Z is for Zoom, Zoom

My sister and I are Zooming across the mountains today to go to West Virginia to spend time with family for a couple of days. The weather looks good and there should be redbuds and dogwood blooming along the way. Always a treat. 



So until next time, which won't be tomorrow because I've run out alphabet, 😄, have a great day.

Y is for Yellow

Y is for Yellow around and about the house.

I think this banana is perfectly ripe. My father would have agreed, but my mother would have said that it was almost rotten. Ward will eat them green or very ripe. What's your banana preference?

This is a very positive picture book about the possibilities of a day. Good pictures and simple words for kids and also, a great message for adults and kids alike. It's one of my favorites.

I snatched this magnet from my mother's refrigerator when we were cleaning out her house. Blue and Yellow (gold) are WV's state colors.

Double sided tape always says school projects to me. Many posters were made with this kind of tape at our house when Wally and Theo were in school. BTW, I learned from all of them that you get what you pay for with DS tape.

Speaking of school, these are scissors that Theo used in third grade. The pen on top is my new favorite. It writes with smooth purple ink.

This is one of my gardening reference books. Like most of the Dummies books, it gives good information in a clear, easy to read style. 

Dandelion and a tiny ant enjoying its nectar. Dandelions are so pretty. I wonder when it was decided that they were a weed?

Leaf scoops. These are handy for picking up any kind of debris around the yard. We bought them on an impulse several years ago and have never regretted it.

The groundcover, yellow lanium, is in bloom. With its varigeited leaves and yellow blooms I think it is quite pretty.

X is for eXhale

Upon wakening this morning, I got the sad news that my Aunt Debbie died last night in her sleep. Then came a big gasp. And an exhale before the tears started to flow.  My uncle had been sick for months and was recovering from one surgery and waiting to get strong enough for two others.  So, it was a surprise to hear that she was the one who passed.

My aunt never left my uncle's side during the weeks he spent at the hospital. After 63 years together, they still held hands in their matching wheelchairs and it made for a very sweet picture. She died at home sleeping beside my uncle, just where she wanted to be.

Aunt Debbie was a happy person with a great laugh and I always enjoyed being around her. Last year at a family gathering, she told a great story about when she and my uncle met that I shared with you. I'm going to share it again now as I remember Aunt Debbie's smile and laugh as she told the the tale.

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An Interesting Question

Last weekend I went to a family reunion on my father's side of the family. Besides the normal catching up, there was a theme throughout the day. How did your parents meet? This all started because I found a newspaper clipping in one of my mother's scrapbooks about my oldest aunt's wedding in 1948. It got me thinking that I had heard the story about how my parents had met, but none of the accounts of how my aunts and uncles first got together. I asked around and heard bits and pieces of stories from various cousins about their parents. However, I was able to get one of the stories straight from the source--Aunt Debbie and Uncle Alan.

Debbie and Alan told the story of when they first laid eyes on each other at a church Christmas play. Upon seeing my uncle standing at the back of the church in a leather jacket, my aunt declared that was the man she going to marry. It didn't seem to matter that her fiancee at the time was sitting right beside her. They wove a quite colorful story of the complications of fiancees and girlfriends with my aunt even telling my uncle that she was engaged, but only on weekends.

While I immensely enjoyed the tale of their first meeting and courtship, there was another part that I found even more interesting. My aunt asked each one of her suitors, including my uncle, a curious question, "If you were going to build a city, what would you do?" Among other things, Uncle Alan answered that he would design one like Washington, D.C., with a center circle and streets going out like spokes from there. I commented to my aunt that that must have been an acceptable answer and she said that Alan was the only one who ever gave her an answer. Her fiancee said she was never going to build a city, so it didn't matter.

Then I asked the obvious question, why did she ask about building a city? Aunt Debbie said that it told her if the suitor could make a plan and if they could dream about the future. I found that very smart of her to question her boyfriends in that way. It seemed to be a good test because she and my uncle have been married for almost 63 years now.

Rest in Peace,  Aunt Debbie.

X is for eXtra

X is for eXtra...

in that I need a little eXtra time to complete my blog post. We had a very busy day today and I'm ready for a little R and R.

So until next time, have an eXceptional evening.

W is for Work, Work, Work

When I was in high school, I used to babysit for a little girl named Rebecca. She was always fun and loved books and songs. Her mother was a kindergarten teacher and thought kids didn't need to read early, so Rebecca didn't read until she went to school. However as soon as someone unlocked the reading code for her, she was reading at an 8th grade level within a year or so.

In the meantime, she loved to have books read to her and had memorized many books even chapter books. She would say to me, "Let's read the book about horses," and then go to find it. Rebecca would return a short while later and say, "I can't find the book, but I'll read it to you anyway." And then she would recite the entire book word for word.

She especially liked the books she could listen to that had songs intertwined with the story. She delighted in acting them out for me. She would don her "performance hair" (a dish towel over her head with rubber bands to make pigtails) and her microphone hairbrush and perform an entire book. Besides reciting the story, she would belt out the songs in a strong voice. She was quite good, actually.

There is one song to this day that I still sing that I learned from Rebecca. It is one where Cinderella is lamenting about all of the work she has to do. The chorus and first verse are below:

Work, work, work
I try not to complain
Washing, mending, stretching, bending
Every day's the same

Once I was just little Ella
That's how it began
Now I am a Cinderella
Always in my cinder place with ashes on my hands and face, I am!

(Unfortunately, I was not able to find credits for this or the tune on YouTube to include for you. Maybe after I understand my smart devices a little more, I'll sing it for you some day.)

The great thing about this song is that it's a fun way to complain. It's easy to insert whatever kind of work you're doing as well as your own name and complain while singing a catchy tune. I do it all of the time. In fact, I was singing it earlier while I was doing the laundry. And I think I will do another verse when I go wash the dishes. :)

Until tomorrow, when X is for...?