New Year's Eve in Whitefish

Came home to a nice table set and dinner prepared by Dolan and his cousins.  Big Mountain was fogged in, so we couldn't see the torchlight parade and the fireworks, alas.  But we have enjoyed the snow and mountains so much.  Last night we had dinner with good friends in Kalispell, and laughed so much at the stories of Wayne working in the Butte mines.  Not that his work was easy or funny, but his way of telling about it sure is!

I haven't been able to ski or ice skate, but I enjoy just being here.  Yesterday afternoon Paul and I snowshoed down to the base lodge, and then back!  It seems that I can still do that, with my brace and  the two snowshoe poles.  Pretty exciting!

I hope everyone has a good 2014.  For me, it has to be better than 2013, after all!

Santa Claus is comin' to town (sings Bruce Springsteen in the background)...

Wrapping some presents...pretty well done, but one last big one to do.  Made cookies today, too.  Definitely feeling the Christmas spirit (and three friends brought treats to my front door!).  However, I am beginning to realize that some things are definitely in the last-time-I-will-do-them category.  I can barely use scissors correctly now, and anything that pushes my right hand (other than typing, fortunately) shows up all the weakness that is taking over.  I am focusing on all the many things I will still be able to do, and not being able to wrap presents is no big deal, really.  Still, it's a little farewell...like not being able to skip, which I thought of today while watching "The Santa Clause" and seeing the elves skip away.  I loved to skip, even in heels.

Tomorrow I head out early to Great Falls (two hours south) to get my new ankle brace.  I have been tripping more lately (and not in the good, 1960's, way!).  I am down to only a few pairs of shoes that I can wear with a brace, and two pairs of boots that I can wear without and still have some support.  Man, giving up my shoes has been really hard...and heels...sigh.

But we have a white Christmas, so who am I to complain?!  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Baby it's cold outside...

Currently it's -35 degrees Fahrenheit in Havre, Montana.  Outside is eerie...still, quiet, and billowing vapor from all the furnaces and boilers working overtime.  Dolan and I were driving home, and saw a black cat running VERY fast (you could tell it did not want its paws to touch the icy ground), and a lonely tagged dog running across the street.  We were sad for all the animals outside tonight in this weather. 

Dolan said if he ever wins the lottery, he will have a big house, with a big barn to welcome all animals in on nights like this.  First he'll bring in all the deer, then the predators should happily follow!  (He wasn't hoping for carnage; just a way to protect the bobcats and mountain lions!)

Crazy place we call home, eh?

The cold didn't keep folks in today, so the St. Jude's Church bazaar was a success and the lunch tables were full.  I helped at the door taking money for purchases, and bought up all the colored lights at the bazaar's Santa's Attic.  (Imagine my surprise when I plugged them in and they're a veritable light show!  I had Christmas music playing, and they seemed to pulse to the beat!)  It was so nice to see so many people, and the support and love they all showed me was deeply touching.  I will say it over and over, if one has to be very ill, Havre is the place to be, because people wrap their arms and hearts around you.

As we will next weekend when all the churches and the Key Club at Havre High raise funds in various ways for three children with difficult health conditions.  I never ask "why me?" because I see children with cancer or MD or other challenges and I know there is no rhyme or reason to any of this.  It's how we face any of it that is important.  And I will support others in any way I can while I can.

Another goodbye, said too soon

Attending a funeral today for a 61 year old woman.  She taught special ed in the Havre Public Schools for many years, and always presented a smiling face to all.  She will be missed.

Once again, it reminds me we all have only so much time allotted to us, and we should really make the best of it.  While Nelson Mandela set the bar impossibly high for a life well-lived, all of us can make positive steps in our communities.  The legacy of a life well-lived can be simply treating others well, helping children, planting trees, or anything else that brings you out of yourself to make life better for others.

Chrissy made the best of her time here, and her legacy with the children she taught will live long beyond her corporeal self.  Goodbye.

Catching up...

It's been a while, but so much has been going on, it flew by. 

We spent a week in Virginia with my family at Pat and Jerry Warner's lovely home in Churchville.  The weather, funnily enough, was actually a bit colder than Havre's that week.  They even had snow on Wednesday (but it didn't stick).  I guess that's when we really compare Montana weather to Virginia's...today we woke to 8 inches of dry whiteness, and it continued snowing all day.  Beautiful!

Here's a couple of favorite pictures from our VA stay:

Of course, that's me with the white hair...like to pretend it's blonde, but that isn't really realistic when the camera picks it up as white!

What I think of all the time is how wonderful a life I have been given, and how I have no real regrets.  I have a loving family, both nuclear and extended, and Thanksgiving was a perfect time to remember that.

And now we enter the Christmas season with a beautiful snowfall, and I am again so very glad to be alive, and so appreciative of all I have been given in my life.  I may go sooner than I expected, but I won't feel cheated in the least.

San Francisco to Occidental!

We are spending the night in the redwoods in Occidental, California, at a wonderful house my friend Kristin found on VRBO (shameless plug). Occidental is having their last Friday market, and also a Harvest Market Festival.  Lots of people are in costume for Halloween.  It has to be one of the most charming things, except I kept getting movie images of street festivals all of a sudden going bad in some way.  Especially Halloween ones!  Too many zombie/post-apocalypse shows, I think.



Found this unposted, but will update that we had a great afternoon by the pool and listening to Michael Frantis.  New artist to me, but now a favorite.

Afternoon by the pool

Viewing upwards into the majesty of the redwoods

Winter has arrived

Sunday it snowed all day.  A great day to be inside looking out, although I wouldn't mind being out in the snow, either.  Too soon I suppose I will be inside looking out pretty much all the time.  I should get out while I can!

I am using a loaner ASO today.  I had to ask what that is: Ankle Support Orthotic.  It basically cups my foot and supports the back of my calf so my foot won't drop when I walk. I really notice a difference, although my upper legs are getting a bit weaker and so don't appreciate much having a foot that wants to walk like the old days.

My muscles seem to talk to me that way.  My left leg rebels because it's been carrying the load for several months now.  My right leg laughs at me when I try to make my foot move independently.  My right hand cramps when I try to do something in my normal do-anything-I-want-in-any-way-possible.  As much as my mind thinks it runs the show, my motor neurons are on permanent strike, and are telling the management to stuff it.

That doesn't bring me down, at least not yet. 

I have such wonderful support from family and friends, and enjoyed a wonderful long weekend in San Francisco and Occidental with three college friends.  We ate great food, talked, drank luscious wines, talked, and saw the sights of SF and the redwoods...and talked.  Everything I could have asked for, having never been to SF before.  What a cool city!

Cathy, Kristin, and Caty, you gave me such a wonderful gift, and I will always treasure the memory of this weekend and your enduring friendship.  Thank you!

 

And this weekend, Paul's friends came up to hunt, but mostly to spend the weekend eating and talking.  Seems guys and women really like the same things after all, even if we think we are so very different!

 

 

 

Still smiling, but sometimes it's hard...

Fell today in the backyard.  Fortunate to fall on our soft lawn and the fall leaves, but my left wrist (that did the brunt of catching me) and shoulder and neck all feel a little wrenched.  And wretched.  Sigh.

This is really the first time I have fallen full bore.  I guess I am going to have to stop acting like I can do everything I used to do, and take things a little slower and more carefully.  That is pretty foreign to me, but looks like the best option.

My dear friends from EPA, Julie and Stephanie, met me in Ft. Benton at the Grand Union last Friday.  We had a wonderful couple of days, starting with a great dinner at the Union Grille, and then a lovely chatty night and morning, and a drive on back roads to Tiber Reservoir to the see the North Central Regional Water intake facility.  I feel very involved with that, having supported Havre's participation (to guarantee a future increased water supply) as a council person early in my first term of office (2003-2007).  I like that we looked beyond our generation to do something for the next one.

I am fortunate to have such good friends, and Thursday I join William and Mary friends in San Francisco for a long weekend!  We have plans to tour wineries, do a spa morning, and generally enjoy talking and eating and drinking good wine.  What more can one ask of a long weekend, far from northcentral Montana?

I am driving down and back to Great Falls (2 hours) alone to get to and from the airport.  I am hopeful I can navigate the Salt Lake City airport with no difficulties with a 2 hour layover, but on the way back I had to order a wheelchair.  I had to use one in Dulles last summer, and I really do not relish the experience, but I cannot chance missing the plane. 

Pride goeth before a fall.  Literally.

Progression

Progression in ALS is not a good thing, unfortunately.  Today I almost fell down the stairs at work, and I should have taken heed, as later on I thought I could hurry across our tutoring lab to answer my phone, and I tripped right at the end and went down hard.

That is tough for me to face, but I will do it.  I am not able to do what I once did so very easily, and it makes me pause to think that is all in my past.  Still, I have much to look forward to in my future, and while different, it will still be good.

22 days and counting until my Cali Girls Adventure!  See, each day can be joyful.  You just have to look for it!

Had to say goodbye for a while to my favorite pair of casual heels this morning.  I put them on, and immediately started to tip over.  Dang it.  That is NOT a good thing.  I am holding tight (literally and figuratively) to my mules, but they may go the way of my heels soon, if I can't grip them with my toes.

This is an interesting disease, in how it progresses even while you live your life as you always have.  I guess all diseases are like that, although with ALS you really don't have any treatment, so it seems like you have even less control than you would over, say, cancer.  They all stink, frankly, so I guess it's a moot point.

Off to work, on the second rainy day in a row.  Fall has definitely arrived.  The rain and clouds actually seem restful and comforting.  For now, that is.  I will still relish sunny blue skies!