Circling Through This Life

I know.  Last week I posted on Saturday.  That was not planned.  This week however it is planned because I wanted to post my USAopoly Review on Friday.  Did you see it? Fun games for the whole family.  This has been a busy week! 1.  Sunday was the post feast of the Elevation of the Venerable and Life-Giving Cross.  I love this service. Maybe I love it because it’s the very first Orthodox Service that I ever attended.  This is from the vespers service: As the Cross is lifted up, it urges all of creation to praise the immaculate Passion of the One Who was lifted up thereon. For by means of the Cross, He slew him that slew us; and He made the dead to live again, making them beautiful, granting them the Heavens as dwelling-place, because He is compassionate, in the unsurpassed and unspeakable excess of His goodness. With joy, then, let us all exalt His Name, while magnifying His infinite condescension toward our race. 2.  Boobear dyed her ha...

Monday is August 31st which means that today, August 28th is the LAST Friday of the month. This is only the second Random Five post that I’ve done this month.  It’s been a busy summer. 1.  August is birthday month here.  When I did other Random Five post I mentioned that the twins turned 18.  I didn’t share pictures so here’s a pic!  Honeybear also celebrates his birthday in August. We joke that the twins were his birthday present. No pics of him or his celebration but we did indulge in a rich chocolate fudge cake to celebrate. 2. Turtlegirl and Tailorbear had the opportunity to go camping with our parish. They had the opportunity to use a real, large, professional quality telescope set up by some astronomy students. They also got got to go hiking. Maybe next year the rest of the family will be able to join them! Turtlegirl took this photo to share with me while she was hiking up the mountain. 3.  The garden really just didn’t go well this summer....

Grief is strange.  It’s been just over 12 years since my father died.  Some years, I make it through the anniversary of his death with little difficulty.  Sometimes it hits me all over again that he’s gone and I grieve as if the wound was fresh and new. Same thing with his birthday which is today. I always think of him on his birthday.  It’s a date engraved on my heart forever.  May 5th ~  Daddy’s birthday.  May 16th was Poppy’s birthday.  I always wondered if Poppy thought of his son as an early birthday present. I am nearly certain that my father thought of his niece as his birthday present when she was born on his birthday. He could be such a difficult man to live with.  I’m not sure how Mom managed it, but she did.  They were married for 37 1/2 years before he died.   Last month would have been their 50th wedding anniversary.  I know Dad would have attempted some sort of huge party to honor Mom.  They did have ...

Today my “baby” turns 19.  I will be clinging all year long to the fact that technically she is still a teen.  Sure, she graduated from high school a year ago and she’s old enough to vote.  Yes, she’s a legal adult but 19 is still a teen and I intend to hold on to that! Boobear said she can’t believe it’s a been a year since she graduated from high school.  I can’t believe it’s been nineteen years since I first held her in my arms.  I can’t believe I’ve raised a child to adulthood and we both survived! Since this past weekend was FREE DAY at the state parks, we celebrated with a trip to a state park we’ve not been to before and we brought a picnic supper to enjoy.  The weather was cloudy in the morning so we didn’t really start our day until the afternoon and it was nice to see the sunshine for a little bit. BooBear got to choose the park and she chose a park that had access to Puget Sound. Supergirl wanted to know if we were studying sea creatures for s...

Do you remember what you were doing 18 years ago? Admittedly, I have trouble remembering what I was doing last week let alone a year ago.  Forget multiple years ago! But I do have some recollection of 18 years ago. It was a Sunday.  Unusually hot for Duluth, MN.  And it was Father’s day.  I was waiting for my husband to get in from Fort Lewis where he was Cadre for the ROTC Camp.  He was flying in on leave in anticipation of the birth of our first born daughter.  She wouldn’t make her appearance though until the next day. My doctor had scheduled an induction for June 19 which allowed us to contact the Red Cross and arrange for my husband to be home.  He had a well meaning Captain try to comfort us by telling us that his wife was in labor for something like 32 hours and that he had plenty of time to fly around the world and make it back in time for the birth.  The thought of a 32 hour labor was most emphatically not comforting especially not the ...

I have dutifully celebrated the 5th day of May every year for 44 years.  My remembrance each year has absolutely nothing to do with Mexico.  It does, however have everything to do with parties and anniversaries and remembering an event! On May 5th 1936 in the hills of Kentucky a son was born to Woodrow and Elsie.  And many years later that son got a really cool birthday present.  His niece was born on May 5th 1960.  Just a few months before his own son would be born.  How cool is that to get a niece for a birthday present?  (I would think almost as cool as getting twin daughters 8 days before your birthday.  Honeybear’s birthday is just 1 week and 1 day after the twins’s birthday.) My daddy would be 76 years old today.  So while many Americans celebrate an obscure Mexican holiday (really isn’t it just an excuse to eat Tex-Mex food.  I seriously never even heard of Cinco De Mayo until 8 or 9 years ago and only among major fans of Mexica...

I can’t believe it is Sunday night already.  Time really flew this weekend.   What’s that saying?  Time flies when you’re having fun? It sure did for me this weekend. My birthday was yesterday but I started celebrating Friday night.  My husband (and I guess the children were included <grin>) decided that I needed to see Duran Duran in concert.  A friend of mine emailed to ask if I would like to go and my family insisted that I join her.  Two more of our friends were also planning to attend so we got seats together.  That was ages ago… or well at least during the summer.  I admit I was fairly excited to go see a favorite band the day before my birthday! Friday night was wonderful.  Yummy dinner with great conversation with friends followed by an amazing concert was a great way to start the weekend, especially a birthday weekend. On Saturday morning, I got to sleep in a bit and when I wandered out to see what everyone else was d...

A couple of days ago I woke up from a nightmare with this panicked thought:  What is today’s date?   I breathed a sigh of relief as I realized the “dreaded anniversary date” had already passed.  I assume some subconscious awareness of the date triggered the dream. What was the dream about?  Well there were doctors, and military people and hospitals and lots of paperwork for transfers and consent forms.  I remember vividly sitting at a desk flipping through the paperwork and asking about the consent form.  Did we sign it?  Where was it?  Did the consent form signed at the first hospital transfer to the second? August is a bittersweet month for me. In August we celebrate the birth of our Twins, Supergirl and Turtlegirl and we celebrate Honeybear’s birthday.  But that week of birthdays.(yes the twins were born just 8 days before Honeybear’s 26th birthday.) is also the anniversary of the beginning of the worst time of life.   14...

My baby turned ten this past weekend. It's seems like a blink of an eye since she was a little newborn snuggling in my arms. We make a big deal out of birthdays in our house. The birthday person gets to pick breakfast, lunch and dinner. Tailor chose French Toast Casserole for breakfast, canned soup for lunch (yes, canned soup. I laughed so hard. I make homemade soup on a regular basis so Campbell's Chunky or Progresso is a special treat I guess.) and since it was Friday she wanted Calzone's so that we would still have our pizza theme but it would be different enough to be special for a birthday. Oh and the calzone's... she wanted "white ones". At first I thought she meant no tomato based sauce but ranch or something instead. Nope. She wanted white flour since we usually have whole wheat. BooBear had offered to bake her cake but BooBear got sick so we bought a cake. Chocolate cake with chocolate mousse filling with chocolate frosting. Yes it was...