Big Blue Eyes

Good morning.  Look at those bright blue eyes.  Max is doing good and just biding his time till surgery.  Can't wait to hold and snuggle him again.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/MaxMancini

You will NOT believe what happened Sunday.  They got a "new-not-new" car for both of them to replace the crushed ones.  Nick got his two weeks ago and Sunday he was heading back to OKC to be with Max while Af stayed with Min.  He didn't even make it out of the city when the "new" car made a huge banging noise, and started spewing fluid and multiple warning lights started to light up!  Catastrophic Engine Failure!!!  Something to do with a water pump.

Can the heavens please give them some better luck PLEASE!  It is absolutely crazy what is going on with their life right now.  I'm taking it that there is something more, greater for ALL of them in this life.  

The past few weeks Snicklefritz has been coming in the mornings to stay while her parents are at work.  We've done things like paint, clean up paint, clean out under my sink, my makeup drawer, get donuts, out to eat for breakfast, etc.  Monday (I've been telling we would do this for weeks) we dug into my trunk.  My trunk or as it used to be called "Hope Chest" is in her room when she comes to stay.  I have all kinds of junk in there.  My mother's wedding dress and veil, my wedding dress and veil.  I have letters from friends and pen pals over the years, collections of poems I collected in high school, trinkets, clay work I did in art class over 50 years ago.  Just plain junk.  I even have the back pocket of my bell bottom jeans that I wore completely out.  It was my initials I embroidered but some called it initials for Cute Butt!  

She kind of got bored with some of it and that is totally okay.  I also collected sayings and hung them on my wall.  I loved this one:

and especially loved these.  The last one would have been my mother's mantra.  

Today she is going to spend the night because this getting up early during the summer is getting to her.  HA!  I will totally let her sleep in as long as she wants tomorrow.  Today we will go to the studio again and paint.  Yesterday I spent so much time paying bills and running to the post office and bank that I was not in the mood.  Today is paint day.  Need to finish a landscape and another I've started.  

This is the second day in a row that I have not been awakened by my glands swollen in my throat!  I think I have finally overcome whatever was happening in my body.  I still feel a tiny twinge in the gland and will take some Tylenol to head it off from getting started swelling but I think the tide has turned, only 2 months later.  WTF!

A Purging I Will Go (and more)

Tulips, red and pink tulips.  Yesterday one of the health people who sat at Gloria's bedside for many hours sent flowers to us.  I think the girl actually went to high school with one of the grandsons and not on Gloria's care but she cared for the family and spent time sitting.  She sent the tulips because during some of the rantings that my mother-in-law was rambling on about was that her favorite flowers were red and pink tulips.  It was so thoughtful of the sweet friend and classmate of Jason's.

For the past several days I am finding myself bored, yes bored.  I don't feel much like painting and am spending a lot of time just sitting on the couch staring out in space.  These losses lately are almost more than I can stand.  I'm also finding that I am angry.  I'm angry at a lot of people and things that are happening in my life and the WORLD!  I'm finding it tough to have a voice, not finding my voice, and to be able to express it.  Honestly I feel my vocal cords are tied, so to speak.  If I open my mouth I am quickly shut down for expressing my opinion and I'm finding that almost intolerable, which is making me quite angry at everything and everybody.  Yesterday I had a luncheon with some of my high school friends that I haven't seen in well over a year.  While nearly through with my meal one says something about NOT being vaccinated, not going to get vaccinated!!! My mouth dropped to my lap.  (Luckily I wore my mask and the restaurant was nearly empty and I was at the end of the table pretty far from the others that were saying this stuff!)  They went on to pop off about it being experimental, they already had Covid and were never sick, some saying they've never had vaccines...blah, blah, blah...I said WHAT!!!!!  Then I said, "that is why...." but I couldn't finish that statement.  I didn't want to get into an argument, and it was going to be one.  I acted like my phone got a text and that I had to go to handle some "funeral" stuff for The Hubby and I was OUT OF THERE like lightening!  STUPIDITY, and I will not be going again to any of the luncheons they have for a very, very long time.  

Now...on to something else.

With the help of my girls I've been purging various things from my house.  (This act has some issues too.)  One of the things I've been wanting to do is purge my cookbooks.  I had probably close to 100 cookbooks and I most never use them.  Oh, I do enjoy reading them when I get them but I almost never use them.  

There are some exceptions:  Pioneer Woman, Barefoot Contessa, Jamie Oliver and I have The Cake Bible and Pie Bible that I gave to Momma and Daddy many years ago.  There are, of course, a few others that I have kept that I do use and cherish.  I also have some extremely old ones.  One of them I checked is 121 years old and I believe came from my Grandma's.  I even had duplicates of several of Ina Garten's (Barefoot Contessa) cookbooks.  Not sure how that happened.  Those boxes in the first photo are gone, BYE-BYE!  The Hubby carted them off very quickly.  I had THOUGHT about having a garage sale but he apparently had other thoughts and took action before I had a chance.  This is another place where I'm having some issue.  Yes, I do have a few "collectibles" around the house.  They are not invasive, well, maybe my books and Longaberger baskets could be seen that way.  But, the books are on shelves, not lining walkways down the hall and the baskets were in a closet on shelves.  It is my house too and these are my things that I love.  The Hubby is just too quick to agree to get rid of stuff, MY STUFF in particular.  He sees no value in my things, and chooses to take it all to Goodwill without thought to what I want to do with it.  I am not a hoarder at all but I can see where a person could go off the rails with that.  It kind of takes me back to an incident that happened just before I married The Hubby.  

My family lived in a small two bedroom house for a family of five.  My sister and I shared a bedroom and a bed.  I was 19 getting ready to marry and in the living room I had a trunk that I had recently refurbished.  It was a trunk that came from Jay, and was in one of the barns.  It belonged to my Greatgranny's sister, Melissa, who died after her appendix ruptured at age 16.  I cherished it, still do.  It was beautiful when I finished and was full of some of my things to take into my marriage and memorabilia from my childhood.  The Hubby and I had rented an apartment a couple of weeks before we were to be married but were NOT living there because it was being painted.  My father (probably drinking) became enraged about the trunk in the house one evening and wanted it out immediately.  The problem was the apartment wasn't really ready but he was yelling in my face and threatened to take it to the trash.  He was going on and on about some of my other things like a few of my books (I only had a few at that time.)  He was absolutely unreasonable about it.  I was distraught.  He was almost wanting me to move out right then for some reason I felt.  I think there was even talk that I move to Granny's.  I ended up taking it all to my Granny's and moving it to her garage until we could move to the apartment.  This incident has plagued me for years and I often feel that The Hubby is doing the same thing my Daddy did.  I feel devalued and well, angry.  I have dishes that I love that were my granny's and his mother's that he is on a tear for me to get rid of too.  This hurts, it hurts a lot.  I'm in agreement that it is time to declutter my cabinets but frankly why is it all MY stuff!  Why is he after me, like a child to toss out my things, things that I value, not monetarily but with memories and ties to the past.

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Back to purging my recipes.  Now that the cookbooks are purged it is on to the mountain of recipes that I collected over the years.  

I've ripped, cut and glued so many recipes to little index cards. I have four index boxes and another basket of loose ones, not in any kind of order at all.  So yesterday I started going through each and every single card purging.  If I ripped it from a magazine then generally I am tossing.  I have some criteria that I will keep though:  a list of few ingredients, still looks like I want to cook it, handwritten.  Those that are from magazines and I keep I plan on trying and if they're good I'll keep if not, then out they go.  My goal is to possibly make the recipe, take photos and have either a blog or a Facebook account that has nothing but these recipes, maybe a recipe a day or something.  It's an idea and I hope I can make it happen.  It has been suggested that I scan all the recipes and I may but honestly I love going through the cards.

I also ran across this little jewel, a Strawberry Shortcake spiral notebook.  Actually, I know the lady that created Strawberry Shortcake.  She lives in Tulsa and is in my art group.  When I opened the notebook I found it had several pages of handwritten recipes that were in Granny's handwriting.  There were some of hers, family and some of her friends. Best of all it was Granny's handwriting.  I will never get rid of that.  

THEN I saw this one from Mrs. Boggs.  If you are a lifetime Tulsa (or Broken Arrow) person you would know of Boggs Farms in Bixby (not Jenks where Granny wrote that.)  Mrs. Boggs lived on the huge property in a two story house and there were fields and fields of veggies that she grew and sold.  It's where we got our Silver Queen corn, green beans, tomatoes for canning, okra, peppers, cucumbers, etc.  We even got to go in the fields and pick sometimes.  I will try this for sure.

My question, how many more of MY THING are going to have to be tossed to the trash heap before he is satisfied.  It's a feeling of my self worth being challenged.  

Memory Lane

Yes, I am still going down memory lane.  We have several computers, two at home, one at the office and one at my studio and it seems that on each computer there are different sets of photos I keep running across.  We've scanned many, MANY photos over the years and I think it is time to get them in a cohesive place.  Part of the reason I post these old photos and add story content is because at the end of the year I upload all to Blog2Print and print a hardbound book for my girls to have with what I can remember.  I want them to know the history, the small stories that usually get lost over time.  Now that Daddy is gone there is no one else to depend on to remember or even to ask about the stories. 

Rattlesnake Hollow - Jay, Oklahoma, my great-grandparents home.

Granddaddy - Momma's father

Great-Granddaddy Grady

OH MY GOODNESS...I love this.  My little bro and me by the old chicken house in Jay.  I don't even remember them ever EVER having chickens.  We used to play there all the time.

Hmmm, I know this is the house on Main that we just sold.  I didn't know they had dogs, my Granny and Granddaddy.

Awww, Greatgranny and Greatgrandaddy.

Okay this photo is what prompted me to start looking at all the old photos in the first place.  This is Granddaddy's brother, Bob or Robert and his wife, Aunt Rose.  I don't remember meeting any of the other siblings at all, barely remember meeting their mother, my great-grandmother.  Uncle Bob and Aunt Rose had no children, no idea why.  They were so sweet and Aunt Rose was funny funny and how she had to deal with their health issues I commend her.  My mother got SO mad at Aunt Rose when Granddaddy died, thought she was interfering and just a busy-body.  I don't really know what transpired but Momma was in a bad way when Granddaddy died.  She was an only child and her father was her hero, her confidant, her champion and he was gone leaving her with her tyrannical, a bit crazy mother to deal with.  My memory of Bob and Rose was mostly at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  They would come to Granny and Granddaddy's for the holiday dinner, especially since they had no other family around.  Uncle Bob was a pharmacist.  He loved to grow roses and had an award winning yard full of them.  He also was a beekeeper (hm...that just flashed back into my memory.)  Granny always said that the chemicals he used on the rose garden caused his health issues.  Uncle Bob had Parkinsons.  I was very young when I learned about that horrible disease.  I honestly don't remember Uncle Bob ever being normal like in this photo.  He shook, he shook all the time and he couldn't really have a conversation with you.  It even got to the point that he drooled.  Aunt Rose would bring him to the family dinners shuffling in the door.  He would sit in a chair and if he had to walk anywhere she would help him stand and then kind of give him a small push to get him moving forward.  He had a forward momentum and just kept going once that soft push happened.  Aunt Rose would put a bib on him and feed him like a baby.  I loved Uncle Bob and just remember that this was normal.  

Greatgranny (Maggie) & Greatgranddaddy (Grady) and Dan or as I knew him "Big Dan"

Oh, and remember the story about milking Pet the cow and the walk, well, here is the faithful Sandy.  He would walk next to you and when on the bridge he would hug your side to keep you from the edge and end up stepping on your feet.  It was amazing how heavy that dog was.  This is my little Bro.

More house pictures.  Momma and Daddy.

SNOW!

We had two couches in that house and where I was sitting was a huge metal office desk.  Behind me was a nice blue couch.  I was teaching myself how to type from Momma's typing book.  See the Indian head there, that now sits on Momma's red secretary at my house.  It's a bank but the stopper has been long gone.  In the back left corner is Daddy's gun cabinet he made.  We did toss it (1) because it stunk like gun oil, (2) the glass in the doors were so fragile that if it broke there would be splinters and shards.  It was not made that well.  I have the rose painting in the background that Momma found in the attic of the house we lived in when we were in Siloam Springs, Arkansas.  She loved that painting as did I.  

Treasures

The house has been emptied. Emptied of everything.  Not a dust bunny, well, maybe one or two of those are left.  My nephew and a couple of his friends went to town and filled this dumpster.  Honestly The Hubby nor I thought we needed this large dumpster but it was only like $10 more for the month so we did it.  Thank goodness we did.  Can't believe it is so full. 

A few photos and negatives I need to have printed.

When you think you have gone through EVERYTHING you still find more.  The nephew went into the attic, a place we NEVER, EVER went into, except for maybe Brother.  I just never thought of anything being in there, and frankly, there wasn't much except mice bedding!  But...but...but...

As I was going through mostly canceled checks a few newspapers that were pretty chewed up look at this little gem.  

The Hubby found this absolutely fascinating as did I.  The address on the clipping was 1444 N. Denver and of course The Hubby had to go and find the address on Google Earth.  There is a fairly new house on the spot now.  I mean really why did my parents keep this clipping.  Why did they even clip it out of the paper.  Googling you do find a Wikipedia article on Nathaniel Reed (outlaw), that he died in 1950 so that must be the date of the clipping, before my parents were  even out of high school. 

Also out of the pile of trash I did find a few negatives and a couple of photos and this little jewel.  It is a baby care book given to my grandma when daddy was born.  He was born at the Flower Hospital that was located on North Boulder in 1935.  

I just love this book and it was in almost pristine condition, considering it is at least 85 years old and in the attic where the mice lived.  The copyright inside said eighth printing, copyright 1936, 1st published 1931.

Don't you just LOVE this artwork!

Not sure if you can read this but one of the things listed to give the baby is cod liver oil and orange juice.  EGAD!  I was born in 1956 and apparently my mother believed in the cod liver oil thing, or at least she listened to my grandmother give that advice.  One day mother decided we three kids needed a huge dose of cod liver oil (she forgot the orange juice part!)  She lined us up, and spoonful after spoonful went into each of our mouths.  What ensued was each of us running to a sink, a toilet or a trash can to THROW UP said cod liver oil.  She never EVER did that again.  

The book was not written in at all but as I thumbed through the pages I found this sweet note written by my daddy to his daddy.  I love it.

 

Never-Ending Meal Planning

This pandemic thing has amped up my grocery shopping and cooking life like no other.  First of all I feel like I am CONSTANTLY thinking about food.  It's mostly because I don't go inside a store so I have to order and then pick up my groceries, sometimes I have them delivered.  What this means is that I'm in a never-ending meal planning mode.  Yesterday I cleaned out my deep freezer and tossed out most of the bottom of the freezer.  Hated to throw out corn on the cob but it clearly had freezer burn.  I just needed to assess my "stores" in there.  Lo and behold I did find a final fruitcake which we delved into this morning.  There was also a bag of huge blackberries that were good so I made a blackberry cobbler and apple pie because we had guests last night.  I haven't made a good pie in awhile.  

This morning I'm again meal planning, shopping for the week.  I'm having my book club on Wednesday night and the next Wednesday night my birthday girls.  They are small groups, very small and we will dine on our patio with heater going if needed.  It's just time to see them all.  I decided to cook a pot of veggie soup one evening and chili for the next.  I also have to plan on meals that are pretty quick for The Hubby because he goes to dance classes/lessons 2-3 nights a week and needs to be out of the house fairly fast.  All this going on I'm also still working at the office a bit and dealing with my Daddy's house-estate and all that is involved in that.  I've not spent a lot of time at the house this week.  I did go on Sunday and Wednesday to hopefully gather up the last of his stuff to have Salvation Army take it all away on Wednesday.