BIG GLASSES

When I turned the ripe full age of 15, like any other teenager dying to get behind the wheel, I headed down to the county courthouse to take the learners permit test. I passed the multiple choice test with flying colors, however I did not pass the eye exam test. They had me look into a big black box. I remember looking into the box and seeing little cars, but when they started asking me questions like "Where is the red dot?" "What direction is car A driving?", I couldn't answer their questions. My dad by my side said, "O, Come one move over let me see in there". I happily obliged. My dad knew what they were talking about and looked up at me and said, "You can't see that?" So feeling dumb I sat down again and tried but miserably failed. They ordered me to go get an eye exam before returning to take the test. So, with tear filled eyes we drove away from the courthouse on down to the eye doctor. We made the appointment, eye glasses were ordered and amazingly I was able to see. I had NO idea that my vision was impaired, it wasn't bad, but things were blurry. We drove home from the eye doctor after getting my new glasses and I was amazed how crystal clear EVERYTHING was. But, why didn't anyone for the love of all that's holy, tell me that my glasses were TOO BIG for my face.

It didn't help that I also had a mouth full of braces to go along with them, and BIG hair. I didn't learn my lesson, because a year later I went from these ugly BIG red glasses to ugly BIG blue glasses
Thank goodness, by my senior year I had come to my senses, and got rid of my BIG glasses for contacts and got my braces off. The BIG bangs didn't disappear until well into college.

Flashback Part 2

After I finished my first post about my newspaper delivery days as a child, there were so many other memories that flooded my mind.

Part of delivering these horrendous newspapers involved collecting money each month from our subscribers. These seemed to have been a never ending process, trying to collect money, and getting everyone home was a huge task. We would hear all sorts of excuses..."I'm sorry I'm on a long distance call, can you please come back another time?", "I ran out of checks", "I don't get paid until next week", the list went on and on and on. We had a couple of people that were memorable in a good way and not so good way. On our route was a couple who owned the A&W drive-in, they would be at the restaurant a lot and they told us that we could go there anytime to collect their money, and whenever we went there they would give us free Ice Cream. There was also the elderly lady that was so generous in her tips and in her Christmas gifts. But, then there was the creepy single guy that always seemed to have "visitors" over whenever we would go, he would always be tipsy and give us creepy looks.

At the end of the month we would have to turn all of our money over to the head lady who would count our money and keep, what seemed to be most of it, and then give us our percentage. I remember this lady as mean and grouchy, she scared me, and then she made us go door to door trying to sell newspaper subscriptions. I remember pretending to knock on the door, pretending to ring the door bell, just so I didn't have to face people and try and sell the newspaper. This newspaper business was my Nemesis. Cold winter mornings, HUGE Sunday papers, creepy customers, mean boss lady = Newspaper delivery is not for a child!

This is a school picture from 2nd grade - about the time I started delivery newspapers

Flashback

I have the following flashback when ever I think of this Movie:

"Watcher In the Woods"

When I was 7 1/2 my family moved across town to a bigger house to accommodate our growing family. After shortly settling in there was a knock on the door that would forever change my life...it was the newspaper sales lady. My parents thought that it would be great for my older sister and I to share a newspaper route. At first we thought that it would be o.k., although I wasn't too excited about getting up in the morning before the sunrise, I thought the money would be really great to have. This newspaper route started out o.k. We would wake up to a bundle of newspapers on the front porch, we would then roll the newspapers, put a rubber band around them and a bag them. Then we would stuff the newspapers into our carrier, my dad would then have to lift the bag filled with newspapers over our head and onto our shoulders. Sunday papers were every child's nightmare to have to carry, they would be so big and bulky we would have to come back and re-load our bags to finish our route. I remember on occasion crying through my whole route because they just killed my poor little back. My dad was a trooper and would often carry the Sunday papers because they were just too much for us. The daily routine of delivering newspapers became all too monotonous until on one particular morning after watching the Disney movie "Watcher In the Woods". My sister had a slumber the night before and we all stayed up watching this movie. This movie freaked me out so bad that I would be in tears while delivering papers and hiding from all cars that would drive by. I don't know how long I delivered papers, way too long if you ask me. Thankfully we quit after my parents realized that it was no longer worth the hassle for the little money that we were paid.

Mother of the Year Award

Check out my latest accomplishement!

She's 2

Oh the lessons I had to learn to have our sweet baby girl come into our family. Patients, perseverance, faith and mostly to trust in my Heavenly Father. Just when almost all hope had been lost and when I was ready to give up on the idea of being a mother again we were blessed with our sweet Morgan. Nothing could have prepared me for the emotional roller coaster that we went though for five years. The day I found out I was pregnant with Morgan, I got up early to pee on stick, and I wasn't really surprised that I was pregnant. There wasn't a whole lot to get excited about, because I had taken several tests before with positive results only to end in heartbreak, disappointment and frustration. I crawled back in bed, sobbed and sobbed and sobbed asking Heavenly Father to PLEASE help me handle what ever he had in store for me at that time. I Thank him EVERY single day, and every single moment for the precious gifts that he has given me. Now if I could just ask Heavenly Father to slow this process down and to make it not go so fast. Happy Birthday to our sweet girl.

Morgan with her Birthday twin - my niece Clare

We're SO MEAN

I remember when I was little thinking my parents were sometimes mean, especially when they made me go to bed early on a Friday night so they could have some alone time. I would say to myself that I was going to let me kids stay-up as long as they wanted to, let them eat what they wanted to, and NEVER EVER make them do chores.

Well...the tables have turned and apparently we are now the mean parents. On Friday night after dinner, as a family we went out to do some shopping for Morgan's Birthday the next day. After returning home and getting Morgan in bed it was about 10:00, not really that early anymore. I asked Jeff if he wanted to catch up on some TV shows that we had missed during the week, so we thought it would be nice to send Ian to bed and have time just to ourselves. This is a rare occasion since Jeff is off to work at the wee hours of the morning, I'm usually left up by myself at night. Ian thought that since it was Friday he would be able to stay up with us also, which we do allow quite often, however this time we thought we should make him go to bed. So with tears, stomping (a trait he inherited from yours truly) and pleadings, he headed to bed.

After we watched just one show we decided we should go to bed, so we headed to kiss the kiddos goodnight and we saw this note written from Ian posted on the outside of his closed door (he usually never closes his door).

I guess we are the MEANEST parents EVER. We had a good laugh going to bed.