#sexysocialjusticewarrior

July 19th, 2019 / Categories: Moose Nuggets / Comments Closed

I don’t have to be one of the many homeless . . .
I don’t have to be one of the many hungry . . .
I don’t have to be one of the hurting . . .
I don’t have to be one of the medically unstable . . .
I don’t have to be one of the mentally unstable . . .
I don’t have to be one of the frightened victims of domestic violence/sexual assault . . .
I don’t have to be childless, or child rich . . .
I don’t have to be poor or rich . . .
I don’t have to be fatherless or motherless . . .
I don’t have to be any particular political party . . .

. . . in order to feel empathy, love and compassion for my fellow man.

I am a #sexysocialjusticewarrior

Join me, won’t you?

Count downs

March 27th, 2019 / Categories: Moose Nuggets / 2 Comments »

Awhile back I set up a countdown app on my phone . . . I was counting down the days until I finished my work career.

Now, mind you, I have worked all my adult life – well, if you consider the age of 14 as part of an adult life. Yep, started working in a shirt laundry when I was 14. Did it to help pay for my first year’s tuition at the catholic high school. Went on to work in the kitchen of the hospital prepping patient trays. And, onward to different jobs, both full time and part time. All the while I was birthing and raising our two babies.

Long story longer . . . I have been working in the non-profit world since 2001. Prior to that I volunteered for the organization in various ways. I will be 70 in January and I figured that was a good time to call it quits. It would depend on whether our two remaining big bills would be paid off or not. Looks like we will be close, but not quite. As a result I am moving that countdown further back. And, that is okay. The new goal is to finish paying off the house and the car, then sock some extra money away.

I have two other countdowns going on the app. The first is set for when we leave for Ohio April 30. It has been several years since both of us have been back to our beginnings. Hubby was back last year. This time we will be celebrating our 50th anniversary with family and friends. We hope to take some side trips to visit with those who will not be able to come to party with us.

The third countdown is the one leading to our big date . . . May 10th will be our 50th anniversary. 43 days away. Our girls are hosting a party for us on the 11th.

This is the anniversary that did not look like would happen. I am fond of telling everyone that “he’s a lucky man” when they look surprised that we’re nearing that 50 year mark. But, in reality we are both so blessed. People who experience widow makers generally do not come out on the other side. Hubby did. Marriages do not all make it as long as ours has. Things happen and if there is not a connectivity, a tenacity to hold on, marriages can crumble.

We’ve had our stumbles along the way. We’ve had great blessings and joys along the way. Lord willing we will make it to and surpass the 50th.

The secret to a long marriage? Some days it is as simple as going to bed married and waking up married. Other days it is all joy. Choices. Love. Joy.

Counting down . . . and counting beyond.

50 years later

November 7th, 2018 / Categories: Moose Nuggets / Comments Closed

What a picture of a 50 year marriage this is. Yes, this is the cake topper we had when we got married way back in 1969. It has traveled from apartment to house to house and then clear across the country from Ohio to Alaska and from cannery trailer to house.

It has sat on our headboard in our bedroom since 1979. Yes, it is dusty. And, many of the hearts are broken and chipped. The flowers there at the bottom once were attached to the hearts over the bride and groom’s heads. They are quite dusty, too.

And, isn’t this the way marriage relationships work out? We get dusty (and moldy, truth be told). Our hearts get broken from time to time. The flowers in our lives wilt and fall. And, yet, you will notice the bride and groom are standing tall still. There are no chips or missing parts in them.

Okay, the analogy sort of ends there. Hubby and I each have some missing parts, and we don’t stand as tall as we used to, but our spirits are whole. We have and are learning to take things in stride, to work through things, to mend the broken pieces. How else would we have made it through these past (nearly) fifty years?

Plastic does not bend – it breaks. Evidence those missing pieces here. Spirits, if allowed, bend and not break. It takes work. It takes commitment. (Sometimes it feels like those involved should be committed.) It takes forgiveness and spirited debate. Above all it takes love. I spoke of that in my last post. Always love.

We are thrilled to have made it this far in our journey. This cake topper will appear again at our 50th celebration. It may or may not have been dusted. (so it will not be ON the cake – lol) I trust that we will be able to pull it out again for another major milestone – 55, 60, 65, 70 years??? Perhaps not that many. We are just grateful for these.

It’s the little things

October 29th, 2018 / Categories: Family / 2 Comments »

As I sat in my chair last night, working on a Christmas gift for one of the family, I smiled listening to hubby chuckle at the TV. I would look up and see whatever thing he pointed out to me, agree that it was funny, chuckle myself, and go on back to what I was doing.

Camaraderie – celebration – togetherness – all these and more.

It has been a rough month or so for my heArt. At the end of last month he thought he had a lingering cold. I was busy with work trips to the big city and could not keep a close eye on him. Early in the morning (just after midnight) on October 5th I was awakened by him yelling from his chair. I’d been sleeping soundly in my bed.

He couldn’t breathe he told me in gasps.

I called 9-1-1. Then I got dressed and made sure lights were on so the EMTs could see which house they were needed to attend. They hooked him up to oxygen and transported him to the hospital 9 miles away as I followed in my car.

Congestive Heart Failure. Well, they kept saying CHF – so as not to scare me, I guess. But I was armed with my cell phone and google and soon knew what the initials stood for. All the better to be prepared for whatever might come next.

Three years ago none of us were prepared when he suffered a cardiac arrest and was transported via helicopter to Anchorage.

This time I knew what might lie ahead. The nurse, ER doc and the hospitalist all conferred. Tests were run. Lasix was started. The man started to lose some of the fluid that was strangling him, thankfully. There was discussion of admitting him to the hospital (or, life flighting him to Anchorage). Discussion continued once Anchorage was ruled out about whether to admit to the medical floor or to the Intensive Care Unit.

Finally he was discharged back into my care with orders to get in to see his internist ASAP.

We are now 24 days in to this next chapter of my heArt’s saga. We’ve seen his doctors three times. A heart echo is scheduled and another trip to the doctor after that. We will see his cardiologist as soon as we can get in to that office.

And, as he improves and sits there chuckling at something inane on the TV I smile and knit, smile and knit, smile and knit.

We don’t know how much longer we have together. We are enjoying these days as they come. It’s the little things, you see. It’s the breakfast banter each morning with two of the grands. It’s the giggling coming from the garage as he teaches the oldest granddaughter how to braid a whip. It’s the stories I hear after work about another grandson and his girlfriend coming by to do their laundry.

It’s the “Graaaaaaand-paw!” and the “Gramps” and the “old man” or “Pops” terminology as each daughter and son-in-love and grandchild calls or stops by to banter and bestow (and receive) love from my heArt.

It’s the hopeful plans we have of returning to the “scene of the crime” to celebrate our 50th anniversary in the spring with friends in Ohio. It’s the hopeful plans of then celebrating with family and friends here in Alaska on the real date of our anniversary.

Those things keep us going. Those things remind us to say “I love you” each time we part, if even for a trip to the store.

You never know.

Family Musings

October 21st, 2018 / Categories: Family, Moose Nuggets / Comments Closed

Aren’t we the cutest? An older cousin sent me a flash drive with old super 8 videos his father had taken over the years. Most of them, appropriately, are of his family. However, in watching them I found a few pics of us that I could glean. This one is of me and my baby sister. We were likely 4 and 3. Just guessing, of course, as the videos did not have dates on them like old pics.

This was taken in front of my dad’s mother’s house. Mom-Mom was a formidable woman. She would sit out on that swing (more appropriately, glider) every night after the day’s chores were done. She’d swing and we would play. Some (most) nights we were entertained by a neighbor catty corner across the street who would come out and fight his son. Outside of my own home that was my first experience with domestic violence.

Mom-Mom had her own story – not one to which I was privy until I was much older. By much older I mean just a few years ago when a cousin and I were talking and she filled me in on some things my mother would have never told me. Some of the things I knew: she had a large family – dad was one of 12 kids. She and her husband did not speak for years. He would come in and place his pay packet on the table and go to his room. When I was 3 he committed suicide. Mom-Mom survived and nurtured her flock in her own way.
That’s Mom-Mom on the right. (Aunt Mary on the left) Mom-Mom’s home was the one the clan came to when they were put on the street for whatever reason. Our family lived with her for a period of time. I was frightened often by the robe hanging on the back of the bedroom door. It swayed as people walked through the hall and I felt it was some sort of ghostly visage staring at me – coming for me. I was young.

I remember being about 3 or 4 and having terrible growing pains. My legs ached interminably. I cried inconsolably. Finally my dad and Mom wrapped me up in blankets and we drove to Mom-Mom. There she and the aunts and my Mom broke dozens of eggs (she had chickens in her yard), separated them and coated my legs with the whites. Mom-Mom told everyone that as the whites dried they would draw up the skin on my legs tightly and would take away the pain. Did it work? I’m not sure if that did, but I felt loved and cherished as many hands ministered to me and wrapped me up warmly for the trip home. I fell asleep knowing that – at least at that moment – I was loved.

Family, It comes with the good and the bad. It comes with love and hate. It comes with joys and sorrows. But it is family all the same.

Thanks to my cousin Don for sending the videos. Thanks to my cousin Linda who helps unlock some of the mysteries of family.

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