I hung three pictures today.  Jeanette helped me.  I just need somebody to hold them for me so I can see how low, or high, to put the nail.  Every time I  finish one job, my mind travels to the next one.  It's obsessive.  I just want to be done so I can get back to reading.

I had called the library before all this excitement started--with moving--and told the librarian, Kim, to hold up on the books for three or four weeks.  Which has turned into three or four months.  I was reading three to five books a week and she was sending me new ones every Monday.  I have always been at my happiest when I am reading.

I remember lying in my bed, when I was a young girl, with my head propped on a pillow in an open window, reading one Nancy Drew after another.  It all started with the Bobbsey Twins.  When I finished those, it was Nancy Drew.  As my horizon broadened, I began to read James Mitchner's books, Jane and Emily Bronte and a million other books.  Dickens, Twain, Dostoevsky, etc.

My aunt Ruby was an English major, as well as my aunt Doris, and they saw to it that I was reading classic literature.  My mom added to the mix by making a rule that if I was reading, I didn't have to help with the housework.  The three sisters.  They shaped me in so many ways.  I miss them.

If you live to a ripe old age as I have, you end up missing everyone that meant something in your life.  You are left with wonderful memories, but you would rather "they" were still with you.  Yes, you have children, grandchildren, great grandchildren--but they are not of your generation.  They don't know the times, the seasons of your life.  There is a loneliness in old age that can't be filled.  It is a part of living many, many years.  You are the last leaf on the tree.  The matriarch of your family.

Not complaining, mind you.  Just feeling lonesome for those who have already gone on.  But was cheered up when Jeanette came over.  Friends are the most wonderful thing.  Good friends are God's gift.  They fill the empty places that come from growing old.  And family.  Sam, my grandson, called me today to tell me he loves me.  He always starts by saying, "Hey, beautiful..."  I am no longer beautiful, but I walk a little straighter after he calls.  And when I look in the mirror, I say, "Hey beautiful," and smile to myself.