Grandparenthood - Just call me Memere

Many people described being a grand parent as the most wonderful experience.  They did not use a lot of detailed description but there was that look in their eyes that indicated it was unique, unusual and indescribable.

Last Sunday morning, my mobile dinged, indicating a text, at 5:30 am.  They were on their way to the hospital.  I have been sleeping next to my mobile for a week just in case they texted in the middle of the night.

We were up and awake already so we stayed up to watch the sunrise at Coniston.  The anticipation was similar to our own labor but obviously not as intense.  We distracted ourselves with a ride up the Hero Islands over the bridge to Rousse's Point NY and back on the ferry to Mike and Pegs' and a dinner visit with cousins Linda and Becky.  We contemplated going to Montreal but did not want to be that far away.  As it turns out, we could have made that trip.

We then drove to Burlington and just caught George and Judy coming back from the airport.  We had Old fashioneds with them at the Hotel Vermont and then we were invited to stay the night with them, in case there was a text in the middle of the night.  Nothing overnight.

We spent Monday distracting ourselves again with shopping and Starbucks and long walks.  We made lunch and in the middle of lunch we got the text "She's here".

My wonderful family can describe better my excitement but I was shaking so much I could not even compose the text to let my Mom and siblings know.  I continued the message to them "Crick just texted me "She's here"".  We texted back, can we visit, and 20 minutes later we were in the elevator of the hospital.  I almost got on Fox TV as we were joined in the elevator by a hospital executive and the news crew.  "We are new grand parents!"  I blurted out.  I had also told most of Church Street that I was about to be a grand mother.

As we entered the room, I will never forget the sight of my son holding his new daughter.  Meg was exhausted and also looked lovingly at her husband holding their daughter.  I have only held my two children in the first hour of their life so it was such an honor to be there. I got to hold her for a few minutes before handing her back to those capable hands of her father when she got fussy.

We have had two other visits since then including one with Bethany who drove up from Boston on Monday night.  She was going to wait, but when we were there for the first time, her niece whimpered and she heard that.  There was no stopping her from coming up as soon as she could.

We get daily texted pictures from Crick who has a permanent smile on his face as he watches Meg hold their daughter or he holds her himself.

This newly expanded family is settling into their new life with this little one.  We are adjusting to having another dimension to our lives, this unconditional love and legacy of family,  AND the birth of our grand daughter.  The magnetic pull from Vermont which was already pretty strong just got stronger.  I now understand that look in grandparent's eyes.  I am starting to understand that this is a very different relationship that any I have had with anyone before.

If you wonder why I am Memere, that is the topic of another post.

There has to be a better experience than this

No one likes poor quality, however, sometimes what you have is worth dealing with versus changing when you don't know for sure that the new product or situation will be better.  As well, with time our expectations of service change based on what we have.  As an example, my first wordprocessor only saved 1/2 page in memory, and my Yahoo mail account used to have a storage limit.  I had to actually delete emails to get below the storage limit.  Same with my work email.  This would be unacceptable in today's email environment.

We bought Coniston, our house in Vermont in 2008.  It is in the boonies of Vermont and for a few months we went without Internet.  We quickly decided that we needed to add some technology to this paradise of quiet.

Rod did quite a bit of research including having one provider come visit the house for a microwave dish, but they could not find a signal.  We ended up with a local provider Wild Blue which provided up with a satellite dish and very very very very slow speed for browsing, reading mail, searching google, etc.  We stuck with it since this is not our primary residence, and for the last year we have been considering Fairpoint, a DSL through the existing phone line.  NO, we are not putting in a land line although for billing they had to give us an unworkable one.  Our last dozen visits we have used the hot spot on Rod's iPhone which was faster than the satellite dish.  This is just unbelievable that an iphone has faster connectivity than a huge dish.

We brought the Fairpoint wireless modem up with us last night and after one call to tech support, we installed the wireless modem.  Ipads, iphones and my Mac are all connected.  We do not even have to have a computer hard wired to the modem.

The difference in speed was unbelievable.  It is not painful to browse websites and check mail, and make casebook updates about the impending birth of our granddaughter.  We immediately got on the phone to cancel Wild Blue.  I do not want to pay one more cent to them for inferior service.  We have choices about what we use for service, but I feel like they are not being competitive and their prices is high for the service we get.

What I do not understand is why it took us so long.  We complained a lot about the speed.  When Chris and Meg lived here they installed Direct TV because of the slow speed and never updated iTunes or any other updates on their phones or iPad through the Internet.  They went to Starbucks for that.

The learning for me is to listen more quickly to that inner voice which says, "there has to be a better quality experience for me available for less cost".

I have had a similar experience with another professional lately.  I went to her for 3 years and after most visits and that amount of time, and that inner voice saying, "there has to be a better experience", I switched to a different professional.  The experience is 100 times better.  Again, why did I wait?  Inertia, loyalty, stupidity, lack of knowledge, comfort.

So Wild Blue, you lost us as a customer because you refused to upgrade the speed of the satellite dish.  Yes, we are in the boonies, but I am telling everyone I know about this experience, including this blog post, which might tell people I don't know.

All I want for Christmas is bags of trash to leave the house

About 10 years ago, as we examined our needs and desires for Christmas Rod said "All I want for Christmas is for bags of trash to leave the house."  Since then, whenever I am in a cleaning mood and walk through our front room on the way to the bin or with a bag on its way to a charity, I wish him Merry Christmas.  It is a silly thing, but it is still true, that we have very few material needs and what we need is simplicity, and pruning of material possessions.

Partly because Rod just retired and partly because of the time of year, we have spent the last two days getting lots of trash out of the house.  We are setting up my old sewing room as Rod's art studio and I am moving my fabric into the guest room built in wardrobe.  My sewing machine will be kept in a cupboard in the kitchen/living room, because this is where I sew.  It is sunny, I can watch TV and this is where people are.

In the process, I am packing all of Bethany's possessions into boxes and most of her stuff is now tucked into a closet in the guest room.  It feels so good for the three of us to clean out stuff and sort the house out.

Funny story, Bethany had a friend in grade school who came for a play date, and we were moving furniture from the front living room to the family room.  A month later, we decided we did not like it so we were moving it back.  Bethany had another play date with the same friend who said "Does your family always move furniture around?"  Well, I guess we do, I guess we are always changing things and trying to make our house work better.

So about 10 bags of clothes to Goodwill and trash have been packed up and the carrying through the front room is always accompanied by a "Merry Christmas!"  I guess we can have Christmas in July and every other month of the year if we want.

Latest Technology Challenge

After one week, I am still not sure about my new Macbook Air.  The first night was painful with lots of profanity and "What is happening?" and "Why would they do that?" and "Maybe I should have bought an IPad with a camera".

I know change is hard, in fact I teach change management but when it is happening to me it is different.  I am getting over some of the initial frustration and in fact like some of the features and functionality.

However, yesterday when my video camera did not work on two back to back calls, one Google Hangout and one Gotomeeting, I was irate.  Of course I naturally went to the internet for resolution and found out that with the new OS update, there is a problem with Macbook Air computers and Skype, Hangout and Gotomeeting.  However, there is no problem with Facetime and Photo Booth.

So, it is not a hardware problem, because the camera works.  It is a software problem, but Apple software or the other companies?  Apple apparently claims it is the other companies problem.  One solution is to use Time Machine, which is another Apple product, hmmmmm!

So, NO Apple I am not going to buy another piece of equipment, to backup my machine.  If I back up this machine it will be with Carbonite which has saved me three times this year when the desktop had to be reimaged from scratch.

Last night I was so mad I was going to the Apple store ASAP today.  This morning after sitting on it and doing some research, I am going to wait until the software people in which ever company have the problem, sort it out.

It is reported on enough forums as a problem, so hopefully by the time my next video meeting comes along it will be fixed.  I do have a solution that I can use for my Google Hangout calls, which is a workaround but will enable me to be seen on a video call.  This is after all, why I bought a new machine, so I can take part in video calls.  They are so much better when you can see the body language of the other participants.

My next challenge is to sort out my shard Contacts and try to eliminate the duplicates on my iPhone and get the phone numbers in contacts on my Macbook Air.  I have tried to solve this challenge before and have lived for years with duplicates.  Anyone have a suggestion on this challenge?

Trip to Maine to visit Susan and her family of dogs

There is nothing like an old friend, and visiting them to relive old memories and create new ones.  They knew you when you were still making silly life mistakes, were not quite as wise and old, and in some cases were wild and crazy.

I just returned from a quick trip to Maine to visit a friend who I have know since Chris was 3 months old, so 33.5 years.  She moved there 2 months ago from upstate NY where she has lived for a long time.   It was great to be in her house, see her dogs and to sit on couches in front of a wonderful view or marshes and the ocean.




There are a few people in my life who I really enjoy shopping with and she is one of them.  Otherwise I HATE shopping.  I bought a wonderful new shirt, some stocking stuffers, greeting cards and a present for my soon to be retired husband.  It was not just any shirt, it was one I have been looking for forever, but finally found what I want.  BTW, I did not know I was looking for this shirt until I found it.

One wonderful thing about Susan is her love of dogs.  She has two pugs and two labs.  I re-met the pugs last January when I visited her in Florida, but had not seen the labs for 5-6 years since I visited her old house in NY.  They energetically and warmly greet you as soon as you open the front door.  One of the pugs sat on my lap for a lot of the visit.

We walked twice on the beach with the labs.  I love to watch labs in the water.  Both of hers are pretty old so Susan does not want them to chase things except sticks and balls in the water while swimming.  Yesterday morning we walked at low tide out to some rocks which at high tide are not reachable.  It was not quite low tide so at times I did walk through 6 inches of water and my feet were pretty wet.  We reached the rocks, and some cairns that people built.  It was an amazing walk.

We ate a picnic this lunchtime on some rocks in Biddeford Pool, along with a seagull who sat watching us for a pretty long time.

It is really wonderful to know someone for this much of my adult life.  Susan knows a lot of my history, and remembers details that I don't.  I remember details that she does not remember.  There have been periods of time when we are not in contact, but with each visit we agree to make the time for each other.  We like to spend time together and I for one feel better about myself after a visit with her.  That to me is the definition of a good friend.

She is only 90 minutes away now, so I anticipate more frequent visits to see her, and the dogs and for walks on the beach.  I realized that life is too short to not make time for quick visits like this and for longer ones too.  We almost were on our way to NYC tomorrow for a quick trip but thought better of that.  Soon though, a trip to NYC!

Does everyone know about Freecycle?

I am in the process of getting rid of stuff that I don't need in the house any more and I don't want throw it away and have it end upin the land fill. I have felt that way for quite a while and one website that I just love is Freecycle.

I am actually shocked when people have not heard about this great Website. It takes a little bit of effort, but you pass things on to others who need them and the items leave your house.

I even helped a friend last year when she was moving. I took several car loads of stuff away from her house to mine, and got rid of most of it on Freecycle. First, I invited all of the neighborhood kids over to pick through it and then I put it on Freecycle. I believe that this is a local issue which is why we have tag sales and why I invited the neighborhood kids over first. Freecycle is local, since many towns/cities have their own group.

For the uninitiated, the way it works is you join a group and post items as OFFER, with a picture attached if you think that will help someone take it. People reply that they want it, you get to choose who gets it and you mark the item as TAKEN. Often, people reply within 5 minutes to my items so I monitor my email right after I post, so I can reply quickly and then take it "off the market".

I started using Freecycle for green and sustainability reasons. Now it is a game. Over the next month, I am going to post one item a day on average and feel better because my house is less cluttered. So far I have gotten rid of fireplace tools and screen, pet door and a box of CDs and tapes.

If you have not tried it, DO! If you already use Freecycle, what has been your experience?


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This is it - Thich Nhat Hanh

This quote was one of those we saw on Saturday at ABC carpeting in NYC. The exhibit was of calligraphy that Thich Nhat Hanh made of some of his quotes. In a corner of this huge busy store was a sanctuary of altars surrounding quotes hung on the wall. It was very simple and quiet. Our visit to the ABC Thich Nhat Hanh exhibit was initiated by Karen, who three of us visited for our third annual Star Island Girls weekend.

Each of us focused on a particular quote and the one I latched onto was "This is it". It is another way of saying live in the moment. We repeated it to each other in the remaining time together, at opportune times. It is very freeing and soothing to hear and say.

I have a few books written by him and will definitely open them soon after I get back from this weekend. Since he was in Boston this weekend, I missed him locally but maybe will make an effort to see him soon and at the very least open those books.

What I love is that meditation and stopping to absorb the impact of quotes like this are nearly mainstream. ABC had a lot of floor space dedicated to this exhibit, right off of the first floor! In the busyness of NYC we spent 30 minutes in quiet reflection and absorption. We were moved by whichever one struck us at that moment and on that day.

Mine for now is "This is it". It says it all for me today.
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Karen who we visited, reflecting.