Getting closer...

This is usually the time of year I am super ornery, cranky, teary and overall not a treat to be around. This year, however, something is different.
Oh, I know! MEDICATION!!!
Since I was about 16 I have had totally irrational bouts of anger, to the point of throwing things (never at a living target), yelling, and even recently starting to make a cut here or there to relieve the utter frustration of not being understood.
I seem to be making light of this, but please do not misunderstand...
As you know, I have been seeing a therapist. After a particularly tearful session during which I actually spoke a lot of what I was feeling, she looked at me and said, "I'm sitting here looking at you thinking you are way too young to be so miserable." Amen, sister. So after a bit more discussion, research and testing, voila! I have cyclothymia. Huh? Exactly. The meds I have taken for years for depression certainly do what they are supposed to for depression. However, the manic states have been ignored. Confused? Not me! Hit the nail on the head.
It's like this: -----------**-------_________________---------------------*******************-----------------------________-----------******-----------__________________. Got it? Hyphens are "normal", asterisks are manic and underlines are depressed. It can be hard to diagnose because when people are manic they tend to just feel really good. Hard to want to change that! I needed to, though.
So here I am, happy as a lark, looking forward to Christmas and feeling like I'm almost the luckiest girl on earth.
Now the thing about the weight loss and the birthday...
I think I need to create a subtle shopping shock collar for people like me. It would have to blend in, looking more like a nice sterling silver chain and pendant rather than a dog collar (unless that's what you like?!?!?!) and emit some sort of noise (like TURN BACK FATTY!!) when I start down a naughty aisle. It would make my life so much simpler. Either that or I need a personal shopper, but then I would NEVER leave the house, as the grocery run is my only form of social outing these days.
And on that note, I am so thrilled to have my cousin and his family living across the street!! Kelly (wife of cousin Matt) and I are going to start a monthly kitchen table night with a small group of moms. Neither of us is really a girls-night-out girl, so we'll stay in, but with company. I'm really excited. Kelly is also really into having people gather for other events, too, so guess what? I have a friend across the street! Now staying home is not quite so much like solitary.
Back on track, though. I admit, I have stalled out half way to my weight loss goal. I've made 15x39 21/24ths, and I need to push on and get that other half gone. This is hard work!! But those silly purple cords are still waiting for me, and heaven forbid I let them down.
So here's to choke chains, good meds and 21/24ths. xo

The Point

When I was little my grandmother had a cottage on Harbor Point. She and my grandfather were there just in the summer for a long time, then the cottage was winterized and they stayed all year around. I have some pretty awesome memories of the cottage, the dock and the Point, including having Easter egg hunts in the Casino, walking the beach first thing in the spring looking for glassies, chasing down the carriages and hopping onto the back, running barefoot down the sidewalks trying to swing around the lamp posts and just sitting on the porch, watching the world go by.
The cottage itself was a mish mash of sights, sound and scents to delight all the senses. The primary eau de parfum of old #38 was cookies. Oatmeal scotchies, molasses, toffee crunch, and of course, chocolate chip. The cookie jar was always full and there were always back-ups in the freezer. In fact, when my grandmother died and her freezer was cleaned out, Dad found a bag of frozen molasses delights. We as a family took them to the cabin up in Cross Village and ceremoniously shared the last of KK's cookies together. I'll never taste any that compare.
But I digress, as those of you who know me is quite common.
The cottage was built well over 100 years ago, and thus the rooms were all quites separate from one another, both for the purpose of keeping the "help" in the back of the house as well as for heating and cooling purposes. Why heat the whole house with the fireplace when just one room will do? The other rooms had big old cast-iron radiators, great for burning forearms in the cold winter months.
The plain wooden stairway ended in a great big hall, with a bedroom to the left and KK's sewing room and a ginormous bathroom to the right. That bathroom had good old fashioned black and white square tiles, you know, the big ones, and a claw foot tub. I loved it.
There were 3 more bedrooms down the hall, ending right by the stairs to the attic, from which seeped the odor of moth balls at all times. The foot of the attic stairs was especially magical for me as that's where the wicker trunk of sewing scraps was kept. KK and I made some curious creations from the leftovers in that trunk...
Harbor Point was so contained we were pretty much allowed to run wild when we were there. Of course we had to be dressed appropriately (no Grolsh t-shirts or "Peddle damnit peddle") and it was MUCH preferred that we not sit on the porch at cocktail time and eat mandarin orange jell-o through bendy straws, but we did run around a lot and have a great time.

One thing we all got to know was the people of the Point. The Halls were in 15, Durroms rented 37 each summer, Merrils were in 39, and there was a coveted empty lot before Liz Larson's #41. Bobby and Annie Ford were down in 102, Polly in 72 and later on Jotto and Sus way out in #4. Andy lived right by the Casino so wave when you ran by, and for goodness sake get off the sidewalk when The General and her husband were out walking.

The General was Mrs. Carruthers, a lady whom I never knew other than by her fast-paced, no-nonsense stride. Her husband, Mr. Thomas H. Carruthers, IV, became my uncle after the passing of the General.
It has always been funny to me to "grow up" and start calling adults by their given names after they have been Mr. and Mrs. forever. In fact, there are still people my dad refers to as Mr. and Mrs. even though he is in his mid-sixties. Each of those people, in turn, refers to him as "Johnny". Yep - they are from the Point.
Tom, as I came to know him, had ALWAYS been Mr. Carruthers. On the Point, at the boat yard, on the street - always. However, after Tom married my aunt Susie and I got to know him better, it was easy and natural to address him by his given name. Though gruff at times, I came to appreciate the kindness, generosity and humor. (Though I don't think the unwitting pedestrians who crossed in front of the big champagne colored SUV with "THC" on the license found the humor in the air-horn blast they invariably got from him.)
Tom was a fixture on the Point, someone who had been there the entire lives of my aunt and Dad. So when, shortly after the passing of both my uncle and Tom's wife, Tom started taking Susie to dinner, it was all just natural. When they married it just fit. That was over 10 years ago. It is always hard to "add on" to a family, but everyone had know Tom so long it was only a minor adjustment, and Susie was so happy who cared?

Tom died last night.

Less than 2 months ago it was discovered he had cancer. So much cancer that comfort was the only answer. He opted to stay here, in #84, to live his last days and die in the place he loved so much.

I am so very sad for Susie, for my dad, for the rest of Tom's family. As is always the case when a person is older and dies quickly it has been a blessing for the pain to be so short lived. It is a blessing that Tom and Susie had each other to love and grow older with. I will miss seeing the 2 of them together. I will miss seeing Tom at all of the family events and always, always in the post office. My heart to all of Tom's family and friends, sailing crews and hunting buddies. You will be missed, TH. xo

The teacher

How do you do a puzzle? I don't mean how is a puzzle done, I mean how do you do a puzzle?
I've been puzzling for as long as I can remember, with my mom, hunched over the dining room table. Edge pieces first, all sorted and flipped, corners in their places. Then the middle, but those stay in the box until the edges are done. NO CATS allowed near the puzzle table. Very little talking, lots of concentration, bottom lip tugging, brow furrowing and nose touching until the last piece of the frame is in place.
Then the inside. Select something identifiable, gather its suspected pieces and give it a go.Continue on in that vein until parts of the inside are connected, and then just go for it.
I spent a lot of time selecting incorrect pieces, jamming pieces in so they'd fit, insisting pieces were lost, etc. Mom just went along with it, I'm sure correcting things after I went to bed. It was a bonding time for us, the seekers, hunkered down, looking.
I'm currently working on a puzzle at home, at age nearly 40, and my 7 year old daughter is very excited about helping. It is a pretty generic puzzle, with golfers, swimmers, hot air balloons and cottages in the distance, 1500 pieces. The frame is long done, the balloons constructed. We are working on the bluff and the grass. I have been at it long enough I tend to pick up a piece and put it in place without too much thinking or hesitation.
My little one asked me last night how I become psychic. Huh? She asked how I could just get a piece and know where it went. Ah. The same way my mom did. Which is really to say I don't know. It is a Mom thing. I am becoming my mother.
But you know what? That's cool with me. There are so many things I look at now and think, "Wow. How did Mom do this? How did she know?" Like the puzzle. She just let me get it wrong sometimes and right other times. She was teaching me to be my daughter's mom right from the very beginning. Did she know? Doubtful. But now that I am aware of it I am watching my daughter and my interactions with her as though looking into the past, with my mom and me. It is remarkable how traditions of teaching are passed down without even realizing it.
Speaking of speaks, I was not ever encouraged to "hate" things. Sure, my siblings, my teachers, my homework, walking to and from the bus, things like that, which were never really meant, they just sounded good. (However I do hate broccoli.) I cannot think of anyone I know whom I truly hate. I fail to understand this "hate" thing that encompasses entire nations and nationalities, religious groups, professions, you name it. Really? You hate the French? How many do you know? What's that? You hate Jews? How many do you know? Lawyers? Well, I like most of the ones I know... But come on. Oh, you hate fat people? Come here and let me sit on you. While you are teaching your children what is so important about being a person, please teach them to love. To be open and friendly and not to hate. It's such an ugly thing.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are people and things I do not like and prefer to avoid, but that's a whole nother ball game!
Be yourself, love yourself. Spend your time on that rather than things you fail to care enough about to get to know. xo

What the...

I was in Glen's a couple of days ago and they had a cute little Keelber cookie display in the middle of the aisle. Well, to help empty the aisle back out and make room for more carts, I bought some cookies. I figured they were on sale also, so no harm no foul. Jackass. Who does their marketing? Whomever it is hit the jackpot with that little idea. 2 for $6 my ass. More like 6 lbs for $2 thank you very much. I a: do not share and b: do not eat one or 2 at a time. I proudly cussed out Ernie the Elf this morning and threw his remains in the woodstove. Peddler. I'm not going down any more cookie aisles. Ever. No more little cutsey displays, no more two-fers. Fool me once...

So have you ever noticed ads for girdles/spanx/lingerie etcetera only show women who do not need to wear them? I was thinking of that yesterday as I pulled my latest 30 pound Victoria's Secret catalog out of my mailbox. Really anything from there is a let down to my poor husband. They never, ever show women who have stuff to squeeze in because the end result - the squeezing out - isn't all that hot. You know: push it in here, tuck it in there. Where does it go? AHA! To the armpits! To the insides of the pinky knuckles! To the earlobes! It all goes someplace. Those things are cheaper than liposuction for a reason. The photo to the side, for instance. The little space below the bra would not be flat. You get the idea.

So last night after my daughter got done sobbing and telling me I was a bad mom and she wanted Dad ans she'd rather live with Ahma, I snuggled her into near-sleep and convinced her I'm in charge and do occasionally yell/holler to make a strong point and that, in this instance, when I asked her to please take her plate out and she simply said NO and it was the 7th time that night she'd done something similar, I had lost my patience and yes, I still love her more than anything even though I yelled, I tucked her in bed and went into a sweet silence trance like state until Ben called to say he was on his way home from class. That meant I had 2 hours to have me-time and then I would no longer be the only one awake in this big old house.

So imagine my delight when the phone rang again, right in the middle of the Sing Off, my newest I'm alone pleasure. Ok, customer? Employee? Salesperson? Nope. Ben. Again. I know it's a long drive but you were with me all day...

To my surprise, and I touched on this last night, he was calling to tell me to go outside and look up. I did, and here's a taste of what I saw (Courtesy of someone at Leg's Inn, just a couple of miles up the road from my house):

  And that's really what they looked like.

Needless to say, I spent the next 45 minutes outside in my slippers and synchilla looking up at the sky, not even thinking. No more screaming child. No more "The truck won't start." No more "Can't you be here on Friday?" No more sneaky little Keebler f-ers tricking me with their rosy cheeks. No more Vicky's Secret models and their super sexy push up bras. Just me. Ahhhhh. Just me. xo

The reality

I've been a little off tonight, feeling frustrated with my daughter (who, at age 7 has been acting an awful lot like a 17 year old) and feeling like a crappy mom. Then my husband called on his way home from class in Traverse City and told me to go outside and look up. Northern lights.
It has been a long time since I have seen "good" northern lights. I remember the first time my dad woke me up in what seemed like the middle of the night to go stand in the middle of the driveway, freezing cold, watching faded green dancers play in the sky. It was so magical and every time I have seen them since it has taken me back to that first time.
I tried to return the favor and get my daughter up to go see, as they were red and green tonight, but she opened one rumpled eyelid and yawned a "no thanks, Mom." So I went back out on my own to watch the sight. I could hear murmered conversations from my neighbors across the fields and the coyotes on the edge of the woods. Perfect.
Isn't it amazing to think the sky is alive night after night and we don't even know. I was sitting inside, futzing around on amazon.com, not paying a lick of attention to the night, and I never would have seen the lights had it not been for a well timed phone call.
Thanks sweetie. xo

The Fam

When I was born my sister was 14 months old. She looked like a beautiful little Aleut baby, all black fuzzy hair and happy. When I was about 4 I had my first boy-friends and it was then the torture began.

When I was born my brother was 28 months old, all carrot orange hair and freckles. Trouble written all over him yet with a kind, quiet demeanor. When my 4 years old rolled around he was 6... old enough to enlist me as a partner in harassing my sister.
From the time we were little Josh and I were an awful pair for Mandy. We put snowballs in her pillowcase, hung her Barbies from the banister and spied on all of her private conversations with her BFF Jennifer. One of us was always first, as all turns seemed to go either oldest to youngest or youngest to oldest, and when either Josh or I had a turn to go to Shepler's and hang out on a Saturday while Dad was working up there we'd each take the other, but not Mandy. Josh, being a boy, was boyish. I was a total tom-boy and Mandy, *GASP* liked dolls.
As the 3 of us grew older and more into ourselves, Josh peeled away and Mandy and I kept up the sibling rivalry as much as we could. I was always in her hair and her stuff. (In fact when I was really little I ate all of her favorite color crayons from our great-grandmother Nana. And I did it under her bed so she'd know.) I was a pesky, bratty little sister and pushed every button I could find just to get a rise. But I was a cute little blond thing and didn't get into nearly as much trouble as I deserved because I just didn't look like I could be that awful.
And so it went on. Will came along when we were almost 13, 11 1/2 and 10. At that point a sort of silent truce had been called - silent as in we just didn't talk to each other, but we heard a lot that was not said.
It was not too long after this, about a year and a half, that we all learned Mandy had cancer.
Now this is where I could tell you how hard this part of my life was and how I felt neglected, left behind and completely unloved, but that has all been covered ad nauseum on various couches around the country and is not for this blog. No, what I'd like to tell you instead is how normal my sister continued to be. Oh yes, we still had all of the same components of rivalry that existed pre-cancer. In fact, one year for Mandy's birthday I gave her a card that on the outside said something like 'It's your birthday! It's your day to be treated specially!' and then inside... 'Just like if you were born blond with big boobs!' Now this was hilarious to as a as that is my place in nature, while Mandy is about 6" shorter than I with quite dark hair and a fine-boned build.
I was in Mandy's wedding back in the day. At the time I lived in Washington state and had to go from Mandy's description of the Laura Ashley dress I was to purchase as my bride's maid dress. It was and is one of the most beautiful dresses I have ever seen, and I have kept it close at hand for 14 years because of all the memories it has with it. When I arrived in Girdwood, AK days prior to the big event, I called Mandy into my room to make sure I had gotten the right dress. I pulled out the most hideous polyester blue floral giant collar 70's nasty I could find at Value Village and asked if it were the right one. After she nearly puked on the floor and then nearly bashed me in the head with her crutch, I re-thought the prank just a little, but Mom shaking with laughter made it okay.
As we have matured and found our places in life Mandy and I have become friends. I admire Mandy as a mother. I aspire to be as healthy in my habits as Mandy is. Understand Mandy's life has not been charmed; she has worked hard to be who she is and where she is. There is an innate hard-headedness our grandmother passed down from the Hooton side, and it has helped my sister to be who she is.
If there is any rivalry or anything resembling that now, it is purely left-over. I am proud to be Mandy's little sister. I am proud to know the woman she has become. I do not feel guilt over pranks and whispered thoughts past, for that will never do me any good. I am so very proud to be art of Mandy's life from nearly the beginning and to know the same strength and determination that has made her into such a fine human is in me, too. It gives me hope. It is helping to give me the strength I need to get past the 1/3 mark and keep plugging along toward my goal, for I am nearly half way there.
Thank you to my inspiration, my love, my beautiful sister. xo

Off to a strong start!

Taken unabashedly from I <3 to Run on Facebook

As with every time any large person tries to lose weight, I have had many obstacles this past month, most of them completely surmountable with the right attitude.  I am now a month into this and 1/3 of the way to my goal! Hooray for me! I've had a severely sprained ankle and just in the last week have been able to use it for anything more than strolling. Good news: my dear hubby has informed me it is no longer a cankle. Thanks for noticing, sweetie.
Tomorrow is the day my dad and sister start their LIVESTRONG ride in Austin, Texas. I am very proud of the two of them, but what makes me feel the best, the fullest, the closest to tears is the support of both our little community here in northern Michigan and my sister's little community in Unalaska, Alaska. The kindness, support and generosity of these people has been phenomenal, enabling us to raise nearly $15,000 as Team Legstrong. Thank you, thank you to one and all. It is with a full heart I express this from the whole extended family of the Team.
The ride has come in a timely fashion too. I have just discovered one of my uncles has cancer, and it is beyond repair. I am so sad for both my uncle and my aunt and there is just never the right thing to say or do. So I go on ahead and say what I feel and do what I feel and trust people will understand it is who I am they are getting - nothing posed or shallow from me.
This has also brought me back in touch with an old flame, for he has known my uncle for many, many years. How interesting to hear an older, fuller, more mature voice on the other end of the phone today. And so serious. I had to say something off color just to hear that same old laugh, to make sure it was the right person. It was. So much time has passed, so many lives have changed.  But the laugh, the heart are always the same. Thanks for the tx, MWL.
Comprehending the ending of a life, watching dozens of people give to support the saving of more. It is really all a big circle, and again, while I sit here and look at the little black and white blob of the child that was there and then not, I know it is time to let go of that part of me, of my past, and look forward to what is out there. Dwelling on a lost child will not ever help the daughter I have. It will not ever change the fact that something just didn't quite work out right. It's time to move on, love more, and believe in the power of me. xo