What a klutz!

When I was growing up, we would go and visit my Aunt, Uncle and Grandmother who lived in OH. My aunt had the most gorgeous 1930's lamp with two round globes, one on the top and one of the bottom of the lamp. They were milky white with violets on both of them. A real heirloom. I remember always seeing that lamp setting in a place of obvious favor on a round table in front of the front window. It sat there for years. I was always allowed to look, but knew never to touch it. I adored that lamp. It made it through the years of my childhood and all of my cousins that came to visit and play. No one ever bumped that table where the lamp sat.

Years later my Aunt and Uncle moved to a new house in a new town just up the road. We visited there a time or two and then my Uncle passed away. I got married and my new husband and I went to go to a couple of amusement parks in the area and stayed with my Aunt. We were having a wonderful visit, catching up and just enjoying each other's company. I have always been a rather clumbsy person, and nothing still has changed. I like the facebook group that said I could trip over flat surfaces. I think I have actually tripped over my own shadow before... Well, my Aunt had this beautiful collection of Home Interior's porcelain animals on a side table by her door. Across the walkway was her chair and a side table with the much adored lamp on it. My new husband and I were getting ready to go out for dinner with my Aunt. I was looking at all the porcelain animals she had and talking to her about them while she got her jacket on. I made a motion with my arm and pushed my elbow back and caught the top of the lamp and knocked it out into the middle of the hardwood floor...I was mortified! My Aunt just laughed and brushed it off, cleaned up the glass and refused to take any money for a replacement. And she also gave me a nickname that has stuck to this day...she calls me "Klutz" and everytime she does, everyone knows why and gets a good laugh out of it. What a gracious lady she is, in so many more ways than just this. It taught me that things aren't what is important in life, people are. I knew it anyway, but it was such a wonderful way for her to show it to me in more than just theory!

Why do they say everything is like riding a bike??

I first tried to ride a bike right after my 10th birthday. My parents bought me the cutest pink Debutante bicycle with white stripes and streamers on the handlebars. My brother and sis-in-law supplied the horn and the white woven basket w/the bright pink, yellow and orange daisies on it. Then the reality hit...I had to learn to ride it.

I exhausted both my Mom and my Dad. I would get on and get one pedal stroke in and fall over. Boy, oh boy, did I have a little temper. I would get up and stomp off! I am NEVER going to learn to ride this bike... I can't count how many times I fell off that bike. I had stone bruises and the gravel tore little holes in my legs when I fell. I had to go to see Dr Kalaycioglu when the cuts got infected. He treated me and I went back to learning to ride that bike. I got up time and again. Finally, I fell one last time and I jumped up, picked up the bike, slammed it on the ground and declared that "This stupid thing doesn't want me to ride it!" I don't know how my Daddy kept from laughing seeing that little display, but he was a Taurus too, so he understood the temper and the stubborness.

Finally, one day my brother decided he would take a turn and try to teach me to ride that bike. He came out and walked up and down the driveway with his hand on the seat for what seemed like a hundred times. Finally, he got me started and let go, but he ran beside the bike like he was still holding on until I got almost to the end of the driveway. I was laughing and looked back and there he stood about 10 feet back...then it hit me - the mailbox...No seriously, I realized that I was pedaling away on my own. It took a little more confidence building, but I mastered riding that bike! Now Chris and I enjoy taking long rides on Saturdays and Sundays on the rail trail! Pretty good for starting out on a bike that didn't want me to ride it!! Don't you think!?!

This weekend...

Well, what a weekend...Mom and I went to the Strawberry Festival parade. We embarrassed some relatives and were embarrassed by some relatives, you can't pick your family! And let me just comment on the length of the parade. They should have known it was going on for too long when the ambulance that was in the parade had to start carrying people off the streets because they were collapsing from exhaustion. It started late and then there were at least 10 minutes between every other entry...

At least the sun was shining...Mom and I have been blessed twice this year at events that usually are cursed with rain. First the Irish Spring Festival and now the Strawberry Festival. I am just too afraid to hope that we may get to see the Mannington Fair without a solid week of rain! We had a nice trip down, but the sun was draining. We gave up on the parade after 3+ hours.

To top it off, in all that time, there were only about 4 things that had anything to do with strawberries! There were sure alot of mexicans, Peruvians, and Bolivians dancing in the streets, and groups and bands from all over the US, but not much local stuff at all. And I thought it was the strawberry parade!!

So next year, we will have to find something else to do! I was just glad to be with my Mommy! I am hoping to get some pics posted on here soon, too.

So this is 40...

OK, so this is what 40 feels like. I can live with this. Now there are days when my joints tell me I'm 90, but I don't listen well. So that never matters.

Anyway, I went out a couple of days ago to pick up a load of mulch for the garden beds, and I stopped to look at a keyboard, stand and seat Yolanda had for sale. It was exactly what I wanted so I bought it, and it was a great price too. I went on to Freed's to get the mulch. It was a beautiful day, and I love to drive when there isn't anyone else on the road, so it was perfect. I got the mulch, but there was a different guy there, so he didn't clean up the overflow for me or anything. The one man that loads the mulch there will level it off for you, get it off the roof of your truck and tailgate, and even shovel any that falls off back into your truck.

I drove home and got the mail and went to go inside, and realized that I had only brought the truck key. I had locked myself out. I do this alot, so I had a spare in my wallet and I thought this would be no problem... Well, we had given the one in my wallet to his parents, and not put it back, so I was really locked out. Noone else was home. So I walked down to my neighbors. He just happened to be home because of a dentist appt and he let me use thier phone. Thank the Lord, Chris was working here in town today, so I only had to wait a little while for him to get home and let me in.

That evening, he was questioning me as to why I had left without the house keys. I don't know, sometimes these things just happen. He said I wasn't like this when we first met. Well, that was 8 years ago, so I told him I had aged... Well, I guess he understood. When he gave me my birthday card this morning, it was one of Maxine's quotes...she's hilarious. I love Maxine! It said: "40 is when you start asking yourself life's big questions...Like 'Why did I come into this room? I knew a minute ago...'"

So Happy Birthday to me! And now starts the best years of my life!

Have you ever sat on a cat??

Today, I am going back to my humorous side...I still get a kick out of this! It's another one of those "truth is stranger than fiction" stories...

It was the fall of '88. I was living in a travel trailer in Apache Junction, AZ. It was the middle of the night but still very warm. I had a beautiful, grey long hair cat with little white paws. His name was "Socks". He was the best cat ever. He liked to share fudgesicles with me.

One night, I woke from a deep sleep needing to go pee, really bad. So I got up and proceeded to sleep-walk my way to the tiny little bathroom. We had a port-a-pot type toilet that stayed dry inside until you stepped on a little lever to let water flow into it and flush it. Now I was still about half asleep when I got in there and just plopped down on the pot. Just as my butt hit the seat, I felt something furry brush across my butt cheeks. I let out a scream and jumped out of my skin! I was WIDE awake now!! I flipped on the light and looked down to see my cat slowly stretching his way out of the pot! It was so warm that he had decided that it was cooler to sleep in the toilet...needless to say, I kept the lid down from then on!

And I swear to you that this is a true story! And that things like this happen to me all the time. It sure makes for an interesting life!!

Mother's Day

I got to go "home" today, that being the place I was brought to from the hospital. It is different now, but the memories are still there and it hasn't changed so much that I can't hear my childhood self laughing and playing there with my imaginary friend or the three little boys who lived across the road. All I had to do was run to the top of the hill by the road and yell. Sure enough, there would be a reply and they would come over to play. We were poor, really poor, but I was happily oblivious to this. We were so very rich in the things in life that trully matter, that I didn't know we didn't have money. I was very happy to ask these little boys to stay for supper. Mom had just enough food for me, my Daddy and her to have one half of a chicken breast each, some vegetables, milk and dessert. She would give up her chicken and half mine with one of the boys so that each of us had something to eat. She just gave this without question, and cheerfully. And I was never really in trouble for asking them to stay even though she would quietly tell me before we went out to play that I was not to ask them to stay for supper.

We had a well with delicious, cold water brought up by cranking up a big bailer on a rope. I remember having to wait for the few peices of sediment to settle and then getting a big drink of that cold, wonderful water from the big dipper. What I wouldn't give for a pail of that water today! Not the chlorinated, brown stuff that comes out of my tap. And for which I have to buy bottled water from the store so I just feel safe enough to take a drink.

We had a horse named Ginger and a bull named Ben. Ginger was gentle, a work horse that didn't have much to do. Because we had an old blue Ford tractor that did the work. Ben didn't have any "work" to do either, but he was always waiting at the fence by the watering trough when we came home from church. Once in a while a neighbor would want to "borrow" ol'Ben, and Mom and my brother, Doug were responsible to get him where he was to go. Sometimes this required a long walk... One day, we came home and he had lost his nose ring. What a mystery considering how well that ring was connected in his nose. Noone found it until years later. My brother had cows, but they were not for milking or breeding, they were his FFA project. I remember watching them over the fence as they walked under the oil cloth to keep the flies off them and then got a big drink and a lick off of the salt block. When my brother grew up and got married, he kept cows for a while and butchered them. Black Angus is so delicious.

We had a big barn and hayfields that sloped down. Mom and Daddy and Doug would spend hours putting up hay. They didn't bale it, it was forked onto a flat bed pulled behind the tractor and then forked up into the haymow. The big barn was always cool and dark, and I wasn't allowed to play there b/c it was so old. Parts of this old barn are now being lovingly fashioned into a counter/bar/cupboard and bench in my kitchen by my fiance. He is so patient with my memories and things I ask him to do so I can be surrounded by them. My memories are so precious to me, just as each of my family members are.

We always had two big gardens. One was pretty much all corn, and the other had tomatoes, peppers, green beans, squash, cucumbers and all matter of delicious produce. I learned to count when I was two by carrying tomatoes one or two at a time from the garden and putting them on the big table by the cellar house to ripen. Then after all that goodness was harvested, Mom and I would count the lids on the canning jars as they popped. The pops were always followed by my Mom saying "Thank you, Jesus!" Then in the winter, I remember the joy on my Daddy's face as he opened up a big quart of those red tomatoes and sprinkled them with salt and pepper.

There were blackberry bushes that delivered quart upon quart of those delicious juicy berries that Mom and my Grandma Freeman made into cobblers and jellies and canned. Those berries were delicious with milk and sugar, ate from little pale green melamine bowls. There were peach trees on the hill and a big pear tree in the front yard that I would climb up and get my long hair all tangled in it's branches, always just a few feet above where my Mom could reach. And she would have to climb up to get me loose.

In all of this, I was NEVER left out. There wasn't day care, or play dates, just a small loving family that made me into the secure, comfortable, happy person I am today. Being blessed with a foundation for life that is as solid as that has made the difference for me as a person. And everyday, there, big as life itself, was Mom. She got Daddy off to work, my brother off to school, and then tackled all the work that the farm required with me right there with her. Asking questions and learning and taking it all in, and forming in that tender thirsty mind all the principles I live by today. She taught me all I could learn as soon as I was ready. Counting all the way to 100 at age 2, reading and sewing at age 3, and common sense by the bucket full all the time. And if everyone could experience this childhood, what a world it would be! I am so blessed and priviledged beyond anything money could buy by this precious gift my Mom and Daddy gave me just by being the wonderful parents they were and are. I miss Daddy so much and I deeply appreciate every day the Lord has blessed me with having my Mom! Thanks Mom (and Daddy) for this priceless gift you have given me!! Happy Mother's Day!!

How bad do you "need" beer??

In today's blog, names have been changed to protect the guilty...just to let you know.

Chris and I were going out of town for a session of paint school. We would be gone 4 days and were being accompanied by friends/clients of his business. The trip was going great, six hours of good conversation and laughs. We finally arrived at our destination and it was just after dark. Now we are from WV and had travelled to eastern PA. The other things you need to know is that in WV you can buy beer anywhere. In PA, you can only buy beer from a distributor or restaurant that has a bar.

We had stopped for dinner and Susie had a beer with her meal. Her boyfriend, Hal, who is Chris's customer, didn't drink and neither did Chris or myself. We stopped at the local IGA before going to the hotel to grab a few things. Chris and I were getting some tea and milk and we heard Susie at the info desk. She was screaming at the checker about something. Chris sorta gave me that "help" look, so I went over. Susie was wanting to know where the beer was in the store. The clerk told her that they didn't have any, and Susie was accusing her of lying. Hal told Susie that he didn't know, and I told her that to buy beer we had to go to a distributor. She accused us all of lying and said that we had all conspired together to involve her in this elaborate practical joke. It took a while, but we finally convinced her that we were not pulling her leg. Susie, meanwhile, was doing her best job of convincing us that she was not an alcoholic and didn't "need" beer. The checker told us about a couple places we could try to get Susie some beer, and that several of those were closed, so we may have to wait till the next day. Well, to Susie that was just totally unexceptable. We all checked out and left. The look of relief on the clerk's face as we were leaving said it all. I could tell she was wondering what kind of nut we had picked up.

We wanted to stop at the restaurant/bar across the parking lot, but they only sold beer by the pitcher, and that wouldn't stay fresh for long. I don't know it would have lasted long enough to get stale at this point. I was pretty embarrassed by Susie's fit in the grocery store, and was getting irritated. I don't even get this crazy about Mountain Dew! And I LOVE Mountain Dew! So away we went on the great beer chase. To this day if someone is desperately searching for something, Chris and I call it "pulling a Susie". We passed several bar/restaurants that were unacceptable to Susie, and had stopped at a few places that didn't sell beer in bottles or cans, only in pitchers. So the quest continued, with Susie defending herself every minute and declaring that in no way did she "need" the beer, just wanted to have it in the room with her "in case"... After about 30 minutes of driving around, we finally pull up to a bar that will sell beer in bottles. Susie tore out of the car and into the bar. She was back in just a little while with her six pack. Only ONE six-pack, mind you. After all this trouble, I would have expected her to come back with a case at least. She said that the bartender told her that she could only purchase one six-pack per visit. If she wanted another one, she would have to go to the car and then come back in. THIS she refused to do. Now throwing the big, screaming fit in the grocery store that mortified the rest of us was just fine. But she was NOT going to go back into that bar for another six-pack and have them think she was some kind of alcoholic. Well, at this point I was no longer thinking she was, I was convinced.

Finally we got to the hotel and checked in and went to our rooms. We had two days of hanging out at the hotel. At least I hung out. Susie went shopping. She bought so much stuff that we almost didn't have room for our luggage on the return trip. I rode all the way home with my floor space full of our stuff. On top of all of this, she wanted to stop and buy a whole new set of lawn furntiture and cushions at one of the local stores. Hal asked her if she thought we were going to strap it to the roof. I felt like the Clampett's as it was. And the six-pack of beer...she didn't drink a single one. Took the entire six-pack home with her...

Happiness...

I am having a grand ol' time. I can't remember being this happy since the summer before kindergarten. It is a total contentment. And a great deal of it is thanks to Chris. He is incredible. I know that God brought us together because I could never have found someone so perfect for me on my own. I just hope that I am as perfect for him as he is for me.

There is a bittersweet awareness in this happiness that I am keenly aware of. It is almost an exquisite pain and practically tangible. I know it won't last forever. This time is almost like being in suspended animation. And I am almost afraid of the incredible sadness that I know can and may follow. The kind that swallows you up and if you aren't careful will suck you into a deep depression.

So I am thoroughly enjoying and savoring every single second of this precious happiness and thanking God that He has blessed me with this time. It will be a great bolster against any negativity that may follow. Something to feed my soul through whatever may follow.

Of course, I want to think that this time is my "reward" for being through the sometimes incredible tough times I have already been through in the past. This may or may not be the case and that is okay. If the wonderful times don't last, neither can the awful ones. And with the wonderful support system I have, and the love of a Father that is beyond understanding and incomprehensible to me a mere mortal, I know I will be fine whatever may come.

In the meantime, I am going to just wallow in the sheer joy, contentment, and happiness I am finding with every new day. And give thanks to God for his mercy, grace, love and forgiveness! May all of my friends and followers enjoy a time like this at the exact time they need it.