Thankful For Free Stuff And A Few Other Things

Proof that a thankful list doesn't have to be elaborate, here's mine:

$1 drinks at Kum & Go stores all summer.

Every seventh drink at Kum & Go is free.

My husband and I use the same Kum & Go Rewards account, and I scored the free drink twice in the past two weeks.

I found $3.00 on the floor at Walmart, and there was no one nearby and no way to know who dropped it; therefore, I scored $3.00.

In working on cleaning out the basement at my dad's house (that flooded a few weeks ago during torrential rains), I found some fun treasures. Details later in the week.

My dad set off his medical alert monitor today not once, not twice, but three times while sitting in his recliner and eating a bowl of hash brown casserole and resting the bowl on his chest and accidentally hitting the button. I'm thankful nothing really happened, because that's just plain funny! 

My dad's neighbor got a phone call from the company when the cancellation process didn't work properly, and she called me. I called my dad, at which time I found out what he had done (by the way, it had only happened twice at this point - HE DID IT ONE MORE TIME), and she was able to let the ambulance that was dispatched know all was fine. This is especially good, because he wasn't even home at the time; he was at the lake house when all this went down.

My dad spent the night at my house the night before he had to go back to his doctor for knee replacement follow-up. He tucked the monitor in his shoe and stuffed his socks into the shoe, because he didn't want to tempt Nora by leaving it on a table overnight where she might find it. Guess what? She found it anyway. I'm thankful he was able to get to it when he heard the voice talking to him (it detects falls or perceived falls when a kitten is playing with it), since we now know they send an ambulance to your house.

Nora LOOOOVES my dad's shoes and socks.

I am thankful he wears the monitor. It gives both of us some peace of mind, in spite of a few snafus.

Blueberry season has begun.

This week was a difficult one for making a thankful list, as a 12 year old girl we know drowned this week when the inner tube she was riding on during a family float trip on a rain-swollen creek overturned. It took three days for rescue workers to find her. My heart aches for the family. Rest peacefully, sweet Brooke. You are much loved.

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Cobwebby Thankfuls

Oh, my goodness, have I neglected my blog! There are cobwebs everywhere, and the dust is thick enough to write your name in it. 

I've missed writing, and even more, I've missed my bloggy friends, but as much as I've missed it, the words just wouldn't flow. I used to try. I'd get my laptop out, turn it on, and maybe even try to write a paragraph or two before giving up. I progressed (or maybe "digressed" is the better word) to setting the computer in my lap but not turning it on until I finally didn't even pretend anymore and didn't even pick it up.

I've got a list of excuses as long as my arm. My mom was my biggest blog fan, and when she passed away last July, a little of my desire to write went with her. I began a second job this fall, working a couple of afternoons a week in a photo studio, and that, coupled with helping with photo shoots, has taken up a lot of previous down-time. It was Emma's senior year in high school, so not only were we busy with all of her activities, including Senior Nights for several of them, I was also on the executive board for Project Graduation (for potentially 500 graduates). I still haven't gotten over that whole fiasco of a presidential election, either, and that's all I'll say about that. Then in March, we were all stunned by the death of one of my daughter's friends in a freak accident. Spencer was the best kid ever, a friend to all and never without a smile on his face. I've known him since he and Emma was babies together in a club for stay-at-home moms, the club where I met his mom, who is one of my favorite people (she was an important part of my Ta Ta to the Ta Ta's Party five years ago). My heart has hurt so for my friend and her husband and daughter, and also for my daughter and her friends, who are too young to have to deal with something so terrible. I've tried to write about it, but the words wouldn't come, because I can't process it all myself. And my reason for starting my blog five years ago is in the rearview mirror now (more later on that), and I didn't know if I had anything else to say.

At this point, I had to decide if I was a blogger or a former blogger.

I'm going to go with blogger. 

And I'm also going to jump back in with the Ten Things of Thankful and include some things I should have written about AGES ago . Here goes:

1. My dad had knee replacement surgery on April 19 at the age of 82. Three days later, he was dismissed from the hospital and went to a rehab facility. He was there for only three weeks before he was released to go home, but boy, was he ready!

2. While my dad was at the rehab facility, torrential rains caused the lake to get dangerously high at the lake house, and weather reports said it could be worse than the flood of 2015 (which made its way into the basement of the house as my daughter and I watched, then we skidaddled). My husband and I went down there and sandbagged and moved what we could to higher ground (meaning higher than the floor, but it was the best we could do). We stayed there until the police began telling people to evacuate, and we told the house goodbye and left. Several neighbors and friends kept me informed on the lake level, and a few days later, the water level started going down.

3. Now, while we were all worrying about the lake house flooding, what we didn't know until the day I took my dad back home was that the basement of THAT house had quietly become a wading pool and then emptied itself. The water was probably not more than a few inches deep, although we can't be completely sure about that, but the bad news is many, many, MANY items were stored in cardboard boxes that were on the basement floor. A lot of books and Christmas decorations and more were ruined, but in all honesty, it was stuff that had seen better days and needed to go anyway. 

4. My dad had his surgery and rehab here in Joplin, and it allowed me to see him every day for the three and a half weeks that he was there. I have not seen my dad every single day for that long since I was in high school, and I loved getting the chance to visit with him daily.

5. The College Boy graduated from Missouri State University in the Honors College Magna Cum Laude with Distinction with a B.S. in Cell and Molecular Biology and minors in Chemistry and Psychology.  He's going to need a name change, for he is going to medical school in August! (Suggestions for a new moniker for him are welcome.) He will be attending the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine, located in Oklahoma City. He started preparing for this in middle school, and all of his work has paid off.

6. There was a tornado warning just as we were arriving at the arena where graduation was held. I dropped the College Boy off, parked the car, and walked the two blocks to the venue, sirens blaring the entire time. Emma was with me and was freaking out (and that's putting it mildly), even though I checked the radar and knew the storm was north of us and moving east, and we were in no danger.

In case you haven't ever heard tornado sirens, here's a small sample of them:

The ceremony was delayed for about fifteen minutes or so, as they hustled the graduates into a safe room in another building as they arrived while all their families sat in the arena. Had a tornado come through, those of us in the arena would have been sitting ducks. The jazz band played and played and played during the tornado delay, but at least it wasn't "Nearer My God To Thee."

7. Emma graduated from high school Summa Cum Laude two days after the College Boy's ceremony. I did not cry (although my eyes almost got leaky when she was singing the with her choir - those damn songs get me every time!). She is SO ready to move on!

8. We held Project Graduation that night for about 240 graduates (we were expecting about half of the graduates to attend, and we were spot-on). I don't remember the last time I stayed up all night, but I think it was probably at a sleepover in 7th grade, but I did it for this, it wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be, and I attribute it to the nine salted caramel cupcakes I ate throughout the night (I would have eaten more if I thought my belly would have held them). The event was a great success, and after a week, I think I have finally caught up on my sleep.

9. I got a hair cut.

10. And that reason for starting my blog that is now in the rearview mirror? After five years of treatment, which included 60 injections, one per month into my abdomen, I have finished my treatments for breast cancer - WAHOOOOO!!! 

I'm thankful. So thankful.

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A Little Meals On Wheels Story

The Meals on Wheels program has been all over the news for the past few weeks or so as it faces possible budget cuts under the new regime in the White House. The proposed cuts would eliminate two block grants that help provide funding for Meals on Wheels, as well as slashing the Department of Health and Human Services budget, a major source of funding for Meals on Wheels programs, which themselves are not federal programs but are run by independent groups and annually feed 2.4 million home bound senior citizens a hot meal five days a week. Call or write to your senators and representative and implore them to vote to keep this program funded. Go ahead, do it right now. I'll wait....

... Now that that bit of housekeeping is done, I have to tell you a personal Meals on Wheels story.

My mom was a longtime Meals on Wheels volunteer. She began delivering meals shortly after she and my dad moved to the little town of Nevada in 1979, and she continued to do it for well over 20 years, including serving on the Board. Volunteers typically delivered meals one day a week in teams of two, and over the years, various family members would get roped into going with my mom to help deliver meals when her delivery partner was unavailable. 

My mom enjoyed delivering meals. Many of her friends delivered, too, and they would laugh and talk as they were getting their meals ready to deliver. The Nevada program was run from the hospital at that time, and the volunteers would get the hot meals (which were in styrofoam carryout containers) for their route from the kitchen and load them into coolers and get sacks with condiments, bread, plastic cutlery and the like for each person. Once they were loaded, each team delivered the meals on their route, then returned the empty coolers to the hospital kitchen. It was a process that took about an hour or so. 

The only thing about being a Meals on Wheels volunteer that she disliked was when it was her week to have the "dratted book." When it was your turn to have the book (dratted or otherwise), you were responsible for finding substitutes when needed and for making reminder phone calls to the deliverers ("regulars" usually didn't require reminder calls), and you had to be at the hospital kitchen every day that week to make sure all routes were covered (and was another reason family members might have gotten called to action).

Occasionally, my mom would mention an upcoming estate auction she was looking forward to, because she "delivered Meals to this woman, and she had some beautiful antiques." Of course, we didn't hesitate to jokingly accuse her of being a Meals on Wheels volunteer only so she could scope out the antiques, but the truth was, she enjoyed doing a service that was so obviously necessary. In fact, it meant life or death for some people who received meals, as it was most likely the only real meal they ate (and the meals were usually substantial enough that a recipient could eat half for lunch and half for supper). 

When delivering meals, one partner would drive and the other would run the food to the house, and one particular day, my mother was the one carrying the food. At this time, one of the stops on their weekly route was at a senior housing facility consisting of one story duplexes with small yards and a common parking lot in front of them. When the car stopped in the parking lot, my mom climbed out and got the styrofoam box containing the meal out of the cooler. She was carrying it across the parking lot, holding it with one hand on the hinged side while she carried the paper bag of condiments with the other hand, and didn't notice the concrete parking stop until she tripped over it and went flying into the little yard of freshly cut grass. 

Trouper that she was, my mom managed to keep a hold on the styrofoam box, landing on the ground with the box in her outstretched arm. From the car, her friend called out, "Are you okay?! Are you okay?!" 

"I think so," she said as she struggled to get up. Then she looked at the box she was carrying and saw that all the food had shot to the front of the box, and some of it was sticking out of the opening. "The food's all squished to one side, and some of it's coming out of the box."

"Poke it back in," said her friend, so my mom poked it back in and went to the door. 

The elderly woman who was receiving the meal was practically blind and very hard of hearin, and when my mom would deliver to her, she would set the meal up for the woman on the table and lay out all the condiments, then my mom would tell her what was in the container.

As the woman sat down at the table, my mom opened the container and saw the jumbled mess of food and shouted, "Well, your chicken is here, and your potatoes are here and..." she stopped when she realized that along with the vegetables (mixed with some of the potatoes and a little gravy), there were also a few grass clippings.

So what did she do about it? She salted and peppered the woman's food, helped her with her napkin, arranged her bread and dessert, and scurried out the door to the car.

There is no real moral to this story. My mom continued to deliver Meals on Wheels for many years. She never again tripped over the parking stop in the Senior Citizen housing parking lot. She continued to hate the "dratted book" until she finally resigned from her duties for health reasons.

If you have some time in your schedule, you might want to try your hand at delivering Meals on Wheels to a home bound senior citizen in need of a hot meal and a some interaction with the outside world. I guarantee this story will cause you to walk very carefully as you make your deliveries.  Try it and see!

p.s.: Your local Meals On Wheels will also gladly accept your monetary donations.

Killing Some Time

Just because I haven't been blogging (or FINISHING blogging; case in point, this post), doesn't mean I haven't been DOING things that may or may not be blog-worthy (case in point, this post...).  

In January, the College Boy and I went on a couple of adventures (I do love an adventure). First, we went to Oklahoma City. It was cold. And windy (it's always windy in Oklahoma - you know the song, "Ooooooklahoma where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain" and they ain't a-kiddin'). I had several hours to kill while College Boy was at his appointment, I didn't want to hang out at a mall, so I went to the zoo. 

A week later, we made a little trip to Omaha. In January. When a massive ice storm was predicted, as in wild-eyed meteorologists speaking of power outages and impassible roads across the entire mid-section of the country. He needed to be in Omaha on a Saturday morning, and we planned to drive up the Friday afternoon before and return home on Sunday. Then Icemageddon 2017 was forecast and our plans had to change (and no, we could not change the appointment and yes, I will explain why at a later date - be patient). I had already made arrangements to rent a car that got better gas mileage than my Sequoia (there's a reason it's named after a tree), and man, I was ready! I had that little car stuffed to the gills with sleeping bags, water, healthy snacks (plus M&Ms, because, come on), blankets, a bag of kitty litter (for traction), ice scrapers, heavy coats and boots, plus our luggage for a three day trip. 

(Interesting factoid: the College Boy was not allowed to drive the rental car, because you must be 25 years old to do so. Kid you not. He can vote. He can go to war. He can drink legally. He can BUY a car. He cannot, however, RENT a car. Go figure.)

We hit the road and got to Omaha late Thursday night. The College Boy's appointment wasn't until Saturday morning. Do you know what you do when you have a whole day to kill in Omaha in January? You guessed it - we went to the zoo.

Omaha has an AH-MAZ-ING zoo - the Henry Doorly Zoo, and if you ever have a reason to go to Omaha, you MUST pay it a visit. We visited it about 8 years ago on a trip to Colorado (and if you want to take a minute a look at a map to see how very NOT on the way that is from Southwest Missouri, you will see why you should make an effort to go there if you ever get a chance).

I had never been to a zoo in the winter before (and now have been to two within a week), and I will tell you that you will pretty much have the place to yourself when it's 22 degrees with a windchill of 14 degrees, but here's a few things I learned from my two zoo trips:

Zoos smell much better in the winter than in the summer.

College Boy HAAAATES getting his picture taken,
selfie or otherwise. Especially selfie.

I understand animals like elephants and lions and giraffes being taken off exhibit and put somewhere warm during the winter, but that pansy ass grizzly bear had absolutely no excuse.

You see a grizzly? No, no, you don't.

I have always been more concerned with wearing a cute coat than in being warm, and now that I have bought the warmest coat I have ever owned, I see just how really stupid that line of reasoning has been. Bonus: the coat is cute.

Some animals are cute and some are ugly and some are fierce and some look like a cartoon illustration.

Cute

Not exactly cute.

Fierce. Him, not me.

Cartoonish?

Cats are cats. Some will kill you and eat you, but all of them like nothing better than sitting in a box.

Giraffes deserve their own door.

Look closely. People door on left, giraffe door on the right.

Shhh! They're still getting used to their indoor digs.

I can't speak for all baboons, but I'm pretty darn attractive to one of them.

Parts of him showed his love for me more
than other parts....

The look of love.

Henry Doorly Zoo is known for their gorillas. Here's one now.

College Boy: But what if I drop my cellphone? Then what?

Gotta be a ninja to take a picture of him.

And the ice storm of the century? Didn't happen, or at least not where it was predicted. We made it home with nary a drop of freezing rain. Ate all the M&Ms and most of the healthy snacks on the drive home. And my favorite zoo animal was waiting for me when I got home.

My Nora Pearl loves me more
than that baboon ever could.

Soon....

2016 did not play nicely. It took away my mama and my beloved precious kitten Ruby. Several friends have lost a parent this year, including two very recently. And I'm not even going to talk about the election.

But the worst part is I have lost some of my motivation to write. And I hate it. 

I WANT to write. An idea will flash through my brain, but before I can grab it, it slips through my fingers, like trying to catch smoke with my hands. 

It's not just blogging, either. I feel as though my brain is like an old electrical outlet that I remember from my childhood. Too many cords, all of them cloth-covered and some of them frayed, plugged into my brain, which then overheats and shuts down. So far, I haven't completely blown a fuse or caused a fire, but it could happen.

With the beginning of a new year (okay, beginning plus a month and a half), I'm going to do my best to rewire all those cords, maybe even plug them into a fancy surge protector instead of an extension cord. A few of those cords might not even be needed anymore. I think I'll unplug them one at a time and see what happens (lights flicker ominously...).

My first step in the rewiring process is that I have stepped down as host of Ten Things of Thankful. I've been a lousy host for months now, not writing OR reading posts, but by officially unplugging that cord, I will no longer feel a little shock when I brush past it.

2017 is going to bring plenty of things to write about. I have one kid graduating from high school and one from college. I'm going to participate in the A to Z Challenge again this year. I'm planning to go on some adventures. And there's Nora. Oh, that Nora!

Soon, I will write. 



Linking up with Ten Things of Thankful 

Pre-Thanksgiving Thankfuls

'Twas the weekend before Thanksgiving, and I HAVE A COLD. I have a cold EVERY SINGLE YEAR  at Thanksgiving. 

This is a by-product of working with small children.

I am not thankful for this. The cold, not working with children. They're pretty fun.

Job perk.

How 'bout a list of what I AM thankful for? Hmmm?

1. Since my nose is stuffed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, I'm not wanting to eat much. This could work in my favor.

2. Two day work week.

3. Believe it or not, I'm actually thankful the weekend is OVER. I had to bake desserts for two nights of a show choir fundraiser AND for a Project Graduation fundraiser. I is tired.

This tired.

4. I went to the oncologist this week. Only five more monthly injections until I am DONE. 55 down, 5 to go. That's manageable!

Funny story about that visit. The morning of my appointment, I didn't eat anything until snack time at preschool. We had cupcakes, and I ate one, and it was good. As I was about to leave preschool and head for the doctor, I grabbed a handful of candy corn out of the cabinet, just because I saw it there and thought, hey, candy corn. As I was getting out of the car at the doctor's office, brushing candy corn crumbs off the front of my shirt, it hit me that I probably should have rethought my breakfast and lunch choices when I was about to get bloodwork done. I gave my doctor the head's up about what I had eaten, just in case my blood sugar came back a little high.

So, the next morning, I got a voice mail from the doctor's nurse, and she is laughing. Apparently, the doctor had noted what I said on my chart, and my blood test did, indeed, come back with a high reading on my blood sugar, as in it was 198 when it should have been in the 80-100 range.  Whoops! Fortunately, I am now sufficiently burned out on candy corn for the season. Can that be another thankful?

6. I got all the fall decorations put away.  Now I just have to get the College Boy to get the Christmas decorations down out of the attic.

Gratuitous kitten picture, because she's cute.

7. My husband did all the laundry today. If he would put away my stuff, I could make this into two thankfuls, but alas, he just leaves it in a stack on the bed.

8. Did I say two day work week?

9. Obama/Biden memes.

10. This:

They've been talking about singing this for three years, and they picked Senior year at the show choir fundraiser to do it. Yes, I cried. 

Don't wait until Thanksgiving to remember there are thankfuls all around you.

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Thoughts From A Muddled Brain

Random thoughts to crowd out the ugly results of the presidential election:

Nora is the Tasmanian Devil. Or maybe the real Devil. Except when she's not. Right now, she's sleeping on the foot of my bed, and she's dreaming, maybe of chasing butterflies, maybe of putting a choke hold on Fletcher, but she's sweetness incarnate right now as her toes curl and her nose twitches while she sleeps.

I heard one of our local news anchors say "her and I" on the air, and I can't unhear it.

Unfollowing people on Facebook post-election has been so satisfying. You may think unfollowing rather than unfriending is passive-aggressive, but you know the saying, keep your friends close and your enemies closer, plus I'm a sissy.

Lin-Manuel Miranda is my new boyfriend. 

One of our two boy cats (we don't know which, as they don't sign their work) pooped in my husband's closet while we were at my dad's last weekend. (Nora is innocent, as she was with us.) We found out this happened when my husband put something in the closet, stepped in the poo, then tracked it all across our bedroom and down the hall before he noticed. 

Without being TOO graphic, the poo was, shall we say, not in solid form, and whoever it was got it in (INSIDE, people!) two different shoes, one tennis, one dress, besides three places on the floor. Oh, yeah, and out of 3800 square feet of house, guess which space is the ONLY space in the entire house with carpet in it? Mmmhmm, our two walk-in closets.

I'm pooped out.

Spotify > Pandora

My dad bought himself a new sewing machine. He has some projects to do, he says. More power to him.

My husband was so inspired by my dad that he's now watching sewing tutorials on YouTube, and I know this because he's doing this without benefit of headphones.

Shotgun watches for deer.

Toilet paper is not optional and should be provided to everyone for free.

A happy heart is good medicine.