I'm Baaaa - ack!

It's been a long time since I've written anything. My family has probably given up even looking anymore and so I guess I'll just be writing for myself. I'm sorry I've been so lax. I'll try to do better. I was just really frustrated and upset about something I could do nothing about and couldn't write positive things, so it was better not to write at all. I guess I've reconciled myself with trying to be patient.
But now I'm feeling grateful for some of the people in my life and will write about two of them now.

If you read Leslie's blog, you probably know about the purple Christmas tree. As I was taking it down yesterday, I was just feeling SO LOVED. To think about Leslie seeing that tree and buying it to give to me, and then their family -- during the busy, busy holidays -- making the time to take photos of everyone dressed in purple (and shades thereof) and making ornaments out of them! And then getting Joel to get me out of the house so they could bring it over and decorate it for me as a surprise -- well, I just feel really loved.

The whole purple thing is really funny. My mom liked purple and wore it sometimes. I guess pretty frequently, because when Cecily was a toddler, whenever she saw a woman wearing purple anywhere -- at church, in the store, at the mall -- she would run up and hug them around the knees and say, "Grandma!" Luckily, Cecily was so cute, that no one ever really seemed to mind. In fact, they were usually quite pleased. Then when Mom died and we were clearing out her home, I found a house dress that she had made out of polyester knit that was a length-wise striped multi-shade purple. It reminded me of Mom and made me feel closer to her and so I took it home and wore it for 15+ years. I liked it because of the sleeve length, and the fact that it had no buttons or zippers. You could just throw it over you when you got out of bed or out of the shower and you were instantly decently covered and able to walk out of the bedroom or answer the door.

After the first ten or twelve years of constantly seeing me in that housedress that never wore out, by husband started to complain. I don't think the kids ever noticed what I wore or didn't, but they picked up on his complaints and became occasionally vocal too. Finally, (since David was being paid better than he ever had before) I decided that I could afford to buy a new housedress. I couldn't throw that purple thing away. It had become a family joke. It was made and worn by my mom before me. It was more than thirty years old. IT WAS A FAMILY HEIRLOOM!!! So I tucked it away in the top of my closet and gave it to Anna for her bridal shower. I think she still has it -- probably hidden in some box under the bed in the room that used to be her bedroom. She'd better have it. It's supposed to handed down to her daughter, when she gets married. By then it will be more than 60 years old!!

Another thing that makes me feel SO LOVED is how thoughtful and considerate my son Christian is. Today he is installing a garage door opener on my garage door. He and Leslie had one that was so noisy that it bothered them. The decided to get a new one. Christian gave us his old one and said he would install it, if we didn't mind having a really noisy one. "That doesn't matter," David said, "we're both going deaf anyway." (We always argue about who is getting more hard of hearing.)

Christian and Leslie are both so thoughtful. Theyanticipate and think about problems we could be having and things that we worry about, without us even telling them. And I know that they are both so busy, and yet they still take time to think about us. I just love them so much that I'm sitting here with tears streaming down my face, just writing about them.

OKAY, on to another subject before I get all wet. . . .

When we were getting our new garage door (the other one bent into a V right down the middle) the salesman said, "You'll want an automatic opener."
"No," said David, "we can't afford one now."
"But how will you open the garage?" he asked.
"Well," David said wearing his most serious face, "we have hired a little Mexican boy that we take everywhere with us, and when we get home, we just have him hop out of the care and open it for us."
"Oh," the salesman said with his face just as serious.

(Do you think he believed David?)