Been a while

Well, I guess its been quite a while hu? Lindsey Lea has been busy updating which reminded me that... well, not so much on my end. A whole ton of stuff has happened since the last blog sign-in (I doubt there are many of you out there reading this, so I supposed it doesn't really matter, but for my own peace of mind I guess...)

I guess you could say whirlwind! Just a little marriage, moving out, having a fabulous home with my husband (that is still weird to say!) and general day to day movement forward.

Just getting ready...
There's my handsome fellow!

June 6, 2010 was our day! It was magic. There just really is not another word to describe it. So many tears (good), laughter, great food, amazing people and at the end of it all, we were married! Plus Uncle Rog married us =) couldn't be more perfection..
And I sure did luck out on husbands. I couldn't be more lucky.

There will be more later (this was very short and slightly not well thought out! LOL)
Toodles!

Dr. John Santarelli

This is my Great Uncle John.
My thoughts are with the Santarelli's.

You will be missed Uncle John.


Santarelli, Dr. John Anthony “Doc”, 85, died Tuesday October 28, 2008, peacefully, at home. The eighth of ten children, he was born to Italian immigrants Lucia Lucente and Tobia Santarelli, who arrived on Ellis Island in 1905 for the first time. His mom and pop owned a small grocery store in their own home which they lost in the Great Depression. Doc’s earliest years were lean and he took various jobs to support the family including as a butcher and a tailor. He attended Juniata College in Juniata, PA, on a football scholarship. He joined the Marine Corps in 1942 and was stationed on Okinawa. When he returned in 1945, he attended the Illinois College of Optometry on the GI Bill. It was in Chicago that he met his stunning wife Eleonore at a dance at the Del Prado Hotel. He was certified as an Optometrist in 1950 and then moved to Western Pennsylvania. On April 7, 1951, he opened his practice of optometry, which he eventually expanded to include an office in Monroeville, PA. He donated his services to the Carmelite Sisters in Loretto, PA for decades. He was active in many civic organizations while in Barnesboro. He was the president of the Lions Club and a member of the Pennsylvania Board of Health. An avid outdoorsman, he was one of the founding members of the Moss Barn Hunting Camp in Potter County, PA, where he delighted in taking money from his friends in a game or two of poker. He was a charter member of the Cambrian Hills Golf Club where nearly seven days a week you would find him walking his nine or eighteen holes of golf. He was quite a practical joker, and you never knew what to expect when at the dinner table with him. He was a loving and kind man who never met a stranger. He was a shrewd expert at making people feel comfortable in his presence. He loved Big Band music, the Nittany Lions and the Pittsburgh Steelers, and rarely missed a day working his crossword puzzles. He loved his Italian heritage and spaghetti with meatballs. Most of all, he adored his family. He never glowed as brightly as when he was with his grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his daughter Mary and son
Dr. John J. Santarelli. He is survived by his wife, Eleonore, and his children Gail Santarelli Maynard and her husband Jay, Laura (Lori) Santarelli Follmer and her husband James, their children Leslie, Amy and Sarah Follmer, and daughter-in-law Diana Santarelli Maelzer and children Anthony and Andrea Santarelli. He is also survived by his brother Tobias Santarelli (Lorraine), and sisters Christine Dunmire and Elizabeth Sindrich (Peter), and their families. He leaves to grieve a large extended Italian and Polish family, including his most dedicated and devoted nephew Gregory and his fiancé, Patty. He led a remarkable life. A memorial service will be held at St. Mary’s Catholic Church (Richmond) in the near future

Viewing will be held at the Moriconi Funeral Home in Northern Cambria, PA, on October 31 from 4:00 to 7:00 PM. A mass of Christian Burial will be held at the Prince of Peace Church, Chestnut Ave, Northern Cambria. PA, at 11:00 AM on November 1.

Lame girl stuff

Maybe next year I wont love you, the way I love you when I speak my thoughts of you. My cheeks flush and my smile widens at your name. Maybe I will regret loving you someday, I wish today was that someday, but it is merely Thursday. The week is more than half over and the warm has dulled a bit, the pattern I have grown used to in your memory. The days slip since the last embrace and I know with certainty that months will pass before I see the light in your eyes illuminate my face. Thursday's can be hard, like hourless days that pass before and after. Maybe next week I won't love you the way I loved you this week, my conviction to my own memories is more harsh than any punishment and I hope I won't love you tomorrow the way I love you today. Am I that transparent, my thoughts run through my veins to my heart written on my skin, my eyes, my hands like a picture show for all to see. Maybe someday I won't love you like I loved you that one day. I hope tomorrow will be the day when the sun will shine without your name, and someday will become Friday...

I'm letting you go. One by one I watch the cards fall, with pictures of the times we spent, falling to the floor fading in the sun that is streaming in. They float down with my thoughts and the memories we shared as they dance in dust particles extenuating the shafts of light making the room seem static and alive. Just as my heart flutters the way it does when I think about you, I watch the room dance in warmth and light, letting you go.The timing of the light doesn't match my thoughts, a feeling I quickly remember from our time together and let another card drop. Hunched over ragged and weak in the sunshine. My time, your time, letting you go, wishing the cards with rush to the pale boards beneath my feet. I watch as a tear falls on an upturned image seemingly miles from my finger tips on the ground, part of you leaving me as it drops and I'm letting you go. I look to see you standing enflamed by the dancing light, I hand you the cards, yours, they never belonged to me. I push them into your hand, the deck etched with your face and the time as I let you go. As I pass and stream out the door I hear the cards drop, time and emotion spread across the floor motionless and flat they intensify the light until nothing remains and the room disappears. your face blocks the sun in my eyes, your hands take mine and I stammer, I that I am letting you go. and the time stops as you lift my chin, there isn't anything to let go and I look around alone and warm. the room is gone, the cards scattered and blank the sun shining in harmony as strength returns and the color spreads. I had to let myself go, to remember I was in control. I lay in the grass and let my thoughts wander surrounded by cards that beg for me to write. I pick one up and draw my heart hold it up and let it fly, no longer to the ground but up and out and let the wind take it to where it must go.

sleep

She looked at herself in the mirror after she had finished splashing warm water on her face. Her ears red from where she had removed the earring that now lay on the sink top. Two pairs of studs, one small square pair that always occupied the top piercing in her ear, and the always stable round ones the she wore in the lower piercing. Diamonds. Fake. Due partially to the fact that she had misplaced her real ones, but mostly because she was clumsy and lost small things easily. Dully they sit near a puddle of water as her eyes stare back in the mirror. She adjusted her necklace, the only one she ever wore. In fact, it was the one she was rarely without. Valueless? Yes. To her? Worth every moment of her sanity.

She had that half way between pajamas and bed, half way not, disheveled look. The slightly unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, haphazardly pulled back hair, look, with slight mascara rings around her eyes from where she had washed her face. Her cheeks were glowing, grayish blue eyes, her mixed breed face could have been any woman, anywhere. But she was this particular woman unlike anyone, anyplace. Though insecure, her eyes reveled otherwise with an intensity that challenged anyone to believe anything but total confidence. Occasionally a flicker of pain and sadness, weakness, defeat flashed but it was hard to detect and even harder to remember.

She wiped a bit of toothpaste off her lip after brushing her teeth, pulled down and brushed her hair with a brush she had dug out of her drawer. To most, messy, but to her it was a small piece of a bigger part of clutter she had subconsciously created to feel ownership. Uncharacteristic, she realized she may be cutting off her nose to spite her face, but it was easy and besides, who cared? She didn’t. She didn’t even give it a second thought most days…and tonight, it was time for bed.

Her body was tired and mind aching she knew that while sleep would come relatively easy, it would not be deep or fulfilling. A blessing and a curse her hereditary sleep patterns, or lack thereof, normally didn’t slow her down, but these days she seemed to have a little less energy. Known for taking on too much, giving more than she had, never expecting much, at some point you just don't have anything left. They say when you take a picture of someone you steal a piece of their soul. Sometimes to her it felt she physically gave a piece of herself, a snapshot, to those around her, more than they even knew, and she felt like she was being stolen with less and less to give.

She quickly changed into her favorite warm sweats, her alma maters logo on the left thigh of the faded cotton, riding low, holding many memories the warm material was worn in and comfortable. She rubbed her eyes, turned on the fan, turned off the light crawled into bed and silently and thoughtfully she followed the usual routine of remembering those she had lost and those she loved. And before she knew it, it was morning.