An Open Book: Beach Reads for August 2020

It's been ages since I linked up here with Carolyn et. al. for An Open Book.  But I've been doing a good bit of reading lately, so I thought I'd chime in.

Beach reads are always fun, and I'm spending the summer on the shore of Lake Champlain with my hubby, so you could say that all the books I read these days could fit into that category--even the ones that are more literary than the usual pop fiction "chick lit" that you think of when you hear that term.  I've read some good ones and some not-so-good ones.

First, one of the not-so-good.

I thought I would absolutely adore a novel with that title (after all, that's the name I gave to the title character of my own humble first novel); but I did NOT!  (I actually blogged about my disappointment in this book in this previous blog post, which you can read if you're interested.)  It was going to be just my cup of tea, I thought, as I began reading The Grace Kelly Dress: a multi-generational tale involving a wedding dress copied from the iconic gown worn by Grace Kelly when she married Prince Rainier.  But alas, I found it somewhat underwhelming.  I had trouble caring much about the characters, and when that happens, a book loses me.  It doesn't matter if the setting is spectacular and the plot intriguing; I need a character-driven story, and if I can't connect with the main players, I lose interest.  So I give this one 3 stars at most.

This next one, on the other hand, was a 5-star winner in my book (if you'll pardon the pun).

I had high hopes that The Yellow House would be just my cup of tea as well, and this time I was right: it WAS!  This absolutely beautifully written book (from page one, I was enthralled with the achingly lovely prose) is set in Ireland during "the Troubles," with a large cast of fleshed-out, engaging, believable characters.  There is a great love story included (always a key element in any novel I read), but thankfully, very little in the way of blush-worthy scenes of intimacy. There are plot twists that will shock you and keep you turning the pages.  And the Irish setting--'tis a complete delight for a Hibernophile like meself.  Many of the characters that populate this gem are practicing Catholics, and it was refreshing to have this be central to the book without being used to trash the Faith (as many modern secular works are apt to do).  Going to Mass is mentioned in passing, as if it's just the thing you do, of course; and that was a balm to this reader's soul.  I can give this book my highest form of praise by saying that I will most definitely be re-reading it sometime in the future.  It's that good--IMHO, as they say.

This next one was also simply wonderful. (Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of my copy with the lake in the background!)

The Winemaker's Wife is another book that I will probably re-read at some point.  It's a WWII historical novel (and if you've come to this blog before, you know that I can almost never resist a good WWII novel), set in the Champagne region of France during the German occupation.  The story weaves a number of well-drawn characters' lives together.  There are Jews who live in constant fear of deportation and death; there are brave French Resistance heroes and despicable Nazi villains; and there are both witting and unwitting Nazi collaborators.  And throughout, there is the making of wine--which, if you know nothing about that (which I didn't) is very interesting in and of itself.  Again, there are touching love stories involved.  And Harmel exposes how wartime brings out the very best and the very worst in human beings, with life-altering--often heartbreaking
--consequences.  But ultimately, this is a story of courage and hope.  I highly recommend this one. (In fact, I liked it so much that I've just gotten another novel by this author called The Room on Rue Amelie, set in WWII Paris.)

I am so in awe of the way some of these authors write!  What a gift it is to have the ability to use language so beautifully while at the same time crafting a complicated and meaningful story that stays with readers long after they've finished the last chapter.

The last one I want to mention would earn more than 5 stars, if that was allowed.  It's non-fiction (yes, I read that, too, sometimes).

You guys.  Humility Rules.  This one is so amazing.  I have devoured it in two sittings, and though it's a very quick read, it is anything but lightweight.  There is so much wisdom packed into this slim volume.  I think it's going to become part of my daily inspirational reading.  It outlines St. Benedict's Rules--in modern language that anyone can understand, with down-to-earth anecdotes and plenty of humor.  Even the illustrations are comical, yet they illustrate profound truths that followed faithfully can lead even the most humble sinner to sainthood.  I have been guilty of sometimes having feelings of worthlessness, of being far too self-deprecating; but that is not true humility, and it is not holy.  As J. Augustine Wetta writes, "Genuine self-esteem is a form of holiness, and holiness, in St. Benedict's eyes, is not about self-love but self-abandonment...To discover God's power in our lives, we need to climb the Ladder of Humility."  He goes on to describe and explain the 12 rungs of this ladder and how climbing it can lead to sainthood.  Incidentally, I became aware of this book via an Instagram post by one of the Catholic influencers I follow there...which makes me realize that all social media is not bad.  I need to curb my desire to scroll endlessly and waste too much time staring at my iPhone screen; but sometimes, I do come across information that could change my life for the better.  This book is proof of that.

My husband and I are spending the summer at his childhood home in Upstate NY--by the lake, as I already mentioned--tending to our Oyster Haven VRBO rental property just down the road.  We have framed pictures of the covers of my two novels hanging in that house.  I have been historically terrible at promoting and marketing my own works, and they had a relatively short run before they went out of print; but I thought advertising them at our rental might be a way to keep them alive.  Recently, my husband got this text from a guest, after he had spent a week at Oyster Haven with his wife and their grown kids and spouses (and also their toddler grandchild):

Well, you never know...He was probably just trying to be kind.  But I do hope that there will still be readers for these books.  In that vein, I published a post at my other blog (a blog that I set up to dedicate specifically to the topic of writing) today as well, if you want to pop on over.  It's "book club" day there (here, too, I guess!).

Enjoy the beach!  Enjoy books!  Or best of all, enjoy them together!  And don't forget to check out Carolyn's link-up for more book recommendations.

August 2020 Resolutions

I have decided to drastically scale back on other forms of social media for the month of August, which should make it so that I have more time to devote to this poor old neglected blog of mine.

More time to read, too--not just Tweets and IG captions, but actual BOOKS. (Some of the ones I’ve finished recently and am currently reading will most assuredly make it into a future blog post.)

More time to get in shape, because the past month of too-little working out has not been very good for my stamina (or my waistline!).

July was an extremely busy month for us here at my husband's childhood home by Lake Champlain.  There were get-togethers with many members of our extended Pearl family, including nieces and nephews and great-nieces and nephews.  And best of all, we were able to spend a week at our Oyster Haven Vrbo house early in the month, with most of our own family (three of our boys and their wives, and 11 of our 16 grandkids).  When we get to use Oyster Haven to make family memories of our own, it makes all the work of running it as a rental property for others to enjoy worth it!

We also made a short trip back to VA late in July to reconnect with our kids and grandkids, with whom I got to enjoy some belated birthday celebrations.  (If turning 62 can be considered cause for celebration--ha ha!)  Missing our family--our gang down in VA, and our married son in OK--is the only downside to our summer life up here in Upstate NY.  Because other than that, things are pretty near perfect. Lake Champlain is literally in our back yard, and this is what we wake up to every morning.

I need the tranquility this lake provides, I really do.

We are living in terrifying times, and watching YouTube videos of the chaos and rioting in our cities (which I don't believe always show up on the mainstream media, but I see posted on Twitter) fills me with a feeling of despair.  Will we ever be okay again?  Will people who disagree politically ever be able to treat each other with respect?  With such drastic differences of opinion regarding vitally important issues (many on which we can’t really compromise), issues regarding faith, freedom, morality, and the right to life, can the Left and the Right ever truly live in harmony?   And even this: will the Catholic Church eventually have to go underground--literally underground--so that the faithful will not have to endure physical persecution?  (Because let's face it, emotional/psychological/media-driven ideological persecution already exists, and it's getting worse all the time.)

This blog has never been nor will it ever be a political platform.  But many of the issues some call "political" (such as abortion) are merely a matter of good v. evil, right v. wrong, and I don't even know how they end up being topics for heated discussion.  And I can't help but think that this Covid-19 crisis, like almost every aspect of life on planet earth these days, has been politicized.  I'm not nearly eloquent enough to explain how much I worry about the way this virus has changed the face of human interactions (do you see what I did there?--our faces are all changed via the masks); but I read this post by Melody Lyons at The Essential Mother Blog, and she expressed some of my innermost feelings better than I ever could.  If you have a few minutes, please read it.  She writes so beautifully, and as an individual who would be considered one of those particularly at risk from this virus, her words are exceptionally powerful.

That's it for today.  Just trying to scrape the rust off this blog site and get it back up and running again.  My husband and I are off to Mass now, at the church where we got married (it'll be 40 years ago this December!).  Some of the pews are roped off, and we have to wear masks as we walk in and out of the church and when we are in line to receive Communion; but at least, for now, we have an infinitely better option than watching the Mass live-streamed on TV.

Bye for now!  Happy Sunday!

Looking for Beauty in a Broken World

I was going to say "an ugly world," because that's how I often feel these days after watching a horrifying news story featuring the violent rioting in the streets of our cities or one of those ever-changing reports about the Covid-19 pandemic (which apparently has no end in sight, or maybe it does, or who knows?). But if I let myself go down the rabbit hole of worry, anxiety, and sadness that opens up before me, I'm afraid I'll fall into a dark pit of despair and get truly depressed deep down in my soul.  And I know that no matter what, Our Lady promised at Fatima that in the end, Her Immaculate Heart would triumph.  And She keeps Her promises.  So there's hope, always.

The world is damaged, but still beautiful; broken but still fixable.  And I want it fixed, ASAP, for the 28 (and counting!) people who mean the most to me: my children and grandchildren.

Not to put a morbid spin on things, but relatively speaking, I will probably not be long for this earth.  The average life expectancy for a woman in the US today is 81.1 years (I just looked it up), and I'm about to celebrate my 62nd birthday; so if I get another 20 years in this life, I will have done better than average.  My husband and I have talked about this frequently as of late--but when we do, it's not to fill ourselves with an ever-present fear of dying, but rather to remind ourselves that we should live every single minute of every single day to the fullest.  And most importantly, we remind ourselves that we should strive, to the best of our frail human abilities, to keep our immortal souls in a state of grace.

So it's not for myself that I worry about the chaotic state of the world, or even for my husband; I desperately want it to heal for all of my beloved offspring and their beloved offspring.

I also want it to heal before religious freedom is eradicated in this country.  With so much hate-fueled violence exploding all over the place in recent weeks, I expect that the mob might come next for the Catholic Church and Her faithful, who have already been weakened by months of being denied Mass and the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist.  But Christ warned us that they would hate us because they hated Him first, so this is something we need to prepare to face.

But I refuse to despair completely!  I am putting my trust in Our Lady's promise.  And I look at the faces of the people I love and believe that God will make something good come out of all this bad we're experiencing these days.  He loves us and wants the best for us, and as long as we stay faithful there is no force that can destroy us!

Look for beauty wherever you can find it.  I find it in images like these--all photos texted to me recently by my by daughters-in-law Ginger and Preciosa.

Son #2 with his #3 son.

Son #3's most recent family photo.

Son #2's firstborn, giving Ree Ree a moment of extreme 

deja vu--because his dad and his uncles were as crazy

about dinosaurs back in the day as he is!

I can almost feel my pulse rate slowing down when I walk away from all the negative stories on social media and look at these pictures.  They make me believe that all will be well.  We just need to pray lots of Rosaries!

Reading Novels, Raising Boys, Praying Rosaries

The 3 R’s, you might say!  But these just happen to be the things that are on my mind today.  And there is a connection between them, I assure you, although they seem like random, unrelated topics. Bear with me here.

As for that first R, reading novels:
I have always thought that the greatest of guilty pleasures was having the free time to dive into a well-written, engrossing novel, preferably a long one, with lots of historical content (WWII is an especially intriguing era for me) or with several generations of interweaving family relationships--and with as few gratuitous scenes involving sexual situations described in embarrassing detail as possible.  (None of those is the best amount, actually.  They have never yet added to any book I've read!)  Some mystery is also welcome, but nothing too scary or dark.  I don't need a happy ending, although I do admit I like them.

When I found this novel recently and chose it as the first pick on my summer reading list, I thought I was going to adore it.

Three generations of women who wore the same wedding dress [swoon]!  And the title, The Grace Kelly Dress--if you know me at all, you know that I kind of have a thing about Grace Kelly.  I even named the title character in my first novel, Finding Grace, after her.  And the eye-catching cover!  [Insert heart-eyed emoji here.]

But half-way into it, I was like, "Meh..."

When our oldest son and his family were visiting us recently, I was telling his wife (a fellow bookworm who was a librarian before she became a homeschooling mom of 5) that given the title, I was surprised that I wasn't enjoying it more.

My boy, without missing a beat, deadpanned, "That's the title...and you're surprised that it isn't very good?"  Then he gave me one of his charmingly crooked grins and I pretended to scold him for his impertinence, and we chuckled about it.

Obviously, there aren't many guys who would be drawn to a book about a dress.

Which brings me to the second R, raising boys:
I cannot tell you what a pure delight it was to have been the only female in our family of seven, totally outnumbered, the whole time our sons were growing up in our house.  I've often said that men are simple creatures, but when I say that, it is not meant to be the least bit derogatory.  In fact, it is my humble opinion that we females could learn a lot from them.  Their needs are clearly articulated and easy to satisfy, and they don't have a lot of undercurrents in their emotions.  They don't waste time looking for problems where none exist.  At least mine didn't.  Generally speaking, men seem to express their anger and/or frustration easily and then move on fairly quickly.  It makes for a pretty peaceful existence, or at least that was my experience.  People used to say, "Only boys?  God bless you, you poor thing!"  Or they'd ask if we were going to "try for our girl."  But I can honestly say that God gave me exactly the family I was supposed to have, and I never felt like I was missing out on something better.

But we didn't read the same novels, my boys and I--unless it was something they were required to read for AP English in high school.  And then, to my joy, I got to hear one of them say he didn't hate Pride and Prejudice--and even (and I quote), "Mr. Bennett is really funny."  He didn't go so far as to become a diehard Austen fan, but I'll take it.

So if you're a mom of all boys, take heart; feed them and cheer for them and just love them, and someday, you might get to experience the exquisite joy of watching them in the role of loving fathers to your precious grandbabies.

Son #1, currently a father of 5.

Son #2, father of 3 with one on the way.

Son #3, father of 4.

Son #4, father of 4 (including almost-3-year-old triplets).

"God bless you," they liked to say to me?  Indeed, he already has!  (And I just want to add that son #5 has been married less than a year and isn't a daddy yet, so that's the reason he wasn't included here.  He has always followed proudly in the footsteps of his older brothers, though, so I have no doubt that he will be an amazing father as well.)

Finally, I come to the third R, praying Rosaries:
I'm quite sure that our family's countless blessings can be attributed to the intercession of Our Blessed Mother and Her most powerful prayer.

Back in 1995, when our youngest son was two, we began saying a daily family Rosary with our boys.  (They even dubbed our living room the "Rosary Room," because that's where we would gather to say it.)  For a year or so before we started doing this, we had two sons very close in age who were going through a fighting phase (mostly arguments, but sometimes ending in a shove or a punch) that made their poor mom wonder if they would ever be friends.  They were like oil and water and knew just how to push each other's buttons.  So when we instituted the family Rosary and would list our intentions before beginning to pray, my husband would first say, "For peace and harmony in our household."  (We also put photos of those two boys underneath our statue of Our Lady of Grace, prayerfully hoping that She could work to make them get along better.)  I kid you not, within three weeks' time, my husband and I both noticed that the squabbles had stopped.  They. Just. Stopped.  Now I'm not saying that there was never any bickering or disagreement amongst our children from that point on, but the two who had been at each other for far too long were suddenly friends again.

The power of the Rosary.  Don't doubt it.

Once our boys got into high school and their schedules were crammed with sports practices and games, daily hours of homework, etc., it became harder to get everyone gathered together at the same time.  But my husband and I continued the practice even when they couldn't join us.  The beautiful thing is that now, some of our boys and their wives have begun reciting family Rosaries, or decades of the Rosary, with their own young children.

This summer, my husband and I plan to say lots of our daily Rosaries while anchored out on the lake in our boat.  That's what we did last night, and it was like a little slice of Heaven.

Oh Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee!

(And P.S.--I think I will try to finish The Grace Kelly Dress, and I'll let you know if it gets better in the second half!)

Inspired to Blog Again

This summer, I have decided to rededicate myself to this blog!  I don't know why I felt the need to make that a bold exclamation rather than a simple statement--because trust me, I really don't expect anyone out there in Internetland to be as excited about this not-very-newsworthy development as I am.

But I AM excited, because I miss being here.

I have spent the last few years using Instagram as my main social media fix, writing easy-to-digest blurbs and hashtags on my iPhone to go with carefully selected and filtered pictures...and while it's been fun and interesting in its own way, I have begun to realize that it's not all that good for me, and that I miss actually sitting down at my laptop every day and really writing.

If you follow Jenny Uebbing’s Mama Needs Coffee blog (isn't she the best?), you might have read her recent post titled "He Is Doing a New Thing,"  in which she talks about ditching her other social media accounts and getting back to her first love, blogging (and also working on another writing project about which she is being somewhat cryptic, but which sounds like a book).  What she had to say in this post struck a chord with me.

Uebbing writes, "when I am on Instagram, I literally see life differently. I’ll squint at a funny or terrible toddler episode through a critical eye and consider 'is this good content?' before snapping a picture and freezing a moment and sort of stepping back from the present moment like I’m the creative director or producer of my own life.

When I am the producer of my own life, I am not actually in it, moment by moment. I’m thinking of getting the shot, of capturing the quote. I’m thinking of you guys, of an audience out there, waiting and willing to consume the funny or thoughtful or entertaining content I’m blasting out into the world. And there isn’t anything wrong with that at first glance, right? Except that, for me, it’s constant. It’s not like a well-planned and carefully policed time limit where I indulge in harmless good fun for a set number of minutes a day and then put the phone away, it’s constant.

Is it possible to become addicted to hearing your own voice? That’s how instagram makes me feel."

Yikes, I thought when I read that, I too may have a bit of a problem...

Uebbing also said, "I feel so incredibly convicted that the very nature of the game: the algorithm, the endless dopamine feedback loop, the social positioning and posturing and signaling, is not just benign wasted time, but is actually bad for us."

Okay, it's clear that I do have a problem--and maybe it's time for me to scale back drastically on Instagram, if not completely.  That "dopamine feedback loop" Uebbing references--that high you get when someone likes one of your IG posts (especially someone well-known, an "influencer" whom you admire, with a platform that has thousands of followers)--is addictive.  For most of the years that I've been a blogger, I wrote because I was inspired to and because I loved the process itself, and I seriously never even thought about who would see a particular post, or who would like it; but with Instagram, the insta-gratifiction of all those likes is dangerously seductive. I have craved those Instagram interactions more than I should over the past three years, since our big move to VA from our longtime home in NH. While the pluses of having four out of our five married sons--and all 16 of our grandkids!--close by are countless, as are the blessings, as a shy and introverted sort I have not really made any non-family friends yet in our new hometown.  So I think I've been using my Instagram friendships as a sort of lifeline.  But the fact that I will meet few if any of the people with whom I've become friendly on the site makes it seem a little pathetic that I've been spending so much time there.

So back to the blog it is!  I do this mostly because I love to play with words, to rearrange them and edit them until they sound just the way I want them to.  Sometimes I have something deep and meaningful to say, but more often I'm just here jotting down family memories so that they'll live on for our kids and grandkids long after we're gone.

I decided to clean up my sidebar and make it less crowded with links to products that I endorsed years ago.  I also decided to change my photo.  The one I've been using for ages was taken in 2012, about a year after I started this blog, and I don't look quite that young anymore.  Back then, I had just published my first novel, Finding Grace, and I wanted to look like a writer, so I posed sitting in front of my laptop at my dining room table and my husband good-naturedly took this picture.

Back then, I was 54 and had one married son and wee twin granddaughters.  Oh boy, how things have changed.

This is more how I look now--especially since I have a baby on my lap, which is a near-constant state of affairs (lucky me)!  I'm more of a hands-on Grammy than a writer these days. (This darling little girl is the youngest of our middle son's four children; she's also the youngest of our 16-going-on-17 grandchildren--the latest gem on our ever-lengthening string of Pearls.)

Next month I'll turn 62.  Gulp!  My husband turned 62 today, and I said, "Yikes!  In 8 years, we'll be 70."  I can't wrap my brain around 60, so 70 is going to be beyond weird.  But little people like the one lounging sleepily on my lap in that picture make growing old a lot less painful for both of us.

As far as updating my photo, I decided to choose one where I'm wearing a string of pearls (it seemed apropos).  It is actually cropped from a selfie my husband and I took this Easter, when we got all dressed up in our Sunday best to live-stream Mass at home on TV.  (By next Easter, I hope this quarantine/lockdown era will be a hazy memory.)

Anyway--

Happy Birthday to that handsome guy there, the one I fell in love with in 1973, and the one with whom I'll celebrate 40 years of marriage this December.  It's been a great ride so far, and I wouldn't want to be on it with anyone but him.  (Also, I know he will be happier than anyone that I'm going to try to blog regularly again, because he is my most ardent follower and biggest fan, and he is not biased in the least!)

Ciao for now!

Little Saint Liguori Mary Pearl, Pray for Us!

I am sad to report that our oldest son's wife suffered a miscarriage on May 9, which was the day before Mother's Day in this year of Our Lord 2020 and also my beloved late father-in-law's birthday.  The baby she was carrying was at about 12-13 weeks gestation but in all likelihood had expired in the womb weeks earlier.

This family-oriented, hardworking, loving couple, whose Faith is strong and true, have five healthy children living on this earth.  With the loss of this pre-born child, they now also have three little saints in Heaven interceding for them, and for all of us.

As they were unable to determine whether the baby was a boy or a girl, the grieving parents have decided to name this perfect little soul Liguori Mary--a name which would work in either case.

Our son and his wife are working with A Mom's Peace, a lay apostolate that offers help with burial and remembrance ceremonies for couples who have been devastated by miscarriage or stillbirth (and arrangements have been made to have the baby buried in a church cemetery tomorrow).   We became familiar with this wonderful organization last year in August, when our second-born and his wife experienced the tragic loss of their fourth child at about 15-16 weeks gestation.

We are indeed living in the Valley of Tears, are we not?  There are tragedies and losses that seem impossible to endure, and yet we do.  But we have Our Father in Heaven, the Blessed Mother and Her Beloved Son, and the Communion of Saints (who have been joined by Liguori Mary Pearl) helping us.  Loving us.  Waiting for us to meet them in Heaven one day, when our time comes.  And oh, what a joyful reunion it will be!  I imagine these never-met grandchildren of ours, these wee souls--spotless, pure, innocent, and filled with light--welcoming their parents home someday, and it brings tears to my eyes.  I hope that I will get to see them, too!

Please keep our boy and his wife, who have fulfilled their wedding vows with perfect faith, trust, and obedience, in your prayers as they cope with their loss.  Thank you!

St. Alphonsus Liguori, pray for us!  O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee!  And St. Liguori Mary Pearl,  pray for us!

Sometimes, I Go by "Ree Ree”

I can't believe I haven't been blogging madly away lately, with the tons of extra time at home we all seem to have these days (but I don't want to mention why we have this extra time, because I think we've all been hearing about/talking about the coronavirus pandemic and its devastating fallout more than enough).  Unfortunately, however, I have not been in much of a writing mood.

But I really do want to get back to keeping up with this poor neglected little site of mine.  So here's a lighthearted little post--mostly for me, I guess (as it falls under the category of "online scrapbook of Pearl family memories"), but maybe you'll enjoy it, too.

My self-chosen grandmother handle is "Grammy."  I thought this would be a cute variation of the "Grandma" title that my siblings and I used for both of our grandmothers growing up.  It took some of our grandchildren much longer to master my name than it did for them to call my husband "Papa," but I was in no rush.  And if in the process of trying to pronounce "Grammy" they had come up with an adorable alternative and it had stuck, I would have been totally on board with that.  But our verbally precocious oldest grandchildren, the twins (now almost 9), started out by calling me "Gra Gra," which eventually morphed into "Gray," and finally they were able to manage "Grammy."

Some of our other grandchildren have had trouble saying "Grammy" when they first began to talk, so I've answered to "Mammy" plenty of times.  "Mammy" didn't stick with any of them, however, once they were able to master the G-R sound.

But then our second-born's firstborn son, Junior (who is now 4), came up with his own unique variation: "Ree Ree."  And my son and his wife thought it was so cute that they all started calling me that. Now Junior's younger brother, Jedi, calls me "Ree Ree" as well, and I'm sure baby brother Topper will follow suit, once he gets more verbally inclined.

So of the four sons who have children, three of the families call me "Grammy" and one calls me "Ree Ree."  If you had told me this would happen ahead of time, I would have thought it very strange; but now, it just seems totally normal.  And I sort of like having both monikers.

I can't tell you how wonderful it's been to live so close to all the little people who call me by those two names (16 of them now, with two more on the way).  We are so glad we made this move to VA, where we could be a regular part of all their lives.  Trips to Grammy's/Ree Ree's house are fairly routine--or at least they were, pre-coronavirus.  Case in point: back in September of 2019, I got this text from Junior's mom.

Oh my goodness, is this the best or what?   She followed it up with, "Meanwhile he's in his underwear and doesn't know how to pedal."  (My girls are so funny, among their many other great qualities.)  That little guy can run away to Ree Ree's house anytime he wants--although he does live 50 minutes away, so it's probably not going to happen!

Junior is quite the host with the most, and one of the last times his parents had Papa and Ree Ree over for dinner, he made place cards for everyone so we'd know where to sit.

I especially like that he wanted me seated next to him at the table.  (Heart-eye emojis all over the place.)

I do believe I'm the most blessed (and perhaps only?) Ree Ree on the planet!  Life is good, my friends.  Even when the world seems to be falling apart around you, there is always a reason for joy.  In my case, make that 16-going-on-18 reasons.

Stay healthy, dear readers!  And believe that this will be over one day, and our lives will be filled once again with big family dinners!