Mother of Five
Thoughts and pondering of a mom with five grown up kids.
Friday, February 14, 2025
A bit of a ramble
Friday, February 7, 2025
Coffee
We have been using a Keuric coffee for years. In fact we are on our second full size coffee maker and we have a one cup size on that we bought in Maine to use at Austin;s house. The one from Maine is red. It lives in our basement now.
Nick and I were talking about how nice it would be to have a fresh brewed cup of coffee from a percolator. Well, it turns out that we do (or did) have a percolator. It must be close to 50 years old. Maybe even older.
Since our son Chance works at Starbucks, he gets a pound of coffee every month I think. There are a couple of bags of ground coffee sitting around. I decided that I would make a pot of "real" coffee with the percolator instead of with pods. Let me tell you- it was terrible! Probably the worse coffee I ave ever tasted. There could be any number of factors: dirty pot, too old to work well, or maybe we forgot what percolated coffee tastes like. Needless to say, we no longer have a percolator!
NOT good to the last drop!
Tuesday, February 4, 2025
And...it's February!
Just about every evening I tell myself to sit down and blog. The I get distracted by Facebook, email and anything to do with yarn and knitting. And then I am just too tied to write anything.
On January 29th, just last week, there was a tragic midair collision between a commercial jet preparing to land at National Airport and a helicopter that crashed into the plane. All 67 people were killed. The last of the bodies were recovered today. The wreckage is still being brought out of the river.
Sunday, January 26, 2025
A memory from th 1980s
This is the first La Leche League Group that I led in 1983. I am still in touch with many of these moms- all of whom are now grandmothers! Chiang Mai, Thailand.
My husband is a retired US Foreign Service Officer. Our first tour was Bangkok, where my daughter was born in 1978. I was fortunate enough to study Thai with my husband (we did not have kids yet). We were in Bangkok from 1976-78. Then home to VA for a year, then off to Poznan, Poland from 1979-81. My son, Morgan was born during that tour but I returned to Virginia for his birth. In 1981, when Morgan and Courtney were 6 months old and 3 years old, we went to Chiang Mai for two years. There's more but I don't want to take up too much space. Suffice it to say I have 5 children born in 4 countries.
Friday, January 24, 2025
It's been so cold out!
It really has been cold. Too cold. I love snow. It is so beautiful and clean and pure. But right now while I am having such problems and pain in my knees I am afraid to walk in the outdoors right now. And also, much of it has melted and re-frozen so it's ice.
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.
I don't think I have actually ever had a "syndrome" before. I know that the main issue I am having is with my knees. They hurt. They feel swollen. When I stand up from sitting I go slow because my knees hurt.
Yesterday morning when i got up, everything seemed to hurt. My hip, my shoulders, my neck and oh yeah, my knees. I sat with a heating pad for a while- shifting it to the areas that needed it most at any given moment. Once I took medicine (Ibuprofen or Aleve) I feel a lot better.
I am doing my physical therapy exercises. I don't know if they make me feel better, but they don't make it worse. And I am afraid that if I don't move enough it will get worse.
I am confident that I will get better. It will just take time. I have been tempted to ask the doctor for some stronger pain medications like Tramidol or Oxycontin, but, while they do help, I think I am managing alright at the moment.
I wear my compression socks as much as I can stand to- which is a lot. Otherwise my legs get swollen.
As soon as all of the ice and snow are gone and I feel safe, I will start going for short walks with Nick by my side.
Saturday, January 18, 2025
Lifted from Facebook
I am currently reading a book about slavery in America and this came up on Facebook. I had to share it here: