Thursday, November 27, 2008

Thanksgiving, 2008

I've frequently railed at the fact that Thanksgiving seems to get lost between Halloween and Christmas. Now, I'm thinking that might be a good thing. It hasn't become quite so commercialised as the other holidays. There are still advertisements for food and all, but not the unrelenting push to buy, buy, buy.

Today I'm thankful for many things, some big, some small. All of these things add to a life lived. Most of all, I'm thankful for my family. I have a wonderful Son and Daughter-in-law who have given me 3 wonderful Grandchildren. I don't see them anywhere near enough, but by seeing them less often, I notice all the ways they are growing and maturing. They are positively amazing in thier accomplishments and thier great views on life. I miss them a lot. I'm so thankful that they are what and who they are.

I lost my beloved Daughter this last spring. Sometimes it's very hard to find things to be thankful for in this occurance. However, I am thankful that I was with her at the end. I'm thankful that I was able to see the many people she touched and made a difference to in her life. Despite the pain of her passing, I will be forever thankful that she was a part of my life.

I have two wonderful Aunts who have been there for me my whole life and who, in many ways, saved me when the bottom fell out of my financial life.

There are many seemingly small things to be grateful for, that really make life a blessing. There's sunshine and rain and even snow and wind. There's flowers and trees and weeds and all the other living things that we share this planet with that add to our lives. Even the lowly mesquito has it's place,(I guess). Being able to stop and rest can be wonderful, especially when you've done the work that got you tired.

I'm thankful for my belief in God and my sense of His presence, that small voice within that gives you love and ideas. I'm thankful for all the people that are also a part of God, and therefore me. I'm thankful for the ability to choose, whether that choice works out or not. Hopefully, I take the choice that's founded in love oftener than not.

In this time of uncertainty in the world, may we all make choices based in love and hope and gratitude and we will make for a better world. As the saying goes, "become the change you want to see in the world."

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

"Taste of Sam's"

"Taste of Sam's" is over for another year. It's always nice to have it over, especially if it was busy. It was definitely busy!

Every year, usually the weekend before Thanksgiving, Sam's Club has an event called, A Taste of Sam's " where we go all out to demo the new holiday products, as well as the tried and true products. Of course, I'm speaking of food products. We have the whole demo staff involved, some cooking in the kitchen and trying to keep up with demand. The rest of us are on the sales floor, serving the members and their guests. We are generous with the products and keep serving from 10:30 AM until 6:00 PM, then we have to clean up. We do this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

I was on the dessert table all 3 days, changing partners each day. We gave out samples of cheesecake every day, always one flavor from The Cheesecake Factory, plus a couple of other brands we carry. We offered apple crisp, nice and warm, with vanilla bean ice cream. We had mini eclairs and cream puffs, sugar cookies and something called profiteroles, which are like puffed pastry dipped in chocolate with flavored cream fillings. Two days we offered fair trade coffee, and one day eggnog.

You have to pretty much get an assembly line going, putting all the samples on a plate and getting them out to people. Bear in mind that you're serving from frozen cheesecake that needs to be cut all day. When we were serving ice cream, we had to keep it from melting as much as possible. We'd just get going good, when someone would want coffee or eggnog and one of us would have to stop to pour. Because of temperature concerns, the drinks couldn't be put out early.

We were busy all three days, but Saturday was unrelenting. Of course, each of us had to take breaks and lunch, leaving the other to slog on by themselves.

The first two days, we were taking cheesecakes out of the freezer maybe 2 at a time, so they were pretty frozen. It really became difficult to cut them. On Sunday, I took 4 each of the 2 cakes we were doing and let them soften up while we were getting set up for the day. That worked a little better, but by the 4th cake, it was soft enough to be sticking to the knife. We figure we served 2000 people.

I went home each night and had to put heat packs on my right hand.With carpel tunnel and arthritis, I was pretty uncomfortable. In fact, all day on Monday, I wore my brace, which I usually only wear at night.

By Sunday night, we were all pretty tired. At least I've got 4 days off now. I did the washing yesterday, going up and down the basement stairs and packing up the clean clothes while MaryLou worked on the tile for the shower. She got the area around the tub faucet re tiled while worked. Today, we went down to Home Depot to get a few more tiles and realised that we were both really tired and needed a day off, so we are relaxing for the rest of the day.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Happy Birthday,Michele


Michele, I wish you Happy Birthday, Honey. I really miss you! I hope that you are doing all the things you were unable to do during your life, like talking to anyone, not needing to sign. I'm sure the Angels have always understood you just fine, but hopefully you're sounding off on all your thoughts out loud now.

It doesn't quite seem like you've been gone 6 months. There are so many ways that you are missed. The up coming holidays seem very changed without you. Aunt MaryLou and I each bought a pumpkin to put on the porch. After Halloween, we smashed the pumpkins in remembrance of you. You always loved "turkey day". It will not seem the same this year.In fact, we haven't the heart to cook up a Thanksgiving dinner, we'll probably go out,which you also enjoyed doing once in awhile.


Michele, you touched the lives of many people, especially your family. You added some interesting dimentions and experiences. Thank you for all of those experiences. Thank you for all the love you gave us. As your Mother, I felt your unconditional love and I am grateful for it. I only wish I had been as unconditional with you. Miss you Honey.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Repairs

Have you noticed that, very often, when you think you have a simple repair job, it just seems to grow? Our cold water tap in the bathtub was leaking. It's an older home, so I figured that we could just take off the tap and replace a washer, just like we did in the"old days". My Aunt informed me that the pipes went back into the kitchen and we needed a special long wrench that we didn't have.We'd wait until we could afford to call the plumber. By that time, the leak wasn't a drip, but a stream.I shudder to think how much water was going down the drain everyday!

When the plumber came out, he said he liked to change out both taps at once. The hot water tap came out fine, but the cold one wouldn't budge. Since the back of the pipes are under one of the bottom cabinets in the kitchen, it would be very hard to get to them. We decided to let him go through the front, removing some of the tile to get to it. The cold water valve was stripped out and needed to be replaced. Considering the house was built around 1945, and these are the original taps, they've held up very well. Since the cost of a one handeled faucet set is compareable in price to the original 2 handles one, we decided to go with the single handle. We still have some of the original tile downstairs, we planned on replacing it ourselves. We even decided to go ahead with having a shower plumbed in, rather than keeping our useless handheld one.

As you can probably imagine, costs are climbing! Once the water valve and shower pipe were in, we realised we might not be up to repairing the holes in the wall ourselves, even though the plumber told us what to do, and I had seen my Father do it, we really lack the experience and tools, Now we have someone else coming in on Saturday to do the sheetrock work to close both of the holes. We are still going to do the tilework. We've both done that before. Unfortunatly, we don't have enough of the old tile. We're hoping there's enough to tile around the tap. MaryLou forgot she used some of the tile on her old kitchen cabinets. We'll look for a match, but the tile was originally bought in the 60's, so we may have to get creative with what we put around the shower and around the window. Oh well, it will be wonderful to have a working shower.

Another thing that seems to happen frequently. Having to almost clean out my savings account after I've finally got it built up, and so close to Christmas too. I guess I need to turn it around and be grateful that I have money in savings to help, right?

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Barack Obama Wins

I have been a supporter of Barack Obama for quite awhile, though I did vote for Hillary Clinton in the primary election. As the campaign went on, I became a little worried about Bill Clinton's role in a Hillary administration. As we all know, Obama hung on to become the Democratic candidate for the presidency.

I started out pulling for Obama because he was Democrat and not Bush, but I soon began to listen to his speeches and saw something that I hadn't seen in years, a candidate to vote for, not just someone who was the lesser of 2 evils. I can't believe what that did to my outlook. Finally, someone to get excited about! I signed up to get emails from the Obama campaign, I donated to a political campaign for the first time in my life. I discussed the issues with friends and co-workers. I have to say, I went into election day with excitement, but with a little bit of forboding. After the disappointment of the last 2 elections, I guess I was worried that John McCain would pull a rabbit out of his hat at the last minute.

I was amazed at the early decision! I couldn't believe, at first, that the news was calling the election right after the polls had closed on the west coast. I held my breath for awhile,then let myself believe. I think when I saw McCain giving his concession speech, that it became real to me at last. A note on McCain's speech; it was very nice and like the "real" McCain was back. I'm not sure what happened to him during the campaign, but it didn't seem like McCain was the man that we'd known for years.

President elect, Obama, gave a very inspiring acceptance speech, bringing a lump to my throat several times. He seems fully aware that his job will not be easy. There is so much to do, so many problems, he's going to need all the help he can get. He's asked for our support and sacrifice. Isn't it nice for a political leader to ask that, rather than do tell us, like Pres Bush did after 9/11 to go shopping.? The American people are better than that, they just need to have someone believe in them, as Pres elect Obama does.

It's very early yet to make judgements,but I feel a breath of fresh air and a sense of change.