Week 10: Unexplained Memories

This week’s (Week 10) prompt is Unexplained Memories

Do you have an unexplained memory or memories?
Items
Places
People

Things and times you can remember, but you are not sure where they fit into your past.

Here are a couple memories I can remember, there may be more, but I can’t remember them.

1.        As a small child, I can remember when playing outside and an airplane flew over, that I would get scared and run and hide.  Most of the time  I could make it up onto the porch, or even all the way into the house, but when I couldn’t, I had to find alternate hiding places.  I’d hide under trees or in the bushes, anywhere to be safe from the airplanes.  Why was I so afraid?

It wasn’t until just a few years ago that I think I figured out why.  I was born a couple of years after the end of WWII.  While my father served in the Army during the war, since I wasn’t born yet, it wasn’t a fear of the war itself.  But a good possibility is that when I was very young I heard my parents and other grown-ups talking about the war.  And probably during the course of the conversation, airplanes, bombs and what-not were also discussed.   Fortunately I did outgrow this fear, and don’t remember ever running and hiding after we moved to Portland when I was 7.

2.       I have confusion over my grandfather’s death.  Let me explain further.

Up until I was 7 years old, we lived in La Grande, Oregon.  My parents separated at this time, and my mother, brother & I came to the Portland area then.  I finished out my 2^nd grade year at West Gresham Elementary school, and when school was out, we moved out to Boring (yes, there really is a town called Boring) to live with my grandparents.  This would have been the summer of 1955.  Yet my grandfather died in June 1954.  For years I thought the death date I had been given for him was not right, but recently I got his obituary—not just a transcribed one but the digital image of the real deal—and that date is correct.  Since we used to spend summers with the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, apparently I have confused living there while he was still alive, to a summer visit, probably just before he died.  Unfortunately anyone who could clear that up for me has since passed on, and I didn’t think to ask my mother while she was still living.  

So if possible, as about those unexplained memories while you have the chance!  

Week 9: Halloween

This week’s (Week 9) prompt is Halloween

Have you ever participated in a Halloween event?
When was it?
Where was it?
What did you dress as?
Trick or treat?

To me, “Halloween event” refers to any Halloween-related activity, so here goes my remembrances of “Halloween events” in my lifetime.

I don’t remember much about trick-or-treating in my youth. What I do remember is having store-bought masks.  No costumes—just the masks. They were difficult to see out of, the eye holes never quite lined up with my eyes. 

Other events I can barely recall include a Halloween party given by one of the neighbors when I was probably 11 or so.  I don’t remember the party itself, but I do remember the peeled grapes/eyeballs and the spaghetti noodles/brains.  That was my first experience with those, and it did gross me out.  I think the party was held in her basement, I remember it being pretty dark and feeling these gross things.

My parents put the ka-bosh on trick or treating when we entered high school.  But, we were given the opportunity to “Trick or Treat for UNICEF” for my first non-trick or treating year.  We got these little cardboard containers, seems like they were in the shape of a small milk carton. We’d go door to door and say “Trick or Treat for UNICEF.”  I don’t remember having to explain to the people what UNICEF was, so there may have been some pre-publicity with this.  People would put some pennies into the carton, and also give us some candy as well, so we did get our trick or treating in anyway.  The next day the cartons full of change were taken back to school and turned in.  I think I did this for a couple of years, until I felt like I was too old to trick or treat for any cause.

As a mother, one of the rules we instituted in our family was “no trick or treating until age 2.”  Of course the kids were too young at age 2 to really understand what trick or treating was,  at least until they had visited a few houses and realized that by wearing a silly costume and saying these magic words, candy would be dropped into their little plastic buckets.  I remember the coaching of the kids to get them to say “Trick or Treat” when they could barely talk.  Most of the time they froze up when it was time to actually use the phrase, and no amount of coaching would get them to say it.  Naturally they got very good at it as they grew older.

Pumpkin Party

The BIG traditional Halloween event in our family began in 1995.  It started with our second oldest daughter, who had had a Halloween party the year before with her husband and some friends.  They had shared a potluck dinner and carved pumpkins.  When they were done with the carving, tea candles were inserted into the pumpkins, the lights were turned out, and son-in-law took pictures of these scary-looking jack-o-lanterns.  When they showed us the pictures from this party, we thought this looked like something fun that the rest of our family would enjoy, so Halloween 1995 we began a tradition that has lasted for 18 years and shows no signs of dying any time soon.

Food's on!

We started out with 6 children, two sons-in-law, two granddaughters, a boyfriend (who became a son-in-law about 6 months later), a brother & sister-in-law.  While the six children have remained the same number-wise, we’ve added a few more sons-in-law along the way, and are now up to 13 grandchildren.  The premise is the same:  Share a potluck dinner, visit, carve pumpkins, take pictures of the finished projects, and for the children—showing off the Halloween costumes. 

Steampunk Heidi

Some of the grandchildren

Our little Owl grandson

A Jedi granddaughter

Let the carving begin!

Finished Products

Week 7: Grandparents

The Book of Me prompt for week 7 is Grandparents.

• What were their names?
• Where were they from?
• Were they related? – Cousins perhaps
• Where were they born? Another County or state/area?
• Photos
• What did they do?
• Did you know them?
• What was your relationship with them?
• If you didn’t know them have you researched about them?

I thought this would be an easy assignment, but it was difficult because there was so much to say that it was difficult to write, not knowing what to leave out without affecting their story.  What I've written is a very small part of the people they were, especially my maternal grandparents since I knew them better than I did my paternal ones.  

My Grandparents

I have four grandparents and a set of step-grandparents.  My paternal grandmother died long before I was born—in fact before my parents even met.  My paternal grandfather lived in Nebraska, which was a long way from Oregon.  I only remember meeting him once.  My maternal grandfather died when I was 7.  Again, this was sort of a long-distance relationship, as we lived in La Grande, Oregon, and my maternal grandparents lived in the Portland area.  I was fortunate to know my maternal grandmother the longest, until I was 22.  When we moved to Portland when I was 7, I was able to spend more time with her.  I never met my step-grandparents; she died before I was born and he died shortly after my step-dad became a part of my life. 

Here are their stories, as best as I can relate them.

My father’s father was Karl Altmann a son of Hermann Altmann and Mathilde Schade.  He brought his wife and children to America in May of 1908, when my father was about 6 months old.  I only remember meeting him one time, when I was a small child.  The only thing I remember about him was that he was missing a finger on one of his hands.  That fascinated me as a small child.  He wasn’t a very big man, but I’m not sure that I remember that, or if it’s because I have some pictures of him standing next to my father, and he was a LOT shorter than my father was.  While his immigration papers state his name as Karl Altmann, I have found him in censuses as Carl Altman, and he was buried in Grand Island, Nebraska as “Carl Aultman. “ The name change probably occurred around World War I, in an attempt to anglicize his name.  Grandpa Altman was born in or near Stolzenhagen, Pommern, Prussia 14 August 1881, according to his christening records.  His birth date is confirmed in his WWI Draft registration card. 

My father’s mother was Auguste Friederike Micheel, a daughter of Christian Micheel and Wilhelmine Priem. She was born 7 June 1886 in Saatzig, Pommern, Prussia.  Her parents and many of her siblings came to America in 1900, although there is some indication at least one of her older sisters was here even earlier.  They all settled in Wolback, Greeley County, Nebraska.  She died a few days before her birthday in 1931, of complications from gall bladder surgery.  Thanks to message boards and mailing lists, I was able to make contact with descendants of my grandmother’s brothers and sisters or I would not have this much information.

Karl and Auguste were divorced at some point between 1914 when she returned with her three sons from a visit in Germany, and 1919 when she remarried to Wilhelm Hansen.  From her pictures, she was a pretty woman and I would have loved to have known her.  

Grandmother Altmann and sons. My father is on the left.

Maternal Grandparents

I knew my mother’s parents better, especially my grandmother.  We lived nearer to them  than we did my paternal grandparents, for one thing.  I’m also fortunate that my mother’s youngest sister, Elsie, became interested in genealogy and was able to get information from her many aunts and uncles while they were still living. She was the one who interested me in researching our family.  Because of the family history she wrote, I have more insight into my maternal grandparents’ lives.

Milton Melvin Johnson was born in Jamestown, C loud County, Kansas in 1883.  Flossie Cecelia Paxton, my grandmother, was born in Oketo, Marshall County, Kansas in 1884.  They first met at a mutual relative’s home when they were teen-agers.  While they were not related themselves, they each had cousins who married into each other’s family, as is often the case in small communities.

My grandparents married in January, 1909 when they were nearly 25 & 26.  This was older than the average marriage age of their day. 

 Milton & Flossie on their wedding day

In the summer of 1937, my grandparents brought their three younger daughters (including my mother) to Oregon.  Their only son and their oldest daughter were already there, so they decided to join them.  With the Dust Bowl and Depression going on, it must have seemed the thing to do.  They left most of their siblings behind with this move.

By the time I was born, all the family who lived in La Grande had moved to the Portland area.  I remember making train trips from La Grande to Portland every summer to visit family.  I don’t remember how long we stayed there, but it must have been an adventure for me and my little brother—not to mention my mother, having to ride herd on two small children. 

My grandfather died in June of 1954, a couple of months before my 7^th birthday.  I don’t remember his death, although my younger brother has a vague memory of waking up one morning and Grandpa wasn’t there.  He may have died while we were visiting, or we may have come at that time because he was ill and possibly going to die.  According to Aunt Elsie’s history, he was a hard worker, and always had a job, even during the Depression.  He was a farmer, although there were times he worked other labor jobs to make money to keep the family alive.  I have many pictures of him in jeans or overalls, looking like he had just come in from the fields.  

This is one of the few pictures where my grandfather

isn't in jeans.  This looks like the train station, although

I don't know if it's Portland, La Grande, or somewhere else.

Looks like they're holding boxed lunches.

My grandmother lived another 15 years as a widow.  After my grandfather died, grandma moved into my aunt Elsie’s home in Portland.  She and Uncle Cos had no children, so had plenty of room for her as they lived in a large house in the Laurelhurst area.

According to Aunt Elsie, Grandma was a good seamstress and had earned money before her marriage by sewing and doing housework.  After marriage, she did not work out of her home, but took care of her husband and children.  She made all of the clothes her children wore, as well as shirts for Grandpa.  She was also a good cook, and kept a good supply of home canned foods on the shelf. If company showed up unexpectedly around dinner time, she could always find plenty to feed the extra mouths, along with her children.  Her home-made noodles were legendary.  I remember grandma making them for dinner one time when she came to stay with me when my parents went hunting (and I didn’t want to go).  She said they weren’t very good, but I thought they were wonderful.

Grandma sewed doll clothes for all of us girls in the family, and she also enjoyed knitting and crocheting.  She would embroider pillow cases and crochet the edging on them.  She gave those as gifts, and I still have a couple sets that she made.  She also taught me to embroider when I was about 8.

 Grandmother and "some" of her grandchildren/great grandchildren.

Grandma is in the back row, 2nd from right.  To her right is "me." 

My brother is in front of us, sort of between me & Grandma.

This picture includes her 6 gg grandchildren, and is missing 5

grandchildren. I guess they just wanted "us kids" in this picture.  

I do have another one probably taken at the same time, with just the "grown-up" grandkids

She died suddenly of a massive stroke on December 24, 1969, ten days after my second daughter was born.  Mom brought her over to visit us just a few days before she died, and she got to hold her newest great-granddaughter.   I’m so grateful she got to visit us one last time—no one knew she’d only be with us a few more days.             

The prompt for week 6 is Journals and Diaries

Questions related to this week's entry:

Do you keep a journal or diary?
How far back do they go? What do you record?
Where do you keep them?
Do you always buy the same one or vary them?
Have you inherited any?
Do you intend to pass along your journals or destroy them?
Pictures
Do you have a favourite?
What do you use to write with – biro, pencil, ink or fountain pen?

Do I keep a journal or diary?  How far back do they go?  What do you record?

Not really.  I have tried several times but never stuck with it.  It’s something I know I should do, wouldn’t we all like to have a journal kept by one of our ancestors?  When I was in about 7^th or 8^th grade someone gave me one of those “5-year diaries” with a lock on it.  I remember mine was white but don’t remember what else was on the cover.  Nor do I remember what I wrote about, I’m sure it was about friends, boys, school, etc.  I suppose it got tossed many years ago.  I do keep a trip journal of sorts, to document our nearly 20 years of driving back and forth to Colorado Springs to visit my dad.  Some years were better than others as to what I wrote.  One thing I did write was that almost every stop we made for gas I’d note how much gas cost and the mileage our car got on some tanks.  Interesting to look back and see the variance in gas prices between 1993 and 2011.

Where do you keep them?

Apparently not in a place I can remember, or I’d go look at mine.  I imagine I’ll find it eventually, I have a lot of boxes and crates full of stuff that are packed away somewhere, that I’ll get to one day.  And it could even be in semi-plain sight on a bookshelf.

Do you always buy the same one or vary them?

I’ve only bought one for myself, it was/is a large brown journal.  I often buy new ones for my daughters for gifts.  My daughters are way better at keeping a diary/journal than I am.  I do have several that were given to me as gifts, some of which I use as trip journals.

Have you inherited any?

My mother kept her “diary” on those old steno pads.  She never really wrote how she felt about things, but she wrote about the things themselves. She used a page for each month, she’d jot down the date and whatever interesting thing happened that day (got new TV; went fishing, someone came to visit, etc).  She is also a source for the births of my first 3 children, as she wrote each one down in one of her notebooks.  She died in 1981, before her last three grandchildren were born, or I’m sure they’d be mentioned, too.  We were also given a copy of my husband’s grandfather’s oldest brother’s journal he kept from 1882 until about 1887 or 1888.  He wasn’t very wordy, mostly stated the facts.  I’m surprised there’s still trees in Indiana (or maybe they aren’t many anymore), because it seems that other than going to school, the next activity he spent the most time at was cutting down trees for firewood.  They cut wood for the school, themselves, Grandma Allen (Louise Lamb Allen), and probably others that weren’t mentioned.  There were also a lot of overnight stays among relatives and friends.  Even though the entries are brief, they still give a glimpse into life in the 1880’s.

I’ll probably pass mine down to anyone who is interested, such as it is.  Maybe by the time I am ready to send it on, there may be more entries.

My Childhood Homes

There were two things that made this week's prompt difficult to write:

1.  Trying to keep it short enough that readers wouldn't fall asleep

2.  Trying to find pictures that I know I have of these homes.  

I know I have scanned pictures of my grandparents' house, my first childhood home as it appears today, and I have pictures of my second home which I could have scanned if I could have found them.  It's important to be organized, and that definitely has never been one of my strong suits.

Here are the questions for Week #5:

• When did you leave home?
• Where was it?
• Where did you move to?
• Was it rented or owned? – with parents/Grandparents
• Was it inherited
• What was it like – describe it – each room.
• Were there a favourite room?
• Is there anything you particularly remember from the house?
• Pictures
• The road & area

I have what I consider to be two childhood homes,  the first one was in La Grande, Oregon, and was my home for the first seven years of my life.  The second was in Portland, the home my parents bought when I was 10 years old, and my home until I left it at age 19 ½, to get married.  The other homes I lived in, in between those years, were apartments, and for a brief time, with my grandmother.  Here’s my story.

We lived at 1001 11^th Street in La Grande, I am pretty sure it was from my birth till the fall of 1954, when we left La Grande and came to Portland.  For some reason I have always remembered this address, even though I was pretty young when we left.  I have pictures of myself and my brother when we were very young, in front of this house, as you see above.  So if we didn’t live here from my birth, it would have been some time shortly after.  I'm guessing my brother isn't quite a year old here, making me just past two in this picture.  Only because he was born in December, and we don't have heavy coats on.  I don’t remember anything of the interior of the house, nor do I have pictures of the inside of this house.  

It was a white house, and my guess is that it was also a two-bedroom house.  It had a cool porch, and I vaguely remember playing on the porch when it was raining.  We were the last house on the block, there was a sidewalk in front of it but not on the right (as you face the house) side of the house.  Across the street were more houses, and a great big hill!  At the top of this steep hill was Eastern Oregon College (now called Eastern Oregon University).  My grade school was also at the top of the hill, but we weren’t allowed to climb up the hill and cross the campus to get there, so I had to walk a few blocks before finding a street with a sidewalk that went up the hill, then backtrack to the street the school was on.  Kitty-corner to our house was a big white house surrounded by a lot of bushes and an overgrown huge lot.  We kids were afraid to go into this lot, not knowing what kind of critters lived there.  I don’t remember anything about the people who lived there, either.  Years later, when we returned to our old house to show our kids where I lived, it didn’t seem like this house and lot had changed any, although the “big” hill certainly shrunk a whole lot over the years.  I could not find the picture I took of the house as it is today, but if you go to Google Maps and type in "1001 11th St., La Grande OR, you'll see it as it is now.  Totally remodeled.  Doing a sweep of the area, the "scary" white house with the big lot is now red and the lot is less overgrown that I remember it.  Keep sweeping, and you'll get a view of the "steep" hill just to the left of the house across the street from us.  It doesn't look like there have been many changes to the other houses; the one across the street, which was home to my best friend Shirley Wilhelm, looks pretty much as I remember it. 

One Friday afternoon in October, when I was in the 2^nd grade, my father was supposed to pick me up from school.  He wasn’t there.  I waited around for a few minutes, but he never came.  That meant the long walk home, which I hated.  Often there were older boys who teased me all the way home, so I never looked forward to walking to or from school.  A neighbor usually drove their kids to and from school, and I was often able to catch a ride with them.  But this time I had missed them, so had to walk home alone.  I remember crying all the way home.  Little did I know that there was going to be plenty to cry about.

My father had deserted us.  I never knew whether he flat out left us with no word, or if he had words with my mother before leaving, but I can only remember seeing him a couple of times after that.  Mom’s family all lived in the Portland area, so that is where we found ourselves shortly after that.  I don’t remember how we got there. Mom didn’t drive, so I’m guessing we came on the train, like we did for so many summers to visit grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. 

Our next home was in Gresham, another suburb of Portland.  We lived in a basement apartment of a house next door to the library.  I continued my second grade career at West Gresham grade school.  When school was out, we moved out to my grandparents’ house, next door to an aunt and uncle near Boring (yes, there really is a town called Boring),   This house was unique in that there was no indoor plumbing—an outhouse served those needs, and there was a well.  Mom did not work during this time, I don’t know how we survived.  Either the kindness of aunts and uncles, or perhaps my father sent money to Mom.  Mom did not ever say much about him, and I wasn’t pushy enough to ask when I was older.  I hated the outhouse because of the smell and the flies, so whenever we were outside playing with our cousins, we would run into their house to use their bathroom when the need arose.

I started 3^rd grade and my brother started 1^st grade at Orient grade school after summer was over.  This didn’t last too long, as by Christmas vacation we found ourselves at another aunt and uncle’s house in Portland.  Mom came to us one night as she tucked us into bed to tell us she had a new job she’d be starting soon, at Montgomery Wards in NW Portland, and that we would be moving to another apartment.  She asked us which school we would rather go to—Chapman or Couch (pronounced “Kooch.”)  We opted for Chapman, and soon found ourselves living in the White House apartments, on 25^th & Thurman in NW Portland, and attending Chapman grade school.  It was a unique apartment, we went from an outhouse to sharing a bathroom with three other residents of the upper floor of the apartment.  This turned out fortuitous for mom.

There was a single man living on this floor, along with another single woman who had a son about our age.  As mentioned above, we shared a bathroom with all the residents of the upper floor.  One day, the single man left his socks in the bathroom.  Being that he was the only adult male in the building, other than the landlady downstairs and her teen-aged son, the socks could only belong to one person.   Mom took the socks back to our apartment, sewed them together, and hung them on his door.  This opened the door for their meeting, and eventual marriage when I was almost 9.  While he was officially our step-dad, I always considered him our father.  He always said “there are no ‘steps’ in this family,” and considered us his children, too.

We moved to a couple of other apartments after this one, since none of the apartments in the White House were big enough for all of us.  The summer before my 11^th birthday, the folks bought their first house.

It wasn’t a fancy house, but it was home—all ours.  No noisy neighbors, and we had a yard—we didn’t have to go to the local park to play outside.  The best part though, was that it was sort of out in the country.  Our neighborhood backed up to Forest Park, which is one of the largest parks within city limits in the United States.  There was a nearby creek where we could explore and catch crawdads.  Our house was a part of a small neighborhood, consisting of about 3 blocks.  At the time we lived there, it was pretty well kept up.  It was a semi-industrial area, too, and there were railroad tracks which saw lots of train traffic throughout the day and night. We soon got used to hearing the trains and feeling it shake the house.  There were neighbor kids to play with—some of them we already knew from school.  In fact, one of my best friends lived around the corner, although she and her family moved away after our first year in high school.  We were off a busy highway, with the bus stop close by so we could catch the city bus to school, and Mom could catch it to work. We had cats, we had dogs, we were happy here.  

The above picture was taken a couple of years ago.  Basically it looks the same, although when we bought the house it was gray. Later on we painted it green with red trim, and somewhere I have pictures of it in this color scheme.  My dad was a welder, and he welded a fence for the front, which is missing in this picture.  

After my mother died in 1981 Dad rented it out, then sold it, and it became gray again. 

Today the neighborhood isn’t what it used to be when we lived there.  Some of the houses have been torn down to make room for a fire station.  Most of the other houses are very run down.  Our old house was run down for a while, but the new owners are in the process of fixing it up.  We drove by earlier this summer and noted that new siding was being applied.  The yard still looks unkempt, but we’ll be checking back to see the progress.  When someone goes to re-side a house that is almost 90 years old, can the yard work be far behind?

My Favorite Season, Do I Have One?

This week’s prompt is about our favorite seasons, if we have one, and why is it our favorite.  Not sure that I actually have one, although I do like some seasons better than others.

Autumn/Fall:  This is probably my favorite season, but maybe not by very much.  Since Summer is at the bottom of my list, I’m always happy to see it over and done with, and that would mean Fall is here.  Here are my reasons for liking Autumn/Fall the best:

1.        Cooler temperatures.  When I was a kid I didn’t mind it being hot.  We could run through the sprinklers or prevail upon someone to take us swimming if we got too hot.  We could go down to the creek, which was mostly shady, to catch crawdads and other small water critters.  But as an “older” adult, those things just aren’t as much fun anymore, and neither is sitting in front of a fan or in the air conditioned family room.  By the end of summer I am also tired of my summer clothes, even though for the most part I’ve only worn them 3 months.  In the Pacific NW summer doesn’t start until July 5^th, usually, so I’m usually in long sleeves until then.  Autumn/Fall also means that my favorite holidays are just around the corner.  Autumn/Fall brings Halloween, Thanksgiving, and eventually Christmas.  These are big family events for us, and I look forward to them every year.  I love the changing leaves and Fall colors, too.

Spring:  I know I’ve skipped over Winter, but that’s not my second favorite season.  I like Spring only slightly less than Autumn/Fall for these reasons:

1.        While we don’t usually get too cold in the Pacific NW, by Springtime I am ready for some sun, and some green.  I love the flowers as they begin to bloom, the trees with their new leaves, and the warmer temperatures.  Most of the time it rains here, but we do get a few sunny days during this season.  Spring is almost like a new year, and I can see why the old style calendar (and I never remember whether it’s Julian or Gregorian) began with March 25^th as the first day of the new year.  We can work outside, getting ready to plant our garden, new flowers, etc.  And the rain is a little warmer.

Moving right along to Winter, on my list of seasons this one is slightly more favored than Summer:

1.        It’s easier to get warm if you are cold, than it is to get cold if you are too warm.  So snuggling up during the cold weather is more fun than trying to figure out how to cool off in the heat.

2.       Christmas!  I love this holiday!  I love giving presents to my family and friends!  We have our big family celebration on Christmas Eve, then Christmas day is usually quieter.  Hubby & I exchange gifts with each other, and when there’s a good movie playing, we go see it with any of our kids who want to come with us.  It’s been a few years since there was a movie worth paying for at the theater, so we’ve been watching movies at home.  All hail technology!

3.       New Years Eve and New Years!  We’re usually stay-at-home folks for New Years Eve, although sometimes we get together with one of our kids and their family, or with my brother and sister-in-law.  It was always a tradition to watch a boatload of videos and eat snack-type foods when our kids were still at home, and hubby & I still do this. New Years day is more relaxed—nothing major planned usually, just relaxing and getting ready to start back to work the next day.

4.       Valentine’s Day falls in the Winter, too.  Followed in just a couple of days by our wedding anniversary.  Fun times—especially with chocolate and other goodies.

My least favorite season is summer, although actually it’s not that I really HATE it, but that I like the other seasons better.  There are some good things about summer:

1.        Not usually much rain, but when we get some, we’re always happy to see it again.

2.       Summer picnics. We have a major family one in July or August, to celebrate the summer birthdays.  Three of our kids have July birthdays (two are twins), and my birthday & one grandson’s birthday fall in August. 

3.       It stays light longer, and it is light earlier in the morning.  I like that.

There you have it—what I like about the seasons of the year.

Physical Self

I’ve been semi-avoiding this week’s prompt because it’s not an easy one to own up to.  For week #3 we are to:

 Describe your physical self.

Your size – clothes size
Scars
Eye colour
Draw your hands
Finger Prints

Now if I still weighed 120 pounds and still had my dark brown hair, this wouldn’t have been such a mental issue for me.  Yet other members of this Facebook group have been able to own up to their aging physical selves, which seldom is the same as it was 40 or so years ago, so why should I be any different.  So, here goes:

I was always a “stick girl,” growing up.  Meaning, I was as skinny as a stick.  I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the song “Alice, where are you going….” but for those who aren’t, the words go like this:

Alice, where are you going?

Upstairs to take a bath.

Alice has legs like toothpicks

And a neck like a giraffe.

Alice got in the bathtub,

Then she pulled out the plug.

Oh my goodness, oh my soul,

There goes Alice, down the hole!

Glub! Glub! Glub!

Naturally I took great offense to that song; perhaps deep down inside that’s part of why I’m heavy today.

I was able to stay skinny as a rail up until my first child was born.  I am (or was, I’ve shrunk a little now) 5’5” tall, and weighed 120 pounds when I got married.  Thirteen months later, after the birth of our first child, I weighed 140 pounds.  I felt FAT!  Looking at pictures from my younger days, I actually didn’t look fat at all, but this was the Twiggy era, where if you didn’t weigh 67 pounds and look like a beanpole, you were considered overweight. 

I weighed 120 pounds on my wedding day in 1967 

Today, I’m 66 years old and probably 190 pounds, although I haven’t gotten on a scale for several months so it could be more.   I used to have dark brown hair—now it’s got a lot of gray in it.  I dyed it for a while, but it got to be a big hassle so I decided about 10-15 years ago to just let it go.  My hair has always been thin and fine, and it’s even more so than it was in my younger days.  I keep it short, and have for years.  When my second oldest daughter got married 20 years ago, we both started growing our hair out at the same time.  Hers eventually grew halfway down her back before she chopped it off.  Mine never got past shoulder length, so off it went and it’s been short ever since.

My eyes are hazel—my mom said—so I believe it.  My kids say they are golden with dark flecks, from reading some of the other posts, that seems to be the perfect description of hazel.  Their dad has blue eyes, and all of my kids have what they call “puke green” eyes.  I guess blue and gold makes puke green.

I have a few scars, two from two c-sections (one vertical, one “bikini”), one or maybe two small scars from gall bladder surgery about 10 years ago; a smallpox vaccination scar, stretch marks from 6 kids; a scar on my right calf from being hit there by a broken pop bottle, tossed through the bushes by a neighbor boy when I was 12, and I happened to be standing in the wrong spot.  A few others from various scratches or who knows from what, after all these years. 

Since it’s taken me this long to write this without the hand prints, etc., I’m going to forego those or it might be weeks before I got around to doing it.  Maybe I’ll add them in later on.  My hands are kind of on the small side, my fingers are kind of chubby, as I can no longer wear my wedding ring.  I used to love rings, but now they make my fingers feel claustrophobic, so I don’t wear any. I have pierced ears, but discovered after having them pierced back when I was 18, that I am allergic to nickle, so can't wear most earrings or any other jewelry unless it's sterling silver or 14k gold.  Or plastic.  I wear size 8 shoes, I think having twins flattened my feet out as I wore size 7 before they were born.  

I blame my children for my overweight self, but seriously, they may have contributed some, but the fault is mostly mine.  Can't seem to put down the Cheetoes bag or the chocolate.  Sigh!

That’s my physical self in a nutshell.

Me, at our family picnic & water fight--no longer 120 pounds, obviously.

That delightful person throwing water on me is that #2 daughter.