Category: Uncategorized

So, my hair has been getting pretty long in these past six months! Not too long ago, I remembered that I would French braid everyone’s hair on my basketball team before our game. If it was an away game, I would do it in the bus. If it was a home game, I would braid their hair on the bleachers or in the locker room. It took probably five or six games for me to realize that I was the ONLY person without braids because no one else knew how to French braid!

That’s when I asked my Mom to braid my hair in the morning before school when I had a game. She did that for the rest of my games my senior year. I vaguely remembered taking this picture and seeing it when I found a photo album from my school. I can’t remember the kid on the left’s name. I think it was Zack? But I am Facebook friends with the boy on the right’s sister because we went to school together and were on the same basketball team:

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So today, because my hair has grown so long, my Mom French braided it. It was definitely difficult because I’m sitting in my wheelchair and it was a strange angle but it got done!

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It has been 21 years since my Mom has braided my hair and I felt like a child as she did. I HAD to have her take a picture of it because I never thought I would have my hair braided again as my disease has progressed and since I chopped all of my hair off 12 years ago to make things easier for me. Now, I can say that she did it again even as I am a grown woman!

This morning, I turned the news on and the guest said that he feels old when he tells his children about what he was doing in 2001 today. He said that, “Everybody has a 9/11 story.” As I watched the news this morning, I began to cry. Today has always been somber for me since then and while I worked and we had our moment of silence to commemorate the lost souls when the planes hit.

My students were all too young or not even alive when that happened and one year, a student asked me what it was like. Of course I remembered what I was doing but took me a moment to gather my thoughts. I was speaking to children who had no idea about it so I didn’t want to say do much but I just said that I was in college and I was pregnant and yes I remember.

Just this morning, I afriended a former student of mine on Facebook. He is a man now and NOT skinny 12-year-old kid. That’s insane to me!

I’m especially sad today so I will share my full 9/11 story that I don’t have to truncate for children. I don’t think that I have shared the story and it’s entirety before…

I was in an auditorium in my psychology class at U of M-Dearborn when the first plane hit. Lights were off and we were taking notes from the projector. Class ended and I was headed to my second class of the day down the hall and there was lots of buzz in the hallway. I didn’t know what was going on.

Once I got to the next class, the woman who always sat to my left was explaining to me what what’s going on. Then this guy, another student in the class, entered into the doorway and exclaimed, “The second tower just fell!” The professor came into the room just after he did and the woman sitting next to me me began to bawl. She used to work in the second tower.

The prof looked at the woman and told us to find a TV on campus somewhere and that class was canceled. I left the building headed toward the library and I called my Mom. It was strange that time almost seemed to standstill and everything seems so surreal! I received a phone call from my son’s dad and my Mom decided to call my brothers.

Images of that day keep playing in my head on loop and even 19 years later, because I am in my house, I am crying on and off.

Leia had her ultrasound today. The doctor called my Mom and me while Sean was there. The veterinary hospital he took her to for her appointment is still doing curbside so he was in the car when the doctor called us. He called us before her ultrasound to get some background information from us. He told us that he would call us back after he was finished with the ultrasound.

After a while, he did call us back and said that everything is good with Leia. Upon hearing this, my Mom and I let out breaths at the same time. I never could have imagined that I would be so worried about a dog but Leia isn’t just a dog. She’s #MyGirlL.

This doctor also called Leia. “A sweetheart.” He told my No m that she is, “More mature than her years.” He didn’t really expound on that and we were just so happy to hear that she was okay. The veterinary tech called us a little later and my Mom asked her what that meant. This woman laughed and said that normally puppies Leia’s age squirm, bark, or howl. She said that Leia just laid there and let them do what they had to do.

He is sharing her ultrasound results with another doctor in the office and will get back to us in a week when all of the results from her bloodwork and fecal exam are back. So, it was nice to hear that everything is okay with her and she has been getting back to her normal happy and playful self.

I opened my eyes this morning and I was cold! I have a pretty heavy comforter and sleep with a wool blanket between my sheet and my comforter. I sleep with them right up to my chin and my Mom makes fun of me but it’s comfortable sleeping for me.

Well, this morning I was cold and it took me a really long time to warm up. I could tell that it was going to be one of those days because my eyelids felt heavy. That’s the telltale sign for me and it’s especially going to be a NOT good day! So much so, that I posted this on Facebook:

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So when I was finally ready to complete our morning routine, it’s hair washing day and I just wasn’t feeling it! So today, it’s #DirtyHairDontCare but I’m not going anywhere.

Last summer, after the prolonged power outage that I had to live through with multiple hotel stays, trying to find one that was accessible, I got a generator. Really, to be honest, my Mom got me a generator. (I’m STILL paying her back) It runs at noon every Wednesday for five minutes just to make sure that it still runs.

Well, today, after my mom transferred me back to my wheelchair after washing my hair, the power flickered and then it came back on. That’s how the generator works, it will take 30 seconds for the generator to kick in.

My Mom and I looked at each other and once the power came back on, we both smiled and gave each other double high-fives, two times as we laughed.

So, my subdivision does NOT have power and I just received an email saying it is supposed to be on at 7:30 tonight. Before I received that email, my Mom talked to one of my brothers and my Mom told him about our power situation. He laughed and told her that it was, “A wise investment!”

He told her that it is 94° outside right now. I’m so grateful that I don’t have to go anywhere until the power comes back on at 7:30 tonight, IF it comes back on. It definitely warranted double high-fives!!!

The night before last I could not fall asleep and I scrolled through my YouTube feed and at about 1:15 in the morning, I saw this one! How did I not know this?!

As I listen to it, I was reminded of how much I absolutely love Bono!!!

I’m not really digging this way of distributing music and I miss CDs but I also don’t own a Kindle and prefer paper books.

I’ve been thinking about this concert for a while! I remembered seeing this song performed live so many years ago with my brother and my work colleagues! I shared this song before but I thought I’d share it and again today because in made me smile!:

So, Sean graduated yesterday. It was a personal blessing in the church and receiving his diploma with the principal. I did not go because I am still sheltering in place with my mom. Sean‘s great aunt Lee and his dad went in my place.

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Lee sent me a real time pictures the whole time which I absolutely loved! I think Sean was gone about 30 minutes before I saw this:

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I cried and Sean put his hands on the door and told me that, “We did it!” I smiled through my tears and told him that, “HE did it!” Then he said no the glass, “YOU paid for it! I smiled and agreed that, “WE did it.”

My mom masked and took a couple pictures of him:

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I love this picture because it shows what Sean looked like for his senior pictures. Now, he has his, “Quarantine hair” I guess that is a memory that we will eventually cherish!

This was the extent of me experiencing my only son’s high school graduation:

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It’s definitely not how I planned it but it’s how it is and he finished high school! And I guess I can take some credit for that seeing that I paid for it. Now, I have a DCHS alum!

I’m not sure what it is that is causing me to feel as horrible as I do. I think it may be the weather change because I woke up very cold this morning and can’t seem to warm up. When the seasons change, it’s awful for at least a few days. I shared this on Facebook:

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I’m having a pretty, “MS-y” day and I don’t like it AT ALL!!!

I have a vivid memory from the summer of 2013 where I was laying on the turf at Barwis Methods on my back and I told Jesse, my trainer, that I missed having a ponytail. I had cut my hair all off five years earlier on my 26th birthday.

I thought about this from the beginning of this pandemic and subsequent Florentine. Sean snapped this picture and I think I had not had my haircut for almost 2 months at that point:

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I have since documented my hair growth during this:

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So, check out my ponytail now:

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I ordered ponytail holders from Target, some thing I haven’t done for 12 years but they arrived in yesterday and I put my hair in a ponytail for the first time in 12 years. I would have taken a picture then but my hair was dirty. I think it’s crazy that I have forgotten how to put a ponytail holder in my hair. Yesterday, it took me a few times to remember.