Category Archives: Whimsies

Rocky Mountain Songs

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As I mentioned the other day, for all intents and purposes, Bill and I are homeless. Not homeless as in having no access to shelter; homeless as in no access to our own home. It’s a good thing, really, because it means that progress is being made and our remodel is in its last days.

We left for Estes Park on Sunday after church. While we were gone, Joe continued sanding the floors. Today is Tuesday, and he is still sanding the floors. Needless to say, progress isn’t going as quickly as I’d hoped. I am keeping my fingers crossed that he will be able to finish up the sanding this evening and maybe even begin staining.

By the way, I don’t think I’ve mentioned that Joe (who, I might add, is doing a very good job on the sanding, and believe me, Bill keeps close watch) can only work in the evening because he has a daytime job. It is making things go a bit slower, unfortunately.

In the meantime, our house is virtually unusable. The path to my washer and dryer is completely blocked by furniture. My refrigerator is in the hallway between the kitchen and the family room. It is plugged in, so we have access to food. It doesn’t do us a lot of good, however, since the doors are off on my ovens (they had to be removed to move the refrigerator out of the kitchen), so I am unable to cook. We are currently living in our bedroom.

Bill and I enjoyed our brief visit to Estes Park, however. We spent a bit of time walking downtown, where we made the mandatory taffy stop…..

We ate dinner Sunday night at a restaurant that has been a part of Estes Park as long as I can remember called Nicky’s. I enjoyed Rocky Mountain trout…..

……and finished up our first evening listening to the elk bugle, one of my favorite activities in the fall. It was a beautiful night, and the elk thought so too……

We woke up early on Monday, had a few cups of the pretty bad coffee offered in the room, then prepared to go someplace for breakfast. As Bill took his shower, I took my cup of coffee out onto our deck to enjoy the early morning, and was greeted by a 12-point bull elk munching away just below our second floor patio. It wasn’t long before he was joined by two of his closest buddies….

It was a sight to behold. The owner of the Deercrest Resort (where Bill and I stayed) came out to chat a bit and told me that they are there almost every morning in the fall. Either they have already gathered their harem or they prefer the company of one another. I don’t care, because they gave me a good show.

We returned last night to Denver because I had an appointment in the afternoon, and spent the evening in our room watching The Voice with the background noise of a sanding machine.

Day at a time….

Saturday Smile: Game On!

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Game on, and I’m not talking about the World Series.

We are so close to the end of our remodel project that I can see the finish line. The flooring is all laid, and over this weekend and into next week, Austin and Joe (our flooring people, not to be confused with our Pod people) will be doing finish work, sanding, and finally, staining the floors. Talk about making me SMILE!

For the next few days, Bill and I will be wandering like the Israelites in the desert, but for a shorter period of time and with something better than manna to eat. Truly, I’m not entirely sure where we will be and for how long. I think we will spend a day or two in Estes Park to listen to and see the elk bugle. A couple of nights we will be bunking down at a nearby hotel.

At any rate, if you don’t hear from Nana’s Whimsies for a few days early next week, don’t send out the search party. We are somewhere.

Have a great weekend.

Thursday Thoughts

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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.

Guest Post: Estes Park-It’s Not Just For Taffy Anymore

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By Rebecca Borman

I’ve said it before…while it’s really fun to travel to new places, it’s also nice to go back to places you love.  For me and my sisters, one of those comfortable places is Estes Park, Colorado.  The drive through the Big Thompson Canyon is stunning, and the first view of Estes Park, nestled in the midst of the Rockies, always lifts my heart.  In a way, it’s like coming home.  Our family vacationed there when I was a child, my honeymoon was there, and there have been many more visits after that.  This summer, in the midst of my Colorado road trip, my sisters and I worked in a few days’ trip to Estes.  Kris and Jen are busy women, so each could only stay two nights.  But, I was there for three nights, and Friday evening we were there together.  We all made the most of our time…..

Kris and I enjoyed a walk around Bear Lake.

A visit to Estes Park always involves some familiar and important activities.  For instance, the first evening, Kris and I had a cookout at our motel.  And when I say we, I mean Kris.  She brought the steaks, lit the grill, and cooked the steaks.  Well, I did toss the bag of Caesar salad!  We even ate outside at a picnic table by the river, enjoying the view of the mountains surrounding us as the evening set in…..

Another must for us is dinner at the Dunraven Inn, a lovely Italian restaurant that has been in Estes Park for years.  We ate there after Jen arrived on Friday night so we could have dinner together.  I thought it would be fun to take Uber or a cab so we could enjoy our cocktails without worrying about driving back to our motel. I tried Uber…seems there is one driver who may or may not be on duty at any particular time.  Hmmm.  Then I checked for taxi companies.  There is only one, and I mean one cab, not just one company.  We called for our taxi and were put into the driver’s que, third in line.  We made it to the restaurant almost on time.  Our driver assured us that while he was going off duty soon, another driver would be driving the cab.  We asked the Dunraven to call for the taxi as we finished dinner, and we patiently waited for it outside.  We waited quite a while, wondering what we would do if the taxi never showed up.  Finally, we saw it coming toward us.  And driving right past us.  That didn’t seem good!  We hoped he was dropping off someone, and that was the case, because he pulled up a few minutes later.  “I saw you waiting here,” he said.  “I bet you got worried when I drove past.”  Haha, yes we did.

The next morning we tried something new, a trip to Cinnamon’s Bakery, which makes one thing only:  cinnamon rolls.  We got there just before it opened at 7:30, and there was already a long line.  We happily bought our rolls and coffee to take back to our room.  The bakery is open until 10:00 or until they sell out.  When we drove past it around 9:00, the CLOSED sign was on display.  It paid to get there early.

Our next adventure was a drive into Rocky Mountain National Park.  As we started toward the Park we noticed that some streets were blocked off, presumably having to do with the Scottish Festival being held that weekend.  We wondered if there was a parade.  We didn’t think much about it as we enjoyed a drive through some of our favorite areas of RMNP.  When we left the Park we had a plan.  We would find parking near downtown and do some important shopping, primarily for our favorite salt water taffy.  However, police blockades prevented us from turning into town.  We asked a kilted police officer who was directing traffic what was going on.  It was, as we suspected, a parade.  Elkhorn Drive would be blocked completely until the parade was over.  Wait a minute…our motel was on Elkhorn Drive.  “You mean we can’t get back to our motel?” we asked.  “Not until the parade is over.”  Bummer.  Now what?  Plan B was to buy deli sandwiches and go back to RMNP for an impromptu picnic.  We found a good spot by the river and enjoyed our sandwiches al fresco.  It was a good Plan B!….

At that point Kris had to leave, so Jen and I were on our own.  We both wanted to hear the elk bugling at dusk. So after we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon at our motel, we drove back into the Park.  We found a spot near a meadow that seemed to have elk potential, and we weren’t disappointed.  We saw many elk, including a bull with a 16-point rack.  Very cool.  There’s something special about the sound of their bugling and the feel of the crisp fall air as darkness falls upon the mountains.  It was an evening well spent…..

As always, I felt a pang of regret when I drove out of Estes Park the next morning.  I had purchased my taffy and a few Christmas ornaments, and they would serve as my reminders of these few days in one of the most beautiful spots in the world.

I’ll be back again next year.

Fall is Falling and So Are the Trees

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The weather forecasters warned us that we were going to get our first sizable snowfall yesterday. The day before was really nice, but don’t let that lull you into passivity, they said. Somewhere around midnight it was going to begin snowing.

And, indeed it did…..

We probably got four or five inches of very wet snow, the kind of wet snow that breaks tree branches and powerlines and is good for snowmen as long as you don’t mind that they will be gone by the next morning. Nothing but a puddle of water. Because the weather will be in the 70s again in a day or two. That’s the way autumn snowfalls roll in Colorado.

In preparation for the snow, I picked most of my herbs and set them out to dry. I also picked the remaining tomatoes on my vine, all green as a Granny Smith apple. I put them in a brown paper bag with a banana, and we’ll see what happens.

I went to the grocery store Sunday afternoon in preparation for the snowfall. Oh, I didn’t anticipate a blizzard, but one of the nice things about being retired is that there is almost always nowhere that I MUST go. So I wanted to have something to put into the crock pot so that I could smell it cooking all day long.

I chose a beef brisket…..

I thought there might be one of those predictable pre-snowstorm runs at the grocery store, but there really wasn’t. The shelves held plenty of eggs, and there were abundant packages of toilet tissue available. Why is it that when there is a prediction of heavy snow, the first things to go are eggs and toilet tissue? Do people really regularly only have a few spare squares of toilet tissue in their house all of the time? Because even heavy snows melt within a few days at the most. But I’m as bad as the next person. Even though I probably don’t go through a dozen eggs in a couple of weeks (unless I’ve done a lot of baking), boy, I grab myself some eggs when I do my pre-snowstorm shopping.

So Bill and I were settled down after dinner night before last, peacefully watching Sunday Night Football, when we heard what sounded like an explosion just outside of our family room window. Bill and I looked at each other in shock. For a surprising amount of time, really. I finally said, “What the hell was that?”

We both got up and looked out our door to the back yard, and could see nothing amiss. Yet, we had not imagined the loud noise. Bill went and got a flashlight, and began shining the light all around our patio. And then we saw it….

The wind had blown a tree over onto our yard, hitting our roof and landing on our patio. Interestingly, the snow had not yet started, and while there was a bit of wind, it certainly wasn’t blowing wildly. We quickly decided we should take photos right then and there as we knew the snow was coming and we wouldn’t particularly want to be attempting photography in the snow.

God was good in a couple of ways. First, the tree could just as easily have fallen in the other direction and damaged our neighbor’s brand new roof. We are thankful it fell in our direction because it was our tree. Also, had it been earlier in the day, we might have been sitting out on our patio or working in our yard, and chances are we could have gotten injured. Finally, it seems to have been the full extent our our damage, because there doesn’t seem to be any fallen branches from the snow.

We are just a couple of weeks shy of going to AZ for our fall trip. Couldn’t this cold and snow just have waited a few more weeks?

As I said earlier, that’s the way fall rolls in Colorado. It usually doesn’t hit until Halloween night!

Hands

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 “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

Saturday Smile: Twister

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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.

Thursday Thoughts

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The Race is On
Last night the Arizona Diamondbacks played the Colorado Rockies in a Wild Card game, winner moving to the regular playoffs. Not being particularly a baseball fan, I didn’t watch the game. I’m sure my brother did and Bill watched some of the game. I was hoping for a Rockies victory, though I like the Diamondbacks as well. The Diamondbacks won the game. Each year as we enter the October baseball season and get closer and closer to the World Series, I always think of my dad and how much he loved the Colorado Rockies. In 2007, the Rockies won the pennant and then went on to lose to the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. But Dad and Shirley were able to go to one of the World Series home games at Coors Field. It took some strategy and finesse to get them from Fort Collins to the game, but eventually Jen and I managed to walk them to the gate and wave goodbye, as Shirley pushed him into the ballpark in his wheelchair. The Rockies lost that game, but both Dad and Shirley had such a good time. I’m glad he was able to see a World Series game, and I hope that he watched the game last night from heaven (though he might have had other plans).

It’s Beginning to Sound a Lot Like Christmas
Bec texted me yesterday morning to tell me that she turned on her radio yesterday morning to hear her favorite country music station playing Christmas music. She is a lover of Christmas music, but nevertheless, she was stunned to hear holiday tunes on October 4. Thinking it might have been just an accident, she kept listening. Nope, the station is apparently beginning its run of holiday music early. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I sort of wish we could at least get through Halloween before listening to I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas.

What I Want for Christmas is the Remodel to Be Finished
Seriously, if you would have told me in the middle of May when the remodel began that I would still be listening to pounding on October 5, I would have cried. But Bill is almost finished. He embarked last week on the very last room in which he will install hardwood floors. The process for all of the rooms has been that he pulled up the carpet, pull up the press board, layed down new plywood, and finally nailed in the hardwood. He has done the family room, the stairway, and the hallway upstairs. As you read this, he is probably nailing the hardwood down into the living room. And yes, even if you read this blog at 6 in the morning. Once the flooring is down, we will have a professional flooring company finish up the sanding and staining. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the job will be complete before company arrives for Thanksgiving! The best news (and I hope I’m not jinxing anything by telling you this) is that he has done the entire job without serious injury……

Movie Comfort
I managed to talk Bill into taking a break on Tuesday, and we went to the movies. We saw American Made with Tom Cruise. We both really liked it, and thought Cruise did a great job. My takeaway was more about our experience, however. I’m telling you man, I love those reclining seats. Just imaging if those poor people that watched Gone With the Wind when it first came out could have had reclining seats for all three-and-a-half hours of watching enjoyment.

Ciao.

Are You Sitting Here?

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I’m in a fight with Target. Believe me, that doesn’t happen too often. And my fight has nothing to do with their bathrooms.

It has to do with their toddler car seats.

You may be wondering why a 63 year old woman is interested in car seats. Well, again, maybe you aren’t wondering since the name of my blog is Nana’s Whimsies. And being a nana involves more than making slime. It often involves giving rides to one or more of the grandkids.

Cole is 3, and he’s our youngest. He’s surprisingly tall for his age, but still requires a car seat, and will until he’s 4, at which time (I think) he can move into a booster seat. So for the past few months – all summer long, really – I have been squeezing him into my existing toddler car seat. That seat has been involved in the lives of eight previous grandkids. C’mon, just one more to go, I thought each time I struggled to get him into the seat.

I finally threw in the towel a few weeks ago when I took Kaiya, Mylee, and Cole to see a movie. Getting the carseat completely buckled over the squirming boy was nigh on impossible. Given that the theater was only a quarter mile from our house, I finally made do with only having one of the buckles fastened.  But I vowed that it was the end of the line. Time for a new car seat.

So I began researching car seats. Heavens, one can spend a small fortune on a car seat. Given that he’s the youngest, coupled with the fact that we will leave in a short time for our winter in AZ and when we get home he will be 4, I didn’t want to spend a fortune, no matter how small. But I wanted something that got good reviews and safety ratings with which I was comfortable.

I finally narrowed it down to a specific car seat that was sold at Target and didn’t require me to sell my plasma to afford it. Target.com told me that the store that is literally a half mile from our house had two in stock.

First thing yesterday morning, I drove to Target and made my way back to the baby supplies. I quickly found the model I had selected, but couldn’t find one in the box. I found every single OTHER car seat in its box, but not the carseat I sought.

With a minimum of fuss, I was able to get a Target staff person, who helped me look but was also unsuccessful. She checked the back room, also to no avail. However, she kindly assured me that another Target that was further away had two in stock.

So I made the trip to the second Target, and I won’t bore you with details. Suffice it to say that they also had one on display but none available to buy. But the staff person also couldn’t have been nicer, and promised me that a particular OTHER Target had a couple of the carseats in stock.

Now, as the saying goes, I might have been born during the day, but I wasn’t born yesterday. So this time, I called. Or perhaps I should say I TRIED to call. Because despite several attempts, I got cut off just at the point that I was going to get a live person who could tell me whether or not they had the car seat in stock.

I was pretty frustrated, and about to give up except that I kept envisioning poor Cole nearly busting out of the car seat and me wrestling the seat like Hulk Hogan fighting Andre the Giant. With renewed vigor, I drove to the Target in question and found the car seat in question.

And then, lo, and behold, decided on another one instead. One which they may well have had at the original Target. No matter, because I’m giving Target a reprieve. After all, my alternative is Walmart, and you all know how much fun that trip is.

Sorry for all the car seat drama, Nana.

Love in the Twilight

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You’re born, and then the first 25 years or so of your life seem to take forever. Particularly in elementary school and high school, you can’t wait to get old so that you can do All Those Things. You can’t wait to have a car. You can’t wait to get a great job and earn lots of money. You can’t wait to get married to the perfect person and have those perfect kids.

But from about 25 years old and beyond, life seems to move quickly. You’re busy with raising your family. You’re trying to balance your family life and your professional life. You’re running to and fro to soccer games and school plays and making sure homework gets done while trying to get a few bites of healthy food into your kids’ mouths. And before you know it, your kids are grown and don’t live with you any longer and work no longer seems as interesting as it once did. And then you retire, and though you might not have as much to do, it seems like the weeks just fly by. Tick tock, tick tock.

Wow, the above two paragraphs sound very maudlin, don’t they? I don’t mean that to be the case, because I’m happily retired and love my life very much. But it really does seem like time moves quickly.

I’m not just being a flibbertygibbit; I’m just about to get to my point: the other day, Netflix sent me an email in which they told me about a newly-posted movie that they think I might like. They do this quite often, and most of the time I wonder why in heaven’s name they would think that I might like a movie featuring Bruce Willis as an alien space commander in the year 2080.

But the movie they suggested this time was Our Souls at Night, a brand new Netflix original film. Hmmm, I thought to myself. Why does that name sound familiar? And as I read the synopsis, it occurred to me. Our Souls at Night was the last book written by the late author Kent Haruf, published posthumously in 2015 and reviewed by this writer in July 2015.

Kent Haruf is one of my very favorite writers, and his novel Plainsong is one of my two favorite novels of all time (the other being My Antonia, by Willa Cather).

The movie stars Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, who play Louis Waters and Addie Moore. The two septuagenarians live in the fictitious town of Holt, Colorado (allegedly modeled after real-life Yuma, on Colorado’s eastern plains). Louis and Addie are widowed, and lonely. They have both experienced tragedy, and now are just living day-to-day. Time is rushing by, just as I mentioned above. One day Addie gets up the nerve to ask Louis if he would spend the night with her, just talking and platonically sleeping together. He agrees, and a beautiful story emerges. The movie hit home for me so much that I wondered if the movie-maker was peering into my windows.

Life after 60 is entirely different than life as a young adult. The issues you face aren’t getting kids to soccer practice. Instead, many people fight loneliness and chronic pain and kids who are so focused on their life that they quit being curious about yours. Some might struggle with memory issues. Maybe macular degeneration or cataracts are giving you fits.

The movie does a wonderful job of presenting the realities of relationships in your twilight years, so very different from those in your more youthful life. It hits on friendship instead of sex, and the important role of grandparents in the lives of their grandkids. It reminds us of what life was like before we all were staring at our electronic devices. It winks at small-town gossipers.

And wow, what a job by these two amazing actors. Redford is 81 years old and Fonda will turn 80 on her next birthday, but they haven’t lost any of their acting chops……

The movie doesn’t glamorize growing old by making Fonda look va va va voom. She looks like a senior citizen, albeit quite an attractive one. Redford’s portrayal of Louis reminded me of my father.

All I can say is thank you Netflix, both for making this movie and for suggesting it to me. Now stop with the Bruce Willis stuff.