The Open House was a big success.

Neighbors came along with people from Dad's Church. We have lemonade, cherries, chocolate chip cookie bars, macaroons, and raisin oatmeal cookies left over!

I was snapping pictures but noticing that the pictures weren't in focus. I really didn't know what was wrong 'till Pastor Jennifer showed me the button on the side of the lens marked A or M. The camera was set to M. Thus the problem. The camera was set to Automatic on the top of the camera. Anyway, the pictures got better but I missed many good shots.

I am posting this for my sisters. They will appreciate the victory this represents. Our neighbor Janette's grandson recommend one of his students to take over lawn care. Today when he came, I asked him and his friend to help get this furniture out to be picked up in the morning by Boston Recycling and Sanitation. Tomorrow the Merry Maids are coming to clean the house! Hurrah! Now the focus will be on getting ready for our garden party on Saturday.

Booty in the Boot from Home Depot

Julia the Magnificent who helped Dad with his financial matters for years!

Had a long day yesterday so today Dad and I haven't been so busy. It is in the high 80's. The house is very hot but the basement is so cool. (a few things have found there way upstairs including a FAN!)

We went to the Home Depot to buy plants to liven up the back yard. We are having neighbors and church friends over on Saturday. It will be an opportunity to appreciate all the people important to Dad here in town.

Here on Baker Street in Massachusetts, the prime directive in cleaning, sorting, donating and throwing away. Though Dad had energy yesterday and worked in the basement on his own. Today he doesn't have the attention for it. He is on the back porch enjoying the beautiful spring day reading the newspaper and I expect napping a bit. We had a busy day yesterday. See photos!

I am including pictures of flowers in the yard. Spring has taken hold. Due to a wet winter and now a wet spring. Nature is putting on quite a show.

Dad and I are in Massachusetts while my daughter house sits taking care of the cats and house plants.

We had a few beautiful spring days before the weather cooled off and became rainy as it is today.

It was clear that working in the yard here had a familiar rhythm that he didn't have to think about.

I have been going to the Apple Store at Legacy Place for One to One lessons on using the Mac. There is so much to learn. I am a little frustrated by the quality of the video I have produced so far, but I am not able to down load it to this blog yet so you may be spared the experimentation.... you are missing such spell binders as playing cribbage, trimming hedges and raking trimmings. This fascinates me because it is my dad. He said while watching it " Who is that old man? He looks like my dad."

As I am learning to use the computer and camera there will be times when I feel I shouldn't be posting anything. I will fight this perfectionism that leads in my case to procrastination and forge ahead

My Father is a true romantic. He said today "I have always lived in a fantasy world." This has not been evident to me in my thinking about him as he was raising a family. As a teenager, I remember asking him why he married Mom. He said, "I got tired of washing my own socks." He said this kiddingly. But as a young person I was devastated. I wanted a romantic story of falling in love and not being able to live with out my Mother.

Courting and marrying Helen, my step mother, in 2000 after my Mother's death, was a romantic episode for him. He said at the time, "I feel like I am 16 again."

I have work long and hard to rid myself of romantic notions. Pinning my hope on a significant other has not been satisfactory in my experience. But then what is romance?

Closeness seem to be a more tangible objective. Closeness can be found in so many more relationships. I want to be with people in all our humanness. I want to learn to show myself more and to work through what maybe hard about that.

So much to do before we start our adventure. I have volunteer responsibilities to complete, packages to send, and oh yeh PACK THE SUITCASES! The yard is full of branches and brambles.

It will take a bit of time to become familiar with this process. I have already given myself conniptions losing my blog settings and finally finding them again! They reappeared as if by magic when I clicked on a new template!

Confirmations from the universe are welcome in this process. Two so far (how many have I missed seeing?)...

1. the library offering a lecture entitled "Family Legacy" about writing family histories.

2. tea with a colleague who is in tune with the process of reinvention, exploration, and living from the soul.

This new phase of our lives began with a phone call from a family friend in August 2009 stating concerns for my father's well being. I booked a flight to Boston to check on dad and my step mom, Helen. I had the nagging feeling for the last year that an intervention of some kind would be needed soon. This was the call I had been waiting for.

My sisters and I visited dad and Helen one or twice a year coming from Atlanta for me, San Antonio for Becky and Spokane for Lucinda. These visits were made difficult by our step mother's agitation at having people in her house. As she continued to decline the visits in the last two years were made somewhat easier as she slipped away into to sleep sitting in her chair in the kitchen from morning to night.

Dad was at last willing to move Helen to a nursing home, finally realizing the toll it was taking on his own health and mental state. I flew to Massachusetts, happy that I had banked a lot of vacation and personal leave at my job. My step mother Helen at 92 was failing. She had dementia for at least 10 years. Dad was her sole caretaker. After different hospitalizations, the doctors would place her in a nursing home and she would beg Dad to bring her home. He was unable to leave her so he would bring her home. The day after I arrived in Boston, Dad and I were outside doing some yard work when he backed off a step going down to the cellar and fell down four steps on to gravel. I called the EMT's. They took him to Faulkner Hospital. It turned out he was OK but the accident was further confirmation that with or without Helen, he should not be living alone.

Over Labor Day weekend the Visiting Nurse put Helen in the hospital for dehydration and she was placed in Epoch a Nursing Home in the Chestnut Hill area. Becky came up for a few weeks to be with Dad, then Lucinda took a turn then I came up again from Atlanta. Helen was in the nursing home for three months before passed away on December 8.

The end of October, Dad came to Atlanta to be with me over Thanksgiving. We came up to Boston for a week here and there to visit Helen and check on the house which was being rewired and renovated (another story). After Thanksgiving and visit to Boston, he went to San Antonio with Becky & Dave for Christmas and New Years. We had seen Helen on Saturday before flying out of Logan. Helen died on Tuesday. The next week we were all flying to Boston for Helen's memorial service.