Hello

Yes, I know the title of the blog is from the old tired joke about, “I married him for better or worse; BUT NOT FOR LUNCH!” Actually, that was the point. Now that we are retired – not newly as it has been 5 years – the joke makes perfect sense to me. This lunch business drives me nutso! When it was just me at home, I could eat lunch or not, eat whatever strange thing I craved, or if I was deep in some project, just grab whatever was handiest. Now I dread hearing that piteous voice asking, “What are we doing for lunch?” My gut reaction is “Eating it”, but knowing that my sarcasm is not well received, I usually manage to reply, “What would you like?” Not only do I dislike having to prepare the stupid meal, I dislike even more trying to think of WHAT to fix. Once in a while, I can outlast him and he will manage to come up with something. Or sometimes I can get by with, “You’re on your own today.” Honestly, tho, he is a jewel about cooking dinner – which he is quite good at – if I want him to. And when I was going through the rough times with chemo and radiation, he was positively saintly about fixing meals – as well as doing other housework.

My former mother-in-law, Grammie (see Mamie’s blog, http://www.mamieutah.blogspot.com/), used to fix lunch EVERY day for her husband and 3 boys! And not soup and a sandwich or nuked frozen burritos (right, that wasn’t invented then). It was a full blown meal – salad, meat, potatoes, vegetable, rolls (homemade, of course) and dessert (again, homemade). Then she did it all over again for supper (dinner for those of you not from the Heartland). And she did all the kitchen cleanup – woman’s work, you know. The woman was never out of the kitchen! Of course, for most of those years she did have household help 2 full days a week.

Now that I have vented about the lunch thing – and I do feel much better for having done so, thank you – let me introduce the main cast of characters I will be referring to. The names in parentheses are the ones used in the aforementioned Mamie’s blog – had to change some to suit the circumstances. Wombat, that’s me (won’t catch ME doing “mommy blog”); GolfGuy, my husband (GolfDad); Mamie, my daughter; MamiesMan (DarlingMan – can’t bring myself to use THAT); Igor, my son; Mrs. Igor, his wife; Grandson and Granddaughter (Nephew and Niece); GrandmaT, Mrs. Igor’s mom; Snickers and Pudge, our cats. Various other characters will wander in from time to time.

Through a somewhat strange and involved series of events, we all ended up in the southwest corner of Utah. We all live in the Village, close to the Big Town, and within a few minutes of each other. I love being so close to my grown children – ever since they flew off to college, we had been scattered over various parts of California and Kansas. They have grown to be well-adjusted (mostly), good, personable people. I am frequently complimented on my wonderful daughter/son, and my only response is “In spite of me, not because of me.”

Although I do have a tentative list of ideas for posts, I probably will be somewhat erratic in actually posting them. As anyone who has tried to correspond with me on a regular basis knows, I either flood you with ramblings or go ridiculously long periods with nary a word. Please don’t give up on me. Feel free to comment and suggest ideas for discussion.

If I actually do get this blog up and running, it will be one more thing crossed off my “Bucket List”. And if you haven’t seen this wonderful movie, rent it immediately.