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IN MEMORY
What I’m Listening 2
Tag Archives: life lessons
lessons I learned from a woman with autism
Sometimes life’s lessons come unexpectedly, and from places we could never imagine, such as books, movies – or even, a woman with autism. As you are well aware as a reader of my blog, I have been overcome with grief at having to have my beloved pug, Dekker Black, put to sleep. These past seven years were filled with a companionship I never truly understood until he was gone. While I knew the decision was right for Dekker, it is …
ER visit and … possible arrest?
I have a tale to tell you that you just will not be able to fathom. If I didn’t know better, I would say God has a sense of humor, because my year just ended with a loud bang! (head shake) Yesterday afternoon I started to get in trouble with my lungs again. I tried everything, but, to no avail. (The maintenance guys are finishing up the construction on our historical building so floors were being stained and I was …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, bad day, crash, ER visit, life lessons, loitering, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), RADS, stress
33 Comments
the gift of Dekker’s life through his death
It seems amazing to me that Dekker has been gone a week already. Somehow, I think my heart and soul have yet to get that message. Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about why my grief has been so profound with Dekker’s passing. I lost a close friend who was like my brother in 2007, and the grief was not as consuming as this is. Thursday I thought the grief would literally kill me. My heart was going crazy. …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, death, Dekker, life, life lessons, loss, pugs
14 Comments
Overcoming ALONE-ness
Sometimes, when I have spent much time, alone, within my 4Walls and A View, I tend to start thinking I have very few friends. Or perhaps I even go as far as to start thinking that I don’t have very many at all. One of the wonderful things about the Christmas season is that it reminds me of just how many people I really know. As I was transferring my email addresses into my Cards Sending account, I realized, as …
going LIMP
I am in my first, full-blown crash of this winter. And it is a pretty good one at that. Other than taking Dekker out to go potty (I really should find someone I can pay to take him out for crash times) and trying to eat regular (hard to do when you are wiped out), I am pretty much in bed. I guess you could say, I am going limp. For those of you who are scratching your head, wondering …
this place called, middle
When I grew up, I was always told to push through whatever difficulty I was going through. I have watched for years, as my mother got up every day, no matter how bad she felt, and did everything that was required of her…and then some. In the military I was taught to focus and just do it. There was very little thought. It was more of an instinctive reaction – one that was honed through hours and hours of training …
Working on RESPONDING versus REACTING
I made a decision recently that I was going to work on developing a more tempered response to stressful situations that pop up in my life. Basically, I am trying to learn to respond rather than react when stressful situations arise. Well, you probably know all too well what that means, right? I got bombarded with one crazy fiasco after another! I actually recall on Monday thinking, I was exhausted just from dealing with the issues that kept popping up. …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, Acer laptop, Dell laptop, journey, life lessons, perspective, reacting, responding, stress
11 Comments
Determined like Dekker
Losing my home and all my possessions wasn’t just hard on me. There is a black, furry, little guy that has really had a hard time adjusting. Dekker didn’t know what to make of the elevators when we first moved in. I actually can’t imagine…
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, Dekker, determination, journey, life lessons, photographs, pugs
8 Comments
Dreams Become Reality One Choice at a Time
Time is quickly winding down and I find myself faced with only two more days before I will be heading to the airport to head to Massachusetts for my daughter’s wedding! Thus today was quite a busy day! I had a friend from church ask for my help in purchasing a new laptop and the budget was $400. So off we went to Tulsa and we ended up getting a new printer, laptop, plenty of ink, a laptop bag, and …
It’s a good life on most days
When I woke up this morning, I was exhausted. Yikes. So I decided to take the day and rest, rest, rest (as my friend Renee always tells me ). I did fine until I called to change the reservations to one of the hotels I had and all hell broke loose. I got the hotel issue worked out, only to find out…
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, bad day, chronic fatigue syndrome, fatigue, life lessons
4 Comments
Next Chaper – Jewelry by Jolene
Jolene has no idea that I have chosen to name her jewelry. For me, it is symbolic of the New Chapter I am beginning – or will be beginning – on October 1st with my new home. You see, I met Jolene of Graceful Agony around January/February of this year. A few days later, I entered a contest she was having on her blog for some jewelry that she would design and make. I never dreamed that I would win…
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, friend, journey, life lessons, wedding
18 Comments
Book Review: What Difference do it make?
After my review of, Same Kind of Different as Me, I was contacted by Thomas Nelson to see if I might be interested in reading the follow-up book, What Difference do it make?. If you read my review, you know that…
All things that go up must come down
It has been said that, all things that go up must eventually come down. Unfortunately, that proves true with CFIDS and FMS more oft than not. Today, I have been feeling pretty bad. If I didn’t know better…
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, asthma, bad day, chronic fatigue syndrome, crash, fatigue, health, life lessons, stress, winning
12 Comments
This journey WE call LIFE
Change is in the air. I can now feel it and I am now embracing it! I’ve been contemplating this journey I have been on for the past 5 or so weeks, these last few days. I don’t know if I have done everything right, but I know that I have done my best. I also know there were moments in which I struggled to come to terms with all the loss, the changes, and the dislocation, and yet, I …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged "new home", 4 walls and a view, asthma, hope, journey, life lessons, mold, perspective, write
20 Comments
Seeking FAMILIARITY and CONNECTION
I have never really given a lot of thought to the many things in my life that I am connected to that create a space of comfort, normalcy, and grounding for me until I recently lost all my possessions. Lately, however…
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, asthma, friend, health, journey, life lessons
16 Comments
Book Review: Same Kind of Different as Me
Leaving This World A Better Place… I believe with everything in me that I have been put on this earth to profoundly change it. That may sound like an audacious statement, but I believe that with every ounce of my being. My one desire above all else, is to leave this world a better place than I found it by changing and impacting the lives of each and every person that I meet. Since starting my blog…
Coming to terms with loss and reality
For the past few days I have been sleeping, resting, and sleeping! I have been so utterly exhausted I haven’t been able to do much else. Monday I got out of my ’4Walls’ and went with one of my friends to Tulsa. We decided to hit one of the malls after the errands were all done. It is amazing to me how the smallest thing can suddenly stop me dead in my tracks. I was…
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, chronic fatigue syndrome, cognitive, grief, health, hope, life lessons, loss
18 Comments
determining MY course
By most people’s standards, I should be ripping mad. And maybe I should be. But something deep inside me tells me that the only person that will get hurt through my anger at the apartment complex and the management company, is me. I have chosen, instead, to forgive them and move on. After a three day hospitalization, the VA discovered that my lungs are permanently damaged. I am now on three (3) inhalers as well as a completely new medication. …
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, asthma, chronic fatigue syndrome, course, determining, health, journey, life lessons, mold
29 Comments
60 things I HOLD to be TRUE
Even in the midst of this incredibly challenging situation, I have to come back to a place where I remind myself what I know to be true. In the midst of darkness and difficulty, re-focusing on the things I know to be true helps me to keep my bearings in the midst of this storm.
Today’s Lesson
Today has been quite a surreal one. I actually felt better today and only had a few ‘spiders’ crawling on me. I was all ready to write my column and get it done (I have it scratched out in long hand) when I came to my blog to quickly respond to the comments on my blog only to discover that the grey theme had a glitch in it that I couldn’t fix. Sigh… So…
Posted in Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)
Tagged 4 walls and a view, life lessons, pain, perspective, spiders, symptom
24 Comments
Lessons learned
Thankfully when I awoke today, I knew it would be a better day. Despite that, I chose to take it really easy and to spend the day watching movies. For some reason I have had a yearning, as of late, to watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy again. So that is what I decided to do. Many people wonder how I have continued on this journey that I unwittingly found myself on. If I had been asked if I …
FOUR life-lessons my PUGS taught ME
The view out my window is lovely today. The water looks blue (and that doesn’t happen all too often as the Arkansas river is muddy water!) and the sky has this woven pattern of pale blue and white ribbons. The snow is almost gone and the wildlife on the bird sanctuary in the middle of the river are fluttering about, busy with the days business. There’s even a lone individual trying to catch tonight’s dinner! On my window sill sits …
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