FALL update

So just a quick update.  I haven't posted since July!  But we do stay busy with work and family stuff.  Y'all know how much I LOVE summer and I hate to see it end :(   But this fall hasn't been too bad.  Just really really rainy and only cooling off in the last couple of weeks.  This time last year I had taken a fun trip to California and then a trip to Minnesota in October.  Autumn there is amazing!  This is a pic I took of leaves on the ground.  Beautiful colors!

Wade is still waiting for approval to have surgery in Houston on his shoulder - the surgery in March wasn't done correctly it appears.  His bicep tendon hasn't healed properly and they didn't even fix his tricep tendon.  So hopefully that is going to happen soon and get him some relief and let the healing begin.  I know he is ready to get back to a semi-normal life.

In August we got to take a trip to New Mexico for my BFF's son's wedding.  It was a FUN trip.  It's gorgeous out there - in the mountains north of Santa Fe.  It was a sweet, pretty ceremony and we had some great girl time (we flew out together a few days before the hubbies drove out).  

Wade and I are basically empty nesters now!  Caleb got a travel trailer and took it out west for work.  He and Taelor took their doggos Cooper and Deuce.  It's just me and Wade and Nova left at home.  It's a new, very different season but I'm ready for the adventure.  The kids are doing well - the grandkids are growing like crazy and Morgan is getting healthier every day and doing well in college.

We lost both our furry cat children in the last couple of months.  Sully passed at the end of August and Tiger just two weeks after. 

They were 17 years old and I honestly can barely remember a time without them.  It was a very sad time.  Lots of changes lately.

I am looking forward to fall and the holidays - time spent with family and friends.  Here's hoping for a great end to 2018 and a WAAAAAAY better 2019!!!  

Memories of Nene

Last week was a sad one - the passing of my dad's oldest living sibling and his only living sister.  My aunt, Marlene Meadows Archer, was one of a kind.  Her grandkids called her Nene - probably because they couldn't pronounce Marlene.   She was the family historian.  The one who remembered everything - right up to the end.  She was 85 years old and even though her body was rebelling her mind (she called it her "members") never left her.

My granny passed away when I was only 9 1/2 years old.  I remember that night clearly because it was the first time I ever remember hearing my quiet, sweet daddy holler or cry.  When the call came he cried out loudly, and I didn't know why but I knew it wasn't good.  He loved his mama!  I remember that Aunt Marlene tried to take her place best she could to keep all the family together.  Her home became the new gathering spot.  She loved her brothers oh so much, and she loved all her nieces and nephews too.  She remembered our birthdays, our spouses' names, our kids' names - all of it.  She lived just across the river in Texas until she and her husband retired to Toledo Bend.  We would visit there too, right on the lake.  When he passed away she moved back to the home place in Louisiana.  She had a gorgeous yard with old plantings that I never was brave enough to dig up (I do NOT have a green thumb!) 

My grandparents had 6 children, but their oldest girl (my namesake, Mae Imogene) died before she turned 3.  In fact, my Granny would have been pregnant with Aunt Marlene when she passed.  I can't imagine.  After Aunt Marlene, my Uncle Kent, then my Daddy, then my Uncle Curtis were all born within 5 years of each other.  Uncle Sam was the youngest; born seven years after my Dad.  My daddy was the first sibling who lived to adulthood to pass away, in 2006.  After the funeral in Lufkin Aunt Marlene's son John did the escort to Louisiana and conducted a service there for the family who wasn't able to make the trip to East Texas.   Once the burial was over, we all gathered yet again at Aunt Marlene's home.  She told stories as only she could, and even though we were heartbroken we laughed and laughed at the tales she told of our Daddy, uncles, cousins and their friends when they were young.  Many of those stories we had heard, but some we hadn't.  She had a warm, often loud voice, and had that Louisiana accent we didn't get here in East Texas.  

Last year I took my mom over to visit Daddy's gravesite and we went to see Aunt Marlene in the nursing home where she had gone to stay a few years before.  She wasn't doing well physically but she was the same Aunt Marlene!  Telling stories and laughing, even though she was in pain and having a hard time breathing well.  I wish we had gone more.  I wish I had recorded her telling those stories.  Even though two of my uncles are left with us, her passing was like losing a link to my Daddy no one else had.  

I will miss you Nene !