family times

I am having a bit of trouble reconciling the fact that I am the mother of a 36 year old woman who has 3 children of her own. How has time managed to evaporate so completely? A 10pm on November 20, 1975 I got a phone call from my brother-in-law. The call itself was somewhat odd since he seldom called. More unusual and entirely unexpected was his conversation after I said "hello".......... "Susan, this is Mel. Do you and Frank still want a baby?" You have to admit that in all sorts of imagined conversational openers, that has to take top honors for uniqueness. But after years of dehumanizing toxic unsuccessful infertility treatments, such a question seemed no more bizarre than the treatments themselves (which I had discontinued 6 weeks earlier). Each year on November 19 we celebrate Starr Catherine Gorsen Crafton's birthday because that is the date she was born. I tend to hold November 23 as sacred since that is when we first met her. Regardless of the date I still find it amazing that so much time has passed since then. The blessing of having Starr in my life only increases with the years.....

November sunsets

For decades I have looked forward to November afternoons for the spectacular sunsets. I don't know why they seem so much more vivid at this time of the year but my heart just leaps watching the color shifts. It's amazing how much pleasure nature brings into our lives. It's always there, a perpetual source of delight. Far too many people living in constant states of stress never notice what is all around them and never realize what they are missing. Must be one pure benefit of being a true Type B personality. I may move slowly but I seldom miss the magic.

new computer, big learning curve.....

Four weeks, count 'em, 4 weeks after the triple lightening strike in my yard that fried my elderly computer I finally have a new computer and am ready to resume some sort of regular living. For more than 6 years I have been using a borrowed PC of one sort or another. Decided when the last machine bit the dust in the big storm that the Universe was essentially telling me that my grace period avoiding buying a computer had finally expired. Buying a new computer that would serve any and all of my needs for at least 5 years wasn't exactly a walk in the park once I learned just how expensive refurbished Mac laptops were. heaven bless my brother Tom for his patience helping me search through the astonishing number of used Macbooks online. Friends CJ and Geoff told me what sort of specs to look for and that was amazingly helpful. As always the devil is in the details and there are lots and lots of details. But after investing hours and hours of reading the fine print and checking the reliability of various vendor sources I finally narrowed the list to about half a dozen and once again asked advice regarding which of those was going to work best for me. Et voila..... here we are with an elegant 15" MacBook pro that looks brand new and ought to be in the MOMA design collection Now I know why people are so in love with the late Steve Jobs. Sheer genius for easy function. now if I can just learn not to be afraid of the thing and figure out how to really take advantage of all this new technology at my fingertips. think I'll take a Mac class!!