The Blackburn Digest

When your children are small and living at home, Mother’s Day is easily celebrated. With help from Dad, flowers appear. Handmade cards full of glitter, glue and love are proudly presented. Dinner is at a restaraunt, or Dad does kitchen duty.

When your children are grown up, with lives of their own, the celebration is more complicated. There are work schedules to be dealt with; often, there are spouses & in-laws, and your daughters may now be mothers, too. They may even live in another city (or state.)  A lucky Mom may receive a phone call, loving cards or e-cards; a really lucky Mom may even receive flowers delivered to her door.

I’m a Really, Really Lucky Mom, blessed with loving and creative children who lead busy lives within the same city I live in. Mother’s Day celebrations began on Friday, when my daughter (now Mom to nearly-two-month-old Sara) and son (on his day off) arrived with wonderful cards, beautiful flowers and even gifts.

 Yes, I realize this didn’t get posted until April 18th! I would say, “Hey, it has been a busy month!”, but that boat won’t float. Not when the New Mom manages to get blogs written while caring for my  grand-daughter and handling pet care, household chores and multiple web sites! 

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Thursday, March 15th, started in a fairly normal fashion; Tom’s alarm rang at 7 AM. I didn’t want to get up, but I always do, and I did. I was being lazy and taking the day slowly- had just climbed into casual clothes when a text message arrived on my new Razr cellphone. (The Razr wasn’t an impulse buy; when I attempted to purchase a new battery, I discovered that my trusty Nokia had become a dinosaur!).

How did it get to be November already? I haven’t even blogged October! “I’ll write as soon as I….” seems to be my motto, and my downfall.

I’ll write as soon as I:

1) Finish counting beads and cutting wire, packing 24 kits and making four prototypes for next Tuesday’s senior-center craft class.

2) Finish packing 100 kits for miniature (1/12th scale) bluebonnets. . .due date has already passed, but use date hasn’t. LOL!  This only entails counting the right number of each component into each bag and adding my illustrated instruction sheet. To be exact, 22,500 deep blue petals, 3500 light blue petals, 700 bud bases, 2800 bud petals, 700 accent petals A, 700 accent petals B, 700 pre-cut stem wires, 400 leaf bracts and 100 “soil” bases!

3) Finish packing 100 kits for miniature (1/12th scale) yellow rose bouquets. Ditto the due & use dates:-)  This one’s easier – only 8400 rose petals, 400 rose bases, 600 leaves and 900 pre-cut stem wires.

There is an awesome miniature in the developmental stage in our family. It is one-of-a-kind, created of the very best that planning, love and commitment can provide and it will require several more months to complete.

Nope – it’s not a new item or scene I’m working on in one-twelfth, half-inch or quarter-inch scale. It is already larger than a 144th-inch scale project. Actually, I am only a very enthusiastic  member of the support group on this project.

 Our daughter and her husband are expecting their first child (and our first grandchild) on (or around) April 1st.  Yep, April Fools Day! ”Due Dates” are notoriously iffy, so this very welcome “mini” will probably arrive slightly before or after the “target” date. 

Meanwhile, there are calendars to mark, knitting/crochet/sewing patterns to be unearthed and a “Nana’s Nest” to be created for times when this wonderful new addition to our family comes to our house!!

“Garmie” is my new Garmin StreetPilot i3 GPS unit; measuring a scant 3″ x 2 1/2 “, it’s a powerful, smart little critter! It “talks to” up to 13 satellites to keep me on the right path, and is WAAS enabled. Though small, the display screen is quite easy to read when it’s mounted on my dash-board; because it’s small, it doesn’t interfere at all with driving visibility. It also has a “voice”, so I can watch the road instead of the display screen.

Honestly, I had a well-organized plan-of-attack when I got up on Tuesday morning! The was a lot to do, but I had a handle on it!

Tom III needed a new Rx filled (following Monday’s fairly brutal oral surgery) and the “forever” Rx (Prednisone drops since he’s had the corneal transplants) – #1 . . . Go to Walgreen’s. Thomas IV was planning to come down from Austin this afternoon, which meant Shannon might come over to spend time with her brother. Dinner for hungry “kids” and sore-mouthed husband was no problem – MommaCat’s Onion & Potato Soup to the rescue! However, that led to – #2. . . Go to HEB for chips, dips, snacks and garlic bread. Fur-kid Sundance needed a refill of the Prenisone emulsion which has kept him alive for over a year, so – #3. . . drive to the Northeast side of town and pick up his Rx! While “in the area”, I thought I would – #4 . . .check out Monarch Collectibles for half-inch scale wallpaper (for the Romantic Bedroom workshop). There was more on the list, but. . . . . .