Randomness

It's been suggested to me lately that I might want to write something here every once in a while so they would know what was going on in my life.  Unfortunately, there's nothing much worth writing about, but that won't stop me from jabbering on.   It's on you, Debby!

This is about the way I've felt this week.  Just let me sleep!  Layla might like to sleep, but she doesn't care if anyone else does or not.  Elise closes her out every night, and she sits in front of her door or brings her toy gifts to the door.  As a last resort, she will come sleep with me.  My room doesn't have 15 new plants in it like Elise's does for her to chew and destroy, so it's kind of boring.

She had a friend to quit work this week and asked Elise to take all her plants home because she didn't have room for them.  They're beautiful, and, although she's shared some for the living room, there are still a lot of them and a big temptation for a kitty.

I cleaned out my walk-in closet this week and stole some drawers from the sewing room.  I think Layla was more excited than I was about a new place to hide things.

I do have the playroom in my room, so she visits me some to find a new toy to play with.  I just found her with this horse.

Katherine got sick at school today, and Emily went to bring her home early.  When Graysen got out of school, we walked over to their house.  I hardly spend time on Steller Way any more, and it was nice with a lot of book reading and game playing.  

I may be the only person over 6 not to know how to play Connect Four, but I have never played it.  Since the box suggested players be 6 and over, I didn't bother learing how to play and teaching it to these two.  They still had a lot of fun dropping the pieces in the slots and exclaiming over who "won."  Then they used the pieces as hockey pucks before I put it up.

I wanted a picture before I walked home, but this is all I got.

Graysen holding an amiguru bunny I made her before she was born.  It just has one eye, and we tried to put another one on yesterday, but I've got to figure it out first.  It's been one-eyed for quite some time though, so she doesn't mind.  The blanket is one I made for Elise and Emily in the early '80s to go in a cradle their Grandaddy Windham made for them.

Katherine couldn't bother to look up from her "studying."

We had a rather interesting music time earlier.  They were winding up the old toy clock Emily got for her second Christmas that is still cranking out the tune, ending with:  It stopped.  Short.  Never to go again.  When the old man died.  I didn't take a picture, but it's this one - but a little more battered.

I could remember most of the words, but I was curious about the whole song, so I searched for it on YouTube.  That got both of them up on my lap, and we listened to it.  It was actually pretty sad after hearing several verses of it - the clock that was purchased on the first day of the grandfather's life and stopped working the day he died.  There was silence when it was over, and then Graysen's only comment:  "That was a smart clock."

They wanted the next song that came up, so I obliged, but we were on some morbid play list or something.  It was Oh My Darling Clementine.  They knew the song, but had never seen it in animated version, so they watched it very closely.  I thought it might bother them that a little girl drowned, but they were disappointed when it didn't show her under water.  Oh, well.

I allowed one more song, and it was She'll be Coming Round the Mountain.  What could be wrong with that one?  They especially loved the verse about, "She'll have to sleep with Grandma when she comes."  Then when it came to the verse about killing the old red rooster, they wondered why.  It was not my day for explaining things away.  I made light of killing chickens to eat - as much as I could - but they took it well and then Graysen brought up lobsters and cows and fish.  Katherine had been pretty quiet, but all of a sudden she popped her head up with her little flushed cheeks and said, "But, Mimi, do people eat kitties too?"

As I said, a pretty dull week.  I finally got Geico to come around and allow my car to be repaired - or looked at and inspected.  I might not repair it since it's so old and I'm getting another one soon.  It was a long battle, getting the at-fault driver to answer the insurance company's requests, but I trapped him with a text.  I asked him why he was avoiding the insurance company, and he texted back that he was sorry, he thought his dad was taking care of that.  And that was enough proof that he had hit me, so we sent a screenshot of that conversation to Geico, and they stopped fighting the next day.  I'm so ready to get that over with.  I am getting sentimental about my old car though.  I got it new in 2005, my very first new car just for me.  I didn't know I wanted an SUV, but once I drove it, I really did like it, and it's been perfect for hauling around dogs and mulch and funiture and lately kiddos.  It's taken us across the country many times, making a lot of good memories.  It hasn't given me a bit of trouble all these years until last year when it developed some quirk that no one seems to be able to diagnose.  It heals itself and then starts again, but I can't take any more chances with it or throw any more money away on someone's guesses. 

I'm happy that Kathy has overcome double pneumonia and several days in the hospital to get back home again  - as was a certain little black and white dog.  And a husband.

We start our round of birthdays next week with Emily, then Alan, then Debby's Sophia, and then Graysen.  With Alan squeezed in there in the middle, I usually am late (or worse) with his birthday greetings, but he's used to it.  Emily's will be downplayed, (she hopes); Sophia's will be as exciting as only a baby's first birthday can be; and Graysen will have a unicorn/fairy/mermaid/princess party.  These years have passed too fast.  I'm not ready for a 6-year-old.  I should have plenty of pictures of these celebrations - at least some of them.

We've had beautiful blue skies today, and I just missed a gorgeous picture as I walked home this afternoon because my phone was dead.  Just imagine it:  Bright blue sky, mountain peaks with snow on top, and a ring of white clouds just below the peak. Breathtaking.  I need a new phone.

Cozy Morning Thoughts

I wrote this on Wednesday but didn't have time to finish.

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I woke up to the sound of wind again.  What's with this weather lately?  I had to struggle to open my car door and keep it from slamming yesterday, and my hair is just hopeless.  Graysen and Katherine laugh at me when I'm buckling them in because my hair is going crazy, and that makes them slower than ever to get settled so I can get out of the wind!

I'm emailing back and forth this morning to my friend Jan who is 2000 miles away, but we can share our thoughts as we think them.  And we have some crazy ones!

In doing a little transcription, I never know what kind of things I'm going to type.  My favorites are podcasts because they're usually clear and many times teach me something.  Last night, I had a sermon from a church, or maybe a retreat, in California.  The subject was how life is changing so quickly and how we're becoming slaves to technology, the media, just the fast pace of life.  I agreed with it all except for loving to be connected with people that I can't be with in person.  I do waste a lot of time though.  Once upon a time, I would get a letter, read it, answer it and not spend much time on it.  Or a phone call.  Now, I could spend an hour just reading emails, checking finances, checking the blogs I like to read - not even Facebook any more.  I get so side-tracked with wanting to know more about things.  I sometimes look at my search history and have to laugh.  The topics usually start with "how do you ... "

I've worked hard on my clearing out some clutter and took one bag of donations to the car and another box to the garage to think about.  That hall closet that I cleaned - I've left the door open some just to enjoy the space before we fill it up again.  Projects today are dismantling and cleaning the vacuum cleaner and changing the filter and revisiting my two label makers.  I've somehow abandoned them for one reason or another, and I need to find out what the problem is, because I really do need some labels that aren't handwritten in what Mike called my childish handwriting.

So, my only closet that isn't for clothes or sewing stuff.  This was when I first opened it to get serious about it.  Layla had played in there and pulled the cord off the vacuum cleaner and knocked down some bags, but I can't blame her for all of it.  We piled things in there when we first moved and haven't changed much, and that was 3 years ago.

Besides the coats, I don't even know what that stuff is on the shelf.  I see a bag of birdseed, vacuum cleaner parts, a box of batteries that I don't know if are good or not.  And a bag of almond flour.  There is also a huge looseleaf notebook full of instruction manuals for things we own or once owned.

We tend to stick things in here on the floor that we don't have room for in the kitchen and toilet paper and paper towels.

This door shelf is one of the best things ever, except I forget what's there.  I go there most often for tape and cleaning things.  I store toothpaste and bathroom cups and my Brother P-Touch and its stuff.

Not terrible, but I just don't remember what's there.

Layla found this interesting for awhile and then went to take a nap.

I took a lot of things and found them new homes and made this space more useful.  I decided I didn't need all those vacuum cleaner attachments if I was going to only use the carpet one and one small brush attachment.  So they went to the garage.  Well labeled though, because one day I will wake up and decide I really need a hardwood floor cleaner.

Now, it's mainly extra bags, overflow from the pantry, my little tool chest, and paper goods.  Elise and I both brought in something like a 36-roll package of toilet paper, so we should be good for a while.  They stack so nicely against that wall.

The vacuum cleaner fits nicely once more, and that top shelf is pretty neat now.  

I made a lot of room here by throwing away a bunch of stuff or putting it in the bathroom cabinets.  I see that I once made a list of what was on the shelves and taped it to the door, but then I forgot the list was there.  This should do us for another 3 years.  It's scary to think I might still be in this apartment 3 more years, but it could be worse.  I kind of like it, except for the rent.

Layla and the girls have a pretty good relationship.  She's friendly and curious with them, and they think she's the best thing ever.  She got tired and lay down in a doorway, and I heard them playing so nicely and laughing a lot, so I went and looked.

Layla's favorite toys are Polly Pocket clothing from the toy boxes.  They're rubbery and small, and she can toss them in the air.  When Elise gets home from work, she finds several pieces lined up at her door for her.

I'm not exactly sure what this is, but it was good for 30 minutes of fun.  I think they had the idea she would get up and use the lined-up clothing as a bridge or a street.  

Life is good except for battling insurance companies over my accident coverage.  I'm learning a lot, more than I want to know.  How no matter how you try to see the goodness in other people, some of them just fool you.  

It's almost the weekend, and we're in for more than a week of rain, but I hope the winds are gone for awhile.  Good stay-at-home weather anyway.

Another Sparkly Day

This has been a nice weekend with several more sunny days to come.  It's not exactly warm, but with the sun, everybody and his dog is out on the streets and sitting in the outside eating areas.

The Win-Bins went to the zoo yesterday and had a great time.  I'm waiting for some pictures.  The girls mentioned the cougars and the fluffy parrots.

Emily and Graysen went to see the new Mary Poppins movie today, and Katherine stayed with me.  I'm the next best attraction to a movie, in her opinion.  I did my best to give her an only-child afternoon.  She had playtime with Layla for awhile and then we went to McDonalds.  In the middle of the afternoon!  She saw a Fire Department rescue-type truck parked at Starbucks, and this was her observation:  My first mind said, "Oh, that's a fire truck," but my next mind said, "I don't know if that's a fire truck or not."  Then both my minds said, "Yes, it IS a fire truck but not a big one with ladders."  She does make me happy.

When she got back and finished half her Happy Meal and all her vanilla milkshake, she sat at the table and created a masterpiece with stickers and crayons.

I plowed on through and got my filing cabinet completely cleaned out last night.  I threw so many things away.  Now I'm in the process of transferring my old photos and documents from the old computer to the new one and cleaning those out too.

There are boxes and boxes of old photographs sitting on top of that filing cabinet that I worry I'll never get around to organizing and scanning.

Elise will be starting the day shift next week.  It's been hard on her working from 4 to 12, not only for the obvious reasons of sleep habits, but because early evening is when most of the clients have their crises and drama.  During the day, she will be working with one of her favorite co-workers, and most of the kids will be in school or working.  She'll still have that long drive, but if she can stick it out for a while, this will be a good job to have on her resume.

Looking forward to an easy and uneventful week - and then it's Winter Break - nope, that's February -  so I'll have to get creative and find some fun things to do.  Tomorrow is a holiday, but Em and Ryan are home, so I guess they'll be fine.  Tuesday, Graysen is out of school for a teacher workday.  That will be a good chance for us to sew a little bit without Katherine around.

Recipe for a Lovely January Morning

Do not go outside.
Drink coffee.
Dress in warm robe and furry slippers.
Gather all my "things" nearby.  Book, computer, phone, bills to pay, daytimer.

I woke up to the sound of wind this morning, and it's not a good sound on garbage day with all those wheeled containers ready to take off.  Elise put ours out last night beside the car, and they're staying put.  So far.  The apartment next to me is empty, and those cans are therefore empty and sitting outside for some reason.  I wonder if they'll be rolling around.

This wind is something else.  I love it, but it's not so good for the ones who lost power and had trees and power lines to fall.  The Seattle windstorm is past, but I read last night that Snoqualmie and North Bend are about to get a "gap" wind.  It seems the warm Pacific air meets the cold mountain air, and the wind comes right through Snoqualmie Gap down the interstate to poor us, supposedly 25-30 MPH winds and gusts up to 50 MPH.

So far balcony is good.  I took down the bird feeder and hummingbird feeder, but the geranium took a spill off it's stand.  Luckily, it landed right side up so no harm done.  We still have another 20 hours to go though.  The one good thing is that it's not raining or cold, although there is 100% chance of rain today.

So staying inside until 3:00 when I have to pick up Katherine.

I've started the ambitious job of taking everything out of my filing cabinet and reassessing and redoing.  The top drawer is the important one with all the papers that need to be saved.  I tossed old hanging files and pulled out some new ones and made new labels last night.   Today will be spent going through each one and deciding what needs to be kept and what can be thrown away.

The first one, of course, is Automobile, and it's so hard to let this one go.  Mike used the stapler very freely and would staple important things, like titles, to the file folder, but he rarely lost anything.

I'll keep this paperwork, even though it's really old.  It's all the stuff from the 1979 Dodge Aspen, the Bratmobile that hauled so many children back and forth during the 80s and 90s.  I hope I have a picture of it somewhere.  It was a good faithful car, bought when Emily was 1-year-old, Elise 5, and Gray 7.  I found this picture that is similar.  We bought it in 1979, but it was used.

I was looking at the trade-in and puzzled over the 1971 Menace and then realize it was a 1971 Monaco, which was Mike's parents' car they had given/sold us.  I don't remember the details.

We kept it until 1992 and, according to Mike's handwritten sales note, sold it to Mary Bush "as is" for $100.  I remember Mary well but not how we knew her.  Maybe she worked for Mike.  She had a daughter named Rose (for real), and I also remember that transaction, I believe at her house, but nothing else about her.  Since we paid about $6000, I think it was a good investment.  I don't remember it giving us any trouble, but then I wouldn't have had to worry about things like that back then.

Seeing this hurts my heart.

We had Christine, the Stephen King car look-alike for a few years then too.  Our neighbor Roz would never cross the street in front of it and always walked behind it when she came over.

I can tell I'm going to get lost in my memories today.

And the rain has started.

And the snow and the sleet.

Horizontal snow and sleet.

I heard an ominous noise outside and looked down to see a small Christmas tree lying against my recycling can and garbage cans all over the place, so I put on my bravest face and a raincoat over my pajamas and went down to see what I could do.  Soooo cold.  My hands were pieces of ice by the time I got the garbage can in the garage and hauled the neighbor ones up to their garage doors.  That Christmas tree - I just left there.

I can't express how glad I am we decided that Ryan would take the children to school in the mornings.  That South Dakota boy will think nothing of it.  I see families walking to school right now.  Maybe I'm a wimp, but I don't want that to be me!  Ryan not only delivered the children but came by and reset our WiFi stuff and did something to my phone to keep it better charged.

 Layla is a little concerned.  She will lie on the floor and look outside through the blind slats but won't go onto the balcony unless I'm with her.  The sounds bother her and send her flying back inside.

 It was so nice to have her lying against my back this morning purring and keeping me warm.    Elise doesn't like the name Layla and is trying out a bunch of different names.

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Now it's hours later, and the wind is still blowing pretty hard, but it's stopped snowing, and all the garbage cans have been retrieved.  That Christmas tree is still down there, so I guess it's my responsibility now!

Weather

We've had two days of high winds but nothing like the Seattle area.  I love the wind when I can be inside, but thousands of people have been without power, and there's been a lot of damage and trees falling.

Last night Emily texted and said it was snowing.  I would have missed it.  She wanted to tell me Ryan called the flakes cat-head flakes because they were so big.  He loves to collect Southern sayings, like cat-head biscuits and comin' up a cloud.  I looked out, and it was pretty and had just covered the ground, but an hour later when I looked, it had stopped.  It was nice not to have ice this morning.

It looks like Layla is looking for some more snow, but the sky is pretty blue today.

She can't judge the neighbors for leaving their Christmas lights up too long, because I'm not taking mine down.  Neither are the neighbors across the street.

The apartment looked so warm and cozy yesterday afternoon.  I wish I knew what kind of chair I wanted to replace that flowered loveseat.  Right now, it's not bothering any of us.

I went out to the library and the post office and lingered to talk to a neighbor with her dog, and that was enough outdoors for me.  Came home to eat leftovers for lunch and read some.

 This book is okay.  It's a mystery set in Scotland.  I'll probably finish it tonight.








The Liane Moriarty book was as good as I hoped it would be, and I have two more that I picked up today but too lazy to go find out what they are.  One is an Elin Hilderbrand one.  She usually writes about the beach, so I'll have to see how that goes.

So just a normal Monday but without the girls.  Ryan is going to start taking them to school most mornings, and I'll only pick them up 3 or 4 afternoons.  That's just about the right amount of time, and I'll try to have some interesting snacks and fun things to do after school.  Graysen starts a sculpting class on Tuesdays after school, and I can't wait to see what that involves!

I'm going to go tackle the hall closet now and see what I can find.

Living Vicariously in a Pantry

Since I've changed my living space from always having a three- to four-bedroom house and lots of square feet and a yard to a 1200 square-foot apartment and NO yard, I've found that I don't miss it at all.  Every day, I want fewer and fewer things to clutter up my life (to trip over and have to re-organize).   I guess I'm deciding this at a good time, because that seems to be the theme of so many books and articles and blogs and even TV shows.  The one Emily and the girls in the doctor's waiting room were talking about was Tidying Up With Marie Kondo.  They were talking about how cute she was and yet how crazy some of her ideas were.  I think I checked the book out of the library once, but it didn't interest me too much.

They said it was a TV show, and I figured I would never figure out how to get it.  I have very few channels on my cable setup.  I only use it for WiFi.  And Elise has something that she uses for some extra channels that is beyond what I want to learn.  But then I found out it's on Netflix, which is something that even I can work, so I might check it out, just for fun. 

All this is to mention how much fun it is to live vicariously in someone else's space.  You don't have to clean it.  You don't have to organize it.  You can just enjoy it for what it is, and if it gets cluttered, you don't have to look at it.  My latest space is Emily and Ryan's pantry. 

It's always been a nice room, and it's bright, and everything is pretty visible when you walk in except for about 10 wonderful drawers that hide things like bread and snacks and baking things.

When they moved there almost a year ago, Millie and I, being in charge of unpacking the kitchen and watching children, sort of did a hit-and-miss organization.  She did a great job of alphabetizing the spices on a huge wall rack that everyone should have. 




As a contrast, this is what I have, and since I don't cook that much, it serves it's purpose.  It's alphabetized, but I can't always tell what's in the jars and cans since I'm looking down on them.  I'm not sure I want to take the time to label each one, but I might do the ones I use all the time.  I need a new project.   I'm still proud of myself for getting this organizer when we first moved here.  It holds all the girls' dishes on the top shelf, spices on the 2nd and 3rd, Jello boxes and little packets of things on the next, and cat food cans on the bottom.

I know Emily and Ryan have been frustrated with getting the new house organized since they were both working full time and had the girls to contend with.  And I was no help there, because I didn't know where they wanted things to end up. 

At the old house, they had no children and all the time they needed to organize, but their pantries were two cabinets with doors, shelves, and drawers.  While I was envious of those, it was less than ideal, because you had to first decide which pantry you wanted to be in, then open a door, and then pull out a drawer (trial and error at first) to decide where your things were.

The new one is well lit, and you can just walk in and look around and grab what you want.  Until this week, though, food was mixed in with vases and drinks and containers and small appliances, and they could change overnight.  I could spend a lot of time in there just staring at the shelves wondering where the toaster went, only to find it on a counter. 

This week, with the both being home and the girls in school some days, they attacked that pantry, and it's a thing of beauty to me.  These are two that Emily sent me yesterday.

It's amazing.  All those stacked storage containers sitting there right next to the refrigerator.  

I just noticed the Unicorn cereal on one of the shelves.  On a Christmas Eve run to Costco, Emily spotted this and sent me a picture.  She said, "I'm totally getting this to wrap for the girls to open in the morning."  They are both obsessed with unicorns, as are most little girls their age, so we thought it would be one of their favorites.  When I was over there on Christmas Day, it was open on the counter, and it seems that Graysen had tried it and hated it.  I think Katherine liked it, but she likes most anything right now.  

This is the view from the kitchen with the door open.

The shelves are adjustable, and it looks like they've made a small space just for drinks and cans.

There's a side view of the spice rack, and look at that open space on the floor.  That may be a bin of cookbooks.  Not sure.

I've asked for closeup pictures, but since it's the last weekend before getting back to work, I doubt I'll get them.  I may have to go take them myself since it's a warm-ish day.

But this cat. 

She looks like such a generic little gray tabby, but she is completely different from any cat we've ever had.  Such a personality.  Elise has taught her to fetch like a dog, and she will do it.  But not for me, of course.  In the above photo, she's staring accusingly at her food bowl while guarding her bottle cap.  When Elise throws her toys, she will run get them and bring them back to her.  Except you have to make sure she sees where it lands, because otherwise she will run around frantically looking at you until you show her where it is.

She does the casual "walk over the bottle cap and pretend you don't know it's there until it attacks you" trick.  She's still playing with it and refusing to bring it to me because of her disapproval over her breakfast.

Being a rescue kitten, we hoped she would not be picky about food, but she is.  When you first open a can and give her a spoonful, she will eat it eagerly, but if there is any left, she starts digging at the place mat to remove it, I guess.  We have yet to find a flavor she absolutely loves.  She will eventually eat the whole can along with some dry food, but she's not happy with us. 

Yesterday I bought five new cans to try, and if she loves one, we'll save the label and buy only that kind.  I can't believe I'm spending my valuable time figuring out what a cat likes.

I know if I was a cat, chicken hearts and something else would appeal to me.  We're trying to stick with the pate, because if it has chunks, she will just lick the gravy part and leave the chunks.  She's going to vet for a checkup next week, so we'll see if she has any problems other than just being cat-like and finicky. 

She gets put in time out several times a day, because she harasses Elise.  She's perfectly calm around me - because I'm boring, but Elise plays with her, and she thinks she's another cat, I think.  Elise will be sitting on the couch reading or talking, and Layla will come running down the hall and jump up on the couch, just barely touching her but acting like she's going to attack her.  And she messes with her phone and cords and whatever else she has around.  When the water sprayer doesn't work, she just gets to go stay in a bedroom alone for awhile.  She doesn't protest either.  She just stays until someone opens the door for her.

Day of Reflection

I had a mammogram Wednesday.  It was easy, quick, and I was headed home within 30 minutes of arriving.  It's always a good feeling to get something like that checked off my list.  I was told that I would get a letter within 2 days, but if something was wrong they would call me.

And I got the call.  THE call.  The one you don't expect to hear because you get this sense of complacency about everything being okay.  When I saw the number on my phone, it was like time came to a standstill, and I was hyper-aware of everything.  They wanted me back in for more x-rays, about an hour-long visit.  I did have a re-take 7 years ago, but nothing was found.  I got an appointment set up for this morning and then had the rest of the night to think about it. 

It was the strangest feeling, not of fear or anxiety or even much worry, but it was constantly on my mind.  I've never been sick, so I worried about how I would handle illness if this turned out to be serious.  I worried about how Emily and Elise would do after losing their dad so recently.  Both are doing well at their jobs and home life, and I just felt guilty that I might be the cause of stress and worry for them.  And the little girls.  I don't flatter myself that they can't do without me, but I'm such a part of their lives right now, and I don't want them to see me as less than capable and just there for them. 

As I got ready for bed, things were so clear to me, like I wanted to remember exactly how I was feeling right then.  Everything I did was accompanied by the thought, "Is this about to change?"  And this morning as I got ready, I would think things like, "When I next go into this closet, my life might be totally different."  I usually like change, but in this case I really, really wanted things to stay the same - for a long time.  It sounds like I was worrying a little bit, but it was a peaceful feeling and more of a feeling that I just wanted to get it over with.  I wanted to know.  Because I was told that a doctor would give me the results before I left.

Emily insisted on going with me, and I agreed and didn't know how much that would help.  We didn't talk about it on the drive over but had a lot of other things to talk about.  She was allowed to go back to the inside waiting area, and that was nice.  There were a couple of other girls back there, and they had a funny discussion about some new TV show or podcast or whatever it is that people watch lately.  It kept me from thinking. 

So I basically just had the same x-rays as before with maybe one extra one and was told they would be viewing these super close up.  Of course, that's not the term they used, but I knew what they meant.  So I went back to wait with Emily a few more minutes before the doctor called me into her office.  She didn't keep us wondering very long and just showed us 3 small calcium deposits that they hadn't seen last year, and they wanted to take a closer look.  On looking at my study 7 years ago, they were there then, tiny pin points that haven't grown.  So, a big exhale.  The only change is that I have to go back at 6 months, 12 months, and 24 months from now.  If nothing has changed, then we'll assume there's nothing going on.  I go every year anyway so no big deal. 

I thought I would be relieved, and I was, in a warm, contented sort of way.  Emily wanted to stop at PCC for a few things, and I just waited in the car with the heater on, just reflecting.  I am thankful to God, of course, for this and all my other blessings.  But there's also this feeling instead of "Why, me?"  "Why NOT me?"  I don't feel like I'm any more deserving of good fortune than someone who has a great tragedy in their life.  I get another chance, another day that I don't have to worry about my life changing for the worse, and I'm grateful for that. 

Emily and I talked about it on the way home.  She was apologizing for not making a bigger deal out of it, because we went across the street to her office where she had some things to take care of.  I told her I thought I would want this big celebration, a nice lunch and a shopping trip, something fun - but instead I just wanted to go home, get my groceries, and take a nap.  We did go to the grocery store at the same time, and, again, I just was so thankful that I know this person zipping up and down the aisles and sneaking up on me and comparing our purchases - and that this person knows and loves me and will always take care of me.  I told her on the ride home how I felt about her excessively worrying about me, and she reassured me that she is 60-70% more confident now than she was when Mike was diagnosed.  She just about shut her whole life down to try to make him better, and when everything didn't work as it should, it just devastated her.  I know I can count on her if I need her, but she is devoted to making good things happen for her little family too. 

Elise has always said she would take care of me when I'm old or sick.  I used to think she was wishing the time was then!  But I think she was pretty relieved not to have to change her life around right in the middle of a job that takes a lot out of her.  Emily bought us some scones in PCC, so we had a little celebration.

And the girls know nothing!  And that's the way it should be.  I feel completely wonderful at the moment, knowing I have a weekend ahead of me and that winter is one week shorter than it was last Friday. 

The tubing trip might have to be called off since I-90 is closed, and no one could get up to the Pass.  They were to hear an update at 4:00, which is 30 minutes from now.  So if they want to go plowing around in the snow, I hope they get to.  This fire feels pretty good right now, and I have a sleeping kitten at my feet.

All Day Rain

This was the best day ever to stay inside.  I thanked Emily many times for doing the school run this morning.  I'll miss her next week when she goes back to work.  My morning was spent either on the phone or on the computer taking care of all the loose ends I needed to.

The chirping smoke alarm got repaired early.  Alec came and stood only on the second step of his ladder.  His height has to be a plus in his job.  It took about 30 seconds, so now it's once more peaceful in the house.

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and in the 50s, so it will be welcome, and I'll get out and get stuff done.  Our refrigerator is so empty.

This blurry picture is the only one I have of Graysen's new haircut.  It looks really cute and suits her so well.  I can't believe she let Emily cut it.

They got the tea set out and had a tea party with Scrabble letters and pompoms for the tea and sugar.  I'm glad they have good imaginations.  

Here's one of the obnoxious Pomsies that I got the girls.  I knew they were and gave them to them anyway, and they love them.  They make noises and have moods, and every once in awhile they play dance music, and you have to dance.  It's basically a cat head with a tail and no body.

In the foreground is a box of five boxes of slippers for Emily.  She has been trying to find a comfortable pair with an arch support and hasn't found any, so Ryan, being the good husband he is, gave her five pairs to try.  Surely one of them will work.  Elise gave me some red fur-lined ones that are just perfect.

This was the only thing Graysen asked Santa for.  A Barbie camper.  The little Lottie dolls fit in better than the Barbie they have, and they brought a canoe along.

And a tent and real campfire.  And a pan of hot dogs.

They got real watches in their stockings.  I wasn't sure that was a thing any more.  Regular watches.

Kate asked Santa for a Barbie car for her gift, mainly because Graysen asked her to.  She does love it, in spite of this picture.

They liked the treehouse too, thank goodness.  I hope they'll enjoy it and the little dolls.  Emily and I kind of wanted to play with them ourselves.

Here's a picture of Debby's Sophia when they went to GA to visit them, sitting with her dad Brent.  She's so precious.  It's hard to believe she'll be a year old next month.