Oh.

My doggie is dying. She appears to have a brain tumor or maybe she had a stroke, we're not sure which. The vet tells us she won't last long. On Thursday she was ok, and in the night something bad happened. By Friday morning she couldn't walk anymore. She can't stand up on her own, can't pee very well, and can't poop at all. She hasn't been in pain, but the longer she goes without pooping, the more pain she's in. I think tonight will be her last night. I won't see her suffer like this anymore. I'll spend another night on the living room floor with her tonight. Tomorrow will be her last.

Tori won't leave her side. She just keeps sobbing. We haven't even told her we're putting the dog to sleep in the morning. We've done all we can to help ease the kids' pain, and prepare them for the loss. How can you do that, though?

No music today. I just can't feel it.

In need of sunshine!

We just keep getting more and more snow! Where we live it is supposed to hardly ever snow, and yet we just keep getting dumped on! The old-timey locals are scratching their heads and just don't know what to think. We just keep shoveling and digging out, and waiting for some blue skies.

I'm kind of dumb and happy either way. Yesterday, though, I fell on the ice TWICE!!! I can't even remember the last time I fell on the ice, but I fell twice yesterday, just to make up for lost time. LOL Today I am so sore! Oh well. What can you do??? The second time I fell, I landed in a huge puddle of ice water, and ended up with super soggy feet and water splashed up to my hips. The end result was a shopping trip for new, waterproof boots. They are toasty warm and I am happy.

Today I feel sleepy and ready for hibernation. I also got a new cell phone because my old one was on the blink. My new one is cuter, but it is identical to Darrin's, Tori's and Leah's, so I think I'll have to go to Walmart and get some stickers - you know, um, ***BLING*** for the phone! How silly. I'm embarrassed to admit I'm going to do it. But how else will we tell them apart? Leah has little flowers on hers. I'll try to find something low key, something 'me-ish'.

Oh, also, I got Jared the most handsome pair of Sunday pants. They are, well, toffee colored, and plaid, with a lovely blue stripe that runs through the plaid. I'm very pleased with the whole purchase. They'll look so good with his blue shirt. But what tie will he wear? Maybe I'll just have to buy him a new one! LOL

And the crown jewel of the week is our trip to the thriving metropolis of VERNAL, UTAH, for the kids' swim meet this weekend. They all are swimming in races this weekend, so we'll go and get a hotel and have some fun. We'll just stay one night. Afterall, it IS Vernal in winter time. What did you think we were going to do???

This time of year, I'm packing my sunshine with me.

The week's laundry

So, here's what's up this week -

I'm working on getting all the laundry folded. That's an ever menacing task. I can always get things washed, but getting it folded is another story. It seems like we live out of the 'clean' pile. Very tedious.

My big orange fish has big black splotches all over. Not a good sign. But I think maybe they'll just spontaneously go away?

My dog got all freaky weird kind of sickish yesterday. I heard this big crash, like maybe she saw a cat outside and bashed into the window. (Yeah, I know, she's not the brightest crayon in the box all the time.) But then she came in and crawled up on the bed by me and one of her legs wasn't working right and she was having a really bad muscle spasm in her shoulder for about an hour. Later she seemed to be paralyzed on one side of her body and she couldn't walk, and then she couldn't figure out how to lay down. Today she seems better, but she's really clingy. I wonder if she gave herself a concussion. Hmmmm???

I've been having a bunch of anxiety attacks. I don't know why. I keep having to take Klonopin. I have that love/hate relationship with Klonopin. It saves my bacon, that's for sure, but I just wish I could control my emotions on my own.

In Relief Society on Sunday the stupid lesson ended up being about honoring your father and mother. I leaned over to my friend sitting next to me and said, "Well, this is a difficult one for me. My dad came and sat on my couch last spring and disowned me." She just kind of blinked at me and said "I can see how that might make this difficult." I promptly buried my head in my lap and proceeded to cry. I didn't just cry. I BAWLED. And for some reason, I was just frozen on the spot. I couldn't get up. I couldn't leave the room. I was just sitting there crying and crying. I was shaking and crying. I was crying as quietly as I could, but everyone knew I was crying. I was all folded over onto my lap with my face buried in my hands, all snotty and teary, and I couldn't do anything about it. I was having a full-blown anxiety attack. I was just a mess. Finally I remembered that I had a great big handkerchief in my purse, left there from the temple dedication we had gone to a couple of months ago, so I leaned over and dug that out. I was able to mop myself up, and I do mean mop and the very literal sense of the word.

I just kept thinking "How can I honor my father and mother when they have not behaved honorably?" I have done everything I could to honor them throughout my life. Sure, I had my rebellious years, but I made amends for all of that. I've done all I could to honor my parents and serve them and treat them with respect. I've loved them unconditionally and I have treasured them. I have raised my children to do the same. My children loved and revered my parents, they adored them so much that when my parents turned their backs on me, my children were wounded perhaps as deeply as I was, albeit in different ways.

So, I went to my parents, whom I had always honored and trusted and loved, and I told them the truth. In return they betrayed me and dishonored me. They turned their backs on me. They disowned me and walked away.

How can I honor them?

That was the lesson that left me crumpled up in a ball in the middle of the RS room, bawling like a baby. I finally collected myself enough to leave about 10 minutes before the lesson was over. I felt so embarrassed. I felt really bad that I had done that to the teacher. I needed a Klonopin just then. The lame thing was that later I realized that I had one in my purse all along, and just didn't remember it! Me and my great brain! Oh well - if there's one thing in life I'm good at, it's making an ass of myself. We'll call that one mission accomplished!

I just keep wondering when I will stop crying about being hurt by those people, my family, you know. I honestly don't miss them. I don't want them back in my life. If they came to me today and apologized and said they wanted to be part of my life again, I would accept their apology, of course. But I would tell them I really couldn't have them in my life again. I've changed my life around and they just don't fit anymore. I've closed up those spaces. There were gaping wounds where they used to be, and they've healed over. I can't open them up again. I just can't do that. It would hurt me too bad. They almost killed me before with what they did to me, see? It just wouldn't be safe for me to open those wounds again. I can't. I couldn't. I wouldn't. I won't go there again. I'm moving on. I'm trying. I'm working on forgiving. I'm working on so much. It really is exhausting, but I'm working on it. Every day I'm working on it.

I feel like I'm pulling this enormous wagon up a steep hill with just straps on my back holding it to me. It is so heavy and precarious. Sometimes I could just fall backwards, and I don't know if I would recover. You just can't imagine how heavy it is, honestly. The work has to be done, I swear it does. But I can't tell if there's a top to this damn hill. I don't know if I'll ever be done! I don't know if the weight of the wagon will ever be lighter. I don't know if this will ever get easier or if I'll ever get stronger so it will feel lighter to me. I keep thinking I have to do this alone, too. I'm sure the Savior could help me somehow. I just have to figure out how. I keep thinking that if I pause long enough to get yoked up with Him, I might lose ground, or worse yet, sink into the mud. The mud is so horrible and deep. This is such awful work. How did I get here?

And the laundry keeps piling up. It never ends, does it?

This is a really lovely arrangement of this piece. It isn't the full piece, but I'll post that another time.

Happy music for a Thursday afternoon

A few nice tunes for today. Enjoy -



You have no idea how hard it is to get this piece. Nobody wants to let me embed it to share it! Grouchy people are stingy over such a happy song! Enjoy it while you can! Whistle along, go ahead. I know you want to . . .

Stupid Fiddler, anyway . . .

My father always idolized Tevye.

Do you know Tevye? If you know Fiddler on the Roof, you know Tevye. He was the main character in the story line. He had several daughters, which he was obliged to marry off, and felt the sting of that burden quite painfully.

Therein, I suppose, lies the tie my father felt with Tevye - the whole daughter thing. 5 daughters for Tevye - 5 daughters for my poor father. What a burden. Oy!

Poor Tevye was beset with the job of arranging marriages for his daughters, he, of course, thinking (as was the tradition of the day) that they should not do so themselves. Then, of course, his silly daughters went off and fell in love on their own, as daughters are wont to do. Tevye handled it all pretty well until his daughter, Chava, whom he forbade to marry outside the Jewish faith, eloped and defied him. She was in love! What was she supposed to do???

So then she returned and begged him to accept her and her new husband. What did Tevye do? Well, he refused to acknowledge her. He turned his back on her. He pretended she was dead, and ordered the rest of his family to do the same. So her mother and everyone in the family had to ignore her, pretend she wasn't even there while she was pleading and crying and begging. They all just pretended she was dead. Can you imagine such a thing? How horrible!

In the end, Chava and her husband went off to Russia, and Tevye took the rest of the family to America.

Interesting parallels here. See how my father romanticizes himself into the Tevye role:

So it wasn't marriage, but a revelation that went against tradition that my father couldn't deal with, so he simply disowned me. I became dead to him. And not only did I become dead to him, but with his pronouncement I became dead to the entire family. I'm not saying it well. Here's exactly how it happened -

As I've said, I went to my mom and dad last year to tell them about my brother Bill molesting me when I was a little girl. I was finally ready. I needed to tell them. It was time. After some time, (I'm not really sure about the passage of time - it all became very surreal) my dad drove over the mountain by himself, sat down on my couch and delivered a carefully rehearsed speech. He told me that he did not believe me. He told me that my memory was wrong. He told me that even if it did happen, he didn't see why I needed to tell about it now, after all this time. He told me that he just couldn't believe me because of how my memory had come to me. It was all too fuzzy, or something like that - I can't remember his exact words now. No matter what I said, he just refused to even discuss it. He had made up his mind. He had chosen to believe Bill, the son who had been convicted of sex crimes that my dad had no idea of how serious they were. My brother Bill was known to be a horrible liar his whole life, and yet my dad had chosen to believe him over me.

I was crushed, dazed, confused.

We got up. I saw him to the door. I was sobbing. We were planning to move to Texas at that point, at some nebulous time in the future. My dad said something to the effect that we should go ahead and go. He said he understood Texas was a "Hellacious" place, with hurricanes in the south and tornadoes in the south. I guess he figured it was a proper hell for me to be banished to (although it seemed a nice place to me!). Maybe it was comparable to Russia to him, to further the Fiddler analogy.

So I hugged him and I was sobbing. I told him I didn't know if I would see him again, and I was clinging to him. He pushed me away and said goodbye, then walked away as he handed me off to Darrin. Darrin pulled me in the front door, and I don't remember anything else for awhile, maybe days.

See, I really loved my dad. I mean, I just idolized him. I was absolutely a daddy's girl. I hung on his every word. And then he broke my heart. A while later, I was on Skype with my mom and she was in the living room. My dad walked by and I said "Hi Dad!" He ignored me. He walked by again and I really yelled "HI DAD!!!", so there was no way he could say he didn't hear me, but he just walked right on by and pretended he didn't even hear me at all.

Eventually my family quit having anything to do with me. They shunned me altogether. I put on a brave face and pretended I quit them, but the truth is they dumped me. They all did what my dad wanted them to do. They all pulled a Fiddler on me.

I didn't hold up very well at first. I tried to kill myself - twice. Darrin wouldn't let me go, thank goodness. Darrin is so good and strong, and he pulled me through this mess. He saved my life. I thank the Lord for him every day.

So, Tevye. My dad just thinks Tevye is so great. I think Tevye is a stupid, foolish jerk who cares more about his tradition than about his own daughter.

And that is the man my father idolizes. That is the man my father has emulated.

Pathetic, sorry excuse for a father.

frozen woman

I'm SOOOO COLD!!!!!



Ok, this isn't me in the pic, I stole it from some random blog, but this is how I feel all the time - INSIDE AND OUT!!! I can't get warm! Something is wrong with my thermostat, and my body is not warming me up right. I'm a walking popsicle! I started monitoring my temperature this weekend, and quite regularly my temp is as low as 95.5 and it never gets higher than 97.6 or so, even though I sleep with an electric blanket and my hot-water-blanket-husband. This morning after my daily regimen of water aerobics, when my body should have been all warmed up from exercise, my temp was 94.7!

WHAT????

That is medically categorized as hypothermia! How lame is that?

Ok, I'm going to the doctor tomorrow. I have an appointment at 9:40. I'm so tired of being cold! I'll keep you posted.

So, anyway . . .

Regarding the previously mentioned Meltdown, (drumroll, pleeeease!) . . .

In week one of our diet, Darrin lost 18 pounds! Holy cow! Can you believe it??? What a freak!!! Men are so lucky! Way to go, Darrin! I'm so proud of him. How awesome, seriously.

And, I'm not sad to report that I lost 8 pounds! Yahoo! That is not shabby. N'est pas? It makes me happy!

I'm wondering if bringing my body temperature up to where it should be would boost my metabolism and help me lose weight. What do you think?

Also, along the frozen woman frontier - there's a group of ladies in our ward at church that holds a book club once a month. In the 3 years or so that we've lived here, I've always thought it sounded fun, and I've thought how nice it would be to go. Well, yesterday I made up my mind that this was the time to go! I was so excited! Thursday night is the scheduled night, and I was going to go get the book at the library and read it quick and just go for it! Then I got home from church and promptly talked myself out of it.

I'm just too scared. (frozen woman. deer in headlights. scared stiff.)

I'll admit it. I'm chicken. I'm totally crippled when it comes to social situations. My sole thought is this - "What if they don't like me?" I worry that I might say stupid things, or that people will just be annoyed by me. I know I'm a little bit more than off, and people think I'm weird sometimes. I get that, ok??? I understand that I don't always fit in, but should that prohibit me from attending any and all social situations?

Oh, I don't know.

So, I ended up crying to Darrin about how I just wouldn't go to the book club because I was afraid of not being accepted. In the end, I just don't know if I can take rejection - not after 2009.

FEAR is a four-letter-word.

Lord, have mercy on the frozen woman.

The BIG MELtdown!!!

So, I'm on a diet. Isn't that just HILARIOUS??? I mean, seriously, isn't that just the iconic New Year's joke? How ridiculous is that? For Pete's sake! I've fallen for the traditional pitfall of all pitfalls!

However . . . I did put on a few pounds over the holidays . . .

I blame it on my medication . . . um . . . yeah! It was my Lyrica - notorious for causing weight gain. But I wouldn't trade it for the world. Really, it does tend to cause weight gain, but I take it for the pain of my fibromyalgia, and it reeeeally does work. And it doesn't give me the rotten side effects that painkillers do, so I just love it. I'm not taking narcotics for the pain anymore, so I just feel so grateful. I'll just have to work a little harder to shed the extra 8 pounds the Lyrica (and the holidays!) made me gain!

So, the local wellness center and the hospital have this big "Meltdown" weightloss program, like The Biggest Loser kind of thing. You sign up with your team, pay $20 and go on a diet for 3 months. Whoever loses the greatest percentage of body fat at the end of 3, 6, 9 and 12 weeks wins prizes and money. Cool beans! I have no doubt we won't win, but it does motivate me to not be the idiot who doesn't lose weight each week when we weigh in, so the pressure alone should help!

Yeah, stress and pressure!!! Just what I need!!!

So, anyway, last night I ended up with some nasty stomach bug, and was stuck in the bathroom for a couple of hours. This morning I weighed myself, and I had lost 5 1/2 pounds! Hooray!!! The diet is working already!!! LOL Does that count?

Hey, I'll take it anywhere I can get it.

:)

Let it be kind . . .

Ok, so the new year rang in last night, and we toasted it with our traditional non-alcoholic beverage. The kids love to do it, and we always have to do it but always forget until the very last second. Its always a mad rush in the very minute before midnight, but we always get a splash in the glasses and get the glasses raised just before the 10 second countdown. Then there comes the inevitable, joyful shout of:

10!

9!

8!

7!

6!

5!

4!

3!

2!

1!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Everyone is so happy and dancing around, and the glasses clink, and there's just so much really gleeful chaos. The kids are pulling their poppers and streamers are flying. And then Darrin and I have to dash off to get Tori and her friend from their teenager dance at the LDS stake center. Good times . . .

It's cold outside, really cold, and that brings me back to my senses a bit too abruptly. It shocks me a bit, I guess. I settle into the passenger seat, and very suddenly I find myself sobbing, just sobbing so deeply. It comes from deep within me. It surprises me, coming from places of fear and sorrow I had tucked neatly away over the last 365 days of pain and and torment. Hidden things come peeking out to see what the fuss is all about, craning their necks around corners of doors too recently closed. Darrin just drives on toward our destination, holding my hand and letting me do whatever it is I'm doing.

My thoughts become cohesive - "Dear Lord", I begin to pray, "Please! PLEASE! Let this let this coming year be better! Just let it be better! My silent prayers become vocal as my sobs begin to calm, and Darrin hears, and understanding dawns. He squeezes my hand and says "We'll make it better, ok? We'll just MAKE it better!" There's a tone of desperation in the end of his statement. It's a declaration, a pronouncement. Somehow it will happen. I don't know how. I just don't know how, but it has to get better, doesn't it?

I'm going to be honest here - painfully so, in the hope that I might get some poison out of a wound and be able to just move on. One of the most horrible things that happened to me in 2009 was the betrayal of my brother Jim. If he reads this, I have no doubt that he will derive some sadistic pleasure from the reading thereof, and I honestly haven't written or even spoken of it prior to this moment because I just haven't wanted to give him the satisfaction of knowing how deeply he hurt me, but I'm beyond caring about that now. I'm ready to move on. He can't hurt me anymore. I'm removing his barbs. He has no hold on my anymore, no more control. By doing this, I am completely removing him from my life.

You see, I saved his life a year ago. He was dying, and resigned to it. He wanted to die, and no one knew what to do to save him but me. I had prayed about it, and the Lord gave me direction. Jim is a divorced man who has wasted his life feeling sorry for himself. He has chosen to be a pathetic loser and just spindle away his days doing mostly nothing. He lives with our parents, who are now in their 80s, in the garage and just was getting fatter and fatter every day until he finally had a stroke. And then he had another, and another. He was in really bad shape. He was dying.

So, nobody knew what to do with him and my mom called me and asked me to come. I prayed about it, and the Lord told me what to do. I needed to take him to the University of Utah to the Neurology team there. I needed to get him admitted to the Neurology ward. I didn't know what would happen, really, but that was what I needed to do. It was what I was going to do. So I did it. Everyone was a bit confounded that I actually did - the family, the ER people, the doctors. Nobody could really figure out how I got him admitted. I kind of bullied my way in, but I did it. He was there for 2 weeks before they figured out what to do with him, and I never left his side. The doctors didn't know what to do with him. They couldn't figure out what was going on, and they were ready to discharge him because they were baffled and didn't think they could do anything. But I was just waiting, because the Lord had told me to bring him there.

And then in the middle of the night one of the doctors decided to MRI his entire head and spine. It turned out he had a couple of tumors along his spinal column, called schwanomas, that were causing some of the paralysis and stroke-like symptoms he was experiencing. He went in for neuro surgery the next day.

Better than that, his sons, who had been estranged from him since his divorce 10 years before, came back to him. I spoke to them early on in Jim's hospitalization and told them that if they were ever going to reconcile with their dad, they needed to do it then, because he might die. So, they got together and came to see him. All was forgiven and they found out that they all loved each other. It was quite sweet and good.

Jim became physically better, and spiritually far better. He not only was able to live physically, but found reason to live! It was so amazing. It was a thrilling experience to go through with him. We became so close during this time, I can scarcely describe it. My heart opened up to him in a way it never had any of my brothers. During the 2 weeks I spent at the hospital by his bedside I developed such love and absolute devotion toward Jim. It was one of the sweetest experiences of my life.

I believe it also opened me up to allow me to remember being molested by our other brother. The trust I developed for my brother Jim was key in allowing my memory to come forward regarding our brother Bill, who Jim and I discussed in some detail in our hours together in the hospital. I trusted Jim so intimately, so deeply. When I went to my parents to disclose the most private and secret nightmare that I had kept to myself for over 30 years, that I had been sexually accosted by my oldest brother while in my tender years, Jim sat with us at the kitchen table. I felt comfortable having him there. I trusted him with that awful secret. He was my confidant. He was one of my truest friends, I felt.

Jim had called me a gem, a treasure, a jewel. And in the time to come after I disclosed the awful truth of my childhood rape, I went to him privately to speak with him about it. He told me that although he did not know exactly what to think, he knew that Bill was a liar and that I was not, so he felt inclined to believe me. I felt satisfied with that. I felt happy, in fact, that my dearest brother would stand beside me and support me in my time of agony and sorrow. I was so alone - my parents were calling me a liar, and I was trying to stand tall in the truth that I knew. I had been a victim, and my oldest brother was a convicted sex offender. My parents were defending his past behavior by saying that he was currently reformed! What an illogical defense!

And then Jim changed his mind. And then Jim was no longer my friend. And then the betrayal came, the attack began, the onslaught ensued. It was fairly bloody and ugly. I was stupid and hapless, even I must admit. I was witless and unexpecting. It was sabotage, really, a total ambush. He hunted me down and made his mark, and then stepped on my neck, the victor. Jim has always enjoyed a good barb, a good twist of the knife. He is rather sardonic and cruel that way. We've had a good laugh or two about that now and then. He enjoys a superior attitude about his brilliant intellect. He likes to play the fool as a means of laying in wait for his prey, and then he'll pounce when the moment is right. I've observed this behavior in him often, even been the victim of it many times myself, but never in such a cruel manner.

Good aim! Well met, old friend.

But was your marksmanship really worth the price?

And so I wrapped up my fretful sobbing session in the car as we pulled into the church parking lot to pick up my oldest daughter and her friend. I had brought glasses and another bottle of fakey bubbly stuff to toast the new year with Tori and her friend, and poured a splash into each glass (I brought pomegranate for Tori, her favorite, of course!). Our glasses clinked together as we cheered on the new year with joy. "Bring it on!", I thought! Bring it on, indeed. In the last year, I've danced through hellfire and splashed through high water!

Oh, let the next year be kind to us all . . .