Downs and Ups

The Lord is in control of our life journey including all the ups and downs. -Crystal McDowell

The Queen Mother was making her bed as she does daily, because—of course—the people who make them at the nursing home do not make her bed the right way. She got dizzy and fell down hitting her face on the bed and her bad knee on the floor. This we did not find out for nearly two days. We were told only that she had fallen and she was being taken to the emergency room of the hospital when we were called late on Monday night.

When we called the hospital on Tuesday morning, we could not find out if she had been admitted or even if she was still in the ER because their computers were down. However, I called again later in the morning and even though the computers were still down, I was told she had been admitted and I was bring transferred to the nurses' station. A woman answered, saying her name followed by "ICU." Then I was rather even more concerned!

She offered to have the attending nurse talk to me and that is when we found out that how and why the Queen Mother fell...and that she was going to have raccoon eyes, because of the nose bridge piece of her glasses being pushed into her nose when her face fell onto the bed. However, what landed her in ICU was her atrial fibrillation, fever, edema, and the possibility of pneumonia. The lab work had not been completed to determine the pneumonia, but she did test positive for Type A influenza.

My husband tried to call to talk to her, but she did not want to talk to him. The nurse said it was because she was coughing so much. However, we found out that she was going to be in ICU for some time as she did test positive for pneumonia and they were having difficulty with her heart rate when they placed her on a diuretic to reduce the edema.

So, she again either was unaware or ignoring signs that she had a fever and should have stayed in bed. But, it also confirms to us that she needs to have a full time staff to check in on her as she does not use good judgement in regards to her health and her condition and what she should and should not be doing. In addition, anything that upsets her health-wise tends to slide quickly down to becoming a life-threatening battle between excessive water retention and her heart.

This picture was from Christmas 2005 in a very rare moment when the Queen Mother was being lighthearted in showing off the scarf that we had gotten her. It is my favorite picture of her and the only time I have actually seen her like that.

We have not gone to visit her because there really is nothing we can do and this week my husband was in negotiations that had to be settled before today's mandatory meeting in Chicago. He was offered a promotion, but the pay offer...well, it was rather more like an insult than a raise. Since the company has not given pay raises for the last two to three years, it was more like one would expect as a cost of living raise, hence the reason he was in negotiations.

An agreement was made, but they have not yet really defined the job. However, all three of the men that were given this opportunity laughed at the absurdity that they could what they have been doing 80 percent of the time and the new responsibilities would only take up 20 percent of their time in their regions. My husband has done this before and, to get the company to have a better reputation with American customers, it is going to take far more than 20 percent of his working hours.

However, the really cool thing is that in December, we had made a commitment to fund a missionary's feeding program in Guatemala and this raise will cover that. Now that is the God I know!

My Lord, so much has been on my mind and heart of late. I ask that You stay close to me and draw me close to you. I thank You for my husband's promotion and I ask You to bring peace to my mother-in-law, who worries so much and often makes life more difficult on herself because she has such high expectations on the people who care for her.

One Weird Tuesday in January

Don't learn safety by accident. ~Saying, circa 1949

We have a very nasty flu going around that has caused the deaths of children and elderly. It also mutates faster than most viruses do so no vaccine is really helping and there have been school closures in many parts of the country. My family have been fortunate to not get it..yet, but I was not too surprised that the Princess' piano teacher texted me Monday night to say she had the flu and would not be teaching for most of the week. I did not see it because I was already in bed—not sick, just very tired.

The next day, Tuesday, my husband decided to drive to the account where he was to work, but not with our vehicles, so I had to drop him off to get his rental car. I was just about three miles down the road on my way to the Post Office when he called me to say that he left his computer bag in the van.

I finally made it to the Post Office and to send out payments of my bills. The gas bill was particularly high, but it had been particularly cold. Still, I had called them to be sure that I was not being charged for the gas leak we had at the beginning of the month (after the fireworks fire). I let my Mishka out and smelled gas on the south side of the house, the side with the meter, and realized it was coming from it. The temperatures were in the 20's but within 30 minutes a man from the gas company was replacing my meter, but the next day...there was that smell again. A bad regulator. Now it is fixed, but about two weeks later I smelled gas again on the north side...the firestarter neighbors also had a leak and he smokes outside on that side of the house. Anyway, my leaked gas was before it is metered so I had to pay the entire thing and that was fine because we actually used it.

I also went to the health food stores because we did not go out last week. I had not been feeling so great for quite awhile, but this extra tiredness and weakness—seemingly for no reason, but I think I was fighting off something I did not really get—started that week and I felt a little too weak to try it.

The health food stores are no longer across the street from each other, so after we had finished shopping in the one, we were on our way to the other. The Princess and I had our braces adjusted the day before so we decided what to eat and where. We were sitting at a red traffic light with about eight to ten cars stopped in front of us when we got rear-ended. It was not bad, a bump really, but having worked for a chiropractor, I know that what seems like nothing much right then can feel a whole lot different the next few days.

I called my insurance agent first to ask if we really needed a police report as there did not appear to be any damage to either vehicle, but I was rather shaken up, mostly because I have a sensitive nervous system that gets triggered when things like this happen. They advised to get the report, so the officer arrived and talked to the other driver first and then explained that he would write the report but he was not going to cite the man, who was highly cooperative and admitted what happened. I probably would not have wrote the ticket either. He had a brain-damaged girl in the car with him who suddenly was getting sick and that distracted him. Then I felt so sorry for the man, who was rather nice about everything. The officer could not see any damage to either vehicle, but I knew that bumpers do not always show the internal damage so we shall take it to a shop to have it checked out just to be sure that it will do what it should if it is hit again. I was feeling my upper back on the left tighten up at the scene, but that could have been just me being up-tight about the whole thing. As I write this, it is the next day and I am just a bit sore, like I would be if I had done some gardening, so I am good.

We decided to eat lunch and relax. Then we went on to the other health food store, got the items we needed and some home early to put all our groceries away. The Princess is pet sitting a neighbor's cat and hamster, so she went there to spend about 30 minutes feeding, cleaning, and playing. While I fed our rabbits, the cats, and the dog.

Then I was ready to go to bed early again, but my husband called to say goodnight and mentioned the State of the Union address. I was not going to watch it live and see it in the morning, but...well, I really get sucked into politics and my daughter would have also if she had known, but her mind was on the Super Blue Moon Eclipse that happened this morning...that she slept through. And, yes, I liked Trump's address very much. He is abrasive but he is saying what most the people I know in my part of the country have been saying.

Thank you, my Lord, for protecting us.

A New Year, a New Direction, and a New Meow!

The same Jesus Who turned water into wine can transform your home, your life, your family, and your future. He is still in the miracle-working business, and His business is the business of transformation. -Adrian Rogers

I cannot believe how long it has been since I have posted here, but there are several reasons I have not. As I mentioned before, I started another blog about our rabbitry and I began to keep detailed records of breedings, births, weights, genetics, and so forth. I spent hours making charts, reading, and learning. I had to urge my husband to build at least two more cages, but I really want about four more...or more.

I had bought quite a few rabbits because most of what we had left are old, but I was pleased to see that my old does are still healthy and fertile. Still, we are phasing out one breed and will be focusing on another.

We have not even culled one rabbit since the beginning of this breeding season as we were trying to sell off as many as we could to compensate for the cost of buying young purebreds for breeders and waiting for them to develop. I also am spending more time with my rabbits, handling them, feeding them by hand and, of course, cleaning. (These days, I so much enjoy being outside whether with my buns or plants.) I wish to develop a reputation for not only our purebred rabbits being healthy and good quality, but also for their docile temperaments. My husband is very pleased that I finally am involved with them as much as he wanted me to be from the start—not like I was not busy enough with the Princess and homeschooling.

However, we cannot expand or advertise much because we do not the acreage to comply with our county's requirements, so we are doing things low-key for now as we are also actively looking for land outside of our present county, which is on a mission to drive farmers out by rezoning their properties when placed on the market to be sold. We are looking in neighboring counties to the west or ones farther north that are farmer-friendly.

On Sunday, we walked a lovely 64 acres with a stream that has a low price per acre, but would be too costly for us to buy it and then build what we want. We walked to see how we might sell off up to half in two 10 to 15 acre lots because it has two road fronts on the front and back of the property. The side I like, the higher part of the property, is on the busier front road, but my husband was hoping for the quieter back side that slopes down closer to the road than the other side. The stream is also closer to the back side. The other disadvantage is that it does not have many hardwoods, as the owner is a forester that harvests the pines, some of which could also be sold and provide us with some extra funds, I suppose.

We are looking at land because we are probably going to have to build. There are just very few houses that have old fashion large farm kitchens with space for a full size freezer and a full size refrigerator and space for a grand piano somewhere with nice acoustics that are not like mini mansions, which would be just too much house for us. We just need a customized plan that will fit our lifestyle and plans.

My husband was also thinking of going into business for himself, but I felt the Lord was telling us that we would have another choice that we could make, but no direction of which we should take yet. Just this week, my husband applied for a newly created position within the company he works...the job he was originally hired to do that they never created seven years ago.

I just keep hearing God tell me that He is going to bless me and He has been. 

In the meantime, I need to focus on my daughter and finishing up some of the redecorating I had started in my house. I feel this strong compulsion to not just declutter but to minimize the amount of things we have, as in if we have not used it or do not use it, it needs to go. I am going to be posting lots of homeschool materials, but I plan to keep some things...there may be grandchildren some day that will use it, even though the Princess sounds like me at her age and has no desire for children, she says.

Yet, my husband and I were picking up a doe at a farm and I looked over to see this kitten:

Now, this is EXACTLY the cat I have always wanted for myself and the farmer did not want it, so offered him to us for free. I had promised myself that I would not have another indoor cat, but my husband said that he would not be mine. That was two days before Christmas so my husband and I made him a surprise last minute Christmas gift to the Princess. When we returned home, my husband got the rabbit settled into her quarantine cage while I combed out the cat, and then we were off to the pet store because we no longer had anything for an indoor cat.

I wanted to name him Lynx from the moment I saw him, but the Princess was between Trevor and Link for a couple of days, finally deciding on Link. My husband calls him the Linkster and I keep tripping over not calling him Lynx (or spelling his name Lync at the very least).

Come to find out, after an hour of searching on the Internet, he actually is a Seal Lynx Point Balinese. Not kidding. How is that for being blessed?

The Princess calls him her child, but that is my lap in the picture. He is an equal opportunity kind of cat and will even snuggle with my husband. When you pick him up, he goes completely limp. I have had a lot of cats in my life, but none that did that. So, the rule is the Princess is not allowed to leave home with him....not really, but he is super adorable. I guess these are the kind of sacrifices a mother makes for her cat-loving child.

Thank you, my Lord, for your blessings that have been falling freely upon my family as well as me. Your promises are promises kept.

When Mountains Are Moving

With the right attitude, human beings can move mountains. With the wrong attitude, they can be crushed by the smallest grain of sand.
-Jim Rohn

Saturday Morning
I found a used American made Mason and Hamlin piano on Craigslist and called the number. A elderly man with a low voice answered and he was quick to inform me that he had several pianos for sale and was asking me in depth for what we were looking. I made an appointment for us to see his pianos on Saturday morning, even though my husband's plane delay gave him very little sleep and me even less with my tummy troubles and the Princess still had a pretty bad symptoms from her cold. However, my husband decided he had enough time to go to our favorite farm for raw cow milk thinking that would cure my tummy troubles and yes, it did help so very much!

The man was of Jewish descent and the one thing my husband has learned from working in a Jewish company is that they appreciate value and family and usually bargaining, but this man has lung cancer and his wife is going blind, so he was more interested in selling off the pianos and his little farm/homestead property. When I got the address from him, I knew exactly where he was even though I had never seen the house because it is camouflaged with landscaping from the busy road. Even though it is an hour from our house, I had driven past his house every week during the school year going the back way to taking the Princess from the Homeschool Learning Center to her piano lesson. He has had a "For Sale by Owner" sign on his property ever since I can remember, but then he really was not as motivated to sell it as he is now.

It would be a wonderful property to walk into with an all brick home, large stalled barn, pond and whatever else he had in the back that we could not see all on about five acres, except that the road is very busy and noisy and close to the house, even though unseen even in winter, and it is too far out of range for what we can afford in a county with high property taxes, but would if I could, I think.

Anyway, he asked the Princess to play on 100 year old Steinway concert piano in the barn, which has a cement floor and did not have any animals in it, although he has some in the back. She played and he watched. Then he said that he knew just the piano for her.... I apologize for the teaser, but I will tell the rest of this story later this week, because it deserves an entire post of its own.

Sunday
Finally, both the Princess and I were feeling a bit better so we went to church. We found out that associate pastor, whose real passion is the school, is planning to break off from our church. Nothing bad, I think it just that both cannot grow in the space we have. Also our fairly new Praise and Worship Pastor got a very good job offer in his home city of Chicago, so they are moving back there. All that was a surprise as we were not there for the church meeting when all this was discussed.

We got home and rested, all of us trying to recuperate from different things. My husband, having napped, was about to go out to mow the lawn and that is when the Queen Mother called and she was not in a good mood at all.

Neighbors have been calling the Queen Mother and informing her of many things that we did not feel she needed to know. One was the estate sale. We did not exactly tell her we had an "estate sale," because we knew that how upset it would make her if people were in the house without us being there, but we had told her that we had experts pricing the items so that she would feel that we were not giving things away.

She said that she had wanted furniture that her husband had made, to put where I do not know. Now that would have been two large glass cases for her collectibles they called end tables, a huge TV stand made for a corner with shelves for her collectibles, a large glass encased coffee table for her collectibles, a huge corner curio cabinet for some of her dolls and another corner curio cabinet for all her Hummel figurines and that is just what was in the living room. Need I say more?

Then she wanted to know what this and that sold for because she was sure that they were worth something. My husband reminded her that she had told him that she did not want to know. "Well, I do NOW!" He told her honestly that we simply did not know what the items sold for because they were not cataloged individually. She persisted to corner him, so he told her that everything was around $10,000 to us and that the car was $5,500, but he did not tell her that the first figure he quoted also included the car. He probably missed the opportunity to never have her talk to us again, but he was thinking of her well being.

So, we have a buyer who is very eager to move in, as I mentioned in a previous post. After having the termite treatment and damage repaired, we allowed the keys to go to her. The Queen Mother now knows this because the neighbors have told her that the buyer is in and out and having all kinds of work done to the house, like cleaning the carpets and the air conditioner replaced and such. The closing is on Thursday this week and we felt this woman was not only a serious buyer but that she is motivated by terrible situation requiring her to move as court ordered in her divorce. She is not moved in and promised she would not until the closing, but she is having work done that she understands will be forfeit if the closing does not go through.

The Queen Mother then wanted to know what the house was selling for. My husband told her and she said she felt it was $15,000 too low. He explained that we had two realtors and the bank appraiser all put it around that price, but to get the price she thought we should, we would have had to replace the air conditioner; replace all the windows; replace the (horribly) outdated stove and refrigerator; paint all the interior; pressure wash all the outside and the driveway; and spruce up the landscaping. Then when it was done, we would most likely would have had to pay a realtor fees to sell it. So maybe we could have sold it for more money like she wanted, but it would have been the same or less to us. Not to mention that we would be having to go back and forth to check on the work, let people in the house to do the work, and possibly do some of the work ourselves. It would be another couple of months at least and there would not be enough profit difference to make it worth doing that way...especially when God provided a buyer who did all the footwork to get closing as soon as possible.

The Queen Mother was still not happy when the conversation ended...and my husband left last night to fly back to where he was last week, without mowing the lawn, of course.

Monday (Today)
The Princess still has a cough, but I think I am better. I still am eating light, but not having problems after eating like I was.

We watched the solar eclipse this afternoon with our solar glasses. It peaked in our area at 2:30 p.m. It was not total in our area, so there was a small sliver left that the moon did not cover, but it was still quite impressive, especially since it was a clear day, only slightly cloudy. It is strange to have it seem like twilight yet have the sun so high in the sky, not softening close to the horizon with pink clouds.

However, what interested me were the pockets of light that is filtered through the leaves of the trees that had the same shape, So cool! The first one is when the sun was about half covered and the other two was when we reached our peak for our area which are just slivers.

And I have to say here that while people talk about people acting like lunatics during full moons, they have not met Sharii during a solar eclipse. Yes, he looks all sweet and just lounging around in these pictures BUT he attacked the plants and even me several times and I have the claw marks in my leg to prove it. He tore up into the peach tree then ran up the trunk of the front oak like a crazed maniac. That cat seriously should be caged during solar eclipses! No wonder Midnight finds other places to be far away from him, because she is usually his target.

My Lord, I know that I have been guilty of not talking to You before placing my expectations on other people, but I just ask that You draw my mother-in-law in closely to You so that she has peace and begins to hear Your Words in her heart. Thank you for our healing and the many blessings we are seeing right now. About Sharii...well, my Lord, help him to use that energy to keep away pests instead of attacking the ones who love him.

Sleepless in Georgia

God gave us sleep to remind us we are not Him. -Charles Spurgeon

This is what my after-hours life looks like sometimes. My husband was working in another state all week and planned to fly home for the weekend, so he booked a flight on Friday evening. He would have been home around 10:00 p.m., which is rather later than usual, but that was delayed to around 12:30 a.m. and then again to around 3:00 a.m. So, I heard him come in and lie down and begin his rhythmic soft snore on time just five minutes later. I envy how that man can fall asleep deeply in just five minutes, something he trained himself to do before we met.

I probably would have fallen back to sleep, but ever since I took the antibiotics after the oral surgery, which I finished nearly two weeks ago, I have had some tummy trouble even though I have been having yogurt twice a day at the very least to replenish my probiotics. So, here I am at my computer after making five trips to the bathroom between 3:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. and giving up on going back to bed to actually sleep. However, in fairness, I have had this habit, ever since my pregnancy with the Princess to wake at around 3:00 a.m. and go the bathroom and/or drink some water and then usually go back to sleep...unless I am disturbed by something. That something could be an exciting thought, a worry, my Lord speaking to me, back pain, or just being too warm or too cold. So, I may slip easily back to sleep for weeks or now and then I may be up from that time I woke up, or I may have a problem with sleeping after 3:00 a.m. for several days in a row, like when I was pregnant.

Also, I just do not sleep the same when my husband is away as when he is home. In my subconscious, I know that I am the only adult here to handle whatever comes up. I usually cannot fall asleep until later than I like and I often am up earlier than I should be. When he is home on the weekends, I fall into my better schedule of going to bed when I like to the most and getting up early. When he is gone a lot and especially if he is gone for a weekend as well, I tend to get run down. And on rare occasions when he is gone for weeks, I have a hard time adjusting to him being here again and his snoring. I have used an app that of a cat purring for an hour or two to help me not miss him so much and to help me keep sleeping well when he came back.

I will say that once I am asleep, I really hate being wakened for any reason. I am usually a deep sleeper, probably because I sleep less hours than what is considered normally needed for most people. I find I had to really concentrate on fighting off a foul mood the rare times my poor child would wake me in the middle of the night because she was sick. However, I blame most of that on an abused childhood, where being wakened in the night never came to any good for me.

This week the Princess came down with a cold that has made her sleeping times do all kinds of flip flops. I heard her coughing and sneezing until 1:30 a.m. one night and then I was able to fall asleep too, without waking until 5:00 a.m. and then again around 7:00. After the second night of sleeping only a few hours because she was up most of it, I found her snoozing so peacefully in the evening and knew that she would not sleep the third night much better, of course, neither would I nor did I.

I used to really hate sleeping in until after daylight and I still am not that fond of it. I like having quiet dark mornings to think things over with the clarity of a rested brain that make the problems, whatever problems that seemed so big when I was too tired the night before to work out, have a truer perspective. Early mornings are just naturally the time I like to spend listening to my Lord, because I usually fall asleep praying at night. As daylight approaches, I want to be in motion getting things done for the day.

My husband likes to stay up late and wake after the sun is up, when he can. I used to stay up with him to fall asleep on the couch watching whatever on TV, but I really do not do waking up just to go to bed well because I usually am awake for an hour listening to my snoring husband, who like clockwork was out in five.

Although the Princess rarely has the insomnia with which she previously struggled for a couple of years, we still have kept the "no screens after 9:00 p.m." policy even during homeschool breaks that allow her to make exceptions once or twice a week, usually on a weekend. Her bedtime is 10:00 p.m. although she views that as just a guideline most of the time and might stretch it to 10:30. As long as she is able to sleep and is rested in the morning, we all are happy. When she had insomnia, our schedules were constantly at the mercy of it and her brain just could not engage with homeschooling well. She has since quoted to me (several times) how many hours of sleep a teenager needs and why. So, now she sleeps long hours and gets started in the morning a bit later than I would like, but we have discussed and agreed on a schedule for homeschooling that I am hoping she will try to stick with. The girl is constantly swinging back and forth between extremes, which wears me out enough that one would think I would sleep solid at least five to six hours, but then there is still that 3:00 thing that I got stuck with during and after my pregnancy so long ago now.

My Lord, thank you for restful and uninterrupted sleep and all the more of it!

Small Moves

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time." –Abraham Lincoln

Since we began taking over handling everything for the Queen Mother, my husband keeps saying that we are making "small moves," because if we look at all that must be done, it is just too overwhelming. So, we just keep making small moves that will eventually work down the overwhelming, but as I see it, it will never really be done. Some things will be in the short term, like the estate sale and the selling of the house, but that only changes other aspects that are long term. It is always the long term that wears me down.

We all three finally sat down and thought out room-by-room of our own house what we are keeping and what we are taking to Florida to add to the estate sale. To make most of the those decisions, we first had to decide on one in particular: What to do with one room in the house that really is not used, the guest room!

It has been my idea to move the Princess' daybed and trundle into the guest room, after it have been redone in a compromise of her taste and my rules, which include not painting the walls black, but I approve of black accents. That way she would still have the nightstand that she herself bought and her lamp. This would give her the most floor space so that she could use the trundle when one of her girl friends stay over and still be able to walk around the room, because they have to walk on the trundle to get to the door in her present bedroom. However, that would mean that we sell or store the guest room furniture.

My husband's idea was that she just use the guest room furniture and leave it as it is decorated already (although I still need to paint the window and match the faux paint pattern round the window—actually I need to paint all the trim as it is way too white for the decor and so there is that coming up). Right now, my guest room has a light peachy pink faux paint pattern with a wall paper border up by the ceiling. I also have two framed cross stitch artworks that I did some years ago of angels. So, it has a roses and angels kind of theme with a country flavored honey oak four poster bed and matching nightstand and mirrored dresser. (We have a matching wardrobe that will not fit in the room that we used in the nursery because it matched the crib and still have in the Princess' room today, but it may be going downstairs.) When I decorated the room, I wanted it to have a bed and breakfast feel even though the room was too small to really pull that off.

So, our conundrum is that that we now have the Queen Mother's furniture to consider and that means we have an additional queen and full size sleep number mattresses that we would like to keep as they are so expensive and so comfortable—we have a queen one for some years ourselves and we bought the full size to be in the Queen Mother's guest room because the extra firm mattress would have us in terrible pain by the third night. We have thought and talked about several scenarios, because we really do not want to sell our guest room furniture but we don't want to try to store it either.

The guest room is definitely not to the Princess' taste but she did say that it all looks nicely put together, so maybe she can stand it for "just two years," as she puts it, because she has some grand idea that she will not be here soon after she turns 18, but Mama is thinking a bit differently since I am hoping we move. (I am thinking that she is coming back to "being a girl," like when she used to dress for dinner, even though she would not admit it to us yet.) So, we decided that she will get the full size mattress to the replace the double sized pillow top queen mattress presently in there—I mention that it is a double sided pillow top because it is rather high. The full mattress will only give her a few more inches of walk-around-the-bed space, but she is only going to be using it for her bedroom because...

The bedroom she now has is going to be her...um, well I have come to call it her "hide out," because "study" sounds too stuffy for her. I did toy with "phrontistery"—actually I am still toying with that one. We will repaint it. I am thinking it might be messy although I have to say she is rather neat, but when she is doing a project at her desk....she becomes something else. It will have the digital piano that is currently taking up space in my dining room and her desk that is downstairs. She will rearrange her bookshelves so she has a place for all the homeschool books we will are actively using, which are also taking up space in my dining room and downstairs. This room she can use to hang out with her friends also.

It is not ideal, but given the floor plan we have, it is better than it has been. Her bedroom can still be used for guests, but since we have not had any for about ten years...well, what is the point of leaving an empty room for nobody coming?

Since we all compromised on those two rooms, the rest is a matter of moving many things from one place to the other between here and Florida and from one space to another within our home.

My husband decided the open trailer he bought a few years ago mostly to haul his ATV is not what we really need now. He had been toying with the idea to build a large shed, but his time and energy have been a commodities in shorter supply between work and the extra things with the Queen Mother, trips to Florida, and her stuff. He then came up with another small move towards the next big one: to get an enclosed trailer that we could use like a shed for storage of many items in our garage, after we move furniture items between Florida and here, of course. It is not ideal for me because I just see it as a space hog in our driveway, but we are seriously planning to move within the next one to three years, so having something we can use to move our furniture is a plus and, if we will not be needing it later, trailers resell well here—we sold ours for a good price in just two days. In fact, the one we just sold went for more than 2x what we paid for it in two days, although we did fix it up with wood sides. Because we have to move furniture in about two weeks, he ordered one instead of looking for a used one. We just do not have the time and it will cost about the same as a shed...not if he built the shed himself but....time.

It always comes down to time and money. If one is short in time, he usually has to spend more money. One who has time and is short on money, usually spends more time. Time is a what we are shortest on these days. It just is what it is right now.

If you found yourself wondering what we are going to do with the extra queen-size sleep number bed, may I introduce my husband's bigger of the small moves and another one of his justifications for buying the big pickup truck, which was not a very small move, in my opinion. He wants to get a camper and it makes some sense with how our lifestyle will be. The Queen Mother will have to remain in Florida for at least five years due to financial reasons, so we will need to continually go down to Florida to check in on her at least once or twice every two months, we are thinking. Yes, my husband has some sky miles and hotel points, but few hotels take big dogs and those things do get used up and there are plenty of camping areas in Florida. Plus, the man seriously wants to hunt and having a camper gives him a better opportunity and more choices. Then there is me...I used to love to travel and camp in tents, but I am the one in this family who has traveled the least in the last twenty years and I am not so fond of tents in rainy weather nor sleeping uncomfortably when I camp, so sleeping on a sleep number bed in our own camper that we can pull along, maybe even have electricity when we like, is far more appealing to me than when I was younger and called such people "city campers." Anyway, we will store the mattress until we get the camper, which will be another exercise in compromise, I would think.

Lots of things are changing and at times, like today, it all just overwhelms me. At times I feel like I am trying to walk on shifting sands, but just when I feel like maybe I cannot do all this, I remember hearing God say He is going to bless me and I realize that it will work for the good.

My Lord, help us to make good decisions with our time and money, particularly now that we are all so stressed out.

Detaching Attachments

He who cannot rest, cannot work;
he who cannot let go, cannot hold on;
he who cannot find footing, cannot go forward.
-Harry Emerson Fosdick

This is the summer of detaching attachments. These days I am blogging not just because I like it, but because it helps me keep things in perspective and reminds me of the order in which things have happened and have to happen, because my previously sleepy, small life has increased in velocity and has been spread thin out in so many directions that I barely recognize it.

My Grocery Stores
When I first came to live here in this part of Georgia there were few choices for organic foods and they were a distance away but practically across the street from each other. One was called Harry's Farmers Market, a small, chain and the other was a small crowded co-op that did not even have an automatic door. The co-op was doing very well; it doubled in size within a few years and added an automatic door (you never appreciate those as much as when you are trying to open a small door with a cart going in and out). A few years later Whole Foods bought out Harry's, a small chain, although kind of kept the original name at this store.

Harry's was always quite busy even after it became Whole Foods, but for the past few years the parking lot has only been half as full as it used to be even on the weekends. I could easily see the slow change because I had the same piano lesson day and time for ten years in a row, so I shopped there about the same time every week. Since then we have bounced around on days because of the Home Learning Center schedule but it is still quite obvious that Harry's must be losing money. Whole Foods has been trying to move and it finally found a location about six miles northwest on the outer rim of a busy retail area and near a mall. There were construction problems that delayed the move for two years, but now it is official that the store will be there in the fall of this year. It is not terribly out of the way for us, but it will add driving time with lots of traffic lights.

The co-op is the greater concern. It also has been losing money every month for over two years, at least. I know this because I have been a board member for about a year and a half. Whole Foods moving could make things better but more likely things will be worse. Many people shop both places because although Whole Foods has more selection, it does not carry certain items that the co-op does and likewise the co-op does not carry much in meat or dairy. I cannot see the co-op still being in business two years from now if people drawn in by the new unique businesses now revitalizing the area do not begin shopping at the co-op. The only other thing that I believe would save it, would be to move it, before that is not even an financially possible, but to where is now another issue.

The organic market here has changed so much. We have a new chain called Sprouts that has aggressively been planting stores all over the Atlanta area and now there is one on the way into my favorite stores from our house. The problem I have with Sprouts is that they really have few organics, but lots of that shopping experience that appeals to the Millennials with a coffee shop and lots of bulk bins. I just was not that impressed personally, but every time I go past it, the parking lot is pretty full.

People rave about Trader Joe's, which has that Harry's flavor. There is one about six miles to the east of the co-op but none near our route, as they like to be in the high traffic areas surrounded by high-price real estate. I think that their prices are a bit high, or used to be at least, as I have not been in one for more than ten years. They are not as committed to organics as I would like either.

Since Kroger's is carrying more organics and cheaper, our local one is as well, but organics still do not sell well near my home, that may be in part because many people grow their own foods around here. Often I get items that have been marked down to half because they are within three days of their sell-by dates. I had not been going there because they stopped carrying the butter I liked, which is the main reason I would go. But we ran out of apples so I stopped in and looked everything over as they have expanded their natural market area and ended up buying a few more things, like huge container of organic mushrooms that had been marked down. I used some raw in my salads for a couple of days and sauteed the rest!


The Queen Mother
As you know by now, since I have written about it enough, we are working at getting things settled in Florida with the Queen Mother, who has been less that cooperative on many levels. I am not completely insensitive to how things have changed in her life and her feelings about it; in fact, I have tried not to let it in too much how I would feel if I had fallen, went to the hospital with a life threatening infection, then to a rehab for the 100 days allowed on Medicare, ended up in nursing home, and then realizing that I would not ever again see my home that I lived in for 50 years. If I let all those empathic thoughts in too much, I could barely do what needs to be done with her estate.

I try not to feel the sadness, because all those things, the collectibles, to which she is attached had actually paralyzed her. She said she had thought about going into an assisted living place earlier but what would she have done with all the collectibles? I told her that was going to fall on Alan and me no matter what. All her attachments she bought over the years, they cannot and never really could offer her any comfort or love nor could her house and the people who could, she did not really invest in. I was talking to her next door neighbor about how the Queen Mother would talk, on the phone mostly, to a former neighbor right across the street and then talk about her after hanging up, complaining and often said they were not friends, but the next door neighbor said the Queen Mother told her they were best friends—easy to say now that she has moved away to live with her daughter, I suppose.

I honestly could spend days in tears for the Queen Mother, because she is so lonely and never really got that things are just...things. And yet, when we have tried to get her to talk about what she would like to keep or have with her in the nursing home, she only can think of what she cannot have and will not discuss it. Like when my husband asked about which of the beds she would prefer, she said her own, which is a queen and too large. She also has a full size and a twin or single that would fit better not only in her present room but for her assisted living space, when she is able to be moved. She insisted on the queen and her reason was because she had new sheets for that bed...really! But, decisions of practicality must be made and if she will not participate in making them, then it falls to us...and that is the hard part: we want her to be happy, but the reality is that there is no pleasing her, so no matter what we do or how we do it, she will be upset and blame us.

This is my reality in regards to the Queen Mother. For years, I tried to prepare myself knowing it could be and most probably would be this way, but it is hard for me to accept just the same. She is not willingly going to give up many of her attachments.


My Husband's Daughter
This is an attachment that detached long ago, but your child is always your child. Although I probably have not mentioned it here before, my husband had a daughter from his first marriage. There was a lot of things that happened in the first three years of our marriage I wish had not or that I could forget, including harassment, moving and hiding the child, false police reports, false accusations, the mother losing custody for a year to us, several court hearings each year finding the mother in contempt of court for not allowing visitation, and more. The more the mother refused to let my husband see his daughter, the more he was consumed with trying to see her.

Without going into more details, we finally were given a new judge, who looked at the case that stretched over ten years and stated that he did not even know where to start (I think mostly because the last judge did not follow through with contempt charges against the mother and he could not understand why the other judge had given my husband custody and then taken it away for no reason, especially after we all were assessed and the conclusion was that my husband would be the better parent for her), but by then the judge felt the girl was old enough to be asked if she wanted to see her father and she had been well coached to say "no." We were hopeful that the new judge would enforce contempt of court if the mother refused visitation, but instead, the judge said that he would not take visitation away, but he also would not enforce it. Once the mother knew visitation would solely be on her approval without fear of contempt of court, we did not see that little girl anymore.

After she graduated high school, (just a month after my daughter was born), she contacted my husband. The conversations were courteous and but nothing was discussed about the past, however the damage to their relationship, we assume by design from her mother, seemed to be beyond repair. A few months later she was pregnant and her boyfriend left her. We offered to have her live with us, help her through college, and such, but "no." We offered to come when her first child was born, but she said she was afraid that would upset her mother, who did not know yet that she had contacted us. My husband had the opportunity to just meet her for lunch once when he was working in the state she lives after her first child was born, but she said no to that. There were other opportunities but she always said no. She got back with the father and has had three more children since. In fact, we only got a few phone calls that first year and a few email messages over the years since and Christmas cards with pictures. She has turned down every opportunity to meet with him in person, except once after her second child was born and only in a public restaurant after his parents requested it and they would be there as well. It was as if she wanted him only to be a father-on-paper and not really be involved with him.

However, when the Queen Mother was injured and in rehab, this same woman offered to live in the Queen Mother's house as a "caretaker" with her "little family." When we stated by email we were selling the house, she still persisted and tried to make us feel guilty about the memories that would be lost. You see, she has been trying to move back to Florida for years because her other grandmother lives there. Once she pulled her kids out of school and put them in school in Florida while helping her grandmother after she fell and broke her hip. But, no matter how much she tried to find a job in Florida, it just never worked out. And even though she was close by for those months, she only visited the Queen Mother once. So I was a bit confused about how she just could not understand that her father would possibly refuse her offer of living in the house as a caretaker (and rent free) as a favor to his mother.

Finally, to help her understand, I wrote that what she was requesting required quite a bit of trust and we had not had the opportunity to build that kind of relationship with her. To drive the point further, I asked her if would she be willing to allow any one of her children spend the afternoon alone with us (which I knew she would not since she will not even see her father in person herself)...and explained that kind of mutual trust takes time and effort to build and we really did not have the time when it came to the house and its expenses, that it was to be sold as soon as we could manage it. She went silent for many of the following weeks.

This week, however, my husband received an email with two lines. One said that her uncle told his daughter, her cousin, that the Queen Mother was back home and asking if that was true. (We think he made this assumption because we sent an blanket email to all her email pals that she could be contacted by phone now, but all we did was transfer her home phone number to her new cell phone.) The other was that she was going on a road trip coming this way (meaning she is again seeing her other grandmother) and wondered if we could meet.

I had to think long on this because she lived with us for a time and I loved her, but as an adult she has had so many opportunities to have a closer relationship with her father and everything she did points to she did not want it to be anything more than emails now and then. (Now you may understand why the Queen Mother did not want the contact info of at least one of her three grown grandchildren on her new phone...and the other two have their issues also.) So, my thoughts sadly go to why now?—which matters little, really. The truth is I do not wish to go there or have my daughter dragged into it. I purposely put off having a child until she was nearly an adult so that any child we had would not be affected by all that we had gone through. I also spent years of my life chasing down my family, trying to stay in contact with them, and yet I may get a call from one of my three siblings on the average of once in five years and rarely a Christmas card. Both my sisters were married in the same year and I did not even get an announcement, let alone an invitation; I found out on Facebook a couple of years afterward. So, I am used to dysfunction in my own family and after years of trying I realized that it takes both parties to want to make a relationship better, that I cannot make it work all on my own...I do not make the effort to chase after them anymore. I used to feel guilty about things like that like I could have done more, tried harder, something, but those chains are broken and now I have no regrets, because I know I really tried and they did not. Although I do leave doors open and my arms ready to hug them, I no longer push, pull, or even coax for them to step through it and accept my love.

Likewise, I tried mending things between my husband and his daughter for years also, but I am just...well, I am done with it. I have been concerned that the Princess is naturally curious about her half-sister, but they are 18 years apart—her oldest is just one year younger than the Princess—and the father that she thinks she knows or remembers has been tainted with lies told all her life, while the Princess sees her father as he really is. I think it would only cause problems as the two visions of the same man can not be reconciled unless the older one is willing to recognize she has been thinking of him all wrong. I told my husband that I will support his decision if he wants to see her, but I do not want to be involved until their relationship is in a better state and he had already come to the same conclusion. The sad part is he thinks she only wants to meet to see what she can get from her grandmother's estate, but he is willing to meet with for a meal out with her alone to give her the benefit of the doubt.


Summer Camp
The Princess had saved up all the money she would need for summer camp, but we had told her that we would pay half. She handed her money in early to get the lowest fee, but Wednesday night she found out that only three teens had paid so the church was cancelling it and would be giving the money back. I was torn between feeling relief that one thing was taken off my crazy summer schedule, but sad because this would be the last year the Princess can go unless she goes as a leader. However, she also has friends from another church that planned to go that same week so she may be able to go with their group...although their youth pastor recently quit so we are not sure about that either.


Youth Pastor
Speaking of youth pastors, I was also given the news that ours is stepping down. I so wish I had been wrong, but I knew that it would be coming when she announced her engagement and I expected it shortly after the wedding. One of the reasons we were not in a hurry to move was because of the youth pastor and the relationship she had with the Princess. I knew that her priorities would shift and knowing her, I knew that it would not be a gentle change. However, the Princess is not the emotionally needy child she was a year ago so she is taking the news better than I am, I think. This also means we lose our housesitter and we really need one this summer.


Youth Band
The Princess stepped down from the youth band this week, at least temporarily but likely for the entire summer as last summer they stopped practices all together. We think it is a good idea as she has another gig that I will post about a little later. Actually, my husband was ready to have her quit when he stayed to watch the last practice she attended. The Praise and Worship Pastor was helping, but he only was there for about 20 minutes then he left to prepare for the Wednesday night service. After he left, practice fell apart and all the kids were messing around on their cell phones for 40 minutes. The Princess says that usually does not happen, but they are still practicing the same three songs they have been since before Christmas. One singer acts like a prima donna, stopping in the middle and constantly wanting to change keys back and forth to find the one that makes her sound the best. They have no date for performing the songs. It is just not productive and certainly not what the Princess is used to doing. We always have a performance date that she is working towards. I thought playing with a band would be a good experience but for the most part it, there is no real commitment to making the band work. My husband is even considering changing churches again so that she has a better opportunity with music through the church.


My Aunt
I have been warned by my cousin that my aunt's mind and health are failing fast and if I want to spend some time with her, I should come this summer. This reminds me of the time that my mother's health was failing, while I was taking care of my husband's father after the Queen Mother had her first bout with septicemia and was in rehab for many weeks recovering. Here I am caught up in working on affairs for the Queen Mother's and trying to find time to squeeze in a visit with my aunt, in between the times when her own family will be coming.


In Closing
There are more things going on than I have time to write. As I wrote, the velocity of my life definitely has sped up. Yet, I personally have let go of so many things to which I was chained, but I am living on varying degrees of stress and exhaustion on a daily basis right now. That fast I did, I gained about half the weight right back. Eventually, I will lose it again, when I am up for the effort.

My Lord, life changes are often unwelcome even when expected, but some can prove to be refreshing. I thank you for revealing to me what attachments are worthy and good in my life and of what ones I can and should let go without regret or guilt. 

Out of Necessity, Some New Things Done

Everything comes to pass, nothing comes to stay. -Matthew Flickstein

In the past week, I realized that I have done some things I have never done before.

Although we had just been at the Queen Mother's house just three weekends ago, my husband revealed that he was hoping to place the house on the market in July. I called an estate sales broker and made arrangements to meet with her on the last weekend in May, which was meant that one of us had to be at the Queen Mother's house and that "one" was going to be me.

We packed up Dragon Heart with everything we were adding to the sale from our home and then...

I drove to Florida alone, completely and utterly alone. (Well, okay, my Lord was with me and we had a nice conversation). Last Thursday I left my husband, who promised to work in close to home, and my daughter at home to care for themselves and our pets and my gardens, while I drove the eight to nine hour drive to the Queen Mother's house in Florida. My husband actually worked a few hours away, which meant our daughter was home alone during the day Thursday and Friday while neither one of us could get home within 20 minutes, if needed. (Sometimes I have to remind myself that she is sixteen and at sixteen I could run a household if needed.)

My husband usually does the driving when we are together, so for thirty years I really have not driven even a portion of a trip like this (except for when we took two vehicles the last time we went)...and I really enjoyed the drive. The traffic was much lighter than I expected for being the Memorial Day weekend. The worst time for me to drive, even a short time, is in the afternoon when I can tend to get sleepy, if I am not highly engaged in something, and I would be on the most boring straight and flat highway for about two hours at that time of day. I have found, though, that a few sips of a 5-hour energy drink has just enough caffeine and B vitamins to get me through that afternoon drag when I am driving.

I arrived in the evening on Thursday and was not at all tired, so I not only unpacked the van but I began moving furniture, grouping items, and unpacking our things. (The Queen Mother has about 70 pieces of Capodimonte alone!) I had called my husband to let him know I arrived, and then my phone needed charging...but when I plugged it in to be charged, I discovered it would not charge. I called my husband at the time we usually talk when we are apart to say good-night and told him I had 6% left on my phone so whatever he needed to say, to say it fast. We had already turned off the phone, TV, and Internet service at the house three weeks previously, so I felt like I was cut off from the world and it was at that moment I realized...

I had never been alone at night in that house before—and I. did. NOT. like. it!

I finally made myself stop working and went to bed at 3:00 a.m. The next morning I thought I would sleep in but, no, I was wide awake at 7:00 a.m. with that not-enough-sleep hang-over feeling that makes one want to wear sunglasses when they should not be needed. I had yogurt and vitamins for breakfast and started looking at the drawers in the Queen Mother's room that we did not yet go through. I was just trying to fill my time until Best Buy should be open to find out if I needed a new phone, battery, or wire for charging. (Yes, I added that emphasis for a reason.)

Since I could not check the store times on my phone, I left the house at 9:00 a.m. and went down the road a little over a mile to the mall area with Best Buy across the street, but the parking lot was empty. I looked at the sign on the door and they would not open for another hour...in fact, nothing around there opens until 10:00. At home, some of our stores open at 7:00 and 8:00, but most are at 9:00, however Best Buy is 10:00 here also. Still, it seems Florida has its own alternate dimensional time zone, everything is slowed down and opens later in the morning but closes not late at night, perfect for the retirement crowd, I suppose.

So, I drove back to the house and then returned an hour later. Thinking that if I had to get another phone, I might not be able to pull off the information from the internal storage and that would mean that I do not even know my husband's phone number to call him, but I did know my daughter's as it used to be his work one, then it was mine when I had a flip-phone, and I passed it on to her. Still, it was going to be a huge hassle to set up a new phone that would take more time than I had to spare on this trip.

After waiting for about twenty minutes in line, I was beckoned up to the Geek Squad counter, probably looking like a woman on the edge with sunken, black, baggy eyes from lack of sleep and slumped shoulders of defeat, as I begged the young man in desperation: "I need you to save my cyber life!" After disappearing with my phone into the back room for a few minutes he returns and gives me the verdict. Later I called my husband to say that I had bad news and good news. The bad is that new phones are very expensive and the good is that I only needed to replace the wire, which was the cheapest of the three possibilities and the most convenient for me!

Once my phone was charging and functioning, I noticed I had a voice mail from the estate sales broker, who said that she was waiting for me to call to set the appointment for that day. As I remember it, I was to call her on Friday (that day) and she would come on Saturday, but I was flexible so she came that day. As she looked around, she said that she had a sale that fell through for next weekend so she could have her ladies start preparing ours next week as we had so many little items, but the sale was scheduled for the first weekend in July...well, it was for a few hours until my husband talked to her and backed it up another week.

My husband asked me to try to come home on Sunday, but with Friday being what it was and I being as tired as I was, I did not think I could unpack everything while kind of categorizing the items to make it easy on the ladies and so I could see everything and find the boxes that the Queen Mother kept from most of the collectibles; pack up all that was left that I needed to take; label the large items, mostly furniture, that we did not want to sell and my husband would be picking up in a month, a week before the sale; and move most of the personal items the Queen Mother might like or need when or if she goes into assisted living into her closet with a label on the door that nothing was to be sold from there; and pack up Dragon Heart all on Saturday...and be able make the drive the next day safely and alert.

I finished everything but packing up the minivan at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday and did the last of it when it was cooler in the evening. Although I went to bed at 11:00 p.m., I usually wake up at around 3:00 a.m. every night and easily go back to sleep, but at 3:20 I decided to just get up and go. I almost left the house exactly at 4:00 a.m., but I could not find my bluetooth, which was turned off so my locator app would not work. My Lord is so good to me...I honestly could have looked for an hour and never have thought to look where it was, but I placed my phone down on the bed I used and I felt something hard next to my fingers under the cover.

Then I was in the van and started to pull away, when I remembered the broker telling me to be sure not to lock the dead bolt on the side garage door as I had only given her the key for the knob and I had the dead bolt key made and left it inside for them as they would be there the next day. So, I stopped and unlocked the dead bolt. Thank you so much for that reminder, my Lord.

Then I was thinking that this could be the last time I ever stay at this house. In a month, my husband will take the few pieces of furniture we wanted and the next week everything will be sold. Then it is just clean the house and put it on the market, although we already have two couples are interested that are looking to move near their families, so we may not need a realtor. Property values have increased $10,000 since the first of the year, a realtor told us, so we are thinking about it all.

As I began my drive, I thought about surprising my family by not letting them know when I left. My husband asked me to call him when I stop for gas and I promised I would. I did that on the way down, so I thought that when I got over the Georgia state line (half way) with cheaper gas prices, I would stop for gas, maybe breakfast, and call him but not tell him that I am stopping for gas. So...I did. I told him I had grabbed breakfast and was on the way, so he was expecting me for dinner.

The really funny thing—and quite possibly proof that we have been married for a very long time—is that he was calling me as I was stepping up onto the front porch. He thought I should be stopping for gas and he wanted to talk to me about ordering pizza for dinner, however he also said that he thought that I would leave early like I did. We unpacked the van and then we joined our daughter, watching Daredevil on Netflix and had pizza for dinner.

Then my husband left to catch his flight for work the next day, but he was bumped twice so he decided to drive to North Carolina and catch up with his luggage which flew there without him. I decided not to try to do errands today and enjoy the summer rains after being in the seriously dry, drought in Florida. Perhaps because it is a dark rainy day, the Princess is still in bed after 10:00 a.m., but she knew I was going to be have a day of rest.

I love being home.

Thank you, my Lord, for being with me when I was so far away from my family, helping me with all the decisions I had to make and work I had to do, and just for loving me. Thank you, also, for reminding me that things are things and of little lasting value especially in comparison to the gift of Your Presence.

Cutting Strings to Sell, Donate, or Trash

Clutter is the physical manifestation of unmade decisions fueled by procrastination. -Christina Scalise, Organize Your Life and More

Now that we have decided on having an estate sale through a broker at the Queen Mother's house, I am gathering things together from my own home to take down to Florida to be sold. Most of those things were gifts I did not really want from the Queen Mother that accumulated over the years, and I kept most of them because...well, the Queen Mother takes it personally when a gift she has given is not on permanent display and, yes, she would look.

Her gifts were gifts with strings attached with expectations. Once she gave a seven-year-old girl in the family a special edition Barbie doll and the girl, of course, immediately began taking it out. The Queen Mother was not happy because she gave it as a collectible. I though was cruel to give a doll to a young girl and expect her to enjoy just looking at it in the box, like she did hers. She did not think to try to explain that it was meant to stay in the box, after she unwrapped it.

So, I learned soon after my marriage that if I did not love any gift she gave me, she seemed to take as I was rejecting her. It really was a stretch for her to get to know what I liked and there were a precious few times that she would surprise me, but for the most part I just saw those attached strings of expectations. I always had it in the back of my mind, even when she stopped coming here to visit, that she may live with us or near us and come here again.

I knew that those strings had me all tied up. I felt like I had to keep that stuff to keep the Queen Mother happy, because her love language to everyone else is gifts. I could have packed them away and only brought them out when she was coming, which was rare, but I just did not. And, I think the thing that bothered me the most—actually, weighed me down the most and paralyzed my thoughts to rid myself of them—was that I did not keep them out of respect for her, but more like fear of her being upset with me. Every time my eyes would rest on something the Queen Mother gave me, a thought of how it came from her and how she was insensitive to what I really like would surface, but in her defense, I do have eclectic tastes that only those who really know me or are attentive would get.

In honesty, I used to appreciate some of her collectibles, like the Boyd's Bears, because before the Princess, we had a children's guest room with a teddy bear theme and my husband likes teddy bears, but over the years even those have lost their appeal to both of us. I have switched from accumulative mode to downsizing back into simplicity and practicality for our lifestyle. I am now rather selective about what I want to look at and dust off every two weeks for the rest of my life and the majority of things the Queen Mother has given me are just dust collectors for the most part, not even my taste.

I am not really like most people from previous generations: for instance, I have always thought (even as a child) that having a formal dining room and another informal dining area is a waste of living space. I like one dining area, so I love the now popular open plans where the kitchen is practically part of the living room. However, I do like a quiet library room.

The Queen Mother has a china cabinet filled with her better dishes, which are quite plain, and hordes of her figurines and glass collections, while my china cabinet is not for fancy dishes we use a few times a year—although I have to say that is perhaps not entirely true, which I will explain in the next paragraph. Instead I have my everyday dishes, which are the Pfaltzgraff Tea Rose pattern. I had loved that country fresh pattern for many years and some of their heart shaped bowls and servers, so when a friend was putting together a good-bye party at our church in Florida before we moved to Georgia, she asked me what I wanted if people were to ask her and they were it. She bought us a set and I was thrilled. Later I found some bowls marked down for clearance at a K-Mart. I thought K-mart was discontinuing them but actually Pfaltzgraff had retired them. Once while shopping at an antique store, I found a large set with about 10 settings and a few other pieces that looked brand new and bought it all for $65. So, every day I see the dishes we actually use and we have to get all our dishes from there. Now Pfaltzgraff has again gone into production with them, but not with all the pieces they used to have.

In the bottom half of my china cabinet, I have another set of dishes that was given to my husband before we met. They are ironstone Colonial White by Homer Laughlin, which is the same company that made Fiestaware that has come back into popularity, so they are producing it again. I am not that fond of the Colonial White, but we have used it for holidays. It looks nice with a red table cloth and colorful Christmas trimmings. However, it is not fine china but was probably meant for everyday use, because it is heavy, which I actually prefer, and feels more like it should be in a restaurant. I have wanted to get rid of them several times, but I decided to again keep them because their high gloss and the angular Dover mold style makes it more up scale looking and appealing—and because ridding myself of the other stuff in the bottom of the china cabinet allowed more space.

Back to my point, I am trying to go through my house gathering items for the sale and carrying items to the two bins marked to sell or donate with the trash can handy. I will be going down to Florida on my own with DragonHeart packed full to meet with the estate sales broker, so she can see everything we have to sell. It is just amazing what I have accumulated through the years. However, I cannot tell you how freeing it is to have space and to think what I really would like to place here and there. I knew that I was feeling overwhelmed by the clutter in my home for years, but since yard sales do so poorly here and some things were worth a little something, I just held on them. Now I finally have an opportunity to really let go of quite a lot, which will be sold and what is left over will be donated and done with.

I probably would have worked through this stuff faster if I was not fasting, but I did not go into a full water-only fast. I have been drinking milk and kefir in very small amounts throughout the day to stimulate losing the fat and because I knew I would need more stamina to do this, although I have to say, it still takes it out of me. I think I was about 10 pounds over the what I like to call my comfortable heavy weight when I officially started on Tuesday—frankly I did not step on a scale until I had been fasting two days because I just knew. I have to start coming off of it today or tomorrow so I am strong for the trip. I am and should hold down to around that comfortable heavy weight and will have to try to fast again later to rid myself of the rest of it.

My Lord, thank you for helping cut these strings that have had me tied to fear and keeping things I did not treasure. I am happy to let them go to people who do find pleasure in them and to have my home reflect only what I finding pleasing. 

Slowing into Fast

Prayer is reaching out after the unseen; fasting is letting go of all that is seen and temporal. Fasting helps express, deepen, confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God. -Andrew Murray

With all the stress that began before Christmas when the Queen Mother fell on her knee, somewhere along the way I dropped my one-day-a-week fast and I did not get to my January detox fast and that is usually at least one week to three. And I gained some weight, into numbers that usually make me feel sickly and more pain, but I have been heavy on supplements and actually I felt stronger this time, which only confirms how much the stress was zapping my energy and the extra food and nutrition was keeping me going.

There is no good break for fasting within our lives right now, however my husband began his a week ago. My digestive system is a bit more sensitive than his. I usually do better if I work down to fasting over a few days, so I began to eat increasing lighter and mostly raw foods for the last week. I am feeling it. I was mindful that I have a dental cleaning scheduled tomorrow and there is no avoiding the breath issue when fasting regardless of how much mouthwash one uses, so I had it in mind to stop eating completely tomorrow after the appointment for at least a week or a little more.

Usually, my husband and I observe a rule that we made long ago that we do not fast at the same time, but we literally have only short breaks between planned activities. My husband wants to get his mother's house on the market in July. We decided that having an estate sale is the best option, so we are planning for me to go to Florida alone in a couple of weeks and meet with an estate broker. I will be taking some things from my home to be in the sale and bringing some things back that are keepers also. So, this week I am looking through our stuff to pack up and take to Florida to place in the sale—while fasting.

It does not escape me that this activity will take more energy, but there is a correlative aspect of detoxing and clearing out that I find to be appealing on both sides. Most of the dust collectors I have are ones that were given to us by the Queen Mother and we kept because she takes it personally if she did not see them when she used to visit, but we kept them because in the back of our minds, she might have lived closer to us one day. That is over in our minds now.

The Queen Mother had pneumonia and is having serious issues with water retention. We know her immune system is compromised, but now we are pretty sure that she has had damage to her kidneys and possibly her liver and heart due to the septicemia. She is now taking a diuretic, but it is having little effect. She is still border line for going into assisted living, now that the wound on her knee is nearly healed completely, but with the complications that keep showing up, it seems likely that she will remain in the nursing home for longer...perhaps for the rest of her life, which may not be for a year. It seems to us that she is in the early to mid stages of congestive heart failure or multiple organ syndrome, the labels seem interchangeable.

As sad as that makes me, it makes me sadder that she chose to live alone for six years when she could have lived near us, actually attended one of the Princess' recitals, or just went out to dinner with us now and then. Now we are trying to make decisions about whether or not to keep some of her furniture that she would need for assisted living or just sell it all, and if we do not sell it all, do we rent a storage facility? Just things like that. I have been asking my Lord and I feel like He is telling me that we will not need to keep any of the furniture, but a part of me thinks it would be better keep some pieces and not need them, than to sell them all and find out she will...and knowing how it will upset her if they are all gone.

This fast I am hoping that both my husband and I will hear God clearly and we will act on what He is telling us, not what we think is the logical course. 

My Lord, these are hard times with hard decisions to be made. Please guide us heavily.

4 Nights and 3 Days in Florida

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.
 -C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

I was seventeen the first time I flew to Florida from Ohio with a window seat from the flat part of Ohio with patchwork crop and livestock fields to the far more interesting and unpredictable land forms of the Appalachian Mountains with its foothills and then to flat, washed out netting of roads so common in mid Florida. Do not get me wrong, when I was younger I liked it although I never really cozied up to the tropical plants, with the exception of fern trees and oaks. I admit that Florida is a lovely place if you like flat sandy, subtropical places. Been there, done that, and so very done with it! Since moving to the north part of Georgia, every time I visit Florida, I am thankful it is just for a short time. To me, its greens are bleached out and it has so many whole cities of mostly perpendicular north and south roadways crossed by streets spanning east and west that are unimaginative, probably a city planner's dream. I will say that it is senior friendly because everything is easy to find and you can hardly get lost.

We made plans to go to Florida to visit the Queen Mother and to start the process of taking keepsakes and things of worth we wish to keep from her house, in preparation of the ultimate goal to sell the house and everything else of value we would not be keeping. It is no small task to categorize the material residuals of life into piles of keep, sell, donate, or trash. I can only imagine it was harder for my husband, who had lived there from the time he was seven until he left for college at seventeen.

We took both the Dragon Heart, our mini van, and Big Red, our new diesel pick up truck that can haul our trailer completely packed. We were not planning to bring back much, mostly things from the garage and work shed, like a wheelbarrow, the generator, and a rain barrel. We planned to make decisions when we were there about what we would take back with us this time. We left Thursday morning in the rain and rain it did for the entire 550 miles with the exception of the last two hours, turning our 8 to 9 hour drive into nearly 11 hours...and it began raining as we pulled into the driveway! However, Florida has been in a drought with wildfires so it was sorely needed there.

I had purchased a light diffusing box and lights for taking pictures of the Hummel figurines, dolls, and other collectibles. That was the task for the Princess. My husband and I rummaged through taking down pictures from the walls to be boxed up, looking through the hidden places for the silverware, and the jewelry. Memorabilia was high on our list as well and we even found a picture that the Queen Mother had always wanted of her husband that had been in his mother's house but was fought over with his sister...and she had it all along in a very unique desk that we had thought was a sewing machine table.

The morning of the first day, I looked through the Queen Mother's jewelry knowing that she had a serious affection for Black Hills gold jewelry and I honestly had no idea how much of it she had, but I wanted to bring it home to be placed in our safe. Mind you that I cannot wear it. The Queen Mother is a large boned woman, although shorter than I am. I think her rings could quite possibly fit my husband's fingers and her bracelets slip on and off my wrists without bothering with the clasp, as I have rather small hands and wrists. They could be fitted by removing a link or two on some, but I like a daintier bracelet, with the exception of my colorful glass bead bracelets.

My husband and daughter went to visit the Queen Mother that first day in the afternoon. She was in good spirits and handed my husband a list of things she wanted. She could have called and told us so that we were not scrambling to shop for some of them while we were there, but...well, the Queen Mother does not make phone calls unless there is a problem and this did not qualify as a problem for her. While there my husband began to again ease into the conversation of what was of value and should be kept. When the Queen Mother told them where her Black Hills gold jewelry was, the Princess eagerly—maybe too eagerly, given the situation and knowing them both—chimed in that we had found them and how pretty they are. The Queen Mother then looked at her directly and said "You have been into my jewelry!" My daughter realized that she might have made a mistake, but her grandmother then said she was just kidding. I was not there but when they told me, I was thinking she was not kidding that much.

The next day we went to see her, the Queen Mother was upset and weeping because of all the things my husband had talked to her about the day before. We came with almost all the items she wanted including the items I had to buy at the store that morning...which, of course, were not the ones she wanted. She told me she had written down all the information with the numbers (for the style although she did not tell me and assumed I knew what those three numbers mention off to the side meant) and I told her that these were the only ones in the store that were the size she wanted in the brand she wanted, so the style she wanted was not there in her size. Immediately, I began looking online and found it on Amazon to be placed in my cart to finalize the order later.

As I doing that, she said in a very commanding way that she wanted ALL her Black Hills gold jewelry with her "HERE" making a downward motion with her arm while pointing her index finger down. I looked up and asked, "All of it?" (Please understand that she has more rings than fingers and toes AND she is retaining water so she cannot wear any of them and I am not so sure she can wear any of the several bracelets either.) She repeated the words and gesture with a redder face as if how dare I question the Queen Mother. Trying to help her realize that would be putting all her valuable jewelry at risk, I asked her if she thought that was wise because...well, there was no secure place for it there, but she told me that she sees residents with keys on bracelets, so there is way to secure them there, she believed (but did not even really know because she had not asked yet, is what I got from that).

Taking a deep breath in and out, I then began to work on setting up other contacts on her phone that she might like to have. She has had a written list of phones numbers by her wall phone in the kitchen for years so we bought that. Now her phone is not a smart phone but a flip phone so inputting contacts is a bit more work. She was still quite upset, so I was just going to put them all in but the Queen Mother wanted me to give her all the names on the list so she could say who was in and who was not. So I was still trying to figure out how to even get to the contact list to add anyone and she was trying to get me to read down the list. I asked her to have patience with me and gave her a few names, when we got to a "yes" I would put that one in...because to be quite honest, at this point I am pretty rattled with her trying to control everything and everyone to do everything exactly her way. My husband was sitting next to her trying to calm her down and I was slowly getting through the list. She was determined that I would not put any of the grown grandchildren in there. My husband and I both mentioned that just because they are listed does not mean she has to call them or even answer their calls but it was for her benefit so that she would at least know who is calling...nope!

However, she did want one neighbor, who is as controlling as the Queen Mother, on the contact list, which surprised us. This neighbor has helped her, like making sure she went to get checked when she fell on her knee and visiting her and bringing her things from the house, but she is also overkill. The Queen Mother had come to rely on her in some ways, but also complains about how she has been confusing her, telling her what to do and such. There is a strange dependency that concerns us because she complains about the woman yet.... My husband can size people up accurately, his God given gift, and he does not trust her. Since there were two women with the same first name on the list, I did not know which was the one that we would have preferred to mistakenly (on purpose) not put on the phone. However, I have a pretty good idea why the Queen Mother wanted her on it, so she has a neighborhood snitch to tell on us. The woman had come over on the first day, Friday, when my husband was visiting his mother and she began telling me what I should do with this and that in the house as well as asking me what we planned to put in the trailer. I said that depended on the weather, but it did not escape me that she once had keys to the house for a few months and knew what was in it, so she would be watching to see exactly what we were taking and probably tell the Queen Mother.

The third day I did not go with my husband and my desperate-for-Internet child, who is thankful for the free wi-fi at the nursing home. The Queen Mother apologized to my husband for being so rough on me, probably thinking that is why I did not come and that was partially true. Being empathic has its drawbacks. I try to connect with people as my way of understanding and helping them not with just physical healing but emotional, it just happens without conscience thought...so imagine, if you can, feeling how helpless and out-of-control now that her things are being prepared to be sold or whatever the Queen Mother feels along with my own feelings of being the brunt of her anger and pain, and just trying to imagine my own feelings if I were in her situation, and trying to deal with my feelings about going through her things to decide if they have worthy sentimental or monetary value. The conflict is completely insolvable and I could not sleep that night.

So, when she finally had all the Black Hills gold jewelry, she reportedly said that she did not know there was so much...but kept it anyway. If it is stolen or "lost,"—well, it is her jewelry, even though legally it is not hers now. She signed everything in and of the house over to her son, which she understood but she still does not completely get. The Queen Mother on that day also asked to see her bank account, which only has her monthly income and it goes to the nursing home. My husband simply said that he did not have it with him. Yeah, I am thinking the snitch neighbor will be happy to tell the Queen Mother everything she can glean from us and the other neighbors.

I am very sad for her though. As I have been looking into the values of all her collectibles, they have lost value. Markets change. I always thought of collectibles as something that only have value because the owner enjoys them and not as an investment. The Queen Mother thought they were both, but she missed selling at the height of the market. Only the very oldest of Hummel figurines are holding their value. (Actually, I am not into all these collectibles but I had to learn about the several different trademarks on Hummel figurines so I could look up their value, even though of the more than eight trademarks, the only ones of real value are TMK 1, 2, and maybe some with 3.) Madame Alexander dolls are now selling for less than half of their purchase price, but there was a spike in the market in the late 1980's when Madam Alexander sold her company. At that time, the Queen Mother's set of First Ladies might have sold for as much as $40,000 and my father-in-law asked her to sell then, but she would not thinking they would continue to go up. There are other collectibles: Capodimonte ceramics, Avon, Shirley Temple, Fenton Glass, pressed glass, carnival glass, and Boyd's Bears.

Why the change in the collectible market? It is not just because we had been in a bad recession, but because of other several factors. One is when things become popular and demand is high, companies tend make more to sell more and it saturates the market so there far too many available; most of the time this is not a big factor because of population growth, items get ruined, and greater demand that drives up the price of the pieces as they become more difficult to obtain. However, another factor is that my generation and younger are not into collectibles; more people see them as cluttering dust collectors than as something precious. Another factor is eBay: instead of throwing away or finding an antique dealer to buy these items, people can easily list them on eBay and sell an item themselves, which has driven the prices down because people are willing to sell them just to get rid of them.

So, I was thinking how sad it is to see everything that the Queen Mother valued in her life become devalued. My husband and I have watched her through the years invest into and place more value on things that do not have true lasting value rather on the things that are worthy, like God and people. Yes, people can let you down and hurt you and even die, but they are eternal. God has invested in people and values people. I think those investments are the ones that really last. I think it is sad that she has only had a couple of visits from two neighbors after being in a nursing home for well over four months and yet I cannot think of a time that she has ever visited anyone in the hospital or in a nursing home other than family.

It is sobering to see what has been sown in life is what we reap.

My Lord, peace is so hard to find right now, so I must rest in You more.