Rambling Thoughts on Loss

Over the past six weeks our family has suffered stunningly unexpected losses. We lost my 13 year old dog Cloud, the canine love of my life, on March 30. Just a week and half ago, Bill’s dad Michael passed away. Michael had been sick for a long time, but nonetheless his passing was sudden and traumatic for all of us. We never expected we would lose him over what started out as a simple chest cold.

I’ve never been much of a cryer, I rarely cry. Maybe about 3-4 times a year I will have a random meltdown and let it all out. The one big exception to this being the mild bout of post-partum depression I experienced for about 4 weeks after my son was born, I cried All The Time, for no reason at all. The Lion King is on, oh look they’re holding Simba’s baby up and all the mommy lions are roaring in the rain—watch me SOBBING. For like 30 minutes. Over a stupid cartoon baby lion in a stupid cartoon movie. It was the strangest thing. Like someone else had taken over my body and my brain. Thankfully that disappeared right around the 4 week mark.

Until now. Nowadays, I cry all the time. Every single day. I just can’t believe that both of these loved ones are just GONE from our lives. That we’ll never talk to Michael again, hear his voice, hear his laugh. I knew my dog would die, I knew I wouldn’t have her forever, and I knew it would shatter my heart when she left. I never expected we would lose a parent, the children would lose a grandparent.

I feel like I have cried every tear my body has ever and will ever make. I can’t believe I have any left. And yet they still come. There should be an ocean by now. My child will not know his grandfather. My relationships with my own grandfathers were so special; they were such a huge part of my life and my heart. I was 20 and 30 when I lost them, respectively. How lucky I was to have my Papaw and my DoDaddy for so long, to spend so much of my life knowing and spending time with them. I mourn that my child will not experience the same, with one of the men for whom he is named. I find myself ever more grateful that we did name him for the two most incredibly special men we know.

Will the tears ever stop? I feel so awful for Bill, for Suzann, for the children, for myself. I miss my dog. I miss Michael. I want to rub Cloud’s soft ears; I want to hear Michael’s deep rumbling laughter. I want Suzann to not be alone. I want to hear my dog whining and doing the wee-wee-wee noise when she’s so happy that I came home. I want my son to be held in his Opa’s arms and know he is loved. It’s not fair that the children lost their grandfather at such young ages.

Beyond the losses we have had so many random but aggravating setbacks lately---one of my stepmom friends described it so aptly: “it’s like a never-ending giant ball of shit is rolling down the hill towards your family.” How true that is. Sewage explosion in the bathtub, broken refrigerators and washers at Suzann’s house, Suzann’s beloved cat dying just an hour after her husband, facebook drama, the dramatic loss of a best friend of 25+ years (no, she did not die, she chose our estrangement), dog-and-cat-fights (uhhh, literally), one other enormously stressful situation, with long-term implications, that I can’t go into. I feel like anything that could go wrong, pretty much has.

Bill has a gift of being a complete optimist, we balance each other well because I am the total opposite. Right now, everything feels dark and bleak to me. I am waiting for the next shoe to drop. I want to crawl under a rock. The only thing that gets me out of bed every morning is the sweet face of my son and the knowledge that he needs me. I know I should count our blessings, and there are many—happy and healthy children being primary amongst them. So many others experience so much worse than we have. Who am I to feel so down? First-world problems, right?

And still the tears come. Will I ever stop crying?

Excellent Reads: The Uglies Series

 

So I’m still on a kick of enjoying reading Young Adult novels with dystopian themes. I still haven’t read anything that kicked my butt the way Divergent did, or that I enjoyed nearly as much as the Matched Series. But I have read some good and some bad….and then there is The Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld. Now this is a series to enjoy!

From Amazon: 

“Tally Youngblood is almost 16 and breathlessly eager: On her birthday, like everyone else, she'll undergo extensive surgery to become a Pretty. She's only known life as an Ugly (everyone's considered hideous before surgery), whereas after she "turns," she'll have the huge eyes, perfect skin, and new bone structure that biology and evolution have determined to be objectively beautiful. New Pretties party all day long. But when friend Shay escapes to join a possibly mythical band of outsiders avoiding surgery, Tally follows--not from choice but because the secret police force her….(Kirkus Reviews)”

The series continues into the second book, Pretties, and the third book, Specials. Westerfeld even followed up with a post-trilogy sequel (apparently after much clamoring by fans) called Extras. I very much enjoyed the second and third books but could have done without the fourth.

The premise and world-building of this story are thrillingly unique, and very timely given our culture’s obsession with beauty. Westerfeld has some brilliant things to say about the worship of “prettiness”.

Like most of the YA fare out there currently, this series does feature a love triangle, although a rather limp one at that. Interestingly, the romance and the triangle are not the focus of the story or its action at all. In fact, I would argue that throughout the series the author spent more time and exposition developing Tally’s best-frenemy relationship with Shay than he did her relationships with the two love interests. I think this made the series all the more interesting, particularly since here we have a guy, writing about girl best friendships. He captures the love-hate and competition dynamic well. Who among us hasn’t had a Shay to our Tally?

I also very much enjoyed Westerfeld’s take on pre-Pretty society, the “Rusties”, which is….us. His end-of-the-world scenario is entirely realistic, and his descriptions of our “Rusty Ruins” are spooky, because they feel so real.

All in all, this was a great series—the first three books anyway, skip the fourth—and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys this genre.

Donating Hair: Locks of Love versus Beautiful Lengths

So not on purpose, but more through passive neglect, my hair got monstrously long. I didn’t originally start out growing it long to donate but one day recently I realized that it WAS actually long enough to give to someone in need, and I was sick of it anyway. So, I was ready to lop off that ponytail and send it off to Locks of Love, which of course we’ve all heard about.

Then I started doing a little bit of research and found out some surprising things about Locks of Love. First of all, they don’t actually use most of the hair they receive to make wigs for children in need. Whatever can’t go into a wig they sell (for other people to make vanity extensions). I understand their need to have a source of income, as a nonprofit organization, but it oogs me out a little that my hair might be sold for extensions on a Paris Hilton-wannabe.

Secondly, Locks of Love charges their recipients (mostly children who have alopecia--genetic baldness--rather than life-threatening illnesses) for their wigs. It’s a sliding scale of course, but none of the wigs are free. Which was also a little unsettling to me.

Further research shows that Locks of Love has only sold “given” about 3,000 wigs to children since their creation.

On the other hand, Pantene shampoo sponsors a program in conjunction with the American Cancer Society called Beautiful Lengths. All of their wigs are given for free to women who have suffered hair loss after cancer treatment. They have given out over 24,000 wigs to date.

Beautiful Lengths also never sells hair that is unusable—instead, they donate it to an environmental program that uses the hair to make giant “hair mats” that absorb oil spills in the ocean. Apparently human hair is the most efficient way to clean up oil spills (who knew!). I really like the idea that if my ponytail should be unusable in a wig for some reason, it would go to an environmental cause rather than someone’s vanity hair extensions.

And lastly, Beautiful Lengths only requires an 8-inch minimum ponytail, while Locks of Love’s minimum is 10 inches. My ponytail ended up measuring 11 inches total so this didn’t matter, but it might to someone who is growing for donation purposes!

As you can probably guess, my choice was Beautiful Lengths. And here’s the end result!

Happy Birthday to Kirk!

Once again, it’s been awhile since I’ve updated the blog…I guess that’s what having a one-year old will do to you! He keeps me very busy. I realized recently I hadn’t even posted pictures of his first birthday party! Here ya go!

Kirk's cake:

 Snickers cake for everyone else (yummmm):

 Decorations

 Pinata filled with goodies for all the guests:

 

Time for candle blow-out!

 He did NOT like the feeling of cake on his hands....

Until his sister showed him how YUMMY cake is!

 

 

Happy Birthday sweet Kirk! We love you!

Missing the Blitzy Boo

For nearly five years I lived with one of the coolest and most awesome person I know, a colleague named Ann. I can't say enough good about her--she was the perfect roommate for me as we are matched very well in personality and became very good friends. I still miss talking with her All The Time!

One of the best things about living with her (besides the constant conversation) was that we shared a zoo of animals (shocking, I know). Her chocolate lab Blitz, also known as The Boo, was one of the sweetest dogs I've ever know. She was Cloud's best friend--they adored each other. Blitzy passed away when she was 12 and it absolutely broke our hearts. I still miss her.

One of my favorite Blitz stories was how she would sometimes sneak out of the house, run around the neighborhood for a few minutes and do her business, then appear back at our front porch scratching on the door to come back in. She had a breathing problem which made her pant heavily and breathe really loudly at times. She also had rough patches on her elbows from laying on the the hardwood floors. One time she scared one of our neighbors so bad appearing on her back porch she called the police saying there is a rabid dog foaming at the mouth with open sores on her arms at my door! Poor Boo, that was so far from the truth!

Recently I found some pictures of Blitz on my computer and thought I'd share them here. It's been 7 years I think since she left us and I still miss her, as I'm sure Cloud does too. Cloud has never quite bonded with any other dog the way she did with Blitz. Love you Boo!

Callie loved Blitzy too---this picture was taken when Callie still had all four of her legs! She used to love to play with Boo's tail while she ate!

Secret Santa Fun

I recently did a Secret Santa exchange with some internet friends, and I have to say I was pretty excited how my gift for my partner turned out! I wanted to do something handmade and the price limit was $20, so this little embroidery project fit the bill perfectly. Check it out:

I used the same crayon-and-embroidery method on this that I did in my Nancy Drew quilt. This is by far my favorite method of sewing; there's no end to the possibilities--especially now that I have a cool new die-cutter that can cut any shape my little heart desires!

Treats for Teachers

Here's another fun use of my awesome Silhouette die-cutter! Bill and I are on the board of my stepkids' PTO, and also on the Hospitality Committee. I signed up to deliver "sweet nothing" treats for the entire faculty and staff at the school....at the time I signed up I didn't realize what a task this would turn out to be! I was also dumb to pick my son's first birthday as my day to deliver treats--I thought it would help me remember the date (which it did) but didn't completely think through that I might be wanting to do anything besides making treats for teachers on that day! Oh well, it all worked out in the end, and I hope the teachers enjoy their sweet nothings.

I made my Rosemary Butter Cookies (they sound gross, but trust me--these are DIVINE!), mostly because that's the one cookie recipe I have that makes a TON of cookies! I wanted each of the 60 staff members to have 5 cookies a piece so that's a lot of cookies!

Add a cute little tag made with the help of my Silhouette, glue the recipe to the back of the tag, put it all in a cute little decorative goodie bag, and voila! You have treats for teachers. What do you think?

Birthday Fun!

I've mentioned before how much I loooove my Silhouette Cameo die-cutter. I was so excited to make the invitations for Kirk's birthday party all by myself! I have a bunch of ideas for party decorations and favors too. I think the invitations turned out so cute if I do say so myself!

(read about the giraffe theme here)

Also my stepdaughter pulled out her creative hat and made her brother the sweetest little gift--look how cute and creative this is! I'm always so impressed with how her mind works. And I also want to add that I'm absolutely THRILLED, over the moon, with how much my stepkids love their brother. We've been SO lucky in this regard. They genuinely adore him and are huge helps with his care, and he definitely loves them too. I know someday soon he's going to start getting really sad when they're not with us. But anyway check out her project:

Happy Birthday, Kirk!

One year ago today I was suffering from a broken tailbone and 40% blood loss after a pretty traumatic birth. It was the best day of my life! I can't believe my sweet baby boy is a year old already. It's gone by so fast! I can say with total confidence and honesty that being a mom to this boy is the best thing that I have ever done, and I feel more and more lucky every day. I was born to be this child's mom. I'm kind of sad that he is growing up so fast but I'm enjoying every minute of him!

The two Kirks (my boy is named after both of his terrific grandfathers):

 And the day before his first birthday:

We love you so much Kirk Michael!