Fathers Day

Here's a picture of my father with some of his siblings. 

My father is the one on the left in the back row.

He was 89 years old when he passed on from this life.

He was an amazing man, always with a smile and never complaining.  No matter what life dealt him, he would always just accept it.  He was a very hard working man, usually working 2 jobs to support his family.  He even found time to volunteer his time.

He was an auxiliary state trooper, and was very proud to wear the uniform.

  He was a veteran of World War II  and was very proud of his service time and had very fond memories of his travels overseas.

He was  a devoted husband and father, working hard and long hours to support his wife and 4 children.

He was a factory worker and never complained about his work.  He also had a part job for many years at a local liquor store. 

I can remember walking alone  to go and visit him at work at the store.  

He found time to spend with his children on Sundays, I have fond memories of days at the beach and the drive in movies,  and  he never missed a parade.

He loved our country and love the flag.

One of the things we do now at his cemetery site is to always make sure he has a new flag flying.

He loved the holidays and loved being in pictures.   

One thing  I will never forget about him is his beautiful smile.  

He was a happy man and lived a simple life never needed the biggest or the best of anything.

He never passed  a church without tipping his hat and making the sign of the cross.

He would never pass a penny on the street without picking it up, and my son, his first born grandson still talks about their penny walks.

He would take him by the hand since he was able to walk and they would go looking for pennies.  They never came home without any. 

Every year on his birthday we have a  picnic at his cemetery site. 

One of my sisters started this tradition. We have lunch and cupcakes and sing "Happy Birthday" and  the kids let balloons go up to heaven for him.  We even bring lottery tickets the scratch off kind to open there.   He was a Bingo, casino, card playing lover.  He was always waiting for a big win.   He did have some nice small wins but, never the big one that he wanted.

We even put some tickets in his pocket before they closed the casket.

Another thing that I do is get lunch at his favorite outdoor hot dog stand and a few scratch off tickets and visit the cemetery over the summer a few times.

 He wanted a nice stone in the cemetery so we can always find him.

So we go quite often to visit all the kids really enjoy our trips to see grandpa and now the great grand kids are enjoying the visits.

I hope this tradition keeps up I know he would love it.

The cemetery where he is doesn't allow you to put things at the grave site, they like it nice and clean, but, we always manage to leave some change and a flag or another treasure that the kids made for him.

Fathers day is this Sunday and it's a sad day for me, I really miss my dad and wish I could just see him again.  I would tell him I love him,  I feel like I didn't get to tell him that enough while he was here. 

All I have now of him is memories and pictures and his favorite hat and flannel jacket and his blanket with a million dollar bill on it.

I keep his hat on a chair in my bedroom so I can see it daily and I put it out in the dining room on the holidays.

My dad came from a large family and in the picture above there are some of his siblings notice the big smiles they all loved the camera (not something I inherited).

The only 2 living now are the 2 to his right one sister Angeline (Julie) and one brother Victor (Vic) they are the 2 babies of the family.

We recently lost Margaret at the age of 96, she is sitting on the bottom row left and the sister in the middle Caroline lived till her 102ND birthday and Concelia was 97 when she passed.

There quite a few more that died a little younger.

They were a great family and stayed close their whole lives.

It was wonderful having a large family and getting to spend holidays and summers together.

I'm still close to lots of my cousins and all of their families.  It's a great comfort to me to have cousins that I'm close to.   I hope our children will continue to keep some of the family traditions going.

I get to see my dad's smile in the faces of my grandsons.

Happy Father's Day Dad  I miss you and love you.   See you Sunday.

Health update

Thought I should post an update on hubs health.

he is doing great.  still trying to figure out this whole insulin and blood levels. It does get a little frustrating for him not knowing yet when he will have high and low readings and which foods are causing it.  But, he has been very serious about monitoring and following his diet.

It's so hard to believe that it's been almost a month now and we are both following a very strict diet.

I figured it will easier if we both do this new life style.  I really need to lose some serious weight so this has been great.

Not sure how much we have lost I have some wacky thing with the scale. When i weigh myself on a diet if I get on the scale it makes me cheat with my eating. Its so weird, so now I just don't get on it every day.  I actually don't have one at my house because a few years ago when I was on weight watchers i used to weigh myself every time I passed by it.

So, I will wait until my clothes get baggier till I get on one again.

My doctor will be so happy when I go see him next month, he has been bugging me for years to lose some weight. (he's so skinny and thinks everyone should be)

This time it has been really easy to stay on a plan, I found some great websites to help.

One being livestrong.com and the other is sparkpeople.com

they both have calorie calculators on them that break everything down like calories, fat, protein and more.   they also have lots of other tools and groups for support.

Its great seeing the breakdown and it really helped us see why we are overweight.

For some reason its easy to gain only eating small amounts of bad food, but, when your losing its weird that we are stuffed and can't make it to our calorie goals most days. 

I guess stuffing yourself with water and fruit and veggies and only small amounts of carbs and proteins its easier to get full.  you only need a few oreos or a whopper to gain weight and be full, but, it takes lots of veggies to get to the same calories count.

I actually feel much better too, so I guess we both have learned a lot from this scare.

I hope we continue on our new healthy life style for a long, long, time.

I'm planning on losing until the end of December. its going to be my Christmas gift to myself. 

I'm so curious to see what i will look like if I can lose at least 40 pounds by then.  

think I'm going to have to start exercising in a few more pounds. Yuck

Health Scare Medical Miracles

On Friday while doing some gardening my hub was complaining that it was really hot out and he was sweating. Of course being the loving wife that I am I told him he was sweating because he had on hot jeans and a long sleeve shirt on.  

When he came in for a second glass of water and was hunched over sweating I thought he just wanted some company outside to watch him weed.

By now he was feeling pretty yucky and was sweating and nauseous.  I started weeding and felt a little hot too. So we took a break and were talking to a neighbor who stopped by to chat.

By now hub was really feeling crummy.  I yelled at him and said it was 2 and he missed lunch and his blood sugar level must be too low. ( he is a diabetic that loves sweets) so insisted that he should check his sugar level.  he sent me in to get him machine because now he felt pretty weak.

He couldn't remember exactly where it was because he hadn't checked his levels in over 2 weeks.

Finally, he found it and showed me the reading. thinking that it was going to be low I wasn't prepared to see  FIVE HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE.   

Now my neighbor was going nuts too and told him he should get to the ER.

I knew he wasn't going to agree to do that so tried him to call his doctor.

He wanted to wait an hour after he showered to see if he would feel better.

My neighbor left and called me when she got home and said she called her friend who is an RN and she said that he needed to get to the ER she told me to call an ambulance.

Knowing that the hub would go nuts if I did that I convinced him to go to his doctor and would let him give him the news.

Of course the doc went nuts too and told him he needed to go to the ER asap.

so off we went.

I'm still thinking that it was a diabetic problem, but after we get to the ER he started to spill his guts and told them he had shortness of breath and some chest pain.

when they asked him how long it was going on for. thinking he was going to say an hour or two, he said 2 weeks!!!!!

Now, I was starting to think maybe it was something heart related too.

SO after lots of tests it was determined that he didn't' have a heart attack.

Oh yeah, I thought.

Well, now they are thinking a heart specialist should be called in just to be safe since he was having symptoms and has a really bad family history of heart problems.

Both of his parents died in their 70's from complicated heart problems including both of them having bypass surgery for clogged arteries.

The heart doc said to be safe he should stay for the weekend and and have a stress test.

Not the news hub wanted to hear but, knew it was the best thing to do.

After some more talking the doc decided instead of stress test he should have a cardiac catherization.

Where they go in and look at the arteries and check for blockages.

SO he spent the night in the cardiac unit with a room mate.

Now we are both very compassionate people but, after no sleep all night because his roommate was yelling all night and tried to escape a few times and emptied his urinal all over his bed and then to end the night  he was naked and pooping all over the floor. 

Hubs decided he would be better off coming home to rest and go back on Monday for his test.

Monday the doctor came in to do the catherization, they decided that he was able to go in through his wrist instead of through the groin oh happy day!

By this time I prepared myself to hear the news that there was a blockage and was relieved to hear there was only one.

luckily in our town a new heart center was put in place at our hospital so the doctor was able to continue on and unblock the artery and place a stint in to hold it open.

All this was done in just a little over an hour and required only a one night stay.

Luckily, all was well and he even had a private room.

He was able to come home today and is feeling great.

Of course now a new life style will start and medication and a new way of eating will begin.

I told him today when I picked him up "Welcome to the first day of your new life"

We felt very lucky that the problem was found and fixed before any serious damage happened.

Now that he's home safe and sound I realized how lucky we really are.

Mother's Day

I just want to share my daughter's blog.  She is an amazing daughter and mother.

this is her mothers day blog dedicated to me.

MY2MUSES

DAILY REFLECTIONS FROM A MAMA OF TWINS

SUNDAY, MAY 10, 2009

Salute to Stregga

Before she was Streggaor Nana, she was Mama.  My Mom is one of the most amazing women I know.  She is funny, compassionate, generous and brave.  When I think of a mother I picture someone who loves unconditionally, that is my Mom.  She is my confidante, caretaker, role model and best friend.  Throughout my childhood I have memory after memory of places we visited like the beach, museums, parks and time spent together.  My mom stayed at home with us and would load up all of our friends and take us everywhere!! We had a blast and she became "Mommy" to many of our neighborhood friends even to this day.

Stregga always made celebrations of our life amazing!! She went all out with making birthdays special.  I remember turning 13, a major milestone.  And my Mom took me for an appointment at a make-up store.  I had been begging to wear make-up but had to wait until I turned 13.  I was taught by a professional what colors to choose and how to apply it.  It was so much fun!! For my 16th birthday I wanted a pool party, but since my birthday falls in January in New England it seemed unlikely.  But, Mom took my aunts and my friends and I to have  a sleepover party at a local hotel.  We had a great time hanging out at the pool and staying up all night chatting!!!  Each year is celebrated in a special way and we always have fun together.

Over the years my Mom has tried to instill in me a sense of independence and courage.  She always encouraged me to explore and have new adventures.  Once we drove to Florida ourselves around my 18th birthday.  We sang and chatted and made stops along the way.  We enjoyed the Disney parks and met new people.  It was a trip I will always remember.  She even let me drive on RT 95 -woohoo!!!  My childhood was filled with fun trips toWildwood, Cape Cod, Clinton.  Always road trips and beaches and fun!!  My dad worked a lot and couldn't always get time off, but that didn't stop Mom or summer fun.  She would load up the car and off we would go! And since we had a pool at our house beinghome in the summer was fun too because all of ourfriends would hang out at the pool.  Summers were the best!!

As I got older I went to my mom for advice that went beyond make-up and boys.  I knew when I was making life decisions I could always count on her for an honest and realistic opinion and unwavering support.  I always felt like it was ok to take chances and make mistakes because I would be loved no matter what.  I am grateful for that because I think it helped shape me into the person I am today.  I wasn't afraid to make new friends and travel to new places.  Along the way those people and places became part of the woman I am now.

Since becoming a mother myself, I have a newappreciation for my own Mom.  During my first pregnancy she stayed with me in the hospital for weeks.  Sleeping over, visiting every day for over 2 months waiting for the boys to be born.  She nevercomplained that the cot was uncomfortable or the drive was too long or that she was tired.  I never feltlike a burden to her. When my own baby was sick and needed to be hospitalized I tried to call on that example of strength.  And I have to admit I fell short.  I was exhausted and grumpy and that was after only 5 days of staying in the hospital with him.  I wondered, how did my mother do this for all those weeks?? And when the boys are up all night sick I have a hard time finding the energy to care for them with so little sleep.  But, my Mom always manages to come over and help me wipe their snotty noses and hold andcomfort them.  Once day last winter Luccio was so sick.  Stregga came over and sat on the couch withhim for 8 hours!! She fed, changed, bathed and snuggled him.  I sat by in a heap of exhaustion wondering where she gets her energy!! I was thankful and impressed to say the least.

The other day Vincenzo was worried because he thought there was a critter in his outdoor play house and he wanted me to check it out.  I of course don't like critters so Stregga went over and discovered it was only a rock.  I said, "Wow, Mama you are brave!" And she said I better start getting braver myself because mothers need to be brave! And she is right.  I do hide from critters and bugs and bloody boo-boos and Stregga is luckily around to pick up my slack.  But, I do need to be braver and I know I have an excellent role model who is teaching me how to be a wonderful mother!!!!

For all that she does and all that she is I am grateful that God has blessed me with the mother I have.  I cannot imagine my life without her.  I wish my mom and all mothers a very Happy Mothers Day!!! 

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ABOUT ME

CENZLUCCSMOM

I am a Stay-At-Home Mama (SAHM) to twin two year boys. I spend my days playing, teaching, laughing and learning with my beautiful little guys! And some days I nearly lose my mind keeping up with them! I often count down the hours and sigh with relief when my Sweetest Husband walks through the door from work! LOL!!

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• ger (feat. Jamie Foxx) by Kanye West (on tour)

 

ZING ZANG ZOOM

ZING ZANG ZOOM!    The magic words of the day!   

 Today I was treated to the circus for my mothers day present.

I don't know who had more fun my grand boys or myself. 

I think it might have been me!!   Just the feeling of joy I got from seeing the excited looks on their faces was worth all the money we spent on souvenirs LOL.

we actually didn't need to go into the circus...they thought the lobby filled with vendors was the GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH!!

I think no matter how old you are your never too old or young  to enjoy the circus.  

When the lights went out and the show started the looks are their faces  was priceless!!

I know they won't remember their first trip to the circus , but it's a great memory for me.

There are definite advantages to being a stay at home Stregga.

Thank you Ree and Hubby and Vincenzo and Luccio it was a great Mothers Day Gift!!!!!!

Spring A Magical Time

It still amazes me to see the beauty of spring.   It seems like the winters are getting longer and longer and spring would never be here.

 But, today I was looking at some new buds on a totally dead looking branch on one of my hydrangea's.

  I thought they had to be cut back to be able to bud again so I was so surprised this morning when I noticed all the new buds forming.

I'm still waiting for my daffodils to open up I have tons of them in the yard and only one opened up in the back yard.  maybe tomorrow I will have a surprise when I go out and they will be open.

Every morning this week a new surprise awaited yesterday there was some crocus open and the tulips are getting ready to open soon.

The lawn turned green like magic it was just a dead dried out looking mess just a week ago.

I think I will never get over the feeling that spring is just a magical time of year.

I'm so glad it's finally here!    

Happy Easter New tradtions

I hope everyone had a great Easter!

  I know we did.  Instead of a big Italian dinner this year I decided to try a brunch.  It was great we started at 10:30.

Most of the menu was able to be made last night so it was an easy meal to prepare.  Of course I thought it was really easy because I didn't have to do anything.  My wonderful saint of a hubby shopped and prepared the whole meal.  He even thought it would be a a good idea to let me sleep in this morning.  Imagine waking up at 9:30 and have company coming at 10:30!!  I was a little upset (well, more like a LOT upset when I saw the time, but, it all worked out great so I guess it was OK.

Everyone really enjoyed the meal and the Easter egg hunt that followed so we decided that it will become our new tradition.

It left the rest of the day for everyone to be able to go and see the other half of their families.