April is a Busy Month

April has always been a busy month for me what with birthdays and being the Parking Chairman for my kennel club's show in May. Nowadays, there are a few more things added to the month.

April is National Donate Life Month. I am a huge advocate for organ donation. I volunteer whenever I can and I have met some wonderful, amazing people while doing so. The need for organ donation is great and it is so easy to help, all you have to do is sign a donor card or the back of your driver's license, then be sure to let your family know you want to donate your organs. According to UNOS, the United Network for Organ Sharing, as of today at 6:00 pm, there are 101,792 candidates awaiting an organ transplant!!

(My mother Jerri, Christmas 2003)

My beautiful mother Jerri, died suddenly Aug 7, 2004 from a ruptured brain aneurysm and she was an organ donor. I know for a fact, there is a lady in North Carolina who spent years on dialysis waiting for a kidney. She has a son who was planning her funeral instead of planning for her to watch him graduate high school. There is a man in New York, who had to stop working and was living a life of pain, watching his family grieve for him while waiting for a liver. There is an older lady in Tennessee and a gentleman in South Carolina who couldn't see their children, the beauty of a sunrise or spring flowers blooming. ALL of those folks received Mom's organs! There are countless others who received her tissue donations as well!

(Mom with one of her hand-fed baby birds she raised.)

The lady in NC did indeed get to see her son graduate and by now has also seen her daughter graduate. I hope she has also gotten her horse that she was looking forward to getting. The man in NY has gone back to work and is enjoying running and golfing. And I could just imagine how the folks that received Mom's corneas are living! Imagine, seeing your child's or grandchild's face for the first time or watching the sunrise!

Losing my mother was the hardest thing I have ever gone through, the pain is still great, especially on those special days, Mother's Day, Christmas, my birthday, etc. BUT knowing that someone else is living and enjoying life because of Mom eases that pain somewhat. Mom would have been 66 years old this coming Mon. April 20. Yet another day that makes this month a hard month for me. When those special days roll around I find myself thinking of her organ recipients and wishing like crazy that I could hear from them. I think I'm ready to write them a letter, let them know a little about Mom and see how they are doing.

(Mom, 4 months before she passed away)

According to the policies and protocol surrounding organ donation, recipients and the donor family can indeed get in touch with one another IF both parties want that. Either side would write a letter then send it on to the donor organization that handled our services. Mine would be Mountain Region Donor Services. These are the most caring, wonderful people I have met. I have made quite a few friends through them, both during Mom's donation process and through volunteering for them. So I think I will write something to her recipients and hope that they want to communicate with me.

I've been told by other recipients it was hard for them to contact their donor families. They were afraid of bringing more pain on the family or opening up a wound that was beginning to heal. They have also told me they didn't have words to say to the donor families. Thank You just doesn't seem like enough to them. I promise you, I am not looking for a thank you anyway. I am looking for a way to see that Mom's organs have made a difference in someone's life. I mean I know it has, I just want to SEE it or READ of it. Wish me luck that I will get a response.

This post grows long and believe me, I could go on and on and on about this subject. Yet another reason I volunteer for MRDS and try to get the word out about donation.
If you would like to know more about it, if you are contemplating donating your organs and have questions, please, please, PLEASE feel free to ask me anything about it. I promise I will help you all I can and if I don't have the answer right then, I will find out for you and get back to you. I promise.

For now, I'm out of here and I'll be back with you next time with another cause I care about, you see, April is also Autism Awareness Month.

(My second cousin Kolby, the reason I support Autism Awareness)

Be Blessed,

I WAS going to start....

a series of posts outlining the steps involved in my stained glass project I'm working on.

I spent the better part of the early afternoon downloading pictures off my camera onto the computer. I had a ton of them, pictures of work being done on our new house, pictures of the new foster dog we have here, pictures of my glass project I'm working on, lots of pictures I'm here to tell you.
Well, I managed to get about half of them downloaded just like they should have, but I'm not sure what happened next. I was adding all the stained glass photos into my folder so I could do a series of posts describing the process from start to finish. Somehow I managed to lose all the glass pictures without them being downloaded! Makes me so mad!
I guess, I'll have to start over with the next project I work on, and hope I don't mash the wrong button on this machine and lose everything again. Wish me luck.

I have not felt well all day, my attitude has been less than award winning to say the least and the picture problems didn't help it one little bit. I'm grumpy, my joints and my back just ache like a miserable toothache, and I feel that dreaded wave of depression over my mother's death coming on. My birthday (which is next week), her birthday, my son's birthday, Mother's Day, the holidays and the anniversary of her death brings the depression on like a tidal wave. I HATE it and I wish it would ease up on me. It's been nearly 5 years since Mom passed away and I swear it's still just as painful today as it was back in Aug. '04. Please keep me in your prayers as I fight through this yet again. And those of you reading this that still have your mothers, hug them, hang out with them, take them to lunch, enjoy them and tell them you love them!! They won't be there forever, enjoy them while you have them.

I leave you with a picture of my beautiful mother Jerri, with one of her baby birds she raised.

Until next time,

Fun Pictures

JoJo had become very good at using his feet to do all kind of things. We gave him a couple of those waffle balls with bells inside that you get from the cat toy section, he loves them. He holds them in his little foot and shakes them like maracas while muttering all kinds of things under his breath, not sure if he is singing or just jabbering, but it's cute.

My friend, Kara sent me this cute picture of Miss Winnie all snuggled in her chair. I don't know what it is about these rotten Bull Terriers, but they do love being all snuggie under blankets. All of mine do it and as you can see, Winnie is no different.
Those of you that live in the south know what Goody Powders are. Kiwi, our little Green Cheek Conure seems to have a headache in this picture. All I had with me was my camera phone so it's not the best picture in the world, but at least I managed to get one. He had the best time with that empty packet AND he was quiet, so I let him keep it.

Now, I'm off to the grocery (YUK) and back to get some work done on my latest stained glass project....trophies for our upcoming dog show.

Enjoy the day,

Camera-Critters

It's time again for Camera-Critters! I nearly forgot about it since I have been so busy here this week! Glad I didn't. If you want to join in or want to see other folk's adorable photos, please head over to the Camera-Critters blog and check them out! You can also click on that cute badge at the top of the post to get there.

My post today is of our 24 year old Blue Front Amazon, Chico eating a Ritz cracker. :) He loves them, he also has an addiction to Bojangles' Botato Rounds, Scrambled Eggs, Spaghetti, leftover chicken leg bones and Pancakes. Birds can eat anything we eat (except chocolate, avocado and onions, those are deadly to them) and in fact, feeding them good foods makes them healthier. All of our birds share our meals. As long as you don't use alot of salt whatever you eat, they can eat. Chico, like most of the other animals in our house, is a rescue.

Now, jump on over to Misty's place and check out the other Camera-Critters this week.