Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Later tonight my spawn and spawn’s spawn will be here in my house. That is my focus. My priority. I am so full of joy that we will all be together for this holiday weekend. I am one flipping fortunate broad.
But first I shall blog.
I think it’s important to count our blessings, whatever they may be. This past Sunday at church, our friend who led the children’s message read a book aloud about thankfulness. It ended with the line “We are not thankful because we are happy. We are happy because we are thankful”. Simple and true. Here’s just a few examples of what I am thankful for in the here and now:
The comforts of my Colorado home
My smart, beautiful, capable and kind adult kids
Hubs and our wonderful grandson
This guy
Radar loves his pineapple turned pac-man chew toy
My sense of humor. It gets me through a lot. This commercial is SO me.
Meaningful work. In my job, I get to procure nutritious and delicious food for aging adults. And give it to them. What a joy this is for me.
A Thanksgiving card from an appreciative food bank client
Writing my blog. I think back to my much younger self knowing it would blow her mind if she knew then that once she turned 50, she’d be pouring out her feelings, thoughts, and dreams out into the universe via a home computer. And that people would actually choose to read it.
That these two were my parents. This will be our first holiday season with both of them gone. It is so bittersweet for me. I’m grateful they are no longer suffering and beyond grateful for all they taught me and the love they gave.
Life is good! God is good all the time!
Please join with me in the spirit of Thanksgiving and share pics of what you are thankful for in the comments!
November is a special month for me. It’s been that way for me for years now but I’m only now starting to appreciate it.
First off, it’s the month both my mom and sister were born. So I have people I love to celebrate and honor.
Then there’s the crisp fall air and pretty blue skies here in Colorado mixed in with the golden and rust hues of the trees. There’s gaining an extra hour thanks to Daylight Savings Time.
And the new clothes. Cozy sweaters and leggings. Fun boots to wear.
And Thanksgiving this year is right at the end of the month. The perfect holiday, in my opinion. No expectation of gifts or the shopping for them that stresses me out. I’ve always enjoyed my Thanksgivings, though none of them end up being the same.
There was the Thanksgiving when Hubs and I were new parents living in Lubbock, Texas. We did not have the funds to travel to Minnesota to be with our families, so we made the best of it by hosting a lasagna dinner (I had yet to make a Thanksgiving feast on my own at that time in my life) for new friends Hubs made in grad school.
There was last year, when we opted to stay put in Colorado and got invited to church friends home for a lovely Thanksgiving dinner that included the bonus of lively conversations.
This year, Hubs and I are flying our two adult spawn and one grandchild out to Colorado to spend an extended Thanksgiving holiday weekend with us. I will massively enjoy the planning aspect of it (as a medium recently told me, I’m a “chip off the old block” because my mom was a compulsive yet very talented planner Of. All. The. Events.).
For my small and beloved family, I will be making homemade comfort food (in addition to the traditional Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. Yes, I said Friday-because I think Black Friday should suck it). I will be choosing an array of family oriented “feel good” movies for us to enjoy. I will be determining games we can play together that interest all ages, from 5 to 52. I will be reserving tickets to a movie or live show that we can all enjoy together.
Note to self: I will keep it together if any of these plans go kaflooey on me. Appreciating that we are all together in one place for this specific and relatively short period of time will be my focus. Like Clark Griswold taught me.
My mom’s Thanksgiving table circa 1983 ish. This is what I aspire to.
This song will be shared. Because it’s the song that I imagine will play at the end of the movie of my life (yes, I have a rich fantasy life). Accompanied of course with images of my beautiful family, which will have expanded by that time in probably unexpected ways. The setting will be our dream home/cabin in the woods on a lake in Wisconsin with plenty of windows, a stone fireplace, and a couple of happy canines.
After traveling by air last week, I appreciate the sign posted at the Milwaukee airport (and per Hubs, many airports in the U.S. because he travels way more than me).
Because I’m relating to it on a deep level right now. I’m knee deep in the “recombobulation zone”.
What put me there, you may wonder. This very meaningful weekend I just spent in Wisconsin with the people I love so much. Some I am related to by blood; some I am related to due to the wise choice I made almost 30 years ago to marry into this family.
People, if I’ve learned anything in this life, it is that when you marry a person, you marry their family, too. For better or worse. Through thick and thin. It’s not perfect, but it’s beautiful nonetheless.
But clearly, my emotions were discombobulated and I’m now unpacking them. Spending quiet time outside on a lake in Wisconsin got me thinking of my parents. The reality of both of their deaths really started to hit me. More and more, I find myself thinking of them and what they would think of what we are doing, saying, and about how life is going for the rest of us still in our human form on planet Earth.
For the rest of this post, I will be focusing on the positive take-a-ways from the Davis family Wisconsin cabin vacation, however. I may be on a strange and up and down path, but my name is Pollyanna after all (or not).
Allow me to bullet point it, in the interest of time and K.I.S.S. (Keep. It. Simple. Sister.).
Our grandson is growing by leaps and bounds. He is high-spirited, intelligent, and curious about the world around him. I wish I could see him more often. His biggest concern re: starting Kindergarten this week? That for lunch he will be served pork chops every. single. day. Who knows how this got lodged in his 5 year old brain, but the fact of the matter is, he hates pork chops.
Despite her pessimistic “realist” outlook, I cannot underestimate the wisdom of my wonderful mother in law. Mental note to self: talk to her on the phone on a more regular basis.
The sight of small children and deer mingling melts my heart.
Christopher at Fawn-Doe-Rosa, a wildlife adventure park
Women over the age of 40 can be truly badass. Take my SIL, Mary. She’s 47, in great shape, both inside and out, has a huge heart for all living things, and she’s furthering her education while working full time.
Choices a person can make in life can produce unintended, uninvited, and unpleasant consequences. But it’s a spectacularly hopeful thing to witness someone at the beginning phase of turning a rotting lemon into sweet lemonade.
Spending time outside with the ones you love the most, with no high tech distractions, just the smell of a campfire, the feel of a breeze on your skin, talking about life is just oh-so-good for one’s soul.
Witnessing your grandchild being introduced to fishing by your fisherman-at-heart spouse is a true delight.
This is merely a test. A test of my ability to use my scant photography skills to tell a story.
One of my personal blogging goals is to improve my photography skills. Truly.
So, here I go!
Top left: a picture of our present day, imperfect, life. As you can surmise, no acrobatic moves were employed to capture this scene.
You see my very plain, cheap looking kitchen countertops (which someday before long will be replaced with something that actually looks cool). There’s the bunch of lavender I bought because I was at a Lavender Festival a couple of weeks ago with my best Colorado friend, Adrianne, and it seemed like the thing to do. My original intention was to google what to actually do with this lavender; I overhead the lavender selling lady at the booth where I purchased this telling another customer about hanging it upside down and waiting for the oil to drip off of it. But I ended up getting distracted by life, per my usual, and 14 days (give or take) later the bunch of lavender remains on the top shelf of my kitchen counter. I guess I’ll have to toss it soon, but I certainly am up for suggestions if you have any.
Speaking of the Lavender Festival, Adrianne and I had a very relaxing time chatting and listening to tunes on the way home. I shared with her my new favorite summer song.
Adrianne informed me that this particular song was actually a cover of “Doin’ Time” by Sublime, which came out in 1996, so of course we listened to that version as well. I would have known about Sublime’s version of this tune had I not been busy mothering my spawn, who were 3 and 4 at the time. The genre of music I listened to at that time was “new country”. It was a phase of mine that thankfully passed.
What’s in the orange bowl? It’s a “rustic” bread salad, a recipe that came highly recommended by my beloved sister, which was surprisingly not a hit. But more than likely, I used the wrong kind of salad dressing. Then there’s the half pint of vodka, which has become our go-to liquor (on those days when we are craft-beered-out) along with the Mio stuff that you add to said vodka for flavor (another suggestion by my sis, though this one was enjoyed much more than the bread salad thingy).
In the brown bag, there was a delectable cinnamon roll that I scarfed down the morning after taking this picture. It was purchased at the Farmer’s Market closest to me. Someone’s got to support small businesses-bakeries included, right? It would have been rude to do otherwise.
Then there’s a selfie taken in our “en suite” (‘scuse me, I’m feeling fancy and I’ve probably consumed too much HGTV). In case you were wondering, this pic is very much not inspired by a Kardashian.
Then there’s the picture from ye olden times (resting atop my sister’s much nicer looking kitchen countertops), featuring my Grandma Pearl (one of two, not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this) as a child with her wacky hairdo. Youngest spawn has a mass of thick hair with a number of cowlicks.
Check out that tongue! You got some competition Gene Simmons!
Of course, being the obnoxious human that I am, I texted the photo to alert them that their hair is indeed genetic.
So for the actual beautiful pictures: the skies at my sister and brother in law’s place (aka my happiest place to be) in far northern Minnesota, when we were there last month visiting the fam. These pics capture the moments when we were sitting around the campfire, shooting the shit on a warm July night.
Then there’s the two pics of Hubs and I enjoying our first experience at Red Rocks. In the middle bottom pic, we are tailgaiting in the parking lot prior to the show. Good times.
The pic next to that is of my new pedicure. One of my self-care “quirks” is that my feet need to look nice and pretty at all times. I don’t know where this comes from. Probably because sandals are my very favorite type of footwear and I don’t believe in showcasing them on gnarly looking feet (or seeing others showcasing their gnarly looking feet in sandals for that matter). I love that the nail lady (there’s a proper term for this, right? Technician perhaps?) offered to add a flowery design on my big toes. She did it free hand, using three different colors. I found this quite impressive. I’ll be back to see her again for sure.
Me with Ray-darling. Yes, I’ve become one of those people who shops online for fun bandanas for my dog to wear.
I invite each of you to share your imperfect, weird, real-life photos that tell a story about what you’ve been up to this summer.
Today is the holiday you didn’t even know existed, ladies! It is Gorgeous Grandmother’s Day!
While searching the interwebs for writing fodder (aka for shits and giggles) a couple of months back, I decided to search for national holidays to see what came up. Once I saw that 7/23 was Gorgeous Grandmother’s Day, I put it on my calendar to remind myself of it.
You’re welcome!
As any of you who have been following my blog likely knows, I am a grandmother. My my very first post, in fact, was inspired by this fact.
And like any legit Grandma, I am sharing pics of my beautiful, smart, and witty grandson with you all.
Newborn Christopher on his first visit to Grandma’s houseChristopher and I, a few years later on a visit to see Grandma in Colorado
How Gorgeous Grandma’s Day came to be (I did the research, man): In the early 80’s, a 50 year old recent graduate (woo hoo!) from Wellesley College decided that there needed to be a special day honoring Grandmothers. She felt that for many people, the title “Grandma” evoked an image of elderly women who had little to contribute to society. She was thinking about grandmothers over 50 who don’t conform to that image, so she decided to flip the script. She recognized that grandmothers can be not just wise, but also sassy, ambitious, and energetic.
In honor of Gorgeous Grandma’s Day , and because as you all know, I like to share, here’s some anecdotes from interactions I have had with Christopher.
Recently during one of our weekly video chats, Christopher happily declared that he’s going to first grade, “after I finish Kindergarten!”
Then there was his 4th birthday celebration here with us in Colorado. At the end of a busy day checking out the Denver aquarium and having a special lunch, while awaiting his birthday cake, Hubs looked across the dining room table and said with a chuckle in his voice, “Well, I know that some of us are going to sleep really well tonight”. Christopher’s response? “And that would be me”. Ha ha!
What kind of Grandma am I? A Gen X one for certain, who likes to focus on the future:
Like watching the movie “Ugly Dolls” with him and having a discussion about it; seeing how he feels about people who are different than him. How they are treated and should be treated.
The kind who can’t wait to see him play with Radar. I suspect they will be best friends.
The one who hopes to be present when he earns his first belt in Tae Kwon Do. Or plays in his first organized sporting event, such as baseball or soccer.
My wonderful mother in law, who is seriously the best grandma any two kids could have, has been known to say “If I knew how much fun it was to be a grandma, I would have done that first!” While of course technically impossible, I get the gist. And I really appreciate it.
Fellow grandma’s, how are you going to celebrate this special day, now that you are aware of its existence? Please share pics of your gorgeous selves and/or anecdotes of your gorgeous grandchildren in the comments!
Pollyanna's Path 