Happy Birthday Grandma!

Last night we were invited over to my parents' house for a birthday dinner for my grandma. I don't recall ever being with my grandma on her birthday so it was really nice to be able to spend the evening with her now that we live in the same city.

My grandparents moved to the city in the fall, into a much smaller home than they had before. As a result, they don't really need more 'things' for Christmas and Birthdays, their home is full enough already. I was on a mission to find something edible for a gift earlier this week when I found a website for a coffee and tea store in the city. My grandparents live in a condo complex where one meal a day is provided for them in a large common dining room. Every night they ask for 2 Lipton's Ginger Peach Tea bags with their meal. They share one and my grandpa puts the other one in his pocket and then they share it later in the evening. I have looked everywhere for this brand of tea and cannot find it! I thought I was lucky one afternoon when I came across a different brand of ginger peach, but they say it's not the same.



So off I was to the coffee shop (with a side mission to pick up some caramel crunch coffee beans recommended to me by a friend) as soon as my day home kids were picked up. Unfortunately the only ginger peach they had was loose, and I was pretty sure my grandma would only want tea bags. They had lots of other ginger versions in bags, but none were ginger peach. So I picked up my coffee and headed out.



Luckily just down the block is a cheese shop. My grandma loves cheese. Since they have moved to the city, we pick up my grandparents every Sunday to take them to church. I have heard so many stories about my grandmother's childhood that I have never heard before during these car rides. One of those stories is why she loves cheese so much, so I know I can never go wrong with a gift of cheese. I picked up a nice blue cheese I know she enjoys and a little container of olives and my mission was accomplished.



She was so please to have so many of her family with her last night on her birthday. I, as usual, forgot my camera, but my new phone has a camera built in. I know that's how most people's cell phones are nowadays but it's been years and years since I got a new cell phone, so it's very new and exciting for me, lol. It's not a great picture, seeing it's taken by a phone, but oh well, at least it's a picture.

Would you like to know how old my grandma is? I'll tell you what she tells me every time I have ever asked her "I am as old as my tongue, and a little bit older than my teeth." Happy Birthday Grandma!

I love that relaxing feeling

The one you get when you clean something. Not just a straighten up clean, but that deep clean, the one where you don't just move stuff around and rearrange it while you dust, but when you actually put away that thing you've been meaning to put in the storage room for months now but never get around to it, kind of deep clean.

My side of the bedroom looks so nice now. It makes me want to sit on the edge of the bed and read, or listen to music or just sit. Ahhhh.

I should sleep well tonight just knowing it looks clean, even though it's dark and I won't be able to see it. I'll still know.

It's like it's new!

My computer has been acting horrible. Slow and annoying. Chris has added a few programs here and there trying to fix issues and then we installed Norton on it in case it was a virus. The scan came out negative, and then since Norton, it was even slower. So last night I backed up all my pictures and documents and Chris wiped the computer and started it over from scratch.

What a huge difference! A blank slate is very refreshing.

Luckily I backed up my favorites as well, so all the blogs I visit and web pages I like to hang out at, were safely tucked away until this afternoon when I put them back where they belong.

Things are all sparkly!

That's what Anna said when she put on her new glasses.

Awww.

To think that before she had glasses things were not sparkly makes me almost sad. We had no indication from her that she was not seeing well. Never a complaint. We had taken her to the optometrist last year as well and learned about the astigmatism, but it wasn't bad enough to do anything about yet and we learned that many kids have a slight astigmatism and it improves each year (Beth's did). We were told to wait and see and come back in a year and we did. So it's not like I should feel bad, we did everything right. But it still tears at my heartstrings that things were not sparkly before.

I will work very hard to get a picture taken of her in her new specs. But if you know Anna at all, you know that very well could be mission impossible.

Snow, snow go away

I am already tired of snow. Shoveling doesn't help that feeling at all. I'll take a picture later to show you just how much snow we've had to shovel this year and a picture of the undisturbed drifts in the back yard. Spring cannot come soon enough but I know it's months away still. Darnit.

Eye see you... Or not.

So my baby needs glasses. She's only five so it actually surprised me. When Katie needed them last year we were not surprised since both Chris and I needed them around the same age. But at five? The dr. used the alphabet chart this year, or tried to now that Anna is in kindergarten but she couldn't recognize any letters. I told the dr. her recognition is not great, not like it was for my older girls. Then she tried numbers which Anna also had trouble with. Then we moved on to E's, left right and upside down. That seemed to do the trick.

I noticed during the exam that she was getting a lot of them wrong but only on one eye. Turns out she has quite severe astigmatism in her left eye. Treatment options are starting with glasses that she will wear for a month and then go back for a re-check. If it's still not any better we will have to patch her good eye after school until bedtime to encourage her other eye to step up and do its job.

The dr. also mentioned that astigmatism can distort images and not always the same way each time you see the image. She felt it could be why her letter recognition is not very good. Or that could just be her LOL. Maybe we'll find out soon enough. She gets her new glasses in about a week and she is so excited.

Things happen for a reason right?

Can't go into details but I just need to reassure myself that when one door closes, another, hopefully just as nice or even better, door opens. My fingers are crossed that the door we are looking towards opens up soon. Even if we can't go in just yet, seeing it open is all we need.

iBlog

Maybe now that I have this handy little iPod touch with a blog application I might update a little more often. It may only be a sentence or two because I have to individually type each letter with one finger but it will be better than nothing which is what this blog has consisted of lately. And thank goodness this little machine self corrects pretty darn well most if the time or it would take even longer to plug in these few sentences.