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.

thoughts of my day revealed

It is snowing again today in northern-most Ohio. I love it. I am happy when it snows. I love winter. As long as it is cold there might as well be snow. Snow makes everything look bright and clean. I can do without the melting dirty slushy snowy left-over part of winter, though. Give me everlasting white pretty snow!! Please.

My favorite weather spans from any month it starts to snow {which around here can be anytime after late October} until any month it stops snowing {which around here is usually around late March but has been known to happen as late as early May!} I know I am in the minority in my love of cold and snowy days.
I don't ever get cabin fever...although I don't stay inside "the cabin" ever...I go out in the snow! 'Cuz I love snow!
I don't get cold outside. It has to be below 20 degrees for me to wear a coat. People who know me and see me wear a coat say, "It must officially be cold, Amy's finally wearing a coat."
I never wear a coat/hat/gloves unless A) I am going sledding or building a snowman or B) if it is below 20 degrees. Honest. To just go away anywhere in the car or run errands I don't wear a coat, just a sweatshirt or a couple layers of long sleeve shirts.
It would be heaven to me if I lived somewhere that never went above 70 degrees.

Here's my definition of hot weather, at least here in Ohio: 1. humidity, 2. gross soggy clothes, 3. mosquito bites. YUK. YUK. Super YUK!

I was hoping to drive to my favorite recycling scrap art store today. Ran short on time after all my other tasks. To drive there in the snow would have taken longer than the usual 20 minutes or so and they would have been ready to close up shop 10 minutes after my estimated time of arrival. That's no fun! I need to lose all track of time when I am in there digging around, not keep track of time. Hello!, that's the whole point of getting lost in there, thinking up things to make with unusual stuff, while escaping the outside world.
They have more arts/crafts/sewing stuff there than I could ever list. You can fill a plastic bag slightly smaller than a grocery sack for $5. Yipee! I limit the purchase to just 1 bag and I try to stick with a rule that I take at least 1 bag of stuff to donate to help the cause, the "only bring home same/less than you take out" philosophy.
PS- my mom mobile is just slightly newer than these in the above illustration.

When I did finally arrive home, deciding the rest of my running around out on the snow/ice covered streets would wait until another day, I was met with something that I hate when it goes on and on and on. Barking dogs. My barking dogs. I hate barking dogs, especially when they are mine. Barking for a purpose is ok I guess. Barking just to bark is so annoying to my ears I find I want to crawl out of my skin!! UGH! The dogs were put in their kennels. Ahhh. No more barking! I can stay calmly inside my skin. *deep breath*

PS- don't call anyone to report me. They had shelter and water and food. They bark endlessly year round despite the weather and temperature, just to try to "separate me from my skin"...and sanity!

A night ahead will look almost like this when my dear husband comes home from a long day of working way too hard for his adoring family. He doesn't usually have a suit and dress shoes on to lounge in the chair, though. He is more likely found in a pair of sweats and flannel shirt and socks. Oh, and we only get the Sunday paper. He finds lots of other things to read during the week. He is a sitcom junkie too. He says laughing at silly shows helps him wind down from a day of work.

I, myself, hate sitcoms that have laugh tracks (or canned laughter, as some people call it). Have you ever really listened to a laugh track? It is crazy dumb sounding. Remember when shows like I love Lucy were filmed in front of a LIVE audience? The people in the TV studio inserted the REAL laughter at the right times. After live audiences were a thing of the past they decided they needed to have laugh tracks since the home viewing audience might not be suave enough to know where to insert their own laughter without prompting. UGH! Go ahead and close your eyes while watching a sitcom sometime and see what I mean about it sounding crazy dumb. Almost as bad a barking dogs making you want to climb out of your skin, but not quite as bad. *insert laughter here*

Oh, and the toys scattered on the floor are true to our home scene. Always.

I do enjoy sitting by the fire which burns at our house from about October through April (see above reference to snow-month-spans in northern-most Ohio). I however do not wear a dress and high heels to lounge. My jammies would be more like it. Any chance I get. Usually right after dinner. N. would not be wearing shorts in front of the fire either. But he would be found among a pile of Legos on a regular basis. Have you ever stepped on a small stray Lego with shoeless feet? Go borrow some Legos if you have to and try that one for a treat. *insert sarcasm laugh track here*

PS- don't you love to look at old illustrations and compare your present day life to the life-style that once was?

1970's childhood

Ahhh, the seventies....Brady Bunch, Partridge Family, Sonny and Cher, David Cassidy, Donny Osmond, yo-yo's, hula hoops, pop can crochet hats, orange shag carpet, transistor radios
and print ads that will live on forever to jog memories of our youth.

Love the Polka Dots, they are always in fashion!! But this........

Oh my!! This Sears print ad brings back memories of polyester pants with the permanent crease down the front of the legs!!!!

Check out the groovy white pleather shoes!!

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.

splash!

Ok, so picture this in your mind...
I was walking out the door to the parking lot from the grocery store behind a little girl about 3 years old who was holding on tightly to her Mommy's hand.
She was wearing her adorable little puddle ducks (that's what we call rain boots, here at our house)and a sweet shiny rain coat and her Mommy was dressed impeccably from head to foot, quite the contrast to my apparel which was what I had thrown on to make a quick run to the store for a few needed items.

In my haste --being lost in my own endless list of worries on my mind lately-- to rush back to my car and then drive home as if almost on autopilot, I did not even notice the wonderful jumping puddle she was approaching in her path. Her Mom was busy talking to another adult person to her other side and did not notice the puddle in her daughter's path either.

*** SPLASH!!!*** The little girl, still holding tightly onto her Mommy's hand, did not skip a beat nor hesitate (what serious puddle jumper would?) as she used her Mommy's grip to levitate herself for a magnificent launch into the puddle while still keeping pace with the stride of her Mommy's steps.

Puddle water splashed all over her Mommy's dress-up shoes and dress slacks.

Her Mommy did not bat an eyelash or miss a step as she giggled and continued on her way to their car. She took the event in calm stride where another Mommy could have come apart at the seams over it.

I LIKED THAT!!!!!

I couldn't help but giggle too as I got into my car...and instead of worrying about all the stressful things in my life and driving as if almost on autopilot, I spent the next 5 minutes on my journey back home rewinding memories through my brain. Memories of all the fun days when my girls were each 3 years old and they had never missed a puddle jumping opportunity.

I still enjoy puddle jumping with my 3 kids ages 16, 13 and 8. We all pull on our puddle ducks and away we go.

The pictures above are from a splashy day last summer when I went out with N. and his friend girl J.(not girl friend, as he is always quick to blushingly point out to me)

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!!!!)

chairs are fun

Recently I visited my cousin while he was house sitting while my Uncle (his Dad) was out of state. We shared lots of stories about growing up.

I told him about a little red chair I remembered. At our Grandma "Bubbles" house (down the street from my Uncle's house) I used to sit in a little chair-- as a small girl wearing my fancy cute dresses and crinoline slips and patent leather shoes and curled blonde hair.
( It is now naturally curly strangely enough. Maybe an effect of all those torturous years of sleeping in sponge curlers or rolled socks!).

Grandma had a room at the front of the house with lots of windows and, I think, shelves under the windows. Not sure about the configuration of the shelves, but I know that was where she kept her scrap book albums.

Yep and double yep!==Grandma was a woman before her time with the scrapbooking. She would save all the hand written letters I wrote to her- terrible grade school misspellings and all- and every drawn and colored art creation and coloring book page signed and dedicated especially to her that I had ever tossed her way! No need to wonder... I come from a long line of savers!
I remember feeling really proud as I looked at the way she had immortalized my efforts at being a good granddaughter. Incidentally, I have that scrapbook stuff from Grandma's house even now. The stuff I would look at while siting in the little chair at every visit.

Here's where the story gets even better==
I told this story to my cousin and he listened to my ramblings (much like my blog ramblings!). He finally had the chance to get a word in edgewise and seized the opportunity.

"That was probably my Dad's little red chair from when he was a little boy. He told me he used to sit in it to listen to the radio!!
[or listen to radio as it was back then, just as we now say watch TV as opposed to saying watching the TV]
He still has it. It is here in the house. "

I was shocked. Then he said, before I started my rantings again, "Would you like to see it?"

Well, would I like to breath some air is just about the same question in my opinion!!!!!!
I was sooooo excited as he went to the closet and pulled it out. I had to take a picture of it. Had to!!
I only wish there were a photo somewhere of Uncle J. as a little boy sitting in this little red chair listening to radio!!!!!!

Then he showed me some boxes of OLD books that have been in the family for 100 years stacked in another of my Uncle's closets but we did not open any of them. It was like looking into King Tut's tomb in my opinion!!! What treasure undiscovered!!! That's another story for another time...

Speaking of chairs...


Some time ago I bought this cute child size vintage chair (or chairs, depending on how you approach it all) in my travels, and now I am trying to decide what to do. I collect old Raggedy Ann dolls and I can picture them sitting in this.
What do you think?
Keep? Sell? Oh the drama of life! Anyone with any thoughts??
Just one more funny thing to share while on the subject of chairs. I was on the way to taking E. to the Rescue Horse Barn where she volunteers and we passed a huge Edison electrical repair truck. Tucked inside and up on top were two stacked wicker chairs (where they had absolutely NO business being!!!!) as if the guys had found them along the road in some one's trash and couldn't leave the opportunity behind. I wonder what their boss would say about this mode of transport? And hey! I thought I was the only one silly enough to drag home chairs!!

Lots of fun in ugly shoes

The other night, after being at the hospital all day with my dad, I decided VERY spur of the moment to go bowling with the kids. And so off we went!! The time spent with my dad over the last week was very important; I just needed to do something fun and silly and totally different than sitting in a hospital for some stress relief!! I have not gone bowling in almost 8 years!!
Where else can you go and have so much fun for $2 a game and have the bonus of looking dorky in ugly shoes too?! While we're on the subject of ugly...how 'bout that carpeting!!?

We had a blast. It was super cool to have N. keep score for us and use his addition skills. It was an aha moment for him to realise that all that boring repetitive math could be combined with fun outside of school.

My boy really needs a haircut. We have started to call him "Shaggy"

 N. is the incredible growing boy. He is Mr. Bigfoot wearing a size 5 already and only 7 yrs. old!!

I love this bowling alley. It is stuck in a time warp and has been pretty much untouched by the 21st century around it. It refuses to become high tech and flashy. Do you remember the bowling alley in the movie Pleasantville (with Reese Witherspoon and Tobey Maguire and William H. Macy)? It reminds me of that one. I love that movie!!! "HONEY, I'm home! Honey, where's my dinner??"

Whenever any of us got a gutter ball we said it was because we were in the end lane and it must be warped!!
This is E. watching her ball go straight down the middle of the lane.

(An aside comment=E. is 16 now and has her hair dyed BLACK. JET BLACK!! She is a blonde. E. said she wanted her hair to look like her daddy's. I told her that her daddy's hair is not jet black, it is brown-black.

A's [age 12] response to her sister's hair-- "all teenagers are dumb"! )

Back to bowling~I have to admit to you that it took a few frames for my ball to do what it was supposed to. I told the kids I was bowling badly on purpose. I don't think they bought that!! I did end up with one strike and A. picked up three spares. N. got half way to 100!! Not bad for his first time ever.

Dolly Memories

1968. Posing with my Chatty Cathy doll and my puppy named Scarlet.
My Mom called her Scarlet Autumn Leaves or Scarlet Red Ribbons. As a 5 year old I didn't get the connection of scarlet being like the color red . Also, my puppy was not red!!!!! I thought she was Scarlet like in Gone with the Wind.
But hey!...Don't you love my SCARLET RED SHOES?!

Chatty Cathy.

My Cathy's SCARLET RED SHOES!!

This was my loot brought from the North Pole in 1968.
I always got a new nightie or pj's for Christmas. These slippers were way cool, and I felt like a grown-up...they were like velvet shoes and had big fluffy pom-poms on them on top 
that you can notice in this photo.

See my Charmin' Chatty doll in the background? She's the one wearing the [Harry Potter] glasses. I always thought she was a kind of scary looking doll but she was fun to play with. She had a slot in her side where you could slide tiny little records to make her say different things. Very high tech!! Haha When it all wore out you would only get possessed sounds for a voice when you pulled the cord. Yikes!

I wrote about my "Amy Loves Goodbyes" book here.

Wanna know a secret? The pink kitty is on my nightstand right now!!!

Charim'Chatty.

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.

Happy Easter!

It did indeed continue snowing and we woke up to a heavy dusting of snow this Easter 2007! My girls did not want to get all dressed up -"It's too cold for a dress or skirt, Mom!"
I tell them that it was so fun to dress them up in frilly dresses and ruffly socks and party shoes until they were about 5 or 6 years old... then they started to protest. They say, "Oh, get over it , Mom!!" I love to embarrass them in the stores if we happen to pass the little girls' department. [I can't help myself!] I pick out tiny little precious dresses and beg them to let me buy one for them. If we are in the shoe department, I pick out the tiniest patent leather party shoes or sandals and say, "Here! I found your size!" They pretend they don't know me, every time, without fail. I just don't understand it. Isn't it a Mom's job to be embarrassing to her teenager and pre-teen? Of course, the ironic thing is I always pick out sizes that are smaller than what my babies came home from the hospital wearing!!The picture above is me at age 2. Mom made sure I had little crinoline slips to make my dresses more poofy and twirly when I would spin around. This was one of my many Polly Flinders -smocked front- dresses that Mom no doubt had purchased off the clearance rack in a size too big knowing I would fit in it at some point. She was good at that... and so it was always like a shopping spree in my own closet as I grew up, knowing there was always something new to look forward to in my wardrobe. I always loved putting bonnets like this on my 2 girls when they were little, as well.