It's me again...

 

 

 

 

It’s me again…..and I think I'm finally getting a little closer to figuring out what I'm going to do with myself.  I can’t believe how time flies!  I feel like I just posted but it’s already been 4 months!  I am starting the job hunt for a part-time job; my severance recently ended a couple of weeks ago and let me tell you, COBRA insurance sure is expensive!  Pat and I went to Tampa in January and had the most amazing time!  We went to a place called Dade City Wild Things where we got to have one on one interaction with 2 different tiger cubs.  They were absolutely adorable!!  I wanted to bring one home with me! We also went to Bush Garden’s, which was a first for both of us, and had a giraffe interaction that was also amazing.  We are both huge animal lovers so this was so fun for both of us. 

As odd as it is to say this, I think I’ve come to realize that it is a blessing that I’m not with Make-A-Wish anymore.  Looking back, I can’t imagine myself working there now.  So many things have change, and people have changed and I miss it being more of a “mom and pop shop” and not so corporate….it’s just not for me anymore.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the Make-A-Wish Foundation and everything they stand for, they grant phenomenal wishes and bring happiness to so many kids.  They are truly a wonderful foundation.

I have soooo missed working with the kids and families but I think I’ve got that problem solved.  I recently signed on to volunteer with the East TN Make-A-Wish chapter.  I met my first wish kid tonight and I’m soooo excited about being a volunteer, again, which is where I started off in 1998 with DreamMakers.  I will get to meet kids from the East TN area that are at Vanderbilt or the Ronald Mcdonald House.  Now I’m officially a Wish Granting Volunteer...yay!

Over the last few months I’ve also dabbled in adult Wish Granting a little bit with The Granting Dreams Foundation.  I worked on one wish for a lady named Mary and sent her and her family to Disneyland…and I’m helping on a wish now for a lady named Donna who is going to FL.  I was offered the opportunity to take over The Granting Dreams Foundation but I worry that I wouldn’t be 100% happy granting adult wishes only.  My passion really is working with kids.  Don’t get me wrong, it makes you feel really good to know that you are helping make someone happy no matter what their age is, but it just isn’t the same as working with the little ones. 

I’ve been working with a couple of friends and we are in the process of getting our 501 c3 to start our own non-profit Wish Granting Foundation called Dreams & Wishes of Tennessee.  Of course we will NOT be competing with Make-A-Wish, they do a fabulous job and to be honest I don’t know of anyone that could grant a wish as wonderfully as they do.  They have sooo many resources and they provide incredible wishes to the kids.  We want our foundation to grant a second wish to children ages 5- 21 that have relapsed from cancer or have received a second life-threatening diagnosis.  Over the years I’ve met so many families who could have benefitted from a service like this.  Currently there are no other foundations in Tennessee that offer this assistance. I can’t tell you how many phone calls I’ve had over the years from families where their child had their BIG Make-A-Wish years back and the child now has a new cancer diagnosis or has relapsed.  Most often they wanted something small; a family reunion or a trip to Gatlinburg, or even an iPad….things that many of us take for granted.  Things that when your child is going through chemo and radiation and they are sick and you have hospital bills piled up, and you just don’t have the resources to do anything for your child no matter how big or small it is.   That is what I want to do….help make people smile during these difficult times.  Often it is the smallest thing that can put a BIG smile on someone’s face.   Over the next several months I’m going to be looking for various volunteer help to get this foundation up and going so if anyone is interested in helping let me know.  J

Another thing that I’ve been doing pretty frequently is helping with my grandma, Big Mama.  Back in February she almost died, literally.  She has a new medication dispenser and it accidentally got programed incorrectly and was dispensing 2 days of pills every day and unfortunately it took us 6 days to realize this was happening.  Thankfully we figured it out when we did!  Her one and only kidney had almost completely shut down and, it was pretty bad.  She was in the ICU for several days…the good thing is she’s recovering quite well.  She has a few complications lingering but she’s doing pretty good these days and the medicine machine is working well and I love it.  If anyone has a family member that has difficulty remembering to take their meds I highly recommend this machine.  It notifies me if she doesn’t take her meds by a certain time each day and it’s really fabulous.   I used to call her daily to remind her to take her meds and she would get the days confused and say that she had taken them when actually she hadn’t.  Nothing like that can happen with this machine, it is wonderful.  If anyone needs information about it let me know.  It’s really taken a lot of stress off of me from worrying if she has taken her meds or not.

The latest funny story about my grandma is her new obsession with pancake syrup.  Since she’s come home from the hospital, she has this obsession with syrup.  It’s the craziest thing!  She can go through a 24 oz. bottle of syrup; Log Cabin is her syrup of choice, in a week or less.  The funniest thing is she’s not even eating it on pancakes or waffles!  She will eat it on white bread, hamburger buns, and sometimes she just eats a spoon full of it.  I spoke to her doctor about it and he can’t find any reason for this odd obsession.  I thought maybe it was a reaction from one of her new meds she started since her hospital discharge but we just can’t figure it out.  All of the family members have been alerted to not buy her more than 1 bottle of syrup weekly.  I tease her and tell her we’re going to have to put her on a 12 step program and send her to rehab to get her off the syrup.  Oh gosh, I can see it now, I’ll take her to a meeting and she can stand up and say “My name is Big Mama and I drink syrup”. Lol.

We are in the midst of planning a trip to Orlando and I’m super excited about it.  It will be Pat, my brother, his little boy who is 5 along with his mom and my niece, my grandma and myself.  My grandma  changes her mind every day as to if she is or isn’t going….I’ve purchased her plane ticket so she had better come along with us!  Her doctor seems to think it would be good for her to get away and I told her, she can sit in the hotel room and do nothing in sunny Florida just as easily as she can sit at home and do nothing. Right?  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she will come along with us.  It will be a little stressful I’m sure but I think it will be worth it.

Well, as always, thanks for taking the time to read my rambling and hopefully you weren’t too bored and maybe you smiled at least once.  Have a great day friends…