When a Negative is a Positive

Christmas blessings

The biopsy report from my colonoscopy was finally posted in my online medical chart folder. The results on both of the polyps removed were negative, which is fantastic news and an even greater reason to be thankful this Christmas. This is a great representation of when a negative becomes a positive.

Speaking of Christmas, both our children and their families will be with us this holiday. We are really looking forward to having a little one around again. We are in the process of baby proofing the house as Baby W is now mobile. Hopefully she won't pull the tree down on top of herself! We are debating moving it to the second floor to be out of reach, but will probably wait and see if it becomes an issue once they get here.

I have our Christmas cards addressed and ready to go in the mail. Nearly all the presents are purchased, and the ones that have arrived are all wrapped. I'm feeling pretty good about where I stand in the process right now. I need to figure out the daily menus and get a start on the grocery purchases. I'll wait on any baking until we get closer to when the kids will arrive. Until then we have a lot of upcoming fun activities coming up over the next couple of weeks. Ho, ho, ho...

Shower Me with Your Love

The baby shower for our daughter-in-law was last Saturday. The week before, Jim road his motorcycle to St. Louis so he and a friend could take a trip together. I decided to go up to Cincinnati last week, and then the two of us would meet in Indiana for the shower. While I was in the city of my birth, I was able to have lunch with relatives on both sides of my family. I haven't been to Cincinnati in over three years, so it had definitely been awhile since I had seen folks. 

Grandma Shower

My cousin Mary Ann was kind enough to let me stay with her, and she had a small grandma shower for me, which was super sweet. They gave a couple books, toys and a picture frame for the baby's photo - items for me to keep at our house for Baby Dub. They also each had a gift for me to take to the kids for the shower. But Debbie wanted me to open hers up. I first lifted out a little yellow crocheted cap. I immediately said there had to be a family story attached to it. She quickly acknowledged that there was. I next brought a little yellow sweater out of the bag, and it included a label. The label read "Made with love by Catherine Kubler" - my mother, who died in 1989. Mom had crocheted the set for Debbie's first-born, Nate, in 1985. Debbie had held onto it all these years, hoping that I would have a grandchild so she could pass it on. She wanted my grandbaby to be wrapped in her great-grandmother's love. Needless to say, we all broke down in tears at the sentiment. What an incredibly thoughtful gesture!

sweater set

On Friday I drove to Jasper, Indiana to meet up with Jim. We picked up a trailer for his motorcycle so we could ride together on the way back. Then we checked into our hotel in Jasper. We were able to park the trailer and bike at Megan's parent's house so we didn't have to haul them around. Megan's brothers and their families arrived at the house a little after us, as did Andy and Megan, so we were all able to have dinner together. I had them open the gift from Debbie, which was a good call as I teared up again as I relayed the story of the outfit's history.

Saturday morning we set up everything for the shower, with the guys lugging the tables and chairs around. They took off for a pub to eat wings and watch football while we attended the shower at the house. Everything looked great as the guests began to arrive at noon. We had sandwiches with sides, cupcakes and adorable cookies. We then played a game before Megan opened the gifts. As there were 30 people in attendance, this took quite a bit of time. They received some wonderful presents, and got a good start on outfitting the baby as well as the nursery. It was a wonderful, happy occasion to be sure.

Baby Dub shower

After checking out of our hotel Sunday morning, we stopped by the house to pick up the trailer and say goodbye. We had a long drive ahead of us, so we did not dally for too long. The drive home was fairly uneventful, despite the fact that this was the first time we had ever towed anything behind the new car. It took us 10 hours, which is kind of what we expected.

The kids will remain pretty close to home from now until the baby's birth. We may try to run up and see them once more before the Baby Dub makes her appearance. We are in the home stretch now!

Christmas 2020 - One for the Record Books

Oh Christmas Tree

With Covid-19 running rampant around the country, Christmas 2020 - like Rudolph - will certainly go down in history. And not in a good way. In a normal year, we would have gathered with friends for parties and with family members to celebrate Christ's birth. This year has been anything but normal. We are still grieving our family members who died in 2020, so it was especially difficult not to be able to get together with even our immediate family this year. 

In the blessing category, our daughter has been staying with us since the middle of November as she has been working remotely since February anyway. But for the first time in his 35 years on this earth our son was not with us to open presents. He and his wife traveled to Indiana to be with her family, and we just didn't feel like it was safe for them to then come directly from there to our house. We are hoping that once they quarantine following their trip they will be able to come here for a weekend so we can exchange gifts. It is really hard not to be with them right now, but I have always said it's not about the date but that we are able to be together as a family. So it will happen when it can happen. 

We did not step foot in any stores, instead doing all of our shopping online. I know this was very bad for the small businesses, but it just is not safe inside the stores. There are still too many people who don't believe that they should have to wear a mask. I've also seen where they are continuing to go out in public even knowing that they are sick. It's ridiculous, so we are doing whatever we can to protect ourselves. Our own little community has had 13 Covid cases that I know of, and one death from the virus. It is scary!

We did some baking, including our first try at my mother-in-law's homemade cinnamon rolls. She sort of passed the recipe on to our daughter. I say sort of because, like those of many women of her generation, recipes were not written down. So the measurements of key ingredients are left to interpretation. We thought our rolls turned out well, but agreed that we would add more cinnamon in the future. Lorraine must have been smiling from heaven as all three of her kids made the rolls from their respective states this year in her honor.

cinnamon rolls

As we opened our presents this Christmas, while enjoying our signature Cranberry Cosmopolitan drink, we reflected on those who were missing from our gathering. But we also appreciated the fact that even the three of us were able to be together. I don't think we are alone in looking forward to bidding 2020 adieu. Cheers!

Cranberry Cosmopolitan

The Immediate Family Christmas

Andy and Megan arrived a little earlier than planned on the 26th because of the weather forecast. They got out of Huntingburg with no problem, but the interstate through southern Illinois was a bear. At times they were traveling only 10 miles per hour. They were relieved to get here and find no snow on the ground. Katie's plane was supposed to land at 10:30 p.m. but in fact did not arrive until 12:30 a.m. Andy volunteered to go get her, so the rest of us snuggled up here until they got back to the house. Then we stayed up talking until 2:00 a.m. It reminded me of the good old days when Jim and I would come home from work, load up the car and head up to Iowa, often arriving at our parent's house in the wee hours of the morning. It looks like I have something new to apologize for - staying up like that is hard on older folks. Yet our parents never complained.

Jim and I worked out the next morning, and then he had to run into work as a young man was coming in for a job interview. I hit the grocery store as the cupboards were pretty bare. The kids went to the Galleria to finish up some shopping since we were opening gifts that night. I made a roast in the crockpot to simplify clean-up, and then we mixed up a batch of cosmopolitans for everyone to enjoy as we exchanged gifts. Yum!

Friday we all went to the Art Museum since it had been pointed out that Megan had never been there. We were hoping to see the current exhibit of Barocci paintings, but it was sold out until late in the afternoon. Megan and Andy needed to drive back to Indiana and as more snow was predicted they wanted to get on the road before it got too late. So we walked through the museum instead, and hit Ted Drew's on our way back to the house.

Katie is still with us until Wednesday, so it is nice to have a little time to catch up with her. She is busy trying to see all of her friends before she takes off as well. After she leaves, it will be time for me to take down all the decorations. Then Christmas 2012 will be a wrap.

A Strange Yet Still Merry Christmas

Jim & Kirby

On Saturday Jim and I drove up to my in-law's house in northeastern Iowa to celebrate Christmas this year. It was the first time in 27 years that we did not have either one of our children with us for the actual holiday. Just like we have done in our 34 years of marriage, Andy and Megan alternate which set of parents gets them for Christmas. They drove to Indiana this year. And since Katie is in Los Angeles with a newer job, she has no paid vacation time not to mention the fact that it would have taken her three flights to get to the closest airport in Iowa. She is flying to St. Louis tonight, and Andy and Megan are driving here from Indiana to spend a couple of nights with us before heading back to Indiana. So we will celebrate our Christmas a little bit late, but we know we are lucky that we can make this happen at all.

In addition to our kids being missing from the activities in Iowa this year, Jim's younger sister was unable to drive up from Kansas City due to work commitments, and his older sister (who lives in the same town as his folks) was so sick that she ended up going to the hospital to get some antibiotics. We did not get to see her and her family until dinner time on Christmas Eve. Though there were several inches of snow on the ground, all of those things added up to it not feeling too much like Christmas. We even went to Christmas Eve Mass at 4:00 in the afternoon, and that was different as well.

Despite all that we had a wonderful visit and of course ate way too much. Jim's mom is such a great cook, and I have little will power when her wonderful cinnamon buns and brownies are placed in front of me. We were able to begin videotaping Jim's mom as she reminisced about her early life, and that was something we all had been wanting to do. We have much more to cover, and we would like to get my father-in-law recorded as well. All in all, a great start to the holiday season and we are eager to see the kids tonight to continue the celebration.

On the Eve of Christmas Eve

For some reason this year I had all my shopping and wrapping done early. I need to make one last stop at the grocery store tomorrow morning to pick up the meat for Christmas Eve dinner. I am going to go early so that I don't turn into a grouch. In fact, I think hubby and I are going to go workout at 7 a.m. and then hit the store right after. Andy and Megan are due to arrive around 12:30, and I still have to tidy up the guest bedroom and bath. But that shouldn't take me too long.

We picked Katie up at the airport Sunday night. The place was fairly quiet at 9:00 at night. Since we had arrived a little early we walked through the airport looking at the improvements. Nearly all the glass has been replaced from the tornado, though we were surprised to still see a few windows boarded up. What's up with that? The new waiting area for those picking up passengers from the D concourse is quite nice, as are the two new luggage carousels. I think all of those are being replaced eventually.

It has been great to have Katie home. Being able to connect with her via phone and Skype was great, but nothing beats being able to talk to your kids face to face. She is still a bit jet-lagged, but we managed to get some things accomplished this week. Most notably today we dealt with US Cellular. We had just purchased Katie a new phone that would work in China right before she left in August. Unfortunately it was stolen while she was there. US Cellular gave me the bad news that there was an issue with the $100 rebate, and also the insurance on the phone. They told me they would not replace this (expensive) phone. We had Katie buy a cheap phone in China so she could keep in touch with the other students, her teachers and her internship supervisor. I decided to wait until she came home to deal with US Cellular again. We worked with the store manager today and she immediately took care of both of the issues. She gave me the $100 credit, which has been applied to my bill, and gave Katie a replacement phone. Woo, hoo! I did not anticipate such a great outcome. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

'Tis the Season

We had a wonderful Christmas. Katie arrived home for winter break on the Megabus (which arrived early, wonder of wonders!), and Megan and Andy made the trek from Maryland. They stopped at the Englerts on the way over, which gave them a nice little overnight break. They got here around 4:30 Christmas Eve. I made a big supper since we were going to spend Christmas Day at my sister's house, and then we opened presents. Christmas Day as we were about to head out to Kathy's, my nephew called to tell me that I-44 was shut down. We thought it was due to ice on the roads, but later found out that a highway patrol officer had been killed when he stopped to help an accident victim. So sad - no Merry Christmas for that family.

We ultimately made it out to Union and had a great time with my sister, her children and assorted in-laws. My brother-in-law was not due to leave Iraq until the 26th, so we had to celebrate the holiday without him.

Megan and Andy stayed with us until late afternoon on the 27th before heading once again to her parents to spend the night before driving back to Maryland on the 28th. We very much enjoyed their visit, and got several rounds of cards and Yahtzee in. Oh, and I should mention that Megan loved the stocking I made for her, so that made me feel good.

Last night Jim and I took Kathy up to the airport and we picked up Skip, her husband. He just spent 8 months outside of Baghdad helping the Iraqis get their computer servers up and running, and training them on how to maintain the system. He was supposed to be there a year, but the contract was changed once he had been there 6 or so months. Because he will have severe tax implications for returning before 12 months are up, he will only stay in the US for 2 weeks before heading down to Belize to stay with his sister for 4 months. What a goofy system we have!

Easy Riders

Last night was our last Christmas party, thank goodness. We hosted the party for the St. Louis Victory Motorcycle Club, and we had 14 people here. Jim grilled pork and beef loins, and I made rolls, a tortilla appetizer and corn casserole. Others brought cole slaw, potato salad, baked beans and shrimp cocktail. Sounds like a summer feast, doesn't it? Well, with the temperature making it into the 40's yesterday, it felt darn-right summery out! One of the ladies brought two homemade gooey butter cakes, one of which was pumpkin flavored. OMG! And I don't usually care for gooey butter cake at all. Amazing...We had a gift exchange, as everyone was to bring a $10 gift item. As your name was drawn, you could select one of the wrapped gifts. My name was the second to be called, and the package I selected held a very unique gift item - a statue of a pig driving a motorcycle. Jim got a bottle of wine, which he was quite happy with. Then the exchanging began. All the names were put back in the hat, and when your name was called you could take someone else's gift. I knew someone would covet my pig, and sure enough I found myself with a wall calendar depicting a Victory motorcycle on each month. Knowing that Jim would like that on his office wall, I declined to swap gifts when my name was called. Jim did the same, keeping his bottle of wine. That will teach us. Someone wanted Jim's wine, and in return he got a Harley Davidson belt buckle and temporary tatoos (choke!) and, I kid you not, a pair of men's edible underwear! Peach flavored, no less. Needless to say, no one else came after his new gifts. I didn't fair much better. The last name called was Moose, and he took my calendar. In exchange I received a book entitled "Redneck Extreme Mobile Home Makeover". Sounds like there will be some re-gifting in our future. I had not met any of the members of the riding club before since I don't own a motorcycle nor will I get on the back of one, but somehow sharing margaritas and edible undies has made me part of the group. Ride on!