We're planning a trip to the beach in the near future....

I'm beginning to wonder if Spring will ever take hold this year and finally get Winter out of the picture! We woke up to frost this morning and it's almost April 1st!

The boys will be here any minute so this is going to be quick. I just watered the worm farm Dylan and I built a couple of weeks ago. He and Cooper are getting a lot of enjoyment out of checking to see how the worms are doing every day. We take the aquarium down off the table and set it out on the kitchen floor. Then the two of them work their hands thru the soil until they 'score' with a wiggly worm. Dylan is fast learning what 'gentle' means...no squished worms yet!

I hope to get out for a long walk later this morning.

I just came back and edited. Someone put links in the paragraph I'd written to some kind of website. Is that freaky or what?! It sure wasn't me and I don't know how they did it!

Is it Friday yet?

After all our hard trials this last year...

we're still here.

And,

more importantly,

stronger

than

ever.

Food for Thought

A Christian

Several years ago, a preacher from out-of-state accepted a call to a church in Houston, Texas . Some weeks after he arrived, he had an occasion to ride the bus from his home to the downtown area. When he sat down, he discovered that the driver had accidentally given him a quarter too much change. As he considered what to do, he thought to himself, 'You'd better give the quarter back. It would be wrong to keep it.' Then he thought, 'Oh, forget it, it's only a quarter. Who would worry about this little amount? Anyway, the bus company gets too much fare; they will never miss it. Accept it as a 'gift from God' and keep quiet.'

When his stop came, he paused momentarily at the door, and then he handed the quarter to the driver and said, 'Here, you gave me too much change ' The driver, with a smile, replied, 'Aren't you the new preacher in town?' 'Yes' he replied. 'Well, I have been thinking a lot lately about going somewhere to worship. I just wanted to see what you would do if I gave you too much change. I'll see you at church on Sunday.'

When the preacher stepped off of the bus, he literally grabbed the nearest light pole, held on, and said, 'Oh God, I almost sold your Son for a quarter.'

Who would have thought?

I got an email from my friend Mary with all these wonderful tips. I don't know how often this has made it thru the cyberspace rounds but it's the first time it's ever landed in my Inbox and I thought they were definitely worth sharing. The Coca Cola cure for rust is the one that got me...to think we drink this stuff?! Kind of makes you have second thoughts, that's for sure. The note with these says to tape them to the inside of your medicine cabinet. And most are items we have within our homes:





Did You Know That...



Drinking two glasses of Gatorade can relieve headache pain almost immediately -- without the unpleasant side effects caused by traditional "pain relievers."



Did you know that Colgate toothpaste makes an excellent salve for burns.



Before you head to the drugstore for a high-priced inhaler filled with mysterious chemicals, try chewing on a couple of curiously strong Altoids peppermints. They'll clear up your stuffed nose.



Achy muscles from a bout of the flu? Mix 1 Tablespoon of horseradish in 1 cup of olive oil. Let the mixture sit for 30 minutes, then apply it as a massage oil, for instant relief for aching muscles.



Sore throat? Just mix 1/4 cup of vinegar with 1/4 cup of honey and take 1 tablespoon six times a day. The vinegar kills the bacteria.



Cure urinary tract infections with Alka-Seltzer . Just dissolve two tablets in a glass of water and drink it at the onset of the symptoms. Alka-Seltzer begins eliminating urinary tract infections almost instantly -- even though the product was never been advertised for this use. (Note: Alka-Seltzer Plus Cold Medicine is not the same..and contains aspirin, which can cause stomach bleeding if you have ulcers.)



Honey remedy for skin blemishes... Cover the blemish with a dab of honey and place a Band-Aid over it. Honey kills the bacteria, keeps the skin sterile, and speeds healing. Works overnight.



Listerine therapy for toenail fungus... Get rid of unsightly toenail fungus by soaking your toes in Listerine mouthwash. The powerful antiseptic leaves your toenails looking healthy again.



Easy eyeglass protection... To prevent the screws in eyeglasses from loosening, apply a small drop of Maybelline Crystal Clear nail polish to the threads of the screws before tightening them.



Coca-Cola cure for rust... Forget those expensive rust removers. Just saturate an abrasive sponge with Coca Cola and scrub the rust stain. The phosphoric acid in the coke is what gets the job done.



Cleaning liquid that doubles as bug killer... If menacing bees, wasps, hornets, or yellow jackets get in your home and you can't find the insecticide, try a spray of Formula 409. Insects drop to the ground instantly.



Smart splinter remover...just pour a drop of Elmer's Glue-All over the splinter, let dry, and peel the dried glue off the skin. The splinter sticks to the dried glue.



Hunt's tomato paste boil cure....cover the boil with Hunt's tomato paste as a compress. The acids from the tomatoes soothe the pain and bring the boil to a head.



Balm for broken blisters...To disinfect a broken blister, dab on a few drops of Listerine .... a powerful antiseptic.



Heinz vinegar to heal bruises... Soak a cotton ball in white vinegar and apply it to the bruise for 1 hour. The vinegar reduces the blueness and speeds up the healing process.



Kills fleas instantly. Dawn dish washing liquid does the trick. Add a few drops to your dog's bath and shampoo the animal thoroughly. Rinse well to avoid skin irritations. Goodbye fleas.



Rainy day cure for dog odor... Next time your dog comes in from the rain, simply wipe down the animal with Bounce or any dryer sheet, instantly making your dog smell springtime fresh.



Eliminate ear mites... All it takes is a few drops of Wesson corn oil in your cat's ear. Massage it in, then clean with a cotton ball. Repeat daily for 3 days. The oil soothes the cat's skin, smothers the mites, and accelerates healing.



Quaker Oats for fast pain relief....It's not for breakfast anymore! Mix 2 cups of Quaker Oats and 1 cup of water in a bowl and warm in the microwave for 1 minute, cool slightly, and apply the mixture to your hands for soothing relief from arthritis pain.

Does this dog have a death wish or something?!

Twice now, she's peed on our new comforter.

This morning, as I was sitting in the rocker

reading my Bible,

she squatted right in front of me and peed

on the carpet.

She is NOT on my Favorite list right now.

But I still love her.

Most of the time anyway.

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners. ~ Emily Post

(Photo by Leenie)

It's raining today. No afternoon walk to the top of Mt. Tabor today.

Oh well.

I know I've mentioned many times how busy Dylan is but I don't think you'd realize just how busy until you actually see him in motion. In public it takes everything in me to keep up with him. I'm lucky I'm as fast and as fit as I am. I can't picture any other woman I know who is my age who could anticipate his next move and nab him before he takes off like I do. And even then he can still slip past me every now and then but I'm getting better and better at recognizing the cockeyed grin that appears just before he darts off.

A few months ago we decided it was time for him to begin attending Sunday School and since he's usually on his best behavior with me it was decided I'd be the one to take him. Not that I mind. It's been years since my kids were in the Beginners' department and I love to watch the little ones singing the songs and absorbing the stories. Dylan sits around a small table with Genevieve and Jesse and Teacher Luba and I sit in a little chair off to the side...far enough away so Dylan figures he's on his own but close enough to give him a sense of security. I tried moving a little further away last week and it was "No, no, Mommy!" So. I sit. Is it just a 'girl' thing that attention spans seem to be longer in 2-3 year old girls? Genevieve sits so quietly and attentively, a perfect little lady, while Jesse and Dylan wrestle for possession of the Play Doh while Teacher Luba tries to tell the Bible story each week. Neither Jesse nor Dylan made it thru much of Sunday School today. Both spent a lot of time out walking thru the halls. Or, in Dylan's case, crawling. Dear Hubby had Cooper during Sunday School this morning because our daughter-in-law was sick and our son teaches a class so every time we'd come upon Papa and Cooper in the hall, Dylan would drop down on the floor and he and his brother would crawl towards each other as fast as they could, laughing and bumping heads. Just about everyone who crossed our paths either smiled or commented on how cute they were. But there's always one...always...who asks, "Is Dylan always so hard to handle?" or "Shouldn't he be in class?" or "He shouldn't be crawling in church." I'm glad it's me who hears these comments. I'm glad they're not voiced to my daughter-in-law. Or my son, for that matter. At my age you just slough them off with a laugh and say, "Well, he's a busy boy" and leave it at that. But when you're the parents, comments like that can be so hurtful. So offensive. What I find so ironic is a lot of the commenters are those whose own children were a little...busy...when they were little, too. How short memories can be.

What is so hard about keeping our mouths shut? Why can't we think what we think but keep it to ourselves? Are our rude opinions helping or hindering the ones we're voicing them to? What makes us think we're so good ourselves, without spot or blemish? Why are we always trying to find fault with others around us?

We used to have a dear, dear friend who died several years ago and he was such a wonderful example of what a true gentleman is. If he had nothing good or nice to say about someone he wouldn't say anything at all. He'd just smile benignly and let you come to your own conclusion.

He was a man of few words.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Well. Finally.

I've been twiddling and tweaking my site for the past few hours. I got tired of the old template and when I showed this new one to my daughter she told me, "I like it. It looks like you."

I'm flattered.

Because as I sit here with my brain fuzzled and flustered and my eyes 'bout bugging out of my head from too much strain, I think I look a little more like this gal sitting in front of her monitor.

And now I'm headed for bed.

Too much excitement for one nite.

Hands of My Father

Sometimes you come across a book that is so heartwarmingly beautiful, you just feel good when you close the covers at the end. This is one of those books.

Favorite Toys

When I was a kid, some of my favorite 'toys' were empty refrigerator boxes we neighborhood kids would salvage from the back of an appliance store -- these were taken in the days before recycling was even a far-off dream -- and then use to slide down the dry grassy hill across the street from my house. After a few sluggish slides, the grass would be beaten down enough that it became slick as ice and we'd spend hours tumbling down the hill like a passel of puppies.

My grandsons have decided that two old Lays' Stax chip containers are their favorite toys of choice lately. Dylan discovered a bag of brightly colored straws I had crammed in the back of a kitchen drawer and he and Cooper fill the containers with these straws, then dump them out, over and over thruout the day. Dylan loves to 'rain' the straws over his head. Grandma ends up gathering 42 straws at the end of each day but that's ok. Watching their enjoyment with this cheap entertainment does my heart good.

Dylan just had his 3rd birthday. I shudder to think how much was spent on 'real' toys. A lot. And they don't get near the attention as these dollar packages of Stax and straws do. There's a lesson to learn here, isn't there?

Calling on Deborah Fischer!

In the email I use for my blog there was a message from someone unknown to me - the abovementioned Deborah Fischer - and it seemed legitimate by the subject line. I am absolutely paranoid about opening unknown emails, tho. So this email is still sitting there, unopened, as I try to solve the mystery of whether or not Deborah is real or just very creative spam lurking there. Deborah, if you're real, please send another email about the same subject and I'll know it's ok to open.

I am still here...really, I am. Not just spam taking over because the writer is out of town or, in this writer's case, without enough time. Yesterday's news, don'tcha know.

I think I've forgotten the meaning of sitting still. Unless my fingers are on a keyboard, I am incapable of remaining in a chair for more than a few minutes. Well, except at the end of my weekdays when I'm eating dinner. I might make it for half an hour then, catching my second wind to go start in on the dishes and deal with garbage/recycling and laundry before heading for bed. I find it very difficult to find a movie or TV show interesting enough to keep my attention, to keep me seated. I am forever restless, it seems.

Today I was childless. I took Chloe dog out for a long walk not long after sunrise, then spent a couple hours doing some much-neglected clipping on dead stalks and branches. In the freezing east wind. But oh, it was so invigorating! I can't say I worked up a sweat because it was too cold for that but it sure felt good stretching and using muscles that the gardener in me has missed putting to work for too long a time. I miss my gardens. And, by the looks of them, they're missing me, too, but that's another area of my life on the back burner for right now.

I gave Chloe a poor man's grooming today...I took the scissors to her. For such a high-strung, high-maintenance dog she shocked me by standing still on the towel I spread on the floor for the entire haircut. It wasn't until I finished that she peed on the carpet. Dear Hubby often tells me she's so devoted to me she'd gladly die for me and I think she would. So I clip-clipped here and clip-clipped there and, half an hour later, had quite a pile of black and white fur to dispose of. Since I'd used an old ratty towel I'd stuck in the rag drawer, I just folded it all up and put it in the garbage. I wasn't too sure how good a job I'd do when I first started out but after a bath she's looking mighty fine. Maybe I missed my calling in life and should've been a barber.

Dear Hubby's been asking me the past couple of evenings if I'm "OK". Yes, I'm ok. I've been unusually quiet, tho. Not that I'm a chatterbox by any means, but I usually comment here and there on whatever he's watching on TV at dinner time. He's managed in the past two weeks to point out a couple of conversational flaws I have so I've decided unless I have something significant to say I won't say anything. Can't get in to trouble that way, can I? It has him mystified, tho. My flaws, you ask? Well, one is that I have an alternative solution to everything. He doesn't understand why I even bother to ask for his opinion because I end up doing what I was going to do in the first place. The other is talking too much about "yesterday's news". Meaning I've been ranting about Chloe dog's misbehavior over and over again. Well, since she continues to be a stinker most days, I'm certainly not going to repeat myself about that anymore. As for alternative solutions, I can't help it if my mind goes in a million directions at once and I'm constantly thinking and voicing what's whizzing thru my brain cells. But now I'll keep those brain cells to myself, thank you very much. And I'm being very diplomatic and not pointing out his conversational flaws. Good wife that I am.

Sigh.

Oh well. Marriages, even good ones, have their moments. And I seem to be stuck in one of them. At the moment.

Follower: a person who imitates, copies, or takes as a model or ideal

I am not comfortable being a leader. Therefore, after having a "follower" list on my sidebar for a short time, I took mine off. Funny how some of the new gadgets on Blogger get my attention when they first appear and then, after I've had time to think about them for a while, I eliminate them. But this morning I noticed I have 9 followers. That's down from 11 a long time ago when I last noticed that particular statistic on my log-in page. Oh, dear! I once read the header on someone's blog a couple of years ago that stated: "Read by tens of people everyday". That's not even true for me anymore. I'm slipping, folks! HA!

I hardly ever notice the time of day anyone posts but check my time out -- 7 am! That's almost unheard of for me. Can you guess I'm 'childless' today? Tomorrow is Dylan's 3rd birthday so my son and his wife took today off from work to spend a family day together. I don't know what their plans are but I do know mine: nothing structured. Maybe nothing at all. I had Dear Hubby wake me up just before he left for work and then spent some time watching the latest episode of "The Biggest Loser", fast-forwarding the boring parts, while I ate my breakfast. Having been a yo-yo binge & purge food addict emotional eating dieter most of my - younger especially - adult life, I can surely identify with a lot of the issues these contestants talk about on there. I am always especially thrilled when I see the end results of those who are voted off and continue on their own to lose the excess pounds. I hope most are able to keep those pounds off but when statistics tell you 95% of weight losers usually gain all - and more! - of their weight back eventually...well, I'm hoping that's not true of these people. One particular part of this episode really hit me between the eyes because even tho I've managed to maintain the weight loss I had last year, I still have a tendency to 'reward' myself with occasional binges of some foods I really like. And then, when I wake up the next morning feeling bloated and 'sludgy' and sluggish, I could kick myself. Luckily, with the lifestyle I have right now, I do so much walking and I'm so constantly on the go with my grandsons, I seem to be able to burn off whatever extra 'poison' calories I consume. But why...WHY?!...can't I seem to break that binge mindset? They say being a food addict is like any other addiction, tho, and it's a continual never-ending battle to overcome the temptation of whatever vice it is that has a hold of our lives, our minds. If an alcoholic or drug addict or gambling addict feels the same way about their habits as I do about mine, I think I can say I understand just how hard it is for them to overcome theirs. Dear Hubby, a man of almost steel-like self-discipline, doesn't understand. At all. And that's why it's very hard for my daughter and me to get across to him it's a mind game. Certainly it has its physical appearances of the damage it does to our bodies but that's not what it's all about in a food addict's mind. It's being consumed 24/7 mentally about where our next food-fix is coming from. How we'll go out in the middle of a blizzard to buy a half gallon of chocolate ice cream if that's what we're desiring, we're craving it so badly. Or stashing food items away in the craziest places where we know no one else in the family will look -- like the dryer or behind the stack of sheets in the linen closet. In our underwear drawers. Bleccchhhhhhhh. Well, one thing I'm learning...if I crave something, I try to make it something that won't 'hurt' me as much as my choices in the past did. For instance, instead of sitting down and eating a pound-bag of MnM's at midnite, washed down with a Pepsi, I might make myself an extra bag of 100 calorie popcorn. But still, that's not what it's all about. It's about why do I have to eat it in the first place?!?

Oh well.

I got a notice in the mail from my primary care doctor the other day, reminding me it's time to go in for my annual Pap smear. I got a good chuckle out of that. I have nothing left that needs that exam anymore. No periods for a year now! Life doesn't get much sweeter than this, let me tell you!

Are we sure it's just we women who have menopausal mind blips?

It seems the man I'm married to has his share,

too.

Say it, Sister!

Mothers & Daughters

My Daughter

Age 3

1979

After writing about family connections, I found this in an email from my daughter the next day:

Reading your post, it made me stop and think for a minute. I know you've always worried that you weren't connected to me & J as much as some mothers are. You've said in the past that you've always wondered if you gave us enough affection and that sort of thing, especially when we were kids. I don't know how else to say it, but to say that you gave us enough. See, it's not so much about physical affection as it is mental and emotional. Even if you weren't the most demonstrative mother when it came to hugs and kisses, you were always more that adequate when it came to...well, to being there.

I've always known that I could come to you. Talk to you about what's bothering me. Unburden myself on your shoulders and know that, not only would it not go anywhere, but that you'd have something to give, be it a piece of advice or just a pat on the hand (so to speak). To this day, I know I can do this. I don't think you understand just what a wonderful mother you are.

Thank you, Daughter.

Love,
Mom

Bloggy Thoughts

We, quite often by accident or happenstance, stumble across one another on this worldwide web. This intricate tangle of instant communication lines that tumbles and jettisons and hiccups thru a murky system most of us don't technically understand. And yet, somehow, our paths cross. Why? And why at this particular time in our lives? I don't know. But I do believe there's a purpose for all that happens in Life. I believe there's meaning to everything. What I may not understand now might be quite clear in hindsight 10 years down the road. This is a lesson learned especially as we enter into the middle years of our lives and beyond. In youth, everything is here and now. Tomorrow isn't important yet. It hasn't happened. The future is just that, the future. There is no concept that the future is out there, waiting to swallow us up faster than we could've ever dreamed.

This evening I visited a blog I haven't had time to really visit in a long time. I've hit it sporadically in the past few months especially and a lot has been happening in this particular writer's life since the holidays. As I read it, I grieved. I grieved for what she's losing, what she's coping with. How circumstances are affecting the lives of herself and her children. I grieved because I have no answers. I have no wonder drug elixir that can fix all of her sorrows. I grieved for her as a friend because that's the way I've come to think of her.

When I began writing my blogs - my "Then" and "Now" versions - they began as a place to come for comfort and refuge from the personal storms assailing me, both in the past and what was the present at that time. I had a lot of issues from my past I needed to work my way thru and leave behind me. And I was facing a cataclysm of emotions that had surged up when my Dad, my one remaining parent, had suffered a devastating stroke just a month before I 'debuted', a stroke that would take his life almost a year to the day later. I was also awaiting the birth of Dylan, my first grandchild. At first, no comments appeared and I was devastated. Not that I was expecting any...but I was hopeful. And when I told my daughter that, she showed me that even tho no one had commented, people were coming by and reading. I think the first time I checked my statistics I had something like 500. When I shut down all my counters a while back I had close t0 400,000 who'd stopped by. And out of those numbers, friendships have developed. One is with another stay-at-home Grandma like me. Some are with women much younger than me. One is with a man who lives here in Oregon. Some are menopausal women sludging along with me as we try the murky waters of middleaged womanhood, finding them confusing and confounding and challenging. I have friendships that have followed me from the beginning and others that have come and gone, just like the seasons of 'real' friendship. 'Real' friendship?! Well, blog friendships are about as real as friendship can get, if you ask me. When I first began writing here, I had a 'real' out-of-home job. I had face-to-face friendships I had time for. Dylan was still a 'dream', not a reality, in my life. I had freedom to come and go as I pleased. I had no idea how much my life was going to change, how I'd begin Round Two of childrearing with the daily care of the two grandsons I now have. How face-to-face friendships would need to be put on hold for a few years. How those friendships would boil down to rushed and sporadic emails. It has been my blog that has sustained me. It has been the contacts I've had with other writers out there who've become the center of what little social life I have at this stage. They laugh with me, cry with me, rejoice with me, connect with me, pray for me. They hear me. This is the definition for "friend":

1. a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.
2. a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter

3. a person who is on good terms with another; a person who is not hostile

My blog friends are my patron saints. They're lodged in a special part of my heart where I hold them with feelings of deep affection and regard. They are people who are concerned about my welfare, as I am about theirs. They are there for me. I am here for them.

And that...that...is friendship.

Pure and simple.

This was sent to our cell phone this evening.
Dylan's new haircut.
He's not quite 3 yet
but he's a great dish washer!

15 Album Meme

This is making the rounds of Bloggyland. The 15 albums I've listed here have all deeply affected me on a personal level at many different stages of my life. I found this meme at Guy's.

1. "Disraeli Gears" by Cream

2. "Diva" by Annie Lennox

3. "The White Album" by The Beatles

4. "Tapestry" by Carole King

5. "Tea for the Tillerman" by Cat Stevens

6. "For the Roses" by Joni Mitchell

7. "Queen" by Queen

8. "Bare" by Annie Lennox

9. "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay - it's new, but I LOVE this CD!

10. "The Good the Bad & the Ugly" soundtrack

11. "Gaither's Songs for Kids"

12. "Play Me" by Neil Diamond

13. "Stumble Into Grace" by Emmylou Harris

14. ALL of Enigma...sorry, couldn't differentiate 'coz I love 'em all

15. "Crosby Stills & Nash" by CSN

Mercy...reading back that list makes me realize just how old I am getting!

Connection

It seems like forever since I've sat down and written anything beyond grandchildren and dogs and weather and colds and tiredness - is tiredness a word? - and frustration and menopausal moodiness and rain and snow and...well, you get the picture. Blechhhhhhh!

So tonite I'm going to write about the schottische. Do you know what the schottische is? It's a German polka. I'd never had any exposure to polkas of any sort before I met my Dear Hubby. His ethnic background is mainly German and Austrian and his mother's generation - the Austrian side - loved polkas. The first time I ever went to any family gathering while he and I were dating - in fact, I think it was right after we were engaged - was to his cousin Ernie's wedding. My mother-in-law is one of 14 children and Dear Hubby has something like 60 first cousins on his mother's side of the family. I've been married to the man almost 35 years now and I still haven't figured out how everyone was related to each other. But I do remember that wedding and the reception afterwards. I remember my mother-in-law and some of her sisters getting out on the dance floor and dancing the schottische with each other. I remember the old uncles sitting on a little stage playing the spoons and accordions. I remember going in to the ladies' room and as I was washing my hands the groom burst in and grabbed me around the waist and waltzed me around the bathroom, only to suddenly rear back and leer at me drunkenly and ask me, "Who are you?" And I remember thinking how much I'd missed in life, not having aunts and uncles and cousins to grow up with. My mom was an only child and my dad had one adopted sister besides a birth brother who died in infancy. To say my family is small...well, outside of my three brothers and myself, it's pretty well died out. My parents were born and raised in New England, moved out here after the war, and my brothers and I were all born and raised out here. Our connections to 'family' growing up were mostly Christmas cards from 'back home', people who we knew by name only, and the letters my mom and her cousin Ginger wrote to each other. In fact, my family is so small I claim Ginger as my cousin. Which she is. But not directly.

What is it like to have those connections, being blood-related? To have a close and loving relationship with grandparents? A favorite aunt you could tell secrets to and know she'd never pass them on to your mother? To share Christmas family histories with cousins who were there at the tree with you? Or wondering when you'll finally make it to the 'adult' table at Thanksgiving time? Or go to a church where generations of your family have attended?

Well, I'll never know. Sometimes, when I hear of bickerings and infightings, I almost consider myself lucky not having those connections. But it's left me with a void in my life. It's warped me in some ways. It left me with no desire to establish any close ties of my own with my family. And in speaking of 'family' here, I'm talking about my siblings and their offspring. This doesn't include my younger brother, the only one I'm close to, because I feel we have a strong bond. It doesn't mean I don't love them because I do, but no super-close bonds were ever formed between us even as children, outside those of family loyalty. Being the only girl in the family, my older brothers were always admonished to "Watch out for your little sister", which they did, but I don't remember any of us ever spending any 'quality' time in each other's company. We didn't even share the same playmates or friends. We inhabited the same houses and shared the same parents and that was about it.

Sometimes I wonder how this has affected my own kids. I've never been big on celebrating holidays or birthdays. I guess they were lucky to have Dear Hubby's mom for that growing up...she was a wonderful Grandma. I never stood in the way of anything she wanted to do for them. I wanted them to have with her what I never had with mine. I guess what it's boiled down to all these years of parenting and being married is I didn't know how to establish traditions and close family ties. I had no clue where to begin to attempt it. So I didn't. Not because of any selfish agenda on my part, not wanting to be 'bothered', but because I had no road map in front of me to consult. No memories of my own to look back on with 'warm fuzzies'.

Dear Hubby has said to me at times, not in judgment, that a person can change. Just because they're raised a certain way, just because they didn't 'learn' certain behaviors or whatever, doesn't mean they can't change them as they go along. Easy for him to say. At the age of 55, looking back over my life and how far I've come from my beginnings, I think I've changed about as much as I could figure out how to improve on. I am such an enigma to myself at times. I come across as not that emotional...and yet I know just how deeply emotional I am. I come across as aloof and not very demonstrative or affectionate...but I know how much I want to be. And yet...yet...I am who I am who I am who I am. I am not phony or a pretender. If I tell you I love you, I love you. If I hug you, I hug you. I don't do anything without real feeling behind it. Nothing. If I tell you you're my friend, you're my friend. My loyalty runs deep and true.

So I sit here this evening and I think about family. I think about lack of family. I think about how I wish a lot of my early life had been different from what the reality of it was. I think about how disconnected we were. How disconnected we are today. How we probably never will be connected. But that's always been the reality of my life. I don't grieve for it because it isn't anything I've ever lost. I never had it in the first place.

No Words Needed....

...but thank the good Lord

mine came back

negative.

Ladies...

get out there and

GET ONE!

Do Wah Diddy....

What kind of a week have I had so far, you ask?

Chloe dog - who is still here but caged when the kids are eating and HATING it - peed on our new comforter. And I mean saturated it. Marking new territory, don'tcha know. A $25 bill at the dry cleaner's.

Dear Hubby has some kind of virus that's wiped him out and causes him to have difficulty breathing. I'm thinking it might be a combination of seasonal allergies, too. He was home all day yesterday but where do you go in this household during the day for quiet? I wish I knew. He spent most of the day down in his den but then he had the sound of running and stomping feet overhead all day.

Darling Dylan threw a monumental temper tantrum. He's just a week away from turning 3 and I thought we'd bypassed the "Terrible Two's". Silly Grandma.

I bought our lunches at Burger King yesterday. Bad, bad choice. I think I got food poisoning or maybe it's because we've been eating so healthy lately that my stomach rebelled against junk food. How do people live on that stuff?

It's Friday and I'm exhausted, but what's new about that? It just makes me appreciate my weekends all the more.

But Dear Hubby is on call this weekend which means he'll be around to do stuff with so maybe we'll make it to a couple of thrift stores and go out for coffee or something. I can live with that just fine.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, yeah......

Another one of Patrick's "Saturday Six" done on Sunday...

Oh well.

I've always been a day late and a dollar short but I like this one;


1. When you write on your blog, are you more often trying to entertain, inform or persuade? I'm just trying to keep my sanity by decompressing and putting my thoughts in some kind of order at the end of my hectic days. When I find the time and my computer cooperates, that is. This is also a 'living legacy' for my two grandsons someday as well.

2. Do you feel you’re successful most of the time? It definitely helps me relax, so I'd say yes. I have no clue whatsoever how many people stop by so I don't know if I'm 'successful' or not in 'attracting' readers. But the ones whose lives I've connected with thru my blog are very dear to me.

3. Do you consider yourself to be more bold online than in person, or the other way around? I've stated many times that what I write is who I am. I really feel that's true but, if my daughter reads this and wants to put her two cents in about that, she would probably know best of all.

4. Who would be most embarrassed if they read your blog? I don't think I've really ever embarrassed anyone I love. If anything, they ought to be pleased by what they read. I love them all and when I write about them, I try to convey that to whoever is reading.

5. Take the quiz: What Kind of Communicator Are You?

You Communicate Clearly

You're the type of person who thinks before you talk. You speak in an ordered, insightful, and concise way. You speak authoritatively and with conviction. If you take the time to say something, you stand behind it. You only say what you need to. You believe that your words are strongest when they're not diluted. When you have a lot to say, you map out your words ahead of time. You prefer to speak in bullet points.

What Kind of Communicator Are You?

6. What do you think has been the biggest change in your online writing in the past year? As far as content's concerned, I've generally stayed the same. As far as quality of my writing, there's always room for improvement.