Tag Archives: life

The One Who Graduated First in the Class…

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For over nine months now I have been in a medical struggle, an abdominal pain that started in January that grew into a type of fatigue I had never known. You see, I am not a sit down kind of girl. My feet hit the floor running and I go like a perpetual two year old until I hit the bed like a brick. Well, that was before…

Now, I struggle to get through a day without pain and even worse, I struggle with the lack of knowledge, compassion and empathy that is left in our medical system. I go back to hearing my Momma say, “the one who graduated first in the class and the one who graduated last, both have M.D. behind their name”. She could not have been more right. We roll the dice when we choose a doctor especially when we are dealing with something they know little about. This has been my case.

That abdominal pain was my first inkling I had something going on so off to the doctor, in this case a nurse practitioner who ordered labs and an ultrasound and a CT. These labs did not dive deep enough and I was told the scans were “negative”. Pain persists, so do I. You find that if you are not advocating for yourself, you will be pushed to the wayside. It is more like a harrowing fight as it began to tire me more than what was rapidly taking over my body.

Doctor Number 2 is a Gastro that explains on Endoscopy might solve the mystery. This is February and I am told September. This is not Canada, so I am awestruck by the timing, but am told The Gulf Coast lacks the amount of doctors to handle the population. I go back to my former town in Georgia where over the following two months I receive an endoscopy and colonoscopy–both negative for everything except an abundance of scar tissue in my abdomen from the seven, yes, seven abdominal surgeries I have endured. We are now in the month of April.

I find out that NP is leaving the town practice and I am on the search for a new doctor. In May, I find an amazing GP in Pensacola. She is thorough, compassionate and not content with doors being left open. She meets me the first time and orders an abundance of bloodwork after our talking. (Yes, talking. She actually took the time to find out who I was and what my history was.) It is now the end of May. The initial abdominal pain has turned into a pain I can only describe as something inside of my rib cage trying to claw out. My days of popping out of bed and going, going, going have turned into going back to bed. I am exhausted.

My blood work comes back wonky, really wonky. I have had enlarged red blood cells for over 23 years along with high MCH. The enlarged cells are associate with what is a condition called macrocytosis where your red blood cells are larger than normal. It shows on a complete blood count and over 100 gets you the prize. Mean corpuscular hemoglobin (MCH) refers to the amount of hemoglobin in the red blood cells. Many times associated with anemia, liver, thyroid–mine has been elevated along with my MCV and has never come back normal although so many doctors in three states have said “NORMAL”. My previous doctor in Charleston was the first to say as I was moving to Alabama “you need to get this checked by a hematologist”.

Flash back to seven years under the care of a hematologist/oncologist in Birmingham who was alarmed by my numbers enough to do a bone marrow biopsy. Negative, but I remained under her care until I moved to Georgia. What was lurking beneath the surface was a high iron level and a ferritin level that began at 30–not my age, the scale. The doctors in both states never addressed it and one was even bold enough to say in print that there was nothing to substantiate the need for more testing. He never followed up on the tests where my iron was thirty points higher than the norm and that my ferritin was now triple the number from Alabama. Add to this a UIBC which showed a high overload of iron in my body. His notes said “at this time I would not further consider workup on this elevated iron level”.

I wish I knew then what I do now…

You see, the new GP ran the tests needed to see what was happening with my iron levels and was not satisfied with that open door as she knew the high iron could start affecting my organs. She ordered an ultrasound and CT, even though I said I had these ran in January. My tests came back with an enlarged liver and made me go back to the original practice in Alabama to find out what happened in six months. I found out I was lied to. That ultrasound was positive which led me to have the original CT reread and they amended it to say there was a single calcified granuloma in the right lobe of the liver. Genetic tests for hereditary hemochromatosis followed. I had all the symptoms, but I did not carry the gene. Now, off to a new hematologist…

Welcome to last of the class…My next two medical encounters had me in a constant state of anxiety. I am NOT an anxious person, but the level of ignorance and the lack of compassion & knowledge really threw me into one hell of a spin. The hematologist said there was zero wrong with me and suggested I go to a gastroenterologist. He was consumed with the previous reports from the Birmingham oncologist about my enlarged red blood cells and refused to talk to me about the iron levels. I was told since I tested negative to the gene, it was impossible for me t have iron overload. I never walked back into his doors again, but I did see the gastro NP who was a nightmare. She was intent on proving herself right and did not want to know my history. She just wanted to be right even though she was way past wrong on so many levels.

The tipping point was when I waited six weeks for a MRI with and without contrast. The results came in that iron was storing in my liver and in my spleen. This is where the scale tipped to not allowing idiots to control my life any longer. I got an emergency appointment with her only to have her NOT discuss the MRI which clearly, along with a high iron level, high saturation, low UIBC and ferritin that has gone from 30 to 230 (High should not be over 100.), but to have her say I now needed a liver biopsy to confirm iron overload. First of all, this is not true nor necessary. When I voiced concern about it being invasive and a bad history of bleeds she spoke is a horrible condescending tone of ” all biopsies are invasive, it uses a NEEDLE!” I bit the inside of my lip because I felt the tears coming.

I am not a crier.

I have cried more in the last nine months than I have in the last ten years.

I walked out knowing I was going to have another fight on my hands so I left a message in the portal to her. It contained all of the questions I had with me at the appointment that she brushed off. She never answered, but instead had the practice patient advocate call me. She was kind and patient which threw me for a loop. I had not experienced this outside of my new GP. She gave the NP’s answers (which were ignorant and incorrect) to my questions. To the question of what can I take for the pain since I cannot take Tylenol (liver) and I cannot take ibuprofen due to it being an NSAID (bleed history) I was told “there is no pain in iron overload”. I guess she missed the fact that people experiencing high levels of iron deal with horrible inflammation and pain. Even worse, the NP’s notes on the visit were not even reflected of the visit. I have come to get used to the lying. Fired her.

Two weeks ago my blood showed my overactive thyroid had gone from .48 to .033. Add now brain fog, confusion and bigger fear to the mix, but my GP was not giving up. She got me into a new hematologist who I will see tomorrow in Pensacola.

I am tired of so many things at this point and although my faith in God is strong, my faith in the medical field is small. No one should have to fight so hard when there is a known issue, but when it is rare ego steps in from the doctor and they would rather brush you off than help find the bottom line issue.

My nights are consumed with finding answers. The book, The Iron Curse by Dr. Christy Sutton, has been a great navigator in what I need to know. I have been blessed to have a great GP, a family member who is a great doctor who reads my labs and tests and an old family friend from childhood who has eased my mind by being my ‘mental cane’ as I approach this appointment tomorrow. He went over my labs with me and the MRI. He is the top doctor in his field, but is states away although his phone call placed him directly next to me. He told me it is possible I have a mutated gene that they have not tested for and no matter what, I need to have ongoing phlebotomies to reduce this overload of iron. Letting this go without the taking of my blood will eventually lead to further organ damage especially my heart and my brain.

I have too much to give to let the last in the class take me down when I have been surrounded personally by the first in the class…

Too much.

Again it is Mary Alice stealing my sleep!

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I have been an avid reader for years. I prefer Southern based authors who can fluidly place me into the familiar world of my South Carolina Lowcountry through their words. I have always found this through Mary Alice Monroe. She can transport me to the beach, the Spanish moss covered Lowcountry or, in the case of Where The Rivers Merge , into decades of a strong Southern woman who is not without faults and sometimes, without limits.

My mistake for thinking I could pick this book up and continue with my ‘normal’ life. I literally rearranged my marketing and media schedule, as well as my sleep, in order to finish my obsession with Eliza and her life. Mary Alice Monroe’s depictions of the characters had me thinking, laughing and crying. They also had me comparing the centuries as sometimes it is not time that is the thief of things we love, but covetousness.

Where The Rivers Merge clearly brings forward the meaning of ‘you cannot know the present or future until you clearly understand the past’. You are immersed within the dysfunction of family on so many levels. Whether it is due to tradition, prejudice or greed, you are able to see and feel each level of trauma and drama in this multigenerational and multi year piece.

If you have never experienced her writing, I hope you will pick up this great work of historical fiction, even if you are not from the Lowcountry. Be prepared to immerse yourself in a war with the past, a struggle with the present and prayers for the future.

And speaking of prayers, you will need those when you close the last chapter and realize you will be needing the strength of Eliza in waiting for the second book in this two part series. I personally am hoping for a trilogy.

It cannot come too soon…I need rest!

(Where The Rivers Merge releases next week on May 13. I was blessed to receive a copy at the end of April.)

Regrets and The Chinquapin Patch

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I remember Momma saying how the years would fly by once I hit twenty five. She always demonstrated the passing of the years by blinking both eyes while saying “25…30…35…40…50…”

Like everything else Momma told me as a teenager, it went in one ear and out the other.
She was right.

I blinked and the years have sped right by. It somehow seems so surreal. One day you are dancing at your favorite club on Market Street and the next day you are at your orthopedist asking how the hell you can’t place your arm to touch the center of your back any longer.

Then, I thought about my Momma.

I thought about her mother’s, my grandmother, story about the chinquapin patch:

There was a young girl and she spent her day walking through the chinquapin patch with her Grandmother. Her Grandmother told her to pick the most perfect one as they made their way through the patch. As she walked, she would pick up the spiny nuts and, one by one, she would put them down. One would be too small, another too prickly. One would be cracked, another not shiny enough. She had a hard time not finding one covered in its thorns.
One by one, she picked one up just to find a flaw so she went to the next.
Until she got to the end and she was empty handed.

Momma seemed to tell us this story at least once a year. She reminded us that we were too particular about things: clothes, apartments or houses, boys…The version she told my older sister went like this:

A young boy sat with his Grandmother and asked her how she married his Granddaddy. She said “Let’s go for a walk”. On the walk she said for him to pick put the best stick he could find along the way. Some were short. Some were long. Some were weak. Some were strong, but none were good enough. He would pick one up just to replace it with another. He ended up at the end of the trail with nothing but a twig.
He sat and cried, holding the scrawny twig in his little hand.
His Grandmother simply replied, “And that is how I married your Grandfather…”

Two stories. The same ending, both about not ending up with what you wanted.

Regret…

We walk through life, sometimes running.
When we are younger, we think we are indestructible. Little things don’t seem to worry us because it is about the big picture and how we are going to look, feel and how it affects us. We think we have all of the time in the world.

We look at life shortsightedly.
We never know if we will walk the path and get the prize or will we end up empty handed.

My Mother lived with regret. On her death bed, she spoke about all of the things she wished she had done, the places she longed to visit, the experiences she felt she had missed. It was very sad, really, but it was also a wake up call.

It led my sister to follow her dream of opening her own restaurant.

It has led me to writing again and planning my next steps in food and heart.

We all walk through our own patches in life. Some are moments of blind faith where you jump in with your soul and land on your feet. Some are periods of falling over and over again because you get stuck with a burr in your heart or head.

Those are the tough ones–the ones where you get in your own way.

In life, there are mistakes and there are lessons. The mistakes are the ones we do voer and over again, but they do not have to define us. The lessons teach us to look harder, to search deeper, to love harder.

I guess, you could say, I am still walking through the Chinquapin patch.

Of paws and bobtails…

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Calli and her first born
The happy 5 babies
Sailor and Lil Man
Kelty and Cassisy

There is something to be said about cats and the enduring effect they have on your heart.  It would be impossible to think of my life without having a cat in it.  They have always been there.  From being a small child and dressing them in my baby doll clothes while riding them around in my dolly carriage to the harrowing feeling in my gut when Kelty died in my arms last year, a cat, to me, has always been as present as air.

I came by it organically.  My Momma was affectionately known as the CatLady when I was growing up.  We always had a cat and it seems our house was also a drop off point for the unwanted ones as we always took them in.  We had smart cats–Teedle who could open the door by placing her paws over the knob and moving it, Sunshine & her kitten Sunny who both used the bathroom on the toilet.  We had mischievous cats–Frosty, a stray Maine Coon who liked to “comb” my brother’s curly hair.  We had them all, all breeds, all shapes, all colors, all sizes.  They all enchanted our lives in different ways.  They all found their final resting place in my family’s back yard except for Sunny and we instead buried his collar that the nice man who found him hit on the road had brought us.  We each always mumbled “No more, this is the last”, well, at least until the next one showed up.

As I grew up I remember thinking if I were to die I wanted to come back as one of my Momma’s cats as she took care of them the same way she took care of us–with all of the love and patience in the world.  I also saw the same trait develop with both myself and my sister.  Our animals became family.  We sheltered and made them our own.  We talked to them like they were children and included them in adult conversations. We made sure they were taken care of in the best way possible.

I met my husband in 2002.  He had never been owned by a cat.  I know, I, too, was shocked by this.  We all know there are cat people and there are dog people, but there are just some people who miss so much by not having had the experience so during the halftime of an Alabama football game  in 2003 we went out and adopted Kelty, a long haired tortie from an abandoned litter of nine.  She adapted well and soon my husband was smitten.  She was named after a camping gear brand since she was quite the adventurous one.  She rode in the car on top of his head  resting her paws on the bill of his baseball cap during trips.  She was smart and loving.  She made us a family of three.  We adopted number 2 in 2006.  Cassidy, a beautiful Tabby who attached herself to Jay from day one.  She was very protective of him, perhaps because I was with Momma when she fell ill for three months, but she made sure I knew he was hers.  In 2011 she fell victim to kidney disease and the vet suggested we put her down.  We found another vet. We lived with  daily IV bags and injections, but we had her with us, playful and vibrant for another year.  When she came to the point of failing health we made the decision to have her put to sleep.  We blessed her with holy water and slept on the floor with her throughout the night.  Even Kelty licked her head as to say it would all be okay…Blessedly she passed in her sleep in the night.

Fast forward to 2015 and a move to the mountains with Kelty in tow as an only “child”.  It seems it is easy to become so used to your life as is that when things change rapidly it is sometimes so hard for your heart to catch up. Sailor came to us on July 16 at 4 weeks old, abandoned at my sister’s seafood restaurant in the middle of a storm and found seeking shelter under the Captain statue on the back deck.  She was tiny, fluffy and no short of love.  Kelty found her as an annoying, hissable piece of fur, an intruder in her home.  Toleration came four weeks later, but so did tragedy–we lost Kelty.  I still cannot talk about how she passed, it was unnecessary. Time has taught me it was to open our house and hearts to all we have now.  I think Cassidy needed her more in heaven.

Upon Kelty’s passing I knew we needed to find Sailor “a friend”.  It was off to the local shelter and making the point of saying we weren’t just coming home with a cat.  We needed a connection.  We walked in and out of the cat room to no avail.  We were about to leave when they took us to a room with the quarantined babies, some sick, some needing medication and some needing to be spade/neutered. And there he was–actually reaching out and grabbing my husband by the sleeve–a sleek, strong Mackerel Tabby kitten. The bond between Sailor and Lil’ Man took only  36 hours.  They began to do everything in tandem–eating, playing, sleeping, even sharing the litter box at the same time.  I felt God had placed them into our lives to help us heal.

Come November we had really settled into our home and were getting ready for the holidays.  We all know as soon as you say settled things become unsettled.  I was at the restaurant and watched as a Calico was darting between cars in the parking lot.  You know what happened next–I was up the mountain, new kitty in tow with a mission to find her family.   I posted with the shelters and after we had no response we had a new family member and a vet appointment where we were told she was pregnant!  After passing the gestational period with no babies we figured we were given a wrong diagnosis so the holidays went as planned, glass ornaments remained boxed and we all settled in as what our normal would be.  We had become a family of 5, three with paws, but still our family.

We rang in the new year with our new normal.  Cat toys everywhere, cat paws on the counter (which makes me cringe) and teaching manners along with new tricks.  Sailor became the quiet, docile one with a hidden bad streak.  Lil’ Man learned to sit, fetch and play catch with an outspoken streak of menace.  Calli got out of the house the week before she was scheduled to be spade.  She came home with a smile.

I did the things my Momma did when we had kittens when I was little.  I planted boxes with soft blankets throughout the house in closets. I placed a calendar on the fridge with her potential due dates. I watched her food intake and I could not help but laugh when my husband dubbed her “The Hindenburg”.  When the time came she ignored all of my planning and decided to have her babies in a box a placed next to my desk as I worked on company spreadsheets.  She wouldn’t let me leave her side.  It seemed she was telling me since I had no children of my own (without paws) she wanted me to be able to experience the wonder with her.  Calli delivered her kittens on April 20 during a labor lasting over 4 hours.  The first was a dark orange Tabby, the second a Calico and the third a bobtailed blonde Tabby. Two hours later, another orange Tabby with a bobtail, one hour after that the last one arrived, a blonde Tabby with a stump tail.  Momma and babies all healthy, myself and Jay in awe of the births and proud grandparents.

I can’t imagine a life without the “babies” as we call them and now, the additional 5 real babies downstairs.  They each have brought us laughter and joy just as the ones who were here before them. They teach us that a little claw mark doesn’t ruin your day it just enhances texture. They show us it doesn’t take much space for your heart to be moved in the right direction. They remind us that taking a leap doesn’t always have to involve fear and that in the long run, you don’t have to be a dog or cat person.  You just have to be able to love and make room in your heart.

 

IMG_6153.JPGFootnote:  The children turn one on the 20th of April.  All have wonderful homes!  Two are here with us (1 & 3), the orange bobtail as well as a 2nd kitten our Calli fostered are with my sister, the calico, Tipper, is in Charleston with a dear friend & my insurance agent has the last, the stumped tail named Tupelo. Always room for one more cat!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the concrete changes your view…

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It seems to get harder and harder to come back from the mountains. There, I exhale. I breathe. I meditate in God’s wonders. I take in nature and I see the world through a different lens. Simply, I live.
Riding on the mule at sunset I drove through the canopy of towering trees as fireflies glistened all around me. In some ways it all seemed very surreal, like I had been tossed in a tunnel of thousands of cascading lights. I rode in awe of the forest around me. There are days when I feel I have been enveloped by nature and I behave like a child seeing things for the very first time. I am giddy over the wild turkeys, the little bunny rabbits and the deer who stood and held our glaze.
Maybe that is it–seeing through new eyes, like a child. I have no expectations of what the mountains will bring and I hold an amazing respect for all they hold. It is the simple things–the rain approaching through the trees that begins with a murmur and lands with a strong burst. It is the way it can be pouring, but the trees provide an umbrella of refuge. It is watching a storm brew in the distance from the ridge as the clouds form what looks like the ocean. It is the feeling that the real world is so far away and life, like my little mountain town, is simple.
I like it that way.
I never realized just how easy it can be to take life at a slower pace, to breathe in the wonder of the mountain’s beauty and how a ponytail and no makeup beats a flat iron and heels any day. It is the view from a pair of “tenny shoes”, covered in mud and the smell of Off. It is ending the day with a ride through the woods with family, laughing at the day and looking forward to tomorrow. It is simple. It is peaceful. It is a part of me now.
I like that.

On beginnings and endings, gliders and porch rockers

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My Granny Baylor had a great house where my Momma and her four sisters grew up. It was the house where I spent the first two years of my own life, rocking in her Naugahyde green rocker watching the Edge of Night, her ‘stories’ as she called them. I remember the floor furnace which my own siblings and cousins had convinced me was the gateway to hell. I never walked across it out of pure childhood fear and also was fast to pee in her bathroom since my sister made it known that rats would come through the sewer and bite you on the ass. I loved the L-shaped screened porch with the wooden rockers and the glider where we all spent time on as children. I loved her house, not just for all of its comforts and memories, but for what it represented…a wonderful togetherness of family.
Years after Granny passed I remember Momma and my Aunt saying how wonderful it would be if we moved the house to the beach. Ah! What a grand idea! A wonderful home, wonderful memories and the beach!!! Can’t you just imagine sitting out on Sullivan’s Island with a cocktail In your hand gliding or rocking and listening to the ocean waves? Watching the sea oats sway as you came back for your nightly sunset walk??? Oh! I could too!!! Problem is, it never happened. It never happened.
As we grow older we all remember the talks of our friends and relatives about where they wanted to go, what they wanted to do, how their lives were going to be ‘different’ in some way from how they grew up. It always has saddened me to listen to loved ones on their death beds speaking of all of the things they wished they had done. All of their dreams never realized. Time had simply, ran out.
Why is it we let time determine our course? Is it out of fear? Is it thinking we will actually get to it, eventually?? Is it that we really want more, but we let life get In the way?
After Daddy passed away in December of last year it brought back so many memories of the things my parents never did. They wanted to head back and see my Aunt in Oklahoma. They wanted to spend more time with us kids. They wanted to travel. They wanted, but they never did.
Three months later my husband and I sent a letter to the man who owned the 9 acres ten acres away from my sister. Nine days later, he called.
That night I had a wonderful dream about Momma and Daddy. It was a wonderful dream in a couple of ways. It was the first time I ever dreamt about the two of them together since they both had passed and The Lord always gives me the answers I need in my dreams. Always.
In my dream I am with my “work wife” traveling and laid over in Atlanta. She suggests we road trip. When we arrive in the mountains, my (deceased) parents are sitting in Daddy’s mule and Daddy says “Hey! Willy! Let’s go see your new land!” I knew when I woke up my husband and I had made the right decision–live your life for today and buy that land.
Live your dreams. Buy that piece of property that makes your soul strong! Go see your old friends! Travel to somewhere, even if is only a town away. Move that family house and make it your beach house. Quit wishing and just make it a reality.
We did.

Living like life is a cake walk…

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IMG_1689Momma always got so frustrated by my Daddy. He knew the ESPN scheduling whether it was football, baseball or Japanese Pygmy wrestling. He did not know his way around a kitchen while she was alive except for a distinctive trail to the Ritz crackers and peanut butter or to the ice cream in the freezer. He loved to break out into a gracious tune of ‘I married the tattooed lady’ which kept us all in stitches. She wasn’t amused. Maybe it was somewhere between the fact that she said only sailors and hookers got tattoos or that she was generally annoyed by his live life for today attitude. I saw it the most when he would be preparing for a surgery. Instead of being wound tight, instead of worrying, he smiled and would be wheeled off with laughter in his voice and heart. I never will forget her looking at him saying, “You act like you are going to a cake walk, Don!”
I woke up this morning at my sister’s house and walked out on her porch upon waking and all that my heart and head could recall was my last time with Daddy before he died. He was standing there with my brother singing The Lord’s Prayer as my sister, my husband and I scattered my Hannah’s ashes in the front yard of her mountain home. It was the place my Hannah spent her last year and also my Daddy. Perhaps that is why my heart yearns to be in the mountains so much. There is so much of my love there and the people I love and loved the most. Simply, my Daddy stood and sang to The Lord and us all in honor of a dog who loved and journeyed with us all.
Daddy was like that. He woke every morning and faithfully read his daily readings and scriptures. He sang in the choir until his hearing no longer supported his voice. He was quick to share the sports trivia for the day including his disdain for Alabama football. He took pleasure in meeting people and displeasure from any guidance or words his wife or daughters felt they needed to share. He felt we worried too much about tomorrow when today was what we should be living.
Daddy has been here with us today through his presence on the front porch to my brother in law breaking the shaft on the riding lawn mower–I think Daddy smiled at that one knowing Jim always thought it would be Daddy the reason for repair.
I can’t help to laugh and cry in the same breath as it is so hard to not have him here, but so precious to know that in some ways he hasn’t left at all. I guess that is what happens when you focus on the cake walk today instead of what is in the oven for later.
We have ended our day, riding on Daddy’s UTV, Tukie (which was Momma’s nickname and certainly something that would have been uncouth in her eyes, why in the hell would he have named it after her she would have said…), watching the fireflies dance just as I am sure Momma, Daddy, Aunt Mackie and Uncle Chic are doing in Heaven.
Amen.

The last days of 40….

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50? Really? Just trying to enjoy the last two days of my 40s. What exactly would that mean? Hell, I really don’t know. I have spent the last twenty five years recouping the memories of everything Momma ever taught me. I smile when I have to say anything “ugly” to anyone, I laugh when I start to cry and I still don’t know what the answers are because I really don’t have the time to distinguish the questions from the b.s. of all this world has become.
Simply, I am 49 and 363 days old. I am happily married. I have no children. I work too much. I travel too much. I look for the best in the world and try to find where we, as a society, have gotten lost. I cook for enjoyment and solace. I write to dig into all the thoughts that have molded me into the person I am today even when the day may show more than my past ever held.
I started this blog to show the Southern side of 50…a bit of my (un)cultured Charleston upbringing, a bit of 11 years living in Alabama and a bit of my future mountain side of Jasper, Georgia. It is my chance to share my Momma’s wit and wisdom & my Daddy’s live for today attitude. I survive in a corporate world through mouth watering recipes, great quotes for living, and a love for the wonderful people who have shaped my world and also those who have strengthened my backbone. (I may not have liked the experience, but there is truly a difference in a mistake and a lesson in life. The mistakes you make over and over, the lessons you learn and move on to living, truly living.) Everything is not pretty, nor should it be, but I have learned there is nothing in this life that cannot be helped through faith, love and truly living.
I hope I can inspire you on some days. I hope I make you think. I hope you roll across a recipe and it makes you and others very happy and content. I hope there are things that make your eyes well up and your soul reaches for an answer. I hope you laugh, a real laugh, the reach down in your gut ’til you want to pee laugh…for that Momma would say I was being uncouth.
So, for that, I say “enjoy!” as I will these last 48 hours of my 40s…bruises, biopsies and Bordeaux are only the beginning…