Long time! Sorry dears. Work keeps me busy, in addition to family needs. I do so love my work......especially the elderly men. However, they all know I care about them, and I have made my way in this new job by being a calming influence on my residents. There is something very fulfilling about caring for the elderly. Currently I am looking forward towards LPN school in a year. I am excited and sad all in the same emotion. In a rehabilitative center you have those who will remain and those who will return home. As a caregiver you cheer on those that will return home snd nurture those that will not.
As a younger caregiver I never thought of death and dying. Now as an older caregiver, it seems to be thrust in my face alot. I worry about my elderly years now, more then I ever did. Death, though not scary to me looms larger now. My biggest worry is that my family will send me to a nursing home. Yes!! Despite the fact that I work in one, I would never want to be in one. Wishful, as we will all eventually as in birth, need care at the end of our lives.

A song title, I think, but hello everyone. I finally decided that I have to kick dial ups butt instead of letting it kick mine. Certainly my teeth are on edge as surfing the stream is very difficult. But it looks as though dial up will take up residence in this house due to the expense of DSL. The college fund is most appreciative of the extra padding.

Life is funky these days, full of hours at work and mixed up sleep and days off. I certainly hope I get accustomed to this because right now I feel as though I am in the twilight zone.

So, lets see, I have weeks of catching up to do. But I will say that I miss you guys alot.


First, I gotta tell ya that we have a new Baby coming home with Jim from Maine. She is 8 weeks old and her name is Pandora, Pandy for short, Pan when she is naughty.....lol. She is a Maine Bengal Coon Cat. We cannot wait to meet her and I will post pics so you all can see our new addition. The girls, Bella and Wren are very excited and have been preparing for her arrival all weekend. We have cleaned the litter box and spit shined the catnip balls in anticipation of our new arrival. Bengal Maine coons are very large cats, my parents cats are 27 lbs each. They love water, and as they are direct descendents of leopards have a spotted pelt. Yes a pelt not a coat. They are charming, intelligent cats. We just cannot wait to meet her!



Jim did not travel to Maine just to get the kitten, he sadly, had to visit his Dad in ICU. His Dad had an intestinal blockage which was surgically repaired last thursday evening. He is okay now and will be going home in a few days. But he gave the family a scare. Of course, while there visiting he bought the new Baby and Colleen is thrilled.


It would seem I will not be going home to Maine for Thanksgiving as I am scheduled to work. I have mixed feelings on this, but figure I can at least cook for Kate and Brad. Jim feels I should fly in for the one day I have scheduled off, but I am thinking lots of sleep will do me some good. Honestly, I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that it is that time of year again! One Day in Maine will make me entirely too homesick. That is not enough time to have some lobstah and chowdah!

The folks at work make fun of my accent. It seems it comes out much more prominent when I am overtired, as I am most nights I work. I do love the work, this rehabilitative Nursing home is very mentally challenging. I have been considering their offer of moving on to LPN school, which they will pay for. It is an intense one year program, but honestly I am looking forward to the challenge.

The entire family has really pitched in to assist me with the small things of life like laundry and dishes. The hardest part of this has been letting go of some of my control over the household stuff. It has been my domain for years!

As I have written of in past years, Gabe has his IEP in a few weeks. As you all know this is always cause for great consternation. But this year Gabe has moved forward, at a remarkable rate. The problem is that the things he has moved forward in are not testable things. I am sure he will once again have mediocre test scores, and this year I have decided to just let that stress go. He is a happy, loving brilliant boy and I (taking deep breath) will no longer be concerned with the black and white of testing. My Gabe is a shining star of color, and he will be fine. No tweaking needed!!!!!!!!!

Miss Colleenie Beanie has her 6 month followup appointment for her knee surgery in a few weeks. I am nervous because honestly I do not see a great deal of improvement in the straightness of her legs, but knew in the beginning that another surgery would most likely be required. She takes it all in stride however, not concerned a bit about the intense surgical repair looming in the early summer. She is too busy with social interaction and playing the flute to be at all weighed down by such serious matters. This is the part of her personality that I enjoy most, the blissful easy going nature. She is a most trusting soul. No wonder the animals love her so much. We as adults could do well to come to such a peaceful center.

Alannah is struggling this year with some issues concerning her sexuality. That is an entire post in itself, but still worth a mention until I write of it later. As I wrote of before, she came out as a lesbian almost a year ago. Since that time she has been met with the worst kind of bigotry and persecution. As her parents, we have loved and supported her, but being a young, trusting and extremely loving woman, she has found greater obstacles amongst her peers. The other day she simply stated that because she found such a loving family atmosphere when she came out, she assumed the peer reaction would be equally as loving. Thus, in her senior year, not only are we dealing with college searches and the excitement of looming graduation, but also a great deal of religious persecution and outright stupidity concerning her gayness. Honestly I could give a blind shit what others think, but obviously she is in a much more tender place. Particulars to follow. Along with kitty pics.

Hope all is well with everyone. Thanks for hanging in with me......its all gonna get better. I have faith.

Finally, classes are over and I just worked my first stretch on 11-7. I have to admit I am tired to the bone and more than a little sore. I have not used these muscles in years, and there is alot of lifting, tugging and pulling in this line of work. Even with proper body mechanics it is especially brutal on your arms and back. Fortunately when I finish orientation I have a very good schedule. I will usually work no more then two nights at a time, which will be a good thing for my aging body.

Despite the fact that I am a nightowl, i have struggled with the sleepies. It is an entirely different thing to push yourself on 5 hours of sleep all night, then to push yourself through the day with 5 hours of sleep. Working at night certainly encourages a person to be selfish about getting enough sleep. I have learned that I require a certain amount of snooze time, even though it is tempting to give up those hours for other things like being with the kids. In fact, the majority of people I work with give up sleep hours to function on a schedule similar to most other humans. After a while that kind of deprivation adds up........most night workers are really walking zombies, even when they do achieve enough daytime rest. The other factor adding to a night workers lack of quality rest is the common practice of breaking up our rest into segments. Most of us need to function at work during the night and function during the day as well. So night workers often break their sleep up into naps. We all feel mentally good that we did get 6 hours of sleep, and tend to forget that this was three short naps broken up throughout the day. I think its better to get 4 hours of unbroken sleep then six hours that ae broken through the day. These are the challenges I am facing.



I am through the worst of it now and hopefully will be out to comment on everyones blog. I have missed spending time here on the stream. I hope all is well with everyone.

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First, hope everyone is well. Dial up bites in all honesty. You cannot even surf, and downloading music or videos is a nightmare as you have to wait for the item to buffer before you can listen or see it. Its discouraging.

But there is one thing that has forced me to endure the slowness of dial up. And that is the very recent blackmark that Mr. Bellicheck has left upon my beloved Patriots.

Yes, every one does the type of cheating that Coach has been caught doing. However, there seems to be more to the story. It is a story of extreme arrogance on coach's part.



The new Jets coach was a disciple of Mr Bellicheck's. There was no love loss between them. It seems Coach cheated wholly to snub his nose at the Jets new coach. The history between the two teams should have been enough to soothe Coach's nerves. The Patriots have won over the Jets more than they have lost. Add to that a significantly improved Patriots team and a less then stellar Jets team, and there was simply no need to attempt the extreme cheating that coach did. He has lost respect for his team, and I have lost a bit of respect for him. The Patriots will be just fine this season, their team is exceedingly good. But to leave a bad taste in the mouth of fans everywhere over a past rivalry was just plain unfair to the team. I want to blacken coach's other eye when I hear the media questioning all of the Pat's past wins. They are a stand up team that works hard and manages their talent well. Nothing should be taken away from this team because of coach's idiocy.