Tag: laughing at self

November blunders

Published on by yvonneannetteLeave a comment

Mistaken speeches

Hasn’t this month been full of them? There are times I just want to turn the owrld off and wake next year. But that’s not an option. And now is not the time for the populous to enter a comatose state and ifnore what needs to be done. There are so many things happening in the world today, it makes my head spin.

Meanwhile in my exile out here in the country, I have to find something to do with myself. So I probably try to keep myself too busy and ignore much of the world’s problems. But there is still something to keep my occupied. So I carry on.

The weather has entered an every other week pattern. One week of moisture and one week of mild temperatures. The Greenhouse has been staying pretty even kilter on the thermometer and we have not had to use any heat during the day. The beauty of things growing and blooming is such a bright spot in my day.

The above phot really accents the building technique we used on the grow beds. With the brick walkway and the gernamiums from my sister in full bloom, I called this the perfect “greenhouse Selfie!” It’s one of my favorite phots ever from the Greenfield Greenhouse!

this little checkerboard lapghan is still not complete. The two ends will have a sweater stitch checkerboard pattern also. It just needs to be rectangular to actually work as a lapghan. It was a fun lefties project after my great big C2C blanket.

One of the funny stories from my little grandaughter happened this month. We were stilling at the table and she spied a covweb above the chandelier. “There’s a spider web!” She declared in her two and a half year old matter of fact way. I told her “you’ll have to get your broom and sweep it down.” She replied in her driest Eeyore voice- “Can’t reach!”

It was rather funny. She makes that declaration quite often as she takes after her Hawaiian Great-Grandparents in her height. We won’t mention that her maternal grandma and great-granny are rather short also.

I forgot to trun the above photo before uploading. Oh, well. The Lemon and lime Starburst baby blanket is a real gem. It has no reciepient yet, so I’ll just have store it for a time. The Softee brand baby yarn was perfect for the project. Sometimes I out do myself and then there is not one to appreciate it.

This little pot holder is my plan for the next month. The mosaic them is “Hope” for the world. I think it is befitting a Christmas focus. Though the colors that I found are nothing but Christmas. Sometimes it is nice to have Christmas every day of the year. So I will keep on making them until I am really a professional. Haha

This past month the politcal and civil unrest has kept me from participating in the world’s chaso. But I would say that this picture is proff that the minority wins. The one with the loadest voice is eventually silenced. Either by compromise, appeasement, persecution or execution. I don’t believe in the latter for the above feline, but her cries can be pretty unnerving. So there are days, I just let her come in to shut her up. Autumn was our “car kitty” from two years ago. She and two other gals were shipped away to be fixed earlier this year. I was hoping that she would selttle down agter the affair with the surgeion’s knife. No such luck. She’s still just as loud and obnoxious as ever.

Autumn is proff that perhaps protesting does work. (Even though I firmly believe the opposite.)

And finally, I am attempting another prayer shawl in jsut two colors. “All around the mulberry bush” has been a challenge at times. The red grape and green grape colors are pretty though. The monkey is the skein of yar-if you were wonderdering. The tail is the thread, and the weasel is my crochet hook. I hope I can finish itwithout too many blunders. The mistakes have me putting the project aside quite frequently as I contemplate where I went wrong and what can be done about it.

Forgeveness is my new best “giving” this November. I have been offering up for myself and for others frequently. As Thanksgiving approaches, the season of GIVING arrives with such gratitude for all that we have here in this life. I hope that you will find some time to be giving this season as well. And find it in your heart to lend mercy to another in your life as well.

And now that Thanksgiving is nearly upon me, I’ll probably go and make a few more mistakes. Had to take our a few rows of the Mulberry Bush to fix the pattern blunder. It is much bigger now and almost on the last motif.

The “once indoor” cat continues to scream at the kitchen window to be let inside. I’m not sure what I have done to myself. We spent the day outside again on Sunday trying to create our own mulberry stump rocket stove. I grew impatient and the kettle of water booiled shortly after I came indoors. My hubby used it to put out the fire and we will play again another day.

Well, there went one more month in 2020 with nothing more than a rear view of what blunders i created. Hindsight continues to be lacking in most of the world. People are in such a hurry forward that this time to “slow” down has hardly changed the majority of what people do.

I am okay living a simpler life.

Taking out the trash

Published on by yvonneannetteLeave a comment

How data banks fills up your memory stores

This past week I discovered that my google memory bank was full and needed back up. Well, before paying for memory (as if dementia has a cure) I started trying to find what was filling up the bank. I found a lot of my old garbage.

I mean really old rotten garbage. Apparently all the stuff that I had put into the trash or tried to delete from my OLD phone had been sent to my my new goggle bank, and phone. Now the notes to self in days gone past have been TRIPLED up in my new data storage. What I though was once deleted has now been stored as deleted, trashed, and created. Three times more, I’ll be spending the next two weeks trying to take out the trash in my new data base.

Thank goodness for my husband. I think I’ll let him do most of the work on his computer. Trying to clean up said trash on my tiny smart phone screen is painful. So apparently, I now have to take out the trash that I though I had take out back in 2014!

What kind of to do list from that summer could just be repeated?

Here’s one: call for a haircut, water the garden, weed the flower patch, pull out meat for supper.

Here’s one best left in the trash bin: allergies a-fright, asthma out of control, order another inhaler. Uff. Life has not changed there any.

Who knows what kind of mess the pictures are in. There are probably multiple pictures in different albums. Googles face rec did that to the pictures I take of the relatives. I really don’t need a full album of my cousin’s child in multiple places. There’s how that data storage gets maxed out. Nope, still not paying.

Finding out that my data group created composting bins rather than actually trashing my old garbage was a little rough on the eyes. Especially when my husband showed me whole files in my junk mail! Oh, that made me mad enough to call the disposal company. Nawh, I’ll just let him clean up the mess. It suddenly does not make me so memory unbalanced with my old fits about him leaving the trash can so full until taking it out. I’ll take out the kitchen garbage and the compost for the rest of our married life, if he will clean up my junk mail and sweep out the data doubled storage in my phone. But the dustpan is gonna be full!

Yesterday was Father’s Day here in our country. We got together as a family and let the greats meet the newest great-grandson. Took a couple of pictures for the memory bank. Of course we have so many pictures just out there in the cloud, I wonder if the greats will ever be able to identify the occupants without the aid of some facial recognition software. Maybe I should just keep those albums of my cousin and her grandchildren.

Today I was trying to call for a haircut for the dog. The system at the dog camp just ended the call when it wanted. I wonder how their business is fairing the pandemic. Not so well, if we cannot leave a message. Maybe their data storage is full from all of the dog pictures they take each week. Haha.

My memory bank is not full. It is happily adding new ones as we enjoy the changes of the little grand kiddos. My grand daughter discovered blowing bubbles this spring. She was able to blow out her two candles on her birthday. So this Sunday, her auntie showed her what else a breath can do. Train whistle, tin whistles, and the harmonica all came out of hiding. We pulled up a video of superb mouth harp on display, and she was hooked. Her parents are thankful the mouth harp stayed at Opa and Oma’s house. Our little grandson did not seem to mind all the noise. Except when the ancient woodwind the flute came out. Our band director son-in-law took a look at it’s tarnished state, found all the pads in working order and then tuned in a scale. Little grandson cringed. The dog began to cry and little grand daughter went back to the harmonica.

Creating new memories was pretty wonderful.

This afternoon I have to visit the dentist. The work was delayed due to the world health crisis. Our family made it through the virus spread without any direct contact. I am thankful for our more distanced living arrangements out here in the Dakota Territory. There are days, it would be nice to holler a “Hello” at a neighbor, but living in the high rise apartment has no appeal to me. We have only been on a subway when visiting Boston and community bus travel goes back ten years to those days also.

Having our own vehicle comes with it’s expenses. Hubby just replaced the thermometer for the engine in our thirteen year old nice car. It’s hard to think that the price of a new vehicle exceeds the price of our motor trailer manufactured hallway. One of these days we will get this money thing figured our. Maybe we’ll grow a tree that produces greenbacks. Not.

Now that the memory bank has been flooded with a variety of new and old subjects, I would say the journal pages will close for the day.

Grab a book, open it up, then slam the covers together. There. That’s the sound entered here.

Clear blue skies

Published on by yvonneannetteLeave a comment

Getting past the weather

When the clear blue sky arrives in the mid-day, the hope is that it will stay all day. Days in which the weather is so beautiful that you cannot feel it. Whether I am cold, or hot, or the sun is full of glare or non-existent. Why do we preface so many conversations with the weather of the day? As if the weather was the catalyst for deep relational connections, we grasp at the clear blue sky.

What happens when there are no conversations that pass through the clearing? What happens when talk is shrouded with the clouds of unspoken feelings? How do I reconcile the loneliness and drudgery of daily life that has no conversation with others? The hermit life of acreage living has reached it’s desperate end. For one like me with no people interaction other than the radio or the reader of my book, the days seems as endless as the clear blue sky.

Quiet and peaceful has become empty and desolate. Becoming mum and numb to the loneliness has made me as relatable as a tree stump. So I have taken up the task of downsizing my belongings. Connections with others is all based on whether any of this junk of mine could become someone else’s treasure. What a bland weather day. The temperature is 55 degrees Fahrenheit and perfect for morning walking. It turns out to be 76 and quite pleasant most of the day.

So what is there to talk about when another hormone headache has me trying to drown it out with caffeine only to realize that’s not really the problem. The ibuprofen does not even work. Why did I have to be the sister that continues on with this visitor into my fifties? No one cares if I still disagree with my monthly guest. Not everyone gets to yank out body parts and end the cycle of hormonal havoc on my thought processes. Waking miles per day and week was suppose to help, I feel like a rotten host as I head out the door with my doodle. Running from my problems again. But it does not work. She reminds me that I really have no choice in the matter at all. What a beautiful shade of blue the sky is today.

In my readings through the past month I came across a quote that I liked. So I had to look of the quote and the owner just to find out more about him. Roger W. Babson was a twentieth century entrepreneur who died the year before I was born. He was the founder of several learning institutions. The one that gave me the most to chuckle about was Utopia University in Kansas. I immediately thought of the “wizard of oz” and his poor choice of this correlation. Then literally laughed aloud at the institutions failure and the quote that I had discovered.

“If things go wrong, do not go with them.”

Mr. Babson, I think I agree!

The clear blue sky often preludes the windy mid-day breezes. And my body being it’s sensitive self, does not care much for such gales. Walking against the stiff air often hurts both my skin and my eyes. By the time I return to the still air within the walls of the house, my nerves are on fire. So just because it looks like a beautiful day, looks can be deceiving. I check my weather app to make sure my cap will stay on to shade my eyes. I might be chasing away my own blues, but I am not chasing after my cap.

In the night not too many sleepless hours ago, this poem came to my thoughts while I lay counting the hours away. Insomnia might be another of my unwelcome guests during this time of life, but it will not win. Keeping my brain active with MP3 bible reading and prayer vigils has kept me sane. I think. So while things go wrong with my aging body, i refuse to let my brain go wrong with all those other things!

Wind Lends Wings

Wind lends wings

To seeds from trees

To flowers for bees

Wind lends wings

To cottonwood fuzz

To pollen, it does

Wind lends wings

To whispers in air

To secret love affair

Wind lends wings

To papers and caps

To smoke and ash

Wind lends wings

To aromas and smells

To fragrance that well

Stinging eyes and nose

Filling rooms and groves

Wind lends wings

To clouds and mist

To puppy’s flying disc

Wind lends wings

To leaves and wigs

To branches and twigs

Wind lends wings

To melody

To song

-pome written by Yvonne Annette, June 10, 2019

Beets for dessert

Published on by yvonneannetteLeave a comment

Digging up dirt

Lately my mind has been its own war zone. Anyone who spends countless hours alone will understand. Time alone means time with one’s own thoughts. Unless of course the entire time is spent drowning out that option.

Sometimes the radio or the television or the Netflix just does not have the right noises. Going for a walk in the rain isn’t a good choice either. So the battle rages on. The past, resent it future gain the upper hand and suddenly words are like daggers and darts that pierce the soul and spirit.

Today was another mud slinging mess in my brain. I tried to get the reality zone with reading, walking, drinking water… nothing seemed to dispel the dark mood.

Until I found out that we were actually habing beers for dessert.

Beets

Beets for dessert.

Ugh. How has the seasonal life “diet” rewarded us so fondly? Could it finally have totaled up to such a disgusting bowl of staining roots? What has becoming old done to us?

Beets have a powerful color. Beets-have a pungent odor. Beets have a mild flavor. Beets are not a dessert they are a side dish.

Out side dish took thirty five minutes to cook. Out leftover soup took four minutes to dish up and warm in the microwave and another two minutes to eat. We had a salad and some cottage cheese. The beets still were not done. So we had beets for dessert.

Digging up dirt

Digging fir the beets was actually pretty easy. We have had a couple of recent rains that washed the dirt away from the pleasant little purple pieces. The cold weather has flattened the greens some. So it will not be long and they will al have to come out.

My brain has been a bit like that. A cold snap from an unsuspecting person just wilted my pleasant mood The lack of hugs or smiles seems to make my jolly green happy yup right over. Tears of loneliness wash away the protective soil and pretty soon big red blotches are all over everything.

Strong, pungent odors waif up before my mind. Before I know it I am digging up dirt next to my pleasant feelings towards someone special to me.

Wow.

Beets for dessert.

Sure hope I di not have to repeat myself too frequently. I better go get the dish soap. These purple fingertips could use a bit of whitening.

The crickets are singing

Published on by yvonneannetteLeave a comment

Of love songs and moving slow

The lazy yellow moon…

Those days of the lazy moon and the floating breezes have long gone by. Seems more like the the moon is racing to reach the other side. The days really do go faster when you get older. It’s all relative the the number of nights you have already sat gazing at the moon too long and the duties of life call your name.

We’ll be falling in love…

When thoughts of “Our Song” (Fishing in the dark by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) my heart automatically picks up that beat that begins the piece. Summer nights that began our love story so many years ago. Fishing wasn’t anywheres close to the plans that we made each and every time we were together.

Crickets are singing…

Each time we take a ride on the gold wing, my mind is left to wander the landscape. My thoughts follow the terrain, the fresh breezes floating past my face, and my gaze naturally turns to the sky. The moon, the clouds, the sunsets, the deep vast endless blue bids me to stay in the space of our togetherness. Until one of us breaks the silence to comment on some passing object or thought.

My boyfriend is here to pick me up…

One Sunday a few years ago, we were blessed to watch one of the elderly couples in our church treat each other with that same “dating” anticipation that a young couple does. While the gentleman had gone home to get the car only a few blocks from church, the wife watched with expectant yearning for his return. And when he pulled the vehicle up to the sidewalk in front of the double glass doors, she quipped, “Well, I better go- my boyfriend is here to pick me up.” We loved that affectionate display so much. My husband and I still talk about it.

Counting the stars…

Only when one cannot get back to sleep do the nights seem long, Summer nights are actually shorter. The lightening bugs that arrive near midsummer signal beautiful nights of gentle breezes. But with them come all the other bugs. While sitting by a campfire might be someone else’s idea of relation, riding on the gold wing where the windshield finds them first, is more preferred.

Years ago I think it was a Honda something or another that we first rode on. We aren’t the typical riders. During our Minnesota and Iowa years, we found. a pedal bike more frequently. Having children to keep exercised was important. Lately we have taken to walking 3-4 miles then riding 10 or more to cool off.

Just moving slow…

The dog might need a run, but even the walk doesn’t seem to be enough to remove the extra baggage we have been packing on lately. So turning the big five-O this year, both of us are into finding what “getting healthy” means to us. My dear hubby seems to be focused on getting fit that involves loosing pounds. For me getting fit is about getting back into my jeans before it gets cold again. Riding the motorcycle into the evening means that getting cold sometimes comes at eight or nine o-clock, rather than in September!

Moving slow happens more frequently than ever some days. Like when I landed on the ball of my foot to hard and could hardly step up to throw my leg over the back seat of the bike. Often, I am wondering if anyone thinks, what do those two kids think they are doing anyhow. Maybe a car would be easier. But moving slowly is better than not moving at all, right?

It’s easy to just let things slide during the summer. The days seem lazy and the clouds roll by in their own gently way. Suddenly, it is four pm and the day almost over, the list has to be rushed through to get anything done. Maybe that’s what fifty feels like. It feels like Sunday afternoon of a relaxing weekend, and the lawn has to mowed and the laundry has to be washed, and theirs a new pile of dishes in the sink.

These days of summer go too fast. Summertime of life when the kids are home yet and the school days are a distant future. OUr love story started in the spring, twenty eight years ago before the June bugs hid the screens at night. Now it seems the cicada’s are drowning out the nice cool evenings. Their song is so loud the frogs can hardly hear each other.

Fishing in the dark…

One year ago in the early days of June we dashed off to discover some new roads in our state. We found the heritage of our state larger than expected. From the statue at Chamberlain to the small back road churches south of Newton Hills, we enjoy touring these open places. Fishing for things will bait our conversations, and keep the romance in us alive. Staying close enough to home, to sleep in our own bed at night is fine with us.

We try not to ride at night too often. For one thing,my idea of fishing is the dark is when I drop something and can’t seem to find it, because it rolled across the floor. (Like the time my grand baby spit out the pacifier and I could find it!). Fishing in the dark for a shoe in the stack of soles by the front door has become a new nightmare of mine. Riding at night is rather a ride by the Braille of Smell for me. It’s the scents, the temperatures and the Lund’s only for me, I can’t see a thing.

Crickets are still singing…

Their noise hasn’t let up much. My sister use to tear the closet apart to get rid of one cricket. I figured that by the time I found it, another would have spawned. If crickets do such a thing. So while my husband and I fight to find what “being fit” means to us, the crickets are still singing. Meaning the days are still long enough to find out perhaps what that means. When and if we ever find it, we’ll let you know.

Or maybe you’ll just figure it out by looking at us. We’re still “fishing” for what that perfect exercise plan looks like. Maybe that’s what makes our love story ours… We’ve never even been fishing. Gavin doesn’t like bugs. Or rather mosquitoes, their mean.

It don’t matter…

That we’ve never gone fishing. It doesn’t matter that we don’t take vacations to tropical islands. It doesn’t matter that dreams don’t always come true. I have YOU! And that’s what matters. That after all that we have been through, we’ve been through it together. Through the good times, the bad times, whether smooth roads or rough trails, it still feels best that I have done it with my beloved.

Feels so good to be with you…

There is not a moment of our togetherness that I would change. We’ve had 27 years married. Longer than the years we were under our parents ponder-inns. While we might catch ourselves turning into our parents the next half-century, it still feels so good to be with you…

Baby get ready…

Ode to Chivalry and Stupidity

Published on by yvonneannetteLeave a comment

When not to stay home

Yep, my husband is a re-born Knight from the Middle Ages. Nothing will stop him in his tracks. He is like a bloodhound on scent when he is on a mission of kindness.

As a young lad, he and his brother out-foxed the coyote, the deer, the pheasant and the snowstorms. There wasn’t a school snow day that they didn’t go hunting. Rather playing in the outdoors was not a sport as seen in the winter Olympic. Weather, wind, snow, and ice were just an excuse to trap some poor animal trying to beat the elements.

Not to be called an anti-hunting activist, I am thankful that my great white (snow covered) hunter can save my pets from preying beasts.

Knighthood and kindness has not been killed. This is proof that chivalry still exists every time old-man-winter tears his ugly head. The blowing snow has never been a foe to my beloved.

Until last Monday night.

Stupidity

Stupidity and chivalry really are synonymous.

Okay, maybe that was a little to blunt. Like the edge of that fish fillet knife buried in the tackle box in the closet. In all of our married years, i don’t think it has ever been out of it’s leather sheath. Oh, well. If there were no mosquitoes in the fishing world maybe fishing would be more appealing. My poor dear really hates mosquitoes. That’s why winter sport hunting has been more fun.

However, the last time there was a license on the table was for the Canadian whites that come through. And if I had any patience for soaking the wild meat longer and making it more taste worthy, perhaps my love would have brought more bunting home for his little ones.

So there, you have the old hunting fail stories. He and his brother used to have a lot fun going after critters. When livelihood comes into challenge because the critters are after the livestock, suddenly it’s not so fun anymore. We have lost lambs, ewes, ducks, geese, chickens, pigs, piglets, and kittens to wild coyote or fox. There just aren’t as many young teen males interested in late night rendezvous to go after a coyote or wild dog. There are times we can hear the coyotes calling to each other over their food.

So we took the blizzard warning quite seriously. Until it quit snowing. Then it just seemed right to go help scoop out the elderly and the invalid. Not in that order of course. The only reality in the whole thing, is that after scooping himself out of the snow bank, my dear hubby was feeling quite elderly and invalid!

There is a little book that we bought many years ago that was one of the girls favorite winter reads. The title is “The Snowplow.”

An ode to the evenings true knight in armor would definitely involve the sound of a Diesel engine and the impressive sound of the snow being chewed up and spewed out like a dinosaur-ish volacanic monster!

These last few days recovering from the shoveling has taken longer that it did years ago. I use to shovel out my own foxhole in a snowdrift just for fun. Now it took me three days to get an adequate path to my greenhouse that doesn’t include snow in my toes by the time I get there. Recovery to me is never about just resting and watching television. My preferred mode is crochet and a book to listen to while sitting with a warm buddy next to me. Thank goodness with Honey’s sprained toe/paw, she has been more willing to help keep me warm.

The above project is one that began nearly four years ago. I finally decided to just finish it as a set. Fingerless mittens, visor hat with buttons, and a turtle neck warmer should come in handy for the next blizzard event. Perhaps, Monday nights events will keep us closer to the cabin next time..

Back to the drawing board

Published on by yvonneannetteLeave a comment

What is normal?

The day when writing a letter was an option again, found me listing all the things that I had not been able to do for the past six weeks. Raising my right arm into a chicken wing position to write letters was one of them. 

Normal  has a definition. “Conforming to the usual, typical or expected” is what most dictionaries quip.  One’s standard of normal however is often self-relevant. In other words, my normal is not your normal. Anything measured has a standard normalcy. But about the only thing measured in my life this last month is how many pain pills were needed to make it to the end of the day while remaining upright. 

So now that normal is approaching, behaving so that the rib can have it’s goal healing time is far from normal to me. Doing things the old-way is so easy until it suddenly is not 

Writing letters to dear ones comes easy at times. Words for those closest to me however seems lost. With the conveniences of phone calls and texting, the pen and paper are no longer normal. What more is there to say I tell myself as I sit before the empty pages. 

Other mothers or fathers have done such a thorough job of imparting their wisdom. A brief look at the list of “letters to my daughter” on the search engine proves my point. I’m really not sure at this time in our lives that I have anything new to write to my girls. 

Then I come across a list of what parents are to impart to adult children, failure finds my eyes sweating profusely. Step up to the image of good parent and the measurement seems quite lacking. What is normal -I find myself in the category there. Perhaps this checking out normal is a bad decision. 

Writing is only for the few. Normal is only relative to one’s own expectation.  Thank goodness my girls live in the day of easy phone calls and conversations. Thank goodness I can create a new normal any day I so choose. If perhaps I can figure out what to say on part to my adult children then maybe perhaps I will behind writing. Until then there are thousands of books to comb through.  Somebody has already written a few million words to their child. 

I will just keep doing my normal letter writing. And normal does not have to be re-defined for me. 

Phew! At least I talked myself out if that one! I love my daughters and son-in-law; thanks for not expecting a usually typical letter from your mom.

From head to toe and now ribs, oh no!

Published on by yvonneannetteLeave a comment

The daily surprise of RP

Everyone loves surprises, right? Well if you are talking about birthdays or gifts of course. If you are considering accidents and natural disasters NO!  

Living with retinitis pigmentosa involves an element of surprise that for the most part includes chaos and a lot of spilled milk!  The first body parts to suffer are the toes and the head. Unless the person with RP wears  steel- toe boots there’s a sure factor that there will be some broken toes.  

The funniest broken toe problem that I had was when I grabbed to left shoes to wear at church and didn’t check them until church. On top of that we were headed to take our eight year old to camp after that. So it was a Kmart stop on the way to Des Moines for a pair of flip-flops so that little toe could be free to be fat as it pleased! I remember walking through Kmart barefooted and wondering if they would kick us out!

RP loves foreheads, faces and noses. The greetings to those unsuspecting places can occur daily when one is tired. The not so funniest moment for me was when the teeter totter kissed me right between the eyes!  The whack could be heard throughout the whole acreage.  I had picked up a snake and was going to scarce my husband with it when the end of the see-saw bit me pretty hard. I flew back and landed on my back knocking the breath out of me. Should have been on video. We could have won with that one!  I broke my nose that time.  

Kitchen cabinets should roll up like roll-top desks. Who ever decided hinges were a universal cabinet feature did not have RP.  Every time we moved to a new house I learned by the school of hard-knocks about the cabinet doors. When will we ever learn to shut those doors right away?  If you have RP and live with someone that does not-the kitchen can be a war-zone of dishwasher doors and such. I have a permanent dent in one shin from the dishwasher door.  Uffda!

I use to claim that I never broke any bones. Well it just wasn’t as noticeable. The toe or the nose doesn’t get a cast for your friends to sign. My sister broke her arm going down the slide as a child. I remember helping her get dressed. That was the era of girls shirts that buttoned in back. Really we had to help each other before the casted arm. Not sure why I remember it especially as a casted arm thing. 

My grandmother was the first family member to have the degenerative eyesight. I don’t remember that she ever broke anything until her age related osteoporosis began to affect her life.  However I have an uncle with the disease that broke his leg during his career from a stair step fall. It was a pretty bad break.  The story helped me to be quite cautious of stairways. His hanging back two steps behind other walking companions has kept him from further accidents. He has not adopted a trusty walking-cane yet. Never understood why. 

My father also inherited the disease. His numerous broken bones began quite early in his twenties. But his cowboy behavior was the beginning of many woes. The more dangerous approach for him has been using a cane, a GPS device and walking in an old community with various pitfalls and oddball curbs. His favorite saying is “Concrete doesn’t give!” (Meaning budge, move, or dent.) Bones are no match for concrete. The hard cement wins every time.  We are all a little glad his GPS will not hold a charge anymore. The hospital doesn’t need anymore of his hard earned money. 

So how did this rib-thing happen anyhow? I was headed back to bed when the doggie gate I had placed in front of the door greeted me and the rug under my left foot slipped backwards. My ribs hit the gate with full hug force.  The blow took away my breathe and the rest is history that I don’t want to repeat. Needless to say, I have already planned to give the gates away. My memory doesn’t serve me any better than my eyesight, so tripping triumphs can’t exist in my home anymore!  

The puppy that caused me to think that I needed the gates in the first place has been spending more time outdoors. She may have learned something about compassion from the whole experience. Gentle, and sit NEXT to me are now part of our vocabulary. 

Those eyes! Usually what people say when looking at a gorgeous baby. Or blue eyes that are deep pools of water. Well, for those of us with RP those eyes are sometimes not very helpful. So getting a dog that will truly be a “watch” dog is a great goal of mine. Teaching “those eyes” to be my eyes might just break me-literally!  I sure hope we can learn from our mistakes and keep my home a safe-zone from now on.