Flashback Friday- The Where on Earth Did the Years Go Edition

On Tuesday, my husband and I will celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, so in response to the Flashback Friday on Christopher and Tia, I dug out our wedding album. The photo above is the cover, and yes, those are our hands and my bouquet. It was silk flowers, so I probably still have it here somewhere.

Here we are, posed up at the altar. We were married at a house of all faiths, a cute little place out in the country where I had flown up from Brownies to Girl Scouts. I was a little shocked at how much the place had shrunk since I was 10 when I went back to reserve it for the wedding. In my fantasy world the place was a palace. Anyway, it was very cute, and there was a covered bridge outside, but it was a bit cold to enjoy it that day.

Remember, this was 1984, back when wedding dresses had sleeves and sometimes even a high collar. I watch that show "Say Yes to the Dress", and I do not think anything in that whole store has sleeves. Brides with shoulders as broad as mine need sleeves. Maybe not huge puffy sleeves, but this was 1984, people! Sometimes I watch that show and wish someone would tell some of those girls that not everyone can wear that tightly fitted sleeveless style. My mom made me this dress and it was fabulous. She made the veil, too. No one would sell us the veil unless we bought the dress from them. Mom had to borrow a friends house to cut out the dress, because she had so much fabric and our house was not deep enough to unfold it all. There were something like 72 buttons, and my dad breathed a sigh of relief when Mom bought them precovered- he was usually her go to guy for covering buttons. I remember sitting in the dining room one weekend and Mom and I sewing on sequins. The enameled pin on the neckline is a family heirloom, I think my great grandfather gave it to my great grandmother. (I better ask my mom and write that down somewhere!)

Here we are making our getaway, but really we were just leaving the church and still had our reception to go. Our reception was evidently quite the party, since 25 years later, people still occasionally tell me so.

Anyway, Happy Anniversary, Honey, and here's hoping our next 25 years together are as wonderful as the first!

Flashback Friday- The Veteran's Day Edition

I know Veteran's Day is past, but I wanted to concentrate on it for my flashback Friday post. Here is a photo of my Granddad in his Army uniform- he served in France (I think) in World War I.
Here he is (on the left), on Memorial Day 1968. He was very active in the American Legion (VFW? I will have to look this up.) This is the Granddad I remember- I was 6 years old that year and still little enough to sit on his lap when we would go visit him. I had other girl cousins, but they lived far away, so I got to be the princess.He had a stroke and passed away when I was in 7th grade. Thank you, Granddad, and to all the others who went away to fight for the rest of us.

A Time for Gratitude

My family took a beautiful drive this weekend through rural southwest Virginia. I had a lot of time to think (and nap, but that is not my point!) I kept coming back to how grateful I am for so many things, especially this time of year.

First, Veteran's Day is this week, and I am grateful to all of the veterans and the current active duty service members for the sacrifices they have made to try to keep us all safe.

Second, I am thankful for my family. This weekend was a nice opportunity to spend some time together, as we went down to hear my older son sing in a concert. When he comes home, he has so many people to see, our time together is so limited. I was reminding my husband how it seems so long ago when we used to dream about when the boys would be 15 and 20, like it was so far off, and now it is only months away.

I am very thankful for my husband- in a few weeks, we will be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. It seems like just yesterday we were dating. He really is my best friend. He is so supportive of me in everything I do.

I am thankful we have resources. Today, I guess because of the sudden warm weather, there were a lot of people begging at intersections. That got me thinking about our financial life. We might not be rolling in the dough- our home is modest and our car has nearly 150,000 miles on it, but we don't want for anything and I am quite thankful for that.

Any of you who know me in person, know that I am often anxious. I am thankful that we live a sort of low key life, so that I can try to keep myself from getting totally frazzled. Don't get me wrong, we are often busy, but I think because my guys all seem to have an easygoing attitude, that keeps me grounded. Today I stopped in to check out a thrift shop near my younger son's school. It was a huge place, and evidently Monday is some sort of sale day, so it was packed. When I got to the register, two women were there screaming obscenities at each other. It seemed that one of them had interfered with the other's turn to get waited on. I just can't imagine what slight would be worth treating another person so harshly.

I am thankful that my younger son is getting baptized in a few weeks, that is the answer to many prayers I whispered.

What are you thankful for today?

Flashback Friday

Taking inspiration from Chistopher and Tia , I am posting a Halloween flashback. I don't have any photos of me as a kid at Halloween- my dad was the photographer and I guess got home after we had left to trick or treat. He was really much more of a posed portrait kind of guy than a snapshot taker anyway.

Anyway, back when I first became a mom, I remembered that I had as a very little kid worn cool costumes made by my mom. So to me that meant that mom's made costumes. So here are some of my attempts:
This was a Dalmatian costume I made, and I had actually made it for him the year before, and he refused to even try it on that year!
This was my first Halloween with 2 kids, and I guess by then had gotten over my overachiever tendencies, because the Power Ranger costume was store bought, and my younger son is wearing the clown suit I made for his brother's first Halloween.



This was the year my boys were Batman and Robin! I have no photos of them together, because Robin was deathly afraid of Batman. The Batman suit was homemade from a pattern, the Robin suit was storebought. I think this was the last costume I ever made from scratch using a pattern, after this I discovered the joys of doctoring premade clothes with paint or sewn on appliques (the elaborate Elvis costume made from a white sweatsuit is a story for another day!). I think the year after the Batman suit, the boy requested a Superman suit he saw at KMart that had "the muscles already in it".

It's all About the Attitude...

...and yes, mine seems to be in the crapper. I was just writing a message to a friend, and realized that everything I started to type was just one bitch and moan after another, so I ended up stopping pretty much at "How are you?" I am not sure if it is because I have had a bad head cold, or because I am so behind in my household chores, or because I am so behind on what I want to get done for my business. Or because some days I spend almost 4 hours in the car transporting a kid, and he is only a freshman, so it is not likely to end anytime soon. Or maybe it is all of the above. What I do know, however, is that something has to give!

So today I will attempt to start pulling myself out of this mess. First, I am going to put a yummy dinner in the crockpot- pot roast with red skinned potatoes, carrots and onions. Then I will get my shower, catch up on bill paying and do as much house straightening as I can get done. That better be the extent of my to do list, as an overwhelming list is just grounds for more downward spiral!

Back to Reality

Well, my beach vacation is over now, and it is time to get back to my real life. My favorite beach activity was sitting at the water's edge with my toes in the ocean watching the people and the surf. My sister-in-law and I were doing just that in this picture taken by her husband (thanks, Lew!). For maybe the first time ever, we could sit on the beach and be totally unaware of how long we had been there and even what time it was! (The only horrible flaw in this plan reared its ugly head when the sunburn appeared!) We chatted for hours enjoying each other's company and the feel of the breeze, sun and surf. We took it as a sign to go back inside when the rising tide chased us back up the beach to our shoes.

Back to Crocheting

granny square 001
Originally uploaded by magscrafts

So now that my crafting is my business, what is there to do to "relax"? I decided the other day to crochet myself an afghan. I remember from my childhood that my grandfather's house had a granny square afghan, that was black and a million other colors. I decided that is what I would do too. I bought some cotton yarn, and here is the first square- I plan to join the square using black yarn and some crochet stitches.

I made an afghan for my first son before he was born, and those were the last granny squares I made. He is 19 now!