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Pandemonium or Memories?

 Pandemonium or Memories?

As I watched images (96)my husband hang up each of our daughters’ wedding pictures in our new home, I remembered all the laughter, joy, and craziness of their childhood.

In the quietness of our dream home, I am left with quiet memories of endless dishes, piles of dirty clothes, backpacks filled to overflowing, and always racing to get somewhere quick. It was a time we thought would never end. Continuous games, parties, and worry. Wishing for five minutes of peace and quiet, and telling myself someday I would have time to do all the projects I dreamed of.

My dream was to take a long, hot bubble bath in a dimly lit room. The bath that would soak all your stress away, with scented candles, bath oil, and music to relax your soul.

However, I had three vivacious daughters, who loved to sit around the bathroom telling me about their day. Entertaining me and one another with their newest jokes, stories and doing impressions of their teachers, boys, and friends at school that day.

As I look back I see that my daughters thought my quiet time was their time, because I was not talking on the phone, doing business, or attending to someone else’s needs. When I was in the bathtub under all the bubbles, my daughters knew they had my full attention.

Cowgirl Up!

Cowgirl Up!

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When this California beach bunny met my Canadian Cowboy, it was like “John Wayne meets California Bling queen” two different worlds collided.  My idea of a rancher’s wife was somewhere between “Dolly Parton” and the television show “Dallas.”  In my world if you were dressed for the occasion you could do any the job.

My new husband sent me out to get some cowboy boots and jeans. I guess he didn’t think the go-go boots and hot pants would work! Lol  

I was excited to go shopping, after all I liked the boots “Dolly” wore with beautiful design’s, colors and sparkles.  Now to find the perfect boot, which in my mind I thought should be both fashionable and practical.  I couldn’t wait to see Lyle’s face when I brought them home.

Modeling my new 3-inch-heeled cowgirl boots and seeing the look on Lyle’s face, I knew he wasn’t as appreciative of the boots as I was.  I think it was somewhere between bursting out into gales of laughter and I can’t believe it!

I may Need a Little Help!

ATTENTION:  Male and Female ATM bank procedures

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A new sign in the Bank Lobby reads:

Customers using this new facility are requested to use the procedures outlined below when accessing their accounts.  After months of careful research, MALE & FEMALE Procedures have been developed.

Please follow the appropriate steps for your gender.

 

Male procedure:

  • 1.   Drive up to the cash machine
  • 2.   Put down your car window.
  • 3    Insert card into machine and enter PIN.
  • 4.   Enter amount of cash required and withdraw
  • 5.   Retrieve card, cash and receipt.
  • 6.   Drive off.

Female procedures:  What is really funny is that most of this part is the Truth, at least for me!

  •  1.  Drive up to cash machine.
  •  2. Reverse and back up the required amount to align car window with the machine.
  • 3. Set parking brake, put the window down.
  • 4. Find handbag, remove all contents on to passenger seat to locate card.
  • 5. Tell person on cell phone you will call them back and hang up.shutterstock_2671605
  • 6. Attempt to insert card into machine..
  • 7. Open car door to allow easier access to machine due to its excessive distance from the car.
  • 8. Insert card.
  • 9. Re-insert card the right way.

The Great Laundry Caper

The Great Laundry Caper

images (69)Moving is a stressful and time-consuming project, the more mature I get the less I like this task.  While I was drowning in boxes, I needed to search for a washer and drier. Our clothes were piling up and I was nearing my last pair of underwear ………  I searched the sale fliers for a laundry set that would fit both our needs and budget.  After comparing prices we made our decision.  A white set with burgundy lettering, I thought it would match our other furniture.  Besides, it had a wrinkle free cycle that appealed to me, sense my ironing board and iron are a Stone Age model.  

The salesman was anxious, jumpy, and talked incisively.  He assured me I had come to the right place, gotten the best price, deal and warranty of any other customer he had had that day. Plus they were going to deliver it on Saturday morning around      9:00 am. I was the luckiest woman in town.  Of course I was thrilled; I had a week’s washing and needed to get some clothes washed.

Saturday morning came and no washer and drier, I was in a panic we needed to wash clothes and be at another appointment across town by 2:00 pm.  Finally, I received a call telling me they were running late and would arrive at 1:00 pm. I knew this would be cutting my time short, mentally figuring out how I was going to make my next appointment.  I was about to have a meltdown. 

Arriving at 1:10 pm I was told they didn’t have time to set everything up. “It was easy, a piece of cake, you could do-it-yourself” Jr. said, giving me the thumbs up as he raced out the door.  Now I don’t know about you, but when someone tells me it’s easy, red flags start flying. He said he had confidence in me. Clearly, he hadn’t heard I am both un-coordinated and mechanically challenged.

I remember thinking the washer and drier looked different, but I didn’t have time to spend on that thought as we rushed to our appointment.

After a stressful afternoon, arriving home I began looking at the washer and drier again, I realized the top was the wrong color. Instead of white with burgundy letters across the top, it was baby blue enamel.  It had that “blast from the past” 50’s look.

Stressed I was awake most of the night doing research and worked myself into a dizzy-tizzy.  I was sure the company had ripped me off and sent me a relic from the back of the warehouse. I finally fell asleep at 4:00 am worn out and upset.  And I still had no clothes washed!!!

The next day I decided to go by the store and discuss the situation with the salesman.  Praying all the way over there that I would be kind but firm. I walked in and asked for Harold.   Explaining to another gentleman the wrong washer and drier had been delivered to my house.  He wasn’t sympathetic and told me those things happen all the time! At that moment I wasn’t feeling “That Lov’in Feeling.”

Loving our Memories

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 You can see them alongside the shuffleboard courts in Florida or on the porches of the old folks’ homes up north: an old man with snow-white hair, a little hard of hearing, reading the newspaper through a magnifying glass; an old woman in a shapeless dress, her knuckles gnarled by arthritis, wearing sandals to ease her aching arches.

They are holding hands, and in a little while they will totter off to take a nap, and then she will cook supper, not a very good supper and they will watch television, each knowing exactly what the other is thinking, until it is time for bed. They may even have a good, soul-stirring argument, just to prove that they still really care. And through the night they will snore unabashedly, each resting content because the other is there.

They are in love, they have always been in love, although sometimes they would have denied it. And because they have been in love they have survived everything that life could throw at them, even their own failures.  Ernest Havemann, Bits & Pieces, June 24, 1993, pp. 7-9.

 

If we discovered that we had five minutes left to say all we wanted to say, every telephone booth would be occupied by people calling other people to stammer that they love them. Why wait until the last five minutes?   C. Morley

 

Reflections From Karan: 

As I watched my husband hang up each of our daughters’ wedding pictures in our new home, I remembered all the laughter, joy, and craziness of their childhood. In the quietness of our dream home, I am left with quiet memories of endless dishes, piles of dirty clothes, backpacks filled to overflowing, and always racing to get somewhere quick. It was a time we thought would never end. Continuous games, parties, and worry. Wishing for five minutes of peace and quiet, and telling myself someday I would have time to do all the things I dreamed of.