The latter part of May 2009, Richard and I packed up all our stuff and moved to south Georgia. I had been unable to find a job in Atlanta and money had run out. After Mama passed away in 2007, we decided that when we retired we wanted to get out of the big city, and live in a smaller town and be closer to my dad. This was our 2nd move in 6 months. Richard would move in with my stepfather in Atlanta and continue to work up there until he retired, and he would come home on the weekends.

We put our stuff in storage and moved what we could into my dad’s. Daddy’s 84 now, and while he does pretty well for someone that age, he has trouble getting around because of his legs. It was quite an adjustment for him since he had lived alone for over 20 years. There were times where I thought I had made a big mistake by moving in with him, but we managed to work it out.

Then in July, Daddy started looking at larger mobile homes. At first I thought he was looking for a larger one to give us more space, but found out that he was actually looking for me. He said there just wasn’t enough room, and deep down I know he missed his privacy. I told him I didn’t want him using his money for me, but when Daddy makes up his mind to do something, there’s no changing his mind.

After a couple of weeks, he found one that he and I really liked. It was a 3 bedroom doublewide that was in great condition on 1.2 acres of land and only 7 miles from him. He bought the property the first part of August, and I moved in. Daddy says no one can make us move now. Both Richard and I are so very grateful, and while I say never say never, we are never moving again.

It’s a lot less stressful living in the country than living in the city. I can look outside and actually see the stars at night because the sky isn’t lit up by city lights. There’s a lot more privacy. We can play our stereo as loud as we want when we’re watching a movie. We have room to expand. There are definite pluses to living here.

But there are some drawbacks. What I miss the most is the high speed internet. The closest town is Waycross. It’s 15 miles away, and it’s a small town. I can’t just hop in the car and be at the grocery store in 5 minutes. We have a Kroger, Walmart, Lowe’s, Applebee’s, Ruby Tuesday and a few fast food restaurants. We even have a mall, but it’s very small and only has J.C. Penney’s, Belk’s, and Sears. No Chili’s, no Kohl’s, no Home Depot, no Great Clips. I have found a Chinese restaurant that I really like.

The town I live in now is so small that there is no traffic light. You actually pass right through it on the way to our home. Richard still works in Atlanta during the week and comes home on the weekend. I’m close enough to Daddy that I can be there in about 10 minutes. While I have a lot of family here, I really miss not being near my kids who both are still near Atlanta.

There’s plenty of room here for a garden and a water garden/pond. Richard’s got lots of plans and projects he wants to work on. Right now he’s working on building an outside shed to store our lawn equipment. Then he wants to start on a deck for the front.

Richard comes home every Friday afternoon and leaves Monday mornings. I really look forward to the time when he retires and moves down here permanently. I know he’ll be glad too.

So this city girl has gone country. I love living here. Life is good.

Kaylee’s pre-school class had a field trip to Tybee Island recently. Her mom went along with the class and got a bunch of great pictures. Here’s just a few of them.

Only two words to describe this

Priceless and Precious

Sis got the results back today from the biopsy that was done last week. The lump is benign. We are all so relieved and thankful to God for this blessing.

DH got a phone call Saturday morning from his brother. His brother told him that their youngest brother has been diagnosed with stage 2 throat cancer. We had suspected something was wrong several months ago, but now we have confirmation. He’s been a smoker most if not all of his adult life. His voice started sounding raspy several months ago, and he kept excusing it as just a cold. He will be 58 in April. We don’t have any other details other than he has elected to have chemotherapy.

DH hasn’t talked about it at all with me since the phone call. He tends to keep things inside and doesn’t share his feelings with me. I know he’s worried about him. I just wish he would open up to me.

A little over a week ago, my sister called me asking about our family members that had died of cancer. She said she was going to be changing doctors, and wanted to have a complete family history to give the doctor. We went over the list and who had what type of cancer, and that was that. I didn’t think anything of it.

Last Tuesday morning, she sent me an instant message asking if it was okay to call me, and I said sure, I wasn’t busy at the time. I should have known something was up.

She had found a lump in her left breast a couple of days before and had seen her family doctor. The lump was hard, over an inch wide, did not hurt, and was on the inside part of her breast. The doctor was concerned and scheduled a mammogram and a subsequent ultrasound if needed for Thursday. The first thing I thought of was our aunt, Mama’s sister, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at the same age as my sister. Sis also has the same features as my aunt, blonde hair, blue eyes, while Mama was dark hair and brown eyes.

Mama’s sister was Sis’ age when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She went through a mastectomy and had chemo (I can’t remember right now if she had radiation). She went into remission, but in the end the cancer came back. She lost her battle with cancer about eight years after being diagnosed. That was over 22 years ago.

She said that she had decided years ago what she would do if she ever had to face breast cancer. No lumpectomy. No single mastectomy. She would have a double mastectomy. I was in complete agreement with her. She was handling this so well, she was not freaking out at all. She was very matter of fact, reminded me a lot of Mama. She said she had some big shoes to fill, Grandmama’s, our aunt’s and Mama’s. We talked for awhile longer and decided not to tell our father until we knew more. After all, she hadn’t even had the mammo yet.

I consider myself a pretty strong person. I come from good stock. Mama was a strong person, and I kept myself strong while caring for her during her cancer battles. But when Sis and I hung up, I completely lost it. I can’t remember ever losing it like that before, not even when we first found out about Mama. I was scared to death, completely hysterical.

This is my sister who is over ten years younger than me. She still has two kids at home, one in college and one in high school. She has a disabled husband that she is the primary caregiver for. She has other health issues, a stroke from three years ago, issues with her heart and she’s also bi-polar. She has not had an easy life, and now she’s facing this. She seemed to be handling it a whole lot better than me.

Thursday comes and she goes in for the mammogram. The mammo evidently is suspicious enough to warrant the ultrasound. She’s told it will probably be the first part of the week before she gets the results.

Monday morning, she gets a phone call from her doctor. There are “two highly suspicious areas of malignancies” according to the test results. She was aware of one, not two. She is referred to a surgeon for a biopsy. The appointment will actually be with the surgeon’s nurse and will be more of an administrative appointment to make sure the doctor has all the tests results before he actually meets with her. She’s comfortable with this surgeon because he had treated her husband a few years back when he was having kidney problems. She wants the biopsy to be the excision type, where both lumps are removed, and not the needle type biopsy. She wants these out of her body.

She met with the surgeon’s nurse this morning. Everything was in order, but it’s going to be two weeks before she can even see the surgeon, and this is just for a meeting, not the actual biopsy. Then she’s told if she’s willing to go to the surgeon’s other office in a nearby city, he can see her next week. In fact the biopsy would probably been done in a hospital in the other city. This other location is an hour away from her home. She leaves without scheduling an appointment. She is just livid that nothing was accomplished.

She gets home and tells her husband that she’s done seeing doctors. He quickly informs her that is not an option. She asks him who made him the boss, and he says he guesses Mama did. She will see this through. Bro-in-law and I don’t always see eye to eye, but we do on this. She decides to find another surgeon. She doesn’t want to have to go that far away when there is a perfectly good hospital near her home. Can’t say that I blame her. So now she waits again to hear from her doctor. Hopefully that will be tomorrow. She needs to get the biopsy done so she knows exactly what she’s dealing with.

I pray to God it’s not cancer. She’s not praying that it’s not cancer. She’s praying that if it is cancer, she will be able to handle it with the same grace that Mama, Grandmama and our aunt did.

Me, I’m being selfish. I’ve had so much loss these past few years. I don’t know how I can handle the possibility of another loss. I pray that God gives me the strength and guidance that I need. Just please don’t take my sister from me. I’m scared to death.

Ayden got to experience snow for the first time yesterday, and he was not a happy camper at first. Maybe he didn’t like the feel of cold snow on his butt. What a hoot!

We celebrated Ayden’s first birthday this past Saturday. He and his mom have been members of a mom’s group ever since he was born, and most of the babies from that group were at the party. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a room with that many babies all at one time for that length of time. I was amazed at how well all the little ones got along with each other. They were all so adorable.

Here are the pics that I took at the party.

Gosh it’s hard to believe he’s almost a year old. He has changed so much this past year and gets cuter every day.

Richard and I went down to my dad’s on February 6. Richard hadn’t seen the puppy dogs since we took them down in December, and I hadn’t seen my dad since my short visit after Christmas. Richard had a long weekend, and we planned on coming back Feb. 10. I decided to stay a few days longer, so Richard came on back home without me.

Daddy lives in the country, and there is no DSL or broadband available, so I was limited to a NetZero dial-up account. Just checking email and updating my checking account seemed to take forever to do compared to what I can accomplish in just a few seconds at home.

We went fishing just about every day. My aunt Ginger and Daddy both caught some really nice size bass, and that tickled them to no end. Except for one day when I caught a smaller bass and another good size fish, the only fish I caught were small bream. It didn’t matter though because I still enjoyed myself. I love just sitting by the pond and communing with nature.

I really enjoyed the time I got to spend with Daddy. He is getting so feeble though. He almost fell in the kitchen one day and almost fell while fishing. I worry about him falling and not being able to get to a phone to call for help. His golf cart was broken when we got there, and he is really lost without it. He just isn’t able to get around outside like he used to be. Luckily though the owner of the golf cart shop came out and fixed it on Wednesday.

Daddy can be cantankerous at times. Talk about a short fuse! It’s uncanny how much alike he and my son Travis can be at times with their temper. He still treats me like I’m a little girl, and he says I’ll always be his baby. I just wish he would give me a little credit. He acts like I don’t know how to do things and can be critical at times.

He did enjoy me cooking for him and doing some household stuff for him. He’s not used to having anyone to wait on him and try to take care of him.

I would have stayed longer with him if the timing had been better. Ayden turns one year old this week, and I am not about to miss his first birthday party.

Richard came back on Friday to get me. We decided to bring Cody back home with us. Richard said he had really missed him. Cody’s got an eye infection that I’m treating with antibiotic ointment, and it does seem to be getting better. So now we have both Chelsea and Cody with us. It was so cute last night to see both Cody and Chelsea in Richard’s lap while he was watching tv.