The Pain in Pancreas

The ending of a era

Tis spring time in the Rockies...and with spring time comes wonderful weather (which is one part of the equation of why I am not blogging so regularly these days) but with wonderful weather there also is some crappy days too...wind, rain, snow, wind, cold...did I say wind??  Spring time also signifies the end of the school year, and, of course, with the end of the school year only a week away...that translates into programs, award nights, Jazz band concerts, parties, etc (another reason why I am not blogging so regularly these days too) Usually by this time (one week until school is out) I am so ready to be done with all the programs, awards nights, sports banquets, bands that I am just ready to be all over with it and get on with summer (and reclaim my evenings again) but this year signifies a different attitude.  Dimple Cheeks is done with elementary school in 5 more days.  This will be the end of a HUGE era for me.  I have been in elementary school and a homeroom parent and helper for the past 9 years.  9 years!  I have grown to know the kids (and parents) that my kids went to school with over the last 9 years.  Dimple Cheeks will be going to the same charter school as Buggy next year, so most of the elementary kids he/I will not see on a regular basis anymore.  And the same would be true if Dimple Cheeks went on to Middle School in the district anyway, because the elementary kids get divided up into 3 different middle schools and the school within our boundaries only has 30 or so kids going to that school.  Dimple Cheeks will make new friends, as Buggy did years ago and I will find other ways to volunteer at ONE school this fall (that will be really nice!)  But there is something really sad about the thought of this for me.  The end of a huge ERA...the end of childhood innocence in a way...time for bigger and more grown up activities...and my baby entering hormonal middle school.  Maybe I am gabbling with it because by the time they get to middle school, it is more guiding than growing this child now.  The core of values and teaching was set in elementary years, now it is time to let them make some of their own decisions, their own mistakes, step back and watch them learn to fly, being more of cheerleader and guide.  And it is bittersweet too because Buggy has a job for the summer, and he won't be joining us for dinner every night.  God has given us fun supper-times for quite awhile now, and I already know that I am going to really miss just sitting down and eating supper that connects us as a family unit.

Eating Crow

Be amused.  Be very amused.  I am confessing to one of the blondest things I have ever done...  A couple of days ago Buggy asked me to bring my electric clippers with me to give to him before swim practice.  I "forgot" them...kinda on purpose, because I didn't want to have any part of the swim team making the freshman get a mohawk haircut initiation for swim conference.  Well, it turned out that they did not do the mohawk haircut initiation that night.  So yesterday, I got up early and took Buggy and company to school, no mention of clippers again.  When I got home from delivering Buggy and company to school, something inside of me told me I should check to see where my electric clippers are.  The box was empty, the case that holds them was empty.  Aha!  Buggy had stole/snuck/taken my good electric clippers to school with him!!  I was HOT.  Really hot!  My clippers are a tool...and I bought myself a really expensive electric clipper system just a few months ago.  And he didn't ask, he just TOOK them.  I decided to confront him at school and make him hand them back over...I wanted to strangle him with the cord while I was at it.  I went to school and pulled him out of class.  And I said to Buggy  "You know why I am here, hand them over now and you won't get hurt, too bad!"  He looked at me like I was crazy.  "What are you talking about?"  "The clippers...just go them and we will deal with the rest of this later!"  I hissed.  "I don't have them, Mom"  By now I am nearly seething..."Go and get them, NOW!"  He went to his locker, took out his backpack, walked back by me again, told me he didn't have them and returned to class...I waited for 5 minutes before I realized he wasn't coming back out.  That is when I literally went into his classroom, told the teacher he would be back in 20 minutes and made him walk out the school doors with me.  He still insisted he didn't have them.  And he was starting to get really mad.  I was beyond mad by now.  "Well, if you don't have them, then we will just drive home and look for them until we find them!  Right now would be a really good time to tell me they are in your locker...or that although you don't have them, you gave them to someone else, but you know where they are."  Buggy didn't budge...all the way home I thought for sure I would finally get a confession.  Nope.  We got home, pulled in the driveway, and Buggy made a beeline for the door.  I would say that he found my electric clippers in about 2.39 seconds after his hand hit the doorknob of the house.  Yes, 2.39 seconds.  I argued that the clippers he found was my old pair, it took him all of .5 second to find the old pair and prove to me the clippers he was holding was indeed my new pair.  "Ohhhh."  I stopped arguing, I disengaged my anger.  Buggy was so mad that he slammed the garage door, slammed the car door, and I literally saw steam coming out of his ears.  I stood inside the laundry room for 5 more quiet seconds and then started laughing.  That was the dumbest blond thing I have ever done.  I walk out to the car, Buggy, I can tell is MAD...I start laughing again at the whole situation.  He breaks.  He starts laughing too!  I get back in the car and in between the now hysterical laughter Buggy says "Mom, you give blond a whole new meaning!"  And yep...I do.  Buggy says I will never live this one down.  I probably won't.  But that is okay, I was in the wrong, I apologized to Buggy and I could laugh at myself within seconds.  I ate crow with egg on my face.  And I have laughed...a lot!

My Big But Theory

Imagine, if you will, a Mom who is always driving her kids to school, practice, church activities, parties, dances, swim meets, open gym...a Mom who spends the majority of her time in a car, or sitting in an office chair...a Mom who has reached her late 30's...a Mom who sits so much she's starting adding 'junk in her trunk' and that isn't referring to sporting equipment, electric guitars, swim gear, tennis gear, basketball gear, homework, backpacks and the like, not even referring to groceries. No, this is absolutely referring to the middle age spread that went straight to my hiney.  I figured out just why it happens...it is because middle age usually means teenager(s) are in the equation somewhere.  And where there is a teenager...there is a Mom who is running herself ragged getting in the car and DRIVING kid(s) everywhere.  Time to cook...nope, time to  be presentable and look professional...thats too funny...time to exercise??  You have got to be kidding me!  And when I do find 30 minutes of blissful ...no appointments, no errands, no working, no chores...why in the world would I want to haul my 'junk in the trunk' out and show everyone that I am a Mom and my usual form of exercise is running...kids everywhere in the car! 

And just a note, I am still gluten free...and I have lost 20 pounds of 'junk in my trunk'.  Actually, I think it was a spare tire. (my middle section)  My middle is getting smaller, but my chest and my hiney seem to have grown!  (I think that the lack of my spare tire just makes them look and feel bigger...)

The Four Square Queen

I am the four square reigning queen!  I used to play 2 square and 4 square back in elementary school...it was all the fad back 30 some years ago!  (did I just incriminate myself on being old?)  Somehow I talked C into moving his truck out of the driveway and got both boys to play and we played over an hour of 4 square.  All of us.  We laughed and joked, being loud and quite obnoxious but amazingly, both of the boys mostly played by the rules and kept their tempers in check (hard to do with all that testosterone...) and we just had a great time.  And I won.  Me!  With no testosterone, no great hand/eye coordination.

The wind has left its mark, and thankfully, gone now.  We did some yard work on Saturday...C got chop happy with my rosebushes, he says pruning....I say it was more like tree removal!  I am just very thankful that HE did it, cuz that was a hot, thorny, blood thirsty kind of job.  See, now they are just rose bushes...not trees anymore! 

Gluten Free foods Best Served...

Gluten free foods are best served once and only once.  Fresh.  Not reheated in the oven, nuked in a microwave, sauteed in a saucepan.  Nope.  Gluten free foods were not intended to be leftovers no mater how you try to reheat the food.  Probably because it barely passes as edible the first time.  When you put the food in a plastic container, or a glass dish, or even a baggie...this does not matter, cuz regardless, the metamorphosis starts immediately.  Believe me, I have tried every way imaginable to change this cruel, cruel reality.  Mostly because I am not eager nor excited to make three separate meals a day, seven days a week for me, myself and I... AND cook meals for the rest of the tribe who live in my house.  It already seems like I am forever in the kitchen and/or doing kitchen KP 24/7.  Its enough to drive a confessed gluten-holic back into the arms of homemade bread again.  Because homemade bread is easier to make, and it smells good, and it tastes divine especially with honey... stop, I must stop...

And Mr. Therapy Visited

Ahhh...Mr. Therapy visited us this evening...laughter and play presided.  He was an absolute delight to all of us, bringing a bright smile to even the tired and grumpy among us.  Mr. Therapy is just the "time out" that I needed from the world.  Stop, drop and play.  Watch a bug on the sidewalk, splash in the curb water and seek out basketball hoops.  Smell all the flowers, and count one, two, threeeeeee and cheer!  He was so much fun!   Good for my soul, and to see the amazing creation through little eyes again.

Thats Just Messed Up!

"Thats just messed up" is code word for a tear jerker movie that my boys don't want to admit makes them misty eyed.  Last weekend we were having a supper discussion on what movie to watch as a family movie.  I was naming off movies that would make my boys roll their eyes and vehemently respond with a resounding "NOOOO!"  Then I mentioned The Notebook...and Buggy blurted out "That movie is just messed up..."  Translation?  The movie moves him to tears...  Then I got the amazing idea to watch A Walk To Remember.  And, of course, in unison, my boys are howling "NOOOO!" but it was settled, I was going to torture them and make them watch it with me...I wanted Buggy to say "That movie is messed up!"  He doesn't remember watching it, and we have only watched it once, 4 years ago.  C and I went on a walk first, then we were going to have our movie night...guess what?  A Walk To Remember disappeared from our movie collection shelves.  It was no where to be found.  And, in fact, I called my sister to see if she had borrowed it.  Nope.  It just vanished into thin air like a fart in the wind.  So, after searching everywhere for it, we finally decided to watch The Notebook instead...we being ME, the queen...and the boys begrudingly watch with us.  Fast forward to today, I went into our storage room looking for my Mason jars full of old buttons for a project I am working on, and low and behold...there was A Walk To Remember sitting on top of a pile of books.  I was so excited...now I could torture the boys again this week with our family movie night.  I still haven't gotten a confession out of either one of the boys as to who took and hid the movie...so I figure that the "Not Me" ghost is alive and well and living well in our house. (although he never left, he has just a lot of weird things lately around the house)  Needless to say, Buggy blurted out "That is just messed up!" when Jamie revealed she was sick.  I don't know if any of the boys cried, but I sure did.  I will admit it.  I bawled like a baby, the tears were like facuets.  If someone can watch that whole movie without a single tear, there is something wrong with their heart, no to mention their tear ducts!  "Thats just messed up!"

BCP

What in the world did we do BCP  (Before Cell Phones)????  How in the world did we grow up without them?  Obviously, I survived...and I survived without e-mail too, but now?  Now, it is a must have.  So many changes on the fly, and with a cell phone, I can roll with the changes much easier if informed.  I look for ways to cut expenses with the gas going so high and grocery prices up 20% every time I go to the store.  But cell phones are not the first thing I considered (although they may have to go eventually) instead we stock up on sales, shop only the grocery sales, and drastically cut down on driving around, never going anywhere that we don't need to go, quit eating out completely, downgraded the cable, quit browsing Target (also cuts down on driving across town), quit cold turkey even driving by a fabric store, started asking myself if it is a basic necessity that we will need to live in the next month, if not, I walk away, shut down computers at night, turn off all lights, hang the clothes outside to dry, I could say stop eating gluten, but then for me, there needs to be fresh fruits and cheeses and salads to replace glutenful things, and they aren't cheaper...I can do all of that quite happily, but thinking of getting rid of the cell phone?  Ummph.  I would end up driving all over the place back and forth unnecessarily, cuz I wouldn't t know Buggy's schedule or Dimple Cheeks just changed from 5 minutes ago.  E-mail?  I would end up using my phone way more to get messages to people, which would be minutes, cuz we no longer have a land-line.  In other words, some of these gadgets really do save money in the long run... and my sanity...which is worthwhile cuz a day in the mental ward at the hospital would be WAY more expensive than a years worth of cell phone bills.  And today without my cell...I would have earned myself the straight jacket treatment.   

Replacements

The sunshine and being outside, working in the yard, taking a walk, opening up windows, carting kids to various outside activities while the weather is wonderful has replaced my need to quilt, piece, cut...even think about creating quilts.  Whether I just kinda got burnt out, or perhaps this is my new normal with a busier schedule of going, going, going... I haven't had the overwhelming urge to quilt for the last few days. (nor have I sat down longer than 20 minutes for the last three weeks either)  I have been cutting pieces for a quilt, and I am sick of cutting...which may just be my problem.  I have finished a bunch of quilt tops, and have a bunch in my head that I want to do, but I am only cutting on one right now and it had to have 3000+pieces to cut with templates and weird angles...and I refuse to start cutting another one, because I don't want to have to pick up all of the pieces on the current quilt and reorganize again.  Did you know that about a third of quilting time is just planning and organization???  Methodical organization.  IS NOT ME.  I need it to be within me, but alas, this is my only flaw...LOL!! ((I can hear C now, choking on is laughter.)  My wonderful friend offered to let me use her superduper wonderful, fancy stitches, computer talking quilter machine (aka Nellie...yes, we both name our machines) while she is gone to China, so I am going to finish up my class project this weekend (I hope!) Until I motivate myself to get said class project done, Nellie is going to sit on my dining table, so I can't ignore the project!  Cuz when I need to move Nellie, you guessed it, I am going to have to *re-organize* my sewing room (again)!

Oppsie!

Life isn't long enough to make all the mistakes yourself...learn from me...dust/wipe off your ceiling fan BEFORE you turn it on, especially if it hasn't been on all winter, double especially if you make rag quilts with remnant of flannel dust settling into places like the tops of ceiling fans that don't get dusted.  I just don't have enough blond brain power to conceive of the thought of dusting up there...until I turn on the fan and dust goes flying everywhere...then I think about such ridiculous things!  And just remember this, dust that hits the fan doe not disburse evenly.  Enough said.  Love me, visit me, drop in anytime, do NOT write in my dust.

I am over three weeks gluten free now, and unfortunately I am thinking that I am going to have to give up peanuts and almonds.  Within minutes of eating a peanut, almond, pecans, cashews I start to hurt badly.  I am so sad, as I love to snack on these nuts, but apparently they are just too much fat and/or protein for my pancreas to handle.  I also suspect this of some cheeses too...but I hope not.  At this point, I truly believe that even if I was offered $50 to come off of my ice tea, I still couldn't do it.  I can only manage about 1 PM before I cave and make myself a tall glass of ice tea with Splenda (I know, I know) Dimple Cheeks had a blast up at the YMCA this week with his 5th grade class.  He looks tired though.  Buggy made the paper with this swimming in the swim meet yesterday.  We didn't even know he was in the paper until a friend handed him an article!