Very shortly after I joined Facebook (20 years too late), I, “Friended” and “Liked” their page. They are: MS Memes and more Multiple Sclerosis Awareness. There wasn’t a Multiple Sclerosis Awareness month when I was first diagnosed. It was about 10 years after I was diagnosed that there was one week in March. I have posted many pictures about my T-shirt sales back when I was working. Now, the ENTIRE month is dedicated to Multiple sclerosis Awareness!!!
Oh, I am aware of it every second of every single day for the past 21+ years!!! MS Awareness Month is approaching so I have been receiving a lot of posts from them in my Facebook feed. I feel special that they chose March to be that month of recognition because that is ALSO my “Birthday Month!” I saw this meme yesterday and have thought about it since:
When I read this meme, a song immediately popped into my head by India.Arie. That took me back to my college days when I was still driving and was just on crutches.
I reposted a blog post from 2018 because it talked about a poetry slam I did when I was in school for my African-American studies class. I listened to that song and stayed in my memories for a while. I listened to this song before I am about to post it and I revisited those same memories and seem to be there right now:
I have been seeing my speech pathologist for a little over a month now. Because of the pandemic, our visits are virtual. I meet with her every week for about 30 minutes. We talk on the phone. She originally had lists of words for me to read which progressed to sentences and now she sends me articles for me to read for us to discuss at the next appointment.
Yesterday, she told me that she wants me to call her work phone and leave a message. She wanted me to leave text messages. The first message is an unedited and then I can edit the message because that’s how I am! I told my Mom last night about the text messages I was going to send her but my Mon reminded me that her neighbor sends her audio messages because she cannot spell well.
Because I have been using my voice to text capability for so long on my phone, it has gotten used to how I sound when I say things. It even texts the word, “Abuela” because I use that word so much when I text Sean. I left Meira two audio messages. The first message was 24 seconds long and the second message is 28 seconds long. I think she will leave me a message tomorrow to tell me if that form of communication works. I can’t get over how difficult speaking is for me now! I even cried yesterday at our appointment because it is SO difficult now! She has told me that overworking the muscles in my jaw will help me to speak better for longer.
She has told me that I am doing very well and I think it is good that I use my voice to text capability when I blog on my iPad as well. That’s another reason that I try to post daily. I will let you all know what she thinks of my messages tomorrow or whenever she answers me?
I didn’t text with any of my friends while I was watching the game last night because it was a little bit nervous!!!
today, I received a text message from my friend after sending him this::
He texted me this question:
I am not sure, it’s possible but I thought of this song immediately:
I usually will have my pic for the Super Bowl winner by now but I am not sure. I know what my heart wants but I don’t know if that will come to fruition. So, I am definitely going to watch the game next weekend an active realist on this one!
Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have become a more passive football fan. My Mom moved in with me and I know that she is NOT a football fan! Last season, I just checked the scores on my NFL app. But then, my man changed teams!!!
This season, I HAD TO watch his debut in SoFi! Because the Rams are doing so well, and are in the Wildcard game tonight, I will be watching the game at eight! I told my Mom I’d like to say that I was going to do this. I am so excited to see this came! It’s his playoff debut!
I am so excited to see this came! It’s his playoff debut! But if the Rams lose tonight, I think I’m going to be more of a passive fan during the playoffs. I can’t even eat my normal Super Bowl food anymore!!!
so, right now, I am watching the Golden Girls marathon until pregame starts! I had a good feeling about Matthew Stafford being the quarterback of the Rams so I planned accordingly:
So, yesterday I felt a bit wonky. Probably because I am not doing well with dealing with my disease progression. 21 years seem to be a little bit much for me! My Mom had laid down for a nap so I was going to watch something on TV. I turned the TV on and just saw the opening scene of this gem! This is my ABSOLUTE favorite Hallmark movie!:
Subconsciously, I compare ALL Hallmark movies with this one! `
Think I like this scene the best because it shows that they belong together! They got married
This was the first movie that I was watching that Sean commented on wondering what it was about. I have been watching the same movies over and over again for his entire life! I don’t know why thought it would be different! He commented on it when he was headed to his room and he turned his head to say something to me at the same time that I begin mouthing the song he was singing in the movie. I love the words that go along with this scene in the movie and her name is Sarah in the movie and her favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip ALSO!!!
And they have belonged together the whole time!
I love these are the final scenes with them getting married!!!
I don’t know how many times I have seen this movie but I’m sure it’s somewhere around 200 or so…?:
I had a difficult morning today! I was going to write about the fact that I am afraid of it and I do not like my, “New normal.” It seems that it’s taking me longer to wake up and move around and be coherent and that scares me. Things are becoming more difficult for me to accomplish. That really stinks!
I made my way to my living room still not feeling well but I knew that I needed Chapstick. I started laughing once I looked at what I will now call my, “Bag of Chapstick.”
The memory is a little hazy but I remember two students being close to my desk. One of them knocked some things off of my desk and the other student somehow exclaimed some thing about, “You dropped her bag of lotion!” I had never heard that before but I laughed kind of a lot! As I laughEd, he said, “Well, that’s what it is! And it really wasLet me explain:
I think it had to be The winter of 2007 or 2008 and my disease had just begun progressing into things that I didn’t even realize but now I know. What was happening in the winter of 2007 or 2008, (well, really BOTH of them!) What is that my hands would get really dry and when it was cold, they would subsequently crack and eventually, they would bleed. At that point, it was clear that I do not like heavy lotions on my body or even my hands. so, my hands would be dry most of the time and in the winter months when it was cold, they would crack and bleed. Sometimes it would start as early as mid October and would go until late February.
to counteract my dry hands, I went to the health food store that say would buy my organic things from. They had a bunch of different lotions and I told the sales person to tell me the lotion to use if I do not like the feel of lotions on my hands. They showed me the specific one and allowed me to test it. It was really light on my skin and I bought one. It was kind of pricey. Hey it had a strange packaging to it, it was shaped funny. it was a hard plastic tube that opened from the bottom and it was shaped kind of like a ball just before the opening and then it had a thinner handle Toward the end opposite of its opening.
I think I had left the tube in my car overnight so it cracked and I wasn’t done using the lotion yet! I put it in a Ziploc gallon bag and just let the lotion seep out inside of the bag. It WAS very expensive on my single mother, teacher’s salary. I had to make it last! It was the only lotion that felt good on my skin. retrospectively, that probably wasn’t the most sanitary option. I use that lotion for a long time but I didn’t buy another one until my hands cracking and bleeding again became a problem. I went back to the store and bought another lotion to deal with my hands that were dry and bleeding. I was in a different classroom then and it was extremely cold in the winter in there. The lotion cracked while I was teaching in the class. I was close to the kitchen in the cafeteria and I got another Ziploc bag to put the cracked lotion tube in.
Now that I no longer work, my hands do not crack and bleed in the winter anymore. I am not out in the elements very often these days. I really appreciated that today that I was able to remember a fond memory from my teaching days and that amused me! Now, I am on a fixed income but I would not say that the chapstick was “Extremely pricey” like the lotion was but it’s more of a “Principle of the matter” for me. Now that I no longer work, I finish chapstick completely! I have posted pictures of completely used chapstick tubes on my blog before! So, even though it wasn’t pricey, I HAVE TO finish it! I remembered my, “Bag of lotion” so now I have a, “Bag of chapstick.” I am almost finished with this tube anyway. I dropped the cap yesterday and I think it rolled under my TV stand for the cable box.
So, lately I have been thinking of the most random songs. These are all songs from my youth, even more specifically, high school. I was thinking about posting songs from The Chicks (formerly the Dixie Chicks). The memory that came to mind as I heard the first bars of this song, is me going on a late night bike ride with my brother, Jimmy. It was probably 2 o’clock in the morning. It was in the summer and he had just come back from Mexico. He got the idea that we would ride our bikes, (his low rider bikes) to` his friend’s house who was the brother of my friend so we would kill two birds with one stone.
I don’t know that we ended up going to their house, or they weren’t home, but I remember talking with my brother and he asked, “So, you listen to country music now?’” I remember laughing and I told him I did because that was the rage back then.
My Mom and I listened to music as she washed my legs yesterday. It was time to change my compression socks. we pretty much have a routine down pat, it’s pretty much second nature. While we were doing this, we alternated choosing songs that we liked.
Random songs were popping into my head as I was trying to decide on a choice for my song. I chose random songs from my youth. Songs that would remind me of a guy or something. What I discovered is that there are only two things that will bring me to tears regarding songs. The first thing being if it is a song reminds me of my Dad. I will definitely cry then! The second thing that will make me cry is if if I listen to this song and I feel that it pertains to my disease. I am no longer a dramatic teenager and I am looking at being 40 years old in less than two months but some songs do evoke tears. I listened to this one last night and I listened to it again today and I cried both times:
I guess that I am on a posthumous celebration of Sidney Poitier. My Mom and I watched Lilies of the Field last night. I remember seeing this movie as a child and I remember singing, “AMEN” at the dining room table in jest with my Dad and two of my brothers. It was my Dad and, “The three little ones.”
I was taken with this movie and I was appreciative to see it as an adult who has more understanding of the events taking place:
As a child, I did not understand this nun’s faith. Absolute faith. And I liked watching it unfold!
It is a very simple set and the majority of the movie is set in the dining room at the table. It was so familiar to me to watch because I remember watching it as a child but now I understand what’s going on and I was extremely takenand continued watching even as my Mom was working in the kitchen and even when she laid down for a nap.
This scene really got to me!:
In the scene where they are discussing his pay for the work he has done and he wants to move on. The verse she quoted in Matthew is it also underlined in my Parent’s Bible! I sat there watching the movie was such Attention and I really felt like I was “churched” until the very end!
I told my Mom that, I am being #Churched by and over 60 year old movie! They even addressed race relations. Seeing that this movie came out in January of 1963, we had a long and tumultuous road ahead of us that we still seem to be on even today:
I saw this movie because it was free on one of the streaming applications on my TV. I will leave the trailer here if you feel so inclined to watch:
I know this post is late because Sidney Poitier died a while ago but I just watched To Sir with Love last night. I found out that he died when I woke up in the afternoon hours and checked my phone just after I sent my morning prayer. I did not post about his death until I spoke with my cousinT, Shannon.
I called her for a number of reasons. The first reason I called her was because I will NEVER be able to forget the summer we spent watching this movie over and over again! We sang each and every time we watched it! I was 17 that summer and I had already known that I was going to go to college to become a teacher. We watched this movie snd Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. We sang along with that movie as well!
but I think the reason I CANNOT EVER forget that summer is the fact that we watched both of these movies on her TV in her basement that was on it’s last leg. So much so, the picture was just a thin line showing in the middle of the TV. The audio was working fine and we were not bothered by not being able to see the picture. We KNEW what was going on!
The second reason I wanted to talk to her was because she is one of the people I speak to regularly on the phone. We love to talk and we have always had easy conversation. I’ve known her for my whole life! I just had my virtual appointment with my speech pathologist and she told me that my conversational speech sounds better than reading the things she has given me to read. She modified our game plan and next week, I am reading two articles she will send me and we will discuss them together. Here is the trailer to To Sir with Love:
I actually cried when I watched this movie. I cried because I WAS a teacher, I took my kids on field trips, I think, overall, that I had a good rapport with my students. I had a flood of memories that made me think of teaching was extreme fondness. One memory that stuck in my head was one of my field trip to the Detroit Zoo. Go figure that the day we were going, it rained! It was beautiful the day before and the day after! Not only did it rain, it was cold! I had arranged for Little Caesars Hot ‘N Ready pizzas to be delivered to their pavilion but in the planning, I overlooked paper plates and napkins! I was in my manual chair back then and it wasn’t even custom yet. I remember commenting on their pink faces in the pavilion and I told them to get warm by holding the pieces of pizza with their hands because I forgot the plates!
The memory I thought of was toward the end of the day and I was by the entrance and the kids were coming to get on the bus, I saw A student with a soaking wet sweatshirt. He had his hoodie on and had his hands inside the sleeves. I apologized to him for our field trip being, “A COMPLETE FAIL” but as he approached me, he had a broad smile on his face and shrugged his shoulders and said, “It’s better than being at school! The teachers who came with us told me that the students were not complaining and that made me feel better that it was not a fail completely.
