Memorable May

Well we've come to the end of the month of May and also the end of the journey for Bill's mom. She passed yesterday morning. I was there with her until the end and even though she didn't quite make it to her 100th birthday (July) she definitely gave it quite a ride.

This is her shortly after we brought her down to live next door to us on December 31, 2022. Fortunately she made her wishes known to us and we are not left wondering what to do. Arrangements have already been made for cremation and she will be buried next to her husband. There is not a lot of personal stuff to go through and her finances were all in order. 

When I see this picture, though, I realize how far she had declined in the past year. At the time this was taken we were going on weekly trips to the library and the grocery store. For the last year she has had no interest in reading at all and she rarely left the house. Our last outing was in March to get biscuits and gravy for breakfast. She loved her biscuits and gravy. 

Anyway, just wanted to put this out there as the last few of my posts have been updates on her. She will be missed.  

G is for Getting Along

Hi all, just wanted to give an update and thank you all for your support. My MIL is in a skilled nursing and rehab facility so she is getting great care and is slowly improving. She fell and fractured at least one rib, was having trouble breathing and had a slight infection. Our hope is that with the physical and occupational therapy she will be able to come home soon. I am going to see her at least once a day, usually around a meal time so I can help her get situated and make sure that she has everything she needs. That takes a good few hours, but I don't mind. You may or may not remember that she used to live in Oregon and when she needed us we'd have to get on a plane and fly up there. This is much easier than that! The nursing home is near the ocean so I get to see this when I visit:

In addition I got in a lot of transcription work which is my "real" job when I'm not blogging or working in the studio. I am so grateful that I am able to do this work from home so that even if I have to spend some extra time with MIL, I can still do the typing. Sometimes I'm up until 10 PM but I'm in my jammies so it's all good. 

Anyway, I just wanted to thank everyone again for the well wishes and who knows, we still have half a month left, maybe I'll be able to do a couple of catch up posts or even extend it past April. It's my blog and I can do what I want, right?  

Have a great week everyone! 

F is for Forgive Me

 Hi all - I am afraid I may not be able to keep up with the A to Z this year. I had to take my mother-in-law to the ER twice since Friday and she has been admitted so I need to be with her. If I can I'll try to do two posts in a day to catch up but family first, right?  It will also mean that I probably can't comment as much on others. So sorry about that! She's going to be 100 in July and I'm going to do all I can to make sure she gets there! 

A to Z Dilemma

Hey folks, it's Sunday March 23 and we will be starting the A to Z Challenge in a little over a week. As you know, my theme this year is going to be the A to Z of Democracy as voiced by Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Speaker of the House of Representatives. I have had quite a few positive comments regarding my choice of topics which has been encouraging. However, I did receive a comment from a blogger that I no longer follow since I realized when #47 was #45 that they had a different perspective than mine about the state of affairs in our country. Even though we had some other things in common, I just could not read a blog defending what was going on at that time.

This morning, while starting to prep for the upcoming challenge I took a look at my "comments" section here and on WP to see if there had been any recent ones that inadvertently ended up in the spam or pending file as will sometimes happen. I did find some, including a few of my own replies, which I rescued. However, I did also see one that was in my trash from the blogger mentioned above. 

Turns out they still hold the same devotion to the person currently in the WH and voiced their disapproval of my chosen topic. They proceeded to tell me that they are tired of people bashing their favorite fellow and dividing our country. They informed me that I should probably do better research because my facts were incorrect and "he really cares about" us. 

And herein lies my dilemma. This comment was already in the trash so I automatically emptied it, deleting the comment. And then I thought about it. If my intention is to showcase the differences between democracy and authoritarianism, oligarchy or whatever it is that we are in the middle of, shouldn't I be open to listening to other opinions? I could have responded to this comment by saying something like, "I'm sorry you don't like my topic so maybe you shouldn't follow me this year," or "I disagree with your assessment of what is happening now and maybe you should read my reasons for this during the challenge." Instead, I had a visceral reaction to just get rid of that person's words so I wouldn't have to look at them. It has been my experience with those folks who are devotees of that man that no amount of "facts" will change their opinions. I mean, I haven't even talked to my sister or her family in months because she defended her "beloved Donald." 

So moving forward, I am torn between continuing to just delete those comments that are from people who drank the kool-aid because I know there is no way to bring them out of their delusional state or to leave them there and use one of the phrases above in response. What would you do? 

Happy Sunday Folks

There is a little less than two weeks to go until the big A to Z Blogging Challenge. I am getting my letters together and hopefully I'll finish at least the drafts in time. I found the last few years when I had my draft posts made it was a lot easier for me to keep up. I am going to try to get over to visit a few more people this year too. 

In the meantime, I am SO EXCITED because I get to teach a class at our local RAC (Recreation and Aquatic Center). I have been trying to hold a class for the last several months but sadly not enough people signed up. The RAC requires five people minimum and I've only had one or two so the classes were cancelled. This month I have five thanks to some friends. I'll be showing them how to make card sets like this from Creative Memories.

If you are interested, you can get the sets from my Creative Memories site and make some too or you can get the ones that I already made from my Etsy shop. I also got approved to do some classes during the next season about making vision cards and dreamboards. Crossing fingers there will be some interest in that. 

And along the lines of my A to Z theme, I also mailed out some cards as part of a project through the Card Campaign, a group I found during the election last year. I printed and mailed 40 postcards to old Dumpy in the White House. 

The idea was to have everyone send in their postcards on the same day (yesterday the 15th) so that it floods the White House mail. It may not do any good but I have to say that writing those messages was great for my mental health. The return address is the Superior Court Building so there is no way to trace it back to me, although honestly it is free speech so I'm not worried. I said nothing that wasn't true and nothing that hasn't been said before by millions of people. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day tomorrow. It is not one of the holidays I celebrate much for some reason -- mainly I'm not Irish LOL. See you again soon!

Blogging From A to Z 2025 Theme Reveal

Democracy A to Z is my theme for this year's challenge. I am strongly in favor of keeping the United States a democracy. I do also happen to be a Democrat but if there was a Republican who actually made some sense or had a good idea about something...LOL who am I kidding.

When I was talking to Tamara from Part-Time Working Hockey Mom she asked me if I was going to do the A to Z this year and I told her I wanted to but wasn't sure about a topic yet. She suggested that I discuss elections and Presidents and Presidents who deserved the title. At first I was hesitant to discuss politics and honestly I'm just so upset with the way the last election turned out and the terrible things that are going on in our country that I just wasn't feeling it. Then I remembered Speaker Jeffries' speech and figured I could use that to get my basis for the challenge.

In 2023 Minority Speaker of the House Hakeem Jeffries gave a speech to the new 118th congress. In it he recited the ideals of the Democratic Party using the alphabet. In case you missed it, have a listen:

It gives me chills. I guess you can figure out what my actual letters will be by listening to the speech, but hopefully I can put a bit more context behind each pairing. 

If you are doing the A to Z this year, let me know! I am loving the bright graphics this year. 

I'm Participating Are You?

Another semi-test post here folks. I am going to be participating the the big blackout tomorrow, February 28, 2025 are you?

In case you haven't heard, because of the crazy shenanigans that are going on in our congress, white house, muskyville or whatever it's going to be called, tomorrow has been chosen as a day of protest. 

We are NOT going to:

buy anything. No gas, no groceries, no shopping on Amazon or any of the big stores. No fast food, no online shopping. 

If you find you must shop for necessities try the mom and pop store down the corner. 

I, and some others I think, am also going to boycott Facebook and the other social media platforms for the day as well. The library is right up the street, I'll go there instead of using Google. This is an easy thing to do, just for one day. 

I have even seen confirmation and posts from people like Stephen King who will be participating. Let's see how big we can make this!

Let me know if you're going to do it too!