Christine's Incident

Christine Schaubert: Front right.

I heard over the weekend that Christine had been helping someone with a horse, and they were a little sketchy on the details, but said she would not be able to walk for a year and that she had had three surgeries by the weekend. I was reluctant to call Christine's mom, Sharon, for fear of stirring her from what may be the only rest she was getting. But last night (July 29), I decided to try to call Christine's sister, Bethany. When that number that we had rang through as not in service, I broke down and called Sharon. Even though I got the details from her, I am still a little sketchy myself, but this is what Sharon told me.

Christine was out in Central Park in Elkhart with Black, which is the horse that belongs to Liz Borger Pletcher that Christine used to have in 4-H Saddle club several years ago. Liz was wanting her horse to be in the Musical "Oklahoma". But Black has been out of circulation for a few years due to health problems. Chris took Black off for a ride to get him used to the park. The horse got kind of jumpy and was upset. She was riding him down an incline and he started "crow jumping." He was not bucking, but Christine decided she needed to get down on the ground and calm him. She went to jump off, but she landed wrong.  Sharon said the impact of the way she landed broke two bones in her right leg. The Fibula shot through the skin and out through her blue jeans. The Tibia was shattered, somehow tearing through the skin and into the ground underneath.

Doctors were able to repair the Fibula. The Tibia is in very bad shape. The most recent surgery they did yesterday was to start grafting bone. There were just shards of bone in the Tibia to work with. Sharon said they have told her there will be many more surgeries. Christine will probably be "walking" with a walker and crutches. Sharon said they have told her it will be a year plus other recovery time before she will walk unaided.

Sharon has her hands full taking care of her 91 year old mother with Alzheimers at home. Now she will have two to care for. They told her yesterday that Chris might be able to go home today. (July 30). But Sharon said she was going to appeal to the Doctor to give her the weekend so that Chris might be further along in her recovery before sending her home.

If you know the family, you know what they have been through. Please keep them in your prayers.

Edit Adding
I saw Christine today at the Hospital. She looks great! Her attitude is superb. She was dressed in a polo shirt and shorts, no hospital gown for her today. She looks like a little athlete. She was cheerful and she joked with me when I came in, "So, I guess I have to break a leg to see some people I haven't seen for a while." Sharon is still hoping she won't go home until Monday. When I first got there, there was a Therapist there, I believe she was an Occupational Therapist, and she was going over some of the tips to help Christine manage when she goes home. Christine was saying, "Oh I'm so thankful for this information." I didn't get to stay long, but long enough for Christine to clear some of things up for me that were muddled. I promised to come visit her again when she gets home.

That's How It Is

Now that Jay is employed again, you would think that I could calm down and concentrate on other things. At least, I should be able to be content. But the last time he had the job he thought he wanted, back in December, he lost it after one week. He was so devastated, he came home and went to bed. I had a heck of a time getting him out of bed to go to a show we had to do that night. (We were in "Sander's Family Christmas" at the time.)

I was reminded yesterday that Jay is on this job for the first three weeks on probation. This next week is the critical week. The thing you must do at an RV factory is work quickly and efficiently.  He is telling me that they have already told him a couple of times that he has to build his drawers faster. He is now working as fast as he can, trying to keep ahead of the others there. He says he is working faster than he used to work when he was working for himself and thought he was working fast. In other words, according to him, he is working as fast as he can. If he gets fired this time, I don't know what it will do to him. He really wants to keep this job.

I believe in the power of prayer, but I also believe in the power of positive thinking. I told him that if he exudes confidence, it will be easier for me to be confident. It will also be easier for his employer to have confidence in him if he seems confident. Right now, he just seems scared. I don't blame him for being scared. He has been mostly out of work for two years. But you have to start somewhere.

If you think of him this week, and if you pray, go ahead and pray for him. If you don't pray, thanks for thinking of him, try to keep it positive. Jay worked for all the 30 years before he sold his shop. He worked hard and long hours. We raised our kids on his income alone, and, while sometimes we didn't have excess, we always had enough to pay bills and meet the needs of our family. He built beautiful cabinets for people. When the building business dried up and he wasn't building so many cabinets, he had a production job that kept him busy until the manufacturer replaced some of his product line with a plastic product. He isn't ready to retire yet.

I am trying to keep a positive attitude too. It is difficult, you know, because I am a pessimist by nature. See, even my blood type is B negative! I always think of the worse case scenario and hope that it doesn't happen. It's so easy to "be negative".  I would like to be more positive. My hero, Randy Pausch, in his book, "The Last Lecture" challenged me (us) to be a "Tigger" and not an "Eeyore". I really need to get a big picture of Tigger and put it up here in my office at home. And I need one to put up in the office at work, too. It will remind me that I have to choose to be upbeat and positive like Tigger, rather than gloomy like Eeyore. I think that's how it is, you have to make a conscience effort to choose to be positive. That's how it is, anyway, if you are me!

Restaurant Review: Niles, Michigan

We had occasion to eat at two Niles, Michigan restaurants and found both worthy of commmentary. So here goes.

On July 4th, we were heading back from being at Warren Dunes State Park. We decided we would stop in Niles instead of waiting to get all the way to South Bend.  We really just wanted something that was open since it was Sunday and 4th of July to boot! We stopped at a little place called "The Nugget." I feel like it was a real find! The service was excellent. The waiter was very attentive to our needs, yet not too yackety. (You know what I mean? Have you ever had a wait staff that you felt like wanted to be your long lost relative by the time the meal was over? Yes, and all you wanted was for them to just shut up so you could enjoy your dinner?) Just by way of contrast, we had recently tried a newer restaurant in Goshen and within 10 minutes of being there, the waitress had Jay so thoroughly annoyed I thought we were going to have to leave.  I will save that for another post, though. And only if you tell me you want to know.

The food at the Nugget was very good. The waiter brought out my soup-of-the-day, homemade chicken dumpling soup. As he handed it to me, he said, "I made that fresh this morning." I was getting ready for the requisite chuckle and the "yeah, right". But I looked at his face and saw he was serious. So I stifled. That soup was tremendous. I could have made a meal of the soup alone. Big chunky vegetables in a hearty broth with just the right amount of dumplings. Jay had chosen the salad, which was not as commendable as the soup. (Neither of us are real fans of iceberg lettuce based salad. More on this later.)

Jay had asked about the special of the day, which was a batter fried fish. But the waiter thought Jay might enjoy the cajun tilapia, which turned out to be a great choice. It was lightly hand breaded with cajun seasonings and was broiled rather than fried. I had grilled shrimp, and it was very impressive. Nice and moist, cooked just right and contained a lemon pepper seasoning. I am drooling just thinking about it. We were too full for dessert. Seems like we always are.

The second place we stopped in Niles was on the occasion of our 32 anniversary. While we were eating at the Nugget, we were reading our placemats there, which were cleverly put together by the Chamber of Commerce, I believe. It featured other businesses and restaurants to try in the area. This lead us to our discovery of the Riverfront Cafe. We had seen it on our way into town, but I was in the wrong lane to turn off the main drag to get there, and we didn't want to go back in case it was closed.

Maybe we should have taken the warning from the hostess that the air conditioner was on the blink. It was getting to be evening, though, by the time we got there. I didn't think it would be too uncomfortable, even though it had been pretty hot all day.

We were impressed by the brick interior walls and all the wood trim. It was the kind of restaurant you can dress up a little to go, or come in from a day of shopping and still feel comfortable.  The table we sat at had bench seats, you can see us in the picture at the beginning of the blog.

The food was all very good and prices reasonable. I had a chicken portabella with marsala sauce accompanied by garlic mashed potatoes. Jay had a prime rib dinner with baby red roasted potatoes. Before they brought that out to us, though, we had our dinner salads. The salads were of fresh baby greens with crumbled blue cheese and spicy slivered almonds and dried cranberries. I had the house dressing which was a balsamic vinaigrette, Jay had blue cheese. (Or bleu cheese, if you prefer). I ate every bite of it! You may not believe me when I tell you, because I, like my daughter, love bread; but the least desirable item we were served was the cranberry apple walnut bread that accompanied the meal. I guess since I was expecting a nut bread, and it was clearly a yeast bread base, I was a little put off by it. But it doesn't matter. I was very satisfied with the rest of the meal. In fact I was so stuffed that I had to refuse even to split the cute little $2.00 desserts the waitress brought by after we had finished the meal. These  were mostly of the cheesecake and mousse variety. They looked splendid! So if you go, be hungry!

The really sad part is that by the time the desserts came, Jay had just about all he could handle of the problem with the air conditioner not working there. The restaurant does have outdoor patio dining, and we could have chosen that. It is very rarely that I like eating on the patio anywhere. I don't like bugs. But there were a couple of flies in the restaurant, too, so...(By the way, I killed those two flies with a rolled up magazine I had picked up in the lobby while we were waiting to be seated.) Hopefully, the air conditioning problem has been fixed.

If you are going through Niles, I could recommend either one of these restaurants. Hope you enjoy your time there!

Summertime

It's been so long since I blogged, and I won't make this one long. I will just say that I am really enjoying the summer. I don't know if the thyroid medication has contributed to this at all, but I have lost that dreadful, morbid and depressed feeling I had all winter. I feel pretty good and a little more optimistic most of the time.

Jay started a new job at Jayco. Finally. He has been waiting for this position since February and has tried to keep occupied with other things in the process. I am still not really optimistic about this, but a week has gone by and things are still looking good for him there. This, in spite of the fact that he was about half an hour late on Thursday. We are not going to let that happen again. We have alarm clocks set all over the house now at about 5 minute intervals!

We could not really afford it, but we went away for two nights for our anniversary to St. Joseph Michigan.  That was fun. We went to Silver Beach a couple of times, walked around at the Krasal Art Fair. We didn't buy anything, but it was fun to look. We didn't have to pay to go to the beach because we found a place within walking distance to park both times. We played frisbee in the water, which is a lot more fun than playing in the yard. We took pictures to memorialize it all.

We have been married 32 years. Let me tell you, it hasn't been easy. There are many, many days between the day I said "I do" and all the way up until now that I feel like I made a terrible mistake. There have been plenty of times I have wanted to throw in the towel. But, Jay and I do love each other. There are a lot of things that we see eye to eye on, and we have built a life together. The last two years while he has been mostly unemployed have not been a picnic, but we have toughed it out. I am hoping for better days ahead.

I finished reading the book "Moon River and Me" by Andy Williams. It was a trip down memory lane. An autobiography is a great way to see that other people have had pain and sadness in their lives as well as success.  It binds the heart to see all the times someone tried and failed, and then, eventually, they succeeded. Makes you feel that you are not alone, and you will succeed too.

Just one more paragraph. I sooooo enjoyed my most recent day with my daughter, July 12. We went to Mount Baldy near Michigan City, Indiana. I forgot the camera, but she took some pictures with her cell phone. Maybe we will figure out how to download the pictures and put them on Facebook. Keep an eye out for that. Anyway, it was fun getting out in the water that day. Waves were coming in and it was fun to body surf. We just had some good conversation too. Good times!

What do I want? Does it really matter?

   I started training at Meijer's store this week for the position of Cashier. I never thought that I would be doing this, especially at this juncture in my life. It is not what I would have chosen. If I have to have a second job, and for now, I do, this is probably as good as any. I could be doing any number of distasteful and menial jobs. Meijer's is a pretty good place. It's a friendly atmosphere, and so far the job seems do-able.

   All the while I am thinking, "What do I really want? Is it really necessary for me to have two jobs?" And "am I just being greedy?"

   I think all I really want is some security. If Jay goes on being unstable in his job prospects, at least I know that the bills can get paid out of what I am making. I wish that could be accomplished with just my first job. But it can't. That has been proven over the last 12 months. Beyond that, I would like to replenish my savings account and see us get out of the credit hole we have dug ourselves into. I won't be able to do that alone, even with two jobs.

  What do I really want? I want Jay to get a REAL job and to be able to hold on to it for at least a year. When I say a "REAL" job, I mean a job where he goes in every day, at least five days a week, and draws a dependable wage. Almost all of our married life he has worked for himself, and our income always depended on what work he could get for the cabinet shop. Of course, there was the Hot Air Balloon company that we had for five years that supplemented our income, maybe. I don't know if, at the end of the whole thing, we actually lost more money at that than we took in.  I don't want us to have to depend on "finding work" now. I want him to have steady, dependable income.

  There is the question of "does any of this really matter." I think the answer to that is, "It matters to me. Is that enough?" Sometimes I think that I really don't have anything to look forward to. I have dreams, but they all seem impossible now. I used to have faith that things would get better. But that has dwindled to almost non-existence. I wonder if Jay will ever be able to find steady work. I would have liked to build one more home that we could prepare to retire in. Now it doesn't even look like retirement is an option. I think I will be working for the rest of my life. That thought brings many dark thoughts.

  I know I am just in a dark time right now. As I said before, things really aren't so bad. I know plenty of people in much worse situations. At least I can work...and two jobs, when one is only part-time, are not such a hardship. I hope that I can rise above. Right now I am just holding on.

Working

If you have a job right now, you should cherish that job. I cherish my job working for Elkhart County Health Department in the Women, Infant, and Children division.  (WIC) I will cherish my second job working as a cashier, whenever I start training there. I looked for both of these jobs for a while. In this economy it is hard to find a job. My husband has been looking for just two months short of two years.

Jay finally got some work yesterday. I had been telling him about this place, Labor Ready, that has a rare sign in their window: Now Hiring. There aren't many places in Elkhart County that have a sign like that. Anyway, Wednesday he finally went over there. He took the tests, he filled out forms and an application. They told him that the best way for him to get a job was to show up there the next morning between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m. He got up and went over there, worked 8 hours and got paid. He can do it again today.

Jay isn't lazy. He has had a job here and there since he liquidated his cabinet shop. He has suffered a lot of rejections, which I didn't know until recently how that has affected him. He has been severely depressed after losing a couple of jobs that he had hoped would last. He has put up with a lot of my own frustration and disappointment.  He has been looking in a lot of the wrong places for work. Cabinet makers and woodworkers just aren't hiring right now. The industry is slow. I had told him a couple of weeks ago that he was going to have to spread out his nets a little bit more if he were going to catch fish.

I just want to thank all of our family and friends who have prayed for us, tried to encourage us, or otherwise helped us through this time. I hope that things will continue to get better. The job doesn't really pay much, but it's better than sitting at home drawing no income!

Babblings

I was thinking of how much I miss my son, Justin. He is in pilot training in the Air Force and I haven't seen him since June of last year. And I probably won't see him until December of this year...if I get to see him then. It was almost at this time last year that I learned that he was going to be going to pilot training and that he was going to be married. What made me realise just how much I miss him, and his wife, was that I was looking through the wedding pictures. Seeing their faces in the pictures, the love in their eyes, well...just got me thinking of them both.

But, of course, I miss all my kids almost all the time. Whenever they aren't with me, I miss them. This is natural for a mother. While I understand that they have to live their lives, just as I have had to live mine separated from my parents, and I have accepted this as a fact of life, it doesn't make me miss them less. I do look forward to the next time I see them, speak to them, receive e-mail from them. I am even happy just to read their posts on Facebook.

I also miss my friends, all of them, young and old, collectively and separately. Now, am I just weird, or is this a common human condition?

I was supposed to see my parents today. It worked out for the best that Dad called and said not to come down. I was kind of worn out from the trip we took yesterday to Holland, Michigan. Another trip today and I would have felt like I needed a day off tomorrow, which I don't have. Mom was not feeling well, had coughed all night and needed to catch up on her rest today. I understand. But I miss them, too.

When Mom had back surgery last year in August, I went to the store one day with my Dad to buy some groceries and things. My Dad, God bless him, was so worried about my Mom. And he has had to take on some of the chores that Mom alone used to do. But, walking in the store that day, I was observing my Dad. Just walking with him, and watching him walk, I realised all of a sudden that what my sister had been saying was true. Our parents were becoming "elderly".

See, I was watching Daddy walking, and I realised that he has the gait of a little old man. I had never seen him that way before. He had always been big and strong.... Tears came to my eyes, but I could not just break down crying right there in the aisle at Meijers, could I? So, I did what I always do; push down the tears, put on a smile, and cope.

I do that every day!