Sorry to the Fords

President Ford died last night and instead of feeling sad for his family I am just glad it happened before I retired. If it happened after March 2nd, I would not have an additional day off from work. Even so I think he was a better President then he is given credit for--and this comes from a liberal Democrat, albeit one that pays dang little attention to politics. I think he was right to pardon Nixon. But that was a long time ago.

The boys are still with the in laws and I have to say the house is a lot cleaner with them gone then it is when they are here. I enjoy that - but I miss them. They will be home tomorrow and I am ready.

Thank God for Grandparents

It is Christmas break for the Howard County schools. The schools will be closed for a week and a day. Both Hubby and I are trying to save leave so we don't want to stay home all week, yet we think the boys are, even at 13 and 15, too young to stay home by them selves for the entire winter break. Hubby’s parents have yet again come to the rescue. They picked the boys up this morning and will take them to a not too far away resort for the next two nights. We get the boys back Thursday. The boys will be loved and spoiled rotten. The hotel has two things that they dearly love an indoor pool and never ending supply of hot chocolate. I should have said four things they dearly love, the above two and a set of grandparents who act as though the world revolves around them.

The only problem is I miss the boys. I like the idea of a break from the boys a lot more then I really like the break from the boys. They have only been gone for a few hours and I want them back. Of course I realize once they were back I would be ready for a break all over again.

Mostly I think how lucky I am to have in-laws and parents who love us, let us be us and adore our children. I am blessed that they are grandparents who pass down a connection, a family history with every day interactions. I am blessed because they want to be a part of our lives and make sacrifices to be a part of our lives.

Both sets of grandparents love their grandchildren whole heartedly. But it is easy to see that they are different people and show the love differently. Hubby’s parents love the boys in a way, that when I was a new parent I found overwhelming, but as a more experienced mom I value. Their love is child centered. They treat the boys as if they are little Gods. In other words they shower them with time, attention and love. When the boys visit, that visit centers around what they want to do, what their interests are. It is not really spoiling. His parents use common sense, they don’t shower money and gifts on them, but they do shower time and attention on them. I think every child deserves grandparents like that. Thank you Mom-mom and Pop-pop. We love you.

I Know I Can, I Know I Can

I hate being dependent on medication. And I hate doing the things that I could do to not be dependent on medication.

Since I forgot to take my pills for two days I was depressed, crabby, dizzy and my blood pressure was probably too high. It's hard, in the rush of the morning, to remember to take those stupid pills--but if I don't I feel the impact. I tell myself that if I would just take a long walk, or listen to Dr. Mama and run, I could be - hopefully medication free in no time. I tell my self that exercise will be my retirement priority. I need to get the little engine that could motif going--I know I can, I know I can...

Mean Mom

I am in the dog house with boy B. Yesterday he brought his interim grades home. He had a had A's and B's and a couple C's. What was frustrating was the average grade for the tests and the class work was usually a solid A or a B, but homework was usually a D or E. He could have had all A's and B's if he would just do his homework. So mean mom has come out. He has to sit in the dining room for an hour a night -- doing home work. He is very cross with me. But I love him and I like being mean mom.

Crocs and Santa Socks

Good Looking took a this picture yesterday. She hosted a wonderful lunch and afternoon of festivities for Sweetie and me. We had fun. I especially enjoyed showing off my fashonista side.

Flower Power

Nice day today. Weather in Maryland is gorgeous and I only have 11 weeks left until I retire. It is hard to wait that long.

pontas para minhas cabras pequenas maravilhosas do caranguejo

1. If you are wearing cherry red shoes you are dressed appropriately for the holidays – no matter what.
2. Being on the 50-days-or-less to get out of bed and drive to work is a good place to be.
   There is no need to do research- the pile in the car and drive west looking for a place cut down (and pay for) a Christmas tree still works.
3. Cutting down your own Christmas tree is always worth it and a lot easier with two teenage boys in the family.
4. If you always buy, yet rarely send Christmas cards, you have plenty around the house the year you finally get your act together early enough to send them.
5. Forget this organization stuff that tells you to throw out all the stuff you don’t really need. A couple months after you either throw out or put away that over-the-front door wreath holder that was cluttering up the laundry room, you will need it.
6. The Internet was invented for people who hate crowds and hate shopping.
7. If you are a husband, it is a very bad idea to ask your wonderful wife to help pay for the wonderful Christmas gift you want to give her.

Sandy and Kattie

Kattie is our oldest cat. She was a year old when Sandy joined us. The two are very loving and often cuddle together. Sadly neither one of them wants to have much to do with the other two cats.

Excitement!

Our excitement this weekend revolved around a party, cutting down the tree and applying for passports for the boys. We still have the excitement of decorating the tree still ahead.

The party was a tree trimming party that is held by the same couple each year, a gathering of the old volley ball team. This year it really hit home that old is the operative word. One of our team mates died this year. The husband host is retireing at the end of the year, another player retired a year ago and I'm retireing in 11.6 weeks. Naturally much of the conversation was about getting older, retirement and aches and pains. The sad thing is that those conversations are enjoyable now. I am getting old.

Boy A is going to Europe the end of March and needs a passport. Hubby and I figured Boy B might as well get a passport at the same time. While I am a firm believer in procrastinating, I am not a firm believer in paying for a trip that can’t be taken because I procrastinated too long. So hubby and I rose at the crack of 9:30 Saturday, read the paper in bed and finally pushed the boys out of bed aournd 10:30. We then had the pleasure of listening to them whine about the horrors of having to do things other then play video games. We listend to whineing all the way until we walked into the passport office at a near by post office. We also had to listen to the horrors of walking past the homeless man who was begging in front of the post office, the pain of haing to get back in the car and drive to a near by CVS to get pictures because the post office camera was broken. Luckily that side trip didn't take long, neither did the rest of the passport application process. Both Boy A and Boy B should have their own passport in 6 weeks or so.

After the passport whine fest we went out looking for a tree to cut down. Our method is to pile into the car and head west and hope we can find a sign. This year we drove North on one promising road saw no sign, turned around and drove south and stil saw nothing. Next we took a cross road that took us a bit further west and lucked into a little mom and pop operation. We ended up with a beautiful tree and a beautiful wreath for $50.00. Boy A cut it down while hubby held it. Then they tied it to the top of the car while Boy B and I went looking for hot drinks. The day was cold enough to let you know it was winter but warm enough so that tree hunting and gathering was a lot of fun. We came home, put the tree up and are still waiting to decorate it. I don't really have the Christmas spirt yet.

Sunday was the boys piano recitial. Normally I hate them because they go on forever. I like listening to all the kids, but it seems to go on and on. This one was over in less then an hour. Life was good.

Felting Part II and Boys vs. Girls

Crafts:
The bowls have been felted and shaved and I’m feeling better about them. Shaving makes a world of difference. I would have to say good grooming matters as much in crafts as it does in person.

I have a bunch of things to felt tonight. I crocheted a bag for my work Santa gift and I have another bowl and a bunch of small baskets. I am going to use the baskets and a couple bowls for the book club ladies. I can fill them with nice little treats and be good to go. I did have a lot of fun making them. I even had fun shaving them. But I sure don’t think they will come in all that useful.

Tonight I’ll post the picture of the felted bowls, and take and post pictures of all the stuff waiting to be felted. Then I’ll work on felting a ton of stuff. I do find that it takes a while to felt Lopi. Last time I put it through 3 wash cycle and added boiling water to the last 2 cycles. But it could be that adding a cup or two of boiling water has very little impact. Tonight I’ll try adding a kettleful. I also read about someone using tennis balls to help with the process. I think I will try that too. The boys will never know I took their balls.

Next on my knit list is the Mason-Dixon felted boxes. And of course I should get back to the blanket and my sweater I put on hold when I hit the felting craze. Every knit crazy girl needs to have at least three projects going at once. Right?

One of my most loved bloggers recently posted about the line she straddles with her almost grown daughters-finding the right balance between the girls loved, protected daughters and being loved young women allowed to find their own way. Much of her post was about communication and how communication has changed over the years. She writes about how some of the communication is hurtful because she is struggling to allow her daughters to grow up and they are struggling to grow up. Her post made me ache. In my heart I don’t see the boys maintaining (or for that matter ever having) the same level of communication with me that a daughter would. I am happy that when they really need my support they come to me and tell me what is bothering them, but they don’t talk that much about their feelings, or what is going on at school. They are boys. I love them. They give me joy. But I am afraid that has they grow up and move on. I think I would have a bigger part of their day to day lives if they were girls. But all in all you get what you get and I sure love what I have.

That Felting Feeling

My first 2 felting projects. The very first was the bag, on the left I love it. It was quick and easy and turned out nicely. It holds knitting of course since that is my latest craze. The aqua knitting in the bag is going to be a blanket. I picked up the idea from my new favorite book - Mason Dixon Knitting. It will be a variaton of the log cabin pattern in varying shades of blue and green. The problem is I have gone crazy on felting so over the weekend so I don't know when I'll get back to it.

The bowls to the right were the next set. I've felted them already, but I need to shave them before I take their pictures. I am a little disappointed in the way they turned out. I wanted them to be stiffer. Oh well, next time I'll try the garter stitch and see if that stiffens them up.

Every Cloud has a Silver Lining

• Cloud--Everyone one else in the house is messily sick and you are the only one who can clean up and cater to them.
  Lining -- The house is quiet.
  
• Cloud--You catch their very nasty bug and have only enough energy to lie flat.
  Lining--You can fit into those pants you haven’t been able to wear in a while
  
• Cloud--You recover and go back to work.
  Lining--The boys tell you they miss you and can’t wait till you retire and are home when they get home
  
• Cloud--It’s one in the morning and you can’t sleep.
  Lining--One of the episodes that you missed of Grey’s Anatomy is on TV
  
• Cloud--It’s two in the morning and you are wide awake.
  Lining--HGTV has 2 episodes of House Hunters that you haven’t seen
  
• Cloud--It’s four in the morning, you’ve been back in bed for an hour and you are still wide awake.
  Lining--There are only infomercials on TV at this hour and they are so boring they put you to sleep.

It Feels Good to Feel Good

I am mostly over the bug from heck and it feels good to feel good.

The only thing this picture has to do with the rest of the post is that I took it in Aruba and that was a wonderful trip and on it I felt really good.

I am also in a felting craze. I only have two colors of feltable yarn, a lovely tweedy rusty red and a pale beige. They are nice but don't have a lot of zest. So I ordered some from a discount place online. They sent a letter saying there would be a delay before they could send the yarn I ordered. Don't they know I can't wait that long.

My first project was a bag that turned out really nicely. If I would get off my butt and take a picture I could post it!! Now I'm working on coasters. If they turn out nicely I can give sets of 4 to each of the bookclub ladies. But I need my pretty yarns. Discount company please send them.

The Joy of Getting

The joy of giving continued. First I was given a bed filled with germs. Boy A had climbed in bed with hubby early Saturday morning, and he breathed on my pillow, and spread germs all over my side of the bed. Of course hubby's side of the bed was filled with the same kind of germs. I wasn’t going near that bed until both guys were better and I could change the sheets. Which leads me to the second gift, the joy of sleeping on the sofa for two nights. It was the first time since before we were married and were sleeping under the same roof that we didn’t sleep in the same bed. I enjoyed it. No one to steal the covers, no one to wake me up with snoring and no extra germs. I think this means I’ve reached a new stage in my marriage. And I think it is a good stage. Last but not least they also gave the bug to me. It was a nasty bug and it earned me 2.5 days off of work. Of course most of the time was off work and either sleeping or feeling so miserable I wished I was sleeping.
I did knit a lot while the guys were sick. In fact I made my first felted bag. I am pretty pleased with it. If I do another one I do something different for the handle. I did it with two strands of yarn -two different colors. I would have liked it better if I had kept the colors separate, either done it in blocks or stripes. Oh well next time.
I have fallen in love with Mason Dixon Knitting. It has lots of ideas for things other then sweaters. While I am working on a sweater, I want to do other things. So I’m working on blanket too. I am just too cool for words.

House of the Sick

Each of the guys is sick. They woke up at various times in the night to throw up. Would fall back asleep and then wake up again a few hours later. At least Hubby made it to the bathroom. Unfortunately neither boy did. That means I've been cleaning rugs, bedding and just about everything else in the house.

The bad thing is I don't like being around sick people, even if they are the people I love more then anything else in the world. It wasn't so bad when they were little and helpless. Now they may be helpless but they are big and I don't want them breathing on me, or touching me. I think I'll sleep in the spare room tonight.

Thanksgiving

I had a really nice Thanksgiving with hubby's family. Hubby's niece and her husband did all most all of the work. We just showed up with pie and good wishes. Their house was beautiful, the food was fantastic and the company was wonderful and I spent some of the day thinking how much easier family gatherings are with his family then they are with mine. I don't carry all the baggage into his family gatherings that I do with my own.

I have been reading tons of adoption blogs recently. The first one I found and the one I have always loved is the Naked Ovary, the blog of an infertile woman who very recently adopted a baby from China. I like her. I like her because she is living a part of a life I always wanted to live-adopting a baby from China. I like her because she is honest and real and secure enough to show her strengths and weakness. I like her because she loves being a Mom. I like her because she thinks that being a parent makes us one of the lucky ones. I like her because I feel connected to much of what she writes about. I like her because reading her makes me feel a bit, just a tiny bit, as if I adopted a baby girl from China.

I am thankful for many things in my life and one of them is people I only know through reading about their lives on the Internet.

What Was I Thinking

I'm home alone, hubby and the boys are out of town and won't be home till very late. I decided to watch a scary movie. What in the good lord's name was I thinking. Scary movies scare me and make me keep a watch out for the axe murder. Once the music started getting weird, I realized I was going to be up all night listening for the axe murder if I watched any more. I turned it off.

What the heck, they are gone, I'm going to have fun. I don't have to listen to any fussing.

Tips An On Again and Off Again Weekly Series

Sometimes Weekly Tips

• The term "scum sucking crow dog" has a nice ring to it. But it will never replace "pig" as a term of endearment.
• This parking lot is huge and filled with many cars. Brightly colored spray paint can be used to mark a trail to your car. (thanks Good Looking for this tip)
• Fool the guards by having the paint end at car near yours.
• I like to use spray paint that matches my outfit (using the term "outfit" to describe what I typically wear, makes me giggle.)
• If you have a car with no trunk hide the cans of spray paint in a box.
• Some dogs are bed hogs (so are some men).
• Professional Crocs (shoes) come with fewer holes.
• The term professional Crocs, makes me laugh.
• I love crocs especially because they make me laugh.
• Co-workers who promise to provide Valet parking are to be cherished. Even if you know you that you will never actually ask, becuase if you did, they would know you are truly insane.

My Camera won't recharge so I have to choose from old pictures. This is Boy A and Boy B at Ocean City about a year ago. It was a beautiful day. And we were staying in a Condo with a small parking lot so I could easily find my car. That statement is not apropos of the fact that I always have a hard time finding my car at work. I work at the headquarters of a huge company/agency. Zillions of people work here and most of them, including me, drive themselves to work. Which means I park in a huge parking lot and by the time I leave in the afternoon I can never remember where I parked. I am getting tired of wandering around and looking for my car every day. I wonder if I could glue a telephone post on the top of the car, at least then it would be easy to find.

Boy B is working on driving me crazy this week. He "forgot" to do his English homework all last week, even after his teacher talked to him several times. Oh well, he promises to do better now.