Kathleen Smith's Blog, page 24

Christmas Decorations

It’s that time of year again, Christmas! Christmas means decorating the house! Okay technically Christmas doesn’t mean decorating the house, but it is one of the things I love to do at Christmas time.

I’m not the best there is when it comes to decorating the house for Christmas, but I have fun doing it. In my opinion that’s what counts, having fun. I personally like keeping the Christmas decorations simple inside the house. Some lights around the banister. A little somethings around the front door or a closet door. Stocking hanging up and of course the Christmas tree. After all that is the main decoration after all. Isn’t it?

Oh yeah I also like to put all the Christmas cards we receive some where in our house for all to see. I love receiving Christmas cards!

Anyway last year we bought ribbon for our tree, after Christmas, on Sale for this year. And this year we bought a new Christmas decoration. Something I’ve wanted for a couple of years now, I just didn’t want to spend the money on it till now. We bought one of those cute logs with pine needles on it. The ribbon looks beautiful on our tree and the log made a pretty edition to our decorations this year.

I have seen homes that like to go all out with their Christmas decorations inside. Personally I think simple on the inside for Christmas decorations looks nicer. But hey that’s me!

  

Thanksgiving With Family

Celebrating Thanksgiving with my family has changed so much since I was a little girl…

Growing up I would celebrate Thanksgiving with my parents, my sister and my dad’s family. My family and I would go to my dad’s side of the family. We would celebrate with my grandparents, great aunts and uncles and my aunt and uncle. Did that sound confusing to you? That’s okay, sometimes it would be confusing for me too. Anyway we had so much fun with my dad’s family on Thanksgiving. Being an Italian family it was easily a 12 course dinner. My great aunt Jay loved taking pictures of me and my sister pretending to be carving the turkey.  There was always lots of food and fun.

As time went on, I grew up and eventually got married…

After my husband and I got married we started a new family tradition and we started going to my husbands uncle’s house for Thanksgiving. Through out those years we spent Thanksgiving with my husband’s family and enjoyed time with them.It wasn’t a 12 course dinner, but it was still fun. Our kids enjoyed playing with their cousins and we enjoyed talking with the adults. As the years went by we invited my parents to come to our house and spend Thanksgiving with us at my husband’s uncle’s house. Sometimes my parents came and some times they didn’t.

Eventually time changes things…

About five years ago my husband and I decided to start staying home for Thanksgiving. We thought it would be a nice change. We thought it would be nice to start a new tradition. Just our family the five of us. Yes, we invited my parents to come up to our house if they wanted to, but they chose not to. That was fine with us. So my family and I would celebrate Thanksgiving together. We would eat our turkey dinner and later on in the day we would play card games.

Sadly my mom passed away almost two years ago now. This has made celebrating Thanksgiving not so easy for me anymore. Yes, I know I have a lot to be thankful for and I am. It’s also a bit of a sad time for me. This Thanksgiving was the first one since my mom passed away that my family and I celebrated with my dad. It was nice to have that time with my dad, but I always find it hard to see him with out my mom. At the same time I am thankful that I had the time with my dad and my family.

 

All of the Firsts

Up until recently, I never really gave much thought to cards in general. They’re always nice to send to  friends and loved ones. Whether it be a birthday, Valentines Day, Sympathy or just a simple hi. I always thought, “They’re just cards.”

Since the passing of my mom in January 2014, I realized they aren’t “just cards”. When a loved one dies, a card isn’t just a card anymore.

First, you have your Sympathy cards, which I never really gave much thought to. Sure, whenever a friend or a cousin or somebody like that had a loss in their family, I would send them a sympathy card.Their loss was usually their mom or dad. I would always feel bad for them. I would think to myself, “Man, that’s gotta be hard losing one of your parents.” I genuinely felt bad for them, but had no idea what they were feeling. Until now.

I even sent a sympathy card to a friend of mine whose father had passed away just when my mom started to get sick. I felt really bad for my friend. I never dreamed that, only weeks later, that would be me receiving sympathy cards on the loss of my mom.

With the passing of my mom on New years Day 2014, I now understand that feeling of loss. After my mom passed away, I wondered if anyone would send any sympathy cards or if they would send any to my dad for his loss. It wouldn’t bother me any if people didn’t send any cards to me. Not to be mean or anything. I just wouldn’t be offended. After one week’s time I did indeed start getting sympathy cards in the mail from friends and family. It was very nice of them to think of me in this time of great loss.

Now I have a tendency to not go anywhere near the card aisle in a store if I can help it. I just don’t want to see the cards at all right now. I also think from now on, I will probably look at sympathy cards in a different way. The next one, I send which I hope isn’t for a very long time, will be sent with a feeling of sympathy and understanding of what was lost: that love that can only be given from a parent to their child.

After the sympathy cards you all of a sudden realize the next step is all the “first” cards. What do I mean by that? Well, in my case, it would be a Mother’s Day card. Recently I was in the store and as I was looking around, I noticed these huge Mother’s Day cards. I just stared at them. It hit me, all of a sudden, that my mom isn’t with me to share Mother’s Day with this year. Or any other year again, for that matter. It took everything I had in me not to cry right there and then. This will be my first Mother’s Day for me not sending a card to my mom. Knowing that HURTS. It breaks my heart.

After that comes the first Anniversary, Birthday and what ever else where I won’t be able to send my mom a card. I had completely forgotten about all the “first” year stuff until I was in the store that day.

There are so many other firsts as well. It isn’t just cards. When a loved one passes away, there’s that first “Oh I should give them a call and give them the news.” That’s happened to me already with the passing of my mom. Oh, how I cried at that first! That weekend I felt like an orphan, even though my dad is still alive and I’m married. That orphaned feeling was terrible!

You also have all of your first Holidays without our loved one. My first Holiday without my mom was Easter. Normally, I love celebrating Easter with my family and friends. This year all I could feel was the pain of my mom not being here to celebrate with us. We did get to celebrate with my dad, but he was feeling that same pain I was. Now granted, there may not be a lot of Holidays to celebrate in a year’s time, but all of my first Holidays without my mom are going to be tough. I’ve heard the saying that the first year is the hardest, but I never thought much of it. Until now! Now I understand. Now I feel that terrible pain. That loss. I don’t like it one little bit, but then again, who does? I wonder if this is one of those things where time heals all wounds. I doubt it. The pain might ease up after I go through all my firsts without my mom, but the pain of her not being here anymore will always be there in my heart.

The above post is from Chapter 21 in my book “Brooklyn Raised / Livin’ Upstate” . My book is available on the kindle, nook, iBooks, GooglePlay and Paperback. You can read about me growing up in Brooklyn, NY – Living in Upstate NY & Saying goodbye to my mom.

Grandma or Nana

Grandma’s are special people. They make their grand kid’s laugh. They love to bake with their grand kids. They are willing to buy their grand kids just about anything when they go to the store together. They do all sorts of things with and for their grand kids.

Some grandma’s are called just that grandma. Other grandma’s are called nana. I’m guessing this all depends on where people are from and what their culture is. I also know that in different cultures people use other words, but when you come right down to it kids call their grandma’s either grandma or nana.

For me I had one of each. Technically they were both my grandma’s. You see when I was little I would always get my grandma’s confused with each other. I could never remember who was my mom’s mom and who was my dad’s mom. Before my family and I would go to visit them I would always ask “which grandma are we going to see”. My parents would always tell me, but until I got to their house I could never figure out which was which.

That’s when I decided I would call my dad’s mom grandma and my mom’s mom nana. It made it easier for me to remember who was who. I loved them both equally, but it was nice to know which grandma belong to which side of my family.

My grandma was a funny lady! She would always make me laugh. She was apart of the first generation on my dad’s side to be born here in America. She was my Sicilian grandma who would always tell me to eat. She also had a contagious laugh. Once she started to laugh it didn’t take long for everyone in the room to start laugh with her.

My nana was a sweet lady. She was also apart of the first generation to be born here in America. Only on my mom’s side of my family. She was Italian. For me there aren’t enough words adequate enough to describe her. As I grew up my nana became very special to me. She always had an encouraging word for me. She made the ONLY apple pie that I would eat. Seriously her apple pies were the only apple pies I ever liked growing up. When she knew we were coming to visit she would always make two apple pies. One for everyone to enjoy and one little one for me to take home. My nana was so special to me that I named my youngest daughter after her.

I miss my grandma and my nana. It’s been years now since they both passed away, but I have wonderful memories of both of them.

so now you know why I call both of my grandma’s “grandma and nana”. What about you? Do you call both of your grandma’s, grandma or do you call one grandma and the other nana?  I would love to hear from you!

Below is a picture of both my grandma’s. My nana is on the left and my grandma is on the right.

Family BBQ’s

Growing up, every summer my mom’s side of my family had their annual family bbq. I loved this day! My family and I would drive from Brooklyn to Long Island and spend a whole Saturday with my mom’s family and a bunch of close friends at my uncle’s house.

On our way there we would always stop at Dunkin Donuts to pick up a box of donuts and a box of munchkins. The munchkins were for me and my sibling to share on the way to my uncle’s house. I always loved the chocolate ones the best, so my mom made sure there were plenty of those in the munchkins.

There was always lots and lots of food from the beginning of the day till it late at night. There was a nice sized inground pool. I loved playing in that pool. By late afternoon there was usually a game of volleyball. Sometimes there would also be bocce ball.

I do remember this one particular BBQ where I wore my favorite green hoodie. I remember taking it off because I got too hot to wear it. By the end of that one night, I went to look for it, but I couldn’t find it. I was sad that I lost my favorite hoodie that night. I also knew there was nothing I could do about it.

As the years went by, the family BBQ’s started to change. Everyone was getting older. My cousin’s and I were growing up. They were inviting their friends and boyfriends. So I decided to ask my parents if I could bring my best friend to our family BBQ’s. My parents said yes. I knew they would. Bringing my friend made these BBQ’s more fun for me. I was a teenager at this point and wanted someone to talk to. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my parents, but hanging out with them at a BBQ just wasn’t any fun. Besides, my parents had my aunts and uncles to hang out with.

After my Nana passed away, the family BBQ’s changed again. It was no longer the BBQ that I grew up with, the one with close family and friends. It had become my Uncle’s BBQ for family and friends. This change made it feel awkward for me and my family to attend .

I guess you could say that was the end of an era, so to speak, for me. I enjoyed these BBQ’s very much growing up. Getting to spend time with my mom’s family. Having a blast in my uncle’s pool. I guess, like everything else, eventually all good things come to an end.

 

The above blog is from one of the chapter in my book Brooklyn Raised / Livin’ Upstate . If you liked it and would like to learn more about me growing up in Brooklyn, Living Upstate and eventually loosing my mom to cancer. You can read about it all in my book. My book is available on the kindle , nook, iBooks, Googleplay and paperback.

Shopping for a Car

When it comes to buying a car whether it be new or used my husband and I have found there are two different types of sales people. You have your pushy sales people and your laid back sales people.

Your pushy sales car people are the ones who are nice at first. They are very friendly towards you and they like to talk a lot. They love to tell you how great the car is. When it comes time to take the car for a test drive they always go with you. They go on some more about the car and its features. All the nice things about it…. When it comes time to talk numbers and pricing and what the Kelly Blue book has to say about your cars value and all that stuff, then that sales person becomes not so nice. They want to sell you a car so badly that they keep trying to “come up with a number everyone can work with”. They also try to tell you your car isn’t worth as much as you know it’s worth. These sales people end up showing their true colors. We then end up telling them we’ll have to think about it and leave that place.

Your laid back sales car people are the ones who are nice from beginning to end. They are very friendly to you. They chat with you for a bit and then they give you the car keys so you can take the car for a test drive. They let you see if you like the car on your own and let you do your thing. When you get back with the car and give back the keys you then start telling the car sales person how much you like the car and they are happy to hear it. You then proceed to start talking numbers with them and pricing and all that good stuff. They know what your cars value is and they are willing to go with that number. They do their best to give you a good and fair deal with your car purchase. Some of these nice car sales people can even get you that car on the same day that you purchased it. Now that’s service!

My husband and I like dealing with the laid back sales person. They make it easier to buy cars and they are friendly. They want to make a sale, but they are honest too. There is a car dealership in Albany, NY called Orange Ford. We have done business with them in the past and they have the sales person that we like. One of the guys there that we have dealt with is Kevin Murrell . He was super nice to us and made our purchase easy.

Would we go back to Orange Ford and ask for Kevin? You betcha! If YOUR looking to buy a new or used car you should go to Orange Ford too!

 

An Answered Prayer

Two weeks ago today while doing my laundry I was praying to God. I had a very specific prayer request. It was for the closing of our old house. My husband and I had been praying about this for months now, but on that Monday I felt this urgency that, that house needed to be sold fast.

So while I was doing the laundry I asked God to allow the closing of our old house to be done by either the end of that week or the following week. I was explaining my reasons to Him even though I knew He already knew why. Without going into any specifics we really needed to get that old house sold and I know God understood.

That Monday afternoon while my husband was at work he sent me a chat. He told me he had just spoken to our lawyer and she wanted to know what date we wanted for the closing. Obviously I told my husband the sooner the better. I was also complete amazed at what happened. The same day I asked for prayer for the closing of our old house I was asked when I wanted to set a date for it. I remember thinking to myself  “Wow God thank you”!

The following Friday which was this past Friday God answered my prayer and gave us that day for the closing of our old House. He made me wait till the end of the two weeks that I had asked for, but He did answer my prayer. When I realized what had happened, with my prayers being heard and answered with in that two week time period I was in complete amazement of my God. He does hear our prayers and He does answer them. Sometimes not as fast as we would like. Sometime as soon as we ask. But He ALWAYS answers.

Psalm 37:4 Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

 

 

Lifting Up Hands in Praise

I wasn’t going to write a blog for this week. In fact yesterday morning (Sunday morning) when I woke up I told my husband I wasn’t going to . Basically because I couldn’t come up with anything to write. That changed after we got to Church.

Our worship service started with a kind of a fast paced song. I really like the song too. It was upbeat, the kind of song that makes you want to dance just a bit. And in my case I found myself wanting to lift my arms and hands up in praise. I stopped myself though. I knew nobody else in our Church was doing it and I felt silly doing it all by myself. I was torn between doing what I felt like doing during a praise song and standing still like everyone else just singing.

I think some people would call this stifling the Holy Spirit. Maybe they are right, I don’t know. I do know that it has always been difficult for me to let go and raise my arms in praise to God. Not because I don’t want to. I think more likely because when your in a Church filled with people who don’t do that it makes it harder for me to do it. There have been so many times when I wish my Church was more of a lifting up your arms in praise kind of a Church, but they aren’t. Some of the people are, but most aren’t.

There was only one time that I can remember lifting my arms in praise in Church. That was at my mom’s funeral. The Pastor asked anyone who wanted to join in tribute to my mom to raise their hands in praise. Here is a quote from my book:

“During the last song, the Pastor asked all those who wanted to, to join in a tribute to my mom by lifting up our arms in praise to the Lord while we sang the last verse two more times. My husband and I automatically raised our arms in praise to God during that tribute to my mom. With the tears flowing down my face, I sang as best as I could with my arms lifted in praise to God. After a minute, I closed my eyes and this stillness just came over me that I’ve never felt before. I was completely sad about losing my mom. At the same time, I knew how happy she would be to see us praising the Lord with our arms lifted as she would have done.”

That was the last time I really raised my arms up in praise during any song. This is something I wish I could do more often in my Church. I don’t always feel like lifting up my arms in praise, but when I do it would be nice if I could. I think because of my personality being what it is. I find it difficult to raise my hands in praise in my Church when I know nobody else is doing it. It would be nice to see everyone in my Church lifting up their arms in praise.

Maybe one day my Church will be a Lifting up your arms in praise kind of a church. Until then I either need to learn to do it on my own or pray about it.

Psalm 63:3-4  Because they loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name.

 

My First NBA Game

This past weekend I went to my first NBA game! It was the weekend of my son’s birthday and as part of his weekend celebration my son, my husband and I went to see the Brooklyn Nets play against the Philadelphia 76ers.

This was my first NBA game. You see I only started to like basketball a couple of years ago when my son started to play. I would go to all of his games just to watch him. I then started to watch basketball at home whenever my son watched it. I actually started to enjoy the game too. So when my husband asked if we would like to go to a real basketball game of course my son and I both said YES.

I should back up a little here to explain something. Growing up I liked baseball. I grew up in a family that loved to watch baseball and even went to some games. My dad’s family and my mom’s family both loved the Met’s. So growing up I was a Met’s fan. After I got married I was still a baseball fan, but when your husband isn’t a sports fan you tend to not watch any sports.

So here I am now a mother of a son who loves basketball and I end up becoming a basketball fan myself. Not a huge fan, but a fan none the less. I enjoy watching basketball with my son and I enjoy watching him play basketball.

We had so much fun this past Saturday October 10th at the Times Union Center watching our first NBA game together. The Brooklyn Nets vs the Philadelphia 76ers . My husband was kind and bought us some really good seats too. It was a very close game! I would gladly go to another NBA game. It would be very cool if the next one could be at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn, NY. Until then I will enjoy watch basketball on TV or when my son plays.

By the way here are the links on Twitter if you would like to follow the Brooklyn Nets and the Philadelphia 76ers .

 

My First Client

Last month, September, I had my very first 140PR client. I was given the job to put a book on all e-devices, setup accounts on twitter, buffer and all other social media outlets–and make a facebook page for this book. I was also giving the job to promote this book “The Franklin Trees” as best as I could. This took me a months worth of week nights. I honestly wasn’t sure if I could put this book on the kindle let alone all e-devices, but my husband who is a great supporter of me told me I could do this. So I accepted my first client and I got the job done!

When I first took a look at The Franklin Trees I thought it was fitting when I started working on it. Why? Because in the very first paragraph, of the first chapter there is a sentence that reads — “It was the ninth of September, the Wednesday after Labor Day, and for Jim, the first day of sixth grade.” — For me this meant something because that was the same exact day that my daughter started school in the 6th grade.

I have been enjoying reading this book. This book is a page turner as far as I am concerned. The Franklin Trees is a mystery for ages 6th grade – adults. Now, I have to tell you I’m not really into reading mysteries, but this book got my attention. I was reading Chapter 12 “An Invitation To Bailiwyck” the other night, Friday October 2nd. That might not seem like that big of a deal to you except for the fact that as I was reading it I also read this paragraph — “So in the clear morning air of Saturday the third of October, Jim and Alan both sat waiting on the Canbys’ porch, better dressed than usual….” — Honestly I don’t believe in coincidence but that I found a bit creepy.

I am grateful for this opportunity that was given to me to put The Franklin Trees on all e-devices and promote this book. It has been a good experience for me as well as my first social media job. I have to be honest getting my first pay check for doing what I love felt GREAT.

The Franklin Trees has been available on the kindle since October 1st. It is also available on ibooks. I am still waiting for it to be available on the nook and kobo. I will keep everyone informed as to when this book is available on the nook and kobo. OH, yes, The Franklin Trees is also available on paperback.

The people written about in this book are fiction. However it is based on an area very similar to Catskill, NY and the Kaaterskill Falls that you read about in this book is a real place. My husband and I went to see it and I have to tell you it’s a beautiful place. If you go to The Franklin Trees Facebook page you can see some videos of the Falls for yourself.

So for my first job at putting a book on the kindle and creating it’s social media accounts I think I did a good job. I will continue to promote this book and I hope all of you will give this book a try.