My thoughts for this Thursday are simple: My beloved husband turns 75 years old today, and I want to tell him how glad I am that he has shared over 25 years of his life with me. A couple of years ago, I wrote this blog in his honor, and today I will repeat it because my sentiments are the same. If you are surprised that he is turning 75 today, you are not alone. As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog, Allen and Emma gave him a gift certificate for an indoor sky diving experience. Need I say more?

Happy birthday Bill!

This blog post was originally published in October 2015….

 

Love can never more grow old,
Locks may lose their brown and gold;
Cheeks may fade and hollow grow,
But the hearts that love will know,
Never, never winter’s frost and chill;
Summer warmth is in them still. – Eben E. Rexford

The words above are from an old song that was popular in the late 19^thcentury called Silver Threads Among the Gold. For some reason, I remembered the words to that song and I assure you I was not alive in the late 19^th Century (though I’m sure my grandkids think I was).  I’m telling you, I am using up valuable brain cells storing this type of useless information.

They don’t write songs like this anymore. Instead, you have classics such as I Can’t Feel My Face. My other thought as I read the lyrics was that you don’t run across many young boys being named Eben these days. Trevor, yes. Eben, no.

Aging is an interesting phenomenon. Someone hit the nail on the head when they said Old age is always 10 years older than I am. I should attribute that quote to someone; however, the internet attributes it to three or four different people. I couldn’t figure it out, so I will simply put it out there. Because, Friends, isn’t it all too true? When you’re 8 years old, don’t you wish you could be grown-up like your 18-year-old sister, whom you consider OLD. And it’s certainly true when you are in your 20s, 30s, and even older.

Bill and I began talking about this notion the other day. We figured out that when he and I got married, his mother was about the same age as he is now. A woman of some years. And Bill is, well, positively youthful!

My sister Bec was talking with her son Erik one day not long ago. In the course of their conversation, she mentioned that our mother was so young when she died. Erik asked her how old his nana was when she passed away. Sixty-eight years old, Bec responded. Erik’s reply? “I don’t think that’s that young.” Bec – uncharacteristically almost speechless — said, “You do understand, Son, that I am 65 years old.” Ah. There’s that.

All this is to say that today is Bill’s birthday, and he is 73 years young today.  The year Bill was born, the movie Casablanca was released. Gasoline was 15 cents a gallon. A house cost in the neighborhood of $3,700, which was a lot considering the average worker earned a little over $1,800 per year.

Bill has had a lot thrown at him in his life. Do you know how he would respond to that statement? “Who hasn’t?” He handles life with grace and dignity, which helps keep him young. He is one of the funniest people I know, and you know what they say about laughter and medicine. He is living proof. One of the greatest tributes to this astounding man is that my brother says he has fully admired two men in his life – our dad and Bill. I agree.

So, happy birthday to my husband, and I am sure in 15 years when I am writing my – well, whatever will have taken the place of the blog – he will still be young.

Bill and I continue to wander as our floors continue to be finished. The sanding is complete and today Joe will begin staining. A couple of days of staining followed by a couple of days of topcoat, and a few days of drying in between. We spent last night at a nearby hotel. I don’t know where we will be tonight.

Finishing our floors isn’t the only thing going on in our lives, however. Bill prepares to celebrate his 75th birthday tomorrow. Since Dave and Jll leave for a trip to India, we celebrated a little early…..

There weren’t 75 candles on the cake that was made by Dave. Dagny cut the pieces, and they were largish…..

Home is where the heart is…..

By the way, he got a very nice box of cigars from Dave and Jll, and an INDOOR SKYDIVING EXPERIENCE from Allen and Emma. Bill’s excited and I’m already biting my nails!

Pod People
So now this is sitting outside our house on our driveway…..

The hardwood is down on all of the floors. The next step is to get it finished, sanded, and stained. In order to do that, all of our furniture must be off the floor. So we rented a Pod. For two or three days, we have debated whether to hire people from the Pod company (who we found ourselves referring to as Pod People) to move our furniture. They wanted an awfully lot of money to do what we felt was not all that much work. So Bill sent a text to Court yesterday asking him if he would like to earn some money by helping him move furniture. Court responded quickly saying he would be happy to help for no money. He might have later regretted that rash decision, as he and Bill spent a couple of hours moving furniture. Sofas and chairs and tables and more chairs. The most difficult? One sofa we are giving to Habitat that just didn’t want to fit through the door, the china cabinet, and a piece of marble that fits on one of the tables Wilma gave us years ago. It weighed a ton. Perhaps literally. At one point I suggested that since all of our furniture was in the Pod, maybe we should just move. I kill myself…..

Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice
Just to show you all that despite the fact that I rant on and on against pumpkin spice everything, I made a pumpkin spice cake this week. It was delicious….

More proof that I don’t actually hate pumpkin spice in general. In fact, I like pumpkin cakes and pumpkin pies and pumpkin muffins and pumpkin bread. I just don’t like pumpkin toothpaste (a real thing) ….

Or pumpkin spice Pepto Bismol (another real thing)…..

As I ask myself every fall, what ever happened to good ol’ apple flavor and fragrance in the fall?

Garden Season is Over
As I knew the freeze was coming, I harvested what was left in my garden. I mentioned that I am trying to ripen green tomatoes, but don’t know if I’ll be successful. I also harvested my oregano, my sage, and my thyme. I made little bouquets which are now hanging in my pantry drying…..

Once they are completely dry, I will put them in little jars for the winter.

 Keep or Toss?
It’s interesting going through stuff to see what stays and what goes to Goodwill as we prepare for the rest of the project. For example, as I cleaned out a cupboard in our family room that I thought was only stuffed to the brim with old vases, I came across this…..

 …..and the matching this…..

Here’s the thing: I have no idea where I got them. I used to give an annual Christmas tea, so I think perhaps my ownership is related to that particular event, which no longer takes place. But I’m sure I didn’t buy them. They must have been gifted to me. Everything is very tarnished, but it’s all so pretty. I must admit the candelabra make me feel like a cross between Mortisha Adams and Liberace. Haven’t decided what I’m going to do with those as of yet, but I’m certain I will never use them for their true purpose. Making those kinds of decisions reminds me of a particular episode of The Gilmore Girls in which one of the characters was getting rid of stuff, and to make the decision, she would hold it in her hand and ask herself, “Does this bring me joy?” I will tell you that cleaning the tanish off of the tea and coffee set would bring me no joy. None.

Ciao.

 “Behold the hands, how they promise, conjure, appeal, menace, pray, supplicate, refuse, beckon, interrogate, admire, confess, cringe, instruct, command, mock and what not besides, with a variation and multiplication of variation which makes the tongue envious.” ― Michel de Montaigne

I know next to nothing about plastic surgery. Having prefaced with this caveat, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that while one can tighten up various parts of one’s body, I bet there is very little one can do about the hands. While eyes may be the mirror to the soul, I think hands are the mirror to the heart.

The hands tell the story of us. At least I think so. I think hands can give a clue as to whether or not you do (or did) physically-difficult work for a living. Calluses indicate working with your hands. If nothing but a person’s hands were displayed, I think most people would be able to tell if the hands belong to a teenager, a middle-aged adult, a senior citizen, a man, a woman, a laborer, a person with a desk job. Doctors often look at one’s hands as a way of determining potential illnesses.

And I think if I saw JUST the hands of either my mom or my dad, I would know they belong to my parents. My heart can remember what it felt like to hold their hands.

My grandkids often tell me Nana, you have a lot of veins in your hands. I tell them that when the veins in my hand are prominent, that means I’m dehydrated. I have no idea if that’s true or not, but it sounds possible, doesn’t it?

It satisfies their curiosity. Mostly, however, I think it means that I inherited my mom’s hands. I remember her hands looking just like mine.

But she had something I don’t think I have. When she held your hand, you could feel her strength and her love. I know that sounds overly-romanticized, but it is true. Her hands were strong, and she used them to show her love. Look at her hands in these photos…..

Look at everybody’s hands in this photo. Lots of expressions of love…..

Now, my dad’s hands really did show his physical strength. As a baker, he needed strong hands to work the heavy equipment. But he also needed hands that could be gentle and graceful, because remember that he was also a musician. He used his hands to play the clarinet and the saxophone. You could tell he had arthritis by looking at his fingers, but he continued to be strong until he died…..

His hands were so beautiful and told his story so well that later in his life, an artist was so taken with them that she asked to do a pencil drawing of him, featuring his lovely hands. The picture hangs on all of his kids walls somewhere in their house…..

I don’t know if Court or any of my grandkids will remember the way my hands looked or felt long after I’m gone, but it wouldn’t surprise me. And certainly the arthritis that plagued both my mom and dad plague me as well. But all of that makes our hands what they are — a mirror to our heart.

This post linked to the GRAND Social

Kaiya helped me make an apple crisp the other day. As usual, I wanted to take a picture of our masterpiece. So I asked Kaiya to pose with the apple treat since she contributed……

It sort of hurts just to look at it, doesn’t it? I’m entering her on next season’s America’s Got Talent in the contortionist category.

Have a great weekend.