Christmas With the Normal People

Happy holidays, friends!

We spent Christmas with my in-laws and by golly we were determined it was going to go well.  And it did, but only because we're all made of pure awesomeness and rose to the occasion.

 Adding to the normal mix of Adored Wife's physical infirmities and Social Hurricane's anxiety issues and Graphics Magician's thirteen-year-old annoyingness was my mother-in-law's sadly worsening memory issues.  It puts a lot more of a burden on my father-in-law, because Mom always did most of the organizing and planning for this sort of thing, and now she's simply not able any more.  We could of course have scaled back, but he'd decided that no, we were going to try to do all the family stuff we'd always done.  And it was fun but he was pretty worn out at the end of it and, much as he loves us all, I think he was about ready for us to leave when we did.

Adored Wife loves to cook and so she stepped up and took care of a lot of that end of things.  The way her nerve trouble works is that she can be active for a while, then go lie down for a while, then go be active for a little while longer and so forth.  Mostly she was up and down for the whole day.  Social Hurricane's sleep schedule was off which didn't help the anxiety issues, and Graphics Magician was in rare form with his excessive cleverness, so the two of them were getting on each other's nerves a little.  But we kept them both distracted pretty well.

Basement Artist had insomnia Christmas Eve, but that's okay because there was coffee.  We had lots of food and lots of presents, and we actually did have a lot of fun and laughter together.  But it took some concentrated amazingness on our parts to pull it off.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

A Poem For Patience

Happy Monday, friends, and happy day after Christmas.  Unto us a child is born!

(For those of you who don't celebrate Christmas, thanks for reading, and may this find you and yours well.)

A Poem For Patience

Sometimes people try my temper.
Sometimes my family tries my temper.
Sometimes circumstances try my temper.
Sometimes my own foolishness tries my temper.

It doesn't help to lose my temper.
It rarely helps to lose my temper.
It sometimes.....no.
It never helps to lose my temper.
It never helps to lose my temper.
It never helps to lose my temper.

That is all.

What We Do For Christmas

We'll spend Christmas Eve and most of Christmas day with my in-laws.  We've done this for years.  It's about an hour and fifteen minute drive to their house, not at all bad.  We used to be fifty minutes away, and then for a few years we were six hours away, and now we're back to this distance which works out very well.  Our families are quite some distance apart so for years we've typically done Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with Adored Wife's.

We've actually been very fortunate so far in that, except for that one interesting year when Social Hurricane was confined to a psychiatric facility in late December, we've had all three of our kids with us, and it'll be the same this time around.  We don't have any particular Christmas Eve traditions except for the surreptitious filling of the stockings.  There will be food, of course.

Christmas morning we get up at various times, do coffee and snacks, and have an official brunch around ten.  Stockings are fair game when you wake up in the morning (and were a much bigger deal when the children were younger) but we do present time together.  Then, we play with our presents, socialize, and eat a big meal usually around four in the afternoon before packing up and heading for home.

It's a little different when Christmas falls on a Sunday.  When I was a regular pastor, we'd have Sunday morning services (and a couple of times my in-laws have been to my house so that could happen.)  This year I'm taking Sunday off, and we'll keep to our usual traditions.  I feel odd not going to church on a Sunday but I have some family members who don't do well with change and I think it's probably kinder and wiser to stick to the tried and true.

But I hope and pray everyone out there has a very merry Christmas.  God bless, friends, and thanks for reading.

Adored Wife's Christmas Party

I'm writing this on a Sunday evening, planning for it to go out Monday morning.  That's a little closer to the wire than I like to get things but I've had a very busy time lately with work, Christmas and household stuff, and some other writing projects.  I'm not committed to a Monday/Thursday schedule, but it seems to be working out and I like to give both of my readers something they can rely on.

But yesterday Adored Wife threw a small Christmas party for friends from our various circles.  We invited a hundred and something people and had thirty or so who could make it, which is about par for a weekend in December.  We wouldn't have had room for a hundred people to park, anyway.  We could have fit that many in the house if they weren't fussy about personal space, though.

But, I digress.

AW has lots of chronic health issues, mostly related to nerve pain, epilepsy, balance, and various neurochemical troubles.  She manages to be pretty active despite all that but an hour's moderate activity usually involves two hours' recovery time.  I (as you may know) am wired as almost pure introvert; I'm not big on parties.  I'm fine with them as long as I treat them as obligations to be discharged but I don't do them for fun.

So, you know, we're not the most obvious "throw a party" couple.  But Adored Wife really wanted to host a party, because that's what normal people do.  And I'm very fond of Adored Wife, so I signed up for it.

And yesterday's party went honestly pretty well and we both enjoyed ourselves.  What with helping some friends move in the morning and then getting ready for, participating in, and cleaning up from the party I didn't get any downtime at all yesterday and AW was exhausted and in considerable pain last night and has been absolutely worthless today.  (Her own words.)  She's mostly slept and rested the whole day, with the exception of an hour or two in the afternoon when she moved around and did a few light chores, then went back to sleep on the recliner.

I asked her if it was worth it.  She replied that of course it was, and wants to do it again sometime soon.  She had a successful party and is very pleased with herself.

Maybe a trifle on the stubborn side, but I like her.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

The Rules

We posted these in the kitchen.  They seem to be working.

THE RULES

1. No sulking, no tantrums, no flinging things around or snapping at people.  If you’re in a bad mood, we’re sorry.  Don’t take it out on the rest of us. 

2. If a family member is in a bad mood, do something nice to let them know you love them.

3. Actually, do something nice for a family member daily whether they’re in a bad mood or not.

4. Keep your stuff picked up, especially in shared areas.

5. Speaking of sharing, there’s only one television.  Learn to take turns and, you know, be nice about it.

6. The cat’s getting old.  Treat him gently.

7. Having said that, if you catch him on the island, feel free to squirt his disobedient feline self mercilessly.

8.  Communication is our friend.  Use the calendar, text, use social media, talk.

9. If you do something you shouldn’t have, apologizing is the way to go.

10.  Remember, we’re all in this together.

Be There For Each Other

One of the rules of the family is that we have to treat each other with at least a minimum of courtesy and respect.  We've had to make that as a rule, because, unfortunately, sometimes individual members of the family are dealing with their own issues and tend to get a little grouchy.

Not ME, of course.  I'm never anything other than the soul of compassion and consideration.

.......well, okay, maybe most of the time.....

.......well, maybe sometimes I'm a little stressed, too.  And when I'm stressed sometimes I take it out on those nearest to me.  It's very common, and it's not right.  Your family is a convenient target, and they can't help being your family.  If I'm rude to my neighbors or my co-workers or my friends, then I can be shunned by the neighborhood, I can get in trouble at work, I can lose friends.

If I'm grumpy with my family, the most they can be do is be grumpy back, and that makes for some unhappy home life.

So we try to be there for each other.  To try to cut each other some slack when we're having a bad day, and when we ARE having a bad day, we try to be at least reasonably polite and civil to our kinfolks.  We're blessed to be able to have our own spaces for the most part in our home, so we can retreat if we need to regroup, but it's a lot better when we can get along and show a little kindness.

Just something I occasionally need to remind myself and the family of.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Struggles With Weight

With the exception of Graphics Magician (an active thirteen year old boy with an insane metabolism who could stand to put on a few pounds), the family would all like to lose "a little weight."

I'm not, in this post, commenting about anybody's struggles but mine.

Here goes.

I don't struggle with weight loss.

I'm not trying to lose weight.  I've never tried to lose weight in my life.

I would like to lose some weight.  At this writing I'd really like to lose about eighteen pounds.  I'm about seventeen pounds below my top weight and my situation is far from desperate (I was solidly in the prediabetic range then and needed to do something) but I'm still carrying poundage that makes it harder to move and makes me feel a little unwell.

But if I made the choice to lose it, I could.  Not all at once, I'll grant you.  But if I started making sensible eating and activity choices, I could take off eighteen pounds in probably three months.  I base that on my previously demonstrated ability to lose twenty pounds in three months of behaving myself.

All I have to do is consistently make good choices.

And yet, you know, evidence suggests that hasn't been my pattern.  I wonder why.

No excuses, just being honest.  I've chosen not to lose weight.

I wonder if I'll start choosing differently.  It's really up to me, isn't it?

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Social Hurricane Buys The Salt

As you might have read earlier on this blog, Social Hurricane suffers from occasional hallucinations.  She's reluctant to describe them, and we honor that preference--focusing on them isn't necessarily a good idea.  I have the impression they're monstrous.  Fortunately they're not active all the time.

Her coping mechanism is lines of salt.  She knows very well this is all in her head, but she can't make the monsters go away so she tells herself they can't cross lines of salt.  And this works.  When we find a line of salt at her closet door and at the door to her bedroom, we know the hallucinations have been active again, and this is her way of being able to sleep in peace.  They can't come out of the closet, they can't get into her room.

The other day I got home and there was a line of salt at the front and back doors, and at the basement door.  All I had to do was cock an eyebrow at her and she said, "yeah, bad night."

So,we just step over the lines of salt.  They've been there a few days but they're not in the way, and we don't even worry about it.  Graphics Magician had a few neighborhood boys over to play, one of them said something about the salt, and he responded something along the lines of "don't worry about it, my family's weird."

Which we kind of are.  But it works for us.

We go through a lot of salt.  But Social Hurricane's working steady and she pays for it.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Sometimes We Play

It was one of the rare sit-down dinners where everybody was home, everybody felt reasonably well and was in a decent mood, and nobody had any time pressure to go anywhere.  We could relax and enjoy each other's company.

We got into a napkin fight.

We use cloth napkins rather than paper--no particular reason, we just always have.  I think we got a set as a wedding present and it sort of went on from there.  They've lasted forever.

I don't remember who first threw a napkin at who, but it escalated pretty quickly and all five of us were throwing napkins with abandon back and forth.  The conflict raged, alliances were formed, then broken, as allies betrayed allies and former enemies made common cause.

Eventually the battle-passion ebbed and an informal ceasefire began to occur, broken by the occasional lobbed cloth and brief renewal of hostilities.

Slowly, order was restored.

.................................

Um.

........................I guess there's not much actual point to this post.

Oh, well.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Prescription Snafus

Both Adored Wife and Social Hurricane take numerous regular prescriptions.  I take several herbal and natural supplements, Basement Artist has a prescription for an inhaler but rarely uses it (she takes over the counter stuff as needed), and Graphics Magician is currently on antibiotics for strep throat but otherwise takes medicine very infrequently.

But AW and SH need this stuff.  AW is on meds for seizure control, nerve pain, anxiety, blood pressure, and a couple of things I can't keep up with.  The Hurricane has prescriptions for stuff to control mood swings, depression, anxiety, and hallucinations.

Better living through chemistry.

So when we had a household snafu a few weeks ago and both ran out of certain medications for a day or two it was a bad day or two.  In Adored Wife's case she went about a day and a half without a prescription that helps manage nerve pain, and she spent a particularly unpleasant day until we were able to get it refilled.  Social Hurricane went a couple of days without the "mood swing" magic pills, and had a very difficult time of it.  It helped that she knew what was going on, but it wasn't easy for her.

Although, as Adored Wife puts it "at least we know the medicine works."  Yay, silver lining.

The problem was partly my letting a ball drop, partly a communications breakdown with a doctor's office, partly the Hurricane's inattentiveness, partly an unusually full week, and partly the unexpected Saturday closing of the drug store because they had a brief staffing crisis.  There were quite a few factors going on but I felt really bad about the part I played in it, because I wasn't the one having to pay for the mistake.

It's all good now and everybody's feeling much better and hopefully we won't let that happen again, but it's kind of sobering to realize how much we depend on modern medicine.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, friends!

In honor of the holiday I'm not going to post about any of the challenges our family, our community, or our country face today.

In fact, one of our coping mechanisms is counting our blessings anyway, and we have plenty of blessings to count.

Today, I'm just thankful.

I'm thankful most of all that God loves me and my sins are forgiven in Jesus' name.
I'm thankful that I can walk, talk, work, and rest.
I'm thankful that there is a roof over my head and there is food in my house and that at least for today I have enough money to pay my bills.
I am thankful that I have a wife who is my best friend.
I am thankful that my children can also walk, talk, work, and rest.
I am thankful for my family, for parents and in-laws and brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces.
I'm thankful for a job where I get along with the people I work with.
I'm thankful for good neighbors.
I'm thankful for the freedoms I enjoy as an American.
I'm thankful for friends with whom I can enjoy doing things.
I'm thankful for books.
I'm thankful for mountains and sunsets and small children and old people and teens and trees and oceans and stars and the moon and dogs and horses and prairies.
I'm thankful for the hope of eternity.
I'm thankful for the promise that God will never leave me.
I'm thankful just to BE.

I'm thankful for you, reading this.  As you face your own challenges, friends, (and I know some of you have some big ones,) I'd encourage you also to take time to be thankful to the One Who gives us all good things.

May He bless you today.

Social Hurricane Needs People

We all have our insecurities, I suppose, those areas of our lives where we don't feel confident or together.

I am, as I've mentioned, an extreme introvert, and eldest daughter Basement Artist is almost as extreme as I am. We can get peopled out very easily.  I had a VERY full people day this past Wednesday and, when I finally got home, I just needed to sit and watch "Outrageous Acts of Science" and not talk to anybody at all for half an hour.  Then I felt better.

Social Hurricane, my second daughter, is almost as extreme an extrovert as I am an introvert, and I don't always appreciate that fact.  She doesn't do well with alone time--she gets nervous and edgy if she's not interacting with somebody, unless she has some very involved task or chore to take her mind off of it.  She loves social media, loves working with people, loves going places and doing things with friends.  And sometimes I need to keep that in mind.  When the Artist and I are chilling out on our own with a book or a writing project or a chore we're recharging.  When Social Hurricane is in a similar situation she's running down and getting more and more insecure and needing people.

And I'm not overly proud of this--I've harangued a bit here and there about how extroverts don't understand introverts and expect us to be like them.  And extroverts outnumber introverts substantially, and it's a world that caters to them.  But in our household we have two extreme introverts, one who pretty much falls in the middle of the spectrum (Adored Wife is balanced n the center of the scale), and one slight extrovert (Graphics Magician leans toward the extroverted, but only a very little--he has lots of introverted traits.)  We only have one true extrovert living here so, in our home, the introverts rule and sometimes that gives the Hurricane some troubles.

And she's adapted remarkably well to that, but I need to be more sympathetic toward it than I am.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

The Cat Gets Old

Pets have pretty much always been a part of our family life, ever since that first stray cat twenty-something years ago that I told Adored Wife not to feed because once you feed them they're yours.  And that cat became ours, adopted in Texas, moved to two different places in Virginia, and then lived for several years in West Virginia before dying of a more or less contented old age.

Over the years we've had two ferrets, a few goldfish, several small rodentish things, and four cats. We've never had a dog, although both AW and I had dogs as children.  They're a huge responsibility and what with one thing and another in our lives we've just never been comfortable taking one on. We're currently down to one cat, Oscar, and he's getting old.

It's tough when they start getting old.  It happened pretty fast, too.  It seems as though within the space of a month he went from being a spry and obnoxious overfed feline to a lazy and obnoxious lean old codger of a feline.  Mostly these days he's looking for warm places to sleep.

It's going to be tough when we lose him.  Graphics Magician in particular is very fond of him, although Basement Artist also seems to like him sometimes.  (The rest of us more or less tolerate him.)  But hopefully he'll have an enjoyable and peaceful "golden years" experience.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

AW Runs the Tech Booth

As regular readers of this blog will know, Adored Wife deals with chronic nerve pain and a host of other fun and enthralling challenges.

She's also very passionate about and involved with the local community theater.  I'm a theater geek myself and support her interest (although sometimes I think she needs to pace herself a little more carefully.)  She's had to make all kinds of accommodations and adaptations regarding her health issues to be able to do what she does, and a lot of the other volunteers at the theater have ALSO made accommodations for her.  (She does a lot of work over there--they consider the flexibility well worth it.)

On the artistic side she's been an actor, a producer, a director, a stage manager, a "food props" coordinator, on numerous occasions.  On the management side she works extensively with facilities and concessions.

She's never before run lights or sound for a show from the tech booth, and wanted to try that out.  So, for the theater's recent production of "The Chalk Garden," she stayed in the booth and ran the lighting board and sound computer from there.

Climbing or descending stairs takes her a little longer than it does most people, so she allowed herself extra time.  During intermissions and longer scenes with no lighting changes she sat down on the stairs and leaned back against a pillow she'd brought for the purpose, to take a little of the strain off of her neck.  And, of course, she'd come home from a show absolutely exhausted and need to lie down for a while, but that was all right.  It was only about six performances and a handful of rehearsals so it wasn't so bad.

And she had fun, and she can check that off her list.  Determination--you gotta love it.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Young Ladies Doing the Adulting Thing

We have two young ladies living in our home.  Both of them have made great strides at this "adulting" thing in recent days.

They both have some challenges against them.  The younger, Social Hurricane, we've talked about a fair amount--anxiety and bipolar disorder and hallucinations.  She has a lot on her plate.

I'm not sure if we've ever talked about the elder daughter's fundamental insecurity issues.

Basement Artist was born three months early, and had a very rough year or so.  One hundred and two days in the hospital, four surgeries before she was eighteen months old.  It's left her with a permanently quiet voice and a spectacular scar on her side.  But we've also thought over the years that it's left her with chronic insecurity issues.  Developmental psychologists theorize that, in the very early days of life, a baby will either learn that the world is safe and can be trusted, or she will learn that the world is an unsafe place.

It's entirely possible (and I'm quite convinced of this personally) that BA's very rocky start has left her, deep in her psyche, feeling that the world is perilous and risky.  We've discussed this, and she pretty much agrees with me.

How this works out for her in practice is that she has to work, and work hard, to overcome a natural tendency toward fear.  Unless she deliberately compensates for it she defaults toward seeking the routine, the familiar, the deliberately unadventurous.  This has given her a great deal of trouble doing the "adulting" thing, because it's much easier to stick with the known than to venture out into the untried, especially because these days she's doing lots more things without a parent by her side.

To her considerable credit, she DOES work hard at compensating for it.  She seeks out new challenges, sallies forth into unfamiliar social situations, ventures into areas beyond the tried and true.  I salute her--it takes more courage for Basement Artist to apply for a job than it would take for me to face down a lion.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Adored Wife Toughs It Out

I'm swiping this directly from Adored Wife's Facebook post of a few days back:

Yesterday I had my annual physical. I see quite a few doctors regularly, so this was mainly an overview of everything.

We went over all the things that are wrong with me. The list is huge, as many of you know.

Then, we went over all the things I am doing to combat them, circumvent them to function, or just bull my way through them.

At the end she looked at me and said. "Well. You are fine."

And you know what. I really am.


And she really is.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

My Dad's Coming Home

My father's been in rehab the past few months, and is scheduled to come home today.

I know this "The Neighbor's Think We're Normal" blog tends to focus on my immediate family, but I owe a lot of the strange man I am today to the strange parents I have, and it's fitting to tell you a little about my dad.

He suffers from chronic stubbornness.  The doctor says it's inoperable, and it may eventually prove terminal.  In addition he has a leaky heart valve, arthritis, diabetes, circulatory issues, blood pressure problems, balance issues, and fairly significant hearing loss.  He's eighty-nine years old and had a nasty infection this past summer and had a really, really bad couple of weeks.  We honestly thought we were going to lose him and from the doctor's perspective he had a pretty close call.

He's doing hugely better, but the stubbornness remains, alas, unabated.  He's spent the past several weeks in a very competent therapeutic rehabilitation center and has been, by all accounts, charming the socks off of nurses, administrators, therapists, and staff.  He's good at that.  But he's been wanting to go back home and I have mixed feelings about this myself..  He lives with my older brother who pretty much serves as full-time caregiver (my mom's in an assisted living facility) and he probably ought to be in some sort of facility himself, but he doesn't want to go.  And so far, as long as he and my brother can make this work, it seems to be going okay.

I'm very, very happy he's still around.  I've had a couple of delightful days with him that have felt like bonus days, and we're glad he's so much stronger and abler than he was.  The concern, of course, is that he's not going to keep up with the exercise and the behaving himself when he gets back home and will shortly wind up back in trouble.  (My brother's a great guy, but Daddy doesn't listen to him much.)  We'll have to see how it works out.

We covet your prayers.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Looking Forward

Time flies.

If all goes as planned, by this time next year Basement Artist will be married and living in Montreal.

By this time next year Social Hurricane is hoping to be somewhere out on her own, probably in some sort of roommate situation, maybe in a nearby city.

By this time next year, Lord willing, Graphics Magician will be a freshman in high school finishing up his first quarter.

And a year goes fast.  It goes by much faster than it used to, which my father has always assured me is a sign of advancing age.

Speaking of which, by this time next year if he's still with us he'll have turned ninety years old, and various other relatives will have ticked another birthday off the list.  

Adored Wife will celebrate her fiftieth this coming year.  (I'll only be turning forty-nine--I married an older woman.)

When our daughters leave home and as our son continues to grow toward independence it's going to mean radical changes in our home life.

Don't know what it's going to look like--everybody's experience is a little different, but lots of people have gone through this before.  We're hardly unique.

It's going to be interesting finding out.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Counting Your Blessings

Social Hurricane deals with a lot of issues.  Bipolar disorder, hallucinations, anxiety, dyslexia, insecurity.  Plus, while she's honestly cleaned up her act a lot, she had a very rocky couple of years in her teens and she has to live with some of the consequences of THAT particular roller coaster.

But working steadily as a third-shift Certified Nursing Assistant at a medical center for the elderly has made it really, really easy for her to count her blessings.  I guess this comes with a lot of the "helping professions."  I'm a minister, and there's never any shortage of people around who have it worse than I do, but social workers, health care professionals, attorneys, law enforcement personnel and probably plenty of other people are regularly in a situation where they're dealing with people who are having a tough time.

But we all have our own individual journeys to make, and the Hurricane is regularly doing some very personal care for people who've lost a lot of their independence and capability and in many cases even their cognitive function.  She's come home from work telling me about her newfound appreciation for being able to get out of bed, get dressed, walk, and go to the bathroom without needing anyone's help.  I think it's been good for her.

She's grown up quite a bit in the few months she's had this job.  She's more compassionate toward others, more outwardly focused, more considerate--not that she was horrible before, but there's been a decided change in her perspective and attitude.  I like it.

Having said that, health care is difficult and often unpleasant, and I salute and appreciate those who are called to it, and that number currently includes my daughter, of whom I'm proud.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

The Filler Post

Happy Monday, friends.

It was honestly a pretty full week between family and work responsibilities and commitments, and this is all I have for you this morning.

I will tell you that I saw a little boy in Wal-Mart, probably around a year and a half, being carried around by his dad and just jabbering away at everybody and everything.  We passed each other in the aisle and he looked right at me and said "Awangle bokeepum buba.  Buba!"

And I just returned his gaze and said "Oh, really?"

I wasn't expecting this, but it shut him right up.  Mouth closed, eyes wide, staring at me.  He had NO IDEA how to deal with a grownup who answered him back.

Okay, that's it.  That's all I have.

There'll be actual content next time, I promise.

If you meet somebody who needs a reason to smile, try to help them find one, okay?

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Weight Loss Ups and Downs

About two years ago I was at the heaviest I've ever been in my life, 235 pounds.  I'm a big guy and I can carry some extra weight with no trouble, but that's still thirty to forty pounds more than I ought to be lugging around.  Plus, I was having a few health troubles, so I actually broke down and saw a doctor.

The doc gave me a compassionate but straightforward lecture and my blood tests woke me up.  I wasn't in the diabetic range but I was solidly in the "prediabetic" category and that was a trend that needed to be reversed, asap.

So I turned over a new leaf and started behaving myself.  I lost twenty pounds in three months and kind of plateaued there.  The doctor was pleased with the weight loss, my numbers looked MUCH better, and I felt a lot better.

I could have benefited a lot from losing at least fifteen more pounds.  Instead, I got lazy and self-indulgent and wound up putting most of it back on.

It's not lack of exercise, honestly.  I've never been an athlete, but I've always had a moderately active life and my typical week involves a fair amount of physical activity.

It's the food.  I would eat when I was bored, or stressed, or tired, or because of the pleasure of the taste.  It was gluttony and making a god out of my stomach.  (Stomach-olatry?)  I would turn to food when I should have, to be frank, been turning to the Lord to meet my emotional needs.

The weight started to come back, and I started to feel unwell again.

I've had to do some repenting and life examining.  By the grace of God, I'm heading back in the right direction.  I'm back down to 220, and I already feel better and have more energy.  This time, I'm promising myself that I'm not going to slack off.  I'm heading to 200 pounds.  That may be a healthy weight for my frame; as I said, I'm a big guy.  I'll have to see how I look and feel when I get there.

But I will get there.  I crave your prayers and support.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

How We Spent a Sunday

Social Hurricane was in bed most of the daylight hours--she's on a third shift sleeping schedule.  She had the night off and, after a few household chores, went to spend a sleepover with a girlfriend.

The rest of us made it to church, and three of us made it to a theater friend's birthday party in the evening.

Basement Artist, after church, did some household chores and some introverted things in her room, then enjoyed the party, then came home introverted out and went for some alone time.

Graphics Magician spent most of the afternoon playing with neighborhood friends working on a fort in the backyard.  He didn't want to go to the party and with our permission and their invitation ran a few errands and had supper with the neighbor kids and their parents.

Adored Wife was, sadly, having anxiety issues all day but bulled her way through them.  She did some cooking, took care of some theater business, and had fun at the party, then came home absolutely worn out and in pain and needing to lie down.  It was a pretty good day for her, honestly.

I went to a brief call-back audition in the afternoon and got offered a role in an upcoming play.  I'm pretty excited about it--it's been almost a year since I've done anything onstage.  The party was fun but I didn't stay long.  I came home, did some exercise and chores, and wrote this blog post.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Accustomed to Abnormal

I came up with a metaphor for my crazy life.

It goes like this.  I'm a terrible plumber.  I'm a halfway decent carpenter and I can do basic wiring and some other household maintenance odds and ends, but my plumbing jobs are usually stressful, expensive, and leaky.  I've just never had the knack for it.

So the other day when I replaced a sink faucet without too much trouble and it's no longer dripping and nothing appears to be leaking, I was caught a little off guard.  Honestly, it's not that I miss the drip, but it's an oddly buoyant feeling that it's not an issue any more.  I'm kind of weirded out; I don't know how to think about it.  I keep checking under the sink expecting a leak--it's like waiting for the other shoe to drop.  (This only relates to plumbing--I can swap out a light switch and not think about it any more.)

But it occurred to me sometime after the fact that this could be a metaphor for my family's life and the lives of a lot of people dealing with chronic health and personal issues.

What if everything were all of a sudden "normal" tomorrow?  What if Adored Wife and Social Hurricane were abruptly perfectly healthy, what if Basement Artist and I weren't dealing with our various psychological quirks (and, heck with it, what if my bad knee was okay) and what if Graphics Magician wasn't trying to survive adolescence AND middle school?

We wouldn't know what to do with ourselves.  It would be a complete change in our lives, one we weren't prepared for and wouldn't know how to handle.  We've had VERY difficult times in our lives here and there, when hoping for an uninterrupted night's sleep or fifteen peaceful minutes to sit down and decompress was wishful thinking.  Things aren't anywhere nearly that chaotic now, and I don't miss the really bad times, but you got accustomed to them.

What would it be like for you, friends, if you woke up tomorrow and things were "normal?"

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Thinking of Others

It's easy to get bogged down focusing on your own troubles.

At this writing thousands of people, including a number I know personally, are being inconvenienced, imperiled, endangered, and traumatized by Hurricane Matthew.

I visited a lady in the hospital today who's miserably ill, to the point she can't eat or drink, stand up unassisted, or concentrate on anything.

I know a man who's bedridden, mute, quadriplegic, and afflicted with memory and cognitive issues.

Other friends are dealing with grief, loss, illness, surgery, financial and family issues.

Millions in the world face famine, illness, persecution, deprivation, ignorance, hopelessness, and poverty on a daily basis.

My brother the nurse sometimes says "my job makes it very easy to count my blessings."

Sometimes I just need to stop and count mine.  There are a lot of them.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

My Facebook Friend Should See a Doctor

The joke goes like this:  "When does the typical man go to see the doctor?"  "When he can't get the bleeding stopped himself."

I have a Facebook friend who needs to go see a doctor for his depression.  He won't go, more than likely.  He's got coping techniques and he'll get through this.  Plus, you know, he's a guy.  Which by definition means stubborn (not to say stupid.)

But he's having significant symptoms of depression, and says he's "never been diagnosed with clinical depression" but he's having a tough time and the "usual techniques" aren't working.  He doesn't want to leave his house and doesn't want to interact with people and a few other things that are sounding off alarms in my head.

I've encouraged him to go see a doctor, of course, and a few other friends have done so, as well.  Hopefully he'll do it--I'm a little worried about him.  We don't live anywhere near each other; fortunately he does have a small circle of friends who will keep up with him.

But one of the really nasty things about depression is the sense of hopelessness: there's no point seeing a doctor because there's no point to anything.

I take St. John's Wort, a proven natural antidepressant, on a daily basis on my doctor's recommendation.  My last real dysthymic episode, which I talked about here, was the most intense one I've ever had in my life.  If it had gone on two days longer than it did I would have been at my doctor asking for something stronger, and I'm going to bring it up at my next physical.  And I am very much a guy, but it was pretty bad.

The upshot, though, is that even in all my guyness I do endorse talking to a doctor about depression.

And I really hope and pray my friend goes.

God bless, friends.

Not Much Family Time Lately

Sigh.

We've kind of fallen down a little with the "intentional family time" the past week or two.

Adored Wife and I have to get back on the stick and make it happen.

There are some excuses we could throw out, of course, mostly having to do with the girls' crazy work schedules, but there have been a few other things going on here and there with personal lives that have complicated the whole "getting together" thing.

But the fact of the matter is that we haven't had family time because we haven't prioritized it as a family.  It doesn't HAVE to be a sit-down meal, although those are preferable.  We could have made time for soda and snacks and conversation in the kitchen on an occasion or two.

It's going to happen.  Thus sayeth dadeth.  I'm going to talk with AW today and we're going to MAKE some family time.

I don't know when--it won't be today.  Social Hurricane worked third shift last night and is asleep, and by the time she's awake Basement Artist will be at work, and by the time SHE gets back home I'LL have had to go to bed.

But it's going to happen, mark my words.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Counseling an Extrovert

Disclaimer regarding introversion and extroversion--I'm not a psychologist.  I've done some reading in the field, but not enough to qualify as an expert.

What I do know is that few people are rarely a total extrovert or total introvert.  It's more of a sliding scale thing.  "Pure" examples are rare, and, since extroverts are more common than introverts, pure introverts are very rare.

But we exist.  I'm almost completely introverted which A) does NOT mean shy and B) doesn't mean I don't like people.  I'm not shy and I like people just fine, so let's clear that up.  I'm just more comfortable dealing with people singly rather than in groups, I don't get close to people very easily, I'm very comfortable with alone time, and dealing with people takes energy.  I know lots of people that I get along with, but I only have three people in my life right now who I would consider close friends, and I'm absolutely okay with this.

I had lunch with a pure extrovert the other day.  He's a great guy and I like him, but he is Mr. People Person.  He's fantastic at group interaction and makes friends very easily, but he NEEDS people to function properly.  He gets bored and lonely very easily if he's not in the middle of the action.  It's not a good thing or a bad thing; we're just wired differently.

And he's married to a sweet lady who's almost as introverted as I am, and it troubles him that she's not more outgoing and doesn't have many friends.  He feels bad for her.  She, of course, is fine.

So he and I talked about the differences and I tried to promote a little understanding.  And he IS a good guy, and I think he may get an inkling.

It's hard for us to understand each other, but we need to make the effort.

You strange extroverted types, you.

God bless, friends.

A Bonus Day With My Dad

My father's not well.

It's not betraying any confidences to tell you that.  He's eighty-nine and in poor health.  He'd be the first to tell you he's seen better days.

But he's in a lot better shape than he was a month ago.  I'll be honest, I'd thought we were going to be planning a funeral soon.  He thought so, too--he had a BAD couple of weeks.  I'm still not betraying any confidences.  He'll tell you he thought he was dying.  And it was looking a little iffy for a while there.

He's not out of the woods yet.  He's very weak, and his stamina is shot, and he can't walk by himself.  He's still in a rehab facility and we're not sure at this point when he's getting out.  But he's clear-headed and not in any pain and his vital signs are in decent shape and he's getting stronger every day.

I went to see him the other day and asked him what he wanted to do.  And he asked if we could get out and ride around.  (Okay, what he actually said was "If I don't get out of here a little I'm going to lose my mind.")

So we checked him out, and got out, wheelchair and all.  There were some logistical issues, but we rode around, and we saw some people, and we ate sausage biscuits from Bojangles that weren't on his diet plan, and we talked a lot.

And it just struck me while I was riding around with him swapping stories that I was profoundly grateful for that day.  It was a bonus day, because a few weeks ago I really wasn't expecting my dad to rally from this one.  And I don't know how much more time I have with him, and we both know that.  And he's going to Heaven, and he knows that, and so we'll have eternity together.

But, even so, it was really, really.....GOOD....to get another day with my father.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Sports Impairment

There's an issue that I've yet to talk about on this blog, but it's actually given me personally a great deal of trouble fitting in to normal society over the years.

I'm sports impaired.

Physically I'm actually quite strong and before I blew my knee out I was a distance runner.  But I've never been agile or quick on my feet and never had any kind of decent hand-eye coordination.  I can't throw a baseball, basketball, or football with any degree of accuracy.  I was a decent endurance runner once, but never had either the takeoff speed or the top speed that any kind of athletic endeavor requires.  I can't play sports.

Psychologically I'm not particularly competitive and don't "get" what being a sports fan is like.  I've never had any interest in playing sports, and I don't follow them.  I can watch a basketball game and appreciate the grace, skill and power of a well-trained athlete, but I don't care who's playing or who wins.  I rarely watch or attend sporting events, other than my son's games, because I don't see the point.

Which brings me to my son's games.  Graphics Magician is adopted, which leads me to think there really is such a thing as a "sports gene."  He has it; I don't.  He loves sports, both following them and playing them, and he's pretty good, not a prodigy or anything but he can hold his own and then some.  He's fast, agile, and wiry and has the makings of a fine soccer or basketball player or a track & field athlete.  He'd play football if I'd let him.  He knows (and cares) way more about current popular athletics than I do, and I sometimes wonder how he picks all this stuff up.

But I'm glad, in a way, that my son is into sports.  He'll have his issues but he won't have to suffer the secondhand citizen status of the man who has to be reminded that the Super Bowl is coming up.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Panic vs. Anxiety

Adored Wife had a panic attack the other day.

"Quick," I asked her.  "Tell me what it was like!  I need blogging material!"

She just glared at me.

So, okay, no help there from AW.  But she has distinguished anxiety attacks from panic attacks for me before; she deals with both.  The main difference appears to be severity.  In her own words, in an anxiety attack, you think someone with a knife may be somewhere around and you're unable to focus on anything else.  In a panic attack you think someone with a knife is right behind you and you're absolutely shut down.

Medical science doesn't really differentiate the two.  Well, not as far as I know--I'm a layman and have to be careful claiming expertise that I don't have.  But I'm prepared to credit AW's personal experience that they're a little different.  The knife was just for illustrative purposes--anxiety is a feeling of general worry and fretting, panic is a sense of immediate, focused, impending doom.

There's more to it than just a difference in degree, but Adored Wife finds it hard to put into words.  The two have a difference in feel or flavor, or texture, or something.  It brings up one of the great difficulties in understanding any kind of neurological or psychological or emotional maladjustment--language is limited.  For instance, I can try to tell you that when I'm "depressed," it's not like ordinary sadness or grouchiness or pessimism but is more like a gray filter that seems to cloud all my experience, but that doesn't really convey the sensation.

This is why poetry is useful--properly used words can evoke the mood and feel of anxiety or depression or panic or hysteria without getting bogged down in limited and misleading attempts at description.  Unfortunately, AW also deals with anomic aphasia, the inability to come up with the right words, so telling me what panic attacks are actually LIKE for her is probably doomed to failure.

But we keep trying.  I have blog space to fill.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

A Day In The Life

Snapshot of the family.

The freezer died.  Lost some meat and cheese and the basement was FUNKY for a while there.  Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things and I got a funny Facebook post out of it.

Basement Artist is in a pretty good routine.  Works in a restaurant, socializes with friends, active in church, helps out around the house, learning French and piano, working on writing and drawing, planning a I-AM-SO-NOT-READY-FOR-THIS-wedding.

Social Hurricane has started a new job, working third shift at a local assisted living community's medical center as a CNA.  Some big adjustments working at night and sleeping during the day, but she thinks she's going to like it.  Active with friends and tends to be the one who livens up the household.

Graphics Magician is settling into eighth grade, excellent grades so far, planning to triumph over this year.  (Seventh grade was a little rough.)  Plays video games, hangs with neighborhood friends, active in church (and spends a lot of time playing basketball there), does chores around the house, getting back into the school year sports activities.

Adored Wife is still dealing with chronic pain, active in church, VERY active in community theater (where, among other things, she serves as volunteer facilities manager), investigating taking some classes at the local community college.  She's successfully losing weight and is very happy about that.

Oscar the cat pesters us when he wants attention or food and otherwise mostly sleeps.  Cardboard boxes are a favorite.

Yours truly is weaning off of caffeine and trying to shed a few pounds (less successfully than AW) and looking forward to auditioning for a play coming up.  It won't be until February but they're holding tryouts early and they need a lot of guys; I've got a pretty good shot at getting in.  Otherwise, also working on writing projects, spending a lot of time in prayer seeking wisdom and guidance, and trying to behave myself.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Defying The Urgent

Adored Wife and I are both engaged in creative pursuits.  I'm trying to further several personal writing projects and she's brainstorming and pulling elements together for a production venture.  So far we haven't made any money or enjoyed any recognition for these efforts, but we're hopeful.

These amateur endeavors would go so much faster if responsibilities and adulting and challenges and other activities didn't get in the way.  And don't get me wrong--I'm not advocating shirking duties, and other areas of our lives ARE important.

But sometimes things come up that are urgent but not important.  "Tyranny of the urgent"--you've heard that expression before.  We have a lot going on in our household, and the urgent could very easily define and control our lives.  There have been days (and sometimes weeks on end) when we've been so busy just surviving that it's seemed as though there was no margin for anything else.

So AW and I are defying the urgent.

It's a rule, and we check with each other at the end of the day.  No matter what else happens, you have to have done SOMETHING creative that day.  Even if it was five minutes of writing for me or five minutes of targeted research for her, it has to be something tangible you can point to.

Amazingly enough, five minutes here and there does add up.  And I've had a few days that I've been able to get to fifteen and even twenty minutes of writing.  The urgent's not quite as pervasive or powerful as it wants you to think it us.

Take THAT, urgent.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

The Artist Is Leaving the Basement

Basement Artist will be leaving the basement.

Not immediately--not for several months, in fact.  But early next summer if all goes according to plan she'll be marrying her young man and moving from North Carolina to Montreal.  She just got back from a two-week trip to see him in which, among other things, they finalized a date.

I missed her when she was gone for two weeks.  I expect to cry like a baby when she gets married and moves out.

But it's okay.  We don't own our children; we only keep them in stewardship for a little while.  I'll have had her at home for twenty-four years.  I'm very blessed.  If God's calling her to Canada (and it certainly looks like He is), then may she go with our blessing.

Of course, now I'm going to have to come up with a blog nickname for my future son-in-law as well.  He's a nice guy and I like him.  He was initially a little intimidated by me (which is only appropriate as I was his girlfriend's father) but I think he's started to relax.  He's a few years older than BA, has a good job with a career path, and spoils my daughter.  No worries there.

But, yeah, the next nine months are going to go by in a hurry.  Big changes for our family and for the Artist.  Lots and lots of other people have dealt with this, of course, but it's always different when it's your own.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Hallucinations In The House

I suppose one of the stranger things Social Hurricane deals with are the occasional hallucinations.  Monsters, usually, and voices.  She's always told us she'd rather NOT try to describe what they look like, and we respect her privacy to that point--it's probably not good to focus on them too much.

She's on a fair amount of medication already for one thing and another, and the psychiatrist would cheerfully prescribe her some stronger antipsychotic drugs to help control the hallucinations.  It's a trade-off, though, because generally the stronger the meds the worse the side effects, and she REALLY doesn't like the side effects.

So by choice, she puts up with the visions and voices rather than suffer the side effects, and we respect that, too.  She puts down lines of salt at her closet door, under her bed, and at her bedroom door, because the monsters "can't cross the salt."  It's a psychosomatic thing (and she knows this) but it works for her, which means it works for us as well.  It's a way of keeping her errant brain somewhat under her control, and more power to her.

But one time I twisted a hallucination's nose.  And I'm aware that most dads don't do this.

SH and I were having a conversation in the kitchen and she kept glancing over my shoulder.  I asked her if there was a monster and she told me yes, and she was trying to ignore him.  So I grabbed the thing by the nose, told it I was having a private conversation with my daughter in my kitchen and it wasn't welcome, and told it to get out.

And the Hurricane laughed and the hallucination, apparently much offended, retreated to her bedroom.

Now, we KNOW this is all in her head; the monsters aren't real, they're misfiring neurons or something like that.  But we face them, like we face most things, with humor and perspective.  Sometimes you just have to laugh.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Social Hurricane Deals With It

Social Hurricane is twenty-one years old, and a newly-registered CNA who's recently been hired to work in an assisted living medical center (she wanted this job and is happy to get it.)  Previously she worked at Goodwill and as dining room staff in a different assisted living facility.  She graduated high school, a little later than some but with good reports from her teachers, has a very active social life, enjoys helping her mother on various household and local community theater projects, likes to work with her hands, and has helped backstage and performed onstage at the same theater.

She ALSO suffers from rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, anxiety, and hallucinations, in addition to dyslexia.  She's a little under-medicated because she doesn't like the side effects that come with the major antipsychotic drugs, and I can't say that I blame her.  She does take a fair amount of pills, nevertheless.

She deals with it.  She has various coping mechanisms, and for the most part does pretty well.  Every now and then she has a "meltdown," when she gets overwhelmed and just can't handle things right then.  Those are much fewer and farther in between than they used to be.

She had a meltdown the other night, when we were off on a mini-vacation in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  Adored Wife, Graphics Magician, and I were pretty tired and were chilling out at the hotel, and she took a fifteen minute walk into town just to see the sights and stretch her legs.

There were lots of people, and too many choices, and an unfamiliar environment, and she had an anxiety attack.  I've never had one of those, but I've seen them from the outside, and they're not pretty.  You go into sensory overload and can't decide between the various courses of action open to you, and you literally have no idea what to do, and your environment is getting scarier and scarier.

Now, she could have headed it off at the pass, called me, and I would have driven down to get her.  But she didn't want to bother me, so what she did instead was to find a little ice-cream place that wasn't busy, bought a soda, and told the nice man working the counter that she was having an anxiety attack and asked him if she could just stay there until she felt better.  He apparently handled it beautifully and just let her tuck into a quiet corner until she felt better, and then she walked back to the hotel and told us of her adventures.

I was actually very proud of her--she had a problem, didn't let it get the better of her, and dealt with it.  Way to go, Hurricane.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Invisible Troubles

This is a thing that bugs me just a little.

Have I mentioned that I have a bad knee?  Two knee surgeries, next step is probably a knee replacement, but it HONESTLY doesn't really bother me as long as I behave myself.  I can walk for miles, a flight of stairs is no problem, I can engage in heavy manual labor, I can do all kinds of things.  When I've been overdoing it, as happens from time to time, then the knee acts up and gives me a little bit of trouble, and yes, there's some discomfort and an obvious limp.

Lots of people know that I have a bad knee, because I can't hide the occasional limp.  But I think maybe it troubles me ten days a year, tops.  Seriously, that's about how often it is.  It's not a big deal.

Now, here's the thing.  There are lots and lots of things in my life that I could wish were otherwise.  I mean, God's good and takes care of me, and I don't really have anything to worry about.  But sometimes life is difficult, and there are a lot of pressures that could get to me if I let them.  And I'm not proud of this, but sometimes I let them.  But all those troubles are invisible--most people don't know about them unless I say something.

But if I had a nickel for every time someone asked me how my knee was doing, I'd have....oh, let's not exaggerate.....probably enough for a burger and fries, plus drink, over the past few years.  It's not an everyday thing, but it's pretty often.

And sometimes I want to tell people that if my knee was all I had to worry about I'd consider myself a remarkably happy man.  Sometimes I want to tell them that my knee doesn't even make the "Top Twenty" list of things that bother me.  Sometimes if I had my wish I'd wish people would make the effort to get to know the REAL burdens I carry.

Anyway, it's a little frustrating sometimes, and it'd be nice to occasionally get a little compassion and understanding for the invisible troubles.  Thanks for letting me vent.

God bless, friends.

The Neighbors Like Us

The title of the blog is "The Neighbors Think We're Normal," but as it happens we're pretty friendly with some of our neighbors, and they know a fair amount about us.

And they like us anyway.

Case in point--we have one hospitable family in the neighborhood that hosts a nearly-weekly hot dog roast (weather permitting--it doesn't happen in the dead of winter.)  Several families come and bring hot dogs and burgers and side dishes and desserts and we have a lot of fun hanging out and enjoying each other's company.

Adored Wife, as I believe I've told you, can't comfortably sit down for any length of time--after about fifteen minutes her spine and neck really start to hurt and she has to go lie down.  (Getting up and moving around before she hits the limit can extend the time, which is why we tend to eat in buffet restaurants on the rare occasions we do go out.) She can stand for substantially longer than that, especially if she has something she can lean on.

So at the hot dog roast you have all these people sitting in chairs around the firepit roasting weenies.  But the neighbors have brought out a couple of storage bins (selected to make them a comfortable height) so AW has a place she can stand and lean, and also a surface on which she can put her plate and her drink.  Nobody ELSE at the get-together gets their own private table--we have to use our laps.  And my wife can last a lot longer with that arrangement than if she had to sit down or stand unsupported.

And I'm very appreciative of our neighbors for taking some pains to make sure she can enjoy herself.  And enjoy herself she does.

Thanks for reading, friends.  Hope all's well out there, and God bless.

Compensating for Life

When people's vision is less than ideal, they wear glasses (or contacts or get expensive surgery done or just live with it.)

Some injuries or illnesses (or aging) can impair mobility, and people may walk with a cane or crutches or a walker, or sometimes use a wheelchair or other specialized equipment to get around.

Sometimes people adapt their homes for greater accessibility, or they use hearing aids, or companion animals, or maintenance medication, or prosthetic parts, or dialysis machines, as a way to compensate for some things their body can't do quite as well as they'd like.

Some deficiencies are mental or emotional, of course, and so people learn coping techniques and environmental management and they build networks of educated and compassionate friends and family, all to help them live as "normal" a life as possible.

It's a testament to the human spirit.  When our bodies or our brains let us down, we adapt.  We accommodate.  We adjust.  We don't give in to the infirmities; we find a way to compensate for them and so get on with the serious business of living.

In our household we try not to be defined by what we can't do (although in all fairness even Adored Wife, arguably the most "impaired" of us physically, is only mildly incapacitated; there are lots and lots of people much worse off.)  We make what allowances we have to, and then get on with things.

I can't prescribe this approach for everyone and I certainly don't mean to patronize--as I said, there are those who daily deal with MUCH more significant issues than we face, and for some of them that issue defines their lives.  But I'd encourage you, dear readers, with whatever physical or emotional or mental imperfection you live with, to find a way to compensate for it to the fullest extent possible, and get on with your life.

You can do this.

God bless.

Mini-Vacation

This one doesn't highlight any real problems--it's mostly just a happy post.

Adored Wife, Social Hurricane, Graphics Magician and I took an overnight mini-vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  (Basement Artist was in Montreal visiting the fiance.)

We had to make some accommodations for AW's physical limits, of course.  And the Hurricane did have an anxiety attack while walking by herself downtown, but she coped with it on her own, no harm done.  Overall everything went very smoothly and we had a great time.

We visited the Bush's Baked Beans visitor center in Chestnut Hill, TN.  (Go sometime, if you get the chance.)  We visited the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum in Gatlinburg.  (I kid you not, if you're ever in the Gatlinburg area, make a point of visiting this place--it's a wonderful little treat, very economical and hugely entertaining.  We've been a few times and we recommend it to everyone we know.  They're only open for a few hours midday, though, so you'll have to schedule around it.)  And we went to the Rainforest Adventures in Sevierville, which was grand fun.

Otherwise we played in the hotel pool, saw some of the Smokey Mountains by car, and walked around downtown Gatlinburg a little.  Did some window-shopping, saw the sights, and generally just enjoyed ourselves.  Other than driving through a nasty storm on the way back, no real hiccups or issues.

No point to this, but every now and then it's nice to tell you a pleasant one.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

A Family Shame?

There's a family I'm thinking of and praying for that probably doesn't read this blog.  I'm reaching out to them privately, but I don't intend to draw their attention to this.

They've had a child attempt suicide.  Their son survived, but with serious injuries, and he's going to need a lot of physical recovery and rehabilitation before they can even start addressing the psychological and emotional issues.  I can't tell you names, of course, but you might pray for them?

They're going through a horrible time right now.  Their Christian faith is strong, but still, they're exhausted and bewildered.

And, they're a little ashamed of talking about it.  I don't know, maybe they feel like this is some sort of failure?  I intend to respect their privacy and I'm not going to pry beyond what they're comfortable sharing, but it makes me sad that, with all of the other burdens they're carrying right now, they have to bear the weight of shame.

Social Hurricane went through a pretty rough patch a few years back, and would still be the first to tell you that she has some issues to work on, but she's doing HUMONGOUSLY better now.  But she made a couple of suicide attempts, thankfully neither of which resulted in any major lasting injury.

We've done lots of things wrong.  But one thing we did right--from the get-go we decided that we weren't going to be ashamed of this.  Our daughter had some legitimate psychiatric issues and was in need of medical treatment, and there was absolutely no reason we couldn't be open about that and seek the prayer and emotional support of our family and friends.  We figured that a little bit of truth was better than a whole lot of rumor and responded accordingly.

And we've never regretted it.  It was much easier on her, and on us, to have the facts and the situation out in the open.  It was easier to deal with medically, socially, and relationally with everyone--we didn't have to hide anything.  It's amazing how freeing that was.

I'd encourage any of you, dealing with personal or family issues like this, to realize that there's no need for shame or embarrassment.  It's easier to get help and be helped if we can be honest with one another about the burdens we carry and the troubles we face.

I hope all's well with you out there, friends, and God bless.

Thanks For Reading

I wanted to take a little time to thank you for reading.

This is a relatively new blog and a small one; I have absolutely no talent or aptitude for engendering a bigger following for it, although I know there are people who are good at such things.  I'm okay with that, but I don't feel any particular leadings to do so.  If this finds an audience or meets a need, great.

But there are a few regular readers out there, and I want you to know that I appreciate it.  I hope the things I write are of some value to you, in some form or fashion.

One of the things I particularly like to do is to ask people how I can pray for them.  I'm a big believer in the power of prayer--we know that God hears our prayers and, in some amazing and incomprehensible fashion, we know that those prayers can influence the Almighty Himself.  Don't ask me how that works; I can't wrap my own head around it.  But there are numerous examples in the Bible where God heeded the prayers of His people.

And so, I'd like to ask, is there any way in particular I can pray for you?  You can just leave a comment below if you'd like me to lift up something in your own family or personal life--I won't misuse or take advantage of any information you might share.  I'll just make a point of remembering you.

You might pray for me for guidance if you will.  I've got some things going on in my life I'm trying to figure out, and wisdom and discernment would be much appreciated.

Thanks again for reading, and God bless.  I hope everything's going well out there.

The Value of Doing Something

When Basement Artist is introverted out, there's value in doing something.

When Social Hurricane is anxious and nervous, there's value in doing something.

When Adored Wife is having a bad brain day, there's value in doing something.

When Graphics Magician is bored and moody, there's value in doing something.

And when I'm depressed and sluggish, there's....well, you get the idea.

There's great benefit to be had in choosing to do SOMETHING.  To get moving.  To do some little chore or some creative act.  To get some exercise.  To read a good book.  To make an encouraging phone call or text or email or tweet.  Pretty much anything, in fact.

It's hard, sometimes, to do something.  It's easier to be paralyzed by anxiety or fatigue or depression or lethargy or confusion, or boredom.

But our family often finds that it's better, far better, to face the inertia head-on and MAKE ourselves get moving.  We feel much better for it, and it helps put things in perspective.  We feel more optimistic, more in control, more on top of things.

If you're having a down time, friends, let me encourage you to do something.  God bless.

Happy Birthday To Me!

Tomorrow's my birthday, yay!  My twin brother and I will be forty-eight years old.

I understand midlife crisis--I'm nowhere nearly the financial or professional success I might have hoped for at this age.

But I wrote this on Facebook a couple of years ago:

All kidding aside, birthdays lend to introspection. Forty-six years old, probably solidly in the mid-life crisis stage, lots of things that I could wish were otherwise.

But this evening:
1. I have a roof over my head.
2. I have plenty to eat.
3. I have a beautiful family and there is love in my home.
4. I can walk, talk, work, and rest.
5. My sins are forgiven in Jesus' name and God has promised to never leave me.

So, yeah. I'm good. Today's been great.

Good night, friends. Be well.

And it's still true.  I have much to be thankful for and much to be happy about.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Adored Wife's Surgery Date

You know, most people, facing surgery, would think it was kind of a big deal.

At this writing, Adored Wife has hernia surgery coming up.   By the time this publishes it'll be over with--I'm a few days ahead on the blog. To her, it's just one more thing.  She deals with so many health issues on a regular basis that this isn't really fazing her.  She's sorted out the scheduling, made sure insurance has it covered, we have a convalescent plan, and then, enh, it's just another day.

When she recovers from this she'll probably go ahead and get the major carpal tunnel issues taken care of.

The only thing really concerning her is that, post-abdominal surgery, many people have to use their arms to do a lot of the moving around their stomach muscles normally handle.  AW can't really bear any weight on her arms, so that's an issue.

No problem.  I shall lend her whatever strength she needs (he said gallantly.)  I'm taking a little time and, with all due modesty, I'm really remarkably strong.

The only thing worrying ME is that she gets cranky and bored when she's laid up.  I'll have to make sure to come up with some projects she CAN do to keep her busy, or there'll be no living with her.  The computer is a wonderful thing.

Ya'll pray for us now, you hear?

Thanks, friends, and God bless.

Addendum: Surgery went well, and she's had an uncomfortable couple of days, which was to be expected.  All things considered she's doing okay and is behaving herself.  Which, you know, is kind of surprising.

A Father Has to Apologize

So, God laid on my heart that I needed to give a real apology to Social Hurricane.

A lot of the troubles started a few years ago when her bipolar disorder was first kicking in.  We didn't know what was happening at the time; we thought she was just going through an exceptionally rebellious period.

And we had one bad night--she went for a walk, and walked for hours.  That's very common with bipolar--sometimes you just have to get out and move.  We found her bed empty, called around to her friends, called the police, the whole nine yards.  We were panicking, let's give us that.

And, when she did check in, I blew up at her.

That was a bad idea.  Granted her actions weren't well thought out, but she was confused and her brain was betraying her and she wasn't thinking clearly.  All she knew was that she had to get out.  Plus, she was the teenager and I was the mature, wise, middle-aged father.  What I should have done was try to listen, try to understand.  I shouldn't have let my anger get the better of me.  She didn't mean any harm.  She didn't mean to worry us.

And rather than help the situation, I drove her away.  Maybe if I'd reacted with a little more compassion, things would have turned out a lot differently.  It was the start of a very difficult time in our family life.

So the other night I had a long talk with her, and I apologized, and asked her to forgive me.  And she was very gracious about it, and told me she did forgive me.  And then we got a soda and talked about superheroes and went for a walk.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Basement Artist Gets A Life

Basement Artist is as much of an introvert as I am, without my extra couple of decades of accommodation mechanisms.

It's come as a great surprise to her that she seems to have acquired a life.

Okay, so fair enough, she's a young adult living in her parents' basement.  But she also has a steady job that she enjoys and is good at, she pays rent, she's engaged to a great guy from Montreal, Canada, and she's travelling up to see him next month.  This time next year she'll be married and living in Canada if all goes well.  (Her father expects to miss her a lot and plans to cry like a baby.)

She's creative, and writes and draws and edits very well and is brushing up on her piano skills and learning French.  (She's going to need it.)  She has an associate's degree in Forestry and is proficient with a chainsaw.  She's involved in her church's media and Sunday School ministries.  She has a lot going for her.

But what has really come as a shock to the introvert is that she has in the last several months acquired lots of friends and an active social life.  Between church, work, and neighborhood she has all kinds of connections, meets weekly with her small group for Bible study and fellowship, and frequently has coffee and ice cream dates with girlfriends.  (For obvious geographic regions she doesn't get together with the fiancé as much as either one of them would like.)

I'll be honest--a couple of years ago when we were talking about an upcoming wedding we were concerned because she didn't have any close friends her age.  Who was she going to ask to be a bridesmaid?  Now, it's the opposite problem--we're going to have to limit the number of attendants and she's going to have a hard time making the selection.

Of course, she is still an introvert, and will still have times when she needs to go in her room and close the door for a few hours because she's all peopled out, but I totally get that.  But even so, good job, Basement Artist.  I'm delighted to see you blossom, and I'm very proud of the young woman you're becoming.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

My Dad's Birthday

It's my father's eighty-ninth birthday today.  I'd like to wish him a very happy day.

He'll never see this or know about it unless somebody tells him--he's heard about the internet but doesn't have any particular interest in using it.  My older brother lives with him and Daddy relies on him for any computer stuff that needs doing.

He does have a cellphone, which he likes.  And he really enjoys the buttons and gadgets in his car.  And the television remote control is the greatest invention in the history of the world.  Other than that, he's not all that interested in technology.

He's a little surprised he's lived this long.  As he's fond of saying "I'm not sure what age you get to be an old man.  But I'm pretty sure I've got there."  For an elderly man with heart trouble, balance issues, high blood pressure, circulatory problems, hearing loss, palsy and arthritis he's actually doing pretty well.  He also says "I don't feel like doing anything, but that's the beauty of it.  I don't have to."

I quote him a lot, probably more than I'm aware.  He's wise, clever, and funny, and he's had many adventures and stories from his long life.  He can be garrulous and inquisitive, but I think a lot of that is deliberate because he knows he can get away with it.  A man has to have a hobby.

I don't know how much longer we're going to have him--we've had a few scares here and there, some of them quite recent.  I treasure the time we do have with him and I know it's not going to be that many more years before we bid him farewell to his heavenly home.  I owe the old man a lot, and I'm very aware that much of the man I am is due to him.

Happy birthday, Daddy.  I love you.

Adored Wife's Surgery

As if Adored Wife didn't have enough to put up with, she's facing hernia repair surgery coming up.  She jokes that she's hitting middle age and completely falling apart.

It should be relatively straightforward, and our health insurance is currently good--we've met our deductible for the year and there won't be any out-of-pocket expenses.

She's a little worried about anesthesia and is trying to get it done with a spinal block so she can stay awake--the last time she went under she wound up having some seizure activity so we'd rather avoid that.

But it's a fairly small muscle separation as these things go, and the doctor said recovery should be fairly easy--a day or two of bed rest, a pretty sore week and then she ought to feel much better.

We appreciate your prayers, though--our past experience suggests that when things are supposed to have been simple they often turn out not to be.  It'd be nice to have something where the doctor's optimistic predictions turn out to be right.

I'll keep you posted.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

House of Chaos and Mayhem, May I Help You?

Happy almost-birthday to Graphics Magician, who turns thirteen in a few days.

Social Hurricane actually started this running gag in our household, and I wish I'd thought of it.

It was a few months ago, I was out and I called home for some reason.  SH saw it was me on the caller ID (at least I hope she did) and she answered "House of Chaos and Mayhem, may I help you?"

And it caught me off guard and I laughed.  It actually describes our family pretty well.

So the NEXT time it happened and she answered "House of Chaos and Mayhem, may I help you?" I was ready and I asked if I could speak to Mrs. Mayhem.

And she gave the phone to Adored Wife.

Now Graphics Magician is starting to get in on the act.  He answered the phone yesterday with "House of Chaos and Mayhem, this is Mr. Chaos."

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Family Day Out

THIS....is a happy post.

We have two young adult daughters who live at home (paying rent), work crazy hours and have active social lives.  Adored Wife has doctor appointments and volunteer commitments, and my work for a church has some odd scheduling involved with it.  Graphics Magician's summer time calendar is actually pretty flexible when he's not occupied with his friends.

This is a roundabout way of saying that it's a little difficult to get everybody together for any length of time.  Last night (at this writing) we were all awake and in the house at the same time for about fifteen minutes, which is the only time it had happened that day.  I left the house today before anybody but the cat was awake, and by the time I get home both girls will be at work, and by the time they get home I'll probably be asleep.

So it was a tremendous pleasure the other day when NOBODY had anything scheduled for the afternoon or evening.  We went out to lunch as a family, at Cici's Pizza Buffet (the girls paid their own way), and then went to a very nice mall and just hung out together for a couple of hours.  Everybody was getting along, we were talking and laughing and having a good time.  There are issues and concerns, but we shoved them all aside and talked about movies and friends and music and jobs.

I had a blast.

No point to this, friends, just wanted to let you know that not everything in our household is challenging.  Some times the family is just fun.

Hope all's well out there, and God bless.

Sympathetic to Anxiety

Adored Wife deals with a lot of anxiety issues.

This means the REST of the family deals with a lot of anxiety issues because, you know, if Mama ain't happy ain't nobody happy.

I have to confess I haven't always been as sympathetic and understanding about this as I should have been, but I'm trying to get better about it.  I've asked AW to try to describe what happens with the anxiety, and she's working on it.  She does say it's completely different than panic attacks (she has those, too.)

From our perspective, it can be difficult to live with--it does sometimes feel as though you have to tiptoe around certain issues and refrain from doing certain things because they might trigger an anxiety attack.  It can seem like the anxiety is running the household.

But it's a legitimate medical issue, like any of a number of other things we face, and AW can't help it.  This is one we're learning to live with, as a family, because that's what family does.  I'm going to be doing some homework and research on it, and AW's going to be working on helping us understand what it's like inside her head.

This is not going to beat us.  Nothing else has, and this isn't going to, either.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Everybody Plays Charades

Happy Independence Day!

In this post, I elaborated on Adored Wife's anomic aphasia, her brain's occasional inability to come up with the correct word.  It's not a hugely impairing thing; probably 98% of the time the right term is there when she needs it.  It's just enough of an issue to be noticeable in conversation, and the family has gotten pretty good at figuring out what AW wants to say from her gestures and clues and "pointer words."

For instance, if she's trying to come up with "garage" and her mind isn't supplying it, she'll point toward it and say something like "where we keep the cars."  It works pretty well.  Or with the word "scissors" she'll act it out with her fingers, that sort of thing.

In conversation with her the other night I noted that the family had gotten pretty good at speaking her language, and she was quick to let me know that it wasn't just her family.  Her Sunday School class and the people at the community theater and a few neighbors (all of whom she spends significant time with) are pretty accustomed to deciphering her as well.

Everybody she knows reasonably well has learned to play charades.

And it got me to thinking about the whole idea of "normal," (as in "the neighbors think we're.....").  AW's friends and family have a relationship with her in which it's normal to have to sometimes guess at the word she wants.  And she's very happy to have friends who are willing to do that to have a conversation with her.

And I just wanted to express my appreciation to all of those who are willing to play along with those of us who aren't quite as normal as some.  Thanks for playing charades, friends.  That's just how we roll around here.

The Hurricane Passes the Test!

I'd like to extend my congratulations to Social Hurricane for passing her CNA test.  She is now a fully licensed Certified Nursing Assistant.  Yay!

This is something she's long thought she'd like to do.  She's spent a fair amount of time in hospitals (including a lengthy stay after getting hit by a car a few years ago) and has learned to very much appreciate the work CNAs do.  Plus she's compassionate, enjoys being with people, and has never been scared of hard (or dirty) work.

On the downside she does have some learning disabilities and doesn't do well in an academic environment.  She didn't pass the test the first time through, despite lots of studying, and that took the wind out of her sails for a while.  But she regrouped, and recently took it again, and this time she was determined to blow it out of the water.

And she studied and prepared like nobody's business this time around, and successfully passed it.  I'm very proud of her; this was a bit of an uphill climb.

So she's going to be starting in the healthcare field--there are numerous job possibilities, and she's hoping this will be the doorway to further opportunities.  And hey, if she decides that health care isn't for her, at least she'll have a VERY marketable skill while she IS deciding what she wants to do with her life.

Way to go, Hurricane!

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Everybody Needs A Little Understanding

Everybody in the household hits difficult times, but we react to it in different ways.  MOST of the time, we cut each other a little slack, recognize that the particular family member is having a tough go of it, and let them deal with it how they need to.

Adored Wife gets temperamental and irritable when she's not feeling well or she's frustrated or she's having a "bad brain day."  When this happens she has to go do something to take her mind off the hook a little bit (usually reading) OR she needs to do some project to feel more in control; she'll straighten, clean, get something checked off the to-do list.

Usually when I'm tired or overdone or hungry I need something to eat and some alone time.  I can't be subtle about this; I have to announce it.  "I need a sandwich and a book and some peace and quiet for thirty minutes.  Thanks."  That's pretty much all it takes.

Basement Artist, the introvert's introvert, will get to the point where she's all peopled out.  She retreats to her room and we don't bother her for awhile until she's had a chance to recharge.

Social Hurricane, when SHE'S having a bad brain day, requires feeding and attention and one on one time.

Graphics Magician will have occasional meltdowns when he's just generally frustrated with life.  (This early adolescence business is tough.)  With him we combine feeding and alone time--a snack and a timeout do wonders for his mood (especially if it involves a turn on the computer.)

We have to be good to each other.  We're in this together.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Connoisseur of Couches

Adored Wife, among the many other challenges that go with being here, has chronic nerve and muscle pain relating to some collapsed disks in her neck.  Surgery helped, but there appears to be some long-lasting (and perhaps permanent) nerve damage.

The end result is that she can't be upright for excessive lengths of time without having to lie down to take the pressure off her neck.  She can last longer standing up than sitting down, oddly enough.

So she's a connoisseur of couches.  Some years back when this was first becoming a problem, pre-surgery, she and the kids went on an extended road trip to visit several old friends.  She spent a fair amount of time in the van with the seat leaning back, and she did most of her visiting lying down on various living room couches talking to her cronies.

At church she's been known to stretch out on some comfy chairs in the choir room.  When she directed a play recently we actually kept a "stage furniture" bed complete with foam rubber mattress in the rehearsal space and she did a lot of her job from the horizontal position.  There's also an amusement park we like (bizarrely, certain full-neck-support roller coasters she can ride) and she knows where every bench is--she'll have some fun for twenty minutes, then stretch out on a bench for ten, using her purse as a pillow.

And, yes, she knows where all the couches are.

Need to know something about a place to lie down somewhere?  Adored Wife can hook you up.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.