Life is such a fragile thing. My dad just called to tell me that she who shall not be named’s daughter died. She was only 51. I’ve never met her daughter, although I do know one of her sons and he’s a very nice man. And as much as I still do not care for she who shall not be named, I can’t imagine losing a child. And not being able to go the funeral because of your own health. It’s all so very sad. So, I guess finally I can sympathize with her on some level. And at the same time, I hope I never have to know what it feels like…

Seems like everyone I know is stressed about one thing or another whether it’s money (✓), health stuff (✓), things getting done that need to be done, being overtired or all of those things put together.

It’s hard because we’re all stressed and we want to be there for each other, but I think when you’re stressed it makes it that much harder to give any of yourself if that makes sense. You’re trying so hard to just keep yourself on an even keel and keep it together for your family and get the basics done that have to be done on a day to day basis, that you just don’t have much left for anyone else.

And you know, it happens. We all have those times. Usually, though, they are spread out and they don’t effect everyone at once. But right now, it sure seems like it’s hitting everyone I care about at the same time. Including myself.

I think the worst part is when it’s stuff you have no control over. Like health issues that you’re worried about. Or when the bills start piling up over unexpected things and then money that you were counting on falls through. And you have so much going on that you don’t have time to think. I looked at my calendar for March and it’s insane (well for me it’s insane - I know other people’s calendars are even crazier than mine).

And to top it all off, Easter is early this year. And for church musicians, that just makes things even more crazy. I mean seriously, people, Holy Week is less than three weeks away. And before that, there are rehearsals to deal with as well. Our monthly religious education program got cancelled for the month because of the issues with the church roof, but that’s one of those good/bad things. Good that we don’t have to deal with it and put time into it this month. Bad that the people who were counting on the money won’t be getting it. So time is gained, but cash is lost. It’s just another thing to be stressed about. And we don’t even know if we’ll be back in the church before Easter. That is a very bad thing. Trying to have Easter Mass in the hall (even Palm Sunday Mass) is going to be horrible. Not even close to enough room.

Anyway, I know I’m rambling. I guess I’m just trying to say I love you to my stressed out friends. I’m stressed out right along with you. But we’ll get it through it somehow.

This week, they are ripping the carpet out in our church in order to replace it - something that is long overdue. While everything is out, Mike decided it was a good time to do a little remodeling in the choir area to make it more user friendly - as in mic cables underneath the floor instead of all over the floor so you have to step over them and constantly push them out of the way. It’s going to be great.

Anyway, Mike, along with our drummer and two other guys, was in there yesterday doing the demo to the choir area - ripping out the tile, tearing out the tile board, etc. etc.

Our drummer, bless him, decided to do some exploring. They crawled under the altar. They climbed up into the attic. And in the attic, he found there were some broken trusses (near the back of the church for those of you who actually go there). The ceiling has been sagging for awhile, and that clearly explains why there is sagging. And fixing broken trusses and a sagging ceiling is something Mike could probably do on his own. But, as he was leaving today, he chanced a look at the roof. And the roof itself is sagging. That is not good. Not. good. Very not good.

But, good that they found it during a week when the church is not being used. Right? And now they can get it fixed posthaste. Scary though. Very scary.

Lately we’ve taken to eating breakfast outside on the front porch since the weather has been so nice. Soon enough it will be too cold to do that, so we’re enjoying it while we can. This morning, Mike had to get to work early, so LG ate breakfast in the house while I got on the treadmill and then I closed the gate and let Melody and LG come out with me while I watered the plants in the front planters.

Melody was running around enjoying her freedom when all of a sudden she started barking like crazy at the fence next to the road. I looked up expecting to see the neighbor’s dog running around in their backyard or something like that. I did see something like that, but it wasn’t a dog. It was a coyote. A limping coyote running across the neighbor’s backyard. I called Melody (who bless her heart, came right away) and got her and LG in the house. The coyote wasn’t coming our way at all, but better safe than sorry. I then watched the coyote somehow get into the vacant house’s yard and keep heading north (away from us).

I called Mike on my cell (which I always take outside with me because you never know!) and told him what had happened while I finished watering. We have a fenced yard, so I had plenty of warning if the coyote or his friends decided to try and visit.

It’s not unusual to see coyotes around here, but it’s a little jarring to see them when you have your dog and your child running around your yard. I guess I’ll have to scope things out before I let them out from now on!

I’ve heard it said that being a mother is like having a piece of your heart forever beating outside your body. And the truth in that is profound.

I have never worried as much about another person as I worry about my daughter. I worry about so many things. Every time we get in the car, I say a little prayer that we’ll make it to our destination and back safely. Every time I leave her somewhere without me, I don’t totally relax until she’s safely back home with me. I worry that she’ll get lost or hurt or injured or that someone will hurt her feelings. Every time I see a story on the news about a child who has some horrible disease, I pray fervently that she will grow up healthy and strong. I worry that I’m not doing the right things for her to help her grow into a kind loving person. I worry that her refusal to eat certain foods will somehow stunt her growth. I worry about silly things, about things I should worry about and about things I have no control over. In short, I worry a. lot.

But one of the things that scares me the most, I think, is that I will have to leave her before she is grown. And that she will lose her sweet, happy, joyful little soul because she will have to suffer a loss at a young age. That scares me a lot.

So maybe you can understand how freaked out I was about something being wrong with those tests. What if it was this? What if it was that? I was hell to live with for a couple of days. Every time I looked at my little girl, I wasn’t sure whether to smother her with hugs and kisses or burst into tears. So, there was much relief when I heard what the issue of concern was.

But it made me think. What can I do to make sure I’m around for as long as possible? And whatever it is, don’t I owe it to her to make sure I do all those things? We’d all like to think we’re immortal, but unfortunately we are not, and the older we get, the better we need to take care of our bodies. Even if we don’t want to.

I want to see my little girl grow up. I want to see her graduate from high school and college and graduate school if she so chooses. I want to be at her wedding and I want to babysit my grandchildren. And I’d like to see them graduate and get married, too.

I don’t have control over everything in my life. I sure as heck don’t have control over my heart issues. But I do have control over a lot of other things. So I need to take that control and do the best I can to be healthy. For my daughter, my husband, my future grandchildren, but most importantly for myself, so that I can have the best quality of life that is possible for as long as I’m here.

So time to make some changes. It won’t be easy, but I’m going to do the best I can. I can’t ask more of myself than that.

So yeah, there I was in the hospital, in the lab room thingy where they do the electrophysiology study/ablation and they were sticking innumerable sticky pad things all over my body and I had this overwhelming desire to just get up and run far, far away. But just as I was working on getting a hold on the anxiety, the nice medicine came into the IV and I was fast fast asleep for the next 3 or so hours. I like it that way. It is strange, though, how it feels like you just closed your eyes and the next thing you know it’s three hours later. Very strange.

I have an incredibly sore throat because they felt the need to do a transesophageal echocardiogram in which they send the echo probe down your throat. Sounds fun huh? The sore throat is probably the worst aftereffect besides the incredible tiredness I’m feeling.

I wish I had really good news for you. Unfortunately, I have really complicated news for you. The good news is my heart is back in rhythm and out of tachycardia and flutter. The other part is, well, rather complicated. (Read on …)

I think maybe I should just cut my heart out and put it in a chest like Davy Jones did in Pirates of the Caribbean so that it doesn’t cause me any more grief. No? Well, it was a thought.

So, the EKG says: tachycardia and atrial flutter.

I’m not exactly sure how I feel at the moment about all of that. Mostly right now I just want to wallow in self-pity for awhile. You know why it really sucks? Because after almost 2 years of my heart behaving perfectly, and me actually believing that I was going to be done with this once and for all, I’m right back where I started. So there’s a lot of questioning of God going on right now. Oh, not “finger pointing and screaming angry” questioning, just “I don’t get it Lord - can you please help me to understand why it’s happened after almost two years” questioning.

Anyway, I will be seeing the other cardiologist on Monday - the one who does the ablations. And I don’t really feel like looking for those old posts about when I had the ablation last time, but if you’re really interested, check the archives around August 2005 and there should be many posts about it. So yeah, looks like I’ll probably have to have another ablation. Yay. I most definitely did not enjoy it the first time and I was really hoping I wouldn’t have another date with Dr. S ever again. Not that I don’t love him. I do. He is an awesome doctor, but you know…

In the meantime, I’m on my nemesis Toprol to slow down my heart rate. Blood pressure medication and I do NOT get along well. My blood pressure has always been pretty close to perfect, and therefore slowing it down just makes me feel like crap.

I think I will be away from ye olde blog for a few days so I can just kind of wrap my brain around all of this. But no worries - I will let you know what’s going on and if LG does anything too adorable not to share, you can bet I’ll post. In the meantime, I just need to regroup. And cry a little bit.

I’ve been thinking a lot today about Virginia Tech. Thinking about the whys and the whats and the hows and the what can we do to keep this from happening again?

I don’t know that it’s possible to ever stop people from killing other people. That has been going on since the dawn of our existence. But I certainly think there are ways to try to prevent these things from happening.

Information about the killer is slowly trickling out and one of the things that was reported was that he wrote very dark and macabre things as an English major, so dark that he was sent to a counselor. If that’s not a red flag, I don’t know what is. It seems that every time something like this happens, it is later reported that they wrote violent and dark words leading up to the killings. Perhaps the “counselors” need to take those signals a little more seriously.

I also think one of the problems is that we live in a society that accepts violence as a form of entertainment - in video games, in rap music, on television shows, in movies. I am not against free speech by any stretch of the imagination, but I think that many parents are too liberal in what they let their children watch when they are young. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve seen parents bring small children to violent, disturbing movies or that I’ve heard my students talk about the things their parents let them view on television. And I think these parents are doing their children a disservice by allowing these precious minds to view violence and ugliness at a young age.

I certainly think there is an age when kids can handle darker subject matter with supervision, but I think every child is different and parents really need to be aware of what their children are viewing and experiencing.

I try my best to make sure that LG is only exposed to “harmless” shows, which is why 1) we watch very little television when LG is awake and 2) I spend so much time watching shows like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. She enjoys the music and the movement and the shows themselves are pretty G-rated.

What makes me angry is when I am trying my best to shield her from the darker subject matter of movies and television shows and the networks find it necessary and apparently acceptable to advertise violent or scary movies and television programs during these shows that children are most likely viewing. It makes me angry because it’s very hard to flip the channel fast enough to keep her from seeing those commercials and they have no business being aired during those shows in the first place, in my humble opinion.

I’m not saying that those advertisements shouldn’t be aired at all, but I’m much more likely to expect something like that during CSI than I am during American Idol, and it really pisses me off that the networks don’t seem to care enough about the age of their viewers to consider the audience that is watching and save those ads for shows that I wouldn’t let my child watch anyway. And yes, I could just watch these shows on the DVR and fast forward through the commercials, but the bottom line is that I shouldn’t have to.

And so, I’ve decided. Every time I see what I consider an inappropriate ad during a show that I find harmless enough for LG to watch, I’m going to complain. To the local station. To the network. AND to the advertiser. And I think you should, too, if you agree with me. Maybe if enough people complain, they’ll think twice about when they program certain advertising. I’m not even going to begin to try to get the advertising taken off the television completely, but I’m sure going to try to make certain programs violence-free zones. It’s one small thing, I know. And it might not make a real difference in the big picture, but it’s something I can do and feel like I’m at least trying to change things. Are you with me?

Edited to add: In response to Barbara’s comment, I will work on getting a page up with the networks’ contact information in the next couple of days.

Today Rochelle can finally (legally) do pretty much everything except run for president. Yep, she’s 21 today! Do you remember when you were 21? I actually do. But since I didn’t start drinking until my 30s, the only exciting new thing I could do was buy lottery tickets.

Either way, go wish her a happy 21st bday will ya? And maybe tell her what exciting thing you did to celebrate!

Just when I think LG has actually learned that Mama and Papa know what they are talking about when they tell her not to do something because it will hurt her, as evidenced by the fact that every time she sees a light fixture with a light bulb in it, she now says “HOT light” instead of just “light”, she finds another way to take ten years off my life.

Today it was trying to get out of her not-a-high chair* by herself by leaning forward instead of climbing down or asking for help, thus making said chair tip over sideways. The sideways was good because backwards or forwards might have caused some sort of injury. I grabbed her hand as she fell and kind of pulled her out of the way of the chair, but she still hit the floor and burst into tears - probably more of fear than pain, but still…it’s not like we don’t take care of her and watch her like a hawk, but I’m starting to feel slightly paranoid. Please tell me this is a normal phase so I can stop panicking. I’m beginning to think I’m raising a female evil knievel.

*Mike took an old hand-me-down bar stool (with a back) and sawed off the legs just enough so that she can sit comfortably at the table with us, but it’s height obviously makes it not very safe for intrepid 2 year olds to lean over in.

So, the other day she fell off the couch. Next there was the burned hand incident. Then the other night she tripped and hit her cheek on the one of the chairs in the church, so she has a nice little bruise on her cheek. And today? Well, now she has a shiner. She was supposed to be taking a nap, but apparently she was jumping on her bed, because I heard a thud and then crying. I ran in there and found a nice knot forming next to her eye, and once she calmed down she told me she bumped her head on the the bedrail. *sigh*

I don’t think I was nearly that adventurous when I was her age. I’m positive she totally gets this from her father.

Update Sunday 10:00 am: Mike spoke with T’s husband (who is our mechanic) this morning (see post above) and he said they finally found a blood pressure medication that worked, so her BP is back to normal. If all works out, we’ll be going to visit her later today, so I’ll be able to update some more after that. Thank you for your prayers so far, and please keep them both in your prayers for the time being!

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My very good friend T, (my former student teacher and used to be next-door classroom neighbor) had a baby due on April 2. Note that I said had. She has also been suffering from pre-eclampsia throughout her pregnancy, and she ended up delivering via c-section yesterday. Both mother and baby are doing okay, but they are having a hard time getting T’s blood pressure down.

The baby weighed 2 lbs, 2 oz, BUT she was breathing on her own. Apparently, since T was having some problems throughout the pregnancy, the baby went into survival mode and those precious little lungs developed early. The human body truly is astounding. T was just about two days past the point where I had LG. In fact, I talked to her a couple of days ago and I was joking that she had beaten me. LG was bigger, though by 1 lb 13 1/2 oz.

I got the call this morning from another teacher acquaintance (the one who moved into my room after I left the school) to let me know what was going on. And as I was talking to her I was thinking that T would need the preemie clothes I saved from LG. And other teacher mentioned that as well. And since I was planning on going through LG’s clothes today to put away the outgrowns and get out the 3Ts(!!!) for the next season (how is my baby that big????), it won’t be a big deal at all to pull them out. I would anyway, but at least it was in my plans for today right?

When I got off the phone, I burst into tears. I think that hearing the story brought all the memories of LG’s birth back to me. Not to mention the fact that T is one of nicest people I know and I love her dearly.

So, please, if you can, say a few prayers for my friend T, her hubby, their older kids and their precious tiny little angel.

My father called tonight to tell us that She Who Shall Not Be Named is in the hospital in Texas with congestive heart failure. It’s certainly not necessarily a fatal condition, as my dad has gone through it no less than three times, but I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t cross my mind that it would be easier for me on the land issue I mentioned the other day if she ceased to exist before my dad does.

If that makes me a bad person, so be it. The two people I mentioned that to said that first of all I can’t help my thoughts considering how nasty she has been and that she has brought it upon herself.

If you want to know the story of the land issue, click: (Read on …)

This morning was the monthly pancake breakfast at church and Little Girl and I were going to meet Mike over there in between the morning masses he has to cover until they find someone else, and have breakfast. However, there were baptisms and mass ran late and he had to start rehearsal for the next mass right after mass was over, and since I didn’t really want to go eat pancakes by myself with a toddler (and she had already eaten anyway, don’t worry I’m not starving her), I made an executive decision to go to Target. Because you know, there’s nothing better to do when you’re out anyway than go to Target right?

Anyway, I found a cute top for myself, looked at the adorable cowgirl boots that didn’t match the Halloween costume her grandmother got for her, but were so cute I was tempted to buy a pair anyway (the brown ones, but they didn’t have her size) and as we were making our way to the checkout line I hear over the loudspeaker:

Would the owner of a blah blah blah, license number blah blah blah please come to the front of the store.

If you’re like me, you pretty much tune out anything on the loudspeaker in a store. Which I mostly did, but my subconscious must have heard something that made my brain take notice, because when they repeated it a second time I heard:

Would the owner of a Ford Escape (surely it’s not MY little Escape they’re speaking of right?), license number ### (Oh crap that’s MY license number. Oh crap. Oh crap. What happened? Oh my God. Did someone steal my car? But wait they wouldn’t know the license number then would they? Would they? Did someone try to break into my car? Oh crap! They better not have hurt my car! Did I leave the lights on? I didn’t have the lights on. And surely they wouldn’t call me to the front of the store for that would they? OH SHIT!)

By that time I had finally made my way through the maze to the front of the store and apparently someone had witnessed someone else backing into my car and reported it to security. They gave me the paper with the license number of the car that backed into me and the number of the guy who witnessed it and that was that.

We checked out. We went to the car and I saw…. (Read on …)

Did I mention that a few nights before we left on our vacation I had a nightmare that a plane crashed into our garage? Yeah, that was fun. So, you can’t blame me for nearly having a heart attack when I heard some kind of explosion type thing and the whole house shook just a few minutes ago. Mike (who was not home at the time) said it was probably the construction workers blasting away at the hill (which is about a quarter mile to the west of us) that they are getting ready to build houses on (my disdain of that is another blog post for another day). So I ran upstairs to the balcony and I really couldn’t tell much more from there than I could from the back porch, but I did see construction workers milling around on the hill, so the odds are good that he is right. But still. Could you give me a little warning next time? I think the adrenaline rush is finally beginning to wear off now.