Sunday, October 6, 2024

Sunday Night Scaries Anyone?

How, how, HOW can it be Sunday night already? It's Sunday Night Scaries time, my least favorite time of the week. Maybe my Ten Things of Thankful list will help distract me...?

My husband and I found out we are REALLY AND TRULY empty nesters. We got our taxes done (extension, not delinquent) and discovered we can no longer claim our daughter as a dependent. It would have been nice to have known that a year or so ago, so adjustments could have been made on our withholding, and it's too late to remedy it for our 2024 taxes, but by golly, we'll be ready for 2025!  On a side note, I would like to make a suggestion to the health insurance people and the IRS people that the kick 'em off the parents' payroll age SHOULD BE THE SAME FOR BOTH, because we can't be the only parents to have assumed that it was.

Our daughter will no longer be on our health insurance after this year, so a small off-set to the whole can't-claim-her-as-a-dependent-anymore fiasco.

Further to the empty nesters status, our son passed his Internal Medicine Boards and is now a Board-certified physician! He's bona fide!*

*if you don't get this reference, then you'd best head to your nearest streaming service and look for "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" and watch it immediately

Summer came back this week, but it was bearable, because it was temporary. Besides, 90 degrees in October just isn't as hot as 90 degrees in August and I can't explain how but it is.

Former President Jimmy Carter turned 100 this week. I wish we could keep him another 100 years.

I was invited to a soccer game by one of my former preschoolers. Rex is a big kindergartener now, and I was honored that he wanted me to watch him play. I love him and his sweet family, and it was wonderful to catch up with them. I also received a beautiful piece of artwork by the artist/soccer player that I hung on the wall in my classroom.



When I pulled into my driveway after the soccer game, my headlights shone onto a very fat tree frog stuck to the side of our other car as it sat in the driveway. Tree frogs like to jump onto my legs and cling to me with those suction cup feet while I leap around and scream, so I'm thankful I saw this one before he had a chance to attach himself to me.



I had an ice cream date this week with another former preschooler and his mama. He, as well, is a big kindergartener. I got to hear about All Things Kindergarten, and it was pure delight.

It was homecoming at the university where I work, and our school had an entry in the homecoming parade on Saturday morning. I keep saying I'm not going to be in charge of the float this year, and every year, I'm in charge of the float again, but I tremendous amount of good help this time, and it turned out much better than I could have ever hoped for!



I've taken myself right up to bedtime, so good night to you, and good night to the Scaries!



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Sunday, September 29, 2024

Comeback Kid, Take Two

So much for being the Comeback Kid. Last week, I forgot to write a TToT post, and this week, umm, same, BUT I HAVE AN EXCUSE and it's my first thankful:

I had Friday off and I also have Monday off, so nothing makes sense. It doesn't feel like Sunday, because I don't have the Sunday Scaries, and I therefore wasn't triggered to remember to write my list of Ten Things of Thankful. But two days off? Much needed and welcome!

Last week, my Conscious Discipline coach visited my classroom. Amy is a master instructor and makes me a better teacher. Not enough thankfuls in the world for that!

I ate one and a half bags of candy corn last week, but I think I have the candy corn-loading mostly out of my system now. 

It may not be FALL cool, but it was cool enough last week that I was able to wear long pants and not melt. 

I cleaned out my sewing/craft room. Correction: I STARTED cleaning out my sewing/craft room. It's been kind of messy for awhile.

I was putting fabric away and found a whole stack of masks that I made four years ago, and I am SO THANKFUL that they are residing in drawers and not in my purse, car, pocket, computer bag, etc. May it remain that way!

I drove up to Jefferson City Thursday night and met my daughter there for her final step in becoming an attorney: the swearing-in ceremony at the Missouri Supreme Court. My husband couldn't be there due to the hurricane (more on that further down), so I represented for both of us. She is officially Emma Kate Dillon, Esq.




On her way out of Kansas City and headed to Jeff City, in heavy traffic on I-70, my daughter was rear-ended while driving in the far left lane. She was talking to me at the time, so I heard a noise, then heard her say something not printable here, and she hung up (yes, she was hands-free the whole time she was talking to me). She and the other driver managed to exchange information and take a few pictures without being killed, and once we got a chance to look it over the next morning, we were both thankful to find no damage! A real miracle!

My son and daughter in law flew back from Washington, DC, for my son's best friend's wedding in Fayetteville, and my husband and I were able to drive down there Saturday morning and have breakfast with them. Looking forward to a future trip to visit them in DC.

After our breakfast, my husband had to do some work, so I dropped him off at a McDonalds (to use their wifi) and visited two of my favorite places in Fayetteville: Fayetteville's Funky Flea Market, where I picked up a few little Christmas gifts, and Rick's Bakery, where I bought (and then consumed) way too many cookies. Totally worth it, but between the cookies and the candy corn earlier in the week, I'm thinking I have used up my sugar quota for the rest of the year and possibly most of next year as well.




My heart goes out to the people affected by Hurricane Helene. The damage is beyond comprehension. Monetary donations are desperately needed to help with the immediate needs of sheltering and feeding the victims of the storm. If you feel led, I recommend donating to the American Red Cross. Visit redcross.org or call 1-800-RED CROSS (800-733-2767) to make a financial donation. People can also text the word HELENE to 90999 to make a donation. You might also consider donating blood through the American Red Cross as another way to help during this relief response.



Saturday, September 14, 2024

The Comeback Kid

So it seems I took an unintentional sabbatical from blogging for the summer. I kept telling myself "I'll do it soon, I'll do it later, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it next weekend, I'll do it when I'm not so exhausted, I'll do it some day, just not now."

I AM exhausted. We drive to my dad's every weekend, two hours each way, to run errands, cook, clean, and keep him company. My school goes year round, so no summers off. And I have 20 VERY LIVELY four and five year olds every day and that requires lots of planning. And patience (testing it lately, I admit). It's a lot. I let the ball drop on blogging and especially on the Ten Things of Thankful and I feel as though I failed everyone involved with it.

Through much self-regulation, however, I am trying again to write. And thus begins my first TToT post in a coon's age:

1. I'm thankful for Clark for stepping up and offering to take over hosting the TToT when I just couldn't any longer. And additional thanks to Mimi, Kristi, and Lisa for being so kind about all of it.

2. Summer is pretty much over, and I'm okay with that. 

3. I got a special invitation from a special former (as in he graduated in May) preschooler to attend a community theater production that he was in along with several other members of his family. He totally stole the show, and I was honored to be invited to witness it! It also gave me the bug to audition, then I remembered Life and resigned myself to singing showtunes in the car instead.

4. The addition of a garage and workshop to the lake house has nearly come to fruition, and the best part of the whole thing is that the tiny screened porch has more than doubled in size and is a delightful place to relax. We still don't have real furniture for it, but the old plastic stuff is working just fine for now, and anyway, who cares when you can sit in it at night and work on a blog post while dock lights twinkle on the water and crickets and frogs sing in the background?




5. Football season has started again!

6. This is a big one: my daughter graduated from law school in May magna cum laude. She spent the next two months studying at least 10-12 hours a day, took the Bar exam in July and got the results this week...SHE PASSED WITH FLYING COLORS! My baby girl is an ATTORNEY!

7. Friday, lucky me had a colonoscopy. Super fun. 5 out of 5 stars. JK only the propofol gets 5 out of 5 stars. But it's over for another 10 years, so yay!




8. While summer hasn't completely left us (it's coming back later this week with temps in the 90s again - ugh), today, fall poked it's face through the door and gave us a delightful day of cooler temps and bright blue skies. My husband and I took advantage of this gift by going to Silver Dollar City and listening to some bluegrass. 




9. We've had a critter of some kind in our attic this spring and summer, and in spite of having repairs done on the wooden part of our house (it's a Tudor, so mostly stucco) and closing up holes, the little shit has found a way in again. My husband finally had enough and put a live trap in the attic on Wednesday afternoon. He checked it Thursday - nothing. Friday morning, as I was sleeping off my anesthesia, I woke up to him standing over me and saying there was something in the trap. How did he know, when he hadn't opened the hatch to see? I found out shortly, because it sounded like the varmint was doing barrel rolls with the cage across the attic floor. While my husband was retrieving his wildlife removal gear (oven mitts, a beach towel, bungees, and the ladder), the cats and I were following the progress of the cage as it seemed to rocket across the attic floor. It had to be a racoon or possum to make that kind of racket, but when my husband climbed up the ladder and moved the hatch aside, it was...a squirrel. A very athletic squirrel. He brought the cage down to the bedroom wrapped in the beach towel, then secured the towel with the bungees. We read that the squirrel needed to be relocated at least 2-4 miles away, but we did better than that - we took him on a 2 hour car ride to the lake house and released him (with much difficulty; it's a well-made cage) at the park down the street. He shot out of the cage and bounded off. Hopefully, he will text all his squirrel friends and family back in Joplin and warn them away from the house with the crazy man with the oven mitts or we can hope so, anyway.

10. And I did it! I got a post written. I can do hard things!

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Sunday, June 23, 2024

Whoa!

It's been a month since I wrote a Ten Things of Thankful post?!

I've been thankful, really, I have been. But exhaustion, both physical and mental, won out. Here's to getting back on the ol' horse (hopefully not one headed to the glue factory).

I'm thankful we had a beautiful spring and hope to remember it when I am melting in these ridiculous temps.

My dad is busting out of rehab this week after needing four weeks of daily IV antibiotics for an infection in his hip. 

I'm thankful for Nikki, who has made sure I had time off to help my dad throughout this latest adventure.

I'm thankful for the many people who filled in for me at work when I have needed to be gone.

My husband gets the biggest thanks during this time, as he has spent as much, if not more, time helping with my dad than I have this past month #worksremotely

I was able to get away for Kansas City Pride festivities, working at the Community Christian Church booth one evening and enjoying the TWO HOUR parade. 








I got to visit with my dear friend Esther when I was in Kansas City. I feel a post about the two of us is in my future. Stay tuned.




We also ran down to Little Rock for two days to see our son and daughter in law before they move to Washington DC this week. They have completed their medical residencies, and now it's off to a new chapter!

I attended a week-long training on play-based learning, and I'm now in the process of converting my classroom to accommodate this. It's going to be a tremendous amount of work to get it going, but once I have an arsenal of lesson plans, it will get easier. And my kids helped me move shelves, toys, and rugs around the room and were very excited to be tasked with helping!




My husband had a tick on him last week. So far, he hasn't turned into a tick, nor has he shown any symptoms of some icky tick-borne disease.

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Sunday, May 19, 2024

But It's Going To Get Better

I keep telling myself, "If I can just get through this week, everything will be great."

It's been about, oh, 32 weeks now, and I can assure you that everything is NOT great. But if I make it through this upcoming week, a few things will be easier. I think.

Quick Ten Things of Thankful:

No severe storms this week for us!

I had a four day work week, thanks to my daughter's law school graduation being on Sunday evening. 

We had beautiful weather most of the week and got lots of much needed outside time at school.

One of my kids brushed a bug off his head during circle time. Something made me look for it, and I'm SOOOO glad I did, because that niggling feeling was right - it was a tick. Ick. I stuck it to a piece of tape so the kids could all see it.

We had a fun talk about checking for ticks after this little incident.

I cleaned my closet and found a set of Erimish bracelets in a bag that I had completely forgotten I had even bought. It was like a mini Christmas, especially since they were Christmas bracelets! I think I ordered them when they were on sale after Christmas. Maybe. Who knows?

Black Cherry Propel water has been my go-to (after my morning Diet Dr Pepper) recently. It feels like summer.

One of my favorite student workers made the best homemade chocolate chip cookies I have  ever eaten and brought them to school as a thank you for being flexible with her schedule (she is incredibly dependable and fantastic in the classroom and I should be making HER chocolate chip cookies) AND she shared the recipe with me!

My husband and I ran out to Silver Dollar City on Saturday to listen to a little bluegrass music. It was a gorgeous day for it!

My dad's Tahoe needed a new battery, so we drove it to O'Reilly Auto Parts, because we had just gotten a new battery for our car there and they install the battery for you on the spot. Well. They don't do it with newer cars that have all the electronics, but I didn't know this until I had already bought the battery and the guy asked me if I wanted him to put it in the back of my car and I said I was hoping he'd put it under the hood. We didn't have time to find a place to install it that weekend, so I made an appointment THIS weekend to get it done. I made the appointment for 8 am on Saturday, because I wanted to get it over with, but when we tried to start it, of course it was dead. I had already missed the appointment to get the battery installed, and they were really nice about it and said I could bring the car in whenever we got it started and they would fit me in. We called AAA to jump the car, and the NICEST man came, and instead of jumping it, HE INSTALLED THE BATTERY FOR US. What a thankful!

I spoke too soon about those severe storms. There are storms in Oklahoma and Kansas, and we may or may not be affected. It's been a rough spring on a lot of folks, and hopefully, we are nearing the end of the worst of tornado season.

There's still a whole hour to join the hop!

I didn't take a picture of the tick. Or the battery.
Or the cookies. But I always take pictures
of my sweet girl Nora Pearl

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Sunday, May 12, 2024

Spring Weather Is Not For The Weak

I slept through the deadline for last week's Ten Things of Thankful. I seem to be perpetually worn out and I can't get enough sleep. I'm in an exhausting season of my life. I think it's more mental than physical, but since the only way to give rest to the mental part of me is physical sleep, then that's what I've got to do until someone gives me a better idea (totally open to any and all suggestions, so bring 'em on). Now I've got some making up to do with a couple of weeks' worth of thankfuls:

I finished the A to Z Challenge! I had a lot of fun poring through memorabilia from my childhood for the Challenge. I teared up over some of it, but by and large, it was delightful to revisit my past. 

My husband and I spent the last weekend in April working on my parents' house, continuing to sort through items and box them up for either moving or donating or selling. We've had a ridiculous amount of thunderstorms and rain this spring, and that weekend, it seemed to rain non-stop. Not that it would have really mattered, but I didn't think to check the basement until Sunday afternoon when my dad called to ask if it had leaked. 

You know what's coming next, right? There was an inch and a half of water all over the basement. I know this exact measurement, because I stood on the bottom step and stuck a ruler in the water. And as I stood there, surveying the ruined boxes and other items, I would hear "blurrrrrrPPPP" coming from different places around the perimeter of the basement, followed by rippling water. The water was still entering the basement (I read that this happens when the ground is so very saturated that the pressure of the water in the ground causes it to push into basements and foundations). There was nothing I could do at the time, so we left and hoped for the best. We returned on Thursday, and all the water had receded (yay!) but there's a crap ton of stuff that will need to be thrown away (see introductory paragraph about my current state of exhaustion). It could have been a LOT worse, so there's that.

Now, back up a few hours on Thursday to about 1:30 in the afternoon. All almost all of the children at our school were sound asleep. I, myself, was trying NOT to fall asleep as I waited for my last little hold out to drop off to la la land when a shrill tone came over the intercom system, followed by an announcement that we were under a tornado warning. I jumped up, stuck my head out in the hallway, and yelled, "Is this for REAL?!" Because if it was a malfunction of the system, I was going to be ticked, really ticked.

Not a malfunction. I flipped on the lights, told my kiddos that they were getting their wish to go visit the room in the basement where we keep all the extra toys and equipment and where they have asked to go ever since the last time we had a tornado drill some six months earlier. They all popped up from their cots, got an Exit Buddy, and out the door, down the hall, and into the basement we went, along with all the other children (around 70 in all, ages 1-5 years old). We all made it safely to the basement and our safe place in two minutes (woot! woot!), the kids found it exciting rather than scary, and we sang every. single. song. I could come up with before we got the all clear some 40 minutes later. There was some wind damage, some possible tornado sightings (and definite radar detected rotations in the clouds), but nothing came closer to us than four or five miles. Huge thankful!

The first weekend in May was relatively quiet. We should have enjoyed it more.

As early as the day we had the tornado warnings, meteorologists were predicting big storms for Monday night. How do they know these things, anyway? They were correct, and our favorite meteorologist was amped for the event. We watched as he tracked tornadoes on the ground from Oklahoma on across to southwest Missouri. The storm was nearing us, and my husband decided he needed to pack a small bag to take to the basement (I only had plans for grabbing Finn [the other two cats will follow out of curiosity] and my purse and go to the basement). I asked my husband what he packed in his little bag, and he said, "Four pairs of underpants, an extra tshirt, and a pair of socks." "Why four pairs of underpants?" I queried, and his answer was, "Because if this tornado really happens, I'm going to shit my pants!"

About that time, there was a crash on our roof. I grabbed Finn and Nora and ran to the basement. The sirens were blowing and the wind was terrible. It was fast moving, however, and I didn't have to stay down there more than ten minutes. Our house seemed to be intact (found out the next day a tree branch did break off and hit our roof). A small tornado did skip through town, however, and it touched down on a portion of the path from the devastating and deadly 2011 Joplin tornado, so that was scary. No one got much sleep that night.

Wednesday afternoon. Same scenario as the previous Thursday. Kids asleep. All quiet (or so we thought). Announcement comes over intercom that we were in a tornado warning, and it was same song, second verse. We woke up children all over the building, hustled to the basement, and spent an hour waiting for the all clear. Again, there were small tornados touching down in the area, but we were safe. I think I'm ready for spring to be over.

And this weekend? Oh, nothing much. We're in Kansas City. The weather has been lovely. Oh, yeah, and MY DAUGHTER GRADUATED FROM LAW SCHOOL!!! YEEEEEEHAWWWWW!!!

Dodging tornadoes and graduating attorneys. They both have been wild rides!



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Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Z is for Zinc (and Copper)

 

#AtoZChallenge 2024 letter Z

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

The debacle that created my post for Y is for Yikes resulted in me looking up how much four pounds of pennies would be worth. The answer was not as straight-forward as you would think. 

From 1944-1946, and again from 1962-September 1982. pennies were made from what they called gilding metal, a combination of 95% copper and 5% zinc, and each weighed 3.11 grams. From 1947-1962, they were made from bronze, which was a mix of 95% copper and 5% tin and zinc and also weighed 3.11 grams. Since October 1982, however, pennies are copper-plated zinc and comprised of 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper (I think we've had the wool pulled over our eyes on that one) and weigh in at 2.5 grams each. If the pennies in my Raggedy Ann (yes, I will die on that hill) bank were minted after September 1982, which they weren't, then they would be worth approximately $1.82 a pound. Pennies minted from 1944-46 and 1947-62 would come in at $1.43 a pound. My (at the time) life savings inside Raggedy Ann came to about $5.72. Abraham Lincoln's profile appeared on the front of these pennies, and on the back of pennies minted up to 1959 was two stalks of wheat (which I thought were bananas and referred to them as banana pennies) and the Lincoln Memorial from 1982 to the present.

Pennies minted from 1859-1909 were known as Indian Head pennies and featured Liberty (as in Statute of) wearing a head dress and were made from bronze after 1864. 

My mom had a jewelry box on her dresser from ever since I could remember until some time in the early 1990s. I loved looking through the beautiful treasures inside, all of which were simple costume jewelry but seemed like so much more to little me. It was white with gold trim and when you lifted the lid, there were two boxes that lifted up and out to reveal more storage underneath, and it was there that my mom kept a small plastic bag with Indian Head pennies inside. She would let me look at them occasionally, but they were always returned to their bag and tucked into the bottom of the jewelry box.

Maybe 10 or 12 years ago, my mom divided up the Indian Head pennies and shared them between me and my brother, at which time I tucked mine into the bottom drawer of my own jewelry box. That old jewelry box of my mom's has been on a dresser in one of the upstairs bedrooms at my parents' house, some odds and ends of her old costume jewelry still inside, and it reminded me of my stash of Indian Head pennies. I pulled them out tonight to give them a good look.




The dates range from 1881-1909 and they vary from still a little shiny to worn flat. This one is barely worn and feels thicker than the other coins:







The entire Indian Head and the writing was completely worn off this coin. I imagine someone carrying it around in their pocket, perhaps as a lucky penny, and any time that person was anxious, they ran their thumb over and over, around and around, until the image on the coin was polished smooth.




This penny is from 1892. Can you even?!





While each coin is probably only worth $2 or $3, the true treasure is that some great, great grandparent who couldn't have even imagined me held onto these bits of copper and zinc and passed them on, as someday, I will, too.

Peace out, A to Z Challenge. Until next year....



Monday, April 29, 2024

Y is for Yikes!

 

#AtoZChallenge 2024 letter Y

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

I tasked myself with cleaning out the vanity in the half bath of my parents' house. The bathroom is separated from the kitchen by a little mudroom that has a doorway to the garage and one to the laundry room. There is a small, curtainless window just above the toilet where our family spent years mooning the deer in the woods behind the house and possibly an occasional Pendrak from next door (sorry, Pendraks).

The drawers in the vanity held fairly straight-forward items: a comb, a pair of thinning shears (slightly odd, but not questioning my mom's probable intent to trim her hair with good lighting from that window), Bath & Bodyworks Wallflower plug-ins, extra soap. I opened the doors to the part of the vanity underneath the sink expecting to find the same sort of routine, mundane bathroom items, and instead, I found this:


It's my chalkware Raggedy Ann bank and she is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE STANDING AT THIS ANGLE. Look closely at her feet. LOOK AT THEM!!!


I carefully lifted her body, and her legs stayed where they were under the sink, her guts pennies spilling onto the bottom of the vanity and the floor. 



In the dampness under the sink, Raggedy Ann's legs and feet literally melted onto the bottom of the vanity. OH, THE HUMANITY!!!



I did a Google Lens search to find out more about her, since I don't remember when, exactly, I got her, but it was most likely in the late 1960s. The only thing I found out, and believe me when I say this adds insult to injury, is SHE ISN'T EVEN A RAGGEDY ANN! She is a knock off called RAGGI JILL. I spent my entire lifetime thinking she was a Raggedy Ann, but apparently, there is a copyright attorney out there somewhere who disagreed.



I picked up all the loose pennies from the floor and the inside of the vanity, and then I picked them out of the remains of Raggedy Ann's (sorry, I refuse to accept that she is not the real thing, so sue me) feet, where they were melted into the chalkware. I even found her plug.*



All I was left with from this travesty was approximately four pounds of pennies and the burning question, "WHO PUT RAGGEDY ANN UNDER THE BATHROOM SINK?!" I would surely have noticed at some time that she was under there, because I HAD to have gotten toilet paper out of that cabinet at some time, and, at 14" tall, there's no way I wouldn't have seen her.

RIP Raggedy Ann or Raggi Jill,
whoever you are

 * some people might say this was her butt plug ("some people" being my friend Nikki)

Sunday, April 28, 2024

Heartfelt Thankfuls

Quick Ten Things on this stormy Sunday evening:

I found this little heart in my bag of peanut M&Ms.



The severe storms that have plagued our area for the past few days only delivered rain to us and no tornado activity.

My friend Nikki and I got up EARLY Saturday morning to go to a warehouse sale of our very favorite accessories, Erimish bracelets. We both wear them every day, so it only makes sense to buy them on sale when we can!

I was "helping" Nikki make a decision between two bracelet sets by using Conscious Discipline on her when I heard my name and looked up to see the mom of one of my preschoolers, along with her daughter. The mom was laughing, as she not only recognized my voice, but she recognized the CD language I was using, because her daughter uses it at home, too! Double thankful here!

My husband and I stopped by an estate auction on Saturday and had an awful lot of fun. We hadn't been to one in several years, and we had never been to one without my dad with us. We missed having him there, but we still enjoyed ourselves and look forward to telling him about it next weekend.

The auctioneer, the crowd, and an 
unfortunate angle of a woman as
she's looking at auction item

I enjoyed quite the belly laugh at the auction when my husband tried to put his bidding card in the pocket of his tshirt and found he had put his shirt on inside-out that morning. I didn't notice it because the shirt was black, there was no tag, and I also wasn't paying attention.

We had breakfast this morning at my favorite place. There is no experience quite like eating at the counter at the White Grill and watching the line cook turning out food. It's magical.

A half Mess. Imagine a full-sized one....


I changed my nose ring last weekend for the very first time since I got the piercing in September. I am NOT thankful that getting the first ring out of my nose took me 45 minutes and was stupidly painful and continued to be so for six long days, but on the 7th day, NO PAIN! Yay!

You still have over four hours to join this week's Ten Things of Thankful! Do it!

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Saturday, April 27, 2024

X is for X-tra Melancholy

 

#AtoZChallenge 2024 letter X

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

My husband and I met cute: over the phone through work. He was in Los Angeles, I was in Nashville, but we were both from the same part of Missouri, at one time, living only an hour from each other. After meeting in person two weeks after our first phone conversation, we dated long distance, then married thirteen months later (me in discontinued shoes). I moved to LA, where we both had careers in the music industry. We bought our first house, had our first baby, and then realized how important it was to us that our children grow up around their grandparents, and we moved to southwest Missouri. Our son had just turned two.

The plan when we moved back was that my husband would work at his family's mortuary, which required him to go back to school for a degree in mortuary science. He then spent the next year living in a sketchy apartment above a mortuary in Leavenworth, Kansas, and attending college (again) in Kansas City, Kansas. Weekends, he alternated between working for the mortuary where he was living and driving three hours to Joplin to work for his dad. All of this, which included giving up his dream job in LA, he did so we could live our best lives, and I do not take that lightly.

Meanwhile, as my husband was sacrificing time with his family FOR his family, two year old Kyle and I were living the life of Riley with my parents, including going with them to the lake house on the weekends my husband had to work in Leavenworth. Kyle and I moved into the upstairs of my parents' house in Nevada, Missouri, but Kyle quickly made himself at home alllll over the place. There were toy baskets in the dining room and sippy cups on the coffee table (with a coaster, of course). My mom's tastefully decorated and neat as a pin home soon sported dinosaurs on the end tables and stuffed animals in the chairs and books everywhere. My mom couldn't have been happier than she was while we were living there.

We bought a house in Joplin soon after my husband finished school, and no more living separately! It was hard on Kyle at first; he was used to cuddling on his grandma's lap every morning, drinking orange juice and watching "Blue's Clues" and visiting his grandpa at his farm supply store and watching westerns with him. Little by little, we moved most of the dinosaurs, the stuffed animals, and the other toys to our new home, but some of his toys and other items remained at my parents' house (a year later, baby dolls and hair accessories and more stuffed animals were added to the collection when our daughter Emma Kate was born). Eventually, the kids' toys were relocated to the bedrooms upstairs, and there they remained for the next 25 or so years.

Now I'm sorting through everything in the house, deciding what to keep, what to sell, what to donate. Going through my childhood items has been a trip down Memory Lane; occasionally bittersweet, but more often fun and, occasionally, cringey. The baskets and drawers with toys and items that belonged to my kids? They get me right in the heart.

I was cleaning out the upstairs bathroom vanity, pulled open a drawer, and found these, and I got a huge lump in my throat:


It may not seem like much; inexpensive bath tub entertainment made of fun foam. But Kyle loved his bedtime ritual of a bath (where he would have stayed for an hour at least if we had let him), books in the living room (which would have gone on for an hour if we had let him), followed by three songs (because this, too, would have gone on an hour if we had let him) after he was tucked into bed with his blankie, his binkie, and his Boo kitty. That full year he and I lived in that house with my parents was a golden time that I cherish. 

You know what really got me when I found those letters?

The little teeth marks. Some were Kyle's. Some were Emma Kate's. All are precious.




Friday, April 26, 2024

W is for Whoops!

 

#AtoZChallenge 2024 letter W

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

Some of the treasures I've been writing about finding at my parents' house are not necessarily from my childhood, but they've been in a closet for a good long time, like the quilt block my mom started and never finished. I think they qualify for this theme, and my blog, my rules, so there you go.

A shoebox has sat on the top shelf of a closet at my parents' house that has not been touched since it was put there over 30 years ago. I know it has been over 30 years, because when I removed the lid, expecting to find an assortment of odds and ends, I instead found my wedding shoes.



I loved my wedding shoes! They went well with the style of my wedding dress, had just enough of a heel to keep me from walking like a duck but not so much as to make me taller than my husband (tall girl problems), and while not exactly comfortable, they weren't murderous to my feet. 

I bought my dress in Nashville, where I lived, but I didn't get the shoes until just a couple of weeks before the wedding, and I bought them with my mom at a bridal store on the Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. It was the most money I had ever spent on a pair of shoes in my entire life.

Look what was in the shoe box!


Obviously, there hasn't been a big demand for me to wear these shoes, since they are very obviously wedding shoes and I've only worn a wedding gown the one time. The taps on the heels have deteriorated, the bows are wonky because of being in a box for over 30 years, and there is discoloration on them, so letting them go to the landfill wasn't a hard decision to make, but I got a last laugh when I turned them over and saw something I had completely forgotten about:

Oops


It's a good thing that kneeling at the altar wasn't a thing in my wedding, or the entire congregation would have gotten a chuckle out of the writing on the bottoms of my shoes, as well as the price tag that I never took off.* 

Here's a photo from my wedding that shows the toes of the shoes peeping out from under my dress. Our photographer snapped this candid when I was adjusting the falsies that were trying to escape from where I had stuck them in my bra in a futile attempt to fill out the top of the dress, if you know what I mean. And no, it never occurred to me that I could have had the dress altered, since the rest of the dress fit me perfectly. And also no, I did not have nearly enough stuffing in my bra to make a difference, such was the discrepancy between me and the bust size that dress was capable of enveloping.

Only four of us were aware of my wardrobe malfunction; me, my mom, my husband,
and the photographer, who may or may not have been drunk

Side note: I also found my wedding dress (or what I THINK is my wedding dress) in a very large box and buried deep within a closet that always harbored brown recluse spiders and a lot of my junk. I never saw it again after I took it off the day of my wedding. My mom took it to a dry cleaners to be cleaned and "preserved." I'd like to look at it, but it's purportedly sealed in this box and I'm afraid of opening the box and finding out (a) that the fabric will immediately yellow and deteriorate when exposed to the air and/or (b) it's not even my dress in there but some other random person's, and because it was presented to my mom sealed inside the box, she would have had no way to check and see.

*I have always been cavalier about removing price tags, and my mother used to call me Minnie Pearl because of it.




Thursday, April 25, 2024

V is for Vampire Blood

 

#AtoZChallenge 2024 letter V

I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.

The source of most of my dolls and toys and novelties growing up was my two great aunts, Edith (or Ecie as she was called) and Daisy. They pretty much raised my mom from the age of 7 when her parents moved from town to the family farm and where my mom would have had to attend a one-room school. Her older brother, my Uncle Bradley, was going to be living with their aunts in town in order to attend high school, and my mom threw such a fit that she was allowed to live there, too. These great aunts were like grandparents to me and my brother, as their brother, my grandfather, died when I was three weeks old, and my grandmother died when I was seven (she is the one I wrote about in R is for Readin', 'Ritin', and 'Rithmetic). They thoroughly spoiled us and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

I don't remember the exact details surrounding the purchase of this fun novelty, but I do know that I had to have been the one to pick it out while on an outing with my great aunts, because they might have bought me a doll that they thought I would like when I wasn't with them, but I can assure you they never would have picked up this little gem without me begging for it:

 

I found the tube of Vampire Blood in a sack of odds and ends in my cedar chest. Oddly enough, it was empty, yet there was no sign of it leaking onto anything else in the bag. In its day, it was fairly realistic fake blood in a 4" tube. I can't find a lot of information on the internet about it, but as best I can tell, it was a Halloween novelty that came out in 1971, when I was in 6th grade. I probably saw it at the dime store and wanted it, and since I was spoiled rotten when it came to my great aunts, I got it. The only thing I remember using it for was when my Barbie family had a car accident in their Barbie case turned station wagon, and there were many serious injuries, including a broken leg for Skipper. 

I got a new friend in my life the year before when Abbie moved to our neighborhood and was in my class at school. Her family also attended our church, and we became fast friends. Abbie had a sense of style even as young as 5th grade, and she was the only person I knew who haunted the local Goodwill thrift store while in high school for clothing finds (she was ahead of her time on that one). Abbie's mom was a wonderful seamstress and made a lot of Abbie's clothes, and they were always so cool. 

Abbie and I spent the night at each other's house on many occasions, and Abbie always had fun ideas of things to do. She even taught me a game to play at church! During junior high, we would sit together near the front of the sanctuary and play Rat Fuck. Ever play that? Whoever started the game would very softly whisper "rat fuck." The other person had to say it a little louder, and it would continue until someone (me) chickened out. We usually did it during a hymn. We had matching bracelets that we bought at Bagnell Dam when we went on a youth group retreat in 9th grade. I wore mine for a number of years until it literally broke in half. She was and still is a dear friend.

Back to the vampire blood. Abbie was spending the night at my house one night when we were in 6th grade. My parents had friends over that night as well, and the adults spent the evening playing Bridge at the kitchen table while Abbie and I hung out in my room, and that's when we found the tube of vampire blood in a drawer and an idea was born.

Abbie had a knack for being able to fake cry on command, so I squeezed vampire blood on her wrist and hand, Abbie worked up some tears, and we walked into the kitchen. My mom was standing at the kitchen sink as we came in, Abbie holding her bleeding arm, me hovering nearby, and with a trembling, tearful voice, Abbie said, "Mrs. Vinyard, I cut myself and it really hurts."

My mom turned towards us, took one look at the "blood" pouring out of Abbie's arm, and said, "Oh, Abbie, what am I going to tell your mother?!" The bridge players at the kitchen table jumped up with my mom's words, and I was suppressing laughter. Of course, I ruined the whole thing by not being able to hold back my giggles any longer, and when my mom realized she had been duped, she just said, "Ohhhhh!!!" My mom, thankfully, was always a good sport, and she loved Abbie and her sense of humor (she did not know about Rat Fuck). It became one of her favorite stories to tell over the years. "Oh, that Abbie!" she would say. "She was always a corker!"

She still is.

Me, Dana, and Abbie in Las Vegas in 2010.
Abb - we need an updated photo!