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I awakened to it being 80° outside today and it stay there for a while and went up to 84°. This is how it makes me feel:

This is only the beginning and I’m hearing this song in my head because my brain is fuzzy and it kinda hurts:

I am just hearing the lead singer, Danny Donoghue sing, desperation because that’s how I feel right now!!!

This is only day two of this weather that has finally come and it’s staying and it really stinks! My Mom is picking up the van tomorrow for our haircuts on Wednesday and it’s supposed to be raining. That really stinks!!!

I have been thinking about this since we watched Hope Floats a couple nights ago. I heard and remembered some great tunes when watching this movie. Tunes that I listened to when I was 16. That was strange to me because I clearly remember being asked at Lonestar Steakhouse and Saloon if I listen to country music.

I clearly remember, smiling and saying no, as I shook my head thinking that that would be a dealbreaker in me being hired. It wasn’t a dealbreaker and she said to me, knowingly and without looking at me, “You will.”

And I did! I told my Mom that I guess thatI have always dabbled in listening to country music. I listen. to it in waves. And maybe that comes from my Dad because he liked country music. He wasn’t super overt about it, but I grew up listening to Johnny Cash and Charley Pride.

I remember jamming to Deana Carter and Shania Twain in high school. I owned two Dixie Chicks CDs.

I don’t know that I will watch Hope Floats again for a while, but it was really nice to think about all the great country music. I’ve listened to over the years

I saw and read an article about Dearborn yesterday. As I read it, I sobbed! I couldn’t really understand why I was sobbing and it took me a minute to realize why. I think I need to tell this story before I tell you about the that made me cry!:

I worked at dfcu for my sophomore year of college. There were four other part-time towers who were college students at U of M Dearborn as well!

Three of us worked at the Livonia branch (I had classes with Catherine and Joannabut Craig was in a different college but sometimes we would see him at the CASL building). On Saturdays, other part-time tellers would come to Livonia to work because it was open on Saturdays.

Another teller, her name is Laura, she went to U of M-Dearborn as well. She actually lived in Dearborn too. We would talk on our lunch breaks and toward the spring, she told me that she was going on the hajj.

I was surprised! She was older than me, but she was only about 22 or 23. My neighbor two doors down was my friend and she was muslim. I loved her mom‘s cooking!She talked to me about the hajj and all the rituals in the meanings big deal this was! I wished Laura luck and I was happy for her! But then we didn’t see each other for a while.

I was leaving the bathroom stall at dfcu at work and I’m met Laura at the sink to wash our hands! Of course, I asked her about the pilgrimage she looked so elated! She told me it was wonderful and I asked her about the seven times around the Kaaba.

This is the reason why I was crying and this is why I am still crying as I am trying to write this and why I cried when I told Sean about it! She told me that she felt like she was flying!

I read yesterday that the mayor of Dearborn was in Saudi Arabia on personal time to complete the hajj!:

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2025/06/06/dearborn-mayor-abdullah-hammoud-hajj-pilgrimage-saudi-arabia/84064053007

As I was reading this article, I thought of Laura flying and I started to cry. Actually, I sobbed! I’m not Muslim, but I grew up in East Dearborn so I was around a lot of muslim people. Tomorrow will mark the end of the Easter season at Pentecost and I am 43 and this is the first time that I have felt this close to God!! it’s kind of amazing and I think that’s another reason that I sobbed!

Since getting my air conditioning fixed, and my ducts cleaned, I thought summers would be so much easier because I no longer had a window box unit.

Well, not so much! I have to restart my Claritin because I think that’s a seasonal thing not so much the ducts thing.

I have to tell you that since my ducts have been cleaned, it gets so cold in my house so fast and it gets so hot in my house just as quickly! Both Sean and my Mom have noticed an air quality difference!

This is my first summer in nine years that I won’t have a window box air conditioner. And that feels strange, for sure. The weather being so strange given that it was 82° one day and today it was in the 50s is doing a number on my body! I am so drained.

4 appointments and 4 van rentals for April and 3 more for May.

I am exhausted.

Well, we did it!!! My skin tags are gone on the front of my neck and we had tamales!!! I still tell myself that they are NOT pork. Pork isn’t good for me to eat.
I’m exhausted, but we are 75% completed! I just have one more appointment on Tuesday! I never once thought that my life would be like this, but it is…

Today is the eve, eve of ‘go time.’ That’s a thing now because my Mom picks up the van in the evening because now it is harder to leave the house. I wasn’t prepared for this.

For February, March, and April, I have three appointments which means three van rentals. But in April, I have four because my doctor wants to see me again because I have lost so much weight) I got used to just one doctor appointment a month with a haircut. But now I have serious appointments. In May, Sean is coming with us. He took off work. It’s a CT scan at 8 o’clock in the morning!

I really wasn’t prepared for this. I think with my disease progression, it has taken my smile away. Maybe I am just determined because this week is ‘go time’ for sure! But the silver lining is that on Thursday, I will get my AC fixed! Deferred gratification! It only took nine years.

So, I joined a group on Facebook called ‘Mind Thinkers’ and they will message me a meme daily. I will share them on Facebook, but I saw this one today and I thought otherwise. I thought that I will just share this on my blog because it feels so true to me. It’s kind of cathartic now that I’m 43:

I just sat with that for a while. Yes, baby girl! it’s going to eventually be alright but not in the way that you had envisioned…

I have been thinking a lot and I was feeling quite uneasy and I couldn’t understand why. But yesterday, I got some clarity finally:

I’m going on 25 years of having this disease and it absolutely is horrible and I hate it every single day but I get through it. I looked at my calendar on my phone for April.

“Go time” starts on Wednesday this month. And then the next week, I have two appointments but one of them is just a haircut so I’m comfortable with that one. My appointment on Friday to see my dermatologist is going to be a little tricky because it’s pretty early in the day!

In looking at my calendar yesterday, it’s completely doable. I say that because I tell myself each day when it’s tough and I need to figure something out, I say something along the lines of, “Suck it up Jen, you have a damn masters degree!”

Hearing myself say that encourages me to just get what I’m doing – done! So I am going to hold my breath for my April appointments, but I’m happy that in the end, the week after my two appointment week, I will get a little more clarity on why I have lost so much weight! That’s kind of scary to me!