Endings and beginnings, and some other random items

An ending.  J played basketball this winter.  The coach would play J only about five minutes of every one hour game despite the "rule" that all kids were to play at least half the game.

  

I'm not sure if you can see in this picture the "end" of a kid's love of the game, but I can.  I think this is his last season.  And I'm sad to see it end on this note.

Both an ending and a beginning.  A couple of weeks ago, my sister and I attended the graveside service for our cousin's husband.  We were glad we could spend time with these relatives.  It was a nice service.  I had originally intended to title this "An ending" but I realized that although it is a mortal ending, it is for him the beginning of the life after this.

A nice Valentine's Day.  These were Valentine's flowers from my thoughtful husband. 

 Beautiful flowers and in my favorite colors, of course!

A beginning.  We started a new family tradition--really we revived an old tradition from my childhood.  We woke T up early on his birthday, sang "Happy Birthday" to him and let him open his presents.  I always felt it started a birthday off on a celebratory note and it was probably the only day of the school year when I was actually early for the bus. :o)

A piano recital.  J and T are pictured here with their piano teacher.  They had a recital last night and they did just great, as did all the performers.  Way to go!  I was proud of how well J and L performed.  And they have a great piano teacher!

New Beginnings.  New Beginnings is tonight for the Young Women and I need to  write my talk for that.  The talk is about the changes to the personal progress program.

Another beginning.  I've added a new item to the blog (see above, right) and it is a link to goodreads.com where I list the books I've read, the books I'm reading and the books I want to read.  I will admit that some books--the ones I dislike for one reason or another or that I can't recommend for some reason--sometimes don't make it onto the list at all.  One of the things I originally wanted to include on this blog had been some kind of reference to the books I'm reading.  I'd done that sporadically in the past but I think this will "do the job."  For those who care at all, let me know if this widget works properly.  Thanks.

Another one has a birthday

Another child in my household has had a birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, T!  (This picture is actually from New Year's Eve but, hey, it looks celebratory.)  I still remember his birth--were we ever thrilled to welcome him into our family!  He turned our quiet lives upside down.  ;o)  Love ya, buddy!

Being ill

This happens every single time I'm sick and want to whine on my blog about being sick.  I google to find a funny "illness" image and then find all these images of people who have very serious and debilitating illnesses and troubles.

"Two legs to take me where I go,

Two eyes to see the sunset's glow,

Two ears to hear all I should know,

Oh, God, forgive me when I whine;

I'm blest, indeed, the world is mine. "

--Excerpt from poem maybe by Tennyson Guyer.
  [Artwork by T.]

'Tis still the season!

Well, Christmas this year was busy with my brother and his family visiting and my mother's situation, over and above the regular busy Christmas stuff.  On January 2, my mother's last illness began.  Then came her death and funeral and all the loose ends (I still haven't tied them all up).

I decided I hadn't really enjoyed my Christmas trees enough this Christmas (really, I hardly noticed them at all) because there had been other things on my mind.  So I have not stressed about taking them down. I did take down the other decorations inside, but I left the trees up so I could enjoy them a little more.

So now, I'm finished enjoying the "shiny"Christmas tree that is in the "front front" room (as I call it), and I will finish taking it down today.  However,  I'm not finished enjoying my German tree.  It will come down at the point I'm finished enjoying it.  

One year I did leave a tree up all year long (back when we weren't using my front room), although without the decorations on it, and you can't dust Christmas trees.  I'll not do that again.  That was the Christmas tree with 50 strands of lights with 100 lights per strand (hand-wound by yours truly) and when the switch was flipped, lighting the tree required two different outlets on two different circuits or it would throw a breaker.  It would warm the room like a heater or fire place.  It was beautiful and I could not bear the thought of ever trying to do that again.  So I left it up, enjoyed it one more Christmas and took it down.  I'll never do that mega-lights again, either.  It is all pre-lit trees for me from now on. 

We also have most of our outside Christmas lights up and we turn them on every night.  We do that often anyway--leave them up for a month or six weeks after Christmas--it kind of banishes the winter doldrums that follow Christmas.  

We're not sure who makes the rules about Christmas decorating but we don't subscribe to them, anyway.