I Love Upstate

Happiness flows through my veins as soon as I turn down that dirt road.  Gravel crunches under my car, sunlight streams through the canopy of trees overhead.  The air is crisp and fresh.  There is a coolness to it that is impossible to find unless you are at the top of the mountain.

The trees flanking the road change to pines on the left-my father planted all those pines with his father and brother years ago.  I maneuver the car down the short, steep, driveway, making sure to kept left and avoid the trees.

It feels like home as soon as I get out of the car.  The house borders the road and opens up to a huge meadow.  The knee high grass hides countless wild raspberries.  Wildflowers in all shades of red, orange, yellow, and purple dot the landscape.

The garden is full of potatoes and blueberries.  Blackberry vines snake around the compost heap.  The old stone fireplace stands like a relic from the past in the middle of the meadow.

I hear the stream trickling next to the woods.  The birds chirp in the trees.  Shots and the barks of faraway dogs echo across the mountains.  A mama black bear and her 3 cubs are visible down by the pond, foraging.

I love upstate.

The road to the house

This post was written in response to this week's Red Writing Hood post from Write on Edge.
Good writing plants the reader’s feet into your story.  Good writing is also concise.  So when you’re trying to decide where to spend your words – where to use the most imagery and details and senses – I say setting is where its at.  This week, I want you to take me there. You have 200 words.
I knew I had to write about my house upstate.  I love everything about it.  As a child I spent my summers there.  The best memories I have of my Oma are there.  And I still go as often as I can with my kids in the hope that they will love it as much as I do.

Apparently I Have Crappy Friends

If this is true, then I really only  have one friend and my family.  That sounds so sad when I actually have to look at it.  I really like this quote, though, because, when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

Why should we try to cultivate friendships when we are the only ones who care?  It reminds me of all the craptastic people I have friended on Facebook who I haven't seen in 10 years or more.  A lot of them are just people I went to school and never hung out with.  Whatever, I don't care that we don't talk.

But the people I was friends with?  The ones I reached out to and nothing ever came of it?  They can go screw themselves.  I realize a lot has changed since high school, but I spent a lot of time with some of these girls.  Like, every single day of the week.  We got driven to school together, walked home together, and hung out every day.  We went to concerts together.  Now, nothing.

One person in question actually lives down the street from me.  I see her sometimes and we always say we will hang out one day.  And I make the effort to do it.  I invite her to come to the zoo with me and my kids, or to take a walk-then nothing.  It sucks, and I don't know why I waste my time on people who were friends who now don't care.

Another girl comes to mind as well.  We were both outcasts in school, and in the same honors and AP classes.  We ate lunch together between the stacks in the library.  I've reached out to her a few times and she couldn't even be bothered to attempt to make plans.  This was a girl who I liked so much that I lost my popular friends for sticking up for her.  I bet I could pass her on the street now and she wouldn't give me the time of day.  I never had a lot of friends, so it's not fun when the old ones dump me.

Then there was college, where I met a lot of awesome people, many of whom were in my major, screenwriting. Which was good, because our major had a grand total of 15 students.  In our classes, you really got to know everyone and you loved them or hated them (although I only hated one girl, and only after we lived together for a year).  A lot of us shared apartments.  Thankfully, I still talk to a few people in college and even though we don't spend a lot of time together.  I still consider many of them my friends.


Then I have my best friend, Lady.  We met on the first day of college and hit it off right away.  And she had her car with her in Philadelphia.  I needed a car to come home to New York every weekend to see my then fiance.  She lived in an apartment, not a dorm like me, and went home on weekends too.  We spent a lot of time in the car together those 4 years.  Actually, we just spent a lot of time together.

We met up every morning and walked to class, went to lunch between classes, and went to each other's apartments after class.  I don't know why we never became roommates because we spent pretty much every waking moment together for 4 years.  I love her to death.  She knows all my dirty little secrets, and we've been with each other through good times and bad, through breakups and problems.

Even though we only see each other a few times a year now, we're still really close.  We usually meet up on birthdays and Columbus Day (which means I get to see her Monday, woohoo!).  She and her fiance love my kids, and his kids love playing with mine, even though they're older (although it is pretty funny to see a 3 year old beat up on a 7 year old).  This summer, I had a big birthday party for me and we spent hours reminiscing about college with another guy from our major (my boyfriend and her fiance and the kids all fell asleep waiting for us to wrap it up).

It is really hard for me to make new friends.  I've been hurt so many times by people that I put up a wall.  I'm sure a lot of people who don't know me well are intimidated by me or think I'm a bitch.  But I have my family and a few close friends (okay only 1 close friend and a few other friends), and that's enough for me.  Because I know they care about me and won't judge me for stupid things.  I can be myself and not worry about it.  They just get a bigger piece of my heart and that is good enough for me.


This post was written in response to a prompt from this Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop.  5.) I have no idea where the following message originated from, but it’s been floating around Facebook for the past week…who does it make you think about? (message in photo at top of post)

Wordless Wednesday-Sleepy Kitten

Why I'm Happy Summer is Over

The sun viciously beats down.  Tar bubbles; heat steams up off the pavement.

Sweat beads on my face, constantly dripping.


My face is so flushed I look like a cooked lobster.

Livid bruises in all shades of red, purple, green, and yellow cover my arms and legs.

I feel like I'm trying to breathe underwater-the air is thick with humidity.

My hands tremble, getting tingly and numb as the seconds progress.

Multicolored dots cloud my vision, increasing until my world is black.

I am falling.  My ears roar with the sound of crashing waves. 

This post was written in response tothis week's RemembeRED prompt from Write on Edge.
Writing short posts is an excellent way to flex your word choice muscles. Which word is the most clear? Poignant? Direct?  This week I want you to conjure something. An object, a person, a feeling, a color, a season- whatever you like. But don’t tell me what it is, conjure it.
You have 100 words, use them wisely. And yes- you so can do this!

Here's a little background info on this post.  I have a bleeding disorder called vonWillebrand's disease.  My blood doesn't clot right, and it really affects me in the summer.  I am usually okay when the weather is cooler, though.  I really can't even go out in summer because I faint constantly.  So I sit in the air conditioning whenever it's hot.  And I pretty  much hate summer, because I've had a lot of bad experiences where people did nothing when I fainted.  I will always remember fainting in the doorway to an ice cream store (literally half inside the store, half outside) and no one even asked me if I was okay.  All I needed was one person to be nice and see if I needed anything (I really needed some cold water) but no one did and I couldn't even sit up for a half hour.  People just stared at me and walked over me to get in and out of the store.  It was awful.

Pumpkin Muffins and Chocolate Cherry Brownies and a Deco Phone Case

I've seen a number of awesome looking recipes on the link ups I've done over the past few weeks.  So I decided to try a few this weekend.  One was successful, one was not.  Both were easy 2-3 ingredient recipes, so I had T help me make them.

First up was pumpkin muffins.  They turned out well.  All we used was a box of spice cake mix, a can of pumpkin, and 1/2 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice.  Just mix it all together, put it in a cupcake pan, and bake according to the directions on the cake mix.  I made 12 muffins with this, even though the cake mix said it would make 24 cupcakes.  I also baked them 6 minutes longer than the box said, as the toothpick I initially inserted was not clean.

My only improvement for next time will be to use a bigger can of pumpkin.  I used a 16 oz can and the muffins are slightly drier than I would like.  I want them to be more like the ones from Dunkin Donuts, which are really mushy and pumpkin-y.

And I will be glazing them in the morning before breakfast.  Just mix together 2 tbsp. milk, 1 tbsp. melted butter, 1-2 tsp. vanilla extract, and a cup of powdered sugar.  You may have some left over depending on how much glaze you put on each muffin.

 Next we made chocolate cherry brownies.  They are not so good.  The only two ingredients are brownie mix and a can of cherry pie filling.  You also bake these according to brownie box directions.  They are very gooey, and not in a good, ooey-gooey way.  More like a gluey gooey.  They are edible, but I have some improvements so they taste good.

First, make the brownie mix according to the directions on the box, with the eggs and oil and water.  I always use the fudgy brownie directions instead of the cake like brownie directions.  Instead of cherry pie filling, use plain canned, jarred, or frozen cherries.  And it never hurts to add half a package of chocolate chips.  These taste much better.

You can see how gluey gooey these are, even in a picture

Oh, and on a totally unrelated note, I made an awesome Hello Kitty Deco phone case.  It is spectacular, and if anyone is interested, I can do a tutorial.  Or you can buy it from my Etsy shop, even though it is not listed yet since my digital camera is MIA and I am not comfortable listing items for sale with a cell phone camera.

The case is pink and covered in pink and blue faux pearls. I love it.

Princess' Teeth

So all I've been able to think about this weekend is Princess' teeth.  I am so beyond stressed out about it.  We have a consult with the dentist Monday afternoon, and it can't come soon enough but at the same time, I don't even want to go.

Over the summer, the boyfriend took her to the dentist because she had a couple discolored gray spots on her two front top teeth.  Apparently they were cavities and she had 4 of them and would need 3 root canals and 4 crowns to fix them.  We don't have dental insurance and we didn't have the money to pay for it, so we put it off.

Now her teeth look worse.  I can actually see the cavities on the two front teeth, and the other two teeth have gray spots.  So we have to get it fixed, and I need to borrow money to do it.  I spoke with the dentist's office and they told me she has to go under general anesthesia at the hospital to get it done because she is not a very good patient.  This will cost me $1750 plus whatever my medical insurance doesn't pay for the operating room, anesthesia, etc.

I don't know if I want to do this.  I've read about baby crowns getting screwed up easily and the teeth have to be pulled anyway.  When she's mad, Princess bangs her head on the floor.  I have a feeling she may knock the crowns off if she gets them.

Also, I'm terrified of her going under general anesthesia.  She's only 2 1/2.  Anesthesia can be dangerous.  And it's just her teeth, it's not some lifesaving surgery or something really medically necessary.  I just don't know if I can agree to this.

T already had his top 4 teeth pulled due to an accident this spring.  I think this is what I would prefer to do with Princess.  I already know what it entails.  She will be sedated with some liquid medicine.  When she is sleepy, she will sit on someone's lap and get nitrous and a shot of Novocaine, and they will pull the teeth.  It will all take less than an hour (30-40 minutes for the sedative to kick in, 10 minutes to pull the teeth, 5-10 minutes to recover).  And it will cost me $1650.  Then I can get her a flipper if need be so it looks like she has the teeth there.

The boyfriend totally disagrees with me on this.  He wants to get the teeth fixed.  It has been really tense all weekend.  I just don't know what the best thing to do for her will be.  I don't want to make the wrong decision but my gut is telling me to just get the teeth pulled.  I don't want to start a fight with her dad or the dentist, but I think they're wrong.  And I'm the one who is going to borrow the money, so I'd like to think that if we can't agree, I should get to choose in the end.  But I also feel like thinking that way is messed up.

I really just don't know what to do.  I wish the boyfriend would come around to thinking my way.  It's going to be weird at the consultation when we don't agree on what to do.  I wish it could just be over and done with already.  And I wish someone had told me sooner that cavities were contagious.  I really feel like I failed because both T and Princess have messed up front teeth.  Even though we make sure they brush every day.  I'm praying something doesn't happen to Goober now.  I want tomorrow to be over.

NOTE: We went to the appointment and the dentist agreed with me that she should have 3 teeth removed because her roots are resorping.  Tomorrow we have consult with the oral surgeon who pulled T's teeth.  A month after the teeth are removed, she will get fitted for fake baby teeth.  I am happy.  And T now has a gigantic hole in his tooth-he had no cavities a month ago, so he must have smashed it on something and broken it.  I hope it is fill-able.  Also, any parents with kids over 1 who still use a bottle-stop before it's too late.  The dentist told me that is why both my kids have bad front top teeth-the bottle.  Look up baby bottle mouth to see some awful pictures of what it does to teeth.

Panic

My heart races, pounding so hard that it feels like it will explode out the front of my chest.

My breathing is getting shallower, faster, until I hyperventilate.

The tingling starts in the center of my cheeks, then spreads throughout my entire face.

Hands shaking, I attempt to punch the number in phone.  It takes 3 tries.

Tears silently stream down my face
.
I hit the send button.  Time stops.  I want this moment to be over.

"The number you have reached is no longer in service," the disembodied female voice informs me.

Relief floods through my veins as I press the end key, drained, and sink onto the bed.


 I wrote this post in response to this week's prompt at Jenny Matlock's Saturday Centus.  
WORD COUNT - 100 WORDS PLUS THE TEN WORDS OF THE PROMPT. Total word count not to exceed 110 words.
STYLE OF WRITING - ANY
USE A PICTURE THIS WEEK IF YOU LIKE
THE PROMPT THIS WEEK IS: "The number you have reached is no longer in service"