Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Bye Bye 2008

The last day of 2008... I have no doubts I am getting old....er as this year just flew by even faster than the last year did... dang it! That must mean I am on the downhill slope of this ride through life. Hmmmm wonder if there is a certain age in the creaky years where things sloooooooow wayyyyyy down again? I hope so because right now it is hard to find enough time each day to really appreciate the world around me.





2008... what a year. Such a year for changes.. most good... and even the bad were handleable (is that a word?)



Let's see.... got promoted from cashier to frozen food manager (than found out it wasn't really a manager but just an associate job with lots of responsibility)



Finally put it all together financially and was able to buy my own home. After living "separate in the same house" for over a year... omg .. uncomfortable way to live.







Fixed up our doll house for Amy and I.. bought new furniture, and for the first time in 24 years (23 married) was finally able to relax and enjoy being at home. Never again will I let someone make my life miserable each and every day. Never again will I let someone take over Amy and my happiness.




Spent the month of March at as many Dodger Spring Training games as we could get to, since it was their last year here in Florida. Gosh we are going to miss them! What a great group of players and what a fun ballpark.





Got to meet and visit with friends I met on-line while blogging on Yahoo360 and Multiply from Ohio, Georgia, and a couple all the way from England. Finally.. I get to have company! This is truly the life I have always wanted to be able to have.



May brought the bad news of Amy's sight disappearing. We spent June, July and August going back and forth to Miami.. three surgeries and lots of recovery. Sure wish it had restored her sight, but at least she is still alive and healthy. Never have a seen a person handle being totally blind better than my Amy.



Shockingly.... we survived three unpaid months of leave of absence, and upon my return I got promoted to dairy/frozen manager (a real manager job even!) with a bit of a raise. Sweet.



Then I discovered SL. YaY! Something to do other than just watch tv every night after work. How I ended up getting lucky enough to fall in with the folks I did is just amazing and has been real enjoyable. And deesue getting to shop everyday has kept me out of the rl stores.. thank goodness!



November 18th brought the final dissolution to a 23 year marriage that, in reality should have been dissolved after about the 3rd year. Sigh, finally .. freedom. I feel like I have lost such a weight.. off of my shoulders and my heart.




So bye bye 2008... thank you for this new life! Thank you for allowing me to survive through the pitfalls and come out smiling on this.. the last day of the year.




2009.... I can't wait to see what this new year holds!

Sunday, December 28, 2008

It is so hard being a parent sometimes

Sometimes I wonder how some make it through life so easily. Did they live a really hard life in another time and this time around got to take it easy? Or are some of us just meant to have to handle more....



My whole life has been an uphill battle with bouts of quicksand... just to test me, to make sure I can keep climbing... and I have always been able to.



When it is about me, there really isn't anything I can't handle. But when it is about my kiddo.. omg..



How much more can she be put through??? How much more will I have to learn to bare with her? What affects her affects me, so much worse than if it were happening to me. Being a mom, being a parent, can be such a trial.



It has been over six months now.. since.. well, since we started this latest .... test. In this six months we have learned to adapt, in some ways, and yet I still cry .. for what was lost.. for what will never be... for all the things we didn't get to do.... and I feel so selfish. She is the one that really has to deal with it all and she is doing it with a smile...



How, how did I get so lucky to get this angel? Is she part of my prize for living such a tough life?



When she started falling, hurting herself with every step in May... I would never have guessed just how much our lives would change. As her sight turned to grey... we held out so much hope for a miracle. We had the best hospital, the best eye surgeon, the highest confidence...



As we waited for surgery.. we did as we always do... we joked, we laughed, we comforted others that waited for their surgeries... confident in the miracle of technology. Amy thought I was crazy taking so many pictures, but I flashed pic after pic, as she changed into her little purple gown. "Let's get a picture of the two of us together" I said. She, being herself, said "don't take a picture of your fingers mom"... and sure enough.. we posed... I held the camera up .. hit the button and ... took a pic of my hand. darn camera was backward.... so the real picture was this one of us laughing at my photo talents... See those two ladies? Yes, that is us... as we are.. happy. We try to not let a day go by without laughter.






But, this next pic makes me cry everytime....






you see that is the last picture before she went into surgery. "Don't worry mom, it will all be alright" the last time she was ever able to see my face.... she never saw again.


All those things I put off.. thinking we had so many more years.. all the things we didn't do and see... please... don't put things off with those you love.. you just never know!



But she was right... it will be alright... I just wish I could stop crying over what was... I wish I was as tough as Amy is.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Twas the night before Christmas..

and deesue is exhausted! lol


Okay, I have to admit.. as the month has worn on I have started to enjoy the holiday season a bit. We sure have seen some crazy costumes on SL! lol and it has been fun.

In RL... working in a grocery store during the holidays is... stressful! By the time I get home I just want to fall asleep, but there is still supper, and a bath, and sl time... I didn't end up getting hardly any cards signed and mailed. Guess I will be sitting on the phone quite a bit in the next few days. *sigh* I really hate talking on the phone.


I did finally get a little shopping done for Amy and got everything wrapped last night after skating at Zath and Hyp's for a while.. how fun! (the skating, not so much the wrapping) .. but at least tomorrow morning will be fun for a bit before I have to work.


Yep, our store is open from 7am to 3pm... and in order for my workers to get the day off... I volunteered myself for 11 to 3... oh well I can use the time and a half (plus I get paid a full regular 8 hour day on top of that.. sweet!)


So after 3... I will pick Amy up from her dad's and we will have our Christmas supper.


Hope you all have a wonderful, family filled Christmas day.... and I send you warm wishes to help against that cold weather you all are having. We are predicted to be having an 82f day... ahh yes... Christmas in Florida... nothing like it anywhere else!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Mark this day on the calendar.. lol

I did the most unusual thing last night. Well, maybe not to another person...but living the life I have lived for the past 25 to 31 years.....

it was most unusual for me.

I went to a Christmas party. With real adults... I was one of the few single people there but I had so much fun. We ate, drank, laughed, exchanged gifts, played a game and listened to music.

It has been so long since I have gone out, even longer since I have gone out and had fun. I really need to make a concentrated effort to developing a life outside of my four walls.

I sure wish in RL I had the wardrobe I have in SL though... my gosh I wish I could afford to go shopping for some new clothes. Thank goodness deesue gets to buy whatever she wants. Spoiled, spoiled girl! lol

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

My Most Memorable Christmas


Since I have been having such a hard time with this years holiday celebrations... I thought it may be a time to turn the clock back and remind myself of the good that this season brings out in people.


As far as childhood memories, I don't seem to have any. (a whole 'nother story for other times) But I will never forget my Christmas in 1978.


This was the year that my daughter Amy was born. She was accidently born in Phoenix Arizona. (okay 'nother story 'nother time lol) When she was 6-1/2 months old they finally approved of her transfer to Children's Hospital in Seattle Washington. She flew by jet with a private ICU nurse and her biological father and I drove to meet up with her.


We had no money.. in fact, had it not been for traveler's aid centers along the way and a few blood centers that paid for donating, we never would have made it. When we arrived, we lived in our car for the first month.


Amy was already over 7 months old and had never been able to leave the hospital, as they kept saying she needed to be 5 pounds and she just seemed to be stuck on the 4 pound mark. They finally said they would break the rules and let us bring her home late October/early November, but only if we had a real home to bring her to.


We found a place to live, which was a rental apartment in one of those big old houses. It was a huge room with a front room type area and its own private kitchen. We couldn't afford the deposit, but after hearing our story of trying to get Amy home from the hospital, the landlord felt sorry for us.


We finally got to bring her home! Although, she was very sickly and I spent almost as much time sleeping at the local hospital as I did sleeping in the apartment with her. Her dad just couldn't (or wouldn't) hold a job and one night flipped out in a drunken rage and long story short, I had to call the police and have him arrested. It would be the last time we saw him for over 5 years.


So here I was with a 4 pound sickly but beautiful little angel.. and nothing else. No money, no thoughts for what our future would now hold.


Welfare helped me out and I was able to keep a roof over our heads, but I didn't have enough for food (thankfully Amy was on hospital supplied special formula) or the major expense of putting oil in the furnace, but I kept her snuggled warm in her bassinet under a mound of blankets and I had a warm coat.


As we got closer to Christmas, I was a little sad that I could see everyone else celebrating and getting prepared, but I was so happy to have Amy home that I wasn't thinking past that.


About a week before Christmas someone knocked at my door and when I opened it there stood the receptionist from Amy's doctor's office and behind her a huge group of people, who she introduced as members of her church.


In they walked, carrying a Christmas tree, boxes full of decorations, clothing, blankets, toys, food that lasted me for months and a check for $200.00! I got to have heat for Christmas!


(Yes, that is the tree above.. and bushy haired me holding Amy.) I don't look very happy but I really was.


In that moment.. I learned what the spirit of Christmas is all about. I will never forget that day and those wonderful angels.

Monday, December 15, 2008

To blog or not to blog....


I find myself struggling to blog again. Why? Am I out of words? omg no!


I am, fighting with this new life I am in now, especially at the holidays. For those that don't know me in RL... I am always upbeat. With nicnames like smiley and giggles... it takes a lot to erase those two things. The reality is without those two things.. I don't feel like me.


This holiday season is a true test though. The first Christmas with a sightless daughter. Normally my house would resemble santa's village at this point... but ... how do you enjoy decorations when the second person in your home can't? I can't put up a tree because she is just learning her way "by feel" around our home.. a tree would be disastrous.. as would garland and extra nicnacs.


So I decorate my SL home... to fill a need. On-line I can change my furniture around, I can have nicnacs, trees, plants.. all the things I have had to erase for the "now" here in RL.


I know this won't be a forever thing. The sightless thing forever yes... but the adjustments will eventually happen and we will start to lead a closer to normal style life again..


but for now... thank goodness for SL ... wish I could share it with Amy. She would love to see all the things I see and do .. *sigh*


Tuesday, December 9, 2008

deesue introduces herself

I haven't been using this website for blogging. After being with yahoo360 for a few years and watching their sad demise.... then moving to Multiply and doing that for a while... I just kind of burnt out.

Hmmm, burned out? Or had so many life changes in one year that I needed to walk away from the written form for a bit....


A few months back I discovered SecondLife. It has given me a new focus, a new playground, that fits into the life that I have at the present time.


So in keeping with the changes.. I decided to update this page and add a pic or two for those that know me from SL.



Yes I am a real person, with a real life. A nice middle aged lady with an adult daughter that has cerebral palsy, developmental delays and just recently (one of this years MAJOR changes) lost her eye sight completely. It is part of the reason I love SL. I can play and interact with people while being home each evening after work to be with her. (This next picture was taken the day before Amy's first of three eye surgeries in May 2008 that erased her sight completely.)





I manage a Dairy and a Frozen Food department for a local grocery store... and when I am not sleeping I am playing on-line... SL and Pogo.com get most of my time.





My daughter (Amy) and I spend the month of March going to as many spring training baseball games as we can, since we have quite a few teams that train in the area... and the rest of the time is spent enjoying our tropical paradise here in southern florida.




and in the winter she is a Florida Gator fan... oh who am I kidding... a gator fan is a gator fan year around!


Well, there you have it... me, us...
welcome.