bittersweet

I miss my boy in Korea. He'll be home soon for a week. This morning I picked up my guitar for the first time in around a year and there was the strap he bought me for my birthday a couple of years ago, and I missed him more.

Luckily, I have a little sweet-faced reminder around.

Keeping up connections

I've been lax in visiting blogs this last week, and I missed Missy's post about a medical scare. I have many good face-to-face friends here in Texas, some of you in blogland have become those face-to-face friends like Missy and Don and Chappy. If I miss a crisis you're suffering, it bothers me the same as if it were happening with one of my Texas pals. Can't help it, that's the way I am.

I've talked with a few of you on the phone or IM, or Skype (Dave and Kriss!). That's been very special. Having a son who has most likely met his future wife via an online (W.O.W.) forum, I take my cyber-relationships pretty seriously. People get to know each other before ever meeting. . .like penpals of old. Lots of you are going through some tough stuff.

We're here for you--and know you're here for us as well.

I'm just sayin'.

Check 'em out. . .

Check out my heresy pages (;-D) and see what everyone put as answers to some random questions: Gary has a story! Whoa! and TimD...seriously, folks, check out his blog (link on my sidebar). Good, good stuff. Bothy Gary and Tim have amazing miracle stories that happened in the darndest places!

Stuff we miss. . .

AOL had a list of stuff "we" miss:

Grape NeHi Soda
House and Garden Mag
Use of vowels (as in texting-my 17 year old refuses to "text-speak")
Lard in pastry
Howard Johnson's (like it used to be)
Vent windows (in cars)
Screaming yellow zonkers
Train travel
New Potter books
Chromed metal on cars
Gelatin salad
Drive-in theaters
Gas attendants
MILKshakes
vinyl records
McD's fried pies
cursive writing
full size spare tire
day games during baseball playoffs
phone booths
pleasurable air travel
Hydrox cookies
Easy to open packaging
In-store lunch counters
The Far Side

I thought about it. I'm not sure I miss "stuff" so much. I miss:

Kids playing outside in summer
Only 3-5 channels on T.V.
Neighborhood BBQs
Everything shutting down on Sundays
Clothes hung on a clothesline
No privacy fences
Grandparents' house on Sunday
Farms
New school supplies' smell (and you kept your own!)

Got any to add?

Puzzle pieces

Gary Means directs us to a blog by Tim (which by the way is a good read!) and his struggles with healing. I can relate. A friend of mine feels deeply the pain a lot of you are going through, so healing is definitely a subject in the universe right now.

As I read Gary's and Tim's posts, I could relate. My anger about my stupid foot right now goes deeper than the foot and its pain. After struggling for years with Crohns, lupus, fibromyalgia, tinnitus and thyroid disease, I finally reached a point where I decided to be healed. I believed it. I thanked God for it. I started walking and strength-training. I'm losing weight. Now, I'm felled by a freaking foot. It's such a small thing, for God's sake, there are people suffering with horrible diseases--some in my own family.

I am blessed beyond belief, and yet I'm pissed off, too. So close.

I wonder what I'm missing.