Well hello! Long time no post! Much has happened since 2022, some good some bad. The good is that my beautiful daughter had a new baby on 4 January 2024! Her name is Naomi and she is a peach!
I am going on three years in my new home. I have done a great deal of improvements to this home. After getting stuck in the bathtub in late 2021, I made arrangements to have a bathroom remodel which was completed by Bath Planet. Let me tell you, if you want a project done right, go through Bath Planet. I took out the tub shower combo and put in a beautiful walk-in shower with a bench seat. It turned out pretty nice and I love it! It is so nice to have grab bars and a bench seat. I have experienced dizziness recently from a new heart condition and being able to sit down or hold on so I do not fall is so stress relieving. Since my home is older, the plumbing was not up to code so they had to go the extra mile to make sure it all matched the code rules. Prior to the shower redo, I had 10 feet of pluming under the house rebuilt as it had a crack in the pipe. That was a difficult but necessary job. Then, I indoor/outdoor carpeted my outside patio space. It is covered so it looks awesome. I had two windows replaced in the back of the house in 2022. Lynrich had a special for veterans going on and I signed up in 2021. They were so backed up that I had to wait approximately one year before they could get to it. It was so worth the wait. Lynrich also replaced some gutter in the back that went around the patio. The people that did it before put up the gutters but had the roof running under the outside edge of the gutter and when it rained, the water missed the gutter and ran down onto the patio. So all of that has been repaired. In 2003, I signed up for a 19 month Same As Cash with Anderson Windows for a new Bay Window on the front of my home. It is beautiful and my two cats love watching the birds come to the bird feeders near the window. They did a fantastic job and the final bill is not due until 2025. I will have it all paid off in January of 2005. I have already paid it down by 75 percent. I financed through Green Sky Financial and they are really great to go through and easy to work with. That new window makes my Livingroom look much larger and I get some really nice light in the morning. My next project is to remodel my kitchen as it is old 1950's style and I have to have the bathroom repainted by a company as I am unable to do much climbing anymore.
My father passed away on March 27th 2020 and we had to wait until Covid was over to bury him in the Veterans Cemetery in Washington State. Unlike my son who had family around him when he passed away from pneumonia and Prader Willie Syndrome in 2018, my father passed away alone, in a nursing home. No one was allowed in due to the Covid. He was 92 years old. My step-mother passed away in April of this year and now my brothers and I are working on selling my dad's house. We hope to get a fair amount for it as it is situated on the edge of a small runway in Yelm Washington. He had two hangers built with the house to house his three planes. After dad passed away, my younger brother was gifted one of the airplanes since he was the one in the family who obtained his pilot's license. I started a second home business with Etsy. It is called Pamelas Treasure Cove. I sell items that I make and also vintage items that I find. It has done pretty well so far. The site on Etsy is etsy.com/shop/pamelastreasurecove. If you would like to check out my other shop it is etsy.com/shop/freedancer. I sell photos and hand made jewelry in this shop. You can also find my shop on the internet under Jewelry Designs by Pamela.
Healthwise, things are pretty bumpy. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's Disease which was causing my body to attack my Thyroid. It has been hell trying to adjust the levels as I am very brittle and just as it seems that we finally have it sorted out, the numbers go the opposite direction. This is considered an Autoimmune disorder. This disorder led to another Autoimmune disorder called Prurigo Nodgularous which is a skin disorder that causes arms, legs and torso to break out into very itchy red bumps. When a person scratches them, sores develop and can cause the immune system to get disturbed. There is no cure and no one knows why it happens. This disorder caused another Autoimmune disorder to attack my second layer of skin, causing large blisters to form on the lower torso, scars, legs, arms and face. It is called Bullous Pemphigoid and there is no cure. It is very difficult to control as blisters formed around my Stoma where I have my Ileostomy flange and when I changed out my flange to a new one, the tops of the blisters were pulled off causing very painful ulcers that are very difficult to heal. I wasn't able to get the Ileostomy hardware to adhere to my stomach which was causing a leakage issue. So here I am dealing with three autoimmune disorders that have no cure. Then it was also diagnosed recently that I have a heart condition called Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardiomyopathy. This is a hereditary issue. Someone in my family line had it and it was passed on to me. I was having horrible dizzy spells, periods of breathlessness and fainting with racing heartbeat. It is when the left ventricle of the heart obtains a thickened wall. This in turn causes the heart to stiffen and struggle to pump the blood up into the body. When it pushes harder to pump it causes the wall to push over into the mitro valve causing a blockage. If you have ever heard of young athletes dropping dead on the football field or basketball court, this is what normally causes it. It is treated by medication, Alcohol Ablation or Myectomy surgery which is open heart surgery. They started me on medication but I am unable to tolerate them raising the dosage. It causes me to pass out so I will be going to the Rocky Mountain VA Regional Medical Center in Aurora Colorado to be seen by a Cardiac Surgeon and if they cannot fix the issue there, I will be referred to Mayo Clinic in Minnesota where there is a specialized clinic available.
One of the good things that has happened is that I now have a very nice boyfriend. He is a Uber/Lift driver here in Billings Montana. We have been dating since February 14th of 2021. We had a 6 week break close to October of 2021. It was a time where I felt I did not deserve to be treated nicely and because of that mindset we backed off. He dated another lady for 3 weeks but came back around December of 2021 and said he didn't want to be away from me. I needed that 6 week break as I had to break the abusive cycle that my brain was in. I spent alot of time talking to God and He ministered to me, letting me know that I was worthy of being with a nice man who didn't beat me, treat me cruelly, treat me like a roommate or abandon me like my last husband did. I guess you couldn't really say we totally broke up during that time as we went to church together and sat by each other most of the time. Anyway, the end result is that I broke the abuse cycle and realized that I didn't have to worry about him trying to kill me like my last two husbands did. We are pretty much made for each other though. He has a bad knee on the same side as mine and has had one knee repaired. We both have heart issues that are similar. He recently had an ablation procedure that took his heart out of Afib and he is feeling much better. Every Sunday and Thursday night we play cards with his parents and it has become quite a competition between us and them. His family is the nicest and sweetest family I have ever met. They are all Christians and family is important to them. We celebrate all the birthdays at a restaurant of their choosing. We take a cake and have a great time. I never had this sort of relationship with my family growing up. From the time I was three until I was 15, my father beat me violently and often. My mother was afraid to leave and he never laid a hand on my brothers. After growing up with that and trying to hide the bruises and welts from the leather belt, I was glad to graduate High School and go into the military to get out of that situation. Unfortunately, that relationship set the precedence for the rest of my relationships with my 4 husbands. All of them were abusive physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. All of them just like my dad. My church has been such a joy for me. My first date with my boyfriend was at church. What a great place to meet someone.
Well, my daughter and her husband are in Center Point Louisiana. He received his Doctorate and took a teaching position at Louisiana Christian College. My daughter received her Masters Degree at the college as well. Her husband has a chair position and is in charge of the Choral Division. He also teaches the specialty Choirs and does Ear Training and Voice. The students appear to like him and my daughter will be able to teach there as well or take a Principal position or administrative position. For now though, she is a mom to three adorable kids!
I guess that's it for now. I haven't traveled much except to go home to my 50th class reunion which was fun to do. I was able to stop and see my step-mother and get my Shirley Hugs. It was the last time I saw her as she passed away in April the next year. I hope everyone is doing well. Hang in there and don't worry about the state of the world. God didn't put us on this earth to worry. If He can take care of the birds in the field just think what He can do for you! Cheers! Freedancer
