Monday, January 23, 2012

Ironing

Okay, let's start with a true statement: I hate to iron!

I can remember watching my mother iron my father's shirts when I was a little girl. I would beg her to let me iron something. Rather than risk his dress shirts, she would give me a stack of pillowcases to iron. Granted, most people don't iron their bed linens ~ I don't, anyway ~ but it was really good practice for this little 6 to 8 year old girl. No worries about scorch marks or imperfect creases or ironed in wrinkles.

As I grew older, I became responsible for ironing my own clothes. No problems there, because I didn't wear many things that required ironing. The occasional blouse or skirt. Then, when I was in high school, I started asking my mother to make my clothes. (She was an awesome seamstress!) The deal was that I would pin the pattern, cut the pieces, and pin the pieces together before she sewed the garment. After the garment was finished, I hemmed it, sewed on any buttons, and pressed the finished item.

At some point, I started being responsible for ironing Daddy's work shirts. He had to wear a dress shirt and tie to work each day, and I had to iron them. Even when I was away at college, when I came home on the weekends, I ironed his shirts.

Ironing one of Daddy's shirts ~ about 1985-1986.
This is one of my Daddy's favorite pictures.
Somewhere between begging to be allowed to iron and ironing now, I grew to hate the task. Now, I don't mind ironing a single piece here and there with ample notice that it will be needed. But to iron a whole basket of shirts that will end up squished into the closet and getting wrinkled again? I don't think so!

So, I was ironing this afternoon. Ken got several new shirts for Christmas and I washed them. Then they needed to be ironed. *sigh* So I decided to do a couple of them. While I was ironing, I thought of my mother. My mother used to tell me that when she was a girl, she would iron shirts for her older brothers for a little spending money. With twelve children ~ yes, 12! ~ my grandmother made everyone responsible for his or her own laundry and ironing as soon as each was old enough. My mother was apparently an incredible ironer - three of her four older brothers would pay her to iron their shirts! Wow! (The oldest brother was in the military and no longer living at home.)

Then, I thought of all the shirts that my mom has ironed so lovingly for my dad. And I realized that I had been given that same opportunity to do something with love for my own husband. I resolve to try to make ironing less of a chore and more of an act of love.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

{Three on Thursday} Firsts

1. First haircuts: Beth (a cousin) took her little boy for his first one this week. He has a head FULL of glorious curls, now they are just shorter curls. It got me to thinking about my own boy's first haircut. He was about 18 months old. Ken and I were going to meet at the barber shop when I got off work, and we were going to videotape the "event." It just so happened that it was the last teacher work day of the year, and I ended up having to work late. I tried calling several times, but never got through. So ... Ken took Kevin by himself for the haircut. He came home - not with my baby boy, but with a little man! Oh, how I cried! I do have the video, of course; but I still tear up when I watch it. And, thanks to the barber, I also have his little curls!

2. First teeth: My sweet grandson is teething. He is 6 months old and drools like crazy! I am reminded of when his mommy was teething at 6 months old. She drooled and chewed and gnawed like everything! Then one evening, while we were visiting family in Memphis, she grinned up at us from her seat and she had ... not one, but TWO ... new teeth!

3. First words: I'm still holding out hope that Wyatt's first word will be "Grandma," but don't expect me to hold my breath. :-)  Katie's first word was "Da-da." My mother used to tell me that all babies say da-da first because it is easier to say. I disagree - Katie always was a Daddy's girl, so of course her first word was Da-da! She used to "sing the Da-da song" ~ ♪♫ da - da - da - da - da - da - da ♫♪ 
Kevin's first word was "Ma-ma," probably because I was able to stay home with him longer than I was able to with Katie. Questions remain about it though: "Ma-ma" morphed into "ma-milk" so he could have been asking for more milk all along.  ¯\_(*.*)_/¯


(Sorry no photos today ~ may try to find some and add them later.)

Thursday, January 12, 2012

{Three on Thursday} Random

Okay, y'all ~ here is the first installment of "Three on Thursday."

1. Ken bought a 1966 Mustang in 1976, just before he graduated from high school. He started fixing it up in 1986. In 1996, he took this picture of Katie in front of it.

Katie & the Mustang ~ April 17, 1996


2. Ken and I both have beautiful mothers. Ken's mom was born in 1933 and succumbed to cancer in 2004. My mother was born in 1942 and is still going ~ not strong, maybe, but still going.

Annie Lois ~ at about age 25
Patricia Ann ~ at about age 26
  
3. My daughter and I were cleaning out an old toybox recently for her to take home for my sweet grandson's toys. We ran across this little fella, looking somewhat worse for the wear.


He is an important little Happy Meal toy. This is the toy that my son was playing with (at age 5) the day we went to the doctor's office to get his official diagnosis: Duchenne muscular dystrophy. While Ken and I talked to the doctor and cried, Kevin was playing cowboys with this little horse.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

New Plans & Pinterest

WOW! Has it really been that long since I've posted? I really want to do better at this whole blog thing, so I'm going to follow an idea of a friend and fellow blogger Sarah at Jumping Jax. I'm going to attempt to do a weekly quick-post of a few short memories. I may also add a few non-reminiscent posts in the mix as well. For now, the new quick-post will be titled "Three on Thursday" and will feature three short items that came to mind that week.

On another note, have you joined the Pinterest bandwagon? I have, and let me tell you... it is well worth it! I have always been one to clip from magazines and catalogs anything I wanted to try or remember: craft ideas and recipes and clothing and home ideas and house plans and color combinations and ... the list goes on. However, what I usually ended up with was a jumbled mess of scraps of paper that made no sense because I couldn't remember why I wanted to save it! (grrr...) Enter Pinterest! This website is a virtual pinboard where I can "pin" things or ideas that interest me. I can add my own comments to each one and I can sort them into whatever categories, or "boards," that make sense to me. This is a fantastic tool and was definitely an "AHA!" moment for me.

You can see my boards and pins by clicking on the "Follow Me on Pinterest" button over there on the right. If you want an invitation to join, just drop me a line with your email address and I will send you one!

See y'all tomorrow with my "Three on Thursday" memories!