Sorry I haven’t written in so long.  Moving and all that.  Spent three glorious weeks in Illinois, Mom and I tooling around shopping and getting errands done. Managed to visit many friends, some long lost.  Took off for a few days to Lawrence, Kansas to see m’boy Jeff and a KU football game (don’t ask.  We are happy basketball season has arrived…).  It was a gorgeous fall weekend, he lives in a little house in a small town Midwestern neighborhood.  It’s nice.

I guess I haven’t written much because it’s the same old story – moving.  I have been trying to chip away at it, two boxes a day.  Some areas are worse than others.  Living room, not so bad.  Walk in closet.  Oh boy. I actually had cleaned out a lot of clothes last spring but there are things in there like newspapers with huge headlines – Earthquake!  etc.  Can’t toss that quite yet.  Just can’t.  Going through some of Mom’s stuff with her in the basement office helped me with that decision.  I am convinced that someone who comes after me will look at a newspaper from 1989 and say “cool!”

The worst part of the walk in, though, is the four drawer dresser – plain oak, we bought it unfinished and lacquered it up for our first baby, put a changing table thingy on top of it.  We were set to go.  It has made its way all around two houses.  I think we’re going to keep it.  It’s just so compact and so unassuming and so useful.  It just tucks away and happily resides there doing its job, not needing to crow about its beauty.

That’s the easy part.  It’s the INSIDE of those drawers that are troublesome.  I almost got rid of Great Aunt Helen’s prayer book but the thing was copyrighted in 1888.  No can do! I’m sure one of my sons will be happy to take care of that after I’m gone.  Into the moving box.

Rosaries – I have so many now I’m not sure where they all came from, but I know they are special.  Some are from Lourdes when Mom went there, one I think belonged to Al’s Dad.  They will travel with me and maybe I’ll display them somehow, or even say the Rosary once in awhile.  Meditation, schmeditation.  Go sit in on a group of ladies praying the Rosary and you will be on another planet before you know it.  Totally hypnotizing.  I can remember my Grandma falling asleep in the chair with her rosary.  More recently I had a patient who was once removed from thinking clearly and spoke mostly Italian, I think, some foreign language.  Anyway, when I asked if she would work with me (I had arranged the time with the son and the assisted living) she very sweetly told me I would have to wait until after she finished praying her rosary.  I remember her voice getting louder as she looked me in the eye and said “It’s IMPORTANT.”  Yes ma’am.  I waited.  I watched her.  It made my day. Her son later told me she is ALWAYS saying the rosary. She didn’t have any interest in exercising anyway.

Handkerchiefs; things that let your eyeglasses hang around your neck and onto your bosom (Mrs. “Smo” as we liked to call her at Santa Maria, had those.  You could rest a book on her rack but she just let her glasses rest there…).  I tried them but they didn’t work in my profession, my glasses were constantly getting caught in my hair when I leaned over and didn’t stay put on their shelf.  Sachets; birthday cards from my Mom with sweet notes in them (keep.)  A love note from Al – ten things he liked about me in the year 2000.  (Keep.)  Foam ear plugs. (Still good.  Keep.)  A piece of paper that has in English what the gauze-y cotton tablecloths say that Mom and Dad brought from Kenya.  (Sorry, it’s downstairs.  Not going to go get it.  Maybe later, just for you.)

That’s just the first drawer.

Then I came across one of those mini books Mom gave me a long time ago called Quotable Women: A Collection of Shared Thoughts. 

I ended up here at the computer because I realized that might be a nice way to inspire my writing on FP.  I’m so focused right now – work, eat, (eat more), try to exercise, toss, keep, donate, pack.  Toss, keep, donate, pack.  Talk about hypnotizing for the reader.  So, for the next few weeks I think I’ll just pick a quote and see where it takes us.  Are you game?

Of course, whenever I “plan” to do something in this blog something else happens that requires immediate written attention.  Dogs eating skunks, that type of thing.

And now…drum roll please…I will flip the pages and randomly pick out a quote for tomorrow…

OK, never mind, I couldn’t randomly pick one.  I picked one that speaks to me.  I have always loved this one, and we shall chat again tomorrow…

“A mother is neither cocky nor proud, because she knows the school principal may call at any minute to report that her child has just driven a motorcycle through the gymnasium.”  Mary Kay Blakely b. 1957  American Writer…