The Worst Pain

Over the past few months, I have been back-and-forth to the dentist multiple times. I had a tooth that was giving me some pain for the past year but nothing that I couldn’t tolerate. When I had my cleaning in mid-June, something aggravated it and the pain increased quite a bit. Since my dentist wanted to put a crown on it anyway because the filling was no longer serving its purpose, I decided to go ahead and have the work done at the end of June. 

Unfortunately, the new crown did not solve the pain in my jaw. I was completely surprised by this as I had had multiple crowns before and had never had a problem with pain. My dentist decided that the next best step was to do a root canal. I had also had several of those and never had any issues. That changed last week. The root canal caused so much pain over the weekend that I could not sleep. Ibuprofen and Tylenol didn't help and even ice wouldn’t solve the problem. I was in tears almost all day yesterday.

After not sleeping much at all last night, I decided the best thing I could do was arrive at the dentist right when they opened at 8 AM. Once the assistant saw me in the waiting room, they took me right back to a chair. I guess all of the work that I had done recently had aggravated the gums and bruised the ligament. My dentist instantly took the crown off, and within a few minutes, the pain was a lot better. Since we were going to Bloomington for Labor Day weekend, they went ahead and made a temporary crown that was extremely small and fit in my mouth without causing additional pain instead of doing any more work.  They also gave me a steroid to help the inflammation heal quicker.

By the end of the day today, I was able to find some relief. I did multiple salt rinses throughout the day and took my steroid. I don’t know if I’ll sleep tonight because of the effects of the medication, but at least for now I do not want to cry. I was even able to eat some soft foods tonight for dinner. Hopefully, this will all be solved in a couple weeks and will just be a very painful memory.

Penguin and Bill

When Meg visited her grandma shortly after she broke her hip in July, she brought her a penguin from the Toledo Zoo that her and Cameron picked out on their trip. Grandma Jane loved the penguin and had it next to her bed at the nursing home and has since kept it close to her chair at home. A few months later, Meg decided to experiment with making a teddy bear out of one of her favorite yellow shirts. The bear turned out great and Meg was super proud of it, so much so that she decided to send it to her grandma in a care package. Not too long after it arrived, Meg started receiving pictures of penguin with his new buddy, Bill the teddy bear. 

Over the past few weeks, my dad has continued to send Meg some great pictures of Bill and penguin on adventures all through their house. Sometimes they are riding in my mom's walker, other times, they are watching their favorite television shows, including Gunsmoke. My dad has started to include me on these text messages, and I have had so much fun looking at the pictures and laughing at their scenarios. Just recently they were reading the wedding albums of Brett, Karen, Meg and Nick.  I am very glad that Meg’s gift was so well received and hope to add some new friends to their group soon.

Food and Wine Festival

Today, Doug and I got up early and headed to Epcot to meet Meg and Nick for an afternoon at the Food and Wine festival. It had just opened on Friday, and I was a little worried about crowds.  The heat must have scared some people off because it was definitely a lot easier to get through the countries than I thought it would be.  

We started at the booths near Test Track and then walked through each country sampling food, trying a specialty drink, reading menus and doing a little shopping. It was a lot of fun. The heat made it challenging to try very many hot foods, but I definitely enjoyed the buffalo chicken wings with dill ranch, and the bourbon chocolate cake in the United States.  

Nick had spent most of his summer in the Midwest training for his new position, so he felt the heat a little stronger than the rest of us that had been in Florida the past couple of months. Thankfully, I had a microfiber towel that he could use to cool off. We also decided the best way to beat the heat was to take a ride on Soarin’ and we all enjoyed a trip over the United States in the air conditioning.  

Meg and Nick had planned on going to Disney Springs after we finished at Epcot, but the weather changed their mind. Instead, they headed back to Baldwin Park to cool off before going out tonight. Doug and I knew that the afternoon in the sun trying some of our favorite foods was about all we could handle. We had a great time hanging out with Meg and Nick and loved the festival but knew we needed to head back home. It was a quiet night in Ocala, but that was exactly what we needed after such a wonderful day

Lions, Tigers, and Pigs, Oh My!

A couple of days ago, Cal texted out in the family group chat asking Brett and Karen if they had seen any lions yet. None of us really knew what he was talking about until Gabrielle let Meg know that the story Cal attached to his question was actually real. According to news reports, someone had spotted two lions roaming around loose in a county next to hers. Supposedly, they were someone’s pets, which led all of us to wonder why someone would have lions as pets. Then Meg reminded everyone that it was Indiana, so it seemed to make sense after that. She went on to say that at least in Florida neighbors would know the lion and have seen him at Publix with his owner, so when they went missing everyone would know exactly whose they were. After some of the things I have seen in Florida, I could not argue with that.

All joking aside, it was a little scary for a couple of days until the police finally announced that the search was over. There actually never were any lions on the loose. Someone had mistaken wild hogs for a female lion and her cub. That made the story even funnier. Thankfully, no one was hurt by the lions or wild hogs and instead we all had a lot of fun at the Hoosier state’s expense.

American Martyr

 Last night, I went to see the movie American Martyr The Stanley Rother Story with my friends Barbara and Robbi.  I didn't know anything about Father Stanley before I saw the movie and was very excited to see it.  There were only the three of us in the theaternfor quite a while and we thought that we might have a private screening of the film.  Before it began, however, three more people arrived.

The movie was narrated by Martin Sheen who gave an overview of Father Stanely's life in Oklahoma, his time at the seminary and most importantly his work in Guatemala with the indigenous people of the Central American country.  His call to serve was very moving and his mission was inspiring.  He not only brought Catholicism to the people of the country but also taught them to farm which fed the impoverished area and helped the local economy.  Their love for Father Stanley was apparent on their faces as they talked about him and by their continued work in his name.  

The ending was very tough.  Father Stanley returned to Oklahoma during the Guatemalan Civil War as he knew many priests that had been murdered by the Guerrilla Army.  Even though he was glad to be with his family, he felt God calling him back to the country that he had been serving in for thirteen years.   He arrived in time for the Easter celebration knowing he was a marked man.  He continued to serve his people until July of that same year when he was killed by masked gunman.  The film was incredibly tragic, but awe inspiring at the same time.  It was all that I thought about today and I felt incredibly blessed to have seen it.  

Losing Two Icons

Yesterday, we received some shocking celebrity news - Dolly Parton had passed away.  I was completely surprised as I didn't even realize that she had been sick.  I spent most of the day thinking about what an icon she really was and how much she had been a part of my childhood.  My earliest memories of her were on the show Hee-Haw.  I loved her wit and her ability to poke fun at herself.  Her songs were always beautifully written, and the movie 9 to 5 wouldn't have been half as funny had she not been in it.  Above all of these things, I admired Dolly the most for her philanthropy work and her positive attitude.  She was everything that I thought a famous person should be.  I read a post later in the day that summed up my thoughts exactly - "I didn't even know it was possible for Dolly Parton to die."  Somehow, I thought she was beyond the frailties of this life as well.

Meg was by far the saddest in our family upon hearing the news.  She thought Dolly was wonderful.  She had her book, listened to her music, loved that she sang with Sabrina Carpenter recently and even bought her greatest hits on vinyl not too long ago.  Thus, when Karen sent something out in the group chat about Dolly's death, Meg reminded her to make sure that she was respectful in her text.  

Somehow Cal decided that it would be the perfect time to send an extremely long text to the group chat to let Meg know how bad he felt for her starting off with "Meg, my dearest sister, I am writing to you today with an extraordinarily heavy heart, as I know there are simply no words adequate enough to capture the unimaginable grief . . ."  which led to quite a few replies in the group chat some defending Meg and others laughing at Cal's message.  It did end when I sent these screenshots reminding everyone that I was glad that the rest of world understands how devasting this loss was unlike the women haters in our family group chat.  That quieted everyone for a little while and I spent the rest of the evening listening to Meg talk about what haters her brothers were.  I told her that I was a little nervous for Cal now.  Since he had made light of one of her favorite celebrities dying, maybe he should worry about Shaq or Tiger next as karma can be tough.

We didn't have to wait to find out who the next celebrity death would be as Brett sent a message at noon today to let everyone know that Tim Curry had passed away.  I was surprised at this news as well, but he had been sick for quite some time and was older than I would have thought.  Either way, it was hard to believe that two icons had died so close to each other.  It was also amazing to me that one was Meg's favorite and the other was Brett's.  Fortunately, Shaq and Tiger made it through the day, and we all got a little bit of a laugh when Meg retexted Cal's "sympathy" message to her and just changed her name to Brett's.  I think after all of this, everyone should watch 9 to 5 or Clue in their honor.  

Rain Storm to Beat All Rain Storms

We have had more rain in the past week, then I think we have had all summer. I am not sure if it is from the tropical storms moving in or just normal August in Florida. Whatever it is, it’s definitely been unbelievable. Today, we had to have the rainstorm to beat all rainstorms. Doug was driving home and I was going to run out and get something for dinner when the rain started. I called him and said that I would wait until a little bit later, but the rain never let up for the next two hours. Fortunately, Doug did not have to drive in it.  Once he got home, he could understand why I said that it was one of the worst storms that I had ever seen. 

At first, I really just thought it was the lightning and thunder that was the problem. It was so loud it felt like it shook the house. Our internet and electricity went down for a while but fortunately came back on relatively soon. Just before Doug arrived, I walked outside to see if it had let up at all. I was glad to see that it was just sprinkling but was absolutely shocked when I looked into the ravine at the side of my house. It was completely full of water and flowing like a creek. In the four years that we have owned this house, we have never had water in our yard, let alone a river of it.  I was nervous at first that it would cause damage, but thankfully, within an hour it had subsided. It left behind some of the most interesting marks I had ever seen after a storm.  It almost looked like aliens had landed and made a path through our yard. 

Thankfully, that was not the case, and by the time we finished dinner, I felt a lot better about the situation. I checked the rain gauge before we went to bed. It held 7 inches of rain. That was by far the most rain that we have ever gotten in a two-hour period of time. Hopefully, tomorrow everything will dry out, but if we not, at least my plants and grass are enjoying this very soggy August.