Author: Shirleyjdietz

I'm still finding out what I'm about but I think it has something to do with writing and connecting with people and serving God. I don't believe I have to understand it all in order to do it and am pretty content with what comes my way, day by day. I believe there is a God who created all of us, the world we live in, the science we think disproves Him, well, everything. I know my natural tendency is to think I don't need God and I need to be saved from that. I know I need a savior and I'm thankful I have one. The small glimpses I get from the here and now of what my real home is going to be like when God restores it all - that's what fuels me, stirs my sense of adventure, and keeps me going. Until then, I write about what is.

At Riverbend Farm

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I am in North Carolina, sitting in my trailer listening to the roar of the pressure washer as Kevin washes Julia’s vet truck. As you can imagine, it goes in dirty places around the countryside and gets in need of a good washing. When I last saw her, Julia was walking around the yard with the baby, probably looking for the next project.

It has not been that long, Labor Day weekend actually, since I saw Julia, Kevin and GwennieRu in Wisconsin. They came at the last minute when they realized they were not going to be able to join us for Thanksgiving. While they were with us, GwennieRu pretty much gave up crawling. She is loving her freedom to roam.

But I had already put plans in place to be here at Riverbend Farm for Julia’s birthday (tomorrow), so here I am. I arrived Sunday, late in the afternoon, just in time to have dinner with the family and their invited friends. The invited couple, with their five children, got the tour of the farm, the river, the pool and the new picnic tables, where we ate dinner. I spent most of the time getting reacquainted with GwennieRu, and listening to all going on around me.

Yesterday was my day to get settled in with groceries and checking out the trailer. The guest bedroom and bath in the newly remodeled basement is nearly ready, and I could soon have that as an option. But that is a decision for another day.

JULIA’S DAY OFF

Today, I jumped into family life. The three of us, Julia, Gwennie and I went to Bible Study Fellowship. It’s Julia’s weekly group study and I got to sit in. Gwennie went to the SeaTurtles group for childcare, which she apparently loves. The Westover BSF in Greensboro has hundreds of women enrolled and the facility is large enough to get lost in. It’s impressive that so many women are interested in studying the book of Revelation, and going to great lengths to do so.

Next was a pediatrician appointment for GwennieRu. She had a good time tearing up the paper on the exam table, but did not like having her ears examined. We are happy to know that she is up to the 30th percentile in her weight, and 90th percentile in height. In other words, tall and skinny, but overall healthy.

Getting home around noon left time for the big project of the week, castrating sheep. If you will, please go back and read post August 1, 2024 where the sheep almost died. Dr. Julia did not want to repeat that story. Fortunately, it turned out well this time. Not only did one sheep get castrated, but two got fixed, or broken, depending on the point of view. They are both doing well. One other “guy” got a reprieve since he was anemic, and another was also allowed to remain virile – I’m not sure why.

I helped with the first one, but after that GwennieRu woke up from her nap and needed someone to play with. I find both jobs very interesting.

We are teaching GwennieRu to play soccer. She’s a natural. Gonna be a goalie.

This story has been interrupted several times today, illustrating how difficult it is for me to find time to write. It is now night and I must get to bed so I can get up again early for another day at Riverbend Farm.

What? August is Half Over?!

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It’s more than half over – this month of August. I can already tell that it’s not light as early as it used to be. Summer is doing what it always does, going away.

But it’s been perfect this week, enough sun, enough rain, enough cool work weather. I love being up north.

– Hiked at Hunt Hill Audubon Camp. Such a beautiful 2.8 mile trek around lakes and forest. The blackberries are huge this summer and we had to grab a few off the bushes we went past.

Just one of the lakes we skirted.

– Worked on my first book project. I’m not reading this time, I’m writing. It is ready for editing. It’s about my journey with Dennis, through our years with Lewy Body Dementia.

– Connected with family over a breakfast at my condo, and with friends for breakfast at a restaurant. Breakfast is my major meal of the day. Why not share it with precious people?

– Thought and planned for the trip coming up in September.

– Got in a war with the deer and rabbits over possession of my flower garden

Garden beauty draws predators, and it’s not just because they’re hungry. There’s plenty to eat this time of year.

– Made some noticeable advances in my Spanish language learning

– Spent time with Mom and her brother, my Uncle Wendell. It’s good to have someone in my life who’s older than me, and there are fewer of those people around.

– Spent a lot of time watching videos of this munchkin.

Gwennie, my favorite video personality

– Gratitude time, walking the wetlands and counting the deer that cross my path. They are either not afraid of me, or I’m invisible now.

Two littles with spots and three adults. They knew they had me outnumbered and didn’t care what I would do.

Lastly, I spent hours trying to regain access to my blog website this week. Not sure how he did it, but Ryan Bruels got me back in possession, and I’m grateful for that. It’s not just physical journals that can suddenly become nonfunctional. There’s that web thing and all the entities behind it…

August 9, 2024 Friday and the Weekends

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There are many words that I say without thinking too hard about what I am saying.  The word “weekend” is one of those – most everyone knows what that word means.  Since I have been studying a new language (Spanish), I think more about what I’m actually saying in English. If a weekend is really the end of the week, it can be only one day, not two. Our two day weekend is actually weekends, one being on the front end and the other on the back. The first day and the last compromise the two ends of the week. Just thought I’d share that for no good reason. 

The days in between the two ends have gone so quickly. Wednesday, hump day, started with a bed headache and a poor night’s sleep. But it quickly got better because on that day I was reunited with my car. The auto body shop called early in the morning , and said it was ready. I walked (of course) to the auto body shop and picked it up.

Driving was a bit like meeting someone I haven’t met for a long time. I felt nervous, kind of shy and afraid I might accidentally bump into someone, or get in someone’s way. My clean, undented car was on the road, vulnerable, at the mercy of other drivers and my own stupidity. 

That Wednesday was also the day I got the letter of renewal from my auto insurance company. I can’t express how relieved I was. They hadn’t been going to renew my policy. It wasn’t because of the accident claim, but because of a speeding ticket back in 2022. I emailed an explanation, and begged them to take me back. I also had an agent willing to go to bat for me. They reconsidered and decided just to charge me more. I know all of this makes me out to be a really scary driver, but I’m not. Not yet. 

Work in progress. I’m hoping deer don’t like the taste of coneflowers.

I’m literally digging into my new garden project. It’s the small corner plot I mentioned before that I’m going to decorate with perennials. I like coneflowers. Since they were on sale, I bought a couple plants and put them in the sunniest part of the garden. I found a few others, already in the garden but needing to be moved into the sun. Now they are a group, and if they like each other, I think they will look really pretty, some day. That, and pulling weeds and grass, took up a lot of time on Thursday. 

This morning Gwen and I went to Henks Park for a walk. It has been quite cool all this week. Today, it was still only in the low 60’s, which meant no deer flies following us! It was so great and the woods were beautiful.

We go to Henks Park for the hills and ravines. Some good climbs.
Recently forested, there is a lot of new growth on the paths, and there is also Gwen, on the path.
The woods present some beautiful arrangements. That’s why we go out there.

And right now it is sunny and pouring rain at the same time! Nature does funny stuff, and we just have to go with it. 

Wishing everyone happy weekends!

August 6, 2024 Tuesday Teeth

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Tuesday is hiking day for my new bunch of friends, the Birkie Girls. Today’s instructions were to meet in the Walmart parking lot at 9:20 am to car pool to the trailhead some 20 miles away.  I was there early, because Walmart is in my backyard. Of course, I walked – still no car.  When no one showed up I started wondering if I had the wrong day, or the wrong time, but no. The email was clear. Apparently no one needed to car pool, and I hadn’t communicated that I needed a ride this time. So, no hike for me. Not to worry though. It’s evening now and I’ve gotten my 10,000 steps in doing gardening, and walking to the dentist.

This was the long awaited day to get the veneers on my top middle teeth. I have nothing good to say about the temporary set that I’ve had for two weeks. It was like my childhood nightmare of my teeth being loose and falling out come true. They were plastic and not very toothlike, hard to clean, and had to be re-glued once. The second time they fell out was yesterday so I put them back in and didn’t chew anything until my appointment this afternoon. The permanent ones are on now, and what a process. It must be very good glue that they use because it took a good hour to clean the residue out, and now my gums are sore. But they will heal.  My teeth look and feel normal again and I am glad to be done with it. I have spent way too much time in the dentist chair in the last month or so.

Now if I could just refurbish the rest of me…

I feel like teeth are important or I wouldn’t have gone through all this repair and refurbishment. I’ve seen too many unhealthy mouths, especially on the elderly, and I just don’t want those problems as I continue to age. 

I’m struggling with a gardening issue. I want to have a better perennial garden in the corner of the yard, but the deer keep eating the lillies. There’s a lot of Sweet William and Oregano there already but grass and weeds are prominent. A lot of the weeds are invasive species and have to go. Invasive weeds are a metaphor for a lot of what goes on in life…

I am serious about fixing these problems because I want it to be a memorial garden. It’s a garden that Mom started and has always loved and I want to keep it going for her. I also want to put the husband’s ashes somewhere in that space.

The corner garden. This will be my “before” picture.

On the other side of the fence from this corner garden is Walmart. And that will be a story for tomorrow. What on earth are they doing over there?

8/4/24

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Today, if I were writing in my poor, disabled planner, I would write that I met a friend for breakfast before church. Of course, I walked to the restaurant, being still without my car.  This friend used to call me regularly, often coming to my house to talk, often praying together, sharing our hobbies and adventures. Then that pattern stopped in a somewhat sudden manner, and that kind of abrupt change always worries me a little, especially when I know a person is going through some tough experience. We did some catching up over coffee and breakfast food and I reassured myself that she was doing okay. Things change, needs change, circumstances change but I still think it is best to risk annoying someone to find out when I have that nagging feeling that something might be wrong. They might just be waiting for someone to care. It was good to see her. We sat together in church, both alone, together. 

People, check on your friends.

I would also record that I’m worried about Shadow the cat, again. She has been markedly less active the last two days, less like herself in other ways as well, and definitely scratching and licking more. I am hoping that I did not create a set back by trying to wean her off the prednisone she was taking. 

I forgot to take my blood pressure medicine this morning. Having a different morning and breaking routine by going out resulted in forgetting. It’s not like it will kill me to skip one day but I’m aware how little it takes to distract me, and that can be scary.  Last week was unusual too and I missed two days. 

A subtle sadness has been hanging over me like a cloud. I wonder if it’s because I’ve been binge watching “Call the Midwife”.  Almost every episode finds me crying with the characters and aware of the hardships that ordinary people have faced, and still face. It is a good series, although it portrays many difficult and troubling social issues.  The television is my dinner companion most evenings.  I don’t even think about being alone if I have something interesting to watch.

I didn’t make the top three in Duolingo this week, and I don’t care. 

I took a walk in the meadow at sunset. It was very beautiful, with a soft purple and white blanket over the field. The flowers are so pretty and plentiful. It’s a shame that they are invasive species poised to take over the world. They get mowed regularly but it’s hard to keep up with them.

I have a lot of phone calls to make in the morning. I have to borrow my nephew’s car to take Mom to an appointment in a nearby town, and there was something else that didn’t get written down that I’m hoping to remember before it’s too late. I got an email saying the new planner had been sent out, and it can’t come too soon, in my opinion. I need my second brain back again. 

8/3/24 Warm Weather

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It is almost a week now that I have been without my car. The positive things about that are:

– I’ve gotten one on one time with several friends as I sit in their car getting a ride from them

– I’ve gotten a lot of exercise walking to and from appointments and to visit Mom in assisted living

– I’ve had lots of room in the garage to analyze my storage methods (not that anything has changed)

– I have a deepened appreciation for motorized travel of all kinds, particularly when it’s accompanied by air conditioning

– I’ve discovered short cuts walking about town and made good use of them

Wednesday I walked over 7 miles, on a very warm day.  At one point I emerged from the woods, one of my short cuts, and stumbled out onto the shoulder of the road. An approaching transit bus saw me and immediately started to pull over to pick me up. I appreciated the alertness of the driver but waved him on instead. I wasn’t ready to be saved yet, although I probably looked like I needed to be. 

I’m willing to say that this might be our hottest week of the summer here in Hayward. We don’t get that many of them. It’s also been a week of being a tourist in my own hometown, since I have visiting family members to hang out with. As I mentioned before, we did the obligatory stop to eat ice cream at West’s Dairy, had a relaxing hour at 3 Fly Sisters, and dinner at Angler’s. It seems like I’ve eaten out a lot lately.  Thanks to my brother Gary and his lady, Lyn, my patio grill has been used three times this week too. She puts the meal together, but Gary stands out in the heat cooking it. (Grilled chicken, corn on the cob, pasta with pesto, salad, peach cobbler – there were no complaints.)

It’s Lumberjack World Championship week, so town has been full of… lumberjacks? Maybe. I didn’t watch any of the contests, since that would have been one more thing to walk to.  

It’s looking like my tomato plants have recovered after being grazed on by our herd of deer.  I’ve picked my first cucumber.  All this proves that something likes this hot weather a lot.

Green is my absolute favorite color, and there is a lot of it out there now.

I’ve prayed this week about all the things that have been bothering me and have gotten answers on a couple of them. I always keep a running list of things I’ve lost on God’s desk. At the top of the list is my mailbox key.  I haven’t found it yet, but I was able to get a master key from my brother and have emptied the box. There was nothing of value to me in there, so, crisis averted.

And I’ve followed up on the phone call to my Julia. Life is too short to leave people wounded and wondering what was meant by a complex conversation. We know we love each other, and somehow God reassures and gives direction in how to communicate that.

So, it’s Saturday. I’m going to walk over to Water’s Edge Assisted Living and spend a couple hours with Mom. We are reading “The Good and Beautiful Life” by James Bryant Smith.  It’s giving us some interesting things to think about. 

August 1, 2024

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On this first day of August, 2024, I am at home feeling some unrest about a phone conversation last night with daughter Julia.  As careful as I try to be with words, sometimes I make the wrong choice. I know what I mean, but the platform of love from which I speak is not always what is heard. That is why I have been praying. I am asking God to be the communicator that I am not. 

I am also remembering the story she told me, over the phone, on Tuesday.  It was such an example of her unpredictable, eventful, and exciting life.  She was still laughing and smiling as she told it, and it gave us a chance to marvel with her. 

She has sheep, and has been learning to shear them herself.  One of her tasks for the day had been to get the woolly coat off the last young ram and then to castrate him. She is a veterinarian and has years of experience with this procedure, on multiple species of animals. However, sheep are surprisingly sensitive creatures. 

After getting his anesthesia, this poor little fellow stopped breathing altogether.  Julia started doing chest compressions and sent husband Kevin, who was watching while holding the baby, for some epinephrine.  I was trying to picture her doing chest compressions and rescue breathing on a sheep, but am not at all sure that I got it right.  I’m thinking it was somewhat of a miracle that Kevin found the right medicine, and that she was able to administer it several times, even right into the sheep heart. Reviving him was not quick or easy.  And then, somehow, Julia and the sheep were in the back of her truck while Kevin drove them to the vet hospital where she works. Fluids and a reversal drug seemed to put things in a better light.  The sheep survived and was recovering. 

Mom and I, my brother Gary and his partner Lyn, listened to her story while eating our ice cream cones on a bench in front of West’s Dairy.  It was kind of like having a treat while watching a good movie. 

This is a different sort of week for me. My car is at the car hospital having body work done and I am attempting to keep my appointments in town by biking or walking. We are having some of our hottest summer days, so I am arriving hot and sweaty to some places. And today it is raining off and on, which is another complication. I am supposed to mow grass at church, but for now I’m going to go help at the Resource Center for a while, and stay dry. 

When 2024 Got Soaked

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It was an unfortunate accident, unless you believe that there are no real accidents, just things we didn’t know would happen. There’s a difference.

I had filled my watering cans at the kitchen sink and set them on the counter. I intended to mix in some plant fertilizer before watering my brood. But for a couple of hours I turned my mind to something else and when I came again to the counter, I noticed that it was wet. Very wet. One of the cans evidently has a small leak. The counter would have been much wetter had it not been for my day planner, which soaked up all it could on every single page. It was dripping, heavy and sodden.

My day planner is not only my reminder of things to come, it is my memory of everything past. Most every day I record happenings and feelings, questions and observations, knowing that I can look back and say “on that day I did something, there it is.” Seven months of memory now is smeared, faded, crinkled and very sad looking.

I have many years of this same planner. I like its style, the amount of space it allows, and its size that fits easily in my purse – not too big, not too small. It goes with me almost everywhere I go. It is one of the first things I look at in the morning, and one of the last things I check at night. It’s a bit precious to me, and I’ve been known to get despondent when I can’t locate it and think it’s lost.

So, I’ve done what any resourceful writer would probably do, I ordered another one. If I can get the pages apart and they are still readable, I will copy every single word into the new one. I don’t care how long it takes.

Until the new one comes, I will have to write somewhere. I guess it will be here. This spot on the internet started out as a journal, a place to think in print. Writing is therapy, you know. It’s my way of checking in on myself to see how I’m handling the mundane, the trivial, the disappointments, frustrations, and mysteries of my own little life. For a while, it will be pretty mild, unimpressive, probably nothing quotable or wise, just life. However it is, it will get written. I have needed to do it in a more consistent, disciplined way, and now I will.

Maybe this soaked planner is just the result of an accident. But, if I decide to respond to it by writing more, making it a catalyst, using it to change a pattern, make a new habit, well then, it seems to me it’s more than just an accident. It could have been planned, only not by me.

That’s today’s story and I’m sticking to it.

It’s never going to close again.

One Year Ago

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This is June 20, 2024. It has been one year since the early morning when I sat by Dennis’s bed, holding his hand, as he took his last breath. Time has separated me from that experience, and so much has happened that I acknowledge it has been many months. And yet, it seems short, as if it were only yesterday. You would think I would be used to the craziness of time by now.

I have gone back to the beginning of the story by reading my blog posts from 2018 and on. The good thing about this reading exercise is that it helps me remember details, some of them tragic, some of them ridiculously funny. I also lit the remembrance candle while doing this – a sort of ceremony. I will probably go to the cemetery later and see if the plants around his marker have taken root. I expect the day to be full of memories of our Lewy Body time, but also of simpler times when we didn’t know what was coming.

I haven’t had trouble continuing with life. It is good, this June, to be able to put bouquets of peonies around the house, to consider going to events during the local festival, to meet new friends in a hiking club. There has been too much to do to even consider sitting around feeling depressed or lonely. I miss Dennis, but there is nothing like a prolonged period of sickness and suffering to make it clear that death was a relief for him, and for me. And there is nothing like faith in God to make it clear that death is not the end, even though there are not a lot of details about what comes next.

As I watch our little granddaughter, whom Dennis did not get to meet, grow and become amazing, I’m aware of how closely together his departure and her arrival were. I view it as providential that he was able to look at the early ultrasound and recognize it as “Julie’s baby”. He would be so proud of her now.

Our little Gwendolyn Ruth

It was providential that he was present at both daughters weddings during the covid years. It was providential that each difficult part of the worst five years of our lives held such precious, significant moments. There were times when relationships were formed, and deepened, times when we didn’t expect help but it was there anyway. Times when we endured things we didn’t think we could endure, and found strength we didn’t know we had.

Thank you God, for being real to me through it all. You were, you are and you will be present with me. That gives me a lot of peace, freedom from worry and a weird sense of confidence. Pretty happy about that, just sayin’…

Being Grandma in 2024

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This year has produced three times with GwennieRu so far. The first was in December – February when she had her heart surgery, the second was when she visited Wisconsin in April, and now I am with her and the family again at the end of May.

I chose this date to come because Daddy Kevin and the boys were traveling to a baseball game in Baltimore for three days. During that time, it was me, Julia, Gwennie, Ryleigh and her girlfriend, and Reagan and her girlfriend holding things together at the farm. We all helped with baby care. I helped with farm chores and some landscaping projects. We women can do some awesome getting along when we set our minds to it.

The boys left Thursday afternoon, earlier than I was expecting. I was out getting my food supplies when the nanny called me and wanted to know who was taking over, as she needed to get home. I did a U-turn and came home to relieve her. Julia was soon home from work and we started our time without the men.

Friday morning – well, first I must explain about the dogs. Back in February I mentioned the mating of Penny the lab, and Hanky Panky the poodle. Eight puppies resulted from this union. The planned kennel area in the basement had not materialized and the puppies had been born and raised in the living room and kitchen, upstairs. Sales of Doodles have dropped off since Covid time and the six remaining puppies are now 10 weeks old. Previously, it had been a challenge living with the three adult dogs who are good at being in the way at every opportunity. Now there are nine dogs. Six of them are still in the process of being trained. Six of them are small enough to slip under the chain link fence when left outside. Need I say more.

We are so cute, and we know it.

Friday morning my first trick was mixing cereal, getting Gwennie in the high chair and feeding her. It didn’t go quite as planned. When Gwennie doesn’t want something, like sitting in the high chair, she makes it impossible to happen. Fighting her and the newfangled baby equipment resulted in a bowl of cereal upside down on the carpet and a distressed child (not to mention a distressed grandma).

Julia left for work, and I took Kevin’s usual job of watching Gwennie until the nanny arrived. I had not quite caught on to the morning routine, and Gwennie could tell. I picked her up to comfort her and walked to the kitchen in time to see several puppies, outside, on the wrong side of the fence. Babe in arms, I rushed out to secure them before they ran away.

Calling “puppies, puppies, puppies” as I had heard Julia doing, I opened the gate expecting them to come back in the yard. Instead, the puppies who had still been in the yard ran out to play with their siblings as I struggled to control the flow. Gwennie was mesmerized, clinging to me as, one handed, I tried to scoop them in the right direction. Once in the yard, they followed me into the house and I shut their doggy door. Thankfully, the nanny arrived and I went out to find the new escape route and block it.

Doing that, the feeding chores, and a good bit of weed whacking took most of my day. Later that evening, as I was telling Julia about my morning, she dejectedly asked me if this visit was turning out to be as bad as the last time. Seeing the situation on the farm through the lens of my writing had been kind of hard on her. That is the tricky thing about writing experiences of the kind where one has to laugh to keep from crying. In reality, Julia has to do this ALL THE TIME, and I know she is doing the best job she can. I am now learning to laugh more while in the midst of the normal chaos. Just so you know Julie, my visits to you and the family are rich with all kinds of experiences that I do not regret or shy away from.

Tomorrow, my week of substitute nanny begins. I am looking forward to being with Gwennie, the family, the dogs and puppies. Just sayin’…

Don’t worry Grandma. You will get the hang of it, eventually.