It's my birthday today, friends...

 

  ...and I am a very childish 58 year old now.  lol  Child-like, I MEANT child-like !!!!!!

   It's been a good quiet day so far. I have had phone calls singing Happy Birthday to me,  cards from very thoughtful friends, and many many emails and birthday wishes online. I am feeling very very blessed.

   I cooked some bbq ribs and mashed potatoes and green beans with loads of onions for the Irishman's supper and my lunch. Just finished eating. Have to leave for you-know-where in about 45 minutes.  Before I go, I have a little online thing to take care of...I have decided to give myself , for my birthday, the gift of becoming a Club 24 member. It's a local charity that serves the homeless and hurting out of St Louis, called New Life Evangelistic Center. And then I am writing the President of the United States a quick note to ask him to please look into the travesty of what the city of St Louis is doing with the almost one million dollars a year they are getting from the government to supposedly help the homeless.  And I shall consider it all a good days birthday gift.  So there.  lol  NLEC gets no gov't money, no United Way  money...it's all the donations of regular people and churches that keep them going. They give out more than 800 sandwiches a day, every day. They have beds for the  homeless  that are filled every single night. I may not be able to do much, but I can make an effort to do any small thing. And so can most of us.

  My NaBloPoMo post on friends for today comes from The Velveteen Rabbit.  Rabbit is talking to the Skin Horse.

 "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you.  When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become real."

  "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

   "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are real, you don't mind being hurt."

   "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked "or bit by bit?"

     "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.  But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

     ~~From The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams

  And that, my friends, is what friendship is all about. About being real enough to be hurt, to have your luster fade, and still be loved. 

Here comes Peter Cottontail...

Hmmm...opened the front door this morning to find about 15 rabbits of assorted sizes eating around the bottom of the bird feeder. Pretty little things, until the dogs scared the bejeezus out of them and they fled.

(She looks sweet, but Lucy the lab is a renowned rabbiter)

  It's a whopping 18 degrees right now, up from 12 at 6 AM. I need to get out to the chickens, but am waiting for a warming trend. lol  In a few I'll get my warmie warms on and trek out there. I'm busy taking down curtains and washing them, washing windows, and getting everything ready for the Irishman to put up the traverse rod when he gets home tonight. i got it at JC Penneys yesterday, a combo rod with a regular curtain rod for the sheers, for about 65.00 OUCH!  Nobody likes to spend that kind of money on curtain rods at Christmas time...

  I'm going to deck the halls a little more today, and try really hard to get the outside evergreen up. Christmas decorating (like so many things) falls to me. He doesn't care a whit about having these things up, though he never complains about it, unless I ask him to help. Probably a good part of why  I have simplified so much of my decorating  the last few years. That's not a bad thing...it used to look like Father Christmas threw up all over my house. It gets more tasteful the older I get (*grin).

  I have so much to do here I really shouldn't even have turned on the computer this morning. BUT--here I am, and I'm trying to get back in the habit of blogging daily, as it's a good writing exercise I think.  I've been letting myself get a little too frantic lately, and I hate it when my life is like this. I need to slow it down, spend more time at home when I'm not little old lady-sitting, and take it easier. After all, it's winter. lol  I can only pray that next spring and summer the gardening and canning will be as good(?) as it was this year, even though it almost killed me. But I have lots of marvelous food to show for it. I just finished drying the last of the cranberries and packaged them last night.

  Still have Christmas shopping to do, and am contemplating gift cards for everyone except the youngest grandson. Gas cards are always good, as well as pizza. Am not doing all THAT much...but what I have to do, I will try to be thoughtful and generous. 

  The cats are all restless and running around like maniacs. It's been too cold for them to go out...instead they are running amok and knocking lamps over, tearing things up and generally making me want to kill them. They just knocked books off the shelf...sigh....

  Okay. I am marching off to do my chores like a good house frau... If I don't commit any murders today, it will be a good day. Thinking about having a family dinner one Friday night before the holiday weekend..I will be working on Christmas, late in the day. Guess I'd better make a decision, eh?

Namaste.

Tuesday January 12, 2010

Today was one of those days that every mother of grown children dream of...a day long visit from a child whose life is entirely too busy most of the time, with his work, his own family and his own life. It was like a Christmas/Birthday present all rolled into one ! His work is sketchy this time of year, and because he is in the union, he draws an adewuate unemployment check. So he gets to hang out and play and do things this time of year that pretty much evade him the rest of the year. Today, he came over to help me make laundry soap (he makes it at his house too!) because he has this big mortar mixer (he's a tile setter) that connects to his drill and he says makes the laundry soap so well mixed you won't believe it. He came around 10 and we talked and talked and then we made soap and then we had lunch. I cooked up some chunks of pork with diced green chilies and garlic and onions, some cumin and salt and pepper. We ate it wrapped up in big soft tortillas. Then we hung out and talked and talked some more. He's been spending his time off inventing things, and building wind turbines and solar stuff. He's having a ball. Saturday he and the youngest grandson are coming over to put up a wind turbine in our backyard, on an 8 foot tall stand. To see how it works. He can't do stuff like this in the subdivision where he lives, because they have "rules". lol We also talked about partnering up in the spring to raise chickens for meat. I said I wanted to do it, if he could handle the butchering, for a take of the harvest. He likes the idea. We also talked about raising rabbits for meat too. We'll talk about it some more, but I think we might have a deal. I wound up doing some house cleaning and some laundry and that was about all today. I am exhausted...the knee pain is keeping me from sleeping and I'm hoping to sleep tonight....from sheer exhaustion. It hurts so bad...I am counting the days til the surgery. The dogs are outside for their final hurrah, and when they come in, I am outta here. It looks like the satellite signal is gone too...my little icon on the toolbar is looking ominous. That means I may not be able to post this....and if I lose the whole thing, I'll scream. I'm going to leave it be and see what happens. Blessings.