JUST HAVE TO SAY

I am so glad that spring has finally sprung here. No flowers or leaves on the trees, but it is going to be a wonderful weekend with highs around 20C (68F). Time to get my old bones moving. Got big plans for the weekend. Wash the windows with a marvelous new recipe for window cleaner I found. I am going to sit on my front porch and watch the world go by and I think I may take my oldest grandchild on a Geo caching day at our nearby provincial park. Not sure what the prize is at the end, but last weekends was held at the goose sanctuary and there were many, many eggs to be found. I think he will love the adventure.

Two of my wonderful grandsons share a birthday today. One is turning 12 the other one is turning 4. Mr. 4 idolizes Mr. 12. I am trying a new strategy for birthdays this year whereby each child gets a special day with grandmom. Well, I hope they think it is special! We do a special activity, and then we go somewhere for lunch/dinner where they want to go. As their birthdays fall on the same day, I am planning still to do their special days separately. I think I will take the youngest one out today. He loves going to a place called "Kid's City". It is all about climbing and oh so noisy. Then he will get to pick the dinner place and I'm thinking it will be MacDonald's as he loves their play structure also. For Mr. 12, I think the Geo caching trip and then if I know him correctly, he will want spaghetti.

After our long, long winter it will be nice to finally get outdoors and do something. Too bad that soon it will be mosquito season here and with all the flooding that is to happen, there will be many of those little pests about. Some years here are very bad and they have had to blanket the province with spraying. They use to use big military planes to spray, now with all the people wanting to live a healthier lifestyle, they use trucks and in the cities they have someone going around and checking every one's yard for sources of standing water. If you are "caught" they give you advice on how to make sure there are no sites for mosquito reproduction. I don't know if removing all the water works as I have seen years where the soil in flower beds and gardens is full of mosquitoes. We have heavy clay soil here which doesn't dry out easily and though most people amend the soil, it still isn't usually enough to have nice loam. Since I have lived in my province, I have seen a couple of years where the air is so thick with the pests that once you walked out the door your whole face was covered in them. Needless to say, that summer was wasted - hardly no one went outside. Usually you don't see too many in the day time, but those year it was terrible.

My window cleaner recipe is:
1/4 cup rubbing alcohol
1/4 cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 cups warm tap water.
I used an old febreeze sprayer someone gave me and it held all the ingredients - no problem. Right now I live in a construction zone, so my windows are filthy and when I tried this mix, I was really surprised. It took all the grime off and the windows actually sparkle. When I sprayed it and was wiping it looked like the cornstarch was making a mess - little dots of it all over, but then I realized it was actually sitting on the dirtier areas and all I had to do was wipe over that area again. I guess it adhered to the heavier dirty areas. Anyways, was worth a try.

Well, I best be getting ready for the day. Enjoy Spring where ever you are.

Jean

FIRSTS

Ah, the year of firsts - oh how I don't miss you! The first birthday, Easter, vacation time, Christmas and celebrating his retirement. All the mountains of paperwork, taxes, decisions. There is a reason the experts tell you not to make any decisions in the first year. That reason I affectionately call Widows Brain. Almost the minute your spouse dies, your mind goes into a fog. For me the initial fog lasted for about two months, however, it didn't completely go away. After two years, three months and a couple of weeks, I still have it to some degree. At first I thought I was in control and understood everything. It was some months later, I realized I did not have a hot clue about what all had transpired. I am thankful that it I did not make any major decisions until almost after the first year. I maybe should have waited a bit to sell our house. I was afraid of the house - the boiler, the 80 foot driveway to shovel/snow blow, even the stairs that had a weird turn to them. In my widows brain, I was so sure that if I had a different place, my mind would rest. Not so, my house sold so fast, I only had two weeks to find a place and ended up in a very nice condo in the country.  I do love the country though, the place is not right for me. Also, I was only thinking of myself when I sold and not the kids and grand kids and how it would affect them. Bad decision, made good in that I live closer to all my kids now. Back to the paperwork. I would suggest getting a trusted friend or one of your children to help you with all the forms etc. I did it all on my own, even though I asked my son to help, in the end he was grieving to hard and it wasn't a good idea to go that route. I was to proud to ask a friend to help, or even our lawyer who is a friend. Of course it all came back at me and I had to second guess why I did something one way when it should have been another. God is faithful, however, and it has all worked out.

Relationships with everyone changes. Your children and grandchildren are grieving just as hard as you are. There will be things said and done that at another time would not affect the relationship but just now they do. Friends will drop away - some because they are uncomfortable with death, some because they think their husband/wife might decide to take up company with you, some because they cannot understand the changes in you, and some just naturally float out of your life. It became a lonely time. It became a time where my brain would not stop - it was too full. During a course of a day they say women say 15,000 words and men say 10,000. When I became a widow and it is still an ongoing issue, all the thoughts I have are caught in my brain. They need to come out. I still haven't found someone I can share with on a regular basis, so I learned to talk to my husband, talk to God and talk to the dog in an audible voice. It works! I work mainly by myself at my job. I certainly don't say my 15,000 words, and very often at work now, I get teased about talking to myself. I now understand why I often see older people talking quietly to themselves. They are not losing their mind - they just need to get the words out so the brain can work properly.I am still on the fence about going to a psychologist, or Christian counselor. I tend to be stubborn in that sense. I do feel though that if I really felt I needed it I would go. 

This is how the first year looked to me. At some point down the road I will allow myself to amend or add to my account of the first year. Right now this is all I have.

Jean

G'Day

In honor of becoming a young senior later this year, I decided no more of trying to put everything in one blog. So my other blog "Needle Works Galore" will stay as just that - all about stitching. As I am working my way through unfinished business (UFOs), those blog posts may be few and far between.  This blog I am hoping will journal my life as a new Senior and my continued walk as a widow.

Background; my husband of 34 years passed away a few days after routine surgery. The hospital involved admitted they goofed and though I was to get a copy of the autopsy and a report of their findings into wrong doing, I have never received it. My children would like to read it, but for me, I believe I am content to just know that this was the amount of days God had for him to live. That he was on this earth for only those days to do what God wanted him to do, and he had successfully finished his time here on earth and is now residing with many of his family members. He will be walking the menagerie of dogs we and others had and I am certain God has him working on our rooms in heaven. I am blessed to have been married to such a gentle, kind, caring man who loved life to the fullest - even if he did it in a conservative manner. Together we had three beautiful children who in turn had four lovely grandchildren. He loved teaching our children anything they would let him. The children all have fond memories of dad coaching them, teaching them to tie their shoe laces, of him falling asleep on the stairs while taking his boots off after a long day at work, of camping trips, of family gatherings and of just general hanging out with dad. Three of our grandchildren miss him deeply and we try to keep his memory alive for them. They often speak of silly granddad. The fourth little grandchild did not meet him here on earth, but in the Bible it speaks of God knowing us before we were in our mother's womb and I wonder if granddad got to meet little Patrick. He loved all of us deeply.

Jean