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.

Oops, Maybe I Shouldn't Have Posted That

I have several blog friends who have recently written blog posts that they later decided they shouldn't have posted. They all deleted those posts and let readers know why in an e-mail or in a subsequent post. Their reasons for deleting the posts varied from deciding the subject matter of the post was not appropriate or not understood as written, that the post had too much information about themselves or a family member or reader comments made them decide the post  should be deleted.

One of the things I like about blogging is the variety of styles and topics people bring to their blogs. Whether a blogger posts beautiful photos that illustrate activities in their lives, expresses opinions on anything from politics to child rearing, gives us a running commentary on the activities of their day or just shares on a mish mash of topics there is usually, by chance or design, a style and parameter that is characteristic of the writer's posts. I didn't find any of the deleted posts objectionable, but I respect and appreciate the consideration each of these bloggers gave to a post that with some reflection seemed "out of bounds" for them.

My blog is generally fairly innocuous and non-controversial. Even so, a couple of years ago I deleted a post because of a comment that was left. I had told a story, basically a joke, that the commenter felt made fun of a person with dementia. I didn't see it that way but I deleted the post in favor of not offending someone on a sensitive topic.

Have you ever had second thoughts about a post you have written or deleted one due to your own or readers reactions after it was posted?

It's That Time of Year, Crazy Weather, Candy Corn and a Birthday

Here in Colorado, fall is beautiful and unpredictable. A sunny warm day can turn into overnight snow that stays around just long enough to mess with rush hour traffic in the morning and then melts before noon. I love this picture from a day late last week. Winter will settle in before long, but until then it is fun to experience at least a couple of seasons most days.

Borrowed from a friends FB page

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Fall brings with it another important time of year.....Candy Corn Season. 

Yes, I have a weakness for this ubiquitous Halloween treat. I have no trouble resisting the same candy in red and green at Christmas or in pastel colors at Easter, but I have to admit to eating more than my share of the 9 billion pieces made annually in orange, yellow and white for the Halloween season. Candy corn was invented in the late 1880's and was originally called "chicken feed". Maybe if they had stuck with that name I'd be more able to resist the 140 empty calories that come with eating 22 pieces.

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My oldest grandchild, Jared, becomes a teenager this week, leaving me asking the age-old question, where did the time go. It truly does seem like only a few years since he was born.

Jared

He has told his parents that he wants a goat for his birthday (which he has been told that he will not get). He seems to think because they have a horse that lives in the barn at his other grandparents house that they would not mind having a goat also. I'm pretty sure he knows that this is a pie-in-the-sky wish. I thought I was getting off lucky when he told me he wanted socks. It turns out that the socks he wants are a certain kind of Nike socks that cost about $15 a pair....and of course he wants certain colors. At least he didn't ask me for livestock.

I guess I'd better be off to do a little internet sock shopping, but I may need a little candy corn first to fortify myself.

The Bath-In Remembrance of my Friend

I've told this story before and I am telling it again today in remembrance of my best friend who died from breast cancer and to share my regard for everyone who has been touched by this disease. 

My best friend died from breast cancer about 11 years ago. We had been best friends for over 40 years when she died. As always, during her illness we talked a lot and got together from time to time even though we lived about 700 miles apart. There is one conversation I still remember nearly every day....every time I take a bath.

When she was ill, one of the things that helped ease her pain was taking a hot bath. The day of the conversation that I remember had been a rough day for her. While her mom, who was helping to care for her, was gone to run some errands she got into the bathtub hoping to get a little relief from her pain. She called me from the bathtub, saying she was home alone and too weak to get our of the tub on her own and that this was the first time that had happened to her. There was, of course, nothing I could do to help her out of the bath tub from 700 miles away, so we talked. We talked about her illness and her fears, we talked about her kids and mine, we talked about all the things we normally talked about. Even talking for a long period was difficult for her at that stage of her illness, so we also shared moments of silence from 700 miles away.

Even after all the years I still think of our conversation, one of the last I had with her, every time I take a bath. It makes me feel a lot of things, but the greatest thing I feel about it is gratitude. I am grateful that I can still get out of the bathtub with ease, I am grateful for the friendship we had, I am grateful that we got to have one last conversation about all the things we had talked about for years, I am grateful that I am the one she reached out to in what was a frightening first in the course of her illness, and I am grateful for the comfort we both felt with each other in the moments of silence.

Please use the reminders of Breast Cancer Awareness Month 

to do everything possible to assure your own breast health.