To Be 100

My American grandmother turned 100 this week. I don't think that I have ever personally known someone who is 100. She lives in a private home with a few other elderly people and there have been more than a few that have come and gone since she has been at this facility.

It amazes me that she has known me all of my life and I remember living in the apartment above hers. It was to her home that I went when my parents brought me home from the hospital. Back then, Grandpa was alive also, and he would drink Pepsi with salt and sit in the backyard among the fruit trees listening to baseball on the radio. Grandma would babysit me sometimes and would bake woderful applesauce cake.

We moved away from there when I was five, but we continued to keep in touch and I would go and visit Grandma on Saturdays sometimes if my parents had to work. Then, she would cook me scrambled eggs and we would play games together. Grandma drove a big Lincoln and would have to sit on two pillows to see over the steering wheel. It was in this car that she took me to buy my first Bible. She would also call on nights that Billy Graham was on TV to tell us to watch.

As I got older still, we would go and visit sometimes. She came to my high school graduation, and we went to see her after my undergraduate graduation. Then, it came time to sell her house because it needed a great deal of work and she was getting older and could not really manage it anymore. She moved to a retirement home that was near where we lived, and I would run errands for her and sometimes she would go with me to the store. She had bought a smaller sedan by then and would drive it around the complex where she lived.

I believe that the last time that she went back home, I took her. We went to the cemetary and saw her parents' graves as well as some other family members. We had lunch with some relatives and went to see her aunt who was close to 100 by then also. That was a great time being on the road with grandma and doing something that she really wanted to do and was not able to do on her own. We tried to make plans to go again the next summer, but it didn't work out because Grandma would work herself up and get too excited about the trip and get sick.

She eventually moved to a better place farther away from us. We still see her from time to time mostly on holidays and in the summer. We can't call her anymore because she cannot hear us on the telephone. Sometimes when we don't go for awhile because we all have to be healthy to go and she says that she was not sure that she would see us again. I think that is life at 100. You go through your daily routine, but you wait for your family to visit and call.

Remember to always keep in touch with those that you love...

PS She got about 140 cards for her 100th birthday.

Food for Thought

I was sitting in the waiting room of the clinic where I took Riley for an OT evaluation filling out paperwork when I started listening to this girl talking to her dad. She was saying how she was not going to her meeting tonight because it would not count against her. Her dad replied that she needed to go, and she said that she did not see the purpose because she was attending the meeting for something that was not her fault. She sounded like she took the rap for someone else, and now, she was being punished for it by having to go to this weekly meeting. Her dad was telling her that she needed to go anyway because she needed to take responsibility even if she did not do it.

Anyway, the dad got up to look for something and when he came back, the girl started listing off the schools that she had attended, and the last one that she mentioned happened to be the one where I had taught. I looked up then to see who she was and realized that she was in my first kindergarten class. She was a child that got her way a lot and missed school for no reason other than she did not want to go. How do I know this, well, that year, I happen to have a classroom in the front hallway of the school, and she would come with her mom to bring her brother and sister to school, but then she would just go home with mom rather than stay at school. The sad thing was that she was a bright kid with a great deal of potential, but because she did not attend school regularly, she did not make many friends. Her classmates quickly advanced, and that made her not want to attend school even more. No amount of convincing on my part or hearings with the attendance program could get this girl to attend school regularly.

When I look at her now, I see what people mean by kids needing limits and you, as the parent, needing to be the parent and set those limits.

Changes

We decided to close down our retail operation to cut costs and concentrate on our catering operation. This decision makes me happier because that means that I can spend more time with my own kids, and I do not have to worry about employees and being open a set amount of hours.

I am sad to see the "kids" go because they have been with us from the start, but it is time for them to go onto new adventures. They were going to leave me sooner or later to pursue life after college. I thank you both from the bottom of my heart and appreciate all that you did more than you will ever know! I have taught you what I know; go off and enrich the world!

Now, my job is do it all! Marketing, prepping, cooking, cleaning, delivering, and the list goes on...

Riding the Cart

On some mornings of the week Reese and I go to Restaurant Depot. They only have flat bed carts which are not meant for children to sit on. When Reese was really little, I use to take her car seat with its base and set it on the cart with her in it. When we switched car seats, I would take in my stroller or leave her at home with her dad while I went really early to the store.

Now, most mornings if we have to go together, I take her and either carry her and pull the cart or sometimes I sit her down on it. She has been really good about sitting in the middle of the cart, staying still, and holding onto the handle or basket of the cart.

This morning is the first morning that both my children had to go with me. Reese decides that this is the morning that she wants to stand on the cart and hold on, and Riley decides that he wants to walk, which is fine. In addition to the fact that Reese does not want to sit, the refrigerator door that is closest to what we need and to the registers is broken, and we have to go all the way around to the other door to the cooler. We travel very slowly, and I am holding onto the side of the cart with my hand on Reese's back. Once we get to the back door of the cooler, we have to travel back toward the front door to get the mushrooms and hamburgers that we need, and then back to the back door to leave the cooler.

Once I put the mushrooms on the cart, Reese crawled over to the box and was trying to get into it. I was wondering what she was trying to do and was afraid that she was going to crush my mushrooms. I finally figured out that she wanted a mushroom and I dug one out of box for her. That got her to sit down and eat the mushroom while I pulled the cart back toward the entrance.

The trials and tribulations of motherhood...

Boo Hoo!

We did not come home with the National Championship, but we did get to see New Orleans and travel the 1-10 from New Orleans to Biloxi, Mississippi. It is amazing how much rebuilding there is left to do. That part of the country is forever changed by Katrina.

We ate Louisiana cuisine, visited the French Quarter, and Bourbon Street the first night we were in New Orleans. We did most of our travelling by walking because we stayed in the Warehouse District. We spent our second day in New Orleans partying like a true Buckeye at Ernst's Cafe right down the street from our hotel, the New Orleans Buckeye Hangout! Our last morning in New Orleans, we ate beignets at Cafe du Monde, which Ron did not think was much of a breakfast, doughnuts not being his thing! I, on the other hand, wanted to try them and loved the warm doughnuts with powdered sugar. We saw some donkey drawn carriages and went to the Hard Rock Cafe for our traditional t-shirt.

One of the best parts of our trip was going to the Garden District. I wanted to visit the toy store there, but did not find anything for my kids. For lunch we went to The Big Fisherman, bought a bag of crawfish, and took them to eat by the Mississippi River. Boy, were they delicious!

I did get to rest and relax on our trip, sleep in and read a few books by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. What a great trip!

Happy New Year!

I made it through the grind of the end of the year, illness and all. I got a really bad eye infection that has finally cleared up!

Riley's pirate party was a hit, and he was happy that his friends came to his house to play!

At the last minute we went to see my husband's family in Cleveland for New Year's and Ron's birthday. It was a fun day with family and we got out of there in the nick of time because they got 8 inches of snow!

Now, we are preparing to go on vacation! We leave tomorrow for New Orleans! Now that the preparations are almost set, I am getting more excited! I know that everything will be okay while I am gone, but there is the restaurant to worry about and the kids that are staying home with grandma and grandpa. But, this is my chance to have some fun, see something new, and sit with a good book and relax!

Now, how will the Bucks do in New Orleans? Will we come home with a national championship trophy? I hope so, but only time will tell!