Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!  I'm loving hanging out with my daughter and her family in Utah!  Getting to bond with grandchildren at their own home is such a blessing.  My seven year old granddaughter has been especially sweet, cuddling up to me on the couch, wanting to walk with me and letting me brush her hair.  When she was little, she was quite shy so I've enjoyed getting to know her better this trip.

How grateful I am to have been able to spend time with my wonderful family!

Music of OUR time

Well, after a cancelled plane trip on Sunday, my husband and I decided that because our bags were already packed and he had the time off, we'd do the trip anyway...by car.  It's a 14 hour drive but it was enjoyable and the weather couldn't have been better!  Our children were overjoyed that we coming after all.

Before driving off, my husband threw in his CD case so we'd have music to listen to.  His taste in music is very eclectic to say the least.  It ranges from classical instrumental to heavy metal of the 60's to Disney soundtracks to Michael Buble.  In a mood for the nostalgic music of the 70's, we passed the time being serenaded by The Carpenters, Moody Blues, Bread, Simon and Garfunkel, Fleetwood Mac and Doobie Brothers.  I haven't heard most of those groups in AGES but found myself remembering the words and singing along.  Weird!  Isn't it funny what our brains remember?  The memories came flooding back of the early days of our courtship and marriage.

My children might roll their eyes at our "oldie" music but they don't have the memories associated with it that I do.  They have their own special songs and memories based on THEIR time.  I'm only glad I don't get all nostalgic over rap!  :)

A family recipe book

Our family recipe book

As my kids started leaving the house, they started calling me with questions about various family recipes.  After a while, I decided to compile the favorite ones into a recipe book.  I spent about three months gathering recipes, copying them and making a book for each of my children. I put each page in sheet protectors to protect them from spills.  This was my Christmas present to them that year (2011).  Since then, every year I've added a page or two to their notebooks and hope to continue doing this as I try out new recipes and as kids continue to make requests.

What has surprised me the most is how much my children are using their recipe books.  They tell me often how glad they are that I put all their favorite recipes together in one place.  

It might have taken some time putting together but was totally worth it!

Love my grandkids!

When my grandson was 2 (he's almost 5 now), he got really upset when his mom and dad would leave him with me so they could go on a date or run errands.  After the first couple of minutes, he'd be fine but he'd sure get upset.  So we devised a way for him to give his parents a happy going-away...he and I would run to the front window and wave good bye to Mommy and Daddy while they drove off.  They would wave back and for some reason, that was enough for him to let go and be happy.

This little ritual has become a tradition with him and then his little sisters and now he's come up with a new one.  Now, when Grumpy and I leave HIS house, all three little kids line up at the window and wave good bye to US!  We wave good bye back and watch them from the car window as we drive off.

Melts my heart just a little  :)

Disappointments

One thing in life is certain...there will be disappointments.  Some we can do something about and others are beyond our control.  I find that when something is beyond my control, the best thing I can do is accept it and not let it get me down.  Sure, I'm disappointed but there's nothing I can do about it.

Today I was supposed to fly to Utah to visit three of my children but for reasons beyond my control,  the trip had to be cancelled.  I'm disappointed but it does no good to get mad or depressed or make others feel bad.  I will just assume there was a reason why the trip couldn't go on as planned and accept that.

That's life...

Perspective

Perspective - When we're 16, we can't wait until we're 18 and legally an adult.  When we're in our 30's with a houseful of kids, we wish we were 16 again.  And when we're 50, we wonder why we didn't enjoy ourselves more when we were 30.

Perspective - When we get all upset about a perceived slight only to find out that we didn't know the whole story.

Perspective - When we wish we were making more money and then get a pay cut and realize that we should have been happy with what we had.

Perspective - Feeling lousy and then talking to a friend who has it worse off.

Perspective - Wishing and praying for rain during a long, hot summer and wishing and praying for sun and warmth after a long, cold winter.

Perspective - Getting mad at your spouse only to realize that he was late because he stopped to get you your favorite ice cream.

Ah, hindsight.  Makes me want to slow down just a bit, enjoy what I have and assume the best of people.

Old Friends

Best friends in high school - E, Me, and D

We were best friends in high school.  Somehow, we lost contact with each other over the years until 2009 when I reconnected with E on Facebook.  We had a wonderful time catching up with each other and wanted to find out what happened to D.  After a couple of years, we found her, living only about 60 miles from E in Southern California where we all grew up. 

Of course, we wanted to get together in person!  I was the one who had moved away (1100 miles) so it took a while to make plans but we finally did!  25 years had passed but it was as if time disappeared and we were 17 again.  We must have looked pretty crazy, three ladies in their 50's laughing and giggling like kids. 

Me, E and D - Friends forever!

We took a nostalgia tour of our old haunts, the high school, our homes, the beach and the places we hung out.  It felt somewhat weird to return to my old neighborhood after 25 years and see how much things have changed and how much has stayed the same.   But somehow, it still felt like home.

After our reunion, we vowed not to lose track of each other again.  Friends forever!

Out of my comfort zone

Stepping out of my comfort zone today, I played racquetball for the first time in over 35 years.  It was so much fun!  I could get into this again!

I have a gym membership in a local gym that has racquetball courts and every time I go there, I look longingly at the courts.  My dignity has been holding me back  :)  as well as the fact that I have no equipment.  Well, that changed last week when I was at the thrift store and there it was, a racquetball racquet and case.  It seemed to be in excellent condition and was only $3.00!  How could I pass it up? Balls and protective eyewear at the sporting goods store added another $10.00 total and I was ready to go.

Today was the big day and I chose a time when the gym is pretty quiet.  I didn't want anyone watching me!  The first time I swung the racquet, the memories started rushing back.  It felt good!  Sure, I have no stamina or endurance so I only lasted about 20 minutes and by the time I was finished, I was sweating like I'd just finished a  grueling workout but I loved every minute of it.

Going to the gym is no longer going to be such a chore!

A diet experiment

My husband has struggled with obesity, diabetes, and heart disease for many years.  He's gone on exercise and diet programs and has lost weight and gained it back several times.  To his credit, he's been able to maintain about a 50 pound loss from his highest weight but still has about 50 more to go.  It's a frustrating cycle.

A few weeks ago, his mother told him about yet another diet program, based on a documentary about a man who battled obesity and health issues and conquered them through "juice fasts" which last anywhere from one week to two months.  So, he thoroughly researched the topic and decided to try it.

Being the good wife that I am  :) I told him that I would do it with him (he's planning on doing it for two weeks) at least for a week.  I figure that I probably wouldn't do any major damage to my body if all I did for a week was drink fresh fruit and veggie juices and smoothies.  And, we haven't been eating fruit and veggies as much as we should anyway.

Preparing was the hardest part.  I had to clean out my cupboards and get rid of all the processed, sugary food (I gave a big boxful of food to my daughter) and clean out the refrigerator to make room for all this fresh stuff.  Then we went grocery shopping and bough huge amounts of apples, bananas, spinach, kale, cucumbers, pineapples and assorted other things.  I'll freeze fruit as it becomes very ripe and hope that we can eat up the leafy greens before they go bad.

Over the weekend, my husband practiced making various combinations with his blender which ranged from really good to so bad that I could barely swallow the first sip.  I tried out a few recipes and they turned out ok.

So, today is the first official day of this experiment.  It's going ok except I miss chocolate  :)

Granddaughter Lilly thought the green smoothie was good!  I wasn't convinced.

Oh, and the name of the documentary is "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead".

The computer and me

I have to admit that I'm not very computer savvy.  I'm ok with the basics but beyond that, I am scared that I'm going to destroy something.  It's happened in the past.  The wrong button got pushed and I inadvertently wiped out the hard drive.  Or I uploaded (or is it downloaded?) something and the Blue Screen of Death descended upon my computer.   Somehow I wiped out three years of digital photographs.  That was a sad day!  :(

My husband hasn't been much help either.  Being a computer guy, he's constantly changing operating systems, software packages, hardware and peripherals.  That totally throws me off too.  I just finish learning one thing only to have it changed on me.  Luckily, I now have my own laptop!  And no one touches it except me!

So, knowing my history with computers, everyone in my family was surprised when I told them I was starting a blog.  "Mom? Really?"  My super awesome (and patient) son-in-law helped me set up with super easy Blogger.  And I really haven't had any problems with it over the last year and two months but I'm still afraid to make any changes without having him sit by me and watch to make sure I don't do anything stupid.

I look at other blogs with their bells and whistles and wonder, "How did they learn how to do that?"  I feel guilty asking my super awesome son-in-law to help me all the time.  But tonight I asked him how to organize posts into categories.  It only took him a few minutes to help me set it up so now I have a job to do!  This blog only has 39 posts to categorize but my other blog has 357!  I know what I'm going to be doing in my spare time! 

Thank you super awesome son-in-law! 

It doesn't do any good to complain

Have you ever noticed that people who complain all the time are hard to be around?   I used to walk regularly with a group of women and one of them was a constant complainer.  She complained about her children, her husband, her financial situation, her weight, the weather, her dog...you name it, she complained about it.  I'm not even sure if she realized what she was doing.  She didn't seem to want any help or advice but was just a constant stream of negativity.  So much for an enjoyable walk with friends! 

It doesn't seem to matter what kinds of challenges a person is going through.  Some people seem to be naturally upbeat and positive and others find fault with anything and everything in their lives.  It's no surprise who seems the happiest and attracts the most friends.

It's true that things are hard but there is so much that is good all around us too.  We have a choice.  We can either focus on the negative and let it bring us down or we can concentrate on the good things in our lives and become happier in the process.  It's up to us. 

Legos on a rainy afternoon

 I love having grandchildren!  What better use of a rainy afternoon than building Lego castles with two of the cutest kids around?!

Chuck (4) likes to make guns out of Legos and I'm not thrilled with that so today I got him interested in making a tall, tall tower.  Good thing little kids are easily distractible!

His little sister Lilly (3) was more interested in making a home for the Lego people so that's what we did.  :)

Spring! I may be early but so are the plants!

 Spring is on its way!  Everywhere you look, the world is awakening from its winter sleep!

The daffodils are almost ready to flower!

 

If you look closely, you can see the lilac flowers start to emerge from their buds.

Primroses from my son's wedding in 2006...still alive and blooming!

This is rhubarb emerging from the ground!

Almost in bloom daffodils

One of my daughter's rock animals...she made them several years ago and my garden loves having them!

Night owl to Early bird?

For some reason I'm having a really hard time going to sleep lately.  Even if I go to bed at midnight, it still takes at least an hour to fall asleep.  So, when I woke up on Tuesday morning at 10:30 am, I was disgusted with myself.  I don't want to sleep the day away! 

Time to get serious!  I decided that I was going to find a way to get back into a more normal sleep routine.  Last night I went to bed early (10 pm) and set my alarm for 8 am.  Imagine my surprise when I woke up bright and early at...9:15 am!  I set my alarm!  What happened?!

Apparently, my dear husband thought I'd like to sleep in so he turned off my alarm.  Sigh.  How am I ever going to change my sleep habits if he sabotages it? 

I'll try again tonight.  Wish me luck!

Crazy cat lady

I will NOT let a cat take over my house!

I am not going to turn into a crazy cat lady!  When women get older, it seems like they either get really attached to their cat(s) or dog.  I know, I know, it's the companionship they provide but still...seeing grown women dressing up their little pooch, talking baby talk to it and carrying it around like a little baby looks really ridiculous.  And cat ladies?  They're usually not content with one but start adopting every stray and non-stray in the neighborhood. 

So why am I telling you all this?  Because my one cat household has recently expanded to being a two cat household.  That's right...I adopted a stray tabby that was hanging around.  In his defense, he was skinny, had been declawed and couldn't fend for himself.  I HAD to take him in.  Now, he's fat and healthy and spends the day laying around the house.  The other cat (a set-in-her-ways female) isn't impressed in the slightest but so far the two cats have developed a truce of sorts.

I keep telling myself that two cats is the limit.  No more.  And I will NOT talk baby talk to them.  And they WILL sleep outside.  I am NOT going to turn into a crazy cat lady!

Lilly's tantrum

Lilly's not happy

Tonight my granddaughter Lilly (3) got into trouble.  The family was gathered together making root beer floats and something Lilly's mommy said made Lilly mad. She shouted to her mommy that she hated her.  Her good father (my son) told her that that wasn't acceptable to say and he picked up her screaming, kicking little body and gently carried her off to bed.  No root beer float for Lilly.  Immediate bedtime for Lilly.  Oh, was she mad! 

My son did the right thing and handled the situation very calmly and I was proud of him.  But the grandmother in me wanted to intervene and fix things (and give her her root beer float).  I'm so glad that I refrained.  The worst thing I could have done was undermine her daddy's authority and indulge her.  I kept reminding myself that I would have done exactly what my son did and I needed to leave it alone.

It's so easy to spoil the grandchildren but I need to be careful and not get in the way of my children disciplining their children.  Lilly survived quite nicely and hopefully learned a valuable lesson...that some things aren't acceptable anytime, anywhere.  And I supported her daddy.

What's in a name?

It took me nine months to get used to the idea that I was going to be a grandmother for the first time.  I was excited for my daughter to have a baby but had a hard time getting used to the idea of grandmother!  The name just didn't seem right.  Grandma B was my mother-in-law not me.

I started asking my friends what name their grandchildren called them.  One dear couple goes by Noni and Poppi.  I actually like that.  Another friend is called Oma.  Then there's Granny, Nana, and Gammy.  I never knew there were so many names.  Maybe I'm not the only one who had a problem with the name grandma.

Grumpy

My husband and I finally settled on Grammi and Grumpy and it fits just right!    Grammi is a pretty normal variation of grandmother and Grumpy is the perfect name for my husband...not the angry kind of grumpy, but the Disney character from Snow White.  He's got a rough exterior but he's really soft on the inside and all the grandkids know that.  They love Grumpy!

And then there's my grandson Chuck...he had a hard time pronouncing Grammi so he called me Dammi for quite a while  :)  Gotta love it!

I love libraries!

Ever since I was a little girl, I've loved libraries.   I love wandering up and down the aisles, picking up titles that sound interesting and bringing them all home where I curl up with a blanket and a warm fire and immerse myself in my treasures.  Even though I can get information on any subject from the internet, there is nothing like being able to hold a book in my hand, flip through the pages, and read it wherever I want.  It's even better that it doesn't cost anything (unless I get overdue notices!).

Today I checked out books on making smoothies, needle felting, gardening and cast iron cooking.  Our library also has free magazines that people share so I picked up some Martha Stewart Living magazines at the same time.  How's that for eclectic?  Oh, what an enjoyable evening!

Acceptance

Being part of a family is all about acceptance...acceptance of each person as a unique individual with talents and abilities, strengths and weaknesses.  As each of my children grow up, get married and start their own families, those differences become more apparent.  Some of the wives are working outside the home.  Some are stay-at-home moms.  Each of the husbands chose different career paths, even within the same field.  Some families are planning on homeschooling.  Some are advocates of public school.  The list goes on and on.  But none of these things matter to me.  There is more than one way to do things right and they all share the same belief structure and values so I have faith that each one is doing what is right for their little family.

 Whatever direction they go, I hope they know that they are loved, respected and accepted...unconditionally.

It's just my husband and me!

My first child was born one year and six days after my husband and I were married.  From that time until just recently, our lives revolved around our growing family.  Now it's just the two of us again.  It's taking some getting used to.  People change over the years and we aren't the two young newly married kids that we were the last time it was just the two of us.

We are going to have to find a way to reconnect and redefine our relationship.  We have more time together than ever before and we're going to have to relearn how to do things just for ourselves.  Believe it or not, that's a hard thing!  I have to keep reminding myself that we can stay out as long as we want.  We don't have to be home at a certain time.  Old habits die hard  :)

There are so many things to do and places to explore.  I'm looking forward to sharing adventures with my husband and getting to know him again.

Regret

I think everyone feels some regret as they get older and hopefully, wiser.  Probably my biggest regret concerning my children is that I didn't keep a written record of funny things they said or did, interesting or unusual experiences, and thoughts I had during those growing-up years.  Sometimes my kids ask me about some of those experiences and I have to say that I can't remember.  I wish I'd written them down.  We think we'll always remember things but time has a habit of fading those memories.

Along the same thought, I didn't take enough pictures of our family growing up.  In my defense, taking pictures was a lot more expensive in the olden days.  There was the price of the camera and the film and the price of developing the film.  That added up!  We couldn't take the thousands of pictures that moms and dads take of their kids now.  I see parents with videos chronicling their children's lives and books and books of photographs.  I guess I should be thankful for the ones I DO have.

As each of my children have left home, I've encouraged them to take pictures and write things down. They won't regret it.

An eye-opener!

I don't usually turn on the TV in the early evening but today I felt like some noise so I turned it on.  What an eye-opener!  In 20 minutes, I saw ads for low testosterone, overactive bladder, a supplement for people "as we age", erectile dysfunction, muscle pain relief, constipation, hemorrhoids, colon cancer and a hand cream for old looking hands.  Do you think the average TV viewer in the early evening is over age 50?  Apparently it is.   I'm missing the days when the commercials were for laundry detergent, floor cleaner and shampoo. 

I'll make sure not to turn on the TV when my grandchildren are around.  I don't want to explain what all those drugs and supplements are for!

Spring is coming!

When I woke up this morning, the sun was shining in my window.  You wouldn't think that was so special but Seattle is usually pretty wet and dreary in March so it was like a glimpse of the coming Spring.  What a wonderful thought...Spring with all its beauty and color...and warm weather!  No more sweaters, heavy coats and gloves!  I went outside and looked closely for signs of Spring and they are everywhere!  Daffodil shoots have emerged.  Buds are forming on the lilac bushes and blueberry plants.  Even the weeds are getting a head start but I'll soon put a stop to them!

I am going to take advantage of every sunny (or at least non-rainy) day and start pruning trees, pulling those weeds, planting spring bulbs and flowers and planning the vegetable garden.  If I were really on top of things, I'd start planting seeds indoors but I don't think that'll happen...not enough space for them!

Can't wait for the weather to warm up! 

Fun on a dreary March day

Me with my super talented nephew the artist and author

I'm sorry that I haven't posted in a few days.  I had an opportunity to take a crash course in Cultural Anthropology the last two days and it's been late nights and early mornings.  What I did was help out with the 2013 Emerald City Comic-Convention, held in Seattle, WA and it was quite a lesson in diversity and pop culture.  I had the time of my life!  I love people watching anyway and I don't think I've ever seen such a diverse crowd all in one place.  From tiny babies strapped to their mommies in front packs to elderly people with walkers, 40,000+ people gathered in the convention center to enjoy the world of comic book art, fantasy art and types of art I don't have a clue what kind it was  :)  Many people dressed as their favorite comic book character while others were characters themselves in their unique choice of clothing  :) which I'll leave to your imagination.

 After spending two days interacting with and watching people, it's a good feeling to know that for all the differences we have with age and lifestyle, we are more alike than different.

I thought these guys had really awesome costumes!

So cute in her costume!

Rapunzel was very popular with the little girls  :)

A surprising number of kids were interested in being artists