Joys of Grannyhood

Isn't my granddaughter the cutest!

Dashing Through the Turkeys

We put up our tree, which prompted bringing out all the other decorations. We even put a wreath on our door. Hello Neighbors! We're doing Christmas decorating early. The next day, reindeer with lights appeared down the street, and wreaths are popping up on doors all over the neighborhood. Guess we started a trend. :-)
Anyone who knows my Grinchy ways, would have some doubts about whether I actually did follow through with Christmas decorating, so I posted pictures. Proof!
My mom and sister were suppose to come today, visit me, let my sister see the home I've lived in since 2000, go to lunch. Last night, my mom said she was very tired, and my sister had a lot to do to get ready to go out of town this week, so we've put it off until after the holidays. But, I ended up with a clean, halfway organized house.
My middle son still has not found a job. Keep praying. His savings are going down.....
I lost forty-something pounds. I have now officially gained back all but sixteen pounds. When I'm sad and depressed, I don't eat. When I'm happy, well, let's just say chocolate tastes way good. I feel like cooking. I feel like going out to eat. I feel like every food is calling my name. I'm going to have to deal with this, but I figure after the holidays is a good time.
I hope everyone has a very nice Thanksgiving. Gobble Gobble.

Thanksgiving is More Than Turkey

It's official. I'm old. I started playing cards at the clubhouse with the ladies on Friday mornings. Then my husband and I started playing cards on Monday evenings with the same group. Last Monday night, after we got home, a lady from the group called and asked if I would fill in to play at the Senior Center the next morning, because they needed one more player. I got directions and went. We played all morning, had a nice lunch at the center (for $5!) and then played after lunch until 1:30 or so. I loved it. They asked me to play again next week. As I left the Senior Center, one of the ladies at the desk said she was so glad I came, and hoped I'd come back.
I've often wondered about the senior center, because I've been bored at home and they seemed to have daytime activities, which in our town are hard to find. But I figured there was some age limit to being an official "senior", and at 52, I figured I wasn't there yet. Well, evidently the ladies think I am (is that good or bad? ha.)
So now I play cards THREE times a week, and I'm having so much fun doing it. Between that and my secret shopping, knitting loom, blogging, pen pals, and my husband's days off, I'm BUSY. And I like it. My normal pattern is to isolate and insulate, and here I am "out there among the English" (from the movie Witness) and loving it. And no antidepressants. I'm feeling very hopeful.
I've started feeling very grateful, too. I don't have anything really to complain about. Oh, I have the same aches and pains of any 52 year old (Things don't work the way they used to, especially joints!) Yet, I have a nice warm house in this cold weather. I don't have to cook if I don't want to. (All my life, I'd been married to men who expected that meal on the table, and I bought into that being my JOB.) I have a cleaning lady! (Love her, love her.) And I have healthy children and granddaughter. My kids are coming home for the holidays. My husband has a stable job. I have a lot to be thankful for. And I am.
We also decided to give church a go. We were invited to a couple's SS classes this Sunday, and we're going to try it and see.
So have a very happy Thanksgiving. I know I will.

Why I Hate Christmas AGAIN

Ok, I'm upset. So I know I'm going to bitch, so if you're not in a "listening to bitching" mood, then don't read this one.

My husband bought the new Christmas tree and it came yesterday. It's really pretty. We put it together to see how it looked, and the lights are really pretty. So he wants to start decorating. Gets out all the boxes of ornaments. I start with the box of my mother's. Really classy glass and crystal ornaments. Put them on, really pretty.

Then he gets out HIS box. Star Wars, Mickey Mouse, ornaments with his dead first wife's name. And he's putting them on the tree. Inside, I'm thinking, I'm trying to get into Christmas for him. This tree looks like sh*t. I hate it. Our classy tree looks tacky now. I wish it wasn't even in my living room. So he asks me how it looks. And passive aggressive me says, "I think I want a Coke. Do you want me to get you one?"

He says, "You don't like it?"

I said, "No. I like some of them."

So I end up telling him that I don't want a tree that looks like a cartoon exploded on it.

He said, "Our tree is eclectic."

I said, grumbling, "Yeah, it sure is."

So I get on my laptop trying to ignore the way I'm feeling, because try as I might, I don't care at that moment that I'm being a heifer about it. I don't care that I only got the tree because I'm making an effort to like Christmas for him. I'm thinking, Our whole house looks like sh*t. I hate that stupid China cabinet you moved in here. My house was never junky until you moved in. Now it's piled with junk. You don't get rid of anything! I want to throw everything we have away. How do you think I'm going to enjoy Christmas when I just realized yesterday that I don't have six square feet of space in this townhome to lay down an air mattress for guests at Christmas? Why is our stinking attic full of junk? Why is the only big closet we have in this house filled to the top with your stinking models still in boxes, and if you ever do put them together where are you going to put all those stupid things? I'm not having them sitting around everywhere! Who's going to dust all those *$#@ things?

And all the time I'm having this tantrum in my head, and am close to tears, he's up putting the cartoon ornaments back into the box. I'm trying not to notice.

So this morning I woke up, feeling all guilty. I put his freaking ugly ornaments back on our ugly tree. This is why we have been married six years without an argument. They go on in my head. Happy Holidays.

The Social Butterfly

Well, I'm officially not a recluse anymore. I went to the community clubhouse tonight with hubby and a bunch of other couples to play cards. I baked banana bread to add as our contribution to finger food. We played a canasta-type game with a very nice couple, and we had a really good time. When we started out to go home, my husband said my counselor would be very proud of me. I said, "You know what? I am proud of me, and that means more to me than what she thinks." He said, "She'd be more proud of THAT."

I stopped all my anti-depressant meds before I took my trip to Seattle. I'm down to a 1/2 of an Ambien to sleep, and one pill for cholesterol. Other than that, I'm med-free. My memory is improving. I don't have those moments as often now when I'm grasping for something I know I've forgotten. I don't have to pause in mid-sentence because the word I wanted to say is floating away. I have less moments when I think I have to do something and then promptly forget what.

I had told my doc awhile back that my memory was getting bad. This really worries me because of my dad's Alzheimer's. He said it's menopause, that it takes awhile for your brain to get use to hormonal changes. I asked what if my brain never catches up? He laughed, which was not funny. I was serious. So maybe my brain is catching up. Or maybe it's being off the meds. I'll take the improvement no matter the reason.

By the way, my husband did buy us that new Christmas tree. It's on it's way from a JCPenney warehouse somewhere. He drug all the decorations down from the attic. I'm going to make a bigger effort this year.

Several people at our card group go to the church near here where I took my kids when they were growing up. They invited us back (My husband has never been there, but I'm still a member.) I'm going to think about it. Going to church was easier when I was doing it to give my kids a religious background. It's harder to do just for me.

I'm reading Nickel and Dimed. It's about poverty in America. Living on minimum wage. I've been there, done that. Lived on food stamps and two part time jobs, raising three kids, with an ex-husband who was ten months behind on child support. I don't think the reporter who decided to slum it for the book completely grasped what it's like to not have that "other life" waiting over in the wings to fall back on.

I helped my youngest son fill out pell grant papers so he can go back to community college. He's the only one of mine that didn't finish college, so naturally I'm so excited that he's now interested in finishing. He's also worried that the economy is going to affect his job, so he's looking for another field to fall back on. My middle son is still job-hunting. Keep praying. Please.

Un-Scrooging Myself

Well, my husband was not happy last night. However, he was a good loser and sat up late watching the acceptance speech. He is now in his "wait and see" stance. I feel good about my vote, and he never asked me who I voted for, as I think he probably figured it out anyway. Alabama went Republican, as usual, although the Democratic vote was more than is usual for us. Hopefully, that means we got a lot of people interested in voting this time around, especially young people who hadn't voted before.

My son in Washington called last night. The car he had stolen was located. Although they messed up the ignition, the rest of the car was intact. He went down and claimed it and is having the work done to fix the ignition. The police found it on a street near where he lives. He's going to buy some kind of burglar-proof device to install in the vehicle to keep it from happening again.
I bought my turkey roast today for Thanksgiving. We are having Herbed Boneless Turkey Roast, Mashed Potatoes, English Peas, Cranberry Sauce, Deviled Eggs, Yeast Rolls and a dessert. I think my Mom, daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter, my husband, and I will be eating.

I've decided to make a real effort this year to make Christmas a good time for my husband. I was looking at a Christmas catalog the other night and found a beautiful white tree. It looked like snow in the forest to me, and I told my husband I could actually get excited over Christmas with a tree like that. I was half-kidding, but he grabbed the catalog to look and got all excited that something....anything....could get me excited. Then he told me we'd try to get a new tree if that would help me love Christmas, because he LOVES Christmas. I felt bad that I've been such a scrooge about Christmas up until now. We probably won't buy a new tree. We don't need one, as we have a perfectly good tree in the attic. But I plan to do some decorating. I have boxes and boxes of Christmas things in the attic. Christmas we will have a much bigger group eating dinner, and I'm thinking a Honeybaked Ham would be good to have again.



I bought a Knifty Knitter set of round looms, made a hat, and am now working on a scarf. When I was a little girl, my grandmother would take a wood thread spool and put nails around the opening. Then we'd use her crochet threat to make a long knitted worm, which we called a bookmark, a bracelet, whatever you can call a knitted worm. ha. I could never grasp crocheting or knitting on previous attempts, but this is easy. It's also relaxing to do in front of the tv in the evening.

The weather is getting colder here. I bought a new wool peacoat this year, but it hasn't been cold enough for me to wear it. It's suppose to get into the 30's Friday night, so maybe it's getting to be coat weather.

I won a $20 Amazon gift card for a blog entry I did for a site where I won the writing contest a few weeks ago. I wrote about what I did with the prize money, and they seemed to like it.

My cleaning lady was suppose to come at noon. I got up early, straightened up the house, took the dogs to the groomer to get them out from underfoot, and ran early to the grocery store. When I got home, put up groceries, no cleaning lady. She called about 10 to say she is down in her back. I told her just to wait and come in two weeks then. She said she needed the money and might come today anyway. Huh? I said well, if you are hurting, you should probably stay home. Then she said she needed the money for Christmas. So I said well, you can come, or you can wait two weeks, either way. So she said she'd call me back and let me know. No word after an hour. So I called her back again. She's coming, and I'm so confused.

Voting, Gossip, and Doggies

My son in Seattle wanted some updating pics of my pooches. I thought they turned out so cute, I'd put them on here. Peanut, the fuzzy Pom/Chihuahua mix is just now getting his hair back. When we adopted him, he had a thyroid condition that had made his hair fall out. He's all better now on his medicine. BooBoo, our Malti-poo, has adjusted to having him around. I kept trying to get them in a pic. BooBoo posed and stayed put, and by the time I'd get my camera on them, Peanut would walk away. AWWWWGGGG! I finally got a couple with them in the same frame.

I went to vote this morning. It's always a traumatic time as I have busy-body neighbor women who run the polling place. I had no lines, thank goodness, but got right in and out easily (about 930 AM). When I got there, the first thing one of the ladies said was "We were just talking about you." Hmmm...

I changed my mind about my vote several times on the way there, but made up my mind for sure when I got there. Cathy will be happy...and my husband won't..... :-) My sister left me a message by my mom that I better not vote for that (N word). So I did. (Not just because of that.) And I again am reminded why she and I are not close.