It’s so weird to live in this time and place where rights are rolling backwards and go on about life like everything hasn’t changed.
It’s unreal to look at this map and think that my granddaughters have fewer rights than I had.
Unreal and terrifying.
Today, Feb. 11, 2024, my brother and his wife are headed home after a 27-day stay in the hospital. On Thursday they will meet with Bill’s oncologist to talk about what chemo options are available at this point.
Last summer when Bill and Alecia texted from the Atlanta Braves cancer survivor game things looked great. It wasn’t long until that changed.
Bill’s cancer battle started Sept 30, 2020, when he was first diagnosed with colorectal cancer. He had liver surgery June 2021, Colon surgery July 2021 and surgery on a ruptured abscess August 2021. He finished chemo December 2021 and was considered cancer free until September 2023.
On Labor Day at an Atlanta Braves game, Bill started feeling extreme pain. Two weeks later, he went to the hospital and was there for 17 days as the medical team treated his infected abscess.
During that hospital stay, they discovered his cancer was back. He had a colostomy to try to help with the abscess.
He started chemo again October 2023.
At his Jan. 15 chemo appointment, his nurse sent him to the hospital where he was diagnosed with altered mental state and sepsis. The abscess infection was killing him.
Today, Bill and Alecia are headed home. He’ll have OT and PT home health. Bill hasn’t been able to work since September and Alecia is almost out of sick days.
Alecia and Bill have touched many lives. This diagnosis has been such a financial burden and the last two hospital stays hurt both physically and financially. Please help me as I raise money for my brother and his family to get out of this crippling financial debt. Any donation does help.
People have asked how they can help. The linked GoFundMe is how.
Please share the GoFundMe!
Tagged Atlanta Braves, colon cancer, Georgia, GoFundMe, teacher
Twilight is my favorite Bonnard other than the bath paintings. I love this for so many reasons. The girls in the back right dancing make me so happy. I love how the dresses seem to dance with them.
The Kimbell exhibit includes a room with a series of bath paintings he did over several years including one of the bathroom by itself. Most include his wife and primary model. Some include him. The last of the paintings created was from memory because she had died. Standing there in that room and watching the progression of time and relationship was so beautiful. And the last image with its soft, ethereal lines, so different from the earlier paintings, broke my heart. He loved and missed her so much, and you could see that. The special exhibit closes tomorrow. Go see it if you can.
I didn’t know Bonnard’s work before this exhibit. He’s one of my favorites now.
(Crossposted on Facebook)
I just watched a fun Gen X video that made me laugh until the end when the guy said the reason Gen X wasn’t involved in politics was because it didn’t matter. That they’d lived through Republicans and Democrats and things were about the same.
About the same? What world is this guy living in?
Women have lost the right to bodily autonomy. Billionaires more than doubled their wealth during the Trump years while everyone else stayed flat or found themselves sliding back to having less. Trickle down economics has created a disaster of income inequality we haven’t seen since the gilded age. Deregulation has created a disaster in higher education costs. Private equity firms have bought hospitals, nursing homes, local newspapers, Greyhound bus, and bankrupted them or scaled back so far in their search for record profits that quality is awful. The cost of housing makes finding a starter home tough in many markets. Parents of trans children are being prosecuted by red states. Pregnant women whose pregnancies are causing severe risk of death to the woman or leaving her infertile are being told they will be prosecuted if they have abortions to save their lives and their doctors are being told if they act to save the mother’s life they risk lifetime imprisonment. And now red states are passing laws that say they’ll prosecute women seeking healthcare who leave the state and those who help them leave. Red states are rolling back child labor laws and threatening to imprison librarians and teachers for books on the bookshelf. The Texas governor is arguing that his right to kill immigrants is infringed on by a government that won’t just let him shoot them.
Republicans under their leader, a convicted sexual predator who led an insurrection, care about one thing. Power at any cost.
No sir.
Things are not the same.
Wow was I stunned to flip over to the nutrition info and discover there are 10 servings in this package of my favorite cookies. 3 cookies is one serving. I never looked before. Wafer cookies are delicious but so light and airy, I just assumed a serving would be 5 or 6.
Lesson learned.
Still not dieting, but it is hard to hold to that.
My reels feed is filled with people quickly losing 50-100 pounds. I’ve done that, and I’m never doing it again.
I’ve been drinking water since before Christmas and cut my coffee to either two cups at home or one Starbucks. It’s making a huge difference. I’m down 11 pounds in water weight.
I watch way too many Reels and learned about the TDEE calculator for macros. Check it out! I’m not dieting at all, but I am tracking. I’m also using Apple Fitness + for short strength sessions.
I keep freaking out over everything I need to do to relaunch my author business. I’m taking the SPF Launchpad course. I just watched building a website. Breathe and have fun. That’s what I keep saying. I know I’ll be happy when I actually do the work!
2024 sounds like a good year. There’s just something cool about the way the numbers work together.
I know that doesn’t actually impact the outcome of a year, but it’s nice anyway.
Last year was tough, but after making my year-in-review video I see it was actually beautiful. It’s easy to forget the good in the midst of the bad. I’m going to make a thankful box this year and add thankful notes every week. I saw the idea on Instagram and LOVE it.
My other goals for the year: water, walking, macros without dieting, and publishing four books.
I wanted to start Wegovy, but my insurance doesn’t cover it, and GOOD LORD is it expensive. I’m an expert at weight loss. Ultimately, my 54-yr-old self has decided it’s done with diets because they are not helpful. I need to lose some weight because I need to be healthier. I am just going to make some better food decisions, drink my water and walk. That’s it. No diets. If my insurance decides to cover Wegovy, awesome. If it doesn’t, that’s fine.
I have a romance trilogy in revisions. I want to publish them this year and launch a new pen name. Way back when I published regularly, I was so shocked at all the authors with Liz Lee, MY NAME. That’s not going to be a problem with my new pen name, I hope.
Those are my goals for the year.
Retirement is nice. I’ve worked on some design projects and lots of editing and proofreading for clients over the last year. That’s been fun. AND I’ve read a ton of great books. But I’ve discovered reading gets in the way of writing because I’m compulsive and must finish the book before I do anything else, so I’m cutting WAY back this year.
I hope everyone had a happy new year! I’m looking forward to a great 2024!
Posted in fitness, retirement, writing
Praying for Maine. Praying for all of us. Gun ownership in the US is complicated. Gun regulation is lacking. Weapons of war are easily accessible. It’s just a mess we aren’t willing to do more than offer thoughts and prayers for.
I wish the horrors of mass shooting after mass shooting would finally lead to a ban on guns like the AR15, but it won’t.
Lord knows, the gun manufacturers will use this to sell more AR15s saying “they’re coming for your guns.” And politicians will fundraise on the angry diatribe of “woke, liberals are coming for your guns.” And my GOD I wish we’d come for the AR15s and melt them all down, but we won’t.
When we wake up this morning at least 16 people will be dead from yet another mass shooting. 50 injured. Doctors will be begging us to please, for the love of all that is holy, do something.
And our new Speaker will offer thoughts and prayers while members of his Party wear their AR15 lapel pins and print Christmas cards with their small children holding the weapons that kill and kill and kill. In schools, in malls, in churches, in movie theaters, in bowling alleys and sports bars….
So once again, thoughts and prayers on a sleepless night in a nation that refuses to do anything about this travesty. Thoughts and prayers.
Cross posted from my Facebook. Sad, sad night again. It’s the guns but people will want to debate that. AR15s kill lots of people quickly. They should be banned.
September passed in the craziest blur.
That blur started in August with the SOS my mother-in-law’s watch sent us telling us she needed help. We were visiting family in Cleveland, she was in Wichita Falls. Thankfully we were able to get her help. Thank you, Apple Watch!!!
BUT her severely broken femur was the start of six weeks of ugh.
DH caught covid and I caught what the doctor said was covid-RSV-flu-upper-respiratory-didn’t-matter. And just like that, we lost September. (We avoided Covid this whole time and boom!)
But it’s October and tomorrow we drive MIL to FW to see if she can start real PT and applying pressure on her foot AND other than a little rib pain and a random cough or two DH and I are recovered. To top it off the record heat of the summer broke TODAY, so yay!
PS: seriously, if you are a fall risk, get an Apple Watch!
My mother-in-law just got home from visiting her brother in Maui. She loves the island. She knows those streets. She talked to those people.
Watching the news breaks my heart.
Praying the number dead is not as awful as it looks like it might be. The 80 now is horrifying.
I know this disaster is not a climate change only issue, but as I sit in week six of a 100+ day ( today we’re expecting 109), I can’t help but think we’ve created a constant disaster waiting to happen.
Praying for the people of Maui.
Retired career educator who focuses on improving education for all. Avid Dallas Stars fan, wife, mom, Gigi, author.
A Writer's Life 