Still Finding Joy!!!

I know it's been a few days, but you know how I am. Sometimes I get too busy for myself. Yes, I've still been blessed!

I am getting better at finding my JOY in all things.

Unfortunately my graft has clotted again, so I will be having surgery in the morning.

Where is the joy in that? Well, I can't remember the last time it clotted. I want to say before Thanksgiving. You know, last year I think it was once, twice a month for a couple, so the fact that it's worked so long with no issue has been a blessing.

The other blessing in this is that I am a stomach, right arm under my head sleeper and because of my graft, I can only sleep on my back or on my left side, so guess what? Tonight I'm sleeping on my stomach! <-------This brings me immense joy!!!

I just wanted to share!

You know, you don't have to just read. You can leave a comment sometime or even ask questions.

We've Survived

It was a year ago today, at 2:55 or somewhere around there, that my Father's nurse came and told me that he was beginning to transition. He'd been in hospice for only a few days. He'd told me several times that he was just ready to go, but God wouldn't take him. I told him He would take him when the time was right and that his mama and sisters would welcome him with open arms.

I'm sure he knew he was in hospice. I believe he was aware of everything, his body was just shutting down.

I honestly think he waited until my mom left to go. She had been with him all morning and within 30 minutes of her leaving...

I had called my brothers, my Mom and had my sister on the phone. I put it up to his ear, so she could say goodbye. I had already told him it was ok. He didn't have to hurt anymore. The nurse kept taking his vitals. I think it was about 3:05 when she said it wouldn't be long because he'd stopped breathing, but still had a heartbeat.

Nearly 15 minutes later she took them again and she couldn't understand how he'd not been breathing but still had a heartbeat. I held his hand with one had and had my sister on the phone with the other.

My brothers finally made it and we all touched some part of him as his heart finally stopped. I remember looking up and seeing my kids in the doorway crying and I was helpless because I couldn't move.

I remember the nurse saying again that she'd never seen anyone with a heartbeat so long after taking their last breath.

As I stood there, still holding his hand, I remember two minister friends coming in. No one had called them, they'd just come. My mom came in, thinking he was still alive (I think the nurses had told her just to get back up there) and when my brother told her he was gone, it was like she turned into a little girl and said "he's gone?" and burst into tears.

I was in absolute disbelief that my Dad had survived Vietnam, a stroke and prostate cancer, but was taken out by pancreatic cancer within a month of diagnosing. I felt betrayed because they told him he had about 6 months to live and I wanted my 6 months. I was very angry because way back in September, when he kept complaining to his doctor and telling them at the ER that something was wrong, they kept telling him it was stress.

His stomach was hurting constantly, his appetite was diminishing and he was losing weight in record speeds and they said he was stressed. It wasn't until he went to the ER and DEMANDED they do whatever they needed to do to find out what was wrong and he wasn't leaving until they found SOMETHING, that they found it. By then the tumor had taken over and was nearly blocking his stomach and it was too far gone to do anything about it. Oh I get so angry.

I mostly get angry because I always knew no matter what, I could stop by his house house and always get an earful (even if it was a story I'd heard 3 times before) and a bunch of laughs and I did just that almost every single day.

I was excited that our office had just moved in December, right down the street from his house. I planned to go there for lunch every day. Now it's just a grim reminder that he's not there.

Were it not for a special someone near and dear to my heart, I'm not sure where I'd be. God placed him in my life to keep me in line. He prays for me and with me. He let me grieve but when it was going too far, he told me to get it together. He helped me get together the funeral programs, we talk every single day and I love him (and his family) to pieces.

One more thing. In line with my Count Your Blessings for 2013, I thank the Lord that I was able to spend every one of his last 11 days on this earth with him.

I didn't think it possible, but we've survived a year, one day at a time...

Today's Blessings

Went to the Ortho Specialist this morning and the diagnosis is some badly strained ligaments and a pretty bad case of osteoarthritis behind my knee. Yes, this is from that office, smh.

Treatment, 3 weeks of physical therapy to begin. If it doesn't improve any, then a cortisone shot.

Blessing, because I thought for sure he was going to say surgery.

Blessing #2, remember that person who was buying my son's birthday shoes? Well we got the $ today and he's got new shoes!

Blessing #3, I was at Walmart earlier and literally bumped into a friend who lives out east that had slipped into town unannounced. I was so glad to see her! This time last year, she was visiting for a totally different reason and it's funny how God brings things full circle. I did my heart good to see her.

I hope that these posts encourage you to look at your blessings daily.

Counting My Blessings

I seem to only write a lot when I need to vent and when I read back over my posts, sometimes I think that people must think only bad things happen to me.

That's simply not true.

So, I've decided to try to write something that's good that has happened to me each day so that I can look back and see that despite everything I go through, I'm still blessed.

Today I received a late birthday gift...a $150 gift card for gas!

WHOOOOOOOOOO WEEEEEEEE!!!

Thank you! LOL!!!

Quick Testimony

I decided this year that I was going to be a regular tither. (Give God 10% of my gross earnings by way of the church-read about giving your firstfruits in the bible).

I also decided that if I did auto bill pay, I'd be less likely to dip into it for whatever reason.

I have to tell you God don't even play!

1/14 I was trying to figure out how to make $16 last 3 more days for 3 people to eat and get gas. I prayed about it and said God your word says you would take care of me if I give you my first fruits.

Bam! Someone texted me and said they had $40 for me!

1/15 I'm balancing my checkbook and realize that I had a $400 check in my register that was actually only written for $150.

Bam! Just like that, another $255

1/15 Someone offered to buy my son some badly needed shoes because she forgot to get him a birthday gift back in August!

Bam! Bam! Bam! Put your faith in Him and be obedient to the things He tells you and He WILL take care of you!!!

See ya!

Am I Crazy or are YOU?

People either absolutely love me or absolutely hate me. Sometimes they even go from one to the other.

Why? I don't know. I do know it's usually women that do this. Very few of my male friends have flipped on me, leaving me wondering "what the hell?".

Women can be some strange beings. I say women because up to this very moment, to my recollection, I've never had a guy befriend me to get close to someone else, then create absurd scenarios in their head when it doesn't work.

I'm friends with some pretty fly guys. We talk about some deep issues, we talk about silly stuff. I ain't gonna lie, sometimes we talk about people. But the conversations never pass my lips again unless it's with that same person.

Someone close to me, not too long ago, did something and 2 people brought it to me before he did. When he did, he said to me, don't tell anyone because I don't want anyone to know just yet. I said honey, you must have told the wrong person because I've heard it twice already from two people who don't even talk to each other. Within a day, I heard it from a 3rd. None of those 3 people will ever know that I heard it elsewhere or who I heard it from.

People (women in this instance) like to gossip and when they don't get anything in return, they stop telling you things. That's happened a few times. It doesn't stop there though. I guess they realize all the stuff they dished and start getting paranoid about it. Like I'm going to tell on them.

Now the last time I was blocked by someone, it was because she was talking about me behind my back and smiling in my face. (You might remember this) The Spirit had already shown me what kind of person she was, so when I was around her, I spoke, but I was tight lipped. Well apparently that made her dislike me even more. Well, one day I logged into a friend's computer and apparently she'd just shut it down when she'd used it previously, because when it came on, it opened in her FB messages and the message that was open was her and another person I didn't care for, talking about me (and him) like a dog and confirming everything I already knew.

Well guess what? They got mad at me! One of the girls accused me of hacking her page. First of all, you can't hack something that's already open and secondly, it wasn't even her page, it was the other girl's page!

Well guess what? Both those heifers blocked ME! I got a chuckle out of that, but I kept on being me.

Apparently it's happened again. This girl is looney...when I figured out what she was about, I stopped speaking, aside from hello or very small talk. Guess what? I looked up one day and I was deleted from her page. This morning I was on a friend's page and noticed that someone's comment addressed her, but I didn't see her name anywhere. So I go to her page and she blocked me! OMG, I didn't just get a chuckle out of that, I had a full blown belly laugh and thanked the Lord for making these nut jobs remove themselves from my life!

Now I would LOVE for her to be a grown woman and tell me what I supposedly did for this to happen, but I know she won't. She's done something that she thinks I know about so she will have no contact with me.

Mental issues are rampant these days and in my opinion, the online world doesn't help one iota. It causes people to create these lives that they want for themselves or these pitiful lives so that people will feel sorry for them and help them out and when someone is on to them, they make up stories about what happened, causing people to choose sides, without really knowing the whole story.

Remind you of anything? Yep, grade school. That mentality of "If I already have people believing me, when that person tells the truth, no one will believe them". Scheisty mofos!

Guess what? I don't have to defend myself. The truth always comes to light...Always.

I can think of 3 instances right now, at 3 different jobs.

1. An employee was in the early stages of dementia and when she would get in trouble for not doing something correctly, she'd blame it on me. Instead of giving me a chance to explain, I was reprimanded. When they realized how bad off she was, they repeatedly gave her tasks they knew she couldn't do until they wrote her up so many times that they gave her the option of being fired or retiring.

2. A manager would steal money from someone's till (register) every time they made him mad. Just enough to get written up. Money had come up missing out my till enough times that I was about to be fired, when they caught him on camera, taking money from the till and putting it in his pocket. He got fired.

3. I was again unknowingly accused of stealing money from the till at another job. Someone's purse had come up missing from a locker and little did I know that security's eyes were on me. It wasn't until this woman went to make a drop at the office (that's when your till gets too full of money and you go turn in the excess at the money office) and they caught her on camera sliding money up her sleeve that they realized it was her that had been stealing all along. That's when that my so called work friends told me that they had accused me of doing it.

Yeah, always accused, always come out on top. I don't seek revenge, I sit around and wait for it to come. (Just FYI, all this stuff happened between 1986 and 2000, nothing recent because I started making sure I wasn't put in a vulnerable position as much as possible)

I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I am saying that if I was as vindictive as people make me out to be, I'd be crafty at it, laying the boom down every chance I got, so thank God I'm a changed person in that manner, because all the things I was told, I could certainly use against them...

Whew. Now that I got that off my chest, I can file that away under "has been".

You May Not Really Be A Friend

Not sure how long or short this is going to be....

I think I'm a pretty good friend and some of the people who say they're my friend, really aren't. I don't know if they know they aren't or what...

To people I call friend, I am VERY loyal. I'm not taking what they say to me and repeating that info to someone else. I'm not judging them for things they say or do and I'm going to do what I can if/when they need me and if/when they need me, no one else needs to know it. When my friends need prayer, I will petition the Lord on their behalf. Last, but not least, if I consider you a friend and you do something against me, in a moment of WTF, I will forgive you.

That sounds wonderful right? And having a friend like that is. It's a shame though that the friendship I put out is returned by so few, but if you have one good friend, that's all you really need and I've got a couple more than that.

Now I also watch other friendships. People who SAY they are friends to other people, IN MY OPINION whose friendship isn't worth ish. Facebook has given people a false sense of friendship.

I don't call them on it, because it isn't always my place and mostly none of my business, but if someone asks me, I'll surely give my opinion.

Since this is my blog, I will give my opinion:

You are not really a friend if you tell your friend's business to someone else.

You are not really a friend if you rely on them financially, often.

You are not really a friend if you keep a lot of secrets from them.

You are not really a friend if you don't support them or you get attitude if they can't do something for you.

You are not really a friend if you base your friendship on what they may/can do for you.

You are not really a friend if you try to create sob stories so your "friend" will want to help you.

You are not really a friend if you say you'll be there for them and you decide one day to just leave.

You are not really a friend if you do things for them, expecting things in return.

There are way too many friends out there who really aren't friends. If you recognize yourself in any of these YOU are the non-friend. I have had "friends" that have done at least one of each of these things to me.

I had to let them go. (A couple family members too) I had to realize that I shouldn't put their needs/wants before mine and that at some point a person has to grow up and I wasn't helping. I missed them at first, but nearly 20 years later, they are still stuck in the same place, depending on other people. So sad.

Don't get me wrong, there is some family that will treat you like 2 day old shit too, but this post is about friends.

To find a good, loyal friend, you need to be one.