Fibromyalgia and My Baby Steps Toward Physical Health.

This is what surrounds me at the gym as I step on the treadmill.

from f80-treadmill.org

Slender, long-legged women casually step onto the treadmills on either side of me, put their headphones on, crank up the speed and start running. RUNNING, i said.

i smile vaguely into the middle distance, pulling my belly in, and act as if i am not breaking into a slight mist from walking.

But it's baby steps that will get me there.

"There" is this mystical place in my future where i don't puff along at 3 miles an hour, where i can easily bend to tie my shoe, where i don't see my next decade painted in fibromyalgic shades of pain and fatigue.

i have a trainer. She tells me, "Baby steps. We will take baby steps." i work to do 8 repetitions of simple floor exercises. The first day of training my body loudly informs me that 10 repetitions will set the fibro beast in motion. So we do 8. There's a certain point when my body tells me I Am Done. The muscle fatigue sets in like the fangs of an angry dog, far different from the regular pain of exercised muscles. So we take 8 baby steps.

Three times a week i go to the gym. It's been three weeks now. One day with the trainer, two more days to repeat the exercises and walk on the treadmill next to the Looks Awesome In Spandex crowd. So far i don't listen to music while i walk, instead i people watch, think, pray, and check my heart rate--repeatedly.

Today i noticed on the heart rate zone graph on the treadmill that i am training at the rates for a 70 year old. But that's okay, baby steps. Perhaps before i turn 60 in three years i will be able to train at the rate for a 65 year old.

i think i'm doing this for good reasons this time. i have no illusions that i will again look like i did at 21. i'm not pre-buying a wardrobe 6 sizes smaller. i am aiming for flexibility and strength and energy, things i've lost to this disorder. i had thought i might somehow make peace with my fibromyalgia, but even if i never do, perhaps i can at least learn to smile vaguely into the middle distance when i see it, and just keep walking.


Skimmer's Recap: Feeling fed up with fibromyalgia, julie subjects herself and others to talk of treadmills and spandex.

On His Birthday: To My Brother Michael Who Left the Family 22 Years Ago.

every year

on this same date

i say to myself,

"huh, didn't you have a brother once?"

i remember him from

my childhood

his childhood

my sister's childhood.

and in my head

i say to my brother,

"didn't you have a sister once?

do you remember me from

your childhood?

my childhood?

our sister's childhood?

do you ever miss us?"

but i guess not.

we never hear anyway

if he does.

i

no longer take

it personally

because, after all,

it's his loss.



Jack of All Crafts and Master of None Tries Weaving: Project 1 finished!

Here's the finished project, still on the loom. I think of it as "Sea to Sky."  The blue at the bottom is the ocean, and then there is sand and dunes and hills and finally sky. I love the textured yarn one near the top! I imagine that to be a tree and flower covered hill.

The cool thing? It looks just as good upside down. It was just a bunch of curved lines designed to teach how to use the "slit" stitching technique of tapestry on the dvd "Tapestry Weaving Part 1" by Nancy Harvey. Mine isn't as smooth as perfect as hers, but it also isn't in 1980s colors like hers. I just had fun! I may actually figure out how to use it on the wall.

The Problem With Mother-Pain.

Papa Jean, my stepdad, in his horsey days.

Recently my aunt sent me an album my mother had put together in 1999, just a year plus before she died of cancer in January 2001. My mother had wanted my aunt to have it after her death, but now, 10 years later, my aunt felt I should have it as part of my family history.

I feared looking at it, so let it sit for days on the dining room table. With a relationship as complicated as mine was with my mom, many emotions come into play, not all of them belonging to Grown Julie. So I waited. But today I decided to Take The Plunge, Dive Right In, phrases that oddly refer to another fear of mine: water.

The album is the story of a life, Margie's, from childhood through marriage and parenting, back around to single-ness, and then into the last third of her life with the love of her life, Jean.

The photos are amazing--of her family and my father's family, of our family and of Jean's family, and some I'd long hoped to see of Jean in his cowboy garb on a horse. There are photos of the new "family" she gathered in her new life in Nebraska where she moved to be with Jean at about the same time I was getting married in California.

It's her edited life: "Margie's Life, Lite." Without most of the anger and pain and accusations that colored big parts of the Full Fat version. I marveled at all the smiling faces, the photos of outings and birthdays and holidays. Pretty pictures of the decorating and remodeling she did in the house I grew up in, not of the broken pieces of dishes and punched in walls in the photos she had sent to me after her death to remind me of things my father had done. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was all a pretty happy story. Looking at the pictures I can imagine her as the kind of mother I could call to chat and tell her something funny one of the kids said, rather than calling and ending up defending myself for not being willing to say my father did not do those things to my sister or me.

I finish the album and sob. In my head I'm writing the thank you letter to my aunt: "Thanks so much for the album, the pictures are great and let me into some parts of her life I wasn't there for. I always wished I was a stronger person: strong enough to see the person beneath the harsh words, stronger than her desire to hurt me, stronger than many things that kept me from being a part of Margie's life in her later years."

I don't know what I will really write. Will I mention the victories I have felt in my struggles toward Sound Mental Health over those same years? Will I mention how I finally feel the Mother-Pain will no longer cripple me for weeks after contact, but hopefully only hours? Will I say sure I regret that I wasn't always The Good Daughter, but I knew I would never be the Good Enough Daughter? Probably not. Probably I will thank her for the photos and for her thoughtfulness in sharing them with me.

The problem with Mother-Pain is that no matter how far I've come in life, it will apparently always be waiting to jump out and bite me. But at least now, after enough therapy and prayers and time, the pain doesn't last as long.


Skimmer's Recap: Just when Julie thinks she's getting a handle on that whole Mental Health thing, she realizes "a handle" is but an illusion, and there's always more to learn.

On Clutter: An Unofficial Poll.

I am curious about what you think.

I've been a clutterbug forever. First, I am a sentimental collector of memories. Things that remind me of either a fun event or even just a good time in my life--well, pretty much anything that brings a warm-happy to me will be collected.

Also I run too much on emotion-brain rather than logic-brain to be very tidy. I tend to end up with piles here and there: the books I want to read, the magazines with articles or creative ideas I liked, the bills I need to pay. My brain tells me that if I put any of those things "away" I will forget about them. Knitting patterns, yarn, scrapbooking supplies, you name it, I have a pile or two somewhere.

My theory on my relationship with clutter is that because I don't have a lot of warm-happies from my childhood, I tend to hang onto as many of them as I can manage. Oh, there's also the fact that I'm inherently lazy about cleaning. I go through big spurts of weeding out the excess, but I'm not the best at figuring out how to organize and keep it organized once I've done the weeding.

So for me, lack of logic-brain, out-of-sight-out-of-mind-edness, and sentimentality seem to keep me in a perpetual state of imperfection, clutter-wise.

So here's my unofficial poll part:
Are you a clean person or a clutter person?
Why do you think you are whichever one you are?
How do you solve your clutter overflow?

Really. I want to know what you think.

Skimmer's Recap: While trying to rationalize her messiness, julie asks her friends to engage in conversation so she can further put off any actual work.

Jack of All Crafts and Master of None Tries Weaving: Part 2

Isn't this pretty?

 i love the light shining through the lovely warping i did on my loom. And it didn't even take too many bad words to get it here! The loopy bits of string are the heddles. Two bars have these strings so that one bar at a time can be lifted

 into these holders at each side of the loom. Each of the two bars holds every other thread on the warp (the vertical threads) so they can be lifted to pass the weft (the horizontal threads) through. This makes your basic over-under weave.

Here you can see the two bars with their tediously done heddles. What you don't see is the blood, sweat and tears it took to get it this far. There were also Magic Eye sightings of a unicorn and a possible emu.

Once my psyche had healed adequately from the warping experience, i started my Tapestry weaving dvd by Nancy Harvey. And the fun thing is, you get to see 1980s Nancy AND 1990s Nancy! Other than the funky 80s glasses she was wearing she didn't look very different. Future Nancy shows up to add some information to Current Nancy's lesson.

80s Nancy has us start this way: a little weaving of plastic bag strips to start spreading the warp out evenly, then a hem (that's the dark brown in my weaving below.) i can't help but think of it as a footer. The "cartoon" is pinned behind the area to be woven--that's the enlarged picture outline you see. Calling it a cartoon is just the whimsy i need. See that cool tool? It's to beat down the weft as you weave it.

Notice the loopy bits above the weaving? This is called "bubbling," also a very whimsical term. Apparently bad bubbling can cause problems, bringing to mind one of my favorite life sayings: "Any bubbling worth doing is worth doing well."

If this was a yoga pose it would be called something like "downward facing camel."

And from those humble beginnings, i am this far. Nearly done with project 1!



Skimmer's Recap: Glad to be done with the warping, and now there's not much "weft" to do. (Weaving humor. Deal with it.)

On Life: Embracing It.

I'm feeling, closing in on 6 years after my fibromyalgia diagnosis, 10 years after my mother's death sent me to therapy, and 57 years into life, like I actually want to embrace life. My head's in a better place than it's been, my body is getting better at dealing with the fibro pain, and surely all that is worth shouting "hallelujah!" about.

I've dealt with depression most of my life--coming from crazy can do that. Honestly, in all my years I have never thought "whoopee! I hope I live to 100!" To a depressed brain, that sounds like a sentence, not a gift. But mentally off-kilter mothers and such be thanked, since at least that relationship sent me to make new friends of Mental Health Professionals, and they've helped my brain become better balanced.

At these realizations I find myself (tentatively) hopeful. It's difficult to be a negative positive person, since one should cancel out the other. But at my core, given God's grace in my life, I am positive, I have hope. But life has at times taught me to be negative, to be fearful. Yet I desire to Embrace-- hope, life, the fact that I'm constantly surprised to find myself in my late 50s.

Thinking about embracing life got me thinking about other times of learning to embrace. When my oldest daughter was dating her first husband, he startled me by hugging me. I wasn't used to that, but it made me rethink my physical and emotional distance from people.  My in-laws were not physically affectionate people, but when they retired and moved a 7 hour drive away, my husband and I decided we would start hugging them. It was awkward at first, but--well, but nothing, it was always awkward. When my close friend was diagnosed with ovarian cancer of stage Too Late, she refused to talk about the possibility of dying. Her friends didn't know what to do with that--how could we prepare for the loss? Say goodbye? I learned to embrace the simplicity of saying "I love you" whenever we parted. Now I'm a serious hugger, holding all my friends close to me while they're in my life.

It's important to demonstrate how we feel toward each other. In the same way I've learned to embrace my friends and others I love, I'm hopeful to learn to cherish my future, and not fear it.


Skimmer's Recap: julie thinks about life, gets all mushy-wushy about it, but publishes the post anyway.

About a Book: "Lord, I Feel So Small" by Jon Drury



"Lord I Feel So Small: Using God's Yardstick to Conquer Self-Doubt"


Jon Drury is a man who speaks from a brutally honest heart. But I mean that in a good way.

The author's struggle with the feeling of never measuring up, of never being quite as useful/smart/talented as the other guy, strikes a familiar chord in me. How any of us ends up in that rut doesn't matter--the point is, we can climb up out of the mud. And Jon's the man to show us how, because he's been-there-done-that, and he's on a mission to show us the way out.

Visually the book is a pleasant read, broken up into achievable chunks within each chapter. Call it my short attention span, or my inability to remain awake when faced with solid lines of prose, but this is important to me.  But even more importantly, the text is conversational and approachable, like you're just sitting down and having a really good chat with the guy.

One way he makes the truth of what he says more accessable is by using stories from his own life and from others. I love when authors include stories of other people, because let's be real, folks, some of those stories make me happy to be me. But more to the point, Jon sees his own life story with clarity and honesty, then uses it to illustrate how to pull ourselves out of the muddy mess of our own flawed thinking.

If the many years I've spent with members of the Mental Health profession have taught me nothing else they have taught me this: our human thinking can be very, very flawed. How can we learn to challenge our thoughts? One way is by reading books like this one. Take a look at the sections and chapters to get an idea of the steps he leads you through in this re-look, re-think journey out of the muddy rut of self-doubt.

 Section 1-- Crafting the Foundation
Chapter 1: "Lord I Feel So Small!"
Chapter 2: Foundations for Significance
Chapter 3: Yardsticks of True Worth

 Section 2-- Feelings That Immobilize Us
Chapter 4: Transforming Despair Into Hope
Chapter 5: Morphing Fear into Courage
Chapter 6: Birthing Healing Out of Grief
Chapter 7: Discerning the Voice of Our Enemy

or Section 5-- Experiences That Hamper Us (this section especially hit home for me)
Chapter 16: Converting Failure to True Success
Chapter 17: Turning Humiliation into Heroism
Chapter 18: Moving From Isolation to Friendship
Chapter 19: Conquering Worry with Trust

And this is only a sampling of the 20 chapters.

I was pleasantly surprised by the "Think It Through" questions at the end of each chapter. "Jesus!" is not the answer--at least to each of these questions. No, folks, sorry to say, if you make use of these you will actually have to Think It Through. I found them much more useful than the easy answer type questions you often find in study books, and more likely to actually provoke thought. And thinking is our friend.

The more you give this book in time and thought, the more you will gain. But even if you can only give it a quick read, there's much to be gleaned. I, however, was unable to give it a quick read, wanting to learn enough to put my hip-waders away for good and step into summer sandles. I'm a flip-flops kind of girl, and flip-flops don't fair well down in the rut.

A Jack of All Crafts and Master of None Tries Weaving, Part 1

this was titled "Lowell Mill Girls" on the Emory University site.

Once upon a time in a land not so far away, a girl went to college. In this land, the field of Home Economics was not frowned upon as sexist and worthless, so this girl learned many intriguing skills with fibers. She learned to tat, she learned to knit fancy patterns, she learned clever tricks for the sewing of clothes. But her favorite, the one that stayed in her mind for years, was that of Weaving.

The loom was large, and the girl was fascinated. "Ah, if only I may be so fortunate as to put my bustle on and use a loom again in the future after I leave this place," she dreamed.

In later years the girl tried a small tabletop loom, but it was too small. She tried a rug loom, but alas it was too large and bulky. Then she received the Schacht Spindle Company's tapestry loom from her husband for Christmas and, you guessed it--it was *Just Right.*

Here's my Schacht Tapestry Loom hanging out in the guest/fiber-craft room. It's about two feet wide, but the size is no problem since we also bought the A-Frame stand for the loom. It adjusts to whatever angle is comfortable for use. And it's pretty all on its own and smells good, of freshly finished wood. So far, I love this company! I emailed them with a question and ended up having a lovely, helpful exchange with Denise.

One of my favorite things about any craft is reading up on it. I bought a book called Tapestry Weaving by Kirsten Glasbrook that got the best reviews on Amazon, and a dvd called Tapestry Weaving 1 by Nancy Harvey that's like a little class where the teacher takes you through three different projects to teach you different techniques.



Tapestry Weaving, the Schacht Tapestry Loom instructions, & Tapestry Weaving dvd.

My other favorite thing is gathering the bits and pieces needed to do the craft, in this case the fibers. I did my shopping in the guest/fiber-craft room stash. There is, let's just say, an "adequate" amount to shop in.


going with a green, blue & purple vibe for the first project.

*WARNING: WEAVING TERMS AHEAD.
In all fairness, when the loom first came I used some string to try warping it (those are the long threads that go top to bottom.) It's tricky till you get the hang of it--and in all fairness, I never really got the hang of it on that try.

So I followed the instructions to made the reusable heddles--those are the strings that lift every other warp yarn to make a basic over-under weave. The instructions showed a simple way to get them all the right size.

Using the heddle bar support to make reusable heddles. Then they all match! Imagine that.

This is the cool bunch of matching little tied strings I ended up with. Yes, I made them in bunches of 15 because I knew I would never keep track of the total otherwise.

And now to warp the loom. It does this cool "Magic Eye" thing while you're trying to do this, one of those, "is this in front or behind? Can I squint just right and make it into a picture?" This just adds to the thrill of the chase.



Okay! I'm finally starting to get the hang of it--4 inches into it. I still have another 11 inches to go.

Time for a nap. I'll keep you posted.


Skimmer's recap: julie likes crafts and things with yarn, and loves cool tools, but rarely wears her bustle anymore.

Basic article on weaving terms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_(weaving)

Mother thoughts.



That's a very young me on the right, holding three-month-old Corinne, and my
mother Margie. "Windy Hill" is what my mother named the acreage in the midst
of wheat fields in Nebraska where she and my stepdad lived. 

 Ten years ago today my mother died. Two days later I found out.

Not the sort of mother/daughter relationship a friend of mine had where she lay in the hospital bed with her mother, cradling her in her arms as she died. But is that the typical bond between the daughter and the mom who nurtured her? I don't know. The relationship between my mother and me was anything but typical.

Her cancer had come back. She mentioned this to nobody, not even the Replacement Children in her more recent life in Nebraska, the three women of the approximate age of my sister and I. My sister and brother hadn't spoken to our mother in years, and though my dealings with her had grown more and more strained, I was still trying to keep in contact from states away. But I'd been replaced by less complicated relationships with those she hadn't birthed.

Her lawyer called me because a next-of-kin was needed to sign the cremation certificate. Without that need, would I have heard at all? I suppose I would have figured it out once the boxes of my mother's "treasures" started arriving, filled with items from her life, all with notes attached. The notes must be nostalgiac explanations of the when and where of the items, you might think--wrongly. No, the notes explained my failings as related to each item, and were dated and initialed, apparently so I would be aware of the many years she'd been planning this After-Death-Surprise for me.

I was destroyed by the box after box of Post-It noted pieces of her life. How could the mother who gave birth to me and who was supposed to love me without condition and protect me be the one who attacked, who torpedoed my personal worth? How could the woman seen in happy photos with my baby be this cruel person?

Therapy followed, since my wise husband could see me falling down a deep, dark hole. It saved my life and my sanity. For years I had tried to make sense of this woman who could be so bright and happy sometimes and so mean and hurtful others. I won't ever know what all was at play in her head or heart, what undiagnosed illness she may have had. I can see from here that she was always at a distance from me emotionally, and her happiness or unhappiness really had nothing to do with me. I wanted her happiness to be because of me, but I think she was much more at the mercy of whatever demons lived in her head.

I've kept some of the things she sent--in fact, some are still tucked away in the same boxes they arrived in. These items and their notes hold a fascination for me, since I still wonder at the workings of her mind. What did it feel like to live inside her head? What ruled her, what drove her decisions? Was there an underlying sadness like I thought I saw at some times in her life, or was that just me trying to make sense of what couldn't?

Humor doesn't come easily around this subject, even though humor has always been my friend. One small smile that's come of it is that my mother even died on a date I can never forget. "Jean loved house numbers with 1s in them," she had told me about my stepfather. Her address had recently been redone by the county and now included 1s. Why my brain chose that bit of information to remember, I don't know. But when she died on 1/11/01, I muttered to the bit of her that lives in my head, "Hah! I bet you planned that."

So on this date I remember her with a mixture of fondness and sadness, much like my life with her played out. I'm finally learning that our relationship makes as much sense to me as weather, and was simply what it was: somedays thunderstorms, somedays sunshine. And I think I've learned from both.

New Year's Anti-Resolutions, OR, Things I've Learned from New Year's Resolutions.

i am the first person at the end of the year to make a resolution for the new year--that of NOT making any resolutions. Why should i resolve to become organized in the new year, or thin, or to save more money? Why should i make a big statement that i am destined to fail?

Negative, you say? My hubby calls it "being a realist" when i accuse him of being negative. i'm borrowing that for the moment.

It's called "knowing myself." Big statements do not work for this girl. i have always moved at a slower, more casual pace than many others. i'm a big believer in the "don't sweat it" style of being. Not that i don't have my convictions--i do, it's more that i have always had the tendency to beat myself up for my perceived failings. "You idiot" is at the ready in my brain when i make a mistake. "You slob" is waiting to pop into my head when i look around at the casual mess of my space. (Which is exactly what happens when you don't sweat it.)

This year, i think i'll put into place the things i've learned from New Year's Resolutions past:

*i will correct myself just like i would correct my children when i hear "idiot" and "slob" and such words in my head. NO NAME CALLING!! Certainly if i work to avoid calling people names in traffic, i can at least extend the same courtesy to myself, right?

*Frankly, my "getting organized" isn't as much of a problem as KEEPING organized. Well, really, they both go against my nature. i am a visual person--i tend to forget things if they are out of sight (in that perfectly organized world.) Therefore i will accept this and try to work with it. i will have pretty things out to pile things in, creating decorative messes. i will continue to work toward a paper organizing system that works for ME, and i'm pretty sure that will also include pretty containers.

*i will accept that i love to start things before i finish the last project. i am fickle. Today i want to knit, but tomorrow i may want to use my new loom. It is what it is. Again, i think decorative containers may play a part.

*i will accept that i am a jack of all trades and master of none. i have fought this for years, calling myself names when i can no longer limit myself to one thing, like writing. God made me the creative disaster i am, He knows i love many things. Writing makes me happy. Fibers make me happy. Scrapbooks make me happy. i'm sure i'd be tidier if i had fewer hobbies......HAHAHAHAHAAA!!!  No.

*i know more about diets than most, because i've been on most diets. Do they work? Not generally, but they make for good reading.

***This year i will focus on making a better choice one choice at a time.

i will not resolve to become thin, i will choose to eat healthier each time i eat.

i will not resolve to become wealthy, each time i think i need that beautiful skein of yarn or pack of scrapbook stickers i will choose to pause and ask "do i need it," and maybe the answer will be "no." If i then put that money in savings, will it add up? i bet it will.

i will think more and treat myself less. This includes purchases, foods, even the most sacred of all, chocolate.

i will keep working one choice at a time toward organization in small ways: putting "like with like" (no more chasing the cell phone chargers etc through the entire house,) and choosing to put things away where they go.

If i bring something INTO the house, something else must go out--- hahahahaa! i can dream.

i will choose to work within the realities of ME. And i choose to take on this new year of 2011 one choice at a time. (It's less scary that way.)

Skimmer's recap: Not so big on resolutions. How about you? Are you a resolution maker? If so, what kinds of things do you resolve to do?

More Cornwall wanderings, now that my cold isn't making me feel as nasty.

We went "on holiday" (as the Brits say) to St. Ives, a seaside town on the Cornish coast full of tiny houses on narrow rambling streets. Each little corner you turn on each tiny street (which you share with cars by plastering yourself against the nearest wall) gives a new view of another cute little house or stair or garden.

People here seemed to love their dogs, as everywhere i looked there was a dog or six.

See what i mean about "around every corner"? And the sign painted on the street directs one to the Car Park, where the cars go to play for their holiday.

When i saw the establishment below, i wanted to sing "... Alive, alive- o..." (Okay, so i did sing. i love singing in random places.)

                                  

A visual treat around every corner!

This store disappointed me when i realized it only sold clothing--the name promises so much more, like artery clotting clotted cream...or maybe fish and chips...or big hunks of beef.

i wandered through a gallery with several on site artists. i had a great chat with this artist while she was working on a painted portrait of a dog. Seriously, people love their dogs in England.

We watched the local wildlife for a while as we wandered the streets of St. Ives,

then went to have a pub lunch. i love the pubs in England--the ones i've been in are friendly places to take a family, and have pretty decent food and prices.

We sat directly beneath the well-used dart board with its list of dart leagues and players. It reminded me of lots of British and Irish movies i've seen. i assume they rearrange the seating when the darts are actually being thrown.

Ice cream stands and ice cream shops were everywhere, so of course we had to partake sitting on the benches facing the water.

And my tough little grandBrits were happy to be playing barefoot in the sand, even though Grandma julie wore her coat and scarf and often her gloves the whole time we were there.

Beautiful, tranquil, off-season St. Ives was a thing of beauty. Hope i get to see it again.

Grandma ice skates with varying degrees of success.

 While at the Eden Project here in England, all three grandchildren (ages 2, 5 and 7) and their parents decided to try out the ice skating rink. Grandma Julie (me) thought she'd regret not trying it herself, since she used to love ice skating as a child, and what could be more fun than joining the grandBrits?

If you can pretend I'm not holding onto the railing I look quite impressive, don't I.
To the left side of the photo Shawn is showing Euan the basics of ice skating,
and to the right you can see Jon helping Ellie get used to the ice.

Elias spent a fair amount of time dangling from Jon like a Christmas ornament on a tree.

Ellie, almost 3, amazed us all by having pretty good
balance on her cute little strap-on 2 bladed ice skates.

Euan loved it, spending most of his time skating without help,
falling down and popping right back up to skate some more.

Grandma? Well, she was quite good at falling down--one time even considering
making a snow angel while laying flat on her back on the ice--but not so good
at the popping back up....

no, for Grandma, getting back up "takes a village."

Okay, so a couple of those falls caused a very bruised and swollen
left hand, and led to a visit to the First Aid booth for an ice pack
held to her hand by gauze wrappings. Plus she now has
an official Incident Report filed in England.

Notice the lovely shade of purple on the left hand.

A great time was had by all. And while I may have come away with bruises on my hand, knees, elbows, and pride, I came away without a single regret.

;-)

Cornwall wanderings.

across the road from Shawn and Jon's place

I am in the English countryside, Somerset County, specifically. But even in such beautiful surroundings, the locals want to go "on holiday." Sounds so much more festive than "on vacation," doesn't it?

So they find other beautiful places to go, like this:

Cornish coast

More on this later. For now, simply gaze upon the beauty. You see, yesterday we went ice skating while on holiday, and I'm really really sore and tired. ;-)

About the book Daisy Chain, by Mary E. DeMuth

I just finished reading Mary DeMuth's novel "Daisy Chain," first book in the Defiance Texas Trilogy.

It was a hard read for me.

The story of the small Texas town of Defiance is told through the young eyes of fourteen-year-old Jed Pepper. His closest friend, Daisy Chance, has gone missing, and he's sure it's all his fault. Town secrets come to light during the search for Daisy, and we experience it all from Jed's viewpoint--the viewpoint of a child living in a house full of its own secrets.

I was too captivated by the story to stop reading, since Mary DeMuth has a writing style that wrapped me up inside Jed's head--and there was my pain. Having grown up in a house of secrets myself, the author's uncanny ability to write from within the mind of a child unnerved me. I lived each emotion as Jed did: each moment of powerlessness, shame, guilt or rage. I felt his tentative hope, his doubts.

What I loved most about this book was the very thing that made it hard reading, the author's ability to crawl inside a child's head and stay true to the telling through his eyes. For this reason I highly recommend this book and author.

Saying goodbye to Uncle Joe.

He was my father-in-law's "little" brother. They were tall. Like "how do I hug them?" tall. My father-in-law, Eldon, was 6 foot 6 or 6 foot 7, at that height i couldn't see up there anyway so I'm not really sure. Tall was (and is) their family's "thing."

I'm pretty sure they were each other's favorite brothers out of the 4 boys in their family. (I think they all doted on their beautiful little sis, Mary.) I remember many stories of the boys' escapades when they were kids, crazy stuff like hunting skunks with pop-guns. Country living is so far from my upbringing in Portland, Oregon that I was always fascinated. I mean, the only wildlife I saw was some of the neighborhood kids, and they'd be a much safer bet to hunt with a pop-gun.

As adults they stayed good friends, and I would hear stories of Uncle Joe's clothing factory from my in-laws. We still have an old platform rocker from my side of the family that I slipcovered in sturdy suit fabric brought home to me probably 25 years ago from Joe's wife, Pat. She had her own business running a fabric outlet of leftover fabrics from the factory. (I only wish I could still fit into the coat they sent home to me at the same time!)

My father-in-law meant a lot to me. He was kind and loving to me, and would do things with me he wouldn't with my mother-in-law, like shop or eat tuna sandwiches. He sat with me in silent support through the years of my miscarriages, he helped us build our second story house addition, he called my m-i-l's peanut brittle "peanut brutal" and tuna sandwiches "cat food" sandwiches, but he'd eat them if I made them. And he absolutely without a doubt loved his grandkids.

His brother Joe was that same sort of person. Unfortunately I didn't get to know him very well, but when I saw him a few years back, he was the same kind of sit-down-and-chat guy that my father-in-law was. He had a ready smile and an accepting heart. He had the same sparkle in his eye, and oh he made me miss my father-in-law.

When my hubby and I visited the Alabama family just a few months ago, I got to see him with his great-grandkids--and I loved it. Again, it brought me back to memories of my father-in-law graciously letting my children and foster children use him as a climbing wall. The two brothers shared a lot in their attitude toward little ones and in their quiet faith in God. And if anything, Uncle Joe was even more of a family man.

This is why I know that Joe will be so missed by his wife, his children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and other family and friends. As much as I miss my father-in-law, I have a fair sense of the loss Uncle Joe's home-going to heaven will mean to those still stuck on the ground who loved him.

Goodbye, Uncle Joe. We will miss you.

Missing, and no action.

Wow. Apparently i have been brain-dead for a month. Suddenly i realize i haven't put any part of me into this vast blogosphere. So if anyone out there in the world-wide-internet still drops by to see what drivel i have written lately, please check back very soon and i will put something besides excuses in this space.