Hey! It's nice and sunny here too! But alas, I think the snow returns tonight. Sigh....But then we have a warm week ahead. I think the high will get to 49! Woo!
I was up early today. I got up at like 5:30, had some coffee, and then made a big breakfast. Bacon, scrambled eggs with chorizo, and homemade hot sauce, made simply with onions, tomatoes and jalapenos. So yummy. It made me homesick though. It's the breakfast my mom and grandmother always make, so of course it wasn't the same.
I'm hoping the watch the NASCAR race today, but it's raining like crazy in Fontana, so they may postpone it.
It's sunny here too! Finally, some relief from all that grey. But we're going to have to batten down the hatches for a snow storm Tuesday. Ugh. It was some consolation to get an e mail from Marilyn in Fiji - there was a huge rain and wind storm that scuttled all her beach plans so she left for Auckland a day early. That's my friend who's on the "Waltzing Mathilda" tour - 6 weeks of first class, 5 star la dee dah travelling down under with a couple of tropical islands thrown in for fun. Poor thing.
As soon as the dryer's done, and we've remade the bed, we're off to Ikea, Walmart (shudder), and Canadian Tire to pick up some mundane stuff like a new step ladder and socks, and halogen lights for downstairs. Ikea has a sale on some for $59.99 a fixture. If they look cheap, then we'll head over to Home Depot, but only as a last resort. It's always such a zoo in there.
Mike's back from LA all tanned and refreshed. Tony made in back from NYC but he's jangled and cranky, also pissed off at me because I made some remarks about the lack of discipline with his daughter. I kept my mouth shut for a long time, but felt something needed to be said. It's a real heart breaker to see a beautiful little child turn into a brat. So sad, and so unnecessary. At least I gave him the number for a good nanny agency. I've got to keep my distance for a while, for my sake as well as his. Enough already!
Anybody looking forward to watching the Oscars tonight? My mom and dad are coming over for roast chicken and we'll watch the red carpet fun stuff together.
Jojo - that hot sauce sounds wonderful. Does Jackson eat it?
Oooh, a day of shopping for you! I love going to the Home Depot, LOL. I wish we had an Ikea here!
Sorry your son is upset with you. I used to get angry at my mother for stepping in and trying to tell me how to deal with discipling Jackson, but I look back at when I was home, and I miss it.
Jackson does not eat the hot sauce, LOL. It's got vegetables, and he doesn't TOUCH vegetables.
Thanks, Tina. I don't want my son's forgiveness, I want him to wise up! He'll get over feeling miffed with me, but the point is that he and his wife have GOT to start disciplining their daughter in an effective way.
A child needs to be taught the difference between right and wrong, good and bad. A child needs discipline and routine imposed by the parents. A child needs to learn that life has rules that are there for a reason, and breaking the rules results in removal of a privilege. When a child engages in a power struggle with a care-giver, and consistently wins, what sort of message is that sending?
I just shake my head. Here are two parents, both with excellent educations, both brilliant, and neither of them have the good sense they were born with. Gah!
Jojo - I just saw your post after I posted this. I don't WANT to interfere with Tony's upbring of his kids, but how can I just sit back and say nothing when I can see so clearly that they are really making a terrible mistake? It takes a lot of determination to correct this, lots of time and energy. If you've ever watched Supernanny, then picture the worst case of a horrid brat, and that's what we're talking about. So sad.
It's still cold here today, but the sun is out in full force, so from inside it feels like a lovely spring day.
I managed to have a fire in my fireplace last night without having the dog go nuts. One of my friends mentioned that she uses those logs that can be found in grocery stores, and since they don't pop, I decided to give them a try. It worked! And while my husband is out of town, I decided to catch up on some girly movies, so I rented Elizabeth 2: The Golden Years (Cate Blanchett), Price and Prejudice (Keira Knightly), Becoming Jane, and Tristan and Isolde. I watched the first two last night, and they were wonderful...!!!
I'll definitely be watching the Oscars tonight, (even though I haven't managed to see much this year), while my husband watches them right there in Los Angeles. I guess that we'll compare notes by phone! LOL...
Interestingly enough, in anticipation of the Oscars, my husband received a random phone call on Friday from his grandfather's hometown newspaper. The reporter was doing a piece on him [the grandfather] for today's paper in honor of tonight's Oscars, and wanted to interview my husband briefly to get some personal insights on the man (long-since deceased). My husband thought that the reporter had probably telephoned here first, and that's how he got my husband's cell phone number, but he didn't! We think that he might have gotten it from another family connection who was also quoted in the piece.
The whole purpose of this trip (the first of many to come) is for my husband to do some research for a biography that he hopes to put together about his grandfather. We had donated a massive amount of papers, original scripts, decades-worth of handwritten diaries, letters, photographs, etc., etc., etc., to the Academy library, and most of them have now been catalogued. In the meantime, we've become friends with the archivist who spent nearly a week in our home two years ago going through these documents, and boxing them, and who has been to our area several other times, in search of Academy-related material belonging to other families. It's become a very interesting new friendship, and Howard (the archivist) has more funny Academy-related stories to tell than anyone! As you might imagine... He also has some interesting ones.
Anyway, there was an "unveiling" of various new collections that the library had acquired last November (not just for my husband's grandfather, but for others), and so my husband flew out to LA to attend the event. (I wish that all five us could have gone, but that wasn't even remotely practical...!!!) While there, he received a lot of encouragement (actually, downright badgering) from a number of people who actually knew his grandfather (and are writers themselves), and from our new friend, to take on this project. Frankly, it scares the life out of him, but he's now completely onboard, and is receiving a lot of moral support from many corners. He realizes that he's probably the only person who can do such a biography justice, and since he too is a writer, he can do this!
One connection tends to lead to another, and someone else has pursuaded him to put together an anthology of works by his grandfather first (novels, plays, articles for The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, and other pieces), and publish it before the biography. This would create some interest, and supposedly these things are fairly popular now. (The man says.) My husband unearthed what is apparently an unpublished play by his grandfather, and has just finished transcribing it. He's trying to place a date on it now, and he's hopeful that some of the documents he'll be going through during the next few days will help in with that task. The Academy library has done an amazing job of cross referencing documents too! When my husband was out there last November, he pulled one of his grandfather's letters at random, and discovered that the man to whom it had been addressed also had a collection housed in the library. When he searched that, he turned up a bunch of other stuff related to his grandfather that helped fill in a few blanks! And that was just ONE letter...
This has been a very cool experience so far because it has made my husband feel very close to his beloved grandfather. It's too long to describe here, and probably shouldn't be anyway, but his mother essentially very selfishly prevented him from enjoying the kind of relationship with her father to the extent that my husband deeply wanted to have, even as a little boy, and that his grandfather wanted to have with him. This project has already made him "feel" his grandfather's approval, as one thing after another begins to fall into place. The newspaper article reinspired him this morning (big-huge picture of his grandfather's face on the front page), so as he heads off to the Phoenix airport, he has a refreshed sense of enthusiasm.
Arizona-daughter is the entire reason why this has snowballed in the first place! A couple of years ago, she decided that she wanted to give her dad a completely unique, and memorable birthday gift. She spent many weeks contacting various people within the Academy, in an effort to get clips of her dad's grandfather receiving his various Academy Awards. At first, she was given the run-around, but ultimately connected with some HUGE honcho who issued orders that this request was to be fulfilled -- at the Academy expense!
On his birthday, my husband received a custom-made DVD (complete with a collage of photos of his grandfather on the cover) that showed him receiving two of his four awards, giving his acceptance speeches, and also giving an opening speech for one of the awards ceremonies when he was President of the Motion Picture Academy. My husband was completely blown away (wept) because he'd never seen these clips before. We all sat here stunned too because we realized in watching his grandfather deliver his various speeches that his grandfather wrote in the same style that my husband does!
When he later emailed the honcho-guy to thank him for helping our daughter accomplish her mission, and to tell him how much the gift had meant, he also mentioned that we had a bunch of documents, and wondered if the Academy might be interested in acquiring them. The man put us in touch with Howard, and that's how this whole crazy journey started!
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
KaeEll, I got interrupted by about three phone calls while I was composing my other post, but I wanted to say that you're absolutely right to speak up where your granddaughter is concerned! I'm sorry that your son was miffed...
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
Moore that is so intriguing! Kae, it sounds like you are in such a sad predicament there.
I couldn't imagine a child that bad, but I know it can happen. I am going to most likely start baby sitting a few kids next week if their mother gets the job at Wal Mart photography and if she can arrange transportation for the kids to get from school to here. .
Her girls are pretty good, but her son is quite teh little monster. I have made it clear to her though that he won't be when I'm done. I have no problem in laying down some consencqenses for the little guy.
You know, KaeEll, it's like they say: "If you're going to have a battle with your child, make absolutely certain that you're going to win it!"
This is so true. If children can manipulate their way out of all household rules, and away from all discipline, it's going to come back and bite the parents later on. I wish that my husband had understood this more when we were raising ours; he was a total wimp when it came to discipline which, of course, made him Prince Charming to our kids, and me the wicked witch.
Once kids discover that they have the upper hand, it's all downhill from there! Fortunately, your granddaughter is still young enough to turn this thing around -- IF the parents are willing. That's the catch...
I feel for you. How frustrating to watch this unfold when your heart is in exactly the right place as her grandmother.
__________________
"It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities"
(Dumbledore to Harry Potter)
I've said my piece and now will stand back and watch what happens. Late last night my son e mailed me pics of his daughter skiing yesterday, so he's offering a little olive branch, which is a good sign. I think he was more embarrassed than anything. I love that he's starting her on the slopes good and early. I had my kids on skis before they were out of diapers, used to bring them back inside and their little bottoms were crystalised, lol.
Lol how cute. That was a nice thing of him to do. He seems like a good boy, just well a guy lol a bit hard headed I'm sure and gees he wouldn't be a bit headstrong would he lol?
