2008 Day Seventy Six

We got up and had BLT's for breakfast. M went off with Chris to work on the shop's computer project. I went to the Rock n Roller's Gem and Mineral Show.

I saw lots of beautiful stones. I bought a string of red polished stones that were drilled so they could be used as beads. I also bought 2 carved stone angels pendants with bails and a gold donkey pin.

I went by a bead shop that Lorna has been telling me about, but it was closed. Came home and let the dogs out. Went over to Walmart and bought all the normal things on the list plus filters for the fish tank and some red beads to finish the "chili pepper" necklace I've been working on.

I did finish that necklace this afternoon. When M came home we got ready and went out to Opa for dinner. We met Debbie and Pat who are delightful. The conversation was terrific. The food and the service could have been better, but, the restaurant was crowded and very busy. I was surprised a Greek/Italian restaurant did not have espresso or any coffee drinks. Like I always say, East Drink and Be Merry because tomorrow you may be in Spokane.

2008 Day Seventy Five

Oh Happy Friday! What a crazy weather day. There was rain, snow and hail. The weather guy is saying rain and a little snow overnight. It always does this right before St Patrick's Day.

I am looking forward to my 3 day weekend.

Work was slow today and that was a nice change. First quarter is coming to an end. After work I came home and worked on a few projects. I made my first order to Rubber Nation. Lots of great beads coming.

More memories coming soon...

2008 Day Seventy Four

I am too tired to even think. Tomorrow is Friday-Payday. I will post more tomorrow.

2008 Day Seventy Three

I played hookey today. I needed a mental health day. I cleaned the house, worked on beading projects, surfed on my computer and treated myself to coffee. Connected with Debbie and made plans for Saturday night for the four or six of us to meet up at Opa for dinner.

M caught an earlier flight by 2 hours. I drove out to the airport to pick him up. His flight was only 10 minutes late. From there we drove back through town and went to Chilis for dinner. My kitchen is too clean to dirty it up with dinner preparations. Now I am too full to live.

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More memories.... We had other family friends that did not live on our street. One of the first ones I remember was Jim and Fran Marta and their son Jimmy Joe. One time when my parents were away they left me with the Marta's. Fran would make us Ovaltine every afternoon and Jimmy Joe and I would watch Creature Features. Those movies would give me nightmares. I would dream that the 50 foot woman would be peering through the bedroom window or the Thing from the Black Lagoon would be standing in their backyard dripping of lake slime. Jimmy Joe showed me how to use a tin can phone that he had between their house and his friend's house that lived next door. Fran was a crafter and I was fascinated that she had a whole room just to do crafts in.

We spent alot of Christmas Eve's at the Marta household. Every year I would ask Santa for a horse. One year my parents surprised me at their house with a green parakeet for Christmas. I named him Danny Boy. I loved that bird. He was crazy. He would wolf whistle and break out of his cage if anyone was making toast and fly over and crawl all over you until you shared some with him. We had another neighbor, Mrs. Otradavich who was the ugliest woman you have ever seen. She would come down in the morning to have coffee with my mother and she would say the only reason she would visit is because that bird would wolf whistle at her. He would bob his head up and down and dance back and forth on his perch if you sang The Yellow Rose of Texas. For some reason he really liked that one song. That bird lived 16 years which I have heard is a really long time for parakeets. And even though he was not a horse, I loved Danny Boy the bird.

The kids from our neighborhood would get together on Christmas Eve and we would go door to door and sing Christmas Carols. We really thought people would like to hear kids who could not sing chime out cheesy Christmas songs. Some did and showed us by sharing goodies, hot chocolate and some even gave us money and then some would slam the door in our face or just not answer. When we went to the Marta's my brother, Steve, would go with Jimmy Joe on a big bobtail truck to go caroling. My Mom would never let me go on the truck.

Other friends included the DiBernardi's, the Green's, the Barry's, The Ayers and the Gronenboom's.

It's time for American Idol so I will have to continue more tomorrow.

2008 Day Seventy Two

After work I stopped and gave my left arm to buy gas. Gas prices are crazy.

I took M to the airport. He is flying over to Bellevue for some training. He is having dinner with his friends that he knew from Premera. He will be back tomorrow night. I miss him already.

American Idol tonight they are going to sing Beatle music! My absolute favorite music!

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I think I left off about popcorn balls and Halloween. . .

I loved Halloween when I was growing up It seemed every year it would get better and better. I had 2 costumes. One was Tweety Bird and the other was Sylvester the Cat. Like every holiday in our house we had a routine that we followed. After school and after homework and chores I would dress in my costume and watch American Bandstand. They would be dressed in costume too and they would play all the crazy Halloween themed songs. Then my Dad would come home from work. We would eat a quick dinner and by that time it was dark and he would take me trick or treating.

Down the street from the Walkers lived a bachelor man named Rex, same name as my dog which I thought was always funny. He had a pipe organ that took up his whole garage. On warm nights the neighborhood would grab folding chairs and put them in the street in front of his house and he would open his garage doors and give concerts. That organ was so loud it would vibrate the street and make our feet tingle. The music was enchanting.

The Locke family lived next door to Rex. Their daughter Beatrice, nicknamed Beechie, was my age. We were expected to be friends, but, we never hit it off. Not sure why. I remember she came over to our house to spend the night but got so homesick she was crying and had to go home. After that I really didn't have much to do with her even at our mother's insistance.

Further down the street was the Byrd family. Here was the craziest woman in the neighborhood. She was from Poland or some country like that so you bearly understood what she said. She was always screaming at any kids that came near their house. She had a son named Woody who would definitely become one of America's Most Wanted. Even at 5 years old he was notorious. His sister Mary was as sweet as she could be. Pretty, timid and very sweet. Its the only way I could describe her. We really didn't get a chance to get to know her because of her crazy mother. But we had several encounters with Woody and learned to steer clear of him.

Across the street lived the Ritters. Paul Ritter who was an executive at Southern Pacific Railroad was my Dad's best friend. They had two daughters Diane and Patty. We went to church with their family. We bbq'd, made homemade ice cream, went to drive in movies, travelled to the beach and did alot with them for many years. Paul had a sister who taught high school in Manteca. We drove over there one weekend and she made the yummiest fried onion rings I had ever tasted. Funny the things you remember. She was one of the first lesbian women I had ever encountered. Later the Ritters got divorced and Paul moved to San Leandro. We visited him a couple of times and I know my Dad missed him.

Those were the families we knew the best. Families came and went over the years, but I will always remember the first families with fond and happy memories. more memories to come...

2008 Day Seventy One

Another Monday under my belt. M is off on Mondays so it was nice to spend the afternoon together.

To continue the story:

I remember the weather when I was young. It seemed to be always nice. It was almost always in the 70's with soft bay breezes. Sometimes it would smell of the ocean and my Dad would always say, "The bay is in". At that time the San Francisco Bay came all the way up to Alviso and you could really smell it when the tide was in. Then we had the cannery smells. We had 3 canneries that ran most of the year. You always knew what season it was by what they were cooking. First it would be peaches and pears. The Libby plant made fruit cocktail and had a water tower that looked just like a can of cocktail. Then would come the smell of cooked tomatoes.

My Dad was a true lawn junkie. We had a big corner lot and he always kept our grass green and lush. I remember on summer days we would spend hours laying in the grass looking up at the clouds and making out the shapes of animals and mythical creatures. My Dad's garage was his special place. He had a big workbench and pegboard wall full of tools and "man" stuff. He also collected train signs which looked liked license plates for the different train lines. My Dad was always working on home improvement projects.

As a new family on a street of new houses we knew all our neighbors. Across the street were the Camachos who were from Guam. Mr Camacho worked as a chef at the Officer's Club at the Moffett Field naval base. They had lots of kids and were always having parties and BBQ's to celebrate birthdays, baptisims and first holy communions. At their parties we would dance to Chubby Checkers and Fats Domino doing the Twist and the Mashed Potatoes and all the crazy dances that were popular on American Bandstand. The kids my age were Kathy and Joey.

Two houses over were the Walkers. They were Mormon, married in the temple as their kids would always say. I had no clue what that mean't as a child. Mr. Walker worked for IBM. They kept building on to their home because they had 11 children. I was always amazed at their stockpile of canned foods in their garage. Their boy Nyman was my age. They could never play outside on some nights and never on Sunday because of their religion. But I do remember on each Halloween Mrs. Walker would make the best caramel popcorn balls.

I will have to continue more tomorrow, as I have run out of time tonight.

2008 Day Seventy

This was a wonderful Sunday. We spent the day at home. I slowly cleaned off a portion of my desk, the rest of the laundry and worked on beading projects. All in all it has been a very peaceful nice day.

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Continuing what I started yesterday...

I do not remember how we got to California, if we drove or if we took the train. When we first arrived in Palo Alto, CA we stayed in a motel and then rented an Eichler home from a Stanford professor. My father took a job at Kodak while he waited for a job in the post office to open up. This is what he did in the Army when he was stationed in Okinawa and then in the Fort Wayne post office. My Dad once told me how during the depression how he noticed the postman had a stable job and was able to buy food from the market. Growing up on a farm you ate what you grew and the animals that could no longer produce. The job with the post office finally came through and he worked as a clerk in the East Palo Alto branch during the day and at Kodak at night.

We spent every weekend driving and looking at model homes in all the new housing tracts that were springing up everywhere. I remember one housing tract named Kilarney Farms. They had a red barn and pony rides and all kinds of farm animals. We looked at those homes many times. I hoped we would get one of those homes. But the folks settled on a house where the builder went bankrupt after only building one street of homes and I guess they got a terrific deal on the sale of a corner lot, 3 bdrm dusty pink house. We moved from the rented house to our new home at 550 West Eden in Sunnyvale, CA. My dad set up a sturdy swing set in the backyard and planted a peach tree and a plum tree. He also constructed a concrete patio in the back yard. It was a typical suburban middle class neighborhood. We had a collie named Rex. I loved him so much. I loved brushing his beautiful long fur coat. We must have had a female too because I remember we had a couple of litters of puppies. My responsibility was to mix up the Gerber cereal and teach the puppies to eat once they were ready. I was always sad when people came and bought the pups, one by one and then they were gone. My Dad would tell me stories about how they raised dogs on the farm and then shipped them all over the country.

My grandparents came out by train and visited us. My Grandpa, Carper, brought my brother a can of chocolate covered ants from Africa and a can of lemon drops (my favorite at the time) for me.

My Mom babysat for a time before I started school. When I started kindergarten she went to work at Lindy's Toy Store which was downtown. She worked there for several years but had a falling out with the owner. From there she worked at a children's clothing store called Youngsters which was also in downtown Sunnyvale. She became a buyer for them and I remember the store expanded and opened another store in Fremont. She was with Youngsters for a long time. She left them and I don't not know why, but she went to work for a stationery store just a few doors down from Youngsters. For the life of me I cannot remember the name of the stationery store. She had to work Saturdays. My Dad did all the grocery shopping for the family and I would go with him every Saturday to Chinese owned State Market. It always smelled of cooked meat. I loved staring at the Chinese calendars they had hanging everywhere. We bought our meat at a meat market close to the store where my Mom worked. We had a Carnation milk man who delivered milk in glass bottles along with butter, cottage cheese and ice cream. We also had a bakery truck that would drive through our neighborhood and would sell fresh made donuts, pasteries and bread. In the spring and summer we had fruit and vegetable stands everywhere because we were surrounded by orchards and truck farms.

***to be continued

2008 Day Sixy Nine

I slept in this morning. It is raining outside and it was such a nice change than getting up at 3:00 am as I do each day of the work week.

This week's Photo Hunt theme is DIFFERENT. Hope you like what I have chosen.

A wrong way corrigan in this bunch.

This week I have read alot of people's blogs. There are many talented writers out there who can write about their lives so vividly that you can really seem to know them. I am not the best writer and my life has been average. I have had really good times and really low times but on the whole average. I am going to start to write a little bit about my life for my son to read so he can understand where I came from. So I will write a little about my life each day.

I was born in Fort Wayne, IN. I had many problems healthwise with my ears and throat. They removed my tonsils and adnoids when I was only 5 weeks old. I guess I almost died, so I was baptised in the hospital. But as you can see I made it. It is also hard to believe I was only 5 lbs when I was born. When I was born my grandmother, Blanche, was in the hospital for thyroid surgery. I had learned she did not care for me because I took away her attention during that time. At least this is what I have put together from what has been told to me in bits and pieces. I continued to have health issues for the next two years. All I really remember of living in Fort Wayne is that we had a little black cocker spaniel named Holly and that the house was a little white Cape Cod style house with green shutters. With the harsh winters of Indiana my parents decided to sell everything and move to California where the weather is milder and where my father was once stationed in the Army and where the problems with my ears would have a better chance to heal. Growing up I always felt guilty because they had to leave their comfortable life near my father's family and move clear across the country. My mother on occasion would like to remind me that I was the reason they had to move. Even though now as an adult I know that was the best choice for them. For my father he could move away from the nagging guilt of being expected to work on the family farm and for my mother away from a critical and downright cruel mother in law. Neither one was cut out for small town farm life.

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I have so much to do today. Housework that has been ignored, a mountain of laundry and bead projects I want to start. It is a nice rainy day to stay in and work on that. There is a Spring Craft Show going on at the college. I may go and look around and get ideas for more jewelry projects.

I am considering myself tagged by Pidomon:

Here are the rules:

1. Write your own six word memoir.

2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.

3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post.

4. Tag five more blogs with links.

5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

Been There, Done That, Do Again

I tagged:

Betty of Betty's This and That

Admiral of In A Mad, Mad, Mad World

April of Aprilwine's Weblog

Barb of Partly Bloggy...With a Chance of Sarcasm

Rachel of all-she-is.com

2008 Day Sixty Eight

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It's finally Friday. I definitely need the weekend to recharge my batteries.

I spent the afternoon at the bank working on a home equity loan. Came home with paperwork to fill out and an appraisal to worry about.

Took M a coffee and spent the evening watching television just letting the week slip away. I watched the new show New Amsterdam. I really liked it, so I set it up to record the series.

Tomorrow will be busy with weekend chores and hobbies.

2008 Day Sixty Seven

Thanks Betty for the very cool award. You are such a good friend.

Today was another average Thursday. After work I returned my library books, went to Walmart and stopped at Michaels and bought the hooks to make the lanyards.

I watched American Idol. Again, I must not like the songs from the 80's because I wasn't too impressed with any of the girls. I think Simon has a little crush on Brooke. I didn't like her version of Love is a Battlefield, but Simon raved on it. Tonight we will see who gets kicked off.

Found this poem while surfing around. As you all know I am not that religious but I do like St. Francis.

PRAYER OF PEACE

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life

Saint Francis of Assisi (1181-1226)

2008 Day Sixty Six

Driving to work this morning I almost had a heart attack when I saw the price of gas. Just 2 days ago it was $3.29 today it was $3.43!!

I just want this on record. WORST PRESIDENT EVER!! And yes - it IS all his fault.

I saw on the news where Bush endorsed McCain. Did anyone tell the stupid ass that Mccain has already won the nomination. Don't you think it would have mean't more when there was more than one candidate running?

Hillary or Obama? I don't think either one will make a good president - but, they are far better than Let's Have Another 100 Years of War McCain!

M worked the day shift today and got home around 3:30. It was so nice to have dinner together for a change.

I have a bead order for a lanyard. I will need to stop at Michaels or Joann's and get the badge hooks.

I watched last night's American Idol that I recorded from last night. I thought the guy singers have done better in past shows. It could be because I think the music from the 80's suck. Next week they are supposed to do Beatles music. I love the beatles!! The guy with the dreadlocks is starting to gain my attention. He is now in my top 3. I will be recording the ladies tonight.

2008 Day Sixty Five

I've been spending the afternoon doing housework, paying bills and watching television. Exciting life hu? I postponed my visit to the bank till Friday.

M just called and he is winging his way home from Bellevue. Tomorrow he is working the day shift, so we can actually have dinner together. That will be nice.

I watched an episode of Jericho that I recorded. I wish now that I had recorded all of them. I guess I will catch them on the reruns. American Idol is tonight. I wonder who will get booted off this week.

Not much else going on today. Hope everyone is having an excellent day.

2008 Day Sixty Four

My cell phone rang at work, which is a surprise because I do not get that many calls. It was Rings n Things saying I had won a door prize yesterday.

After work I stopped at the Postal Annex and opened up a post office box for the businesses. Now someone can accept my packages so UPS doesn't have to leave them at my back door.

I drove out to the Rings n Things warehouse and picked up my prize which was $200 worth of beautiful crystals. What a great gift.

I stopped by the library and mailed our ballots. I voted no to a bond increase. Now that I am a home owner I vote no on anything that will raise my property taxes.

M flies over to Bellevue for the day tomorrow. It actually snowed today. It didn't stick and it was mostly like snain. Definitely heading for Spring. Now the real crazy weather begins. At least we don't have to deal with hurricanes and tornadoes, just rain, wind and volcanoes.

2008 Day Sixty Three

Went to the Rings n Things Bead Tour this morning. Lots of people were there. And there were lots and lots of beads to choose from. I bought among other things 3 grab bags that they were selling for $5.00 each. I was surprised once I got home and opened them there was about $40.00 worth of beads in each bag. Very cool.

Stopped at Staples on my way home and bought some monitor screen wipes. I also stopped at Safeway and bought what we needed for the week.

Before I left for the bead Tour I had put a pot roast in the crock pot. This afternoon it made one of the best dinners we have had in a long time. The meat just fell apart. I always use a can of cream of mushroom soup with a couple of Tbsp's of brown gravy mix. It makes the best gravy. So its shredded pot roast burritos for tomorrow.

The plan this week is to rent a post office box for the businesses. Tuesday I am going to meet with Robyn at the bank.

The weather is staying very Spring-like again today. They are calling for snow on Tuesday, but it also said it was going to 45 degrees - so how much snow do you think will we get? I hope none.

2008 Day Sixty Two

It was a great day. M and I started the day out very nicely. Then I went and met Lorna and Angie at the Spokane Art School where they were holding a Treasures Swap. I bought some really nice beads there. From there I took them to the bead shop I found last week. Bought alot of really fun beads. We stopped and had lunch at Taco Bell. We decided to go up to Lorna's house and bead and talk. Very fun. We are meeting up again tomorrow for the Bead Trade Show out at the Mirabeau Hotel in the valley. Lorna is talking about having a Crafts Open House in April.

I stopped at Taco Time and bought M's lunch and took it to him. I visited him for awhile and then headed for home.

We did not get the rain they were prediciting. It stayed sunny but cool most of the day. Feels like early Spring.

Watched the latest episode of Gone Country and Celebrity Apprentice. Bobby Brown is surprising everyone, including me. Trace Adkins is hanging in there on the Apprentice. His strong quiet presence has impressed me.