Monday's X Factor

Normally Monday blogging means a weekend recap, but we're riding the tail winds of the A-Z Blog Challenge this week so I'm going to do a bit of both here today. It's a little bit long but that's pretty much how I roll. 

We had a fairly quiet weekend. I guess? Towards the end of last week this happened-

They have been begging to get in the water since they arrived mid-January, and this week we finally said yes. It was a warm (relatively speaking) sunny day with lake temps a balmy 70 degrees, but kids do not care. 

I asked hubs if he was going to put on his swim suit and he said no. If they needed help he'd jump in in his clothes. Our lake will be 80 by sometime in May so we'll wait thank you very much. It will be like bath water as the days get longer. 

This was a short swim, but a happy one. Summer is almost here-whoohoo! 

And now for the weekend recap with Holly (Pink Lady Blog) and Sarah (Sunshine and Books)-

Friday the 'kids' closed on their new home. So exciting! I had the grands that morning while mom and dad went to sign papers and make it all official. Hubs went too because he was their realtor. My daughter had arranged to have the upstairs carpet cleaned right after the closing (the lower level has wood floors), so she and the hubs (mine, not hers-hers had to get back to work) went straight to the house and I brought the kids over right after. 

They had so much fun exploring every nook and cranny and running around the backyard. Their furniture has been in storage since before they moved to England and won't be delivered until later this week, but they're on the home stretch now.

My son-in-law's dad brought his truck to our house so we could load up a sofa the kids are taking. They wanted it cleaned along with the rugs, and of course by 'we' I mean I held the door and hubs and my daughter's father-in-law did the heavy lifting.  My son-in-law was conveniently back at work by this time lol. I had all the kids in my daughter's van, plus two additional chairs they're also taking from us.

Nothing about moving is easy. 

We dropped the furniture then hubs had to drop off some of the close paperwork at his office. Before he left we took the kids to Firehouse Subs for lunch and to get them out of the empty house and away from the carpet cleaning. 

The boys had baseball that evening followed by a movie night at their church so once my son-in-law was home he managed that. Daughter1 and little Miss stayed here for bath and bedtime and hubs and I took ourselves to our favorite wine bar to relax. Whew. We ordered a charcuterie for dinner and ran into some friends there which is always fun. 

No pictures of any of it but that's just how the weekend went. 

Saturday hubs was 'working' the boat show. He and another realtor had a booth at the local show so that was his day. The kids were at baseball because every day is baseball, then my son-in-law's sister, along with his parents, went to see the new house. His dad had seen it that morning when he was moving the couch, but his mom hadn't been inside. They all went back to the in-law's lake house for dinner. 

Here's the thing...you think one day you'll be done moving furniture for your kids, but I'm here to tell you that's not necessarily so. Carry on. 

I had my whole house and the entire afternoon to myself. I cannot remember the last time that happened, but it's been a very long while. I was out running errands all morning, but spent the afternoon catching up on my blog and some HGTV and maybe a short nap. I feel like I should have been doing something productive, but we're all pooped here.  

Wait. I did six loads of laundry. That's not nothing. 

Saturday night hubs and I shared a frozen pizza and watched a movie we'd seen before, but not in a long long time-Begin Again with Keira Knightly and Mark Ruffalo. It's cute. 

On Sunday hubs was back at the marina for another day at the boat show, and I went to church with the kids, then out to breakfast/lunch with them right after, then a quick grocery run, then home to an iced coffee on the porch. The pollen is mostly under control now so I put the cushions out on the upper deck and sat outside all afternoon. 

This is pretty much where you'll find me every Sunday afternoon from now until Christmas. Sunday nights too...

Now, about that A-Z challenge and today's letter-X.  Always a tough one, but let's see what we can come up with...

X is for Xerox

'to copy on a a xerographic copier' 

The first word that popped into my head was xerox. As in xerox machine. Does anyone still use this phrasing? I mean other than people who work for the company with that same name? I think now we use the word copy, but there was a time when xerox was the preferred term. These days we print, right? 

Anyway, it got me thinking about some of the things from 'my day' that were common, but are not so common anymore. 

Film developing. I think amongst professional photographers this is still a thing, but most people now are snapping pictures on their phone. Which is great, but definitely lacks the excitement of waiting two whole weeks to get your pictures back from the developer, only to discover you had your thumb on the corner of the lens. That's how you learned-ha! 

Banking. I don't know about you, but I avoid going in to the bank if I can possibly help it. When I was growing up you had to physically take your check to the bank to cash it. No such thing as an ATM or mobile deposit. No mobile phones for one thing, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole right now. 

I loved going to the local bank with my momma. It seemed like a place I'd enjoy working. It was quiet and tastefully decorated and it felt important. If you didn't get to the bank by Friday afternoon you were not going to have any cash to spend over the weekend, so banks were a happening place. 

Encyclopedias. We had a whole set on a bookshelf in our den, and we really did look things up in them.  Kind of like the Internet before the Internet. We liked just reading them too because you learned things. At the end of every year the encyclopedia publisher sent out a yearbook with highlights of events from the year that was ending. 

Sometimes you would have a school assignment requiring research and you would have to go to the library and look in a different encyclopedia to see if it added anything yours missed. I'm not sure which set we had but I want to say Encyclopedia Americana. I imagine my parents bought them from someone selling them door-to-door, which was not unusual at all in the 1970's. 

Memorizing phone numbers. Not gonna lie, I'm kind of glad I don't have to do this one anymore. 

Busy signals. Speaking of phones...this one I do sort of miss. You'd call a friend on the house phone (because that was the only phone game in town) and if they were on the phone talking to someone else you would get a busy signal. 

It was super annoying to get a busy signal just fyi. 

If you got a busy signal, you'd hang up and then immediately redial the number. If it was still busy you'd call again. And again and again and then you'd wonder who in the world they could be talking to and you might just give up and talk to them at school in person the next day. 

I don't think we appreciated being unavailable until we entered the era of being available 24/7 365 days of the year. 

Smoking sections. It sounds crazy to us now, but everywhere you went had a smoking section. Airports, airplanes! restaurants, and my high school, although I'm not sure that one was official. Seriously though, we used to get on an airplane and be seated in row 12 and the smoking section might start at row 13 so yeah. Not great if you were a non-smoker. 

In my high school C-wing was where everyone smoked. And the lavatories too. Do we still use that word? If you weren't a smoker you avoided C-wing. I know some high schools had parents sign a permission slip allowing their kid to smoke but I don't remember that being the case at my school. I've never been a smoker. 

The corner mailbox. We had one about a block and a half from our house and we loved being sent to the mailbox to mail a letter. Speaking of uncommon things...letters. Do you still write them? 

Postcards. It was fun to travel and mail a postcard back home or to a friend or your grandparents, and it was fun to be on the receiving end too. Of course there are still postcards available, but most people text a picture or message instead of bothering to buy a postcard, buy a stamp, and find a place to mail one when they're away from home. 

Communal viewing. We never watched anything alone. Most families had one television set, wall phones in the communal spaces in their homes, and no computers. We chose a program everyone could watch and then we all settled in to watch it together. Family togetherness. It was nice. 

"I remember, I remember 

The house where I was born, 

The little window where the sun

Came peeping in at morn..."

Thomas Hood, from I Remember, I Remember

Back In The Day

As part of the A-Z Blog Challenge this year, I'm trying to capture a little bit of what my life was like growing up, and record it here for my grands to read someday. Will they want to? Hmmm...we'll see. I  know I'd like to know more about my grandmother's childhood and maybe they will too.  

We all know the world has changed but writing it down forces me to acknowledge just how much. Today we're headed back to school. 

S is for School Days

Back in the day I walked to elementary school. That would be grades K-6, but Kindergarten was half- day and included a nap/rest. Those were the days-ha! The walk was about 7 blocks through the neighborhood and I always had my sister with me, along with our across the street neighbors and assorted other friends we collected en route. The kids in our neighborhood were tight and while we've all gone many different directions the ties from those long ago days still bind. 

As children we were taught not to talk to strangers, and to absolutely never get in a car with strangers, but for the most part there were no strangers, only neighbors. There was no scary internet or 24/7 news alerting parents to every awful thing out there, so a warning seemed sufficient. 

When I was in the first grade my friend and I were walking home for lunch, and a boy in my class was swinging his jacket overhead. The zipper caught me in the top of my head and I burst into tears and started running for home with blood gushing from the wound. When a woman working in her yard saw me racing by she ran to get her car keys and drive me the last two blocks. I told her no, I wasn't allowed to ride with strangers. 

Apparently my mama taught me well. 

Most kids had a mother at home, and we had a lunch/recess break from 12-1 every day. We walked home for lunch then went back for the remainder of the afternoon. This is such a happy memory for me. My mom would have lunch waiting at the kitchen table and she read aloud to us while we ate. In the winter there was often grilled cheese and tomato soup and to this day that meal whispers comfort to me. If it was raining she would drive us to school, but even then we often walked carrying an umbrella, wearing our galoshes with the buckles across the front. I think it was kind of fun to walk to school in the rain, and we lived for snow days which were rare and golden. 

We said the pledge of allegiance every single morning and I think sang a patriotic song right after too.  We memorized math facts, did book reports, and had classroom spelling bees while lined up all along the radiator. We learned about our nations presidents and patriots, how a bill became a law, and the birth of a nation. I don't think our parents worried about what they were teaching because it was the basics without a lot of fluff. Reading, writing, arithmetic, science and American history. 

We were not immersed in diversity training, gender identity issues, issues of any kind really. We were kids and the weight of the world was not on our shoulders at age 10. I'm not saying there weren't kids who struggled with various things, just that school was not the place they were dealt with. We respected our elders, and anyone who chose otherwise ended up in the principal's office. 

Nobody wanted to end up there. 

We didn't have back packs three times our size, but we did carry our books in our arms, or strapped together, or in a satchel. At the start of each new school year in homes throughout the neighborhood, an evening was  spent cutting apart brown paper grocery sacks and turning them into book covers. 

Even though we ate lunch at home we still liked to choose a lunchbox. There were just a handful of bus riders in our school and they ate their lunch brought from home in the cafeteria/auditorium/gymnasium. Or, as it was known then, the multipurpose room. If your mom needed you to stay for lunch once in a while she could request that. We thought it was fun, bringing a packed lunch and buying those little cartons of milk. We were pretty easy to please in 1970-something. 

There was softball out back and teeter-totters where you were occasionally bounced off by an overly aggressive counterpart, or just plain dropped when someone jumped off with no warning. You remember these things. There was dodge ball in the big circle painted on the blacktop and more often than not somebody cried. Sometimes kids were too rough or mean-spirited, but not all life lessons are learned in a classroom. We had to pass a physical fitness test in gym class which included running what felt like a mile, but might not have been that far. We had big field days at the end of each year where we played games and ate orange popsicles on the playground. Happy days. Carefree days. Innocence. 

Grades 7 and 8 aka junior high meant leaving the cozy environs of our neighborhood school and riding a bus for the first time. Our circles expanded to include kids from several other elementary schools in the area too, so there were new friends and new experiences. We had lockers and class schedules and wore uniforms for gym. They were the ugliest item of clothing ever created, and I dare you to prove me wrong. We had to shower too. At school. Nobody liked that and I'm guessing the feeling holds true today. Although I can't imagine kids shower after gym class in the year 2021, do they? 

Junior High meant weekends at the roller rink where our parents pulled up to the curb out front and dropped us off on a Saturday afternoon or a Friday evening. Can parents today even imagine that? There were boy-girl dances and varying levels of maturity and daring which will always be true of 7th graders the world over. 

Grades 9-12 meant high school and riding the bus a little bit further down the road. As an adult I've lived in towns with less people than my highschool, with over 900 kids in my grade alone. Students sorted themselves into groups...athletes, brainiacs, band folks, theatre people, stoners. You had to find a place to belong in this sea of faces and it wasn't always easy, but it was possible. 

Academically this was a competitive high school and I always cared about my grades, always looked to the future and what I wanted to be. There were all the usual activities that revolved around sporting events, musical productions, the prom, spirit boosters, etc. along with a lot of academic opportunities too. We took a class called typing and who knew that would turn out to be so incredibly useful?

Like every decade, there were many things happening on the political scene, and lots of problems in the wider world too. While we certainly talked/debated these things within the classroom setting and around the dinner table, I don't think we felt it was our responsibility to fix them, or hold a well-formed stated opinion about everything under the sun, while still teenagers. Our job was to go to school, do our homework, study hard, navigate relationships, push the limits but still mind our parents, sleep, eat, have fun, and set goals for the future, both the immediate and the long term. 

The world was less known to us than it is to kids today. It didn't come to us, and if we wanted to see it and know it we read about it in books. Or traveled, although most families we knew didn't travel outside the US the way people do today. 

Looking back I so appreciate the gift of growing up in a world pre-internet. Sure there was peer pressure, but the in-person kind, not the sort teenagers have today where perfect strangers weigh in on your clothes, your hair, your weight, your opinions. 

Growing up I never viewed adults as my equal, nor did my friends. There was a clear line between the adults of this world and the children, and while I was as close as can be to my mama as a teenager, I would never have defined her as my friend. She was my mom and that meant something. It was a relief actually. My mom could take the long view on things I didn't yet have the vision to see, know, or understand. I'm sure my 17 year old self would have said I was all grown up, but at 17 you don't know what you don't know. 

I feel tremendous gratitude for parents who loved me, taught me to treat those older than me with respect, to say please, thank you, I'm sorry. Who set boundaries and made rules I'm sure my siblings and I thought were too strict and completely unnecessary, but in reality sheltered us from harm, kept us healthy, and in many instances stopped us from making regrettable decisions because we heard their voices in our head. 

I sometimes hear them still. 

Rabbit Ears

This week's Hodgepodge questions linked here

In thinking about my theme for this year's A-Z Blog Challenge I decided it would be fun to describe some of what life looked like in my childhood, how those same things looked in my children's growing up years, and to see how that compares with life today in my grandchildren's childhood. 

I'm going to start with television because that's the first thing that came to mind. And since the line between TVs and computers has gone completely blurry I'll likely touch on that as well. 

K is for When I Was A Kid

When I was a child the television programs we enjoyed aired once a week or, in the case of holiday specials, once a year. You snooze you lose, something like that. 

My sister and I couldn't wait to get up on Saturday mornings and watch our favorite cartoons...Bugs, Foghorn Leghorn, The Road Runner, Johnny Quest. When the holidays rolled in we would count the days until Rudolph, The Grinch, and Frosty were mentioned in the TV guide. 

fyi-the TV guide was not something you scrolled through on your television screen because in 1960-something there was no scrolling. The TV guide was an actual magazine you held in your hand and looked through to find what programs were airing when. If you didn't subscribe to the TV guide you could also find program listings in the local paper. 

Our family did eventually have a color television set, but our first TV was black and white, and we owned just one. Uno. Singular. For the whole entire house. Where six people of varying ages and interests lived. In fact most families we knew owned just one and that was fine. We made it work. 

Once upon a time TV viewing was a family activity, and a favorite was everyone piling on the couch to watch The Wonderful World of Disney together on Sunday evenings. We got three basic channels, plus PBS. Later we added what was then called UHF which gave us I think two additional channels, and that was thrilling. For real. 

In order to change the channels you had to get up, walk over to the tv, and physically turn a knob. Sometimes we would argue over who was going to get up and change the channel. For the record if kids and parents were watching together it was never the parents-ha! 

The televisions of my childhood had antennas, or rabbit ears as they were known. When you changed the channel you would almost alway have to jiggle the antenna while someone watching from the couch would shout instructions...'a little more, no wait! back to the left!, hold it right there!, no wait!, okay that's good"

Everyday life before technology was king. 

I remember when my parents put in central air one of the 'perks' was the company they bought from gave a small TV as a thank you for your business. I mostly remember that little tiny TV living in my brother's bedroom, but I guess the only boy in a houseful of sisters needed his own TV. He would set it on a chair beside his bed to watch, and sometimes my sisters and I would all go into his tiny room and sit around that tiny TV. Good times! 

The local news aired once a day, around suppertime, followed by the national news. We read newspapers for more in-depth coverage of the day's happenings and everyone was less cranky-ha! There were some afternoon talk shows but they were mostly in the entertainment lane as opposed to politics and social commentary. 

No reality programming unless it was in the form of nature, no real housewives, Kardashians, or people spilling family secrets for all the world to see. There were daytime soaps which I suppose were the precursor to the real-life soaps we see today. Along came Phil and Oprah and later Jerry and everybody in everybody's business which seemed relatively harmless initially, but it's like we're on steroids now.  

As a teenager I babysat pretty regularly and late night weekends I would watch Don Kirschner's Rock Concert or Soul Train. Because those were the choices. For most of my childhood stations signed off the air at midnight. Yup. No TV. People slept or didn't sleep but they didn't watch TV at 3 a.m. or scroll their phone screens because phones were like televisions. One or two per family and plugged in to the wall.  In 1970-something screens were for windows, the glass kind not the computer kind. 

Language is complicated. 

In the early days of married life hubs and I had a console TV. These were a huge thing in the 1980's. Literally huge. As in a great big piece of furniture you decorated around. Still plugged in to the wall, but a bigger picture and better clarity than what we'd grown up with. Nothing like we have today but a big deal to poor newlyweds.  

We never put televisions in our children's bedrooms, but we did have more than one TV in the house. My kids grew up in the age of VHS tapes, Blockbuster rentals on Friday nights, and the excitement of purchasing a device that could rewind those videos faster than your VHS player because if you returned a VHS tape un-rewound you were fined. 

When we moved to the UK we owned one DVD. We brought our VHS player with us because we had no idea and also because in late 2003 technology hadn't sped up to supersonic speed. But speed up it did and now we watch television on devices we hold in our hands. 

Parents walk a daily tightrope in trying to limit the limitless, We know more, which is both good and awful, but we can't put the genie back in the bottle and most days don't really want to.  

We bought our first home computer when our girls were in elementary school. We didn't know what we had and they mostly painted and played games we purchased from actual stores. Oregon Trail and Math Blaster were two favorites. We might have owned four games? Life did not revolve around the computer and we had just one for the family, in a shared space so no secrets. They had computer lab in school each week and became adept at typing. 

I think it was a year or so after we arrived in England that my girls set up My Space accounts. They spent a lot of time choosing the music that would play when someone logged on and also ranking friends. Have mercy. When Facebook rolled in you needed a college email address to have an account, and then people found ways around that, and before you knew it the world discovered twelve year old children chatting with 40-year old men who were up to no good. Voila! Pandora's Box was open for all the world to see. 

The good news is that while the box is full of garbage it's also full of treasure. In the age of grandparenting I am so very thankful for how far we've come. My grands are many thousands of miles away, yet most evenings we talk and they show me things and I watch them play and read all from the comfort of my kitchen on the other side of the world. Facetime connects us and I appreciate that more than I can say. 

As I watch my daughter be a mother to her sons I see a thoughtful parent. One who is intentional in what she allows into her home via television, ipads, or the phone screen. I think her generation sees technology from a helpful vantage point. They appreciate the connection and support that can be found there, but they've also seen what too much has wrought, and they're trying to strike a balance. 

I feel certain one day I'll be chatting with my grandsons via a hologram. Or maybe some whiz kid will finally figure out how to 'beam me up Scotty'. 

Until then I write about my life here, send greeting cards and letters the old-fashioned way, and break into a smile every single time their little boy faces fill my screen. 

In The Middle Of The Hodgepodge

Yup. Still here. Still smack dab in the middle of a strange season, still at that thing we know and love called The Wednesday Hodgepodge. If you've answered this week's questions add your link at the end of my post. Then be a good neighbor and leave a comment for the blogger linking before you since that's what good neighbors do. Here we go-

1. August 12th is National Middle Child Day...are you a middle child? If not, where in your family do you fall in terms of birth order? Do you hold true to the typical characteristics of oldest-middle-youngest-only child? (A quick list can be found here) Elaborate.

Am I a middle child? Sort of. What's the middle of four? I'm the third child, but the middle daughter so I think that qualifies. 

As far as holding true to the characteristics of the middle born, I'd say mostly yes. I'm for sure a peacemaker which seems to be a trait common to all the lists I checked. I'm also independent, make friends easily, know the importance of alone time, and can sometimes be a tad melodramatic. I know how to negotiate and compromise, but will add that I cannot recall ever feeling left out in terms of my family. 

2. Tell us about a time you felt like (or you actually were) in the middle of nowhere.

I read something a journalist I follow (Salena Zito) said when reporting on the last election and it was this-

"...In my estimation, there is no patch of geography in this country that is the 'middle of nowwhere'. This is America; everywhere is the middle of somewhere." 

It was an interesting reflection on how the people living in the middle of America, in a multitude of ways, are regularly and unfairly maligned as being 'less than' the people who reside in our large coastal cities. 

Anyway, back to the question...there have been quite a few places but probably standing in the middle of the moors back in 2007 tops the list.  

It seemed like hubs and I might be the only two people on earth. 

3. What's something you're smack in the middle of currently?

Besides a pandemic? Wedding planning. The two live side by side in 2020. 

4. What's a food you love to eat that has something delicious in the middle?

The first thing that popped into my head was an ice cream sandwich so I'll go with that. A jelly donut would be a close second. 

5. Share a memory from your middle school days, or junior high if that's what your school dubbed kids somewhere between grades 6-8.

Back in the day we called it Junior High, and in our town that meant grades 7-8. In grade 6 you were still in the elementary school and you were king. Grade 7 brought you back down to earth. I disliked grade 7, but cannot tell you precisely why. Everything was awkward and confusing. Somehow the world was right side up again by the time grade 8 rolled around. 

Thankfully my mom did not include a bunch of pictures from that era in the scrapbook she made me, but here's one for you...

Appropriately I am in the middle. The one in the pink mini skirt with legs the size of toothpicks. 

6. Insert your own random thought here.

I have a collection of random thoughts (in my head) that I planned to compile into a blog post on Monday, but then Monday came and went and now here it is Wednesday and I still haven't gotten to it. I'm thinking Thursday is the day, so my random thought currently is I don't have a single random thought today, but if you pop back here tomorrow I'll have more than a few. 

Life, time, and blogging are all a little wacky in the age of Corona. 

Accessorizing the Hodgepodge

Welcome to the Wednesday Hodgepodge, last one in January which is a little hard to fathom but here we are. If you've answered this week's questions add your link at the end of my post, then race over to your neighbor's and leave a comment there.

1. Speaking of endings....at your wit's end, at loose ends, a dead end, burn the candle at both ends, all's well that end's well, or no end in sight...which 'end' phrase might best be applied to your life lately? Explain.

Initially I was going to say none of these apply right now, but then I remembered using the expression, 'all's well that end's well' on my blog not too long ago. It was in reference to finding something that wasn't where I thought it would be and I wrote about it here (Friday Five Ish)

2. What was a must have accessory when you were growing up? Did you own one? If so tell us what you remember about it.

There were many, but one of the first things that came to mind was a piece of 'jewelry' called a choker. Choker was a fancy, somewhat macabre name for a ribbon around your neck, and usually it had a stone or jewel or maybe beading of some sort on it. I did have one, a few I think. Also, granny boots. I got a pair in black for my thirteenth birthday and I loved them. Oh, and Dr. Scholls sandals. Everybody had a pair, kind of like in my girl's day everybody shuffled around in those Addidas slides. Well in the 1970's we clunked around in very trendy Dr. Scholls. Mine were red btw. 

3. Something that made you smile yesterday?

Sunshine and the bright blue January sky. 

Also a long leisurely phone chat with my Daughter2 who'd enjoyed a fun weekend away and wanted to tell me all about it. 

4. January 30th is National Croissant Day. Do you like croissants? Sweet or savory? We're having chicken salad for lunch...would you rather have yours served on a croissant, a wrap, a bagel, bread, or a roll of some sort?

I love a croissant. I'll have mine at a cafe in France s'il vous plait. I like plain, chocolate, or one topped with something savory like chicken salad or ham and cheese. If I were having chicken salad for lunch today I'd love it on a croissant, but it is more likely to be served on bread or just lettuce in my kitchen. 

5. Sum up your January in fifteen words or less.

Her gentle snowfall, all that sunshine, and especially her slower pace were neccessary and glorious. 

6.  Insert your own random thought here.

Did you make new year's resolutions? How's it going one month in? What's one thing you've resolved NOT to do in 2018? 




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Unimportant Stuff I Forgot To Tell You

Sometimes I'll have a thought and say to myself, 'Oh that's something I might mention on my blog', and then I'll jot it down in the notes section of my phone so I don't forget about it.

Then I forget about it.

Until sometime later (much much later) when I return to my notes to jot down something important, like furniture measurements, paint colors, the boat engine serial number (yeah, that's a real thing), and then I'll say to myself, 'Shoot. I never blogged about that.'

The other scenario that happens a little too often when you're me is you jot down that thing you might mention on your blog, and you do remember it's in your notes, but when you look at your notes a quick day later you scratch your head and wonder what in the world you meant when you wrote 'Billy hero' Hmmm???

Yeah, that's also a thing in my notes.

I did eventually remember that hubs and I were having dinner with Daughter1 and she piped up with, 'Hey, they're playing Billy Don't Be A Hero', and I thought Wow! That's some fine parenting we've done there where my 20-something daughter hears a few notes of a somewhat obscure 70's song over the noisy din of a restaurant and recognizes it by name.

I guess I thought someone needed to know.

The same sort of thing happens with photos too. I recently ran across this one while scrolling through a trillion photos to find that one picture of my living room rug snapped fourteen months ago just before it was rolled up and loaded into a storage container.

It's a ginormous peach in case you're unsure. ahem.

Officially it's dubbed The Peachoid and holds a million gallons of water, but it's also a much photographed landmark around these parts. If you watch House of Cards you may have heard mention of it there. Daughter2 and I trekked to the outlets in this little town a while back, and had to stop and take a picture for my blog.

Then I forgot I took the picture, but it's no less peachy now than it would have been several weeks ago. Actual South Carolina peaches are super delish.

That same day we drove past an adorable one room school house. Daughter2 was up for hiking across a great big field beside the Interstate to get a closer look and...you guessed it...a picture for my blog.

It was built in 1880, and is one of the few remaining one room school houses in the state. You can't be a teacher and pass by without a picture, can you? 

We'd practically planned our shopping trip around where we'd go for lunch because that's kind of how I roll, but also because every time we travel the Interstate I note the sign declaring Daddy Joe's a 'Southern Living Magazine Favorite'. 

In my book that makes it worthy of a stop, and we both agreed it was. We never miss a chance to have great BBQ. 

And now I think that's all the unimportant stuff I meant to tell you but forgot. I will add a link here for anyone with a substandard education in 70's music. You're welcome. 

Appreciating the Hodgepodge

Welcome back to the Hodgepodge friends..it's nice to be back on the blog. I have so much to catch up on here, both reading and writing. Let's get started. Add your link at the end of my post IF you've answered today's questions. Happy Wednesday!

1. What's a phrase your mother often said to you? If you're a parent, is this something you now say to your own children?

'Be careful.'  Worry is something that must be tamed in a mother's DNA. 

When I say this to my own girls (and I do) they like to reply back with, 'Thanks mom..good thing you reminded us of that because we were planning to be completely reckless.' 

They think they're hilarious. 

2. What is a scent you associate with your mother or your childhood home?

Chocolate sugar-y goodness. I think my mother will be absolutely fine with that answer. She is a wonderful baker, her Christmas cookies are legendary and her homemade brownies and cakes world class, so definitely the scent of something wonderful in the oven. 

3. What's an activity you remember always doing with your mother (or someone who was a mother figure in your life)?

Cooking and baking would be the obvious answer, and I so appreciate my mother's skill there and the fact that she passed her love of home and hearth on to me. The thing that popped into my mind though, was something completely different-paperdolls. Can you still buy paperdolls? My sister and I absolutely loved them, and spent hours playing with ours. That was probably one of my favorite things to do growing up.  

Some of the paperdolls came with the kind of clothes you punched out of the page, but the best kind were the ones you cut out yourself.  They had tabs to hold them in place when you folded them over the doll. My mom didn't actually play paperdolls with us, but she helped us cut out the clothes and we loved that so much. I have such a clear picture in my head of the three of us at the kitchen table chatting as we worked. My mom is very creative with a bit of the artist in her, so she was never sloppy, and she never ever ever cut the tabs off the shoulders, which made them unwearable. I quite often snipped off the tab. 

I feel like so many people reading won't have a clue what I'm talking about, but if you loved paperdolls you'll understand. 

4. Flared jeans, maxi dresses, and jumpsuits are 70's fashion trends back this spring. Are you on board? Which trend would you be most inclined to try? For the men...flared corduroys, wide-collared shirts, and floral prints...what say you?

I will not be wearing any sort of jumpsuit, that much is for certain. I think that might have been a cute look for me back in the 70's, but not in the 00's. ahem. 

While I like the idea of a maxi dress and have tried to make it work, it just doesn't. I do love them on my daughter though. I would probably wear a flared jean, not a super wide crazy flare but a small flare would be okay.  

I'm not keen on any of those man styles. I think then and now, 70's fashion suited women more so than men. 

5. May 6th is Teacher Appreciation Day and also Nurse Appreciation Day. Is there a nurse or teacher you have especially appreciated along the way? Tell us why?

I've been fortunate to have so many wonderful teachers all throughout my schooling, but the teacher I most appreciate right now would be my Daughter2. I got to spend a few hours volunteering in her room last week, and I'm so impressed with her skill in the classroom.

She has such a wonderful way with her students, and strikes precisely the right balance between loving and firm. I know I'm her mother, but seriously the girl's got skilz! 

6. If I came by your house, what would I find on your frig door?

Not a thing. We're selling our house and have to pretend nobody lives here. Even if we weren't selling I wouldn't have much there. I like the minimalist thing when it comes to refrigerators. When my house wasn't for sale the only things on my frig were photos of the three children we support through World Vision and Compassion. Their photos are a reminder for me to write them letters and keep them in my prayers.  

7. Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana made her royal entrance on Saturday, May 2nd. On a scale of 1-10, how much attention did you give to all the news coverage? 1=Who's Charlotte? 10=sat glued to the telly, cuppa in hand.

I'm right up there in the 8 or 9 range, and excited to have a girl in the mix. Those cheeks! Completely adorable. I think her name is lovely too.  I had a full day on Saturday, so could not sit around in my pjs watching the telly, but I did check for updates on Twitter. 

Also, let's discuss Kate's hair because it's pretty much perfection. I wish her hair team could do my hair now and then. Remember the old Breck commercials? Kate could totally be a Breck girl.  Am I dating myself here today? Regardless, I think she handles all the attention, scrutiny, and criticism with a lot of grace. 

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

So here's a fun thing. I posted that picture (above) of my Daughter2 on Facebook earlier this week and her long ago fifth grade teacher left this photo in the comments-

She had a picture of my daughter taken in her fifth grade classroom in almost the same pose! I know! And that face! Pure sweetness with just a hint of mischief in the eyes. I remember that adorable little blouse too with it's dainty embroidered flowers. 

Be still my heart. 

Seriously, I might have to go lie down now because it's all too much.

Also, how amazing is it that her fifth grade teacher could put her hands on this very photo taken fifteen years ago?! Miss S. taught both my girls in the fifth grade and we all adored and appreciated her. 

Happy Teacher Appreciation Day Ms. S! 
This picture made my day, and I'm sure Daughter2's as well. 

Another summer day...

...has come and gone away...

I've really enjoyed the month of July. We've spent most of the month at home, lingering over our weekend morning coffee, watching the hummingbirds who dine at our feeder and the family of deer who play on our back hillside, savoring the beauty of our big blooming hostas and hydrangeas, sharing a casual BBQ with the neighbors, sitting around the firepit and relishing weather that permits a fire in the middle of summer, indulging in good books or an afternoon nap....

This got me to thinking about what it was I loved about summers as a child.  Here's a few-

Going to the neighborhood swim club with my sister. Sometimes my mom would drive us, but oftentimes we'd ride our bicycles the two miles there and the two miles back. Kids were supposed to leave the lounge chairs for the adults, so we'd spread our beach towels out on the grassy hillside and spend hours in the pool. When the whistle sadly blew indicating adult swim we'd run freezing to our towels and lay in the warm sun to dry off. We'd always bring money for the snack bar and figuring out what to buy was a big decision. One of our favorite treats was a frozen Milky Way bar, but other times we'd get french fries or some kind of candy.

Making homemade ice cream in the garage. I can picture so clearly my dad setting up the freezer. He would cover the floor underneath with newspaper, then add ice and salt and begin churning. My brother always had to help with the churning, and when it would begin to get thick my sister and I were recruited to sit on top of the freezer to keep it from 'walking'. I loved getting that first look into the container. My dad would lift the lid and slowly pull the paddle from inside. He'd let us have a swipe of the just churned ice cream from the paddle, and we'd look forward to dessert all through dinner.

The hours between dinner and dark. The air wouldn't be quite so hot, and we would play outside until my mom called us in. Sometimes we'd meet up with a bunch of the neighborhood kids for giant games of hide and seek or kick the can or ghost in the graveyard. We'd divide up into teams and each team would have some big and some little. When we played kick the can I remember each team would come up with code words to shout out and let someone else on your team know when it was safe to run in for the kick. Straaaaaaawberry meant stay in your hiding place.

Going barefoot. If we weren't playing with the neighbors we might ask my mom for an old mayonnaise jar so we could catch lightning bugs. She'd poke holes in the lid with the ice pick and we'd run around the backyard trying to capture one.  I loved running barefoot in the grass.  I still like going barefoot. Our feet would get filthy though, and even if we didn't have a full fledged bath, my mom would insist we put our feet in the tub before bed.

The Good Humor Truck. Oh how we'd beg. If it was too close to suppertime we couldn't get ice cream,  but sometimes he'd come while we were having dinner and I remember that feeling of wanting to hurry outside so we wouldn't miss him. There was nothing sadder to a ten year old than missing the ice cream truck.

The smell of charcoal burning. That was the scent of summer back in 1960-something. Everyone had a charcoal grill and there was something so comforting about the idea of families all throughout the neighborhood cooking dinner on their backyard grills. I feel like kids miss that today. In the year 20-something a neighborhood full of charcoal grills is sort of rare.

In the July summers of my childhood there was great value placed on doing nothing. No lists, no 'should bes', no guilt. Instead there were blank time blocks and empty space.

Space where I could lay on the grass and watch the clouds. Space to laugh with my sister. Space to not worry. Space to daydream, imagine, pretend and wonder.

Space to sit on the neighbor's glider and let the juice of a ruby red plum run down my chin. Space for a moment,  to not have a care in the world.

It's Not Too Late Baby Now for Friday Fragments

I don't know if I have enough for a post today, so it's possible my Friday Fragments will actually be fragments.

Does anybody even read blogs after 3 PM on a Friday?
We'll see.

I've gotten serious this week about recording what I'm eating and it's been enlightening. The biggest surprise is how often I mindlessly start to eat something that doesn't seem like much of anything...a small bite of this or that, mostly when I'm cooking, but when you put it all down on paper (or enter it into the iPad app) those meaningless bites of nothing special add up to honest to goodness calories. Calories I'd rather have used elsewhere.

I've been inspired to try some new recipes, because hubs (the man with the metabolism of a teenager) can only eat so much grilled chicken and steamed broccoli. I made this baked crispy hoisin chicken not long ago, and we both loved it. Very spicy, so if you don't like very spicy you'll want to reduce the amount of red pepper in yours. We like very spicy here.

It seems like one or both of my girls are traveling every.single.weekend. and I think I'm getting used to it.

Sort of.

And they've
resigned themselves accepted the mom drill, which is-text me when you're at the airport, text me when you board, text me when you land, and then do it all again on the day of your return flight.

I bet there are times when even Generation Y hates technology.

In other news, the weather forecasters say temps in NYC will reach 50 degrees on Saturday. I do hope this isn't one of those times when they're wrong.

Hubs and I have tickets to see Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, this weekend. I am a huge fan of her music and am really excited to see the show.  Almost as excited as I am about the 50 degree forecast. I mentioned to someone today that we were going to the show, and she hadn't heard of it. When I said it's the Carole King Story, she said, 'Who?'

People!! Come on!! Do 'youngsters' only 15 years younger than me really not know Carole King?

And on that note I'll leave you with one of my all time favorites, and wishes for a happy weekend wherever you are.

Cruising Through the Hodgepodge

Welcome to another edition of the Wednesday Hodgepodge...add a link to your own answers (Hodgepodge posts only please!), and then be all neighborly-like, and visit the bloggers who linked up before you. Here we go-

1. What's the biggest change since your childhood in the way people think or act?

There is in general less respect, not only for those in authority such as teachers, police officers, etc, but also for the average person we encounter as we go about our day. I think we've become quite rude as a society. 

We don't know how to deal with someone who holds a viewpoint counter to our own, so that person must be eviscerated. They must be judged and judged harshly, labeled with the most derogatory terms we can find, and then verbally beaten to a pulp. It does seem to me the more we have talked about 'tolerance' the less 'tolerant' we've become. I feel like there is now much more emphasis on our differences, less celebrating what we as humans share.  

There's no shame. 
In anything.  

Technology is amazing, but has definitely re-shaped the way we interact with one another, not always for the better. There are new ways to communicate, but also new dark anonymous alleys for bullies and pedophiles and other creepy crawlies. I think there's more fear in the world today, which leads to less trust, and consequently planet earth feels a little less friendly than it did when I was young.  

Wow that got heavy.  

On the bright side I'm not wearing polyester or blouses tucked into high waisted jeans anymore either.  

2. The Olympic Biathlon involves cross country skiing broken up with two or four rounds of target shooting. Which part of that would stress you out more? Or would you love them both equally?

I'd like to try the shooting portion of this event, just not in combination with the pressure of a cross country ski race. I've never actually been on cross country skis, but those athletes all seem to fling themselves to the ground once they cross the finish line, so I'm thinking its way harder than it looks!  

3. February is National Canned Food Month...what is your most purchased canned food item? What was in the last can you opened?

I use very little in the way of canned foods. My most purchased item would probably be tuna fish, although I will admit to a love of canned whole green beans. I love fresh green beans too, but I really do like the taste of whole green beans, eaten right out of the can. There are worse things to snack on, right? 

4. What river (anywhere in the world) would you most like to cruise?

I'm not a 'cruiser', but I can handle rivers, so this would likely be the only way I'd ever agree to that sort of holiday.

The Rhine...castles, vineyards, and fairy tale towns in The Netherlands, France, Germany and Switzerland. What's not to love?

5. It's the middle of the night and you can't sleep...what do you do?  Count sheep? Toss and turn? Watch television? Or do you get up and do something productive?

This question reminds me of an e-card I saw the other day-

Well I don't count sheep. If I wake up in the middle of the night I'll start by ripping off the covers, since heat is normally to blame. I'll probably toss and turn a little, and oftentimes  I pray. Prayer has a way of settling me down on the inside so I can sleep. I don't turn on the television in the middle of the night, and I try not to get up and disturb my hubs. Apparently I'm not that great at being quiet-ha! 

6. How important is keeping your cool?

Keeping my cool is really important to me. I'm a pretty even tempered person, and find anger in others very difficult to handle. I think a viewpoint or opinion is heard, and more willingly considered, when it's made in a reasonable tone. Anger wounds. 

7. I've got white stuff on the brain so why not run with it? White lie, wave the white flag, white knuckle it, white wash a situation, or white as a sheet...which phrase could most recently apply to your own life in some way?

Hmmm...none of these really apply to me at the moment, although some of the Olympic events make me think of white knuckling it. I'm so nervous for the athletes, especially those doing the super scary stunts.  Aerial skiing anyone? Or how about the skeleton sled where they hurtle down an icy route head first going 80 mph? 

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

Speaking of the Olympics and treating others with kindness today...did you see where the Russian cross country skier fell in the middle of the race, and broke a ski? He thought he wouldn't be able to finish, but a coach for the Canadian team ran in from the sidelines with an extra ski he'd carried up in case his own skier needed it. The Canadian coach helped the Russian skier put the ski on, and the Russian was able to finish the race. He came in 12th, but was greeted by the Russians as if he'd won.  

How about US hockey star, T.J. Oshie, who when labeled a hero for essentially winning the match against Russia said, "The real heroes wear camo. I'm not one of them." 

Humility from someone in the spotlight is refreshing, isn't it? 
And another person's spontaneous act of kindness makes the whole world smile.   

"How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world." ~William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice

North Meets South

Hubs and I met in college on a beautiful campus in East Tennessee.  The majority of the students there hailed from nearby Tennessee towns and cities, or from some other nearby southern state, yet somehow hubs ended up with a roommate from Long Island NY and a girlfriend from the southern part of New Jersey.

Sometimes life is funny.

Hubs excels at staying in touch with all the many friends he's made throughout his years and travels, but he hadn't seen his college roommate since before we moved to the UK.  I hadn't seen him in 20 years. Friday out of the blue, hubs gave him a call at his home in Long Island and said, 'Hey-why don't you come over tomorrow (Saturday)?'  

So he did.

He brought his lovely girlfriend whom we'd never met but instantly liked, and we sat at our kitchen table laughing at old pictures and catching up.  We threw salmon, shrimp, and veggie kabobs on the grill and lingered at the table for hours as only old friends can.

We dusted off the pool table and decided to go all the way retro- aka we played albums. Yes we have a turntable and a lot of albums.

True story...when we moved to the UK the albums were boxed up and sent to storage. Our girls never paid much attention to them before the move because they had a Walkman and boom boxes and were children of the 90's.

When we moved back to the states hubs decided to set up the turntable. He searched high and low for a replacement needle, and eventually had to order one online from someplace in California.  It may have cost as much as the turntable itself back in the day, but he got the needle. We unwrapped the boxes and stepped back in time, technologically speaking I mean.

Albums tell stories, and connect you to a place in time like few things can. While I love the instantaneous availability of any song-anywhere-anytime, its not the same. There's some love lost when you crack through the packaging on a CD or buy with one click of the keyboard.

On my girls first trip to see us in our new home daughter1 spied the box of albums and it was love at first sight. She asked the hubs, and I quote...'Can I have these when you're dead?'

Uh. I guess?

On Saturday night we learned that while we could still set a needle on a forty year old vinyl with the precision of a watchmaker, we could not for the life of us figure out how to make Wii bowling appear on the flat screen. Technology. Pssht. Where are our kids when we need them???

New batteries helped.
Sometimes we make technology more complicated than it needs to be, but the musical perfection of the original Journey on a slightly scratched record album in the background did make us feel less stupid.

Time presses forward, mysteriously gaining speed with every passing year, and we drag our heels in hopes of slowing it down.  Suddenly a long ago friend is sitting in your kitchen, and for a moment you succeed.

Enough to remember the 'kids' you once were...

 ...and a future that is now, barely brushing your fingertips atop a mountain in East Tennessee.  

Some people call me Maurice....

I've been at my mom's since Tuesday which explains why I've been mostly incommunicado from the blogosphere this week. I faked you out with my Hodgepodge posts, didn't I? Can't let the criminal element know I'm out of town....I'm certain they sit around reading my blog.

Anyway, I'm home now and it's Friday afternoon and I've opened my email inbox and my blog inbox and my facebook and WOW!...a lot happens when you don't check in regularly. I'll catch up this weekend but today I wanted to join Flashback Friday over on Linda's blog. You can read the full prompt here but essentially she's asked about what sorts of fads and expressions were popular when we were growing up. Since it's such a huge topic I've decided to focus on the expressions because I'm kinda all about words here.

I consider myself a child of the 1970's. My birthday and age aren't really a secret since I wrote a post or ten about my BIG day back in September. I'll go ahead and save you the trouble of doing the math and tell you I turned 10 years old in 1970. I'm sure my undying love of music from that decade is all tied up with the fact that it was the soundtrack to my adolescence. And also because it's the best music ever. Period.

When I read the prompt I started thinking about what words and expressions were popular back in the day and there were zillions. It's possible a few of them seeped so deeply into my vocabulary that I continue to periodically throw them out there today, not so much in public but definitely in my own home.

I asked my hubs what expressions he remembered and the first word that popped out of his mouth was, guess what? Psyche! I already wrote about his love of that term here so I won't rehash it now but wow, has it been around for 30+ years? Were the 70's more than three decades ago? Am I old?

C.B. radios were a big thing back in the 70's and came with their own lingo, some of which spilled over into everyday speech...Hey Good Buddy, Smokies (police officers) and especially 'Keep on Truckin' although I am pretty certain I never uttered the words, 'Keep on Truckin'. I mean, C.B. radios were big out on the interstate highways but not so much in the leafy suburbs of southern NJ.

The television show Saturday Night Live debuted in the 70's and many popular expressions made their way into our everyday speech as a result...'Well, ex-cuuuuuuuuuuuuse me!' was huge. Steve Martin used it regularly and thus so did teenage America. He also used the phrase, "Everything copasetic?" and I still like that one.

Another word you heard a lot in the 70's was 'turkey' as in, 'Don't be a turkey.' Insulting, but usually meant in a joking way.

We could still take a joke in the 1970s.

How about the word, 'bummer'? Do people still use this word...besides me I mean? I definitely used this one growing up...'that's a bummer', 'what a bummer', or just plain 'bummer'. Oh, and also ripoff...that was huge. Because when you're a teenager and parents put the kibosh on your fun it felt good to shout, 'What a rip-off!!!' as you were sent to your room.

Another word that was huge back in the day was 'duh' or even better, 'no duh'. Said whenever someone stated the obvious which must have been often because I remember it becoming really tiresome. And it had to be said in a particular tone so that the person on the receiving end would be made to feel like an idiot.

Evidently Charlie Sheen is bringing it back, as in-'I'm a winner, duh.'

He's seriously not right.

No duh.

Speaking of drugs, ahem...when it comes to words the drug culture of the 70's also added to our vocabulary. I have a crystal clear memory of riding somewhere in the car with my sweet mom when Steve Miller's-The Joker started playing on the radio. My mom looked at me, her innocent and naive thirteen year old daughter, and asked, 'What's a toker?' I remember feeling nervous and embarrassed as I did my best to explain. Did I even know?

More importantly, what's 'the Pompatus of Love?' and why didn't she ask me that one. Isn't that the question most people ask when they hear The Joker? I still can't answer.

I could go on and on but I need to book. This was cool-city and I was stoked to be part of Flashback Friday today...it rocked to the max. I hope your weekend is decent and you get to hang and chill with your peeps.

Oh seriously, I never talked like that.

Okay, maybe that last bit might have been me but for the most part while I didn't use a lot of slang I did hear a lot of slang and those words and expressions are all tangled up with my childhood memories.

Have I mentioned my favorite thing about the decade was the music?

Baby Come Back

So it's Wednesday and since I have been in the habit of answering random questions on a meme almost every Wednesday for the past year, and since that meme has now come to an end, and since habits are notoriously hard to break I figured I'd just plow ahead with my own version of the Random Dozen. I will also be continuing my love affair with the run on sentence. And I cannot guarantee there will always be a dozen but there will for sure be random happening here on Wednesdays. I may even come up with a link of my own but I haven't gotten that far yet so today you'll have to settle for just moi...

1. It's chilly here in the Northeast. In fact...gasp... there was frost on my lawn this morning. If you have just stumbled upon my blog you should know that posts I label as random pretty much all start off with a weather report. I like to be helpful like that.

2. Hubs is in Mexico on business this week. There is no frost in sight. Lucky hubs.

3. Today we get to experience what I like to call the post election day furor. yee.haw.

4. Got a shoe box laying around? Why not pack it up and participate in something known as Operation Christmas Child? Samaritan's Purse is a wonderful organization that is out there in the trenches meeting the needs of the world's poor, sick, and suffering on a daily basis. Each November they collect shoe boxes that have been filled with items such as small toys, toiletries, and school supplies and they deliver them to children around the world. Last year over 8 million shoe boxes were donated.

I really encourage you to visit their website and read more. You choose the age range you'd like to shop for and you decide if you want to pack a box for a boy or a girl. They ask for a $7 donation to cover the cost of shipping, which is the equivalent of a couple of drinks at Starbucks just to give it some perspective. Collection this year will be the week of November 15-22nd and you'll find easy to follow step by step instructions on their site. Stop by and bless a hungry, hurting child today...I'm pretty sure you'll find the blessing goes both ways.

5. In other news, I have spent a good part of this week reliving a piece of my Jr. High life. Back in Jr. High my orthodontic bill single handedly funded my doc's lovely oceanside vacation home. I had all the bells and whistles and I hated it with a passion. I could appreciate the need but I despised all things orthodontic. Back in the 'olden days' patients were not instructed to continue wearing those disgusting retainers every once in a while for the remainder of their natural born lives so naturally, I did not.

6. Flash forward a few, ahem, decades and my teeth have once again shifted. Not in a big way but enough so that I notice. So this past Monday I hopped on the Invisalign bandwagon. If you don't know what Invisalign is it is essentially two clear plastic trays that fit tightly to the teeth, similar to what you'd use if you were bleaching. You wear them 24/7 except when you are eating and I will have new trays every two weeks. Over the course of time they will move my teeth back to the place they are supposed to be. The place my parents paid a gazillion dollars to have them sit. I'd show you a picture but they really are invisible.

7. When I first investigated Invisilign my dentist said he'd do the workup and then I could decide if I wanted to go forward with the program. He predicted I'd be in them for 18 months and I gotta say that did not thrill me. However, after Invisalign did their workup my protocol is much shorter. I will wear the bottom tray four months and the top for six. I don't think I'd recommend this system for a kid because you do remove the trays when you eat and if you've ever had a kid in orthodontics then you know how many retainers are lost to a napkin being tossed in the trash with the retainer inside. I'm a grown up so supposedly I will not be accidentally throwing the trays away.

8. On the bright side I predict when this is all over not only will my teeth once again be perfectly straight but I will also be a few pounds lighter. I mean when you have to take those plastic trays out every time you want to eat it kinda cuts down on the snacking. I will also be oh so calm, cool, and collected too because I cannot spend my morning consuming coffee and my afternoon consuming tea without removing the trays so sadly my caffeine consumption is going way down.

9. The first couple of days my teeth throbbed. Miserable. I had a flashback to my whiny Jr. High self. So did my hubs. Actually he didn't know my Jr. High self but he got a glimpse of her this week.

10. Aren't you glad you stopped in here today to read about my achin' teeth?

11. My girls both had orthodontics. One child, who shall remain nameless, may not have handled it quite as well as the other. Ahem. She knows who she is. She may even have a blog. Anyway, we were living in the UK then and if you have a child in orthodontics you know how crazy the fees are. Well, the exchange rate in those days meant the pound was twice the dollar so essentially we paid double the price of the hardware. They do have lovely smiles today though, wouldn't you say...

12. Have I mentioned here that I like 70's music? I know some of you think my title is just a title and do not recognize the song from whence it came so I give you Player. Hey, I aim to please. You are welcome.