Vickie,
I'm so sorry for the loss of your friend and neighbor.
Blessings,
JoAnn
what makes us different? please share . . .
Vickie, I'm so sorry to hear about your freind/neighbor. It sounds as tho he lived a full life and was only down for a very short time. That is such a blessing. GOD be with you and your family as you remember him and mourn the loss of such a dynamic person.
Vickie, I agree that it sounds as if he lived a full, full life. And hello, Charlene, and welcome! Feel free to join in whenever you feel the urge.
Thank you all, My neighbor is with his wife now and that makes me happy. And DD is going to stay a couple of weeks,so things turned out well.and he'll still be with us in memory.
Charlene, I'll always see him when i go in the woods or down a couple of roads he liked. Even his pastor said the samething.
I do appreciate your words of comfort. It made me feel better.
Vickie
Vickie, knowing that your neighbor had a FULL life and will be remembered is a comfort I'm sure. A loss of a friend is always hard! ~ Pat
Carrie, the grape sauce was already in the 'fridge so all I had to do was stir in the c. apple sauce and reheat it all in the microwave in a big bowl. Rinsed the jars with hot water from the tap since they were already washed, let them sit in the canner with the water boiling around them for a few minutes before putting on the lid and canning them under 10# pressure for about 10 min. Having the grape pulp already made the job twice as easy and even gave me some energy(?)since I really hadn't known what I was going to do with it until that morning.
Today is a down day as yesterday was. Even more than yesterday really. I didn't even make it to church. I'll try to go tonight. Tomorrow I'll try to go pick those plums and more c. apples. I offered some of the Braeburn apples we have that are threatening to break a major branch of that poor tree to the coworker who is giving me the plums and c. apples. I still have a LOT of grapes to get picked. Canning is bringing back memories from my childhood. I am using my parents strainer on 3 legs to strain out the juice & pound the pulp thru. And their pressure canner which dates from sometime in the '30s or before. I think I need new gaskets for all 3 of the other canners. I can't seem to locate the old All American canner. It's somewhere around here. Finding all of Mother and Daddy's was an answer to prayer the other night because I was learning none of the others could be relied on at that time. Yes, at one time I kept 3 canners going at one time for a couple days. All in some stage of canning.
I started to go to church but just couldn't make it. Had to turn around and come back home. I had also forgotten to pick up my co workers grapes. I'll try to go to church tonight and can drop them off at her house either going in or coming home. I'm listening to TV sermons. I always get something I need when this happens.
GOD bless and keep each of you.
Something that was said on another thread made we want to ask here: are we (disabled or having difficulty doing what we used to do easily) or do we think of ourselves as the poor, the sick, the unwanted and social outcasts?
If I want to write a check in a store, and the clerk says sure, I'll need to see your license (beat... looks at the wheelchair) or state photo ID, I feel like a social outcast. I have a valid driver's license .
If the cost of living for people with disabilities (officially, posted by the government) is rising faster than my SSDI payments (which I earned), I feel poor. (More so than the poor I deserve....)
If I have to spend twelve or fourteen hours waiting, either on the phone on hold, leaving messages (in the correct format on the correct voice mail boxes), getting different stories from the pharmacist who knows me and the one who doesn't, before I finally get my med refilled (which ran out over the weekend), I feel powerless and unwanted.
Grrr. Bad day yesterday.
To a few former friends, I was unwanted because I needed some consideration, their loss. My warped sense of humor is more likely to make me a social outcast than my health problems, haha. Poor is not measured by money, I have a roof over my head and food to eat, I can live without much of the rest. Richness comes from family and friends, your relationship with God.
Everyone fights the phone, it doesn't know we are disabled.
Educate the store clerk, she was probably embarrassed and didn't know what to say.
And I sure understand bad days, may today be joyful!
Oh yeah, I forgot my warped sense of humor!
Yeah Carrie, I think you just lost your humor yesterday. It is one of your best features.
Carrie, it all depends on the day for most of us. The situation may make us feel poor, unwanted, etc. one day but not on another day. We rely so much on our feelings and let them run our lives way too much. The truth is that in most cases in this nation anyway we are blessed beyond measure. But that doesn't mean unpleasant or inconveinient situations never come our way. We each have to decide day by day, situation by situation how we will respond. Talking to myself as much as anyone else. As Joyce Meyers once said "We can be pitiful or powerful but not both at the same time". I have learned that if I am pleasant, bless the people who wait on me at stores, pharmacies, doctor's offices, meet on the street, work with, etc. and give away a lot of smiles my life runs more smoothly and people are more willing to go to the extra effort to help me. And I feel better in nearly every way. At least I did my part to make this world a nicer place to live in for those I met that day.
I really must get going on today's tasks which mostly involve driving and paying bills.
(Rummaging around for sense of humor. . .)
Thanks, folks.
I think everyone in the whole world would be happier if they all took a nap after lunch. :-D
Carrie, I am CERTAIN the clerk was TRYING to be respectful. I'm sure she felt like she might have put you in an embarrassing position and didn't know WHAT to say! She probably gave herself a bruise hitting her own forehead (Ack... what have I just done!)
Cathy, I wish I could take a nap after lunch! Out shopping one day I overheard two adults talking and one was kinda crabby. Her friends said "SOMEBODY needs a nap!" I thought I'd die laughing.
That was a looooong time ago -- I just drag it out when I need an example of man's inhumanity to man. I don't remember the store, the time of year, what I was buying (and I always remember what I was buying!), or what race, sex, color or creed that clerk was. Just the big pause after he or she asked for my driver's license and then took in the fact that I was there in a wheelchair. I'm sure the intent was to save us both the embarrassment of having me say "er, I don't drive", but why do I remember it as embarrassing so many years later?
Wellllllllllllllll.......... because it had a HUGE "emotional charge" attached to the memory. So when the memory comes up so does the emotion that is "attached to it". Its the same reason why sometimes when we remember something that was emotionally painful for us we still cry "today" when it happened a long time ago. Actually its surprising that you don't remember ALL details very clearly when it was such a painful experience.
I very rarely remember all the painful details because I try to forget them. Then again the "fibro fog" helps sometimes, too. :-)
I had an interesting situation happen last week that I could have been hurt and sulked over, but I decided to turn it into something positive so it won't happen again.
The church secretary called and asked me if I could do a PowerPoint slide show with the words to about 6 or 7 songs. She didn't know how to use PowerPoint and the Pastor suggested she call me. We don't usually project the words to our songs because we have hymnals, but since these songs were out of an older hymn book there weren't enough to go around.
Anyway, as busy as I've been, I readily said yes. It took me about 3 hours to complete the project from start to finish. On Sunday, I brought the CD to church. Well.....apparently SOMEBODY either assumed that I was going to set up the projector and laptop and run the show, too, or ask someone else to do it. I wasn't asked to do that and wasn't prepared to do it either because I sing in the choir. Well, needless to say they didn't use the CD and all the work I did went down the drain. As it turned out, everyone had to share the old hymnals we had.
At first, I saw red and prayed real hard to keep from losing my cool. Over and over I said Lord keep me calm. God was faithful and He helped me to turn that negative into something positive. On Wednesday I went down to the church and taught the secretary how to use PowerPoint!
JoAnn
Thank you JoAnn! You have just given me a reminder lesson on relying on God's help in times of trouble. He has spoken to my heart today thru your words.
Oh boy.... that was truly the results of "ASSUMING" which I am sure you have all heard about. JoAnn, you handled that wonderfully. Not sure I could be that strong and faithful!
We have old hymnals, new hymnals, and newer hymnals, and there still sometimes the minister wants to sing something that isn't in one of those three places!
I sing better with the words on a screen, holding heads up instead of looking down, plus the letters are bigger, I can see them, haha.
(Music teacher speaking . . .) you should hold your music UP and sing OUT!
(Me speaking) yeah, I know, plus you don't have to find the page.
.I attend Calvary Chapel of the Triad. (our teaching library is available online). Like many new churches, the words to the songs are shown on big screens. I love worshiping and singing to the Lord looking up...way up. I am truly singing to and worshiping Him. We have praise and worship music for around 30 minutes for the beginning of every service. It is such a sweet and moving time. It has been so long since I held a hymnal, I think I would be terribly distracted by it. I do miss singing in a choir though.
I feel so close to all of you here. It is comfortable , having a "family" that understands my "issues" and challenges...and even my description of pain and fatigue, etc.
It will be so wonderful when we are truly healed and meet heaven. I sure will welcome that "perfect body"!
Sheri =^-^=
Regarding the topic - I spend more time here than in my yard gardening for but 1 simple fact. I cannot do the real thing now. I have plants, mail ordered last spring on sale that desperately need to be planted. I am not physically able to dig up this red clay soil , or amend it, or do anything more than plant something in soil that is already easy to work.....Then
a root canal & crown followed by a $3,500 roof repair bill ate up my garden funds and all of my savings. So here I am sadly watching my new little plants die 1 x 1. It is raining this week. so at least in the front, the ground should be soft enough that I should be be able to get some Hostas and Ferns planted. That area was worked and amended very well 12 - 13 yrs ago when I first planted, and every year my large pin oak drops its nice tiny leaves to add to the woodland "earth". But as far as me planting anywhere else without assistance?....."fagetaboutit!" In addition - I am having a Very hard time fighting depression right now, between physical pain , emotional drain and stress, and even serous spiritual attack, i sleep to escape it all....(wish I could get a bite of a Snow White apple)
I sort of can't see the light right now...but I do believe that it IS at the end of this tunnel and that this tunnel DOES have an end,...so........that's my 2 cents worth. Sorry for being so gloomy.
Sheri
.....I have GOT to pull out of this hole ...just reading this..I sosund like a whiney oh-poor-me that's on her pitty pot.......Sorry ;-(
BirdieBlue and anyone else that suffers from depression, there is a good thread here on depression, I'll have to find the link later and add it. Pain and depression frequently go hand and hand. Pain can cause depression and depression can increase pain due to the way our body transmits "information".
I sure didn't think you sounded "whiney-oh -poor-me". I think you sounds like you miss some of your abilities and it hurts to see work go unfinished that YOU would love to have the ability to do again. Ablebodied people have a tough time understanding why we want to weed!!!
I added a few barrels to be able to grow flowers and get my "gardening fix" when I was unable to do work IN the ground.
Sheri, you sound depressed and sad, not whiny. Container gardening is most of what I do - I can reach my plants so much more easily. Maybe you could stick your bnew oplants into some kind odf container, anything with a drain hole, really. Don't worry about spacing or design or anything, just label them well and try to keep them alive through the winter. We'll hope that by next year or the one after that, you'll have figured out a way to stick them where you had wanted them in the first place (unless you're like me, and you just bought them 'cause they sounded pretty!)
Birdie, we all understand the need to vent here, and don't think less of you. Find an old pot and stick those plants in it, all together if you have to. As long as the roots survive the plant will return.
One of the hardest lessons I had to learn was to ask for help. Oh, how I hated needing help. Perhaps you could ask someone for one hour of help in the yard?
Gentle Hugs coming your way {birdie}
Good morning Carrie, we must have been typing at the same time.
This thread has once again reached the 100 reply mark which is hard on those with dial up so I'm going to start #3. Please look for it and start using it. Thanks, & GOD bless all of you.
Link to new thread... #3 http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/902026/