It’s A Wonderful Life

 Here we are, starting a new year, 2024. The one just passed was, as always, a mixture of good things and bad things. A year where carefully made plans flew out the window to be replaced by short notice, illnesses, home improvements and social occasions. There was also some loss, close calls, confusion, and just generally all the things that lives are made up of. 2023 was fast paced, ever changing and bittersweet. I think most years are that way when we look back on them. Through it all, I try to keep my chin up and move forward. Although my heart may be heavy and fears trying to take over my thoughts, I have a determination to make it through and find something positive to focus on. I don’t always succeed, but with the help of family and friends I generally find my way through.

Also, I am thinking about things I have done differently in 2023. Here are a few of them:

— My husband and I do the grocery shopping together since he retired early in the year. I used to go alone and sometimes I still do, but us going together is now the norm.

— I eat cheese curls with a toothpick to keep my hands clean. Funny, right? I did it by accident one day, I had a toothpick holding a sandwich together and when I took it out it stuck in a cheese curl on my plate. It was a delightful revelation for me as I always ended up needing to scrub the orange dust off my fingers after indulging in those delightful crunchy salty morsels.

— I planted fewer flowers in pots last summer. It’s a lot of work and I found that I was just as happy with less, and the upkeep was less taxing.

— I stopped chasing friends. I realized that I do not have to be the planner. If friends want to get together I usually will, but I let them initiate most of the time. It’s much less frustrating to let them decide when there is time in their schedules since mine is pretty open. That’s not to say I ignore them unless they contact me, communicating is a 2 way street, after all, I just prefer for them to let me know when their schedules allow for us to meet.

— I returned to my church after many years of staying away. I was delighted and moved that I was welcomed back by many familiar faces and joined a bible study group. It’s nice chatting with different yet familiar people on a more regular basis. 

All of these things remind me that it is truly a wonderful life. I wonder what 2024 will bring?

Oh Spirit

 Where is my Christmas spirit? I wish I knew! Buried, perhaps, somewhere under all of the other feelings I have from dealing with the upsetting and life altering events of this crazy year? Well, probably. Surely it is in there, waiting to be awakened. I’m hoping it is trying to push its way to the surface, to put the light of anticipation in my eyes and heart that are usually in evidence by now. Anticipation of the beautiful decorations I will place in my house. Anticipation of the treats and gifts I will share with the ones that I love and the fun we will have together. Anticipation of the beautiful cards I will receive and send, and of the church celebration of Christ’s birth. The lovely music, and telling of stories both old and new. I know that spirit lives in me, surely I would not have hung outside Christmas lights and hung greenery on my front door, and gone shopping for some Christmas gifts if the spirit were not there. I would not have put on a Christmas tee shirt and tacky Christmas tree earrings to attend a Christmas party if it were not awakening. No, if the spirit buried in me had died I would have done none of those things. It is there, it just needs some encouragement to rise and become stronger, putting the light of anticipation of joy in my eyes and in my heart.

Constant State of Emergency

 

This has been a year when I feel that I’m nearly living in a constant state of emergency. We have had, in our house, some sort of virus affecting one of us almost every month. Add to that an accelerated date of retirement for my husband due to his job being eliminated at the beginning of the year, necessitating quickly figuring out health insurance for each of us, finances, and a huge change in routine all while dealing with illness. The washer broke and had to be replaced, the bathtub was rusting and had to be dealt with, the van needed work and our home health aide was in a motorcycle accident and is not expected to be back before October. It’s a lot of stuff to wade through, but we did it and do it because it’s just life. Through it all we try to maintain a positive attitude and keep moving forward. Sometimes, however, it’s tough when the world seems determined to focus on the negatives.so here are some good things that have happened. I have a brand new washer! It works really well and the man that delivered and installed it could not have been nicer, patiently explaining things and showing us how to set the controls, etc. My bathtub is now rust free and beautiful, and safer as we added safety bars. It’s such a pleasure using it! We had a man come and power wash the outside of our house, decks, and patio and seal all the wood. It looks brand new and we bought a new table and umbrella for the patio, and lovely annuals we put in pots and hanging baskets. We also have a patio garden on wheels that is yielding some zucchini, tomatoes, eggplant and peppers! The extra hot and humid sauna like weather really helped everything grow this year. The van, once repaired has been reliable and took us to visit family in another state for a few days. We had a nice visit in beautiful surroundings. We got home safely and have had some time to relax before resuming attending to the many appointments and responsibilities that are part of life.

So you see, there are many positives in life, and I try to focus on those to counter the negatives that come our way, and the ones that the news casters and social media seem to feel we need to be inundated with on a daily if not hourly basis. I wish you peace.

                                It was a steamy, cloudy morning in the mountains where we were.

   The new bathtub and safety bars.

Flowers on the patio.

          A beautiful sunset sky after a thunderstorm. I love the colors and the way the clouds are.

          The fire in the fire pit at my sister in law’s place, I think the log “ chimney” is so cool!

Suddenly It’s July

Well here we are in July already! I’m not sure how it happened so fast, it seems like it was just the end of May and poof! June is gone!

Happy Birthday, America!

This little goldfinch visited our yard one day. He sat for a few minutes on the shepherd’s hook preening, was joined by his mate, then they both flew away. I’ve been keeping my eye out, hoping they are nesting nearby and will come visit again. They’re so beautiful!

These two pictures of the setting sun were taken a couple weeks apart. It’s so hard to believe that smoke from fires so far away can be affecting us here. Some days we can even smell it! Strange times.

The Smokey sun inspired poetry.

There had been rain the night before and I was outside looking at the plants in our patio garden very early in the day. I thought the raindrops clinging to this leaf was cool so I took a picture, then changed it to black and white for the backdrop to a rhyme.

This is the same picture in color. Not sure if this is a zucchini leaf, or an eggplant leaf. The plants are doing really well this year!

 

May Thoughts 2023

    

  Lately I’ve been thinking about how a year ago I was seriously injured and out of commission for a while. It’s a weird kind of anniversary, but it was a huge learning experience. I had to learn to step back and let others take over doing most everything, including caring for my daughter. Of all the things I could not do for a few months that is the one that gave me the most stress. Thankfully my husband stepped up in a huge way, and we were able to connect with a wonderful caregiver to do the weekday morning “shift” of getting  our girl up and ready for her day habilitation program bus. I also couldn’t drive for a while so had to rely on grocery deliveries and rides to doctor and physical therapy appointments. I’ve always been an independent person and having to rely on others and accept help for everything was quite challenging at first. It helped to remind myself that just as it lifts me up to help others, they were being lifted up to be able to help me. 

     May is a month of celebration and commemoration. It is both my husband’s father’s and my mother’s birth month, Mother’s Day, my father’s death date, and Memorial Day. That is many events to reflect on and memories to go over. It can make me a little sad when I think about how I will never again share birthday cake with my father-in-law or my mother in May. Never again will I see my mother’s delight at a flower to plant in her yard or piece of jewelry to wear for her birthday or Mothers Day. Sometimes when I’m out shopping I see a blouse or necklace and think, “Mom would have liked that”. I miss picking out those birthday cards. I think about my father’s passing 3 days after my mother’s birthday, and how unexpected it was. I miss his quiet, gentle presence and dry sense of humor. I often think of him when I hear songs on the radio that we listened to together in his car when he drove me to my boyfriend’s house in high school. I remember how tenderly he held my babies and sitting on his knee as he read “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” and other fairy tales to me when I was a small child. We miss him, we miss them all.

     Memorial Day is how we end this month, and we generally mark it with the first cookout of the summer season, although it is still technically spring. We used to get together at my parents’ house every year for “burgers and dogs”. Mom made potato and macaroni salads, and we had a good time in the back yard all afternoon. Now I have a cookout at my house, with pretty much the same menu— why change a good thing? I look forward to it every year. I remember my senior year of high school and I was on the drill team with the marching band; we twirled the flags as we marched in front of the band. For Memorial Day that year instead of our usual uniforms we wore denim shorts, white tee shirts and white canvas shoes. We were very happy about that! It’s funny the things we remember.

     I hope you have a May filled with memories of good times and loved ones

April Poems & Pictures

I’m making an effort this month to pen a few more poems. Pictures mostly are my writing prompts for these.

Poetry Month

 

I do love poetry month! It gives me an excuse to pen some ditties, (not that I really need an excuse, but still!), and challenges me to try for one a day. I don’t share them all, some I keep just for me. I do like to share them on Facebook and Instagram as my friends and family seem to enjoy them almost as much as I enjoy writing them. I also really like to take a photo of something and use it as a background for a poem. Sometimes the picture makes me think of the poem and other times I go looking for something to snap a picture of that will suit my verse. I’ve always liked sing-songy rhyming poems. I was remembering today how I spent an afternoon in my childhood with my friend Susie O. at her babysitter’s house and we wrote a rather long rhyming song like poem about the sitter’s basset hound whose name was Billy Jo. I wish I had that poem, or was still in touch with Susie. I remember how it began: “Oh Billy Jo, I just don’t know, about your toe, Oh! in the garden, I’ll beg your pardon….” Isn’t that silly? I think we were probably about 9 years old. She lived up the hill and around the corner and about half a block down from me. I recall being at her house one summer afternoon and a thunderstorm came. Her mother drove me home in her little Volkswagen Beetle. I remember both her mother and mine being angry because I didn’t run home when I heard the thunder before the rain started, it was torrential rain, too. Shortly after that, her mother remarried, her last name changed, and she moved away. It’s funny the things we remember.

This is something I am not likely to forget! Last week on Monday morning I looked out my kitchen window and was very surprised by what I saw in the branches of the Rose of Sharon—it looked like a submarine sandwich or a hot dog. Looking through the window screen it was hard to tell so I went outside and stood beneath it and saw that it was a half eaten baguette!  I took pictures and called my husband out to be a witness to the phenomenon, lest anyone think I was losing my mind and making up fantastic stories. He was just as flummoxed as I by it. We went about our errands and by the time we returned home it was gone. I still don’t know how it got there, or where it went, we assume a squirrel might be responsible, but I guess a large bird might be responsible. Of course I had to write a poem about it after one of my friends issued a challenge!

The background of this one is the Pequest River at our favorite hot dog spot, Hot Dog Johnny’s. It’s nice sitting watching the river and munching on arguably the best hotdogs ever. The Pequest feeds into the Delaware River, also there is a fish hatchery nearby, I’m pretty sure I went there with my daughter’s class when she was in elementary school. They breed the fish to stock the lakes and rivers for fishing season.

Sometimes the moon is quite bright even before the sun has completely set, and pictures never do it justice. Still, I liked the way it was framed by the lacy branches of the soon to be leaf covered Maple trees, and inspired this short verse that was liked by many of my friends. I think we all feel a bit pensive when gazing up at the moon.

So happy poetry month!

Events of Life

I can’t believe it’s been a month since I last posted anything here! February and March are busy with events at my house. There was, of course, Valentine’s Day followed 10 days later by my husband’s final day of work ever—Happy Retirement! early since they ended his position and closed his location—and 4 days later we celebrated my birthday!  I had invited some people over for a birthday fun and games day where I made lasagna and meatballs and we ladies played games. We arranged ahead f time for the guys to get my husband out of the house for about an hour so we could decorate his recliner as a surprise retirement celebration. They went to Harbor Freight and all found some gadget or other they just had to have. He was very surprised when he got home! I was a wonderful day.

Bruce was very happy with the surprise and won a few dollars off the lottery tickets!

The birthday cake was from an ice cream shop in town, so beautiful and delicious! They use both chocolate syrup and cookie crunchiest between the layers, one vanilla and one chocolate.

Sometimes I like to just contemplate the sky and the clouds, and make up a rhyme to fit my mood. 

The next event we had was our 40th wedding anniversary! We didn’t have a party, but had our older daughter come stay with her sister for a few hours while we went to dinner. We went to a restaurant we went to for a friend’s 90th birthday party last fall. It was lovely and we were seated in front of a roaring fire and dined on some very rich food which we decided was delicious but probably not good for us since we both had some tummy discomfort afterwards because we don’t eat like that normally. Oh well! It was worth it! This picture was a candid shot someone took as we were getting ready to cut the cake on our wedding day. Who are those people with dark hair? 

 My birthday gift this year was more extravagant than usual. I got to pick out a new chair! Of course it inspired me to write a rhyme. It reclines too! I love relaxing in a comfy chair, don’t you?

We have one more event this month, it’s my husband’s birthday in a couple weeks. I think I’ll have just enough time to rest up from these eventful weeks before I gear up for Easter.

Where Love Lives

 Since Valentine’s Day is upon us, I thought I would share a little story I wrote. It’s pure fiction, based on nobody in particular.  I wish you all to live in a house filled with love.

Where Love Lives

Sometimes you walk into a place and you just know love lives here. It’s an intangible thing, a sense of how things are, but nothing you can put your finger on. So it was inside the souvenir shop where I found my temporarily missing wife.

The bed and breakfast was located in a sleepy little town along an old state highway, left behind decades ago when the big interstate was built. We wanted someplace quiet to spend a week away from work and the New York City summer crowds, and we found it an hour away from home in of all places, New Jersey. There was a blues bar in the town center where we had danced the night before, along with a number of antique shops, post office, town hall, and a deli. Church bells rang every day at noon and six in the evening, old oak and maple trees lined the street and gave deep shade to the front of the inn. The Sleeping Swan boasted deep, comfortable furniture in the bedrooms and common room, and rocking chairs on the wrap around porch, as well as simple, delicious, home cooked meals. I had fallen asleep after a bountiful brunch and on awakening found that my wife left a note on the bedside table. “Gone shopping with Gayle” the note said. It took me a minute to remember who Gayle was, since we just met her and Raymond at breakfast that morning. Silence greeted me as I descended the stairs and passed through the parlor to the front door. A slight rhythmic creak alerted me to Raymond’s position in the last rocker at the other end of the porch. Nodding in recognition he continued his slow rocking as I perched on the edge of the chair one away from his.

“Our ladies are out spending our hard earned money,” he said with a wink, wiggling gray eyebrows over twinkling blue eyes. “I don’t know about Regina, but Gayle loves to hunt for treasures in these little towns we visit. She always seems to find the out of the way shops with handmade things that somehow we didn’t realize we need.” I didn’t answer, I was wondering how to politely get out of this conversation with the older man to search for Regina when he said, “If you want to go find your wife, they went up the street that way,” and pointed to the right toward the blues bar.

“What makes you think I want to go find her?” I asked.

“Son, I know the look of a man who feels lost when he wakes up and finds no wife where he expected to see one,” he answered and then put his head back and pulled his straw hat over his eyes.

I wondered at senior’s perceptiveness as I passed the bar and peeked into an antique shop which displayed tiffany style lamps and vases in its large picture window. How had he known what I was feeling, when I barely knew myself? It didn’t take long to glance in the four remaining shops on the street, and I stood indecisively in front of the post office before deciding to explore the rest of the town and headed down a side street. About halfway down the block I began to hear the tinkling of wind chimes along with a clicking sound. Following my ears I found a yard filled with wind chimes hanging from wrought iron shepherd’s hooks and a collection of colorful wooden whirligigs mounted on wooden

posts. A sign under the roadside mailbox read “Moving Air, handmade gifts”. Following the flagstone path, I was drawn to the craftsman style house and its red door. As I ducked through into the crowded space I took in a breath of the tantalizing scent of chocolate chip cookies, and saw Regina smiling at the clerk and paying for her purchase. As I stood there watching her, she turned her head and noticed me.

“Greg!” she exclaimed, “What are you doing here?” and forgetting her bag, rushed over to hug me. “Isn’t this place fabulous?” she asked, and proceeded to gush about all the wonderful things they had, and tell me how they were all hand made by the proprietors, a husband and wife named George and May. “Isn’t it great? George makes all the whirligigs and May makes the chimes, and the cookies. Here, have one, they’re on the house if you want to try one. I bought 2 dozen to take home with us tomorrow,” and she held one up to my lips. As I ate the cookie she introduced me to George and May who stood talking quietly to Gayle. There was something about the place, and the couple who owned it, a calmness, a sense of peace and the feeling that no matter what else happened in the world, everything would be all right. George and May stood side by side, without touching, yet seemed connected to each other in some cosmic way that most people aren’t. It was an oasis in a desert of negativity which the outside world had become. This was a house where love lived. Now we live in the love house. Ten years ago George and May sold the house to us when they decided to retire and move closer to their children. Raymond and Gayle passed away within days of each other a year ago right after their last visit to the Sleeping Swan where we met them every year since that first until we moved here to start a family. Our children knew them as Grandpa Ray and Grammy Gayle, and we will miss them. After all, if Gayle hadn’t befriended Regina that day and found the “Moving Air” shop, we wouldn’t have found the house where love lives.

January Almost Gone!

     It's hard to believe that January is almost over already!  Although it has felt like an extremely long month, it has gone by so quickly that I am surprised to realize there are only a few days left.  I still have some Christmas decorations up!  I guess part of me must be stuck in the recent past or something.  I've been busy with filling out forms for applications for services for my daughter and myself, and helping my husband with some that he needs to do.  I guess the new year brings new forms to fill out!  I sure hope this trend does not continue throughout 2023 or I'm going to be one extremely cranky person as I truly hate filling out forms. I'm not sure which is worse, ones that give you barely any room to write your answer (unless you are a mouse using a mouse sized pen) or ones that give you multiple choice boxes to check but the options they give don't really apply to you, forcing you to decide which option is closest to the truth.  And honestly, who is really reading all these forms?  I think the answer is NOBODY and they just want them for your file in case there is some question about the validity of their actions so they can go back and say "but look what she wrote there", moving any blame squarely onto your shoulders and off of theirs.  Ok, rant over! haha! Just had to put that out there, in case anyone else feels the same.

Anyhow, lest you think I have only negative thoughts to begin the new year, I wrote a couple of short verses.  It's always a treat when I get up in time to watch the moon set while the sun is rising.  It most often happens when the moon is full and bright enough to overcome the light sky, it's a little bit like the universe saying "there is a balance to everything"--one light rises and another one goes down--another new chance to find balance in your life.

I seriously dislike watching or listening to news reports because there is so much yelling and arguing always leading the stories they report on.  As all the hollering and bickering is happening, we all have to just try and set that aside and keep doing the good things that we can do to bring something positive into every day.  It can be hard, I know,  but somehow we do manage to do that.  We need to celebrate that more.  That is what inspired this next verse.  The picture was just my shadow one day as I stood on the landing of my back deck looking at the sky and the lake in the distance.

May 2023 be kind to us all!