Season's Greetings, 2019

Season’s Greetings!

The Holidays are upon us, and I expected to be in Tennessee by now. That hasn’t happened because the long-term care facility in Nolensville is not yet finished! I’m just as happy not to be moving in the middle of winter when everything is dark and cold. The new estimate will be around the first week of March. That offers some reprieve for me to enjoy the holidays – and to continue at the slower pace I’ve adopted in my eighties. Still, I’m looking forward to being near daughter Elisabeth and her family in the spring!

Elisabeth and Trey's family tree, 2019

This has been a full, busy, and often difficult year, with ongoing efforts to whittle down possessions in preparation for the move to Tennessee. Grandson Blake came to Charleston twice this year to help me sort, toss, and move two small U-Haul loads to a storage unit in Nolensville.

Blake and Landon playing cards. Oldest and youngest "grand."

 I’ve been giving away furniture and books and bookcases, as well as some treasures collected on overseas trips. And I’ve perused boxes and boxes of mementos and thrown away most of the stuff in them. 

There are still many photo albums and a few boxes of correspondence to distill. And I’ve sorted through all my books. Those still in the house (or storage) are ones I plan to take to Traditions, the long-term care facility in Nolensville. Now I need to arrange for a moving company to haul it all there - when the place is ready.

Long-time friends have been my mainstay during this unsettled time. Women I've been getting together with monthly over dinner still offer support and friendship. Thanks especially to Ellie Setser, who arranged a birthday party for me at our November women's dinner!

Mary Joan, Carla, Darlene, and Ellie

Nonie, Skeet, Carol, Carla, Ellie, Maria, and Sandra.

Mary Johnston, an editor and very fine person, who has led a productive writers' group for the past decade, threw a good-bye party for me at the beginning of summer. Friends from church and women's groups - as well as other writers - all attended a great party at a beautiful home downtown! Thank you to all my fellow writers for encouragement and suggestions down through the years, and to other friends, many of them UUs, for helping to keep me as sane as possible - and for buying some of my books!

Mary Johnston's writers (top) and UU friends (bottom).

A good-bye party last May. (Oops, I'm still here!)

The children – and their children – are all doing pretty well. Briana has had problems with some of her joints, making work at the post-office difficult and often painful, although she’s being stoic. Blake is in his last year at Northland College in Ashland, WI, and he plans to graduate at the end of next semester!

Maria has been writing successfully. Harry is spending his junior college year at Oxford, in England. He will come home to New York for the holidays.
And Elisabeth’s family is doing well, although the younger children have been sick enough to miss some school this fall. Judson is looking forward to graduating high school next year. He will be going to college in the fall, and he plans to study physics!

It's been a very social year, including frequent get-togethers with friends, mostly women I've known for decades at the UU Church and at MUSC. 

And I had the privilege of attending my first immigration and naturalization service with the citizenship ceremony of Maryam Nadieri, Will Moredock's widow.

I’ve also had some happy/sad good-bye lunches and dinners with friends. And there have been a few funeral services, including those at the UU Church for long-time friends, Will Moredock and Dottie Klintworth - truly sad and sobering. 

In the midst of sorting and moving and saying goodbyes, writing efforts have almost stalled. However, with the help of Mary's writers’ group, the book about a 1992 summer in Siberia – and from there to western (“civilized”) Russia – is now in first draft form. Still a long way to go before that one is finished, however. And there's so much more I want to do before...

Wishing you a Wonderful Holiday Season and a Very Happy New Year!!

Jo Anne

https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00BH3326S

Holiday Greetings and New Year Wishes!

Can't believe it's time for another holiday letter! Hope you've had a good year in 2016, and that the New Year will be even better!

SEASON’S GREETINGS!

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for a Wonderful New Year!

The year 2016 has been much better (for me) than its predecessor. My respiratory issues have improved steadily (with occasional setbacks). I’ve been making great efforts to “get my life in order” (with some progress). And I’ve been busy in Charleston with friends and colleagues.

Medical History Club, with Drs. Jane Upshur and Biemann Othersen

The last of my rental properties was sold early in the year, which was a burden off my back. I still have one property to dispose of—some land in the North Carolina mountains that I once intended to build on. It was a dream that evaporated a decade ago with the economic collapse.

The writing has been going reasonably well, with several books at various stages of completion, and a helpful writers’ group cheering me on to finish a memoir—really more like an autobiography with topic highlights. I’m planning to publish that with CreateSpace in early 2017. That book will be of interest primarily to family—and maybe a few close friends.

A booklet I had been working on since early summer, Russia Revisited, about a commercial trip to Russia in 2010, is now finished and has been published. I just received copies from the publisher a few days ago. It was originally intended as a teaser for a longer (and more serious) book about Russia and its grim history, woven around a Sierra Club backpacking trip I made in Siberia in 1992—shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Afterwards, I crossed Russia solo by train to Moscow and St. Petersburg. That book has gotten stalled, but I intend to pick it up again early next year. FYI, my Amazon site is https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00BH3326S

My mother, Helen Pascoe, in slacks, 1924

Also, I’ve been sorting, scanning, and distributing photo albums to children, including albums from my mother and my father. One of Mom’s albums dates back to 1924. She was a liberated woman of first wave feminism! I posted this picture in a blog on my new website.

Still, there are a lot of albums to go through. I discovered several more in a trunk that had not been opened since I moved into this house in 2010. Maybe they've been in that trunk since 2007!

In August, I spent three or four days in New York visiting eldest daughter, Maria, and her wonderful family. I used to visit them frequently, but since becoming so ill in late 2014, I have scarcely gone anywhere outside Charleston. While in NYC, I attended a Writers’ Digest conference in downtown Manhattan, which was interesting and informative.

The main book I’m trying to sell to an agent for a larger audience is one I’ve been working on for the past five years. It’s intended for lay readers to help them understand and care for their own body. Dr. Susan Reynolds, a colleague and former student, is consultant on that book. I had a bit of interest from an agent, but so far nothing more.

With friend, colleague, and consultant, Dr. Susan Reynolds

After Blake, the eldest grandson, went off to Northland College in Ashland, WI this fall, daughter Briana, moved to another city in Idaho to be near her boyfriend. They plan to marry sometime next year. Blake is really loving college, and he calls his grandma every week!

With daughters Maria and Elisabeth.

I'm the short one in the middle.

In November, two of my wonderful daughters threw a surprise party for my 80^th birthday here in Charleston. It included several close friends as well as family. It was the best birthday party I’ve ever had! And a total surprise!! I was amazed that Maria, the eldest, was willing to come to Charleston. The last time she was here was for Elisabeth’s wedding, 17 years ago. Elisabeth and her family came in their new RV. They stayed at the James Island County Park, one of my favorite campgrounds when I had an RV. We drove around the park one evening and saw the holiday lights, which are spectacular.

So, the election aside, 2016 has been a great year for an old lady. Hope your year has been good too! And here's hoping the New Year will be as pleasant as possible for friends and family--as well as for the many others in the world who are not as fortunate. Let us hope that we can somehow try to achieve that elusive goal of Peace on Earth.

Happy Holidays!!

 HAPPY HOLIDAYS, 2015 

Holiday Greetings to friends and relatives! The year 2015 has been a mixed blessing for me. It started out with a serious case of the flu, contracted right after last Christmas, that I was fighting for a month or so, after which I was fighting the after-effects of the medications prescribed by my pulmonologist. I was sicker than I have been since being laid up in the hospital with pneumonia in my very early teens. Luckily I was able to sleep a lot, so I managed to meet social and church obligations and writing deadlines. I finally started feeling better in May, partly because I weaned myself off of most prescription medications.

This year I didn’t travel anywhere. I do plan a Christmas visit to a friend and former student, Susan Reynolds, a practicing physician in Hartsville, SC, who is serving as medical consultant on a book I’ve been working on for five years—with the help of some fellow writers and other friends. I think it’s about finished, and I want to submit it this coming year to agents and/or to small publishing houses. The title of the book hasn’t yet been settled. Initially, it was "Caring for your Body from the Outside In," then it was some version of "The Perplexed Patient’s Guide to Whole Body Health," and the most recent title is "Body Wisdom, Body Care." I’d be happy for any feedback on which title grabs you the most.

Sales of my two published books have flat-lined, partly because I haven’t been promoting them—partly because I’ve been so otherwise occupied, and partly because promotion just isn’t my thing. If you’re interested, you can find them on my Amazon site, which will be linked at the bottom of this letter. I have been writing, but nothing else is finished or published yet.

And I’m still organizing (yawn, yawn), and I’ve managed to sell two of the four properties I owned and have been renting. The other two properties will hopefully sell next year. That has been an enormous chore. Thankfully, I’ve had help from a wonderful real-estate agent and friend, Karen Abrams. Indeed, my friends have sustained me through this difficult year. Hopefully next year will be more fun and fruitful and I’ll be able to move ahead with some projects that have stalled. Everything takes longer than you think. That gets scary as one gets older.

My two daughter, Elisabeth and Briana—and their families—came to Charleston during the year, in August and November respectively. I posted some photos on Facebook. Briana made a fabulous dinner over Thanksgiving, and I’m still eating the leftovers! It was wonderful to see the children and grandchildren, however briefly. Without the RV, I’m just not traveling much these days, so now folks can come to visit me! I’m certainly grateful for the internet!

Here’s wishing you all a wonderful, and prosperous, and productive, and fun year in 2016!

Jo Anne

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00BH3326S               

                                                        

Photos and Events, 2015

UU friends, Nelsons' anniversary, February

Rally after Emmanuel massacre, June

Elisabeth and family visited, August  

 

            

Milking a goat, cheese-making party, November  

 

Saw “Suffragette” with friends, November

 

Briana cooking Thanksgiving dinner, November