The Denora

Changes are a coming...

Hi! Miss me?

I realize that I disappeared for 3 months without a word, and for the 4 of you that read this blog, I'd like to assure you I am fine. The last post I wrote was about my Grampa dying, and the weeks following were not pleasant for me or my family. Every time I sat down to write a post, I felt whiny and angry and sad, and I didn't want to constantly project negativity. So I chose not to write. And then not writing became a habit, and here we are 3 months later and my blog service subscription is about to expire.

Six months ago I began moving my blog to my own site, so I could have more control over this and that and the other thing, and I'm really excited to tell you that it's finally done. So while this is my first post in 3 months, it is also my last post using Typepad. I love Typepad. I think it's a fantastic service, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to start a blog. I just needed something a little different to fit me. This is my last post using Typepad, but not my last post ever. I'll be starting to blog again regularly, and I'd love it if you'd join me.

You can find me here from now on. I hope to see you soon!

Grampa

Four years ago my Grampa went into the hospital, and none of us thought he'd ever go home again. The cancer was making it impossible to eat, and he was getting worse by the day. It was a few weeks before my wedding, and we were already sure he wouldn't be able to make it to see me get married. I went in to visit him, and he didn't know who I was. I didn't think anything could have hurt me more. They told me it was the morphine he was on, and that in between doses he was fully aware of what was happening and who everyone was. But the morphine made him forget and hallucinate. Moments later he mimed eating oatmeal because he really thought it was there. I suppose that should have made me feel better, because it really was the morphine and not his memory going. But the pain never went away. I cannot imagine what the family and friends of Alzheimer patients have to deal with. I know I'm just not strong enough to deal with that kind of hurt.

 

They said he was getting worse, and when I left for my honeymoon, I was sure I'd never see Grampa again. But he made it. And the medicine began to shrink the tumor in his esophagus. He went home a while later, and while he never got back to his full pre-hospital health, he had a great two and a half years, before he started getting worse again.

 

On Friday I got a call from my mom telling me what I'd hoped to hear for almost a year. Grampa was almost gone, and it was finally time to say goodbye for good. His quality of life had been so awful during the last year, that it's hard for me to feel guilt about wanting it to be over for him. It was so painful to watch him struggle to eat, to breathe, to walk. Saturday I went to see what was left of him. It wasn't my Grampa. It looked like him, but the important parts were missing. The twinkle in his eye, the laughter in his voice, the strength in his face. All of that had been gone for a while, and all that remained was the shell of the man he'd once been.

 

He died in his sleep early Sunday morning. After the majority of the family had come to say goodbye. I am relieved and miserable all at the same time. He's no longer in pain, and that makes dealing with the loss a tiny bit easier for me. But the pain is still intense. I think part of me still clung to the hope that he would miraculously get better, despite every single sign pointing to the opposite. It's hard to believe and accept that your Grampa will die, no matter how obvious it is. The worst part right now, for me, is that I can't remember him healthy. I can't get past the frail old man he'd become and remember the healthy strong man he was. If someone says "Remember when..." I can remember the situation, but the image of him is of the sick man, not the healthy one, despite the fact that he was healthy at the time of the memory. I know that will pass in time, but right now it hurts more than anything. I'd give anything to have a memory of him being healthy.

 

I love you, Grampa. I'm so glad you're not suffering anymore, and are no longer in pain.

Moving can sometimes suck

Thursday my cable internet went out. Right as I was attempting to upload the new house pictures I'd taken on Wednesday. I'd had a lot of temporary outage problems with my current provider (making me thankful that they don't provide service at the new house) so I assumed that was the problem. But since I had the same issue on Friday, and discovered my phone line (also provided by the cable company) was dead, I thought I might give them a call. A fantastically helpful woman did everything she could to troubleshoot the problem, but was unable to come up with a solution. So she scheduled a technician to come pay me a visit on Sunday morning. I didn't even know Sunday mornings were an option, but apparently for this company they are! I made the appointment and hung up.

The more I thought about it, the dumber that decision appeared. The new house cable internet and phone will be connected on Friday. So having a cable guy come fix the internet at my apartment so I could use it for only 5 days seemed stupid. I called Saturday to cancel the Sunday technician and cancel the internet and phone service. (The TV service was still fully functional, so I left that one alone.) A fantastically UNhelpful man did nothing but make me want to go down to the call center and punch him directly in the head. I explained that I'd not had service for 3 days, and that since I was moving shortly anyhow, I wanted to save Tech Guy some time and not have him come out. I also told him that I wanted to cancel the service effective immediately, since it's not working anyhow. Why pay when I can't use it? So Mr. Unhelpful cancels the appointment. Then proceeds to tell me that he can't cancel the service until I bring in my equipment, regardless of the fact that they haven't been providing me service for the last 3 days, but I'll be expected to pay them for it. Ok fine, nevermind the canceling of the Tech Guy, I'll just get it fixed since I have to pay for it anyhow. He proceeds to tell me that i now have to reschedule my appointment (since he canceled that first rather than canceling the service), and the next available tech appointment is THURSDAY (the day before the new house gets it's internet service). Um, what? I just canceled an appointment for 10am tomorrow, but there's nothing else until Thursday? Screw that. I'm not paying for an entire week of internet service that I can't even use. So I had to drive over to the payment center and bring them my cable modem to cancel my service. My apartment is without the internet, as is the new house. My phone has net, as does work, so I'm not completely untethered to the electronic world. But I am unable to upload the pictures of the house that I've taken. Sorry!

I will try to sneak them on to my work computer sometime this week, but work has suddenly become busy, so I'm not sure when that'll be. At the very latest, pics will be posted Friday as a test of the new cable installation at the house!

Keys!

Ignoring the fact that the picture is slightly out of focus because my phone camera sucks, are those not the prettiest keys you've ever seen? I had no idea that they made keys with designs on them! I was like a kid in a candy store when we went to get key copies made at Lowe's last night. There were so many options! I settled on the Hawaiian design for the pool key, and the Dragonfly (which I can't find online) for my gate key. Since they're changing all our locks on the house, we just got generic silver keys made, which seems so sad and dull in comparison to the other keys. But fear not, dear friends! Once the house has been re-keyed, a glorious new designer key shall be made, and the house key will no longer be the drab generic key on a ring of fabulousness!

Also, I think I've lost my mind. But at least I've not lost my keys!

Hunting...Done.

So after all that whining last Wednesday about not finding a house, Thursday we found one. We were actually pretty familiar with it, as it's 2 streets over from where Donald lives now. It had been for sale for AGES, but was always outside our price range. When it came up on a website we'd been looking at for rentals, we called right away and made an appointment to see it. It's exactly what I wanted. I walked in and felt right at home. Donald was running late, so I did a walk through on my own, and it was all I could do not to skip through the house. It's lovely. 2500 SF, 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, an office, a loft, and a decent sized fully concreted backyard, with pretty planters along the back wall (so now I have to learn something about flowers. And gardening. And being somewhat domestic). When Donald got there, he looked at all the things I'd skipped: DirecTV dish, outlets, washer/dryer hookups, etc. All I cared about was that the layout was nice, everything was clean, and Mia couldn't get out through any holes in the fences. We submitted our application and got the call on Saturday that said we were approved and tonight we do our walk through and get the keys! I could not possibly be more excited.

I gave notice at my apartment complex last Friday, so I have a full 3 1/2 weeks to move my stuff out of the apartment and into the house. I like that I am not forced to do all the moving in one weekend. I'll be moving a few things every night, since it's less than 10 minutes from me, and once all the little stuff is moved, I can do all the big furniture at one time. I'm not packing as much as I should, since I just plan on throwing things in the car and taking them over, but I'm still finding a ton of things that I'd rather give to Goodwill than move into the new house. If you're in the Corona area and looking for some useless junk, you should stop by the local Goodwill in the next few weeks!

Tomorrow afternoon I'll post all the pictures I'm planning on taking tonight, so you can all share in my joy of this fabulous new house! Happy Key Day!

Hunting

I have an extremely annoying habit of setting my expectations way too high, and then being disappointed when they don't get met. Sadly, I'm aware of this problem, and am constantly vowing to be more realistic next time. Except that never seems to happen, and I'm stuck with a string of let downs.

I thought finding a new place to live would be easy. We'd narrow it down to a few houses, go take a look, and then the clouds would part, birds would sing, we'd sign a lease and it'd be done. Except that only happens in the movies. We've scoured the net, the papers, and driven through countless neighbourhoods looking for places to rent.We've called a dozen listings, and received a handful of callbacks. (Note to potential landlords: If you are trying to rent out a residence, it's helpful to actually return the call of the renter who is interested in the property. Just a thought) (Also, if you tell someone you're going to call them back, then DO SO. Don't just forget about them until they call the next day wondering what the status of the house is. Even if you were unable to get an answer, a quick call back to the potential customer letting them know you're working on it is better than silence. Schmuck.)

I need to work on patience in my life, and this process is just proof that I am sucking at it. I am an instant gratification kind of girl. When I decide I want something or want to do something, I don't want to wait. I decided several months ago that I was done living in my apartment, and I wanted to get the hell out. The fact that this did not instantly happen was annoying to me. Now that I'm actively looking and trying hard to find some place new and not getting it done, I'm really irritated. And it's irrational irritation. I understand that. I should be looking at the wait as more time to get my apartment cleared of clutter, and more time to get the things I want to keep packed up and ready to move. But logic has a way of escaping my notice sometimes. Like on days ending in Y.

Stolen.

Every now and again I look at the stats of my blog to see how people are finding me. I always click the random google searches and see what else was listed along with my blog. I get a lot of hits from kidney donation, and cute pug searches, as well as hits for people looking for the Italian company De Nora.

A few nights ago there was a search phrase which I found sorta odd, so I clicked on it. I saw my blog came up as the first hit as a post I'd written about my birthday last year, and there were three other links below it. Imagine my surprise when the last link looked exactly like mine. I clicked it and was shocked to find that someone had stolen my words and posted them as their own. A few minor details had been changed, but it was still blatantly stolen from my own blog. At first I was speechless. I just sorta stared and tried to figure out why someone would do it. It's not like it was stolen and used for an article, but rather stolen and used as a personal blog post. What's the point of that? A personal blog is there to express how YOU feel, not to steal the words of others and post them as your own. The more I thought about it, the more upset I became. I mentally wrote and rewrote nasty e-mails demanding that the post be removed. I finally settled on a polite but firm message to the author asking them to remove the post immediately. 

It's a few days later and the offending post is still there. Technically, there is nothing I can do, as my blog is not copyright protected. But it seems that common courtesy should prevail in such a situation, and the post should be removed, yes?

UPDATE: Not only has the post been removed, but the blogger cancelled their entire account. I'd rather they had kept it and written from the heart, but if this is better for them, so be it.

My Sister

Every day she gets up and goes to work with nary a complaint to be heard. She gets kicked, punched, beaten, pinched, her hair pulled, toys and chairs thrown at her, bitten, and slapped. She comes home, talks non-stop about how much she loves her job, and then does it all again.

She has the difficult kids. The ones with labels that the system feels is right for them. The behavior issues. The ones dealing with Autism. The kids the other teachers silently thank the heavens that they don't have to deal with.

She loves her job, and loves those kids even more. She is fiercely protective of them, and it infuriates her to see other teachers throw away the hard work her kids have done when they move up into a new class. She pushes them because she knows they can do it, even if they don't.

She believes in tough love, not only with her students, but with her coworkers. She won't baby them or hold their hand. She'll let them make mistakes, knowing the whole time that their plan will blow up in their face. Also knowing that next time they'll think it through a little harder and do a better job.

She spends hundreds of her own dollars to get her kids the things they need to learn. The things her school can't afford to provide them. She writes proposals on Donors Choose to get the things that she can't afford for them.

She's the only teacher in her school who's hung up the phone on her principal. The student having the meltdown was more important to her than being politically correct. When other teachers have a student with a behavioral problem, they come to her for help. Because she knows what she's doing.

She got her Master's degree while working full time. When asked if she'd go on to get her PhD, she said no. She doesn't want to be overqualified for the job she loves. She doesn't want to teach other people how to do her job. She just wants to do it.

She can't go 15 minutes without sharing a cute or funny story about one of her kids. Her eyes light up at the thought of them, and she'll talk about them for days if you don't change the subject. And yet you never want to, because her excitement and enthusiasm is contagious.

She teaches her kids the social skills they can't learn on their own. She wants them to sound like kids. "That's so cool," and "You're a rock star!" can often be heard in her classroom, rather than "Good job". She taught them to say "Peace out" and has been known to tell a kid to "Man up" every now and again.

She's only in her third year of teaching, and she's one of the final five nominees for Teacher of the Year in her district. A fact she's quite indifferent to. The fact she was nominated in the first place is enough for her. She doesn't need to be recognized for her efforts. In her own words, she knows she "kicks ass."

Whether or not she wins is irrelevant. Ask any parent of any student she's ever worked with, and you'll hear just what an impact she's had on their lives. There's no award that can come close to that.

In the immortal words of one of her favorite students: Hooray Miss Jen!

Spreading the love!

So my plan was to write a big post yesterday about it being the year anniversary of my kidney donation, and all that fun stuff. But then I realized you guys have heard it all before, and nothing has really changed. So instead, I'm going to tell you how I plan to make a minor but meaningful change to my life.

I am not a creative person. Coming up with an original idea is always very hard for me, but I actually do well at refining or working with other people's ideas. Because the idea is never my own, I always feel bad about stealing from other people. But this time I don't feel bad, since it's such a great idea.

When we were kids (at least when I was a kid) we didn't have e-mail or Twitter or text messages, or Facebook or any of the other thousand ways people keep in touch now. We had the phone and the USPS. I remember getting excited any time I got something in the mail, which was all of once a year for my birthday. When I got older, friends would send me Christmas and/or Hanukkah cards, and again I was excited. A couple months ago I was in need of a cute baby shower card, and I went to my card expert friendfor advice. It was all downhill from there. I have become addicted to cards of all types (and subsequently made a new friend through visiting her shop). But, because of this addiction and a post made recently, I've also become inspired.

From now on I'm sending at least 2 snail mail cards or postcards to my friends or family each week. Just a note to say hi or happy birthday, or thanks for being a good friend. (Yes, Jenn, the misplaced Christmas cards are coming). I sent out a couple this week, and I was amazed at how happy it made me. I'm hoping, once the cards are received, that they'll be just as pleased as I was. I also hope it inspires other people to do the same, because really, what's better than getting random love from your friends?

Catching Up

The last couple of weeks have been busy for me, and yet every time I sit down to blog, I find myself with nothing of interest to say. So I'm going to fall back on bullet points, and if you want further details, you can go ahead and ask me.

• The dancing class Donald and I signed up for has been a blast. We skipped last week due to exhaustion, but the other classes have been great fun. You rotate partners, so you have to learn to dance with people that might not be as good as you'd like them to be. (See? Wasn't that nice?) Everyone there is really nice, despite some lack of rhythm, memory, or  in some cases, deodorant. When this class ends, I want to try and get into another one.
• I've started a new hobby! I am big on taking pictures of things, and keeping mementos of events, (ticket stubs, cards, parking passes, etc.) but I never have anything to do with them. A couple of my friends are big scrapbookers, but I'd always rejected the idea since I have no creativity. As it turns out, you can copy other people's ideas using your own pictures and paper, and it comes out looking great! So I've started scrapbooking. I took a beginner's class last week, and really enjoyed it. And a friend generously sent me some stickers, vellum phrases, tags, and an album to get started! I'm taking it slow, because it can be REALLY expensive, but I'm enjoying it!
• I also joined the Ontario Reign Booster Club. I've mentioned on multiple occasions that I've become a huge Reign fan, and I thought joining the Booster Club would be a great way to get out and meet new people with the same interests. I'm notoriously shy, but I've been trying hard to get past that. My first step was the small scrapbook class I mentioned, and now I'm jumping into a booster club with both feet. I have no idea what I'll be doing, but it'll be a way to get out and meet people, rather than sit at my computer wishing I had more friends to hang out with.
• Mia got a new vet and I LOVE her. The first thing she did was look at Mia's medical history and get downright pissed off that they (the clinic) had been treating her for 5 years but hadn't figured out what was wrong. In her words it was "unacceptable!" I couldn't agree more. She basically suggested an "overhaul" for Mia. She has all new prescription food, a firm restriction on treats (she can't have ANY), and she got several skin cultures, blood tests, and different shots to help treat the problem. It cost me an arm and a leg, but at least now I have a vet who wants a permanent cure, not just a temporary fix. The best part, in my opinion, is that the vet called me the next day to go over everything she'd done, since she didn't get to see me when I picked Mia up. The previous vet NEVER called me to talk about what happened. In fact, it's something I've complained about to the clinic. They do a whole battery of tests every time I come in, and then I hear absolutely nothing about the results. I go back 3 or 4 months later and lather, rinse, repeat. This time I'm getting answers and I am THRILLED!
• Donald and I have decided to move in together in the next couple of months, so I've been going through my stuff and getting rid of things I just don't need or want. All day yesterday I sorted through boxes and boxes of junk, taking out what was salvageable for Goodwill, and putting the rest in bags for the dumpster. I made 8 trips to the dumpster, and had a full bag of clothes and a box of odds and ends for Goodwill. And I'm only about halfway done with my second bedroom/office/junk storage room.

I think that about covers everything. I feel like I should have so much more to say, but I just don't.