God Always Has An Answer

 Over the past few weeks I've been oddly irritated by parents who let their young children run around, especially in the middle of the road. We live in a neighborhood that has a bus stop at the end of the road, and when Bella and I leave in the morning it is right around the time these kids are going to the bus stop. 

Trust me, I am a person of GREAT patience, but these kids and their coffee mug holding, pajama wearing, sock and slipper parents drive me insane! The kids run out of the driveway full speed into the middle of the road, looking neither left nor right, not even up or down... OH MY STARS... And they are on scooters and bikes and there's like 100 of them. All unleashed from the confides of their homes with what I'm guessing to be bellies full of sugary cereal and mountain dew because no one should have that much get up and go this early in the morning. We literally have to slam on the brakes, mind you we are only driving around 20 mph or slower down the road, swerving and dodging.. And then the parents, THE PARENTS!! mean mugging ,as if us driving by to get to school and work is offending them. 

I have prayed about the irritation I feel over this lack of control these parents have over their spawn and why I'm so irritated by it-- OKay, that was a little harsh but COME ON NOW!

This brought me back to raising my own children at that age and trust me they weren't allowed to free roam like some organic chickens. I, and they will tell you with great frustration, didn't even let them outside without supervision. In fact, when I realized that Amelia had the potential to roam, I purchased an Elmo harness with a leash attached and she wore it EVERYWHERE we went. I endured comments like "Oh boy! You got a leash on your kid like she's a dog!" Or "Taking your kid for a walk, ar,ar,ar!" Actually, no Einstein, I'm keeping her safe and keeping you from having to slam on your brakes and whiplashing yourself...which after that comment might not be a bad idea"

I digress, that wasn't a very Christian thing to say. Forgive me Lord.

The whole leash debacle was settled when we were visiting Busch Gardens. They have this area that, although fenced in, is very expansive and includes enormous trees with rope ladders connecting them and little holes to hide in and on this particular day around 4.2 million children.

We walked through the gate. Aunt Meme, Abigayle, Amelia, and myself, ready to run off some energy from being on the African Serengeti safari ride for a bit too long. As we surveyed the area  I looked down to see the leash dragging on the ground with no Amelia attached to the end. OH MY GOSH. I felt my heart stop and then speed up to around 500 beats per minute all within a 2 second timeframe. I looked at Abigayle, who was around 4 at the time and she said " that's not good".  No Abigayle, this isn't good. 

Aunt Meme and I panicked and looked into the abyss of screeching, screaming children and instantly we saw her. Her little piggy tails flayling in the air, purple pacifier hanging from her gap-toothy smile, running free like an unleashed dog across one of the 100 rope bridges. I pointed and yelled " AMELIA ENID, YOU BEST STOP RIGHT NOW!!!!" she giggled and took off into a hole in one of the trees. 

Abigayle and I went in one direction and Aunt Meme in another. We chased her for what seemed like 500 HOURS, at a few times I just had to stop, I was out of breath, sweating like a hog and to be quite honest, at this point, about to just let her stay because she was showing no sign of giving up. Across the way I saw Aunt Meme within a few feet of Amelia ,maneuvering across a rope bridge and right as she reached out to grab her, she bolted with increased speed and left Aunt Meme in her dust.

The 3 of us defeated, after about an hour of this stupid game sat on a log and just watched. After all, there was only one way out and as long as we sat by the gate she couldn't get out. Within about 20 minutes of sitting on that log  she casually walked up, stood in front of us, dirty tree climbing hands on her hips, head tilted slightly to the side, sweaty pig tails matted to her face and said, in her little 2 year old lispy voice "Hey guys, what you doing here?" 

As I casually reached out to her in a hug like gesture, Aunt Meme grabbed her up from behind and "SNAP" the leash was reattached and I said in a loud voice" IT IS TIME TO GO!!!"

The leash stayed on Amelia until she was about 5 or 6, there were times when we'd get ready to leave the house and she'd say to Abigayle "where my leash sissy?' I think she got so used to it  that it became part of her everyday outfit. There's days now I'd like to put that Elmo leash back on her just to keep her home, but she's always been my free spirited child wanting to go go go.

Back to the bus stop and my irration.... As I prayed about this the last few weeks God actually gave me a very easy solution, and it has helped my morning mood. God simply whispered in my ear "Take the other road"...as simple as that!! And what perfect advice for life everyday. If you are irritated by something every day and it is stealing your joy.... Take the other road❤️

I swear...literally

Yeah, I have been known to have a potty mouth around our house- I am not proud of this and trust me I have been working on it for YEARS, YEARS I tell ya! I realized it was a problem about a year and a half ago. Now,  I'm not talking about the F-word or using the
Lord's name in vain, Heavens NO! I'm talking about good old sh*t, h*ll, a**hole and da*n*t...yeah I know those are still bad but completely useful when you want to get your point across....like "Why does this house smell like an old man's a**???" or "How the h*ll, did all my underwear get in the kids dirty laundry basket???"


Anyway, so yeah, about a year and a half ago the kids and I were eating dinner and I was telling them about a Jentzen Franklin sermon I had been listening to and how people think of themselves one way but should ask their family how they see them in relationship to God....so all three of the kids put me in the middle chair...I was appalled!!! I thought of myself in a chair closer to God so I asked them why and they all said "Because you swear!" ARGH......I wanted to yell "The h*ll I do!!" but I didn't I just said "oh whatever!" Then Bella, in her little Bella voice said "I want to pray for you at school, about your swearing, but I'm too embarrassed so after chapel I go in the bathroom and pray for you"....My heart sank about 1,000 feet, oozed out of my body and quivered on the cold hard floor. I was devastated! Befuddled I tell you!I vowed from that moment forward that I would try very, very hard to control my evil tongue.

My grandma use to always warn me of the evilness of the tongue, I never really understood what she meant until I was older and boy oh boy was it hitting home now. 1 Peter 3:10 " whoever would love life and see good days must keep their tongue from evil and their lips from deceitful speech." So I vowed and I prayed and I started saying things like "oh my stars", "what the frick", "dag-nab-it!" and "son of a biscuit!"... you get the picture! And I am doing really really well with this, until I get super upset or frustrated... like the other day- Caicos would not sit after she did something wrong (yeah, I make her sit and be good when she has been naughty) so I got a little frustrated with her and said "you are being a little sh*thole!" The gasps, the sucking in of air that came from the peanut gallery of 3 "MOM!!!!!" **gulp..."I'm sorry...so sorry!" Now I was apologizing after Caicos was the one being a turd...

For a while, I was saying "Hokey Pete!!" and my sister, I won't mention which one, said "You sound like a real a**hole, and you are really irritating me with all this Hokey Pete... I am going to punch you in the face if you keep saying it!"...."Well, Hokey Pete to you too". Some people just don't appreciate the fine art of speaking eloquently...sheesh. In fact, I may call her right now just to Hokey Pete her....

I will say this new verbiage is rubbing off on the kids. It was around 1:30 a.m. one night, I was sound asleep only to be awaken by a loud banging and screeching, I sat straight up in bed and then heard "OH HECK TO THE NO !!!!YOU MOTHER TRUCKER!!!!" I rubbed my eyes and thought "Dear God am I dreaming??", more banging and then "DIE YOU HECKING HO!!!!!" I jumped out of bed to find Abigayle running from her room in sheer panic "GO KILL IT NOW!!!!" Kill what??? My stars, what the heck was happening?? And then I was told "There is a hecking mother trucker spider in my room, KILL ITTTTTTTTT!!!!!"... I went in there and I kid you not, the "mother trucker" was a microscopic teeny tiny little itty bitty spider... which died when I whispered "Boo".... But I was thoroughly impressed with Abigayle's choice of words and patted myself on the back for parenting well done, well done in deed!

So, to make this very clear, I am definitely a work in progress and our home is much better without those swear words, my verbal touretts...I promise you I pray and pray about it and my kids keep me accountable....I go weeks now without a swear word and I am very proud of this...it's the small things, dag-nab-it!

6 months

6 months. . . 6 months seizure free.  

Rewind to August 24th, 2017 around 11:00 a.m.- I went to grab my phone from my office and had 15 missed calls, this was not completely unusual because the kids had summer break and they would call me every 10 minutes "MOM!!! Amelia is looking at me funny!!" "MOM!!! There is nothing good to eat in this house!!", "MOM!! We're bored!!!", "MOM!!!!!!!!!" I also had 10 text messages, so I called Amelia back and she was sobbing beyond control "Mom...the ambulance is here, mom, Abigayle is not waking up, mom she's shaking, MOMMMMMMMMM. .. . " My heart dropped I couldn't breathe, Derek got on the phone " I don't know what's going on . . .Abigayle can you hear me??? Abigayle BREATHE!!!!, Marsha she's shaking, there's blood, I don't know what is going on!! Abigayle!! ok, ok. . .her eyes are open, Can you hear me Abigayle??"  

I was listening to my worst nightmare and could not do anything about it, even typing this is hard. I kept yelling into the phone "Tell me what is going on, tell me!!!!! ABIGAYLE!!!"  I ran out of work, drove to the ER to meet the  ambulance, I'm not even sure now how I managed to drive there.

When they let me go back to see her she was just chilling on the stretcher with her neck in a brace, blood dried to her puffy face "Hiiiiii mom" I can still hear it "Hiiiii mom" like "What are you doing here dude??" I kissed her head I grabbed her hand I said "I love you, what happened??"  She had no clue, in fact she didn't even remember getting out of bed. What happened was a grand mal seizure. . "flopping like a tuna" as the Dr. at the ER so eloquently put it. She seized for about 2 minutes, hitting her head, biting her tongue. I would have never in a million years imagined this would ever happen, EVER!!! Out of nowhere this horrible thing just hit us. She was checked for injuries and released. I have prayed my whole life, but this event stopped me in my tracks. It brought my prayer life to a whole new level. It brought our lives to a whole new level. 

When we got home she lay in my bed, her tongue like hamburger, a horrible headache and just exhausted. I got in bed with her, have you ever heard about moms who can feel or sense when something is wrong with their children? I lay there with my hand on her back and my mouth filled with a bloody metal taste, I kept taking drinks of water, it was all I could taste. She woke up and said "My mouth tastes like blood, I need an icee from Wesco" - That day I was so moved by the friendships that were displayed by girls that were close to her. Her best friend at the time came to the hospital when she heard what happened, another friend brought her that icee. . .it made my heart happy. I could taste that blood in my mouth for 2 days. . . her head ached, my head ached, she was exhausted, I felt exhausted. I now know what those moms felt when they said they felt everything their children felt. 

Around this same time Hurricane Harvey had devastated Texas, Facebook was full of negative reports of what the city of Houston did or did not do. What the President did or did not do, but most intriguing to me at the time was all the horrible things I was reading about a Pastor of a mega- church who wasn't doing anything for anybody, or so the reports were saying. Pastor Joel Osteen, locked up his huge church and let people just suffer with no where to go. I had never heard of this Pastor, but surely he was not a good pastor if that's what he was truly doing. So I googled him and this changed everything. 

In the midst of Abigayle being diagnosed with epilepsy, my begging God for answers, begging God to protect Abigayle, no sleep because my mind would't stop running every "what -if" possible, I found the voice of God streaming through the radio by a man named Joel. The what-ifs were relentless in my mind, what if this had happened when she was swimming alone, what if she was in drivers training, what if she has them all the time, what if she can never work now, what if she hits her mouth when she has one and loses her teeth. . .I was going insane with the what ifs. Then one day after listening to Joel on the radio and reading passages from his book, I was in the shower and begging God my daily begs "Please God, please God take this away". . .a whisper came through down in my heart, in my soul that took all of this away, it was a peace that washed over me like I could never imagine, it took that worry, it took that anxiety and it washed it away. God took it from me and from that day forward my prayers changed, Joel says to pray bold prayers and that's what I did " God, you said if you be for us who shall be against us, God you said as for me and my house we will serve you, God you said you will make me to lie down in green pastures. . . ." He took it all and guided my mind and my heart. 

We didn't pursue traditional anti- seizure medicines, instead God showed us what was right for Abigayle. . .her morning myoclonic twitches stopped immediately (these had been going on for YEARS and we never recognized them as "seizures", in fact I would yell and say "KNOCK it OFF!!! Stop doing that!!!" Her eyelid fluttering every every morning stopped, this too was something I use to tell her "STOP it!!" 

Looking back over the past 6 months, because of Abiagyle's seizure, my faith and my love  for God has grown by a million percent. He is the Great I am. I thank him for his favor everyday on our lives, especially that of my children. This whole 6 months has been like the poem Footprints in the Sand:

"One night I dreamed a dream.

As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.

Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.

For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,

One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,

I looked back at the footprints in the sand.

I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,

especially at the very lowest and saddest times,

there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.

"Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,

You'd walk with me all the way.

But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,

there was only one set of footprints.

I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me."

He whispered, "My precious child, I love you and will never leave you

Never, ever, during your trials and testings.

When you saw only one set of footprints,

It was then that I carried you."

Without God carrying me and my girls I would not have been able to get through any of this- I am so happy to say that we made it to 6 months and we will make it to 7 months and we will make it to 1 year!! But first, today, we are going to celebrate and thank God.

This.Is.My.Life

My life. . . .it is Ca-rae-zeeee. With a capital, bolded, italicized C. And along with crazy comes frustration, irritation, tears, cries, and often a loss of laughter. It seems like I am so busy I overlook the hysterical-ness that freckles my day, is that even a word? Hysterical-ness? Well, it is now, hysterical-alocity...like Travelocity, but specific to my life. It dawned on me this morning at 5:30 a.m.that yesterday was hands down hysterical-ness, f'realz.

Fast forward through my day of getting three kids here and there and everywhere, throw a full-time job in there and we're at 5:00 p.m. AnnaBella started softball practice, her very first ever softball practice. We get to the field and she looks at me with big eyes "I have to poop", I said "uhhh, nope, no you don't, you're just nervous" Because me and her, we AIN'T going in no Porta- John! Annnnnd we're in the Porta- John.

Let's rewind a few decades and bring everyone up to speed. Marsha does not like public restrooms, Marsha will hold bodily functions for 3-5 days (5th grade camp, HELLOOOO????). Marsha will gain 10 pounds in a week avoiding  public restrooms and their communial congregating and releasing of waste- I may have just vomited a little in my mouth. Marsha Does Not, Will Not, Can Not, Sam I Am, use the public restroom.

Back to the Porta-John. I am thinking that softball /baseball fields are predominately male populated and I'm thinking this was the work of the male species. And by "this" I mean the hole in the Porta-John filled with sticks, not just sticks in the water floating, oh no, that would be too easy, I'm talking limbs of trees protruding out of the hole a good 10 inches. I told Bella, "nope not happening, you have to hold that until we get. . .. " Too late, she's straddling the sticks. Apparently, in the time it took me to turn around douse myself with the antibacterial gel and then turn back around she had made it up and around the sticks and now was pooping. . ...on the sticks. "How am I suppose to wipe you????? Just STOP!!!" But oh no, she was not stopping and she said to me in her sweet little voice "just move the sticks". I did not touch the sticks, she did not touch the sticks and we got the job done and then we both looked at it.. .the stick, with the turd, sticking out of the hole.... so I did what anyone would do and I started pulling the toilet paper out of the dispenser and rolling it and wadding it making a cast around the stick and Voila! Magical! Call me Houdini! Like it never ever happened, just a stick coming out of a Porta-John hole looking like a big old marshmallow waiting to be roasted over an open flame, yup, big old marsh-a-mallow.

Now through this all, I admit, I was not  a laughing, not a laughing one bit, nope. . . in fact, I was near tears. I was over the day, I was over that stinking, funking,  2 foot by 2 foot Porta-John (WHO designs these portals to Hell????) I just wanted to be curled up in a ball in my room in the fetal position. BUT, I am stronger than that and I got over it, real quick like! I think I've mastered that concept with three children being a pseudo single mom (pseudo single, you know when you bear the brunt of the parenting duties because of work obligations of the other parent!) So over it I got, and no that is not proper English, in fact most of this post ain't proper English because that's where my brain is right now. . . deflated like a ballon, spitting and sputtering for energy. I was not laughing, not laughing or smiling one bit until early this morning when the true magnitude of that stick hit me and I just thought. . .That stick was a gift. . . .because THAT was too freakin funny, I literally laughed out loud (LOL, LOL, LOL!)

P.S. If you happened to be the next one in that Porta-John? In the words of Moana's Maui, "You're Welcome."

June

Have you heard it?  That awesome sauce song by Twenty One Pilots, "Stressed out"??

My name is blurryface and I  care what you think.  . .

Anyway, I'll get back to the song in a little bit.  So June is here and I have a love/ hate relationship with June. I love June for her hint of summer, teasing us with hot days and getting our summer dreaming on,  I love June for coaxing open the sleeping Rhododendrons  and breathing life into the Hydrangeas,  I  love June for the end of the school year memories and anticipation of hotter July days and nights and everything that comes with that- memories of Duck Lake channel with my mom and sisters, memories of Duck Lake channel with friends and a rope swing that entertained us for hours and memories of Duck Lake channel skinny dipping later in life- sorry mom and dad. It happens.

But then I  hate June, I hate her for bringing an end to the soccer season,  I hate her for honoring the mighty mosquito and creepy green stringy worms, I hate her for making me realize I'm closer to having one daughter graduate, one starting kindergarten and one entering middle school years,  but most of all I hate her for taking my grandma. . .

June used to be one of my favorite times with my grandma,  it meant the end of school so I could go to her house whenever I wanted,  I could go to TOPS with her on Wednesday mornings,  I  could wake up to the sound of a chainsaw and know that I could run out in the woods to find her and my grandpa cutting wood and play in the sawdust crawling with carpenter ants,  it meant running in her sprinklers, it meant eating bowls of ice cream with her,  it meant a creaky, rickety old metal fan in each of her doorways that would make me talk robot, it meant cucumbers and strawberries from the garden.  . .

Oh how I  miss all of that,  how I miss her.

The other day at work, I was walking in the hallway and stopped dead in my tracks and stood there,  I  must have looked crazy because one of our security officers said "You OK? Something wrong? " and I  said "My grandma, I  just got a big whiff of her", and he said "Oh! Maybe she's here to see you? " and I  told him that she passed away 5 years ago. He came closer,  quietly, looked at me with a tear starting in his eye and said "I lost my wife many years ago. . . I know exactly what you mean,  you stand right here and you enjoy every second of it. . ." And I  did.

Now,  the song comes into perspective, if you haven't heard,  you must.  It's the best, my favorite part? (And you have to do this in your best rapping imitation )

"Sometimes a certain smell will take me back to when I was young,
How come I'm never able to identify where it's coming from,
I'd make a candle out of it if I ever found it,
Try to sell it, never sell out of it, I'd probably only sell one,

It'd be to my brother, 'cause we have the same nose,
Same clothes homegrown a stone's throw from a creek we used to roam,
But it would remind us of when nothing really mattered"

And it did,  for those few short moments, took me back to when nothing really mattered.

Observation 101

Yesterday my sweet AnnaBella was in rare form, starting at 0630. I walked upstairs to my bathroom after making everyone's lunches and  my coffee, to find AnnaBella-  butt naked, hands on hips, facing the toilet:

"HEY MOM!!!! I'm peeing like DAAAADDDY!!!!!". . .  let me remind you, it was 0630.

I assessed the situation before me and 1)was quite proud, she had an impeccably good aim! 2) figured at this point, me yelling would only disrupt the current, accurate, flow and send it in an unwanted direction. So, I calmly said:

"Yes. . . ..Yes you are. . . .just like your dad. . . "

Then after dropping Abigayle off at school and driving back home for round two, part duex, of "getting ready for school" AnnaBella says "Dat Abby!!! God made her sumpin' funny. . .She's a hormone!"

I rebuttled with when girls get to be Abigayle's age they get a little moody, and yes,  she HAS hormones, but she is NOT a hormone." I have to hand it to her though, it was a pretty accurate observation of the situation- HORMONES!

That afternoon when I picked her up from childcare, after a long day, she ran to me, hugged me and said  "I missed you so much, I WUVVV you!!!!"  "Awwww, mommy missed you too, I love YOU!!!!" and we walked happily to the car, waving at her friends and teachers.

Once inside the car I heard  from the back seat, in a low grumble "What da heck took you so frickin' long, woman". . . . . .uh. . .. my neck rotated 180 to look in the back seat, half expecting to see a seething, foaming, antlered beast vomiting pea soup where I had just buckled in my sweet daughter, but nope, it was still AnnaBella-

"Pardon me??" I asked

 "Nuffin! You just took a long time today!"

I apologized, we cuddled when we got home,  and then she was back to her loving self.

Later, I thought about when I was little.  I can assure you with 1,000% accuracy that I never referred to my mother as "woman". Never attempted to pee like my dad. Didn't even know what a hormone was. I did however, dance crazily like Elvis Presley for my own personal audience of one- my sweet grandma, who would encourage all craziness I could muster up at 3 and 4 years old! "You ain't nothing but a hound dog,  crying all the time.  . . "

I collected wagon's full of tent worms by digging my little hands into their webby nests in the sassafras trees and retrieving arm loads of fuzzy, wriggling, soft worms. I ate dirt tacos that I made myself with taco shells and sandbox dirt. I later learned that sandbox was just a big outdoor cat box for our Ke-Ke and Me-Me. Barf-o-rama. I think my intestinal tract is still recovering from those "tacos".

I was much less observant of the world around me than AnnaBella. She picks up on moods, mannerisms, and vocabulary (you think she referred to me as "woman" on her own accord??) Makes me want to sing a country song, you know, the one by Rodney Atkins?

"Driving through town, just my boy and me
With a Happy Meal in his booster seat knowing that he couldn't have the toy 'til his nuggets were gone. A green traffic light turned straight to red I hit my brakes and mumbled under my breath. His fries went a-flying and his orange drink covered his lap. Well, then my four-year-old said a four letter word That started with "s" and I was concerned So I said, "Son, now where'd you learn to talk like that?" He said, "I've been watching you, dad. Ain't that cool?I'm your buckaroo, I wanna be like you.And eat all my food and grow as tall as you are. We got cowboy boots and camo pants. Yeah, we're just alike. Hey, ain't we, dad?I wanna do everything you do. So I've been watching you."

Ok- so I don't have a son,  I  don't drive a truck . . .no chicken nuggets, wouldn't even think of touching camo pants .  . .but the point is the same!  As parents we need to always be cognizant of the little ears and eyes that are on us,  around us. . . Even when you don't think they're listening or watching they are! !!

And it will be repeated,  "Woman!"

My health. . .

So this week I got some not-so good news about my little kidney beans. In all fairness, it could be much worse and I am looking forward to keeping them with me as long as I can!

However, this prompted some deep reflection as to what I could have changed or did better along the way and my thoughts kept going back to my childhood. . . .

I grew up in an aluminum sided house. Yes, aluminum-AI. This straight from the CDC website:

Brain and bone disease caused by high levels of aluminum in the body have been seen in children along with kidney disease. 

Read it for yourself ---> http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp22-c1-b.pdf

Let's start there. I vividly remember kicking a ball at the side of our house denting it over and over - only to realize I was going to see some serious wooden spoon action if those dents were discovered. I worked for hours in the hot sun beating down that aluminum siding with my bare little hands trying to straighten out the damage I'd done, and then after no resolve made a big old bucket of mud and threw it upon the dents and moved on. . . that siding was sharp and on a good day you could pick up radio stations from Wisconsin on the North corner of the house "crcrccrrc THIS UPDATE JUST crcrcrc IN- GREEN BAY ccrcrccrcr HIGHEST TEMPERATURES IN 100 YEARS ccrcrcrr".

Fast forward to the summer of 1985 and we spent the summer pulling that aluminium siding off, breathing in the aluminum dust particles and then staining, by hand with paint rollers,  what seemed like miles and miles of cedar siding. My sisters and I would roll the stain onto our bare arms in our tank tops, let it dry and then marvel in peeling it off- who knew that wood stain contains carcinogenics, neurtoxins and high levels of VOC's? Sure was fun though peeling it off like a layer of dead skin! If I ever make my own line of spray tan, I'm going to name it "cedar siding stain" because in all actuality that was my first "fake" tan, and the color was just fabulous!

An absolute at our house growing up was, if you got sick and showed any sign of a fever, out came the rectal mercury thermometer. Well, Marci and I put an end to that when we broke the end bulb of the thermometer and played for hours on the bathroom floor with that amazing little ball of liquid metal. We could squish it in our fingers and it would go back together, it shimmered like a crystal, magic ball- and when we were done in the bathroom we carried it  out to the kitchen table and rolled it back and forth- Gosh that was fun! This just in from W.H.O.(World Health Organization) -

• Mercury may have toxic effects on the nervous, digestive and immune systems, and on lungs, kidneys, skin and eyes.
• Mercury is considered by WHO as one of the top ten chemicals or groups of chemicals of major public health concern.

SAY WHAT SAY WHAT??? Say WWWHHHOOO!

If my recollections are right, shortly after that I had a 3 week stint in the local hospital with kidney issues, the silver lining? Prior to being admitted to the hospital my mom wasn't able to take my temperature- or atleast not in the manner to which we had become accustomed!

A daily chore when I was younger was to head out to the chicken coop. I was tasked with collecting, from beneath our chickens, their eggs- yup, eggs, straight from beneath the chickens in their coop filled with chicken poop and chicken feathers without gloves and without .. .GASP!!. . .washing my hands afterwards! I'll pause a moment  here so you all can visit the CDC website and search:          

                             SALMONELLA

Or better yet, here are their recommendations on handling chickens and eggs: 

Consumers who own live poultry should take steps to protect themselves:

• Always wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water right after touching live poultry or anything in the area where these birds live and roam.
• Do not let live poultry inside the house.

Who knows how many bouts of Salmonella I may or may not have had- perhaps I've developed a tolerance?? Those eggs sure were tasty though!

Along the same chore line as the egg collection was to help my dad with the pigs. I think my older sister Marci got more exposure to this than I did,but I do remember the pig flea dip. Did you know pigs could get FLEAS?? I recall the large bucket of chemicals and I remember how it smelled. . .inhale deeply, those micro particles of  Lindane, and slowly exhale. I think the eye opener was when my dad dipped our cat in it and it convulsed and died in a rather horrifying manner within 2.5 seconds- no more inhaling the Lindane and sadly, no more Ke-Ke.

We also lived in a pretty wooded area growing up. With woods you have the almighty mosquito. We also lived literally feet from my grandparents house. On a hot summer night, when the windows were all open , we wouldn't get any sleep at our house because my grandpa's snoring next door was so loud. In fact, when my grandma sneezed in her house, we would yell "Bless you!!" from ours.  Combined we had maybe 2 acres of property? Give or take. One summer day my grandpa showed up in the yard with a backpack mosquito fogger that left an awesome, fun cloud for us to run through and play in. I could stand 2 feet from my sister and not see her within that fog cloud. It was great! His backpack was probably designed for 100 acres, but he used it all up on our 2 acres! That was the summer of no pesky mosquitoes! Looking back, it was also the summer of no butterflies, no squirrels, no ants, no bees, no birds. . .hmmph! Mild coincidence I'm sure. Those Pyrethins sure did their job!! I'm thinking if I had to take a hair drug test today, it would still show up. . . .

We also took 2 fluoride tablets daily- never missing a dose. I don't think I need to elaborate on how toxic this substance has been portrayed of recent- just keep in mind this factoid: Babies and children excrete less fluoride from their kidneys and absorb up to 80% of ingested fluoride into their bones - MY BONES, I FEAR FOR MY BONES NOW,TOO!!!

My mom also had us on a steady diet of beef liver for quite some time - organ meat, BLAHHHH!!! I wonder if eating the "filter" of an animals body could put the toxins that it was getting rid of into your body???

Fast forward to 1998 through 2001- I was temporarily , a pretty impressive "functionng alcoholic"- Those were the days! Or so I thought until I realized the damage that I may have caused my body- nursing my daily hangover with extra strength Mortin- this from the National Kidney Foundation website: NSAIDs may cause an increased risk of sudden kidney failure and even progressive kidney damage.  I wish I would have just taken the Tylenol, why didn't I just take the Tylenol??

So, as I was saying, I am thankful that I can be optimistic of the news I've received and hope for many more years with my kidneys- after all, I've become quite fond of the little guys! I've had many offers of donations this week and looking at it now I may tell my sisters "No thanks!!" because they were exposed to the same things I was (minus the chosen path of professional, functioning , alcoholic for 4 years) or better yet, I won't even need to take anyone up in their offer:)