ABC - Letter to Myself

The challenge is to write a letter to my older self. I think I will do that, but it seems to be personal. So, I will write the letter, by hand, and then I will keep it tucked away somewhere to be opened at a later date.  I think though, that I will note in this blog post WHERE I put the letter so that I don't forget.

My intention is to eventually print my blog to book form, so hopefully, I will stumble upon this post and find my letter, should I lose it.  I don't think I will lose it... I will keep it in my Bible case - the one from my Mom with an angel on the front. Now I just gotta keep that case forever!!

ABC - Best and Worst 1st Date...

My best and worst first date were one in the same. Fortunately, he married me anyway!

Hubby and I were in high school. On our first date, he took me out to eat at Rocky Rococo's  Pizza. Little did I know that Rocky's pizza would literally cause a "rapid detox" of my intestinal system! We weren't 5 min. out of the restaurant and I needed a bathroom right away. He asked if I wanted to go back to the restaurant, but I asked him to just take me home - about 5-10 more min. away.

So, he gets me home - we lived in a trailer home at the time. Please read: Very thin walled housing with no sound proofing at all. I just make it to the bathroom after a hasty - "Hi-Mom,-this-is-Matt,-I-gotta-go-to-the-bathroom,-please-say-hello!" ZOOMING past my Mom, leaving my brand-new boyfriend in the dust.  Fortunately, Mom knew to keep the radio on! LOL (Thanks, Mom.)

After I get out of the bathroom, we leave again to go who knows where and my Mom proceeds to pinch my new boyfriend in the ass on the way out the door!  Good grief! (Yeah... thanks, Mom!)

It was our first date, but he still kept coming for more!

Raising a Modern Day Knight - Pondering #2

#2 - "What do you love to do with your son?" Today, ask your son what HE loves to do with YOU. Then put it on the calendar and commit to go do that.

Benjamin - "I love to hike with you in Door County."

I do too! We decided that we will be going to Door County this autumn to get in some good hiking - leaving Matt and Rick behind us on the trail, since we hike faster than they do.

Ricky - "I love to be in the kitchen with you."

I love to cook and so does Ricky. Fortunately, we love to be in there together! LOL  I taught him everything I know about baking bread and he has taken off with that. Now we are venturing into the world of gluten-free breads!

Happy Hallmark Day Honey!

He is so funny! After knowing each other for something like 30 years and going, you gotta love that there is still romance to it all!

"Happy Hallmark Day Honey!" and he hands me a piece of chocolate.

We were up late last night. Do you know how that goes?  You've spent all day - or pretty much all of it - apart. The dishes may or may not be done. The laundry has been washed and fluffed and re-fluffed, put into baskets, sorted on your bed --- only to be put back into the laundry basket(s) because now it is 11:30 p.m. and you are bone tired.  Ready for bed, lights are off and you continue to talk for hours! LOL  Well, that was us last night! Exhausted and talking thru the night. He had his MP3 player playing through the head phones. It was quiet enough in the house that I could hear what was playing.  What was playing was Say Hey, I Love You by Michael Franti and Spearhead.  So we sang that together - it happens to have a guy and a chicka singing as a duet, so we can both sing along!  After that some blues song sang, I Love You - it was during this I Love You song that I slipped into slumber, cuddled up to my sweet Hallmark guy.

Yeah, you gotta love loving someone for 30 years...

Happy Anniversary ~ He Has Stayed By My Side Thru It All

It is 21 years - and counting!

We've been dating since our Junior year of high school, however, I've loved him since 1982.  I met Matt on the playground at Jefferson school.  I was the new girl with a terrible afro haircut, beginning at the very end of the year - only 2 months to go until summer release. One day I went home and told my Mom that I found the man I was going to marry.  She replied, "The man, huh?"  I said, "Yup."  She asked me who and I told her it was Matt.  She was probably all worried that I was in love with the janitor; or that I had a crush on a teacher.

In high school EVERYONE knew I was in love with Matt! I DO mean EVERYONE! Other girls liked Matt too, but I stared them down!! They stayed away.  However, it took Matt a lot longer to realize that he liked me - I don't know WHY!! I was so obvious about it. His name was on every notebook and book cover - even written in ink on my NIKE shoes!  Creepy little girl that I was, can you stalker behavior??! When we got to 7th & 8th grade, I'd call his house to ask  him if he would be going to the school dance(s). Not even asking him if he would go WITH me, but was he going AT ALL.  Well, he didn't go and I ended up getting a kiss from a cute guy in a gorilla costume!  The worst case was when Gordy just wouldn't leave me alone - I swear that boy had the body of an octupus - 8 arms all over me! It was a challenge! One time, for a Homecoming, I asked him if he would just meet me at the school.  He said YES!!! Oh my gosh! I was a nervous wreck all night.  I say "all night", because Matt NEVER showed up!!!  He said he was in the parking lot all night, too scared to come in.  WHATEVER!!! I was stuck going 'round and round' with a guy that only wanted to get in my pants all night!  I TOTALLY let Matt know how upset I was and what I had to deal with all night long.  I don't know if he felt bad or thought it was funny, but he did say he was truly sorry.  I didn't talk to him for a long time after that.  However, finally, in our Junior year, at a basketball game, he asked me if I wanted his ring.  I was sitting with my bestie - Renae.  Matt was sitting behind Renae and I, with Greg.  When Matt asked if I wanted his ring, I was stunned! Shocked. I couldn't speak!  I turned in my seat and probably did something really stupid like GIGGLE (horrors!!), but when I heard him say to Greg, "See, she doesn't want it."  I spun around in my seat and said, "Give me that! Of course I want it!"

Up until this time another friend of mine was trying to constantly find me "A Guy"  she would introduce me to them and then later I'd say, "He's cute, but he's not my type."  Again and again, my standard answer for every guy in my life was, "He's cute, but he's not my type."  Finally, after all those years of trying, Cheryl asked me in desperation, "What IS your type?!"  I answered, "Matt."  There were even times when Cheryl told guys, "She'll think you are cute, but you aren't her type."  I'd go out with them for the evening and we'd have fun, but rarely did they get more than one date with me.  They were all very cute (HOT even!! Cheryl really did find the hotties! Woowee!), but, so very NOT my type.

Matt was a breath of fresh air for me.  I liked him all along, but he wasn't ready.  I can't blame him, I was a mess!!!  Obviously, I had dated a few other  questionable guys that wanted nothing more than to "get in my pants."  Two of them didn't want me at all - they only dated me to get closer to a friend of mine.  TWICE!!! Another guy kissed like a fish - I needed a towel when he was done kissing me.  Another guy had braces and really hurt my mouth when he kissed me.  There was the guy that my under-cover detective Step-Dad was following while we were out because that guy would do drug deals when I'd go to the bathroom!!  Said guy also had quite a few other girlfriends in other school districts.  There was the older brother of another friend - that was too weird.  I think I even went out to eat with Renae's brother, but that was too weird also - too close of friends.  Someone had a cousin; someone else had a son - was Tyra interested? No, not, really.  Only one time did Matt tell me to stay away from a guy I was dating... he asked me what I was doing with him.  I got really upset with Matt and told him that since he was clearly not interested in dating me that he should mind his own business - and I stomped away.

Finally, all the other guys filtered out of my life. It was just "Me, Myself and I" trying to find myself in the middle of the chaos called high school.  I was in a dysfunctional home. I was battling endometriosis, severe depression, suicide, crooked hips that were quite painful at times, an eating disorder, self-esteem issues, AODA meetings, meetings with guidance counselors, psychiatric counselors & social workers and repressed memories from sexual abuse, all while trying to get decent grades!  

Then there was Matt.  After that basketball game, it took Matt 4 months to kiss me or hold my hand. A guy (C.K.) that wanted to date me, gave me grief EVERYDAY about Matt not holding my hand or kissing me.  C.K. would even walk up behind me to try to get my hand into his.   He'd meet up with me in quite hallways trying to get me to kiss him. He was really very sweet about it all. C.K. was very nice - even cute! My Step-dad really liked him too, but... he wasn't my type.  I tried to hide it all from Matt and I told C.K. that it was alright with me that Matt didn't push our relationship further.  C.K. finally took the hint and left me alone.    Matt knew I had been hurt by other guys, but didn't know any details. He just knew it wasn't good.  He was quite content to just hold my hand and I was quite relaxed with him not asking me for anything more than that.  Matt never wanted to hurt me.

All these years later, I can honestly say that Matt has never hurt me.  He has always been there for me - thru all of my sickness ~ which is far more common than the health part of those vows.  He stays by my side when I know that any of those other yahoos would have left.  He stays by my side when we have to revert to those days of hand holding and cuddles only because I'm in too much pain.

I still find myself looking at him and thinking, "Wow. I can't believe I'm married to Matt."  There are also the times when we both look in the mirror and think, "Who is this person?  Where is my childhood sweetheart thru the gray hair and voluptuous figure?"  and then we remember. Then we see thru the years of living and see the person through a laugh or an old joke.

It all comes back to me and I find myself still in love with him.

Secret Santa Strikes Again....

Tonight my Secret Santa riddled me again.  This time the clues were a little harder! I actually had to ask the Boss Man if he had any ideas!

The first riddle was on my locker: "To begin this week's journey  you must travel North and there you will Sea, that I intend to send you round and round to discover what your Secret Santa gift will be.

So, in our library there is a mural on the NORTH wall of an underwater sea scene.  I'm looking over there - nothing.  I look under the globes in that area - nothing. I look and look. My co-workers look and they are also stumped.  I give up. My shift was about to start. I figure I'd try again during my break.  However, during my break I couldn't make any headway, so I wrote a poem to my Secret Santa asking for help:  Dear Secret Santa, Much to my chagrin, another clue you must give me, so I can re-begin. North I look, but all I Sea, are underwater creatures and toys for puppetry. Round and round I looked, and dizzy I became; Another clue you must give, so I can play the game! Oh Dear Secret Santa, what is your name?

Finally, I mention it to my boss and he asked me the obvious questions, "Do we have books on the North Sea?" (not here) "Did you look under those two globes?" (nothing under them)  Then, he mentioned that we also have one more globe in the library! I didn't know we had ANOTHER globe, so off I go, in search of my next clue.  Sure enough - taped on the North Sea was my next clue.

"My hope is not for you to feel you have been schooled, but rather to have some fun, if only just a little. Please do tell me Am I Tyra, driving you crazy with my riddle?" (italics and underscore mine to show you.)  It takes a bit. I'm a homeSCHOOL mom, so I look in the homeschool section - nothing. The clue was on the globe by the SCHOOL yearbooks, so I look up my yearbook - nothing.  We have lots of little decorative things out right now, as well as a display of tiny or LITTLE buildings for those tiny village displays. So, I look for a LITTLE school in those areas - nothing.  Yup, I was going round and round!!  It turns out that a co-worker realized that the type was different for 'Am I Ty' in my riddle is the name of the LITTLE SCHOOL, named AMITY (in our district)! We happen to have a huge quilt display from AMITY SCHOOL hanging upstairs, so off I go in search of my clue.  Yup! There it was, safely pinned to back, non-damaging to the quilt I might add!!!

"Somehow I feel as though you are dragon your feet, your gift awaits you. You want it, do you not? Shall I light a fire under you to make you move?  Must I tell if you are cold or if you are hot? Come on now my friend, I beg of you to give this all that you have got!"  Again, to the Children's section I go!  There is a dragon paper machie there.  Yup, under the dragon's butt was my next clue!

"Well now, you silly goose, surely you didn't think that that was the last clue? To put it simply as I can, that would not, could not be true. Please tell me you are not thinking of sitting down? It is clear as black and white that this game is not through. Only a few riddles for you to solve and a gift will be given unto you."  Off to the Children's section!! There's a stuffed goose there!!

"It would be a cardinal sin for you to quit now. I know that you have red that this is something I will not allow."  I have NEVER seen a cardinal in the trees in the Children's section! NEVER!! I even just put up and re-adjusted some decorations in those tree branches!! I think the cardinals were JUST RECENTLY added...  Anyway, one of my co-workers said, HEY!!! There's a cardinal on that branch! - we look - nothing.  Hmmm... so we look in the other trees, sure enough!! There's another cardinal on the shelf, by the tree, in the Children's section!

"My creativity is running low and it is time to rein you in my deer. I will hang around a little longer and share a tiny bit more Christmas cheer, and before I put a cap on all of our fun, one last clue will, for you, appear."  You guessed it, I'm in the Children's section and there is a capped reindeer hanging around!

"Don't delphin to this one too deeply. Sometimes it is okay for the pun to be so easy to sea. The porpoise for these riddles is to reveal to you gift number three."  Once again, the north wall of the Children's section is a painted mural of an underwater sea scene, complete with dolphins.  We looked everywhere at the first clue, but we look again. I'm a bit short, so a taller co-worker helps me out -  nothing. A patron made a HUGE stuffed dolphin and then gave it to us. We can't keep him out all the time though because he is so big that the kids like to sit on him and jump on him, etc.  So, we keep him by us in the back. He's a great conversationalist! I asked him what he thought of all of this Secret Santa stuff - much to my delight, he raised his head to talk with me and revealed my gift!! Such a sneaky helper that guy!

Secret Santa gift  hidden under dolphin.

 

The tag on the bag says, "Passing Through Once Again to Odor You to Have a Very Merry Christmas."

So, I wrote a new note to my Secret Santa: 

Dear Secret Santa, 

Much to my chagrin,

Help was really needed,

Before I could begin.

Your first clue so hard, the wrong North I did look.

All I could sea,

Were underwater creatures and toys for puppetry.

Help from several friends, did I need.

Then I took off with amazing speed.

Paranoid I now be,

Wondering if poop and stink is how you remember me!

So much fun to play your game,

Oh, Secret Santa, what is your name?

Okay, here's where the gamer gets tricky!! At 6:15-6:30 I happened to take my break.  I go into my locker, get my chips and eat.  Nothing spectacular in my locker, just my junk and the Christmas presents that I'm hiding there so my kids can't find them.  When I leave for the night, I go into my locker to put my name tag there and lo' and behold is a gift bag from my Secret Santa!!

Gifts that were mysteriously placed in my locker WHILE I was at work!!

I don't know if you can see it all, but there is a scarf - I wear scarves all the time!  Chocolate, gel pens for the artsy in my fartsy and a unique bird cage on a necklace.  I love unique jewelry. Tonight I happened to be wearing another necklace with a Silver bird cage. This bronzy one will work out WONDERFULLY with my collection of unique necklaces!  Love it!  I added a handwritten note to my last Secret Santa poem saying that I LOVE the necklace!

I have had one person in mind the whole time, but during this game, no one is to be trusted!!!

You Are....

You are such a big help to me.

Both of you!

I needed to get so many things ready before I went in to work tonight.  I tend to get rushed a bit 'curt'. I may even hurt your feelings a bit.  However, there you are - helping me get everything done and accomplished.

Thank you so much for helping me!  You are a great pair - you two brothers! Helping us get ready to leave the house on time!

Love n' BIG hugs,
Mom

Bangles and Memories ~ 1974-1975

I love my bangle bracelets that jingle and ting-ting along with my movements. I love the look of several jangly bracelets on other women too. Women from India can pull off the look of 15+ bangles on one wrist. I have a friend that has the most beautiful wrists and forearms. She wears several slender bangles, thin bangles and the really thick ones that you have to put on sideways.

A young lady friend of mine makes jewelry. When she told me, I was extremely excited because now, I could actually get bracelets that fit over my wide hands. Typically, off the rack bangles don't fit over my hands. This is probably why I like the look of them on other women so much -- because I rarely find any that fit me. So when my young-jewelry-making friend told me about her business, I placed an order for three. Then, I went to a craft store and found some baubles and trinkets and gems that I wanted to have made in jingly bracelets. I placed another order. Then another...

I'm happy with the jingly ting-ting sounds that my bracelets make. My Lola Mom used to wear gold bangles on her wrists and a slender chain anklet with a tiny charm on her ankle. She would jingle and ting away while she cooked. We could hear her bangles while she puttered around the house. My favorite sound was when she was in the garden.... it was the sounds of the neighborhood, the birds, her laughter and her bangles. Tiny clink-clink and ting-ting, jingling quietly in the thick Pacific heat, under the shade of her exotic trees, plants and flowers.

Two of my Aunties also wore bangly bracelets. They usually were gold or silver. Not the fake stuff, but the real silver and gold. I clearly remember them sitting there in the Pacific heat, drinking wine out of a slender glass and their bangles clinking when they lifted the glass to their lips. The contrast of the silver and gold metal against their Pacific tanned skin was beautiful. In the background Otis Reding was probably singing: ".... sitting' in the evening sun...."

When I hear the quiet jingle of my bracelets, I sometimes think of Lola Mom and my Aunties. When I hear my bangles clink against my desk while I'm at work, I notice that sometimes little girls will look towards the sound and tell me that my bracelets are pretty. I remember being that small; looking at my Lola Mom's bracelets and telling her the same thing... and it brings me peace. I hope it does for you too!