My Baby is Engaged!

The year was 1980 and we had just brought our newborn daughter home from the hospital. We set up a bassinet in our kitchen sitting area so that I could work on our meals and keep an eye on the baby at the same time. So as the meal would be simmering on the stove or baking in the oven, I often sat next to the bassinet, watching this little marvel sleep.

True confession time! She'd sleep and I'd be sitting there crying. It wasn't post-partum depression. It was because I was picturing this little girl of ours all grown up someday. I cried because I fiercely wanted to protect her from every hurt she would encounter in the future but knew that I was powerless to do so. I'd look at her tiny little face and think of all the milestones we'd be facing together in the years to come and all the memories we'd create. Memories that I'd tuck away in the back of my mind for that day when she'd be on her own and I'd have to be content to just "remember." And, oh my, did I cry as I pictured her walking down the aisle someday to meet the young man who would take our place as the center of her universe.

The year is 2007 and my baby is engaged to be married. The bassinet is long gone, there have been a lot of milestones met and memories made since 1980, and God willing, there will be many more to come. And I'm sitting here looking at my daughter's lovely face and crying as I picture her walking down that aisle. She is marrying a wonderful young man whom we like very much. I'm very excited for both of them. But oh, how those years flew by! And where am I EVER going to tuck all the Kleenex I'll need in my mother-of-the-Bride dress?

The View from the Streets

My son, the minimalist, called several weeks ago and the conversation went something like this.

"Hi, Mom. How are you and Dad doing? How's Grandma?"

"We're doing fine," I replied. "What's up with you?"

"Oh, not much," he casually offered. "Craig and I are going to be homeless next week. What do you hear from Laura?"

"She's doing OK. Working har.........What?" My brain put the brakes on. "What do you mean, 'homeless'?"

"Well, I mean homeless, you know...living on the streets. Nothing to worry about," he nervously laughed.

I know this laugh. I've heard it before, usually right before he tells us things like he's going to drive cross country by himself in a high-mileage car...or he's going to live in the slums of SE Asia somewhere for a month....or he wants to learn to sky-dive.

"And would you like to tell me WHY you are going to be homeless next week?," I probe.

"Well, Craig and I have been praying about this and we think it would be a good thing to voluntarily be homeless for one week and really see how the homeless live, what resources are available for them. It will help us build relationships with them to help minister to them later."

"Mother Teresa didn't go out and get AIDS so she could minister to AIDS victims in India," I point out.

"Did you ever hear of Father Damien?" he asks.

"Does a doctor have to have the disease in order to treat the sickness?" I counter. "Even Jesus slept at the homes of friends."

On his birthday, I couldn't help but wonder how he was going to celebrate. In my mind I pictured him pulling his birthday meal out of a dumpster. It was not a pleasant thought. Nor was it pleasant to realize that there are many mothers' sons and daughters who might be doing just that on their birthdays in slums around the world. The week dragged on with occasional emails from him when he'd get to a library computer.

Finally the week was up and we got another call.

"Hey, I survived," he announced.

"Are you OK," I asked. "You sound a little hoarse."

"Yeah....talk about irony, though. I was fine living on the streets but once I got back into a house, I got sick," he remarked.

The boy needed a review of the life of germs and the course of an illness which I started to give him but then I decided, "what's the use?"

"So, any other special challenges while you were living homeless last week?

"Well," he drawled, "we did discover that grassy parks are not good places to sleep."

"Why? Did you get bit by a tick?" I asked.

"No, but just as we had laid down our pieces of cardboard and had settled down on them to sleep, we heard this 'swishing' sound and suddenly realized that some automatic sprinklers had begun watering the grass. Our cardboard was ruined.....just soaked!" he ruefully laughed.

I thought back to 25 years ago, when I'd stick my head in his nursery to make sure that he was warm, dry, and fed. Don't all mothers wish this for their children?

"I'm glad you're home, Son," I whisper as I send up a prayer for those who don't have a roof over their heads.

Mom and the Bellydancers

Shortly after we left on vacation to the Poconos, we received a call from my mother's assisted living facility telling us that Mom had been found on the floor of her bathroom and had apparently had another mini-stroke. They had called an ambulance and she was at the local hospital. We quickly packed our bags and headed straight back to the hospital.

Mom remained in hospital over the Memorial Day weekend and was then released to a local rehab facility for further rehabilitation. A call to my brother brought quick action and soon he was on his way from Michigan to help me with some crucial decisions while Mom was still in the hospital. It's incredibly nice to have a brother you can count on in a crisis. As you can see from this picture, Mom was happy to see John and was also enjoying her teddy bear, which our daughter had gotten for her during her last visit to the hospital.

After John left to return home, I came over one afternoon to visit Mom and found the staff all excited as I rode up in the elevator. "Did you get a look at them?", one nurse asked another.

"I'm going to see if I can stand in the back of the room to watch the show," replied the other.

I had no idea what they were talking about but did notice that there were several exotic looking people running about the place. "Strange," I thought to myself.

Soon I discovered that Mom wasn't in her room. She was in the breakfast room along with everyone else from her floor, all squeezed in to watch "THE BELLYDANCERS." I saw her up near the front but there wasn't room to get to her so I decided to squeeze my way into a chair along a side wall and watch the show myself and then visit with Mom.

"What's going on?" asked one of the residents to noone in particular.

"Here come some buxom women," observed another unusually astute resident.

"Buxom." I hadn't heard that word in many years. It's an old-fashioned word but it definitely was apropos for the ladies who were making their way to the front of the room. I glanced over towards Mom. She was dozing in her wheelchair. After lunch isn't a particularly good time to try to get Mom to do anything. She likes to nap. But it was hard to see how anyone could nap because by this time the music was blasting and the dancers were snaking out onto the floor, waving scarfs and hips and winking at the residents.

Ah, the dancers. They gave new meaning to the term "bellydancers", if you get my drift. I'd say almost every adult in the group, with the exception of one who was most likely the teacher, had a belly that you'd be hard pressed to miss, even fully clothed. I hadn't seen that many rolls since Easter dinner at my Aunt Maxine's. Mind you, my own stomach looks like the baby is due any minute so it was with a certain amount of admiration that I observed these middle-aged women letting it all hang out. The dancers were certainly enthusiastic, I'll give them that, although their skill levels varied greatly. But there was another surprise in store for us. Mincing out from behind the ice machine came Rashid......a male belly dancer.

Now I've lived in Greece and I've seen some great male Middle Eastern dancers there. They were the type of guys that left no doubt about their virility and you certainly didn't mind being drawn into the circle to dance with them. Rashid was another story. Between the pancake makeup, the curly wig that didn't match his beard and that flew off in the middle of his first dance, and the costume that was androgynous to say the least but failed to hide his expansive middle, he was a sight to behold.

"We have a special gift for all you ladies in the audience," the announcer purred. "Rashid will be performing a dance just for you women."

Rashid grinned at the audience, the music started, and he proceeded to shimmy and gyrate up and down the rows, stopping in front of different women for special effect. "Consider this a belated Mother's Day gift," he said.

"Lord, help me," I groaned to myself. "If he gets all the way back here to me, I'm going to lose it. I'll start laughing and I won't be able to stop."

Rashid slid along and stopped in front of Mom. She was slumped over, still sleeping. He pulled out all the stops, shimmying away, but she snored on. Spotting another hapless lady, he boogeyed on. Mom perked up and looked around. "What did I miss?" she yelled.

Just then Joan, Mom's roommate spotted me in the crowd and gave me "the eye." I knew what was coming.

"Get me out of here!" she mouthed.

"I can't!" I pantomimed back. I gestured toward the crowd. "Too crowded. I can't get to you." I slunk down into my seat and prayed for the show to end. Two and a half hours later, we were finally put out of our misery. I never saw a room clear out so fast which was pretty amazing since three fourths of the people were in wheelchairs.

When I got Mom back to her room, I sunk into a chair and proclaimed, "Well, that was surely something, wasn't it?"

"You know what?" said Mom. "Joan and I are going to take up belly dancing."

"You are?", I exclaimed.

"Yes, we are!" proclaimed Mom. Joan nodded.

"Go for it!", I said. "Heaven help us", I thought.

May's Mystery Scarf Knit-a-Long

I belong to a Scarf and Shawl online knitting group and each month we can participate in a scarf knit-a-long and several shawl knit-a-longs. This is the scarf I knit in May. It was a mystery scarf, which means that we didn't know how it would eventually look. All we got were the instructions given to us, a little bit each day.
I was partway through this scarf when my daughter came home for Mother's Day. I was amazed when she took a look at it and said that she really liked it and wouldn't mind having one just like it for winter. Of course, you know who is getting this particular scarf. She is!

The yarn called Serenade from Artful Yarns and is a 70% pima cotton and 30% angora blend. It was a dream to work with a lots of fun to block, too.

She's Granulated

Yesiree! Our baby girl has granulated, as my mother likes to say, and now has her Masters degree in Biotechnology. We trekked down to Baltimore today for the graduation ceremony at Johns Hopkins University and it was nip or tuck whether or not the rain, snow, or graduation would come first. Luckily the weather cooperated begrudgingly, freezing us all in the process but at least leaving us dry to enjoy the ceremony.

Laura's boyfriend, Jason, was kind enough to grab a blanket out of his car for my mother and she set a new standard for fashion while staying warm. I told her she looked like a cross between Cousin It and a Bolivian mountain woman. At least she won't get pneumonia.

Speaking of fashion, one of the graduates strolled across the stage wearing sparkly ruby red platform shoes, a red tulle scarf tied in a bow around her mortarboard hat, and her graduation stole draped casually over one shoulder.

"What did she graduate with, a Masters in the Absurd?" I whispered to Jason. I was almost right. She had a Masters in Writing.

"Mom", retorted Laura, "she's one of YOUR kind of people."

Ouch, guilty as charged. But I would have worn sensible shoes and probably sung a chorus or two from "There's No Business Like Show Business" as I came down the steps from the platform.

And then it was time to pose for the camera before heading off to Red Lobster for a bite to eat. OK, maybe more than one bite to eat but those cheddar biscuits are dee-lish! From there we headed over to Laura's apartment to offer our congratulations once more and play with Bailey, our grandcat before it was time to head back home.

Yes, it was a rewarding day. If I had an airhorn, I'd blow it for you, Laura. Good job! Working on an advanced degree while you work fulltime isn't easy but you did it AND you did it with distinction. We're proud of you, Honey!

A Mother's Day that Almost Wasn't

Yesterday I picked up my mother for our church's Mother/Daughter Banquet. She was in fine form.

"Are we performing?" she asked eagerly.

"Nope, we weren't asked this year," I replied. "Guess our fans will just have to be disappointed."

You see, the last few such banquets, Mom and I have come up with some silly little routines that we've performed to the general delight of the crowd. Mom can be quite a trooper. Like a horse that smells the hay in the barn and takes off at a gallop, when Mom gets a crowd laughing, she's like that horse with the bit between its teeth. There's no stopping her and she hates to sit down.

We joked together on our way in to church and sang old songs. I'd sing some of the stanzas and then Mom would finish them. "I'm sharp today!" she shouted and I couldn't have agreed more.

We had a great time at the banquet and Mom even got a lovely big pot of geraniums for being the oldest mother in attendance.

This morning, Mother's Day, I drove over to her assisted living facility to pick her up for church. My daughter, Laura, had arrived the evening before so we had decided to surprise Mom and just show up with Laura. Indeed Mom was surprised and delighted to see both her daughter and her grandaughter there to greet her. So off we all drove to church.

The service was flowing along smoothly but as we got to the closing hymn, I noticed that my mother was standing up and rocking slightly back and forth but not singing at all, despite the fact that it was a hymn that she would have known. Plus she just didn't look right. I leaned over and asked her if she felt OK. She looked at me strangely and made a gesture with her hand to her lips similar to what we used to do when we'd tell our kids to "zip their lips." I don't know if she was trying to tell me that her mouth felt strange or that she couldn't talk.

 At that point the hymn was over and we sat down but I noticed that her mouth was slack and hanging open. I leaned over again and asked if she felt ok. She just looked at me. I asked her to smile at me. Again, she just looked at me. I asked her to try to make her mouth into a smile at me. Again, nothing. Her eyes were just vacant. It was then I decided to go out into the foyer and call 911. I figured she was having a stroke.

 Laura stayed with her and another member in the pew in front of us who is a nurse came to sit next to Mom while I was out. As I called, Laura said she tried to get my mom to squeeze her hand but there was no response and spit just ran down Mom's chin. However, by the time the first responders arrived, the service was dismissing and she was already starting to snap out of it and quite confused as to why people were making such a fuss.


The paramedics decided that she should go to the ER to be checked out for what they thought might be a mini-stroke. By the time she arrived at the hospital, she was pretty much back to her old self. She was confused as to why she had to be at the hospital but kidding around with us and making faces at the doctor behind his back. I told her that most folks just nap through a service if they get bored. There was really no need for her to have tried to go out in a blaze of glory (or the back of an ambulance).

She has no recollection of anything that happened while this "attack" was happening. The ER doctor ordered an EKG, Catscan, and bloodwork, all of which came back perfect. He has concluded that she had a TIA, or mini-stroke. She was released to go back to the Woods and I am to call her doctor tomorrow to see if there are any additional tests she wants done. The ER doctor said that Mom is already on the right meds to try to preclude these episodes as best as one can. I'd appreciate your prayers for her. It certainly illustrates how quickly things can change in a period of 24 hours. And as always, it just goes to show that none of us know when we shall be called into the presence of our Maker. Keep the faith and give your mothers (those who still have them living) an extra hug or call tonight.

May Day Memories

I took Mom out for lunch the other day and as we walked down the hall on her floor, I couldn't help but notice all the lovely little paper cones filled with silk flowers hanging from the doorknobs of the individual doors.

"Mom, do you remember what we used to do on May Day?" I asked.

She put on the brakes of her walker and peered at me. "No, I don't believe I do. What did we do?"

"John and I used to pick flowers and then go up on the neighbors' porches and put them on the doormats, ring their doorbells, and then run like crazy to hide so they wouldn't see us," I answered.

"Oh, no. I don't think we did that on May Day. You've got the wrong holiday," she insisted.

"No, really. Don't you remember? We'd put the flowers down and then run so they wouldn't know who gave them the present. Sometimes we'd make little baskets up of woven construction paper and fill them with the flowers. Those we'd hang on their doorknobs. But we'd always ring their doorbells and then run away," I said.

"No, I'm sure you've got the wrong holiday. I think it was a different one," she answered.

"Well, which holiday do YOU think it was?"

"I think it must have been Halloween," she promptly responded.

"Halloween? No way. That's when you ring the doorbells and stay on their porches and then they give YOU a treat."

"Oh dear. I must have it mixed up," she said.

"Well, what did you do on May Day?" I asked her.

"I think we danced around a Maypole. I remember I was quite light on my feet."

"Was there a prize for the child that had the streamer at the very bottom of the Maypole? Or was there some special reward for all the children who danced around the Maypole?" I wondered aloud.

"No, we just went around the pole and danced. That's all we did," she stated.

It all sounded rather pagan to me. I doubted you would have found a good Baptist within a mile of a Maypole. But looking at my mom and seeing that twinkle in her eyes as she remembered a May long past, I suddenly found myself wishing that I could have been there, running barefoot through the prairie grass beside my mom, laughing and light on my feet.

It has been a long time since my daughter has needed my help. So when I discovered that she was going to need knee surgery, wild horses couldn't stop me from volunteering to come down to help her during her initial recovery period.

 Now I'm not the best person in a medical situation. My moments of squeamishness are legendary amongst my children like the time my son had stitches on an arm injury and I ended up on my knees beside his gurney, forehead resting on the gurney's side, babbling on about all the ice cream we were going to eat when it was over. The doctor finally interrupted my monologue to say, "It's over, Mrs. Porterfield. You can stop now."

"It is?", I asked, startled to see how low I had sunk, literally. "Um, I was just trying to distract him," I tried to explain.

"Well, I don't know if you did or not," the doctor said, "but you sure made me hungry."

Or there was the time that I had to interrupt a nurse's instructions after my son had his wisdom teeth removed so that I could leave the recovery room and go sit in the bathroom with my head between my legs. In my defense, I would just like to say that I was doing fine until the heart monitor that Jason was hooked up to suddenly beeped and flatlined. "Oops, guess I'm dead," my son said cheerily, grinning at me with pieces of bloody gauze sticking out of his mouth.

But for arthoscopic surgery, I figured all I would probably have to do would be change bandaids, make tea, drive her back from the hospital, plump pillows, feed her, and offer lots of sympathy. Surely I could do that much. And for the most part, I was right.

Driving in the big city to the hospital was no problem because my daughter did the driving. I just tried to pay attention to the route, in case she was too groggy to navigate me back to her apartment after the surgery.

 Once we checked into the hospital, she was soon called back into the inner sanctum. After about 40 minutes, a nurse came out and paged me. I followed her back into the hushed area where half-pulled curtains surrounded patients on gurneys who were hooked up to various devices. I looked around for Laura and soon spotted her. She was sitting up in bed and looked downright perky. In fact, her coloring was good and she was smiling. "Piece of cake," I thought. "This shouldn't be so bad."


I sat down beside her bed and we talked about various things. I asked if I could do anything to make her knee more comfortable and she declined my offer. While I debated pulling out my knitting, wondering how much longer she would be kept in recovery, a nurse showed up with chart in hand. "Time to start your IV," she said.

"IV?" I was confused. "Why does she need one now? Isn't she finished with the surgery?"

"Heavens, no. She hasn't even had it yet. We're just prepping her," the nurse responded. My daughter rolled her eyes and started to laugh.

And so began the ordeal of the IV which of course went sour with the first attempt. Seems my daughter's veins take after mine, which are miniscule. The big difference is that my daughter is a real trooper and took it all in stride. I, on the other hand, would have been half way out the door, hospital gown or no gown, if it had been my veins that were being assaulted. The look on my face must have reminded Laura of all my past medical shortfalls which she proceeded to tell the nurse.

"You going to be OK?" asked the nurse.

"Sure, don't worry about me. I'm just fine. I'm PUMPED for this," I said.

"She's pumped," the nurse cackled. She seemed to find that pretty funny and she continued to laugh as she pulled out another needle, retightened the tourniquet and started slapping Laura's arm, looking for another vein.

"You know, I always sing when they have to draw blood from me," I told noone in particular.

"I'm not going to sing, Mom!" Laura insisted.

"You going to sing for us?" the nurse asked, looking at me amused. Then a vein caught her attention. Whamp! "Now here's a good one, Honey. We shouldn't have any trouble getting an IV started in this vein."

"Oh, what a beautiful morning! Oh, what a beautiful day. I got a beautiful feeling.....everything's going my way!" I warbled loudly to the amazement of nurses and patients around the room.

Ah yes, there's nothing like a little mother-daughter bonding over the strains of "Oklahoma" in a presurgical suite. And I call that "making memories."

My Easter Bunny Ran Aground

Easter is a wonderful holiday for a Christian. However, for a dieter, it ain't so hot. I belong to TOPS, which stands for "Take Off Pounds Sensibly." This past week we were challenged to create a special Easter bonnet to wear to our next meeting (which happened to be the day after Easter). To understand the theme of my Easter bonnet, you have to understand how my Eater (Freudian slip) Easter weekend went.

First, my brother arrived for a visit. Friday evening I made ham and broccoli roll-ups with a hashbrown casserole. Saturday morning I made sausage gravy and biscuits, mainly because I know he likes that and my sister-in-law usually doesn't make that for him at home. Saturday noon we went to the Waffle House which he loves to eat at when he is here. I had a waffle with crispy bacon. Saturday night I made chicken tetrazzini which was pretty good if I do say so myself. Sunday morning I attempted to squelch the excess by stuffing down some raisin nut bran cereal. Bran is healthy, right? Sunday dinner was celebrated at Carrabba's with Chicken Marsala and garlic mashed potatoes. Sunday evening we reheated the leftovers and finished those off. Monday I waved goodbye to my brother and kissed my husband as he left for work. I then opened up the pan of cream cheese and chocolate chip brownies that my sister-in-law had sent from Michigan and proceeded to eat the top halves of each one in the pan.

By now, dizzy from all the sugar, I was beginning to panic as I realized that I had to weigh in that evening AND I had to come up with an Easter bonnet. It was then that I had the brainstorm. I got to work and put a small Easter bunny in a glass, stuck a straw in the glass, glued the glass on top of two candy bars (I ate the third candy bar while I was working out the design of the bonnet in my mind) and glued the candy bars to the top of a blue paper plate. I punched holes in the sides of the plate, stuck ribbon in it and made a little sign to hang down from the front. The sign said "My Easter Bunny float ran aground on a candy bar."

Got to my TOPS meeting and weighed in and lo and behold, I had lost a pound. The empty tomb wasn't the only miracle being celebrated this Easter weekend.

Ma, He's Looking at Me!

My brother drove here from Michigan to spend time with us over the Easter weekend. One of the things he really likes to do while here is
bowl and eat at the Waffle House. So after we all went bowling, we headed over to my mom's apartment to pick her up so she could join us for lunch.

My husband loaded her into the front seat which meant that brother John had to get into the back seat with me. Off we sped and I noticed that John was giving me "the look."

"Ma, he's looking at me. Make him stop," I joked.

John gave me a grin and pushed his foot over toward my side of the car. "Ma, he's over on my side now. Make him get over on his side," I complained.

Mom looked out the window and ignored us while she blissfully picked her nose. John leaned forward and said, "Mom, stop picking your nose. Don't you shake hands with that hand? Use a kleenex." He settled back in his seat and farted.

"Ewww, Mom, John just farted. Open the window. I'm dying back here."
"Did not!"
"Did too!"

"What did I miss?," Mom shouted happily. Nothing tickles her more than someone passing gas.

My husband just stared ahead straightfaced, clutching the wheel and wondering for the umpteenth time what he had gotten himself into when he met me.

It's nice to know during these days of global warming, terrorist threats, armed conflicts around the world, and rising gas prices that there are still chances to return to simpler times and just be a kid again.

What's in Mom's purse this Easter Sunday?

It's time for the weekly update on what's in my mom's purse. Yes, I picked up Mom this Sunday for church and went through the usual ritual of emptying the extra stuff out of her purse while loading her into the car.

This time I had some extra help. My brother, John, came out from Michigan and while he was getting her buckled into the front seat, I was busy stuffing the trash from her purse into the garbage bag in the back seat.

Today's haul wasn't too bad. That was because we had gone over to her apartment on Saturday to take her out with us to Waffle House and I had the chance to clean out things then. However, she still had the chance to stuff more things in there between 3 p.m. Saturday and 8 a.m. Sunday. So....here is the inventory list for April 8:

5 dirty table napkins, 2 old church bulletins, one Christmas card, one library book, 8 unopened letters (we saved those and read them to her later), 2 rotten bananas, and 6 half unwrapped Hershey kisses.

What's in Grandma's purse this week?

Well, it's time for my weekly inventory of what I took out of Grandma Loose's purse when I picked her up for church on Sunday. You see, my mom has always been a packrat but since moving to an assisted living facility, she hasn't been able to fill an entire house with "things." So, now she fills her purse with "things."

Each week, I pull up to the front of her facility, load her into the car, load her walker into the back of the car, and put her purse into the back seat where I keep a small garbage bag at the ready. I quickly go through the purse and pull out all the, um, "ripe" and ready-to-be trashed items and then hand her the purse. She is none the wiser.

Once we get to the church, off she goes into the foyer and I follow behind, handing the trash bag to my husband, the head usher who neatly slam-dunks it into the nearest trash can. Getting the rotten banana smell out of the car takes a bit longer. So ---here is what I took out this week:

Six dirty table napkins
Two rotten bananas
One tea bag
One jelly container
One cooky stuffed into a cup partially full of dried punch remnants
A Michigan bulletin from January
Two used and empty envelopes
One library book (this I did NOT throw away....just cleaned it off a little)
One magazine

And that's the inventory for April 1st and I am NOT fooling.

What's Mom up to today?

This week I helped Mom write a Get Well letter to an old friend. I knew we were in trouble when the first words out of her mouth were, "I don't know what to say."

"How about 'I'm sorry to hear about your hip. I hope you're feeling better'," I said.

"OK," she looked at me hopefully. "Now what?"

"Ask her a question," I suggested.

"What is your favorite meal? My dad's favorite meal was pancakes. He always wanted pancakes when he came in from the barn," she offered.

I dutifully wrote this down in the card and then waited. She looked at me and said nothing. This was like pulling teeth. "So how about telling her what Dad's favorite food was?," I suggested again.

"Huh, whose food?", she countered.

"Dad's favorite food."

"Whose dad," she asked.

"MY dad," I said.

"Whose your dad?" she queried.

"Your husband, Bill!" I shouted. "For Pete's sakes, Mom, who else would it be?"

"What time is it," she asked petulantly. "I think I've written a letter long enough."

I couldn't have agreed more.

Joys of a booksale

What a day! We helped out most of the day at the opening day of our college's library booksale. Since I've worked at that library, I've never been there for opening day. I've always helped with the setup the evening before and then just browsed through the books on my lunch hours during the work week. But now that I'm retired, I decided that my hubby and I would be cashiers on opening day.



Let me tell you, when those doors opened, it was a mad dash down the steps and to the sale tables. Book dealers and book afficianados alike were elbowing for space and grasping treasures to their chests (or their boxes). We even had folks with little handheld scanners this year that were scanning books to, I assume, find out what the current market value was of the books. How nifty was that?



It was interesting to see the old school dealers and the "new school dealers", too. The folks I would call "new school dealers" were more like house flippers.....get in, grab books, bag them, do a fast turnaround, make money off of them, and then go out and buy more books. The "old school dealers" were more apt to take their time and have lists with them of books they were keeping an eye out for or be looking for titles that they knew regular customers were wanting.



Then there were students carefully counting out their coins to purchase their treasures. I was apt to find them muttering over copies they had just discovered on a table or crawling under sale tables to view the books that we had stacked on the floor until there was room enough to bring them up onto the tables.



I was particularly delighted to wait on the booklovers who just couldn't stay away from the sale and made two to three trips in to purchase more books today. One wonderful man told us that he was concerned that he might have to reinforce the beams of his home because he had so many books there that he was afraid that the weight was going to overtax the load-bearing abilities of his floors. Now THAT'S a reader!



Tonight I'm footsore and weary but already looking forward to heading back to the sale this week to do some browsing of my own. Who knows what treasures await me?

Pillows of Love Workday

Yesterday our Women's Ministry MerryMakers (our motto is "Spreading Joy through the Work of our Hands) had a workday where we made pillowcases for the Pillows of Love ministry. This is a wonderful ministry started by a lady in our area after hearing about children and women going to shelters often with their meager belongings gathered up in a trash bag. She felt God nudging her to use her special talents as a seamstress to make bright, cheerful pillowcases that could then be distributed to shelters for battered women and homes for unwed mothers. That ministry has now expanded to homeless shelters and to orphanages as far away as China.

Each pillowcase has a copy of the New Testament or a children's book about the Bible included in it. The pillowcases are given to the women and children and are theirs to keep. At the very end or wide cuff of the pillowcase is the verse "He will give you sleep, peace and a safe place to dwell." Psalm 4:8.

We had 3 sewers and 2 ironers at our workshop and after spending the morning sewing and ironing away, we had 27 pillowcases completed and another 13 pillowcases all finished except for the final seam around the 3 sides. Since each shelter receives about 40 pillowcases at a time, that was enough for one shelter. It's really awesome when God can use our hobbies to serve others. The morning was a joy.

If you would like to find out more about this much-needed ministry, check out www.pillows-of-love.com. Well, off to do some ironing of my own now so better cut this short. Practice some random acts of love today.

Crunch-time in Crisis Land

It's been one of those weeks, my friends. Have you ever felt hemmed in on all sides? On shaky ground and afraid that at any moment the bottom of your predictable little world was going to collapse and you were going to fall on your (unfortunately) substantial keister?

It all started last Friday when one of my coworkers asked me what my plans were for the weekend. Hey, I actually had plans for a change. My hubby and I were going to a retirement seminar at the Army post on Saturday and then to a big quilt show on Sunday after church with friends. It was going to be a great weekend! My coworker shared that she and her husband would be going to a party Saturday evening. Great! We were both getting out and about.

On Saturday I headed out to run errands prior to hooking up with my dear husband for the seminar. Soon it was time to go find him and head over to the War College. Off we went. Of course, you don't just drive onto the post anymore. You have to detour to the left and go through a gate guard before you can go on the post. So we drove up to the gate and I passed my military ID over to the guard. "Oh, oh...one of you has an expired ID," he said. "I'll have to confiscate this and ask you folks to drive over to the other guard station. They'll give you a receipt there."

"Ha, George!" I laughed. "Didn't you realize that your ID had expired?"

"Um, it's YOUR ID, Ma'am," the guard replied.

Gulp! Not only did the Army take my ID (with my picture looking 4 years younger and skinnier, to boot) but they also gave me a receipt that said "confiscated ID card." I felt like an illegal alien. It was hard to concentrate on the retirement seminar. While others obsessed over this point and that of health benefits, I kept fighting the urge to raise my hand and say, "They confiscated my ID!"

That evening, I decided to get our checkbook up-to-date so I'd know how much I could spend at the quilt show the following day. There was only one problem. I couldn't find the checkbook. I knew I had it with me that morning when I went to the bank. But from there I had gone to the post office, the fabric store, the local library and the optical shop. Gee, I kind of remembered the outdoor mail drop box at the post office making a clunking sound when I dropped in my letter. Could I possibly have absentmindedly dropped in the checkbook as well? Oy vey! Now I was really getting frantic. I grabbed the flashlight and looked in every nook and cranny of the car that I could reach. No checkbook!

I couldn't face the quilt show on Sunday. I just didn't feel comfortable going and spending without knowing who had our checkbook and how much we had in our account. So I stayed home and sulked after church. Well, sulked and ironed and logged onto our account periodically to make sure that I wasn't seeing wierd purchases showing up there. And I did a LOT of praying that the checkbook would show up.

Monday morning my husband went to the bank and sure enough, they had my checkbook. Apparently their policy is not to call you if you leave your checkbook. They wait for you to show up for it. DO THEY KNOW WHAT I WENT THROUGH OVER THE WEEKEND? I wasn't the only one. My coworker with the party plans was out sick Monday, Tuesday, and most of Wednesday. Both she and her husband came down with some nasty virus after attending the party, along with quite a few of the other guests. Looks like both of our weekends didn't go quite as planned.

On top of the weekend trauma, my return to the library on Monday was greeted by LOTS of student requests. The dam has burst, so to speak, and the rush has begun. It won't slow to a trickle now until right before Thanksgiving. I do all the interlibrary loans for our college and fill all the interlibrary loan requests sent to our school from other institutions. I've been so busy this week that for two nights, I didn't get home until after 7 p.m. It has been crazy at work. I've had constant indigestion.

 Good thing I'm on meds to help me cope with stress and anxiety. Because today, I had to leave work early to go get my new ID card at the Army post. My husband had to escort me there so I could get onto the base. Then I had to get a new picture for the ID. Drat! What kind of sick joke is this? Who put that old person on my ID card? On top of that, the clerk asked me to verify my weight. I seriously considered fudging since my husband was sitting right there and she had read my weight off the old form and I'm now 14 pounds heavier. But there was a scale on the floor right next to a mirror and I wasn't too sure if she'd make me stand on it if she didn't believe me so I decided that honesty was the best policy. Besides, I'd been seriously EATING fudge for the past 4 years so I could always blame it on my sweet tooth. So, there you have it. I'm legal in military circles once again. Humiliated, but legal. And I'm really hoping that this weekend is nice and quiet and restful.

Reeling in the Years

Well, the Summer Scrapbooking Challenge is finally over and I am happy to report that I finished the challenge with 303 pages completed. What a ride it has been! I did a heritage album of my mother's side of the family from my Gr.Gr.Gr. Grandmother up to my mother. I scrapbooked my mother's life up to her present day at 92 years young, I started my own heritage album and have just gotten through my Army years, and I finished the heritage album of my father's life.

Speaking of my father, it's been a bittersweet time. Dad died while I was on my honeymoon almost 27 years ago. He never met my husband although he did talk to him over the phone when George called him from Greece to ask for permission to marry me. We had planned to redo our vows back home once we rotated back to the States so that our parents could attend the ceremony but that wasn't to be.

Putting these old pictures into a scrapbook and writing down all the old stories has been very emotional for me. I've been reliving all these memories. Take this picture, for instance. My brother and I are posing next to Lake Superior while we were enroute to the farm in Minnesota. Notice the bloody bandages on both of my knees. With my usual grace, I had decided to run down a hill at a rest stop to get to the car and had lost my footing, skidding down the remainder of the hill and across half of the parking lot. Ouch! I still bear the scars on both knees. When I look at that picture and when I read the journaling about it, I can remember that day so clearly.

I think people still throw pictures in albums but not many write down the stories these days. We need to do that, even if it is writing it up on the computer and then printing it off and sticking it in your album. Every culture has had its storytellers. In early cultures, that's how they passed on the group memories and traditions. In our extended families, someone has to be the group storyteller because the older generations are passing on and as they do, many of those wonderful stories are being lost forever.

So I've spent some enjoyable time with my dad this summer, I've caught glimpses of my mom in college, and I've relived the triumphs of my college theatrical career, all through the combination of scrapbooking and memories. Not a bad way to spend the summer, if I do say so. But I must admit, after 303 pages completed.....I'm taking a break for a few weeks to do some knitting, crocheting, and looming.

Destined for Texas?

Our travelin' son, Jason called me several days ago in the middle of the day. I almost had a heart attack as I scrambled to find my cellphone. Knowing he was traveling crosscountry and not expecting him to call before evening,I figured that he must have an emergency.

"What's wrong?", I gasped into the phone.

"Texas coffee is terrible," he replied. "You'd think they'd have good coffee in Texas. I mean, if it's black and hot and it's in Texas, it should be good, shouldn't it?"

"Honey," I laughed. "If it's black and hot and in Texas, you must be drinking oil."

The dear boy reported that he'd gone to 3 gas stations before finding one that had coffee and then it was only half a pot and looked like it had been sitting there for several hours.

"And they don't even have coffee machines here, Mom," he bemoaned. "Not even a capaccino machine."

"Son, you need to get off the freeway and find a nice cafe. One where the waitresses have pencils stuck in their hair and call you 'Hon' and pour you steaming coffee out of endless fresh pots. That's where you'll find good coffee."

Well, I guess he'll just have to wait to sample good Texan cuisine until we move down there. Yep, we are destined to be Texans. We're shirttail Texans right now, as it is. My husband's father was a direct descendant of early Texas pioneers. We've been dreaming of making the move to Texas for some time now and I'm more than ready. I've been ready to move out West since I was a kid. While other girls played exclusively with dolls, I was riding the range with the Lone Ranger and Tonto and tracking bad guys with Sky King. Even as a teen, I could have cared less about soap operas.....I loved westerns. I used to saddle up the old oil drum outside the farm house and sit in that saddle for hours imagining that I was riding the range.

So if you happen to see a red Pontiac Vibe with a Pennsylvania license plate heading across the Texas plains piloted by a dreamy-eyed lady singing exhuberantly while clutching a coffee pot in one hand, with a white dog in the back seat followed by a gray-haired guy in a gray SUV loaded with yarn, you'll know we've made in to our new home state.

Hairball Shawl

I found the smaller gauge loom at the local craft store today so decided to buy the longer one to try a prayer shawl on it. This particular shawl is for a lady who has recently had knee surgery. I had asked her husband what some of her favorite colors were but he said he had "no clue." I went home and asked my husband in amazement, "How in the world would a spouse NOT know what colors their wife liked?" To my astonishment, my dear husband of 27 years said, "I wouldn't know what to tell someone if they asked me that question." Good grief! Men really ARE from Mars.

So I decided to try to find some Homespun in a colorway that would be neutral enough that she wouldn't mind it. In other words, a safe color. Well, it looked safe enough in the store. So I brought it home and started it on the loom. My goodness, the more I worked with it, the more depressed I got. What was going on? This was supposed to be a shawl to provide comfort and cheer, not one to depress the poor lady. I looked at that skein and the more I looked at it, the more I realized that it reminded me of dried hairballs. There was absolutely nothing attractive or pleasing to me about those colors.

Now the shawl below the "hairball shawl" is another prayer shawl I recently completed for another friend who is recovering from surgery. Now those are cheerful colors. Reminds me of Spring. I LOVE color. Half of the fun of knitting or crocheting something is seeing the play of color as the fabric develops before your eyes. Now I'm all in a quandry. Do I continue with the depressing colors, knowing that I'm going to be struggling with the joi d'vivre through three skeins of the stuff or do I return the other two skeins and pick something that I like? I'm definitely leaning toward the latter.

In my case, at least, it is true what they say about color having a huge impact on your emotions!
Speaking of emotions, I woke up this morning all jittery knowing that our son was heading off on his great adventure today, driving coast to coast on his own. Thank goodness that he had the presence of mind to take his old car into a good mechanic before attempting this road trip because he discovered that the clutch needed to be replaced. So at least that has been done. I've been praying for safe travels every time he has come to mind today, which has been often.

And that got me to thinking about squeaky wheels. Yes, my mind works in tortuous circles. I was thinking about how it always seems that the high-maintenance child is always the one that gets the most attention, while the chld who is self-sufficient and plugging along reliably sometimes can seem to get short shrift. That probably isn't fair. We have a lovely daughter who is talented, highly intelligent, a hoot to be around, and we love her dearly. But I haven't mentioned her much in this blog because she has been steadily working away at her job and on her Masters' degree without creating much of a stir while our son, on the other hand, has kept us jumping trying to keep up with all the twists and turns that his life is taking lately. He's been the "squeaky wheel" and consequently has taken a lot of our focus and attention. However, Laura deserves no less. So, hat's off to an amazing daughter who makes us proud to be her parents each and every day. We enjoy every tidbit of her life that she shares with us and are so happy that she lives only an hour and a half away. It gives her the space she needs but lets us see her regularly. We love you, Laura!

What's a mother to do?

It's been a busy day. I spent most of Saturday at a scrapbooking workshop from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. I'm happy to report that I'm now working happily away on my own heritage album and have scrapbooked and journaled my pictures up to my middle school years.

Now we're getting into my "ugly" stage though. Yikes! Whatever happened to that cute little girl? And where did that bucktoothed geek come from with the tightly permed hair and the glasses with side fins that could compete with a '62 Chevy? I certainly wasn't part of the "cool crowd." Looking back on it now, though, I think it was a blessing in disguise. By not having an active date life (ok, I didn't have ANY date life) and by having to get by on my brains, personality, and imagination, I developed a rich inner life and a great appreciation for the friendships that people can offer above and beyond their outward appearances. This is a good thing. Because now that I'm approaching my '60s....I seem to be entering another "ugly" stage only this time those side fins are firmly entrenched a good six inches below my waist on both sides and they aren't sporting rhinestones either. It's the dreaded "Van Rossum Hips." Sigh! I always knew they'd catch up with me, sooner or later. I don't have buckteeth any more. Two sets of braces took care of that. Now I'm just trying to keep my teeth. At least I don't have the permed hair again. Although I AM feeling like tearing my hair out, thanks to our son, Jason.

Yes, the dear boy called us two nights ago to say that he was going to be coming home sooner than planned. This is a good thing. Then he casually mentioned that he would be driving home. This is a bad thing. You see, he's planning to drive from Los Angeles to PA in an old Honda with almost 200,000 miles on it, no working AC, side mirrors that I think are duct taped on right now, and he plans to camp along the way to save money. I wasn't sure if I should laugh or cry. I think I did both. Life was a lot simpler when I was a preteen.