Merry Christmas to All and to All -- well you know how that one goes

Merry Christmas from my front door to my back door to you.  Hope all was merry and bright and we sure didn't have a white one here.  People were golfing in shorts and no jackets.  We are all hoping for more of the same until April.  

Happy Turkey Day

It's been forever and I wish I could say that life has just been one merry incident after another keeping me from here.  I can't.  I'm just lazy and that's it.  I think about a lot of things but then I'm worn out.  The other thing about me and I'm evidencing it here, I will avoid the obvious needs around me by doing things that are absolutely unnecessary.  Happy Thanksgiving by the way.  We had a small gathering for a change but nevertheless there are pots and pans and gravy on the cabinet knobs, pieces of celery under the couch and crumbs everywhere.  Here I sit, checking out the wreckage and avoiding any efforts to clean it away by sternly saying to myself, "How could you let so much time go by?  Sit right down at that computer and update that blog you have neglected for so long."

Well, here I am. And I must say this to everyone.  Hope your Thanksgiving was a blessing.  Here's a glimpse of ours before the wreckage.  We're all adults here.  How could we do so much damage?

Playing Catch up

Wow, such a long time away.  How to begin to catch up?  Have to start with Easter I guess.  It was so different this year, cold and quiet.  Everyone was either working or sick and so it was just the three of us, me, the hubby and our nephew.  Oddly enough Elf was on, over and over and the nephew and I love it so that kept us quiet.  The hubby loves to cook and although there were only the three of us he had prepared for at least 10 and so the food?  it was plentiful and delicious.

After that we ran into Mother's Day when we and another couple celebrate our Dead Mothers' Day Brunch.  None of us have our mothers and neither of us are mothers so we didn't want to be left out and started the bunch for brunch.  Every other year we pick the place to go and vice versa they.  This year we went to their new home for a sleepover and all went well.  We toasted the Moms and ate like kings and queens and laughed and laughed and it was good.

Memorial Day, how to put this into words.  We work with a group to honor the veterans and it's an amazingly impressive 24 hours.  Donations of goods and/or money are collected to ship care packages for those still in harms way and believe me there are plenty.  Food is donated to be served throughout the day and that's what the hubby and I do.  Slap the burgers in the buns with or without cheese, put the hot dogs in the buns and we do that over and over and trust me when I say this, "I'm done with burgers"  when it's over.  It went well and during the day special honor is paid to veterans who served in each war, police action, whatever you call it now.  The last is reserved for those VietNam Vets who were treated so badly.  Each is called to the podium and they announce their name and where they served and their rank and branch of the service.  As they leave the stage there is a long line of people to shake their hands and thank them for their service.  Most are in tears by the end of that one let me tell you.

The following weekend we had company.  My college roommate arrived so that we could go together to our 50th reunion.  Gasp!  We stayed in a dorm and just had such a good time.  I'll show some pictures of all of this but for now let me leave you with a tribute to the troops.  That's my hubby in the red shirt on stage.  Couldn't be prouder of him.

Just a Laugh

We had a couple of very lovely days with warm air and sunshine.  Today it's back to 40 degrees, gray and windy.  Brrrr...  As a result, I have nothing but I found this and laughed.  Maybe you will too.

Spring Back

We're behind schedule here.  Normally this is what we see on our walks but not yet.    I'll be back when we have the flowers we expect to have.  It's going to snow tomorrow by the way.  HELP!

Spring Bonnets

Spring has sprung, the grass has ris', I wonder where the birdies is.

Ahh.  Poetry.  That's a Spring thing.

Here's more Spring things.... oh, by the way, it snowed two days ago.  Sigh.

Oh The Pain of The Loss

 This is such a heart wrenching song........ I heard this on Facebook and it gave me so many reasons to think about all my ancestors from where ever they came and man how painful it must have been for their parents when they left and how painful it must have been for them after they left.... please listen and let me know how you feel about this.

Top O' The Morning

Happy St Patrick's Day
Stay out of the clover

Winter Poem

I found this beautiful winter poem and thought it might be a comfort to you.
It was to me, and it's very well written.
ENJOY!


' WINTER 'a poem by Abigail Elizabeth McIntyre

F**k! It's cold!

Happy Valentine's Day

Just Happy Valentine's Day -- that's it.  Hope it's a lovely one for you all.  It's about to snow AGAIN here and in honor of that we will trek out to a wine social.  The snow won't start til later this evening.  We will eat drink and be merry until then.

Yes We Love Our Tom Brady

So I live here in New England and I guess you know what that means as far as football is concerned?  YES!!!  We WON!! and I don't want to hear any NY haters jump in here saying the obligatory Spygate Defllategate crapppppppp... Thank you.  Here's what I want to hear:

Yikes! Winter for sure

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Spring - It's out there. It Just Takes Time

So far so good.  No snow only rain and muck and occasional ice.  We only have 2 more months before the daffodils spring up.  The biggest problem with winter is the easy out I have to not walk.  I am too old and out of shape to blow off the exercise but winter gives me a hall pass.  We do have a community center nearby and there are treadmills and stair climbers and weight machines.  My conscience is nagging at me to go forth and sign up.  Luckily today is Sunday and they are not open, at least the sign up desk isn't.  You can see how lazy I am by the number of times I have written something new on this blog.

I do have a picture for you and it sings to me.  I yearn for the day I look out my window and see:

Rain and More Rain

Rainy Winter Day Here

Very Little Effort Here

I'm kind of liking this recycle thing....for one thing it lessens my anxiety.  I look back over the years and I can see how little things have changed, at least around here.  For another thing, it gives me something to put on this place without a lot of effort.  See?  Things haven't changed around here.  Here's one from January 2nd some years ago... 2009 to be precise.

Friday, January 02, 2009

A New Year - A New Beginning

And now for the rest of the story. Right now there isn't one. I am stuck in a too much time to do things so who wants to do them anymore kind of mood. You know? Here's how I always felt, I know you're dying to know this. I would be at work and all the time, in my head would be, "If I were home I would so be scrubbing the tiles in the shower, or the kitchen floor, or cleaning out those closets." I would be at home and my head would be all "If I were in the office I would get that presentation completed, finish that report, work on that lesson plan."

Here I am home, lots of time, my entire office function is here with me and yet . . . . here I am. I am only here, typing because the last thing I want to do is scrub the tiles or finish that report. What is my head to deal with now? It has no idea what to think. Happy New Year for heaven's sake.

Oh and by the way. . those Resolutions? I never did get to them so I have decided to accept myself as I am and see what happens. I mean, really, I have been working on change for decades and as I look back I can see that the changes I wish to make are the same, year after year after year. Therefore, I conclude that the changes I was making the efforts to accomplish are probably not very good for me. I will accept myself as I am and if a change should occur, why I will accept that as well. So I guess you could say that my resolution is to relax and - - now there I go....after I said there would be only that acceptance thing. I'm quitting now while I'm ahead.

I am meeting a new Primary Care physician today. It's January 1st, time for the annual change of health insurance thanks to the company I retired from. Actually, it's the 2nd but everything changes on the first. That means the next couple of months will be devoted to lining up the PCP, then the Cardiologist, the Dermatologist, the Eye people, the prescriptions all have to be re-done since whenever the year is up, the changes that are made are such that the group I lined up the year before don't accept the insurance I have for the coming year. I guess that former company of mine would prefer to have as few retirees as possible on the pension account so they figure ways to up the stress level and some of us are bound to succumb to it and honestly, when you have to spend hours dealing with the customer service people those insurance groups submit you too...a stroke isn't far away. Wish me luck.

Recycling

I'm nothing if not a recycler -- here's an old one from Thursday December 15, 2005

Ten Degrees

That's the temperature not the degrees of separation thing that hit Broadway. Yowzer it is COLD. But in the scheme of things it could be worse. My mother would always cringe when I tried to smooth over the bad event of the moment by saying that . "Don't worry", she'd say, "They'll get there." Yup, I come from a long line of optimists. We always were told that we weren't Irish on my mother's side. How all the other family members on that side were and we weren't never puzzled me. After all, they were all Catholic and we weren't so if that is possible, why not the Irish thing. My father's family was Scottish in every direction you looked so in my mother's view, so were we. That Irish surname and brogue of the older aunts could just as easily have been Scottish. As I get older and fall into what my aunt (on my mother's side) would call the blues, I realize that it's a gift from my Irish genes. The Irish do have that melancholy unlike any other group. It's deep and mystical as well as musical. They, or I should say I, weep without warning and go inside to uncover old hurts and pain. We sigh a lot and isolate to curl up, listen to maudlin music to blend with our thoughts. Then, it seems, equally without warning, we find something so startlingly funny about the worst thing imaginable that we laugh as inappropriately as we cry and back to level, life goes on.

So I go ----