Introspective Scrapping

Hospital stays.

I have been spending a lot of time in hospitals lately. My Dad recently passed away from esophagheal cancer. Then my Mom developed an ulcerated place on her foot. Three days after she came home, she fell and broke her shoulder. While she has been staying at my house, she developed infection in her kidneys and had to be rehospitalized. The day after she came home, my husband became ill and had to go to the ER.

Have you ever had something funny happen to you at the hospital? I have had several things happen. When I was a teenager, my Grandpa was in the cardiac ICU at Ohio State University Hospital. We lived in a suburb of Cincinnati and had to travel there on weekends to visit him. My Dad hated it when someone double parked. We had a small Mazda hatchback at the time. After driving around for a half an hour looking for a parking place, we passed by a spot where someone had double parked their car. Dad told me to get out and he was going to park. He squeezed the car into the tiny space left next to the other car. Then he climbed over the back seat and out the hatch, in order to get out. I never did figure out how those people got back into their car.

A while back Mom had a few trips to the ER due to her diabetes. On the first trip, they gave her too much insulin and her blood sugar level dropped so fast it almost killed her. On the second trip she was afraid they would repeat it and instead of saying that was the problem, she was being really hateful and contrary with the nurses. So, I told her that she needed to be careful what she said to them because they were the ones taking care of her and they might give her a shot with an air bubble in it if she wasn’t careful. I thought it was funny, but I’m not so sure Mom did.

About 3 years ago, I had a desk chair that broke and flipped me over backwards. I hurt my back pretty bad and had to go to the ER. While I was sitting in the hallway outside of radiology waiting on my turn to be x-rayed, there was another patient wheeled up to wait too. There are these grab bars all along the hallway in most hospitals. He tried to move his wheel chair over by grabbing one and pulling. It almost flipped him out in the floor instead. I tried to hide my smile, but he caught me anyway. So, to make him feel better, I told him don’t feel bad, I’m here because I flipped over backwards in my desk chair. He didn’t feel so bad then.

If you maintain a good sense of humor, even hospitals can cause funny situations.

Now playing: Aerosmith - Same Old Song and Dance
via FoxyTunes I am usually right. It’s not arrogance that makes me say that. I make it a point not to open my mouth to voice an opinion unless I know what I am talking about. I am a firm believer in reason and logic. I have known a lot of people that think that they are right and will hold out to the very end before admitting they might not be. My husband comes from a family of people who believe whoever yells the loudest and says the meanest things to win the argument is right. Boy do they hate it, when you refuse to be ruffled by all of the bluster and stand your ground.

One of the disadvantages of always being right is that people get angry about it and resent it, even if you are not an “I told you so” person. I’m not. No sense in kicking someone in the teeth. I found a quote today that suits this subject marvelously.

Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic.–William Ewart Gladstone, 1809 - 1898

When not in an argument, people do tend to respect my opinion though. I guess being well informed on the things I do know about has some perks. I am also a fount of useless knowledge. Some of the things I know are bizarre. Once when my kids were eating peanut butter sandwiches with honey on them, they wondered how bees made honey. I told them it was bee vomit. For a half an hour I tried to convince them, I wasn’t teasing them. I eventually had to get out an encyclopedia and read to them that the final product of honey was regurgitated(and then explain that it means vomit).

That calls to mind another disadvantage to being right. People think you are really weird if you know weird things.

Two thoughts come to mind:

Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.

Keep your mouth shut and look dumb, or open it and remove all doubt.

That’s why when I do open my mouth, I want to be correct.

Now playing: Depeche Mode - Pleasure, Little Treasure (Join Mix)
via FoxyTunes I found an interesting quote today, and it made me think.

It’s no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections

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Now playing: Depeche Mode - Pleasure, Little Treasure (Join Mix)
via FoxyTunes disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn’t even speak to each other if they met at a party.
- Nick Hornby

If you have been to my blog before, you know that much of my interest in journaling is related to genealogy and family history. Leaving behind something of myself in a tangible written or printed form.

I don’t necessarily agree with this quote. I did not listen to Country music before I started dating my husband. I listened to it in order to better appreciate his interest in it. I did however, like the old classic stuff like Johnny Cash and George Jones, which my parents listened to. I learned to like some of the newer country, by listening to it.

My husband likes some of the Rock I am into, but not all of it. I don’t believe he likes the Alternative stuff I’m into, but he likes some AC/DC and some Kid Rock and some GNR, but he’ll never be a head banger. Me, I used to religiously stay up for MTVs HeadBangers Ball. I won’t ever outgrow it. I do expand my areas of interest though. I like groups like The White Stripes and Greenday(before they got so anti war and anti American). I prefer harder stuff like GodSmack. There’s nothing that makes you feel less like screaming than listening to someone else do it.

My daughter likes mostly what’s on the pop charts, which my son disdains. He tends to like my old 80’s stuff and harder rock too.

The point is, we have all influenced each others tastes, by being open minded to a certain degree. That is what makes any relationship between 2 people work, not agreeing on everything. Agreeing to disagree is more important, if you can’t come to a compromise.

In reference to family history. I come from a long line of music loving people. My paternal Grandpa was a very good musician. He played on the radio, back when they still had live shows in the 40’s. He may have been able to make a living at it, but my Grandma didn’t believe in him being in the bars and places you have to go in order to do that, since he had a wife and 2 kids. So, he chose his family.

All of his brothers and sisters had beautiful singing voices, and I have some recordings of them together. My Grandpa could play several instruments and his siblings could too. I sang with them when I was a small girl. Thad made me be the 3rd generation. I have a great love for music, but not the work that goes with it.

My maternal grandparents could both sing very well too. My grandmother used to be invited to churches to sing.

I was in my junior high band, but did not stick with it and when I was in high school, I taught myself to play a little guitar. I didn’t stick with that either. I love to sing though.

My kids inherited music from me. Before they were born, they would both respond very actively to music in utero. My daughter used to play piano and my son saxaphone, but like me they didn’t stick with it.

My grandson loves music and has a natural sense of rhythm. When he was little, I would play Depeche Mode for him, and he would tap his foot to it in perfect rhythm. He was only 3-4 months old and you wouldn’t think he would be able to tap his foot, but he did. He has a keyboard and seems to be able to make actual music on it, as opposed to just banging the keys. His father plays guitar and given my daughters musical inclinations and his father’s, it would be amazing if he didn’t have some talent.

For those interested in scrapbooking/digitial scrapbooking here is a layout of my grandson enjoying music with my DH.

Heredity is an amazing thing.

I don’t believe I will be taking many photos in the next few months. My Father has stomach cancer and my grandson suffered a head injury that required surgery and the courts have not yet established if it was accidental or not. I’m just not the type to take a camera to a hospital.

As far a journaling is concerned, whether it is good or bad, it is life and I will continue to try and write it down. If it does not help me now, maybe it will help me later, to recall memories.  I am literally praying that I am able to take some photos for Christmas this year.  My Mother was hospitalized in a diabetic coma and with a bad UTI last weekend at the same time my Dad was there and my Grandson was admitted.  I ended up being hospitalized Wednesday for Kidney stones and a bad kidney infection as a result, and was only allowed to come hom e as long as I’m able to keep my medicine down. I had been unable to keep anything down for 5 days, but with everything else going on, didn’t want to be stuck in the hospital. Mom almost had to go back to the hospital yesterday. Diabetes is hard to control when there is infection.

I figure that if I try to get some of it out, it will give people insight into who I am/was at a later date. How you respond to adversity, often tells a lot about you.

But for me or anyone else, journaling shouldn’t just be for the good stuff or what we consider to be the acceptable emotions.  It is not bad to be angry, sad, etc. it is only when we use our feelings as an excuse to behave in an unacceptable manner that we run into problems.

I have plenty of things to stress over, but sometimes something happens to put things into better, if not perfect perspective. I just found out my Dad has cancer. Scrapbooking is being my therapy for the moment. I did a layout of my parents in 1961. Something about the picture made me think of the beginning of life, rather than the end. If you are interested, here’s a link to it.

I found a few quotes on my Get rid of stress quest.

I have tried yoga, but stress is less boring.

Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness. ~Richard Carlson

Pooh is my favorite so this one is great.

Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering. ~Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A.A. Milne

This one seems to be my life.

I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once. ~Jennifer Yane

Now I know this one suits my life. I cannot bear to be around a very loud, overly boisterous person for long. I am a quiet person. My husband is too. Whether by nurture or nature, our children are sensitive to noise as well. I am talking about people who can be at a party down the street from you and you can hear them at your house. They seem to believe that noise will force people to notice them. But if they were quiet for a few moments wonders might happen.

When Mozart was composing at the end of the eighteenth century, the city of Vienna was so quiet that fire alarms could be given verbally, by a shouting watchman mounted on top of St. Stefan’s Cathedral. In twentieth-century society, the noise level is such that it keeps knocking our bodies out of tune and out of their natural rhythms. This ever-increasing assault of sound upon our ears, minds, and bodies adds to the stress load of civilized beings trying to live in a highly complex environment. ~Steven Halpern

My daughter spent the afternoon with her grandmother one afternoon when she was little. She was very pensive when she came home. When she finally got up the nerve to talk to me, she asked me if her hands were the devils work shop. I was speechless for a few seconds. I told her of course not. My mother-in-law had told her that, because she was reading. I have always believed that if you are comfortable being with yourself, in a quiet environment, you can have all sorts of profound thoughts and it is a good way to commune with your maker. I don’t think he likes it if you don’t give him your undivided attention. I told my daughter that you did not have to be working all the time in order to be a good person. But, in addition to that there are people who work really hard all of the time and are the meanest, low down excuses for human beings as you would ever meet. Work neither makes you good or bad.

A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward. ~George Jean Nathan

I have had an epiphany!!! I figured out why it is so hard for me to talk about what worries me. I somehow subconsciously picked up the notion that worrying was a sin or sorta means you don’t have strong enough of a faith.

Matthew 6:27, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (NIV)

This is very perplexing to me. I don’t worry to add hours to my life. I worry because I am very aware that my time is running out faster than I would like. The things that I do, are apparently part of God’s plan, but I don’t like the deadline for the assignment.

When I got married, I moved to a rural area of Ohio, with my husband and close to his family. I took me a while to learn what some of the things they said meant. A couple of good examples are these: My husband worked for a demolition company and he and his friends kept talking about something called a “Bacco”. I thought they were using some slang for Tobacco. I couldn’t figure out what tobacco had to do with construction and demolition. I finally figured out they were talking about a type of heavy equipment called a Back Hoe. I could have asked, but I frequently make use of the adage. “Keep your mouth shut and look dumb, or open your mouth and remove all doubt..”

Then when someone was sick, my mother-in-law and father-in-law would say they were “hippoed”. I eventually learned they were using slang to say people were hypochondriacs. They were just pronouncing hypo as hippo. There were many other things that either I didn’t understand or they didn’t.

Communication was frequently difficult for me. I would say things in proper English grammar and they would say, “What?’  I would have to think of a way to say things that they could understand.  Eventually, my speech became increasingly slang prone. 

When I think or write, I do it in the proper grammar. It is like thinking in English and then having to translate it into Spanish, or thinking in Spanish and trying to translate it into English. I am not being arrogant. It is just that I was taught grammar by very good teachers and it stuck. I wonder just how many other areas in the U.S. who are being hindered by English teachers who don’t do their jobs? I also wonder if people who know me personally and hear my day to day speech will read my journals and think it doesn’t sound like me? Maybe I should make an entry in my journals to explain the difference in “voice”. 

I was just thinking that if I can’t keep a regular journal, my scrapbook layouts will serve as a sort of illustrated peek into my life and the inner workings of my mind.