Golden Birthday

My oldest granddaughter is celebrating her Golden Birthday today which makes her 27 years old.  Her name is Delilah Mary. And yes, I totally love the fact that her middle name is Mary. I have decided that on Delilah's golden birthday I will tell a Delilah story.

I have always been a long-distance Grandma so have mailed my grandchildren their birthday cards.  And when we were all a lot younger the cards even had money in them.  

So imagine my great surprise and delight when my granddaughter, Delilah, sent me this.

With these treasures inside.

She sent me this in 2004 when she was 10 years old.  I wonder if she remembers sending it?  Guess I will have to ask her on Monday when she comes to visit us on the Texas Gulf.

The Fuller Brush Man

Do you remember the " Fuller Brush" man? 

I grew up on a small dairy farm in Southwestern Wisconsin and believe me, it was quite exciting when the Fuller Brush man came.  As it was when the Watkins man came.  Thank God there was an Avon lady, otherwise, people might wonder about all the men. 

I recently saw an ad for Fuller Brush on the Internet. Must not have salespeople working the countryside anymore. Long story short, I ordered this:

An old-fashioned carpet sweeper.  It really is handy. So much easier than dragging out the vacuum every time there is a little bit of something on the carpet and it works on bare floors too. 

In fact, it is so handy even Rex uses it!!

The Bishop's Wife

On Facebook this morning I saw a post that asked for the name of a movie that you had watched more than five times.  My initial thought was "NO WAY"!  I can barely get myself to sit and watch once let alone five times.  Sitting is not my strong suit.  But as I actually thought about it, I realized I had watched one movie several times, probably at least 5.

The movie is, " The Bishop's Wife"* starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven-it's an old movie.  From the same era as "It's a Wonderful Life" with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. Most people probably won't recognize these actors but they were some of the biggest stars of their generation.

It is a wonderful movie with many life lessons beautifully woven into the script.  Some so subtle you almost miss them.  There is humor, and scenes that are so beautiful I can't think how to describe them.

I cannot think of a more uplifting movie.

 *Obviously, not a Roman Catholic Bishop.

   

Charitable Giving

 In my mailbox one day, was a fundraising letter from the American Heart Association.  I have had solicitations before and just filed them in the circular file. 

But I looked at it and thought about the fact that my son has had open-heart surgery.  So a modest sum was sent.

A tsunami ensued!!  My mailbox became loaded with solicitations.  I'm not going to list them all but I would say at least 10 different charities sent me stuff.  And when I say stuff, I mean stuff. 

I started receiving return address labels and scratch pads.   Lots and lots of them.  And all so cute with seasonal themes, think Christmas, Halloween, spring, winter, and all so very cute!  I would feel bad to ignore them so I gave myself a small budget to sort of "spread around".

That just created an avalanche of mail.  Whatever donations I have given, have long since been used up in printing costs. Does that make any sense???

This is just a small pile of the stuff I have received.

Sometimes my mailbox has solicitation letters, I file them in the circular file.

Let me clarify, I file them after removing the usable "stuff".  I just could not see that filling a landfill with them gained anything.  I am confident they will quit sending stuff as I have quit sending money.

An Inch and a Half

Five feet four and one-half inches is my current height. I say current because for most of my life I have been 5' 6".  How can you lose 1.5 inches and not notice?  And where the hell did it go???

That's a stupid question. Of course, it went to my hips!!  Might not be an inch and a half of bone, but it is an inch and a half of something.

That inch and a half really changed my self-image.  I have always felt that at 5'6', I was a tall person.  At 5'4.5",  suddenly I felt like I was a short person.  It has been an adjustment.  Much more than I would have ever guessed.

I went for a bone density test last month and on the questionnaire were a couple questions I found interesting.

1.  What is the tallest you have ever been?

2.  How many times have you fallen in the last year?

Guess I am not the only one that becomes height-challenged with age.

Self-perception is a real "thing", and a person's height is part of that perception.

So sad what time does to a person's face.  But for some perverse reason, I like this picture.  Perception.

The Crown Jewel

Now for the crown jewel of my bathroom redo.  A beautiful glitzy light fixture!  Dave, my wonderful friend of 42 years, and his wife drove 2 hours to install it for me!!

As a bonus, we had a nice visit with good friends!

 

Bathroom Update

I love watching HGTV and seeing what people do with their spaces.  The one thing I have learned from watching all of these programs: the next person to buy our cute little cabin in the mountains will gut it.  

So I got a "why not"? attitude.  Unconventional colors: "why not?"  So I spent most of the last month painting my bathroom ceiling, walls, and cabinets. Thank goodness I painted the woodwork a couple of years ago!  The bathroom doubles as our laundry room which required the room to be painted in sections.  

 After seeing a couple of YouTube videos on stenciling, I thought "why not"?  I may have gotten a little carried away, but "why not"?  

These projects give me something to do and something to think about.  And it's only paint, if I hate it in a month I can paint it something else.  Now isn't that a scary thought?

 I know that not everyone will be on board with my color choices, but I love how bright it is. And as I mentioned, the next owners will most likely gut it.  I'm going to up that to the next owners WILL gut it.

  

The Last Few Days

We have had wonderful weather the last few days.  The kind of weather that makes one think of spring.  So getting out and doing stuff is truly a pleasure. We went to Show Low park yesterday and walked their trail.  The paved trail is just over a mile, so a nice easy walk.  They also have some exercise machines.

You can't see the handles, but when you sit on the machine the handles are up high.  I have to stretch to reach them.  The object is to pull the handles down. When you do that, you are supporting your weight. I try this machine every time we go to this park just to see if I can still do it.  So far so good!

This morning while walking in our RV park, we saw this crane.

I was amazed at how close I was able to get to him.  He must like it here as I have seen him several times.

So at the top of today's list, was "clean gutters".

                                   

Thank God!!!  We can now cross this job off the list.  

Facebook

I don't know about you, but I am really getting disenchanted with Facebook.  My feed is full of ads even though I keep trying to hide them.  The reason I went on Facebook, to begin with, was to keep up with the lives of friends and family, especially my grandchildren.   

Sometimes my feed is full of the exact same quote or joke or whatever because all of my friends share the same thing.  How can you eliminate duplicate posts??  Or is it even possible??

Otherwise, my feed is filled up with "suggested" content, which for me, is either cooking or craft videos.  Yes some of these things I enjoy, but I can search all day long for stuff like that and find tons.  I don't want that on my page in place of news of friends and family. 

 Does anyone else feel this way??