February 1, 2010 – Curves, My Good Habit
On January 12, 2004 I did something very good for myself. I joined our local Curves. They were offering a two for one so I got my Mom to join with me. We started out going the three days a week that they recommended. After a few weeks my Mom suggested that we go every morning, Monday throught Friday. It has been six years and we are still going every morning except when I am out of town. Mom has managed to surpass me by almost 100 workouts. Good for you Mom! Mom is 86 years old and still going strong. I credit our exercise program with keeping her healthy. She isn’t on blood pressure or cholesterol medicines. Unlike her daughter, Me, who is on blood pressure meds. My Mom is this little 5′, 126 pound person who I don’t resemble at all. I am 5′ 7″ and I won’t give my weight. Let’s say I would love to lose 25 pounds. I know working out at Curves has had great benefits to both of us. My knees don’t hurt anymore and I have more energy than most almost 66 year olds. Curves is the best part of my mornings. I could be in a Curves commercial, huh? Here is the picture I took this morning. I took it because the circuit was full. Fuller than we have seen it in a long time. These are my friends, some old renewed friendships and some new friendships.
Here is my Mom on the stretching machines after her workout.
Oh, and another thing I am going to do for myself starting today. Eating better and no skipping meals. Maybe this will be the year I lose those 25 pounds.
January 31, 2010
Homemade sourdough rolls rising in the oven and housework done. Time to finally update this blog.
I spent last week in Las Vegas with my son, Matt, and his family. I went for Lily’s 3rd birthday. We also celebrated Matson’s 4th birthday since he will be in the hospital for his birthday on February 14th. Yes, he is a Valentine’s baby. Matson will undergo spine surgery to correct his Scoliosis on February 10th if everything falls into place. The doctor called my daugher in law and told her about a new procedure that has only been done five times in England and once in Japan. It involves magnitized rods that can be adjusted with a remote control. The problem is the FDA hasn’t fully approved the procedure here in the States. The hospital in San Diego has to approve the procedure also. So, the waiting begins. If things don’t fall into place the old procedure will have to be done. That will be double growing rods that will have to be lengthened surgically every six months. I will write more about this when we know which procedure will be done.
The birthday party for the little ones was fun. Lots of activities were planned through out the week. My favorite was visiting the Build a Bear Workshop. You pick out which animal you want, select a sound, and stuff it. What fun for the kids. The man who works there was so good with the kids. He said he had been working there for four years and he really enjoyed it. You could tell he did. Lily picked out a pink bear and dressed her in a fancy dress. She named her Lullaby. I was amazed that she came up with that name on her own. She is only three. Matson picked out Alvin the Chipmunk and named him Matson-Alvin. Tyler picked out a cat and had him dressed as a fireman cat. He named him Whiskers. What a fun afternoon.
Lily and her Lullaby
Tyler and his Whiskers
I didn’t get a good picture of Matson and his chipmunk as he wasn’t very cooperative that day. He is pretty head strong and difiant when he doesn’t want his picture taken. I did get some good pictures of him on other days.
Here is his pensive look while watching TV.
With his birthday cake.
I raised three boys so I didn’t get to dress up little girls. Our Lily is going to be a flower girl in her Aunt’s wedding in June. We went to a bridal salon so Lily could try on her flower girl dress. The dress is exactly like her Aunt’s wedding dress. We had such fun taking pictures of her. She is a little angel and loved every minute of playing dress up. Here are pictures of our day at the salon.
I left stormy California for Las Vegas on the 20th. It was storming in Vegas also. Very cold and windy. It snowed in the surrounding foothills near my Son’s home.
I took this picture from the car.
I had a couple of good days there but by the time I was to leave and come home another storm came. I was stranded in the airport for a few hours before being able to board the plane for the trip home. The ride was pretty smooth by the time we got out of the Vegas valley.
I heard there was an awful wind storm here while I was away. My neighbor told me there were 70 mile an hour winds. My Dad’s fence blew over as did several in our neighborhood. Two big Cypress trees blew down in my neighbor’s yard. No damage, thank goodness. The last two days here have been blue skies and sunshine. The kind of days I like because the heater doesn’t come on. All natural sunshine through the windows.
The sourdough rolls are done. Time to munch.
January 17, 2010
The rains have finally come. A pretty good downpour. We need the rain so much so no complaining here. It was a good day to do laundry and put a pot of homemade soup on to cook. I have never made homemade Split Pea Soup before. It smells so good. It was easy but a little messy to blend. It TASTES so good. I love Split Pea Soup. I love all homemade soups. Can’t stand the canned stuff.
I had lunch with my friends on Friday. We are called the Golden Girls by Bev’s husband. I guess it fits. We are retired with gray hair. Well, not me, I dye mine. It’s no secret. We get together for lunch once a month for our gab fests. We have been known to sit in the restaurant for 4 hours at a time. We have a lot of world problems to solve and our own. Don’t suppose the world would listen to us? This Friday we were joined by a fellow retiree of the County. She is a funny lady and had so many funny stories to tell. We enjoyed our lunch with her.
Here is our picture.
The Golden Girls plus One.
The plus one is on the left.
Jury Duty on the 12th was a bust. We sat in the jury room for three hours then the judge came out and dismissed all of us. I almost read a whole book while sitting in there. I don’t usually like mysteries but this book was small enough to fit in my purse so that is the reason I choose it. It was a book by Mary Higgins Clark called On The Street Where You Live. It wasn’t too scary and it kept my interest while wiling away the afternoon in the jury room. Time served. I don’t have to go back until my names comes up again in two years. Let’s hope it doesn’t!
I stuck my head outside and it is still coming down. I took some pictures of that stuff falling from the sky. We don’t see it very often.
I sure hope the dentist is working tomorrow. I have had an aching tooth since Thursday night. He doesn’t work on Fridays and Monday is a holiday but not for him, I hope. This tooth has had two root canals in it. The last one only a few months ago. How can a tooth without a nerve hurt??? I am leaving on Wednesday for Las Vegas to visit my Son and his family so I have to get this tooth out of pain. If he isn’t working on Monday then Tuesday is my only day. That’s cutting it close. Wish me luck.
One of my favorite shows is back on tonight. I love the suspense of 24 and you gotta love that Jack Bower. Two hours tonight and two hours tomorrow night. Can’t wait.
Tonsils Out
Today was finally the day to have the tonsils out. My little grandson, Matson, was finally well enough for the procedure. They were supposed to take him in at 7 AM. He had to wait until 8:45. I think they made the best of it because this picture shows him pretty relaxed and smiling playing with a stuffed animal.
My daughter in law called to tell me they were taking him in. An hour later she called and said he was out and screeming. That must be awful with your throat feeling like someone sliced it open. She said he finally went to sleep in recovery. Around noon she called to tell me they were home and he was not wanting anything to drink or eat. I can’t blame him. I called this evening and he had been vomiting off and on all afternoon. He is either having a reaction to the anesthetic or he swollowed some blood. Poor little guy. I hope he is doing better tomorrow. He is such a character when he feels good. Hopefully with his tonsils out he will have less sick days and more days like an almost four year old should have. Full of happy fun and mischief.
Not much else to report today. It is an overcast gloomy day here. Exercising at Curves was pretty much the highlight of my day. Jury duty tomorrow, Uggg!!!
4-H
This morning I took my grandkids, Brittney and Robert to their 4-H archery class. 4-H is such a wonderful organization for kids and young adults. Their leaders are young and grew up in the 4-H program. Robert raises pigs for the fair and Brittney raises lambs. Archery is something new for both of them. Robert has been interested in archery for some time. I was really impressed on how much he knew about the parts of a bow and arrow and what the names are. Brittney is just starting because one of her advisors ask her to try the class out. She told me she liked it and will stay in the class. There are 12 kids in the class. They divided them in two groups and played a game were they had to shoot their arrows at numbers posted on a piece of cardboard attached to a bale of hay. If they hit one of the numbers their team had to answer a question about the parts of the bow. Pretty smart kids. Brittney’s team won. Robert was on the other team. They both were able to hit numbers. And, was it cold out there!!! I am still trying to warm up my feet.
Here is Brittney and Robert doing their thing.
Brittney is 16 and Robert is 12. They are good kids and so sweet and funny. After the class we went out to lunch. They wanted pizza so we went to Pizza Hut. Just what this dieting Grandma needed. Ha.
Brittney is a very accomplished horsewoman. On top of being a junior in high school she is taking classes at the college on horse training. She wants a career working with horses. Her dream someday is to own a horse boarding ranch and to be a horse chiropractor. Yes, I said horse chiropractor. I didn’t know there was such a thing. Evidently they make very good money. Brittney is all of 5′2″ tall. This should be very interesting.
Here is Brittney on Robert’s horse in the Christmas parade.
The date on the picture is wrong. It was taken in December 2009.
2010 A New Beginning
Well, I have been absent from this blog since last May. Shame on me. I will try to do better in 2010. Sometimes I feel like I don’t have much to say. Words in print don’t come easy for me. I could probably talk your ear off though.
Christmas this year was missing our middle son and his family. We missed them. Our little grandson, who will be four on February 14th, was scheduled to have his tonsils out on the 23rd. What a Christmas present. It didn’t happen because he was sick. Monday the 11th is the day if he can stay well. I am hoping this will make a big difference in his health. I had my tonsils out when I was six and my husband said when he got his out at the same age he was never sick again. Here’s hoping for a healthy Matson. He will also have a double growing rod put in his spine in February. He has infantile progressive Scoliosis. This little boy is a pistol and very head strong. I guess God made him that way because of what he has to go through in his life. I love you little boy. I hope you have a happy healthy life once these surgeries are in your past.
Matson
We had a wonderful Christmas with two sons and their families and my Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad turned 86 and 87 in December. We hosted Christmas Eve, our son, Jeff and his wife, Laura and their children, Brittney and Robert, hosted Christmas morning breakfast and we did Christmas dinner. Lots of cooking and eating. No wonder I gained five pounds over the holidays.
New Year’s On The Beach.
We have been camping on the beach for New Year’s for the last 16 years. What a great tradition. The weather was perfect and we had the best time. We spend the time with our oldest son and his children. We had 14 trailers and about 30 people in our group. Our son has the best group of friends. They all have one thing in common, riding their quads in the dunes.
Here is a picture of our camp.
The days were warm but the nights were cold. The guys build a very large fire pit. They dug it deep and built a ledge around it with the fire pit in the middle. I want to tell you it was warm in that pit. After years of camping on the beach we have it down to a science.
Here is a picture of the fire pit.
I wish I had a picture of all of us sitting in it at night. We had two pits like this and two bonfires. We had fireworks on New Year’s. The beach really lights up with all the fireworks. Legal and illegal. What a sight!
On New Year’s Day we had very high tide that washed up into part of our camp and the next camp. The waves took out a fire pit and came under some of the trailers. Every one was scrambling to move their generators and other things around camp. We have had high tides before but not like this one. I have some pictures of the waves and how far into camp it came.
On New Year’s Day our son, Dodd, deep fried 3 turkeys. We cooked 8 boxes of stove top stuffing and I cooked 14 pounds of potatoes for mashed potatoes. Five cans of turkey gravy and lots of side dishes made for a wonderful New Year’s dinner.
Dodd watching over the deep fryer.
My husband, Dave, doing the carving.
Me on the beach.
Beautiful Pismo sunset.
Did you know there was a blue moon on New Year’s Eve? I got a picture of it. A blue moon is the second full moon in a month. There won’t be another full moon on New Year’s Eve until 2028.
Our family had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s and I hope you did too. My prayer for 2010 is good health and happiness to all my friends and family. World peace would be nice too.
Camping Trip
Every year for the last 23 years we have been going to Valley Springs for a Gem and Mineral Show and camp out. Valley Springs is 33 miles from Stockton in the foothills. We camp in a cow pasture. When we first started going there were over 300 vendors. There were all kinds of rocks for the rock hounds, jewelry already set or semi precious stones you could set yourself if you were talented enough. Every year the number of vendors have been dwindling. We might have had 200 this year. Every year it rains. Last year it only rained in the evenings and at night. The days were clear for shopping and browsing the different booths. In 2005 & 2006 it rained so much that we had to be towed out of there by a tractor. Great funny memories now but not fun when it was happening. This year we decided to come home on Saturday and not wait to be towed out on Sunday. It started sprinkling two hours after we set up camp on Thursday. By Thursday night it was raining good. It rained off and on all night. Friday was the same. Friday night it poured and the wind blew so hard my husband had to go out and take down the awning so it wouldn’t blow off of the trailer. By then we made the decision to leave on Saturday morning if we could get out of there. We were on the road by noon and it rained on us all the way to Ripon. Will we go back next year? Sure we will. We haven’t missed a year in 23 years. It is a yearly custom with us and our friends who go with us. Rain or shine we are there! I do remember one year, years ago, that we had 106 degree weather. It was miserable and I prefer a little rain to that! I took this picture on the way to Valley Springs. I swear it looked like a tornado only the sky had white clouds and the tornado looked white.
Here we are coming up on the Snyder Ranch where the Gem and Mineral show is.
Setting up camp.
We camp with our awnings overlapping. We put down tarps and outdoor rugs. We put a table in the middle with chairs and we have a cozy living room. When the wind gets too strong we put up a tarp to block the wind. Here is our cozy little camp.
Here are some scenes from the Snyder Ranch Pow Wow.
This is a blacksmith who was there for the first time this year. He was supposed to have a show on how it was done in the old days but he was rained out. I was disappointed. I wanted to bring my lawn chair and a cup of coffee and watch him do his demonstration.
There are Indians who come from Arizona every year. They put on a show for the children who come on Friday morning. The Indians also have a tent set up where they make Indian Tacos. Yum Yum. I love those Tacos. I have had one every year except this year. It was raining so hard and we didn’t want to go over to the tent in the rain. I guess I didn’t want one that bad, huh?
This is one of the booths. They sell Indian rugs, blankets and jewelry.
There were rows and rows of vendors selling their wares. I bought a couple of cubic zirconium stones already set in a pendant. One looks like a diamond and the other is green, my favorite color. My husband bought some rough garnets. You could buy rocks, nick knacks, food, creams for Arthritis, flea market items and Indian things. The rain kept us from spending too much money which is a good thing. Next year I wish for weather in the 70s and no rain. That would be my ideal camp out.
Anniversary Dinner
The anniversary dinner for my Mom and Dad was a success and they loved the memory book I made for them. Mom started to cry and had all of us teary eyed. They have been married for 66 years. They only knew each other a few weeks when they got married. They met at Merced Army Flying School in 1943. When Dad was transferred to Hobbs, New Mexico Mom got on a bus and followed him there where they were married. He was 21 and she was 20. After a few months Dad got his orders to go to Italy. Mom moved back home to live with her Mom and await the birth of ME. I was born the day Dad shipped out from Virginia. When he came home in 1945 I was 18 months old. I know that is the story for a lot of babies born during the war. I was one of the lucky ones though. My Dad came home. My Dad is such an inspiration to me. He grew up in three different orphanages and never knew his parents. His mother had to give him up along with his siblings because she was too ill and didn’t have the means to care for them. Dad’s father was from England. He came to the States in 1912. He came home shell shocked from World War I. He fought in the Royal Canadian Legion in France. I think today that would be called Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. He didn’t stick around to help raise his children. He would take off and be gone for months at a time. When Dad’s mother died he never came back to the family. Dad’s oldest sister found all of the siblings when they were in their teens and twenties. Dad is the only one still alive out of 7 children. He had such a hard upbringing but he is the most loving father anyone could ever hope to have.
Here is their picture with the book I made for them.
About ten years ago I started on a mission to find Dad’s family. That took me to England. I found several family members and most all the men resemble my Dad. They all have the thin lips, high forehead, light blue eyes and that million dollar smile. I was told that all the men had that look. Dad is 86 years old and still going strong. He golfs three days a week and still does his own yard work. Mom is 85 and doing good also. She works out at Curves with me almost every morning. She has logged over 800 workouts while I am still trying to reach 700. When I am out of town she goes without me. A lot of the ladies there tell me what an inspiration she is to them to be there at her age. Yes, I know how blessed I am to still have them in my life.
I’m Back…The Book is Done!
It took me over a month to complete the book for my Mom and Dad for their 66th wedding anniversary. What was supposed to be 21 pages turned out to be 40. I tried to cover what was most important and not dwell on the facts that were not happy. I hope they like it. I devoted a page to each of their grandchildren and great grandchildren. They have four grandchildren and nine great grandchildren. I read and reread the book over and over looking for errors until I was crazy. I sent it to the publisher on April 1st. It should be here in two weeks. I did the book through HeritageMakers.com
Without the book to work on I have been feeling kind of like a person without a purpose. I need to start on my next project soon. My husband and I bought seven acres of mountain property in 1978. We have developed and developed it until I was sick of going up there. This piece of property is located about 40 minutes from Yosemite National Park and is the apple of my Husband’s eye. Unfortunately, not mine. I have decided to do a book on the progress and development of this property for my Husband for his birthday in July. We narrowly missed loosing everything up there when the Telegraph fire consumed our whole mountain. We have pictures from when we bought the property to present with the mountain looking like a moonscape from the fire. I have posted pictures before of what it looks like up there. The good thing is the bushes have started to come back and the wild grasses are growing . The Merced River Canyon is in bloom with Poppies and other wild flowers. Here is a link where you can see how beautiful it is.
Pictures
The last time I came home from Las Vegas I sat next to a very nice young man who was professional photographer. We talked about cameras and and what makes for a good picture. It seems like the hour flight was only 10 minutes because we were so engrossed in conversation. He told me that he knew when he was about 10 years old that he wanted a career that had something to do with cameras. He grew up in New York City and he took pictures of anything and everything. He told me that people who carry a camera with them all the time see the world differently. I agree with him. Most people I know who carry around a camera see the beauty in things and want to capture that moment forever. We are the ones who will run in the house and get the camera when there is a bug or butterfly in the yard. I told this nice man that I did just that. I took pictures of bugs, butterflies, sunsets, pretty flowers, hummingbirds and, yes, endless pictures of the grandchildren.
Here is a picture that I took last summer in my yard.
Now who but a camera nut would see the beauty in this?
I get teased by my children and grandchildren and even my neices and nephews about always having a camera with me. Two weeks ago when we were taking two of our grandchildren to the mountains I took this picture in the rear view mirror.
Isn’t that a beautiful sunset? I took this with my Canon Rebel XT. It is a big bulky camera and hard to carry around. This was my dream camera. It still is but now I wish I had a smaller one that fits in my purse. I am looking at the Panasonic Lumix, 8.1 megapixel, 10X optical zoom digital camera. Just looking…my husband accuses me of buying a new camera every year. Maybe I had better wait a little while longer to think about buying another one. But, every time I see it on sale I am temped.
I took these today in my yard. I have Cala Lilies in the front flower bed and they are so beautiful.
These flowers are also in the front flowerbed.
And my peach tree in bloom.
And my African Daisies in bloom.
See what a camera nut I am!
