2009

As my last post of 2009 I thought I would re-post a line or two from each month of 2009. It is an interesting exercise to review the year and remember where we were.

January 1, 2009
I knew before his dad took him to the Urgent Care center Sunday what the diagnosis would be. He had all the classic symptoms of diabetes. When the lab report came back his blood sugar was 1100, about ten times the normal level. He spent the next three days in Children's Hospital while trying to get his sugar under control. The doctors say he will be on insulin the rest of his life. DQ will need to make some major life style changes to get this disease under control.
(Update: DQ has had his sugar under control for many months, controlled by diet and one pill daily.)

February 11, 2009
Happy birthday, Charles Darwin. Thank you for making so many people think.

March 16, 2009
I have never moved a mountain. I have prayed fervently for something that seemed so right and so good and not received the answer I sought. In my pain and anger I have yelled at God and questioned why bad things had happened. And like Job I have found that I can only trust that God is smarter than me and that God's plans are for my good.
“I do believe; help thou my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)

April 12, 2009
Our trip was wonderful. Sedona is truly a beautiful place.

May 16, 2009
Graduations are always emotional events. I can't count the number of graduations I've attended, but this morning's event was one of the proudest moments of my life. My son Paul received his Master of Education degree.

June 17, 2009
Today is our forty-eighth wedding anniversary. We were young and in love. We didn't know what lay ahead. We just knew we wanted to be married, so we began life's journey together.

July 26, 2009
I just watched the space shuttle/space station fly right over my house.

August 24, 2009
It was lovely to wake up to an empty, quiet house today. Our Disney vacation with the boys was wonderful, but it is nice to be home to my quiet routine.

September 15,2009
I am grateful that our laundry room is not equipped with a surveillance camera. It might have recorded an ugly sight last night.

October 25, 2009
We are packed and ready to go. Tomorrow night we will sleep in Egypt.

November 24, 2009
Tomorrow will be his last work day. Monday he will go collect signatures from a large assortment of people as part of the official sign-out procedure. He will turn in his badge. Then he will come home.
The adventure of retirement lies before him. We are excited about what the days will bring.

December 5, 2009
I am officially in the Christmas spirit.

Christmas was wonderful. I got the gift I most wanted, my family sharing the day together. We laughed, opened gifts, ate far too much food, played silly games, talked late into the night, and felt the wonderful gift of a family who loves each other. We are indeed blessed.

Christmas Gift

It has been a wonderful party. The food and drink were wonderful, the company was even better. Before you all head out into the snow I want to give you the wonderful gift I got for you. I only bought one so you will have to share. In honor of all of you, my blogland family, I bought a water buffalo from Heifer International. A water buffalo can help a poor farmer to increase crop production as much as four fold. These mighty animals help to plow fields and they provide nutrition milk to hungry families. A farmer in a developing country will keep care of our water buffalo, and he said to tell all of you thank you.

When you hear my friend Larry the Cucumber say, “Everybody's got a Water Buffalo,” you can nod and say,” Yes I do.”

Merry Christmas.

Party On

I am so glad you all arrived here before the big snow storm came. We are buried in the snow and more keeps falling, over 2 feet so far. It looks like northern Idaho out our window. The birds are feasting at our bird feeders and we have more than enough to eat here at our party. The jellied moose nose doesn't seem to be a favorite , but the ribs are wonderful and our sweet tooth has lots of yummy favorites. Since it looks like we are going to be here until the storm is over, just sit back with some wine, or a little more Kahlua. I arranged some entertainment for us. The entire Bowie Senior Chorale has come to perform a few songs for us. (Unfortunately blogger won't let me upload the video so you will have to imagine how wonderful they sounded. They sang everything from the Grinch to the Hallelujah chorus.)

Tomorrow I will give you the wonderful gift I bought for all of you to share.

Party

It is time for my annual Blogland potluck Christmas party. The house is decorated. I've made a rum cake and a gumdrop cake. I'm fixing a big bowl of eggnog and I think I'll make some yummy sausage balls. I've bought you all a wonderful Christmas present this year. It's an open house. Come anytime between now and Christmas. We'll tell some good stories and remember lots of good times together. What will you be bringing to fill out my table and make the party more merry?

I look forward to seeing all of you. I'll give you all your amazing gift after everyone is here.

Computers

In 1960 I was dating a cute Cal Tech student. One evening he came over all excited because he had access to look at the computer that Cal Tech had just acquired. He wanted me to come with him to view this wonder of new technology. He was thrilled to be able to get up close to this machine that filled the entire room that housed it. This wonderful new machine was filled with vacuum tubes and was programmed with punched paper tape. It looked like a bunch of over-sized filing cabinets to me. I was not too impressed. He was in awe of it's 24 kilobytes of memory that served the entire Cal Tech campus. That computer cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In 1980 that cute student had become my husband. We had four children, a mortgage and just enough money to pay most of the bills. He wanted to buy a computer. I said there was no way we could afford the $4200 a computer would cost. We fought about it, but he finally convinced me that this was something he really needed. He would be able to use it to do contract work and earn extra money. We took out a loan to purchase this wonderful machine with it's 128 kilobytes of memory. Later he framed a copy of the first check he earned using that computer. He wanted to demonstrate that the computer really was a good investment.

Today we have a home office. In this office we have a network of three computers, each having over 600 gigabytes of memory. My husband also owns a laptop with a memory of more than three hundred gigabytes. Each computer cost a few hundred dollars. I long ago quit arguing about whether or not we need a new computer. I love my computer. I love the world wide web and the access it gives me the world.

Can you imagine living without computers?

Where did the time go?

It is Friday. Where did the week go? I felt busy all week, but I am having a hard time remembering what I did with a week of time. I went the pool a couple of mornings. I always feel better after a bit of swimming. My retired man even joined me in the water.

Tuesday I heard a very inspirational talk. I listened to a brave woman explain her journey through cancer. She is about to enter hospice, but is still smiling and teaching others how to cope. Some of the things that have helped her on this painful journey were prayers of thanksgiving for the good things in her life, looking for the small joys in each day, and finding something to laugh about each day. She inspired me to live my life with a renewed sense of joy.

One evening I enjoyed hearing my granddaughter sing in her holiday concert. The next day I enjoyed singing in a holiday concert at the senior center. I went to bell practice and worked on the music we will be playing during the upcoming holiday at church. Music makes my life so much richer. Life would be boring without music.

Getting ready for Christmas has taken a lot of time. There has been shopping, wrapping, baking, addressing cards and decking the halls. I do love this time of year and all the happy traditions that fill the season.

One of the gifts God gave me was being a good listener. I have spent a lot of time listening to people this week. Many people need someone to listen to their story. I can't do much to heal their hurts and fix their problems, but just having someone to listen seems to help. I hope all of you have someone in your life who listens to you.

So here it is Friday night. I think this week-end I will try to get organized.

In 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Thousands were killed. Our nation was stunned. A long, hard war was fought against Japan while another was being fought against Germany. The wars ended. Japan and Germany are both now our friends and allies.

In 2001 another enemy attacked our country. The towers fell. The pentagon was seriously damaged. Our nation was stunned. Thousands were killed. A long hard war is still being fought. Do you suppose that one day our grandchildren will consider the nations of Afghanistan and Iraq our friends and allies?

Christmas Spirit

The first snowfall of the season is covering my world with soft puffy blankets of white. The house is filled with the cinnamony smell of gumdrop cake. The lights twinkle on the tree. Silent Night is playing on the radio. Three Christmas cards and my order from Amazon arrived in the mail.

I am officially in the Christmas spirit.

Retirement Living

Retirement is such a big life change that you would think it would make an enormous difference in how life feels. Dennis has been working full time since he was teenager. He has been retired for three days. So far retirement just feels normal. Obviously it is still a very new thing, but it just feels so very normal so far. He is sleeping a little later and has taken a couple of naps He has worked in the yard and put up Christmas decorations. He has worked on the computer. He visited a friend in the hospital. He has gone to the gym and even joined me in a water aerobics class. We went out to lunch one day. We are both curious to see how this retirement living will all work out, but so far it is just comfortable.

Life is good.

We feel blessed.