids, Then John came along.

Maybe that is when I kinda started being the other 'mom'.  When my mom was mentally broken first, then physically broken forever.  She loved us.  She was so messed up by many people.  She tried, I tried and we grew stronger for what we all went through.  Even the nastiness gave us strength.

       Mom was sad here.  Liz, Shari, mom, Danny and I

Danny was always in fast forward, I assume hyperactive, but who knows.  He was loud and clumsy.  We knew where he was 100% of the time.  He was difficult to handle because he could do hoolahoops around us when we tried to coral him!  And he was always happy as a toddler.  He laughed at the silliest things.  If you were serious about something, he would make a silly face to make you get 'off of serious'.  He was a goof; always entertaining and trying to be a comedian.  But he always had a deep need for cuddles and love.  Always.  He just wanted to be loved.  In fact, he would almost turn inside out to be loved.  John tormented him and took that fun guy away.  I can't talk about what happened, but I lost my brother to John.

Sherry (mom's spelling), Shari (her changed spelling) was sickly.  Norma took her under her wing and Shari could do nothing wrong.  Norma took up for every freaking thing that happened.  She coddled Shari, she pampered Shari, she loved Shari and she spoiled the heck out of her - I suppose in a good way.  Whatever Shari did was cute, or fun or protected.  She could absolutely do no wrong.  But her doing that with Shari turned Shari against us.  She knew that no matter what she did, Norma would take up for her.  And Norma did.  Then moma backed her up.  

Shari actually made a game out of singing, "I'm mean, I'm mean ImmMeanImMeanImMean! and just laugh and laugh!  She was cute, but she knew she ruled the roost.  Shari knew she was loved.  Moma loved on her sweet, sickly baby, Norma coddled her and there was no doubt she knew she was treasured.

Jeanie came into the picture sometime when the twins were young.  She and I hung out day in and day out.  We took care of kids, played and we visited.  We were more than best friends, we were sisters.  I won't share everything that happened with us, but suffice it to say, we know, we grew, we married, and we are truly survivors - no, we are warriors. We made it through that insane dynamic.  

This is us.  Danny, me, Jeanie behind me, Shari and Liz.

I love this picture.

I love my mom.  No matter what we went through she went through so much more.  

I know a lot of her story that the kiddos don't.  I lived those first 8 years before them.  I saw what mom had gone through.  No one was good to her.  I am not even sure I was when I was that young, but I treasured her later and we became good friends as well as mother and daughter.  

I sure miss my moma.