It's a wonder

I love this photo. Yes, even as blurry as it is.

Taken with a phone camera, not that it matters, as it would have

come out blurry no matter which camera I was using.

I cannot hold still.

Anyway, we were trying out a pizza place during a short vacation

spent in Hot Springs with the guys, back in May 2009.

Rod's Pizza Cellar, if it matters.

They make awesome meatballs.

Blurry and all, this photo tickles me pink.

It makes me feel extremely and unashamedly proud.

Those two guys are the best things I've done in my life.

I have learned so much from them, far more than they have learned from me.

When they were little, I learned that being a parent

doesn't guarantee you will always treat another human being

with the dignity they deserve.

I have learned what many of my own personal flaws are.

Perhaps those were the most poignant and painful

things to learn.

But look at those faces!

I know you won't see them as I do, which is okay,

since it's just a photo of a couple of guys in a pizza parlor.

It all happened so slowly, them growing into men.

I've lost a lot of the memories that were supposedly

stored in my brain over the last thirty-four years.

Damn biology.

But I retain the gist of their lives, if not all the details.

Frankly, it's a wonder that they turned out so well.

Which is mostly down to them.

Of that I'm very sure.

Well done, men.

It is my privilege to know them.

Being their mother is an added bonus.

So on this Mother's Day, 2012,

"Happy Mother's Day to all mothers and their kids."

Happy Mother's Day.. to me.

:)

I was born at an early age

I guess I shouldn't complain

about turning 59 today.

As they say, the alternative is worse.

:)

Wes and I arrived yesterday afternoon  

at Oliver's rented house

in Bella Vista.

The guys sang Happy Birthday to me

at a few minutes after midnight.

:)

I went outside this morning and snapped this

Happy Birthday Oh What A Beautiful Morning picture.

I've got some aches and pains, but we are

with Oliver and David,

so I can't help but smile.

:)

I also have the promise of going to

Johnny Brusco's for pizza later.

:)

Happy Birthday, old girl.

Edited to add pictures of my birthday dinner

at Johnny Brusco's in Bentonville:

Wes and Oliver,

Oliver and David,

and me.

We had a blast, did a little shopping on the way back to the guys place,

and now we are going to play the new Wii Mario Party 9 game.

Smiles all round.

:)

My sweeties

On Monday, Oli came down and surprised first me, and then Wes when he got home from work. We didn't know that Dave had called his brother and asked him to come down.

The guys went out shopping, and when they came back they surprised me with these lovely flowers.. carnations, statice and iris. I love them.. flowers and sons.

Dave had decided to go back home with his brother. We have noisy neighbours in the

apartment below us. :( So Oli was here for the one night, but we had fun going

out to a Chinese buffet restaurant, and then watching a few 'making of' Harry Potter

programmes. The next morning the guys went out and brought home some

nice fresh donuts. After a little more tv watching and some short

naps, the guys packed up and drove away.

Thank you for my lovely flowers, you guys.

xoxo...

A lovely day out

A Sunday outing, Wes, Dave and I to Garvan Woodland Gardens near Hot Springs, AR. It's a lovely place to walk in every season. It being early Spring this year, like since January (!), the tulips were in various stages of blooming. Some were already spent, and some were still pre-bloom, but most were standing tall in blankets of colour beneath the trees.

It was sometimes rainy, sometimes misty on the drive there from Little Rock, and low-lying clouds covered the tops of the hills.

We were really lucky that there was a break in the rain when we got to the garden. By the time Dave was finished - he walked farther into the garden than Wes and I did yesterday - the rain was just starting up again. We all enjoyed our time there.

As soon as we stepped out of the Welcome Center, we were greeted by these three residents of the garden, a peahen and her two peacock escorts.

And here are pictures of Wes and then me standing amongst the most glorious blankets of colourful tulips, and naturally, the photos don't do the colours justice.

A lovely day, worth blogging about.

I've been able to crochet a little bit lately, some scarves for charity.

Maybe I'll take a few pictures of them soon.

Cheers

Ins and Outs, Ups and Downs

This being unwell business is getting me down. It is lingering. Far beyond the few days I thought I'd be in for when this started last December 20th. It's nearly two damned months now, and there have been so many new manifestations of this unwellness that have hit me in that time. It as been a long two months of ups and downs. Sometimes I'm in, as in invalid enough to not be able to go out. And then I have a few snatched moments of slightly less broken downness when I've been able to get out of the four walls.

This photo is of the day after Oliver's birthday, when I cajoled the men to go walking the half-mile loop of the flat and easy Kingfisher Trail next to the Maumelle River at Pinnacle Mountain State Park.

That was my last out and about day. Since then I've been in because of another mysterious manifestation of my body's joyride with this mysterious unwellness which the doctors still haven't figured out. Whatever this has been, I am mighty tired of it. "You look depressed," noted a young doctor who saw me for the first time at the after-hours clinic a few days ago. Uh.. ya think, Doc? I use Doc lightly.

I guess I've been living under a delusion for the past two months. The delusion that the doctors would figure this out, and this would pass quickly, and my life would get back to normal. No such luck seems to exist in reality. Maybe that reality got stuck in one of the alternate universes.

Sorry, am I, for a less than cheery blog. Maybe I'm not meant to be in this blog space. Maybe my life isn't going to be one of those lives that people enjoy blogging about. Because up until now, this hasn't been much fun at all. I don't really see me keeping this blog going. Not unless luck, and my delusion, catch up to this universe's reality.

Many thanks to those three men in the picture up there. They are, still, my heroes.

Cheers, old blog.