Happy Birthday Dad!!

Well, as I sit here thinking of how to form my thoughts into sentences, I am looking at Tori sleeping on the couch and listening to Izzy snore on his pillow... Izzy is worn out today from all his exercise last night at the Zim/Zob wiener roast.  My cousins girls thoroughly enjoyed him and he can always use the exercise :)  .  Each of my parents only have one sibling, I have an Uncle on each side - and not Aunts other than their wives, which are Aunts but only by marriage, not Aunt aunts... you know... so my number of cousins is limited.  I have 2 living first cousins on my Dad's side, and 5 on my Mom's side. that's it!  7 cousins.   Last night those that were able to be there lined up for a picture like we used to at Christmas, in front of the fireplace, when we were little.  As we stood there it seemed like such a small group of people for being mostly of all of my cousins... we were only short by one who couldn't make it and one who is in heaven.  It is amazing how much of a hole one missing person makes.

We gathered in the basement and watched a dvd of a collection of home movies that my uncle had taken over the years...  it was amazing to see great aunts and grandparents and loved ones that have since become memories...  it doesn't seem that long ago!  Pictures of downtown Eureka how I remember it was as a kid, all the different stores that were there that are now long gone away... life just keeps moving and I feel like I forget to enjoy it sometimes.  Looking at my parents when they were the age that I am now... that's weird!!  I have been telling my kids that I remember when my dad was the age that I will be turning in December... he could add his digits and make my age...  when he was 41 I was 5...etc. it worked thru his 40's . 

Today is my Dad's 81st birthday, I found him a card that had a newspaper, slippers, and a mug on the front.  It reminded me of when I was little and I would go get him his slippers and then I would sit on his lap in his lazyboy chair and he would go through the funnies and read me each one and we would laugh about them together.  He would fix his tea with sweetner stir it and tap the spoon on the rip of the cup 3 times then set the spoon aside.  ... :) that part annoyed my Mom, she never could figure out why he needed to clink his spoon, "there isn't that much tea on it, just set it beside it... "   haha   they didn't bicker, but I remember that annoying her... :)  When you spend an evening looking back at life from your childhood, the good times, the happy times - jumping out of boxes with your cousin for your grandpa's birthday...  it makes me wonder if I am cherishing my time with my family enough, I'm sure I'm not... I don't know if you can cherish it enough.... Happy Birthday Dad!

so it's been a long time...

ok, so it's been a long time since I got this thing going.... Whittney thought she was 'all about it' when she set up a blog and I said "yea, I got one..." ..."you have a blog??! was her reply...

thought maybe I would check up on it and throw in a word or two.  It seemed kind of daunting to add a post before, but now they have this email thing that I'm trying and I can send it by text from my phone now too.... so, maybe it will be a bit easier to do a update now and again. 

There is too much to try to catch up, so maybe it is better to just make a 'fresh start' and go from there.  

I took a day off today to try to catch a few things up computer things like the e mail to calendar kind of things and I figure I could toss in something that I enjoy too...

We went camping over the long weekend so there is laundry in and things to put away.  It was a beautiful weekend! we had a few things to come back in for, so it wasn't total relaxing, but still fun and still a get away from house stuff... 

Looks like it is time to call it fall though, I pulled the pump from my -puddle of a- pond, and moved my container plants to the proch for now,  so it can frost/freeze now.  I'm ready to be inside and not keep up the outside anymore.  My gardening drive has seemed to decrease these last few years, we took out a huge portion of flower gardens this year and it felt good.  One less thing on the To-Do list.  I'm ready to  make some soup and cornbread and, in a month or so, a fire in the fireplace...

Well, things to get done...