Behind The Times

Sorry for the long delay in Blogging. It feels as though I've been stuck in slow hardening concrete while I've waited for the Writing Muse to strike me. But she hasn't dealt any blows lately, so I thought I'd better write something anyway.

We've had a fun visit with our son, Tad and his new wife, Erin and the effervescent three year old Ronnie. It was a week of Fun and Activities but Ronnie left us with a souvenir of a dandy cold so I'm still blowing and hacking. That's part of the charm of living with a Preschooler, a new cold or flu symptom monthly. When our kids were small, we tended to have one Sickie at least every two weeks. It took roughly ten days to feel well again and in that four day window, another bug would bite and another kid (or parent) would go Down For The Count. My dad used to chide me for not taking enough vitamins to ward off the frequent colds, but I didn't listen then. Well, I do listen now and Bill and I take enough Vitamins to build a small wall daily, but still that wasn't enough against the California Cold Ronnie brought to us. HA!

So days are chugging along here, now that the election is behind us and Thanksgiving and Christmas are looming. There's a Toy Run (motorcycles) going on in Globe, Miami and Superior today to benefit seven families for the holidays who have fallen on Hard Times. Santa driving a side car with a winsome maid just zoomed up our street for the first stop of the Run (a local bar). So that's a Sign of the Times. Bill and I weren't participating in that ride for our local Free Dump Day is going on out at the dump and we were volunteering for that instead. As it is, I'm staying indoors with my cough and he went out in the blustery thirty m.p.h. winds blowing off Apache Leap on this not cold but thoroughly Windy November day. My neighbor came out and told me, "You know, in Southern California, they have the Santa Ana winds. Well, they are mild in comparison to ours. These are known as the Apache Winds and the Apaches are much fiercer than Santa Ana." So there! Definitive proof it's worse here! (But thank God, no fires for us here in AZ.)

And I'm sewing like mad, trying to get enough shirts made for a craft sale my sister and I are doing in Florence in three weeks. So every spare moment I have, I'm huddled over the sewing machine or cutting out another shirt. I watched Ronnie one afternoon last week while his folks were out playing golf.

"What are you doing, Grandma?" he asked.

"I'm cutting out a shirt for you, Ronnie. I thought I'd sew you a shirt," I answered.

"I don't want a shirt." (Typical Three Year old.)

He left and returned in a few minutes. "What are you making, Grandma?"

"I'm making you a shirt, Ronnie," I answered. "The same shirt I was working on a few minutes ago."

"Well, I'm still not going to wear it!" He turned and went back to his toy trucks.

"Well, I'm still going to make it!" I countered.

That's it from this end. When I quit coughing so much, I swear I'll Blog more.