FOR ALL I HAVE....I AM THANKFUL

To all my friends and family and anyone else who might stumble across this blog....may you have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving. May you know that you are exactly where you are meant to be right now and that even if you don't think you have much, you really have soooo much. There is someone out there in much greater need than you are. Even with all the craziness going on these days....Life is good. When you sit down to whatever is your traditional (or new) Thanksgiving meal, take a few moments to think about the ones who can only dream about what is on your plate. When you pass by the oven or the heater vent or the fireplace and feel the warmth today (or if you're in the south and you have the air conditioning on)....think about the ones who long to even have a roof over their heads. At least for today, don't grumble, be happy, smile and enjoy the people around you. And remember that way up here in Maine, someone is thinking about you.

To Mother, Daddy, Shelley, Earl, Lisa, Brian, Ashley, Matt...... Melissa, Jimmy, Ryan, Matt, Ashley...... Michelle, Zach, Mitchell..... Gene and Marie..... JoAnn......Paul, Carol, Kathy and her family, Jeff, Suzanne......all my extended family and friend..... and most especially to John....I love you and I am thankful you are a part of my life.

Have a beautiful day!

"Take Time To Be Thankful"

Southern Comfort, Northern Cold, Much Thankfulness and A Little Frustration!

I guess it's true.....you can take the girl out of the South, but you cannot take the south out of the girl. To my pure delight as I was strolling in the grocery store down the cereal isle.....way down on the bottom shelf (trying to look inconspicuous) and hiding behind the "Old Fashion Oat Meal" was a box of GRITS !! Oh be still my heart!!!! I've been here in Maine a little over 2 years and I have not had grits since we stopped at a Crackle Barrel restaurant on our 4 day trip driving here from San Antonio, Texas. It would be a total total total understatement to say that people in New England do not eat grits........in fact I joke with John sometimes that it's like the judge in the movie "My Cousin Vennie" when the judge asks Joe Pesci..."What's a grit?" John makes the most awful face when I even talk about grits (he did try them once and needless to say...once was enough for him)..........but it is never 'once is enough' for me. I love grits! I like them cooked in the morning as a cereal with butter, sugar and milk. Now that my friends, to a little gal who spent most of her life in Texas and was born in New Orleans, is pure delightful southern comfort.

Ummm Ummm Ummm Ummm Ummm! I think I'll have a bowl tomorrow morning because it's warm and yummy on cold mornings....and land sakes alive.....are we having cold mornings...in the 20's with wind chills in the teens. The weatherman says we are having January weather in November. That's an understatement, but not a surprise to me. The Farmer's Almanac says our area is to be much colder and get more snow in the next couple of months than we did last year......and even Mainers who have lived here all their lives would say we had tons of snow last year. But I think it is all relative. There are people here and across the United States and I imagine the world for that matter who love snow and all the fun activities it brings with it. We always say Maine has the most beautiful weather except for the 4 months when it's so cold and snowy..............but then right down in San Antonio, my sweet Daddy has said, "the weather in San Antonio is great....except for the 4 months when it's so brutally hot". So to each his own. We all have some give and take. That's what makes the world interesting.

This morning the mums, with flora and foliage now frozen close to resembling only dead weeds in a pot, took a much needed hike to the back woods of our land and the pumpkins that have made our front porch "festively fall" and "autumny" will be split in half and laid out in those same woods to make lots of little creatures happy and lots of little tummies full. By the end of the week the indoor "Indian Corn", "Fake Autumn Leaves", and " Pumpkin and Spice Flavored Candles" will be put back in the box in the basement labeled "Fall Decorations" and we will have a couple of weeks of 'just normal' living room and dining room before the Christmas decorations go up.....and those will be few. John and I are of the common agreement that "less is more". We like simple, plain and orderly.....I like to call it quiet elegance. It drives us both nuts that lots of stores already had Christmas things out before Halloween was over and the radio stations are already playing Christmas songs. But I guess that is all relative too. I think as we grow older one of the main things on our minds is thinking of all the ways we can slow time down......and having to think about Christmas at the end of October is not one of those ways. (Although, I'll have to admit, I like to get my shopping done early and have in years past had it all done and wrapped by the weekend after Thanksgiving).....I am not a fight the crowds for last minute gifts type of person! But on the other hand, the little ones can't wait and the longer they can think about it and have time to hint what they want Santa to bring, the better.

John and I have talked a lot lately about how lucky we are....to have found each other (although I think God put John and I where he wanted us to be at just the time we needed to be there and made the rest of our story unfold the way it did and continues to do....I'm not much of a believer in luck. I think 'things' happen for a reason and there is a much bigger picture (that we may never fully understand) called "life" that is guided by a greater being. But luck or fate or whatever it is....we are ever mindful of the blessings we have. We are ever aware of how many people---right here in this little village we live in (and all over the world), are overwhelmed with the needs they have of putting food on the table, how they are going to heat their homes and clothe their children, how they are going to pay the bills or get medicine and health care.

As Thanksgiving approaches we hope you will all join us in taking time to be thankful for the things you have (however great or small they are).

As Christmas approaches we struggle with what to get each other because there's not a lot we really need or want.....perhaps because we're lucky, perhaps because we're older and material things are not important.....we have our health, a warm home and food on our table.....but most importantly we have each other and for that we are thankful.....at Thanksgiving, at Christmas time and all through the year.

I always love the song that says: "It's not the things you do at Christmas time, but the Christmas things you do all year through".....and the other song that says "To love and be loved is the greatest gift of all".

So with thoese thoughts in mind, if you read the title of this post, you must be wondering what the "little frustration" is............well the day I started writing this post (*I never seem to get them written in one setting)....I was trying to connect my work laptop to my home wireless connection....cannot for the life of me get it hooked up!!!! Still can't....But in the whole scheme of things, that's all it is .....a little frustration....to be dealt with another day.

Oh and one more thing I have to be thankful for......I now have a new "Northern Comfort"....a big steaming bowl of haddock chowder....or as we say it up here....haddock chowda....Yum Yum Yum!

Take care and I'll write more soon!

John and turning 60....a delight!

And so the lovely Sunday dinner with the girls and the beautiful flowers from my other sweet kids were followed by a surprise dinner on Tuesday night....with John offering to take me to Macaroni Grill and us getting there only to find he had invited several of our closest friends to join us. I was delightfully surprised...good friends, good food, wonderful man! That was followed on the actual day (*the 12th) with a dinner cooked for me and presents....I met this man at a distance and took a leap of faith to move 2000 miles to be with him and everyday, I am reminded of what a right and wonderful decision that was. I love you John!

Too Sexy to be Sixty....OH PLEEEZE!!

I guess there is no more denying it now. The official beginning of the "celebrations" has begun as Sunday my two step-daughters and their children came over to help me celebrate early and today the most gorgeous huge bouquet of flowers arrived from my step-son and daughter-in-law........

.....Celebrate what you ask???

Well I guess I must fess up....Tomorrow....Wednesday, the 12th of November is my birthday.....and this one is a real toughie...OyVay!

I was born in 1948....so you figure it out!!

I told the girls earlier that no other birthdays had bothered me until this one and I'm just plumb exasperated about it! There's just no way I can be 60! How did that happen? Why I feel like it couldn't have been more than a few years ago that I was giggling with my high school girlfriends as we all swooned over some 16 year old boy who looked like Elvis in our chemistry class. But then I guess reality sets in when you realize that your next High School reunion will be the 45th! Yikes!....and your step-son who was also born in an "8" year ('68) turned 40 this year!!!! Oh my gosh!!

I got the most beautiful flowers from my wonderful step-son and his sweet wife and the girls and grand kids gave me a beautiful snowman light, Willow Tree angel carving and a coffee cup that proudly says "Too Sexy to be Sixty". Ha! Ha! If only that were true....I'll be the first to admit gravity crept up behind me some time ago and attacked me when I wasn't looking.

I will wait until tomorrow to open John's presents which he's got all wrapped with riddle clues on them.........something we do for all our gifts, but I can never figure out his clues....it's like my mind goes blank, no matter how many times I read the clues. It isn't until I open the present that I then go.....ohhhhh ....now I get it!! I'm told the girls came upstairs on Sunday and read the riddles and guessed them right off, first guess......I guess my 60 year old mind is a little slow.

My sweet daddy always says you know you're old when no one living is twice your age....and more recently he says ....you know you're old when your "baby" daughter is turning 60.

60 is a real turning of the corner in my book. Not all sad though....just kind of brings you into another mindset. Finally, if you're lucky by sixty you have all (or most) of your finances figured out. By sixty, you're at least thinking about retirement and lately wishing the stock market would level out or go back up so you could take it (retirement) sooner than later. By sixty you've gone over or at least started that " Bucket List" (things I'd like to do before I kick the bucket). By sixty you realize that the younger generation thinks a lot different than you do or did at their age. At sixty, all of a sudden, music seems to get very loud and it almost feels like a warm blanket laid on your shoulders when you hear an old Sinatra song played on the radio....and you feel young and full of vinegar when the the Beach Boys or the Beetles come on. Because you have no idea who or what Coldplay does.....you felt sad when you heard Paul Newman passed away, but you've never heard of Golshifteh Farahani or why her body lies???

I vaguely know what an Ipod is and have no clue how they get all that music in that tiny flat case. At sixty I don't know how to text on my phone and for that matter worry too much that it would only cause more pain in the thumbs of these already arthritic hands! And at 60, you finally realize what your parents have meant for so many years when they say "I really don't want anything for Christmas"....just seeing you is present enough. "

But all those somewhat funny negatives aside, 60 is really not so bad. I was 54 when I lost my husband to emphysema and was diagnosed with breast cancer a week after (all in all a really sad hard time in my life). But now I'm going to be 60.....cancer free for 6 years and with old special memories tucked safely away....I've started a new life with a wonderful man who is a pure delight and means the world to me.

At 60 I find I really do care about who gets elected president and vice president and even though our choices both brought a series of questions and issues....I'm not ashamed to voice, that in my opinion, the right team won. And at 60 (although I think I've always known this) I truly understand that what's most important in this life is family and friends and health.....and not the money or the job title or the kind of car you drive.

One of my step-daughter's wrote in her card "60 is just a number"....and that's pretty much true.

Today I don't have much I regret...(except perhaps, as it's always been, that I never had a child of my own)....but my step-son, daughter-in-law and my two new step-daughters have taken me in as though they were my own.....and at 60 that's a great feeling. I do have a touch of arthritis in my fingers. I do color my hair so the gray doesn't show through. It takes me a little longer to do things and I still hate it when I walk all the way downstairs and can't remember what I wanted in the kitchen drawer.....and I laught when I walk up those stairs and look forward to the ranch condo we may someday own.

I read somewhere that, 'It's not the years in your life that matter, it's the life in your years'.
And if that's true, then life is just beginning!

Like the poet Jean Paul says. " Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright the longer we live, and the reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious, and the crooked paths look straighter as we approach the end. "

I think I shall look at it like this "60" .....doesn't it kind of look like the word "GO" .... as in "go for the gold"...."keep on going".....go for the gusto....go...go...go! It's nice to be at an age where you can go for the things that really bring you pleasure, that have real meaning, that keep you excited about life, and yet be at the age where you truly do have time to stop now and then and smell the roses and ponder thoughts and laugh at the new gadgets that kids use and have never been without, but are a total mystery to you. And then being a "Baby Boomer"....I guess we can't forget the words of the Beatles song:

When I get older losing my hair,

Many years from now.

Will you still be sending me a valentine

Birthday greetings-- bottle of wine.

If I'd been out till quarter to three,

Would you lock the door;

Will you still need me,

Will you still feed me,

When I'm sixty-four.

Heck I'm just turning 60......Life is pretty wonderful these days....and 60 is just a number...........so maybe in some hysterical way...I am "Too Sexy to be Sixty"!!!

Time keeps on slipping away....

Hang tight.....I'll be back....promise! :)