the thought process

i had my annual eye exam last friday. my eyes are healthy, and the floaters i had last year have disappeared. glad for that, they were really annoying. only thing is my vision is a little bit more blurry, so im getting bifocals. thats ok, because my distance vision has always been a little indistinct. lately when i take off my reading glasses, after wearing them all day at work, my eyes dont want to shift back to normal. the nose pieces really bother my nose anyway.

i had glasses when i was about 8, because i was diagnosed with amblyopia, but they bothered my nose too much so i quit wearing them. i got them again when i was 26, because i have trouble reading the signs between grocery aisles from the end of the aisle, and they really made everything clear. i could see needles on fir trees from a block away. but, they bothered my nose, and constantly slipped down. so i abandoned the idea of wearing glasses. i always had 20/30 vision anyway. it was just this left eye that has the mild amblyopia. its only since i had the onset of all those floaters last year that prompted me to see the optometrist in the first place. besides, its good to get check ups since i have good insurance now and can afford id it.

so the new bifocals, which will be ready tuesday, will be different. they will be a lightweight plastic with no nose pieces, and they will fit differently so they wont slip down. at least i hope not. but they wont bother my nose. they will also get darker when i go out, which will be a plus because i can wear them driving. the best little add on will be the rose tint over the lenses, to minimize the harsh fluorescence i work under. this is wonderful, because colored tinting helps a dyslexic with reading, and rose works best for me.

all this got me to thinking. amblyopia, dyslexia, hyperglycemia, and a history of migraines. these are the things i have challenged me for half a century, in a world designed for none of them. none of them is severe, except the migraines, and the most frequent trigger for them is gone now. yet not being severe has made it challenging in other ways. it is just enough to make me stumble, but not enough to be evident there is a challenge. it has played hell with my interactions with other people, and strained my relationships. add to this the borderline personality disorder, or whatever it is. now the picture gets even more grim.

i was raised not to complain. actually, my mother couldnt deal with my personal struggles, so i was shamed for complaining about them. and truly, i have an innate trait that wont allow me to cave to my own problems. i know there are others with far worse afflictions. and so i am not complaining now. merely introspecting.

i do not define myself by these anomalies. i dont even claim them as mine. i do, however, identify with people who have challenges that arent apparent to the outside world. i actually enjoy membership in the island of misfit toys. this may seem contradictory to my stance as a covenant woman, but it isnt. rather, its a part of my testimony.

i define myself by who the bible says i am. i am more than an overcomer. i am a new creation. but what i am in Christ isnt always apparent either. this is where my testimony is. this is where my walk of faith lies. the Word of God is like a mirror, reflecting the image of Jesus, Who is the image of God. the more i look into that mirror at that image looking back at me, the more i begin to look like that image. that image really is what my born again spirit looks like, created in His image. its my mind, my will, and my emotions, that look like the old me. the body is just where i live. as my mind begins to conform to the new me, i gain more and more victory over the anomalies. and any other thing that rises up against what the Word says is mine. i get freer and freer of the old things that held me captive. like the rages. they are getting less severe, and further between, and less easily triggered. i havent got there yet, but im pressing on.

so in spite of my challenges with how my brain is wired, my struggles with my past, and the ever constant stream of things that weigh on me, i cant but hold my head up, because i know im a champion in the making.

myriad of thoughts

Technorati Tags: tulsa river project

Technorati Tags: river project

stuff

i awoke this morning to icy rains. the leaves and branches are all glassy, crystalline, and the sky an even steel gray. thee are little icicles along anything with a straight edge. inside, my home is warm and cozy. in a little while i will shower, and make hot cereal for breakfast. i love mornings at home like this.

last night i talked with my daughter in law for a bit. her baby was due on the fourth of december, and still has not made her debut. if she doesnt deliver before then, she will be induced tuesday or thursday. i have asked the Lord to bring the baby before. i expect to hear today or tomorrow.

i still dont have my gifts bought and ready to send. now im getting antsy. maybe i will shop online, and have things shipped. but then you cant have things wrapped. i could bribe my mom to receive everything and wrap it for me …

 

river rants

last week i got the opportunity to say publicly something i had wanted to for some time. the radio station i listen to has tuesday ‘would you rather’ in the mornings while i am driving to work. tulsa started this arkansas river development issue some months ago, but the vote to get taxes to cover the cost didnt pass. so now its going to be funded privately, or by the smaller towns close to the river. the ‘would you rather’ question was, would you rather tulsa step up and develop the river, or the surrounding towns. i called the station with my opinion.

what i said was, i would like to see tulsa take care of the river project, but that i first on the agenda should be river clean up. i told the DJs how my beau used to work for a company that contracts out to sun oil, the refinery that sits on the bank of the river, to deploy boom to contain the natural oils that seeps up from the ground and casts a sheen on the water. this oil is natural, and has been seeping for thousands of years. its not really that hazardous. what is hazardous is the black hole, a ditch that comes from somewhere in the refinery that pours black, green and purple ooze into the river constantly. but they never put boom there, because it ‘doesnt exist’. i told them about the fish with bloody eyes and gills. i told them how sun would rather pay the fines for not being up to code, than fix the problems, because its cheaper. not wanting to take up too much time, i didnt tell them about the pink stuff that comes up from under the refinery every time it rains hard, stuff that was used in the refining process and is apparently in the ground now and is lighter than water so it rises when the water table rises and appears on the floors of the refinery, to be washed away into … you guessed it – the river. i didnt tell them how the flare towers, tall stacks that have flames at the top, for burning off the excess gases, flare really high at night, when the town sleeps, and how frequently the air reeks in the morning as far away as my house, a good six to ten miles away. i didnt tell them how easy it is to sneak onto the grounds, which i think is a bad security breach. not that i would know anything about that …

but i got to say enough for one comment. and they aired my entire comment. that was gratifying, to say the least. not that i expect sun oil, or sinclair oil, the other refinery also on the river bank, to change anything just from my comment. but maybe more people will become aware of the serious problem. maybe i will speak out again, since this river development issue is not dead. its not that my heart is in tulsa by any means. but people fish in this river all the time. their are endangered birds on a small island in this river right up by the refinery. the pollutants travel down river for other towns to reap the benefits from. i care about that.

Technorati Tags: pollution,tulsa,arkansas river,sun oil

sammys life

since 2001, when sammy was first diagnosed with diabetes, many things have changed in my way of life. back then we also had spook, lee’s black cat of the same age. they were both fourteen then. spook, because of tartar and resulting gingivitis, developed acute kidney failure and almost died. the vet gave us two days at best. that’s when we first began to stand on psalm 145. we claimed spooks life back, and he recovered, although we did have to give him a new diet to accommodate his loss of kidney function. he went on to live for two more years.

sammy, during this time, was contending with the diabetes, or rather the treatment of it. we tried humulin, and she kept crashing. she was on a restricted calorie diet because she was overweight, and she was constantly hungry because of the insulin. she became dehydrated, and then her kidneys and her liver crashed, she got down to 4lbs, and she nearly died. we continued to stand on psalm 145, and she began to recover. eventually we settled on .5mg of glipizide before meals, twice daily. this, and lee’s work schedule, resulted in my getting up early every morning to feed the two elderly cats before getting him up to get ready for work. a schedule i still maintain, even though spook is no longer with us.

recently i had to put her on insulin again, because her kidneys began to fail again. she had been on a low carb high protein kitten food diet along with the oral medication to keep her blood sugar down, and it was working fine. but years of high protein had taken a toll on her kidneys. this meant a new diet for her, sort of upsetting the balance we had maintained for so long. the new diet was lower in protein, but higher in carbs. i was apprehensive about the insulin, but now feline insulin was available. she tolerated it well, and we moved on again. soon we had to start giving her subcutaneous fluids at home, because her kidneys dont do an adequate job hydrating her. so she gets 200ml three times a week.

another thing a diabetic cat encounters is neuropathy. her hind legs do not work like they used to. she walks okay, but her hind legs do not have the strength they once had. this also contributes to some recent incontinence. its all because of nerve damage due to the higher levels of glucose that we cant avoid now. she sleeps on the couch in the evenings, after dinner, and sleeps so deeply she doesnt know she has to pee. she starts to pee before she wakes up. this is a problem, obviously. she can get into the big litterbox, but doesnt always make it all the way in before she starts to go. so i have a rug under the box, with a rubber bathmat under the rug, to save my wood floor. she has been hard on the floors over the last seven years. it works out, but there is the couch to consider now.

so, i looked up pet diapers online – handicapedpets.com -  and found a site that offers a free sample to try first. i ordered one for sammy, xs plus up to 4lbs. of course.

ah how things have changed for sammy and me over the years. but i will continue to do what i must for her to live comfortably and retain as much freedom of movement as possible. she is more than a pet to me. she is, on many levels, my friend.

signed, sealed …

yesterday on my lunch break i went to the mortgage company, ironically named ‘first mortgage’ and signed all the papers, and handed the mortgage broker a check for the appraisal. later in the day i called the car insurance guy for a quote on home owners insurance. the closing is the 5th of october. i guess all that remains is to give my landlord notice. since we have a month deposit, we can give him his rightful 30 days, and use that time to move in. not that it will take that long. the beau wants to move in one trip. that shouldnt be a problem. next on the agenda is to pick out a refrigerator, washer/dryer combo, and a shower door for the bath tub. id like to get a large rug for the bedroom too. then get some curtains, and we’re set. i am planning on using the front room for dancing and workouts. i do not need two living rooms.

next item up is nosomi. i think i can bring her home today! the biopsy showed no cancer (i knew it would), and no fungus (i figured that too). seems to be a bacterial infection, with inflammation. the clindamycin should take care of that. and faith. i will get pictures of her today.

bougar continues to improve. she seems to have cracked a few teeth chewing her nylabones, and wont eat her dry food anymore. so she is getting the canned food sammy had left over, as sammy now prefers the dry version of her diet. so its all getting used.

leave me a loan!

today i will decide on which mortgage company i will go with. i have it narrowed down to my bank and a local mortgage company. on the advice of the beau, i had the two lenders speak with the seller about the closing costs they wanted him to pay for me. after their discussion, i was offered a much better deal. understandably, he didnt want to pay more than is required, and i knew he wouldnt. but it was so much better to let them discuss it among themselves, and then i dont look the fool for asking the ridiculous. as it stands, i can finance a large portion of the closing costs too. this is going to work out nicely! and i have learned so much. i have a better head for money issues now. i always have been a late bloomer.

bougar is much better, although her hips still seem to hurt her quite a bit. she falls a lot in the morning, when her back legs are still stiff from sleeping. so we stay close to her when we take her out in the morning, to help her when she is trying to do her business. still, i believe even this will succumb to the power of the Word of God.

we should get the results of the biopsy that was done on the new kitty, to see what needs to be done for her skin problems. then we can take her home, get her cleaned up, and begin integrating her into the fold. her funny little upper lip! as soon as i get some pictures, i will get them posted.

im so excited!

the house, the dog, and the new cat

 

well, we decided on a house last week, signed a purchase agreement, and set the closing date. we plan to be in before halloween. we looked at two houses last sunday, but the second one was the one. actually, we both felt that way before we ever saw the inside, when we had driven past it a week earlier. all that remains is to pick a lender, and sign the loan agreement. i have learned a great deal about house buying this week. *deep breath*

i can barely contain my excitement, however! its a really beautiful house. the owners bought it and redid the inside, so its really nice. the kitchen has new appliances in black and steel, except for no refrigerator. the bath room is also redone with new tile, and a cool brass sink. ok, so its got a lot of yellow, and i would never have picked yellow. but if thats the only thing i can find i dont like, well … i can live with yellow. i will add blue and black that i already have. and maybe some green. or red. or both. or neither. the floors in both rooms are this tuscany tile. very old world. i like that. once we have moved in, and i get some of the decor going, i will show it off in the album.

bougar is better. her liver is healing, being an organ that can regenerate itself. of course we stood on the promises of God for her to recover. we also have a good vet, and know a little about natural healing as well. i have never thought faith was compromised by these things. what compromises faith is unbelief. to use natural methods in case faith doesnt work, for me thats never really believing in the first place. faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. vets and doctors, and natural remedies, i use my faith that they will be of some use. it has helped my animals be more comfortable while waiting in faith. it gives me something to do to act on my faith, for faith without works is dead. so, bougar is recovering, and we are believing the arthritis will be removed from her body as well. her legs need their strength back, so she can run and climb steps, and not slip and fall on the wood floors. and not be in pain.

we are taking in a cat whose owner cannot care for. she is an adorable girl, very sweet and loving. she has a skin problem that we are working to get cleared up before we bring her home. but the thing about her that makes her a little different is a birth defect. apparently her mother got into some pills, that is the theory. no one knows for sure. the whole litter had something wrong with them. hers is a cleft palate. it doesnt seem to hinder her ability to eat and lick as cats do. it just gives her a goofy kind of cute look. so … we have named her nosomi. japanese for *hope*. pictures to come.

in other news:

 

 

my son went off to iraq for his second tour. he will be mostly overseeing the work places and living places of the platoon he is with. he explained it to me, but i dont have a real clear idea. i just know he wont be in the battle front, such as it is. never the less, again my faith is hotly deployed with him, and the men of his squads. i have stood on the promise of isaiah 43:5 ever since the first hint he might go.

Fear not, for I am with you;
      I will bring your descendants from the east,
      And gather you from the west;

 

and i will not come off my stand on this, and on psalm 91. my God is faithful!

 

my new grand daughter will be born in december some time. i am hoping to find means to go visit her for a couple of days. my vacation days are all scheduled, but i can take a few personal days for this. we will see.

 

 

as summer wears on

this was a long four days at work. it seems like when you have a holiday three day weekend, you get five days of stuff on the following four days at work. and us with one person on vacation all week. ya! but next week i have a four day week again, because im taking friday off. so that will make up for it. i scheduled a visit to my doctor friday to see why this bump i incurred five weeks ago, on my shin just above my ankle, wont go away. i think i may have a bone chip. the beau and i had an argument that evening, and i was trying to take a shower and forget about it. i guess i bumped my shin on the tub. i really dont know what i did to it. all i know is the next day i had a painfull bruise and a hard little bump on my shin the next morning, and it hasnt resolved itself. stupid briuse.

then there is bougar. our funny old chow. she has lost some weight in the last month, and was acting like she didnt feel good. the vet did an ultrasound, and it showed that her liver and her spleen have nodules. the vet seems to think they started in the spleen and metastasized to the liver. friday she had a needle biopsy and an aspirate to check the liver and spleen tissues, and the fluid in her abdomen. we will get the results early next week. but our stand as soon as we knew there were health issues was to stand on psalm 145, as we have for the cats in times past. God opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living creature. bougar qualifies as a living creature. her desire is to be well. ask, she’ll tell you. we have received that from the open hand of God. she will be fine. this will pass.

this morning we had a raucous storm. it blew through around 2:30am, and rained hard on everything. by 5:30am, when i took the beau to work (had to work this saturday), there were garbage cans and branches, stalled cars and standing water everywhere. after a storm, its a surreal and strange trek to the west side of tulsa and back early in the morning. it almost feels like a nightmare, except im not scared. i am rarely ever scared. but it is strange to drive my routine route to take him to work on those early days when he has to be there at 6am, and there is so much weird stuff on the roads going and coming. and its still dark, so its even stranger. later, after i had couple hours more sleep, i found an electrical problem. seems when i had more than one major thing on the lights blinked a lot. the air and the computer. the fans and the blow dryer. sometimes just the air or the blow dryer. so i called PSO, and they resolved the problem. weather covers. i think they are little shield things that protect the connections where the main lines and the transformers hookup. they replaced them, and no more problems. happy me.

tomorrow we are going to look at two houses for sale in our neighborhood. and we are getting miss nibbles. the comic book store owner where the beau goes most fridays after work has this sweet kitty that he keeps at the store. she really has personality. trouble is, the cats he has at home wont accept her. so he has been keeping her at the store. but they are about to expand the store space, so her environment is going to shrink. besides, she has been getting upset at being alone at night at the store. so we are taking her. she’s a lovely little tortishell shorthair with skin allergies. thor will love her right off. he loves every one. gizmo will not like her. he doesnt like anyone except people. maggie, it will depend on what day it is. the dogs will love to have another cat. and sammy wont care either way. whats one more?

tomorrow i will take pictureas of the new cat and the houses we look at. i will post them as soon as i can.

updates

this has been a strange year weatherwise. it was so rainy this spring and into the early part of the summer. sad that a lot of people lost their homes and possesions during that time, when some of the creeks and ‘rivers’ overflowed their banks and flood neighborhoods. it finally got hot in late july and into august. it got pretty hot for the duration of the month, but has already started cooling down. this was also a year for several groups of cicadas to emerge, and the ragweed was early too. i dont know that much about cicadas. i just know there is more than one kind. one stays buried for seven years, one for thirteen, or something like that. i guess several emerged together this year. they always make the trees sound like theyre live with electricity. 

temps are starting to cool down now. im not disappointed that we had such a short summer. im relieved. today started out much cooler, even though it was a bit sticky still. its only 80º now, at 11:30am. it may get up around 90º+, but the trend is cooler.

bougar has had a bout with something. she lost some weight, and was acting like she didnt feel good. she has kinky hips anyway, and they bother her. but then she had some diarrhea, so we took her in for a check up. seems her liver enzymes were too high. wednesday she goes back for an ultra sound, and we are awaiting more results from blood tests. vet put her on liver pills, and it has made a difference. she acts like she feels better, and no more squirts. oh thank God for that! well, we thanked God for more than that, because as always we laid hands on her and claimed the promise in psalm 145:14-16

 

“the Lord upholds all that fall, and raises up all those that are bowed down.

the eys of all wait upon You, and You give them their meat in due season.

You open Your hand, and satisfy the desire of every living thing.“

 

later today, when the beau gets back from the postal office, we are going to look at a house for sale. its seems like a pretty good deal, and theyre asking $65k which is a great price even here. i wasnt looking for a house, because we are planning to move back to oregon/washington next year. but this one fell into my lap. my friend at work has a daughter who just got her real estate license, and although she isnt the realtor for this house, still told her mother who told me. so far im liking what i see. but im staying reserved until i see it, and find out a few more things. im going to take a few pictures.

cat scratch fever

ok. here’s my story. i went skydiving, for the first – and last – time, with my beau last week. everything was going just fine. we were 10,000 ft up. sky was clear as the caribbean sea. light breeze barely felt. and we jumped.

ah the feel of the air as i went ripping through it. felt like i was floating. looked as if everything was standing still. i took it all in as if i were dreaming.

then about 2,000 ft i pulled the cord, and … nothing. argh! ok, no problem. i had a back up. i pulled that one, and it deployed! yea! um … oops. no wait, it twisted. uh oh. but now a rather strong breeze had me, and was blowing me way off course, right into a large, bare pecan tree.

right after i crashed through the limbs of this old tree, that seemed to have its branches raised to catch me, my shoot caught on one of the limbs, and snapped me into another limb, breaking my fall, and nearly breaking me.

but im ok now. just a few bruises and scratches …

thats my story, and im sticking to it.

rain, sick puppies, and the hunt for the perfect house

we have had a lot of rain this spring. more than usual. every few days we get a strong deluge, and the street becomes a river. the back yard has been a pond more than once. kramer, the turtle we keep in the back yard in his own pen that we built for him, loves the rain. he loves water. he’s a water turtle in a land turtle’s body. last week the lee found another turtle, a male just like kramer but smaller and with some old scars to his shell. he brought it home, named it newman, and set it in the pen with kramer. the pen was flooded by the rains we were having that afternoon, and kramer was happily bobbing around in the abundance of water. silly turtle.

i, for one, love the rains. except for the challenge of doing rudimentary yard work, and the multitude of mosquitos, so does lee. it is the reason everything is so green.

the down side of the rains has been the puddles. by itself, it isnt a problem. but cinnamon likes to eat. everything. she experienced a serious lack of provisions in her early puppyhood, an assumption based on our knowledge of where she came from and in what setting she lived. and that she has gained about 15lbs since living with us. our vet says that often dogs who start out with lack develop a scarf mentality, from never knowing when and where the next meal might be. cinnamon is like this. she eats anything not nailed down, including kitty roca (ok, guess what that is). she has caught birds and eaten them before we could stop her. she hasnt gotten a squirrel yet, but i dont really want her to. she is always snuffling the ground and eating stuff. the amazing thing is she didnt have giarrdia.

after all the rain, and the puddles laying about, cinnamon contracted quite a bout of diarrhea. argghh. it was a big challenge, because we had many messes to clean up in the computer/dog/caged animal room. good thing it has hard wood flooring. but we had to take the dogs bedding to the laundromat. lee did that friday while i was at work, since he took the day off and also took cinnamon to the vet. well, we wanted to get her on a wellness plan anyway, like sammy and bougar are. we want to get them all signed up. its like insurance. sort of. any, we found something cinnamon doesnt like. pills. we actually have to force her to swallow the pills and wormer stuff the vet gave us. made some great faces while she was having to swallow them. she is already better, however.

as for my house hunt, the challenge i am faced with is that i am preapproved for $125K for a home loan. that is based on my wages here, and the price of homes here. if i were going to buy a house here, i could get a nice one, and have my payments at about what im paying for rent now. out on the northwest coast, the wages and the house prices are higher. the realtors i have talked to tell me i wont have much to choose from with the amount i have to work with. i know that. what i also know, and they apparently dont, is that all things are possible to them that believe. i happen to believe that, based on my covenant with God, i have more to choose from. i dont have to take their answers, and their limitations. i can have the house i want. i am a covenant child, a covenant woman. God is my source, my supply, my Provider. He has the perfect house for me. He will provide. i am unconcerned. whether it will be my sister’s house, or some log house in the woods, He will provide.