Midnight Musings

I have some notebooks that I write down all of the quotes I find. Well, most of them. Some aren’t worth the effort of pulling the notebook out and writing it all down.

My collection grows a little bit every day since I subscribed to a site called “Inspirational Quotes” a week or so ago. A new set of quotes every day makes my day. I just wish I could say something that others would be impressed with enough to quote me. There is a quote I use frequently, said by my brother a few years ago when I asked him a question. “I don’t remember if I remember that or not”, one of the few things I DO remember that he has forgotten. My brother has a Ph.D in Homiletics, and taught at Brescia University for a few years before his health forced him to give up 2 of his 3 jobs, Chaplain at a convent, pastor of the neighboring parish, and professor at Brescia.

Funny thing about that brother. He had a “D” average in school before beginning High School. An IQ test there showed him to have the highest IQ in the history of the school. The former “D” student was just bored out of his skull for 8 years. He tried to teach me how to use the computer way back when I got my first one. Went through all the steps so fast I couldn’t keep up, then told me to “play with it” before leaving. Oh, I played with it alright! And ended up erasing the entire hard drive! Now that takes talent of a different kind! A kind I don’t recommend.

I began this post a few nights ago right at midnight, hence the title. It is now 5:43 a.m. at least a week later and I’m not sure what I was musing about that night, but it must not have been much since I saved the draft which included only the title and moved on to playing as many kinds of Solitaire as I could find, working a few jigsaw puzzles on the computer, colored a picture and did some word games while trying to get my brain to come up with something to write about. It hasn’t worked yet. I am definitely not a genius like my brother.

I do have 3 or maybe 4 quilts in progress at the moment while trying to embroider some flour sack tea towels for my granddaughter. Kinda too much to ever finish anything, but yet they all manage to get finished. I finally finished the quilt I started for my son’s birthday about 5 years ago, and just in time to give it to him this year — yesterday, in fact, letting him know it is for the past 5 birthdays. Fortunately he has a sense of humor.

Now I have to finish something special for my youngest kid who will have his 14th actual birthday next Thursday. He will be 56, or 14, whichever way you look at it. Since he mainly acts 14 I find it easy to treat him that way. But I still say he should have been a girl to really appreciate that special birthday. How I wish I only had a birthday every 4 years! I would be 20 again. Hmmm, 20 wasn’t all that great to be, so being a Leap baby might have a few drawbacks of its own.

The clincher is that my daughter, oldest child, has a birthday one week from the youngest. I call this birthday season, beginning with Feb. 22, ending with March 7, with all of us still wondering exactly how to say Happy birthday to Mike, Feb. 29! He wasn’t born yet on the 28th, and was a day old on March 1. I do keep threatening to call him at midnight to try to get in between the 2 days, but of all the times to fall asleep!

Okay, I’ve mused enough. I’m hungry and have some yogurt and a bag of popcorn waiting for me to dig in. It sounds disgusting as a snack — eating the 2 of them together, but some days it works. Other days it just makes me want to hurl! Oops, too much information there.

It’s another one of Those nights when sleep won’t come; or if it did it didn’t last more than an hour. So much to do and only 24 hours in a day to do it. I’ve heard that sleep is important but how do you sleep when you can’t?

t’You can lie in bed and toss and turn, but I can’You can lie in bed and toss and turn, but I can’t breathe in a bed so I sleep in a recliner with my head elevated. I also have quilts in progress, embroidery projects, myriad pillows, my cell phone, Kindle, TV remote and other items I find the hard way surrounding me. A real nest inhabited by a dodo bird.

A Story About Love

It was supposed to last forever but ended,30 years later.  For them it lasted a bit over 20 years and a little over two years ago we both lost him forever in this plane.

Last night I couldn’t sleep and I saw that she, the one I call”wife in law” was also awake.  I called her to check on her and just to talk for a while!  The conversation got around to him as it always does.  We each have our own memories and it is nice to share them with each other. He would have been 77 on January 6. I have come to realize that we each had a role to play and it was necessary for me to be the first when we were young.  I had the kids and three of them lived.  She had one of her own and by the time my role in his life was ending she was there for him.   They were the great love of each other’s lives and it was supposed to be that way.

We talked for over an hour, mostly about life after Edd!  He was a different person who was supposed to live forever, but passed from this life the way we all hope to go, spending the day on the farm he loved, planning his tomorrow, and passing in the night in his sleep!  I felt his loss as if it was the first time, but without the bad feelings I had the first time.  I wasn’t the one who had to make the call to the kids but I know how she must have felt.  It was supposed to last forever but ended on that October morning, just over two years ago.  We will keep on keeping on, each in our own way and each with our own memories, and at times when we are especially lonesome we will talk about our time with him and exchange the memories of our time together, each different but necessary for us all!  This is an ongoing story about love, ours and theirs, mine and hers and his.  It is gone for now but will live in our minds and hearts as long as we, the wives in law are around to remember and to check on each other!

If We Don’t Visit Again—

She will be helping us celebrate this Christmas!  Although I will probably never have the untold pleasure of holding this little angel in my arms, I am so happy I have the photos to keep me updated on this precious gift from God, little Victoria, now almost 2 months old and already a true beauty.  We are celebrating the birth of  two babies this year — the first one born in a manger because of no room at the inn, and this one, Victoria, born in a hospital with all the care deemed necessary for new babies and moms today.  The original new baby, born in Bethlehem, came to save us all.  The only thing we have to do is believe in the love He came to tell us about.  The new baby will have purpose, love in abundance, and all the comfort she needs to make it through what I pray will be a long and loving lifetime.  She definitely has the family to provide all that she needs.  My prayer is that she learns to know the difference between “need” and “want”.  She has the same potential to help change the world as every child ever born.  I know her parents, my grandson, Alan and his lovely and loving wife, Maggie, will do their parts to ensure this, but in the world today I can’t help wondering what will be ahead for them all.  Welcome to the world, Victoria.  May the baby born all those millennias ago keep you forever in His loving arms and may all the angels watch over you as you complete your journey from this innocence  of today into your future, hopefully long and happy.  And know that you all have a Grandma crazy in love with you!