I Got Sunshine on Mem. Day

It hailed yesterday.

Padre commented that if we could just get some sunshine now, which his phone told him we would, then our garden would just explode.

Gloomy clouds all around the darkness I broke out:

"I got sunshy---unnn

on a

clowwwwdy day"

Padre said: "Ya know, that reminds me of being in Vietnam."

I paused and said: "hmm."

Wasn't what I expected.

"Yeh, during all that chaos there would be those motown songs playing. And every morning,

'White' his friend who went by his last name

but who was actually black

would always play

James Brown's

I Feel Good

every morning." Even if he was still asleep his alarm would go off, he'd sleep turn it off and turn on Jame's song.

Can you imagine? Sleeping in tents like they were and dragged outta sleep by that song?

I bet Padre felt like this when he got up.

 Some guys would try to create 'hip'

ambiance

Padre said.

By hanging silk that the locals sold them,

they would put hang them and play those songs

to drown out the war.

Hopefully, Padre is right, and today's sunshine will dry out the drowned garden

and we'll see some explosion of veggies.

Thanks, Vets, Family and Friends today and every day!

Rockwell's Baseball Players

Norman Rockwell could always capture the essence of young boys playing ball,

(Rockwell's painting of some boys convincing workers to not take out their ball field. The conversation meaningfully taking place at 'Home Plate'- the ownership of the land is obvious; The rag tag boys!)

tattered shoes with blown out pants around the knee area;

belts holding up pants that were most likely an older brothers hand-me-downs that were too big.

(SAFE!!!! E.Stealin' home)


So there Rockwell's boy would be; a ruffled, cinched pant top, shirt half tucked in and a face that was exactly depicted from a real model. With added smudges of dirt,

(L. fielding)

a bruised eye, puffy lip, freckles and most often a lanky red head would be there- on the canvas- to stop time and create nastalgia for generations to come.

Watching boys play baseball always makes me think of Norman and I hope to "catch" that scene he would have caught with his paint brush.

(Number 10 is using his scout belt to hold those big pants up. Classic. And totally endearing to his mother)

These photos of mine are just attempts of Rockwell's work. I Would rather Padre come and take them. As I am not willing to learn about aperture at the moment. And I cannot paint. So here it is in its imperfection.

But my heart tries to grasp those moments that fly by quick as a wink and before you know it- they are not boys anymore.

Boys that I have grown to love as they have grown with each season of the next sport in their lives.

And finally...

FATHER & SON- how much more American can this get?? And the smile on S's face, mirroring his Dad's pride- timeless. Wish Rockwell could come to these games and paint for me.

3 Gens 1 Roof

For years I have loved the mag; This Old House.

The latest edition had an article that hit home- the secrets to three generations living under one roof, happily.

First, I thought I should have gotten on that article submission cause I know some tips, or  at least some comical stories, that would entertain readers that happen in a house with that many generations living in it.

But the magazine focuses on renovations. So I shouldn't have been surprised when I opened up to the article's page and there was a smiling family on  big, spacious porch.

It turns out their secret was to move and then renovate an old, house; essentially making it new. Which is what I am convinced the mag should be called. This NEW House. It was old but now it's NEW.

It throws in some Dr. Phil-ish adages about ways to test "family dynamics" by living together and such. How several individuals ranging in age AND disposition and the discussions and decisions that need to be made when renovating are enormous.

-Never mind that two of the individuals have degrees in architecture and interior design. The Patriach, Donald, said they took a "casual organic approach" to the "transition".

Organic?

The only organic parts my fam has to put up with are my plants.

Donald was referring to not putting everything "on paper" and taking their time with making their dream vacation home, where each was in it only 1/3 and that made it easier to cope with eachother; and keeping the "old bones" of the houses rather than running a bulldozer over it and starting from scratch.

So, for us, minus degrees and firms based in architecture ,we have kept our original OLD HOUSE.

Instead of renovations, we have gotten rid of things that aren't necessary.

For example: More than 3 pairs of shoes.

1. Closet space can go a long way for storing all your stuff without the hassle of too many shoes or clothes to go into it.

2. A constant state of re-arranging what you've got: this means that as you live with the 3 different gens for some time you start to calculate ways that all your stuff can better fit in the small space you still have to work with. And this makes for trips to Wal-Mart for plastic containers.

3.Instead of knocking out a wall and adding on the kitchen  so it would be bigger, we just implement a "standing room only" policy for big get togethers. So far it seems to have worked out- if you get to the table first and land a chair, or opt to eat in shifts.

There are more tips, but I'm saving them for when the magazine calls and ask me to do a free lance article on my inside knowledge on the subject.

In all honestly, looking at the spaciousness that Donald and his wife, his parents and the 2 grandchildren had to move about ,was making me slightly jealous. But it bordered on disgusting when I found out that they only did this gig part time- as it was a "summer home" in a popular vacation/resort area and not a necessary year round deal.

Of course their happy!

Thankfully the magazine redeened itself for me by including a great article on herb growing; which I can still do in my old house, and thus keep looking forward to future editions of the magazine.

The Chair

She bloomed! I have to randomly include my plants, like I do my kids because I am so proud of them for living!

So I promised to share the story of the chair. As you know we had a wedding so the fact that Madre
went to great lengths to get THE Chair for an early Father's Day gift, was anything short of miraculous.

First off, we had a chair. It is green and deceptively comfortable looking. It's not. In fact they could replace waterboarding with this chair. Sit a terrorist in it for a day and they'd be crying and unloading all sorts of information.

The reason for this originates in construction; although cute- it is an awkward chair. If you left it upright, you had to strain your neck forward to keep you spine alined.

If you laid back, you had to push your weight or throw your arms back and above your head to keep the recliner coming back to the sitting position. Yet we kept it an amazing 13 years. Actually, it's still in the living room.

On the other hand, Padre's mother has the Queen of all chairs. A La-z-Boy contstructed by Noah himself. Or an engineer with a medical degree. It is a highlight to visit her and sit in that chair.

Padre would go to her house, sit in it and fall asleep. Once he even mentioned to her that he "wished he'd come home from work one day and there that chair would be- ready for him to sink into as he watched Glenn Beck.

So Madre finally called Grandma and got the serial numbers on the bottom of the chair, the location of the store- which was in Preston, Idaho; and called the company.

There, on the floor, ready to buy, was a buckskin twin of Grma's chair. She compared prices to the IF stores, available colors and even with her driving clear to Preston; she saved dinero.

In order to surprise Padre and not wait a couple weeks for delivery, she took off to Preston. Right in the midst of Nuptial preparations. It was wild and crazy!!


Gma even stayed up all night the previous night worrying that her son wouldn't approve of Madre getting it, or possibly the car Madre was driving would break down, or (you fill in the blank). If you ever need a "worrier", we will loan her out to you for a small fee by telling her about your woes.

So the chair made it home, just shortly after Padre got home from a long trip to some other country or something to fix their communication problems via phones, etc.

He was elated.

Gma was elated. So elated that despite suffering from the ravages of Parkinson's Disease, she made the Herculean effort to come over and look at the chair, it's price tags still in place, in the living room. She sat in it and said: "Well, Craig, I want to see you in it." She slowly and painfully stood up and moved to the green chair.

Gpa replied: "She ain't comfortable unless she's miserable."

The man from whom all B.S. originated.

"Oh, you can sit in it, mom." Padre replied.  "I was just going to go take a shower and get all ready for bed and then sit in it." (He can't officially relax until he's showered.)

"Oh,no." Grma lamented. "Now I've gotten it dirty."  This made me laugh.

Memo to self: "Only wear Temple Clothing while sitting in Padre's new chair."

So you can imagine my surprise when I saw this:

Padre, on A Sunday afternoon, on the couch his tag bearing chair on display.

 I don't know the rationale behind this decision. If he is keeping the new throne in mint condition, debating on returning it, or wanted us to feel guilty that he wasn't in it cause we've sat in it a few times- whatever the reason, it is a mystery!

But there it is! The most comfortable chair you could ever sit in! And we now have one for him to come to after all he does for us during the day and find some real "rest".   I debated sitting in it as he was waking up, but opted to blog about it instead.

Oh, Yeh- The Wedding

Baby Sis got married and I actually got to get my hands on a real camera. Here's what the decorations looked like, thanks to Miranda Lambert-

 

we saw that antlers and vintage/antique really can mix!

 

I love this picture.

Once I read about a widow who wished she had a picture of her husband's hands.

So of course I zoomed in when Sis's man took her hand and ran his thumb

over the top of it.

(the little cowboys hangin' back during the ceremony)

The man who married them

mentioned

the Kenny Chesney song: Don't Blink.

So I let that shutter fly throughout the wedding to capture all the memories that

go by

 in a blink of an eye.

Cause

LIfe Goes By, Faster Than Ya Think.

'Nette these are for you:

(In response to the photo being "cut"- You actually got all the family! So don't worry! When I enlarged it enough for the blog it chops the right side. It happened with Sonny up above as well! So no worries!

You did a great job decorating and we appreciated not having to put that all up in

the wind!

Good thing the antlers kept the tablecloths on each table from blowing

Away!!

WHEW!

I thought Padre's camera was lost! Well, not LOST, lost. But somewhere that would re-surface like most "lost" items.

Keeping things on the "down low" blog wise was critical until I found out whether Padre was carting the thing with him to work (which is what he does but usually not the one I have comandeered.) or if I had to bite the bullet, text him and ask: "Hey, uh, Dad.... you don't happen to have your camera with you?"

It is the sort of information that could have caused an accident on the road or something.

But, alas! The little thing was in its mini cooler under his desk in the office and all is well.

Tomorrow I will post on his surprise Padre Day gift. Very exciting. It includes tags left on and everything else that goes with a purchase in the fam.

BOOTS, HATS, & HOLSTERS

Another amazing felt creation while on prednisone last whenever.

My nephew received this cute creation with some felt animals. The barn was finished recently. As I was half way through when I got off prednisone.

And then it seemed an awful big project.

Which took till spring to finish.

It was part of a Christmas gift.

So the other day the lil cowboy left his horses and came to play.

It required all of us putting on our boots.

He found them in our closets and was adamant we put them on.

He couldn't believe we'd not wear them on a daily basis!

He insisted Padre put on his cowboy hat, too.

Who doesn't wear their hat 24/7??

Hello!!

Apparently, even when K. W. is without clothes, he always has his hat and boots on.

(with the exception of the above picture- he had taken it off when he walked in the door.)

Cause that is Cowboy Consistency, Readers!

You don't check your guns at the door in his world!

One of the saddest things about this time in a kid's life is that toy companies don't know

cowboy boys.

That their waists are small.

The cowboy boy gets his first revolver, goes to put on the holster-

and it falls to his ankles.

How do you shoot fast in that situation?

The fancy and cool falls to a heap on the floor and requires mom's, the world over,

to somehow make the thing fit.

But guess what!

Madre and Baby Sis found a full fledge holster, in kid size, at an antique store.

It even fits Skinny cowboys.

(Even if they have their onsie jams on)

Last,

but not least,

it says Wyatt Earp on the genuine leather.

No plastic here, pilgrims!

Thank you, pioneer of real cowboy holsters.

You were a few years late for my buck-a-roo.

But I'll forgive.

Only because now his plastic holsters actually fit and he can indulge

his little cousin in cowboy and Indian.

P.S. Padre is back at work, hence, the lack of writing material. He tried to feign stress .

But I knew he was as kiddy as K.Dub playing cowboy to

go back to work.

Padre's Campaign Slogan

(Pain, it's Fun! by Richard Connelly on Spaced City- Our Most Disgusting Marathon Pictures.)

I had expected sympathy. And the go ahead to NOT go ahead.

The total pain had reached the point that it felt like you'd ran a marathon.I say you- because I never have had to run one. At least in the literal sense. But I feel I have felt similiar feelings to running one.

Only to have someone say that you have to RUN it AGAIN. Back to Back.

Come again?

Unfortunately I know some antelope built tri-athletes that would smile and nod their heads and continue to run another marathon.

But I'm not that breed.

It's one thing to have run one- literally or whatever. To feel that you are FINISHED. To have crossed the line of being done. Done in. Steak, well done.

Done to the point that you drag yourself to your Dad and beg for mercy.

-Running isn't unfamiliar to me because I did run track until my bones couldn't handle it and I had to take up the (say this really quiet- disk and shot put)

What I know now about my disease and its ability knock out how the bones similated vitamin D, I would have felt less put out that I wasn't still running the 4x400 relay with my mates.

AFter many years on big gun meds that destroy the immune system to keep it from destroying you- yeh, I felt that I may have a hold on a marathon runner's feelings.

The physical pain was NOTHING compared to hitting the wall on a 400 sprint. Where the body seems to shut down and on top of it you hit a nice big wave of wind in your face.  Where the muscles are screaming from no oxygen or something, where it has to pull from some far off energy, that comes from your brain, WILLING it to go forward. On nothing.

So you are told to run another lap. You know this lap. How it hurts. But on top of all the suffering that has already happened how is it possible?

I went to Padre, per text of course, and confided that I COULD NOT DO what was being asked- I did not expect this Candidate Reply:

"Oh, yes you can. And yes you will."


What?

"That's right."

Shock.

No comforting nod about all the miles I'd just run. No taking off my paper number pinned to the front of my jersey and letting me off the hook.

.NADA! Nothing!

I was imagining him icing my legs and carrying me or something fatherly! Seething I went about some stuff and realized-

I'd RUN the race! It was DONE!  My body seriously had met its limit- so I thought.

Padre was right.

He's always right, dad blame it!

A sense of calm came over me that he knew what I was capable of-- and that I didn't go through all  those years of sports and through life's little trials- all the pain for nothing. It was a sort of reservoir that I was building. And my conclusion was: yeh, he's right; I CAN keep going through with it.  Even nauseauted.

But it took him grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking the truth into me. Which seems contrary to what you'd expect when told to jump off a cliff or something ridiculous.

So whenever the needle comes, the adverse reaction to something, those words ring like a bell in my head. And it seems, by default Padre got my vote.