Most Viewed Family Blogs (545)

I spent a few days including Valentine's Day with my Mom. She took a fall that sent her to the hospital for a few days over a week ago. My daughter had been staying with her but wanted to see her boyfriend for the weekend so I went a stayed. I had a great time. Mom looks like a mummy all bandaged up but she is getting around. She didn't trip this fall, she fainted due to her blood pressure medicine never getting lowered to agree with the weight loss since Dad's illness then the panademic. She is certainly getting better everyday insisting on bringing Dad home. I'm just taking it a day at a time and I"M FINE.

We spent a lot of time going down memory lane, there was lots of laughter. Her phone is crazy nuts riinging with people checking on her.

Anyways back to the point of the title. In my family we kiss hello, we kiss goodbye, we say I love you with every goodbye especially on the phone, all phone calls end with I Love You, even before I go to bed in Mom or Son's house we kiss goodnight and say I Love you. I'm sure many families are that way, if not then I'm sorry.

Twice now I've said I Love you when I didn't mean to say it. Once to my boss who called to scold me and at the end of the call I said I Love you or maybe it was an email - either way the boss said right back "I love you" I was red with embarrasment, still it was funny.

We have a grocery delivery service here called InstaCart. I order groceries a lot and did so from Mom's. Rarely is there a mistake but this last time there was. I called to get credit (customer service is great), once I got the credit and was ready to hang up I said, "I Love You" BLUSH to a deep 50 shades of red!
I apologize then explained my accident and the rep laughed and said "I Love you too"

I just love being a crazy old lady that can laugh at myself. Life is good and

I do love you.

All day yesterday I kept thinking if we can make it one more week without any tragedy, we can make it through this holiday. Last night my bro calls to say Aunt Carire passed at her kitchen table, she put her head down and without any prior heart trouble she succumbed to a massive heart attack. What a great way to go if one were to get to pick. She is my last Aunt, her husband which is Dad's brother was expected to go first since he is in the final stages of cancer, wasn't meant to be. He will probably follow shortly though. I feel so bad for Daddy.

I've watched both my folks watch each of their sibling pass. I myself have never lost a sibling (to death) but I imagine it is excrutiating, at least it will be if I ever have to go through it. Selfishly I hope I'm the first to go.

/sigh - It's this life drama one cannot avoid but my family will all come together to plow through it. This is why I'm so happy I rarely have to deal with trivial drama caused by people with the inability to find inner peace and need chaos. Not for me.

the more strident of the domestic violence workers were publishing pamplets claiming that over 95% of such criminal activity was perpetuated by men. These would be the typical obese, unloved, angry, saggy, shagged out old mares, with histories of their own abuse, never resolved therapeutically, who tend to staff such "womens' " centers. And it's true. In heterosexual intimate partner violence, men tend to do more assaulting. Of course, among lesbians, it's a moot issue, except that their rates of IPV are sky high. Less so in poofter pairs. But as soon as mothers' abuse of their own children began to get included in more valid statistics, the alleged 95% dropped closer to 50-50, Don't take my word for it. Happy Mothers' Day to all grounded decent moms. Aa.

My grandivas are in their mid to late twenties now. One of my cutest memories from when they were in elementary school is about the time texting began. The girls got phones and I got a text at work from the oldest one. I texted back and for a few text we enjoyed each other. Then it occured to me she turned me into the little girl I once was passing notes in elemetary school. Neither of us was supposed to be texting from school or work but there we were both being kids.

Now she is a flight attendant, today in Amerstdam posting photos on FB showing how happy she is. Yesterday she face timed me while she was doing her make up. She was cute as hell when the phone call started but then as she piled crap (makeup) on her face, did her cheeks, eyebrows, lashes, then fixed her hair all while face timeing she ended up looking like she belonged on a magazine that would give every man a boner. She always let me know how she was having fun being single but now she has a boyfriend for two months.

My first question was "good sex?" and she said yes. Funny question from a grandma but tough if anyone has a problem with that.

Do you think being prepared for death of a dear one is easier than it happening unexpectedly? Maybe
In my experience life blindsided me in my youth 3 times from late teens to early twenties with the sudden death of my 3.5 month old son, a 29 yr. old husband and the murder of my biological mom when she was 39 yrs. (all within a 3 yr. period) Not getting into the details of the emotional. It’s as harsh as it gets but you eventually keep moving forward.

In my experience I’ve also learned that waiting on someone to die is the longest wait to endure. My Dad has had a very rewarding long life at 93 or 96, can’t remember now he is one of the living Dead. Will his eventual death hurt as the ones that blindsided me when I was younger? My guess is it won’t be as agonizing. This watching him die also lets me watch how much Mom and him still love each other. Yesterday was their 66th anniversary – WOW huh. It’s a long time to love.

I love “the Love” my folks have even though they are each other’s third marriage. I only get to experience that kind of love with a dog and it’s a wonderful love. My little dog Bella has been by my side 24/7 for 16 yrs. (she made it to 18 yrs. Old). I watched the end coming which is hard enough seeing them lose their abilities. I’ve wished many times at the end of my pets’ life they would go in their sleep but always dealt the card to make the decision when their life quality is gone.

It was a harsh goodbye. Every time I leave the house I try to grab her and in an instant the finality of the reality flashes. Heart hurts like hell but the rest of me is actually great. My mind is in constant thought of the gazillion wonderful memories to be thankful for. The pain of the loss is SO WORTH all the years of LOVE.

The global meltdown of 2007 to 2011 (Part 4, my saga as a cancer survivor)

Just when you think you're on top of the world, you're life comes crushing down with so high a voltage you'd feel better off without surviving it.

That's exactly how I felt when right about 2007, January to be exact, we were trying to sell the house that we bought two years before and couldn't fetch a single offer considering how it's located in one of the best area in Sonoma County. Located on a street that's not busy and with a view of the city, it was a very surprising discovery. Unlike in 2005 when we sold our house that I had it built to my specs including the quality of the carpet and my walked in closet, people were actually waiting on the lawn to make a bid just to be the next owner. Surprisingly, we sold it way more than what we expected. Even though it's location is of prime value, very near St. Eugene's where we belong amongst other 6,000 parishioners and where my son attends, we had to sell it because we needed a bigger house for my growing lovely children. Time changed and the economic downturn of the US was deeply felt especially by me when we couldn't get any offer on this house in 2007.

To get the story short, my husband and I felt the first wave of this global downturn right off the bat. It didn't feel too grievous and we thought it'd be temporary. Our family situation was changed dramatically the year before as my husband and I decided that one of us must stop working in order to continue and maintain our children's much needed guidance. We both agreed that I'd be full time since I was making a bit more than him and my job didn't require us to relocate to the West Coast where he was working as an engineer at the well known and historical Granite Rock in Aromas.

For lack of hindsight, we never foresee that the world was in the brink of another economic fall out akin to that of 1939.

Compounded by my relentless desire to provide my children a very ideal school and growing environment, I failed to see that our family that was solid rock both professionally and economically will soon to collapse. It did. Although we lost almost 60 grand, we were able to sell it and moved on. It caused a lot of dent on my 401k but survived.

Through the invitation of my niece we moved to Bakersfield. We could buy a house in a gated community twice the size of that from the North Bay and half the mortgage. We were happy . Sold BMWs while my husband worked again and was offered a better position and quite paid better than his last job. Lo and behold, we'll soon find out our situation got worse because the house we just bought of 300 hundred grand became half of the value by 2009. Devastated and angry. Bitterly regretful and helpless, we got divorced. A most painful experience. The acceptance of what to be salvaged is far worse than to end it all. At least that's how I felt but it didn't dwell on me that long. I found inspiration on the fact that my children are so grown up and my only son seems out of the danger of being hauled into the road of drugs and other dangerous vices. I found solace in being single and committed to make my life better in spite of the adversaries the whole world was experiencing. I resorted into writing poems about my life from when I was young to the present. The internet played a great role on this new venture. I joined in the web and found solace on writing all my frustrations, disappointments and failures. I was beginning to see how my life was profoundly changing and I needed to be stronger than I ever was. Especially now that my cancer came back. That was in October of 2010.

To be continued. Thanks all for reading.

Note: my personal blog

When my son Steven was about 3 months old, we went to a Roy Rogers restaurant for some lunch. To my left sat a rather old woman in her 80's. My wife was holding our son and I could see the old woman looking at him admiringly. I'm pretty good at reading peoples faces and it was obvious to me that she was remembering the days long past when she had her own babies. My wife apparently saw it too. I looked at my wife and cocked my head toward the woman and without saying a word my wife nodded approvingly. I stood up and took Steven from my wife and gave him to the woman not uttering a word.

The woman seemed to come alive with a huge smile and said “Oh my, I haven't smelled a baby in soooo long!” She was of course referring to the talcum powder and baby shampoo. She lovingly held Steven in her arms and he looked into her eyes probably wondering who was this strange person holding him. Steven was unlike a lot of babies who easily get intimidated by strangers so I had no fear that he would start screaming when I passed him to this old woman. We let her hold him for about 10 minutes while we ate our lunch. She thanked us for a priceless gift, a trip back in time to when she was a new mother.

I often think about this moment and it never fails to stir me emotionally with a feeling of pride for being perceptive and brave enough to hand over my baby to a complete stranger. Doubtless this woman carried that memory to her grave.

Hello everyone
No offense please!
Only NEW YORK will answer my ads.
It’s hard to find relastionship outside area.you know, there’s a lot of reason to that. Hope u understand. Good luck to all of us finding our soulmate. TC

A while back, my old washing machine died. I decided to replace it with an HE (High Efficiency) washing machine. These washers require less soap and less water. I went along with the idea that this new machine would do a better wash and cost less.
For sure we use less detergent, but It takes longer to complete a wash cycle.
I have no way to verify if the water consumption or electrical usage is any different.

Normal settings are used with a 2nd rinse.

Not long after it became clear how significant the difference of using less water really is...
Friction on the clothes.

The photo shows how abrasive my HE washer is to jeans.
Be a frayed (afraid) very a frayed of this.



Those 'were' my favorite jeans...


Thanks for reading my blog!