In the car with Abby

I have terrible night vision. I can't see street signs at night. I can't see freeway signs at night. I can't see car license plates at night. So mostly I stay home after dark unless I already know where I am going. Unfortunately, Megan and Aaron have a thing about the beach and also for restraunts in the city. In other words they insist on living and socializing out of my comfort zone. Google and I do fine in daylight, but sometimes..it gets dark.

So I purchased a GPS and on Saturday morning, before taking Abby home I program the address into the unit and it is talking to me...

Abby: Gramma why is it talking to you?
Me: It is telling me where to go.
Abby: But Gramma, you KNOW how to get to my house.
Me: Yes I do. I am just seeing how this works so that when I don't know where I am going I will know how to use it.
Abby: Oh. My Zoozie has one that shows where she is going backwards.
Me: I know, thats a very special one, but mine doesn't know how to do that.
Abby: Then how do you back up?
Me: Well, I have to be very carful when I back up to look behind me.
Abby: I can help you gramma! I can see behind.
Me: That will be great! I will appreciate your help.

Silence

Abby: ...but gramma, I won't be here ALL the times!
Me: It's ok. I will be especially careful when you are not here.

Silence

Abby: ...but my Zoozie's is the best - I'll ask her to buy you one.

jpeg laundering

Umm I forgot to explain why this is here: I have begun the overwhelming task of organizing my external hard drive. I fervently hope that it doesn't end up to be an unending project like, for instance, my garage. I found that this one jpeg refused to upload to Snapfish, crashing the computer at every attempt. Because every other program I owned could read it I just couldn't believe that the file was bad. I tried rebooting, re-logging in, re-scanning, etc. and spent over an hour frustrated and wondering WHY? So I still don't know "why?", but by uploading to the Blog and then saving to my desktop with a right click from here....I was able to upload. I am either exceptionally brilliant or just persistant..but no matter how you look at it. I beat the system!!!

deja vu

Adrea: "Mom" July 1979 (3yrs - she had a thing about bellybuttons)

Aaron: "Mom" 1975 (3-4yrs)

Abigail June: "Gramma" August 2008 (4yrs)

I haven't changed much it seems.....

Never say "never"

...then and now

I think I was 50 when I decided that I would no longer expose certain parts of my anatomy to public view. I freely admitted that these areas of my body, though useful and much appreciated for their long standing devotion, looked much better covered. I was, thus, free to worry and fuss about the other parts where signs of aging couldn't be so easily hidden.

So the point is, that for about fifteen years I have adamently declared to any one who seemed interested that I would NEVER wear shorts, tanktops or a bathingsuit again. Well. It is one thing to declare something while residing in Newbury Park/Camarillo where it is rarely hot enough for a fan and it is way too cold too swim, and another thing entirely when you live in Pasadena where summer temperatures routinely reach 102 degrees and your adopted in-laws have a pool. I found, like many before me, that principles are just words when bodily comfort is compromised ( I do hope I never get tortured for anything important..to keep yourself safe don't tell me any secrets).

Within the first week of a typical Pasadena summer, shorts and tank tops were reinstated into my wardrobe as acceptable articles of clothing. AND yesterday swallowing my much diminished pride, I actually bought some swimming trunks.

Life lesson: number one million and counting.

Abby's list

This is Abby "helping" me write my grocery list.

From top to bottom (sort of):
soup
bisquick
..and
Abby('s) toy
sugar
plates (paper)

Dilema...

So. Here is my latest project gone wrong. I have a white futon in the work room/play room - it looks nice, but it is sort of impractical..so I decided to make pillow and seat covers that can be washed.

Sadly, sometimes perfectly good visions do not transition into real life. I bought material that went well together and that I liked and still like. I spent several hours on the pillow covers and thought they turned out kind of nice. THEN I made the seat cushion and....oh yuk! Christmas in July! Who would have known?

So now I am stuck with deciding to keep part of it, scrap it all or try something different all together.

I tried it with just the pillows and the white seat cushion - it might be ok but seems to need something.

I tried a small green pillow - even that small touch of green jars the senses.

Maybe a small pillow or two of the watermelon red color?

And none of this solves my original problem does it? Ah well, some days just end in limbo.

Making things...

A few weeks ago when I was trying to create Abby's vision of a perfect "twirl dress", I was reminded of how much pleasure I have found throughout my life in making things. One of my earliest memories is of sitting on the kitchen floor making doll clothes out of scraps of material. I don't remember anything much about how the finished product looked or what doll I was dressing, but I remember assessing my skill level (low) and my tools (sissors and a large needle and thread), the excitment of the planning and the figuring and THEN the surge of triumph when I made it work (which is probably why I rmember it...heady stuff for a little kid).

I still dream about whatever project I am working on and if I am not working on anything particular, I find myself dreaming of excel spreadsheet formulas or even plumbing (always the romantic). Though I ultimately failed to produce four year old Abby's vision of a perfect "twirl dress", the pleasure was in the trying AND I have not given up - dress number five is in the works.

So, then I started thinking about all the things I have made in my lifetime (most not captured in photos) and in sheer volume alone the list is impressive. Besides the drawings and paintings, there was, stained glass, pottery, macreme, crochet, sewing and probably stuff I can't remember. I wonder where I found the time to cook dinner, read to my children, babysit for a bunch of kids, devour books, sort of clean the house, sort of mow the yard, and do laundry? There were projects that never saw the light of day; the dress I tried sewing by hand, the giant Barbie doll house that ended life in the rafters, because Ada grew up. There were the projects that should not have seen the light of day; my appalling first attempts at making children's clothes for one (Aaron would tremble in his very cool shoes to know that I actually took him out in public like this). In my defense, this WAS the age of red and gold shag carpet, green appliances and sideburns...we had it all.

So I suppose I am trying to say that for better or worse making things is what I do .




































And I am having a terrible time uploading, resizing and moving pictures (at one point I lost them all)...so this is all you get...