I'm Still Euphoric

What a wonderful evening we spent at last night's concert. Neither Dick nor I have EVER heard anything so absolutely perfect. Honestly, Itzhak Perlman is the most accomplished violinist on earth today. He played three Sonatas for violin and piano, with four movements each. I especially enjoyed the Beethoven no.7 in C minor ("Eroica") because I was so familiar with it.

Rohan De Silva played the piano and together they were exquisite. The timing was always perfection. They have played often together and both teach at Juilliard. He is from Sri Lanka and of course Perlman was born in Israel. What a great team! They had standing ovations for all three Sonatas. I have never seen such an appreciative audience.

I didn't cough but once. My only problem was that I cried too many times just from sheer joy. The time just went too fast. The last part they did was lighter and the audience really loved that too. He played three encores and one of them was the theme from Schindler's List. Perlman collaborated with John Williams on this and he played the solo parts for the film.

I could hardly go to sleep last night because I just kept hearing it in my head. Today, I still feel so blessed at having been able to attend this unforgettable concert.

Great Concert For Me Tonight

So glad I am feeling well enough to go to THE concert tonight. We have had the tickets for ages, and it is a sell out. I never thought I would ever get to hear Itzhak Perlman in person in my lifetime, but he will be here tonight for one night only!!

That man is so brilliant! He plays with such ease that it never fails to astound me whenever I have been fortunate enough to catch him on television. Of course I listen to his recordings often, but it is so much better to be able to watch him. Being a violinist myself, I can so appreciate his technique and interpretation.

When I had to give up playing the violin, it was like a death. I truly mourned it and for a very long time I couldn't even listen to a violin recording or even a symphony without crying. It was a very sad day in my life when my arthritis got so bad. I had to sell my Galliano, my gorgeous Italian violin, because it is not good to store them away. They need to be played in order to keep their best tone. When in museums, they pay people to come in and play them. That would be a great job, to my way of thiking.

I am really excited and just pray that I don't take a coughing fit while there. I'll go prepared with cough drops, ice water and kleenex, just in case. I am over the cold, however. It is just the asthma that is left and I am combating that pretty well with my blast of prednisone. The only thing is that it does make me shaky and full of false energy. I am getting my house cleaned pretty well, but tire out quickly.

Later!

You Asked For It

Here is the picture of me taken this morning after having my hair cut yesterday. Just look at the hairdo if you can. The rest of my face reflects the effects of my being so sick. I think I am going to like my hair better when it grows out just a little in the back. When you are my age, I do think that having long hair pulls ones features down and makes them look older. Anyway, I'm glad I did it, even if it was on a whim. It will be so nice not to have hair all over everything as I seemed to be losing it by the handfull.

Doctors Are So Much Fun

Why is it that we all hate to go to see a doctor? I absolutely adore my doctor, but I still would rather not go. He is a fabulous doctor though and I know how darned right lucky I am to have him. It's a great story though, about how Mark Benson came to be my doctor. I used to go to his wife, Aurora. Mark, at that time, was in charge of the Emergency Room at Eisenhower Hospital here in the desert. I happened to be in the hospital with really bad bronchitis quite a few years ago. He was on call for his wife, who was on vacation. I don't know why, but we just seemed to hit it off and I really did like him. He mentioned to me that he was going to go into private practice with his wife and I just automatically said, "Do you think she would mind if I had you for my doctor?" He actually told me that he didn't think she would, so that is how I became his very first patient.

Over the years, he has been wonderful to me. He spends so much time with me when we go in that I am almost embarassed to think he might have patients waiting for him. But we (Dick always goes with me and vise versa) are always there over forty five minutes, and sometimes more. We just visit a lot and laugh because he is always joking around. How many doctors these days do you know that will spend more than fifteen minutes with a patient and my hemotologist only spends three or four. Anyway, I really do like this guy.

Having said that, I had to go see him today because my stupid cold is now accompanied by asthma, which I have been able to keep under control since I started taking Advair. He said to me, "Haven't you lost some weight?" Gee, that sounded good to me but I felt guilty so I asked him to see how much I weighed the last time I was in. He looked and grinned by saying, "You've gained five pounds." Yes, I knew that. Holiday weight, you know, which just hasn't come off. Still, it was pretty nice to have him think I had lost. I was wanting to go home, but we stayed longer than we would have because he just seems to relax and take his time when we are there.

On the way home I got the bright idea that I needed to have my hair cut. It was really really long and was driving me crazy, plus I wanted my hair washed so badly and was afraid to do it at home because it takes forever to dry and I had no energy to do it anyway. So now, I have it really really short and I think I am going to like it very much.

Didn't mean to get off the track but now that I have a prescription for a prednisone blast, I am sure the asthma will go. I can only take one antibiotic, Cypro, because I am so allergic to everything. We are both afraid that eventually I will get allergic to Cypro too, so neither of us wants for me to have to take it. I need to save it for a worse time I think. He did give me a presciption for it to get filled if I get a fever.

Actually, I do feel better already and yes, doctors can be fun.

Cross With Crossword Puzzles

Every day I work two crossword puzzles, one from our regular newspaper and the N.Y. one that our newspaper also prints. I really enjoy them and they help to keep my brain from getting atrophied. I have to say, I am pretty darned good at doing them, but as the week progrsses, the N.Y. ones keep getting harder and harder, starting with about Thursday. The good thing though, is that I enjoy almost equally as well, going back over the previous ones that I haven't been able to quite fill in all the spaces to see the answers to the ones I couln't quite complete.

Here's the thing, Sue, knowing how much I enjoy them, gave me a whole big package of New York Crossword Puzzles that date back into the fifties. There is one on each page, actually printed on whole sheets of the New York Times.The only thing is that the pages are not connected chronologically, and there are a lot of them. I did a few, but got really frustrated because nowhere can I find the answers to them. I searched the internet pretty thoroughly and haven't been able to find answer one. So now I am wondering if my frustration is worth doing them at all. For the time being, I am setting them all aside until I can figure out where I can get answers. Does anybody have any advise for me? HELP!! Aside from that, some of the news bits are pretty interesting, so all is not lost.

A Sneezin' and a Wheezin'

Yep, that's me, the gal to stay away from. That's why I haven't been very active the last few days on my blog, or anyplace else, for that matter. About a week ago, Dick woke up with a really bad head cold. He's good at catching them and bringing them home to me. For a long time though, I didn't catch them at all. We were always careful about sleeping in separate rooms etc. so that I could stay well. This time, all that stuff just didn't work. Dick got over his in about four days (he usually does) and I am now going on my fourth day and I still feel like crap. It has been so long since I have been in this state.....at least three or four years. I am not quite sure why I have kept so well. I have been around the great grandkids who have been really sick, and all kinds of sick people who seem to love to go out to church and other places when they are contagious, and I have managed to stay perfectly well.

Oh well, this too will end too. I am beginning to feel a bit better, but I still sound terrible. Last night I was coughing and I had quite a bad asthma attack. Of course I couldn't find the brand new inhaler that wasn't but a month old. I looked everywhere but in doing so, my wheezing only got worse. So, I just resorted to my time old cure of just relaxing my whole body and breathing as deeply as I could and sure enough, within about fifteen minutes, I was breathing normally again.

Funny thing, when somebody calls and asks how you are feeling, if you actually confess that you have a cold or anything else for that matter, they can usually find all sorts of things for you to do to help. Some of the old time remedies are suggested, which, by the way, seem to work better for me that just taking medication. At any rate, I am getting better each day. It usually takes a week, at least for most people. In the meantime, I'm just hanging out in my chair, with an occaisional trip into the office and this computer to read other blogs, but not feeling up to doing any posting myself.

Where the Pills Go

A row of bottles on my shelf
Caused me to analyze myself.
One yellow pill I have to pop
Goes to my heart so it won't stop.
A little white one that I take
Goes to my hands so they won't shake
The blue one that I use a lot
Tells me I'm happy when I'm not
The purple one goes to my brain
And tells me that I have no pain.
The capsule tells me not to wheeze
It helps me not to cough or sneeze.
The red one, smallest of them all
Goes to my head so I won't fall.
Such an array of brilliant pills
Helps to cure all kinds of ills.
But what I'd really like to know
Is what tells each pill where to go.

I wish that I could take credit for this bit of rhme, but unfortunately the kudos go to "anonymous." It really gave me cause to wonder what would happen to me if I stopped taking even one of my many pills. I counted them up and my total for the day is 22. Of course some of them I take two or three times a day. Mostly, my pills are spplements. The ones in this category are: Red yeast, which I take in place of Lypitor, because I couldn't tolerate it, garlic, calcium, magesium, fish oil, multiple vitamin, vitamin B12, grape seed and a baby aspirin. The four prescription ones are gabapentin for my nerve damage, avapro for blood pressure, isosorbide to dialate my blood vessels, and omeprazole to keep my heartburn in check. My golly, it's no wonder that the pharmaceudical companies are making SO MUCH money.

Back to Sewing

I used to have a sewing project going all the time. First, I made clothes for myself, then when the kids came along, I made almost all their clothes. I should modify that and say that I made clothes for the girls. My one and only son just couldn't imagine why I couldn't make clothes for him too and he would get pretty upset. I finally pacified him by making him a shirt, and he loved it! He used to go around bragging that his mother made it. The thing is, I really did enjoy sewing and especially loved saving the money it would have cost to outfit the girls properly from buying everything from stores. After the kids grew up and left the nest, I still sewed a bit, altering, mending and occaisionally making something for myself. I made three mumus which I still wear although they are getting pretty thin. I even made one for Sue with longer sleeves. They are particularly nice to wear around the house here in the California desert.

I didn't sew for about the last five years and when I finally got started, my machine just wouldn't work right. The tension seemed to be off. I took the machine to a local repair man and after $100.00 worth of work, it worked just fine and I started sewing again. Not long after, it started the tension problem again, but I didn't take it back because it had been over a year and the service was only gauranteed for that long. I just gave up on it basically.

I did have an antique treddle Singer machine that was pretty much used as a show piece with a flower arrangement on the top. When my daughter, Jayne, came to visit once she brought her then boy friend who was really taken by my Singer Sewing Machine. He was quite an expert on antiques and a great collector of same. His whole house had beautiful ones. One of his rooms he had as a storage room of many many pieces and several Singer Sewing Machines. He told me I ought to get it running and he couldn't get over what great shape it was in. Actually, all it needed was a new belt as the one that was on it was all dried up. After he went home, he sent me a new belt and it was ready to put on except for some stapling that Dick did for me and yes, it really does work. Unfortunately, the operator is a little rusty and I got frustrated just trying to get the rythmn and just gave up on that too.

I mentioned one day to my great friend, Verna, that I was having trouble with my machine and I told her the whole story and so one day she came over to look at it. She spent about twenty minutes in my bedroom looking at my tension problem and came out to tell my that it was fixed. I couldn't believe it, so had to go check it right away. It was working perfectly. Can you imagine how thrilled I was. I almost kissed her, but I did give her a big hug. Do you know what was wrong with it? I was threading it wrong. It had been so long since the last time I used it that when I changed the color of the thread, I threaded it wrong. Well...........now I am back sewing, maybe not up a storm, but I did seam in three shirts that Sue gave me that I wear constantly now because they are so comfortable. Hallelujah! I am back to sewing!!!

Personal Histories

I'm wondering if anyone out there has writen their personal history? It can be a real challenge, but also a great blessing to one's posterity.

I decided one day not too many years ago that it was time that I start to write my own history. It was really quite easy at first, because there were lots of things I remembered about my childhood and it was actually quite fun. Once I started, it was really hard to stop. I did it in the morning when I was still fresh, and before I knew it, I had over a hundred or so pages. I decided then that from that point I would try to keep everything running on a yearly basis. This was pretty easy too, because I had a few things to help me, dates of things happening with my children, grandchildren and so on. By the time I got to 1985 everything had been going very well when I suddenly was hit with writers block. I just couldn't remember anything that happened during 1985, except for the birth of one of the grandchildren. I couldn't seem to find any record of that year and so I just quit.

Since that time, I have been sad to think I ended my life's history in 1985. A few times I have even tried to get my thoughts together with the idea of forging ahead to try to bring everything up to date. That way, I thought, I could just update it every year. I great idea, yes! But, unfortunately, I just haven't made myself start again. I so much wish that I had kept better records of the things we did or anthing that I might have thought would be interesting. It's amazing though, how many things we forget as we get older.

With this thought, I would like to urge all you young people (and the not so young) to keep a journal. What I wouldn't give if I had kept all the journals that my sweet Sue has given me over the years. I would write in it in January, and then all the rest of the pages would stay blank. You know, you don't have to journal every day, or even every week. If one could just take the time to write in a jounal once a month, just think of all the material that would be at hand when one decides to write one's history. Just do it, once in the habit, it will seem easy.

Having said that, I am going to start with 1985 and move on with my history. I am going to start tomorrow morning. This means I probably won't write in this blog every day. Maybe it will be just once a week, but I will keep it up, I promise.

A Little About Me

I suppose I should really tell everyone a little bit about my life. I promise to hit the hight lights and not make this into such a lengthy post:

I was born on April 23, 1927 in Pocatello, Idaho. I lived there until I was 16 never really feeling like we were poor, which we were. There was just my mom and me since my dad had died when I was 10. I was a late child, my mom being 45 when I was born and my dad was 54. When I was 16 my mom and I went to live with my oldest sister in Northern California, and I have been a California Girl since then. I got married a week after my 18th birthday!! Way too early, and all I wanted was to have a large family. That didn't happen until 6 years later and after that time, we had five, four girls, Nancy, Sue, Jayne, Nikki and finally one son, Rich. I'll tell you more about them at a later time.

When I had been married for 25 years, Dick #l left me for another woman and a year later I married Dick #2, whom I have told you all about. When growing up, I honestly cannot remember not playing the violin and yet I can remember clearly my first violin lesson when I was five years old. By the time I was in 5th grade, I was walking all the way across town to the High School so that I could play with their Symphony. I played at the Utah State Fair when I was about twelve. I played a very complicated Concerto and it seems that from that time on I was considered a child prodigy. I really loved playing and my mom never had to force me to practice. In fact a lot of the time, she would have to make me stop. When we moved to California, I found that I couldn't find a teacher, or even a mentor, who was better than I, so I sorta stopped playing for about a year. My husband knew that I wasn't happy so he suggested that I audition for the Burbank Symphony, which I did and I got in right away and ever since then Symphony has been my first love.

I did finally found my mentor in Eunice Wennermark, a wonderful studio musician who had an all girl violin choir consisting of six violinists who played in six part harmony. All the music they played was arranged by one of the talented violinist who was also an arranger. Her name was June Howard. A friend of mine, who belonged to my church and my ward was in that choir and when one of the girls in the group decided to become a nun, it created a vacancy that needed to be filled. My friend, Dorothy Bradshaw, talked me into auditioning for her place. I won the audition and then I had to practice the whole day for about two weeks as "The Wennermark Violin Choir" was a professional group and we were scheduled to go on tour in two weeks time Everything had to be learned by memory and since I was playing the second part, it was not as easy to learn. The music was very difficult too, especially the Bach Preludium, which I had never played before. That particular piece we played in unison and it never failed to bring down the house. I had to join the union, Local 49 and am now,and have been for years, a lifetime member. We also had our own Television Show for 13 weeks. I had a busy and fulfilling life as a pro violinist, getting calls to play in such groups as The Pasadena Sympony (I used to get a lot of these calls, filling in for people that couldn't play a particular condert,with lots of Symphonies around Southern California) and the Santa Monica Opera orchestra. Of course all that changed when we moved to the desert. There really wasn't much opportunity here to play professionaly, but to be honest, I never really wanted to. Playing in church was enough for me until I started to get arthritis so badly that I had to quit altogether.

That is all I am going to write about myslelf at this time, but I am sure you will learn more about me and what I am all about as the time goes by. Right now, I am being called to eat lunch. Dick just got back from Costco and he brought us both a Polish Sausage sandwich with sour krout, pickle relish, onions and mustard, just the way I like them. This, by the way, is the best bargain in the world, in case you don't already know.

A Tribute To My Husband

Honestly, I can think of absolutely no person in the world who doesn't admire and truly like my dear husband, Dick. There was only one that didn't like him, but that was a very long time ago. Want to know who that person was? ME........Yes, my first experience meeting my husband to be was a bad one. I must tell you how it happened:

I was working, happily I might add, for the Chaterbox Dress Shop in Van Nuys, California. The year was 1971. My neice, Nancy, was working for I.T.T. Gilfillan , a subsidiary of I.T.T. that manufactured radar, which was sold mostly to the Navy. It seems that a vacancy opened up in the P.M.O. (Program Management Office) and she called me as soon as she heard about it to tell me that I should drop everything and come interview for the position. I had been working as a Bookkeeper for many years and I thought that it wouldn't hurt for me to look into it. To make a long story short, I interviewed, was hired on the spot and went to work almost immediately. My job was as a Statistic Analyst. Gilfillan was then a very large company with many different departments. My boss, Sam, was an almost attorney (going to law school at the company's expense). I got along with him very well. One day he told me to go over to Accounting and get some data from a book called the BPR (Budget Performance Report) to get some data that I needed for a report I had to do monthly. When I got to the Accounting Dept. I found out that this enormous book was kept in the Manager's Office, the manager being one Dick Robbins. When I walked into the office and told the manager I needed this data, he told me where the book was and I actually was able to get the info I required. When I started to leave, I remembered that Sam had asked me to get some information from Robbins. I said to him, "Oh, by the way, Sam asked for you to inform me what this BPR is all about, so that I can tell him." He was sitting forward in his chair, and he rocked back as far as it would go, looked me over and replied, "You can tell Sam Carfano that if he wants to know what is in this book, he can darned well come over and see for himself." Talk about being intimidated. I fled the office back to my own, almost in tears, because it was only my third day there and I felt a bit overwhelmed anyway. Needless to say, whenever the time came around for me to get my info, I really didn't want to go. Fortunately I had made a friend who worked in Accounting and I asked her to get the data I needed, so I didn't have to confront Robbins at all. If ever I saw him coming down the hall, I would go in the opposite diresction.

Fast forward now to a luncheon that was given for a man who was leaving the company. Nancy and I were to go together, but unfortunately, we were a bit late and there were only two seats left and one of them was right next to Dick Robbins!! I told Nancy that she had to sit by him, but she wanted to sit by this other guy so she took that seat and I was left with no alternative. It felt really weird, but at least Dick started some conversation and somhow I learned that he loved to sing and that he had been in a performing choir back in Indiana. I told him I could arrange for himh to audition for this choir that performed once in a while with our Symphony. I also told him that I was professional violinist with the San Fernando Symphony Orchestra. Music was a good thing for conversation and I found out that he wasn't such a bad guy after all. I even got a comp ticket for him to attend our concerts.

He did audition for the choir, joined it, and came to our Symphony concerts for about three months before asking me one night after the concert if I would like to go somwhere to get something to eat. Since I never ate before a concert, I was happy to. Unfortunately the place he chose was so noisy we could hardly hear ourselves talk, so he invited me to go a couple of blocks to his apartment so that we could visit. It's funny, but I never thought anything about going to a man's apartment at that time of night. It was already late, but we talked until about two o'clock in the morning and by the end of that night, I decided that I really did like Dick Robbins.

I could go into more detail, (there is quite a bit more to the story) but will just say that seven months later we were married. I met his mother while she was visiting Dick and just can't imagine what she thought about her son getting serious with a woman who had five children and was nine years older that he was. He was only 35 then. I know that if my son was 35 and had never been married, I don't think I would have been too happy about this situation. Sad to say, she died shortly after that visit, and never knew that we actually did get married. In August, we will have been married for 39 years!! That is 14 years longer than I was married to my first husband, the father of all this great kids!

I just have to end this post by letting everyone know that I have the greatest, sweetest, most loving, patient husband in the whole world. Each of my children can attest to this. They all love him so much too. It seems like I just love him more every day. We do enjoy beeing together and our likes and dislikes are so similar that sometimes it seems uncanny. The only thing we are different about is that I love to read books and he has no time for that. I think he has only read about two or three books since we have been married. He tells me that he did read all of Ayn Rand's books and loved them, especially "The Fountainhead, and "Atlas Shrugged." Since I loved those books too, at least we have those in common. I could add a lot more, about how he does all the laundry (and has for years) all my floors and at least 50% of the cooking. How about this guy, don't you envy me?

When I got up this morning and answered Dick's call to come look at my blog quickly, I must say I was totally amazed, humbled and more than a bit intimidated to see how many of Sue's followers had visited my first ever post on my so very new blog. At first I wasn't sure whether I was mad or glad that Sue had made me the subject of her post this morning.

Strangely, I feel that I almost know some of you because I always read Sue's blog the first thing when I get on the computer (usually mid day, because Dick, my sweeheart husband, always has the mornings in the office) and I always read all of the comments. You are all so loyal to my talented daughter and I can understand that, being pretty loyal to her myself. I must say again though that I was totally awed by the response I received by that first pitiful offering. Let me say that I will try to do better, but don't expect a daily post because I guess I just don't have that much to write about. My days are pretty hum drum.........sometimes sleeping in, but never getting up much before 8:00 a.m. When I do roll myself out of bed (literally) I stumble into the living room, after getting dressed, brushing my teeth etc., and start on my puzzles. I do two crosswords, one criptoquick and a sudoku every day. That seems to get my mind to working and hopefully helps to keep some of the brain cells intact. Before I know it, it is time to do a little housework and then lunch. I get on the computer in the afternoon, while Dick is taking his nap or doing errands, and when finished with that, I read the rest of the paper and anything else that is available, except for my kindle, which I try to save for evening. I am an avid reader and thanks to Sue, I have untold books to read since she gave me my kindle for Mother's Day. She did it in her name so that when I got it, I had over a hundred books to read. Since we have much the same taste in books, I have only read a couple that I wasn't too thrilled with. I have read 56 of them since I got it, and I still have over a hundred to read. That tells you that she buys them faster than I can read them. Oh, to be able to read as fast as Sue does. I consider myself a pretty fast reader, but I will never catch up with that gal. You may notice that I have a propensity to ramble and I can tell you right now that I refuse to go back and edit. So be it.

We have been a bit lazy about taking our Christmas decorations down. Our tree is artificial, so I feel I don't have to hurry. Maybe I just like postponing the end of the season as long as possible. I do love the way my living room/dining room looks after putting about sixty or seventy Santa Clauses around. I love them and we used to buy a new one every year (and maybe a few extra) until there just isn't any place to put more. Darn it, I hate it when space runs out, be it in my rooms or on my walls. I suppose one of these days, Dick will get the idea that it is time for Christmas to be over and we'll get busy on that. Right now, we are still a little worn out from travelling to our oldest daughter, Nancy's , for Christmas Eve and part of Christmas Day, then racing home to start preparing for our Seventh Annual New York New Years Eve Party. That is the time we use to do our main yearly deep cleaning of the whole house........only a week to do it and set up for the party. I don't mind it, except for the china cabinet, which drives me a little mad before I have finally washed and polished every bit of bone china, crystal etc. Still, the end result looks great and we open up the whole house for the party. Mostly though, we are contained in the living room, dining room and a few in the kitchen. This year we set up for 25, but one couple was sick, so we ended up with 23. Sue suggested that I tell you a little bit about this event so here goes:

Fortunately, we don't have to prepare all the food as it is pot luck. No problem with that as we all bring the same thing each year. If someone gets sick, I usually prepare what that couple is supposed to bring so that we won't have a change in menu. Crazy, yes? Still, if one thing wasn't there, I'm sure we would all miss it. I always make my famous choco brownie cake with the fudge icing and we provide the ice cream, bread or rolls, and the Martinelli's sparkling apple cider(because no one in our group drinks alcohol). We eat dinner promptly at six. Everyone comes about ten minutes early so our kitchen is a mass of women putting their dishes out so it will be ready to go at the appointed time. This is not too bad, even though my kitchen is pretty small, because everyone knows just where their dish goes. After dinner and dessert, which ends at 7:30, everyone helps to take all the card tables down and then we start our circle time. As you might know, this comes from Sue. We, as a family, have circle time every time we go to her house for Christmas or Thanksgiving. Basically, a question is asked which everyone has to answer, and it does get pretty funny at times. (Sue's circle times are more spiritual) This years question was, "What is the naughtiest thing you ever did as a kid." Let me tell you, the questions are always fun and it gives us all a chance to learn more about our close friends. This last statement reminds me that I forgot to tell you that we have a very close circle of friends (twelve couples) who are in our age group, that we hang out with socially, although not all at one time. Getting us all together happens only once a year and we all look forward to that. None of our friends want to ever miss this party and the only time they do is if they are sick. At the stroke of 9:00 p.m. we toast in the New Years, having watched the count down in Times Square on the T.V. Then everyone helps take down chairs and tables, a couple of guys help Dick move the furniture we have had to make way for card tables back in from the garage and by (9:20) everyone has gone home. Needless to say, a fun time was had by all.

Wow! This is getting so long. I can assure you, this will be my longest post, although once I get going, it is sometimes hard for me to stop. But all things have to end, right? Notice I did not say all GOOD things, because I am not too sure this is good. But, my intentions were, be certain of that. 'Til the next time............. .

Imagine!!!! I actually have my own blog now, thanks to my sweet patient daughter Sue, who walked me through the whole thing. Dick isn't sure why I ever needed this, but at least I am going to have one. I guess I can have a blog and never write anything in it, but I think that will not be the case with me. As I get a little more familiar with this new thing in my life, perhaps I will become a regular blogger, who knows.

In the meantime, now I can access the blogs I want to read more easily. It is still hard for me to believe I actually am now an official blogger. At 83 years old, I guess I can be forgiven for being so stupid, or at least feeling stupid in creating this blog. Now all I have to do is to get Dick to try to put a picture of me where it is supposed to go. I may just have to remain faceless as he was not too happy about my doing this. He never wanted to blog and I think now he feels that he has to find out all the things I don't know so that I won't have to call Sue every time I have a problem or a question.

At any rate, all I can do is try, right?