Valentine’s Day

Me:  If it’s at least 65 degrees, let’s take a glass of wine onto the porch
Jim: It’s 64
Me:  Close enough
Happy Valentine’s Day. 

It is a biscuit and sausage gravy kind of morning as ice covers my little corner of the world.

Thankfully I remembered to fill the bird feeders before the storm blew through.  Our feathered friends deserve to eat too.  I just wish Mr. Woody Wood Pecker wasn’t being quite so greedy, while Little Red waits patiently in the wings.  Animal life once again mirroring real life.

Have a wonderful Sunday everyone and please stay safe if you have to get out.

What I like about retirement:  Everything!
I re-retired last June.  I’ve had friends who have said they don’t like retirement.  They actually use the word bored.  No way!
Because I am retired, we were able to pick up and head for Arizona to my sister’s wedding last July, with no thought of when we had to return.  Days were spent in Arizona, Sedona, at the Grand Canyon, and we even made an out-of-the-way stop in Waco, TX.  Yes, I am a big fan of Fixer Upper. I sometimes think I am a fan as much for the fact that Chip reminds me so much of my son as I am to see the transformations.  I like a lot of what they do in their remodels, but cringe every time they paint beautiful brick.  Taking low-maintenance brick and turning it into a high maintenance painted surface just makes no sense to me. But I digress.
Some of the other things I like about retirement is having time to do some remodels around the house, go to grandkid events when they come up, go to lunch with Miss College Grand Emily when she has a break in classes, volunteer at Church, schedule things like Jim’s knee replacements without worrying about working around a work schedule, and get after my many hobbies.  Quilting has been the hobby that has been consuming most of my waking hours lately.
Currently I am working on a Jack’s Chain Quilt to donate to our church.  A fellow quilter sewed the 9 patch blocks together and I am assembling them.  It took me awhile to get onto the technique of working with hexagons, but I persevered!  It is coming together quite nicely.

The patchy quilt below is giving me a run for my money in the way of time consumption.  Each patch is 1 1/2 inch square.  Each finished block is 10 inch square.  After spending more hours than I care to count on this quilt, I figure I am exactly halfway there.  The destination of this quilt is unknown.  I might just have to keep it for us.

Did I mention we added a new member to our family?  Sadie Jo is the sweetest little girl ever and has added a lot of fun to our lives.

We used to raise sheep, so I thought it only right to make a throw of sheep for Jim.  Each sheep is made of wool material and it turns out this little blanket is mighty warm on these cold winter nights.

This quilt is called an Orange Peel Quilt.  I quilted it in a space saver quilting frame that my dad made for me many years ago.  This quilt is twin size.  There is another one very similar in a Queen size ready to go into the frame.

When searching for the love of my life, which I never really did since we found each other before I knew I was searching, I never would have thought to add “must love liver and onions” to the criteria needed for the perfect mate.  Fortunately, my perfect mate loves liver and onion as much as I do.  It would be a shame to go separate ways over love of liver, ya know.
Invariably when I place liver in my shopping cart, some well meaning person feels compelled to wrinkle their nose at me and declare their obvious thoughts on it.  I smile and tell them I love it.  I have to wonder what percentage of these people have ever tried liver.  I’ll bet the number would be rather small.  Do you like liver?

The personalities of our grandchildren range from over the top “do you see me now” extroverted to slink into the room hoping nobody notices introverted.  Thankfully most of them fall somewhere in between.  This post is about Dakota, the epitomy of pay me no never mind - I am just here to please.

Last year, as a High School Freshman, he sent shock waves through the family when he announced he had a small solo (one line) at one of the school concerts.  Spring? Christmas?  I don’t remember.  I just remember thinking “You sing?!?”  We are a family of singers varying from pretty darn good to questionable quality.  How did this child go from I’ll just blend into the background to having a solo?  Nobody had ever heard him sing.  You can bet we attended the concert and sat through a lot of other talented or not so talented kids and other class groups to get to hear Dakota sing at the most 10 words.  Exciting!

Since then he has become the family camellion.  He still won’t sing for or with us.  Too shy.  And yet he is a huge part of the high school musical world.  His current passion is the high school show choir. They competed with other choirs from around the state this weekend.  I am very surprised they didn’t get chosen for the finals, but I’m still finding myself grin at odd times just thinking of Mr. “Don’t Pay Me No Never Mind” on stage shaking his booty and singing his heart out.
As the video below starts out Dakota is the handsome red head third from the right.  I could not be prouder - not just of all of the hard work these young people have put into their performance, but especially of a young man who has stepped outside of his comfort zone into a world he only thought existed for others.  Dang I am proud of him!

Pay no attention.  I’m not really here.
I need to unload and don’t know where else to do it.  I am assuming after two years of non-activity, that nobody is checking out my little place in blog land anymore, so I’m going to just sneak back in.
I’ve always known that time has a way of sneaking in and changing how you look, act, feel, and react to things.  I’ve experienced these many changes as the years have marched along.  I truly thought I had been through the difficult ones - you know, babies go to school, then they leave home for school, jobs, marriage, etc.  My once noisy, full home got too quiet.  But before I knew it, where there was five of us, there was 8, then 10, 12, 16, 18 and sometime in the near future, with the engagement of our oldest granddaughter, we will begin a new count - and a new generation where responsibilities and priorities will once again shift.
Such a full, fun, time.  Play days, babysitting, sleepovers, birthday parties.  Even Dr. Appointments - because I was needed.  And in between all of this fun, our personal lives were full with work, friends and parties, church activities, travel.  Sometimes I’d just tell myself “breathe”.
Somehow the next phase has snuck up on me - us.  I still have to tell myself to “breathe” but for different reasons.  Everybody is B.U.S.Y!  The pace is fast and it is so much easier for them to move along with the flow without having to stop and think about dragging the folks along.  There is basketball, softball, cheer, dance, judo, show choir, music competitions, homecoming, and on and on.  Typically we don’t know about things until the last minute or until we see the photos on facebook.  I get it.  But that doesn’t mean I like it. It means so much to us to be there when one of our grandkids receive an honor.
Slow the years down!  Jim had knee replacement surgery several weeks ago.  He will have his other knee replaced Feb. 23rd.  So our life is revolving around Dr. Appointments and physical therapy.  Not much fun going on for sure.  With the flu making its rounds, and with busy schedules, it has turned out that no-one has been able to visit or really have time to much care.  I guess everyone figures we’ve got this - and we do.  But oh how nice it would be to hear something like “hey, we are over the flu, can we come see you tonight?”  Our granddaughter, Emily, is going to college in JC, so she pops out in between classes or we go to lunch or shop.  What a breath of fresh air she is!
We have this beautiful, large Christmas wreath hanging on the wall above the stairs to the downstairs.  The string holding it in place is pulled tight on the nail, so I can’t just grab the bottom of the wreath and lift it off.  We should have gotten it down before Jim’s surgery, but we didn’t. I’m too chicken to crawl out on a board to get it and even though Jim is game to try, I won’t let him.  I guess it will stay there until Easter, which is more than likely the next time any of our kids head this direction.  I’m thinking dyed eggs would dress it up pretty.
Yes, we are in a next phase.  It is a phase of letting go and realizing we are loved but not needed - it is up to us to keep busy - and we will - and treasure the times when we are included in their lives.
We have been doing lots of updates around the house and have a few more planned in the near future.  We were planning on RVing through Alaska this summer with our little Casita travel trailer, but have decided to postpone that for a year.  We want those new knees in top notch order so we can do some hiking and see the beauties up close and personal.
Life marches on, that is for sure.