"Slimmin' Poo"

The grandbaby was here overnight Fri/Sat and I decided to take her to get a little swimming pool or "slimmin' poo" as she calls it. I never thought that I could love a child more than my very own, but she comes pretty darn close. She seems to be growing overnight and her vocabulary just amazes me, and soo precocious. Last week when I was staying at her house, she and I were in her bedroom and we were having a conversation and then she kind of looked around the room and ceiling with her eyes like she was trying to think of something and I asked her "what?" and she replied "hold on" with this air of exhasperation. I had to say OMG and we both starting laughing, she obviously knew she was using a phrase she heard from mom or dad.

She has also been begging to go to the library or "lyberry" as she says. When I was visiting last week she asked her mom to go and I couldn't believe that she remembered me taking her months ago for the first time. Unfortunately, we didn't have time, so while she was here I asked her if she wanted to go. She was so excited and I couldn't get enough of how she says library, so I kept asking her where we going? tell them where you're going, etc. She probably thought I'm a little senile. We have a good childrens section and of course she goes from one thing to another so fast and won't sit still long enough to even look at a book with me. But when we said it was time to go, she ran to a shelf and grabbed a stack of books she said she wanted to take with her. I managed to put them back in the right place and directed her to the more 2 year old friendly board books and helped her get two. She grabbed a barbie princess (of course) and one that had cute childish hand drawn pictures of a baby. I didn't know what it was about, but in the car she wanted me to read it, so i glanced through quickly and told her it was about a little baby with a smelly diaper. She thought that was the greatest thing. She kept asking me to tell her more. Then out of the blue she "inserted herself into the character of the book taking the place of the baby David in the story. She kept saying "my....name.....is.....K----" like she was actually reading, and she asked me several times "do I have stinky diapers?" to which I aswered the positive! (she's potty trained, except she's refusing to #2 in the toilet, she still asks to put on a diaper when he has to go #2, go figure?)



I have such a good time with her, but like that saying goes, it's nice to send them home. I'm exhausted....

A Trip to Hawaii ...

My 16 yr old daughter has been in Kona, Hawaii for a week and due back on Saturday. So that’s almost 9 days FAR away from me for the first time. Sure she’s stayed at grandma’s for a couple weeks or gone camping, but never away from me on an airplane and over an ocean. She’s gone with her Girl Scout Troop and her two Leaders. They’ve been planning on this for the last 5 years, knowing that this year was their last together as a troop. Some of them have been together for 12 years! All but one will be seniors in high school this next term and this was a culmination of years of saving. They earned the money by cookie sales, fundraisers, and even a rummage sale. I’m happy that she could do this because its not something we could have afforded to do for her on our own. They even became local celebrities and appeared on the local news. Thing was, they had everything done and paid for when one of those airlines they booked through, went belly up. Needless to say there was a little panic after that. Finally they were able to rebook the flight the same time (as they had the condo booked and deposits on trips and excursions, so they had to go at same time), but found out it would be about $5,000 more for the tickets. After getting clearance from their Council, they went to the media and public for help. They were interviewed by local paper and then a backlash started. People wrote into the editorial saying things like “how dare they ask for money, when the state is cutting programs for elderly” and “they should be ashamed for begging…” yada yada. I was pissed. I wrote back saying that these girls are all good kids, not in trouble, good grades, etc. and did anyone know about the community volunteer work they’d done in the past? Probably not. So why punish them for something that was out of their control. Why not blame the airline for going bankrupt, yada yada. So anyway, the local t.v. station came to interview them and the girls appeared on the news. Of course it was only seconds for each shot of them, but my little girl was on TV! lol She’s been having a great time, doing things she may never ever get a chance to do again. Even if she does get to go to Hawaii again, it’ll never be the same as that first time seen through the eyes of a young woman, starting on the path to adulthood.

My Time Away

I do have to say that during this time away from blogging I did accomplish some long overdue cleaning, decorating and purging. I mean this was no easy feat. I was given the ultimatum by my oldest daughter. Plus I knew it was time. I admit, I have a problem with hoarding. OK, I said it, it's out in the open, I'm "out of the closet" so to speak. I mean not like stacks of newspapers to the ceiling hoarding or houseful of cats hoarding, but the kind of hoarding where you look at something and say, "hmmm I might be able to use that later" hoarding. Ok I admit its not healthy, but there have been numerous times my kids come to me asking for such and such for a school project and I go to my “stuff” and produce it. But I have to say it did get out of hand. I had boxes and boxes of stuff and nowhere to put it anymore. (BTW we don’t have a garage or storage other than an already stuffed small shed. We also don’t have closet space to speak of as my home is an old barn with gambrel roof that we converted).


house in dire need of painting


My motivation was I was going to have a garage sale. My oldest DD and I decided that we'd have it at her house since she lives in a large complex of houses. I live on a dirt road, with no parking and neighbors who shoot trespassers. :) So we planned for weeks and seems like everytime we agreed on a weekend, something came up. That just gave me more time to go thru the shed and all my crafts, fabric and junk. So I had a ton of stuff. We were all set for this past weekend. We put up the signs around her neighborhood and got everything set up. Come Saturday morning, we were up early and by 8 am it was like already 100 plus hell degrees. So we sat and waited and waited and waited for the big crowds. HA HA the laughs on me. We might have had a dozen people all day. No one of a sane mind wanted to come out of their airconditioned abodes. So I might have made 40 bucks and 10 of that I owed my son for toys he sold! ARGH. So we packed everything up and split it between us to take to goodwill. I had to bring mine back home (a 1.5 hr drive one way). I've since taken it to a local hospice thrift and even got rid of more stuff via freecycle. I'm actually feeling pretty proud of myself. Plus we can actually walk into the shed now.

While we were having the garage "no-sale", a huge fire started in the hills that we could see in the distance (the Napa fire), and apparently there was a thunder storm with lightning and rain in some areas including where I live. Thankfully, no fires close to home, but we've had some aweful smoke since then. I woke up this morning to smelling smoke inside the house. There's no wind (which is a good thing for firefighters), but the smoke is just sitting there.

looking down at our neighbors property from my front yard

I was all alone for four days, and loving every minute of it. I got alot done and created some art too. Here's a peek. I still need to put on some finishing touches to a couple of them.
'Til then....

I'm Baaaack

photo of a photo f/ a garden magazine

practicing w/ my camera

Where does the time go? That old saying. So where’ve I been? Not on some wonderful trip to an exotic locale, not even on a trip out of town, just been, well, messed up I guess. I went through some hard times personally. Back in December I decided it was time to change my medication. Yes, I’m one of those that suffer from depression, a family legacy you might say. My Dad suffers from it and I’m sure my mother did now that I think back. She’s been dead for 22 years now. So back to switching meds…I was on Paxil for about 8 years and I felt it was no longer working for me (boy was that an understatement). So Dr. said I should try Welbutrin XL. The thing he didn’t tell me was the absolute hell I would go through with the withdrawal from paxil. About 2 weeks into it, I looked up on the internet and surprised and relieved to see the wealth of info on the withdrawal from this drug. I cried when I read it. I cried as I relived this wasn’t just me and I cried because no one told me I’d be in hell for 5 weeks, and I cried just because [I felt sorry for myself]. Now fast forward and I’m feeling SO much better, got my dosage good and I’m feeling pretty good about where I’m going (which isn’t really anywhere spectacular). I hope to post again regularly and I’ll get you caught up on what’s been going on.