run on sentences

"Fall is such a beautiful season.  It really is my favorite time of year.   But sometimes it is also the time when I feel very sad.  Everything is dying.  I find myself missing every person I have ever known that is gone.  It is almost painful, that missing". My elderly friend, Enid made this comment a few days ago when we were driving back from lunch.  I thought she described it very well and found myself thinking about it a lot for several days after that - including a few days ago when I got up in the morning feeling very blue.  It was the first freezing cold day of the year at 29 degrees.  Jack followed me around the house anxiously waiting for me to signal him, by putting on my running clothes, that we would go for a run, I wasn't in the mood to go out in the cold, but Jack's hopeful old eyes, now rimmed by white eyelashes, made me realize we had to go.  I knew if I put my running clothes on I could not break my own rule "If you are ...

When I was a little girl, I got a Thumbelina doll for Christmas.  I can remember getting up at 4 a.m on Christmas morning that year, as we always did.  My mom made us go back to bed after we opened presents and Thumbelina lay next to me on my little twin bed that my mom got at an auction.  I can still remember how she smelled - that new doll smell that is so distinctive - a mixture of rubber, plastic and some petrochemicals, I suppose, but it was a "new" smell and one that brings back memories any time I catch a whiff of it. Thumbelina - not mine but she looks exactly like this I think I received her in the early 60's.  Thumbelina was one of the first very "lifelike" dolls and she had a big pink knob in her back.  Later after I became a pediatric nurse I called the knob a myelomeningocele because that's what it reminded me of.  A myelomeningocele is when part of a baby's spinal column and nerves, etc, remain outside the body at birth.   Thumb...

My mom in her youth.  She was a beauty! Today is my mom's birthday. She would have been 83 years old.  I was more sad last week thinking about her, but today I just smiled at some of the good memories and made it a good day  remembering the good times we spent together.  Me and my mom when I was about ten months old...I sure didn't have much hair! My mom had many sayings - Some of them were handed down to her by her own mom and who knows where they originated.... Might as well, can't dance.  And it's too windy to haul rocks. (I have no clue what this means). It will be better in the morning (any time we were sick, or felt bad about anything). They're just jealous! (any time someone was mean to us.  She didn't say what they were jealous about). People come to see you and not your house. I'm broke flatter than piss on a platter (when she didn't have any money). Oh well (her version of the more popular version of today "it is what it ...

I was kind of surprised at first, that my son Bill and Scarlett got Bruce and I a hot air balloon ride for Christmas.  He knows I don't like heights or even flying all that much - what was he thinking? When he was little, he and his brother used to tease me by leaning over the railing on the second floor of the mall we used to visit.  Not that this has anything to do with this story, but I also hated when people looked cross eyed or stuck their finger in their belly button.  Bill and his friend used to stick their fingers in their belly buttons and look cross eyed at the same time - just to irritate me - which it didn't; it just made me nauseated.  So I guess the balloon ride made sense in some way. Anyway it took almost a year for us to go on the ride with Park City Balloon Adventures .   I thought about it a lot all summer and at first, I said I wouldn't do it.  I really shouldn't have to do it if I didn't want to, right?  I mean Gretchen Rubin in...

I am going to confess to something.  Yeah I know I am always positive and uplifting in my blog posts.  This will be the one time when I probably reveal something personal...my Achilles tendon so to speak. I have been called a "Pollyanna" because of my usual positive outlook on things   Or an "eternal" or "terminal" optimist.   Ever since I was little, when I complained about something, I always was told by my mom, dad, or Ernie (an adopted family member) "Some people have it a lot worse".  That is always true - I have never had it as bad as others. I grew up poor and I didn't even realize it till I got older because I was loved.  But there were poorer people.    Even if things are not going well for me, my motto has always been "never let them see you bleed".  I have been, under most circumstances, able to live up to that motto.  The only problem is that sometimes the pent up stuff boils over all at once when you least expect...

Yesterday I completed my 17th St. George marathon and my 30 something marathon overall.  It was great as usual - easy to say now that I am done.  But it really was great.  It was St. George - the best, the most scenic, and most organized marathon ever. It was really hot... maybe hotter than any of the other 16 I have done.  When my friend Suzanne and I got on the bus to take us to the start it was already 80 degrees at 5 AM.  When we got to the start we didn't need to put on our extra clothing to keep warm.  Usually we have to wear long pants, gloves, jackets and a hat because it is about 30 degrees up past Veyo, which is at an elevation of around 6000 feet.  The race starts at 6:45 so we had over an hour to wait in the dark with about 7000 other people. We did our usual pre race rituals - hanging around in the porta potty lines and then sitting on the pavement drinking a last Gatorade and eating a banana or an orange, quietly observing other runne...