Aunt Frances would be 97 today…while her constant chatter used to irritate me, I would really love to hear her talking, laughing and Aunt Frances-isms again!  This should be a reminder that any day could be the last for your important people but life happens and we get busy…I guess we have no choice but to call up our memories when we need to.

I hate to call them the Xanga girls because we have become so much more to each other…but we are meeting the Xanga girls and husbands in Chicago for the weekend.  I’m very excited…IKEA is in the plan for Friday afternoon…I’m an IKEA virgin…I’m preparing to fall in love!

We close on the house in Missouri tomorrow – we are signing papers this afternoon…found out this week that a woman who grew up in his neighborhood also lives in Pleasant Hill…small world.  We are and have been friends with her sisters for several years, but I had never met her…by the way, he is pretty sure that he broke this Marianna’s arm when they were children.  I hope she has forgiven and forgotten 🙂

I think that is it for today.  Mentally gearing up for 4th of July activities.  We both have to work on the 4th but hope to at least work in the Yankee Doodle Pops at the Capitol in Des Moines on the 3rd.

Until next time….

The government no longer cares who we love and sleep with.  What a great pre-celebration for Independence Day!

Aaron Hernandez is an idiot…what a waste of talent.  I feel nothing but contempt for him!

 
Jen from the bank just called to tell me we will be signing papers on Thursday with closing on Friday then we will own a house in Pleasant Hill, Missouri.  Ironically, I grew up just across the cornfield from Pleasant Hill, Iowa and lived in Pleasant Hill, Iowa for about 3 years prior to marrying him.  I’m so looking forward to returning to Pleasant Hill as my return address.  I’ve never felt permanence in where I have lived.  I’m not going to say I haven’t been content in most places but I’ve never felt like…ok…this is it…this is where I”m planted and this is where I”m going to bloom.  I’ve always known that I didn’t want to always live where I live now.  The history is irrelevant  for this post but suffice it to say that in the past, I’ve been just happy to go with the flow; but recently, have been restless and have been experiencing a lot of discontent — probably because both girls have moved away from Newton.  I used to run, run, run volunteering for this and that but as the community has changed, so have I and I just have no desire to continue giving myself here.  The promise of a new place and new community has given me a lot of hope.  Moving closer to my only grandson was the catalyst I needed to make the move to get the hell outta dodge.

…and speaking of Des Moines…squirrel

Knowing I’m moving away from the proximity of my birth city, I’ve been a lot more aware of Des Moines.  It’s kind of a new look at a fresh,  vibrant city.  I would have probably been reasonably content to move back to the Des Moines area – actually while I was contemplating this, I realized what I really enjoyed was the fresh new downtown area with the living in the city, walking to and fro, being able to attend concerts along the Des Moines river…but if I were to stay in Des Moines, I know that I would probably live in the burbs and only occasionally visit the city which I can do now probably just as much as I would now that Katy makes her home in the downtown area.  The other moment I had thinking about leaving Des Moines was coming off of 235 onto I80 west, coming around the curve just before E 14th St took my breath away the other day.  The tree line…the city rising up, the beautiful capitol to the east…I had not noticed this momentary view at 65 miles per hour before.

That’s it ….. until next time

It was an old friends kind of day yesterday…I mean old and Old *sticking out tongue!
Deb, Deb and Billie are from my youth group days at church.  Oh trust me…there were two more Debs..but only one Nina and one Billie.  I hadn't seen one of the Debs (in aqua and brown) for 39 years.  I was sitting on a bench outside Applebys waiting for the group to assemble and Deb walked past me and into the building.  I looked at her but didn't really look at her and visa versa…she came back out and said Nina..it was instant recognition and very joyful!!!!!  We spent about 3 hours together attempting to plan a youth group reunion for next month but someone had to say – hey – everyone please focus as we had several conversations going at the same time.  It's really fun to reminisce…at one point I turned to Billie (on the right in this picture) and send..hmmm wasn't it you that left…….and she immediately knew what I was talking about…

After we separated, I did a little shopping and met him at Okoboji grill along with old friends, Ed and Malia Hicks.  We started in where we left the conversation 8 years ago.  We have seen the Hicks off and on over those 8 years but not just the 4 of us to connect.  We ate dinner and spent the rest of the evening at Maytag Park at the Maytag Bowl watching the community band perform.  Wonderful breeze, wonderful blue sky with white puffy clouds…I self-talked myself to just enjoy the moment and let everything else blow away.

I couldn't post any of the several pictures taken of Malia and I.  It may sound vane to say none of them were good of both of us.  But the truth is…..there were no pictures that didn't make us look old and overweight.  How is that possible?

Until next time…..

When Katy was young, we learned that there was a new way of teaching kids to write…as in writing their thoughts not their penmanship.  I digress…Its good that qualification for a diploma wasn’t based on penmanship..because I don’t think either one would have made it out if someone was telling them how they had to write. They got that from their mother!  Anyway.

With the parents scowling, the teacher explained that the kids are taught to just get their thoughts on paper; kids don’t worry about spelling, punctuation or sentence structure…they just learn to write what they are thinking.  *well, that’s not going to work, they said.

It’s the way I write now.  He still can’t write a letter or story as well as he could because he can’t break away from the roadblocks that just let him write what needs to be written.  I will say that my spelling bee spelling has hit the bricks, I have trouble with commas and semi-colons now but I’m not sure if that has to do with writing from the heart or just being old.

My blogging is very important to me.  I enjoy hearing that other people have liked or chuckled at what I’ve written…but the reason I blog is for me.  It is very cathartic to get things written out in black and white or black and whatever the blog site background color might be.  These words are for me.  In the same vein…I love to read other blogs..I’ve met some really good friends just reading the written word.  Some of these friends have become real live flesh and blood friends.  We really have no secrets…we’ve met and gotten to know each other thru words from the heart….it’s deep for me.

Which brings me to my latest irritation.  My beloved Xanga is shutting down or charging a fee…whichever way someone thinks they can make it work.  I’ve chosen to look elsewhere for my sharing thoughts.  I’ve been to Word Press and Blogger…a few of the friends mentioned in the paragraph above have landed for awhile at LiveJournal…While these sights are probably right for some bloggers…I feel that it is hard to be part of a community and hard to find other blogs to read..kind of like living in a house with no windows.  I also duplicate my blog over on Open Diary.  I really, really like Open Diary…maybe more than Xanga. ….. now I’ve found medium.com.  When it is out of beta, it may be a nice blogging home?  My thoughts for today.

Until next time……

I was rather mesmerized this morning by the synchronized flashing of the charging wireless headset and the basement door alarm I had just silenced.  So mesmerized that it held my attention for at least a minute.  All the while I was willing it to just slightly unsync.  Quite different from my mental disfiguration while sitting at a stop light listening to my turn signal ding while watching just ahead of me the car’s rear turn signal flash…mentally willing it to get in sync with my ding ding ding!  For me, it is like the proverbial blowing in the ear to scramble the brain.  Whatever I was thinking about before I had to stop the car is gone…Ready for a new thought process when my foot hits the gas.

Prior to the flashing lights, I was thinking about peace of mind and clear thoughts.  Last night, Kate and Adam took us…well took Him out for Father’s Day and I was invited to go along…at any rate, after dinner we went downtown and stood on the pedestrian bridge to watch the Des Moines river flow beneath us.  It was quite peaceful…why can’t I seem to just be there and live in the moment – put everything else out of my mind and just be.  This is my goal.  I don’t think I’m going to be able to just will myself to do it…I think it is going to take some kind of mind training…I hate to say this too loud for fear the family will find me a nice quiet place to live!

Until next time…