WHAT A YEAR!

Just when my life seemed to be ending with my eightieth birthday, new things started happening.

First there was my birthday celebration, where we all gathered at a resort for five days. A once in a lifetime thrill for me, as I’m sure the trip the previous year was for my husband. I’m constantly amazed that our children have become so accomplished and are able to do such things for us.

Then there was my blog’s first anniversary in September. I couldn’t have expected such response.

I was asked to chair a committee for redecorating our large clubhouse and established a friendship with an interior decorator who gave us an exciting plan. Hopefully, in the next few months it will be competed.

When I suggested an idea for an entertainment at our club house, I met with a group that does “old time radio shows”. They rehearse near our home, so I stopped to introduce myself and ask them to do a program for our “Good Times Club”. Because I already knew one couple there, I mentioned my desire to do scenes from two plays which I had planned to do for several years. Not knowing how to present them because they were scenes from very serious award winning dramas, one dealing with a woman planning to commit suicide, they sat in the drawer for years. The radio show people asked me to bring them to a rehearsal so my friend could read them with me. It turned out that the one we read was so powerful we decided to do it as a play reading vehicle for our whole community. Our readings will be done in March.

I realized my dream of having wood floors installed in our two bedrooms. I never liked the carpeting in them from the time we bought eight years ago. Next year maybe there’ll be new counters in the kitchen.

Once again we held a Christmas Eve celebration for all the family in our home. This time it was totally different for us all. We bought Chinese and instigated a “Yankee Swap” where everyone got one present instead the usual dozens. A few were not happy, but all said they would do it again next year, maybe with pizza.

Although we requested no presents for us, we received a pile of gift cards for restaurants in the area. Over the past year we started to eat out more so they were appreciated.

What can I say about the final gift which I received? I now have my second book in print, thanks again to my son. The first was my cooking memoir; now one hundred of my blogs are in a spiral bound copy. One of his employees worked until Christmas Eve to finish it, which she did in tears of frustration. From my first blog to the last on December 21^st. they are beautifully printed with illustrations. (Of course, you can’t buy it at your local book store.) I was astounded!

What a year I’ve had. I’m so blessed.

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GREETINGS

I wish a happy and prosperous new year to all my worldwide friends. Peace to all of you.

Also I send a special greeting to our grandson on an island in the South Pacific which has no electricity. Maybe with the use the solar lanterns he will be able to receive this message. We enjoyed our special time with him at Christmas.

CHRISTMAS EVE DAY

Today I checked a “for sale ad” column in my local newspaper to take stock of what I learned earlier this year. Under the heading of “Sporting Goods and Services”, I counted 45 out of 69 ads listing guns for sale by individuals as well as gun shops.

I also read in todays’ paper of the various murders and shootings which took place yesterday and the days before, including the “shooting in the head” death of one more policeman.

Every time I read of such terrible things committed by someone still in their teens, I wonder if this is how they managed to get their hands on a gun simply by buying it from want ads in my local newspaper.

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

There is one repentant Republican that I know of. Do you remember Lee Atwater? Maybe you don’t. Well to remind you, he’s the god-father of dirty politics. Everything dirty in George W. Bush’s campaign for president can be laid at his feet. Karl Rove was his protégé and continues his heritage today.

Living in Columbia, South Carolina, we were witnesses to the start of his tactics. Lee was raised in South Carolina, went to school there and is buried in Columbia. John McCain was a candidate in that presidential election and there was so many dirty rumors about McCain all laid at the feet of the blues musician, Atwater. I kept hoping someone with ethics would stop it, but it continued and was relished by Bush. He couldn’t run on his record as a drinker and druggie, so lies were created to make him look good by comparison. Finding God really helped there, too.

Here is something you probably weren’t aware of or maybe forgot. Lee Atwater died at the age of forty. After being diagnosed with a brain tumor, before he died he publicly renounced what he had been doing.  A Roman Catholic convert, he apparently developed a conscience, unfortunately the man known as the “Boogie Man” had opened a Pandora’s Box and all that nasty stuff continues today.

PS: This was all ready for posting when I happened to see an interview with Newt Gingrich this morning where he complained about all the negative advertisements about himself.  What ye sow so shall ye reap.

A GOOD LAUGH

On day one, I drank from a gallon container a liquid of something or other ordered by my doctor, a full eight ounce glass of it every ten to fifteen minutes. It was difficult after the first few. Starting at noon until I finished about three o’clock after throwing up twice, I felt as though the worst was over. It wasn’t, but we won’t discuss those things.

On day two, we arrived at the doctor’s surgery center for the two procedures, upper and lower GI’s. I was prepared by the nurse and given an EKG, which made me very happy because I hadn’t had one in many years. Although I had only seen the doctor the previous week to discuss my swallowing difficulty and expecting to have my esophagus stretched, he suggested I also have a colonoscopy. After checking with my primary care, I reluctantly agreed.

I was glad when I was finally sedated hoping the worst would soon be over. I woke up with tremendous stomach pains, a very sore throat and as well as a sore upper lip. The nurse informed me that a polyp was removed and that I had diverticulitus. The stomach pain was only gas, but I would soon get rid of that. The sore throat would last only a day or so.

When washing my hands at home, I looked in the mirror and saw how horrible I looked. Very pale and not exactly looking like myself, I thought how something like this could really age a person. I kept feeling uncomfortable about my upper lip and I looked in the mirror again to see myself and burst out laughing. No wonder I didn’t look like myself, my upper lip was humongous.

By the third day, my gas was gone, my sore throat was gone and I could eat almost normally, but laughed when I saw my upper lip was still swollen.

Today day four, I’m going to a party. All is well.

HOW ENGLISH AND AMERICAN POLITICS CAME TOGETHER

Start with Tony Blair PM 1997-2007

It recently came out that although Rupert Murdoch had never backed a candidate in Tony Blair’s Labour Party; Tony managed to get his backing in the election for Prime Minister of Great Britain. What a coup for Tony. As a result, Rupert was always welcome at the open back door of 10 Downing Street.

Add George Bush Pres. 2001-2009

George Bush ran for president with the biggest war chest of any other candidate in the United States. He was also the least qualified, but the Republican Party at that time was determined to take control of politics in the US. With the backing of the Right Wing, the ones with all the big money and the help of Lee Atwater’s lies, he became the puppet of the self- chosen, self- serving Vice President Dick Cheney.

Together Cheney, Bush and their cronies started a war from which they and all their friends profited. I never felt that those people were ever sorry for all the deaths that resulted and in the destruction of Iraq. Even the American soldiers killed over there were snuck into the United States in the dead of night at Dover, Delaware.

You probably noticed how Tony Blair became such good friends with Bush, although his own countrymen were against Britain’s entering into the war, Blair backed the invasion and sent British troops.

In the United States with the backing of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, we became a country of flag wavers, wearers of flag pins, but the only soldiers fighting and dying in the war were not members of Congress or their families. Our young people were sold a bill of goods about how great it is to die for your country.

Talk to the families who saw those pictures of deceased eighteen year-old Marines proudly wearing their graduation uniforms in the papers every day and imagined their sons and grandsons would be pictured there sometime soon.

We are one of those families who dreaded that news every day for a year. Our grandson came home safely, thousands of others were not so lucky.

Best friends forever, Tony Blair, George Bush and Rupert Murdoch.

Kids

Sometimes you wondered why your kids did such stupid things. It never made any sense to you, but in spite of it all you lived through it and life went on. Eventually everything turned out for the best. That is also our family motto “Everything Always Works Out for the Best”. We all have it hanging in our homes.

So when everyone gets the news that our son’s nearly 16 year old son shaved his head, you’ll all ask “why”? No one knows the answer and maybe our grandson doesn’t know either, but the fact is he should have hair by Christmas, so we won’t sweat the small stuff.