Scribblings from the Heart

Long Overdue Letter

2011-11-22T17:09:00.000-06:00

Dear Mom;
As you know I've been suffering a severe case of writer's block. It's lasted about two years and counting. I don't know that there is a right or wrong way to do this...so I'm just going to trudge ahead.
It's been threatening to rain all day today and oddly enough when I started to write the rain started to fall. I can see the lightening streaks out of the corner of my eye and Komando is about to shake is fur off.
Komando. You'd love him. He's a tiny little chihuahua with a big attitude. He's playful, loving, and patient. His vet swears Komando doesn't realize he is a chihuahua because he doesn't have the 'shaking' trait...that is...except for during spells of thunder and lightening.
Growing up I always felt close to you and just knew you were the best mom in the world. I can remember me telling you I wanted to be a good mom just like you and you'd chuckle a bit, turn red, and say thank you.
I didn't understand a lot of things that I should have understood. I also knew more things than I should have known at a much too young age. I realized your shortcomings long ago and made peace with it. You did the best you could with the limited support you had.
So many things were left said and unsaid. But one thing I know for sure...without a doubt. You're with me now. Early in the morning before the sun wakes up...while I'm in prayer...I can feel you and Memo around me. Papaw as well. I think about the humorous things Memo must be telling Papaw. I look forward to the day I can be a part of the circle again.
I have to tell you. I'm jealous. You're home. You're free. You're without pain and in Paradise. You get to walk and talk with Jesus...and hug our Holy Father God.
I think about that.
And I think about it.
It comforts me in an odd sort of way. You know everything...things I can't even conceive of right now...and I'm jealous! One day it will be my time, and I'm counting on you to escort me to Paradise.
Mom. I love you so very much. I'll always love you and always have. Your time on earth was cut short. At least, that's how I feel. But who am I to question God's plans?
Your great-grandsons are beautiful. Your grand-daughters are beautiful. I look at my youngest daughter and see you. You see, she looks just like me, and I look just like you. It's strange how this 'circle of life' thing works. I wonder about my other kin people in heaven...do all the women look alike? That would be hilarious.
And I keep thinking about how you would react if I would get to speak to you one more time...'Riccie; I went in for heart surgery and it didn't turn out too well'...LOL! So you. It's something you'd say.
I spoke with someone who had the pleasure of working with you over the weekend. He had wonderful stories to share about you. He had the utmost respect for you...and over and over talked about what a big heart you had. But I already knew that. You'd give the shirt off your back to a stranger...and that big heart of yours got yourself in trouble many times. (Remember when you got pinched on the butt in California? Or when the Mariachi band followed you at Knott's Berry Farm? They always thought we were Hispanic...but no. It's the French in us.) You gave until it hurt...gave everything even when it would short yourself.
I wanted to tell you, mom. As if you didn't know. The chain is broken. We broke it. I say we because I couldn't have done it without your example. Your patience, your kindness, your teaching about helping others less fortunate, well...they stuck.
You were given the raw end of the deal over and over again in life. But you kept on. You remained steadfast and kept the bitterness to a minimum.
I am and always will be your loving daughter, Mom. I will say goodbye for now, but I feel good about doing so because I know I will see you again in Paradise. And we will be able to go over the humorous stuff that's happened to me since you left.
Happy Thanksgiving, Mom. This year you are at the table of the Lord. What wondrous foods to sample!
I miss you. I love you. I love you so very much.
Love Always,
Riccie

Road Rash

2011-10-26T14:22:00.000-05:00

I just witnessed a motorcycle accident.
I am nauseated to the Nth degree.
I was on Ambassador, of course. He wasn't using his best driving skills...he almost got clocked by the vehicle next to me in the left lane. I heard a loud screech and what sounded like his motor going into overdrive. I looked around and saw him driving up through the median. He made it a few vehicles in front of me. Queue the traffic light. After takeoff from that, within 2 blocks, he met the back end of someones truck. Two vehicles in front of me. I saw him bouncing up and down on the pavement...and almost threw up. I am now home. I can't get that picture out of my head.
I sent prayers up immediately.
People. If you drive a bike...please. PLEASE driving with sense. Spare the rest of us an ugly memory. PLEASE!

Thought-Provoking

2011-10-02T08:00:00.001-05:00

My oldest daughter tells me someone gave a copy of this to her in high school and she proceeded to read it out loud without a stumble. I've just come across this...and am fascinated by it.

What do you think? (By the way. In case you are wondering- I read it at first glance without the slightest problem. Further proof of the twisted chemistry in my brain. LOL)

2011-10-01T09:16:00.001-05:00

Be So Very Careful

2011-09-30T15:47:00.000-05:00

I have to keep reminding myself:
Be careful of what I wish for. I may just indeed get it.
Scary?
A bit.
No.
A LOT!
I feel: hopeful, joyful, apprehensive, thoughtful, curious...

Starsky and Hutch

2011-09-12T17:15:00.001-05:00

While channel surfing I bumped into 'RTV'. Lots of tv shows from the 70's. My second favorite childhood tv show, Starsky and Hutch, comes on every night at 9pm. I've actually been tuning in over the past two weeks.
During it's initial run, Starsky and Hutch would play at 9pm, which also happened to be my bedtime. Mom would not give an inch although I tried everything I could to watch my guys. The show, which stayed in the top ten during it's initial four year run, is a hoot to watch but painfully slow for my Law & Order: Criminal Intent palate. Bobby Goren has forever made his mark on my soul.
Was life really simpler back then?
I take note of the desks; none of which have a laptop or desktop. Only the occasional quaint typewriter (my kids don't even know what that is). All of this instant connectivity...smartphones, netbooks, tablets, laptops, etc., etc. Is THAT the difference?

God Bless all the families affected by the attacks on September 11, 2001. Yesterday was a really tough day to get through. But we have prevailed.

What in Tarnation

2011-01-28T11:06:00.001-06:00

I know.
I know.
Where the Hell has Riccie been?
Ah. Around the world and back again? LOL
Considering getting back to my writing roots. As usual, I've been under the weather for the past week. I write 'as usual' because these are the times I can think on a slower pace and consider getting back to my writing. I actually had something percolating but ended up taking the scenic route on the way to writing...and found myself in an interesting situation. My attention was totally captivated...and then, as usual, reality barged it's way back into my world and here I am again.
'Here I go again on my own...'
Who sang that?
Momentary blip there. I'm back. Gonna be locked and loaded tomorrow. I have to get back to making a living. It pays the bills and gives me spending money.
What an interesting news day today is. The protests in Egypt...the standoff in Maryland...the Dallas Cowboys' arena? Wow.
What's going on in Egypt has my utmost attention. No, I'm not going to comment because I'm not fully informed...
I will definitely be back.

Frakin' Sinuses

2011-01-26T17:09:00.000-06:00

My head feels as if it is going to implode...or explode...at any moment. Frakin' sinuses. This bout is costing me money. I wonder if one can live without their sinuses. Maybe I should check into a sinusectomy. Calling Dr. House?
Yeah, I know. I've been away for a long time. Shooting the breeze with someone reminded me I still have this blog. So many changes have happened. So much time has gone by. I sit in awe at where I was (just yesterday in my mind...but so much more than that has passed.)
Back to why I'm here. I'm sick, of course. When do I ever have time to play around on the 'cloud' anymore?
Yeah. I'm gone for a while and even the internet has a new name.
'Cloud'.
I liked 'internet' better. But who am I to try to stop progress?
Have I gotten past my writer's block? I don't know. Haven't kicked out another story yet, but I've got a few trying to bubble up. Owning my own business is teaching me the fine art of time management. Me. Who used to be such a hard-ass about every tiny detail. Me. Who needs to re-learn ten minutes means ten minutes and not thirty. I'm a strict boss on myself. And when I fail, I go into a tailspin.
It's hard to get myself out when I do. The only ones there anymore to remind me of the money I need to make are my bills. And even those are getting fewer.
HA! Try to run sinusectomy through your spellcheck and see what you get. Funny! Me and my made up words.
Yeah. I've got lots more words I'd like to jot down. My throbbing head won't co-operate right now. It's nice to put something down, though. I'm bookmarking my own blog to my new laptop now...

Living Life

2011-01-26T13:16:00.000-06:00

I really need to update this more often.
Right now I'm enjoying life, preparing to move to Texas, and working hard when I'm not sick.
How's that for a change?

Eddie Bauer

2010-08-02T10:08:00.000-05:00

My oh my. What a busy little hamster I have been; and I certainly have things to be grateful for. Let's start with that:
1) I am grateful for the Eddie Bauer Expedition I was able to purchase Saturday in cash.
2) I am grateful to not have any car payments.
3) I am grateful for my support system which I have leaned heavily on during the past two weeks.
4) I am grateful for my second beautiful grandson born Friday. Both mother and baby are happy and healthy; my son-in-law is just over the moon!
5) For me...I am so, so grateful to have located my siblings, three of my brothers whom I haven't been in contact with in over 17 years. I am an aunt several times over! And my brothers miss and love me! They welcomed me with warm and loving hearts and encouraged me. Especially Mike. Mike and I have back to back birthdays...lol..his is the 30th and mine is the 1st.
What was so special about hearing from Mike is that he re-affirmed everything...about my past. I don't want to get in that...but to have a sibling say, Riccie, I was there, I feel tremendous guilt because I should have done something, etc, just undid me.
Of course I immediately wrote back to him and told him to stop it; I held nothing against him; never did and never will, and we both know who the real culprit is.
I am a very content person today. I have my expedition and I have re-established contact with my brothers. Now I've got to go to the DMV and take care of the formalities...but that's ok.
God is soooooo good. He works in His own time. And he is so Good.

Not my will but Thy will be done,
All my love
Riccie

Life in the Slow Lane

2010-07-30T18:40:00.000-05:00

I guess I'm the Aunt Mabel that keeps turning up when you least expect it. I've been getting a lot of encouragement from my doc (about a years worth lol) to get back to journaling...but it took a gentle nudge and a joke or two from a special friend to get this blender brain of mine in gear.
So hear I am. I blew it on this entry, though. I spent most of my time re-arranging the look of my place here. I've run out of energy for the actual task of writing so this is going to be a bit dry.
I resolve to write at least three times a week. My reasons are 1) get my ability to put my thoughts down more coherently 2) work on my ability to focus and 3) stop being afraid to get back into doing something I love.
Gratitude.
Dennis once had us write down a couple of things we were grateful for. Those of us who participated, and I was one of them, were to do this exercise for thirty days. I faithfully wrote in a previous version of my blog for thirty days things I was (were?) grateful for. I think I'm going to start there...and see what comes out of it. After all, last night I meant to answer an email to a buddy with a few quick lines and ended up nearly writing a novel.
So. Here goes. I'll do four things daily for thirty days.
What I am grateful for today, July 30, 2010.
1) I am grateful to have the ability to own and operate my own small business.
2) I am grateful that Jesus Christ saw fit to bring Komando back to me when he got lost.
3) I am grateful to have a nice apartment to live in.
4) I am grateful for my doctors who are helping get through all of these issues I'm facing.
Ok. It wasn't so tough.
Until tomorrow.

Star Trek: Enterprise Theme Song

2010-05-31T08:28:00.002-05:00

'I'VE GOT FAITH' BY RUSSELL WATSON: MY LIFE'S THEME SONG!!!!!

Thursday's Thoughts

2009-10-22T20:01:00.000-05:00

First thing that comes to mind-and I'll be brief: How dare my President, Barrack Hussein O'Bama, throw out petty pot-shots to Fox News of all things, while our sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, cousins, uncles, OUR PEOPLE are methodically being picked off in Afghanistan. Yes. My President SITS on a request made nearly two months ago for at least 40,000 more troops...instead, chosing to attempt to freeze Fox News out of the White House press loop. Hurray for the White House Pool, which refused to meet with the House for a press conference because they specifically excluded Fox News from the meeting. By the way, Mr. President, YOU have been President for ten months now. Blaming former President Bush is stale.
'Nuff said.
I attend a Bible study group on Thursday mornings. I love the group I am with. One of the women, an older woman, sorta bonded with me from the get go. When I started asking the Prayer Warriors for help for myself (and believe me, I'm not used to doing that, I'm used to being the helper) she was the first one to email me and offer comfort and assistance. I first asked for prayers when I went to the doctor and he dropped the 'C' bomb on me...you know...cancer. I've been peeing blood for oh I don't know how long and was afraid to go to the doc. It had been checked before, many years ago, and the doc couldn't figure anything out. But when I went to my primary care doc this past spring and mentioned it to him he immediately tested me and ran...no walk, no fast pace...nope, he ran back to my examination room (I was standing at the door) and told me he needed to get me to a specialist immediately. I looked at his face, which was full of worry, and asked, "More than just a little blood?" to which he answered by turning around to his tech behind the desk and told her to get doc so-and-so on the line and get me in asap. My doc turned back to me and told me he wanted to see me again in November. Among the multitude of problems I have, one of them is a severe vitamin D deficiency. I'm supposed to be somewhere around 90...whatever that means. I tested at 19. Not good. So along with all the other crud I'm taking I'm also taking these bionic vitamin D pills. I restested at 35 a month and a half later (that's when this happened) and doc told me to keep taking my super D vitamins and see the specialist. So I go see the specialist and during his initial consultation, after taking blood and various body fluids, he drops the 'C' bomb on me. He tells me we have to rule it out. Me being me, my hearing stopped after the word cancer. Yeah, his mouth continued to move, but I heard nothing else. My brain immediately went into overdrive. I thought of all the things I wanted to do and hadn't done yet. I thought of my grandson and my girls who weren't speaking to me. I even thought I want to be buried in my blue jeans and a tee shirt! He schedules some tests for me, and I follow him to the receptionist, still in a fog, still reeling from the 'C' bomb fallout. Then I think of my truck. Can I drive home? Who will take care of Komando?
It's amazing the stuff that goes through your mind when you are suddenly faced with your mortality. And I mean this came from left field.
So I get in my truck and I call my estranged and the first thing he says is "You don't have that." I immediately hung up on him. And burst into tears. So like him. No support whatsoever. And why should I be surprised. He never did support me emotionally. It was always suck it up and get over it. Oh, but if the shoe were on the other foot...oh my heavens.
But that's ok.
And I am happy to say after all the testing it comes down to having cysts on my kidneys. Which needs to be monitored but I will happily take. And going back to S, the older woman I have sorta bonded with in Bible study, she shared her story with us. And what an amazing, terrible, sad, heartwrenching, ultimately uplifting story it is. We all have our stories. S maintains when she was at the very bottom, underneath the sewage of her life, it was there, it was at that point she met Christ. It was horribly sad yet amazingly beautiful at the same time. As I listened to her, and shared a few details of some of the things going on in my life (I didn't go into my background...good heavens, there is enough going on right now) it dawned on me how right she was. Now more than ever I have been leaning on my faith and He has not let me down. He has not let me go. In total honesty, that night in April when I attempted suicide with all the goodies I had available to me right after surgery, I should have died. But I didn't. Not only did I wake up at 4:30 in the morning and pissed my brains out, I went back to the medicine cabinet for a second round! Only to wake up again at 8:30 am and again piss my darn brains out. I have never before nor since urinated as much as I did those two times. And with all of the crud I took, I should be six feet under. I know it is by the Grace of God that I am here, that He made me get up and get that poison out of my system, and He made me seek help. I was angry....whoa boy was I angry that I was still alive.
But that in itself set off a chain of events.
I wouldn't have met my neighbor, who will most likely become my room mate when my lease is up, M. She is the sister I never got to have. She watches over me. She's got a deep, strong faith and is a year or two older than me. I don't know what I'd do without M in my life.
I wouldn't have met T. Alex. He is my kindred kid brother. He and I have similiar backgrounds. His diagnoses is different from mine, but we still click. We can, and do, talk to each other about anything. Anything. Nothing is off the table between us. We cry together over lost childhoods. And we laugh together. Over stupid stuff. Like The Three Stooges and The Beverly Hillbillies. T. Alex and I play together. We get to be kids. He is amazing. Together we look like Mutt and Jeff. He's 6'4 1/2" and looks like a Marine...blond hair and blue eyes. I'm 5'5". He can pick me up with his pinky. We go to the park and push each other on the swings. During the summer we got sno-cones. He got a blue one and I got a red one. We sat in the park and ate them, laughing at the colors our teeth and tongue were turning. We tell each other stupid jokes...but most importantly...we LAUGH...deep, deep belly laughs. When one of us gets going...it's on. I'm not ticklish. He keeps trying, but I'm just not. He, on the other hand, is deathly ticklish EVERYWHERE. All I have to do is barely touch is forearm.
As I finish this up The O'Reilly Factor is ending and Hannity is starting.
My brain needs a bit of rest.

Not my will, but Thy will be done.
All of my love,
Riccie

Life

2009-10-20T18:29:00.000-05:00

Today has been a painful one. I remember laughing at the doc and telling him he was full of horsehockey when he suggested I may have fibromyalgia. I'd done some reading on the disease because a friend's wife has it and my research left me with more questions than answers. I am now a convert. Some days are better than others, and Good Lord knows there are so many out there with much worse problems than I have... but dang. I feel like a walking arthritis experiment.
Between that and the back surgery sometimes I think I have no chance. Soma and Darviset have become really good friends, which I despise. I take as little as possible, yet there are times I must succumb. I feel weak when I have to pop pills. I've seen so many people become so dependent on pain meds after back surgery or car accidents or (insert major catastrophe here) it scares me. I don't want to become one of those people. In their defense, and in defense of Rush Limbaugh and his problem with oxycontin, I UNDERSTAND. I mean, when you have pain so severe that two 10 lortabs don't even touch it, that's a problem. The Good Lord has a way of showing me how things can always get worse when I start thinking things can't get worse.
And who am I to whine? I'm here, I'm in one piece, I have, for the most part, a strong mind, and I am optimistic about my future. I've incorporated my business which is showing a lot of promise despite the so-called economic downturn, and, best of all- I have my dog Komando. My health, ahh, not so good. Can't have it all. But maybe even that will straighten out. My counselor and I were talking the other day. I told her I feel like my life has been in super-fast-forward since January. It's only in the last four or five weeks or so that I've actually been able to slow down a bit. I have a roster of doctors that rivals my grandmothers before she passed away. I've been through every sort of medical test imaginable and even some I couldn't have imagined. Thank my Lord, through the Grace of God, I 'only' have cysts on my kidneys. My doc still can't figure out why I'm peeing blood. I have to be monitored because of the cysts, but I'll take that over the option. Any day.
And through all of this...through every scary, frightening, possible life or death test....
...not a peep from my daughters.
No Happy Easter, Mom.
No Happy Mother's Day, Mom.
No Happy Birthday, Mom.
No I'm sorry for beating the crap out of you two weeks after you had major back surgery, Mom.
No Is it cancer or not, Mom?
No How is your back, Mom?
No How are you feeling, Mom?
No What can I do for you today, Mom?
No I love you, Mom.
And yet, even now. Even at this very moment, I would lay down my life for any one of my girls.

Without hesitation. In a heartbeat. Because that's what Moms do. Love unconditionally.

Welcome Back Riccie

2009-10-18T20:59:00.000-05:00

Short and sweet.
Riccie's back in the house.

Not my will but Thy will be done.
All my love,
Riccie