It’s that time of year…

The next six weeks are very difficult for me, as I am sure they are for many others. I miss my family almost all the time, but especially during the holidays. My mind goes back to all the wonderful Christmas we celebrated in mom’s basement! There was lots of room for us all to be together. I loved searching for gifts for my Mama. When my brothers and sisters kids were younger, buying gifts for them was such a blast! I remember taking Judy with me to shop for them, more times than not I would be on crutches, so she was my package carrier and advise giver.As the kids got older, they much preferred money as a gift, they would put it together  to buy a more expensive item they were saving for. So I poured all my love of gift giving on my Mama and Jay!Now I just have Jay to shop for. 
I have done my best to create traditions for us and to hold onto some of the family ones. We have our little tree to put up with all Mama’s Santa Ornaments and since we lost our sweet little redhead I have my angels in her memory.

I still insist on a turkey (although now it’s a turkey breast) dinner for Thanksgiving and Ham for Christmas. It’s a lot of work for me and I know the time will come when I won’t be able to do it, but till that time comes, it will happen.   I am Thankful for all the wonderful memories and the things we can still do. But just for today I am going to sit here and allow myself to miss and long for the days gone by.

Home at Last

So I’m going to give it another try! This blog is simply for family and friends back home, to give them an idea what we are up to.
We have been home a week from our summer travels and are still trying to get organized. 

We were  on the Road for a little over four months. Got to see a lot of family and stopped at a lot of our favorite places. Here are just a few highlights.

Christmas past

I have a friend who just lost her Mom yesterday. Gosh it's hard when death happens around the holidays. But then anytime you lose a loved one the holidays are hard, they are never really the same.  It is like an innocence is taken away from you and you can never get it back. 
Our Mom passed away in 2007 and Christmas changed forever. We tried hard to recreate it but slowly parts of us pulled away, Jay and I started staying in Arizona and the kids were growing up. But when we lost Krystina in 2013 that was it, I don't know that we will ever recover from that.  With our Mom, she had been sick a very long time and although we missed her, still miss her, we are happy she is at rest with no more pain.   But with our darling Krystina, she was just at the cusp of discovering who she was, so young, so vital, so creative.  
I feel guilty that I am not there, thinking that things would be different if I was there. But I know it would not make a difference, we would all get together but everyone would sit there thinking how do we do this.  
I sit and look at my tree and see the ornaments we have had made over the years in their memory.

I wonder how other families do it.  Are they stronger than we are? I wish they would share their secrets with us if they are.  This summer my brother and his family came home for a visit from PA and we all got together several times and I know everyone except a few were at my sisters house for Thanksgiving.  So it's not like we are not there for one another, we are, totally there for one another. But Christmas, Christmas at Momma's house with kids running everywhere and so much food and crazy decorations and presents piled to the ceiling, that's gone, only a memory. Maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.  But I would give just about anything to have it back just one more time.
So I am thinking of Tina, burying her Mom the week before Christmas and knowing she has a young one at home I am hoping she still gets to see the joy through his eyes.
Please pray for her and for us and the many others that are missing loved ones this Christmas season.

Thursday Crafts or Thursday Therapy?

I have probably  mentioned my Thursday craft group out here in Arizona before, if not we meet every Thursday. Sometimes we have cheese, wine and a mental health meeting. ( we just sit and chat for a few hours) Sometimes our fearless leader has a craft planned for us.  Last year we make lots of bracelets and some beautiful Christmas trees mad out of safety pins and crystals.

This is mine, you stuff it with led lights and it is so pretty. ( I have to confess my friend Barb did most of mine, these arthritic hands don't work very well). This year we decided we wanted to do something for somebody so we decided to make tied lap blankets for a local hospice house.

This is an example of what we made, I don't know why I didn't take pictures, something about playing with puppies! Anyway we made six and we went to the Hospice House to drop them off and guess what there were six residents just finishing lunch. I am telling you it was amazing.  One of the ladies was celebrating her 102nd birthday on Christmas Day!! Can you imagine ?  She insisted on giving each of us a hug.  We left that place crying and feeling like we were flying.  When you are depressed or not feeling well, what everyone says is true, do something for someone else and you will feel better. I wish I had taken lots of pictures, but I am finding more and more I am wanting to stay in the moment and experience it instead of stepping outside it to take pictures. I think we should start calling it Thursday Therapy class!

Christmas in an RV completed

We finally finished with the decorations yesterday.  I must say it is still strange to be hanging Christmas lights when it is 80 and sunny outside.

Not sure why I posted this picture, oh I know I wanted you to see my tree on the table next to the lamp. It is made of crystals and safety pins, I will take a close up of it later so you can see it better, it is so pretty.

It is hard to get a good picture of the front window, Jay took this at dusk, maybe I will try one in the daylight. Don't you just love those new Command hooks? I sure do.

J

Jay tried to get one of the back, the blob of light on the right is my bottle tree. I will try to get a better one of it too.

This is what our neighbors and I call our Tiki Hut. We went together on this and put it between our two sheds. This is where we have our fire box and usually have New Years Eve dinner out here.

And this is my sweet little tree. I think I posted about it a couple of years ago. Every ornament on here is from my Mom, in memory of my Mom or Kryssy , ones the kids made for me when they were little and ornaments that Jay and I picked out together. We have a tradition of picking out a new one each year during our travels.

 So that is Christmas in a RV. I have to say it is always a little sad for me to do the tree each year, I am sure it is for many people. Thinking of Christmas's past of loved ones no longer here. But I know I have to shake it off and Praise God for all that I do have, my family, my friends,my Izzie.
As a friend of mine always says, "life is good".