The Times...They are a Changing!

Had a fun lunch while Scott and Lindsay were in town this weekend...So crazy how fast Brody and Hunter are growing....Fascinating to watch them figure each other out..."Who are you, and why are G.P. and Mimi smiling at you with the same goofy smiles that are reserved for me???" So it is that Tom and I watch, with almost painful love and hopeful gratitude, as our family continues to grow and change...
It is true...this does seem to be a time of change. Our children have grown and have children of their own....Every day we revisit the babies that WERE, in the fresh new grandbaby faces that ARE...Things are changing but still reflect what has always been true....We love our children and, in turn, are loved eternally as the children of God....

"...Your loving-kindness is sweet and comforting; according to Your plenteous tender mercies and steadfast love..."
Psalm 69:16

Home Again, Home Again, Jigitty Jig

Back from the Ike ridden Houston area ... G.P. once again comes to the rescue and helps Scott get his & Lindsay's VERY beleaguered fence rebuilt... Of course Brody also did what he could to help! ...Odd to be in such a major city with huge piles of tree branches strewn all along the street curbs... streetlights still not working at some major intersections; and cars taking turns getting across...restaurants and stores still closed in some spots (no power)... Yet somehow, life goes on...

Houston Bound

Heading to Houston tomorrow for a first hand look at the mess.....not to mention "just being together" time with our precious ones there....I will be there for a week.
In these days seemingly filled with stress and change, it is good to know that.... even so .....Love abides!

"The meditations of the great are above me, and the entwining of the letters is beyond my skill. I cannot climb down to the vehicles of holiness, and my dreams do not ascend. But you have taught the heart to search itself in simple ways, with broom and rag, and you do not abandon my heart to the dust. I come to you for mercy and you hear my cry, and you shelter me in my portion, and you make my deeds a warning. Blessed are you who hears the cry of each man's portion. You cast me away to draw me back, you darken every expectation which is not you. You have taught me with a voice, you have rebuked me with a cheap reward. I cry from my defeat and you straighten my thought. It is your name that makes the cry a healing, it is your mercy that guards the heart in the panic of yes and no. Let the heart speak to its friend, you who decipher the world to a child. Let the heart speak of the love that humbles it for wilder love, and let my whispered gratitude uphold me through this day. In the hopelessness of every other thing, you make your place, you strengthen your presence, and I ask to bow down before the lord of my life."
- Leonard Cohen-...."BOOK OF MERCY"

Houston....we have some power!

*ALERT* LINDSAY HAS POWER!!! She had been staying at her sister-in-law's home (who also still has no power) but went back to her house today so Brody could take a nap in his own crib. She walked into her house to find that the power was on!!.....Needless to say she is thrilled!...Now to keep trudging towards a semblance of normalcy!! Life goes on....

Yikes.....Ike!!

Lindsay and Family survived the hurricane laying on a futon mat in their hallway.... I spent it on my brother in Phoenix (Thanks Tim & Betty) couch; tv remote in hand, cell phone waiting for any text update from Lindsay, drinking a glass of wine from my bottle of wine aptly named HOPE!!....It was NOT a restful night for anyone!!...Next day found Lindsay with no electricity, but also no major damage to the house (trashed landscaping and fencing...)
Now we are in VERY limited contact with Lindsay due to the fact that she has no power and has to ration cell phone use to limit the need for recharging the phone....She is a trooper, but I can't help but speculate that the heat, the eating/drinking challenges and the general chaos involved MUST be draining...Pray for this precious family...I know your love and concern mirror mine...
Thank all of you so much for the concern you have indeed been expressing to us...we are so blessed to be loved by you!!

Pray

....Terror Attack Memorials...Political Intrigue.....HURRICANE IKE.... A good time to pray!

Psalm 46:1-3 - "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging."

Psalm 67 - "May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face shine upon us, that Your ways may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations. May the peoples praise you, O God, may all the peoples praise you. May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for You rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth. May the peoples praise You, O God; may all the peoples praise You. Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us. God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear Him."

Moments

Had a moment of maniacal activity when I decided, while babysitting Hunter so my fanatic family could go the the UA football game (GO CATS!!), to get a picture of him sleeping in a pitch dark room...So as not to wake him I would run in the room, point the camera haphazardly and snap the shot with a flash...then run out of the room lickety split....Well, of course I was getting pictures of the stuffed animals in his crib, or the crib rails, or an occasional baby toe...By the third attempt I was laughing hysterically in the hallway for a minute or two before I could get a grip on myself and run in again for another attempt....I will say I am nothing if not persistent and eventually got an acceptable shot (it only took about 10 attempts)...not to mention a magnificent ab workout via laughing spasm-itis....

Happy 21st Birthday Joe...the time has flown since you were that funny baby boy who had to have mustard on all his food, and DID NOT find bumpys under the socks in his shoes to be an acceptable situation!... John and Jeanne...you made, as usual, yummy food at the party!!

Don and Margaret...sooo much fun eating the delicious food and spectacular wine with you (Tom's a little obssessed with the roast beef and dijon mustard on french bread concept now, and I am bound and determined to make it to Napa Valley some day!) Enjoy the beach!!!

As I go from day to day, busy with all the ones I love so much....And as I go from night to night considering (sleeplessly) the lack of control we ALL have in the end...I decide to rest with a prayer and hope that my heart can handle the concerns that come with TRULY loving so many precious ones...

My current obsession?????? HURRICANE IKE!!! ...... Take your family and run for your life my sweet baby girl!!!!!

This Week...

I'm sitting in the den (my laptop is still on the fritz) writing this while channel surfing between cspan and every news channel to monitor both Gustav and the Republican convention...oh yes and listening to my radio talk shows (close captioning on tv is helpful with this endeavor)...I think anyone who knows me well is not surprised by my ridiculous communication obsession...I am also texting to my fellow political junky as news breaks (you know who you are!) Life is good right now...
This past week has included time spent every day with someone I love...sharing everything from baby hugs to good food, wine and conversation...Wish I didn't need to sleep, and had no ounce of lazy in me (altho I actually DID workout 5 days in the past week!) Have a million "to dos" but only a few "I am doings" going on... I suppose I will just plug away and reach the finish line in my own happy little tortoise way! No doubt there will ALWAYS be another video I want to edit, another picture I want to frame, another book to read, another religious/political/philosphical/ sociological/etc. issue to study...

A little fun tidbit to share with you ... Got a vote for THIS poll?? (Hope its not too offensive for some of you for any reason. If it is.....I thought it was mildly amusing and am counting on your unconditional love...) ...My vote is for Michael and Lisa Marie....
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/201/14504/

AND I have just found out that I'm now off to the absolute final Sidewinder baseball game (it's the end of an era)!!

She's BAAAAAAAAACK!!!

Sooooo, it's been awhile.....and why is that you ask??..... well, I've been traveling, hanging out with the family....and mostly...I am older and more prone to weak body-itis...which is my own personal medical term meaning: chronic and prolonged bouts of either an extremely slow or completely immobile body!

The abbreviated version of my adventures? An Alpine wedding... A visit with Aunt Jean from California...Stephanie's move to a new bigger home....A week long trip to watch the Brod man while Lindsay attended a conference in preperation to build curriculum for a new school being started here in Tucson (involving running behind Brody at the covention center and 2 moves from a lovely hotel room to an..ahem.."rustic" dorm room, then back to a hotel room...Did I mention the conference was in Dallas which meant a long drive & maintaining baby sanity with a constant flow of snacks and creative use of assorted toys...)

Next after a week home to do laundry and deal with old body-itis....a week long trip to San Francisco to hang with our precious Taisey/Lamarche family and see Nicole get married (SO much fun...road trips, China town, the wharf (beware the delicious irish coffees followed by a dicey cable car ride!), shopping....not to mention a lovely wedding with sweet people!...

This past week home again has been ALL about the Hunter 1 year extravaganza, preceded 1 day by cousin Elliot's birthday wing ding....So great to see family/friends and celebrate these precious lives!!...This weekend we're off to the mountains again before UA football season starts... And so it goes and goes...

Daddy/G.P. is our Hero

Happy Father's Day to the best G.P. around!! Spent the day eating food he made (Hey...we all know nothing I could make would be as good as what he can grill...we had DELICIOUS rib roast and salmon with his yummy grilled vegs.!!) I did manage to bake up a Sara Lee cherry pie...

We got him the surround sound/home theatre to go with his Christmas plasma tv...being installed right now by the installer guys!!

Went to bring in and present the gift (complete with lovely blanket wrap) and ended up having to chase out a black cat that had been hiding in the nether regions of our garage for a day or so in the heat....I felt so bad, wanted to give him milk or water, but was firmly told by everyone (Lindsay and Scott listening in to the entire adventure via speaker phone) not to go there unless I wanted a feral cat hanging around the house on a permanent basis!

All in all a good time was had by all... except one yowling black cat!!

A Month Later

Time passes quickly...New obsessions lurk around every corner....prowling like a lion....waiting to devour that elusive time thing...
The quicky version...Finished editing the wedding video of a dear friend (ask Tom how obsessive I am about wedding videos..LOVE weddings!!)...Had a fabulous visit with my little Brody baby for a few days (had him all to myself for a couple of nights!..it WAS nice to visit with Lindsay and Scott too)...Living out the day to day "summer in Tucson life" of functioning in heat....Hugging my Hunter baby (Steph and Tim too).... Sidewinders baseball....Visiting Alpine....AND finally... the discovery of.....
THE IPOD!!!!
Currently have downloaded bunches of songs from my cds...found a cool website where you can download free books... Listening to a daily audio Bible and "A Tale of Two Cities" (It was indeed the best of times and the worst of times!)...
And so it goes...a month later...

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!

"I remember my mother's prayers
and they have always followed me.
They have clung to me
all my life. "
-Abraham Lincoln-

Simple Life

Made a small dent in some home-life backlog....Had a good hair day, but felt no need to take it anywhere...Wondered for a moment if Brody was wielding his stick sceptor while sitting in his box throne, and if Lindsay figured out what is going on with the stitch tension on her sewing machine...Laughed hard with the mental image of Hunter terrorizing his dogs (sorry Roxie & Deuce) with his new, MASSIVE, marauding, bumping, bulldozer of a Jeep walker...Opened and enjoyed a glass of the most delicious merlot-Wild Oak 2004-...(thanks to Mike Payne our friend/wine hook-up guy)...Simple, small (uniquely mine) pleasures...

"When I was growing up I always wanted to be someone. Now I realize I should have been more specific."

-Lily Tomlin-

:-(

For those who might want an update on the Brazilian priest who flew away in a cloud of party balloons...(DAN!!)

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/posted/archive/2008/04/25/brazil-priest-flying-party-balloons-lost-at-sea.aspx

Random Whirlwind

Thursday Tom left for the annual rodeo ride-out, just like every other year for the past close to 30 years....I knew he would be out in the middle of nowhere, with little to no phone reception till Sunday, cooking over a campfire and making the weekend fun for 30ish other would be cowboys....
Friday the call comes from one of Tom's sister's that the other sister is in the hospital with heart issues....We (Stephanie, Hunter and I) rush to the hospital and join the crowd of loving fans to find out all is well, She is on the mend with no major damage...but a big scare!! She becomes known amongst the nurses as the patient with ALL the visitors, a testament to how well loved she is...Tom spends the weekend tromping up and down a hill by the campsite to find phone reception and keep tabs on us all...
Saturday Steph heads out to Phoenix in the afternoon to return Sunday morning after spending promised time with a good friend. I have my funny face Hunter to watch while she is gone (Did I mention that his Daddy went to the ride out with Tom this year?).
Sunday Steph returns after witnessing a horrible no doubt fatal freeway accident happen ahead of her... small car ends upside down, smashed under huge truck... she barely makes it past as cars block the freeway jumping out to help and traffic backs up behind her...She is shaken...Returns to my house and promptly becomes sick with what turns out to be a 24 hour bug...Tom comes home from ride-out...smelly and tired.....calls his sisters, finds out she is resting after her onslaught of visitors, going home tomorrow....Tom makes plans to see her tommorrow, showers and falls asleep....
Monday, Steph calls in the throes of a plague...Mimi goes, after the 9am appt. she had to keep, and spends the day with little cutie pie while Steph sleeps it off...fever breaks and we are on the mend...Tom and I go to visit his sister, she looks good...it IS good...
Today the dry hacking mystery cough, which began for me on Friday, is beginning to break up...so wierd because there was no congestion or sick feelings with it...just an annoying hacking cough...
Thankfully, life goes on....