Three Christmases

Yes, I had three Christmases. Thankfully, they were not like the three Christmases in the movie with that same title. The first one was what we call our Ball Christmas. When mom died in June 2013, we promised her that we would stay close and that's what we've done. She pretty much stopped enjoying the holidays long before she died, so we revived them with a Christmas party on the first Saturday of December and a picnic on the first Saturday in June. While at the picnic, we (grandparents) draw names of the grandchildren. I have three grandchildren so I draw three names. Those are the great-nieces or great-nephews that I buy for. We all bring food and our gift for the grandchildren whose names we drew. After we socialize a bit, we have our Christmas prayer and then we eat. Then one of the males (Josh last year, Caleb this year) will play Santa and suddenly appear to give presents to all the good girls and boys. The rowdiness suddenly stops and all the kids are sitting or standing in front of Santa with halos floating above their heads and letting him know, "Santa, you're the best man in the universe!" It's wonderful family time for us that we had been missing for years.

My second Christmas was in Virginia with Ashley and the oldest grandbabies, who wouldn't be able to come in for Christmas. We drove down there and spent a longish weekend (Friday through Sunday) and had Christmas there with them. The kids loved their gifts, as did Ashley and Cody, and we loved our gifts from them, too. It was sad leaving them behind. I wish so much they lived closer and we could all have been together for Christmas.

So now for Christmas Day. Everyone got here at around 3:45 and we tried putting Lillian in her Doc McStuffin motorized car, but after she realized it really would move, she wasn't having it. She liked honking the horn and playing "around" it but she was not getting in it. She did, however, love all her other gifts. The rest of us loved ours, too. It was a wonderful evening. The food wasn't too shabby, either...even if I do say so myself. At the end of the day I was happy, feeling God's blessings, and rejoicing in the love He has for us all to have given His precious baby, born to a virgin, in order to give me everlasting life.

And now we're in the last week of 2014 and it's time for New Year's promises and resolutions. But that'll be another post. I'm still sorting it all out.

I hope anyone reading this had a blessed and merry Christmas and I hope those blessings and joy continue throughout the new year. I'm anxious to see what 2015 has to offer and even more, what I  have to offer 2015.

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September 11 - We Will Never Forget

I wrote this several years ago. Rather than write about my feelings about this day, I will just post what I wrote a few years ago. Except that I absolutely do not feel safe under our president today, my feelings in the following are my feelings still today.

Today is the anniversary of a day I will never forget. Ten years ago on this date I worked for United Airlines. One of my coworkers called to see if I was watching the news, and together we sat there in total disbelief as we watched the second airplane hit the Twin Towers. The next several weeks I saw the coming together of a nation, unlike anything I've ever seen.

In the course of the next few weeks I heard many stories from our passengers, some typical of what we saw on the news, some unique. We had planes diverted and passengers stranded in cities and countries into which we didn’t even fly, but there was not a single complaint from any of them, some who might have been a little crabby for their inconvenience another time and place. They knew we were doing all we could do to get them home in a safe manner.

One man told me he was landing in NYC when the second plane crashed. He said his plane was like the Juan Valdez coffee commercial where everybody on the plane gathered to one side of the cabin in order to see what was going on with all the fire and smoke. They had no idea at that time what real horror they were witnessing.

Another man talked to me for 45 minutes or more, and most of those minutes he and I both were in tears. He overslept that morning and was late for work. He got there to find the city in utter chaos. His company had offices in one of those buildings, and he was now the only survivor from his office. Until his company figured out what to do with him, they gave him some vacation time. He called me to book a flight to some destination that I can’t remember. From his arrival point, he was going to rent a car that would take him to the deepest and most isolated area he could find, where he would have no access to TV, phone, or people. He was clearly having survivor’s guilt and was such a lost individual that day.

I took calls from people who used their own money to buy a ticket to fly to NYC to donate whatever skill or talent they had.  I took many calls from people who felt they had no talents or skills to donate, physical or otherwise, but they did have frequent flyer miles to donate. There were so many requests to donate miles that the airline set up a special account specifically for this. Those miles went to family members who wanted to be in NYC to look for their missing relative or to take care of children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews who were left orphaned. The airline flew many of these families and rescue workers for free. Some refused to take the free flights because they wanted to make sure anybody with no means to buy their own ticket would be able to use that account. Every day I was touched over the caring, the generosity, and the emotions of these people towards others who were complete strangers to them. I had phone calls from people who didn't want anything except to tell me, a United Airlines employee, that they were so sorry for what I was going through with our company losing employees and passengers from our airline. I can’t tell you how much I needed those calls. Me, a West Virginia hillbilly who had never set foot in NYC, never knew a single person in those buildings or on those planes except for one little girl who continues to haunt me today. One day I’ll write about her, but even these many years later it hurts too much to go there.

I got calls from people of Middle Eastern descent who lived in the US. Many of them apologized for the actions of a few deranged people who caused many Americans to despise their country and its people. They feared retaliation even though they were as horrified and outraged as any blond-haired, blue-eyed American-born citizen.

There were no conservatives or liberals. No black race or white race. No rich or poor. No city folk or country folk. We were one nation, one people, coming together as a family, each of us doing our part, whether it was donating time, supplies, equipment, money, or skills. Whether it was taking care of a family member or friend’s orphaned child, whether it was sitting in our homes in front of the TV crying and praying, or whether it was listening to a total stranger crying about his/her individual experience.

How sad that it takes a tragedy of this magnitude to bring us all together as a country, and maybe we’ll never see that again in my lifetime. But for a few weeks I saw the absolute best of every American to whom I came in contact, and I was, as I've always been and will continue to be, proud to be an American. This is what our forefathers set in motion.

Ten years later we seem to have divided again into our little categories of politics, race, gender, status, and groups. We argue as to whether the war had anything to do with the events of September 11, 2001. But no matter how we differ, no matter which issue in which we disagree, this tragedy continues to be a place where we still bond, still sympathize, are still angry, still hurt, still frightened, and still care. This tragedy was so globally horrific that we all have our own story about something that touched us in some way; someone we knew, something  we saw, that even the hardest and malicious of comedians don’t touch it. They’re hurt, too. We all hurt. As divided as we might be as individuals, we all united over this one date in history. We all love each other when we talk about it. We sympathize. We empathize. We experienced it together and that’s permanent, like family. Families may fight and argue, but if somebody outside our home tries to hurt one of ours, we unite, circle our wagons, and fight and protect. We will no longer be underestimated for how strong we are when we have this type of coming together.

I’m reminded of the great Gettysburg Address, and I think it’s fitting even today. When President Lincoln delivered this address, he underestimated the influence of his words and this great country when he said, “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here….”      

The world took note, Mr. President, and remembered then as the world takes note and remembers still today. Our ancestors and our future Americans will not have died in vain because, in President Lincoln’s words, “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

We stand just as strong today. That day will go down in the history books as the day that Americans united together as one. When we stand together, as we did that day, no disturbed person or group can possibly take us down. We will be fine. But we will never forget. 

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Busy Busy

What a month! It seems like it's been nonstop, but it's been a good month for the most part. I had a great time with the grandbabies. The oldest two were here a couple weeks ago for the weekend, from Friday until Sunday. We had a nice time here at home, going to visit with their baby cousin, and then having a nice family cookout (and pizza) at uncle's house on Sunday. 

We did attempt the hair dye thing. The purple was too light for the Girle's hair so we tried the pink. It was much brighter and she loved it! But we washed it out the next day. It made her hair really stiff and "yucky." Little man had blue hair dye but he wasn't having it. I hated seeing them go back home.  

Last weekend I had a good time. After church on Sunday we hung out with my oldest son and his fiance at the mall and then to eat. I love me some fish and chips! Then I went to the other son's house to do my ALS ice bucket challenge. I thought I could slide by without doing it when I was challenged the first time, but when I was challenged two more times after that, I figured I might as well get it done. Ohhhhh my goodness it was cold! 

Today I got some business stuff done and the rest of the day will be housework, decluttering, and organizing. And then play with my new Samsung Galaxy Tab4. I've been an Apple girl for years so I'm learning about Android and checking out what it can and can't do. So far I love it! 

Now it's exercise time before I get busy with my cleaning and decluttering...

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Testing from my phone

Did it work?

Sent from my iPhone

Update - Oh my! It worked! Go me!!

Next project: Make the sidebar font smaller so each title is on one line.

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Getting there

I'm starting to like the looks of my blog a little better. I don't have the font yet that I want. For some reason it's not showing up. It's okay...I'll get it there.

I'm counting down till I get to see my grandbabies again. They're coming in on Friday. My girlie wants to dye her hair purple, so I have some purple dye for her and pink for me. Hers will probably show up really good with her blondish-light brown hair. My black hair, not so much probably. We shall see.  :)  I have a feeling my little man will want his hair done, too, so he may have a little pink and a little purple both. I just pray it washes out easily as they said at the salon that it would. Otherwise, I'm going to look mighty goofy at church on Sunday.

I'm not "proofing" so if there are typos, I apologize in advance. In fact, I will apologize well in advance because I will most likely never proofread blog posts, so this will act as my disclaimer for all future posts.

~Till next time...

UPDATE:  Check me out!! I got my pretty fonts. Just a few more tweaks to the looks of it and we're ready to roll...

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Plain design

It would've been nice if I had something really cool and interesting to write about for the first blog on this link, but I don't. I can't get past the cheesy generic layout. I'll have to tweak that a bit and look for something really cool and go from there. But not tonight...

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