Category Archives: Stuff I Actually Think

EPIC LOVE: Opal & Everett

2 Mi Familia, 5 Songs I am Singing, 6 Looking Back // Memories!, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , ,

{ O P A L   &   E V E R E T T }

My Grandma and Grandpa Allison

By the end, frail and broken-down, they were shriveled old people, quietly enduring the ravages of the so-undeserved Alzheimer’s Disease and doing their best not to be a bother for their family or health care workers.  The strangers who witnessed their final months and days could not have comprehended, I am sure, the life of love and joy they had lived. They didn’t know about the ever-enlarging family, the children and grandchildren,  the greats and great-greats, or of the fruitfulness these two people had unleashed.   They couldn’t have looked down the heart’s hallways of the past to a man and a woman wholly devoted to one another, fully giving and loving each other across decades, clinging to one another and living their lives for an epic love, the passion of which never waned.

The beginning.

Their start wasn’t picture perfect.  For in those days many years ago, theirs was an “broken” beginning.  My Grandpa Allison had married and had 2 daughters with my mom’s mother, but it was doomed from the start, it seemed.  He married Opal shortly after his divorce.  My Grandma Allison had been married before as well and came into their union with one daughter.  And so they were now the 2 + 3.  It equaled truelove (yes, I meant that as one word). My Grandma and Grandpa never really talked about their start or their love story to my mom.  It seemed some things were best left unsaid out of respect and a show of honor of their former spouses, with whom they shared children.  So they kept their romantic connection to themselves.  There were innuendos and whisperings, as blended families might have, but as for Opal and Everett,  they maintained the dignity of silence and, focused on their love for one another, building a beautiful life together.

Early memories.

I don’t really come from a family that is all that outwardly affectionate.  Love runs deep among us and we are now much more giving in public displays of heartfelt warmth, but words of affirmation, outward demonstration and affectionate touch were not hallmarks of the family I grew up in, except perhaps from my mom, who taught me to do Eskimo kisses and butterfly kiss-flutterings and is my biggest cheerleader and hugger even now.

But my very earliest memories of my Grandma and Grandpa Allison are all about the affection, the visible sign of the intensity of an inward passion.  They touched constantly.  He attended to her every whim, he doted, he adored.  He held the door and he held her hand.  He always checked her needs, reactions, and responses first in any situation.  There was never a doubt in my mind that my handsome, raven-haired, energetic and athletic Grandpa, whose hair only fully grayed during his final few years, adored my Grandma. And she in turn looked at him lovingly, from the dark brunette and sometimes frosted days until her coiff was pure as snow.  She was his gentle home, his soft place to land, his True North.  Her approval, as a strong and beautiful woman, full of wisdom and grace, was poured on him freely and he thrived successfully in any endevour he attempted because of it.

My grandparents at my own parents’ wedding, August 1957.  Are those the most beautiful four people you have ever seen?  Ok, maybe I am prejudiced about that, but my mama sure had a handsome and stylin’ dad and chose a cutie-patootie for a husband!

There was such deep love.  He served in WWII in the Phillipines in the Navy, leaving his wife and now 5 children-between-them at home.  My daughters and I love the pictures she had taken in a beautful gown to send to my Grandpa there because he desired, as he told her when he requested the photographs, his own “pin-up girl” in his foot locker.

Every memory I have of  them, through my Kodachrome-colored memories of the early 1960s (I wish there were more actual photographs, but the times…), and throughout my life includes the touching, the hugging, the kisses, the hand-holding, the warm affection and assurance of a lasting love.  And they shared that, too.

My Grandpa was the man who’d hold me on his lap like a little princess and call me “Debbie Jean” to make my momma happy (she’d lost the name game to my dad’s choice).   This beautiful man I admired with all my heart and soul as a little girl became even more deeply imbedded in my heart when, after I was grown and married, he made a decision to follow Christ, quickly becoming a man of the Word and leading the adult Sunday School class at his Baptist church. He’d spent years investigating religions, a good man who didn’t fall lightly in to things.  When he decided to follow Jesus, he sent me a letter and said, “Oh, how many years I wasted looking for truth.  I wish I could get them all back to serve Jesus.”  I got my business sense from him, he was a mover and a shaker and quite entreprenurial.  Brave and creative, his influence on me, especially in retail aptitude, is undeniable.

  

I admired them, perhaps even revered them.  Attending a family funeral when my children were little and watching them walk in, he, my ruggedly handsome and distinguished grandpapa in his suit, she, my darling grandmama, elegant and serene ~  I was mesmerized at the regal sight of them, so proud to call them my grandparents.  They sat down the row from me, in their early 70s.  They were holding hands like young lovers, yet seasoned and wise sweethearts; the embers, once shooting flames in a youthful, passionate romance, now white-hot and glowing, a stronger, deeper love for the years.

The end.

My Grandpa passed away a few years ago.  He’d been fighting to retain the identity Alzheimer’s so ruthlessly rips from a soul.  His final days in a nursing home left Grandma rattling around their large retirement home on the Lake of the Ozarks mostly alone.  When my parents visited and they planned a trip to see Grandpa, my mom says Grandma Allison (my mom’s beloved step-mother, a woman whose love and acceptance meant everything to my mom), would become as giddy as a school girl, curling her hair and doing her make-up, excited to go see her love.  She even complained that several of the nurses flirted with him and she was not happy about it.

And even as he was failing and struggled to recognize his own children, when his love arrived, he knew her.  And the affection between them melted away the wrinkles and the years.  Those times, they were just Opal and Everett, lifetime lovers.  And she would sit in his lap and put her arms around him.  They were head-over-heels in love until the end, “two hearts that beat as one,*” that ridiculous almost never-seen kind of love that everyone thinks they have on their wedding day – but few seem able to maintain to the end. Before Grandpa even died, my sweet, tiny Grandma, the most loving and thoughtful, and gracious woman in the world, was also diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.  When he passed on, my gentle grandma deteriorated quickly – just started slipping away.  She was moved to a care center and went very silent.  My mom was able to bring some glistening light to her eyes by singing a song she loved, one my Grandpa had sung to her “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…”  Grandma would somehow muster strength to hum along, a pleasant memory dancing behind her eyes.

I made a short video tribute with the few photos I have

A Nicholas Sparks movie has nothing on my grands.  She died 2 years to the day after the love of her life had gone.  Somehow it didn’t seem an ending so much ~ just that she’d finally been released to go where her heart had already gone.  And wherever Opal and Everett are, I know they are holding hands or he’s got his arms wrapped around her or they’re embraced under a tree near a lake, a slight breeze touching their contented faces.  And their true love remains. Endless.  Endlessly. *Lyrics from the 1981 hit by Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross, “Endless Love.”

 

Con-trak’-shun RANT!

9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think, , , , ,

{And, she rants} 

Found in drafts folder fom a year ago.  I had received several emails about English language stuff (“‘their, they’re and there’ are 3 different words, learn how to use them correctly”) and how we slaughter it (I know I do my share) and I decided to impose my own particular this-irritates-the-crap-out-of-me issue on my readers, just after a meeting I’d had with a young woman trying to get me to spend lots of $$ on her product.  She spoke very childishly, slurrishly (it may not be a word, but she did it), and dare I say it: in a way you should reserve for your grandma or some boy you are trying to get to buy you something.  It was like she was used to being able to use “cuteness” to make the sale and I was just. not. charmed.  At all.

“Didn’t.”

That is a contraction for the words “did not.”  Whether or not a contraction that deletes only one letter, but adds puctuation is necessary or  not is neither here nor there.  At some point, some one decided that a sweet little combo would just hurry things along and so we have the option of making two words one.  You may say “did not” as didn’t.  Didn’t.  Did-n’t = Did-not.

But not the way we hear it way too often now. 

No you dih-unt.

Ok, that was sort of funny.  The first 3000 times your suburban friends attempted the hand-on-hip, head-lurking stance and tried their pasty-white-adaptation of some ethnic sass.  But geez-Louise!  What is going on? 

Toooooooooo many young women have adopted some form of this utter and most aggravating mispronunciation as a part of their I-am-just-so-cute semi-baby talk and when they speak, you hear:

I dih-unt’ know what time it was.  Or  He dih-unt’ tell me where he was going.  Aaaaargggghhhh!

Would you actually say, if you weren’t contracting: “That is unt what I meant”?  Or, “That is unt’ a good thing”? 

No, you wouldn’t. 

<note: wouldn’t = would not>

 “n’t” is not pronounced “unt.”  There is a “D” in there, too.  It’s pronounced “nnnnnnn-t”.  Try it: would–nnn–t.

I am not sure what the appeal of this new, lazier, almost-exclusively female, way of speaking is?  Do they really think it makes them cuter or something?  It doesn’t.  Whatever happened to the art of enunciation?   Well, ok – I don’t know if there ever was an art of enunciation, but I sure as heck remember Mrs. Devlin in our 1st grade reading circle making sure we learned to speak and pronounce our words well.

It reminds me of the scene in You’ve Got Mail where Meg Ryan’s character is talking about young women {she calls them “stupid 22-year-old girls,”  her words} who only introduce themselves by their first names, “Hi, I’m Jennifer…Hi, I’m Kimberly,”  Meg observing that it makes them seem like a whole generation of” cocktail waitresses.”  [see 2:30 – 2:50 on the Youtube video below] 

Hey there, sister – it was so cute to talk like you were 6 when you were – 6!  Even 7.  But it is time to grow up and speak clearly like the woman you have become.  Put away the cocktail waitress cutesy-ness because it is worn out.  Pronounce your words as they are meant to be pronounced.  Phonate, people, please.  You can do this.  And you’ll move from cuteness to real beauty. 

{Thus endeth the rant}

Having a Martha House the Mary Way

4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think

31 Days to Clean by Sarah Mae

Well, my curiosity is piqued. Currently #1 bestselling e-book in Amazon’s home cleaning, care taking and relocating category, this book throws in the tagline “Having a Martha House the Mary Way.”  And for this self-described recovering Martha (trying to figure out why {the heck!} Mary just gets to sit around when there is work to be done)…oh, that’s ME, btw, well, I am definitely curious.

The author says we are, in the course of this month-long daily reading and the challenges provided, forgoing perfection and choosing life.  Where was she when I was o-so-much younger?

Never too late, though, right?  Only $4.99 for your Kindle.

The Things I Said I’d Never Do

1 Christ is All, Stuff I Actually Think

“An inner vow, by definition, is a personal determination made as a reaction to an event; the reaction may or may not have ever been verbalized. The nature of the inner vow is such that it takes the form of  ‘I will never…’ or  ‘I will always….’  or some other statement of our will.”  Notes from my time in intensive prayer counselling a few years ago.

I remember telling my counselor, “I really don’t think ‘inner vows’ applies to me.  I cannot think of any that I have.

If she didn’t outwardly shriek at the preposterousness of my statement, I heard it in her reply as she began to rattle off a string of things that she knew I truly believed about life and it was like she was reading right off the pages of my soul {my mind, will and emotions}. 

Inner vows = not good things.

Inner vows = personal declarations designed to protect my own heart and make myself “better” than some person who has wronged me in the past.  They are just sinful (usually quite judgemental) responses to life’s realities in all their glory. No bueno.

I can’t even tell you, now.  Not without just really exposing myself.  But I had a truckload of inner vows.  I probably still do.  But it takes time to break those agreements with the woundedness of your own (highly deceitful) heart.  There were just so many.  Hundreds, maybe.  I won’t ever…I will always….so pride-rooted.  I mean, I used to know EVERYTHING.  Bad fruit ahead!

I read somewhere that in his lifetime, David, a man after God’s own heart, broke every one of the Ten Commandments.  But I can’t judge him.  I’ve broken my own share.  I am not the perfect person I had planned to be.  I thought, because of everything I had seen throughout my life, I’d be better, better at everything.  I’d be a better employee or employer, a better parent and wife, a better church member and friend.  And by sheer will I thought there were mistakes and foul-ups I’d never make. Not ever.

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do…” And ETCETERA! [Romans 7.15-16]

Thank-you, Paul, for writing that in Romans.  Because, you know – you were like 30+ years in the faith when you wrote it and it soothes my mind to know you still struggled, too.  I don’t want to be the only one. {and pride rears its ugly head again…}

If I kept track of the times I ended up doing all the things I said I’d never do, for the times I meant to do something righteous that I never got around to, the score would be about a million to a million. 

So much for my ability to save myself. 

Um, yeah – Carole King, ok?

5 Songs I am Singing, 9 TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment, Stuff I Actually Think

American Idol contestants did Carole King tonight.  I. LOVE. her!

My favorite moments?

Casey and Haley doing “I Feel the Earth Move”

James did “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.”

Scottie actually did “You’ve Got a Friend” in a way I truly enjoyed.  But I hated his part in the duet of “Up on the Roof” he did with Lauren.

Casey solos was, as usual, fun, very cool, awesome! (“Hi De Ho”)

And Haley’s “Beautiful” was really great.

Even Lauren was pretty good with “Where You Lead Me”

Ah {happy sigh}.  I love the Carole!

The Conclusion when all has been said…

1 Christ is All, Stuff I Actually Think

So what is the BARE-MINIMUM,

most-important {don’t neglect this part} when-all-ELSE-fails, if you could only CHOOSE  [O N E]  THING, the most ESSENTIAL [ just-o n e ] thing, the when-all-is-said-and-DONE deal our lives should have been {SHOULD  B E} about?

A conglomeration of Ecc. 12  (yes, the WHOLE chapter) from about 4 different translations and paraphrases…

 

Ecclesiastes 12

 1 Remember [earnestly] your Creator [you are not your own, you are His property now]

       in the days of your youth,
       before the days of evil and trouble come
       and the years, the winter years that keep you close to a fire, approach, taking their toll [draw near] when you will say,
       “I find no pleasure have no delight, no enjoyment in them”-

 2 before the sun and the light
       and the moon and the stars grow dark [your sight is impaired] life gets blurry,
       and the clouds [of depression] return after the rain [of tears];

 3 when the keepers of the house [your arms and your hands] tremble,
       and the strong men [the feet and the knees] stoop [bow themselves],
       when the grinders [the molar teeth] cease because they are few,
       and those [the eyes] looking through the windows grow dim;

 In old age, your body no longer serves you so well.
   Muscles slacken, grip weakens, joints stiffen.

 4 when the doors [the lips] to the street are closed
       and the sound of grinding [of the teeth] fades [is low];
       when men rise up at the sound of birds and the crowing of a rooster,
       but all [the daughters of the music – the voice and ear] their songs grow faint [low];

You are wakened now by bird-song.
   Hikes to the mountains are a thing of the past.         

 5 when men [the old] are afraid of heights [danger from that which is high]  
       and of dangers in the streets [fears are in the way];
       when the almond tree [their white hair] blossoms
       and the grasshopper [a small thing] drags himself along [is a burden]
       and desire no longer is stirred [even appetite fails].
       Then man goes to his eternal, everlasting home
       and mourners go about the streets [or marketplaces].

 6 Remember him [your Creator earnestly now]

—before the silver cord [of life, the spinal cord] is severed [snapped apart],
       or the golden bowl is broken;
       before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
       or the wheel broken at the well [and the whole circulatory system of the blood ceases to function],

Life, lovely while it lasts, is soon over.
   Life as we know it, precious and beautiful, ends.

 7 and the dust [out of which God made man’s body] returns to the ground, the earth it came from, once again as it was
       and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

 8 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” [Vapor of vapors and futility of futilities] says the Preacher/Teacher.
       “Everything is meaningless! [Futile, empty, vainglory, vanity, false, transitory]”

The Conclusion of the Matter

 9 [Furthermore] Not only was the Preacher/Teacher wise, but also he imparted [still taught] knowledge to the people. He pondered and searched out and set in order many proverbs.

10 The Preacher/Teacher, the Shepherd [sought acceptable words], actually searched to find just the right words, and what he wrote was upright and true [his goal to write words of truth and correct sentiments].

Besides being wise himself, [he]…also taught others knowledge. He weighed, examined, and arranged many proverbs. [He] did his best to find the right words and write the plain truth.         

 11 The words of the wise are like (prodding) goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails [firmly fixed in the mind like nails]—given [proceeding] by [from] one Shepherd.

like nails hammered home, holding life together.
   They are given by God, the one Shepherd.

 

12 Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them [never go further than the words given by the one Shepherd].
      Of making many books there is no end [so don’t believe everything you read], and much study wearies the body [the flesh].

 13 Now all has been heard;

       here is the conclusion [the end] of the matter when all has been heard: 

  Fear God [revere and worship Him, knowing that He is] and keep his commandments,      

for this is the whole duty of [for every] man [the whole, full, original purpose of His creation, the object of God’s providence, the root of character, the foundation of happiness, the adjustment to all inharmonious circumstances and conditions under the sun].

The last and final word is this:


   Fear God.
   Do what he tells you.

 And that’s it.

 14 For God will bring every deed [every work] into judgment,
       including every hidden [secret] thing,
       whether it is good or evil 

My sister, Robin, has a quote at her FB info page attributed to Harriet Tubman: “Life is hard, then you die.”  It is true.  Life is hard, nearly unbearable at times, but it is also good beyond belief.  It hurts and tears and wounds, then we are surprised by a joy so deep we know it is eternal.  When we are young, we are usually too stupid to understad the power and privilege of it.  When we are old, the most enduring thing we can do is take all of what we have learned on all these trips around-the-block and impart it to the young (see verses 9-11).  If they have a heart after wisdom, they will hear you.

Jarred

4 Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Stuff I Actually Think, , ,

Glass. It’s a pretty amazing substance.

And just plain pretty.  I am becoming more and more enamored with crystal-clear and shiny-clean glass.  Even rinsing a salsa jar to toss into the recycle bin, I am a little impressed with the beauty of it, the simple glass jar.  I know.  I’m weird.  But you are reading me so you must be weird, too.

Yay for all of us becoming more aware of wastefulness and how to avoid it.  Yay for re-purposing, re-using, re-cycling.  Yay for shiny glaass catching the light and then letting it go to dance around the room.

And yay for pretty jars that can serve as flower vases – hanging bud vessels – candle holders – tea glasses – penny holders – marble holders – bug collections – vacation souvenirs showcases – photo displayers – art supply organizers – speciman vials – mixed  paints containers – light catchers – lemonade flasks – flour cannisters – grandbebe treasure receptacles – utensil storage – bath salts bottles – and all sorts of other fun stuff!

I mean, how sweet is this?  From Young House Love.

From Re-Nest

• 10 Simple Uses for Spaghetti Jars
• Crafty Uses for Baby Food Jars
• Don’t Throw Out That Jar! New Uses for Old Jars
• In Praise of the Mason Jar
• How To: Make a Mason Jar Lantern
• Simple Green: Use Empty Food Jars for Your Bulk Items

Stef’s “new” light fixture, re-using old jars!  Bueno!

Gemma May in April

2 Mi Familia, 3 Celebrations & Festive Events, Stuff I Actually Think

Gemma got bangs for Easter.

 

She let me snap a few shots to send to her Great-Grandma-Moslander, with whom I was talking on the phone at the time.

 

Gemma got on the phone and said to her ‘Great’, “Hey, Grandma, guess what?  Guess what?  We’re playing Hot Wheels!”  Dave had gotten his authentic early 1970s Hot Wheels track and car collection out for the kids the play with.

 

Then she just waited for me to be done. 

The other night at Stormie’s house.

Gemma-the-performer jumped off chairs and danced to any available music and I took pictures!  The image on the right is our litle star graciously receiving her applause and cheers.

 

NOTE:  See the robins-egg-blue “25” in the photos?  We used them for Rocky’s 25th, then for Dave’s 52nd (they were royal blue and red for those) and when Stormie said I could not bring them to her 25th birthday party celebration, I just had to.  Hehehe.  Tredessa had originally cut it from foam and painted it.  For Stormie: Painted light blue, hot glued with crunched-up crepe streamers paper as trim.  Even though Jovan was willing to have us use it again for her 25th this coming October, it went out to the curb.  If it survived the winds, maybe some other family will have lots of fun with it it, too.

O-so–B/T/W:  Gemma is in a contest to be on the front of Parents’ mag.  VOTE for her everyday, OK?  http://photos.parents.com/parents-cover-contest-2011/17/2011/157

 

photos.parents.com  (hope these links will work for you??)

Vote for GEMMA in the Parents Cover Contest! One Reader’s Choice Winner will be a finalist at the Professional Cover Shoot!

Snowclone Collection

Stuff I Actually Think, ,

Yes.  SnowCLONEs.

A snowclone is a type of cliché sometimes defined as “a multi-use, customizable, instantly recognizable, time-worn, quoted or misquoted phrase or sentence that can be used in an entirely open array of different variants.”

Phrasal Templates. 

I find them interesting.  You know?  Those phrases that have such a distinct identity, you can leave some blanks (to be filled in to fit what you are trying to communicate) and people still get the reference.    I don’t think I have ever played Mad Libs, but I bet I would enjoy it because it is built around phrasal templating (is that a word?).    Here are some I like (and yes, I actually threw all of these into this image via www.picnik.com).

Give me some for my collection.

Oops..I see one of them on there twice.