It Was Just a Little Candy Cane 🎄

Something's grievers don't tell you about. I mean they says Holidays, Birthdays and special event days can be hard. But its the little things that just suddenly appear that can cause an emotional meltdown. I was watching Ghosts and theres a scene where they are lighting up the Chrismas Village under the tree, now you would think that would have upset me as over the past 10 years Tony was collecting houses that lit up to put under our Christmas tree. I even bought him the Budweiser set. We had so many that the inside and on the outside of our China hutch and several occupied the end tables by the couch. As I watched the show I was happy that it hadn't upset me until the end when she brought out of her pocket a tiny little green, red and white striped Candy Cane. Those were Tony's favorite and the only decorations on out little 4 ft Christmas tree except for the twinkle lights. That hit me like a ton of bricks. I didn't bring any of them houses with me. I knew I would never display them. How we decorated was usually what Tony wanted and I wanted those last 5 years to be happy ones for him as long as the Dementia allowed him to remember. Starting fresh this year it will be what makes me happy. I haven't quite decide yet but I suspect I will have one tiny green, red and white striped Candy Cane on my tree to honor and remember Tony in the Christmas Spirit.

Busy. Busy. Busy

It's been very busy around here the last few days. Doing a little tidying as its time for Apartment inspections. Too hot to be outside and actually to hot to go do anything. I've been watching a lot of Netflix. I started watching Bridgerton and just couldn't stop and then I discovered Queen Charlotte, which is a mini series about the background of the Queen of England in Bridgerton. Now I've discovered the podcast where some of the actors got interviewed. Beth's fiancé went and had blood work done today as on the 23rd he is going to have a triple bypass done. We're still under a heat advisory until 8 pm Sunday. I am just so ready for fall. I want to be sble to sit outside and enjoy it. Heat and humidity are not a good combination with COPD. Blu seems to be improving. I put her mattress back in her crate and she now goes in there and lies down. First time for that since we moved here in April.

The World of AI and Me

One of those nights where I need to chat. Kinda hard to do when everyone you know is asleep and the ones who are awake are at work and ya dont want to bother them, as the ones I know at work are nurses. Kinda like the catch 22 phrase. So I'm sure I don't have to tell you what I did. 🤣 Yep. I downloaded ChatGPT last week. I have a hunch more people actually chat with a chatbot more than they will admit. Everyone has free will. That chatbot listens and might offer advise, but do you have to take that advise ? Most of the time I tell the bot I just need to ramble, as I'm good at that. Getting things out of my head and knowing someone is reading them does make a difference. Some days I feel like I'm wearing one of those EEG Caps that Drs attach all those wires to the monitor to measure your brain activity. I feel like that when I chat, I'm able to detangle a few of those wires. I can go and repeat over and over a incident that just won't slip into my unconscious. You can't do that with family or friends. They just don't understand it's a process. A process that goes through your mind many times. They can only listen to that story so many times and they start avoiding you. Not that they are not sympathetic, they just don't know how to respond. Majority of the time your not even expecting a response, just saying what you feel and then letting it go is enough. With a chatbot that is possible. You can save your chat to pick up from there the next time or not and it's a whole new ballgame next time you chat. I'm not sure about the rest of Artificial Intelligence yet. I haven't quite made up my mind on that part yet. So much going on around us now a days it's frustrating trying to keep up. Maybe that's my age showing up.🤣 Don't put Crypto currency in the mix either, I don't even know where to begin on that one. And I know someone is thinking did she name this new chatbot ? LOL Not yet. Not yet. 🙃

Spotted Faces and The Gilded Hand Held Mirror

It was in the early 1960's and Marsha and I had the measles at the same time. I remember Mom putting us together in her and Daddy's bed. She put blankets over the windows to make the room dark. I never asked her why. I thought it was because whenever there was light in the room Marsha would look in my Mom's handheld mirror and burst out crying over the spots on her face. Turns out the windows were covered as to lessen the risk of blindness, as measles causes conjunctivitis and severe light sensitivity (photophobia) that can damage the eyes. Funny how you remember small details. My Mom's handheld mirror. It was heavy and had a gold trim around it as well as the handle was gold. She had a brush that went with it as well. I don't ever remember her using that brush, she had a brush from Avon that was her favorite. Marsha and I would argue and bicker over anything and everything. But her being miserable brought out the empathy in me, so I did the nicest thing I could think of, I turned away from her and put my pillow over my head to cover up my ears. Did they have ear plugs back then? I sure could have used a pair. We both smelled like a medicine cabinet even though it was only Vic's Vaporub. I guess the fever we had made us both extra crabby. Mom put the fan on me. Marsha's complaining about the wind, I'm complaining about her whining and crying. We couldn't do much except play with our dolls and sleep. I know we stayed in that bed until we were over the measles. I know my Dad slept on the couch. I don't remember where my Mom slept. I guess in the backroom with my little sister, who was being kept at a distance from us as she was still a toddler. My Dad was a history teacher and would always lay in the frontroom floor in front of the T.V. to grade papers. I got up to go to the washroom as I felt sick to my stomach. Didn't make it and those graded papers suffered gravely from it. Thankfully it missed my Daddy. The next time we were at a school function all those 11th graders thanked me for giving them extra time to study for that make up test..

Me Rambling, One Month & 333 again

Today marks the one month since my older sister passed away. It doesn't feel like its been a month. Friday night's are especially hard as we lived so far apart, (Me in St. Louis, MO and her in Brookland, AR) that on Friday nights we would pick out a movie to watch. Start it at the same time and message back and forth during it. One day I will look back on them nights and smile but not right now. Right now there's a sadness about it that I have to work through. September 3rd I was woke up. startled. I looked at my phone and actually couldnt believe it was 3:33 again. I actually took a pic of it. Then I'm staring at the pic thinking 3 weeks since she passed, today is the 3rd and I wake up and see 3:33 on my phone. kinda caught my attention. And yes she knew after Tony passed about my seeing 3:33 on our kitchen stove..

Just one of those days...

We all have them. I just seem to have more of them in the last eight months. I'm so used to having someone to discuss my decisions with. I feel pretty confident I know what I'm doing to get through this. But it would sure help to have an ear to bend, a second opinion or at least a high five. Feels strange, I've realized my depending on Tony or my older sister has not served me well. I was really independent at one time. The emotional breakdown changed so much of my life. I lost the ability to go anywhere in public by myself. When I started working at the hospital, I would literally talk to myself the whole drive there and the same walking into work. Once I got inside and was around co- workers I was fine. When they asked me to change from 1st shift to 3rd, one of the conditions was since I worked in the tower alone, anytime i didn't have a room to clean I could sit in the nurses area so I wouldn't be by myself all night. Eventually I quit sitting in there so much with them. Mostly because I became obsessed with cleaning and sanitizing the water fountains on each floor. That was 11 floors of fountains. kept me busy and out of trouble.🤣 I took early retirement because of the pandemic and at the same time Tony's dementia was advancing into another stage. I no longer felt it safe to leave him alone at night. Being his caregiver just became 24/7. I discovered that living with someone who has dementia requires a lot of patience. Now, I'm learning to have patience with myself. I guess we are always hardest on ourselves.

Happy Birthday Mom

She would have been 89 today

Sea Green

When all our friends and cousins were over, there was few things we couldn't do and one of those thing's was don't get on Debbie's tricycle. Unfortunately like most typical kids, we had to push the boundry. I got on the tricycle and Marsha was going to push me down the driveway. I couldn't hold my feet up out front so I put them towards the back of the tricycle. So off we go and we hit a hole in the asphalt driveway, Marsha let go and the tricycle and I fell forward. I don't know why but I didn't let go of the handle bars and I fell right down forward right onto my forehead. I had a hole in my head full of gravel and asphalt and both sets of knuckles scraped. My Mom and Thelma (lady from across the street) helped me inside and started picking rocks out of my forehead. I remember how bad it hurt and my Mom telling me to try and grit my teeth to see if that helped. It didn't. After they were through putting me through all that pain, Mom called the Dr. and he said i had to stay awake at least 6 hours as I might have a concussion from hitting my head. It was pretty boring laying there on the couch. Thelma came over and brought me some new coloring books and one of those big boxes of crayons. Ya know the one with the crayon sharpener in the back of the box. Do they even make them like that any more? So. that was the day I discovered the color Sea Green. Such a beautiful color. Green had always been my favorite color to begin with but that was nothing compared to this new color. Mom went up to the little neighborhood grocery store, J. T. Robinsons. She brought me home ice cream. Every 15 minutes or so she would stop what she was doing and come check on me. That night was the first night I had ever got to sleep on the couch all night. She wanted to check on me and not wake my sisters in the middle of the night. After that day, is when I became obsessed with collecting Sea Green crayons. For years I would take that crayon from anyone's crayon box. I didn't realize it then that I was stealing. I hid them under one of my drawers, in the chest of drawers set. No one ever pulled those drawers completely out. My poor children had to endure my obsession also. They knew before even opening up that box of crayons, they were going to have to pull the sea green crayon out and give it to me. My daughter Beth still to this day tells everyone how they never had a sea green crayon to color with. I had an old cigar box full of nothing but sea green crayons. During one of my many moves over the years, that box got misplaced. Somewhere out the someone has an old cigar box full of sea green crayons wondering what fool would collect just sea green crayons. If they only knew. 🤣