Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.
Motivational Monday
Coming out
Our son is Gay. He finally came out to us a year ago. Did we know before that? OF COURSE! But we wait for him to tell us himself.
During his early teenage years we could see the struggle. I only asked him once and that was because my brother saw his profile on instagram and it said “Bi” so then he asked me and I asked my son…blah blah blah. His answer was, “No Ma, I’m straight.” It was a bit defensive mixed in with a little undecisiveness, so I said, ok and let it go, but not before telling him that it doesn’t matter to me what you are, I love you just the same. I just don’t want to be the last one to know.
A few years went by and and now he is in high school, sophmore year, and we could see the change but we waited for when it was the right time for him. Its funny because when he finally told us, it was he who was surprised. He was so stressed out about telling us that when he came out, we said Ok. His response was, “That’s it!” We told him, that we love him the same and it doesn’t make what his preferences are. The sigh of relief on his part for the build up of telling us…..all of that stress went away. I mean he actually thought we didn’t know. We are his parents…. Of Course we knew!
The conversations don’t stop there though. I have questions….. lots of questions. I had to strategically insert them in conversations though. It’s still a delicate subject and I didn’t want him getting defensive and shutting down.
You see, our son has never been with anyone. The closest he was to having a girlfriend was his 5th grade year but then they separated because of going to different schools their 6th grade year. That was a tear jerker because they had been together as best friends since 1st grade and he told her over the phone that it was best that they break up because there was the possibility of liking someone else. When I asked him if he liked someone else, he said no but I could. I just rolled my eyes and let it go because they are kids and they are too young to know what they want.
We did have a heart to heart where I told him to be sure of his preference because once he makes that decision and puts it out there, you can’t erase it and its hard to take back. He just looked at me. That’s typical of a teenager, right?! I’m just saying, if you have never experienced both, then how do you know. Well, he has decided that he has made his decision. I am just happy that he talks to me about it. Well, I thought I was. Maybe I don’t need to know everything…… I can handle him telling me about kissing a guy he is dating. I talk to him about sex and when he decides it is the right time that to please please practice safe sex. Always wear protection and make sure his partner wears protection. What I was not prepared for is him talking to me about hand jobs in the movie theater. 😳
Free Therapy
I am so grateful for my girlfriends! If it wasn’t for them, I am not sure what my mental state would be right now.
A little background on us….. We call ourselves the Wine Buds. We started out as 9, then 10, and have now capped at 11 women. Our cupth runneth over with love, laughter, and cheers!!! We started out official “club” just over 10 years ago, although some of us have known each other a lot longer than that. Instead of buying each other birthday gifts, we decided to start a birthday account and save money to go on weekend trips or other get-togethers because buying birthday gifts gets harder and harder with each year that passes. We started with volunteering our time with our local Hospice annual Christmas-time fundraiser called Festival of Trees. We still volunteer our time to decorate a tree for this event and the occasional wreath or two.
Our friendships have remained a constant over the years. We may not talk to each other everyday but you can bet that if help is needed we are all there in a heartbeat for each other. Regardless of our varying degrees of closeness with each other, when one is in need of help, you can count on your Wine Buds to be there.
We have been through births, deaths, marriages, divorces….. through sickness and health, we are there for each other. Case in point, my husband was formally diagnosed with Stage 4 Colorectal cancer August 20, 2018. I remember that day so clearly that is is a recurring bad dream. The days leading up to that diagnosis were difficult. If it wasn’t for our local GI doctor, my husband would be with us today. As I was keeping my friends as arms length of our situation, there was always one or two that break right through the armor because they know “No one Fights Alone”. I was not alone when the Doctor came out after my husbands colonoscopy and said, “It’s not good, there is a tumor blocking 90% of his colon and its malignant. The next step is to see were it has metastasized.” I was not alone when I had to call his parents and break the news to them. I may have felt alone but I was never alone. My tribe of Wine Buds was always there, reaching out in some form or fashion. In this situation and the ties we have in our community, we had a whole lot of people reaching out. When one of our Wine Buds caught her husband cheating on her with her best friend we were right by her side every step of the way….. one or two at a time because those situations are very delicate and overwhelming at the same time.
Me, I have three Wine Buds that I reach out to on a regular basis, one of them knows most, but no one knows all. I thought if I started blogging (anonymously of course) I could start getting what’s in my head out. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to strangers about what is going on because they won’t judge you because the don’t know your past…. or if they judge you, it doesn’t matter as much because they don’t know you. Strangers only get to see that piece they are reading, but at the same time can provide you a more objective viewof your circumstance.
My one Wine Bud is the only friend who knows about my blog. I think it’s because we are more a like than my other Wine Bud friends. She is the sister I never had. We are the same person (at least that what our psychic thought). I am so grateful and blessed and troubled at the same time.
The point of my blog is to say Thanks for the Free Therapy! If it wasn’t for my friends to open up and talk to, I would be paying to talk to a stranger and that is just not me. I have trust issues. I don’t need someone turning my situation into a book one day. If that is going to happen, it will be by my own hand. I’m kidding of course! Who would would want to read about my life….. although I have only scratched the surface of the stories I could tell.
I want to Thank you all for giving me your time to read my blogs!
Motivational Monday
Motivational Monday
Cheerleading isn’t a sport
Says the person who doesn’t cheerlead. Did I catch your attendtion? Good! That’s not what this read is about though….. well, not really.
My husband just had his fouth liver biopsy followed by his second Immunotherapy treatment. This was the most painful biopsy and with the cough he has developed from the Immunotherapy has made recovery more difficult. The fevers come on at least once a day and break with Tylenol, until this weekend.
Friday, he was starting to feel on the upswing and so we planned to go to the movies. Then the mother of all fevers set in and he was in bed all day. For the first time he started experiencing mutliple fevers and one at 102.3. Needless to say, we were not making it to the movies and he was so upset about it. We have not had a date night out in so long and he was looking forward to it. Me, I was too, but I also worry about his health being around others at the movie theater and all the germs. He just started the Immunotherapy treatments so I suspect his immune system is somewhat compromised. So off to bed he went.
Sunday morning, I get up around 7am and let Jack outside before he has an accident. Feed all the fur babies and then let Jack back in. I go back upstairs to wake our son up because he has bowling practice and he is going to have to drive himself today. I have too much housework to get done…. and some healthy cooking.
I start with putting clean sheets on our bed, and then time to tackle the 8 loads of laundry that needs to be folded in the spare bedroom. But wait! There’s more laundry to be washed, so I also started a new load. While waiting on the next load to be dried, washed the master tub, cleaned the ceiling fans, folded and put away the clothes on my dresser. Don’t judge me….its all done now. I let Jack out again and then I decide to make some healthy ham, egg and pesto cups and bacon for breakfast. By now, my hubby is waking up. I run upstairs to switch the laundry over to the dryer and start a new load. I put the clothes from the dryer on the spare bed and waste no time to fold them because if I don’t I will quit all together. No breaks and no rest for the weary. We eat breakfast and I go right into vacuuming the downstairs. No sooner did I vacuum, I turn around and there is Jack’s hair on the carpet. I clean up the kitchen from breakfast and decide I now want to make a healthy snack. It worked out perfect because the hubby wanted some chocolate, so I made cheerio bars that had dark chocolate drizzed on top. After that, I started prepping for a late lunch early dinner.
I don’t know how the homemaker does it. This is a hard job and I only scratched the surface of cleaning. I could not do this everyday and I commend those who do. I love cooking but I loathe doing laundry! Being a homemaker is a full-time job and definitely taken for granted. I washed all the clothes on my kids bedroom floor and my child didn’t even thank me. So to all my mother homemakers out there, THANK YOU FOR KEEPING EVERYTHING STRAIGHT!! I’m sure you don’t hear it enough, but I think you are wonderful! You just never know until you are in their shoes and I feel more in their shoes this past year more than ever! It’s like saying cheerleading isn’t a sport, but you have never tried it, so how would you know!
Healthy Living
Tonight’s healthy dinner!
Feta, Spinach and Turkey Burgers topped with Tzatziki dressing with a side of cucumber quinoa salad.
We used wraps instead of buns.
Here is the recipe for the burgers.
http://www.eatingwell.com/recipe/262569/greek-turkey-burgers-with-spinach-feta-tzatziki/
The Cucumber salad consisted of:
2 cucumbers zoodle style
2 Small beets
A portion of Orange bell pepper sliced
1/4 cup Quinoa
1/2 Avocado diced
1/2 Fresh squeezed Lemon juice
1/2 Fresh squeezed Orange juice
Dash or 2 of Cayanne pepper (for a kick)
Healthy Living
Tonight’s healthy dinner!
Followed the recipe
https://www.cleaneatingmag.com/recipes/one-pot-mediterranean-lemon-chicken-rice-recipe
Healthy Living
Today’s healthy lunch snack
I improvised from the recipe in this link.
I used ground turkey and no mushrooms or olives. I love both but they didn’t make it in this time.
https://www.cleaneatingmag.com/recipes/loaded-beef-gyro-bowl-with-tzatziki1
New Year, New Hope
They say, today is the first blank page of a 365 page book…. so what is your first chapter going to be about?! How are you going to start your New Year??
I slept till 7am….. because our fur babies allowed me to! I scratched off my son’s holiday scratch-off’s because he wasn’t going to….and won $3! I’m a winner already! Then I took my Thrive vitamins and sat down with a nice hot cup of Starbuck’s Caramel Keurig coffee. Sounds nice doesn’t it?! That is what you see on the surface…..
Inside my brain, its like organized chaos going on….. does Jack need to go out again, is my husband finally getting sleep from his difficult biopsy procedure, the christmas decoration needs to come down, I need to do some work before going to work tomorrow, oh and I need to restart the laundry…… all of this is going on while I sit calmly on my couch, watching Jack pace in circles wondering if he needs to go out again or if he will finally lay down. He laid down so I better not get up or all that work he did to finally lay his arthritis ridden body down was for nothing.
This is every Saturday and Sunday, so I’m pretty used to this routine. If you are wondering where Greyson is, he is snuggled up under the blanket next to me, squirming every so often to let me know he’s still under there.
I wasn’t sure how last night’s ringing in the new year would go. We got home from Georgetown University Hospital close to 6pm. I helped hubby into the house and into bed because he was in a lot of pain from the procedure. Mind you, this is his 4th biopsy, but this has felt the worst. This time the went in closer to his side instead of the front to pull cells from his liver and one of the side effects of the Immunotherapy is a cough, so its been difficult. He is a trooper though. Toughest guy I’ve seen because he tries so hard not to take anything…. until now.
After getting him settled, I go downstairs. I’m not in a New Year’s celebratory mood, so to avoid regular television, I turn on Amazon Prime and start watching Modern Love. We actually started it last weekend and I was now going to was episode 3 of season 1. It’s really good and the stories are heartfelt and just true on to what goes on in life on every level. Our son comes home from being out to dinner with friends, plops on the couch to tell me how his night went and a continued text conversation with his friends of plans that fell though. I love when he talks to me about his life. He doesn’t do it often so I try just to listen and provide advice in the form of a question so he doesn’t shut down. then I throw in a, Have you decided on a major for college yet (he’s a junior in HS). He will roll his eyes and that when the conversation trails and he goes and plays his online video games with his buddies….. good for me because I can now go back to watching my show he interrupted (smirking). I watched a total of three episodes, checking in on hubby after each to make sure he was comfortable (as much as he could be) or if he needed anything, and then back downstairs I went. I must had fallen asleep on. the couch because I was startled by our son yelling “MOM, ok, lets do this!” I had no idea what he was talking about at first until he changed the channel to the Dick Clark’s New Year’s countdown and it was 16 minutes till 2020. He first poured himself some sparkling grape juice and I poured myself from Sparkling Apothic Red wine and we watched and waited. He finished his glass and poured himself some of my sparkling red wine….that was a different taste for him. We watched the ball drop. Happy New Year toast, made a wish, Took a selfie of the two of us, went upstairs to celebrate with hubby and it was all over. Just like that, it is now 2020.
I only have one goal for this new year and it is to spend as much time with my husband as possible. For us to see new places and do new things as his energy allows….. or more importantly, he allows.
My First Chapter is New Year, New Hope for my husband! Here’s to the Immunotherapy working!
To Wine or not to Wine... that's a stupid question! 