And It All Hits The Proverbial Fan...

I think perhaps my public commitment to blogging more often may have jinxed me. Since I did that, the [insert your favorite word for excrement] has really hit the fan around the ol’ homestead here. Within just a few days of my last post, my son was in critical condition and spent four days in the ICU, then was transferred to another hospital, where he remains as of now. It’s another one of those things I can’t talk about. However, I think it’s something I may go ahead and talk about soon. I am considering how to go about it, since it hardly seems like anyone can have even the slightest picture of my life recently without some discussion of this issue. To blog about my life and not talk about this borders on the ridiculous, because this matter has overtaken my world for the last few months.

At the same time, there’s been major drama going on at home with my college-age foster son. Major. The kind of stuff that has the potential to tear my family apart – not that we wouldn’t recover, but no one wants that to happen. Except, perhaps, my foster son himself. I guess it’s not fair to say he wants it to happen, but it is fair to say that he does not care how his actions and decisions impact the family. But right now – right at this current time – I will not allow my family to be torn apart. My son needs a cohesive and tight and supportive family unit to come home to from the hospital. And for that reason, I am battling my foster son and his decisions every step of the way. He can do as he pleases at some later time – he is, after all, a legal adult – but right now I’m pulling out all the stops to keep him in line. It’s all much more complicated than I have time to go into right now, but it’s an ongoing battle that I am determined to win. When my son comes home, it will be to a peaceful, unified family without drama. And I will play every card I have to make that happen.

With all of this going on, there was a period of time where I felt as though I’d collapse under the strain of it all. I did start to lose it. Went through a period of being very emotional, crying at the drop of a hat, losing sleep, etc. But then my foster son and I got into a very nasty argument, and that argument actually served as a challenge to me. The gauntlet had been thrown down, so to speak. I am not a weak person; I am a strong, adult woman who has been through many trials in life and I will not let this cause me to lose control. I looked at my office wall, where there hangs a tea towel that someone once sent me. It has words printed on it: “Put on your big girl panties and deal with it.” And so I did. I straightened up my back, told myself, “There’s no crying in baseball” (some of you may get that reference and some may not – I understand this is not baseball – LOL), and got my second wind. Or maybe it’s my twenty-second wind, I don’t know. But I’m feeling strong right now and I will handle this. All of it. For my son, for my family, and for myself. I’m a tough gal. Sometimes I just have to remember that.

This is all I have time for today, but when I figure out how to approach certain subjects, I will tell more about them. In the mean time, the tough broad in me is taking over. I am woman, hear me roar. And all that jazz.

Humbug. Down In The Dumps.

I do my best - really I do, and I'm generally pretty good at it - but even I sometimes can't pull myself out of a funk for a while. This Christmas season sucks.

In the last month and a half, my son has been in four different hospitals. Four emergency room trips, three ambulance rides, two extended hospital stays and a partridge in a pear tree. Well, okay, there was no partridge. But I'm trying to keep my humor here, people.

For a while I had to close my online booth (it's open again now, though - please visit!), and lately I can't even make or keep appointments because it seems every other day there's a new crisis with him. I've stood up the handyman, the plumber, and two of my own doctor's appointments. Shoot, he's missed his own doctor's appointments a couple of times because he ended up in the hospital first! So anyway, yeah, I'm down in the dumps.

I have no idea how Christmas is going to happen around here. We don't have a tree yet or a single decoration put up, and I haven't purchased a single gift. I am absolutely, positively determined that I will get my stockings project for the homeless youth done, come "hell or high water", as they say. But will I get Christmas to happen in this house? Gawd, I really don't know.

Well, keeping it short today. Here's hoping I will be back to my chipper ol' self pretty soon. Just wanted to put an update here for those who read. I try to keep it upbeat, but if I'm gonna be honest, I have to admit when times are hard, too.

Please keep my son in your thoughts and prayers.

I Was Gone - Now I'm Back!

I haven’t posted here in a while because – basically – my life came apart at the seams for a little over a month, to be honest. I’m still not sure it’s entirely holding together again. I thought a lot about whether I wanted to go into detail here in explaining what all has happened, but I decided against it. Suffice it to say that there was not just a single crisis, but one after the other after the other. To go over it all would be too long and involved, and it would probably get too personal with regard to at least one of my “stray” kids. So, I’m just going to let it go and pick right back up where I left off.

First, though, if anyone who was affected by my “disappearance” is reading, I do want to apologize. There were customers from my online booth who received packages late or whose shipments were messed up while I had someone else take over for me (I did finally get my booth put on “vacation hold” so that there would be no more sales while I was unavailable), and there were other customers who sent me e-mails that either went unanswered or were answered very late. I vanished from Twitter and Facebook, and even my family and friends did not hear from me for a while there. To everyone: I’m sorry. I wish I could explain, but I just hope you’ll understand that I can’t and that you know I’d never leave you all hanging on purpose. Things were just real, real bad.

I can talk about this, though – the latest crisis to hit: My fifteen-year-old son has been suffering from gradually-intensifying tremors and shaking, along with shortness of breath and a light-headed feeling, for about six weeks. This overlapped with all the other stuff that was going on, so it’s been a very difficult time. This “condition”, whatever it is, finally resulted in a full-on, nasty, horrifying seizure. Over the last month and a half he has been to several doctors and has been in three hospitals – the last one, after the seizure, was the most extended stay – and no one can tell us what’s wrong with him. He’s been referred to a neurologist for further testing, but for the time being we are just living on pins and needles.

Now, where does that leave me as far as my “freelance mom” activities? Well, it leaves me in a bit of a pickle. The next month or so is going to be very much filled with doctor appointments and such for both my son and myself (in the midst of all this I became ill as well, but we’re not gonna go there), so I have made the very difficult decision that I will not be doing my Christmas dinner/project again this year. It is just more than I can take on right now. However, I am talking to some different people about the possibility of someone taking it over for me, so it’s not as if it might not still happen. I am still working on my shoe drive, though, and also on a somewhat different Christmas project. (just not a dinner) that is more in line with what I can handle right now.

I haven’t re-opened Rummage Rampage (my online booth) just yet, but barring any further crises (cross all your fingers and knock on wood), I plan to do that some time this week. Also this week I will have more info ready to share about the shoe drive and Christmas. I have some people to meet with and talk to, particularly regarding the shoe drive, and then I will get things rolling and share it here.

That is all for now. Wish me luck. Please! :)