I get by with a little help from my friends

While having my coffee before work this morning, I read a wonderful e-mail from a woman who visited my blog when I first started writing it and just happened to return recently and she began reading my back posts. She wrote me about her husband, whose situation sounds so similar to that of mine. These are men who were strong, who hiked and biked and built things. They cooked wonderful meals. Her husband built their house. And mine was stallion manager at the biggest thoroughbred breeding center in the state when he got cancer.

This isn't the first time I've received an e-mail from someone who is in a position where they are caring for their spouse. And it makes me feel so not alone reading them. Writing this blog makes me feel less alone, too, and I'd like to thank you all for your wonderful comments, your support, and for all the funny things you say.

Austin Powers is on in the background and I have finally, finally!!! finished the paperwork for disability for my husband. So I am breaking my rule of no drinking during the week and having one single glass of wine to celebrate.

Whoowee!!

I'm sure more paperwork will come in the mail for me to fill out, and when I get that done, I'll drink another toast.

My husband had the camera out today, and late this afternoon, he took a picture of the house with the Christmas lights he'd strung on the widows walk. It was pretty blurry because it was getting dark, so I ran a couple of actions on it, sharpened it just a tad and then ran a watercolor filter to make it look a little like a painting. I hope he likes it.

Notice, if you will, that the big hemlocks which were at the front of the house are now gone. A tree company came last week and took them down. They also took one from the back of the house. I think it looks nice.

Now about that vase of my mother's . . . Sad to say: I have no idea how our family came to own it. I've sent out an e-mail to my sisters and have heard back from one and she tells me that she has no idea how we acquired the crystal vase. I grew up with this thick glass crystal vase and when we moved my parents from their little home in Florida, it took nearly a week to pack. It was exhausting work because, to put it mildly, my mother was a bit of a collector. She was asking us to take some of her special things but I had come on a flight and couldn't take much back with me. But I did want the vase. She mentioned to me briefly that it had been smuggled out of Poland during the war.

Now busy me, unfortunately, did not stop and ask her anything else about it at the time. I figured we were so overwhelmed with packing and sorting that I'd ask her later. Well, here it is years later and now it's too late. I don't know why Poland because none of us are Polish. So I'm sorry to say that there's no story. I still am waiting to hear from the other two sisters, however, so I'll keep you posted.

This is just a little candle that I lit tonight because I like candles.

When my husband came out of the hospital after the first brain surgery in 2004, he had an almost unnatural fear of the flames from my candles. So I collected all the ones I had and gave them away to a friend and told him I'd never burn another. He's fine with them now, but is still just a little funny about them. But he says that as long as they're in what he deems a protected area, then it's ok to burn them.

Until tomorrow, my friends . . .