April recap

April had a bit of everything.
And  April the giraffe had her baby boy.

April 3 - Wound Nurse
April 5 - Radiology for me
April 7 - Podiatry for M
April 8 - Lulu vaccine and salon
April 14 - Dermatology for me
April 21 - Podiatry for me
April 26 - Lip surgery for M
Lee O'Dell had a small stroke.

Lizzie came over for Marvin's 77th birthday. April 21 -12SIXTY lunch 4-22
I got sick with the flu April 22 for a whole week  :(


New family member, Eddie Thegel - April 23  :)

BOOKS I READ IN APRIL

MOVIES I'VE WATCHED IN APRIL

A Poetry Month

I have very much enjoyed reading all the poems and Haikus Lizzie had been posting in her blog, and also the ones in the mail. Is not easy to write poetry, to expose your thoughts and words and ideas. I liked some of the ones not written by Lizzie, but hers talk to me, made me feel closer to her.

I will write one day about my mother love of poetry and how pleased she was that her grandaughter loved poetry too. But today I just want to  post a poem by Spanish poet Antonio Machado (born in Sevilla 1875), I really like one of his poems "Caminante no hay camino". It's been on mi mind a lot lately. A famous catalan singer Joan Manuel Serrat, put it to music and is beautiful. Here's the poem, And below is the  You Tube of the song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DA3pRht2MA

Is hard to translate poetry I think, and keep the meaning. The poem is about making your own path and learning by your mistakes,

This is the whole poem   https://www.latino-poemas.net/modules/publisher2/article.php?storyid=1115

Friendship Haiku

Some friends come and go

but good friends stay forever

I am one of them

I was thinking about friends I have had thru my life. 

I don't think I've ever ended a friendship knowingly.

Some friendships ended because of moving away and losing touch  

Some ended because the other person decided they didn't want to be friends anymore.

Thanks to Facebook I have reconnected with friends of my past.

Today I talked to several friends I had not talked to in a while. 

People I know from school.  Teachers, parents, students, staff.

I called them for different reasons.

One of my best friends in school, Jessica, lost her parents within 3 weeks.

The first secretary at Jersey lost her husband a couple of weeks ago.

The "ruler" of the IMC is retiring and having a party the 27th

Another teacher told me all the latest gossip

An ex student wanted to know if I would go back to teaching since his son is starting K in September.

They all seemed happy to hear from me. I shall keep in touch more often.

Easter

This year Easter is a week before Marvin's Birthday.

Because it was just the two of us, I ordered an Easter dinner from Mimi's and brought it home.

We had a big breakfast in the morning. I cooked bacon and sausage and eggs, biscuits and gravy. It was very tasty!

In the afternoon, I drove to Mimi's to get our Easter meal. It was a salad, baked ham, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and a mini baguette. For dessert there was a creme brulee cheesecake with strawberry sauce (best part of the meal).

Notice the beautiful roses from our garden

It was a quiet day. Marvin was not feeling too well all day and spend some time napping, I also took a nap after our dinner.

I was thinking of other Easters. When the girls were little Marvin's sister Mary made them long dresses, sometimes with bonnets too. I saved a couple of them. We always had egg hunts around our backyard, it was fun. I remember some Easters when it snowed, fun times in Idaho!

Then when Tristan was born, Easters were fun, some years we drove to Utah and spent  my school Spring Break there. One year we had a fun Easter over at Lizzie's in San Diego. I remember the girls and Tristan each got a golden egg with $100 inside courtesy of JoBunny  ;)

Then we had some fun Easters when Mia came from Sweden in April , remember that?

I hope everybody had a very nice Easter weekend.

Good Friday/Viernes Santo

Today is just about the only day in the year that I follow Catholic rules, well sort of. It's the only day I don't eat meat, and also  at 3:00PM (the time that Jesus was nailed to the Cross, supposedly) I hagve a prayer that I have done for many many years, just by myself, on my knees. It's sort of a tradition I made for myself.

When I was growing up , under Franco, they had big processions on Good Friday all over Spain. Nowadays only some cities and towns in the south primarily still have them. It scared me to see the Penitentes, with chains tied to their feet, walking all the way, bleeding, sometimes carrying heavy crosses, and the scarier, the "cofradias" or church members wearing their big cones on their head, different colors according to their church, and once in a while, usually a woman on a balcony start singing a "saeta" which is a very mournful song.

Last night in Sevilla they were having an big procession with hundreds of people participating and watching, when some men yelled "Allah is great" and they were brandishing metal bars and hitting things, and there was an stampede with people running in panic. and of course it halted the procession. There's different versions of the events depending what news you read. Is just too bad things like this happen. Most agree it was not an act of terrorism, but of vandalism.

In other happenings this morning I had a dermatology appointment in Garden Grove, I had my leg checked, and also I had about 2 small spots frozen in my arm and 2 in my face (too much sun and beach time in my teens)

So that was my Good Friday 2017.

Got it done

Marv and I spent most of Sunday building my elevated planter. It was quite a job, is hard to follow directions when the pictures and directions don't seem too clear. But we got it done. Mainly Marv did all the work, the drilling and putting things together, I read the directions and gave some input. We just made a mistake but it was easily solved. We were pretty proud with the end result :)

Today Norbert came to help me move it to where it should go, that was too hard to do by myself or with Marv. So now it is in place, and N put the bags of soil that I had bought in the box and is ready for planting. I bought 1 tomato plant, 2 green peppers, and one tomatillo today. The theme of the planter is going to be a salsa garden :)  I already have the cilantro plant and jalapeño plant and green onion plants in pots. And also 2 more tomato plants.  In front of the house where we had tomatoes last year we have 3 big plants that grew voluntarily from last year. I don't think they will give a good crop but it already has some tomatoes. I also planted some celery. And I have a strawberry planter with an assortment of herbs, and of course, a strawberry plant too.

It's one of the perks of living in SoCal, things grow here with minimum effort :)

This is just for my information:

Vegetables plants I have so far

6 tomato plants

1 tomatillo

2 green peppers

2 hot peppers

3 celery plants

1 strawberry plant

Herbs I have so far

Rosemary (2 big plants)

2 cilantro

2 thyme plants, one huge

1 rue

2 mints

1 Mexican oregano

1 lemon verbena

2 Big lavender plants

1 chamomile

1 parsley

To April

Watching her daily

No baby was born today

Maybe tomorrow

March Recap

Things happening in March:

Marv had a procedure done on the 10th
I had a mammogram on the 6th (needs to be retaken)
Marv had a dermatology visit on the 27th, had a biopsy taken on his lip.

Our heater has not been working. The technician came twice and still not working grrr

Went to HB the 15th, lunch with N at El Ranchito.

Lizzie came over the weekend of St Patrick's. She got sick on our lunch Saturday and was not feeling so well  :(

The 19th my grandson turned 19!  Time goes so fast.


MOVIES I've watched in March

BOOKS I've read in March

It's SPRING