Tired Tuesday

Busy day I guess.  I went to my weekly Starbucks Breastfeeding Cafe', and sat ,and talked with nursing moms.   I do love to watch the babies getting bigger and the new ones join the group as the "older" ones leave when Mom goes back to work.

I made a home visit to help a mom with some breastfeeding issues.  The baby was so perfect, and small.  Less than 5lb at full term.   Hard to believe that Chance was close to that size once upon a time.  I spent two hours with this nursing couple.   I love it when I can get the mom to laugh from the sheer surprise and joy at what her baby and her body can accomplish with the correct support and information.  Being a new mom is so frightening, and so joyful and so complicated and so easy.   It is a real gift that I can help, and a gift that these women allow me in to help them.  They trust me and I do my best for them.

It's the end of November and there are Christmas decoration out already.  Actually, they help brighten up the short days. 

I need to send out an email about our holiday party.  It's always the same information for the Yankee gift exchange, but I always send it so nobody gets confused or forgets.  We are having the dinner/ party on December 9th this year.  Just a week and a half away.  Lots to do before then to get the house ready.   It will get done.

Went to the gym yesterday.  I can feel the muscles I used.  I go again tomorrow. It makes me feel good and also a bit smug- though I am nowhere near the point of being asked to be a model for a sports clothing catalog!  (never will be!)

Silly dog is barking at silly cat right now.  Woof woof (dog) growl, meowl (cat).

It;s not even 8PM and I am in my pajamas!  Thank goodness Nick cooked dinner.  I am too pooped to pop!

Almost ready

So, here it is, Saturday.  the day we are going to my mother in law's to celebrate Thanksgiving.

I got up at 6:00 this morning.  Stuffed the turkey and now it is in the oven.   Nick pealed 10lb of potatoes.  They are cooked and mashed.  Carrots are cooked.

Took the dog out several times.  Good dog.

Watched local news for a while.  Set the machine to record a show about quilting.  I don't even know how to quilt, but I am fascinated by the idea of learning one day soon.

Going back to bed for a couple of hours.  Maybe my pimples will be gone when I get up for the day!

Hope we remember to take the After Eight Mints!

Thanksgiving, the holiday that keeps on giving

Yesterday didn't really feel like Thanksgiving.  That's because we have not really done the turkey thing yet.  We are going to celebrate with my mother in law and other family at my MIL's place.  Tomorrow.

Meanwhile, three pies are baked- two pumpkin and one pecan pie.  Bread for stuffing was made and cubed yesterday.  Today I will make the stuffing.   I also got the gravy done yesterday.

Now I have to figure out when I need to get up tomorrow morning in order to stuff and cook the turkey.

I am so tired today.  The puppy slept with us last night, which was fine.  But when I got up to go to the bathroom I thought it would be a good idea to take Buddy out too, which it was.  Thing is, I never went back to bed- which I had planned to do.  Oh well.

I am also sore from working out at the gym on Wednesday after a week away.

I wish I could nap easier.  Sometimes I just sort of fall over on the sofa when I am watching TV and go to sleep.  If I lie down and try to go to sleep, I usually don't.

And my sciatica hurts.

Fiddle dee dee!

Let us Give Thanks

Let Us Give Thanks - Max Coots

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people:

for children who are our second planting, and, though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are.

Let us give thanks:

for generous friends … with hearts  .. smiles as bright as their blossoms;

for feisty friends as tart as apples

for continuous friends, who, like scallions and cucumbers, keep reminding us that we've had them;

for crotchety friends, as sour as rhubarb and as indestructible;

for handsome friends, who are as gorgeous as eggplants and as elegant as a row of corn,

and the others, as plain as potatoes and as good for you;

for funny  friends, who are as silly as Brussels sprouts and as amusing as Jerusalem artichokes, and serious friends, as complex as cauliflowers and as intricate as onions;

for friends as unpretentious as cabbages, as subtle as summer squash, as persistent as parsley, as delightful as dill, as endless as zucchini, and, who, like parsnips, can be counted on to see you through the winter;

for old friends, nodding like sunflowers in the evening-time, and young friends coming on as fast as radishes;

for loving friends, who wind around us like tendrils and hold us, despite our blights, wilts and witherings;

and, finally, for those friends now gone, like gardens past that have been harvested and who fed us in their times that we might have life thereafter;

for all these we give thanks.

Dr. Phil made me cry

I was watching Dr Phil this afternoon and talking to the TV as he tried to straighten a fighting family out.

He said that he has buried both of his parents and that Robin (his wife) has buried both of her parents too.

It just pounced out at me-I have buried both of my parents too.  The tears just bounced out of my eyes.   I felt so sad that I don't have them in my life any more.

Thanksgiving is so much about being together with family.  We will be together; Nick and I and some of our kids and Nick's mom and sister and so on.   And I am happy that we have them.   I just miss what I don't have any more.

Of the four people in this picture, I am the only one still alive.

There are more pictures of us all together.  Just not loaded on my computer.   My family of origin.   All gone but my sister and I.  I am the youngest.  the baby with the perfectly round head!

It's getting to be that tme of year again!

Thanksgiving is almost here.  Just two more days in fact.  But we are celebrating on Saturday like we did  last year.  We will prepare most of the meal here in our kitchen and my sister in law will prepare the rest in her kitchen.  Then we all meet at my mother in law's apartment to feast together.  Much easier to take a meal to a 95 year old than to bring her to the meal.

And so, I have started to write lists.  Yes, I am one of  those people who likes to write lists.  And then I get to check things off as I get them done.

Here's what I have written so far:
Tuesday (today)
Lactation Consultation at 11:00am
Breastfeeding Cafe' at Starbucks 1:00-3:00

Wednesday:
Gym 12:30
Nails done 4:00

Thursday:
Make gravy
Make bread for stuffing

Friday:

Make pies (2 pumpkin and one pecan)
Make stuffing

Saturday:
Get up early and stuff the turkey and put it in the oven
Peal potatoes
Leave for Alexandria by 11:30

Somewhere in there I hope to get to Weight Watchers too.

In the meantime, I bought a photo calendar package from Amazon- five calendars for a very good price.  I spent over an hour thinking I was loading pictures onto the page so I could make my calendars.  When I went to place them in the right places on the calendar, they were not there.  So, now I have to load the picture again and start over.  Oh well, not the end of the world, just one more thing.

And then there's Christmas!  Yikes! We are hosting a Christmas party.  Deep breath.  I will get through this.  I love this.  Oh yeah!

This is the kind of stuff that makes it so hard for me to shut off my brain and sleep at night.

I have sewing and knitting projects I want to work on and have not written them into any schedule.  Many of those things can be done while I sit and watch TV in the evening.  But I have to figure out what it is I am going to work on and have the supplies at hand.

It's after midnight.  I am going to do a little more work on my calendars and then, off to bed so I can wake up in the morning and start another happy day!

Do you believe in ghosts? I do.

Ok, now, if you know me and you are reading this you have just decided that I have lost it completely.  I have believed in ghosts for a very long time.  I'm not sure how long really.

First off, let's define "ghost".   Most definitions say that a ghost is an apparition, or an illusion.  An irrational belief in something that is not there.   A spirit of a dead person that can be seen.

So, I may not believe in that kind of ghost.  My ghosts do have the spirit of people who have been at a place before.  The fact that their hand has touched something that your hand is touching for instance.

When I traveled to Norway in 1997, I stayed at the Kjorrefjord in Norway at the farm where my grandfather was born, grew up and ultimately, returned to and died.   I walked through the hills and climbed the trees, trying to imagine him there doing the same.  He died before I was born.   He died before any of his grandchildren were born.   He left Oregon and went home to Norway in 1939.

I digress.   My definition, or feeling of what a ghost is, is this;  it is the presence of someone who was there and is not there any more.  It is feeling the presence of that life.  Not in a spiritual/ religious was, but in the way a mother knows her baby is about to cry.  It is a connection of sme sort that I have really not found words for yet.

Today I visited the Mariners Museum in Newport News, Virginia.   As I looked at the exhibits of old ships and boats and read about them, I could imagine the people who had the experiences I was reading about. I know that when someone is gone- dead, they are gone.  But, no matter how long they have been gone, or how long they lived, they did exist and left themselves on earth.  Some way, somehow.  They may have left a finger print or other physical evidence of their life.  They may have left children.  They may have left property.  They may have left nothing but their bones or their ashes.  But they were here.  Occupying the same space we occupy.

And, in my own way, I met lots of ghosts today.

My biggest surprise was meeting a ghost that was a part of my personal life history.   While looking at some large scale models of ships, I came across a model of the SS America.  We crossed the Atlantic Ocean on our way home from Afghanistan, in 1961.   I was only 7 years old, so not old enough to do a lot of exploring on the ship, but old enough to remember it.

Somewhere I think I have the menus and pictures of my parents and my brother, sister and myself aboard the ship.   It was the last overseas tour my dad had.  We went first class and I know that my mother loved it.    The crossing has become a part of family lore.  Except, most of the family that I was a part of back then is gone.  Both of my parents and my brother have died.   Only my sister and I are left to reminisce about the "good old days".

And so I live with my ghosts.  The week of my life spent aboard the SS America has lasted in my memory for over 50 years.  What a glorious time.  What a glorious ship.    I took pictures to show my sister when I get back home.

I looked at pictures of the ship as a wreck being dashed by the ocean.  I am shocked and sad.   My dream ship is dead too.  But it lives on as a ghost for me to cherish.