Has it been a year already???

Yikes, time flies! It's utterly amazing to me that so much happens in a year, yet when I go to write about it I'm at a loss for words.

Let's begin.

My newest grandson Kerrick was born this year. I was honored to be with Kerry and Jordan when the baby was born. It was an amazing experience I will remember always. I had never witnessed a birth besides my own children, and that was through a tiny mirror. This little guy is special (as are all my grandchildren…) and I love spending time with him and watching him grow and progress.

Kerry and Jordan sold their townhouse in August with the idea that they would buy another place quickly. Well, things happen and they ended up living with us in Salem for 4 months. They've since moved to a house in Battle Ground, Washington. I manage to get up there every week or so to visit and check in with the boss - Kerrick.

He is an adorable and sweet little boy. A big plus is that he seems to like me too! We have a lot of fun playing and every time I see him I'm stunned at what he's learned.

My daughter Amy had a scare this year. She found a suspicious mole that turned out to be Melanoma. So far so good. They believe that got it early and she goes in for regular checks. I'm thankful to the doctors that have treated her, and pray that they will continue to be diligent.

My son Steve was able to finally buy a house and moved in at Christmas time. I haven't seen the house yet, but hope to after I return from a trip to the Philippines I'm going on in a few weeks. I'll be traveling with my brother Jim and my grandniece Jessica. I think we will have a great time.

I think my spring will be busy. After the Philippines I want to go to California and see Steve's house and family, then to Austin Texas to see Kevin and his family. Kevin has been looking for a house, too and hopefully will get in one soon. He and Steve are both very handy so home improvements will be great fun for them. They both continue to work for Apple.

I get to visit with my friend Sandy often. It's still so cool to have found each other after all these years.

Time to get some sleep. Maybe I'll write again before next year!

Sandy, Patty, and My Golden Childhood

When I was a kid, I grew up in a small California town. It's now a HUGE California town. I feel bad for the kids growing up there now. It's nothing like it was when I was young, and they will never know the joys of leaving your house in the morning and not coming home until dark, being busy and having fun all day long with just your imagination and your friends. Getting dirty playing on 'The Hill", or in one of the many citrus orchards - that was a joy! I played with our neighbors, the Shisler's and later, the Snead's, but my best childhood friend was Sandy Noon.

Sandy and I both had somewhat unique situations in our families. She was the youngest child in a single-parent family, and while I had a more traditional two parent family, my mom worked outside the home which at the time was not traditional. What that meant to us both was that we had very little parental supervision during the day. We were basically good kids, though, and rarely got into significant trouble.

We had other friends who came and went to our little group, but I think the most constant person would have been Patty Kindred. Patty lived catty-corner from Sandy's house and had a younger sister named Margaret. She had an at-home mom and a working dad. Patty's dad was significantly older than her mom - 24 years older as I recall. I remember him as being a grandfather type and jolly. I remember her mom often sitting on the lawn in the front yard pulling weeds. The lawn was a dichondra lawn which is  rather like a clover lawn, so it didn't need mowing, but weeding was a must and Dora (Patty's mom) did so - often. Patty also had a cool playhouse in her back yard. I loved that playhouse and wanted one of my own.

Sandy had an older sister Pamela, and a brother Jimmy. Jimmy was exactly one year older than Sandy and they shared a birthday, which I always thought was cool since I shared a birthday with my twin brother David.  I remember that Jimmy had some anger issues and often beat the garbage out of Sandy. She took it fairly well, but I found that I tried to avoid him whenever possible. Pamela was enough older that I really had little interaction with her.

Another thing about Sandy's home that was different from mine was that it was ALWAYS clean. Sandy and her siblings had chores that they had to do every day like dusting and vacuuming while her mom was at work so when her mom came home the house was clean and tidy. Our house in comparison was not clean and rarely tidy. When Sandy's chores were done we could play, so sometimes I helped her. It was a foreign concept to me, since I had no assigned responsiblities in my own home.

Sandy's house had a large den or rumpus room at the rear. We spent many hours playing that it was our 'apartment' and we were young professional secretaries. That was the ultimate job in our eyes back in those days. There was also a phone (not installed, so it didn't actually work) that we played with often. I'm sure it helped hone my improvisation skills later because we would carry on long conversations with the 'person' on the other end of the line. As we grew older some of our first boy-girl parties took place in that room.

Sandy's mom remarried and the family moved away when we were young teens. I was devastated. We kept in contact for a few years and Sandy was one of my bridesmaids when I got married, but time and family got in the way and we lost contact. The last time I saw Sandy she had stopped by our apartment in San Luis Obispo (Bruce was a student at Cal Poly) with her young son, Nathan. She had recently been divorced and was heading north in a station wagon with a trailer. At that time I had two small children and was busy raising them.

I had tried to find her over the years with no luck. I tried computer searches, plus I didn't know what her last name was anymore. Long story short...we reconnected a few month's ago via Facebook. It turned out that she lived about 30 miles away from me in Oregon and had been there for many years! It was so amazing meeting again after all these years! We've kept in contact and try to get together every week or so. It was like finding my long-lost sister! I love her and cherish our time together.

Oh yeah...I'm supposed to title these things...

I've been spending a few days with my son Steve's kids while he and Beth are visiting my younger son Kevin and his family in Texas. It's been fun. The kids pretty much take care of themselves, so my main use here is to sign for an emergency room visit, should that occur. It has not.

I went to granddaughter Pierre's music program at school the other day. I was surprised to find that she is among the minority. Most of the kids in her class are of Indian or Asian descent. I guess that the main reason for that is that this is the Silicon Valley and since computers and tech are a world-wide business it would make sense. It's much different from the California I grew up in. Different isn't bad, it's just...different. (I'm so deep sometimes...)

Last night Maddie, Pierre, Ceddy and I went to the local college planetarium. It was a program aimed at  kids, but I still enjoyed it. When we came outside after the program was over we were able to identify Orion's belt, Jupiter and of course the full moon. It was a good program and I'm glad we went. Wills opted out, choosing instead to spend the afternoon with a friend at a horror movie. Yuck.

I'll be heading back to the great northwest on Tuesday morning, then off to the coast to take care of my library duties. I've got my library work down to a science. It takes me about an hour and a half to find 13 pages of books, movies, recorded books, cd's, etc. When the list is larger it takes more time, but since this is the 'off' season, 13 pages is about the norm.

A big deal in my life is my new hearing aids. I've known for several years that I needed them, but since I don't have much control of the finances in the family, it was put on a back burner. It finally got so bad that I would explain to anyone new that I came in contact with "I'm deaf, so if I respond inappropriately to something you've said, assume I didn't hear it correctly." I found that I was avoiding people a great deal and trying not to make eye contact with anyone, lest they make a comment that I wouldn't hear. In the rare cases that that happened I would just smile and nod. One really annoying thing for my husband was when I would startle when he would suddenly be in front of me. What he didn't realize was, I didn't hear any of the 'hints' that a hearing person hears, like the rustle of air, or footsteps approaching. All of a sudden he would just be there in front of me and I would startle. He got angry and said "I live here, too!" Well then make a little more noise so I can hear you, buster!

I think I'm coming out of my shell a little since I'm now among the hearing again. I don't avoid things nearly as much as I did. The HA's are still being fine tuned, but I'm getting used to them. Now when I take them off it seems like someone has put both hands over my ears to muffle the sound. I'm amazed at how loud I used to have the tv volume! They aren't perfect - there are still things I miss, but it's SO much better than it was. I'm amazed that people don't mumble nearly as much as I thought they did!

OK...that's enough for now. Later, skaters...

Yikes! It's been over a year since I posted on my blog. My brother Jim points that out to me from time to time, but I just didn't seem to be able to get my act together. I read my last post and it looks like I owe some wedding pictures, but since it's been so long I think I'll just write a little and try to get back in the groove...

Kerry and Jordan's wedding was over a year ago so as is often the case...a new baby is on the way! Kerrick James Kerr (as of this writing anyway) is due on or about April 1, 2013. We are all very excited since we haven't had a new baby in the family for 7 years. I can't wait to get my hands on the little bugger.

The kids grow up way too fast! Ben is 13 years old today, and stands about 5'10" and still growing. Fast.

Bruce works more hours than ever and travels nearly as much now as he did 20 years ago. As for me, I spend most of my time working on crafts or the computer. I volunteer at the Lincoln City Library once a week, and also at the Willamette Heritage Center as a docent. I've been doing both those things for several years now. I'm alone much of the time, but my kids try to keep me busy with projects for them. This year I recovered a chair for Kerry which was fun. Strangely enough it ended up back at my house because of lack of room at their house. It's o.k. because it looks lovely in my living room in Salem. I now have its companion chair that I need to recover, so that is an upcoming project.

I'm using a MacBookPro that my son has loaned me so I'm having a bit of a challenge learning to do things the Mac way. It'll be fine I think.

Aha! I figured out how to add pictures. This is the chair I re-did. Since I can add pictures with the Mac I'll add some wedding pics to the next post. I need to download them from my iPad.

Until next time...

The Times They Are A Changing...

Since I last posted we've had an addition to the family. Kerry met, dated (briefly) and married Jordan Kerr! Kerry and Jordan both said "when you know, you know!" Kerry also points out that she isn't a kid (31) so she's had a lot of time to decide what she wanted in a mate, and Jordan fits the bill plus a whole lot of neat qualities she didn't even know she wanted, but she's delighted with them.

I suppose I need to backtrack a little here and discuss my roll in all this. I was the wedding planner...sort of.

At first Kerry said that the reception wasn't really important to her and she didn't have any ideas, so I could just 'make it so'. Almost immediately she changed that to a whole lot of (often conflicting) ideas. It made planning a challenge to say the least, but it was her party so I became flexible. In fact, I think I only 'lost it' one time and that was on a relatively minor issue. The final plan was a Winter Wonderland/Scottish Festival.

The first issue was a place to have it. We looked at several venues. Oh, did I mention the wedding/reception was the weekend before Christmas? Oh, and did I mention that I had less than six weeks to plan? Minor issues of course to a mom committed to making the wedding for my last child to be something to remember. Remember the keyword there: committed. It will take on several meanings as I go on here.

I'm losing my place - back to finding a venue. We looked at some lovely places, my favorite being one of the historic officer's homes at Fort Vancouver. It was a little expensive, but would have been a little too small for some of the activities we had planned. Since we had no idea how many people would attend (remember, this is the weekend before Christmas) and the couple have many friends in Vancouver, we decided to use the Cultural Hall (read: gym) of one of the local church buildings. Jordan took me to visit the room so we could check out details. I now know that its' important to actually take measurements, because a large room looks even larger when it's empty. I made some assumptions about what would fit easily and we left. Hindsight is 20/20.

I will take this opportunity to mention that during the six week period, I had previously planned a trip to Austin to visit my son Kevin and his family. I decided to go ahead with the trip because I figured I would need a little time-out. Ten days of time-out. It actually turned out to be fruitful, because I was able to discuss a lot of the wedding issues with my daughter-in-law Stephanie and organize my thoughts. Also during this 6 week period, my granddaughter Ryann had an emergency appendectomy! Of course seeing to her needs took precedence over everything for a week or so. All these things turned out fine, but by their very nature took up a significant chunk of my planning/executing time.

Kerry and Jordan both work full-time jobs during the week (Kerry often works Saturdays, as well) so their help time was limited, and to be fair, they were still getting to know each other. They did all they could fit in. I discovered that Jordan is our local go-to guy. He's the kind of fellow who 'has a guy' to do all sorts of things. He was able to guide me to several helpful people, or he would contact  his guy for information. I hope that makes sense...I know what I'm trying to say here. He's a very good addition to our family.

I need to finish this post for now, but I will add part 2 (and photos) as soon as possible. Stay tuned....

Catching up...

Summer is over and it looks like Winter is creeping in a little bit at a time. It's well past time for me to catch up my blog.

I haven't written much lately, and I suppose that's pretty evident by the dates of previous posts. It's not so much that there hasn't been a lot to write about - I think it's more that I have no idea how to approach it all.

All of my kids and grandkids had opportunities this summer to visit at the beach. Ben and Ryann were with me the most since they needed a little supervision while mom and dad were at work, and frankly...I had that kind of time. We went through several sessions of swimming lessons and they have turned into strong swimmers. I'm really excited about that since they were both non-swimmers when we started our swim project last summer with one round of swim lessons. In fact ALL my grandkids had the opportunity to take swim lessons in Lincoln City and are all certified swimmers with the exception of Ceddy - but he'll certify next year I'm sure. We had one little...huh...incident at the pool during a free swim. All of the kids were there with me in the pool. Juliet is the youngest and very confident in the water (her other grandparents have a pool at home, so the girls have learned really well.) Ceddy saw Juliet and all the other kids jumping off the dive board and decided if they could do it (I mean, after all, Juliet is younger than he is!) then he certainly could do it.

Well. He couldn't do it. He jumped off the dive board with confidence and then just waited for the swimming to kick in. It did not. I was too far away to reach him quickly so I got the lifeguards attention and let him know that Ceddy was NOT a swimmer. He tried to get Ceddy to reach for the floatie which I guess is the first thing you do. He didn't get it, so the lifeguard had to jump in and save him.

I had a very detailed heart-to-heart with Ceddy after this all happened and we decided that he would never...ever...try that again...not until he has a swim teacher sign him off for it. He agreed that he almost died (he was very pragmatic about all this...) and vowed not to attempt it again. I should mention that Ceddy is seven years old, and very much lives in Ceddy-world most of the time. Ceddy-world is a place filled with super heroes and bad guys who can be dispatched with light sabers and sound effects. Ceddy rules Ceddy-world with an iron fist and a heart of gold.

Our beach summer was filled with sand, hikes, rock hunts, shopping, swimming, climbing wall challenges and Dairy Queen Blizzards.  Someday soon I'll transcribe the notes my grands have left in my guest book. The guest book has turned into a diary of sorts, and the kids notes are priceless.

We also took family pictures this summer, which I'll post below.

William showing Ryann how to scale a wall...

Juliet uses her cuteness to scam a ride across the pool from her teacher

 Wills and Ryann climbing...must note that Wills, Ben, Ryann and Ceddy reached the top that day.

Ceddy and Ryann

Ben reaching the 'summit'

I add this photo of Maddie that her mom took, just because she's so darn gorgeous!

My children: Amy, Kerry, Kevin and Steve.

From the top row: Sophia (6), Maddie(15)

Middle row: Ben (11), Wills(13), Ryann(9) and Pierre (9) (making a face...yeah, I noticed)

Front: Juliet(5) and Cedric(7)

FYI: Maddie, Wills, Pierre and Ceddy are Steve and Beth's kids

Ben and Ryann are Amy and Shane's kids

Sophia and Juliet are Kevin and Stephanie's kids.

Maddie and Ben setting out on their river adventure. Ceddy is providing moral support.

All my little darlin's on the run

Steve's Family



Amy's Family

Kevin's Family

Auntie Kizzy and her baby dolls.

Senior WHAT???

I suppose it had to happen someday. Somehow I thought it would be years from now. Perhaps that was wishful thinking. It had a devastating effect on me - so devastating I can barely talk about it without ranting. I'm holding in my feelings.

What happened you ask? I'll tell you...

Some young woman in a clothing store asked me if I wanted the senior discount. Can you believe it????

In the not-so-distant past if a clerk asked me such a question it was always with a 'I-know-you-can't-POSSIBLY-be-old-enough-but-my-boss-says-I-have-to-ask' attitude. I much prefer that attitude. This clerk's demeanor of there being no question about my being old enough ticked me off. The young whipper snapper! Someday she'll fade and I only HOPE I can be around to ask her the evil question.

The little twerp!

Overreacting you say? Perhaps, but that is my prerogative. I much prefer my niece's comment to me on my birthday about 60 being the new 40. I'll take that instead.

Warning: switching gears now to another subject...

I suppose there are some small perks to growing older, one of them being the time to sit and smell the roses. I've started to notice nature and the natural world around me more than I ever have before. In fact, I've become a little obsessed with eagles. I had never seen an eagle in Oregon. I'd seen one in Puget Sound and tons of them in Alaska, but never one here. I happened across a photo on a local web page of a beautiful eagle perched on a post. It was glorious, so majestic and proud. The caption below the picture noted that it had been taken just a few miles south of me. My obsession began. I began watching the area as I would drive past, even taking little side trips to look in more remote areas, but no luck. I even made my brother Jim ride along on a site-seeing trip south with the idea that we were looking at all the lovely views of the Oregon coast. I can now admit that I was on eagle patrol. As we sat at one particular roadside looking at the churning sea I casually mentioned to my bro that eagles had been sighted in the area but that I'd never seen one. As we drove away in the wind and rain I saw something just overhead. It looked to be a large dark bird with a white head. Could it be???? But even as I yelped and pulled the car over again it was gone. I'm pretty sure Jim thought I didn't know the difference between an eagle and a seagull. I wasn't sure either.

Months passed and I found myself pulling into the wayside anytime I drove south to Newport. I'd spend a little while watching the trees, then looking out to sea for whales. Finally...the day arrived. As I scanned the trees (by now I had heard that the eagle pair was nesting in a snag in this particular neck of the woods) I saw it. On the highest tree there it sat. Too far away to get a photo with my camera, but not so far that I couldn't see it clearly with my binoculars. I watched it preen and watch for about a half hour. Then it just flew away. I was in heaven.

The next time I went to watch for it I was completely prepared. I had a camera with a better telephoto lens and a spotting scope. I scanned the trees for probably an hour with no luck. Darn.

Then last week I stopped on my way home for my usual watch. I sat for probably 10 minutes and was just starting the car to drive away when it flew over my car! I screamed (in a closed car its not as embarrassing to do) and pulled back to the curb. As I scrambled to get my phone camera ready, the bird flew quickly out to sea. It wasn't long before it was out of sight. As is often the case, I had taken my good camera out of the car, so all I had was my phone. Figures, right? I got a lovely photo of...nothing but sea. . I waited for 10-15 minutes hoping the eagle would return to no avail. With a heavy heart I started the car again and began to drive away when - THERE IT WAS!!!! Flying right over my car as if to toy with me! I quickly turned the car around (it wasn't safe to stop where I was) and got settled again. I scanned the skies and the trees, but it was gone. Drat! I sat for another few minutes, but nothing.

I gave up and started the car to back out of the parking spot. As I reversed, I glanced up to the trees again, out of habit by now, and there it was! Perched on a tree just a few hundred yards away from me! I pulled back into the parking space (briefly wondering what people were thinking if they noticed this crazy woman...) and pulled out my iphone and my binoculars. Through the binoculars the bird was magnificent. Just as regal as I always imagined them to be. I got a few photos with the iphone, but the distance was too great to be clear. After several minutes the eagle took off and sort of circled my car. I was enchanted. It was almost as if it was giving me a gift for my persistence. It circled my location twice and then headed out to sea.

I headed home feeling as if I'd been given a great prize.

I've tried to interest my grandkids in my eagle hunts and I usually get an "uhhhhhh...maybe tomorrow." I guess I'm the only one who finds it exciting. Maybe this is the type of excitement you get when you become a senior-discount kinda gal.