When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob Bobbin' Along...

This may seem like a rather strange title for a post, but for me and my family it has a lot of meaning.

You see today, April 19th, 2011 would have been my mom's 86th Birthday. I've been thinking about her alot today and missing her.

Easter's coming this weekend and for a number of years we've celebrated mom's birthday along with the rest of the April birthdays, Craig, Colin and Laurel, on Easter. With having such a big family, we tend to clump birthdays together for our family celebrations, it's just easier that way. So this will be the second Easter without mom to celebrate with us.

Last year was really hard. Laurel volunteered to have Easter dinner at her new house and she did a great job. Both Carls were there, and Auntie Dolly and Uncle Johnny. I know we all thought alot about mom though. I handed out the kids Easter candy from my gramma's basket, just like mom always did, but it just wasn't quite the same.

This year, Easter's back at my house. I'll cook the turkey and stuffing. Carrie & Craig will bring the potatoes and Laurel will bring the carrots and turnips. Auntie Dolly will bring the cheese. We'll have cake and ice cream for dessert and we'll all eat too much. I'll hand out the Easter candy from gramma's basket again and we'll all still miss mom. It will be a little bit easier though.

The Carls are going to Gail's this year, but Auntie Dolly and Uncle Johnny will be here. In the native tradition, when a mother dies, the closest sister to her age takes over her place as mother. In our family, this is Auntie Dolly. I'm quite comfortable with this and so are my kids and grandkids. We've all spent a lot of time together. Auntie Dolly and Uncle Johnny never had children of their own, so for years we've included them in our holiday and birthday celebrations. So since they've inherited me, they now have 5 pseudo grandchildren, each with a spouse, and 15 pseudo great-grandchildren, and Auntie Dolly still says, when she's gone no one will miss her. I don't believe that for a minute.

So where does the robin come into this. You see, mom's favorite bird was the robin. Every spring she would be anxiously awaiting seeing the first robin so that she would know that spring had finally arrived. Okay, so some years the robins seemed to jump the gun a little bit and show up when it was still pretty cold and miserable out, but that didn't matter one bit to mom. Over the years she even amassed quite a collection of robin figurines. We've all bought her some and somehow she never ended up with any duplicates.

Last Saturday, Wayne and I went over to Carl's to sort through some more of the "stuff" that Carl wants disposed of. So far Carrie and I have gone through most of mom's clothes and jewellery as well as a lot of the things that she accumulated over the years. We've gotten rid of a lot of clothes and other things that we didn't think that any of us would want, but I've kept a few of her "souvenirs". This time we started tackling the basement. When mom and Carl bought the house on Barons, they moved from a two and a half storey, four bedroom house to a one storey 2 bedroom house. Needless to say, even though some things had been disposed of prior to the move, there is still a basement full of boxes. We managed to make a small dent in the pile, packing up some things that came back to our house to be put to use or just saved and delegating a large amount to the garbage pile.

While there, I decided it was time to pack up the robins and bring them back to my house. Sunday afternoon, I started going through all of the boxes and manged to make a real mess of my living room. Since then I've been doing what I do best - procrastinating. Finally this evening I finished sorting everything out and unpacked the robins. I've chosen the ones that I want to keep and have found a home for them where they'll be safe. I've also delegated about 2/3 of them for my kids to pick and choose from. So right now, if you were to walk into my front room, you would think you were in a bird sanctuary.

I think it was a good day to sort through them with it being mom's birthday. It made me think even more of her and going through some of her pictures and keepsakes has brought back a lot of memories.

I miss you mom, but yesterday when I was outside at work, I heard the loudest robin saying 'chulook, chulook, and I knew you were there with me. Happy Birthday. I love you always.

Picture This

Once again Friday night is upon us and as per usual, I'm doing my darnedest to be non-productive, or at least relatively so.

My usual Friday evening consists of chilling in my favorite lazy girl chair, sipping a few rye & cokes and maybe reading or listening to some tunes and playing various forms of mind numbing games or some such mindless drivel. Tonight though, I've wound up being somewhat productive, in a lazy sort of way.

I've just spent the last 4 hours 'stealing' pictures of my family off of their facebook sites. Now I'm not just doing this on a whim, although I have to admit it's been kind of cool checking out every ones pics.

Quite a few months ago now I picked up a few things in a rather neat store that Krystal introduced me to in St Thomas. One plaque that I bought to hang over our bed reads "And They Lived Happily Ever After". I liked the sentiment and at some point I would like to add some 4x6 wedding pictures underneath it. Not just mine and Wayne's, but all of the family ones too.

The other plaque that I bought says "All Because Two People Fell In Love". Right when I saw it, I knew what I would do with it. I would hang it over a collage frame filled with pictures of my children and their spouses, along with pictures of all of the grandkids. Lets see 5 children (with spouses), 15 grandkids, that makes 21 pictures.

No problem, right? Wrong! Do you know how hard it's been to find 21 pictures that I like? I have hundreds, if not thousands of pictures. Too bad they are either of scenery or are way out of date for what I want to do. Even my digital pictures don't quite fill the bill, or the frame for that matter. I've been getting razed about the pictures that are in the frame ever since I hung it up in the front hall. I have great pictures in it. Too bad they're the pictures that were in the frame when I bought it.

Okay, how to get more recent photos of everyone without having to take them all myself. That's where Facebook comes in. I got the idea last week to browse everyones photos and find some that would work in my frame. That way I should be able to get them cropped, printed off and in the frame before Easter. I have a photo printer upstairs and lots of paper, so that's not a problem. I even have spare ink cartridges for the printer. Okay, now I just need to organize myself to get this done.

Tonight turned out to be the night to start my quest. I have to admit that my kids all have great pics posted and I spent the evening oohing and aahhing over lots of them and downloading probably 3 - 6 pictures of each and everyone in my family, with one exception. I cannot for the life of me find a picture of Aaron that's not at least 3 years old. The only newer pictures of him are group shots, where I could not even crop him out. Or some taken last Halloween where he is dressed up as Super Mario. I know this kid exists cause I just saw him in February at Lily's birthday party. Maybe he's a vampire and his photo can't be taken. Hmmm...

What to do? Print off an older picture of Aaron and pretend that he's a lot younger than he really is. Print off an extra picture of Aidan (one from about 2 years ago) and pretend that it's him. They do look an awful lot alike. Draw a picture of him (note to self - learn to draw first). Put a big A with a question mark over it. Okay, maybe the best option would be to email Krystal and have her send me a few pictures of Aaron that I could use.

Well, I've interrupted my blogging for a few minutes to send Krystal a message, so hopefully I won't have to resort to the other options. I'll keep you posted and maybe if I can find a way to do a slide show on here, I`ll share the family with all of you.

Sundays Should Be Longer

Once more Sunday is winding down to slowly disappear into the beginning of a new work week. Why is it that what is probably my favorite day of the week has only 24 hours, just like all of the other days? I'm sure that most people I know would agree that if we could take just 1 or 2 hours away from Monday to Friday and add them to Sunday it would be wonderful. Just think how nice it would be to have a 25 or 34 hour day once a week. Whether you spend Sunday at worship, visiting family or friends, enjoying a well prepared dinner, going for a drive (if you can afford the gas nowadays), or just lazing around the house, it seems to be the one day of the week that has it's own sense of calm around it. Growing up, we attended Sunday Mass in the morning and would often visit my aunts and uncles or grandparents in the afternoon. There would always be a big dinner, roast beef with all the trimmings usually, and then TV in the evening. I grew up with The Ed Sullivan Show and was allowed to stay up an extra hour to watch Bonanza, as long as my homework was done before hand and I was in my pj's. My kids grew up with the big Sunday dinner as well, but rarely the Sunday church service and not usually the drive and family visits. Sunday in the 70's and 80's was the day the beds were changed and laundry sorted and started. It was always bath night and clean pj's. And often mad quests to finish the homework that had been put off since Friday. I still made the big dinner on Sundays for a number of years after the kids grew up and moved out. Someone would usually show up looking for mom's home cooking so I never had to worry about having too many leftovers. Somewhere along the line though that stopped. Sunday's for Wayne and I now mean leaving around 8 am for the two Giant Tiger stores and window cleaning, grocery shopping and a gas/cigarette run to the reserve. Home again around 1 and a lazy afternoon of reading, the Internet or maybe a movie on TV, or best of all the afternoon nap. Many afternoons I have sat down to read for half an hour, only to snooze off and wake up 2 or 3 hours later feeling much refreshed. An easy supper followed by a quiet evening seems to be the norm now, I even try to do family get-togethers on Saturdays, just so I can be lazy on Sundays. We all rush around Monday to Friday trying to cram in work, family and housework. Saturdays are usually spent in a mad flurry of shopping or cleaning, but Sundays just seem to slow down and gently meander along until it's time to go to bed, knowing that in just a few hours it will all start again. Well it's off to bed soon, but Sunday will be back again in just 6 days.

Shop Till You Drop

Yay, I spent a wonderful day doing one of my favorite activities - SHOPPING!!! Like most women, it must be genetic, I love to shop. I also have daughters who love to shop. Anyone who knows me, knows that I have a rather large, unwieldy family who tend to be constantly having birthdays, which translates into lots of shopping for birthday gifts. For the last few years I have simplified my life by gifting my children, their spouses and the older grandchildren with gift cards instead of frenzied shopping for the impossible - "The Perfect Gift". It makes sense to me and they all seem to enjoy getting a gift card whether it be for a restaurant, movie night, Michaels, Wal-Mart or even Home Depot or Lowes. Especially since our family has birthdays in clumps. January has 2 including mine, but Zak & Jess, the Christmas kids, have always been celebrated in January. February just has one while March has three. April has always been rather crowded with four, but one of those was mom's. May has two plus Mother's day. June has three, plus Fathers Day. July has a whopping six and after this year will probably be seven, but Shawn is the lone August celebrant. September has 6, including my brother-in-law, two nephews and my aunt. October has three and they're all in the same week. November only has one and December has the two on the 23rd and 24th that get held over to January. I've probably missed a few in there, some of them are by reminder only. Anyway you look at it, even with picking up gift cards, that's still a lot of shopping. This year when March birthdays rolled around, I decided to get creative with my daughter-in-law Tracy and my daughter Carrie's gifts and made them personalized gift certificates good for a day of shopping, pampering or whatever they chose with me. Carrie's was a little bit more specific than Tracy's though. I volunteered to take her for a shopping spree at Michael's. In the past, I have gotten both Carrie and Krystal gift cards for Michael's, but this year I took pity on Craig and would take Carrie myself. Let me tell you, shopping in a craft store with my daughter is an experience. Being given a spending limit, we both entered the wonderful world of Michael's armed with shopping carts and visions of future creations dancing in our heads. I knew that Carrie would be lost in scrap booking heaven, so I proceeded to explore other areas first. I filled my cart with new silk flowers for spring arrangements and neat beads to accent my summer tees and tanks. I'm not a fast shopper by any means, when there are so many riches to explore, but Carrie has me beat hands down. I'm not sure of the exact time, but I'm thinking close to two hours were spent prowling the aisles, lusting after possible acquisitions and making final decisions. Needless to say, we both came out of there with loads of loot. Then it was grab a quick bite to eat and a much needed beverage and head over to one of my all time favorite stores - Indigo. I'm not just a reader, I'm a Voracious Reader. I don't merely read books, I consume them. Last weekend while out with Wayne, we had stopped in Indigo and I found a much discounted and very desirable gardening book which I just had to have. After sharing my wonderful find with two of my friends, I was back to pick up one of these wonderful books for each of them. Now for anyone who reads as much as I do, it is impossible to go into a book store, pick up the book that you came in for, pay and leave. You must scour the shelves, stacks and tables for any new books that you might have missed in the past. I had stumbled across an interesting book last week about the Dark History of the Kings and Queens of England that looked quite interesting and seeing as they had only one copy left, just had to have it. Then while browsing, I spotted a book about Piracy that just had to be bought. While Carrie was off exploring cookbooks, I happened upon a book about England during WWII that caught my eye. It turned out that the author of this book, Edith's War, was doing a book signing and after we chatted for a bit, I just couldn't pass up the chance of a book, not only on a topic of interest to me, but one that I could have autographed as well. By this point I am carrying 5 books, weighing about 30 pounds, the 2 gardening books that I had come in for weigh about 10 pounds each, and set off to find Carrie who is at the opposite end of the store searching out the desired cookbook that she wanted. After much searching, it proved to be not available at that particular location, but could be had in Burlington. Not being one to give up a good quest, it was trek to the car, onto the expressway and off to Burlington. Upon arrival in Burlington, I told Carrie that I really shouldn't be allowed to buy any more books for myself, that we would just pick up her book and be off. Yeah, right. Carrie managed to find her hearts desire fairly easily, but being my daughter, still had to stop and browse on the way to the checkout. Along the way, I managed to get into the gravitational pull of yet another book. Needless to say, I am now the proud owner of a wonderful cookbook of Indian Cuisine. Other than Krystal and Troy, who don't live close enough to stop in for many meals, I am the only one in the family who loves curry. Go figure, I'll be lusting after Butter Chicken, Tika Masali, Naan, and Samosas wondering when I will ever get to try making these wondrous taste sensations for some time. Our little shopping excursion had now taken about five hours and a very full car. Do I regret spending my day off shopping? Hell no! I enjoyed myself enormously not only for getting to spend the day with my daughter, but for the chance to expand my creativity and to fill my mind with new sources of knowledge and enjoyment. After a winter of work both at home and at Capo, it was a great way to enjoy a wonderful early spring day. Now I wonder where Tracy and I will end up?

Talk About Procratinating!

Once again, I owe it all to Laurel.

I spotted a post my talented daughter made on Facebook this week regarding her blog. Now when I started my blog, it was because of Laurel. I figured that after all if she could start a blog and share with the world, so could I. So after much angst, (translation - procrastination) I set up my own blog - Gramstunes. Needless to say I was off to a great start and then slowly my posts dwindled away. In part, I can put it off to the feeling that no one was reading them anyway, so why bother. Okay, so the larger part is I am known for starting lots of things and finishing few.

Tonight I looked at Laurel's blog, read her new posts and some of her old ones and then looked back over all of my old posts and decided that I still want to do this. In fact I need to do this! After reading my old posts, I realized that whether anyone reads them or not, I'm blogging for me and if no one else ever reads them, it's their loss, not mine.

I read back over old memories and I liked what I read. I must have, 'cause I laughed and cried and remembered and I think that's what this is all about. I also read the comments that were left and realized that my writing was appreciated by others.

When I was about 11 or 12, I kept a diary. God, I wish I knew whatever happened to it. I know my mother found it and read it once and whatever I had written managed to get me in lots of trouble, but it's long gone and so is what I wrote about that I thought was important at that moment in time.

I think that is what this blog needs to be for me. A diary of what I think is important enough to remember at any given point in time. I would like to say that I will write something everyday, but I know myself well enough that time will slip away from me and at some future date I will be starting over once again. But that's all right. The point is to keep on starting over. Just because you stop doing something for a while, doesn't mean that it has to be over forever. Besides I have lots to share, even if I'm just sharing with myself.

So once again I'm starting over. I'm going to try to post even just a few words every day, but for sure I will try to recap my week, probably on Friday nights. After all Friday nights are my time. I can stay up later, have a drink (or two) if I want, listen to some tunes and try to put it all in perspective - my week, my life, my family, my world as I know it. Maybe sometimes, some of you will stop in for a visit, but even if you don't, I'll be here.