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.

{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.)

{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.

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!

Reading & Crafting

My two most favorite activities are reading and crafting. Apparently, these have been lifelong activities. I don't ever remember a time when I didn't love to read or do something artistic/crafty. My mom has told me many times how, as a very young child, I would bring a book to her and beg her to read to me. I was reading for myself at age 3.

Me ~ at about age 3

I can remember ALWAYS having a book and a coloring book and crayons with me no matter where I went. I remember being about 5 years old and having an "allowance" of a whole $1 every two weeks so I could have enough to buy a coloring book or crayons. I must have gone through crayons pretty quickly.

I have always loved anything crafty. I can do counted cross-stitch. I can crochet. I have dabbled in painting (but not successfully). I can do most embroidery. I used to do fabric painting and latch-hook. Before my great-grandmother passed away, she was teaching me to knit. I can do calligraphy (I took a class when I was 16).

The summer after 7th grade, I watched some kind of art instruction show on cable tv and tried to teach myself to draw. I spent all my money on paintbrushes and paints, canvases, inks and calligraphy pens, pastels and art paper. The lessons were fun and I enjoyed my efforts. I can produce something vaguely recognizable, but nothing good.

Now, as an adult, I do a different set of crafts. I still love to color ~ even as a grandma, I keep coloring books and crayons for when the urge hits. I do desktop publishing. I create bulletin board displays at the library.

March 2010 board

I make my own cards.

Missing you card

I take photographs.

Cardinal in the tree in my backyard

I scrapbook.

Title page of Baby Milestones album for my grandson

I am still an avid reader. I prefer murder mysteries over anything else. My friends tease me about the number of books I read. My family and my librarian friends tease me about how many books I have checked out at any given time. I can't help it ~ reading is an addiction. At least it doesn't cost anything and it doesn't adversely affect my health!

So, I've been a reader and a crafter my whole life. And I wouldn't change it for anything.

Love at first sight...

Because I am from Arkansas, people always ask, "How did you and Ken meet?" Well, there's a funny story about that...

I attended college at Blue Mountain College, a small, private, women's college in Blue Mountain, Mississippi. And before you ask, yes, there were men at the college ~ the only men admitted to BMC were those who were planning to go into some type of Christian ministry. I went out with a couple of them and decided that I was not cut out to be a minister's wife, or perhaps that they were not cut out to be ministers. Either way, I chose not to date the men at school after a couple of less-than-savory encounters.

{Yep, that's me! About six months before I started dating Ken.}

I had a couple of wonderful friends at school who knew this about me and they would occasionally introduce me to guys that they knew and that they thought I would enjoy spending time with. Those girls did a fine job of selecting, because I did enjoy the company of the guys they hand-picked for me. However, none of those men were "The One."

{And this is me with one of said friends - whose face is blurred for her privacy. This is probably about a year before I met Ken officially, but about the time I met him unofficially.}

During my years at BMC, Ken worked part-time at Jackson's Quick Stop in Blue Mountain. He had a full-time day job in Ripley as well, so he often worked nights and weekends. Most, if not all, of the girls at the college thought he was good-looking, and I was no exception. I know he dated some of the girls at the college, because I met him (unofficially) one night in the dorm. I was working at the dorm desk and he came in to see one of the girls. They were having an argument, and I had to shush them because it was quiet hours.

So, one of my friends (not the one pictured above) had a 'crush' on Ken. She was headed home for the Christmas break and wanted to go by Ken's day job to tell him goodbye; however, she did not want to go alone. She asked me to ride into town with her to see him. When we got there, we spent quite a while just talking to him, etc. (Ken says I flirted with him; I say he flirted with me - I was dating someone else at the time.) He had some business Christmas cards on his desk and my friend suggested that he send one to each of us, so we left our home addresses for him.

When my friend left for home that afternoon, she asked me to call Ken and talk to him about coming to see her over the holiday. I promised that I would try, but I really doubted my success at convincing him. But a promise is a promise, so I called him later that afternoon. We talked for about two hours. About everything. He shared more with me in that first conversation than any other guy ever had, and I shared more with him than I ever had with any other guy. We shared our hopes and dreams, and our pasts and our failures and our quirks.

{This is Ken just before we started dating.

I mean, really, wouldn't YOU want to go out with that smile?}

When I got home for Christmas break, I did receive a Christmas card from Ken ~ and I was excited. He was a really friendly guy. Did I mention how good-looking he was? But I was dating someone - who broke up with me on New Year's Eve. That same Christmas break we had a record snow/ice and I got snowed in at home when it was time to return to school. My best friend and suitemate was able to go on a couple of days before me. When I finally got there on Wednesday, January 13, she pulled me aside and asked me why Ken Lence had been calling the dorm looking for me. About that time, the dorm phone rang and it was...

Ken calling to talk to me! He asked me out to dinner that night. We went to Shoney's in New Albany. I still remember everything he had on -- blue plaid shirt, Levi's, gray cowboy boots, and Polo cologne. He told me that he would have taken me somewhere in Tupelo, but that he had spent most of the day there with his mother taking her to various doctor's appointments. Okay, how sweet is that? While we sat there eating and talking, I realized two things. 1) I was falling in love with this guy! 2) This guy was "The ONE!" Being a smart girl, I did not let on to either of these thoughts.

Ken and I continued to date. After our second date, I made a point to find my friend in her dorm room and tell her myself. I did not want her to hear about this from anyone else. She was so sweet about it! She said to me that she knew he wasn't interested in her and she was happy for me. We are still friends, by the way.

{Ken all dressed up - probably on his way to see me for Formal Dinner.}

About a month later, shortly after my 21st birthday, Ken asked me to marry him in  a round-about way. We were just cutting up and he started tickling me - and I am very ticklish. When I finally got him to stop, he teased me about being ticklish. Without thinking I told him what my mother has always told me, "Well, my mama says that ticklish women make the best wives!" He got still and answered, "Will you be mine then?" He got me a beautiful ring in April of that year. After having it sized at the jewelry store, we were on our way back to Blue Mountain. He asked me for the ring and gave it right back to me and asked me officially, "Sheila, will you marry me?"

After spending time together every day for four months, or at least talking on the phone every day, I was absolutely miserable when I got home to Arkansas for the summer break. I cried - every night. Ken came up to see me a couple of times and we decided to marry in June instead of September. Did you know that June is a very busy wedding month? We ended up getting married at the end of May - just four months after we went on our first date. We got married at Crawfordsville Baptist Church in the little prayer garden. My best friend and her brother were our attendants, and they took us all out for supper (at Shoney's in West Memphis) after the ceremony. Here is our wedding photo:

And they lived happily ever after...

Me? Write a BOOK?!?

Okay, so twice in the past week alone, somebody has told me that I need to write a book. Who, me? Write a BOOK?!? I don't think so...

But it got me to thinking. In both conversations, and in times' past when the same suggestion was made, I was sharing a family story of some type. You know what I mean... stories about when my children were younger or about when I was young or about my parents and grandparents. FAMILY stories.

I don't have many stories from my parents about their growing up years. Sure, I have a few, just not many. My husband and I have always tried to share stories with our two children so they will know their history, their background, their ancestry. When they were small, those were their favorite kinds of stories: "Tell me a story about when you were little, Momma." or "Tell me the story about pretending to be Evel Knievel, Daddy!"

So I couldn't sleep last night. I was lying in bed thinking about the directives to "write a book" and thinking about the fact that I'm expecting my first grandchild. So I decided to share those family stories in blog form for my children and grandchildren. That way, they are down for posterity, but I don't have to commit to the time and effort of actually writing a book. Brilliant!

So, Katie, Kevin, and baby Butterbean ~ this is for you and for your children and grandchildren and theirs too!