October 31, 2008
The phone rang. Thinking it another of those pesky political calls, I didn't even bother looking for the phone, but Youngest Son got it and it was Oldest Son calling from Japan.
"Hello Son!" says I.
"Um, I have a non-major, need my mama moment." says Oldest Son.
"What is it?" says I, deeply relieved it is non-major.
"How do you get eyeliner off?" says Oldest Son.
???
It seems he was a pirate for a Halloween celebration and a three day festival in the city where he is studying abroad in Japan, but he fell into bed, somewhat inebriated only to wake up having rubbed eyeliner into his eye. Then his eyes started to burn.
Mama told him what to do (baby oil for the eyeliner, flush eye with contact lens solution) and all was well.
But I have to say that there was nothing quite as delightful, and I mean that word in its entirety...the request filled me with delight, to have my grown son call from Japan because he had a 'non-major, need my mama moment'.
It was wonderful.
The phone rang. Thinking it another of those pesky political calls, I didn't even bother looking for the phone, but Youngest Son got it and it was Oldest Son calling from Japan.
"Hello Son!" says I.
"Um, I have a non-major, need my mama moment." says Oldest Son.
"What is it?" says I, deeply relieved it is non-major.
"How do you get eyeliner off?" says Oldest Son.
???
It seems he was a pirate for a Halloween celebration and a three day festival in the city where he is studying abroad in Japan, but he fell into bed, somewhat inebriated only to wake up having rubbed eyeliner into his eye. Then his eyes started to burn.
Mama told him what to do (baby oil for the eyeliner, flush eye with contact lens solution) and all was well.
But I have to say that there was nothing quite as delightful, and I mean that word in its entirety...the request filled me with delight, to have my grown son call from Japan because he had a 'non-major, need my mama moment'.
It was wonderful.
October 30, 2008
Did you ever consider what the world would be like if you couldn't walk? What if you were confined to a wheelchair, and even then, if you began to be in pain after a couple of hours?
Look at your legs. Actually look at them. Consider the marvel with which God has gifted you. The ability to take yourself from point A to point B without depending upon another person, without crawling, without dragging yourself across the floor, without falling on your face, any semblance of dignity in shreds.
Tomorrow I go to find out if there are some possibilities to enable me to walk more than 20 or 30 steps without losing the ability to stand without horrendous pain, my leg failing and crumpling in a heap. I find myself excited and terrified. Filled with hope and fear. But even after being knocked down quite a few times, I think hope reigns supreme for the moment.
We'll see how it feels this time tomorrow evening.
And when you get up in the morning and stand up on those legs you take for granted, take a moment tomorrow to be grateful, to give thanks. That ability is a blessing not all folks have.
Did you ever consider what the world would be like if you couldn't walk? What if you were confined to a wheelchair, and even then, if you began to be in pain after a couple of hours?
Look at your legs. Actually look at them. Consider the marvel with which God has gifted you. The ability to take yourself from point A to point B without depending upon another person, without crawling, without dragging yourself across the floor, without falling on your face, any semblance of dignity in shreds.
Tomorrow I go to find out if there are some possibilities to enable me to walk more than 20 or 30 steps without losing the ability to stand without horrendous pain, my leg failing and crumpling in a heap. I find myself excited and terrified. Filled with hope and fear. But even after being knocked down quite a few times, I think hope reigns supreme for the moment.
We'll see how it feels this time tomorrow evening.
And when you get up in the morning and stand up on those legs you take for granted, take a moment tomorrow to be grateful, to give thanks. That ability is a blessing not all folks have.
October 28, 2008
This will be fairly short as I am sleepy, but I had this memory of a magical moment I wanted to share with everyone. When we pulled into St. Maarten, we were greeted by hundreds of butterflies! They enveloped the cruise ship and dipped and darted on the breeze.
It was utterly magical, as we don't see butterflies in this number at home. There are butterfly farms on the island, but as Chester, our driver on St. Maarten said, he knew where there were plenty of butterflies for free, and he drove through a field where, sure enough, there were many.
I remember when, as a child, the monarch butterflies would make their annual trek and they would come in hordes, their black and orange wings covering the greenery while they got a bit of nourishment to continue their long trek.
That, too was magical.
This will be fairly short as I am sleepy, but I had this memory of a magical moment I wanted to share with everyone. When we pulled into St. Maarten, we were greeted by hundreds of butterflies! They enveloped the cruise ship and dipped and darted on the breeze.
It was utterly magical, as we don't see butterflies in this number at home. There are butterfly farms on the island, but as Chester, our driver on St. Maarten said, he knew where there were plenty of butterflies for free, and he drove through a field where, sure enough, there were many.
I remember when, as a child, the monarch butterflies would make their annual trek and they would come in hordes, their black and orange wings covering the greenery while they got a bit of nourishment to continue their long trek.
That, too was magical.
October 18, 2008
At the first stop on our Grand Adventure, Tamera and I took a glass bottomed boat ride off the shores of Princess Cays on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas. I had never been on one of these very reasonably priced trips before and found it to be well worth the money. Here are some examples of what we saw on the coral reefs.
There is one of four species of sea turtle in this picture. Can you see it?
It's not where you think it is, I bet, as it has excellent camouflage.
Here we see a sleeping nurse shark. We were fortunate to come across one
as the boat captain said they only occasionally see them sleeping on the
ocean floor.
We saw many brightly colored fish and he talked about the kind of damage
that hurricanes and tropical storms can cause, since Hurricane Ike had just wiped
out Grand Turk which was the last stop on our tour.
In this photo:
The boat captain told us that during one tropical storm, the surge
was so high that the red roofed cabanas were covered to the roof with
sand.
I cannot imagine, but these little islands can be wiped clean by
storms of the size and ferocity of some of these hurricanes.
He said that the water was murky still from three hurricanes in a row,
but it looked pretty darn clear to me.
Of course, we're accustomed to the Kentucky River which is so
full of debris and other unmentionable stuff that I'm not allowed
to drink from a municipal water system where it is the source due to
excess cryptospiridium levels. So you can imagine that this water looked
utterly gorgeous to us.
I laid on a lounger under one of these blue clamshells:
trying to keep my feet out of the sun, I plugged in Josh Groban
on my ipod, let the ocean breezes stir through and around me and
nodded off. It was great.
At the first stop on our Grand Adventure, Tamera and I took a glass bottomed boat ride off the shores of Princess Cays on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas. I had never been on one of these very reasonably priced trips before and found it to be well worth the money. Here are some examples of what we saw on the coral reefs.
There is one of four species of sea turtle in this picture. Can you see it?
It's not where you think it is, I bet, as it has excellent camouflage.
Here we see a sleeping nurse shark. We were fortunate to come across one
as the boat captain said they only occasionally see them sleeping on the
ocean floor.
We saw many brightly colored fish and he talked about the kind of damage
that hurricanes and tropical storms can cause, since Hurricane Ike had just wiped
out Grand Turk which was the last stop on our tour.
In this photo:
The boat captain told us that during one tropical storm, the surge
was so high that the red roofed cabanas were covered to the roof with
sand.
I cannot imagine, but these little islands can be wiped clean by
storms of the size and ferocity of some of these hurricanes.
He said that the water was murky still from three hurricanes in a row,
but it looked pretty darn clear to me.
Of course, we're accustomed to the Kentucky River which is so
full of debris and other unmentionable stuff that I'm not allowed
to drink from a municipal water system where it is the source due to
excess cryptospiridium levels. So you can imagine that this water looked
utterly gorgeous to us.
I laid on a lounger under one of these blue clamshells:
trying to keep my feet out of the sun, I plugged in Josh Groban
on my ipod, let the ocean breezes stir through and around me and
nodded off. It was great.
October 16, 2008
Pictures! Pictures! Alas the cry for photos shall be appeased. First of all, an interesting conundrum...I got off the airplane in Fort Lauderdale to find that both of my feet looked something like the Pillsbury Doughboy's. It was quite horrifying to find my feet ballooning over the tops of my Keds like some yeast dough run amok.
My friend Tamera and I assumed that the excess swelling was from having my feet hanging down in the plane and then the wheelchair, and no doubt this did add to the problem, however after a good night's rest, it should have resolved itself. By morning, my feet still resembled misshapen wop biscuits. For those of you who do not know what a wop biscuit is, that would be the kind that comes in the can from the grocery and you wop it on the counter to get it open.
We continued to hope that the swelling would go down, but alas, it worsened.
I began drinking water with lemon in it, a natural diuretic. A small amount of ground was gained, but one night they began to be of rather great concern to us both. Here's a photo where you can see the swelling had progressed up my calf, my ankles totally obliterated and my feet giving a new dimension to the word "cankles". Look it up if you've never heard of it.
For those of you with snarky minds who might be thinking that this is how my feet normally look, it isn't. I offer my newly deflated right foot as proof since the left one still is a little puffy.
Incidentally, my toe is not normally that shade of blue. I was painting, in oils, and I dropped a palette knife on my foot. If you know anything at all about oil painting, you know that I will maintain a blue foot for quite some time unless I get out the turpentine or some such, which I refuse to do. The odor...it clashes with my perfume.
Anyway, the ship's doctor blamed the pressure changes during the airplane ride for the initial swelling, and activity that included hanging my feet down (sitting at the blackjack table?) for its continuance. I was ordered to bed. Head down, feet up.
So instead, I got off the boat and shopped around St Thomas for a bit, THEN I went to bed, head down, feet up. I had to rebel just a bit, after all, wasn't that the entire intent and purpose of the trip?
Not the photos you were expecting? But isn't that swollen foot and blue toe much more interesting?
I think so.
Pictures! Pictures! Alas the cry for photos shall be appeased. First of all, an interesting conundrum...I got off the airplane in Fort Lauderdale to find that both of my feet looked something like the Pillsbury Doughboy's. It was quite horrifying to find my feet ballooning over the tops of my Keds like some yeast dough run amok.
My friend Tamera and I assumed that the excess swelling was from having my feet hanging down in the plane and then the wheelchair, and no doubt this did add to the problem, however after a good night's rest, it should have resolved itself. By morning, my feet still resembled misshapen wop biscuits. For those of you who do not know what a wop biscuit is, that would be the kind that comes in the can from the grocery and you wop it on the counter to get it open.
We continued to hope that the swelling would go down, but alas, it worsened.
I began drinking water with lemon in it, a natural diuretic. A small amount of ground was gained, but one night they began to be of rather great concern to us both. Here's a photo where you can see the swelling had progressed up my calf, my ankles totally obliterated and my feet giving a new dimension to the word "cankles". Look it up if you've never heard of it.
For those of you with snarky minds who might be thinking that this is how my feet normally look, it isn't. I offer my newly deflated right foot as proof since the left one still is a little puffy.
Incidentally, my toe is not normally that shade of blue. I was painting, in oils, and I dropped a palette knife on my foot. If you know anything at all about oil painting, you know that I will maintain a blue foot for quite some time unless I get out the turpentine or some such, which I refuse to do. The odor...it clashes with my perfume.
Anyway, the ship's doctor blamed the pressure changes during the airplane ride for the initial swelling, and activity that included hanging my feet down (sitting at the blackjack table?) for its continuance. I was ordered to bed. Head down, feet up.
So instead, I got off the boat and shopped around St Thomas for a bit, THEN I went to bed, head down, feet up. I had to rebel just a bit, after all, wasn't that the entire intent and purpose of the trip?
Not the photos you were expecting? But isn't that swollen foot and blue toe much more interesting?
I think so.
October 14, 2008
Here is the Crown Princess, the mode of transportation for the most wonderful adventure I shared with my friend Tamera. I have been on cruises with my parents, my sister and my son. This, however, was my very first trip with a friend.
Just the two of us, on an adventure to explore beautiful places and places inside ourselves.
People have asked me what my favorite part of the cruise was and I answer unequivocally that being with Tamera was the highlight. We are so busy raising seven children between us that we don't get the opportunity to just sit and talk for hours if we want. This trip afforded us that luxury. And talk we did. And laugh.
Some things we'd planned were canceled, but as Tamera said, for every disappointment, we got blessings twofold.
My thoughts on the experience will undoubtedly unfold like the petals of a flower, but for now, the flower is closed, as I am holding the experience close to my heart and savoring it.
Here is the Crown Princess, the mode of transportation for the most wonderful adventure I shared with my friend Tamera. I have been on cruises with my parents, my sister and my son. This, however, was my very first trip with a friend.
Just the two of us, on an adventure to explore beautiful places and places inside ourselves.
People have asked me what my favorite part of the cruise was and I answer unequivocally that being with Tamera was the highlight. We are so busy raising seven children between us that we don't get the opportunity to just sit and talk for hours if we want. This trip afforded us that luxury. And talk we did. And laugh.
Some things we'd planned were canceled, but as Tamera said, for every disappointment, we got blessings twofold.
My thoughts on the experience will undoubtedly unfold like the petals of a flower, but for now, the flower is closed, as I am holding the experience close to my heart and savoring it.