Blessings.

Probably if you're reading this you know that my former father-in-law, Dr. James G. Teer passed away a couple of weeks ago. The above picture was taken at his and his wife, Joan's 50th wedding anniversary celebration in 2007. What a blessing he was in all the lives he touched through personal and professional relationships. He was a greatly accomplished man but you never would have heard that from him. His legacy through teaching, being professor Emeritus for the Wildlife Biology Department at Texas A&M University, and even perhaps more through his consulting work with wildlife scientists around the world. A true Texan and a fine man, I could not have asked for a better grandfather for my two older boys, Lucas and Justin. The man that he was and the experiences of knowing and loving him are remarkable and unique. The experiences I had being his daughter-in-law for over 11 years were remarkable. Thankfully, I have been blessed to remain close to my former in-laws and my wonderful sister-in-law, Jill. By crazy design of life, Jill and I live just within an hour of each other on the East Coast. There have been so many losses in my life recently but Grandaddy's passing was a blessing in the end after battling Louis Bodie disease; a form of dementia caused from a type of Parkinson's disease. His was a life to be celebrated, which the family did through his memorial service, he spent his life doing exactly what he loved most and was well awarded for it. The legacy of a teacher is forever. The legacy of him being a wonderful man, teacher, father, brother, husband, grandfather, and all of his other titles is endless. Thank you, Jim, for all the memories and blessings. I love you so.

Just 'cause...deux

Since I changed up the look of my blog I just wanted to put in a photo that looked good when it popped up on my screen. I already did a post with this photo but I wanted to see it again. Gotta be queen somewhere.

Mama's lossing it.

I know that the title of this post is the name of a blog but it really applies today. And, of course, who is my worst enemy? Me. If you've been reading my blog you'll know that we lost Paul's dad in late November. He had lived with us ever since we moved here and built our home over 15 years ago. We had a full, finished basement apartment built for him; what they call a "walk out" here which means there is a full door and windows along one side and all the way across the longest side of the apartment. There is a full kitchen, bathroom, living room, and bedroom. It's probably, I'm really guessing, 600-700 square feet. Anyway, after Art passed away, I had to do some work immediately because Paul's cousins came for the memorial service and stayed down there. It took me 30 seconds to start rearranging furniture and fantasying about what I would do with a new big block of real estate for me to work on for the first time in many years (not that I had looked forward to it being this reason). I had an airtight reason ready for Paul who would otherwise probably leave it as a museum. I discovered that, dur, 92 year old men don't clean and I'm not sure at what age he stopped cleaning. Not six years like Paul's uncle Robbie's apartment was in NYC-yikes. For some reason, well I had what I thought was a good idea, I decided to move my art studio room down there into the bedroom. I had to beg help and took out my back carrying things down two flights of stairs and it took quite a bit of time. It didn't take long before I realized that the room was not larger enough to make it worth the move. I thought it would force me to organize and purge, which it has, but then I came to my senses and realized that it was really stupid to have this private space without a private bedroom as it had meant to be. Why would we have a guest (ya, as if we have any, but we might) stay upstairs with us and not have the privacy and luxury of having their own bathroom, kitchen, living room, and bedroom? Duh.

So this last week I have spent most of my time rearranging the things I moved in that work and, after many, many years of having it in storage, I got my beautiful childhood iron bed out of storage, set it up and painted it. You'll see it after it's "dressed"-not quite there but close. I decided to keep this used-to-be funky blue, free, fab dresser where I had moved it and set up my as-seen-here-before Victorian lamp collection atop.

I am just a few harsh-mother hours away from having this room finished. I can't wait to share the pics of the whole room and start booking your stays at our relaxing, spa-like getaway.

Doesn't this look like a beside table where you could set your warm milk or glass of wine and cozy up with a good book or great magazine? Wait 'til you see the bed! So, about the title. I think I have kept all of you, my dear readers, abreast of the plight which has been the lives of myself and many people who I love in the past six months, correct? And now this brain injury with Lucas has been weighing heavy on my mind for over three weeks. I think it may be beginning to catch up with me. In the last few days it seems that the limbo with Lucas is getting to me. He's not getting worse but he's not getting better and not knowing if we are not doing something we should be is starting to wear and scare. People keep asking me how I'm doing and I have no answer; I don't know how to register this situation because there's no prognosis at this point. The blood clot could dissipate as it should have by last week or he could end up having brain surgery. I have things I need to be healing from and can't quite get to it because other things keep popping up and getting in the way. They seem to be piling up. Thanks for letting me vent. This decorating project would be better therapy if my heavy lifters weren't so darn worn out when they get home. We will be having a meanie-mom day this weekend and I'll try my best to get things moving faster again. Oh, and before I forget, Justin and Boh have found a place of their own along with Justin's former roommate and great friend, Matt. They will be moving out this weekend. As much as we have loved having them here, I will not miss the dusting-twice-daily and floors-covered-with-dirt-like-a-barn dog stuff. I'm looking forward to perhaps the house being clean for a half hour again at some point. A girl can dream.

If you think retail therapy doesn't work then you aren't doing it right.

Oy. Yesterday was pretty bad but, by bedtime, it was horrible. Lucas and I were completely freaked out that he could have an aneurism at any time because we have no faith in this neurologist he's had who is a major, thinks-he's-God, ass. Through my new obsession (and almost to the point of being over saturated), Pinterest, I have found a worse effect of this obsession-it leads to buying these lovely things I admire on there. Such has been the case the last few weeks. And now I need a hoarder intervention. Oy.

But do you see that elephant with the pink tutu and crown on the pink box?!!!!! It came from Racky Road on Etsy. And that stuffed elephant I got from Earth Angel Toys. I'm not sure when my interest in pachyderms started; maybe three or so years ago. It started with one majolica-like figurine and has snow-balled since then. These were products found through the aforementioned Pinterest. Check out the earrings on Evelyn the stuff elephant! Okay, yep, these things are what I like to look at when life seems really gloomy and appears that the real sun of life may not ever shine as brightly again as it used to. They are only things but they are a little pieces of beauty that someone made to make the world a sunnier place and sometimes, when you really need it, it works.

It has come to my attention recently that there are several friends who get new info about my life from this blog rather than facebook. I have been so caught up in facebook ever since I found literally hundreds of childhood friends; people who I'd gone to school with from 1-12 grades and even further back. Lots of history, like family. So when things occur I immediately post on facebook instead on here as I used to. I love this blog. I love facebook. They are very different from each other. I still have no idea who reads this; several friends that I know of read this but don't post comments or sign up on Google, so I can't tell. I've gone through a lot in the last few months. Things that have happened to other people who I care very much about. Most I have posted about separately. Recently I had an emergency situation with my oldest son, Lucas, and everything happened so fast I posted on facebook what was going on very quickly as I booked my plane trip out the same day. It worked out very well for friends where I was going, to my hometown, so they had an immediate heads-up before I even got there-only 10 hours after finding out that there was a problem. For those of y'all who only read here or who want the full story all in one post here goes...Sunday, February 19th, Lucas called me while I was driving to the shop to work that morning to tell me that he was on his way to St. Joseph's Hospital emergency room in Bryan, Texas. He said he had been in Dallas for a disc golf tournament and fell and hit his head. He hit it very hard; hard enough to knock him unconscious. He's not sure what happened and no one he was with saw what happened. He has no memory of how it happened. There were no outward signs; no bruises, bumps, cuts, any indication that he'd hit something. So, when he came to, he figured he'd hit his head on something and eventually he figured he had a concussion. By Sunday he'd had a couple of days of being very sick, blurred vision, ringing ears, very dizzy-couldn't stand up. When he could stand up at all on Sunday morning he called me as Kristen drove him to the ER. I found someone to come to the shop so I could leave early to head home and decide if I needed to go. By the time I got home Kristen had called and told me that the CSCAN done by the neurologist showed that he had cracked his skull open and a blood clot had formed. At the time they were saying that if the clot wasn't gone by Monday morning they would have to do surgery. Brain surgery. On my son. The clot is under the skull not under the skin on the left side and two bruises on the right side. So I booked the plane flight at 2 on the plane at 5, in Houston at 9, and at St. Joe's by midnight. I spent the night with Lucas in his hospital room so Kristen could go home and get some sleep. In the meantime, his grandfather, Jim Teer, had been admitted to the same hospital a couple of days before with extreme dehydration and malnourishment due to having a bad cold but exacerbated by having Louie Body dementia. The family had just been through the previous few days agonizing over the decision to move "Grandaddy" to a care facility permanently. So by Monday morning I was running between the 3rd and 4th floors seeing The Teer Men. The neurologist (lots of stories there, but for now let's just stick with the "God theory"), terrible bedside manner, came in and said that Lucas was to be released. I asked why he wasn't ordering another CSCAN before letting him go; they had only done one and that was when he arrived. WELL, you don't ask him any questions. So we left with Lucas still very much in pain and feeling unwell and a couple of RXs. We were back in the ER early Wednesday morning after no improvement. Sure enough, the ER doctor (very nice) did another CSCAN, the now-a-little-nicer neurologist came in and said nothing had changed (good news as compared to getting worse) and Lucas was ordered to not work for another week and sent us home with different meds. Thursday morning Lucas started to feel better so I flew back to Maryland that afternoon. Today, exactly two weeks after hitting his head, he went back for another CSCAN and still hardly any change and the doctor ordered him to not work for yet another month. His head is not in much pain but his ears are still ringing loudly and he can't hear well as has been the case since his fall. He is seeing an ENT tomorrow. And since I'm here, another Teer Family situation is that my (ex) sister-in-law's husband (Jill and Kenny) has throat and tongue cancer. They live in Northern Virginia so Justin and I have been doing what we can to help and support them. Jill is a full time teacher, Kenny is a self-employeed architect, so they need her job for health insurance. Kenny is having chemo and radiation in tandem so it's pretty rough. Jill is unable to be at home with him during the day so I'm planning on spending some nights and days with them to help out with him and their 11 year old daughter, Annie. Justin is planning on visiting on the weekends so Jill can get out to do errands. Oy. The good news is that my niece, Maya (Eder), is pregnant with her second child. Their Ben is now 5 and they are all very excited. We are planning on going out to Oregon the month after her due date in July (Ben was six weeks early but not a preemie) for the first time in what will be 4 years by then. The piggyback to Hawaii is looking especially good right now even though I've never had a hankering to go there before. Back here at the ranch, we have had workers in and out of the house for over a month doing un-fun updates to the house. Replacing doors, the front porch, and the master bathroom shower. Ugh, all that money and nothing will look any different and I get to clean up after they leave. Stop complaining. I have had to be a buffer between the dog and the workers. So I've spent many days in the basement with the animals while the guys did the work and done most of that time on Pinterest. The new obsession. The best intervention is sending me to Bryan without my computer! Someone, please step in!!!! Oops, be careful what you ask for. Surgery for Lucas is still on the table (pun not intended as I usually like). So, see why I hit-and-run on facebook? Well, now it's all down in history and I'm up to date on my blog. Now I just want to get the house back to where I can made art again. I'm still where I was the last time I posted about it only reversing my plan and the work I'd already done. There were a couple of very good things that happened while I was in Texas. I shall write about them soon. They were very nice glimpses of light in dark times. There were also a couple of worse things that happened while there-those I shall not write about, I don't think. You'll have to, what?, stay tuned.