Moving Forward

With great relief, I turned the calender from 2009 to 2010-- I did so with the hope for a kinder new year. But before I could figure out if I'll call it "two thousand ten" or simply "twenty-ten", the Grim Reaper knocked on our family's door again and we gathered for yet another funeral last week.

I came home after a painfully long funeral day and reread, for about the twentieth time, this post on grieving by Holly Dietor. Her words touch me deeply and I share it with you in case you missed it's original publishing. Although I've never actually heard Holly's voice, as I read, I could see her in my mind's eye and heard her speaking to me about loss and grieving. It helped tremendously.

Last month, just before Christmas, Beloved husband and I traveled to Israel on short notice, in a rush, to visit a cherished loved one who was near passing. It was important and meaningful for us to spend one last time with him while he was still alert and communicative. We made it just in time.

The grieving process for this loved one overwhelmed Beloved and I on our return flight to Los Angeles because we knew he probably would, and in fact did, pass away while we were flying home. In my jet-lagged, sleep-deprived state, I tried to remember Holly's words to share with Beloved in hopes of bringing him comfort.

As she so eloquently stated, grieving is an individual process that we need to experience and move forward through. But with the loss of so many loved ones in the past year, I often feel stuck, even paralyzed sometimes, with heartache. I am blessed that Beloved has nurtured, nudged and occasionally pushed me forward through the grieving process which helps make some of it more bearable but I know I still have a long way to go.

Earlier today I called a close friend whose husband passed away several months ago. She'd been having a very difficult time and her first holidays without him were especially painful. To my delight, the phone was answered by her 6 year old grandson who was visiting, along with his younger sister and parents from out of town, in hopes of cheering her up. He proudly spoke in his most polite and grown-up voice-- "Hello, Grandma's residence, James speaking." We chatted for a few minutes before I asked to talk to his Grandma. His words spoke volumes....

"Grandma is on a playdate with her friends."

Aside from it being a very cute answer, it meant that, for the first time in months, his Grandma was up to going out of the house with a few friends for lunch. I thought of Holly's words about moving forward through grief and admired her bravery as I know it wasn't easy to do.

Today life is much quieter for me-- A year earlier I would have never dreamed it imaginable that several of my "playdate" loved ones would have passed away. But now, thanks to Holly's wise words and the sweetness of a child's response, I am reminded that grieving is part of the process-- and so is moving forward.

Welcome to The Fifty Factor - Joanna Jenkins

Photo Credit: © Tatiana Grozetskaya - Fotolia.com

Sundays In My City #20 - Westwood, CA

Do you know Unknown Mami? She's awesome and she created a fun Sunday theme inviting you to get out and take pictures of your city to share with the rest of us. Click here for details and her logo and click here to see Unknown Mami's City today.

Several months ago, YnB at Two Yorks And A Bean put out a call for funny church signs. Of course, no matter how hard I looked, I didn't see one clever, interesting or funny sign in all of my travels.... Until this week. So with a tip of the hat to YnB, here's this week's Sundays In My City from sunny Southern California.

It's a lovely church on a busy street close to UCLA in Westwood, California. I was on my way to pick up my favorite Chinese Chicken Salad from Feasts From The East when I spotted this sign. A fast U-turn later....

.....I took these pictures. And then I noticed a motorcycle cop who smiled, waved and, and, and.... Did not give me a ticket for the U-turn. He made my day!

YnB has a new photo blog, Elemental My Dear. Check her beautiful work out when you have time.

And be sure to check out all the other great participants in the Sundays In My City feature. It's got quite a following from all over the world. Click HERE. Please think about joining in the fun yourself too. Unknown Mami is a great hostess and makes it easy to meet new bloggers near and far.

How's your Sunday?

Welcome to The Fifty Factor - Joanna

Photo Credit - Joanna Jenkins

To Repair Or Not To Repair

Don't you just hate home repairs that no one will ever actually notice or see once they're complete? I'm talking about the repairs that have no impact on your personal lifestyle but cost a boat load of money-- The repairs that are kinda boring and don't require shopping for pretty home furnishings-- The ones with no buyer satisfaction or a nice shiny babble to admire for your hard earned dollars. Those types of home repairs are no fun but you have to make them or your homestead could go very bad, very fast.

Case in point-- My Sewer Condom. I told you about it here. I Googled the cost of a "real" condom and discovered you can buy one for as little as 20 cents. My Sewer Condom cost as much as this....

Seriously! It's a Smart ForTwo Car. Cute huh? It's not parked in my driveway. But I do have a monogramed sewer condom instead. Yawn.

Of course, no one knows I have a new Sewer Condom, other than my dear readers, but I suppose people in my home would know if they tried to use the "facilities" without it. Which goes to show, no matter what it costs, you should always use a condom.

My sinking pool and deck-- Now there's one heck of a painful home repair check to write that, once the job's finished, no one will have any idea that any work was ever done, because it will look exactly the same when it's finished as it did before it started sinking. Don't get me wrong, I love my backyard and would hate to lose it, but seriously, when I think of all the things that could be done with the money if the pool and deck hadn't moved, my head spins.

Setting aside all the worthy causes the money could help for a moment, if sky's the limit, I could use the repair money to buy one of these lovely Cartier Diamond Tank Francaise Watches for me and three of my very best friends! (You know who you are ladies.)

Or how about one of these babies-- Size eleven carats (!) from Tiffany. Sure the diamond would be the size of the headlight for the above mention Smart Car, but as they say, "diamonds are a girl's best friend".

I've always wanted to see Paris, France. If I had money to burn and didn't have to repair the pool and deck, Beloved Husband and I could fly round trip First Class together three times. If we flew coach, we could make the round-trip together once a week for a full year! C'est la vie.

My closet could hold JoLo's Louis Vuitton bag-- 92 of them to be exact! But for the record-- I would only buy one so I'd have money left to actually put inside the purse.

One hundred and two romantic nights could be spent at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel's Deluxe Executive Suite. I love that place. It's where they filmed the movie "Pretty Woman". The idea of having someone else make my bed for 102 days in a row is very inviting. But alas, I must stay focus on the backyard.

I could ride on one of these cute little Vespa Scooters. Actually I could ride on 15 of them for the price of the repair. I hear Gwyneth Paltrow rides one around London. We could be BFF's if I switched my trip from Paris to Jolly Old England. Okay, maybe not.

On a more practical note, I could buy groceries for our household for 6 years or I could send a grandkid to college at UCLA for 3 years including tuition and room & board. Eleven thousand pounds of M&Ms candies is tempting as is 660 bottles of Dom Perignon Champagne, but I don't drink anymore.

Not that he's a car freak, but Beloved would look nice behind the wheel of this Maserati Quattroporte. We could only buy one but I think one would be enough to make him happy.

But seriously, who am I kidding. We can either spend the loot to repair our backyard and protect the investment in our home, or we could buy 1,100,000 Tylenol PM pills, which is how much we'd need to be able to (almost) sleep at night as we waited for the rest of the yard to slide down the hill.

Big sigh. Sometime you just have to be an adult and make the hard decisions.

But still, a pretty little red Vespa would be kinda nice. Maybe if the repair job comes in under budget, Beloved won't notice me sneaking one into the garage. Just one, honest.

The repair project starts in about three weeks. With a little luck, we'll be sitting here in the backyard by spring.

I don't even want to think about what our bank account will look like.

If money was not an issue, what would you spend it on?

Welcome to The Fifty Factor - Joanna Jenkins

Heartstrings

She was a bride with a vision. Or maybe I should say a bride on a mission-- Either way she was bound and determined to include all her loved ones on her wedding day.

My sweet niece, Queen M, and her Groom Z, wanted to be surrounded with love and memories and all things cherished when they exchanged wedding vows last summer. Their plan was for a small, intimate and inclusive wedding day that reached out to multiple generations of family and friends.

You know what they say about carefully laid plans, right?

Their "small" wedding ended up having 200 people but the ceremony and reception felt like one giant "love fest" to everyone in attendance. It truly was perfect despite its large size.

Queen M is a sentimental girl whose heartstrings are attached to several relatives who've passed away but had significant and meaningful relationships with her. It was important to have their spirit close to her on her wedding day, so she found some photos and we planned and plotted, and through trial and error, created a bridal bouquet uniquely her own.

Since she's in Ohio and I'm in California, she emailed me the family photos. I played with them on the copier at Kinko's until they were uniform in size and about 1/3 inch in diameter. Then I fiddled around some more, spent a few hours roaming the aisles of craft stores, and in the end attached the tiny laminated photos to thin floral wire, securing them in place with lavender crystal beads-- Lavender being the bride's favorite color.

Can you see the photos tucked in the bouquet?

We talked about how I would incorporate the five photos into her bouquet but she insisted she didn't want to see specifics or the bouquet until just before the ceremony. That meant I basically had one shot at getting it right, so the heat was on.

Since I'd never made a bridal bouquet before, I was pretty nervous. What if the flowers faded, wilted, or just plain died before the ceremony? Or worse, what if my sweet niece hated her bouquet! Let me tell you, I was sweating bullets and not just because it was about a hundred degrees on that Ohio day in June.

The morning of the wedding, Queen M was with her bridesmaids relaxed and enjoying breakfast as I worked my way through the flower mart gathering enough stems and petals for her bouquet plus the bridesmaids and boutineers. Fortunately, the latter went together fairly easy and fast. Then it was time to tackle the bride's flowers.

Gulp!

Sitting at my folk's dining room table with several anxious family members studying my every move, I started slowly, carefully selecting each flower's size, shape and color. One by one the bouquet started coming together and filling in nicely-- except it was lopsided. So one flower at a time, I took it apart again until I got it right. Three tries later it was ready for me to thread the photos on wires into the bouquet before I cut, then wrapped, the stems with satin ribbon.

Finally it was time for inspection-- by my mother-- The one person I knew who would be absolutely honest. When tears formed in her eyes, I got the thumbs up and we were good to go.

As for the bride? I knew the minute she saw the bouquet that she was thrilled.

Phew!

Queen M counted all five photos, said a silent prayer for each, and walked down the aisle to her new life and waiting husband.

What pulls at your heartstrings?

Welcome to The Fifty Factor - Joanna

Photo Credit: Joanna Jenkins

Sundays In My City #19 - Bumps In The Road

Do you know Unknown Mami? She's awesome and she created a fun Sunday theme inviting you to get out and take pictures of your city to share with the rest of us. Click here for details and her logo and click here to see Unknown Mami's City today.

After several side streets in our neighborhood were repaved, the striping crew came in and surprised us with a new trend that is, apparently, moving across Los Angeles.

First let me say that in Southern California we obviously don't get any snow, so that means traffic instruction are painted on the actual streets as well as on signs at the side of the road. "Reading the road" can be helpful once you get used to it.

For example, I've seen signs all over the country like this since I started driving more than 30 years ago. Los Angeles has more than their share of signs indicating "speed bumps" are ahead....

Since the City and our Home Owners Association are trying to slow traffic down in our neighborhood, they recently installed a lot of these types of speed bumps....

And then they painted traffic instructions on the road like this.....

And this.....

Humps! When did speed bumps become humps?

I'm not sure when Los Angeles decided to lose the "bump in the road" and switched to humps, but I laugh every time I see this.

Hope you're having a smooth Sunday!

Welcome to The Fifty Factor - Joanna

Photo Credit: Joanna Jenkins

The Winner Is... & Blog Buzz

A big thank you to Margaret at Nanny Goats In Panties for answering every single "How To' blogging question I threw at her. If you missed her interview, it's HERE. She was a great sport about it and spent a lot of time explaining everything. And thanks to all of you who entered the Interview's Giveaway.

I specifically placed the Giveaway at the END of the Interview and did not include the word "Giveaway" in my title so my actual readers, who spent the time to read the entire interview, would be "thanked" at the end with the Giveaway entry info.

Drumroll please....

The WINNER of the $25 Amazon.com Gift Card-- For commenting on my Interview Post AND on Margaret's Blog is...

TECHNO BABE at TechnoBabe's Adventures.

Techno has a terrific blog with insight, news, wisdom and some awesome photography. Please take a minute to pay her a visit.

~~~~~~

I would also like to thank Hilary at The Smitten Image for including THIS POST as a nomination for Post Of The Week. I am very flattered to be included in such good company.

You might know the Post Of The Week was passed onto Hilary by David McMahon of arthurblog when he stepped away from blogging to work on his novels. Hilary's doing a great job of scouting out new and interesting blog posts for us to enjoy. If you don't know Hilary, The Smitten Image or aren't familiar with the Post Of The Week here's your LINK to check it all out.

~~~~~

And while we're talking about David McMahon-- Don't forget Eddie Bluelights at Clouds And Silvery Linings has taken over David's The Sunday Roast feature that interview bloggers from around the world. A list of ALL 97 Interviews are HERE. Please check them out. And NOTE: David McMahon will be the 100th interview on the weekend of JANUARY 23/24. Mark your calendars-- It will be a great read!

~~~~~~

And last, I've received a few blogging questions about using the RSS Feed. I don't have a clue about it so if you have any tips or advice it would be greatly appreciate. Please comment here or email me directly. Thanks!

Hope you're having a great day. Happy Blogging!

Welcome to The Fifty Factor - Joanna

Photo Credit: Nanny Goats in Panties, The Smitten Image and Clouds and Silvery Linings