WOMEN AGES 50+ FOR DECEMBER 2015

janetr7476

Woozers, Becca, yes you have changed a lot and you are beautiful, inside and out. Thanks for sharing.

Janetr OKC

jmkmomm

Becca, you look so much happier in your new you. Congrats.

Betty, I know my situation isn't as drastic as yours but I remember when my daughter was pregnant with her 1st. She lived about 300 miles away, yes I know that's a lot different than you and your daughter, and I worried so much about how it would work out to be a long distance grandma. She was such a terrific Mom, she was always showing pictures of us and all extended family, even the ones she didn't really like that much. She showed respect that they were part of her dad's family therefore respect them. They talked daily about all of us, what we were doing, relating what her home was like. I sent her a Fisher Price book that was just for babies. It had only ab out 4 front and back pages for pictures and was made for babies to look, even chew on. At first I tried to get as many people as I could get in it and then my very wise Mother told me it needed to be immediate family, that was all Trinities mind could handle at the time. That book went with them pretty much everywhere. In fact when we had them for spring break and the youngest was 4 that was one of the books she wanted me to 'read' to her at night. Teeth marks all over it and all. We also got a talking picture frame with our picture in it and sent a message to them. When we would go to their house we would make sure we changed the message. So all my fears went away. But that was from only 300 miles. Skype and Face time on our iPads are wonderful. my youngest took 'us' all around her house sometimes and just showed us everything that was important to a 5 year old.

Thanks for listening to me yesterday. Yes, holidays can be that way. The Christmas a couple of months before Mom died was real hard on her. She was in so much pain, she rarely even got out of her apartment to go to the dining room to eat. So she did a rare thing. she actually let Michelle lift her mobility chair and put it in her car to where we were holding our celebration. That chair went no where! Anyway, that place is the place we are using this year and more than likely every year from now on. It is inexpensive, it is the fellowship hall of our local Baptists association. Many churches rent it for a summer party, it has 2 stoves so it has lots of places for us to cook. My poor old stove has one oven rack and only one large burner. Also, lots of pots and pans. But it was the one we had Mom's last Christmas at and I know the reason and it is still tender on my heart. I have a brother that his family 'adopted' an adult man. He had spina bifida and lived in a group home because his family rejected him. He is very insecure and would sometimes come for Christmas and sometimes wouldn't. My sister finally told my brother that if he wanted to feel like part of the family then he needed to be with us. But on 'that' Christmas he practised real hard for a long time to learn some carols that we could sing along with. Well he didn't do to good at all and there was some unfortunate snickering. I don't like to admit it but some of my own family was part of it. My SIL is very protective of him as she should be, got really mad, they all left in tears and left a very insecure 14 year old to represent his family and get all their gifts and then we took his back to their hotel. So there are a lot of bad memories there. And that is why I chose this place. I want to replace those bad memories with wonderful ones.

I am finished with my Christmas shopping, my tree is now up, the few decorations I do are in place. I still have to wrap everything but Michelle wants to come over one day this week and have a wrapping party. I may have to go to utube and watch that video of ribbon and bow making to make my gifts look better. They are typically wrapped very flat, no bow and a name written on them. Boring!!!

I am looking forward to Barbie's word of the year!

Penny, I have heard a little of your storm over there and am anxious to be ready to talk about it.

I have only tried one cookie exchange and it was such a failure I never want to try one again. Mary, I liked seeing men get involved in your cookie decorating. That is not seen in my house!

Joyce, Indiana

klanders30

becca you look so great!

heather love hearing about your happy, long, and loving relationship. Through all the lows of a marriage, i still treasure that my dh can surprise me with a small gesture and still tries to make me laugh when things get tense between us.

barbie i am pretty new to the group, reading more than posting, but you are a wise shepherd of this aspirational, funny and tough bunch! Thank you for keeping it together and going strong, i am grateful for it!

Karen from ny

cityjaneLondon

Michelle - I have never known anyone who has had a party like my DH's. It was wonderful, but from my point of view, NEVER AGAIN!
I'm not sure if I'm OK. :ohwell: Just not feeling in holiday mood. Today I will cook and freeze the curry for my son and I expect DH will make his menu for next week for freezing. I don't know what to cook for tonight. Probably sea bass. Got to make brandy butter to take up to London, to go with the Christmas pudding we made in November.

Last night we had a HUGE mound of broccoli from our garden plants. Gorgeous. I am trying to lose the pesky pound I put on in Montpellier.

Was awake for 3 hours in the night.

One thing I want to do is arrange a to have a coffee with my yoga friend. It will be tea. :laugh: Strictly no eating and no present swapping! Just a nice chat. I would suggest a walk, but everywhere is waterlogged, even the lanes.

Becca - I love the way you have transformed yourself. You remind me of women in WW2 in Britain. Making the very best of yourself with very little money. :flowerforyou:

Nice effects Pip! Are you going to frame it?

Love to all, Heather UK

Peach1948

Betty ~ Your tree is beautiful. When I sat with my grand kids last week they were eager to show me what the elf had done that day. He had wrapped the tree in toilet paper and there he hung in the middle of the roll.

Becca ~ You are a beautiful lady. Love reading all the wise ways you have transformed your thoughts and life.

Pip ~ What a lovely card that picture would make.

Going to see my mom in the nursing home today. Wish me luck driving down I-75 in the rain. I got her a Christmas sweat shirt to wear and some more pants that I am pretty sure will be a foot too long. Hope she will try them on. The last time I brought her some, she wouldn't.

Received all the "fancy" dresses I bought the 4 yr old on eBay yesterday. Must say they are lovely. Not to be worn to Pre-K but to church.

Carol

miriamwithcats

i am realizing I have a touch of the Christmas blues. I am not feeling up to responding to others' posts and dreading what I still have to do for Christmas, just wishing it was over. And I am eating too much bad stuff. Often, recognizing it helps get it under control.

Peach1948

(((Miriam)))

bwcetc

Pip ... What a cool picture! Easily could turn that into a Christmas card! What app does that?

Becca ... An amazing transformation! Just so you know, I've adopted you too!

I'm really disappointed in myself ... Have let myself backslide too far. And even though I know the next 10 days will be brutal food-wise I'm starting over ...again ... This morning. Plan to keep all of you in mind as I go through the day.



Beth

grandmallie

Morning dear friends,went out for a walk and only managed a mile,bit will get out doing stuff later

scarolinaskies

Exercise 3 days a week for 30 min, drink more water......Fort Mill SC

barbiecat

Miriam sending hugs to you and hoping that you can stay in the moment as you walk through the holiday blues

Peach1948

Here are the 4 and 5 yr olds.

miriamwithcats

Peach, darling.

GRITSandSLUTSandWINOS

Re: Baby standing by tub; only babies can get away with this much body fat and be 'cute'. My Mother was a heavy woman, especially so as a baby; Mimi was skinny as a rail; but, a fat baby was considered a 'healthy' one. We never had 'sweets' or 'desserts'; while at Mimi's there was always something sweet. To her, a meal was not a meal without something sweet for dessert. She always had a jar of jellybeans because I liked them ... all except the black (licorice) ones. I'd suck the sugar coating off them and then eat the jelly inside. DOGD brought over a game a week ago, jelly beans of different colors, with a spin wheel; and some of the colors (you'd pick a jelly bean according to the color you landed on ... might have been good; or they might have a 'nasty' taste where you would spit it out and drink a lot of water. I think most of mine were 'bad' ones. One I got, a black one, tasted like a skunk smells ... no amount of water would take that taste out of my mouth. I almost GAGGED on it. Took a swallow of coke to help somewhat.

janetr7476

I guess feel differently than a lot of our ladies. I have enjoyed every minute of my preparation in anticipation of my family being here. The cooking and baking done with thots of one loves this, the others will enjoy that, etc. I want to make it as special and warm as possible so they have these fond memories of Christmas at Grammy's for the rest of their lives. My only regret is that I decided to not put up all my trees in every room, special quilts on every bed, poinsiettia shower curtain and all. Decided not to as it would have all been up until February when we return from Arizona, but it has made me a little sad. I have missed it all. I'm trying not to get down about it all going by too quickly and every one going back home.

Off to get a mani/pedi this morning. They will all arrive tomorrow. Hooray!

Janetr

Lagopus

Thanks for asking, Joyce.

Please be prepared for a longish post. I have to let it out.

We had our storm and it was just as glorious as we hoped. Not quite as violent - the wind never reached hurricane force - but it stayed windy longer than expected and the snow fell thick and fast for 36 hours. On Saturday morning there was a bit of a lull and people poured out to check on their neighbors and admire the drifts. We had essentially no snow outside our door but the people in the next block of apartments had drifts halfway up the windows and had to be dug out.


At the top of our street there was a drift 15 feet high - and all that snow fell in one day. Between the last row houses on the street the snowdrifts went to the upstairs windows. The snowplow couldn't help clear it away because although some of the humps along the street were drifts, others were cars. They couldn't take the risk.


But everyone was having a great time. All the children were out playing: climbing snowdrifts and sliding down them again, digging tunnels. All the adults were cheerily wielding shovels. We took some pictures, wished each other a Merry Christmas and went inside again.

Then just after 10 am I looked at the local paper's website and saw that there had been an avalanche in town and ten houses had been hit. No major injuries had been reported, but volunteers were asked to come help and bring shovels. My husband grabbed ours and went. Half an hour later he sent me a text message. So many people had turned up that they were getting in each other's way. He and many others had been asked to go wait in the movie theater in case the diggers needed to be relieved. Several people had been dug out and transported to the hospital. He added that one man and two children were still missing.

Around 1:30 he came home. The children had been located and sent to the hospital in serious condition. The last missing person had also been found. My husband knew nothing about his condition, but didn't think there was much hope for him after so many hours in the snow. And shortly after, the man was confirmed dead.

Those most seriously injured were airlifted to the mainland for treatment - but it takes nearly two hours to get an ambulance plane up here and then another two hours down again. Meanwhile the injured people were tended by the doctors at our local hospital, who are highly skilled at emergency medicine and handling hypothermia. All the patients made it alive to the University Hospital on the mainland, but in the end, one of the two children who had been missing died. She was just two years old. Her sister, age three, will live – and we're all holding on to that. It has been said repeatedly that she wouldn't have survived if it hadn't been for the quick reactions of all those volunteers. We lost two community members, but we also saved at least one life.

I've just come home from the memorial service for the man who died. He was 42, father of a 12-year-old and 10-year-old twins, a teacher at the primary school, active in choirs, brass ensembles, the bluegrass band, a barbershop style quartet - you name it. We often say the town is so small everyone knows everyone else. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but in his case, it was true. He will be sorely missed.

The minister spoke about our beloved "dark season" when we gather together and enjoy each other's company, about school letting out for the holidays, the anticipation of the Advent season – and how all that joy was cut short. The dark season suddenly went black.

I can feel it in the town. When those houses were hit some of them were swept 80-100 yards from where they stood, crashing into other houses farther down the hill. They're mainly intact, but jumbled together, like Lego blocks somebody has carelessly swept aside. It's ghostly, seeing houses where there shouldn't be any houses, and seeing no houses where there should be a neat row of them. The hill above is floodlit (I'm not sure why) and that also feels horrific. About a tenth of the population has been evacuated from their homes, for fear of new avalanches. There's no telling when they'll be allowed to move back home. What Christmas cheer for them?

Going into this storm I wrote about what we were expecting and added "I love it". Sometimes I'd like to eat my words, but painful as it is, I'm sticking to them. At the memorial service, the man's best friend spoke about all the beautiful white stuff that lay glistening out there in the moonlight. Glistening and deadly. But he knew how his friend loved experiencing Nature's power and majesty. That's what this town is all about. We ALL love those extremes: that's one reason we moved here.
/Penny, sad, but still happy to be at the

terri_mom

Happy Tuesday ! ! !

I'm still not caught-up, but I did read today from where I left off yesterday (I think) .

Mia – congrats on the t-shirt size. Wonderful NSV ! ! !

Lisa – I missed the original post about your nephew, but Hugs and Prayers for all of you ! ! !

Mary – Thanks for sharing the picture of cookie decorating. I have fond memories of my childhood, both with my Grandma, then with my Mom after her Mom passed. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I’m so glad you were all having so much fun !

Vicki – Hugs and Prayers for your DH ! ! !

Mindy – so much of your post brings back memories for me. My Grandparents were married on Dec. 26 during WW2. We had a huge bell nailed to the front porch that my Mom would ring to bring us home if we ignored the streetlights (or if she needed us home early).

Heather/Mia/et al - Thanks for the marriage success laugh/advice. We have 3 working TV’s and separate bathrooms. We have multiple computers, and now have comparable cell phones as well (for many years I was upset because his phone was WAY better than mine). Years after his mid-life crisis, we are back to sleeping in a huge memoryfoam bed together. We also have together and separate social lives. I hope those are good signs, too.

Katla – I’m so glad the police chase was not worse, and everyone was uninjured. I’m certain I would have been quite frightened. A similar situation happened in front of my house once, and I couldn’t hardly think straight about what to do. I just called my then-boss, and took pictures. So scary for you. Hugs !

Janet/Mia/Michele/et al – If coded properly, the Shingles shot is preventative if a person is over 60 or has co-morbidity that makes it preventative instead of elective. If you fit into one or more of these categories and get a bill, ask to have it re-coded.

Becca – Thanks for the adoption. I need all the help I can get, and I appreciate you (and everyone here ) ! ! !

Peach – I’m curious about the tree – toilet paper – elf hanging in the tree. Do you have a picture or a back-story?

Miriam – Hugs !

Tomorrow I will go to the bowling alley with DS and DH, just so I can go to Big Lots (want to take coffee drops, water drops, yogurt, and granola this weekend). I will walk if it is warm enough, but will likely take the car (hip is not completely better yet) . Thursday morning we leave for Winona. Christmas Day we will sleep late, then everyone will meet at MiL’s house. We might go early so DH can help her with the cooking (she usually makes turkey or ham or both, and all the traditional holiday carbohydrates, so I will bring a salad). We usually open presents right after lunch (dinner). DBiL opens the bowling alley around 4:00pm, so we will likely spend most of Thursday evening at his bowling alley. We will likely be in Red Wing Saturday, because the entire family will probably want to spend some time at the Casino. Sunday probably a late breakfast with DD and/or MiL, then return to Milwaukee.

I still have not cheated, so I will put another sticker on the calendar. I’m being quite supportive of my co-worker, but the adult beverages are louder than I. I will keep doing my best for her, but she refuses to log, so there is only so much I can do to help.

Hugs for Everyone ! ! !

Terri in Milwaukee (soon in Minnesota for the weekend)

miriamwithcats

Penny, so sorry! What a tragedy. Breaks my heart.

janetr7476

Penny I have cried with you, very tragic. I am glad you are able to stay positive through this. Praying for your beautiful little town and for all the families that suffered such devastating loss. (((Hugs)))

Janetr OKC

margaretturk

Penny heart stopping! Prayers...

Miriam (((sunshine)))

Margaret