Last Slice of 2015

First off:  HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELI!  Today my oldest son turns 22.  He actually turned 22 at 12:17 am.  We were quite relieved he came on the 31st of March.  We were sightly worried that he would turn out to be an April Fool's baby.

By the end of May he will graduate college, be commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S Army, and get married.  We have a busy next couple of month ahead of us considering the youngest male-child also has major life events coming up as well!  Caleb will try out for a college sports team and graduate high school.

And guess what?  Eli and Caleb both graduate their respective institutions on the same day!  Eli will graduate from MSU on the morning of May 15, be commissioned into the Army in the afternoon, all in Springfield, MO, then we will rush home to be in time to witness Caleb's graduation from Webb City High School that same evening.  That is going to be quite a busy day!

While I have enjoyed getting back into the habit of daily writing, I am also kind of relieved its over for now considering the schedule I will have for the next couple of months.  I may decide to pick it back up this summer when I will (hopefully) have more time in my hands.

Through the Back Window

A prompt on the daily prompts site I use (not today's, though) was to go to the window and look out and describe what your see.  I give you: My Backyard.

The first thing I notice are the deer.  There are four medium does grazing on the new spring grass in our back yard, three under the trees and one off from the rest, out in the field.  Softly I call my family to come to the window and we share a quiet moment watching the deer.  THe most deer we've ever counted in our yard is 15.

The next thing that catches my attention is the green fuzziness of the trees and bushes behind our house.  The Crabapple tree has a darker green fuzz than the Rose of Sharon and Lilac bushes that grow just outside it's shade.I can't wait until my trees and bushes bloom out in pink, red and purple!  The trees in the thicket are all a light, spring green.  The Bradford Pear trees are all decked out in white flowers and I wrinkle my nose, glade that I am indoors looking out.  When the Bradford Pear trees bloom in the spring they smell of rotting marine life, a smell I can certainly do without!

Just at the edge of our patio is my rose bush, growing wild and untamed.  I had plans to dig it up last year but it unexpectedly bloomed after 10 years of dormancy.  I am not a great fan of roses, but this particular plant turned out to be most breath-taking and received a stay of execution; we will see what this year produces.

The sun is fading and it's getting difficult to make out details of the yard through the window, so I return to my computer and start the day's blog.

Bedtime Stories

What was your favorite book as a child?

This was the prompt the other day from the site where I sometimes get my blog ideas.

I was fortunate in that my mother believed in reading every day to me and my brother.  If we were lucky, she would read to us throughout the day.

I remember I had a collection of "Little Golden Books".  I don't know who published them or how I came to have them, though I suspect it was my mothers parents who got us the books since they owned a store and had easy access to such things.

My favorite of these books was Rupert the Rhinoceros.  It was about this poor rhinoceros that was captured in "deepest, darkest Africa" to be taken to a zoo somewhere in the United States.  The problem with poor Rupert was that he always charged at things and everyone was afraid of him!  They finally figured out that Rupert needed glasses and that he only charged at things because he couldn't really see and he was scared.  I think some little girl visiting the zoo figured it out, so they took Rupert to the optometrist where he got a big pair of red glasses and HURRAH! he could see!  He stopped charging things and everybody loved him and he lived happily ever after tin the zoo.

Odd little book, wouldn't you agree?

The reason I loved this book so much was because I also had undiagnosed vision problems for a while.  Life got better when I got glasses.

I suffered through glasses for three years, which helped some, but didn't fix the problem as well as it could.  Then I got contact lenses that were specially designed to hold my eyeball in a certain shape during the day while I had them in.  WOW!  Miracle!  I could see!

Just like Rupert.

I Wanna Be A Pirate, Too!

The month of May fast approaches, so it's now time to brush up on my pirate singing!

In our house, May means a trip to the Renaissance Festival at the Castle of Muskogee in Muskogee, Oklahoma.

We have been going to this particular festival for about 8 years.  We originally went because we got free tickets from a friend.  We were so-so about going, but then heard that our favorite singing pirates were also going to perform there for the first time, and that changed our minds!

We have been following the Jolly Rogers singing pirates for close to 20 years.  Caleb is a huge fan, and is even know to some of his friends as "pirate boy".  Caleb and the pirate Bloodbeard share a special bond (the bond of bad jokes, to be exact) and he has even been on stage with them a couple of times to share in the fun!  

Seeing the pirates every year in the fall and in the spring has really become one of the highlights in our family adventures!  Its been great becoming friends with these guys!

March 27 Post

Well my post from yesterday didn't get posted and is probably out there somewhere in cyberland.  I will try to re-create it:

I have spent what little free time I have had this evening looking for addresses.

Do you realize how difficult it is to look up addresses?

Used to be, you just went and pulled out your big ol' phone book white pages and look up the person by name, and you had their phone number, address and zip code.

We no longer have a land-line phone at our house so we don't have a phone book.

My next though was to go to the internet, which I did, but you can put in a name and the internet will spit back out at you 50 different people with that name.  Narrow the parameters and you might get the results down to two or three matches, which would be helpful if you knew that person's address to pick the right one, but it's the address I'm trying to find in the first place!

I am very frustrated!

28 Years Ago

It was 28 years ago and my brother and I were on spring break.  We were spending the week in Commerce, Oklahoma at the house my mother grew up in.  my grandmother had passed a couple of months before and we needed to go through everything it sort it into throw-away, give-away, and garage sale.  It was during this week that I had my first, second, and third date with my husband.

My husband has known me almost my whole life.  He remembers when I was born, my grandfather running into their house and announcing to all within that he had himself "a new papoose".  His mom went down to the dress shop and got a sweet, ruffly, red dress to send to my parents via my grandparents, that I am told I wore home from the hospital and had my newborn picture taken in.

Just a couple of weeks later my parents brought me to Commerce to show off to all the neighbors and relatives.  My husband remembers being outside playing football with his friends when his parents called him in to see the new baby.  He remembers getting to hold me when I was  two weeks old.

Grumpy Old Men

I went after school this evening to visit an old friend.  We've know Gerald for approximately 25 years.  We used to be neighbors.

His kids were in high school and college when we met, and he had recently started dating Anne, the love of his life.  They married a couple of years later.  They were married for 15 years before she died.

He had grand kids around the ages of my children, and he out a pool in his backyard to keep all the kiddos entertained.  He even built a big deck around the pool and added a covered cabana on one side.

 Gerald had a friend we all called "T-Bird".  T-Bird liked buying classic cars and restoring them.  Unfortunately, T-Bird's wife did not share his enthusiasm for this hobby.  One time, T-Bird bought another classic, old car to restore, but hid it under the walnut tree between our house and Geralds's house.  Wouldn't you know it, Webb City soon had a giant storm that blew over that old walnut tree right onto T-Bird's car!

Next door to Gerald lives Benny, also known as Ben Rotten.  Benny is brother to the local personality Hank Rotten.  Benny is quite the character!  He loves karaoke and all kinds of sports.

I miss living next to Benny and Gerald.