Christmas shopping is coming right along!

Here I am in my new black beret from the thrift store. It is very warm and sure felt good today when I was out shopping in the rain. Below is a card I received of my oldest granddaughter Laura Lynne, her husband TJ, and my great grandson Wyatt. She is Gary, my oldest son's daughter.
I just got back from Borders Bookstore a little while ago which is a trek I make every year looking for bargains. My trip was very satisfying as I got 4 books, 1 for each of my kids for quite a good bargain. The other books I will give are second hand. I received a book today in the mail from my sister Ann and one from my neice Cheryl that I will have to review I am sure. It is one by Barbara Kingsolver who lived in Arizona a long time and who wrote one of my favorite novels, "The Poisonwood Bible." The other one is about redemption after abuse. I just started reading it. I think I have about gotten all my books sent out.
I am going to give my usual Christmas Eve supper, and just learned today Linda's daughter Carissa is coming from San Francisco and she and Debbie, her borther's wife, are doing Italian for a feast for Christmas day. What a wonderful idea I think. Every Italian dinner they have served has been divine. One year they roasted peppers the Italian way. One year Linda made a sausage and broccoli pie that is unbelievably good. She learned to make it from her Italian MIL. Sam, her ex, lives out in Mesa now. Tano and Debbie persuaded him to sell his house in Florida and move to Arizona which he was willing to do after a hurricane or two. Linda met him in Los Angeles where he worked for many years as supervisor for a big landscaping company.
My son Gary is just finishing up a job in downtown Phoenix for his construction company. You can visit Raymond's blog http://cowboysandbohemians.blogspot.com in which he is logging his experience in Los Angeles of staging two of his plays there. He is also writing his memoirs into the mix. Quite hair raising stuff for a mother to read at times. I am glad that he has calmed down in his fifties. He did put some of that gray into my hair, and you will find out why if you read.
And the big day will finally arrive tomorrow when my daugher Ronda is graduating as a nurse at ASU downtown. I am taking my camera to the ceremony and hope to get a photo of her. She said ASU did not warn them to apply early for jobs, as hospitals only take so many new nurses as they have to hire another professinal to teach them the stuff they could not learn in college. She worked very hard to graduate close to the top of her class and now she is bummed because she is finding it hard to find that first job.
My son Dan, a very big movie buff, and I went to see "Australia" on Sunday. I wanted to see the horses and cows and the Australian landscape but we both agreed that at times the story was silly. Hugh Jackman rode very well and Nicole Kidman I think always tries to make her characters more real than some actresses do. The little boy who played the part aborigine was so appealing as was his grandfather, a full blood, and his mother, too. But there are so many ways for a movie nearly 3 hours to go wrong or not right. I have given up on cattle drives in movies. They are downright funny, a bunch of cattle milling around and in this one an unbelievable sequence where the little boy stops a huge herd of cattle from plunging off a cliff. I hope I haven't spoiled it for you. Well, millions got spent making this movie, and it is flawed, but it had some good stuff in it, so I was not sorry I went, just kind of disappointed that it was not as great as a better writer might have made it.
My sister Linda has a strange ailment that is really troubling her. It is kind of a mystery thing, and I will give you another report once she goes to another doctor who will give her still another going over. She doesn't feel well, and I examined her fingers yesterday and when she hamgs them down they go a dark flushed red from about the top down past the first joint. She says the tips feel like the skin might tear if she does any work with them. And she also does not feel well. She was not her usual perky self yesterday. She is thinking now she might be getting poisoned by a gas leak under her house, so she is trying to research those symptoms. She is also feeling some nuombness in her hands. She fell hard about a month and a half ago and hit her head on the sidewalk, so we all thought that might have caused a pinched nerve problem, but now she is not sure that is it. My last companion's hand started going numb on one side and was traveling up his arm, and he had to have a 4 vertebrate fusion on his upper back. So did Victor, a guy who lives here, who also started to lose feeling in his hands, and it traveled up his arm to the point he was afraid of going paralyzed, so went to emergency and they operated on him in two days and did a 4 vertebrate fusion on him. He has been in a wheel chair for years, so he could have twisted his neck and back many ways. He has not been out of the month's rehab he had to do, too, very long. He was companion to Ellen who died last July after a year of struggle following her stomach reduction surgery.
Oh, and I was so happy to see my old neighbor Sarah who just came home from spending three weeks in the hospital where they fought the MRRSA infection in her leg which they were all afraid was going to kill her. Her leg was going black. I am so happy to report that she looked much better and she said her leg is a lot better. Another strange thing, she cleaned out the wound without using a glove and she had a broken fingernail. MRRSA infected the end of her finger and they had to cut it off to the first joint. I could not believe it. That MRRSA is a monster infection.
Oh, what do you think about this Medoff and his giant ponzi scheme in his investment company. Even Steven Spielberg's charity foundation lost millions in his company People invested lost like billions. They say it might be the biggest criminal fraud case ever, and up until a week ago Medoff was thought to be a big success. In this financial meltdown some of the rich are getting wiped out. That is something. I do hope the nation is still standing when this is all over with. I don't think the billionaires and millionaires who got this news about Medoff are going to have a very happy Xmas. A poor guy with millions a week ago said he got wiped out.
I don't know if I feel better now that Oprah has gone back up to 200 pounds. They were posting this news in big letters on the Walter Cronkite building across the street. There are times when I am glad I am not famous. I guess losing weight is a struggle for the rich as well as the poor. Well, think of all the delicious food they could buy!
I hope you are all shopping happily as we just as well enjoy what we do buy to the utmost. There will be plenty of time to get upset I am sure before all this is over with, and things get better.