Baseball and Cooperstown

I am back and Cooperstown was fabulous!  The Baseball Hall of Fame was every baseball fan's dream!  And there was something for everyone, huge fan or not!  The kids were awed by a lot of it!   Ds12 threw himself on Babe Ruth's locker!  He kept running his hands over it and saying - I can't believe he touched this!  It was really his!  This older man that was there, said that my son was doing what he was doing in his head!  LOL  Ds12 was also very into the Ted Williams stuff - not surprising - the whole "science" of the game really appeals to him and Ted Williams was the master of it.

 
Ds10 loved it all.  He was like a big sponge!  He was in awe over all the history, the Polo Grounds, the other old ballparks, Casey Stengel, Ty Cobb, etc...  Oh, and of course, anything Yankee!  He loved seeing the new stuff too and reading all the stats and records.  They had the top 10 of every stat you can imagine and then the top 10 of players still playing as of the end of 2004 season.  Really cool.   My hubby, my other little boy, was also in awe.  He loves Lou Gehrig.  His locker was there too, and hubby ran his hands over it like it was silk...  He loves all things Johnny Bench and got his fill of that, too. 

Ds8 was a good sport.  She looked for anything A-Rod, because she loves him.  She also helped look for Catfish Hunter stuff to tell her grandma about it and Mickey Mantle for Grandpa.  She also liked the Babe and Gehrig stuff, how couldn't you?!  Mostly, she liked the shopping.  She begged for something everywhere we were!  UGH   We bought lots and lots of baseball cards, shirts, books and stuff.  Even a Cooperstown throw blanket madeof sweatshirt material.  It is soooo soft!  You just can't help yourself!  The whole town is on baseball fever and store to store you just get bowled over!

I got a shirt for next season that says Baseball Mom - I can't wait!  And a pin that says Mom of #10, which is almost always ds10's number.  Now it had better be...lol.   The guest house we stayed at was lovely and the family treated us as if we were family guests.  It made the trip really nice. 

 

The only thing that was a negative was the heat!  It was awful!  Mid 90's and so humid you could chew the air!!!   We walked everywhere so I am paying for it a bit.  Very tired and legs are sore.  My knee was acting up, but it seems to have stopped now.  Took my methotrexate today...so, that makes me tired a bit too.   I will put in a pic or two soon...too tired to deal with that today!  

Be well, Dawn

Going to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY

Is their anything more American than a road trip?  More than baseball?  Well, put the two together and you get - my family heading out in the car tomorrow am for a 4-5 hour road trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY!  Wooohooo

This is my ds10 and hubby's dream mini-vacation.  I know I will like it too, but I am also looking forward to the antiquing in the town center just as much!  Dd8 is completely annoyed that this trip has popped up on the family calendar at all!  She is convinced that she will bored to tears the entire time.  Of course, she also felt that way last year when we went to Gettysburg - and she LOVED it!  Ds12 is somewhere in between the his brother's enthusiasm and sister's indifference.  He is not personally into playing baseball, but will watch the Yankees.  He also is interested in baseball cards, but on a purely economic level.  LOL 

After calling the only 3 nationally known hotel chains in the area and being told there were no available rooms, this trip almost didn't happen!  But, my dearest hubby got on the phone and called about 80 Bed & Breakfasts until he found one with a room big enough for a family of 5, was okay with kids, and was only 1/2 a block from the museum and town center!  He truly is a gem!

Coincidentally, locating this particular room had its own kismet.  The owner lived in my home town, on my STREET, until I was 8 years old.  She is a grandma now and I don't remember her, but she remembers our little town here very well.  My family still lives in the same town, 2 blocks from where I lived as a kid.  I am excited to meet this former neighbor of mine from years past.

I will not have computer access, so this will be my last entry until we return!  Pray for me that my RA will behave!

Be well, dear readers!

Dawn

 

One word

This is for Luanne! 

Please leave a one word comment that you think best describes me.  It can only be one word.  No more.

Then copy and paste this into your journal so that I may leave a word about you...    (Stolen from  Christina's journal my journey with Multiple Sclerosis and Luanne's Living with Lupus)

Summer Song Dedication

I dedicate the B-52's singing "Love Shack" to my former twenty-something self! 

Just thinking of its bang, bang, bang-ing beat brings me back!  Whether I was heading out for a night at the local clubs in Northern NJ with friends, or heading "down the shore" (which is how you say it in NJ), I was going to be having a rocking good time!  You cannot listen to that song without tapping your foot or bobbing your head to the beat.

It just puts me back in the club, hanging out with my friends and checking out the guys!  It wasn't all about the guys though, that was just for eye-candy - the best part was the laughing and giggling and dancing with my friends! 

Those were the days (long before RA) when I could be on my feet for hours, in high heels, no less!  This was the 80's and in the summer the "shoe of choice" was usually white patent leather pumps!  You rarely got a table in a club, so you stood at one of those shelf things or a room partition, drink in hand.  Of course, you didn't just stand, you danced the night away, too!  It seems like a different lifetime when I think back on it!  Now, my feet don't give me hours, and if I push them, I pay for it - big time!

Aaaah, youth is wasted on the young!  If I knew then what I know now!  I think I would have appreciated that time more when it was happening!  In your early 20's it seems like you are always looking ahead, down the line, and with a yearning heart.  You want the ideal hubby, the 2.5 kids, and the mini-van with the house in the sub-division.  I didn't spend a lot of time then savoring what I had - the freedom, the lack of responsibilities, health, youth and stamina!!!

Yes, "Love Shack" is the song that instantly brings me back there, to that time and place, that mind-set.  I do NOT want to go back to that time in my life though, either. 

I did find my Prince Charming, and I fall in love with him over and over again through the years.  I had the kids, three of them, and did three mini-vans; now I do the SUV thing, with a Trailblazer that seats seven.  My schedule isn't my own, but I still find my freedom in other ways; in my writing, reading books or with friends.  I have grown into a better person, and I owe that to having a family.  Being a parent opens you up in ways you never knew existed.

But, it sure is fun to pop the CD in the stereo and crank it up to sing along with my daughter and laugh some more!

Be well,

Dawn

To medicate or not

It's a good question, isn't it?

I believe that if a medicine can help you improve your quality of life and the side-effects are manageable once you begin it, then you should go for it!

There are many people with RA (rheumatoid arthritis) and Lupus who try to go natural, only to have disasterous results in the end.  Then there are some who claim success, rather, I claim they were lucky and had the spontaneous remitting kind that we all (who don't) dream about.

Meds are also a big issue with kids and I hold to the same theory. 

Personally, here is my experience without and then with meds for my disease.  Then I will share my experience with my sons as well.

I was a mess.  In terrible pain, plaqued with horrific fatigue.  I was essentially bed-ridden and ABSOLUTELY house bound.  I was missing out on everything with my kids, with my family, with life.  Finally, the correct diagnosis and correct docs brought me to the correct medicines.  It has not been a straight line.  I have taken some that I had to quit either for no effect or side effects that were not good. (ie; liver enzymes up)  However, from the day of starting the meds I have always been BETTER than the place I was before. 

And BETTER is good.  No, I won't be cured, I won't ever be perfectly pain free, but that is okay.  I have my life back.  I function and have fun and LIVE again!

Now, for the kids.  Ds12 with Asperger's takes an SSRI.  Without it, he can't stand clothes, socks or shoes.  He can't tolerate hardly any noise, light or touch not initiated by him.  Is this the way you would want your child to live?  The ssri does not completely eliminate his sensitivities but it does stop the assualt on his senses enough for him to cope and enjoy life without having to fight them all the time.  Heaven for all of us.

Ds10, has asthma, funny how no one questions his meds for his quality of life, yet will question them for ds12.  Ds10 needs his to function well too.  And he does.  It isn't perfect all the time, but better.

None of us will be cured, but our meds help us to live and to cope and manage our lives in much better ways than we could without.  Thank God for the discoveries of science and the medical communities.  For who else, put the brilliant minds here to figure this all out???

Thank GOD.

Be well!

 

Invisible disability

A friend of mine was recently acosted by a nasty man at a golf course who wanted to know what was so special about her that she needed a golf cart.  She has RA, and was in pain from walking the first nine to watch her son in a tournament and knew that to continue she needed the cart.

No one should be treated like this, it makes me wanna scream!

We were discussing in my email loop what a good comeback would be. 

My suggestion is this, "Just because my disability is invisible to you doesn't make it, or my pain, any less real."

With RA, Lupus, MS, Fibro, or any of the other chronic pain and inflammation type diseases, often the problem is somewhat invisible!  It is horrible to be subjected to the attitudes of people who think you are just trying to "put one over" on the healthy people of the world.  They should have to walk in our painful shoes for a while and see what it is like.

If you have a "visible" source of disability no one would ever dare question you.  But often heart conditions and cancer can be invisible too.  Turning to someone and saying you have those shuts people up quick. 

However, 9 out of 10 people hear RA and say - "Oh, I have arthritis too."  People don't get it...they don't get that it is different.  I almost always state my Lupus first and then the RA just so people have a better idea.  Most don't get lupus either but they have heard "it's bad."  Cracks me up.

Ahhh well, just needed to ramble a bit.  Last nite I went to bed at 8pm and slept today until 10:30am.  Of course, I was up and down an little with kid stuff, but it was much better and kind of made up for the nights of missed sleep with dd8.

Be well!

 

The Latest

So, my dd8 is on antibiotics now.  Hopefully, that will bounce this strep right out of her system and fast.  Poor thing.  She missed her end-of-year party today at school and she missed her friend's pool party this afternoon!  Life is just not fair. 

Don't I know it....lol.  ;-D

The dog is doing much better, and will be rechecked next week.

I am going to start piano lessons next week!  I hope my RA fog-ridden brain will still be able to learn something new!  Pray for me!  I am excited about it...I have always wanted to learn it.  I will never be as fast a learner as my dd8, I am sure, but if I can make my way through a song or two of easy sheet music, I will be happy! 

Be well!