12 days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my family sent to me,

A book full of Christmas stories

Every night the kids are anxious to read another story from this fun little book from my Mom.

On the second day of Christmas my family sent to me a journal of Christmas devotionals from Elizabeth and family.  And brownie mix and mint chocolate chips.  (I think, I must be getting old if I can't remember what happened only a few days ago)

after that I'm not sure of the orders of things.  From Darren and Steph a blizzard of snowflakes, some with love notes (is that the right word?)

and candies

From Andy and Sharisse a box of goodies, which were vaporised by hungry munchkins

from Holly a Tardis blanket.  (Zak:  does this mean you're bigger on the inside, hehehehe)

from Sheldon and Sara a pictionary/telephone game, telestrations, which they played all day Sunday.  

From Linnea a game of Suspend where you are hanging up things and hope they don't fall down.  That one went to the ward Christmas party and nearly caused a riot when nobody else brought stuff to keep their kids entertained until dinner started.  Plus muffin mix from Linnea, which caused me to ponder why I didn't stop at Lehi Roller mills on my last trip through Utah?   And stock up on Stephens?   (if the answer is that I am dumb please don't tell me)

From Darren and Steph a box full of get-well-soon notes and Ferrero Rocher.  That Cambria is quite the artist!  I may even share the chocolates with my kids.  Maybe.  

From Holly a box of truffles, ornaments and a pretty necklace/earrings for me.  

D hanging the pretty holly ornament.  

This is why I try to write the thank-you-notes as soon as the kids open stuff, because I forget things!

Three more days to go!  

Snow!

first thing in the morning the kids built a Frosty

You know that Josh Groban song, Thankful?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U-5EiRM1GE

It's been a rough year around these parts and I've spent a lot of time feeling overwhelmed.  Overwhelmed, but still picking myself up and soldiering on.  Luckily even in the midst of this season of crazy busy rehearsals, parties, potlucks, cookies, planning and decorating,  I've been able to find little moments of gratitude and peace.

There's so much to be thankful for.  Truly.

I'm thankful for music.  This time of year gets seriously wild with rehearsals and performances, both by me and my kids but it's been so much fun this year!

I'm thankful I get to perform this lovely piece:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ch7uottHU

I'm thankful for family.  This week a box arrived from ThinkGeek and I spend a good 20 minutes staring at it trying to figure out if I'd ordered something and then forgotten?  Then I opened Mom's gift with presents for the first day of Christmas and the 11th and my puny little brain went 'oh, this must be what Sara's email was about not opening until the 15th'.  12 days of lovely reminders from my family that I'm loved.

I cried.

My insane, big, loud, rowdy, sarcastic, amazing family.  How do you thank people for a lifetime of support and love?

I'm thankful for friends.  I'm not good at asking for help, but my lovely friends have offered words of encouragement, offered listening ears and hugs.  One friend just showed up with a huge gift basket from Great Harvest full of goodies.  (my love language is totally food)

I'm trying to be thankful in all things.


Still not grateful for cancer.

Venting

Feel free to ignore this if you do not like negativity.

October was a terrible, horrible no-good, very bad month so I was determined that November would be our new start, new year, new positive direction going forward.

The day after the dishwasher was fixed the microwave blew up.  (caught on fire, completely busted)

and I laughed, because that's just how things have gone lately.

The next day the popcorn popper burned.  And I smiled grimly while chucking it in the trash.

The next day we found out our credit card information had been stolen and someone in California is living it up on our account.  I cried while Ben was on the phone with the bank trying to fix it.

The next day the Saturn quit working.  

And then the PC refused to boot when I went to look up how old the battery in the saturn is.  The PC is now essentially a big doorstop.

 Savings--wiped out.  We are supposed to be saving up to survive if Ben loses his job in 3 months, but we don't even have part of the money to replace everything that broke this week.    Can't even put it on the credit card, since that's been canceled!

I didn't want to get out of bed this morning in fear of what might happen next, I'm just so dang tired of things going wrong.  I got up anyway and I'll keep on trucking but . . .



I've tried to be positive, upbeat, have a can-do attitude, but I'm out.  Down.  Bummed and wallowing in it.  If you want to come hibernate and whine with me bring chocolate, unless it's after 5 pm because I'm not sleeping so great and heaven knows I need my sleep.  And do not tell me things will get better because every time someone has said that to me something else broke.  (yes, logical fallacy, blah, blah.  Pity party here; let me be grumpy)

Fixed!

Pretty new tiles

Yesterday a very nice repairman came and fixed our dishwasher.  That saying 'you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone' is so true when you have to do all your dishes by hand.  Or if you have to buy paper plates, if you are lazy like me.  My days of callously harming the environment with paper plates have ended,  once I use up the rest.  

The kids' bathroom is now fixed up and the new tiles look very nice.  Unfortunately they look nicer than the rest of the bathroom, and now we feel like we need to upgrade the rest.  

Ben's medical review came back with 'see us in three months'  This means he has a job for at least 3 more months!

Yesterday a friend came over and raked my leaves.  She knows that Ben hasn't had any energy for keeping up with the yard, so she came over and did my front yard.  Picked up every single leaf.  

D is out today volunteering at a local food bank.  It is wonderful to me what a responsible and caring young lady she is.  Even with school, work, and tons of rehearsal this week she is still making time for others--ON HER BIRTHDAY.  She makes me feel like the future is in perfectly good hands.  

Life is good, and I am grateful.   

October

In October Ben did four infusions of Rituxan.

Long, boring day.  

After his first infusion, the next day I flew out to SFO via SL (picking up an Andy on the way)  We had a lovely flight from SL to SFO over the Sierras and over Yosemite.  Once at SFO we found Linnea and Sheldon, upgraded my tincan rental to something with trunk space and drove ourselves back home to Modesto.

Yosemite.  

Modesto is an interesting place to visit.  We took a drive out to the vineyards and orchards out the East side of town and were really shocked at everything which was dying from lack of water.  Linnea, Darren and I stayed in the Beck's house and enjoyed late-night talks with Beth who has an upstairs loft area which is little girl heaven; books, dress-ups, day bed, closet full of games.  I want to be as cool as Beth if I grow up.  Sheldon and Darren stayed in Nina Black's house and I had good reason to be thankful for the generosity of Mom's friends.  These lovely people and their open hearts and homes are why I still consider Modesto to be home.

Monday we attended Grandpa Broadbent's funeral in Davis.  I think 43 of my cousins made it.  That's pretty cool.    Davis seems just as I remember it even if the house at 821 A isn't the same appearance-wise.  Linnea, Andy and I grabbed some in-n-out on the way to SFO to get Andy home, and enjoyed the rush hour traffic back to Modesto.  This trip involved entirely too much driving!

 The next day Sheldon, Darren, Linnea and I headed out once again for the airport.  Sheldon drove the fastest car in the world  (rental) and gave a few noggins bruises flying out of the toll booth on the San Mateo.  I took our early arrival as an opportunity to crash at the USO which is actually quite nice if really hard to find.  I flew home via SFO-LAX-ABQ.  LAX is still one of my least-favorite airports.   I had the USO to crash at during my four hour layover, but sharing a smallish space with four hundred just-graduated-from-basic Marines isn't exactly my idea of a grand time.  Even though I was pre-check for the TSA garbage it still took an HOUR to get back through security at LAX.  Add in my un- air conditioned bus trip out to my terminal and I still despise LAX.

SFO-LAX  looked pretty brown.  Drought

The moon was out as we took off and the moonlight on the ocean was really pretty.  I still don't ever want to fly out of LAX ever again.

  The month continued, things broke.  Our shower got demoed once the kids pulled the soap dish out of the wall and we found out the tiles were put up on drywall.  That's not good. 

This is what the bathroom looked like when I left to drive to Utah for Meagan's funeral. 

pretty NM

The drive out was really pretty since all the cottonwoods are beautifully golden all along the river bottoms.  Also, even the desert can be pretty.    In Cortez I had a mini-freak-out when I thought I'd put gasoline in Ben's little diesel Golf.  Luckily I didn't, because you can't.  Only insane people running on caffeine have a hard time comprehending this.  I may have hugged the gasoline station attendant who came outside to actually physically demonstrate this to me.

At the end of my 10.5 hours drive I got to spend time with Linnea, who I always enjoy time with.  Also I got to spend the day with Holly and her littles in the morning and my friend Carin after the funeral at which point I may have decided that I was going to live in Utah so I didn't have to drive back home on Saturday.  And then after dinner at one of my fave Chinese places in UT I may have decided I needed to stay another night to go to another fave restaurant.  Neither of these resolutions stuck and I headed back on Saturday morning.

somewhere south of Redmesa

I drove home a slightly different way to avoid the construction north of Shiprock.  About Mancos I was too sore and too tired to keep going, so I had an early dinner/late lunch, walked around the town and the park and found enough energy to make the last four hours to home.  Someday I will live in Mancos?  Do I only love it because we always make a break there and I think the little town is adorable?  Are you laughing, Dad?  Who knows.  

The good news, is even though I spent so much time traveling in October the family did really well while I was gone, only one kid got forgotten at school one day and my neighbors were super awesome and picked up Ben after his last infusion.

On to Halloween!

Sir Noah

an Egyptian princess

Avenging angel, mad scientist, knight, and a Jerran

September

We hiked the Boca Negra canyon in Petroglyph National Monument.

It mostly looks like lots of black rocks, and then some of them have pictures on them.  The black is called desert varnish and it is what happens when the blinding New Mexico sun bakes rocks, apparently.  

Also, I turned 40.

When my sisters showed up in August to celebrate my birthday I decided that meant I got to celebrate all month long.  Of course, we found out the next week that Ben had cancer so that kind of put a damper on things, but my friend, Liv, insisted I celebrate on the day of, and bought me an incredibly delicious german chocolate cake.  I'm glad I have the picture of the box so I can find the bakery 

again!

I should probably point out that both Linnea and Holly made the long drive from Utah to Albuquerque all to surprise me with an early surprise birthday party in August.  (do I have pictures?  Only of me driving the little cart at Costco because my toe was all busted)  Seeing Linnea at the door was a very pleasant surprise!  We spent the amazingly fun weekend shopping for dresses to wear to Hyrum's wedding.  (amazing because I despise shopping.  Who knew all it takes to make it enjoyable is some fun companions?)  Linnea found a skirt, Holly a dress,  and I found that driving with a broken toe is really very painful.  

At the end of the month Isaac turned 13.  Four teenagers in one house.  Oy vey.  

August--First day of School

August

photogenic, ain't we?

carpooling in the faithful escape

Tardis in someone's driveway

Tardis in the mall

In August my brother got married.  Do I have any pictures of him and his beautiful new wife?  No, I have pictures of me in front of the two tardises I saw that day and pictures of Linnea, Holly, Sheldon and I goofing off in various ways.  Probably because my favorite part of the wedding was goofing off with my siblings.  Before August I hadn't seen them in a year and I was very glad to have time with my family.  Mostly I enjoy their company because I don't have to apologise for being too sarcastic when I'm around them.  Unless Mom catches us being snarky.  Or I offend one of  Linnea's roommates one morning.    Besides, Adam took many lovely pictures of the couple and even some nice ones of the fandamily so it would be a waste for me to take pictures with my crummy camera phone.  Actually, I think the one up top was taken by Adam, too.

Also in August Jerran was awarded his Eagle Scout.  

Friends

I'm not a great friend.  I try to blame our nomadic Air Force existence, but I certainly could do better in keeping track of friends and keeping in contact.  These pics show four of my greatest friends from my teens and early 20's, Heidi, Meagan, me, Jessi, Carin (l-r) on June 21, 1995.

Meagan passed away last month in her sleep at the age of 39.

39.

I was lucky to have time with Carin after the funeral to reminisce and laugh and be grateful, because I am grateful for all my friends, no matter how remiss I am in expressing it to them.  I'm especially grateful to Ben for supporting me in making the crazy trip to Utah to attend the funeral.  Without him, my awesome neighbors who picked up kids, and Deanna holding down the fort there's no way I could have gone.

I met Meagan when I was 12, attending Girls Camp with the Modesto North Stake in the high Sierras.  The only other person there I knew was Carin (bless you, Nina) and I can't remember if Meagan was in our cabin group or in our little pod of yearlings, but I learned quickly that she was full of energy and laughs.  Dynamic would be a good word to describe her.  Maybe mercurial?  Possibly even a little manic, that week.  In any case, Meagan had a little. . . ritual?  of greeting where she would swoop the greetee down into a dip and kiss them, only with her hand interposed between lips so as to not actually kiss.  It's hard to describe, but was the cause of much hilarity among us pre-teens who were determined to have a good time, even at a church camp.  I suppose she liked doing it to me since I am so easily embarrassed and blush quite dramatically.

In any case, one night as the sun was setting in that weird twilight dusk, my mom showed up to collect me early.  My Grandma Slade had passed away that week and our family was leaving the next morning for the funeral in Colorado.  I was a little in shock trying to figure out what I needed to do to pack and get gone; I'm sure my mom was running on fumes after trying to get everything necessary done back in Modesto (remember, we'd just moved in that week!) for a long road trip and also find the time for the 3 hour drive to fetch me home from camp.  So, into this scene imagine my friend Meagan running up to me and swooping me over in a kiss of greeting.   And then issuing an equally extravagant apology when she found out why my mom was there.  It's my first real memory of her and one of my favorites, so overly dramatic and just so . . . her.

Meagan was also my first friend at Prescott Senior Elementary later that autumn, and she introduced this introverted loner to friends who helped me survive that 8th grade year.  We certainly had our spats, as opinionated people will, but my overwhelming memory of her is of her laughter, and of us laughing together.

Laughter. . . not a bad legacy to leave!

Can I declare a new year right now?

October.  Well, I'm really glad it's over!

Four of the Fridays in October Ben visited the UNM cancer center to get an infusion of Rituximab.   NOT chemo, but an immunological agent, the nurses called it biotherapy.  Whichever it is, it helps his body attack the cancer cells which refuse to die.  Rituxan has way fewer side effects than chemo, so it seemed a no-brainer choice.  He had a bad reaction the first time and enjoyed the 3 hour nap his IV Benadryl gave him, but we learned on subsequent visits to make sure the drip rate (??) stayed slow and he did fine.

The view of the Sandias from the fourth floor is quite pretty, maybe not so much when the sky is all hazy, but on sunny days we both wore sunglasses inside.  He is doing fine, his labs all look quite good, and he gets to do another PET scan in January to see how much less cancer he has now.  I'm learning to watch when the color drains from his face since he seems to lack the self-preservative instinct which says 'hey, I'm getting worn out, maybe I should take a break'.  Instead he goes, goes, goes until he crashes and then needs a few days to recover.  

October was not a great month in other ways, since we had Grandpa's funeral, Meagan's funeral, bathroom repairs and dishwasher failure, car problems, etc, so I hereby declare November my new year.  Or I will, once we get the dishwasher fixed.  And yes, I'm whining a lot about first world problems.  They're my problems, though, so who else is going to complain about them?  I know I have an incredibly rich life, full of love and a warm house and all kinds of conveniences which I take for granted.  I'm grateful, really I am.  Just, can I have a break for a while?  Recovery time to regain my equilibrium before the next wave of bad stuff?  Thanksgiving is a good time to start a new year, I think.  Who's with me?  

29 March 1922- 29 September 2014

FEB and his sweetheart

92 years is a lot of life.  

Four years old

Mostly, this is how I remember both of them

Soil microbiology in action!

And now I'm wondering if he didn't hang on until he was 92 so he could be the same age as Grandma?  Hm.










When I was a child my grandparents always called me 'snookie'.  I have no idea why, but I do know that I treasured this nickname and insisted on introducing myself as  'Joy Snookie Slade' as if it were my full legal name.  On at least one occasion in school I got in trouble for insisting that it really was my middle name, so much did I treasure the affectionate moniker.  Even now that recollection brings a smile to my face, and in the present day when my Dad addresses cards 'to Snookie' it makes me downright happy.  Not only did my grandparents give me the nickname, but because they loved me so completely that name has come to represent their love to me.  

I don't ever remember Grandpa getting flustered about anything.  At his most perturbed a solemn 'Great Scott!' might escape his lips.  Of course, I was not part of any of the fixit projects he seemed to get roped into whenever Grandma and Grandpa came to visit so perhaps I am simply missing knowledge of his true temper, but somehow I doubt it.  Even recovering from knee surgery I recall him stoically completing his knee exercises without any of the vociferous complaining that I demonstrated when I had surgery last year.  I don't mean to say that Grandpa was glum, but his disposition tended towards the mellowly happy, even when bemoaning the sorry state of government as he pontificated from his rocking chair.  Even less-than terrific news was greeted with the 'Oh, dear' which was spoken in a tone more resigned than flustered.  And though Grandma's energy was much more vibrant and active they still made a perfectly complementary couple.

The one part of Grandpa I think I've inherited is his love of gardening.  I remember lots of talk about what was planted that year, how the boysens were doing and his other trees and plants.   Even though my thumb tends towards the black instead of green I am glad that that small part of Grandpa lives on in me.  And I'm also grateful that the smell of walnut trees takes me back to the happy sanctuary of Grandpa's back yard, being completely assured of the love that surrounded me whenever we visited 821 A street in Davis.

I will be forever grateful for the heritage my loving grandfather has given me, and especially for his example of true love towards Grandma.   His tireless affection and care even when the twilight of dementia meant she no longer knew him will stand in my memory as an example of true love.