My 2008 Reading list; a book report

Warning: This is probably the LONGEST post I've ever written. I couldn't think of a way to shorten it, so if you choose to stay with me, I hope you enjoy it and maybe even find it useful.

Last January, I had a really neat idea. I read a lot! I love to read. I feel sad for people who don't enjoy reading for pleasure. I would rather read than watch TV 90% of the time.

Back to my neat idea.

For many years I've thought about keeping a reading log. Something to keep track of all the books I have read in that particular year. I thought how fun, to look back on the previous year, and relive it through the filter of what book I was reading at the time.

And ya know what? IT IS FUN!

Thank you, Early January 2008, Susan. I'm so glad you made a goal and actually kept up with it for the whole year. I realize I can't truly thank you in person, since you don't exist anymore, so I will give myself a moment to think good thoughts about what a good job I did.

Nothing like a good heartfelt ,pat on the back.

The thought has also just occurred that "2008 Susan" was also the one who started this blog. I may have had some big screw-ups this year but I also have to thank 2008 Susan for the good things she/I have done.

It also occurs that I don't need to prolong things any longer. I kept a reading list, I started a blog, I found two ways to have a record of my life this last year. So from "one day to go until I become 2009 Susan", to " 2008 Susan" Thank you and have a good New Year!

Starting with January here in it's entirety is my reading list for 2008.

My reading list for 2008

January
The Thirteenth Tale – Diane Setterfield
The Glass Castle – Jeanette Wall
Atonement – Ian McEwan
New Moon & Eclipse – Stephenie Meyer

February
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
The other Boleyn girl – Philipa Gregory
The Autobiography of King Henry VIII – Margaret George (g.b.d.n.f.*)
Every thing must go – Elizabeth Flock

March
Rules – Cynthia Lord

April

May
Stravaganza : City of Masks – Mary Hoffman
Please stop laughing at me – Jodee Blanco
Time Stops for No Mouse – Michael Hoeye
Ghost boy – Iain Lawrence
Rasputin’s Daughter – Robert Alexander
The Slow Moon – Elizabeth Cox

June
Tran sister radio- Chris Bohjalian

July
Before you know kindness – Chris Bohjalian
Lord of the nutcracker men – Iain Lawrence

August
Breaking Dawn – Stephanie Meyer
Pictures of Hollis Woods – Patricia Reilly Giff
Rules of the road- Joan Bauer
Idyll Banter – Chris Bohjalian

September
Bloodsteam – Tess Gerittsen
The Double Bind – Chris Bohjalian

October
The Shining – Steven King
The Kindness of Strangers – Katrina Kittle
A Theory Of Relativity – Jaquelyn Mitchard

November
The Mermaid Chair – Sue Monk Kidd
The Nanny Diaries – Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
The Secret Lives of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd

December
Love walked in – Marisa de los Santos
The Tales of Beedle the Bard – JK Rowling
Midnight Sun (long excerpt) – Stephenie Meyer
Hang a Thousand Trees With Ribbons: The Phillis Wheatley Story – Ann Rinaldi

Well those are all the books I read this year. Some were quickly read children's chapter books. Others were 650 pages or more adult type books.

Some were really good. Some were so so. Some were bad enough that I wouldn't recommend them to anyone.

I think I will give a quick review of them.

The really good ones, the probably just a big waste of time ones, and the ones that took a while to get out of my head whether for good or bad.

Starting with January,
The 13th Tale, was so so. An okay story, it just never really grabbed me.

The Glass Castle; Now this was a book. I almost stopped reading it a few times, it was so grim and sad but I stuck with it and I'm glad I did. Recommended.

Atonement; Basically pointless, somewhat boring, and in the end did NOT deliver.

New Moon, Eclipse; New Moon was pretty bad, but eclipse was a lot better, aaand, to skip ahead to August, Breaking Dawn was quite good. I think our little Stephenie Meyer is finally learning how to write. Oh I guess this is where I should mention the LONG excerpt of Midnight Sun, I read on Meyer's website. It was engrossing and fun to read from Edward's viewpoint.

Febuary
Wuthering Heights; Third time in 30 years I read it. The second time I really enjoyed it. This time, not so much. I guess there are just some books not worth reading when you are over 35.

The Other Boleyn Girl; fairly enjoyable, not at all historically accurate. Do the research you'll see what I mean.

Autobiography Of King Henry 8th; I had read this twice before and really enjoyed it. It seemed like a natural to read after finishing with Anne Boleyn. The problem was that it's like 1000 pages or so, and after the first 632, I realized I didn't want to read all of it this time. *Got. Bored. Did. Not. Finish.

Everything Must Go; Terrible. I stuck with it because I thought it would all lead somewhere. Big Mistake! Horrible, STUPID ending.

March started a dry spell for me. I read Rules; Pretty good. That was it for March and not a single book in April. I did read a bunch of magazines of course. Really.

May
Stravaganza;City of masks; Really good, I plan to read the rest of the series. Recommended.

Please Stop Laughing at Me; Whiney, whiney whiney, she mostly brought it all on herself.

Time Stops for No Mouse; Completely charming. I plan to read the rest of this series as well. Very much Recommended.

Ghost Boy; Really good book. Recommend

Rasputin's Daughter; Boring, what can i say. I paid for it I HAD to read it.

Slow Moon; Pretty good.

June
Trans Sister Radio; Again a one book month. This one though was a pretty long and thought provoking read. I don't know if you have read any Bohjalian, he writes about real people in different, weird or just plain unexpected situations. If you aren't bothered by transgendered people and subtle references to homosexuality, I recommend it.

July
Before You Know Kindness; Pretty good, a little too, one note, but generally a pretty good story.
Lord of the Nutcracker Men; A pretty intelligent story disguised as a children's book. Maybe for ten and up.

August
Pictures of Hollis Woods; Children's book. Good. Do recommend.
Rules of the Road; Children's book again. Even Better. definitely recommend for ten and up.
Idyll Banter; Excellent. Funny. Recommend for sure. Bohjalian at his best!

September
Bloodstream; I had never heard of Tess Garretsen before. Now I know why. Typical, somewhat poorly written, mystery. I can't hardly even remember much about it, it was that forgettable.

Double Bind; A departure for Bohjalian. I think that for the most part he should stick with what he does best; human dilemma stories, and leave the mysteries to others.

October
The Shining; I still don't know how I had managed to overlook this one the year I read mostly Stephen King. Pretty good, not one of his best but I can't not recommend, my good friend, Stephen.

The Kindness of Strangers; DO NOT EVEN THINK OF READING THIS BOOK! That is unless you want to be sickened for weeks after. The safe, friendly looking, cover of this book was such a deception. I won't go into detail, but if themes of child sexual abuse and torture aren't your thing then stay away from this book and probably anything else by the author. I don't have a good explanation on why I read the whole thing. I just have a hard time putting down a book that has caught my interest, no matter how sick it's content might be.

A Theory of Relativity; So so. But at least it helped cleanse my mind of The Kindness of Strangers.

November
The Mermaid chair; It was okay I guess, I found it at Goodwill for a buck 50 so I figured why not?

The Nanny Diaries; 50 cents at Goodwill. I can't really recommend it unless you like gimmicky books. The story wasn't bad, it just got old pretty fast.

The Secret Life of Bees; I loved this book. I paid close to ten dollars for it at Costco, what a bargain! After the Mermaid chair I wasn't really sure if I should give Sue Monk Kidd another chance. So glad I did! Recommend. Recommend. Recommend!

December
Love walked in; I only finished this one because I had paid for it. Maybe it's just me. I'm not really into Chick Lit. I like Well Written Books. It manages at times to be almost good. I actually left a pretty scathing review of it on the Barnes and Noble web site. Under the name of Susan 57 if you're interested.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard; Charming, fun, whimsical. Recommend for all Harry Potter fans.

Hang a Thousand Trees With Ribbons; based on a true story of an actual black women, sold as a slave at the age of 7. She was the first black woman to ever have a book published. Good book, although the ending was a little drifty.

Whew. There you go. Thanks if you stuck with me. I hope that if you don't already, that you will make 2009, your year to read.

Happy Reading and New Year to all my friends!

A Post With PICTURES!

Idid it!

I did it Idid it I did it I DID IT!!!

As you will see, I have pictures, lots of pictures. Oh big deal, you may say, everyone and their goldfish have pictures, you might say.

Well yes, that's true, maybe they do.

But not usually me.

I have always needed someone to help me whenever I put pictures on my blog. It's kinda lame having to wait for one of my kids to help ol Mom get a picture or two on her blog.

Well for your 411, good ol Mom has figured it out for herself.

DISCLAIMER: The actual process I used may not have been done in exactly the correct way. There is a possibility that photos used have been put on my computer in such a way as to take up too much space. Opening up the chance that someone else in my family will one day soon scream, what the h_ll, has happened to the computer there's no more room left! Who on earth used up all that room to put a few lousy pictures on. I, of course claim complete innocence to any wrong doing, and assure you the viewer that you shall not be held in any way accountable by simply looking through this post. Any interest in this post whether real or imagined, shall not be subject to examination, or held liable to the overloading of my computer. Oh, one more thing, this in no way means that I am henceforth legally obligated to use pictures on all of my future posts. But it does mean that I will try:) Have a nice day!

Well, believe it or not, this post will be short on written content and big on pictures along with accompaning captions. And yes this really is my blog. And no I am not being held captive by Mandi, who has requested that I consider using more pictures starting in 2009. So without further adieu, I give you;

Pictures!

This is me showing how happy I am to have pretty much figured out this picture thing! How do you like me now, Mandi?


Still happy!

Pictures of my oldest grandaughter, my sweet Abbey, just a few minutes before we head off to our family Christmas party that was held on Monday the 21st.

,

Courtney took these, BTW. She wanted to get creative, doing them in black and white and all.

The girls looking at my tree, and then turning around and holding hands.

Close ups of my pretty little Lindsay

Both girls in color. And last but not least, here is a picture of Shawn sitting in his orange "retro" chair letting us all get a glimpse of a small part of his vast movie collection.

Well there you have it, my first (almost) done by myself (I needed to consult Donald on one teeny weeny little thing) Post featuring more than just one or two token pictures.

What do you think?

My friend Phyllis.

I have a very dear friend. She is in her eighties, and I have known her for close to 27 years. Her name is Phyllis Rose, and she is one of my favorite people. We have always been quite fond of each other, but what has made our friendship grow so strong, was that until a year ago, we were visiting teaching partners. We were partners for close to four years, maybe even a little bit longer.

My memory is always foggy when it comes to measuring time.

For those of you who are thinking, "What on earth is a visiting teaching partner"? I shall explain.

I think that most of my blogging friends know that I am LDS, or more commonly known as a Mormon.

Our church is a highly organized institution.

One of the things that we do to keep track of people, in our Wards, who may be in need, or who might need a sounding board or even just a shoulder to cry on, is to send out what we call visiting teachers. The women's group in our Church is called the Relief Society. Our purpose is to build a strong sisterhood with each other and to reach out to those members who may be less active, or house bound, sick or disabled.

The one thing you can say about we Mormons is that we try to take care of our own.
Of course after that we also reach out to our communities and give a hand wherever there is a need.
As part of helping the Relief Society to be aware of each sister's needs; emotionally, spiritually, physically or temporally, we are paired up with another sister from our ward and then assigned a few sisters each, to visit every month.
I realize that to some non Mormons this might sound a little pushy or Big Brotherish, but our intention really is to look after the welfare and well being of each woman in our ward.

Oh, one more thing. As I said our Church is very organized. Each ward has a Relief Society President. Each President has two counselors and a secretary. So when it comes to things like, who will be partnered with who, and who will visit who, it is the job of the RS Presidency to make all these assignments.
We don't just decide, "well I really like "Karen" so I will be partners with her, and I really like, "Martha, Jane and Sophie" so we will visit them".

If it was that way, people would never really get to know one another outside of their own little circle of friends. And new people would probably be ignored and left out.

Like I said, organized.

Okay, I think that pretty well explains what a visiting teaching partner is. That is how Phyllis and I, who had always really liked each other, became such close friends.

We were a perfect match actually.

She had failing eyesight, and didn't drive anymore, I drive everywhere. I am a huge procrastinator and never get around to calling our sisters and making appointments for visits. Phyllis was born to be organized and on top of things like that.
She called and made appointments (a lot more work than it sounds, trying to match our schedules around theirs, it can be more work than a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.) So, I would drive and also I would give "the lesson". The lesson is more of a short positive thought. And to make it easier for us, a visiting teaching good thought, is printed every month in our church magazine "The Ensign."

How's that for organization?

Alright now, I believe that is sufficient background as to how Phyllis and I became such close friends.

Well, a little over a year ago, Don, Shawn and I started going to our new Ward. (Oh brother, I just realized; MORE explanation needed.) We had actually lived in our current ward for over two years, we just hadn't made the change yet because we weren't sure how Shawn would react to being in a different ward than the one he had been in all his life. Last November, ward boundaries had been changed, the ward we knew was basically cut in two. Resulting in a ward that was pretty much a new ward, with quite a few people gone, and a lot of people that were new. We figured that this was a great time to make the switch and start attending the ward whose boundaries we actually lived in.

Okay, NOW, I can sink into my story.

Phyllis knew that I was leaving our old ward to go to the ward that we were really supposed to be in. She was so sad that she would no longer have me for a partner. I was sad as well. We had worked so well together and had gotten so close that I just couldn't imagine going Visiting Teaching without her.
I loved her so much and I made up my mind that even though we were not going to be in the same ward anymore, that I would go visit her at least once a month. I knew how important those visits would be for her. Like I said, she can't drive anymore, and her health is really slipping away.

Fast forward to last week.

Here it is the Christmas season. I know it's the Christmas season because I have been so busy, shopping, shopping and more shopping. I also had a few parties to attend, and then just all the other things I do in a month.

The week before last, I started thinking about Phyllis. I'm really ashamed to admit this, but I had never gone to see her once. I had thought about it from time to time, but I just kept putting it off, or just plain forgetting her all together.

To add to my shame, I had even received two cards from her, over the last year. One last Christmas and then one for my birthday in June.

I know, I know, I. Am. Pond. Scum.

Well the feeling that I should go see her just kept growing stronger and stronger. So this last Tuesday, I made a firm commitment to go see her. I didn't want to go empty handed, so I first went to Target and got a cute little Christmas gift bag, and filled it with chocolates, a sweet little Santa Claus kitchen towel and a few other nice little things.

And then, I went to see her.

I was so excited that I would see my old friend again. I knocked at the door. It took a while so just to be sure I also rang her doorbell. It took a little bit longer, but I reminded myself that she moved pretty slowly.
After just a little wait, she slowly opened her door. I greeted her. She wasn't sure who it was at first.

Her sight that had been bad a year ago had diminished even more.

When she realized it was me, she smiled so big and was so excited, that I knew I had done the right thing. She said that she had thought it was me, but she wasn't sure since it had been so long since she had heard from me that she thought I had forgotten her.
Keep in mind this was NOT said in a scolding way at all. She said it so humbly that I knew it was just her being completely honest.

She invited me in so eagerly. I went in and sat down close to her. She had her curtains closed and her lamps were mostly turned off.

It made me so sad to realize that she had just been sitting there, by herself, all alone in the dark. "Oh Susan, I'm so happy to see you! Here let me turn some of these lights on so I can see you better" These were such sweet words that I was immediately choked up. She was so happy I was there.

She held onto my hand with her own, frail, practically transparent, hand.

She held on as if she never wanted to let me go.
She told me over and over how much she loved me, and I told her just as many times that I loved her right back.

We talked for quite a while. Reminiscing about old times and the people that we both knew. I felt so bad because I hadn't set aside as much time to spend with her as I should have. Courtney was expecting me to take her to do a few things and then drop her off at work.

Actually, she was right outside sitting in the car.

It was running with the heater on of course. But I knew I needed to get back out there before too long.

I felt so sorry that I hadn't orchestrated the visit better, so that I could have stayed as long as Phyllis would have liked me too. I finally told her about Courtney out in the van, waiting for me to come back out. She was so sweet and humble in letting me go. She told me to be sure and thank Courtney for sharing me with her.

I hugged her several times and kissed her on her soft cheek and her dear wrinkled forehead. She hugged and kissed me as well. I promised her that I would not give her any more cause to think I had forgotten about her. We both told each other several times how much we loved the other.

And then I gave her a final goodbye hug and kiss and headed out to my van.

Just as I left she told me that my visit was the very best thing that had happened to her the entire holiday season.

I've not stopped thinking about this visit since then.

The thing is, Phyllis has plenty of family. She has quite a few children and grandchildren in the area, and they are very good to her. They do a lot for her and she sees them often. Oh, also her oldest daughter also lives with her. So you see, I didn't really think that my neglect of her would be that big of a deal to her.

I have learned a really important lesson.

Just because you aren't family to the people who love you, just because you are not the only person they will ever have come for a visit, well I realize that those things make no difference sometimes.

If you love someone and they love you, then you have an obligation to that person no matter what.

I'm glad that I learned that while I still have some time left. I don't know how much longer Phyllis has on this earth. Her health has deteriorated so much in the last year.

She even told me that when I was no longer there to be her partner that she told the RS President that she was going to retire from visiting teaching. She said that without me she just didn't have the heart to do it anymore.

Well, that is my story. I hope to make good on my pledge I made to myself to go and see her at least once a month. I am still a procrastinator. I still can easily forget those things that matter the most. I'm just hoping that maybe, just maybe, writing this all down and sharing it with my friends will be the impetus that I need to keep my resolve strong.

To see Phyllis at least once a month. That is my goal.

Feel free, any time, to ask me if I have seen her this month or not. She was the one that kept me honest when it came to getting out to visit our sisters every month, and maybe my new blogging friends can help me to never forget this dear friend of mine who has enriched my life so very much.

Family, not family. Does it really matter where friendship is concerned?

Christmas with Shawn

I seem to be on a family roll lately with my blog. And it seems to be working for me, so here I go with another Shawn post.

Shawn is SO excited for Christmas. A few years ago I found the most darling little Christmas Countdown Chalkboard, at (believe it or not) the Dollar Store. Shawn was immediately taken with it and since then, every year, he becomes the "Keeper of the Chalkboard".

Each day he erases the number of days til Christmas and puts in the new number. He usually has a little difficulty remembering which number comes after which, at least until he gets to ten.

Everyone knows the ol' classic countdown: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

This year to ease his mind, I made him a little cheat sheet. It was simple and to anybody else it would look like a list, that so far, only had the numbers. And those numbers, would be in descending order.

He uses that cheat sheet religiously.

He loves that chalkboard by the way. So much so that I know it just kills him to always have to wait for the next day to get to change to the next number. I actually noticed that the evening of "11 days to go" he apparently gave in to his excitement and had erased the 11 and written the 10 by about 8:00 that evening.

I don't think he had thought ahead to the unintended consequences.

The next morning I found him pacing back and forth in front of his chalkboard. He had suddenly realized that by changing the number the night before, he was now facing an entire day and night of not getting to change his countdown number.

Trust me, that was sheer agony for him.

When Shawn is excited about something you can't help but know every little detail of his passion. When he is with me he keeps up a pretty steady stream of talking. Not conversation, no, he doesn't much go for that kind of communication. Too linear, I guess. With Shawn, it's mostly him chattering (mostly) non stop about whatever is on his mind at the moment.

Here I will supply a short example, so you can see what I mean.

Shawn; I'm really excited for Christmas. Is Christmas in ten days? I think I'm going to love that Christmas. Are Jeff and Heidi and my nieces going to come here for Christmas? I'm SO excited!!!I think I'm going to get The Mummy, Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor, starring Brandon Frasier. Does that movie have Brandon Frasier? I think I'm really going to like that movie.

Mom; You sure did like it in the Theater didn't you Shawn?

Shawn; Yeah, it was a good movie. Did that (insert character here) get knocked down by that (insert other character here). That was SO funny. Wasn't that so funny. I think I really laughed at that movie. Did I laugh at that movie?

Mom; You sure did laugh Shawn, you were a laughing fool (Shawn loves phrases like that).

Shawn; Yeah I sure did. Was that a scary movie? I think it was a little bit scary. But not too scary. It wasn't too inappropriate. Not like the movie the Dark Knight. Is that movie too scary for me to see? I wonder if that movie is too inappropriate. Maybe it has persuasive (that is the word he actually uses) language. Is persuasive language not good? And it has offensive violence. And strong adult situations. I think I better not see that movie.

(Yeah right you little stinker, you know perfectly well that the first chance you get, you're going to watch that movie.)

That is a little sample of talking with Shawn.

It doesn't really require you to be a good listener. If he gets to a question that he really does expect you to answer he will just keep repeating it until you give him some kind of answer.

As per usual, his Christmas list this year consists of mostly DVD's. His first request was for the new Disney release, "The Chronological DONALD DUCK vol 4" .
Then I believe his next, must have, movie, was "Popeye". Yes that's right. Do you remember that early nineties movie with Robin Williams as Popeye? Well I had Shawn watch it on "On Demand" about a month ago and he was completely taken by it.

The thing that never ceases to amaze me is how easily he can find his various movies or other interests on-line.

He insisted on renting a Super Mario Brothers 3, DVD, from the RedBox at Walmart. I was kind of surprised by that choice, because to the best of my knowledge, he had never seen that show when it was a weekday cartoon. Well I guess he might have, but that show has been off the air for at least 10 years or so.
Anyway, my point is, that the next day he was at the computer and had brought up the site of the company that sells all things Super Mario Brothers.

Needless to say, Super Mario Brothers DVD's have been added to his list.

He is also quite concerned about the contents of his stocking. He is never excited about candy. He usually ends up giving it to his siblings.

No, what Shawn wants in that stocking of his are purely Shawn friendly items.
He would just love a bottle of ibuprofen, a box of decongestant medicine, a roll or two of Tums and a couple different tubes of antibiotic or anti-itch ointments.

He LOVES these things.

I have had to implement a rule, that he needs permission before he takes or uses any of these things. Well, actually, I guess I'm pretty lax on the ointments.

I figure he can't cause too much harm with those.

Oh, and let me clarify, He will NOT get any of those medicines in his stocking (as much as he would love them) I mean, I'm not stupid.

He loves all thing medicinal. So much, that when he was younger, if he had a bottle of antibiotics or any other prescribed meds he would insist on taking it to bed with him. He wasn't happy unless his wonderful new remedy was right there next to his pillow. You can imagine the fits that were thrown when it was the pink liquid stuff that needed refrigeration.

This year Shawn's stocking can expect;

Some new, super expensive, super advanced, band-aids, ( he does need to keep his first-aid kit updated after all)

A container of face wash that is so expensive, I usually won't buy it for him,(which I'm sure will be all used up before the middle of January).

Possibly some hand sanitizer.(Always a favorite.)

A bottle of Listerine mouthwash,(he's currently having to suffer through a bottle of store brand)
(poor kid).

And last but not least: this black and clear, plastic pellet gun, with scope, that he found in the Sporting Goods section at Walmart.

He is well aware that all pellets will be confiscated.

Yes, my Shawn, is a young man of simple wants. If he can watch it, shoot it, or apply it, he is a happy guy.

I've said it at least once, but I'll say it again. I feel sad that everyone can't have a Shawn of their own!

Well, I guess I better take myself downstairs now, and see how many days left, until Christmas.



I thought you might enjoy pictures of Shawn and his Christmas Countdown Chalk Board.

Longing, loving, lonely,left out, lovely, little Lorelai

Warning; This post is probably longer than most of my other long posts. I think it's worth it anyway, but I won't feel TOO bad if you don't stay with me.

Sorry to report, but my sweet little Lorelai is sad. Lisa wrote a post about it yesterday. You can read about it HERE.
Ever since Alexandra was old enough she and I have enjoyed what we call, "Grandmother, Grandaughter, Day". I think the name is pretty self explanatory.

But just in case I will elaborate.

This day traditionally consists of, first, me driving over to Donald and Lisa's house, where of course I am greeted by two happy little girls, and as of the last 14 months one sweet moment of snuggling with baby Elisabeth.

After greetings for all, Alexandra and I walk out to my van, where I strap her into my van's integrated child seat (the legalities must be observed after all) and we head off for a day full of lunch out, (usually McDonalds, yes it is a small sacrifice.) and then off to run errands with grandma. For some reason, as far as Alexandra is concerned, a "Grandma day out" doesn't count unless actual time is spent at "Grandma's HOUSE".

Little Lorelai watched Lex and I leave for these G.G.Days, for 3 years. Amazingly she never complained much. It meant time for her to have mama all to herself.Not to mention the fact that I had informed her that as soon as she turned three she would be eligible for . . . . .

Grandmother, Grandaughter days of her OWN!

I am sad to admit that I have not kept up with these special days as well as I should.

Courtney and I did take Lori out for her third birthday. We made sure that she had a very nice time. But since then I think I have only taken her out a few other times. It has just now occurred to me that I better step it up though, in a couple short years she will be in school and these special days will be much harder to orchestrate.

Back to the point of this post.

If you read Lisa's post you know that poor little Lorelai was suffering great sadness from being little, uninjured, unnoticed, practically Red Headed Stepchild status, second youngest, Lorelai. Keep in mind that the hordes of people who have showered Alexandra with treats, gifts, flowers, and most importantly ATTENTION, are good, concerned, loving people, who have really lifted Lex's spirits. (Donald and Lisa's too) But being only four, this little sister can only take so much.

In spite of Lisa's ingenious idea of helping Lorelai flush her problems away, it didn't look good for day 3 of non-stop visitors and well wishes all meant for big sister.

I did the only thing I could think to do.

Plan a quick and spontaneous G.G. day out with my second youngest, little love.

I called and talked to Lisa first. Since I had already left a comment on her post she had a pretty good idea of what I was calling for. For Lorelai, however it came as a complete surprise. (How fun for me.) She accepted my invitation with great excitement. (Even more fun for me.)

We agreed that I would be there to pick her up around 12. I arrived pretty much on time.

One of the great things about having grandchildren is, if you are ever having a down day and need love and encouragement, you simply drive over and walk in their front door. You are instantly the most popular person in the entire house.

Believe me, it's one of the best feelings in the whole world.

Well, I went in and got my ego stroked. Elisabeth laughed and laughed as I talked to her and gave her lots of love. Alexandra was happy to see me and was so gracious about Lorelai having her special day. Lorelai was so excited that I should really find my thesaurus and look up a better, more fitting word for her reaction, than just excited.

Oh well, it will have to do.

We agreed that our first stop needed to be lunch. McDonald's just happens to have "My Little Pony" happy meals right now. Lori was aware of that, because a little girl in her Pre-school class had just bought one for Show and Tell, the day before.

Of course we headed to Mickey D's. I even took us to the one a little further away because it has an INDOOR play area. This did not escape her notice either. She told me how much she loved this particular McDonald's. Just to get a little credit here, I have to let on that I actually dread this McD's. It is almost as frantic and noisy as Chuck E Cheese.

But only the best for my little grandaughter.

She got a chicken nugget Happy Meal and I got the nuggets too. In a Big Kid Meal. This way we ended up with TWO Pony's. Now I told Lorelai that she could have both pony's or she could give one to Alexandra. I really wouldn't have minded at all if she decided to keep both of them. (Keeping in mind that Christmas had definitely come early for big sister.)

That sweet little girl didn't even need a beat to think about it.

I want to give one to Sissie was her immediate answer. See what a darling little love she is? Well we ate our lunch. Lorelai had been more than honest when she had told me how hungry she was. She ate up those nuggets in no time flat, and all of her fries, and then even some of mine.
I love seeing children eating well. (Yes I do realize the word "well" is relative here, seeing as how it was Chicken Nuggets and French Fries she was devouring.)

After eating, as every child knows, it was Play Time! She put her shoes in the shoe holder. I had actually offered to hold on to them for her but she wanted the FULL experience. I let her play as long as she wanted. She was practically the only girl in the whole play room. I wasn't sure how she would feel, being in the minority and all. But it seemed to make no difference to her.

She was off like a shot.

After maybe half an hour she came and informed me that she was ready to go. So we went.
Target was next on the agenda. There were some things I needed to pick up for my mom. I also figured that we could find her a treat or two there(that would be for Lori, not my mom). We had such a good time. She was especially interested in looking at all the "Christmas Stuff".

So we did.

Of special interest were all of the Christmas candies. The candy canes were the most popular with her. The classic red and white ones were OK, but she had eyes for the more colorful ones. She actually told me that she liked the "Character Ones".

"Character" ones?

Where does a four year old learn about terms like that?

I wouldn't have been surprised if she had also differentiated them as the "Licensed, Character, Ones". The multi colored "Disney Princess" candy canes were judged to be the most desirable. There were three each of the blue ones, the red ones, the green ones, and much to her delight, yellow ones.

(Warning: Bragging Grandma Ahead!)

She saw that her chosen canes had stripes around each one. For some reason the yellow ones didn't seem to have stripes. That was a slight concern for her since yellow is her favorite color. And then she really shocked me by announcing that the pictures of each Princess appeared to be on the plastic wrapper instead of on the cane itself.

She is only FOUR!

Barely four, for that matter. And here she is analyzing the make up of these chosen candy canes. Now I do realize that it has been 17 years since I have owned a four year old of my own, but that, in my opinion, was pretty darned impressive. If not, please don't burst my bubble. Every grandma should be allowed bragging rights after all.

Well, I told her what a smarty pants she was.

She didn't like that. She informed me that she didn't personally care for the term "Smarty Pants". I realized it wasn't the Smarty as much as the Pants that offended her. I asked her opinion on "Smarty Shoes". Bingo, we had a winner. Now I just have to remember to always use Smarty Shoes instead of the inferior Smarty Pants.

I didn't forget of course to pick up the things that my mom wanted me to get for her. On that list was a birthday card for my brother Mike and his son, my nephew Andy. I like getting cards for my mom. She usually gets the cards that you would expect a 72 year old woman to get.

Nice but BORING.

I on the other hand prefer a funny card over one that has a long sugary poem about "My Son". Or "My Grandson".
She feels that if the card companies go to all the effort to put the name right there on the card, then those are the ones to get. I don't think I have ever gotten a card from her that didn't work the word "Daughter" into it in some way. (Janice, Please don't show this post to mom.)

I had decided that since it was my choice, I would pick out a card that I knew my brother and nephew would really enjoy.

I have sadly come to the conclusion that store bought cards these days, may have several "funny" cards, I just can't believe how so many of them focus on Beer, or other forms of drinking and riotous partying. Fine for some people but we are Mormons! The rest of the funny cards are mostly smutty! I couldn't believe how many of them referred to that part of a man's body that makes him a man. And then of course all the ones with scantily clad beautiful women. I don't get it. There is so much more to humor than seventh grade type smut.

Ooops. Off my topic.

Well this was the only time in our whole day out where Lori got a little restless. I couldn't blame her of course. I just couldn't believe how long it took to find a clever card appropriate for a very nice sixteen year old boy and my beloved, soon to turn forty year old brother. I finally found them but geez what an ordeal.

Next on the agenda was going to Tri-City Retirement Home to visit Great Grandma Brinkerhoff, and give her the things I bought for her.

We got up to her room, and SURPRISE she was not there. Weird, really weird. My mom is always in her room when ever I pop in. Lorelai was a little confused as well. I had noticed a game of Bingo being played in the game room downstairs that we had walked past. It hadn't even occurred to me to look for her in there. She isn't in the best shape right now so she usually just stays in her room.

There was nothing left, but to go on a search for Grandma B.

Lorelai was promised a visit and she was going to get one. We went back downstairs. Lorelai pushed all the elevator buttons of course. We found her. She was in the game room.

Bingo had just ended.

Mom was thrilled to have Lorelai there. There's nothing like showing off a cute little great grandaughter to all of your friends who then wish that their great grandaghters were there so they could show them off too. Score one for Susan. Score one for my MOM.

Well after the Great Grandma and various other old people visiting, it was time to go. Lori had had a very full day. She was happy. She was excited. She was satisfied, and last but not least, she was tired. She fell asleep on the way home.

There were visitors there when we arrived but I don't think she really even noticed. She couldn't wait to give Alexandra the purple My Little Pony. She also was happy to show off her box of Disney Princess candy canes, oh yeah, and her Hello Kitty stickers that she had found in Target's dollar section. Lex had a bucket of little foam gingerbread men that she must have recently received. She handed one to Lorelai.

Since they had both been Princess for the day, I think it was very easy for them to meet on equal terms and feel nothing but love for each other.
I had a little more snuggle time with my precious little Elisabeth. She laughed so wonderfully for me.

I can't imagine anyone ever coming up with a better thing than being a grandparent. I think it is the one unbroken thing that will fortunately never ever have some fool trying to fix it.
After all how many perfect things are left in this world anymore?

Meanwhile back at the Ranch

Yesterday was a rather eventful day. Not on purpose though.

It started out unassuming enough.

Don and I had decided it would be a nice treat to go to Granny's Buffet for breakfast. We thought it would be even nicer to bring Shawn with us and nicer yet to have Kelly tag along.

We had a pleasant time and I'm sure we all felt a little too full by the time we left.
(As well as slightly nauseated. Kelly says, and I'm considering joining him, in swearing off breakfast at Granny's. Ever again.)

I was planning on finally getting my house decorated for Christmas.

First though, I went upstairs to read blogs and leave comments. At around 11:25, I was in the middle of reading my cousin Amy's blog when the phone rang. I saw that it was Donald and Lisa's number. (For those who don't know that would be my son and daughter-in-law, parents of my three youngest grandaughters.)

I answered to a very urgent sounding Donald. "Mom! I need you to get over here right NOW!!!!"

I don't question.

I jumped out of my computer chair, hurried downstairs, threw on my shoes and glasses, grabbed my purse and ran to my car.

I was there in less than 6 minutes.

Their oldest, my six year old grandaughter Alexandra, had horribly injured her poor little self just moments before on their swing set. You can read about it HERE on Lisa's blog.

Trust me it was every bit as gruesome as Lisa says it was. When I got there poor little Lex was sitting on the potty and trying to pee before they took her to the Emergency Room. She was crying so hard because she needed to go so bad but she was terrified of how bad it would hurt.

I won't go into more details because Alexandra was Donald and Lisa's responsibility.
My responsibility was a completely traumatized little Lorelai.

Age four.

This dear little girl, had been outside, playing with her big sister, when the accident occurred. In a nutshell, they were playing on their swing set.

They were wearing gloves.

Alexandra was hanging from the bars. She has hung from those silly bars so many times that it hadn't crossed her mind that doing it while wearing gloves might not be a good idea.

Here is where the story gets a little jumbled.

She lost her grip and fell. She grabbed the swing's chain. She has slid down poles before and it looks like that was what she tried to do with that chain. Well that chain cut deep into her little private area, and this was compounded by the big hook connecting it to the swing's seat.

Lorelai was right there watching the whole thing.

She heard Lex start screaming. She saw the blood. And to make it even worse for her, minutes before she fell, Alexandra had been trying to convince her to come across the bars herself.
Donald knew how upset Lorelai would be so he had told her to stay outside until they could take care of her Sissie. He knew how Lorelai would react to seeing all the blood that was at the moment pooling on their dining room floor.

This had added to Lorelai's fear however.

The thing is, as I talked to Lorelai, I really don't know what the best solution would have been. She was very upset at not getting to come in with her injured sister, but if she had come in, the sight of her sister, bleeding so badly, and screaming and crying, would have probably been an even worse thing for her to watch.

And they say that the President has difficult choices to make.

As hard as it was for me to turn my back on what was going on with Alexandra, I knew my place was with Lorelai. Fortunately baby Elisabeth was sleeping, so at the moment, at least, she wasn't a factor.

Donald and Lisa left with Lex probably ten minutes after I had gotten there.
Before I distracted her with something fun, I realized that Lori really needed to talk about what had happened.

If ever a child needed comforting and needed it now it was Lorelai.

This is when she gave me her version of what had happened outside. The idea that Alexandra had been trying to get her to do the same thing, seemed to be one of the biggest fears she was dealing with right then. I just let her talk. When she announced that she was not ever, going to play on monkey bars until she was seven, I felt that we had started to turn a corner.

The even bigger thing, though, for her had been the blood.

Lorelai is terrified by the sight of blood. A tiny bit of smeared blood on even the smallest owwee is enough to send her into fits. She was very aware that the towels in the kitchen and laundry room were full of her sister's blood. Suddenly, even the tiniest little spot of anything on the floor or the table was suspect. She just knew that all that blood couldn't have possibly all been cleaned up.

I spent an amazing amount of the five hours I was there with her, proving to her how many of those little spots, she kept finding were, chocolate, cracker crumbs or the remaining shards of a candy cane.

(And don't worry Lisa, I am NOT implying that the house was a mess. You know how impressed with your housekeeping skills I am.)

Probably the biggest mistake I made was when Lisa's brother David called.

I was explaining to him what had happened. I think I must have used the word, blood, more than once because I looked over at Lori and she was looking ready to start crying again. When I was done talking to David, Lorelai let me know that she did not want to hear me use the word blood, any more because it was too scary.

I'm pleased to announce that I handled this one perfectly.

We talked about blood. I have never been afraid or grossed out by blood. Actually I have always been somewhat fascinated by it. Those surgery programs, the ones they show on the "medical channels"? I like watching those. I have never been squeamish.

Lorelai on the other hand, finds the very word offensive.

I told her that we would simply need to come up with another name for it. One that she liked, and didn't find scary at all. I offered the first name for it that popped into my head.

Red Goo.

I must have been inspired. Lorelai loved the name "red goo". We both agreed that there was nothing at all scary about "red goo". Just to make sure I even briefly recounted a small part of Alexandra's mishap. Substituting the word red goo for the offensive blood. She took it quite well.

She did feel the need to remind me, of course, that she would never get on a set of monkey bars until she had reached the ripe old age of seven.

I suggested, maybe not even until age eight, or nine, or even ten. She found that very comforting.

Oh, I forgot to mention that, after about 45 minutes, Elisabeth woke up. She is the best little baby girl. I did spend quite a lot of time holding and playing with her. Lorelai loves this little sister so much, that she never once complained about sharing her "Grandma time" with Lizzy.

Lorelai and I played Memory and Old Maid, and were going to play her Mickey Mouse game but she decided on watching Mickey instead.

All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend a Saturday.

Sure, I could have been home stressing over Christmas decorations. I could have made a batch of shortbread cookies (please, don't ever commit the sacrilege of using margarine) Who knows I may have even ended up taking a nap.

Instead, I had the satisfaction of knowing that, to at least my kids and grandkids,

I am invaluable.

Online maddness, or, This is progress?

My blogging buddy Tiffani, just got her water turned off. Now she admits to being partly to blame for this. I don't agree with her at all though, I think she was simply a victim of "THE SYSTEM". To read about her little mishap go HERE, read it and I'll see ya back here in just a bit.

All right, I have had this post in mind since almost the time I started my blog. I just could never remember it. I still have quite a few of these ideas crawling around in the southern most point in my head. I will post them as I remember them. So here is my post inspired by Tiffani.

For several years now I have been increasingly frustrated by the new thinking, that:

Anything worth doing, is worth doing ON LINE.

I simply don't agree with this. If I have a problem with something, the last thing I want to do is sit down and write an e-mail. Oooh, an e-mail. You can't get more direct than that.

Hah! I don't think so.

Call me old minded but if I have a problem, especially one that I expect someone to solve, the last thing I want is to sit around and wait for my e-mail to be answered.

You see, I always have questions. Always.

When you are conversing via e-mail, it's not exactly the best format for questions. Quite often when I have questions and someone gives me an answer, all that usually does is lead to more questions.

If I am in the middle of a transaction, of any kind, I want to speak to a HUMAN!

Now you would think that procuring a number and trying to go the phone route would be less painful.

WRONG!!!

I don't want to have to go through seven or eight, screens, being told what number to press, only to end up at another series of numbers to press to really get to where you want to go. This "round and round the mulberry bush" type of telephonery, is so infuriating that by the time I have an actual person on the phone (and if I'm lucky, one that doesn't have a strong Indian accent) I am usually so angry, that it's hard to not take it out on the person who has just asked, "how may I help you"?

As if this kind of technology isn't bad enough, now every one and their poodle, want you to start conducting all of your business online.

The cable company, the electric company, your credit card company, your mortgage holder, the fine people at the garbage hauling and water providing companies.

They all are trying their hardest to convince you to pay your bill and conduct any other matters you might have with them,

On Line.

As far as I'm concerned, paying bills on-line is a method of last resort.

I will stick with,
writing a check,
then writing the amount paid on the included invoice,
putting that and the check in the envelope,
sealing the envelope,
putting my return address on the envelope,(cause after all, ya just never know),
putting a stamp on the envelope and sticking it in the outgoing mail box.

Yes I will do all of that instead of,

Going upstairs to my computer,
finding the exact site I need to go to,(I usually google it no matter how sure I am of the web address)
Try to remember what my user name and password is for this site, (after all using the same one for each site makes it easier for the I.D. thieves)
Hitting the "I forgot my user name and/or password" button,
go to my e-mail to see what help they have sent me,
run through the complicated process of finding out your user name and/or password.
Going back and doing it all over because you may have originally forgotten one little line that had an asterisk by it that meant it was required.
Go back to your e-mail and try it again.
After two failed attempts, search everywhere on the site for a phone number, so you can get a real person to talk to and explain to them that you are not having any luck with finding your old user name and password.

Go through the excruciating phone game that I earlier described.

I will skip through the next ten steps and move on to the point where I now have my user name and password.

Locate and click the "make a payment" button.
Go to the next huge screen demanding every last bit of financial information you could possibly have.
Fill it out to the best of your ability, knowing that no matter how careful you are it's still going to come back saying that you didn't enter one of the "required" fields properly.
Get caught in this loop for at least five cycles until you finally realize what tiny little bit of information you have neglected to fill in. (Probably the name of your childhood pet)
After twenty minutes of this exercise in frustration, finally get to the point where you are asked to hit the process button.
HIT IT! And pray that instead of another error screen, it will come back with those most desired words;
You have successfully completed this transaction.

Now I don't know about you, but by this point, I have exactly two nerves left.

And at least three more bills that need to be paid.

I know that my son Donald and my brother Mike are going to roll their eyes at me. Maybe, just maybe the rest of you will as well.

I just would like to know, why I am considered such a dinosaur for wanting to pay my bills the way I've always paid them. Most of them I mail, a few I actually pay in person.

Ya know what? I like the paying in person scenario the best.

I just can't believe though that I'm the only one out there who doesn't find the whole on-line process, simply too frustrating to be of any real use.

If I ever have a complete nervous breakdown, it won't be because of my kids. It won't be because of the economy or the high price of toilet paper.

No the final straw for me will be with one more person saying to me (over the phone)

"You know? You can always pay that on-line".

Counting my blessings

Here it is Wednesday evening, I guess I could call it Thanksgiving Eve. Why is it that Christmas Eve is practically a holiday in and of itself, but none of the other major holidays score their own Eve. I guess Christmas should be that special, we are celebrating our Savior's birth after all. I just think it's kinda funny that as much as human beings love repetition that we would have come up with a few more "Eve's" by now.

And then there is Halloween which is an Eve with no holiday the next day. Have you ever realized that. Funny huh?

For this post though, for all intents and purposes, I consider myself smack in the middle of Thanksgiving Eve.

And ya know what? I'm feeling pretty darn good. Ya betcha.(Did that sound too Sarah Paliney?)

I'm feeling good for several reasons and I decided to make a list of some of the things I'm feeling particularly good about tonight.

I'm feeling really good that my daughter Heidi and my son-in-law Jeff, and my granddaughters Abbey and Lindsay came down from Spokane. This is really a much bigger deal than it appears. We had all (all, being me and Don and Shawn, and Donald and Lisa and little girls.) agreed to head over to Spokane this year and treat ourselves to a Thanksgiving dinner courtesy of Heidi.

Heidi is a really good cook and has NEVER turned out a bad Turkey. (That's really quite an accomplishment if you think about it)

Anyway, a few weeks ago I started adding up how much it was going to cost for us to go to Spokane, stay two nights in a Hotel, (Donald and Lisa had dibs on Heidi's extra beddage, and that's really okay, Don and I are actually more "stay in a Hotel" travelers, than "stay with friends or family" ones.) Provide my assignments to the dinner, and then more gas for the ride home. So I did the only thing that made sense.

I called Heidi and tried to sell her on the idea of them coming up here.

I pointed out that it would be a lot cheaper for me to reimburse their gas expenditure, than for us to come over there.

Heidi, failed to acknowledge my logic.

Then I realized that if we were in Spokane my mom would be here all by her little lonesome. The places where she could have normally gone (her sister's, my sister's) were for various reasons not available this year. Not only that but my 26 year old son Kelly would have been stuck here because he has to work on Thanksgiving.

It made me sad to think of him coming home from work to an empty house with no Thanksgiving left-overs in sight.

Heidi, acquiesced, somewhat reluctantly, she did have good reasons though. There's a pretty good chance that this may be their last year here in Washington. Their last chance to have everyone over for Thanksgiving, for who knows how long.

So kudos to Heidi and Jeff, for agreeing to come here. Heidi has by now set up camp in Lisa's kitchen and is performing her magic for tomorrows dinner.

Which brings me to the reason for this post.

I am thankful.

I am thankful for so many things. And I know that I won't have time tomorrow, and I know that by Friday, I may be more concerned about getting ready for Christmas than writing a list of all my blessings. So here I sit in my family room surrounded by Abbey and Lindsay, my sweet Shawn, and my much loved, middle child Kelly.

The coziness of it all is just really filling me with feelings of gratitude.

Without further adieu I present to you the things I am feeling grateful for this Wednesday, November the 26th at 9:30 in the evening.

I am really happy that due to Heidi's influence I have gotten most of my food assignments for tomorrow, if not completed, at least half way finished. Trust me, for me, this is a "real big deal".

I am so grateful, I could cry, that my precious baby granddaughter Elisabeth, who has been blind due to a brain malfunction (her beautiful little eyes are perfect) has shown in the last few days that there is a very good chance that she is having moments of sight.

This is a HUGE big deal!

I am thankful to be blessed with a son-in-law and daughter-in-law whom I truly love. Lisa and I have such a comfortable, loving and close relationship that we are quite often, each others favorite choice to spend time with. Jeff and I have fun teasing each other and just generally joking around but we both know there is a real loving relationship behind it all.

I love you Lisa. I love you Jeff.

I think I have probably talked about this before, but I am so blessed that Heavenly Father let us be Shawn's mom and dad. Shawn is just my guy. He is a mama's boy, through and through. And it is such an adventure watching him grow and stretch and learn.

Actually I am just plain thankful for all five of my children. They each are so different, but in so many ways they are perfect just as they are.

I love you Donald. I love you Heidi. I love you Kelly. I love you Shawn. I love you Courtney.

I am thankful for my dear husband. I can't imagine being married to a more loving, helpful, considerate, thoughtful, and just plain all around good guy. Don can look at me first thing in the morning (when I am perfectly aware of how terrible I look) and he sees nothing but beauty. I am NOT an easy person to live with, and Don has not only stuck with me through 32 years of marriage, he lets me know in tons of ways that he considers it a privilege.

I LOVE you Don!

I am thankful for my house. I love my house. It has a few things I would change if I could, (I would love a bigger bedroom) but I don't ever dwell on things like that. All I have to do is remember how many people in this world are grateful for their own little cardboard shanty.

In the face of such desperate poverty, how could I ever complain.

I am grateful to have been born in the USA. There are other really wonderful places in the World to be born as well, but it breaks my heart to think that the majority of the people on this earth, do in fact, live in the most miserable, filthy, unhealthy, and poverty stricken third world countries. And yet even they find joy in life.

How can I ever complain about anything in light of that.

In the same vein, I am so grateful for the incredible book, "The City of Joy" written by Dominique Lapierre. This is a life changing book. You will never again feel sorry for whatever condition you happen to find yourself in after reading this powerful book. It is the story of a Catholic Priest who had such a love for his fellow humans that he moves into the slums of Calcutta India to live with the poorest of the poor. If you read nothing else in 2009, please procure this book and READ it. I promise it will change the way you look at life.

Well I am getting tired. It also occurs to me that I have a really big day in front of me tomorrow. I think I will sign off, tuck my two granddaughters into their couch beds, kiss them goodnight, give Shawn his nightly "love and kiss", and go find my husband and tell him that it's bedtime.

I love my life and I pray that you love yours!

Good night.

Thanksgiving thoughts

I am going to come clean here. Thanksgiving is probably my least favorite holiday.
When I was a kid I loved it, just like most children do.
It was an exciting time of family get togethers, fancy tablecloths, using the nice dishes and mom's best silverware.

Thanksgiving had left such a favorable impression on me, that I was well into my late thirties before I started to notice the secret, unattractive, underbelly of this once glorious day.

I promise you that I'm not by any means on a mission to turn you against the Big Day. No, it's more of a, me feeling the need to vent, rather than trying to gather up a few followers.

One of the first things that I realized after hosting several Thanksgiving dinners of my own, was just how much money was involved. It's not that I didn't know how to delegate, because I do, but no matter how efficiently you hand out food assignments, it still ends up costing quite a lot more than I had ever intended.

The money spent isn't really the big problem for me though, more of a minor nuisance. I include it mostly, because it was the first catalyst towards my new feelings for this old Holiday.

After all, Don and I spend quite a lot on full sized candy bars for Halloween and that doesn't bother me at all. I think it's worth it because we both really love Halloween.

Around the time when I started feeling the money issue, were new feelings about the amount of work involved.

First off there is the tradition of "The Little Woman" waking up at the break of dawn to get the turkey ready to put in the oven. This early morning routine is usually due to the fact that for some insane reason, the country as a whole has decided to turn Thanksgiving "Dinner" into Thanksgiving "Brunch".

Preparing a Thanksgiving Dinner is not for the faint of heart. You may be lucky enough to have more than one oven. My sister-in-law Cindy does. I'm not sure why, but it seems like just about everything for Thanksgiving needs to be baked. I realize I'm exaggerating here a bit, maybe a little. But why is it that, so many of the traditional menu items need baking?

Pies need baking, rolls need baking, sweet potato casserole needs baking. Do you make that green bean, onion ring strips, cream of mushroom soup casserole? I never have but I'm pretty sure it needs to be baked.

All of this amounts to a pretty big problem.

Yes, yes, I realize that pies can be, and usually are, baked the night before. You can do that with the rolls as well, I guess, but I can tell a fresh baked roll from a baked the day before and quickly heated up for the dinner, roll any day.

So thus begins the huge balancing act, of, how do we get everything in the oven, the very oven that at the moment seems to be mostly taken up by that big twenty pound gobbler.

Families have been broken apart over issues like this.

For the life of me I don't understand why it has been decided that this big ceremonious event needs to be over and done with by 1:00 in the afternoon.

That is actually one of the big reasons I have become somewhat negative to the T Day.

As far as I can see Thanksgiving is a LOT of work. Just so everyone can sit down to a hopefully pleasant dinner, that if you really stretch it, might last up to 45 minutes. And then it's over.

Except for the huge task of cleaning up.

Now, lucky for me, I have a wonderful husband who is always more than willing to take charge of the, "lets clean it up" problem. He realizes that it is only fair for the men to take over the job of clean-up, since it was mostly the women who made the mess, uuuh, I mean prepared the lovely Thanksgiving Dinner.

Still though, I just can't help but feel like it was a LOT of preparation, for something that took probably a sixth of the time to eat, as it did to prepare.

My sister Janice feels pretty much the same. A few years ago she decided to do just the appetizers and desserts. I think she is really on to something.

I guess that I'm finally getting to the root of my problem here.

Thanksgiving, so we are told, is all about those early Pilgrims. There are quite a few versions of the story. I liked this one they brought up last week on the Today Show. It said that basically the "P guys" got together with the "heavily feathered ones" to celebrate the fact that they had survived their first winter in the New World.

Mostly through the help and friendship of those pesky Indians of course.

Most of the versions I have heard said that the Pilgrims, were celebrating their first successful harvest. That would put Thanksgiving right where we celebrate it. Here at the endish part of November. But if the Today show is correct, and it was more of a "Just happy to be alive after that nasty winter" kind of thing, then shouldn't we be celebrating it in early spring.

Of course that could end up clashing with Easter, couldn't it? And here in America the timing of "Holidays" is very important business. The retailers depend on this.

So we have Thanksgiving (rightly or wrongly, does anyone really care?) at the end of November. And guess what else comes at the end of November?

Football!

I don't know when Football became synonymous with Thanksgiving, but somehow it did.

This brings me to my biggest complaint about the day. It seems to be Human Nature to take anything that is considered good, and try to make it better. The fact that this almost always fails seems to go unnoticed by most people.
Here we had a Holiday whose Noble purpose was to encourage us all to be thankful for our many blessings. That was good. That was right. A day to give thanks. What could be better?

Apparently everything goes better with Football.

This really rubs me the wrong way. How on earth can you be expected to spend a day reverently contemplating all that we have been blessed with, when just a room away, some stupid Football game is turned up to maximum volume, with thunderous cheers and jeers coming from those, too busy with the game, to be helping those who are preparing the feast?

And DON"T even get me started on the retailers and media's determination to rechristen the whole thing "Turkey Day".

Thanksgiving has received the same treatment as most the other holidays where you get a day off work for. It has been cheapened. It's original purpose has been debased. In my family, as I'm sure in many others, we try to protect some semblance of tradition by going around the table and having everyone announce what they are most grateful for. This is good. It actually does help us to remember for maybe 15 minutes the REAL purpose of the day.

If I had my way, I wouldn't get rid of Thanksgiving. No, not at all. I would just like to see it scaled back to the original purpose. A day of Thanks. Go ahead and make the big dinner. But in my opinion it should be given the respect of being a "Dinner". Instead of a "let's hurry up and get this over with so we can watch the big game and have some of that pie."

I'm not trying to be judgemental here. Really. I'm just pleading for a little more respect for a day that was not intended to be one of the biggest boons to the turkey industry. And not a day for being completely focused on Football. I just think that a day given over to feelings of gratitude should be celebrated as it was intended. Gather your family together, spend some time enjoying each other, and never forget that the name of the day is NOT Turkey day.

The name of the day is Thanksgiving.

Shameless Promotion

I wanted to let everyone, who reads my blog, to know that my daughter Heidi finally gave into the pressure and has started a blog of her own. If you have been reading my blog for a while you might have seen one or more of the posts I have written about her. Heidi is my second oldest. She is very creative, very funny, as well as lots of fun to hang out with.

She also has a passion for Cinema.

She makes really good use of her "Net Flicks" account. She likes to watch old black and white films as much as newer releases. And she likes to let people know about movies that they may never even have heard of.

Heidi is the mother of my two oldest grandaughters, Abbey and Lindsay. So now you can get to know my family better and sometimes even hear a different version of things that I might write about.

If you already read my son Donald's blog, and/or my Daughter in law Lisa's you should try out Heidi's.

I promise you won't be dissapointed.


Okay Heidi is that good enough? Can I see my grandaughters now?

Coco Bear, a love story

This is a story about a little girl and her stuffed bear. I don't believe any bear had ever been more loved by a child than this one. I'm not even sure if Christopher Robin and Edward Bear (of course that would be Winnie the Pooh to you) had the love for each other that this little girl had for her bear.

It all started the Christmas she was two.

My Grandpa Brinkerhoff, who was by then a re-married former widower, got Christmas presents for my children. Not too unusual I admit. For my two youngest, Shawn and Courtney, he got two stuffed bears. The one meant for Courtney (after all it was wrapped with her name on it) was a sweet fluffy little white bear with a red paw that when squeezed would play a Christmas song.

Which song it was I have no idea, my memory is certainly not that good.

Now the other bear, was a cute but somewhat nondescript little brown bear. He didn't make music, he didn't really do anything other than expect to be cuddled.

To this day, I still don't know why, but the second Courtney had a good look at Shawn's plain brown bear, she had eyes for nothing else under the Christmas tree that year. Within a few days, little brown bear was not only no longer Shawn's. But it had been elevated to the status of the only toy Courtney had any interest in.

I realized that a bear this special needed a proper name.

Courtney for some reason had made it known that this bear was a boy bear. How do children decide these things? That's something that has mystified me for years. The fact was though that she had fallen for her first boy, and he was a bear.

I ran a few names past her. None of them would stick. I didn't think she would really want him named Teflon or Blueberry which were some early version names that didn't seem right to either of us. Suddenly I remembered a book that my little brother Brian had loved as a child. It was about a little monkey boy named Arthur.

Arthur also had a beloved bear. His bear was named Honey Bear.

The book was a cute one that I had always enjoyed, so just on an off chance, I ran the name Coco Bear by Courtney. I didn't want to plagiarize. I thought, Honey? Coco? Close enough. Apparently it was inevitable that this bear was meant to be named Coco. Courtney pounced right on it and from that moment on Coco Bear was born.

For the rest of her toddler and early childhood, Courtney would not go anywhere without her Coco Bear. He slept with her, he sat with her while she ate. He was even lucky enough, one day, to accompany her to a day of Kindergarten.

It was one of those bring your stuffed animal to school with you days.

Her heart was so devoted to that bear that on gift giving occasions there was absolutely NO point in getting her any kind of doll. Baby or otherwise. She seemed offended at the thought of her Coco not being an only bear.

Don't worry though, she may have been one of the few girls who never played with dolls, but Coco turned out to be a pretty all purpose bear.

Coco even had a voice. Sure it may have been provided by Courtney, but it was definitely Coco supplying the words.

Is it possible to have an imaginary friend who is actually tangible? I assume so, because that was also one of Coco's duties. He and Courtney would have conversations all the time. Coco had some pretty strong opinions as I recall.

Sometimes even to Courtney's dismay.

Most of the time of course those two were both on the same page.

I can't forget to mention the controversies, at times, concerning Coco. Courtney is my baby. The youngest of my five children. Now Shawn, who was only 17 months older than Courtney, had no problem with Courtney and her Coco.

He didn't even remember that the little brown bear was in reality his property.

For Shawn, if Courtney said that Coco was real, well, who was he to argue. Shawn still takes things at face value, but when he was three I don't think he ever questioned things like who or what is real and who isn't. This was one of the reasons I believe, why Shawn and Courtney were so close. Shawn just followed Courtney and believed everything she taught him.

Unfortunately, Courtney's older siblings, had a better grounding in reality.

I think it would be somewhat safe to say that those three older siblings, at best tolerated Coco, and at worst loved to threaten various harms towards his fluffy little being.

Not that they didn't have reason.

Coco's favorite form of communication was to get right in your face and talk in an undiscernible, high, squeaky voice that could only be described as fingernails on a chalkboard.

It was not pleasant.

Even when Coco hadn't chosen a particular victim. he still could be heard from one end of the house to the other. For being a bear, he most the time sounded like a monkey. A monkey in great distress to be more accurate. I have to admit that at times I even needed some respite from that noisy little bear. It's funny too, because Courtney herself, had the softest, sweetest, little girl voice you could ever have heard.

I won't go into the gruesome details, but suffice it to say that some rather heinous tricks were played on that little bear. I seem to remember spending quite a lot of time saving Coco from angry, annoyed older siblings.

It amounted to many unpleasantnesses in our household. I think Courtney might still be a little bit scarred.

Unbelievably though, was that she never was too freaked out when I would plop him into the washer for his bi-monthly "bath". I had of course quite carefully explained to her that Coco needed cleaning and that going through the washing machine was one of the things he enjoyed most.

Fortunately Coco corroborated my story.

There were also the routine check-ups. Over the years Coco ended up with various rips and tears. No problem though. I had a spool of coco bear brown heavy duty thread. He needed patching up usually a couple times a year. To this day when Courtney sees that spool of thread she smiles and asks, is that Coco's thread. (She knows it is of course but she still likes to ask.)

I think that since I was one of Coco's most prominent defenders, Courtney knew she could trust me to always have his best interests in mind.

Well as always happens little girls grow up. You know, the whole "Puff the magic dragon" scenario. I don't believe that my youngest ever lost her love for her favorite little friend. Coco still remained, most the times at least, front and center on her bed. She never stopped loving him with all her heart. it just became sort of a long distance love affair.

She knew she loved Coco. Coco knew she loved him. They had matured to the point where Coco didn't feel too bad that Courtney was suddenly interested in other things than playing with him. It seems to me like there were even times when Coco seemed to be away on vacations.
These were the times when I almost had to wonder what had happened to a seemingly absent Coco bear. Of course these little vacations never were for too long.

Coco always came back. I summed it up to the various messy stages of Courtney's room.
So that was how it had become for Courtney and Coco. A relationship that only they understood.

Then came the day when our house was sold and we moved into our much nicer, current house.

Moving out of a house that we had lived in for close to 18 years was one of the biggest pains our family has ever gone through. The sheer enormity of the task of packing up and getting rid of 18 years worth of stuff was almost more than I could handle. Fortunately Jeff and Heidi came to help, and Donald and Lisa were there as well.
In a much shorter time than I would have imagined possible almost everything was either tossed or packed.

Except for Courtney's room.

That child of mine must have felt even more overwhelmed than me. I kept getting on her about clearing out her room. She would do a token job of it and then quit.

Moving day came and furniture and boxes were taken from point old to point new.

That meant even Courtney's furniture was moved. Unfortunately it also meant that her room had the most "post moved" junk left in it. She had even more to wade through than my old sewing room had.

And that is saying a LOT.

We threatened, we cajoled, we bribed. Nothing could get her into that room to save whatever she wanted saved. Decisions had to be made. Heidi and Don and I, and I think maybe Lisa too, or it might have been Donald, well anyway, the bunch of us went in there with a couple of garbage bags.

One for things to keep, one for things to dispose of.

Now I was there, and to the very best of my knowledge Coco bear was NO WHERE in sight. If he had been I would have gathered him up and sent him to safety. And not the safety of the "to keep" bag, either.

No, I would have taken him straight to my van.

To this day I really have no idea what happened to that bear. If you have ever moved I'm sure you can relate to how hard it can be to keep tabs on every little thing, no matter how valued.

So it is with sadness in my heart that I have to report that Courtney's dear, beloved, Coco Bear, has never been seen again since the big move.

The really sad thing is that it took quite a while for his absence to really become known. It took me forever (at least it seemed that way) for all the different boxes to be unloaded and for our belongings to be put in their new designated places.

I always have thought of Coco's disappearance as the kind of story where a family on vacation might travel fifty miles or more before realizing that they left little Bobby behind at the last rest stop. Even though I know that I was not responsible for Coco's disappearance, I still feel guilty that we could have forgotten him so easily.

Coco was a Gund stuffed animal, if you are familiar with that brand. I went to the Gund site hoping that, even though it had been so many years, that they would still have Coco Bears for sale.

No such luck.

Courtney mourns her missing bear still. She has never entered a thrift shop like Goodwill without taking a quick look through the toy section just to see if her dear little Coco might be there, just waiting for her to find him. He has never turned up in over three and a half years, but she hasn't given up hope yet.

True love is simply that, true.

She will never forget that bear, and I would like to think that if he is still out there somewhere. Sitting on the shelf of some "used goods" store, or laying forgotten in some other child's toy box.

That he has never, ever forgotten His Courtney.



Courtney and Coco Bear: Friends Forever!