Adulting Mess – Not Really A One-liner Wednesday

That horrible moment when your mom moves in with another sibling for the first time in forever (no, really, she’s never lived away from me or Julia for more than a week or a month at the most) and you realize that you have some serious stepping up to do in adulting.

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Seriously, it was kind of frightening to realize…

I just noticed that it is Monday and not Wednesday.

Well, this is a great beginning for the week.

(laughs at self) Well I’m still posting this today because it was written for today even if today isn’t really Wednesday for a One-Liner Wednesday. (You can still go check them out, there are some pretty interesting ones over at the original site.)

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Thimble Enough – Thankful Thursday

You never know just what’s going to be useful in your life. I’ve used the sewing skills my mom insisted all of us learn (boys and girls) to mend my clothes, sew buttons back on pants, shirts, coats and sweaters. Put zippers in, design Halloween costumes, work on wedding clothes, decorations, mittens for a duck’s feet when she had infects wounds on them and wouldn’t stay off her feet (our first duck was a very stubborn creature) and now I’m using them to sew old feed bags together to make a tarp for the back of the truck.

Incidentally, I am also incredibly thankful for a thimble, because I shudder to think about the state of my fingers without that thimble.

Thanks, Mom, for being more stubborn than seven of your eight children when it came to learning how to hand sew simple stitches. (My youngest brother just went and hid and Mom had two jobs to get to and didn’t have the time to chase her youngest down to make him learn what the other seven already knew and he just wouldn’t learn it from the rest of us. He is ruing that now when the buttons on his clothes wear off and he has to wait to bring it to one of our houses to sew back on. My eldest brother was incredibly thankful all throughout his mission that he’d stuck out the sewing lessons and even knew how to use the sewing machines that the church members in his branch let him borrow.)

Check out the original Thankful Thursday.  (I will update the link when this week’s original post goes up.)

Lost But Not Forgotten Dreams – One-Liner Wednesday

Oh! It’s so painfully beautiful. –Mom

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I’m listening to Puccini’s Madame Butterfly with my mom who trained as an opera singer, but then had to decide which dream was more important to her: being a top class opera singer (because she was that good) or having more than two children (because most top class opera singers only have the two at the most and Mom’s wanted as many as possible since she was a little girl with a seven year age difference between her and her closest sibling.)

I am the sixth of eight children by the way.

Check out the original One-Liner Wednesday.

Spelling Chicken – One-Liner Wednesday

They have the best fried chicken, Soelsberg: S-O-E-L…sberg.

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My mom, when trying to tell my sister where the best fried chicken she’s had in the state (from a store rather than homemade) since moving here (before most of her children were even born). Though she only discovered the existence of this grocery store in the last six months or so and is still learning how to spell it completely.

Check out the original One-Liner Wednesday. (Will update link when able.)

Bringer of Joy – Thankful Thursday

How often have you been there for me?

And dried up my tears no matter how bitter they be

Perhaps someday I can be like you

Picking children who’ve fallen because that’s what you’d do

Inching closer during times of prayer

Not stopping until your love was felt through the clothing layer

Especially when fears are whispered into the night

Searching for reassurance that everything will be alright

So I hope that I can spread the joy that you did even when confined to bed.

 

Today I am thankful for my mother and for all that she has done, does and likely will do throughout my life. She is an awesome woman.

image: my mom in California, from my sister’s old phone

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Check out the original Thankful Thursday. (Will update link when able.)

Small Mercies – Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful for small mercies. This last week, Mom tripped over some shoes that hadn’t been put away properly. She had been moving a chair at the time and couldn’t catch herself. She hit the ground hard and struck the opened front door on her collar bone. Other than some bruises that will need to be iced all week and needing to use my cane more (and finally acknowledging that she needs a cane herself for some days) she’s fine.

Nothing broken, no head traumas and only a small scrape on her knee. She also hit the good knee rather than the bad one. She’s sore and a little slower for a while, but she’s not hurt badly which is a small miracle and mercy.

Like many times when one of us has fallen, it could have been worse, should have been worse, in fact. And yet, it wasn’t.

Check out the original Thankful Thursday. ( I will update the link when able.)

EDIT: Link updated as of May 30, 2015

Empty Streets – Eclectic Corner #7

The street was empty save for one lone woman and her dog as they set out to begin their walk. Hopefully they would come across nothing foul nor deadly.

image: Mom and Sissy, from martha0stout’s phone

Especially not a patch of ice where no one would see them tumble over like a pair of lonely dominoes! With the way the snow was coming down it was unlikely that anyone would be able to find them in time unless the faithful companion left her mistress in the cold and ice weather to seek out aid.

The dog would never leave her human behind, so it was with gratefulness that both returned home safely once the daily jaunt was complete.

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This is a quick response to the Eclectic Corner #7: Street Life. I hope that this was enjoyable!

Just Another Service

When I first learned how to drive most of my friends were jealous because, as one of the eldest amongst us, I was able to get my permit and then my license first.

“You’re lucky to be free before us” they would tell me. I disagreed.

“Driving isn’t freedom, guys, not in my family.”

Driving in my family is not freedom. It wasn’t when I was a teenager first learning and it still isn’t now that I’m an adult and unable to drive. When we learned to drive it meant that there was another person who could run errands for Mom. It was one more service that you were going to be offering.

My friends at the time didn’t understand, mostly because most of them were either single children or the last child with only one or two older siblings. Only one friend understood even if it didn’t apply to her as the youngest child in her family where everyone was able to drive.

I used to think it was something that those with large families only shared. I mentioned this around my mother, who is the youngest of three and there is a seven year age gap between her and her next closest sibling.

“Mother didn’t drive,” Mom said, “So Dad was really happy when I finally learned how to drive. He used the company car-

(This is actually a thing that does exist, or it did at one point.)

“-so he made me my own copy and I drove the family car on every errand that Mother wanted or needed to go on.”

So it wasn’t just a large family thing after all.

Walk Through The Night – Thankful Thursday

Today I am grateful for all the times my mother sang us to sleep as children. She loves music and wrote different lullabies for each of her eight children and some of her friends’ children as well. I have no children as of yet, but I do have ten nieces and nephews and I have sung each of them to sleep at least once using music that my mother used to sing me to sleep with. Sadly I do not have a recording of any of her lovely music, but I do have a song written and performed by Cherie Call that reminds me very much of what my mom did every other night for her children. (It was every other night because she switched off with Dad, who told us stories to lull us to sleep.)

Check out the original Thankful Thursday.

I’d rather be a mother

This is a poem that my family has had for several years, it was a present given to my mother when I was a teen.

This poem popped into my mind when I was reading a post over at Afternoon of Sundries called To Be Honest, It’s Okay.

Some houses try to hide the fact

That children shelter there;

Ours boasts it quite openly…

The signs are everywhere.

 

For smears are on the windows,

Little smudges on the door;

I should apologize I guess

For the toys strewn on the floor.

 

But I sat down with he children

And played, and laughed and read;

And if the door bell doesn’t shine,

their eyes will shine instead.

 

For when I’m forced to choose

One job or the other,

It’s good to be a housewife

But I’d rather be a Mother.

 

–author unknown

It’s something that hung on the wall in our house in Riverton and it hangs up on the wall her in the duplex as well.

I’m not a mother nor am I a housewife, but it’s something that makes me think of my mother and the sister that I now live with. They would like to have a clean house, but it’s not the most important thing to them. (Though Mom did make sure we knew how to clean.)