Oh my goodness, I am not as young as I used to be....Very tired from Christmas preparations. My oldest arrived in town tonight. So great so see him and have him home, even though he isn't feeling well. We finally got the tree all decorated today.

Below is a photo from the Christmas play at my daughters' high school. Liz, my youngest, is in the red sweater.

And here is an arrangement we purchased at the Farmers Market before Thanksgiving.....accept that it was a Thanksgiving arrangement then. Liz took out the leaves and orange and yellow colors and replaced them with red bows, silk poinsettia and small Christmas balls. I thought she did a nice job.
More photos to come....

Woohoo. They are in Michigan, within a few hours of home. What a long trip. The GPS did spontaneously start working again.

I will be happy to have them both safely home again soon.

When is THE WORST TIME for your GPS (garmin nuvi) to die? How about when your youngest son and second youngest daughter, whose combined ages do not equal four decades, are driving back to Ann Arbor from Dallas, Texas.

I called them back after figuring out their route with the help of Google Maps, only to find out that they had just left a gas station. "Did you pick up a map?" I asked. "Oh! No, that would have been a good idea." It's so funny how the younger generation does not think much about paper maps. They're not really very familiar with them. I understand, although I have not witnessed this myself, that there are some who do not know how to read maps. Very curious. Not very long ago paper maps were the only navigation tools we had! I remember my dad having them folded just so in order to glance at them while driving us on a family vacation. And they must be refolded in exactly the same way. That was important. You didn't mess with the folds. They needed to be refolded along the same lines....which did make sense because then they would lie very flatly and neatly.

It's been raining here most of the day. It was raining in Oklahoma as my two drove through. In fact, it was such a severe thunderstorm that they got off the highway thinking to pull into a parking lot and wait for the worst of it to blow over. But off that exit there were no parking lots, no driveways, no nothing. Now if I had not driven along that route before myself I would think they were exaggerating. But I had had the exact same experience, also in a bad thunderstorm. I got off the highway to find absolutely nothing. NOTHING! Just a divided road with very little shoulder. No place to stop. It really makes you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere.

Don't get me wrong, though. When not in a thunderstorm I found Oklahoma to be a most beautiful state. My friend Patti and I agreed that we had never seen the sky look so big. Gorgeous, enormous blue sky.

Tomorrow night Jim and Mary will arrive home. I will be much relieved. May their guardian angels protect them.

This morning....

Well, sitting here predawn having a cup of coffee and thinking of taking Lucky for an early morning walk. I love the color of the predawn sky. That breathtakingly beautiful blue that slowly gets brighter and brighter. Well....actually not that slowly. Sometimes it happens quite fast. Usually I do not like to go out walking in the dark. When I had a Labrador Retriever I didn't mind. 90 pounds ready to die for me, you know. But Lucky is 20 pounds and no threat to anyone. But a friend of mine once pointed out that by 6 or 7 in the morning the drunks have pretty much passed out. It's an unlikely time for trouble. I thought that made sense.....I'll be back.

Lovely walk. It was brisk but not freezing cold. Well, it was freezing. 24 degrees. But it did not feel bitter cold. My blood must be getting thicker again in order to survive another Michigan winter. I took a picture of the sky just before I left but now I can't find the cord to load it on here. Maybe I'll get it up later.

My knee has been slowly improving. Biking really helped, but I can't do too much of that now. Over the summer I would not have been able to take Lucky for as long a walk as I just did. This is good.

Coffee has been microwaved. I'm happy.

Everyone is coming home for Christmas!!! So excited.

I'm trying to get to writing in this blog more often. (with Suzanne's encouragement:-)

Hope all is well with you and yours!!

Mistaken Identity?

OK. These are my guys.

Front row: Son-in-law Zach and oldest son Mike

Back Row: John on the left, Jim and the right..

John and Jim are two years apart. John is 22. Jim is 20. Having two sons who were always together and each with a name that starts with "J" showed some lack of foresight on my part. Doesn't matter. I love the saints they're named after and I would name them the same names again. John Paul and James Anthony.

However.... I often open my mouth and the wrong "J" name comes out. They know this. And all their lives they have answered to either name, pretty much, if it's obvious which son I'm talking to. Personally, I don't think they look that much alike. But I know they do resemble each other because so many people confuse them. John is the pianist. Jim studies Philosophy. But Jim has been complimented so many times on his piano playing that he no longer asks people if they're thinking of his brother. He just says "thank you, " and passes the compliment on to his brother when he sees him.

Over Thanksgiving, because of everyone at home, we had a lot of reshuffling of sleeping arrangements. John had been out with friends one evening and I had not remembered hearing him come home. So at about 7:00AM I woke up and thought I'd just check to see if John was home. I went into his room and saw that at least someone was sleeping in his bed.

"John?" I asked softly. No answer. I went up to the bed. Mind you, the room was dark. "John?" I asked again. "No, I'm Jim." At this point he had himself up on his elbow. It did not sound like Jim. It sounded like John. He did not look like Jim. He looked like John. I said again, "You're Jim??" "Yeah, I'm Jim," came the answer. "You're Jim, not John?" I asked again, feeling kind of silly. Puzzled, I said, "You're Jim in John's bed?" The answer was "No, I'm Jim in Jim's bed." I thought, OK. Whatever. The room was quite dark. Still, I thought what is wrong with me. Even in the dark I ought to know which son I'm talking to.

Shortly after that I went into the basement for something. There was Jim asleep on the single bed we have down there!!! I said, "You didn't just come down here, did you?" Nope.

When John came down for breakfast I asked if he remembered talking to me at about 7:00 in the morning. He had no recollection of our conversation. I told him what he had said. "You repeatedly told me that you were Jim, not John!!!" He claimed I must have had the names mixed up. Nope. It was not me. I know that because I was very purposefully trying to determine which guy it was.

I think I get a pass now for any future occasions when the wrong "J" name may come out of my mouth. Too funny. Yeah, I get the pass.