Category Archives: Mom

Mar24

Brian’s birthday

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Today Brian turned 48. He dislikes birthday celebrations, so he’ll get his gifts and we’ll go out to dinner and eat cake when we get home. I guess we are just quiet people. I think it’s nice to be surprised once in a while. Sean had his share of birthday parties, but after he turned 10, that was the last ‘group’ party for him. He has everything he needs. That’s one way of looking at it.
Sean is going to the movies with some friends soon. This is good. I am so glad they are getting together at least once this week. We still have a lot to do before August, one of which is purchasing a third vehicle for him to use for school. They really need to get busy with that. Paying college bills and waiting for aid is another thing. He got a letter that said he was getting some but we thought he’d qualify for more. Brian wants to talk to the financial aid lady at PSU.
My mom is really depressed over the tire episode yesterday. My brother can get her a tire! I know she is thinking she is getting too old to drive or she is still scared over what happened. We didn’t let my grandmom drive at mom’s age. I don’t want something worse to happen to her.

Feb24

Shopping Maniacs

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Never believe a shopaholic when she says ‘let’s go to Walmart for 1/2 hour’. That’s a lame line. And the so called shopaholic is a size 8 so there are tons of clothes for her on the sale rack. I did well myself-some nice pants, a suede like top in dark peach, some stretchy tops, Austrian crystal jewelry sets and a watch with interchangable leather bands-all for $1-$5. I try to be careful about what I buy, but these buys were so good. The damn watch was only $3. I had trouble interchanging the band this morning. I ended up digging into the holes with the end of my embroidery scissors where the little spring thingies have to fit. I was shaking my wrist and the watch flew off. It’s actually ok now. The pants are a little tight around my tummy bulge-darn jelly belly, never looked the same after Sean tummy! Mom was blue today, she’s always this way after seeing me, plus she asked her boarder to leave as he was holding back portions of his measly rent to her. She’s put up with him for almost 4 yrs now. None of her kids want him there. He has the mentality of a 12 yr old (but very smart except for math), but he can’t see beyond his own crooked glasses.
~~Snow galore! Over 8 inches we think. Sean had off and it didn’t start to snow and stick until after 11am. He loves to sleep in. I have to get out and take some photos tomorrow.
~~~I had a weird dream this morning. I dreamed I was at a school or church function and helping with the food. When it was my time to eat, all the ‘crappy’ food was left and people were talking about me behind my back. I actually had a tear run down my face while I was lying in bed this morning. Now if I analyze this myself, it may be I am feeling self-conscious because of my ‘roots’ showing or that my brother told my mom that Brian and I looked fat. (Or hormones?)He said this to me 3 yrs ago when Mom, Sean and I went down to visit him. Nothing like saying something positive about a person. He is a jerk sometimes. He’s looking for his third job in a year’s time. He has a fat head.

Feb23

Ray and Jamie

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Now if you haven’t seen Ray, run out now before the Oscars and rent the DVD. Jamie Foxx is so good, you’ll forget it’s him and think it’s the real Ray Charles throughout the movie. People magazine is predicting a Best Actor win for Jamie. What’s interesting too about Ray Charles is that he and my mom Jeanne were born on the exact day (sorry for divulging age mom)-September 23, 1930. And my mom has a trained soprano voice, so two musical babies were born that day. So as Ray’s mom pushed down in Georgia, my grandmom Ruthie was busy up in Roslyn, PA welcoming her only daughter.
Sean went to Wally World (Walmart) over the past weekend and I asked him to either get the new Kenny Loggins cd or the Ray Charles cd (see sidebar) for me. No Kenny, so he got Ray. I’ve never bought a Ray Charles record in my life. I love his classics, but leaned toward folk rockers. There are lots of ‘duets’ with Ray that I like, especially James Taylor. Incidently both Ray and James fought heroin addictions in their lives. Ray sings with Norah Jones, Elton John, Bonnie Raitt and Michael McDonald- I like them too, with a few others like Diana Krall, Willy Nelson and Johnny Mathis. Sean sat and listened to the entire CD. You can hear Ray’s age a bit (or the effects of illness), but for a 73 yr old, he was still doing it.

Update:
Got my van ‘Winnie’ back tonight (Windstar-stop laughing) and she sounds better! Ken worked his butt off fixing her and trying to figure out what’s going on with the diffferent noises. We are taking her back in a few weeks for inspection and hopefully we will be able to drive her more.
More freakin’ snow is coming tomorrow morning! We may get up to 8 inches. Lord have mercy.

Dec28

Finally…a new desk

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The guys didn’t come home with a new desk yesterday, but a new black leather chair-for giants! It can’t be lowered so my short legs and feet can touch the floor. I think Brian didn’t do something right, because this is the first chair that I felt like I was getting a haircut in which couldn’t be lowered. Thank goodness it was basically free (we had a gift card-thank you f-in-l for that) and I have a cute little stool under my tootsies.
Today we took a drive down to Wally World (Walmart) and were about to get the armoire style with the fake wood grain in brown. We saw they had the black armoire with the fake wood grain and it was $88 and missing the top portion the other one had but it was like $60 cheaper. Bingo! We were taking too long making up our minds when another customer came over and started to look at the solo black one that was left. I said really loud, well that figures and flopped down in a computer chair (where I could touch my feet to the ground!) and maybe the guy took the hint and left! Whew! So Brian got a salesman and paid for the desk while I got a new trashbin with wheels and scurried around the 50% off area collecting a few rolls of wrapping paper and mini ornaments for something I want to make and sell for next year. I found some new things for January birthdays (my brother and pal in Colorado were both born on January 8th). I love a good sale! I did hit a sale yesterday and got some Snowbabies I liked for 33% off.
Brian got busy assembling the armoire after dinner and 3 hours later it’s not all the way done, but almost. Cosmo was really marking his territory by rubbing his mouth on various parts of it.
So the room is a mess until we get it set up. I suggested we put the old one in the drive and put a ‘FREE’ sign on it, but he’d rather haul it to the Goodwill. Oh well. I have a slight headache which I am blaming on the armoire’s pressed particle board.
My brother Ken called to say the package from our brother Don had come from Florida last night and asked if Sean was still looking for a car. We said ‘yes’. He said he had a ’98 or ’99 Ford Taurus where he worked and would check it out for us. I called tonight to see if he had and he was home sick today from a bad migraine and vomiting from it. He was sick exactly a year ago today when he was suppose to come out here for lunch and present opening. Weird.
Mom went to see her old friend Barbara who was up from South Carolina and staying at her daughter Adrienne’s house not far away. Jim is also a friend of hers. They went to an Irish style restaurant and had prime rib. Adrienne and her teen son Ryan are headed to Ireland tomorrow where they have friends and family. Cool.

Dec27

Ahhh…some quiet time here…for a while

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Well the guys went looking for a computer desk and it’s ‘me’ time right now. No cookie baking, cleaning, etc. My time to surf the web and do a little blogging. I am dying to hit a few after Christmas sales, and I may….afterwards.
Christmas Eve and Christmas were nice. Not really hectic. We didn’t have to go out on the 24th until 4 pm. We then went to my mom’s and I basically had to redo the lights on her tree. My hair totally fell out and I had spent like an hour with the steam rollers! Mom’s house was a disaster. She can’t seem to allot time for cleaning much. She only gets moving around 11 or 12 every day. We told her not to worry about gifts and she got me like 6 tops that I really didn’t need. We went out to our favorite local restaurant which is conveniently up the road from my mom’s house. Her boarder and friend Jim came and somehow I got stuck sitting next to him and not my son or husband. He gets really tight wadded and pointed to the children’s hamburger and wanted to order it! Craphead. I think this will be the last year he will come along. His room is a mess and the rest of the place is starting to look bad.
We went over to my brother’s house to see them which was nice. Their house looks beautiful as they did a reversal making the dining room the living room (now the eating area is closer to the kitchen where he knocked down a doorway). My little brother amazes me with his talents. He does tend to get overwhelmed at times and takes it out on my mom, etc. Next he wants to redo his kitchen-just what I want to do next in my house. Bet he beats us to it!
That night we got home at 10:30 and decided to find a midnight mass service to attend. We went to a church in nearby Delaware and it was a nice change. We got to lounge around the next morning instead of running out the door to our church. Christmas was still a bit hectic for me as I made a big roast beef dinner. We gave each other thoughtful gifts, my favorite was an amethyst crucifix from Brian and Elton John’s 4 set DVD from Sean.
Sean and I went over to see my ailing uncle and his wife yesterday. Mom, Ken and his family went too. It was a nice visit and the kids opened their gifts from us over there. Tori went ga ga over a Barbie Swan Lake musicbox I gave her! I love when that happens. I got it for half nothing at a Kohl’s sale last year.
Well, that’s the last few days in a nutshell. Glad it’s over, but miss it already.

Nov30

If I was born a guy…

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How would your life differ if you were born a member of the opposite sex?
Apart from the obvious, anatomy, clothes, romance and marriage, what things might be better? Worse? Would it change the opportunities and problems you were presented? How would you take advantage of the changes? If you could switch sexes for a day, would you? How about forever?
First of all, I’d feel terribly sorry for my mom as she would have had 4 sons. She always reminisces that when I was born she couldn’t believe I was a girl and the nurses had to keep saying-‘yes, it’s a girl’. Being the only girl made me a little more special than my brothers, but I felt left out sometimes too. Not to say I wasn’t on the floor playing with my brother Don’s Hot Wheels either! I just didn’t have that many people to play dolls with and ‘to be a girl’ with. We had neighbor girls, but they were a bit younger than me. My brother Don was my best friend until he was 13 (we are a year apart in age). I am sure it may have been a little easier to have another boy who could share clothes with his brothers. I was in a good position-#2 of 4, but actually was a middle child for 7 years. Middle children have a hard time occasionally and if I was a boy I would have felt it more.
I don’t care to switch sexes. I lived around boys/men my entire life and that’s enough for me and definitely wouldn’t want to switch forever.

Oct30

Blah Saturday

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Well my mom was suppose to come out and I was running around tidying up, hanging some new sheer gold curtains in the family room and trying to look nice in general. I had just had my hair done for cripes sake! Then I was playing the waiting game. She mainly wanted to come out to give Sean his belated birthday gifts. At 2 she called and said she had just left Kohls in her area! I told her I wasn’t crazy about her driving in the dark and she was only giving herself a few hours to visit. She decided she’d wait to see us tomorrow when we would come down to see the kids in their Halloween outfits. She called again and this time she was in Dennys eating. Anytime she eats I thank God as she is still so thin. Mom’s sciatica is kicking in again and I feel it’s from her driving again. She didn’t drive for almost 5 months, so she didn’t use her legs in that pedal pushing way. She could do things to help ease up the ache-rub, stretching, herbal pills, but she relies on the pain pills and lies in bed. I guess when I am 74 I will be damn lucky if I don’t hurt like she does as I have had major achiness this fall.
Sean went to the movies in my van and his dad is cutting up the leaves with the mower. I have been uploading my photos to my yahoo albums. Last night I printed out about 35 photos as I haven’t done that for 6 months. I had to put in a new cyan cartridge and it wouldn’t work right away and I ruined some good glossy paper. Brian and I have a pink haze to us in the beach photo I tried to print out as a 5″ x 7″!
Last year we went to Fort Washington to a Tech Expo so Sean could mainly have a book signed by the author who happens to be the chief weatherman for NBC 10 here in Philly. His name is Glenn ‘Hurricane’ Schwartz and he wrote a book about Philly weather through the years. He was nice enough to sign it for Sean and he named a few colleges that specialized in meteorology, Sean’s proposed major. The anchors who were there were all nice and so tan. I look so pale next to consumer reporter Tracy Davidson in the photo we took. I loved posing (again looking ghostly) with the new guy on the block last year, cutie Vince DiMentri. He is married to QVC hostess Pat James DiMentri. I asked him about a ring he was wearing and he took it off so I could get a better look (like I was looking at the ring) and told me it was a gift from the city of New York for his work there. Seems he was a news reporter up there too. We met some Passion soap opera people and I had no idea who they were. Not into the soaps. An interesting event.

Aug29

More on the trip…

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We got on our way Wednesday about 11 am to stop off in Ocean City, NJ and maybe a nearby mall. The luggage situation was driving me nuts as I tried to rearrange things this way and that. Mom and I ended up being squeezed in like sardines in the backseat. While we were waiting for the guys to get the car, I gave her a lecture about taking too many clothes and when you go with someone to honor their wishes. I also said later that she needed to think ahead about the consequences to her actions. She got in a huff, oh poor me. When the guys pulled up, my son the new driver was behind the wheel in the crazy driving city that AC is. He did ok in the general AC area, but screwed up bad on the AC Expressway-like almost stopping dead in the middle of 65 mph traffic because he almost missed the exit. He had trouble getting on a bypass too and had cars honking at him from behind. I felt bad for him as he doesn’t know the rules of driving in those kinds of situations, but I don’t want to see my life passing before my eyes again.
Ocean City is a nice beach town, a little boring and the same old thing. It cost $10 to park-the parking cost us an arm and a leg everywhere. We hit a bookstore that I usually love, but this one was small and didn’t have much. I mainly sat on a bench the whole big hour we were there. Mom wanted to stroll up and down the boards with Sean. What a change! The best part was going in a candy store and picking out goodies to enjoy later.

Aug29

End of summer scorcher

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I haven’t ventured out today as it’s warm and humid. We sure have been spoiled here with the cooler than usual summer. A few years ago we were praying for rain and I think we’ve had about 16 inches this year. I know a lot about the weather because of my son Sean. He is a weather fanatic. In fact, next year at this time, I bet he starts his freshman year in college majoring in meterology!
We went to Atlantic City from Monday to Wednesday. We take really short trips because we have no one to watch the cat. Plus it gets too expensive. We had my almost 74 yr old mom with us. She’s been suffering with sciatica for about 10 months and has lost about 25 pounds. It started after she had a weird virus last October and went from bad to worse. Too bad she had to get it in the wintertime. My sister-in-law and I took turns taking her to doctor appts and chiropractors. I am glad to say she did pretty well with the walking down in AC! But she is a bit eccentric (I guess we all are). I asked her to only bring about 6 outfits as we were squeezing in our Taurus instead of using the Windstar (has an anti-freeze leak that no one wants to repair). So going against my wishes she brought 4 bags, 3 jammed with clothes! We didn’t use a bellhop at the casino, so dragged the stuff through all these walkways and up two elevators. The room was nice, but we were cramped in the double beds. The beach was really windy and mom and I couldn’t stand it for more than an hour on the first day.
That night we were so bushed, we took a cab like 3 blocks to Caesars to eat dinner at their buffet. Usually it is really good and varied. They had a coupon special that my f-in-law got in the mail. I wanted steak so bad and it was half cooked. You could tell they didn’t take their time with it on the grill. The only good thing about dinner was the dessert.
The next day we went shopping at the new places behind Caesars called ‘The Walk’. It is basically outlet shopping. This time we had gift certificates for the different stores. We divided them up and mom and I went one way and the guys went the other way. I ended up buying only a hooded burgundy sweater from The Gap (I was cold) and a silk lighter color burgundy top from Van Huesen. I couldn’t believe my husband Brian used his to buy yet another watch from Fossil (he has at least a dozen watches). Sean bought some shirts and a watch. Sean’s watch is cool though. The face changes to different colors. Can you tell we like to shop? Mom bought herself a red rain coat. I bought her a little sand castle candle holder with a ‘Seaside Memories’ candle for the Yankee candle store.
That night we went to the Rainforest Cafe. It was so crowded there. Sean really wanted to go. They have cool tropical fish tanks-more like tubes. When you are seated, it’s like you are in the middle of a jungle. Every 15 minutes or so, there is a simulated tropical storm-the lights flash, there is thunder, etc.-but no rain, thank goodness! LOL There was a fake gorilla who pounded his chest once in a while. I told Brian that he was that way in the morning. It was hard to chose what to eat. We all basically had shrimp or catfish.
More later.