Weekend Shenanigans

Weekends must be the exact balance of fun, work and rest. A good Satuday morning house or yard cleaning, followed by (insert fun here) with the required rest on Sun. Too much rest fills one with guilt that nothing got done. Too much fun, the same. Too much work, well you get it.
It is just this balance, that when upset, can send you careening into Monday unprotected from the eye daggers, back stabbing, mind f******, leg pulling, knee jerking, gut wrenching, heart breaking assholes.

I thought I had planned for the correct balance this past weekend with out-of-town friends visiting and the monthly Sat night jam. I raced throught the work to get straight to the fun, keeping rest in the back of my mind as something i would get to later on Sun.

Saturday went great with the invention of 'splash dye' in the yard. The stage backdrop had become faded in the sun and needed rejuvenation. We were determined not to have to take the sheets off of the frame so my friend and

I grabbed the ketchup bottles (regrettably no gloves) and went to town "splashing" the dye, working from the outside in. We gained some form (?!) halfway through and started rolling the frame around to direct the flow of dye. Looked great in the 100 degree heat between blender breaks. As I look at it now it kinda looks like first grade artwork, but who doesn't love that?? It rises proudly from the cow pasture.

The squiggly dark lines were some rit dye that did not fare well when rediluted after concentration in dry back room for a year, for some reason it doesn't like reconstitution like Dylon.
That night produced great music and reconnecting with old friends.

It was that night that evidently I agreed to float the river ("c'mon we'll just do the ONE HOUR float") with another friend and his niece/nephew and their friends the next day (mostly 20 somethings, note this).

Mister begs off with the expected bad heart, can't stand the heat, are you kidding me answer.

Something about losing 5 pounds makes you feel unbeatable and able to conquer the world, so I was ready. Packed a cooler in an available baby float (guaranteed not to flip, note this) grabbed my raft with a bottom and headed out around noon.

Spent 2 hours in the heat waiting on teenagers. Thoughts like, why am i here and not on the sofa balancing my weekend? Surely i will be home by 4. Somehow I was talked into giving my raft up for coolers sake and taking a standard river tube with no bottom.

The ride started innocuous enough, vaguely thought about calling dad to take pictures of the huge crowd having the same thoughts of cooling off. I thought he would be tickled to know I was reliving childhood (note this). As a child I remember thinking the river belonged to us since we seemed to be the only ones that ever used it. With subdivisions nearby now, those days are long gone.

The subdivision located on this river is appropriately called Tumbling Shoals. As I heard the hoots and hollers behind me, because i was inadvertently traveling backwards, I did not see the 5' drop to strong current and separated from my ride.

I came away with this, and more.

My elbow turned out to be the worst with a large hematoma that wasn't as impressive to the teenagers as the strawberry on my back.

These are the massive shoals that did me in.

I realized I should have used the baby float.

Dad pointed out I am not 20 something any more with out even knowing I was hanging out with 20 somethings. I was kinda insulted.

I was deposited at home sometime around 6 and I collapsed to be doctored by my smirking husband.

By this time i realize I have mucked up. Not only did I not rest, I seriously put at risk my ability to work and take care of family. WHAT A DOWNER! I wasn't really sure until Mon morning that I did not break anything. Carrying that weight and my wounded pride I went to work to make the best of it, and was faced with...... more crap. After debating for some time how to word what I am going through, I reread my post and realized I covdered that in the first paragraph.

Trying to be thankful I have a workplace to go to even if it is with fraught with degradation, discrimination and favoritism.

This weekend there shall be no problem balancing the equation. With an extra day off I will be able to store enough energy, willpower, superpowers and the motivation I will need to return to enslavement on Monday.

Well Deserved Break

Seeing how the only time I have had off in a year has been three hospital stays (recap: Mom-Tcell transplant, mister- heart attack, son-neck surgery) I took my parents offer of help to attend a family reunion in Florida. It was a whirlwind trip leaving fri and returning yesterday, but refreshing still. Refreshing more because (sniff, sniff) kids wound up not being able to go. I was very disappointed. I did not gloat.
The boy had a 4wheeler accident that resulted in a broken collar bone. This would cause panic for the average person but it caused rage in this mom. He wasn't even supposed to be riding, as anyone who knows me or him KNOWS. Note that he lives with his father and obviously wore him down to get permission to even be on one before his year of healing is up. I will not bore you with the obvious conversations that ensued but needless to say i was as mad as a wet hen and wasn't taking a broken/not-yet-set child to Florida. Minime chose to work the double shifts that were offered to her and opted out since bubba wasn't going.
My diabolical plan ( ?!) to have an all adult weekend was falling into place. I packed a blender.
We stayed in the same area as we ever did when I was a child, at Fernandina Beach. Not crowded, one of everything you could need and family on every corner.
Bittersweet for my mom who spent her very young to teen years there and it was sad to watch her need help to walk on the loose sand to get to the tight, flat beach. Chemo left it scars in the form of severe neuropathy in the feet and hands.

My mom, on the right with her younger sister.

Fun was watching my dad at work with his new lens, don't ask me what it was, but it was way more powerful that what i have. I managed a few shots on my D70 with it.


Mister thought it was a great backdrop for an album cover so i went at it.

I though about you guys really...

Somewhere on Amelia Island/Fernandina Beach

Things that made me want to stay at the beach and not return:

1. The beach
2. Mister getting his groove back
3. Did not want to see another bridge....ever
4. convinced myself that i really COULD make a living with an umbrella business
   
5. the palms
6. the way anyone can wear damn near anything they want, at the beach
7. The way humid, salty air makes my hair act ( think 80's big, sexy beach hair)
8. Could not get cell phone signal on the beach.... YAY
9. Crab anywhere, anytime.

History comes alive

An interesting phenomenon in the south is that some of us LOOOOOOOOOVE to live in the past.
I was raised near a state historic site, Jarrell Plantation, where i volunteered as a teen, and subsequently worked as an older teen. In that time I learned the required arts of the time period: spinning, weaving, dyeing, shearing, wood-stove cooking and dulcimer playing. (I am stashing those skills for the inevitable "survival of the fittest" that I sometimes think this world is coming to.)

In that time of my life I became attached to a rogue group of civil war reenactors that ate-lived-breathed the lifestyle. I joined the group, falling into place as a living historian. Dressing the part was enabled by my seamstress mother who made every day dress, pantaloon, chemise, ball gown that I salivated over. Some patterns were a premium, she once made me Scarletts' barbeque dress from Gone With the Wind. I traveled the the state to participate in various battles, Chickamauga, Resaca & Andersonville. Some, Griswoldville & Sunshine Church, were closer to home.

We were in deep.

The following photo would have been in my hey day( 21 or 22 yo), we won first place for authenticity that evening. The judges would even pull up our dresses to make sure we were authentic to the bone, guess they chose to overlook my braces.


I introduced my first husband to the group and after being punished for being the yankee that he is :) , we were allowed a civil war wedding in the local historic community, where we lived, Clinton.



The best picture, that I could not find, is the regiment dragging up a wooden coffin & asking him to get in, just to see if it fit. This is where he would reside in the event the he did something to hurt me. My great grandmother loved that.

Fast forward past years that I spent roaming the state, estranged from the camps, the lifestyle, the fellowship, the familiarity. When we moved home, i made a point to get Minime to Jarrell Plantation where she, too, volunteered and got a small taste of my childhood. She learned about cotton fields, textile arts, animals and history.

Several years after the photo above, she worked as and ice angel ( for girls under 16) on the battle field in Clinton, carrying water and ice chips to wounded soldiers. We have stopped short of dressing her up as a soldier and sending her out on the field. I was know to do that to be in a position to set off pyrotechnics for the artillery.

Fun Times.

Minime doesn't care too much anymore except to go see the folks that we have visited with over the years, but we went down today to see the Battle of Sunshine Church with some friends. It is an emotional trip for me, 5 minutes from the house. I drive by it all the time, but when it is seething with blue and gray, i get a little verklempt. We noted that some pictures had been added to the memorial wall, "Mountain" and "King", both long-time familiar characters at any battle. I remembered them fondly as each had their ashes blasted from a cannon at the end of a memorial volley, seen below.
I am not sure if this was a health violation.


Things have come full circle, I am home, close to Clinton. Below is the man in previous photos (as my escort and then the minister at the wedding). He is a driving force behind Clinton battles, which ultimately are to raise money for the Clinton Historical Society.




Here are a couple of battlefield shots.




I realized some years ago that some of the participants are more gung ho than others if you know what I mean, and when I was much younger I did not realize the stigma that may be attached to being involved in this sort of horse play. I have since been told by those opposed to certain ideals of 1880 to get over it and move on, but i was NEVER in it for more than the living history demonstrations and never to push a political viewpoint.

I believe reenactments have their place as educational, and those that are just a little too loud and proud about the whole damn flag thing are usually not over it and should, in fact move on.
I am simply proud to have been involved with a such great group, and hope that they have many more years of living history left in them.

The great ones just happen....

On Sat, since the weather was so beautiful, we decided to jam in the yard with a friend or TWO.
The following happened when word got out. I never even picked up the phone.

This was the first time he has played for an "audience" since the event.

:)

Laugh at us while we freak out....

Middle Georgia. Need i say more?

Hospital Vent II

So.............. I took Lime's advice and cooled the heels on blogging and worried about Mr.'s diet, minime's change of venue and young masters change of custody.
Things mostly going well with above, adding that minime moved in with girlfriend weeks ago and hubby has a handle on approved intake and forbidden foods.
I am discovering that it is stressful trauma that sends me here.
This story requires background for the lurkers that won't join.
Young master was cursed with a super macho daddy that envisioned his son a nascar driver by age 18. As i fought against this concept I was worn down by the cuteness (insanity?) of a toddler driven HotWheels thingy. You've seen 'em. He promptly drove it under his dad's truck which told my educated brain that maybe he wasn't cut out for it. I won the battle for a few years pointing the child into his fathers former forte of gymnastics (Ex went to Jr. Olympics on the rings) and this went on for a few years until divorce, finances and then instructor availablity put an end to it. SAD because this child executed a perfect dismount from an Applebee's high chair at age 3.
His dad did not give up the racing dream and by age 6 he had a Honda 50 and we were in the middle of a divorce that included mediation for me to keep boy off of the death machine. Mediation just said work it out and I said I would kill the daddy if the boy got injured.

Karma is hilarious. Daddy rode/owned his share of Harleys (proving he was a worthy rider?) and on one fateful evening he was instructing a wide-eyed 7 yo how to use the death machine. It got the better of him and he rolled down a hill and a even wider-eyed kid had to call 911 on an unconcious father who was subsequently lifeflighted to a local hospital to spend a week wondering if he would lose his polio-striken leg. [evening call goes " hello this is Rockdale County SHeriffs dept. Do you have a son named BLAH BLAH BLAH?" Mouth too dry to answer that question as he followed up with " EX MR has been lifeflighted to lala land".

He recovers from that mishap to buy a better more efficient death machine and move to a location where the boy could REALLY ride, with woods and trees and dirt roads.
So the young child rode, and rode and rode til one day in that 8-9th year he comes back from daddy's with info of a wreck where "somehow my helmet came off" that would require me to follow up with neck x rays which in turn found "nothing wrong" and "maybe some ligament damage" that was causing him to not turn his head correctly. He eventually compensated and time rolled on until about a year ago when he began complaining again of neck pain. Since i was under the care of a wonderful chiro i took the boy there and lo and behold was surprised to learn the his was the most effed up neck in the county with an OLD broken odontoid process at his C2. He went hands off and sent him to a neurologist ( which truly shows his worth).
Now here i sit 4 different types of x-rays, 3 MRI's and a second opinion later in Egleston's Childrens hospital in Atlanta while my son recovers from a "rib fusion". A wonderful surgeon cut a piece of bone from the rib and performed a graft at the C2 to an adjoining C and screwed them together to ensure this graft would take. He will have slightly limited mobility that he will be able to compensate for at his young age and over time.

In the here and now he is incorrigible. I love him but DAMMIT. There are so many babies on this floor that i feel weird crying out to nurses for help but I cannot make him do what he needs to do to get out of here. Surgery was Friday, he was supposed to go home tomorrow but no go.

He was not prepared(literally) for the pain. Step mom handled preop since daddy just had knee replacement (besides having polio see Karma above) and can hardly get around. She did not get near enough info for us to be the best caregivers we could be but I do not blame her. I have found those to blame and they have taken responsibility. Hope I affected change for the next person.
Step mom doesn't do hospitals overnight ( although she has turned out to be a good caretaker while dad is down) and dad can only hang around for a few hours at a time since after the surgery.

Add to this formula that for any spinal surgery the patient WILL experience extreme headaches and require complete darkness and silence and you can see by the length of my post I am damn near a basket case. I have been kicked from watching TV in unoccupied rooms across the hall twice and when it was explained why i almost cried again. "What if you left a germ in an already cleaned room and we placed a sick baby in there?" needless to say i felt like crap.



I was invited to a focus group for parents today. Oh lawd they shouldnt oughta asked me my opinion. I had a laundry list of suggestions, but the blue ribbon went to another mother who found her 7 yo in a bloody hospital room left unsupervised by the nurse he ripped out his iv and blew blood everywhere. This got the guest Liason's attention pretty quick. Although we did have a nurse who could not seem to understand written Dr. orders, it was not gory or life-threatening, just a pain/comfort level issue. Most of my frustration is with the dysfunctionality of mine and my son's relationship, which is why he went to live with his dad just before christmas. It was a friendly legal proceding designed to honor the wishes of the child and lessen the pocket pull of dad, but all for the better management of a child recently diagnosed with ADHD.



As I sit here trying to be delightfully descriptive and wonderfully witty it really just boils down that this is therapy for me since i have burnt up the cell phone battery and people have to continue living their lives even while mine comes to a tornadic stop.








Pray for me as I pray for a quick and complete recovery and please pray for me to not play the blame card while I am here. I will wait for Lloyd to do that.

Home

We came home on the 30th.

We had CPR training on the 1st. A good friend of mine just became a certifier and was more than happy to give me back control of my life. Carrie and Mom and Dad also got certified.

The Mr is recovering, still very sore from the life-saving efforts.

We immediately assume a lifestyle that would shadow a nun's.

He rests mostly and can't/isn't supposed to venture outside until 1 week home. There are more tests and med changes coming soon. I had to leave him to go back to work yesterday and was very nervous about that.

I have a call in to EMS to locate the closest defribillator, for future reference.

We had our Christmas. He was my present. I thanked the dr.s profusely.



We developed a new routine for eating/sleeping and meds and I have learned much about the no-fad cardiac diet. I have faced these changes head-on and we were already halfway there, just had not committed entirely to whole foods.

I have taken days to post this since it seems so bland. I guess i am very distracted by recent events. I still take time to lurk and I resolve this year to comment more.

I shall end with more updates....

Minime is home now and we have successfully transferred her from GCSU to Macon State. Alot of people did backflips to get her in on time, even though finaid was dragging it's feet. Turns out her last semester excuse for grades were overlooked as a traditional first year gaffe and they weighted her more on her SAT scores, even scolding her about the poor performance at GCSU since it was obvious she could do better. She is home to enjoy the previously mentioned monastery existence, with new rules about coming and going. She "agreed" to be here on all school nights (S-W nights) with Th-Sat belonging to her. I explained to her that I must protect my investment. Seriously could not have gotten through the last 3 weeks without her.

Her ducks (and their poo) have tripled in size and moved to an outdoor pen that she constructed and paid for. We are encouraging her to persue Vet Science so she can get paid to love the animals.

The parents are doing well with their recovery, Mom to have tests this month. Daddy gave me a new lens (50mm) for Christmas and I will be learning all about it and posting some pics soon.