Letterboxing

Have any of you heard of letterboxing? It's all over the US and England and who knows where else. I first heard of it when R was about a year old. I mentioned it to J because I thought it sounded like a cool way to get out and about with the kid, getting fresh air and exercise. J pooh-poohed the idea at that time. Now R is 9 and started letterboxing with his Cub Scout troup. Now it's a cool thing to do. To be fair, J and B do a lot of hiking and have brought the kids along on the easier hikes, so it's not like they don't get out a lot. But this way, it's more like a treasure hunt and the kids get to stamp their stamps into the logbooks of the letterboxes they find and also stamp the ones they find into their own logbooks. Anyway---we've all carved our own rubber stamps (see my butterfly?) and picked our "trail names" and made log books for our letterbox finds. I managed to get JH to go letterboxing with me. He started out grumbling about it, not wanting any part of it and now, he wants to plant a letterbox or two of his own. He likes figuring out the clues and using the compass and all that good stuff. I think he should carve his own stamp and make his own log book. We go out each weekend and find a letterbox or two--there are lots right in our own area! We get our exercise and fresh air and Daisy has fun romping through the woods we usually find ourselves in. When JH and I go to the Cape in September, we're going to check out some letterbox clues down in that area and see how many we can find during our 3 day stay. Maybe by then, he'll have his own carved stamp to make his mark in the letterboxing world.

Channel F

I've gone all fall and winter without catching the dreaded cold viruses going around, up until now. I've been taking astragulus root capsules, (recommended by the physican I work for) and it has helped me get this far. Unfortunately, my co-worker ended up with a huge, ugly cold and apparently passed it along to me! I avoided all those cold germs from the patients, from other coworkers, from grandkids, from my stepdaughter and my husband, but this last one apparently got through. I'm probably not as bad off as I would be if I weren't taking the astragulus, but still, I hate cold symptoms. I slept a lot yesterday and still went to bed early and kept the thought in my mind that I would not have trouble breathing while I slept. I hate mouth breathing. So, in and out of sleep all night, waking myself up with noisy snoring and snorting and finding one nostril blocked. Each time I woke up I went through this thing in my head -- gotta keep Channel F open for breathing. I would then either sniff in really hard or get a kleenex and blow out really hard and open up the offending nostril, aka Channel F, then go back to sleep. It was like I was at the center of the command post and needed to keep an eye on all Channels. OMG, where the heck did that come from? Whatever, I guess it worked enough for me to get some sleep, though I still feel pretty tired today. If I'm lucky, just a couple more days and I'll be back to normal and won't have to patrol Channel F any more.

Tax Season

I hate tax season. I was really thinking this year would be different since J and I got married last year and bought a condo so we'd have a tax break. Well, I guess that would have been true had I not gotten a disability settlement from 2001--the one we bought cabinets, countertops, lighting and a dishwasher for the kitchen with. That made enough of a difference in our tax bracket to give us the tiniest of refunds. I guess we should be grateful we didn't end up paying. Now we will have to save up to buy the materials to install the new kitchen floor I thought we would do with our tax refund...ha! Don't count your chickens before they're hatched---why haven't I learned that yet? We're trying to save for a vacation in St Kitts next January. We'll only have to pay for airfare, food and entertainment since we are staying at J's sister's time share that sleeps 8. We may be scrimping and saving all year between the flooring and the vacation, but I am determined to have that vacation in the tropics! This winter has been exceptionally blue for me.

Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking

Mom was rushed to the ER because she "fainted" while grocery shopping. What happened was her heart stopped beating and then started up again, several times. The grocery store personnel had to go out to the car to get my dad. He was reading a magazine, letting her do the "woman's work." UGH! She ended up being airflighted by helicopter to a cardiac hospital where they wanted to do a cardiac cath to see what was going on. Her kidneys weren't up to the amount of dye necessary to explore so they installed a pacemaker until they could try again on Monday. I went away for the weekend to visit a dear friend 175 miles away and called my dad while on the road, hoping to get a number at the hospital so I could talk with my mom. Had to leave a message since he didn't answer and he never called me back all weekend. Through sibling emails today, I was able to obtain a phone number and immediately called her to see how she was feeling. She said they put a stent into the main artery into her heart since it was blocked -- yeah, just a fainting spell mom -- and she was feeling much better in that department. But what was most impressive to her was her helicopter ride to the cardiac hospital! She loved it! She thought it was very exciting and would like to do it again, except she says, it's probably too expensive. That's what I like best about my mom -- she always finds something good in whatever is happening to her....takes a licking and keeps on ticking, now with a little help from some spare parts. I'm just glad she's still looking forward to adventures.

9 Years Old How Did That Happen?

I can't believe R is 9 years old today. It just isn't possible. I called to wish him a happy birthday even though we celebrated it early on Sunday. I was slightly crushed when he acted annoyed that he had to talk with me. Tore my heart out -- that's what he did!! After a few minutes talking with J, she handed the phone back to him and all of a sudden he was animated and telling me all about his new Lego sets and what we were going to do when I babysit him and K this weekend....phew! I thought I'd lost touch with him already and wasn't ready to let go of our closeness. I guess I just caught him at a bad moment.

1999 Saab 

In memory of my 1999 Saab

That dratted hailstorm on July 11 ruined so many vehicles; my Saab was one of them. The damage from the hail was more to repair than for the insurance company to total and offer me a settlement. Turns out NH has a stupid salvage law on the books that says if a person buys their car back with a salvage title on it, they have to have EVERYTHING repaired that is listed on the insurance estimate before they can put the car back on the road. So....if you have a loan on the car, and the amount of money you have to buy the car back with exceeds the amount they offer as a total loss, you are screwed! I have a loan of $6200 left; they want me to pay them $2400 to buy the car back and are only totaling it for $8100. After all that, I would STILL have to repair everything to drive the car again.....they estimated the repairs to be over $6500. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. I loved my car, probably too much. Now, replacing it, I will make every effort not to love another car too much. Obviously there's no guarantee that the curse of hail won't rain down on us again and we'll have to go through all of this nuisance again. I loved my Saab. I waited so long to have one. I chose her carefully from about 50 Saabs that I researched and investigated. I only had her for a year and four months before the hail came along. She was such a pleasure to look at and to drive around in. She kept my butt warm in the winter and cool in the summer. She had such great pick up and traction control and kept me safely on the road even while I was lead-footing it. I felt SO safe inside her and confident that we operated as well together as any human/machine combination could. I have to let them take her away now because she is dented all over with lights broken. I still love her even though she has lost her beauty but it's time to say goodbye. I will miss her greatly and think of her fondly. I found a new Saab with almost as many bells and whistles as my old Saab. It is a year newer and cost me less money so in the long run, I guess I am better off. It's an automatic instead of a 5 speed so I compromised there. It doesn't have a 6 CD changer, just a plain old CD player, another compromise. But it has power everything like the old one, a sun/moon roof and leather seats with the woodgrain dashboard and almost as much pick up as the old one, and it's dark blue with tan leather interior...so no more complaining, just get on with life. I'll get the new car soon and recycle all the 95 Carfax reports I used for research before buying. Oh I think I need a new printer cartridge too!

Memorial Service

It's done. I finally managed to get myself together enough to have a memorial service for my son. Lots of tears but many smiles too, for the wonderful people that came and helped me to celebrate his life. J did a wonderful job putting together two collages of D throughout the years. The Pastor did a nice job with the sermon and getting the church all prepared for me. The video production was wrong at the beginning of the week, but after going down to the business myself on the Wednesday before and asking nicely for the owner to "redo" for me to include parts that were very important to J and I, it too turned out nicely, not exactly as I had envisioned, but since I don't quite have those technical skills, I settled for the next best thing. We had a butterfly release in the garden after the Pastor said some fitting words and we sent good wishes to D and symbolically set him free to move on to his next phase, whatever that may be. I thought it would be a point where I could think, ahh, it's over, now I can move on, but as happy as I am with how it turned out, I still find myself with tear filled eyes and wishing I could "do over" some things in the years before D left for Colorado. TIME, it's going to take time; I have to keep telling myself that. But I have to say, I felt so loved by the friends that traveled far to help me make the day a good one. Thank you my good friends and I hope D was looking down on us and approved of our celebration of him.

There's always one!

Strange neighbor. Everywhere we've been in the last 5 years we have had an oddball or two nearby. There was the Greek family of 3 who were 24 hr caretakers for an old man, all stuffed into a 1 1/2 bedroom apartment. We always heard fast rocking going on downstairs.....figured it was the old man probably tied into the rocker, rocking as fast as he could trying to escape. Then a crazy cat lady who preferred 165 cats to humans. She was always bringing home new toys or scratching posts for her feline friends. From her we moved onto a skinny little bleached blond prostitute up at all hours screaming for her cat "Buttercup" in between johns. Then there was "Woody" the woman abuser who liked to rev his crappy engine at 5 a.m. or 2 a.m, depending on when he was leaving or getting home. He was also good for cranking his ignition over and over and over again even though there was absolutely no sign that it was going to start. This time we have the strangest one. He seems to think he's a rock n roll star, or that is the impression he is trying to make. He plays the drums at any time (badly), day or night whenever the mood strikes him. He is always dressed in black; usually a black wrestling type top which shows all the gray hairs covering his chest, black jeans, and black cowboy boots. I've never seen him in anything but those cowboy boots so far. He calls J "Chief" or "Sport", thinks Daisy is "Spike" and acts afraid of her (GOOD) and talks to himself in very animated conversations. Oh yeah, he spray paints his scalp black to try to match his black dyed hair, or what's left of it. OMGod! He even went for a bike ride on Sunday with his cowboy boots on. I thought maybe he was taking himself to some sort of church but that wrestler top doesn't really belong in a church of any kind. He went by yesterday in a taxi (taxis pick him up just about every day for short runs where???) As he went by J and I he shouted out, "I'm your long lost brother Adam!" I looked up to see if J was still with me while I was planting some perennials. He had disappeared into the house.....oh YUCK! He's NO Brother of mine!!!!! He has a car with no license plates on it, no registration. He drives the car up to the mailbox area every day, including Sundays and holidays, checks his mailbox and then burns rubber back to his condo.....WTF?? I asked the property manager about him, hoping he was a leftover leaser before the place was converted to condos.....no such luck. Somehow this man, with no job, no visible means of support has bought a 2 BR condo here and we're stuck with him. However, the property manager did say that a state trooper has bought the condo next to this freak and will put a stop to the drumming and the driving. Phew! This guy definitely has issues; like maybe he needs a keeper or should be in a halfway house or in a psych ward. I'm not sure what, but I'm sure glad the state trooper is going to be around. My theory is that this guy has a rich dad, who is so through with dealing with him, he probably bought the condo for him with the agreement that he never darken his father's doorstep again or something like that. He's definitely burnt out from something!! Life sure is interesting.

Closing Date

It seems like forever to get to that day where you sign your life away. So many piles of paperwork just to get to closing date and then you sit and sign a huge pile of more paperwork in order to get the keys in hand and get started on making this place yours. When I look back now, I realize it's only been a short time since we first looked at this condo and decided we wanted to buy it, be closer to my grandkids and daughter. But it felt like FOREVER. Sitting on pins and needles each time some issue came up. We put in a bid on March 7 and our closing date is April 20; it's not really very long. I started taking deep breaths again after we got the signed commitment letter. Now I've got to live with boxes everywhere until moving day. It will be worth it. Finally, a place of our own. I'm so tired of moving around from place to place. Now we can settle down. We will put in new carpeting in the three bedrooms the day after closing. I want to put in new kitchen cabinets, IKEA here I come, but that will have to wait. So will the flooring that J is going to do for us in the kitchen and dining room. Those are projects that we will do over time. Oh, the bathrooms have this ugly yellow ceramic tile in them and we will live with them as long as we have to but J is going to have to redo them both with some nice ceramic tile that we will pick out -- I think within the year it will be replaced because I don't see me dealing with that yucky yellow for very long. And there's this very low toilet paper holder in the half bath downstairs that drives J nuts already. He can't wait to redo that one!! I just chuckle when I see it but it makes him crazy.

LEMONS

That's right. Hang in there.... Sometimes life hands you lemons, but then you can make lemonade. Of course, sometimes life pulls down your pants, runs a power sander across your naked butt, then pours lemon juice on your raw, abraded buttocks. In that case, a cool citrus drink wouldn't really help, but darn it...you've got to hang in there anyway!! my man gave this to me. It's soooo appropriate right now.

Fragile

I have always thought of myself as a strong, independent woman, but these days, I am feeling so fragile and helpless. I feel like I am walking a tightrope and life keeps trying to nudge me off the wire so I go crashing to the ground. It's very precarious and the tears come whenever they feel like it. I have no control over them. It's a scary situation when you are used to dealing with all sorts of crap life throws at you and overcoming the less than ideal situations you find yourself in. Kind of like a roller coaster, once you're locked in and headed down the track, you can't say, stop I want to get off, you have to continue through until the end. But this isn't a fun roller coaster ride. I don't wish this experience on anyone. I only hope I can last until the end and find my "land legs" again.

My beautiful redheaded son

Never did I expect this...I always thought he would come home, maybe with a wife and children in tow, to join our family again. Instead his ashes are coming home to me. I am missing a lot of details of the last 10 years of his life, but some of those details might be best left undisclosed. I do however want to hear about the good times he experienced. I hope to hear from those out there that cared about him. I wish he knew that I never stopped thinking about him; every day he was in my private thoughts; every day I sent a silent prayer that he was all right and was learning to be at peace instead of troubled and eventually would reappear in our lives. I never gave up hope...until now.

OOMPAH-LOOMPAHS

Anyone familiar with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory knows all about Oompah-Loompahs. We have our very own Oompah-Loompahs who can do the OL dances to perfection! OLs are pretty funny to watch anyway, but when R and K join them in the dances, it is hysterical. The thing is, they are REALLY good! I don't know how many times they have practiced the dances but they know all the arm gestures and all the steps involved. R has his back to the tv while the dvd is playing, dancing away to the music and he's perfectly choreographed with the Oompah-Loompah on the dvd. K adds a few of her own little specialty swirls and twirls but she knows all the steps and gestures too! I think a dance class instructor would love to have R in her classes but he's busy playing basketball. J videotaped them yesterday afternoon while I was there and she said she'll make a dvd for me so that I can watch them again and again. They are such funny kids....love to entertain, not shy about performing....how nice! And of course K loves the attention and wants applause when she's done. How cute.

Thanksgiving

I have a lot of things to be thankful for...good thing I wasn't counting on absolutely wonderful food at dinner time. J's sister had pre-ordered from a place called The Secret Chef, the entire Thanksgiving dinner! The turkey was all right, gravy was so-so, stuffing was DRY, potatoes tasteless. The butternut squash was really yummy and the rolls were fine. The pies were all ordered too, so no homemade pies...very easy to just take a taste and push it away. The pumpkin cheesecake was pretty darn good but that came from K, not the Secret Chef. I'm thankful that I didn't go hog wild and kept myself in control while enjoying a day off my diet. I'm thankful I didn't have to go see J's mother in the nursing home--I don't do well in nursing homes ever since my Grandmother was stuck in one. I was happy to have Daisy with us. She was such a good girl all day, even though that little terrier Brady had his nose stuck up inside her most of the time when he wasn't trying to hump her....what an ambitious little horn dog!! I"m thankful for all my wonderful friends and the joy they bring to my life. I'm very thankful for having a great daughter and two beautiful grandchildren who make life worth living.

Mothers

Why is it, no matter what age you are, your mom can still make you feel guilty? I like to sleep in on weekends when I can. I can't do it all the time, but when I can, I revel in it. It's just such a luxury to me. I went to the MFA with a co-worker last Saturday so I had to be up and about early to pick her up and then get down to the museum before 10:30, which was our ticket time for the Ansel Adams exhibit. So by Saturday night I was really looking forward to sleeping in Sunday morning, which I did, I totally did. I woke up once around 6, peeked at the clock and rolled over and went back to sleep surrounded by lots of pillows and covered with a couple of quilts, my nest. The phone rang and J answered it and brought the phone up to me....it's your mom. I woke up quickly, thinking something must be wrong since she doesn't call often. I glanced at the clock and it was 9:45. I tried to sound alert when I took the phone but I didn't fool her; she knew right away. She said, "Are you STILL in bed lazy bones?" I answered yes I was but then started making excuses as to why I was still in bed; I was up late last night, did a lot of traveling on Saturday, my back is bothering me, blah blah blah......WHY? Why do I do that? If I want to stay in bed, I can stay in bed. I'm all grown up (mostly) and answer to myself. Then I spent the next couple of hours busily doing chores to kind of make up for sleeping in. How ridiculous is that?

Haunted House Party

My brother and his wife decided to have a haunted house party for their three boys and 60 friends! I offered to help out and was told I had to be in costume to help. My sister-in-law (SIS) said she had a costume I could use. What is it? I asked. She said she thought it was a wicked stepmother costume. I thought I could handle that. So here I am, the Wicked Stepmother and my very own superhero Superman, so full of himself! I just don't understand what was up with the black rabbit ears it looked like I had on. The kids seemed to all have a great time, except for two littler kids...one was afraid and she wanted to go home but we convinced her to stay for a while and she decided I wasn't so wicked after all and attached herself to me for a little while. The other was a little boy who was just overwhelmed by everything going on. My brother was dressed as a mummy and was using his lawn tractor to take the kids on a haunted hayride around the yard with different characters talking or jiggling around the yard. My favorite was this mechanical dude who reminded me of Bobcat Goldthwaite but John says he was from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I still think he looks a lot like Bobcat. My SIS did a good job--she had games for them to play, doughnuts on strings that they had to eat without using their hands, decorating their own cookies with frosting and jimmies, bubble gum blowing contest that also involved whipped cream ( I didn't get to see that one) and other things. The haunted hayride was the hit of the night. The kids took the chocolate eyeballs from my pal Bobcat, and flung them at the kids on the hayride (bratty kids) and I guess my brother was beaned quite often; said he was lucky he didn't lose an eye---I remember when HE was a kid so I didn't have much sympathy. heh heh It was friggin' cold out there so you had to keep moving. I'm not sure who had more fun, the grown up kids or the real kids :)

Weekend at Grandma's

This past weekend I had R and K visiting overnight, which is always fun. You never know what they will come up with for games to play at Grandma's. I will say this -- they have VERY inventive little minds and can make a game out of almost anything. This time they were playacting Cinderella and the wicked stepmother -- must be the favorite dvd of the moment. R was Cinderella and K was the wicked stepmother, being very mean and I think R liked it!!! I think they knew some of the lines by heart -- they get this from their mother -- she can STILL recite lines from her favorite movies growing up. They also do PeeWee's Playhouse scenes together, complete with the funny voices of the different characters! It's hysterical to listen to them, a 4 year old and 8 year old. They take turns being the different characters. R's favorite phrase now in conversation is "Oh, and by the way" and a lot of "Actually...." and K's is, "What about me?" I heard both of these about a hundred times this weekend. J and I were quite amused with the little imps. K told me I was beautiful and that J is GORGEOUS!! I told her he was handsome, not gorgeous, but she liked his reaction to gorgeous so much that she kept telling him that. Nothing like the love of a child. Daisy loves to have the kids there but I think she gets sensory overload, keeping track of them. She's very very good with them, but is quite exhausted when they go home. She naps DEEP once they are gone from her domain. I think anything that is outside of her routine would do the same to her. But she does have lots of fun with them when they are here. So do I!!

What If?

What if every woman learned to love every inch of her skin? That's the question a Dove ad asks. That's a good question. Right now I have way more inches of skin than I would like, but I should really learn to love them because it took a lot of time to get this many inches and it's going to take a long time to decrease some of those inches. It's frustrating. I gained most ofl these inches when I started having back pain and couldn't be as active as I was used to being. I couldn't do ballet any more. Pilates wasn't feeling too hot either. Walking was restricted to short amounts of time. I tried massage, physical therapy, chiropractic treatment. I got more inches as time passed and after the MRI and bone scan, it was determined I needed to have surgery to correct the problem. So I had the surgery, feeling like I really didn't want to expose all my accumulated inches to the hospital world, but not able to exercise those unwanted inches off. Surgery was successful but it was a very long recuperative period. Initially, I lost some of those extra inches because I was too busy healing to do much more than sleep, take pain meds and use the bathroom. Once I started feeling human again, I started eating. Eating without being able to exercise once again. I had to wear a hard shelled brace any time I was upright for the first three months after surgery. My biggest athletic adventure was to go down the stairs to the mailbox...maybe 100 steps. Of course I started accumulating more inches again. I think that I am lucky to be in as good health as I am since I have gone through so much in my life time. I should really learn to love those inches instead of cursing them. I look back to times before when I thought I was so fat and realize just how nice I looked back then, how healthy I was. Too bad I couldn't have enjoyed myself more then....I see myself in pictures from those times and it makes me sad to think I was so busy worrying about inches instead of enjoying the pleasure of just how wonderful it felt for my body parts to all be working so well, no pain, no strain. Now I have pain every day, just in varying degrees. I think all women should be more accepting of themselves and forget about those ads showing skinny little bodies with no hips and no muscles as being the norm. That's not normal for most women. Last Sunday I did the breast cancer walk with raising2kids and christhadasister and some others and I'm sorry to say I was the slowpoke turtle, using a friend's stroller to lean on while walking. The others had to stop many times to wait for me to catch up. I felt bad about making them wait, but I did feel such a sense of accomplishment that I completed that 3 mile walk in spite of the pain I was enduring---imagine that---at one time, my exercise routine was to run 3 miles a day and a half hour stretching routine and free weights every other day. Now I'm ecstatic when I can complete the 3 miles in a slow walk. So all you women in good health with sturdy, working parts--even if you think you have too many inches you need to love them ALL and be thankful they are in good working order. Inches come and go but you are still the same you, no matter how many inches you happen to be made of. :)

Is it an initiation or game?

I recently discovered that someone switched Saab car emblems on me. I had brand new, or nearly new hood and trunk emblems when I bought my used Saab in March. Two days ago, I looked at the hood of my car and saw a completely silver, no griffon, no Saab, no blue surround emblem on the hood. I KNOW that it isn't mine. I walked around to the back and looked at the trunk emblem. That one isn't the same either. It has parts of the blue and red missing on it. Who would switch emblems? Is it some sort of game Saab people play on each other? Is it an initation into the Saab world?? If it is, I DON'T want to play. I'm not having fun having my good emblems swiped and replaced with crap. I looked up replacement parts online and found brand new ones cost $57 for the hood and $49 for the trunk!! Ohhhh, this is NOT funny! I went on eBay and found some to bid on---I'm waiting now for a used, but looking pretty new hood emblem. So far, I am winning it for under $5 with shipping of $3.50 so it would be a reasonable price. But I still feel like I want to Superglue it or weld it or something to the hood of my car so no one can swipe this one. I have a strong feeling it happened at work. Security just zips through the parking lot on occasion and there are no security cameras out there. RATS! There are lots of different people using that lot when there are conferences in our building, which is practically every day so there are transient Saab owners lurking. It really sucks to think someone who works for the hospital would do that to a fellow employee. Wouldn't it be funny to rig a siren to the emblem so that the next time someone tried to swipe it a really loud shrieking alarm goes off ? and then maybe some red dye spurts out and covers their hand so that they are marked as thieves? Hey, I can fantasize about revenge.