oldfatgramma's Xanga

home again, home again......jiggity jig

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:00:55 GMT

First thank you so much for your prayers for traveling mercies, the weather was gorgeous, and the trip went smoothly!

We left here at 8:30am yesterday morning and except for being rerouted for a parade route, we made pretty good time. We got there just before noon. I had the entire day with the girls. That is what it is all about now, right grandparents I love those girls and never get the chance to spend much time with them. I know it was our decision to move to Syracuse but we prayed about it and felt that was what He was leading us to do.

Will helped Josh with the chicken coop he was building. Did I mention that they got 20 meat chickens? Next they will get laying chickens.

I walked in the woods with the girls, not too far as I was concerned with my back and Will was afraid I would trip It was really nice except for the mosquitoes. Even with the bug spray, they were eating us alive.

We will be going up again in a few weeks for Lael's birthday. I think we are going up either the 7th or 8th of June. Her birthday is June 14th. So is her mother's. Mine is June 15th.

I have some pictures of the girls but Xanga is not letting me put them up so maybe tomorrow!

ROAD TRIP

Fri, 17 May 2013 23:16:38 GMT

Woohoo! Will told me when he came home from work that he talked to Josh and we are going up north tomorrow to see the girls Hate the long drive up and back but am very excited about seeing the girls

Please pray for traveling mercies for us......the day is supposed to be sunny and warm

Will came home a little early from work. We usually go to the diner for a fish sandwich on Fri. night but since I got gift cards from Susan for Mother's day, we went to Red Lobster.......we got there just before the crowds, we had the 4 course special and it only cost us $2.97 + tip I brought home a whole bag of stuff!!!!!

Mother's Day in CNY

Tue, 14 May 2013 17:50:33 GMT

Mother's day was cold and damp here. We did have an impromptu bbq with Susan and her little family. I got a gift card from Susan for Red Lobster and a watch from Matt. Susan said he had her buy it months ago because it had a teal band and teal is my favorite color I didn't get to see my sons but I did hear from both of them. Jon skyped me when Susan was still here so I got to see the Max too. I love skype but it doesn't make up for not actually seeing the grands. I do miss the girls and the southern grands.

I took some pictures of Mother's day but when I went to find them after I downloaded them I couldn't. I know that sounds strange. I even searched for them but they never showed up and the worse part is when I downloaded them, I deleted them from the camera. Must be somewhere out in cyber space. I made Susan the cupcake bouquet that you made with a styrofoam ball and a planter. (pinterest)

I had a day off today. Will told me to meet him for lunch. What a great break in the day for me. I can not tell you how much I am blessed by this man. When I got up on Sun. morning, he had a bouquet of lilacs on the table that he had picked for me. We used to have lilacs when we lived up north and I miss them. Our neighbor down here used to give me some every spring but when he died the new neighbors ripped out the lilac bush.

Weather should warm up again the rest of the week and I am thankful for that. Will and Tom went to my bil's house he is getting ready to sell and picked up a love seat that Uncle had in his office when he lived with Jim. It looks brand new and the good part is it has a twin mattress in it so that is a plus. It is not exactly what I would have picked myself but the color matches perfectly with the LR. Our old love seat is on the front porch waiting to go to the dump. (I know, you may be a redneck if.........)

Between the pain patches and the new mattress I think I am seeing some relief from the arthritis pain. The problem now is that I am beginning to get a rash where the patches are. If it is not one thing it is another!

Neko keeps me in stitches while she is here everyday. I love the way she looks at things. She makes my day. Most days it is only for half a day and that seems to work well with my stamina I told Will the other day that I thought that this was supposed to be the best time in our lives. He said it is a myth.......either you are too sick to enjoy this time or you don't have the money to enjoy it like you would like to Sad but true.

more ramblings..........

Thu, 09 May 2013 23:02:41 GMT

The pollen has been horrendous lately......I am sneezing up a storm! This morning before she could slide I had to wipe off the pollen that covered the slide.

Tuesday Will took the day off work. He began by ripping off the old deck on the back of the house. Neko went to spend the afternoon and Wed. with her grandparents so Todd helped Will when he got home from work at 12:30. They got the deck finished and I am so happy with the way it looks. They used a new system that put the screws in from the side of the boards instead of screwing the boards flat to the deck. This also kept the boards evenly spaced. It really has a nice clean look now. We can stain it in about 6 weeks.

I had Neko all day today as her father subbed on another route. Despite Will having worked for the PO for 32+ yr. I still don't understand how things work there. We decorated a pot and planted some annuals in it for her Grammy on Tues. It was even more exciting for her as Grammy rode along to pick Neko up. We gave her the flowers for Mothers Day as she would not be with there again until Mon. We will work on the one for her Mother tomorrow and she can take it home with her tomorrow afternoon.

Neko went out on the deck when we went outside today and she danced all over it and then said "Yep, this is a good deck, Gramma, Papa and Daddy did a good job"! She loves being outside and I think if she had her choice, she would spend the entire day out there.

Picked up Matt on Sun. afternoon and took him for ice cream at Abbots Frozen Custard........yum, I love that place. I love that they make their own custard as well as their own waffle cones. Matt had a vanilla in a waffle cone and the edge of the cone was dipped in chocolate and then in the sprinkles.....then he asked them to put the same sprinkles on the ice cream. It was good to spend some time with him. Although time spent with Matt reminds me of how little I get to see the girls and the grands from Raleigh.

My mother used to say that when the bottom of your feet itched, it meant you needed to move. Another one of her old wives tales was if the palms of your hands itched, it meant you were coming into some money. *I used to hear that it also meant money was going to pass through your hands which makes more sense to me. Anyway, my feet have been itching and so have my palms. On Saturday, both of them were itching at the same time and I asked Will what he thought that meant. He thought for a moment and then said "take the money and run"!!!

I find the more I sleep on the new mattress, the better I like it. I think it is great, I can sleep pretty much through the night without getting up every time I move cause my back, hips, knees, etc. ache. I am not happy however that my poor William is waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep. He has made a big sacrifice by letting me get the mattress that felt good for me even with him not liking it that well. He actually said when we got it that he could sleep on anything, I am thinking he is sorry he said that now. (he said he isn't but I know how it affects your entire day when you don't sleep well at night)

Trust everyone is enjoying the spring weather and is getting your garden planted. We will do ours soon. Seeing it was snowing the first of May, there is no rush here.

Monday musings

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:48:15 GMT

Well, we had a great weekend. The sun was shining and weather warm and I got a lot accomplished. Today, however is another story. It is gray and raining and you know the rain bothers my arthritis. Oh, well, it is Monday and that means wash day. Uncle Roy has his own schedule and we are supposed to adapt to it I guess. Will told me last week to only do one load of laundry a day but I managed to do 4 loads, like always on Mon. and my back is regretting my decision. I made stuffed peppers for dinner (I don't like them, so I had crab w/garlic butter over rice ;I made extra when I fixed the peppers)

I had Neko till noon. She was so cute. I found some alphabet beads and we made a necklace with her name in it! We were still working on the necklace when she said "gramma, I want to make a racoon". We found a beanie baby racoon that Susan had given her and she has been so excited with it ever since. Yes, we finished the necklace but then we made a racoon. I used her handprints to make the mask around the racoon's eyes and her foot print to make it's tail. She showed it to her father when he came to pick her up and he said "are these your handprints"? She said "yes", then he asked if "this was her foot". She laughed and said, "no Daddy, that is the racoon's tail"! Then he asked if she was ready to go and she asked "Daddy, will you take me out to lunch"? (he did on Fri) He said "not today, baby girl"; she said "NO, then I am not ready to go"!

They say that every minute you spend on Pinterest is actually 15 minutes in real time!!!! Yikes, lately I have spent hours on Pinterest! I won't tell you whether it is real time or not I had forgotten how much I loved to recycle old furniture into something new. I saw some great ideas on Pinterest and I was reminded of things I had recovered on clean up days and then refurbished and refinished them into something I loved. Once we moved here, I put a lot of that stuff in the basement as this house is so much smaller than any we have ever lived in before. I went down and saw an old dry sink, recovered from the trash years ago, crying out to me to paint it white and bring it up to use in the living room. When we lived up north, we completely redid two houses. One had old storm doors on both the front and the back door. We replaced the doors but I kept the inserts to both doors and replaced the glass panes with mirrors. I am still using them in here and I love them. I am sure you all remember that I said I went back to school to get my certificate for interior decorating. When I redid rooms for clients, more often than not, I ended up with some of the old stuff that I had replaced(to dispose of) with new. Some of the things I remade into something different. Like a wall cabinet in a kitchen that I painted and reused as a hutch top for my desk. When my parents died, I took a corner cupboard that my father had bought unfinished and had stained it very dark. I sanded it all down and took out the glass doors and replaced them with flashing that I had punched. The tin punched doors looked great, so good that when we redid a friends kitchen, we put tin punched doors in 4 of her cabinets. (Will made the doors; he actually made new cabinet doors for a lot of the kitchens I redid. Anyway, looking at pinetrest has really got my creative juices flowing again. My mind is racing with possibilities! Now to just find the time to do the work

you never know.......

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 19:35:46 GMT

Matt was here yesterday. Susan brought him over to pick up a Christmas gift, our neighbor Ann left for him on Friday. I know it is April but Ann has been sick all winter and is finally just now getting out. Papa asked him what has been going on with him the last few days. Mon and Tues. were uneventful but Wed. he got to sit at the honor table in the Cafeteria for displaying good manners. Now here is where it gets funny.. .....seems that on Thurs. Matt got blown in by the same cafeteria worker, who chose him for the honor table, for flipping a fork during lunch. He had to go back to his classroom and write something 8 x's and then he had to take it home to have his parents sign. Susan and Tom were very upset about this but Papa and I had a hard time not laughing our heads off. Papa was laughing which I am sure sent mixed messages to Matthew about his behavior. It just seemed so ironic that the same one who picked him for displaying good manners one day, was blowing him in the next day for bad manners.

Will called me Friday at noon and asked me if I wanted to go to lunch with him. Then he said he was coming home at noon and taking the afternoon off so we got to spend the afternoon together. We took my car because it doesn't get driven much and it has been running well since they finally seemed to figure out what was wrong with it. We ate at the diner we usually go to on Fri. night and had a fish sandwich. Once we were done with lunch, I suggested we go to BJ's and get some water for the water cooler. We were just a little past the diner when the battery light came on. I suggested we go home instead of having the car quit if we shut it off at BJ's. Once we got home, Will turned it off and when he tried to turn it back on, it was completely dead......ah, deja vu! We ended up going to another BJ's and guess who we ran into......Susan and Matt. School called to say Matt had a headache and she went to pick him up. She decided to stop at BJ's on the way home. Normally she would have been at work and Matt at school so it was really a surprise.

Neko decided she wanted to get the drum and musical instruments out of the window seat and march around the LR. She asked me open the window seat cause she is just too small. She insisted she needed a hat to wear so she could be part of the marching band. You will never believe the hat she picked out for a marching band hat!!!!

No I didn't know that was a hat for someone in a marching band either. But.......... guess when you are 2, you can pick whatever you want!

I have been feeling better this week. I am tributing it to the new mattress. I love it. Will however, does not. He thinks it is too firm. Says he will put up with it for my back's sake. Did I mention how much I love this man??? I asked them to give us some memory foam pillows as long as we were purchasing the mattress. They said NO, these pillows cost $100. They did end up giving us 2 but Will doesn't like that anymore than he likes the bed

whine......one .......one

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 18:59:17 GMT

Promise, no one has to call whine....one....one today! I am not gonna whine. The temps are in the high 60's and the sun is shining brightly and the pond in the back yard from last week has pretty much dried up. Yep, I am a happy camper. No complaints.

Saturday we bought a new mattress, a gel and foam one with a 25 yr. warranty on it. It wasn't cheap but Will would not allow me to get an inexpensive one. He said with all the trouble I have with my back, if we are getting a new mattress, we are getting a good one. So we did. They were suppose to deliver it this morning between 7 - 10am. However, they called here at 7:30 to tell me that they would be here between 7-10 tonight. I said "no, no, no.......the store told us between 7-10 this morning". He said "sorry, the paperwork says PM and that is when we will be there. " No, even that will not get me whining. We could just drive down the road a piece and pick it up, we have a truck but they take the old bedding away if they deliver. Our neighbors got a new mattress on Thurs. and the truck brought their new mattress, set it up and took the old mattress out, but only as far as the street where they left it in the yard. (it was a different store) No thanks, I don't want my old mattress in my yard!

Matthew was here yesterday. Will went and picked him up and he came over to spend time with Papa and me. This is what I miss with the other grands. A chance to spend time with them on a regular basis. He was here from about 10:30 - 2:30. We love it! Susan and Tom took him to Rochester to the children's museum of play on Saturday. They were having a big lego exhibit. They are having it until May. They did tour the rest of the exhibits and then went into the city to the Lego store. Yes, he got some legos and brought the crane he had put together over here so we could see it. Impressive!!

Neko was adorable today. She was building with the legos on Friday and she put that window in the tower she was building when she asked me to buy her a bunny to put in the window. At first I had no idea what she was talking about but then I got it.....the legos have the lego TM and the rabbit which is the duplo TM for the younger kids. She refuses to play with the duplo, she wants "real legos like Matt." I did find some erasers at the $ store yesterday that had a rabbit in the package. She was elated. Anyway, after she played with that for a while, she wanted to know if she could make something today. I said "sure, I love it when you want to make crafts". She said "a rabbit, please Gramma". We had been talking about rain as her lessons in ABC mouse.com this week are about the wetlands. So we had to make a bunny in a raincoat with an umbrella. When that was finished she said "more bunnies, Gramma, Koko make some more bunnies". So we did, we made a rabbit from a template I found on Dltk. I love that site. They have great crafts and coloring pages and it is all free. Anyway, the bunny we made on cardstock and once she glued it together, she wanted to attach it to a craft stick so she could carry it around. She was pretending to make it walk around and then she put it up to her face and said "Hi, bunny, my name is Koko, what is your name". I am sure I don't have to tell you that this old fat gramma, melted right there.

more ramblings and musings

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 15:33:36 GMT

The weather is a drab as I am feeling. I need the sunshine. I am getting some relief from the pain patches but definitely not 100%. I guess nothing is going to give me total relief from the pain but I still find this disheartening. Hubby tells me every morning not to do a lot of work. I don't like leaving the house unkempt and I feel too guilty to do it. He works hard all day long and when he does come home he loads the dishwasher for me when we are done eating because the bending tends to exacerbate my back. He shouldn't have to do his work and mine too. He tells me in the morning to limit the laundry to one load a day. Multiple loads is another stressor for me, as is even making the bed and running the vacuum. I don't like this useless feeling any more than I like all the complaining and whining I do about my arthritis.

On another note, Uncle Roy had another appointment with the doctors to remove more skin cancer from his forehead. This one was worse and they had to scrape the bone. It has caused him to have a black eye, swollen forehead and when Will changed the bandage last night, he said that the small spot he had on his forehead was now a large wound with a lot of suctures. The topic at dinner last night was how his son said if he was as old as Uncle Roy, he would not have bothered with the surgery. Will and I would agree with that but kept our views to ourselves. He told us how he had to tell his son to wait until he was 89 and then judge him. He is not ready to give up yet.

Well, my one load of laundry is in, baby girl is gone, and I could use a nap. Just another reason to feel guilty Think I will take one anyway once I finish my lunch and put the laundry in the dryer.

Trust spring is finally making an appearance where you live. The snow is finally gone here but it has been raining for days so the back yard is flooded, and there is a stream running through the basement from the pinpoint hole in the basement wall across the floor to the drain.

Easter 2013

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 22:11:13 GMT

We went to our favorite restaurant for dinner this afternoon. My back has been really bothering me lately and William said it was crazy for me to cook so we went to eat at Kirby's. The nice thing was that they gave a $10 certificate for every 2 dinners you bought. Because we go there all the time, usually for lunch, we can eat twice for almost nothing. The down side, no leftovers.

my beautiful daughter and her hubby

Papa and Matt

Gramma, Papa and Matthew

I used this last picture as my new profile pix for FB but Xanga will not allow me to change my picture.

I had both Neko and Matthew last Friday and will have them next week as it is spring break for Matt.

I went to the doctors on Monday. I thought that the arthritis was much worse because he had taken away my Celebrex. He said it has gone into the sciatic joint. Will wants them to do another MRI to see how much worse it is now and the doctor has agreed that is a good idea. He said if I was not getting any relief from anything other than the Celebrex,he would put me back on it but I had to know it was trade off.........right now I am no longer anemic and my liver is no longer showing any of the signs it was from the Celebrex. If he puts me back on it, I will be right back where I was 6 mo. ago. No, for me it isn't worth it. I am going to try to just use the lidocaine patches and see if they help me. He offered PT or a referral to the chiropractor or anywhere else I wanted to go. For now I will just use the patches. I do not want pain meds but the Celebrex was for inflammation.

Now I have a question that I hope some of you will be able to answer. I am not sure that you remember me telling you but Morrigan, my granddaughter from Raleigh, is unchurched. I had been praying that someone would come and tell her about the gospel. Last year when we were down there she wanted me to read to her from my Bible every night and again when we were down last She has also memorized the names of the books of the old testament. Now because she has not been in church, I got her a Bible story book thinking she would better understand the Bible. (I was reading to her about Joseph and she asked me if this was Jesus' father) Now she wants a Bible. I would love to get her one but my which one? She is 11 years old. Her father was brought up Christian and her mother was Jewish. They decided to not go to church at all and allow the children to make up their own minds if they wanted to be Christian or not! Yes, I know what you are thinking and I have said it a million times myself. I don't know if a NIV study Bible (which is what I have) or a contemporary Bible would be better. I did see one for girls age 11 and up but I still have not made a decision. I prayed for wisdom but nothing ever came other than I was supposed to be the one to get a Bible. Got any ideas??????? I need help here, people......

Trust you all had a blessed Easter/Resurrection Sunday

trek north

Sun, 17 Mar 2013 23:09:11 GMT

Yesterday we made the trek north to celebrate Lauren's birthday. She will be six next week. The weather was cold and it had snowed overnight but it was clear when we left. Part way up there, the sun came out and although it was still cold, it was a beautiful day to travel, especially if you didn't have to do the driving

We made good time and I was excited to see the girls and this was the first time I got to see the house since they had moved in completely. Jackie made a delicious lunch of crispy chicken, smashed potatoes and salad and a blueberry pie. YUM

Because the new camera is a nikon, I can't make the video work. Will is going to send it to his ipad and see if that works. I took some pictures of the house and of course the beautiful girls.

Lael's room

Alyssa's room (her other grandfather made her bed from trees on the property)

the girl's bathroom

the great room

kitchen

Lauren and Addie's room

Gramma's gorgeous granddaughters

The house is very open and spacious. It has lots of trees around it but with all the windows it is very light inside. They did an excellent job and yesterday the comment was made that stayed under budget!