hmm... dunno what I think of this...

... but I'm determined to find out if this could possibly be ANYthing of God:

I don't think I agree with the idea that God would subject anyone to hell, but then there was the rich man who went to hell, then asked that Lazarus, a beggar who'd died and gone to heaven, be allowed to give him a drop of water and go tell his family not to come there. (Luke 16:19-31) But Lazarus didn't GO INTO hell, he just was able to look into it. AND Lazarus was already dead himself, so I'm just not sure I believe this fella. Jesus told us in His Word that He'll never leave or forsake us... and I guess this man wasn't "left" in hell. Hmm... see? I can't make up my mind whether I think this is true or not.

Gotta keep reading & studying on this one. Not that it matters whether or not this man is telling the truth, but it does make me wonder if God would truly do something like this and does this line up with what the Bible says of God?

Wanna discuss it?

Blessings,
G~

miscellaneous & sundry...

... just to forewarn you that this post has no discernible direction as yet. ;) Just wanted to update you, you being me, because best I can tell, not a soul has looked at this blog. *shrugs* And that's okay. As much as I'd love some interaction, some comments, some VIEW numbers besides my own (LOL!) I'm content to just ease back into a sorta journaling with a blog again. It's amazing how rusty I am after years of NOT keeping up a blog! ANYhow... for the update...

I been sick. *cough cough* No, really. I have. I finally got sick of waiting for this awful yeast infection to go away. I'm not talking "internal" here, y'all, lest you get all uncomfortable & squirmy. ;) As bad as that kind is, this is outside, right where my legs attach to my *whispering* groin.... Awful, bumpy, stinging, itchy rash. ARGH! I thought it was probably from my sugars going up and down since I'd been painting & stuff. Any time I do something like that, especially after being a spud for so long, my sugars will drop, then I'll end up bouncing it too high. The lows I've had lately have been in the 30's, and they've been the panicky, sweaty, shaky kind that I don't realize are coming on til, *BAM*, there it is, full on hypoglycemia! So when I have a low like that, I always get ravenous afterward and the panicky part makes me overreact and "over correct", which then bounces me up too high. Too-high sugars can trigger a yeast infection, since yeast loves sugar & all. *sigh*

I had been using Nystatin cream, which should have cleared it up, but it didn't. Plus I had had that awful, hacking asthma-cough thing I get occasionally. It had hung on, coming in spells, for about 2 weeks. I finally broke down & went to the doctor.

Besides, it's time I get my flu shot AND I needed to have him write me a prescription for brand name Wellbutrin. Long story there, maybe in another post... So he asks if I've had a fever, sore throat, etc... nope. Just the cough & my albuterol inhaler wasn't helping at all. He asked if my ears were hurting. Nope. Just the cough, okay?! Then he looks in my ears and in that strange Indian way he has of making faces and comments says, "Odd." Well, I KNEW that wasn't good. He says, "I can't believe your ears aren't hurting."..*trails off* Um... uhkay. WHY? "Because you have a bad infection in both of them." Hmph! Who knew? I told him it was probably because I'd had a constant headache for several weeks and couldn't feel the ear pain because of that. Ha.

So, that was probably why I had the yeast infection because infection can jack up my sugars, which then feeds the yeast, et cetera, et cetera... No wonder I've been feeling like crap! But instead of giving me Diflucan, which is what I normally take when I have a mega-yeast infection that doesn't respond to OTC remedies, he gave me a powder form of the Nystatin saying that way the yeast doesn't also have moisture to thrive in. Urgh. I didn't know this is what he'd done til I got to the pharmacy since he sent the prescriptions via computer and I didn't get to look at them. Otherwise I'd have asked for the Diflucan right then. Any time I take antibiotics, I end up with a yeast infection, too, so starting out with one just wasn't good.

But I waited. That was last Friday, so I tried the powder all weekend, not really seeing any signs of improvement. Needless to say, Monday, I called and asked for the Diflucan. He ordered me seven of them. (Normal dose is one and for "normal" people, that usually wipes the infection out.) ... (of course, you realize by now, *I* am decidedly NOT normal..)

I got the stuff yesterday, have now taken three doses and have yet to see any improvement. I should have called him back Friday for the Diflucan, but by the time he was done with my appointment, the office was already closed. GAH!

And so, I've never had the first bit of pain in my ears, either. Which I find extremely weird, although when I had the SJS in 1994 it started with an ear infection, fiddling around for a couple weeks with about 4 antibiotics trying to cure it and then I had the reaction. *sigh*

So anyhow, I go back for a recheck day after tomorrow. Lord willing, that'll all be better and I can go ahead & get my flu shot over with.

I'm still not done with the small bedroom. Matter of fact, I haven't even touched it since I went to the doctor last week! I think I may go in there and get back to painting that trim. I wish Tommy would go ahead and take the carpet out so that I can get to the very bottom of the trim. He's talking about doing wood flooring in there, since he got so much practice doing it at his friend's house. I don't want to have to sand & repaint because there are carpet marks all over the trim! NOTE TO SELF: MAKE Tommy take the carpet up tonight! *heh*

Alrighty, I need to get busy, so take care & God bless!!

G~

bleh...

I hate it when I get like this. *sigh*

How is "this"? Well, it's a totally overwhelmed, anti-focus, hurts-to-think-about-all-the-stuff-I-need-to-get-done kinda thing. And of course, I would get a bad case of it when my house is in utter chaos.

I was working on sanding some of the holes Tommy had patched up in the little bedroom yesterday, and getting started on painting the trim in there when Mom called. She had been really sick all day with that whatever-it-is she gets that keeps her running to the bathroom all day til she basically has nothing of substance in her body. ANYway...my aunt had called to tell her she had a bunch of greens for us. Of course, Mom didn't want any in her condition and she didn't feel like driving out to pick them up either. So I stopped what I was doing, cleaned up a bit and drove out there.

Sis (that's what we've always called my mom's oldest sister) had a black garbage bag FULL of the most huge 'greens' I'd ever seen! I came home, divvied some out for my sister to take & set about the washing process and heating up a huge pot of water to parboil them in. Needless to say, I didn't get back to my painting, but boy, those green WERE really delicious.

I think I must have eaten more than I should have because today, my intestines are not so happy. Still, it was worth it. I could LIVE on greens if they weren't so much trouble AND if they didn't cause me so much intestinal distress. *urgh*

Woke up today with a major sinus headache to add to my lower-body chaos, so I haven't got anything done except brewing up a pot of coffee and catching up with my peeps online. *sigh* Besides, I won't be doing much in the bedroom today anyhow... I HAVE to do laundry. The guys are fishing socks out of the laundry basket piled up on the couch and this morning, I had to dig to find what was probably the last clean pair of underwear Tommy has. *sheesh!* So... it's laundry today... and the family room is SUCH a mess, I hate to take the stuff in there to fold & sort.... Maybe I'll make up the bed, which is always semi-piled at the footboard. What a mess! And with the holidays approaching, as they ALWAYS are anytime we try to do any "gussy-ing" up of the house, I'm getting frantic.... but then again, I'm kinda too tired to be TOO frantic, ya know?

I'm supposed to go with some friends from high school to Lexington to see an Etta Mae show Friday. I've never seen her in person, but two of the girls who live in Lexington now go see her often. They say she's even funnier in person. A couple of London gals are driving up there, so I'm going to ride with them if I go.

Part of the time I'm all like, "YAY! What a fun thing to do! Yesss!" then other times I'm like, "Nah. I don't feel like it and what's the use of going anyway.." Ick. I hate when I feel that way. I probably NEED to go. I SHOULD go, seeing as Tommy has gone on numerous fun-with-buddies things over the years. Eh... I dunno. We'll see what happens, I guess.

Okie doke, I gotta get busy on this laundry.

Blessings...

G~

Lost...unfortunately, not in Hawaii...

Okay, so the title makes no sense unless you're a "Lostie" like me and love all the scenery in that no-longer-running TV series. My life doesn't make a lotta sense right now either. I'm just sorta "lost" in all the chaos, I guess!!

We're remodeling, people. And everything is in total disarray! I HATE it when things are like this! Not that it wasn't bad before because I'd let two rooms in my house get COMPLETELY out of hand... Corey's old bedroom had become a pile of STUFF. Tommy's aunt had come down for a couple weeks and decided to get in there and "organize" for me, bless her heart. She can work circles around me, but after she had been in there, I couldn't find a daggone thing!! Argh! Add to that the way people would just toss stuff in there, or tell me, "Put it in the back room & I'll take it up to the attic later." Yeah, whatever! *sigh*

And the living room?? Oh. My. Goo'niss!! It was a gom, too, only not quite to the extent of the bedroom. I'd originally started using it as a sort of 'craft room', but that soon got overwhelmed by piles. My arch enemy, Piles. I hate 'em, but my life can sometimes revolve around them, too. I use Piles to organize sometimes... sort of. *shrugs* There was my big computer desk that fell out of use after getting my laptop a couple years ago. There was the small computer desk that we'd bought after Tommy brought home an old junky computer from work and trying desperately to use it. There were the two bookcases full of miscellaneous books...reference books, Bible study books, readers the kids had used or planned to, some textbooks that had never found a new home after homeschooling was over. *sigh* Then there was the tall 4-drawer file cabinet that holds a TON of recipes printed from the internet, various "office" type supplies, a drawer full of information from an almost-business Tommy had for awhile and the drawer with all my insulin pump supplies.

I do have to say that after over a week of hauling stuff... almost everything... out to the shop to be sorted, and lots of cleaning, painting, cleaning, touch up, cleaning... the living room is once again a living room!! Mom gave me her "formal" living room furniture. A nice cherry set of Queen Ann style stuff and it now looks so nice. I've never had a full room of furniture that all went together! :D

See?



After moving the furniture around a bazillion times, we finally got it to fit and look decent, though we had to send the sofa/hall table back to Mom's because there was simply no room for it. *sigh* She wanted to use it anyway, so it's all good. I'm really thrilled with it. Just gotta get some decor going on and it'll be perfect! :)
Now we've moved on to Corey's old room. We moved the big computer desk and file cabinet in there because, well the file cabinet has my medical stuff in it and the desk has our current files in it, so... and we're keeping them in the house anyway... just had to get them out of the family room! I wish I'd taken a picture of how stuffed it was, but that was just totally terrifying! But here's where we are now:



We're replacing three windows since the seal is broken and there's constant condensation in them... resulting in messes like THIS! GROSS!! That black spot is actually a hole that's rotted away! This room had a lot of mold in it, too. GASP!!! o.O
So today, I'm gonna work on painting all the trim and hopefully get around to cutting in the wall. I can't wait to see how the soft mossy green color looks. Really, this was the most uniquely decorated room in the house at one time. I SO wish I'd taken a pic of it before we demolished the beautiful border. It had lots of blue, both for sky (the color of the top of walls) and a darker blue trimmed top & bottom with primitive 'gold' stars. The motif was a New England sea side village, but in a more primitive style... not at all "polished" looking, but a bit more blocky. It was adorable, but not childish, ya know? Anyhow, I was thrilled with the way it turned out & even after it was dingy and there were MANY "boo boos" in the walls from years of a boy growing up in it, Corey didn't want me to paint it when I offered about five years ago. *sigh* So... we'll see.

I'm not sure yet if I want to use this as my craft room/office or as the spare bedroom. Mom has a twin bed with a chest she is giving me, but we'd rather have a full sized bed for guests.

Mom's first reaction to this was to ask when we'd ever had any guests.

Well, for her information *hands on hips* we DID have a couple of Tommy's cousins stay here back when his grandma died. The boys bunked together in Corey's room and we gave them Casey's full sized bed for the night.

And besides, once we "get Casey outta here" *deep shuddering breath* and all this painting done, we just might have us a guest or two! Hmph!

Anyhow, we're unsure of how this room will be used just yet, but either way, the walls will be fixed and it'll have a fresh coat of paint, top to bottom! We're going to try to see how well the carpet will clean, but if it doesn't clean up enough, we'll replace the flooring, too.

So, that's what I've been up to. We still have three more rooms to tackle. The family room is getting a major overhaul, and the kitchen is getting new paint because, well, it just needs it, plus when they were putting on the roof for the new porch, they damaged the wall board, so might as well paint, right!? *rolls eyes* Then, finally, when Casey gets moved out, we'll redo his room, carpet and all.

I can't wait for all this stuff to be done so we can enjoy all the work we've put in this year. Hopefully, the recovery time won't be awful... we've both done a number on our backs and stuff. We are definitely getting TOO OLD for this stuff!!

Hang tight... more pix to come! :):

Blessings,

G~

.ch-ch-ch-changes...

Well, here we go again. I love autumn. It's my favorite season of all, I think. Although I also love the spring, autumn just seems to put some sort of electricity in the air. A sort of excitement somehow. Maybe it's because my birthday is in the fall? I dunno, but the colors, the smells, the change of temperatures.. they all work together to make me feel a little bit energized.

And maybe it's because of it that seems like every time we make big changes around the house, it'll be in the fall. Tommy says that's because it's hunting season and I want to keep him busy (so he can't go!) But I swear, that's not it! ;) It just somehow always happens that way.

I haven't posted much at all about the mega changes we're making in the house, but we are doing TONS of work around here. First, we're FINALLY putting a porch on the end of the house. It faces due east and is the door we use most often as it comes into the kitchen and is where the drive ends. We have a metal half-glass door there with one of those plastic grids and then a storm door. The heat from the direct sunlight cause all the paint on the door to peel and that plastic grid to warp, crack and finally break. We've replaced it about three times in the 17 or so years it's been there. I've put dark sheets over the storm door (a real lovely look -- not) to try and keep the heat off the door and we contemplated buying special tint but the heat is relentless. So, we're finally putting on the porch, or rather the roof on the porch. I'll try to post some pictures because the change it makes in the look of the place is awesome. We're thrilled with it so far.

Keep in mind when I say "we're putting on the porch" or painting or remodeling, I mean WE, as in my super-handy husband and myself!! Actually, a good friend of his has been helping him with the porch, but the majority of the work is done by Tommy. I'm SO thankful he's so knowledgeable & able to do all this stuff!

Since the porch deal meant extending the roof on one side, they had to get to the actual beams of the house, which means there's a couple of places in my kitchen and utility room walls that have been cracked. Which yes, means we have to repair those... and paint.

Painting. I hate it. But there's NOTHING that can change the look of a room more... and therefore, we've done TONS of it in this house. The inside of our windows are wood. And that means I have to paint them too if I change the trim color... which I almost always do. *sigh* I detest those daggone windows! But paint them I will if it means getting a fresh new kitchen. ;)

You see, we aren't the only ones making major changes in our living space. My mom & dad are building a new house on the hill behind us. Yeah, I know... lovely, so they can watch our every move even closer, but ... ANYway... when they move out, my boys + daughter-in-law, are buying their old house, plus dad's business, so they'll be moving too!

Mom is giving me some furniture, which is another reason we have to paint. She's giving me a really nice cherry living room set that is lots "fancier" than the rest of my furniture, so the super-pile o' stuff that has been my living room, containing my piano, the now-since-a-laptop unused computer desk, a couple of packed bookshelves, and stuff that had no other place to live, will become a nice "formal" living room!! Yep, that means getting all that crap out of here!

She's also giving me a set of bedroom furniture that I'll put in Corey's old room, which has been piled even worse than the living room; a jam-packed bookshelf, his old dresser piled with tons of stuff from his wedding (3 yrs ago!), a cabinet full of old school stuff, a microwave cart full of craft stuff, a couple of plastic bin/drawers full of more craft stuff... and the floor piled high with just STUFF!

We've decided we have too much stuff. And we've moved almost ALL of it out to the shop where Tommy put the two ramps of his lift together and raised them to table-height so I can go out there and sort. We moved the shelves & cabinets out there, too and I plan to toss & give away or sell SO much stuff!!!

Casey's room, when he moves into his basement "apartment" with Corey and Mel in the upstairs of the house, will become my craft room, where I plan to scrapbook to my heart's content!! :) I've collected scrapping stuff for YEARS and never once put a page together... because every time I tried, I was just overwhelmed and so unsure of exactly how to do it.

My dear cousin Lorna was in from Texas a couple weeks ago, and she is an avid scrapper, so she walked me through putting together a couple of pages and so I feel like I can actually DO this now... and once I have the space, I want to FINALLY do the boys' books and a wedding book for Corey and Melissa. I cannot WAIT!! :)

I'm now in the process of painting that future "formal" living room a deep chocolate brown color. Over a very light beige? It looks so crappy with the first coat, but the second covers very well. We're using an off white trim color and it makes the doors & windows really pop against the brown. I'm having a horrid time trying to cut in the walls against the ceiling though. Gah! It's cathedral in there, so it's all at an angle, which makes it hard to see where the wall stops & ceiling starts, plus it's all popcorn finish.. I'm gonna have to spend A LOT of time touching up the white. Lord willing, it won't take three coats to cover. *sigh* I'm gonna get me some THICK white paint! :)

Okay, so I'm going now. I keep running in here to finish this up between painting-on-the-ladder sessions. I get so fed up with how it's going, I have to have a break! *sigh* Oh well... the sooner I get that done, the sooner Tommy can use that huge 18" roller & get the rest of the paint done. With four doors & two windows, there's a ton of trimming, so I really have to get my butt in gear!!

Til next time....

Blessings,
G~

Gettin' into The Big D...

Don't get all excited. I'm talking about diabetes. Lately, I've been reading a lot of "diabetes" themed blogs and finding it all very interesting.

I've never been really "into" (for lack of a better word) any kind of diabetes group/diabetic club thing. I've never had another person close to my age who also had diabetes for a friend other than that one time I went to a diabetes camp when I was about 9 and was traumatized to be so far away from home. I did make a very nice friend there. But again, I was only 9 and she lived ... well, I dunno where she lived because the camp took kids from all over the state. At that age, and long before the internet-connectivity that we have now, we never gave a thought to trying to keep in touch, so I have lost Erin Idontknowherlastnameeither and relegated her to fond memories from a less-than-fun experience at camp. I hope she's thriving, wherever she is.

I've never been terribly self-conscious about telling people I have diabetes. All through school, people would forget I had it til I happened to mention it or I had a bad low blood sugar in front of them. I like telling people about diabetes, helping them understand it better, but there are always "those people" you wish you hadn't told or didn't have to tell.

There are the Big Deal people who, because Aunt Petunia on her daddy's side had sugar die-beeteez and they know exactly what to do should you, you know, pass out or something. And you get the feeling that it's in your best interest NOT to EVER do that around this person because you might wake up with a new scar or something. Just sayin'...

Then there are the All Out Panic people who start hyperventilating as if you've just told them that in 10 seconds, your head is going to explode and they'll have to put it all back together blindfolded with one hand tied behind their back OR ELSE. Sheesh! CALM DOWN, wouldja? I just like for people to be informed!

There's the I Know Somebody Who Died From That people. These are really awful people sometimes. They're like the women who sit in the OB's office telling every possible horror story to all the first-time moms. They live for opportunities to scare the beejeebers outta someone by exaggerating. OR they are just genuinely so ignorant that they don't realize how totally rude it is. As a fellow online diabetical person said, they would never go up to someone with cancer & say, "Hey, I know somebody who died from that!" I mean, c'MON!

Then you have the Diabetes Police types who will never EVER forget you have it and will comment on every single choice you make, especially when it comes to food. They will say, in that totally annoying tone of voice, "Do you think you should be eating that?" or worse, they will TELL you, "You shouldn't eat that." As if their mere knowledge that you have diabetes automatically makes them qualified to pass judgements on what you do. These are by far the worst of the worst on the diabetic-annoyance scale.

And last, there are the What Did You Do Wrong folks. Now these people are a little different in that #1- a lot of times they are your family members and #2- sometimes they are even your doctor or endocrinologist/diabetes specialist. They KNOW a lot of stuff about diabetes. They know you fairly well in most cases. However, when it comes to realizing that the unexpected still happens, EVEN when you try to maintain as much control as we diabetics do, they just don't get it. Far from it! Just as it's quite easy for anyone to catch a cold, no matter how hard they try not to, it's just a simple for things to go haywire with diabetes control. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, our sugar's gonna spike or bottom out, whether we bolused or checked & rechecked our sugar. Sometimes you simply cannot explain why things go wonky with diabetes. It's just the nature of the beast.

So.. there wasn't much of a purpose to this post other than watching Ginger's vlog made me start thinking about this stuff because I was like, amening her the whole time! ;) Sometimes I forget there are other people out there who deal with the same things I do and it's SO nice to be reminded I'm not really as alone as I usually feel.

Maybe this will be the beginning of more thoughtful posts on living with diabetes 24/7/365 and in turn, help me stay in better control.

Thanks for reading!

G~

living alone... sorta

So this is a first.  My hubby's gone into the great "white" north with some buddies on a he-man fishing/canoe trip for a week!  Seriously, he's over 1,000 miles away from home & will soon be out of our cell service area.  ACK!

We've never taken vacations apart.  Well, actually, we've never really taken vacations as in "This is the week we always go *here* for vacation!  Can't wait!"  No.  We don't do that.  Our vacations, the few we've actually had, are always kinda spur of the moment & very sporadic & totally dependent on how our finances look at the time.

We have started going to a cabin with the family the first week of December for Christmas instead of buying gifts or putting the gathering on one home to deal with.  That's been nice & will be a great tradition, Lord willing, The "tradition" of the past two years has been for us to head out Sunday after church: me, Tommy, all the kids plus my parents (& since they're going, my sister as well). They usually stay til Wednesday & then kinda "switch out" with Tommy's parents with a meal all together in between. Well, not last year. My sister complained so much that she was bored most of the time that Mom & Dad left before Tommy's parents got there. Or maybe they were just sick of us. You never quite know with them.
So anyway, last year, we ended up with an extra night (perks of being a return client who rents a 3-bedroom cabin!) so we got one night "alone" with just the kids, which was nice. It can be pretty stressful sometimes, all that togetherness. *heh*
So yeah, Tommy's gone off on a he-man adventure. I'm glad he got to go, but a bit irritated by it too. He just does stuff that I never would, ya know? For instance, I wouldn't ever pursue spending this much money on something just for me. I never have. He has several times. I'm trying not to let this turn into a bash-fest, but I want to be honest about that rankling me a bit. He knows it, so don't think I'm sneaking off to gripe about him behind his back. I've griped about him to his face already. ;Þ
Anyhows, yep, it's just me here and it's so different. I am sometimes concerned that if *something* happens, what will I do? Obviously, I don't have any clue what *something* is, but am well aware that it could be anything! Whether or not it would warrant my worrying is a whole 'nother thing altogether, though. I mean, I'm surrounded by family who would, after all, help me if the dreaded *something* were to actually occur. I'd much rather have Tommy here with me, though, just ... I dunno, just because. But then on the flip side, what if something happened to him? How would I get to him if needed? I suppose one of the boys would drive with me all the way up there...
I'm actually not one to work herself into a frenzy concocting wild scenarios of possible disasters. I've been blessed to have been brought through some pretty nasty times and that has made me realize that no matter what, Jesus is firmly in control and my worrying is all for naught. A total waste of time (& kinda an insult to Him, ya know?) and so I call those horrible times a blessing because without them, I would not know the kind of peace that I do at times when other people would worry.
As you've probably figured out by now, this post really has no point. I just had the time to sit and think without interruption, which doesn't happen often when Tommy's here, so I thought I'd just write a bit. My apologies if you were expecting something profound. ;)
Thanks for stopping by!
G~