ok ladies, it's time to get real now. puh-leeez!!

you know, there are so many women out there who are just doing too damn much. and because of that, foolishness and mayham is ensuing. what do i mean? well, most of us girls either work 10 hours a day outside the home to bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, or work as many hours in the home, take care of the kids, the house, the bills, participate in extracurricular activities at school/work/church, and, oh yeah, don't you forget about pleasin your man too. after all that? yeah, right!! even if you wanted to.

i'm forgetting the self imposed psychological shit that's tied in to all that too. .....GUILT.

YOU ARE TIRED! tired. exhausted really. aren't you? i know. hell, you should be. stop and think about all that you do everyday. how do you feel at the end, the begining, and the end of every day? you are killing yourself, do you realize that? why? hmmmm, let me see. for your job. for your parents. for the money. for the recognition. for how it makes you look to others. your spouse. your children. because you have to. you're supposed to. guilt. am i close? i could be way off though.

why do you neglect yourselves. put yourselves after what's last on your list of things to do?

COME ON!!! YOU JUST CAN'T DO THAT!

stop juggling. balls will fall. things will fall throught the cracks. it's life. let the guilt go.

you must take care of your self. i know you hear that, think that, everyday. but it really is true. if you don't take care of yourself, then there's no you to give. to anything, anyone, especially those most important to you. yes girls, it really is that simple. more on this later....

be well :)

"what you talkin 'bout willis?" teacher drama part 3

so we had ladybugs parent - teacher conference yesterday and, well, i still just don't get this chick! her teacher. she did nothing but gush about lauren and her work. how well she's doing, how almost excellent her work it. WHUH?!?!?

TIME OUT! OK, I AM SICK AND TIRED OF TRYING TO REMEMBER THE LITTLE "CODE NAMES" I'VE GIVEN EVERYONE!!! SO FROM NOW ON, I'M USING REAL NAMES FOR ME, MY DAUGHTER, AND HUBBY!! EVERYONE ELSE STAYS ANONYMOUS!! GOT IT?!?!

now, juan (dh or dear hubby) and i know that (lauren aka lb or ladbyug) lb's work is very good, and that she know's what she's doing (the fact that we're her parents not withstanding! ha!). but this teacher completely flipped the script. almost everything lauren is doing is fantastic. ???!!! so juan and i left the meeting scratching our heads. we're going to meet with her again to discuss this further because it just don't jive with her progress report. so we need to know what she's looking for because we don't want lauren going through the rest of the year stressed and down on learning, nor do we want to get to the end of the school year and she wants to hold lauren back. ya know what i mean vern?

what do you think?

be well :)

a beautiful day in the neighborhood

it's a beautiful day. seriously. the kind of day that explains why people work 150 hours a week to afford a $700,000 mortgage for an 1100 square foot fixer upper here in a questionable area here in the area. i live in the east bay in a little hamlet of a town nestled (literally) between beautiful rolling hills of a valley and the waters of the SF bay. hercules. NICE!

ok, so, i'm a bit bummed. i just came out of a round of chemo and had been feeling just awful all last week. well, with the weather being so pretty right now, i am really missing my ability to drive. in addition to heart and lung involvment, it now in the brain. so i have seizures that we haven't quite gotten under conrol just yet, and unil we do, no driving for me! which i ABSOLUTELY LOVE TO DO!! but i can't. nope. can't. for now....

you see, i'm someone who love to drive. what driving means to me... independence. solitude. freedom. put in a few cd's and blast the stereo, open the sun roof, and escape to beautiful places. one of my faveorites is this little bench seat perched on a cliff just above the golden gate bridge, overlooking the expanse of the pacific ocean, s.f., and the bay all in one glance (FANTASTIC!!), not too far up, just past the first few tourists stops. i don't know why, but it's never crawling with people. you may have seen me there with my secret lover? - my pretty, shinny black volvo 850 T5 with 324 little horsies under the hood.....GIDYUP GIRL!!!!LETS GO!!!! listening to those 6 cylinders humming, steering wheel vibrating in my hands, feul injected passion moving me down a 2 lane road or HWY 80 at 75 mph........mmmmmm, aaaahhhhhh. almost as good as S.E.X.!!

whew, ok, i digress. now you know some of the secrets of my dark little heart. i miss my life before october 3, 2006. pre siezure. i want to work too! i have all of these GREAT ideas. things i want to do. time, time, i know it takes time. right. time. wait. stop. is work that important to me that im willing to risk my health? why must it be that serious anyway? i love what i do. i help people change they're lives for the good. and i love the way that i do it. i need that. i need it. and i need to drive. it's purely selfish you understand. working and driving played a major role in helping me feel alive, and i feel i need that now more than ever before. but i can't work, or drive. nope. can't. at least for now....... ;)

so now im looking for thngs to replace what i got out of working. boy is it hard! for me, there's nothing that can replace what i feel when i drive. ok, that's all for the whining. i never make it long, and try to stick to just one thing at a time. and i've had, what, two days of bitchin?!


be well :)

thanks for all your comments about ladybugs teacher situation. i'm still working on figuring out how to get the "comments" section active. i'm sure it's "user error" lol!! :)

i'm still swimming...

OMG!! i'm in denial! major denial. still. yeah, i was in it before, swimming in it, when i first became sick. i really thought that i had gotten over and through it. the initial shock and awe of being diagnosed with several life threatening diseases i've never heard off. but i just had an epiphany (sp??). i'm not. nope. i'm not. i go back and forth too many times each day thinking and processing as if nothing is wrong with me. like "oh, i'm not really sick". but i am. don't get me me wrong. i'm stubborn and have a way of just gettig through things, getting it done. it helps me deal with, and get through the hard days. sucking it up. my game face.

i don't know how to explain it. it's like i play these games with myself. maybe juan is right. he gets, and is, really angry with me because he feels i pretend to everyone that everything is ok, like nothing is wrong with me, i'm not sick. "faking it". i told him that that wasn't fair, it's just my "game face". how i cope in a way. i just suck it up. no, i don't want to worry or scare people, nor do i want people feeling sorry for me, especially when i feel like "i'm not really sick". yeah, maybe he's right. damn. i'm too good at it. i'm fooling myself.

but hey, at least i look good! not like someone whose as sick as i am, dealing with what i'm dealing with. i swear - if someone else says how good i look i'm gonna scream then whap 'em with my cane!!! don't get me worng, i'm very thankful that "at least i still have my looks" (and i was an ugly duckling! no, seriously). do you know what a joke that is? how much of a non-compliment that is? no you don't, and neither do the people who tell me that. so i just say " oh thank you so much" and keep walking. but what i really want to say is " do you know how long it takes for me to get out of bed in the morning? how much blood i spit out when i brush my teeth, and how much it hurts to do it? that my once beautiful and thick hair has gotten so thin (for me at least), and changed so much that i really can't do much of anything to it because of the chemo and all the medications i take everyday. how i can't cook all the fantastic food i use to in my beautiful kitchen with all the wonderful and neat gadgets, tools, and fancy shmancy post, pans, and knives (cooking and food is my passion and i fancy myself a pretty damn good home chef!) because they're too heavy and i may cut myself because i tremor, am not strong enough on my right side to lift the pans, don't move fast enough if there's a fire or spill something, still have sieizures. or how difficult it is to help my daughter get dresed, let alone myself as i repeat "buttons and zippers are my friends". that my muscles are so tender, my skin is so tender and raw sometimes that it hurts to wear clothes, or to kiss my dh, or let my dear lb lay with me on the sofa and read to her. how i've got to wirte everything down several times in different places to make sure i don't forget and that what you think is real, or had happened may not be real at all or have actually happened because you can't trust your memory. or that i can't run to whole foods, williams-sonoma or anywhere else because i can't drive......" i could go on of course, and that's not even the worst of it. but why. i want to live. not focus on all this bullshit. but this bullshit is my life. at least right now. i pray for my own healing every day. i pray that i wake up one morning and, poof! the pain is gone, its all gone! all of it.

yeeuup. i think i'm still in a bit of denial. will i stop "faking it"? i don't know. i don't think i know how to. but i think it's working for me. well, for right now at least. how will i be if and when i figure out how to stop? hmmmm....

be well :

C's, D's, & F's... WHAAHH ??!! school drama part 2

uuuuuggghhh!!!!! ok. i just don't get it. really. we got lb's progress report last week and it was so not good. honestly, dh and i feel completely broadsided! this is just outta nowhere to us, really. we work with lb everyday and make it fun for her. and she has improved dramatically since our meeting with the teacher at the begining of the school year, which i talked at length about(sorry!) in the previous post.

dh and i are just furious as well! because the teacher is unable to see the improvement lb has made, not that there was any needed for a 5 year old. now i'm lb's mom, and i was/am concerned as to whether i'm being objective. so i took a step, or two, back, and did a gut check. and...YES I AM BEING OBJECTIVE! there have been so many little things happening since school started and dh and i wanted to give the teacher a chance.

well anyway, i just couldn't take it anymore, so i called the 'room mom' and a few other parents and had several revelations - well, maybe not revelations since i knew there was funkiness going on in the first place. just confirmation. each mom i spoke with (3 or 4) said that they were having the same issues with the teacher and that their child was a bit stressed as well. hate to say it, but i felt better after speaking with them. at least it's not just l and we're not crazy.

so lb's parent teacher conference is coming up in a next week and dh and i plan to have a plan when we met with her..... will keep you posted... get it?

be well

been too long again with some school and health drama thrown in!

OCTOBER IS LUPUS AWARENESS MONTH "someone you know has lupus" http://www.lupus.org

well now. it really has been too long. and i don't know where to beging really, so bare with me while i try to catch you all up. here we go.....


where have i been? sick. yep, sick. again. i was in the hospital for two weeks and got out a little over two weeks ago. i'd been pregnant for about 4 months, AND DID NOT KNOW IT. and because my body is all fucked up with these diseases, all hell broke loose! the doc's said there was no choice, nothing to discuss. end the pregnancy or die.


so i've only been free from the hospital for 3 days, i go to get my regular labs (bloodwork) done, and the nurses tell me that one of my doctors wants me to call right away. yikes! what's that about?? well, he wanted me to have another round of chemo right away, like two days later. i hate chemotherapy. YUCK! that's so not even close to describing what it's like and how it makes me feel. and i still haven't found a way to trully describe how it feels to go through it, and what it's like afterwards. note to self..... work on that.

and i had mama drama while i was in the hospital too.... unfortunately. mom and dh (hear hubby) got into it in my hospital room in a major way!! yep. they did. i just sat here and erased several hours of typing. i went into detail about the situation with mom and dh, then mom calling my lil brother for explaination. and the drama over her borrowing my car, and other misallaneous crap that i'd put up with regarding her. well, i just erased it all. i sure did. and it was good too. funny, witty. but i erased it. it needed to be erased. why? because crazy is, as crazy does. there's no rhyme or reason to my mother. she is truly in her own fucked up world that's based on nothing that makes any real sense or logic when it comes to her family.... unfortunately. so, i figured i'd not bore you with it. now i know i'll hear from some of you (which reminds me to say that i'm working on getting my 'comments' section enabled for you all - and i thank you all for your feedback and kind words!), but, hey, i just can't use that energy on her ANYMORE. now this doesn't mean that i'm no longer going to tell you about the mama drama, because many of you know that it's just too good not to! lol!!

so, since i last wrote, ladybug started school - the first grade! she's really starting to grow up. i'm still very nervous about this. i don't know how to explain it. and on top of that, we're having issues with her new teacher, mrs. b. she's been a teacher for quite some time now, i think at least 25 years, but is new to our school. we met her for the first time at back to school nite and picked up right away that she's wound too tight. dh and i figured that she was a bit nervous since this is a new gig for her, and she's still learning the ropes. fine. but then the school work started coming home. talk about confusing! dh and i had to meet with her by the second week of school! she brought up some issues with lb that we are well aware of - we're more than aware of what our kid is and can be like. we're not the type of parents that insist that their child is a perfect angel as the kid burns down the school. we know lb is a social butterfly whose easily distracted. however, she's like that only under certain conditions. so we wanted to let the teacher know this. and that we are hands on parents that won't tolerate any rediculousness - from lb, her, or the school.

mrs. b acknowledge that, but then went on to add that lb has a tendancy to have what she described as 'meltdowns'. so after we got clarification on what that means to her, dh and i were disturbed, because that's just not something lb does. don't get me wrong. lb has meltdowns, she's 5 years old. but not at all what the teacher described. this troubled dh and i. we felt in our gut, after a gut check, that this just wasn't true. since then mrs. b has also suggested that there are other "minor behavioral issues" but when we've pressed her for specifics and when, she's unable to give us this info or totally downplays the incident. i am not comfortable calling her a liar. yet she has a 'way' of saying things that bugs the hell out of us. she doesn't give it to you straight.

in addition, we wanted her to know about my health situation. i don't like nor want special treatment for lb, however, i don't want her being penalized for things that are out of her control and are based on or due to my health. we asked mrs. b to look out for any changes with lb in her school work or behavior for us as well.

so since so much of what dh and i feel our issues are are intagible, feelings, we figured we'd focus on what is tangible - school work. which we discussed at that meeting in august. at the time lb needed to work on her handwriting, which we knew (she writes too fast because she wants to write like a grownup, we told mrs. b.), and she needed to just slow down and focus. the teacher said she was missing words, or skipping words and or problems. remember, this i the second week of school (school stared august 23rd, our meeting was august 28th!!). i reminded mrs. that she was just coming from summer vacation, that she was a pm kindergartener before, and that she was 5 (!!!). i mean really, come on!!!!

well, we ended it with a mini plan regarding the school work and working on the attention span, again, she's 5. dh and i just didn't feel right about the teacher then and still don't. so like i said, we just focused on her school work, and she improved significantly, i mean really! and she was already doing first/second grade work (reading and phonics, not math so much).

but she is stressed out by school and expressed to us that she's scared of the teacher, feels the teacher is not very nice, but likes the assistant. also, they don't have desks, and eventhough they change sitting assignments, she spends several weeks at a time sitting and working with a few kids that terrorize her. which we'd already made mrs. b aware of who they are. i'm so concerned because she's stressed by school, not my health, and it's too early in the game for her to loose the passion she has for learning.

help!! what do i do?!?!