New Year's Eve 2011

Work or Play?
Resolutions or Bucket list?
Keep to yourself or Share?

Isn't it odd the things that are floating around on the interesting net?

To Be or Not To...


Happy New Year Everybody.

Choices

     Choice #1-make a slide show of things that happened to us during 2011. Put some music to it and remember what it was like to be alive on the planet in 2011. [ no longer than 5 minutes please. I have things to do.]

     Choice #2-make a Fabulous Bucket List for 2012. Remember the Mayans have foretold the end is near (next winter's solstice day) so, why not achieve (the ideas and items on the list) in a fabulous fashion?!

Hey. Did you think this post would be about mundane things like the choices from the dining room table: pay the bills, grade the papers, make a shopping list???

Easter 2011

Easter 2011

Hey.  I think I need a calendar...

The third of three posts today.

November 2011 Trisha and Delia begin our decorating.

A little later, we are adding ornaments.

All of us are happy to be decorating, right?!

Everyone in the living room to decorate the tree. Pronto.

I'll get the sweeper out later.

This decorating is serious business.

Before Christmas Photos (still fun)

Crafting in Sun Valley 2011 November

Christmas Eve 2011 at the Miller's; Zoey's note and Santa's cookies

Her cute Christmas Jumper is Green

Some fun photos of Christmas 2011

Let the vacation begin...

Today is the First Day of Winter.

          It is also a day of work for me (paid of course) and a half day of "time on my own" stolen from a previous incarceration and doled out by powers-beyond-my-control to me today. So why do I just want to sleep?

          Dr. Oz suggests "wear yellows and white"; lose the "red" and "black"; sit in front of the light for 30 minutes in the morning or go outside and watch the sunrise. Sleep (only) at night; eat figs for the minerals they possess, and tart cherries at night for the melatonin they create.  

            He didn't say "run the sweeper, clean up the kitchen, pay the bills, get the work done I've been avoiding; do the laundry, wash the car, get the brakes checked, change the light bulbs, " and the list goes on and on and on. I won't even list the Christmas things I have not done. But YOU know what they are.  The choices that I make may be the right ones for now, and not the correct ones for later; but "choices they are," says Yoda.  

           

           The following photos are keeping me "focused" during the happiness of the season. And, on a different note: My friend and co-worker, Lynn, has suffered a loss this week. Her husband, Bill, died yesterday of a heart attack - while she and her daughter were at school, teaching. The memorial service will be next week.

We are missing the photographer; however, she is standing on the porch of the Pretty Penny  taking this snapshot of Our Great Watoga Adventure. The porch pillar didn't hide me as I had hoped it would.

This would have made a great Christmas Card photo. Consider it so, says Yoda.

Another Weekend on the horizon: Shopping Saaturday

Merry Christmas Shopping Saturday. Tomorrow. I'm glad the weather is clear, even if it is cold.
Big plans: Get up early (always a tough goal); get on the road to the shopping arena; purchase every thing on the list and in the back of my mind.

Suddenly Sunday

It's suddenly Sunday (night, that is) and I am gearing up for another work day tomorrow. I'm sitting in the "office" watching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (for the first time - I don't pay much attention to the Potter World generally - but, I saw the others this weekend and I wanted to see this one.)

I tried a new pot roast (today) and it was good. Cooking has never been my strong suit, but clean up is something I usually do pretty well. I am just so slow at doing everything it seems like.   When I finally go the car out of the garage, I drove to the cemetery, then to the stores. I got another pair of jeans and a t-shirt to wear to school.  I'm into my "other" wardrobe now. I stopped a Kroger for butter n eggs. Got a PeCAN pie too.


Yesterday was a good day for cleaning and straightening up: car wash, mail pick up, laundry.

Yesterday, the sun went too quickly for dusting, but the little houses got their dusting of "snow" and all's right in their world. 

I talked to Leah. She's doing well. not to go back to doctor for a while. They'll take the pic line out tomorrow. Check her low grade fever and send her out into the world.

Today, I've been out to the cemetery to change the flowers on Grandma and Grandpa's headstone/bronze plaque. Evidently, the owners of the land held a candlelight ceremony on December 2 (Friday night) and the luminaries have not yet been picked up. I didn't get out there in time to make the Christmas bouquet for the ceremony; but someone had rearranged the Fall flowers and moved the flag (we need a new flag anyway)

I can't get it to turn upright. Just tilt your head ;)

Zoey remembered...

We had family pizza-giving this afternoon.

Trisha, John and Zoey arrived first with a bunch of food [non pizza] and lots of hugging and conversation. Zoey and Trisha saw all the "stuff" set out to decorate and things swung into motion:  Zoey went to play with the village people (and all her toys that she brought to Grandma Pat's house scattered across the rug...) And Trisha declared "don't talk to me until I get something to eat!!" John left to get the pizza's from Pappa Johns - special order - veggie pizza, peppers and pepperoni one, and then a little cheese one. In a little while,  Keith, Tracy, and Delia popped in with the last minute decorations I ordered from JO ANNE's and the kitchen brigade decided to set out nibbling food and await John's return.

When the pizza arrived, the girls sat down and began to eat and talk and eat and talk. John offered to bring me a plate (I was in the living room dragging out decorations) but I said I'd come in and eat at the table.

I was not even aware of being hungry. I was barely aware that I was sitting at a table with only 5 chairs and the boys were walking around eating pizza from their hands... And we chatted away about stuff. and then Zoey ask, "Where's Grandpa Stan?" She was looking up and to the right to remember his name. But she remembered.

And we stopped. And we were unprepared / hesitant/ afraid to answer her. He's not here. He's in the basement (true). And we never did tell her anything else. 

We haven't stopped feeling the loss we suffered with this death. No one can take away the pain of loss a girl feels about losing her Daddy no matter how old the girl. All of us have special memories that we would like to share in love with our Zoey and Delia, but we are unprepared/hesitant/unaware that this could-should be appropriate. The boys are more stoic. Girls carry their feelings so very close to the surface. We all miss him. We talk about him ( your Dad did this, Daddy did that) but it was a surprise to hear Zoey use his name.

Our family gatherings are infrequent and hurried; maybe if we can remember to be aware of why we come together, we will have a better answer if she ever asks again.

Holidays in 2011

Good Sunday Morning!
This is another attempt at avoiding the things I should a, mus ta, have ta DO. But, it gives me the opportunity to update (a little) the events of my life - here in the 21st century.


VACATION: from Saturday morning last to Sunday morning today -

1. I drove to Trisha and John's in Marietta after 4 PM on Sunday in the (driving) rain. [Why they call it driving rain, I do not know. It was not a pleasant experience to be on the road, in the dark in the rain.] But, the time I spent with the familia Miller was fabulous, fun and fortunate. We ate dinner with the grandparents after I got there. Then, when Zoey got ready for bed, I did too. Zonk. Out like a light. Monday. Trisha went for her neck biopsy and I  stayed with Princess Zoey and enjoy her. When Trisha got back, we went to the 3rd Street Deli and had lunch, then on to JO ANNE's for the shopping/cultural self-definition experience. OH, The Christmas Spirit has entered the scene. [home by sunset]

2. On Thanksgiving Day I fooled around until afternoon; then, I loaded the chairs on the truck, picked up the shrimp ring, the camera and the plates and headed out to Morgantown. After Keith unloaded the truck and Tracy parked it up the street (special treatment, I assure you), the Festivities were beginning. Warm greetings from Delia, fragrant smells from the kitchen of the Strother family: turkey, ham and homemade (squash) dinner rolls, and offers of many kinds of libations... Friends began rolling in bout 5PM and brought much good food and fellowship. After dinner, Delia, Audry and Naomi let me participate in Telestrations and we had a ball. A very family Thanksgiving. I drove home thru the patchy fog and slept in my own bed.

3. I started to dig out the Christmas decorations with the far off promise from my kids to help finish the job today (Sunday). I found lots of stuff and found we are missing some stuff I remember we used to have. When I was breaking up housekeeping on the Boulevard, I didn't think we'd ever set up the houses again. But, I changed my mind. So I'm learning to electrify the village in a new way. Looking for parts that are missing, making choices as to whether spend more money on the village or "adapt" my vision to fit the circumstances... It's not perfect and not complete, far from it, but it's twinkly. And maybe that's all we need this year.

All that stuff is better than the work I have to do from school  and life. Every day I'd sleep til 9 and not get dressed until 11, then I get into the truck and find something to do that was not here. Can you say depressed?! The first of the week was rain, fog and blah. Guilt that I didn't work at the house was overcome by not thinking about the house...until I picked up the mail and saw that the garage roof was losing the tar paper roof along the edge of the garage doors...that water was blowing under the side basement door, that the gutters were full of plants and the water was running over the edge of the roof, and on and on and on...

I got a card from Susie (thank you, Susie. You make me feel so much better knowing that you know what I'm going through.) I got a call from Joy. Barb n Ed are in DC this Thanksgiving, resting up for the big family trip to AZ in a few weeks. They invited me to spend some time in the big city, but I just didn't have the energy.  The world keeps turning, I'm still here. Thankful that I can walk, talk, scratch where it itches, hug my kids and grandkids, have a roof over my head, pay my bills,  and a few people who would notice if I dropped out of sight.

As Daddy used to say, "Every day is a good day as long as you are above ground."

This was taken last year 2010 between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Birthday Girl born in October

 A birthday party-slumber party for my 11 year old granddaughter, Delia, was held at Edge Hill House on Saturday evening.  What fun they had: a scratch chocolate birthday cake made by her Mom, that's my daughter Tracy, the baker. the cake had delicious icing and a filling that was out-of-this-world (thank you Grandpa Stan for teaching this kid how to make caramel from canned milk)

 All these girls had fun painting their fingernails, telling big stories, eating pizza and drinking extra chocolate milkshakes throughout the evening.  I left shortly after the presents were opened, but I heard that a good time was had by all.

  Pictures of the present opening are posted above.  In the wrong order as usual.  I am so glad I got to witness this event and be a small part of it. Life doesn't get much better than this. Family, friends and a reason to celebrate!

Family

Sunday evening- procrastinating again.

There is a small amount of Chocolate Fudge Ben N Jerry's (left) in the freezer; the pizza is half gone; the air is warm and the breeze is cool. The light is slowly fading.

Leah and I talked this afternoon. She is in the "house" at Ruby awaiting her cancer treatments. On the first day of "treatment", the shunt or pick line,  the nurses wouldn't let her take it unless she had someone to stay in her room overnight.The motel nearby was her first night stay; then they moved her from the motel to the "house". Jay stayed with her overnight. Then he went home.

She has a shunt or a pick line in her chest which she will cover up with "glad peel and stick" wrap when she showers. The doctors take a small amount of blood daily and then they shoot her up with blood builders. At night, randomly, the blood builders start to work and give pain in the long bones (thighs, mostly, and sternum). Her appointment tomorrow is at 8:30am and she will ask for a ride from house safety/security teams; she tried to walk it the last time and it was too hard (stopping to rest every once in a while, and getting lost along the way).

Tomorrow is the same thing: draw blood, then add blood builders to the body.  I forget when she said the infusion will start.. I'll have to call Mindy. My mind just whirls when I get into the tough stuff now.

But that's just me.

She said the common room at the "house" has a piano and as soon as Mindy brings her computer glasses, she'll be out there playing some of her sheet music. Mindy is also bringing the wheelchair from home.

She ate lunch today with her friend from work. They ate in the cafeteria.

Sounds familiar, but it's not familiar. Oh God, I wish I didn't know so much. I wish time could be turned back. But, this time, it's not "all about me"... I'm just so worn down that I can hardly move, or think, or act...