Thank you for taking the time to check in on our family! We have had a very busy and exciting year. Some of the highlights include: an engagement, a wedding, a new baby. Each of these events involve a different kid.

In October of 2018 my (Barbara’s) office closed and I came home to work permanently. I was pretty much doing that anyway but now there is no option to escape. I work for NCR in point of sale support for a product called StorePoint that is mostly in convenience stores. Many of the customers also have commercial fuel, such as TA. I enjoy my job and love working from home. The commute isn’t too bad and the best part? No bra required! I look out my front window. Sometimes I feel like Gladys Kravitz.

Almost two years ago, I started making soaps again. I said I would only make a few scents and not a ton of different products. I rarely do anything halfway so I have my famous muscle rub, lotions, soaps, lip balms, beard balm, whipped Shea butter … and I just bought some coffee butte to make coffee lip balm. It is still very much a hobby but my website has been revived: www.soaps-and-potions.com.

Alex is still working and enjoys making jewelry and knapping arrowheads. He turns the arrowheads into necklaces and gets many compliments. I hope to have his website up and running in a few weeks. Feel free to bookmark it to check out after the first of the year. Moreda Rocks. He loves spending time with our grandchildren. Crying still perplexes him! 😊

In the fall of 2017, R.J. started dating Brittany, who has a little girl Rae, who was not quite 3. She quickly stole my heart. As she already had loads of grandmas (and great grandmas) in her life, and Barbara was a mouthful for a 3 year old, we settled on Babs as my grandma name. When I asked if her Nama would be okay (which is what we called my mom), she said, “No. I do not like that!” It did take her a couple months to call me anything, though. They pretty much lived with us for about a year. It was so fun having a little one in the house again. She slept in Maggie’s room while Maggie was away at school. They hadn’t met yet and Rae called it “my bedroom”. When Maggie was coming home for the first time, we started saying “yours and Maggie’s room”. One day she asked, “So, is my bedroom my and Maggie’s room?” “Yes”. “Just WHO is this Maggie anyway?” Now, Maggie is one of her favorite people.

It has been so much fun watching R.J. be a daddy. He is so good with Rae. It has been especially wonderful watching how much he loves and care for a new baby. Owyn Lucas Moreda was born on June 16th – Father’s Day. It has been so much having a new little one in our lives. Watching your child love and care for their own children — there really is nothing quite like. Owyn is such a happy baby and such a joy to be around. We love the fact that we only live a few minutes away and see them often and even do some babysitting. How happy Rae and Owyn are is such a testament to how wonderfully Brittany cares for them.

Michael got married on June 8th to Spencer. She is in vet school in Illinois and Michael spent much of the previous year driving back and forth in order to work in Dayton and finish up his degree. He found a job in Champaign that started right after he graduated. They were willing to work him a few weeks then give him two weeks off for the wedding and honeymoon. The wedding was beautiful and he had to finally tell the DJs to stop playing the music. If he hadn’t, I think the Cuban contingent of the family would still be dancing the night away!

Maggie became engaged last year at Christmas. Her finance is named Alex. We call him Alex T. in group settings to help avoid confusion. She is attending Ohio University (NOT Ohio State University) to become a nurse. She started the nursing program this fall. Her end goal is to become a Certified Nurse Midwife. After three years of nursing school, she will need to work two years then get her masters degree. She is also working on a degree in public health as they go hand in hand and she is passionate about sex education and giving people informed choices. Alex T. attends West Virginia University and wants to work in wildlife management. He spent the summer working at a national park about an hour from home.

Part of getting ready for the wedding meant doing some work around the house. We ripped up the carpeting in Michael’s bedroom, the hallway, living room, and family room. We put down laminate as we sadly didn’t have hardwood floors underneath. We stripped off the hideous wallpaper in the foyer, master bath, and kitchen and removed the ugly border in the master bedroom. We repainted all those areas plus the hallway and family room. We still have work to do as the trim still hasn’t been painted. Barbara hopes to get that done soon. Well, let’s be honest. I don’t paint so I hope Alex can get it done soon. lol

Michael’s bedroom is pretty small and I have happily turned it into a craft room. It’s even small for a craft room since I am storing my soap making supplies and finished product in there as well. I have collected scrapbooking supplies for years but have never really done much with them. I never felt creative. Now that I have a photo printer and the space to craft, I am actually getting some things done. I am excited!

Now for some more pictures – just because!

Look Babs! Missing my teeth!!

My hard drive on my personal computer is woefully inadequate for the amount of stuff it has on it (well, this fact is also true on my work computer but there is less I can delete on that sucker). I found a folder with the files from when I was at Sinclair – all my papers, etc. While I will end up deleting most of the papers, I liked the stuff I wrote for my English and Eastern Religion classes.

Below is the Reflection Essay I wrote for English 111. It still makes me angry that this happened. I was actually just telling this story to someone in the past few months.

November 12, 2007

December 2001 found our family in a time of transition. My husband had just quit the job he had held for 11 years in order to keep us from having to leave Dayton after we had transferred here two short years beforehand. While he did have another job lined up already for January, we were without private health insurance. I had been able to secure state health insurance for the kids but had hoped to not need it and had not line up a new pediatrician yet as our beloved pediatrician did not accept our insurance.

Michael had just turned five when he got sick. Very sick. I called my pediatrician. “I need to bring Michael in today.”

“I am sorry, we cannot see him as we do not take your insurance.”

“He is very sick and needs to be seen. Today.”

“I am sorry. Take him to Urgent Care,” was the cold, unhelpful response from the receptionist.

She didn’t take our new health insurance and wouldn’t see Michael. It wasn’t a matter of money as we had it thanks to the severance package Alex had received. I called other doctors that did take our insurance but they wouldn’t see him because he was sick. They expected all first visits to be well-child visits. Go figure – when you are sick, you can’t get in to see the doctor unless you already have one. With tears of frustration, I rushed his feverish, limp, cough-racked body to Urgent Care. We had been to Urgent Care in the past and since. This visit was different.

I felt as if we were being treated differently because we “didn’t have a pediatrician” and because he had state health care. It was humiliating and infuriating. I was amazed that my concerns were not being listened to and taken seriously. Michael was coughing so hard, I thought he was going to break a rib. The balding, rotund doctor waltzed in with his white shirt and tie and dismissed my concerns. We were sent home. The doctor said, “Michael just has a cold.”

I was flabbergasted. This was a Tuesday. He only got worse as the week wore on. Neither one of us slept. I hated leaving him at home in the evening to go to work.  No one cares for a sick child like his mother. His cough was the worst I have ever seen and he struggled to breathe deeply Friday night. All he did was sit on my lap, snuggling. By Saturday morning I was frightened. I also refused to take him back to Urgent Care and be discounted yet again. I screwed up all of my mommy courage and called my pediatrician’s office again and insisted they see him. Now. I was treated disrespectfully by her staff on the phone, “You DO know you have to pay for the visit before he will even be seen.”

Near tears, I still managed to politely stammer, “Of course we will pay for the visit,” instead of saying what I was really thinking.

“Well, I guess you can come in at 10,” I was gruffly told.

We arrived early for our visit, even though I knew we were normally kept waiting for a long time in the small, cramped waiting room.  Instead, we were seen immediately.  We were ushered to a room with bright red and blue trains on the wall. The door that slid closed into the wall didn’t even have time to close before the tall, slim, dark-haired doctor rushed in. She had heard him hacking and struggling to breathe deeply when we came in. She was very concerned and worry was written all over face.  She took one listen to my sick little boy’s chest and grew pale. My instincts had been correct. Something was terribly wrong.

Michael was immediately administered a breathing treatment. It was scary for both of us. He wasn’t sure what was happening to him. He was lethargic and feverish. Being told he had to keep this funky mask with this strange smoke coming out of it over his nose and mouth was not something Michael wanted any part of!  After we both shed a few tears, it was over and the doctor quickly returned. She quickly listened to his chest again. At that point, she told me just how serious she thought it had been. Thankfully, he only had bronchitis and not pneumonia. She had put her staff on notice to call an ambulance to rush him to the hospital as his lungs were so full of fluid. Thankfully, the mucous loosened up with the breathing treatment and we could go home. We had dodged a bullet. We became the proud owners of our very own nebulizer.

We spent the next few days doing breathing treatments every 6 hours, around the clock. A sick five year old is not impressed with 3 a.m. wakings for treatments he doesn’t like.  After the first couple of nights, we were able to stop the middle of the night treatments as he was breathing more easily.  After one week, he was much better and we didn’t need the second week of treatments.

While I was relieved he was not hospitalized, I was also very angry. If they had just let me come in on Tuesday when I had first called, this may have been prevented. If the doctor at Urgent Care had been respectful and treated me as the intelligent, experienced mom I was and really listened to my concerns, this may have been prevented. If I had been more forceful with both the staff at the pediatrician’s office and the Urgent Care doctor, this may have been prevented.

When I hear people say we don’t need health care reform this incident comes immediately to mind. I know what it is like to be treated differently by office staff when you do not have private insurance. I know what it is like to hope your children don’t get hurt or sick when you don’t have private insurance, or any insurance at all. I know what it is like to not be able to take your kids to the doctor of your choice because of your health insurance. No one should ever have to go through what I went through due to the lack of private insurance.  Everyone should be treated fairly and with dignity when they need treatment regardless of who pays for their health insurance.  I will be one of the first to stand in line when we finally get with the rest of the western world and have nationalized healthcare.

Well, I might still get 30 posts in in 30 days but it won’t be 30 days of posts. Subtle differences but difference nonetheless.

Thursday I left work after a 3 p.m. meeting to pick Maggie up from Athens. The drive isn’t terrible and can be pretty. Some of the trees are past their prime in color but others were just lovely. I love spending this time alone with her. I don’t have to share her with anyone and we can just talk. I miss her. She is doing well. Involved in lots of activities and seems to be having fun. What we all want for our children.

Friday, she had a Botox appointment and we went to Spinoza’s for dinner and to hear the Troubadours of Divine Bliss play. One of Maggie’s friends met us there and they were so excited to see each other.

I took a few minutes to check my email on Friday even though I took a vacation day and discovered that the my contact in the training department had reached out to me. We exchanged a few emails and I am cautiously optimistic that getting moved to the training department might actually happen. She was going to go with her co-worker to their manager and plead my case and see about getting me soon. They really want me in place by the first of the year. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

I hate the time change. There is no one who has known me for any length of time that doesn’t know that. I prefer to just keep what we have. Pick a time and stick with it. Frankly, I like “real” time, better known as Standard Time. I don’t like the switching at all. It used be that the dates for switching kept it 6 months standard, 6 months DST. Not so much now. I actually don’t get it anymore. Enough already. But this post isn’t about that.

I forget how much the fall back influences the crazy drivers. I only work 3 miles from home, when I actually go into the office so I don’t have to deal with the crazy much. I remember hating it in Houston. I mean, we all drive at night. We all know how (most of us anyway). The first week after the fall back, most everyone seems to forget how to drive. Going the speed limit? Forget it. Not coming to complete stop on a green light when you are making a right hand turn? Forget about it. No cars coming the parking lot with a clear view but still slamming on your brakes after starting to go? Forget abou And we have a winner! Thankfully, they were stupid enough pulling away from the gas pump and pulling out of the gas station lot at Costco I was already giving them a wide berth and didn’t expect anything less than what happened.

I just don’t get it. I mean, it just got darker an hour earlier it is not like nuclear winter has fallen upon us and we will never see the light again. Just pretend it is 6 p.m. and not 5 p.m.

Maggie and her roommate are very different from each other. Different is not always bad and doesn’t always mean you are incompatible with someone. Sometimes it does. The roommate (TR) is a year or so older than Maggie, a junior, and on her third university. She went to Notre Dame, a more local to her hometown (Cleveland) and now OU. She has lived a sheltered (and very privileged) life. She has a brother just a couple of months older than she is and he is also going to OU. The brother was in their dorm almost all the time for the first few weeks. Maggie just hated to go home in case he was there. He is a bit immature and doesn’t have much common sense/awareness.

Maggie has had enough. She has decided to switch rooms. She is coming home tomorrow as she has Friday off … and has Botox. On Sunday, we will go back to Athens, hit up the UU church (she will be babysitting during service), grab a bite to eat, then go pack up her dorm room. She doesn’t expect there to be problems but she doesn’t want to show her hand until she is ready to pack up and move. Hopefully she will be able to round up a few friends to help with the actually moving of her stuff.

I need to move. I don’t mean pack my shit and find a new house to live in. I mean move my body. My overweight body. My achy body. My stiff body. My body that creaks. My body that cracks.

We all know moving is good for us. Many of just don’t like exercising despite knowing we have to do it. And far too many of us just don’t do it. 2014 was a pivotal year for me. My braces were removed (here’s the story of why I needed them as an adult after wearing them as a teen). The very next morning, my mom died suddenly, even if it was not totally unexpected. A few months later I was diagnosed with Sjogren’s – an autoimmune disease that left me with achy joints. Oh, three weeks before mom died in early March, I started a new job that had an inconsistent schedule, with OT jumping up and slapping you in the face whenever it felt like it – I mean, one can’t just leave in the middle of a call or if the queue was blowing up (oh wait … though the current state of affairs is a post for some other time – or not, as the case may be).

Achy joints and depression made me just not care and just not want to do any form of exercise, which becomes a vicious cycle and now it is 3 1/2 years later and it is worse than it has ever been. I creak. I crack. I sit all day.

A friend mentioned on Facebook last week that she uses Amazon Prime videos for yoga at home. Eureka! I currently work from home more days than I go into the office. And I can do it every day without ever going into the office if that is what I want (though that doesn’t help my introverted tendencies but certainly saves on gas). I checked it out – there are a few seated yoga videos on Prime. I just added a few to my Watchlist and plan to start tomorrow during my lunchtime by watching one. There is even a Sit and Be Fit series on Prime. One of the episodes is for diabetes with tips on eating healthy (I may have a hard time not throwing things at the tv if they talk about how wonderful carbs are for diabetics!)

Another thing I really need to do better on – drinking water. I have gotten away from it. I know in the long run it will help with my swelling in my feet (so will compression socks which I haven’t gone to get yet).

I could probably use a partner in crime to help hold me accountable. Are you game?

When someone tells me that I am in their thoughts and prayers, I take this in the spirit it is intended: they want me to know they are thinking of me at this time, which usually happens when I am in a tough spot or just need some good vibes. I am not so magnanimous when I hear it relation to massacres. They don’t help.

They do nothing for the victims in Vegas or in Paris or in Sutherland Springs or Columbine or in Sandy Hook or Orlando or or or. Fuck it all. When will enough be enough? When we will care more about human life than the ability to tote guns around wherever we want and buy whatever gun we want? When will conservative politicians care more about human lives outside of the womb than they do about guns? When will conservatives hate on white men with guns as much as they do brown men, whether those brown men are actually a threat to them or not.

I dare them to actually vote against sensible regulations and then pick up the phone and call the pastor of the church that lost his 14 year old daughter today – as well as other members of his church, including children. I am sure some already have.

Put some action in your words. Call email. Write. Demand tougher laws and regulations. Demand they do something to stop the bloodshed.

Be angry. Be pissed. Cry. Rage. Rant. Just do SOMETHING other than give lip service. Thousands of family members a year need for all of us to help stop the madness.

Tree of Life is my community. It is filled with my people. Even when I don’t get see all my people all the time, they are still my people.

This weekend is the kickoff for our biggest fundraiser. It brings in thousands of dollars and it takes hundreds of hours to pull it off. We all pull together, doing whatever needs to be done. And we make the toffee. We score and break the candy. We weigh and pack the candy. Then we sell the candy. People we done see often come and help. Some people have been making the candy for 10 or 15 or 20 or even 35 years. Others: this is their first year.

I am always filled with love after making toffee. We talk. We laugh. We argue. We even cry. We have it down to an art. The science of candymaking is such a beautiful art.

this is what community is all about.  I love these faces

 

 

Well, as you can see, if you have read the previous two posts, I have done a little housekeeping around here. I am not totally thrilled with the theme I am using – what IS with that blank space at the top of the page anyway?!? That said, I can live with the theme for now. I exported the data from my site, installed a new version of WP, imported the exported file, and viola! here we are. Don’t be surprised, however, if you visit again soon and find a new coat of paint. I will be tweaking things as the days progress, I am sure.

This is going to be a very busy weekend. It’s toffee making time! If you want to ORDER some toffee, feel free! Trust me, it is the best toffee you will ever eat. If you are local to me, I will deliver or you can pick it up. If you are not, we will ship (you pay shipping, of course). I will be babysitting for a while on Sunday. Three year olds are such a delight! I bought my own car seat to make transportation of said child so much easier.

I have some organizing I want to do at home. I have some journaling and scrapbooking I want to get started on while the craft table is mostly clear. I need to make room for toys for my granddaughter. I want to bring out the children’s books I kept so maybe we can read something other than Stellaluna at bedtime (though, I love that book and she loves seeing the moon on the back cover when we turn the page). On a funny note, she told me last night that R.J. is not a good reader of Stellaluna. I asked her a question about it with a lot of negatives so I re-worded it to see if I was right. “Did you like how R.J. read it?” The answer was a resounding, “NO!” He needs to work on not being monotone when reading to children.

Nothing profound to say today – just mundane life events. Nothing wrong with that!

So, now I remember why I stopped working on my blog. As much as I love my host, Bluehost, I really don’t love calling them for tech support. I can’t get any plugins to install in this instance of my websites. I don’t have the time to call Bluehost. I don’t have the time to figure out how to make it work. Sometimes, I know enough just to be dangerous in figuring some things out. One idea I have, creating a subdomain, making sure I can install plugins, then exporting my site and adding it to the subdomain then promoting the subdomain. But that really sounds like work. I want fun. Not work.

Another thought is just exporting my site. Deleting my instance of WordPress and reinstalling it. I would be holding my breath the whole time making sure it worked without losing my posts. I have done that before … lost posts. It always makes me sad when I lose everything I have written. Somewhere, I have my old blog posts. They are on this computer. It is always fun to find them and read them. One day, I might add them here. If I can get it working like it should.

Oh, comments are off because I can’t stop spam comments because plugins don’t work.

Today, I read my “This Day in Facebook” posts. They were filled with laughter and sadness. The first one made me cry. I related a dream I had about Anne that was so real, when I woke up from my dream, I was crying. I cried again. She would love her grand nieces and nephews so very much. I think she would have loved the internet. She would be 58 right now and would be packing up all of her Halloween decorations. She loved the holidays (except Thanksgiving, she wasn’t into the foodie portion of it all). I am sad that RJ doesn’t remember her. He might have a vague memory of feeding the ducks off the dock until a gator was killed in the neighboring yard. After that, Anne was afraid a gator would grab him from the dock and gobble him up.

Today, I am grateful that Anne got to be there when RJ was born. Mom went home before the big event and made Anne promise to be there. She wasn’t thrilled – she wasn’t a mom herself yet (and never would be, sadly) – and wasn’t sure she wanted to do that. She did. And she loved it. And RJ.