Before I tear off the rear-view mirror and cruise happily into 2018, let me linger just a moment…
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Peace
Have a Safe New Year’s Eve!
Dear God,
In this sacred season,
May Your Spirit move through me
And shine upon the world.
May Your Love be expressed
With every thought I think
And every action that I take.
May Christ be born anew
in me.
We give to you this passing year,
And pray for blessing upon the year ahead.
Heal us of our wounds, dear God,
And forgive us our mistakes.
May mercy and compassion
Light up the sky
And heal our broken world.
Amen
(2017 Holiday and End of Year Prayer from Marianne Williamson)
Peace
My Pain Rant continues, though it’s gone from 100 to about 15 in the last 10 days. I’m babying it along and have a follow-up with the doctor on Monday.
In the meantime, I’m working on not getting in a hurry… At Christmastime, when there are so many demands, it’s a real work of Zen. Be Here Now. Everything will be done on time. It makes me realize that all that hurrying isn’t necessary. I’ve been crippled up for a couple of weeks now, and yet it’s all done or getting done with plenty of time to spare. The NYC gifts are being delivered daily. The cards have been mailed, the cookies are baked. The Eville presents are wrapped and ready for delivery…
I’m coming to grips with the undeniable fact that I have some control issues (shh…don’t tell the kids I admitted it). It came to the forefront as I was letting Casey “help” me with baking, you know, just putting the cookie dough on the baking sheets and into the oven, then taking them out and cooling them…it turned out more like “not like that” “don’t put that there” “only let them sit one minute” …. suddenly, I walked smack into my kitchen island, banging my sore hip on the (thankfully rounded) corner. I limped on back to my comfortable chair and Let It Go. It all turned out fine, as you probably could guess.
By the way, I made a new recipe for oatmeal cookies this year. I added banana, cutting back 1/4 cup of butter on the Quaker’s Best Oatmeal Cookies. It is delicious.
Tonight we’re going to Olivia’s Winter Christmas Concert, where she will perform with the 4th and 5th grade choir. I think I’ll have to stand, but that will be fine!
Yesterday morning we had Breakfast with Santa at Gattitown with The Jrs. Samantha, or as she calls herself, “Amanty”, was much friendlier to Santa this year. We ate some decent food, played unlimited games, gave our lists to Santa and listened to him read a story.
Later that afternoon, Olivia and her little sister came over and decorated the tree…
Let the festivities begin!!
We’re outside today with no jacket, pretending like this is going to last… One more day, anyway… Snow predicted for the end of the week! That will match our Christmas mood better, though..!
Peace
It’s Husband’s birthday today–63 years old. I have done so much gushing about him on this blog that you already know that I am rather fond of him.
Happy Birthday, Michael Ray Casey! And Many More!
To my Dear and Loving Husband
A Poem by Anne Bradstreet
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompetence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay.
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Peace
(I am on my way to the chiropractor…is it my back or my hip? We will soon know. Way to celebrate, huh?)
“I am grateful for what I am and have…my thanksgiving is perpetual.” … Henry David Thoreau
Me, too…
Peace
I’ve been enjoying this down-time before the holidaze, just piddling around the house, cooking up some soups and casseroles.
I’m reading “Norse Mythology” by Neil Gaiman. I love it! I’ve been reading several chapters a night, like bedtime stories, and Love Odin, Thor, and especially Loki. Though they are Not lovable, really. Great Stories!
I’m listening to 50 Years of Blonde on Blonde a live album by folk, country, and old-time music band, Old Crow Medicine Show. The album is a track-for-track tribute to Bob Dylan’s landmark 1966 double album Blonde on Blonde. Old Crow re-imagined the arrangements of the individual tracks with manic fiddles and banjos, and it’s all good.
I’m practicing on the piano “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. Seems like everybody in high school who could play piano could play this one, but I just found the music in a used book from a rummage sale. It’s more difficult than I thought it would be, so I am challenged…practicing a lot…
My piano sounds better than that…
One more week until Thanksgiving, so I’d better pick up the pace and get ready for
Turkey and Tradition, the Opening Race of the Holiday Triple Crown.
I am so thankful for thankfulness, it just makes me feel so grateful for gratitude… I’m bound to win…
Peace
I haven’t posted much about our recent trip to Disney World—just that movie that I laboured over and Only One Reader actually watched it… See, I know these things. I don’t know which of you it was, though, so you can act like it was you if want to please me.
Since 3minutes 30seconds was too much to ask, I’ll make it convenient for you.
I may have mentioned that I picked up a sneezing, snotty, cough-y thing whilst driving through Alabama. Whatever it was, the coughing and wheezing got rough enough for even Me, who normally spurns the need for doctors, to make a visit. I got the clear x-ray, the breathing treatment, and meds. The breathing treatment helped me breathe better, but I was jittery as a june bug, and irritable, too. I filled the Rx’s and started on Prednisone. I dreaded it. That shit is miracle, but man, it’s like speed.
That’s when I tore into the upstairs and began setting up A Room of My Own, cleaning, purging, organizing… Making that little movie took forever, as my mind kept jumping. There was no sleeping, so my mind raced over ground it really should stay away from… I deactivated my facebook and instagram accounts and started over. I reorganized the folders in my computer files. I ran out of thoughts…
And that was just the first 2 days… By the time I completed the dosage, I was feeling more alien than human, and it was 3 more days before I was back to what I’d call normal. Of course, I’m still coughing…
More pictures…
While my head was buzzing around, money started falling out of the sky… Facebook sent me a $30 credit to boost my posts. It was such a kick! Watching the stats was addictive, as the number reached climbed into the thousands. The number of people who actually clicked on the blog site was less impressive, so I was able to quit before they got any of My $. But that’s not all!
Simultaneously TwinSpires, the online site where I bet The Triple Crown, sent me $10 to bet on the Breeders Cup. I had to bet the race that was sponsored by TwinSpires, no problem. I looked up some picks and found one that was on all the lists (I don’t remember the name!), bet the $10 and made $20. I figured I’d bet the ten again on the Classic, but spread it out on 3 horses to show and they all came in, bringing me another $14. Pennies from heaven…
More Pictures…
When we leave Disney, I am always beginning to plan my next visit. For me, the Magic never gets old…the parades, the rides, the characters, the games, food, the music, all of that and a giant Dole Whip…
Peace
Embrace Joy
It’s too hot for November…a cold front is predicted to clash with this heat and mix up some storms tonight. Already the wind is blowing the leaves off of the trees like golden orange snow. Setting the time back meant that we were up early this morning without any effort at all, so we headed over to the Audubon Wetlands trails to scrunch through the leaves and see if we spotted any wildlife. We didn’t, but it was a fine walk…
Peace
My Mom passed over sometime in her sleep, between the hours of 9pm November 1 and 1pm November 2, 2002.
I was the last person to speak to her, but I had No Idea it would be our last phone call. It was just a check-in phone call, for my mama expected to be called Every Day and fussed loudly if you went too long without calling or coming by. She said nothing much was up, that she was feeling fine. We closed that Last Conversation as we always did: I Love you, Mom. Love you, too, Sweet-Pea.
The following afternoon, I received a frantic phone call from my sister: Mom is dead! Mom is dead!
We drove the mile between my house and hers. I ran past the ambulance and firetrucks, through the throng of EMT’s and Paramedics standing with their eyes averted to my panic, into Mom’s bedroom where she lay as if in sleep…curled on her side with her hands under her ear.
No, Mom! No! I screamed. No! I knelt by her bed and held her lifeless body and cried.
I cried for days…months… I’m crying now… I miss her Always…
My Dad had died 5 years earlier. My birth family had been clearly divided for a decade before that. When Mom died, that was the end. My siblings and I were courteous and fair when dealing with the inheritance, but that was all she wrote for those relationships. We walk very different paths.
I often wonder (as does anyone who has lost a loved one) what she would have thought about all the changes, especially how she would have Loved her Great-Grandchildren. I wonder what she would have thought about the smartphones and facebook. I Fear what she would have thought about Politics!
Last night we lit a bonfire and I burned some rosemary to remember both Mom and Dad.
They live in my heart and in my head, in my music and in my Home. Hardly perfect, their example of what Not to Do was often my inspiration.
I wish they could have had more peace in their lives, more happiness. So I take the Happy Memories. I tell their Stories and Sing their Songs to my grandchildren. Smiling, they live on…
Peace
Blather & Balderdash 