My Grandson Kevin's Birthday Party!

My friend Jody sent this to me. It is full of wonderful points on being creative. Any of us would benefit from this. It helps you cope better and calm down about issues going on in your life. 

10 Tips for a Creative Life

My class with Carol Bradshaw was good as always.  Wayne, my fellow classmate was on vacation, but two women have joined us for some of the flower drawing and painting.  We talked about roses, how they are made up to fully understand them.  It was fascinating to me.  So I should have been working on drawing a rose for my next class, but we have a reprieve since Carol will be out of town this Tuesday and we will not see her for another week.  So I have decided to show you a couple of other pictures this week that I have done a while a go.  I'll have the drawing of my rose done next week.

My Cat Pepper - She Really is a Sweety!

Two Parrots on a Branch

My grandsons Devin and Kevin go to Junior High next year. Kevin got a nice reward with a trophy for how he did. I know Devin is just as smart, so maybe he will shine next year.  Both are now 12 years old.  They are growing so fast!

Heather helped me pick out a couple of new pots and plants, and with the pots  and plants that I bought earlier put plants in pots and painted bird houses which are not quite done.  They turned out very nice. My veggies and herbs have gone nuts. Next time I won't put the squash in the same planter. I will get a very big pot with a cage for it to climb.   Below are the two planters I bid on at the last Helping One Woman dinner.   My granddaughter Heather added the paint on the orange pot.  I think she did a great job!

Heather added the extra paint to this pot

Such a cute planter!  We put Cacti in it and it looks great!

Overgrown Planters with veggies and herbs.
I definitely killed the dill!

I got the second shot in my back. He said he believed that the pain would reduce by 50%. He said "don't bend your back or lift heavy things."  I said "For how long?"  He looked at me in surprise and said "For now on.  It hurts your back."  Huh.  It didn't occur to me that this was for ever. 

I saw my oncologist and had chemo the following day. My oncologist said the MUGA scan showed blood pumping at 60%.  He said it was up from three months ago which then it was 56%. He told me he will make this the baseline in deciding how I'm doing. 

When I came home from chemotherapy, I was needing to eat something comforting. As a kid I would have toast with butter, cinnamon and sugar.  So I sprinkled what I thought was cinnamon and it turned out it was ground cayenne pepper.  Ugh!  I didn't want to throw it out, so I loaded it with cinnamon and added a little more sugar. Very strange!  It was spicy hot cinnamon toast. Not my style.  The taste was not off, just hot. I don't think I'll do that again. 

We had a great birthday party for Kevin yesterday.  Shelley rented a blowup waterslide and we had it set up in the back yard.  Five of Kevin's friends were here with lots of our family.  Perfect weather for a waterslide.

Kevin with a friend

The Blowup Waterslide

Brianna and her Cousin

Kevin with his friends

Kevin and his mom Shelley

 

My granddaughter-in-law, Meagan posted two combined pictures of her and my grandson Billy with each of their sons.  Cute!

Conner is Just Learning to Use a Spoon!

Zylar (Meagan is using Kason's Middle Name)

Jeff and Stephanie (My son and daughter-in-law) are coming up to visit today.  They thought Kevin's birthday party was today (though it is his birthday today)  we had the party yesterday.  So we will be barbecuing today, or should I say Jeff and Stephanie are doing this.  Looking forward to it.  They are getting the food and doing the cooking.  I'll have pictures next week of this.

Hope you are doing well.   See you next Sunday.    Rachel

Do You Advocate for Yourself and Do Research or Get a Social Worker?

A classmate from high school, Linda made contact with me through a site called Classmates.  So it has been well over 40 years since we have seen each other. She has had contact with two others who were important to me also and we will try to get together for lunch in the near future. She asked me if I had to be my own advocate or do my own research on my own health care. The answer is yes. When I was very weak and felt so bad, this was a role that was almost impossible to play.

I thought we needed people we could contact that could help us during this time.  I had a problem having very bad hot flashes and I could no longer have hormones because it was a fuel that fed my cancer.  So I mentioned to my doctor then that I heard reports that certain antidepressants helped to control hot flashes. My doctor then said that if I could find an article published in a well known medical journal supporting this, he would agree to this. While searching on the Internet, I found an Ask-A-Nurse site and that nurse was able to give me a citation my doctor accepted.  I thought my doctor should have known this information.  I don't think I could have been the first woman going through this.  I  also ran into financial problems with my insurance and the hospital I went to had used a wrong code which caused my insurance to deny payment. The clerk in the billing department dealing with my bill was too casual in my mind. I ended up writing letters questioning how this was handled and the problem of expecting patients to take on this role. 

My point is when I feel fine,  I have no problem doing my own advocacy or research and since I have a vested interest in the information, I often times would do a much better job on this rather than someone else. But, when I do not feel well, this is more than I can handle. I do have a retired social worker friend, Linda, who in the last eight years has been a wonderful advocate for me.  She at times found this very frustrating, but did not give up. I appreciated her ability to not give up performing like a dog with a bone.  I feel social workers can be the best people to do this if they do medical social work.  Being your own social worker does not always work well.  You can be too close to the problem and emotions can get in the way. 

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My granddaughter Crystal texted me this week asking how I was saying she missed me.  I  asked if she would have lunch with me.  She agreed.  I had to run errands including picking up my glasses which were finally the correct prescription. We went to eat at Johnny Garlics which has a $10 lunch menu. Crystal is about two months pregnant and going through morning sickness, so it takes a while for her to get over her nausea. She has insurance through her father but they said since she was a dependent,  they do not cover OB/GYN. So odd!  I didn't think they could do that. I did know she needed to apply for Medi-Cal (like Medicaid in other states) for her baby was born. Her boyfriend is in the picture, but works part-time and goes to college and has no insurance.  

My Granddaughter Crystal at Johnny Garlics

I had dinner at a friend's home. Linda (I have several friends named Linda). She is a social worker. There were ten of us, several were social workers and two were attorneys. What a great group!  Linda and her husband Thomas made a fabulous Puerto Rican meal and we even played a type of guessing game called Taboo. So I brought up what my granddaughter is having to deal with in regard to her health insurance.  They stated it was illegal what the insurance company was doing. They suggested we call and speak to a supervisor and follow up with this by letter with a copy sent to the Insurance Commissioner of California.  So that will be the next step Crystal and I will take.  So helpful.

At this dinner, I met a couple, Jim and Kathleen Faulkner, both attorneys.  I really liked them. Kathleen and I really connected. She is active in a group called Writers of Kern. She writes poetry. She was urging me to write. I told her I did through my blog. She also urged me to join Writers of Kern.  I have been to this group once about a year ago. It was a good group.  I would like to do this. I worry about over-committing and not being able to keep this up.

So my class with Carol Bradshaw went well. I had some problems with the iris I drew. She gave some suggestions on correcting it.  I did work on it. She also showed how we would go about painting it  the variation in color in the flower is a wash.

My Iris in Pencil - Edited

My Iris in Watercolor

While I was at class, my friend Martha sent me a message she would see me at 5 pm. I had completely forgotten!  I panicked because I had a medical test the next day, but it was late enough not to be an issue.  I had several tasks to accomplish before going, but I did well and got to Martha's home at the regular time to go to the Helping One Woman's dinner. Good event and the woman, Anna Hernandez-Treviso, has a son with AML Leukemia who recently had a bone marrow transplant.  Though he is not out of the woods yet, it looks hopeful.   They had a silent auction and I bid on and got flower pots and a stand. They'll look good in my yard.  Had another wonderful breakfast at Susan's home the next morning before heading home. 

No word yet on the retaining wall in my back yard. Evidently, it is complicated; It was not meant to be a retaining wall. In the 1970's, the city (?) back filled the dirt against this wall when an area above us was put in after this neighborhood was done.  I'm so worried that the cost will be prohibitive.  He states he can tell me next week. He is waiting on the estimates by other people involved in this project. 

My friend Janet and I met twice this week once after another MUGA scan ( to check my heart) in preparation to seeing my oncologist next week. The other time was with Lisa and Charmaine at Sandrini's.  It is always good catching up, but I headed home to lie down and promptly fell asleep.  I think if I keep my meals down to salad and skip the drink, unless it is evening, I may be able to stay awake more.  

This is a lovely poem that describes life moving on:

Nothing that is can pause or stay;

The moon will wax, the moon will wane,

The mist and cloud will turn to rain,

The rain to mist and cloud again,

Tomorrow be today. 

 

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

It's kindness which matters. This is a touching video. We all have our stories. 

Empathy- The Human Connection......

Here is a lovely picture of Meagan, my granddaughter-in-law with both of her sons, my great-grandsons, Kason and Conner (just a year apart!).

Meagan with Kason and Conner

So this next week I will go in for another injection in my back. This ends up being a forced bed time because of the medications given during the procedure wipe me out.   We are also going to have my grandson Kevin's birthday here to put up a blow up slide with water running down it. I won't water before to use that time for watering the yard through this slide. I'll also situate myself or another adult on the wall side to keep the boys away from it. 

So as usual these days, another full week.  No regrets and very eventful. I hope your week went well and I should have a lot to share next week.   See you next Sunday.                 Rachel. 

Sleep, Sleep and More Sleep

Someone became confused about who was in my family because in looking at my posts I have mentioned different people.  Here is what I said:  Yes. These are two of my step-children and their children [the pictures in my last post]. I have five step-children. Their father was my husband. He died eight years ago.  Their mother died 5 years ago and we had a good relationship before their deaths. Their mother came for all holidays to my husband and my home.  They grieve their parents death and I don't presume to take their place. I'm another person who has known them for many years and we developed our own relationship when they were children. My daughter I adopted as a single parent when she was ten.   She was in the foster system. Her mother was murdered when she was nine. She has found her half-brother and half-sister who live in the same town as me. Recently a man who knew her father made contact with her.  He was killed in the Vietnam war.  She understands his family is in a town two hours north of me. She will continue looking for them because she needs to feel connected. I just accept it, because she will do this whether I accept it or not. Ronda and I talk on the phone at least every week. We have visited several times since she became an adult. She lives in Illinois.  This was not easy.  But, all of us worked on it in our own way. It filled a need for all of us.  Families come in different ways. This one is not by blood, but it is family. 

In addition to this, I have girlfriends that seem more like family than my sisters. I'm sure they have friends like this too.  I have known many of them more years than I spent with my siblings so we have more in common. 

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So one thing I noted along with others this last Mother's Day was that the retaining wall in my backyard is definitely moving. It is downright scary.  It didn't look like it was built with rebar. It could be deadly.  I called a man to give me an estimate on the cost. He also said this would be deadly, just dropping when it reached a tipping point crushing anything in its way.  When the man who would do the demolition came, he said he didn't think it would go now and that there is rebar in it, so it will lean more rather than drop immediately.  There is a lot to do with this project.  The builder will call me this next week to let me know what this would cost. I'm glad to know we are not in immediate danger!

My grandson Kevin is participating in The 20% Project in his school.  Alex K at Google+ explained The 20% Project this way:

I love what I do (I work for Google's Partner Solutions Organization, writing internal programs and tools to help better manage our partner relationships--check out our job listings), but Google's "20 percent time" recently came in handy. The 20 percent time is a well-known part of our philosophy here, enabling engineers to spend one day a week working on projects that aren't necessarily in our job descriptions. You can use the time to develop something new, or if you see something that's broken, you can use the time to fix it. 

My grandson Kevin selected planting trees in Bakersfield.  We still don't have enough trees here though several groups have worked on this in recent years. The idea of this program is to offer more creative solutions through some sort of community service, being allowed time to work on something that is not a part of the regular curriculum.  This one involves fundraising.  Kevin will need funds to buy the trees. Considering what problems we are having, a major drought, I think trees which live naturally in a  drier climate seems like a winning combination!  I'm so pleased to see Kevin doing this.  I understand my grandson Devin is also supposed to do a project, but his teacher has not brought it up yet.  I'll be curious to see what he selects. 

In my art class with Carol Bradshaw, I had worked on the washes of my poppies and more detail in my drawing. Next week we are to have the drawing done of a bearded iris.  I have poppy buds and one poppy picture (which is not done).

Poppy Buds 1

Poppy Buds 2

Poppy and Buds, Unfinished

Part of an Iris in a field of Irises

Practicing-  I will never be a botanical artist!

 I had met my friend Cathy at Sandrini's for lunch.  I had fettuccine with clams and a glass of wine.  We went down memory lane when we worked together. There are very few people working at the hospital where we worked who were there when we were.  The way we worked is quite different from now. The leadership's priorities seem very different from what we saw as important. Yes finances are important, but if you don't focus on the consumers of that service, they won't want to return. Then in the long run finances of the institution will be affected negatively. Cathy did share her thoughts with those leading in the area she works, but they didn't seem to understand. Cathy has decided to retire in July and then go on a vacation with one of her daughters to London and Scotland right after.  Good for her. I was not quite ready to retire when I did, but health issues forced me to. But, I was noticing the same sort of issues and I worked for the state. I am glad to be out of it. Retirement has been good. 

My friend Janet went to San Jose del Cabo, at the southern tip of Baja California for a few days this week with friends.  She described everything as being picturesque  with the area being hilly and the town facing the ocean.  They made a couple of boat trips and the food was gourmet.   It was not cheap, but it would make you feel that you got very far away.  So airfare would help to make this a doable trip for people in California. 

I have noticed now that I find myself needing to sleep very long periods of time periodically for the last few weeks. When I was with Cathy I had a glass of wine. I had had a good nights sleep. I had not taken a pain pill. Yet when I got home, I laid down and slept until 9:30 pm, and got up to take my meds including one pain pill and slept another eight hours.   I woke up feeling fine, but it is so weird to sleep so much!  Carol my teacher had suggested I get a pulse oximeter which also measures oxygen level in the blood. I did buy it, but when I felt so knocked out, I forgot to use it. After I got it, I remember my friend Janet loaning me hers which was for her husband; I think I gave it back to her. So I did check it the next morning and my oxygen saturation was at 91% which I don't think is a good reading. I'll continue to monitor this.

My granddaughters Meghan and Cassadie got together this last week for the last time at the University of Oregon before Cassadie graduates this next month.  I'm not sure of Cassadie's plans.
Their parents sold their home and live in a rental while they look to make a move closer to the beach.

Meghan and Cassadie last time at The University of Oregon together

My granddaughter-in-law Meagan's brother Ian got married on Saturday.  Meagan posted a picture of her and her husband, my grandson Billy, so here they are:

Meagan, my granddaughter-in-law and her husband, my grandson Billy

And, Meagan's mom has joined the Red Hat dinner group I am in.  So here is a picture of Meagan holding Kason  and her mother Dainette.

Dainette, Meagan and Kason

I've mentioned my friend Marykay many times here.  She is an excellent artist here on the West Coast.  She did a painting recently to get rid of stress she was feeling due to a negative interaction with someone.  Wow!  It sure pays off to redirect it into art.  The painting is called Breaking Wave.  It is so powerful!  You can see Marykay's other art at this site too.

http://marykatherinesart.blogspot.com

I saw an Opossum walking down the block wall in my backyard today.  I have only noticed this one other time.  I find it impressive that they wander in from a somewhat wild terrain to a regular neighborhood.  They don't frighten me.  I just find it fascinating and wonder what they are looking for.

Alright.  I think I have to lie down.  I have several things I am doing this next week which may be interesting.  I hope you have a good week.  See you next Sunday.          Rachel

Mother's Day Celebration

I ran into a podcast called Laughing with Cancer.  This man Elvis has Leukemia and shares what he and his family are going through. He uses humor which can be a very good coping mechanism. I would know. I use it a lot.  Go to the iTunes Store, then to podcasts. Put Laughing with Cancer in your search. There is no charge and you can listen  or save it for later. 

On Monday was a concert arranged by the Bakersfield Concert Association.  This small brass combo (5 men), called Brass Precidio. They were quite good and used humor teasing each other. My friend Barbara gave me her pass because she would be out of town, so I asked my friend Valerie to go.  We ended up joining two other friends Sherry and Margaret, meeting at a nice Italian restaurant called Uricchio's which is close to the Rabobank Theater where the performance was held. The weather was warm, balmy with a soft breeze. It was a very pleasant evening. 

I had Carol , my art instructor to myself because my fellow student Wayne was helping someone with a big repair job.  Carol was complementary on the amount of work I accomplished.  I want the green around my butterfly to be even  darker, so we mixed colors to see what worked.  For my poppy, we went through the color circles we have made and changed the red to get the right tone. It was a variation on the standard palette.  So this is what I have been working on this week. Way too much happening so I'll do my work on this Monday.  You'll see it next week.

we also had our Red Hat dinner this week at La Costa de Mariscos. The Margarita was good and I had a fajita taco salad. Very tasty.  The gals there were Jo, Dainette, Judi, Claudia, Stephanie, Pamela, Evelyn and myself. Great company as always. Everyone looked good and had a lot going on in their lives. 

I went to the outpatient surgery center for cortisone injections in back between several vertebrae. I have chronic back pain since I slipped and broke my back over two years. That is a compression fracture. This doctor then told me I had four slipping disks above that. He felt that this procedure had a high chance of success and was worth trying it.  It really wasn't too bad.  I did get versed, but very light.  I remember what was going on and things were explained to me.  I felt virtually pain free the next day and didn't take any pain medication when I went to bed.  I woke up a little sore, but not too bad.  I didn't want to take a chance of having more pain when family would be here the next day, so I did take some.   I will have another done three weeks later to hopefully to catch any spots missed the first. 

I also had  dinner with my friend Janet who had a  birthday this week. We met at our old haunt Mexicali's, having Margaritas with tacos and taquitos with fresh guacamole.  It was way more than we could eat.  Both of us have eyes that are much bigger than our stomachs!

I had chemotherapy this week and nothing different occurred during this time.  It was the day after the medical procedure, but it was fine.

The rest of  the week was cleaning, gardening,  shopping and my granddaughter Heather helping me to get ready for Mothers  Day. 

Mother's Day!  What a great day for us mothers though we did the food preparation.  Thomas did the barbecuing- chicken and tri-tip.   Lots of different salads, baked beans and for dessert check collate cream pie and strawberry pie.    It still was nice getting together and taking it easy.  Weather was pleasant, in the mid-eighties.  Good music, my water fountain going and the chimes lightly ringing with the slight breeze. It is all worth it!  Great family gathering!  Everyone so relaxed!  Some of us having Mojitos that Benji made - so refreshing.   My girls here are remembering their mother today who died five years ago.  My daughter Ronda sent me flowers. They were going out to eat with her husband's parents in Illinois.   My granddaughter-in-law is celebrating Mother's Day with my grandson Billy and her family including mothers Dainette and Sharran.
 .  Anyway, all of us are mother's in some way or another by what we do.  We nuture and we are the ones who make our society civilized!  So important for the next generation!  My mother died the day after Mother's Day 24 years ago. It doesn't seem that long at all!  It is periodically rough for me, but I am fortunate to have the family I have!

Kason is filling in  and coming along quite well. He is over six pounds. Conner is doing very well!

Kason, finally over 6 pounds!

Kason is 3 weeks old!

Conner Helping his Mom with Laundry

My garden is growing.  I have some vegetables showing:

I Think This is a Squash

This is Actually Very Little Green Peppers

These are Baby Tomatoes

Early Evening with my Fairy Solar Lights On

That is my week. I hope yours was fine. I look forward to seeing you next Sunday.        Rachel

Art in Different Mediums to Heal

On Monday I went out to Hart Park which is a really lovely park with a small lake and the Kern River flowing through it. There were few people out there, which is fairly unusual. I took art supplies to draw and paint trees. I watched a couple of tutorials on this on my iPad. So I did do some work. Going out to this park was what I needed.  The problem was when I was making the area around the butterfly and flower a deeper green, it probably was not a good idea to do that outside because even though I used water, each stroke of the brush can be seen. I need to find out what are the rules for plein air painting. My teacher's suggestion was to wet the green area again and add another layer of green. While I drove out I saw a parrot flying between the trees. Parrots do not live here unless someone has it as a pet. So it must have got loose. Anyway, I thought he was enjoying himself. Wish I had gotten a picture of him!

Butterfly on Flower with the Streaky Background
Watercolor

Butterfly on Flower, Less Streaky
Watercolor

The following day I thought I had nothing scheduled and just worked on my art. At the end of the day, I was checking what I had on my schedule and saw I missed an appointment. That is embarrassing!  I called the office and they said to call the call center. I'm scheduled a month later to see her.

So I figured out why I was so distracted. The next day was the eighth anniversary of my husband's, Paul's death.  I was glad to be alone and found working on art very comforting.  The following day Shelley, my daughter, texted me and asked how I was doing.  I told her I was doing fairly well, but missing her dad. She asked me if I would like a hug from her and I said yes. I offered  her a glass of wine and we talked about Paul and what he meant to us. A little later my granddaughter, Shelley's oldest daughter Alyssa same over. It was a wild trip down memory lane and became more lighthearted. They will come at Mother's Day. We will barbecue. 

I started a book called Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orlando. I had this book and I couldn't locate it. So I bought one for my Kindle.  My stepmom Kate raved about this book and she felt it freeing to get this perspective. So I decided it is time to read it.  It has some good thoughts about us all being in the same boat. So I connected to the Google Plus group called art and have found this to be s supportive community. 

I told  my teacher Carol Bradshaw what my stepmom suggested I read (which is a good book), Carol suggested I buy newsprint paper to work on making big movements, from my shoulder. She thinks I keep the pressure in my fingers and that it is too constricting. I did buy a couple of pads of newsprint to work on making big moves.  Here is a flower drawn on the newsprint using large strokes. So this is 18 by 24 inch newsprint paper using oil pastels.

Oriental Poppy and Buds

Our assignment was to  draw a poppy that we will then convert to watercolor.    I will do a full drawing of this before class on Tuesday and then I will do a light sketching for preparation of my watercolor.  Here is my picture.

Beginning Sketch of Oriental Poppy

We were supposed to draw a California Poppy so on the eighth anniversary of Paul's death, I did research on the California Poppy and then did a drawing.

California Poppies = Graphite

So my youngest great-grandson Kason has weathered the storm and doing much better.  All of us are relieved.  His mama, Meagan wants us to know his name is Kason Zylar Roydell Lane.  She loves the name Zylar and does not want it lost.  Here is a picture of Conner, big brother holding Kason Zylar.  They are just about one year apart.

Kason Zylar and Conner

My garden continues to do very well.  There are three tomatoes growing on the bush next to the house.  The other plants are flowering and/or budding for the vegetables I expect to get.  Here are today's pictures.  By the way, I found out that lint is good for a compost pile.  I did not know that.  My pile has been going for a year and I thought about all that lint lost!  Well, for now on it is going in. 

My Planting Boxes

Tomatoes and Lavender

I am leaving shortly to go to a group meditation run by a friend.  I think I could use it.   She is also very good.   I am going for an outpatient procedure to get cortisone shots around my spine and then a followup of this three weeks later.  And, I just have a lot going on.  I think it is all good, but if I could put it on a schedule that works for me, I'd pick one a week at most.  I am excited about Mother's Day next Sunday.  We always have a wonderful time and for some reason, all of us are feeling the loss of Paul. This is now eight years, but there you have it.

So I hope you are having a wonderful week.  Mine was good, and I'm sure next week will be okay.  See you next Sunday.     Rachel