Memories

“Mom! Watch Me!”

1 Comment / Family Funk, Kid Talk, Memories /

The small children who live next door have a new swimming pool. I can’t see it. I can only hear the splashing and the squealing and the constant refrain from the youngest child, “Mom! Watch Me!”

Over and over and over again. “Mom! Watch This!” “Mom! Watch Me!” “Mom! Watch This!” Hours of “Mom! Watch Me!”

That reminds me of Christopher.

The boy spent most of his early childhood yelling for someone to watch him do something. Even when I WAS watching, he had to yell “Mom! Watch Me!”

Neither Jenn or Michelle felt the need to tell me to watch. They were either confident enough to know I was watching – or they just didn’t care. I am not really sure which it is. Maybe some combination of the two?

Christopher – I really was watching. I swear.

 

Posted via email from Life. Flow. Fluctuate.

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If the cover fits

2010, Books in Bed, Dewey's Readathon, Memories /
Posted via email from Life. Flow. Fluctuate.

My entry for the mini-challenge, If the cover fits in the “Moving” category.

And maybe this doesn’t make sense to you, but it does to me.

When I look at my old Nancy Drew books I remember the weekends when I’d hole up in my room and devour Nancy Drew books… coming out only to beg one of my parents to take me to the story to buy another – and another – and another. And if I couldn’t con them into that, then I’d head back in and just re-read them all over again.

I read a lot but never make the time to hole up with books for an entire day, like I used to when I was a kid. There’s always too much work to be done for anything like that.

It’s fitting that today, Readathon Day, I’m incorporating Nancy Drews into my reading.

(pst, it might take a minute for the image to load, it’s being pulled from my other blog.)

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A Family Heirloom

4 Comments / Family Funk, Memories /

Our house is full of boxes – again. We never got completely unpacked and here we are with tons of boxes from TW’s mother and sister. Boxes that were supposed to be here temporarily. Boxes that are labeled “immediately” but contain items I don’t believe they’ve used in three years or will ever use again.

There are many things that are “missing” – really important things like birth certificates, divorce decrees, medication, that special thingy folks put on the toilet to help disabled folks pull themselves up from the seated position, needles (as in the hypodermic type.) Things that really should have been in boxes clearly labeled for easy access as soon as they arrived here.

Alas. “Should have” doesn’t help us find those important things, does it? I’ve resigned myself to the fact that all of the important stuff is in the garage in boxes marked “long term” and I’m just going about my business and not worrying about what we have to buy, order or do without.

Except, the mini-Medtronic insulin pump died. This means TW is having to inject insulin into her mother’s body with real live needles until the new pump arrives. TW has been using her long ass B-12 needles because that’s all we have around here.

Suddenly TW’s mother says “there’s a box labeled cosmetics” (I mumbled to myself THREE boxes labeled cosmetics and TWO are in the garage) “that is filled with stuff from under the bathroom sink and needles might be in there.”

TW was excited by this idea, her long ass B-12 needles weren’t exactly doing the trick plus she’s not going to have long ass B-12 needles when she needs to give herself a B-12 (which is probably any moment now, by the way.) So she heads into the back bedroom and gleefully rips open the box marked “cosmetics” – there are no cosmetics in the box, as far as I can tell.

However….

TW says, “we can look at our crotches with any number of hand mirrors!” and she pulls out four of those suckers (who needs four hand mirrors?) As I’m laughing my ass off… she gets extra excited and she says….

“This is the mirror I used the first time I ever looked at my crotch!”

We’re keeping that one.

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Cursing my mother…sort of

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Family Funk, Friends & Family, Kid Talk, Memories /

Liz has this thing for the vinyl record player. She constantly turns it on. Constantly. Drives me insane when I’m trying to work.

Today, she turned it on and somehow Barry Manilow (Or Barry Man-hole-cover as my brother and I used to call him when we were kids) came on. Aye yi yi. I’m now cursing my mother for giving us all of her albums.

It’s very troubling to me that I know every damn word to every damn song. Also troubling because I have some burning desire to find a couple of decks of cards and play canasta or kings on the corner.

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Tales from the dark side, errr, the garage

4 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Family Funk, Foodie, Memories /

Seared Steele Cut Oatmeal w/balsamic reduction sauceWe got serious about this de-clutter thing and got busy in the Florida Room and the garage, yesterday. But first, we hit The 43rd St Deli (on 13th) for breakfast where I had – gasp – oatmeal. Steele cut oatmeal, pan-seared w/a balsamic vinegar reduction sauce topped with bananas and dried berries (and walnuts too but I picked around those, yuk.) And that pan seared oatmeal – really good. (Do not tell anyone from my “old life” that I ate oatmeal!) (Also, the photo is from the iPhone so not great and I don’t have time to do any editing and photoshopping, sorry.)

Anyway, the clean up. Crazy.
Really crazy since much of what we were de-cluttering had BEEN de-cluttered a few years ago and we broke the biggest de-clutter rule of all… when something is set aside to leave your house, it needs to LEAVE YOUR HOUSE! Bags of old kid clothes, old toys, stuffed animals and just plain JUNK that should have been gone were still there. ugh.

Grandma's old radioEvery car driving through the neighborhood stopped to take stuff from the curb. Many people got out, walked up the driveway and sifted through the piles of stuff. Many, many more people wandered into the garage and attempted to remove items before we’d sorted through them. Many, many people wanted things we were not planning on parting with. I surprised TW by saying I was ready to let the “grandma headboard” and the “grandma radio” go. (The headboard is at the curb, come get it! It’s orange! The radio was sold and the nice man is coming to get it tomorrow.)

We found some other stuff, well a lot of other stuff. But this is the stuff that I was most amused by and can actually share here…

from the garage

Yes, that’s a record of Nazi marches and speeches. Yes, that’s a flash cube. Yes, that’s an Atari tape cartridge. Yes, those are dressmaker’s matches.









Oh, the skink… it was dead and I did not kill it.

A skink?









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A Gainesville PSA

3 Comments / Family Funk, Kid Talk, Memories /

They mean it.


I drop Michelle off at this spot, several times a week. OK, not this exact spot – this is the parking lot exit and I tend to drop her off at the parking lot entrance which is like 30 yards back – and every time I drop her off I say “Damn, I really need to bring my camera.” And today. I did.

Michelle works at the place that has such great burritos that people risk being towed to grab a bag full of them. You see, parking is almost non-existent in downtown Gainesville and it’s extra non-existent directly across from campus so that tiny little Target Copy parking lot is prime parking space for burrito hungry people.

Anyway. I love the sign. Both of them because there’s one at both the entrance and the exit and they both make me smile, every time. Even when the drop off time is 5:10am on a Sunday morning.

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