Confessions of a Grandma

It feels like we had to drive all the way down to Florida just to enjoy a bit of sun.  We sure have not seen much of its shiny face between the trip back in April and now.  An old Vermontism: "Hope it don't hurt the rhubarb."  Let me tell ya, my rhubarb has turned into a mutant monster plant.  I'm afraid to go near it. My son and I are off to visit my daughter and the grand children.  We are attempting to pull off a fast one by bringing Kristen back for a little-brother-less week with Grandma.  He will get his turn when she goes to day camp.  We have a shopping trip planned--that's her birthday present--and I have sewing and craft projects lined up.  We'll see how this experiment goes. My daughter did want assurance that I would still take the two together on occasion.  That will be her birthday present this year. Part of my birthday present--downtown Savannah. If I remember correctly, this was once the Coca Cola plant.

I took it into my head to paint the bathroom.  It hadn't been done for about 18 years.  It needed and overhaul.  Actually, the first time I painted the bathroom, I started by stripping off wallpaper.  That led to the discovery that the bathroom had been through a remodel and that who ever had completed that moved the sink but left a hole in the wall where the pipes were originally located.  The hole was covered with wall paper, but that was the only attempt at repair.  I had to call my brother to bail me out on that one. Then there was my attempt to reattached a loose tile in the shower enclosure that resulted in many tiles falling into the tub and the discovery that the wall behind the tile was rotted.  My brother was called in once again. So this project took two days of my life but was relatively disaster free.  I did have to call Mike to help me remount the medicine cabinet on the wall (which wasn't easy or fun, but we  he did it w...

I sat in the waiting room today while Mike was having some outpatient surgery.  That means I was reading old magazines for a few hours. I noticed that James Arness died earlier this month.  He was Marshall Matt Dillon on the old TV series Gunsmoke.  That was required viewing at my house growing up.  My father loved that show.  My grandmother loved that show.  My grandmother also loved James Arness.  I mean, she had a full blown crush.  I just realized today that she must have been nearly 40 years older than he.  Just an interesting thought. Gabby Giffords was pictured in People and she looks good.  I understand that she still has long, arduous therapies ahead.  Her expressive language, apparently, is still quite affected although hey seem to believe her comprehension is better.  She was shot in the head--I think it is miraculous that she has made the gain she has made so far.  What a spirit she must have. Last week,...

Our trip to Florida last week was somewhat unexpected. We had decided that we really were interested in buying a place of our own rather than continuing to rent in Venice. Part of that decision came from the amount of time and energy we put into making the last rental  house as livable  as "our own" and realizing that it just was not our own.  We thought that we would spend time next winter looking for a place to buy. Things change.  Sometimes they change at the speed of light and then change again. As if it were meant to be, we saw a place advertised for sale by owner--just where we wanted to be, just what we wanted, just what we were thinking we could afford.  We felt we had to act on it. So now we are two-home owners.  At least we have a contract.  Scary (a little) and exciting (very much). We are both feeling very blessed.

The boy next door saw that we were home and came over to chat with Mike while I was out doing the grocery shopping.  Apparently it was late afternoon on June 11, when a large purple van went off the road.  The driver was not hurt.  At least he was standing and talking to the trooper.  That's all we know. I had been concerned mostly because it was graduation time--thinking about kids out celebrating and driving--so I was glad to hear that was not the case. The damage is minor on our property.  There is a strip of town land between our property and our neighbors that is a ditch and a berm that gets covered with grape vines, sumac trees, and other weedy things.  Every once in a while, it gets plowed through like this and it gives us a chance to tidy it up a bit.  By the way, this spot is not on a curve at all.  The driver was going north, which means he would have crossed the oncoming lane.  I guess I don't even want to speculate...

We got back to Vermont to find a lawn badly in need of mowing, a garden badly in need of weeding, and a number of small trees downed over a serious set of tire tracks in the corner of the front yard.  There were a few broken bits of a vehicle, but we really have no clue yet as to details. This is the second time this has happened.  A few years ago we woke to find a small pickup truck hung up in a tree in this same spot.  There were more trees there then so that vehicle didn't get so far. We had a safe trip back, and for that I am grateful.

A turtle nest protected by a cage to keep out raccoons. Sea turtles have apparently been on earth for over 150 million years.  They were around in the days of the dinosaurs.  They are even older than me. There are seven known species in existence--all of them endangered.  Among the reasons for the declining numbers are, of course, pollution and climate changes.  Adult turtles are poached (not sure why...soup?) and so are the eggs, which are considered by some to be a natural form of Viagra. And then there is the destruction of nesting beaches to make way for the ever voracious development of the hot new property in beach resorts. Caspersen Beach is largely undeveloped and because of its designation as a rural/wilderness beach, not to mention its rather precarious geographical location, it is most likely to remain that way.  Loggerhead turtles still come here to lay eggs in May and there is an on-going, organized effort for identifying and protecting the nests u...