It's Been A Long Month...

As I gently blow the dust off, while I creep back to

Aunt Pam (May 12, 1957 - April 08, 2013)
[ photo from Jane's Instagram page ]

my blog I feel I need to hang my head low. I did not mean to disappear for so long, but life has been quite… trying over the past month or so. On April 08^th of this year I lost my Aunt Pam. She was one of my mom’s baby sisters and she was a woman, who I spent a good portion of my childhood years with. Her death has taken more of an impact on me than I like to admit – publicly or privately. Part of me feels as though I do not deserve to grieve her, as silly as that may seem, while the other part of me is still in shock over her sudden death. It feels so surreal to know that she won’t be calling or that I can’t simply pick up a phone and call her. It haunts me truly that I didn’t take more time to call her over the more recent years. Oh the joys of dealing with guilt when someone we love passes, eh? I feel it though. I do. I admit it.

So upon her sudden death, I had to spend a week with my mom to take care of her. As I said this is one of my mom’s baby sisters. She is the first of my mom or her sisters to pass away. My mom, who has heart issues, was told in person. One of my older brothers broke the news, but it was him, a sister-in-law and I who were right there together for her when she received it. So I called my GED Prep Instructor, and explained to him what happened, as it was I had to rush out of class for this family emergency. He understood the situation and fortunately I was able to stay with my mom through the funeral. We did end up in the Emergency Room and she (my mom) says I saved her life, I just say I wasn’t messing around and giving her the option – she started having problems with her chest, therefore I called 911 to get her help.

The rest of April seems like such a blur now. After the funeral I had come home and sort of found myself going through the motions. Monday through Thursday I just woke up at my usual 7:00am, got ready and headed out to my GED Prep Class. I didn’t study as hard as I had been prior to my aunt’s death. I’m not blaming her for the sudden slow-down, but in time of grief we all tend to get a little spacy with ourselves. And I sure as heck did. I didn’t realize it right away; in fact, it was only towards the end of last week that I realized within myself that I’d been struggling. While I’ve managed to get on my third subject (out of the five) to study for, I find myself still floundering around a little. I’ll get there. I know I will. I do know that mourning a loved one’s death takes time, but I think I’m still floating off in denial to some degree. Not wanting to accept she is no longer with us in this life.

My days have not all been somber however, as I did mention I have been keeping up (for the most part) with my GED Prep Class. I’m currently studying my third topic – and I hope to be going off soon to start taking the actual tests. I am sincerely trying to get myself back in gear and re-prioritize myself again. I actually have a lot going on this week (including giving a speech at a fundraising luncheon), but I will be doing my best to keep up better with my blog from now on.

I thank all of my dedicated visitors/readers and friends for your continuous support of my blog! Your patience and understanding in my down times, goes so far beyond words of appreciation. Thank you all again and I do hope you’ve all had a good month!

--XOXO, Jane

3 Negs & A Strong Positive!

Where to begin? Well how about the beginning. As you see at first, I had a laptop issue arise. Now granted there is a very good chance my laptop has just recently shown me that I am on the verge of a dying hard drive. However, with the wonderful skill and knowledge of my amazing older brother Tim, my laptop has been fixed from its error. Or at least the error I was receiving. So fortunately, that problem was squished pretty quickly, but still I went a couple days with falling behind on things as I had to re-install certain programs and such.

The next dilemma came when I seemed to have caught a sinus infection. So many things have been floating around, that I’m personally glad that’s all I caught. Still though, it was pretty nasty, but I focused (in-between classes) on getting rest and doping up on some cold medications. Unfortunately in a way, I had to learn the hard way that certain cold remedies apparently do not mix well with my anxiety medication. As you see, I ended up having a panic attack out of the blue. The fortunate side to this was that I was able to tell what was going wrong with me when it started. I knew what it was and while I did have to leave class early that day, I was able to assess it might have been a medication mixture. So for that day I took no more cold meds and the next day I felt just fine again. Also, bonus plus side to feeling and knowing what was wrong with me, I didn’t freak out in front of others and was able to leave early with (what I hope) was discreet grace.

Now for my third negative encounter. Last night I went to unplug my laptop and I was met with a large spark and a puff of smoke. My eyes widened as I looked to my cord to see the plug part actually broke off from the cord. Fortunately there was no fire or electrical problems due to the sudden breakage. I also, have already ordered myself a new adapter for my laptop – as without one, I can’t charge the battery on it. The fortunate side is that while I’ll have to wait till Monday (thank you overnight shipping) for my new cord to be here, I am indeed getting one! I’ll be away for the weekend as I’m spending Easter with my mom, so it’s not like I’d be on a whole lot over the weekend anyways. I may still manage a bit of poking around the net, but in the meantime of Monday I’ll happily be occupied getting in some much needed mother-daughter time.

Okay folks, now it’s time for my big positive note! Even though yes, throughout each of my negative ones I have easily found an upside. Anyways, the positivity is that just three weeks into my GED prep class I think I’ll be getting sent to do my first GED test. I have taken three practice social studies tests thus far and my last two were above the average scoring. Not to toot my own horn as I don’t think I’m some genius suddenly, but I am getting more anxious and excited about taking the actual test. Next week is spring break (yep, I actually get one), but here is hoping that in the following week I’ll be able to wrap up one of my tests!

--XOXO, Jane