True joy comes from recognizing the power within each one of us to make this life a happy one despite our trials.

Tonight I go to setup the voting place. Tomorrow I will be working the polls for 7 precincts. It will be a very long day. I am interested in seeing in more detail just how the voting process works. I will work from 6am to 9pm. It will be a challenge for me. My brain still gets confused at times when there is a lot of input going on. But, I will do my best. I wish I was working in a precinct in Riverton, but, I was assigned a precinct in Herriman. My very dear friend, Pam, will be taking me in the morning. I feel it is quite a sacrifice for her to get up so early to take me. I am so grateful for her willingness to help me.

I am working on painting a beehive with 2 little bees attached to hang on my front door. It looks cute so far. I'm not a big crafter but my daughter always helps me when I need advice on what to do next.

I sure do miss my grandkids. I haven't seen my sons kids in over a week. They are on a camping trip with their other grandparents. They are so cute and fun to be around. They love to come over and help me to feed the chickens and get the eggs. We have 7 chickens that we purchased in  2011 for Easter for the grandkids. It has been fun to see them grow. We had 8 but one of them fell head first into their water bucket and drowned. Dumb chicken!! lol

True joy comes from recognizing the power within each one of us to make this life a happy one despite our trials. 

I accidentally deleted a previous entry from today so I will try to remember what I wrote. I looked over my posts and found a blog that I very first started with on May 11, 2006. This is what I entered: "I've never done this before so it will probably read in a rather strange way for awhile. I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and am having a hard time focusing. Maybe this will help me work through the voices and visions."

That was the only entry until I started this blog in 2007.  Now that I am doing much better, I will be making entries on a regular basis. I sometimes wish I could remember things from the past 6 years but then again I don't know if it would help me or not. So, I will just go on from here and if flashes of memory come to me, I'll probably mention them.

True joy comes from recognizing the power within each one of us to make this life a happy one despite our trials.

I am wishing I were living in Alaska right now! The weather is soooo hot! The change in my medication is helping. Yipee! I am feeling much less depressed and have a better outlook on life. I am so grateful. The anxiety is still there but I can live with that.  I saw a note on my fridge that my daughter came up with. I was in a very bad place, mentally, at the time. I thought I was doing well enough and didn't need my medications anymore. She was trying to help me see that the meds were what was helping me and I couldn't stop taking them. The note said: "If it's raining and you're under an umbrella; does that mean it's not raining anymore? No; it just means you're less effected by the rain because of the umbrella."  We believe that the inspiration for this quote came from our Heavenly Father. She helped me to see the wisdom in continuing with my treatment and to keep following my doctors instruction. The last 6 years have been so difficult. My memory of them is mostly gone. But, now, hopefully, I will continue to be better and live a more productive life as I did before I got sick. 

Well, here I am with another medication change. However, if this one works I will only be taking one medication! They are weaning me off the Depakote and increasing the Seroquel to 600mg. a day. The depression is back with a vengeance again so that's why the change. Hopefully within 2 weeks I'll see a difference.

Well, I saw my last post and I don't know how I managed to make it look like that and I don't know how to change it. Feeling pretty down. It's hard thinking about Michael's mom being gone. He is having a hard time with it of course. Stacey will be here in 2-1/2 days. I can hardly wait! Her shower will be on Sat. the 12th and then while she  is still here all of the family will be going out to dinner in honor of Mom. I've been so hot and sweaty that I had to take a shower in the middle of the day just to cool off. I hate the weather whenever it gets above 70. So, I'm looking at a long, upcoming 4 months.  UUGH!!

There were changes made by the server on this website and it deleted a couple of posts I had done since the last one that is showing. I, of course, don't remember what I said in them so I'll start all over today.  Michael's mom died unexpectedly yesterday afternoon. She was in the hospital to rehydrate, increase her blood oxygen levels and improve her blood pressure. She went in on Friday. She was doing better and had a good visit with 2 of her sisters and MaryLynn in the morning. Her sisters left and MaryLynn stayed. Mom was eating and feeling better. The thoughts on Sat. were that she would go home on Sunday. They got her out of bed for a minute. After laying back down she was having some trouble breathing and told Mary she needed to go to the bathroom. Mary got her up and helped her back to bed but by this time she was wheezing and complained that her lung was hurting her. MaryLynn started rubbing her back, the nurses came in to see what was needed. MaryLynn said she could feel mom's heart beating out the back of her chest. Then she closed her eyes and died.  As sad and difficult it is for everyone; it is such a blessing that it happened this way. My personal feelings have been that she would have never survived all the chemo and would have suffered before finally giving into the cancer.  How I wish I was there.

Yesterday; Sunday, was a most interesting day. We had the joy of seeing our son, Brian, bless our fourth grandchild, Chase. What a sweet experience. Then after the meeting we couldn't believe our eyes but a man came up to Michael and I and it was one of the missionaries who taught us the gospel and baptized us in California. It was such a thrill to see him!  We had a great time over at Brian and Jamie's after the blessing with a great lunch and then came home.  Stephanie had had a call on her cell from Mary but she didn't leave a message. I tried calling but she didn't answer so I figured I would call her later after we had been home for awhile.  Then I got a call from Brian that he had received a text from Uncle Pat that said, Mom had died. He sent it to Brian at about one o'clock. I immediately called Mary and then found out from her what had happened.  Michael took it very hard yesterday but is doing better today.  I really wish he would go back to Illinois but he has such bad feelings about being back there I don't think he will even go back there for this. Mom didn't want any kind of service anyway but I know Mary would love to have him there for support. I don't think it's right to have the whole load on her shoulders.

The pictures just posted a couple of days ago are old. Ashlyn is now 6, Trent is now 4, Luke is now 23 months and the new little baby boy, Chase, is only a month old. You can go to Jamie's blog "The Smiley Family" to see all updated pictures. Still really down. Don't know what else to say. Going to see if Michael will take me over to Brian's tonight to see the kids. That might cheer me up. Haven't heard from Mare for a couple of days. Mom's MRI was postponed for 10 days because she was taking baby aspirin and the the dye used would not work correctly.