remember

My daughter told me that today as she was driving the granbeanie to my house the jellybeanie was saying “happy, happy” My daughter asked her what made her “happy, happy” and she said, “Bean Bean” (her name for me). Guess who’s happy happy now? 1 day ago

I somehow misplaced my water bill and just found it at 4:50 today. Of course it’s due TODAY. So I’ll pay it tomorrow and will pay an additional $4. I hate it when I do that! 6 days ago

Mom was a very private person. She didn’t talk about how she felt, what was past, or things like motivations; she just kept on. These things I know: Her father was abusive and mean, her mother was a cupcake, she was closest to her sister, Kate and estranged from her sister, Vera. She could be impatient and dismissive or kind and patient, especially with babies and new mothers. She had no use for most men. She was independent, a hard worker, a voracious reader, a good seamstress and ultimately a very pragmatic woman. She understood more than she talked about and knew when to keep quiet. She was often a pain, sometimes a lifesaver, and occasionally quite charming. She could do the Charleston and the Cha-Cha and I think she had some fun as a young woman. She loved San Francisco, Germany and the mountains in the West. She had great legs and was highly photogenic as a young woman. She drank her coffee with milk, not cream and loved to have a sweet with it. She ate only butter, never margarine. She smoked but quit cold when it offended her.

She was my root and my sheltering branch and I miss her. 1 week ago

So I put together a bag full of papers I don’t trust in the recycling. While doing so I thought to toss a bunch of old – 10-13 years old – checkbooks. Just for giggles I opened one from 2000 and looked at the checks I wrote, thinking how different my earnings/spending patterns were then. There was nothing frivolous. Stuff for the house: termite prevention, AC service, that kind of thing and checks to my kids for their bills. And regular bills. No trips to Europe, no ball gowns, nothing beyond some clay. When I had good money coming in I did not waste it. I need to remind myself of this. It is so easy to get down on myself for being broke. 2 weeks ago

1. Though my car is hosed, my SIL is working on it, spending all his free time, voluntarily.
2. Though my car is hosed, both my daughter and my SO willingly lend me their cars. Not to mention a similar offer by a friend.
3. Though my car is hosed, my boss lets me work from home so I don’t lose more money.
4. I have a wonderful foster family with whom to leave Sweetie while out of town.
5. I get to spend a whole week at the beach with every single person I love.
6. I’ve (finally) lost weight almost effortlessly.
7. I found the papers I need for my driver’s license renewal.

In short, I’m broke and my car is hosed, but I still have an awful lot to be grateful for. I need to remember this and not get so wrapped up in what’s wrong with my life when so much is right. 1 month ago

It’s a small family so there aren’t many of us but my brother and my two daughters will all be together and there’s a possibility that a niece who I have not seen for 30+ years will also be there. So I’ve been going through old family photos to show everyone during our time together. It strikes me that in so many of them we were so happy but so rushed, so focused on what was ahead, or somewhere else. I decided today that I would be happy with the moment, however brief.

So I headed over to the beanie’s house and enjoyed jellybeanie showing me the messy leaves and running to me to get kisses and the granbeanie planning her crafts studio at my house and her mom’s gratitude that I would help with home schooling. She told me that yesterday, after keeping both girls for a few hours, jellybeanie (almost 2) in the car, on the way home, said, “Bye-bye bean-bean’s house. I love it!”

I am so fortunate! 2 months ago

All my life March 5th and the days surrounding it have been about my Mom. She’d have been 103 if she’d lived. All those years driving to see her, calling her, taking her to lunch, and in my younger years, saving up dimes and quarters and shopping for a pin or box of stationary. The day means nothing now, this year just a Tuesday. But, still, I remember. 2 months ago

Seven years ago I watched my elder daughter give birth to a baby girl. Today she turned 7. I watched as she introduced her baby sister to the wonder of balloons, birthday cake and candles. We had a simple snack dinner and I helped with the dishes. I am so lucky. 4 months ago

How routine holidays may become? How we do this, or that, go here or there, eat such or another? See this relative or that friend? I was thinking earlier today how my childhood was like that: go to church, dress up, PRESENTS, walk to Granma’s, uncles drink too much, aunts get mad, it’s cold outside, inside it’s steamy and smells like sausage and cabbage, walk home in the dark, such a long way. I was thinking about this and marveling at how ordinary it seemed at the time and how it will never happen again. Ever. Suddenly it seems like it was much less ordinary.

Tonight we did all the usual things: Go to my daughter’s house for an insanely early dinner so we can go to church early so we can get home to do PRESENTS before the kids get too cranky and have to go to bed, eat German cookies, drink Kalua, and tea and coffee, and watch while the little ones enjoy their gifts and marvel at the ones they made for us. There was nothing ordinary about it and one day these holidays, too, will never happen this way again.

The granbeanie made me magnets from some of the rocks we tumbled and the jellybeanie LOVED the bunzies (old remote controls) I gave her and the Lil’ Guys her sister made her. She stayed up two hours past her bedtime happy as a clam with just those two toys.

Nothing ordinary here. How ‘bout you? Merry Whatever You Observe! 4 months ago

I was newly relocated here. My kids were 8 and 4; my nieces 7 and 5. It was our first Christmas together. So I said we’d make cookies. We’ve done it every year since, some years all 7 kids make it, some years just a few. This year we had to Skype in one niece and her two daughters as they were all down with flu-type illnesses but the cookies all got made and it was so nice to see my beanies helping and this simple tradition going on.

I suspect that way back in some small Ukrainian village my great-grandmother made cookies with my granma and before that, her great-grandmother … Somewhere in a future I will never see my great-great granddaughter will take her kids and maybe those of a sister or sister-in-law and there will be dough and icing and sprinkles and who knows? Maybe a sick sister will participate by hologram! 5 months ago