T-Day 2016

I don’t usually do any kind of gratitude posts because it all seems so artificial. Why give thanks on one day just because the calendar says to? I am, however, thankful for many things on most days. Once in awhile things get to the point where I cannot think of anything to be thankful for. Luckily, that doesn’t last too long and I am soon back to having things to list as what I am grateful for.

I made it to Seattle. Last year I was sick and had to abort plans to come up so I stayed home alone, and sick, for Thanksgiving. Not this year! And this year I have a new grandbaby, Mati. Of course, I am also thankful for the other two grandboys! In fact, I would have to say that my three grandchildren and the one on the way are my blessings. They make life livable. On the days that I can’t think of a thing to be grateful for, they are what keep me going.

I am also thankful for my health. I still have a lot of health issues but after the major surgery in 2015, much has been resolved and I don’t take that at all lightly. I’m very thankful that things worked out as they did and I ended up at a top rate hospital that was finally able to diagnose and fix a lot of what was wrong.

My friends, family, and each of my blog readers, also have to be on that list. Even though many are “virtual friends,” you couldn’t be anymore true if you were standing right here next to me. You keep my eyes open and focused on things outside of my world. You keep me on my toes.

It is important to remember, daily, that, while our own world may not perfect, we each have something in our world that others don’t have. There are so many that have nothing, or very little at all. Be thankful for what you have and remember that you have far more than many, many people.

I guess that will do it for my Thanksgiving post this year. I am off to join everyone else upstairs and have a second cup of coffee and some much needed water! For now, I hope you enjoy your day, whether it is officially a Thanksgiving Day or not, remember to be thankful even for the smallest of things!

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Memories

I was looking through my blog posts for previous Decembers so that I could find a specific post to contribute to a friend’s December collection of blog posts. So far I haven’t found it but I ended up reading so many of the posts that I had all but forgotten. They are full of memories, some good and some not so good. In every case I found my throat getting dry and my eyes moist. And it wasn’t all about the memories that I’ve shared with my blog readers over the years. It’s about noticing that I haven’t written real memoir pieces in a long time. I’ve written very little memoir and very little fiction. I really want to get back to writing what this blog used to be about. If I do anything in 2017, that’s it. More writing, genuine writing of memoir and fiction.

So now I have to go back to looking for that specific post and maybe I will make a list of which ones I want to reblog for you here in December. They are full of memories, mostly from my childhood but also some from my married years and the early years after my divorce raising three children on my own. Lots of wonderful memories even though some of them are filled with enough tears to share with everyone.

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Sunday–#WeeklySmile

The protests have continued in Portland but by all reports, they haven’t been violent and vandalism has been kept to a very minimum; mostly graffiti and that too has been very little. The riot squad was called in to “escort” marchers and supervise protesters. That seems to put an almost stop to it.

And then the really great thing…remember yesterday I mentioned that there were private citizens volunteering to clean up the mess and clean the graffiti? Well, they have continued and it appears that everything is cleaned up. So now this same group is moving on to clean up trash and graffiti in other parts of the city. Cleaning up what is not related to the protests. How wonderful is that? I think it’s an amazing thing to have this spirit of taking care of our city. It’s also a wonderful example for our youth. Some families are going out together to help with the cleanup.

My dad always used to say “no hay mal que por bien no venga” which is the Spanish equivalent of all bad things bring forth something good, or every cloud has a silver lining. I think this is an excellent time to remember this.

Have a happy week. Be good to one another. Help one another. And if you know anyone that lives alone and doesn’t have anyone to speak to, check in on them. They may be needing someone to bear witness to their fears and their feelings. A lot of us that live alone have no one to talk to; to discuss things with and so our feelings build up inside of us and tear us apart. Go check on someone. Be there for them.

Yes, even in bad times, there are reasons to smile.

The #WeeklySmile is a blog link up hosted by Trent. Come smile with us.

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Tooth Fairy

We knew it would happen soon. Anderson’s teeth have been getting more and more loose. Yesterday one was almost dangling so we prepared him for when it came out. He seemed a little apprehensive about it but we told him it would be fine. I told him about how his mom lost her tooth when she took a bite of a cheeseburger once and another tooth stayed in the pizza when she took a bite of it.  If I recall correctly, she also swallowed one of her teeth!

He asked about the tooth fairy. It seems there are four or five others in his class that have already lost teeth so they told him about the tooth fairy. So we said yes, the tooth fairy will visit after his tooth comes out.

He was all set for magic. Then I stayed behind at the motel while my daughter took the boys to see her dad and step mother for dinner. About a half hour later I got a text picture of the tooth in the palm of Anderson’s hand.  So I missed being there. So did his dad. His grandpa got this one but that’s okay. I have had the pleasure of sharing so many firsts with Anderson that I don’t mind him having one!

When they got back to the hotel, Anderson jumped out of the car and ran to me showing me his missing tooth (the hole in his mouth).  He was so cute, he asked where he was sleeping and when he was told he could sleep with me or with his mom, he said he’d sleep with mom. Then he took his tooth out of his mom’s purse and ran to put it under the pillow.  He was soooo excited. It made me happy to know that at least for a while he’ll believe in magic and the tooth fairy

and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

That’s all part of growing up and we can all use a little bit of magic once in awhile. We’ll let Anderson have his!

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Let’s Call the Police!

Yesterday, after I collected Anderson from kindergarten, we went to buy soup at the Dollar Tree (only a dollar a can for name brand soups and I’m eating lots of soup because of my cold) and then came home. He asked to go to Nana’s house so I brought him home. When he got out of the car, the first thing he noticed was that my garden flag saying Happy Halloween was gone. He asked me why I took it down (he gets to take the flag down and pick the next one as I have several possibilities for each season). I told him I did not take it down. It was stolen. He asked who took it and I said I didn’t know. Someone had stolen it. We’ve been talking about stealing because we saw a shoplifter being arrested at Target the other day and he wanted to know why the police were taking the man away. He doesn’t understand stealing because he wouldn’t think of taking something that doesn’t belong to him.

“We should call the Police and tell them to go get the bad guys that stole it, Nana.”

I explained, or tried to, that we couldn’t call the Police for something little like a stolen flag because Police have a lot of things to do and a lot of really bad people to go after.  He said the Police are supposed to get the “stealers” so we should call them. I kept trying to explain but his five year old mind couldn’t wrap itself around the idea that nothing was going to be done about a stolen garden flag.

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Things That Made Me Smile This Week

1. The look on Spencer’s face when he brought me the bottle of bubble solution. It was a big smile. He knew his Nana would not say “no.” He loves bubbles. I blow them and he chases them and smashes them.
2. Another huge smile on Spencer’s face when he realized that he could put his hand in the candy bowl and pull out a candy at each store where we trick-or-treated. He usually has to wait to be handed one but this time he could actually walk right up and stick his hand in the bowl and take what he wanted. He was all full of two-year-old-smiles.
3. “Don’t take Nana home. I want to keep Nana forever. Please don’t take her home.” That was Anderson (5 years old) on Halloween.
4. Being included in the plan to move to Omaha and buy a house. And another smile when I found that they were looking only at listings for houses that have a separate apartment or Nanny unit on the property so that I could have my own space. I didn’t even ask and that’s what they are planning.
5. The cat finally figured out that if she stays at my feet, she can sleep in my room with me. If she comes up to my chest or face, she gets kicked out of the room and I shut the door. She seems to accept that now.  Yay. Finally!
6. A little boy playing peek-a-boo in line at the grocery store. I think he must have been about three.
7. Making my NaNoWriMo word count for the first two days of the month!
8. After about ten tries, I am one step closer to making the NanoPoblano graphic show up on my sidebar. It’s still not working but I am a little bit closer than I was yesterday. Maybe tomorrow.
9. Finding a blog that will help me with my NaNoWriMo project research.  Yay! I won’t be going into this project totally blind.

There were other smiles but these are the ones that stand out at the moment. I’m tired. I’ve been either writing, researching, or with the boys since 7 am and it is now after midnight. So for today…that’s all she wrote!

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Ugh!

Well, it rained. And then it rained some more. And then it poured. And it gusted. And it was Halloween.

A couple of things saved the day. First, the shopping center was having trick-or-treating in the afternoon. We were not going to take them but we figured they might not get to go later if the rain forecast proved to be true and it didn’t look crazy so we took them trick-or-treating there in the afternoon. We got to about the last four or five stores when it began to pour buckets on us. There was some shelter and they went to the last of the stores and we ran into Target to wait for my daughter to go to the other end of the shopping center and bring the car.

We had dinner at Anderson’s favorite restaurant, Olive Garden, which was in the same shopping center. When we got out of the restaurant, it was pretty clear that the rain was not going to let up and the boys would not get to go trick-or-treating when it got dark. So we asked Anderson what would make the rest of the day special. He said he wanted to go home and have a party. We went to the grocery store and he picked out chocolate chip cookies. We stopped by my house and I ran through and grabbed all of my skeletons, spider webs, bats, witches, and skulls off of the walls and from the porch and headed to my daughter’s house. I ran around her house putting the decorations up all over while she cleaned up and vacuumed because Anderson wanted to dance. They had a great time dancing to Monster Mash, Purple People Eater, Witch Doctor and some other songs. Spencer played with plastic rats that I had as part of the decorations when he was not dancing. Fun. Fun. Fun! So the night was salvaged and they didn’t feel cheated!

Then I came home to wait for midnight to start my NaNoWriMo project. I’m still sick and staying up til midnight was tough last night but I managed to get in a little over 800 words in 20 minutes then I went to bed because I had agreed to meet another woman at a coffee house for a write-in at 10 this morning. I did that and got to 2600 words.  Now I am trying to set up my blog with the NaNoWriMo widget, which looks like it is working. However, the widget for NanoPoblano (posting on this blog every day in November) hosted by Rarasaur doesn’t seem to work. I’ve really had a tough time setting up widgets this calendar year. I am ready to give up for awhile. Maybe I can delete it all and start from scratch later.

In any case, that’s my day so far and it is only a bit after 1 in the afternoon. I need a nap. I need to read some blogs. I need to do a little research for my NaNoWriMo project. I need to set up tomorrow’s post so I can get it out of the way early because I am meeting people to write at a coffee shop early tomorrow morning and won’t have time to do it before I leave for that.

That’s it for this post, I think. If you get a chance to do so, click here to find the others that are participating in NanoPoblano 2015. I’m sure you’ll find some interesting blogs there!

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