Does anyone out in my reader's world do any crafting -like say, knitting or crochet?
If so, do you just love to look at, touch and feel, yarns and ok, let's be honest, drool over them? Or am I somewhat of a lone ranger with this fetish of mine?
Odds are though if you are into any kind of crafting you know exactly what kind of reaction I'm talking about here though, don't 'cha? Come on, be honest, you know you do all of the above and also, you know the temptation is there too regardless of how much "stuff" (Yarns, fabrics, kits) you already have on hand in your private little (or large) stash, you know it's difficult to look at these things and walk away without adding oh, just one more piece of material or a couple skeins of this yarn, or whatever the craft is that pulls at you unmercifully!
True confession time here now as I will 'fess up to what constitutes my own "stash."
I used to sew -a lot -lately, not so much but I still have my sewing machine and I have about 3 fairly large boxes filled with patterns I could use and I also have at least 3 large plastic tote containers too, each filled to the brim with fabric pieces I have collected over the years -some probably dating back as far as when my youngest was a toddler I suppose. Yes, I bought fabric like an insane person for many years with big ideas and plans of what I would make from this or that piece for myself, for one of my kids, for some other person or special occasion and of course, kind of like that proverbial child at the dinner table who's eyes are bigger than their stomach, I didn't get around to making a damned thing with the coveted fabric I just had to have!
The same applies too with yarns as I have at least 2 other large tote containers filled with yarns purchased with the same general plans for using that stuff as well. Until of course, I ran out of ideas, energy or time -which ever came first -and then the yarn sits and still waits for me to get a really bright idea, some energy or time -none of which seem to be forthcoming anymore most of the time.
For the past 3 years or better I have expanded my crafting medium over to now include embroidery and I have yet another large tote packed to overflowing with embroidery kits of all different types but mostly they are kits for tabletoppers or table cloths, although I sometimes do venture into doing tea towels or pillowcases and occasionally, even cute little trivets. There are a few kits of the counted cross stitch variety too but not very many of those as much as I love to look at counted cross stitch, it wearies me to do it and usually makes me feel like I am going crosseyed in the process too.
A while back -oh probably about 6 weeks ago now -I ventured into the crafts section over at the local Walmart and what did I see there but some new type yarn along with a display scarf made of this new yarn and that scarf was really intriguing me too!
This yarn is called Sashay and when one works with it -to make the scarf on display -it works up into a creation of ruffles upon ruffles -really pretty (my opinion there anyway) and very feminine. Hmmm. I eyed up the yarns available -the colors -and tried to imagine making one of these scarves, all the while, praying silently to "Please let me walk away without purchasing this stuff!"
On that occasion, my will power held out and I selected then a skein of some other yarn -called "Spirit" yarn, and I got it in two colors (in one skein) that had been part of my alma mater's (high school) colors -red and blue! It was only $3.99 a skein and the Sasay was $4.99 a skein so the base price plus the fact I hadn't a clue as to how to work with the Sashay stuff told me I could make more use out of the Spirit yarn. And I did that too. I made -crocheted -4 hats using that yarn -one was in red and blue and the other three, I added in some white yarn to make those three hats (little beanie type things) into a tri-color striped hat of red, white and blue -our school colors -and at our "night before" event over our class reunion weekend, we raffled off those four hats to some "lucky" classmates.
About a week later, I found myself back over at the good old Walmart and there I was, staring lovingly once again at the display of the Sashay yarns. This time the will power went right down the drain and I came home with a skein of the pink variety of this yarn,
I tried to figure out from the instructions on the package how to use this yarn, how to knit with it, but to no avail so off I went to the computer and looked for some videos on Youtube showing how to knit with this stuff. Finally, I found one and using that, figured out then how to knit a scarf with this yarn that I thought was just so darned pretty!
Six days later, I finally finished this scarf!
Keep in mind that was six days of working on this item for anywhere from 1 to 3 hours, off and on, daily and it still took me 6 DAYS to finish it! Sheesh! I can take a skein of the Furry boa yarn and in 4-6 hours, tops, whip out a scarf even longer than this ruffly thing is!
My final conclusion then -I've had my fill of the Sashay yarn and never again will I indulge in purchasing that stuff.
Enter here a fellow classmate -who now lives in Colorado and with whom I communicate fairly frequently. She -like me -is one who is a crafter with a stash like you probably wouldn't believe too! And she loves yarns too -just as I do. And she had the nerve to send me a message on Facebook making about my love of crafting and how it led her down the garden path and how she felt compelled to buy and try making something too with this Sashay yarn.
However, in her hands, the yarn apparently just fell into place nicely, easily for her -unlike with me where the needle kept slipping off and away from the yarn causing me to drop stitches, I couldn't find a comfortable way to hold the yarn to make the knitting a trifle more comfortable to my purposes and thus, make the work a little easier.
Where I had come to the conclusion that I would never again be tempted by this yarn, my friend had succumbed and was now the proud possessor of at least 4 skeins of good old Sashay and was merrily working her way through scarf after scarf of this yarn.
My theory there?
My friend has just proved to me that she is, by far and away, totally insane!
But insanity or not, she knows I understand completely how she got sucked in to loving the finished product!
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
I Told You It Was Good!
Supper -any meal here for that matter -often is a fight as Mandy and I both try to convince one or both of the kids to try something different, some food prepared a little differently from what the kids are accustomed to eating.
Once in a blue moon, those meals meet with a modicum of success -usually the success is with Kurtis but more often than not, anything new on the table is met with lots of disdain and refusals to even taste it by Miss Maya.
To say she is stubborn, especially where food is concerned, well that's more than a bit of an understatement I guess!
Tonight, was no different from the norm with respect to a new type item on the menu.
I had fixed chicken-flavored rice-a-roni -which both the kids usually will eat without too much prodding and had corn for our vegetable du jour, along with applesauce -all three of those things are generally acceptable to both kids.
For our main dish though, I had fixed chicken -making my own chicken tenders and browning them and that too is usually an okay substance.
Tonight though, I added a little something to go with the chicken from a recipe I found called Chicken ala orange or something like that. All it consisted of was the chicken tenders and a sauce made from a little bit of orange marmalade mixed with corn starch, a little orange juice from a can of mandarin oranges and then, add the mandarin oranges in till just heated through a bit and serve to be spooned over the chicken.
Well, Maya allowed us to put a couple tenders on her plate but the sauce -there was no way that was going to come near her lips! Kurtis, on the other hand, allowed me to dribble a tiny bit of sauce over his chicken -which his sister, Kate -who is visiting here for a couple days -had cut up for him.
The rest of the meal consisted of Kurtis eating all around the chicken and every 2-3 minutes or so, he would ask about the chicken and the sauce, asking if the sauce tastes like mandarin oranges, if it was made from mandarin oranges, if it looked like mandarin oranges -you name it, if he could think of a question to ask and include about the mandarin oranges in it, he did that!
All the while, he still was avoiding tasting the chicken. He asked each of us at the table if the chicken tasted like mandarin oranges -which it didn't unless you put the sauce on it, ya know -and also, he would ask if he liked that.
We each kept reinforcing his questions by telling him to just taste it and he would see what it tastes like and that he would find it to taste good too.
Finally, after what seemed almost an eternity, he did get around to taking a small bite of the chicken and getting it in his mouth.
Slowly -very, very, slowly -he began to chew the chicken and then, took forever to swallow it too then but once he managed to do that he put his fork down, looked directly at me and announced, "See, I TOLD you it was GOOD!"
Needless to say, his wording there completely cracked the rest of us up but he did go on to finish eating his chicken tenders complete with a little dabble of orange sauce on each little bite of the meat!
The things one has to deal with to get a little bit of a healthy meal into a 6-year-old-system, huh?
Once in a blue moon, those meals meet with a modicum of success -usually the success is with Kurtis but more often than not, anything new on the table is met with lots of disdain and refusals to even taste it by Miss Maya.
To say she is stubborn, especially where food is concerned, well that's more than a bit of an understatement I guess!
Tonight, was no different from the norm with respect to a new type item on the menu.
I had fixed chicken-flavored rice-a-roni -which both the kids usually will eat without too much prodding and had corn for our vegetable du jour, along with applesauce -all three of those things are generally acceptable to both kids.
For our main dish though, I had fixed chicken -making my own chicken tenders and browning them and that too is usually an okay substance.
Tonight though, I added a little something to go with the chicken from a recipe I found called Chicken ala orange or something like that. All it consisted of was the chicken tenders and a sauce made from a little bit of orange marmalade mixed with corn starch, a little orange juice from a can of mandarin oranges and then, add the mandarin oranges in till just heated through a bit and serve to be spooned over the chicken.
Well, Maya allowed us to put a couple tenders on her plate but the sauce -there was no way that was going to come near her lips! Kurtis, on the other hand, allowed me to dribble a tiny bit of sauce over his chicken -which his sister, Kate -who is visiting here for a couple days -had cut up for him.
The rest of the meal consisted of Kurtis eating all around the chicken and every 2-3 minutes or so, he would ask about the chicken and the sauce, asking if the sauce tastes like mandarin oranges, if it was made from mandarin oranges, if it looked like mandarin oranges -you name it, if he could think of a question to ask and include about the mandarin oranges in it, he did that!
All the while, he still was avoiding tasting the chicken. He asked each of us at the table if the chicken tasted like mandarin oranges -which it didn't unless you put the sauce on it, ya know -and also, he would ask if he liked that.
We each kept reinforcing his questions by telling him to just taste it and he would see what it tastes like and that he would find it to taste good too.
Finally, after what seemed almost an eternity, he did get around to taking a small bite of the chicken and getting it in his mouth.
Slowly -very, very, slowly -he began to chew the chicken and then, took forever to swallow it too then but once he managed to do that he put his fork down, looked directly at me and announced, "See, I TOLD you it was GOOD!"
Needless to say, his wording there completely cracked the rest of us up but he did go on to finish eating his chicken tenders complete with a little dabble of orange sauce on each little bite of the meat!
The things one has to deal with to get a little bit of a healthy meal into a 6-year-old-system, huh?
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
The Flight of Time....
Time flies, doesn't it -especially when one is having fun. Or so goes another old adage of which I tend to quote a lot of those from time to time.
Well, once again, time sort of got away from me -fly right by and didn't even wave a hello! How about that for some nerve, huh?
I really wish I could explain what I have been so busy doing that I forget to write posts to my blog, forget to make phone calls I should make, forget I have appointments on certain days and then, make another appointment virtually for the same day, same time and not realize it until the last minute.
And people wonder then why I say I must truly be getting senile because on the surface, it sure doesn't look like I have all that much to do but yet -somehow -I keep managing to fall further and further behind!
Take this past weekend for an example!
Mandy and the kids took off Friday afternoon and went down to Lebanon, PA to visit with her best friend there. On Saturday, she and the kids visited another old family friend -Amie -and her little boy, Payton plus they managed to squeeze in a tour of the Gettysburg Battlefield and a stop at Hershey, PA as well before returning home Sunday evening.
So, that meant I had the house all to myself -nothing to do for anyone except for me, and the ability to do whatever I wanted to do -be it baking or cooking, sewing, embroidery, crochet, knitting or reading -all of which are some of my favorite things to do and all of which I'm often complaining because I don't have enough time to do any of these things anymore -or so it seems.
So what did I do most of the day Saturday?
I SLEPT! Yes, talk about a wasted day, I sure blew that one away big time just by napping every time I turned around -or so it seemed.
Did I get anything accomplished?
Well, around 11 p.m. Saturday night, since I had nothing to show for my day, I did manage then to sweep and then mop the kitchen and dining rooms floors anyway!
And it was kind of nice in that the floors actually stayed clean then too for about 18 hours until -of course -the family returned home. And even then, they stayed pretty clean then too until late Monday afternoon when I noticed a couple of spots on the tile but got them "spot-cleaned" then so as of tonight, the floors still are looking a little bit on the decent side anyway!
Last night though, after supper, I sat down in my lovely old recliner and before I knew what was happening to me, boom -I was out like a light, just like almost always seems to happen to me lately. Tonight, a rerun of last night except that my nap Monday night only lasted about 15-20 minutes whereas tonight, I slept for about 2 hours! And to add insult to injury, I had even taken a nap this morning after the kids left for school too!
What is it about this sleep thing that I just can't seem to get enough of it?
Ya know, sometimes I really do think my need for sleep, more and more and still more sleep, is my body getting itself conditioned now -early preparations maybe -for a really big long sleep coming towards me as I watch the time just whiz past me now!
Well, once again, time sort of got away from me -fly right by and didn't even wave a hello! How about that for some nerve, huh?
I really wish I could explain what I have been so busy doing that I forget to write posts to my blog, forget to make phone calls I should make, forget I have appointments on certain days and then, make another appointment virtually for the same day, same time and not realize it until the last minute.
And people wonder then why I say I must truly be getting senile because on the surface, it sure doesn't look like I have all that much to do but yet -somehow -I keep managing to fall further and further behind!
Take this past weekend for an example!
Mandy and the kids took off Friday afternoon and went down to Lebanon, PA to visit with her best friend there. On Saturday, she and the kids visited another old family friend -Amie -and her little boy, Payton plus they managed to squeeze in a tour of the Gettysburg Battlefield and a stop at Hershey, PA as well before returning home Sunday evening.
So, that meant I had the house all to myself -nothing to do for anyone except for me, and the ability to do whatever I wanted to do -be it baking or cooking, sewing, embroidery, crochet, knitting or reading -all of which are some of my favorite things to do and all of which I'm often complaining because I don't have enough time to do any of these things anymore -or so it seems.
So what did I do most of the day Saturday?
I SLEPT! Yes, talk about a wasted day, I sure blew that one away big time just by napping every time I turned around -or so it seemed.
Did I get anything accomplished?
Well, around 11 p.m. Saturday night, since I had nothing to show for my day, I did manage then to sweep and then mop the kitchen and dining rooms floors anyway!
And it was kind of nice in that the floors actually stayed clean then too for about 18 hours until -of course -the family returned home. And even then, they stayed pretty clean then too until late Monday afternoon when I noticed a couple of spots on the tile but got them "spot-cleaned" then so as of tonight, the floors still are looking a little bit on the decent side anyway!
Last night though, after supper, I sat down in my lovely old recliner and before I knew what was happening to me, boom -I was out like a light, just like almost always seems to happen to me lately. Tonight, a rerun of last night except that my nap Monday night only lasted about 15-20 minutes whereas tonight, I slept for about 2 hours! And to add insult to injury, I had even taken a nap this morning after the kids left for school too!
What is it about this sleep thing that I just can't seem to get enough of it?
Ya know, sometimes I really do think my need for sleep, more and more and still more sleep, is my body getting itself conditioned now -early preparations maybe -for a really big long sleep coming towards me as I watch the time just whiz past me now!
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Famly Photo Fun!
This past weekend, from Saturday evening thru Sunday evening, the older grandson was here with us. Always nice to have him be able to come up and spend a night with us now and again -not near frequently enough but at his age, he's also involved in a lot of other activities so we're just happy to get him here for a night and most of the next day then ya know.
Often though when he does come up here, it's because Aunt Mandy has made arrangements with him to help her do some things around the house that would be more than a bit difficult for her to manage to do alone.
And this Sunday -her game plan, with Alex to help her -start working on cleaning out the basement!
Now, in my opinion, the only job worse than this one here would be cleaning out the attic! Oh wait -we did that back in June in advance of the workmen from the Community Action program arriving here to put all kinds of insulation in the house from the attic right on down to the basement! And, a lot of the things that were taken out of the attic and which we still wanted to keep around for oh, another generation to worry about whether they were good or important or not, ya know are still tucked away in the bathroom, the hall closet out off the sunporch, in a corner of the dining room and oh yeah, in the basement too. They can't go back up into the attic until we get a couple sheets of plywood I guess to put down over the rafters there so any stuff we put back in the attic then isn't going to be sitting, resting, directly on the insulation!
So, the end result of Sunday's work then was a nice big bonfire Mandy and Alex did manage to have in the lower part of the back yard.
Last night though, Mandy showed me a couple of things she came across in the basement that she saved from destruction -thankfully!
One was this little tiny book containing a different fortune for every day of the year, that had been published in 1938, and given to my Mom's older sister apparently as a little birthday gift from a friend of my Aunt's in 1939! That was neat to look up different people in our family's birthdate and read what whoever had put the book together felt was a reasonable fortune for anyone born on such and such a date. And my Aunt had penned in by many of the days in that book, the birthdays of this or that family member. Brought back a lot of memories then reading the names of family members, remembering then oh yes, this was Uncle Oscar's birthday, cousin Karen's, my Mom (okay -I remember when her birthday is without that reminder, I'm not quite THAT far gone on the senility trail -not just yet, anyway.
Along with coming across that little book, Mandy also stumbled upon a fairly good-sized box too filled with -of all things -old photographs too!
Now that was a nice discovery she made there in my mind! There weren't tons of pictures dating back to the early 1900's of ancestors who were unidentifiable to me, thankfully. But there were a goodly number that seemed to start in the late 30s and worked their way up to about 10 years ago!
And they were a nice mixture of pictures too -some of cousins of my Mom's, some of Mom's siblings, my children too when they were growing up as well. And in looking at some of those pictures -of myself when I was preschool age along with several photos too of my older daughter, it reminded me once again, how much my older daughter looked like me when she was little -as well as how much Miss Maya looks like her Aunt Carrie still today too!
I scanned a good many of these old photos last night and tried to match some of the pictures of me by age to a few of the pictures of my daughter at about the same age -did them side by side, ya know -so I figured I'd show you a few of those picture here tonight. I haven't gotten around yet to looking through pictures of Maya at the same ages yet -mainly because there are way too many pictures of Maya to even think about getting that done in a matter of a couple of hours time!
So ready or not -here goes! (Keep in mind, these are old photos and some aren't the best, for sure, but they are clear enough I think that you can see the likeness in each one fairly well anyway.)
First off -the picture on the left is me when I was probably 8-10 months old. The photo on the right side then is my daughter Carrie, sitting in my Aunt Ethel's lap and was taken at our family reunion probably in 1968, when Carrie was just a little over a year old. (The lady beside my aunt is a cousin of my Mom and my Aunt but who was referred to by my kids and me as "Aunt Dee" although she is not really an aunt to us.)
And then in this one, the black and white picture of me on the left, holding the cat I had back then -with the really original name of "Blackie" (he also had a playmate too -called Whitey, but no photos of that one. Both cats mysteriously disappeared sometime about that year and my Mom told me that they had run away from home because they didn't like the big dog we had then -a collie/shepherd mix, also with a very original name too of Lady. I was in my 30s before I learned my Mom had actually given those two cats to a neighbor and had asked him to get rid of them for her! We won't discuss here exactly how naive I was nor how nasty I thought my Mom had been when I learned what had really happened to those two cats. I'm thinking though she probably did that on orders from my grandmother who was very far from being a cat lover!)
Anyway -back to the photos -the one of me was taken when I was 4 and the one of Carrie -well not exactly sure if she was 4 on that photo or 5, but in that general age range anyway.
And the last photo I'm going to share tonight though is one of my daughters, all three of the grandkids around their grandfather -who they rarely see but who happened to come east when Maya was about 4 years old or close to that age, Kurtis was just over a year old and Alex -the older grandson, was then 10.
I do happen to like this picture of at least my girls with their Dad -a rare thing to have of them together! But anyway, that Mandy on the far left, holding Maya, Kurtis is sitting on Poppy's lap, then Alex and finally Carrie. Too bad my son, Clayton wasn't present then too so we could have had a full family photo then! But if you look at Maya on this picture, you can see how much she looks like her Aunt Carrie there and look up at the photos I posted above too at Carrie at ages 2 through 4 and you can see the look -a-likes there then too. And Alex, my older grandson, looks very, very much too like his mother -more so it seems every day!
Want to know something else I find fascinating but can't locate the picture of this right at the moment to share it is a photo that was taken back in 1918 and it is of my Dad, standing behind an old sled with his baby sister seated on the sled. My Dad was 16 or 17 years older than his youngest sibling so on that particular photo, he is about age 18 and my aunt, only a year old and on that picture of her, if you were to compare it to any photos we have of me at that age, my daughter Carrie at that age and of Maya and Alexander too, you'd definitely be able to see in each baby photo, the resemblance that is/was there. What's more, on that picture of my Dad, his stance, the way his hair is combed but falling sort of in his face, the way his shirt even isn't quite tucked in to his pants the way it should be and the look on his face -if compared to a photo of my son at about the same age or actually, many even more recent pictures of Clayton, you can definitely see how much my son looks like my Dad's side of my family! And yet, in many of those same things I mentioned, one can also see that my son looks very much like his Dad too!
Gotta love the way genes show up in each of us don't you? It's a process that totally amazes me, for sure!
As I have time to post more old photos on here, I'm going to try to share more of the old pics we came across because seeing so many of them last night, really took me back to times in my life when I always felt safe, secure, with so many of my Mom's cousins, my aunts and uncles and my first cousins -all frequently around me, keeping me in such a great frame of mind. Seeing so many of those old pictures brought out the realizations again and again too of how much I miss each and every one of those individuals who were all so important in my life for so many years too.
Not enough years though -but then, is it ever enough?
Often though when he does come up here, it's because Aunt Mandy has made arrangements with him to help her do some things around the house that would be more than a bit difficult for her to manage to do alone.
And this Sunday -her game plan, with Alex to help her -start working on cleaning out the basement!
Now, in my opinion, the only job worse than this one here would be cleaning out the attic! Oh wait -we did that back in June in advance of the workmen from the Community Action program arriving here to put all kinds of insulation in the house from the attic right on down to the basement! And, a lot of the things that were taken out of the attic and which we still wanted to keep around for oh, another generation to worry about whether they were good or important or not, ya know are still tucked away in the bathroom, the hall closet out off the sunporch, in a corner of the dining room and oh yeah, in the basement too. They can't go back up into the attic until we get a couple sheets of plywood I guess to put down over the rafters there so any stuff we put back in the attic then isn't going to be sitting, resting, directly on the insulation!
So, the end result of Sunday's work then was a nice big bonfire Mandy and Alex did manage to have in the lower part of the back yard.
Last night though, Mandy showed me a couple of things she came across in the basement that she saved from destruction -thankfully!
One was this little tiny book containing a different fortune for every day of the year, that had been published in 1938, and given to my Mom's older sister apparently as a little birthday gift from a friend of my Aunt's in 1939! That was neat to look up different people in our family's birthdate and read what whoever had put the book together felt was a reasonable fortune for anyone born on such and such a date. And my Aunt had penned in by many of the days in that book, the birthdays of this or that family member. Brought back a lot of memories then reading the names of family members, remembering then oh yes, this was Uncle Oscar's birthday, cousin Karen's, my Mom (okay -I remember when her birthday is without that reminder, I'm not quite THAT far gone on the senility trail -not just yet, anyway.
Along with coming across that little book, Mandy also stumbled upon a fairly good-sized box too filled with -of all things -old photographs too!
Now that was a nice discovery she made there in my mind! There weren't tons of pictures dating back to the early 1900's of ancestors who were unidentifiable to me, thankfully. But there were a goodly number that seemed to start in the late 30s and worked their way up to about 10 years ago!
And they were a nice mixture of pictures too -some of cousins of my Mom's, some of Mom's siblings, my children too when they were growing up as well. And in looking at some of those pictures -of myself when I was preschool age along with several photos too of my older daughter, it reminded me once again, how much my older daughter looked like me when she was little -as well as how much Miss Maya looks like her Aunt Carrie still today too!
I scanned a good many of these old photos last night and tried to match some of the pictures of me by age to a few of the pictures of my daughter at about the same age -did them side by side, ya know -so I figured I'd show you a few of those picture here tonight. I haven't gotten around yet to looking through pictures of Maya at the same ages yet -mainly because there are way too many pictures of Maya to even think about getting that done in a matter of a couple of hours time!
So ready or not -here goes! (Keep in mind, these are old photos and some aren't the best, for sure, but they are clear enough I think that you can see the likeness in each one fairly well anyway.)
First off -the picture on the left is me when I was probably 8-10 months old. The photo on the right side then is my daughter Carrie, sitting in my Aunt Ethel's lap and was taken at our family reunion probably in 1968, when Carrie was just a little over a year old. (The lady beside my aunt is a cousin of my Mom and my Aunt but who was referred to by my kids and me as "Aunt Dee" although she is not really an aunt to us.)
In this picture above now, that's me on my tricycle taken in 1946 -when I was almost 2 years old and the picture taken of my daughter -standing near my old Chevy Nova -was taken of her when she was just over 2 years old. A whole lot of looking like there are clones involved there, right?
Anyway -back to the photos -the one of me was taken when I was 4 and the one of Carrie -well not exactly sure if she was 4 on that photo or 5, but in that general age range anyway.
And the last photo I'm going to share tonight though is one of my daughters, all three of the grandkids around their grandfather -who they rarely see but who happened to come east when Maya was about 4 years old or close to that age, Kurtis was just over a year old and Alex -the older grandson, was then 10.
Want to know something else I find fascinating but can't locate the picture of this right at the moment to share it is a photo that was taken back in 1918 and it is of my Dad, standing behind an old sled with his baby sister seated on the sled. My Dad was 16 or 17 years older than his youngest sibling so on that particular photo, he is about age 18 and my aunt, only a year old and on that picture of her, if you were to compare it to any photos we have of me at that age, my daughter Carrie at that age and of Maya and Alexander too, you'd definitely be able to see in each baby photo, the resemblance that is/was there. What's more, on that picture of my Dad, his stance, the way his hair is combed but falling sort of in his face, the way his shirt even isn't quite tucked in to his pants the way it should be and the look on his face -if compared to a photo of my son at about the same age or actually, many even more recent pictures of Clayton, you can definitely see how much my son looks like my Dad's side of my family! And yet, in many of those same things I mentioned, one can also see that my son looks very much like his Dad too!
Gotta love the way genes show up in each of us don't you? It's a process that totally amazes me, for sure!
As I have time to post more old photos on here, I'm going to try to share more of the old pics we came across because seeing so many of them last night, really took me back to times in my life when I always felt safe, secure, with so many of my Mom's cousins, my aunts and uncles and my first cousins -all frequently around me, keeping me in such a great frame of mind. Seeing so many of those old pictures brought out the realizations again and again too of how much I miss each and every one of those individuals who were all so important in my life for so many years too.
Not enough years though -but then, is it ever enough?
Learn Something New Every Day!
Been busy for way too long here and not having time to post on my blog like I really should be doing. I thought once I got through the madness of my class reunion planning and the event itself, things would settle down, but guess I was wrong on that count!
Last week, I was supposed to do something really simple -like just make a couple of phone calls and wouldn't you just know it, I forgot to do that too! Finally, late last night, I remembered I should have called this one lady from church about some important stuff, and again, had forgotten to do that, but then, I remembered something about her. Hey! She's on my Facebook so I could then send her a message via Facebook and thus eliminate -maybe -for a little while the phone call, plus I could send that message to her at 2 in the morning and definitely didn't have to worry about waking her up.
Of course, there's another side to that issue too in that I don't know how often she checks her Facebook so I suppose I should try to put her back on the "Please call as soon as possible list" just to be on the safe side, shouldn't I?
Going back in time a bit -to try to get up-to-speed with a lot of things -I was telling Mandy today about a conversation I had with the lady I normally go to when I need to get my hair cut, trimmed, a perm -you name it! She and I are old friends from way back so she knows too that it is rare that I will call her for an appointment a while in advance of needing said appointment. Nope! When she hears my voice (or sees my name/number on her caller ID) she probably immediately starts thinking of when she has the earliest possible opening available that she can then fit me in.
Yeah and that's exactly what happened to me the Thursday night before the weekend of my class reunion as I called her about 9 p.m. that night to ask if she could squeeze me in sometime Friday -preferably -but if not then, at least on Saturday the latest!
Lucky for me, she wedged me in to a slot at 1:30 on Friday afternoon so when I went to our class "Night Before" event then on Friday night at the Moose, I had a brand new look via a new hair cut as well as a perm! And, I gotta say, she did a bang up job on it/me too!
Anyway, we got to discussing -my hairdresser and I -about a lot of things -some serious, some not, some stuff I never thought about at all before but somehow, they came up in our chat that day.
One of those things was about the tanning bed she added into her shop a couple years ago. I haven't even a clue now how that came up for discussion but it did and in the course of that, she said about tanning bed supplies and how many things along those lines she now has to stock for that part of her operation! I didn't believe her but she told me to look it up on the internet so I did and by gosh, by golly, she was right on about that for sure! I had no idea that so much stuff was available and that you really should have this, that and some other things -a bunch of those other things! Darned good thing she has a really good sized house with a full basement she can use then for storage for that along with her supplies for her hairdressing needs too!
See how you can learn something you never thought about before just on the spur of the moment some days!
And while I'm on the subject here of learning things every day, tonight I had the pleasure of working with Kurtis to help him with his homework. Tonight, that involved reading and he had this little book he was supposed to read. Well, it wasn't until after we'd gone through the whole darned book -all 8 pages of it -that he then whips out this piece of paper that I had to sign, swearing that I had witnessed his doing the reading ya know. And as I signed the paper, I saw that apparently he was supposed to do the reading of this book -actually, I'd call it a booklet rather than a book, based solely on the size of the thing. But anyway, we were supposed to be doing the reading in segments -one specific area tonight, another tomorrow and a third area then on Thursday so all those things would then all be done by Friday of this week!
Boy, sure do wish he'd shown me that paper earlier this evening!
Do you have any idea how difficult it can be to get kids his age to simply focus on the task at hand and also, to remember how to break a word apart and sound it out!
I had forgotten completely about that part of the learning to read process so by the time we finished working on this booklet, reading those 8 pages, it had us close to 90 minutes to finish that project!
Stop and go. Stop and go! Every word -very slow!I know with him, part of the issue is his comprehension of the procedures at times and once it does settle in and he understands things, then he surprises the heck out of you because it seems like he just learned it right then and there.
But let me tell you this, I am hoping his comprehension of sounding words out, step-by-step, kicks in pretty quickly because ya know, I'm not all that patient a person about some things!
I know it will come -eventually -but I want it to come to him now and for him -hopefully -to get a good grasp on those principles of reading and learn to love it and to love books too like I always did! Actually, he does love books already -just doesn't like to do the work to learn this process called reading!
And I know that how? Because tonight, he had been reposing in my recliner earlier, a nice book in his hands and leafing through it, in a very nice, rather loving manner as he scanned over the pages and pictures and such. Later, while we were working together on his reading assignment, I caught him not even looking at the words but rather studying the pictures in the book -which I didn't want him to get involved in the pictures until we had read the paragraph on each particular page. I could see he was often just glancing at the first letter of a word and then, just tossing out a word he'd seen earlier that started with the same letter -but not being the same word. So I called him out on that and asked him if he was trying to play tricks on Grammy to make her think he was really reading.
His answer to me? "Yes, I am, Gram!"
Well you little stinker! Not nice to do that to me Kiddo!
Oh and one more thing before I go to bed tonight too and along the learning something new every day line. Come February, Mandy is going to be a stepgrandmother and I'm going to be a step-great-grandmother -to a baby girl!
It's official now from the ultrasound Katie had done today that the baby is a GIRL! Kurtis is rather nonchalant about this coming event but Maya -well Maya has already found a website -on her own -with names -I think it was called "Naming Your Baby" or something like that and she has been sifting through that site, writing down on a separate paper the names she likes now to give to Katie so she will have a good selection of names to select from for her baby!
Can you tell she is quite excited over the prospect that she will have a niece?
Cool!
Last week, I was supposed to do something really simple -like just make a couple of phone calls and wouldn't you just know it, I forgot to do that too! Finally, late last night, I remembered I should have called this one lady from church about some important stuff, and again, had forgotten to do that, but then, I remembered something about her. Hey! She's on my Facebook so I could then send her a message via Facebook and thus eliminate -maybe -for a little while the phone call, plus I could send that message to her at 2 in the morning and definitely didn't have to worry about waking her up.
Of course, there's another side to that issue too in that I don't know how often she checks her Facebook so I suppose I should try to put her back on the "Please call as soon as possible list" just to be on the safe side, shouldn't I?
Going back in time a bit -to try to get up-to-speed with a lot of things -I was telling Mandy today about a conversation I had with the lady I normally go to when I need to get my hair cut, trimmed, a perm -you name it! She and I are old friends from way back so she knows too that it is rare that I will call her for an appointment a while in advance of needing said appointment. Nope! When she hears my voice (or sees my name/number on her caller ID) she probably immediately starts thinking of when she has the earliest possible opening available that she can then fit me in.
Yeah and that's exactly what happened to me the Thursday night before the weekend of my class reunion as I called her about 9 p.m. that night to ask if she could squeeze me in sometime Friday -preferably -but if not then, at least on Saturday the latest!
Lucky for me, she wedged me in to a slot at 1:30 on Friday afternoon so when I went to our class "Night Before" event then on Friday night at the Moose, I had a brand new look via a new hair cut as well as a perm! And, I gotta say, she did a bang up job on it/me too!
Anyway, we got to discussing -my hairdresser and I -about a lot of things -some serious, some not, some stuff I never thought about at all before but somehow, they came up in our chat that day.
One of those things was about the tanning bed she added into her shop a couple years ago. I haven't even a clue now how that came up for discussion but it did and in the course of that, she said about tanning bed supplies and how many things along those lines she now has to stock for that part of her operation! I didn't believe her but she told me to look it up on the internet so I did and by gosh, by golly, she was right on about that for sure! I had no idea that so much stuff was available and that you really should have this, that and some other things -a bunch of those other things! Darned good thing she has a really good sized house with a full basement she can use then for storage for that along with her supplies for her hairdressing needs too!
See how you can learn something you never thought about before just on the spur of the moment some days!
And while I'm on the subject here of learning things every day, tonight I had the pleasure of working with Kurtis to help him with his homework. Tonight, that involved reading and he had this little book he was supposed to read. Well, it wasn't until after we'd gone through the whole darned book -all 8 pages of it -that he then whips out this piece of paper that I had to sign, swearing that I had witnessed his doing the reading ya know. And as I signed the paper, I saw that apparently he was supposed to do the reading of this book -actually, I'd call it a booklet rather than a book, based solely on the size of the thing. But anyway, we were supposed to be doing the reading in segments -one specific area tonight, another tomorrow and a third area then on Thursday so all those things would then all be done by Friday of this week!
Boy, sure do wish he'd shown me that paper earlier this evening!
Do you have any idea how difficult it can be to get kids his age to simply focus on the task at hand and also, to remember how to break a word apart and sound it out!
I had forgotten completely about that part of the learning to read process so by the time we finished working on this booklet, reading those 8 pages, it had us close to 90 minutes to finish that project!
Stop and go. Stop and go! Every word -very slow!I know with him, part of the issue is his comprehension of the procedures at times and once it does settle in and he understands things, then he surprises the heck out of you because it seems like he just learned it right then and there.
But let me tell you this, I am hoping his comprehension of sounding words out, step-by-step, kicks in pretty quickly because ya know, I'm not all that patient a person about some things!
I know it will come -eventually -but I want it to come to him now and for him -hopefully -to get a good grasp on those principles of reading and learn to love it and to love books too like I always did! Actually, he does love books already -just doesn't like to do the work to learn this process called reading!
And I know that how? Because tonight, he had been reposing in my recliner earlier, a nice book in his hands and leafing through it, in a very nice, rather loving manner as he scanned over the pages and pictures and such. Later, while we were working together on his reading assignment, I caught him not even looking at the words but rather studying the pictures in the book -which I didn't want him to get involved in the pictures until we had read the paragraph on each particular page. I could see he was often just glancing at the first letter of a word and then, just tossing out a word he'd seen earlier that started with the same letter -but not being the same word. So I called him out on that and asked him if he was trying to play tricks on Grammy to make her think he was really reading.
His answer to me? "Yes, I am, Gram!"
Well you little stinker! Not nice to do that to me Kiddo!
Oh and one more thing before I go to bed tonight too and along the learning something new every day line. Come February, Mandy is going to be a stepgrandmother and I'm going to be a step-great-grandmother -to a baby girl!
It's official now from the ultrasound Katie had done today that the baby is a GIRL! Kurtis is rather nonchalant about this coming event but Maya -well Maya has already found a website -on her own -with names -I think it was called "Naming Your Baby" or something like that and she has been sifting through that site, writing down on a separate paper the names she likes now to give to Katie so she will have a good selection of names to select from for her baby!
Can you tell she is quite excited over the prospect that she will have a niece?
Cool!
Saturday, September 15, 2012
It's Here!
This is going to be the shortest blog post I've ever written!
I just wanted to share one particular picture with you from my class reunion last Saturday.
This photo was taken by the husband of one of our classmates and he has also taken the group photo of our class at each and every one of our other reunions except for our 35th when for some odd reason, we didn't get a group photo.
But anyway, this picture arrived in the mail yesterday and I wanted to share it as soon as I could because I really liked this one of our class.
I'm not going to go into major identifications here -just first names only.
Starting with the bottom row, L-R: ME, Denny, Patsy, Claudia, Kate, Lori, Carol and Jean.
2nd row: Art, Joe, Nancy, Bernie, Betty, John and Ernie.
3rd Row: Susie and Mary.
4th Row: Cheryl and Rose
Back row: Charlie, Tom, Durv, Betty, Arlene, Doris, Herb, Harold and John.
Those of my class I talked to yesterday after they had received their copy of this photo too and I decided that we definitely have the best class ever in all respects -looks, brains and personality!
No conceit in our group at all, is there?
I just wanted to share one particular picture with you from my class reunion last Saturday.
This photo was taken by the husband of one of our classmates and he has also taken the group photo of our class at each and every one of our other reunions except for our 35th when for some odd reason, we didn't get a group photo.
But anyway, this picture arrived in the mail yesterday and I wanted to share it as soon as I could because I really liked this one of our class.
Starting with the bottom row, L-R: ME, Denny, Patsy, Claudia, Kate, Lori, Carol and Jean.
2nd row: Art, Joe, Nancy, Bernie, Betty, John and Ernie.
3rd Row: Susie and Mary.
4th Row: Cheryl and Rose
Back row: Charlie, Tom, Durv, Betty, Arlene, Doris, Herb, Harold and John.
Those of my class I talked to yesterday after they had received their copy of this photo too and I decided that we definitely have the best class ever in all respects -looks, brains and personality!
No conceit in our group at all, is there?
Who's Who?
Last Saturday, as I was gathering up the things I needed to take over the the Elks Club in Clearfield -where my classmates and I were to gather that evening to celebrate our 50th Class Reunion -I hauled out -among other stuff -a photo poster board I had put together five years ago on the occasion then of our class's 45th Class Reunion.
When Maya saw me dragging it into the dining room, her interest level rose and she asked me "What's that thing, Gram?"
So I explained to her that it was all kinds of pictures of the people I had gone to school with -some pictures from back in our elementary school days, some from high school and even some from since high school that many of my classmates had been nice enough to respond to my request for pictures of themselves or other classmates for this project.
At first glance at the posterboard, Maya lost interest quickly saying "Oh, I don't know anyone on there."
Au contraire, my dear! Yes, actually you do know some people on there I told her and then had her look closer and see if she didn't see some people she knows.
That was a hard job for her to do though because she's not knowledgeable enough just yet to look for ways to tell if this picture of a little girl might be Grammy or maybe Kate or Rose, two of Grammy's good friends that Maya knows. So I decided I'd help her out a little bit and I pointed to a photo of my friend, Rose and her husband, Durvin, on their wedding day. Maya knows both of those folks plus neither Rose nor Durv has changed all that much in appearance over the years -other than one losing a little hair and the other, having a few streaks of gray that make for lovely accents!
When I showed her that photo and she studied it very closely -things registered with her that these were not current pictures and that she had to think about what people look like today and make the connection but she was able to do that and she then told me "Okay, that's Rose and Durb." (That was her mispronunciation of Durvin's nickname -being "Durv" not "Durb" as Maya had said it.
But anyway, I was pleased that she had figured that out so I told her to look at some other pictures and see who she could identify. Pretty soon she had spotted several other pictures of Rose plus quite a few of another classmate -my good friend (forever), Kate! She was on a roll then for a while but then, the fun for her petered out when she thought there was no one else on that board that she knew.
So I pointed to a photo at the bottom left hand corner -of a couple that she'd met exactly twice before and she took a look at that and immediately turned to tell me "That's Donna and that's Herbie!"
Boy, this kid is never gonna let me forget that slip-up I made the first time I took her with me down to the office of my classmate, Herb's fuel oil company when I had referred to him, jokingly, as "Herbie-Baby!" At least this time, she left of the "Baby" with his name though!
Here's some pictures of the photo posterboard so you can get an idea of what Maya had to look at!
And yes, a whole lot of work went into putting that masterpiece together but the reception it got at our 45th reunion was so good that my friends I was working with to put our 50th reunion together felt it deserved another viewing by the classmates.
See anyone you know on there?
When Maya saw me dragging it into the dining room, her interest level rose and she asked me "What's that thing, Gram?"
So I explained to her that it was all kinds of pictures of the people I had gone to school with -some pictures from back in our elementary school days, some from high school and even some from since high school that many of my classmates had been nice enough to respond to my request for pictures of themselves or other classmates for this project.
At first glance at the posterboard, Maya lost interest quickly saying "Oh, I don't know anyone on there."
Au contraire, my dear! Yes, actually you do know some people on there I told her and then had her look closer and see if she didn't see some people she knows.
That was a hard job for her to do though because she's not knowledgeable enough just yet to look for ways to tell if this picture of a little girl might be Grammy or maybe Kate or Rose, two of Grammy's good friends that Maya knows. So I decided I'd help her out a little bit and I pointed to a photo of my friend, Rose and her husband, Durvin, on their wedding day. Maya knows both of those folks plus neither Rose nor Durv has changed all that much in appearance over the years -other than one losing a little hair and the other, having a few streaks of gray that make for lovely accents!
When I showed her that photo and she studied it very closely -things registered with her that these were not current pictures and that she had to think about what people look like today and make the connection but she was able to do that and she then told me "Okay, that's Rose and Durb." (That was her mispronunciation of Durvin's nickname -being "Durv" not "Durb" as Maya had said it.
But anyway, I was pleased that she had figured that out so I told her to look at some other pictures and see who she could identify. Pretty soon she had spotted several other pictures of Rose plus quite a few of another classmate -my good friend (forever), Kate! She was on a roll then for a while but then, the fun for her petered out when she thought there was no one else on that board that she knew.
So I pointed to a photo at the bottom left hand corner -of a couple that she'd met exactly twice before and she took a look at that and immediately turned to tell me "That's Donna and that's Herbie!"
Boy, this kid is never gonna let me forget that slip-up I made the first time I took her with me down to the office of my classmate, Herb's fuel oil company when I had referred to him, jokingly, as "Herbie-Baby!" At least this time, she left of the "Baby" with his name though!
Here's some pictures of the photo posterboard so you can get an idea of what Maya had to look at!
See anyone you know on there?
Friday, September 14, 2012
Like Mother, Like Daughter? NOT!
Lots of things happening around here of late. So many, it's kind of difficult for me to decide where to begin and equally hard to find time to do anything of consequence too. Or so it seems.
So, I figured tonight maybe I'll just start with the most recent and try to work my way, in and out, backwards, then maybe forward again. Oh, who knows! Whatever comes to me that I can find a way to write it up I guess.
Let's see now -the events tonight actually began right after the kids returned to school and Maya brought a paper home for Mandy to read and sign -allowing Maya to sign up for JV Cheerleading lessons!
Say what? JV Cheerleading? Holy rip, the kid is only starting 3rd grade; she'll be nine in October. Isn't that a trifle young for cheerleading lessons?
Apparently not because Mandy signed the sheet and Maya was enrolled! They have practice two evenings a week from 5 p.m. until 6:15, learning how to clap their hands properly, how to move in cadence with arms waving, hands clapping and certain foot movements that go with the counts too.
Initially, Maya liked this because it gives her a chance to do some of the dance moves and splits she has learned to do -practicing in the living room -by watching various videos of things from ballet to current dance moves. That she can do a split absolutely amazes me because when I was a kid, it totally hurried me to try to touch my toes with my fingers. Know what I mean? No, I was definitely not the most coordinated kid on the block, that's for sure.
Mandy was pretty shocked at Maya's abilities and interests in dance steps as well as cheerleading too -none of which was ever something high on Mandy's interests lists. Especially not the cheerleading stuff because Mandy pretty much disliked that aspect of school life plus -she never held any interest at all in watching high school football games either -and for that matter, neither did her brother. (Although Clate would insist on attending those games -strictly so he could walk around the perimeter of the football field in search of good looking girls he could maybe meet and hopefully then be able to pick up!
But anyway, here's Maya now at this young age all gung-ho on learning cheerleading stuff.
Well, for the first week she really liked it. This past week, when I picked her up from practice on Monday, she informed me that the boys had it better than the girls because all the girls have is cheerleading and all they get to wear that is special for that is a red tee shirt that says "West Branch Warriors!"
But the boys -well they have it made in her opinion because they get to wear these great big things on their shoulders and these heavy pads on their legs and a helmet and these special shoes even that have cleats and all that, ya know!
Hmmmm. Wonder what she's getting at there?
Thursday after practice though, as Kurtis and I were walking back to the Jeep with Maya, Kurt asked me "Can boys be cheerleaders too, Gram?" Sure they can, Baby -no problem! But Maya told him in no uncertain terms then and there that when he is in the 3rd grade, he will be able to play football then and wouldn't he like to do that?
Kurtis just gave her a look that pretty much said he thought Maya was nuts!
But moving on, tonight was Sports Recognition Night at the the High School Football game which entailed recognizing apparently all the various school sports group and that included the kids in the JV Cheerleading group as well. So, those young girls were all to be at the school by 6:15 p.m. (game time I think was 7 p.m.) so their coach could get them all lined up because -are you ready for this -they had to run out onto the field -through the tunnel, ya know -and each one of these kids also then had their name called over the PA system too!
Mandy said later that when they called Maya's name, it brought tears to her eyes hearing that and then watching her baby run out onto the football field to be introduced then to the parents/grandparents/fans/students,etc.
Here's the picture Mandy got of Maya -all ready to roll for her big intro!
Yep -that's my little Maya in the middle there. She's not so little anymore, is she?
Tomorrow should be interesting though to see how well her interest in cheerleading -or even football -holds up because she's supposed to be up at the school at 11:45 for the JV game which I think starts at noon and the weather forecast for tomorrow -Colder, with RAIN!
I don't know about her but that's about enough to dampen my spirits.
So, I figured tonight maybe I'll just start with the most recent and try to work my way, in and out, backwards, then maybe forward again. Oh, who knows! Whatever comes to me that I can find a way to write it up I guess.
Let's see now -the events tonight actually began right after the kids returned to school and Maya brought a paper home for Mandy to read and sign -allowing Maya to sign up for JV Cheerleading lessons!
Say what? JV Cheerleading? Holy rip, the kid is only starting 3rd grade; she'll be nine in October. Isn't that a trifle young for cheerleading lessons?
Apparently not because Mandy signed the sheet and Maya was enrolled! They have practice two evenings a week from 5 p.m. until 6:15, learning how to clap their hands properly, how to move in cadence with arms waving, hands clapping and certain foot movements that go with the counts too.
Initially, Maya liked this because it gives her a chance to do some of the dance moves and splits she has learned to do -practicing in the living room -by watching various videos of things from ballet to current dance moves. That she can do a split absolutely amazes me because when I was a kid, it totally hurried me to try to touch my toes with my fingers. Know what I mean? No, I was definitely not the most coordinated kid on the block, that's for sure.
Mandy was pretty shocked at Maya's abilities and interests in dance steps as well as cheerleading too -none of which was ever something high on Mandy's interests lists. Especially not the cheerleading stuff because Mandy pretty much disliked that aspect of school life plus -she never held any interest at all in watching high school football games either -and for that matter, neither did her brother. (Although Clate would insist on attending those games -strictly so he could walk around the perimeter of the football field in search of good looking girls he could maybe meet and hopefully then be able to pick up!
But anyway, here's Maya now at this young age all gung-ho on learning cheerleading stuff.
Well, for the first week she really liked it. This past week, when I picked her up from practice on Monday, she informed me that the boys had it better than the girls because all the girls have is cheerleading and all they get to wear that is special for that is a red tee shirt that says "West Branch Warriors!"
But the boys -well they have it made in her opinion because they get to wear these great big things on their shoulders and these heavy pads on their legs and a helmet and these special shoes even that have cleats and all that, ya know!
Hmmmm. Wonder what she's getting at there?
Thursday after practice though, as Kurtis and I were walking back to the Jeep with Maya, Kurt asked me "Can boys be cheerleaders too, Gram?" Sure they can, Baby -no problem! But Maya told him in no uncertain terms then and there that when he is in the 3rd grade, he will be able to play football then and wouldn't he like to do that?
Kurtis just gave her a look that pretty much said he thought Maya was nuts!
But moving on, tonight was Sports Recognition Night at the the High School Football game which entailed recognizing apparently all the various school sports group and that included the kids in the JV Cheerleading group as well. So, those young girls were all to be at the school by 6:15 p.m. (game time I think was 7 p.m.) so their coach could get them all lined up because -are you ready for this -they had to run out onto the field -through the tunnel, ya know -and each one of these kids also then had their name called over the PA system too!
Mandy said later that when they called Maya's name, it brought tears to her eyes hearing that and then watching her baby run out onto the football field to be introduced then to the parents/grandparents/fans/students,etc.
Here's the picture Mandy got of Maya -all ready to roll for her big intro!
Tomorrow should be interesting though to see how well her interest in cheerleading -or even football -holds up because she's supposed to be up at the school at 11:45 for the JV game which I think starts at noon and the weather forecast for tomorrow -Colder, with RAIN!
I don't know about her but that's about enough to dampen my spirits.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Over and Done With!
I know for the past so many months now I've been rambling a lot about the big 50th Class Reunion some of my former high school classmates and I have been working on putting together but now, finally, you can relax -along with me -as I tell you the big event(s) came and went this past weekend!
However, considering the fact that I alone too 76 pictures at the reunion only -don't expect that this post will actually be the end of the tales from our big get-together!
I will however make this a fairly short post tonight and will reserve other posts in the days to come for stories and photos from this auspicious occasion.
Suffice it to say tonight that it was a great night spent at the Clearfield Elks Club with 28 of my former classmates and 18 guests. At least, I think that's the final tally anyway. And thus far, all the comments about it have been that everyone totally enjoyed the evening!
We had two gatherings -one on Friday night at the illustrious Moose Hall here in the village where I live -good old Grassflat. Some folks initially didn't like the idea of having our "Night Before:" party there mainly because the building -inside and out -doesn't really look all that much different today than it did back when I was just a child! In appearance, it is a bit on the frumpy looking side. However, just like with people and their appearances, that can be a bit deceiving, can't it?
The young woman who is the manager of the place bent over backwards to see that whatever I wanted or needed for our group was available! Her sister, who does the cooking most of the time did a bang-up job with the food items that those who ordered dinners or just sandwiches were well satisfied.
My good friend from our high school days and with whom I have remained close over these 50 years and her husband got one of the big meal surprises of the night when Mitch ordered the daily special -which was chicken and waffles, mashed potatoes, gravy, a vegetable, tossed salad and rolls and butter. Sounds like a rather simplistic meal, doesn't it? Well I wish you could have been there to see the look on his face when the waitress delivered to him a very large platter, filled completely to the brim with the waffles, mashed potatoes and a huge serving of chicken gravy that was loaded -and I do mean LOADED -to the gills with chunks of chicken! The old expression "his eyes almost popped right out of his head" definitely rang true of the look on Mitch's face, for sure! I didn't check back to see if he managed to eat all of the food on that plate by himself but he did remark the next day that it was "very good!"
Unfortunately, I won't be sharing any photos with you from that particular event though because, in my infinite wisdom and due to a case of nervous energy that just wouldn't quit, I went to the Moose with my camera in my purse and was having such a great time visiting with those classmates who attended that party that I forgot completely about having my camera with me. Apparently I was not the only one with a severe case of forgetfulness though because no one else thought to take any pictures that night either! Crazy, huh?
Saturday evening the hall where we had our reunion looked great -very pretty candle arrangements on the table gave a nice cozy atmosphere for us to start out the occasion.
We had the best time meeting folks as they came through the door -sharing hugs and even kisses too with people who we hadn't seen -some not since we graduated in May of 1962! Laughter began almost immediately to fill the air and that ambiance remained throughout the entire night there!
The food was very good -no one had any complaints about that which is always a big relief considering one reunion we had a few years back, many of us still talk about how terrible the food as well as the room we had to use that night were!
Finally, the time rolled around to where it was time to do the "program" -if you want to call it that. I couldn't talk anyone of our classmates into being the Master of Ceremonies and I suppose because I had been the one who had the honor (not sure my classmates would have called it that) of doing that job for our last two reunions, this year I got to try and be informative without being totally boring.
This year though, one of our classmates offered to handle the sound issues for us and as a result, he had a laptop connected up to the sound system at the Elks along with a couple of wireless microphones that he had borrowed from the church he belongs to so with that setup and using a cd that a friend of mine had given me with a recording on it of the school band -which, by the way is an award-winning marching bad in this region -when I gave Ernie the signal, he put that CD on and the music began to play of the Band doing our school's Alma Mater!
I had copies on the tables at every other place setting with the words -all four verses -of the Alma Mater and told everyone that they had to join me in singing along to the music! I also added that if I saw anyone who wasn't cooperating, wasn't singing the words, I was going to take notes and write down names which I would then, the next day, be out in search of the grave of our high school Algebra teacher who was a fanatic about the student body learning the words to the Alma Mater and I would put my list on his grave then so Louie could come back and haunt anyone who didn't join in and sing along.
This in itself marked a first for me as for openers, I had never used a microphone before in my life much less trying to sing into it too. But, I gave it my best shot in hopes that whether these were blue microphones or not, I couldn't tell you but all I know is the alto voice I once had sure isn't exactly up to par these days! Probably from way to much use and abuse from yelling at my kids and now grandkids or too many beers and cigarettes over the years as well!
I was so busy with the mike I had in my hand, trying to remember to keep it fairly close to my mouth without shoving it in there and to keep my hands still, I forgot all about watching to see who was singing along with me and who wasn't so anyone who didn't go along with that part of the program -well, they can rest easily because no names were taken!
Our Reunion bagan at 4:30 in the afternoon -dinner was served at 6:15 and by 10:30 that night, it was all over but the shouting! All the things my fellow planners and I had put together were loaded up and out the door and away we went, content in the feelings of so much goodwill that was passed around the room on a very steady basis that entire evening and that everyone was leaving with smiles on their faces and a whole lot of great memories of an evening very well spent!
I got home shortly after 11 p.m. and the first thing I did then was find my tube of BenGay which I then used to slather it on my feet, legs and back because that many hours in which I was on my feet for 90 percent of the time had those areas of my body aching like toothache! Apparently the BenGay did what it was supposed to do though because when I awoke Sunday morning I was actually able to move and to WALK too!
And I don't regret having acquired a single one of those aches and pains as the good vibes, the happy faces, made that all very worth while!
However, considering the fact that I alone too 76 pictures at the reunion only -don't expect that this post will actually be the end of the tales from our big get-together!
I will however make this a fairly short post tonight and will reserve other posts in the days to come for stories and photos from this auspicious occasion.
Suffice it to say tonight that it was a great night spent at the Clearfield Elks Club with 28 of my former classmates and 18 guests. At least, I think that's the final tally anyway. And thus far, all the comments about it have been that everyone totally enjoyed the evening!
We had two gatherings -one on Friday night at the illustrious Moose Hall here in the village where I live -good old Grassflat. Some folks initially didn't like the idea of having our "Night Before:" party there mainly because the building -inside and out -doesn't really look all that much different today than it did back when I was just a child! In appearance, it is a bit on the frumpy looking side. However, just like with people and their appearances, that can be a bit deceiving, can't it?
The young woman who is the manager of the place bent over backwards to see that whatever I wanted or needed for our group was available! Her sister, who does the cooking most of the time did a bang-up job with the food items that those who ordered dinners or just sandwiches were well satisfied.
My good friend from our high school days and with whom I have remained close over these 50 years and her husband got one of the big meal surprises of the night when Mitch ordered the daily special -which was chicken and waffles, mashed potatoes, gravy, a vegetable, tossed salad and rolls and butter. Sounds like a rather simplistic meal, doesn't it? Well I wish you could have been there to see the look on his face when the waitress delivered to him a very large platter, filled completely to the brim with the waffles, mashed potatoes and a huge serving of chicken gravy that was loaded -and I do mean LOADED -to the gills with chunks of chicken! The old expression "his eyes almost popped right out of his head" definitely rang true of the look on Mitch's face, for sure! I didn't check back to see if he managed to eat all of the food on that plate by himself but he did remark the next day that it was "very good!"
Unfortunately, I won't be sharing any photos with you from that particular event though because, in my infinite wisdom and due to a case of nervous energy that just wouldn't quit, I went to the Moose with my camera in my purse and was having such a great time visiting with those classmates who attended that party that I forgot completely about having my camera with me. Apparently I was not the only one with a severe case of forgetfulness though because no one else thought to take any pictures that night either! Crazy, huh?
Saturday evening the hall where we had our reunion looked great -very pretty candle arrangements on the table gave a nice cozy atmosphere for us to start out the occasion.
We had the best time meeting folks as they came through the door -sharing hugs and even kisses too with people who we hadn't seen -some not since we graduated in May of 1962! Laughter began almost immediately to fill the air and that ambiance remained throughout the entire night there!
The food was very good -no one had any complaints about that which is always a big relief considering one reunion we had a few years back, many of us still talk about how terrible the food as well as the room we had to use that night were!
Finally, the time rolled around to where it was time to do the "program" -if you want to call it that. I couldn't talk anyone of our classmates into being the Master of Ceremonies and I suppose because I had been the one who had the honor (not sure my classmates would have called it that) of doing that job for our last two reunions, this year I got to try and be informative without being totally boring.
This year though, one of our classmates offered to handle the sound issues for us and as a result, he had a laptop connected up to the sound system at the Elks along with a couple of wireless microphones that he had borrowed from the church he belongs to so with that setup and using a cd that a friend of mine had given me with a recording on it of the school band -which, by the way is an award-winning marching bad in this region -when I gave Ernie the signal, he put that CD on and the music began to play of the Band doing our school's Alma Mater!
I had copies on the tables at every other place setting with the words -all four verses -of the Alma Mater and told everyone that they had to join me in singing along to the music! I also added that if I saw anyone who wasn't cooperating, wasn't singing the words, I was going to take notes and write down names which I would then, the next day, be out in search of the grave of our high school Algebra teacher who was a fanatic about the student body learning the words to the Alma Mater and I would put my list on his grave then so Louie could come back and haunt anyone who didn't join in and sing along.
This in itself marked a first for me as for openers, I had never used a microphone before in my life much less trying to sing into it too. But, I gave it my best shot in hopes that whether these were blue microphones or not, I couldn't tell you but all I know is the alto voice I once had sure isn't exactly up to par these days! Probably from way to much use and abuse from yelling at my kids and now grandkids or too many beers and cigarettes over the years as well!
I was so busy with the mike I had in my hand, trying to remember to keep it fairly close to my mouth without shoving it in there and to keep my hands still, I forgot all about watching to see who was singing along with me and who wasn't so anyone who didn't go along with that part of the program -well, they can rest easily because no names were taken!
Our Reunion bagan at 4:30 in the afternoon -dinner was served at 6:15 and by 10:30 that night, it was all over but the shouting! All the things my fellow planners and I had put together were loaded up and out the door and away we went, content in the feelings of so much goodwill that was passed around the room on a very steady basis that entire evening and that everyone was leaving with smiles on their faces and a whole lot of great memories of an evening very well spent!
I got home shortly after 11 p.m. and the first thing I did then was find my tube of BenGay which I then used to slather it on my feet, legs and back because that many hours in which I was on my feet for 90 percent of the time had those areas of my body aching like toothache! Apparently the BenGay did what it was supposed to do though because when I awoke Sunday morning I was actually able to move and to WALK too!
And I don't regret having acquired a single one of those aches and pains as the good vibes, the happy faces, made that all very worth while!
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Soft Kitty...
Considering the popularity of the tv sit-com, "Big Bang Theory" I'll wager I am far from being alone when I say I really do like this show. Be honest now and 'fess up if you like this show even a little bit or perhaps, as much as I do. I try to catch the regular weekly broadcast and I think I know just about every other channel on our cable system that carries reruns of this program too -and I try to watch most of those shows as well.
Face it -I'm as addicted to this program as I was -okay, still am -to Law and Order too! Just ask my kids and they'll tell you that if either one of these shows is airing, odds are that I have my tv set tuned into that station at that time.
But neither of those programs really has any bearing on my post here tonight. Well, Big Bang Theory sort of does because of course, there's that song about the "soft kitty" that Sheldon always wants Penny to sing to him in his moments when he feels the extreme need for comfort of some type.
And right about now, as I am trying to type this post, our newest addition to our family here -a sweet, fluffy, adorably loveable little kitten -which the kids and Mandy named "Octavia" but who gets called "Tavie" -a name which, of course, she pays no attention to being addressed and just goes her merry little way, bouncing around from one piece of furniture to another, antagonizing the dog into chasing and playing with her, pestering the other cat -Miss Pearl -who is the ultimate in regal attitude and elegance and extremely adept at totally ignoring the antics of this kitten -little fool is probably how Pearl regards Tavie.
Well tonight, after almost upending me out of my computer chair while I was going down through Facebook postings by jumping up on the back of the chair and I was sort of leaning back in the seat at that point in time and well, it jerked the chair and I almost landed upside down with the chair on top of me and the kitten being the potential cause of it all. Fortunately, I regained the balance and equilibrium with the chair and didn't get tossed to the floor as I had thought initially was going to happen to me.
No, I sat here and the kitten squirmed around behind me, sharing the seat of the chair for a while until she managed to get around to my front and decided she wanted to be sweet and loving and needed a nice, fairly large, very soft (apparently) place to lay her head and go to sleep and to her, it is pretty safe to say that she found my bust to be just the ideal spot to repose!
To top it all off, the darned kitten also decided now was a really ideal time -and place -to do a little bit of kitten stuff -kneading!
And all of her actions, nice and sweet as she must have thought she was being to me, really weren't what I was wanting at that point in time.
Especially since as I was rubbing the back of her neck and top of her head, I felt a couple tiny but tell-tale kind of lumps indicating she had other friends she was bringing along to our little nestling party here.
Yeah, the poor kitten has fleas!
So, at almost 1 a.m. I decided now was as good a time as any to give her a dip in the tub and a little rubdown with some good old flea shampoo.
Because our other cat, Miss Pearl, the queen of the household, responds totally differently to getting a bath -she will stand perfectly still in the tub and wait and watch while whoever is bathing an animal at the time gets through with the shampoo and rinse of the dog -or another cat too, if that were the case.
But little Miss Tavie not so docile! Matter of fact, she squirmed and scratched at me, at the rim of the tub, fought me tooth and nail,she did but I finally did get her wetted down, shampooed and when it came time to rinse, she was a mite calmer. Once out of the tub and wrapped in a big old bath towel, she was pretty quiet and seemed to hold no grudges against me.
I let her go and since I had the tub half-full of luke warm water and had the flea shampoo out, I decided the time had come -actually it was very, VERY overdue -to give Sammy, the little mutt, a nice flea shampoo bath too.
Now Sammy's response to a call to come get a bath is such that nowadays, he tucks his tail between his legs and tries to slink off, looking for a convenient place to hide where whoever wants to dunk him will have issues trying to reach him. Tonight, he apparently thought by going into my bedroom where there was no light shining directly down on him, I wouldn't think to look for him there but too bad, so sad,sorry for your luck there, Sam!
He forgot I can still pick him up and carry him into the bathroom which is what I did.
It used to be he would come willingly into the bathroom and once in there, after having his collar removed, often he would just hop into the tub of warm water simply because it was there,waiting for him. Not so tonight. Although he didn't fight me, I did have to lift him up and deposit him in the water. However, once I got him well-soaked and then lathered up, he stood very still and allowed me to give him a really good "rub-a-dub-dub:" and hopefully, got rid of a few of those darned pesky little fleas that have been causing all kinds of itching on the poor little guy.
So I got him out of the tub, tried to towel dry him a bit in between his decision to do a crazy race and chase routine in the bathroom, as he ran from one place to another and then would race back to me and do the whole racing/chasing routine all over again. It was more than obvious that he felt pretty good about his nice clean appearance and maybe even was already feeling a mite of relief from the damned old fleas too.
So, with both those animals all nice and clean, I decided I would play a couple games on the computer while waiting for my eyes to get heavy and be able to go to bed without worrying about being unable to fall asleep.
I was busy playing this one game I like -where you hit a ball and try to break all the different colored bubbles -when lo and behold, here comes the kitten again!
Only this time she immediately jumped up on my chest, did a couple little twists and turns to make darned sure her tail was waving ever so nicely directly in my face, right across my glasses as a matter of fact -and totally obscuring my vision!
I tried to get her rearranged so that I could have a little bit of a sighting of the balls I wanted to aim at, but after several tries to get her to move with no success, I ended up unceremoniously dumping her little butt off my chest and on to the floor.
Only to have her immediately take up her old position on top of me all over again.
And that's exactly where she's been laying now -ever since I started to type this piece! Just snuggled up as nice as can be,with her backside tucked ever so nicely directly under my chin.
Yes, Tavie -you are a nice kitty, and most definitely, right now, a very soft kitty too,as a matter of fact.
I wonder now if she will maintain this pose after I go out to my room and crawl into bed?
Probably not! She'll probably launch directly into her "flying cat" routine that she likes to do when jumping off my bed in the middle of the night!
Face it -I'm as addicted to this program as I was -okay, still am -to Law and Order too! Just ask my kids and they'll tell you that if either one of these shows is airing, odds are that I have my tv set tuned into that station at that time.
But neither of those programs really has any bearing on my post here tonight. Well, Big Bang Theory sort of does because of course, there's that song about the "soft kitty" that Sheldon always wants Penny to sing to him in his moments when he feels the extreme need for comfort of some type.
And right about now, as I am trying to type this post, our newest addition to our family here -a sweet, fluffy, adorably loveable little kitten -which the kids and Mandy named "Octavia" but who gets called "Tavie" -a name which, of course, she pays no attention to being addressed and just goes her merry little way, bouncing around from one piece of furniture to another, antagonizing the dog into chasing and playing with her, pestering the other cat -Miss Pearl -who is the ultimate in regal attitude and elegance and extremely adept at totally ignoring the antics of this kitten -little fool is probably how Pearl regards Tavie.
Well tonight, after almost upending me out of my computer chair while I was going down through Facebook postings by jumping up on the back of the chair and I was sort of leaning back in the seat at that point in time and well, it jerked the chair and I almost landed upside down with the chair on top of me and the kitten being the potential cause of it all. Fortunately, I regained the balance and equilibrium with the chair and didn't get tossed to the floor as I had thought initially was going to happen to me.
No, I sat here and the kitten squirmed around behind me, sharing the seat of the chair for a while until she managed to get around to my front and decided she wanted to be sweet and loving and needed a nice, fairly large, very soft (apparently) place to lay her head and go to sleep and to her, it is pretty safe to say that she found my bust to be just the ideal spot to repose!
To top it all off, the darned kitten also decided now was a really ideal time -and place -to do a little bit of kitten stuff -kneading!
And all of her actions, nice and sweet as she must have thought she was being to me, really weren't what I was wanting at that point in time.
Especially since as I was rubbing the back of her neck and top of her head, I felt a couple tiny but tell-tale kind of lumps indicating she had other friends she was bringing along to our little nestling party here.
Yeah, the poor kitten has fleas!
So, at almost 1 a.m. I decided now was as good a time as any to give her a dip in the tub and a little rubdown with some good old flea shampoo.
Because our other cat, Miss Pearl, the queen of the household, responds totally differently to getting a bath -she will stand perfectly still in the tub and wait and watch while whoever is bathing an animal at the time gets through with the shampoo and rinse of the dog -or another cat too, if that were the case.
But little Miss Tavie not so docile! Matter of fact, she squirmed and scratched at me, at the rim of the tub, fought me tooth and nail,she did but I finally did get her wetted down, shampooed and when it came time to rinse, she was a mite calmer. Once out of the tub and wrapped in a big old bath towel, she was pretty quiet and seemed to hold no grudges against me.
I let her go and since I had the tub half-full of luke warm water and had the flea shampoo out, I decided the time had come -actually it was very, VERY overdue -to give Sammy, the little mutt, a nice flea shampoo bath too.
Now Sammy's response to a call to come get a bath is such that nowadays, he tucks his tail between his legs and tries to slink off, looking for a convenient place to hide where whoever wants to dunk him will have issues trying to reach him. Tonight, he apparently thought by going into my bedroom where there was no light shining directly down on him, I wouldn't think to look for him there but too bad, so sad,sorry for your luck there, Sam!
He forgot I can still pick him up and carry him into the bathroom which is what I did.
It used to be he would come willingly into the bathroom and once in there, after having his collar removed, often he would just hop into the tub of warm water simply because it was there,waiting for him. Not so tonight. Although he didn't fight me, I did have to lift him up and deposit him in the water. However, once I got him well-soaked and then lathered up, he stood very still and allowed me to give him a really good "rub-a-dub-dub:" and hopefully, got rid of a few of those darned pesky little fleas that have been causing all kinds of itching on the poor little guy.
So I got him out of the tub, tried to towel dry him a bit in between his decision to do a crazy race and chase routine in the bathroom, as he ran from one place to another and then would race back to me and do the whole racing/chasing routine all over again. It was more than obvious that he felt pretty good about his nice clean appearance and maybe even was already feeling a mite of relief from the damned old fleas too.
So, with both those animals all nice and clean, I decided I would play a couple games on the computer while waiting for my eyes to get heavy and be able to go to bed without worrying about being unable to fall asleep.
I was busy playing this one game I like -where you hit a ball and try to break all the different colored bubbles -when lo and behold, here comes the kitten again!
Only this time she immediately jumped up on my chest, did a couple little twists and turns to make darned sure her tail was waving ever so nicely directly in my face, right across my glasses as a matter of fact -and totally obscuring my vision!
I tried to get her rearranged so that I could have a little bit of a sighting of the balls I wanted to aim at, but after several tries to get her to move with no success, I ended up unceremoniously dumping her little butt off my chest and on to the floor.
Only to have her immediately take up her old position on top of me all over again.
And that's exactly where she's been laying now -ever since I started to type this piece! Just snuggled up as nice as can be,with her backside tucked ever so nicely directly under my chin.
Yes, Tavie -you are a nice kitty, and most definitely, right now, a very soft kitty too,as a matter of fact.
I wonder now if she will maintain this pose after I go out to my room and crawl into bed?
Probably not! She'll probably launch directly into her "flying cat" routine that she likes to do when jumping off my bed in the middle of the night!
Thursday, August 30, 2012
It Figures!
Just a little grumping here today about something that seems to be the norm in my life -the telephone and when it rings!
It used to be as soon as I would decide to lay down and take a much needed little catnap (well, in my mind, naps are much needed things, ya know), it was inevitable that within 5-10 minutes after I would fall asleep, the phone would ring and it would always seem to be my older daughter calling. I used to think she was a bit of a mind reader or just knew my ways and my schedule all too well -either that or she had impeccable timing. But then, knowing that timing is far from impeccable in that daughter's life, I eventually ruled that out.
However, yesterday, I was pretty much convinced that there must be a secret camera located somewhere in this house that captures me sleeping on the couch and that it has a timer too, to let people know how long I have been asleep -the better then for them to phone me and wake my butt up!
I figure this because try and I did to get a nice little nap under my belt, each time I would fall asleep, within 10 minutes the darned phone would ring and wake me up.
Finally, after the third try for a solid nap was interrupted, I gave up on the idea of resting and proceeded to tire myself out by cleaning the floors downstairs with a good mopping, followed up by baking a cake and getting it iced as a little surprise for one of the therapists who works with the grandkids and who was scheduled to show up here yesterday for a little home visit with the hooligans. I even found some of that canned icing that you can spray on and write a message with it on the item being iced too and so I trimmed the cake with a "hello" to Renee with the word "Trouble" on the cake. (We refer to this therapist as "Trouble" because a few years back, shortly after Kurtis finally began to develop a bit of a vocabulary, one day when Renee was coming in the house, someone made the wisecrack of "Here comes Trouble now!": Kurtis picked up on that and began referring to Renee then as "Trouble" and it's since then stuck as our code name for her.
Well, wouldn't you just know it after I got all that done and Mandy got home from work, I learned then that Renee wasn't coming yesterday after all but rather would be here today instead!
Oh well, at least I have the cake still ready and waiting for "Trouble" to come and have a chunk of it to celebrate her birthday a few days late! It will give Kurtis a big thrill though today to be able to sing his birthday greetings to Renee and present her with this sorry looking cake decorating. (I didn't like the way the icing came rushing out of that little canister as it gave you no control at all when trying to write with it then!)
On another note -a little different direction here -yesterday was the first day of school for this year for our district so both kids were really happy and very excited about that. The day went by quickly too and before we knew it, the van was here dropping Kurtis off so the school bus should have been right behind that. Mandy walked up to the bus stop to meet Maya but ended up standing there for very near to a half-hour as the bus was very late getting the kids home.
The driver informed Mandy and the neighbor up the street (also waiting for her daughter's return) that the reason they were so late was because they had been hunting for a missing student. The student was finally located and had boarded the wrong bus. Thank goodness that's all that was wrong there but boy, when a school bus is that late bringing the kids home, all kinds of thoughts do cross a parent or grandparent's minds.
I later learned that the little boy who had boarded the wrong bus is like my grandkids -autistic -and what had happened, according to his grandmother, is that his TSS at the school had left before ascertaining he was on the correct bus!
It brought back memories to me of a day in March of 1973 -right after my ex-husband, older daughter and I had moved from Philipsburg down to a little neighboring village here and my daughter, who was in kindergarten at that time, had gone that morning on the bus to the school here. When it came time for her to arrive back home, I waited and waited but no daughter got off either the elementary or the high school bus. Before I knew it, almost 40 minutes had passed and no child that belonged to me came home and I was in more than a bit of a panic mode!
I called the school to inquire about her but they said there were no extra children there who might have missed their bus but they would check on daughter's whereabouts as much as possible. I waited -very nervously for an answer and when they called me back, they asked if daughter knew anyone in Grassflat? Well, yes -certainly she does because that's where her grandmother lives. Then they asked if she knew a little girl named "Karen" and they gave Karen's surname -and yes, I said, she does know that girl.
Apparently what happened was that my daughter exited the classroom in Karen's company and boarded the bus with her and got off at Karen's stop too -which was, by the way, about 2 doors from my Mom's house! My mom was a trifle surprised when her granddaughter showed up at her house but didn't give it a second though that she wasn't supposed to be arriving there that day!
Thankfully, in both instances of boarding the wrong bus, both kids were located and were safe and sound. But not after having created a whole lot of panic in the minds of parents and grandparents alike in both instances!
Now -I'm entertaining suggestions for supper tonight so if anyone has some good ideas of what I can fix, feel free to share them with me because my menu planning is currently operating on brain dead!
It figures!
It used to be as soon as I would decide to lay down and take a much needed little catnap (well, in my mind, naps are much needed things, ya know), it was inevitable that within 5-10 minutes after I would fall asleep, the phone would ring and it would always seem to be my older daughter calling. I used to think she was a bit of a mind reader or just knew my ways and my schedule all too well -either that or she had impeccable timing. But then, knowing that timing is far from impeccable in that daughter's life, I eventually ruled that out.
However, yesterday, I was pretty much convinced that there must be a secret camera located somewhere in this house that captures me sleeping on the couch and that it has a timer too, to let people know how long I have been asleep -the better then for them to phone me and wake my butt up!
I figure this because try and I did to get a nice little nap under my belt, each time I would fall asleep, within 10 minutes the darned phone would ring and wake me up.
Finally, after the third try for a solid nap was interrupted, I gave up on the idea of resting and proceeded to tire myself out by cleaning the floors downstairs with a good mopping, followed up by baking a cake and getting it iced as a little surprise for one of the therapists who works with the grandkids and who was scheduled to show up here yesterday for a little home visit with the hooligans. I even found some of that canned icing that you can spray on and write a message with it on the item being iced too and so I trimmed the cake with a "hello" to Renee with the word "Trouble" on the cake. (We refer to this therapist as "Trouble" because a few years back, shortly after Kurtis finally began to develop a bit of a vocabulary, one day when Renee was coming in the house, someone made the wisecrack of "Here comes Trouble now!": Kurtis picked up on that and began referring to Renee then as "Trouble" and it's since then stuck as our code name for her.
Well, wouldn't you just know it after I got all that done and Mandy got home from work, I learned then that Renee wasn't coming yesterday after all but rather would be here today instead!
Oh well, at least I have the cake still ready and waiting for "Trouble" to come and have a chunk of it to celebrate her birthday a few days late! It will give Kurtis a big thrill though today to be able to sing his birthday greetings to Renee and present her with this sorry looking cake decorating. (I didn't like the way the icing came rushing out of that little canister as it gave you no control at all when trying to write with it then!)
On another note -a little different direction here -yesterday was the first day of school for this year for our district so both kids were really happy and very excited about that. The day went by quickly too and before we knew it, the van was here dropping Kurtis off so the school bus should have been right behind that. Mandy walked up to the bus stop to meet Maya but ended up standing there for very near to a half-hour as the bus was very late getting the kids home.
The driver informed Mandy and the neighbor up the street (also waiting for her daughter's return) that the reason they were so late was because they had been hunting for a missing student. The student was finally located and had boarded the wrong bus. Thank goodness that's all that was wrong there but boy, when a school bus is that late bringing the kids home, all kinds of thoughts do cross a parent or grandparent's minds.
I later learned that the little boy who had boarded the wrong bus is like my grandkids -autistic -and what had happened, according to his grandmother, is that his TSS at the school had left before ascertaining he was on the correct bus!
It brought back memories to me of a day in March of 1973 -right after my ex-husband, older daughter and I had moved from Philipsburg down to a little neighboring village here and my daughter, who was in kindergarten at that time, had gone that morning on the bus to the school here. When it came time for her to arrive back home, I waited and waited but no daughter got off either the elementary or the high school bus. Before I knew it, almost 40 minutes had passed and no child that belonged to me came home and I was in more than a bit of a panic mode!
I called the school to inquire about her but they said there were no extra children there who might have missed their bus but they would check on daughter's whereabouts as much as possible. I waited -very nervously for an answer and when they called me back, they asked if daughter knew anyone in Grassflat? Well, yes -certainly she does because that's where her grandmother lives. Then they asked if she knew a little girl named "Karen" and they gave Karen's surname -and yes, I said, she does know that girl.
Apparently what happened was that my daughter exited the classroom in Karen's company and boarded the bus with her and got off at Karen's stop too -which was, by the way, about 2 doors from my Mom's house! My mom was a trifle surprised when her granddaughter showed up at her house but didn't give it a second though that she wasn't supposed to be arriving there that day!
Thankfully, in both instances of boarding the wrong bus, both kids were located and were safe and sound. But not after having created a whole lot of panic in the minds of parents and grandparents alike in both instances!
Now -I'm entertaining suggestions for supper tonight so if anyone has some good ideas of what I can fix, feel free to share them with me because my menu planning is currently operating on brain dead!
It figures!
Monday, August 27, 2012
Interesting. Veddy Interesting!
Remember Arte Johnson from the old Laugh-In show and I believe it was Gilda Radner who played opposite him as the old man and the little old lady? Inevitably, their conversations ended with the lines by Johnson of "Interesting. Veddy interesting."
And that is sort of how I would describe the events of my day today!
When I was back-tracking my last couple of days in my post earlier today, I believe I mentioned about some car problems I'm having right now. Mandy took my jeep to a friend's home -said friend who is a pretty decent auto mechanic -and he checked things over and gave a diagnosis. First off, with respect to the tire that has been deflating of late -he changed the tire but informed Mandy to tell me to go on a "Search and Destroy" mission to locate a new tire rim! Okay, I'll get right on that and start combing the junk yards, I guess.
Then he said the Jeep needs a new battery as well as a new (or possibly a rebuilt one would work) starter. He said something is pulling on the juice from the battery and it's his opinion that it's the starter, going bad. So, I made some phone calls, got information on a starter and ordered that. It will be delivered to the parts place overnite so it can be picked up after 7:30 in the morning. Wonderful. Then I called Walmart (ex-brother-in-law said that was the best place around for getting a battery at a decent price) and found out the battery I would need to get for the jeep -well there are two available and one costs $99 and change whereas the other one costs $110. Not so wonderful news on top of the cost of the starter plus labor to have the starter put on too.
Mandy said she will cover the cost of the battery and I figured I can dip into my line of credit -yet again -and cover the cost that way of the starter and labor. So now, I think I can make it, financially, until this Friday when the September check will arrive! Won't leave room for any extras next month but then again, rarely does my income these days leave room for anything in the "extra" spending department!
So, I followed Mandy to work and ran some errands for her to her bank and such and then, over to Walmart to purchase the battery. The personnel at the Lube and Tire Express at Walmart installed the battery while the kids and I waited in their "showroom." Finally, the attendant came in and rang up my bill. I was really surprised when he gave me the final figure though. With tax, my bill came to $62 and change!
I asked the guy if that was my bill or perhaps it belonged to the family standing adjacent to me, also waiting for work to be completed on their car. The guy said no, that's your bill for the new battery for that jeep out there.
ALRIGHT! I damned near shouted that to the guy! I have no clue how this happened but he said the figure was correct and anyway, the battery I purchased that I'd been told sold for $99 and change, only cost me a total then of $62 and change! Yes, I was a very happy camper for having saved about $40 plus bucks over what I thought I was going to have to pay!
The kids and I got home from the battery installation with just enough time to run in the house, use the bathroom and then, back on the road again to take Maya up to the school where she was to attend the first class tonight for Cheerleader Training for elementary kids -grades 3rd through 6th! We hadn't told her until this evening when I was getting her in the jeep that her Mom was actually signing her up for this activity so when she learned that is where we were going, boy wish you could have seen the happy, very surprised, expression on her face!
As we were getting ready to leave the school, after the session today, this young woman came up to me and started a conversation with me about Mandy, telling me to tell Mandy she was so sorry she couldn't respond to her text messages last night and rattling on and on about that situation of which I had no idea what the heck she was talking about. Actually, I had no clue who this woman was who wanted me to give Mandy this comvoluted message, ya see. Finally, when she slowed down her yacking to me a bit, I asked her then "And who might you be that I can tell Mandy I spoke to you here?"
Imagine my surprise when her answer was the name of Mandy's sometime-to-be ex-husband's ex-wife! Okay, now I know why you looked somewhat familiar to me! I didn't say that to her but rather said "Gee, you look different every darned time I see you!" Was that polite enough?
When I told Mandy about that conversation with that woman, she howled laughing and said "Oh, Mom! That is really funny!" Yeah, it was funny alright!
Then, Mandy informed me that we had another jeep related problem and that was when the mechanic friend of hers was going to be available to do the starter job on the jeep! Seems he is attending some kind of training sessions all this week so wouldn't be available to do anything on the jeep until next week sometime. So Mandy said then that she had phoned another guy who just started his own garage out where his late Dad had run a good garage for many years and asked him about installing the starter. He said if we wanted, we could bring the jeep out tonight and he could have his son start on it in the a.m., first thing. Mandy told him we won't have the starter until about 8 a.m. so she is going to go in town early in the a.m. and pick up the starter, come home and get me and follow me to this guy's garage and drop the jeep off -and bring me back home -and then, when the jeep is ready, she'll run me out there to pick it up and bring it back home, all repaired. And the good news there is that it will only cost me $25 for the labor!
Okay -it's still not quite dirt cheap on my budget but all in all, to get a new battery and a new starter -all installed for around $150 (give or take a buck or ten, here and there) as far as I'm concerned, it's a deal made in heaven for me!
Then, this evening when all had finally settled down and arrangements made for the jeep, I went to check my voicemail on my phone. I've only had the voicemail retrieval system on here now for about a week so I'm not entirely familiar with all the passcodes I have to remember to get into it and surprise,surprise, I screwed up and entered an incorrect passcode into the system and ended up getting myself locked out of my voicemail!
So then I had to call the phone/cable system through which we have our connection and had them work with me to get it all reconnected again.
What should have been an easy fix ended up taking me 3 or 4 calls to the main tech service number and finally, they referred me to the next platform up to get it all operational again! I've never seen so damned many codes, passwords and special code numbers in all my life, I don't believe!
But it's working fine and dandy now -or again -and I'm relieved as all get out now too that the jeep will be fixed for less money than I had anticipated.
I still really do need to find some kind of part-time job though to be able to ward off situations like this from happening over and over to me!
And doing that -finding a nice little parttime job? Well taht definitely would be Veddy, Veddy Interesting, to say the least!
And that is sort of how I would describe the events of my day today!
When I was back-tracking my last couple of days in my post earlier today, I believe I mentioned about some car problems I'm having right now. Mandy took my jeep to a friend's home -said friend who is a pretty decent auto mechanic -and he checked things over and gave a diagnosis. First off, with respect to the tire that has been deflating of late -he changed the tire but informed Mandy to tell me to go on a "Search and Destroy" mission to locate a new tire rim! Okay, I'll get right on that and start combing the junk yards, I guess.
Then he said the Jeep needs a new battery as well as a new (or possibly a rebuilt one would work) starter. He said something is pulling on the juice from the battery and it's his opinion that it's the starter, going bad. So, I made some phone calls, got information on a starter and ordered that. It will be delivered to the parts place overnite so it can be picked up after 7:30 in the morning. Wonderful. Then I called Walmart (ex-brother-in-law said that was the best place around for getting a battery at a decent price) and found out the battery I would need to get for the jeep -well there are two available and one costs $99 and change whereas the other one costs $110. Not so wonderful news on top of the cost of the starter plus labor to have the starter put on too.
Mandy said she will cover the cost of the battery and I figured I can dip into my line of credit -yet again -and cover the cost that way of the starter and labor. So now, I think I can make it, financially, until this Friday when the September check will arrive! Won't leave room for any extras next month but then again, rarely does my income these days leave room for anything in the "extra" spending department!
So, I followed Mandy to work and ran some errands for her to her bank and such and then, over to Walmart to purchase the battery. The personnel at the Lube and Tire Express at Walmart installed the battery while the kids and I waited in their "showroom." Finally, the attendant came in and rang up my bill. I was really surprised when he gave me the final figure though. With tax, my bill came to $62 and change!
I asked the guy if that was my bill or perhaps it belonged to the family standing adjacent to me, also waiting for work to be completed on their car. The guy said no, that's your bill for the new battery for that jeep out there.
ALRIGHT! I damned near shouted that to the guy! I have no clue how this happened but he said the figure was correct and anyway, the battery I purchased that I'd been told sold for $99 and change, only cost me a total then of $62 and change! Yes, I was a very happy camper for having saved about $40 plus bucks over what I thought I was going to have to pay!
The kids and I got home from the battery installation with just enough time to run in the house, use the bathroom and then, back on the road again to take Maya up to the school where she was to attend the first class tonight for Cheerleader Training for elementary kids -grades 3rd through 6th! We hadn't told her until this evening when I was getting her in the jeep that her Mom was actually signing her up for this activity so when she learned that is where we were going, boy wish you could have seen the happy, very surprised, expression on her face!
As we were getting ready to leave the school, after the session today, this young woman came up to me and started a conversation with me about Mandy, telling me to tell Mandy she was so sorry she couldn't respond to her text messages last night and rattling on and on about that situation of which I had no idea what the heck she was talking about. Actually, I had no clue who this woman was who wanted me to give Mandy this comvoluted message, ya see. Finally, when she slowed down her yacking to me a bit, I asked her then "And who might you be that I can tell Mandy I spoke to you here?"
Imagine my surprise when her answer was the name of Mandy's sometime-to-be ex-husband's ex-wife! Okay, now I know why you looked somewhat familiar to me! I didn't say that to her but rather said "Gee, you look different every darned time I see you!" Was that polite enough?
When I told Mandy about that conversation with that woman, she howled laughing and said "Oh, Mom! That is really funny!" Yeah, it was funny alright!
Then, Mandy informed me that we had another jeep related problem and that was when the mechanic friend of hers was going to be available to do the starter job on the jeep! Seems he is attending some kind of training sessions all this week so wouldn't be available to do anything on the jeep until next week sometime. So Mandy said then that she had phoned another guy who just started his own garage out where his late Dad had run a good garage for many years and asked him about installing the starter. He said if we wanted, we could bring the jeep out tonight and he could have his son start on it in the a.m., first thing. Mandy told him we won't have the starter until about 8 a.m. so she is going to go in town early in the a.m. and pick up the starter, come home and get me and follow me to this guy's garage and drop the jeep off -and bring me back home -and then, when the jeep is ready, she'll run me out there to pick it up and bring it back home, all repaired. And the good news there is that it will only cost me $25 for the labor!
Okay -it's still not quite dirt cheap on my budget but all in all, to get a new battery and a new starter -all installed for around $150 (give or take a buck or ten, here and there) as far as I'm concerned, it's a deal made in heaven for me!
Then, this evening when all had finally settled down and arrangements made for the jeep, I went to check my voicemail on my phone. I've only had the voicemail retrieval system on here now for about a week so I'm not entirely familiar with all the passcodes I have to remember to get into it and surprise,surprise, I screwed up and entered an incorrect passcode into the system and ended up getting myself locked out of my voicemail!
So then I had to call the phone/cable system through which we have our connection and had them work with me to get it all reconnected again.
What should have been an easy fix ended up taking me 3 or 4 calls to the main tech service number and finally, they referred me to the next platform up to get it all operational again! I've never seen so damned many codes, passwords and special code numbers in all my life, I don't believe!
But it's working fine and dandy now -or again -and I'm relieved as all get out now too that the jeep will be fixed for less money than I had anticipated.
I still really do need to find some kind of part-time job though to be able to ward off situations like this from happening over and over to me!
And doing that -finding a nice little parttime job? Well taht definitely would be Veddy, Veddy Interesting, to say the least!
And, That's The Truth!
Just a little rambling today (not that "rambling" on my part is anything new, as it's probably what I do the best), but anyway, it is what it is.
Right now, I'm gearing up for a depressing day and probably several days ahead too that are going to suck swampwater. Why? Well, I'm in search of a "reasonably" priced battery for my old jeep and also, have to make another call to a mechanic around here to price out either getting a new starter for the jeep or maybe, a rebuilt one. Either way, gonna put my checkbook right on the brink of bankruptcy or something equally atrocious, ya know.
And regardless of the price of the battery and starter -and I suppose I need to throw in the need for a new tire rim while I'm at it -it's gonna depress the hell out of me for a while. Really is pushing on my mind the need to get some kind of part-time job somewhere, someplace but what?
Now that's the big question there and one for which I have no ideas whatsoever as to what services I would be capable of performing for a couple bucks an hour or so. Any suggestions for anything that doesn't require heavy lifting or other strenuous work that an old, degenerating female could perform, would be greatly appreciated. I'm thinking about the only alternative employment for one like me -Walmart Greeter -as long as the shifts don't run longer than a four hour stretch I think I might be able to handle that.
Now, if only I had the physical aptitude of my little grandson, Kurtis. He was just doing one of his normal pacing/jogging routines that he does regularly (or so it seems) between the living room and the kitchen. Then, he parked his little but on the radiator behind my computer chair and announced to me that he "Thinks he has enough energy now to go ride his bike!"
Sheesh! If I had just trotted across the floor the way he did, several times, my energy would be completely and totally already all expended! Must be nice to run like that to GET energy, don't 'cha think?
This morning, the grandson had to go with his Mom, up to the school, so he could meet Mr. McClelland, who will be serving as Kurt's first grade teacher this year. Maya had this man for first grade too and she loved him! (So did Mandy and I for that matter as Maya enjoyed his classes and did very well under his supervision.) Kurtis didn't pelt the guy with oodles of questions of what to expect in his classes the way Maya did two years ago when she first met him. No worry about Kurtis asking the teacher if they would be studying fractions in the math classes (like Maya had done) because fractions are probably the furthest thing from Kurt's mind. Mandy said when she asked Kurt if he had any questions for Mr. McClelland that Kurtis launched into a little story about how his Dad wrecked his truck and broke his nose so you know his mind is anywhere but on school work, don't 'cha? Plus that happened back in April of this year so it isn't like it is a "current event" happening either.
Yesterday, at church, there was a little humor that passed between Mandy and Kurtis. Apparently he wasn't behaving quite the way she expected of him and she reprimanded him a bit. After which, he turned and told her "You are ruining my life!" Boy, I had no idea things were any where near that dire for him!
Saturday morning, he got up and began to "trash" Maya's bedroom. The kids' older sister, Katie, had spent the night here with us and she said the noise he was making as he dumped toys all over the floor in Maya's room is what woke her up. When Kurtis came downstairs, I informed him that he was going to have to go back upstairs and clean up the mess he'd made in Maya's room. He turned tail and headed back upstairs without a word of complaint to me. But about a half-hour to 45 minutes later he returned downstairs, holding his right hand to his forehead and he informed me that "My brain hurts, Gram. It's giving me a headache!"
Now I ask you, how's that for a medical excuse to use to try to get out of cleaning your sister's bedroom, anyway? As excuses go, I thought it was one of the best I'd heard in a long time however, it just wasn't quite good enough to get him out of the clean-up detail. When I informed him that he still had to clean up the mess, it was a very hurt, crying little boy who went back upstairs to finish the job. Katie reported a bit later that he had actually done a pretty decent job of cleaning up his mess -which is way more than we could say about his sister and her work orientedness, which is virtually non-existent!
Friday, I got all the name tags completed -each with a photo of each classmate attending our class reunion! I have a file on my computer with copies of all the graduation pictures of every last one of my classmates that I copied from our yearbook five years ago when I did up a posterboard of a collage of photos of our classmates so I used that file to copy over (using good old Publisher) pictures of those who have made reservations to attend our class reunion next weekend -the 8th of September.
Doesn't seem possible the time has gone by so quickly for this event to now be just around the corner. Seems like it was just yesterday that we began planning this thing.
Oh heck, who am I trying to kid here. Wasn't it just yesterday that we were graduating and not 50 years ago?
Sometimes, it just doesn't seem possible it's been that many years, ya know!
It's just flown by -like a dream -or at times, had a tinge of nightmare to it too though.
And that's the truth!
Better days ahead for the next 50? How's that for optimism anyway?
Right now, I'm gearing up for a depressing day and probably several days ahead too that are going to suck swampwater. Why? Well, I'm in search of a "reasonably" priced battery for my old jeep and also, have to make another call to a mechanic around here to price out either getting a new starter for the jeep or maybe, a rebuilt one. Either way, gonna put my checkbook right on the brink of bankruptcy or something equally atrocious, ya know.
And regardless of the price of the battery and starter -and I suppose I need to throw in the need for a new tire rim while I'm at it -it's gonna depress the hell out of me for a while. Really is pushing on my mind the need to get some kind of part-time job somewhere, someplace but what?
Now that's the big question there and one for which I have no ideas whatsoever as to what services I would be capable of performing for a couple bucks an hour or so. Any suggestions for anything that doesn't require heavy lifting or other strenuous work that an old, degenerating female could perform, would be greatly appreciated. I'm thinking about the only alternative employment for one like me -Walmart Greeter -as long as the shifts don't run longer than a four hour stretch I think I might be able to handle that.
Now, if only I had the physical aptitude of my little grandson, Kurtis. He was just doing one of his normal pacing/jogging routines that he does regularly (or so it seems) between the living room and the kitchen. Then, he parked his little but on the radiator behind my computer chair and announced to me that he "Thinks he has enough energy now to go ride his bike!"
Sheesh! If I had just trotted across the floor the way he did, several times, my energy would be completely and totally already all expended! Must be nice to run like that to GET energy, don't 'cha think?
This morning, the grandson had to go with his Mom, up to the school, so he could meet Mr. McClelland, who will be serving as Kurt's first grade teacher this year. Maya had this man for first grade too and she loved him! (So did Mandy and I for that matter as Maya enjoyed his classes and did very well under his supervision.) Kurtis didn't pelt the guy with oodles of questions of what to expect in his classes the way Maya did two years ago when she first met him. No worry about Kurtis asking the teacher if they would be studying fractions in the math classes (like Maya had done) because fractions are probably the furthest thing from Kurt's mind. Mandy said when she asked Kurt if he had any questions for Mr. McClelland that Kurtis launched into a little story about how his Dad wrecked his truck and broke his nose so you know his mind is anywhere but on school work, don't 'cha? Plus that happened back in April of this year so it isn't like it is a "current event" happening either.
Yesterday, at church, there was a little humor that passed between Mandy and Kurtis. Apparently he wasn't behaving quite the way she expected of him and she reprimanded him a bit. After which, he turned and told her "You are ruining my life!" Boy, I had no idea things were any where near that dire for him!
Saturday morning, he got up and began to "trash" Maya's bedroom. The kids' older sister, Katie, had spent the night here with us and she said the noise he was making as he dumped toys all over the floor in Maya's room is what woke her up. When Kurtis came downstairs, I informed him that he was going to have to go back upstairs and clean up the mess he'd made in Maya's room. He turned tail and headed back upstairs without a word of complaint to me. But about a half-hour to 45 minutes later he returned downstairs, holding his right hand to his forehead and he informed me that "My brain hurts, Gram. It's giving me a headache!"
Now I ask you, how's that for a medical excuse to use to try to get out of cleaning your sister's bedroom, anyway? As excuses go, I thought it was one of the best I'd heard in a long time however, it just wasn't quite good enough to get him out of the clean-up detail. When I informed him that he still had to clean up the mess, it was a very hurt, crying little boy who went back upstairs to finish the job. Katie reported a bit later that he had actually done a pretty decent job of cleaning up his mess -which is way more than we could say about his sister and her work orientedness, which is virtually non-existent!
Friday, I got all the name tags completed -each with a photo of each classmate attending our class reunion! I have a file on my computer with copies of all the graduation pictures of every last one of my classmates that I copied from our yearbook five years ago when I did up a posterboard of a collage of photos of our classmates so I used that file to copy over (using good old Publisher) pictures of those who have made reservations to attend our class reunion next weekend -the 8th of September.
Doesn't seem possible the time has gone by so quickly for this event to now be just around the corner. Seems like it was just yesterday that we began planning this thing.
Oh heck, who am I trying to kid here. Wasn't it just yesterday that we were graduating and not 50 years ago?
Sometimes, it just doesn't seem possible it's been that many years, ya know!
It's just flown by -like a dream -or at times, had a tinge of nightmare to it too though.
And that's the truth!
Better days ahead for the next 50? How's that for optimism anyway?
Friday, August 24, 2012
What to do next?
It's been a bit of a wild and crazy -very hectic -week here!
We had company again over last weekend -with Jeff and his two little girls here. Interesting. Well, maybe, or most of the time but also a bit harried too.
It was the weekend for us to celebrate birthday boys -starting with Alex, who turned 15 on Sunday and Jeff and Clate -who share the 22nd as their birthday but we won't get into talking the number of years for either of them. I'll be nice and let both of them off the hook -this time!
So, Saturday, I cooked!
A big pot of tomato and meat sauce and then lots of ravioli for supper along with tossed salad for the grandson's big day, just had his special meal a day ahead of time. I didn't bake him a cake -nor did I bake any cake for the other two birthday boys either. But I asked Alex what kind of cake or special dessert he might like and he had said anything Lemon is a good deal for me. So, instead of baking him a cake, I made two pans of Lemon Curd Coffee Cake -which isn't really a cake -it's bread -but for some reason or other, it's still called cake.
Here's what one of the pans of Lemon Curd Coffee Cake looks like and it really is very good -wonderful, light, lemon filling rolled up into the bread dough and baked so it actually makes sweet rolls -not even true bread there either. If anyone is interested in trying this, here's the recipe for it at this website. It's not really difficult to make either. (The hardest thing for me when I first wanted to try this recipe was finding the "Lemon Curd" and this spring, I saw some on the shelves at Walmart, in the jelly section -so I was off and running with this then!)
I did some other baking on Saturday too -made 4 regular-type loaves of Swedish Limpa Rye bread as well as one "kaka" loaf of that bread too. ("Kaka" bread is what the Swedes in this region call the big flat loaves of either rye, oatmeal or the sweet white bread they make.) We polished off almost all of the kaka loaf at supper and the next day, at dinner, we went through a half of one of the other rye loaves.
I gave a loaf of the rye bread to the boys for their birthday present -so that took our rye bread supply then by Sunday night down to 1 full loaf and half of another. However, Monday when I was getting supper ready, I went to slice some of the rye bread and could not find any of it -no where to be found -in the kitchen. Mandy had done the dishes Sunday night and Monday, she finished up the last of the Sunday dishes plus the pots and pans and had cleaned off the counter tops as well as the island in the center of the kitchen so I asked her where she had put that other loaf of rye bread.
Her response to that question was "What other loaf of rye bread?" So I explained to her that we should have had 1 full loaf and about 1/2 of a loaf but I couldn't find it so we both went on a bit of a search and destroy type mission hunting for the missing bread. Sad to say, the darned bread never did surface! So now we have a mystery in the house -"The Case of the Missing Rye Bread."
Remember last week I wrote about Kurtis and his little finger slicing accident with the axe? He was supposed to keep that finger bandaged -and DRY too -until today, when he was supposed to return to the Emergency Room to have the stitch removed and the finger inspected and all that.
Well, that big old bandage on his little index finger lasted till Wednesday morning of last week -not quite 48 hours! And the stitch? That made it through until Saturday when he managed to remove that himself. And, to add insult to injury on the medical community and apparently his faith in them too, by Saturday evening, he had also removed the fingernail too! So Mandy called the ER and asked if she had to bring him back in to have the finger checked then and they said no, as long as it stayed clean and didn't get infected, he had taken care of the whole thing then all on his own!
Saturday evening though brought a bit of drama to the household but not from Kurtis and his finger. Nope, this was all of Maya's doing and her issue that surfaces every time we have a birthday celebration in the house. It's then time for another visit from that darned Green-eyed Monster!
Actually, this episode came from two sources. One was that it was Alex's birthday and of course, he got some presents but the other came from the fact that Saturday, Mandy had gone shopping for the boys' presents and had taken Kurtis with her, leaving Maya home with me. Maya had originally been tagged to go with Mommy but because she didn't listen and clean up her bedroom, she had to stay home and shopping, for Maya, is one of the finest gifts you can give that girl! She is her Aunt Carrie upset in many, many ways -looks like a clone of her for openers but clothes, shoes and shopping -there the resemblance to her aunt really hits home.
The shopping for the birthday gifts wouldn't have upset her all that much to miss out on but it was the fact that her Mom had found not one, but two pair of shoes, in Kurt's size no less, that were super fantastic bargains and so, he had returned home with two new pairs of shoes and that was more than Maya could swallow!
When she discovered that, she went immediately into the "Poor me, woe is me" routine followed by "Nobody loves me, guess I'll go eat worms" kind of behavior and ended it by announcing in one really wild and bad hissy fit that she has no "matching shoes" and not a single pair of shoes in a Size 3 either! (Maybe the fact that she only wears a size 2 shoe has something to do with not having any size 3 shoes in her boxes of shoes -note, I said "Boxes" because she has two good sized boxes that are stuffed to overflowing with, you guessed it, SHOES! And the only time there is a pair of shoes that aren't "matching" is when she hasn't bothered to pick up both shoes to a pair and put them in one of those two boxes! So, trust me -the child is definitely not being deprived of shoes, not in any way, shape or form!
After that, she picked a fight with or over Jeff's older daughter and it all bounced back to the shoe meltdown-which by that time, Mandy had had more than her fill of Maya's misery so she got sent to bed. Even that ended badly too as Maya just wouldn't give up the ghost on the whining and crying so Mandy then removed the tv set from her bedroom as punishment for her behavior.
Sunday morning, I was afraid the whole darned scenario was going to go into a rerun when Maya got up -finally -and was sitting on the sofa, still pouting, and made a comment then about how her Mom had taken her tv set out of her bedroom and she'd done that "For no reason at all too!" Uh oh, I thought for sure the crap was going to hit the fans all over again but either Mandy didn't hear that comment or she chose to simply ignore it by considering the source. Wise move, any way you cut that one!
This week I've been working whenever I have a chance on a tabletopper I am embroidering -not sure as yet who or what it will go for but I'm trying to get it done by this Sunday anyway. And between that, trying to cook supper, keep track of what these two hooligans are getting into every day as well and I've been busy! Plus -making more phone calls and such about our upcoming class reunion tossed into that mix and I had more than enough to keep me moving.
Wednesday was my day this month to go over to the cancer clinic for my monthly "port flush" and since Mandy had to work that day, of course, the kids went to my appointment with me.
The morning was moving along fairly smoothly and it was time to hop in the jeep and head out but when I turned the key in the ignition, I got a bit of a fright in that all I heard was a couple little clicking sounds and no engine turning over! Not exactly what I wanted to have to deal with for sure. I tried again and again -several times more -to get the buggy to start, which finally it did start but it stalled out about 2 seconds later. Had a heck of a time to get it to start and to stay running but finally, it did kick in and away we went! I was a nervous wreck then at the cancer clinic worrying that when we went to leave, what if the darned jeep wouldn't start up at all then? But thankfully, it came through and was kind to me so we made it over there and back home with no more problems from the jeep!
Today, I had plans to go to lunch at the home of one of the girls in our monthly lunch group and we were going to spend the afternoon working on getting things in order for our class reunion. I was worried how I was going to manage this lunch today initially because Mandy had work today too and the thought of going to my friend's house to eat and put stuff together while taking the kids along and having to keep track of them and keep them from snooping in everything under the sun there too were taken care of though when the kids TSS aides made arrangements that they would take Maya and Kurtis up to Curwensville Dam for the day and give me some much needed relief by doing that!
We got the copies of the school newspaper all rolled up and tied up like it was a mini-diploma, along with a copy of the last Football game program of our senior year and they are ready to go into the gift bag each classmate will receive at our reunion -along with two cds being made up especially for our classmates featuring favorite old songs from 1961-62. We don't have the cds in our hot little hands as yet but they are expected to arrive any day now. We also had wrappers done up to put around Hershey bars which will be at the table setting of each person attending our reunion and the wrappers have a photo on the front of our old high school with the words on each side of that photo saying "West Branch Area High School and Class of 1962." The candy bar thing was copied from the kids of the Class of 1961 as they had those at their dinner too and they really do look cute as all get out!
I offered, in addition to doing up a small poster board in memory of the nine members of our class who have passed away, I said I would also do up name cards that have the graduation photo of each classmate who is attending the reunion too. So this evening, I sat down at the computer and put to use the little bit I learned a year ago about working with Microsoft's Publisher! It only took me about three hours to put all the pictures of the kids from our class who are going to attend our reunion into a file with their names under each picture and print this out on photo paper. Now all I have to do is cut the photos and clue them to the name tags we got and presto magic, a name tag with a photo of how each of us looked 50 years ago! (I'm not particularly fond of any photos of myself and especially not my graduation picture, but well guess I'll survive the ordeal, won't I?
And now -I do believe I'd best go to bed as my eyes are not cooperating at all and 7:30 a.m. will be here in no time!
More to come,so stay tuned!
We had company again over last weekend -with Jeff and his two little girls here. Interesting. Well, maybe, or most of the time but also a bit harried too.
It was the weekend for us to celebrate birthday boys -starting with Alex, who turned 15 on Sunday and Jeff and Clate -who share the 22nd as their birthday but we won't get into talking the number of years for either of them. I'll be nice and let both of them off the hook -this time!
So, Saturday, I cooked!
A big pot of tomato and meat sauce and then lots of ravioli for supper along with tossed salad for the grandson's big day, just had his special meal a day ahead of time. I didn't bake him a cake -nor did I bake any cake for the other two birthday boys either. But I asked Alex what kind of cake or special dessert he might like and he had said anything Lemon is a good deal for me. So, instead of baking him a cake, I made two pans of Lemon Curd Coffee Cake -which isn't really a cake -it's bread -but for some reason or other, it's still called cake.
Here's what one of the pans of Lemon Curd Coffee Cake looks like and it really is very good -wonderful, light, lemon filling rolled up into the bread dough and baked so it actually makes sweet rolls -not even true bread there either. If anyone is interested in trying this, here's the recipe for it at this website. It's not really difficult to make either. (The hardest thing for me when I first wanted to try this recipe was finding the "Lemon Curd" and this spring, I saw some on the shelves at Walmart, in the jelly section -so I was off and running with this then!)
I did some other baking on Saturday too -made 4 regular-type loaves of Swedish Limpa Rye bread as well as one "kaka" loaf of that bread too. ("Kaka" bread is what the Swedes in this region call the big flat loaves of either rye, oatmeal or the sweet white bread they make.) We polished off almost all of the kaka loaf at supper and the next day, at dinner, we went through a half of one of the other rye loaves.
I gave a loaf of the rye bread to the boys for their birthday present -so that took our rye bread supply then by Sunday night down to 1 full loaf and half of another. However, Monday when I was getting supper ready, I went to slice some of the rye bread and could not find any of it -no where to be found -in the kitchen. Mandy had done the dishes Sunday night and Monday, she finished up the last of the Sunday dishes plus the pots and pans and had cleaned off the counter tops as well as the island in the center of the kitchen so I asked her where she had put that other loaf of rye bread.
Her response to that question was "What other loaf of rye bread?" So I explained to her that we should have had 1 full loaf and about 1/2 of a loaf but I couldn't find it so we both went on a bit of a search and destroy type mission hunting for the missing bread. Sad to say, the darned bread never did surface! So now we have a mystery in the house -"The Case of the Missing Rye Bread."
Remember last week I wrote about Kurtis and his little finger slicing accident with the axe? He was supposed to keep that finger bandaged -and DRY too -until today, when he was supposed to return to the Emergency Room to have the stitch removed and the finger inspected and all that.
Well, that big old bandage on his little index finger lasted till Wednesday morning of last week -not quite 48 hours! And the stitch? That made it through until Saturday when he managed to remove that himself. And, to add insult to injury on the medical community and apparently his faith in them too, by Saturday evening, he had also removed the fingernail too! So Mandy called the ER and asked if she had to bring him back in to have the finger checked then and they said no, as long as it stayed clean and didn't get infected, he had taken care of the whole thing then all on his own!
Saturday evening though brought a bit of drama to the household but not from Kurtis and his finger. Nope, this was all of Maya's doing and her issue that surfaces every time we have a birthday celebration in the house. It's then time for another visit from that darned Green-eyed Monster!
Actually, this episode came from two sources. One was that it was Alex's birthday and of course, he got some presents but the other came from the fact that Saturday, Mandy had gone shopping for the boys' presents and had taken Kurtis with her, leaving Maya home with me. Maya had originally been tagged to go with Mommy but because she didn't listen and clean up her bedroom, she had to stay home and shopping, for Maya, is one of the finest gifts you can give that girl! She is her Aunt Carrie upset in many, many ways -looks like a clone of her for openers but clothes, shoes and shopping -there the resemblance to her aunt really hits home.
The shopping for the birthday gifts wouldn't have upset her all that much to miss out on but it was the fact that her Mom had found not one, but two pair of shoes, in Kurt's size no less, that were super fantastic bargains and so, he had returned home with two new pairs of shoes and that was more than Maya could swallow!
When she discovered that, she went immediately into the "Poor me, woe is me" routine followed by "Nobody loves me, guess I'll go eat worms" kind of behavior and ended it by announcing in one really wild and bad hissy fit that she has no "matching shoes" and not a single pair of shoes in a Size 3 either! (Maybe the fact that she only wears a size 2 shoe has something to do with not having any size 3 shoes in her boxes of shoes -note, I said "Boxes" because she has two good sized boxes that are stuffed to overflowing with, you guessed it, SHOES! And the only time there is a pair of shoes that aren't "matching" is when she hasn't bothered to pick up both shoes to a pair and put them in one of those two boxes! So, trust me -the child is definitely not being deprived of shoes, not in any way, shape or form!
After that, she picked a fight with or over Jeff's older daughter and it all bounced back to the shoe meltdown-which by that time, Mandy had had more than her fill of Maya's misery so she got sent to bed. Even that ended badly too as Maya just wouldn't give up the ghost on the whining and crying so Mandy then removed the tv set from her bedroom as punishment for her behavior.
Sunday morning, I was afraid the whole darned scenario was going to go into a rerun when Maya got up -finally -and was sitting on the sofa, still pouting, and made a comment then about how her Mom had taken her tv set out of her bedroom and she'd done that "For no reason at all too!" Uh oh, I thought for sure the crap was going to hit the fans all over again but either Mandy didn't hear that comment or she chose to simply ignore it by considering the source. Wise move, any way you cut that one!
This week I've been working whenever I have a chance on a tabletopper I am embroidering -not sure as yet who or what it will go for but I'm trying to get it done by this Sunday anyway. And between that, trying to cook supper, keep track of what these two hooligans are getting into every day as well and I've been busy! Plus -making more phone calls and such about our upcoming class reunion tossed into that mix and I had more than enough to keep me moving.
Wednesday was my day this month to go over to the cancer clinic for my monthly "port flush" and since Mandy had to work that day, of course, the kids went to my appointment with me.
The morning was moving along fairly smoothly and it was time to hop in the jeep and head out but when I turned the key in the ignition, I got a bit of a fright in that all I heard was a couple little clicking sounds and no engine turning over! Not exactly what I wanted to have to deal with for sure. I tried again and again -several times more -to get the buggy to start, which finally it did start but it stalled out about 2 seconds later. Had a heck of a time to get it to start and to stay running but finally, it did kick in and away we went! I was a nervous wreck then at the cancer clinic worrying that when we went to leave, what if the darned jeep wouldn't start up at all then? But thankfully, it came through and was kind to me so we made it over there and back home with no more problems from the jeep!
Today, I had plans to go to lunch at the home of one of the girls in our monthly lunch group and we were going to spend the afternoon working on getting things in order for our class reunion. I was worried how I was going to manage this lunch today initially because Mandy had work today too and the thought of going to my friend's house to eat and put stuff together while taking the kids along and having to keep track of them and keep them from snooping in everything under the sun there too were taken care of though when the kids TSS aides made arrangements that they would take Maya and Kurtis up to Curwensville Dam for the day and give me some much needed relief by doing that!
We got the copies of the school newspaper all rolled up and tied up like it was a mini-diploma, along with a copy of the last Football game program of our senior year and they are ready to go into the gift bag each classmate will receive at our reunion -along with two cds being made up especially for our classmates featuring favorite old songs from 1961-62. We don't have the cds in our hot little hands as yet but they are expected to arrive any day now. We also had wrappers done up to put around Hershey bars which will be at the table setting of each person attending our reunion and the wrappers have a photo on the front of our old high school with the words on each side of that photo saying "West Branch Area High School and Class of 1962." The candy bar thing was copied from the kids of the Class of 1961 as they had those at their dinner too and they really do look cute as all get out!
I offered, in addition to doing up a small poster board in memory of the nine members of our class who have passed away, I said I would also do up name cards that have the graduation photo of each classmate who is attending the reunion too. So this evening, I sat down at the computer and put to use the little bit I learned a year ago about working with Microsoft's Publisher! It only took me about three hours to put all the pictures of the kids from our class who are going to attend our reunion into a file with their names under each picture and print this out on photo paper. Now all I have to do is cut the photos and clue them to the name tags we got and presto magic, a name tag with a photo of how each of us looked 50 years ago! (I'm not particularly fond of any photos of myself and especially not my graduation picture, but well guess I'll survive the ordeal, won't I?
And now -I do believe I'd best go to bed as my eyes are not cooperating at all and 7:30 a.m. will be here in no time!
More to come,so stay tuned!
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Plan Ahead and Buy in Multiples!
So tonight my son, in one of his finer moments of postings on Facebook wrote a comment pertaining to his thoughts on how so many men refer to the woman in their life as "the old lady" and he said he thinks if more men refrained from referring to their special lady as that, perhaps more men would actually then be able to spend a long time with said person until perhaps she actually does become an "old lady."
I had to chuckle when I read his comment there and posted back to him that I wanted to know where or how he had acquired the wisdom to make that statement. Initially, he attributed it to some song -which is where he gets a lot of his sage sayings at times, but anyway, I posted back that I definitely could state where he didn't get that wisdom and that it didn't come to him by way of Nevada. He knew I was referring back to his Dad -who by the way, I have to admit often did refer to me as "the old lady" long before I actually became the "old person" I am today. Imagine that, huh?
So I read the posts to Mandy which then led to us making some wise cracks about that certain male figure of their lives and I made a comment about him not being all that bright about women apparently since he is now on Wife number 5 (and not always really impressed with this particular "old lady" either from things he says.
That then led to someone making a comment that as many times as he's been married now, he should have bought up mens-wedding-bands in multiples and perhaps he could have gotten a discounted price on them that way.
Yes, I know -we are an evil bunch here, aren't we?
Honest, but still, more than a tad on the evil side you could safely say!
I had to chuckle when I read his comment there and posted back to him that I wanted to know where or how he had acquired the wisdom to make that statement. Initially, he attributed it to some song -which is where he gets a lot of his sage sayings at times, but anyway, I posted back that I definitely could state where he didn't get that wisdom and that it didn't come to him by way of Nevada. He knew I was referring back to his Dad -who by the way, I have to admit often did refer to me as "the old lady" long before I actually became the "old person" I am today. Imagine that, huh?
So I read the posts to Mandy which then led to us making some wise cracks about that certain male figure of their lives and I made a comment about him not being all that bright about women apparently since he is now on Wife number 5 (and not always really impressed with this particular "old lady" either from things he says.
That then led to someone making a comment that as many times as he's been married now, he should have bought up mens-wedding-bands in multiples and perhaps he could have gotten a discounted price on them that way.
Yes, I know -we are an evil bunch here, aren't we?
Honest, but still, more than a tad on the evil side you could safely say!
A Couple for the Book...
At various times since I started writing this blog, people have suggested to me that I compile the funny things that my grandkids -Maya and Kurt -have said and/or done over time. And yes, as some of you may recall, they have done some pretty comical things now and again.
Well, I meant to put this up here last week right after it happened but then, got busy doing something else I guess and I forgot about it. But then tonight, Mandy told me another crazy, zany thing that was said by Maya today in the waiting room at the kids' therapists' office and I thought no time like the present to post both these things tonight then.
Last Thursday evening, Maya and Kurt were in my bedroom watching TV together. It must have been some program that they both agreed to like it and not pick any fights while watching it together, as they were being well-behaved and nice, also quiet, around each other. (A rare entity here much of the time for that to happen!)
Well anyway, all of a sudden Kurt emerged into the dining room and announced to Mandy -while pulling his little "wife-beater" style undershirt out and away from his body this gem. "Nope. Don't have any chest hairs!"
And after announcing that -totally out of the blue, ya know -he disappeared back into my room and back to watching whatever show they had on my TV at that point in time!
And Mandy and I just looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders and wondered just where in blazes that announcement came from!
But today, this comment by Maya today, really takes the cake, I think.
Mandy and both kids along with their oldest half-sister, Katie, were all together, seated in a very packed waiting room until their Therapist (Miss Randi) was free and ready to see them today.
Maya got up and looked straight at Katie (who is about 3 1/2 months pregnant now) and said to her in her most authoritarian voice too,
"So Katie! Just when is your due date for that baby in your belly that you are going to give birth to gonna be born anyway?"
Don't dare tell me you'd have been able to keep a straight face if a kid her age asked that in a crowded waiting room now too!!!
Gotta love the things they come out with though, don't 'cha?
Well, I meant to put this up here last week right after it happened but then, got busy doing something else I guess and I forgot about it. But then tonight, Mandy told me another crazy, zany thing that was said by Maya today in the waiting room at the kids' therapists' office and I thought no time like the present to post both these things tonight then.
Last Thursday evening, Maya and Kurt were in my bedroom watching TV together. It must have been some program that they both agreed to like it and not pick any fights while watching it together, as they were being well-behaved and nice, also quiet, around each other. (A rare entity here much of the time for that to happen!)
Well anyway, all of a sudden Kurt emerged into the dining room and announced to Mandy -while pulling his little "wife-beater" style undershirt out and away from his body this gem. "Nope. Don't have any chest hairs!"
And after announcing that -totally out of the blue, ya know -he disappeared back into my room and back to watching whatever show they had on my TV at that point in time!
And Mandy and I just looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders and wondered just where in blazes that announcement came from!
But today, this comment by Maya today, really takes the cake, I think.
Mandy and both kids along with their oldest half-sister, Katie, were all together, seated in a very packed waiting room until their Therapist (Miss Randi) was free and ready to see them today.
Maya got up and looked straight at Katie (who is about 3 1/2 months pregnant now) and said to her in her most authoritarian voice too,
"So Katie! Just when is your due date for that baby in your belly that you are going to give birth to gonna be born anyway?"
Don't dare tell me you'd have been able to keep a straight face if a kid her age asked that in a crowded waiting room now too!!!
Gotta love the things they come out with though, don't 'cha?
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Tell Me Why....
There are a couple burning questions that loom in the back of my mind tonight. I have no answer for them and just was wondering if anyone else can tell me why, exactly, things like this happen.
First off, there is the question about why is it that any time I wear a nice knit shirt, or a blouse or top of some type, most always this happens if the item of clothing is of a light color, one that shows even the very slightest of stains or marks immediately, is also something that it is inevitable if I eat something or take a drink -even from one of the many custom tumblers of which we have a plethora -a tiny dribble will seep out, over my lip and down my front to land right smack dab in the middle of my chest!
It is a never-fail event in my life! And let me tell you this, I am damned sick and tired of it too!
And no matter what it is that drips and lands there, it is also inevitable that it will never, ever come out no matter how many times the item is laundered or dry-cleaned! All of this of course is also dependent too on the occasion to which I have worn this item in public -the more people, the more obvious the stain/mark is going to be!
Murphy's Law? Well, that's what I always blame this on but maybe it is just me and that I am one big clutz.
And here's another little puzzler for you too.
There's my grandson, Kurtis, who is now sporting a big old ace bandage wrapped around his fingers and left hand, clear up to just above his wrist in an effort to keep the little splint thingy in place to protect his finger and the nail that he managed to cut last night with an axe. Yes, an axe in the hands of a 6-year-old -not something I would recommend, for sure, but that's life in the fast lane in this house anyway.
And why is it that this particular bandage, although he has been told, over and over and OVER again all day today to please leave the bandage alone, don't be messing with it, don't be fingering it to death, don't be pushing on it and making it come undone, still he insists on doing all of the above so that it has now been rewrapped on his hand and arm several times now today and this is only day one out of the ten days he must keep this injury wrapped up like this!
I should really be used to these things by now but guess I either have very high expectations or am a really slow learner in the field of reality!
First off, there is the question about why is it that any time I wear a nice knit shirt, or a blouse or top of some type, most always this happens if the item of clothing is of a light color, one that shows even the very slightest of stains or marks immediately, is also something that it is inevitable if I eat something or take a drink -even from one of the many custom tumblers of which we have a plethora -a tiny dribble will seep out, over my lip and down my front to land right smack dab in the middle of my chest!
It is a never-fail event in my life! And let me tell you this, I am damned sick and tired of it too!
And no matter what it is that drips and lands there, it is also inevitable that it will never, ever come out no matter how many times the item is laundered or dry-cleaned! All of this of course is also dependent too on the occasion to which I have worn this item in public -the more people, the more obvious the stain/mark is going to be!
Murphy's Law? Well, that's what I always blame this on but maybe it is just me and that I am one big clutz.
And here's another little puzzler for you too.
There's my grandson, Kurtis, who is now sporting a big old ace bandage wrapped around his fingers and left hand, clear up to just above his wrist in an effort to keep the little splint thingy in place to protect his finger and the nail that he managed to cut last night with an axe. Yes, an axe in the hands of a 6-year-old -not something I would recommend, for sure, but that's life in the fast lane in this house anyway.
And why is it that this particular bandage, although he has been told, over and over and OVER again all day today to please leave the bandage alone, don't be messing with it, don't be fingering it to death, don't be pushing on it and making it come undone, still he insists on doing all of the above so that it has now been rewrapped on his hand and arm several times now today and this is only day one out of the ten days he must keep this injury wrapped up like this!
I should really be used to these things by now but guess I either have very high expectations or am a really slow learner in the field of reality!
Boo-Boos and Gram's Brave Little Boy!
After today's event's, my daughter Mandy and my niece have decided that Monday the 13th must have replaced Friday the 13th as a day for bad luck.
This afternoon -about 5 p.m. -I was out messing around in my lovely little garden, pulling some weeds and checking to see how many acorn squash we can expect to harvest soon. Maya and Kurtis were also out in the backyard playing. Maya was in the middle of the yard and Kurt was over by the swing set when Maya called out to me saying "Gram, Kurtis has the axe!"
What the heck? Where did the axe come from anyway? The last I heard anything about the axe was last week when Maya had taken it away from the kids after they had inadvertently gotten a hold of it and she had put it in the shed behind the house.
So I yelled over at Kurt to put the darned thing down and before I could get myself out of the garden, here comes Kurtis walking across the yard towards me, crying and holding his hand!
As I got closer to him I could see the blood running down his arm and hurried him into the house, into the kitchen, yelling the whole way in there for Mandy to hurry and come out too.
She took one look at his hand and got him by the sink and started to run cold water over his hand -and we could see that he had a cut on his left index finger then.
How on earth could this have happened and so darned quickly too?
Mandy grabbed a dish cloth and got it wrapped around his finger, all the while telling him to hold that on there tightly, trying to question Maya simultaneously as to what had happened and also, trying to soothe Kurt and get him calmed down a bit.
Within a couple of minutes though Mandy had grabbed her purse and hustled Kurtis out the door and off they went then to the Emergency Room to get the finger checked out.
About four hours later, they finally got back home and Kurtis was sporting a big fat bandage around his left hand -with only the thumb and the tips of his ring finger and pinky barely showing.
Mandy was telling me the events of the emergency room visit and that he only had to have one stitch placed in the finger -right by the nail -and that he is going to loose the fingernail as this heals though.
She also said that he was remarkably calm throughout the whole procedure -from the nurse and doctors poking and prodding him along with getting the finger x-rayed too. She said she thought she was going to pass out when they stuck the needle in around the cut and the nail to inject the novacaine to numb the injury so they could stitch it but Kurtis didn't even flinch!
Just goes to show what a brave little guy he really is, doesn't it?
We still don't know exactly how he managed to get this cut -he keeps saying Maya did it and of course, she denies up one side and down the other that she didn't do anything wrong. And I'll be darned if I can figure out what happened either as it all took place in a matter of about 20-30 seconds!
From where Maya was standing when she told me Kurtis had the axe in his hands till he started walking towards me, holding the hand, I can't see how she could possibly have gotten over to him in that short a time span and hit his finger with the axe so I'm inclined to think perhaps she really is innocent of his accusations.
But then too, Maya also frequently does have a proclivity to blame Kurtis for EVERYTHING imaginable bad thing that happens around here and of course, she is always little miss innocent all the time too.
This afternoon -about 5 p.m. -I was out messing around in my lovely little garden, pulling some weeds and checking to see how many acorn squash we can expect to harvest soon. Maya and Kurtis were also out in the backyard playing. Maya was in the middle of the yard and Kurt was over by the swing set when Maya called out to me saying "Gram, Kurtis has the axe!"
What the heck? Where did the axe come from anyway? The last I heard anything about the axe was last week when Maya had taken it away from the kids after they had inadvertently gotten a hold of it and she had put it in the shed behind the house.
So I yelled over at Kurt to put the darned thing down and before I could get myself out of the garden, here comes Kurtis walking across the yard towards me, crying and holding his hand!
As I got closer to him I could see the blood running down his arm and hurried him into the house, into the kitchen, yelling the whole way in there for Mandy to hurry and come out too.
She took one look at his hand and got him by the sink and started to run cold water over his hand -and we could see that he had a cut on his left index finger then.
How on earth could this have happened and so darned quickly too?
Mandy grabbed a dish cloth and got it wrapped around his finger, all the while telling him to hold that on there tightly, trying to question Maya simultaneously as to what had happened and also, trying to soothe Kurt and get him calmed down a bit.
Within a couple of minutes though Mandy had grabbed her purse and hustled Kurtis out the door and off they went then to the Emergency Room to get the finger checked out.
About four hours later, they finally got back home and Kurtis was sporting a big fat bandage around his left hand -with only the thumb and the tips of his ring finger and pinky barely showing.
Mandy was telling me the events of the emergency room visit and that he only had to have one stitch placed in the finger -right by the nail -and that he is going to loose the fingernail as this heals though.
She also said that he was remarkably calm throughout the whole procedure -from the nurse and doctors poking and prodding him along with getting the finger x-rayed too. She said she thought she was going to pass out when they stuck the needle in around the cut and the nail to inject the novacaine to numb the injury so they could stitch it but Kurtis didn't even flinch!
Just goes to show what a brave little guy he really is, doesn't it?
We still don't know exactly how he managed to get this cut -he keeps saying Maya did it and of course, she denies up one side and down the other that she didn't do anything wrong. And I'll be darned if I can figure out what happened either as it all took place in a matter of about 20-30 seconds!
From where Maya was standing when she told me Kurtis had the axe in his hands till he started walking towards me, holding the hand, I can't see how she could possibly have gotten over to him in that short a time span and hit his finger with the axe so I'm inclined to think perhaps she really is innocent of his accusations.
But then too, Maya also frequently does have a proclivity to blame Kurtis for EVERYTHING imaginable bad thing that happens around here and of course, she is always little miss innocent all the time too.
And here's a little picture to show Kurt['s injury in all its shining glory.
Really makes me very proud of him though for being so brave at the Emergency Room. Sure is a lot different reaction from what some of my kids would have had if they'd had to have stitches at his age.
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