Love
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(Not) Wordless Wednesday – Aunt Flo is 100!
My Great Aunt Flo turned 100 yesterday! She is the first person in my family to make this milestone age. She had some visits today from local family, and there will be a party for her this weekend, which we will attend. Aunt Flo is strong, sweet, generous, and devoted. She is dearly loved. She was married on her 26th birthday, which was also my mom’s 8th birthday. She was in the hospital room with my mom when I was born. She was widowed at 37. She has devoted most of rest of her life to caring for family…a cousin, her parents, my grandma. She can no longer live at…
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Wisteria
I love wisteria vines, particularly when they are in bloom, as they are right now. My mom had such fondness for them, they reminded her of her Great Aunt Julia (for whom I am named), who had a lovely arbor in her back yard. Growing up, she would always point them out to me. So of course, they make me think of my mom, and also of my Grandma Wells, who had lovely wisteria growing in her back yard as well. The other day I decided that I was going to go in search of wisteria on my walk, and share my pictures with you. The picture above is of…
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Mulder’s Birthday
Today should have been Mulder’s 9th birthday. He would have perhaps been starting to slow down a bit more, but would still be enjoying long walks on my Fabulous Fridays. He’d still be begging for carrots and cucumbers and bread. In his honor, I thought I would share this video from his 6th birthday, his ‘Golden Birthday’, which we celebrated by making him his own hamburger. He was so much fun!
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Monday Meme
I know, a cartoon and a meme are not the same thing, but I liked this cartoon and decided to share it. Want to get caught up? This sign is on one of our local walks. There’s construction ahead, and somehow, they think it’s important for us to know that the sidewalk is close. Very close. Maybe a foot and a half? (I did terribly on the spacial section of the ASVAB way back when, so don’t really ask me about distances, and if you need help packing your moving truck, I’m probably not your gal.) Do you make wishes? I sometimes do. I make a wish if I blow…
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Happy Birthday Maya!
It’s Maya’s birthday today, so I’m about to photo dump you with pictures of her from over the years. In no particular order (gotta get to my yoga before she wakes up), here you go. I said in no particular order, but this is our first photo together, taken in the delivery room. Which was also the labor room. Usually they would have you labor in one room and then move you to deliver. Who thought of this idea? Clearly a man. No woman would think it was a good idea to move rooms in the middle of being torn apart from the inside. Anyway, here we are, and that…
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Happy New Year
Ex-blogger extraordinaire (V-Grrl) Veronica is a Facebook friend, and she posted these wise words on New Year’s Eve. The sun sets on 2023, and my resolutions remain the same—savor small pleasures and ordinary moments, take care of my health, cherish time with those I love, be a good friend. I liked that a lot, a lot more than the idea of always trying to change who we are. So I’m taking her resolution and making it my own. I hope the holidays have been good to you. I had a lovely Christmas, and then the week before New Year’s was very busy at work, and now it is New Year’s…
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Merry Christmas!
Sending you all warm wishes for a very Merry Christmas! I haven’t been around much, this is a very busy time of year at work, and then on weekends there are parties and visits and so on. So I’m behind. I’ve read and enjoyed some of your posts, but have been too lazy to comment. I’m hoping that this upcoming week will slow down a bit and I can catch up. In the meantime, look at our ridiculous Christmas tree (which I love, btw). Our living room is TINY and there is no other place for it, so we bought the thinnest entryway type tree we could find. You can…
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Throwback Thursday – Happy Hanukkah!
Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah! Let’s rewind to 2006, and you can enjoy Maya singing. The video quality isn’t great, it’s 2006 after all. We’re not Jewish, we just like to celebrate things, and when Maya was little, we wanted to expose her to different cultures. Of course, that confused her, when she was in first grade she told her teacher we were Jewish. Our celebration consists of a nice dinner with latkes and small gifts the first night, and lighting the menorah every night (if we remember – Ted is pretty good about this.) Today I’m working 1/2 day, then I’ll start cooking – brisket braised in…
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Honeymoon Photos
For our honeymoon 30 years ago, we went to 3 amazing cities – London, Amsterdam, and Paris. We had a cheap point-and-shoot camera, and of course it was film back then, so we don’t have a ton of pictures and what we have are not great. It’s not like today, where you can take an unlimited number of photos, and immediately see whether they are in focus, centered, etc. Here are a few pictures that I like. I guess Ted had the camera most of the time, because there are more pictures of me than there are of him. We stayed in little Bed and Breakfasts. The one in London…
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Y is for Yoga
Yoga has been a big deal in my family, specifically for my step-mom and my mother-in-law. My step-mom, Julie, was in college in San Francisco in 1968 when her first husband, Bruce, was killed in a helicopter accident in Vietnam. She was 21, and was unmoored by the loss. She felt that she had to get out of the Bay Area, there were too many memories here, too much pain. So she did some backpacking in Europe for a while, and then moved to Portland, Oregon. She started taking yoga classes to help her calm her mind and get through her grief. At some point she was asked if she…
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X is for eXtra
Last week we celebrated the fact that Maya got a promotion at work with an eXtra special meal, dinner at a local vegan restaurant that she loves, Millennium, in Oakland. She’s mostly vegetarian (pescetarian really, though she doesn’t eat fish very often), and has a vegan friend, and they sometimes go here for a special occasion. It’s expensive, but really good. On weekends, meals at Millennium are a Prix Fixe four course meal, including the amuse bouche. You pick from the full menu, an appetizer, entree, and dessert. As Ted doesn’t eat sugar, he had two appetizers instead. I’ll give you pictures and menu descriptions where I can, though the…
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U is for Updates
This whole NaBloPoMo thing has been great, and my idea of using the alphabet prompts has kept me very organized. I pre-loaded a lot of the posts, so I could spend more time coming to your blogs and reading. This has not always worked, since life does get in the way sometimes, so I’m a little behind in the commenting and reading department, but just like all of us, I’m doing my best. For today though, I thought I would catch you up on what I’ve been up to. I took a very quick trip to Portland a couple of weeks ago to say goodbye to my step-mom’s partner, Tom.…
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T is for Things I Miss About Mulder
Yesterday was 6 months since our sweet boy Mulder died from Lymphoma. We all miss him so much. He was such a joy in our lives, and such a good boy (except when he was being a butthead). In honor of Mulder, then, here are some things that I miss with him gone, and a few that I don’t. Things I Miss Things I Don’t Miss Things I Shouldn’t Miss, but I Do
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I is for Incredible!
Today’s post is a ‘guest post’. My sister Maya and her family built a garden house in their back yard in Portland a couple of years ago, and she posted about it recently on Facebook. I asked her if I could share her post here, because I am so amazingly impressed by the entire endeavor. That they did the work themselves, that they used mostly recycled materials, that it came out so beautifully. Truly incredible. I wish I had these powers, but alas, I do not. Without any further ado, here’s my sister’s post. ***** The summer of 2021 a wish/dream of mine came true. The kids had long outgrown…
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H is for Horses
I’ve written about my love of horses before, how I love their beauty and strength. How I’m not much of a rider, and think it would be wonderful to have a horse as a companion pet. Maya and I have decided we want a miniature horse, and we will name it ‘Clip Clop’. Clip Clop would trot around our little townhouse, probably doing damage to our laminate flooring. Clip Clop would come upstairs and sleep at the foot of the bed. Our neighbors would be outraged at first, but then would fall in love with Clip Clop and his/her adorable antics. I would take Clip Clop for long walks and…
