Tuesday, November 28, 2023

Christmas card List

Christmas card List

Nothing like a Christmas card list to let you know you are getting old.

I do my Christmas cards before Thanksgiving.. and then send them out the day before Thanksgiving.. That way everyone gets my card a couple days later…  One time someone asked me why do I send them out so soon.. Told them to get it over with.. for one..  and then I laughed and told them.. well, if I die between Thanksgiving and Christmas…  at least you get a Christmas card from me that year..  Some didn’t think that was so funny.

First off, more and more people are not sending them.. A lot of them are going on Facebook and sending out good wishes to everyone .. all in one swoop..   I can understand that.. as most have a list of 25 or more..  Times that with the 55cents.. it is still 55 cents isn’t it? …per card.. Say nothing about the cost of the cards..  if you buy a box, you might get off with $10.00 if you buy individuals for family that cost you $6.00 and up PER CARD.

So just Christmas cards alone is pretty spendy..  say nothing about the gifts. I don’t send my grandchildren and great grandchild gifts for Christmas anymore..  When you times the great grandkids.. (34 for me) and grandkids.. 3 under the age of 18.…well, it is way beyond our budget.   (So I gave that up when the greats pass the number of 25.   I still do birthdays, but that is spread across the year, so it is affordable, stretched out.)

But anyway.. just dealing with friends..  it is a sad state when you start to address envelopes for friends after you have gone across your list of who sent last year..  Several are crossed off the list, as we have lost friends over the past year.  That is when you are sad and wonder why are you out lasting them.. when you are older than the ones who passed.

 

Good by November..

Monday, November 27, 2023

I don’t do Black Friday…

I don’t do Black Friday…

I don’t do Black Friday anymore..  I have done my fair share.. the waiting in the line that is a block long and there were many after us..  at 4am.. as the Walmart was opening at 6am.. in Federal Way or was it Olympia Washington? Would go with my daughter in laws over on the Washington Coast…..I was mostly used  as a runner.. run after one item to grab it, before it was gone, while they went and grab another item before it disappeared…  And then rush to the next one and the next one.. That is after being crushed thru the doors of  Walmart with the rest of the crowd.. 

I did a better job local two years later..  I showed up at 6:15am.. all the people were in the store already.. running around from what was a wide aisle normally, but full of what was on sale..  Tv were down to maybe two.. out of the 6 foot pile that was there that morning. (we saw them getting ready the day before.(with high prices on them, so people wouldn’t buy them until the next morning)

As we walked slowly to see if there was anything of interest..  and most of the time, there wasn’t.  I found that they have several big items Usually big screen tv’s or computers..on sale.. the rest is the stuff they are trying to get rid of before the end of the year, usual junk. 

Now, I don’t even go.. wish my daughter and granddaughter well, and I sit home reading a book or doing something around the house…  Much more peaceful..

Beside a lot of the stores started advertising BLACK FRIDAY PRICES a month ago..  so it is not a big deal anymore.   The adventure of the hunt is gone..  even the paper has down sized their ads to little to nothing. What use to be like 20 ads pages.. was only 3 this year.. 

Like everything else, it not like it use to be..

 

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Thanksgiving Memories

These 3 cooks are what Thanksgiving means to me.. 
My husband
My mother
and the most one.. is My Uncle Tiny...  
never a Thanksgiving passes with out thinking of them. 






 

Monday, November 20, 2023

Start of the holidays..

Start of the holidays.. 

We are heading into the long stretch of holidays… Thanksgiving…Christmas and New Years… Times of joy we hope. But I do remember for many years that some were times of fighting..  in family fighting. So many stories of a the different generations, gathering at the same table in the same house..  Some went off to make many memories. Loving memories.. and some were tales of battles between the generation or siblings. Mostly with grandparents watching..  children watching some times in horror.. While the inbetween generations argue hot and heavy thru it all.

Christmas comes with a week or so of good will.. Joy, wishing each other  MERRY CHRISTMAS  thru the times of shopping for that special gift. The dinners at work, the dinners of the family.. smaller gathers family.. Dinner with friends.  Some families who come from afar to be with ageing parents.  Many years ago, it was still about the gifts.. but it was more about the time together.. And the surprise of the gift on Christmas morning no matter how small.  Sadly that is not so these days.. it is about the gift, by who can buy the biggest gift.. the most expensive gift..  and the gathering is in the back ground…

When I had children still living at home.. we would stay home.. no traveling by the kids and I to family homes..   and I did not want family joining us. This was protection for my kids..  After seeing family gatherings at one home to have the visiting children…. breaking new toys of the children who lived in the house..  (yes, mine too)  I decided..  we would celebrate by ourselves..  to let the kids enjoy their bounty of the day… I encourage the father to go visit his local family, have coffee and enjoy his time with his family.. with out stress.. Just my thing. 

I keep hoping the holidays will be better.. and in some families it is still a great time of joy.. And if they can leave politics out of the day…it can be done. 

So I will break the wording.. of argument…   I am going to wish you all..

HAPPY HOLIDAYS…   (too long to list them all) 

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

I don’t understand hatred of Nationalities.. like Jewish and etc.

I don’t understand hatred of Nationalities..  like Jewish and etc.

I, once was told that we hate what we don’t understand..  Maybe in school we should have classes of learning about other nationalities.. not their nation so to speak, but the people who lived there at one time.      

I was raised  near Newport, R.I. area  (the town I lived in was Middletown) and we had all kinds of nationalities..   The three biggest were Portuguese, Irish and Italian.  Next came Jewish and then Greek.. and trailing up the road was, what was considered Yankee..  which was a gathering up the rest of the nationalities. Mainly English, and Norway, Sweden and etc.   I don’t recall many, if any Orient ones.

The Portuguese were mostly farmers..  the Italians were mostly fishermen, and the Irish were police officers..  Not all but there just seem that is the line of work that most did.  The Jewish were businessmen mostly.. Lawyers, stores owners, and etc.  Newport is the home of the first USA Synagogue. 

I don’t recall any hatred of any of the nationalities.  We also had quite a few blacks..   Middletown and Portsmouth being farming we didn’t have any black families that I am aware of.  Unless they were in the Navy, which Middletown and Newport shared with their bases.   Newport had quite a few, so I didn’t go to school with any blacks until high school.. 

Only prejudices I recall was when it came to marriage..  None of the different nationality like it when their children married out of  the different nationalities.  The harder one of the bunch was Greek..  We had in our high school class .. a Greek boy who married a Portuguese girl.. And it didn’t go well.   It was worse if it was a girl marrying a non Greek.. Didn’t want their children to have Greek blood and not a Greek name.

I am not saying they all loved each other..  but they tolerated..  had friends of different nationalities, but don’t recall any one hating each other.. If they did it was because of the person themselves… the man or the woman..  In schools, we all got along nation wise… great friends..  played football, baseball, and other sports..  worked with each other..  If there was a thicker line between them.. it was with the blacks.. there were blacks and whites that were good friends..  but not a lot of them.  

I was taken care of by a friend of my mothers, when I was under 12.. she was black, her husband was a chauffer for my great grandfather many years before..  I loved her to death.. so was the neatest lady.. and her house.. oh, God it smelt sooooooooooooo good..  she was always cooking.. if not cooking.. sewing.. I remember her dining room table, always having a sewing machine on it   iron board near by and something cut out and pinned on the table..  And next door was a girl my age.. so we palled around when we were young.. Then when I was in school, didn’t see Diane so much..But when I went to high school, there she was..  so happy to see her. She was so beautiful.   

But this hatred of Jewish people.. I don’t understand.  Mom and Dad had several and I worked for one of them.. he had a produce store in the Spring to Fall..  then he went to Florida in the winter.. beautiful wife.. she was French..  and delightful kids that I baby sat.  Only thing I remember in high school was they got a day off that we didn’t…  and of course they got Christmas off too.  But they got one of their holidays off..  no one was upset about that..

Why do we have this hatred that some are spreading.. These people who are being yelled at or worse, have lived here for YEARS… they aren’t here newly from Israel.   And then to stand in the roads and yell and scream at them..  I don’t care if you are from the Palatines.. if you feel that strongly, go back to your country and fight for your fellowman..  Not stand in a foreign country yelling your hatred at those who do not live in Israel.    Some of them never have. 

 Maybe we should learn about each other more..  if the adage is correct..  

Monday, November 13, 2023

DOES HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF??

DOES HISTORY REPEAT ITSELF??

I was reading my latest issue of Smithsonian… The story I read was titled…  IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE..  which is actually a book written by Sinclair Lewis.  But the article is about much more..

The article was about two men of the 1930’s. Father Charles Coughlin an

Radio priest and his impressing of listeners with tales of anti Jewish… and how they effected our country.   Sinclair, due to his book on fascism and his wife the journalist who was a writer in Germany before the war.  She was kicked out of German after an unflattering article of about Hitler. Both were alarm at the rise of Nazism and now, how it was effecting the times of USA.

Father Coughlin was a radio priest  who had over 16 million followers. He was so popular that the minister in the area rescheduled services and high schools football had to be over before he came on. He called bankers and financiers SHYLOCK because they were mostly Jewish and he praised Nazi and Italian fascist.  There was the brown shirts who were German American Bund (not band) Then there was the Silver shirts.  Kind of a paramilitary militia .. started by a man called William Dudley Pelley. 

IT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE .. is a book written  by Sinclair Lewis who was concerned  about such men in the United States.. and with the reports from his wife who was the reporter in Germany, he decided to write the book.. which later became a play.. put on with several other plays… by the Federal Theater …(a government project to have out of work actors have a job during the depression).

It was a novel, meaning it was based on real life happenings.  It was based on the men like Coughlin..  It was about a Senator who was promoting a radical man like Coughlin, for President.. They promoted martial law, had militia  Minute Men type…..using them for overriding courts and Congress.  The book sold for over 300,000 copies and is still for sale.. they said.. Amazon had it on the top 10, 6 years ago..  The article  went on to after telling of the Government Federal Theater Project, that Lewis fears faded out on the public front…. Thankfully, it did not happen… but they also said not so much in France and Spain  of today.

They say that history repeats itself.   Scary times, my friend.. Be careful of who you believe in. 

Wednesday, November 08, 2023

YEP, SHE FORGOT…

YEP, SHE FORGOT 

Yesterday seem to slip by ..  didn’t have ggboy to keep me in line I guess..  Dad stayed home, so did lil dude… Great one on one with the boys..  And Dad sure needed the day off after 3 months of 7 days a week. Thank heavens for a pour down raining day..

But guess that set off my errorous ways.. as I didn’t do the blog.. I didn’t do the wash… (there wasn’t much any way)   But I did clean off my dresser.. You have one of those .. you know the catch all? Well, mine was starting to get to be more that 6 inches tall.. and covered the whole thing..  Lots of papers, stuck there.. to look at later.. or keep if for just a bit to make sure I didn’t need it..  Took me about 2 and half hours.. to go thru all the stuff.. and veered a side line of going thru boxes and containers of different sizes and shapes.. with odd ball jewelry kept in them..  So downsize some of that..

Well, that is my excuse and I am sticking with it..  but as I notice how nice and organized my dresser is.. and so much nice spaces there..   I also looked over at a desk I have in there.. that is piled high..  BIG SIGH…  guess I should do that today… 

I take everything off of the item (dresser or desk) and put it on my bed..  some times piling it in different piles..  After the whole top is cleared and clean, I go thru the stuff and try my best to get rid of stuff…  Why do we hang on to things?  For supposedly we might need it later???  I have to get better at this..   If my family is smart...  they will just bring in the garbage can and dump all of it in and let go of stuff.. that I seem to think is important.. 

 

 

Monday, November 06, 2023

WHERE DID THIS YEAR GO?

WHERE DID THIS YEAR GO?

Here we go..  the ending of the year.. only 55 days left..  /summer is history..  fall is disappearing with lots of rain..  Hunting season is starting to fade away..  One comes the big last of 2023 holidays.

Thanksgiving and Christmas…   I look forward to Thanksgiving..but not so much Christmas…

Daylight saving was yesterday..  and as usual I went around about noon on Saturday and changed 90% of the clocks..  this year the King didn’t throw a fit..  He actually helped me do the taller ones..  We went to bed watching the end of a show, that ends at 9pm in the summer.. and the clock was reading 7:20pm.  Up yesterday morning and it was daylight..  that won’t last for long..   And of course it is about 4 something and it is getting dark in the afternoon.  

As the year winds down, I think back at what we have done this year..and it seems to be .. not much.  Guess this would be the year… so far.. of service..  Meaning helping others.  The King lost one of his best friends in July..  So we were helping him as he found out he was dying.. Going to the Dr. to find out why he felt so bad.. and falling… to be transferred to the hospital and then another one… and then that Dr. giving him 4 to 6 weeks..  and us watching as the air left his body with the news.. And in 5 weeks he was gone..  Then the King kicked in with service for his son.. He lives in a different state, so the King shut down his dad’s place..  putting cables across the driveway…  and now waiting for the probate to finish… some time this winter.  Then next year, going to help him get rid of all the stuff on the land..  So the son can deal with what he can.. 

In the meantime, I am babysitting what I call GGboy.. or GGboys..  that is our great grandsons who live local.  While Mom has gone to part time work.. I have been filling in.  The oldest is in school, so that is only on early out day, that I have him..  the little dude is here on Tuesdays and Thursdays… 

All thru this.. we got called out.. to help others..  one had an accident… another went in for surgery..  another needed help with his hay for 2 months…  I told the King..  you know… we can’t die… He said.. what do you mean by that?   I told him, because everyone seems to rely on us to help… ha ha… 

So with hoping these last two months of this year.. we are hoping for good health.. calm times even tho the world is not… and time to enjoy our friends… and family…