Category: Everyday Life

My calico cat Izzie has the right attitude about time.  She begins her day when the sun comes up, naps in the afternoon when she’s tired and curls up on the couch in the family room when we sit down after supper to watch a little TV.  In between her naps, she spends most of her day out in the yard protecting the birdfeeders from the squirrels and hunting moles.  When her work becomes too much, she finds a shady spot in the yard and naps some more.  I envy her.

Most of our mornings begin with the buzzing of an alarm except for these few weeks in late spring and summer when the sun rises well before 6:30 and Izzie takes it upon herself to let us know that the sun is up and she’s ready for her day to begin.  She parades through our room, with the finesse of a drill sergeant, first calling to us from the door way and then leaps onto our bed and gives us a second call closer to our faces, insuring we hear her.

Although at times we can rightly be accused of indulging our feline family members, sleep is still a precious commodity to us so we aren’t about to jump out of bed to service Izzie at her say-so before the alarm goes off.  Many mornings we get second and third parades before we rise.  Even then we leave our beds begrudgedly.

Looking back through adulthood, the only time I can remember living on a schedule even close to Izzie’s was when I was home with my babies and Dave was deployed.  Except for the occasional doctor appointment, there was no reason for us to use an alarm clock.  Usually I woke to the morning sounds of a young child.  I don’t remember them crying as much as cooing or calling to me.  I’d get them up and our day began.  When we were hungry, we ate, when sleepy, we slept and the next day we did the same.  That doesn’t mean there weren’t challenges in between, life is about pushing the envelope in one way or another.  The difference then was that there were few external influences on planning our days.  Life pretty much revolved around us.

Lately my days have been so over full of blocked off pieces of time and long lists of tasks to be accomplished that I long for those days when life had a more natural rhythm.  I think I need a vacation!  Either that or in my next life I should be a house cat!

 

I have to admit that I haven’t had as much time to observe life these past few months as I would like.  Consequently, from my perspective, it seems as though we’ve transitioned from snow and cold into the full-blown spring and days hot enough to require air-conditioning.  Where has all the time gone?

Speaking of air conditioning, Dave and I had the misfortune to have the condenser konk out in our upstairs unit of the first hot afternoon of the year just before Easter.  Arriving home before me and finding the upstairs temperature reaching 80, Dave shut all the windows, turned on the A/C and then headed off to choir practice.  An hour later when I arrived, the temperature upstairs had not budged.  I could hear the fan working and feel air from the vents, so I let it go and when Dave came home, we went our for pizza.

 Later, when we arrived home, the thermostat had still not gone down a degree.  I was tired but jumped into trouble-shooting mode anyway.  First I opened the back door to listed to the heat pump.  It wasn’t running.  Next I checked the electrical panel; the breaker had popped.  I re-seated the switch, heard a loud angry buzz and then the switch popped.  Unconvinced, I repeated my test with the same result; “BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ -BOOOM!  Okay, clearly this was a problem I was not equipped to handle.  There was only one thing to do; open the windows, turn on the ceiling fans and call a professional.

The rest of the story is pretty boring, we called the HVAC folks, they assessed the problem, gave us alternatives, blah, blah, blah, we decided to replace rather than repair, wrote a check, blah, blah, blah.

What I find sharable about this episode is that it ran its course from start to finish without drama.  I didn’t hurl myself into self-pity; convinced that no matter how many steps we move forward financially, there is always something to pull us back.  Nor did I wonder what we did wrong, to have a relatively y0ung heat pump crap out on us, after all, we’d had a service contract and dutifully had it checked twice a year.  I accepted it for what it was, just one of those unpleasant spaces we land on in the game of Life. (Remember the game where you drove a car over the board facing the good and the bad on your way to Millionaire Acres?)

Thankfully age has mellowed me and taught me to handle life’s challenges in stride and for the most part, handle them head on without drama.  That being said, like everyone else, I do have my off days where I can become as whiny as the next person, especially when fatigue is involved.

But in this case, I am proud of my letting go of the why’s and what-if’s and just getting on with it.  It’s too bad we don’t badges for these kind of life achievements like in a computer game like “Bejeweled.”  I so like those merit awards that pop up after a game for so many subsequent somethings.  They urge me to keep playing.

I guess this time, for me, it’s enough to recognize my personal triumph, pat myself on the back and keep the memory handy for the next challenge that comes my way – which seeme to be the new programmable thermostat that came with my new system!

 

It appears as though winter is gone for good; at least for this part of the year.  In the past several weeks the drab, bleak world that was my winter lawn has awaken with the deep greens of the lawn, the bright yellow blooms of my daffodils, the white blossoms on my dogwood and most recently the pink buds on the azaleas. The air is full of the chorus of birds as they sing a refrain of joy and thanksgiving.  Our winter visitors, the junkos have moved on and the hummingbirds have returned.  A pair of robins have taken over the nest built by the house finches last spring and I’ve spied two blue eggs in the bottom.  Meanwhile a male flicker has decided to proclaim his territory by thrumming a beat on my gutters every morning.  Together with the goldfinches, blue birds, blue jays, cardinals, orioles, chickadees, titmice, red-winged blackbirds, purple grackles, they provide a lively show on the mornings I take the time to have my coffee on the deck.  It is such a contrast to the cold, silent white scenes that dominated the winter months.

Like the yard, my calendar has begun to bloom with what I choose to call “opportunities”.  I have recently resolved to view the many meetings, activities and obligations as opportunities to make a difference in the world; even if it is only by offering a smile or kind word.  Life it too short to be weighed down by negativity.  So, at least for now, I choose to look at the many scribbles on my calendar as a good thing and not as a heavy load.  It only becomes heavy if I allow it to feel that way.

So happy spring to one and all!  May your hearts be light and your calendars full of opportunities!

 

 

 During the course of any calendar year we as a nation commemorate the lives of our forefathers as a way of remembering the many contributions they’ve made in making our country what it is today.  These celebrations take many forms from family get-togethers, parades and most recently, shopping.

In a likewise fashion, my sister Barbara and I made our annual sisters’ road trip down to Hiawassee, GA to visit our parents and celebrate the eightieth birthday of the most important man in our lives; our dad.

Like many important men, a legend surrounds our father’s birth.  According to  family lore, my grandmother, Ina, was planking peas in the garden when she went into labor.  Setting down her how and casually wiping a loose lock of hair from her brow, she calmly walked back to the house and delivered my father. (I added the hair part for added drama).  I can only imagine what that would have been like.  I don’t know if there were any other women with her.  I all do know is that she went into the house and gave birth to her fourth son, John, who would become my father.

The legend continues of little John growing in age and wisdom on the family farm. Most of the stories Dad has shared recall happy times with his friends, piling on the back of their mule, Fanny and riding out into the fields until they got to giggling so much they rolled off.  Fanny would stop in her tracks and wait for them to climb back on.  To us kids, whose youths were spent in suburbia for the most part, stories of cow-tipping, toad popping and skinny dipping made Dad’s childhood seem like Huck Finn adventures as we pictured our dad as a barefooted young boy running freely through the fields with a dog by his side.

Like most legends, real life was not so easy.  The country was still in the midst of the Great Depression when Dad was born and workdays on a farm are long, physically taxing and relentless.  Milk cows do not take days off or vacations,  fields need continued tending and there is always something to repair or prepare for.  It was a DIY world.  As a result of this hands-on training, my father is capable of fixing anything with a coat hanger and electrical tape (today we substitute duck tape).

In school, Dad was a math whiz and student athlete,  lettering in football, basketball and baseball.  As children, we used to love to look through both Dad and Mom’s high school yearbooks, with great reverence as we scanned the black and white glossy photos for glimpses of our parents as young people.  Since they were both active in school, they weren’t hard to find.  Our favorite photo was of Dad and Mom as prom king and queen. After high-school, Dad studied poultry farming for a year at Alfred State University before enlisting in the Army and a year later, marrying my mother.

Dad’s Army photo album as our second favorite artifact illustrating our dad as a person, not our father.  Inside that album we saw small brownie snap shots of our dad “fighting the battle of Waikiki” from his time posted at Schofield Barracks on Oahu.  There were photos of Dad in fatigues and cammies climbing out of the hatch of a tank, but the ones I liked the best showed Dad in his swim trunks, lazing on the beach under palm trees.  As a child it was so exotic to see Dad dressed like that when I mostly saw him in his work clothes which were anything but exotic.

This is where the legend ends for me and real life begins.  I was born on my parents’ first wedding anniversary while Dad was in Hawaii and Mom was living with her folks in Springville, NY.  I met my dad for the first time when I was seven months old.  He was just shy of his twenty-second birthday.

In the fifty-eight years I’ve actually known my dad, I have come to know that reality outweighs legend.  Dad is the most loving, nurturing, strong, loyal, smart, witty, creative, clever and dare I say, handsomest men I’ve ever known.  Since girls tend to look for someone like their fathers to marry, it was a daunting task to find my prince charming.  (I did pretty well, although how I could tell at the time is a mystery to me. )

As I look back at my childhood with an adult perspective, and the knowledge from experience of what it takes to raise a family and successfully launch children into the world, I am in awe that my dad and mom were able to keep six of us clothed, feed, in eye glasses for three of us, braces for me, and own their own home all at an age younger than my own children are now.  This is not legend, it is fact.  There is no way adequate to fully express my love and gratitude for my father.   He has been my hero for as long as I can remember.

So, in keeping with the custom of celebrating the birthdays of important men in our country, Barb and I drove to Georgia for our family dinner and did some shopping.  We spent a week with our parents laughing as we shared old memories and created new ones.  It was sad to leave and head home after our visit but like last year, as we could look forward to Maggie and Jan’s wedding, this year we look forward to the end of June when the six of us will gather in Hiawassee to celebrate our parents’ sixtieth wedding anniversary.  It will be such a joy to have us all together again, even if it’s just for a weekend.

Happy Birthday Dad.  I love you!

 

 

I’ve learned that one of my subscribers is receiving “hacked” versions of my blog. Please let me know if you are experiencing any bizarre modifications to my blog so we can determine the source of the problem.

Have a good one!

Monica

For the past week or so Mother Nature has been teasing us with unmistakable signs of spring.  Bright yellow and purple crocuses have burst color through the drab mulch, the robins are visiting the bird bath with is finally thawed out and when I come down the stairs in the morning I can hear the mockingbirds chirping out front as they rebuild their nests in the maple trees.  Best of all, since we sprung the clocks ahead last weekend, there is still a bit of daylight after dinner so Dave and I aren’t as inclined to recline after eating.  Last night we even ran an errand to Walmart and didn’t wear jackets.  Feeling the warm air on the skin of my bare arms was very similar to the sensation I used to get stepping out of the airport in Florida after a winter flight from the frozen north.

Inspired by the milder weather, I decided to take a change and have my car washed; something that almost begs for a storm!  I just couldn’t stand the salty coating on my still new urban titanium paint.  Seems like many folks have had the same idea.  The lines for the car wash were very long this weekend so I zipped in early Monday morning.  Once there, I opted for the works; wash, shine, wax and protective coating (whatever that is).  When it came to car washing, I decided my credo of “less is better” didn’t apply.  The result was a beautiful shiny car with window I can actually see through.

It is warm again today but clouded over.  Al Roker says there is a fast-moving winter storm, “Vulcan”, moving in from the west through Chicago and onto New England where a nor’easter is supposed to form dumping up to two feet of snow up there.  Yuck!  As much as I sympathize with my friends and family to the north, I hope the storm stays up there.  It has to be spring somewhere first and it would sure be nice if it could be here!

One of the features that attracted me to our house was its beautiful kitchen.  Having gone through the time and expense of a kitchen remodel in our old house, we didn’t have the resources or inclination to take on that project in our new home.  So, when I saw the ergonomic open setup, counter space and canned ceiling lights,  I knew this was the kitchen for me.  And for the past two and a half years I’ve been very happy with my kitchen expect for one small thing, the hinge faceplates on the corner cabinets.

The first one broke about a year ago.  Mind you, we’re not talking about the mechanism of the hinge failing; we’re talking about the bit of metal that holds the hinge to the cabinet which snapped at the screw holes.  I called a friend and he was able to replace it in short order.  A couple of months ago, the top hinge on the other corner cabinet snapped in the same place.  Again I called my friend, but repairing kitchen cabinets isn’t even close to being on his top ten lists of things to do in his life and undoubtedly if it does it’s because his wife is having an issue in their kitchen.  I can’t say as I blame him, the hinges on my cabinets don’t rank all that highly on my “to do” list either.  Consequently, here I am, about six weeks later, with an gapping corner cabinet by my stove since  I removed the door entirely to avoid damaging the lower hinge.

After a few weeks of no response from my friend, I sent him another text.  Having heard nothing from him, I decided to take the broken hinge to Lowe’s to see if they carried a replacement.  The salesman in the kitchen remodeling department was busy closing a sale when I approached him with my baggie of hinge parts.  Without even looking he sent me to Hardware.  The fellow in hardware was impressed by the caliber of my hinge but admitted sadly that they didn’t carry anything that nice and referred me back to the remodel department.  When I explained they had sent me to him, he looked at the hinge again and seeing the manufacturer’s name and a skew number, suggested I do a Google search.  I thought that was a grand idea.  After all, I can certainly search on Google and definitely know my way around a screwdriver!

After lunch I sat down with my hinge and Googled the Grass Cabinet Hinge # 3906 and found it in short order.  I also discovered it has been discontinued.  When I clicked on the “find replacement” I was shown parts that didn’t look anything like my hinge or its faceplate.  Clearly I will need to do more research and make a few more calls.

In the meantime, I have tacky yet admittedly easy access to my pots and pans.  How annoying!