Subject and Predicate

I don’t remember shit from my schooling except for Math and Physics.  I loved them, so of course I really remember a lot from it.  That and the book study of “To Kill a Mockingbird” because I just adored the book (and movie).

For me to teach English/LA is quite a feat actually because I don’t know a lot of things so I’m learning right along side of them.  I can do the basics of nouns, adjectives, pronouns, possessive pronouns, etc.  But we’ve come upon a topic that I can’t really decide how to teach better because I don’t know it well.  The subject, yes, that’s an easy one, even distinguishing between the complete subject and simple subject, but predicate?  How do I explain to my 9 y/o something I don’t even understand.  I’ve been skirting around the issue saying that it isn’t the subject at all, and that it typically follows the subject, but wtf, what else do I use?

Bing did an assessment today and I was highly disappointed in it, not in her because she did the best that she could, but she did poorly on the subject and predicate issue (that and she reads the question too quickly and misses quite a bit of the directions).  I made sure she knew that it was because of my not teaching her enough about it to help her understand that caused the mistakes, and she understood, but it still bothered her (she despises being wrong).

I know exactly where she gets it from, and it ain’t me, I’m never wrong … *snort*.

It’s actually hard to believe I’m an avid fictional writer when I have trouble with the complicated functioning of the English language.

Oh, and I’m having a helluva time coming up with writing projects that interest my kids.  They love letters, so that’s great, but that cannot be all they write.  I’ve tried acrostics and limericks (There once was a girl named Sue, who needed to take a poo, she stuck out her butt, and tripped on a rut, now she has poo on her shoe – ahhh the 7 & 9 year old mind).  I guess it just blows my mind that someone doesn’t want to spend a lot of time writing since I love it so much.  I’m a fiction whore, so for Punk to hate writing stories is beyond me.  Anyone?

Still feel like dancing

Actually I feel like downloading that song, but I’ve been hesitant because I’ve been feeling ever so guilty about it.  I buy music from Allofmp3, which means the artist don’t get jack squat for it, but some Russian computer geek group does.  Yeah, I know, I’ll be done soon enough, I’ve still got my last $3 to spend in my ‘account’, but it’ll be hard to resume paying $1/song when I’ve always paid about 20¢/song.  Being Canadian I can’t download from American sites that are legitimate and less costly than up here.  I’m also miffed that politicians are attempting to push through legislature to make it illegal for me to copy legitimately purchased music/video from my pc to another media format, i.e. a cd to play in my truck, or on my mp3 player.

Crikey, I’m babbling.  Avoiding going to bed for some reason I’m unaware of.  Better make a ‘lesson plan’ type thing and then head off or I’ll sleep in again and miss my Pilates in the morning.  Just one more message.

Happy Birthday Pam!  Well, technically it’s tomorrow according to my time, but when visiting your blog a teeny window popped up that said Happy Birthday, so I’ll squeeze it in tonight while I’m here .

I feel like dancin

Actually, not really, but that song is in my head and it sounded like an original title not repeated in my previous blog posts.  Try to keep up, I may ramble a bit.

Ever wondered how they get the gooey’ness inside those Cadbury Easter eggs?  I have, but I no longer have to wonder.  I got an email a bit back from dh that a co-worker sent him.  It’s an email that had a PDF full of the recipes for the most famous of recipes.  Everything from those gooey eggs, to Ben & Jerry’s Ice cream to Hostess twinkies (ok, do we really want to know what’s in those things?), and even has a smatterings of famous restaurant tidbits.  Why in heavens name I kept it, I’ll never figure out, but I did.   Did I seriously think I need to cook that kind of shit at home to further the quest of spreading my ass farther from my centre of gravity?  Hell-to-the-no, so I have recently deleted it. Ok, ya caught me, I just deleted it a second ago, but it’s gone now.

Ever wonder why we hold onto shit like that electronically?  I have shit I’ll never look at again.  Pictures from when my girlfriend had her baby 4 years ago.  Why the hell do I need that?  Or a recipe from a good friend that I know I won’t ever use if I haven’t used it in the 10 years that it’s been ’saved’ in my inbox (not technically in my Inbox as I’m way too anal to save anything in there, I have separate folders for that stuff).  I’ve got a bit of insomnia (ok, caffeine buzz is more like it) so it’s likely I’ll spend some of tonight purging the crap that people still continue to send me.

I’m addicted to Text Twist.  In fact I haven’t turned off my computer in 2 weeks because I had a game going that I gained 1,022,770 points on it until I became stumped today and lost them all.  Don’t really care as I just started again, but I keep my bloody pc going until all hours and then dream up new words to find more words in.  Don’t ever challenge me to a game of Boggle because this freaky word geek could go gnarly all over your ass.

Damn I’m in a funky mood.

No news isn’t always good news.

I loathe the phrases ‘Boys will be boys’ and ‘You have to do what you have to do’.

I’m a feminist with the inner turmoil of a love for Catholicism, talk about a serious contradiction.  Can you imagine the discussions in my house with my dh being a deacon?

I found a new phrase to hate, and even thought I don’t like the term ‘hate’ it seemed fitting: “As for my and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  Sounds peachy keen, doesn’t it?  All I can see in it is thousands of years of women fighting for their voices to be heard as a mind of their own, only to be silenced because the freakin man has spoken.  As for me and my house? Uh, whose house?

I have issues.  I’m okay with that.

And there’s more

Yet another of my thought vomit rambling posts that will have no semblance whatsoever of a typical theme, hence the multitude of categories this falls under.

So my dad has had a heart condition for a long time now.  It’s a doozy one, but it’s not killed him yet, thankfully.  In my last post about this I kept hearing more and more snippets about his condition and about what is going on with it.  It’s a bit dangerous, but not as dangerous as blockages or heart attacks, but still as serious because it can cause the heart attack.

So I found out this week that his condition is pretty high-level right now.  He’s been with a cardiologist that mom doesn’t trust, and truly doesn’t know and it’s scaring the crap out of her, which means it gets passed onto me.  She actually wrote a letter to her preferred choice of cardiologist, a specialist with dad’s condition, and begged him for help (*side note* for my my American friends who read this, Canadians don’t get a choice on who they see as a specialist, we cannot just walk in their doors, we have to have a referral, and the waiting list for the preferred cardiologist near here is 18 months – yes months – another side note to the inhumanly horrid waiting lists in Canada is when my dad was first diagnosed he was stateside for a convention and had an atrial fibrillation bout and was hospitalized for a week.  When that cardiologist said to dad that it was imminent that dad see a cardiologist when he returned to Canada, the Dr. was quite shocked to hear dad laugh and tell him that emergency cases have a 3 month wait to see a cardiologist – yes, emergency cases still wait that long – *end hugely long side note*).  The original guy has put him on a brutal medication that can cause blindness, yes blindness, and he has to regularly see an optometrist because of it now.  On the 28th of October, he is scheduled in to have his heart stopped.  Yes you read that right, heart stopped.  It’s supposedly one of the ways they use to treat his condition.

My mom was in a panic because of course, being a man, my dad doesn’t ask any pertinent questions about this stuff, nor does he forward on important information about his current condition.  It wasn’t until just before mom got a call from the preferred cardiologist that she found out how severe dad’s case is.

At 55 years old my dad has been in atrial fibrillation for 6 months solid.

This is a disease that when it spurs on can be very debilitating, and dad seems to have almost flu like symptoms of weakness, fever sweats, and all around ickiness.  Imagine now having that for 6 freakin months.  Oh, and did I mention he’s also on blood thinners and has bloody pillow cases every night?  Another side note – he was rebuilding his entertainment centre this weekend to fit his new 42″ widescreen TV and took extreme precaution not to cut hisself.  When he did scrape a knuckle – scraped it – it bled for 10 minutes solid – end of side note.

The preferred cardiologist told mom that the Dr. is doing everything that he’d be doing with the situation dad is in … ummm, what? What situation is that exactly?  Daddy-o has been keeping his condition more quiet than he should have from his wife.

So last Monday around 11 am, he’s walking around work and stops in the middle of the small office, near mom’s desk and just stands there.  He turns and looks at mom and tells her that it’s stopped.  No, his heart didn’t stop, but the atrial fibrillation did for the first time in 6 months.  The brutal medication is starting to work (it’s a delayed working pill I guess) and he may not have to have his heart stopped.  Niiice.

If you are a relative and reading this, phone them, they’d love to hear from you .

Gee, and here I wasn’t blogging, shit I should’ve blogged for the past few weeks, then this one wouldn’t be so bloody long, because dayum, I’m not done yet.

Next story.

My cousin, the one who had cancer in one of my rants about the disease is cancer free.  Yes, that is so completely awesome, but she is still considered an anomoly.  Not only was her cancer a strange cancer (the same one her horse had, I kid you not), but her body’s immune system is unbelievably incredible.  Let me explain.  You know those bacteria that everyone has on their bodies – those little dinosaur like bugs on your eye lashes, or just the little bugs that are naturally on your skin, etc.  She has none.  Not a single one.  Her immune system is so powerful that her liver regenerated itself remarkably (although I thought they could anyway, but I guess hers was pretty amazing), her kidneys weren’t doing well at some point (she was anorexic as a teenager and damaged liver and kidneys), and they are fine now, and her weird secondary cancer, as well as the primary ovarian cancer, are both gone.  Her immune system does not allow any of those bugs to reside on her and the Mayo Clinic in Scotsdale is curious as to know why, so she’s still an anomoly.  I don’t want you to think she cured herself of cancer, she did not as she had chemo and surgery to remove it, but she is free of it.

Next story.

In that cancer rant I spoke of my bil’s mom, and how she has a brutal cancer.  Well, it’s terminal.  Not only were there a multitude of tumors in her brain, she has them in her bones as she has bone cancer too.  Luckily, and I say that lightly, she has a large tumor on the part of her brain that signals pain and she has no pain from this horribly painful bone cancer she is dying from.

I’m just so sad for my bil.  He’s an only child and guess what, his dad has cancer too.  Niiice.  But the guy has put off the surgery for it in order to care for his dying wife.  How the f&@# does someone deal with both parents having cancer and at least one of them for sure dying from it?  We keep waiting for the call that she has died.  It’s an end to her suffering but still the beginning of ours, kwim?  I keep praying for strength for my bil and sil.  Let me tell you about my sil, and how much she freakin rocks.  This is the sil we go camping with yearly, we love them to pieces and are heartbroken for them both about this.  But my sil is like this solid rock, or seems to be, but we both know she has such faith, and it is unbelievably strong, that she relies solely on God for her strength to support her grieving dh and kids.  She has been driving them all 1½ hours everyday to see her mil (taking turns with her dh of course) and attempting to keep the normalcy her kids want while helping her mil die with dignity and the Graces of God.  She’s amazing, and truly inspirational.

I’m pooped, should that be all for now or could you read more?  I can’t type more so you’ll have to wait for more crap of my life .

What’s up

Hell if I know. I’m confused.  I have a lot of thoughts swirling through my brain, I have a few things to talk about yet I don’t have any inclination to post a new blog.  Yeah, I get it, your question is the same as my own, so what the hell am I doing right now?  Forcing myself to post of course.

It’s kind of weird how I’ve been lately, in fact it’s been so out of sorts, that I don’t know what to call it, is this happiness?  I don’t know.  I’ve not had one bout of depression in a while, and it’s been super nice, but super weird. I don’t feel wired (which is kind of a good thing), in fact I’ve been quite tired lately.  I’ve been doing Pilates quite regularly, about 5X a week so far, and I’ve felt really good from it (it’s Winsor if you must know, I don’t mind advertising for her ).  I haven’t switched from the Buns and Thighs video yet because I’m still so uncoordinated and unflexible that I cannot do any of her other videos besides the circle one.  But it’s been helping my posture and of course the size of my … anyway.

I also find it strange that I didn’t shout it to the mountain tops that my Grampa finally got into a good nursing home.  I wrote before how sickened I was that he could be so utterly neglected in the one ‘home’, a term I use loosely for the hole he was in.  Let me explain how different it is in this new wonderful place he’s been in for 3 weeks now.

• Walking into the front doors there is no smell, no lingering odor of either urine or death in the air.
• The amount of light is amazingly different as ever inch of space on the walls are windowed.
• The first elderly person I saw was scootching her way to an exercise class, albeit feebly but she was damn well doing it herself, and she smiled…. she SMILED at us!
• I did not see another elderly person until I spotted a sitting area where they were chatty, even amongst those that could not chat (severely disabled).
• Each ward/wing (there’s 4) has at least 4 RNs, FOUR and they aren’t just pill pushers, they actually talk to the residents and interacts with them, and they actually take their blood pressure and everything!LOL!
• We could walk 4 across through the hallways, and both girls commented on how the halls were bigger.  In fact they were not any wider, or not much anyway, but there was no residents lining the walls nor cart after cart after cart of soiled linens, as in a huge fire hazard (and breaking code btw) like in the hellhole.
• Just wait, I haven’t even reached his room yet!
• Walking down the hall we were greeted by not one, but two different people asking if we needed help finding someone.  And guess what, they knew exactly who it was I was looking for and where he was.  BTW, this was the day after he moved in.  Amazing people.
• His room is 3X the size and he has a lovely quiet roommate.  In fact there is so much room now that Gramma actually had to purchase a chair for him to sit in if he wanted to (I’ll get into how he can do that in a bit).
• Passing his room we arrived at the end of the one wing to a small’ish sunroom area, a room completely lined with windows.  At various places are beautiful flowers and plants kept up by the staff (the residents actually kill the plants because they forget that they’ve already watered it), as well as a door to go outside to the beautiful grounds.
• The grounds completely surround the place (which is also fenced) and it overlooks a river valley in the middle of the city, a beautiful view.  A cool contraption they have for wanderers is each of them wear a special bracelet that actually locks the doors if they attempt to go near them to leave.
• Grampa is actually thriving there, and he’s been participating in daily activities in the mornings, like beach ball (tossing a ball around – which they love), and even sing-alongs.
• His bed is changed immediately upon rising, or shortly thereafter.  There’s only been once where it wasn’t and it was a Saturday, so it’s often longer on the weekends I guess, but still not near lunch, unlike the last hellhole which left a wet bed until well AFTER his nap time.
• He isn’t locked into the wheelchair (but it does have an alarm).  Imagine this; dementia, emphysema, and total blindness.  You’re weak because of the emphysema, but you need to get up for something, forget what you got up for, forget why you can’t see and forget that you shouldn’t stand up because of your weakness and blindness and oops, you’ve fallen.  But, they still are a ‘restraint free’ place, but he does have a tray if he wants it, which he enjoys.
• He is encouraged to stand if he wants to, hence the ‘no restraint’ thing, can’t stand up if he’s belted in.  Also him standing during the day helps strengthen his muscles to help him stand better.
• This sweet place set up a dining area for him and Gramma for lunch everyday … isn’t that super sweet?

I am just so shocked at the differences between the hellhole and heaven on earth.  I want to move in there .

What else, what else … The girls are starting to bicker more and I think it’s because we need to put them into something.  We go swimming once a week, but I’m not sure it’s enough.

Ah, I’m getting tired of typing.  Signing off.

Distractions, distractions, distractions

I loathe the phone as it is, but yesterday was enough to throw me over the edge.  I’ve finally decided I don’t need to talk to anyone that freakin’ badly during the day that I need to listen to the incessant interruptions and disturbances in our day, so I turned off the ringer.

Yesterday was great otherwise, but Sweet Pea was slightly miserable because he was so bloody tired.  He’s been getting some new teeth, and they are brutal on his system and often wake him up in the night.  He’d had a terrible night and was up at 5:30 with a huge amount of poo around, on, and in crevices of his body.  Tis not a pretty sight, thankfully I slept through it all and dh, being super helpful lately, got him up, cleaned up everything and showered with the little schnookums.

The poor beast was tired and by 9:00 am he was ready for a nap, so I laid him down.  At 10, someone phoned (probably dh) and woke him up, but luckily since he was still pretty exhausted he fell back asleep (a serious oddity for him).  Then throughout the day the phone wouldn’t stop ringing.  It wasn’t just dh (who often phones a lot during the day), but my mom, or telemarketers (who swear they aren’t selling anything … yeah, right), or other crap I don’t know.  But dh phoned again just after 3 and woke him up again, and I just about lost it on him.  And he’s not phoning to tell me stuff important, stuff that couldn’t wait, but he had a bored moment and decided to phone.  Why does he need to tell me that he can’t get the trailer into the shop until Nov. 5th at 3 in the afternoon?  Why couldn’t that wait?  So needless to say, Sweet Pea was beat by 7pm when he normally goes to bed.

So I made a decision.  During the day, my phone will be absolutely turned off and no calls will disturb our work or his sleep anymore.  Of course I had this great resolve to do this, but immediately forgot about it upon closing my eyes and the phone rang at 9:30 this morning.  My mom apologized profusely for disturbing but had to tell me about her internet problems and that she got the email … yeah, I know, she had to tell me right then.  Oy.  So, the second I got off the phone I turned off the ringer and wouldn’t you know it, during the break I checked and there was a message already. That was a mere 45 minutes ago I turned it off, and already there was a call.  Granted it was the only one I was actually waiting for, but the information was left in the message so I won’t be disturbed again by a second call.

I still hate the phone.  Want to know what’s so weird?  I don’t have a plethora of people vying for attention from me, except for my kids, and I don’t have that many friends. I don’t have such a glamorous life that people constantly want to speak with me, so I don’t get why my phone rings so constantly.  Oh, and no, I’m not married to someone famous either, so he’s not so popular neither.  And why-the-heck is telemarketing even legal? *snort*  I won’t ever buy anything over the phone, but I guess it must be a viable way to make business as no one has gone out of business doing it.

I am not distracted today … well, not really anyway .

Pinch me still

I almost feel the same way that I did the day we brought him home.  It seemed so unreal then, and it still feels that way somehow now.  I can still remember that feeling with the girls too, but I didn’t have two moments of it, only the one, as if I were taking someone else’s baby home from the hospital.  Now it still feels weird, and I don’t know quite exactly how to put it into words.  I do feel he is ours, that feels no different than with the girls, even though the word adoption flies around occasionally.  It’s not that, it’s more like the feeling that when you look into those beautiful eyes so full of God’s love, and complete trust in you, that you could just empty yourself into them, lose yourself completely, but yet still feel as if you are babysitting someone else’s kid.  There is no doubt that I love him dearly, but I still am in a bit of shock that we get to change his last name now to our own.

My Sweet Pea, monkey, fat-boy.  The poor kid is going to have no chance but to be a bit dorky with us, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

May God ever bless his birth mom for giving us the opportunity to be the ones to give him that chance.

Happy Birthday to me

I enjoy my birthday like anyone else.  I don’t resent them moving forward, I love to age, wrinkles and all.  But this one is an especially happy one.

Yesterday I sent Punk to get the mail, and she took off without questions and returned quickly (we have super boxes down the street rather than door-to-door).  The normal stuff was in there, bills, junk (no fliers because of my “No Junk Mail” request like the Red Dot Campaign), but at the bottom of the pile was a notification that the Post Office had a parcel for me to pick up.  Well, I assumed it was a parcel anyway because I don’t get anything other than parcels.

We scooted down to grab it, and I was utterly surprised that it was actually a registered letter that I had to provide ID and a signature to retrieve it.  The PO lady pulled it out of the file and handed it to me, and I swear my heart must’ve stopped for just a moment.

It was a registered letter from the Courts about Sweet Peas adoption.  It’s the letter to say that it was signed off and finalized on September 12th, his birthday btw.

I just squealed with delight and told the girls what it was and of course Sweet Pea was oblivious to it all.  The lady looked at me a little strangely, until I told her what it was as tears started to form in my eyes.  She squealed too, which I thought was so cute, and then disappeared into the back.  I thought it was just to tell the other ladies back there (it’s a small office so I could hear her talking to them), but it was also to retrieve a tissue for me because I kept tearing up.

What a day it was.  It was almost like he knew it was happening as he was super cuddly, and very happy.  It was a great day, and just in time for my birthday.

Happy Birthday to me!