Category: Overcome

Welcome to Overcome, the new page of my blog that is set aside for stories of accomplishment and overcoming the obstacles that life throws at us.  The blogs here will likely be a little longer because of the more serious content that I will be providing.

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The Virus that Shall Not Be Named

It has honestly been so long since I have blogged and I am just so frustrated about it.  How did I let it go on so long?  How did I walk away from something I love doing?  Life, man….that’s life!  My father called me a couple of weeks ago and read a blog to me that I recognized as my own.  My Aunt Wilma had printed it up for him and he loved it so much he said he wanted to frame it.  That blog, Southern Comfort, was a catalyst for our epic trip and actually for how much our father-daughter relationship has improved so much in the last several years.

Life has definitely been a whirlwind for the last couple of years!  I think my last post was about my upcoming trip to Tanzania (Have Passport, Will Travel) with my dad after the death of my Aunt Ann.  Unfortunately, I never did post about that amazing trip!  That will be next on my list of things to do on this blog!  Since then, I have also traveled with my husband and my mother to Italy.  It was incredible as well!  I also got a promotion at work…we won’t talk about that because my blog is designed to NOT be about work!

However, I do want to touch on the pandemic.  I’ve decided to call it the Virus That Shall Not Be Named.  It has affected so many lives in so many negative ways.  While I don’t want to get into the specifics of work, let me just say that lately I have been feeling a little bit of a loss.  I had many “high octane” days in the battle  zone and now that things are winding down I have found it has been difficult to assimilate back into normal life.  (well not normal life….will it ever be normal again really?). Have you felt the same?  I wonder!  I think a lot of people are feeling a little lost.  We have lost our normal way of life, experienced minor inconveniences (off brand toilet paper) that in some cases have become bigger, we have lost some security whether or not in our own finances at least in the overall economic health of our community and our nation.  There is a lot of uncertainty around us.  And there are other people out there that are really suffering….loss of jobs, loss of health, loss of family….just so much loss.

So it was really helpful for me to read this article:  Relieving Worry and Frustration During a Pandemic by Dr. T. Craig Isaacs, Clinical Psychology.  I wanted to share this with all of you as well.  I think there is sound advice in there even if you aren’t a religious person.  Live in today…in the WHAT IS, not the WHAT IF.  I think it is important for us to find our purpose in all of this.  I loved the quote ” working to help another is good medicine.”  So here I am, trying to spread this good medicine to all of you, because it certainly helped me when I hit the wall this past week.

We will get through this….we will prevail.  We always do!  My job (outside of my job) will be to write….share some amazing stories that I have be delayed in sharing, finding a diversion for myself, and hopefully for you, and limiting the toxic things that are eating at our conscientious right now….media, social media, and did I say media….

Stay strong, be safe, have faith!

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Trial By Fire

My husband and I moved to Las Vegas over a year ago from Redding California.  I joke a lot about California being a Texas girl but this past week was no laughing matter.

We love Redding and most importantly a whole lot of people that live there.  Last week, a broken down car started a wildfire that has been devastating beyond measure.  I anxiously paced through my house trying to access all types of online news sources to have a better understanding of what was going on in our former home.  I spent many hours on the phone feverishly texting and calling people that are near and dear to my heart to make sure that they were not in harms way.

Thursday night was the worst.  The fire was so close to my former hospital that I feared for all of those that I worked with for years and the patients.  Neighborhoods were engulfed and people were fleeing for their lives when a fire tornado formed and plowed through the western and densely populated side of town.  Rolling evacuations had people evacuating not once but sometimes up to three times.  The stress was palpable even from 500 miles away.

Many peoples lives were changed forever.

Tragedy, despair, hopelessness, and helplessness were the themes of the days of that very long weekend.  But resiliency prevails.  Hope wins.  Love conquers. Now I see the posts and the newscasts and more and more there are stories of hope, stories of kindness, stories of giving, and stories of love.  It really makes you proud of the human race.   And the fire rages on…but it is losing it’s power…and that’s because of the people and the love.

See they don’t call it a trial by fire for nothing.  It’s a test in which each person and in this case the whole community is exposed to flames in order to assess their commitment, their courage, and their ability to perform under pressure.  This community has passed the test that Mother Nature so rudely subjected them to.  This community is rising from the ashes, bonding together in the most beautiful way.  I’m so proud of this community and all of the people fighting for it.

Henry Ward Beecher once said, “We are always on the anvil; by trials God is shaping us for higher things.”

God Bless Redding.

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Never Settle

I think I’ve told you that I’m from Houston….so needless to say I have been an Astros fan for my entire life.  I remember going to games when Jose Cruz was the star outfielder for the Astros.  They would announce his name and drag out the Cruz as long as they could….”Jose CRUZZZZZZZZZZZZ”!

Last year, when the Astros were in the playoffs, I was very excited.  We had been to the World Series only once in franchise history when we were completely shut out.  I remember sitting at one of our favorite restaurants (Luna Rosa) in Lake Las Vegas watching one of the games with the New York Yankees.  A New York fan and his wife were sitting behind us as I was rooting on the Astros.  He let me know that the Astros would not be winning this part of the playoffs because they “always choke”.  I told him to put his money where his mouth was and to agree to buy us dinner when the Astros beat the Yankees to move on in the playoffs.  He declined….smart decision on his part.

When the Astros beat the Yankees in game seven and took their first American League pennant to move towards the World Series, my husband and I were sitting in yet another restaurant in Lake Las Vegas.  We hadn’t moved into our house yet and were making frequent trips out there as we were getting close to the move int date.  As soon as the final inning was over, my phone rang.  My son was on the other end and was very excited….”Mom!  I just bought 2 tickets to Game 5 of the World Series with the Astros at home in Houston on October 29th”.  Without a second thought, the next words out of my mouth were, “I’ll be there.”

Well here’s the catch….that is the same weekend we are moving into our new house.  So my husband is looking at me a little cross eyed and slightly annoyed.  “You know we are moving that weekend!”  But here I am the eternal optimist…the one who always believes where there is a will there is way.  So it worked out!

The movers came the Friday before that fateful Sunday game and packed up our apartment.  They dropped off that load on Saturday and I furiously unpacked and organized everything I could knowing they would be back on Monday morning with the load from storage.  Sunday morning, I got on a plane to Houston, my son picked me up, and we had a nice lunch with my parents, my daughter, and granddaughters.  Next we checked into a hotel downtown.  Then we headed over to the game with Uber.  It was the most amazing game.  If you don’t believe me, look it up.  It was the highest scoring game in World Series history and the Astros won 13-12 in the 10th.  BEST NIGHT EVER.  The only thing that would’ve been better is if they had swept the LA Dodgers and that would’ve been the World Series winning game.

Of course, a ten inning game ends late and with that huge win we hung out down by the park after the game for quite awhile and enjoyed adult beverages with all of our fan friends.  We got to the hotel at 3 a.m. (what was the point?), slept until 4, and he took me to the airport.  I was home in Las Vegas by 7:30 a.m. and beat the movers with the second load by several hours.

I was a sleep deprived zombie that day but I will never regret that quick trip.  My husband finally got over being perturbed by it too.

This past week when we were in Houston for my aunt’s funeral, we did steal away for a little bit and go to a game with the kids.  It was so amazing to take a picture with the World Series trophy.  We had such a great time watching the Astros win yet another game.

Their motto this year is “Never Settle”.  That totally resonates with me.  See I’ve never settled in life.  I’ve been asked to and I have passed.  Thank goodness I never did.  My life has been very blessed because I have personally lived with that motto.  Don’t settle in life.  Don’t assume there is not a way to do something that you really want to do.  Always find a way….you’ll be happy that you did!

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Southern Comfort

Circus peanuts.  I find myself this week thinking about circus peanuts…not the salty kind that you toss the shells in the floor of a bar but the soft, orange, marshmallowy candy circus peanuts.  Why you ask…well here it is.

I was raised in Houston, Texas and much of my youth was in the 70’s.  Now, many people don’t consider Texas to be the South but it is. It’s not dixie South but it’s the South.  The people, the attitudes, the independence, the hard working blue collar environment, the mannerisms, the “y’all’s”and the food all come together to give one that Southern experience.  Maybe as the modern times are increasingly making us more of a global community, it may seem less Southern but the southern ways still are major threads in the fabric of society down there.

A major staple in the southern way of life is the love affair with food. Whenever you went to anyone’s house, food was always in the picture.  It reminds me of going to my Granny and Papaw’s house as a child. You couldn’t get inside the door for more than 5 minutes before my granny would be asking  if you wanted something to eat or drink….she would start pulling things out of the fridge and the pantry, pulling out plates and utensils, to the point that even an individual with the staunchest self control would buckle under her super power and succumb to eating something. She was magical like that.

There were a few things that were ALWAYS available in my granny’s house and they are as follows:  Blue Bell homemade vanilla ice cream (because there is really no other kind), Coca-Cola, Ho-Ho’s, and Circus Peanuts. Now, you may wonder, how is it that an ice cream company doesn’t make more than one flavor of ice cream. Well they do of course!

But once the pure taste of Blue Bell’s homemade vanilla ice cream passes your lips and takes you back in time to a simpler place you will never ever want to eat a flavored ice cream again!  When I eat a bite of this ice cream images of hot sweaty summer days and dad cranking the old ice cream freezer while I add rock salt, sounds of cicadas off in the trees, the sting of a mosquito bite on my leg are a few of the things that come to mind. I can see my Papaw standing in the kitchen mixing my coke float, taking his time to make sure it was perfectly mixed through and through, checking at the last minute for taste with his finger.

It’s like going home.

So back to circus peanuts. It’s another one of those things that I think of and even crave when I’m homesick, sad, or preoccupied with a problem. It’s comfort food to me. Now of course, there is comfort food and there is comfort food. When I’m not melancholy, comfort food is all the good things Southern….buttermilk fried chicken, fried chicken steak with cream gravy and mashed potatoes, biscuits and gravy, fried okra, corn on the cob, peach cobbler, Texas chocolate sheet cake, pecan pralines, and the list goes on and on.

But when I tell my husband I really want an old fashioned coke float or circus peanuts, he knows the comfort food I’m looking for is much deeper than it sounds. He will come and rub my shoulders and ask me what is troubling me….he knows it’s SERIOUS. See that was my childhood.  At my Granny and Papaw’s house, they fixed me a coke float or gave me circus peanuts (or both) EVERY SINGLE TIME  I visited. I cannot for the life of me think of one time I did not ingest either one of those items in all my years at their house. (So there is no doubt why I have always struggled with my weight.)

I can close my eyes and see their little yellow house with the chain link fence and the big tree in the corner. I can see all of the beautiful flowers blooming in the yard. I can see the perfectly manicured grass. I remember the clothes lines in the back yard with the sheets hanging on them to dry. I remember the gray porch swing that I fell out of when I was little, breaking my two front permanent teeth out before they got a safety chain. Those broken teeth broke my Granny’s heart. She cried and cried.

So this week I was thinking of circus peanuts and I’m headed back to Houston. I have to say goodbye to my dear aunt who lost her battle with pancreatic cancer. While it has been expected and I know she is in a better place now, I am having a harder time than I anticipated. I have spent the last several weeks on the phone with my cousin who was actively losing her mom and I realized how much I miss home. She told me on several occasions that she wished I lived there. My other cousin was there sitting with our aunt and remarked to our other aunt that it reminded her of when she and I sat with our Granny as she was dying.  And just like that I am transported back to that ICU room in Park Plaza Hospital.

Granny had undergone a kidney resection because she had a tumor on her kidney.  She had done quite well but a few days into her stay took a turn for the worse.  She had always refused to be on dialysis…even if it was temporary.  She had watched her neighbor for years get transported every day by ambulance for dialysis and she had decided that dialysis was just pure evil…even if only for a few days.

So Granny went into renal failure and organ failure and we abided by her wishes even knowing that dialysis would’ve given her a chance. I stayed by her bedside for days on end holding vigil, many times with my cousin Bridget. Family came and went but none could handle seeing her that way for very long.  She had some very lucid moments though…many times in the middle of the night. I remember one night, I was laying with my head in my crossed arms on her hospital bed, she reached down and grabbed me by the pony tail and pulled me up towards her face. “You worry too much”, she whispered.  Sometimes she sang to me…”don’t mess with my toot toot”. Those were some of the most precious moments of my life.

When her heart rate slowed and her breaths grew further apart, I stroked her beautiful face and told her how much I loved her. I held her in my arms when she took that last breath.  I literally felt her spirit leave her body, felt the warmth of it in front of my face, and then swoosh, she was gone. I close my eyes and I can feel her there with me.

So I’m going home to Texas, home to say goodbye, home to love on my family and home to Southern comfort. I know I will eat things I shouldn’t but I’m not going to worry about that.  I just accept that it is my portal to the past….to the simple life as a child I was too anxious to grow out of. Love your life my friends….and don’t waste a moment of it.

 

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Surviving Single Parenthood

My kids are all grown now, 30, 28, and 22 year olds.  I’m very proud that they are all finding success and love in their life, pursuing their careers and their dreams, and no one went to jail or had issues with addiction.  I consider myself lucky.

I was a single mom for 12 years and those were really hard years.  When I say Surviving Single Parenthood, it’s not only the survival of the parent but also the survival of the child.  Unfortunately, the statistics out there don’t favor a lot of success on either end.

According to Census.gov in 2016, a majority of children still lived with two parents in the household (69%) with the next largest segment living with a single mom at 23%.  This number more than tripled from 1960 when that percentage was 8%.

Children of single parent households frequently grow up with a disadvantage of not having the same financial means of children from two parent households.  They are also more likely to experience poverty, lower high school graduation rates, and higher levels of unemployment than their two parent peers.

I have no idea how we survived each other looking back.  It was just so damn hard.  But I’m so thankful that we did.  I love them so much.

I think what made all the difference was my perseverance around getting an education.  I went to school for a year to become a Licensed Vocational Nurse. After working for a while in that role, I went to school to get my Bachelor’s degree in nursing.  I had help with Pell grants, student loans, WIC, food stamps, and the occasional and rare child support check.  But even with all of those resources, it was hard.  Many times, I dug change out of the couch, or found a dollar bill in a jacket, hawked some item just so I could pay a bill or buy bread and peanut butter.  I worked while I went to school for my bachelor’s degree and I would cart my kids around in our mini-van while I made home health visits before and after school.  I would leave the kids in the van with the windows open to color, play games, argue, or whatever.  I just didn’t have any other choice.

One semester, I didn’t get my student loan in time and there was no way I was going to be able to make the rent for the next two months.  I broke down and called my mom and said to her that I needed to send my two children to her (my youngest wasn’t born yet).  I told her that was my only choice as I would have to go stay in a dorm, couch surf, or live in a dumpster to finish that semester.  It wouldn’t be forever just to finish the semester.

My mom wanted me to move back to Texas at that time but that would’ve meant me giving up school and taking a chance of losing many of my credits.  I just couldn’t bear to do that.  I had worked so hard already to get there.  I didn’t want to be without my kids for two months either but I felt it was a sacrifice I would have to make to get through.

But I want you to hear what I was willing to do.  I was willing to live in the alley with my children at my mom’s house until I could finish that semester.  I really think this is the reason that we survived….I had a pathological determination to finish what I had started.

My mom was able to reach out to my dad (they were divorced) and convince him to assist her in helping me out with $500.  That’s all I needed to make it to the next semester and my next student loan disbursement.  I’m eternally grateful to my parents for that bail out.  I would’ve done whatever it had taken to get through that semester though.

As a result, I finished college 2 years later and became a registered nurse.  I was the first person in my family on both sides to obtain a college degree.

That education changed my life, improved my trajectory, and enabled me and my children to overcome the many obstacles and downsides of being raised in a single parent household because I was also raised in a single parent home.  It was still hard raising those kids.  Later I remarried, had my last child and several years later found myself alone again but with three.  If I hadn’t finished that degree, I’m not sure I would’ve survived that second go around at single parenthood.

Never underestimate the power of tenacity.  You know the great Winston Churchill once said, “when you’re going through hell, just keep going” and “never, ever, ever give up.”  He was a smart man.

 

 

 

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It’s Not Blood!

Raising kids is hard in the best of situations.  When you are a single parent, working hard to put a roof over your head and to put dinner on the table, raising kids can be a grind.  I went through this on my own and now my oldest daughter is going through it as well.  I did it with three kids for twelve years.  At the time it felt like the longest years of my life but I did survive….and luckily so did they.

This past week, I was reminded of how it hard it was.  My daughter FaceTimed me on Mother’s Day and I could tell she had been crying.  Her two youngest daughters are quite precocious and had gotten into a bottle of red nail polish.  When I say they got into it, I mean they got it all over them.  It was blood red nail polish and when she first sent me a picture of the mess, it looked like a scene from a serial killer movie.

She was so frustrated, so upset, and while I had to laugh a little inside because you know we all wish the “mother’s curse” on our kids, I had to remember how dang hard it was raising them by myself.

I let her talk then I reminded her of this story:

I was a LVN (Licensed Vocational Nurse) working for $7.49 an hour in 1991 when she and her little brother were about 4 and 2 respectively.  I had a part time live in nanny that I could only afford because we lived on the border of Texas and it cost me $50 per week.  That was a stretch at times even.  One morning I came home after working a 16 hour shift.  The nanny went home when I got there and I fed the kids cereal and put them in front of the television with one of their favorite movies.  I just wanted about 2 hours sleep.

So I laid down with the door of my bedroom almost shut in our 2 bedroom apartment.  I quickly fell asleep from pure exhaustion.  A bit later, I hear hysterical laughing from these two children and it woke me from my deep slumber.  I went into the living room to see what the commotion was about and they had emptied an entire gigantic Sam’s box of Cheerios on the floor and had danced on it until there was a fine layer of Cheerio dust about 1 inch thick all the way across the floor.  Seriously.

I’ve told my daughter this story several times and it is always a funny story now.  However, in that moment, I felt so defeated by these little lovely monsters.  I was exhausted almost to the point of being ill.  I was not well off.  That box of cereal probably cost me around $7 at the time (because of the size) and remember that represented one hour of work.  I could not afford to replace it at that time and now a whole two weeks worth of breakfast was on the floor.

Now the haters out there may say I was irresponsible to leave them in front of the television…all I can say to that is you are right but take a walk in my shoes….I didn’t have a lot of choices then.

I reminded my daughter to just take pictures of these events and breathe.  One day this will be a funny story for her as well.  Some of life’s toughest moments evolve to be comedic fodder later down the line.  My advice to all single parents….hang in there, enjoy as best as you can, take pictures of everything (good and bad), and breathe.  After all, it’s not blood!