Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts

Monday, February 19, 2024

Going Backwards

When I was 5, my father had me and my brother in a vehicle when he stopped at a convenience store on Apperson Drive.

I don't recall what kind of car we had in 1968, but I want to say it was a Dodge Charger. At any rate, he left us both in the car while he went in to fetch whatever he was after.

In 1968 I suppose there were car seats, but we didn't use them. I don't think we used seat belts either, for that matter. Yes, I am of the generation that rode in the bed of the pickup truck, drank from water hoses, and lived to tell about it.

After my father hopped out of the car, my brother climbed into the driver's seat so he could pretend to be driving. I don't remember if the car was running, but I'm guessing my father left it in neutral and put on the parking brake. I think the parking brake was located where today most people would find a cup holder and a console.

Somehow my brother disengaged something, and the car started rolling backwards.

As in, out of a small parking lot and into a busy highway.

My brother seemed oblivious to what he'd done, but as soon as I realized the car was moving, I started to scream. That made him cry. I remember feeling terrified because while I didn't know how to stop the car, I knew we were in trouble and that if the car went into traffic, we would be hurt. I was screaming and crying and trying to get my brother out of the driver's seat while at the same time looking at the store where my father was. 

"Daddy, Daddy!" I screamed, all the while trying to tug my sobbing brother away from the steering wheel. Somehow, I managed to hit the car horn.

I don't know if he heard me, but I saw Dad look up and realize what was happening. He dropped whatever he had in his hands on the store counter and ran toward the car. I was still screaming when my father wrenched the door open and stuck his foot inside and on the brake. I was able to grab my brother then and pull him over to me in the front side passenger's seat.

It was a close call.

My father yelled at me for not stopping the car (like a 5-year-old is going to be anything other than scared to death in this scenario) as he got in the driver's seat, pulled the car back up, put it in park, and went back in to pay for his stuff. I imagine it shook him up a little, we were so close to rolling out into the road.

I'm also pretty sure he told us not to tell our mother what happened. I don't remember if I ever did.

Mostly I remember feeling so angry that he blamed me for something my brother did that the fear went away, to be replaced with a seething darkness. I couldn't tell him how unfair he was being - I did not have those kinds of words yet, or that kind of courage - nor could I take it out on anybody (except maybe my brother, but I was a good girl). Maybe I went home and beat up a Barbie doll. I don't recall. But this incident has always stood out in my mind as a fine example of unfairness tinged with total terror, and it comes back to me when I have the feeling that I'm going backwards in life instead of moving ahead.

I'm not really going backwards. Being sick for a month has set me back. I was doing more physically before I caught this respiratory thing, and now I'm going to have to work to build up my stamina again. I went to Food Lion today and it wiped me out. 

For some reason, though, my life does feel like I'm trapped in an uncontrolled vehicle slowing heading into traffic, with no idea how to hit the gas or the brake pedal because my legs aren't long enough.

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

So, This Was Christmas

We officially now have what I refer to as "old people's" Christmas. The children are grown, leaving only us older folks to gather around. The younger crowd is off doing their own thing, more or less.

So this was our "old people's" Christmas -

My stepmother and stepsister.

My father.

My husband (left) and my father.

My mother-in-law (left), stepmother, and stepsister.

I think my stepsister is giving me the eye while I snap photos.

My mother-in-law.

My brother's girlfriend and my niece. My niece is not an old
person, she is in college but was visiting her dad and came
over with him.

Somehow, I missed getting a picture of my brother. 

The family came in two waves; my father, stepmother, and stepsister came along around 2, and then my brother and his family came later. My mother-in-law spanned both visits, which, incidentally, took place on Christmas Eve.

At dark, I noticed my tree reflecting in the patio door.

My brother gave me a Lord of the Rings puzzle.

He also gave me a Royal Mint collector's coin that features Tolkien.

I gave my father a throw for the couch that had acoustic guitars on it, Dolly Parton's CD, and a book. I gave my stepmother a cape and some storage things. I gave my stepsister a gift basket that unfortunately had a lot of stuff in it she can't eat because I forget she's diabetic.

I gave my brother collector's edition books of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, along with a 3-D light of the Starship U.S.S. Enterprise and a Bendyfig of Captain Kirk. I gave his girlfriend a book that offers up daily spiritual sayings. I have a copy of the book and like it so I thought she'd like it. My niece received money.

My husband and I had our Christmas on Christmas Day. He gave me some guitar stuff and a new microphone to replace the one I have that has a short in it. I also received a couple of books and a package of Omaha meat.

I gave my husband clothes, mostly. And a kiss for good measure.

On Christmas Day, we also spent some time with my mother-in-law. My brother called to tell me that my niece had woke in the night with a sore throat and tested positive for Covid, so now we are all holding our breath to see if anyone gets sick. I need to check the CDC site for symptoms and incubation period. I hope no one becomes ill.

Somehow, I have managed to go this long with this being my first known exposure to Covid. Fingers crossed.



Saturday, November 18, 2023

We Made It!

Today is our 40th wedding anniversary!



Sunday, August 27, 2023

Happiness Challenge - Day 27

 

Today I ate a chocolate cupcake. It was big and it had a lot of chocolate on it, and it tasted very good.

It was much sweeter than I anticipated, too.

I may regret this later.

Anyway, I spent time with my father, brother, stepmother, brother's girlfriend, and husband for my stepmother's birthday this afternoon. I was polite and did not ask her age. :-)

I also was able to help someone out with some Word 2007 issues over the phone. That's a bit tough to do, but I managed.

Yay me.


***

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.

This meme comes from The Gal Herself.

Friday, August 25, 2023

Happiness Challenge - Day 25

 

A surprise package came in the mailbox.

My brother sent me two plastic jars along with a note telling me not to deny his brother-in-law his beloved pickles simply because he is clumsy

I had to laugh, as I had been researching plastic jars for pickles but hadn't yet made a purchase. My brother said he uses these for pickles. 

So I am happy that my brother thought enough of my husband to send him plastic jars for his pickles, and I had a good chuckle.


Tuesday, June 20, 2023

My Mother's Birthday

She would have been 79 years old today.

She died when she was 56 on August 24, 2000.


Mom about 1994

1966, with my brother

My mother and father, about 1996

Mom about 1950+

Mom in 1981. This is my immediate family
at my wedding. Mom, Dad, me, my brother.

Monday, June 05, 2023

He's All Grown Up

June is a big month for birthdays in my family, and today is my brother's turn.

Happy birthday, Brother!
My brother, age 8 or 9

I don't remember the day he came home, or my mother's pregnancy. I would have been two - almost three - when he was born.

He was a rascal from the start, though. My very first memory of him is this: when he started walking/crawling/moving around, he pushed a chair over to the counter, climbed up on it, and proceeded to eat an entire bottle of aspirin. 

I told my mother what I'd seen him do, and she whisked him off to the emergency room to have his stomach pumped. He was probably a year old. (I remember this because I was a hero for a day or so.)

Around the same time, a dog chomped on the leg of a very large stuffed doll that I loved, and my mother laid it next to the oven while she tended to other things. She was going to repair it. My brother, again with the chair, turned on the stove and set the doll on fire. We're lucky he didn't burn the house down.

When he was around 6, he took a pair of scissors to the hair on all of my dolls - including some old Barbies and a Midge that I wasn't supposed to play with because they'd belonged to my mother - and made them bald.

I imagine I made it difficult for him at school without meaning to - I was a straight-A student (and quiet and generally well-behaved) and he had to follow that legacy.

But those are old memories, and I want to talk about the wonderful man he has become. He raised three children - a stepson and two of his own. He runs a big company (yet still answers the phone when I call), and he is devoted to our father.

He likes to hunt and enjoys being in the woods, alone with his thoughts, I suppose. He also likes a good meal. He works very hard - too hard. He's always on the go, always doing something.
High School Senior

When my husband caught his hand in the hay baler, my brother stayed with me, brought us hamburgers when we tired of hospital food, and fixed the hot water heater for me when it broke the day I brought hubby home from the hospital.

He helped me out when husband had his ankle fused, and last summer when husband had his hip replaced. All I had to do was ask.

A few months ago, when I was having a problem, I talked to many people about it, but it was when I called him that I burst into tears and sobbed.

With his son, 1997
He's a caring fellow, and I have always loved him. So happy birthday, brother! (And yes, I know, you'll always be younger than me.)







In April 2023

Monday, May 15, 2023

At Least That Is Over

Mother's Day

I don't recall when I last dreaded a Mother's Day so much as this one. There was no reason to dread it, particularly, but it is not my favorite holiday anyway. I suspect my upcoming 60th birthday had something to do with it.

So, I stayed off of Facebook with its syrupy photos of happy mothers and adorable children who are now old, stodgy adults trying to rebuild a 20th century that hasn't existed for 50 years, and tried to ignore other aspects of the holiday as well. I did my part by ensuring my husband's mother received her due as matriarch, and gave my stepmother flowers, but otherwise, I was over this "holiday" before it even began.

It's no secret that my mother and I had a bad relationship. I have had trouble with this celebration ever since I was a teenager. Hallmark doesn't sell "I'm sorry I was born and ruined your life," cards. At least, not around here. Not in the hardware store where the Hallmark cards are now.

It doesn't help when the bank hands out presents to you without even asking if you're a mom. I guess they assume everyone with gray hair has children. But not all of us have moms, or had good moms, and not all of us have children.

There are women like me who have no mothers and no children, making us what, irrelevant?

Book Banning

On the local front, I hear through my line of contacts that the library board meeting last week was a doozy, complete with screaming, invasion of personal space, and possibly throwing things (I heard two different versions of that so let's just say something happened). Someone should have called the Sheriff's Office and asked for a deputy. I hope they do that next month.

The issue, at this juncture, is LBGTQ+ books in the children's section of the library, along with some other books that show how babies are made that narrow minds consider pornographic. I have only checked out one - the only one I can find that's available as an audiobook - and didn't find any issues with it.

Of course, I have no children, so I suppose some might say I have no dog in this fight, but to be clear, neither does the person who is causing most of the uproar. My dog in this fight is this - if I want to read a book, then I want it to be available or I want the library to order it for me so I can read it, and not be stifled by these Christian Nationalists who think anything that doesn't portray what they approve of shouldn't be purchased.

As if they are the only people in this county who pay taxes. Plenty of other folks who don't subscribe to their cult pay taxes, and we want our books.

Matters of the Heart

Tomorrow, I go to see a cardiologist. I have developed a new heart murmur and my doctor wants me checked out. She's been very helpful, saying things like, "Your blood pressure is at stroke level," and "You don't have to worry about getting dementia, you're going to die of a heart attack long before that happens."

She is trying to ensure I follow through and go see this person, I suppose. She doesn't have to try that hard. I am old enough to die, but I'd just as soon it not happen right away.

This first visit will likely just be a howdy-do and the cardiologist will listen to my heart and then order bloodwork and maybe an ultrasound to start. Maybe he will do an EKG since I haven't had one in 10 years. That would make sense.

The doctor my GP wanted me to see is not taking new patients, so I'm seeing someone I know nothing about, except for what I found on the Internet. He studied internal medicine at Carilion - VA Tech School of Medicine in 2014-2017, then went on to do heart stuff in Louisiana. He can't have been in practice very long, but perhaps that means he's current on all the new stuff. Some of the older doctors still do things like they did 20 years ago.

I am trying to be positive about it, but I don't do "positive" very well sometimes.




Tuesday, November 29, 2022

Toilet Paper Hair

My mother used to wrap her hair in toilet paper before she went to bed.

I don't know why this has come to mind, unless it's because I had a haircut yesterday. The image of my mother readying herself for bed, though, won't leave me, so I thought I'd write about it and see if that'd send the thoughts on their way.

At some point, she must have removed her makeup, because she put it back on every morning, but I have no memory of seeing her go through a removal process. I do remember watching her "put on her face," as she called it, many mornings. Or prior to going out on a Saturday night with my father.

She had freckles, and she used cover-up liberally, so I suspect she was rarely out of her face, and I wonder how frequently my father saw her without makeup, except for the occasional Saturday when she was more interested in having a housecleaning session than how she looked.

Her hair was teased within an inch of its life, for all of my life, anyway. Her hair was curly and if she didn't tease it, it rolled around itself in cute little ringlets. She might have had an interesting sexy cut with the right stylist, but she went to a woman named Jane who cut hair in her basement at least until I reached adulthood.

The toilet paper was to keep the tease from going flat in the night, although I have never understood this concept. How does wrapping your head in something for your bottom result in perfect hair the next morning?

She knew something I didn't, though, because most mornings, unless she washed her hair, all she had to do was push her hair around with a comb-like hair pick thing (I am as useless with fashion as I am with cooking), and poof, her hair looked as good as it had the day before.


Sunday, June 05, 2022

Happy Birthday, Brother!

Happy birthday to my one and only brother, and the best brother ever!






Wednesday, March 30, 2022

The Slap

I use my blog for many things - inspiration, a place to try out different techniques, videos, music, poems, etc. Sometimes it's like a journal, and that's especially true when I feel like things around me need to be remembered. This post is sort of a mix.

In the news these days, we have the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or Putin's war, as some are calling it. Ukraine has been valiant and held back the tides of Russian soldiers but is slowly giving way. President Biden is working with NATO, we've sent support, imposed sanctions, and performed other political feats aimed at stopping the Russian aggression in its tracks.

The former guy has called upon Russia to aid him in attacking President Biden. He still can't get over the fact that he lost the election in 2020. I don't care what Hunter Biden did or didn't do. President Biden hasn't placed his son within the Whitehouse and given him places of authority and power. The former guy put all of his adult children (except Tiffany) into places of power within the federal government. There is a huge difference there. What his children did actually impacted the United States because they were part of the government after his election. Hunter Biden is a nobody, except a president's son.

Additionally, the January 6 committee continues to smash away at the Republican insistence that the insurrection of that date was just a "tour" gone wrong, or however they're framing it. A federal judge yesterday released some paperwork that had been withheld to the committee and in doing so stating there was obvious obstructionism on the part of the former guy and obvious efforts to interfere with the electoral count process and obstruct Congress in its official duties. The noose tightens, but will it close fast enough?

Also, the Senate is on its way to confirming the first black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. Susan Collins (R) said today she would support the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson, meaning "bipartisan" support, even if she is the only Republican to vote yes. This still leaves the court wildly mismatched, although the Supreme Court should not be the political football it has become.

Locally, Virginia, now a red state with Governor Trumpkin at the helm (though the state senate remains blue), is looking at a late budget, which always holds up the process for the localities when it comes to sorting out school funding and other spending priorities. 

In the entertainment world, the big talk was about how Will Smith walked up the stairs at the Oscars and slapped emcee Chris Rock after Rock made a joke about Smith's wife. And this is what I will end up talking about.

Let me say I'm not a big fan of either Rock or Smith, though I've seen movies with both of them in it. Independence Day is one of my favorite movies, and Smith stars in it. I also like his movie Hitch. Rock I know more as a foul-mouthed comedian than an actor.

At any rate, my thoughts on this are many and varied. I do not condone violence.

The slap was obviously premeditated - Smith had a good walk before he reached Rock. He could have stood there and verbally insulted him, which though bad, would not have been as violent. Smith later said he was defending his wife.

And that, I confess, I admire. And envy. How many times in my life have I wished someone would have stood up for me?

Multitudes. 

How many times was I picked on at school, and no one stopped it (except perhaps a teacher stepping in, but not because it was me, but because she needed to get the class rolling). But my classmates did not step in.

I have had many instanced where people hurt me or laughed at me, or attacked me, even, and no one else stepped in. I felt marginalized and like I was nothing.

I can recount many, many times in my life when I needed someone to stand up for me, and no one did. Many of those times involved men being assholes.

People have helped me, but few have protected me. I have fought my own fights, as best I know, and as best I knew how. Maybe I am forgetting something, have misremembered a few incidents, maybe someone stuck up for me and I never knew about it. I secretly hope so.

With that in mind, I applaud Smith's defense of his wife. She has someone on her side who has her back. 

I don't applaud the way he went about it, but he did stand up for her.

We should all stand up for one another when we see wrongs happening. Everyone needs somebody in his or her corner.

(Ukraine needs someone in her corner right now.)

(This has been edited from the original.)

Wednesday, March 09, 2022

The Nephew's House

My nephew is getting closer to moving into his new home. Still some work to do, but construction is a long process and somewhat weather dependent.

The house is "across the way" from us. That's his house on the left.




This is a close up with the long lens of my camera. As you can see, on this day there were lots of workers there. Still yard work/landscaping to do and it looks like maybe the columns on the porch need to be installed. Not sure what's happening on the inside, but I know from when we built our house that the interior work seems to take forever.

It's a nice looking home. I like the white siding with the black shutters. Very classy.

I know he will be happy when he is moved in!

Friday, February 25, 2022

Things Going On

A mish-mash of things -

My husband's cousin passed away on Monday after a long bout of Covid. He spent some weeks on a ventilator before succumbing. The funeral is tomorrow. I have an earache and so will not attend. George was well known and a respected member of the community, so there will be a crowd. My husband looked upon his cousin like a brother. He will represent us at the funeral.

Russia invaded Ukraine yesterday, or I guess really Wednesday night. Many people see this as the first step in World War III. I think another world war will not look so much like the last two - this one will be fought with technology. Computer hacks, degradation of lifestyles, loss of the electric grid, downing satellites, plus drone bombings in various cities - those things I expect. This is not how I expected my senior years to play out, watching the world fall apart. But we all can only do what we can with the time given us and play our mostly insignificant roles therein.

Still, there are boots on the ground in the Ukraine, so traditional warfare also continues. I watched a video earlier of a Ukranian woman telling off a Russian soldier. She called him a fascist and gave him sunflower seeds to put in his pocket so they would bring up something beautiful when the soldier died. It was an intriguing notion, to bring something lovely from the destruction that was coming, or rather, has come, and continues to come. She also cursed them, not just with foul language but as in an actual curse or hex. As well she should.

For some reason, the video of all of the talented singers who participated in USA for Africa and sang We Are the World in 1985 popped up in my youtube feed, so I watched that. I remember when the song came out, how it much impact it had. I believe most radio stations agreed to play it at the same time, and the song was everywhere. I doubt we could ever have such a thing again. I will hope, though, because we are indeed the world, all of us, even those who are different in whatever way. We're all one, really, little grapes in the great vineyard of life. Some of us are purple, some are blue, some are withered raisins, some are squishy, some are seedless. I hope I'm a Concord grape. They're my favorite. I haven't had any in a long time. They're hard to find. My husband's grandmother used to grow them, but I don't know of anyone who grows them now.

At my age, I am still learning life's hard lessons. One of these is trust. I trust people to do the right thing. To do what they say they're going to do. To not hurt me. To be kind. To be nice. And guess what? I'm wrong to do that. I should trust no one. This morning's lesson came to me via a video game I play. It's a city building game called Elvenar. Not a war game, or a shot people game. A game where you trade goods to create new buildings and advance through a research tree. It's the first, only, and will be the last multiplayer game I have ever played. In this game, you have fellowships. You can have 25 people in your fellowship. Some of these people I have been playing with for five years. You do get to know people a little over that period of time. I am the archmage of my fellowship, which means I'm the leader. I can promote people to mage. My mages are the people I've come to feel are trustworthy.

This morning, I woke to find one of them had violated that trust. I have a chart on my google drive where I keep track of various things in the game - players have goals to meet, for example - and I'd given the chart to three of my mages. This morning, when I went to the chart to update it, someone had turned the thing into a garish, difficult-to-read document. I copied it over so I would be the only one with the link and then had to spend about 45 minutes trying to get it back to the way it was. It upset me so much that I cried. I also left a message for my three mages, and I let whoever had done this know that I was not happy. I demoted the fellow I think did it, and if he confesses (which is doubtful), I will throw him out of the fellowship. 

At any rate, I think I am done with the game. It takes time, but I enjoyed it. It kept me thinking and was an exercise in patience and creativity, because one really had to give thought to the goods and how to keep things equalized, and suddenly not have more planks than marble or whatever. I shouldn't have to give up something I enjoy because of someone else, but I have found that to be the story of my life.

It is no wonder I have about given up on people in general.

Too bad I can't give myself a hug.

Wednesday, December 01, 2021

Happy December!

Here we are, 24 days away from the big day now! Christmas is coming whether one wants it or not.

Thinking back, I can't say that I have a favorite Christmas. As an adult, the two that stand out are the first two I spent with my husband. The first we were dating; the second we were married.

His first Christmas present to me was a pair of cowboy boots. They were the rage at the time. I gave him a sweater jacket.

I don't remember the presents of our second Christmas, only the feeling of waking up to my own tree in my own home with my husband of just over a month in the room beside me. Then it became a whirlwind as we visited my parents and then his, then grandparents, too, all in the same day. We ended that as soon as possible, visiting my family on Christmas Eve and his on Christmas Day. Too much running around for me all in one day.

My childhood Christmas memories tend toward watching. Watching my brother open his presents. Watching the interactions between my parents. Watching the tree, the lights twinkling. Watching the pile of presents grow. Watching my mother wrap things. Watching to see where the toys that "Santa" would place under the tree might be hidden. (I did not always find them.)

My brother and I played with some of the decorations and having great adventures with them. We had an ornament we called Santa Mouse that my brother and I played with, using him as the hero, dashing off in his sleigh to solve whatever we could come up with. Saving Barbie from Johnny West or delivering those little green Army men to the poor underdeveloped Ken to shore up his self-esteem. Whatever.

My brother always received the better presents - the guy things. Electric trains, Lego sets, Erector sets. I received girl stuff - dolls, clothes, makeup mirrors. I am not and never have been a girly girl, so I always coveted my brother's more manly gains. Fortunately, when we were alone and not bothered by other children, we generally played well together although of course there were lots of brother and sister arguments. Young children always have them.

I remember snow at Christmas, something we seldom see now. I remember sleds and toboggans that we used to race down the hill. I remember riding like lightning down a hillside and crashing into a frozen cow pile and nearly knocking myself silly when I hit it, and the laughter from my companions, who at that time would have been my brother and the Stewarts and maybe a couple of Lees.

My father once brought home these snow pans. They were an invention and he wanted to see how they worked. He gave them to my brother and I and told us to go play with them. He watched while we fell down and sat on them and generally could not figure out how to use them. He decided not to invest in them, I think. In my mind, they were the precursor to the snow board. They apparently weren't, but I wonder if that man ever took his invention elsewhere and did something with it. I don't know. But I'm afraid one could not have found a klutzier person to test such a thing on than I. I generally spent more time on the ground than I ever did on things like skates or skies.

The first day of December arrives with bleak gray. I don't know how much of that is cloud and how much is smoke from a major fire on Pilot Mountain in North Carolina.  It appears to be a combination of both. It is not overly chilly, though. It's just cold enough to let everyone know that winter is on the way.

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Now I'm Vintage

My brother found these vintage aerial photos of some of the places I've lived.

The first is the house my husband and I lived in from 1984 to 1987.


This is the house I lived in from 1976 to 1983, when I married.


This is the house I lived in from about 1974 to 1976.


None of them look like this now, and would be hard to find in the rolls of film unless you know what you're looking for. I like the middle photo because it has my husband's old truck and my Pontiac T-1000 in the picture; apparently, we had both our vehicles there the day the picture was taken.


Monday, November 01, 2021

Under Roof

Last week, my nephew's house construction continued as the builder installed the roof.

The roof trusses were put in place with a crane.

It picked up each truss and then swung it over to the house.

The waiting men would lower it into place and affix it to the house frame.

This is the house roof after the trusses had all been installed. Gives one a much better idea of
what the house will look like.

This is the roof after the building put down the wood over the rafters and covered that with a material
that is supposed to help with leaks and things. They used to use felt before they put down the
shingles, but now they use this shiny stuff. I'm not sure what it is.


Saturday, October 30, 2021

Congratulations Trey and Valerie!

My nephew married today! Congratulations to him and his bride, Valerie!



Wednesday, October 20, 2021

The Nephew's House Has Walls



This has taken a long time to reach this point - but the nephew's house is underway, finally. I know he needs to move in as quickly as possible with a new little baby boy and a precocious two-year-old in the four-room house he lives in now.

I hope he and his family are always happy when they move into their new home.


Friday, October 15, 2021

Family Gravestones

While my father was on vacation in California, I asked him to take photos of the headstones of relatives as he said he was going to be visiting cemeteries.

These are the photos he texted me, and I'm putting them here to keep track of them.

Notice anything odd?

I was first struck by the lack of grass, then realized this is quite the indicator of the drought
and fire conditions in the western USA.

My father's oldest brother.

My grandfather.

My father's sister. I never met her in person and only ever talked with her on the phone.

My grandmother.


Friday, August 27, 2021

August 27 Happiness Challenge

This evening I went out to eat with my family. It was the first time I'd been inside a restaurant to eat since March 2020.

There were few people around us so I felt comfortable without my mask. We had a nice visit to celebrate my stepmother's birthday. 

We ate at Coach and Four, which is where my husband proposed to me in July of 1983. They even still have the same booth! I should have taken a picture.

For my family to get together and not have yelling and screaming is unusual, but this time we were all very polite and had a really nice time. So it can be done! We can get together and act normal.

It was also a relief to eat somewhere besides my house or in the car in the parking lot of a restaurant. Unfortunately, the way the Covid numbers are climbing, I suspect it will be a while before we return to any semblance of normal.

But at least we had one evening out. Also, Dad paid!





Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.