Gratitude a Day, Part three

11/16/23

What about your body are you thankful for?

Other than simply the fact that it still is here, and had more than one opportunity to give up the ghost, I am very thankful for senses that can still process the sensations and most of all, because I love beauty and lights in the dark, my eyes. They need trifocals now and the skin around them sags and sometimes they are dry or baffle me with the private fireworks display of a visual migraine but they still bring me more joy than sadness. 

11/17/23

What knowledge are you most thankful for?

I’m so very grateful for the ability to read and for the long line of grownups teaching children to live books while teaching them that they are deserving of love by snuggling them close and exploring both ancient texts and the newest tales. Being able to “hear” the thoughts of our ancestors and speak to our future is an amazing thing. Foolish and wise and oh so magical and yet dangerous. There is power in the written word and wanna be dictators are wise to fear it. They can try to “other” people and make us fear and hate each other. But nothing is more unifying than sharing our dreams and hopes and stories. 

11/18/2023

What piece of art are you most grateful for? 

It’s more a craft than a real art work, but over the years I have produced hundreds of these silhouettes inside a wreath of hands. My students were mostly preschool through first grade. These were my two year old and three year old the Christmas my Dad was in hospice. And again four years later. I sometimes see one hanging on a door or in a window here in town. I love knowing that years later some of them are still around. 

11/19/23

What touch are you most grateful for?

     There are so many types of touches and so many people who are starving for contact. The Covid era and social media haven’t helped ease the loneliness that many of us feel even when surrounded by other people. But I’m not sure I can choose just one to be most grateful for. The first touch between a mother and a child, the last touch on a hand clashed with a dying lived one. A firm hug that neither wants to break off before departing home. A delighted hug when surprised by someone who has been missed. The cool touch in a fevered brow, the comfort of the furry head of a beloved pet nuzzling against you when you are sad. There are so many loved ones, so many remembered moments and each was a precious gift. Wiping a tear, kissing and holding on. I’m grateful for those I have touched and been touched by. 

Merry Christmas 2023

 Greg and Dixie

2023 Holidays

 Merry Christmas, Happy New Year! 

May you have something to celebrate and someone to love in 2024.

“What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future.” – Agnes M. Pahro

Dear Family and Friends, 

So once again, I sit down to write a summary of sorts, to give you a bit of an understanding of the Goode life here in the California Redwoods. I'm not sure where this year has come and gone so quickly from. Looking back there were long stretches where I can barely believe we lived it. Time seems to have rushed up and past me this year without many grand adventures. Again we have lost one of my sisters-in-law. Greg's brother Harv's wife Fran who has been both a generous hostess, and a delightful guest at our home. Her laughter and her temper were both as vibrant as she herself was, and I can't believe she is gone. It happened quite fast, while she was out on a walk in the Black Hills we at one time called Home. I also lost another one of the four cousins of my Mom's who was more like her brothers and my uncles. Roger Slack was always there, at least weekly and usually more often through my entire life from early childhood until I married and moved away, and even then I never doubted the connection. Again I have to say that I can't believe he is gone and I'm only sorry I didn't spend more time appreciating him while he was still around.

But of course there has been more to life than just death and loss. There have been many moments of snuggling granddaughters, and watching my grandson's delight in the simple beauties around us. The new house that Austin and Trisha moved into is a warm, homey place with a garden that they have really gotten to thrive. It's as perfect a place to raise their son and daughter as I could have wished for for them, lots of fruit trees and room for exploring and animals and even a neighbor girl for their daughter to have as a friend. 

We did go on a short trip to the Redding Water Park for my 60^th birthday. We drove through the Trinity River area and spend two days just roasting and soaking in Waterworks park in the 105* heat before coming back to our 60* and fog, coastal summer. We had a gnarly forest fire not long after that, triggered by a dry lightning storm, which put the family without power or running water for ten days, and the city on gas powered generators for over a month. It left much of our Smith River canyon and river area scorched. Its a strange patchwork of charred and green areas. Some survived untouched right next to areas where nothing is left. We really owe much to the hard work of fire crews from all over the world.

Greg had those knee replacement surgeries in 2021 and that allowed him to move better. I'm really proud of him because he determined that he wanted to be around to see those grandkids grow up, and he started walking, then biking and swimming and has since lost 100 pounds even. I think it was actually 16 months and 100.4 pounds on the same scale at the Dr. in Medford. 

Emerson has been walking and getting in shape again too. And he had a chance to drive to San Francisco to take his client to a 49ers game. It was a big, exciting victory for the 49ers but his client had an abscessed tooth that ended up making him quite sick, so then Emerson has spent many many days and nights with him in the hospital. His client is almost exactly the same age as my brother Lance, but his handicapping condition is a lot rarer than Down's Syndrome and more severe.

Daisy got a wonderful German Shepherd/malamute female for her 9^th birthday. Foxy was a graduate of obedience school at Pelican Bay State Prison, in an inmate run program called Prison Paws. Walking the dog has helped all of us get outdoors more and be healthier. Of course we also have a ton of fur everywhere in our homes and cars and lungs. The only sad thing is Foxy gets car sick. I mean almost instantly. She has been known to vomit three times in a 4 mile drive, so yeah, we walk her and she plays with neighbor dogs and a neighbor pair of pigs that keep coming here to visit. 

I haven't gotten a diagnosis yet. My Neurologist from San Francisco referred me to one closer to home who supposedly was really good at testing the types of muscle issues I have, but she ended up moving and the Dr. I actually saw was a specialist in eye issues in neurology. After he told me I just had abdominal cramps and should drink tonic water, I became so frustrated I gave up on seeing anyone for awhile. But I have still been feeling better since I started being prescribed gabapentin a few months before seeing that idiot it took a few months to help, and the first noticeable side effect was my hair falling out in hands full. But still, I have the muscle spasms and the pain, but I also find my mood, my endurance and ability to participate in life all have improved this year.

Greg and I also indulged in tickets to Three plays at the Ashland Oregon's Shakespeare Festival. Two (Rent and Romeo and Juliet) in the Angus Bowmer theater, and one (the Three Musketeers) in the Elizabethan Theater in Lithia Park. And we got a second set of tickets to Rent given to us by Greg's friend so we went four times to plays. We also went once to see our Niece from Arizona, Remi and her boyfriend, Gabe perform while they were on tour before moving to Nashville. Once we had to cancel tickets to Jurassic Quest Animatronic Dinosaurs, and once reschedule a play because the fire had the canyon Highway closed down for a lot of July and August. 

This month I have actually gotten back into writing my novels. It's been several years since I had the mental focus to write like that. Again I think it is the gabapentin helping, even without a diagnosis. I have been digging into research on Pompeii and Mount St. Helen's and actually enjoying the process again. There were too many family deaths about the same time I started to have the muscle spasms and severe startle reaction, so I can't say for sure whether my brain fog was from the sadness and depression or from actually being a side effect of whatever neurological thing I'm battling, but I just couldn't even read a novel, let alone focus enough to create one from thin air.

What haven't I mentioned? Trisha has been creating absolutely gorgeous beadwork earrings. I don't have pierced ears, but if you do and are curious about what she has for sale, just ask. I don't know where she finds the time and patience to be both an amazing gardener and do such artistry, on top of raising my 5 year old granddaughter and 7 year old grandson. Gavin is non verbal, and smart. He's observant and has an ability to communicate that goes beyond words. Trinity is an eager kindergartener who loves school and has a very firm opinion which she is happy to tell you all about. Each of my grandchildren are very strong personalities unlike each other but I'm so in love with the three of them. 

Much Love,

Dixie and Greg

“Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves.” – Eric Sevareid

Gratitude a Day - part 2

 What Taste are you most grateful for? The challenge for November 10.

     This question stopped my progress on this challenge.  I felt at first that I had already answered it when I answered the question about what smell.  The smell and anticipation leading up to the taste are very much part of the same indulgence and experience in my definition.

     But thinking it over beyond the immediate reaction of Spaghetti.  Home made becomes the required component of almost every option I think of.  The taste of meals shared with family, or cookies baked with grandma, the flavors I wake up longing for are those tied to memories with friends  even when I think of foods that I never tasted until I was grown and away from Wyoming, the ones I love were shared in someone’s home, with friends who welcomed me like family. Lamb and cabbage and steamed bread, in a sesame garlic tahini sauce after being boiled in a hot pot in the middle of the table. Chicken, noodles and pumpernickel bread with chicken Paprikas at my cousin’s house. Blanched peaches in cream with new friends after baked pork chops and rice. Crab in lemony butter caught by my son out in the wintery Pacific.

Food with family becomes a taste for the soul too  

What Holiday are you most grateful for? The challenge for November 11.

     Summer or winter? July or December? Choosing between dark nights walking among twinkling lights and holding the hand of a beloved child. Or. Turquoise water, hot sun and fireworks on the beach. I can’t choose between the 4th of July and my birthday week, or Christmas.

What Texture are you most grateful for? The challenge for November 12.

     Fur, silky, soft, luxurious mink is nice, beaver is incredible but even though I’m against furs as fashion, my childhood was spent among furs, I know the texture of skunk, possum, Fox and bobcat, rabbit and the feeling of porcupine as I delicately pulled the quills for design work on deer skin dresses and moccasins.  My grandfather was a trapper at first, then a trader who bought and sold the hides, Antlers, horns and furs harvested in the greater Yellowstone, Park County Wyoming area.  Now my favorite fur is the fur of a living cat and dog  

What Ability are you most grateful for? The challenge for November 13.

     I can swim, sing, write, paint, tell stories and explore the world but it’s always best when done with a child. I guess that means that my favorite, most treasured ability is the ability to relate to, encourage and love the little’ uns. I love a great day as a teacher more than almost anything else  

 

What Sight are you most grateful for? The challenge for November 14.

     My favorite sense is the sense of vision  I love photographs and paintings  the interplay of lights and shadows, the emotion evoked by colors.  But most of all I feel alive and small but part of something enormous when I see tiny, twinkling lights. Give me firework displays or Christmas lights, the coals of a campfire or the fireflies over a summer lawn, give me stars and a universe of peace fills my soul.

Which Season are you most grateful for? The challenge for November 15.

     Summer, only summer unless it’s Christmas. But I love spring and its luscious mud puddles and nest building birds. I love fall and the leaves that glow like a fire.  Each season has its own gift, but I’m a school person. So the school calendar has formed my world view and times off of school to be with family are my favorites. 

Gratitude a day challenge.

 

Going to try this list of prompts for the month. Because I really don’t want to forget how blessed I am I. So many ways. This isn’t my list however. I don’t know who to credit for creating it, but it has been going around in facebook. 

Grateful for food

The challenge for day two asked for the food you are most grateful for. My food loving mind flooded with family recipes and memories of get togethers with friends. So many old traditions and new experiences have involved food and loved ones. But then I remembered that something dies so that we can live. Even vegan diets kill animals in a very real sense as wild habitats are cleared for food production. The deepest sense of respect for this was learned as a child when the piglet I raised, hugged, rode on, loved, was butchered. The bunnies we raised and the chickens, the deer and fish we harvested were a real reminder and the beautiful brown eyed calves my cousins showed and sold at the county fair. The reality of the circle of life is ugly and precious and is why I give thanks not just for my food, but to my food.

Smells

The first is smells, the one thing that I’m always reminded of family when I smell it is the tangy, spicy smell of garlic and oregano, basil and tomato and roasted pork in my grandpa’s spaghetti sauce. Now my oldest granddaughter Daisy can make it too.

Technology 

Today I am grateful for the technology that allows me to always have a camera on me, a way to enjoy the moment and still share it with those who I don’t get to have with me in the minute. Also it’s a way to pull out those memories and relive them again and again in the colder, lonelier ones. 

Color

I love color, and vision may be my favorite sense but if I have to choose only one color to be thankful for, then it would have to be the color of the stones in my grandma’s squash blossom necklace, turquoise like the swimming pools and the perfect sky. When I feel sad and listless, just watching the sun filtering through blue water can lift my spirits and relax the tension in my back. Smurf blue and Pikachu yellow, pumpkin orange and coral red, I fill my home with color and memories. 

Music

Last night we realized that The Eras tour movie was leaving our theater after this weekend. I had promised the granddaughter we could see it, and the theater was empty except for the three of us, so of course we had to dance and sing. Most of you know my husband is a choir teacher and music has been a basic in our lives together. The gratitude challenge asked which sound we were most grateful for and I had to choose either music or the mournful sound of the local foghorn. 

Sky

11/6 What in Nature are you grateful for? My first thought was Me, time for me to be in nature. My second thought was the sky. I love the ocean, the mountains, the prairie, Tundra, High Desert, redwoods, Aspen forests and on and on, but as long as I can see the sky I have an endlessly beautiful and changing view.

Books

What book are you most grateful for? This one is it. It started my life long love of books and can be counted in to keep the attention of any class I substituted in. Literally Preschool to High school if I read it to them. My boys loved it. The granddaughter loved it and even though the good guys save the gold from the pirates. There is humor without anyone dying in how they use their brains to do it. The only complaint is always that the shark is called “a big Fish” which is true but kids feel smarter than the author when they loudly insist that it’s a SHARK. I loved it enough that when the pages all fell out I laminated them and taped them all back in with packaging tape. I made the poster of my boys as characters.

Memory

What memory are you grateful for? 11/7/23
I’m grateful for those few, precious moments when my Parents and in-laws and my children were all alive and together. It was a beautiful, love filled thing to be a part of and over before I knew to appreciate every second.

Merry Christmas 2022

December 2022

Time once more to wish you a Merry Christmas 🎄🎁 

A Joy Filled 2023 New Year

And all the Happy Holidays you can fit into these dark winter days

My best reason to smile is these Grandkids 

Daisy, Gavin and Trinity 

So my dear friends, family and beloved people chosen to be blessed with my wordy newsletter, I have to say that 2022 wasn’t a boring year. I might not do it Justice here, but it was interesting.

Just remember, when the ancient Chinese told someone, “May you live in interesting times, they were not blessing them.”  However even in the darkest of times you can look for the light and try to be the light for others. OMG. I am sounding a bit like Dumbledore there. 

Then again, the Harry Potter books have invaded our world 🌎 

Completely dominating July through November. 

Emerson told Daisy that she couldn’t watch the movies until after she read the books. She was angry and declared to anyone who would listen, that her Dad was unreasonable, mean and WRONG. But then we had a long trip in July, and that meant lots of long hours in cars and airplanes and boring waiting in airports and motel rooms, so we read the first book, and by the time she watched the movie she was psyched and ready to declare all the same things we had said twenty years earlier about, “they changed that!” And “they left that out!” And “that scene was perfect.” And that was all it took. One book, then a movie followed by book 2 and the movie and I planned to stop after book 3, thinking she wasn’t ready for the darkness and deaths in the last 4 books. So we read a couple fan fiction novels that rewrote the first two books from Hermione’s viewpoint, but then she declared she wanted to read book 4, just as she began third grade. And by November she had read through all the books, plus the script for “The Cursed Child”and seen 8 movies and 3 Fantastic Beasts Movies and obviously understood them all because her conversation was non stop analysis of the stories and questioning “what if”  and “why” even though none of her friends knew what she was talking about. 

Greg’s sister Laura died unexpectedly this spring, and her boyfriend had her cremated. The ashes were sent to Greg’s last remaining sister, Wendy. In July we flew to Salt Lake, via LA, and spent a day in Lagoon, the amusement park/water park near Salt Lake, before renting a car and driving across Wyoming to Laramie. All the brothers came to Wendy’s house, and then the family went to a beautiful waterfall on private property in the forest of Wyoming. There they turned Laura’s ashes free and each said something kind in farewell to a sister who had had a difficult life. While we were there in Wyoming I also turned 59 and Greg’s sister made roast elk and antelope for my birthday dinner. 

Emerson and Daisy came with us to Wyoming and Greg’s brother, Matt brought his wife, Andrea and daughter, Remi and her boyfriend, Gabe. Wendy’s sons, Connor and Colton were both there, along with Connor’s girlfriend Stephanie and Colton’s wife, Brittney, but Harv’s wife, and our Austin’s family were not able to be there, so it wasn’t a complete family reunion, but it had some good times, and was overall a fun but emotional visit. 

The rest of the summer, we stayed closer to home. Daisy took swimming lessons, Gavin and Trinity had birthday parties. Greg and Emerson and Austin worked a lot and got in some outdoor time as well. 

The Remaining Goode Siblings

Austin and Trisha

Greg and his siblings, past and present

Emerson, Daisy and Trinity 

Family collage 

Austin and I at Gold Beach

School began and Daisy was in third grade, Gavin in first and Trinity in Preschool. Austin’s family learned that their landlord had decided to sell and they needed to be out by January, so they started looking for a house to buy. The requirements were important that they have space from their neighbors and room for the kids to safely play both indoors and out. They also needed space for their high school age niece to be able to move in with them because she had been living with Trisha’s grandma, but the grandma died and her house left the family. 

I’d say that they were successful in their house search. They got a sweet couple acres with two houses and fruit trees. I like that it is close to us, and has a farm house vibe that just says people have lived good lives here over the years. It seems right to me that Redwood school staff gave Greg a baby shower in 1993 for Austin and held it in the house across the street from Austin’s new home. 

My Brother on a Boat Ride in Tennessee 

Greg and I watching the sunset in the harbor

This year Daisy got into the Harry Potter stories

Reading all 7 books and the Cursed Child Script

Nothing is better than having grandkids 

I haven’t mentioned my health. It’s still unknown exactly what I have, but I have further referrals for new neurologist to try and find a diagnosis. Last year I had a lot of tests and next year looks like more of the same. Greg says when they do diagnose me, they will probably name it after me. Anyway, pain and muscle spasms aside, I’m doing well enough that I went to two weddings in the spring, a memorial service in Wyoming in the summer, and a three day weekend at a cabin in Gold Beach in the fall for my husband’s 60th birthday. 

That was nostalgic in a cabin we first stayed in 37 years ago, and the interior is so strangely familiar but it’s all been redone, walls were wood, now white, used to have a real fireplace but this is the second fake one, new minimalist art and furniture but we have been there as newlyweds and with a foster daughter, and the night we got our adopted son and then with friends and both sets of our parents and the night my Dad died and with our premie son and my mom and brother and with our young boys and then our teenagers and now with our grandkids. It always relaxes and refreshes us. It’s nice to return to a calm place and replenish the peaceful memories. 

So once again, I send you love and wish you all the best.

In a art piece by a man I’ve admired for years, Brian Andreas, he said, “there are things we do that may make no sense and they may make no money but they may be the real reason we are here: to love each other and to eat each other’s cooking and say it was good.” 

 I wish you a year filled with good food and people to share it with. 

All ways, Always I love you. 

Dixie