Good Intentions

The other day I was looking for something in a desk drawer and ended up cleaning out the entire drawer without ever finding what I was looking for. What I did find were all of these cards that I had at one time chosen and bought with good intentions to give or send to someone to mark a special occasion. There are birthday cards, new baby cards, graduation cards and blank cards in which I meant to write my own message of congratulations, thanks or good wishes.  Obviously, none of them ever reached the intended recipient.

This made me think of something I once heard about good works and good intentions being as far apart as heaven and hell. Of course, I am not saying that my following through with my good intentions to send someone a card would change much for me or that person, but it did make me think about other good intentions that I have had that I never followed through. There's the call I never made to a friend I haven't seen for a while, the meal I meant to take to a friend who just had surgery, the check-in visit to an elderly neighbor, the whatever kind thing I thought about doing but never did. 

I'm not one who makes new year's resolutions but this stack of cards has encouraged me to at least make an effort to do a better job of  following through on my good intentions. I am going to start with a gift I have been meaning to send to a blog friend and then I think I will make a couple of long overdue calls. At least I have a good supply of cards to send when the right occasions arise.

Are you good at following through on your good intentions?

I Know It Is Tuesday.....

I know today is Tuesday but pretend with me for a minute that it is Monday which is when I started writing this post so that when I say yesterday you know I am talking about Sunday. I would have posted this Monday but my computer threw a little temper tantrum.....not the dreaded blue screen, but a lighter blue screen with diagonal darker blue lines with little white lines on them popped up and wouldn't go away. Yeah, really. I don't know what it was or where it came from, but it seems to be sorted for the time being.

Anyway....

Yesterday was a good day. I got to start the day by  having breakfast with my daughters. Even though we see each other often and talk on the phone most days it is rare for just the three of us to have a time to just sit and talk without lots of interruptions so it was a special time for me to catch up with them. We said we should do it more often but it can be hard to plan with all the activities their kids are involved in.

I'm not sure they will love this early morning picture but they look great to me.

After breakfast I came home to meet an electrician (yes, he came on Sunday)  who was going to do all the wiring, etc. to install a new TV above our fireplace. Doc had been very resistant to a bigger TV until he saw a couple of football games at other people's houses on big screens and then he couldn't get one fast enough. While the TV installation was going on I got to have a tea party with my 5 year old granddaughter, Anna, and some Little Ponies.

With some help from my son who has been sort of our project manager for the whole TV thing (it would have taken me forever to figure out the right wall mount, cables, connections, etc.) the TV was up and running in time for us to watch the Broncos play the Chargers. The Broncos victory yesterday has football fever at a high pitch around here.

I ended the day with the new episode of Downton Abbey. It was good but I am not sure that I am going to like the way the storylines are going for some of the characters this season. My real guilty pleasure lately has been watching all six seasons of Doc Martin. I'm not sure what it is about Doc Martin that has sucked me in but I am addicted and can't wait for a seventh season.

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Okay, it can be Tuesday again now. I haven't really done much today except for getting my teeth cleaned.

Oh, and all the paperwork for our 2013 tax preparation came in the mail today from our accountant ...ugh! I may have to go watch a little Doc Martin just to improve my frame of mind.

If I HAD Been Posting....

I don't know what the protocol is, or if there even is one, for returning from a blog break. Since my fantasy of coming up with all sorts of clever blog topics while I wasn't posting didn't exactly materialize I am just going with what I probably would have posted if I HAD been posting......lots of (now out of date) pictures of family activities during the holiday season.

One of my favorite family traditions during the Christmas season is my grandchildren all coming over to decorate my Christmas tree. With 7 kids on the job it is an exercise in chaos and speed decorating. Though not perfect in design it is a tree filled with fun, love and memories and I leave (most) of the ornaments exactly where the kids hang them.

I think I have said this for the last couple of years, but it is good that some of the kids are now tall enough that ornaments get hung on more than just the bottom half of the tree.

The traditional picture of the kids in front of the tree after they are done with the decorating is never perfect but always a fun one to  have. (This year's tree decorating coincided with a big game for the Broncos so everyone was dressed to  cheer them to victory.)

Baking Day comes a day or two before Christmas. My daughters do all the baking for our Christmas Eve open house and the cookie decorating is the kid's job.

EJ and Anna (both 5 when this pic was taken) in their new pajamas on Christmas morning.

Another tradition.....black-eyed peas and more football on New Years Day.
My kids, Rob, Jill and Joanna....they always seem to line up from oldest to youngest, left to right when they sit on my couch.

Just a fun pic of my daughter, Joanna, and her family on Christmas Eve.
The look on Hope's face (upper left) gives you a clue to what all the giggles were about.

And finally, my middle granddaughter, EJ, turned 6 on January 3rd. She is a spunky, ornery and full of fun little girl and I couldn't miss wishing her a happy birthday.

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A couple of other things I might have written about.....

I no longer love wrapping gifts. There was a time in my life when I did, but those days are gone. (Ok, that would probably have been a very short post.)

The Saturday morning a week or so before Christmas when a neighbor knocked on our door to tell us that when they were coming home late the night before they saw a family of 8 skunks hanging out on our front sidewalk and porch. I hope they were just passing through (the skunks, not the neighbors) and that this doesn't turn in to a big, smelly post somewhere in the future. 

The 50th anniversary of the Ford Mustang.....I would have told the story of my 1964 1/2 Mustang. It is kind of a sad story, but I might still write about it sometime soon.

Blogger: Why do posts from blogs I follow sometimes not show up until 8 or 10 hours after they were posted? Has any one else had this issue?

Wishing everyone a late but sincere Happy New Year.


Thanks to those who let me know that comments were turned off on this post....it took me a while (don't laugh) but I think I finally figured it out and now comments are back on.

Winter Holiday

Without really meaning to be I have been away from my blog for a while so I have decided to turn that into a winter blog holiday, also known as a blog break.

I wish the best of the season to all of my blog friends.

Thank you for all you have shared with me this year and I look forward to a good year to come for us all.

Though I won't be writing I will be reading and I look forward to what everyone will have to say during the holiday season. I will reserve the right to pop back in with a post if I just can't help myself.

(Comments are off for this post)

Mission to Mars

No, I haven't had any out of this world experiences lately, but my son and his family came close on Monday when they got be be live and in person at Cape Canaveral for the launch of  MAVEN, a Mission to Mars. This was especially exciting for them because for the last few years my son has been a part of a team of rocket scientists at an astrophysics lab at the University of Colorado that built instruments that went aboard the spacecraft. After years of work and a few pre-launch work trips to Cape Canaveral being there for the launch was as good as it gets for my son and his family.

They got to Florida a few days before the launch to be a part of the pre-launch excitement and to soak up some space lore.

A day spent at the Kennedy Space Center got everyone even more excited for a real live launch.

Anna manning a Space Shuttle.

Anna and Wil soaking up some space culture.

Maven on the launch pad the night before launch day.

Wil got a little "spacey" as they were waiting for the bus to the launch site.

Up, up and away,

or as my son said "and that is how you do that".

Yes, I am a proud mama, but mostly I am glad about this dream-come-true experience for a boy who grew up with his eyes on the skies.

Rob at the Space Center in Houston in 1977.

No, he wasn't always that serious and, no, he doesn't still wear his pants that high.

The Older I Get......

The sure fact is that as long as we hang around each of us is getting older every day. I don't recall that I gave a lot of thought to getting older when I was young. Now that I am, well, older, there are a few  things I'm sure my younger self would have never given any thought to but that I find my older self thinking about the older I get.....

Image from Google Images

The older I get.....the less I like to shave my legs.

The older I get.....the more I'm sure there are a lot of things that I'll never be really grown up about.

The older I get.....the more I would like to have and am afraid of having a little "work" done on my face.

The older I get.....the more I wish I had done a better job of keeping up with people I was good friends with in the past.

The older I get.....the more I need to exercise and the less I like to exercise (or I guess these days you have to say work out).

The older I get.....the faster time goes. I know that is a cliche, but it is so, so true.

The older I get.....the less I like the word "retirement". I'm all in favor of not having to go to work anymore, but no so good with calling my self "retired".

The older I get.....the more I wonder what I would look like if I quit coloring my hair...and how I would do that without spending many months looking like a skunk.

The older I get.....the more I realize that being older doesn't necessarily mean being wiser.

The older I get.....the more I wonder how my grandchildren will remember me.

The older I get.....the harder it is to know if certain clothes are "appropriate" for "someone my age" to wear. Okay, I don't worry too much about that, but I do think about it and am pretty much done with sleeveless. (and I can hardly even mention swimsuits)

The older I get.....the older everyone else is getting right along with me and I am grateful for that.

What do you find your older self thinking about that your younger self would never have thought of.?

A Few Catch-up Pictures 'Cause I Don't Have Much Else....

Life has been pretty quiet lately, a good thing to me from most perspectives but not when it comes to blog topics. That leaves me with one of my favorite topics and the main reason for my blog, family activities, and a few catch-up pictures.

Some of my grandkids started out their Halloween night at my house with our traditional Jack-O-Lantern Pizza and some trick-or-treating. The wind was so cold that night that even this motley crew didn't want to stay out for very long.

Of course I had to look back at a Halloween picture from when I first started my blog. The little baby duck in this picture is now in kindergarten (far right above) and the scare crow (in the center above) was a few years from being born. .....and how did cute little Dorothy turn into a pre-teen Vampira so fast?

I went to my other kindergarten-age granddaughter's school party. I didn't get a good picture of Anna, but I did get one of her zombie brother, Wil,

who was a cute little Buzz Lightyear just a short time ago.

At a family get-together this weekend Anna and EJ took turns burying each other in the leaves.

Beck didn't want to get buried.....he just threw the leaves at anyone who tried to take his picture.

     I recently got a sweet surprise in the mail from my blog friend  Granny Annie at Fools Rush In. She has picked several blog friends that she is sending a surprise gift to at some time throughout the year. She lives in Oklahoma which is where I grew up so this little charm was a thoughtful and perfect gift. 

And finally, all of the Halloween candy is gone, thank goodness. It went to a local dentist's office where they contribute so much per pound to local schools and send the candy to the armed forces overseas. 

I'm kind of wishing I had kept a couple of the Snickers bars.