Thanksgiving 2013

Okay, I am a day late in wishing you all

a Happy Thanksgiving!

As is my family tradition, since we stopped

going to mom's for the holidays and split up

the holidays amongst us, I now host the

Thanksgiving dinner for my family.

Who attends can vary from year to year but

my sister's family, my mom, my family are the

staples of the day...

My brothers usually come for dessert and

celebrate the dinner at their house.

My wish for you is that you were

surrounded by loved ones and 

enjoyed each others' company.

Give thanks to the Lord for he is good,

Let us rejoice and be glad.

Happy Thanksgiving All.

So for your viewing pleasure I've added a 

few images from my Thanksgiving celebration

and hope you enjoy them... 

To note, I used placemats on one table and a runner

on the other table that were purchased from an artisan

that was displaying their goods in our hotel while on

Maui.  I fell in love with the print and purchased the runner.

I'll go into their story on another post but wanted to 

inform you about the material... the fabric is from the

1950's and was created for, and used on, a cruise ship 

line that cruised from Los Angeles to Hawaiian Islands.

(LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this fabric).

I apologize ahead of time for my 'artsy' 

shots but I was trying to get a little creative.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well Now... Happy Saturday You Say?

Ok, so at least the last few posts have been on the light side and happier.  So glad I had a few happy days to enjoy and share because you know what that means, right?  The pendulum swings the other way and to balance the happiness there's always some sadness, at least for me.

Andrew's counselor has wanted to meet up and have a family meeting for weeks but he's put her off by saying that I work full time and used my vacation up on my recent Hawaiian trip, which is true.  However, he asked if I could meet on a weekend as his counselor said she'd come in for a meeting.

He never told me about this before two weeks ago.  So I agreed and we set a time for last weekend on Saturday (because the previous posted about Christening was Sunday).  The counselor had to cancel that meeting so we rescheduled for today, 9am.

I left the alarm set last night since I had to get up and be at the half-way house by 9am.  

I drove over and arrived at exactly 9am.  Went up to the door and one of the workers came and opened the door. "Can I help you?"  "Yes, I am here for a meeting with Andrew and his counselor."  "Are you Andrew's mother?"  "Yes." "Ummm, Andrew is not here."  "Where is he?" "He's been (forget the exact word she used but something like) sequestered."  "Sequestered?  What does that mean?"  "He's in jail."  "What? Why?"  "Robin said you may stop by and asked me to tell you.  She said she tried calling you yesterday to cancel and let you know.  She left a voicemail."

I believe I've shared  this before, but unlike the Gen X's, Y's & Milleniums, I have a flip phone and use it to make calls while driving with Sync.  I rarely talk on the actual phone and most times, it's dead when I go to use it.  

"You can call on Monday when the day couselors are here.  They have permission to give you his PO's name and number.  Weekend workers don't have that permission to share with you."  "Great, thanks."  "Sorry to give you this bad news but Robin did try to reach you."

I went to the car and looked at my phone and sure enough, there was a voicemail waiting for me to listen to and it was Robin asking me to call her back.

Guess I will find out Monday what's going on.

I don't know how much I can take of this child's struggle with heroin and all the court actions that surround it.

I am sad.  I am down.  I am bummed and angry too.

Being the forever optimist that I am, I just know that there will be happier times ahead with the holidays coming up and my family to be with me.  It looks like I will spend another holiday season without my son Andrew as he sits in jail.  

I don't think I can go another Thanksgiving and Christmas trekking up to the prison.  

Heck, I don't even know if he'll be at the local county prison.  Why? you ask.  Because when he got out of his last stint from June to September, he promised the judge that if he gave him the chance to get out (you may recall I refused to let him come back home) and he screwed up, the judge could put him back in prison and he'd serve his full 7.5 years from the beginning at the upstate prison.

Now I wonder if he'll be upstate until he's 33 or 34 and when he's released if he'll immediately go to heroin, overdose and die.  OMG, I hate this situation and I have no control over it whatsoever, but my emotions are being torn upside down, inside out and every which way.

Here's hoping my next post is on the other side of the pendulum and it's a happy one...

Happy Saturday!

UPDATE: At least I have found out that the reason for incarceration was NOT drug related, instead it was a particular incident... what that incident is/was, I haven't a clue.  I have only been able to leave voicemails for his PO (he doesn't return phone calls so I have to keep calling.)  

Bringing the Inner Van Gogh in Me Out!

My sister-in-law and I went out on a Paint Nite this week!

We had a great time!  

I was impressed with my impressionist Van Gogh masterpiece...

Waddya think?

Ta Da!

Brayden's Christening

God bless Brayden.

Last week we celebrated his Christening.

He was perfect during the ceremony, 

Not a peep or tear.

After the church ceremony we 

gathered to celebrate.

I love this little guy so much.

May God continue to bless him

And hold him in the palm of His hand.

The Lights Have Gone Out

Sorta sad day for me...

The lights have gone out.

I'll miss each of them in their own way.

I'll miss the person behind the curtain even more.

Perhaps one day a light may shine again.

On that day, I will feel happy.

Ah, but for that day I long.

San Francisco Leg of Hawaii 6-0!

Not sure if I mentioned it or not but part of the Hawaii 6-0 adventure included a stop in LA on the way out and San Francisco on the way back.

While reading my subscribed blogs today, I can across this post that talks about a new entry to San Francisco's Heritage Street Car Fleet and recalled, I took pictures of many of the existing ones while we toured the city sooooo......

It made me think, why not share the blog post AND my pictures with my reader(s), HA!

I enjoyed seeing the various models and never thought I'd have reason to share but alas... I do.  Hope you enjoy too!

Here's the post...

http://www.streetcar.org/blog/2013/10/toot-toot.html

And here's my pictures as I haphazardly snapped away on that day!

And a few others slipped amongst them.