An Apple a Day

I've focused my attention on my health many times, over the course of my blogging journey, but I'm at it again. I guess, knowing I will leave my 50's forever in August I have found some much needed motivation. Motivation and momentum are highly prized invisible boosters to any long range hope of living a healthy life style.

I've been eating a lot of apples since I gave up sugar and gluten a little over a month ago. A girl's gotta have a little sugar and apples are my current vice. I've always loved vegetables and fruits...trouble is, I also love ice cream and cookies and candy bars.

After watching me religiously exercise for the past month every morning Mr. Honey decided it was time to turn our extra guest room into a work out room. I can't tell you how much encouragement this kind of support has added to my momentum. We've talked about doing it for quite sometime and finally decided to do it. We got rid of the twin bed in this room and bought an elliptical and a flat screen T.V.

I bought the little cabinet that the new T.V. sits on at Home Goods. I plan on painting the cabinet door and the drawers the same window box green (Ralph Lauren paint) that is on the walls and maybe adding some vintage glass knobs.

The antique dresser is going to get painting as well...not sure what color yet. The lamp is going bye bye since it no longer works.

Mr. Honey's indoor bike is on the opposite wall so that we can work out together while we watch our favorite shows.

Happy Mother's Day to My Mama in Heaven

I posted this a few years ago, but thought I would share it again. Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of my fellow bloggers, many of whom have also lost their dear mothers.

This was my mother at about the age of 12.


This is a photo of my mother the day I got married (March 17th,1973). She passed away four years ago on May 19th. She was the single most influential woman in my life.

Below is a photo of my mother when when I was just a new born.

Below is a photo of my mother holding the first of three granddaughters. She loved her granddaughters more than life.

As she aged she became more beautiful with each passing year.

Hegge Rozier-May14,1923-May19,2007

The following is what I wrote and read at my Mother's funeral:

When I was in grammar school I remember coming home to the scent of my mother’s lipstick and her Channel #5 Perfume lingering in the hallway. She always smelled delicious. To this day her scent brings happy memories of home flooding back. I remember the feeling of cream on the doorknobs of our home where she left her mark. Mom never went to bed without curlers in her hair and cream on her face. She was known for her classic good looks and gorgeous skin, however, all vanity aside, my mom had the secret to real lasting beauty. It was the what she believed about health and aging. She always said “you are only as old as you think you are”. When asked her age she would reply “Can you keep a secret?” the reply would always be yes ( no one can ever admit to not being able to keep a secret) to which she would always reply “So can I”. To my sweet mama age was irrelevant.
Mom knew how to live well and how to celebrate life down to the simplest occasion. My sister Nonie and I were raised on classical music and candlelit dinners. Sometimes mom would have to take private clients in the evenings and on Saturdays in order to make ends meet, but we always had dinner together with good food, beautiful table linens and flowers from the garden.
After Nonie and I were fast asleep my mom would polish our shoes and prepare lunches for the next day. She was a tireless worker with more energy than anyone I’ve ever met with the exception of my husband. I’ve always joked that I married my mother. I believe it was all my mother’s best qualities that attracted me to Richard.
Above all else my mother loved being a mother and not just to my sister and me but to many of my closest friends she was known as Mutti (German for Mother). Mom lost her own mother at the tender age of eight and I believe my grandmother must have passed on some awesome mother energy to my mom.
Mom was an incredible role model for Nonie and me. Not only was she a fabulous mother but she was also an incredible friend.
In fact, I am still in touch with many of my childhood friends today because of my mother. Before the age of e-mail my mother was a terrific letter writer and kept in touch with friends all over the world including many of my friends. Although fiercely independent Mom was deeply aware of how much we need each other.
She taught me most of what I know about loss. When mom
lost her father, just before being reunited with him after years of separation, she exhibited unwavering faith and strength. She believed that everything happens for a reason and in it’s own time, and we are not to question the Almighty’s plan or waste any of life’s precious time feeling sorry for ourselves. I had a difficult time with that one but I trusted my mother’s words.
She suffered much loss in her life. She was the last of her siblings to survive and in the last few years she had lost countless life long friends all younger than herself.
When my father passed away, my mother showed up in Fresno against my father’s wishes to say her goodbyes. There was no convincing her not to come, because she understood closure and forgiveness -- not to mention she was the most doggedly stubborn person you’d ever want to meet. Somehow she just knew it was
extremely important.
Her most tragic loss, of course, was when she lost my dear sister to a brain tumor in 1978. Both my mother’s life and my own were changed forever in an instant My mother never really recovered. So many conflicting emotions lay just beneath the surface and yet she lived to see her three granddaughters grow into beautiful young ladies and to reach a lifelong goal of accompanying each one of them, separately, on a trip to her homeland (by the way, not an easy journey for any of them) but she did it to share a piece of herself and her history with them. Mom lived to witness the birth of her three great-grandsons. She was so elated to be alive to welcome her boys into the world.
My mother’s life was a gift to all who had the pleasure to meet her. I will always love her, now and forever.
Be at peace, my sweet mama.

Happy Mother's Day Weekend

I have posted this story below before, but felt that to honor my friends mother and my own I would post it again. My friend Sybil's mother left this world the afternoon of May 17, 2010. She would have been 89 in July. My own mother passed just three years earlier than Dr.Sever on May19Th. There were many of my own mother's birthdays that fell on Mother's Day, so it seems fitting this Mother's Day weekend that I post it again.

Next weekend, on what would have been my mother's 88Th birthday (May14Th), I will join my friend in Los Angeles to commemorate the first year anniversary of her mother's passing and to celebrate both of our mothers lives.

In the photo below my mother is on the left and Sybil's mother, Dr. Elfrieda Sever, is on the right. They were two glamorous babes in their hay day! Two German blonds on very similar paths.

I was so glad I took this trip to see Elfrieda over Christmas when she was still well enough to enjoy a visit.

This is what I wrote after our lovely visit:

Yesterday I took a trip to Beverly Hills to visit my friend Sybil's mother, Dr. Elfrieda Sever. You see her in the picture above, on the right, with my mother on the left. Elfrieda (I called her Dr. Sever when I was growing up) and Sybil, her only daughter, spent many a Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrating with us.

Sybil and I met when we were just 15 years old. We lived on Young Drive and Sybil and her mother lived on Durant. We met in cooking class. Sybil was new to Beverly Hills, moving from San Francisco. As we all know, moving away from friends and all that is familiar when you are fifteen is no easy transition. I liked Sybil right away, but she had an instant distrust for me, thinking I was much too sweet to be for real. Ah well... she knows the truth now. I really have always thought of Sybil like a sister and I believe she thinks of me that way too.

Our mothers were both from Germany and both single. My mother had worked in San Francisco when she first worked for Elizabeth Arden. They had a lot in common. We introduced them and they became quick friends. They spoke German to each other and so much of the information I was anxious to hear about their adult lives was hidden from me. So, they both remained mysterious and glamorous, with their blond hair and their distinctly European ways.

It's truly wonderful to still have friends that know my history and share my story.

Sybil lives in London now, and has her very own glamorous life, but her mother still lives in Beverly Hills and is so far away from the daughter she holds so dear. After losing my own mother in May of 2007, I have a new appreciation for my friend Sybil's mother. Most of my mother's friends are gone now, so it was especially meaningful for me to share a little holiday cheer with Elfrieda.

When I first arrived, Elfrieda was just at the end of having a lovely massage, by a masseuse that Sybil hired, to make sure her mother was properly pampered. She told me the masseuse comes once a week. What a luxury! My mother would have definitely approved.

Elfrieda took great pride in showing me the latest, beautifully hand embroidered tablecloth she was working on. She showed off her beautiful orchids and told me she couldn't live without flowers. She had me look at the beautiful bougainvillea and wonderful Meyer lemon tree she was growing in pots on the balcony. Her lemon tree had twenty lemons ready to pick. I was so glad, because I wanted to bring her lemons off my tree, knowing she loves lemons, but they weren't quite ready to pick. We had tea and strawberry cake together and then she became a little tired. She had, after all, just had a relaxing massage.

Rest in peace, dear Elfrieda and you to my sweet Mama

A very Happy Mothers Day to all of you who still have their mothers with you and to all of you that have lost their mothers.

Happy Birthday Week to my Sister in-law & Friend

I met my sister in-law when I was only twenty years old. We had an instant rapport from the get go. In fact, from the time we first met, people thought we looked more like sisters than our husbands looked like brothers.

We had the pleasure of being newlyweds together. I'll never forget after Diane joined the family and moved to Bakersfield to begin her married life the amazing creativity and zest for life she brought with her. She carted her plants and all of her worldly possessions and began the work of making a home. Her cooking skills far surpassed mine and still do.

Diane's resourcefulness has always impressed me. Her creativity was evident from an early age, as you can see by the picture below, created by Diane when she was only five years old. As early as five, she was already designing her wedding dress and veil (she's the one on the left). She actually did make her wedding dress and she didn't stop there. She also made her groom the pants and shirt that he wore. And as if that was not enough, she also baked her own wedding cake.


As you see below, the vision of that five year old little girl was brought to life years later on her wedding day. There was no Martha Stewart empire back then to dictate how a little girl's dream would be fashioned. With the eye of an artist she entered adulthood.

Below is an old photo of the two of us paddling through Hart Park one very hot summer day.

We had our babies five months apart. She had her daughter first and was eager to help me when my eldest daughter was born. We shared a duplex and I was so sad when my brother in-law decided to move their family to Nashville.

Diane's artistic talent continued to grow as she pursued her love of art, eventually becoming an art teacher at a local high school.

We have had our adventures in life both separately and together. After my mother passed, Diane and I went to Germany (my mother's homeland). I do not know what I would have done with out my sweet sister in-law at that difficult time.

I'm hoping we will have many more trips together.

Happy birthday, Shatzee! I hope your birthday brings with it delightful surprises and much happiness!