Since last Monday was a holiday and I didn’t have to work, I decided to do something I’ve been needing to do for a long time. I cleaned out the closet in the master bedroom.

My original aim was to get the clutter organized so it could once again become a “walk in” closet. But during that process I found a box of photographs. Somehow, in the deep recesses of my mind, I knew they were stored there, but apparently they had not been a priority for me.

What a delightful treasure I found when I opened the storage box! Of course, there was the usual family pictures we’ve taken throughout the years. But I found a lot of OLD family pictures … my ancestors. Pictures of my mother and father and my sister in the early days. Pictures of my grandparents and even a great grandmother. (NOTE TO MY SISTER WHO IS PROBABLY READING THIS … When I can scan them, I will send them to you.)

Since I recently started researching my genealogy, these pictures are priceless. Not that they weren’t priceless to begin with … in a sentimental way … but now, thanks to the fact that my mother always wrote on the back of pictures, I have more leads on names to research.

So now I need to think about purchasing some genealogy software. I’ve been tracking my information on ancestry.com, which is great. But I need more flexibility than what ancestry allows me.

More later …

Yay for long weekends! I normally have Fridays off which is great because I get a 3-day weekend every week. But I also have Monday off (MLK Day) this week, so I get an extra day. And I need it, too. I am so tired lately. Not sure why … maybe coming off the holidays has something to do with it. I also have a doctor appointment Tuesday to see about getting a referral to a surgeon for a hernia I have. It has really begun to bother me the last couple of months … aching all over, especially the lower back. So hopefully I can schedule an appointment and have some surgery and feel better. I’m sure it’s day surgery. Most surgeries are these days. So since I already have a 3-day weekend, I’m going to see if I can schedule it for a Thursday. Then I’ll have the entire weekend to recuperate. Hopefully, since I sit at a desk all day, I can return to work on Monday or Tuesday of that following week. But I guess I’ll have to wait and see how it goes.

The following was found posted very low on a refrigerator door.

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Dear Dogs and Cats:

The dishes with the paw prints are yours and contain your food. The other dishes are mine and contain my food. Placing a paw print in the middle of my plate and food does not stake a claim for it becoming your food and dish, nor do I find that aesthetically pleasing in the slightest.

The stairway was not designed by NASCAR and is not a racetrack. Racing me to the bottom is not the object. Tripping me doesn’t help because I fall faster than you can run.

I cannot buy anything bigger than a king sized bed. I am very sorry about this. Do not think I will continue sleeping on the couch to ensure your comfort, however. Dogs and cats can actually curl up in a ball when they sleep. It is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to each other, stretched out to the fullest extent possible. I also know that sticking tails straight out and having tongues hanging out on the other end to maximize space is nothing but sarcasm.

For the last time, there is no secret exit from the bathroom! If, by some miracle, I beat you there and manage to get the door shut, it is not necessary to claw, whine, meow, try to turn the knob or get your paw under the edge in an attempt to open the door. I must exit through the same door I entered. Also, I have been using the bathroom for years – your attendance is not required.

The proper order for kissing is this … kiss me first, then go smell the other dog or cat’s hiney. I cannot stress this enough.

Finally, in fairness, dear pets, I have posted the following message on the front door:

TO ALL NON-PET OWNERS WHO VISIT AND LIKE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT OUR PETS:

(1) They live here. You don’t.
(2) If you don’t want their hair on your clothes, stay off the furniture. That’s why they call it ‘fur’-niture.
(3) I like my pets a lot better than I like most people.
(4) To you, they are animals. To me, they are adopted sons/daughters who are short, hairy, walk on all fours, and don’t speak clearly.

Remember, dogs and cats are better than kids because they:

(1) eat less,
(2) don’t ask for money all the time,
(3) are easier to train,
(4) normally come when called,
(5) never ask to drive the car,
(6) don’t hang out with drug-using people;
(7) don’t smoke or drink,
(8) don’t want to wear your clothes,
(9) don’t have to buy the latest fashions,
(10) don’t need a gazillion dollars for college and
(11) if they get pregnant, you can sell their children ….

A guy is driving around Wadsworth, Ohio and he sees a sign in front of a house: “Talking Dog For Sale.” He rings the bell and the owner tells him the dog is in the backyard.

The guy goes into the backyard and sees a Labrador retriever sitting there. “You talk?” he asks.

“Yep,” the Lab replies.

“So, what’s your story?”

The Lab looks up and says, “Well, I discovered that I could talk when I was pretty young. I wanted to help the government, so I told the CIA about my gift, and in no time at all they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping. I was one of their most valuable spies for eight years running.”

“But the jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn’t getting any younger so I decided to settle down. I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security wandering near suspicious characters and listening in. I uncovered some incredible dealings and was awarded a batch of medals. I got married, had a mess of puppies, and now I’m just retired.”

The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.

“Ten dollars,” the guy says.

“Ten dollars? This dog is amazing. Why on earth are you selling him so cheaply?”

“Because he’s lying, he never did any of that stuff.”

Copy and paste this address in your url. Turn up the sound. This is one of the most beautiful and peaceful things I’ve seen in a long time.

http://thejoymovie.com

For the most part, my life is pretty mundane and routine. I get up and go to work, come home and get dinner ready for my family, clean up things, maybe do laundry every few days, go to sleep, and get up and do it all over again the next day. So I am always thrilled when something unexpected happens. Like today, for instance …

My MIL, who is 84 years old and lives with us, introduced us to her new “friend” today. By friend I mean romantic interest. He’s close to her age and lives a few streets over. They met through a senior citizens group that she hangs out with on weekdays. Anyway, he brought her home from the senior center this afternoon and she invited him in to meet us. So she makes the introductions and then says to him: “See? I told you they’re not little people…” referring to the fact that we’re all overweight. You could tell it embarrassed him and he made a comment something like: “Well none of us is what I’d consider little …”

So being the good people we are, we all ignored what she said. But afterwards I got to thinking about what I WANTED to say but didn’t. Now you have to understand that my MIL is not exactly a beauty, and I’m being polite by phrasing it that way. Put it like this … she has to work very hard to control her mustasche and beard so it doesn’t overtake her face … which isn’t that good looking to begin with anyway.

So what I REALLY wanted to say was something like this:

“Well, I might be fat, but you’re ugly … at least I can do something about my problem …”

Do you think I should have said it??

In staying with one of my goals for the new year of continuing to work through my grieving process over the loss of my mother in December of 2007, I decided to do some research on GRIEF. Some of this information came from general websites and some of it came from a book about the stages of grief written by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. (I will make sure I give her the credit for the excerpts I take from the book.)

How does grief make a person feel? Empty and numb … in shock … maybe some physical changes like nausea, trouble breathing, trouble sleeping. Even some anger is mixed in. You may also have nightmares and have trouble staying on task (absent minded, they call it).

How long does grief last? As long as it takes you to accept and learn to live with your loss. The amount of time we grieve depends also on the relationship with the person we lost and how prepared we were for the loss.

When someone we love dies after a long illness … as in the case of my mother … we experience something called ANTICIPATORY GRIEF. That means we begin the grieving process long before the person dies. That doesn’t mean we’re less devastated at our loss. But it may mean that our grieving process can be completed sooner. It doesn’t matter how old the person was who died, or how sick they were. You lost someone you love, and it hurts …

Here’s the excerpts from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ book:

(Kubler-Ross proposed these stages of grief which were originally written to represent the feelings of people who were themselves facing death. But they can be applied to experiencing the death of loved ones, too.)

- Denial: The first stage of grieving helps us to survive the loss … We wonder how we can go on, if we can go on, why we should go on … We try to find a way to simply get through each day … there is grace in denial … it’s nature’s way of letting in only as much as we can handle.

- Anger: Anger is a necessary stage of the healing process … there are many other emotions under the anger and you will get to them in time … You may also ask “Where is God in this?”

- Bargaining: After a loss we want life returned to what it was … we want our loved one restored … we want to go back in time.

- Depression: Empty feelings present themselves and grief enters our lives on a deeper level, deeper than we ever imagined … It’s important to understand that this depression is not a sign of mental illness. It is the appropriate response to a great loss … To not experience depression after a loved one dies would be unusual. When a loss fully settles in your soul, the realization that your loved one didn’t get better this time and is not coming back is understandably depressing. If grief is a process of healing, then depression is one of the many necessary steps along the way.

- Acceptance: Acceptance is often confused with the notion of being “all right” or “OK” with what has happened. This is not the case. Most people don’t ever feel OK or all right about the loss of a loved one. This stage is about accepting the reality that our loved one is physically gone and recognizing that this new reality is the permanent reality. We will never like this reality or make it OK, but eventually we accept it and we learn to live with it … it has been forever changed and we must readjust.

She says of these stages: “They were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages. They are responses to loss that many people have, but there is not a typical response to loss, as there is no typical loss. Our grieving is as individual as our lives.”

Express your feelings in a tangible or creative way (ie, journal, artwork, etc.); Take care of yourself physically; Don’t let other people tell you how to feel and don’t tell yourself how to feel either; and Plan ahead (birthdays, anniversaries, holidays).

More to come at a later time.

I don’t think some kids know what an apron is but I remember my grandmother wearing one all the time. Here’s an interesting history on the apron.
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The principal use of Grandma’s (or Great Grandma’s) apron was to protect
the dress underneath, because she only had a few, it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a pot holder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children’s tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.

From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.

And when the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.

Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.

From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much
furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace
that ‘old-time apron’ that served so many purposes. It can be a good history lesson for those that have no idea how the apron played a part in our lives.

REMEMBER:

Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool.
Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.

They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that
apron but I don’t think I ever caught anything from an apron … except LOVE!

Go to my Photo Gallery section to see pictures. They’re under PHOTO GALLERY … then PARTY PICS … then NEW YEAR’S EVE 2008.