Sunday, February 26, 2006
Loving all the time
When you love someone you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment.
It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to.
And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist terror in its ebb.
We are afraid it will never return.
We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity—in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.
~~Anne Morrow Lindbergh
More Loving all the time... below the fold
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Eighth Grade math? but there’s algebra in it….
| You Passed 8th Grade Math |
 |
Darn, only a 9. It doesn’t tell me which one I got wrong.
I am thinking I missed the one about Average, Mode, Median.
No, DoF checked and says it’s the one about -7.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Cousin’s Crochet Project
Dear Ones,
You might think that I do some good crochet projects, but my cousin Brenda has also stacked hers mighty high.
Hi folks,
These are just a few of the blankets I have worked on this winter.
Too bad that I work on these things while sitting on my backside. It is getting wider and wider.
Thank goodness the completed projects are lovely. The dragon tales one is flannel quilted to polar fleece and bound with blanket binding.
I had them all stacked up and thought I would share the results with you.
Love, Brenda
I am going to say that this is an edited version of the e-mail she sent along with the pictures.
Some news should stay within the family, ya know?
Tho the snuggleys pictures were aching to be shared.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Connections for Birthdays
It is coming up on the end of February, which means March will be blowing in soon.
Around these parts, that means birthdays. Next month’s birthday chart has 17 names on it. I’m getting all sorts of things into a pile to be able to do up the parcels and envelopes then make just one trip to the post office.
This makes it easier for me, but Somebody is bound to get a card late or a gift early. Shrug. We should spread the love over a full festival rather than one crammed eventful day.
However, getting me into the spirit already are a few ladies celebrating today, which also happens to be George Washington’s birthday. I’d like to help you find your way over to
Mary at Momma’s Corner which is her weblog’s original home link, then go to the date of February 25, 2006. There are pictures and posts of Two friends born the same day.
Over at What Was I Thinking?, Susie tells the story of how her precious daughter came into this world after years of trying. The link goes to her main page, so you’ll have to go to February 25, 2006 and keep looking back to February 20 and the pictures of the coolest party ever.
There is no way I would have been so brave to go through all what Susie went through to get a baby. Getting pregnant was a dreaded circumstance for me, even though I love babies and would have them around all the time if I could. There may come a day when I get back into being a daycare teacher because I really love babies.
But morning sickness and breastfeeding and hormones and postpartum depression and potty-training?
Thankfully, a time long in the past.
Today, I’ll just sit and read and cheer on some good folks.
Happy Birthday! to Mary and Marguerite and LG!
With many more to come!
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Another Friend’s Online Journal
In the past week or so, I have learned of some new weblogs.
The latest is a crafter like me. There are several items in use at my house which were gifts from her.
So give her a chance to go swimming with her blogging fins on and tell her Hi!
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Monday, February 20, 2006
A Quick Update
The last few days, as in over the weekend, have been a boring blur around here. It began Friday when I received an e-mail from my friend saying that her son-in-law had gotten a call from the Social Services agency telling them that the birth mother had changed her mind about giving over the baby for adoption. In the state where they live, this is a legal option. Their nursery will have to wait even longer.
Two e-mails haven’t been answered, so I imagine the family is going to rally round each other and try to make the best of this devastating news.
Having hopes dashed brings on an emotional upheaval.
And all I did was crochet an afghan using cotton yarn.
My math homework is done as far as I can take it. I’ll meet with my study group and see if anyone else made progress a little further.
A co-worker of DoF’s saved our television evening by telling him that HOUSE, M.D. was doing a special presentation tonight rather than the usual Tuesday. We watched the show while sitting in chairs side by side, doing all kinds of mumblings and second-guessing the plot.
I didn’t even pull out the crochet hook and thread.
Tired folks had a cheap date.
You folks just carry on as best you are able.
We’ll do our darndest to hold up our piece of the world.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
ps I was going to try to link a picture of Hugh Laurie, but the website over there was being a pain in the wrist.
The crown for the tooth, Stage 2, happens at 9am Tues 21 Feb. Hold good thoughts.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Jumbled Thoughts and Bits
It is Friday morning and I am procrastinating a difficult errand of going to the Financial Aid office at the community college. While there are special ways of help for old broads who want to return to school, the paperwork, online passwords and navigation are daunting. It can be a full time job, maintaining college.
My thoughts are scattered over many areas.
In my Blogworld, there’s a new baby girl over at Mrtl’s place; a nurse friend from our old days in college has begun her own blog Workin’ on the OTHER End; and Rosie O’Donnell bought a community theatre in honor of Helen Hayes.
In schoolwork, I missed 3 of 23 on the government test, which was the best of the class, so he graded on a curve and that’s my first A of the semester.
For Math, we are still on fractions. Seven class sessions so far. The last homework problem involved measuring paint with a ratio of 4 to 3 to obtain just the right mix for light blue.
Now I did not know that paint is colored at the store. I vaguely remember some kind of shaking machine at the back of Ferry Hardware when I went there once with my dad.
The last time we did a paint project on this property, we walked in and paid for two gallons of Battleship Gray straight off the shelf and called it good enough to cover the back porch.
I had my problems all figured out with a common denominator of 12 because both 4 and 3 can go into that number. Then it breaks down to an answer of 5/6.
My study group partners had done their work in a similar way.
In class explanations say: Oh no, 4 and 3 add up to 7, so the gallons of pre-mixed paint are divided into a multiple of 7 and the answer ends up being something like 17/21.
Good glory, a 4th grader is gonna know all that?
Which leads me to a mention for Pharyngula says we need knowledge. Real world Algebra and 140 Comments.
I’m thinking the biggest headache with taking classes and living my life is that the two do not overlap very well. Rarely does what I do to please the professor or meet the department’s grading standard for graduation have much to do with what might at some time buy my groceries.
You can keep any lectures about the learning of skills and the delight for understanding concepts to yourself. I’m not in a receptive mood right now.
There has been another cat coming into our yard (actually, it peed somewhere on the back porch and the smell is terrible).
I’m not sure if the newbie belongs to a neighbor or is a lost stray or what. Understandably, our own cats are all on guard, yet cautious. We haven’t been able to take care of the situation yet, and would like to very soon.
On the homefront, drinking Coffee, with its warmth and the caffeine it holds, has been a major part of the scene all week. DoF worked at least two 12 hour days on computer hardware, Chris and I had tests in our classes, and the freakin’ weather doesn’t know which temperature or moisture it should have so we can say it is winter on the prairie.
I’m gonna go take a shower and get nice enough to be able to sit across the desk from somebody in an office who works with government forms all the time.
Thank goodness this is the last semester towards my AA degree.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Two Good News!!
Two e-mails were waiting when I got home from my Tuesday night class.
The first is It’s A Boy! the crocheted baby blanket arrived just in time for the baby born on Valentine’s Day. They haven’t chosen a name yet because they want to meet him first.
Unfortunately, in the state where they live, there has to be a court date before the baby comes home with the adoptive parents. But everyone is very excited!
And the second bit of news is that the Prayer Shawl arrived safe and sound and is very much appreciated by Miss Von Krankipantzen. I’m sure Yoshi will love it as well.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Sunday, February 12, 2006
Careful What I Wish For
Being the first person up on a Sunday morning has a couple advantages. Tops on the list is bringing in the newspapers from the porch and sorting them according to the order I want to read them while eating my oatmeal and sipping my tea.
Before I put the advertisements pages on the recycle pile, I looked over the jewelry pictures. There are many photos of gold hearts necklaces and bracelets, with white diamonds, and red garnets and rubies, and purple amethysts, and ‘created’ pink sapphires.
Valentine’s Day in everloven colors.
I don’t wear much in the way of jewelry. I have one hole pierced in each ear and I like lever-back earrings. I wear a Swiss Army officer’s watch. My wedding ring came along more than 50 pounds ago, and I have never bothered to get it sized bigger, so I can’t wear it.
All the years of working at the cafeteria with kitchen equipment such as slicers and steam tables made me leery wary of having any metal on my fingers.
Then the years of changing diapers at the daycare center and washing my hands 17 times in an hour (true tally) meant allergic contact dermatitis.
More Careful What I Wish For... below the fold
Friday, February 10, 2006
Yes, he is Romantic!
Un-dated photo: probably mid-winter 1988
Over at Decrepit Old Fool, my husband is catching a bit of flack about his perceived lack of romantic inclinations. While it is true that I usually don’t want him too close by while I’m viewing my romantic movie choices, I have to say that he is an old softie with what matters when it comes down to being sentimental.
Like the night of our first real and true date, where we called it a Date and didn’t have a bunch of buddies surrounding us.
I can’t recall if we went to dinner and a movie first. I don’t think we did. But I do remember being led into a little store on a street corner which smelled wonderful because of pipe tobacco and cigars, and fresh ground coffee.
Over in the corner was a freezer with containers of many flavors of ice cream. He said I should get vanilla. So I did, on a sugar cone. A vanilla like no other I had ever tasted before. With little specks of real beans going through the whole scoop.
My love for Breyer’s ice cream was born.
We walked along the street, licking our ice cream cones and window shopping. There was a furniture store, with a bedroom set-up in the front window. I don’t remember his exact words, but they were just a little bit naughty without being downright dirty. A promise of what might happen should we ever find ourselves together in bed.
He does know how to turn a phrase to suit the situation.
He brought his use of words into our family. Many was the evenings when he worked a long day, yet made sure to read books to our sons. Picture books, chapter books. And for the times when his job schedule took him away for bedtime, he read books into a tape recorder and showed our sons how to use the machine, even with headphones. It put a crack in my heart one evening to have one of the boys tell me that I couldn’t read the next chapter for real because they had dad on his tape. So I sat on the floor between their beds and we all listened. Then Lucas told me to stop the machine at the end of the chapter because that was what was fair. Dad said a chapter a night.
One spring afternoon, we rode our bicycles to the elementary school. I was the volunteer mom for the desk in the library, and husband was the parent monitor for the detention room. Walking down the hall, we carried our helmets under our arms for what I thought would be a good example.
One youngster realized where we were headed, turned to his friend and said “Oh, man, I shoulda done something to get detention!”
Now, you might ask if that is what the purpose of that room was supposed to be. The Mister, though, he never was too strict with youngsters who got out of line. And he used his time as supervisor to teach science lessons and to have some fun.
So don’t you think I should be a bit sentimental about a guy who is so well-liked that someone else’s child was willing to get into trouble, just to have some time with this grown-up who showed a bit of respect?
You might be wondering about the picture up there at the beginning. It doesn’t show up well, being that it is a black-and-white photo taken on a snowy night. Here is proof positive that my husband has a mushie streak. I can’t recall why he was out late in the snow. Probably called out to his job.
He was gone so long that I was getting worried, thinking he had slipped on the ice and cracked open his head, and there I was with three children so I couldn’t leave them alone to go find him.
But then he came up on the back porch and blustered in through the kitchen door. He led me down the hall to our bedroom, threw open the window and told me to look out.
I didn’t recognize a pattern at first, even though the streetlight was bright on 10 inches of fresh white snow.
So he said I should look at it better. I saw the LOVE first, then the shape of the heart.
As if that ain’t just the most romantic thing ever. A man who can tromp out an oversize Valentine with his heavy duty work boots.
I say he’s romantic. And I am the one who gets to have the final judgment about it.
This picture was taken by my father-in-law on the afternoon of Husband’s college graduation in May 1982
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Monday, February 06, 2006
Go over to see The Lads
Pictures taken by a proud father on a sunny Sunday afternoon
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Memories of The Munsters
Today a good guy, Grandpa Munster breathed his last. 95 years young, with his wife at his side. He was also known as Al Lewis, actor, restauranteur, politician.
The Munsters was on tv when I was on bedrest for having rheumatic fever. That was the summer and fall when I was age 9, and according to that website, smack dab in the middle of the show’s heyday.
My dad carried a huge lunch box to the mill. He called it his Herman Munster lunchbox. I did him one better. In 4th grade, I had a kiddie lunchbox and thermos with characters from the show all over it. I suppose on e-bay that thing would be worth a fortune today. Naw, I just checked and there’s one going for $59.99 and 0 bids. What a hoot! My dad would be so proud! One man’s trash is another one’s treasure.
Anyway, this coincides with a conversation the guys were having the other day across the lunch table. Chris was talking about a tv show he had watched where one of the fellas was humming a song, then someone else picks up the next line, and it goes on like that for awhile. Husband said there should be more carrying on like that in real life, that people should be more forgiving and look at all we have in common.
So I had to put in my two cents worth. Usually, they talk about things way over my head in technical gibberish or just guy stuff. But on this occasion, I had a bit to add.
I told them about when I was working at a chain restaurant and I had to do the register as someone was leaving. The bill’s sum was $13.13, so I said that aloud, then muttered under my breath “Mockingbird Lane”. The paying customer, who was fishing for the money from his wallet, immediately began whistling the tune to The Munsters old tv show. Golly, I have a voice that carries. And this was a time before I had to do bellowing for playground supervisor.
So I hummed along, and a lady about our same age who was a couple spaces back in line began humming, too. Everybody got in a good mood just as they were leaving. It was cute to watch.
Twice in one week, I have had a memory of The Munsters, first the song and now an actor passed away.
It seems TV will keep going and going and going…...
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Friday, February 03, 2006
Most Recent Baby Afghan
This is one of the main reasons why I have been neglecting you.
I do hope you are able to forgive me.
Crocheted with an I hook from Peaches-n-creme 100% cotton yarn, color Spring Meadows, which was purchased quite recently at our local W*LM*RT.
a close-up of the picot edging.
It is going to the gal who was my own sons’ babysitter, back in the days when we needed one. She and her husband will be doing a domestic adoption, and the baby is due this month.
~~love and Huggs, Diane
Wearing Red for Heart Day
As Nina mentioned on her blog today is National Wear Red Day to be aware of heart disease, especially for women.
So I have on blue jeans (it’s Friday), a red sweatshirt, red socks, and cute little heart-shaped red garnet earrings that Husband gave me many moons ago as a Valentine gift.
This is a cause which is dear to my own heart. Several relatives, including our dads and aunts, have been taken by heart attacks, strokes, and other circulatory ailments.
A healthy lifestyle and regular check-ups can help so many more of us. Wearing Red could be a conversation starter.
So pull on some clothes of the color red and tell somebody why you did.
~~love and Huggs, Diane