Happy Anniversary

Today DH and I celebrate 38 years of marriage-it hasn't always been easy, and we've learned and grown a lot through the good and bad times, but we've always had each other. Here's to my best friend and love of my life!

Busy, busy!

Sorry I haven't blogged recently-I read your blogs everyday when I get a moment to sit down and put my feet up, but haven't had a chance to write much. We've been tearing everything apart, cleaning and putting it back together, so my posts may be sparse for a while. (At least I think we're to the putting it back together stage!)

I've been doing lots of things that have me asking myself "Why oh why haven't I been better about keeping things up?" Of course this is the same song I sing every time we move!  I'm just not a dedicated housekeeper I guess. On the surface, things look good, but look too closely or go too deeply and my dirty little secret is out: I subscribe to the "whipped cream on the garbage can" method of housework! If it's not absolutely screamingly obvious-I tend to ignore it until it can't be ignored!

Ah well, I"ll resolve to be a better housekeeper with the next house and we'll see what happens!

How I'd like to be...

Reality!

Moving Ahead

We met with the real estate agent on Tuesday and we will list our house next week. Now for the process of making the house look less cluttered and less "ours".  We have embarked on a massive de-cluttering. There seems to be an enormous amount of stuff we had forgotten about stuck back in closets and corners-a lot of it was my parents stuff that we brought back when we cleaned out my Dad's apartment. I guess I'd put off going through it, thinking it would be easier later on. I had to deal with it  yesterday and it wasn't a lot easier even after almost 5 years. I was able to pare down the number of pictures and decided to keep his WWII Army Air Corps uniform a while longer. It's still in perfect condition and will now keep company with Lonnie's Dad's sailors hat and pants from his WWII Naval uniform. Going through all the pictures was especially hard, and I was down for the rest of the day, but today will be much better. I'll be slogging on through the rest of the closets, but I get to stop and have lunch with a dear friend!

Father's Day

As many are doing, I'm remembering my Dad today. He passed away in 2007, almost exactly 10 years after my Mom. I have a lot of sweet memories of my Dad, I was the only girl and I was definitely a Daddy's girl. I can remember sitting in his lap while he read to my brother and I. He had a deep booming voice, but he could do all the character voices in the book! He worked in Civil Service after WWII until he retired in 1980, but he had so many interests. It seemed to me that anything he decided to try, he was able to do well. I remember painting, bookbinding, gardening and a very early memory is sitting in his lap while he talked on his HAM radio. He also built a giant kite once and took my brother and I out to the school yard to fly it.

On my wedding day 1974

He was a wonderful grandfather to my brother's girls and my son and daughter. Our son got his start with computers by sitting in my Dad's lap while he tinkered with one of the very first personal computers. (It used cassette tapes for memory!) It would take too long to list all of the things he did for and with them-but he and my Mom were always there for them. My kids have great memories of him-he went to both of their High School graduations, and lived to attend our daughter's wedding. I know he would have loved to see our son married too.

After my Mom passed away, my Dad came to live in our town, and for 8 years, lived independently in his own apartment. His health gradually began to fail, and by the time his first great-grandchild came along, he knew he loved her (she was born on his 90th birthday) but wasn't always sure exactly how she was related to him. Our daughter and son-in-law brought her to see him a few months before he died-when she saw him she exclaimed "Papaw" (she was 16 months old). He was thrilled.

I miss my Dad, but I have wonderful memories and I do believe we will meet again someday.
Happy Father's Day, Daddy.

Moving On

We have spent the last few days helping Lonnie's mom finish sorting through things and clearing out her house. Hopefully, they will close on the sale of the house this week. She's moved into her senior apartment-it's really nice and everything done for the convenience of the seniors living there. I know it has been hard for her-this is the first place she has lived by herself. She and Lonnie's dad were married 65 years. He passed away last November after a long illness and she just couldn't maintain the property on her own. Also, there had been a break-in and burglary during the time he was in the hospital and we just didn't feel good about her staying there. 

It was a sad time for us too-Mom and Dad's home has always been the gathering place for the family. Many, many Christmases, Thanksgivings, Easters and birthdays were celebrated there. All of our children have wonderful memories of Grandma and Grandpa's place-walking out in the orchard with Grandpa or climbing the trees. A ride on the tractor with him was a rite of passage all of our kids looked forward to and Grandma's cooking was not to be missed.

We're hoping that when we finally find and settle into a place in the country this year, it will be the same for our children, grandchildren and for all of the family-a place to gather at special times for love, laughter, celebrations and shared sorrows too. It almost feels as if the "torch" has been passed on to us-I hope we can live up to their example.

City Girls

We're visiting our little granddaughters (and their parents too!) and went to look at some houses out in the country. We took the girls (ages 6 and 3) to one we'd looked at before. Very over grown and the house is now empty, but there's lots of potential. We had visions of the girls running merrily through the wildflowers and racing up the paths through the wood. Wrong. They got out of the car and the youngest began panicking because there were ants. (She was badly stung by fire ants last year and is really afraid of any ant now.) I took their hands and we started walking toward the house. We got into the tall grass and flowers and dozens of tiny green grasshoppers began jumping all around. I thought it was great-they screamed and ran to the porch where there were more-you guessed it-ants. There was a swing on the big wrap-around porch and I tried to get them to sit down, but they weren't too sure about it. They really haven't been out to play in anything that hasn't been manicured and "tame" since they've grown up in the suburbs of two very large cities.

My husband came and got us to go walk through the pretty little oak woods in the back. It's got some paths set out but it's pretty overgrown, and the 6 year old got into a vine with thorns. They were both ready to go back to the car by then and not at all impressed with our adventure!  We were informed that they did NOT want us to buy that house!

This is very much like the area in front of  the house.

It looks like this in back of the house

We have a lot of other places to look at before we make a decision-may not take the girls with us, though!

Today

Welcome to my new follower!

A very big day for our family-today is my husband's last day of work and this morning our first grandchild graduates from Kindergarten!

Last night we attended his retirement dinner-it was lovely. They had it at one of our favorite restaurants and the food was wonderful- we had ribeye steaks that were like butter and I ate way too much!  The evening was spent reminiscing and laughing. This day has been so long in coming-he has worked hard for it and gone through some very tough times. I'm so proud of him.

Hard to believe that our little granddaughter's last day of Kindergarten is today-seems like she was a baby just yesterday. We'll blink twice and she'll be graduating from high school!  This is her picture taken a few weeks ago paired with her mom's (our daughter) high school graduation picture-shades of things to come!

Now on to our next adventure!