Life can be a pain in the...

When I was in high school I broke my tailbone.

I don't recall how, but I do know that I carried around a rubber donut to sit on for about a year.

It wasn't very pretty, but it got me a lot of attention :-).

Anyway, we were all in Flagstaff at a music festival and I bent over a suitcase to get something and one of the girls in our room kicked me in the buttocks.

Paaaaaaiiiiiiinnnnn....

However, when the pain subsided, I was fixed -- leaving my tailbone just slightly slanted out and easily bumped and bruised.

Flash forward (clears throat and mumbles number of years) years.

I work with this great bunch of guys. If you follow my blog, you have seen this picture before.

So, we were sitting around the Perudo table playing ... don't get all pissy because we are State employees playing a game at work ... we were on our lunch break.

I kept complaining that the chair I was sitting on was really uncomfortable, like a spring had broken and was sticking me in the same buttocks mentioned earlier.

SteveE switched chairs with me... he is such a good boy. He is sitting down in the picture with his head back.

The offending chair...Later, at home, on a chair I use all the time, same thing...

What is going on?

So, here's the deal...

Tarzan made an exercise bench and we haven't padded it yet.

I am up to 44 sit ups a day with no pad...

and my poor buttocks (the same one mentioned above) has a floor burn on it--right on the tailbone.

Ouch!

Unusual Uses for Usual things--Tuesday Tip

I am not ashamed to tell you this.

I really am not ashamed to tell this to the whole world right here on the Internet.

Really, I am above and beyond being embarrassed.

So, here goes...

If you ever happen to own a utility van (no seats in the back) and you happen to be going on a 4 hour trip with your 2 daughters in the car, one in the seat up front and one on a bean bag in the big ole' back part...

And if you happen to stop at Circle K and buy 3 great big sodas...

And if you happen to slam on the breaks and all three sodas spill and start swishing around in that big ole empty space in back of you, with only a bean bag and a teenage girl in it...

Kotex works wonders at soakin' it up.

SPT - Something Old

The spt challenge this week is: may means *wedding month* to me. and, no, this challenge is not going to be about weddings (unless you want it to be...) this month's challenge is simply:

tuesday, may 6 something old
tuesday, may 13 something new
tuesday, may 20 something borrowed
tuesday, may 27 something blue

May 6
Something Old

It is hard for me to believe that the oldest thing in my house is me. LOL. So, I contribute a picture of me as a child after falling out of a car.

We had a car that had doors in the back that opened from front to back(and now you will know why they quit making them). If you were moving and the door came open the wind would catch it and swing it wide open. I was sitting by the window and, obviously, playing with the door handle. We were traveling down the road. The door came open, the wind blew it wide open. I had hold of the handle and was thrown out of the car. My Mom says when she looked back, I was running behind the car as fast as I could, bleeding profusely and screaming, "Don't leave me, don't leave me." She said I was very upset that the car didn't stop immediately. This picture has always cracked me up. Don't I look indignant? I was never allowed to sit by the window again.

Where you ever in a car accident?

Earliest Memory

For many years as a young girl, I had a memory of climbing up onto a very high bed, using a small step that sat beside it. I remembered being on the bed with my Mom, brother and sister and then I remember getting down and looking out the window. Everything had a slight green tint to it. That's a funny memory and I figured it must just be some kind of a dream I had.

When I was about 16 years old, we were sitting around in the living room talking about memories. There were all the usual stories that made us laugh and brought us closer together. Then someone talked about the hurricane...

I had to be 2 or 3 years old at the most. We were living in Bermuda. The house was an old rock home build on the shore. We had our own boat dock. My father was stationed there in the Air Force.

While living there a terrible hurricane hit the island. Mom gathered us all into her bedroom and we crawled up onto her high bed using the little steps beside it. As we sat there trying to stay calm, we heard an airplane fly over our home. Mom commented that she "wondered who that crazy person was out flying in this kind of weather." Later, we found out it was our Dad. He was a weatherman and his job was to fly in the eye of the hurricane to see the direction it was going. He flew right over our house, which means the eye of the hurricane also went right over our house. It took off the roof, but the rest of the solid rock house stood firm. When the storm passed we all looked out the window and the air was a eerie green color.

They say that when you are dramatically affected by an event, you remember it in detail. I wonder how frightened that small child was. I wonder what went through her mind. I wonder if that is one of the reason that until she married Tarzan she never felt completely safe.

Our lives are filled with memories that affect our entire lives. Share your lifetime memories with me.

The Tooth Fairy (Memories)

Annalisa blogged about Alexis losing her first tooth and the tooth fairy coming to visit. It made me remember two funny stories about my children.

Brian was about, mmmmm, I think 3-years old. We were visiting his Uncle and Aunt, Jared and Gloria. They owned a motel and lived in an apartment above the office. We were all upstairs when Brian came running up the stairs and said, "Mom, Mom, the Good Fairy is downstairs cleaning up." It seems that the maid had some into the office to clean. Didn't realize how often I said, "Maybe the Good Fairy will come while we are gone and clean the house."

Then Celia was, mmmmm, I think about 4-years old, maybe only 3. She had a wart on her hand. I used a match stick on it and it fell off. (You wet the sulfur on the end of the matchstick and rub it on the wart and the wart falls off.) Without telling any of us, she put it under her pillow. In the morning she came into the kitchen crying her eyes out, "Mom, the wote faiwy didn't come." It took a couple of tries for me to understand she had expected the Wart Fairy to come and leave money under her pillow. I quickly said, "I bet you just missed it, let's go see." I slipped a quarter into my palm and felt under her pillow and produced the quarter. She squealed with delight and the day was saved.

Don't you wish the Wart Fairy still only gave a quarter? Do you have a funny Fairy story?

Snake Story

Last night, my husband fixed a wonderful dinner of gazpacho soup with shrimp, a green leafy salad and crusty bread. While he, my crazy mother and I sat talking the conversation somehow turned to snakes. Here is another story about my Mom that must be preserved.

We were living in Mountain Home, Idaho. My father was stationed there at the newly reopened Air Force base. The base was out in the country and not too many people had been assigned to the base yet, so they were a really small community.

Mom had to go down some steps to the outside to her washing machine. (It was an old ringer washing machine). One day, when Dad was gone on a mission somewhere, she went outside to do the laundry and when she opened the lid, she found a large rattle snake curled up inside the the washer. She slammed the lid back down and ran upstairs to call the MPs (Military Police).

Five MPs came out. They were all from Chicago and New York. She says they knew less about what to do about a rattle snake than she did. One of them carefully lifted the lid while the other four drew there pistols to shoot. She screamed and said, "You are not doing that to my washing machine." They slammed the lid back down and began discussing how they could get the snake out.

Just then the milk man came by (this was in the 40's when milk was still delivered fresh from the truck rather than purchased in the grocery store). He knew just what to do. He got a stick with a fork on the end, carefully lifted up the lid to the washing machine and pinned down the snakes head. He then grabbed the snake and quickly threw it into the field next to the house where five MPs emptied their guns into it.

Life returned to normal but Mom still looks before she puts laundry in the tub.

The Good Old Days?

Recently, some friends were engaged in a conversation about how poor they had been as children. I thought how lucky I was to have never suffered a poor day in my life. Then I began to think about it and I realized that we were dirt poor and I didn't even know it.

We lived in a house out of the grace of a dear friend for little or no rent.

We ate out of another dear friend's garden as much as we wanted. He told us we would be doing him a favor to eat out of his garden, he always over planted and it was a lot of work. We weeded and harvested.

We bought our groceries from the local grocery store on credit and Mom paid when she could.

We got sacks of food when the man running the Bishop's Store House thought we might be needing some. He always told Mom he was just going to throw it out and if we couldn't use it maybe we knew someone who could. I suppose he knew Mom wouldn't take it if she felt it was a handout.

All of our clothes were homemade out of the least expensive remnants. Mom was a genius with the sewing machine.

There were no luxuries at out house, but there was always a pot of beans on for company, and company always came.

Mom had to work two jobs at 75¢ an hour to keep food on the table, a son on a mission and a daughter in college.

Our main form of recreation was sitting on the front porch and visiting. Friends stopped by, they knew we would be on the porch or in front of a big fire in the fireplace. We got firewood from those who just brought it by and left a little of their newly cut cord.

We never asked for anything, we were simply surrounded by people who love us, cared about us, and knew our situation.

Were we poor? Depends on your definition.

Dinner at our house

I asked my children what they recall about dinner at our house.

I recall eating each meal together as a family. When the children were small it was easy to plan meals around their father's schedule and eat together, when they were teenagers we lived in the small town of Eagar, Arizona, where restaurants and fast food places were scarce. That meant that eating at home was the normal thing to do. I was the cook. The hard part was being creative. I owned a bazillion cookbooks. They were all stollen when we moved in 2000. Strange, the only thing stollen from us was the box of cookbooks with all my notes and favorties marked.

Conversation came naturally to us. We did not have the TV on during meal time. My recollection is that this was a relaxed and pleasant moment in our day.

Here is what my daughter, Tori, told me.

"I remember every Sunday having roast and when we were younger always making Jell-O. In Round Valley [Springerville/Eagar] I remember having tacos on New Years [she meant Christmas Eve, I'm sure]. I also remember times when we had enchilada casserole and spaghetti with the noodle bars [I asked her what noodle bars are--when she tells me, I will add it to the post]. I remember in Mesa one time you made cold soup. I didn't eat any, I thought it looked gross. I also remember having Sunday dinner with Aunt Velma. And of course I remember you making liver and onions and waiting until you left to have Brian eat it. In turn, I ate his peas. I don't know why I don't remember eating together, I just remember what we ate."

Here is what my daughter, Celia, told me.

"I remember having to eat that entire case (seemed like 10 cases) of beets. It was the only time I wished our family were bigger. I remember the flowered plastic plates all having beet stains on them and we always put the beets on the same spot. In my memory, we ate them with everything, enchilada casserole and 2 beets, meatloaf and 2 beets, etc.

This memory is followed by the next item we were to eat from our year supply, the peanut butter. I remember being VERY happy when Dad loaded up his toast with generic peanut butter, took a bite, spit it out and said he was drawing the line there. He suffered through the beets but there was no way he was eating this nasty peanut butter. We could afford to buy real peanut butter and we could give our year supply stuff to someone else.

I also remember eating that gender-confused chicken Dad killed because it crowed every morning at 5:00 am and he was on vacation. Mom decided we would eat it, so she plucked it and let it cook all day while we were out (seems like it was a Sunday - but I am sure I am wrong). [She is correct, it was a Sunday.] We came home and she served it up and we all sat there looking at it. Someone finally tried it and it was just gross, tough and stringy and blah. She didn't make us eat it and I was very relieved.

I remember eating together most of the time. Sunday slow-cooked roasts are a big memory as well and the Christmas Eve tacos."