Post-Holiday Memories

I took the Christmas tree down today.  I'm happy to see it go, but I will miss the twinkly lights at night. We still watched movies by the lights of the tree and it made it feel all nice and cozy. I have some decorative lights I might have to put up somewhere so we can keep that cozy feeling. There is a string of lights with big bulbs (think outdoor party lights) up in the window, but they're pretty bright and not as cozy as I'd like it to be. I have some lights with tin shades, I'll try those out and see what those do.

All the Christmas stuff is put away, except for the collection of Santas and snowmen on top of the cabinet in the dining room. They go in a locked cabinet separate from all the other holiday decorations that go in the attic. Many of these were carved and painted by my Dad and Step-Mom and I love looking at them. I just want to look at them a little longer before it's time to put them away again for another year.

It was hard to decorate the tree when I first set it up. Last year was a banner year for broken ornaments and they all went into a box to be repaired, but I never found the time and put them away with the other ornaments. This year, opening the ornament box, the first thing I saw was the box of broken ornaments sitting on top and it just broke my heart. I pulled a few out-- the broken 'starfish' which was a fish dressed as Marilyn Monroe ("star" fish, get it?) and we got her before we had the kids; the cute turtle with dangly legs that had the felt flowers ripped out of the flower pot in its' arms; the roly-poly paper mache' cat that got squished... I shoved the box back into the big box and closed the lid, I couldn't bear to look at it anymore. It reminded me too much of how upset I was and how mad I got when they broke.

For a week, the tree stood there, only the lights kept it from being bare. After much pestering from the kids, I finally brought out the box of ornaments again, this time pulling out the box of broken ones and not looking at it, putting it out of sight. I was picky with decorating the tree with only certain ornaments this time... none of the old and fragile ones; none of the precious hand-made ones; none of the cheap gaudy ones that I never liked but the kids loved. Slowly, the tree started to look pretty, simple and light. I have no pictures of the tree, I'm sad to say, but you can take my word for it that it turned out mighty nice.

When I took down the ornaments, I finally went through the box of broken ones.  I discovered my heart was healing and it wasn't so hard to pick out the lost causes and throw them away. I didn't fix any of them, but put them back into the box, much lighter now and, honestly, I'll probably throw away the rest of them next Christmas. Just not ready to say good-bye.

2012 was a very good Christmas, our memories tucked away and put into the mental attic, just as I put away the Christmas decorations. Next Christmas, I will remember 2012 as the year zero ornaments broke. But more importantly, I'll remember that my children are more precious than a broken ornament.

Family Game Night: LIFE

Now that the kids are getting older, we're breaking out some of the games that require more than climbing ladders and sliding down chutes. We have longed for the day we can gather around the table and play games that we remember playing with our own families growing up.

We recently played LIFE with the girls and they love it!

We're skipping over some of the complicated bits, like getting insurance and stocks, but otherwise, playing the game as usual. They get especially pleased when they get married and they plot how to get the wheel to stop on a certain number so they can have children.

 We usually have to set Peter up with some toys or put a movie in for him, or else he gets into a screaming fit and starts swiping every one's money, which gets the girls screaming, which gets me screaming. ahem.  Anyway, it's pretty fun to watch how the girls arrange the "people" in their cars.  As soon as Gretchen gets married, she puts her husband in the driver's seat.



Money, money, money!

Gretchen loves the money!  She could have eight 100,000 bills, but if she has no other bills, she thinks she's so poor and cries that she has no money. She's only happy when she has several bills of each color. Silly girl!

We've played this quite a few times, and I think they're ready for a game of Monopoly soon.

 All of our games are older, either mine from when I was a kid, or Andrew's from his childhood, or games we pick up from yard sales and thrift shops. We like the older games better. The girls recently played LIFE at a friend's house with a newer game set, and my girls complained it wasn't the same as ours. I just told them that we had an older game and sometimes the manufacturers update the games and make them look different.

Do you have memories of a certain game and remember how much fun it was, then play it again as an adult and it's the most boring game ever??  My husband and I both have a game like that in our past.  His is Mousetrap and mine is a game called Mystery Mansion. I'd never played Mousetrap before and he went on and on about how much fun it was, so we bought a new game and started playing it and I kept waiting for the fun part to start. He looked at me sheepishly and admitted it wasn't as fun as he remembered it. My sister and I spent hours, hours! playing Mystery Mansion. You built the mansion as you go along, looking for secret passageways and treasure. Sometimes you'd find a chest and it would have just cobwebs in it, or the secret passageway would take you down to the scary dungeon. I couldn't wait to show Andrew how to play this super fun game and then when I broke it out and we started playing it, I realized it was our imaginations that made this game so much fun. I'll give it to the girls and see if they like playing it and hopefully their imaginations will make Mystery Mansion as much fun for them as it used to be for me.

Eye See You

My eye appointment went well. The eye doc was very thorough with the examination, checking and double-checking and I was getting dizzy with all the bright lights being shined into my eyes to check for glaucoma or other such eye issues. But I got my new prescription and got my new glasses, too!

~

They were having a two-for-one sale, so I got one with glass lenses and one with plastic lenses. It'll be nice to have a back-up pair and I also wanted to compare lenses-- see which one lasts longer and has less scratches. I already see a big difference in prescription, everything is so clear now. No more slight blurriness from wearing glasses more than 8 years old. I got the plastic lens glasses in an hour, the glass lens one will arrive in 10 days. We'll be in Florida then, so it will be nearly 3 weeks before I get those.

~

I remember the very first time I got glasses. I complained that I couldn't read the chalkboard at school and so I got my first pair of glasses in the 8th grade. When we came home, I remember getting out of the car and looking up. I was amazed that I could see, with clarity, every single green leaf on the trees that rose around the apartment complex we lived in. When the wind rustled the leaves, I could see them quiver and wave. I ended up sitting on the curb and just watched the leaves.

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My bedroom window opened into the woods behind our building and I would sit on my bed, prop my chin on the windowsill, and just look. I had a tree guidebook and I'd try and identify all the different trees outside my window and my favorite became the tulip tree. I loved the shape of the leaves and the orange and creamy white color of the "tulips" at the ends of the branches. None of those trees around here.

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Today, leaving the place with my new glasses, I wasn't really looking for anything. I had those drops put into my eyes to dilate them, so my vision was still a little blurry, plus my eyes were exhausted from all the tests and lights. All I wanted to do when I came home, was to take a nap, to close my eyes and let them rest. As soon as I got home, Andrew had errands to run, too, so off he went. As of now, my left eye still seems blurry, I'm thinking it's because I haven't rested yet, and I hope, in the morning, it'll will be clear. I'll look out my bedroom window, look up at the bare branches, and hope I can see every bud on the tips of each branch.

~

G'night.

~

Going Back

When one lives in a certain area for some time then moves away, I think it's expected that one will miss the area that they lived in. Maybe even harbor some regrets for moving away. I felt like that after we moved here. I love where I live, but there were some times I thought maybe it wasn't the right decision and if we had stayed, we wouldn't be in the situation we're in.

For a long time, we made nearly weekly treks back to the old place, either to shop in familiar grounds or visit friends or eat at our favorite place. As time went on, the visits lessened, but when we did go, it all felt so much like "home".

Fast forward 5 years to present time: We went back yesterday. It's been a few months since our last visit and I think, I am officially over it. The town has changed much since we moved away, grown and expanded, more stores, old shops replaced with new shops, old haunts gone completely. It just didn't feel the same anymore. Now it feels like we are tourists in a strange town. I actually saw people I used to know and it felt awkward and uncomfortable standing there, trying to make conversation with someone you really have nothing to say to.

We didn't go back and see the old house. I went there last time and it's all different now. It has lost it's glow for us. The kindly old guy that lived in the 200-year old house is dead and his brother sold off the land in parcels; the beer-loving plumber that lived in the house in front of us crashed the company truck one too many times and ended up foreclosing on the house, landing his family and himself in an apartment in town; the brother of the plumber that lived in the house between his and ours is still there, quiet as ever. And the people that bought our house? Well, they have interesting ways of keeping house and we cannot fathom their ways, so we'd rather not look. It's their house now, and I remind myself that we out-grew that house and moving here was the best thing we could have done.

We only went back to shop at the kid's consignment store. I never did manage to go through the kids' clothes to consign over there, but I knew I'd want to shop there. The kids needed shoes for the cooler months and we found 3 pairs for each girl, 2 for Peter. Even the store felt weird and we didn't even stay to chat with Boss Lady.

Our favorite place to eat is in trouble. There used to be a thrift shop by them that recently closed. Because people no longer go to the thrift shop, they've lost the walk-in business. We went in to eat at prime lunch hour and the cook was not even cooking. We had the whole place to ourselves. I feel bad for them. I'm glad we were there yesterday, but I fear that it may be the last time we will ever eat there. I hope they overcome this big bump in the road.

Coming home yesterday truly felt like we were coming home. There was no more looking back at the old place, wishing we could have brought parts of it with us. The ties we still had are severed and I'm okay with it. Home is here, with my husband and my children. I'm happy.
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Tiger Lilies

I never really knew my Grandmother. She lived in Minnesota and we lived in Illinois, Louisiana, and finally, Virginia when she died. The relationship between my Grandmother and my Mom was strained to say the least, so I think we only saw her once a year, if at all.

She lived in a 4-room house. Water had to be pumped from the well and then heated on the stove. Bare light bulbs dangled from wires that were strapped to the ceiling, along the wall and out to the power box. Clothes were washed in an old wringer-style washer and then hung on the line out back. An outhouse had 3 sizes of holes to go potty in-- small ass, medium ass, large ass. I tried to sit on the medium size hole when I was little and quickly found out I needed to keep my ass on the small size. Dirt cellar under the house; I only went down there once and still remember that dank, earthy scent. Attic had a few things in there, but had that distinctive bat smell. No matter how hard my Grandmother tried, she never could completely eradicate the bats. Her bedroom was pink. There were horses in the field behind the house and I fed them crab apples. She used to make crab apple jelly with those apples.

Grandmother's favorite flower was the Tiger Lily. She had them all around the house and I remember them, thinking they were strange looking flowers. When she died, my Mom tucked some tiger lilies in her hands. My Aunt transplanted some of the tiger lilies from around my Grandmother's house and planted them in her back yard. A couple of years ago, she asked me if I wanted some seeds from the tiger lilies. I only had a few that sprouted last year, and a few more sprouted this year than last. It's kind of cool knowing I have descendants of tiger lilies that are over 60 years old.

The flowers hang down. I wish they bloomed upright, but maybe they are shy flowers. Or maybe they bloom this way so that the rain doesn't fill them if they were upright, like a cup. Strange flowers, bold orange and spotted, bumpy black, but then maybe they are ashamed to have such bright colors, so they try and hide their blooms, to fit in with the other flowers. Maybe that's why my Grandmother liked tiger lilies.

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My Grandmother told me once, not too long before she died, that I ought to be ashamed of myself. We were sleeping overnight and she came down the stairs, restless in the middle of the night, and turned on the hall light, it woke me from my cot in the dining room, the light shining in my eyes and she looked at me and told me, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself." Then she turned off the light and went back up the stairs.

-

For the longest time after that, I wondered what I did to make her say that. I was 12 or so at the time and it stunned me. When she died, I wasn't sad. I never really knew her. She was old school-- children should be seen and not heard. She had a hairy, scratchy lip when she kissed me and she had that old-people smell. I don't remember much more than that about her.

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At the memorial service, I was more interested in the dead baby in the other room than I was in my Grandmother. I remember watching my Mom put the tiger lilies in her hands. They were stiff and curled, and when she picked up her hand, the whole arm lifted. I touched her face and it was cold and hard, and surprisingly, soft and smooth. I didn't know what to think. She was dead, what was it to me?

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As an adult, looking back, I know now that when she told me those words, late at night, in the dim light, with her spotty medicine-fogged mind, I might have looked like someone else. With all I know about her now, she had a hard life and she tried to do what she could to single-handedly raise 2 daughters on a very small income. She was deaf herself and had to deal with an over-bearing mother who mooched on her and put her down and wrote to potential employers not to hire her daughter, which made it harder for her to find work. Days back then were not easy for rural women, especially widowed, rural, deaf women with 2 young deaf children. I forgive her for those words now.

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Her last years were not easy ones, with open heart surgeries and medications that left her ill and stole her mind and robbed her of her memories. I think if she had heart surgery now, her recovery would have been better, but 20 years ago, things were not as advanced as they are now. But it was not her health that did her in, she took her own life. A decision that has devastated my Mom and I think, still has her searching for answers. As someone looking in from the outside, I believe I know why she did it, but nothing I can say would soothe or ease her pain.

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So, my Grandmother's tiger lilies live on. And I hope they know they have nothing to be ashamed of.

Hungry?

Garden spiders are welcome here. As long as they stay outdoors and don't try to venture in the house!*

Not sure what kind of bug it's eating, but it's one less bug in the garden!

I love how I can see the details of it's face! Green "teeth"!

Would you believe the camera I used is a point and click?

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*Funny story-- When we lived at the old house, there were these huge wolf spiders in the house. They freaked me out. I hated that they grew so big and were jumpers and it didn't help that they were mostly in the scary basement that gave me the chills to go down at night. Our basement was the kind of place where when you were at the bottom step, you ran as fast as you could to the top before something grabbed your ankles and pulled you down. Seriously, the basement was scary. When the light got turned off while I was still down there, I'd scream. Anyway, at night when Andrew was at work, I'd go down to do laundry and a wolf spider would be down there at the bottom of the steps, I don't like to kill spiders, especially freaky large ones that make a popping feel when you smoosh them, I might not be able to hear the squish but I can feel it-- *shiver*! So I'd grab whatever was handy, a cup, a jar, a vase and catch it inside. Then when Andrew came home from work, he had to go around and dispose of all the spiders inside the overturned cups. I'd catch camel crickets too and those are just gross. There were a few times when there was nothing under there, and I'd imagine the spider lifting the jar to make his escape.

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Living here at this house, the basement isn't scary at all. It's unfinished, and spiders everywhere, but I'm cool with it. The old house always felt like there was someone watching you and I never liked being alone at night there. Might even have been haunted, there were plenty of unexplained happenings at the old house: lights coming on, stove turning on, noises, smells in the house. Andrew even woke up one night with a heavy weight on his chest and he couldn't get up no matter how hard he tried. After a few minutes, he was able to get up. Scary! The house was built on land where the Civil War was fought, and on the property next to us was a falling-down house and a cemetery that was supposed to be for the slaves. The lovely old house in back of us was taken over and used as a military hospital for both sides. Might explain the weird happenings at our house. Beautiful area, but creepy just the same. Can't tell you how many times the hair on the back of my neck stood up when we lived there.

--
I don't miss the old house one bit! The spiders there can keep it!

Wake Up Call

Have any of you seen the movie, "He's Just Not That Into You"? I watched it last night and there is an eye-opening scene in there that has gotten me thinking and realizing that I was doing the same thing.

In the opening scene, there is a little girl playing in the sandbox and a little boy walks over to her and pushes her down and calls her names. She starts crying to her mother and the mother tells her that he did that because he likes her. The voice-over says that we are programmed from when we are little girls, that if a boy treats us like jerks, he likes us. So we put up with a lot of crap from boys because we -think- he likes us.

OMG!

I remember in high school, trying to navigate that slippery path of girl likes boy/ boy likes girl stuff and one boy that I really liked used to hurt me. It was popular to try to smack the top of every one's butt with the tip of your fingers, I don't know what it was called, but we'd use the back and tip of your fingers to cause a sting where it landed. It wasn't a butt grabbing thing, but just something we did for fun. I did it and it was done to me, and it would end up in a chase where we'd try to get the person back. Anyway, the one guy I liked, he would do that smacking thing to my breasts. Ow!! I'd chase him a little ways, but damn, that hurt when he did that. But you know what? Instead of telling myself to stay away from him, I continued to like him. How twisted is that?!

Except for that one time, I didn't normally take any crap from boys, but I am guilty of soothing a little girl and telling her that he punched her in the arm because he liked her. Someone told me that when I was a little girl and I am continuing the cycle. No more! I have not yet said that to my own girls, and now I never will.

Andrew and I talk all the time about how we want to raise strong kids and teach them not to take any crap or let anyone walk all over them. We would like them to have self-defense or karate classes. We try to teach them that if someone really loved them, they would never hurt them. I hope that when they are old enough to enter into romances and relationships, that they choose kind-hearted partners and don't fall for the pretty-on-the-outside-jerky-on-on-the-inside kind of people.

There's also a scene in the movie where a girl discovers the guy is married, and her friend tells her that she could still have a chance with him. Like he was married but not to the love of his life, and that -she- could be the love of his life, which was all the encouragement she needed to call him up. Now granted, if the guy was really happy in his marriage, he wouldn't have cheated, but if she wasn't calling him, the temptation wouldn't have been there either. Goes both ways.

My husband and I were both ready to get married when we met. I was tired of looking and getting disappointed with the boys I was dating; Andrew was ready to settle down and spend his life with someone that would love him as much as he loved her. So when we met, we had both already lived our single lives and were ready to go to that next step: marriage. We were friends first, then we dated briefly before we were engaged. We had a long engagement and lived together before we got married. Then we waited a few years before having children, so we felt like we had our "couple time". There was no wishing we could do this or that, no looking back with regrets or wanting to hit the bars and relive our single days. I think we did everything right for us. Might not work for other people, but it was the right way to do things for us.

I can only hope that our kids will have a marriage like ours. I wish for them to find someone that loves them with all their heart, to find that special someone who only wants to make them happy and vice versa. I hope that by example, they'll see how Andrew and I are with each other, that they can look for someone with similar qualities. Andrew is the best person I could have ever picked-- he truly loves me and I feel it, see it, know it. I love him just as much and if there are any arguments between us, it's who loves the other more!

If you haven't seen it, go watch "He's Just Not That Into You". I'm thinking I can watch it one or two more times to see if there are other pearls of wisdom I might have missed.

Grounded!

Remember these bottles?

I had a few more of these old glass bottles in the pole barn, waiting to be washed out

and used for more peach wine. I had maybe 5 or 6 more, along with some old brown clorox glass bottles and some other vintage glass jars.

They were in a milk crate and I was thinking about them last week;

thinking it was time to go and get them to wash out and get ready to separate out the peach wine into smaller bottles.

-

My girls did this:

..smashed every single glass bottle and jar I had in there.
Ooooh! I was so mad!

This is where I suspect being able to hear would have come in handy::

I would have heard them dropping a heavy brick onto glass and hear it shattering.

They were grounded for 3 days and they are not allowed in the pole barn until I say so.

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It's all Karma come back to bite me in the butt.

When I was about 6, my mom had some canning jars in the basement and I wanted to poke a few holes in the lid of one to catch fireflies in. I didn't think to take the lid off the jar first, so every time I brought the hammer down on the nail, the jar shattered. I think I went through 8 or 9 jars before my mom caught me. She was so mad! At the time, I didn't understand why she was so mad, they were just jars. Now, 30 years later, I understand:: they were canning jars; they were blue canning jars; they were my Grandma's blue canning jars. Oops.

Grounding the kids is harder on me than the kids, I suspect. I was tempted several times to shoo them outside when they started driving me up the wall. When I threatened to send them to their individual rooms for the rest of the day, that settled them down for a bit. Maybe next time I ground them (hopefully there won't be a next time!), I'll make sure Andrew is home to help me play referee!

Just Socks

They're just socks... but they are socks that have been with me ever since Evelyn was a baby. These socks have been in my laundry baskets for the past 7 1/2 years, passing on to Gretchen, Sylvia and now Peter. They are a constant among clothing that has come and gone. They keep my babies' toes warm.

After 7 1/2 years, they are finally showing some wear. Normally I don't repair socks, they get tossed into the rag pile, but I cannot let these socks pass on so easily. Letting them go means my babies have gone and grown up. Even after they are grown, I suspect I'll keep these socks in my own sock drawer, to remember when they once had little feet that I kissed and tickled and played "This little piggy..." on their toes.

I don't put shoes on my babies, so these socks are all I have to remember their little baby feet. Peter has just about outgrown them, maybe another couple of months or so if he keeps growing as fast as he is. Just in time for warmer, bare feet weather around here. He went from under average to over average and grew 6 inches in the last 6 months!

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They're just socks, but they hold more than just feet.

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Meltdown

We had a warm day the other day, almost like a preview of Spring. It has melted all the remaining snow we had and flooded all the streams and creeks which has turned them into raging rivers. We had to go out to the post office yesterday and the road follows a small river nearly the whole 8 miles there. If I could, I would have parked on the side of the road and just watched. I love when the rivers get swollen and water rushes over rocks and tree trunks and then when it recedes, I love to see where the water had been, to see the grass folded down and the soil eroded in new locations.

I used to dream of having a house near a creek, to be able to walk barefooted in the cool waters, feeling the rocks beneath my toes. It seems like when I was a kid, I was always drawn to the creeks and spent hours there, sometimes reading a book on a fallen log across the water, sometimes walking the creek beds searching for tadpoles, sometimes imagining myself as a pirate searching for treasure.

Our home now is nowhere near a creek, but when there is heavy rain, the water flows from somewhere inside the mountain we live on and pops out in a spring on the other side of our property. We walk the kids over there and watch and try to figure out where the water comes from. It streams down, making it's way under the secondary driveway all the way over to the main drive and finally down to the street. When conditions are right, meaning when I am in a permissive mood and it's not too cold, the kids are allowed to run and slip and slide in the rushing stream by the main drive. It's all grass there and they can get themselves soaked and laugh and play until they are tired and pooped.

I had a rough day today. I had my own meltdown and I snapped at the kids for little things. I had a headache above my right eye and every scream from the kids made it throb. Peter wouldn't nap today, so there was no 4-hour "break" from constantly keeping an eye on Peter and getting him out of the dog food, the litterbox, the markers, the box of papers in the office, the newspaper, the dog food again... I had to make meals with him underfoot and he likes to get between me and the counter and push me away to get my attention onto him. If I ignore him, he takes a chomp out of my inner thigh- yow!

The girls were constantly bickering over the play kitchen and I was almost sorry I made it for them. Sylvia comes crying because Gretchen snatched away a pot; Gretchen comes crying because Evelyn called her a name; Evelyn comes crying because Gretchen is singing too loud; Gretchen comes crying because Evelyn told her to "shut up"; Sylvia comes crying because Evelyn and Gretchen won't play with her; and on and on it goes. It's days like these that make me wish I put them into public school.

I got snippy with Andrew for getting snippy with the kids which made him snippy with me and that makes me get snippier. I even started feeling jealous of the dog with all the attention he was giving her and not to me!! ugh! I think it's safe to say we need to get out of the house and do something different for a day, to recharge our batteries and change our environment. Too much of being home all the time without a change of scenery. Maybe we'll try to go somewhere in a couple of days, I'll pack a lunch and we can take a drive with the kids.

Tomorrow is a new day.
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Spotted...

I've never seen this before-- antlers for your car. I wasn't too impressed, and as a matter of fact, the first thought that popped into my head was: oh, more crap for people to buy.

Then Youngest spotted it and said: "Look! A deer-car!!!"

Which then prompted a whole conversation with Daddy about who was driving the car (an old man and an old lady as a passenger), where they were going, why they had a deer-car and so on.

So now I think it's cute.

hmph.

A deer-car. :o)
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Finding Myself

Every kid goes through that period where they are searching for who they are-- their style, their signature, that thing that tells the world they are who they are. At 13, when I went into high school, I wasn't too sure of who I was, except that I was a deaf girl about to enter a school for the deaf, and for the first time, I would be equal to my peers. I hoped that I would no longer have to endure taunts from hearing classmates or be picked on for my K-mart clothes or be teased for not saying a word correctly.
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This, was how 14 year olds dressed back in 1988.
Please note that the jeans and the jean jacket are K-mart issue.

How are today's 14 year old girls so gorgeous??? None of the girls I knew back then look like the girls do today!

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The buttons on my jacket ranged from:

"SSDD- Same Shit, Different Day"

"I'm not Deaf, I'm ignoring you!" (ha-ha!)

A picture of Spuds McKenzie

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I remember how I felt most of the time that year.. like I was a fat kid with braces. I had an aunt and uncle that always told me that if I wore make-up I'd be so pretty and to dress better, which only made me more painfully aware of myself and I figured I must not be very pretty for them to say that to me. I remember pulling my already big shirt out to be sure that you couldn't see my tummy when I sat down and my long bangs would obscure half of my face.

I did manage to get my first kiss at 14. Some of us girls and boys would go behind the dorms and have make-out sessions. I don't know about anyone else, but I never went beyond kissing.

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This is me at 15, the summer between sophomore and junior years. We were dressed up for a Sadie Hawkins party and this was my version of country bumpkin. It was fun that day, but then I was caught in that anxiety of trying to "catch" a guy and hoping he would have fun with me and not be all depressed that it was me that got him. I never did figure out if he was cool with me-- after our "marriage" we went our separate ways.
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At just-turned-17, I was still searching for my style. I was wearing a shirt from a guy I liked. It was Homecoming weekend at the university and he was a freshman and I was a high school senior. I stayed overnight in his room. Nothing happened- I slept on the floor, but the next day, I needed a shirt, so I swiped his. I wore that shirt out. How many times have I thought I was the coolest chick wearing a boys' shirt??? I figured out here that I liked silver jewelry, so I had the big hoops and silver rings and necklaces. I was all about the silver!
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I went stag to my senior prom. No one asked me. I wanted to go, it was on a cruise ship, so me and 2 other girls decided we'd go together and have fun anyway. I was starting to discover my style-- hippie chick. This was my prom outfit. I felt so daring, wearing a see-thru blouse, belly showing, mini-skort. I went to Georgetown to buy this outfit at all the hip shops. I had on dangle-y daisy earrings, a peace necklace, my hair parted down the middle... I felt like I was in my element. I was also kind of nervous, what would people think? How would they react?

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Looking at this picture of me, about to head onto the boat, I looked so sexy! Look at those legs! I wish I had more confidence in myself back then. I wish I knew how beautiful I was, instead of worrying about what other people thought of me. I wish that when I worked up the courage to ask a guy out, only to get told that he just wanted to be friends, that I said to him, "your loss", instead of feeling crushed and that girl inside of me just wanted to wither away and disappear.

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No one danced with me that night. I spent a lot of time topside, smoking my cigarettes (yes, I smoked then) and watched the sun go down over Potomac River. I took pictures for other people, posed for a few, but I didn't dance a single dance.

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After graduation, my sister and I participated in a 'Bike Across Virginia' ride. My sister was an avid biker, and I wanted to be like her. I wanted to be athletic like she was, so I tried out for the basketball and volleyball teams because she played, but I never made the teams. I could ride a bike though, so we signed up and spent 5 days riding the Shenandoah Valley with hundreds of other riders. It was a great trip, I learned I didn't have the stamina my sister had, but we had so much fun together.
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I didn't know what I wanted to do after high school. I found my style, but now what was I going to do??
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--to be continued
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Hell Froze Over

I finally gave in and joined that crazy thing called facebook. I had gotten plenty of invites from people to join in and I told myself that I never would. Well, I got curious... and signed up last week. Good grief! In the span of 48 hours, I went from having 2 friends to over 50 friends! I had no idea I was so popular! I realize though, that there are people who add friends just to boost their numbers.





Anyway, I picked this for my profile picture... I think it says enough about me. From the looks of the picture, I must live somewhere with lots of trees, I'm holding a chicken, so maybe I live on a farm, and there is some sort of building behind me, what's that? And oh, look-- trash! I must be white trash! :o) Maybe I need to change the picture? Hmm..





I am keeping my facebook and my blog separate. I know that there are some old classmates that read this here blog (Hi!), but it doesn't mean I want the whole school to read it! I think I would start to second-guess myself and censor things if I knew everyone was reading this, and I don't want to do that. This blog is for ME, it's my way to give my kids a connection to me when they are older and I get this printed out in book form.





Back to facebook. It's been interesting. It's like a class reunion without having to fly anywhere and dealing with the BS of having to repeat over and over what I am doing with myself these days. I like seeing how people have changed, or stayed the same, who married whom, and how many kids they have, if any. I don't think I've changed much since high school... see?




I was 17 in my senior picture, taken in '91. I wore glasses then, but chose not to wear them for the picture. I was trying to copy my Mom's senior picture, where she did not smile, but I thought it was the most beautiful picture ever, of her. And yes, that is a little rat tail you see peeking out on the side there. What can I say? It was the style at the time. The back of my head was shaved, too, so that when I had a ponytail, you could see short hair back there, and that's when I discovered I have the same cowlick that my dad does, on the back of my head.




There are some schoolmates that look so different, that when they have tagged me to be their friend on facebook, I've had to study their pictures to try and place them-- especially when they have changed their names. I can usually remember faces and then match names with them, but some of those faces have changed so much!




That sweet, skinny, scrawny little guy, whom you once told, "I'm not interested in you that way, I just want to be friends", is now big and buff and handsome! That cute, popular guy that all the girls swooned over, is now fat and balding. That geeky girl that never had a boyfriend is now too gorgeous for words, with a cute husband and cuter children. It all sounds so cliche, but it's true! I see it with my own eyes, how we have all changed and I hope that people will look at me now, remember me the way I was, and say: She looks the same. She was nice to me then.

New Old Bed

We moved a lot when I was a kid. Started out in Illinois, then to an RV in Louisiana, a condo and several apartments in Virginia, a house in Maryland, up until I went out on my own.

Living in a RV meant there was no need for furniture, so most of our furnishings were sold or given to my Grandmother to hold for us. 25 years ago, when we gave up the RV and moved to Virginia, my uncle sold us some of his furniture and we picked up pieces here and there. My mom liked to hunt for treasure in the trash and in the dumpsters, and living in apartments was a treasure trove of stuff. Mom found this old bed for me from one of her jaunts. It was painted this awful pale green color but I lived with it, then I moved out and went my own way and Mom kept the bed for herself after my parents separated. She painted it white and it looked so much better than that green that was on there.

Now that Mom's home is officially sold and her things are here, she has given the bed back to me to give to one of my girls. After much thought, I gave the bed to Middle. It seems to fit her the best, though there was much protest from her sisters.

The bed looks great in their room, the white pops against the pink walls and it truly seems like a princess bed as the girls like to call it. It could use a fresh coat of paint, but for now, it's perfect the way it is.

I remember when I slept on it, I would poke the paint out of the tiny holes in the headboard with a toothpick. I never finished and then after Mom painted it white, some of the holes are blocked up again. I told Middle she could finish what I started and she seemed like she would, but only time will tell.

Middle is happy to sleep in her "new" bed and I am happy to see it passed on. To whomever threw it away: You don't know what kind of happiness you tossed, but I'm glad to have it now!

Memory Lane Mondays

I write this blog as a way for me to keep track of my family and our lives, and it's another way for my children to know me when they get older. I am always asking my mom about stuff from when she was a kid and I see that sometimes she just doesn't remember anymore about certain events. Other people in the family choose not to talk about the past or simply made a choice not to remember.

In that light, I've decided I am going to write a feature every Monday about myself, so my kids will know why I've done something or a tale from my childhood. Welcome to 'Memory Lane Mondays'.


Oldest recently asked me about my tattoo-- why I got it and why I have that particular image. Here's my tale:

All during high school, me and a group of girls always talked about getting a tattoo. No reason why, I don't know if they thought it was cool or not, but I liked the idea of getting something permanent. I knew, though, that I had to make sure it was something I was prepared to live with for the rest of my life, because when I was old and wrinkled and perhaps a grandmother, I didn't want to have to explain why Granny has a skull on her boob.

I'd always been fascinated with the Hippies of the 60's and I started to experiment with my style. In my senior yearbook, the nickname I have in there is "Hippie". I graduated in '91 and I didn't know what to do with myself. If I read my journals from that year, there are a lot of entries stating just that: "I don't know what I'm going to do with my life!" The summer was taken care of though, and I worked with my high schools' Road Show and traveled to Argentina and local venues for performances.

I found my style and dressed in vintage Levi's, white tees and flowered vests, or short baby doll dresses with black tights. My version of hippie style. I wore peace sign necklaces and my hair parted in the middle (when it wasn't in a pony tail or a messy bun) and fell in love with my first pair of brown Birkenstock sandals. I wanted to live in Old Town Alexandria and dreamed of eating in sidewalk cafes and a carefree lifestyle.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the money for an apartment in Old Town and I certainly didn't have a carefree lifestyle. For a year, Mom was patient with me, giving me space to figure out what I wanted out of life, but my sister on the other hand, I think was getting tired of seeing me without a plan and forced/helped me to fill out an application to RIT/NTID in Rochester NY.

I was accepted into school and in August I packed up my stuff and rode with my best friend to our new destination-- SVP '92. I was 18 and I was determined get a tattoo to commemorate that milestone of my life-- 18.

I originally planned to get a tattoo of a hippie that I drew.. long lines that made up a side view of a hippie with bellbottoms. When a friend and I walked into the tattoo shop (above a bar, no less) and I saw all the pictures of different designs on the walls, my little drawing felt inadequate and I crumpled it up and looked around. I zeroed in on the peace sign made up of daises and I knew that was it. I'd always signed my name with a daisy, a happy face, a peace sign and a heart underneath my name, so a peace sign made with daisies? Fate. It was meant to be.

In 20 minutes, my hands gripping the arms of the chair and biting my lips through the pain, it was done. I did it. I got my tattoo.

OhmygodhowamIgoingtotellmyparents??? It was easy when I was 500 miles away from my parents and they couldn't see my tattoo, but sooner or later, they were going to find out. Mom was easy, I could always tell her everything, but my Dad? Oh dear.

One Friday night in the dorms, my best friend and I didn't feel like going to the usual parties or bars, so we stayed in. She found a roll of B&W film and I had a camera. We had a lightbulb moment and turned our rooms upside down into a photo studio. We had a great time and used the whole roll, taking pictures of each other, pretending to be models and photographers. Some of those pictures came out really great and I used one of those pictures to tell my dad about my new tattoo.

When Dad saw this picture, it took a moment for it to register, then he tapped my leg and I showed him. He wasn't too happy about it, but it's done and there was nothing he could do. I remember he asked me if I realized that I'm stuck with it for the rest of my life, and I said I knew.

Nearly 15 years later, I still love my tattoo.. I still love what peace stands for, I still wear my silver peace sign necklace, and I still love daisies. No regrets. And to the best of my knowledge, I'm the only one of those high school girls that got a tattoo.

Flower Power

Youngest is a flower crazed little girl. She picks every single flower she can get her hands on and I have given up on trying to discourage her from picking flowers. She gets immense pleasure from finding them and giving them to me, and if she didn't pick them, they'd never get enjoyed as much as they are now.

When we go out, she points out all the flowers she can see-- the redbuds, the pastures flooded with yellow flowers, purple, white and pink phlox, the azaleas and dogwoods. Spring time here is so colorful and beautiful.

Look how happy she is! Today, it's dandelions. I like dandelions and I remember picking my fair share and giving them to my mom when I was little, too. Then I'd make the mistake of licking my hands and getting that yucky taste from the milky-white sap all over my hands from the dandelions. Do you remember doing that?


They look pretty in a glass even if they don't last long. I like the way they smell, too.


She picked every single buttercup I had. I have no more left and it looks like I won't be getting anymore, either. Previous owners planted these way in the back of our garden area so they would never be seen if Youngest didn't pick them. Buttercups always make me think of the old Willy Wonka movie when Gene Wilder drinks from then eats a buttercup flower.

The red tulips are another story. I took the girls yard sale-ing with me on Saturday and at one of the homes we stopped at, they had bunches of flowers all over. Youngest wanted to pick and I had to tell her repeatedly that we don't pick other people's flowers. Well, the nice owner overheard me and said she could pick a flower and helped each of my girls to pick one flower each. I appreciated that because Youngest was heading toward a meltdown when I told her she couldn't pick any.

We have lilacs outside our bedroom window and they just smell heavenly. Youngest is begging me to help her cut some more blooms off, but I can't bring myself to cut any more. They smell so strongly, I can smell the ones in the dining room all the way down the hall towards the bedrooms. I can only imagine how a few more would over power the house.

My lilies are coming up, but they won't bloom until June, if they can survive all the trampling from the girls. Their days are numbered when they do start to flower because I can only imagine how happy Youngest will be to pick them and bring them to me.

What Goes Around...

I'm a big believer in what goes around, comes around. Or in other words, karma.

Like, treat people nicely and they'll treat you nicely.

Or, be a jerk and people will be jerky towards you.

Anyway, when I was driving the 2 hours it takes to get to my mom's place, my mind wandered and then put together the perfect example of karma for me. It really made me think and has made me that much more of a believer in treating people how you would want to be treated.

When I was a kid, 13 or so, my sister and I were riding in the car while my mom was driving. There was a car ahead of us with it's trunk door open, a big empty box in the back of it, the flaps flapping in the wind. We were behind this car for quite a while and I was getting irritated with the flapping flaps. I must have been in an irritable mood because I can't, for the life of me, figure out why it would have bothered me so. I clearly remember signing to my sister that I was getting sick of the flapping flaps. But I digress. After a bit, my mom moved into the next lane and we were even with the car and it's flapping box. I waved at the lady driving it and when I got her attention, I pointed at her trunk and told her that her box fell out. She looked all panicked, then quickly turned off into a parking lot. I ducked, giggling and my sister and I laughed about it, never once feeling bad for fooling the lady and wasting her time.

Fast forward some years, and I am married. My husband and I have just bought our first house together and we are in the process of moving from our apartment to the new house. It's approximately an hours drive and we are using both his truck and my jeep to move our things, trip by trip, saving money by not renting a truck or hiring movers. On one of our trips, I have a lovely maple dining table strapped to the roof of my jeep. The legs were unscrewed and safely tucked inside the jeep, filled with boxes and other bits and the table is roped and bungee corded down on top. It belonged to his parents and they gave it to us along with matching chairs.

As we are driving towards our new home, my husband ahead of me and I'm following him, I look in my rear view window and see something flying in the air behind me, the car behind me swerving wildly, barely missing the object as it crashes on the road. I realize, in horror, it's the table! I slam on the brakes and quickly pull to the shoulder, setting the hazard lights and putting the jeep in park. I get out and run to where the table is. Thank goodness traffic was light, people were either at work or at home and the flying table didn't hit anyone. I picked up the table and shoved it inside the jeep, wishing I had put it inside in the first place, seeing as how it fit with no problem.

The lovely maple table now had an ugly crack right in the middle of it. I felt so ashamed to have broken my husband's childhood table-- the same one he grew up eating on and doing homework on! My husband wasn't mad, he is great like that, he doesn't get mad over material things, like the time I accidentally got bleach all over his favorite dark blue shirt, but that's another story. Anyway, we put the table in the basement and there it sat for the next 5 or 6 years. We finally sold it and the chairs in a yard sale to a couple that repaired furniture.

Do you see the karma at work here? I tricked someone into thinking that their box fell out of their car, and in return, something of mine really did fall out (fly out!) of my car. It might have taken over 10 years to come around, but it did and it happened 10 times worse. Isn't that a saying, too? Whatever happens comes back tenfold? Or something like that.

Moral of the story? Be nice. Don't fool people like that. It'll come back and bite you in the butt. Hard.

"Tell Me More..."

I am so tickled that my girls love watching 'Grease'! It's one of my favorite movies and it makes my husband laugh when I mimic Sandy at the end of the movie, when she says, "Tell me about it, stud." then drops her cigarette, stomps it out then uses her foot to push Danny over.

My girls like to dance to "Summer Nights" and while I was cooking dinner, they were dancing all over the kitchen while singing the lines to the song.

When I was in high school, I was really into drama of the theatrical kind. I danced in the Fall & Spring Dance Concerts, performed in the Spring Plays and participated in a traveling Road Show and performed all over the DC area and beyond.

Here, I am dressed in an African dance outfit and me and 2 other girls performed a traditional African tribal dance. We were taught by a wonderful woman and she was part of her own performing group and her husband played the music, thumping drum beats that you couldn't help but dance to. We also performed the dance at area colleges. My friend was dressed as a flapper and she had her own dance to do in the Fall Dance Concert.

For the Spring Play, we filmed a silent movie to play within the play. It was fun to dress as a maid and have real life movie people come and film us and we had to do multiple takes over and over. If I remember right, it took all day to make and the actual film was maybe 5 minutes long. I do remember it being cold and we hopped around to keep warm when we were waiting for our turn to act.

I also did a jazz dance in the same Fall Dance Concert as the African dance. We performed to the Elton John song, "Benny and the Jets". It was the first time I had ever heard of that song and I fell in love with it. I had to do several costume changes for this dance and at the end, I morphed into a crazed fan and ran through the audience trying to leap onto the stage.

I have fond memories of my days in the theater and I had the opportunity to meet lots of people, even famous ones. I miss it sometimes, when I hear a certain song that I performed to once. My traveling road show took me to South America and to many places along the east coast; it gave me a chance to get out of school for shows and to break curfew for late night rehearsals. It opened me up in more ways than one, and I really believe I would not be who I am today if it wasn't for my performances in the theater.

We performed "Summer Nights" in our road show. We did little skits, danced and signed songs and there was a bit of a 50s section in our show where we dressed in the poodle skirts and saddle shoes with pony tails and the guys were in white muscle tees with slicked back hair. We also did "My Boyfriend's Back" and "The Wanderer".

Ahh... good times. I think I surprised my girls when they discovered I knew the words to Summer Nights. They know I'm deaf and mama doesn't hear the music that comes on the radio-- but that's only partly true. If it's loud enough, I can hear the music, but unless it's something I know, I can't tell you who it is. My internal radio is permanently stuck in the 80s.

Beginnings

I find myself gravitating toward things that I grew up with, having a preference for stuff that my Mom or Dad had. I don't know if it is a comfort thing, but I certainly do enjoy using these old items, and when I find them, I practically squeal with delight!

Mom had a set of melamine splatterware mixing bowls. I clearly remember breaking one and not really understanding why she got so upset. I knew she had 2 more, so what was the big deal? As an adult, I look back on that day and wince, shaking my head at my own naivete. I know now that certain items have sentimental value to them, and that particular set of mixing bowls was given to my mom by her own mother and at the time I broke it, their relationship was strained, to say the least.

I have, over the years, found my own set of melamine splatterware bowls, though they don't match, and I use these every time I bake. Cookies, cake, bread... it's my favorite set of bowls and as much as I love my Pyrex bowls, the melamine bowls are the first ones I reach for. I would be devasted if one of my kids broke one, but there is no sentimental value attached to them, I just like using them.

I found this green sewing basket at the flea market last week. I gasped when I saw it. My mom had one just like it, only hers was pink and round. After a quick price check (oh please please please), I was delighted to see I could afford it! I snapped it up and if I had found nothing else that day, that would have been just fine with me.

I remember going through my mom's sewing basket when I was a kid. She still has it, I think, but I haven't seen it in so long-- 20 years at least. I would finger the loose buttons on the bottom and admire the pretty spools of thread, carefully open the cardboard packet of sharp needles and stare in awe at the row of pointy, shiny tips. I loved her tomato pin cushion with the strawberry and I'd take the pins out and make designs with them all around the tomato.

This must have been around the time I started to fall in love with sewing. My sister was the crafty one, teaching herself to crochet and do counted cross stitch, but I was the sewing one. When I was 16, my mom gave me her old sewing machine (above). Her mom gave it to her when she was 16. It's a beautiful machine, heavy, gray and pink. I loved it. Still do, but it is not working now, and I've had to replace it with a newer one. The new one doesn't compare, though, and after a few years, it is already in need of repair. I'd like to fix my old one and use it again. It has a musty smell that I've never been able to get rid of, and every time I open the case, the smell takes me back to when I was 16. It also has that old electrical smell and as weird as it sounds, I love that smell.

I found this old one at the dump a few years ago and it is made by the same company as my lovely pink and gray one. I thought I might be able to use it for parts, though it is an older model. I need to find a sewing machine repair man that would be familiar with an older machine. Might get lucky in these parts, living here, where people hold on to things past.

My mom asked me once why I liked old things, and thinking about it now, it's because I grew up with them. They are intwined with my memories, and when I see it, feel it, touch it, smell it, it takes me back again.

Big Blue Bridge

The county we live in has slowly been replacing many of the small bridges on all the country roads around here. One by one, the old bridges get demolished, first one lane, then the other. The roads are so rural that they don't even have someone to stand and hold up the east-bound traffic so the west-bound traffic can go past. We just look to be sure no one is coming, then cross into the opposite lane and go over the bridge.

The replacement bridges are sturdier but have no character. I suppose, though, with all the broken down bridges that are falling all over the place, I should be happy that the old bridges are being replaced.

Then I read recently that they were going to replace the big, blue bridge right outside of town. I love that bridge! I knew I would have to take a picture of it before it was gone. It is one of those old steel girder type bridges before concrete and steel rods took over. It was hard finding a spot to take pictures, since there is no shoulder to pull over and there is a steady stream of traffic coming and going, so I can't stand in the middle of the road, either.

Here, a view of the bridge from underneath. We discovered that it is allowed for people to come here and fish or take a boat on the water. We'll be back later!

This is the closest I could get of the bridge without getting run over by a speeding truck.

The girls had a great time under the bridge. It was fun throwing rocks into the water. Lots of flat rocks-- perfect for skipping stones across the water!

I know with the passage of time, things break down or get worn with use and almost nothing stays the same. That's why pictures are nice. They remind us of the way things were and how we cannot go back to the old days.