HJ Waxing Moon

As I started this blog originally when moving down to live with and care for Mr. Moon's parents, even though I've avoided detailing his struggle with cancer it seems only right that I should post the sad news we received yesterday. Mr. Moon's father has passed on. It certainly wasn't sudden, but there were sudden drastic declines in health along the way, almost like a flight of stairs. His children, wife, friends and family had lots of time with him before the final days were clearly upon us, and then those closest to him were given the chance to stop in and say their goodbyes. For Mr. Moon and I, our friends have been fantastically supportive, and for that we will always be grateful. It is a comfort to know that he was not in much pain until the very end, and that modern medical care was able to ease that pain for the most part so he never suffered. Not all terminally ill patients are afforded such an easy transition, and everyone who loved him is not taking that fac...

Living in a house with four people is difficult enough when everyone cooks for themselves. Mr. Moon likes to HELP with the cooking, but prefers to be given direction and instructions rather than be given the title of an end-product and let loose. Mum is learning new things to cook all the time and is limited in her mobility. When we all originally discussed Mr. Moon and I moving here, I agreed to take responsibility for most of the cooking and meal planning and grocery shopping. Pops has no desire to participate in any of it, really, though we can send him grocery shopping and only expect a 10% variance from the list. But beyond the physical and emotional is the medical. Cancer diet for hormone-related cancers recommends a low-hormone diet. This means that Pops needs to be cutting out, in order of importance: Red meat; fowl; dairy; fish; all animal products altogether (honey is OK). Best advice is to go vegan, but he's a cheese addict and has no desire to limit his enjoyment or u...

I spent the first 18-and-a-half years of my life in one home. Then the week I graduated high school, my parents bought a house and we moved (a whole .7 miles, the trauma!). After that, it seemed I was constantly in a state of flux. I was back and forth around town between the dorms or various apartments and back to my parents' house a few times until I was 23, when I moved in with my Grandma after a bad break-up and urgent move. The plan was that I would be back out on my own pretty quickly, but who can give up living in a house where you have your own sitting room in the basement and cheap rent? Especially when it comes with peace of mind for the family that Gran was getting checked in on regularly. Well, when you feel the call of the Unknown, you go. And that's how I found myself deciding a couple days before Christmas one year that I was moving to Seattle. In three weeks. I had all the "right reasons" in the world. The Michigan economy was still tanking with no e...