Friends

Heaven has another angel this morning. One of my dearest friends passed away last night, in Oregon. Linda Spignesi Ponci was one of my friends when I lived in Spangdahlem, Germany. Her daddy was in the Air Force, just like mine. Linda and I and our friend Dawn got together two years ago for a girls weekend. We had a great time. The three of us hadn't been together in forty years, so it was quite a reunion!! Linda flew down from Oregon to Florida. I took my first train ride and went to Florida. We met up with our friend Dawn, who lives in Lakeland, Florida. Dawn got us a really nice room in one of the Disney resorts, and we spent the day at one of the parks. I cannot remember what it is called. Anyway, we had a great time talking about high school, Germany, and the musicals we were in together. Of course, we had to sing all of the songs! Linda has had some stressful times in the past few years. Her father passed away this summer from ALS, and her younger sister passed away a few years ago from colon cancer. Earlier this week, Linda had a brain aneurysm. Her husband found her unresponsive and without a pulse. He did CPR, and the ambulance took her to Portland. She had some type of coil surgery done, and they thought she was going to make it. Unfortunately, her brain had already swollen. Last night they said she had no brain activity, and she passed away after taken off life support. Please be in prayer for her husband and family. Linda was a great friend, and she will be truly missed. Here is a fun picture of us at our girls weekend at the Disney park! Linda is the one on the right side.

Dawn Grant up top Linda Spignesi on the right Dewilla Hooper on the left

Another Saturday Morning

Well folks, it is Saturday again, and I am up early. What in the world is wrong with me? HAHA! I suppose it could be the fact that I go to bed so extremely early that makes me get up early. I am so worn out and tired each day from work, that I go to bed like a kid around 7 or 8. Fridays are especially tiring, so I go to sleep early on those nights, too. I guess I'm getting OLD! Today, I have no plans. Maybe I can get the Christmas things put up into the attic. Yes, I said Christmas things. Last Saturday, I finally took down the tree and put everything into two tote boxes. I just sat them in the boxes very gently, without their own little boxes or coverings. I hope they are okay. The real Christmas boxes are in the attic, but I cannot get them all down by myself. So, all of my Christmas things are still piled high in the living room. Perhaps some nice, strong person will saunter over here today and help me get the boxes down from the attic. After I fill them up, maybe another nice person will come by and help me put them into the attic. You know what, though, I should just keep them downstairs. The problem with that is that there is nowhere in this house to PUT them!! Next month, I like the sound of that, next month my new baby granddaughter will arrive. It just doesn't seem possible, but it is going to happen! We are all so very excited! Rachel is doing very well with her pregnancy. She will work up until she has her little girl. She is hoping to be able to stay off work the rest of the school year, but she isn't sure if that will work out. They give you a certain amount of time off, and if you have more sick leave built up, you can stay off longer, If not, you take leave without pay. That is not fun. So, I am up and messing around on the computer. It is nice and quiet around here, and I enjoy keeping up with things and searching for nonsense and stuff like that. Hey, it passes the time away! I am anxious for another pleasant Saturday with nothing in particular looming over my head that I HAVE to do. Have a great weekend everyone!!

Saturday Ramblings

I'm UP! For a Saturday morning...to be up at 7 am...that is an amazing feat!! I'm not sure what happened, but I woke up and kept thinking weird thoughts, so I got UP! I have a new little camera, and I am going to attempt to get some pictures on here from it. I finally took the plunge and bought an actual camera, rather than the phone camera. I hope the pictures turn out alright. Sam's has a lot of different types of cameras, and I opted for a very small one, a Canon, and it is BLUE. I figured that I might be able to find a blue one, vs. a black or gray one, when it gets lost..and I'm sure it will get 'lost' many times! This little camera actually fits into one of my little change purse thingys that I have, so that is terrific. I have the battery charger in a little blue zip up thing that I got from the teacher's union (that holds my phone charger), so now I am all set for baby pictures - and even videos!! I went to Rachel's house last night and took some pictures of the baby's room to see if the colors turn out better than the ones I have from my Iphone camera. After about an hour of fiddling with downloading software and finally getting the date and time set on the camera, I am ready to put a few pictures on here. I forgot all about the fact that the only thing that I really needed to do to get pictures was to put the little disk in the computer and copy them! Oh well...at least I found out how to work a few things on the litte camera! Pictures from Rachel's baby stash!!

I know that some of these pictures do not look like they are in the baby's room, and you are correct. Some of the pictures are in the living room and dining room. They are pictures of the big items that Rachel and Don have had fun putting together, like the Car seat, strollers, etc. They are having a grand time learning how to use everything!

Rachel and Don had a family shower yesterday. Amelia and Kendall came all the way from Alabama to be with us!! Yippee! Our Epworth friends came to help us celebrate, also. We had a great time!!

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Romeo and Juliet and the Ballet

My favorite play of all time is Romeo and Juliet. I can't help it. I always envisioned myself playing Juliet, in my younger days. I knew most of the lines. I did bits of her parts in acting classes and such. I first became enamored of this play when I was in the ninth grade. I lived in Spangdahlem, Germany at the time and went to high school in Bitburg, Germany. The wonderful movie version of Romeo and Juliet was released during my freshman year of high school, and it actually came to our small Air Force Base in Germany. So, all of the high school English classes got to go to the theatre to see it. I was SOLD!! I loved the story then, and I still love the story today. I especially love the music that was written for the movie version. That tune is really special to me. A few months ago, the Romeo and Juliet ballet began to be advertised in the paper. I knew that I just HAD to go see it and take my daughter and my nieces. I kept this thought to myself, though, not knowing whether or not I would really get to go. Rachel used to take dance, and she was really good. My niece Lauren took dance at her school, and she loves ballet. So, I finally went to the Civic Center and bought the tickets this past week. I got seats pretty close to the front of the auditorium, and we all enjoyed being close enough to see the facial expressions as well as the dances. The classical music, by Sergei Prokofiev, is rather daunting and heavy, so the dancing was really slow and flowing. There were no high jumps, not a lot of spins across the stage, or any really fancy stuff, but the story was told very lyrically and beautifully. The choreographer did a wonderful job of storytelling through dance. The company that performed here is the State Ballet Theatre of Russia. They used recorded music, and that was not so great. I would love to see a ballet using a full orchestra, but that would cost loads of money and require a trip out of town somewhere like New York!! No matter, the ballet was great. I have been thinking about it all day, and I dreamed about it last night. I have done several YouTube searches today to see if any performances of other troupes might be there. Yes, they are. I can see that all of the ballet companies do the same sort of slow, lyrical dancing to Prokofiev's music. This experience was a great start to a long weekend. I hope you all have a great one, too.

Gone A Visitin'

The art, or practice, of going visiting seems to have gone by the wayside (along with many other 'old' traditions). My cousin called me up yesterday morning and asked me if I would like to drive to Sylvania to see some of our older cousins. My mamma and aunt have some first cousins who still live in the "country" town of Sylvania, GA. Since both of our mammas are gone now, it is up to us to keep up the family connections. There is a family reunion during the first weekend in December, but we have missed the last two and haven't seen this part of the family in a while. Anyway, we went visiting yesterday. I remember going visiting very fondly. We used to go to visit relatives or family friends on a Sunday afteroon, or we might just take a nice drive on a Sunday afternoon. Nobody visits anybody anymore. I am not sure why, but this practice has gone out of style. I suppose it could be the busy lifestyle that everyone leads that keeps us from doing this. It could be that people just do not want other people in their homes anymore. Whatever the reason, it is a lost art. My mamma and my aunt were the only children that my grandmother had. Her sister, however, had eight children. Of the eight, only three are still living. Mina and I visited those three yesterday, and all three of them were so very excited that we came! The day was so bright and pretty, and the weather was perfect for being out and about. We had a terrific day just mosying down the highway and stopping by for a chat without having to worry about hurrying or anything like that. It was a nice, calm, peaceful, and relaxing day. When we got back to Savannah, we stopped at my daughter's house. She had called me up and asked me to stop by to see all of the baby gifts she had gotten at her baby shower the night before. She found a neat way to decorate a wall in the baby's room with letters of the alphabet. Each person invited to the party was assigned a letter to bring. So, she has all sorts of letters, different sizes, shapes, colors, etc. Most of the people decorated their letter, so each letter is distinctly different. Rachel also cooked dinner for us. Her mother in law and a friend stopped by, also, so we all had a nice little visit. This was a nice way to round off a very pleasant day. So the next time you need something fun to do, just Go A Visiting!!!!!!

BABY SHOWER NUMBER ONE!!

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Rachel's friend, Lila, gave Rachel a baby shower last night. Enjoy!