Laughter is the Best Medicine

Christmas is over and it is back to some form of normalcy at our house.

Beside the the fact that I really don’t know if I am coming or going most of the time when I get home in the evening, it remains to be seen what I will do for New Years Eve to bring in the new year.

I have been thinking about going out on New Years Eve to a casino for a few hours and see if I could be lucky enough to win some of the money that is suppose to be given away, then spending New Years Day watching the Football Games on the TV all day. That is until my mother said, I think I will go with you. Now I never mind taking my mother anywhere and it is always good to get her out of the house, new scenery is good for her disposition.

Now I am forced to plan ahead, instead of just relaxing and having fun. Now the Scooter will come into play again. It has to be fully charged, once we are in a casino there is no recharging it there, the battery is suppose to hold a charge for 13hrs. But of course I will not be in a casino for 13hrs.

I know that she will be people watching, so she will be running people over and running into the the ATM machines because whe will not be watching where she is going. This means that I will be sacraficing myself to stay in front of her and leave with more bumps and bruises than when I came in.

She will have a blast and I will be a nervous wreck. She is not a very good scooter driver, she is a road rage scooter driver. She will tell people to move it or loose it, or too look out she has no breaks. She can be very sweet and fun to be with, but if she is in a cantankerous mood, I’m 55 years old and her daughter and I will want to run away from home.

After about 2 hours she will start telling me how tired she is and will want to leave. The question is, would it be more relaxing and less stressful staying home and watching the new year come in on the TV?

I would sit in the sun room, her on the love seat with her feet up, when you are only 4′11″ tall I don’t care where you sit, if you sit back on something your feet will never touch the floor. I will be in the lounger stretched out with my Yorkie by my side watching probably football.

Her favorite player is Adrian Pederson, she followed him from the OU Sooners to the Min. Vikings. She received one of those snuggies for christmas and it has the Vikings all over it and she cannot wait for the next game, I can see her sitting on the loveseat wearing it and yelling the whole game for AD.

Well I hope that you have a Happy Safe New Year, I will tell you about mine after the fact.

Remember to laugh, it really is good for the soul.

Christmas is over and a New Year is just around the corner.

It seems that every holiday season becomes more and more trying and reqires more patience on my part. My mother always mourns the ones that have passed on and forgets to  celebrate life and be with the ones that are still here. I have a constant battle on my hands to try and be uplifting and jolly for my mom, because she constantly wants to be depressed and miserable and and trys to make everybody around her miserable as she keeps asking herself why she is still here.

I had already been informed earlier that she was not going anywhere to celebrate Christmas, that she just wanted to stay home and watch TV, she didn’t want to be around the grand kids and family. She was too busy missing my brothers, one passed away in 1982 and the other in 2003. I miss them too, but I can’t bring them back and I know if I live my life in the right way I will see them again. I have tried to bring this reality to my mother but she won’t accept it.

On Christmas day we had 5-6′ snow drifts in our driveway and I got stuck in our driveway. My mother watched from her bedroom window and thought that it was funny that I could not get out of the driveway and go see my children & grandchildren for Christmas. She thought that it was funny that I was digging my car out of the snow for two hours until I could get it back into the garage. I went back inside and called my children and told them that we would have a special Christmas the next day when the snow had melted some. The next day the snow had melted enough to try and get out again very carefully, of course she did not want to go, but she was in a better frame of mind and wanted to know when I would be back or how long I would be gone. I will not be timed on how long I am gone to celebrate Christmas and Life. Once I got to Moore, which took me about 2 hours, we had  wonderful time, when I got home she was excited to see that I had brought back presents for her. I told her that I wish she could have seen her great grandchildrens eyes light up with the gifts that I had taken to them. She said thats nice and I picked up the phone and called them, so she could tell them thank you for the gifts that they had sent home to her.

Now that Chirstmas is over she is smiling and wants to get out of the house. I don’t understand her actions and I just try and imprint in my mind that this is not the person that I was raised with, my childhood memories of Chirstmas Past are great so I chalk it up to age. I love the holidays and all that goes with it and I always will! Chirstmas is the celebration of life and family. Everyday is Christmas, as long as you have joy & love in your heart & you celebrate life.

I hope that everybody in your family had a wonderful holiday and will have a Safe & Happy New Year.

Remember to laugh once in awhile its good for the soul………

We have always had Christmas on Christmas day at our house, even growing up as a child. I have so many wonderful memories of past Christmas’s and loved ones that are no longer with us that I would not trade for a million dollars.

The last three years we have enjoyed Christmas at my daughters house in Moore, this is a good thing with my mother, we can leave when she is tired or the children get on her last nerve. Since she is not around small children all of the time, they tend to get on her nerves when they are excited or making any kind of noise.

This year my mother has decided that she is not going anywhere, this is her way of trying to keep me at home with her and not leaving. That doesn’t work with me. I will cook the main part of the meal and load it up with the Christmas presents for my children & grandchildren and head to Moore to deliver the meal and gifts.

Christmas is for family to be together, not to have a dividing line between family. My mother is such a big part of our family but she refuses to believe that she is, and would rather keep me all to herself instead of enjoying the family. I know that this behavior comes with aging, and it is a personel security blanket for her. She is lost without me at her side and she will keep holed up in her bedroom until I return.

I try and learn from her behavior, as to how I want to be. I am such an out going person, that I will talk or help just about anyone. This year I decided to try something new. I took my grandchildren out shopping for their parents gifts this last weekend and we had a blast! After we finished buying their last present I told them that there was something special that they needed to do. They looked at me with big eyes and those beautiful big smiles and said in unison what grandma. I Love Those Words!

I gave each of them a $5.00 bill and told them, that the money that I gave them is Special money. If they saw another child that was not going to have much of a Christmas this year, that they were to use that $5.00 bill and buy them a special gift for Christmas. My 5 year old grandson looked at me and said, grandma what if we don’t find anyone to help? Kids are so cute, my 7 year old grandson said you can’t keep it Karsen its to help someone else.

I told them if they did not hear or see anyone that needed alittle extra help, then put it in the offering plate at church, because the church is built to help people that are in need and touches so many lives.

All three of my grandchildren looked at me with quisical looks and were deep in thought trying to think of someone they knew, that they could help. They didn’t ask anymore questions so I dropped the conversation.

I had forgotten about the $5.00 bills until my daughter mentioned it to me on the telephone several days later. She said that she had heard about the Special Money! I hadn’t told anybody but my grandchildren about this with hopes of starting a new tradition and teaching them early, to be kind and help others who may need alittle extra help. But I also explained to them, money is not always the main way to help someone. It could also be by giving them a gentle smile, a kind word or a helping hand. We get so caught up in our own lives, that we forget the pain or sorrow that others are feeling. Just because they don’t look like they are in pain on the outside, they could be really hurting on the inside.

When I get home tonight, I will hug my mother and tell her how much I love her and appreciate her and what ever she decides to do for Christmas will be fine with me, because she will always have my love.

Try starting a new tradition with your family this Christmas and see if we can all share more love and kindness and try and make this world a better place.

The house that my mother and I live in is the family home and was built in the mid 50’s. When it was bought there was nothing behind the house but a farmers field. This house is a Brick 4 bedroom home with wood floors and a 3-4′ crawl space beneath it, if there was ever a problem with the plumbing or heating & air conditioning.

The problem with this house, no matter how hard you try, because of the field behind us,  when winter gets near, the field mice always try to find a warm place to stay. I cannot stand mice and I have a hard time dealing with them. I use to stereo type and think that houses’s that were not clean were the only ones that had mice in them. But now I know thats not true, because I clean our house all the time. We do have out door cats, so I know that it has to be very slim that a mouse can get into the house.

Since I have been there, I have become a master trapper of all types of animals. But one type of animal I cannot handle is a mouse. If I try one type of mouse trap and it doesn’t work then I will try another one. I am very picky about unwanted visitors. I try and make sure that all food is put up so there is nothing to attract them.

Now, I live with a diabetic and she has been known to hide food in her bedroom, I have found graham crackers, pork rinds, candy and many other types of food in her bedroom when I try and clean for her. She does also have the emergency glucose pills and liquids incase she has a problem but they are in containers that mice could not get into.

Her bedroom is directly accross from mine and when I am in my room we can usually talk back and forth to each other. Sun. evening I was sitting in my bedroom watching TV and working on a Christmas Gift and she was sitting in her bedroom watching an NFL Football game. All was content in the house.

About 9pm it was time to take the dogs out for their usual routine, is when she said that she had heard something chewing & crunching all evening on her dresser. She had been sitting in her bedroom for 4 hours listening to this and not once did she say anything to me.

I turned to the dresser and started moving things around, that is when I found and empy bag of pepermint mints and wrappers shredded all over her dresser along with a bag full of dog chews, it was apparent that these were some hungry critters as there were little chew marks on the dog chews.

There comes a time when you have to throw your hands up in the air and shake your head and admit defeat, at least for a small time. Tonight when I get home I will be on another mission of catching unwanted visitors and trying to  mouse proof the house again. While she sits and watches me, laughing her tail off.

Life is never dull at our house!

Please let me know if you have a secret on how to get rid of these unwanted visitors I can’t stand them. I always appreciate any special tricks or advice to help in this area.

What a wonderful weekend. It was one of the most relaxing and unusual weekends I have had in awhile, and I throughly enjoyed it.

My mother felt so much better after being in the hospital and getting that nasty stuff up out of her lungs, that she decided to venture outside of the walls of the house.

My mother loves leather purses & shoes, and one of her favorite places to buy them, is Dillards at Penn Square Mall, so we got brave and weathered the crowds. When I first pulled into the parking lot at Penn Square Mall I almost turned around and left, I have never see so many cars in one parking lot, they were even parked on the common grass area by the main streets. But I decided since my mother wanted to get out of the house and brave the flu and people, I would deal with it, it is Christmas Time.

I luckly found a parking spot right off the bat and we had her trusty little scooter that I took out of the back of the car and away we went, all walkers needed to beware that there was a senior citizen with poor eye vision on a battery operated vehicle coming their way. When we got inside the purse department of Dillards my mothers eyes lit up like christmas candles and she was in her glory. I love to shop for purses too, the only problem is that when I find something that I like she also likes it. I found a purse that I was going to get for myself and carried it with me, she also liked it and followed me trying to get me to put it down so she could get it. My own mother was stalking me! Usually I just give it to her and let her get it, but last year I did that and she rubbed it in my face all year long and that got old.

This year when I found one and she started stalking me, I went and found another one that I liked and gave her that one. It seemed to passify her but I could tell she really wasn’t content yet. So I had to find another one that I liked. Long story short, she bought two purses this year and a wallet. She was pleased with herself because she bought two compared to my one and I was happy knowing that I did not upset the balance of peace in the house.

We visited another store and I bought her lunch and we called it a day. She was tired and ready to rest when we got back home which meant I could also rest.

This weekend all was well & peaceful. Life is Good

Enjoy your loved one, you never knows what tomorrow may bring. Remember to laugh once in awhile, it is the best medecine.

These last two weeks have been very trying. I took my mother to the emergency room on Nov. 29th, with difficulty breathing. She has severe Asthma & COPD problems on top of many other illness. Of course she was admitted which I knew would happen as I have been down this road many times in the last six years that I have lived with her. She was placed in a semi-private room which is always interesting, because you see how other people live and how other families deal with hospitals, hospital staff and their own families.

Now my mother is on oxygen and getting breathing treatments evey 4 hours and of course the steriods that they give her make her sugar go up, so her diabetes is a problem, but is being managed by the nursing staff.

The first afternoon a woman approximately 35yrs old is brought into the next bed, she has lupis and is in for pain management. I know this is a terrible painful disease and very dehabilitating. This lady  seems to be a very nice lady and as I talk to her I ask her how she manages her pain at home. I was shocked when she told me she has morphine at home that she uses along with other pain medicines. When she said morphine, I know it is a controled narcotic and all I could think of were the dangers involed with having a controlled substance in a family home.

I started noticing that the nurses would come in and give her shots of Demerol which is another high powered pain narcotic and she would put on street clothes and leave for about 2 hours, come back and put her pajamas back on and in an hour get another shot of Demerol. When I left she told my mother that she leaves the hospital for awhile to get some fresh air, then confessed that she was going home in Choctaw and coming back for the next shot. My mother really didn’t know what to say and it really bothered her that this was going on, when she told me all I could imagine was her driving and having and accident and some innocent person being hurt. This was unacceptible to me. Not to mention that the hospital would be responsible that she was leaving and they did not know about it. My mother mentioned it to the nurse, and the lady was watched without knowing it and dismissed from the hospital within a day.

The nurse told me, that I would be amazed what people will do just to get a narcotic. Now when I watch the news and hear about a drug bust, it bothers me to think that it could be someone with a debilitating illness or a real street addict.

I told my mother to please get well and get out of there soon, I really didn’t need anymore drama in my life right now, she was more than enough.

The next patient was a 73 year old lady with bladder problems. Her husband was precious, I don’t know if he stayed with her continuously because he really loved her or he was scared to leave and she would take it out on him later. I never heard someone complain so much in my life about everything. This poor man had the softest voice and followed her like a puppy even to the bathroom. My mother would look at me and roll those eyes and it just confirmed why I have not remarried in 24yrs. Its like a box of chocolate, you never know what your gonna get. I just kept thinking mom please get well soon so we can leave this strange place.

The following Sat. I was able to bring my mother home and everything is getting back to normal again. I can sleep in my own bed, and I no longer have  three dogs walking  all over me all night long leaving paw prints in places they shouldn’t be. I have my little Yorkie that sleeps on a pillow at the foot of my bed, and we sleep very well together. My Yorkie has her space and I have mine. The other two dogs sleep with my mother, she has a queen bed and she sleeps on half of the bed and they sleep on the other half.

Life is so funny with the different types of people that you meet everyday. Please remember to say a kind word or give a gentle smile or a firm handshake and let them know that you have noticed them and that they all matter, and it doesn’t make a difference what path in life they come from.

Remember to laugh daily, you get less wrinkles that way, it really is the best medicine.

It seems that every year about this time my mother always ends up in the hospital, whether it is a sickness or a surgery. She was feeling good the day before Thanksgiving and the day of Thanksgiving and was even able to help me prepare some of the meal that we were taking over to my daughters house. After Thanksgiving dinner she rested on their sofa and I enjoyed the grandkids, and she seemed to really enjoy the family time.

The next day was Black Friday and it is a tradition with my son and son in law to meet in the wee hours of the morning with a hot cup of coffee and greet the oncoming shopping crowd as we all try and save a few dollars to get a nice gift that we can afford to purchase for our loved ones.

I actually wish that I could be a fly on the wall and could watch, when we are actually standing in the freezing cold outside of these store at 3:AM in the morning with all of the other shoppers bundled up holding their hot cup of coffee or cocoa for warmth. We always have a game plan, we know approximately where the items are that we are interested in, and when we get in the store we divide and conquer. We try and get in and out as qickly as possible without any mishaps, and then it is on to the next store.

We trade off driving the car, that way we don’t have to find parking if we don’t all need to go into the same store. It worked out well this year and It was exhausting but productive. When I dropped my son off at his house at 10:am and my son in law at his house, my daughter decided it was her turn to spend the time with me. So we went out for a couple more hours. I felt like I had almost been beaten to death. Have you ever seen the Indiana Jones Movie where he is in a big fight and he is complaining that he hurts everywhere but here and points to his chin. That was me.

When I dragged myself inside the house, she had just gotten up and said I looked like something the cat drug in. But the best part of the whole experience is I only have a couple of gifts to buy. The shopping is almost done, of course it is a pretty sparse Christmas this year, but a very Thankful one. I had dinner the next evening with my children for my birthday and at 3:30 am the next morning was sitting in the emergency room with my mother, she was having difficulty breathing. Her Asthma & COPD had gotten the best of her.

This is Wednesday, and this makes the 4th day she is there. I still do not know when she will be able to come home. I guess time will tell, it is exhausting when you take care of a loved one at home, but when they are in the hospital it is worse. You go to work, go to the hospital make sure she is okay and see if she needs anything, visit with her and ask the nurses or doctors any qustions that you may have concerning her condition, you go home and take care of the animal farm there and the regular home chores and drop in bed as soon as you can, try to sleep, get up early so you can stop by the hospital on the way into work and start all over again.

And you know the only reason that you keep putting yourself through the routine is, its your mother and you love her. I am waiting for her to start arguing with me again, then I really know that she is on the road to recovery and peace will be restored again.