Christmas season 2003 has opened. Today I received my FIRST e-mail from Jamie trying to finagle some sugar crisp. Of course, she said Q14 (her son) needed them.
Riiiiiiiiiiiight!
I’ll think about it Jamie. It’s possible. *S*

I’ll be away for a few days. Dear Husband is going to take a day off, and we’re going to take Mother to Indiana to see my youngest sis and her family. They’ve just lived through the home renovation from HELL and I’m eager to see the changes that have been made.
My mind is still on gardens, cleaning, and preparations for Thanksgiving. Each year I try to stave off Christmas until AFTER Thanksgiving…..but I had to send a request for a wish list, and an invitation to Cookie Day already. Mother has her Christmas cards all addressed!
A good friend sent an e-mail, asking if we were booked up for December, and could we set a date to meet for dinner. I discovered, that if you didn’t count the last weekend in November, we have a grand total of FOUR weekend nights left before Christmas to book that dinner. WOW! Where is the time going??? I think we should have a communal post where everyone gives their absolute best time saving tip for Christmas.
Well…I’ll check back on Sunday, when we return. I hope you all have a great weekend!

One of my sisters forwarded an e-mail with these pictures. Given the horrors we have seen, I wanted to share a kinder view of our soldiers.
This is the message from the originator of the e-mail, Amy Dunavant:
Sometimes in our everyday life we tend to forget what’s going on elsewhere in the world and that the brave men and women of the service are just like you and I. They have family and friends back home who love them very much and are praying for their safe return.
Hope you pass these on

Yesterday I wanted to write about Veterans’s Day. I knew that many of you would have messages on the subject, and that you would say what I feel, most likely better than I could say for myself. So, I chose to visit other blogs and read your tributes rather than writing one of my own.
Last night, one of my nieces brought her two boys to dinner at our house. The oldest boy is 14 and his younger brother is 9. I couldn’t resist the chance to talk to them about why they had had a day off from school. We talked about what Veteran’s Day stands for. I tried to help them tie the people in their family to the wars they may have read about.

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And, while we are speaking of memory…
Did you know that you can sign up to be reminded of important dates, such as birthdays and anniversaries?
www.birthdayalarm.com has a service that allows you to store names and dates and then e-mails you seven and three days before each birthday. Go check it out.
Can you hear your family beginning to talk about the fact that each and every one of them have gotten a card or a call from you, and ON TIME!!!???

Have you noticed an increase in the number of postcards you’ve been receiving from businesses? The other day I received a postcard that had our last name printed across it in nine fonts, four directions and three colors. It certainly got my attention, and I set it aside, rather than throwing it out. It was from the woman who had helped us to refinance, reminding us that her bank has other services to offer.

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(Can’t you hear the song from “Cats” running through your head???? Wait….that was “Memories”……)
Okay…..memory is a touchy subject with me. The past three or four years my memory has been shot full of holes, and it’s particularly disturbing since I have to remember detail for our company, to care for my mother, to manage the house, for my husband, and for my own interests. I decided to blame it on menopause, firmly announcing to one and all that I would get it back on the “other side.”
Well….it’s possible that is true. But until then I read everything I can find on memory. (Sometimes more than once. *G*)
Did you know that scientists feel that we begin to loose our memories at age 35? It starts with simple things like misplacing our car keys, or in my case….my purse.

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I’ve said many times that my mother lives with us. She will be 87 in a month, and last year at this time she voluntarily decided to stop driving. I suspect the world heaved a sigh of relief. I occasionally made her drive so that I could observe her driving, and I knew she was coming to the time when she’d have to quit. She had voluntarily limited her driving the last couple of years to four or five places: the hair salon, the grocery store, the library and JoAnne’s Fabric, and her doctor. If she needed to go elsewhere, I took her. We talked about the least heavily traveled routes, and we also talked about times to avoid being on the road. I think we eked out freedom as long as we could, and I was lucky that SHE was able to decide it was time to quit.

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Did you know that Voyager 2 left Earth before Voyager 1? ( Voyager 2: August 20, 1977, Voyager 1: September 5, 1977) Recently, on the nightly news, we heard that Voyager 1 has reached then end of the heliopause (the edge of the solar wind’s influence), and is continuing on into space. I believe they said it is moving at a rate of one million miles a DAY.
I checked the Voyager website, and it’s speed was given in these terms: “Voyager 1 is speeding away from the Sun at a velocity of about 3.50 AU/year….” I don’t have enough math to do the equation, but if you do, you can check to see if 1,000,000 miles a day is correct. Isn’t that an astounding figure?

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Recently Bogie directed us to Dawn Olsen’s blog for a post on the subject of parental favoritism. I encourage you to read that post. It has plenty of food for thought.
I come from a family where the parents were divided on the subject. I have three sisters and a brother. Each of the girls felt that Dad loved them the best. We have no idea how he kept from showing favoritism, but he was a master at it. Dad’s been gone almost 20 years, but we are still comforted by the sense of love and family that he instilled.
My mother has always championed my brother. Given the ridiculous lengths she has sometimes gone to defend him, it’s a wonder he turned out so well! For the longest time the phrase “You always DID love him better” would pop up at family gatherings. He would smile a cheesy grin and nod.
One year in an attempt to get even, she had t-shirts printed for the two of them that said “I DID love HIM better,” and they wore them to the family Thanksgiving dinner. It didn’t stop the taunts, but it slowed them down.

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