Am I Getting Lazy, Sick, or Just Old?

It seemed to be a busy week and I feel so tired. I just want a whole day to spend alone without having to go anywhere. But in looking back, it was a good week. I think the thing that is affecting me is my grandparents. I went in twice this week to help Grandma with eating and other needs and it's so sad and emotionally wearing. She's 92 and when she tells you she wishes she would die it breaks your heart. More on that another time.
My parents had visitors this week from Vienna, Austria. Mom and Dad lived there for five years before my Dad retired back here in PA. Hans and Michelle were in the U.S.A. to visit their son who is attending Temple University in Philadelphia and so being so close to Mom and Dad (4 hours west of Philadelphia) they came to visit and expand their view of Pennsylvania. Bob and I also had met Hans and Michelle and their son, Mathias, about twelve years ago when we were visiting Mom and Dad in Vienna. They are a wonderful family and speak German, French and English fluently, along with a little bit of Italian and some others. I don't know how they do it.

Mathias thinks of "Groundhog Day", the movie, when he thinks of PA. He and his friends in Austria have rented this movie and watched it over and over. When we told him that we only lived 25 minutes from Punxsutawney he was so excited. So Thursday morning, off we went, six of us crammed into my parents' Jeep Cherokee, (probably not legal) for a sight seeing tour of Western Pennsylvania.

Mathias and his parents totally enjoyed Punxsutawney. We saw the real Punxy Phil groundhog behind his glass front den. Punxy also has groundhog painted statues all over town and then a souvenir shop. They took dozens of pictures. It's amazing what we take for granted since we live here and it was so much fun to see it through new and excited eyes.


Our tour continued about 20 more miles south into Amish country of Western PA. Through hills and back country into Smicksburg. Again, we just don't realize that Austrian's have only ever read about and seen movies about Amish and they just couldn't believe that these people are real and actually live the way they do. Amish are a quite interesting study. Why would people today choose no electric, no indoor bathrooms, no cars, etc. is very hard to imagine. When you drive through this community you feel as though you have just been transported back in time about 100 years. You become the out of place entity in your car and strange clothes. We tried to get several pictures for our Austrian friends, but Amish do not like their picture taken, so it makes it a little difficult. We managed some.

This is a little boy and his mother in front of their house. By the way, all their houses are white with white plain cotton curtains pulled back in every window. You can always spot an Amish house. There is a little something serene and cozy about this.

You have to drive very slow and be very careful on the back roads along with the horse and buggys. They have the right of way. Of course, the roads are very scuffed up from the horse shoes and lots of horse poo.

Here is a little school house that is now an antiques shop. Many of the Amish do have gift shops that cater to the curious.

After stopping to eat and browsing some shops we headed back. And thanks to our Austrian friends I have a new appreciation for how beautiful and interesting Western Pennsylvania is. And I'm glad Mathias saw another side of PA. His only view until Thursday was of Philadelphia. That's a wonderful historic city, but very busy, loud, crime, dirty and lots of people. As is the case in certain parts of any big city. But I'm glad they saw another view.

The next morning our friends headed off for New York City, where they will depart from on Sunday to return to Austria. They certainly will have a well rounded picture of the United States in just a few days.

I went back in to help Grandma yesterday. She is just so frail and helpless and she can only talk in a whisper. After coming home from caring for my grandmother, I had my grandchildren for the evening. Talk about extremes, but yet require just as much care. They are busy and noisy. Thank goodness they are normal boys. After dinner, bath and a movie, their mother picked them up about 10:00. I was just exhausted. I don't like being so tired. I probably need to ramp up my exercise program and eat better. I need to stay energized and healthy in order to take care of my family. More sleep would be nice and helpful, too.

We just found out yesterday morning that my great aunt just died at age 93. She was my grandparents' sister-in-law. The viewing was this morning from 10-11, here in town. I should have gone and feel guilty that I didn't, but I just couldn't make it. This afternoon we have a wedding to go to in Pittsburgh. They are very good friends of ours, the first marriage for them both and they are 40 years old. So, time to get moving again and get cleaned up and dressed up. That takes a lot longer than it used to.

Tomorrow's Mother's Day and a perfect day for me would be peace and quiet. The bad news is, I have way too many friends and family in this town. The good news is, I have so many friends and family in this town!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you that nurture.

This 'n That for Today

This was a good day. Any day that I can just "putz" around the house, cleaning, fixing, decorating, blogging, and just doing my thing, is a good day. I didn't have to leave the house to go anywhere. I hate to have to leave the house. The whole day is interrupted and I feel like I don't get anything done. You can't get into any projects and you're always looking at the clock.

I also got caught up on some work. Real work, the kind that helps bring in some money. I work with my husband whose office is in our home.

I cleaned all my floors. We have so much dog hair all over the place now. It's from Layla, my son's dog that is living with us temporarily. She's a Sharpay/Golden Retriever mix. Beautiful dog, but she sheds and is scratching all the time right now with allergies. The dog hair is driving this clean freak crazy.

I was able to finish my new window box project. I've been wanting to get this done since last fall.
I had the window boxes since then, but I needed my very busy husband to put them up for me. And they had to be drilled into brick. So a couple of weeks ago he borrowed the neighbors drill, went to Lowe's and bought special drill bits. It was not an easy job. I got the cutest picture of Layla and Bob at the windows he was working on. Layla misses her "daddy" and clings to "grandpa" as next best thing.





Today I finally had the chance to get flowers into the boxes. Little secret, though. They're not real. They're up so high I'm hoping you can't tell, and if I put real ones in it would have been too difficult to keep watered, then water would have dripped down the bricks. Besides that, I would have had to wait even longer to get real flowers in because annuals just aren't ready here yet.
All the flowers in my gardens are purple and pink.

The purple hydrangeas bloomed last week and are beautiful in front of the house, but unfortunately they don't last long. I think early next week will be the end of them.

I made just a light dinner of tuna sandwiches. I've been eating way too much since winter. I hope it starts getting warmer soon because I won't have the desire so much for the cold weather comfort food.

Then I settled in after a nice bath for American Idol. I'm obsessed with it. I won't plan anything or answer the phone when it's on. This sounds crazy when I actually write about it, but oh well, who cares? My pick is Adam Lambert.

It was a nice day.

Baby Shower and More

Sunday was the big day. The long awaited Baby Shower. It turned out so nice. Diana's mother, Lori, did most of the planning and most of the work and she did a beautiful job. Since we don't know if it's a boy or a girl, we went with yellow and cream. I would have loved it to be pink because, #1 - it's my favorite color and #2 - I have two brothers, two sons and two grandsons. I would just love to be able to make and buy little pink, frilly, lacey things. But as my grandmother says, "we know how to do boys". She's right, I certainly do love little boys. Hey, real boys can wear pink, right? It would never go over in this family. Anyway, I digress.

There were 75 people and the food was absolutely delicious. It was catered by a local little market that Brandon and Dee used to work for when they were in school. The centerpieces on each table were yellow and cream baloons and a teddy bear. The teddy bears on the gift table were "Brandon and Diane (Dee)". As some of you may know from previous posts, Brandon is in the Air Force.

Lori and her mother, Grandma Bootie, baked cookies for 3 days that were so delicious. I feel a little guilty in that I would have liked to have done more to help, but Lori is very particular and likes to do everything absolutely her way. I can appreciate this since I am very much like that, too, so I could completely understand. I'm so lucky that Brandon's mother-in-law also is a friend of mine. He and Dee have known each other pretty much their whole lives, close to 20 years, and Lori and I the same. - I digress again-

I helped set up the tables, serve food and clean up.

Then the question came up, "Where are all these gifts going now"? Dee is living with us while Brandon is in training in Texas and her parents now live in Pittsburgh, about 90 miles from where we live. So we inherited the baby stuff. When 3 SUV's pulled in front of the house loaded down with baby stuff, my husband, Bob, couldn't believe all this stuff is needed for one little baby. He's now thinking there must be twins and we're not telling him.

The fun continues ---

The SUV's pull around back and unload into our basement, which is a finished family room. All three dogs (my two and Diana's one big one, Layla) come running out to meet us, so excited, along with the two grandsons in stocking feet. Bob was babysitting so that my other daughter in law could be at the shower. He's a great grandpa! Anyway, Layla is so worked up she throws up in the driveway and on the carpeted basement floor. Because of this, we knew that she had been eating poop earlier in the day. Yes, it was a terrible, stinky, gooey mess. Well, three year old stocking footed Landen stepped in it, so off came his socks and pants. He's so proud of his Sponge Bob big boy pants that he didn't mind. Then in all his excitement, he jumped up and turned quickly to run after something and banged his forehead right into the corner of the kitchen counter. He started screaming, Melissa (his mother) started screaming as blood started to cover his whole face, all three dogs started barking and I remained calm surprising even me. After washing his face and the cut on his forehead we determined that it really wasn't that bad and did not need stitches. The bleeding stopped rather quickly and I held him quietly. -I hate to say this, but I'm sure mothers and grandmothers will understand, they are so sweet when they're hurt or sick, aren't they? -
Everyone finally calmed down. Landon put his cowboy boots on and he, Melissa, and brother, Logan, left to go back home. Dee sat to put her swollen feet up, and I cleaned the carpet.

I was exhausted!
Still didn't sleep good, though. What's up with that?

BTW, I've posted a picture of the baby quilt I made on my other site: http://mycharmingcreations.blogspot.com/

Brie Pastry

This appetizer is so good I wanted to share. I made it for my jewelry party on Wednesday night. It's also very good at Christmas time.

1 (8oz) brie
1/2 cup whole berry cranberry sauce
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1 sheet puff pastry
1 egg beaten

Slice the brie in half horizontaly. Spread cranberry sauce over bottom half. Sprinkle chopped pecans over top of sauce. Place other half of brie on top. Wrap with puff pastry sheet. (Set brie in middle of pastry sheet and fold up all the corners to the middle) Brush with beaten egg. Bake in 400 degree oven for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool 1/2 hour before slicing. Serve with crackers and love.
Enjoy!

I wish now I would have taken a picture of it when it came out of the oven to show. It looks as delicious as it tastes.

Why Do I Commit to Things?

I had a jewelry party last night. Now I have to say that it turned out very nice, saw some people I hadn't seen for a while, and I had a good time. But, for a week I was yelling at myself for making this commitment about a month ago to host this party. We were in San Antonio last week and had a wonderful, relaxing time, and my thoughts kepts interrupting my day with flashes of having to get ready for this party when I got home. Then when we got home, I was so tired. Travelling used to be fun, not it's a pain and hassle. - Just the actual getting there and getting back part. - The being in a different place I thoroughly enjoy. Anyway, I was so tired and again, those nagging thoughts kept popping into my head that I needed to clean my house, get a few groceries and cook a few things. Now, I love doing all of those things normally, but not when I'm on a deadline and have to get them done by a specified time. I like to do things when I want to do them. I don't like to be pressured. So now by yesterday morning I was really feeling pressured and thinking to myself, "Why am I having this dumb jewelry party? I just got back from Texas and Sunday is the baby shower for my daughter-in-law, I didn't need this right now."
So is this a lesson for me to not commit myself to things, or is it a lesson on loosening up a little bit and just take it as it comes and enjoy the ride? Probably both. At my age and place in life right now I have admittedly become a little spoiled in that I only want to do what I want and when I want and want to be able to change my mind if I feel like it. On the other hand, I had a very good time last night and actually talked and visited with friends. I've recently become a little bit of a recluse because of the hobbies I enjoy. This old party girl isn't so much into parties anymore, and am much happier being quiet and alone with my authentic self. So balance, and loosening up just a little, seems to be the lesson learned.
Who knew such a lesson could be learned by having a jewelry party?
BTW - got a real pretty necklace! Lia Sophia jewelry.