Thinking Back Tuesdays Story #7 FixThePlus

Update: With my husband's suggestion I had told him we have a very good Movie reviewest called Nik's Pics at Facebook and also has a blog called  Lavender Inspirations where you can find +Nikki DeMc .

 She is very thoughtful of all her reviews of movies so I decided I would leave those to her and I am sticking to T.V. shows where you can find them and watch for free on the internet. I'm switching up Mondays Movies and Thinking Back Tuesdays to Monday's Memories and Television Tuesdays. 

Thursdays I have started Thursdays Are For Trivia and I will start Frugal Fridays for saving, renewing old stuff into new stuff is a big interest for me.

Continued from last Tuesday...I did have two escapes, my love of art and music...

Junior High...images are flashing by for I had some very good times despite the fact I was still a loner belonging to no group of kids but trying to fit in. Nothing like I am now that’s for sure! It is said you never forget your first love. 

Now we are getting to one of many “Happy Places” in my life. I will write what I see in my minds eye for to this day which I am now 57 years old I can still see that part of my life as clearly as if it was just yesterday.

It was the normal hot sunny day in Palm Springs, California at the pool. I was now in High School. The pool water was a nice clear blue, nice and cool. I had on my first bikini that my father had given the OK for me to wear which had flowers and ties on the top and sides. These were promptly tied tight the min. I left sight of home.

I close my eyes and I can see and almost feel the warm tile beneath me which I had splashed with pool water to cool it down so I could sit. I would sit next to the lifeguard tower which I thought was the perfect job in the whole world to get a good tan going.

There were a few teenagers and smaller children splashing and playing just your average day at the pool. There's a commotion and looking up I see Paul G. kid brother of Ann G. but since my mother had to butt in, like mothers can do, into every part of my life I couldn't be friends with Ann because her mother had “too many Uncles” which much, later on, I figured out what that meant!

With him is a green eyed totally tanned boy who I fell for pretty much right away but stuck my teenage snotty nose up in the air and proceeded to ignore, ignore, ignore. It was kinda hard to ignore them two with all the yelling, splashing and diving off that huge black inner tube they were using to play with! 

They were showing off for me! To make a long story short Paul started up a conversation which I discovered that his friend liked me and I got introduced to his friend's cousins and Paul's sister who was the Ann I was supposed to stay away from. 

I love full circles when they come around and it's a good thing! We became the best of friends and I miss them all dearly. I have tried to find them on Facebook with no success. I suppose I could try harder but would not be sure of the meeting so I don't.

There was Karen, Diane, (sisters) Ann and later on Rita. We became tight, I slept over ever chance I got, the parents were like my parents and they were Italian. Well, half Josie the mother was. 

I remember big tall shining pots of bubbling homemade spaghetti sauce with homemade bread dipping a piece into the pot and being scolded told to stay out of it; a smokey kitchen at night while the adults played cards and smoked. 

Trips to Cherry valley to their relatives who were 100% Italian to the point of stone wall oven with the delicious smells of baking bread coming out. I loved it. I often regret the path that took me away from them but all the memories are priceless.  

Do you have childhood memories that you love?

100 Exquisite Adjectives by Mark Nichol

I love learning new words or being reintroduced to one. I ran across a list of them and will add a word a day.

Word#57 Meretricious: whorish, superficially appealing, pretentious

In a sentence: If my friend didn’t decorate her house with so many meretricious knickknacks, it would be a more comfortable place to visit.

Thinking Back Tuesdays Story #5 FixThePlus

Continued from last Tuesday...

Little did I know my future husband's brother & sister-in-law lived right down the block where my family lived. Then the “black people” as my mother called them and “beaners” (I didn't agree to either term) as everyone called them started moving into the Dream Homes. 

By this time, I had a little brother but he was still a baby. The Doctor had made a mistake cutting his forehead during his C-Section which really pissed big sister off!

I am having an epiphany writing this. I am reading a book that was given to me and came across a paragraph that pretty much described what I couldn't really put into words but knew it was there all along. It says the following:

“There were times, like today, when she realized that after a youth of skating along slippery surfaces, she had now settled into a domestic rut of dazzling sameness, each day forced to perform the same show with the same players, just each player one day older. She wondered why it had to be this way, why are we forced to choose one life. Why do we insist that there can only be one “us”, one life that makes us up in our entirety? Why can't we have more than one identity? And why do we have to destroy one life in order to create another? We claim to long for the “well-rounded,” the Renaissance man or woman inside all of us, yet our only variety is cosmetic. In reality, we do all we can to smother that spirit out, to make us conform, to define us as one thing and one thing only.”

Looking back I have had many lives in this same life. When I had my own children I used what had happened to try and protect them and it never seemed enough knowing what was really out there.

It's funny sometimes the bits and pieces that come back as memories so long ago. So I pretty much made it through Elementary School where the 6th-grade girls were all into wearing training bras and I wasn't allowed a bra. 

Between the peer pressure of wearing a bra, saddle shoes and nylon ankle socks not to mention plain dresses that looked like I was in a Catholic School I got very creative at breaking and wrecking these things I hated. Which when I became a mother it was very important to me for my children to feel comfortable in clothes they liked not hated, which lucky for them I liked their clothing choices as well. 

That went for hair also. My son started liking a shaved head , my daughter wanted short hair for a long time.I think my mother thought of me like a Barbie Doll only Barbie was way hipper than I was!

My absolute happiest memories are when I was 15 years old going to the pool every day if possible. My High School's pool was open all summer so that’s where I spent my summer days swimming, tanning, and acting oh so nonchalant around the boys. I would hop on my bike and spend the day carefree under the blue Californian sun and the crystal clear blue water of the swimming pool.

Junior High went a little bit better for I got better at telling lies and finally taking more control over who I was. Before you get the wrong ideas let me explain...

To be continued next Tuesday...

Thinking Back Tuesdays My Story #4

So we would stay the weekend and then the dreaded 3-hour drive home with my parents bickering and arguing all the way with my father driving like a maniac passing cars on hills that I would have a nice upset stomach by the time we got home.
Looking back I remember long summer days and my favorite time was just as the sun was disappearing over the mountain. That's when I started sunbathing my tan looked the darkest.
I was such a prankster and still am.

This one Easter I blew out eggs to painstakingly fill up with confetti and smashing them over someone's head, getting on the roof of our house and dropping a water balloon on my dad's head; jumping down out of our front yard tree and scaring the crap out of someone.

 Spending time with my friends up the street was so nice. We would take a blanket and lay down on our backs and look up at the stars and try to see a UFO which we would see an airplane and say there's one! The big fig bush that we would pick figs right there and eat them until we were stuffed.

 Standing next to my friend's mom while she was cooking and getting me to take a taste, which I promptly spit out. Surprise it was an octopus! Yuck! We had fun going downtown which my mother wouldn't of let me go but my friend's mom worked at one of the places and we would go into those fancy dress shops talking back and forth about “mother giving us her Visa card” and trying on $100 dresses. Palm Springs has a lot of fancy shops that I loved to go into.

Growing up in the Dream Homes I should have had more friends than I did. But my mother seemed to know about people although thinking about it now seems a little puzzling because she didn't make friends easily. I remember one of her friends going to her house was an adventure. It was as messy as my house was squeaky clean. I don't remember much but throwing frogs as high as you could in the air and letting them splat I seem to remember. Her kids were animals. But I liked going over there...

To be continued next Thinking Back Tuesday My Story

Thinking Back Tuesdays My Story #3

Continued from last Tuesday...
This story was inspired when my first born Grandson was still in his mommy's belly. Now I am writing for two for my second grandson who is on his way. I love you both.

                                                   Grandma Rose

I became friends with a pair of sisters who had an older pair of sisters that lived right down the street from where I lived. These girls were younger then I was but had more trust and freedom from their mother than I did from my mother. So I practically lived over there for with all the screaming and arguing at my house it was a wonderful refuge. 

When I finally found my brother, your Uncle Chris, after thirty years he has had contact with at least Jessie who was the youngest of the sisters. Jody was the older girls name. Very pretty like her mother. I remember a fig bush where we would eat our fill of in her back yard after much convincing from Jody. We would lay out a blanket, lay down looking up into the heavens pretending that the airplane lights were aliens. We were so close that we would call each other at the same exact time just picking up the phone, no ring, just both of us saying at the same time.."Hello"??

 I grew up as a single child until I was eight years old. My father and grandpa were carpenters and contracted what was called “The Dream Homes”, paying off the house was $120.00 a month plus utilities. All the houses had two designs and our house was near the Main Road. The whole place was in a circle with the school being right in the middle, grades kindergarten to the sixth grade.

  I remember moving once to San Diego, California but we moved back. I remember a trailer park and a very cold trailer and feeding squirrels peanuts by hand. In my new school, I had made one new friend and went over to her house listening to music and being silly dancing to with a banana peel for a hat on my head. My old school sending me a Valentines Day Card signed with my schoolmates name on it.

My mom was pregnant with my brother at that time and I barely remember a house we had moved into and squishing my finger in a doorway. Funny the stuff you remember. My Aunt Stella and Uncle Dan, my Dad's brother lived in San Diego, but we ended up moving back home to the Desert. I loved and missed San Diego. My Aunt and Uncle had a two story drafty house which us kids trampled through after we traveled the three hours to visit them. 

There are one older brother and two sisters and later to come another boy. My cousin Mark is now in heaven. I remember lots and lots of green foliage. The cool air that warmed up around noon time. Plants and trees everywhere, six blocks down was the beach which I practically lived. I almost drowned once but that’s pretty good after a lifetime of swimming in the ocean. 

I always thought it was so neat to be able to see the ocean from my cousin's house. Getting down to the beach was the ultimate rush tho! My Uncle had taken skateboards and built them into scooters and we all had one. Our shoes were our brakes much to my mother's dismay. I sure wish I had that kind of energy again running up and down that hill and stomping through the neighbor's yards playing the night game of tag. It was non-stop fun. Then we would all go upstairs and blankets were laid out for us all to sleep on in that attic with the slanted walls that I occasionally hit my head on.

 I had my first coffee from my Aunt Stella. Lots of creamer and  sugar and I loved it! My mother was totally against it so it was our little secret. Next would come running in and out and all around the neighborhood until it became the time for homemade ice cream that never failed to give me brain freeze, but it was so good. That and watermelon and after we were done eating we would have watermelon seed spitting contests. Watermelon seeds everywhere which made the critters happy. I love it there.

 My Aunt read Tarot Cards which my mother was totally against, but I'm sorry to say my mother didn't like much of anything. I liked the inside of Aunt Stella's house with the beaded curtains which us kids would go swishing through and brightly colored decorations all over. My mother found it “tacky”. I loved it. I would dream of how this was my real life and thank God for dreams for they are free. 

To be continued next Thinking Back Tuesday

How do you like my story so far?

Thinking Back Tuesdays My Story #2

Continued from last Tuesday...

                                                 Grandma Rose's Story

When I was a little girl I was very calm most of the time. I could be a silly little thing making jokes and giggles laughing so hard at it all. I remember going to bed and this was up until I was eight years old,  dreaming away in full color and remembering every detail as if I was actually there. One of my dreams was I would float higher and higher looking down on the world.

Another dream I used to have on a regular basis was my father, mother and me driving in a jungle at top speed with a dinosaur right be-hide us and it crashing through the window dragging my mother out of the car. Weird.

Another one was about getting lost. I would be shopping and I remember in my dream picking up some pants thinking to myself how real they felt. Then I would be in a horseshoe type apartment complex on the walkway and my mother was gone and I was all alone.

I loved my dreams about flying it was so fun! These dreams were on replay most of my childhood. In fact, when I lived in Waterboro, Maine your Daddy was 2 or 3 years old and he was having bad dreams. He came to me one night and told me he didn't want to go to bed because he was having bad dreams so being the awesome Mommy that I was I did a chant which I repeated as he got a little older.

The chant went something like this. While I was whirling around and around with my arms outstretched I would chant: “Bad dreams bad dreams go away...repeat...Go away to the moon”! Which then I would make a sweeping motion with my arms as if gathering up all the bad dream vibes and tossing them into the air. It got a little tricky me being so clumsy, but I pulled it off.

Our local Elementary School was from Kindergarten to the 6th grade. All I remember about Kindergarten is gram crackers & milk and laying down to rest on a mat.  I remember hanging upside down when I was in 4th  grade falling flat on my back knocking the wind right out of me, playing RingaRoundtheRosie and writing Mike in the sand with the toe of my shoe. Guess I started liking boys at a tender age!

I also started singing in the 6th grade which I took all the way to the 12th grade. I'm telling you nowadays it's a lot better with hot lunches. No soggy tuna sandwiches or warm baloney...gross! And no warm smelly milk jugs. Lunch was not a fun time!

I loved to run and I was fast although I'd fall down hence the scars on my knees. I remember this boy. I was with a bunch of school girls and the boys were across the field and one threw a rock hitting me. I was very angry about that and, later on, that day at next recess I spotted him. That's when my white saddle shoes came in handy which I hated with a passion. Without thinking, I snuck up behind him and kicked him as hard as I could in the ankle almost dropping him to the ground. He never bothered me again.

I have always been a loner as a kid and later as a teenager. Nothing like I am now. I would hook up with one friend and tolerate the others. This one girl I became friends with the friendship started out  in the school yard. I had grabbed her sweater from her and we were racing around the school yard, but I could run circles around her. There was this Volley Board which I loved playing on and as we were running around it I tossed up her sweater and lo and behold it draped right over the top...opps!

 Needless to say, I got in trouble for that one with the janitor having to get a ladder to get her sweater! We became friends after that. The family was Mormons. All the houses in the Dream Homes were one of two models so being in a friend's house was almost like being at home minus the yelling. There were 3 girls and 1 boy and I practically lived over there. I remember sitting down and having one of the sisters brush my hair for hours and talking the night away. As life went on we lost touch only to touch base with each other after 30 years. All because of Facebook.

To be continued next Tuesday....

Thinking Back Tuesdays Story Time #1

I started writing my story at the urging of my kids, several years ago. Personally I think they wore weary of all my stories, just kidding kids! I would think about it a lot finally putting pen to paper fingers to keyboard when my first grandchild was born. You are my motivation dear one. I never knew I could love anyone else as much as my own children for which there is none like a mother's love which is where the term "I love you to the moon and back" comes from. I have made mistakes, moved mountains, motivated by my children, raising them to be strong, independent people, and to be better off than I was. I wasn't prepared for Empty Nest Syndrome which hit me hard when my son spread his wings and flew off to the military.You would of thought the sting of separation would of been lessened, he had been going to Florida to see his father and his wonderful now wife since he was five or six. I remember that was the very first time I had ever sat foot in a commercial airline, my son looking so tiny in the seat. That was the day my heart broke, just a little. I think the oceans are really made of all the mother's in the world's tears.

The stewardess assured me he would be watched over all the way there and I managed to hold back my tears until I stepped off the plane watching it fly my little son away from me. Hours later I got the expected phone call that all was well, I could finally relax.
Now when my daughter grew up and decided she wanted adventure I gave her my blessing, smiling and waving good-bye, I wished her well breathing a sigh of relief that she had the strength to leave the go nowhere town we lived in, closed the door and cried, my heart breaking a little more.
I am lucky that despite all the miles and years that go by we are deeply, completely bound to each other staying in touch through Skype, Facebook, phone calls, letters and cards and visits. Also talking to everyone I know I have drawn comfort that I am not alone in missing my children. I started this story while you were still in your mommy's belly. You were early, you little early bird! Grandma loves you already.
So without further ado here is Grandma Rose's story, my gift to you. Oh yes, You have a little brother coming and we all are going to have a wonderful time!

                                         GRANDMA ROSE'S ADVENTURES

Hello, little one and by little one I'm talking to you while you are still in your Mommy's belly.I already have an idea of what you will look like from your sonogram. Your parents are really looking forward to meeting you and so is everyone else.

Your name has changed a couple of times, but that’s just normal and what parents do. Your Aunt Amy who is my oldest daughter was born June 21st, 1980 in Palm Springs, California where I was raised. I wanted to name her “Summer” and it just happens that “Summer Begins” is June 21st which I think would have been too cool but at my mother's insistent nagging, I ended up naming her Amy and I think now it may be Cindy but hang on...I'm getting ahead of myself! You will read about Aunt Amy later.

How Grandpa C. and I got your daddy's name was we made a deal. Grandpa C. was in charge of the first names, I was in charge of the middle name. After you were born, I chose to name your father after my grandpa who is with the angels now. It's a nice strong name.

I asked your mommy on Facebook how she got her name and she told me, “My mom just liked the name”. “My middle name is my mom and dads middle name together”.

Now your Aunt Ariel came by her name from the Movie The Little Mermaid. I loved the spelling, not to mention the movie, which me and your daddy watch at least a million  hundred times, and her middle name Chelsie was a name I really liked from a man who's daughter was named, thinking it sounded like a song. I love the way your Auntie's whole name sounds like singing.

Okay, kiddo Grandma's Adventures is about to begin... Stay tuned for the next installment of  GRANDMA ROSE'S ADVENTURES next Tuesday's Thinking Back Tuesdays Story Time.

I really really want everyone's input and I have a thick skin and am willing to learn so please comment what you all think!

Time Of My Life #FixThePlus *

I have been reading up on the net basically how to build a nice blog. I feel like I'm all over the place and I need to focus on one subject at a time but what subjects?

I know deep down I want to use my experiences and adventures to help others that run across my blog and know you are not alone and using myself to show that despite life dragging you along like a fast moving river, you can survive it.

My blog will be like my life has been. Trial and error, plus a whole lot of reading and reflection. I got this quote out of a novel I read,

“Writing is a wonderful and terrible thing. It opens deep wells of memories that were previously capped”.

I had the hardest time going backward and reliving the worse parts of my life. But the more I write and reflect, the better I'm dealing with it. I think the hardest emotion I had to deal with was feeling guilty.

 Going to bed and emotionally flogging myself for "bad" choices sending myself into deep despair and depression. I would lay there and think about the "what ifs" and if it would have changed anything at all?

I watch a lot of television or rather I have the Internet and watch my shows and movies on my laptop. The shows I like fuels my imagination. One concept from the Si-Fi shows is parallel worlds.

I would try and imagine where I would have ended up taking another road than the one I took. But then again I've always been a dreamer which got me in a lot of troubles when I was in school. I must be part angel cos I'm always sitting on a cloud.

So now I know what I'm going to do as far as my blogging. My journey may of had speed bumps and wrong turns but one thing I am sure about is my inner core. I'd rather do good rather than evil although you get on my wrong side there's no telling what will happen! Funny thing. There was no right thing or wrong thing only my thing and the person I am today.

How do you enjoy your life?

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)

Song by Green Day

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road

Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go

So make the best of this test and don't ask why

It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable but in the end is right

I hope you had the time of your life

So take the photographs and still frames in your mind

Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time

Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial

For what it's worth, it was worth all the while

It's something unpredictable but in the end is right

I hope you had the time of your life

Being A Sagittarius #FixThePlus *

 Looking back at my life I am amazed that I'm still here. I have read that being a Sagittarius; Jupiter pays special attention to his Sagittarius children protecting them from themselves. Kinda reminds me of a small child falling down and daddy dusting you off sending you on your way.

 Then there is your Guardian Angel beaming down on you protectively. You can find out what your Spirit Animal is which mine is a Skunk. I found this out in a dream I had one night. All through it was skunks everywhere and when I went to look up the meaning I was well satisfied. The meaning was so like me I was so impressed. No one likes messing with a skunk!

Okay, you can joke now:)

 Then there is the theory that God's not done with me yet and I have many more lives to touch and more people to touch mine.

 I am Spiritual and am very sensitive to other people's emotions and have learned to protect myself from being overwhelmed by negative behavior.

I believe in Karma and Past Lives. I love Magic and the Mystic.
 I have had a ton of fun so far it hasn't been boring.

We will see if anyone can relate to my story and if you can't that's fine too. Just remember, its all in how you handle it.

What's your sign?