Mother/Daughter Dresses, Epilepsy

I haven't written anything for my blog in a long time. I am still working toward getting my four-year English degree and that's the reason I've returned to my blog.

Folkart Class
One of the classes I'm taking this semester is about folkarts and folk artists. We've been discussing the worldview of folkart, outsider art and folkart, and other things. As usual, I'll have to write a semester paper. This time, I intend to interview my mother about a number of family traditions:

* the lean Christmas we had and how she talked a store manager out of a bookcase-style display of Princess Petite furniture, cut wood to make opening front doors on the display, and cut apart magazine pictures to decorate those doors to look nearly exactly like the house we lived in. She cut out more pieces of wood and attached them to each side, decorating them to look like our side porches. Then she covered it with a sheet and presented it to a very excited child (me) on Christmas morning. :)

*the same lean Christmas when she gave my younger brother a homemade game she'd made. She tells me that my older brother and I gave my younger brother some of our toys, but I don't remember it. Mom was always inventing games and trying to market them.

*the Babe-Snug (a baby kick sack) that she invented, patented, and sold locally

*the ceramic items she used to make and sell and the personal ceramic mementoes she made for us - the personalized Easter egg dishes that opened up, the plate she designed to look like me as a child...

*the father/sons, mother/daughter matching clothes she sewed for us to wear - and that her mother sewed for her own family

*the sea foam candy we made together when I was a child - different from divinity.

I have a lot of ideas for the paper, some that I might add to with stories from my mother-in-law and my own efforts to preserve my children's childhood memories:

*the quilts, dresses, and toys my mother-in-law sewed and created for my children.
*the books I wrote and illustrated for my children (using the Illustory kit)

There are other ideas I have for my paper, but the one I want to focus on the most right now is the one about the matching dresses. If anyone else has experienced the tradition (or knows of good resources covering the tradition) of the creation of matching father/son and/or mother/daughter clothese, please write to me. I would love to hear of your experience!

Another class I'm taking is about Celtic Myths. I'm not doing as well in that one as I usually do in my classes, but it is interesting and I'm learning new things so that is what is most important.

Epilepsy
Yes, I've now joined the ranks of parents of children with epilepsy. My wonderful teenage daughter passed out in class and was subsequently diagnosed with complex partial seizures (epilepsy). I was devastated when the doctor told us that she could experience a tonic-clonic seizure (what was once called a grand mal seizure), also. Happily, she hasn't had one of those yet. He put her on Lamictal and then the unrelenting migraine headaches began. It was awful for everybody. My dad had migraine headaches that were just awful, so I don't know if she would have still had the migraine headaches without the Lamictal or not. As a result, though, she couldn't get out of bed to go to school and her grades (normally A's and B's) plummeted to formerly unknown depths. The doctor switched her from Lamictal to Topomax and she was reborn. She had a great summer, but then she took left-over Lamictal by accident in the fall (those pharmacy bottles all look alike) and was once more laid low. She tried online classes, but she couldn't work because of the migraines. Finally,we caught her error and the doctor weaned her back off of the Lamictal and back on to the Topomax. But by then, she'd been hit with depression also so we had to recruit even more doctors to help her recover. At the moment, she seems to be doing better and she's trying to pull her grades back up. She is already registered to start college in the fall. I'm hoping that everything goes well. She has a wonderful team of doctors helping her and, as usual, two loving parents. Nobody can tell us if the medicine will control her seizures forever. On support boards, I've read of many cases where kids have tried multiple meds without success or they've been on meds for awhile and then the meds simply stop working and the search to find a new med begins anew. Kids die from epilepsy, also. It's a serious disease that affects the whole family. I pray for a cure for it.

Genetically, I suspect my daughter's epilepsy came down through my line. I had seizures when I was a baby and toddler, back around the 1950s. With little warning, my eyes would roll back, my arms and legs would become limp, and I'd pass out. For some unknown reason, my seizures stopped after I took a particularly nasty fall and I haven't had another one to this day. I was lucky unlike the many people who have to struggle with epilepsy throughout their lives. Could I ever have another seizure? Who knows?! Although the doctors back then contributed my seizures to a "misfire in the brain" and ruled out epilepsy, I sort-of think we know more now and it was, most-likely, epilepsy since my daughter now has it

Update

Hi,
I apologize (to anyone who reads my blog) for not having written in awhile. A lot has happened. The good news is that I got an A- for the folklore class I took (can't recall if I mentioned that prior to this). Bad news is that my father-in-law (I wrote about his coffee group for my final class paper.) passed away less than a month ago. He'd been operating on less than a quarter of a lung for a very long time. He incurred asbestos damage from many years working as a plumber at construction sites. The fact that he smoked didn't help matters. He had a final heart attack, but it seems his death came about from the lung problems from the asbestos damage. Although he and the rest of the family expected he might pass (it was obvious that his body was breaking down as evidenced by his erratic white blood count requiring transfusions), we didn't expect it to happen so fast. Everyone is handling it as well as can be expected. My husband flew out to Michigan for the funeral, but he wanted our kids to finish school normally, so the kids and I stayed home. When we went to Michigan for the pre-planned vacation two weeks later, we participated in the interment at the cemetary. Then we visited with my mother-in-law, went to her family reunion (with her and three of my sisters-in-law) in Cheboygan, visited Mackinac Island, and - while staying at one sis-in-law's house in Lansing - visited Gizzard City (a hole-in-the-wall diner portrayed on the Diners, Dives, etc. show my husband likes to watch. I was disappointed that the show made no mention that the diner is very small and allows smoking throughout the place. Fortunately, it was only 15 minutes away from my sis-in-law's house, so we managed to get the food to go and eat it at her home. We agreed that the gizzards tasted pretty good, but we weren't impressed with the deep-fried cheesecake chunks. My daughter had the turkey club, but she said the tomatoes tasted weird. My son ate the deep-fried hamburger. He said it was pretty good. I ate potato skins and the grease has, once again, put me off of potato skins for a very long time.

One thing that annoyed me is that my mom-in-law's credit card company turned her account over to a collection agency. This was immediately after she called to tell them of my dad-in-law's death and promised to pay the outstanding debt. It was just awful! This collection agency began calling before even a month had passed since we'd buried him - and even less time from when she'd told the credit card company about his passing. It's so impersonal and insensitive.

Anyway, that's why I haven't posted in awhile. The trip was nice, but I'm paying for it now. I didn't do my back exercises during the trip, so now my lower back is sore and I'm having excrutiating pain down my legs at night. Hopefully, I'll be able to get it under control before we begin our next long drive to Florida to visit my mom.

Next on the agenda: reading "The Taming of the Shrew" to get into a Shakespeare-type mood for the Shakespear comedies class I've signed up to take in the fall. Also, I plan to try subbing middle school and high school next year (along with elementary school, which I've done for years) to try to determine whether I want to become an elementary school teacher or just an English teacher. I want to find time to get together with some of my friends, too. It's been way too long since I've enjoyed their company.

I love subbing music!

I had such a wonderful time with the kids today. I subbed music at an elementary school. I have some experience with music: I was in chorus and a select singing group in jr. high, sang in chorus, choir, Madrigals, and some musicals in high school, took voice lessons in high school and in my early 20's, sang in a musical in college, and I sang with a community singing group later on - not to mention that I spent many days as a child singing along to records with my favorite singer, Julie Andrews. So any day that I get to sing is a good day for me!

Some of the kids were rehearsing their musicals today, so I enjoyed that best of all. They were a bit rowdy in-between numbers, but I loved the music and I was impressed by the kids who took it seriously, knew the lyrics, sang out, and seemed to really enjoy what they were doing. Some of the soloists had very, very nice voices, too. I enjoyed listening to them. The music was catchy and exhuberant. Working with the kids on their music was delightful!

I enjoyed the rest of the day, too, though - singing along (and laughing) to a Raffi sing-along video with some of the kids, playing some music games, teaching the kids a new song, etc. During my lunch break, I popped in my Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers cd and I was in seventh heaven! You just can't argue with a day like that! :-)

Latest happenings

Lately, things have been running smoothly. I subbed special ed., ESOL, and music last week. Mothers Day weekend (combined with my birthday *and* treats for Teacher Appreciation Week) was wonderful! Yesterday, I subbed third-grade. The kids were a bit trying, and I was tired by the time I got home (after only 1/2-day of subbing), but I still had a great time, and I was very, very pleased to note that one boy who has struggled mightily was making some very good behavior decisions. I checked my university records today and found that I received an overall grade of A- for my American Folklore class. Yippee! Now I'm off to sub music this morning. More good news? It finally stopped raining here (what a downpour!).

Did I mention that my university class ended?

I'm actually enjoying reading a book for pleasure again! It's a nice feeling. I picked up yet another math book, though, to try to retrain myself in math. Math, science, and geography were never my best subjects in school. I did much better with English, music, and drama. Later on, I developed a love of history.

I've had an enjoyable three days of subbing this week. I subbed a special ed. class on Monday and an ESL class on Tuesday and yesterday.

Unlike some subs, I find most admin. and teachers at schools where I sub to be very friendly to subs. Likewise, I don't take offense when a teacher asks me who I am for that day - whereas some subs feel insulted by the question. I lucked out yesterday. It was teacher appreciation week at the school and the teachers were given breakfast. As a sub, I was invited to partake, too. It was quite delicious! :-)

Sometimes I get tired of moving from school to school, class to class. When I've had a few days in the same class, I sometimes wish I could do that permanently - so I'll know what I'll be doing from day-to-day, so I get to greet the same people each day and get to know the kids better, so I don't have to rush so much in the morning to memorize emergency plans, read the sub plans and make sure I have everything I'll need for the day, make seating charts, etc. I mean, I'm good at "flying by the seat of my pants" (a requirement for this job), but sometimes I feel it'd be nice to have a workplace "home," y'know?

I have 20 some more credits left to get my undergrad. degree in English. Then I'll have to take 20 some more credits in math and science to be eligible to become a teacher. I guess all of that isn't too far away...even though I'm taking only three classes per academic year. Someday I'll make it over to the financial aid office to see if there's financial assistance available...

Can't find my eyeglasses this a.m. At this point, I don't have a sub job, so I'm not in a mad rush to locate them. I can see fine to drive my daughter to the bus stop, but I have more trouble with seeing things at a distance so I really need to find my glasses before I have to drive any farther - especially since I'm required to wear them for driving at all.

I'm sort-of angry at myself. Yesterday, I accidentally ran a stop sign in my neighborhood. That stop sign has been there for a very long time, too. I was watching for kids, but somehow I forgot about the stop sign and was past it before it hit me that I'd missed it - just in time for me to notice that a neighbor had seen it happen. I'm not a bad driver...really. But I made a mistake yesterday and I feel like kicking myself for it.

Coffee Groups - Can you spare a minute?

I meant to say that I'm still interested in hearing about your coffee groups, even though I've already turned in my paper. I told my prof. that I'll send any further info. I collect to him so he'll have it in his folklorist mind bank for future reference. If you belong to a coffee group, please go to my April post entitled "Coffee Group Questions" and let me know about your coffee group. Thanks!

Spring class is over!

I turned in my paper (that, by the way, I stayed up all night to finish) and enjoyed one last lecture on foodways. Now, I'm officially free for the summer. Whoopeeeee! I liked the class - don't get me wrong, but there's something to be said for free time.

To celebrate, I came home and cuddled our little dwarf hamster. It's taken forever for him to get to the point of even allowing me to pick him up, much less sitting there contentedly in my hand and allowing me to rub behind his ears, so I'm grateful he'll allow it now. He'll lightly "nip" my knuckle when I ask for "a kiss." Our other hamster (regular-sized) will lie, snuggled up, on my daughter's arm while she holds it across her chest, but he's usually squirmy when I hold him.

Last night, my daughter and I went on errands and stopped off at a pet store to visit the animals while we were out. I got one bunny to rise up on his hind legs by rubbing my finger upward on the glass. My daughter loved playing with the puppies the best. If she'd had $1,000 to $2,000, I'm sure she'd have seriously considered buying one she fell in love with. My husband would never go for having a dog, though...although persuasion from his daughter might work much better than persuasion from his wife... You know how daddies usually are about their daughters...

So all's right with the world right now. It's nice and warm outside, the People magazine came (well, it's a step up from the National Enquirer I used to read when I was younger...), I'll be going out to dinner with my hubby soon... The only thing that could make this more perfect is if a new Monk show would come on!

Speaking of National Enquirer, I once played a pretty good joke on an old boss of mine for April Fools Day. When she was out of her office, I cut out a picture of monkeys from the National Enquirer, slipped into her office and slipped the picture over top of her children's pictures in her photo frame. I waited all afternoon for some type of reaction. Finally, I heard this loud, "Hah!" and I knew she'd seen it. The joke was sort-of on me, though, because she laughingly told me later that she hadn't found it until after an interviewee and probably seen it when he came to apply for a job... Still, my joke was harmless and fun. Some coworkers of mine moved one employee's desk out to the roof and he was thoroughly displeased (although they got a good laugh out of it).

I guess I'll have to work to try to clean up the house now that my class is over. Housecleaning and cooking are *not* second-nature to me.

O.K., I'm glancing through the latest issue of People that touts the "100 Most Beautiful, 69 pages of stunning stars" and I'm disappointed to note that many of them are below the age of 50 (sigh). Oh well, nothing I can do about it. Gotta move on. I wish I could still look the age I feel, because I surely don't feel like I"m 52!