Party like it's 2008

Wow, what a day Saturday (yesterday) was! Too many events crammed into too little time. Well, what am I saying? It was just the right number of events but I just couldn't attend them all properly. But I put forth a good effort.

First event on Saturday was the 10th Annual Citizens in Action from 9:00 to 2:00. I didn't make the 9:00 opening because of sleeping in later than I can remember doing for years and years. Nearly until 9:30, in fact, and then I still had to shower, mess around with the bread. It’s probably a natural effect of staying up until 2 or 3 AM for most of this past work week. As always, there were some very good workshops and seminars, all free. The topics this year were: Campaigns & Elections, Environment, Jobs, Discrimination, Health Care, Public Safety, Education and Housing. Hard to select just one from that grouping! Anyway I managed to arrive by 12:30 and the Coffee and Conversation with Elected Officials. I had my first cup of coffee since September 2007 (did have 2 sips in the hospital room when Odin was born) and not only was there coffee, but free food too: fruits and vegetables, chips and salsa, anniversary cake, meat and cheese and crackers. There is such a thing as a free lunch! Went to the Environment discussion group and met some interesting people including a very cool Sierra Club guy and a activist into mining, a zoning expert and many more. Later, at the closing I met an interesting woman who raised chickens in the city. If you’ve been reading my blog in the past, you know that’s an interest of mine. So I signed up for a Raise Chickens in Town group.

Once I got home I needed to finish the bread I was making for the Greens Soup and Bread Fundraiser and also wrap the gifts for the Girl’s Christmas Party. I really didn’t feel like wrapping all of those gifts, for 5 people at 3-5 gifts apiece, so used those pretty little Christmas bags. But only had 3 of them and needed 5 so guess what? You can make a credible gift bag by taking a sturdy (co-op) bag with a handle and covering the bag and the handles with Christmas wrap! It sounds tacky but actually looked pretty nice when I was done. The bread turned out awesome, the best I’ve ever made! In fact, although it sounds quite immodest, it is also the best bread I’ve ever eaten. Ingredients make all the difference: stone-ground whole wheat flour, a bit of cornmeal, yeast, sea salt and olive oil for the kneading. Wow! I don’t eat much bread since mostly eating raw but the bread I do eat is always home-made now.

Barely finished cutting up the bread and putting it on a tray and packing the gifts into the Christmas bags when it was time to go to the Girls Christmas Party. It was fun and I was in a goofy mood by then but it took far too long to open the gifts and it was going on 8 PM before I left, which is why I’d been trying to get them to change it to Sunday, like we had first talked about. But I couldn’t really just grabthe gifts to me and leave earlier, now could I?

The Soup and Bread Funraiser site was DARK by the time I got there. Oh oh, I had promised to meet a friend I hadn’t seen for ages and she was going to network me with a guy who lives at the co-op where I want to live. But she had told me they were going to the Sustainable Farming’s second showing of the film: King Corn so I quickly headed up to the school where it was being shown. I’d been planning to see that film with them after the funraiser anyway. Friend was pretty cool to me after the movie. She had been going to do me a favor and I was a no-show. Plus the funraiser was not well attended so they really could have used more attendees there. Great film! Check it out at:

King Corn

After the film we headed off for the (third annual?) Diorama contest held in the gym of the co-op where I want to live! There were live, great local bands, lots of dioramas, of course and free food and beer!! It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a kegger and I foolishly brought my coat and backpack into the crowded mass of people. Most were young but there were a few gray-hairs here and there, too. All the hip and happening people in town were there, including our new boy-mayor. It was the second time in a day that I’d seen him because he was at the Citizen’s in Action event as the closing speaker, too. The dioramas were so very interesting that I wish I’d brought my camera. Next year my friends and I need to make one for the contest. Friend came a bit later and warmed up to me after a while and a group of us went upstairs to see the guy’s apartment. The co-op is in an old school building and the ceilings are high, windows large, wood floors and wide open space just begging for some decorating creativity. Oh how I want to live there! There are 2 openings right now but my house isn’t even on the market yet and those openings are highly competitive, there is an application and interviews to even be considered. The apartment had a 30-pound Maine Coon Cat, the second one I've seen. What a sweetie, named Chairman Meow.

Below is a link to some photos of the Dioramas that were taken early before the bands started playing and the place filled up.

Diorama Photos!

If the photos in the link above don't open for some reason, try going to his Photo Gallery Index Page and selecting the Dioramarama galley. These photos are worth viewing!

As I was walking back up the hill to my car, a police car was sitting in the intersection, just waiting for the kegger people to leave and get into their cars. SLA and Houseguest both have had a DUI last year and I did not want to join them, so messed around in the car until the cops weren’t looking and quickly left for home!

I can just look at him for hours

Here is Odin Richard not liking his new carseat. His grandfather and stepgrandmother bought it for him. I can just look at him and everything is all right. All's right with the world when I remember his soft, warm skin and lovely baby scent. I didn't have a clue how I was going to pay the mortgage this month but then an insurance check came a day ago. It's supposed to be used to pay for all those tests last summer and the physical therapy. Oh well, I'm in the moment and all is well! Hope all goes well with you, also. If I stop clogging up my dial-up with uploading photos, maybe I'd actually have time to read your blogs. I miss you!

Here he is!

And here he is, brand new. Bet he already looks a bit different now, how I want to go to see him again! But it's money, always money. It costs too much to go down there right now as my vehicle doesn't get good gas mileage at all.

Things are getting closer to putting my house on the market again. The carpet is laid in the basement (which my friends made so many jokes about it that I started saying, the carpet has been "put down", or "installed" in the basement.

SLA is upset with me, as of last night, because I may bail out early on "The Girl's Christmas" that she had planned for the past two weeks to occur this upcoming Saturday. I feel like a bad friend but it's on a Saturday, when she told me that we weren't going to do it on a Saturday. Plus (and this is the bad friend part of it) another friend I haven't seen since October called me last night. Her organization is having a soup and bread fundraiser to which I attend every year--and it's on Saturday. And she is going to introduce me to a friend of hers who lives in that cool co-op that I'd really like to live--you know, the one I saw last summer that had a garden and chickens! It's hard to get into that co-op, there are applications, interviews, screenings and such to make sure the new tenant is a good fit. This connection might help me out quite a lot.

And to continue the bad friend part of it, I just saw SLA a day ago when I brought her to the grocery store after work. She has no car anymore, which is hard. But she also hasn't worked since July and doesn't plan to. I don't know how she does it but apparently there is aid and all, plus she's trying to get back on Social Security. Have to admit I'm a bit envious--imagine not having to work! There are so many lovely things to do with a free day, even without any money, as I found out when taking off all those days in December. So I'm not only a bad friend, but a somewhat envious one, too. And I feel a bit used with the car ride bit. She calls up for a ride, we go to the store, shop separately and then I bring her home, help carry in the groceries and that's it, friend time is done. I'm not feeling OK with that but feeling guilty for not feeling OK, if that makes any sense whatsoever!

Well, I've also been a bad (or rather, non-existant) blogger. I DO really enjoy reading your blogs and honestly do plan to do it again very soon. This photo and post was done between a nice warm bath, exercise, lunch-making, dressing and other preparations for work. And now the time is done. Maybe another day? Take care you all and stay warm!

Grandbaby is here!

He's here, he's here! Yes, I said "he" even though his mother and her family thought he'd be a girl. In fact the first thing her little sister (a teenager) said when arriving at the hospital room was, in a accusing voice "You broke the chain!" It was a chain of girls for (I think) five generations. My family has had mostly all boys. My Mom has seven grandsons. I was the last girl until my oldest brother's oldest son had a girl for his second child seven years ago (she's my Mom's greatgrandchild). I thought he'd was going to be a boy because of our family chain, but kept that info to myself because either would have been fine. Today is my son's birthday, so grandbaby was born five days before his Dad's birthday.

I have photos, of course. What self-respecting Nana would NOT carry around a brag book of pictures? I'll put some here eventually, but don't have time today because the computer is so slow at loading them and then uploading them into the blog. I've just been back in town for a little while and have already shown off my grandbaby brag book to three people! Today will be my first day back at work again. I've been off another batch of days for family leave. The benefits at my job are really good, one of the reasons I'm still there.

The stats: He was born on January 10th, I was in the delivery room for his birth and in fact, was the first non-medical person to see that fuzzy little head emerging. His little hands were waving around before he was all of the way out into the world. He was 8 pounds 12 oz, 22 inches long. And the most adorable, wonderful and cute baby ever, of course!

It was so hard to leave him (and them) and return back home. I can still feel that warm little weight on my chest. I held him and rocked him gently for three hours straight the last morning I was there, so his parents could get some sleep. He'd been waking up all night to nurse because he was hungry and her milk isn't in yet. Poor little guy. I think I would have supplemented the natural milk supply to not starve him so, but I'm finding that while he feels like a child of mine--he's NOT my child. I'm not responsible for him nor do I get to make the important decisions regarding him. It's a learning curve for a nana too. But mostly it's pretty sweet to get all of the joy and excitement of a new baby and none of the pain and labor involved! Grandchildren are truly a reward for having raised your own children!