My computer is better than a top 40 DJ ....

I realized this morning that I have a very smart computer…. I picked one song I wanted to listen to and my computer went through all my music and picked songs with the same “feel” and played them for a very long time! It kept me in a joyful, happy mood all morning.

In the “olden days” I had to read the backs of jacket covers (after finding the records and tapes that my sisters had “borrowed”) then I either had to get the needle to the right spot after counting the lines in the vinyl or fast forward and rewind the tape until I got it to the right place.

It is amazing, I remember when I had tons of records and couldn’t find anything that I really wanted to listen to. Just proves…. iTunes knows me better than I do!! :)

OK readers, now I’m gonna blog about how I used to walk to school~ uphill….. both ways!! ;)

Grandma

My sister called. She wanted to let me know that our cousin was in touch with her to update us on our Grandmother. The message was: "If you want to see Grandma again, do it now." My Grandmother is 93 years old. She will be 94 in April. She has had minor health issues all her life, but this time my cousin thinks she will not pull thru. My sister is planning on visiting her this week. From her house, the drive is about an hour or so to her nursing home. My sister feels the need to touch base with our Grandmother one more time. She wants to try again to get her to say she misses our Mom, that she loved all her kids, that she is proud of her grandkids and thinks great-grandkids are a blessing. I hope my Grandmother comes thru for her. I debated about going down to see her too. Pepper thinks I should. From my home to hers it is about a 3 hour drive…. Not really far at all. I go farther to take Pete hunting or the family on a weekend camping trip. I’ve driven farther to watch a football game. But it isn’t the miles that make me think I do not want to go. It is the time. The time in years. If I could drive down and reverse the years as I go-- I would not even hesitate. I want to drive down and see the Grandma that came to our house on Christmas morning early enough so she’d be there when we opened our gifts. I want the one that took me sled riding in the park on a black garbage bag because we forgot to bring our sleds when we stayed over night at her house. I want the Grandmother that let me ride her three-wheeled bike through her Florida neighborhood with my sister in the basket screaming as I took corners on just two wheels. I want the grandma who laughed when I ran into her garbage cans in her garage when I was first learning to drive…. And jokingly told my grandfather they almost had a drive-thru kitchen. I want the Grandmother that attended all my birthday parties, graduations and bought more Girl Scout cookies than she ever wanted. If I could drive down to meet THAT Grandmother I would not hesitate. I wish as I drove down toward her nursing home I could drive back thru time. Erasing years as I drove. I would drive down through the memories of the petty arguments she had with my mother. The frustration of feeling like I had to choose a side between them and her frustration when I ‘sided’ with my mom. I would drive away from the sadness and the hurt and misunderstandings that I had with her. I would completely forget the anger I felt at her for not coming to my mother’s funeral and at her refusing to talk about her only daughter when I desperately needed her to. I would not even try to explain my reasoning or the rationale for why I made the choices I did. I would not be mad or sad or hurt. I would just be that 10 year-old girl that only sees her as the best grandma in the world. She would look at me and see the little kid that she nicknamed “Pixie” when I was still in diapers. A name that I’ve almost shaken. It is soon to fade away completely. I have decided not to drive down. It would be too much like the drive I did years ago to say good-bye to my mother. I really did want to be there at the end of my mom’s life. It was pretty much the same 3-hour drive. I never got to say good-bye to my Mom, she had died by the time I got to her. I did visit my grandmother last year at Christmas and ‘fixed’ things… as much as they could be fixed. And when I saw her this Christmas I knew it was close to the end. We had a good visit. There was a picture of my mother on her wall from when she was a baby. I hadn’t seen it in a long time. I asked about it and my Grandmother even told me the story of who took it. As we left her room I said to Pepper I thought that would be the last time. Even the kids knew that “GG” (for Great-Grandmother) was not doing well. I am so thankful that I got to have a grandma like her as a kid. I’ve been grieving the loss of that relationship for years. I am grateful that I got the chance to fix things and talk to her as an adult. I am glad she got to meet my kids and see me grow up to be a halfway decent person. I hope when she gets to heaven she tells my mom how we are all doing- and I hope they work things out too. That’s how I want to think it will be.

A sick boy :(

Dill is sick today.... he feels miserable but the things he says are so cute!

This morning, while Pepper was getting ready for work, he came and got into bed with me. He said he felt like he had to throw up. Hmmm...... with my white sheets, down comforter, big cotton blanket.... I knew I did not want to have to put them all in the wash on a Thursday! I went to the kitchen and grabbed the wok. "The wok?" you may question. But really, it is the best choice. It has a great handle so it can be positioned quickly and its non-stick coating cleans up easily. It has a huge opening on top and does not smell after it is easily rinsed out. It also fits under the bathroom sink faucet (unlike our waste basket) and can be tossed right into the dishwasher when it is no longer needed. Plus, I got it at Ikea for $4.98, so if something really goes wrong, I could just throw it away and replace it.

So, Dill and his wok and I are in bed with the dog and the cat. He moans a little and says, "Oh, I do not agree with my stomach!" He is sort of laying on his side and I say, "Do you want me to rub your tummy to make it feel better?" He thinks about the offer for a second and then says, "No, that's ok. The cat's purring is already massaging my butt." Ok then, no Mom can compete with that!

We are both sort of drifting in and out of sleep when he suddenly jumps out of bed and runs into the adjoining bathroom. I am still putting on my slippers and grabbing the wok when he says, "I think my throw up is coming out the other end!!" Poor guy! :(

Snowmaggedon sledding

Macy decided that the snow mountain was too fun for the boys to just turn into their planned snow fortress. She (very maturely) had to slide down the side of it a couple times before they started digging their secret passages!

Snowmaggedon 2011

We all had a snow day today. The news called it Snowmaggedon. There was quite a bit of snow.... the kids had a blast after Uncle K came over and plowed our driveway (and front yard!) into a giant hill for them to play on:

Smirks

Our pellet stove was broken for several days so the house was pretty cold! It finally got fixed yesterday. Everyone was happy, especially Jinx, our cat. If you look close you can actually SEE him smiling with contentment!!

At Nana’s house we were celebrating Dill’s birthday recently. He came and sat next to me on the couch and I noticed that he was wearing underwear that he had worn to bed at least 2 nights before. I said to him, “Did you put the same underwear on last night after you took your shower?” He said, “Nope.” I let it go, but a few minutes later he was sprawled on the couch with his feet in my lap. The first thing I noticed was he has huge feet! They looked like big-dog-puppy feet. You know, the cute adorable puppy that has feet WAY too big for its body. So you know that sometime soon, the cute little puppy was going to be a huge, gigantic hulk of a dog. That’s what I was thinking about while I looked at his feet. Then my nose was assaulted by an odor that could rival onion, garlic sardine soup! We were sitting across the room from Nana….. so I normally would not have said anything, but dang! How could his cute little body reeck like this??! “Dill, how long have you been wearing these socks??” “Three days,” he proudly announces. “But you just took a shower last night! Did you put on your old socks again?!” I ask. “Nope, I faked it.” He states while sitting up and smiling. “See, I went into the bathroom and just turned on the water. Then after a couple minutes the bathroom got really foggy and then I got my hair wet in the sink and I got the towel a little bit wet and took off my shirt and put the towel around me and turned off all the water. You just THOUGHT I washed myself.” I notice that Nana has as big a grin as Dill at this information. Nana shakes her head and I could tell she was glad this fell into "parent issue” and did not fall into the “Grandparent” realm as an area of concern. “Dill, that is so much work to NOT take a shower. Don’t you like to shower?” I ask confoundedly, because when he DOES shower he stays and plays in the water so long the whole hot water tank gets drained. “I like showers a lot…. I just wanted to see if I could fake one. You did not even notice…. I really tricked you!” he said proudly, as if I was going to lose my parenting license over such a huge faux pas. “True son," I told him, shaking my head, "You tricked my eyes, but definitely not my nose!!” ☺