My Mom made a new best friend when I was in New Jersey. My family started talking of a "Sandy" and didn't I remember her from church? Her kids were around our ages? No. I couldn't place her.
Then we flew home for Mom's wedding, which was held at Sandy's home. I had a non-stop nursing four month old and I spent most of the reception lying on Sandy's bed doing just that, except for a brief moment when I stood in the bathroom and Sandy helped me sponge milk out of my new dress so it wouldn't stain (it didn't!).
That was the start of a glorious relationship, one that goes beyond my Mom having a best friend and becoming something more.....Sandy is family. My kids call her Grandma and I have lovingly referred to her as a second Mom.
She's been there for our highs and lows. She's helped clean and cook and celebrate and laugh and pray. Oh, how she can pray! If you've never been pulled into a Sandy pray hug, then you've never met her. She's not afraid to hug or pray and often is moved to do both at the same time.
She's moved before: home nursing in the hills of Kentucky and mission trips to Guatemala, but this feels different. Before, I always knew we'd see her again, this was her home base, but this move is a move of that home base back to her family roots.
I'm happy for her and wish her all the joy of going home to siblings and cousins and the stomping grounds of her youth.....
But there is going to be a Sandy sized hole in our family and she will be so very, very missed.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Well Rounded
There is something to be said for having a well rounded education. My daughter is taking advanced math and science and literature classes and I know by her 4.0 that she understands the materiel. But I've never been so proud as when she decided she would sew a skirt, zipper and all, and did in in the mater of hours.
She can whip up just about anything in the kitchen, she is helping her Dad rebuild her old car, and she isn't afraid of a sewing machine we'd never used before, an old pattern we'd found at a rummage sale, and the fact that I'd never sewn a zipper in my life and had zero advice to give her.
She's a learner and a doer and I'm very pleased that she tries anything that tickles her interest. Well rounded indeed!
She can whip up just about anything in the kitchen, she is helping her Dad rebuild her old car, and she isn't afraid of a sewing machine we'd never used before, an old pattern we'd found at a rummage sale, and the fact that I'd never sewn a zipper in my life and had zero advice to give her.
She's a learner and a doer and I'm very pleased that she tries anything that tickles her interest. Well rounded indeed!
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Six Random Facts
1. Our first meal as a married couple was pepperoni pizza at our local pizza parlor. We'd just left our wedding reception and realized we'd been too busy shaking hands and hugging family to have eaten any of the food. As we headed into town, pizza sounded so deliciously perfect, we stopped. We sat in the restaurant and held hands across the table and we couldn't stop grinning. Sometimes when I'm down there picking up our pizza order, I can see the ghost of those two joyful kids, and it is pleasing to know that we were right. Us is a very good thing.
2. I tuck his side of the blankets in tight all the way from top to bottom, while my side is loose and ready for dogs to slip under. Even when he is gone, when I make the bed I tuck his side in just the way he likes it. Our daughter recently tried to get into bed on his side and was horrified by how tight it was. How can he even move? she asked. That could explain why he spends most of his nights in the middle.
3. When we roast hot dogs over an open fire, be it on camping trips or backyard adventures, he cooks both of our dogs. I get the buns ready while he slaves over an open fire, putting just the right burn on mine. It started because we only had three hot dog sticks and four people, so while he and the kids were cooking the hot dogs, I was busy getting plates of food ready for everyone. Sometime last summer we accidentally left a family camp out with several more hot dog sticks then we brought to the party; but I still don't cook my own!
4. We hold hands all the time. There was a moment in high school that I realized my hand fit to his perfectly, like the finishing pieces of a puzzle, and we've never let go. His homecomings become real the second our hands find each other. When I picked him up at the train station just in time for our son's graduation, we hugged and kissed, and it was when we got back in the car, and my hand resting on the console was clasped tight with his, that I was happy.
5. When we moved to New Jersey, we spent a week living in a hotel, waiting for our Coast Guard apartment to be ready. We had no choice but to eat out at every meal. We'd drive in random directions each evening, eating at new places, missing our old familiar favorites. I will never forget the moment we found a Denny's! It was like a piece of home and our joy and excitement was unparalleled. It served as a beacon of hope that we would be able to be at home in our new town.
6. He's a country boy at heart; he yearns for trees and fields and space from neighbors, but I prefer to live in town so we live in town. I said I live alone too much to feel comfortable with the idea of bears spying on me through windows. Human peeping Toms don't frighten me near as much as furry ones do, and after laughing (a lot) he bought this house on a corner lot, with views of our old high school and the valley leading into town. We've made a good home here, one we both love.
This post is inspired by prompt #1 at Mama's Losin' It!
2. I tuck his side of the blankets in tight all the way from top to bottom, while my side is loose and ready for dogs to slip under. Even when he is gone, when I make the bed I tuck his side in just the way he likes it. Our daughter recently tried to get into bed on his side and was horrified by how tight it was. How can he even move? she asked. That could explain why he spends most of his nights in the middle.
3. When we roast hot dogs over an open fire, be it on camping trips or backyard adventures, he cooks both of our dogs. I get the buns ready while he slaves over an open fire, putting just the right burn on mine. It started because we only had three hot dog sticks and four people, so while he and the kids were cooking the hot dogs, I was busy getting plates of food ready for everyone. Sometime last summer we accidentally left a family camp out with several more hot dog sticks then we brought to the party; but I still don't cook my own!
4. We hold hands all the time. There was a moment in high school that I realized my hand fit to his perfectly, like the finishing pieces of a puzzle, and we've never let go. His homecomings become real the second our hands find each other. When I picked him up at the train station just in time for our son's graduation, we hugged and kissed, and it was when we got back in the car, and my hand resting on the console was clasped tight with his, that I was happy.
5. When we moved to New Jersey, we spent a week living in a hotel, waiting for our Coast Guard apartment to be ready. We had no choice but to eat out at every meal. We'd drive in random directions each evening, eating at new places, missing our old familiar favorites. I will never forget the moment we found a Denny's! It was like a piece of home and our joy and excitement was unparalleled. It served as a beacon of hope that we would be able to be at home in our new town.
6. He's a country boy at heart; he yearns for trees and fields and space from neighbors, but I prefer to live in town so we live in town. I said I live alone too much to feel comfortable with the idea of bears spying on me through windows. Human peeping Toms don't frighten me near as much as furry ones do, and after laughing (a lot) he bought this house on a corner lot, with views of our old high school and the valley leading into town. We've made a good home here, one we both love.
This post is inspired by prompt #1 at Mama's Losin' It!
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Delicious Memory
The spicy burn of red hot cinnamon candy flashes me back to being 11 years old, the hot Arizona sun, the impossible blue sky, the scent of the desert, the shimmering heat, meeting up with a friend to buy atomic fire balls from 7-11.
I can recall exactly the way the sun felt as it pounded the top of my head, the sidewalk radiating heat up through my shoes, squinting my eyes as we walked, sucking on those jaw breakers, gasping for a sip of a big gulp.....
It's delicious: the candy and the memory.
I can recall exactly the way the sun felt as it pounded the top of my head, the sidewalk radiating heat up through my shoes, squinting my eyes as we walked, sucking on those jaw breakers, gasping for a sip of a big gulp.....
It's delicious: the candy and the memory.
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Saturday, June 1, 2013
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