Jacquelyn's Space

I bought this cute little book for me and my husband for Valentine’s Day. It is a bucket list book for couples. Our Bucket List Adventures: A Journal for Couples

I think it would be great for me and my husband to come up with a bucket list of things we want to do before time gets away from us.

My husband is already planning a bucket list adventure of his own. He is really into The Curse of Oak Island and wants to make a visit. He started planning one a few weeks ago. I guess he wants to stop by Montreal and Quebec on our way because that is where my ancestors are from. Truthfully, I want to make an ancestor trip a separate adventure because there is so much to see and do. Plus I’d like to learn more French before I go. If we go to Oak Island, I think a good thing to pair with it would be a trip to Prince Edward Island. I have always wanted to go and see all the Anne of Green Gables tourist attractions. I love that! So we may do that this year.

There is so much we have already done, but much of it has been in Michigan. I love Michigan and love to revisit my favorite places. Some of my bucket list items would be revisiting places but with a variation on what we have already done. Like I’d like to stay at the Grand Hotel during Somewhere in Time Weekend. Well, plus during Titanic Weekend and during the jazz festival weekend. I was on the porch for jazz festival one year and it was magical.

I’ve been to Mammoth Caves (Kentucky) twice already but I really want to go and explore more. I guess a bucket list item for me is to take all the tours they have to offer. This means multiple trips.

I can think of a whole host of repeat visits I want to make but there are a bunch of new things I’d like to do to. I’d really like to go abroad. I know one of my husband’s bucket list items will be to visit Scotland again. I have never been. Of course I’d like to see Ireland too and England. I need a few months for the British Isles, especially England because I really want to visit all the Jane Austen sites and the Shakespeare attractions.

Then I’d definitely would like to explore Europe…my husband isn’t really into that to much but I know he’d have fun if we were able too.

I need more money!! LOL. I suppose I need to by a book, Travel Europe on $10 a Day, or something like that. Or win the lotto. That is definitely a bucket list item.

I can’t wait til I get that book. We will have fun dreaming and filling it out.

Weirdness is:

When someone you went to school with, who was a grade behind you and seemed like a younger brother because he looked so young is a grandpa now….

and looks the part. He is bald and everything. What little hair he has and his mustache is gray! He looks old now!!

And I’m over here feeling like a 14 year old…

thinking I’m still pretty young and have the aura of youth because of my youthful (immature?) mindset. HA HA

Before Christmas we got together with my husband’s family. Our nephew Calvin was at the gathering. We don’t see him too often because he lives in Lansing and has 2 young kids now. He was talking about going up north, more specifically the U.P. I hear his new wife’s family has money and has a home in the U.P. so they have been making a few trips up there. We were talking about how much we love it up north. Calvin loves it too. Then he kind of got sentimental and thanked me and my husband for taking on trips up north when he was young. We took him a few times when we went camping or went up to my parent’s place when we had my stepson. Calvin thanked us! He said he remembers those times and is trying to do that with his kids, take them on family trips around Michigan.

That made me feel so good. I am glad he had a good time and remembers. I was hoping it would have a positive influence on him and my stepson. It was sweet to get a thank you for it. It makes me feel so good, all warm and fuzzy. You always wonder if the kids will remember, if the things you enjoy can be passed on to them.

I told Calvin I wish we could have down more with him, taken him on more trips (you always wish you could have done more). He said we can still do that. Yes, yes we can. It would be fun to take a trip with him and his new family.

I cut my own hair last month. Yeah, I did it and I don’t care. I haven’t had time to go to the salon–I don’t really enjoy it regardless–so I just chopped it off one night. Truth to tell, it had horrendous snarls in it that I could not brush out, so I just said fuck it,where are the scissors? I was just washing it and throwing it up in a bun whether or not I had time to comb it out or not anyway. It got to a point where I never had time to comb it out and it got really tangled, then knotted. It was terrible and unhealthy. Plus, I started playing with it too, knotting it even more. {{{STRESS}}} I just didn’t have the time or inclination to deal with it. I was working too much and then my mom is staying with us right now. She had a stroke in September and I have had to try to help her. She is a needy handful, and not just because of the stroke. She lives 3 hours away and I couldn’t just send her home. I can’t make it up there to help her so I moved her to a facility close to me, then to my house once she was discharged from the facility. We did have home care for a few weeks but that has ended too. It has been rough and an adjustment for both of us. She wants to go home. I want her to go home. I just want her to be safe.

So I cut my hair off. I am lucky that curly hair is very forgiving and I could do that. I just cut above the worst of the snarls then evened it out as best as I could. It isn’t perfect but it actually looks cute. I have gotten many compliments on it. I am quite proud of it now. Ha!

I’ll have to post a picture soon.

I need a new job. Actually, I need a career. I need to get off my ass and start looking. I hate looking for a job, plus I really love what I do now; it just doesn’t pay. I did make more money this year than I have ever made–mainly because all of the overtime I worked. Then my cash cow quit. LOL. The co-worker I was getting all the overtime from (she was giving away shifts every week) went on to greener pastures. So I fought my way into getting an extra day a work–built-in OT right in my schedule. I am not too sure how 2020 is going to be. Hours are being cut. My extra day was cut. I was so pissed because my boss did not inform me ahead of time and he just did it right now, around the New Year holiday. WTF? Then I looked at the schedule and I see that even though he cut a day, he has put me on for 12 hour shifts so I only lose 2 hours. I can deal with that but still, I need more money. And I’m not sure if our division will pick up. We were busy until we lost some business from a major hospital. This hospital (or the corporation that runs the hospital) is part owner in an ambulance company and they are being made to give this other company their business. Even though this other company didn’t have a wheelchair division (and only seem to run one van, that I’ve seen) and it is a hassle to set up both wheelchair and ambulance transports with this newer company. Sucks to be them, sucks to be us. My husband says the ambulance side at our work has been busy, it’s just our wheelchair side has lost business. This makes me sad because we are really good at what we do…plus me and my co-workers love our job and our patients. We miss our transports out of that hospital too.

One lovely story:

We transported a cancer patient to and from chemo. She had breast cancer. We saw her at her best and worst. We all tried to be there for her and pick her up when she was down. I always tried to stay and wait for her to get out of treatment so she wouldn’t have to wait to be picked up again. I remember one day I picked her up from a day program. They had had a party that day and she was bubbling over with happiness because they had a DJ at the party and she was dancing to the music. She said it took her back to her younger years in the 80s. We both reminisced about Prince and the music from the 80s we both loved. She told me about the times she used to go to the all male reviews when she used to live in Detroit. It was a joy to see her so happy. Well, I was taking her to radiation treatment. I waited for her to get out and I got her return home. She was a changed person on the way back. It was so sad. I tried to make the trip comfy for her. I tried to cheer her up, keep her up. I felt so bad for her and it was horrible to see her feeling bad after seeing her so happy.

But she survived. She has beaten her cancer! When she was cancer free she was joyous. She also had nothing but good things to say about our wheelchair division–the six of us who transported her through her ordeal. She said we were like family to her–more so than her actual family–and that she couldn’t have gotten through without us. She called us her “A-Team”, called our boss (which got us a shout out company-wide), and even got us all cards and gifts. It made us all feels so awesome. We really love our patients…this lady is one of our favorites though but we try to build up everyone we transport and make them feel better.

This is what the patient wrote in the card she gave me:

“To Jackie:

During my ordeal I will never forget the compassion, empathy, and caring you pour our!!! Thank you”

This made me cry. This job has really helped me develop my compassion, empathy, and understanding. I am so overcome that she noticed and thankful for it. Thankful for this job and all that it has taught me.

All that being written, I need to look for another job. I need more money. Money isn’t everything but unfortunately I am in a position where I absolutely need to make more. If only I would have found this job a lot sooner I’d be happy to keep it forever. But I didn’t so I can’t. But I’d like to find something working with older people if I can, and in social work…I feel like I am good at building people up. I feel that is my calling in life.

So another year draws to a close. It was an okay year. I worked a lot. That’s what I remember from the year–working and going on trips.

Our first big trip was a drive out to Nebraska to go to our nephew’s graduation. The drive was something–12 hours across country, well mostly Iowa. Ha! We saw family, that was as sweet as always, plus there was some drama too… Just can’t have a family outing/get together without some kind of drama. It all turned out okay in the end. The highlights of my trip were spending time in the pool with my grand-neice Nevaeh and grand-nephew Carson. I love pool time!! Especially with kids. Then on the way back my husband and I stopped at a state park in Illinois, Starved Rock, and did some exploring. We want to go back because it was a very pretty area.

My husband and I vacationed in Kentucky with family in July. It was fun. I spent most of my time with Nevaeh doing girly things like playing baby dolls, coloring, and doing fashion plates. We also went to the water park a couple of times. Yay! More pool time. I tried kayaking for the first time and I really enjoyed it though I don’t much care for the water in Kentucky’s lakes and rivers. Very muddy. In addition to playing with my niece, another favorite part of the trip was visiting Mammoth Cave. I had been before when I was a teen and it was awesome to go back and see more of it. I still want to go back and see more. There are hundreds of miles of cave(s) to explore. We went a day with family, did 2 cave tours, then went back on our way home. We spent the night in a cabin at the National park and did 2 more cave tours. The damn tours get booked up so fast we had to take what we could get but it was all interesting. I want to plan out a trip and book some tours far in advance. I want to go back! I’d have to say that Kentucky is probably my second favorite state after Michigan.

Of course, me and my husband did our annual bridge walk trip. We walked the Mackinac Bridge for the 9th year in a row. We camped at Straits State Park for about a week. The weather wasn’t the greatest. I really wanted to get to the beach but it was too cold. We hung out in Sault Ste Marie for a day, watching freighters go through the locks, but basically relaxed around camp this year. We have a new tent–a dark room tent–and a new kitchen tent and stand so camp was much more comfortable. We just packed so much stuff! We really need a bigger vehicle…and maybe a camper. Yeah, that’d be nice. We had to pack up in a gale. That wasn’t the greatest but we survived.

Finally, we took a fall trip to Mackinac Island. We stayed at our second favorite hotel on the Island, our home away from home, The Murray. We hung out in their spa pool. We hiked. We hung out in the spa pool. Basically, I couldn’t wait to get into that spa pool. That is another thing I want, a spa pool…or a spa…or a pool. But then I’d never want to leave home so maybe it’s okay that I don’t have one.

What else happened this year? Nothing much good other than work and the trips we took. We survived what life threw at us: a friend committed suicide (it was a terrible shock), I was told I need a hysterectomy (because of fibroid tumors), my mom had a stroke, my husband had chest pain and had to have a heart cath (which went well)… we survived, we survive.