Slice of Life - Festive Fall

2011

2010

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Mia's Pumpkins. The second one is from last year. I know they look like a million other children's drawings but these are Mia's. Maybe they will help her remember when she cut out the shapes and signed her name when she was only 3 and 4 years old. (Notice that the first signature is backwards with an extra little loop thrown in.)

Slice of Life - Under the Sea

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Jonah and Jill are lucky to live in Florida. These pictures are from a recent visit to the Florida Aquarium with Cory and Stephanie on their recent "staycation." They also took Jonah with them to a magical place near Ocala called Rainbow River. It is a natural springfed river where we used to go when Cory and Jaime were little. They got tubes and floated down the river with snorkels and masks. Stephanie said the kids had their faces in the water all day long. We don't get to the beach as often as we should, but Jonah loves to fish and swim at the beach on a big lake near our friend's house. He is my little nature boy.

Slice of Life - Turn Back Time

Yep, it's me! A long time ago. I thought I was too fat even then, but doesn't seem so bad to me now. (Ha Ha)

Slice of Life is a weekly prompt to encourage writers to tell personal history stories. Click on the link to participate.

If I could turn back time - I have given a little thought to that idea. I have done more than one "searching and fearless moral inventory" of my life. I have a few regrets. I wish I had finished my education. I wish I had been more loving and less angry. I wish I had concentrated more on my life and not just my love life. I wish I would have bought Microsoft stock when it was cheap. (Ha Ha) But I've made peace with my past and I am focused on the present these days.

I do like the idea of taking a time travel vacation though. I would go back and see my mother as a child. I would relive a childhood Christmas of my own. I would hop in my 57 Chevy and head to the Sonic for lunch with my friends. I would relive a romance or two, especially a few very special kisses. I would walk on the beach again back when I could still wear a bikini. I would relive a few of my haydays at Alphatype and Florida Trend Magazine when everything was going my way at work. I would go back and hold my babies again when they were small. Then I'd like to skip ahead a few years and see how everything turns out with the grandkids. Then maybe 100 years from now, I would see if we humans are still around and take a look at the new inventions and find out if we ever discovered life on other planets. What a trip that would be!

Slice of Life - Games

Mom and Rick playing Trivial Pursuit

Cory's Pac Man cake

Cory - 11th birthday party. That is Jaime in front of the cake.

Slice of Life is a weekly prompt to encourage writers to tell personal history stories. Click on the link to participate.

I am not a game person. I lose interest almost immediately, but my mother loved games. Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Poker, Uno - she loved them all. My brother used to come over on Sundays when my mother stayed with me. I would make a big supper and they would play Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit for hours. My grandchildren made me save the old Scrabble board because it reminded them of their grandmother. In fact, Jaime called Mrs. White her book grandma and my mother her game grandma. (I once caught my mother studying the Trivial Pursuit cards in preparation for playing with my brother who was the king of Trivial Pursuit.) I also included pictures of Cory's 11th birthday in 1982 because he had a Pac Man cake. It's kind of interesting to me to look at Cory's 11th and then at Jonah's 11th just a few posts back. Life goes on and the cycles repeat.

Slice of Life - Neighbors

Carol and Amy at my dining table

Amy, Carol and me back in the day

Slice of Life is a weekly prompt to encourage writers to tell personal history stories. Click on the link to participate.

I have been blessed with great neighbors. I still have many friends who started out as neighbors. Sylvia has lived down the street for the past 20 years. She has a great joy in life and is an inspiration to me. She has faced loss and pain and she can't see well enough to drive any more but she works in her yard, cooks great Spanish food, makes jewelry and goes dancing every week. She has two grandchildren who are the same age as two of mine. Her daughter-in-law was recently crowned Mrs. Florida.

I met Mary when she lived on the next block in my old neighborhood. Our sons were the same age. She has been a true friend for more than 25 years. (Hard to believe!) Our lives have paralleled each other's in many ways and my house is full of gifts and garage sale purchases from her house to mine.

Back in 1980 Pat and Mary Beth lived a few apartments down from my husband and me during the year we spent in Pennsylvania. I was lonely and pregnant and my husband was out driving a truck across the country. I was so glad to see another pregnant lady one day. Mary Beth and I drank hot tea and watched soap operas together in the afternoon until my baby (Jaime) came early and then she was a great support to me, baby sitting the new baby when I needed a break. Her husband, Pat, became friends with my husband as well. I have lost track of them over the years, but I will never forget them.

Back in the 70's when my son was small and I lived in Arkansas, Carol was my neighbor, friend and co-worker. She had a little girl who was my son's age. She wasn't just a friend but was my family while I was far away from my own family. We will always be the best of friends. I believe the first charge she ever put on her first credit card was to come and visit me in Florida after I had moved away.

Back in the '60's I fell in love with the handsome boy next door.

Now my newest neighbor is my daughter, Jaime. They live a few blocks away. They are close enough to walk by in the evenings with the dog and Mia in a stroller. My grandson can and does ride his bike over almost every day. Dishes, tools, food and children move often from her house to mine. Thank God for good neighbors!

Slice of Life - Grand Theft

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I wish I had a picture of Jaime's van. It was an old Voyager with faded blue paint but the air conditioning worked and it held all of Jaime's family and friends. Her father had helped her get it when the previous car died. She moved her CD/MP3 player into it from her old car and down the road it would go with the music playing, the baby seat in the back, full of groceries, kids and beach or camping gear. Everyone loved that old van. So you can imagine how she felt when she got up one morning and it was missing from the space right in front of her door. It was so ugly, she thought it was theft-proof.

Of course, the police came and took a report but there was no word. They found a stolen van with a baby seat in it but, unbelievably, it was a different van. (Come on, people! Who would steal an old van with a baby seat -- much less two?) Anyway, she didn't have replacement insurance so she made do with a borrowed car which was much smaller.

It was a year later when they called her and said the van had been found abandoned in Orlando. At first she was excited, but then she found out that it wasn't drivable and it had $300.00 of accrued storage fees. We appealed to her Dad for help and considered having the car towed, but he said to let it go. We didn't know what kind of shape it was in. It was like being robbed twice!

Slice of Life - Naughty, Naughty

Mom at the new house - not the one with the ditch. The 57 Chevy is in the background.

This is a Slice of Life post. Slice of Life is a weekly prompt to encourage writers to tell personal history stories. Click on the link to participate.

I am responding to an old prompt from Slice of Life for this post. It is called Naughty, Naughty for something we did when we were young. I usually followed the rules. I was too timid to be really adventurous. Maybe I would change that a little if I could go back with the knowledge I have now. Then I would know which rules to break.
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Anyway, my father died when I was 15 and that meant no one in the family could drive a car. My mom never did get her license, my brother was a year younger, and I was waiting to turn 16 and still in Driver's Ed at school. It was very inconvenient. My brother and I walked to school. My mom took a bus to work in Oklahoma City and sometimes she sent a cab to the nearby Dairy Queen for fried chicken baskets for dinner. (There was no KFC back then.)
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My uncle had helped us get a car which was waiting in the driveway for the big day -- a blue and white 1957 Chevy.
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Now for the naughty part. One summer day, I decided to take the car and visit a friend of mine who only lived a few blocks away. I sat behind the steering wheel and practiced turning right and left on my practice trip. That part was not hard but I had to back out of the driveway and get out on the street which was bordered by a deep ditch.
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Slowly, carefully I began. I wasn't very good at backing up. I tried again and again and again. I don't remember more about the driving. I only know that when my mom got home that afternoon, the whole right side of that '57 Chevy was down in the ditch in front of our house.
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My mom was pretty cool. She only looked at me and said, "Shari? Did you drive the car today?" I don't know how we ever got it out of that ditch.
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Now, if this blog survives and some day one of you grandchildren is a new driver, please don't get any ideas. I am worried already and you are only 11, 7 and 4. Jonah, I'm thinking of you right now. Someday I will tell you the story of the day Uncle Cory and Jeff Watkins stole Pepaw's truck and got caught joy riding past the house when he came home unexpectedly. I think I have put enough naughty ideas into your head for today.
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P.S. I have recently been in touch with some of my old friends from high school. If you guys see this post, I'm thinking of you.

Slice of Life - Life is Good

This is a Slice of Life post. Slice of Life is a weekly prompt to encourage writers to tell personal history stories. Click on the link to participate.

Life is good when a sick child is better. Mia just spent several scary days in the hospital with Jaime by her side every minute. She was having seizures that were very difficult to control. We have learned more than we ever wanted to know about her condition and are cautiously optimistic that she seems better with her medication. She spent the night with her grandma and spent the morning doing art work. She wanted to draw Aaron with a mustache but she got very frustrated so I printed out a close up and she added the mustache. She also did a drawing of Aaron and a Play Doh sculpture of him. Notice the fingers in both works. Your prayers would be appreciated.

Slice of Life - Chocolate

This is a Slice of Life post. Slice of Life is a weekly prompt to encourage writers to tell personal history stories. Click on the link to participate.

You can have your truffles and your Dove bars and all your fancy chocolate. My favorite is good old Hershey's cocoa. Now it has even been discovered that dark cocoa is actually good for you. Low in fat and high in antioxidents. Of course, you have to add a lot of sugar to make it taste good.

When I think of Christmas, I think of the whole house smelling of warm chocolate and of sweet chocolaty candy full of pecans, kind of hard instead of "fudgy". My mother would cook it to the soft ball stage and then she would add vanilla and butter and beat it until her arm was sore.

I recently tried my hand at homemade chocolate pie from an old family recipe. It didn't look like the picture above but it was good. Homemade crust, homemade chocolate custard and homemade "egg icing" (meringue) - all listed as difficult in my personal cooking catalog. The homemade chocolate pudding may be a lot of trouble but it tastes entirely different from the instant pudding you can buy at the store. In fact, take a can of Hershey's cocoa and make yourself a cup of hot chocolate. If you haven't tried it in a while, it will wake up your senses.

I also love to make chocolate bundt cake with Hershey's cocoa. It is so moist it doesn't need icing. I just add a little sprinkle of powdered sugar on top. From Ina Garten (The Barefoot Contessa) I learned to add a little instant coffee for added flavor.

Click on this link for the official Hershey's site for lots of great recipes.

Slice of Life - Moving Day (Cory's Birthday)

Cory and Me. He is 5 months old.


Two grandmas, Mary and Goldia. 1971


Grandma Collier and Cory


Me and Leanis, wedding, Feb. 5, 1970


This is a Slice of Life post. Slice of Life is a weekly prompt to encourage writers to tell personal history stories. Click on the link to participate.
In the fall of 1971 I was busy packing our one-bedroom apartment to move. My husband was transferring to a railroad job in his hometown in Missouri. I met Leanis in Florida while he was in the Air Force Base but that is another story. Anyway, when he got out of the Air Force, my mother and Aunt Nellie and I drove to Arkansas where he had a railroad job waiting for him so we could be married.
We lived in Arkansas for a year before my husband was able to transfer to his hometown in Missouri. I was a little worried about moving since I was 8 1/2 months pregnant, but we were going anyway. I spent the day filling boxes and I sorted out all the laundry in piles in the bedroom so we could go to the laundromat when he got paid the next day. We packed until late in the night when we decided to take a break and watch a little TV. I made a late dinner of fried potatoes and onions.
I was a little uncomfortable. I had been having occasional cramps off and on for days. I told my husband I was going to call the doctor the next day and ask for a laxative. That was when my water broke. My husband was in a panic but I was calm. I had heard stories about how long it took first babies to be born. I looked through my closet for something to wear to the hospital while Leanis begged me to hurry. On the way down the steps the first strong contraction hit and I wondered if I had waited too long.
The car ride was stressful. I was shaking like a leaf. We raced to the hospital and I was rolling down the hall in a wheelchair before I knew it. I looked at the big clock. It was 12:40 a.m.They led me to a cold little room with a stainless steel table and had me change to a hospital gown. I was shaking uncontrollably and the contractions were really hurting. I began to get scared. I got on the cold table and a nurse came in. I heard her say, "She's 10" which I now know means I was fully dilated and ready to give birth. I had high blood pressure and it was 1971 so the nurse asked me if I was ready to go to sleep. I drifted off in the middle of a painful contraction.

I woke slowly the next morning in a sunny hospital room. I was confused. We didn't have any money but (thank God) we did have good railroad medical insurance. I had not packed a bag. I didn't know where my husband was and I didn't know anyone else very well. My mother was in Florida and had no idea what had happened.

A nurse came in and there was Cory looking kind of wrinkled and red. I had no idea what to do since I had never been around babies. They handed him to me and he gave me a startled look. I felt a wave of love and kinship. Neither of us knew what to do but we would figure it out together. My husband came in with a suitcase and told me he had called my mother.

So, that was the moving day that turned into Cory's birthday. I was really surprised when I looked at the hospital bracelet on his wrist. Cory was born at 1:20 a.m. only 40 minutes from the time I arrived at the hospital. I'm glad there wasn't a train blocking the way to the hospital in that little railroad town.