This Time Of Year

I woke up this morning to the sound of the wind howling menacingly outside.

It was barely light out, and as my new pup followed me from the bedroom to the living room I opened the curtains, read 20 degrees on the temperature gauge outside the window and cringed.

Cold and windy and my dog was eagerly jumping up and down in anticipation of being taken outside.

With LC still recovering from a back injury, and the cold settling into the area, Kory and I have developed a quiet and predictable morning routine over the past few weeks since she arrived from much-warmer Tampa, Florida.

She wakes me up, I tell her good morning and rub the top of her head before begrudgingly climbing out of a warm bed, we go outside for her to do whatever she has to do.

10 minutes later we go back in the house and 10 MORE minutes later she wants to go outside again.

Repeat this another time or two and (in between trips outside) I have finally got enough coffee into me to be able to think about taking her for a walk.

These pictures were taken a few days ago as we wandered around town and on the outskirts of town.

Temperatures are still bouncing all over the map, ranging from mild to freezing cold, and on this day it was sunny and mild...........

It is my son Chris' birthday.

He is 28 years old today.

I tried to call him so that I could wish him a Happy Birthday, but instead had to leave him a message because the Valley Girl recording told me to do so.

Happy Birthday Babe!  I hope you have a really great day.  Call me later when you get a chance.  I love you Baby.

Chris has been working as a welders' apprentice for a while now.

A while considering that for a long time he seemed to have a different job and a different place to live every time I talked to him.

An unsettled soul, and I could feel him floundering.

Trying to find a place.

A place that fit.

He has been working the same job for quite a few months.  Has been renting a studio apartment from an older woman who apparently "makes him eat his vegetables".

And finally he's going to school.

Starting in January.

He sounds excited about the future.  Happy with his life and that brings me great relief.

I smile when I think about him, worry when I hear off-handed remarks about struggles he has gone through that I hear about only after the fact (CALL me and let me worry with you, OK?), feel proud that he is finally finding his way to the end of the tunnel that he has been lost in for a while...............

The holidays are coming.

All of them are coming in quick succession and I used to love them but now they scare me and I loathe them and I just want them all to be over so that I don't have to think about them anymore...............

About six months ago, while still living in Wyoming, I had a stack of old snowboards and skis and got the bright idea that I wanted to make benches out of them.

Not long after we arrived in Idaho, LC made me a snowboard bench (that is sitting in the mudroom and works well for sitting on while pulling off boots).

This is the picnic table he made.

It is big and sturdy, and he used scrap lumber that a neighbor gave us for the frame, with the top all being skis.

I love the thing.............

Sometimes I walk once a day and sometimes twice a day with Kory.

There is something wonderful about the light late in the day.

The shadows are longer, the colors are deeper, the world looks completely different in the slow transition from day to evening.

These were taken on the same day as the above pictures, about an hour before sundown...........

I am sure that somebody owns these vehicles and this land, but I have no idea who.

There is land and there are structures all over town that have been empty as long as we have been here, and who  knows how long before that?.

There are vehicles such as these also located on random lots all over town.

Sell for scrap metal?  Get them running and drive them or sell them?  Donate them to a charity for a tax write-off?  Get them running and donate them to low income working families whose bread-winner needs a vehicle to get to work?

None of the above.

Just let them sit in the desert...............

Late in the day the mountains look so different.

So much larger, so much more impressive, so much more beautiful.............

My sons' son had his first birthday last month.

My sons' father got married again last month, and my mother (who stays in touch with him) wished him love and happiness on his Face Book page.

My sons' father never asked me exactly what happened to Sean.  My mother never even contacted me.  I can still hear his voice, his laugh, his stupid and sarcastic jokes.  Still have his beautiful face burned into my brain.

And so it goes.

I hate this time of year..................

I found this the other day.  It is part of a poem that a woman by the name of Deborah Robinson wrote after the death of her 25 year old son.  The poem is entitled "A Picture Of You".  The rest of the poem is in this link:

http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/my--year-old-son-collapsed-and-died-a-picture-of-you

I only have a picture now,
A frozen piece of time,
To remind me of how it was,
When you were here, and mine.

I see your smiling eyes,
Each morning when I wake,
I talk to you, and place a kiss,
Upon your lovely face.

How much I miss you being here,
I really can not say,
The ache is deep inside my heart,
And never goes away.

I hear it mentioned often,
That time will heal the pain,
But if I'm being honest,
I hope it will remain.

I need to feel you constantly,
To get me through the day,
I loved you so very much,
Why did you go away?