Rays Retreat Ramblings

Cousins

Last Saturday I went over to celebrate granddaughter Chandler’s 6th Birthday. Being the holiday weekend we had business so someone had to stay at the motel. That would be Mike.

It was a family birthday gathering. All three of our children and their families. Birthday girl is the red headed pixie. The movie star sitting next to her is Delaney her 6 year old cousin. It delights me that our sons children love each so much. They cannot wait for them to arrive, and want to stay and play together constantly.

These two are total opposites in appearance and personalities. Yet they become a perfect match together for fun and friendship.

The same is true of their oldest sisters .. who are off on their own adventures and away from my camera. Daylen is Bryan’s oldest daughter and Kaylee is Kevin’s oldest. These two pair up easily too.

One of my deepest friendships and family connection is with my cousin. And as my granddaughters, we are total opposites in appearance. My cousin has italian heritage and is blessed with the dark hair and coloring, while I am as white and pale as a bleached potato. She is the more outgoing outrageous one, and I am most often known as the quiet one.

I think it is our differences that pair us up so perfectly. She knows me better than any other human. She is the one person that I have shared every single emotion I have felt. I can share with her honestly and know it will never be repeated, never held against me. No matter what my choices she is my cheering section.

When I see Bryan and Kevin’s girls together I smile and remember my childhood and wish them a lifetime of shared secrets and adventures.

A Dogs Definition

I am so glad to be back writing on our blog. I missed sharing with my friends. Ann needed some prompting but she’s agreed we are going to be posting on a regular basis. in fact we are working on giving our blog a whole new look. Hopefully by mid June we will have that accomplished. I am going to have my very own blog. All me. oh…. that is exciting.

Her and Mike keep bugging me to get a job. I don’t know why all those Goldens went out and got gigs doing commercials. .. its putting some pressure on me. Sure, I’m sure I could do it. I am beautiful, talented and have charisma. I just feel Rays Retreat keeps me plenty busy. Greeting, Announcing, hospitality, and entertaining give me plenty to do. And.. writing.

We enjoyed a great week at the lake in May. Fishing, wading, walking, riding on the boat, campfires, up late at night and sleeping in the mornings. We all loved it.

We had one bad night. We had sat outside on the boat until almost midnight. Just came in to go to bed, lights turned off when it started – a thunderstorm rolled in. Three different times thru the night. Mike and Ann are not very understanding when I am trying to tell them about the potential danger. So scary.

I share this with you and hope you will remember so you don’t have to ask your trembling dogs WHY?

Sparky T. Ray

June 1, 2012 …. almost Summer!

Spring will soon be turning into summer. We are looking forward to this season. Summer brings in those traveling tourists, fishermen, golfers and family visitors. It also is a delightful season to be on the lake. We hope to slip away a day here and there and enjoy Cottage Cove our Green Getaway.

A twilight picture of our cottage. Green has never been my favorite color. When I first met Mike he had a Dodge Charger that he had painted grass green. At that time, 1972 car colors were pretty basic so it stuck out like a green thumb. He quickly tired of that color.

When we first looked at this cottage we both inhaled a gasp from the shock of the green. We both said – “we are painting this”. Now it seems to have grown on us. No painting except for some spots that have worn a bit.

Memorial Day was a HOT day. 90’s. Pretty miserable weather for cleaning rooms, and having dryers running. Summer weather. Today the high was 64. Extremes… isn’t that why we all love living in Michigan? Weather is never monotonous.

When we pulled out of WalMart today, at the corner was a youngish man sitting cross legged, holding a cat. Both his eyes, and the cats were closed. Meditating or sleeping. In front of them was a cardboard sign: Traveling – Need Money and Food

hmmmm   on one hand who misses a few dollars?

on the other hand…I don’t know how I feel about that. Is that an easier way to get money? Does he feel degraded and humiliated because he’s resorted to this? or does he feel hey, a few bucks here and there?

I wish I knew his story. I should have mentioned it to Mike – because you know he has no problem talking to anyone or asking those questions most people want to know out of curiosity or nosiness. He wants to know so he’ll ask.

Sparky is eager to get on the blog since we’ve enjoyed a break. So he’ll be posting tomorrow.

 

taking a break

Time for break… this head needs a rest. and Sparky says he won’t write the blog everyday…. Give us a week or so to refresh and we’ll be back at it soon.

Sharing Dog Videos

They left me for most of the afternoon today. Well Gizzy was home with me but she just slept. When they left me for a few hours Thursday I kept busy building my storm shelter. It was thundering, lightning.. and I’ll admit it really scared me.

When they returned Thurs. Ann found my storm shelter. I had tossed a lot of things out of the closet to make room for me. She cleaned up what I didn’t want in there. She put a comfy blanket for me. I just hope I don’t need it again. There is no reason why they should ever leave me alone when its storming.

So today I didn’t have much to do except check out a few things on the internet. Dog things.

Like this video showing a dog going thru the agility course. Ha-ha… watch it. It just proves the point that when a dog has to go, he has to go regardless if he’s a competitor or not.

http://www.wimp.com/dogcourse

 

 

I would be so embarrassed!

I love this video of a Golden guarding a bike and then riding the bike!

http://www.godvine.com/Best-Dog-Ever-Guards-a-Bicycle-Then-Does-Something-So-Funny-1453.html

Morels and Campers

It’s morel mushroom season and people are starting to roam the woods in the hunt. Just had a room return after a day in the woods. They found a lot of people and campers out there.

 

I would advise reviewing this page that shows the difference between false and real morels. Those false ones can make a person really really sick.

http://www.michiganmorels.com/morels2.shtml

Morels should be popping

Rain + Warm temps nighttime and day = Morels!

The Gaylord paper had a picture of two giant morels found in the Pigeon River area earlier this week.

This should be a great weekend to for finding them.

Mike and I were awakened early this morning… 5 am early with the dogs announcing that it was storming, just in case the crashes of thunder had not woke us up.

Sparky does it by trying to lay on top of you, yeah…. not comfortable. Gizzy is on top, jumping around and then talking and telling us … storm,storm,storm.

Lots of panting too. When I drove into work a little before 7 it was a downpour with bold flashes of lightning. I jumped at least twice.

Once at work, I tried convincing the maintenance man he should provide valet parking for us. He informed me he was going to sell umbrellas.

Fun at the Lake…… Sparky T.

Its always a good day when we go to the lake!

Mike and I worked at cleaning our beach area. Leaves had come in covering up the sand.

We work well together.

Gizzy was in the water and then sunning herself. She’s such a little girl.She usually sprawls out on the dock but decided the fishing boat was a good spot. She’s been warned – may be hot this summer.

Rolling in the sand – another favorite of mine.

Fish are coming in around the dock. I race out on the dock to watch them scatter.

The Loons followed us out on the boat. So cool. I would be watching them disappear and then POP right

up by me on the boat. That was exciting. They are so cool.

Sparky T. Ray

20 Years

Willpower

Good news – we’re on a warming trend. Now if we get some rain the mushrooms should pop up and make us all happy.

The power of positive thinking. Do you believe in it? I always have. I have seen what it can do. In my personal life the best example I have is when I decided to return to school for my nursing degree.

I was 40. Working as a home health aid, our youngest still in high school. Not just high school, but she was a senior and involved in everything. Kevin had just joined the Navy and Bryan was in college.

It was difficult learning to study again. Difficult trying to balance home, work and school. Nursing school is very stressful. Any test can be the one that sends you back home and out of school.

From the first day when they gave the statistics of how many would not be sitting at graduation I closed my eyes and saw myself receiving my nursing cap. This visual image was what I meditated on positively every morning and night. I was going to finish.

And now I realize I am not exactly talking about positive thinking. I am talking about the power of our minds to will ourselves to do something. To will control over our bodies and our mind.

I am thinking about my patients and my mother. We’ve entered into a difficult time again with the Alzheimer's. To be expected after enjoying a year and few months of fairly good times with her. Yet, I .. like the rest of our family allowed myself to be ‘lulled’ into forgetting the ugly part of Alzheimer's. Because we have stepped back into the swirly weird Oz World of her Alzheimer's mind.

I thought back to the week we moved her north and into the Alzheimer's Unit. She had basically become pretty much ‘couch’ bound. She wasn’t walking without assist, she was soiling herself and not even realizing it. She was a shell of a person. She would seldom open her eyes, barely respond.

I thought then, and still do believe that she was willing herself to die. She was frustrated with the road the disease was taking her down. Especially the part that meant she was being cared for by her children. No longer independent.

She has always had a strong will and determination. I am convinced she thought that she would will herself to leave this world before having to hand herself completely over to the mean life miser Alzheimer's.

Unfortunately, for her she had always taken good care of her body. In her case her body, vital organs endured and were stronger. Only because her children did step in and she was moved into the locked unit. I do believe if left alone, our determined mother would have been able to will herself out of this world and into the next.

Just recently I saw one of ‘our’ residents do exactly this. She had been doing well. In fact 7 days before her death there was no evidence whatsoever that she would be leaving us.

She had , been extremely unhappy and miserable. She was also grieving desperately.

Her family had come in 7 days before and enjoyed a birthday party gathering. She was up, taking care of herself and family thought it was the beginning of better times.

5 days after that one of the aids came to me and asked me to check in on Pansy (fake name obviously). The aid said….. ‘she has the smell of death’.  I was concerned too after visiting with Pansy. There wasn’t any one thing I could physically see except the fact that she was not interacting with us at all. Vitals were still within normal limits, and she did have ‘the smell of death’

Its not an overpowering smell, its faint but when you have worked a few years around this you definitely can detect it.

I called the family just to let them know there seemed to be a change in condition. They are in the medical field so I told them I had nothing concrete I could base it on, just a general concern.

The next day I called again and asked them to come in to visit her and talk with us. To suggest it was time for Hospice and time for any family member who wanted to see her to come in. She was gone the very next day.

I believe she set her mind to it, and willed herself to leave us.

I believe most of us don’t begin to use the power of our minds and will to do positive and good in our lives and others.