Remember--not necessarily in this order

91. Books
92. Free public libraries
93. Memories
94. Dixie
95. Google
96. Christmas music
97. discipline
98. Dentists
99. Milk
100. knitting

Also, not all inclusive. Got a list of things to do today. Going to get started soon as I am done here. Going to start by cleaning the bathroom. This is a chore I don't usually even put on a list, because I don't want to do it that bad. Today I will be the responsible adult who lives here and clean. I will put on Christmas music and dance and sing while I do it. Dixie will not tell anyone. She will not be embarrassed to know me. That's why she made the list. Got to get the list done before 2:00 so I can pick Alex up from school and take him to the dentist. In between cleaning the bathroom and the dentist, I hope to have some brighter moments. Bring on the music.

Count your Blessings

81. Shampoo and conditioner in one bottle
82. Blow dryers
83. Tree frogs
84. Quail
85. Manna
86. miracles
87. Rainbows
88. Rain
89. Snow
90. Sun tea

Not Neccessarily Glutton Free

Our Thanksgiving dinner was gluten free. No stuffing. No need for anyone to bring the rolls. No flaky pumpkin pie crust. Evidently there is not a great demand to share such a feast.

Or is it that I never succeeded in creating wonderful Thanksgiving memories that make people want to be a part of it? Sadly, it is not that I didn't try. I've hosted Thanksgivings with both of our large extended families. (Not at the same time, of course.) There was that year where everyone wore turkey hats. And what about the time I was a raving maniac spewing insults at my daughter's choice of clothing and my other daughter's choice of not a boyfriend who was getting more sleep at my house than I was that weekend. (My third daughter had already stopped coming home for the holiday.) Okay, maybe it's not the place to be.

But I'm still trying. Today I worked daylight and Dave cooked the turkey. This is certainly one of my favorite variations of the holiday. I arrived home after four and we were eating dessert at 5:30. Alex says the first Thanksgiving lasted three days and ours took about half an hour. Plenty of leftovers when three people share a 10 pound bird. It was delicious though and Alex ate both drumsticks. Dave cooked the giblets for Dixie. Alex whipped the cream for dessert. Maybe this is the beginning of our Thanksgiving tradition. Or maybe we will never have a Thanksgiving tradition and when we gather together 10 years from now it will be at Hoss's.

Note: The turkey looked so good that we put it on the platter and carved it at the table. I thought it make make Alex think we were like that family in the Norman Rockwell paintings. Alex, of course, says, "Remember in Christmas Vacation, when they cut that turkey..."

The Griswold Thanksgiving

Givingthanks

The inversion of the compound word looks somehow shorter. Today in honor of the last holiday I will attempt 20 things I am grateful for. Here goes:

61. centerpieces

62. people who care that I had a slight interest in centerpieces

63. cranberries

64. Gluten free pumpkin cheesecake

65. Wedding gifts

66. my gorillapod

67. hugs

68. kisses

69. turkey pickers

70. daylight

71. music

72. sleep

73. pajamas

74. windowblinds

75. bubble bath

76. candles

77. co-workers

78. time and a half

79. not needing anything bad enough to shop on Black Friday

80. lists

No Title

51. Christmas music
52. Honey crisp apples
53. Canned peaches
54. Cinnamon
55. Cookie sheets
56. Amanda Dawn
57. Rhyming words
58. Singing birds
59. Microbiology words
60. Elephants

"WITH" Verses

You know--verses with the word 'with' in them. I have been gathering them for weeks and have assembled them into a 'with' verse a day for all of Advent. They are verses that talk about God with man. And they have to have the word'with' in them. (Thus abide 'in' doesn't count.) They are hard to pull up easily on the Bible program because you have to search for the word 'with' and clearly not all verses with the word with in them are really 'with' verses. So you just come across them and you know them when you see or hear them. I have with verses from Genesis to Revelation. I will share them with you if you'd like.

Thanks a Million

If I continued to list 100 things each November, and I lived to be 10,046 years old, I could list a million things I was thankful for. I've already got 140.

41. "with" verses
42. Copy
43. Paste
44. God's promises
45. Warm socks
46. People who tolerate my crabbiness
47. Turkeys
48. Cream cheese
49. Foodland (close to home)
50. Flyswatters

150 down. 999,850 to go.

Night at the Museum or Membership Has It's Privileges

Last night we went to the Dinosaur preview at the the Carnegie Museum. We saw lots of dinosaur bones put together like big puzzles. There are very cool computer interpretations of how dinosaurs moved. And the display hall is impressive both in size and number of dinosaur skeletons on display. It is a fun exhibit to see. Made me wonder what it must be like when they all come to life after the museum closes for the night.

I do wonder also about the accuracy of the displays. Seems like all the dinosaurs I knew as a child have become extinct again, as they have been reconstructed and/or renamed. Whatever happened to the brontosaurus? Did he evolve into a diplodoccus? If you had even half the bones of a chicken, could you put them together to create a chicken skeleton? Maybe we will try this with our Thanksgiving turkey. We will throw away half the bones and create our own paleontologist kit. You should hope we don't have your name for Christmas.

We also ate dino head cookies from Eat 'n Park. Such a good 'Burgh thing to do. And we watched a documentary about meteors and volcanoes. And then we did the way coolest thing of all. Deep in the basement of the museum we extracted DNA. Okay, we extracted DNA from wheat germ, but this was our first extraction, and they sent us home with the instructions to try this at home. So soon we will be extracting our own DNA, and then cloning is just around the corner. Mwah-ha-ha.

We've added Jurassic Park to our NetFlix queue.

Pay atTENtion

I can't remember what number I am on (because I wasn't paying attention). So here are the next ten , starting with something one and going through something else:

Something one. Mornings
Something two. The Lord's lovingkindnesses
Something three. Lists
Something four. Birthdays which are not mine
Something five. Hair dye
Something six. Digital photography
Something seven. Pictures of Claire
Something eight. Claire
Something nine. Eleven year old boys who say thank you without being prompted
Something else. Comments

And Counting

21. U.S. Savings Bonds
22. My Dad
23. Girls who call home
24. Christmas
25. Lost and Found
26. Dailyaudiobible
27. Running shoes
28. File folders
29. Museum tickets
30. DSL

Woe...Whoa...Row...

If Stasi's was the wedding that never ended, then Abi's was the wedding that barely was. Except for a few calla lilies, there is no trace here. And no one to look at the light fixtures with me. I took a few moments this morning to wallow in my self-pity. And I took advantage of the moment and scheduled visits to both my dentist and my gynecologist. Misery loves company.

(Be reassured: I am not feeling so bad that I felt the need to call my periodontist.)

On a happier note: Here are my girls all wearing the right dresses, I think.

Grateful, not Dead

11. Girls who dress themselves
12. Borrowed and shared clothing
13. Flowers
14. Light fixtures
15. Post-it notes
16. Spackling
17. Bathrobes
18. A day to spend in one
19. Green
20. Health benefits

Profoundly Grateful

As has been my blogging tradition, I will attempt in the month of November to list at least 100 things that I am thankful FOR. Let me just clarify that I am profoundly grateful TO God, from Whom all good things come.

1. Alarm clocks
2. Baby noises
3. A furnace that does not need 'tending'
4. Clean clothes
5. My husband
6. Toothbrushes
7. Window glass
8. My barking dog
9. Crisp apples
10. Ezekiel

Additionally, I should clarify that these are in no particular order, so it means nothing that my husband is just below laundry.

Not Where I Intended To Go

When I started this entry I intended to compare these two pictures. However, it took me an extended period of time to find and post them. And now I that I see them side by side, I am not even sure they look as similar as I thought they did. So this is really more a testimony to my inept computer skills than a look at how some babies look extraordinarily like their mothers.

Newer, Hipper Version

I am still adjusting to the idea of being a grandmother. Equally it is an adjustment for those around me. Imagine how old you must be if your sister is a grandmother. Or if your wife is a grandmother. (I don't even want to think that I am sleeping with someone's grandfather. :P) Or if you're in sixth grade and your mother is a grandmother. So Alex has been comparing me with other grandmothers he knows. This past weekend he held the door for a grandmother at TaeKwonDo, and he held the door for me as well. Then he remarked that I was in the same class as her, but I was a younger, hipper version. I think that was a compliment. At least I am taking it as one. So here is the new picture of me that I am going to use in my profile. It is a newer, hipper picture taken by Claire Marie's grandfather.

I've still got pretty good ankles for a grandma.

Serendipities

Today we planned a trip to see the leaves. Along the way we saw a road side spring, took pictures of our shadows, walked in the woods, climbed on rocks, saw the sun rise and set in spectacular fashion, ate french fries and gummy bears, dropped in to visit some friends, and just by chance saw a painted rock in the Tionesta River.

Who would paint a rock in the middle of the river? Okay, it looks like a giant frog-shaped rock, but who goes one step farther and actually paints it? And then it occurs to me that any one of my brothers would do this. And any two of my sisters if they were together would think to do this. And several of my children would seriously consider doing this. And I wish I had done it.

And Alex would throw rocks at it.

And for all the planning, the best moments of the day were the surprises. And being together to share them.

Yesterday Was A Very Good Day

I had a great day yesterday before 7:00am. First, I had my name tag from work for the first time since last Friday. I clocked out at 7:30pm on Friday and drove straight home. I clocked in at 7:00am Saturday morning without the use of my name tag. I have been looking for it and clocking in and out without it ever since. (As an aside--don't ask me how I can clock in without my nametag, but you might find it useful to know that a barcode reader can't distinguish between a laminated barcode and a photocopy of it.) Yesterday Alex pulled my nametag out of his backpack. Someone at school gave it to him and said it had been found at the football game. Here's what happened near as I can figure: When I arrived home on Friday evening with my nametag in my purse, I parked on the street because Jimmy was parked in the driveway and I didn't want to park him in. Because I wanted to get as close to the curb as possible, I had to duck out of the car under a tree. I think my nametag fell out then. Since I came and went in the dark, I never saw it. Someone who parked there on Saturday for the peewee football games picked it up, thinking I had dropped it on my way to or from a football game. Somehow it made it's way to school with a classmate of Alex's from last year. And eventually back home to me. (I didn't ask how many days it was in the backpack.) So yesterday when I pulled my nametag out of my purse to clock in, I unwittingly dropped a ten dollar bill out of my purse. As I'm going down the stairs I hear a gentlemen's voice call out, "Young lady!". Of course, I just kept walking, because obviously, he wasn't talking to me. But when he repeated it, "Young lady, going down the stairs," I stopped to see what he needed. He asked me if I had dropped some money. I immediately answered yes. He knew of course that I didn't know I had dropped it, and I knew he did know I had dropped it. With a quick glance in my purse , I knew it was a 10 dollar bill, and he had already been too honest to keep it now, so he returned it to me and I thanked him. (I hope God rewarded him later or he just had a good day knowing he did the right thing.) So here are the good things: I didn't have to buy a new name tag. I didn't have to get a new picture taken. (One of the advantages of keeping your nametag forever is that your picture reflects a much younger you. The picture I have currently is not too bad, though. The one I had before that...the time the security guard returned it after I had dropped it down the elevator shaft ((Don't even ask)) he remarked how much better I looked in real life than in my picture. I have a photocopy of it if you don't believe me.) I had ten dollars to lose. My lost $10 was returned. I clocked in on time. And someone called me a young lady. And all before 7:00am.
Last evening I had a grilled stickie a la mode and I treated a friend to a grandma's apple pie sundae. I used my $10. All in all, a very good day.

Just for the record, One time I dropped my name tag into the mail box along with some letters. The USPS returned it. One good thing about my nametag is that it has my name on it.

Would You Rather...

..open your dresser drawer and find 100 black widow spiders OR find six large rats that jump out of your dresser and scurry under the furniture?
I chose the six large rats because there were fewer and because they got out by themselves and hid.
I'm not sure this was edifying conversation, but it's what Alex and I talked about last night at bedtime. Just before I dozed off he shared the additional information that rats are very agile and some larger ones have a bite as strong as a small shark.

Sweet dreams to you too, Alex. The tooth fairy may never come.

She Has My Chin...

...but don't worry, I have another. I have become a fan of v-necked tops. I think they make my neck look longer. I used to have an exceptionally long neck. It used to make me feel taller and thinner. But as I've gotten older it has become a place to stack my chins. And it has wrinkles that are so deep that they don't tan. When the kids were little I could sometimes scrub little dark dirt rings from their necks at the end of a summer's day. This summer I had light rings around my neck---negative tan lines. Oddly enough, new places that the sun doesn't shine.

Clair will never know me as anything but a grandma. She will not know I once has a long thin neck and that the skin on my upper arm didn't always flap. She won't know what she missed.

Brenda the Remarkable Meets Claire Marie the Fabulous (via Abi the Incredible)

Here's what Abi and I did today. It is absolutely the best thing we have ever done together. Okay, so Abi did most of the work, but I didn't have the benefit of an epidural, and I am pretty proud of my first foray from the realm of parenting to the realm of grandparenting. Go ahead--call me Grandma. Today it doesn't sound so bad to me.

Claire Marie the Fabulous--Day one