Girl Scouts of the mid century

What a fun time Girl Scout meetings were in the 1970s, at least for me. I liked feeling official in my green dress and sash and wool beret. Over the years my lovingly saved beret has been found by moths, since it didn't get stored in the cedar chest or in those horrible stinky mothballs. I remember excitedly going to JC Penney's to have mom buy my latest earned merit badge to be lovingly sewn to the growing collection on my sash. 

I felt very grown up when I attended one awards ceremony when instead of knee socks to wear that evening, Mom had bought for me and presented to me a pair of suntan color pantyhose. Pantyhose!! I was very grown up, so I thought. And suntan color too, even better and more grown up! I actually thought for some reason that I would look grown up like Marsha (on that show with 3 sisters and 3 brothers, you know the one). What? What a silly me.  Now thinking back, I don't remember seeing her in a Girl Scout uniform on the show. Maybe a legal issue with the name so they had a different generic name when she was part of a club in that script. Nonetheless, in my preteen brain, I was grown up like Marsha because she wore pantyhose with her short 1970s dresses and she had long straight hair like mine, so....I could pretend, right? 

 I was never an excelling Scout at cookie selling however. I was a bit introverted when it came to door to door salesmanship, and even at a young age I guess I picked up on that I did not want to be known as "that" relative at family gatherings begging to make cookie sales from aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents. On the other hand, if people came to me for their favorite cookie purchase once a year, that was fine by me.

 I learned a lot of new things in Girl Scouts. One of the best memories was when a mom of a girl in our troop volunteered to come to one of our meetings and taught us how to do basic crochet. I was hooked (haha, bad pun) from the very start. I was crocheting my heart out and was so thrilled with the yarn possibilities of things to make that were absolutely necessary to basic life. A bright red pouch for Mom to put her keys into inside her purse. Huh?, doesn't every mom need one? Many different colored Barbie doll blankets. Because Barbies get cold you know! Scarves for myself with squiggled uneven edges that I wore proudly whether or not the color coordinated with my coat or not. I was a fashion plate for sure!! Over the years I have made better quality, more useful items from yarn and a crochet hook. I even believe I have invented a lot of the crochet stitches as I have experimented with creativity, but maybe not. Maybe I unwittingly have stumbled upon real ways of doing crochet and told myself I have been the first to do it. Oh well, the thrill is still there when I hold a crochet hook in my hand, and reminisce preteen days.

I came across this vintage Girl Scouts crest needlepoint kit that was unopened and figured someone would have great memories attached to the image of this design. The design was retired or discontinued in 1976 according to the all-knowing internet. This kit will bring to someone a happy bit of nostalgia. Maybe they were the top cookie seller, maybe they grew up to be a sweater designer with crochet, maybe they kept their wool beret safe from the hungry moths over many decades of storage. Maybe they just like to have fun retro needlepoint projects to undertake.

Find my Etsy shop by clicking in over in the right hand margin of the blog page for a look around at all sorts of curiosities. You will find fun things in the sewing/craft patterns and kits section in the shop. Or just click HERE to go directly to this item. Update: This fun item has sold. Thank you!

changes

I have been looking through my old posts about my home and collections.
I think it is a good thing to chronicle the every day things in one's life, it gives perspective.
I have changed.
A lot.
My priorities.
My tastes.
My interests.
My expectations.
Looking at past snapshots of my home tells me a lot more than what is seen in the photos.
It reveals a lot about me... to me!

But on the surface, and as far as what is in the photos, this is what I find--
I have eliminated lots of things in my life mostly by choice, but a tiny few by other circumstances.
For example:
1. Two ugly blue plaid love seats (always hated those), gone. Same for ugly red and blue plaid couch from other room, gone. Both were inherited and they provided a place to sit and no more than that as an attribute.
2. Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls and related paraphernalia, also gone for the most part and what is left (about 5% of the original collection), packed away.

3. Dishes, dishes, and more dishes... all inherited and some dragged in the house by other means. Now given away, or donated to charity. Out of my life.

4. Teddy Bears and dolls, but SO much more to get rid of by a variety of means. Always hated the inherited Teddy Bears. Sorry. The dolls, well, way too many. and besides, the girls don't want all those when they are out on their own anyway. Both Teddies and dolls have a lot of emotional guilt attached to them as far as feeling obligated to retain. No more. The guilt curse must be broken. Saying is way more easy than doing. So much guilt of the money that was spent (not by me) on such a non-useful item.

5. Why is it that people ( some direct person in my family tree) felt that spending money on certain things was to be considered an investment for when the stuff came to be mine? I say it was foolish wasteful use of funds. There, I said it. The economy may have been different once upon a time, but I have 2 sayings to conclude this point.
First-- What things are supposedly worth and what people are willing to pay for them are two VERY different points of reality.
Secondly-- Having a lot of useless "valuable" things means you just have to leave more behind when you are homeless.
Don't get me wrong, I am not planning on being homeless. Just sayin'. Think about it, and I think you will agree. In the height of the foreclosure era do you ever drive through an unfamiliar neighborhood and see empty houses and lots of stuff out at the curb? Did they choose to move out of a rental situation and simply did not want all that to follow them to their new destination? Or was it that a well settled family who went through unforeseen unfortunate times and a home foreclosure and had to leave stuff they had (like the 4 kids' favorite games and trophies or family heirlooms from 3 generations ago) because they had just so long to pack what they could fit into their cousins' basement who was kindly enough to take in the family under their crowded roof until something better comes along? I think of this stuff. A lot of my kids' friends have faced this. It's sad.

6. In general, as I look at the past photos of my home, I see that I have lightened the load of thinking that everything that comes into my life, by means other than my choice, does NOT have to stay in my life...or home. I have begun to look at purchasing ANYTHING with a different mindset. I continue to struggle with lightening the load even more. Time is the main factor in this. Sorting is the process. Things need different categories, you know the drill... sell, donate, give away, keep, trash it. Sometimes I think it is easier to just bring in a dumpster like the ones they use when you get a new roof and grab a snow shovel and open a window, start scooping and chuck it all out. YES I AM EXAGGERATING... yet, you get my point.

7. There are many more specifics regarding changes about which items have been used, displayed, or stored within my environment, but the conclusion is... at this stage of my life, less is more. I am utterly and completely comfortable in other people's homes that have lots of furniture and knick-knacks (chatchkies), or paper build up (I will never be free from that myself!), or a lived in slightly untidy cluttered (yet clean) atmosphere. I am absolutely and completely 100% comfortable with that at other people's homes....just not mine...because to me it represents my own expectations with myself and what I want to accomplish for my life.

My family and friends all live somewhere in the middle between an episode of hoarders vs. a sterile surfaced, temperature controlled, air filtered bubble. I don't know anyone personally at either extreme end of that scale. I could never be comfortable anywhere that is an ultra minimalist-type home. I could never live that way nor could I feel cozy to sit for 5 minutes at a home that does live that way. You know the kind... 1)where there are no pictures anywhere, 2) no mail or bills sitting about needing attention, 3)no kid art gracing, maybe, the front of the refrigerator or displayed proudly somewhere prominently, 4) no blanket tossed over the end of the couch, 5) no dish or two waiting to be washed after Sunday brunch ( but if they sit one minute too long I go crazy), 6) no laundry waiting to be done, or 7)no trace of dust (temporarily!!)somewhere near the wood burning fireplace to write your name in along side a smiley face, or..... you get the idea, right?

Holiday Cheer

What Have I Been Up To?

• Trying to secure a job that fits. (failing miserably)
• Trying to tidy (3 kids, remember) and decorate the house. (failing miserably)
• Trying to maintain a smile so everyone can see the me they want to see. (failing?)
• Trying to put myself first on the list for a change. (or anywhere on the list, number 1,001 would be even acceptable)

What Do I Need To Do?

• Prepare, serve and hostess a dinner for family and friends.
• Be a wonderful wife, mother, and all the rest.
• Make it through another holiday season.

What do I Want To Do?

• Bask in the joy of observing anyone other than me, today, clean a toilet (or anything else) around here.
• Disappear for 24 hrs and see if anyone notices.
• Relax for any amount of time, do nothing for more than 30 seconds, not look at a calendar for a day, have no appointments for 24 hours...... in other words, BE SELFISH.

Flash Back-simple memories

Now that Summer is getting closer to its end and changing looks, grass grows more slowly and the crickets and cicadas are being extra noisy especially at night, I find myself being reminiscent of times when I was a young girl.

--getting on the bus the first day back to school, deciding where to sit
--new stiff shoes, maybe with a (grown-up feeling) 1/2 inch heel
--the smell of a new box of crayons
--weekend slumber parties with friends, playing board games until way past a normal bedtime
--doodling in spiral notebooks using lots of different colored pens or markers, while listening to the radio
--flowered cotton pajamas, sweet smelling from the laundry line
--playing outside using imagination for hours, without a care in the world
-- lying on the floor next to the sleeping cat in the patch of sun shining through the window, wondering how she makes that purr sound

Memories are such a strong therapy when grown-up-ness gets too hard.

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!!"

Time

I am a wife, a mother, an advocate, a helper, a speaker, a friend, a volunteer, a caregiver, and other titles which do not come with a full benefit package, and all mean I spend a lot of my days and time doing for others.

I will continue to do all those things. It is what I am made of.

Lately however, I find I am feeling somewhat resentful of time slipping away and the feeling that I am not able to do the things I want to do and the things I need to do for me. Sometimes I even want to have a block of time to do nothing. I never get that.

I have tried going on strike but I am a cog in a lot of wheels- some that come to a complete halt in my absence.

I do not mean this is a vain way only that there are people in need who need me. I find my brain does not shut off and as a result I do not rest even if I do sleep.

Do you ever feel starved for time to yourself? Some days I am not able to breathe a sigh of being "done" until 19 hours have passed by.


I know, I know...I just blogged about a vacation not long ago. But you mothers will agree that sometimes a vacation can be tougher than staying home and you need a vacation from vacation. I always say that I wish I could just get in a car with that "and away we go" attitude. There is so much little detail stuff, endless in fact, that needs to go into packing 5 people into a small car to travel almost 30 hours and be away for a week. Then there is the getting caught back up when you return. Whoa! That is even worse. I am still trying to get caught up.
I think I am just TIRED!!

dust bunnies and cob webs are a decorator's friend

Do you ever use the excuse that you need to rearrange absolutely everything to dust properly? Ok so maybe I'm just weird that way. I have been told I am weird for many reasons, but we won't go into that just now.

Yesterday the sun was shining and I love that. But that happy bright sun has an evil side. It shows all the cob webs and dust bunnies. You don't have those? I'm happy for you --now go away! Just kidding.



I love to rearrange things. Furniture and "stuff".
"Blame it on the doll house that Santa brought", my mom always said. I got one when I was in 1st grade. You know, metal with plastic colored furniture? I was constantly changing it all around. Even putting the kitchen in the bathroom and the bathroom in the living room. Now that's weird for sure. But fun, admit it! I can't be that creative in real life but I can change lots of other things around my real house without someone calling for the men in white coats to take me away.

This sewing machine went to live at my brother's house for a while. When I was about 9, Santa brought me a mini, real working sewing machine. Good grief... my smile wrapped around the back of my head that year  when the wrapping paper was torn off !

So now there is a new arrangement and a few less dust bunnies and cob webs about.

Good thing they come back. Good, you say? Yes. That way I can change things yet again!

How often do you rearrange "stuff" and make new vignettes?

Post note: The things shown were given to me and nearly all of it has subsequently gone on to live at someone else's house (my brothers and I trade things back and forth), or they have been sold off. The old books were my great grandmother's (I still have those) and have her name handwritten inside the cover with the dates they were received. looking at them is kind of like a time capsule of a simpler time before all our connectedness to so much technology. I have a fondness for old thread spools that are wood and for old sewing books. One year for Christmastime I took all the red and green wooden spools of thread and piled them inside a clear glass canning jar with hinged lid...I had more positive comments on the uniqueness factor of that, than on the beauty of the live Christmas tree.

friend

To A. H., my best friend through thick and thin since the first day of kindergarten back in 1968. Our last visit, when you were home, was the best in years. I treasure how each hour together was the creation of memories filled with laughter, tears and triumph over life and what it hands us. Your home now in the N.W. is the place you love, but your first home in the mid W. is where you are loved each and every minute.



I selfishly wish you could visit more often and for longer stretches of time. It is important to have at least one friend in your life who sticks with you. You are that kind of friend. We have different lives and responsibilities but we will always have the most important thing in common... we know most of each others flaws, history, family... and love each other in spite of it all, that's pretty special!!

Are you lookin' at me?

Ok so these are not prise winning photo achievements, but I had to snap these quickly...and these are the times I miss my point-and-shoot-every-time-it comes-out-perfect-no-matter-what-film-camera !!
This is what happens right outside the window most times when I am on the computer.

My little mischievous squirrel friend comes to check up on me. He appreciates the fact that I put my recycled picket fence so close to the house to enclose the garden area!
The fenced garden, with a crooked old weathered gate, is an area about 70x10 feet and angles to a sharp end in a corner by my computer window,  I get a nice view of the garden which grows both vegetables and flowers.



How does he know I am on the computer? Does he spy on me from the tall trees? Does he have a radar sense that alerts him- as he is some where else collecting acorns- that I am now on the computer?

Does he come to chatter at me or just to drive the cats inside the window nuts (bad pun)... or is he coming to say hello to this squirrel...

This is my German stuffed animal squirrel (4 inches tall) that I have had since I was about 5. He somehow came to sit next to my computer a few years ago, wearing his little wrinkled whiskers, and now he is always there to keep me company (and lure the real squirrel)

So many plans, so little time...

Some vintage bits~and~pieces: playing cards, hankie, cookie jar, jelly glass, birthday candles, fabric dye pamphlet, books, train engine and caboose, cake toppers, yellow record, sheet music, album cover w/ red & white stripes, tin spinning top, wooden rocking horse.

I do not know where the time goes during the hours the kids are back at school. Between doing the chores and errands and appointments and job, it seems the clock jumps forward to the time the first of three consecutive school buses are due to arrive in the afternoon to bring my kiddies back to me. Then things get really busy! ... before I know it the clock says it is time to fall into bed and put my tired head on my feather pillow-- currently enveloped in a vintage pink roses oh~so~soft pillowcase.

Things I hope to share soon=

1. new bathroom painted floor

2. a flash back memory

3. a new favorite thing to watch

4. fun with words

5. a life lesson

Stay tuned for things to appear on this site, composed by me ... if I am lucky enough, I may discover I finally have a clone to do all my other responsibilities so I can just play all day long!!!

How does your garden grow??

My mom always talked about their garden during war time and how the neighbors would share their produce with one another as they came into abundance . Well today we do the same with our neighbors. We all seem to have a great deal to share and each day it is a different rotation.

It's wonderful. One day our tomatoes will all decide to need to be plucked and the next our dear next door neighbor will have cucumbers to pass around. The neighbor across the street has summer squash all at once and the one down the street has zucchini ready to go!! I do not know about your neck of the woods, but our summer has had so much rain that the vining veggies have either gone crazy like some B movie monster by creeping across the entire property or have just given up and died from just too much rain beating down and rotting the stem
(I have no NORMAL sized vined plants). Today my neighbor practically begged me to take some {quarts and more quarts is her version of "some"} of several different kinds of peppers- mostly hot ones!! These were hand me down peppers given to her. So it is hard to say just how many hands these veggies pass through just in our own neighborhood!! I passed on that offer and told her to pass them on to someone else, as I didn't think I would use them. It's so fun and helps with every one's grocery bill too! And guess what else? We all grow organic!!!

So when I come up with zucchini the size of Bam Bam Flintstone's club- whether they came from my rain fed garden or from some other neighbor's pass around...I send them on to one of the neighbors who bakes, and it becomes zucchini bread and then gets passed around the neighborhood again!!!
Ahhhhh- the circle of life in a neighborhood!!
Victory Garden indeed!!

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-The girl in the RED shoes...

Growing up, I was the baby of the family with 3 MUCH older brothers. Being the only girl and the youngest gets you three things: 1. new stuff like clothes and shoes, not sibling hand me downs and 2. toys you do not have to share with your older siblings and 3. your own room!

My mom was so thrilled to dress a blonde girl...but she didn't have an unlimited budget since she had 3 teen/preteen boys that were 1. filling stomachs that never seemed full and 2. outgrowing shoes at an alarming rate and 3. had pants that seemed to show their ankles each time she turned around!

My mom was pretty smart in the way she dressed her little blonde girl. In order to assure that I always had pretty little dresses and plenty of shoes for every occasion, she shopped ahead and shopped the end of season clearance racks. She did this from the time I was a baby.


I have lots of fond memories when she would take me along to the big Lion Department Store and we would gather many dresses- among them, Polly Flinders smocked front dresses and velvets and some with fancy collars or pinafores. Matching 2 piece Carter's play clothes with fun appliques and novelty pockets like apples or lady bugs. She would wait until they were marked WAY down and she could get them for a song. She had the attitude that whatever size was there at the end of the markdowns was just what we were meant to get...just as long as it was TOO BIG for me and could be put away to save and dole out whenever the item may fit. She was quite good at guessing my rate of growth for the items that were season specific. Dresses were the easiest as most were year round appropriate. When I was a little older, I remember going to a store called Jiminy Cricket at rock bottom price time and picking out pre teen clothing and anxiously anticipating being "grown up" enough to wear them.

By far my most favorite of all memories was the shoe department after Easter when shoes were reduced to sell the odds and ends of what was left. Once again, Mom felt that fate would provide the shoes meant for my feet in the future months --there among the boxes of 1. Stride Rite patent leathers with straps and buckles or 2. Buster Brown saddle shoes, some with pink or velvet sides and diagonally striped laces or 3. Keds or PF Flyers sneakers complete with the rubber toe cap, sure to make me run faster or jump higher than anyone! Some kids grew up trying on their Mother's shoes dreaming about some day when they would grow. I grew up trying on my own collection of shoes that were stashed in the closet, just like my own shoe store...dreaming of when I would grow.
There is something about that new shoe smell, when you take them out of the box and how about the distinctive sound you hear from that crinkly tissue paper that nestles them. I also recall, with much clarity, the tapping sound of new "high heels"- that were only about 1" but seemed very grown up- as I walked back and forth across the tile floor like some kind of a super model. There were many nights that a new pair of shoes were parked proudly at my bedside so I could keep them near and assure a gaze upon them when first my sleepy eyes opened the next morning.
Here's the very best part of shoe memories...they repeat when you have your own kids.
As a little girl, my A loved to do the same let's see how nice the "grown up high heels" sound as I parade across the tile thing.
And just a few weeks ago, my N purposely SLEPT IN his new tennis shoes!! Keeping them parked by the bedside was not good enough!
Hey, do you remember that baby boomer contraption that measured your shoe size when you inserted your sock covered foot into a machine and it squeezed your foot? As a kid I remember being very fascinated by it and maybe a teensy bit leery.
I think you can click to make these photos bigger. We always fed stale bread and crackers to the ducks at the cemetery. Gotta love a bouquet of Dandelions gathered with love! Palm Sunday palms need to be braided, don't they?My dog's name was Scarlet. The book I was reading is probably still in my library.

Flash Back- childhood drafting

I used to draw like I was some famous draftsman/architect when I was in high school and had more time to play with pencils and paints (one of the many advantages of being a kid is not having the responsibility of making sure 5 people have clean laundry to wear, Ugh! Oh sorry. Was I slipping into a complaining mode?!)

...Back to drawing like a draftsman/architect... I would endlessly draw the outline of our house like a blue print but then I would switch the rooms all around and make up new rooms (a library was always included!) and new windows (always a bay or bow window with a roomy window seat with secret storage underneath) and a new front door (always a grand double front door with wonderful set in windows). Many times there were a ridiculous amount of bedrooms and bathrooms (I could have an imaginary maid to clean anyway, right?) but to fit that many bedrooms and bathrooms into the true outline of the real house it meant sacrificing other rooms like the kitchen or living room -which was not such a smart draftsman/architect strategy. ..thus the endlessly drawn floor plans!!!! Oh, and I forgot to mention that there was often a staircase which lead to nowhere!! I always, always dreamed of a grand staircase- but my own silly unwritten rule was to use the real outline of the real house which was a 1950s ranch house. Here's a testament to just how weird a kid I was= sometimes when I was walking down the hall to my bedroom, I would act out the motions of climbing an imaginary staircase before I would reach the doorway of my real bedroom. I had issues, right?!

As you can see by the photos of my paper tablet pages, I still have the large pad of blueprint drawings I made as a young draftsman/architect. I am surprisingly impressed with my creations *patting myself on the back* as I look back with adult judging eyes. As an adult my love of books and libraries and staircases and window seats and drawing have stuck with me.

But now I'm off to do that laundry for 5 people...but maybe, just maybe I'll walk through my imaginary library room and take the imaginary steps up the grand staircase before I do!!

Some of you new to my blog may not know that I still live in the same ranch house that I have always lived in- my ENTIRE life. My Dad built it in the 1950s and I inherited it after caring for my Mom through her many years of cancer.

This one above took a daring approach as I enlarged the total outline of the original house to allow for so many more made up rooms. I think you can click on this photo to enlarge it so you can have a chuckle at my past teenage dreamer expense, go ahead, I don't mind your chuckles!!

10 memories of springtime from my childhood

(Me among spring bulb flowers in 1965 and then 10 years later in 1975. The first one at home, the second at the park.)

1. Watching the spring bulb flowers emerge from the cold ground and burst into color and fragrance. My very favorites are Hyacinths. (I have been known to detour from my rushed, planned out route inside the grocery store just to swing through the floral dept and breathe in a big fragrant dose of potted brightly colored Hyacinths!)

2. Being able to run outside to play without having to first bundle up in 5 layers of clothing and coats, mittens, hats etc.

3. Seeing adorable baby bunnies and chicks, and other birds. I always wished we could raise baby chicks. Mom said absolutely not-They grow much too quickly. (Now that I'm a Mom, I have allowed my E. to breed her bunnies several years in the spring.)

4. Being able to wear white shoes again. Who can resist a new pair of white patent leather shoes? I think I may have even tried to sneak wearing mine to bed when I got a new pair. I didn't want to take them off. I'm sure they stayed next to the bed so I could open my eyes and see them first thing in the morning!

5. Taking my bike out for a spin up and down the street after it being banished to the garage all winter.

(1970-Me with my oldest nephew at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Michigan for Easter. He seemed like a little brother since only 6 years divided us. By the way, I loved those t-strap suede Hush Puppy shoes!! Big yarn tied in my hair!)

6. Going to Aunt B's and Uncle J's house and Grandma and Grandpa's house each Easter Sunday. They lived on the same street, which was pretty convenient. As a kid it seemed like a long ride in the back seat to get to their town in Michigan from our house in Ohio. The Easter Bunny would include a new stuffed animal in my candy basket and leave it by my bed so I would find it first thing when I woke up. The new animal usually went in the car with me that day. (In the photo above you can see me holding a rabbit. I still have her. Touching the pink velvet inside her ears still reminds me of that Easter's car ride.)

I had fun playing with my cousins and eating too much candy. We had to save room in our tummies because there were always plenty of good things to eat for dinner. Chairs were gathered from all around the house and pressed into service as we squeezed around the huge table .

( my ink and water color paint art)

7. The arrival of the first fat Robin birds in the yard and watching them take things from the dormant garden to fashion their nests.

8. Springtime break from school meant that when we returned to school it would be a more tolerable amount of time until the school year ended!!

9. Warm rain showers and the smell of the dirt after a quick down pour. The air feels so invigorating!! Jumping in puddles up and down the street and searching for the biggest and deepest puddle.

10. I had a great friend named Joan who lived next door. We would sit on the split rail fence that divided our two yards and play hand clapping rhyme games..."Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack..." and others. We even made up lots of them. When it was springtime, there was a Pussy Willow bush by the fence and we would pick off the soft, fuzzy buds in between hand clapping games-- and then get yelled at by her Mom or mine without fail! Here is where you insert an all-knowing Mom voice = "Are you girls picking at that bush??!" It was too tempting. We couldn't help ourselves.
(I just saw a bush for sale in the garden section of the store the other day when my kids were in tow. I shared this story with them and they thoroughly enjoyed hearing about Mommy getting yelled at for acting mischievously!!!!)

Flash Back- paper dolls and lunch boxes

[ 1960's Little Women paper dolls]

I once had a set of these paper dolls. They were played with for many long hours. I made them walk, I made them talk. I changed their little paper outfits thousands of times. Darn, how I hated when the tiny paper tabs tore and you had to repair them with tape. They were never quite the same after being taped but I loved them no less!! I often wished the girls were all posed the same so I could have all outfits work on all girls. The coat that had the cape and hand muff was my favorite, but I think I gave equal rotation to all pieces. I was named for two of the sisters- my first and middle names.
My friends had paper dolls too. We would have great fun playing paper dolls together. Sometimes we would try to make new clothes for them too!
I bought paper dolls for my 2 girls when they were little. They loved playing with them and also felt the same about the tabs tearing off. I even made a carrying box for each of them with doll images cut from magazines and catalogs decoupaged on the outside and a little button/ elastic loop closure and a silky cord handle. They found them a few months ago and the elastic loop was not stretchy anymore. I teased that it meant they were getting old. The girls not the dolls!!!

[1960's Aladdin metal lunch box]

When I was in grade school I had a lunch box identical to this one called Junior Miss. I do think mine was less beat up though. I LOVED this lunch box!!!!!!! I would stare at this girl everyday at the lunch table in the noisy cafeteria and wish I had long BROWN hair and GREEN eyes like hers!!!! I LOVED her hat with all the flowers and vines hanging down. Even to this day, I often doodle flowers and vines like that with colored pencils!!!
Lunch in those days was usually a peanut butter and butter (Oleo) sandwich carefully wrapped by Mom in wax paper and an apple and maybe a cookie. I think my thermos broke early on (remember how the insides of those old thermoses would literally shatter if you dropped them?) so I bought my milk for 3 cents. 3 CENTS!!!!!
When I look at her long brown hair and green eyes under that wonderful hat I am instantly taken back to the sights, sounds and smells of the grade school cafeteria!!!
Surprisingly, I have many, many of my childhood things still. That's what comes of never moving around from house to house. That, and having a SAVER for a Mother. I do not know what happened to either of these things- the paper dolls or lunch box. I would love to have these items once again to hold in my hand and look at. Maybe someday I will again.
(These photos were borrowed from ebay.)

Flash Back- kindergarten delinquent

(me at age 5, 1968)

You've heard, "Everything I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarten"?
When I was in kindergarten I was so excited about the prospect of learning how to cut with scissors with precision [ a skill that would lead me to cutting paper snowflakes to be used for a photo shoot at St. Jude's Hospital 40 years later].
I learned how to share toys willingly with everyone [ I was the baby by 8 years and only girl in my family so my toys were usually MY TOYS!].
And how to pay attention when someone was speaking [ I am my Uncle's helper and I now wait very patiently while he sometimes struggles to get a complete sentence out in a hurry].
There was one day in kindergarten that I learned a lesson that engraved a memory into my brain that remains as fresh today as it was in 1968!!
Near the end of a school day, we were all gathered sitting on the floor, my classmates and I, near the upright piano that was probably out of tune. Miss Payment was playing a song- I don't remember the song- and singing along. We were supposed to be singing along. No doubt it was an educational song. Duh! Of course it wouldn't be a Beatles' song for goodness sake!! Anyway, I was not singing along. Nope. Not I. I was socializing. Or as Miss Payment probably stated= not following directions or interfering with my classmates education or being a kindergarten delinquent!!! Surely if this was not nipped in the bud I would follow aimlessly down a path of destruction in my educational career!!
I was taken out of the mix of vocalizing song birds and marched over to the corner. The CORNER! The DREADED CORNER! Yep. I had seen others marched over to the CORNER. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be a child of 5 years so badly behaved that I would be marched over to the CORNER!!
There I was to remain in solitary confinement for the rest of the class time which was no doubt maybe 15 minutes tops. At least this form of cruel and unusual punishment was lessened with the facts that I was allowed a chair and had already eaten my snack at snack time. But oh the humiliation! The stigma of being labeled " a corner sitter"! The agony and stress of those minutes slowly ticking away as I imagined Miss Payment forgetting ME when it came time to line up all my classmates to walk from our detached kindergarten building to where the buses all sat waiting to take home the kindergarten students and all the big students in the main building. I was sure I would have to stay there on the chair in the CORNER all night alone. I would starve! I would not be able to go potty! I would not see my Mom! But Miss Payment would be sorry when she came in the next morning and found me there suffering!! Wouldn't she??
After much angst I was gratefully given a parole. I was allowed to line up with my classmates and go home on the bus. As I obediently stood in line, red faced and teary eyed I was handed my construction paper art project done that day. A giant toothbrush. The bristles were cut in fringy strips with rounded nose scissors. The conditions of my parole= I was not to socialize during song time again.
"Yes Miss Payment, I promise!!"
I know I never did socialize again during song time. Thank goodness the only teacher that ever had a piano in the classroom in any grade was Miss Payment. That would have proved a hard commitment had all my other teachers done educational sing-a-longs on out of tune pianos!!

But then again there was of course Mrs. Hoover the music teacher. She was about 99 years old and had flab under her arms that would swing to and fro when she would clap the rhythmic patterns to teach us music note timing. She always seemed to wear sleeveless dresses - the kind that have a skinny belt made of the same gaudy fabric as the dress. Maybe her girdle was so tight it forced the fat to squeeze up to her arms!...She had a piano...but that's a story for another time!

a stitch in time

[Here's my favorite nun movie!!! ]

When I was about 12 I was sure I was being called to be a nun. It was not to be. I changed my mind about a week later. I often think back to that time and the circumstances that gave me that feeling.



My great aunt on my dad's side of the family was a beautiful and smart young lady in the first part of the 20th century. I know she was beautiful because of photos I have seen many times of her as a girl and as a young woman. There she was, smiling for the camera, an older sibling of my grandmother. I know she was smart because our family genealogy record includes her college degrees and teaching certification and the list of schools where she taught many ages of children, finally settling in to teach high school students.


She began her own school journey in a one room school house as a little girl and she was to return to a one room school house as a teacher. An old newspaper clipping from a small town in Ohio told me this: The one room school house had many teachers that came to mold the young students' minds but most seemed to leave, many not willing to last a harsh winter season. My great aunt left too but not for the same reason as the rest. She left to take holy orders and enter into the convent. Once when she told the Mother Superior that the farthest West she had ever been was a small town in Ohio named Wapakoneta, she soon after found herself being assigned to a school in Arizona! She would continue her teaching, sharing her knowledge and love of learning with high school students, for many years into her own old age.


As an old woman, she was back in Southern Ohio and when I was 12 we made the drive to see her. I remember being so taken in by it all. The beauty of the church and convent buildings. The huge magical booming echo of the organ music and all the nuns singing familiar hymns. The simple, non materialistic lifestyle of the nuns. She seemed so absolutely happy and fulfilled. I was sure it was the plan for me. I recall my mom wondering what all my hundreds of questions were for on the ride back home to Northern Ohio that weekend.



The infatuation feeling quickly passed. I was to continue my life, observing the many priests and nuns I encountered so often in my Catholic upbringing, with a feeling of quizzical admiration for the people that felt so absolutely sure of the calling. My great aunt's brother also answered the call of the church and became a priest. Ironically (or maybe not so ironically) my aunt-in-law was also a nun. You know those good Catholic families usually have some nuns and priests tucked into the family tree somewhere along the line !



I reread the newspaper article (celebrating her Silver Jubilee) and this time I found a new detail that I had overlooked before. It said that throughout her life she did beautiful embroidery work and was happy with her needlework in her lap when she had the opportunity. Her work was admired for its lovely stitches. Of all the images of her before the convent and after, I think I like that image that I hold in my mind the best. She died at age 85 at the time I was a teenager. She had a long life filled with her calling, teaching, and embroidery!

Flash Back- the thrift bread store and Pies Men Like

Ahh, a trip with Mom to the thrifty day old bread store. I couldn't ever give up hope that one day some day Mom would give in to my pathetic, deprived child act when I would lovingly, longingly loiter around the Hostess Snoballs cupcakes. They were so inviting and temping with their crinkly plastic wrapper and the bright white coconut coating stuck on all that marshmallowy gooeyness and inside that was cake with a cream center!! Surely Mom would have to eventually cave in and buy one for me wouldn't she? But alas, those trips in the family station wagon to the thrifty bread store never failed to be predictable. Bread. Boring ol' bread. Maybe an occasional package of brown and serve dinner rolls. But darn it, NO Snoballs for me. The worst disappointment was when they had bright pink Snoballs on the shelf, and displayed right at my child size height. It was a plot, I was sure of it. Put them there so the kid can drive the mom crazy with wanton desire of a sweet treat. A mom would say "yes" in a split second of weakness. Not my mom! I must admit I am not as steadfast with my kids. They seem wear on my nerves until they wear me down. I do buy them treats now and then. But that's because I do not want them to have thoughts haunt their memories as adults. I'm just saying that there has never been a time when I have seen these in the grocery store or especially in the check out line that I haven't had a twinge in my tummy, thinking back to the deep seated denial of Snoballs in a crinkly plastic wrapper. A station wagon filled with bags of day old boring bread is just not exciting. Admit it!

This is the front and back of a vintage cookbook pamphlet I have. I think it is a hoot! Pies Men Like, indeed. I haven't met a pie that a man hasn't liked, in my family anyhow!!

There is a little restaurant not too far from us that serves home made pie with meringue so high that you need to practically sit in a booster seat to see over the top!

My dad prefers pie to cake and often asked for a birthday pie instead of a traditional birthday cake.

Christmas Past

I know we should be done blogging about Christmas for now, but I again came across this old photo of me in 1968 as I was sifting through photos. I love this photo because the funniest part is I STILL HAVE EVERYTHING SHOWN IN THIS PHOTO EXCEPT THE PLAYSKOOL MAGNETIC BOARD AND THE CLOTHES I WAS WEARING ...OH AND THE BABY TEETH IN MY MOUTH! I loved the slippers I was wearing in this photo. They were hot pink velvet and had huge pompoms on the toes. They had a semi-hard sole and were great for dancing and spinning around on the tile floor.