Wednesday, June 7, 2023

Busy, but Not Crazy

 The last couple of months have been busy. Now, if I could only remember with what.

This past weekend, we celebrated my father-in-law Leo's 90th birthday. Ward did a lamb roast for his father per his request. Ward had never done one before, so much research was needed. He learned a lot from the experience but probably won't do it again.

My FIL's 1st dog. His mother went on
to raise collies for the next 50 years.

As I have mentioned here before, I put together a "This is Your Life" type book for my FIL. I spent a lot of time on it over the past couple of months, but it turned out well. Leo (and others) are thrilled with it. It was fun to watch him see a picture and launch into a story. He's a good storyteller. So now, all that's left is to organize the hundreds of photographs and papers I didn't use into some kind of order and return them to my FIL. Let me explain a bit about that. When Leo's mother died, he inherited all of her pictures and papers. Somehow, I got roped into going through them, which was not easy since I didn't know many of the people or things I was looking at. And there were very few labels on items. Anyway, I have gone through 3 big tubs of things so far that I returned and had another at our house to sort through. That's where I got some of the material that went into the book. The rest is strewn about in a mess. My goal is to work a little on it each day, so I can return it to Leo sooner rather than later.

And speaking of stories from the past, sometime I will get back to my Storyworth book. I have a hard copy, but it is in sore need of editing for typos before anything else happens with it. But that's not happening anytime soon.

One of the things I kept from my parent's boxes.
My idea is to plant herbs in it for the kitchen.
We shall see if that happens.

But back to recent activities. My nephew got married in May, so we were privileged to attend the happy occasion. My sister from Maine was in town, so it was nice to have all four sisters together again. There was more looking to the past when we spent a couple of days going through boxes in my garage from my parent's house. We put them there several years ago when we cleaned out their house. They were full of things we weren't ready to get rid of but not sure what to do with. Now, most things have been decided on, and I have a few follow-through things to do to complete the job. I have one of those ready for today- a package of mementos to mail to my cousin.

Annie
And as you know, we are down to one cat now because Leo died last month. Now, we're trying to figure out Annie, our only remaining cat. She and Leo were littermates and had never been separated. I wouldn't say that she seems lost without him. However, we are finding places around the house where she is now peeing. Whether that is coming from old age (19 1/2 years) or a reaction to being alone, we don't know. But it's a problem. We've moved litterboxes around to hopefully help. In the meantime, Ward has had to take the Roomba apart twice to try to get the pee out.

And this time of year, there's plenty to do outside. We don't have everything done that needs to be done, but we are making progress. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

Until next time...

Comment: Sorry about all of the different font sizes. I am happy to have Google's services, but sometimes you get what you pay for. (Blogger is free.)


8 comments:

  1. I know your FIL loved his birthday gift. What a heartfelt way to honor him.

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    1. He is really enjoying it and so is everyone else in the family. It pulled together information, much of which people didn't know or hadn't seen.

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  2. You have been very busy! What a lovely birthday gift for your FIL. I'm sure he loved it.
    Sorry to hear that Annie is peeing all over the house. It is probably a combination of old age and missing her brother/constant companion. Poor Annie and poor you and Ward having to deal with it.
    I like the idea of planting herbs in the old kettle. I keep my spoons and such in a copper kettle by the stove. :)
    Don't worry about the font changes. It's fine.

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    1. The book ended up with130 pages. Just a blip in his 90 years, but a decent summary overall.
      Leo didn't have bladder control for his last week of life, but not sure what's going on with Annie.

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  3. Oh poor baby, I didn't remember your other cat passed. Peeing outside the litter box in old age can also be a sign of kidney disease or failure. Of course it is also the classic sign of stress.

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    1. I don't mind cleaning up pee if I know where it is. It's when it sits for a while and sometimes stains things, that's the problem. Oh, well. This certainly is not our first cat who has not used the litter box.

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  4. It's been a busy season for you. Sounds like a very nice set of milestone activities--a 90th birthday celebration and a wedding. Isn't it nice to have the freedom, post-covid, to celebrate without undue worry?

    You are very good at organizing and categorizing things, so I'm sure the book/pictures turned out well. What a big job!

    It's so hard to figure out what is going on with cats. And cat pee is nasty to deal with.

    Guess what? We're headed for WV soon! We decided to go to New River Gorge. :)

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    1. You're right about it being post COVID and being to celebrate things in person. We were asked to take a COVID test before the wedding which we did. One of nephews from Maine tested positive a couple of days before the wedding and he wasn't able to come. He was very disappointed.

      Have a good trip!

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