Miscellaneous musings & memories

Some days this month it has been totally awesome and joyful and at other times it has been extremely stressful, but suffice it to say – I’ve not found it within my power to post anything of importance or anything I felt anyone would be interested in reading about! That hasn’t changed!! But, I’ve decided to re-trace my November steps and just share some miscellaneous thoughts, meanderings, activities and memories (in no particular order)!! I just hope I don’t bore you to tears! LOL

Yesterday was one of the nicest Thanksgivings we have had in several years. We were blessed to have four of our seven adult children present. Their spouses & kids were also present and I had the pleasure & responsibility of doing all the cooking!

After we had pigged out!

Preparing for an event like this takes a zillion times longer than actually eating what’s been prepared! Isn’t that a funny realization that many of us have had? Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures when the table was set and we had just sat down to eat…I remembered when we were sitting around visiting with dirty plates in front of us!

We have a large dining room so there was plenty of room for our large dining table as well as another 6 ft table and card table. This is not my hubby’s comfort zone, preferring small gatherings to large ones and he really relishes his solitude. He was a good sport about it all, considering the holidays are difficult for us both. We both lost our dads in December many years ago, so December is still quite challenging emotionally for us and as Thanksgiving and holiday traffic and shopping start approaching we have a tendency to get a little “funky, sad” feeling. He’s having a more difficult time this year than I am because we lost his mother and brother last year.

We had some pretty stressful days taking care of the two grandsons this month. Once they would leave in the evening, we would chat about it and try to figure out what was making it so stressful for us. I think the conclusion we came to ..was NOT that it was taking care of either ONE, Kash, the 3 yr. old, or Jackson, the 9 mo. old….but the combination of taking care of BOTH. You see, now, in the last couple weeks, Jackson has become much more active. He has gone from the famous “commando or crab crawl” to the normal “on all four” crawl to pulling himself up on the furniture and trying to walk!

One evening when we were out at Applebee’s eating a greasy burger (great for a stressful day…especially if french fries are included! LOL) I was reminiscing as to why taking care of these two very active boys was so stressful for me. I realized that #1) when my now 45 yr. old son was a little tyke he was very laid back. He would play for hours and entertain himself with his Fischer Price little people and his Matchbox cars! I didn’t have to sit on the floor and play with him as much as I find myself doing nowadays with grandsons! #2) I only had ONE little boy so when he did require my attention – he got ALL of it. I feel quite torn sometimes when I take care of Kash and Jackson because I have to watch Jackson like a hawk, and thus feel like I’m neglecting Kash!!

Here’s both boys on a trip to the park/playground…

I have so much fun with the boys, but some days I feel like I just can’t do enough and I’m emotionally exhausted and drained when they leave!! Kash and I have awesome conversations and talk non-stop about everything! He’s so smart and so curious about everything! Jackson is such a joy to watch when he “explores” new territory all over the house and observes Kash. They both love the other even though they share NO BLOOD relation and light up like Christmas trees when the other shows up! I think the reason Jackson is coming on so quickly is because he watches everything that Kash does!

My evenings all month have been spent sewing. I was busy finishing up my grandaughter, Hannah’s quilt for her 17th birthday.

She & I were happy with the way it turned out and it will keep her very warm during these chilly Texas nights. She was the last of her siblings (5) to get a quilt from Maw Maw. I monogrammed her name on it and backed it in the zebra print.

I had several custom orders for baby quilts this month also that I had to work on and get shipped out.
This one has been a hot seller. I usually make these little pillow quilts 30″ x 36″ but I had a request to make a 40″ X 48″ for someone. This is a close up. Check out my listing on eBay @

Another baby quilt I made this month was made of flannel… in a CHUBBY BLUE OWL PRINT. Have you noticed how popular OWLS are? I collected owls before owls were popular back in the 70’s. Most of them I have since gotten rid of, but at one time I think I had over 200 owls in my house!

A sweet friend from church had her second baby girl this month and so I also made her an adorable “girly girl” pillow quilt… This one is my favorite! It has machine embroidered rosebuds on it and is very feminine, don’t you think? You can also check me out on Etsy @

My cord covers were actually more popular than my quilts this month, so when I wasn’t working on quilts, I was making and shipping out cord covers.

The holidays really snuck up on me this year!! I had intentions to list a lot more Christmas items on both Etsy and Ebay …some that I had made too late last year to list like these cute quilted pillow shams!

I like changing out all my stuff for the holidays. I take down a lot of the knicknacks and pictures I have up throughout the year and replace with Christmas candles, knicknacks etc; Unfortunately, due to a little varmint that crawls everywhere and pulls himself up on everything, we won’t be putting a big tree up this year! Instead, I made several of these adorable ribbon trees and sold a ton of them to my realtor, daughter for her clients.

These ribbon trees are a lot of fun to make and very relaxing to work on in the evening after a long day with the boys. My daughter (Kash’s mommy) made a job change 6 weeks ago and so now Kash is with me from 7:30 til 5:30, while my daughter-in-law, Ava (Jackson’s mommy) has had to stay at the school later each day for tutoring and working extra before the holiday break. It definitely makes for a long day. I’m thankful for nap times!

When I was reminiscing (I do that a lot, especially during the holidays) I was remembering the BIG WHEEL, my son used to entertain himself with outside when he was little. I think he had two or three of them, before he had his first bike, because he wore them out cruising around the neighborhood!! Do you remember these?

Do they still make them? I know Kash doesn’t really like pedaling anything!! He has a battery operated four wheeler at home that all he has to do is push the gas pedal on. It makes pushing the little razor scooter that I bought him seem like too much work!! LOL He’s also inherited his older brother’s bike that he rides when he is at Maw Maw’s house, but that’s also WORK for him!! LOL

My baby girl & her hubby arrived from Wichita Falls, TX on Tuesday evening to spend a quick holiday with us. They left early Friday morning. Tanya always has great ideas for some quality time spent with family. Before arriving she had texted her sister, niece and I to see if we were interested in her signing us up for a Painting class Wed. evening prior to Thanksgiving here in our town. She goes to one in her home town and has really enjoyed it. Being the creative types that we are – we were all game for a fun 2 hr “girl get-together”.

I don’t know if the reason she suggested it was because the “boys” were going fishing but regardless, a great time was had by all!!

We didn’t enjoy the loud music they played thru the entire class…and for Tanya and I, at least, it would have been much more peaceful & relaxing without the music. She really wants us all to attend her class in her town now, because in her opinion the comparison would be glaring. We kept a positive attitude though, and didn’t gripe or complain until we got in the car!! LOL Still just getting together with both my girls and my granddaughter was a nice way to spend a pre-Thanksgiving.

The boys were happy to enjoy a pot of stew I’d prepared and left on the stove when they returned from a chilly night of fishing! It’s a good thing, because the one fish you see in the picture was their only catch – about a 5 lb. Channel Cat. (catfish).

I also spent some time this month re-organizing my thoughts on my “little sewing business” and trying to figure out ways I could market/promote myself to increase my sales. I haven’t been on Facebook for 2-3 years, but realized that I needed more Social Media exposure if my business was going to grow. It’s the future. So, while my daughter was in town she helped me get my business page set up for Custom Creations. My page is not complete but it’s a start and by the first of the year I hope to have it completed.

Rob & Tanya decided to have Christmas while they were here with their niece & nephews and so after Thanksgiving dinner was all cleaned up the kids got to open presents! This is the only picture I took (someone else was taking all the pictures) of Kash sitting in his little Ninja Turtle beanbag chair. Uncle Rob and Auntie Tanya outdid themselves and spoiled their niece and nephews to the MAX! Uncle Rob went out (all on his own) and bought his niece, Hannah a Northface jacket! Wow! Was she ever surprised!

Most of our family will be all spread out over Christmas and it will be impossible to get together, so it was nice to enjoy this little gift opening session with the kids. Paw Paw and I will be going away the week between Christmas and New Years just for some quiet time and reflection. We are looking forward to it and know that it will be just what the doctored ordered. Here he is with my two girls. I’m thankful that they love and appreciate their step-dad.

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Back in my day…

I am a product of the 50’s and 60’s, being born in 1951 and graduating high school in 1969. Although we had sex, drugs and rock & roll back then too, life was much simpler. A step up in our technology would have been to get a COLOR TV!! TV’s were HUGE back then – no flat screens for sure! In fact most of us had what was referred to as a “Console TV” – it was typically once nice looking piece of furniture!! We had one very similar to this one when I was growing up.

I remember watching Ed Sullivan on that TV. I loved the Lennon Sisters… Third from the left, Janet was my favorite. I think she was the youngest of the four girls.

I also remember watching Mr. ED (1961-1966), My Favorite Martian (1963-1966), Father Knows Best (1954-1960), Leave it to Beaver (1957-1963) and so forth. All great, wholesome shows and shows you just don’t see any likeness of …anymore. We sat down to the supper table as a family every night without fail. I think it’s very sad that many families today don’t sit down to a table and share a meal much anymore (unless they are in a restaurant..and even then they are so busy looking down at their phones that they aren’t talking or connecting!)

My entire teen years were spent roller skating at the indoor roller rink in town every Friday and Saturday evening. I loved to roller skate and even competed in a few competitions and went on road trips with the roller skating club when I got a little older. The worst part of this activity was that it was also the local hangout for GI’s from the nearby Air Force base and I was an impressionable young lady at the time. Needless to say, it was subsequently where I met my first husband and then became pregnant with my first child at 18. You sure don’t see many indoor roller rinks anymore. There may be a few (there is one in this town where I live now), but the crowd is mostly made up of very young children and rarely do you see families skating together. Teens nowadays, for the most part, find roller skating boring. You will also see them donning roller blades, rather than the roller skates of my day..

I used all sorts of contraptions on my hair to make it curly …all sizes and shapes of curlers, orange juice cans (for a more relaxed look) and “ratting”, “teasing” or “backcombing” your hair was an absolute must, if you wanted “big hair”!! I curled my hair wet, and didn’t have anyway to dry it but by just letting it dry naturally…so it was not uncommon to go out during the day with curlers in my hair and a chiffon scarf tied around my head to conceal the curlers somewhat!

You rarely saw women back in my day with short hair. Long hair and dresses were quite common. Ribbons in the hair weren’t cheesy! I had a wide assortment. I believe it wasn’t until my senior year in 1968-1969 that they changed the dress code at my high school. Up until then, girls had to wear dresses or skirts (no pants or jeans). Can you believe it? We always wore hose with our dresses…no bare legs like you see now. In fact, if you wait long enough all the styles of the day do come back and repeat themselves. You know how you see all those crazy nylons, tights etc; nowadays? Well, here’s a pic of the “window pane” hose that I owned and wore often. They were one of my favorites…

Democrat, Harry Truman was president when I was born. I really loved Elvis Presley in the 50’s and early 60’s, but he was quickly replaced by Jan & Dean and The Beach Boys.

Can you believe it? Look at those well groomed, clean cut, young, good looking men? They don’t look anything like our music stars of today!! Or do they? Maybe so…maybe my narrow mindedness is showing. Life just seemed so much more wholesome back then. Maybe I’m just getting old and melancholy.

Oh, and speaking of Ed Sullivan (earlier in this post…just in case you won’t paying attention)…he introduced the Beatles to us in 1963 and teenage girls were going crazy all over the US! I liked them…but wouldn’t say I was “crazy” for them. I thought Paul McCartney was the best looking one and therefore my favorite. I thought Ringo was UGLY with a capital “U”!!

The Beach Party films of the mid 60’s were my favorite!! They featured Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon and I think there were six of them. Every time a new one came out…I couldn’t wait to see it. I know, CORNY!!..maybe it was because I lived in the “frozen North” that I enjoyed these beach party films so much. There may not have been much novelty to them, had I lived in Florida or California…but for North Dakota living, beach party movies were NIRVANA!!

Last but not least was WOODSTOCK! The year of my high school graduation was also the year of Woodstock! The Hippie movement…and “free love” was in full swing! I was already married and pregnant with my first child…so my priorities shifted (temporarily)…but it was pretty cool that 3 months prior to Woodstock my home state had their own version of Woodstock…called “Zip to Zap”…located in the very small community of Zap, North Dakota!

So, at the close of 1969…after the birth of my son…I proceeded to “sow some of the oats” I missed out on sowing with my graduating class. My first apartment had beads in the doorway, inflatable furniture and a poster of a pregnant girl scout on the wall! Helen Gurley Brown and Cosmopolitan magazine were my “MO”!! As a single mom in the early 70’s I couldn’t wait to get my hands on that first male centerfold of Burt Reynolds!! I’d come a long way baby!!

I close by saying…I’m not that young innocent of the 50’s and early 60’s (I kinda wish I was). But, I’m also not the wild, young poncho & moccasin wearing hippie of the late 60’s and early 70’s either. (I’m glad I’m not). This was just a trip down memory lane. Today, I’m thankful for redemption and the blood bought life. I live for a higher calling and the greater good. But, everything I’ve done and experienced has made me who I am today….and for that I am TRULY THANKFUL.