life

wow.  over a year since i've written anything.  basically 2016 sucked big pink donkey balls except for my wedding which was awesome. :-)

since i live my life out loud on social media, i feel like writing here is redundant.  like, how many times can you hear me tell the same story?  (hush)  so i decided to just write about what's been on my mind, what's bugging me, what's stressing me, just write and get out the words i need to puke out.

i'm not planning on sharing this link on facebook, so i doubt this will even get read, but the point is to write.

all in all, life is good.  really, incredibly good.  i am blessed beyond belief with my husband,  family and friends, a beautiful home and animals that i adore.  i feel like my life reads as a fairy tale, and that's probably true.  but nobody's life is perfect all the time.  nobody.

i'll start with...

politics

something i never paid attention to before.  and something that i rarely post about on facebook.

anyone who knows me knows i'm a big ol' liberal with a big ol' heart.  compassion is still a new feeling for me.  i didn't have a compassionate heart until sobriety in mid-2009... so it still amazes me each and every time my compassion is touched.  i don't take it for granted.  i guard it fiercely.  and i'm not ashamed to show it to everyone.

so obviously i'm not happy with the current state of affairs.   i didn't unfriend hundreds of people (i hid quite a few, LOL), in fact i've only blocked one person since the election.  i would read the trending news and  i would expand comments to try and figure out what they saw in him.  how they could possibly support him.... and you know what i found?  yes, lots of name calling and brutal words used against strangers and friends alike.  but i also read comments that sounded exactly how we sounded only about us.  literally the exact same things... they felt as strongly as we did, but just the opposite.

and they were just as hurt as i felt. we're the same.

the amount of pain in this world right now is palpable.  you can see it and taste it... so many black auras... so much hate and anger.

and then charlottsville happened.  and that was the straw... i knew something would be the straw that motivated me into having a voice.

my view is simple.  any white supremacy group is bad.  i don't care that there was a permit, i don't think that permit ever should have been issued.  i don't believe in giving hate a voice.  gatherings should be abolished.  there's no reason for them to exist.

i got pissed when dt didn't name them.  when he placed blame on all sides.  sorry... don't agree. there are no sides here.  they don't get a side.  they are hate.

i got pissed again when he read a script with better words than the first time because now it's too late so why even bother..

and i got really pissed when his third statement finally showed his true feelings because... bigot...

an british friend of mine said to me "over here many of us feel like he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, it doesn't seem to matter what he does."

i explained to her that it's not a matter of 'damned if he does or doesn't' - it's that he always does the wrong thing first.  always. and we rail at him. so then if he does finally do the right thing or say the right words, it's too little, too late.

ah... politics.  sad state of affairs.

so there's stress in all that, worrying if we're going to get nuked, worrying how far putin really has gone, worrying about another war, worrying if there's going to be another civil war...

and addiction.

we have active addiction as an ongoing part of our lives, both families.  it has ripped the families apart.  our hearts are in a constant state of 'when is the phone call coming?'.

i have nothing more to say on that subject.  anyone that has lived it understands.

and health.

it's been a rough twelve months.  i'm finally feeling back to normal in most cases, my back is so much better, but still a daily thing to deal with.  the thing that helped the most after trying everything?  yoga.  stretching.  walking.

it was an expensive year doctoring.  which brings me to...

insurance.

why the phuck does it have to be so expensive?  we're at the point where we aren't going to be able to pay these premiums much longer.  in november i will be forced to choose a horrible plan just to save money... going without isn't an option.  the two of us pay almost $1,500 each month for coverage... and that's not even the greatest of coverage.  high copays... lots of denials... where will it all end?

art.

i slowly churn out creations.  the osteo-arthritis in my hands, and mystoopid lower back  limits me, but doesn't stop me.  for every day i spend in the studio, i spend a day recouping.  so i go in for short spurts until pain hits.  the limitations are an aggravation but not a wall.

what it has shown me is that my vision of being a profitable working artist needed to shift in a new direction.  i'm still creating.  i will always create.  i will still put my pieces up for sale, and vendor a festival when i desire.  but i physically can't do what i would need to do to live on that income.

and i'm finally ok about that.  i stepped back from the birdhomes   they were successful and i enjoyed them until i didn't anymore.  will i make someone a birdhome if they ask?  of course! i have a ton of blank stock... LOL

so i added art into my stress list because the shift in my soul was a slow, painful realization and process.

cannabis.

just legalize it everywhere for goodness sake.  it's a ridiculous argument to even be having.

so........there's just some of the things on my mind.  i'm not losing sleep over any of them... yet.

i'm concentrating on the good stuff.  my husband.  my home.  my bonus kids.  my bonus grandbaby. my animals. my family and my friends.  the magic patio.

this is logan.  :-)

grief.

18 days ago my brother bob died.

it was 18 days from diagnosis to death.  it was 18 days of fear, pain and sadness.  there were brief moments of hope, and frequent moments of despair.

in the very beginning the doctor's were optimistic that they could shrink the amount of cancer in his body.  but it quickly became apparent after his first chemo treatment that something more was wrong.   he steadily went downhill and on sunday he was brought the the hospital.  they did a ct scan and had to tell him that the cancer had exploded inside his body and was everywhere.

just like when  my mother got the same diagnosis, my brother handled the news and the outcome with amazing grace and strength.  he was sad, he was emotional, but he accepted his fate.  he had faith, and he was calm.

i, on the other hand, have not handled anything well. on monday i was able to remain strong in front of him, spending the short amount of time i had sitting by his bedside while he slept, telling him i loved him.  he was lucid enough at that time to respond... our family grouped together, as small as it is.  bob's ex-wife was a rock, handling everything she could since she was only one mile away from him.  she stepped up and i will never forget, or be able to thank her enough.

his two daughters.  the oldest, 21, literally 3 days away from her due date with his first grandchild.  and the youngest, 12.  my angelina... autistic and having a hard time understanding what happened to her papa, and my other brother.

i'm having a hard time understanding that also.

i've written out the basic details.  i'm grieving so incredibly hard that i'm having trouble coping with my feelings.  there are other things going on in my life right now that are hard, and emotional and i'm not reacting the way i would normally react.  i recognize this as grief and i'm trying to give myself a huge break... but i'm failing miserably.

i'm apologizing to people left and right.  everyone has been incredibly understanding.  jeff has been a rock - with everything that's going on around us right now it's comforting to have him right there by my side, supporting me and loving me.

but there's a huge looming issue that has upset me to no end... and since i know my anger is somewhat misplaced these days, i'm hanging tight before exploding.

that issue is hunterdon medical center.  i know this same issue is countrywide.  but it just got real personal.

i am not faulting his nursing care.  i wasn't in his room long enough to know what that was like. i pray he was comfortable.

here's what i know.

1) he was brought into ER on sunday evening. told there was no hope.   i could see with my own two eyes how serious his condition was on monday.  no movement.  no ability to lift his head.  dozing on and off.  hospice had been called in.  i remember from my mother's death what end of life looked like, and this is what it looked like.  i knew he didn't have weeks.  i figured 2-3 days at the most.

2) by the time i was able to get to the hospital on monday, it was close to 10:00am.  and we were already made aware that different teams were going to be meeting with us during the day to discuss 'everything'.

3) i was able to see early on that none of the teams worked 'together'.  there was no communication between them.  nobody was able to give us a straight answer other than to push us off to the next 'team'.  and when the perky little dietitian wanted to discuss his meal choices even though he was clearly past 'eating' i almost lost it.  more on this later.

4) we were advised by someone, and i forget who now (there were so many) that we had to find a place for my brother to go immediately.  that he wasn't sick and needing hospital care, he was dying and needed hospice care.  but that hospice care was not going to happen in the hospital because medicare won't pay them his room and board.

who do we call? we asked... oh, there's a few places in the area that hospice works with you need to all go start calling places, we'll give you names you can google them.

i'm sorry, what?  you're really going to make us move him in the condition he's in?

yes.

after i burst out crying, they went on to advise us that medicare won't cover the room and board anywhere we bring him, we need to pay out of pocket, and it will be no less than $10,000 deposit to bring him in, oh, and then there's the transport charges on top of that.  but you can try to get medicaid and see if they'll accept him.  medicaid will pay for it.

5) i call the first number on the list and sure enough they have a bed for him and it's $350 per day and you'll need to pay 30 days up front.  not willing to discuss possible medicaid coverage if it's not already in effect.

6) then the palliative care team - with their leaflets and pamphlets and lists of numbers and organizations and sickly corporate smiles.

more numbers to call more people to ask what to do next....

now.

ask me where we all were for the last hours of my brother's life?

in meetings with these people because they had to guarantee medicare would cover their charges.

for a man who was at the immediate end of his life.   and i know that people can surprise you and last for weeks like this - trust me on this one.  i knew.

i spent more hours in meetings than i did at my brother's bedside.

and you know what?  that's a fucking sin.  that's a sin against humanity...

oh wait... there is no humanity there.  none.  it was all about the money from start to finish.

that hospital was going to make us move my brother to a gurney, leave the hospital and take him in an ambulance to a nursing home, get him situated there, and hope someone would take care of him.

a man that had hours to live.  they didn't care.  they don't consider end of life to be a reason to be in the hospital.

ok, well then have a fucking hospice in place IN that same hospital.  don't put the patient OR the family through what we went through... and i'm sure we're not the only ones.

and if that's not possible, have one team with clear concise answers with the steps we needed to take at what times.  not a mish mosh of people in suits with papers and pamphlets.  taking us away from what would be the last hours i would ever be able to hear my brother's voice, or look into his eyes.  

oh, and i forgot #7) when his 9 month pregnant 21 year old daughter in a fit of despair walks 5 miles to the hospital at 3:00am to sit by her father's side and had been told earlier in the day that she could visit 24/7, she was turned away at the door by the guard.  got so worked up she thought she went into labor and they had to rush her over to the ER to be checked out.  (when we told the funeral home director this his eyes bugged out and he was appalled)

i know this is occurring all over the country.  the way we are treated at end of life is damaged... and that's just inhumane.  i kept asking myself and others 'what if a person has no one?' end of life is ascary enough without worrying about your loved ones having to go through what we did.

the system is wrong.  so wrong... end of life should not be this hard.... it's hard enough.

dangly things...

i'm not even sure what happened but i found myself stringing a blingy dangly thing out of the 'meh' collection of beads on hand... and then hitting michaels for over $100 worth of beads...

hey they were 50% off.  totally justified.

you can find them for sale at scranberry coop - in the artisan room.

click here to read about scranberry coop

i'm also doing a handful of them as a donation to mel at wnti.org internet radio as a fundraising item.

every so often i need a short break from birdhoming, or i'm waiting for paint/glue to dry... and i sit on the couch (not warm enough yet for magic patio) and bead...

except nobody warned me about the cat being very, VERY interested in said beads.

thanks a whole lot.

brave.

brave is a big word in my life.  so when i was commissioned to do this home, i knew from personal knowledge that it needed to be infused with 'brave'...

and when i tell you this home flew together like magick... it practically made itself.  each object on here was placed with intention - and every object told ME it needed to be on there.   this doesn't happen with every object on every home, but when it flows through an entire home all at once, i know i've tapped into some amazing vibration... some beautiful frequency...

if you would like to have your own one of a kind infused with soul birdhome, click me

my commissioner had only two requests - the color and 'rustic'.

this is brave:

broach motel

self explanatory...

ouch. just.plain.ouch.

very few people are aware of the problem i have with my hands.  i have developed chronic, sometimes severe, hand pain.  i don't talk about it on social media, except brief references. i dislike complaining about aches and pains.   

it's hard to pin point when it got too much  to bear, but it sent me to the urgent care over the summer because they ached so badly i couldn't stop the tears.

the pain originates in the very base of the thumb, down near the wrist.

arthritis, i figured.  i have vivid memories of my mother complaining about her "arthritic thumbs".

ibuprofen would sometimes help, but i hate taking medication.  i tried all the herbal things, (except turmeric, which is next) copper gloves, copper bracelets, copper rings, braces, heat, ice, arnica topical, arnica homeopathic meds... next up - accupuncture.

i saw an infectious disease specialist in september to rule out a tick borne disease.  all that was negative, and the doctor said "i think it's tendonitis, i don't see any evidence of arthritis in your hands except your right forefinger" (which i knew, it's an ugly bent finger that i swear at almost daily).  he advised me to see an orthopedic to rule out other things...

so then life got hectic to say the least and my hands calmed down a bit, enough to make me lax.  until it got so painful again that i couldn't take it.  last tuesday i saw the orthopedist hand specialist.  he took xrays.

and even i could see the arthritis... osteoarthritis - the base of each thumb the worst.  he shook his head and said "it's bone on bone.  both hands.  it's riddled with bone spurs.  both hands."

medication.
no.
why not?
first of all i won't take a narcotic - they make me puke.  all of them.
and b - even ibuprofen or aleve is bad for me.  they play with my liver numbers, apparently i'm sensitive - all those lovely years of alcohol, i'm sure.

brace?
no. tried it.

copper?
nope.  tried it.

well - how about a particularly nasty surgery where i clean it all out and cut a piece of bone off and we take a tendon from your forearm and put it in your thumb so that it doesn't collapse and be shorter.

oh my.

well, i can inject each joint with cortisone.  you can have one shot every three months if needed, but this should help at least a little.
bring it on doc.

i've had a cortisone shot before.  in my shoulder many years ago after a chair-exiting incident.

and then hell arrived in the form of 2 needles, 2 bandaids and some alcohol wipes.

i won't go into gory detail, but if there's one joint you never want injected with cortisone, it's that one.  and lucky me, i got to have each one done!

i drove back to work in tears.  i allowed myself a little pity party.  i was so disappointed in my diagnosis because i had an expectation.  i expected him to say 'tendonitis'.  and words like 'massage' 'physical therapy' and 'will feel better'.

instead i got the opposite.  and that's where the pity party came in.  i allowed those tears for just a short moment and had a couple of brief moments later on when i told my coworkers and then jeff.  and then i dusted off my brave girl thongs and thought about handling life changers with grace instead of self pity.

self pity was only going to dig me deeper into a dark pit.  my mind was already trying to figure out how i was going to live with this level of pain on a daily basis.  plus it affects my art - my hands are my livelihood.

i remembered how my mother handled me telling her that her cancer wasn't responding and that time was short.  she put her head down for a moment.  i swear, less than 5 seconds.  and then raised her head, looked me in the eye with clear eyes of her own, and said "well then we'd better get this place packed up!"

i never saw her shed one tear after that.  if she had meltdowns, she did them on her own - not that we wanted her to do that - trust me.  but she refused to do that.  and i respected her for that - she just set out to enjoy as much of life as she could in the time remaining - whether it was a trip to the pizza parlor or asking me to paint smiley faces on her toenails so she could smile when she looked at them.

and i should feel sorry for myself? pfffttt.  people have it much worse than me.  i lead a mystical, magical, loved filled life.  unfortunately, pain is a part of it.

the good news is that so far, one week later after shots, my hand pain is reduced by about 75%, with cautionary twinges rather than constant aching.  for this relief alone i am grateful.

i actually started this blog post not to go into such detail about my issues, but to show you all the cool stuff i had to get to be able to do my assemblage art without killing myself with hand pain.  the chop saw, the scroll saw and the belt sander are all craft size - they're small and PERFECT.

hand tools do me the worst harm, so i had to reduce the amount of that...

my only worry, and probably the worry of most of the free world, is that i'm extraordinarily clumsy and accident prone and now i have power tools to help me along.

FREE.

did that get your attention?



free.  30 days free.  brave girls university.  put my name - sanditygar - no spaces in the coupon code area - and you'll receive 30 free days to roam around, take classes, see what it's all about.   click and have some fun... brave girls university - click here!!

god speed my beautiful gargoyle...

we said goodbye to sabre this morning. 

she was an awesome dog, and we loved her.  these past two weeks have been almost surreal.

did someone say christmas was next week?????????

she had many good days, which made me glad we waited and her bad days were only 'quiet' days, where she didn't have the strength to walk around... she was in no pain. 

this week she had good days on monday and tuesday.  in fact, tuesday evening we were playing with her ball and she was running all over the place with her hysterical wigglebutt. 

wednesday morning she was fine, ate her breakfast as normal and went out and did her thing. 

i got home wednesday evening to find her in her 'quiet' time.  but it seemed deeper than normal.  her breathing had changed just ever so slightly.   i've been watching her so closely these past 14 days that i notice every single thing about her.  she'd been very clingy monday and tuesday, i remarked to jeff that this was unusual for her, angel is my clingy one. 

she struggled to get up and drink water, something she craved when in her quiet time.  she struggled back to her crate and promptly threw it all back up, plus some. 

and i knew it was time. 

after cleaning her up, and the crate, and laundering everything, she settled on the floor and i covered her with a warmed up quilt. 

and i sat on the floor with her for a long, long time and we talked about life and i told her she was the best girl evah and that i loved her.... over and over again.  

we called the vet as soon as they opened this morning and brought her over.   wonderful office, i highly recommend this group - they go above and beyond - every single time i've been in there.  blairstown animal hospital.

as jeff and i held her, i put my nose near hers and looked in her eyes and told her how much we loved her... over and over again...

and then she was gone. 

and a piece of my heart went with her.   but a piece of hers remains in mine forever. 

godspeed...

how do you live with a dying dog...

i sit here typing at my laptop, in the comfort of my living room... a day off from work.   i watch sabre, my brown pit bull mix, rolling around in the splotch of warmed sunny carpet in front of me... her tongue lolling happily from side to side as she smiles as only a pit can.

and yet she's dying.

not literally as i type this, (she's way too busy enjoying the moment of warm sun, carpet, and potential belly rubs from anyone that may cross her path) but soon.

too soon.

some may know how sabre came into my life, but for those that don't, here's the cliff notes:

jeff and i fell in love a little over 2 years ago.  he moved out of his house, and into my townhome.  this past february we  moved back into his house, and we inherited two of the five or six dogs that resided there.

the white dog, angel.  a pit mix.  she's a mushy love, a real mommy's girl. 

the brown dog, sabre. a pit mix. she's another mushy love, and if you feed her or rub her belly she'll love you forever.

we knew these were the two dogs that were being left with us.  although i'm a dog lover, i've never cared for more than one at a time, and had never been exposed to the dreaded pit bull.  so yeah, although jeff assured me these dogs were the coolest bestest dogs in the world,  i was a little ascared.

all that fear vanished the moment i met angel.  while still living in the townhouse, jeff would go get angel and bring her home to me for a sleepover so that we could get to know each other.  i fell in love with her.  but he didn't do that with sabre, explaining that she had some medical complications and wouldn't make a good overnight guest.

i met sabre the day i moved in.  i remember this massive headed beast barreling at me - her wide chest looked huge as it approached and i held my breath and it was fine.

 i realized what jeff told me was totally true - these dogs are awesome.  behaved, trained, lovable dogs. they have been my constant companions for ten months.

three weeks ago i got the flu for the first time in my life.  holy CRAP was i sick.  angel never left my side.  i am not exaggerating this - she went everywhere with me.  EVERYWHERE.   i would open the shower curtain and she'd be sitting outside the bathtub.

sabre wasn't quite as attentive - sabre's #1 request is food, #2 request is belly rubs and ear scratches, #3 request is food. (do you see where this is going?)

both dogs were rescues.  sabre was used as a breeder bitch, and she is the ultimate 'mother'.

she loves to play ball with me, in her clumsy way, she's an... awkward dog.   she loves to sit with her huge head hanging low on her chest looking every BIT like a gargoyle.

 we got word the fall before we moved in that sabre had cancer.  mast cell i believe.   so we knew we were on borrowed time with her - but the vet saw her over the summer and was thrilled with how good she was doing, and felt that she could go a good while longer.

i remember her happy face while we drove home from the vet.  it was so cute i took a pic while jeff was driving.  look at this face.  a new lease on life.

it was like she knew what the doctor said....

but thanksgiving day something happened.  i was in the kitchen, jeff and danny were outside playing with logs and splitters.  sabre exited her bed and shakily just crumpled in front of me.  i held her and i could tell she was totally disoriented.  i left her briefly to call jeff inside and we sat with her for a while, soothing her.  she couldn't get up.   after a bit it seemed to ease a little and she shakily got up and drank water.  the boys carried her outside in the warm sun to the grass where she always loved to be.   after a time she seemed to rally and i brought her inside since the air had gotten chilly.  she went to bed and slept.  no interest in food, which is enough to tell anyone that sabre is SICK.   for her not to be begging at the entrance to the kitchen would be highly unusual.

the next day she was fine.  like nothing had happened.

we knew something was happening, and in our hearts we knew what that was.  when she had another spell on tuesday i called the vet.  sabre had some xrays and bloodwork and then ultimately an ultrasound.

that ultrasound showed what was going to kill my beautiful gargoyle.   her liver was completely shot through with cancer... and causing a slow bleed into her abdomen.

she's not in pain.  she's 'subdued'.

time left?  maybe a month according to the doctor's best guess.

or... the bleeding may suddenly worsen and she'll die suddenly.

the vet and i cried on the phone together yesterday.

if the time comes that she is in any discomfort or her quality of life is gone, we will do the right thing.  

there's nothing that can be done.   i was going to type that we will love her unconditionally for the rest of her short days, but we already do that so this changes nothing.

although she may get extra treats.  just sayin...

and then came grace...

a good friend for many years lost her 'one' recently... and this house was commissioned with what he always thought their yard needed - a purple birdhouse. 

this is a good example of what an outdoor style birdhouse looks like.  more paint techniques and more attention paid to how things are attached.

more pics to follow later on...when the light gets real golden...

www.sandisbirdhomes.com 

persephone

this one was a fighter - she had her own mind and her own voice.  commissioned by jeanne bessette, her request was 'copper, the number 11, and crow.'

i can do that.

where can you commission one? go here:  www.sandisbirdhomes.com

brave girls university!!

it's finally HERE!

i looked at the list of teachers in this group and my jaw is still on the ground.  there's enough talent there to keep everyone busy for a long time....

if you're undecided, just click the link and look at the list of teachers.  i'm salivating.  and i don't even have gelato in front of me...
brave girls university
 

magic patio...

if you're friends with me on facebook (and haven't hidden me for prolific idiotic posting) you've heard me talk about my magic patio.   and you've probably seen pics also - i'm in love with this area of my home and spend as much time as possible there.

sometimes jeff and i will sit for hours just talking and enjoying beautiful weather... or warm nights... or early morning tea.    it keeps me from housework, that's for sure.  i'd much rather read and pet furfaces on the magic patio.

i don't even know why i named it the magic patio.  it just named itself really.

our close friend tzveta davinci was over for a picnic this past weekend, and she took a ton of photos - she saw our magic patio through new eyes - and i guess i was just used to looking at everything and got a bit blase (make believe there's a little umlat thingymabob over the 'e' please) like blah-zay.  and then seeing tzveta's photos truly showed me that this patio and surrounding gardens really are..

magical.

tzveta davinci (isn't that a cool name?)  - learn more about her and the magic inside her at www.meetmeinthespiral.com

i've been a lucky recipient of one of tzveta's spiral readings and i spent half the time having a ton of self awareness, a bunch of tears and a couple of true breakthroughs.  i highly recommend her...

enjoy....