The Moral of the Story Is...

Easter April 1st, 2018 - Snow - Lots of it

Isa. 55:9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

The Moral of the Story... 

All week I was undecided whether I was going to make it to the family’s Easter gathering. Since I haven’t been able to walk really well for a month now I cried out and said if I can’t walk I’m not going. It isn’t as if his family hasn’t seen me in this weakened state. Remember I’ve spoken many of time how their eyes speak of pity, dripping of poor Joni looks. It hurts me to see that look on their faces. It’s not my fault I can read people, but their eyes being the window of their soul, their pity pours from their eyes.

All month I’ve struggled to get better. His mom came out last week for my birthday and brought me an enormous fruit tray! She asked if we’d be coming on Easter and defensively I said, “I don’t even know how I’ll feel tomorrow nevertheless in a week.” I left it at that because each new day is a challenge and I feel different every day.

This week I almost forced myself to feel better. One day I would walk well and I kept myself busy and the next day the cane was back in my hand. Each day that I feel better I find myself trying to do too much in a day and am in pain the very next day. It’s the new game of what will I feel today. Friday I washed clothes, scrubbed up the tub and bathroom, vacuumed the floor as if I was preparing for guests to arrive! Saturday I woke and didn’t feel bad at all and went on with my chore for the day and that was going to be to make my mother’s classic macaroni salad to take with me on our Easter outing. With determination in hand, I was intent on going to a family get-together.

All week long the weather was predicting a cold spell for Easter Sunday. Cold as in twenty to thirty degrees after a mixture of the fifties and sixties on the clickity-clanking roller coaster ride of the transitional winter-spring event. I don’t know what day it was when I checked the weather and the word snow popped up but I paid it no mind and went on to healing, physically and emotionally.

Friday came and I checked the weather and it said more than just snow, it said Winter Weather Advisory! For some reason, I thought it was a nasty unethical April Fools joke but I knew deep down the professionals in the field wouldn’t do something of that magnitude. They were now calling for three to five inches of snow, eight if you were under the heavy band that was attached to the storm.

I trudged ahead with my plans; it took my whole day Saturday to make the macaroni salad with every intention of going to see the family on Easter Sunday. A whole day to make macaroni salad you ask? Well, when it comes to steaming the shrimp, cutting up the stuff that goes in it, hard-boiling eggs and mixing the sauce, yes, it takes about four to five hours to make it perfect, the classic way I remember it being made from childhood.

Everything seemed to be going wrong! I made this dish for years now but this time everything was going wonky on me from the noodles to the eggs, step by step it just kept getting worse and worse! The two-pounds of macaroni noodles were not the right ones. I usually use just the simple generic elbows but these were name brand and apparently, two pounds of simple elbow macaroni to generic brands is different than the name brands. I had enough fancier ridged noodles than I knew what to do with! 

From what felt like overcooked noodles to the undercooked eggs, and my dog circling my feet wondering if anything would drop for her, to my back in wrenching pain, this wasn’t going well. I persisted and went on winding up with making a meal for the guys with the excess noodles I had, making me something to eat and having more than enough macaroni salad for all. The optimist in me reigns!

For the entire week of Holy Week, I stayed focused on my faith and winding down the Lenten season with all that I’ve learned. My mornings and writings, as usual, were scripture, my movies at night were God related; winding down at a nice pace, pain in check but persistence won out very easily.

I didn’t even think of the snow until Sunday morning came. I woke and as I peeked out the window I could see a blanket of cotton covering the darkness. As the sun, or lack thereof, began shedding light on the horizon, I could see what I couldn’t see an hour ago, a little more snow than I thought. My son was due to drive home in the wintry white slippery stuff, yet again, after his two nights a week graveyard shift ended. He came home sore because of the shoveling he had to do and the lugging of salt. 

As the blustery temps remained below freezing, the snow kept falling and falling rendering us homebound for the day. I wasn’t willing to drive in the stuff since my back cannot handle the swerves a slick icy/muddy road causes and my husband, being blind in one eye, has trouble differentiating the ditch and the road when it is all uniformly white. We played it safe and stayed home. His mom was disappointed but she wanted us all safe too. Other family members couldn’t make it either, so I didn’t feel too bad about not being able to attend. Maybe she should set the time later than twelve noon from now on. Nope, tradition is tradition and one thing I’ve learned from this family is that they are steeped in routine and tradition.

I didn’t plan on being home for the day so now I had to figure out a meal. Plans are made to be broken I get, but I was certainly not ready for it to be seven inches of snow on April first to be what kept us home. Yes, we could’ve trudged through the snow, after all that is another thing I learned about Nebraskan’s, they don’t let snow stop them from anything. I live in a 4x4 red, white, and black state, Husker nation through and through.

By two o’clock the sun had pierced through the heavy blanket of clouds and the snow had finally stopped. I had shoveled a path for my dog earlier and the path was all but gone, filled in with snow, except for a sliver of brown peeking through. The roads looked very passable and finally cars were passing on the now slushy mess. The warming of the ground from many fifty and sixty degree days helped alleviate the plowing of the snow. The eight inches of snow I brushed from the truck was now sliding off the roof that I couldn’t reach, but the grass was still thick in the middle of the white stuff that defined the majority of the ‘Winter from Hell’! Temperatures stayed in the twenties the entire day of April 1st, 2018.

Then the words came through the tunnel…I have to go to the emergency room. * thud * I nearly fainted at the sight of blood and was rendered useless. Wrapped in gauze my husband drove off as I nurtured my near-fainting, dizzying spell and vomiting. Four stitches later and two hours passed (I was still woozy) my husband made it back home. Unless you want me to pass out, please don’t ask me what happened in my hubby’s new ‘workshop’. Use your imagination, DO NOT ASK! 

All in all the ending of the Lenten season’s highlight was the moral of the entire season; our plans are not God’s plans! Our ways are not His ways! He can and WILL do whatever He sets in motion to do! No one else is in control but Him! Let loose of the ego in you and be reminded, God is good all the time, ALL THE TIME GOD IS GOOD! 

Pss. 118: 5  “I called upon the LORD in distress: the LORD answered me, and set me in a large place.

[6] The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me?”

[8] It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.

4 1 18 - Chrismas Pointsettias covered in snow! 

We couldn't have Easter without Christmas now, can we? 

Year's End

2 Cor. 4:16 “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”

The Year's End

I look at the calendar and see December 27, my son’s 22 birthday, and I have to wonder where all of the other the months this year went. I feel like I feathered through the pages of the calendar and landed here in December with no fill in for the in between. You know, you’re given a life-altering diagnosis and something in your life is supposed to change right? You make or complete a bucket list, family surrounds you and supports you, you strive to live every last second of the years of your life you have left.

That didn’t happen to me. I altered my daily eating habits, I changed my physical activities to include walks and stationary bike rides and I do more cleaning, more writing, but that’s about it. The outside world exists only when I force myself to go out and place myself in this seemingly mechanical robotic world we live in.

One day I’m sitting in the doctor’s office being poked and prodded, the calendar saying January 25th, then I’m sitting under an eclipsed sun and it says August 21st, then I blink and now it is the 27th of December.

I’m sure all of you have had a significant year where you took scenic trips, relished family memories, ate delicious toxic food and wonder where all the weight came from that you’ve added. Me, I’m wondering where in the world I hid forty pounds that I lost. My mother in law just said to me on Christmas, that she didn’t know I had forty pounds to lose because I always looked great. I guess looking great and actually BEING great are two different things. Shrinking from a size seven to a size three is forty pounds. Now I have no clothes that fit, again.

While I may have lost weight I feel like I’ve aged ten years. It’s kind of weird and nothing I do can change that portion of my year. I did have a nice Christmas and that meant a lot to me. The enormous amount of food did overwhelm me but I stayed focused on my macaroni salad. Macaroni salad, you ask? Well yes. Back home our Christmas’ always had my great-grandmother’s secret family recipe for macaroni salad and potato salad, and my mother always had pork, sauerkraut, and kielbasa simmering in the slow cooker. 

When my German great-grandparents (my dad’s grandparents) came here to America not too long ago, they brought with them recipes to hand down to the family. My mother actually made the recipes the best and my aunt’s always envied how she made it just like their grandmother! They tried to duplicate the recipe to no avail. I was always by my mothers’ side when she made the salads so I basically knew what she did that made it so special. She says my niece has acquired the ability to reproduce her salad but sometimes misses an ingredient but the similar taste is still there. 

I don’t make her potato salad because I don’t really like potatoes but the macaroni salad I made last year for my son and hubby was back-home delicious so much so, it took me back home for a moment when savoring every bite. When I thought about facing Christmas day surrounded by food and family I mentioned that if I could make my mother’s macaroni salad, I would have that one cheat to eat, relishing the taste and my surroundings would melt into the background. My husband, loving the salad, had no problem with my request!

I have never shared my salad with this family and his brother makes some good tasty food himself. I felt the two pounds of macaroni was too much so I saved me a small bowl for home and took the rest thinking it would go untouched because of all of the food my bro-in-law made. Amid the turkey, ham, dressing, cranberry sauce, string bean casserole and a host of other stuff sat my macaroni salad. 

Holding my plate in my hand I loaded up on macaroni salad and two deviled eggs that my hubby made. No one knew that they were organic eggs. I went and sat at the table surrounded by family and ate, after prayers of course. This family actually prays before meals, something I never knew in my life before coming to Nebraska. 

After the forks began scraping the plates I could hear the low murmur of ‘mmmm’s’ circling the table. I thought they were agreeing with how good my bro-in-law’s food was but then it came out, “This macaroni salad is delicious!” 

I think I blushed, “My macaroni salad?” 

Out of ten people there, only one didn’t like the salad and that was because he had eaten a pepperoncini thinking it was a banana pepper and his dinner was ruined by the taste, otherwise, the macaroni salad was a big hit. I had an almost empty bowl to take home with us by the time we left. There was a request to bring it to the Easter dinner and his brother said I could bring that dish again next year! 

If I give them nothing else to remember me by, my old family recipe will linger in their minds and taste buds for years to come. I’m sure my laughter and personality will be sweet reminders also, but I can say what made my year was sharing a meal from back home, bringing my dysfunctional family close to me while sharing with my new family. 

The only person that I talked to from back home on Christmas day was my mother, everyone else has forgotten about me so this year is the year of release for me. I need to release that family and move forward. The delete button cannot be more prevalent and necessary at this juncture in my life. I’ll continue on in my hermetic lifestyle isolating myself and living for me, hubby and my son, and…my macaroni salad once or twice a year! What a nice way to end the year!

Season of Depression

Gen. 26:30 “And he made them a feast, and they did eat and drink.”

The Season of Depression

The holidays are slowly creeping into the next two months, rendering many people depressed, more depressed than what they normally experience throughout the year. Thanksgiving and Christmas are supposed to be times of celebrations, times with family and houses filled with aromas of turkey, ham, apple pies and often, pumpkin pies. Imagine what its like for people who have no family, or who lost their family it can be one of the most suicidal depressing times of the year. Imagine the season as someone with an illness that renders them vegetarian (omnivore) surrounded by carnivorous beasts! 

On October 27 I marked my ninth month since this diagnosis that turned my world upside down. While I’ve always been a grateful person I find it hard to be grateful living with this disease that changed my world while everyone else around me basically stays the same. The 29th of October marked two years since my father’s passing and well, I found myself hurting when I didn’t need to be. I know he’s in a better place but I was hurting more for myself as his death took on the role of permanency. The first year, you mourn more for your mom and her pains but the second year you allow yourself to mourn your pain over the loss.

Then November sprung into action and that means family time. My family is all back home preparing or mourning in their own way not even giving me a second thought, so that hurts somewhat. Then there are the celebrations going on here where I live now, the place I’ve called home for almost nine years now. How I, the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, who rode the dysfunction junction her whole life, winded up with what I deem the Walton clan, the most perfect family in my eyes!

Yes, I know no family is perfect and yes this family has its hidden flaws but one thing they are, a family and everything that those families in the Rockwell paintings portray, get-togethers, gatherings, food, more food, love, and laughter. Although in my eyes, this family is short on the laughter. They do try but it comes off as mechanical and not real. Imagine Joni, always the laugh-a-thon-go-to-gal being plopped right into this more serious than normal family. Just imagine the challenges I have to face! (giggle giggle)

I’ve had to adjust my sails, so to speak, over the years to fit into this quiet, laid-back family. This year as you can imagine has been one of my most challenging years yet as the family has questions about my illness, about my decision in healing this disease, a decision they may or may not agree or approve of, I don’t know, it’s hard to read passive indecisive people.

Here’s an example, a couple of weeks ago my son gets a PM from his aunt (by marriage). It was a group private message asking the kids (fully grown kids with jobs) to take the day off  of work on November 5th so she could get a family photo session because a brother was coming in from Arizona with his wife and three kids and she thought it was a good idea and was making plans in advance.

My husband and I heard of this get-together at his moms a week ago, when she said she hoped we could make it to the gathering and that she’d ‘make me fruit’ non-organic, she retorted. I said I would try since I have good days and bad days, I never know how I’ll feel. 
“Well they’ll be here all week,” she offered, “but I hope you can really make it for the family get together.”
You see there? That is pressure (stress) I don’t ask for but it is slung at me anyway. I’m NOT a passive person and I’m like no! But his Walton family assumes we want to be a part of the happy, happy, love, joy event. And actually, my husband DOES want to see his brother he never gets to see (understandably so) and I, the good wife will support my husband with whatever he decides. Is passivity rubbing off on me? EGADS!

Needless to say, this year, I haven’t looked forward to these events but more times than not, I over think the situation and all turns out fine. Yeah, I wind up with unnecessary stress. But hey, it’s just me, the in-law. Believe it or not, these get-togethers only make me miss my family back home more, and the stress rises because I know that is not feasible. Visiting back home will not happen in my lifetime and what would I return to, a non-caring group of people I knew my whole life? Yeah, it’s not worth the stress.

So we’re back to the depression season. I’m grateful I landed in a loving family that actually knows what the term means. I’m grateful I get to celebrate another Christmas with these folks even if it is for food, food that I will have to watch them shovel in their mouths as I sit away from them trying to act like I’m enjoying myself. I have mixed emotions about this Sunday's event also when the family convenes.

In nine months I have aged ten years and appear very thin and gaunt. I don’t WANT my picture taken but as much as this family is about food and get-togethers, they’re about pictures, hundreds of pictures, not one or two. I don’t look forward to Sunday, and they’ll say they never knew, but Monday morning I’ll write and tell you how well it went, and so begins the Season of Depression.

Isa. 1:14 “Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.”