MEET AND DINE AND DON'T WHINE.

There are times the only opportunity I get to be with some friends is at a meeting. Pam Quyle's hours are long, John and Wanda Hofstetter stick close to home when they are home or they go away for months at a time, like me.


So, even if we have business, it makes sense to have some social time and enjoy a meal together. Wanda brought us a beautiful dessert.

It was quite nice since most of my day was taxes, insurance, logistics on the new building in Oregon,  problems at the television studio with their brand new equipment, and so it went. In fact, the new equipment was part of the reason for the meeting.  Resolutions in sight.

My seven-foot long table is covered with paperwork. Hopefully by next week we'll actually be able to eat there. Oh, oh!  I think I'm whining.


Time to appreciate my Christmas poinsettia. I love them because they keep their bright beauty until late July. Cheers.

CONNECTIONS

My neighbor, Jan Stewart, invited Jim and I over for a second Thanksgiving Dinner with her family. Jan is my friend and neighbor.

Her son, Brian, went to grammar and high school with my youngest daughter.

 

Brian's wife, Debbie Pendergrast and my daughter were best of friends and have children close in age.

Jan's oldest grandson, cammeron, is now married with a child of his own and he lives on the road above me and is also my neighbor.

His mother is Jan's oldest daughter shown here with her first grandbaby. That makes Jan a great grandmother. It sneaks up on you. Suddenly we are the matriarch's of our families and it only gets better and better. When I was growing up, grandmothers and great grandmothers didn't look like these two women, youthful and full of fun. May it ever stay that way.

I like the connections and roots of friends, family and neighbors. But, as Jim prepares to leave, I know that you don't lose those connections by becoming a gypsy and ramblin' about the countryside as we did most of 2009 and 2010. You just gain friendships and connections as you go. How grateful I am to have met and got to know Jim's son and family, cousins, Donna and Bob Parker, the Di Paola family, Diane and Bob Comollo, Jackie and Ray Nichol and their daughter Rebecca, Simone and Pat Purcell. Friends, Dolly Giordano and Arthur, Bill and Loretta Gallagher, Jim and Ginnie Palumbo, Sue and Art Lambart, Ted and Sandy Walden, Leo and Fran Perth, Ted and Judy Price, Al Penta, Beverly Malland, Randy Vining, Bob Gambol, Horst and Margo Schnieder, Barbara De La Fuente, Helga Geday, Jan and Larry Seaberg, Debra Vinsel, Kerri Kaufman, Donna Huffer, Bob Parker...I'm probably forgetting someone. Each has become a connection and gives life that same solidity as the roots of home.

Now I have new names to give to my plants. My wandering jew I'll call Randy...