So my mother is dying

My mother was hospitalized last Monday. She has been diagnosed with COPD, CHF, and another bunch of ABCs that mean little to us. What has been important is that she seems to have lost her will to live. She told me that she is tired. She is tired of being tired. After five days of not eating or drinking anything to speak of, she told me that there was no point because she was going to die anyway. When I asked her how she knew that, other than the fact that we all are going to die sooner or later, she said that God told her it was her time. Because I know that the right thing to do is to let her go if it really is her time, I told her that I loved her and God speed. Then I walked outside and cried and cried. Difficult stuff friends.
Love,
Flusi

Trouble in Whoville

In spite of having a zillion (free) books to read, I have been in a bit of a funk. I cannot seem to motivate myself to do anything beyond the basics. I clean, do laundry, check on my online students, and play with the dogs. My husband is in a bit of a funk as well, so we just sit together and try not to cry. I am a smidgen worried about the presidential election and while I will not blame my own personal funk on the masses, I just hate seeing how close the election still is and cannot understand HOW in the f-ing world anyone thinks there is a choice. Or perhaps it is all so polarized that neither side can see how the other side feels. I am a registered Independent, so I just don't go vote down party lines. But this time, so much is at stake. But I just had to look back over the last president's two terms and the decision was not hard, even in the deep South....sorry folks, I live here and know how (stupid) people can be. Here is MY short list:

• Over the last eight years, our (meaning mine and my husband's) personal income has dropped - literally, not just as a result of the cost of living increases that are also outrageous. I currently work two jobs - as a librarian and then teaching a marketing class online. My husband had to change positions and take a rather large pay decrease. Not enough money folks.
• My daughter graduated from college with student loans and cannot find a job to save her life - which is in her own hands, I might add, because she has no health insurance - CANNOT AFFORD her own health insurance and is trying to deal with a lifelong seizure disorder from a birth injury ON HER OWN. And did I mention her student loans? They are also due now. HA!
• My oldest son is a mortgage broker - you can imagine how well that is going! Guess what his wife does? Yep, a realtor! All the eggs in the wrong basket this time. Two beautiful sons who they are sending to parochial school, sacrificing even more.
• Middle son - married, works full time. NO HEALTH INSURANCE because he cannot afford it. And eat or live. Wife - full time student whose financial aid was cut this school year. Why? Because between them they made a whopping $20,000 last year. Don't get me wrong, people exist on far less, but come on. BTW, they have lost three pregnancies in the last two years. Our free clinic just can't seem to help them and they cannot afford a specialist who said to come in for a one hour consult would be between $100 and $300. In my stupidity, I asked why would it be different for the same amount of time. Response - it depends on what you talk about...whatever, give me an f-ing break, your words cost different amounts. I think I need to remember that.
• Youngest son - graduated from high school, has scholarships for college. Life seems to be going well for him, but I wonder what sort of world he will inherit from us.

So you see, from where I am sitting, there is no choice. The decision was made for me because one candidate says the economy is fine, healthcare must be earned, work harder! The other candidate understands that I am working as hard as I can for all of my family. There are not too many more hours in the day. If there were, I would work even harder...look for a third job. In fact, I am looking because I work for the State of Florida and that is not going so well either - we are faced with another 10% budget cut for the second year. We are being told that we must do more with less. I am exhausted. No wonder I am in a FUNK. Then I open C*N*N and see the top headline that the election is a dead tie. All I can say is that you people must be in much better shape than I am both financially and emotionally, because I have had ENOUGH!

one tired and disgusted LibrarysCat

Barrier Island Girl

Barrier Island Girl

Hat for Baby and The Chihuahua Pit

One of my student assistants taught me how to make a hat. So I made this little hat for my friend's new baby. We started with a chain of about 40, then joined it with a slip stitch. The hardest part was the first row of single crochets around the chain. The most important thing is that you have to make sure that you do not get the chain twisted. You continue around and around with single crochets until the height reaches where you think the crown of the head might be. Then you skip every other stitch around until you finally only have one little stitch left. This happens fairly quickly! You tie it off and it is done. We added a little flower on the side and my first hat is complete! Now to try to make one for my husband - sans flower of course!

When we are at home watching movies, my place is in the middle of the chihuahua pit! While it is difficult to see all of them, I am sitting in the middle of ten dogs. They absolutely love this time. They are the most spoiled animals in the world.

It's a Girl

My dear friend, Sweetness, had a baby girl on the 19th. I know that she and her family are delighted with the beautiful little one. I am so proud of her - she wanted to labor and she did. Unfortunately, she also had to have another C-section, which she did not want, but it seemed to be necessary. Both mom and baby are doing well.
I am working on a blanket for the little one and will try to get it done ASAP so that she will have it when she gets home from the hospital. In the meantime, all good wishes and love go out to mom and daughter.
LibrarysCat

Back in the blogging saddle

I have been so busy with puppies and grading and reading that I have not been posting here like I wanted to in the beginning. The desire is no less, but the follow-through has been less than stellar. So what have we been doing at the Flusi House?

The puppies are almost six months old and they are a handful. Because no one but us and half our family can tolerate so many dogs, the puppies are not terrible socialable. The only place they go is to the vet, so going out is not really their idea of fun. It took us quite some time - probably four months - but the puppies or babies as we really call them are fully integrated into the clan.

They now stay with the other dogs - in other words, instead of ruling one room, they roam freely in the whole house. They sleep with us and I am considering getting a twin bed to add to our king size bed, so that everyone has room. I guess I would have to make new sheets or something because I just doubt they sell triple king sheets! Anyway, they are what we come home for every night...and how we spend our weekends. I think we are about to return to life as it was before puppies - you know, having people over, walking without shuffling feet, cuddling in a lump on the love seat.

I have been crocheting a bit and wish that I had a grandmother who could teach me with her hands wrapped around mine. I have looked at EVERY website and thumbed through every book, but nothing replaces live help so most of what I crochet is the same stitch and the same basic result - a blanket of some sort for someone I love. So --- longing to do something different, I made a trip to our local yarn store thinking perhaps they taught crochet as they do knitting (which I have tried to no avail). The very not-so-sweet lady who owns the shop says to me, Well I know how to crochet, but really what is there to teach - I mean you only use one or two basic stitches that I could teach - the rest of them are pattern specific and who would bother to learn them unless you were working on a project. And who wants to make a crocheted project anyway - there is nothing you can make that you can wear (come on crocheters, defend me here) and you use twice as much yarn and it is too heavy even to be used as a blanket. Blinking widely, I say - well, what about a granny square, can you teach me that? She says, well you just crochet in a circle. Hell, even I know that, but I could use some direction. She finishes by saying, what in the world would you do with a granny square? I walk out the door thinking that if I knew how to make one, maybe I would figure out what to do with them. So in the meantime, I am making blankets. Here is one I recently finished for my brand new grand nephew (making me a great Aunt):

And finally, I have been reading. I have been quite lucky in getting a few Advanced Reader Copies of some very interesting books. If you are interested, try Shelf Awareness and, of course, Library Things Early Reviewer program. While I love getting the free books, it is the surprise and the process that I really love. I also belong to two groups that I really enjoy that are associated with books: The Newberry Project and Tuesday Thingers Ring - Books and Blogs. As you can probably guess, I spend way too much time on the internet! Another wonderful discovery of late is DailyLit - a wonderful site where you can have entire books emailed to you in small 5 minute reading increments. I just finished Jane Austen's Emma this way and it was an excellent way to fill empty minutes. You can also visit my Book Blog.

Finally, it is summer in Florida and we are enjoying the beach. We usually go with the grandsons, so there is sandcastle building and destroying, shell searching, eating, and overall glee! Now, if we could just rid the world of jellyfish and sharks, we would be fine. Last time we went to the beach, a friend came along with his boat and we saw two schools of jumping dolphins, a zillion little brown and clear jellyfish (noen up close and personal, thank God), a rather large lemon shark right off the coast, a sea turtle and every manner of tiny fish. Life is good on the coast.

Another thing that comes with the summer is a good barbeque and we have had our fair share. Last one was a delight with shrimp, grilled chicken, grilled corn, and a ton of vegetables. To finish it off was a Pea-Pickin Cake. If you have never tried one, here is a picture:

Three weeks, 5 days

We had our first big outing today! To the vet's office to be weighed for dewormer. What a trip! Together we weigh as much as most newborn puppies.



Izzy - I started out as the smallest and today I weighed the most - 0.9 lbs

Kate - I was the smallest today at 0.7 lbs.

MoJo and Buster - we both weighed 0.8 lbs - but we don't really like to eat food - we prefer to nurse!

None of us minded the medicine. We were back at home and in our playpen with our Mom, so it was all good. The puppies are lovely and we play with them all the time...they are growling and jumping and biting (with no teeth) and trying to run! Hard to believe they are almost a month old. What joy they bring to our lives!

Flusi

Puppies

Wonders of all wonders. We have puppies! Our beautiful Chihuahua female gave birth by C-section to these four lovely puppies on Monday January 21! We have both the mom (short coat) and the dad (long coat), so the whole family is doing wonderfully.