I got this as an email from my Mom and it sums up pretty well what it’s like with a family member that has Alzheimer Disease. Thought I should share it.

It was a busy morning, about 8:30, when an elderly gentleman in his 80’s arrived at the hospital to have stitches removed from his thumb. He said he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 am.

The nurse took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone

would to able to see him. I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound. On exam, it was well healed, so I talked to one of the doctors, got the needed supplies to remove his sutures and redress his wound.

While taking care of his wound, I asked him if he had another doctor’s appointment this morning, as he was in such a hurry. The gentleman told me no, that he needed to go to the nursing home to eat breakfast with his wife..

I inquired as to her health.

He told me that she had been there for a while and that she was a victim of Alzheimer’s Disease. As we talked, I asked if she would be upset if he was a bit late.

He replied that she no longer knew who he was, that she had not recognized him in five years now.

I was surprised, and asked him, ‘And you still go every morning, even though she doesn’t know who you are?’

He smiled As he patted my hand and said,
‘She doesn’t know me,
But
I still know who she is….’

I had to hold back tears as he left, I had goose bumps on my arm, and thought, ‘That is the kind of love I want in my life.’

True love is neither Physical, nor romantic.
True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be.

With all the jokes and fun that are in emails, sometimes there is one that comes along that has an important message. This one I thought I could share with you.
The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything;
They just make the best Of everything they have.
I hope you share this with someone you care about.
I just did.

And as you taught me,

my Dear Friend
‘Life isn’t about how to survive the storm,
But

“How to dance in the rain.”

I swear the bike took off without me and tried to leave me behind!! It has been a seriously crazy two weeks. Not that this week isn’t crazy with Spring Break but HOLY CRAP! Running around with the kids and everything they’ve had. Golf has started again so my weekends are pretty much shot. I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up and it really hasn’t worked all that well.

I didn’t post my weight last week because I had stayed the same AGAIN. I was getting really frustrated with it. Over a month stuck in the same spot. Maybe a tenth of a pound either way. Maintaining is fine. I’m all for that. Once I reach my target weight that is. I have lost it now though and I’m down to 201. Hopefully by next week I’ll break that 200 pound barrier.

We had a huge blow up with my ex MIL. I’ll probably be posting on it later because it’s STILL bugging me. I understand she’s his Grandmother but I’m his mother dammit and some rules you just don’t break. (Can ya tell I’m still pissed?)

I’ve been writing. My muse has actually not been a stubborn pain in the arse lately. I’ve written Eight chapters in the last few days. I’ve got another project I’m working on but I’m still waiting for the last few things I need to trickle in so that we can launch said project. Beltane is almost upon us. I am SO not prepared!! I know Big Daddy is prepared for Beltane itself. One of his favorite holidays. (But hey we are talking about men and sex here.)

Have I mentioned I feel like a piece of taffy being pulled in several different directions now. Someone find the crazy glue because humpty dumpty is about to break and I might need a lil patching up.

I know I missed my weigh in post yesterday but I was bogged down with a few things. One Sadie got me extremely addicted to the House of Night Series and I read all five books starting on Friday and finishing yesterday. Yes it’s VERY addicting!!

I’ve been struggling lately and it’s not something I’ll probably post a lot about since it’s very personal. All I will say right now is that having a loved one with Alzheimer’s sucks beyond all belief. Dealing with it and trying to stay strong in front of the kids without breaking down and crying is touch. I’m emotional…I’m a Pisces what can I say.

As far as my weight. I stayed the same. No real change here. Seems I’ve hit a slight plateau. Need to correct that so I can keep going down.

On a final note this video was being tweeted around and what better way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day then with a rendition of Danny Boy

It’s weekly weigh in time again. And this week I fully expected to have gained again. Not only did one of my specialists mess with my meds (a water pill) this weekend we seemed to be eating out constantly. My parents were here for the weekend and they took us out to dinner. They said I could go anywhere I wanted. Trust me when I say I wanted to go to a different place but I was somewhat good about my choice. I picked Applebees figuring that they have the Weight Watchers stuff on the menu. We all ended up getting the two for $20 deal and I had a steak and lots of veggies. So I was core-ish that night…lol.

Sunday night we went to Golden Corral with the in laws. Okay definitely not my favorite but my rationalization was that they had the huge salad bar and I could eat somewhat healthy. Needless to say I was almost good. But I had some yummy mashed potatoes with gravy and two rolls. I fully expected to get on the scale and at the very least not have lost anything and most likely gained. It was quite a surprise when I saw that I had lose 2.6 pounds.

We’ll see how today affects the rest of the week with my weight. We took Little Prince to school this morning and Big Daddy took me out to breakfast at IHoP. (definitely filling but not core) We went to watch Big Daddy’s niece Ariel recite a poem at Barnes and Noble. They were having a fundraiser there for the school. It was nice to see all the kids getting up and reading. Afterward we went to ChickFilA and had dinner with everyone again. Needless to say that was definitely not a core meal. Tomorrow night we are all going to a play at the Little Prince’s school. Seems like we are seeing family constantly the last few days. Not that this is a bad thing…

So as I said yesterday we had a slight customer service incident on Monday while we were at Cici’s Pizza. We went with Allie, Tim and their kids Lucas and Kayla. We ordered. We went back and forth with the guy at the register who was also the manager about the kids ages and who was getting what to drink. I’m not exactly sure how an order of All soda’s with the exception of one water is all that hard. But hey apparently it was for this gentleman. He handed us two green kids cups for Lucas and Kayla, One red cup and the rest clear. I looked at him funny because usually the red are for soda and the clear is for water. I even double checked asking if he was sure those were the right cups. He said they were and we went along our merry way. Eating and talking and having a good time.

About 3/4 through our meal he comes over to our table with a stack or clear cups and a stack of red cups. He told us if we wanted more soda we needed to pay for it. Apparently what had happened was he reversed the order. He gave us one regular soda two kids sodas and the rest water. I was probably a tad bitchier then I should have been but I had about 1/4 of my cup left. I told him he was the one that made the mistake and it wasn’t like we could give back what we had already had to drink that would just be gross. Needless to say he persisted saying we needed to pay and what were we going to do. I told him I was going to be taking my business elsewhere. He stood up and then insisted we needed to pour what we had in the clear cups into the red cups. So we did and we finished eating.

The whole thing just irked me. I glanced at Big Daddy and smiled, “Well at least I have blogging material.”

This past weekend was a child free weekend with us. It was oddly quiet and almost creepy at times. I mean even after the kids are in bed I usually hear the occasional night time bathroom trip or something, but no it was quiet. Big Daddy had some free hockey tickets fall into his lap the weekend before for Friday night. So with no kids we had a double date night with his sister and her hubby. It was Triple A Hockey but it was still a good game. Actually ended with a shootout so it wasn’t boring to say the least.

How were we child free you ask? Well this weekend was Little Prince’s weekend with his Dad and Mister Man…well he was kidnapped by some good friends of ours. Their son Lucas* is a year younger then Mister Man and they are best friends. We finally got Mister Man back yesterday. When we got him back it was already dinner time so we all decided to go to Cici’s Pizza. Not exactly the best choice for the diet but hey if I’m gonna fall off the bike I may as well get all scraped up before I get back on right? We were sitting there eating and talking. The kids were talking and eating and still having a good time. When Allie* (the Mom) looks over at Kayla* (their daughter) and says “I’m sorry Princess but you can’t have any salad until you finish your dessert.” Okay about this time Big Daddy, Tim* (the Dad) and I all look at each other before we look at Allie completely confused. We all laughed and Kayla went along eating her dessert. She eventually went back and got some salad after she was done.

Needless to say it was a nice evening hanging out over dinner and talking even if it was a quick impromptu one. We made plans to play in a Magic tournament at the end of the month together. I’m looking forward to that…although I’m quite rusty.

Check back tomorrow for our customer service nightmare while at Cici’s

*Names changed to protect the innocent

So it’s that time again…the weekly weigh in. I gained three pounds. I was bad this weekend. I had Chinese on Saturday…that’s all we ate. We ordered it and ate some for Lunch and then ate the rest for dinner later. Not exactly core. You know I’m not going to let it discourage me though. So I had an off week. I get back on the saddle and do better this week. That’s all you can do really.

My birthday is a week a way. A week from today actually. I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting closer and closer to 35 or what but I just do not want to turn a year older. Thirty Four isn’t supposed to be that bad right? It should be interesting though. My parents are coming down for a quick trip and want to take me to dinner on Saturday. We are supposed to have dinner with the in laws on Sunday and then we are going to watch Big Daddy’s Niece Ariel read a poem at a function at Barnes and Noble on Monday. It’s going to be hard trying to eat responsibly and not letting it all go like I did this weekend. Birthday calories don’t count right?

This week’s update is short I know. But I figured I’d save some material for later in the week

Oy things have been busy here. If you hadn’t noticed by the lack of posting since Mister Man’s Birthday. The Holidays always seem to catch up on me. So many things to do. As my husband will tell you I’m a procrastinator so that doesn’t help much. I like to make a lot of my gifts too. So when my sewing machine decided it was going to stop working…two weeks before Christmas and I still had things to sew. Yeah he wasn’t happy in the least. Thankfully I could run over to my MILs and borrow hers. I finished the sewing and now I’m knitting furiously. Why? Because I did a scarf for my grandmother and thought ‘Hey I don’t have gifts for these two…that scarf was easy…’ Can you see where this is going? Yeah I’m working on two more scarfs as I type this. Actually I’m avoiding my knitting and purling as I type this.

I made cookies last night for the cookie swap at school and hubby and I made a healthy version (ok well a low salt version) of Chex Mix for Mister Man and the Litle Prince to give their teachers. Thankfully the Little Prince only has the one teacher. Mister Man on the other hand…has seven…yes I just said he has seven teachers. What’s the right thing to do for Middle School? Do you still give gifts like you did in Elementary school? We packaged up some Chex Mix in pretty little containers I got at the dollar store and an apple for each of them. (SIL got us apples from her friend’s son’s football team. We are swimming in apples at the moment. Guess who’s making applesauce this weekend?)

So yes I’m still alive here. A little flustered…but alive. Tomorrow we have the Holiday party at the Little Prince’s school the I have to be at since I’m his room Mom…but other then that I think it’s just knitting until the weekend.

My baby turned twelve today. It’s hard to believe that twelve years ago while watching M.A.S.H. he decided to finally grace us with his presence after nine and a half hours of preecalmptic labor. So hard to believe the perfect quiet textbook baby is now one step closer to being a full teenager. One more step closer to driving and high school and everything else that proves he’s growing up fast. Another step closer to girls being more date like and less buddies. Every day I see Mommy’s little boy retreating just a little more and a young man emerging.

He turns more to Big Daddy for things then me now. And that’s fine…that comes with becoming that young man. Some things he just doesn’t want to talk to Mommy about. For so long it was just me and him against the world. It’s scary to think that soon enough he will be going out against the world on his own.

So yesterday I posted pictures from Mister Man’s birthday party. As you can tell it had a dragon theme. It was his 12th birthday (His actual birthday isn’t until later this week) and thankfully for me he wanted to have it at home. It was really small just family and friends that are as close as family. My Mom made baked ziti. I made Dragon eye cookies. We had Dragon Snot Punch again, which you see me blowing on the smoke from in the pictures. (Yeah that’s me…scary huh? lol) The party itself went off great. The kids had a blast. The adults had a good time. Mister Man loved the presents he got. All in all a good time was had by all.

Flash Back to Saturday night preparing for the party. The kids were BEYOND hyper. Of course Nana and Poppy were there so that was one reason. We were baking cookies and Big Daddy was putting together Mister man’s cake so that was another. But it was finally bedtime and I got them upstairs. I got them all tucked in. We read our book for the night. I got up and kisses the Little Prince. I walked over to kiss Mister Man. He was laying on his stomach so I placed my hand lightly on his butt so he would know I was leaning down to kiss him and he wouldn’t be startled. It backfired and it actually startled him. His head came flying up and nailed me in the nose. I immediately saw stars and tears started pouring down my face. He flew out of his bed and turned the light on and there was blood pouring from my nose. Poor kid was so shaken up he started crying. He still feels bad. He gave his mother a bloody nose. Thankfully I didn’t get a black eye. but one side of my nose is still swollen.

Before the party my Dad was trying to help out and while my Mom and I ran to a few stores he ran the dishwasher. When we got back he was unloading it and looked down confused because the door that holds the dishwasher liquid was closed. He popped it open and the little Electrosol pellet was still it in…still wrapped in the plastic. He held it up for all of us to see. Needless to say my Dad forgot one…that the little door inside on my dishwasher isn’t working and we need to call the repair guy and two to take off the plastic on the tablet so that it would actually help clean the dishes. Needless to say it wasn’t realized until the majority of the dishes had been put away…