by Paula | Sep 20, 2014 | Uncategorized
Last summer my sister, Barb, arranged a family reunion. This is ironic, since she is the only one to have moved out of state from where we were raised. At a young age she moved to Colorado to seek her fortune, while the rest of us stayed hunkered down in the frozen tundra of Wisconsin–fools that we are.
It was a lovely gathering in July at one of Wisconsin’s many picturesque and lovely lakes. There was one large house and a couple smaller cabins. My husband and I stayed in a cabin with my parents; and Guzzy stayed in ‘the big house’ with my sister’s family, including her same-age cousin. More on this later. In addition to Alzheimers, Ana (Anorexia) was also a guest at our reunion. (more…)
by Paula | Sep 16, 2014 | Uncategorized
My mother’s card and game playing abilities were infamous in our family. My siblings and I grew up on a steady diet of board games and card games. Mom was never the kind of mother (or grandmother) that would ‘let’ a youngster beat her at a game of cards. While she would never exactly gloat… she got a lot of satisfaction out of her skills.
I firmly believe that you can always tell if someone grew up playing cards–you aren’t exactly born with the card-playing-gene; but you get it from your family. (more…)
by Paula | Sep 14, 2014 | Anorexia sucks, Our ED Story
Our daughter, Guzzy, was weight restored from anorexia (ana) the winter of 2013, was back to school full-time, and was regaining more age-appropriate independence with her eating. This was all fabulous progress! At the same time, we were struggling to get over the final hump to full recovery. Ana’s grip on Guzzy had weakened; it was a mere ghost of its present self, but Ana was still there tugging at the corners of Guzzy’s recovery.
It turns out that a trip to Hawaii was just the ticket! We had a some extra money that year and I was looking to take a fancy trip for spring break. Tentative plans with a friend to join her and her girls in Jamaica fell through, and it seemed the perfect opportunity to visit an exotic location that I have longed to see: Hawaii!! So, I booked the trip for the March spring break.
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by Paula | Sep 13, 2014 | Uncategorized
My friend invited me to be her partner in a doubles tennis tournament, which was held today. September in Wisconsin is usually beautiful, but it can also be quite cold. Today it was 44 degrees Fahrenheit when we started playing. Despite our numerous layers (including earmuffs), we could not feel our fingers. As you can imagine, this is somewhat problematic. It was bearable when the sun was shining, which was pretty infrequent during the first two matches.
A few years ago, I played too much tennis on a blisteringly-hot summer day. During the final set of my personal marathon, I jumped up to hit an overhead. I should qualify that when I say ‘jump’, that you could have fit a newspaper between my feet and the ground–NOT the Sunday paper, but a regular weekday paper from a slow news day. However, for ME, it was a jump of enormous proportions. During the microsecond that I was airborne, my right calf spasmed into a horrible cramp and was hard as a rock by the time I landed on the ground, writhing in pain. The muscle was visibly twitching and simply would not relax. I suspect it was due to dehydration, and it took several days for the leg to feel normal again. Since then I have occasional muscle twinges in the calf, but can usually walk it off without getting all dramatic about it. (more…)
by Paula | Sep 13, 2014 | Anorexia sucks, Our ED Story
Did you see what my sweet girl wrote? That will also teach me to leave my computer on and unattended. My FB account has been hacked more than once – with comments such as : “I am a terrible gin rummy player”. Of course that would be from my grown daughter who has always aspired vainly to play gin rummy as well as her momma. And if she’s reading this… go get your own blog!
