Month: November 2021

“OUR Music”

It was interesting for me to watch the, ”Changing of the Guard” with Sean putting our Christmas tree up but one thing I really didn’t think about was a, “Changing of the Guard” with the pie making in my family. My Mom has already told me that she is getting tired and I am so sad that I can’t carry on the torch for her!

ENTER: my big brother, Ray. It looks like he will be learning from my Mom how to make her pies.

I learned last year during the holiday pie making that my thermostat has to be set lower because the house gets really warm when the oven is on all day. But, my disease is progressing and therefore, my temperature control is being lost. My house was set at a lower temperature but I couldn’t handle it so I went over to the doorway of my kitchen. I took in a scene that I will never forget for the rest of my life!

My brother put on some music and a song that I had never heard before was playing but I turned the corner to see both my Mom and my brother, with their backs to each other, singing their hearts out because they both knew the song! I started to laugh and I commented that I didn’t know that song. My Mom could NOT believe that I didn’t know it and my brother looked at his playlist and said, in my defense, that it came out 13 years before I was born. When my Mom listens to music, I have to constantly remind her that I was born in 1982! They sat on the couch has the final pies were in the oven and started singing a different song that I didn’t know and my mom told my brother, “She doesn’t know our music!” I laughed at that statement but I do not know, “Their music.”

My brother posted this picture of him and my Mom and I need to explain it. My Mom meant business yesterday and it continues today. My Mom is not used to being picture ready and staging pictures and I explained to her that’s how it goes now. I could feel the tension when I got out of bed yesterday like static or some thing because I knew that my Mom would soon turn into being obsessed! she gets that way when she’s baking a large amount of things! Baking pies for my immediate family is a large amount of things!

Topsy-Turvy OR The Changing of the Guard

Events of today were a little bit crazy! I woke up this morning knowing that my Mom was going to make pies for Thanksgiving with my oldest brother. I was most grateful for him to take over for our generation when my Mom‘s generation is gone. I was most appreciative to learn that my house was going to, once again, smell like my mom‘s pies! It is a smell that I Love but never thought that I would smell in my house! with this pandemic persisting, my Mom is still staying with me so our family pie making will commence in my home! I love it!

My Mom got me ready for the day before all of the holiday festivities would begin. I decided to be festive as well! This is me being chronically ill but still festive because I’m excited about the season! Right after I snapped this picture, I put my sweatshirt on. Unfortunately, the life of a chronically ill person consists of sweats. My T-shirt says, “Thanks + Giving.”

What time Sean showed up, since he was here, my mom wanted him to get the tree from the basement. I was concerned about the tree bucks because it is the 16th year that we have had the same box. Sean went downstairs by himself and then I heard it! Sean yelled from the basement that if we have the same tree box next year, he will boycott Christmas!

When he was upstairs, he put the box in the living room and told me that the tree fell out! I started to laugh when I snapped this picture and he told me he will pick a new box for us. I told him that we have a 7 1/2 foot tree and let him do it.

Call Sean thinks that the tree box is dead but he got the Treestand out of the front closet and proceeded to take the tree out of the box! As he started to do that, I told him that things are all topsy-turvy this year and I had to put on the song that will start the Christmas season for me!

I love this song! It completely set me in the mood and I watched and Sean was fluffing the branches. I told him that I am witnessing the, “Changing of the guard.” He only read and talked about my brother making the pies with my Mom but I stopped him and told him that I was witnessing the, “Changing of the guard,” by watching him put the tree up. My Mom has always put the tree up since I have gotten it but now it seems that Sean will do that. I still just sat in my wheelchair to supervise but phase 1 is now complete!

My brother, Ray, will be here soon and then the smells of my Mom’s pies will waft through my house which will make me happy because I AM in a festive mood! I even dressed the part! Before Sean left, my mom had him take the box downstairs. Before he did, he yelled, “Don’t call it a box!” and I immediately thought of LL cool J #JustBecause:

My CCA Kids

The first time I saw this commercial, I completely thought of my kids (my CCA students). I couldn’t remember who sang this song but I remember hearing it being played during dodgeball for the gym class. My CCA kids LOVED hot Cheetos!!! I remember that for every single Kleenex raffle I had for 12 years, The students ALWAYS wanted a big bag of hot Cheetos as their prize if they won.

I clearly remember my first year teaching and there was something going on in school and the kids had bags of Cheetos that they were eating for lunch that they had to eat in my room. My Mom had just dropped off a smoothie for me because I was eating completely organic back then and I was hitting it hard! The kids were sitting at their tables and eating their lunch. I was drinking my smoothie. I watched them eat as I sipped the straw of my smoothie and I told them, “I could NEVER eat red food!”

I remember a student who sat toward the back responded with, “But, you will eat purple food?!” The shake I was drinking was purple. I looked down at my shake and started to laugh. A student gave me one hot Cheeto to eat and it was completely DISGUSTING!!! I told the class that I will never eat red food again! Artificially red food! It took a couple times for me to watch this to remember who sang it.

So when I found out it was Fall Out Boy, I had to search for a video and I found one that I will leave here because it reminds me of my kids. My CCA kids:

2-`Device Process OR ‘Splain Ya

Ever since I purchased my iPad, every blog post I write is a “2 device process.” Because my eyes have gotten so bad over the past 20 years, I need to make the screen extremely zoomed out so I can make out the words. But if I want a picture or a video, I embed those using my phone because my phone is small and easier to hold. But then, I need to actually write the blog post. That’s when I go over to my iPad and make the writing super big so I can see it. As I write it, I use voice to text technology to make it easier.

hi I thought I would explain that today because my eyes hurt and because of that, I am just going to speak my blog post into existence because I will not put any pictures or YouTube videos on it. But I wanted to post something, so I thought I would ‘splain ya.

Out of my House

I got out of my house this morning. It was for my monthly haircut and eyebrow wax appointment. I told her to go back to the reverse bob that I got so many years ago for the first time. I was 26. But now, at almost 40, it’s so much easier. I can’t stand the feel of hair on my neck anymore. Having had MS for over 20 years, I have a very extreme sensory disorder now. I had my mom take a picture of my short hair in the back just to make sure. The woman who has been waxing my eyebrows and cutting my hair for 20 years is expecting her second child in January. I made an appointment for December but I told her I will just wait until she gets back from having the baby to get a haircut after that. I waited over a year during the beginning of the pandemic so it’s okay with me.

We didn’t rent a van this time so instead, Sean accompanied us to be the brawn to get me in and out of the car. Over the years, my core strength has diminished but my knee injury has sent me over the edge and saying that now I am in a motorized chair all of the time, my car strength definitely has been affected and is almost gone completely. My mom did not mind sitting in back so Sean decided to go to Cold Stone Cremery that is right by my house. I am definitely not a huge fan of eating ice cream when it is freezing outside but Sean and my Mom were getting a scoop so I told him to get me a scoop as well. As he was getting out of the car, I told him that, “ mint chocolate chip is my jam!” And it made me smile that as he was closing the door he just said, “I know.” As Sean and my Mom were in the store, I started fiddling with the radio.

I have written before that I am old because I enjoy music from my young adulthood but now I am almost 40. Sean has been driving my car for over a year and my radio stations are all messed up but somehow, I got to 80s on eight. And the opening bars of this song had just played. This song reminds me of my Mom!

I listened to the entire song and smiled to myself. Sean and my Mom got back into the car and I ate my scoop of ice cream. It was totally of season but I really enjoyed it! I spoke with my Mom as I am drafting my blog post and I started to laugh. I was remembering back when I was p music club and got a new CD that I was listening to for the first time in my car. It was The Incredible Journey. I showed of my Momt the CD case as we drove to wherever we were going. Once we got back and I put my car in park in front of my Parents’ house, my Mom just ejected the CD and told me that, “I’ll have this.” She got out of my car and walked toward the porch. I looked completely aghast and shook my hand. I just decided to let her have it! It’s like the Diet Coke commercial, she IS the reason I like them!

A Decade OR, “I Love This Toothbrush!

I had posted a few weeks ago about the fact that I bought myself an electric toothbrush. I took it with me to the dentist when I got my teeth cleaned so she could explain it to me. Let me tell you a little bit about my dentist. I know I have written before but it’s easier for me just to give you the, “ Quick and dirty.” I have been going to the same dentist for my entire life and so has Sean. We used to get our teeth cleaned at the same time. Sean’s hygienist’s name was Cher. She used to be mine but I moved over to have my Dad‘s hygienist so Sean and I could get our teeth cleaned at the same time. Cher retired a while ago and Sean got a new one, named Lisa. I continued to have my teeth cleaned by Judy. Judy just retired before the pandemic so I changed over to Kristen. She cleaned my teeth before lockdown and then I didn’t get my teeth cleaned for the first time in my life for a year and a half. Maybe two years.

Now, my Mom and I get to our teeth cleaned just like Sean and I used to do. My Mom makes the appointment when she is getting her teeth cleaned so she has them with Kristen and my appointments are with Lisa but I’m okay with that. I feel so comfortable at that office and I can just remain in my wheelchair to get my teeth cleaned. So when I went there at the end of October, I showed Lisa my new toothbrush and she explained it to me. She turned it on for me and had me feel the running bristles and she told me, very specifically, that I should, “Give it a two week college try!”

Hearing her say that to me made me a little bit nervous that I would not like it. I wanted an electric toothbrush for Christmas back when I was 15 or 16. I think I was 16 and a sophomore in high school. Neither one of my Parents thought I was serious so I did NOT get one but I really wanted one! teeth have always been very important to me!

I just tried this toothbrush yesterday morning. I know it’s a little late but it’s better late than never and I must say that I am excited to tell Lisa because she does not know that I was in college for a decade to get both my bachelors and masters degrees. It’s a piece of cake! Because yesterday morning, I ran my tongue over my teeth just after I brushed and flossed them and I felt like I just gone to the dentist. This morning, when I woke up, I told my Mom that I was excited to brush my teeth!

I have decided that I love this toothbrush! I can’t wait to tell Lisa but I kept saying it to myself and then I started hearing this song in my head. I’m not a huge fan of this song but it is an homage to my serving days at Lonestar. I have two or three chilled glasses in my left hand and two or three cold bottles of beers intertwined in my right fingers and I am walking to my table. Toby Keith reminds me of my Dad so I don’t mind and I have a memory I like to stay visiting for a while because that is some thing I used to do… walk.

“Hold Up, Wait a Minute!”

So, I had some difficulty falling to sleep last night so I decided to scroll through target.co, because I had just placed two orders for necessities when I got paid. I decided to scroll through the search history for Burt’s Bees gift sets again. At about 3:30 in the morning, I saw this:


When I saw that, I heard a song in my head from one that I had to be like eight years old. I should have scrolled through more completely when I received my Social Security so I would have added that one to my chapsticks when I got my Christmas and New Year’s chapstick pack. I would have seen this one and I would’ve ordered it!

If you look in this picture, the box that is the second one from the bottom is my Christmas/New Year’s box of chapsticks but remember that I said yesterday that I don’t use the yellow ones because those are peppermint and four Winter flavors I just ordered, the red is peppermint as well. I definitely can find different places for them in order to put the shortbread cookie flavor in. The day after Thanksgiving is reserved for ginger spice and I wear that all the way until the day after Christmas because Ginger spice reminds me of my Abuela because of the candy she always had in her house at Christmas.

But when I saw this flavor of chapstick that would totally fit with my winter and New Year’s flavors, I’m DEFINITELY ordering that when I get my next check! I will probably post a review on it! It was after three in the morning but I was singing this song in my head as I drifted off to sleep. I remember hearing it coming from the basement of my house when I was a child because my older brothers will listen to it:

A Game

I received a Target order today. When I awakened, I saw the notification on my phone. In this shipment, my seasonal chapstick collection is complete! I figured out the right words to search when looking at target.com for chapstick. It’s under “Burt’s bees gift sets.” So now, I have all the chapsticks I need for the entire year and I will replenish them as needed. I already know that I will need to order more pomegranate flavored Chapstick around March or maybe even February. I use vanilla bean and pomegranate between seasons. If it is cold, I use vanilla bean but if it’s feeling warmer, I use pomegranate. I think it’s silly that I do this but my brother, Jimmy, got me these really cool boxes when we were quarantined for me in the beginning of the pandemic. They had my gum in them and my chapsticks fit in there perfectly! I don’t use the yellow ones because they are peppermint and the red one is peppermint as well but I have been toying with the idea of having chapstick on the table by my bed because just before I fall asleep, sometimes my lips dry out. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with that but I don’t want to waste them!

I gathered all of my chapstick boxes and before I arranged them, I sang James Taylor in my head. That song always reminds me of my cousinT Shannon! From the bottom to the top of the picture, it is, “winter, spring, summer, fall.”:

I was having difficulty trying to find a title for this blog post and I didn’t want to call it, “James Taylor”so I thought about the fact that I am spending so much time thinking about the type of chapstick that I use. I have nothing but time now that I no longer work and MS is raging through me so I can just make that a game because I apply so much chapstick because for whatever reason, my lips get really dry and cracked without applying chapstick very liberally all day long. I’ve told my Mom that my body is shutting down but she really doesn’t like me to say it like that and if I can avoid thinking about that by looking at my chapsticks, so be it.

Savage

I got pregnant with my son in April of my freshman year of college and it was four months after my MS diagnosis. I had my son two months early via emergency C-section so I had to withdraw from the classes I was in at the time. I was told to, “Approach the chair” and was able to get all of my tuition money back except for the fees for each class. But because my sophomore year of college only consisted of one semester, I was behind in the credits and so once I went back to school after having Sean, I went full-time until I graduated.

I have recounted this story so many times because, even today, I can’t believe that I did it. Even before I had Sean, while I was pregnant, living with my Parents, I told myself and I set a goal being out of their house and on my own by the time Sean was five and when he was going to start kindergarten. I have written before how I used to pour over the class offering lists all the time in order to maximize the number of classes I took each semester. But, I was working in a deficit even taking 15 credits a semester, it’s so was going to take a while for me to finish. I kept looking over the class offerings and they enjoyed the seven week courses in the summer the best. They were quick and I was able to add to the number of credits I needed to graduate.

I remember, specifically, looking at the course offerings for what would be the summer and I was in between a sophomore and a junior. I looked at all of the classes that were being offered and I crunched some numbers. I figured out that if I took 23 credits that summer of the classes that were being offered, I would have a full schedule in the fall, student teach in the winter, “Walk” (Graduate) in the summer while I had two additional classes to finish but then I could get a job teaching the following fall. it was ahead of schedule but that’s what I was going to do! Now, all I had to do was DO it!

I figured that if I took a full schedule each seven week session, that would put me on track to graduate the following summer. In order to be approved to take that many classes, I had to, “Petition the chair” for permission. In that meeting with them, I laid out the fact that I had a two-year-old at home and was trying to condense my schedule because I was going to teach and if I didn’t take that many classes in the summer, it will delay graduation another semester and I wouldn’t be hired in the middle of a school year so I would be unemployed for entire school year after I graduated. I remember that he looked at my grades and told me that it looks like I can do it and if I want to do it, I was given permission.

it was EXTREMELY difficult but I got it done! Everything worked out precisely and Sean and I were able to be out on our own by the time Sean was three. I took the contract from CCA that said that I was just hired in and was able to get an apartment. When Sean was over yesterday, we were talking about college and somehow I just offhandedly said, “Or, you can take 23 credits in one summer.” I said it as if it was no big deal but it is something that I did. Sean surprised me and he looked directly at me and said, “That’s savage!”

I was completely taken aback by his statement but thinking about it, I guess it kind of was. I told him that I will NEVER do it again and I thought I was going to die! I also told him that I had a goal and I had a child so I HAD to do things in order to get things completed on time. but, even though in retrospect I think that’s crazy, I’m glad that I was able to do it because Sean and I were able to be out on our own when he started preschool. It is an incredible story to think about but I had to do what I had to do! And if that”Savage,” so be it!