Sunday, December 27, 2009

Long time no blog!!

My, my it has been a very long time since I have blogged. Ashamed of myself! Guess life just tore me away for a while. Life can do that sometimes.

Where do I start? With summer I guess. It was a very, very busy summer with lots of family and friends visiting.

In June, my Dad had a stroke and we had to put him into a nursing home. That just about killed us all. He is 96 years old and still sharp as a tack, but his old body is failing him at a rapid rate. Luckily he is only a couple miles from me and I see him almost everyday. My brother fills in if I'm away, plus friends and family, when here, spend a lot of time with him. He is trying to make the best of it. He is a pretty remarkable man. Dad's moving into the nursing home, left me with two places to keep up. My house had been on the market for over a year and lo and behold in July I got a offer, but it was contingent on her selling her house. I thought well that is never going to happen in this economy, but guess what? She sold hers and wanted to be in mine in early September. I have never worked so hard or so fast in all my life. Family helped me move all in one day. We moved stuff from my place to Dad's and stuff from Dad's to mine and stuff from a storage shed to both places. That was on a Monday. Then on Thursday, three old school chums came and we washed and polished and arranged stuff for 4 days. Then the next weekend(Labor Day weekend) we had a 3 day estate sale. On Monday I had a guy come take everything that was left. Had the carpets cleaned the next day and moved out to my Dad's place the next day.

Needless to say we were all exhausted. I could never have done it without the help of my wonderful friends and family.


These are my wonderful school friends who came to my rescue. Could not have done it without them. Nancy, Sandy, Peg, Jim and Dick.



Dad's place needed some much needed repairs, cause he had a scooter and was not a very good driver!! So Dad's place was torn up again while they replaced carpet, kitchen and bathroom flooring and some new appliances. Finally got done just before Christmas.

On October 14th I discovered a lump on my neck. Waited a few days for it to go away - it didn't, so then started the medical merry go round these kinds of things cause. They think it is squamous cell carcinoma. Something I had never heard of before - let alone being able to pronounce it!! They are now on a hunt to find the source and so far have had no luck. Last week had surgery to remove my tonsils and to have more biopsies. Go back to U of M first week of January to see what they have found, if anything. Then we will move on from there I guess.

For Thanksgiving I flew to Atlanta to be with two of my sons and their families and got to stay for 8 days. That was wonderful. Also got to have lunch with my dear old friends, Virginia and Betty. Had not seen them for nearly 5 years. That was great fun, thanks to Sarah (daughter-in-law), who drove me up to Gainesville.



Sorry this is so dark. Hard to see us all the the dinner table!


This is Sarah cooking up a storm on Thanksgiving day. She made a great dinner which included her famous rutabagas and bread pudding with it wonderful sauce.



Here we have Camp, Tori and Cricket. Got to see Camp play in 3 basketball games. He is fun to watch and is getting to be very good. So tall for 13 years old. Beautiful Cricket graduated from high school in June and is now a student at GCSU in GA. Studying journalism and broadcasting.

Julie is quite elusive, but we did get one picture of she and her Dad. Julie is a very tall, beautiful girl. I so enjoyed being with all the grandkids and their friends. They are just so much fun. I need to be around all my grandkids more often tho, as I believe they keep us young!

Here are Traci and Tori out on Eric's porch.

My oldest grandson, Ian also graduated from high school this year. He is now a student at ISU. He is learning to speak Chinese and is in a new program called Global Resource Systems. He will travel to China this spring for 3 weeks. He plans to go to law school when he finishes he undergraduate studies.

Ian and his Mom, Elin.

Two of my daughters, Elie and Erin and my grandson, Jonathan came to help me out after my surgery and we enjoyed an early Christmas together. Which was super.



















I spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with my brother and some of his family. My great niece Grace, who is 2 year old, made it a fun Christmas . Nothing like little ones at Christmas.
















Christmas morning.

















Sweet little Grace and her Dad, Ryan.




So now I am adjusting to my new home. Enjoying the same ever changing views that my Mom and Dad loved for over 30 years. I often wish my husband could be here with me. He would have loved it so much. But maybe he is.





Winter view on a sunny day.






Blizzard view!

So now year 2009 is about to end. Been quite a year. Am hoping 2010 will be a better year for everyone. Would be nice if folks could get jobs, not have to lose their homes and all the other stuff that goes with not having a job. Would be wonderful if all our soldiers could just come home and there would be no more wars. Would be nice if we could just all love one another.

To all my friends and family I wish you a most wonderful New Year. May you all be safe, happy and healthy. Love ya.

1 comment:

Traci said...

I'm so happy to see your blog today. I love it that you have a camera now. We expect to see lots of pictures. We love you!