Time

I often find myself wasting time and that goes against my philosophical outlook. Rationally, I understand that there are only 24 hours in the day and that every moment you let escape is one you can never again have. Yet I use my time so poorly. Part of it is that I don't like a lot of structure. I like to to have wiggle room (on my own terms, of course, please don't subject me to your needs for wiggle room). I find that the more things I have to do in a day, the shorter my temper and the more tense I become. Maybe it's because I'm inherently selfish and just want to do what I want to do. . . . Yeah, that's probably it.

I keep thinking about learning more on the computer so I can make my blog cuter or get into Beulah's stuff and find out what she's doing, but again that requires time and discipline. And I find that when I'm trying to make things cute on the computer I really want to start from scratch and do it all my own way, which takes FOREVER of course. (I once spent I don't know how many hours trying to make a newsletter cute, and in the end it would have been so much nicer and quickly done if I just used an available templete.) I think I have a need to create that I simply have to channel into something that is practical and useful.

On another note, the funeral for my grandma was lovely. It was so good to see all the family, and I really enjoyed hearing everyone talk about what a great lady she was. I kept seeing the RS ladies darting back and forth with food, working and cleaning to make sure everything was nice. As we were eating, it occured to me that everything I put in my mouth was made by someone who donated their time and substance out of love, and I felt so grateful and resolved that from now on, when there are funerals happening I will be sure to bring something.

Twila, Part 2

Well, I got the call this morning that my grandma passed away last night. I know she is in a better place and with her family and friends who went before her. I want to just share a few memories and thoughts: Whenever she and Grandpa would come down to my childhood home in San Diego, she would make Cream Puffs and fill them full with vanilla pudding. She gave us coins from her purse. When my younger brother's leg was broken and he was confined to a body cast, she made tapes of herself reading books so he could listen to them (I would listen, too, of course). She wrote me faithfully while we lived in Scotland and I was lonely for correspondence. She made fun salads with baby shrimp and jello. I spent most of my Thanksgivings while I was at college with her and Grandpa, and she would always make a good meal and then hurry to clean it up--without the benefit of a dishwasher. Before we ate Grandpa would always look at her and say, "Well, I suppose I ought to say it," and she would look at him with a feigned reservation and say, "I suppose you should," and then he'd say, "Well, it's good to get a square meal for once." She liked to make cookies and peanut brittle at Christmas. She liked looking after her those who were in need and would pick up the mail for her ailing neighbors. The last few years before she left her home in Downey she would bake angel food cakes for funerals. She claimed to buy them by the case. She and Grandpa were always busy in the shop, making things for people--building desks, beds, shelves, and blocks. Whenever we visited her in her new home, the kids would always get out the blocks to play and she'd look at them and say, "That was a good toy that we made. I don't know how many hundreds of boxes of blocks we made out in the shop." She was proud and grateful for her children and she especially liked Husband, because he would always help clean up after meals without being asked. She didn't care much about material things and was generous her substance. She liked to go for rides in the car and enjoyed doing word search puzzles. She crocheted when she was younger and made afgans and rugs. She was always cheerful and fun to visit, and had a paper taped to her wall that said "I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition." What a wonderful lady, the world needs more like her.

Twila

I've been thinking about my grandma again. My dad explains that she is lost in time and space, and whenever he says that it makes me think about her floating around in a black cosmos studded with with stars. She gets increasingly confused about where she is and when she is and forgets who's alive and who's dead. And yet she can be such a pleasure to visit with. The children just nod and smile when she asks them for the fifth time how their summer vacation is, but she always shows such interest in them and chuckles with pleasure to see Goose doing her cute two-year-old things. She's been sick this week and who knows how much more time she has here. The thing about Grandma is that the vast majority of her life she has been so helpful and energetic and contributing. She has done so much good to her family and neighbors. Old age seems so unfair in the things that it takes from people.

Special Thoughts from My Children

"When I say you're fat, I don't mean 'fat.' I mean dumb, boring, and fat."--Beulah
"This is so hot that it feels cold."--Cheeseball
"Goose's gerbil does half the pooping so she has do half the work cleaning the cage."--Janey
Some history here. I first say, 'T-Bone, why is it that all your school writing is about PlayStation. "I didn't do my first draft of the story about PlayStation; it was about Gameboy."--T-Bone
"I want my gerbil RIGHT NOWWWWWWWWW!"--Goose

Cough up the crown and nobody gets hurt

Goose likes to quote lines from her favorite movie, Scooby Doo in Where's My Mummy? The above is an example, but she also says, "Out of the sandbox kids, playtime is over!" Sometimes she mixes the two and says, "Out of the sandbox and nobody gets hurt!"


Last night we watched the first four episodes of 24 off of the FOX-TV website. I can't believe how fast it went. It was fun. I forgot that I heard that Tony the Tiger (or Le Tigre, as I like to call him) was going to be back. The freckled FBI babe is way too cute and I wish she'd get wiped out but I have a feeling that she's in for the long haul. (Poor Edgar wasn't)

Well, Costco remains my favorite place; they are paying for all the labor and parts on our lame Philips TV.
We also finally got our door fixed on the minivan. (along with the handle on the hatch, which just broke, and also replaced our taillight which had been hit by Anonymous last year.)
I went to Target this morning and made the important decision that just because something is marked down 75% doesn't mean I should buy it.

Headaches, Broken Things, and Tickets

This has not been my most cheerful week. I usually never have headaches and the past week or two, I've had to take ibuprofen 3 times for headaches (compare with normally 3 times a year). I'm not sure if it's stress or if it's the colds I've had. On another note, our LCD tv (Philips)abruptly stopped working last week. It flashes a long red light and then two short red lights. Apparently, it's some sort of trouble shooting code. The problem is, Philips DOESN'T PUBLISH THEIR CODES PUBLICLY! So we have to pay someone to go "look up" the code to tell us what's wrong. Now maybe every other brand in the industry is the same way, but I think it's completely dishonest and lousy of them to not tell the owners of their products how to figure out what is wrong with them. I will never purchase from Philips again, rest assured. (not to mention that the tv was a mere 19 months old. We had our previous tv 10 years and we only got rid of it because we bought the bigger one and I didn't want two tvs in our home.) Our van hatch handle broke yesterday and now the only way to open the trunk of the minivan is to send out Husband with a screwdriver. We'll have to bring it into the shop next week, I guess. Our vacuum broke last week (because I whacked it because it had clogged up and stopped spinning again, even though I had just cleared it out.) And one of our kids stepped in a kitchen drawer and broke it. Our computer was not turning on but thankfully husband was able to fix it by removing some broken parts out of a USB port.
To make our week even better, we received a ticket in the mail courtesy of a speed enforcement camera, which accused us going 70 in a 55 zone (of course, that was when we were merging onto the freeway; we we're always going with the flow of traffic).
So I've been a bit grumpy. I hope my next post will be more cheerful.

A New Year

Yesterday Husband decided he wanted to go sledding. It took a little doing to rally the troops but finally everyone was dressed and ready to go. I was planning to stay home with Goose and Beulah, but as I looked around I saw that Goose was getting her boots on and she was talking about going. I realized that I don't have to be a stick in the mud all the time (the note about me that says "I'm a free wheeling mama" is quite tongue in cheek) and that I could actually go and watch her so that we could both participate with the family. We drove around and around and around and finally settled on a hill by a church which had about a dozen people (including little kids) going down a little slope. We have 3 two-person sleds, and I insisted that Goose could go down only with Husband. I also decided that I was too chicken to go down by myself, so I joined up with Janey, and T-Bone and Cheeseball went down together. I can't believe how fast we went as we headed down the hill. I had to close my eyes and pray that I wouldn't die. (And Husband told me later that we were on the "slow" sled.) We all went down several times and Janey and T-Bone both went off the jump (T-Bone had was unfortunately thrown off his sled, but he was okay), I went down once with Rob and Goose, and once with Cheeseball. (I kept telling him I was scared to go down with me being the person who was supposed to be in charge but he assured me we'd be okay.) It was so fun. Goose had a great time. She kept throwing herself down on the sled as if she could just will it to move by being on top of it (she is used to getting her own way, after all).