Archive for Family

A Parent’s Admiration

Over this past weekend, my sister and her husband were visiting from Montana.  The Party House was completely a buzz because Dooney (my sister Laura) and Stevo (Laura’s husband, Steve) were in the house.  Also, my nephew, Jim was here from San Luis Obispo.  Saying the Party House was a little packed was an understatement.  Although, we were without Travel Man, and our youngest son, Zach.  They were both working for a living.

We had great times, great conversation, and great food  from Wednesday at lunchtime until the last meal yesterday at lunchtime.

But there was a moment that not everyone would have seen or heard, that was filled with such love I could not help but share it with you all.  My parents were sitting in our family room, kind of off to the side of the room,  in these two comfy chairs I have there for reading.  The girls (myself, my sister, and Elaine) and I were getting the enchiladas rolled and put together for baking.  And I could hear my parents in the corner talking about all of their kids and grandkids, and now Evan, the great-grandchild all in the same place at the same time.  I just caught bits and pieces of what they were saying, but their conversation was filled with such love and pride, it’s one of those “moments” for me that I will always be able to recall.  It was one of those “moments” that is so filled with love and family that you feel as though “your cup runneth over”.   Sometimes when we are fortunate to get everyone together like this my Mom will say to my Dad, “Yo Rocky (even though his name is Jim), I can’t believe we done dis!”

Saturday night we had a wonderful dinner together, filled with wonderful, loving toasts all around the table.  We are so incredibly fortunate to have such a loving, soulful family.  I am just feeling thankful today.  Blessed and thankful.  My hope will always be that everyone gets to have this kind of family experience, at least once in their lives. 

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Have You Ever Seen a Birdie Condo?

We have a nice patio cover off of our kitchen and family room.  It has great shade cloth and it’s where Travel Man does all of his grilling.  We also have birds, and its springtime so we have lots of birds flitting around the house.  There is a cute couple of finches, or maybe swallows that come back to this particular spot on our patio cover every year.  This year I was on a mission to make them move their nest location away from our patio cover.  Mainly to relocate the mess that dribbles onto the patio.

In the little nooks where the birds normally build their nest we stacked a couple of rocks.  I thought surely this will stop them from building.  But lo and behold here’s what they did.

                                     

View from the ground                                                        View up at birdie level

There is a nest build right on top of the rocks squished up to the screen cloth on the patio cover.  The birds diligently built this little nest because they are claiming their space.  I was amazed at how hard they worked to build this nest.  One bird would fly in and then the other, but there was so little space they could not squeeze in there at the same time.  We briefly, and I do mean nano-second briefly, discussed knocking the nest down to avoid all of the mess.  But when I cast my vote for the nest, I wanted to save it because the birds had worked so hard.  There was some eye rolling over this decision by some of my family members.

The nest stayed, but oddly enough the birds did not.  They “flew the coop” last week sometime.  I guess they decided their tight quarters were not going to work.  So, Travel Man said to tell you all, so you can tell your birdie friends, that we have a birdie condo for rent.  Great location, warm weather, and a cat perched below watching your every move.  This springtime story will go down in the family history books.

Another Installment of When Travel Man’s Away…..

This has been kind of a funky morning.  My theory is with a Road Warrior for a husband (aka Travel Man) nothing goes wrong around the house until he is away.  Travel Man is in Alabama working this weekend, and there’s a few household glitches I thought I would share with you all.

  • The patio screen door would not go back on the track.  After a new an improved latte in my coffee mug this one is fixed.  Just needed some caffeine to get past my frustration on this one.
  • The washer has a quirky problem.  We have a fancy new fangled front loading washer.  If certain someone’s do not clean out their pockets properly sometimes things get stuck in this little filter/trap on the front of the washer.  This was happening quite often so I got a lesson in how to fix it myself.  So of course today, I had to clean out the trap- yuck, smelly water, and now we’re back in business.  Who needs a washer warranty anyway.
  • And my last quirk was that the first latte I made myself this morning had no espresso dripped into it.  The filter folded over on itself, and the coffee never dribbled into the milk.  This one happened before the previous two.

At this moment, I am happy to report that I got my latte, got everything fixed and in shape, and now on with my family weekend.  Oh,  and in case you’re wondering, and even if you are not, a Road Warrior is someone who makes their living while traveling from place to place or customer to customer, or job to job.  On the road, in the air, not usually by bus or train unless they are in some remote location.  My Travel Man is a Field Service Technician, and travels to plants all over the USA for his work.  But the details there are a story for another day.  Hope you all enjoy your Friday.  Mine is much better now.  Toodles!

My Flower Collection

This is a small collection of flower pictures that I have taken since January.  I love taking flower photos, and most of this group was taken at Disneyland.  The huge roses, are from my rose bushes in my backyard.  Very fragrant roses, love them.  This is just a little collection for your springtime enjoyment.

Happy Friday to all.

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