On My Mind

Need: Thank you very much.

Gershun: Thank you so much.

Gershun, so pleased for you. 🦋🦋🦋 The happy lightness is a wonderful reward after the awful heavyness of waiting for results.

Llama, best wishes & luck for your cousin 🐘🐘🐘 🍀🍀🍀. May she also receive good news.

I will certainly pray for her, Llama.

Of course Llama. 🙏

Hello all. Could I please request prayer for my dear cousin, who underwent a bilateral mastectomy on Monday? She is hoping that her lymph nodes are cancer free. Thank you so much.

Gershun,

I am so very happy for you!!!

I remember having a biopsy done many years ago that turned out to be benign also. It’s so nerve racking waiting for the results to come in. I was extremely happy to hear my news. I was 40, with two young daughters at home. That’s all I could think about, leaving my sweet husband and daughters.

Great news Gershun, worth celebrating!

So happy for your results, Gershun. Every woman I've known who faced this had so much worry. It's good to have that off your shoulders. (((hugs)))

Gershun: Fantastic news! PTL!

Gershun: That is very good news!

Yeah, your lips to God's ear Send!

Oh Wow, that is some good news Gershun!
Everyone is going to want to celebrate!

Someday, there will be the technology so no one has to wait to get results.

Gershun (((((hugs)))) so glad for you.

Hi everyone! Just wanted to share my good news with you all. I received my breast biopsy results today and it is negative for any cancer. It was just a benign adenoma.

So thank you all for your prayers and well wishes.

God is great!

Need: I agree about it being the plastic surgeon's fault. I think that woman held the record, sadly, for having the most plastic surgeries. Crazy. I doubt if she achieved perfection, since her mentality was skewed.

TNtechie: You're right about downsizing. I had to live out of state with my late mother, who owned her own home. Long story short - she refused to leave, then took a health downturn, precipitating me to move in with her from 7 states away. She suffered a stroke, ending her life. As I had been living there for an extended period, my energy was zapped. Fortunately my husband was a great organizer and we emptied her entire house of possessions so that we could sell the home. We vacated the home, leaving the reactor's lock box outside and drove 600 miles to OUR own home. Difficult much? Yes.
I do understand purging your own items. The dress that your mother made sounds magnificent.

Need: I don't know how I got stuck donating those Life mags, other than the fact that my brother, who is an attorney, had to get home when our mother was near death, after her stroke.

EB: Oh, my! Scary for sure.

EB,

Heart racing moments!

I just got the shock of my life. I was on the couch watching a movie when I went to check on my mom in her bedroom. I did not see her in her bed and I screamed at the top of my lungs for my niece who came flying down the stairs. I was actually shaking and got horse from screaming. I thought my mother fell out of bed onto the hardwood floor. I did not hear her. When I checked her bed she had the pillow over her head and top of her body. Oh my if I ever survive all of this. I need a drink and I do not even drink.

Llama.

Geeeeeez! What a collection!

My brother stored things in our mother's house for DECADES. She lived in Massachusetts and he lives in California. So when I was living with her, having had to leave my Maryland home, he gave me the duty of donating his over 3,00 Life magazines. I had to beg the local MA antique shop to accept them, then lift the magazines into my car. They weighed a ton. I get to the antique shop, it had been raining buckets creating a mud pit at the antique shop, but someone the antique shop owner and I got them out of my trunk. That was tough!

I used to keep books. I must have had over 650 of them at one time. Now I read the book and then donate. Some I have given to a friend once I'm done with the read.

TN,

I enjoyed reading your posting. My mom was an excellent seamstress but I don’t still have my prom dress. I can describe it though, hahaha 🤣 because I loved that dress. It was a beautiful aqua blue. I loved picking out fabric with my mom!

I have my grandmother’s sewing machine that she bought from a door to door salesman! She gave it to me after I was married. Everything mom owned was destroyed in hurricane Katrina, so I didn’t inherit any of her belongings. Very little was able to be saved from her home.

I do like that you have your special memories all in one spot! That’s a great idea!

Me too! The whereabouts of that beetle would have given me sleepless nights until found!

Golden,

Yay! I am happy that you found the beetle!

Found the beetle. Thank goodness!

Books, need - I am finally tossing them. The library here used to take them but not now. We don't have second hand hook stores and the lovely big coffee table books aren't in fashion any more.

Downsizing is a big challenge. Downsizing the contents of my parents' house was difficult because they were taking some things with them (to MC and my home) as they moved. My mother was wonderful, having chosen the furniture she wanted to take for her room to what the room would actually hold. The only separate thing she wanted to take was her china cabinet and its contents which I made room for without a strain. My father was a collector and so more difficult and many things had to be securely stored during his lifetime. Turning to my own stuff has been a different challenge but I realize as I age it is necessary.

I have a memory chest of stuff that only has some value to me. I do not want to throw the stuff away and probably will not in my lifetime and keeping it in one chest makes it easy for me to view it occasionally and will make it easily discarded when I'm gone. This includes childhood crafts (mine own and other children's) and small gifts (like a cuff bracelet my grandfather made for me and some books). The beautiful dress my mother made for my high school prom is in that chest. My mother was a great seamstress and the dress reflects her skills working with good materials. I'm not sure whether I keep it as a remembrance of skills not generally practiced today or the fun we had planning and making the dress, but I have accepted I won't be discarding it.

I have better luck with things - if I haven't used it in a couple of years and can't see using it in the next year, it can generally go. I have more of a problem with some things for entertaining because I'm in a transitional form of life taking care of my mother. I have containers for pies so I can take four to a family potluck. A crockpot with a cover that allows you to carry the pot with a strap over the shoulder worked well for potlucks at work. I still use some of this a couple of times a year when our cousin's lunch is hosted in someone's home. I hope when I not tied down I will get back into church and club events and use them more in the future.

One of my big downsizing struggles is with my nice clothes. I have had jobs requiring strict business clothes and dressy business casual. Most of these conservative suites were expensive to purchase and don't go out of style. So far they have all remained in my nice walk-in closet because I may wear them again someday although I probably only wear an outfit once or twice a year now. I am much more likely to wear my long shorts together with a comfortable t-shirt or polo shirt.

I'm 57 and plan to move into my condo with care services available in 10-12 years when the grand-nephews are finished with college. I do enjoy being in the middle of the cooking, homework, and sports schedules for now. I am very lucky my aunt wanted her condo sold to me and my cousins offered it as a bargain after her death. Today it is paying for itself as I rent it to pay the mortgage. I know exactly how much space I will have there and periodically go on a "downsizing" cleaning with fitting into that space in mind. The hardest to let go of will be my pianos and organ... yes I have an antique upright grand piano I learned to play on in my bedroom, a more traditional piano in my living room, and an antique pump organ I restored in my living room too. The pump organ must go but I have almost convinced myself I can accommodate both pianos. If the arthritis in my hands allows, I will enjoy them too.

A fair time ago the fella I was then going out with was invited to a fancy dress party, the theme being Barbie and Ken. My fella was a bit of an exhibitionist, and decided to go as Transvestite Barbie. You can imagine, the full production, wig, falsies and all. Obviously I had to go as Cross Dressing Ken. It wasn’t too difficult, as I had very short hair in those days, never had much in the way of frontage, and easily fitted into a man’s shirt and sports jacket. I just painted on a neat little mascara mustache, and that was my Ken costume. The interesting thing was that fella was a scream, hit of the party, while no-one seemed to know how to take me. The costume was just a little bit too convincing!