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.

Week Number 2 of this project:  My Birth
Questions to answer:

Do you have any baby photos?
Where were you born?
Who was present at your birth?
Dimensions?
What day was it? Time?
Did you have hair? Eye colour
Are you a twin?

I have never found any newborn baby pictures, although there are many of me in older babyhood.  This looks to have been taken at my aunt and uncle's property near Boring, Oregon, and since my mother is without a coat, perhaps it was taken during the spring following my birth, so I'm about 8 or 9 months old.  Just a guess, I have no one to ask for sure, and didn't think to ask when I did have someone.

I was born on August 19, 1947, in La Grande, Oregon.  I was somewhat of a miracle baby, perhaps.  My mother had given birth to my older brother almost seven years before mine.  Baby Jimmy only lived a couple of days, he was full term but barely 5 pounds and had under-developed lungs and was termed "malnourished," according to his death certificate.  Mother said that the doctors told her she probably would never have a normal child, even if she got pregnant again.   

World War II came along and my father enlisted in the Army, serving in Guam for most of the war.  By this time most of her family had left La Grande and moved to Portland, so Mom followed and got a job there while waiting for my father to return.  At the end of the war, he did return and they moved back to La Grande.

My mother had gone to an obstetrician with Jimmy.  She said the obstetrician put her on a strict diet, not wanting her to gain much weight.  She was a thin woman anyway, so I'm not sure why she was put on a diet, unless it was thought at the time that being heavy would be bad for both mother and baby.  She always blamed this restricted diet for Jimmy's small birth weight and malnourished condition at birth.

When she became pregnant with me, she went to a GP, who put no diet restriction on her.   I arrived safely and healthy, weighing in at 7 pounds 3 ounces and 19 inches long.  Fifteen months later she had my brother, who arrived 3 months prematurely.  Very few babies born that early survived back then, but after 3 months in the hospital, she brought him home, very close to his original due date.  Because I was her only "normal" baby, I give myself the tag of "miracle baby."

I didn't have much hair, just some brown fuzz, and had blue eyes which eventually turned hazel.  

Mom said she spent about a week in the hospital, then brought me home.  She said the total hospital cost for me, plus her stay, was about $75.  I'm not sure what the average wage was back then, but compared to today's hospital rates, $75 still sounds like a bargain!