Catching up

Boy, have I been remiss in writing, both for myself and this blog. Sorry.We've been so busy it seems with doctor appointment's and tests and in between doing some fun things.

Let talk about the fun things.

Last Saturday we went down to the village of Floral Park for the tree lighting. A friend had invited us and we in turn invited our neighbor to go along.When we got there, we went on a sleigh ride, so okay it was a carriage ride with Santa aboard.Fun! It was just starting to turn dark(early evening) so we saw some nicely decorated houses on the ride. When we got off we were treated to hot chocolate and cookies.Yummy!Shortly after the tree lighting took place which was lovely.

Sunday, the same friend called and asked us if we wanted to go to Old Westbury Manor to see it decorated for Christmas and also attend a flute concert.This old mansion was magnificant. The workmanship that had been done years ago in decorating the ceilings, walls etc was superb.

While there we meet Santa(the real deal). He showed us around and told us stories about his elves that were quite entertaining.He has to be the real deal.He just knew so much.

Later we attended the Christmas flute concert downstairs.It was so good and I found it amazing that using only one instrument could create such fine music.

This week several evenings we have either walked or gone by car to see the homes around here decorated.This is always such fun to do.I'm looking forward to more of the same sort of entertainment between now and Christmas.

Superior Scribbler Award

1. Maureen from Being Chronically Ill Is A Pill awarded me the Superior Scribbler award. Thanks Maureen. I am to pass it on. Here are the rules for the blog:
   


2. 1. Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.

2. Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.

3. Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to This Post, which explains The Award.

4. Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!

5. Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his or her blog.

I am passing it on ~ but I am also telling those I send it to to refuse the award if they don't have time or energy to keep it going! Just know I was thinking of you and letting you know how much I enjoy your blogs.

1. Jo Ann from The Book Faerie


2. Daisy from Daisy the Curly Cat


3. Seth from Creaky Joints


4. Katrina from Callapidder Days


5. Connie from Connie's View

Happy Turkey Day

Well, I'll try again. I just wrote a post on thanksgiving and lost it!

We're having turkey with the help of a caterer which we found today. Our oven is playing tricks on us as far as crazy temperatures and can't be trusted to cook a turkey evenly at this time. repairman due tomorrow but if a part is needed we could have been in trouble. This way, we'll pick up turkey already roasted and just have to make the remainder of the meal. Sounds good to me.

We have so much to be thankful for this year. Our health although not great is better than last year and we have a beautiful, spacious apartment with friendly neighbors surrounding us as well.Could things be better? Sure but I'll settle for okay for the moment.

Enjoy your turkey day! We'll all think about dieting after Thanksgiving, right?

Another Choice

Would I have retired when I did if I knew the economy would become so terrible so swiftly? If I had hung on for another two years until I turned 65, my social security benefits would have been a bit higher and maybe that would have been enough to see me through now.

Well. let's think about this! What did I do in those first two years of retirment that couldn't have waited a little bit longer? One of the things would have been that I would have been at work when my first grandchild was born and not get to spend the first six weeks of my granddaughter's life, helping her mom with household chores so she could concentrate on getting all the little motherly things down pat and coming up with a routine which she could handle when I went home.

The next year, my husband and I rented a RV and traveled cross country visiting family and friends scattered about. We got to take in the wonders of America that we had previously only read about.

We got to have a wonderful, fun filled two years doing things together. Once my husband became ill,that trip would never have happened and those six weeks watching the baby change each day wouldn't have come to pass either.

I think I made a good decision to retire early. What do you think?

Grandma, then and Now

Can't take credit for writing this. Just wanted to pass along to all. This was submitted and I assume written by Ralph Ringenberg to Reminisce Magazine.
Enjoy!

Grandma, then and Now

In the dim and distant past,
When life's temp wasn't fast,
Grandma used to rock and knit,
Crochet, tat and baby-sit.
When the kids were "in a jam,"
You could always count on Gram.
In the age of gracious giving,
Grandma was the gal for giving.
Grandma now is at the gym,
Exercising to keep slim.
She's out golfing with the bunch,
Taking clients out to lunch.
Going south for sun and surf,
Seeking more exciting turf.
Nothing seens to stop
or block her,
Now that Grandma's
off her rocker.

A Moving Experience

"Bret, Bret, where are you?" Madison was running through the house screaming her brother's name as if she had lost him forever. "Madison, I'm right here in our room! What's the matter?".Madison was sobbing and just about out of breath from running up the stairs. "Calm down, Madison, take a deep breath and tell me what's wrong?" Bret said to his little sister in his big brother voice which usually seemed to work with her. "Mommy said we are moving to a new house and will each have our own room, I'm glad we share a room. It makes me feel safe" Bret laughed and said "one day soon, you'll be glad you have your own room and I'll be happy that I have mine and can hang up all my baseball posters and stuff".

Since Bret was a big second grader already, he looked upon the move as an adventure while Madison at the age of five wanted nothing in her life to change. She wanted to go to the same kindergarten class as she had been; she wanted to continue to have a best friend in school named Tammy and another best friend down the block named Sarah. She didn't want changes in her life, didn't want to start at a new school, be the new kid in the neighborhood and have to search for new best friends. Bret, meanwhile, saw the move as a chance to join a new baseball team in the summer as well as a new soccer team in the fall. He welcomed the chance to meet new friends. He thought it would be nice to have a new teacher especially since Mom had told him that his new teacher was a man. That was so neat! While he liked his teacher fine now, having a man teacher just sounded so right.

How different Bret and Madison were from one another. He looked at the world as a place to explore, research and observe. Madison was a scary cat. He didn't know if it was because she was a girl or just because she was only five and had just started school. He realized that having his own room would allow him to decorate it as he wished and not feel the need to hide his best treasures such as baseball cards from his little sister's prying eyes and fingers. She would be happy to have a really girlie room once she got used to the idea of having her own space. Maybe Daddy would put up shelves for both of them. Bret would love to have shelves to put his books on as well as last year's soccer award. Madison could put out all her Dora the Explorer stuff on her shelves and she would like that.

Bret sat down to explain all this to her and to help her realize what fun it would be for this new move.

What happened to Amy on her first day of school

Today was the first day of school for Amy. The little four year old had eagerly dresses herself this morning in her best dress. She added small, lace trimmed socks to her feet and then slipped on her shiny new black patent leather shoes that mommy called Mary Jane's.

She ran into the breakfast nook of her home and twirled around for her mom and two older brothers to see how pretty she looked.Unfortunately, her seven year old brother was attempting to bring jars of grape jelly and honey to the table with the thought of adding to his toasted English Muffin.

Amy collided with her brother and the jars went flying. She was covered in purple as well as the sweet, sticky honey from her hair down to her shoes.Everyone first reaction was to laugh, Amy looked so funny turned purple.After a minute, her mom collected herself and rushed to Amy saying soothingly, "come Amy, let's get that dress off, get your face washed and get you into something really beautiful to wear to school". Amy wanted no part of this. She was crying and gasping for breath saying "I won't go to school, not today, not ever."

It took awhile but mom eventually got her calmed down, into the shower and cleaned up (no easy task with the honey situation.) She chattered brightly at Amy about what would be a good outfit to wear with her sandals now that the shoes had been ruined. Between them, they found a pretty blue skirt to go with a white blouse that was trimmed in blue. Another pair of lace trimmed socks and sandals and Amy was good to go.

Later mom would deal with the mess in the kitchen. Right now, she needed to get everone including Amy out the door, into the car and to school on time.

A True Teacher

My neighbor for whom I babysat as a teenager was a true teacher for me.

I spent a lot of time at her house even when I wasn't babysitting and got to watch a young woman in action as wife, mother and neighbor. She had a fun way about her and was raising her children to be happy, fun loving but also responsible citizens of the world.

We connected with a common interest of sewing and spent many hours together cutting out and basting clothes in my case for myself and in hers, clothing for her children.

I watched her prepare delicious meals for her family and frequently got to join in eating with them.

I learned a lot about motherhood from this woman and feel I modeled myself after her.

Sand

I long to be able to walk again at the beach, feeling the sand drifting in and out of my toes as I move along. I wish I could stand at the ocean front and feel the sensation of the sand shifting beneath my feet as the waves wash ashore.

I've always felt a calmness at being able to walk along the shoreline, bending from time to time and choosing shells to add to my collection.

Book list

I'm listing below some books I'm hoping to read within the next two months.Do any of them sound intersting to you?

It Only Takes A Minute
8 Sandpiper Way
Last Kiss
Against Medical Advice
Damage Control

and to get me writing AGAIN

Guide to Fiction Writing by Phyllis A. Whitney
Shimmering Images A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir by Lisa Dale Norton
How Not To Write A Novel by Howard Mittelmark & Sandra Newman

Tell me what you're reading these days.

What every happened to good service?

We went out Saturday night for dinner at a little local restaurant that we had "done" breakfast at a few weeks ago.We had found the meal at breakfast excellent, service good and the quaintness of the place charming. Therefore when we had a guest over, we chose to take him there to share what we had found before. What a difference this time! While the place was not crowded, we waited quite awhile for a simple hamburger and french fries. Mine was suppose to be medium rare (charcoal black would be a better description). My daughter's which was ordered as medium was the same but what we found to be particularly disturbing was that we had called ahead to be sure that something could be prepared without garlic (she has a severe allergic reaction to this) and when we asked again on ordering were assured that all food was cooked from scratch and there would be no garlic in it. Just to sure, I ordered mine without so as to not possibly have a mix up. Guess what! Both hamburgers were seasoned with garlic, well overdone and french fries cold(as were the hamburgers).As usual happens, the server came over after a few minutes and asked if everything was alright and when we told her no and complained about the garlic and that my daughter was already feeling the effects from it, she said she hoped we had something with us to contract the effect and moved away from the table. At no time did anyone say they were sorry but I do have to say server did offer to replace meal.
However we did not want to take a chance on something else.While the manager did come over, he also did not apologize although he did send server back to say there would be no bill after telling us that grill doesn't get cleaned between orders and acting as if that shouldn't matter.There was a great deal of indifference toward us and we did not feel that we would be welcomed back in the future.

Thoughts on Halloween

What a nice day today was. I went out in the morning to get my hair cut and all the stylists were dressed up for Halloween. My favorite one was Raggedy Ann.

Next I went to the bank and there one of the tellers was dressed as a jailbird. Hope he didn't get into my account!

The grocery store had several Batmen and my cashier was dressed as a Geisha lady.She was done up perfectly but I fear her white makeup was scaring some of the younger children.

Finally when I arrived home and thought I would take a short nap (ha) the doorbell started ringing and I got to see several ghosts, again Batmen and Robots. Most of the children were so polite, thanking me when they got candy. A few just took the candy and left without saying anything. Oh well, takes all kinds of people to make the world what it is.

This evening appears to be the daddies, dressed up along with their children coming by to trick or treat. Guess the moms are tired out from trekking around this afternoon or perhaps they had to stay home to do their share answering the doorbell.

Anyway, it's been fun seeing the little ones all dressed in their favorite costumes and I look forward to a repeat next year.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE! Don't eat too much of the kids candy now!

Halloween

I'm so glad tomorrow is Halloween. I look forward to seeing the kiddies come to the door in their hopefully "original" costumes. Last two places I lived we didn't really get many trick or treaters and I miss that.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Little Miss Suzy

It appears little Miss Suzy has come to visit on our patio. We recently moved into our new home and noticed lots of acorns and of course lots of squirrels around the neighborhood.

For the past few days, we noticed one squirrel who loved to visit and run around the patio. She climbed on the park bench and ran across the top of it. She appeared to notice that we were watching her but seemed unfazed by it and certainly not worried that we would harm her.

Today she again went through her antics and then stopped in full view of our back door, stood up on her hind legs and placed her front paws together as if begging for food or praying. She was not put off by us approaching her. Evidently, the people who lived here before us had fed her. Watching her a little longer, we saw that she actually had some acorns stored in a flowerpot where nothing was now blooming.

The choice appears to be up to us at this point. Should we feed her or just leave the flowerpot in place for her to use a storage of her food?

What would you do?

Since we've recently moved, one of my aims for this week was to get to the local Senior Center and see what they had to offer. I was nervous, more than nervous, to the point of stomach sickness wondering how the people would greet an outsider.

No need to have worried. I went today and met such nice people, eager to make me feel at home. The ladies that I sat with made conversation easy for me and explained what activities were available there. I sat in a on a hand of "Kings in the Corner" before the morning activity of ceramics started. While most of this time was spend concentrating on painting, there was still comments going around the table so that a person didn't feel alone. After a short time for a snack, we got to play bingo before it was time to go home. I'm looking forward to returning next Monday to see what sort of crafts are available to do as well as visit with these nice people.

I should have realized that people are people and that there was no need to get my self upset.

My Song

Being a very literal person, when given a writing assignment of My Song in my Creative Writing Class, I thought WOW, I have no song. I wish I did!





As a small child when I sang, my mother would ask me what I was saying and when I answered I was singing, she would tell me I couldn't sing. She had a good voice and she was probably right that I couldn't carry a tune.





In school, we were separated into singers and listeners in music class. I was a listener. Listeners had to sit in the last row in this class and keep quiet while the others sang. This greatly affected my life. I do not sing out loud to this day. I mouth the words in church and when attending a function which turns into a sing-a-long, I just sit there, mouth closed. I never sing out loud at birthday parties, again just mouthing the words. Thankfully, my children never caught on to the fact that I wasn't singing at their parties.





However since I realized early on that there is joy in song, I always attempted to encourage my children to sing. Some of them had better voices than others. One of my daughters has a lovely voice while the other one sings as well as her mother. This latter child tried out for and was accepted in glee club in sixth grade. Between songs, she would be smiling constantly up there on stage. I was so happy for her. When her son was born, she would sing to him constantly. When he got old enough to speak, he would say "gain" to her when she finished a song. It was his way of saying again and it was music to my ears. At last I had a song of my own.

Coping with and Overcoming Hearing Loss Maybe!

In recent years, I have lost a great deal of my hearing capacity. It was a gradually thing that crept in. When I finally realized what was happening, I had my hearing checked and found that I REALLY needed a hearing aide. Actually both ears needed help but finances caused me to only purchase one hearing aide in the beginning. About a year later, I knew it was time to get the second one.



Coping with hearing loss and getting adjusted to using an aide took sometime. Like many women, I am vain and needing a device stuck in my ear was not a pleasant thought to me.



I remember leaving the audiologist office and starting my car. WOW, when those signals get so noisy? It must be hailing out there, that can't possibly be rain as I drove away! Incredible, these were two of the first sensory differences I noticed.



Pleasant surprises were being able to have a one on one conversation with someone and actually hear the whole conversation and respond correctly to that person and not see that puzzled look on their face as I had before when I did not respond in a reasonable manner to something they had asked.



One great benefit of using hearing aides is the ability to remove one in a crowded restaurant and still be able to carry on conversation without feeling overwhelmed. The biggest benefit by far comes at night when my extremely loud neighbors above me throw items around. Once I have my hearing aides out, I generally do not hear what goes on. Unfortunately, my daughter who is blessed with great hearing has to resort to ear plugs.

What I'm About

As I said yesterday,I'm going to try to use this site to post memoirs and some just plain fiction that I've written or will write. If you enjoy, good. If not, sorry, guess it's not for you.



Starting tomorrow, I'll try to get on and post something I've written before.I'd been attending a creative writing class in my neighborhood but recently moved so I'm trying to write on my own. I will continue to get back from time to time to this class since everyone there was so pleasant and helpful. Meanwhile if anyone has suggestions for topics, please post and I'll consider.Thanks.

Presently my daughter and I are attending a creative writing workshop that is held once a month in the evening at a local library. The teacher is excellent and has good speakers often as part of her class.



See you tomorrow.

I'm New Here

My daughter just helped me set up my first blog so I can save and share all my writings. I hope you will enjoy coming to see what I have to say. I plan on posting my writings (sort of like a memoirs situation) and other fiction writing as the mood strikes me. Hope you'll check my blog out from time to time and enjoy!