Heart Story Part 1

Related to the previous story is that my grandfather died of a heart attack. Early on in my stroke diagnoses, there were many heart tests -  since unhealthy hearts run in my family. The clot that  lodged in my brain is a direct line from my heart - so my neurologist is sure the embolus came from the heart, the cardiologists have just not been able to replicate my hearts antics.  When she heard my story of ending up at a Port Townsend church,  a friend said "your grandfather must be trying to tell you something. " I pondered on that... what would he tell me? He was a driven German, oldest man to climb the Sierra Nevada mountains, world traveler, - he made the gyro that guided Apollo 13 - and the last 25 years of his life he totally changed his life after a bypass surgery.

In January, there was a class on healthy hearts at the church. I signed up, thinking it was medical knowledge- you know...healthy food, exercise equals healthy heart...etc etc.  and could always be useful information. Turns out it was on meditation, opening your heart, and an Eastern medicine approach.  I sat through the class and realized I have a guarded temperament about my heart.   It took some conscious effort in that class to release that closed off part of me, walk a little straighter and think, "open your damn heart, Andrea". (My words, not the gentle-spoken man that taught the class.)  Between the bible verse randomly left on my car about opening your heart, and ending up with my grandfathers minister at my church perhaps I should listen to something that is hard for me to understand.  Or perhaps more appropriate.. hard for me to listen to.

My kids.  The reason to keep voraciously battling these BS health issues. 

s.

Crazy faith -

When a youngster I was baptised at the Congregational Church.  It was the only church to attend in my small community , other than the Catholic Church.  I then attended a Presbyterian church as a kid on  San Juan Island.  The UCC church in Seattle was an active bunch of feisty people which I got along with swimmingly, my local UCC church in Kitsap is on the smaller side and has not clicked with me yet. The other morning I got a bee in my bonnet to go to church. I haven't been in a while since I worked weekends.  But since I took several weeks off of work -- I have my Sundays available for such endeavours. I was going up to Port Townsend that day for a hike so thought I'd visit a local church up there.  I looked up the program for that morning... and thought it looked like a grand topic.  I walked in a couple minutes late, sat in the back, and listened.  It began with the usual rituals, singing, announcements, candles.
Then the minister began talking. I listened and heard him mention Albert Schweizer which immediately brought to mind my grandfather, Wilhelm.  My grandfather would talk of Schweizer, Joseph Campbell, Jung with fire in his eye.  (He always had fire in his eye, he was full of German feistiness!) I realized I so was not listening to the sermon - so started paying attention again. That is when the minister said he was previously sixteen years at Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids, MI. This caught my attention, that was my grandparents church. This man knew my grandparents.  In this small church in NW Washington memories tumbled through me as he talked about the things my grandfather talked of.  Same philosophers.  Same church leader.  I started tearing up when he said "the welcome card in the entry way is directly from Duncan Littlefair" -a man my grandfather had great respect for and with whom he completed an oral history of his life.  On a whim this day I visited this church where the direct beliefs from my grandfather were spoken.  The first and last time I heard this ministers voice was over twenty years ago, at my grandmothers funeral. Here I was hearing that voice 26 miles from my home in a church I went to on a whim.  
I got up early from the service and went and cried in the bathroom.
After leaving the church, I went to my favorite brunch place. Since living on the Kitsap Peninsula I do not hear the German language much. At this restaurant which I go to every Sunday...my grandparents voices were present - a woman at the table next to me was speaking German.  Her two seatmates were speaking English, but she was talking German.
When I went back out to my car a handwritten bible verse was on it, about opening your heart.
When I took it off my windshield I started laughing.  What a strange day.

Changes in window style - back to the beginning

This is the south side of my house three years ago during one of our infrequent snows.  The gable on the right is the original building, pre-1904 era.  At some point, the left "ell" was added.    The lower window on the right is my room, and the window that drips water.  It is not the window leaking, but the siding at some point on the second story is allowing water behind the siding that allows water to drip from the center of my window frame.
Above are, of course, not the original window style for the house.  In a rough dark fuzzy image from public records of my home, circa 1904, the house looks to be unpainted and has divided light windows.  Very tall and narrow, and I am sure drafty as all get out.  Below is what I have been up to.  The siding was replaced with 10" cedar bevel.  It is actually over the original cedar siding, still in excellent shape.  Also, I brought the windows back to the early days style - Andersen 200 series divided light - but without the draftiness!
I am painting the house this summer and guess what color?

A New Year - and women getting balls.

We went to Michigan for the holidays.  My family is outside of Detroit - in Royal Oak and Saline. Besides the obvious joyful benefit of visiting family - I don't to see on their home turf very often - we ate amazing food, had a white christmas (yay!) and took it easy. It is difficult to leave the farm,  I hired three people to keep an eye on things - one took the dog, one cared for the horses, and one housesat the chickens, cats and guinea pigs.
 I love visiting Michigan because houses like mine are EVERYWHERE.  Not so in the Seattle area.  And speaking of my house:  Oh man oh man oh man you have to see what I have been up to. Next post.
But first, because I have not been on here in a while...I will do a bit of venting action.  Because that is what drives visitation to a blog. Complaining!  (I am totally joking here, it is not advised to be negative...but I am nothing if not contrary!)
1. I have a beautiful 17 year old daughter.  It is endlessly unmercifully disgusting to me when men older than I ogle her. And when I say ogle, I mean leer and hit on her.  I want to walk up and say something about their daughters and granddaughters, would they like a man approaching their child the way they are approaching Rose?  
2. I am 48.   I am not in high school.  Women, this is a lecture for you.  If your husband/boyfriend/date is hitting on another woman in front of your face, you need to get pissed at the man involved.  Not the woman. If your man has children with other women and that bothers you, you need to get mad at him for lying and seducing other women, not the other mothers. (This is what I saw when I was a social worker--women physically fighting in front of their kids because they had children by the same man.)  If you don't have the chutzpah to stand up for yourself and tell off your man you need therapy or not to date for a while.... and definitely try not to have kids.   Oh, and you need to have the confidence to realize your partner talking to a female in a crowded room is not a threat to your relationship.   If it is, the above applies again.
I have said this before, and I am sure this is not my last discussion of this topic.  The story: I went out with friends to hear a great blues band.  Knew two of the women there, both had new boyfriends.  Immediately one of the boyfriends began a very outgoing, animated, flirty conversation with me, while I answered to both members of the couple, wanting to include his girlfriend, because it was uncomfortable. I started talking to the women across the table and ignoring him. For the record, the couple was tipsy, and this being Washington state, maybe a bit stoned.  Not sure on that, but there was some sort of inebriation going on.   The woman withdrew more and more, and eventually made out with her man AT THE DINNER TABLE, and then looked over at me.  When she was on the dance floor, she would look over at me and then grope her man. Blech.  Meanwhile, he is trying to catch my eye.  Point one is she is dating a dog of a man. Point two is by the end of the eve she couldn't even make eye contact or talk to me.
 See? I feel much better now.  That stuff happens and it is so frustrating. Oh and this for the men.  If you talk a single woman when your wife or partner is not present... you are not getting away with anything, We are not swooning over you, whether you have a potbelly or abs, age 20 -70.  I personally would never in a kajillion years, freezing hell conditions, melted polar icecaps, zombie apocalypse, have anything to do with an attached man.  That is not really a trust-builder, not the sort of thing to build a solid relationship on.

 I am serious, I am printing up a t-shirt that says:
 Yes, I am friendly.  I am SO NOT FLIRTING with you.
 I speak the same way to men, women,
          and small mammals.

Replacing Beams - What happens above those beams

The carpenters are busy downstairs.  I am sitting at my dining room table on the computer.  The southwest corner of my dining room DROPPED -the floor moved, the walls moved. 
I heard the carpenter come upstairs and into the dining room,  "Did you see it move?"
I answered from the living room, in the stable part of the house where I moved in about 1.2 seconds... "Yup, I saw that!"
They are "dropping" the mid section of my house while raising the edge, above the foundation.  This section of my house was described to me as a floppy tortilla, high in the middle with edges that droop. 
My house is only (only) a couple inches off level.  Friends told me of a newish home in a high end development 12" off level.  I don't feel so bad when I hear that. I just don't sit above the posts and beams they are working on...

Work horse truck ill.

My white work horse Ford f250 had to be towed yesterday.  It was acting strange, erratic, loud and gassy with electrical blips, uneven running and the engine light going on and off.  
Fred at the shop said they could tell it was not feeling well and gave it a hug.  Unfortunately, said he, that did not fix the problem. The computer failed.  (I love any man that is comfortable talking of giving a truck a hug.)
My home computer was losing keyboard keys left and right.  It too, has been replaced.  You all need to say a prayer over your computer components... this is not an inexpensive venture!

What a basement does for organization

The carpenters needed access to my basement so I emptied it out.  Into my horse trailer - full of boxes.   Into my garage -full of furniture.  And my living room?  Boxes.  I have been cleaning out so much paperwork I have filled my car twice with bags of paper to recycle.  One stuffed garbage can of shedded paper.  Why oh why did we not get rid of things as we went along.  I found my first house rental agreement from when I was 20. And self-indulgent teenage pep talk letters about boys. And my favorite paper from my favorite class in college.   Memories... yes.  Interesting.. kinda.  Did I need to haul these through five Seattle homes and one Florida home... until they finally ended up in my basement? I can never complain about how much the basement cost, because this job made me go through the paperwork, so it does not move with me to the retirement home.  Good lord.  The sad thing is (I am not done. There are more boxes of paper.)

Kids. House. Health.

1. Kids. 
I had a dream:  My children were kidnapped.  Taken to an apartment complex which I tracked them to and waited.  I had to rescue them so I enlisted the help of the police.
Reality: My kids are teenagers... it is like they have been kidnapped. Rose has repeatedly pushed the ticket and a couple times gotten into trouble.  She just opened up about acquaintances and friends being abused, drugs, sex ... all that crap that I hoped she could avoid until adulthood (NAIVE I KNOW).  Wilder is 13.  Enough said.
2. Getting work done on my house.
 I slowly figured out my house is an analogy for me.  I cannot fix all the things with me, but I can on the house.  Like new posts, beams, and joists to strengthen the foundation of my house....will also somehow strengthen me.  At least I am aware I am delusional.  There is concrete improvement occurring on the house that you can document and take photos of  which is not available with my health.  There are no pictures to be taken of my returned ability to stay awake for 16 hours straight or work an 8 hour day.  Or the lifting (89% of the time) of the fog on my slogging self-repairing brain.    I feel lucky.  But obviously not lucky enough to win the powerball (ohhh, think what I could do to the house then!!) (that may be because I did not buy a ticket...)
 

Signing the work contract - Replacing joists and posts.

What an enormous amount of legal-ese goes into the paperwork to hire a contractor --three pages of obscurity to read and sign. The job starts in the basement --we are leveling the house and adding structural supports . (See, I can listen to suggestions!)
First we are adding or replacing beams and posts... and sistering joists.  Then, and this one cracks me up, we are going to take a laser level and even out the SW corner.  Laser level and my house just don't seem like a good blend.  Abacus and my house.  Eyeballing by squinting next to a straight tree as a guide seems like my house.  Not laser.  But it will be grand in the end and she can stand up a bit straighter.  Never mind the cracking walls I will be repairing after they move things that have not been level in a century. 
We are still in negotiation on replacing siding/windows.  I lean toward bringing it back to the 1904 style windows, albeit with insulation and double panes.  But my budget keeps me in the "keep it the same" style.
Sidenote: we have a historic company town (Port Gamble) 4 miles away that is such a great resource for my home.  The exteriors of the 20 or so buildings are virtually unchanged.  The interiors- not so much. Someone described them as "Pay-n-Pak'ed" (you have to be an old northwesterner to get this reference). Pick any cheap materials do-it-yourself store and you get the idea.  This company town was built in the late 1800's by Pope and Talbot for processing lumber. They still own all the buildings that make up the little village.  Nowadays individuals can rent the homes and businesses from the company.

  This is my original window style.  Not the 80's sliders they put in.  (At least they are not aluminum). (Image of Port Gamble home)

NOT my window style.  I took it for the plain detailing of the board trim at the roofline which I am thinking of adding. (image of Port Gamble home)

Dave the contractor

I mentioned before talking to a contractor about my house.  His name is David.  He has a slightly gravelly, slightly nordic (NW) voice and asks all the right questions. We walked through my house, and he just wanted me to talk about it.  Seriously?  The first person not bored to tears about old house stuff ad nauseum?  About history and old beams and fires and how that all shows in the house?  It was all good to him.
After my list of stuff that was beyond my skillset --mystery leaks through siding, unsupported bathtubs, strange wood chewing insects eating the top of my fir floor and foundation work--he wants me to fix the foundation (as you all said I should do first).  My foundation is not attached to my house, a common thing in an old house.  Some posts are missing or taken out. The SW corner of the house is taking a slight tilt downward - gravity must be particularly powerful in that corner of the house, or, the 102 years the house stood without gutters did not do wonders for the foundation.
David and Sue, the project manager, are going to add/replace/sister all sorts of materials in my basement.  They are going to attach my balloon framing to the cement foundation.  They are going to have me clean out my basement so they can access everything.
OMIGOD.   Clean out my basement?  THIS is why I don't get this particular job done.  I have no closets in my house, my basement is basically my house size closet.  You know, the one that you shove things in when people come over and rapidly shut the door so it does not fall all out on your head?    The garage is not an option - it is full of construction materials.  My horse trailer is the only available covered protection I have and not near large enough.  I'll figure it out.  David says they will help with the moving....

House Dreams - Literally dreams about housing

Blue Shoe Farm

Well, I can tell brain recovery is almost fully done... I had a house dream last night.
In real life I am dealing with a finite budget and two or three (or five) to-do things on my list that are somewhat crucial. 
1. My post and beam support system is "fair" to failing.  Repair cost : $5-6K.
2. The upstairs bathroom is nearing the two year mark of completion.  Should probably finish that. Cost $2-3K.
3. My south wall siding has failed.  As in water pouring in when there is wind plus heavy rain so that the angle of rain just shoots straight behind my vertical siding, runs down behind it to the inside of my room. Not where I want rain. Drizzle or rain with no wind do not cause water infiltration, just with the addition of wind.  And what is the fall season? Wind and rain.   
So last night I had a dream.  I sold the farm. Rapidly, so fast I didn't even get to tell my wonderful neighbors, but already had a plan to invite them over to the new place. That I also bought rapidly. So rapidly that there was still furniture in it from the previous owner.  But let me tell you about this house.  A house in a development with an acre on each site.  Everything new and working and not needing repair.  An open kitchen with seating area, a studio outside with skylights and tons of built-in bookshelves. Matching trimwork and molding throughout. It was all beautiful and fit us. No plumbing, electrical or foundation issues.
While we were in the kitchen a group of boys Wilder's age walked by with bikes and baseballs.  He went out to meet them.  I thought : Golden.  Tons of boys for him to play with.  I was outside moving things around when another neighbor walked up.  He welcomed me and said he was the volunteer community somethingerather... his job was to make sure everything was according to the community covenant.  He told me the fridge left by the previous owners next to my garage would have to be moved soon.  That is when I froze and wondered what the hell I had done.  I moved into a place where you have to have your yard a certain way with only approved plants.  Your house has to be painted in a certain palette. Can't leave cars in the driveway. The horse trailer would be banned.
I immediately wanted the farm back.
Good thing it was just a dream.

Development housing.  Level and to code and no issues. Sigh. Is there something wrong with me that this gives me the heebie jeebies? I think so.

Chicken Coop finale

The three year chicken coop project is done.  Done I say!  I can cross this fully off my to-do list.
The coop had a previous life as a very wee little home for someone, most likely a farmhand.  I have records of the builder's wife (in 1904) moving to a "small house on the property" when the husband died, leaving my house vacant.  I don't think she moved into this.  There is still a wood burning cooking stove rusting away in the corner...

When I bought the farm four years ago, they gave this structure no value.  What a surprise.

 This is the siding removed for repairs. And a lot of repairs were needed : the siding was rotten ground up, the corner posts were rotten, the roof shot, the eave supports rotten, and no foundation for the whole thing. I thought of going to Home Depot and buying a prefab shed as a chicken coop, it would have been damn cheaper. But after looking at the lumber used in this (other than the siding!) I thought this was worth saving.  And now the coop will be home to 50 more years of chickens. 

 Regarding chickens... these two are Glory and Fred.  They moved here this summer from the humane society when we had a bumper crop of rats RATS living under the coop.  After 11 days there were no more rats.  The tabby is in particular an excellent hunter. Alongside our little black cat Bella the two of them cleaned up the rodent issue.

Hiring a contractor - why I screwed myself

I had a contractor out last week familiar with old house restoration come look at the farmhouse.  He had a multi-page article in our local magazine in his restoration of a century old craftsman, so would understand how to fix all the funkies in my old house.... keeping its integrity without Home Depotizing it. 
This is how in the last four years I have screwed myself.  By doing (what seems like) four years of research and how-to classes and online information and books, by hiring my own labor when things get over my head (sometimes it doesn't take much!), by shopping craigslist and all the re-use stores... well, that basically makes me a cheapskate.  Since I can find most anything I need dirt cheap, I can't see paying someone $8K to replace the siding on my leaking exterior wall (and weatherproof, and seal, and replace windows).  One wall.  One wall of six.  Because I know with a bit of hunting I could find leftover cedar siding from someone's project for a couple hundred. I could get those windows for $700.   And if I had the experience to be able to know and explain how to fix whatever weirdness (mold? rot?) is under that siding... I could have Javier do it for $300. 
See the knowledgable contractor knows what to do.  I don't.  But it is not worth the $7K difference for me to hire him.  And that is why I screwed myself.  I can't get someone in who really knows his old house stuff because I know I can do it less expensively.  I already figured out if This Old House was going to re-do my house, I wouldn't want them, since I watch what they put in and think "Holy crap, they paid full retail for that gas stove/old barnwood flooring, patio flagstone, etc etc. that they could have got for 1/5 price on craigslist?"  Cheap. Skate. 
I still haven't had that architect out that I won at Wilder's school auction.  At least I don't have to fret about that money!

September Update

I am off of my insect frenzy.  They are (or have been) eating various portions of my house. Most of the damage was done before the house was built, so I realllly don't need to worry so much. I just need to replace the damaged wood, which is manageable.  
My lovely daughter Rose blew the head gasket on the car.
I've been to the ER a couple times for standard ER stuff. I am overall fine and plugging along.
I tore out the old playhouse in the horse field, and the old dog house in my front yard.
My manure pile is getting a bit overfull, so I did an all call out on craigslist for people looking for horse manure. The ones getting stuff for free are the fun people! They always have great stories, and one even brought me a home produced bottle of wine. Bonus!
My mom had a garage sale to clear her house out before she put it on the market.  I brought over stuff leftover from my move 4 years ago.  We made $300, which is great considering most the stuff was under a buck.  Garage sales are a lot of work, but it is fun to chit chat with folks.  Next time I am taking my stuff to Goodwill and getting the tax write off.

Termites. Powder post beetles.

Remember when I did that nice to-do list?
Well, as usual, it seems that something else popped up and moved to the front of the list.  This wasn't even on any list I have ever created in my wildest moments for this house.
Termites in my porch posts.  And I found powder post beetles in my other porch.  A bug guy I talked to asked why I knew these bugs and I told him of my training.  One of the classes in museum studies is insect recognition - so you don't get them in your collection. We had a donated wedding dress from Iowa I kept in a fishing company's deep freezer for a month to get rid of some funky bug living in it. 
Someone asked me if I still like my house, and I told them "yup".  Too bad I can't put it in a big tupperware container and stick it in a freezer for a month....while I vacation somewhere lovely.

Canning time

I have been in canning mode on the farm.  22# of peaches for salsa and chutney, 28# of blackberries for jams, jellies and pies.  My trees are all overloaded with apples and pears, so that is for sauce, chutney and butters, and drying.  There are new recommended guidelines for hot water bath canning... basically they are all increasing the length of time.  Check the Univ. of Georgia coop extension office website for updated info- or whichever is your favorite canning site.  Here is their link: http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_home.html. I am also fond of  http://www.pickyourown.org/ which absolutely covers everything!

Friday Harbor or San Juan Island

Mom and daughter dancing to a tune on the haybale dance floor.

Whenever I look at my pictures I am reminded that I need to take the date stamp off my camera.  Well, here we are on San Juan Island.  When I was growing up we called the whole thing Friday Harbor, but technically that is incorrect as just the town is called Friday Harbor.  We were up for a big birthday party and pig BBQ and it was a blast. 



We rented a house right across from a lake resort (Lakedale) where as a young adult I spent lots of swimming hours in the warm water.  This was our fave dock, and it was obviously closed when we were there.  

These two are historic Roche Harbor, a resort at the north end of the island.  To age me, when I was a kid, John Wayne used to visit here all the time.  He was a good tipper.  Also, between high school and college I worked here as Asst. Head Housekeeper which was the ideal job for an 18 year old!

This is one of the more embarrassing pics.  These two gals noticed there was cell service at Roche, so they both got on their little phones.  My mom to play words with friends, and Rose to check her texts.  Amidst the touristy loveliness, they had their heads down.

The other end of the island has American Camp. When I was a kid this was just a big rabbit filled field, it did not have interpretive centers and houses and signs.  British Camp in the lush middle of the island had more to it. There was a Pig War in 1859 that decided who got possession of the island... the British or U.S.  No loss of life except the pig - who was raiding a garden at the time. 

Keeping me honest : to-do list

Since I seem to be moving rapidly from one project to another... I thought if I wrote them down here maybe, just maybe, it would keep me focused so I could actually finish a couple before summers end. 
-finish painting the barn and the chicken coop.
-reattach and/or replace the trim on both.
-take out three of the seven holly trees and make a patio.
-paint the damn house.
-finish the damn bathroom.
-find reason why it rains inside my bedroom window sill and fix.
-reattach my interior base moulding.
-rewire the garage (have my electrician find where the power originates and replace)
-have neighbor show me how to replace my trucks brakes...
-then do it on the horse trailer brakes, too.
-clean out car(s).

The bathroom and bedroom leak really bother me.  But in the day-to-day of everything they get ignored, I am hoping now that it is written it will be like indelible marker on my soul until I finish.

Not my barn. This is a barn I drive by on my way to the ferry that has always fascinated me since it is such a rambling affair.  I can only imagine my to-do list if I owned this. Shivers.  Since this picture, part of it has collapsed.

Rats in the chicken coop

We completely rebuilt the 1950's coop this year.  I toyed with tearing it down and building another but we looked at the lumber and realized the framework was milled on site and still good so we just gave it a new roof, new siding and new windows.  And I guess we also gave it a healthy population of rats.  I cannot quite express how much I dislike rats running across my open-toed shoes in the dark. Where I could feel their little toes running across mine. (insert squeamish high pitched scrinchy faced BLECH here from a woman who is never squeamish or high pitched)  In all honesty I am sure the rats were always there but we just made their home so much more conducive to good health and breeding that they run in front of me drunk with chicken feed and water.  I am declaring an all out war.  Traps. Poison. I am not a gun person but if I was I'd be sitting in a rocker with a shotgun waiting for them. Shotgun? Rat? Can we say overkill? Not when they run across my toes in the dark.  I will try not to look at their faces however.  Because to tell you the truth they have very cute faces and I don't want to have any second thoughts.  Rats make me consider getting rid of chickens.  Seriously.  But first I have to try the war thing.  Maybe more cats, too!  The unfortunate thing is this coop is closer to my neighbors house than mine -- I really don't want them heading over there. 

One year anniversary.

One year ago I had a stroke.  Soon after I went into my doctors office (if you are in Seattle and need an excellent neurologist -- send me an email). Unable to walk straight, unable to stay awake and alert for more than a couple hours, entirely overwhelmingly terrified with how my future had just changed...  my doc cleared boxes off an exam table (he had just moved into a new office), told me I wasn't on the right meds (given to me a week before by the hospital), told me they had misdiagnosed my type of stroke (nerds), and then looked me in the eye and said " In one year you won't even know this happened."  Meaning that I would have no visible outward remnants of part of my brain being dead.  I remember thinking he WAS NUTS... but he wasn't.  Today I am close to how I was pre-stroke.  Other than I weigh less, have a bit of short term memory spaciness, my muscle mass is different, I say things "differently" at times, and am on cursed cursed prescription drugs.  But who's to say I wouldn't be a little ditzy and tongue-tied at this point anyway? 
There always will be the life shift that happened on that day.  I went from being in control of everything... farm, kids, finances, future -- to being in charge of not hitting the door jamb with the left side of my body when I walked through a door.  I learned to accept help from others.   My way of looking at life, disability, and independence took a tumble toward the real.  You know, that we are not actually in control?  I am very good at ignoring the unpleasant.  Probably why I can own an old house... I can just merrily trudge through my home repair to-do list as an oblivious optimist.  I read sometimes that when people survive something drastic they change their look on life. ( I have Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying, " going through my head right now).  I thought all these life changing thoughts for about nine months and then realized : I wouldn't do anything different.  This is the life I would lead if I knew I was going to die in a year.  All the mistakes I've made, all the successes, my failed marriage... I wouldn't do it differently.  I've got great kids, love where we live, have always had jobs that were ones I picked for interest and luckily supported me.  I have not solved any world issues.  I don't know how to stop young men from taking guns and harming strangers.  I have not found the cure for cancer.  But I have lived, gave friends hugs, had long conversations with my ma, laughed until I peed my pants (wait, should I be typin' that?), watched my kids grow with pride and love.  I guess I don't record what is important to me anymore as the accomplishments that list my resume, and I used to.  That is not what I will take to my grave, and that is certainly not what I thought of when I was in the hospital waiting for my stroke to do its damage.
Best to you all.