Christmas was held together by Mom

I find I miss my Mom a lot at different times of the year like Christmas... and Sunday through Saturday and January through December. She has been gone from Earth for 12 years now even though she is ever present in my mind and heart.

Any of you that have lost a Mom can attest that Christmases are not the same anymore. Mom's are the glue that hold it all together.

I never realized how she did it every year. Making it all come off so well. Making it all seem so easy. Now that I am grown up {I feel like I never was grown up until I had no more Mom. Sometimes I wonder if I am grown up YET!} I wish she were here to tell me the secrets.

The house was always decorated. The traditions always carried out. Dinner always just right. Santa always magic.

I feel like I don't have the "knack". I hold on to the selfish thought that maybe it was all smoke and mirrors and I am not a big loser in the Mom Department.

Whatever the answer is- she was always the wizard behind the curtain at Christmastime and I never was able to get a really good peek behind the curtain so I could be the wizard heir.

I do know one thing for certain- She must have spiked the egg nog and tested it well when she came up with the idea of dressing my big brothers alike each year. Is that child abuse???!!!!

fashion yikes

Wow. Laughable... and sometimes the 1970s are just plain hard to look at!!
My family [minus one brother for some reason and one nephew added in] Easter Sunday 1975.
I mean, come on! Even 1975 must have thought this was not a good look.
The polyester, the helmet-head hair styles, the... Oh!, it's just to frightening!
Looks like my Dad was mid-sentence probably saying something like, "Don't record this fashion nightmare because 30 some years from now Amy will be Lampooning it on her blog!"
My little nephew is the only one to escape the stigma. Even dressed as 1975 he still comes out being cute!
As I recall, this yellow polyester dress had very scratchy lace at the neckline and cuffs and the LONG zipper up the back must have been sewed in with nasty nylon thread as it irritated my skin.
Real nice.
Of course, my aunt and uncle would recognize this background!
1975 had it's good points. Clothing/hairstyle category was not one of my personal favorites.
I came across this photo and tossed it aside and then thought, "We could all use some comic releif. A good, deep, right out loud, belly laugh!!"

promises to keep for tomorrow

Yesterday was a day when my serious face had to keep telling my smiling face to emerge. A very long meeting about all things "special needs adult child" with 11 people around the table and 2-3 others popping in at different times. The kind of meeting that takes a day or maybe even two for any one's brain to digest. Mental films of what everyone offered to the mix replaying through my memory and questions now thought of after the fact. That's the way with these things, I suppose.
The possible job interview process for E. moved along with another phone call yesterday and the promise of another phone call today. Seems they are trying to coordinate at their end.

We had lots more beautiful snow and the weatherman says 2-3 more inches before Saturday. I see, in our weekend ahead, some fun sledding on the big hill.

Picked up my 2 brothers at the airport. They had just spent a week at dad's. My brother said, "What a difference a 5 hour flight makes.", as we drove through the white-out conditions and the snow blew and swirled across the highway before us.

Finished the day with a little escape out to a restaurant with a good friend for a delicious sandwich (Which I ate without the bun. Too much bun! The inside stuff is the good stuff anyway!) and cup of chili. Amazed at how much snow had covered the car in only the time we ate. As everyone else around us grumbled about the cold and snow, I ventured out into it with a warm smile. I love the snow.

So, 5 days crossed off the calendar for this busy week and 2 more to go. Today, phone calls and paperwork to do along with buckets of other things to get done. One thing to figure out is what to do with the bathroom door. The original 56 year old knob has been remachined several times and we were told has lost its "future fix potential". No easy trip to the hardware section as the placement on the door is apparently unique, therefore modern knobs will not function properly and blah blah blah...so, maybe a new door? The duck tape we put on this morning doesn't look good, that's for sure. The joys of home ownership, right? I ask you, where are the guys from that public television home improvement show that fix everything start to finish, neat and tidy, inside of 30 minutes?

Tomorrow, maybe some sledding...oh, and that Greek food I promised myself.

Flash Back- 1955 Card Party

This is a republish of a post I did long ago. Hope you enjoy it!!

I grew up around women playing Pinochle once a month.

Of course, my older brothers remember the 1950's card game parties...I didn't come along until much later. But the Pinochle card game gatherings continued on for 40+ years:

beyond the life span of my Mom.

The "gang" that were dear to me growing up were my mom, my future mother-in-law, and my future aunt-in-law.

Back in the 1950-1960's, you would require a necklace to match your dress or skirt and sweater, in order to attend the card party. This necklace is actually my mom's that I put on the scanner to show you. I'm sure she had the matching clip on earrings too. They are gone- who knows where.

Now every good mid-century hostess would wear a pretty apron like one of these to serve the refreshments at the card party. My brothers and I always wondered why Mom bought goodies for the night she was hosting the party that WE NEVER had. We would pray and wish that the ladies would be on a diet and be unable to eat all that Mom had purchased- and thus, leave some for us...the starving, neglected kids. Haha!!

There were some traveling sets of favorite pinochle cards that went from house to house. I found this image that would be typical of the kind they would use in that era. My mom had special bathroom towels that only came out of the linen closet for card club night!!

I always remember not being able to go to sleep on card party nights. My bedroom was the connecting wall to the living room where the ladies would all be "cackling" (as my brothers called it) until late hours. Plus, how can one possibly go to sleep when worrying if there would be pound cake with syrupy strawberries and Dream Whip, or lemon squares or Sarah Lee triple layer cake left over??!!!! Or how about the soda pop? WE never got pop!! Mom never bought it until card club night!!!

B also has the same kind of memories of card club night at his house. His mom (my late mother-in-law) would take the sheets off the sofa and the wing back chair and put out the special reserve card club night throw pillows and have special desserts. He remembers sitting on the stairs peeking through the little window opening into the living room at his house along with his siblings. They would spy to see if their mom had served all the dessert they had seen in the kitchen which was NOT TO TOUCH!! Oh the suffering of little children!

Aren't you glad you didn't have to be the one wearing something like this under

your card club night outfit??????

How about these contraptions of torture?! Comfort...my ---... (rhymes with lass)!!!!!!!

These are actual tally cards from the 1950s. Notice above it says "boobie-me". Did that lady get the "boobie prize" because she wore one of those 1950's bullet bras?????????

The 3 photos above show some more tallies from the 1950's.

my brother

Here I am with my oldest of three brothers.

I have been told I had a so called "spoiled childhood". Could I help it that I was the only girl and the youngest child? I guess if having 3 older brothers meant the luck of not too many hand me downs of clothing (or dolls) and such as a kid, then YES! I was spoiled!! Also the fact that my youngest of three brothers was still older than me by 8 years made me almost like the second wave of family activity!

Since almost 15 years separate me from my oldest brother, that meant he was moved out of the house and married before I started having a whole lot of conscious memories of our family time as siblings under the same roof.

Flash Back- plastic dishes

Do you remember growing up with plastic dishes? Melamine, Melmac, Boonton, Royalon, Texasware. These are some of the names they are known by. I grew up with some brown dishes like these. I also was raised with a set of white dishes with a cluster of apple and grapes at the one side. At least that is the way I recall them. I looked at them daily and probably blocked out the true image. I have tried and tried to find an image of them on _oogle or anywhere on the net with no luck. Did I dream them? Does anyone out there remember these fruit plastic dishes? My most vivid memory of these plates is when we would have grilled cheese sandwiches and canned chicken noodle soup on a weekend while watching "Wide World of Sports" with Jim McKay. Remember the skier tumbling to a broken body end while they said...."and the agony of defeat"? I hated that part.
Anyway, back to the food...the grilled cheese sandwiches were good and cheesy enough but I had a brother that always got to the soup before me (we served right out of the pan with this usual meal- no fancy shmancy ironstone soup tureen[although I love soup tureens and am strangely drawn to them as an adult probably from this child abuse example of soup out of a PAN!!!!])



Ok, Ok. Back to the food... he always took the ladle to the pan and drained out the broth for his servings so when I got to my turn all that was left of the hearty (haha) canned chicken noodle soup was watered down broth and a noodle or two, and maybe if I was really lucky, one dice of chicken!! Oh the agony of defeat!!!!!!!

I also grew up with these dishes -they were cups and mugs and bowls and pedestal dessert cups. All colors. Some had raffia woven inside and others were more like tightly woven burlap. Neutrals and bright colors.

So here's my reminiscence of the burlap/raffia cups, mugs and bowls. This time it doesn't involve my meany brother.

We live in the suburbs and when we were young, the bug spray fogging truck would come down the street very frequently going very, very slowly spraying the dense fog --of probably some cancer causing agent that has since been banned-- while we would sometimes be eating our ice cream in one of those bowls in front of the TV watching maybe- Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom"... when Mom would call out her usual refrain, "Cover your ice cream and close the windows!!!"
Ah, the days of our youth.
Wouldn't you know it, now the bug fogging truck goes down the street very infrequently going about 80 mph spraying something that doesn't even make the bird sized mosquitoes cough!

Here's a funny story; I asked my daughter if she wanted me to pack these away for her when she is older. She seemed to be admiring these as I was taking the photos before sending them off to the Goodwill. She looked at me like I was nuts! "How would I know if I would like to have these when I grow up? I'm 12!!!!"

And then she said..." What would I do with them anyway?"

My reply, "Eat off them!"

She sighed like I was a crazy mother and off she went out the door to be a happy go lucky 12 year old.

Have you ever heard the saying=

My Grandma had them, My Mom got rid of them, I just bought some.

That is not true of most things in my life -my Grandmas and Mom were all savers...but those white plastic dishes with the cluster of apple and grapes at the one side are an exception. Oh yeah, and those other dishes and cups and bowls too!!

**SIGH*

Flash Back-Baby Boomers' Memories

If you are a baby boomer , like me (I am on the late end of the group), you will remember these things and maybe have a little smile upon your face. A friend sent me an email with these images and the text at the end of this post that I will type in orange.

S&H Green Stamps

My brother and I always argued over who would put these little postage stamp-like stickers in the booklets. After the taste of licking them got too yucky,

we would get a wet rag or just give up.

I remember going to the redemption store and getting free stuff when the booklets were full.

Over the years, we got a toaster oven (which was VERY modern then), some lamps, pillows, log holder for the hearth, and some other stuff that lasted, as I recall, for years and years.

metal ice cube trays
I always hated how the handle was so hard to lift, and by the time it finally broke loose you usually lost some skin off your knuckles.

popcorn on top of the stove

The saddest thing is that my kids didn't even realize you COULD make popcorn other than in the microwave!

45 rpm record centers for the turntable/record player
One of my kids found one of these in my box of random stuff from high school days and said, "What the heck is this thingy?"

flash bubs for the camera

I actually made ornaments out of some of these for the Christmas tree and A. thinks they're pretty neat looking.

hand made gum wrapper chains

My friend and I had a competition going in school days- who could make one to go all the way around their bedroom! It helped with the litter problem when we were looking on the ground in search of more wrappers everywhere we went. This method was put into use when Mom wouldn't budget more gum again this week into the grocery bill!!

good ol' family friendly TV shows

My brother (a lot older than I) used to tease me saying, "Tonight, this is the episode when Lassie dies, you know!!"

I would cry and Mom would yell at him.

Here's the text that was sent to me in an email...

1. We were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.

2. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets
3. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, seat belts or airbags.
4. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

5.We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-aid made with real white sugar. We weren't overweight, WHY? Because we were always outside, playing...that's why!

6. We would leave home in the morning and play all day
7. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet
8. WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

9. We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

sweet chirping.

I was writing to a friend who has had lately had a lot of grief in her life and I told her a story about my mom.

It's a story that makes me get shivers and at the same time makes me smile- each and every time I think about it or tell it.

I have decide to write it on this very windy, spring day, when the birds are struggling to hold tight to the branches outside my window. It's great to see the springtime robins back again!

This story isn't about robins though. It's a story about death.

Wait! None of us likes death, I know. Before you decide not to read it- let me assure you it is very inspiring beyond the death part. 

                                        


First, you need to know that I took care of my mom through about 7 years of chemotherapy and many surgeries and radiation treatments. We lived together, along with B and eventually our first born, E., too. Mom died in 1995 after a long brave struggle to beat the cancer that started in her breast and spread immediately to her lung and then eventually to her brain.

My mom always told me in the weeks before she died that she would fly to heaven on the wings of an every day bird. Not a fancy one.

She knew I loved birds as she did. She had grown up with pet canaries.
I had grown up with many kinds of pet birds.
I have had lovebirds, parakeets, finches, cockatiels, parrots, and canaries.
I still keep pet birds.

Two weeks before Mom died at home she started talking about again wanting a canary. The visiting hospice nurse knew a canary breeder and was able to arrange to have one come to be at the house on loan for my mom as a companion.

Two days before Mom would die (of course we did not know that at the time), the hospice nurse brought the bird to the house as promised. As she set the cage on a table next to Mom's bed, she apologized that it was "a rather ugly canary , as canary's go." I assure you her comment was not meant to be rude or unfeeling. It was true that it was not the prettiest canary I had ever seen, but I hoped the song the canary would bring would brighten my mom's room and her days. Canaries have a soothing song unlike many other breeds of birds that can be loud or squawk at times.

That canary sat in that cage for 2 days and not one song came out of its beak...not even an ugly squawk!

Mom had always made me promise her that she would be allowed to die in her own room in her own house. When the time came, she died in her own room in her own home, just as she had wanted.  I was at her side holding her hand and stroking her bald head, where in her youth she had naturally wavy strawberry-auburn hair. Also at her side were-  my little E. and my brother M, and her son-in-law.

Her canary nearby.

And the bird sang.

The bird sang the most beautiful song.

Sweet and happy.

The bird would not stop singing!

I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but...I swear I saw her spirit lift away from her body while the little canary sang a beautiful song from within its ordinary looking body.

Until that very moment, I had forgotten about what she had said=

"a bird, not fancy" and "heaven".

(In 1991, I was also with my mother-in-law at her bedside 

when she died of cancer, at a hospital a few short months after I was married.

That was the first time I thought I saw a spirit lift away from a body.)

We soon gave the bird back to the breeder and thanked them sincerely. The bird needed to go sing for someone else that needed a beautiful song from "an ugly ordinary looking bird".

Another bird story connected to Mom is this one ....Mom wanted a canary that would sing a beautiful song to brighten her sick chemotherapy side effect days. So after researching breeders for many months she purchased a brilliant orange shade of feathers male canary.
At the time of the bird adoption Mom had her hair grown back in from what would be a pattern of growing hair and going bald during so many different rounds of chemo medicines and radiation treatments. The bird was named Marmalade and sang beautifully each day. As time went on Mom went bald once again and Marmalade began a routine molt as birds do with their feathers. Marmalade only lost his feathers on his head!! He never grew them back for nearly 6 months and that was a weird thing. Did Marmalade have sympathy molt?!

During the winter, as always, we were so careful to keep Marmalade from the drafts and keep his cage covered when he slept, especially when he had a bald head. Marmalade died one night and when I uncovered his cage and saw him I was sad to have to tell Mom. I also was superstitiously afraid it was a bad sign for Mom. She lived on a few more hard years, and she was a fighter. She missed the bird. We all told the story so many times (and still do) of bald headed Marmalade, Mom's chemo buddy bird who still sang the most beautiful songs for her daily. He just needed a feather wig!!

My mom the wonderful PACK RAT

This is my mom, in about 1946.

She was working as secretary in Ohio.

I don't know the circumstances of this photo other than to tell you she had many photos of herself and her working chums from that time period. I think they enjoyed being both serious and silly with the camera during lunch breaks or something. I'm sure they would NEVER do their photo sessions during "on the clock" time...would they?!

I was looking through photos today and thought I would show you this one. I think the natural sepia aging of the photo paper caught my eye ~~since , as you know, I am in a sepia kind of groove lately!
I find the leather sofa and the twist of her ankle interesting. I'm sure this was not an intricately planned out photo, but I think the composition is wonderful, don't you?

Now on to my story for today...

Every time I think there can't possibly be another closet shelf, drawer, shoebox or attic corner left to sort out ~ sure enough one surfaces. My mom was a pack rat to the highest degree. How do you think I have so much ephemera???? So here it is 12 years on since I began the sorting when today I opened an innocent looking manila folder. The magazine ad above is what I found.

Guess what? This is an ad for Mom's bedroom furniture!!!

It is the only furniture I ever remember her having. My older brothers may remember some previous to this. Mom had the king size bed, night stand and two dressers.

My brother took the king sized bed. I didn't want it because I always thought that it took up too much space in the bedroom.  I now sleep in the what was mom's room ~the very room where she died. Some people think this is kind of creepy. We don't. After all, it is the master bedroom (small as it is). Also, Mom did not die in her king size bed. She became bedridden about 2 weeks before she died and Hospice provided a hospital bed to be brought to the house for her comfort. That was when my brother took the king sized to his house- it had to go somewhere; and he had the big room in which to put it.

The dresser with mirror in the far lower left corner and the tall dresser in the far lower right corner is  mine now.


Click on the image to enlarge. It says:

"How to dream up a room scheme with a happy future..."
It is strange that the day after the anniversary of her death I should find this vintage ephemera magazine ad that she had torn out and saved.


Yes, my mom was the most WONDERFUL pack rat, to be sure!!!

Sewing and Genealogy

When ever I think of sewing I think of Grandma (Grandma Bubbles) and when ever I think of Grandma Bubbles I think of sewing!!!! You can find out why she is Grandma Bubbles when you click here. You can read about her super cool fabric stash (another one of my all time favorite posts) when you click here.

Of course I adore this side of the pillow that Grandma Bubbles made.

How could I resist....it's RED!!
I also really like the other side of the this pillow that she made.
I love the 1920/30s fabrics. The colors are just so yummy.
This is Grandma & Grandpa (my Mom's parents) on their honeymoon in Cincinnati, Oh. in November 1922.

Above is Grandma, my Mom, Grandpa,
and my Mom's little brother J.
My Mom's older sister, J., may have been the photographer.
I don't know why, but it appears the only happy ones in this photo
are the dog and Mom's little brother. Maybe they knew something the rest didn't?!
Anyway, I really like their clothes.

This is my Grandma, my Mom and my oldest brother.
I am told that this was the photo that appeared in the paper on my brother's 1st birthday in recognition of past Christmas babies. I love the baby buggy or pram as some of you out there call it.

Here is Grandma Bubbles happily surrounded by her first grandbabies. Many, many more would follow.The 2 standing at the left of Grandma are my 2 oldest brothers.
One grew up to become a firefighter (around the age of 44!!).
The other little ones are my Aunt J's kids.
I love Grandma's strappy shoes!

This is a photo of Grandma and Grandpa around 1980.
That's me in the background wearing the green top.