Still Cat-ching Up

Today is Memorial Day 2025. Our company has gone home and I've been slowly cleaning up, doing laundry, checking e-mail...not holiday fun, but necessary tasks to getting caught up.

My lunch companion in Scilla, Italy.

Life has been very active lately. We built a new house and have been slowly moving in over the last few months. In the midst of moving, we took a trip to Italy that we had planned over a year ago before we decided to build the house. Add in a few other personal trials onto an already full plate and to say I'm a little overwhelmed would definitely be an understatement.

This afternoon, I'm welcoming the solitude. Someone is mowing their lawn in the distance, the washing machine just sang it's little song to indicate the cycle is complete and I can't wait to sit on the porch and read a book.

Since today is the unofficial start of Summer, I'm going to enjoy one of my favorite pastimes...making a glass of flavored iced tea and curling up on the back porch with a few books. I say a few books because I've been known to have up to 5 on my nightstand. Yes, they get read very slowly, but I enjoy a bit of fiction, a little non-fiction, a memoir and maybe something like a daybook featuring one passage a day. Next up...Dear Writer by Maggie Smith.

While I would love to share pics from our recent trip to Italy or tell you just how much I love our new house, just for today, I wanted to pop in to say hello and hope you have been enjoying your holiday weekend.

More soon...

Not So Famous Last Words

Wait!

There's one more thing I need to tell you,

I love you!

Don't go!

Come back!

Wait!

I'm not finished yet...

Don't say goodbye.

This isn't really the end, is it?

I love you...

I'll miss you...

Wait...

Don't go...

This is the last time we will ever...

I'll really miss you...

Let me know when you get there, okay?

Take care...

Have a great time...

See you soon...

But wait...hang on!

Do you really want to leave now?

Don't you have anything else to say?

Is this it?

Where do we go from here?

Are you really saying goodbye?

Is that all I meant to you?

Well, then...I guess we're done here.

Okay, you win.

I guess it's really over.

Roger that.

Over and out.

Whatever...

And they all lived happily ever after!

The end.

(Yeah, right.)

Until we meet again...

Wait...

Thank you.

Amen.

Video of me reading my original poem Not So Famous Last Words

Thanks for reading/watching!

Role Models

Hi all...do you have any role models, someone in your life or maybe someone you don't even know, but whom you aspire to emulate? I do. It's my Aunt Bertha, my mother's only surviving sibling. She has a birthday tomorrow and I want to celebrate her in this blog piece.

Pictured from left to right: My mom (Stella), Aunt Bertha, Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Stanley circa 1940

Of course, I love my aunt because she is my family. But what I love most about her is that she loves people fiercely like you might expect anyone with an Aries Sun to express their love. She loves her family and her friends wholeheartedly. When we are done talking on the phone she tells me she loves me. I want to do more of that...telling people I love them...now.

When I was growing up, my mother, the eldest of her 3 siblings, would tell me that she often envied her sister because of my aunt's ability to make friends easily. My mother was more shy while my aunt was more of a social butterfly or a "gadabout" as she and I often joke now. I love that she maintains strong connections to friends and family. She even goes to card club!

When I had breast cancer in 2007, my dad had just passed and my mother didn't drive so it was my aunt and uncle who took me to the hospital for surgery and brought me home. Granted, they lived close by, but they were always so self-less and caring. When my mother was in failing health, my aunt brought her homemade soup. When I made my Holy Confirmation 50 years ago, my aunt was my sponsor. She is incredibly kind, thoughtful and giving. I want to be more like her...now.

If you want a good recipe for anything, ask my aunt. She and her sisters were all good cooks and bakers (even though my mother did not enjoy either household task and would be the first to let you know) however, I didn't inherit that gene. LOL But even now, my aunt loves to share her recipes and she even printed a cookbook of her favorites and gave them to family members. I am blessed to have one.

Speaking of books, my aunt gathered her most treasured family stories and with the help of her daughter-in-law and granddaughters published the collection a few years ago. Her stories are warm and funny and some are quite tender, but wow...what a keepsake!

Another reason to revere my aunt...she knows how to take care of herself. Her health is important to her. She knows a lot about good nutrition and exercise. She still walks for 30 minutes most days. I want to have that kind of discipline.

I'm also very blessed to know more about my Polish ancestry than I could have dreamed. And that is thanks mostly to my mother and her sisters. More recently, my aunt gave me copies of photos of my great-grandmother whom I never knew. I always heard the stories about "Bubba" but it's wonderful to see what she looked like and who she resembles.

There's definitely lots more that I could write about my dear aunt, but you get the gist. She is my role model for good living in this world. Cheers to you at 92, Aunt Bertha! We love you!