Absent.......

It has been weeks...literally since I have taken time to sit down and jot down our activities.  

I am retired...but I manage to fill my calendar until there are few moments to think.  

All by choice of course!  

BUT...

I still want to remember all of the things that take hold of my days and with two new grandbabies on the way I want to keep all of my memories intact.

The Pope! 

 Four continuous days of watching this very holy man travel through three cities during his very first trip to the US.
No wonder there is nothing on my blog!!!
Even my non-Catholic friends found reasons to talk about this humble, unassuming man.  

I honestly watched every moment I could fit in.  I picked CNN since I knew our Catholic television station would give nothing but positive insight.  The result....

CNN's Anderson Cooper was awestruck!  To see commentary from a non-Catholic perspective was great.  Pope Francis traveling sandwiched between limo's and huge SUV's in his tiny Fiat made a statement.  He is not a man seeking power, but a man of humility doing the work of God.  He is more comfortable among the homeless than sitting in a State Dinner with dignitaries and so this is the schedule he choose.  

He did not condemn on any level but asked for humanity instead of hostility.  Words that we all should take to heart.

And....yesterday what I think will  be the last swim of the season.  

The water is 82 degrees and for me that is polar atmosphere.

Not so for two little girls who were dying to get in the water one more time.  

It makes me smile to see them enjoy everything.  Now that school has started I don't get that opportunity so much.

Life is just better with grandbabies.

I will make this next statement brief...we have a rat in our $40 trap finally.

I sent Sara out to take this picture....and even putting this photo on here made me squeamish.

Just to note...my husband actually threw the electrified creature on the grass and measured it at 15'" from head to end of tail.  It is for me the epitome of disgusting to know that this thing has been on our property for 10 months leaving rat tracks and droppings everywhere.  

We are armed in case he has any friends.  

And finally I have a pile of fabric that will soon be a quilt for grand baby #3.

I am not so sure I am a fan but with a smile on my face I am going to attempt to recreate a blanket from a picture I saw on Pinterest.  No pattern....just a picture.  Thank heavens for a helpful lady at a quilt shop that was patient enough to guide me in the right direction.

However, after ringing up a pile of fabric quarters that cost $116 that was probably the least she could do!

In the next week I am going to attempt to connect all of these pieces into something that resembles a picture and hope that when I am done it makes mom and baby happy because in the long run that is all that matters.

Project for the next few weeks....sew!

Blog for the next few weeks...probably not!

Happy 40th!

I have gone through stacks of pictures today.....and this is the one that I keep coming back to as my favorite.  It is the Matt I will always remember.  The eternally joyful and positive young man.  

In my mind Matt will  always be 27, even though today he would be 40.  So hard to believe.  He will remain perpetually young and maybe that is a good thing.  I have a feeling that even at 40 Matt would have retained that youthful attitude, the one that endeared him to so many.

After so many years of being sad and mournful on this day, I am spending this day being grateful for the fact we did have 27 years. 

I served at a funeral last week.  A young mother lost her four day old child.  They knew the last few months she carried him that the prognosis was not good.  He had a heart problem that they were not sure could be corrected.  After four days of holding him and loving him they gave him back to God.  I  really cannot imagine.  They never got to know him.  Through pictures they will remember his face but they did not know him.

That was an awakening moment for me.  I have come to grips with the reality that we lost our son.  I have questioned it, I have had moments of anger, and I have truthfully wondered why some people seem to go through life seemingly with no hurdles in their path.  Maybe I will never understand it all, but I am still feeling blessed.  I have 27 years of incredible memories.  I know who Matt was and I watched him develop into a young man I was very proud of.  Yes, I am sure we tend to remember all of the good and forget those negatives as we eulogize someone who is no longer here, but in all honesty the bad was so minor.  A 21 year old who bleached his hair as a "I am an "I am an adult now prank", or a college junior who got that darn tattoo that he knew would make me irate....MINOR!

I managed to find humor in both cases, though I only laughed about it behind his back!

  A friend called to say they were thinking about our family today and mentioned that Matt surely would have had an incredible 40th birthday party....I prefer to think that he would have been grateful to come home to a house full of kids and a wife who would smoother him with hugs and presents because he had hit the big FOUR O! No matter what he did he would have done it with enthusiasm and joy because that was who he was....and because I knew who he was I am blessed.  

Happy Birthday Son!

14 Years Ago.....

I do not care how many years pass.....Sept. 11 will continue to bring back memories of one of the worst days in our history.  

I read the above last night while looking at Facebook before I went to bed.  It is a different perspective on a day I will never forget.

The night before......

Who knew?

Yes, the monsters who orchestrated this awful attack.  I wonder what their night was like.  After all they were going down with the ship so to speak.  Was there pride?  Was there fear?  Was there any tinge of doubt in their minds?

So very many lives lost.  So many families destroyed.  Americans unnerved by the fact they were attacked at home.

We will forever be overcautious.  That is probably a good thing.  It is also sad.

To exist looking over your shoulder is not how it should be.  

If this is a yearly reminder to treasure each day then it is a good

 for us.

I am more mindful of the fragility of life.  

If there is good to come from this then maybe that is it.  

God bless all of those that were personally affected.  

May you find meaning and peace in the fact that those of us that lived this will always grieve with you.

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “
Matthew 5:1-4

It's A Wrap..........

So as we officially kick of summer with Memorial Day, it seems we officially end summer with Labor Day.  And so we did this year.

The weekend was awesome and the weather, though warm, was perfect for water sports, and family!

I am not always on board with dragging myself to the lake.  For me it usually means LOTS of planning ahead of,  major grocery shopping (as the markets in Tool, Texas leave much to be desired) and loading up the car to travel to a destination where I know I will work for the majority of my "vacation".

I bit the bullet and not only agreed to go, but invited the extended family to come along...which meant a houseful again!  Our goal this summer was to sell our very small lake house and move into something that would accommodate more people.....seems that was not meant to be.

Maybe that is not so bad.  There is a kind of togetherness that is created when you cram 13 people in 1400 square feet for the weekend!  

It was fun, and the best part of the weekend was the joy in watching the kids LOVE their lake time!

My grand babies and my niece are water babies.

You cannot wear them out.

Fish, lizards, and turtles all sparked their imagination....it is like a nature lesson that you don't plan.

To complete the weekend we celebrated birthdays!

Poor Sara and Drew never get to enjoy their birthday solo.  

Although I worked at making sure they were not born on the same day, they still have a joint birthday party every year....and so it was this weekend.

Drew's favorite present...a daddy diaper bag, full of all the necessities for baby care when he is traveling solo with their new baby due in February.

This is his last birthday that he will celebrate before he becomes a dad.  I am still trying to wrap my mind around that! 

 He has also learned that once children enter the picture he no longer gets to open his own presents, or blow out the candles on his cake.

Somehow I do not think he cares...somehow his life is looking pretty good right now.

What a great was to celebrate the end of summer!

Roots......

I am on a mission...so to speak.  I am always on a mission.  That is a bit of how I live my life.  I never know where I am headed but when the idea strikes me I am on board 110%.

This all began when I found myself with three broken sewing machines in the middle of a huge project.  Not loving "idle time"  I began cleaning out closets and came upon a box of old family photos.  I knew I had them but really never sorted through them.  They belonged to my grandmother on my dad's side.  She was a collector, like me.  I have little from my mom's side.  She was not a collector.  The older I get the more I realize I am a product of my dad's genes.  I am proud of that...all the idiosyncrasies of the Goering side of the family.....packrat traits included.

 This leads me to my mission,  I am going to catalog all I found, in a scrapbook with all the info I can find for my kids.  I know little of my family roots.  We grew up in Texas, they are from Illinois.  We visited yearly and I loved it but I never sat down and asked anyone about our history.

 These photos are helping me piece some of it together.  

It matters to me.

Above is the place of my grandmothers birth...Iola, Kansas.  Really?

I had no idea.  I thought everyone was from Illinois.

So how did this beautiful 17 year old (my grandmother) get from Kansas to Chicago to study music in 1911?  This was 100 years ago.  The picture is from her appearance in the opera STRADELLA.

I do remember her beautiful voice and her love of music which she passed on to my dad....but not to me!!!

I am excited.  The more I search, the more I discover, and the more I understand.  The more I feel tied to my roots.  I want my kids to know all of this before I am gone.  I never questioned anything so now I do not know.  I won't be able to fit it all together but what I can verify I will catalog for my kids so that they do have a sense of family.