all there is

I am trying to write a book. I realize the chances of getting published are very, very slim. But the chances of finishing the book are also very, very slim, so I figure there's no need to let publishing worries stop me.

I'd like to use this journal as a way to stay accountable without dealing with comments from friends and family. They are all encouraging and well-meaning, but when I'm fully engaged in one story line and someone says, "You really would be great at writing about [insert their pet topic]," I get discouraged.

So... I'm going to write one scene. When I've accomplished that, I can come back and tell you the reasons it's vital to my sanity to write this book.

Re: all there is

Done! Cool. I'll write another scene tomorrow, since my kids need some attention (and dinner) this evening.

My top ten reasons for writing a book:
10. I am utterly bored. I have to find something other than laundry to occupy my days.
9. I stink at being a SAHM, and I will sink into self-loathing if I don't do something that works for me.
8. I want to be able to make money doing something I love. I can't go back to school right now b/c of the kids, but this is a small start that I can make right now.
7. My last job was all writing, and I miss it.
6. I am jealous of the recognition that DH gets from his job. Being published would make me feel like I'm doing something noteworthy, too.
5. Writing is the thing that I have done best, all through school and beyond.
4. Writing as a job does not involve daily interaction with people!
3. In my dreams, I would love to be famous.
2. I want my daughters to see their mom being successful at something. Again, this is a small start.
1. I keep getting "signs" that I need to finish this book.

I don't want to sound pathetic, but these are my real reasons.

Be back after scene 2.

Re: all there is

Another scene down.

I've decided my current slump is pregnancy-related. I haven't been gaining, and I've been running around after two toddlers, plus packing to move away from a place that is "home" to me. I need chocolate ice cream!

It feels really good to write, though. And it's moving along so much faster than I expected! I have the beginning, the middle transition, and the end of this book done! DH said, "So... beginning, middle, and end... that means you've written the whole book?" Sorry, babes, long way to go yet!

I am afraid of publishing, though. Maybe I'll finish this one and just keep it to myself for a while.

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This marks another scene!

I decided a couple years ago that I wanted to get a book published by the time I'm 60. It was one of those "is this all there is" moments. I sat down and wrote out what I love, what would make me happy, and how I could add more of that to my life (you know, basic goal setting). And I came up with writing a book. I still get so excited when I think about it that I know I'm on the right track.

Writing is such a personal thing, though. Whether I'm writing about myself or not, I'm baring my life's experiences for other people to read. It makes me feel naive. I'm a dreaming idealist, not an information-gathering realist or even a pithy cynic. I'd do well to write about the romances of quaint small towns. Someday... later.

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The writing project is on hold temporarily. I'm happily ignoring my angst about whether my life has enough meaning. I read an article recently by a woman who traveled to a developing country and ironically felt finally free from her compelling urge to help people - because, she said, "They preferred that I dance."

In that spirit (and because I finally learned how to post pics!) I thought I'd put up a couple photos of our graduation banquet!

This is my favorite - a family photo:



DH & me (below). :mydoc:
And tonight Debbie is wearing:

THE DRESS (sorry you can't see it well): Isabella Oliver column wrap maternity dress, which you all helped me pick! THANK YOU! It was so comfortable, and people loved it.

THE JEWELRY: The highlight of my evening. I was all dressed & ready except my (cheap) jewelry. DH pulled out a small blue sack and said, "This is for you!" I thought it was something from the department, as he often brings home boxes of nuts or whatever and presents them as "gifts." When I pulled out a jewelry-shaped box, my hands started shaking. The very best part was when he said, simply but with plenty of feeling, "Thanks for putting up with residency." :sosad: I'll never forget it. The jewelry isn't flashy for a formal banquet, but all the better - I wear it whenever I can. (ETA: The earrings are diamond studs, and the necklace is an s-shape with 7 diamonds of increasing size.)



The kids - and the camera - went home with DH's parents shortly after the dinner, so we don't have any pictures of DH & me after we had really warmed up our dance moves. Thank goodness - I wouldn't have posted them. Later in the evening, DH announced to me that the point of dancing is to have fun, no matter how you look. I don't know if he remembers saying it, but we took it to heart.

Last picture - the two of us dancing with the kids:



ETA: Another day I'll post some pics of our current gardening project! We're all in our grubbies, and DD has her first ponytail!

Re: all there is

Our gardening project!

These are the "before" pictures. We plan to have manure & topsoil hauled in this week. Then, over the weekend, we're going to tour High Country Gardens (thanks for the tip, Nellie!) and pick out some plants.

First - my favorite pic of the day - I put DD's hair up in a ponytail for the first time.



This is DH, putting in our first pathetic little pile of compost, before we decided to have it hauled in:


The scope of the project... The whole front of the house has a wall built up around it, and we're planning to turn all of it into a plantable area. We've had to do a lot of weedeating! (And yes, that's me, sitting on the ledge in the distance, looking large - and not noticing that I didn't have my sweatshirt pulled all the way down over my pregnant belly! )


The kids, playing:


And a final shot of DS, enjoying the weeds:

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Our van has a secret wild side. We would never have found out if it weren’t for a parking ticket we received in the mail a couple days ago. Apparently while we thought our van was safe in our garage in NM, it was gallivanting around in KS with complete disregard for the law.

I waited on hold with the municipal court for about a half hour before getting my chance to convince the lady on the other end that the tag number on the ticket didn’t match the tag number on our van. She believed me. And then she told me I needed to bring my registration to the prosecutor’s office in person to straighten it out! When I tersely reminded her WE LIVE IN NM, she said then I’d have to wait until 3:00 to call the prosecutor and "see if anything could be done."

I spent the next five hours fuming and planning what I was going to say – especially the part about it costing us hundreds of dollars, plus missed work, to drive back and hand over a piece of paper that would confirm what the computer system had already shown – that someone somewhere had typed a V instead of a W. :banghead: As it turned out, I got through 20 seconds of my spiel before the prosecutor decided to drop the ticket. Another five minutes on the phone with his assistant and it was done.

The next vehicle we own will have to have On Star so we can keep tabs on it.

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I took the kids to the zoo here for the first time (that same morning of the phone call to the court). They LOVED the kiddie fountains that shot water into the air at random. At one point DS had a big spray of water fall directly on his head, and he got quite a look of shock on his face. I thought the fun was all over – and then he looked at me and grinned really wide. It’s time for me to take them to a pool.

One of the volunteers there was giving a lecture on elephants. When she got to the part about them gestating their young for 22 months, she looked at me and asked how I would like to carry this baby that long. I was SO tempted to ask her what in the world she was talking about – “Oh, you must mean my beer belly!” But I decided it was the sun messing with me, so I told her that would be an uncomfortable pregnancy.

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I don’t know if it’s the pregnancy hormones or just that my kids are getting to “that phase,” but they are really testing my limits lately. I noticed this week that I’ve started talking to them like I talk to the dogs: “Sit! Leave that alone… LEAVE IT!” I remember that before I had kids I tried very hard not to compare our dogs to other people’s kids – even though the similarities could be striking. This week I caught myself telling DS to do something, and when he did, I told him, “Good boy. Goooood boooyyy.” I wonder if I’m the only one who does things like this, or if other people also secretly wish they could kennel their kids for a while when they act up.

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The report at five weeks into fellowship: We are homesick. Ever since DH called his colleague back in KS (who took a job that DH had considered) and discovered he was on the golf course, DH has fantasized about the what-ifs. He doesn’t regret his decision to do a fellowship, but our daydreams about our “permanent” setup someday are making it harder to settle in for now and create a home. We love to garden together, and we are waiting impatiently for our dump truck of compost to arrive so we can get our hands in the dirt and put down some “roots,” so to speak. A trip to CO next weekend will delay our gardening, but maybe the weekend after that I’ll be able to post some “after” pictures of our yard.

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Thursday night a very good friend of our family had his new pacemaker go crazy on him while he was at a school volleyball game. It took 10 minutes to get his heart going again, and he arrived at the hospital in a coma. He's maybe 50 years old, and he has a wife (who would be in dire financial straits) and three kids aged between about 18 and 25. The whole family is so well-loved that the ICU waiting room has been jam-packed the whole time with people praying, bringing food, trying to comfort instead of overwhelm the family.

One of the doctors did an EEG within the first 24 hours (which I think is too soon? :huh: ) and declared a poor prognosis.

Like a bad patient, I've been scouring PubMed all weekend to find out what this means. All I can see are the abstracts, which basically give a 20 to 30 percent chance of a "good" outcome (good = "isn't it good he's only profoundly mentally and physically disabled?" bad = dead or persistently vegetative).

So at that point - since the small percent chance of hope was only that he would be profoundly disabled - it seemed better that he would die quickly.

But... by 48 hours, he had opened his eyes - bumping him up to a 53 percent chance of recovering beyond "vegetative." By 72 hours (last night), he was trying to sit up and pull out his nasal canula, and he had smiled at one of his wife's jokes. As of this morning, he had said "yes" appropriately to two questions.

The abstracts don't discuss long-term prognosis for patients who recover this quickly. There just aren't that many who do. Even though that's very good, I still wish I could find something that said, "If the patient regains speech within 80 hours, he'll be able to hold down a job and relate normally with his family within the year!"

Anyway - this has taken a bigger toll on me than I expected. I'm not very outwardly emotive, so it surprises even me sometimes when I realize how much certain people really mean to me. My obsessive search for information was my way of "doing something" even though it never really helped the family. Perhaps a card would be more appreciated.

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Our dear family friend who was in a coma 6 days ago told his family today to please thank everyone who has been so supportive, and he wants to throw a big party for everyone!

Yesterday he was so combative that they had to remove everything from his room except a pad on the floor.

Now I'm confused. Can he really understand that something bad happened to him and that people outside his hospital room have been helping his family? From everything I've read, this seems like an extremely quick recovery, and I don't want to have my emotions jerked around thinking it's faster than it really is. I can't imagine his family's emotions, especially hearing him tell them he loves them and that he's so happy with everything. I hope it keeps coming - and so quickly!

And... something that brings tears to my eyes every time I think about it...

His son (maybe 21 years old?) is trying to salvage the farm during this time so they don't lose so much money. Their alfalfa has been lying in the rain getting ruined, so the son went out to take on the enormous task of turning it all over by himself. When he got out there, it was already done! A bunch of people (and not all farmers) had gone out anonymously and had taken care of it for him. That's the community of people I call home.

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I'm such a nerd.

DH & I have been arguing about my delivery method if I go overdue, and it prompted me to do a literature search in PubMed. I miss my old job sometimes, doing lit reviews & writing/editing research papers for publication.

Anyway, I told DH what I found, and he got all excited about using this as a basis for one of his research projects for fellowship! He's been on the road this afternoon, so we spent a good deal of time talking about the existing research and how he could design his study.

It was SUCH a nice break from the routine of changing diapers and talking with DH about what he wants for dinner.

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The guy who was in a coma is now in an extremely agitated phase of recovery. He is confused, only remembers certain things, and is sometimes uncontrollable (insists he needs to leave to check his cattle). Unfortunately, insurance may not pay for inpatient rehabilitation, which everyone agrees he needs.

If they won't pay, that means he and his wife will move in with my parents very soon - like maybe tomorrow.

I'm glad my parents are able to help. But this is a big commitment on their part. They know that, and they are more than willing to do it. It's just that it's going to be exhausting for everyone. They expect full recovery to take a year - if he recovers fully - and even then, his personality may be very different from what it was before.

I'm hoping for good news about insurance tomorrow. I don't know if my mom & his wife would really be able to manage him while my dad is at work.

Re: all there is

It sounds like the man recovering from a post-anoxic coma (after CPR) will be moving in with my parents today.

He desperately needs inpatient cognitive therapy, but insurance won't cover it. The wife's brother is a lawyer, and he tried to fight this on grounds of duplicity (it was a physical injury that caused the need for cognitive therapy), but apparently he hasn't been successful.

I am so worried about my mom and this guy's wife trying to take care of him. My dad will be out of town next week. The patient is severely agitated and confused. He's very strong and healthy - enough that several men had trouble controlling him in the hospital.

There's no other choice, though - they simply can't afford to pay out-of-pocket for the therapy he needs.

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The insurance company keeps delaying saying that Calvin (guy recovering from coma) needs to go home. So he and his wife have kept hanging out at the hospital, one day at a time. A speech therapist over speech therapists requested to evaluate him on Sunday, and she was able to get the next couple days approved. And she's working on getting more days approved.

In other news... DH wants me to switch to digital scrapbooking so I can get caught up on our pictures (faster than regular scrapbooking, with the twins trying to "help" so much). Here's my first 2-page spread:



Photosoft Elements has been a little challenging to learn, but I think once I get the hang of it I'll be able to do these pages more quickly.