It has been a year since I last blogged.  I need to budget my time better and I had a hard time with the blog because I thought I didn't have anything interesting to say or post.  However, I have decided that it is a way for me to share thoughts.  I need that. 

During the last year so many things have happened and I can't possibly talk about all of them.  But a few that have made a big impact on my life are:  we have four new grandchildren, my youngest daughter has gone on a mission, my third daughter and her family have moved to Nevada.  Change always happens.  You just have to get used to it.  If there is one thing I have learned as I have aged is that everyday there is a little change going on.  We sometimes have big changes to deal with and those take time to adjust but change is good and it took me a long time to realize that.  I also have learned that looking for the positive in what is changing is the best way to deal with it.  What is that Mary Poppins song - ummm - a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.  Well, a spoonful of positive thinking helps the change not be such a crisis in your life.  My biggest change came when I moved away from all familiar people, places and things for the first time.  Just married for about a year and moved from sheltered Utah to what we referred to as hippie California.  We didn't have cellphones so I couldn't call my family everyday.  We didn't have computers so no skyp, no email, basically not much regular communication.  There was the very slow mail.  But letter writing was wonderful because you could read it over and over again.  You could tell just by penmanship what that person was feeling.  I noticed little things like when my mom wrote to me if she was feeling ok or not.  So those things really helped.  Now I am so grateful for instant communication but I do miss the handwritten letters. 

So I hope that all my daughters read this and maybe write me a letter.  They do from time to time and I love it.  I also love all the text messages and emails, pictures that I get.  Like I said before I am so grateful for our communication access these days.  My mom would have been amazed at what was available.  She grew up with no phone, no car, and the closest post office 10 miles away.  The changes in her life were truly amazing.  But she used to say we needed to take time to notice the small things of life.  I hope I can do that most days.

What a year.

I realized that it has almost been a year since I wrote on my blog.  I have to say that so much happened last year and I am one of those older generation people who are new to blogging and everything technology related.  Even though I have worked on a computer since they filled an entire room and then there were things called key punches - cards that we put some sort of code on that the computer read.  So computers and I have had a long and lasting relationship - however the blogging (i would call it journaling) is still a new experience.

Since June of last year, two more grandchildren were born.  Seth came along on June 29th.  Seth came with some surprises.  He had heart surgery at the ripe old age of six days.  It was an adventure I am sure the family would not like to go through again.  Seth is healthy and happy and growing up.  He has the most beautiful eyes and happy smile.  We had welcomed Charlie to our family in February.  He came with a lot of personality from the start and has continued.  In September came our little princess, Audrey.  She too, gave us a scare and spent a few days in the NICU.  She is doing great and is a happy baby.  

Shortly after Audrey was born, Jeff and I took a long trip to Chicago to go to the Ryder Cup.  No, it is not actually a real cup - well the golfers get a silver cup of sorts if they win.  It is a big golf thing held every 4 years between the Americans and the Europeans.  Apparently it is a big deal that i had never heard about.  I don't know how Jeff talked me into this.  It was supposedly my 60th birthday present.  Yeah, not......I happen to hate golf.  But it was important to Jeff and he had to put his name in some lottery for the chance to get tickets and then he got them and there was all this happiness in the house for days when he got them.  Now, this trip involved traveling on an airplane for a long time.  I hate flying and airplanes.  So I wasn't going.  Jeff, being determined, cashed in all his points to get us first class tickets so that I could be more comfortable on the plane.  It turned out to be a nice trip and we saw Tiger Woods and a bunch of other golfers as well as Bill Murray and Michael Phelps.  We had fun but I was glad to get home.

The rest of the year was busy.  We had a surprise announcement of a new baby coming by Stephanie and Bob.  Then Thanksgiving, Brittany announced she was going on a mission. There is so much more that happened in 2012.  It actually turned out to be a very trying year but one of our best years.    

My Moment with Turning 60

I survived my 60th birthday this past Sunday.  I have talked alot about turning 60 and getting older and blah, blah, blah.  So when it was actually here it passed rather peacefully.  I had a wonderful adventure in Yellowstone.  My daughters, son-in-law and granddaughter made dinner and a wonderful cake.  Fancy candles were put on the cake (ok, not sixty of them, you want to burn the house down?) but enough to make it pretty.  So it was a good day. 

I think the reason I kind of dreaded turning the big 60 was a few factors.  One, you realize your life really is mostly over.  Two, my dad died in his early 60s and my brother died one month after he turned 60.  Those thoughts, I am sure, were somewhere in the back of my mind.  Three, you just don't feel like you used to or look like you used too.  I wanted to wake-up on my birthday and have great wisdom.  You know, the kind of wisdom you thought your grandma had.  Granted, life has given me some insights and I would say wisdom.  But, I am not Solomon.  I still have many immature moments and doubts.  I do know lots and lots of stuff but it is muddled in my head in a way that I just can't always pull it out very eloquently or timely.  Sometimes I feel as dumb as I was at 19 or 20.  But, the good thing is - I know I am acting dumb where at 19-20 I didn't.  I thought I was, shall we say, cool. 

Don't get my wrong, I love my life.  I have a husband who loves me even though I can be pretty hard to live with.  I have great children and grand kids.  I love see them working at life and raising their kids and so happy that I can be a part of it for awhile. 

So on my birthday when I was pondering for a few moments in the commode, my granddaughter, Abby came in.  She has done this quite often.  Our door doesn't lock so I am not always surprised by her entrance.  She brought the card that she had given me.  It played the Charley Brown theme and had Snoopy dancing on the front.  She said Gamma - I dance for you like Snoopy.  So she got her little feet going and held the card open so it would play the music.  Then she said, Gamma, you can dance too, with me.  I told her I just couldn't at the moment and she smiled at me and said, oh Gamma, it's because you are so old.  Yup, summed it up pretty good.  Thanks Abby.

Magpie moments

Spring sprang and so did the flutter of birds around our yard.  I love having little finches, robins, buntings and grossbeaks come to the feeder.  It didn't last because two magpies decided my very large pine tree was going to be their special nesting place.  There wasn't much I could do.  Now, Magpies are a very pretty bird.  However, they are loud and aggressive.  They started their cawing around 4 am every morning.  It isn't even light at 4 am, not even during daylight savings time.  The sad thing - my little birds, except robins disappeared.    Magpies are oniverous, so the little birds probably left for their own safety.

Growing up we had a large orchard.  Magpies visited daily supping on our cherries and pecking our apricots.  My brother, in frustration, (i won't name which brother) would open his upstairs bedroom window and blast them with the shotgun.  Now, shooting Magpies was probably against the law.  I am not sure he ever hit.  It just made him feel better, but, it did cause some alarm with the neighbors.  We didn't have really close neighbors, but close enough to hear the shotgun.

I was about to that point myself - the blasting part.  They were not scared of my dogs and they actually terrified the cat.  So, it was a deal with it situation.  I thought when the babies hatched and flew the family would leave.  Oh no, not happening.  

One day we were outside and I had two grandkids with me.  We heard a big ruckus on the side of the house.  We went around to the side of the house and there were two baby magpies trying fly.  They had flown into the hydrangea bush and when we approached they were hitting the fence.  They couldn't get back up in the air.  I happened to say - out loud - I just feel like strangling these noisy birds.  I was quickly put into place by both grandkids that I was being naughty, and - we don't hurt birds.

Grandkids went home and the noise continued for days while baby birds learned to fly.  One day, I decided I was just going out there and hose them all off with water when I saw them.  These very sweet, loud, pretty black and white birds lined up on a large branch in the pine tree.  Four baby magpies sitting there starring at me.  Well, needless to say there were no waterworks and I let nature take its course with the baby birds.  They are still here loud and irritating.  But I have made my peace with them.  I know that eventually they will all fly somewhere.  And today, my little finches braved the wild and were at the birdfeeder.  There is hope after all.

Yellowstone Moment

For my 60th birthday Jeff and I went to Yellowstone.  It is one of my very favorite places.  I have been going to Yellowstone since I was probably a baby.  There was a long period of time when I didn't have the opportunity to go.  Now, I live within three hours or less of the park and try to go once a year with just me and the hubby or every other year with my entire family.  I know people don't understand why I like it so but I just do.  One reason is that it is so different.  There are so many components to Yellowstone and yet they all fit together.

This time, both of us just needed a weekend of quiet and Jeff really needed to get away from Blackfoot.  We left on Friday and went to Mack's Inn.  We saw a satire called The Three Amigos from Del Taco.  It was fun and just silly.  Saturday morning we were up early and headed for West Yellowstone for breakfast but decided to wait and drive into the park and go to Mammoth.  Mammoth has less people visiting and is somewhat quiet.  I love to see the elk lying by the side of the houses there.  We had breakfast and wandered around.  It was very relaxing.  Then we drove along down to Canyon.  We stopped along the way several time.  We saw two bears, elk, deer, prong horn, and a fox carrying a bird it had just caught for it's lunch.  We took lots of pictures of the landscape this time since we were not out hunting for animals.  I really enjoyed just the massiveness of the park.  You have to drive a lot but you can also get out and walk and hike.  It was a little cool but a beautiful day to start with then it warmed up for a very nice day.  We didn't go into the canyon to see the waterfall.  We stopped at several other waterfalls along the way.  We were trying to avoid any crowd.  We did stop at Tower to see the waterfall and talked to some nice people from Arizona who were freezing in the 60 degrees.  A chipmunk entertained us while we had huckleberry ice cream and then scurried on. We only saw one lonely buffalo.  That is unusual for our trips.  We usually wind up in a herd.

We headed back to West Yellowstone for dinner and to see the play at the PlayMill.  It was a fun day and a relaxing day.   We bought way too much moose stuff.  Jeff got to see a moose in the river as he went speeding by and that is why I didn't get to see it.  Oh well.  Now I guess I will have to really get my basement Yellowstoned so I can put out all my moose stuff. 

We left Sunday and went to Mesa Falls in Island Park.  It is remote and very beautiful.  There is a lodge there built in the early 1900s.  They had a telescope set up to look at a Osprey nest across the river.  There is an upper falls and a lower falls.  It is beautiful country.  However, the mosquitoes about killed us.  I didn't even think of bug spray this trip.  I won't forget it again.  The lodge is mainly a visitors center but has interesting bones and skulls of animals and history of the lodge and the falls.  There is a black bear on display there with a sign saying it was on loan from so and so.  When we went to purchase a few things at the front desk manned by a little old lady in a ranger outfit we noticed that her name was the same one on the bear.  Jeff asked if she was the same person and she said a short yes.  Then he asked if she had killed the bear and she answered yes.  Then i said, trying to get her to expand on the story, that it must have been quite an experience and again, a short yes reply.  We gave up on getting to the bottom of the story.  Maybe some other time.

We could see the Tetons very clearly from the road by Mesa Falls and took a lot of pictures.  We slowly headed home.  If it wasn't for the horrible wind through Rexburg and Idaho Falls it would have stayed a peaceful and relaxing trip.  Am I surprised at wind in Idaho.  No, but I keep hoping it will not blow everyday. 

Recliner moments

Recliner moments

My family will tell everyone that I hate recliners.  I think they are bulky, huge and ugly things that represent the lazy life.  I also realize that 99% of men love recliners and would live in them.  I have had to eat my words about recliners these past six years.  It all started about 11-12 years ago in another town.  I had just returned home from visiting one of my daughters still in college.  I still had three daughters living at home.  I came home to a nice home cooked meal and a happy family.  We were eating dinner when Tiffany mentioned that her dad had bought me a surprise.  Now, I was apprehensive because Jeff and I don't always like the same style or kinds of things.  She said it was furniture.  Well, that didn't go over with me.  Jeff is not allowed to buy furniture without me, period.  He has tried it before and I have to say failed at it.  My husband just nodded his head in agreement.  The Tiffany went on to say that he bought a recliner, red leather.  That was it, recliner and leather.  My two most hated combinations.  The red, well I love red.  Jeff just nodded.  I exploded.  How could he do this to me and the house.  What was he thinking?  He just said he bought a surprise and we were to go pick it up the next day.  The family went to watch TV and I pouted in the other room on the couch.  Finally Jeff appeared and said "are you still mad?"  Well, yes I was.  We left it at that and I couldn't sleep thinking of how I was going to get rid of the red leather recliner.

The next day I was still mad, but rode to the furniture store with Jeff.  We walked in and I really didn't see any red recliners.  It turned out Jeff had bought a very nice sofa table to go with my end tables.  The joke was on mom and mom was very relieved. My family has laughed at this often.  They think it is the best joke they ever played on me.  However, fast-forward to now.  Some things come with age.  You learn that there are somethings that are not worth worry, fighting and getting so upset about.  You compromise.  I used to think this meant you lowered your standards.  It just means you care about others more than yourself.  Now, I still don't like recliners or leather but I have compromised and big time.  We just purchased two dark red, leather recliners to sit in front of our fireplace.  There are also two large, dark red, leather couches that have recliners in them in the family room and two wing back (they don't look like a normal recliner) chairs that recline.  Have I lowered my standards, I don't think so.  Did I compromise?  Absolutely.  I did it to make it a little more comfy for my husband, family and I have to say --- me.  If you need me, I will be sitting in front of the fireplace in a big, red leather recliner reading a book.

A moment with the computer

My youngest daughter was applying for a computer position and one thing led to another - hence - setting her aging mom up with a blog.  This was an interesting moment.  I hovered over her shoulder and couldn't keep up with all the clicking.  But, the blogging idea was good for this reason, I rather type things than write.  So I begin to blog. 

I have had many amazing moments in my life and have been grateful for most, glad some of them were over and look forward to the upcoming magical moments to come.  Like this morning for example, before the blogging moment.  My second youngest daughter called to tell me my granddaughter had cut her hair.  Abby is three and as with most three year old, she is learning to cut with kid scissors.  But with mom and dad both out of the room she decided to cut her bangs to her scalp.  All I could do is laugh and laugh.  I should have been a little more sympathetic but it wasn't happening.  All of my five girls cut their hair and their sisters hair at one time or another with kids scissors and all before they were five. I also had this experience at the age of three.  I cut my hair just like Abby cut hers.  I am glad I am living to see some payback for a few things my daughters did to me.  I glad so far they are all humorous.

Abby's new look