Mama Always ~ L.A. Brown, Author

Yup, close the blinds, pull the darkening curtains close the door and pull the covers over your head. That  is the kind of day I've had so far and its not even noon yet. Couldn't sleep well last night and at six this morning I woke up to one of those awesome short trips to the tropics, i.e., hot flash. It sucks that my metabolism goes on vacation without me and only sends me the heat from there. **sigh** Tossed and turned until about six thirty and gave it up. I have a lot to do today anyway. The plan was to get an early start on the laundry and start the dough for pirogis. So much for the best laid plans of mice and this Mama. The laundry I got started OK, but I had to take a break from getting it started to help mom who moved wrong. No biggie, three minutes out of the plan....I allowed for ten. Got the laundry going and started to plan the recipe for dinner. Sent a message to Chris to see if he had gone to the mechanic yet and found out that I should have probably let him c...

Blah! I hate allergies! You know, I never had any until I moved to Tucson, then all heck broke loose! And to think, Arizona is supposed  to be a place where allergy sufferers go to get relief. Yeah, right! I found out that I'm allergic to all kinds of wonderful stuff now and its all due to the dust and dry air of Arizona. When I first got here, I was OK with it. I mean, I grew up in the desert of Nevada...north of Reno to be exact. There's more dirt and sagebrush out there than I can even fathom. So, I figured that when my first marriage broke up and I went home to mommy and daddy in Arizona that it was a pretty good place to make a fresh start. I was miserable. Not only was I broken hearted and broken, but I had a two year old Downs child to deal with. It took me a bit to decide to quit mourning what used to be and to look forward to what will be. With the grace of God and a lot of help from my folks, I got back on my feet, got a job and started doing sneezing here and there...

What can one say after watching one of those clips? Me, personally? I would say, "Please, God, don't let me go out in anything with pit stains or sweat stains....my luck I'll end up on one of those reels". Seriously. Murphy's Law (or the fourth law of thermodynamics) states t hat "anything that can go wrong will go wrong". I suppose that it can be said that it is in and of itself, the ultimate appeal to probability. Or so they say.  Anyway, have you ever watched one of those things? They're scary! Up until recently, I thought they were contrived, you know, staged. Uh, no. There were a couple of times that I was walking behind an honest to goodness Walmart video wannabe. Frightening scene, it was. There were others, of course, but I didn't have my camera out fast enough to catch them in action.  Trust me, I've seen quite a few, and when you live in Texas, they seem to be in abundance. Unfortunately, they don't just land in Texas....t...

You ever have one of those nights when you look at the clock every half hour? How about turning your pillow twenty times just to find a cool spot and then it disappears after five minutes. Or perhaps, you get in one position just to find that your leg/arm/shoulder/hip/foot fall asleep so you turn over even though you now have pins and needles, to a more comfortable position just to have the other side do the same thing? If you have animals that sleep with you, maybe they sleep behind your knees or at the small of your back....when you move, they move. Its too warm...its too cold...the fan is blowing on my head...the crickets are too loud, someone in the other room is snoring. The cats are scratching in the litter box....the wind is blowing something against your window or there's a gecko that is crawling on the window and with the light behind it makes it look like t-rex. Well, yeah, I had one of those nights. It pretty much started when I came to Arizona. As soon as I stepped of...

Yeah, I know...really dorky, but it is. I'm actually having a "fibro fog" day. The worst part of it is that it didn't hit me that's what it was until just a few minutes ago. I've heard folks talk about it, and I know that I must have experienced it more than once since this has started in earnest, but I guess I just never put two and two together. Today, as my dad was waiting for my mom to return from taking my cousin around the corner, we were having a conversation. All I really remember from the conversation is something about a dog and cars. Most of the time I was having a hard time relating the two in the conversation, so a good portion of what he said was pretty much lost. Normally I would chalk that up to zoning out on him, which I do well I might add, but this wasn't the case. Today started out with aches and pains, but I really didn't think I was going to have memory problems today as well. Another thing that really bothered me is that I co...

I'm talking about the famous or rather, infamous "Mother's Curse". Oh, yeah, it's real. Let me ask you this; how many of you have heard your mother (or father) say, "I hope you have kids just like you". Yeah, one of the strongest ones out there, I should know, I've been 'cursed' twice. The first time the 'curse' came into effect, Andrea came along. OK, so she's stubborn; tell me what Downs kid that you know isn't stubborn. So, she has an attitude. Again, what Downs kid doesn't? Personally, I think it was a trial run for my mom to see if she got it right. Then, six years later, it happened again. This time, the blow wasn't softened. This time, this one looked like me . I'm serious. If I wanted to say that someone switched babies on me (no, I didn't want to say that, Little One), I couldn't. Not only was Chris a witness to her birth, but if you put my newborn picture up beside hers, we could have been sis...

Yeah, some things don't mix well. Fire and gasoline, for instance or bedbugs and sleep. Another thing that doesn't mix well is extensive travel on airplanes and fibromyalgia. Never mind that I had a softball for an ankle for two days thanks to ankles that like to go out on me . Go figure, something that is supposed to be a long term relationship with the rest of my body and it steps out on me more often than an unfaithful husband. Doggone it. Anyway, the moment that my ankle actually goes down until it resembles an ankle and I have to get on a plane to get Andrea. Poor kid misses mama. She's been with Grandma and Grandpa longer than she should have been and Grandma is overdue to get some much needed surgery on her back. Just for reference, prayers are coveted for that situation. Please and thank you. So I get on the flight to Arizona and I'm in a seat by myself. No one on either side of me because I'm in a single seat on one side of the plane so I have no one to...

OK, so I really don' t have new skin and I haven't grown fur...yet. Ever since I got home on Wednesday, however, my cats have decided that they missed me. Now, normally when I go on a trip I'm ignored for a week. On occasion something gets pull marks from someone "kneading" it or there might be drool marks or on the off chance I've really ticked one of them off, I might have something soaking wet from either being pushed into water or peed on. Lately the latter has been rare, but it has happened. There's nothing more frustrating and irritating than picking something up to put away only to find that a ticked off feline has made it known that they're mad at you. It has something to do with the cat DNA and I have yet to figure it out. It was my understanding that cats don't really care what you do as long as they have a clean box, plenty of water from either a running source or a massive bowl and a full food bowl. Apart from that, they're good. So...

I promise, I will never scoff at folks complaining about jet lag again. As I am typing, it is now quarter to one in the morning and I'm wide-stinking-awake. Go figure. So, to recap yesterday. I got practically zero sleep the night before because now I have this weird thing that if I have an alarm set for myself, I won't sleep right. I haven't figured it out yet, maybe its something deep in the memory banks that hates alarms and knows that it is my deepest desire to take a sledge hammer to any alarm clock that is meant to wake me from my peaceful slumber. I don't know. The funky thing is, if the alarm is set for someone else, I could care less and will sleep like a baby. Hmm, I can't figure this one out. Anyway, so no sleep from the night before equals mass quantities of deeply strong coffee to stay coherent enough to make it onto the planes to bring me home, so we stop at Starbucks on the way to the airport in Okinawa. Their idea of venti is roughly the size of ...

Well, this is my last full day on the island of Okinawa and I just wanted to share with you some of my observations. First, in cas e you missed it , if a button or lever is in a language that you don't understand, don't push it ! Not only will it irritate the Okinawans, but you may not survive the experience if you are touring with family. I barely made it out of the Aquarium with my life after my button pushing experience! Just kidding! Seriously, unless you know what you're pushing, don't push i t. On another no te, a trip to th e   Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium  is a must see. Not only do you get to see a dolphin show with real and bottle-nosed dolphins, but they have a massive 7500 gallon tank made of 27 inch plexiglass that houses not one, not two, but three whale sharks, stingrays and manta rays, tuna and bonita, as well as a host of other fish. There is also a tank of sharks that houses tiger, bull shark and a couple of other species of shark that at the moment I c...

Today, well, actually yesterday for me, is the day that we celebrate the Resurrected Christ and the reason for our Salvation. Instead of my normal blog, I decided to give you a medical aspect leading up to that Glorious Day when Christ defeated death and Hell and rose again. The following is an excerpt from the Blue Letter Bible ( http://www.blueletterbible.org/commentaries/comm_view.cfm?AuthorID=3&contentID=3129&commInfo=8&topic=Crucifixion ) where you can go and read the entire article. My hope is that this will cause you to think about what Jesus went through so that we could live eternity in peace and joy, whole, with no more tears, no more sorrows, no more illness instead of eternity in endless suffering and misery. I would also encourage you to put yourself in His place and answer the question; would I honestly do this for anyone , including those I love? I dare say that there would be very few, when faced with this question who would have no misgivings about emphatic...

Well, here I am, still in Japan, which is not to say that its a bad thing, it just means that I'm still here. We had a rough night last night because my oldest granddaughter, who is cutting another tooth, has had a nasty fever that we have been trying to keep down. My daughter took her to the ER last night and everything looks good, the only explanation that we have is the tooth, so we're working with that and watching for any other symptoms that might come about. Let's face it, toddlers are hard work. My poor Punky is so exhausted. I don't think she got more than an hour sleep last night between my Little Bug and her fever and the Little Peanut who of course needed to be fed. Every time I heard Bug's cries, I was up and moving down the hallway only to find mama already there. There were at least three different times that I heard her and every time mama was there. Praise God daddy and I are here to take care of the girls so that she can rest for a while. The pl...

This morning as I began my morning ritual of coffee and computer, I felt as if something was off a bit, but it certainly wasn't me. Aside from the fact that I'm here in Japan still, something just didn't work right, but I still didn't catch what it was. The kids had a couple of errands to do this morning and Khloe needed to stay with me, which is fine. Why not leave Devynn with me as well was my question and of course, this is a good idea. Besides, she's pretty easy to deal with at this point, its the kitten and Khloe that you have to watch out for. Anyway, as I'm trying to figure out what to give to Khloe for breakfast, fixing my coffee, booting my computer and deciding on a DVD to let her watch until I was ready for her, Devynn is fussing. As I turn around to see what is wrong, and maybe to replace the plug that was spit out, I see Khloe standing in front of the swing, the kitten is on the ottoman supervising, and all of a sudden I see Devynn's binky go ...