I gave in to temptation yesterday and went by the DQ and had a cone of luscious soft ice cream! Is there anything better? I have to have one now and then to satisfy my soul! It also reminds me of being at home and going to the DQ and all the frozen delights! I usually got a butterscotch sundae but I also liked banana splits and milk shakes! Yummy, yummy, yummy!
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This is my favorite picture of my daddy with me–and my sister in the background! I’m guessing I’m about 3 yrs old (my mother crocheted my dress!) My daddy loved me unconditionally but it took losing him to fully understand that.
He’s been gone from this earth for some time but it doesn’t seem like that long. In his later years he had to deal with Parkinson’s and it hampered his love for fishing. Well, it pretty much interferred with his life, period. But today, I’d like to remember the fun things he did as my daddy.
He had a very good sense of humor and I think that’s where mine comes from! He always made snowmen with me whenever it snowed, I never remember him yelling at me. When he came in to wake me up, he usually tickled my feet and said time to get up sleepy-head! Sometimes, while watching tv, he’d get an apple and use his pocket knife to peel it. I’d wait unil he got the first bite, then I’d ask him for a piece and about the second or third piece, he’d smile and tell me, you know there’s more apples in the kitchen and I’d smile and say I only wanted alittle bit while continuing to ask for more until his apple was gone! We did that over and over and he never got mad or told me to get my own.
Sometimes I’d fish with him. He’d try to teach me to cast my line out but after I “caught” him a time or two, I think he was thinking he might end up with a lure attached to him somewhere! So we tried not to stand too close to each other! I have lots of pictures of me holding up a big, dead fish! He never got tired of talking about fishing and I believe he remembered every fish he caught! Especially the big ones! He also seemed to remember what he was using when he caught them, too! He liked to eat them as much as he liked catching them….and he knew how to clean them! (most important!) Watching him clean them held no interest for me! yuk But they were good to eat, except for the bones!
When I was getting ready to take my driving test, we were out on a local highway and a dog ran across the road and I swerved to miss it! When he could talk again, he said don’t.. ever.. do ..that.. again! He also went on to explain how I could end up in an accident and maybe get hurt or worse. Bless his heart, I think I really scared him! heh
Daddy was not just a good daddy, he was a good man. We always went to church and I don’t just mean Sunday services. We went to Sunday school. main Sunday service, Sunday night, Wednesday night, VBS, and any other service that was going on! There was no swearing except for an occasional hell or damn and his drink of choice was a Coke.
The last thing I did for Daddy was take his glasses off, tuck them inside his jacket and kiss him goodbye, forever.
This is me at 27, about to become a mom for the first time.
Give your mom a hug and tell her you love her!
Every Easter I am reminded of all the pretty dresses my mother made for me and my sisters. I think this is one at around the age of 5. While I am grateful that she had our pictures made every year, I wish she had put a date on the back of them! I remember the shoes that hurt my feet and the dresses that were scratchy! After church we usually went to my grandmother’s when she was living for a family dinner with aunts, incles and cousins. Afterwards there was an egg hunt with lots of places to hide them! Later, I would go with my cousins to their cousins for dinner and an egg hunt. So I looked forward to Easter almost as much as Christmas because of the family time.
I didn’t particularly like the fittings for the dresses but they were really beautiful when finished! It doesn’t show up that well in the photograph, but she made flowers out of ribbon around the bottom! I don’t know what kind of torture I went through to get my straight hair to look curly!
I hope your Easter is a happy one and if you make pictures, don’t forget to put a date on the back!
This is my sister’s birthday and I thought I would repeat the post I did after she died in 2005. We miss her and think of her often.
If this was a leap year, today would be one of my sister’s birthday. We used to joke that even though she was nine years older than me, I was technically older than her because of the actual birthdays. She was one of my 3 older sisters, the youngest of them. Their father was killed in an accident when they were small. I liked to say I was an only child with 3 sisters. There has always been the 4 of us for as long as I can remember. Until 2005, just after Thanksgiving, when my sister died of cancer. Losing a sibling is a jolt.
She had lived in CA for most of her adult life with her family. She graduated from college as a x-ray tech, met her husband in GA and since he as an AF pilot, moved several times before CA. She quit working for awhile and took care of her son and daughter. When her son was in his teens, she went back to school and earned a double-masters and started working on her Phd but found it too stressing to be away from her family. She started teaching at a local college and really loved it. She taught anger-management, which if you knew how much of her anger I saw growing up, you’d know how funny that was! (We worked that out long ago!)
I would go visit them in IL and baby-sit my niece during the summer and at Christmas. The fringe benefit was being introduced to some cute guys by her regular baby-sitter!
The last time she came home was in 2003, for our mother’s funeral. She stayed with my sister in FL, so I didn’t get to spend much time with her. And, at the time, I didn’t know that cancer was on its way. Even after I knew, I wasn’t prepared for the phone call that said she was in the hospital and time was running out. And shortly thereafter, she was gone. It was no longer the 4 of us, no more jokes about how old she was, just an ending.
Three months later, her husband also died. She had spent the past decade or so looking after him with heart disease.
One of my favorite things to do when we were all under the same roof, was to make the phone ring and sit down and listen to my sisters running through the house, fighting over who was going to answer the phone! Then I’d hear my name screamed and would have to run for cover!
I still have a hard time believing she’s gone. She was the one who ate healthy, did yoga and was so proud of how good she looked.
I miss my sister.
Just wanted to let you know that I won’t be posting for a few days. One of my brothers-in-law died today and I’ll be spending time with my family. He was being treated for cancer and the thought is that he had a heart attack while doing some errands which caused him to wreck his truck.
Update: There was a very large turn-out for my brother-in-law’s funeral. Lots of family and friends. He was buried under a huge tree that, at least, one squirrel and several birds were enjoying during his service in Montgomery. Hard to be grateful for sudden death but he didn’t want a long suffering death and most likely faced one with cancer.
Thank you for your comments.
Love your loved ones.
This is a picture my niece sent me this morning telling me her neighborhood is on fire and she had packed her car to evacuate! Her brother has had to do the same. They are both in the San Diego area of CA. She said the wind was getting stronger! Please say a prayer!
