Picnic memories

Jaiden and I were at the park on Friday and I got to thinking about picnics and what sort of memories she'll have when she's an adult ... what sort of memories my kids might have ... and the one I have.

I remember as a child, going on picnics quite often with my parents. The one, clearly defined memory is about the red plaid bag that was our "picnic bag". I think it was vinyl, I know it was red and maybe black plaid. And inside were red plastic boxes that got filled with all the goodies. I'm pretty sure there was a red thermos also ... but that's a bit fuzzy.

My mom would always pack those boxes (and they were sort of the size of shoe boxes, if my memory is accurate) with sandwiches or fried chicken ... celery with peanut butter or cheese ... bananas ... almost anything easy to eat with your fingers. :)

I try to think about my kids and what sort of "traditions" we might have had or that they remember ... guess I'll have to ask them some day soon!

ARGH !!!

So I spent about two hours last night trying to figure out why the heck the font changes in the posts and why I can't seem to get it to be the same throughout the blog ... and I give up! It makes no sense so I'm releasing the need to have it be orderly and allowing it to have the mind of it's own it seems to be demanding! lol

Rain has finally managed to stop for at least a while. Yesterday and today were relatively nice days. Tomorrow I'm taking my mom and our 3 yr old grand daughter Jaiden to see the movie How to Train Your Dragon. From what I hear it's supposed to be an awesome movie so I can't wait. I'll let you know how we liked it soon!

Rain rain go away!

That's a song "the girls" and I used to sing all the time. Only we'd insert their names ... rain rain go away, Jaiden wants to go out and play! Lately it seems as if the rain is never really going to end. I know that in a few weeks, probably we'll be wishing it would cool off and rain again ... but for now??

Not so much. lol

We missed our last trip to Winnemucca because of the weather. Somehow, driving up over Donner Summit and the thought of having to chain up not only the truck ... but the trailer ... made wimps out of us all. Not to mention the possibility of actually spending the whole weekend in the trailer because it was either snowing or raining the whole time. Now we're going to try for the end of this month and see what happens.

All this rain has sure made our grass grow ... and grow ... and grow! I don't think it's ever been this green this late in the season. Our irrigation water is due to start in the next week and Lord only knows we don't need it at the moment. :D The horses are really enjoying the benefit of the weather. Lots of grass in the unused pasture(s) for them to chow down on. It's nice to feel like our "pasture ornaments" are serving at least some purpose other than decorative.

Trying something new!

I've been tinkering around with things on this blog and I think I've managed to make a slide show of family pictures. lol

Family slide show (Okay so you actually have to click on the button upper left to start a slide show. lol So much for thinking I'd figured out something cool. )

Today Howard's home on a furlough Friday and we have Jaiden and Charlie here. He's entertaining them with songs from Mama Mia. For some reason the little kids LOVE dancing and hopping around to the music from that awesome movie. That's left me with some time to play around with this blog thing. lol

After all the learning I did with html years ago, this seems far to easy and yet almost as perplexing to learn as the html was in the beginning. I remember Howard taking me to a book store to find a book on html. He handed me HTML for Dummies and told me to just open it and read a page. If it made sense and I thought I could understand it, that would be the book for me. I did as instructed ... looked up and my darling hubby and said, "Find me the book HTML for Morons, because I don't understand any of this!"

We eventually found me a book full of pictures. Pictures are good when they show you what you "should" be seeing. I realize now everything I know about computers I've learned on my own basically. Trial and error seem to be my mode of learning. My very first experiences with a computer were on a laptop that had no hard drive and everything had to be saved onto floppy disks. There were many many phone calls to Howard "Honey, I was trying to do this ... and here's what happened ... how do I fix it?" lol Poor Howard!

Anyway, kids are clambering to go to the park now so my time here is done for now. It's a beautiful sunny day so we're going to enjoy it completely!

Time flies, eh?

So, it's official and I apparently suck at keeping this updated. Perhaps now that it's the new year I'll work harder and making it a fun place to be.

Right now my heart is just to heavy to succeed at that and since it's late I'm headed to bed. Suffice it to say, sometimes you're the bug and sometimes you're the windshield ... and lately it seems I'm a bit buggy.

It's raining ...

Our first winter storm is here ... well fall storm, I guess. I'm wondering how this winter is going to be with kids in the house every day. lol How long will grandma stay sane? The blend of these kids is interesting to say the least. I marvel sometimes at how different my approach is compared to how I raised my kids ... I wish I'd been more "mature" when I had my kids ... maybe I wouldn't have broken so many wooden spoons. hahaha

This weekend we're planning a trip to Moonrocks, a place outside of Reno with Emily and Mikaela and the toys. It's hard to stay hopeful with so much wind and rain though. This is a new place and there's not as much sand as Sand Mountain or Winnemucca so we won't need to borrow Lesley and Bryce's truck ... but all this rain could make it difficult if it turned the roads to mud. We're keeping our fingers crossed, that's for sure!

Here's what our front yard looks like ... good thing we have a canoe, eh?

Melancholy time of year ...

This has been a difficult time of year for me for about the last 30 some odd years. It's never been a favorite time season wise for me because spring and summer were always my seasons. It wasn't until about 15 years ago that I found out that I'm one of those who are affected by the lack of sun throughout winter.

But 32 years ago my father passed away. It was and still is, the hardest thing I've ever tried to live through and recover from. I also lost my first horse in September. That was pretty devastating also. Add all those separate things together and it makes it easier to understand why this time of year brings about a case of melancholy for me.

My dad used to call this feeling the mully grumps. Mully grumps were something where you're just sad and a little lost. Sometimes you don't know why and that makes it very hard to understand where the feeling(s) come from ... sometimes you do know but it's still hard to understand.

This year is one of the years where I find myself having a true case of the mully grumps. I just got a phone call from my very best friend in the world that her husband isn't doing well. He's been battling health issues for the last few years and has given her (and me) a few scares ... but really had seemed to be holding his own more recently. So her phone call Sunday was an unwelcome bit of news. She was so upset ... scared ... lost ... worried about him ... worried about herself ... and I find myself totally falling back into old patterns.

I want to fix this for her.

I need to make it better and ease her worries. I find myself sleepless at night because ... I'm very sure ... I can't fix it. All I can do is be here ... try to be strong for her ... and love her. Do you ever wonder if that's enough? I do ... all the time.

I read an article in People magazine about Patrick Swayze. What a heroic person he was. He lived his life his way, right up to the end. My heart aches for what his wife Lisa must be going through right now. How incredibly strong she must be to have stood beside him throughout his illness ... how wonderfully blessed they were to have had each other.

It makes me take stock of my life ... my loved ones ... my husband. Does he know how much I love and depend on him for his strength ... his love ... his friendship. Times like this make me think about his parents and their health ... how frail they seem this year. Their 60th wedding anniversary is next week and I can't imagine what it must be like to have lived with someone that long. Howard and I are at 37 years, and I can't even begin to picture a life without him.

Where does the strength come from? Will I have the courage and faith that Patrick Swayze's wife does? That Howard's parents have?

The mully grumps ... they are visiting again. Maybe it's time to give them a new name.