Christmas, 2022, in New York City,
featuring the Jose’ Family, mostly Emma and Eliza,
in 47 seconds…
Our Christmas plans have Completely changed due to expected winter storms on the New Yorkers’ travel dates.. They’ll be coming in between storms (fingers crossed) on the 26th and we’ll have a Sonnystone Christmas on the 28th. A good thing, too, as I have No presents bought! In fact, I’m headed out now to search for the grandies’ gifts.
Peace
It’s been such a busy week here and I’m not at all prepared to give you the details, but I wanted to check in and share our traditional photo from Ellis Park.
By the Way, I’m a real loser this year — I’ve only won Once this entire season!!! Oh, well, we’re all having fun!
The Jose Gals are here until Friday and we’re pretty booked up, but there’s always room for More. Call or text if you’d like to visit…
Peace
We’re going to have Weekly Sleep-overs this June, every Tuesday-Wednesday, but our High-Schooler will decide on a week-to-week basis whether she spends the night. Yesterday it was only Samantha, a very tired Samantha at that. We watched some Disney–I love Encanto, so it’s okay to watch it again and again. We did some art and made our own pizzas and she fell out early. This morning we met up with her Mom and Sister at the Oaklyn Library where they’re kicking off their Summer Reading Program.
I came home after dropping them off and we’re catching up with our chores and debating when to set up the pool. Usually it’s up by Memorial Day, but Casey hasn’t been feeling well. Off-schedule makes me nervous, but I’m also not in the mood to put my bathing suit on… In the meantime, he’s out buying a new charcoal grill and when we get the charcoal burning, the Summertime Smell should inspire us, though it probably won’t help with my swimsuit dread…
The Platinum Jubilee is going Strong in London and Trooping the Colour is tomorrow morning, 10am. I’ll be up at 3am to catch it streaming and I’m so excited! Yesterday people started camping out along the mall in front of Buckingham Palace, so I’m back to feeling like I Did make the right decision when I cancelled the reservation for this week. Much better to have a front row seat in front of the telly…
Peace
It was not the first Shannon’s School of Dance Recital for me last night… Melissa was practically a charter member of the school, back when they would have their recitals at the old St. Joseph School gym; it was founded in 1974. Even in the old-school days, they always had the Best costumes! Olivia brought us into the New Era where they rent out a big venue downtown and fill it up with parents, grandparents, cousins, and friends of the dancers, who range in age from 3 to 18 and while it’s impressive, it’s tooo dang long. We are those people who leave early, if we’re lucky enough to have our dancer perform in the first half. Samantha’s dance was to “By the Sea” and she was center stage. I love this little sailor!
I may make it over to the cemeteries tomorrow, but we’re kind of plan-less this weekend…which makes me a little cranky. I’m going to pull up the spinach and plant a couple of rows of green beans in that bed. There is another empty bed that I’m going to fill with green beans, as well — we’re trying to time the harvest to when the New Yorkers visit in early August. We have had so much rain that my bell peppers are showing the stress, but they have plenty of time to pull out of it.
Hope you’re enjoying the Holiday!
Peace
How bittersweet it is to watch your grandchildren grow up! As I watched the graduation ceremony, a montage of images slid through my mind, beginning with the first time I ever held her, hopping through 14 years of smiles…and some tears…and plenty of growing pains…and achievements beyond her own expectations.
Covid wiped out Olivia’s 6th grade year and she was home-schooled for 7th, so her experience of middle school has been brief, but full, as she was active in choir and on the Math Academic team. She received the Presidential Scholar Award and some other Civic Award. She was chosen to speak on “Looking Ahead” at the graduation ceremony; she seemed so grown-up as she delivered her remarks. She had also spoken at her 5th grade graduation, so I couldn’t help but compare and contrast. She is Remarkable, Super, and My Grand-daughter, so I’ve been tearful for the last 24!!
Olivia Mayne Casey, my sweet little buddy and occasional sparring partner, has been known to read this blog, so here’s to you, Nova!! I know you know, but I’ll say it anyway…
Peace
It’s the Second Day of Christmas and I’m expecting the delivery of my turtledoves anytime now. Boxing Day in the UK was originally about opening the alms boxes to give to the poor, but has devolved into a shopping day. It’s also St. Stephen’s Day in the Catholic church, the day that Good King Wenceslas looked out where the snow lay round about…
Last Monday was the anniversary of my daughter’s birth and we were in NYC to celebrate. After luncheon at The Community, we proceeded to the movie theatre to see “West Side Story”. (We Loved it, we cried, we marveled…you really should see it.) Then we trooped back to the apartment to sing and blow out candles; I’m Sure her wishes can come true.
We had a super time on Christmas Eve with the Jrs. After a good meal replete with mashed potatoes and gravy, we opened presents. Then it was off to the movie theatre to see “Encanto” which was encanting…(insert punny emoji)
We called the grandies on Christmas morning; beyond that it was just us, two old kids, exchanging presents, drifting through the day, content with grazing the leftovers, amicably sharing. The Day was balmy, so we walked through the woods, planning a pruning spree next month; walked around the gardens discussing plans for the 2022 upgrades; walked down to the campfire circle and envisioned a wall of forsythia between us and the neighbors’ pond… I hope your Christmas was just as heartwarming as ours…
We may or may not have visitors from Manhattan this week, depending on Covid testing. I think Emma may have gotten caught in the blizzard out there…
Peace
Last week I spent some time staring at the campfire and contemplating. Something inside me kept saying “I’m done” in a loop. I’d been feeling my age lately and this year’s Camp Sonnystone really brought it home as I cope with my grandies growing up in what seems the blink of an eye. But there’s no reason to think that I’m done, not at all; with so many good times to look forward to and our health still strong, I couldn’t justify that sort of morbid thinking. So I examined it more closely, listened more intently.
This blog means so much to me; it is the Chronicle of my Life. Including the defunct blog, for the last 16 years it has witnessed the birth of all my grandchildren and my evolution as a JoJo. Through two organist jobs, two nursing jobs, Christmases, Birthdays, Camps, and plenty of Disney Trips we’ve watched the grandies grow. But there were also lots of topics; I did interviews, reviewed every “Best Motion Picture” Oscar winner, went through my CD collection with comments, occasionally talked politics, often talked about Peace. There were some deaths, as well: Aunts Thelma, Almeda, and Shirley; Uncle Jr; my friends, NuNu, Lois, Chuck, and Beaver. I’ve taken you on lots of trips with us, kept you apprised of what’s growing in the garden, what birds are at the feeder, and sometimes just blathered.
Even though I upgraded my WP account, I have now very nearly filled up all the allotted media space for Sonnystone and for the garden blog, Growing Every Season, which I started around the same time. At first I thought I would do a whole lot of work to download and delete old posts, but I kept putting it off. The next upgrade costs quite a bit more money and is more for a monetized blog. I believe the voice that was saying “I’m done” meant that I’m done with this particular blog and the obligation that I feel to keep it going.
To give The News a proper send-off, I compiled a video of photos. In order to not make it an hour long, I concentrated on just the people, then had to pare it down more to mostly grandies growing up. The music that I chose is poignant; Over the Rainbow and Wonderful World by Iz, the wonderful Hawaiian artist. He speaks in one part, almost unintelligible, but he’s using two Hawaiian words: “kuleana” has multiple meanings, including “land divisions”, but represents your space or spirit; “pono” which means “to make correct” or “to make good”. So what he means is that kuleana pono is an “automatic plan”, that if you make your space, your spirit good, “stuff” is just waiting to come to you, waiting until you are ready.
It makes me kind of anxious to think of not blogging every week, so I remind myself that I’ll still be keeping up the ancestry blog, and our trips will still be recorded over at the travel blog. The fact is I need to let go and open my mind up to new things, especially regarding my writing. By letting go, I will open up my spirit for some of that “stuff” that has just been waiting until I’m ready.
Thank-you for following along with me. I have truly enjoyed your company. Now I’m taking one long look back, then turning out the light, closing the door behind me.
Peace
My babies are growing up. Each Camp has been precious, though every year included a new version of the children who I call my Grandies. Now ages 15, 13, 10, and 6, there’s still the Magic that being together brings, as we bask in the genuine Love that gets passed around amongst us.
(The original of this video was set to The Beatles “I Will”, but youtube put a big block on it. Verry interesting, since Disney has always let me use their stuff. Anyway, I had to change the music and I chose from their free audio.)
Peace
There is nowhere else I’d rather be than with my grandkids, so the last two weeks have been heaven. As usual, Camp Sonnystone 2021 was a rousing success. Our Word was Believe, and our Theme was Rainbows. We ate well, swam a lot, painted, made suncatchers, sang, danced, laughed and had a few tears just to keep it real. My daughter has been making regular posts to FB, but for my WP followers, here’s a few pictures.
I’m just beginning to work on a video and hope to share that with you next week.
Peace
We’ve been having a blast, you can be sure. The New Yorkers will be here one more week, so if you are a friend of mine or of Melissa, living near, give us a yell and come on by.
I’ll catch you up with a full report next week! For now, here’s us, sweaty but smiley, at Ellis Park last Friday…
Peace
Blather & Balderdash 