My husband and kids planted four peach trees last year. One of them died pretty quickly, which left three (for those who may need a little mathematical assistance). This year, all three trees bloomed…but after a couple of brutally windy days, all of their blossoms blew away…except ONE. And behold, I bring you our “One Peach Wonder”:
Biggest question is…who will get to eat it?!
Over the weekend, my husband and three younger kids went to help pack up and move our eldest daughter home for the summer from her college dorm room. As I got my lunch prepared, I went to get a glass of milk for my lunch.
Yeah…this is how much milk my kids left me:
Now, I vaguely remember my aunt getting frustrated with me a few times in my youth. The reason why? Because I’d leave about this much milk in a jug or would not take the time to replace the toilet paper roll in my bathroom. I’d just pull out a new roll and use it without putting it on the roll. You know, where it was supposed to be!
Guess what? Without any prompting by me, my children are carrying on those very frustrating traditions. If I told my aunt, I’m sure she would smile and remind me I was the exact same way growing up.
And I would do my best impression of rolling my (formerly) teenage eyes, give her a great bit (formerly) teenage sigh and then turn around and go back to my room. Without fixing a darned thing. Ah yes, I am feeling her frustrations just about now and wondering which teenager, in our house, would be the next one to roll their eyes at me, sigh and then go hide in their bedroom.
My loving husband presented me with an early anniversary gift this past weekend:
What is it, you say? It’s a cooling box. Really! Most people who suffer from multiple sclerosis (MS) have exacerbation of symptoms (some painful, some not painful but uncomfortable) in the heat. And we do live in Texas, so heat is always my enemy. And because of my skin allergies, I cannot wear a cooling vest. And because of the frozen children, we cannot turn the air conditioning down any lower than necessary.
So, hubby did a little research and used his ingenuity and came up with this fabulous cooling box! What you see in the photo above is a Styrofoam box that one of my medications used to come in, a PVC elbow and a fan that needs electricity to run – but the fan is barely noticeable as far as its noise level.
This is what’s inside the cooling box:
It’s probably difficult to see what’s inside the box but it’s a plastic container filled with ice! Yes, that is it. The fan blows through the ice and then the cool air flows out the PVC elbow. He also has a different piece of PVC that will make the cool air blow direction on me at a 90º angle. And because of its simplicity, I can take the fan anywhere I need to, as long as they’re is electricity to run the fan!
Oh yes, that hubster of mine…he loves me.
Our son celebrated his 15th birthday this past weekend. I am fearful that between now and when he’s full grown that we will not be able to keep enough food in the house for him. But, I saw some great photos I had taken of him, in younger years, and thought it’d be fun to watch how he’s grown from a youngster to a young man.
April 2007
April 2008
April 2009
April 2010
April 2011
April 2012
April 2013
April 2014
My Gramma from Tramma was so very special to me. I truly believe her love was part of the reason I turned out better than some of my siblings. She loved me unconditionally and everyone in the family knew that I was her favorite granddaughter. Now, it’s no secret that she liked to visit her favorite watering hole. It has been said that back in the days when they were raising their family, they were most likely alcoholics. But, that didn’t taint my unending love for them as they had definitely mellowed by the time I was old enough to realize my relationships with them.
And now it’s time to document another family story.
We lived on a farm in Iowa. There were five kids in our household, plus our parents. Unfortunately, our mom was not up to the challenge of raising five kids so we always had someone in our house to help care for us.
Mom and Dad decided they wanted to go out for an evening. Gramma from Tramma was left in charge…but, Dad warned her, before he left, that she was to stay out of his beer in the fridge. He teased her often about various things, but he knew she couldn’t resist having a beer or six after us kids went to bed.
Our bedtime was 7 pm, whether it was winter or summer. On the night I’m talking about, we were bathed and put to bed on time. I usually sat up and bonked against the headboard until I was able to fall asleep. I’m sure Gramma hollered at me a time or two to quit my bonking and get to sleep.
As I laid down, getting ready for slumber…all of a sudden we heard Gramma yell really loud. Of course, we were terribly worried about whatever she was hollering about but we were all reluctant to get out of our beds to go see. Gramma never stopped hollering so we all got up and crept to the kitchen area to figure out what was going on. At that point, Gramma was hollering and laughing at the same time. We were totally confused. But, she told us everything was okay and we needed to get back to bed. Reluctantly, the five of us returned to our rooms.
The next day, we found out what had happened. Dad had placed a mousetrap under the fridge, RIGHT where someone who was going to sneak into the fridge would get caught. And Gramma got caught! That mousetrap caught her big toe and that’s why she was hollering and laughing. Dad had played yet another joke on her! Oh my, the laughter over that incident has never ceased when we talk about it. In fact, I have a hard time talking about it without laughing my fool head off! Once she saved her big toe from the mousetrap, she raided the fridge for Dad’s PBR and drank herself through Dad’s stash.
What fun we have had, over the years, repeating that story. And I document it here for my kids…so they know there was fun and laughter despite the trials and tribulations that happened later in our youth.