In Memoriam Grandpa Davis 1921-2015

Golfing with Gpa in Minnesota 10/2014

Today, a light in our family went out. We all lost one of the most special people in our lives and I personally lost one of my favorite humans on this entire planet.

I only got to have him as my grandpa for the last 22+ years, but that never changed how much I loved him and enjoyed spending time with him. He made me feel loved from the very first day we met.

He is the reason I ever gave the game of golf a chance. We were in California for our cousin's graduation and family get together and a lot of the family was heading to the course, and I decided to go. I didn't have any of the equipment and I think I only hit the ball about 25 ft per swing, but I fell in love with it right there. My feet were so sore after the round because I rarely got back in the cart with my short shots...LOL. As soon as we got home, we purchased for me, my first set of clubs and shoes. Years later, I play now with a set that Gpa made for me. Since we used the same size clubs, even over long distances, it was convenient for him to create clubs for me that would fit perfectly. I am so grateful to him for all he has done for us.

Due to distance, I wasn't able to spend as much time with him as I would have liked. I was able to see him at least once a year the last few years and on a couple of years I got even more visits in. During one visit last year for a memorial service, a bunch of us were able to go through pictures and albums with him and hear some of the stories/dramas of his young life in Nebraska. This past year we had 3 visits, the last one in October in Minnesota after his big move from Nebraska. The weather was amazing and we managed to get in three days of golfing in the short 5 days that I was there.

He was always so fun to take out to eat, because you could be guaranteed he would play games with the staff, thoroughly confusing them while giving us all a good chuckle. During my most recent visit, he convinced the manager at the pizza joint we were ordering from, that he wanted a part time job as a delivery boy. They even gave him a little tour while the manager threatened the teenagers working for him that Gpa was going to be their new boss...LOL.

He really did try to live life to the fullest, even when he was not feeling so hot. At times, he would get frustrated on the course because he couldn't hit the ball as far as he used to, and I would tell him that if I was still able to play golf at 93, I would be thrilled. He never let his age stop him. He was definitely an inspiration.

I know that he had a long good life and I am glad that he isn't in any pain or dealing with the frustrations of his progressive conditions, but selfishly, I am going to miss him so much. I really hope that I live up to being half the person that he has been to so many.
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Three Years Ago on In My Words...Surprise Bday Gift

The Book Thief

Read this book a few years ago and absolutely loved it. Today, I finally saw the movie. I felt like they did a god job of it.

I highly recommend both of them. The stories are hard but they are things that we should never forget and should always learn from.

A decade ago, we were able to visit the holocaust museum in DC, while there as tourists. It was a life changing experience. I left there feeling like a trip to that place should be a requirement for graduation in the US so that will never forget and will always learn so we do not repeat the errors we humans have made.
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Last Month on In My Words...The Untouchables

Old Comforts

One lovely thing about finally getting all of our stuff and then getting it unpacked is seeing some of the stuff we have had in storage for years, once again.

This cup is one of my souvenir purchases before we left Japan the last time, and it is one of my faves for a big cup of tea or even to use as a soup bowl. It has a small map of the island as well as some map points of some of the major spots on the island. It also has the name of the island and country in kanji on the sides.
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Two Years Ago on In My Words...Two Favorite Things

Smile 61/100 Apricots

Picked these guys up at the grocery store the other day, and while they aren't perfect looking, they were terrific tasting.

Apricots aren't something I get to eat often. On occasion I find them dried and enjoy them that way as well, but it seems like they are pretty hard to find fresh.

The smell and taste of them bring back a very specific memory for me. My great grandfather had an apricot tree growing in his backyard in So Cal when I was a kid and when I eat them, it reminds me specifically of visiting him and my Nana, the coolness of their backyard with the shade of the fruit trees and just being a kid and not really having a care in the world.

I took this picture in our kitchen with my Fuji Finepix f50, with no flash but macro enabled. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Five Years Ago on In My Words...My Memory Board

Smile 13/100 Lilacs

We have two lilac bushes on the side of the yard...unfortunately for them, they don't get quite as much sun as they probably would like, but they still bloom pretty well.

This weekend when we were doing some work on the fence on that side of the house, we had to actually tie the bushes back temporarily to get them out of our way. Near the end of the day, I remembered that I hadn't untied them, so I took some clippers out and after I took off the tie, I cut some branches to bring into the house.

The smell in the house has been fabulous ever since. When I was a kid, there were lilacs along one side of the house my parents were renting and even though lilacs bloom in spring, for some reason, I always associate the smell with summer.

I took this picture in our dining room with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and to add a fuzzy border.
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Eight Years Ago on In My Words...Perfume Creme Updated

POTD Day 28 Nostalgia

Grandma is the back right

This is a cool picture our family has of my maternal grandmother and her three sisters.

I scanned it in a few years ago so everyone could have a copy of it. I love this picture...they look like movie stars in their 40's style. They are all so beautiful.

Seems like we don't do protraits like this anymore...family pictures were so common before, but now it seems like you don't see them as often.

My grandmother's sisters (the ones that are still alive) all live in another state so she doesn't get to see them as much as I am sure she would like to. She has never flown and I don't think she could handle being in a car for the amount of time it would take to make a visit happen so I don't know if she will get to see them again. I guess that is one of the reasons pictures are important to us...the help us to hold on to memories.

I didn't take this image but I did edit it in GIMP to clean up the scan and then added the fuzzy border.
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Six Years Ago on In My Words...Thankful Thursday (one of my paternal grandmother's is in this post)

POTD Day 18 Five Years Ago

This picture is of my friend's foot in tabi socks and geta sandals with her kimono at my first traditional Japanese tea ceremony.

I joined Okinawa International Women's Club (OIWC) the fall of 2008 and in March our culture group had a tea ceremony. One of our members and her mother were tea ceremony senseis and they had a tea ceremony facility connected to their home. When we did this same ceremony the following year, I had all my kimono parts and was actually able to dress in kimono for the event and it was such an honor.

I really took advantage of our time in Japan during this second opportunity we had to live there and tried to submerge myself in the culture whenever I could. OIWC was a huge part of that. I made life long friends in that group and will forever be thankful for the adventures, experiences and friends.

I took this pic in the morning with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP for color, light and to add the fuzzy border.
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Five Years Ago on In My Words...Kimono Adventure, this has pics of my kimono parts and then some images of me in it at one of our luncheons.

POTD Day 8 Water

This picture was taken in the middle of the wading pool of our city park. The wading pool is a shallowed out area of the creek that runs through the park. I was looking down stream right near the "waterfall".

When I was a kid, my cousins and I would spend our entire day in this park for the whole summer. We would do chores in the morning and then make a lunch and head to the park. We would return home around dinnertime.

Our activities in the park would vary from day to day, but we would almost always eat our lunch at the lower duck pond. We would then pick from a number of things. Some days we would climb the big slide and take it over as a castle and turret to defend. Others, we would spend the day in the trails above the park (where I would inevitably get poison oak). Sometimes we would walk in the creek all the way up to the upper duck pond or even to the swimming hole.

I took this picture earlier in the year with my Fuji Finepix f50 with no flash. I edited it in GIMP 2.6 for color, light and added the fuzzy border.
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Eight Years Ago on In My Words...Happy Fourth Of July

POTD Day 4 Childhood

This picture is of my sister and I on the front porch of what we call the 3rd St house. We lived in this house for a few years. It was a rental, but I would guess it is probably the first house that my sister has memories from. We had a big yard with a garage in back and like many houses in this part of our hometown, there was an alley that ran behind it.

Our hometown is very safe, even more so when we were kids, so we played all over this neighborhood, riding our bikes through all the alleys. We would find honeysuckles and blackberries to snack on. I have memories of eating apples and pears off the trees, and playing in the sprinkler in the front yard and then laying on the warm sunny sidewalk to warm up and dry off.

I remember climbing this super high cedar tree down the street and making forts all over the neighborhood with my friends. We lived in this house when Mt St Helens blew, and all of us kids would wear hankerchiefs over our faces (which I am sure did nothing to protect us from the ash)...LOL. Now that I am an adult, I am sure we irritated some of the neighbors cutting through yards and making noise, but it was still a fun safe childhood that I wouldn't trade for anything.

Our dad had a screen printing setup in the garage and I was his number one assistant. We also had a darkroom on the backporch that he would develop and enlarge images for the silk screen. Our grandma lived with us in this house until she married our grandpa. She had a little room off the kitchen, my sister and I shared a room, and our parents had a room in the front of the house. The livingroom and dining room were open to each other with some built in cabinets. It was a craftsman styled house with a huge front porch and pillars. I have driven by it recently and it is updated quite a bit and the yard is now fenced in front as well.

This picture was taken in the late 1970's by one of our parents with their manual 35mm Pentax camera. It was then scanned in on our HP printer and edited in GIMP 2.6 for light, color and adding the fuzzy border.
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Nine Years Ago on In My Words...In A Pinch

Stormy Skies

One of the many things I missed about this valley was the amazing storms we have here. I have always been a storm hound because of growing up here with our beautiful storms. When I was a kid, my parents would encourage us to enjoy the storms (rather than be afraid of them). I am thankful for this because it has meant that I never had a fear of them.

We would sit under a picnic table in the backyard and watch the lightening and listen for the thunder. We would also watch the meteor showers in the summer from under that same table. We were taught to look out far and wide and to enjoy all that nature offered us.

So when I was doing yard work today and saw that the sky was getting that inky black look to it that means a good storm is brewing, I just had to snap this shot with the sun still shining where we were. I loved the contrast and the feeling in the air that the storm was on its way and the charge that it provides.
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Seven Years Ago on In My Words...Technical Difficulties

Fall Is Here

Yesterday evening was the first time this year I have felt Fall in the air.

Everyone, from family to the media, has been saying "Fall is here" for weeks but I refused to believe it. I wanted to hold onto summer for just a bit longer. The evenings were cool but the days were still warming up enough for shorts and flipflops so I was taking advantage of the late summer. I even managed to sit in the sun on the deck a couple of times last week.

But this all changed yesterday evening. I am not sure what it was exactly but perhaps the clouds moving in and the extra coolness as I was climbing the porch steps did it. I remember as a kid always being completely aware of the day the season changed for me, so I shouldn't be surprised it happened again. I did manage to wear flipflops and shorts today so it is still warm during the day but right now I am sitting here still wearing shorts but have a sweatshirt and socks on as well. I imagine my days of lounging around the house in sweat shorts are soon to be over and I will be breaking out the long black yoga pants instead.

This change in the weather also is lighting a fire under me for accomplishing a few Fall things that need to be done along with some that just want to be done (like decorating for Halloween). Some of the yard stuff has to wait until winter sets in, but there are definitely some "outside" projects I would like to finish up before it gets too cold or wet but that is a story for another blog...LOL.

I have been fighting a bug for a week or so....it is just hovering in my head but not taking hold (thank goodness). So I have been zincing and drinking Vit C but this new change in weather perception makes having soup and tea even more appealing. I need to stock up on a couple of my favorite clear Asian style soups...nothing like green onion or egg drop soup to warm you right up.
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Seven Years Ago on In My Words...It's Here

Two Favorite Things

I was turned on to these cracker/cookies during ikebana classes I took the last few weeks of my time in Japan. Our sensei brought them and I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed them. I found these at an asian store I visited a few weeks ago and have been thrilled to have a packet of them (2) as a treat once in a while. I believe they are rice crackers and they are a mix of sweet and salty, and they don't make me feel too guilty.
I also found this green tea, which was another favorite of mine while living in Japan. I had to pay about 1 1/2 times as much for it than I would out of the machine on my street, but it was nice to have one bottle of it for memory's sake. Combined with my cracker/cookie this afternoon, it was a nice little taste trip down memory lane.
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Four Years Ago on In My Words...Musubi
Another one of my favorite snacks from Japan!

Gpa's Birthday

Today would be my grandfather's 100th birthday but he passed away in March just shy of that mile marker. He had a terrific full life, with family and friends by his side, so while I am sad he is not here to celebrate this birthday, I am thankful that he is not suffering anymore and that I had him as such a huge part of my life.

Happy Birthday Grandpa. We miss you and love you tons!!!

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Six Years Ago on In My Words...Toilet Paper

R.I.P. Chase

She picked us (or actually, she picked J). She was a cute little stray cat in the neighborhood that just couldn't get enough pets. She quickly became one of the family. She was our traveling kitty...two moves to Japan and back and a couple more across the US in the car, camping and golfing. She could fly through the air with the greatest of ease while chasing toys (hence the name), and couldn't get enough of the pets. She has always been a low maintenance kitty that tolerated just about everything we ever put her through, from flying on planes to getting shaved to the skin during the hot seasons. She was never much of a talker but she would headbutt you or lick you if you stopped petting her before she was ready. She has been a part of our family for 12 1/2 years and today, I had to make the horrible decision to put her to sleep.

She was diagnosed with feline diabetes (even though she was normal weight) late last year and we tried the insulin and high protein diet to see if we could maintain her. Unfortunately she wasn't maintaining...we were just slowing the disease down and I just didn't want that to be either of our lives (hers or ours). So two weeks ago, when the last bottle of insulin ran out, we stopped the insulin shots. She seemed to be okay for awhile but then last week, she stopped eating and then started to lose a ton of weight. In the last few days, she started having trouble balancing and her eyes started to seem tired all the time. She would still purr and she still loved the pets (right up to the end), but it just seemed like the bad was definitely outweighing the good for her. We don't know for sure that her decline was due to the diabetes alone, after all, she was 14 years old, but today, I just felt like I needed to be fair to her and do the right thing, even though it was the hard thing.

I love you Chase, and I miss you. I couldn't have asked for more from a great kitty and family member. Even with tears running down my face, I hope you are more comfortable and getting lots of pets.

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Seven Years Ago on In My Words....A great story about Chase Bathroom Kitty

Happy Birthday Munchkin!!!

Today is my little sister's birthday.

I remember getting to hold her when she was a baby but I had to sit still on the couch and not try to carry her around. I was only 5 1/2 when she was born so she was like a new doll for me. Of course that wore off when she started walking and had those "clod stomper" shoes...haha.

We had a teenage years of thinking that the other was just not cool enough to be seen with but once we both grew up a bit, we became close and we grow closer every year. This is the first time in a long time that we have been able to see much of each other and it has been fabulous. She inspires me in so many ways!!!

I love you sis, and I hope you have a great day and year!!!

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Five Years Ago on In My Words...Happy Birthday Sis!!

In Memoriam Grandpa Byrd 1911-2011

My grandpa passed away this last weekend. He was 99 years old. He wasn't my biological grandpa but he has been my grandpa since I was in the 6th grade and the one I have the most memories with. I have found that blood is not what makes you family. Love, time, and support does. Grandpa was definitely my family regardless of our blood.

I am driving to my hometown this weekend with some of my family to go to his funeral. He was loved by a lot of people and I am looking forward to celebrating his long life with them all. Some of them I haven't seen in years.

I have some great memories of my grandpa. When I first met him, he rode a motorcycle and he would take us kids out for rides. My mom has a great picture of my sister (who was in kindergarten at the time) on the back of Grandpa's motorcycle with a huge helmet on. He and my grandma lived in a big house on the outskirts of town that always had a cow in the pasture. We learned after the first one, not to make friends with the cow because it would inevitably end up being dinner at some future date.

He was a wonder with wood...he made all sorts of things out of wood, from clocks, to tables, to frames to knives. In fact, my absolute favorite kitchen knife is the one he made for me for my wedding. He was a logger most of his life and he had some great stories to tell of his years in the woods and mills of Oregon. He worked for every dime he had and did so from a very early age.

He loved his sweets...you could always count on there being donuts, hot chocolate and some kind of candy at Grandpa's house. When we would eat dinner there once a week, my sister and I might get lucky and he would make a virgin grasshopper for us to sip while the grown-ups were having their drinks.

In my family, Grandma and Grandpa were always a big part of our lives. We went to the their house after school and during the summers when our parents were working. We went on road trips and vacations with them. Grandpa had a huge RV when we were kids and he and Grandma would go out to see his big family all over the US in it. They even drove down to Texas to visit us when we were there for a couple of years.

These last few years have been hard for Grandpa. You could tell he had a hard time getting comfortable with the aches and pains that old age bring. He couldn't hear or see much and sleep was something that sometimes eluded him.

My last visit to him was three weeks ago. We had a good visit with him. At the end of the visit, he was sitting in his big chair talking to my sister and I about how he felt bad that he couldn't remember everything and that he was sometimes confused. We tried to reassure him that it was alright to be confused sometimes and that we all loved him nonetheless. He talked about being the oldest of all of us and how he had lived a long life. It broke my heart when he started to cry and tell us how much he knew we were taking care of him. We told him it was okay, that we loved him and we just wanted him to be happy and healthy. I didn't know for sure that it would be the last time I saw him but I am glad that I got the chance to tell him how much I loved him before he had to go.

I hope this weekend will be a great time for all of us to laugh and remember all the fabulous things he brought to our lives instead of being too sad. He was a terrific grandpa who had a wonderfully long and full life, and I know that I will miss seeing him when I go home to visit.

I love you Grandpa!!

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Three Years Ago on In My Words...Nekid As A Jaybird

19 Years

Today marks the anniversary of my first date with the love of my life.

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Five Years Ago on In My Words...NW Geocaching

It Is That Time of Year Again....

18 years ago today, I married the man of my dreams...we were young and probably foolishly in love but we didn't care. No one was going to stop us from doing what our hearts told us needed to be done.

So, here is my tribute to that decision so long ago! I love you J!!

Cicada Are Coming

Okay, I heard my first little squawks from the cicada this morning...I have seen a few in the trees but the population is not big enough yet for them to all start making a lot of noise...but I know it is coming.

Last year, there were so many in the trees in my backyard that you couldn't hear the TV in my house with the windows and doors closed. I actually went out and hosed down the trees to force them out to just get some peace for a few minutes.

Don't get me wrong, I love the sound of them and it will forever remind of this place and the fact that summer is here, but last year was unbelievably loud and I am not sure I want that again. Even Chase couldn't stand the decibels in the backyard.

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One Year Ago on In My Words...Solar Eclipse Shrouds Asia

Old Family Friends

One great thing about the holidays is that you get to reconnect with people that you might not hear from on a day to day basis...especially when you live as far away as we do.

R has been a friend of our family since I was a little kid and lived in a commune in Compton, California...that translates to many, many years. We have been off and on in touch most of my life.

He recently recorded himself singing a duet with himself and wanted me to post his video....since it is a Christmas carol...I thought it nicely appropriate...so here goes!!!