Back to Art Class and Finding More Pictures for Ancestry.com

David Rivas from Bear Valley Springs took this beautiful pictures the poppies in the hills above Arvin (a small town by Bakersfield).  Our air quality is so poor here, but the poppies do well despite this.  I find it depressing even seeing it in this picture.  Those up in the mountains have much nicer air.

Picture by David Rivas of Bear Valley Springs
Poppies above the town of Arvin

I had my class with Carol Bradshaw. No one else showed up. I was surprised Wayne wasn't there and texted him. He didn't put it down and had workmen there repairing his roof. He said he would be there next week.  So Carol showed me a project I could work on. She suggested I take a contour drawing I have of an animal and do Zentangle type of designs inside. So I am looking at those I have done.  We worked on drawing rocks. She crumpled a paper and showed how I could see a Rocky Mountain ridge or a rock. She also brought smooth river rocks and coarse ragged rocks suggesting I use sand to bury them slightly using a cookie sheet to hold the sand.  The other thing was her using mats of different sizes and throwing or placing them on the the rocks to create a piece I would draw. 

Take crumpled paper and draw the angles you see
I haven't drawn this yet.

Take a cookie sheet with sides, put sand on it,
then river rocks.  Then draw what you see
I haven't drawn this yet.

This was my second attempt with ragged rocks

This was my third attempt with ragged rocks

What I have to have for next class on Tuesday is just the outline of the rocks.  I'm going to do the river rocks in the sand for that. 

   

Barbara and I went for the last chance to get the 1/8 of one cent sales tax dedicated to our libraries on the June ballot. This was a very harried experience because it was difficult to get a second on the motion to put it on the ballot. Eventually 3 out of 5 board members agreed to it. The problem is that they took a poll and the results were 60% in favor of the tax. This requires a 66 2/3 percent approval and the pollers feel it would not pass easily.  The part I didn't understand is why they only asked Republican women who are likely to vote in this poll.  So the people taking the lead in favor of the library feel they have a lot of work to get it passed, but they are determined. 

I needed to get my car in for service and finally got it done. The big item was new tires. Ugh!  Well at least everything is working.   I found out a couple of things.  Don't let your key fobs be by each other because they will drain each others batteries.  By the way, the same goes for the car.  I used to leave them in the car, since it was in the garage, but the keys and the car battery  drain each other.  I found both these out through experience.

Janet and I met at Mexicali's.  Janet and I are realizing that our relationship is very important to both of us.  So even though our politics are almost polar opposites, we don't want that to get in the way of spending time together. We have both been through a lot and have been support to each other during these times.  It meant a lot.  We have events planned in the near future that we both are anticipating with some involving Barbara. 

I received a notice that my phone can be upgraded. This is every two years. I was worried with some problems I was having. Now all is okay again. 

Here are recent pictures of  two of my great grandchildren. As they grow, their individuality comes out more.  So sweet!  They are so well loved!

Nylah really does have a beautiful smile!

Kason looks tired!

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The following was taken from an article on the role of the chaplain in the Navy. The part I copied is about the factors that influence how a person copes. This is universal and worth noting.  The title was  

Chaplains Help Provide Perspective on the Grieving Process, from navy.mil in response to the attack on civilian sailors in the Washington Navy Yard, September 16, 2013. 12 were people were killed and eight wounded.  

"Grief is always painful, and sometimes it is pretty straightforward and understandable; sometimes it can be complicated and confusing. For example, if one's ninety-year-old grandmother died peacefully in her sleep, a family would naturally grieve her anticipated loss. However when death is sudden or unexpected, traumatic, senseless, and out of sync with life's natural order, grief can be complicated.

There are certain things that can affect how we grieve:

-How close we are, emotionally and geographically, to the person who died.

-Our belief system and view of death can both influence the grieving process.

-What kind of support we experience from our family, our community, our faith group, and others important to us while we are grieving.

-How we cope with other significant life events, including the death of others we are close to.

Chaplains can help support an individual as they begin the process of grieving. They offer perspective and insight to help an individual understand the difference between grief associated with an anticipated loss and grief associated with a sudden, unanticipated loss. 

They can also help validate what an individual is experiencing throughout the grieving process and the time often needed to process one's grief; this includes the fact that there is no set time frame when grieving. Every individual is different".

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I finished reading The Bible. It took me a couple of months. The amount of time I dedicated to it daily varied depending on other activities I had going. I believe it was an interesting thing to do. I have heard

many of the stories, songs and poetry, though I think the sources varied.  It was fascinating to read from front to back. 

The next one to read will be the Tanakh (The Hebrew Bible). 

My friend Mike has done a lot on my family tree. I've also gotten more pictures from my second cousin Simy.  Mike watches Ancestry on PBS and had just seen one on Dustin Hoffman. He felt his situation was very similar to mine.  The short I watched of it, seemed very familiar.  Simy found family who also died in the Holocaust. She also has family who went to live in Israel.   My cousin Steve was contacted soon after moving to California by a man with the last name of Gamarnick, the original family name on my father's side through his father. He worked his way up a company there and has since died. What is interesting, and I can only speak for me, is that I was not interested in exploring this when I was younger. So I wonder if that is a result of approaching death and wanting to understand where I came from, but only recently. I do want to hear the stories now. In the past, I found it boring. 

I found a pictures with my uncle Eli (who was a physicist) and me and another with my Aunt Shirley, my daughter Ronda and me.  This was probably around 1981. They have both since died.  They both were very special to me and I miss them.

My and Uncle Eli

Aunt Shirley, Me and my daughter Ronda

That is it for the week. I hope your week went well and this next week goes well too!                         Rachel

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

Family Gathering

So when I had chemo the first time, the first doctor I had explained I would do three treatments of chemo taking Adriamycin  and Cytoxan every three weeks. And then I would take three treatments of Taxol every three weeks. The first combination caused me incredible problems.  I had no idea I could be that exhausted. I could hardly move the third day.  One time I considered falling off the bed and crawling on the floor like an inch worm to get to Paul in the other room and thought that would freak him out. So I walked over and thought it was much easier not to get out of bed. Also smells were horrible, as were tastes. I could hardly eat. Toast was the easiest. It would slowly improve until we repeated this. Ugh!  I had been hearing that Taxol was the worst, that you ached all over. Though the first time I went through this I did ache so much.  I didn't think it was so bad.  It was like bad arthritis to me. Also, I made up for eating. I wanted tacos so much that I made and ate six tacos!  You would have thought I would have lost a lot of weight, but I moved like a slug so I did not lose weight. Of course, when I upped my taco intake, I did gain weight.

At the time Paul died, my cancer had metastasized to my neck. Stage IV.   I also had a couple of spots in the mediastinum (partition separating the right and left thoracic cavities).  They made it clear that anything done were for comfort measures only. So psychologically I was devastated.  They made a type of mask for my face to pin me down while I had radiation. I had a sense of panic each day I was pinned down, however the time in it was seconds. The only bad reaction I had from this was incredible itching. This was worse on my neck. I ended up getting the maximum dose of radiation and this is no longer an option for me.  

Three years later cancer had moved to a lymph node, about the size of a quarter. I now had Kaiser Permanente.   My doctor wanted to do the same chemo but I nixed Adriamycin and Cytoxin. I'm not willing to be that sick again. So I did agree to Taxol since my memories of that weren't so bad.  He also told me, in addition to being Estrogen Receptor Positive, I was also HER2 Positive.  This was a plus because the chemo drug Herceptin was for HER2 Positive Cancers and was amazingly effective.  So I'm taking the Taxol and I hurt really bad all over. I keep upping the pain meds (with the doctor's permission).  Every week I asked for more pain meds and was miserable through all this. It felt like my pain level just kept going up. The Herceptin was not a problem. It can lead to heart problems, but my heart is scanned every three months.  No problems. 

So when the cancer comes back another time, I nix Taxol. He said I would stay on what ever we do until I die or until the cancer comes back. Okay, if I'm not going to get better, I'm not taking stuff that makes me feel lousy. Why?  It doesn't make sense to me. I am doing the Herceptin.  As long as I feel okay, I'll do this.   I share this because I have been asked why I wouldn't take certain medications.  I hope this gives you an idea why cancer patients would refuse some meds.

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I went to a group run by Norma Neil on using pastels making abstract art at Art for Healing.  It was a lot of fun and relaxing.  But I needed to go home and lie down. I was going to go to the women's writing group, but my sense was that I would be in even more pain. I'm trying to get so much done. It is frustrating not to be able to do all these things I used to do. 

My class with Carol Bradshaw was focused on doing washes, using salt for different effects and how to take advantage of it. It is like looking at a Rorschach test which is an ink blot and asking people to identify what they see in it.   We were seeing flowers in what we looked at.  The rocks I tried to paint were pretty poor. Now we are painting bell peppers in a green monotone.   Carol sent me an email saying I'm doing the best washes yet. Here they are.

I had things I needed to take care of but I needed help in getting them done. I did as much as I could, but my back just gets worse and worse.  My grandson Billy helped me in getting a new hose for my propane barbecue and several other chores. It was a relief to have these all done.   Then I went to Visalia for the Helping one Was man Dinner. It was a smaller event this time but pleasant. The woman selected for next month sounded very similar to me. She also pointed out how people find it hard to believe she could be going through so much which has been the same reaction I got. 

I spent the night at Martha's home and we had breakfast at Susan's home. It was delicious and of course great company. I changed my hair appointment to not cut this short, but when I got there Lisa was not well and we rescheduled for next week.  I decided I needed to get home to get in a prone position. I did contact Kaiser through the Internet to renew my pain meds but for some reason it wouldn't allow it and said to call the pharmacy.   I do have an appointment at the pain clinic, but the earliest appointment is not until March 20.

This weekend, my brother-in-law Brian came Saturday and is going home today. We had a great barbecue in n Saturday with Shelley's and Jennifer's families with the girls boyfriends. Wonderful gathering, great food and talk. Today, we made a breakfast casserole and fruit salad. Shelley and Brian identified people in old pictured. Great time and hoping he come more often than every 4 1/2 years. Here are some pictures. 

Crystal and her boyfriend aren't in the picture, they left and Allysa's boyfriend took the picture

Brian, Paul's brother and Shelley

Kevin reading Harry Potter in a Hammock I just put up.
Great spot!

Shelley showed me a couple of stories my grandson Kevin did.  He's a writer! Here is one of the stories

Here's an article about planning ahead. 

http://www.pallimed.org/2015/02/10-practical-things-to-do-when.html?m=1

Here is a poem that is worth thinking about:

CRABBY OLD WOMAN

When an old woman died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in Moosomin, Saskatchewan, it was believed that she had nothing left of any value. Later, when the nurses were going through her meager possessions, they found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital. One nurse  took her copy to Alberta.

The old woman’s sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas edition of the News Magazine of the St. Louis Association for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on this simple, but eloquent, poem.

AND THIS LITTLE OLD WOMAN, WITH NOTHING LEFT TO GIVE TO THE WORLD, IS NOW THE AUTHOR OF THIS ‘ANONYMOUS’ POEM WINGING ACROSS THE INTERNET

CRABBY OLD WOMAN …

What do you see nurses? .. .. .. What do you see?
What are you thinking .. .. .. when you’re looking at me?

A crabby old lady .. .. .. not very wise,
Uncertain of habit .. .. .. with faraway eyes?

Who dribbles her food .. .. .. and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice .. .. .. ‘I do wish you’d try!’

Who seems not to notice .. .. .. the things that you do.
And forever is losing .. .. .. a sock or a shoe?

Who, resisting of not .. .. .. lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding .. .. .. a long day to fill?

Is that what you’re thinking? .. .. .. Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse .. .. .. you’re not looking at me.

I’ll tell you who I am .. .. .. as I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding .. .. ..as I eat at your will.

I’m a small girl of Ten .. .. .. with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters .. .. .. who love one another.

A young girl of Sixteen .. .. .. with wings on her feet,
Dreaming that soon now .. .. .. a lover she’ll meet.

A bride soon at twenty .. .. .. my heart gives a leap,
Remembering the vows .. .. .. that I promised to keep.

At Twenty-Five, now .. .. .. I have young of my own

Who need me to guide .. .. .. a secure happy home.

A woman of Thirty .. .. .. my young now grown fast,
Bound to each other .. .. .. with ties that should last.

At forty, my young sons .. .. .. have grown and are gone,
But my man is beside me .. .. .. to see I don’t mourn.

At Fifty, once more, .. .. .. babies play ’round my knee,
Again, we know children .. .. .. my loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me .. .. .. my husband’s now dead.
I look at the future .. .. .. and shudder with dread.

For my young are all rearing .. .. .. young of their own.
And I think of the years .. .. .. and the love that I’ve known.

I’m now an old woman .. .. .. and nature is cruel.
‘Tis jest to make old age .. .. .. look like a fool.

The body, it crumbles .. .. .. grace and vigor depart.
There is now a stone .. .. .. where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass .. .. .. a young girl still dwells,
And now and again .. .. .. my battered heart swells.

I remember the joys .. .. .. I remember the pain.
And I’m loving and living .. .. .. life over again.

I think of the years, all too few .. .. .. gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact .. .. .. that nothing can last.

So open your eyes, people .. .. .. open and see,
Not a crabby old woman .. .. .. look closer .. .. .. see ME!!!

Remember this poem when you next meet an older person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within.

We will all, one day, be there, too!

PLEASE SHARE THIS POEM
The best and most beautiful things of this world can’t be seen or touched. they must be felt by the heart.

Thank you so much for reading.  I was thinking of writing some of the experiences that Paul and I had traveling.  Some are very funny, some just different.  Let me know what you think of that.  Traveling with Paul was a wonderful thing.  I loved it.  And, there are some great stories to tell! So I will see you next Sunday.  I hope you have a good week.           Rachel