Yellow

My mom is a storyteller. She likes to tell stories of our lives over and over again. Occasionally it gets frustrating as she gets stuck on a minor detail - was it a Tuesday or a Thursday - and my siblings, my Dad, or I will blurt, "it doesn't matter. Get to the point!" But usually I enjoy her stories because I find that new details might be revealed in each telling.

One story involves a request three year old me had of the move from the state in which I was born to the state in which I grew up. I demanded a yellow bedroom. Admittedly, my parents could have painted my new room to appease me but our new house came with a yellow bedroom already. Fortuitous. Eventually that room became my brothers' as it was the biggest and made the most sense for sharing.

Yellow makes me happy.

I had hoped to find a bright, lemon yellow dress for my 8th grade dance but had no luck. Maybe it wasn't a color designers were using, maybe a dress that color just wasn't in the stores we were checking, who knows? Instead I wound up with a sleeveless dress in cobalt.

Blue is, and has been for nearly two decades, my favorite color.

Source: Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Forzicija_408.jpg

I've previously shared my affinity for Spring and the memories the season brings.  Bold, bright forsythia blooms in our backyard.  It may not be here next year or may just be cut back.  We have new rear neighbors who have sons about the same age as ours and we'll need a better path between backyards.

I am always discovering new ways in which I grow more and more like my mother.  I think I might be described as a roundabout storyteller too.

Celebrate Loved Ones While They Live

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons
"This view [...] surrounded by fields all covered with yellow and purple flowers [...] like a Japanese dream." - Vincent van Gogh

This is a note I sent to a childhood friend upon learning that her grandmother had passed away:

She was such a wonderful woman and I feel lucky to have known her and had her (and your mom!) as Scout leaders. One of my favorite stories that makes me think of her annually is from a camping trip we took in the Spring. She asked us to take a look around us and what color flowers we saw. We saw only purple and yellow - royal colors she explained. Continuing, she told us how the royal colors found in the flowers represented God's majesty and that if we looked, it was always to be found all around us.

I will continue to think of her every Spring, just as I'm thinking of you and your family now - fondly and with good wishes.

The early parts of Spring, with budding daffodils and crocuses, have passed, but I still see purple and yellow in the blooms here in Kansas: irises, dandelions (which I, in all truthfulness, love!), and flowers whose names that I don't know grow in my yard or around my neighborhood.  Being that time of year, once again, I recall this memory.  And I ask myself, "why do we wait to to say such nice things about people until after they are dead?" 

I've been trying to be more vocal about my appreciation of friends and family.  I have some amazing women in my life, ones I wish to emulate.  They say things like "my dear" and "your friendship is the best present I could have" and "we are so lucky to have you in our lives" with all sincerity.  These are words that make someone's day.  What are you waiting for?  Share a favorite memory.  Go tell someone why you love them.  Pick up the phone, shoot off an email, turn away from the computer or phone - do it now!

Gifts

Gift giving.  Not my picture.  Wanna know how you can tell?  Those gifts are wrapped.  I don't do that.  But I want to try my hand at making that cake for the next birthday in the house

Save New Year's, the holidays are over.  The gift giving ones anyway.  Aside from the nasty tradition we've unwillingly adopted of getting sick as often and awfully as an Oregon Trail family (you have died of dysentery) whenever R's home for a period of longer than two days, they were enjoyable.   I'm particularly proud of how little I spent!  I didn't track it exactly, but the present tally for Slim and Curly was right around $200.00.  Next year I hope to spend less.  I accomplished this by purchasing most of their gifts at the Here We Grow Again consignment sale.  I also perused Craigs List for months, trying to find specific items.  Santa found a fantastic grab bag deal for $9ish at the Kansas City Zoo and the animal/zoo themed calculator stocking stuffers were the second favorite toy!  I didn't get as much on Etsy as I had originally intended, but am already arranging a little something with an Ohio friend's SewAppealingShop.  Yup, I'm getting a jump start before 2012 has even hit!  And honestly, the main reason I am able to keep spending down is because they don't get much.  Each boys gets one present each for seven of the nights of Hanukkah and Santa typically brings two big toys intended for sharing.

Here's a few of my personal favorites from this year:

Slim, in his red and blue cape

Curly wouldn't model for me.  His cape is blue and cranberry

The coolest Hanukkah present were these spectacular capes.  Please check out DiscoveryDenim on Etsy.  The price for her Blank Little Hero Capes went up since I made my purchase, but they are so worth it, even at the new price.  Definitely quality made - I love the material and the snap closure is a thoughtful touch.

All the Craigs List scouring paid off, because Christmas meant a used, wooden kitchen that didn't scream, "No Boys Allowed" and came complete with a lot of wooden food, tin pots and pans and play cleaning supplies.  Plus a grocery cart thrown in for good measure.  I've already experienced several gourmet meals the kiddos whipped together.

The best gift wasn't one, not in the traditional sense anyway.  Have you ever been overcome by God's presence, or, for the non-religious, complete calm and serenity with existence?  On Christmas Eve, the fifth night of Hanukkah, while watching the candles burn down, I was overwhelmed by such a sense of peace. I felt thankful and filled with love. I said out loud to R, “I love the world. I love you. I love the boys. I love God. I am just so in love right now.”  It was a temporary feeling, but while it lasted, I was glad to think all was right with life.  I seem to have two modes - sickeningly sweet and overly PC as R describes it, though I prefer to jokingly call it acting Canadian or psycho hose beast from PMS hell.  So I'll take the divine moments when I can get them and recognize them for the gift they are.

On that note, I'll just leave this quote here.
Each day provides its own gifts.
- Marcus Aurelius

Love

A short little post dedicated to a warm weather phenomenon.  Given that the temperatures in my part of the world have dropped from the 100s and 90s to the 70s and 60s this September, I don't imagine we'll be seeing him again until next year.

I'm talking about the ice cream man.

When we last heard the tell-tale melody announcing his arrival, the boys sprung up and out the door.  Slim did an amusing little dance on our lawn; he wanted to be sure he caught the driver's attention!

I remember when my Dad and I chased down the ice cream man for several blocks when I was around Slim's age.  Did we get into the car?  I'm not certain, but even 20-odd years later, a warm, fuzzy, loving feeling surrounds that particular memory.  One thing my parents taught me is that life is better when you have a good time - and bring others along for the ride!
The memories enhance this experience with my own children.

Getting an ice cream sandwich for the last time this season was the simplest of things.  But sometimes it feels good to show love simply.

Gran's Legacy

Gran loved (her) babies!

My grandmother was and is my hero.

She died nine years ago today, September 7, 2002 and I miss her.  But I've decided to make sure that I honor my memory of her. 

You might ask yourself how could a woman with no famous outstanding achievments or feats of skill and courage be a hero?  Yet she is; she was a champion of reading.  As Fred Rogers remarked, "Anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me." Gran's my hero because she instilled in me a love of books and to honor her, I've been reigniting that passion.

Gran was a very dedicated woman who loved her family.  Her love was evident in her giving nature and all she did.  She always wanted to be helpful (in many ways because she couldn't keep still!) and was incredibly generous with her time.  My sister became deathly ill in her first year and spent a fair amount of time in the hospital recuperating.  During this period, my grandmother took me in so that my Mom could devote her time to my sister.  Unfortunately, there was a wave of chicken pox going around and I had to be kept virtually quarantined so that no illnesses could be passed on to my immunocompromised sibling via my Mom in the snippets of togetherness we had when she wasn't at the hospital.  The only time Gran and I left the house was to go to the local library, where we would check out ten books at a time.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Cuddling up with a good book as a favored pastime was a natural progression from cuddling up with one of my favorite people as she read me stories.

In the last several years, I went from being an avid reader who would devour every word available, from the back of a cereal box to a classic novel, to being lucky to leaf through a magazine at the doctor's office.  Thanks to marrying a man who prefers watching tv to fall asleep and two young boys who keep me so busy that I seldom had time to myself, reading fell by the wayside.  However, in the last two months I've read four books!  I think I can officially call myself a reader again.

BzzAgent, a product testing network I've mentioned before, has launched a new feature called The Daily Bzz, in which you prove you deserve a spot in an upcoming campaign by doing something cool.  They are opening a campaign for the Kindle 3.  "The Kindle 3 is ingeniously designed to be everything the iPad will never be: small, light and inexpensive… Now, the Kindle is almost ridiculously lightweight; at 8.5 ounces, it’s a third the weight of the iPad.  And with a wi-fi connection you’re just seconds away from close to a million books. It’s like having access to an entire library from the comforts of your couch"  Sounds nice to me!

I don't own an e-book reader.  Until this past summer, I was convinced I'd never own one!  As a bibliophile, I cherish the smell of libraries and used book stores and turned my nose up at the notion of reading without actually cracking open a book.  But when my cousin's husband showed me his Barnes & Noble Nook, I thought to myself, "Someday ..."  I filled in that sentence with, "... when I'm reading enough to justify the expense" and "... maybe I'll receive one as a gift."

My grandmother taught me an invaluable lesson.  And I'm eager to get back to applying that lesson, no matter what form the books come in.

The last picture of me and Gran together.

For the record, this blog was ready to go today without the information about BzzAgent and the Kindle.  But when the opportunity to apply for the campaign came out this morning, the timing was too perfect and I had to tweak it!

Music is (or should be) the gift that keeps on giving

Slim and friend playing on "the biggest toy in the house" when we lived in OH

We were fortunate enough to have a piano in my family for many years.  The piano was purchased right around 1960 for my Dad's older sister because she was taking lessons.

It remained with my grandparents/grandmother until 1983, when my parents bought a home and they took it.  Of the four kids in my family, I am the only one who took piano lessons. And that was only a few at the age of five. No one in my family played really, but we all enjoyed tinkering with it to figure out songs. I remember my sister and I working together to figure out how to play Ode to Joy.

I am the oldest of the four children. When R and I bought our first house in 2004, my parents offered us the piano as part of a housewarming gift. R plays instruments (guitar and drums mostly) and wanted to turn the basement into a recording studio. Although his band Silo practiced down there, the recording studio idea never reached fruition.

In the nearly 30 years that it has been at my parents' or my home, R is the one who has played it the most. He loves jamming out and playing silly songs for the boys.

Children who have come to our homes in OH and FL always gravitated towards the piano.  We often joked that it was the biggest toy in the house!

But, as much as we have enjoyed it, R feels that moving it is headache inducing. Some moving companies shy away from transporting pianos and there's always the concern of if there will be a place to fit it in the new house. Frankly, though it holds sentimental value for me, I agree.  And now that we're headed for Kansas City, we were ready for the piano to go to a new family.

We found the perfect family to gift the piano to!  A mom of seven kids is a member of one of the moms' groups I belong to.  Her eldest daughter is a musician and one of her younger girls has really taken a shining to the piano.  Her children range in age from newborn to 18 - the piano will see many happy years in their home!

We said goodbye to the piano over Memorial Day weekend.  We gave the piano to her family for free, but still she was so thoughtful as to send a token of their appreciation.  I was immensely touched by the thank you bag she put together (it included fresh eggs from their chickens! and space shuttle cups for Slim and Curly to remind us of our time in FL amongst other goodies)  Here is an excerpt from her thank you note:

"What a gift of love.  Music is (or should be) the gift that keeps on giving ... You have proven that ...
We are all so excited and ever so grateful!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  We'll let you know what we name the piano ... First one to learn to play it gets naming rights!"

It was such a sweet thank you card and solidified my joy in passing the piano on. I truly am happy that the piano will be going to such a wonderful home!