Busy Little Bees

Behold the power of rural life! See how one short trip home can turn this . . . .Into this!

That's right! The Farmer's wave!

No matter who is driving toward you
no matter if you recognize the driver or not

At least two of the digits on your dominant driving hand (because NO ONE drives at 10 and 2 in the country unless you are over 75 years old) will hop off of the steering wheel to greet the other driver as you pass.

Anything less would be downright rude!

And it must be reading Mindee's blog that has made me all nostalgic to go out and pick one of these bad boys . . ..

THAT'S RIGHT! I got me a tassel!

There happened to be a detasseling crew a few miles from the house so I hopped right out and grabbed a tassel for myself.

Then I hopped right back in the air conditioned vehicle since it was already 83 degrees and rising at 9:30 am! But I probably could have handled myself pretty well if they let me ride the carriers (frankly I have no idea what they are officially called) but since I was already too tall to ride one when I was 12, I probably haven't shrunk enough to get a trip on one yet.

And why did I head back to the farm for the weekend? The girls and myself headed back to help mom get her house post-surgery ready.

Yep, Mom went in to have her SIXTH hip replacement surgery today and 3 things:
1) Yes, I do mean sixth and I'd sum it up by saying it stemmed from a childhood accident.
2) and she came out of it like a champ and is recovery nicely as of 2 hours ago.
3) She WAS Wonder Woman in her last life.

Back to the present.

To thank me for my help, she surprised me with a gift which was totally not necessary, but check it out!!!!

I love me some Rachel Ray! Mom know exactly how much I love kitchen gadgets and I think she loves shopping for them so much that she tries extra hard to find reasons to give me the treasures that she finds. WHICH IS AWESOME!

These plus my lovely Emeril Legassi pans and my Alton Brown salt cellar make me feel like a Food Network Cooking star when I cook at home. And if you recognize all of those name, YOU ARE AWESOME!

Or a cooking nerd like me.

You pick.

Sigh.

I'll have to go with cooking nerd for myself because I just had to include a picture of my salt cellar that I STILL cannot believe my Sister in Law found for me for Christmas years ago. Much love to you out in Denver my beloved SIL! (Sorry Brother, she gets all the credit for that gift. . .)

I can't include a picture of Mom's house and the progress we made, because whenever I come back to help with the house, it like waging a war against time. To illustrate what we are up against, here is a story problem.

Mimi is a pre-school teacher. She is a thrifty soul, and knows that she can save X amount of dollars by utilizing toys she purchased for her own children over the years in the classroom. Mimi had 4 children in 3 years (a set of twins) which means there was a fair share of toys to chose from.
Now to up the stakes:
From the age of 12 -18, EACH of the 4 children participated in no less that 10 different clubs, sports teams, academic groups or the like while in high school. Requiring that Mimi and Papa spend nearly every weekend and weeknight driving to and from other small town to see these children do their activities which they did without complaining. (And nope they aren't saints yet, but I have sent in their application)

Mimi and Papa also helped move her parents, in laws, and children in no less than 2 dozen separate moves since 1994, typically resulting in a surge of items onto their property for "holding" purposes that never seem to be taken off layaway.

Now take how much stuff you think that might be, multiply it by two weddings and four grandchildren and then increase exponentially by the fact that during Mimi's theoretical downtime in the summer she usually does Vacation Bible school, Summer school and helps Papa with Farming?

Did you factor in the hidden reference to 5 previous hip replacements?

Yup. You get A LOT of stuff. And while it seems to leave the rest of the family shaking their heads at how the house go to that point, I just nod and smile at the fact that my parents happily put everything aside for whatever we were interested in at the time.

Which reminds me. I need to thank Mom and Dad for never telling me I couldn't do something just because they didn't have time to chauffeur me around. . .

And to make you smile . . .

Here's the Towel Elephant that welcomed Mom to her Hospital room this afternoon.

P.S. I did STOP to take the picture while driving . . . . : )

Happy Birthday to US!

Its been 30 years, and you are still cooler than me . . .when's it my turn? : )

Five years ago . . .

Five years ago today I was,

Primping my hair and hanging out with several of my best girl friends.

Smiling at the beautiful daffodils that were everywhere.

Giggling about the many uses of double sided duct tape.

Fuming about the groomsmen mixing up their tuxes so that they spent too much time playing Goldilocks and the 3 bears. (This vest is toooo small!)

Celebrating the fact that I got to have this small simple ceremony with so many friends and family.

Smiling until it felt like my face muscles were frozen into a grimace that couldn't possibly be a smile.

Listening to a song written just for me by the man I love.

Walking down the aisle with my daddy.

Having the best time ever in a Limousine with friends.

Dancing til I dropped!

And in the midst of it all, getting married.

Now for the list of a few things that I never want to forget about my wedding:

1) Fittings, Fittings, Fittings. If you are going to have anything made for your wedding . . .you must have measurements taken, have a fitting of a mock up or a pre-hemming fitting. Then after any tucks or adjustments are made, you must try it on again. Also , practice hugging lots of people in your wedding dress to see if you are going to wear a tube top on account of the sores around your arm pits the next day.

2) The best shoe is no shoe. I wore isotoner slippers that I threw away later when I got married.

3) Simple may be good, but well planned is better. Just because I wanted things simple, doesn't mean there was no planning to do.

4) No matter what you plan, something will go wrong.
- Someone might talk to the DJ and change your plans for the first dances (AHEM! Yep it happened) so print and give them a list at the actual reception.

5) Put everything in one box and put it in a car that will be going to the reception as soon as possible. (I forgot the gorgeous Knife and serving set my sister gave me at a shower to cut the cake and the toasting glasses for the champagne)

6) Don't get too attached to any one thing that you used for your wedding, they are just things. Knowing that it might get lost, I made my own veil and petticoats because $200 seemed an awfully steep price to pay for a scrap of tulle or a bunch of it shoved under a dress. And ditto for the dress. I had a friend who's new husband accidentally threw her dress away after the wedding. She cried buckets, but can now laugh about it.

7) If you and the bridal party are going joy riding in the limo before going to the reception. FEED YOUR GUESTS FIRST! They consume less alcohol and are very happy when you arrive versus the alternatives.

8) Open your gifts alone. (Suggested by my mother and it was a great idea.)

9) Be considerate of your family when you plan the wedding. (Unless you don't want it to be a family affair.) I'm mean and think that flying to Key West and inviting people to pay $3000 to come watch you get married is mean. If you are going on a destination wedding, either go by yourself with 2 witnesses, or stay home so that your family can share in the special day. Don't expect 50 people to shell out that kind of cash.

10) Get a video. We had two sisters take amateur video footage and they make us a cheap DVD of the entire event. It was wonderful, cheap, and we laugh at the family interviews every time.

Did I miss anything?

Memories Box

Sis called last night with an off the wall question. . . .

"Did you save all of your report cards from grade school?"

I couldn't remember but two or three years ago, I took it upon myself to go through anything I could drag out of Mom and Dad's house from childhood that didn't need to stay in their house collecting dust. Frankly, we had just moved Grams out of the farm house, and it was pretty rough watching my aunts, uncles and parents try to divy up things. Some of the crew were just down right uncooperative.

So I took everything that I though belonged to me and me alone, brought it to my house, and started to go through things. It took about two days to sort through all of the stuff, but I ended up with a tote full of beloved stuffed animals and toys, a jewelry box of trinkets, and what has always been refered to as my "Treasure box."

Here's what's still residing in my treasure box.

On the left of picture one shows all of the items I have to scrapbook from elementary through High school. It will fill two scrapbooks one of which is mostly done, the second is waiting for me to have surgery sometime in my life and have a meaningful task to do while on bed rest.


Items include:
- medals/certificates of achievement for varying tasks.
- newspaper clippings and pictures.
- report cards from k-college (yep, I kept them all sis)

In the middle is my salutatorial trophy from Trumbull and the very few letters I kept from pen pals I wrote to from 4th grade through high school.

On the right are all my diplomas and mortarboards (sp?). There are a few momentos from college, but very few.

For some reason I have two 2003 tassels, but none from high school . . .What's up with that?

There is a small layer that goes on top, too.
This consists of
-books that my grandmother read to me when we stayed at her house
- Playbills from Broadway shows and college shows that I worked on.
- a keychain with a picture from our girl scout trip to Worlds of Fun in it.
- My ancient diary
- senior pics
- my first easter gloves which will probably make it to Alaina's play box one of these days
- a bag of state pins collected from state reps at National History day
- photo badges of me from Jr High (funny!)

And my treasured Silver round made from the silver used to develop the negatives of the Clay County paper. (My favorite high school graduation present)


Want to see what's in my jewelry box?

Me, too. Because I honestly can't remember!

So Cousins . . .do you have all of your stuff still at your parents house? Or have you tackled the task of sorting out your childhood and storing it in your own home?