Tribute

That's the name of a book I am reading. It is a book that I bought in hardback almost a year ago, but I have been saving it. It is set to come out in paperback next month. I am finally reading it. Delayed gratification is a good tool for weight loss, but I am wondering if having this big hardback book bouncing around for a year (and going on every trip I've taken in the past year) is worth it.

I am looking at a lot of things that I am carrying around and wondering. I have all these plans to fix my house. I have the financing in place. I have a leak in my roof. I have the political will so to speak, but still I wait.

Today is the one year anniversary of mom's death. I wasn't in the hospital with her in those last awful weeks. I was three thousand miles away. I know that she was pretty much beyond caring if I was there, but I'm carrying it around with me that I wasn't.

Mom adopted kids in third world countries--you know, send in $24 per month to sponsor a child. I've been wanting to do that in her honor. She also gave the kids savings bonds instead of presents. I've been wanting to do that too.

It's time to get busy and do (the Grandpa Beauregard in me), but I'd rather curl up and read my wonderful book (the Grandma Beauregard in me). Maybe one is the first step for the others. I feel a new year's resolution coming on. [Pretty selfish, huh.]

Happy one year anniversary Mom, give Karl and Matt and Grandma and Grandpa a big hug from me. I love you.

I got my present

I liked the iphone right away--it has a nice big screen. The numbers are big and directions are easy. You press a button and you are on speaker phone. It clicks when you type. When I tried to get my e-mail, it said I had to clear it with IT. So I brought my brand new shiny phone into the office and told my office manager that I needed IT. We made an appointment and then it got postponed. In the meantime, I navagated the net a bit and I was able to watch youtube on my phone. Very cool. It has a thing for itunes, but I wasn't overly concerned about getting that to work. It's rare for me to listen to a lot of music anymore.

So I'm showing off to everyone I can find--the screen turns when you turn the phone--you can make the type larger or smaller on the touch screen--it is so cool. I even figured out how to put things on the calender.

My IT guy showed up while I was in a client meeting, but the client was a good friend of mine, so I asked her to excuse me for a minute and went to meet with him to get started--I wanted to be able to sync my calender on my office computer to my phone, so that I would only have to type everything once. After that I'd be all set. Sure the extra monthly expense would be a pain, but I need to have my calender into this century--notes in ten different places is no longer cutting it. I went back and forth between the IT guy and my client. Yes, he could get my calender into my phone, but everything that I already typed into my phone would be lost. Fine. Can I get itunes, I ask. Sure he says, I'll set it up. Itunes asked me for my password and I typed my general password--it worked. It seems that I already have itunes on my computer at work. Now I needed a song to test. We went in and I bought a song and I could play it on my phone. That's nice I thought. Then I hit the artist button on my phone and this huge list of my favorites came up--what's this? The phone synced to my computer that I had loaded all my cd's on years ago when I had my first ipod. They are all on my phone--all my favorite christmas music, all my favorite albums--everything right there!

I'm in heaven playing with itunes and then the IT guy is getting ready to leave and I said, no, don't go until I check my e-mail. I noticed that there was a little 6 on an icon with an envelope, so I clicked it. IT WAS MY E-MAIL--all of my e-mail. I clicked on one ON MY PHONE and hit reply and I replied to an e-mail--ON MY PHONE. Then I looked at my computer--everything I did on the phone showed up on my computer. They are synced!

Then I looked at my calender--OMG. I am so in heaven. [Then I played with youtube some more and then I listened to some Christmas songs and then I checked out the attachments on my e-mail and then I went to MSN and checked out the news of the day and then I looked up and it was dark outside. I think my client finally left somewhere in between all that.]

So this is Christmas

The good news is that I have all my Christmas shopping done. The bad news is that I wish I didn't. This year all the presents that I wanted to get each person fell into place with very little hustle and bustle of the season. Some years when Christmas shopping is done early, I second guess myself and in a frenzy do a lot of last minute shopping. This year, although I was done early--there was little second guessing and what little doubts I had were easily satisfied with easily attained items that will be wonderful. No last minute stress, no sweating in my heavy coat, standing in long lines to spend money that I don't have. I can't believe I'm actually saying it, but I miss it.

I was in court this morning. I was looking forward to the cozy hallways filled with good cheer. I was looking forward to the usually harried clerks decked out for the holidays sporting rare smiles. I was looking forward to mean judges, softened and tolorant. My judge did say Happy Holidays, but that was the only indication that it was almost Christmas. There were no smiles by the clerks, there was no cozy hallway, there was no good cheer. I wore the only Christmas pin I saw and there were no decorations at all. It was like any other day, but somehow more depressing for the lack of the expected good cheer.

Similarly my office held the Christmas party last friday. This week is kind of a throw away, but no one seems jolly. Some of our decorations fell down and we just put them away.

At home, I put up the tree last weekend. The boxes didn't stay out for three weeks. I didn't take days to place the decorations. We didn't play Christmas music while decorating the tree. The three year old who helped me trim the tree wasn't all that impressed with my old favorite ornaments. She said her dutiful "ohhhs" when I showed her her Mother's picture ornament when she was a girl, and her own baby picture ornament, but she was much more intent to put as many ornaments onto one branch as said branch would allow and I was preoccupied with not allowing her access to the breakables.

Still I went to see two movies about the holidays--Four Christmases and Home for the Holidays--both very good and fun. I saw the snow at the Americana--which is a beautiful outdoor mall decorated to the hilt. It is just magical. Further, knock on wood, we have food on the table and a roof over our heads (ok, so mine is leaking, but only in the closet). Erika had pictures of her visit to California two years ago on her blog--what fun memories. Could Jackson have just been Caitlyn's age? I remember Jackson and I walking around the block hitting trees with a stick. Caitlyn and I walked around the block a couple of months ago with her big box of chalk in her baby's stroller. Good times.

Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus, but in times of recession, you have to look a little deeper than the trappings--close your eyes--feel the loving memories and count your blessings.

Merry Christmas to all--may it last in your heart for as long as possible.

The best things in life are free

Caitlyn's favorite thing to say these days is "follow me" and she puts her tiny little hand into mine and pulls me in the direction open to her. Last week at the park, she met a little boy whom she proudly announced was her friend (as all children she discovers at the park are). The little boy was sort of uninterested in her. When she yelled, "follow me", he did not follow. So she ran up to him in the direction that he was already going and got in front of him and yelling excitedly "follow me." Pretty soon he was following her without even knowing it and in no time at all he was fully engaged. Caitlyn is quite the dynamo.

Last Saturday we were driving and I needed to stop an look at my map, so I pulled into a 7/11. She started yelling "Snoopy, snoopy". I looked at the windows of the 7/11 and I couldn't see any snoopys, but she was very insistant. Being the doting Aunt Kathy that I am, I agreed that we could go into 7/11 to find her snoopy. "Follow me" she said pulling me toward the back of the store. How in the world could she see snoopy in the back of the store from the front window I was thinking. She came to a halt in front of the Slurpy machine and said, jumping up and down with much excitment, "snoopy, snoopy." [I was in my brand new car and Caitlyn is brand new at being three. It's only about a week since she drank only from a sippy cup. A cherry slurpy in my car???] Being the doting Aunt Kathy that I am, I filled half the cup with cherry slurpy, but I did lecture her all the time we were in line to pay and all the way to the car and some more when I put her in her car seat, to be careful and not spill her slurpy. She only spilled a little on her shirt and her chin was all red, but not a drop on my car. What a good girl.

When she first sees me, she yells Kathy! and she races over to give me a big hug. She's a very good hugger too, but she doesn't like to be held and after a bit, she is skriming to get down (good thing, now that I am a bunch older and carrying kids is a bunch harder). I say "Hi baby" and she says, "I'm not a baby" kind of matter of factly.

When I get home in the evening, Caitlyn says "Are you done with your work? Good." When I say that I have to go to work in the morning, sometimes she says "ok" and turns back to Oswald on tv, but this morning she ran in front of me and said "Stop!" "Why?" I asked and she whispered, "because there's a monster." She was soon distracted and I was able to leave to go to work. I said "see you later, alligator" and she said "I'm not an alligator."

She has her yelling moments to be sure. Screaming at the top of her lungs is a favorite past time, but being Doting Aunt Kathy, I look on benignly and ignore such outbursts. Surely she wants some candy or a movie to coax her out of her bad mood.

We have little habits between the two of us. When we are in my sitting room I must turn on her tv shows (noggin) and sit at my desk. She gets very annoyed if I sit on the sofa and if Adam tries to sit on the sofa, watch out. After a while she will lay down on the sofa and pretty soon she announces that she wants some milk. In my bedroom, she has a set of shelves that she plays on with the little miniture houses. She rearranges them endlessly and could cheerfully stay there a long time.

I am enjoying my grandma moments, but soon the real grandma will get back from vacation and I will go back to being just part of the crowd of amusments laid at the feet of a delightful three year old.

To Be Organized or not to be

I am a big fan of that Clean House show. I don't like the "oh I can't let that go, unless the star promises new furniture or something" part, however. I look around my house and I say to myself, I wish Clean House would come here, but as Adam said last night (and he is right) I wouldn't give up my wonderful stuff (read junk to everyone else) for new furniture. I already have too much furniture. What's so great about new furniture anyway. My stuffs really great. But alas, my house is really full of stuff and pretty messy. I have a great cleaning lady that comes every three weeks. I try to encourage her to focus on the kitchen, baths and the floors, but she's very big into dusting. She moves all my stuff (really--it's like an explosion of a curio shop) all over the place and then puts it back any where she feels like (sometimes in a different room). It is very hard to get organized to begin with, but with someone coming around and messing up what little organization I can acheive, it's impossible.

So I go through these phases where I want to simplify, simplify, simplify. I put all the stuff I really could live without into boxes and planned a yard sale. It never happened. Then I put all the boxes of little stuff (that no one would want even if their house burned down) into my car and went to good will. That was nice, but it was so just a drop in the bucket. Phase two of my simplify movement is to fill up the boxes again. The problem of course is that there is not enough room to store the stuff I want to keep, but I already live in more house than I can afford. The only solution is to get rid of stuff I want to keep. That clean house show is pretty smart. I'm not calling them. Ever.