When Will I Be Normal?

It occurred to me while I was showering yesterday, that I hadn't had hair on my head in so long, I wondered when I would return to normal.

And then an alarm blasted me in the head – YOU WERE NEVER NORMAL!

I almost fell in the shower. The thought was so true. I have never been normal, so how could I return to a place I'd never been?

And then I asked myself, what IS normal? Should I rely on statistics to help me figure it out? OK, I'm too tall to be normal, I'm too old to be normal, and I'm too unemployed to be normal. I fall way out of the statistical range of normal in so many respects, I have to wonder who exactly IS normal.

But I think what I meant when I said the word, "normal," was – when will I return to MY VERSION of normal? I'm still stumped, though, because normal keeps changing. At one time normal meant getting up and going to work every morning. Then normal became working out of my home providing day care.

Suddenly normal became having surgery and going for chemo treatments every three weeks. And now normal is doing stupid things like the stupid thing I did last night.

My bedroom light fixture had only one working bulb, so I took out one of the three nonworking bulbs and replaced it with a new bulb.

The new bulb didn't work, so I removed another nonworking bulb and tried replacing it with the new bulb, and that one didn't work either. And when I tried the third bulb, I discovered that that one didn't work! Great! I was doomed to live in a dimmed bedroom.

So just when I thought my whole light fixture was broken, A LIGHT BULB WENT OFF IN HEAD!  I realized that my light fixture had a chain on the bottom that allowed the bulbs to light up in increments. One light, two lights…you get the picture. Duh!

But what's really nice about that light bulb experience is that those kinds of things happen to me all the time, so I really am returning to MY kind of normal – a little offbeat, a little outside the boundaries of statistical norms, but totally me.

And so while I await new hair growth (I just finished my last BAD chemo treatment Monday), and even while I resume chemo, but this time with a drug that doesn't cause nausea or hair loss or any of the other numerous side effects I've been experiencing), and even though I will have to go through radiation and several months more of chemo treatments, I am returning to normal.

One day within the next few months, I will be able to remove my hats and scarves and create a hairstyle, I will be able to apply mascara to my new eyelashes, and I will not have to deal with insomnia or loss of energy.

And when I take a shower, I'll be able to use shampoos and conditioners, something I used to take for granted when I was "normal."

Why It Helps To Clear Up Misunderstandings

People don't always understand messages other people are trying to convey. Once the words leave the lips, they get distorted in the brain, intentions get lost, and if we don't immediately clarify things we THINK we hear, we end up confused, completely bewildered, and sometimes hurt.

Just recently one of my granddaughters and I were talking on the phone and I thought I heard Sarah say, "My friend and I are gonna pee in the john." To which I respond, a little TMI, Sarah, a little TMI ("too much information" for those of you who don't have grandchildren to explain our new English shortcuts)!

Don't get me wrong – I like the fact that my children and grandchildren share intimate details of their lives with me, but sometimes I just don't need to know EVERY thing, like their bathroom schedules – especially when it involves another person.

But what I heard was not what Sarah said, which was, "My friend and I are gonna to see 'Dear John'" (the movie).

That conversation reminded me of the time her mother, my oldest daughter, Keeley, and I had a misunderstanding that, had I not tried to understand, may have resulted in life-long trauma for my oldest baby.

When Keeley was around 4 years old, I took her to visit a friend, and when we left the home, which was on a fairly busy street, I opened the door to the car to let her in. For reasons I couldn't understand at the time, she adamantly refused to get in.

We argued.

The argument escalated while she stood her ground, repeating over and over again, "But there's gas under the car!"

"It's OK. Nothing will happen," I repeated for what seemed like the thousandth time.

She still didn't believe me. I tried to push her into the car. She pushed back and ran far away from the car.

"Keeley, get in the car. Everything is going to be OK. I promise."

"NO! There's gas under the car!" Her expression was one of panic. Tears were streaming down her face.

Did she have a dream that we were going to die in an explosion? Did she think the gas would explode when I started the car? Whatever. I was getting angry. I promised once again that NOTHING would happen. Really! Now GET IN THE CAR!

Reassurance after reassurance after reassurance that nothing would happen didn't convince her to get into that car. The weather was freezing and I just wanted to get home. Instead I stood outside my car arguing with my 4-year old daughter to get in the car. She refused my demands. Again. My frustration was increasing.

Finally, in exasperation, I screamed, "NOTHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN UNLESS I LIGHT A MATCH TO IT, OK??????????"

Her eyes widened and she looked at me as if I had somehow become evil incarnate.

"But look!" she cried, pointing under the car. So, just to appease her, I bent over to take a look.

Sometimes, in moments of utter clarity, facial expressions and moods suddenly make perfect sense. Her urgency was noted when I discovered a couple of "cats" (not gas) under my car. She thought I was going to run over them.

Virginia Snow Storm

I'm a Chicago girl. I remember walking home in three feet of snow during the great blizzard of 1967 – in the days when we had to wear skirts to school – in the days before doppler radar.

After plunging my legs over and over again through snow banks so deep I had to bring them up practically to my shoulders to move them, I came home completely exhausted. What normally took only 20 minutes to walk home at a slow leisurely pace took me more than an hour.

By the time I got home, my feet had swollen so much, I couldn't remove my boots, and I had frostbite on both my hands and my feet. I was wheezing with an asthma attack so bad I couldn't catch my breath.

Yes, Chicago girls KNOW what REAL snow storms are.

So imagine my surprise when I came out to Virginia to help my son and his wife with their kids, and on Tuesday this week, schools closed because they EXPECTED snow. The snow didn't come until nearly 8pm. The following day, Virginia schools closed again because they EXPECTED snow. Guess what. No snow at all, but Taylor got to stay home from school again anyway. All I kept thinking of Virginians was, what wimps!

Seems the entire state of Virgina and Washington, D.C. shut down when snow is expected. So when weather forecasters predicted a snow storm for tonight and tomorrow, I laughed. Apparently a sprinkling of snow is all it takes to send these people inside.

Well, that was my thinking until Southwest Airlines called to cancel my flight on Saturday. Hmm, maybe Virginia will actually be getting snow after all. According to weather.com, we're expecting a SIGNIFICANT amount of snow. That's what I get for calling Virginians wimps.

Buffalo Wild Wings

The other night two of my daughters met at Buffalo Wild Wings with their boyfriend and/or husband. I dropped the hint to them that I was really jealous they were there and I was home NOT eating BBQ wings. The hint was supposed to be translated as thus: Mom would love some BBQ wings – Please get them for her.

So I texted each of them to tell them how my mouth was salivating just thinking about the wings, and they wrote back, LOL.

LOL? That's it? Not, OK, Mom, we'll pick some up for you?

The next day, I decided I HAD to have some BBQ wings (for me it's an addiction, like chocolate is to some people), so I dragged myself to the store (offering to buy diapers for my grandson), and roamed the aisles in search of my chicken wings.

Gone! Completely out. These types of things happen to me all the time. It's like some subliminal message gets sent out into the universe – Theresa wants wings – hurry, send sixty people to the stores – all of them – to buy them out.

At one point, I was willing to just suck down a bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's, but fortunately I found my wings and I am now happy.

So, for future reference, if any of you who know me are EVER in a place that sells BBQ wings, pick some up for me. P-L-E-A-S-E!

The Inside Voice & Old Maid

My grandkids crack me up and I love it when I witness events I can blog about or when I hear from family members something my grandkids (or even my kids) have said or done. I wish more of them would let me know when somebody does something cute or funny (HINT HINT).

Because I'm around Audrey so often, Audrey is the subject of many of my blogs. Kaden, either when I'm with him or when I hear about something he has said or done, makes my blogs as well. Just plug either one of their names into the search area of this blog and you can read more about either one of them.

 This first story is about Kaden, who was probably just trying to help his mom:

We often wonder if our kids listen to us, or for that matter if they even hear us. So we tend to repeat phrases and sometimes find ourselves asking, "Are you listening?" or "Did you hear what I just said?"

My son, Greg (Kaden's daddy), always left me wondering if he was listening to me. He had this amazing ability to be involved in several things at the same time and he could focus on all of them at once. He watched television, did his homework, and listened to conversations going on around him without missing any details. When tested on each component, he could explain what just happened on TV, which homework problem he was working on, and what we were discussing at the dining room table.

Unlike Greg, though, most kids have what I consider to be selective listening. They pretend to ignore their parents, which infuriates us even more, and we send them to their rooms or to the punishment corner or to the bad chair because they didn't pay attention to us.

But let me tell you, they HEAR us and they LISTEN to us. How do I know? Because when you least expect it, they will REPEAT us.

The other day when my daughter-in-law, Michelle (Greg's wife), was yelling at her youngest son, Zac (who is 2-years-old), Kaden (who will be five in February), called out,  "Hey, Mom, let's use our INSIDE voices."

You don't have to wonder where he heard that one.

And now a little story about Audrey:

Old Maid is definitely a game for more than two players. Everybody knows that, but when you're a kid, you just want to play and it doesn't matter how many people are playing the game with you.

So the other day, my five year-old granddaughter, Audrey, and her mommy, Brittney (my daughter), were playing Old Maid. They were the only two playing the game.

At one point Audrey pulled me aside and said, "Grandma, don't tell Mommy, but I have the witch."

If you'd like to read more kid stories about lots of other children, click on Kiddy Kwips.

The photo at the top is of Kaden playing the Wii with his dad. The photo on the bottom is of Audrey.

Imagine All the People Living In Peace

For years I wanted to start a different kind of peace movement. I even sent out emails asking people to participate in what I called "Pause for Peace". Around the globe I wanted everybody, twice a day, if possible, to focus on peace, to pray for peace, or to just pause for peace. If all the energies of everybody interested in starting a peace movement were focused on that one word, I thought we stood a chance of bringing peace into the world.

And now, many years later, I found a "tweet" through twitter that brought me to THIS SITE. Yoko Ono is continuing her and her husband's crusade to spread peace throughout the world. She, together with other spiritual leaders throughout the world are promoting a "One-ness" day, a day set aside to recognize and celebrate our commonalities and our differences. She asks us to sign a petition so that we can all celebrate a Oneness Day, a day of peace.

Imagine that. Imagine Peace.

Borrowing from imaginepeace.com: "Celebrities such as Neale Donald Walsch, Marianne Williamson, Joe Vitale, Deepak Chopra, Timothy Freke and Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, signed it.  Won’t you?"

I did.

By the way, the photo was taken from the video that is located under the words, "WAR IS OVER" and, at one place toward the end of the video, you can hear one of my favorite Christmas songs by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Happy Christmas (War is Over).

New Flooring for My Home

For all my British (and possibly State-side) friends:

My daughter and son-in-law will be moving out in approximately two months. I looked around at the flooring in my home and thought even a good carpet cleaner wouldn't help. And if I have to sell this place, I might have to take care of the carpets and kitchen flooring before I leave.

So I started looking into flooring. If you regularly read my blog, you know I hate shopping, so I do most of mine online. I honestly never expected to find an online flooring outlet, but surprisingly, I did – I found some beautiful flooring at UK Flooring Direct with discounts that save consumers sometimes as much as 84%! It's like shopping at a flooring factory in your own home.

Growing up, my parents had vinyl flooring throughout our home, from the kitchen and bathroom into the bedrooms. The durability of those floor coverings lasted for years. So I checked vinyl flooring first. It's inexpensive but it looks great. Once I started looking, I couldn't help but notice all the different types of vinyl, some of which look like stone. If I choose vinyl for the bedrooms, I'll go with the stone type.

What's nice about UK Flooring Direct is that they offer pertinent information about a variety of floor coverings, including carpets (Berber is my favorite), solid wood flooring, Pergo Laminate Flooring and so much more. So instead of standing in a showroom to ask the sales clerk what you need to know, all you have to do is click the links on the bottom of the page for information about each type of floor covering. And notice that when you run your mouse over the photos of the different floor coverings, a larger image appears.

(For my American friends: I'm not sure if they deliver to the States – it doesn't say they don't – I'm still checking out the site, but if you don't know how to convert British money to American money, check out  Coin Mill – it will tell you what the American equivalent is to the pound. Just enter the amount in the yellow box and you can see the conversion amount.)

Photo borrowed from UK Flooring Direct