Every Anniversary is A Gift

Today is my 37th anniversary of going to the DeKalb County courthouse in Decatur, Georgia, and getting married to a guy I met at a restaurant where I was doing food prep in the kitchen.  He was a cook there and night manager.  He was funny and loved to talk for hours at a time.

We were both 24 years old and not much education between us.  We liked different types of music, we had different tastes in just about everything.  We had a daughter by the time we were married two years.  That made our differences seem more noticeable and difficult to deal with.  We've had our bad times, for sure.

Now we've passed age 60 and have lots of fun together.  We appreciate our differences and celebrate all of each other's interests.

Steve loves to watch sports and we finally were able to get a big screen TV.  He has subscriptions online to read about sports.

I enjoy different destinations online, such as Facebooking with my cousins in Texas, keeping up with my favorite opinion forums, playing games and reading books.

We love watching birds at the feeders in the backyard.

We appreciate everything and try to keep complaints and critical remarks to a minimum.

Doing things apart is no problem - whatever the other person wants to do is fine.  That was hard to learn!  It involves total trust in each other.  But we learned to have each other's best interests at the top of our priorities.

I never did acquire an addiction to ball games like Steve has!  But my knowledge of music history and great performers has evolved and we appreciate listening together.  

He is my human, he belongs to me, and vice versa.  We have grown together like permanent friends will do.

I cannot imagine a better husband, or a better marriage.  I think this is as good as it gets.  Just my opinion, a'course!

Where Has the Time Gone!

These gorgeous gals are my Aunt Cali and my mom, Marta (in pink).  My mom will be 90 on Christmas Eve. This is a recent photo, taken by my cousin (Lieutenant) Micah, who graduated West Point a couple years ago, and graduated Ranger School after that. That kid has been through some training, to put it mildly!  So he and his wife Corinne were vacationing out west for a short time, and dropped by to see his grandma and his aunt, near L.A.

This summer has just flown by and now Zoe, the Terrific Grandkid has just about completed her first week in high school, already!  She is so excited about being in Drama class, taking French (after having to take Spanish, which she couldn't really get the hang of, in 8th grade), and getting into Jazz Band!  She's playing stand up bass and she's the only freshman - everyone else is juniors and seniors!

Zoe had a pretty good summer vacation, which started off in the Athena Music and Leadership Camp.  That was an intense week of music instruction and performing, all just for girls.  She made several friends and learned a lot!  She was the only bass, and so had the opportunity to play in the teachers' jazz group.  On the concluding day there was a big performance with all the girls playing different kinds of music, divided into types of instruments.  Then the whole band played, then the entire orchestra played, then the teachers' jazz group played.  They even had a drummer's circle, which was fantastic.  Zoe wants to attend next year so Grammaw is saving up.

After the music camp there was some resting time, and she went swimming, shopped for new books, spent lots of time with her girlfriends Caylee and Rieley.  They went to several movies and ate out at some nice restaurants.  They all love science fiction (putting it mildly), and have a lot of subjects in common in school.

Before summer vacation even started, Zoe got to go on the 8th grade trip to Savannah, GA!

After that, she got to go to Six Flags with the band!

Okay this kid is enjoying life, no doubt about it.

Spring, Then Everything

It's gonna be great!  This is a cedar bucket of elephant ear bulbs - how great they did!  This summer will be the third sprouting from those wonderful huge leaf bulbs.  I cannot wait to see all the other bulbs come up that are scattered all over the property here!  The hyacinths are peeking out already and they are gonna smell so good.

The other rosy bloom is Wonderful Grandkid, who is enjoying her 8th grade year so much!  This morning she and her grandfather worked together at school, painting scenery for the drama department. 

Yesterday we hauled her double bass around to the high school where the band evaluations were going on.  It was so much fun to see her perform with her school band in a very nice venue.  These new high schools are just beautiful.  And the band directors all do such a good job with all these kids.  They are lovable teachers, enthusiastic and funny.

I also love to watch funny shows with her, and laugh at the show and HER reaction.  It's lots of fun to show her clips from old movies like Unsinkable Molly Brown.  My Debbie Reynolds movie poster sparked a lot of interest in 60s era movies.  Fascination with movies never goes out of style and really bridges the generation gaps.

Music is another mutual interest we share - the Beatles music we sing with, play along with, analyze no end.  Mark Rivera just released a new album and every generation is crazy about it around here.  The Stones, the Cowsills, Jim Croce and James Taylor.  Music has never been more accessible and important in our lives than it is now, when teaching Grandkid and being taught by her.