Instant Gratification

foggy morning.... 

This morning we awoke to a foggy world, being able to only see as far as our barn yard is strange. It isn't too bothersome, as we could see and had hope of sunshine trying to peek through the clouds.  Sometimes a heavy fog like this cushions you from the real world.  Sounds are muffled, waking up takes longer and it is nice to be in this space of insulation and isolation, knowing full well it won't last too long.  

{{{I love when I've been sleeping in the tipi and wake up to a foggy morning.  You feel like you might still be dreaming.  Am I walking among the spirits of my ancestors, visiting them or maybe they are visiting me.  Do I hear their quiet messages of peace and feel their arms comfort from the surrounding clouds of fog.  A peace falls on our world when foggy mornings come.........}}}




My original idea for this blog for "Instant Gratification" had nothing to do with that last paragraph, but it just popped into my mind and I felt I had to leave it, now I will go back to my original concept for this blog........


"Instant Gratification" comes from having the second cataract surgery.  I have been living in a fog for sometime.  Being only able to see a certain distance, the birds I love to watch were a blur of color and movement, I was only able to see their movement and not details of each bird.  Oh, I could see well enough to move through my familiar world, but the outside world was more difficult. Driving and trying to read road signs, focus from one direction to another was slower.  I started not liking to drive at night, doing detail work on art was hard without some magnification.  Colors were without brightness.  Windows on our house seemed to always be dirty.  My wonderful husband was constantly turning lights off behind me.

spring flower bed.....

I knew after cataract surgery on my right eye, as soon as the patch came off the same day as surgery, my world had changed.  I didn't realize it was causing problems with judging distance, depth perception, focus and color and light.  UNTIL I had surgery and a lens put onto my eye.   Then two weeks later the left eye was also done!  Again the same day I have the 

local Bald Eagle Nest 2013

ability to focus totally on anything I choose to look at!!!!   Suddenly there was no more fog in my eyes.  I could see colors, distance and faces, insects, a turned leaf and birds again.....  It was
immediate!  Now that is truly
         INSTANT GRATIFICATION!

New Parts

May 2, 2013 a miracle, another new part for this girl.  I had a cataract removed and a new lens to correct my vision in my right eye. 

I hope to have the second replacement part done in the left eye in the next few weeks.  Then I should be able to go without glasses, except maybe for reading.  

After receiving two new knees in December of 2012, I am feeling a new lease on life.  

My wonderful hubby says maybe he should trade me in for a new model, I told him, "As long as they are still making parts to fix me, I'm not obsolete." 

Now I carry cards in my wallet about my replacement parts, one that shows I had knee replacement and who the doctor was.  And now cards to identify my eye lens corrections.  Weird, not much different than keeping a list of replacement parts of my car in the glove box.....  

New Parts are Wonderful!!!!  

Birthday Month

So here we are again, another birthday coming and going.  Spring and winter can't make up it's mind.  However it is a time for celebration.  Being a Pisces, there are many truths about my astrological sign that are "right on".  I won't brag about it being the BEST month or the wonderful gifts of a Pisces, it just wouldn't be what we are about.  Just take my word for it.  (laughing here!)

I was delighted over the weekend to be out on the motorcycle with my wonderful husband.  It is a time for me to reflect as we travel down the back country roads.  Often a certain scent in the air will bring an old memory.  The smell of a dairy farm reminded me of my step Dad milking Holstein cows.  Being in the barn at milking time was always a comforting time for me.  I hung out with the baby calf, petting his silky clean hair.  He might be playful after having just gotten a tummy full of milk and his mother gone he had the stall to himself.  Or I might remember the time I just sat in the hay mow and looked out the window, contemplating whatever might have been on my mind.  Of course, I remembered the times we helped stack hay and straw for those cows, a lot of hot summer work.

Then we might be passing houses on the motorcycle and the scent of woodsmoke remindes me of campfires with friends.  We have spent many years camping with family and horses, a campfire smell takes me back to those wonderful times.  Or I might remember cutting wood for years to feed our wood stove and before that when I was a kid at home helping with the wood cutting for our wood furnace. 

I see horses in a field, the thawed fields of spring gives them muddy places to roll.  I remember those muddy horses, the shedding hair and the wonderful smell of their breath.  I remember the miles and miles of riding I've done in my life.  I wouldn't have changed a moment and miss my horses now, even during the spring shedding season.

I also reflect on where I am now, this very moment in my life.  I feel nothing but contentment.  I am exactly where I am suppose to be.  My heart is happy for the journey and I feel complete.  Oh, there have been times that were hard, but no one gets off without some hardships.  Being sixty four years old is quite an accomplishment, to find such peace is to be in an awesome place.  I am content with all things, even if there were things I'd like to change, I am even at peace with those things too. 

I have been blessed with so many joys, a wonderful supportive husband, children that are the most amazing people I know.  Grand children that are the smartest, most beautiful and talented I know.  I have traveled a complete circle, finding my birth father, learning I have cousins and three more brothers.  Having spent my entire life not knowing them and to now having them all in my life.  It proves to me that the heart is ever expanding and love is never too great for you to give or recieve.

So I rejoice, just like spring and winter, it is all a balance, everything will work out, just as it is suppose to be.      Amazing................. 

Winter Fairies

Just outside, beyond the lace curtained window, is a flower garden inside a beautiful wrought iron fence.  It is a very special place.  Oh, it may look quiet and snow covered to you, but on this snowy winter day, but I believe the little town of Fairy Wonderland is thriving and very busy.



These little fairies are happily moving among the little igloo buildings, with twinkling lights, visiting one another and gathering for a drum and dance.  The fairies will celebrate near the little pond, ice skating and a bonfire will be enjoyed after the drum and dance ceremony.   They are celebrating the ending of winter, the coming of spring.  This late winter, early spring snow is a bonus, bringing much needed moisture to spring blossoms in the Fairy Garden.




Fairy Guardian

The snow covered earth sparkles like diamonds from the twinkling lights of the fairy lanterns beneath the snow.  The Fairies, themselves are dressed for the occasion, scarves of woven sweetgrass, legwarmers from last summers dried flower petals.  Their hats are made of various seed pods and padded with downy fiber to insulate them a little.  You know of course they don't really need warm clothing, they do it because it makes them happy!  Their boots are pointy and have little tinkling bells that jingle when they walk, it all adds to the joy they have for living with nature every day. 

Winter Bittersweet 

Their little winter village has fences of icicles that will eventually drip away, leaving the meadows of their village open giving them freedom to run and play.  They delight in taking picnics to the fields of spring and sitting under blooming violets and dandelions for shade. 

The village of Fairies have been living in my garden for many years, they are happy here, they don't seem to mind that I don't trample around too often and make all things tidy to our human eyes.  They like things to go a little wild, because they love beauty in the wild things and so do I.

I've seen them on occasion.  My favorite moment, when they were dancing around the spring daffodils, holding hands with one another and skipping around and round the clump of beautiful blooming yellow flowers.  Another time they were dancing in the tree leaves above my hammock.  I had to squint my eyes ever so slightly to see them, they hide from most who are too busy to notice.

Once when we were doing baskets of flowers for my daughters wedding, I ask for the fairies to help keep them growing and flourishing during the growing process before the wedding.  I have never seen such beauty surrounding those baskets.........

There is also a little tea set in the garden, they love to have tea parties and especially like it when I leave them sweets, a little candy or cookie is always welcome. Today I think I'll make them some hot chocolate and marshmallows for the celebration tonight.  Going to be quite an event, I can almost hear the drum and little tinkling bells.

Goals in 2013

     I love looking at old scrapbooks, with photos of our children growing up, trips, county fair projects, horses and such.  I tend to take photographs, mostly a rather off and on basis.  Oh I love photos of people and things going on, I just don't like being that person behind the camera trying to get every little moment.  Sometimes the moment is lost on the person behind the camera trying to snag that perfect picture.

     I have learned to take my camera with me most places, that doesn't mean I'll take a picture, I might have that camera, but leave it in the car, duh!   Lucky for me that my phone has a wonderful camera and I don't have to miss something really important.



     This year, as year long goal, I have decided to organize my life a little by making some photo books from an online photo company.  I had no idea how terribly unorganized I really am.  I have put my digital photos on my computer and they are being saved on a separate hard drive.  I still have a million photos that are sitting in boxes on the shelf behind me as I sit at my computer.  They are taunting me in their boxes, crying out to be looked at and acknowledged, it has probably been 15 years since I've worked on any scrapbooks.  Time somehow gets away from me.  Not only that, I would rarely write names or dates on the back of my pictures.  I'm not proud of this fact..........

My Grandfather
Ralph DeRemer (post card to
my Aunt Corrine DeRemer Fazio)

     Now we are getting to the overwhelming part of my life.........  The first photo book I wanted to put into order was related to my DeRemer ancestors.  I have spent the last two years trying to find photos of my grandparents, my aunts, my father and my cousins.  It seems the family doesn't have lots of photos for some reason or another.  Were they lost when my grandparents passed on.  Did my aunts keep them and when they passed on, were they lost then or tossed, because no one could identify the pictures? No one seems to know what happened to all the photos. 

    
     I was blessed to actually see and scan pictures my father had taken and kept for years, they are the most this family has of our history in pictures or otherwise.  There are some really old photos of my dad and his sisters growing up and of his parents.  The Uncles, Aunts and cousins of my grandparents are also there and unlabled, it's a guessing game.  Some of the family was luckly enough to gather this summer and more of the photos were identified.  These are the photographs I want to make into photo book.  The difficulty for me is making sure I have the right names with the right photos and this is crtical to future family history.  It is also going to take LOTS of time!


Civil War Photo of Earl Randall's
Grandfather, center, Joseph Wesley Randall
and his four brothers, they
enlisted together.

     My wonderful husband has a cousin, Mary, who has graciously shared many old family photos of their grandfather and his family.  What a treasure it was to have these pictures with names and in some cases dates they were taken!

     It was then that I realized.........  all those pictures in boxes, behind me at the computer and all those pictures in the computer MUST get names tagged to them or someday they too will be unidentifiable to a later generation.  I know my children won't want to keep every picture I ever took, but they certainly won't keep the ones that they have no idea who is in the photo. 

     So my January 2013 has already overwhelmed me with work.  I am determined to label my photos in the computer.  I am determined to make photo books with family, names and years, and hopefully our family history will be there for the next generations. 

     It is an overwhelming project, I have discovered that it IS important to know from where you came.  Opening that door in my life has changed everything I once knew and the puzzle pieces are being fitted together, our ancestors will be remembered.

Waterbed Hippies

Well it finally happened, we are finally growing up......  Well, sort of........  Well, maybe not too quickly anyway and in small increments.  A couple weeks ago our waterbed sprung a leak.  It is the second time since the 70's that this has happened.  This was big compared to the first.  Dry, warm and comfy one night and cold, wet feet the next night.  Water in the liner was major. 

So we decided to look at something different.  All of our children have sleep number beds and love them.  So we went to see what the fuss was about.  And the salesperson did an excellent job of making us totally comfortable.  Maybe we shouldn't have gone in the late afternoon, when nap time sometimes calls us ever so gently now and then.  Yes, it was comfy and I could have napped while pondering the choice of another waterbed or the sleep number.  Not exactly what the salesperson encouraged.

Almost two weeks later the new bed arrived.  We have just slept the third night on this overpriced air mattress and I LOVE it!  So we are no longer hippies from the 70's.  We are reaching our mid-life crisis it seems.  I guess that isn't so bad, we are in our 60's! 

"I Spy".........

I think I'm normal, although there has been some talk from the children that could cause me to question, "what is normal?".

Some new Bluebird boxes
2013

This morning I'm enjoying my coffee at the back of the house, watching birds is a great form of entertainment from this vantage point.  I watch the garden whirly-gigs spin in the wind.  The sun is shinning and I'm trying to decide how to spend my day.

I have fourteen more bluebird boxes to put around the old horse pasture, finding enough fence posts without purchasing more is a challenge.  The sun is shining and the wind in my face would feel really good today.  I have been missing the fresh air and sunshine.  It is still January so I should take advantage of the day.

As I ponder the possibilities and watch the birds, I'm a little distracted by the blue bottles that sit on my window sills.  Blue IS my favorite color after all.  These bottles are so pretty with the light coming through them, it is my stain glass window.  I took a photo, because it looked so nice and upon looking at the picture I realize my window looks like a picture in an "I SPY" book.   I have often thought of setting up photo groupings and then playing "I spy" with my own groupings.  I think that would be fun to do with my grand kids. 

Stain Glass Window
(or I SPY Photo)

So........  this little photo started me thinking of groupings, a blog and maybe even creating my own little I spy book and printing it out in photobook on line........  OMG!  It would be the perfect way to have a photo record of the stuff I've collected.

Oh no.........  I may not get to the bluebird boxes today, my ideas are now swimming around in my head, making me a little dizzy............
Now you know why my children give me a hard time about my state of "normal".