Yes, not only is February the month of looooove, but it is also the month of my Hunka Hunka Burning Love’s birthday! Happy Birthday to Rickey, my sweet husband who is absolutely more than I could have ever hoped for in a best friend, husband and father.
We recently discovered Flying Wild Alaska on Netflix. Basically it is a reality show about his first flying job… just the names have been changed. We have watched it for a couple nights in a row now, with several episodes still calling our names. Rickey is (I was about to say “having a sleep over”) overnighting away from home tonight which is extremely rare for him in his current pilot job. So we won’t be watching FWA tonight. Anyway, the show brought back MULTIPLE memories of our time spent in the North when he was flying for Little Red Air Service. Seriously, the flight crew that spent the same three years up in Fort Vermilion would have at least two seasons of episodes simply from the stories I know about. And as all good pilot’s wives know, there are many stories that we are glad we still don’t know about.
Those were exhilarating years we spent up in the freezing tundra, but I must say that our last 16 years in the desert have been my favorite! We have traveled more, laughed more, forgiven more, cried more, spent more, prayed more and have definitely loved more in the last 16 years. Thanks, Rickey, for making my life so thrilling by living out the calling on your life to be a man of integrity and passion. I love you! XOXO
When you grow up, you assume your life is the normal life of all the other kids in the world. When you get older, you realize just how non-normal your growing up actually was, well, compared to all the other non-normal lives you learn about as time goes on. Confused yet?
All that to say, I grew up thinking everyone dreams in color. I do. Of course I’m not the weird one, am I? Thanks to the internet, I have discovered that more than 80% of people dream in color. Not so weird after all, thankyouverymuch. Yet another fact caused me to pause and consider my abnormalness once again…. 95-99% of people forget their dreams. What? Almost every night I have vivid dreams and can tell the tales of them the next day. My children take great pleasure in asking me what I dreamt last night and then rolling on the floor holding their sides due to laughter induced dream tales. Some dreams have stuck with me for years… for 24 years, in one case… like it was yesterday. Some are so real that I write them down to ponder later.
While we were away at Christmas I had this great dream (that my children loved) about my husband wanting to redo the greenhouse (that we don’t have) on the back of the house (that we don’t live in). He was all inspired and wanted to show me his plans, but he insisted the best view was from the neighbor’s back driveway. The only glitch was that he was naked and I wasn’t walking outside with him. I’m the modest one in the family, for goodness sakes alive, even in my dreams. So he talked me into driving over to the neighbor’s back driveway in our station wagon with tasteful “wood” paneling on the sides. He drove me over there and proceeded to do a 13 point turn in the little driveway until the car was facing our greenhouse (sideways on the driveway.) But the inevitable happened and he backed up too far and we went down into the ditch and got stuck. I told him I would climb out the window and go call AAA but he yelled, “You cannot call Triple A, I’m naked!” And that was the end. I did not find deep meaning in that dream. I pray we never own that house or car! But it WAS funny!
Sixteen years ago, after watching Father of the Bride 2, my husband decided we should move from Spruce Grove, Alberta to Phoenix, Arizona to be near my parents. I whole heartily agreed. We put the house on the market and prayed for a quick sale, it was winter after all. Then I had a dream about a lady coming to buy our house. I awoke quite relieved and explained in detail what she looked like to my husband. For ten long months, our house sat on the market and many people came to see it. Every time I opened the front door, if it wasn’t the lady in my dream, I was disappointed. Phoenix was calling my name, after all. Finally one day she came. I recognized her. And she did buy our house. Truly, I think God gave me the picture of her as a sign of hope that there was someone coming. It gave me a measure of assurance.
I married the man of my dreams! It hardly seems possible that we have made it to our silver anniversary. That is for old people. And after 25 long, memorable years, are you wondering how we celebrated? Not only is Rick sick (with a fever and chills and cold) but he is also in Texas at SimCom, renewing his pilot training. I’m at home with our four lovely children. Big celebration, right? Wrong.
However, we did throw a shindig last Saturday, that beat the band! I’ve been dreaming of decorating for a party for a few years now…. all shabby chic, bird cages, vintage books, roses, old picture frames and lace. Pinterest has held my interest in this avenue for quite some time now. All my decorating dreams came true for our 25th celebration. Here is my photo tribute to Rickey, my knight in shining armor, who tore up the dance floor and didn’t mind all the fru-fru in the house.
The Love Birds name tag table on the front porch. I love birdies.
Here was our guest book table and my wedding dress…. 25 years later.
These were the thank you gift bags that my friend Ginny made. They were darling. We put nuts in the bags and the tags said “Still nuts about each other after 25 years!” See, corny! But it made us laugh!
Another friend of mine, Darla, helped me assemble the largest collection of pink, white and brown edible delicacies this side of the Mississippi. It was a sugar-loving haven.
We displayed the dress my mother wore to the wedding as well as my banana-yellow going-away suit. :o)
The party was such fun! Yes, I’m saving all the decorations for the next family wedding, or baby shower, or birthday, or retirement party, etc.
(This picture has nothing to do with this post…. but it’s cold outside, so I picked a snow picture!)
Math is different around the world. I’m convinced of that. My husband was taught math in Canada and he DOES NOT do multiplication the way I was taught here in the good ol’ US of A. And he’s not converting from metric either; he simple learned a funky, three-step process to do the facts, and I merely memorized them. On occasion, I do use my fingers for the nine’s times tables, but that’s only really late at night. [You know... hold up your ten fingers. Bend down the number you are multiplying by nine. Read the tens and ones with the remaining fingers. I.e. 9x4 Hold up your ten fingers. Bend down the fourth finger from the left. There are three fingers standing on the left (tens = 30) and six fingers still standing on the right (ones = 6) Hence, 36.] But my dear husband’s process has you subtracting and adding numbers up and down from the number you started with. And you’re supposed to remember all these numbers as you go. Too many steps for my little brain.
Today, at the kitchen table while teaching math to the little Colombian princess, I was assuming that Colombians learned addition differently than I did. Here are the equations and her answers:
15. 5 + 4 = 24
16. 3 + 8 = 27
Get it? I didn’t. For a LONG time. Finally I explained that it was a pre-test and I didn’t expect her to know how to do those problems yet. THEN I SAW the DOTS. She draws little dots and counts them. For the first problem, she drew 15 dots, 5 dots and 4 dots. She counted them all and wrote the correct answer! SHE WAS INCLUDING THE NUMBER OF THE PROBLEM! Hahahaha! And she DID know how to add them ALL! So after we got it all ironed out, it was smooth sailing. Colombian math is just like USA math, but probably not like Canadian math! (If I can help it!)
Years ago I was wide awake one fine morning at 2:00 a.m. There was a book idea running amuck in my mind. It was causing me to lose precious sleeping hours, so I succumbed. Climbing out of bed, finding my journal and making my way to the bathroom I was determined to write down every blinkin’ thought, so I could get some much-needed rest. Quietly I closed the door and flicked on the light. After eye-adjustment-to-the-brightness time elapsed, I indeed jotted down every blinkin’ thought…. and there were 60 of them, much to my blurry-eyed surprise. Each one a story pertaining to my life of weight loss, gain, loss, gain, loss, gain… and God. That night I named the book Squeezing Laughter into a Leotard: Devotions for Above Average Women, and then I crept back to bed in the dark of the night and slept like a baby.
Three years ago I wrote a blog mentioning this book-to-be: http://mysistersjar.wordpress.com/2008/09/11/wrapped-up-in-elvis/ During those three years, I had a part-time job filling out adoption paperwork and getting fingerprinted. So no progress has been made as of yet. I think only one of the stories is actually written down in black and white. And once again, I’m in the great battle of food/appetite control. The PERFECT time to write about the frustrations that chubby people face day in and day out. REAL stories that women can relate to….. like falling off the wagon with rice krispy treats and not wanting to step on the scale tomorrow morning.
Currently, I’m down 54 pounds since April. That sounds all great, yet I have 46 to go…. and I got slapped around by Snap, Crackle and Pop tonight, so I’m not feeling real successful at the moment. Through the past six months, I’ve been able to identify my trigger points that cause me to eat foods that are permissible for me, but not beneficial. Here’s the short list:
When I’m sick
When I’m alone
When I’m mad
When I’m on the phone
THAT time of the month
When I smell peanut butter
Before an adoption home visit
When I see clutter
Seeing Green Corn Tamales on a menu
When I’m on a long vacation
After a friend has died
After a homeschool graduation
After cooking a meal
When I should be in bed
At birthday parties
When visions of sugar plums dance in my head
Like I said, that is the SHORT list. Thanks for humoring me and reading to the end. Hahahaha.
Tomorrow is another day to live victoriously with my choices and my new and improved health!
Most families have stories that have been told over and over and over… until extinction is unthinkable. One such story in our house is retold almost every single time someone makes popcorn with the hot air popper. Yes, we still have a hot air popper, remember those? I bought it in 1985 when I was heading off to college…. an obvious necessity.
Fast forward to 1987, the year we were wed, in our first apartment in Langley, BC. The hot air popcorn device had indeed arrived back in Canada with us as a married couple. Unbeknownst to me the horror that would follow, I pulled the shiny yellow dream appliance from the cupboard and proceeded to pop some corn kernels for my Indian husband…. in memory of his people who introduced us white folks to this delicacy. (That’s not really why… we just love buttery popcorn.)
As per usual, I placed the huge metal bowl under the popper’s spout, poured in the kernels and slid the button to ON. All was going well until one stray unpopped kernel flew out of the popper, shot down one side of the slippery bowl and out the other. The kernel reminds me of the song “On top of Spaghetti” with the meatball that goes on a journey. The tiny golden corn kernel bounced off the kitchen counter and down toward the floor. Little did I know the pain and agony that was coming. You see, I was barefoot. Somehow beyond reason, the little fiery hot kernel landed between my baby toe and the next toe over and lodged itself there for all eternity, sizzling into my skin. If you have ever burnt the tender skin between your last two toes, you probably have memory tears in your eyes at this moment. I screamed. I dropped to the floor. I cried. I pried my little toes apart. I dislodged the burning morsel. This all happened in a nanosecond, but the results were excrutiating. The screaming, dropping, crying rapidly brought my husband to the kitchen…. he probably assumed I had chopped off a limb. But no. Burned my toes making popcorn. Ice was applied and tenderly the toes were put up to rest.
Every time the exact same popper is brought down from the pantry shelf, as it was last night, one of my children will mimic me in mocking tones, “Do you want to hear about when I burned my toes making popcorn?”
The moral of the story is: If the shoe fits, wear it (especially while making popcorn!)
It started out as an ordinary day in the life of me, but no day is ordinary in my life, as I have come to realize. It was a “don’t-have-to-go-anywhere-or-look-nice” kind of day, so I was sporting my summer uniform of denim shorts and a Walmart USA t-shirt. Breakfast was under way, but the blown-up chili and eggs on the inside of the microwave grossed me out beyond my comfort level. As I always do, I filled a small bowl with water and set it in the microwave to be heated to boiling… and thus moistening all the hard-as-cement bits glaring at me. This has been my “clean the microwave” practice for over 20 years. It has never failed me until today. I set the timer for four minutes and stood by spreading cream cheese on a bagel. I was a little too close to the microwave for comfort. The bowl boiled down to vapors and the pressure inside the little white oven blasted the door open. Yes, the water hit the side of my head and soaked my Wally World t-shirt. I also screamed…. quite loudly. And scared the dog. Thankfully it was not boiling hot water… it was luke warm water that didn’t burn the skin off the side of my face.
As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day….. I decided it was time for the bi-annual shower cleaning in the master bathroom. Don’t judge me. We do not have a water softener and the hard water clings to the shower door and walls like Saran wrap to itself. Happily (ok, not really) I was spraying and scrubbing the shower… fully clothed, still in my summer uniform. I was utilizing a large 7-11 cup to rinse the walls as I went along. Then the phone rang and I abruptly stood up, my shoulder hitting the shower tap and turning on the cold water from the shower nozzle….. blasting the same side of my head that WAS recently dry after the microwave blasting only an hour earlier. This was WAY more water, however. Sufficiently drenched.
When my husband finally arrived home and we were sitting like the Cleavers having dinner around the table, he asked the ominous question, “How did your day go?” “Before or after I got blasted in the head twice?” Another classic Linda day.
Two years ago there was an article in the newspaper of Best Things To Do each month in Phoenix. I cut out two of the suggestions and put them on the fridge…. with the hope of doing each of them… because they are the BEST! One was to eat at Pizzeria Bianco… the other was to visit a colony of bats that live right downtown! Rick and I did go to Pizzeria Bianco one night a couple of months back, but the wait was over two hours and we were too hungry to wait that long. So, Pizzeria Bianco is still on the fridge.
In celebration of 24 years of wedded matrimony, Rick and I went away for a few days… not far… just away. We were staying at a resort relatively close to the bat cave, so I suggested that we visit and view, because I’m a nerdy school teacher who is enthralled by God’s provision for animals in the middle of a big city (NOT including the ground squirrels who are STILL eating my garden… grrrrr.)
In my hot little hand was the newspaper clipping with the bat cave location merely listed as Camelback Rd. and 40th St. We arrived at said intersection to find a Fresh N Easy, Chelsea’s Kitchen, a dry cleaner and a gas station. There were no signs indicating BAT CAVE THIS WAY —> (Bummer.) We started asking around and were pointed west along the north side of the canal. I was not prepared for walking a half mile in gravel and dirt…. needless to say, I need a pedicure now. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but hiking had not entered my mind. More asking followed. More pointing west followed. We finally found a kind gentleman who knew exactly where we were headed. Perfect.
The bat cave is actually a flood control tunnel that is two miles long. It is huge… you could drive a garbage truck in there, if the gate was unlocked. Our arrival couldn’t have been timed more perfectly. As we wandered up to the top of the tunnel to read the signs, the bats began emerging. It was cool. The newspaper reported that there are 20,000 bats in the cave. The signs reported only 5,000. We figured it was more than 5,000… as I stopped counting at 476…and the stream of flying mammals continued for another 15 minutes. The other end of the tunnel also has bats emerging… so definitely more than 5,000 Mexican Free Tail bats.
Don’t worry, that’s not all we did on our excursion! We also ate out at two fine Mexican restaurants, did some shopping, watched some Glen Beck (FYI: Our family stands with Israel), swam and read. It was most relaxing and VERY needed. And there are no more bats on my fridge.
Once again, in my life of up and down, I have started a new and improved eating plan. Yes, I have shed pounds before. Yes, I have gained them back. I think over my post-childbearing years, I have lost and found about 387 pounds. (That’s 129 pounds per child-birth experience, but who’s counting?) All gains were in small increments over many small dishes of pistachio almond ice cream and bits of spinach/artichoke dip slathered on crispy chips. Seriously, it didn’t seem like much at the time. Really.
Then BAM! I woke up one day and realized my fat jeans were tighter than Superman’s suit. THAT is tight. Again, a “healthy” plan must be consumed. (Terms used lightly… especially “healthy”.) My most previous losing plan involved LOTS of protein and vegetables. Ketosis, it is called. My kidneys and leg muscles still cry out at the mention of the word. The plan did work while I was on it. The results were amazing, but there was no follow-up or follow-through or follow-anything other than the popsicle man as he drove down the street slowly serenading me toward a fudgesicle.
When the student is ready the master arrives. ~Buddhist proverb. I find it ironic that the Buddhist proverb is true in my venture toward a healthy lifestyle, being that Buddha could certainly use a healthy eating plan himself. Anyway, as I was squeezing into my fat jeans, refusing to buy that next size that I have NEVER purchased in my lifetime, I received a message on facebook from my jr. high choir director. Yes, that’s a few years back. She is a health coach and noticed that I have more than several friends on facebook. She was inquiring if she could tap into my fat friend list. Normally I don’t share people or programs unless I know they are legitimate. So I agreed to be her prodigy before I share the wealth with my chubby chums.
Yesterday was the completion of week number five on the Take Shape for Life plan… and the number on the scale told me that BAM! 17 pounds were indeed missing. That is a 3.4 lb. per week loss. My too-tight pants are too loose. At this rate, I should be my ideal weight right in time for plum pudding, gingerbread men and rum balls. Only one serving of each, of course.
It’s a wonderful feeling to be under the heavy-weight fighter’s weigh-in number! The difference between this program and the last 17 is that there is follow-up. There is a health coach that will haunt me for life. There is an eating plan that leans toward normalcy in the aftermath of the BMI suggested weight for a woman of my height (where there is no consideration AT ALL to my strong Scottish and Finnish husky bone structure.)
Yes, I’m sure you’re thinking, here we go again. Believe me, I am thinking the same thing. But there is a glimmer of hope that I will be able to fit through the crack from where the light is shining at the end of the tunnel.
Eleven years ago, my sister and best friend, moved away from Phoenix to Washington state. REALLY far away. I didn’t want her to move away…. with my two cutie-pie nieces… it was not fair. But life is rarely fair. She left on a Saturday and I woke up Sunday and just cried. Preferably, I like to keep my peeps right close. I did not prefer this arrangement, but knew God’s hand was on their move.
Before Christy left she recorded this song on a cassette tape and gave it to me. (Remember those?) I played it over and over as a sweet salve to my sad soul. My husband got sick of it really fast. Well, maybe it was after the 127th time I had played it. And I usually couldn’t make it through the song without crying either.
A few weeks after Christy’s move and my mourning period had eased, Rick came home to find me crying again. It was totally about something else, but he non-sympathetically asked, “Were you listening to your sister’s tape again?” HAHA. It’s funny now, but it wasn’t funny then. Time has a way of changing scenarios.
Still today I love this song. The Lord has blessed me with so many friends through the years. I truly am thankful! Every place we have lived, He supplied a bosom friend for me. I love you, my friends!
Welcome to My Sister's Jar. The story behind the blog lies in the original post on Feb. 2, 2008. Type "giddy moments" into the search box to find it.
I'm a homeschool mom who loves to speak and write, encouraging moms to press-on in motherhood. Two of my books are available NOW! Laughing in the Midst of Mothering and Laughing in the Midst of Marriage. See them at www.LindaCrosby.com or www.cbd.com.
I have four children, one of whom is adopted from Colombia, so there are LOTS of adoption tidbits here.
~~~~~~ Linda Ann Crosby
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