Happy Birthday, Mom...

My mom and me...

Yesterday was my mom's birthday and I almost forgot.  When you don't have your mom here to send cards and flowers to...it gets a little less important.  I just say Happy Birthday to her in my head and go on with my day.  I used to send her a huge box...if I wasn't there for her birthday...loaded with little wrapped presents.  Makeup and soaps and lotions and gift cards and chocolate.  My mother had a deep dark relationship with chocolate.  I remember one time I sent her about 10 really amazing chocolate bars...organic ones...just luscious bites of chocolate...I called and asked her how her first one was and her response to me was...Oh, honey...I ate them all...

We both laughed and laughed. 

I miss mailing her chocolates.

I miss calling her on the phone.

I miss asking her how to make things.

I miss watching her play with her great grandbabies.

I miss seeing Lucy melt in her arms.

I miss seeing her stand at the front door to wave good bye to us until she couldn't see us anymore...even in the winter.

I miss the way her sheets smelled.

I miss how good her house smelled.

I miss her soup...her yummy chicken soup.

I miss her buttered noodles.
I miss the way she kept celery sticks in a glass of ice water on the counter to munch on.

I miss her laugh.

I miss the way she would hop around...really hop...
I miss the way she would always carry a wet soaped washcloth in a baggie in her purse.

I miss seeing her ride up the driveway on her red bicycle.

I miss hearing her complain about my dad.

I miss her soft cheek.
I just miss my mom.

Happy Birthday, Louise!!!

Say Hello To All Of My New Friends...

I have lots of new friends this week...

Mike The Contractor

Tom The Plumber

Stephen The Helper

Al The Tile Guy
Dennis The Inquiring Husband

I cannot resist asking them questions and chatting and offering cookies and drinks...but they have gallons of Gatorade hidden in their trucks and need not one thing from me.  But I am my mother's daughter and so I ask...and ask...and ask...but today I think I actually asked less.

And here is a puzzling phenom...I am doing none of the labor and I am still exhausted.  Why is that?   I feel as though I have to get up early to be ready for them.  Sometimes they are here at eight and for a girl like me who loves lingering in bed reading in the morning...my head and my body feel shocked...almost as though I am teaching again.


And...in the midst of all of the ordered chaos...I actually finished reading Meg Cabot's Insatiable...which I could not get into and then could not put down.  I should read Overbite right now but I kind of want to save it.  Maybe for when they tear out the kitchen floor.  I am making a folder labeled...
Books To Read While Chaos Surrounds Me.

I loved this book because it was fast paced, clever, witty, charming and hilarious.
Quick summary...Meena can tell when people are going to die...and she tries to direct their lives into a direction that enables them to live.  She is a television writer with a dog and a jobless live in brother.  She has a great apartment and a not so great career. 
This was the normal part of the book.  Then all of a sudden there are murders in NYC which appear to be vampire related and then vampires and vampire slayers began to appear out of the woodwork.  It was so clever and funny.  Meena, of course, falls in love with the king of all vampires and he becomes totally smitten with her.  Then she meets a gay vampire slayer who apparently is not really gay because he is smitten with Meena.  And then her brother wants to be a vampire slayer and then there is a nun who is a vampire slayer and a huge ferocious fire breathing dragon!!!

This is where I have to slow myself down.

It was a fun delicious delightful vampire tale...I will be reading Overbite...the next book in this series... very soon.

Not A Reading Slump...Just Lots Of Distractions!!!

It is not a slump...I am just tired and busy and I can't keep my eyes open!!!

I can't say anymore that I am reading as fast as I can...I love to read and I can read two or sometimes even three books a week.  I read a ton of books in the Berkshires when we away on our mini vacay before our real vacay...

But I just unKindled one book and Kindled up another and although it is good I find my eyes swimming across the pages and I am rereading stuff over and over again.

There are constant footsteps up and down the stairs...I either have to lock Lucy in the study and listen to her scream her head off or watch her watch the workers...last night she stepped into what used to be the shower and tried to slip under the new opening in the tub...so that involved figuring out how to shut our bathroom door so that it would stay closed...

Unfortunately we never noticed that this door did not lock so we tied a scarf to the doorknob and then tied that to a dresser and prayed she did not have magical powers and hidden strengths...

I am constantly moving...and I need a nap!!!

I love naps!!!

I can't even leave the house...my husband has to pick up stuff each night...I know I should have planned better and shopped on Sunday but I had no idea this would be so involved...must be why I love fantasy!!!

But here are the books that I am not reading this week but hope to be reading someday soon!!!

Thank you to the amazing people in the publishing book world who sent them to me...I think that The Rafters came from the author...and it sounds sooooo good!!!  And the amazing Shelf Awareness...I love Shelf Awareness!!!

  Described as a modern fairytale...romantic and heart stopping...

A messenger, a calling, and a hungry underworld...my reading cup of tea...

Going home to sort out your parents' belongings...and much much more...

And it would not be a good week without a few Kindled preorders coming in...

Love this author...hopefully this will be on of her best ones...

Sounds like a great story...

Poignant, mindful...important.

Well...those are my books...if only I could read them...



Wouldn't It Be Easier To Move...

Day One...Bathroom redo...

Imagine this...cool white tiles but some random black ones thrown in for a checkerboard pattern at the top and at the bottom.

A rainshower shower head.

Lots of room...we made our shower bigger...and took out the seat...not because we wanted to but because it collapsed...

sort of.

Peace.

A moment with green tea organic soap from The Fresh Market.

Skin that is cleansed and smoothed and clean in my own shower...

Not the one down the hall.

Reality bites...

Day One...Bathroom redo...

Three men...very nice men and one young man...going up and down the hardwood stairs at least five hundred times with bucket after bucket of old icky tiles...

Drilling and hammering and drilling and hammering.

Me tense...my first redo...jumping up to see what anyone needed about a million times...

Lucy...staring up at the ceiling and ducking...all day long...

The amazing thing is that our contractor is a neat freak...he came, he saw and he conquered our bathroom.

No one needed me...I offered fruit, juice, water, sodas...no one wanted anything.

I offered the kitchen table for their lunch...they ate outside...

I think I was an actual pain in the neck to them.

Finally I got the hint and sat in the family room and read and watched tv.

I will be better tomorrow.

They left the house spotless.

I will be spending the next week and more with my new friends.

Should I try chocolate chip cookies?

Happy Birthday To My Sister!!!

Happy Birthday to my sister Paula!!!

My mom would be really proud of my sister. She would have loved the way my sister is a sweet and loving grandparent to her grandchildren. My sister is way too young to be called Grandma so her grandbabies call her something else…something that does not even sound like grandma.

My sister was the one who was physically the closest to my parents…She lived in the town we grew up in only blocks away from my mom and dad. I think my mom and dad always felt safe with her nearby. She would stop and see them every day, shop for them, bring them the paper, bake them treats, bring them special foods and later on do their banking and bill paying and appointment making. She was their rock. I know it was hard for her. 

My brothers and I tried to relieve her as much as we could but it could never ever be enough. She willingly cared for them and did as much for them as she could. I know she thinks she did not do enough but that is so not the case. She did so much and my mom and dad are proud of her and will always smile at her from heaven. My mom always used the word “my” before our names. She would always say “Oh my Paula or My John or My Jimmy or My Patty”. I know that even when she was so ill and so unsure of things…her face lit up when she saw her Paula. I can only say this again…my sister was her rock. I was the weak one while my sister did the stuff that needed to be done. My sister Paula did the hard stuff.

 I would breeze in and try to take up the slack but my sister was the one who did what needed to be done day after day after day. When we were little we would always play together. My mom always dressed us alike for some odd reason. We had the same dolls but with different names. We read the same books. We played with the same friends. When I was finally given the responsibility of watching my sister Paula…I inadvertently lost her. We were mere blocks from our house at our town’s July 4th Festival. I remember putting her on a baby merry go round…then I got distracted with my friends and turned away from where the merry go round would stop. In those few seconds she stepped off the merry go round, was rescued and brought home to my mom by our neighbor. You can imagine how mad my mom was when I came home without her. I had a long story ready in my head about how I lost her…but she was safe at home eating cookies. I don’t think she even knew she was lost.

My sister Paula remains the anchor of the four of us today. She doesn’t want this…she doesn’t need it…but she is my anchor…she will always be where I call home. She is who I check in with and talk to not every day but a few times a week. Her cooking is what I want. Her house is where I go for Thanksgiving. And she was the last of us to see my mom and dad alive. Just one more way that she took care of them.

Happy Birthday, Paula!!!