Category Archives: Family

High Museum Family Membership

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We just purchased a Family Membership at Atlanta’s High Museum. I’ve wanted to do this over the past several years to enjoy myself, and also to show art to my children as part of their education and also to learn to enjoy it fully in their lives.

What made me do it finally and fully is that the other day I saw a billboard with a Monet background of “Water Lilies” for the High Museum and I knew I had to go see whatever it was, but forgot to check it out online by the time we got home. I fleetingly thought of it but never a full enough thought to go to their website at any time. Not until last night.

My husband was planning what to do on our Anniversary (which is this coming Saturday, August 22) and had decided on dinner and a movie. I liked the dinner idea, but wasn’t thrilled with what movies are out there. So during the night I thought it through in my dreams and recalled the Monet billboard and looked it up this morning.

I saw that this is the last weekend of the Monet Water Lilies exhibition and knew that had to be what we did … and I knew we’d enjoy it more than a movie, especially since there aren’t any movies out we really want to see that much.

I’d like to go back with the whole family on Sunday afternoon, so that we can share the Monet exhibit with them (he’s one of my absolute favorite artists) thus we can go and enjoy it as adults on Saturday, and also know what’s what before taking the children the next day. Not our usual MO.

[dual posted: oldtimesummer blog & pastoralfarms blog]

Family Goings On

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Family stuff: Found out recently our old Family Reunion is in August … haven’t been since I was pregnant with my second baby. That would be July 1998. I doubt we can go, but who knows. When I was younger the reunion was always in the third week of August. In my adult years they changed it to mid-July. I don’t know when it was switched back. In any case it’s right smack dab on our Anniversary this year, and I don’t even know if my husband will be here, with some legal issues going on between some individuals from a company he worked with that have roped him into it as well. It’s all nuts.

Then I found out yesterday that my nephew is getting married in September, not that far from where we live. My sister Becky (& her family) will be flying in, so we’ll get to see them, though I don’t know what the legal issues will be around then either, could be nasty. Our house isn’t ready for visitors at all, not that anyone will come here, but I can’t even offer anyone to come here is the point. It’s horrible for us.

My sister lives on the other side of the country. We just don’t get to see members of our family usually. It’s nice that it’s going to be nearby that the wedding is. Great luck actually!

Remembering Uncle Walt

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On Thursday my Uncle Walt passed away. When I was 7 my mother had to be hospitalized for awhile so me and my 4 siblings were divided amongst relative. I was sent alone to my Uncle Walt & his wife, Aunt Mary. They were relatively still newlyweds at the time, not young, not old, just older than young. I lived with them for quite a few months, during the school year.

When I was 13 my family moved to South Florida. My Uncle Walt & Aunt Mary moved down there as well sometime after that. I loved going over to their place, finding peace and a classical sense of life when with them. “Classical” meaning, think “Classical music” as a general form for life. Music of that sort being important, church music, performance of voice, piano, organ, etc. A classy way of living, not base, not stuffy, not rich, not poor. Sane vs. the Insane home that was what I was from.

When I got married I asked my Uncle Walt to play the organ for the wedding. Maybe it would have been nicer for HIM to just attend, but I thought it an honorary position instead of having the stock church organist play. I later became friends with that organist, and he would have been great to have played at my wedding, but I didn’t know him at the time and was more than comfortable with having my uncle play at the event. I have always been glad I made that choice, and even more so today, since he’s gone from this Earth.

I hadn’t seen my uncle for quite a few years. He’s been cremated and I can’t attend his memorial service, and that’s alright. I remember him as a younger man, full of life and love of music and more.

My first big memory of him comes from the one-time I had a sleepover with my Grandma. I was 5 and a night at Grandma’s was a privilege which my older sibs had attained, and I was finally able to do it too. In this instance I had gone over and was in the kitchen with Grandma and my Uncle Walt was there too, eating spaghetti, winding it around and around his fork … he was eating alone because he was “going out” … I was facinated with the spaghetti winding around the fork thing, and there was a sense of energy & importance wrapped around him.

That was my one-time sleepover alone at Grandma’s … she died before I turned 6. When I was just turning or had turned 7 I remember sitting on the front porch of our house and Uncle Walt and his Mary coming up to the house, that exciting energy was emanating from them (getting married!) — who would have known that we’d be moving to another area of PA in just a few months, and that my Mom would be unavailable to us by the end of the year so we’d all be moved around the extended family, and I ended up having the wonderful experience of Uncle Walt and Aunt Mary all to myself! I suppose it’s my sort of thing from the start, part of a whole but very separate mostly. I loved them dearly. I hope to hug them both someday again.

Travel for business and baseball

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We are in Tampa, as I have mentioned here – in a hotel that isn’t as nice as the one the night before, but that’s that. Embassy Suites in Tampa by the airport is really, really nice. We are now by the bay and it’s a different kind of place, very Florida and a crash pad.

Separate bedroom is tiny. Living room small, with balcony, cruddy but OK kitchen. The nicest thing here is that the bathroom has obviously been redone. [Now that I've written that I recall walking around the maze of outside corridors yesterday and passing some new appliance boxes in front of a couple of rooms. Dishwasher, Refrigerator, etc.]

There’s also a pullout sleeper couch and two narrow bunks intalled in a niche one on top of the other, of course. Plenty of places to put each of our 6 selves, but the bright spot in dealing with it all is the glass sliding door to the balcony. So many rooms don’t have a balcony, and many that do don’t have anything much worth looking at outside.

In this case there is water that sparkles as the sun moves overhead, it’s low tide, then high tide and the changes that brings. It’s interesting at least. Since it’s the Gulf side of Florida it gets too sunny and hot in the afternoon. Yesterday we got here in the afternoon. It’ll be nice to see the balcony all morning this day.

I have some schooling stuff with me, and that’s slated for this day as well (hubby is here for business, so we wait while he works.) We are also preparing for a birthday at the end of the month when my eldest goes from being a tween to a teen. :eyesroll : There’s some manners information we must all go over and practice again. It’s not just my eldest, he’s not as bad right now as some of the others really … and being stuck in a hotel room it’s not so long before someone is crying, another is sassing, another is screaming, another is … you get the drift.

Yesterday we were at a baseball game and today we go to another. I love baseball, and it was nice last night to sit by my eldest, he’s taking a higher interest in what’s going on in the game. Baby Q was a cutie too, but not interesting in the game, just showing off his toddler self to whomever would watch, particularly the row behind us.

I’m still nursing Baby Q at night and at home during the day every so often. I’ve not nursed this long with my others, it is just right for this one. Of late he’s picked up a new word to refer to me when he wants to nurse, ‘dink’ … so last night at the game he kept pulling at me ‘dink, dink’ … ‘Mama, dink!’ and I didn’t let him but awhile later I didn’t feel so “whatever it was” about it and he nursed and was that cute showoff from then on. Little stinker. :smile:

We are hosting

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Our family hasn’t had much of colds/virus this past Winter, and that’s great. Spring though has bloomed, things are blooming and allergies are out and about in full and building to fuller force. Couple that with the first virus in a long time for us:

Asa was weird starting maybe Sunday. We were all very tired, and with the time change, just didn’t get to church. Monday we took Frank to the airport early in the morning. Asa was complaining of some troubles all day and layed around but wasn’t very communicative of what was wrong. Next day he seemed much better, but was dragging a bit more and historical perusal made me understand how he had felt and stamp it as a virus.

The kick to it also was that Baby Q was frantically hyper on Monday, especially later, and finally went to sleep later than I wished to my relief. I nursed him in the night a couple of times (yes, he still does this, my only baby that has wanted to go this long and at night at all after a couple of months of age) with 3:30am being the last night feeding of Tuesday morning, and he was alright then. He slept to after 8am, which is unusual and when I went to get him upon is complaining cry to get him he was very warm and obviously under the tutor-age of a virus. I nursed him then and within a half an hour, he threw up. Ewwww.

He slept most of the morning, and was very warm. I gave him infant tylenol which kept his fever down. He didn’t want to nurse at all, but I was able to give him some water, but even that didn’t stay down, not even just little sips. So we got through those wicked hours of Tuesday morning to early afternoon, with him sleeping mostly, and complaining upon waking and then throwing up. Miserable for him, but not the worst it could be. By later afternoon he hadn’t thrown up and was looking a bit better, but still warm. He finally also asked to be nursed and hasn’t thrown up since.

Tuesday evening he gained some energy and got on the floor for the first time that day, and ran around a bit and played with cars, a ball, his brother Asa, then tuckered out in less than an hour and was down for the night not long after. His “warmness” seems to have ended on Wednesday, so it was a little longer than a 48-hour bug, but not as bad after less than 24-hours.

The virus acted yet different in Russell, who came down with a runny nose and stuffy head and sore throat on Wednesday, and felt like laying around as well, so I let him, with the history of his two younger brothers. Asa had been saying his throat was a little scratchy since he was better, and I could hear that he sounded a bit clogged up, just a bit.

Victoria had been fine this whole time, but this morning I asked her how she felt, fine she said. But then she said she kind of had a headache and I asked her if she had anything diffferent in her throat or chest and she admitted some trouble there.

I myself felt strange all week, but chalk that up to allergies and also a migraine set I got on Sunday afternoon and had through Monday, with it abating Monday Evening and coming back during the mid-early wee hours of the next day, and then dealing with that all day Tuesday as Baby Q was sick, then it abated later in the morning somewhat, but I had a splitting headache suddenly in the evening when I was about to cook dinner and it was awful, migraine like, on the same side as my previous migraine, but also not migraine-like, and I also felt horrible, shaky and such, which is kind of migraine-like, but not so suddenly as that was, and I took some Motrin and ate some cheese, and it all slowly faded as I cooked dinner, faded to something … not as intense, maybe more a ringing feeling. Well then I felt sort of semi-feverish that night and the next day, not much though. I’ve been dragging since and just not up to par, but just under it. I had a few times on Wednesday and Thursday that I felt like coughing, but nothing really to cough about. During the night last night I had something moving in my chest and was able to cough it out, and felt that itchy feeling growing that I thought I might have noticed yesterday, but it wasn’t super apparent. Now it’s in.

Upon getting up I can see the rims of my eyes are more red, I feel more bloated in my face, feel wet and icky in my chest, with a light scratchy throat.

It’s not allergies, but might be exasperated BY allergies along side of it.

So it’s a virus that’s spread slowly to most everyone in the family, and shown itself differently but ending up similarly, that chest congestion thing, but it seems to be a light version, not everyone was very sick, the youngest of us got the sickest, not abnormal, but bounced back right away, and everyone else has had a walking sickness, I’ve made the other two boys lay down more though. I haven’t done that to myself, not that I could, and Victoria has yet to present a need for extra rest, only today claiming some symptoms of slightness.

I am concerned about this clearing out soon, hoping it doesn’t dig deeper and cause anything worse in the end. It’s been years since we’ve had any ear issues, and the only times of that was long ago when Victoria was just born and we were hit with cold after cold, then had to go to FL to my Dad’s funeral when she was just 1-month old and we were getting better, then got really sick while there, with other relatives being sick that were there, and Russell was 2, threw up and spiked a fever there, and had to go to an emergency clinic and got an antibiotic for ear infection. We went home all of us sicker and sicker and Russell ended up with a rash and we had to go to the doctor and so he has to not have penacillins, in case that’s that, but had to have another round of antibiotics for worse ears then, and Victoria had to have some too … ack! It was a miserable time. But never since then has that been the case.

So when we DO have a virus run through the family I get a feeling of familiar-ness that I want to not revisit fully, and count the days to clear and through to the other side. I’m hoping we get out soon. We are all a bit cranky and tested too easily, you know how that is, when everyone is sick, but not feeling all too bad, just not well yet. It’s the hardest on the babies, Q is not yet Two, but that’s fast approaching, and he’s learned a few screaming techniques that are Toddler-Two-like, unfortunately, in this sickly time. :rolleyes: