Class Reunions - Love Them, or Hate Them

Well, I have been out of high school since 1968 and after avoiding the reunions for years I am getting brave and will be attending mine this summer.  It's funny because I haven't been afraid to see some people, or upset because some that I would love to see won't come, or are gone.  So why has it taken so long to even want to go again?  For me it is a lot about who I am now and a great deal about who I was then.  I was always trying to fit in, and though I may have seemed unafraid to many I knew - I wasn't.  In fact it has taken me many years to gain that confidence I pretended to have back then.  (I mean I did so much - drama, talent show, and just put myself out there!)

Confidence comes from a secure knowledge that you are loved and cared for, and I know I'm not alone when I say I know I wasn't.  But life has changed and I have grown stronger and in many ways more curious about what those around me during those hard times in high school were really like.  I am going to the reunion this year.  Not because I am unafraid, but more because I want to know some of those people now.  (I already know one and want to know her better!!  :-)

December Moon

The moon is veiled tonight and it seems to have a lace mantilla over its glowing face that simply adds to the beauty of the night. Tonight is is filled with a puffy light snow that glitters in that same moon glow and looks quite like a painting filled with mystical light.  

I am away from home again spending time with my grandpup, McCarty and am enjoying the quiet and peace with a large mug of hot chocolate.  These nights around the Christmas Holiday always seem magical when it snows so lightly that the moon can peek through and gaze down on our world. 

Winter is a problem for many who must get out and battle the roads to get to work, and though I am one of them too somehow it does more to fill me with a real sense of wonder that slows my usually harried daily life and seems to bring winter’s gentle breath, and my own to a much slower pace.  

We’ve not had much snow thus far this winter so tonight is a gift for one who relishes the time to curl up in a chair and knit, or read a good book.   My projects for Christmas are done and though the craft projects for spring birthdays have just been begun I haven’t a lap full of things to finish knitting or bookmarks to cross stitch that must have an “i” to dot or a “t” to cross.  It’s not quite a lazy time, but a more tranquil one where I can contemplate the snowfall, the quiet, and a hazy moon that begs to be gazed on longingly.  

Oh, that the New Year might bring the same peaceful times to cover my cares with such a blanket of a white and to find a solitude and stillness under during the busy times of daily living.

Words, Words, Words...

Not many of us write them anymore, even in school.  

But I have to say we have no short amount of them to share in person, of through the short hand version used today called texting.  But I think somehow many of us have lost the history of our lives without letters to distant family that includes the daily grind, and beauty, or hand writing a journal, diary, or a simple thought journal.  

Much of our young country’s history has come from journals and those everyday writings of important and normal people, and some has even come from those old ledgers that told the story of businesses or difficult times in family lives.  

That really makes me wonder where will we find those pieces that historically paint who we are for coming generations.  

I think part of the answer may come from the blogs that pepper the internet today, especially those that tell of life and all it’s everyday craziness of our 21st century!

Are there other ways that may bring our daily history to future generations? Probably.  After all, we’re constantly recreating ourselves and our lives, so why not!!

(P.S.  One of my favorite blogs is real, sometimes gritty, but always so well written!  Here it is, I hope you can check it out!  Expat From Hell // BlogCatalog )

Climbing

If you click on the picture you will get a bigger view of the face
of the Rock of Cashel.  You will also see on the left the older boy
that we saw climbing the face.

Watching the Rock was a diversion as we boarded the bus and waited for our driver.   I was one of many that spotted the brick that surrounded  what looks like a door arch, with no door of course.  Between the rocks and brick we all thought it was quite steep to try to climb.   What had all of us captivated after a little while was two boys  who were climbing the Rock's face that day.  (I did capture the older boy here on the left of my picture.)  Personally, I was more than a little nervous for these young fellows who scaled the rocks toward the summit like small mountain goats so skillfully and slowly.  

I have wondered since then....did their mother (mothers?) know where they were?  And that gave me thought of my own boys when they were growing up.  

I wonder how many times they did frightening things I didn't know about.  Which added to my personal consternation.  And then a thought came to me - how many angel hands must support our children all the places they go as they climb toward adulthood?

Oh, Bother...

After what seems to be an eternity I have a connection for my keyboard - again.  You see I only have had a keyboard with a very black screen and no computer.  It's a long story.  Simply put I lost my old friend in a lightening strike on Memorial Day.

I bought a new(er) tower for a few days thanks to my son and a local computer store, that is until it's old owner came back to haunt my screen with boxes filled with "didn't save," and "lost files."  So the black tower was taken from me and returned from whence it came - for repairs, erasure and other corrective surgeries.

Today it returned strangely different, and yet somehow the same.

I'm relearning some things, and finding my way through the Alice like world that is like my old computer - but isn't as well.  I only have a Swiss cheese folder for my files these days.  The computer seems to be taking forever to find each rabbit hole that holds what files are there...I've lost so many since the accident.

Maybe a blank slate is better than nothing, but I certainly miss my old blather.  Hopefully, I will return to the real me soon, but until then I shall play with the words and pop in and out with my own elegant and colorful Cheshire Cat online.

Cheshire Cat: You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself.

A Celeration of Life, and Music

My mother-in-law was the last of my husband and my parents alive.  She died on May 30th at 90 years old.  Today we celebrated her life in the music of her grandchildren.  She was a piano teacher for 30 years, and played that and the harpsichord for years.  It was a real celebration of her and the legacy of music that has permeated the family for more years than I cam count.

She tried to teach me piano when I was in my late 30s, but it didn't take with me.  Though I can sing, the piano was way too confusing!  But on rainy afternoons when I visited we use to sit at the piano and while she played I would sing along with almost every song that had words. She knew I loved the old gospel songs, and the Big Band music from the 30s and 40s and her memorized repertoire of songs was huge!

I grew to really appreciate her gift over the years and though only the girls of the family had the gift for music, we all got to experience in the generation of the grandchildren the gifts of music that were passed on.  Today there is a concert level pianist, who teaches music as well; a violinist who is really phenomenal; and another granddaughter who teaches piano and has a voice like an angel.  Actually all 21 of her grandchildren love music, and many play piano or guitar simply for their own enjoyment, as do two of her daughters as well.

There are 15 great-grandchildren of varying ages who were exposed to her love of music, and two more on the way by the end of the summer.  We really all are anticipating her cherished gift of music will continue and sprout from these children's music loving homes in the coming years as well.

Thank You

Our computer got fried when lightening struck our cable, phone and internet provider's connector to our house.  We lost the computer, and were without phone service except for one lone cheap cell phone.  And it's funny...because I should be frustrated or very angry over what happened with my computer and all the gadgets that are connected or get "fed" off that hard drive, but I'm not.  I am angry about having to put out over $300 to get a new computer and back online as well as back to all that I do with my computer, but I'm certainly not at people that were involved.

Let me explain.  The young man at the computer store also went above and beyond to help me find a very good used computer. But this whole mess killed all the capabilities to Hot Sync my Palm and I had to call Tech Support this afternoon.  I was on the phone for over 2 hours, and it did cost me $40 to get it fixed because it was out of warranty but the gentleman I spoke with was so patient.  The call was of course handled offshore so we had to work at understanding each others English.  He actually gave more time and energy than he needed to to help my simple old Palm, and in the end he totally solved the problem.  His kindness and willingness to talk me through what I needed to do was really great.  

 I'm learning that nasty things continue to happen - and our family seems lately to be more prone than some to have almost everything go wrong, when it can...but in all the muck there are gifts like this kind of service that make it if not worthwhile at least very bearable.

I have a thought.  What makes all the messes of life worth living through is the people, the new friends who cross our paths to lift us up during those difficult times.

Thank you to David Anderson at Palm Support (No that isn't his real name I'm sure.).  He was a gift to me this day. A gift of laughter and expertise beyond anything I have every experienced before.

New Computer...

Well, I will be a bit behind for a while because the day before yesterday our internet, phone and TV provider's link here at home got struck by lightening and my old computer got totally fried.  I had three posts that I was working on but hadn't downloaded yet and they're gone, as are more than half of my pictures because I hadn't yet saved them to my external harddrive yet.  My external harddrive survived with much of my stuff thank goodness!

The really good news is I have a new (used) computer that has five times the space that the old one and it's about five years newer than the old one too...but I am having to down load all by bookmarks from the hard copy, and all that is needed for me to operate as well.  So I will be spending the next few days re-entering what I have in hard copy and downloading what I can from disk that I have. 

I am thankful to be back and will be writing again really soon!

Seasons

Usually spring makes a quiet entrance here,
Unlike the month of March
Which marches through like a lion...
or a lamb.

April creeps in with the rains
And brings an explosion of colors
That leans toward the sun.

May brings pale green crape paper-like leaves
that unfold at the end of branches as they
Reach for the sun.

I love the newness of the season.

Something's Comin', Something Good!

The winter is still haunting us here, but I'm feeling a change of seasons pushing against us here in Michigan each day now so I'm not too worried. Hey even the last snow storm was more water than snow! I feel like Spring is really breathing down winter's neck and since Even the ground has the softness that means the time for digging in the earth and creating my flowery beauty is coming.

I actually walked around the garden today and through the snow piles and stalks of last year’s flowers and in my imagination I saw images of the layers of flowers in the garden taking shape. I have huge lists of new flowers and plants that I hope to plant in all the areas of my little triangle garden. I am going to give a real piece of beauty here on our little plot on five lanes of fast.

I’m getting ready to start gardening see that winter season turn to spring time. I’ve had an amaryllis bulb that has pushed itself to the max this year and with intensely green leaves. They haven’t had too many flowers, but they’ve given me a touch of the outdoors in the depths of winter this year. They’ve been wonderful, but I am ready for those daffodils to bloom and everything to turn green around the yard. Is anyone else ready for springtime?

Front Porch Reflections

What made a front porch special? You know, that place where many shared with each other and reached out to those on the street with stories and recipes that brought in the world around them. In my grandmother's time it was special because you spent summer evenings cooling off after hot days kibitzing with the neighbors as they walked past, or if you lived close enough, from porch to porch. You shared the day, and family events and sometimes it was simply a time for quiet reflections of the day or even the week as the moon rose high in a summertime sky.

It was a time that families sat together, something that is often not possible in this age of overworked parents and over involved kids. I'm trying to recature that feeling of letting go and enjoying the natural world around us, along with friends and family rocking over floors that held tight the imprints of many rocker foot prints that were gentley worked into the long pinewood floors of those old neighborhood porches.

So how can we put into words what such a small part of a home could create for many families and often for whole neighborhoods that comfort zone where trust was a way of life, and family often meant all who lived nearby on the street.

So what made that experience and the memories that were made of that time an anchor in many a childhood, and it gave many a framework for what became a tight knit family grouping in that period in history.

One Bad Day

Another crazy day. Do you ever feel like there are times in your life where you cannot do anything right? Today was one of those nasty days and I felt like I was saying, "it is okay, you did not do it to hurt anyone because that's not who you are," or, "you really did the best you could." all day over one thing after another. Those kind of days make for a re-run in my head that is stuck on the troublesome events all night long.

I hate those kind of nights! Hauntings by those ghosts of my day are no fun, and it is hard to change the station when they're on screen re-running through your mind every few minutes. I'm working at turning them off one by one, but there is always one that plays hard to get.

Here's to a better day tomorrow.

Blessings

It's happened again, the third has done more than haunt us in recent weeks - my husband fell on the ice and smashed the bones in his elbow. After many pieces were removed, and the doctor re-attached the tendon he ended up in a plastic formed splint, and finally we're back home.

No definite prognosis as to how much range of motion and strength he will have, but he's home and that by itself is a real blessing.

Scary Storms

Sheets and sheets of rain and 1/4 inch hail; winds up to 64 MPH (Up to 90 MPH just 20 miles North of us!); the inability to see anything but the tree just outside of my kitchen window - this was the way my Wednesday unfolded. It was really a bit frightening to feel the house shiver from the winds and not know what, if any, damage was being done.

After almost two hours of wave upon wave of huge storms we are settling down to simply a soft, quiet rain. We got well over 2 inches in a really short length of time and I know our basement will have wet floors tomorrow so I've turned the dehumidifier on high and will leave the rest of the mess until morning - I simply will not worry about that until tomorrow.

Bad weather has become a huge part of our area of late, but it's really all part of living in this mitten called Michigan. I am thankful for the quiet gentle rain now, and will rest better knowing the storms of today are over.

On the Road Again...

Today I was caught in a car with four other people on a 45 minute ride to a neighboring city...in a car that was first cold to make us comfortable, and then hot to clear the windshield. Oh, and did I add that it was pouring too and we got pretty wet getting from the car to the party? Needless to say the beginnings of my day were interesting.

But once we got to our destination it cleared, and we found a lovely garden where we mingled with others to rather beautiful chamber music in a lovely little park.

Funny how two such different experiences could exist in the same day, but they did and it happens every day in many of our lives. I prefer to think these little messes happen so we can really appreciate the beautiful!!! Hope your day was as great as mine! :-)