Bfth's Boring Blog

"The quality of mercy is not strained," or so says Shakespeare in "The Merchant of Venice."  What is strained is the quality of healthcare. This is not a rant against "Obamacare" or political diatribe. I have no use for any of that bs.  This is just me being frustrated by the whole system/situation. Not knowing what to do, I'm turning to writing.  Because I'm just frustrated, angry and all pent up with emotion that I don't know what to do. Nutshell version (for those of you who have not been following along):  My dad got a serious infection in his right leg.  He ended up in the ICU at our local hospital for nearly two weeks.  There were complications as a result of the infection.  Eventually his health started to improve so he was moved from the hospital to a "care facility" (euphemism for nursing home in my book...sorry, it’s just how I feel).  He still has the infection and is still getting treated with IV antibiotics. ...

Autumn is officially here.  I woke up the morning and it was mighty chilly outside.  I still did my walk in shorts, but I had a long sleeve shirt on and a light sweatshirt over that.  I didn't need to unzip it even as I walked back up hill.  When I got back to the house, the heat inside (even though I have yet to turn on my heat...that day is coming soon) felt good. Fall is a time of transition; a time of change.  It is obvious as the leaves start to change color.  Look up; look around at the beauty of it all.  It's odd to realize that all this beauty is a result of the leaves "dying" and the tree going into”hibernation" until spring comes again.  But there you have it.  What you might think of as an "ugly" process actually has a beauty to it. Of course autumn is also a time of harvest.  When we enjoy the bounty of what has been "sown" during the warmer months.  There is even more color there:  the deep orange of pumpk...

Life is full of challenges; some big and some little.  Most feel big, even if they are little in the long run (like losing 5-10 pounds). I've faced more than my share over the past few years.  I've bitched and whined, even though I know there are those who are much worse off than I am and face even greater challenges.  But despite my complaining, I have faced these challenges as best as I could.  Head on and full steam ahead is how I try to roll.  Not always, but almost.  It's easy to get discouraged, but pushing ahead hard and fast is my   modus   operandi .   It may not be the best way to go about it all the time, but it is usually the way I go and for the most part it works for me. Several weeks ago my family was slapped with yet another challenge when my father suddenly fell seriously ill.  The rapidness of situation was scary as what seemed to be a stomach bug became even more severe and resulted in his admission to the ICU...

Today is my anniversary.  Last weekend my husband and I were lucky enough to go to a wedding in New England which in hindsight turned into our own little "couples" vacation.  I had initially planned to surprise my husband (and son since he would have come along) today with a weekend getaway (actually only one day and night, but...). Unfortunately, due to the chaos that has taken over my world (see my post on "The God Squad), that plan had to be cancelled.  (And unless my husband reads this blog, he'll be none the wiser.) But back to last weekend and the wedding of a friend who I have known since kindergarten.  We were so pleased to be invited even though it would be a long drive (7 hours up to NH due to traffic, but only 5 hours back as a result of getting up before the crack of dawn on Sunday and racing back to get to the hospital to see my dad.)  I took the day off of work and left our son in the care of my parents.  (And again, in hindsight, if I h...

Since Sunday my life has been in chaos.  I barely know what day of the week it is and I keep running and going. It's Thursday, September 11th.  With everything that is going on in my little world, it was just another day. But it's not. I dragged myself out of bed this morning (not easy after a long day yesterday which included work, hospital visit and back to school night).  It was raining a little, but I still went out on my daily walk, figuring I could always turn back if it got too bad. It didn't.  So I kept going.  Not as fast or as far as I usually might do, but still I was out there doing my every day thing. Then I turned onto our main thoroughfare.  The center of town/civic center consists of the municipal building, the library and the middle school, which forms a semi-circle.  In the center is a large patch of lawn.   On the patch of lawn there is a statue of a dough boy (that's a WWI term...Google it).To the right of ...

My father became suddenly and very seriously ill this weekend.  He was in the ER and being admitted to ICU while my husband and I were racing home from New England where we had attended a wedding the night before.  (Even worse my son had been staying with my parents while all this was happening.) For me, one of the worst things about the situation is that I can do something.  I am a "do something" person.  But I am not a medical professional.  There is nothing I can do.  I do go visit, but that isn't really "doing" something in my book.  I want to take action; to prove to myself that I am a part of the situation.  I want some sense of control where there is none. So what do I do? I consider myself a relatively faithful Christian, although I have certainly had my moments of lack of faith.  So while I may pray in my daily life (although I may not pray every day), when something as catastrophic as a serious illness happens in my fam...

It's the first day of school again.  It's the last year of elementary school.  Amazing.  Where did the time go?  How did my "little" boy grow from a scared kindergarten student to a 4th grader?  How will I manage when he walks downtown next year to go to middle school? I can remember his first day of school so well.  He'd been walking with his dad (or me) to preschool three days a week for a couple of years and that walk was actually a bit longer.  So the walking part was easy.  Putting on the backpack and packing the snack...that was a little harder. I remember the little ones lining up in the "multi-purpose" room (aka the "old" gym/auditorium).  I knew he was nervous, but there were two girls from his preschool attending the same elementary school.  The boy up the street was also there.  He made funny faces and I think he was trying to make my son laugh. They marched off together, through the kitchen area and into their clas...

It's here.  It is September and summer will soon be just a fleeting memory. What do a mean soon?  It's already fluttering away!  Somehow we have reached the 9th month of the year and I don't know where the summer has gone.  There were weeks where my son was away at camp.  There were weeks where he was at the NJ shore.  Yet, I can barely remember him being gone (although I missed him like crazy at the time.)  There were days at the beach. There were sailboat races on   Barnegat   Bay. Where did it all go? We're entering the season of Pumpkin Spice.  I LOVE the pumpkin spice!  (But that's a whole other blog post...the joys and many variations of pumpkin spice.)  Days that already were not very hot, will start to cool down.  Although we're bound to get some scorchers in the middle of the month when no one really quite expects it and when the kids are all settled back into school. How can it be September?  Wa...