Thoughts of approaching summer 2018

On this Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend, spring is definitely giving way to summer. I sit reading a book in my shady living room, with the doors and windows open and the sound of my husband chopping kindling fills the air, even though it has been too warm to use the woodstove much lately. We use more kindling on these days with only a brief fire to take the chill off the morning, than on the bitter cold days when we never let the fire go out.



Life has been fairly consistent for us for a couple decades, and the changes of aging have been slow enough to mostly ignore. Our children grew up but grandchildren appeared to fill our rooms once more with a jumble of toys and our laps with snuggly
hugs.


In three weeks my husband stops being a music teacher, after 29 years. But he goes year round teaching at the big prison down the road. GED prep classes instead of music. Sadly working in a prison he will get paid a lot more and be a lot more secure that working with children in a public school. It reminds me of the medical insurance willing to pay to treat diseases but not for the much smaller preventative care.

Speaking of medical care, I am still trying to get a diagnosis on the degenerative issues I have been having health wise. It seems to be hard to get an answer but the loss of simple little abilities continues. So my goal for summer is to keep moving, develop enough coping strategies to regain some flexibility and strength while also keeping up on Dr visits. I also want to de clutter the house, turning what was once a playroom but became storage as my kids grew up and moved out, back into a playroom for my three grandchildren and their cousins. And the last big goal is to become more active as a writer again, not just writing on Facebook but finishing my eighth book and getting back into the marketing of the ones I have already published.

But when Fall rolls around, the only goal I will feel like a failure for not achieving is the goal to be there for my boys turned men, and their children. Grandma time is more important than everything else

Things To Be Thankful For

 I was driving home through a Redwood tree grove and along a pristine river and through a sheer canyon. It was just another commute home after a day working with wonderful children and supportive peers.  I was still feeling a bit down and exhausted, the time change making everything feel later than it was.  I had absolutely no reason to feel anything less than thankful, but I wasn't feeling it.

 When I got home, I decided to drag out the one pumpkin I'd saved from being carved into a Jack-o-lantern and try a new, very old recipe I'd seen that claimed it was the type pumpkin pie that the Pilgrims would have made. It surely wasn't a pie, just a simple egg and cream and sugar flan baked in a pumpkin shell, and it came out very much not tasting of pumpkin.  However just that little bit of change, stepping outside the daily routine, seemed to reset my mood and allow me to feel awake and happy again.

 I know, sugar is poison, but baking is still one way I feel myself connect to my grandma and my mom.  I reach to my roots where my soul is nourished.

 Then I got the granddaughter and we went to the park, running between rainstorms to climb and slide and swing. And this local park also has a redwood trail to explore. In this rainy season the slugs and mushrooms are abundant.

My mailbox brought me a book written by a facebook friend

My new waffle iron made bowls which demanded a caramel sundae instead of syrup

 And old friends sent me old pictures of my Mom and new pictures of my brother Lance.  Life was reminding me, again and again, that it is good to be alive.

My Brother and my Niece

My Granddaughter was Princess Poppy Troll for Halloween

Mom and her extended family in about 1946. ! of many old pictures that were sent unexpectedly from an old family friend.

mom

Mom, with her cousins and grandparents

Mom

 So when the rain returned, we simply grabbed the rubber boots and kept on playing.

Looking forward to 2017

I have ever been one to cherish the idea of a new year, a new season, a fresh chance to evaluate and change my life. That doesn't seem odd to me, even though my life is usually one I am thankful for. Even being mostly content, I have always seen the things I do wrong, and wanted to do better. I like the clean slate, the fresh journal. I buy blank books to write diary entries in, or begin a novel, or fill with poems. Nine out of ten times I fill no more than five pages, and then the book loses its freshness and sits, abandoned.  I don't just do this for January First, either. I will hold the same hopes and dream of new beginnings each Fall as well, because after 47 school years, the start of the year for me, really is when school begins.

I've heard a lot about how bad 2016 has been, and it hasn't been an easy year for sure, but it has had moments of pure joy. It has had laughter and hugs and growth. It has had the birth of my grandbaby boy. I published my 7th book, and my husband and granddaughter both like it so far. I earned enough money that we have less bills now than this time last year. I hate that hate has dominated so much of the global news this year, but refuse to let it change who I am.

What are my goals for 2017?
Do I want to write a long list of small things I've been tolerating and then go through and start fixing them?
Do I want to choose a focus word and leave it at that? Maybe simply, "Love" because the world needs it still, and yes, my mind did break into song.
Do I want to challenge myself to a poem or a photo or a page of writing every day?
Do I want to work on health or finances or . . . .?


I haven't quite decided yet which direction to go. Finding the answer is not always the goal, sometimes just thinking through the process is enough to make me realize I love my life. I've connected with some family but lost touch with three people who really are important to me and somehow I need to reach out to them, for my own sake even if they don't need me to too.  I'm excited and curious and a bit fearful of 2017, but I'm buckling in for the ride.

What happened to May through August??!

I was going to be so good at everything. Keeping up on a blog, teaching, being a wife and mom and grandma and a writer and making an old house into a warm, welcoming home. Well, just the fact that I haven't written an update here since April proves the lie to that.  But I'm still trying.  Most of this blog, for a year has bee dedicated to updates about my brother Lance, so let me tell you a bit about him first.

The ninth is my Brother, Brett's third wedding anniversary. I didn't talk to him, Lance says they are on a trip, but I did talk to Lance today. He is very happy, still can't eat enough to take out feeding tube, because the exit from his stomach had narrowed and he doesn't recover well from surgery, but he visited Mom today and had lunch with her, he can eat things like soup, pudding, ice cream, cheese. he was sad, their dog died this week, but he is taking choir, computers and woodshop at Virginia college and stays a couple nights each week in a dorm. That is something he is thrilled about, even the homework. He says mom is happy and he insists she is getting better. When I talk to her she is confused but not totally, often less sure of time and place but more aware of who people are.  Lance is already planning his October 24th birthday when he will turn 41, with TGI Friday's CheeseSticks and Ice Cream Cake from Dairy Queen.   
cards are of course much anticipated
 Lance has a cell phone (540)-359-1413 and you can send cards and pictures and letters to him or to Mom at the same address

  Lance Miller /PO box 865/ Middleburg, VA 20118


 He also has his Mutant Ninja Turtle Halloween Costume planned and the sooner October gets here, the happier he will be.

My husband's Dad on the same redwood stump two decades ago

As for the rest of us, Daisy and her dad, (My youngest son) are living with us, and we are having fun being grandparents. My oldest son also has a four month old son, so I haven't even been on the blog since baby Gavin entered our life.  It is wonderful to see how fast he is learning to interact and laugh and be happy to see grandma.

I am teaching a Severely handicapped special day class at the high school three days a week, which is supposed to free up two days for writing, but so far is consumed by errands and dishes and laundry and life.  My husband is starting a children's choir, teaching High school band Choir and orchestra and organizing a spring break trip to Disneyland with his students.

anyway, there is so much more, but if I hit publish now, I can go fold laundry, Oh Joy!

Christmas 2014: 30th Anniversary and Becoming Grandparents

Merry Christmas and A Happy 2015 From Dixie and Greg

Greg and I can't count all the blessings and all the love and all the changes and sorrows and joys that we have shared since we got married but we both agree that we never suspected that 30 years could pass so quickly.  Yet, here we are - no longer 1984, and no longer thin or flamingly red-headed, or young.  Still thirty years with the only person who knows me at both my best and worst and still is willing to stick around for another 30 if we get so lucky.  It is possible, after all, my in-laws just celebrated their 64th anniversary this summer.

So after 30 years together, we find ourselves firmly in the "sandwich Generation" as it has been named to describe those years when you are one of the Generation who still has health and strength and has established some stability, and is sandwiched between kids and grandchildren who still need some help - and aging parents who can no longer be your strength but now need you to be there for them.  It is a time when you are acutely aware of the passage of time and the fact that you are still lucky enough to have this much family, but also coldly aware that it can't last much longer.  You want to spend every moment enjoying being needed and wanted but every time you are one place you feel guilty for not being in at least three other places at the same time. 

      Speaking of being in not enough places at a time, My Brother Brett is amazing at being there for Mom and Lance. Lance still lives with Brett in Virginia and was delighted at the flood of birthday cards that he got, but he is also old enough to remember both Grandma Grace and Dad as they got sicker and died. So he understands illness enough to be very worried that Mom might die.

Mom became more and more confused and paranoid, and she couldn't do the basics of taking care of herself anymore. Then she ended up in the hospital, and from there into a nursing home that she hated and was afraid of.  Since then Brett found her another place, still not far from Brett and Lance, where she is comfortable enough that she has relaxed and calls it home. However she did fall and fracture her vertebrae and need 4 staples in the back of her head.  The first nursing home had her overmedicated and she is doing a lot better with her blood pressure and diabetes better monitored that she was getting.  Dementia is a cruel disease and it is nice to hear her being more happy than she has sounded in months.  She even went to Brett's for Thanksgiving and then said of her room at the manor, "It was good to get home."

Mom and Lance at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian

For those of you who remember the many Christmas cards and letters she has always sent, her new address is at

Priscilla Miller

Greenfield Of Berryville

413 McCellen Street

Berryville, VA 22611

Phone (540) 955-4557 (Not her room but the manor number)

Lance after receiving his birthday cards

His address is Lance Miller
PO Box 865
Middleburg, VA 20118

Thanks to everyone who took the time and money to make him smile like that.

So what else happened in 2014?

I got a couple long term teaching jobs at the school where I taught full time for 10 years, and Emerson is working there now too, so I have seen him a lot more.  And Emerson and Lula made us Grandparents on April 28th when Lula gave birth to Daisy Grace Goode

Greg and I have done a bit of traveling together without the boys for the first time really since we became parents.  This summer we went back to Wyoming and visited our Goode family relatives including Greg's parents and one brother, and both surviving sisters.  We also visited a couple nephews and Aunt Melissa and Rose.  It was low key and fun mainly.  We let our easy going way dictate the pace, and read Harry potter novels to each other while we drove, we went to see the sights like the Rocks at Vedauwoo and then visited Fort Laramie in a downpour and that seemed strange since out temperate rainforest home is in a drought.  But I had never been there, even though I wrote about it based on research in my Oregon Trail Novel.  We went to the Black Hills Playhouse (where Greg and I worked that long ago summer we were married) with my Father-in-law and had a couple picnics in the gazebo at my mother-in-laws nursing home.

We went Camping with friends up by Oregon Caves,  and we went to see "Into The Woods" at the Shakespeare Festival.

    In one week in August we had three friends die here in Crescent City, one our next door neighbor for the last 18 years, and one a fellow music teacher with Greg and a very dear friend since we moved here 25 years ago.  They were all older friends, more our parents generation than ours, but they were good friends and our world is emptier without them.

     I managed to publish two picture books for kids. One, Rainbows around Us, is a book about colors using my photographs and the other, Moonrise, is a lullaby I used to sing to the boys 20 years ago, along with finger paintings I did on the table top and lifted as prints.  So now you can google Dixie Miller Goode and find five of my books on-line or available for your local bookstore to order.

    Greg has changed back to straight vocal music instead of doing just high school band and choir, he does 5th grade through high school Choir this year, and as Christmas gets closer he has an incredible number of performances scheduled, but he ended up with a record number of his students being selected via blind audition to go to the All Northwest USA choir festival, as in RECORD (Triple the  number he has ever had before)

    Austin and his girlfriend Tricia are around quite a bit and are always working. They have kept us in firewood while also helping her family while Austin is driving for GH Outreach.  He drives handicapped adults to work and helps supervise them on the job sites. They pick up recycling and do yrs wok and he seems to really enjoy the work.  I kind of blame Lance for the fact that I have so many years teaching Special needs kids and now both of my sons work with people with handicaps.  Once you have known Lance, you realize that people need to be given a chance to be their own best self.

     Anyway, life is still LIFE, busy, happy, sad, crazy, wonderful and exhausting. It looks like we will make it to 2015 with a smile and a prayer that you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy 2015.

Much Love,


Dixie and Greg

Flat Stanley Came to visit

4th of July here at the Crescent City Display

I was finally sailing on a tall ship with my fifth grade class when Lula texted me, "My Water just broke" 

The Lady Washington

Dad, Grandpa and Daisy

Camping with family 

exploring only 4 miles from my house

Austin and Tricia

Family in Laramie, Greg's Sister Wendy and John, and their two boys 

Me, at Fort Laramie

Mother and Son

Harvey (My FIL) front and center

At Oregon Shakespeare Festival

The two picture books I published this year

Which makes 5 books published and more on the way

My Beautiful Angel

Emerson, Daisy and Lula on Halloween
Could you guess?

Being Grandma

Greg with Gasp 52 candles!

Singing Happy Birthday

Uncle Austin and Daisy

The Christmas lights getting turned on at Ashland Oregon

Dixie, Marc and Thomas

Already getting ready to run

What December looks like here.