Memories

Daily Dose of Cupcakes

4 Comments / Family Funk, Holidays, Kid Talk, Memories /

Happy 18th Birthday

The birthday girl came home from an all-nighter to change clothes and get her stuff before heading to school to take a math test. We nudged her into the kitchen to check out her cupcakes and she giggled.

And then she said… “How did you know I love chocolate cupcakes with white icing?”

Errr I have been this child’s mother for 18 full years and I have baked her so many batches of cupcakes for birthdays and other events that it would be impossible for me to NOT know that this is the only kind of cupcake that Michelle likes.

Kids are clueless.

Taking cupcakes to school when you're in college


And then she grabbed a cupcake to take with her to school, as I knew she would.














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I’m all about the bling…

6 Comments / Christmas, Daily Dose, Day to Day, Family Funk, Love or Sex, Memories /

Ha. Not. So totally not about the bling.

The car for Christmas wasn’t inexpensive and it was nice but it wasn’t the best gift TW has given me.

The really expensive and very special 40th birthday party was fantastic (even if I did end up having to do all of the work for it, ahem) but again not the best present (sorry Melissa and travelers from far away.)

I’m not sure I know what the best gift was, there have been so many…

1) The photographs from the newspaper, printed and framed, that TW described to me in those very early days. (want to see a picture?)

2) The carved jack-o-lantern she sent to me via USPS for Halloween.

4) A little pillow book with TW marshmallowy sentiments tucked inside.

5) The quilt, oh lord the quilt. TW doesn’t sew – or even cut straight – but I have a tiny practice quilt and a full sized quilt made by her own little hands.

6) The little book of, well, more marshmallow fluffy conversations that she and I have had. Very sweet.

7) The socks. Errr. So I don’t actually have those yet. She’s been working on them for 9 months because, again, she doesn’t knit. Or she didn’t ’til she decided she needed to knit me a pair of socks. But, she’s working on them and I might have one sock by Valentine’s Day. And I will love that one sock a lot more than any piece of jewelry, not because I don’t really like jewelry but because it really IS the thought that counts.

Forget the bling, give me a sock instead.

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The San Francisco Treat

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Family Funk, Foodie, Memories /

When I was a kid, I loved loved loved loved LOVED Rice a Roni Spanish Rice. There was no better lunch or dinner (I don’t think I ever tried it for breakfast) than Rice a Roni Spanish Rice. OK maybe my grandmother’s beef and noodles but otherwise, it was Rice a Roni Spanish Rice for me. I do not know why my mother did not serve this nightly. Oh yes I do – ’cause mothers do not like to make their children happy, they live to torment them with foods like beef stroganoff, tuna noodle casserole and pork chops and spaghetti and stuff like that.

When I grew up, moved out and cooked all of my own food, I tried to eat Rice a Roni Spanish Rice every night but my ex husband and then my children complained. A lot. Hmph. I’m sure my mother paid them to SAY they didn’t like it just to continue to annoy me. Mothers do that kind of stuff. I should know since I’m a mom.

A few minutes ago, TW asked me what I wanted for dinner. I answered as I always do, “I dunno. Nothing.” But now… now that I’m in mourning for the creator of my beloved Rice a Roni Spanish Rice… do you think she’ll run to Publix and grab a box? **Updated** The answer to that question is yes. She just walked out the door. Heh. I’m lucky.

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7th Voyage of Sinbad!

1 Comment / Family Funk, Memories, Movies & Television /

Man I loved that movie when I was a kid. I think I saw it at the theater a half dozen times (My mother was a good woman, well she still is but she drove me and my brother and my friends across the Ashley before the days of the Mark Clark aka 526 to the Ultravision Theater – does that theater still exist? I don’t remember seeing it on Sam Rittenburg last week. Anyway, she drove us and came back and picked us up – over and over again.)

Sinbad is dead. Man I’m old.

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Driving in Panama

Daily Dose, Family Funk, Memories, Travel Log /

When I saw Marvia’s post about driving in Panama I laughed out loud and then I sat back and let the memories wash over me. There is NOTHING like Panama driving and the only thing I’ve found that even comes close is driving in the Philippines.

Marvia is right – turn signals aren’t to be bothered with. Brake lights and head lights are also not important, (except I did get pulled once by a nice Panamanian police officer who spoke no English and wanted me to know my right brake light was out. Gee thanks dude – the other 300 cars on this road right now don’t even have brake lights, but hey, that was nice of him.) Also, the honking. Honking can mean 50 different things and usually something like “hey dude with the flowers, or the bags of oranges – I want to buy some and I’ll stop right here in the middle of the road while you bring them over, we haggle over some money and then I’ll take off without looking to see if anyone is attempting to go around me because I’ve sat here so long – and then I’ll honk the horn again because my mom’s auntie lives over there and she might have seen me driving by.” Horn honking in the US means nothing and is just an annoyance to me – at least in Panama, it meant something interesting.

That traffic she talks about, hahaha, oh yea. Bad. One of the worst experiences of my life was sitting in the middle of The Bridge of the Americas for 2 hours during dry season. I can’t describe it. It was. not. good. Thankfully, I did not have a child with me at the time. I’m pretty sure I’d have abandoned the car and walked home.

Marvia followed a bus to the bus terminal, hoping she’d get to where she was going – I’ve done that! Though actually it wasn’t a bus, it was a nice American couple and I figured eventually they would drive to one of the military bases and from whichever one it was, I could get home. It worked – took me 20 minutes out of my way, but hey, at least I was not lost.

Ah Panama, how I miss it.

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Back to work, but first….

3 Comments / Cupcake Toppers, Family Funk, Foodie, Friends & Family, Memories, Travel Log /

Some tidbits from the trip home to Charleston:

Jenn’s new apartment is nice. Fewer stairs but too many for my taste (and my knee.) She’s following in her aunt’s footsteps and has a bedroom for the cat.

Riverview Holiday Inn was fun to stay in since I’ve wanted to stay there since I was tiny, tiny, tiny. (It’s a round Holiday Inn and it makes me think of Melissa and “North Carolina” now, which kind of messes with my head.)

The restaurant in the Riverview Holiday Inn, not so good since most people actually like to enjoy their food when they eat. I think they should go back to the old name (which was Prioleau’s) and maybe that will help the quality of the food.

Business sure is booming over there in West Ashley. Sheesh. It’s almost as “bad” as the north area! I do not like getting lost in my own home town, or feeling like I’m lost because NOTHING looks the same.

Cupcake was cute and interesting and fun to FINALLY find but my goodness what a lot of icing! I don’t really LIKE icing anyway, heh. If you like icing and a really sweet cupcake then you must track them down when you are in Charleston. (wrong end of King St! Don’t walk toward Broad, walk away from Broad) Pst… to the owners of Cupcake, your website is too hard to find. Whoever created it for you needs to do something about that.

I successfully avoided the dumb new bridge, though I did have to look at it from the hotel restaurant several times. And, I had to listen to a lot of touristy people and my dumb ex husband talk about it.

Jenn living West of the Ashley is going to cut our driving time. Taking 17 is much faster than going all of the way up to 26. If I can just avoid having to stop at my ex inlaw’s house… ah well, at least it will cut the trip in one direction. A visit to the lake is a requirement, my ex mil would be sad if she didn’t get to hang out with TW for a bit.

My new nephew (OK fine, ex nephew) is damn cute but his mother should not be old enough to have a baby. That stuff makes me feel old and people need to stop doing it. No more babies! No more nephews growing up. None of that. I’m done with it.

Gas is too damn expensive in Florida. I’m considering forcing Michelle to go to college in either Georgia or SC just for the gas prices.

Yarn shops are fascinating places. Even if they have very social dogs wandering around inside of them. If you’re a knitter and you are in Charleston, go to Knit. They’re nice people and the yarn is interesting. (I never thought I’d be talking about yarn shops on MY blog.) FYI there’s a parking garage right next door. How convenient is THAT?

OK enough with the Charleston recap, back to the real world.

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I Can Knit!

3 Comments / Family Funk, Memories /

Finally!  I don’t have to hear TW talk about how my mother didn’t teach me important stuff when I was a child.  My mother taught me how to knit and hers didn’t! hahaha, my mother will be so pleased.  Those phone calls I make to her saying “why didn’t you teach me ____, TW says everybody’s mother taught them that!” are not her favorite phone calls.

Now just because I have realized I do know how to knit, because my mother taught me (just throwing that in again ’cause it is rare for me to be able to say that last part) doesn’t mean I am a knitter.  Or that I am going to start attending Stich n Bitch.  Oh no.  When I realized last night that I do remember how to knit, I also realized there is a reason why I haven’t been knitting all these years.  I don’t really like knitting.

It was fun to take the needles away from TW and knit a row real quick and hand it back – sort of smugly, I will admit.  And it was more fun to take the needles away from TW and purl a row real quick and hand it back – even more smugly.  But no, I don’t think knitting is something I’m going to become fixated on or passionate about.

It’s enough for me to say “MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME TO KNIT!”  hahaha

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Parent Hack

Family Funk, Kid Talk, Memories, Toys & Games /

A couple of months ago, something reminded me of a toy my kids had. It was a barn, not a Fisher Price barn, but sort of like that. With little animals. When you put them into their “spaces” they would make animal sounds. I went looking for a picture of one online and of course I couldn’t find one. Then I searched my photo albums looking for a picture of this barn. Nada. How could that be? I took a LOT of pictures of my kids when they were little. I can’t imagine how this farm, which was shuttled all over the world, could not have made its way into at least one photo. But it didn’t.

Then today, I went looking for a picture of the Waterbabies that were popular in the early ’90s. I couldn’t find a good photo of one. So, I went looking through my family photo albums again. I cannot believe I do not have a photo of Michelle with “Chocolate Opal”. There is one photo of her with the “other Opal” but none of “Chocolate Opal”. Insane. That doll was carried with us EVERYWHERE. No pictures.

Learn from me! Take photos of the toys your children loved (and hated). 20 years from now, you’ll want those photos. Or your children will call you up and say “Remember that plane I used to love to ride at grandma’s house?” And you’ll be able to proudly present the child with a photo. (Thank goodness I do have photos of that fabulous toy!)

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