Personal

Green light, red light 6

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Several times during her hospital stay, Arabella put in requests to come back home. On day 10, we picked her up and brought her back home. She was doing better, a lot better than when we took her in. But she was still manic and delusional. Maybe our expectations were too high. Or maybe we picked her up too early.

She didn’t sleep the first night we brought her home. The hospital changed all her medications. Then when she got home, she took her old nightly medications. It was a jumbled up mess so we decided to call her psychiatrist’s office in the morning to figure it all out. The process of figuring everything out took the whole day. By that afternoon, things got progressively worse. Arabella was very manic and kept interrupting us every few minutes to tell us a bunch of nonsense. By late afternoon, Arabella told us she took a couple of gummies and smoked weed. She was stoned out of her mind, and totally freaking out.

My mom stopped by for a random visit right around that time. She wanted to go for a walk, but I was in the middle of a million things. It’s nearly impossible to get all the things done I wanted to get done when I’m constantly interrupted and in crisis mode. That is when we received a call back from the doctor’s office. Paul and I took the call in Paul’s office on speaker phone while both my mom and Arabella came in and talked to us while we were having a serious discussion with the nurse. We were beyond annoyed, frustrated, and stressed.

The nurse said the doctor wanted to discontinue some of the new meds from the hospital while adding back some of the old meds and discontinuing some others. They were going to call the prescriptions into the pharmacy and would be available two hours before the pharmacy closed. She was going to need to start the new medications that evening. I was going to need to figure it all out before she went to bed. I took a bag full of her medications on hand and went through everything while waiting for the pharmacy.

I needed to go through the meds, fold laundry, and make supper before picking up the meds. My mom tried calling several times while I was getting everything together to make supper. I figured she wanted to talk about Arabella since she left while we were on the phone with the doctor’s office. I ignored her call because I was in a real hurry and didn’t want to take the time to explain everything yet again.

Then Paul came into the room while talking on the phone. He asked whoever it was if they were going to be arrested. I knew he wasn’t talking to Arabella since she was in her room. It was my mom. He said that while she was on the way home she hit a guy on a motorcycle with her car. He said that I needed to go pick her up from the scene of the accident. He said my mom was okay. The guy on the motorcycle was alive but injured.

While in a crisis, we got hit with yet another crisis. I abandoned supper to get ready to pick up my mom. Paul said he would pick up the medication before the pharmacy closed. He wanted me to do it originally because it was my strong suit. On the way out the door, I called my best friend Cindy on the phone. She lived a couple blocks from the accident. She told me I should come over to her house and she would drive me because I was way too shook up myself.

Cindy and I picked up my mom from the place where they towed her car and the motorcycle. Good thing Paul picked up the medication because the pharmacy closed before I got home. The pharmacy screwed up the medication. But at least they gave her a prescription for something she was no longer using. The hospital also gave her an injectable medicine the day she left and I got a prescription bottle with a vial of the injection in it.

While all of that was happening, I received a call from Alex’s friend. It was his 21st birthday that evening and they wanted me to come out celebrating with them. It was a sweet gesture that my kid’s friends also think of me as their friend as well. Paul was just meeting with this young man and helping him set goals to get his GED which he just finished. I will always think of my kid’s friends as children even when they are in their 20’s and able to go out to the bars. If anything, I was worried that they would all make it home safely. Especially after the kind of day I was having.

They weren’t the only ones on the road. Dan and Angel were just getting home from a vacation in Japan. The flight back home was a rough one, then they had to drive another 4 hours to get back home. I was anxious all around. My nerves were shot and I didn’t know how much longer I could handle the stress. Bad news doesn’t seem to shock me anymore.

Now I find it shocking when good things happen.

Green light, red light 5

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Another crisis was averted when Arabella rescinded the release order she signed the day after her voluntary commitment. Paul and I decided it was time for us to visit Arabella.

We arrived during adult visiting hours in the evening. Once again we had to lock up all of our belongings including our cell phones and sat in the waiting room with a sad lot of people. Like in an elevator, no one looked long at each other. We all got swept by the metal detector screening us for weapons. Then with a buzz the outside door unlocked and we silently walked down the long hallway into the cafeteria where we waited for our loved ones to arrive.

It seemed like we waited a long time for Arabella to arrive. Everyone else arrived before her. We watched while the others embraced with a smile and sat down as if in a regular restaurant to have normal conversations. Arabella arrived in disarray clutching a notebook with the word password written on it. She said password was the password and if we could read it, we could look inside. She cautioned us that the hospital was bugged. First we had to bug the system to debug the system. It was strange because they were having issues with their phone system which Arabella slid comfortably into a delusion that everything was bugged so we had to go to a different algorithm.

Arabella said she was a genetic freak. She was born of one woman and two men. She had an extra chromosome. She said she was colorblind, men can only see primary colors and women can only see secondary colors. She said she liked apple juice because she ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. When she ate she knew all the answers to all the problems of the world.

She said she needed Bryan to come to the hospital because he was her soulmate, her other half. Her bloodwork wouldn’t be complete without him coming in the have his blood drawn. They were storm chasers and she could leave now because it wasn’t storming. She spoke of science, DNA, physics, time travel, and biology. The things she was saying had an iota of truth but was jumbled and didn’t make a lot of sense. She was unable to hold a conversation with us.

But the most troubling thing was that she was slurring her words off and on. We noticed that when we were talking on the phone several times but thought maybe it was from being sedated. She held her mouth funny at random times and words almost seemed to whistle through her teeth. She said she couldn’t talk because no one ever showed her how to talk right. She also said no one ever showed her how to brush her teeth and she had gingivitis.

We were very concerned about her new symptoms. Then she started singing. They said sometimes she would sing loudly in her room. When visiting time was over, the patients had to line up on one side and the visitors on the other. Arabella went her own way and started to take one of the signs off the wall. We told her she couldn’t take the signs off the wall.

We left in shock. Our daughter was still gone. Would she ever be the same again?

Green light, red light 4

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The aftermath after our daughter was committed was like that of a bomb going off. We were left with shattered lives and broken pieces of rubble. Shards impossible to put back together even as it was a few weeks before everything crumbled.

I can’t find the way back.

We both walked around like zombies afterwards. It’s even hard to focus enough to tell this story adequately. But that’s all a part of being in crisis mode. In utter despair our tears fell to the ground. Arabella was doing so well for the first six months after jail living at home. She found a job. We gave her a stable environment and that gave us a false sense of hope and control. The stress of her tonsillectomy was enough to send her into a relapse worse than we ever saw her in before. She was seeing things and talking to people who weren’t there.

I can’t find the road she is on.

The prognosis bleak, the illness severe. But it’s not the kind of illness where anyone brought her flowers and sent her cards to get well soon. There will be no speedy recovery. Schizophrenia, people shudder in fear and stay away as if it’s contagious. It’s not the mental illness offering up cutesy meme’s of awareness and support. It’s scary and shameful without go fund me and caring bridge pages.

I can’t find anyone who really cares.

I don’t want to talk about it over and over again to people who don’t understand. It’s exhausting in every possible way. I feel tired when I wake up. Bipolar mania, she needs support day and night. She needs support when I need to sleep. No, you can’t buy a snake. You talk too long and too loud. I need a break just to get the things done I need to get done.

I don’t have the strength to do this anymore.

Borderline personality disorder, sometimes you love me and other times you hate me. Which will it be today? It’s too much trapped inside of one body. Finally the doctors were seeing in the hospital what we were seeing at home. Right away, she signed an AMA (against medical advice) to come back home. They had 24 hours to evaluate her before she was going to come back home. Could we even take her back home? She had nowhere else to go.

I don’t know how to help her.

Sunday morning I tried to hide my swollen eyes as I went to church. I felt bitterness enter my heart. I didn’t want to see the happy healthy families. I don’t want to hear about kids going into the ministry. My daughter thinks she is God, does that count? It’s painful to see the normalcy all around me, like being impoverished while everyone is feasting on their riches. I don’t feel the joy or God’s blessings. I think I’ve been cursed since the day I was born. I don’t want to see suffering anymore. Sometimes I even get bored with my feelings of anger towards a God who is supposed to be loving.

Yet I can’t find the way.

What were we going to do? Where are the answers? What if she comes home too early in an agitated psychotic state? Do I call the police? Do I send her back to jail? Do I have her face her felonies or go to prison for an illness she didn’t choose and doesn’t have control over? How was I going to make hard decisions when I couldn’t even think? Decisions that could affect the rest of her life.

Yet I can’t find the way.

We had to find a way to get her to stay as if our very lives depended on it.

Where is the way?

Green light, red light 3

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Arabella said she would go to the hospital if her dog Bryan could go with her. We waited for what seemed like an hour for the crisis center employee to find an open bed. Afterwards, she told us she found a place for Arabella. However, they would not accept dogs real or imagined. Arabella said that was okay because she was on the same wavelength as Bryan so she could take him in her mind. As soon as we could, we left for the hospital. The officers reminded Arabella to follow the rules and they left as well.

The ride to the hospital was long, not in distance but in endurance. Although it was late morning, I was exhausted. Arabella kept talking about algorithms, time travel, and said strange things like her dad wasn’t her dad. She didn’t have a dad, but then all dads were collectively her dad. She wasn’t making a lot of sense and I just tried to listen and placate her until we got there.

We went along with Arabella into the assessment room. We had to lock up all our belongings in a locker before we could enter. They took a wand to sweep over our bodies for weapons. Finding none, they opened the door with a badge and took us into the assessment room without windows. Once we entered, the door locked behind us closing us in the small room with the assessor.

There was paperwork to fill out and questions to answer. We didn’t have all the answers, but most of the time Arabella answered with green light, red light so we gave him our best guess. When was the last time that Arabella felt suicidal? We didn’t know. She was having a hard time being present. At times, she would laugh at nothing. When I asked her why she was laughing, she responded she could see lights and diamonds all over the walls.

On some forms, she wrote down that her name was God. She didn’t know how old she was because she was in an alternate world with alternate time. The questions she answered either yes or no almost angrily without expression. She told the assessor that she was married to Bryan and she lived with him. She said she was the president of the United States. About ten minutes later, the assessor asked Arabella if she was the president in which she emphatically answered, “What, NO.” She said she was several cartoon characters.

Arabella tapped on the assessors computer and said the computer was bugged. Then she stopped answering most questions and asked us repeatedly as her parents whether we chose red light or green light. If we answered green light, she said it was time to go home. If we answered red light, she said it was time to stop and go home. She wanted to get back to Bryan who was waiting for her at home.

After awhile, I asked the assessor what time it was. I made lunch plans with my friend Jen several weeks ago. Earlier in the morning, I pushed the time back to 12:30. It was already past 12:30. I asked the assessor if I could be let out to check my phone. Jen texted me 10 minutes earlier to tell me she was waiting for me at a table. What was I going to do? I asked the assessor if he thought it would be a while yet. He said the assessment was a lot more complex then he thought and would probably be a while. I decided to meet up with my friend and left Paul behind with Arabella.

I ordered a large pizza to bring some food back for him. We left in such a hurry we didn’t bring anything with us to even drink. In the hours we were there, we were each offered a small bottle of water. That was it. I quickly stopped back home to check on the dogs and grab my glasses. Everything was just as we left it. The lights were on and the coffee mugs were left on the table. As I was heading back I received a text from Paul saying he was ready to go home.

It was a miracle he was able to talk Arabella into admitting herself into the hospital to receive help. We were in a crisis mode, but the good news was that the doctors were finally able to see Arabella in the psychotic state we were telling them about. The last time it happened, she got arrested.

Green light, red light 2

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After not being able to reach anyone to talk to besides the receptionist at the psychiatrist’s office upon opening in the morning, Paul and I called the crisis center. The lady at the crisis center asked us to try to bring Arabella in. We weren’t sure if that was possible, but we were going to try. Paul went to her bedroom to try to convince her. She said she would go. Paul asked me to grab his jacket so we could leave ASAP.

I tried to follow Arabella out to the car while she screamed at me to get away. There was no way I was going to stay home. When she got into the back seat, I slid into the back seat on the other side. I was afraid she might try to jump out of the car on the way and that somehow by sitting next to her I would be able to prevent that or could de-escalate her.

Once we got on the highway, Arabella wanted us to take her back home. She said she left Bryan at home sleeping in her bed. She wanted him to be with her. Then she said Bryan was her dog and she was Stuey from Family Guy. But Bryan was also her other half, her soulmate. He felt the same way and they were going to get married. Bryan’s boyfriend found out he was no longer gay on a VR headset and now she could marry him.

Arabella asked us to turn on a radio station in the car that was on her wavelength. It had to be a specific number she could get messages from. She asked Paul to turn the volume up. Anything to placate her. Then she asked him to open the car windows, which he did a little as it was cold outside in the morning. She was only wearing a t-shirt and shorts, but she seemed impervious to the cold. Paul didn’t know how to get to the crisis center. I took her there before but he never did. When I tried to give him directions, Arabella screamed at me to shut the f up multiple times. She shoved me back into the seat.

Not only was Paul trying to get there in the hurry, he was distracted by the thought of me being in danger. He drove erratically with one eye on the rearview mirror. I typed the address into my phone map and tossed the phone to him. We convinced her to go into the crisis center with us by saying Bryan was inside waiting for her. Once inside, Arabella became quite agitated. The employees at the crisis center called the police. I told them to ask for a CIT officer, someone trained in mental health crisis intervention. Arabella ran into the parking lot to try to find Bryan who was interchanging between her soulmate and the dog. She yelled into her phone at him like it was a walkie talkie but he wasn’t really on the phone with her.

She left wearing clothes inappropriate for the weather. We asked if she would be considered a danger to herself and they told us she would not be unless she decided to walk into traffic. We wanted her to be committed, but she had to be a danger to herself or others first unless she went in voluntary and that was going to take A LOT of convincing.

Paul tried to talk her into coming back in, which she did and finally started the assessment with the crisis center employee. She was saying off the wall things. She said she has autism which was the same thing as Down’s Syndrome. The only cure for Down’s Syndrome was meth which would make it into Up Syndrome. The officers arrived as she was talking to the assessor. We explained everything to the officers.

We weren’t sure if Arabella was going to stay. She was nervous once the officers arrived, but said since the exit sign above the door was green instead of red it meant she had to stay. She started repeating green light, red light repeatedly. Then the police officers left and were replaced by officers from the sheriff’s department. Everything happened in a blur but we were there several hours. The officers told Arabella she needed to follow the rules. You cannot push your mother. She replied that she was shaken as a baby. For some reason that shocked me more than anything else she said.

The officers said if Arabella was not willing to seek treatment, they might be able to arrest her for disorderly conduct for shoving me. Then she would have to go back to jail. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to press charges. That would mean her probation would be revoked and then her felonies might be on her record permanently at the age of 20. I didn’t know if I could do that to my daughter, but I didn’t know if I could bring her back home in the state she was in either.

She was agitated, manic, delusional, and having hallucinations which clearly wasn’t her fault or how she would have chosen to live her life.

Green light, red light 1

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Arabella’s tonsillectomy on Valentine’s Day went smoothly. Four days after the surgery, we did end up taking her to the ER late one evening because she was bleeding from one side. I felt rather iffy about taking her in. I wanted to try ice chips and some other things first but she was having nothing to do with it. She was freaking out and said if I didn’t take her in, she would drive herself. I ended up taking her in more because of her mental state than her physical state. She was starting to spiral. It didn’t turn out to be anything serious.

Other than that, everything was relatively uneventful. For a week, she had a really sore throat and could barely talk. Once she started feeling better, she did nothing but talk. At first I thought she was just making up for lost time. She was awake a lot more than normal. She started asking if she could have a pet snake. I told her no. She went to the pet store to look at snakes, did a little begging but the answer remained the same.

The next several days she didn’t seem to sleep at all. She spent much of her time playing video games, watching TV, and texting friends. She seemed rather agitated if anyone tried to get a word in edgewise and dominated conversations. She started to talk about strange ideas. She said she had Dissociative Identity Disorder and that cartoon characters were her different personalities. Then she said she had autism. She said she was just trying to understand herself and while she wasn’t sleeping her brain was processing a lot of information quickly.

She was awake when I woke up in the morning, awake all day, and pacing the floor in the evening. She was awake when I checked on her in the middle of the night. She told me her best friend Bryan was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and she was the reincarnation of Mary Magdalene. The Bible, YouTubers, and TV shows were talking to her in subliminal messages. She was able to go to a different algorithm in an alternate world.

She set up an appointment with a new therapist. She left on time wearing inappropriate clothing with unwashed stringy hair. I was feeling hopeful about it but later she said she didn’t go. She couldn’t tell me why she didn’t go. I was concerned it might be a probation violation. By that time it was almost a full week of mania and delusions which were progressively getting worse. One of her friends reached out to me saying she was worried that my daughter needed help. She was texting some people nonstop about her delusional thoughts.

Any hopes I had of her living a relatively normal life were completely dashed. The first six months after getting out of jail, she was doing really well. Everyone was getting along. She was taking showers and wearing makeup. She got a job and was scheduled to go back to work after her surgery. Then after surgery everything started falling apart. I don’t even know why.

She said she was cutting herself to try to get out of her body. But now her skin was see through. She had x-ray vision and was able to see into people’s souls. She had super powers. It’s all very hard to explain because it makes so little sense to me.

By Friday morning, she was a lot worse. We knew we had to do something. When I went to check in on Arabella in the morning, she screamed and swore at me wanting me to go away. She was very agitated and didn’t want to talk. I could hear her in her room angrily yelling and swearing on a one sided conversation.

The first call we were going to make was to the psychiatrist’s office which wasn’t open yet. In the meantime, we got ready to leave in a moment’s notice.

On caring

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It’s been four years ago today since my daughter Arabella’s first suicide attempt. In this I am rejoicing because she is still alive. It’s been a long hard road, but here we are.

Yesterday, in the early morning hours of Valentine’s day, Arabella had her tonsils removed. So far nothing crazy has happened, unless you count the nurse splattering blood all over the floor with her second attempt to start an IV. All of that makes me quite queasy, along with the thought of anyone I care about being in pain.

I was asked this week if I considered getting medical training to care for my parents in their home. Nope, that thought never crossed my mind. Then I felt the guilt of maybe that thought should’ve crossed my mind. I just don’t think I could do it.

I’ve been a caregiver since the beginning of my time, while I myself was still in the need of care. The earliest (traumatic) memory of that is of watching my three younger brothers by myself in the lake when I was six. My youngest brother almost drowned. I was always the ‘second mother’ since I can remember. I was my mom’s ‘best friend’ and I had to take care of her and make sure she was okay while I went uncomforted.

As a teenager, I was providing care for my autistic brother Matt who was less than two years younger than me. I was also helping with showering and personal care. My mom relied on me more than she relied on my dad when I was yet a child. Starting at age 12, I started working as a babysitter for about a dozen neighborhood families.

In college, I worked as…you guessed it, a caregiver. I was still a caregiver for my brother Matt along with a man with schizophrenia and a woman with dementia. Two months after college graduation, I got married, and two months after that I was pregnant. I never questioned whether or not I would be a good mother. I was actively parenting my own three kids from 1998 through 2021. While actively parenting, I became a babysitter to several other children, one of whom was in a wheelchair. I also provided care for my Great Aunt Grace who had dementia which also included bathing and personal care.

Then in 2020, exactly 4 years ago today, my daughter developed a serious mental illness. Even though she turned 18 in 2021, I will probably have to provide care for her in some capacity for the rest of my life. I will also become the guardian of my brother Matt when my parents can no longer do it. Last week we had the conversation of putting me on my brother’s account so I can write checks if my parents are unable to so he can continue to stay in his group home without disruption.

Right now my mom seems to be slipping into dementia, but physically she is in great shape. My dad is of sound mind but in horrible condition physically. The only thing normal about my parents is that they both want to stay in their home as long as they can. They don’t want any caregivers to come out to the house because they don’t trust that people won’t steal from them. I have been helping them check what their options are. I am totally fine helping them manage their care and making sure they are in a good place, but I don’t think I would be willing to be their caregiver.

Some may say it’s selfish, but I have my own life and my own problems. This week I started a new medicine for ulcerative colitis. I have my own health issues. But even if I didn’t, I still wouldn’t want to do it. I can’t recall one single good memory with my dad. He was abusive and his issues with addiction pushed most of the family away. If he was a great dad, I would bend over backwards to help him. There is truth to the old saying of you reap what you sow. When I was younger I hungered and thirst for justice. But not any longer as I see it playing out before me just as it was meant to be.

There is a reason why some old people are sitting alone with no visitors at the nursing home. No doubt, it is incredibly sad. I wish it wasn’t that way either. But if you never put any money in the bank, how are you supposed to take any money out?

I try to put everything I can into my relationships that are meaningful. Everything else can take the back burner.

Life as I know it

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Whew, it’s been awhile which hasn’t been my intention. I was meaning on writing earlier this week, but the dogs jumped the fence and ran away. I had to focus on the problem at hand instead. Thankfully Paul got tags for the dogs with their name along with our address and phone number. We received a phone call several hours after the escape from a farmer who had one of our dogs. Paul went over to pick him up and figured the other dog was nearby. The farmer lived along 150 wooded acres and took Paul with him on his 4-wheeler to search for an hour with no results.

Paul and I both spent a good portion of the day each driving around aimlessly searching, asking people we saw on the road, and driving with our windows down and heat up listening for the stray bark. I was searching for a good picture of our last missing dog, joining groups for missing pets, and just made a post as darkness was quickly approaching when the doorbell rang. Someone found our second dog walking on the road toward home several houses down. It was strange because when our second dog came home, the dogs snarled and fought with each other. Another crisis was averted, but the day was pretty much shot. On a good note, we were grateful to see the kindness of strangers.

Last week I had my follow up endoscopy and my doctor appointment this week. The good news is that my ulcer is gone, but my colitis is still here. They gave me another medicine to try and if things don’t get better in the next two weeks, they are going to put me on a medication for ulcerative colitis. So far no improvement. I’ve been gaining weight like crazy and nothing fits which has not been pleasant.

Arabella also had her doctor appointment and will need to get her tonsils out. The recovery period for her will be two weeks. A lot of people have been telling me it’s a hard surgery for adults. It will be nice to be able to mom her again though.

Yesterday my mom came over for a visit. This week my dad fell and my mom called 911. It took three men to be able to lift him up. My mom showed me pictures of his bruises from falling. She also showed me pictures of his bedsores. I think he needs to go into nursing care, or at the very least they should have a health care worker come out to the house. I told my mom that and asked her what she was planning on doing. I asked my mom several times, but she didn’t even acknowledge that I was speaking to her. She kept saying how hard her week has been and how she is having a hard time. She said she wasn’t invited to visit her sister down in Florida, although her other sister was invited.

I think something needs to be done. But my parents are still ‘competent’. Thankfully my brother Mark and his wife Carla will be visiting my parents this weekend. I’m hoping I can talk to them about the situation and try to get the ball rolling to come up with a plan. Otherwise, Paul and I will be going out to talk with them soon. But even that is complicated with Arabella’s surgery coming up and Paul possibly being out of town for a business trip. Not to mention that my parent’s are the guardian of my disabled brother. It’s just one big mess.

But other than all that, things are going fairly good. I am almost finished with my memoir. I’m planning on getting a couple more tattoos. Next month Paul and I have a trip planned to Hawaii and I’m getting close to crossing off visiting all 50 states off my bucket list. I am happy where I am at in life. Things aren’t perfect, such as with my own health struggles, but I’m adjusting. For the time being, I am not in crisis mode and I’m going to enjoy it as long as it lasts.

Freezing to death

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I naively thought we might have escaped the harshness of winter with our unseasonably warm December and start of the new year. Until last week, that is. We got hit with several snowstorms and kicked the weekend off with a blizzard. Then we plunged right into arctic cold wind chills.

Paul was supposed to go on an ice fishing trip in the far north woods of Wisconsin. The mild winter only produced a couple inches of ice on the northern inland lakes and Lake Superior has open water. Usually by this time of year, people are driving their trucks on the lakes and have their ice shacks set up. This year with the weak ice followed by a blizzard then arctic cold, the trip got cancelled. Although the ice is forming fast now.

While Paul was gone, I had plans to go on an overnight trip to a casino. My friend Sue, who won a small jackpot months before, had to be present for a chance to win a car and $100,000. Paul said since his plans got cancelled, he would be willing to drive us there in his truck. But with the weather, we weren’t sure if we were going or not. Normally the trip takes us two and a half hours. But since half the trip is small towns and back roads, no doubt it would take a lot longer. The side roads would be snow covered and slippery since ice doesn’t melt in subzero temperatures if the roads are not plowed right away.

We decided to brave the trip. If we waited for perfect weather conditions in our state, we would be hibernating half the year. Late Saturday morning, Paul and I set off for our trip with Sue and her husband. We had supper at an Italian restaurant with really good food. Then we went to the casino. The drawing for the car and chance to win the money was at 10 PM. While there, I saw several people win big jackpots. The place was packed with jackpot winners waiting for their chance to win yet again. Sadly, Sue didn’t win. But we had a fun time anyway.

Arabella was home watching the pets. I spent a lot of my time worrying that the dogs were going to freeze to death. It was the first night we left the dogs for the night. Even if I am home, I am very paranoid the animals are going to freeze to death. Maybe the cats will sneak outside with someone. Maybe Arabella will let the dogs out then forget to let them back in. The maybes start swirling through my head faster than the snow in the blizzard winds.

Why am I always so worried about my animals when it is cold outside?? Then it hit me. As a child of around 13, I did have some animals freeze to death when I wasn’t home. It was probably around October and it was freezing at night. Two of my outdoor cats had kittens. One had 6 and the other had 4. One of the mama cat’s was a good mom and the other cat was not. The mama cats were sisters and they took care of each other’s babies. At night, I had to lock the cats in with their kittens because one would stay and the other would not.

We hardly went anywhere, but that night we got home late. Too late, in fact. One of the mama cat’s was with a box of babies and the other was not. The box of babies without the mama cat froze to death. My mom said I needed to bury the box of dead kittens. I found a shovel. It was dusk when I found a good burial spot. The ground was cold and hard. But I was able to dig a little hole. I put my hand into the box to pick up one of the fluffy kitties. I screamed when I touched the kitten’s little frozen body. I couldn’t do it. The kitten was so cold and death was so final for these babies. I started crying and threw the box, kittens and all, into the weeds.

I felt awful. Maybe their deaths could’ve been prevented if I didn’t go somewhere with my mom and brothers. I blamed myself. And on Arctic bitterly cold days, I can’t help but worry it could happen again.

Christmas is (almost) over

/ Outrunning my demons / 1 Comment

I bet you were all on the edge of your seat wondering if I made it through the holidays. I did!! This past weekend I took the Christmas trees down. Although, today, with our first named winter snowstorm it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas after an unseasonably warm December.

I usually take my tree down on New Year’s Day. I decided to leave it up a little longer because I was having a winter themed murder mystery party with friends on Saturday. The game ended up being stressful because one of the couples had to cancel last minute. I was desperate to find two more people. As a last ditch effort, I asked my son and his girlfriend to play. I was surprised when they said yes and even found costumes with less than an hour until game time. Although this was the most poorly written murder mystery game I’ve played, I had a great time with all our kids playing.

Sunday, Paul watched the Packer game with some family and friends while I took down the trees and decorations. Usually it is a sad time for me. But this year I was ready to let the holiday season and 2023 go.

The weekend before I hosted a Christmas party for my family and New Year’s Eve with friends. For the most part, everything went pretty well. My sister-in-laws at best seem to tolerate my side of the family. My SIL Emily is rather boring and comes from a close to perfect family. My nieces Eva and Gracie are closer to her side of the family. We are the ‘other’ family. Luke and Emily also have a foreign exchange student this year. She is kind of whiny and I think Eva and her leave Gracie out a lot. They showed up the night before. Gracie was sick. She was coughing so hard she threw up on herself. But everyone insisted she was fine. She just had a cough for a couple weeks.

My SIL Carla was in a good mood. There is a 50/50 chance she will be raging and pissy or the best SIL in the world by being friendly, fun, and exciting. Thankfully, she was the later. I found a recipe to make chocolate martini’s and her glass was never quite full enough. We had a great time playing games after all the hoopla.

The hoopla itself was another story. Dan and Angel had a sick kitten, so they weren’t sure if they were even going to come to the party. Thankfully, it all worked out. After lunch, Gracie, Carla, and I cleaned the kitchen. Gracie wanted to stay at my house for the week but wasn’t feeling well and didn’t bring extra clothes as she lives far away. I told her some day, hopefully soon, we will make plans.

After everything was cleaned up, it was time to open gifts. When we get together with my family, we buy my mom gifts and she buys everyone gifts but we don’t exchange gifts with each other. Usually my mom goes overboard on the gifts. This year was no exception. Well, except for Gracie. Gracie didn’t receive any gifts. I did order some gifts for Gracie on Amazon for my mom using her credit card. Her credit card listed some of the purchases as fraudulent although other purchases did go through. I told her she needed to call her credit card company. She did, but couldn’t verify what we purchased together so they cancelled her order and credit card. Although she did the same thing last year without problems. She forgot to bring Gracie’s other gifts. I could tell Gracie felt pretty hurt, but she was a good sport.

Then when it was time to go home, my mom didn’t know how to turn on her headlights and came back into the house for help. She got lost on her way to her extended family Christmas party two weeks before. I don’t know how much longer my parents will be able to stay in their house. I tried to talk with my brother Luke about it but he didn’t really want to talk about it. I didn’t have the chance to talk to Mark about it. We only get together as a family twice a year, so I probably won’t see my brothers until this summer. I want to have a plan in place before then.

New Year’s Eve was a bust. Not a lot of people were able to come; some were sick and other’s had family plans. My best friend’s son came with his family; his wife, a 4 year old, a 2 year old, and a newborn. It was hectic and it’s been a long time since I had to worry about childproofing. Everyone was tired out. We didn’t play any games. I fell asleep while everyone was watching the Packer game. Everyone seemed to have a hard time making it to midnight. My son had a party next door and everyone left right after midnight too.

The weekend before was Christmas Eve at my best friend’s. We had the kids over for Christmas day and Paul’s step-dad stopped in with his fiancé later that evening. It was an excellent weekend. Paul and I even bought each other the same gift. The weekend before that was my mom’s extended family Christmas party. I am all partied out.

I cried after Thanksgiving was over. But with back to back parties several weekends, eating tons of rich foods and desserts, making Christmas cookies and chocolate martini’s, I think I’m ready to go back to my normal life. I only have two more Christmas parties to go… But I am done hosting. Too much of a good thing can be exhausting and that seems to make it easier to let go. Not to mention that 2023 was not a good year to write home about. Good riddance! This year I hope to get the blessings and joy package instead of the trials and tribulation pack.

So far 2024 seems pretty decent.