Jack meets Josh

Brett and Lindsey and Jack came to dinner this week. Cute and flirty as ever, Jack just loved Josh!

And when I wasn’t looking Abbie grabbed the camera and took a few shots of Joey. This is the only one I can publish.

Sing with me, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…”

A week ago at this time I was dreading the holidays. I’ve had a bad case of the blahs since summer ended. The gray dreary weather gets me down, the hail storm on Friday night, mimicking a snowstorm, sending cars in the ditches and stranding Rick for a few minutes brought dread and loathing to mind. The older I get the less I like winter. If you have followed my blog very long, you’ve probably started to take note of the patterns of my emotional life;

Sunny= happy face
Rain/snow/hail/gray= sad face.

It has occurred to me that although I know there is something to SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, which I have self-diagnosed, there might be something deeper as well. Because not more than 36 hours ago, I was still bah-humbugging the season, grumbling at the Christmas displays in grocery stores when we’ve BARELY laid to rest Halloween, and haven’t even welcomed in Thanksgiving.

But now? Things have changed. I have a new outlook. I have become the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, at the END of the story!!! I put Christmas music on my iPod last night and listened to it all day today! I dreamily fingered the Christmas displays at Costco, and pictured how my house will look this year. I made a mental list of ingredients for fudge, almond rocha, gingerbread men, talked endlessly to Rick about Christmas weekend, and if that’s not enough…

I WANT TO PUT UP MY CHRISTMAS TREE!!!

Why? Why, you ask?

It started a few nights ago. I can’t remember which night. Maybe Tuesday. Maybe Thursday. My Dad and I were talking on the phone. He casually said, “I sure wish we could come up there for Thanksgiving or Christmas, but I just can’t drive that far alone with Mom anymore without a helper, and I can’t ask someone to leave their family for one of those holidays”. I asked if he’d thought of flying. “well, no. Hadn’t thought of that”.

Saturday morning Dad let me know he’d checked flights to Bellingham. Too expensive. I asked if they’d thought of flying to Seattle and letting us pick them up. “Well, no, hadn’t thought of that. I’ll look into it and let’s talk this evening.”

An hour later I received an email forwarded from Alaska Airlines with the flight itineray for 2 plus a wheelchair. I emailed Dad back, “So…not so much thinking about it then?”

And ever since that one little email, I’ve been floating around on a sugar plum cloud singing Christmas carols and menu planning. I’ve let each of the kids know that Grandma and Grandpa are coming. Everyone is 100% surprised and excited. No one saw this one coming! First, Mom made it to Tim’s wedding and now she’s coming to Bellingham for Christmas?? This news comes so out of the blue, when we’d all thought that LAST Christmas was our last chance to spend the holiday with them, it feels shocking, hopeful, unexpected, mysterious, a gift, and…well, it feels a little bit like….

Christmas.

Life Between Two Worlds

I’ve mentioned here on my blog that I have been working off and on over the past few months on my family photos. I had 200 or so slides converted to digital at Costco and I just finished editing those and uploading all of them plus some scanned paper photos onto flickr. I sent out an email to my siblings and parents with a link to the pictures, and that first night emails and phone calls were flying around between us. “who was that in the one…” , “I remember that trip, but ….”, and “did you see the look on Grandpa’s face in the one…”

At the end of these conversations my Dad sent me an email, “just mailed you the other box of slides and pictures we found; it weighed 10lb, 11oz.” WOW! So, I guess I’ll be busy for a while longer. I don’t mind though. See, I’m not just looking at the photos, I’m editing, restoring, enhancing color, deciding what story they tell, and which details need to stay in each photo. By the time they are on Flickr and everyone else is seeing them, I have them memorized, have studied the faces and the places, and have invited the memories in, and in the process, the pictures change me.

Since starting this draft, I have received the box of photos and slides, have acquired a scanner from my father-in-law, and have scanned and edited 30 or so more pictures. Many of these slides were my Grandparents’ on my mother’s side, and many I have never seen before. I have not had any photos of myself before about age 2, and in this treasure trove of pictures I found this:

I know it’s me, because the slide has an imprint dated August 1962. And that is my Grandma Jo holding me. So now I know what I looked like when I was a fairly new baby. Sometime that summer of 1962.

This one was from that fall or winter, and I’ve never seen it. And when I first held it up to the light bulb the day the box arrived, I almost cried. I’ve wished so many times for a picture of myself as a baby with my mother. This gem was like a gift handed to me when I least expected it.

Sometimes I wish there was a recording device to go with every photo, so I could hear our voices, and hear the stories behind the pictures. One thing that I know, even without a recording, or hearing the tales, is that we were very happy children. We are smiling and laughing, and playing, throughout the years of photos, and I’m very very thankful that our Mom and Dad provided us a home where we knew we were loved and we were allowed to be children, and I’m thankful we have these photos as a reminder.

Jack Mcleod

Our friends Brett and Lindsay asked me to take Jack’s 6 month baby pictures.  We had a perfect fall day in Bellingham yesterday and it went great.  Jack is a total flirt and loves the camera.  Here’s a couple of my favorite shots:

Nora Grace, 7 weeks old

‘My Shop (Mate)’ by Ron Tate

Last night my dad wrote this as as note on Facebook.  I was so moved by it and have read it so many times already, I thought I’d share it here. I didn’t ask permission, so hopefully I won’t get grounded or sent to my room. (Although that sounds kind of nice, actually.)

Mom, on her way out to check on Dad in the shop (August '08)

“I went out to the shop this evening to look at my newly purchased 100,000 btu heater. I plugged it in and immediately was met with air warmed by the fire within. I began to walk from end of the shop to the other, literally going in circles and thinking of all the good times I have had working on various projects. And of the birthday parties and dinners held within the walls of “My Shop”. I especially remember celebrating my 70th birthday with family and friends, all seated around tables set up within for the occasion. Remembering Cindy teaching all the women how to play “texas holdem”. Remembering the laughter and smiles.

And as the “air was warmed by the fire within”, so my whole being began to warm as my favorite memory began to surface. …… and made a knot in my throat that would not go away. … I used to go to the shop and start my project around 8:00 am and no sooner get started when Donna (My Shop Mate) would arrive carrying two cups of coffee and cookies or donuts.” I am just getting started”!, I would say….. Yes but it is time for a break! she would respond.
So we would pull a couple of chairs into the sunlight of an open doorway and take our break, sharing the coffee and goodies she had brought. It was a daily ritual that I would tease her about. Showing up just after I would get started. But it was a ritual that I came to depend on.

And then I remembered being in the shop just after her heart surgery and feeling so overwhelmed as I realized there would most likely be no more unannounced “coffee breaks”. I used to have her come out and inspect when I completed a project, just so I could revel in her oooh’s and aah’s. But I became painfully aware that if I could not carry it to the house, I would miss out on that aspect as well.
I am remembering that I felt “it just might not be worth the effort” to continue some of my off the wall projects if she could not be an active participant.

But this evening I have been warmed both from within and without. I am anxious to be in the shop and to pursue whatever crosses my mind or comes in the door. I shall carry what I can into the house for Shop Mate approval. And when the need arrives, I will drive my Shop Mate into the shop for her oooh’s and aah’s. We will soon take a drive from the house into the shop so that she can see the 100,000 btu heater in action and we will share it’s warmth as we sip a cup of coffee and nibble on some goodies.

And so, dear face book friends, If you show up here and I am in the shop, take time to make some coffee and come out and announce your presence “Hey Ron, time for a break”!!”

Dad, hard at work in the shop

So many things to do in the shop