Laughter is the Best Medicine

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.

I have really decided that I do not know the meaning of normal anymore!

If having a normal life means, getting up the same time each morning whether you are working or not and have your day already planned, but it feels like you are on an unmaned ship and someone else is at mission control pushing the buttons changing the plans and directions for the day. The ususal bed time at our house is 9:00 to 10:00pm but that doesn’t neccesarly mean you will get to go to sleep then.

My mother has started having dreams or sometimes nightmares, that keep me ever concious to a degree in case I hear a scream or fall. She may decide to take the dogs out at 2:30 in the morning when it is extremely dark and dangerous to go outside and fall and hurt herself, or she may start screaming that there is a man in her room and I run through the house with a baseball bat in hand only to find out later that it was a nightmare. The other morning she was dreaming that she was in a boat jumping to saftey into another boat and fell out of her bed. Now this wouldn’t be so bad but, she is 4′11″ tall and her bed sits up off of the floor about 4ft, she climbs stairs to get into her bed. When she woke up she was staddled across the steps, It was by the grace of the Good Lord that she did not hit her head on the nightstand that could have been tragic.

Now this is after having 3 back surgeries, a knee replacement and a stint put into the main artery of her heart. I thought raising kids was sometimes tough, it is so much harder raising a parent. I try and keep her as active as I can when she is feeling half way decent. Like last night I made a yellow squash caserole for our Thanksgiving Dinner at work and she was feeling really useless, I pulled up a chair at the table and put a peeler in her hand and asked her if she minded sitting there and peeling the squash and chopping the onions up for me, she wsa thrilled to death. She just needed to feel useful thats all. Now when I cook the family dinner for Thanksgiving, I will have everything organized on the table and let her do what she feels like doing and then she can go take a nap until it is time to load everything up and go to my daughters.

When she feels needed her dispostion is so much better and life is easier around the house. But when her blood sugar is up or she is confused & tired look out. I cannot leave the room fast enough. I leave the room and take a deep breath and relax for a minute then work on lowering her blook sugar and encourage her to lay down and rest for awhile, and hopfully we avoid another crisis.

When my mother was taking care of my father at home after he was diagnosed with alhizmers, I watched her pretty much go through what I am going through now with her. But he was so funny. At least it was funny then. He would come up and whisper in my ear watch out for your mom she is on the warpath, or he would try and do somthing to help out and always seem to get in trouble. I remember being over at the house one summer and my son and I were painting some lattice to be hung on the front porch for my mother and dad was in the backyard with us playing with the dog. He had gone inside the house and did something that really angered my mother, she came out that side garage door with fire in her eyes and my dad looked at me and and said boy you did now. She started yelling at me for something that he had done and he just stood behind a tree looking at me and laughing his tail end off.

They do seem to go back to a childish state and this does break the usual depressing state of mind. You have to laugh or cry and I would much rather laugh.

I hope your day is a good one. Remember to Laugh

Laughter is the best medecine!

You know when you are getting older when you use to go to your mothers house for the holidays and she would cook the main course and you would bring the side dishes and the kids to enjoy the company and dinner. Now I am the one cooking the whole dinner and taking it to my daughters house for everybody to enjoy.

My mother is still panicky about catching the flu virus, so it will be a toss up of whether I can get her to leave the house and go to my daughters and chance being in a crowd of relatives and the possibility of catching the flu, since she has no immune system to deter this bug, or will she be excited about getting out of the house and seeing everybody and a different scenery and we can leave when we want, or will she still start an argument of why should she leave her home to go to somebody elses home when I made the whole dinner there, and refuse to leave but doesn’t want anybody else to come over there because she might catch the flu.

You have heard the statement : I Can Never Win For Losing! This quote should have been made for me.

I have to always be prepared with several different scenarios,

1. We are taking the dinner over there so we can leave when we want to, and we will still leave some of the food at our house so we have leftovers.

2. This way if the noise of the kids makes you nevous, we can leave when you want.

3. I don’t have to make the house spick & span since I am doing all the cooking and taking it to my daughters.

4. She needs to get out of the house and see different scernery it helps with her disposition.

My daughter will probably be moving to Washington DC with my grandchildren and this will probably be the last Thanksgiving Dinner she has cooked by me in awhile, since it is a permanent move. I am extremely close to my daughter and grandchildren and this will nearly kill me, but it will be a great thing for them. My time and place right now is taking care of my mother, but look out when my time is done it will probably be feet don’t fail me now. I have wanted grandchildren from the time I had children, and I have to be near them. You never know what tomorrow holds so I will treasure everyday I have with my mother, my own children & my grandchildren. You know someone has to be around to tell the old stories.

Like when I was young, or when your mother was a young girl, or when I took care of your grandmother. I am a big fan of passing it down through the family the memories that never need to be forgotten.

Enjoy your families at this time of the year and Gobble up that feast before you. It may not be there next year.

My mother was raised up in a very small town about 30 miles N. of  Enid Oklahoma. Her mother passed away when she was barely 2 years old and was raised by her grandmother. With very little income and very little means to buy the luxuries that we take for granted everyday.

My father passed away in 2004 and made sure that she would be provided for and never have to worry about paying the bills. Well one of  my mothers best friends is the Home Shopping Network and all of their daily specials that they have.

She has their channel on the TV almost worn off of  her remote control because she uses it so much. She will watch a program on TV and during the commercials surf back to the HSN Network. She knows the hostess by their first name and what hour they will be on, she can tell you what the special of the day is. If she calls in and happens to get picked to talk to one of the hostess on TV they recognize her voice.  This Terrifies Me!

We are coming up on the holiday season and she has been shopping for Christmas Gifts since the begining of the year, and she has meant well, thinking that all of her shopping would be taken care of long before the holiday season gets here. The problem is, she forgets what she got for which person and where she put it. Or she will accidently order the wrong number off of the TV because her sight is not that good anymore and forget to say Janice I need to return this, until I accidently find it while I am cleaning, and its too late to send back.

I have seen some really really ugly things that she has purchased. But It Was A Todays Special! But thank goodness the family just looks at it alittle strange when they open the present and graciously say thank you Granny. Remember  it is not the gift that counts, its the thought.

I think its a joke for the UPS driver when he delivers a package to our front porch, when he sees me he just smiles this ear to ear grin and bounces back into his brown truck and off he goes fully knowing that he will probably be back again tomorrow with another package.

One thing I have learned that you do not say to an elderly person is, there is a sale at…. or have you seen the clearance rack at.…. or did you see the todays special! I am always so grateful when the holiday seasons are over then I can just relax because I know I made it through another holiday season.

Everyday is a different day at my house, how about yours.

Smile I Do! Laughter is the best medecine!

I have always loved the holidays and all the emotions, the highs and the lows. From the moment I hear the first Christmas song, I am singing through the holiday season and loving every minute of it. Of course the last six years have brought new meaning to the word Holiday Seasons, and I have learned to cherish every one of them even more. I have heard it said that  you are never too old to learn, and it is very true. I found that when I moved in with my mother and started taking care of her, I was very selfish, I did what I wanted when I wanted and all I thought about was me. But I have learned a deeper understanding of the words Love, Friendship & Caring.

As a mother you learn to wear many hats, you learn to love your child more thatn you love yourself and to be a teacher, disciplinarian, doctor, lawyer, referee and so many more. After taking care of my mother these past years I have learned that there are even more hats to  be worn.  To be more  compasionate, loving, forgiving, understanding and a very good listener. She will not always be there to tell me the stories of her childhood or to refresh my memory of the past stories that I have forgotten.

She may not be able to stand in the kitchen and bake like she use to, but she will sit at the table and help me to prepare anything she can. this makes her feel good  and still needed. She helps me make out the “Family Christmas Wish List” and I go and do the shopping. I pick up all the wrapping utensils and she chooses which paper and bows for me to put on which gift. We make out the dinner list together and I do the shopping and most of the cooking & baking but I really don’t mind because she is still here..

I get out the tree and decorations and I decorate and sing as I do it and she watches and listens and taps her foot to the music. I guess we have a pretty good relationship.  I know I will always be able to treasue it.