Better Things

I’m enjoying the turnaround in things lately. I really do believe strongly in the power of positive thinking and it’s held me up again, where could have been brought way down, as it has many times. At it’s simplest staying positive is seeing the “but” in everything, realizing that it really could be worse when it’s bad and being grateful for the good things you still have. I think I might be a bit of a basket case if I hadn’t become somewhat of a master at it.

In the last few weeks, I’ve done poorly on my first test of the semester, had quite a few non-Wife 1500 compliant days and fallen behind n the scrapbook catching-up plan. That’s okay. I crammed that test in the middle of tending to my responsibilities for Grandma. I don’t regret that. Traveling for funerals/memorials and all of the necessary preparation made planning careful eating almost impossible. We even had a family dinner of fried chicken one night in Connecticut. When family is opening their doors to you, you don’t ask to be treated special at dinner. You take the fried skin off the chicken and load up on the asparagus! I don’t regret not being the ugly sister-in-law either.

Things are getting back on the track of organized now. I‘ve been having some major knee and back trauma. That pain is chronic right now and I live with it, but my back muscles have been really weak, so I’m not so up for going to the store. But we do have enough in the way of frozen, boxed and canned stuff that I’ve been able to get back on a solid Wife 1500 menu. I have a vitamin order coming in that will help too. I’m out of my glucosamine and condroitin and I’m adding vitamin C and E with my daily B12. These are all vitamins that increase oxygen, circulation and help to increase muscle strength.

I hope that I can feel up to getting to the grocery store tomorrow, at least for a short trip. I am dying for some fresh fruit and veggies! Specifically I want oranges, bananas, salad and zucchini. Well, okay, I always want zucchini! But I need to get the fixins for Valentines Day too!

No, my calendar isn’t broken. David and I were traveling home on Valentines Day, so we decided to celebrate it this Sunday. I’ll cook our traditional Lovers Shrimp Scampi and I need to make a call to Baskin Robbins to order a mini ice cream cake for dessert. We’ll still get our romantic evening for the holiday. We did share some half-off chocolates in heart-shaped boxes, but roses and shrimp don’t go on a half-off sale, neither do ice cream cakes. I hope I still get my flowers, but the romance is what’s important!

I’m hoping to get my catch-up plan running smoothly again on Saturday while David is working. I’ve still been dong 2007 layouts, but not quite one a day. I have kept up with Java 365 and I’ve been keeping up with them thanks to the Project 365/52 challenges at Digital Scrapbooking Studio and My Life and Scrap. A good challenge is a super way to keep you on top of things!

I haven’t posted my Java layouts since week 3, but I’ve been doing them! Here is the update:

Week 4

Credits: Papers from Morning Mocha collab
by Little Red Scraps and Nibbles Scribbles,
Template Project 365 J2 by Digitalegacies Designs

Week 5

Credits: Cozy Winter by Brenda at Millstream Cottage,
journal mat from Paperscraps Journal Papers by mITSYBELLE,
coffee tag on hook by Eileen Gery, other elements from
Morning Mocha collab by Nibbles Scribbles and Little Red Scraps

 

I just loved the shadow box in Brenda’s kit! I moved just a couple of the dividers and it became a perfect frame for the week!

Week 6

Credits: Kit – January 2010 PDW Color Challenge by Bubbles Babbles,
Template 30 by Sweet Tomato Designs, Font: Lima Bean

Of course even if late, when you see a Digitalegacies template in the credits, like in Week 4, it usually means a freebie. After reading all of my woes today, don’t you think you deserve a freebie?

Click to preview to go to the download.
The password is more-coffee.

As always, I LOVE comments at The Chronicles of Nani and if you use any of Digitalegacies stuff, I’d love to see your work!

Stay tuned to The Chronicles of Nani for an answer to Edna’s query about the black eye I mentioned in a sponsor-post a couple weeks ago and another freebie I’m finishing up.

Thanks for stopping by!

Photoblog Wednesday

Nap-time: Carla and Kaline

We have waited three and a half months to take this photo!!!

Now, I want a three-shot!

Great Women Are Not A New Idea

As I told you about, it’s been a sad and stressful time in my world. In two week’s time, David and I have celebrated the lives of and said ”goodbye” to two very important women to us. But I’m mourning, healing and moving on. It would be such a dishonor not to.

In 1925, Wonda Lemonovich and Kathryn Patch were born just days apart in different geographical, economic and social American worlds, but with the same walls facing them in the way those worlds looked at the “limitations” they were born with because of their gender.

The World War 2 era did not force either of these women into a role of assertiveness or leadership and it didn’t make them have to ”act” intelligent. It made it possible for them each to allow their natural abilities to shine and never hide them again.

For Kay, it was a position with a federal agency that gave her status, rank and travel. Then she went to law school while still working for the government, finishing with the highest marks in her class.

Grandma eloped at 19 years old and her only child was born while her husband was stationed with the Navy in the Pacific. She was effectively surviving as a single parent in the mid 40s! When her husband came home and after their daughter started school, she started working outside of the home in retail for the Kresgee Company. When they took the initiative to move women into management positions, Grandma was one of the first they asked.

Neither one grew up to meet the expectations of the typical baby girl born in 1925.

In 1966, I met Wonda Lemonovich. I was the first of her two grandchildren. I was loved and spoiled as grandchildren usually are, but the greatest gift Grandma gave me was something I wouldn’t even realize she was or could give until I was an adult. Grandma gave me the best definition of “normal” a girl could ever ask to grow up with.

Women are just as strong as men. Women have the same courage as men. Women are intelligent, skilled and driven, just like men. A woman is as capable on her own as a man is on his own, but to be truly in love and build a successful marriage where you put in just as much as he does is something to really strive to find and not something to settle for anything less than perfect for you. A woman cooks for her spouse when he’s working later and is always welcomed with a hot meal on the table when she is. Women set examples that many men and other women will follow. A woman earns professional respect from her superiors and subordinates be cause she works for it. A woman can do, can have, anything she wants. All she has to do is go for it.

That was the definition of “normal” I grew up with. I fight for things I believe just “should be” because I really can’t imagine them not being that way. I don’t give up, I don’t settle. That’s just not normal. I have been successful as a student, an employee and a manger. I feel pretty respected by the people in my world and I’ve never heard “for a girl,” as a qualification from anyone who mattered unless it was in jest. Grandma adored the man I told her was finally someone I could love like she loved Papa. I’m a pretty normal person. Thanks to Grandma, I’m normal because I KNOW, I can do anything.


With her consuming professional commitments, Kay married a generation later than Grandma did and had her first child just weeks before Grandma’s first grandchild was born. It was many years after 1966 that I met Kay for the first time, but that first child of hers was key in our meeting! Kay and I met at Christmastime in 2005. That first child was bringing me home to introduce his family to his girlfriend.

Kay’s mental and health decline had started before we met, but I remember that she was friendly and giving of herself and her time. She sat with me and we talked. She was eager to know me, to approve of the new woman in her son’s life. Some of the things she said were reminiscent of things my Great-grandmother said when she was in the beginning of her mental decline, but there was a strength and a warmness in her eyes I couldn’t help but feel, I couldn’t help but recognize. It was that same strength I grew up knowing in Grandma. Kay had been a powerful woman and still was.

In the few years that followed, I saw her mental and physical condition worsen, but I also saw a smile of recognition and love when she was at lunch or visited by both of her sons together. In all of her accomplishments, they were still the ones in which she seemed to have the greatest pride.

At her memorial service, David and his brother, Ben, both shared thoughts and stories of their Mother. Part of David’s included sharing emails he’d received from people who weren’t able to be there. One of the emails was from Vanessa, David’s ex-wife. Vanessa had the privilege of knowing Kay when her health was good and her mind still keen.

Vanessa described her former mother-in-law as a “superior person.” She said there were two kinds of superior people. The first kind was one who made you feel smaller in their presence. The second made you feel as if you were more. She said Kay was the latter of the two, that she made people feel richer for having known her. I truly believe that.


I remember after meeting Kay, telling Grandma about her. She always asked me how David’s Mom was when we talked on Monday nights. Kay was already in assisted living, but Grandma mentioned many times that she’d love to have the opportunity to meet her. At the end of last year, Ben and David were making plans to move Kay to a nursing facility nearer to David and also less costly than where she was with the same level of care. Grandma had been living at Caretel Inns in Linden, Michigan, and I had mentioned the wonderful care she was getting there at just below average costs for a nursing facility in Michigan. A room was open and Kay moved there just last month. Sadly, Grandma and Kay could have sat at the same table and not realized it by then.

When we brought Kay in, I spent some time with Grandma and told her that she was a neighbor now. She acknowledged that, but I don’t think she really understood that I meant Kay was living just down the hall from her. A week later, Grandma had a stroke over night and was in very bad shape. I knew it was nearing the end.

After spending some time with Grandma, who opened here eyes once, but didn’t really seem to see me, I kissed her goodbye and told her I loved her. Then David and I walked down to the TV area where Kay was. I put my hand on her shoulder and said, “Hi Kay!” She didn’t recognize me, but she seemed to know I was someone she was pleased to see because she gave that warm smile I loved to see from her so much.

That ended up being the last time I saw them both. Grandma passed just a couple days later and Kay’s heart rate had drastically fallen soon after we returned from the funeral and she too left us.

Emotionally we’re a little emptier for the losses, but the world is definitely better and richer for the barriers these two great women refused to even notice.


David wrote both the obituaries.

Grandma’s Obituary:
Kay’s Obituary:

Extended Stimulus: $6,500 Tax Credit

This is cool information to have if you are looking into or are in the process of moving and I know I’ve been reading blogs that tell of people moving. The US government’s tax credit for first-time homebuyers that was scheduled to expire in November 2009 has been extended!

In the extension, the 2010 Tax Buyer Credits, which go until April 30, 2010, with a closing by June 30, 2010, first-time homebuyers are eligible for an $8,000 credit. First-time homebuyers are defined as anyone who has not owned a home in the past three years. But there’s more, more of us included in the tax credits! If you are a current homeowner, you may qualify for a $6,500 Tax Credit. To qualify for the “move-up” credit, you must have lived in your home for five of the past 8 years.

The income limitation to be eligible for the credit is $125,000 a year for an individual and $225,000 annually for a family. The new home you’re purchasing must be valued below $800,000. It’s a pretty large sphere of eligibility.

According to information I read at the Coldwell Banker site, buying a new home not only helps in creating new jobs or at least creating some job security for people, but one new home purchase adds up to $60,000 to the local economy. Just in case buying a new home and the tax credit isn’t enough to make you feel good!

So, if you’re moving into a new home soon or thinking about making a switch, click that link above and check it out! A little credit never hurts!

Long Time No Write!

My Mother did tell me that when you don’t have anything nice to say, better to say nothing at all…unless you can make good changes by speaking up! Unfortunately the last few weeks haven’t been ones where I could affect any changes at all. I just needed time to deal with things.

You know from my last posted entry that my Grandma passed away on January 26. I had crammed my first test in for my XHTML/CSS class, that is I took it quick and distracted the very day before Grandma passed. As far as the grade goes, well, it’s a grade I didn’t think they gave in college because I hadn’t seen one since I was in high school. It brought my semester grade down more than a full letter! That was the very smallest of my challenges.

I had thank you cards to send after the funeral and so many things to attend to with Grandma’s estate, but a week, to the day, after Grandma passed and just after we got back from her funeral, David called me from the hallway at work. His Mom had just passed away. There was one funeral for my relatives and one for his, but two for us in a span of 2-1/2 weeks, one him holding me together and on me returning the support.

Yeah. I’ve been a little too wrapped up in life stuff to blog!

We just got back from our unexpected trip to Connecticut a couple hours ago. I have another test this week, due by Wednesday, that I’ll be really consumed with preparing for tomorrow, so the Monday Mug Shot will return next week, but I ought to have things back on track for Photoblog Wednesday.

In the next few days look for a little about two wonderful, progressive women born in 1925, who touched my world with my admiration for their accomplishments and gratefulness for their loving and nurturing maternal fruits as well. There is also scheduled a look at progress on Java 365 with at least one freebie this week, My “country bumpkin” showing with pondering in shock, “pork tartare?” and my thoughts on becoming the family matriarch.

Back SOON!