Yesterday the mailman brought the photo books I put together through Shutterfly.
These three books represent many hours in front of my computer. Each book has six months worth of photos in them. I only have three more to go -- plus an additional one for the cruise we went on last March. (I'm about half-way through that one)
I am pretty happy with how these turned out.
I'm not very happy with the typos that neither the editor (me) nor the co-editor (Hubby) caught.
I decided to declare today Easter Tuesday since this is the day I chose to write about our Easter weekend.
While we were on the cruise,
(Anyone remember I went on a cruise?) (ha ha) (I have one more post to write and wrap it all up... don't worry I'll get it done!)
Where was I?
Oh yea, we were on the cruise ship...
While still on the cruise, my mom asked what we were doing for Easter and invited us to come spend the weekend with them. Hubby and I talked it over and decided it sounded like a great way to celebrate Easter.
So Friday night we packed up the car and headed to my parents' house about 3 hours away.
We had an enjoyable weekend that started with some yummy appetizers and some basketball watching.
As I walked up the stairs to get ready for bed I got to see the newly remodeled bathroom. I walked in and looked around (I liked it!) and walked back out in the hall and asked my mom, "Did they move the door?" It was moved probably only 10-12 inches, but I sure could tell. It helped the layout of the bathroom quite a bit. When I was showering the next morning, I kept looking around me because it was so different. (I was eleven years old when we moved into that house.)
Saturday we mostly sat around and talked. I guess we didn't run out of things to talk about even though we had just spent a whole week together. :)
In the afternoon, we all trekked across the street to visit with the neighbors. They are the parents of my childhood friend who died about a year and a half ago. We had a good visit with them. I noticed they had several pictures of my friend around the house. Made me really miss her. Her sweet mom got tears in her eyes when I hugged her goodbye. Made me cry too. I'm really glad we popped over for a visit.
Back at my parents' house, I went searching through a drawer in the bookcase in the living room and found a treasure trove of cassette tapes. For many of the junior high and high school concerts, my mom would bring along a portable cassette player, much like this:
My dear mom not only sat through all those concerts, she recorded them and then subjected herself to having to listen to them over and over at home while I insisted on listening to them repeatedly and sang along or tried to pick out my violin part. (My violin career was only three years long. Thankfully.)
In amongst those tapes was one labeled Pam, Beth, Paul and Judy Nonsense. THIS was the tape I was hunting for! I wrote a post last October about eating peanuts and the childhood memories that it invoked. One of the memories was a song with the words:
Found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut just now.
Just now I found a peanut, found a peanut just know.
I remembered singing it into a tape player when I was 9 or 10 years old.One side of the tape is hard to hear much of anything on it, then a little of my siblings and me talking nonsense. The other side of the tape features ... ME! I had the tape player in my room and I was just talking about what clothes I was changing into, friends we had gone to visit, what was on the bulletin board in my room, who was in my Sunday school class, I sang some songs, read a couple of little books like this one:
and played a little plastic instrument I called a Keymonica. Mine looked a lot like this:
I laughed so hard as I listened to myself from 42ish years ago. (I told Hubby that it was my version of what our kids did with the video camera in the late 1990s.) I texted my kids to ask them if they have cassette players and told them I had a real treat for them when we visit next!
Easter morning was at the church Hubby and I were married in. I really loved singing a couple of wonderful traditional Easter hymns...especially because of the pipe organ accompaniment. Such a majestic sound to go with Christ the Lord is Risen Today.
We had a very nice Easter weekend with my parents.
The other night Hubby and I ate a late supper at a hamburger joint that has peanuts available to munch on while waiting for the burgers. I told my hubby that eating peanuts out of the shell like that reminded me of three things from my childhood. And lucky you! I thought I'd write about it here.
1. I remember one of the the first times I ate them. I must have been 7 or 8 and we were visiting my aunt and uncle in eastern Tennessee. Uncle farmed tobacco and they lived in a house that pre-dated the Civil War. It had a building that I was told was for the slaves and there was a place on the front porch in the brick that a cannon ball smacked into. I remember sitting the the front yard in metal lawn chairs that looked something like this:
My aunt and uncle had some friends over and I remember an older man teaching me how to crack open the peanuts by finding the seam and pressing it until it popped. It was a bonus if I found three peanuts inside.
2. When I turned 10 we spent the day at a friend of the family's house. Our friends gave me a bag of peanuts in the shell for my birthday. A whole bag! All for me! I was number 4 in the family and it was rare I got something just my own. I remember savoring those peanuts. I would pull out our toy record player and put on my record of The Three Little Pigs to listen to while I ate my yummy peanuts. I believe I got that record for my birthday as well.
3. I used to walk around singing a song about peanuts I probably learned at camp. I remember being able to play with our cassette tape recorder/player sometimes and I would take it to my room and just talk or sing. I'd talk about what I was doing (like putting my laundry away) or I would sing songs. (I wonder whatever happened to those cassette tapes....) I remember singing a song into that tape recorder that went something like::
Found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut just now.
Just now I found a peanut, found a peanut just know.
(Catchy, huh?)
Believe it or not I found several YouTube videos of this lovely song. I will post the least cheesy one::
You've now been given a glance into the way my mind works in seemingly normal activities like eating peanuts at a hamburger joint. :) Funny the way memories can come flooding back of random moments of my childhood.
A little more than thirty years ago there was a couple of college students who were friends. They met through their involvement in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He was a driven engineering student with a passion for the college varsity marching band.
She was studying about preschool aged children and still trying to figure out how exactly to be a good college student.
They knew each other beginning their freshman year in college. Over the next three years, they would talk some and go out for ice cream with the gang. (Well, when he felt like he could spare a few hours away from studying all that engineering.) (And she always had time to be out with the gang. Studying? ha.) Their third year in college led to a deeper friendship. He let her cry on his shoulder about another guy she liked. By spring, she called him her best friend. He said he would write her letters that summer. He did. Every single week. That summer they traveled across the state to attend the weddings of some friends. They held hands in the car. He came to see her one weekend in the summer. She realized she was in love with him. She was afraid to tell him, afraid he would not like something more than their friendship. She wrote him a letter. Back at college in the fall of their fourth year, he told her he didn't want anything more than a friendship. She was confused. She asked if they could go for a walk one night after the IVCF meeting. He agreed. Then wandered onto central campus and ended up sitting on a concrete bench underneath the campanile. They talked. And talked. And talked. Then, to her surprise (and delight) he kissed her. Right there on that concrete bench under the campanile.
She could barely sleep that night because of the smile on her face. But she was quite nervous the next day that he would tell her it was a mistake. He came to her dorm room and she asked if he was sorry he kissed her. His answer was to kiss her again. They decided to date. Like, officially boyfriend and girlfriend date.
She called her parents to tell them that her relationship with him had changed. Her dad asked her what had made it changed. She said the boy had kissed her. Her dad said, "Oh you mean you sucked face?" (Her dad was referring to the movie On Golden Pond. You can see the scene in this clip. It starts at 35 seconds in.)
The day of that kiss under the campanile was thirty years ago today. The boy and the girl got married, had two children, have moved six times, raised and launched and married off those two children, and have just been through a lot of life together. Side by side. Him and her. She and he. Kissing.
Today I am celebrating being married to my hubby for 28 years! That's TWENTY-EIGHT!
Hmmm....
Twenty-eight years on the 28th of July. Does that make this our Golden Anniversary? I think so! :)
The other day when I was listening to Pandora on my phone, I heard this song called, Love is Not a Fight, by Warren Barfield. (I learned this was in the movie, Fireproof, but I don't recall it. Not sure how I missed it.) As I was listening to it, I felt tears rolling down my cheeks and knew I needed to post this today, on our 28th anniversary.
(The words are below)
Love is not a place
To come and go as we please
It's a house we enter in
Then commit to never leave
So lock the door behind you
Throw away the key
We'll work it out together
Let it bring us to our knees
Chorus:
Love is a shelter in a raging storm
Love is peace in the middle of a war
And if we try to leave, may God send angels to guard the door
No, love is not a fight but it's something worth fighting for
To some, love is a word
That they can fall into
But when they're falling out
Keeping that word is hard to do
Chorus:
Love is a shelter in a raging storm
Love is peace in the middle of a war
And if we try to leave, may God send angels to guard the door
No, love is not a fight but it's something worth fighting for
To some, love is a word
That they can fall into
But when they're falling out
Keeping that word is hard to do
Love will come to save us
If we'll only call
He will ask nothing from us
But demand we give our all
Chorus:
Love is a shelter in a raging storm
Love is peace in the middle of a war
And if we try to leave, may God send angels to guard the door
No, love is not a fight but it's something worth fighting for
I will fight for you
Would you fight for me?
It's worth fighting for
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear Hubby:
Remember this square dance? I don't think you knew at the time that I was beginning to have a crush on you. I wasn't a fan of square dancing, but I went because I knew you were going to be there. Just like the concert I got a free ticket to just cuz I knew you'd be there (with another girl) and the volleyball game I went to play with our friends. I never could stand to play volleyball, but I knew you were going to be there. Shameless, I know, but I liked being around you.
(We are the ones in the middle. I have a purple shirt and Hubby has the almost blonde hair and the navy blue shirt.)
Eventually, I think, you turned around and saw me following you around. Grin.
We began to talk. A lot. You let me vent and let me cry on your shoulder. (Hmmm...some things never change, huh?) You wrote me letters that summer. Every week. Because you said you would and you always do what you say.
We quickly became friends. Best friends. And some where in there we fell in love.
You have always loved me just for me. Something I'll never understand, but am so grateful for.
I love you so much more and so much more deeply than I did that day 28 years ago when we stood in that church in front of our family and friends. Even thought I am thankful and oh so blessed to be married to you, I don't think I will ever quite comprehend this mystery that is called marriage.
I spend a lot of afternoons sewing and watching a couple of episodes of The Waltons. I really enjoy the portrayal of family in that show. I've often wondered what it would have been like to grow up with my grandparents living in the same house. My maternal grandparents were Swedish. Both of their mothers came to the US from Sweden when they were young girls. My maternal grandmother died when I was only 2 1/2. I've always wished I knew her. I have a few of her quilting things. Some fabric, unfinished blocks and cardboard templates.
Sometimes I take them out and wonder about the hands that made them. I hope she'd be pleased that I quilt like she did.
My maternal grandpa passed away when I was in college. (I wrote more about him in this post.)
Even though I am only 2 1/2 in this picture, this is exactly how I remembered my grandpa looking even years later. This was taken at the first Christmas after my grandma died. I think Grandpa looks sad.
Me, my Swedish grandpa, and my brother.
I still have some birthday cards my grandpa sent me. He had a spectacular signature.
My paternal grandparents were a big part of my life. They would come to visit often and I would spend a week or so in the summer time with them. I have great memories of those times. They would let me eat sliced tomatoes with sugar (sounds icky to me now). I remember watching The Floppy Show while I ate lunch. I was allowed to eat on a TV tray on the edge of the linoleum of the kitchen (never on the carpet). They took me to the Iowa State Fair. I went to the county fair with them, ate my grandma's amazing fried chicken and homemade rolls (I wish I would have asked her to teach me how to make both of those). We sat downtown the evening the stores stayed open late and watched the people go by. I'd be introduced to their friends as their son's baby (and be so embarrassed.) Grandma used to love to put her arm around me or link arms with me as we walked some where. That embarrassed me too. Only now I'd love to feel that soft, old hand in mine.
(Yep, that's me in between my grandparents. I think I am 14 or 15 in that photo.)
My grandparents lived only about 15 miles from where I went to college and I got to see them often. I would clean house for them and they would let me do my laundry for free.
This is at their 50th Wedding Anniversary. Grandma's hair was always so perfect. They were married for over 60 years.
Grandpa died right after I graduated from college and not long before I got married. He was a funny man. He loved to tell jokes and make us grandkids laugh. I miss the smell of whatever it was he put in his hair. Grandpa used to sneak money to us grandkids. He would hand me a quarter, a five dollar bill, a dollar, and whisper, "Don't tell Grandma." (I'm not sure why he thought Grandma shouldn't know. I'm sure she did.) At Grandpa's funeral, my brother stuck a quarter into the pocket of Grandpa's suit coat pocket and whispered, "Don't tell Grandma." Yep. That brought the tears.
Grandma lived to be 96. I'm glad she knew my kids.
Me, Caleb (about 18 months old), Grandma (89) and my dad.
I have sweet memories of the letters she would write to me. Instead of writing a smiley face :) or writing LOL or writing hahahaha, she would often intersperse a ha. That's it. ha. Always a lower case letter and always a period after it. Grandma would call me periodically, even after I was married, and start the conversation with, "What do you know?" When Grandma talked on the phone she would sit with pencil in hand and doodle. They were quite detailed doodles. I loved to look for them when I visited her house. Grandma loved Jesus. She told me once that she was looking forward to being in heaven but was frightened of the process of getting there. I found a letter I had written to her. (If you click on these, you should be able to read them better.)
This side of the letter are the words to the song Another Time, Another Place. It was sung by Sandi Patti.
Even though I was the youngest of eleven grandchildren, I felt like Grandma took time to have a relationship with me even after I married and had my own kids. I miss that about her. I want to learn from her example when someday I am a grandma.
Twenty-five and a half years (or so) ago I learned I was on the way to starting the best job I have ever had. I learned that I would be having my first baby the next spring. The pregnancy was an exciting time and a bit scary, because it was all so new. My favorite thing about being pregnant was feeling the baby move. I remember when I was about 7 or 8 months pregnant, I felt a kick into my ribs and I pressed down on my huge tummy, only to feel a little kick right back! I could actually feel the shape of a little foot! So cool!
The baby was due the second week of April. At the beginning of March I learned that I had pre-eclampsia. I had high blood pressure and was retaining a lot of fluid. I no longer had any defined ankles. Lovely. The doctor ordered me to bed rest. The next three weeks consisted of a daily trip to check the mailbox, multiple trips to the bathroom, weekly doctor visits, and my husband reading The Chronicles of Narnia to me in the evening. (He would hide the books during the day so I wouldn't read ahead while he was at work.)
On March 24th I had one of my usual doctor visits only to find out that my blood pressure was extremely high. The doctor told me to report to the hospital the next morning and get ready to meet my baby. That night, Hubby and I laid in bed and finalized our name choices. We came up with a specific boy's name, and were a little less definite on a girl's name.
The morning of the 25th we checked into the hospital and I was given medicine to start labor. Nothing much happened that day. (It was still three weeks before the baby was due.) Finally that night around 9pm they unplugged me from the drugs and let me eat supper. I spent the night in a hospital room, but I don't think I slept at all.
On the next day, we started back in with the labor drugs. Still slow progressing. The doctors kept asking me how I was feeling, did I have a headache, etc.
Me, about 4 hours before delivery.
About 6pm I told them I was developing a headache and the doctor decided I should have a C-section. The baby's heartbeat had dropped a little and I think my headache was not a good sign. I remember laying on the table in the operating room and the doctor telling me that it had to be a girl because only girls cause that much trouble. Fast forward about 15 minutes and I heard the doctor say, "It's a boy!" I remember seeing the baby from a distance.
My all time favorite picture of my only a few minutes old son.
I guess I was pretty sick because they took me pretty quickly to recovery and I stayed there a long time (over 12 hours). Sometime in the middle of the night I felt strong enough to ask to see my son. I will never, ever forget those first moments of holding him, talking to him and having him open his eyes to look at me. What an amazing little creature he was
That little boy (who made me sick) has grown...
He has brightened our lives. He was the lucky first-born. The one we "sharpened our teeth" on as new parents.
He's a loving brother.
He is a wonderful addition to our family. He added so much fun to the adventures we have had as a family.
He has grown into an extraordinary 25 year old young man.
A young man who loves God and loves his wife.
Caleb, you have blessed our lives. I thank God for putting you into our lives. Thanks for letting me be your mommy. I love you so very, very much.
This is what I looked like twenty-two years ago this morning:
It was very early in the morning. Very Early. But Hubby and I were on the way to the hospital so we could meet this sweet little angel:
Oh, just look at those cheeks! So, so sweet! We were all enthralled with her from the moment we heard, "It's a girl!" (...and we are all just looking at the adorable baby in the picture and not looking at the just-given-birth-mom, right? Good!)
We named her Megan partly because it's the name her daddy liked the best from our list and partly because we knew her almost three year old big brother would be able to pronounce it correctly.
Those big brown eyes and that endearing smile captured our hearts. It was fun to have a girl with all the girly clothes and things.
With the addition of Megan, we became a family of four. One boy, one girl. One kid for each hand. Two babies to fill my heart with more love than I could imagine. More hugs, more kisses, more tears to wipe away, more laughs.
This girl's love of ice cream started at a young age thanks to her grandfather. She really liked it and kept wanting more after she got over how cold it was!
I had so much fun staying up late on Birthday Eve making her a shape cake every year for her birthday. Eighteen of them. Her nursery was decorated with bunnies, so of course a bunny had to be her first birthday cake. It was a lemon cake with lemon icing. She even shared a piece with her great-grandma.
Such a sweet picture of two so very different generations.
And then that little girl grew...
...and grew...
...and grew...
...and before I knew it she was a bride...
This daughter that God saw fit to bless us with has been one of the best things in my life. I admire her so very much. She is smart, works hard, a good cook, very beautiful and a loving and loyal woman. She loves God with all her heart and loves her husband too. How lucky have I been to be her mom?
Megan, I pray for you on your 22nd birthday that this will be a joyful year for you, that you will know many days of happiness, that you will learn more about becoming the woman God wants you to be, that you will love your husband even more, that you will be a blessing to those around you. I cannot even express how much I love you. Happy Birthday, sweet-pea!
