Joie de Vivre

Sometimes, getting caught up in life, you don't realize how good life is.
I've become one of those persons who is anticipating my future -- a move to France.
But I hadn't realized how much I'm enjoying my life in our small city on the edge of downtown Columbus until I talked with someone who is not happy.
Of course, I meet plenty of people who spend time complaining, don't we all, including me.
On Tuesday, the snow started to fall in the morning. Lying in bed, I asked my husband to look out the window to see if the streets were slippery. He said the streets were still black, so I dressed and went out on a run.
The snow aimed for my face, except when I ran east, but I couldn't simply run east, so I blinked my eyes and swiped the wetness off my face. My miles were slow because the snow covered the street and I ran carefully not to slip. I skirted past kids with heavy backpacks on their way to school. I waved to the crossing guard waiting to usher kids across the street. I stopped under the awning of the library to text Sheila and see if we planned to walk that morning. Then I took a selfie to show the snow.
And I smiled.

Running in the snow if such a freeing feeling. And maybe that's because I didn't have to go to work. I had the entire day to curl up in front of the fireplace and write or bake some blueberry muffins or watch House Hunters.
When I returned home, I pulled out a big broom to sweep the inch of dry, powdery snow from the sidewalk. I glanced at the untouched snow in the yard, and I knew I had to make a snow angel. So I stood with my back to the virgin white powder, and I cautiously fell backward. I waved my arms and legs in the snow, immediately feeling the wetness through my cotton pants.

Next came the tricky part. I had to get up without ruining the lines of the snow angel. With difficulty, I got to my feet and started to stand so I could step away.
That's when my neighbor called out.
"Are you okay?"
I laughed. "Yes, I'm just making a snow angel."
She'd been afraid that I'd fallen in the snow. I guess I was lucky she didn't call an ambulance to hoist me up.
I told that story on Wednesday night out with writing friends. One of my friends, Erin, who just turned 40, but seems much younger, looked puzzled.
"I guess I've never felt the spontaneous joy to make a snow angel," she said.
That's when I was jolted into my reality. I'm pretty happy. Running is a big part of that happiness.
It let's me release stress and fills my bloodstream with endorphins, no matter what the day holds.
This morning, after a 5-mile run, I paused to wonder at the sun rise, a flush of pink behind the city skyline. Sometimes I take a picture of the amazing things I see; others, I remind myself to live in the moment. The vision in my head is enough without pulling out the cell phone.
Even though I'm looking forward to the next part of my life in May 2017 when we move to France, I'm enjoying this one too.

Dreaming of France -- Five Nights in Paris

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France.

Even in a scaled-back Christmas, there's room for books. My husband gave me a book called Five Nights in Paris: After Dark in the City of Light by John Baxter. It's a guidebook to nightlife in Paris.

I have to admit that our evenings in Paris mostly consist of eating very late dinners and walking the streets of Paris in hopes that a 1920s car will appear and pick us up, like in Midnight in Paris. We also occasionally go to concerts, like a fabulous one in Sainte Chapelle. Saint Chapelle by day is breathtaking.

This photo of Sainte Chapelle is from Paris Digest.

When people ask me what they should see in Paris, I tell them to go to the second floor of Saint Chapelle and stand in the blue light. The stained glass windows stretch tall and sparkle the floor with their colors. But in the evenings, on the first floor, if you're lucky, there might be a concert of beautifully crafted violins and cellos played by musicians dressed in black. The lights in the chapel are not turned on, but instead candles flicker along the wall sconces. And the music soars wonderfully once bow is put to strings.
Other than that, my Paris nightlife is fairly limited, so I look forward to reading this book for some other entertainment ideas.
After nine initial stories, the book is broken down into the five senses, like "Blues in the Night," "Proposing a Toast," "Skin-Deep," "Gardens of the Night" and "Frenzy and Darkness." The titles are intriguing and I'm sure that they'll make me long for Paris even more.

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. I hope you'll visit the blogs of others who play along too.

Catching Up With My Family

Now that everyone has heard enough about my husband (see previous 12 posts), its time to reassess what is going on with my family.

The holidays have luckily stretched out for us with college not starting again until tomorrow for Spencer. He'll head out into the snow to his university an hour and a half away. I've firmly told him that I want him to leave in time to drive in the daytime. The road is a nice 4-lane highway for most of the way, but once he gets to Athens, the hills and dips in the road might make things treacherous.
I'm trying not to get too excited, but Spence met a girl his first week home at an ugly Christmas sweater party and they've been dating since. She's his age and lives not too far away. She does go to another college, but we'll see how they balance this once they're both back at school. Generally, he dates a lot of different girls, but this one seems different. I've long suspected that a steady relationship would be good for him, so we'll see.
As for Tucker, my 19-year-old has once again decided not to go back to his college. Instead, he'll stay home and take classes at the nearby community college. He think he has a major he's interested in -- sports videography. So he's taking classes in videography with a sports management degree. I hope he stays excited about it. He could have continued at Ohio University with a degree in journalism, but I was paying $4000 for three classes, along with $2000 per semester for his apartment. I still have to pay for his apartment even though he isn't living there, but the cost for classes, 5 classes, will be less than $2000. Plus, he is already back working at his previous job as a delivery driver for Jimmy Johns. He's working five or six days a week.
The drawback of course is that 19-year-olds generally aren't that pleasant to live with. Hopefully, we'll all be busy enough that we don't trip over each other. And his long-time girlfriend, he's been dating her for a year and a half, which is nearly a 10 of his life, lives here in Columbus and has her own apartment. That should help too.
Grace continues to enjoy her job and has health benefits now, along with a free gym membership, paid vacation. She's thrilled about that. She's rehearsing for a show now How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying, where she's in the ensemble, but it's a producer with good connections so she's trying to cement ties with him so he can help her find jobs in the future. She was asked to audition for a paid show, and she tries out tonight. She also sent in her resume for an independent movie that is shooting in Columbus and got asked to audition for that -- a female serial killer.
The more engaged my children are with their lives, they happier they seem, so I'm all for busy schedules as they spread their wings. She's also been dating one guy for nearly half a year. The drama in my house reduces greatly when everyone has a steady boyfriend or girlfriend.
The kitten which Earl rescued in November has finally gone to a new home. Tucker's girlfriend took him in. The other cats are starting to trust that the kitten is gone. They slowly start to sleep in the living room or bedrooms again rather than cowering in the basement.
The kitten, who is now called Thomas, had to visit on Friday. His apartment was being sprayed for bugs. The kitten remembered everything about living here, and, unfortunately, the cats remembered the kitten. Our house was full of hisses that day until he left.


I'm teaching five classes this semester, but one of the colleges where I teach doesn't begin until next week, so I still have more down time. Yay! Another of the colleges where I teach started last week, so I'm easing into my new schedule. I've been in a down period as far as writing goes, but I'm planning to buckle down this week and get Paris Runaway revised.
As for me and Earl, remember that things aren't perfect, but we enjoy spending time together and we have a countdown clock for our move to France: One year, 131 days and the hours count down.

12 Days of Appreciation -- Day 12

I accidentally skipped yesterday, which would have been Day 12, but it isn't because I don't appreciate my husband. I started teaching again yesterday and the day got away from me.
Another thing, a 12th thing that I love about my husband is that he always finds me beautiful.
I was 25 when we met, 27 when we married. I weighed 118 pounds.

Times have changed.
No matter how much weight I gain or lose, my husband tells me that I'm beautiful. No matter how short or long my hair gets, straight or curly, glasses or contacts, he still tells me that I'm beautiful.
And whether I believe him or not, it's nice to hear it after 25 years of marriage.

Here we are at the entry to Le Riad, a Moroccan restaurant in Aix en Provence

12 Days of Appreciation -- Day 11

Even after 25 years of marriage, my husband is still romantic.
Being romantic probably covers a lot of those other categories I've written about, like giving me backrubs and wanting to make me happy.
He loves spending time with me, just the two of us.

A lot of times, we'll walk to the coffee shop. Or we'll go to the grocery store or take a walk to return the library books. It doesn't really matter what we do, just that we're together. 

Tonight, he's prepared to watch The Bachelor with me, not because he enjoys the reality show, but because it's another way to spend time with me. 

Dreaming of France -- Books Set in France

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France.

When I wrote my first book set in France, I had a hard time finding any novels or memoirs that took place in France. I'd been seduced by Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence, and I wanted to read more books that took me to Paris or Provence.
Since then, the field has become much more crowded, but I'm not complaining about it. I enjoy reading so many books with France as the backdrop, even as I continue to write my own novels.
Linda Kovic-Skow, author of the memoir French Illusions, has started a page on Goodreads called The Francophiles Group. It provides a place for French lovers to talk about books they've read and also offers book giveaways. This week, my novel, The Summer of France is available.
So if you're a member of Goodreads (and if you love to read, you should be), then you can join The Francophile Group. And while you're there, feel free to sign up to win a copy of The Summer of France. If you've already read it, then just go back later this month for another giveaway.

The banner on The Francophiles Group banner changes as new books are added. 

So if you love France and you love reading books set in France, join us on Goodreads. 

Thanks for playing along with Dreaming of France. I'd love it if you'd stick with me as I begin to prepare for my own move to France in less than a year and a half. 

12 Days of Appreciation -- Day 10

I didn't realize it when I married him, but my husband is very good at fixing things. In spite of the fact that he's a journalist, he has a real mechanical bent. He can look at things and figure out how they go together and which part might be causing the problem.
When I told him a few days ago that the dryer smelled  hot, he pulled it out and cleaned the lint from the dryer vent and attached a new one.
When Tucker got a new analog watch and couldn't figure out how to set it, my husband realized that the bar over the knob simply snapped off to allow the stem to be pulled out and the watch to be set.
When someone drove past Spencer's car and knocked the side mirror off, my husband tracked down another mirror and watched a Youtube video that showed how to attach a new mirror so the mechanics worked and the mirror could be adjusted electrically, even though it included taking the door panel off.
It is such a relief to have a husband who can fix things without needing to call a repair person every time. And it takes a certain amount of patience to be able to take things apart and put them together.
I'm grateful my husband has mechanical aptitude.

12 Days of Appreciation -- Day 9

Here I am on day 9 of reasons why I appreciate my husband. In case you have not been following along raptly (ha!), I find it helpful to remind myself how lucky I got 25 years ago when I married him. I'm not trying to say that I have a perfect marriage, only that marriage takes work and focusing on the positives instead of the negatives.
Another thing I appreciate about my husband is that he is much better at de-escalating fights than I am. I'm stubborn. I grab onto a point and won't let it go.
I reasonably know how to fight fair, to focus on I statements and explain how things make me feel, but my actions don't always follow the logical fight pattern.
Not every time, but many times when we are in the middle of an argument, my husband can pivot, concede a point, apologize for a specific thing that he did, let me know that he hears my point even if he doesn't agree. Any of those things can help to lessen the argument.

Here's my husband with one of the kids hanging onto him as they gaze out at Lake Huron.

I've learned lessons from him about arguing, not that I can always apply them, but I'm pretty sure my marriage wouldn't have lasted this long if he didn't know how to de-escalate.

12 Days of Appreciation -- Day 8

Today, on the first day of the new year, after staying late at a party, my husband got out of bed and went to work. Someone always has to work holidays at the newspaper. He doesn't complain about it. 

And he has worked hard at his daily job since I first met him. His salary has been the one that supported our family, giving me the luxury to stay home when the kids were little. 

I appreciate that my husband is a hard worker and good provider. 

First Day Wrong Turn

Are you familiar with the superstition that whatever you do on the first day of the year,  you'll be doing throughout the year?

"Whatever a person does on this day will influence his activity for the rest of the year." 

That's according to the website New Year's Superstitions.
So every year, I try to make sure that I run on the first day of the year.
But what do you do if things have already gone awry after the stroke of midnight. One of the first communications I had after midnight was a spat. And no, we didn't talk through it and reach a resolution. Instead, I went to bed (finally) angry.
I got a call this morning from a friend whose New Year started off badly too.
When I woke up early, my stomach was upset. I wish I could say it was because I drank too much, but I only had one glass of wine. So instead of a run, I spent the morning in the bathroom.
Now, the hour grows close to noon, and I wonder how the rest of you turn around a new year that starts off badly?
I suppose, I could assume that I'm getting the bad out of the way and the rest of 2016 will be joyful.
Hope everyone else is having a lovely first day of the year.

12 Days of Appreciation -- Day 7

Love.
Obviously, I married my husband 25 years ago, after two years of dating, so we love each other.
At the time we married, I realized that I loved him in a soaring, unconditional way that he might not have reciprocated. He loved me, but it was more tempered.
He has told me since then that he couldn't imagine life without me. So we married.
But today, I can unequivocally say that he loves "me more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow...." My husband loves me more now than he did on the day of our wedding.

And that's a beautiful thing.

12 Days of Appreciation -- Day 6

I'm halfway through my 12 Days of Appreciation countdown. I'm focusing on the reasons that I feel grateful for my husband. I'm not doing this because I think that we have some sort of superior marriage, but in an attempt to remember the important things in the midst of the day-to-day work of life.
Last night, my friend Najah came over. She's single and she gives relationship advice to my 23-year-old daughter. She started talking to Grace about the book The 5 Languages of Love.  Since I've been
married 25 years, it's not a book I'd heard of. The basics are that people need to figure out the main way the give and receive love, and how their partner gives and receives love. The five main ways the author describes are"Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch."
As Najah explained them, I realized that my husband's pretty good at most of these (except the gifts which neither of us find important), but the main one I see is "Acts of Service." He'll come in from a day at work and ask if he can get me anything. That's crazy!
"Go relax," he'll tell me. "I'll unload the dishwasher."
And he is the main laundry washer in my house. He might have an ulterior motive since he thinks my laundry skills are inferior, but if he prefers to stay on top of the laundry in the house, I'm happy to accept it.
My husband has learned to steam the milk on the espresso maker so he can make me a latte even though he doesn't drink coffee. He shows me love through his acts of service every day.

Tuesday Teaser -- 100 Days of Happiness

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.

When the main character of 100 Days of Happiness by Fausto Brizzi learns that he has 100 days left to live, he decides to make the most of them.

Here's the intro:

Allow me to tell you about the three most important days of my life. I wouldn't want any of the three to think I'm playing favorites, so I'll list them in strict chronological  order.
The first was Friday, October 13, 1972. Friday, the thirteenth.
On that date, as a Fokker turboprop crash-landed in the Andes with forty-five passengers who would ultimately devour each other to survive, Antonio and Carla, that is to say, my mom and dad, eighteen at the time, conceived me in the backseat of an unprepossessing off-white Citroen Dyane. The two teens had parked their vintage junker in a large empty square on the outskirts of Rome, included in the zoning plan by far-seeing city administrators as a handy refuge for lovebirds. It was a bleak setting, filled by the occasional abandoned refrigerator and stacks of battered cars.
A perfect backdrop for a tender love story.

This is intriguing to me because I truthfully have no idea when or where my parents conceived me, and I don't think most people do. Maybe this was the only time his, probably Catholic, parents had sex.
I love the idea of the book. I hope it lives up to the hook.

12 Days of Appreciation -- Day 5

Sometimes it's the simple things in life that help improve it.
Often, when my husband comes to bed, or if he wakes up in the morning and I'm still in bed, he gives me a backrub.
Who doesn't love a backrub?
Just one other reason that I love my husband.

12 Days of Appreciation -- Day 4, Plus Dreaming of France

I'm continuing to focus on 12 reasons that I'm grateful for my husband, but luckily, I can connect gratitude for my husband with Dreaming of France because I'm so fortunate that my husband has bought into my dream of living in France.
As he turned 60 just a few days ago, he has become even more excited about it. We've set a date, May 2017, so that means another year and a half of working, paying off bills, getting kids through college, cleaning out the house and then selling the house.
Luckily, we live in a coveted school district and should come away with a nice profit that will allow us to buy a house in southern France.
A year after we married, I dragged my husband abroad for his first European vacation.

Here we are in Venice in 1998. 

 He fell in love with France just like I did. He also loves Germany, Austria, Italy, and we imagine the short trips we can take around the continent once we live in France.

He's already begun to scare our children with comments like, "This is our next-to-last Christmas here in the U.S."
I can't think of anyone else I would want to go on my next adventure with. It's nice that as the kids move into adulthood, I still have a friend in my husband, someone to explore the world with.

I hope you are Dreaming of France too, if only through books, movies, pictures, songs or fantasies.
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you'll play along and visit the blogs of others who are Dreaming of France.

12 Days of Appreciation -- Day 3

Some days, when we get caught up in the day-to-day grind of cooking meals, cleaning, working, dealing with children, we forget about the higher qualities of your spouse. We can find ourselves in a negative rut if we aren't careful.
The positive thinking books encourage readers to focus on the good, to be grateful for what we have, and I'm focusing on the blessings of a devoted husband.
I went for a run this morning with the temperature hovering around 66 degrees. That's ridiculously warm for December. I dressed in a short sleeved shirt and knee length running tights. After nearly 40 minutes, I felt drops of rain falling on me. I turned right, hoping the rain might not have arrived farther south, but the rain intensified and the wind picked up, roaring down the street and bending young trees over so that they nearly touched the ground.
As the rain soaked through my clothes, I listened for thunder and watched for lightning. In spite of the intensity of the storm, no thunder and lightning, so I ran the mile and a half home, dripping. Each step squooshed with water.
Even as I continued to run, I knew that I could stop in any doorway, pull my phone from my waterproof belt and call my husband. He would walk through the rain to the car and drive down the streets to rescue me.
Having someone who will be there in any situation is such a luxury; one that I don't feel thankful for often enough. So today, I'm feeling grateful.

12 Days of Appreciation

That famous song the 12 Days of Christmas celebrates the time from Christmas Day to Epiphany, so technically, according to the Catholic Church calendar, yesterday was the first day of Christmas and today is the second.
Over the next 12 days, I plan to focus on reasons that I appreciate my husband.
First, I don't want anyone to think that I have a perfect marriage. We've been married for 25 years, together for 27 years. We fight sometimes -- about serious stuff and trivial things. We get pissed off; we get annoyed. In spite of whatever daily irritant we might be feeling, I love this man for many reasons.
I'll start with two.
Christmas Day is easy to appreciate. We agreed to give each other one present for Christmas. We're always conscious of having to pay college bills. I needed a new coat, but my husband wanted to surprise me, so we went to the store and I chose three coats that I liked and let my husband pick from those three to surprise me under the tree. He picked a coat that "looked cute" on me and I loved it. In addition to the coat though, he bought a print of a painting set in Arles, France, and gave me that. He filled my stocking with moisturizer, chocolates and a book set in Paris, along with some warm socks.
And that's one thing I appreciate about my husband. He wants to make me happy and spends time thinking about how to do that.

My second day of appreciation also occurred yesterday, on Christmas Day.
After our celebration at home and an afternoon spent driving down to my brother's house for dinner and back, we decided to watch a movie. The boys both headed out to spend time with girls. My husband let me search for the movie Love Actually, which I couldn't find either to rent on demand or on Netflix. But we saw that Bridge Jones' Diary was available, and he said he'd be happy to watch it.
What? Seriously? Okay.
Grace joined us and we watched and laughed at the movie, which begins at Christmastime, so it was like a Christmas movie.

Not many men would happily watch a chick flick movie so he could laugh at the slap fight the British men engage in.
Both Day 1 and Day 2 are acts that I appreciate because he made my wants a priority. I don't think I'm as unselfish as he is, but maybe noticing the time and effort he puts into it will help make up for that.
I hope you are all having a lovely Christmas season and find something to appreciate as well.

Tuesday Intros -- The 6:41 to Paris

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I just received a French book translated into English. I'll be reviewing it for France Book Tours, but I'm definitely going to be curling up with it over Christmas.
The 6:41 to Paris by Jean-Philippe Blondel is about Cecile, 47, who is taking the early morning train from her parents' provincial town to Paris when the empty seat next to her is occupied by a man with whom she had a torrid affair and an awful ending. That should be an interesting train ride back.
Here's the intro:

I could have taken the 7:50, or even the 8:53. It's Monday. Mondays are dead quiet at work. It's just that I couldn't take anymore. What was I thinking, staying Sunday night. I don't know what came over me. Two days are more than enough.  

 I love visiting my parents, but I can imagine this weekend with French parents who have certain expectations might be trying.
I wonder what happens between Cecile and Philippe. And I wonder why the author named the main character after himself, Jean-Philippe.
Thanks for visiting my blog! I can't wait to see what everyone else is reading.

Dreaming of France -- Paris Runaway

Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France.

It's been a little while since we've played Dreaming of France. I know the way to increase the number of people playing and reading -- all I have to do is move to France!
But our current plans don't include us moving to France until May 2017. Still -- May 2017 is only a year and a half away!
So today, as we head toward the end of 2015, I thought I'd post some pictures from our trip to Marseille in March.
We'd never been to Marseille, so we took the bus from Aix en Provence to Marseille, about 30 minutes. The bus stops at the train station, and the view from the train station is panoramic.

In the distance on the hill is Notre Dame de la Garde, our lady of the guard, which overlooks the Marseille harbor. 

The architecture in Marseille looks similar to buildings in Paris. 

This ferris wheel sits at the beginning of the harbor for a terrific view. Well, we didn't actually ride on the ferris wheel, but I imagine the view would be stunning from those little seats. 

We walked down to the end of the harbor where we saw the Marseille Cathedral. I'd never heard of it before, but sitting there along the edge of the Mediterranean, with it's dramatic dark insets, the cathedral wowed us. 

I'm looking forward to the day when we can return to France and explore Marseille again. 

I hope you're dreaming of France today too and I really appreciate everyone who participates and visits each other's blogs. 

Tuesday Intros -- The Diamond Caper

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.

Sometimes I get confused which Peter Mayle book I've read and which ones I haven't. He's been writing a series with a detective and an insurance adjuster who frequently have to travel to Marseille where they stay in luxury with a really rich  man, as we all do! Anyway, I haven't read this one The Diamond Caper.
Here's the intro:

Why is it that bad news so often arrives on Monday mornings?
The call came at 6:00 a.m. local time, waking a reluctant Elena Morales from a deliciously deep sleep. It was her boss, Frank Knox, founder and CEO of Knox Insurance, and there was an undercurrent of tension in his voice. There was a problem, he said, and it was urgent. Despite the early morning Los Angeles traffic, Elena was with him in his office by 7:30. 

 Guess what? The urgent case was in Nice, France, so Elena is off to France where her boyfriend Sam meets her. There's sure to be French fun to follow.
I look forward to seeing what everyone else is reading.

In Memory of Nana

I imagine that everyone is tired of reading sad posts on my blog. I think about writing stories on Christmas lights or scented soaps or books set in France, but life has other plans.
On Wednesday afternoon, I learned that my 97-year-old grandmother died.

This was in August at my cousin's
daughter's wedding. 

Now, I realize that most people as old as I am are fortunate to have parents living and in good health, much less a grandmother. But my grandmother, Nana, has resisted old age.
One of my nieces pointed out that Nana is the only woman she knows who gave up high  heels at age 92. That makes her practically French, doesn't it?
Nana led a typical Kentucky life, marrying at age 16 to a man 12 years older because he wanted a young bride that he could raise the way he wanted. That sounds terribly sexist, which it was, but he might have gotten more than  he planned on when he married my strong-willed grandmother. The two of them had three children, one of them my father.
Nana helped run a general store and the family lived above the store, until one night a fire broke out. The family escaped and stood outside in the cold watching their home, livelihood and several hundred dollars in life savings burn to the ground, My grandfather didn't believe in banks, so he kept cash. He nearly died trying to save the money.
Some of Nana's jobs after that included running a hotel, which I vaguely remember as a child. What fun to visit my grandmother and get to stay in a hotel room! She also worked at the post office and knew everyone in her small town.
One of my favorite stories from Nana was when she rode a horse into town to get a permanent at the beauty shop. Just the idea that they didn't have a car to drive, they still relied on horses or wagons, but she still searched out the permanent wave for her thin hair. But the story got better. On the way home, the horse got stuck in quicksand. Nana had to crawl off the horse's neck to get to solid ground then tug on the horse's reins until she got him up to dry ground too. Another time she told about the horse running away with her as she lay flat and wrapped her hands around its neck, holding on for her life.
Kentucky, especially the poor parts, has always been behind the rest of the world, but the idea of using outhouses and riding horses to town even 80 years ago strikes me as "Little House on the Prairie."
My grandfather died 32 years ago, but Nana wasn't finished with marriage. She dated a few guys before she lucked into meeting Ish. They fell in love like a lightning strike and married quickly to spend their remaining years together.
Ish freed Nana in a way. She went from a woman who only wore dresses, to someone who discovered pants were sensible and sometimes more modest than dresses. She began to spend winters in Arizona, and she and Ish traveled to explore new lands, including Venezuela.

Here's my Aunt June, Nana, me and Grace

They returned to live in Kentucky and Ish died in the late 1990s. Nana continued to live alone. We convinced her to buy a smaller house for awhile, but after a year, she sold it for a profit and moved back to her big house with five bedrooms, two kitchens, two living rooms, a dining room and acres of land.
A few years ago, she had a stroke. She insisted on lying down for awhile rather than calling the
emergency squad. She never fully regained strength in her left side, but she lived at home with her daughter or a live-in helper, intent on completing many tasks at home. She would slide down the stairs on her butt to get to the lower level and go through her belongings, deciding what to keep or discard.
A few years ago, she became terribly ill. I drove the four hours from Columbus to be with her. My aunt and uncle in Kentucky both had the flu and couldn't visit her in the hospital. My parents in Florida weren't within reach. I sat by her hospital bed, but she didn't wake up. I didn't think she'd make it through the night.
I called my parents and told them to come. They did, and Nana was better by the time they arrived. She seemed to beat all the odds.

This was probably celebrating her 90th birthday, or maybe 92. 

Nana mostly lived at home, but would go into the nursing home for three months at a time to give my aunt a break from caretaking duty.
In October, another call from the hospital. She had pneumonia. I drove down to sit by her bed. My aunt had been there all night and I waved her off to shower and rest. I pulled up a chair by Nana's bed, and for someone who they thought could die, she sat in bed alert. She hardly dozed at all. Instead, we talked.
She asked me about her great grandchildren, and her great-great grandchildren. I showed her pictures on my cell phone. We talked about her early life.
"When I woke up, I thought Wilbert was sitting in that chair," she said. Wilbert was my grandfather, her first husband.
We talked for a few minutes and she told me, "I was unhappy married," and I knew she meant in her first marriage. "But he was a good father."
She wasn't inclined to talk about her future, in this world or in heaven, in spite of her strong religious beliefs.
She fell asleep about half an hour before I needed to leave for the 4-hour drive back home.
"I love you, Nana," I whispered as I kissed her soft hair, plastered down in the back against the bed.
And she recovered again, returning to the nursing home to play bingo.
Then Wednesday, Mom texted me that Nana  had died.
I have to guess that she has no regrets, even though she didn't quite make it to her 98th birthday.

Stiff Necks and Guilt

Sometimes, I know that I'm not a good person.
I'm not saying that in the hopes that one of you readers will try to talk me out of it.
I'm selfish, not as generous or as kind as I should be.
This morning, I went over in my mind the things that I'm dreading. The visiting hours this evening for my friend's daughter's death, along with Katie's funeral Monday morning. I half hoped I wouldn't be able to find a substitute teacher so I couldn't go to the funeral.
I signed up to take dessert for the funeral luncheon, but I didn't go to mass this morning, where I might have talked to or comforted the family.
And now, the pain in my neck has begun -- a pain I had for
two weeks when my Aunt Lorena died.
I could, of course, skip the visiting hours and the funeral. One of my friends from church called and as we talked she said she expected I wouldn't be able to get out of teaching to attend the funeral. I could have grabbed at that straw and assumed everyone else would think that too.
But, I knew that although I could easily skip the funeral and the visitation, my once best friend Cathy could not. I could pretend that nothing had happened, but she is living with the fact that her 21-year-old daughter died.
And for that reason alone, I will be there this evening, offering my sympathy because I know that nothing can be done to ease their pain. And I will be at the funeral mass on Monday morning. I will drive to the cemetery and watch their tears fall as handfuls of dirt are tossed into the hole that holds their daughter.
I think that I might be able to help their daughters. I was 14 when my sister died. Katie's sisters are 18 and 12. I'm the godmother to the younger one.
But what could I tell them?

My sister Tammy in her senior picture. She died
the night before her high school graduation.

I could warn them that as they move forward in their lives, at each milestone, they'll feel the emotional abyss left behind with the loss of Katie. As they complete college and celebrate with their family, they'll feel Katie's absence. When they plan their weddings or give birth to children, they'll feel that ache -- the certain feeling that an older sister would have good advice and experience to share.
But why should I warn them. They'll know soon enough, and at least they'll have each other, along with their two brothers.
I burst out last night and told Grace that whenever I die, they should just plan the service quickly. I hate the limbo, the in-between time when you can't even pretend that things will be normal because of the wait for the services. I remember that time when my sister died, and with Thanksgiving, the wait has been even longer for Katie's funeral.
As a sister, and I imagine as a parent, the toughest part is to leave the person you love in the metal box, no matter how lovely and lined with silk, to close the lid of that box and leave her in the funeral home or the church. I wouldn't be able to bear it. I cried copious tears at that thought of leaving my sister all alone in the church the night of the visitation.
But I will go tonight and recall happy memories of Katie, in the hopes that I can share some joy in the midst of this painful season.

Saturday Snapshot -- Mouth Full of Chocolate

Join West Metro Mommy for this weekly meme of photos people have taken and share on their blogs.
We had a fairly laid back Thanksgiving, but at one point in the afternoon, 3-year-old Regan asked whether I'd come play with her. Of course, I did and she set up an elaborate tea party.
A piece of cake and a piece of Buckeye candy were on Regan's dessert plate. Suddenly, I looked down and the entire Buckeye was gone.
"Did you put that entire thing in your mouth?" I asked Regan. She nodded, but her full cheeks and over-wide eyes told me the answer before she did.

Tucker also got to meet his new cousin Benjamin and he wanted a selfie. So I held up  Benjamin for Tucker to take a selfie with him.

We also got a family snapshot while all of us were in the same place.

Hope you  had a lovely holiday, if your an American, and that everyone else had peaceful weeks.

A Life Too Short

On Tuesday evening, as I arrived in class to teach, I pulled a folder from my bag and got a paper cut. I know, a paper cut, big deal. I popped the finger in my mouth and sucked on it, natural reaction for me. But I couldn't stop bleeding. The blood pooled under my fingernail and formed a ruby bubble on my finger. I wrapped a paper towel around it, but as I gathered papers to pass out to students, I left little blots of blood on the papers.
The paper cut wasn't a big deal, but it was a surreal end to a sad day.
That afternoon, I found out that Katie, a 21-year-old who grew up with my kids, had died.
When our family moved to Columbus in 1998, I attended a homeschool meeting. I walked into the meeting and gazed at the people sitting around the tables arranged in a U-shape. I chose the most "normal" looking woman and slid into a chair next to her. I had no idea that this woman would become one of my closest friends. Cathy, like me, had three children -- two girls and a boy. They were all close in age to my children.
We ended up become homeschooling partners, joining forces three or four days a week, as we explored different historical periods and of course allowed the children to run and play.
We had been searching for a church since we arrived in Columbus, and Cathy invited us to try the Newman Center on Ohio State's campus. We began going there and were welcomed into the church family there.

A few years later, Cathy convinced me to join her and start a new religious education program at our church -- Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. We went for weeks and long weekends of training, paying hundreds of dollars and spending hours creating the Montessori-based materials. We even fought with the church leaders about incorporating the new religious education classes.
Through it all, our children remained fast friends.
Then Cathy decided to have more children and put her older kids in school. Once she entered the school realm, we weren't as close, although we both continued to teach religious ed at church. Eventually, as my kids aged out, I stopped teaching. Cathy is there for a few years more as her two younger children still go through the program.
But this story isn't about Cathy, it's about her daughter Katie. When Katie was 2, she had a cancerous tumor somewhere around her rib cage. Usually, when these tumors are discovered, it is too late for the children already. But Cathy listened to Katie's 2-year-old complaints when she lay on her side or when someone picked her up. She took Katie to the doctor and insisted they check it out rather than shrug it off. And after a prayer service one evening, Katie's tumor stopped growing. During her childhood years, she had to have regular checkups to track it, but after five  years, those became yearly checkups.

In her high school years, Katie began having seizures. She was diagnosed with epilepsy. That meant trying to find just the right medicine to control her seizures, but not so much that she became a zombie. Through it all, Katie's giggle and slightly snarky comments as she raised her voice to be heard above everyone else would be the things that stood out.
Rather than being resentful of her younger siblings, Katie often held them when they were little and allowed them to climb her like a jungle gym as they grew older. She swam on swim team and played water polo, insisting on a normal life. She went away to college and moved into her own apartment.
We've grown away from the family, but I ran into Cathy in the grocery store in October. She filled me in on the family and said that Katie had an internship in Chicago this summer with a PR firm. She loved the job and hoped the company might hire her once she graduated college in the spring.
And then on Tuesday came the phone call. Katie had a seizure Tuesday morning and she had died.
I still can't quite grasp it, so I imagined that for her parents and her four siblings, they expect to hear her footsteps and a call of hello from Katie at any moment.
Grace was hit hard by the news. She and Katie were friends on Facebook, but those early years playing pioneer and teacher and Barbies, formed a bond that the two could always count on.
As a friend, I feel helpless. If I were a parent, my mind can't even fathom how I would feel.
I think about stupid arguments with children, worries about weight gain or girl fights.
I need to remember to focus on the important things in life, so I have no regrets. And I need to make sure I love the people around me because we don't know when those people will be gone.  

In the Woods With a Wolf

I'm still in denial about some difficulties that we've had this fall, so I'll write another happy post. This one includes pictures of Grace.
Grace is working a lot and auditioning for plays since finishing her role as Nancy in Oliver.
A photographer friend asked her to pose with a wolf as publicity both for the photographer, Candid Kama Photography, and for the wolf rescue place.
Grace convinced her boyfriend Jack and her friends Kyle and Rachel to pose with her. They all dressed up in Victorian clothes for the shoot.
I can't believe that Jack had a Victorian suit, including a top hat that flattens and pops up.

This is my favorite with Grace and the wolf in the woods. 

 And another one that I liked was this reflective picture. When I first saw it, I only saw the bottom and I wondered why they posted it upside down. Then I scrolled up and saw that the reflection was just incredibly clear.

So Grace is doing well, other than working too much.
And someday soon, I'll be ready to write about the challenges we've faced this fall.