Parts will fail... yeah whatever

A couple of friends' trials and tribulations with health and well-being have gotten me thinking.  I know, dangerous stuff, that thinking.  I'm thinking I'm very blessed.

Blessed to be Ignorant: You know how WebMD can be for some people?  They look up every relatively mild symptom, find it under a deadly condition and freak out? And then they post to social media and get attention from their friends and family in the form of worried prayers that the 'afflicted' person is not, in fact, dying?  Now imagine a person with those hypochondriac-needs-attention tendencies, but who's had extensive medical training. He doesn't NEED WebMD to come up with terrible conditions or mysterious symptoms. He can self-diagnose independent of the Internet, and does so with gusto.  Symptoms and tests and procedures galore, all posted in social media for friends and family to latch onto and offer 'support.'

Blessed to have a high pain tolerance: How about the person who can't do anything because his knees hurt?  So he sits at home and complains via social media that he wishes he could do this or that, but can't.

Blessed to be ornery:  The person who had her knee replaced but was afraid of the pain of rehab.  So she scooted around in a wheelchair, popped too many anti-anxiety meds, refused to do the prescribed rehab exercises, and now can barely walk.

Orneriness is a toughie:  A friend of a friend in England sank into utter despair when her eyesight failed.  She just shut down and waited to die. And then died.  I never met her personally, but it still broke my heart that she wasn't strong enough to move beyond the use of her eyes.  Granted, I still have good eyesight so I can't truly relate, but I have had friends over the years who were mostly or completely blind, a recent condition for some of them, lifelong for others.  They live full, almost normal lives.  But now I have another friend struggling with her failing eyesight, and it's heartbreaking again to see her giving up.  I do know her personally, and I know she's strong and feisty, but she's having a hard time moving beyond the use of her eyes.

Y'all, this is my personal vow.  The only way my body is ever going to keep me from living my life and doing the things I want to do is if it's dead.  And even dead there are things I'd like to do.  My knees may fail; I'll replace 'em.  My elbow might tear; I'll be a lefty again for a while. I might lose my hearing; I'll brush up on my sign language.  I might lose my sight; I'll fumble around and ask for help. That painful clicking in my shoulder might be something bad, but I've not yet let it interfere with my life.  Parts are bound to fail, but I'll get over it and move on.  That's a promise to ME.

We are NOT guaranteed healthy bodies.  What we choose to do with our imperfect, failing bodies is ultimately more a matter of attitude than actual health.  Which means we can CHOOSE to live a fulfilling, mostly complaint-free life, even in an imperfect, malady-afflicted body.

For some refreshing contrast:

Angelica's leg was shattered in a car accident three years ago. She lives with a great deal of pain and chases around a 3-1/2-year-old, but she lives her life without excuses!

Ben had a softball-size tumor removed from his brain.  He posted before and after brain scans, and said his incision was tender. Didn't complain about the awful headaches he'd had leading up to the diagnosis, didn't complain about recovering from brain surgery.  Lives every day to its fullest.

My very own mom had knee-replacement surgery in July.  She has a good balance of pain tolerance and orneriness, and powered through rehab, gritted her teeth through range of motion exercises, and two months later is almost completely back to normal.  Better normal, since her knee works!

Added 10/2:  The director of PlazaCo's Annie, Taffy Geisel, has muscular dystrophy.  She's an actor, director, playwright, and no-excuses kind of lady.  Loves her work and doesn't let physical limitations slow her down.

Mrs. Greer, if you please

Holy cow nugget schnitzel balls!  I so totally did not expect to get a call, so I really wasn't paying attention to the time.  This time my phone did ring, but it was in the other room.  Sunshine rushed it to me and I answered.

I GOT CAST!!!! As Mrs. Greer, the head maid in the Warbucks household. They don't have a part for Sunshine on stage, but would like her to help backstage if she'd like.  She's fine with that.  I think she's been nipped by the Drama bug (finally!!!) and really just wants to be a part of it, in whatever capacity.

First rehearsal is this Saturday. I'm kind of in shock.

**EDIT 9/27/11:  I'll also be playing Frances Perkins, a member of FDR's cabinet, and a Hooverville resident.
Click here to see the full cast list.  Perkins is actually a more substantial part.  Greer is on stage more, but Perkins has more to say/sing. YAY!

A learning experience

So callbacks were a learning experience! Learned a short bit of choreography and had to perform it in groups of four. Then cold-read four two-word lines for Mrs. Pugh with a few other people. Felt seriously out-classed, as everyone there was just amazing. Highly doubtful I'll be cast (too many people better and waay more experienced than me who really deserve a part), but grateful for the experience! This was my first ever audition for a musical, and it was really cool to watch the process and hang with other people who love live theatre! Will definitely audition again, and perhaps see about starting something similar closer to home (this would be a 40-minute drive for rehearsals and performances).

Called back!

We were told we'd be called by 9pm tonight if we were invited to the callbacks on Saturday.  Sunshine and I  were pretending that we didn't notice it was approaching 9:00 with no word, but I know we were both very aware of the time. 

At 8:49, my phone, which was sitting right beside me, beeped that I had a new message, even though it hadn't rung.  But I listened to the message, and it was one of the producers asking if Sunshine and I could come to callbacks, and could I give her a call to let her know I got the message.  So I called right back!

Woot!  We're supposed to wear comfy clothes and be prepared to dance.  
Sunshine and I did the drop-it-like-it's-hot dance in the hallway.  So excited!

Audition is done

Auditioned tonight. I put Miss Hannigan as my first choice, but I'll take any part, honestly.  Even Warbucks!  But we'll see.

My turn was right after Jan, a woman probably in her late 50s that the director and her assistants knew by name, and were gushing about. "I can't remember the name of the nun you played in Nunsense in Fort Worth!" and "Oh, I saw you in Follies!". She sang a fabulous song and cold-read for Miss Hannigan and was amazeballs awesome. I knew then I wouldn't get the part of Miss Hannigan, but was still hopeful for perhaps Lily or Grace. So I bravely stood (in my Miss Hannigan getup) when my name was called, gave the pianist the sheet music for "Little Girls," and prepared to sing.

It turns out that as much prep as I did, as much practice, as many vocal exercises, I did not prepare for singing with a live pianist. She was unfamiliar with the song, so it sounded awful. And so I was awful. I wanted to ask if I could use my own recording of the piano, but didn't want to hurt the lady's feelings.

I think I did okay on the cold read, though. So I'm hoping that because the pianist was obviously struggling with the song, maybe I'll get a callback anyway, perhaps for one of the household servants, or a Hooverville bum. They'll call by 9pm tomorrow. I'm 50% optimistic.

I'm proud of myself for doing it, proud of Sunshine, too (she went after me and did great!). But next time I will have my music on CD, to eliminate the if-factor of the pianists skill.

Went to see Treasure Island

Attended the matinee performance of Treasure Island at Plaza Theatre Company, good Saturday afternoon entertainment, AND we'll already have been there so Wednesday's auditions will be a little less stressful.

What a great show!  Very well done!  The set design was really clever; I was uber impressed!  Norseman was really impressed with the sword fights!  Everything was wonderful: the costumes were amazing, the lighting was perfect, and the performances were superb!  The young man who played Jim Hawkins... wow.  He's 14, but carried the entire play on his shoulders and did it so well you'd think he was a professional actor.

This time I was still wistful, but it was tempered, knowing that I'm gonna do my best to be on that stage soon. The theatre is really small, which is reassuring and intimidating at the same time.  Even a sold-out show is only 140 or so, but there's little room for error since the audience is so close to the action.

Thinking about Annie

Auditioning, that is.  For the musical production of Annie at Plaza Theatre Company in Cleburne.

For years I've attended live theatre performances and sighed wistfully, wishing I could get involved in dramatic performance again.  I was more than a little envious of my baby sister, who got to work with Theatre Tuscaloosa and appeared in The Music Man and How to Succeed in Business (Without Really Trying).  I made the twelve-hour drive for both shows so I could see her on stage while I sighed wistfully from the audience.

A few weeks ago, my mom took me to see Motherhood the Musical in Fort Worth.  Once again, I  vicariously soaked up every crazy minute of the show, and on the way home expressed my wish that we had a community theatre close by.

I guess my mom was listening and did a bit of research over the next week or so.  When we went over there today, she handed me a sheaf of papers she'd printed off the internet, with details about this little theatre in Cleburne.  As soon as I saw the audition info, I immediately thought (and said aloud) "I want to be Miss Hannigan!"

But it's been close to twenty years since I was involved in dramatic productions, if you don't count the kids' talent show acts LOL.  But as Norseman reminded me this afternoon, I wished a long time to get a tattoo, and was totally stoked when I finally did it!  And I said for years I wanted to pierce my nose and was stoked when I finally did it!  In other words, I should quit wishing and just do it!

You seem a lot younger

Haven't blogged in a while... Haven't really felt I had anything to say that needed the long-format of a blog post. But recently I've been thinking a lot about age, partly because I turned a year older this month. Okay, yes, I do joke about being old, as my kids can attest, but the truth is, I don't feel old.  And I flat-out refuse to succumb to age.  Why does mid-life have to be a crisis?  If you're still young at so-called 'mid-life', where's the crisis in that?
 
I regularly run into people years younger than me who look years older, or people just months older than me who seem as much as a decade older to me.  Yesterday I had a twenty-something express surprise that I was in my 30's, and outright shock that I'm courting 40.  "You seem a lot younger."  That's because I AM young!  If attitude is everything, then dangit, I'm gonna be young for a long, long time.

But attitude isn't everything, I know.  The body that houses the attitude is a small factor.

I've been told I must have fabulous genes, and that may be true, but probably not.  My mom and dad, all of my aunts and uncles, most of my cousins, on both sides of the family, are or were at one time, overweight (many significantly so).  I observed this growing up, saw the health problems, the propensity for diabetes, and decided that was NEVER going to be me.  So I was in my late teens when I devised a plan for avoiding the fate genetics seemed to have in store for me.  Here it is, so simple it's almost silly:

Your pecs/boobs should always stick out further than your gut. Male or female, doesn't matter how old you are. One exception for ladies: you're five months either side of giving birth.  Belly fat, it turns out, is more harmful to your health, so not only will you look young, you'll look young longer.  I've always been very small-chested, so this rule has served me exceptionally well.


I do have a 'panic weight', too.  But it's sort of a by-product of the above rule, sort of a double-impetus to revise eating habits and burn more calories when I get on the scale and...panic.  :)  And I haven't let anything be an excuse.  Not pregnancies, not being laid up by car wrecks, not being overworked or overstressed, not health problems, nothing.

Lots of people are older than me, but seem much younger than their age:  JLo, Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, etc., etc., etc.. But you do not have to be a megastar to stay young.

Looking for Ethel

Just a very quick post to tell you I changed my mind about posting family research here. I decided to create a separate blog for it. Check it out:

Looking for Ethel

Roots

One of the interests my grandmother and I shared was family history. When she was still fairly sharp-minded and spent only her winters in Texas, we would compare notes on new things we'd learned over the summer. I had an Ancestry.com membership, so I was able to go searching for a paper trail when she brought me a new name.

For the last five or six years, I've not had the funds for an Ancestry membership, and Gramma's memory wasn't reliable anyway. So my genealogy files got shuffled around, and those facts in my head got pushed to the back.

Weekend before last, mom found some boxes of photos in the garage, so as I have time, I've been sorting through them and scanning them (such as the one of North Madison School third-grader Marjorie Ashley at right). It's a slow process, but interesting. And finding photos of ancestors got me thinking again about genealogy.

So last night I went searching for those genealogy files, and scrounged up the backup DVD from the kaput computer that has JPG image files of a lot of Census pages and whatnot (from when I DID have an Ancestry membership). Spent a couple hours past my bedtime looking through what I had, rediscovering a few facts I'd forgotten, finding again the pile of questions and notes I'd written to myself.

For anyone who's interested, I intend to periodically share research and photos here on my blog. Once I get what I have organized and make a list of what I need to look for, I'll get a two-week trial membership to Ancestry and see what else I can find.

Here's one of the notes I wrote to myself several years ago:

9/18/04

The information Gramma gave me from Aunt Judy says that Solomon Ashley married Sarah Swang Sampler in 26 Nov 1829. So by the time the 1830 Census was taken, they'd been married all of six months. However, in the 1830 Census, Solomon has three kids under five years of age (two boys and a girl), and two between the ages of five and ten (a boy and a girl). Both he and his wife are of thirty and under forty. SO, we can only assume that this was not the first marriage for at least one of them.

ALSO, that same information from Judy has that Elkanah Ashley married Sarah Jordon, daughter of Charles Jordon and Rebecca Hill. However, in the 1850 Census, Elkanah is indeed married to a Sarah, who is 20 years old, and they have a one-year-old son. Right next door, the next family on the census, is Charles Jordon and his wife Rebecca, who have a 20-year-old daughter Sarah LIVING WITH THEM. Unless she's in two places at once, the two Sarah's are not likely the same person. Mucking things up is the marriage record I have from FamilySearch, which may or may not be reliable anyway. It says an Elkana Ashley married a Sarah Jourdon in Ashtabula county on 2 Jan 1848. The record supposedly comes from a film.

Sure enough, I looked at the 1830 and 1850 Census images. The 1830 Census shows exactly what I wrote in my notes. I wish I had the original marriage record. Will add that mystery to my list of things to look for with my two-week trial... The 1850 Census indeed shows Sarah is living next door to Sarah (screen shot below). So either her parents gave the census-taker the names and ages of ALL their children (perhaps they thought living next door was close enough to living with), or it's not the same Sarah. *****UPDATE: I looked further down the page and saw that there was also another Elkanah Ashley (age 23) living with Solomon Ashley. After some further digging, I've figured out that the pair on lines 6 & 7 are not the right Elkanah and Sarah Ashley. How weird is that? Almost identical ages, identical names, living within yards of each other on the same street. I don't know about the marriage record on that. *****



I found a few other weird things I don't think I'd really noticed before, but I can share those another time :)

Grieving

My grandmother left this mortal existence on Saturday, April 10, 2010, at about 6:45 pm, three weeks shy of her 80th birthday.

It's an odd thing, mourning the death of someone who 'died' years ago. Her body was with us, inhabited by a bitter, angry old woman; my Gramma was long gone, stolen away by Alzheimer's and dementia. I've been mourning her loss for years.

I ask this honestly: How do you mourn the death of someone who didn't know who you were, but resolutely did not like you? Who was so mean to your kids in the last six to eight years of her life, but who once gushed to her friends about her great-grandchildren? How do you cope with the conflicting feelings of distant sadness and not-so-distant relief?

I'm sad that she's really gone, and I'm relieved that she's at peace. No longer burdened by a failing body and mind.

But more than that, I'm relieved that my mom can now be at peace. My mom sacrificed so much to care for her mother. Countless times, through various accidents and injuries, she brought her own life to a halt to sit by her mother's hospital bed. For the last two years (or more) my mom has gotten very little sleep thanks to the baby monitor in Gramma's room and Gramma's nightmares and seizures and sometimes habit of getting up in the middle of the night and heading out the door. My mom gets migraines which I think are stress and sleep-deprivation related (though she disagrees). And that's just the stuff I saw. I don't even want to think about the personal hygiene stuff, or the seizures, or the incontinence, but my mom was there to deal with it all. Now she can truly sleep at night, knowing that Gramma is receiving the Ultimate care.

On Thursday I was able to spend the day at Gramma's bedside. To see her in so much pain, unable to articulate even where she hurt, crying out at the slightest touch or disturbance... it was sad. That Alzheimer's can reduce a once proudly stalwart woman to the demeanor of a whimpering infant is... scary.

The funeral is this week in Ohio. I can't afford to go. Which is a little frustrating when I think about it. I want to go and celebrate who she was with people who have little knowledge or appreciation of who she became. I want to be reminded of the wonderful Gramma she used to be, so that those memories can usurp the more recent ones. I want my kids to learn about the woman she was from other people, because they have no memory of a nice Gramma.

But we'll say goodbye here in Texas. Look at pictures. Bake some pizzelles. I'll do my best to remember for my kids. And think about/pray for family gathering in Ohio. (We love you!)

In writing this post, I went back through this blog, reading about other times I wrote about the loss of my Gramma:

The chaos and healing of her car accident in June 2006
Mourning the loss of my 'real' Gramma in December 2008
Once again remembering (and missing) the lost Gramma in November 2009

If you have a good memory or two of my 'real' grandmother, please feel free to share in the comments :) I would appreciate it.

Go go gadget vinyl cutter!

Okay, so I'm very excited. Shutter Muse Studio featuring a Brush and a Beverage is going to happen, and I'm getting closer every day! I've had to start keeping a notebook of ideas so I can keep track of them all.

On Saturday, my Silhouette SD electronic cutter arrived. It's similar to a Cricut except that it hooks up to a computer rather than cutting from cartridges. I'd been wanting one for a couple of years, largely because you can cut your OWN vector designs on the Silhouette. So in my research for opening a storefront, I priced custom vinyl lettering for the door and for my truck, a custom cut sign for the inside, a banner for hanging outside, some yard signs, and various other little items. Total cost: More than if I bought the Silhouette and did all that stuff myself. Yay!

So today I was installing all the software on my laptop (turned out to be quite a chore because of Windows 7 compatibility issues, but I think I got it worked out), and all the while, my brain was spewing out more ideas, particularly for the Brush and a Beverage aspect. Being a multimedia artist, I intended to use more than just brushes and paint to create our projects--to use unconventional painting implements and/or create our own, to incorporate fibers and beads into the pieces, perhaps decoupage or stencil. Being able to cut multiple custom designs from any paper I wish, or from acetate or vinyl, opens up a huge ocean of creative possibilities!

I'm excited!

Hello 2010

I think I'm about recovered from our trip to Alabama. We got home yesterday around 2:30, and at around 8:00, I cozied up in my bed with my DSi to do some sudoku puzzles...

...and woke up sometime after 2:00 am, light on, quiet house. What a boring reveler I am. Got the year off to a good start by staying in my pajamas all day.

I like my sister's idea of setting goals for the year (rather than making resolutions) so I'm going to steal it. It's good to have goals.

Here are my goals for the year (list a work in progress *grin*)

1. Clean out the garage so I can park my truck in it.

2. Either create a photo studio in my newly-cleaned garage, or find studio space elsewhere.

3. Expand my business so that it can actually pay some bills.

4. Tear up the carpet in the living room and finally put down resilient flooring (and repaint in there, too).

5. Finish some of the projects I have going. Like afghans

6. Two words: Clean. House.

Short list, lofty goals. We'll see.

Skyping it

Another leap into technology. And pretty cool technology at that.

For Christmas, my mom purchased a new laptop for Erin, Eli, and Elsie, so we can video chat on Christmas morning. Erin already has skype set up on the laptop, and this morning, I hooked up my webcam and mic and got set up on skype, also. This afternoon, I'll head to my mom's and get her set up with the webcam I bought her (might have to go get a cheap mic). Julie's laptop has a camera built in like Erin's, so hers should be fairly simple.

Remarkably, I was also able to install skype on my phone. Which is cool because I have unlimited data but not unlimited minutes. So theoretically, I can bypass minute usage calling skype-to-skype.

Kinda cool.

Anyway, facebook friends can find my skype username on the info page of my facebook profile.

Ebook love...

It's the holiday season, and of course Amazon is pushing their Kindle, and B&N is pushing the Nook.

I honestly don't understand the draw of dedicated ebook reading devices like Kindle or Nook (and at least a dozen others). Don't misunderstand: I love ebooks and I love gadgets, but this one just doesn't compute with me. For me, the coolest thing about ebooks is that I carry a library literally in my pocket, on a small device that I'm already carrying with me--first it was my palm pilot, now it's my phone. I can pull out my phone and read anywhere, and I don't have to remember to bring another device with me--that's just like remembering to bring a paperback book (my phone is my MP3 player and PDA, too). And these dedicated reading devices are big and heavy! What's convenient about that?

Here's what I love love love about ebooks on my phone:
--Portability, as mentioned. I carry it in my pocket all the time.
--Convenience. It's already with me, so when I'm bored on the elliptical machine at the gym, or standing in line at the slowest fast food restaurant on Earth (Wendy's on I-20 west of Birmingham, Alabama)... Reading time! (Can you imagine whipping out one of those huge dedicated readers while standing in line at Wendy's? How geeky would that be? :D)
--Price. eReader (my fave) and Mobipocket software are free and available for most smartphone platforms (Android, Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Blackberry, iPhone, etc.). I pay for the books themselves only. (lots of free books available too, check out just one source)
--Adjustable font size. When I'm at the gym, I can increase the font size so I can read and run at the same time, then reduce it to normal size after.
--Tap the screen (or press a button) to turn the page. I can read completely one-handed, or put it on the machine in front of me and just touch it to go to the next page.
--Backlight. Boo-yah!
--Selection of titles. Millions. More than any brick & mortar store could ever hope to carry, and with internet access on the phone, all at my fingertips.
--Conversion software. I can make any digital file with text into an ebook readable on my phone.

Okay, so dedicated devices probably have adjustable font size and backlight. Possibly have one-touch operation, too, but they're too big to operate with the same hand you're holding it with. Probably a similar selection of titles, though I think your sources are limited. No idea about conversion software.

I'm thinking if you want something bigger than a phone, rather than a dedicated reader, you're better off getting a netbook (about the same size and often cheaper). It can serve as an ebook reader, a PDA, AND do lots of other stuff.

As for me, my phone is my (heart) ebook reader.

Praising God for guardian angels

Tonight I am very thankful for Norseman's guardian angels. Without them, today could have been really bad... See, we've got this pull-up bar that fits in the doorway and is held in place by tension. It's intended for pull-ups, wherein your body only gets perhaps twelve inches off the floor if you bend your knees. Despite being told several dozen times not to, monkey-man 'forgets' and hangs upside down from it. Being that just leaning on it can make it suddenly give way, I was VERY adamant that he not hang on it, explaining in horrible detail what could happen if it gave way while he was hanging upside down, if he fell three feet to land on his head. He told me I was being a paranoid mom.

This afternoon I was doing a crossword puzzle in my bedroom when I heard a loud thump, a groan, and a clatter. He moaned "It gave way." I leaped off the bed and into the hall, and found him on the floor, dazed and in pain. If I didn't honestly believe at that moment that I would further paralyze him, I would have smacked him upside the head. Instead I made him lay flat while I assessed.

He's fine, landed on his shoulders (thank you angels for giving him time and sense to tuck his head), though the bar actually landed on his head, so he's got two little cuts over fairly obvious lumps. "I've learned my lesson," he told me. While I successfully refrained from strangling him (though just barely), and went back to my room and cried.

He told me later this evening that he had an 'Oh sh*t' moment--that millisecond that seemed like several seconds between when the bar first started to nudge and when it gave way completely. That moment when he knew he was in a pickle, but could do nothing to prevent it.

Anyway, praise God disaster was averted, and we were able to attend the final night of Crowley High School's production of The Wedding Singer. Very good show with lots of talented kids. On the way home, I asked Sunshine and Norseman if that sort of thing appealed to them at all. They both said, 'Nope.' Which kind of makes me sad. How can I live vicariously through my kids if they have no interest in what I want to live vicariously in? Even now I sit at theater productions and think, "I wish I could still do that." Sunshine says, "You can! Erin did, why can't you?" If only we had a Theatre Tuscaloosa around here.

Now... need to go slip that pull-up bar into the trash without anyone noticing...

I'm missing Mythbusters to share this stuff....

Couple of newsworthy items today...

Sunshine twisted her ankle again. Same one she broke six months ago. Apparently she was running at recess near the end of the day and stepped on a rock, rolled her ankle and went down. The nurse sent her back to class with an ice pack, but she was hobbling by the end of the day. It's now swollen and purple, and very definitely a good sprain. She's begging me not to make her go to school tomorrow (because she doesn't want to use the crutches), but I'm gonna be a meanie. A sprained ankle is not a good enough stay-home excuse. Ace wrap and acetaminophen and she's good for the day.

I uploaded and started running an ad for my photography on Facebook yesterday afternoon with a budget of a paltry $2 a day. I've already gotten two contacts from it; one of those is a small national magazine based in Dallas that wants me to do their editorial head shots. So I'm encouraged.

And Lucy is still alive and well, though she's come thiiiiis close to being strangled several times in the last few days. It's been very cold, so she's been indoors more than usual. So when she's left alone for even three minutes, she finds something to chew on that she's not supposed to chew on (even though she has a very nice selection of sanctioned chew-things). Like Sunshine's camera, Norseman's screwdriver case, my Neanderthal skeleton model, among other things. A dismantled ball of yarn on the couches (plural) when she's not allowed on the furniture. Shredded kleenex on my pillow when she's not allowed on the bed. *sigh*

Clothes are not for dogs

At least not according to Lucy.

While I got the coffee pot going early this morning, I noticed poor ChiChi (the chihuahua) sitting on the floor shivering. The house was quite chilly, even moreso on the floor, so I dug her little green jacket out of the hat and mitten basket and put it on her for the first time this year. She trotted a circle around my feet in thanks, and then went in search of a place to hide her dog biscuit before Lucy (the border collie) came back inside.

Perhaps ten minutes later Lucy was inside--and noticed ChiChi. More specifically, noticed ChiChi's jacket. I happened to be in the kitchen observing as Lucy became very disconcerted, looking at the jacket, sniffing the jacket, even trying to take the jacket off of ChiChi. I had to tell her several times to leave ChiChi alone. I swear she looked at me like I was crazy. That look spoke volumes; it said "She is a dog. Dogs do not wear clothes. Humans wear clothes, dogs do not wear clothes. Capiche?"

Smarty pants.

La fin

This is it. 31 posts in 31 days. Nope, I didn't miscount.

I realized two things this month: 1) My life is not nearly exciting enough to blog about daily. I think if one were going to commit to blogging daily long-term, one would need another topic... like Cake Wrecks, or Epic Fails, or Clever Kludges. But even if *I* personally had another topic, it would be a struggle because, 2) I'm not the daily blogger type. Unless you count groggily posting a quick (and boring) blab as I fall asleep. So I welcome the end of NaBloPoMo, but still glad I did it.

On another note, my son realized for the first time a few days ago that if you change the spacing of the letters in his first and last name, it's French for 'the sea-faring Norse plunderer'. It's something I'd considered before choosing his name many years ago, but I was more concerned that he'd be teased. My worries were for naught. Apparently his friends think it's very cool. Arrrrrrr! Or maybe it was Urrrrrrr!

Okay, headed to bed. I have only one thought remaining tonight....




TOMORROW IS DECEMBER ALREADY?!??!?!!

Pizzelles Tradition

This is about the time I remembered I still hadn't posted for Sunday, right before I drifted off to sleep. So I'm faking it.

Oh--just in case you ever get a Samsung Gravity phone... Don't attempt to use an SDHC card in it. Even though the user manual indicates that any micro-SD card will do, the phone will irreversibly reduce a 4 gigabyte SDHC to 104 kilobytes. No joke. Guess how I know this. Fortunately I got the card for $9.99, so only tossed $10.81 down the tubes.

Dad put together a big Thanksgiving Revisited meal, with meat leftover from the 20-pound bird he cooked Thursday. And there was STILL lots of meat left over!

After dinner I mixed up a batch and a half of pizzelle batter. Years ago, this is something Gramma and I did together several times each year during the holiday lead-up, both Christmas and Easter. We made all kinds of cookies, but pizzelles are my favorite. She and I would each have an iron going, and she'd tell me about her aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. So when she wandered out of her room after I'd added the anise oil (such fragrant stuff!) to the batter, I had to smile. She sat and silently watched me set up my own waffle iron and start stacks of finished cookies. I offered her one, but she refused. (I called her 'Gramma', and I realized the mistake as soon as it was out of my mouth. If I'd used her first name, she probably would have accepted it.)

Though she really wouldn't acknowledge me except to say that I'd taken the waffles off the iron too soon, she did stay at the table to watch. Mom turned on a CD of treasured hymns, and she sang along (kind of) with Alan Jackson. It's weird that the tunes of those songs have stuck with her to steadfastly. She sang loud, strong, and mostly on-key, at the slow, deliberate pace of the old ladies in the choir loft at St. Joseph's mission.

At some point mom got out Gramma's waffle iron, and she and I sat at the counter, while Gramma still observed and critiqued our efforts. She told Deena on the phone that we didn't know what we were doing (apparently she remembers that pizzelles are supposed to be the color of dark caramel, and ours were too white). After I cleaned up the pizzelle mess, I put all the accidental 'good' ones in the cookie jar for her.

On one hand it was nice to make pizzelles with Gramma. And it was nice to spend the time with my mom. On the other, I do really miss making pizzelles with my REAL Gramma. My kids barely remember her, but she's the Gramma who would never even think to stick out her foot and try to trip them.