Let's move this business one more time, that's three moves in one year, I think that's enough!!

   It is said that if your dreams don't scare you, you're not dreaming big enough.  Well, mine just got terrifying.  This year has held a tremendous amount of emotion, and we still have four months to go.  And what I do today will make the next six months very shaky.  Not with doubt, fear, or confusion.  But with exhaustion, determination, and just pure force of will.  Although, I am unsure how I will handle the stress load.  If the last three four days are any indication, it's not looking so well for the ones I love most (animals included.). 
   This next month is going to be grueling. I will be tired, sore, hungry, cranky and a jerk.  Will it be worth it?  Yes.  Does this make the future very bright for me and mine? Yes.  Will it take all I have to balance yet another Life change?  Yes.  I feel pressure.  Unnecessary, but pressure none the less.
   I guess the trepidation I feel is that I'm losing my grip on all I have worked at to remain and live in a positive light.  Stress does that to me, makes me second guess everything I do and say, makes me worry that if I even have any down time in my Gratitude, someone I love will bare the onslaught of my poor behavior.
   I need to give myself a break.  Really.  I need to stop worrying.  I can do this.  I've already proven I can do it, twice.  What is one more time?
   So, with that said, let's change the tune of this post....

I am beyond excited to share that I have been given a wonderful opportunity by a member of our community to have a much more permanent and home-felt location for my little massage therapy business. I am beyond Grateful and humbled by this chance to take this wee tiny, one woman business to a new-to-me location.  I think we will fit much better in this spot.  I believe that my clients, both existing and new, will find it more conducive to a relaxing and healing environment.  I just have to get the space ready, in less than a month.  Yup, you read that right.  Less than a month.  I'm nothing if not ambitious!! Right?!

So, in the days to come, I will be tired and chasing my phone and clients and paint brushes from one spot to another to home to pick up the kid to taking care of my clients to paint again, to home.  Wave at me if you see me, send me a smile if you think of it.  But please don't be offended if I don't slow down and chat, or rush off half out of my mind.  I'm juggling, and for the next few weekss I think that is just how its going to have to be.  I'm okay with that.  In the end I can say that I earned the minute to rest... next year. :)

If there is one thing that is constant in our lives, it is change.  The sooner we can accept change, the quicker the Universe can return the goodness that you put out into the World.  I have been Blessed with hands that work, and know all too well how to work hard.  I will use them until there is no more, Go, in them.  I'm a girl that likes to do as much of it on my own as I can.  Wish me Good Vibes!! 

Sending you Love, Light,and Bright Blessings
Norms

So here we are, at the year's end...

Funny, I had been in a reflecting mind frame of late.  I wonder if my mind subconsciously goes there or if it is indeed the pull of the wheel of the year that innately pulls me there.  Time has a way of showing us the path.

The last few weeks have been quite a test for me and my not-so-new-to-me ideals of a positive and Grateful mind frame.  I think I am finally getting the hang of it.

I took a nasty fall down the stairs last week, and I am actually  healing up quicker than I had thought I would, but slower than I thought I would....if that makes any sense at all.

We couldn't just stop there with excitement, Hubby got sick, really sick....like, not eating for almost two days kind of sick.  Yeah, I know...it was making me nervous.  The third day I had had it, I finally told him he had to eat!  I was terrified it was going to turn into pneumonia.  Thank the Goddess for homeopathic care, essential oils, anti-oxidants, and good old fashion sleep have helped him turn the corner.

And the kid had a mean cough.

Yup, my old self would be really upset that I had to work through my body soreness, fight my urge to just lay in bed, and have a moment for me.  Not this time.  I worked through it, glad that I didn't hurt myself so bad that I couldn't do the things my sick family needed me to do.  SO glad I actually took the time off of work and didn't have to juggle that too.  Happy to report that everyone is on the mend.

With the little one on vacation, my days are filled with Naenah, and only in the wee hours before bed do I get some quiet time to be with my thoughts.  Tonight, they are on the coming year.  What our goals will be health-wise, financial/budget-wise, our goals for vacations, Naenah's after school sports that are coming up, taxes, lots of To-Do's on my list....on top of keeping the studio running, the house/animals up to snuff.   This is where the old me would complain.  The new me?

Well, I'm just Grateful.  To have things to worry about, to have things to strive and do my best at.  Even if those things seem measly to anyone else, they are mine to do at the utmost best of my ability.

I've seen cracks in the shiny armour of others lately.  It has made my heart break for some.  Watching all the time, effort and resources used to create a facade.  Whether it be to hide something, someone or to embellish a truth to make it greater.  I'm so Grateful I've learned the lesson of not trying to show the world anything more than who I am, and being okay with that.

Its a pretty humbling thing to look back on the year and know that it has probably been one of the most satisfying year's of resolutions that I have ever had. Why?  Because I went easy on myself, I let up on the pressure of all the preconceived notions of what a resolution should be.  And I accomplished more this year than I ever could have thought possible.

So, again, I'm not making any statements of grandeur for New Year's.  Other than I hope I accomplish just as much if not more than this year.

Thank you for taking the time out to read this tiny little blog.  I wish you and yours a very Happy New Year!

Bright Blessings,
Norms

P.S. Thank you 2014, you treated me and mine quite well.  Cheers to what 2015 will bring!! <3 br="">

Knowing your worth...

Well, it happened.  I fell.  Not a trip and I caught myself kind of fall.  It was an all out slip- and- hit- every- stair- and- bump- and- find -myself- confused- at- the -bottom- of-- the stairs, kind of fall.  It happened yesterday morning.  I immediately stood up, shaking from the Fight or Flight response my body was in and took a deep breath, wiped my face with my hands, closed my eyes and tried with all my might to feel anything broken.  I took a few hesitant steps, shifting my weight, assessing my body. Once a therapist, always a therapist.  I have in the past gone straight into that mode when Nae gets hurt or Hubby even. So, talking to myself in my head, 'Nothing is broke, thank Goddess.' I kept myself moving, knowing that if I didn't there was no way I was going to get done what needed to be done that day. I think I was in denial, as I went on about my morning getting ready for my day at the shop and taking Nae with me. I guess I ran on adrenaline most of yesterday until about mid afternoon.  Then, the soreness was awful.  I listened to my friends and family and took something for the swelling, which I hate taking OTC junk.  But, this was just a situation where I had to listen. As the night went on, the soreness just increased.  I tried to allocate the spots that were the worst, but in all honesty, it was from head to toe.  I thought a good night's sleep would probably help.
This morning has been interesting.  As was pointed out to me by Hayley when I she called to check on me, I have a very high pain tolerance.  I am not in pain, I am sore.  Seriously, its truth.  But man, am I sore.  It sparked a memory of my time in the hospital just after Nae was born.  The nurses were doing morning rounds and came in to see about my pain level. You know, the 1-10 scale, the Happy and Sad faces on the chart.  They had to ask me twice when I told them I wasn't in pain just sore.  That I didn't need the ibuprofen, that I just wanted my stool softener (Mommies will know how much more important that little magic pill is.) They shook their heads but complied.
I had 3 hours of massage scheduled for today.  Last night my husband put a stop to the notion that I was going to jump out of bed and go do those massages.  I was more ridden with guilt for my clients and I was really trying to look past how sore I was.  Well, he was right.  If I wanted to last through all of the festivities planned for our Holiday, I had to take it easy today.  Regrettably, I text my clients and let them know that I had to take a rain check today.
I can hear my Gran in my head when I think to myself, "I am no spring chicken anymore."  I think this lesson has come along at a very perfect time.  All my life I have prided myself in working hard, very hard.  Physical, back-breaking work.  Throwing freight with six-foot men, loading six to eight 100 lbs loads of muffin mix into a hopper and hucking heavy duty muffin trays all night, standing all day, jumping off and on a fork light all day, (yeah, yeah, I couldn't see most of the forks on the lift I was always too short.)
All that hard work for most of my adult life has taken its toll on my body.  My massage therapist instructors would poke fun at me being the kid with all the overuse syndromes we were learning to help combat.  Most times, I was the body they used to show how hard physical work can damage a body, especially one so small.  They were so good to me, not only using me as an example, but always working to show and fix techniques so they would work with my body, not against it.  Sometimes I would stump them on how they would go about altering a technique, but the next class time, they would have a perfect fix for me. I will be forever Grateful for their attention, all four of them.
That is what this whole entire fall has me on...Gratitude.  That fall could've been oh so much worse!!  If I had not worked so damn hard in all those stubborn young years, I would not have had the tough muscles to protect the bones that are by all acts of nature, growing older by the year.  I could've broken so many things.  It would've stopped me in my tracks.  Not just personally, but professionally.  Its another lesson in know just how much I am worth.  That I have to take healing just as serious as I tell my clients to.  My body is my means of making a living.  I have to keep it healthy, and in working order.  I guess you just don't know how important that is until it's about to be taken away from you.  Or could possibly be taken.
Sitting here writing, I feel twinges of nerves healing, aching in the muscles that just had a traumatic once over, and I know the healing that is going on.   I think about how well my clients took the news this morning, the concern in their words.  It means more than they will ever know that I was received with compassion and understanding.  And makes me want to heal, rest and be that much better of a therapist and person.
I won't let this fall upset my holiday, I am in a place in my Life where I can be positive through the soreness.  That the Joy of the Season isn't darkened at all.  That the Love I feel for my Family helps me heal.  That I am Living a Life steeped in Gratitude, so much so that even in down times my mind goes to that directly.  I'm getting the hang of this, I hope I never ever forget it.
Happy Holidays to you and yours.  Sending you Love and Bright Blessings,
Norms

My Me day.

I took a break today.  Its a normal day off for me, but I usually am running errands for the better part of the day. I decided on some Me time.  I had a two hour session with a great gal and got my holiday pedicure done.  I had a client call last minute right in the middle of relaxing time, pleading for me to squeeze her into my day. 
Back story:  I work limited hours a week as a massage therapist.  The hours and days coincide with my daughter's school schedule and family time.  Times and days that were negotiated by the three of us. Also, Massage Therapy is not a 40 hour a week job.  If you want any sort of staying power, you have to use your time wisely.  By wisely, I mean, slow and steady, not too much that can lead to physical breakdown.  It was hard for Hubby to let go of days and times for me to open, start and make a successful business grow.  But, we decided on guidelines, and I was willing to stick to them.  I don't think I really knew how much my little business would grow, how passionate I would become about helping or how much it would actually help the ones who took the time to see me. 
I normally sacrifice the me time and squeeze them in.  Thinking to myself, 'Its okay, you can take care of yourself later, at least its not cutting into time with Hubby and Baby.'  However, I said no today.  I had already pushed through two Fridays of "squeeze-ins".  And really, these people know my schedule and just push to what works for them.  The last two Fridays I let them push me.  This Friday, no so much.  I'm not supposed to work any Fridays. I felt awful.  I even had the sweet one doing my toes tell me that I wasn't going to take anyone today, that I needed a minute to myself.  Bless her.  She is a good girl.  And I needed to hear that at that moment. I called Hubby and vented, I called Hayley and vented.  I felt better, but couldn't help to think that my Me day of relaxation was shot.
Then I got a text from my Mom, reminding me we were going to Skype.  Time to visit, see my niece,which my mom watches on weekdays and catch up with her and Dad.  I took sometime and visited.  Glad I did.  Mom needed to vent.   Dad's new cancer treatment is making food not have flavor.  He's not eating.  Not much at all.  He's lost more weight and his oncologist has told him he needs to pick up weight or he will have to come into more meds to make him hungry.  Mom's worried. 
I got a chance to talk to Dad about it.  And he says its true.  Food tasted like cardboard, why eat it?  So I suggested a few things and he promised me he would try it. 
I got to see Curly (my niece), she's 17 months.  She sang and talked and played for me to see. 
I told them I loved them, then said my good byes,  hung up with them.
Then, I called Gran.  It had been awhile.  I needed to hear her voice.  Man, was that exactly what I needed.  The right words, all filled with Love.  The news about others, good and bad.  She is patient with me, I know she is.  Let's me get to her when I get that minute to talk. 
I even got to text my Aunt J this week too.  Keeping connected even if it just a few short texts.  But boy do those words keep the wind under my wings for just that much longer.
So, you see, I said no today.  I needed a Me day.  I don't feel so bad about it now as I write this, because my Me day helped me charge my batteries with Love from some of the ones that matter the most.  I needed this. Uplifted and recharged.
The lesson? One, sometimes when people say No, it has absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.  Everything to do with them.  Two, respect an others boundaries.  You may not have any, but others do and most times, they are for a really, really good reason.

Happy Sunday. Just when you think the Light at the end of the tunnel has gone out...

As a writer of a very tinny tiny blog, and those who can relate to writing, I sometimes have to wait for inspiration.  Contrary to those who really don't enjoy writing, we aren't always full of ideas to write about.  So, being human, I wait.  And sometimes I have to wait quite awhile.  So then, I start to look, to search maybe is a better way to put it.

I don't always know I'm looking for it either, and most times I don't know what I will write about next until its sitting right in front of me.  I have been wanting to put words to screen since I wrote about Dad, just that the words and the meaning of the next blog weren't quite there in my head yet.

I look for it in the wee hours of the morning, with that first cup of coffee before the kiddo gets up to start her day and I jump into my roll as support staff.  I look in the sunset, I look in the sunrise.  I look at my pack of animals, I look in my husbands words and eyes.

I try to see into this world we live in with not just my sight, but with my heart as well.

I believe today the inspiration is there, and in just the right order.  I see it as an other lesson learned, more enlightenment to add to my belt.  Just more reasons why staying Positive helps.

The last week, there has been a build up of stress for me.  I try to find its source, but for the Life of me, I just couldn't get a hold of where it was coming from.  It was the first full week back to school, my week was pretty full at the studio, and then there is juggling family Life.  I think it might just be getting back to the grind.

Yesterday was the the threshold, I couldn't keep it in anymore.  And the dear one that he is, Hubby could tell.  I let it out, probably not as Gracefully as I could have.  But, like the amazing person he is, he let me just get it out.

I ended the tirade with,' I don't know why I do this to myself, I should know that it always seems the hardest right before it gets better.'  Guess what?  Life did just that.  It showed me possibilities this week that we couldn't even stop to dream of last week or last month.

It showed us kindness, and humanity, and hope and strength.  Life reminded me once again, to 'relax, we got this.'

I am human like everyone else.  I have an acute belief, because of my Life experiences, that if I just keep Positive, learn Happy, and be Honest, I will get it back, tenfold.  But its always the darkest before the dawn.  That is usually when I doubt myself and my efforts the most.

Then good people and good deeds start to show themselves.  And I am where I am today, completely humbled and taken back with Gratitude.  Then all the things that didn't work out in the past, start to make me see that there was maybe something great planned for me and mine.

Sunday for most is the end of a week.  For my family its our day to rest, relax and renew.  Sometimes, I'm lucky enough to reflect and gain wisdom.  Really, Sunday is the beginning of the week.

Never underestimate the power of Positive.  Mind frame, thoughts, Living.  Never think that Honest ways don't get you far.  People watch and they see.  And sometimes that is how you get your lucky breaks.

In other news.....
Dad is bouncing back good.  Having a wee bit of trouble with getting on course with pain meds, but he believes that this surgery has taken away the migraines for good! Yay.
 I have a niece and nephew who are growing like weeds, every picture posted and video I see helps me know that their parents are doing all they can to aid them in becoming amazing people.  I'm so proud of them and their parents.
Football has started.  Enough said. LOL

Happy Sunday, Bright Blessings,
Norma

The walking Miracle that is my Dad.

In the winter of 2003, my Dad, Chuck/Keven/Charles/Tiny,  was diagnosed with Renal Cell Carcinoma.  The most common of kidney cancers.  It affects 3% of adults in the United States.  Its common and his luck, a very slow growing cancer.  Which meant that it was very treatable, survival rates for Rena Cell are very high.  But what they don't tell you, my Dad found out almost 10 years later, is that it is like a weed.  It keeps coming back, and like a weed, you have to keep pulling the cancer out.

Seven days after I was married,that Spring,  my Dad went into surgery to remove the cancer from his kidney.  What the doctors found was alarming and unbeknownst to us, a huge break through for Renal Cell.  He lost is left kidney that day, but what he gained was his Life.

My dad had always complained of lower back pain, it was hard to sit in the air ride chairs in the trucks he drove for long ours at a time.  Well, this day in 2003, we found out why.  My Dad's kidney was the size of a football.  We would later find out that all the cancer was contained in his kidney.  No signs of cancer in his lymphatic system or in his blood.

When Dad told us it was cancer, back in the winter, all I could hear in my head is 'No way, he's not going anywhere.' 'There is too much left for the man to do, too much for him to pay back to the family for having to be away so much to make ends meet.

When we finally heard back about Dad being cancer free, it was a relief.  And a sign that he wasn't going anywhere.  No Chemo,  no radiation.  He was so hell bent on recovering quickly so he could get back in the Truck and drive.

He stayed his healthy stubborn self until the spring of 2007, on his routine yearly tests, they found spots on his lungs.  I had no idea that Renal Cell could grow any other place but the kidneys.  But, it can.  It just moves around your body trolling for a weak point.  It found it, his lungs.

Why was that a weak point?  Yeah, well.  He never stopped smoking.  An action that has made me so angry, upset, and anxious every since the first surgery.  It hurt to think that Dad wouldn't just quit, that he was given this clean bill of health and he was just gonna send it up in smoke...literally.   It didn't present a bright future for my father making it to Grandad status or Poppy status as his is so adoringly called now.  I thought it was a pretty careless move, and it broke my heart. Yet, I know that personal demons are just that personal.  His to battle, and my job to love him through it.

In the late fall of 2007, he had the first of two more surgeries.  To pluck out the Renal Cell in his lungs.  The first lung surgery didn't go as planned, it collapsed and went from a minor procedure to a major one.  He was in a lot of pain after that one, and they had already gone ahead and scheduled the other lung for the early spring of 2008.

He was mean, and surly, and rude to his nurses.  I called Delene to vent.  Mom and Dad's bests friends in the whole world, my adopted grandparents.   She informed me that the Morphine made her  just like that, to check if that's what they gave him, it was.  She told me to have him ask about an other form of pain med, and she told me that I needed to tell him how horrible he was to everyone on it.

Oh my, I was raised you don't talk back.  I had to do it, I wasn't gonna walk into an other recovery room hearing him talk to the staff and my Momma like that again.  I did it.  I was terrified, and he was ashamed and even through that, he asked for different meds.  And he was an angel the next surgery through.  Typical, I had to work for that one!  :)  At least Mom and the girls got a better Dad for that one when he woke up.  Thank goodness I called Delene.

In the late fall of 2010, my wee little family moved to the Mid-West.  Dad was relieved, we were on his winter route.  Leading him literally, two blocks from the house.  January of 2011, Dad visited and was complaining of headaches, bad ones.  Border line migraines.  They got worse.  He tried to push through, but in the late summer of 2011, my father's physician pulled him form working.  Saying that the kidney cancer medication he was on, which by the way was formulated from the kidney he donated to research nearly 8 years before, was finally taking its toll and it side effects were doing him in.

The rest of 2011 and most of 2012 were hard on Dad.  He had worked for 40 years of his 57, he was lost, hurting, always tired from the slow chemo he was taking every two weeks at home.  I asked them to come have Christmas with us.  It would be their last year as grandparents just to Naenah, my Charlie was preggo and the following Christmas was going to be my niece's 1st.  They were there for Nae's 1st, I wanted them there for Caroline's and after that for Reza's.

It was a wonderful visit.  Lots of laughing, some happy crying, a few excursions, but mainly snuggling up warm at home.  Dad relaxed, he slept, he ate well.  I think him and Mom went home with a new perspective on how Life was gonna be.

Two weeks before June 15th 2013, Dad went in for his routine MRI for the year.  They found a meningioma between the hemisphere's of his brain, small and not of any concern to his doctors.  Until they changed his kidney medication in an effort to subdue the excruciating headaches he was having, and it made no difference.  Then, they turned back to the meningioma.  They watched it, and it kept growing, and he kept hurting.

June 15th 2013, he welcomed his second granddaughter into the world, Caroline Darling. Six months later, January 20th 2014, he got to hold his first grandson, Reza Dayas.  With Naenah Delane as the oldest of three grand kids.  Three kids, he never thought he would be around to see when all of this started in 2003, eleven years ago.

So, in the Spring of this year, my Dad had had enough.  He took his own health into his hands and went to his oncologist to tell him enough was enough.  It was time to take that lump out (his words, not mine).  If it wasn't supposed to be there in the first place, it needed to come out. Again, his words, not mine.  Dad thought that it was the cause of all his pain, his doctors agreed.

But before they would do the surgery, Dad had to undergo intensive radiation for a spot on his voice box.  Yup, potential cancer spot again.  He did it, so stubborn, he drove himself to and fro for 12 days.  He rested, he healed, and as far as we know, that spot is gone now too.

So here we are, the Summer of 2014.  Dad went in for the removal of this said meningioma, in hopes that it alleviates the piercing headaches he has dealt with for almost four years, yesterday.  Surgeries are complicated and one involving the brain just that bit more tricky.  There will always be worry when a loved one is undergoing surgery.

I got to talk to my Dad two nights ago.  I told him that so long as this is what he wanted to do, I was behind him.  I told him I loved him. That I would chat with him when he was up and about after surgery.

Today he is in ICU recovering very well from what the Doctor and his nurses are telling my Mom, sisters and Gran.  1600 miles is a long way to be from him at this point in time, but boy am I relieved that it went well.  The next few weeks will be painful as far as recovery goes, but he is due to make a full recovery and be back to himself in no time, which, I'm sure he is reminding everyone of how stubborn he is at this very moment.

I talked to my Mom this morning, she told me that there was not one doubt in my Dad's head that he was doing the right thing, and that he would pull through just fine.  He knew he had a fine set of doctors on his side.  He was right.  Now, only time will tell if those horrible headaches will be a thing of the past.

Times like these are what make a person like me, trying to live in Gratitude, fall to their knees.  Some of it is relief, but most of it is humbling Gratefulness for what I have been given.  Most people will look at my Life and think there isn't very much.  But the lot of you who really try to Live like I do, we will share a smile knowing just how much I actually have.

Hug those you love the next time you get the chance, because you just never know if it might be the last time you get to.

So, off I go, to get through my day, probably pumped up on coffee.  Thank the Goddess for Coffee.

Love and Bright Blessings,
Norms