No reason for the goats except that I loved their ears and how they looked at my beagle.  I think the goats may have been confused because Lucy's ears resemble theirs;  they found Lucy quite interesting.

We're short again at work.  Three nurses moved on to different jobs.  It will get better again but right now it's tough.  My girlfriend is back to work which is very nice.  She was off for a long time;  she has bipolar disorder.  I missed her while she was gone.  We would meet for coffee but it's not the same as working together.  She's got such a good sense of humor, an evil laugh and is a wonderful hugger.  She makes work better.

Another girlfriend is coming over for supper with her little girl.  I bought a black barbie doll with curly hair because her little girl was sad because she wanted straight hair like all the Disney princesses.  I never thought much about how important it is to see images that look like you.  I have a box full of toys but no black dolls, so now I do.   I have a brisket cooking in the oven, made a cake for dessert and even bought some wine for us.

I still haven't seen my son.  It's been nine months now.  We stay in contact by text but I still don't trust him.  I stay in contact with his girlfriend as well.  We will have to have them over for supper eventually.  I want his girlfriend to know she is always welcome here.  When I got pregnant with my son thirty-five years ago, everybody was angry.  I wouldn't marry my son's father which upset even more people, especially my sister.  It was a time of stress and drama.  It don't want my grandbaby to feel unwanted.  A baby deserves to be loved and wanted.

My middle daughter is coming next weekend for Thanksgiving.  She just started a new job so I haven't had much contact with her;  one of her girlfriends is getting married and she's the maid of honor so she's been busy.  It'll be nice to visit with her and cook with her.  I miss her being so far away.

Miss Katie will be all moved in three weeks.  It can't come soon enough for me.  When she's away from that agency I plan on making some complaints but until she's moved I'll keep my own counsel.

The weather hasn't been all that nice but I did take this photo as few days ago while walking Lucy.  Even when I'm dead tired I have to take the dog for a walk after supper and it's good thing.  I get to spend time with the trees which always lifts my spirits.

The big guy and I met with the new agency today to go through stuff and sign papers.  The people that we've dealt with have all been kind, compassionate, enthusiastic and knowledgeable.  It's such a change.  After that meeting we drove to the south side to inspect the house that has been rented for Katie.  It's nice.  It's really nice.

After that we drove to Ikea to buy stuff for Katie's place.  She had a fully furnished apartment eight years ago when she was first cared for by the agency that is now evicting her.  When I asked what had happened to her stuff I was told by the owner that her "stuff" had been discarded and he didn't have time to argue with me.  So now Katie needs everything again.  I'm keeping all the receipts for her stuff and plan on doing something when she's out of the home she's in now.  Perhaps small claims court, something, maybe social services.  I don't know but you don't mess with my daughter.

Then we went out for lunch and I started crying.  I was so energized, excited, jittery after the meeting this morning that I talked all the way to the new home and then I crashed.  It all seems so good, so wonderful that I have trouble believing it's real.  It's so far removed from what I've experienced with Katie and agencies and caregivers that I don't trust this good feeling.  Isn't that sad?

Even the big guy, he's given me more support with Katie than her own father ever gave me which makes me want to cry again.  He loves his step daughter as if she were his own.  He appreciates her, understands what an amazing human being she is and he fully supports her.  He doesn't see her as defective.

Yesterday was my birthday and the big guy and I went out to see "The Book of Mormon".  I loved it!  It's deeply irreverent and filled with swearing so pretty much right up my alley.

And now we're relaxing.  It snowed again last night and there is more snow in the forecast.  It will be gone by next week but right now it's good to just slow down and do nothing productive for a change.

I'm beat tonight, had a busy, hard day at work.  Yesterday I had a five year old boy that needed an IV started for his MRI scan.  He was so quiet.  It breaks my heart when we have children.  Most of the kids stay over at the U but we get kids for radiation.

One of my patients today ended up with a huge hematoma on her arm from an old IV site.  I asked her if she was on any blood thinners and she started crying and said she had cancer.  I gave her a hug and three warm blankets because she couldn't stop shaking.

Another patient came down at lunch time.  We had put a PICC line in him yesterday at the end of the day and during the night he was hallucinating and pulled the PICC line out.  He felt bad but even worse, he was worried that the cancer had spread to his brain.  What do you say?  A few months ago he was playing golf four days a week and now he's dying of cancer.

I had one patient this morning who is an old drug addict, not that old and not that long off of drugs.  He kept falling asleep as I was explaining things to him.  He actually fell asleep on the table while we put his line in.  Normally I'm fairly patient but he irritated me today, mostly because we were too busy.  On the way home I thought about him.  The man is homeless, he's an old drug addict, he's diabetic and has cancer.  I'm pretty fortunate actually.  I have a home, someone I love and who loves me, I'm healthy and I have a job.

But it snowed here.  So there's that.  Most of it melted today but it's still cold outside with more snow in the forecast.  It will melt but really?

And the dog's back has been acting up.  She has spondylosis which means her discs are degenerating and there are bone spurs growing on her vertebrae.  She doesn't understand this and doesn't understand that the pain is coming from within her body, not from outside of her body.  She looks at us when her back hurts, as if we've done something to her.  She's on anti-inflammatories which are helping.

Thankfully it's the weekend.

"In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks." John Muir 

Medicine Lake.

I love reading.  I escape into books, into the lives and stories of others.  The first chapter book I remember reading was "Charlotte's Web" and I fell in love with a spider and a pig.  When I was a child I would often hide in the bathroom reading and at night I would read long past my bedtime, buried under the covers.

I am in awe of writers who weave stories like tapestries, using only words to create new worlds.  But I also like reading because we all have stories, our lives are stories.  My story begins with a baby born to a family who had already lost five babies.  I was a surprise and a blessing, although it never felt like that to me.  I always felt like an outsider.  My story continues on to this day, through good times and bad, through children and husbands, through deaths and births.  All of my life has led me to this point where I can look back and see myself as I was and how I still hope to be.

The beauty of getting older is that so much of my story has already been written, it is a matter of laying it down on paper, not an insignificant task.  I was telling the big guy the other day about my divorce and my ex-husband, about being locked out of my home, about having the police called on me, about everything awful that happened that year and I told him that somebody said to me, "This must be the worst thing ever." and I said, "No.  The worst thing that ever happened to me was being told Katie was handicapped.  Realizing that the baby that I thought I had, had died.  That was the worst thing ever."  And to this day it still is.

Katie shaped my life, my children shaped my life really.  When my son was only two weeks old I applied to nursing school because I had already realized that there was no way his father would be able to support us or stick around.  My middle daughter was my easy baby, she made me want to be a mother and Katie, Katie broke my heart but she also wrapped herself around that broken heart and held it together.  She still does to this day.

I have been a mother since I was twenty years old.  I have also been a sister, girlfriend, friend, wife, lover, nurse and photographer but I am always a mum.  We all have our stories, how we became the people we are.