You Either Have It or You Don't

Today my sisters and I celebrated my mom's 97th birthday. Of course we took pictures.

This one was taken around 1960 and you can see that my mom was the ONLY cool person in the picture.

Here we are 60 years later. 

Nothing's changed.  

She's still way cooler than us.

Happy Birthday Mom. Love you. 

It Takes a Couple of Generations to Raise a Child

  My daughter and her husband are going to Europe for an anniversary trip next month. 
 Personally I think all marriages should be celebrated with "getaways". Europe is nice, of course, but I've also had some pretty good times at Home Depot when we've snuck out without the kids.

My son in law, Nate, the bossy pants  social coordinator of our family, summoned the grandmothers over last night to make sure that the three kids will be adequately cared for in their absence. 
  
We sat with our planners,laptops, calendars and phones to cover all the practices, play performances, piano lessons and church stuff they needed to go to. Looks like it's going to take both sets of grandparents to pull off what Kara and Nate do all the time.  

  Oh, and Nate enticed us to this strategic planning meeting with a delicious dinner. We would have come without it, but I DO love when people cook for me. 

Thanks Nate!
  

Old is Good - Right?

  Yesterday I had to visit  our local social security office to enroll for medicare. Surprisingly I'll be 65 next month. 
Okay, well it's surprising to me.  

I get it -  but really! Can I be old? 

#1 I snap chat my kids instead of calling them because I'm aware that even though we pay their PHONE bill, they do not consider their phones something that you would actually make or receive calls from. 

#2 I have posted to tic toc, however I have 0 followers so no one knows that I did.

#3 Every morning I get up at 5:30am and walk 3 miles but I start dreaming of my wonderful,  soft,  amazing, bed around 7:30pm.

#4 I own no mom jeans but I find that in my 60's I'm growing a mom body.

#5 I have kids at my house EVERY day and most of them call me Grandma Kate.

So yes. Yes I am old.

Oh well....at least I get to grow old with James. 🧡

Mexican Thumb

I love gardening.
I love garden books and thumbing through seed catalogues. Essays on gardening are such a delicious read. Walking through an arboretum is intoxicating. 
I love gardening.
In theory.

In reality not so much.

I hate weeding a lot. Hot weather just makes me mad. I could erase June, July and August off the calendar and be perfectly content. Gnats, the official insect of West Virginia, are an offence when you spend any time outdoors. They have a penchant for flying halfway down your throat, fluttering their wings and causing you to hack and vomit on the ground. 

But my love for homemade salsa counters all heinous gardening tasks.
So I have a salsa garden. It's all I need.
My salsa is really that good.

Boys

Having grown up in a household of three sisters and then raising ten of my own daughters interspersed between eight sons, I know how to do girls. 
Girls make sense to me, annoy me and yet... I get them. It's been my normal.  
 And now I find myself some 40 years since that first little girl was placed in my arms, surrounded by boys. 
Teenage boys. 
It's a strange often alarming way to finish this job. 

Now, these aren't bad/evil boys, but everything is different. 

Nobody wants to sing songs with me, or go to museums or sit and talk about their feelings. 
They even eat different.
I make lots of meatloaf now.
So sometimes when I feel alone in my girl-ness, I make the meatloaf and they get to sit at a very lovely table.
One of them said tonight, "Dinner looks different Mom."
I'll take that as a compliment.

"You're Still the One" (Decided that's our theme song)

 James and I headed to the Mountain House to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary this week. We got married when I was 18 and he was 19, so this many years later I find it remarkable that it's still our best thing. Very best.
  
Luckily we married in October so our celebration trips, which we manage to squeeze in every year, are in the fall...the best season. 


  Today James agreed to hike up to Hanging Rock Raptor Observatory in Monroe County, WV.

 I don't think he loves hiking, but fortunately he does love me. It was a briskly, chilly, sunny day - perfect for hiking. It's a short 0.9 mile hike, but ascends to 3,800 feet. 
 It was worth every rocky step and shortage of breath when we reached the top. 

The view was spectacular, although we saw no raptors. There were some serious bird watchers in the tower, but I think you'd have to have a bit more patience than me to see an eagle or hawk. I thought James was cuter than the birds anyway.

It was the best day.

Happy Birthday Aaron

Aaron is one of our 26 grandkids and today he turned four.  Luckily, he lives right across the street, so it's easy to borrow him for a few hours to celebrate.
His dream birthday included:

#1 Lunch at McDonald's where he ordered fries and a vanilla milkshake. That's all. 

#2 Trip to Walmart where he randomly threw toys into the cart and a Black Panther t-shirt. Simple enough.

We then dropped him back off to his mom because we told him she missed him and probably wanted to hug and kiss his little face. He said that "was just gross".

Grand-parenting is pretty much the best.