End of Year Catch Up

The last four months of 2014 have been filled with travel, dinner with cousins I’d never met, a surprise hospital stay, a surprise announcement that I’ll be a great grandmother again next year and a lot of surprises for Christmas.

So lets begin (this is going to be a lengthy post because of the pictures). Stay with it and I think you’ll love the pix. If you decide to skip it all…Have a very Happy, Healthy 2015.

In mid September my friend, Elizabeth, and I took a trip up the coast of Maine to visit friends in Lubec that we hadn’t seen for almost 20 years. Lubec is on the Bay of Fundy just south of Eastport. It was a great opportunity to stop in Salem, NH on the way up to visit American Stonehenge.

This is the view as you walk up to the site.

One of many such spaces. What they were used for is not known.

Some history of the land.

Another cavity. But look at the size of the stones!

Here again...the size of the stones.

Sacrificial table with the carved channel for blood flow.

Sacrificial table...a different view.

I did not notice at the time of taking this picture, but this is a fertility image. The head is at the left; you can see breasts; the arms come around and the hands meet at the root chakra; the legs are wide open with knees bent...feet meeting. The fire pit is in the area of the sacral chakra (maybe solar plexus).

THE Heel Stone that marks the summer solstice.

One of many heel type stones on the site. 

We had lunch in Salem and headed for our motel in Brunswick, ME. That night Elizabeth and I drove to Bath for dinner with a family of Robidoux cousins I had never met. They are a delightful family and we had a great time getting acquainted.

Elizabeth (left) and me having breakfast in Bath

From Brunswick, the next morning, we headed for Lubec, after breakfast at May’s in Bath. We arrived at the Inn on the Wharf in late afternoon and had dinner at Susan and Stephen’s. I was grateful that the Inn also had their own restaurant. It meant that when I got up in the morning I could get my coffee and Elizabeth’s tea without leaving the inn, which is an old Sardine cannery. The weather was cooperative making a walk out on the wharf, especially in the morning, a delight for the senses. The second morning we were there, I opened the blinds and the view was draped in a light fog of pink and purple. Breathtaking.

Campobello disappears in the fog.

View out our room window.

This is the common room at the Inn

We had time to visit with Susan and Stephen and visit their various projects and get a detailed guided tour of the town.

West Quoddy Light

These rocks are the eastern most point of the U.S. at West Quoddy (tide coming in)..

Low tide on Bay of Fundy...Lubec, ME

Low tide on Bay of Fundy (Campobello Island, Canada)

Lubec, ME from Campobello

Rock bound coast of Maine

Roosevelt museum, Campobello Island

Bridge from Lubec to Campobello

Cutler, ME harbor

Cutler, ME harbor

A rock formation behind a property belonging to Susan and Stephen. Its name is Mumintroll

Hospital Surprise

By the time we headed for home I was starting with a sore throat. Elizabeth had a bad cold most of the time we were traveling. Four days after arriving home I went to Immediate Care. The PA told me to call her on Saturday if I didn’t feel better. Well…I kept getting sicker and sicker from what I think was a sinus infection. I called on Saturday…twice. Next thing I know I get a call from the drug store that I have a prescription. Picked it up and started taking it. Kept getting sicker and sicker. Stopped the antibiotic and went to my own doctor whose PA gave me a different antibiotic. WOW. I felt great until the final day of taking the meds. Man was I sick. By 6 in the evening of Oct. 6^th I did what I never thought I would do…I called the ambulance.

Long story short…I spent 6 days in the hospital isolation with c. diff, a highly infectious, potentially deadly intestinal bacteria. Luckily the Infectious Diseases group was doing a study for an antibiotic specific to c. diff and I got in on the study. Between the new med and all the prayers being said in my behalf, my recovery was unusually rapid considering for a 78 year old.

It took some time for me to get back to normal, and, if there is a normal, I’m back there now.

New Member in the Family

We will be welcoming Kensley Grace to our family in May. That means I will be a great grandmother for the second time. Kensley and her parents, grandson Joe, and Krista, live in North Caroline so it won’t be easy to see them. I guess I’ll have to get Skype and get someone to teach me how to use it. By the way, Kensley is due to arrive on May 23^rd. I told Krista she had to cross her legs and hold that baby in until the 25^th…my birthday.

Christmas Electronics

We used to pull names for Christmas, but for the last two years we haven’t done it. It seems that it has outlived its purpose. I still give gifts to the under 18 kids (Jonathon, Jacob, Andrew and of course Maya).

Imagine my surprise when (son) Paul gave me a new, flat screen TV for the living room to accommodate the new digital broadcasting change-over by Cox. My old TV was old…bought on New Year’s Eve, 1989, but it was still working! The new Samsung flat screen is absolutely beautiful!

Then, if that wasn’t enough, (daughter) Anne bought me a sound bar for my TV down in the family room. I had mentioned that the sound goes out the side and not the front. Now I have beautiful sound coming from the front of the TV. Nice. If that wasn’t enough, she also bought me a new case for my iPad and a stylus. My old case cracked and completely broke over last weekend. How convenient!

Christmas Family Time

On the Saturday after Christmas, Paul hosted the family get together again this year. It isn’t often all my kids are in the same place! Add some of the grandkids and my one great grandkid (so far) and I’m happy. Not everyone was able to make it, but it’s always nice to have most of them together.

Joe and Krista made it in from their visit to Krista’s family in Ohio. So, of course, we had to go over to my son Andy’s house to see them on Sunday. Joe’s/Lori’s dog, Bella knew I was there before she even saw me. (Lori is my daughter-in-law, Joe’s mom, Andy’s wife) What a nose on that dog. Now, before you think I hadn’t showered for several weeks, you have to know Bella served with the Marines in Afghanistan with Joe and was trained as a bomb sniffer. However, she knows I have treats in my left pants pocket, and she must smell them a mile away. When she goes into a new area, she immediately checks the perimiter, sniffing, to be sure there are no explosives. She is one in a million and well-loved.

And so I look forward to a new year filled with an abundance of ALL good things. I hope your Christmas was Blessed and you look forward to the New Year with optimism.