THE GIFT
I've had a story that I've been wanting to post about and now seems like the perfect time to tell it. It happened years ago.

First, I'll give you some background:

Before I got married I did not know how to drive. I lived in a small town where driving was not necessary, everything was around the corner or I could take a bus that got me into "the big city."

Life changed after I got married, my husband and I bought a house in the suburbs and if I wanted to get anywhere the options were limited. There was a bus stop nearby but it ran infrequently and had a local route.

When my husbnd was single he lived at home with his widowed mother and single sister. Brother and sister worked for the same company so having one car was no problem, they went to work together.



As newlyweds, buying a car of our own was out of the question - solution - my husband had the car during the week to get him to his job and his sister was able to take the bus. When the week-ends came, the four of us had lots of togetherness!

It didn't take to long before I realized I NEEDED to get my license! Once I got my license the need for our own car became imperative. HALLELUJAH - we bought our first car which was a pink and white Chevy. No way would I ever chose that color combo but it was an end of year special, in our price range, and we would have our own set of wheels!

Ok, we now had a car and my husband had to get to work and I wanted to have the car too! The solution was for me to GET UP EARLY, drive him to work , then I could have the car for the day and pick him up at the end of the day. His hours were
from 7:30 am to 4:30 pm. I was never an early riser so needless to say I was not a happy camper.

Time passed and I was still driving my husband to and from work, I was getting tired of this arrangement and was getting pretty vocal about it.

Well, one day my son who had to be about 10 years old at the time surprised me with the most thoughtful gift I have ever received. He knew how much I wanted my own car so his gift to me was a plastic purple and yellow car. I have that car to this day!



I don't have to feed it gas, no car insurance, no excise tax, don't have to take it in for a car wash, no oil change and I don't even need AAA. It doesn't cost me anything to maintain and when I think of the thoughtful gift my son gave me, it's worth a million.

posted by millie garfield @ 3:50 PM | Permalink | I LOVE COMMENTS >> 10 comments

 
FLORIDA - HERE I COME
Usually by this time I have already done a lot of packing in preparation for my winter stay in Florida. I like to start early because as I get older it takes longer and longer to accomplish whatever I have to do.

This season I have been so busy seeing all the men in my life, having one test after another and waiting for test results, it has put me way behind.

When I was younger I might have had one or two men in my life, now I have an internist, dentist, periodontist, pediotrist, gynecologist, gastroenterologest, oncologist and opthomologist. And that's only up North - In Florida I have a large group of men looking after me too.

I ship my car to Florida and pick-up day is November 29th. There 's a lot to do till then, meetings to attend, good-bye lunches and lots of phone calls to make.

The last few years I have been thinking, "maybe this will be the last year I go to Florida for the winter." It's such a big job to go and then it's another big job to return, then I get down there and have such fun in the sun, I forget about the hard time I have getting ready. Most of my friends still go south for the winter, if stayed here it would be a LONG LONELY winter.

One of the items I pack is a very large desk calender, I need one with very large squares because of all the activities that are available to me. Some days it's just nice to relax at the pool.

I have been going down south for many years now and it still surprises and delights me when I walk out of the theater or a restaurant in the evening and it is not cold or even chilly. Another plus for me is, it stays light longer then here in the East.

I'll be going to Florida as long as I keep going!

Flickr photo by cowtools. CC BY-NC

posted by millie garfield @ 5:57 PM | Permalink | I LOVE COMMENTS >> 19 comments

 
Good News and Bad News

Flickr Photo by: [[Neo]] CC BY-NC-SA

Saw this on the web and wanted to share:

Two 90-year-old women, Rose and Barb, had been friends all of their lives. When it was clear that Rose was dying, Barb visited her every day. One day Barb said, "Rose, we both loved playing women's softball all our lives, and we played in all through High School. Please do me one favor: when you get to Heaven, somehow you must let me know if there's women's softball there." Rose looked up at Barb from her deathbed, "Barb, you've been my best friend for many years. If it's at all possible, I'll do this favor for you."
Shortly after that, Rose passed on. At midnight a couple of nights later, Barb was awakened from a sound sleep by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calling out to her, "Barb, Barb." "Who is it?" asked Barb, sitting up suddenly. "Who is it?"
"Barb -- it's me, Rose."
"You're not Rose. Rose just died." "I'm telling you, it's me, Rose," insisted the voice. "Rose! Where are you?"
"In Heaven," replied Rose. "I have some really good news and a little bad news." "Tell me the good news first," said Barb.
"The good news," Rose said, "is that there's Softball in Heaven. Better yet, all of our old buddies who died before us are here, too. Better than that, we're all young again. Better still, it's always springtime, and it never rains or snows. And best of all, we can play softball all we want, and we never get tired."
"That's fantastic," said Barb.. "It's beyond my wildest dreams! So what's the bad news?"
"You're pitching Tuesday."

posted by Steve Garfield @ 7:21 PM | Permalink | I LOVE COMMENTS >> 17 comments

 
HOME ON THE RANGE
Starting Friday morning the TV and radio were alerting us that the remnants of Hurricane Noel were going to hit Southern New England on Saturday.



That was the day my friends and I had matinee tickets for Les Miserables at the North Shore Music Theatre in Beverly. What to do? We decided to wait until Friday night to see if they were still forecasting bad weather. Well sure enough it still sounded like we were going to be in for a bad storm.

I called the box office that evening and was able to exchange the tickets for a Wednesday matinee. Not only that, the box office told me that we would each receive a $10.00 credit on our account since Wednesday matinee tickets cost less. Great!

As it turned out the storm did not affect the North Shore like it did other areas. We had heavy rain and wind but did not lose power.

OK, so I was home Saturday, not going out in that rain storm - On a day like that I started to think "SOUP"! Wouldn't it be nice to have a bowl of hot soup? As a matter of fact I had been checking out the cans of soup at the market. When I read the sodium content of the soup, I dropped the can like it was a hot potato.

Fortunately I had all the ingredients on hand (I had the meat in the freezer) and was able to make my hearty vegetable soup. My intention was to type the receipe here but before I did that I checked with Google and found that I posted that soup recipe
on December 12, 2006, so if you missed that post, check it out.

I had a bowl of soup Saturday night and now I have five containers of soup in my freezer. It turns out, it was not a bad way to spend a stormy day!

posted by millie garfield @ 6:37 PM | Permalink | I LOVE COMMENTS >> 11 comments