Days 21, 22, and 23 of the 31 Day Photo Challenge

December 23, 2012 — dorkydeb

I forgot to take a photograph on the 20th. I have no good excuse, I simply thought I had taken photos that day when I hadn’t. LOL  Moving on….

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December 21st….

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Snow!  And the birds are enjoying Grandma’s feeder. There were tons of them on it all day, yet they flew every time I cracked the door to take a photo. All except for this one brave little Chickadee. Well.. he could be brave, or stupid, or overly hungry… who knows.   ;)

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December 22nd…

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My Ella was crying and clearly wanted me to get her away from her siblings (who were being rather loud and rambunctious at the time) and put her down for a nap. So I took her to my bed and we laid down for a bit.  She tucked me in (that’s our thing now, I tuck her in and then she takes the other side of the blanket and tucks me in), snuggled up to me, looked at me so sweetly, ran her hand down my face, smiled and went to sleep.

I love Ella snuggles!

After resting with her for a bit, I sneaked away. Later I came back to check on her, and got in a photograph while she was still sleeping.   :)

My lips are brutally chapped and I look like I have “emo kid” hair in this photo, but oh well, Ella is cute.   ;)

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December 23rd…

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Just a silly little tree that I made and hung on the wall to surprise the kids, while they were visiting their grandparents today. If I’d had more time I would have made it nicer, but I was in a hurry.  I had lots of secret squirrel things to do today while the kids were away, getting prepared for Christmas.

:)

I may post again before Christmas, but just in case I don’t, I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!!!

Posted in Around the house, Challenges, Photos, Weather. 2 Comments »

Renewal

November 10, 2012 — dorkydeb

Today’s post is a combination of NHBPM and the Weekly Photo Challenge from The Daily Post at WordPress.  I haven’t done a Weekly Photo Challenge post in quite awhile, but the topic for this week is “renewal“.  And I felt inspired by the day that I had today.

Having a chronic illness that keeps me away from many of the things that I love to do is draining, not only physically but emotionally too.

For me, spending time in the sunshine is renewing, to my body and my soul. People with MG are frequently low in Vitamin D, and sunshine helps give your body Vitamin D.  And I just simply need to be outdoors. I am trapped inside far more often than I wish to be.

One of the common traits of MG is an inability to handle extreme temperatures (hot or cold), but particularly hot. Getting overly warm, can be very dangerous. Because of this, my ability to sit in the sun is limited to times when it’s not that hot outdoors.

Sunlight has such a positive effect on me, that my husband likes to say, “Debbies are solar powered.”    :)

I like to go out to my concrete bench and sit and soak up the sun whenever I can.

Well, today it was sunny and 74 degrees – a rare event in West Virginia in the middle of November!  And I intended to make the most of it!

I potted two small pots of succulents that needed transplanted (which was extremely exhausting), and I sat outside with my husband and my kids and we enjoyed the day. The cool breeze kept me from getting too warm.

I am so grateful that I was strong enough to do that today. It meant a lot to me.

So my photo for this week’s challenge was taken today.  It is me, during my renewal.

 

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How Being Online Can Make You Feel Better About Life

November 1, 2012 — dorkydeb

I accepted WEGO Health’s invitation to do 30 posts in 30 days. Clearly, I’m crazy.

Today’s topic is “My favorite thing about social media, the internet, online health communities, etc.”

I imagine that there are going to be some great posts today from other “health activists”.  I imagine that there are going to be people who are going to tell you how much they appreciate these outlets online for various reasons.  I know that I appreciate social media because I am a very social person, who happens to be home bound most of the time.

Social person + stuck at home a lot = not the best combination

Social media gives those of us with chronic illnesses a way to not only keep in touch with our family and friends, but also a way to make friends with others sharing similar battles.  We can research medications and treatment techniques online. We can find ways to help ourselves. We can join online health communities that can really make an amazing difference in our lives.  I know that I appreciate the friends I have made in my MG support groups so much that it would be hard to put into words.  I could write an entire post about those awesome folks.

But, I’m currently in the middle of an MG flare, in a snow storm (Hurricane Sandy snow to be exact), without a working furnace.  The magical, little, rare part that my furnace needs to work again is stuck somewhere between Cincinnati, Ohio and here. My 3-year-old, who has autism, just finished having a 2 hour, screaming-at-the-top-of-her-lungs and kicking-everyone-that-got-near-her meltdown.  My stomach hurts (probably because I got kicked really hard there) and I’m kind of cold, tired, frustrated, and in need of a good laugh.

So instead of telling you all of the wonderful (serious) things about those topics, I think I’ll tell you some of my other favorite things about social media, the internet, online health communities, etc. Otherwise known as…

How Being Online Can Make You Feel Better About Life
(sense of humor required)

In no particular order:

* Reading the news on the internet.
It makes me feel better about my less-than-stellar grammar skills. I mean really?  Have you seen what passes for a news journalist these days?

* “Friending” your former teachers online.
Remember my “red marks” blog post?  The one about the teachers that would return everything I wrote covered in red marks and telling me I should stick to science and math (the subjects I excelled in).  Well…. now I have the opportunity to watch those teachers post online.  Why is that fun?  Because they screw up too!  Seeing them misspell something or post something incorrectly always brings a smile to my face. I think to myself, “Ha Ha! You’re human too!”

* Health communities.
Sure there are those “winners” kicking your illness’ butt. (Which is great!)  But there’s almost always someone around that is a lot worse off than you are.  Which I don’t wish on anyone ever, but it does remind you to be thankful for what you have.

* Devastating news stories.
Yes, I’m sitting here, cold with my MG in a rage because I don’t tolerate temperature fluctuations well at all. But I’m not in a shelter somewhere while my house is in the ocean.  Can we all take a moment and say a prayer for those folks?  Again, a reminder to be grateful for what we have.

* Reading most teenager’s posts on Facebook.
Seriously, their spelling is so bad that if you are a homeschooler (like me) you think to yourself, “Wow! That’s sad, they made it to high school and they couldn’t get through a 2nd grade spelling bee if their life depended on it.  Clearly I’m doing a GREAT job homeschooling. Because I can’t be doing worse than that.  Yeah!!! Go me!”

* Online arguments.
Yes, most of the time they are stressful, horrible things that I wish to avoid.  But… occasionally they are downright funny.  Sometimes people get into a heated debate and then mess something up and it comes out hilarious.  I’ll give you an example.  Approximately 11 years ago I got into a heated disagreement with someone online and called them an idiot.  And you know what I did?  I misspelled idiot.

Seriously.  How awesome is that?  I called someone an idiot and spelled it “idoit”.  Sure it was just a typo, but it was a funny one.  I love that crap.  I really do, even when it’s me. I mean it serves me right for calling someone a name online.

I can totally laugh at myself.  And it’s a good thing I can, since I seem to give myself plenty of opportunities to laugh at myself!  Usually my opportunities come up in real life, like tripping over things and falling down, etc. but sometimes I share the love online too.   ;)

One of my favorite online disagreements ever was with a group of pregnant women – those groups are otherwise known as “online hormone explosions waiting to happen”.  I came home from an OB/GYN appointment and complained about a woman who had brought her kid to her OB appointment and started pulling out peanut butter crackers as snacks for the kid. She allowed him to run all around the waiting area making a disgusting mess, rubbing peanut butter over more than a half-dozen seats and the carpeted floor! While making zero effort to stop him, or clean it up.

I was forced to leave the room and sit out in the hallway, on the floor, waiting for my name to be called, while pregnant, swallowing Benadryl and praying I would keep breathing. Because I am severely allergic to peanuts (as in I have asthma attacks from simply being near them).  Obviously this is not the funny part of the story.

The funny part is, I came home, made a short post on this group about my appointment and how I wished that there was better education on the topic of allergies.  And I said, “It is so frustrating when someone’s ignorance endangers the lives of others.”  I wasn’t mean-spirited in my post, not at all. I even said something about how I was sure the lady didn’t realize what she was doing. But that it posed a tremendous risk to someone who might come in afterwards and sit in one of those seats, etc.

But I was DOG PILED.  I mean these hormonal women jumped on me like you would not believe.  I came back online to find this long list of posts aimed at me.  And they all were various versions of this, “I know it must have been hard on you, but I wouldn’t have known that either and it’s really not fair to call someone ignorant.”  My personal favorite (posted in all-caps) was:

“HOW DARE YOU CALL SOMEONE IGNORANT JUST BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T KNOW SOMETHING!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!”

I was like…. Um…. you do know what the definition of ignorant is right?

ignorant:  Lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact.

That happened years ago and to this day, it still makes me laugh.

If you read this and think I’m a “big meanie” (yeah, I got called that, that day too! LOL) then I’m sorry.  I assure you I’m not mean.  But I do enjoy the lighter side of life.  Not everything has to be serious all the time.

So… hang out online somewhere and have a laugh.  Maybe even at me.  :)

It’s cool, I don’t mind.

 :)

Posted in Challenges, Funny, Health, MG, Weather, WEGO. Comments Off »

Part 2 – Storm Photos

July 18, 2012 — dorkydeb

More photographs of the damage from the storm (Derecho) on June 29th, 2012.

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Below is a photo of the dirt road that leads to our homes. My Dad had already cleared some of the trees by the time this shot was taken, but if you look closely (or click for the larger version) you can see more lines down and *normally* you can see down the hollow much further.  The reason you cannot in this photo, is because of trees down.

My cousin and his wife live in the home on the left of this photo and his garage is on the right. They didn’t have any damage to their home that I know of, in this storm. The last time we had a bad storm here, a tree went through their house. Thankfully no one was hurt.

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More trees & limbs down.
I’m fairly certain that this large limb hit our house before landing here. We got hit with a lot of limbs, but there was one particularly loud hit, on that side of the house, and we think it was likely this:

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The photo below makes me a little sad. The bush that you see on the ground was a Rhododendron that my mom planted when she & my Dad lived here. It was so tall now that it reached all the way up to the 2nd floor window. Emma loved that she could see the pink blossoms every year, right up against the window. After the storm she told me it was “missing”.  I said, “No, baby, that doesn’t make any sense. It was right up against the house, it should be fine.”  And sure enough, she was right. It was actually uprooted and knocked over. It kind of surprised me that it took that much damage, given that it had some protection being up against the house.  It’s now gone.
Those of you who have followed my nature blog, probably remember me posting various photos of it over the years (like these).

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More trees on lines:

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More photos to come.

Posted in Blogging, Photos, Weather. 1 Comment »

Storm Photos – Part 1

July 17, 2012 — dorkydeb

During the storm my husband said, “I wish we were getting this on video.”  And yes, it would have been very nice to have on video. But… in the moment when trees were flying past our windows, and we could hear tree limbs hitting our house from all sides, it was more important to keep the kids wrangled into the safest area of the house (away from windows, etc.).  That might sound simple, but it was particularly difficult with Ella, who simply didn’t understand why she couldn’t walk around. So my husband ended up carrying her/holding her throughout the entire storm – just to keep her in a safe area.

So taking video really wasn’t a top priority in that moment.

After the storm, it was far too hot for me to go prowling about with a camera, and then my MG flared up, etc.  So due to that, and the continuing heat, I still haven’t been out with a camera much.  And my father (the hardest-working retired person you’ll ever meet), has already cleared many of the damaged trees.

I wish I could show you the massive ones that were across our road, just down from my home, the night I was taken to the hospital.  One of them was knocked over (roots and all) and somehow picked up in the wind and pulled backwards across the road, with the massive root ball blocking 3/4 of the road.  It was really bizarre looking.

But my Mom got some photos of some of the damage around our homes and she was nice enough to share them with me, so I thought I’d show you some of them here.  Looking at these it looks like nothing compared to the experience of watching it all happen. Still, I thought you might like to see them.

These will be clickable if you want to see them slightly larger.

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Below is the Mimosa tree that was my Grandmother’s.
If you’ve never seen one they are gorgeous. They bloom lovely pink blooms that hummingbirds love, and it has bloomed beautifully every year since my Grandmother’s passing. Sadly, as you can see, it was pretty badly damaged.  The left side was broken off, the rest is bent, and many limbs are broken. But since the storm it is starting to perk up and even some of the pink blooms are starting to come out again. But here is what it looked like after the storm:

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Some of the many trees that broke the lines going to our home and my cousin’s home:

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More of the downed trees that took down the lines to my home:
You can see one of the snapped utility lines strung across my parent’s carport.

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I have more photos to share, but blog posts tend to get a bit wonky when you add too many photos inside of one post. So I think I’ll just separate them in to different posts.  I hope to add more tomorrow. But our internet provider has informed us that they will be shutting off the internet for everyone in our area “sometime after midnight”, to do more repair work necessary because of damage from the storm.  They said the hope to have it back on by morning, and if it isn’t to call them. I really hope we don’t have to call them, because it took over 2 weeks to get them out here the last time. So…. I will hopefully post more photos tomorrow, if possible.

Thank you for all of the kind and supportive comments on my previous post.  You are all so kind and I appreciate you all so much.  I look forward to getting caught up on viewing my friend’s blogs and replying to comments and messages, etc. Everything is a work in progress at this moment, as we work towards “normal”.  We are now caught up on laundry though.  LOL!  So that’s a start!

:)

Posted in Blogging, Photos, Weather. 3 Comments »
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