For the Love of Art

                               I drew a picture of my mom yesterday.

I took art in high school and haven't painted a picture since then...until this one.

Reconnecting in Iowa

     

I recently went back to my hometown in Iowa to take care of some business.  While I was there I spent some time with my family.  Even my daughter-in-law and grandson were in town visiting her family, so one of my sisters joined me in having dinner with them one night.  Little Mason's hair has grown so much in the past month since I last saw him.  He's adorable!  The next day I drove up to St. Charles to visit my mom, and my daughter and her boyfriend met us there from Chicago.  It was a great day, and mom was so happy to see us! Below is a picture of my mom and Alisa.

Throughout my stay, it was also so great to see my sisters again, and to reconnect with them after all the heartache we've been dealing with regarding our mom and her illness.  I feel so good that for the most part, it went very well.  I feel like I have my sisters back again...with the exception of one, who appears not as eager as me to reconcile our differences.  I'm hoping in time she will.  I love all of my sisters very much.  The picture below is with Vicki.  Next time I will try to get pics of the rest of them. 
     

I really can't come back home without getting together with some of my friends! It was nice that I was able to spend one-on-one time with three of them...so, for three nights in a row I had a friend to share fun girl talk with over dinner.  A glass of wine always makes the conversation more interesting! 

Here's a picture of me and Michelle.

 

Mother's Day in Chicago

My family joined us in Chicago for a special Mother's Day celebration.  My youngest daughter lives in the city and my mom is living in an assisted living center in the suburbs, so my kids gave me the best Mother's Day gift by agreeing to come back to the midwest so they can see my mom (their nana) for Mother's Day and be with me.  Here we are, me, my kids and my mom.  Mom looked really good and seemed so happy to see everyone.   I'm hoping things will change and mom will be able to come live with me.  She deserves a life with her family.   

My mom and me.  I love her so much.

Here's my daughters, son, daughter-in-law, son-in-law, and grandkids.  My daughter's boyfriend wasn't able to join us because he graduated fom UIC today, otherwise, he would have been in this picture.  It's unfortunate we were unable to attend his graduation, but we really wanted to be with nana today.  We went out for Chicago style pizza afterwards, though, to celebrate his graduation.

 

This is the view from my daughter's apartment, from the living room balcony. 

 

My grandchildren had fun running around the hallway of the apartment.  I tried to keep them occupied while the others were getting ready, by playing duck, duck, goose and ring around the rosie, but they had more fun having a screaming contest and running to the elevator to push the buttons!  Luckily, the neighbors didn't say a word.

 

This is just something I do...what can I say? My youngest daughter and I started this about 3 years ago.  She was at work today, or I'm sure she would have been right with me on this one!

Our Trip To California

Al and I went to California recently to babysit my grandson while my son and daughter-in-law went on vacation.  It was so much fun being there with my grandson and having that time to bond with him.  He is such a good little boy and is so very easy going, just like his daddy.  I love the little babbling sounds he makes.  He is always 'talking', and it's so cute.  He loves the book, 'The Napping House'.  A CD  comes with the book, and he knows how to put it in the CD player.  Every night we followed this ritual,  and then he would sit on my lap to listen to the story.  As soon as the story was over he would take the CD out and put his favorite music CD in, to listen to as he goes to sleep.

 

After my son and daughter-in-law returned from vacation, we spent a day visiting with them and hearing about their amazing trip and filling them in on how my grandson did while they were gone.  I am so happy they had a wonderful time.  The next day Al and I drove up to Napa Valley.  It's probably not even an hour away from where they live.  We had beautiful weather as we strolled through some of the wineries.  Robert Mondavi was our first stop, and we were both feeling pretty good after sampling some of their finest wines.  We were laughing because we had the rest of the day ahead of us!  Robert Mondavi is one of my favorites so, of course, we had to buy a bottle.  We found a little cafe to have lunch and then set out for some more touring.  Our next stop was Beringer, where we sampled some more wine and bought another bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon.  From there we went to the Beaulieu Vineyard, drank another glass, and bought our third bottle of wine to take home.  It was a wonderful day and I thoroughly enjoyed it!  All of the wine we bought is going to be saved for special occassions since it's quite a bit more expensive than what we are used to buying. 

The next morning we drove to San Francisco and lucked out because the weather was absolutely gorgeous.  There was no fog, and it was very nice and warm.  In fact, we parked the car so we could walk across the bridge, and I got so hot I had to take my sweater off.  That's the first time it's been that warm in all the times I've visited the city.  We did the usual touristy stuff, like ride the cable cars, and walk around Pier 39 and eat and shop there. While strolling down by the piers, I got spooked by the 'bush man'.  All of a sudden a big bush fell over on me.  It scared me and I jumped out of the way and screamed.  I looked over my shoulder and saw a guy crouched down with a big  bush in his hands just looking up at me! I couldn't believe it!  When we got home my son asked us if we saw the bush man.  And I told him yes.  Well, from what my son says, this guy has been doing this for years.  At one point the city banned him from scaring people, but then they let him come back because he made people laugh, I guess.  It's funny, because a lady a few steps behind us got spooked too.  She obviously didn't see him get me!   We also went up the hill to the Top of the Mark restaurant and saw incredible views of the city.  We spent the entire day there just walking, eating, and soaking up the atmosphere.  Both of us like to do things like that, just see places and experience things together.  It was a lot of fun!

We left San Francisco and flew directly to Chicago to spend Mother's Day with my mom.  That will be my next post.

The Precious Little Ones In My Life

                                                                    
Grandchildren fill a space in your heart that you never knew was empty.   Here's my granddaughters in their Easter dresses.  I live really close to them now, since I moved to Phoenix last year.  It's nice to be able to spend as much time with them as I want.  The older one has become very nuturing to her little sister.  The younger one takes after dad, she got the Navajo gene.  The older one takes after mom.  But of course, my grandkids all look like me!!!                              

I feel so blessed to have these little ones in my life.  Here's my only grandson (for now).  We are in California, babysitting him while my son and daughter-in-law are on vacation. My grandson does a lot of baby talking and his voice just melts my heart!  He's such an easy going baby, just like his dad was growing up.  Al and I are having so much fun with him! 

Karma

Belief in karma ought to make the life pure, strong, serene, and glad.  Only our
own deeds can hinder us; only our own will can fetter us.  Once let men
recognize this truth, and the hour of their liberation has struck.  Nature
cannot enslave the soul that by wisdom has gained power and uses both in love. 
~Annie Besant

When some people meet karma one day it likely won't be a very good meeting.  Mean people listen up!  Nice people get ahead in life and are generally happy people and make others happy in the process.  They give love and get it in return.

A Touching Video About Aging Parents

A friend of mine sent me this video.  I think anyone who has a parent with dementia can relate to the message here.  It made me cry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUAE0aYrUBA

Europe Two Years Ago

Today is the two year anniversary of my youngest daughter's and my trip to Europe.   We planned this vacation in a period of about three months.  It just happened to be a time in our lives that we both were unemployed, so we saw it as our window of opportunity to do something we might not ever get a chance to again.  We had the time, we had some savings, and we both definitely had the desire to go to Europe.  I was so delighted that my daughter wanted to go on a month long trip with her mom!  My other two kids were married and had families, and I wanted to make sure it was ok with them that I took this trip with their younger sister.  I didn't want them to feel left out.  Once I got their approval and blessings, I felt better about it.  My daughter was 26 years old, and her boyfriend was totally supportive of her going on this trip, too.

I found the airline tickets online at AA.com about a month and a half before we left.  I was so lucky to have found these tickets!!!  It cost us each less than $300 for round trip, non-stop flights.  We flew from Chicago, where Alisa lives, and directly to London's Heathrow Airport, on April 1, 2009.  The flight was an overnighter, and it was comfortable since we had empty seats next to us so we could lay down, but it was still hard to sleep because of our excitement.  Coming home, we left from Frankfurt, Germany, on May 1st, one month after we arrived in Europe.

We arrived in London early in the morning on April 2nd.  We were dragging our feet that day but we managed to get a lot of sight-seeing in, by riding the double-decker bus and getting off at several different locations, and even went to a broadway show that night.  It's funny, because the show was a rock and roll show about the band, Queen, called We Will Rock You, and even with the loud music and awesome performance, we were both nodding our heads throughout the show.  That night we slept well, and after about a couple of days we became acclamated to the time change.

It was supposed to be a back-packing trip, but we soon realized we were not the type to walk around with back packs.  After about 10 days we both bought suitcases with wheels.  It was more difficult getting up and down the steps at train stations (funny stories about that), but all in all, it was much better for our backs.  Plus, we could pack our things a lot easier in the suitcases, and there was room for purchases, too.

One thing we did that was so important for me, was to go back to my former high school in Frankfurt Germany, and to the base we lived on in Hanau, Germany.  I lived in Germany my senior year because my dad got transferred there for his job.  I attended Frankfurt American High School, and graduated in 1974.  I hadn't been there since then, and I always wanted to go back.  The Old Argonner housing base was closed, but we could walk around and see it through the gates.  The former school closed its doors to the American students in 1995, I believe, and it is now a German technical school.  It was awesome being able to take my daughter there.  All these emotions welled up in me as we walked up to the school, as soon as we turned the corner on the street and I saw the school.  It brought me back in time.  I just can't explain it, but I was just so emotional.  Luckily, a teacher invited us in and let us look around.  It was so cool!

There's just way, way, way too much to tell about this trip, and I just don't want to start, because if I do, I will write pages and pages!  I have my journal to reflect upon today.  To sum it all up, it went something like this...thirty days of traveling, thirty two cities, eight countries, including England, France, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, Austria, Czech Republic and Germany, 4,500 photographs, riding numerous trains, buses, and doing A LOT of walking, getting lost at times, shopping, laughing, sometimes laughing hysterically, crying, seeing things we never thought we would, seeing things we came to see, yelling at rude Romans (well, one), learning more about the world and each other, surviving some dangerous situations, shopping in local markets, sharing meals if we ate at expensive restaurants, eating different foods, meeting people from all over the world, getting a little drunk once  (sorry, but it's true), learning different languages with every country we visited, trying to use those languages we just learned, writing our wonderful thoughts and experiences in our journals every night, staying at hostels, bed and breakfasts, and budget hotels, sometimes just leaving the train station to find one, washing our clothes in the sink and hanging them to dry, and hoping they'd be dry before we had to pack up and leave the next day, or going to the laundromat, doing what we wanted, when we wanted, but still following a basic itinerary and keeping within our budget, and having the most amazing, incredible, memorable time of our lives!

On the plane ride home, we both stayed awake the whole time.  It was a day time flight, so that was easier on us even though it was a long flight.  We finished our notes in our journals and then enjoyed reading each other's stories.  It was interesting to see our different interpretations and what we both thought was noteworthy.  The flight home was a time of reflection.

Here's just a tiny selection of pictures of our wonderful European journey...remember, we took over 4,500 photographs!

I'm standing in front of my former high school, Frankfurt American High School.  It is now a German technical school.

Luttrellstown Castle Belonged To My Ancestors

I recently discovered, while viewing my ancestrial chart on my grandmother's side, that my family are descendants of the Luttrells (that, I knew) who owned Luttrellstown Castle in Dublin, Ireland (that, I didn't know).  My grandfather (by 11 times) was Sir Thomas Luttrell.  He was born in the castle in 1496, a couple hundred years after the Luttrells started the castle.  He died in 1554.  He was a Knight, and Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in Ireland. His first marriage took place when he was just a youth, to Anne Aylmer, whose brother, Sir Gerald Aylmer, was a judge and enforcer for King Henry VIII of England at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.  He later married Elizabeth Bathe. The Luttrells were the first family to own Luttrellstown castle, and it stayed in the family for 450 years before being sold.  Now it is a 5-star resort with a golf course on the 567 acres.

Prior to the Luttrells coming to Ireland, they lived in England, and also owned Dunster Castle.  This castle was purchased by Lady Elizabeth Luttrell in 1376 and remained with the Luttrell family for 600 years until it was given to the National Trust in 1976.  Now it is a tourist attraction. There is some information that states that the Luttrells originated in France, then went to England, then to Ireland, until some of them started immigrating to America in the 1600s, where more interesting history has emerged.  No doubt there were other castles owned by the wealthy and notorious Luttrells!  At one point they were the biggest landowners in Ireland.

I got interested in all of this when my dad's cousin, Kim, sent me an invite to ancestry.com. He has an incredible amount of information on there, dating back to the 1400s.  I decided to do some research on the internet and I was able to put some pieces of the puzzle together.  Imagine how excited I was to learn our family came from royalty!  Nobody ever told me this before, but I have no doubt my relatives in Indiana know all of this stuff.  I just never see them or talk to them.  I know that they have done a lot of research and even have a website.  (The spelling of Luttrell changed to Luttrull during the time of the Civil War).  I do remember some stories my grandmother told me long ago.  One was that my great, great, great.....and so on, grandfather, fathered his first child at the age of 13.  That may have been Thomas, I don't know for sure.   And something about someone beheading a king.  hmmm  There's so much information out there, and I have been so fascinated with what I have learned so far.  I have to thank Kim for getting me started on this. There's so much more just waiting to be discovered!

Memories Sparked By a Pepsi

I just opened a can of diet Pepsi and immediately the fizz and taste brought me back to a time when I was about 14 years old, and I had just finished mowing the grass and trimming the bushes on a very HOT summer day.  I got up early on a Saturday morning and cleaned the house prior to tackling the yard.  Sometimes I would do the yard one day and the house the next.  But on that day, I did both.   It was always scary going out to the garage, because our lawn mower was real fickle.  It was hit or miss if it was going to start up or not.  If it didn't, I would get out the old fashioned push mower if I was determined to get the grass cut, and I was always determined.  It was the kind of mower that looked like a roller with blades on it...dull blades, I might add.  The only power it had was from the person pushing it.  And with my small frame, it wasn't far.  Numerous times Grandma and Grandpa would get a phone call, and they never failed to come to my rescue.  Grandpa almost always got the lawn mower started for me.  Can you imagine?  A teenager, excited about the roar of a lawn mower?

The breeze cooled my body as I sat down on the lawn chair, underneath the walnut tree in the front yard, with my bottle of pepsi.  I looked around at the yard and felt so good about how nice it looked. I watched the cars that drove by, hoping they were all noticing our nice yard and the work it took to make it look that way. I knew Mom would be happy when she came home from work.  She never said too much about me doing the yard work back then.  I just did it and never thought it was a big deal.  But when I got older she told me over and over again how proud she was of me for taking on so much responsibility as a young girl. 

I was the oldest of five girls, and Mom had to work, sometimes two shifts a day, just to make enough money to take care of us.  So I did what I did to help my mom.  I had time for my friends when Mom came home and I was relieved of my responsibilities.  All of my sisters were easy to babysit.  They usually paired up in twos and either played in the house with their dolls and toys, or with their friends in our yard, or at a nearby neighbor's house.  Sometimes us girls would each pick a room in the house to clean, and we would make a contest out of it.  When Mom came home from work, she would pick the room she thought was the cleanest.  We couldn't wait for her to come home and see our efforts to make our simple home look like a Better Homes and Garden home. Mom would walk in the door and we would all run to greet her and look at her face as she made admiring comments about how nice the house looked.  Mom probably had other things on her mind, like paying the bills, getting supper ready, and probably just wanting to lay down and rest for a bit.  But she never disappointed us when she walked in the door.  Her eyes, her words, made it all so worth it.  We actually looked forward to Saturdays, and not because there was no school and we could watch Saturday morning cartoons, but we could do something that made us all feel good, and help lighten the load for our mom, and put a smile on her face.

Over the years, even after I had my own family and yard to maintain, I sometimes stopped by to help Mom with her lawn.  She always appreciated it.  She would work with me on the yard, pulling weeds, trimming, etc.  We would have great conversations during that time together.  When we finished, we would sit on the back patio and talk some more...while enjoying a cold glass of ice water. The last couple of years I did her lawn numerous times and it reminded me of those younger years.  Those same problem areas are still there...the dip in the lawn by the neighbor's chain link fence, where the wheels of the lawn mower would always get stuck, the piece of cement behind the garage that sticks out and catches the blades of the mower, the hill, with the rocks, tree limbs, bushes, and steep back side, and the special area on the hill where we buried our pets...cats, hamsters, and even fish. Those days are over now since Mom is not in good health and is no longer living in our family home.  The house will be sold eventually.  But the memories will always be with me.