Friday, September 17, 2010

Hello and Happy Fall!

Hope all of you who are lucky enough to live in a cooler climate are enjoying the beginning of fall!  I know it will arrive here eventually because I see all the little hints, i.e., school buses making their rounds, geese flying to the southern end of our neighborhood ;-), soccer and football practices, and winter clothes for sale at the malls.  Weather wise, not so much; we are still having 95 degree days though it is a little cooler during the night.

I have been working on an album for a friend of mine . . . it is taking me way too long.  I have to stop being so anal about things and just let them flow.  I'm also working on a poster for my youngest grandson's room for his birthday; he will be eleven on October 1! So hard for me to face the fact that he is no longer a little boy and will soon be turning into a young man.  I already have one grown grandson, Timothy who is 20! 

I have been hearing from some of my online and blog friends lately and it has been a treat.  I guess all of us slow down for the summer.  Some of you have noticed my new hairstyle . . . thanks to my friend Jan for making me update my look!

Hope to speak with you all again soon!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Hi

I guess you thought I had left forever.  Things have been good/bad/horrible/wonderful and my emotions have run the gamut from elation to complete despair.  I haven't been creating any digital elements and the closest I've come to PhotoShop is to work on an album for a friend of mine.

I have missed my online buddies as well as my real time friends; it seems as if I have been a hermit since my job with Libby was completed.

Kim has been becoming more healthy by leaps and bounds! Since separating from her husband and joining the gasteoparesis study, her diabetes has become much more manageable.  In fact, the feeding tube she had to have surgically implanted in her intestines so she could get enough nutrients to sustain life has been removed!!!!!!!!!!  The opening closed up completely in about 30 days.  She still has to have the opening in the bottom of her stomach surgically widened every 80 to 90 days so she can digest her food, via gravity, in the intestines, but life for her has become so much better.

My heart has been aching with the loss of one of the dearest and closest people in my life; my cousin, S. Kent Moran, passed away from oral cancer on August 17.  Kent was part of my support system during all the tribulation of my father's last months.  Our families spent our free time together so we were raised more like siblings than cousins.  Some of my earliest and most cherished memories are of our times together playing in the creek, skipping rocks in the cow pond, or telling fantastic stories to each other and making plans for our adult selves while we hid out in the hay loft gazing at the blue skies of summer in Chesterfield, Virginia. Our bond was one of those that held no matter how much time or distance separated us and I will miss him for the rest of my days.

So, you see, the happy and sad, highs and lows that have beset me since April.  I'm sure there are those of you who have had much more interesting and/or difficult lives these past few months but everything is relative so my experiences have been center stage for me. As we finish out this calendar year, it is my intention to try and be a better friend whether online or in person.

Kent