Summer time...

Morning world. This time Friday morning was taken up with dishes. Been waking at 4 am each morning for quite some time. Excuse is to go the gym. However, need some motivation to get there. For a while I was changing my clothes but not making it past the computer. Well, not for a while but since I didn't have anymore paid sessions with my trainer. Can't get over the shyness of going there alone and feeling stupid. I don't relish the fact that every time I go in there I still feel lost.

I did turn on exercise TV yesterday and my girlfriend had this body fat indicator proving that yes, I'm getting flabby thighs again despite keeping my weight in a healthy range, my body fat was still at 30. (Slightly overweight). Yuck! As that means I am also probably not eating right to get like this.

Why worry, you might say. Because there is heart disease in my family. Because I have diabetes. That's why. So exercise for me it key. Not just to stay healthy, but for a healthy sense of me. That's right, self esteem that comes from knowing I have somethings in life for which I have control. You and I know there is so much in life we can't control. Generally, I can control what I put in my mouth. How I ask at 5 am can I get myself going and out the door to the gym?

So its Friday and the cusp of the three day Fourth of July weekend. That means we might go see the fireworks or watch the local parade. It's suppose to be over 104 on Monday; weather for shorts, hotdogs, and tank-tops. Oh know, another reason to work-out. Yikes. Bar bells here I come.

Perseverance

Already started off the day "on the wrong foot" by waking up with a stuffed up nose. Grabbed the wrong pair of glasses off the dresser and can't see the screen and then to top it off the coffee maker decided it wanted a divorce from the basket and poured coffee and grounds all over my cluttered kitchen counter.

Lovely day what? If this is all that will happen I can go on and forget the little nuances that are my life. I'm comfortable that they don't concern the world. They shouldn't. Nothing to complain about, yet she still can ramble on they'd say.

So, I made another pot of coffee, finished washing up the cups from yesterday and made a poached egg to go with my whole=wheat muffin. This is Friday, I found my glasses.

Whew.. It really has been a production week, convinced (or nagged) my kid enough so she went to both of her doctor's appointments. Me driving her once and she taking the bus on her own. She's on spring break from college and is much less stressed and a little manic. I'm doing the best I can at work. Continuing to fight a cold, around people coughing, went to the gym once on my own. Still not quite got that discipline down. Working on quite a few fires at work and none seem under control. Will not quit, though.

Just isn't in my nature. Thank you, daddy for teaching me perseverance.

This last is a picture of my great-grandma Minnie and greatgrandpa George Washington Bryant...She was a gardener, taught piano, loved her dogs and her chewing tobacco. He worked at a GM factory and died pretty early. These pictures make me realize where we really get our character from and though there are many types in each family. We choose, I chose to follow us working stiffs.
Getting dressed, heading for the shower. Its' FRIDAY!

Just some pics from my yard

More of the last week in review of this lady's life.

Hey, this is my home. Hope you enjoyed your work week and your visit to my world this Sunday, now I really am gone.

A couple of comedic victories.

Here we are at Mary and John's 25th Wedding Anniversary party. The year's have taken a toll on us, also; yet love lives on. In fact, I'm not sure anyone really knows how to care for another in the same way a couple together that long can. Learning still is what love is about. Always forgiving someone is not necessary nor is understanding. However, staying despite those things that you can't understand or forgive is the great test of individual fortitude. He's not perfect and neither am I. So once we found our sense of humor about those little things and are successful at not ever passing a boundary where the pain and the frustration crush that love, I will stay with him. Love him. Let him be him, because mainly he lets me be me. Childlike as we were and will always be...but wait! what wonder under the covers the monster stirs. I must run!

You do know I am only being a little silly, right? My theme this "Sunday is Gone" blog about visiting Mom is comedic victory. If there is not such a literary theme then herein it is invented, OK?

I took my video camera up there and when mom starts talking about seeing Elvis and the Rat Pack in Vegas in the old days of the Strip. I figure another great (long) story was about to unfold. I got excited and interrupted to say, "Mom, sounds neat (I still say "neat") you're recalling a great story. Would you care if I recorded you while telling us one of your stories?"

"No, NO, but," (she yells alot) "..I don't mind, but ..." Then I interrupted, as it reminds me I brought the video camera and was checking it and realized the disc was full." Then she got madder not because I wasn't going to capture the story, but I was looking at the camera puching butttons and I guess she though I was not listening as she reiterrated to me later, as to why she justified being frustrated and hostile toward me. I was paying attention and then I think she notices her tone changed and then she laughs. "I was going to say I don't mind if I know in advance, but I don't have my hair done or my lipstick on or anything, so some other time." So I "interrupted" (responded) again so as to get her back on track with the story and I asked how old would Elvis have been then, "Oh, I know he was young and he had three young women on his arm, but I know he had married what's her name?(pause)...Oh, dammit, what is her name?, Priscilla! (we exclaim in unison) at a very young age, but I don't think anyone of them were her."

So, the fun night ended with us going out to get Pizza and having a small discussion with my brother over her disposition and care lately. I know none of us can afford to do any more than this for her with our finances. What my brother does is 24/7 in home care, for which he gets no salary but room and board, and some cash for his medical bills. My other brother lives closer than I but rarely is over caring for her. I doubt he has ever assisted in pulling up her pants, and that's hard for a son, just like it was hard for Mom to get a break when dad was in a wheelchair for me.

Seems this might be why I've studied communication - so as to survive a night with my mother. My husband sees it; as she doesn't hide her behavior around him now, and I've learned to see the comedy in one day of the tragedy of this we call our daily lives and what it was like as a young women. (Which I revisit everytime I go home.) The visits remind me why I choose a teenage marriage and ran from this. She will never understand, but I'm going to try to find what's so damn funny about words that hurt...Ouch, words slap me again.. when I didn't listen to how to pull the blinds or get her a wet dishtowel (got a papertowel).
Sunday, will be gone soon and no work will be done if I don't turn my pain into a comedic victory of a blog here...I pull again at the memory of my dear departed little brother Richard, what did he say he saw in Larry, Moe, and Curly Joe?

P.S. I do love you mom, with all my heart, course I'm not sure how to convince you I have a heart, or maybe at times you don't remember you had one once... Before this thing "Freidrich's Ataxia" got to you. 'Tis true I have a hard time listening and rarely pay attention. Such a grand skill I have at tuning you out... gal Friday and never will be perfect daughter yours. Oh yeah,

Double P.S. Here's the victory part, she didn't succeed in making me cry.

Rain, rain, rain ... glorius or inglorius, still rain, yes, muck. At our house, here in the central valley of California, the rain has brought us April flowers in March. We've postponed working on the taxes and really should get going on that and call Mom, go shopping for food, etc. Perplexed with the news of us sending in anti-aircraft missles into Tripoli last night. In the event of tragedies like Japan, I'd rather see our resources, men and women who serve to be at the scene of natural disasters. Be there pulling that nation together, instead of having to deal with angry and impatient ones who play games with the lives of their own countrymen. Pray they see the colors of blood and leave that field to play inside. Draw those voices inside to find the wisdom that we need to go where no rain will fall, where children are blessings, clung to as saviours of the world we actually valued once.

Set up this blog to have a place to post all those little, nasty annoyances of the day or to add some long interesting story of a work week - hence the name "Sunday is gone and Friday is here." Well, Friday is not even here and I'm looking forward to another long Sunday.

Sunday was a great day although we had a bit of rain. The sun came out. I got out into the yard after a cuddle with my husband and sleeping in until 7:30, and a bowl of oatmeal with my favorite mug of coffee..oh Sunday.

Started out to simply water the plants under the eaves who wouldn't be getting any from the rain. Empty it from the saucers and plants that had too much rain. To spread the wealth a bit. However, as usual as I step just one foot out that door my yard becomes a temptress. I have to check out every place the bulbs are beginning to poke out of the soft earth. I find my rose bush scissors and begin at first a couple of snip, snips of dead branches from the asparagus ferm and I'm off later pulling out irritating strands of crab grass (they have no business in my yard, are they welcome anywhere?)

I finally stopped after the pinch in my hip and tail bone said it was time and ended the day with a pizza for dinner and watched a previous season episode of "Weeds" on my Laptop. Now, its time to get ready for work, and my mini-vacation was just not long enough. Friday, is not going to be here soon enough...However, must go to work so I can pay the bills.