Pay it Forward - Giveaway!

I got this from An Eclectic Pagan and it sounds like fun!

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations so please read carefully:

1. I make no guarantees that you will like what I make
   
2. What I create will be just for you
3. It’ll be done this year (2009)
4. I will not give you any clue what it’s going to be
   
5. In return, all you need to do is post this text into a note/post of your own and make 5 things for the first 5 to respond to it.
6. Please send your mailing address to tricia.mswalk@gmail.com
   

IMPORTANT: This offer is null and void if I do not see you post your own note to pay this forward.

How can I miss you if you won't go away?

I'm getting a much needed chance to miss my husband this week. I can't help but think it will be good for us. Lately we have been bickering more than usual and tiny little disagreements turn into big screaming knock down drag out's. Things that I would normally just let slide just stick in my craw and I can't seem to just ignore them. My stress level is at an all time high and I spend far too much time either seething or crying.

The timing couldn't be more perfect for my husband to go to western PA to visit his family. He will be staying with his aunt who is there on spring break from school (she's a teacher) and spending plenty of time with his other aunt and uncle and his cousins who live in this small town.

I will be plenty worried about him tomorrow as he drives the 400 miles to get there BUT once he is there he plans to stay for about 5-6 days and friends I cannot tell you how happy I am to have a week of blissful time to myself. I have a list of things I want to get done, recipes I want to try (things he wouldn't eat anyway) and I plan to get to bed early every night.

By the time he comes back home in a week I may actually be happy to see him. Sometimes a short break and time to actually miss the ones we love is just what the doctor ordered.

Sunday Ramblings...

This post is likely to be all over the place as my thoughts are a bit jumbled this morning but I feel compelled to share.

Friday night a 27 year old woman told me she couldn't believe I was almost 39 and that I looked younger than she did. This made me feel very good. Lately I've been feeling my age and just freaking out in general over turning 39 so her comment made me feel good about myself.

Saturday we searched through folders of USAF paperwork - all Pete's records - looking for his DD214 (discharge paperwork) which we found. But also found one of his folders is complete medical records showing a history of him complaining about MS like symptoms through his entire Air Force career. He had a very hard time in the heat during basic training, it drained him, fatigued him, gave him horrible migraine-like symptoms. Could this have been the beginning of the MS? Perhaps? We also found the record when 1/2 of his face went numb and the diagnosis was sinusitis? Seriously I have sinusitis all the time and my face never goes numb. It seems with how often he was complaining of severe headaches they would have at least done a CT scan but never - they gave him motrin and sent him home.

Saturday night was a big night for my husband - he was confirmed as a catholic during the vigil mass. He grew up catholic but his dad didn't make him finish religious education and so he was never confirmed as a teen like most catholics. He decided about 4 months ago that he wanted to do this and so we started attending church regularly and he started meeting with the priest once a week to learn and discuss. This has been a wonderful boost for him, the meetings with the priest have been like free therapy and he has become a kinder and gentler person through this process. Now he still has that crazy italian temper but it is a bit more under control.

My husband invited my parents and my sister to his confirmation. My sister is fairly non-judgmental but my parents are die hard baptists. Baptists typically judge all the time. I found myself not enjoying the service because every phase of the way I was thinking about what they were probably thinking. I know they were surprised (and probably not pleased) to see me singing with the worship group. It was my first week and I LOVE singing so was so pleased to be asked to join them. I felt my dad's eyes on me the entire time and I could almost hear his thoughts "why is she singing here instead of coming back OUR church". My parents are sure that I will be converting to catholicism any day now but I told them I would not be converting and they look unconvinced.

My husband wants me to convert in the worst way. He asks all the time. I say no all the time. He has his own brand of judgmental - tells me that my parents church isn't really church. I fight him over this. Thankfully when he said it last night our friend was in the car with us (she stood up for him at the confirmation) and she said "that's not fair - of course it's church - it's not mass but it's still church and it's not right to tell people their church isn't church." His argument is that to him it's not - well fine but don't just make blanket judgments as if you are the only one who could possibly judge what is or isn't church. He gets mad at me when I yell at him for saying that and was getting annoyed with me but our friend who is also catholic totally had my back and told him he was WRONG. He didn't like that much.

Today the priest is coming to our house for dinner at 2pm. So I need to straighten up a little, clean a little, and cook a lot. Long day ahead I fear.

In other news - VACATION

I didn't think we'd get to take a vacation this year - just no money for it. But friends of ours who live in Oklahoma and came to see us last year insisted that we come with them to a rental beach house in Galveston in June. They said they would buy our plane tickets and everything! Well I'm far to proud to let someone buy my tickets (we are not totally destitute) so I found and purchased our tickets at a fairly reasonable price. They are renting the house for 4 days and we will be spending 6 days with them (the last 2 at their home in Oklahoma).

So instead of feeling sorry for myself all year because I can't take a real vacation I will be spending 4 days a block from the beach in Galveston, TX - granted in June it might be hot there but if I'm on a beach I won't care! :)

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Today I talked to the regional manager for Veterans Benefits for the Paralyzed Veterans of America in Syracuse. He told me that Pete's is a no-brainer case and that he would absolutely be approved. The PVA case manager is calling Pete today to start gathering information and sending us what we need to get this party started. They seemed hopeful that we could start receiving benefits in just a few months time. He threw out a monthly number that staggered me to be quite honest. It is quite a bit more than hubby's take home pay was from his last job and more than I make in a month so I won't get my hopes up that high but at this point even a few hundred a month would make the difference.

He will also be eligible for VA medical benefits - meaning I could cut my insurance payments in half if we chose to go that route. I think though that I would keep the family plan and have my insurance as secondary for those things that perhaps the VA won't pay for? Things to keep in mind.

Also the VA offers several programs and grants to help pay to make a home wheelchair accessible - we are definitely heading that way some day - holding off as long as possible but it's nice to know they will help pay for this when the time comes.

I am just so relieved. Maybe some of the weight can come off my shoulders? Maybe Pete can have the funds to do a few things to stave off boredom and depression and get out of the house? Maybe bringing in a decent amount of the income tax free will help fight off the depression for good?

Thank you so much Lisa and Diana for the info you provided for me. You pointed me in the right direction and I was able to get this ball rolling faster than I ever imagined. And now I am thinking I won't need to hire the lawyer to fight for SSDI for him after all. It's nice to know that his 10 years of service and the months he spent getting shot at in the desert will take care of him now that he can't do it himself.

MS Bloggers I need your help!

I found out last night that my husband was still technically in the air force when he was diagnosed with MS. He was an inactive reservist BUT he was not discharged until 6 months after his diagnosis.

I am also reading that service men and women who served in "the sandbox" i.e. Iraq have a higher incidence of MS than the general population. Since no one yet knows what causes MS it could have been triggered by a biological agent he was exposed to? Or some vaccine that they gave him? No one knows but people who have been in the desert are more likely to have MS that much seems to be proven.

I found somewhere else that a diagnosis of MS within 7 years of active duty qualifies that service member for 30% disability payments at a minimum.

What I don't know is:

1. Is any of this true?
2. Where can I research this?
3. Who can I call?

I really don't have time to take on even one more thing in my life right now BUT sheesh if these things are true - he is owned for 12 years of back payments for medical disability from the US Air Force and should be eligible for VA medical, etc?

It tires me to think about chasing this down but I think I have to. If any of you great MS bloggers OR anyone with any military knowledge could point me in the right direction I am going to fight for what he is owed I guess.

My first Celebrating Home Party is a Success...

I had my first party today - there were 7 guests and out of this I got 4 parties booked and enough in sales to get me started out in this new venture. I expect out of the 4 parties booked I will come up with another 2 parties from each of those so I'm off and running!

And it was a great fun afternoon with friends, food, and lots of laughter.

My Grammy was the Best!

She's been gone since the summer of 1993 - a very long 16 years but I was telling my friend VBC a story about her and her dogs today and it made me think of her. So I wanted to share a little bit about my feisty Irish grandma!

I called her Grammy - there were 19 of us grandchildren and we all called her that. She and my Grampy lived in a single wide trailer in a local trailer park when I was a kid - they sold their house to my mom and dad in 1969 and moved to the trailer park for their retirement years.

My grandmother continued to work for another decade or so as the cafeteria lady at the local hospital. Everyone there knew and loved her. Her name was Beulah but everyone called her Boots. I don't know the story behind the nickname Boots and always wished I did. One of my shocks as a kid was finding a picture of my Grammy in her 20's with a baby on her hip and a cig dangling from her lips! LOL

Grammy had a string of little black chihuahua's one right after the other and they all had the same name - Bimbo! I was probably 13 before I knew that was a humorous name for a dog and what it really meant. Those little dogs hated kids - so it's a good thing there were 19 of us! LOL

Grammy was a great baker - she had so many great recipes for cookies and cakes and treats. We would go visit her once a week on either Friday or Saturday night and she usually had fresh baked goodies. But sometimes she'd pull out a package of Archway cookies and tell us "Grampy baked this week" because she didn't have time and he ran up to the grocery store for cookies for the Sat night visits.

When my family was in a crisis and I wasn't sure my parents would survive together I was afraid a lot. I had a recurring dream that I was being chased by a huge angry gorilla and it was trying to hit me with a cast iron griddle. I know this doesn't sound super scary but when you're only 8 or 9 it's traumatic (enough that I remember it 30 years later?) and in my dream I was always trying to get to Grammy's house, I knew if I could just get there she'd save me. She was my happy place in those dark days. Thankfully my parens survived and even thrived but that's another story for another day.

While I was in college I brought a group of friends home one weekend and we were all gathered around watching Dirty Dancing and my Grammy stopped by for a visit and she watched with us girls. Now her kids were teens in the 50's and 60's so she wasn't exactly in tune but my friends all loved her for trying when she announced "That Patrick Swazye is DREAMY!" LOL

I think I was still in college when she brought a cake to my mom and dad's for dinner one night and pronounced it "Better than Sex" Chocolate Cake and then muttered under her breath "it wouldn't take much..." and I nearly choked on the laughs I couldn't stop from coming. Sad though that apparently for her sex could be replaced with a chocolate cake even if it wasn't the best ever.

And while she was in the hospital in her final days and getting more and more morphine for the pain, a bunch of my cousins and I all showed up to visit her on a rainy summer afternoon. We had all been there off and on for days visiting whenever we could, but this day we were all together and my sweet Grammy said "it must be cold out today, all you girls are wearing shirts!" We all laughed and took turns hugging her and Grammy and her girls shared a last good laugh. She died later that week and left a hole in all our lives that can never really be filled.

Disappointment

The shelter screwed up! The day the call came in that Maggie was being turned in there was a man there specifically looking for a black lab puppy and they told him he could have first dibs at her. They told him to call back on Tuesday and come in on Wednesday after she had her rabies shot.

He didn't call on Tuesday - WE DID and they told us they had some interest but the guy hadn't called so we could have her.

Then he showed up on Wed to see her as they said (not sure why he didn't call?) and was quite upset that they had promised her to us when he says they promised her to them.

The manager of the shelter had a death in her family and was out of town so all these promises were made by various volunteers who had no authority to make them.

Anyway when the manager got back and sorted things out - the bottom line is the other guy was promised first, all his references checked out (as did ours) and she felt compelled to give the dog to him.

So as a big "sorry for the mix-up" they offered us a free adoption on a dog of our choice now or in the future. Will keep us on a list if we want for a lab or lab mix young dog or we can adopt one that is there now.

We had talked about adopting "Belle" if Maggie fell through but were so hoping for Maggie.

This is Belle - I'd have to go meet her to decide:

Albany, NY MS Walk - May 3rd 2009

Once again dear friends I am walking in the Albany MS Walk on May 3rd! Last year I set my initial fundraising goal at $300 and managed to raise over $1100 which was AWESOME.

This year my fundraising goal is $1200 and I started a team hoping to gather more walkers.

If anyone is interested in seeing my personal page please email me at tricia.mswalk (at) gmail (dot) com and I will send you the link to my personal/team page.

Anyone local who would like to walk - the more the merrier!