humor

January 1st 2020

/ Carmen McKnight / Leave a comment

Revised version since last night when I wrote this blog my eyes were sandy from fatigue and my brain only worked on autopilot.

How do you start the new year right? By pranking your kids! Yes! After all, is very important for us parents to teach our children how to act or react sharply and appropriately in all life’s circumstances.

Since Meleah was the only one working on New Year’s first day we decided, maturely of course, to play a prank on her once she got back home which was around 1 pm. So we came up with a ransom note.

From idea to completion we had 40 minutes. The culprits were: my husband, myself, our son Merrill and her boyfriend Jordan. There was a mad rush of hands and ideas flying. Chet was cutting the most brilliant words out of a Martha Steward cooking magazine, I had the privilege of gluing the whole message together while the boys came up with the message:) I haven’t felt so alive and giddy for a long time and I loved every second of the devious plan and from the looks of it so did the boys. The fact that our building had a power issue (can’t really call it outage) and the lights were very dim, some even flickering others not working at all, the TV console moved away from the wall (Chet unplugged the electronics) did help.

We left the note on the floor seconds before she stepped through and hid waiting. Heard the keys, her stepping inside then utter silence for few long seconds. (She was reading the ransom note and listening for any activity inside before committing to come all the way in.) As you can see, in our haste, we never left a contact info so she checked her Instagram messages for more clarification. Nothing. She walked ever so quietly around looking, for us I presume, and eventually found us tucked in a corner of our bedroom. The whole thing was over way too soon but we sure had a nice laugh.

Twisted sense of humor you say? I think not. I’ve come to the conclusion that my daughter handled the situation brilliantly and my job as a parent was done. She’ll do fine in life is the conclusion we drew, which is important:)

I would love to hear some of your fun teachable moments you received or gave away, but until then have a fantastic new year with great beginnings and fun adventures!

God Bless:)

Buna Dimineata:) Good Morning:)

/ Carmen McKnight / Leave a comment

În cele din urmă Alexa a ajuns și în România. Vede-ţi ce se întâmplă când un american se căsătorește cu o româncă:))))))) Chet, sotul meu care lucreaza la Amazon in Seattle a facut reclama asta dar cantecul e diferit, specific pentru americani. nu stiu cine a adaugat melodia romaneasca dar imi place:)

Finally, Alexa made it in Romania as well. See what happens when an American boy marries a Romanian girl:)))))) Chet, my hubby made this add, but with another song for the American audience:) (Not sure who did the Romanian version:)

Seizure

/ Carmen McKnight / 2 Comments

 

 

I hope you get a chance to relax and enjoy this little video I shot and put together for you. Meditate on the things that matter to you, as I also do.

You see last week I had a nasty seizure which threw me back on my progress chart a few degrees, both physically and emotionally. It’s not easy to climb over thoughts such as “not again”, “will I ever”, “I just want to be” etc but giving up its not an option for me since I have too much to lose and would hurt too many people that I love. So I must go on. But getting back up, and moving forward while hurting, having half of my body not functioning as it should and wondering how long will it take until I fully recover is not as easy as you may think. I wish I could be poetic about all this but pain and struggle bring more misery than poetry (unless its some sort of emotional heartbreak and then you should see my muse dance and come up with all sorts of rimes and wisdom:) But for now I try not to fall on my face as I experience dizziness, I try not to walk into walls as my balance seems to be taking a vacation, and I try to smile through the pain all my limbs seemed to join in. I am weak and strong, frail and tough, happy and sad.

What caused such a relapse? Accumulation of stress (I like to collect:) Nasty flue which left a frail immune system exposed, taking up nursing duties as my family laid ill in their beds, work, and the happy visit of my cuz. But the body can’t recognize happy stress from bad stress, just files all that info in the “STRESS” file of my life while smiling knowing what’s to come. But I drove downtown! Took my cuz and my daughter to the Seattle Space Needle and other places and I’m sure inside my head there was a small voice protesting to all the exitement…which I clearly ignored. Did I learn my lesson? Depends on which side of the lesson you are. I would say, yes, then explain. I’ve learned that I have the strength to drive downtown (even if for a day every few months:) I’ve learned that my body is getting strong and able to handle more fun, I learned that relapses do happen and not to focus on them, I learned I’m fun again! Even if in a small increment at the time:) Did I learn my lesson? You be the judge, but I no matter what you decide I smile the whole way because I DROVE DOWNTOWN SEATTLE AND HAD FUN WITH MY CUZ AND DAUGHTER ON TOP OF THE SPACE NEEDLE, and that to me is priceless and worth every muscle twitch and pain;) I would do it all over again the same way, no regrets. Now go have a good time living life in whichever increments of strength you can muster, and when herxing (for my Lyme warriors or all with any autoimmune troubles:) smile because you got to the herxing reaction by living life and in the end you had a say, a choice, not the stupid illness that’s trying to kill us:)

God Bless:)

Snowpocalypse in Seattle:)

/ Carmen McKnight / Leave a comment

It’s about to start:)))) Alberstons in Magnolia was running out of eggs yesterday, and New Seasons in Ballard was full last night. Thousands of dollars were spent yesterday and I’m sure today is a similar scenario. The school is going to close 75 minutes earlier and since we live on a hill, a shady hill still hosting slippery and snowy patches, Chet’s planning to come home early… if it gets bad out there that is. Thus we prepared. If the weather suddenly decides to remain sunny, warm and void of snow, we’re set with food for the upcoming six months:)))) I think it’s hilarious how much agitation is around the snow but it wasn’t funny when I was running out of certain foods the first time it snowed. My daughter is out driving, on her way home and texted us that’s chaos out here already, a stop and go traffic in Magnolia at the Fisherman’s terminal. The construction workers just stopped working and are leaving. I heard them out there laughing about not wanting to get stuck for the whole weekend here:)

I will most likely get cabin fever soon so I’ll have lots of time to write blogs these coming days, cooped up in here. Baking and writing  I guess:))))))

God Bless:)

The Spandex Curse

/ Carmen McKnight / Leave a comment

Sunday morning, needing to breathe some fresh air, I stopped at a tiny coffee shop here in Magnolia where they make my favorite decaf latte with almond milk drink.

The coffee shop, located in a deserted looking minuscule strip mall, has a male barista and a barbershop feel. Beside the male barista, a man in his 40s or 50s, two other gentlemen were occupying the small space, one on a stool to my left and another paying for his order.  All three laughing. The laughter and under the breath later on giggles were coming and going like a tidal wave and I smiled, happy to see them having a good time. I ordered my coffee, paid and waited. Picking his own coffee the man by the registered left for few seconds then returned, taking a seat on a stool next to the other, all three still giggling. One of them kindly let me in on the humorous secret.

“He just got caught staring at a guy in spandex.” Another wave of laughter.

“You wonder sometimes if people look in the mirror before they leave their house and think: sure, I look alright!” The other one, who got caught staring, now facing the wall, head bowed low and away from me, as if ashamed by his misfortune, spoke.

‘He’s still recovering.” The first man clarified to me, while everyone else kept laughing, me among them. The victim turned around and continued.

“And he was not in good shape…more laughter…I mean he was fat…in spandex.” The poor guy still looked terrified but what he’d witnessed that day and we joined him in laughter.

“I’ve had few such recoveries myself,” I replied, now holding my coffee.

“Have a good day.” I wished them still giggling and left them behind to their recovery ward and medicine. I love the way men talk. Simple, to the point and always with a touch of humor.

Have a great day:)

God Bless:)

Who’s child is this?

/ Carmen McKnight / Leave a comment

Humor for those of us with kids:)

So you get married, or not, and have children. You go through the heart burns, morning sickness, heads in the toilet while vomiting, stretch marks, swollen feet and sometimes face, head, brain, in fact, let’s just toss in the whole body, why not? Through the pain you think:

“It will be all worth it! If it’s a girl we’ll do this, and she’ll be that, just like me. If it’s a boy, he’ll play soccer and be the best doctor the world will ever see. So it’s all worth it.”

You give birth and you’re in love. Sure there is the pain from the stitches and your boobs hurt like someone stomped on them a thousand times but you’re raising a mini you or a mini husband and it’s all worth it. They grow up and begin to show individual personalities. You are cheering the boy from the sidelines of a practice soccer game, dreaming of a future superstar, and you see your boy picking up leaves, daydreaming, while the game is going all around him. He has no clue why he’s there and why people are so obsessed with a ball. Your jaw drops and you ask yourself:

“Whose child is this?” Then you hear your husband say:

“I guess he’s not much into soccer.” And you turn around realizing, this must be part of his DNA.

Then you raise your daughter and you dream of buying her dresses and having lots of grandchildren, until one day she comes home dressed all in black, swearing up and down she’ll never have children. And you think:

“I had no idea she owned anything in black!” And you’re saying your good by’s to any future grandchildren you hoped for. Then you hear:

“She’s just like my grandma. She always loved animals and didn’t care much for human beings” And you realize at that moment:

“Is there any part of me in them?”

Then comes the third child, a spitting image of yourself. As he becomes his own person you recognize one of your brothers in his looks and another in his facial expressions and with a glowing expression you say to yourself:
“Well it took me three tries to get it right:)))))))”

So if you don’t see a part of you in them just yet, keep trying:)))))))

God Bless:)

 

P.S. Sorry for the typos, I seem to be losing word memory, I look at the words and I have a harder time each day remembering the spelling of the simplest of words. If the automatic spell check didn’t catch it, no chance for me to catch it. Ta, da.

Finally:))))))

/ Carmen McKnight / Leave a comment

I hate Mercy Me’s song “I can only imagine”, oh my gosh I can’t stand that song!!!! I may be stepping on some toes here but I’m sure that every single one of you has at least one song which you hate passionately, even if that song is from a Christian genre. Mine is “I can only imagine”, it scrapes my brains with static noise and makes me want to scream in pain.

Christian genre has a tendency to put a sad twist to most songs (even if they have an encouraging message) unless you’re Toby Mac or Mandisa;) Which begs the questions: Are all the Christians in this world miserable? Christians don’t love to dance and have a good time celebrating life? I know that’s not true, but if you were to judge the christian faith by the songs alone you would think that God is the saddest aspect of life, void of fun, a sense of humor and good taste.

There is a time to grieve, a time to encourage, a time to be a shoulder for someone to cry on and there’s a time to simply celebrate!!!!!! To jump up and dance because life is good, not perfect and definitely not void of challenges, but good none-the-less. So here’s a song I can finally get up and dance and thank God for my life, despite the fact that I have an infection that’s scrambling my brain in a galactic amount of pain. However when I listen to these types of songs I smile, I laugh and I keep on telling myself: It’s just pain, Carmen, not the end of the world, just pain.

Hope you enjoy this particular song as much as I am and have a great time dancing through or despite the challenges in your life because life is good:)

God Bless:)

Life is good

/ Carmen McKnight / Leave a comment

Life is good.

Last weekend Chet and I had an argument. Gasp. What? You guys fight and argue too? Yep, we sure do:) We’re both red-blooded people with strong opinions and the need to make our points shine brightly. Through our 25 years of marriage, (wow those years went by fast with a touch of slow) we’ve learned how to fight (I’m sure the 70-year-old me is laughing hard at such a bold statement, thinking “you fool”).

It began, like everything new and glorious usually does, with the usual super passionate arguments over the most nonsensical of stuff, made up by lots of fun spelled s-e-x. Since our marriage had a meeting of two cultures with a healthy dose of language barriers (meaning we could not talk to each other), our nonsensical stuff multiplied exponentially;) Now, if the older me could’ve beamed back in time and had a talk with the younger me, I’m sure the younger me would’ve beaten her up first then maybe paid partial attention to what she had to say. Don’t sweat the small stuff- fantastic advice! Yes, he thinks you’re beautiful, no your butt is not bigger than usual, you’re boobs are perfect and what are we fighting about?

Next phase is called “the exhaustive faze”. This phase arrives, oddly enough, with the presence of babies, and lasts way too long. Through this phase, you fight mostly by mumbling and eye rolling since you’re too exhausted to come up with smart alec remarks, not after you’ve been sleep deprived for millions of seconds, you can’t seem to walk in straight lines some days, you have vomit and dried food tattooed all over your clothes and haven’t worn a sexy dress in decades, partly because you no longer fit in one or you don’t see the point in wearing anything that would end up with sex, mostly because you’re too exhaused for such rigurous workout. Now is not the time to ask: How do I look, honey? He still loves you with the extra this, that, and the other, what will turn him away is your whining or showiung his disrespect. Find a good girlfriend and let it all out remembering that afterwords is her turn. Here’s when you would love the old you to come and give you advise, but she’s too bruised from the earlier phase and missing in action.

Next phase is the “teenage trial phase”, a phase you spend most days on the accused bench while all your faults are thrown in your face with the passion of a volcano that just erupted and does not show signs of slowing down. Here you spend many days praying the trial will end soon and no permanent damage was done in the process. This is a phase where you could very well lose your marbles, as you’re facing your accuser (in the case of multiple accusers, God help you! we’re praying for you), and you get so fatigued from all the explanations you’ve come up with, that you don’t have time to argue with your spouse and he/she either becomes your best friend (in our case) or your worst enemy.

The phase we’re now in, title-wise it’s still up for grabs, due to disease and a near-death-experience, there’s hardly any issues that come up worth enough to argue over. Life comes into prospective and priorities are re-aligned into a much healthier pattern, also there’s the partial short-term-memory-loss which helps:))))) Or the low energy level. Chet and I spend lots of time enjoying each other now, we choose both our friends and battles wisely and let life be lived in the moment. However, now and again tentions arise and even though our arguments are rare, not dramatic like before, more philosophical while trying to emprove our communciation sklills, they do end up teaching us something (because we let). Like the argument we had last week. I’ve learned that Chet’s expressed  frustration everytime he drives and encounters bad roads, construction and bad drivers, is not directed at me even if his words come across as so.

“Why is this road closed? Why is that car cutting us off? Why is he crossing the road on a red light?” My defensive attitude comes from waaaay back, from a time of childhood dramas and traumas when I was made to believe that everything bad in this world was my fault even if I had nothing to do with it. Once I realized the connection, and mourned for a few minutes all the years of stress I could’ve eliminated out of my life if this lesson came to me sooner, things were explained accordingly. Chet can express all his frustrations freely, only slightly redirected:

“That guy’s a bad driver!” Here’s where I come in and cheer him on “You’re right, he really is a bad driver.”

I’m not sure about the next phase since we’re not there yet but it will be better, because with every phase we’ve accumulated data and enough information to graduate with a doctorate degree. I’m sure most of you have graduated with excellent degrees and have lots of experience:) Have a great day today and remember when you argue next, the degree is coming:)

Gid Bless:)

 

 

 

Exercise and Autoimmune Disease

/ Carmen McKnight / Leave a comment

I’ve expressed in my last post of my desire to write more. Don’t you know by now that most New Year Resolutions are simply a “to do” list for the first week of January:)))))

I have been writing more, in fact, two hours a day on my new fiction adventure novel called “Finding Home”, but enough about that.

New Year brings out the “health nut” portion of ourselves, usually for a couple of weeks for most and a bit longer for others (unless your “health nut” person is out all the time having fun running, in that case, this may only be one of those easy reads for you). The “health nut” usually tends to go right back into hibernation for the better part of the year. It may have a few breaks now and again.  It will come out in full and temporary feverish mood, usually before summer for that amazing bikini look, or before a wedding when you want to look better than the bride herself.

I began my yoga exercise again, after a nice break of six months. Breaks are necessary too, especially when one fights an autoimmune disease. In fact, I must be going through something this very moment because I’m misspelling every single word as if my brain would rather sleep instead of think.

The yoga program I followed for more than ten years now is a Canadian based program called “Namaste” Yoga Practice by Kate Potter. It used to be a television program, maybe still is, but its the only exercise routine I stuck with all these years. I’m not a believer in the spiritual side of the yoga practice, I simply like its smooth moves and relaxing way of moving the body. I tried all sorts of other programs before this one, programs more rigorous, and found them downright annoying.

Anyone fighting Chronic Lyme, Cancer, MS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia to name only a few of the autoimmune diseases, does not have the energy most days to take a shower, or go up and down their own home’s stairs, let alone exercise. In most of these cases, any and all energy present in the body, it is wisely distributed towards activities such as doctor appointments, dinners, laundry, lunches for the kids and maybe sex with your spouse. However, when these diseases are in remission the fun begins. I remember celebrating the walk to my own mailbox, which progressed to being in the car when my husband drove to do the grocery shopping, to taking five, ten then twenty-minutes long walks, to playing tennis and now to driving small distances. Oh, the joy of stabbing one’s toe and crying happy tears because you actually felt that pain, where once used to be a tingling numbing spot.

Well now I’m stronger and I can do the complete 20-minute yoga program. I love the stretching part (although if you decide to start yoga don’t overstretch: it’s like the medication, you take a big dose and a Herx reaction is sure to follow, so build up to it slowly:), I love the smooth movements and the calming music (neuro damage is very often present in people who fight Lyme disease and overstimulating the senses is often very unpleasant, to say the least).

For all out there who are fighting these nasty diseases and live in pain why too much, if you can, yoga is a pleasant possibility of exercise. Mostly, I wish you the best of health so you can choose for yourself what type of exercise you want to do- no matter how strenuous.

Have a blessed new year full of hope and laughter, both are great medicine for the soul.

God Bless:)