Little Red Wagon

I love my family.  I love  my friends.
They make me happy.

 My blogger friends, yep, you.......you make me happy, too.

I was told a few times, that my aching head was talking, that I should not make any wild decisions  while I was in the midst of the headache from hell.

Of course, I didn't listen.
I had a headache.

Then, last week, Theresa of  Runamuck Weaving put it this way.  I guess I was 'ready' to hear it.

"It's like your own little red wagon. You can work part time, make that fewer days per week or do it seasonally. Why not allow summers for travel and fall for retreats and hunker down and weave in winter, part or full time. To every thing a season and all that and you're the bus driver."

 

I'M THE BUS DRIVER.

HA!  WHO KNEW???

 

Today L and I played hookey, and did some unplanned touring, which in my opinion is the best kind.

 

 

I feel a sense of freedom I haven't felt in a long time.

 

 

I am not caretaking my mother any more.

I am hopeful that my head is going to heal.

 I am done with surgery.  Please.

 I am excited about all the things to do, places to go, sights to see.
I feel like a kid.

 

 And yes, there is snow in the Adirondacks.
Have mercy.

 

Life is good.

The Adirondacks rock.

 

 

The future is like a blank chalkboard.

 

I want to draw all over it.

 

 In color. Vibrant color.

 

I am so grateful  for the strength I have been given, that got me through these last two years.

 

Grateful for the family that picks on me, loves me, stands by me, no matter what.

 

Ever thankful for the friends who weave with me, walk with me, ride back roads with me.

Have my back.

 

Something is happening in my head.  I dream incredible dreams night after night, melding the past and the present.
I feel something shifting, and I think it's good.

Places like this make me wish winter weren't coming so soon.

But in the words of Albert Camus:

"In the midst of winter, I found there was, in me, an invincible summer."
 

Cluck, cluck

My youngest daughter commented recently that I didn't need anything else to do.  But tell me, when did that ever stop me?

And I promised my grandgirls, Gabby and Ava, that they could raise chickens.  

Yes, chickens.

We saw them at the County fair this summer, and they reminded me that I had told them that a while back,  and I said yes, in the spring, we would order chickens.

So in an attempt to not be scrambling in the spring, I had the chicken coop plans hot and ready.

Here is is, and for some unknown reason, I decided that it would be good to have it in front of the barn, near the house.

Part of my reasoning was that there is a HUGE brush pile on the spot where I really wanted to put it.

 

 

 Of course, then I got thinking about it, and realized what a mistake it was to put it there.
Can I just say that my brain isn't always spot on.

 So I did what any self respecting woman would do.
I changed my mind.

Luckily, my regular carpenter/handy man is often like one of my own kids, and he
makes adjustments for my quirkiness, with the require amount of grumbling.

This morning he was there bright and early.  He moved the brush pile over about 10 ft, and then he proceeded to move the coop, not an easy feat.
They actually rolled it on those pipes, a few feet at a time.

 Before long it was back next to the metal shed, where I originally wanted it to go.

 It's done, and ready for chickens.

The girls are going to do a little decorating, and painting.  Gabby informed me they needed a sign, "chicks only".

 The door was a gift, fancy for a chicken coop, but it was free.

The only problem I see is that when the chicks arrive, the girls aren't going to want to go to school, they're going to want to come to Mimi's.

The last two years have taught me a lot about my life.  I have to admit that just lately I have had a
real "aha" moment.
 My blog has actually been a big part of my thought process.   It's all  there in black and white, no escaping it.

I could give you the long drawn out description, but here it is in the skinny.

I have had a tough two years of incredible pain, I have experienced fear of the future, and have generally been thrown out of my comfort zone.   In response, I desired to run away, to move to Maine, to sell my business, to downsize, and redesign my entire life.

As things are calming down, and I am getting my balance back so to speak, I realize that all that was like an alcoholic making a geographical change.  It was  the voice of desperation, trying to get away from a reality that was just plain overwhelming, though running away really didn't change a thing.

 " The general remedy of those, who are uneasy without knowing the cause, is change of place; they are willing to imagine that their pain is the consequence of some local inconvenience, and endeavour to fly from it, as children from their shadows; always hoping for more satisfactory delight from every new scene, and always returning home with disappointments and complaints.

"The fountain of content must spring up in the mind; and that he, who has so little knowledge of human nature, as to seek happiness by changing any thing, but his own dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove."

Samuel Johnson, 1750


I still want to go to Maine.  Cause I love Maine.  I just don't need to relocate.
I still want to downsize, but in a more reasonable frame of mine.

And no, I don't want to sell Crazy as a Loom, it's my BABY, for crying out loud.

I do however, want to redesign my life, which includes a lot of different ways to minimize,  simplify, and clarify what I want to do.
I don't want to work 6 days a week.
I do want to spend more time with my family and friends.

I can't change my crazy self.
But I can slow it down a bit, and live every day  like it was my last.

Cause you never know.

Baking and thinking.

There is still some color left in the northeast, in spite of wind and rain.  This is my favorite.

 I decided to stay home today, and not go to the studio.  I know that sometimes I push the envelope, so I wanted to try it another way.   It was raining this morning anyway, so today seemed like a good day to do just that.

Years ago, I baked a lot of bread.  When my kids were little, I committed to not buying bread for a year, and made my own.  Since then, I have gotten away from it.  It doesn't help that the big super markets have bakeries that offer everything, without the work.
But baking bread has been on my mind.  I especially wanted to make my old stand by fave, Anadama Bread.
So since I wasn't rushing off this morning, that's exactly what I did.   I made bread.

My big worry was that I was so out of practice, that my bread wouldn't rise.

I needn't have worried.

Before long the kitchen smelled of bread baking, and it brought back a carload of pleasant memories of a kitchen I baked in a  long time ago.

One did get a little 'crazy' higher than the other.

 

It was a lovely morning, and when the bread was cooling, I took Roy for a walk.  The rain had stopped and the sun was out.

 I have been thinking a lot about my situation.  The "not knowing" is the hardest part.   I have no idea if the extraneous bone in my head will grow back or not.  The Gortex  may work, it may not.  It may protect the dura of my brain, it may not.  The Alleve twice a day may inhibit the bone growth, or it may not.  I may be able to tolerate the side effects, or I may not.

Twice now, the bone has grown back in four months,  and the headaches have become unbearable.

I guess it is understandable that I feel like there is a huge cloud over my head........will the sun break through, or will the storm return?  There is no way to know.  It could happen exactly the way it has before.  Or a miracle could happen, and it could be different.

It wears on me sometimes.

I am not sure I can even explain how I feel about it.

The only way to deal with it, I find, is to just try to live everyday as if it were the only one I have.

Because it is.

Today I made soup.  I made bread.  I kicked leaves, and walked Roy.

Today that's enough.

A little of this, and that

I am finally driving, only to the studio and back.
I am so glad that I am not missing October altogether, which is what I was afraid would happen.

L is keeping everything going......for the third time in 14 months.   She's got it down to a science now.
Crazy as a Loom has stayed open for business, in spite of my troubles.

Before my surgery, L and I put 75 yards of 8/2 cotton on the AVL.  But I never got it threaded.  I wanted to, buy my head disagreed.
So L has been threading the heddles, and sleying the reed.  She finished it today.
Not a minute too soon.

 I am not quite ready to weave, but I had the dobby bars all pegged with a new pattern, and I just wanted to do enough to see what it was going to look like.
What do you think?

 I am smitten, and can't wait to get back to it.
75 yards should keep me amused for awhile.  What I love about the AVL is that it fits me well, and weaving on it is really easy for me, and my neck.

 I hated to walk away from it, but walk away I did.

I went home and got creative with some leftover peppers.
I would rather be weaving, but there you have it.

First I cooked some quinoa in some butter, then added some water, then the red and green peppers, and some onion.

And some cilantro, a little garlic, some RoTel tomatoes, and so chipotle baked beans.

 And I added a little rice.
I have NO idea what to call it, but it's really good.

 

Then I took my required nap.  

Ack, when will normal be back, that's my question.

Everytime I get a bit discouraged, I look at my desktop screen, that's all it takes to make me believe in all that's good and beautiful.

What do you think???

Feeling it all.

I have to first off say that I am a bit overwhelmed by all of you, the love and support and encouragement......ack.  You make me cry.
There aren't enough words to thank you all properly.
 Soon I will do a giveaway to celebrate making it through all this.

I am being "good", staying PUT for the most part, resting, and letting my body get over this last assault.  Nurse Roy is on the job.

 But I do feel amazingly WELL, a big surprise to me.  I expected, as did my family, that I would be knocked just about flat with a THIRD surgery in 14 months.  But not so.  Not at all.  In fact, if anything, I feel better than I have felt in two years.  Hallelujah, and amen.

Even good enough to take Roy for short walks by the river.

I am also conflicted, and while it is hard to talk about, you know that I will, because it is real, and it is happening.  I think that my current situation has made me as vulnerable and emotional as I ever want to be.

On one hand, I miss talking to my mother, terribly.  On the other hand, the relief of not having to care take another human being is immense.   So I walk around my house, seeing her everywhere, hearing her voice, and yet being soothed by the quiet and peacefulness that is so different from before.
I know it's ok, it's normal.  How could I NOT be conflicted???  My mother was not only a job to take care of with her many needs, she was emotionally difficult for the last year of her life.
Suddenly now, there is no blaring TV 12 hours a day, I do not have to shop for her, cook for her, schedule appointments for her, bathe her, do her laundry, take her to doctor visits, wake in the night to her call, rush home to check on her.  Then again, several times a day I start to turn to go tell her something, show her a baby picture, forgetting that she is not there. gulp.

It's over.

I don't regret taking care of her.  I am glad that she was here and not in the nursing home until the very end.
I am also happy to be free of that responsibility.
So the feelings of relief and sadness are swirling around my head, and most of the time, I just sit back and let it happen, because I don't know what else to do.  I keep telling myself that I did the best I could do.  It helps.

Here's what I do know.
I had my first daughter in 1968, my second in 1974, my third in 1981.  So you see that I had a small child for a LONG time.  I barely would get one in kindergarten, and I would have another newborn.
My youngest daughter left for college in 1999.  My mother left her home to move to mine in 2000.
So, the reality is that I have been responsible in a huge way for someone else since I was 21 years old.  FORTY FIVE YEARS.

It's my turn.
I don't want to sound selfish.  I loved my mother so much.
But it's still my turn.

I don't want much more than to just be happy.  I want to enjoy my family, my friends, my studio.
 I want to be able to be present in my own life, without the constant pain.
I may get what I wish for, I may not.
The spinal fusion doctor that assisted my neurosurgeon, said this: "If we were as smart as we think we are, you wouldn't have been here three times."
Then he went on to say that they have never seen this before, this crazy overgrowth of bone in a cervical spinal fusion, they don't know what to do about it, they are doing the best they can come up with, and hoping for the best outcome.
Ah, me too.

In the meantime, every day I text my daughter for my daily dose of sweetness.  This is the one she sent me today.
Baby Dale.  Or should I say Princess Dale?