Exploring-Trip 1

One of the things I promised myself when I retired was that I would make the time to explore the towns and cities around Austin.  Day trips, so to speak.  My plan has been to take a day each week and go exploring.

Saturday, I volunteered to do a couple quick things at Lauren's school for her, since she is in Nebraska for the season opener.  I also needed to stop by the San Marcos outlets and visit the Vera Bradley store.  Since I was already out and about, I decide it would be my first day of exploring. This trip took me from Austin to the outlet mall to Luling and on to Flatonia, Praha, Schulenburg, Hoyston, High Hill, LaGrange, Smithville, Bastrop and home. Below you will see pictures of places I visited and sights I saw.

I started with Luling.

My first stop was going to be the visitor center but I took a glance at the Watermelon seed spitway on my walk there.  Supposedly this is a one of a kind indoor spitway and is home to the World Championship Watermelon Seed Spitting contest.  It is held in late June.  What I thought was interesting was that it said with advance notice you could arrange a  demonstration of spitting and pro techniques.  Maybe another time.

Next stop was the visitor center and the Central Texas Oil Patch Museum.  

The visitor center is small but has several things for sale, such as Watermelon Thump tshirts.  It is connected to the Oil Museum.  The lady there was very friendly.  If you like them on Facebook, you get a discount on the merchandise.  The museum asks for a dollar donation per person.  It has on display many of the tools, hard hats, caps, etc related to the oil business.  It is housed in a historic building which used to be the Walker Brothers Mercantile. There is an example of a drill site set up.  It was small but very interesting to someone with no knowledge about oil drilling.

The lady in the visitor center told me about the  decorated pumpjacks around town and gave me a map to find them.  The brochure lists the locations of 16 pumpjacks around Luling.  I found all 16 but 4 no longer have their decorations.  Most of them had easy access to stopping and taking pictures.  Here they are:

My plan had been to eat lunch at City Market BBQ but the line was weaving in and out of all the tables and appeared to be at least an hour wait.  I'll try them again another time when in Luling.

Before heading out, I stopped in at the Watermelon Shop.  I'd been trying to get there every time I'd been in Luling but hadn't had any luck.  Today was the day.  If you need anything "watermelon" this is the place to go.

Now it was time to hit the road.  I headed out on Highway 90E towards Flatonia.  My first stop was at Buc-EE's just outside the Luling city limits. If you haven't been to a Buc-EE's, you need to stop  It is an experience in itself.

I had read that Flatonia and surrounding towns were the homes of the Painted Churches.  I found all of them but unfortunately by the time I got to most of them, they were in the middle of Saturday evening services so I didn't get to see the insides.  Oh well, a reason to come back. 

In Praha (the Czech spelling for "Prague") I found the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church.  It was built in 1895.

Upon arriving in Schulenburg, I drove past Sengelman Hall, the Czech Bakery and The Polka Music Museum.  None were open. The Carnation Milk Company's first plant was built in Schulenburg in 1929.  St. Paul's Presbyterian Church is not one of the Painted Churches but I thought it was interesting with red doors.

Dubina holds the title of the first Czech settlement in Texas.  Here is Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church.  On the edge of the property were these outhouses.  I wonder if they actually still use them...

Ammannsville was  settled by both German  and Czech immigrants.  Here I found St. John the Baptist Catholic Church.

Hostyn over looks the Colorado River and was first called Bluff.  It also was settled by both German and Czech settlers.  Here was a beautiful grotto.  It is a replica of France's Grotto of Lourdes and built in 1925 in thanks for the end of the 1924-1925 drought.  It is located on the grounds of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church.  The sun was at a strange angle and my pictures do not do it justice as far as it's beauty.

High Hill used to be on the stagecoach line but got bypassed when the railroad came along in 1874.  Here I found the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church.

By this time, it is time to be heading back to Austin and most places have closed for the day so below I will just give you a few highlights of places I want to come back to in the future.

LaGrange-

Monument Hill-Kreische Brewery State Historic Site, Luka's Bakery and Weikel's Bakery.  Although I did purchase a few items from Weikel's Bakery, most of the good stuff was gone for the day.

Cedar Creek-

Berdoll Pecan Candy and Gift Company, McKinney Roughs Nature Park, Central Texas Museum of Automotive History

Bastrop-

Bastrop Opera House, Lock's Drug, Riverwalk,  Maxine's on Main

So you can see I already have my next adventure planned out.  

Happy travels!

ALS & the Ice Bucket Challenge

All these posts on social media, especially on Facebook, got me thinking.  I know that could be dangerous, right?  Especially with someone who has a lot of extra time on her hands.

I'm all for raising awareness for things such as ALS.  In fact I think we go though life totally unaware of the struggles people are going through, unaware of the severity of situations, unaware of the horrific afflictions that others are experiencing.  UNTIL it hits close to home.  I don't think we do this on purpose, life just gets in the way.  So when the Ice Bucket challenge began as a way to raise awareness for ALS, I was on board with the idea.  However lately, I guess I have become a little cynical.  Or a little tired of the videos blowing up my Facebook feed.  Or....I don't know.

I don't mean to upset my friends who have experienced losing a loved one to this horrible disease.  Please don't take my thoughts the wrong way.

I made a donation today to ALS in memory of Charelle Tushelc Burnett, a dear friend of Carin Champion.  Carin is a friend and colleague of mine.  I have never met Charelle but have heard several stories of her from Carin.

I did not do the ice bucket challenge and I have no plans of doing it.  Although if I were creative, I might have come up with some other method of doing the challenge such as how Carin and her friend Ingrid approached the challenge.  You can try to see their post here.  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10203334671822275&set=vb.1075116949&type=2&theater

Awareness is great.  Support is even better.  I guess my thoughts are as follows:

I hope everyone who is participating in the challenge actually makes a donation.  Probably they are since the ALS Association website says that they have raised 88 . 5 million dollars in 29 days.  The increased awareness has provided unprecedented financial support.  Yea!  I am so happy.  They will be able to do so much with that money.

Awareness is the key, I get that but I also have to wonder how much water has been wasted during this challenge.  According to The Washington Post, it is over 5 million gallons.  I know we waste a lot of water with faulty sprinklers and leaky faucets but this kinda irritates me when  you think of all the places around the world in drought status or where there is no fresh clean drinking water.  I love how Matt Damon participated in the challenge.  As the co-founder of Water.org, he chose to use toilet water.

I believe more people are aware of ALS because of this challenge but do we really know anything more about it?  Maybe we should find ways to raise awareness like participating in the Walk to Defeat ALS.  Heaven knows we could all use a little exercise.

But then in the end, I have to wonder, does it really matter?  As long as the people have donated.  As long as the foundations are receiving tremendous amounts of money in order to try to find a cure.  Maybe a bucket of ice water over the head is worth it.  Maybe, just maybe, this crazy challenge has brought out the better side of humanity.  One where we are helping each other, thinking of others, and actually doing something rather than just talking about it. Or worse, ignoring it.

Side note:
As I reread this post in preparation for posting, I realized something.  When a dear friend and colleague found out her 18 month old son had stage 4 neuroblastoma, my daughter and I jumped in with both feet to raise funds for the family.  We  created t-shirts, wristbands and hoodies and sold them around the country to gain financial support for this family.  My daughter posted pictures of people wearing their gear on a special Facebook page.  So how is that different?  I guess it's not really.  My daughter and I did exactly the same kind of thing that I just ranted about.
Boy oh boy, I told you a woman with too much time on her hands was dangerous.

Anyway, whether you participate in the Ice Bucket Challenge or just donate to ALS, find the time to do it.  The people suffering  need your help.  The loved ones suffering need your help.  It would mean alot to everyone involved.

Read At Your Own Risk

For the most part the recent responses to the death of Robin Williams have been respectful and endearing.  It's the news reports or the people who are commenting on social media that have made crass or rude comments/jokes about his death.  More specifically regarding his method of demise-suicide.  These people just don't stop to think.  Obviously they have never lost a loved one to suicide.

My family and  a few of my closest friends know that I have lost a loved one to suicide.  My brother Jeff.   It's not that I don't share the information on purpose.  It's just that the topic of suicide seems to set a lot of people on edge.  It seems that people are uncomfortable talking about it.  Also it's the looks I see in people's eyes sometimes when I have said something.  I know they mean well but somehow, I always walk away feeling like now they feel sorry for me.  I guess that's ok but sometimes it makes me uncomfortable to know that people feel sorry for me.  Most people I encounter have never been on this side of the suicide table.

Allow me to give you a little background on my brother.  Jeff was born in July of 1971.  He arrived home to find he had 3 older sisters and he had long been anticipated.  He was the "little prince."  He was funny, outgoing, and very smart as a young child.  He was about 10 when my parents divorced and as so often happens, he got stuck in the middle.  As a teen he turned to drugs and alcohol.  He spent some time in rehab.  He missed my wedding because of it.  But that was ok because I was hopeful he was getting the help he needed.  While in high school he moved to the Seattle area with my mom, step dad and sisters. Things were looking up, at least from my vantage point. He completed high school there.  He had a girlfriend and an apartment and was planning to go to school . I didn't live there and only visited once a year, so I can't say for sure but I'll bet he had his moody days and I wouldn't be surprised to find out alcohol and possibly even drugs had snuck back into his life.

One evening in October of 1989, my youngest sister called and told me that Jeff had died.  He had used his rifle and shot himself. He was 18 years old. I barely remember the conversation.  But if you talk to Lester, he will tell you that that night is etched in his memory.

Recently, I read an article called "Building Bridges-Suicide Prevention Dialogue with Consumers and Survivors" that was put out by the US Department of Health and Human Services.  In it they said, "Suicide-talked about, attempted, completed-ripples like a stone dropped in a pond,..."  Well I can tell you first hand that it is not like a stone.  It is more like a boulder!

According to their statistics,  in 2011, suicide was the 10 th leading cause of death in the US with a suicide occurring every 13.3 minutes.  It was the 3rd leading cause of death among 15-24 year olds and is 4x higher for males. Depression and addiction are the leading causes of suicide.  Access to firearms, which are the most common means for males, also exacerbates the problem.

I feel like the media has criminalized mental health problems. People, especially older people, are ashamed to seek help.  Like there is a stigma associated with mental illness.  I think they have oversimplified the reasons Robin Williams took his own life.  My gut feeling is that people who die by suicide don't have one reason for this act.  Depression, addiction, mental illness...all they want is for the pain to stop.  I believe they want to end their pain, not necessarily their life but they can't see through the pain to think rationally and long term.  They can't imagine the long term effects their suicide will have on their loved ones and the community.  They have lost all hope that things can change.

I know that agencies will tell you a list of signs to watch for and I do believe that if you are vigilant, maybe you can get help for someone who is contemplating suicide.  But I also believe that no matter what you do, how closely you listen, how closely you watch, there will always be those that slip through the cracks and take their own lives.  Some suicides may be premeditated...what I mean is that they have made comments, or shown signs.  But I believe there are some that we would never have seen coming.  Robin Williams may have been one of those.

I have no blame for my family in respect to not seeing the signs with my brother.  I know they would have done something had they know that was going to happen.  So for people to post on social media sites comments or jokes like "It's a shame no one could make that big a difference to you Robin when things got too hard to handle..."  That's bullshit.  Don't assume he didn't have a loving wife and kids that weren't there for him.  We've seen press releases and comments about the devastation his family is enduring.  Do you really think they would have ignored the signs had they realized the end result was losing him. The emotional toll and the effects of losing a loved one to suicide endure for the remainder of your life. All survivors go through stages of shock, anger, and guilt, and even depression themselves. It is devastating and life changing.

Sometimes, if you are very lucky (if that's what you want to call it), a bright spot can be seen through the darkness that is called surviving the aftermath of a suicide.  In my case, there were two such bright spots.

Shortly after Jeff's death, his girlfriend told our family that she was pregnant with Jeff's child.  Of course my family was a little skeptical but I can tell you that girl is his through and through.  From the moment she was born in June of 1990, the family genes were evident.  She looked just like our side of the family.  Blood tests confirmed it as well.  My beautiful, niece, Jessica, turned 24 this June.  She has had loving people in her life all along but she has also had her share of trials and tribulations.

The second bright light in this madness arrived in August of 1990.  Our daughter, Lauren Michele, arrived!  After being told that we would never have children, this little bundle of joy was just what we needed. We call her our miracle baby. I'm not really sure where I stand on the spiritual intervention deal, but some parts of me believe that she is here because Jeff left us.  That God, or whomever, knew we needed this.  Maybe it was Jeff.  If so, thank you little brother.  Although I wish we could have kept you as well.

Looking ahead, it will be 25 years this October.  Wow!  Jeff has been gone longer than he was alive.  How is that possible?  If I am calculating correctly (and that's a big if) he would have been 43 last month.  What I wouldn't give to see my baby brother as a middle aged man!

Here are some things I know for sure:
Suicidology.org will give you a list of what to look for and how to respond
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is there if needed-800-273-8255 24/7
I miss my brother every day.
Robin Williams will be missed both by his fans across the world and his family.
Ignorant people are just that...ignorant and not worth our time.


If you have gotten this far in this post, let me thank you for allowing me to rant about the ignorance people show in the difficult times of others.  Thank you for letting me share my story and hopefully share some insights into the feelings and thoughts of a family member that has lost a loved one to suicide.  These are my thoughts and only mine.  My sisters, parents and other family members may disagree with my thoughts, but all I can say is "to each his own."

Love to all, especially you Jeff,
Jennifer

Healthy Update #1

Well it's been 14 days since I visited Texas Diabetes and Endocrinology.  I received lots of great information at that meeting.  The mid level medical tech started me on 2 oral meds and daily insulin injections.  Although I didn't want to have to do injections, it hasn't been bad and my glucose numbers are coming down steadily.  They have been lower than I've seen in months.  Not quite where I need them yet but working on it.  Next Tuesday I have an appointment with a dietitian.  Thought that might give me some added information.  I'll let you know how things are going along the way.  Thanks to everyone for their moral support.