Saturday ...

      We've had a bit of excitement this past week, with some good news, and some worrisome "turn it over to God" nights.

     First the worrisome ...  Charlie was attacked by a neighboring pit bull that got loose and targeted him, but before you clasp your heart and cry "Oh No!" he is fine.  I had canceled his haircut when I was unexpectedly unemployed sooner than expected, and so his shaggy bear hairstyle of the moment saved him from serious injury when the other dog could not get a grasp on his skin.

     He'd been out on his lead in our backyard while I finished washing dishes, and I heard him barking and went out to see what was going on.  I was able to pull him away, but the dog also attempted to attack me before we got into the house.

     I did call the police and report a loose dog and asked that they be cited for that, but because I know and believe that dogs are not born bullies, people make them that way, I did not want the dog taken away, and euthanized.  I did not blame the dog, but the people who owned her knew she was dangerous.  They had multiple Beware of Dog signs around the property and once warned me not to try to friend and pet her through or over the fence since she would bite.  A warning I heeded.

     The "turn it over" comes because that same night I heard the pit screaming and when I went out to see what was going on, the sound stopped and several men came out of the owner's garage, got into cars, and left.  I have not seen or heard the dog since that night, and usually, she was outside all day and barked constantly.   My heart fears that they murdered her, and I feel horribly guilty for that.  But I know, in my rational mind, that it was not me that did it, but people who never loved or cared for her in the first place and she is in a much better place.

     [UPDATE: She is fine! I just saw her! Yay!]

     Enough of those painful thoughts ...

     Good news now ... bloodwork done on Thursday came back 100% normal.  Yay me!  My new insurance will kick in this March, and while I can't miss any training, I am scheduling all the follow-up tests for May.  Happy Birthday, here's a colonoscopy!

Click to enlarge.

     Fun stuff ... I will share pictures in February of my seasonal tree, already decorated, but until then, here are some fashionable photos of my Mom that I got this week.  They were on slides she had kept from her childhood that I had sent in before Christmas to be printed.  [Note to self:  a very expensive process not to be repeated.]

     Some of these surprised me because Mom had always indicated that she was the "least favored" daughter (she had two older sisters), and so seeing her dressed in so many fancy dresses that must have been costly for the times makes me believe that she was not as "unloved" as she wanted us to believe.  I certainly never had fancy dresses, altho, I was never asked to attend a prom or school dance either.  I was very shy (hard to believe, I know) when I was in school.

 

    < There were no dates or notes on any of the slides to indicate how old she might have been, and some of them I can only guess because of her facial features and hairstyle.  This one seems to be very Audry Hepburn-ish of her, and I think Mom might have once had dreams of being a model or actress.

 

    > This dress has a collar style that I recall seeing on several of Jackie Kennedy's dresses, and I'm certain was all the rage during that time.  She was skirting the public arena during that time when JFK was running for Congress, but had been on the cover of the Life magazine with him and may have been in other magazines as she worked for the Washington-Times Herald and was part of the "upper-class" in the US, the fashionable and elite that I think Mom wished she'd been born into.

     < Mom was beautiful, and even though I don't remember many times when I was growing up that she and my Dad got into fancy dress and went to events, I know that there were a few.  She kept this dress for quite a while because I have a photo of me wearing it when I must have been 4 years old.  I remember her telling me that it has been her prom dress, and may have been the last prom she attended.

     > While there were several photos of her with boys she must have dated, this was the first one in which she made an appearance with my father.  I think it must have been taken Christmas of 1957 because the hairstyle matches the previous photo, but the next photo shows her with longer hair and glasses.

     < In this photo, she is sitting on my father's lap, and to his right is his twin brother, Uncle Ron, and my Aunt Nancy (one of Mom's older sisters).  On the floor in front of her is my Uncle Brian, Mom and Nan's younger brother, and their mother, my grandmother.  Ron and Nan married in 1957, and this may have been taken in 1959 after Mom and Dad were married.  I cannot imagine my conservative Methodist grandparents letting her sit on Dad's lap before marriage!

     > Of course, we all know what happens with relaxed lap-sitting ... here I am in May 1962, screaming at my helpless grandfathers.  My maternal grandfather on the left, and my paternal grandfather on the right.

                    Enjoy your weekend!

                            Hugs,  Ci

Quilted walls ...

      I'm working hard to find creative ways to keep the house a little bit warmer this winter.  

      Exhibit A:  An old quilt cut into strips to fit along the stair wall where it is the coldest area in the house.  Even if the curtain at the foot of the stairs wasn't keeping all the heat from rising, it would still be the coldest area in the house.  It actually looks quite decorative, and I'm going to be prowling Goodwill for a few more to finish it.  That second strip shows just how short I am, and how afraid I would be to put a box or step stool on the stairs to raise it higher.  I've heard broken necks from falling downstairs is hard to come back from.  I may still have to find some way to raise it up, tho.  A safe way.

     Exhibit B: Charlie's old quilt from the sofa (washed and no longer smelling like Charlie) on one of the living room walls that let a great deal of cold in.

     The house has no insulation on the exterior under the vinyl siding, and judging from the wood strips on the wall of the stairs, probably no insulation at all.  I reached out to the landlords to ask if they would consider redoing the siding to add insulation.  Fingers crossed.  My lease is up in April, and I really don't want to move, but also want to be warm in the winters and have affordable electric bills.

     This quilt was ordered before my unexpected unemployment and arrived today.  It was going to hang on the wall where the previous quilt is but was not large enough to be effective.  It's also too gorgeous to be a possibly seasonal hanging so I moved it over the sofa where it can remain.

     The fabric is all handmade batik, and it is truly exquisite.  I love love love it.  There is still a lot of space on the wall which is going to be perfect for several art class projects I have coming up in the next few months.  I may have to get a 2nd job for my crafting addiction.

      I hope that you are staying warm in the northern hemisphere of the world, and cool if you are in the southern.  I'm counting the days until the possibility of the first crocus of spring (six weeks and four days).

                                            Hugs,

                                                  Ci

imperfectly perfect ...

     I'm not (much of) a perfectionist.  I am ... but I'm not.  If I was, I'd never finish any craft project.  But sometimes I will re-do a project multiple times just because it doesn't feel "finished" or "right."

     That was the situation with this one.  The lettered side originally did not "jump" out, and just seemed too ... pale?  insignificant? ... for how much this quote impacts me.

     I sanded it down, painted it a darker color, then rewrote the quote larger with a black marker.  I probably should have penciled lines to keep me straight, but oh well.  Now it jumps out from across the kitchen where it is hanging over my sink and is a reminder for me just at a glance that I am stronger ... better.

     I thought first about painting the bird red for a cardinal, but I choose the goldfinch because the bright yellow color of the male in the breeding season really is "summer" for me, and I always get excited when I see them arriving.

My best friend was a gift ...

     That was to have been the title of my next book, an update to my first book My Best Friends Have Hairy Legs under the pen name, Cierra Rantoul.  But the more I prayed about it, the more I realized that it wasn't what I needed to do.  See, to really "update" that first book, I'd have to revisit dark times in my life and talk about a lot of pain.  What ten years of life married to a drug addict was like, and I didn't want it to be about him.

     I wanted it to be all about Him.  Jesus.  God.  The Holy Spirit.  I wanted it to be about how HE saved me in my darkest times and continues to save me, heal me, and provide for me.  God is good, all the time, and He works all things for my good.  Even the dark times.

     This is my story ... all for God's glory.

     There are times when God asks us to do something and our free will minds question His sanity.  We all do it, be honest.  Those times for me were in 2012 and 2013.  

     I was living, well, actually squatting, in my Florida townhouse that was pending foreclosure after my bankruptcy, I'd left a good job in Texas because I had a rare form of cancer and thought I was going to die, and did not (no offense to my Texan friends and family) did not want to die in that desert.  I was trapped in a marriage to an abusive alcoholic meth addict and every time I went to file for a divorce, God told me to wait.

    "Wait?  What are you crazy, God?  Have you seen what he is like when he is drinking and using?  Don't you see the demon that comes out in his face when he is like that?  What am I waiting for?  For him to actually kill me?" 

     There were times when I truly, deeply feared him and his violent outbursts that broke windows and doors.  At the time he was in prison on felony burglary charges for stealing from one of our neighbors, and I had a year and one day to figure out how to escape him.  

     Only I didn't have a job or a car, and the company that held the house was about to turn off the power and water. I was on food stamps and most of my prayers began and ended with "God, please just let me die." So when God began to press on me to pledge $10 a month to a Christian radio station that somehow got tuned in during a thunderstorm while I was praying to get hit by lightning, I was a little concerned. 

     "God, have you seen my bank account lately?  $10 is all I have in the world.  If they take it this month, I don't know how I will pay it next month."

     But He wouldn't let me sleep, and so the day before the pledge drive ended I called and gave them everything I had.  Because I was faithful in what God was asking of me, He was also faithful in His promises to me.

    That weekend I made the decision to give up my pug, Henry, because the air conditioner had been vandalized and didn't work, and he was getting too hot.  The woman who took him mentioned my situation to someone at the vet office who happened to work for a church benevolence ministry.  She reached out to me, and they paid for the electricity and water for a month. 

     Someone heard me on the radio and sent me $250, and I won a raffle on the station for an IPad but they asked if I wanted a gift card instead for $500. 

     That month I got a letter from a company I had left four years prior asking if I would like to cash out my pension plan. 

     Which bought me a used car, and got me to a part-time job, then a full-time job, and an even better-used car.  That better-used car drove me to the Michigan Upper Peninsula for a much better full-time government job when my husband got put into a court-mandated rehab for violating his probation from his original felonies.

     Still, every time I wanted to divorce him, God said to wait.  So I believed He wanted me to wait so that He could do work in my husband to heal him.  

     And with every increase in my life, I increased my pledge to a Christian radio station or church. 

     When God asks us to be obedient, it's because HE has a plan to better us. 

     By 2018, we were living in Wisconsin, buying a house I loved, and I was working from home.  My husband had managed to hold down a good job for three years, and while he wasn't sober, he was, for the most part, staying clean as far as I knew.  But that changed in October 2019 after we went to visit his family in Alabama and when we returned he began using again and cheating on me.

     In May 2020, God stopped telling me to wait.

     My husband moved out, and his violent outbursts of breaking windows began again.  I filed a restraining order and filed for divorce.  The house I loved was sold out from under me, and packing what little I could fit into my truck and a small UHaul trailer, leaving behind treasured and sentimental items in a storage unit that I thought I would eventually return to get.   

     November 2020, I drove in the dark to West Virginia, a place I had never been before, with no friends or family, because it was closer to family than I had been, and the first rental house in my budget that would let me have two cats and a dog. 

     In February of 2021, a trial against my ex-husband for violating the restraining order was ended when he accepted a plea deal, without me having to go back to Wisconsin and testify in person against him, and within days my body began to collapse from the release of living under survival stress for over ten years.

     My toes began to turn black.  I honestly thought it was frostbite because I could not get my feet warm enough while I worked that winter, but it turned out to be Reynaud's syndrome.  In April I was diagnosed with diabetes and spent four days in a hospital for pancreatitis.  Then I started to lose weight.  Within two months I had lost 35 pounds, without even trying.  My jeans were practically falling off me, and even leggings looked baggy on me.  I was also very anemic.

     When my full health coverage started with my job, so did all the medical tests.  Some of the bloodwork came back indicating cancer.  A CT scan was done that showed enlarged lymph nodes in my abdomen and a mass in my liver.

     I was angry with God for finally telling me to leave my ex-husband only so that I would die somewhere else.  I waited all those years for Him to work in my husband, and He hadn't.  But I stayed faithful and found a church that was within walking distance of my home and got plugged back into a church family.

     My first visit to a doctor for confirmation biopsies was done in late July with the gynecologist. She said "Radiation will give you the best chance to survive. " before she even examined me.   Biopsies came back negative for cancer.

     An MRI was done, confirming the enlarged lymph nodes, showing everything the CT scan had shown, plus a thickening in my colon.

     The faithful truck that had driven me from Wisconsin to West Virginia without faltering got a flat tire, and looking at the other three I found they all had dry rot and I would need to replace all four at once.  Those tires, plus rust repairs to replace a cracked windshield to make it pass inspection would cost me more than what I could afford, more than I had paid for it, and it was unsafe to drive without new tires.  I sold it for scrap and used the funds to pay off some of my extensive medical bills prior to my full health insurance kicking in.

     I was referred to a cancer center, and the doctor called me the afternoon of 26 August 2021, before my appointment the next day to tell me before he even saw me that he BELIEVED that I had Stage 4 colon cancer that had spread to my liver and lymph nodes and the only SLIM chance I had to live would be if I had 3 months of chemo and surgery to remove part of my liver and colon. And it was a very slim chance. 

     I called one of my new friends at church and asked if the church would pray for me before the appointment the next day.  He did one better.  He came and picked me up, drove us to the church that was being built, and everyone in there came and laid hands on me and prayed for me.

     The next two months I spent with a peace that surpassed all understanding.   The understanding of work friends and family, that is.  I knew, however, that even if what the doctor ~ the cancer specialist ~ had said was true about my chances of survival I would be going *home* to Heaven.  I made end-of-life arrangements for my body.  Found family and people who would take my dog and cats when the time came.  I purchased thank-you cards to send instead of Christmas cards so that I could thank specific people for their part in my life. 

     The colonoscopy biopsies in mid-September came back negative for cancer.

     The $30,000 hospital bill from April's four-day stay when I didn't have full health coverage was miraculously knocked down to $8,000 by an anonymous charity.

     The five liver biopsies ~ that were done at the end of September, at a hospital three hours away, that a church friend drove me to and slept in his car while I was having them done ~ all came back negative for cancer.

     My mother passed away in mid-October, but before she died, I was able to tell her this ...

     Cancer:  0.  God:  immeasurable blessings.

     Doctors are intelligent, educated people, but only GOD has the final say in our lives. God had me wait for this time and place in my life so He could bring me to this family to be healed, inside and out. The waiting had nothing to do with my ex-husband.  God wanted me to wait so that He could work in me so that I could share my testimony of what an Amazing God He is.  He wanted me to wait for this life.  My best life is, and always has been, because of Him.

     My best friend ~ Jesus ~ was a gift that was given to all of us, and all we have to do is open our hearts to Him and trust Him.  Even when things seem to be the darkest, even when we are the most afraid.  Especially then.  We have to trust and be obedient to what God asks of us.  Because there are no limits to what He will do for us.

     I continue to be faithful.  God continues to bless me.  A better job is starting for me in a few weeks, and I know that the perfect car for me will come into my life soon as well.  I have family and friends that love me, and that know I love them.  Last December I sent Christmas cards, sharing a small part of my testimony because I want everyone to know that God didn't just do this for me.  God can do this for you, too.  His gift was for all of us.  

     And even "if not" I will remain faithful and obedient, knowing that my home is not of this world, but a far, far better place.   I lost those things in storage in Wisconsin, but what I've been given is so much better.  Life.  Love.  Faith.  Family.  Friends.  Things that fill my heart, not my hands.