Thursday, March 30, 2017

DAISIES FOR DAYS

"Why Daisies?"
He, the boo asked one day when I am thanking
him for sending me a bouquet of my very favorite flowers.
Before knowing my favorite, he had sent Lilies and Roses.
I love all flowers, especially those grown and cut from the yard.
The last bouquet he graced me with, he knew me well enough
to let the florist know (she shared this info. with me)
not to arrange them as I like arranging my flowers myself.
How he does this, remembers all these little things I may
say or do that he does not forget..... IDK but it is why he is MY BOO!
So back to the original question,
"Why Daisies?"
Here is my answer.....
A little tyke in the hospital, battling cancer,
One memory.... Daisies from my Uncle Luke and Aunt Tim,
often. but not from a florist, picked and brought from
his yard. My hospital room usually had lots of flowers,
but the ones brought by Uncle Luke were always my favorite.
They were not arranged fancy like the florist bought ones.
My eyes often, as a young child, laying in that bed,
were drawn to those daisies.
I have sporadic memories of the years I fought cancer,
this memory, one of my favorites.
As I got older, when visiting my Uncle and Aunt,
I noticed that daisies always grew in abundance between
a narrow patch of dirt between the house and the drive.
I never left without a handful of them.
I always loved putting these daisies in my bedroom, having
them sit there and even then I realized the beauty
of what one small group of fresh flowers can bring to a room.
Now, I try and keep fresh flowers in my cottage as 
often as I can. 
Back to the daisies. When I would see the daisies at my 
Uncle's home I would like to believe he planted them for me,
only me, his baby niece who was fighting a battle that
seemed I would not win. I never asked him if that was 
the case, because I want to still believe that was the reason
they grew there.
As a teen, I was going over there to pick Uncle Luke's daisies
so often that my Dad went and dug up a few plants and
planted them for me in our own flowerbeds.
Each spring, my room was filled with them.
Now I am an adult, daisies still give me that warm feeling
they did way back when.
This past weekend, me and the boo went to Whole Foods
where there were real daisies, traditional in color,
white with yellow centers, Shasta Daisies and I just
had to have some as all of the ones I planted in my yard last
year died. I pick out four beautiful plants, the last there were
and the Boo bought them for me...
"BE STILL MY HEART" 
and this is why it will always be Daisies...

"DAISIES FOR DAYS"




Friday, March 17, 2017

WORKING FROM HOME...

At the same time I am using the analogy of
"feeling like a juggler with two many pins in the air"
my business, MUMSIES COTTAGE
has begun to take on a life of its own.
Just in the last few weeks, I have been commissioned
to make a scrapbook for a Fathers Day gift,
signed three children on for lessons,
and working with a baby boutique to make cards for them.
With all of this on the burner, three grand girls, my kiddo's
and a relationship I am giving my all  
I am trying to come up with a work system for working 
from home. Which leads me to this blog.
I have read a most interesting article addressing just this.
And now, I know beginning Monday,
(as my weekend is filled with my boo)
I will only work in the studio.
I will work four hours each morning dressed for success.
I will take a lunch break for half an hour
and enter back for another 4.
I will work half days on Friday.
Once, again talking about the juggling...
I know I am not giving enough time to some of the pins.
My DTB family and friends have not seen enough of me.
My thibodaux family I made for myself in the 10 years
I lived there, also does not see enough of me.
I am still working on this juggling act.
I pray that all who know me and love me
give me a little forgiveness for the things I am not doing
so well in. I want this business to thrive but not at
the cost of taking important pins out of the juggling.
However, some things have to be removed, for my health
as well as that there is just not enough time in the days, weeks,
months. I will figure it all out in time but for now.
I will give this Mummies Cottage business a little more
time in the air, I need this for my health and I am
just going to have to get a little selfish for a bit.
Love to all!

Monday, March 13, 2017

BEANS NEVER DO GET OLD....

Today our Jilly Bean turns six years old.
It is so very hard to believe six years has passed, so much
has happened, she and her sisters have brought 
us so much joy.
Her favorite food? Beans...
any shape, size, color, Red beans her fave,
hence the title of the blog.
I could write a book just on the antics, things she has said,
done and has learned from us, her first teachers.
Yet, each one of us who love her would say
she has taught us all so much more.
She is loving, more than her 6 years should know,
but on the same note, she can throw a tantrum like
all other six years old.
She forgets very little so don't try and pull wool over
her eyes, she will call you on it! 
I will make this a short blog with a montage of pictures,
leaving you with one story that will show just what
a special child she is to us.
I still, since she is born, spend almost every Wednesday
with her. One this one Wednesday a few 
weeks ago, I am at her house as she gets off the bus.
Her baby sisters are there as well, she rushes off
just to share some love with sisters.
She hugs JoJo tightly, JoJo swats at her face.
With the smile still on her face she runs to baby Jemma,
kisses her and hugs her, Jemma pulls her hair.
She then comes back to her Mumsie for a second hug
and kiss. As I am hugging her I say, 
"Poor Jilly, loving on the babies and they won't give her 
a break"
She responds with a statement that shows her love for 
so many...
''Oh yeah, Mumsie, but I don't care, I love them anyway
and I am going to kiss them and hug them everyday anyway"
Oh we love our Bean!
I often steal her line,
" I could love and squeeze you until your guts come out"
Happy Birthday, My Jilly bean,
"I HAVE LOVED YOU, WITH AN EVERLASTING LOVE,
I WILL LOVE YOU, AND YOU ARE MINE"                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
This day, 6 years before, just as beautiful then as now
 Bean at 1 1/2 with My Mommy, her Mommee...                              
 A Christmas when she was an only child.
 One of our Mother/daughter tea parties at the church 
I and my children grew up in.
 Our "sassy in a good way"
(as she calls it)
in the church her Mother and her sisters
will be raised  in.
Jilly and her family that she loves so much,
at Gulf Shores.


Monday, March 6, 2017

LOVE LIKE NO OTHER.....

This morning, while checking Facebook, they
remind me of this post I made 4 years ago, when
my own marriage was finding its end.
An older couple's obituary that I loved so much
I actually cut it out of the paper.
Seems after all those years of being together,
in death they were not to be separated,
dying within 24 hours of each other.
I do not know this couple nor their families.
I am not one to normally read the obits but this one
has always been close to my heart.
I wonder about their lives, being together and passing
in their 90's. I wonder how hard their lives may have been.
I wonder how many times they may have fought and
found their way back to the other.
I wonder how many times they kissed good morning 
and then good night,
I wonder how many nights they spent away from each
other and how hard that must have been.
The one thing I do not wonder, is this,
that even in death, they would rather leave this world
together, forging the next voyage of their lives together.
Such a touching story, even now four years later.
It is the type of love all of us should strive for,
it is the type of love, even through rough times
we should make marriages this important if in one.
The type of love we should be for another.
It is the type of love all should not settle for less.
Four years later, I am still in love,
with this couple, with what their story says to us all,
I want to be like them when I grow up....
If I ever grow up.....

Friday, March 3, 2017

THE NONC ROY

My cousin Reggie has been going through 
a whirlwind, along with his brother, Jude and 
Reggie's wife, Vickie.
Since last Friday, when his Dad, My Uncle Roy,
was rushed by ambulance from our local DTB hospital
Lady of the Sea to University hospital in NOLA.
Heart attack caused by a septic infection in his bloodstream 
caused by his gallbladder stones getting stuck in 
the ducts that go to the liver.
The first night Reggie and I spoke he mentioned his
Dad had began to  turn yellow.
For my nursing mind, NOT GOOD.
I shared with him what he maybe could expect
in the next few days from the simplest of 
problems to the hardest, the big C of Pancreas....
I am so very glad, as sick as he is, looks like Cancer
is not the culprit. Reggie and I have always
been very close as kids, being the same age.
Time and families have had us loose touch sometimes
but when we do see each other, or talk it is like
no time has passed, yep one of those friendships.
Being one of two children, with his brother not
living here, lots of the burden of his parents are his.
Since this illness he and I have texted much, spoke
a few but for lengthy times.
Now that I have set up this long blog, I will switch
to my Uncle Irby Roy, married to my dad's baby sis,
(who he took in and raised when their parent died when
she was a teenager/young adult) Jeanette.
The words Odd Couple come to mind when I think of them.
Years ago, I wrote a blog following their 50th wedding anniversary
party. it is amazing that their differences find them together
so may years later.  
I can try and explain Uncle Roy as being a walking Church,
a walking Bible. He preaches to anyone who will listen
and anytime in any place. I say this with love
as he brings us many chuckles when we speak of him
and his love of God.
Then my Aunt Jeanie, a cussing sailor, she loves her God,
prays I am sure as much as Uncle Roy but in a different way.
As a younger child,
It has always been fun and interesting to visit as
Uncle Roy walked around teaching about the Bible and Aunt Jeanie
is cussing.... lol I say this as terms of endearment.
There are so many aspects to my childhood revolving around
this couple. When I was fighting cancer, these two took in 
my two siblings closest to my age as their own.
Having been in the hospital for 8 weeks without coming home,
they helped anyway they could and the siblings went from
their home to the home of my sister, Veronica.
My sister, Rosie, one of the siblings who stayed there lots
associates Uncle Roy with learning how to truly pray,
every night, she had written, he had them kneel by their bedside
in his home, and pray for their sickly little sister who may die.
While that sounds scary, MY Uncle Roy believed that
I could be healed from a cancer that was incurable through
good doctors and many prayers. He was right, here I am so many
years later......
Now that he is the sick one, No one deserves more prayers  
than this praying man. So, as I sit here writing this complicated
blog, I also ask that you pray.                                                                    
I could sit here and try to write this experience my Uncle
is going through, knowing that once his God heals him
he will have stories to tell us of possibly seeing Heaven,
Purgatory, or anything else his sick body has his heart and
brain thinking. Yet, I decided to write this blog after receiving
a text from Reggie yesterday, an update on his Dad after having
the scare of his life the night before when he was called
to the hospital because his Dad had taken a turn for the worst,
honestly they believed he was dying!
Yesterday morning I woke up to the most beautiful update
written by my dear cousin. Nothing I could write 
could be more beautiful.  With his permission I transcribe
his most touching text:
MORNING UPDATE;
MY FATHER WAS BASICALLY DYING IN MY ARMS
AT 5PM YESTERDAY.
HOWEVER, (i guess all his praying throughout all these years
paid off), THEY SOMEHOW MIRACUOUSLY REPLACED
THE THREE PINTS OF BLOOD HE LOST SUDDENLY
(in a flash). YESTERDAY WHILE BEING VERY PALE
AND MOANING LOUDLY IN HIS BED WHILE GASPING
FOR AIR, WITH HIS EYES CLOSED AND HEAD
COCKED BACK UP AT THE CEILING.
HOWEVER,  OVERNIGHT THEY FOUND
SOURCES OF HIS INTERNAL BLEEDING,  
HIS SMALL INTESTINE AND ALSO HIS ESOPHAGUS.
THE GREAT NEWS IS HE'S FIGHTING THREE MAJOR
BATTLES AT HIS AGE OF 85. HE STILL HAS HIS 
INFECTION, EXPERIENCING SOME HEART FAILURE
AND LASTLY, HIS LIVER, PANCREAS AND GALLBLADDER
ARE NOT WORKING UP TO SPEED. HE IS STABILIZED
THIS MORNING IN ICU. IT IS MY GIFT THAT MY
DAD IS ALIVE ANOTHER DAY AFTER WITNESSING
HIS QUICKLY DETERIORATING CONDITION
YESTERDAY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PRAYERS!!
YOU HAVE GIVEN MY FATHER ANOTHER DAY
ON THIS EARTH TO THANK THE GOOD LORD AND
ALLOW HIM TO BE ALIVE AND CONTINUE HIS 
TOUGH JOURNEY! THANK YOU....
THANK YOU!!!!
How beautiful is that? 
Prayers must continue as the table is turned and
instead of Uncle Roy praying for so many,
He needs all our prayers, from all those he has prayed for without
ceasing. My Uncle Roy, he can drive you cray cray
with his knowledge of the Bible, prayer but none
of what he is is for show, he truly loves his God
and believes in him. He walks the talk, doing
all he can to help others, one being all he did for 
our family way back in 1968.
As we all fear what will happen to Aunt Jeanie if
Nonc passes as she depends on him for everything.
Her health is not good, and as much as she fusses at him
we all know she loves him dearly and depends on him for 
everything. God has his plans and as I joked with my dear cousin,
Reggie over this hard week,
"If you Dad makes it out of this, think of the stories we will have
to endure of How he saw Heaven, how beautiful it is,
how we all need to pray, etc. he will have stories to tell
when His God heals him, love you"
my Reggie's response?
"Lololol I hate to laugh but darn, u are right!"
Yes my dear cousin, if you can find a reason to laugh a minute,
it's all good medicine.
Continue to pray for my electic uncle 
as he would do the same and does the same for all.
Pray for my cousins, Jude and especially Reggie who
carries most of the weight because he is closer,
he needs the prayers as well, having been sick himself.
Long road ahead but I believe in the power of prayer
and no one deserves that more than this dear,
Nonc Roy.
Blessings and Peace to all.
 Nonc and Taunt 
 Uncle Roy and Aunt Jeanette at their 50th wedding Anniversary
 Uncle Roy in my childhood home (before I was born) 
when courting my Aunt.
( Reggie and I along with his wife, Vickie and their daughter,
Lauren)

                                                                                                                                                                                                   
                               







                                                                                                                                                        

the inspirational JEMMA KATE

 MY NEIGHBOR DIED... The grand girls didn't know him well but they knew him and they knew he was my friend. Last night I had the pleasur...