Good Morning 48!

This is the last year of my life that the first digit of my age is exactly half of the second...until I am 120? Imagine that. I am awake and 48.
My true love gave me 3 Ferrero Rochero chocolates(my very, very favorite treat) and 1 dozen roses. I know he loves me, you have to remind them every once in a while that they love you, or they will forget as we travel through the middle passage. I am cantankerous as ever and often I know I leave him thinking where is that kind and dainty 19 year old girl that I met on the train. Holy and God conscious, all of the time. The change of life does things to your personality, quite different from the cantankerousity of pregnancy. I told him take those roses back and buy me some tickets to see the new movie with a Black Princess. This is historic. He didn't listen, he just kissed me. I knew that meant no. I will see it by and by.
I made the cake for grandma's birthday, littler than other years, but the best tasting ever. Pound cake with chocolate frosting. I nearly gobbled it up whole, but couldn't. On the side I made 2 coconut custards. Another favorite. One is eaten and the other to pick on. I don't eat like that everyday. Needless to say, I don't get anything all to myself.
My recent quest and what is taking me into the new year is looking for the perfect combination of fat free yogurt and sugarfree jello. I am looking for a combination that will fool my mouth into believing it is cheesecake. For my birthday I combined 1 peach flavored and 1 lime sugar free jello with 1 large container of fat free yogurt. What an ugly color, but a deliciously different taste. I will be chomping on that come holiday time. Much better for my heart than Ice cream. Another treat, I enjoy when it is not my birthday is cottage cheese and any fruit I can find. A dab of sugar free jam and a dollop of cottage cheese and I can watch the children down a half gallon and not cry. I am learning to look at the decadent deserts and not always have to have them. This is part of the cantankerousness also.
Here, take a bite of ice cream to sweeten up your personality. No! I don't want to be sweet. That is the liberty of love in the late forties. Thank God for a forgiving and tolerant husband and children. They have seen, just about the whole cycle of emotions with me, now and they can look at me and see where I am going. Enoch says, dad everybody tolerates you when you act Walker, so you have to tolerate mom when she acts "Bodden?". Who knew? Can you believe they actually have a name for how I behave?
My Evvy is starting to act just like my mother. She comes in my room, hands on hips and says over my unconscious body, "You girls think you know so doggone much." We giggle and hug. Who told you to be born with Camille's exact voice? The more things change, the more they stay the same.


By the way, I discovered Jeanette MacDonald in Sweethearts on the Youtube for my birthday, a real unexpected treat. You might try watching this classic melodramatic love movie sometime. Now I know why Uncle Barry was always talking about the difference in the old time movies picture of love and the new. You have to watch it to see.
Well, again Good morning 48 or 25 for the 23rd time:).

First, It was Mommy and Me!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~XOXOXOX

Just for once, Just for once, I'll have you all to myself, Just for once, we'll play a while...

It is hard to believe, but there was a time, a very short span of time where I was my mommy's only daughter. I am not bragging. I am very, very grateful for the hosts of playmates and friends that my mommy went to the stork to get for me. I do not remember those wonderful 18 months of mother daughter bliss. I do not remember the days of me and my mommy, except at Dad's jogging my memory of what a greedy baby I was. None of the other babies were as greedy as you Jayne, he would state, very clearly. I own my greediness of my mother. I would have snatched her away from you people in a second, had they not taught me to share her with you. Now we are a family. I tried to do as they told me and not to smack you guys around too much:). Now, I am 48 and you are mommy's children also. Sharing is not easy when you are a greedy child. Happy birthday Mommy! The anniversary of being my mommy!

Thank you so much for that picture, Jo!

Happy Birthday Grandma!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"Look for the Union label, when you are buying a coat, dress or blouse..."

Jackie and Grandma at graduation in 1982?

"remember somewhere our union's sewing, our wages going to feed the kids and round the house we work hard, but who's complaining, To the irony we are paying our way. So always look for the Union label, it says we are able to make it in the USA!"

I was my Grandma's birthday present. She told me so every year that she was alive. It was ironic that I was born when she was in her 40's and that she died when I got married. Almost as though we were meant to be escorts of one another for a certain span of time and the clock was set to our love language. She was truly the one love of my life, when she was alive. She bought that doll when I was born and we struck the clock of years to our birthdays together until I was 21. She is gone and the fond memories of beautiful dresses and pretty laces and the smell of chocolate cake under loads and loads of aluminum foil donn my memory. Stale Jax, fresh soda, frozen kosher hotdogs and our first singing studio in her basement. I was born in that house and I went there to die, I thought. God spared me. Thank God. I miss my Grandma and miss her awefully.
You can't believe how exactly like her my Elyse is. As if she spit her out. She carries her sewing stuff and scissors with her all over and is always freezing and conserving stuff. We laugh like little girls over tea and I am blessed to have lived to see my grown daughter be so similar to my Grandma!

Christmas is a time for...Chocolate Kisses?

Thanks for covering for me Jo! And by the way I was the one who threw the grilled cheese behind the radiator, too. Dad's gone now, so I don't have to be afraid that he will...He looked me right in my eye and said if I ever find out that it was you!...YOu guys know the rest of the speech. It is funny now. Only because he's not here. But I still miss him for putting that much fear into life. That kind of fear, I have found teaches a person to lie very well under pressure. Not a very useful skill for a Christian. Anyway that is probably the thing that I do best now, though I try not to.
Everyday, when we were little, I used to go under the cabinet in the kitchen. The one under the window and eat a couple of sugar cubes from the box. I didn't know why they were there. I am not sure, if you guys were born for this conflict. Everyday!
One day the Rosarians came over for tea. Mom made those little sandwiches for them with the crusts cut off and all of the trimmings and to top it all off, she said, Jayne go under the cabinet and get the box of sugar cubes. GULP! Sugar cubes? For the Rosarians? They are not there. Yes they are. They are not. Yes they are. I ate them. You know what came next. All of St. Albans could hear her screaming about how I was going to get sick eating all of that sugar and that sugar causes diabetes and how could you. The women were coming over just then. Trouble, trouble, trouble. I guess I remember that story so well, because that is the one time I didn't lie and didn't get a spanking either? Go figure?

I just loved the hide and go seek games that we would play.

It seemed a regular thing that we would play hide and seek in the house. People would find me first because I was claustrophobic and couldn't stay in one place for too long. The only time that nobody found me was when I hid right there in the open. The pile of dirty clothes that were at the top of the stairs was the best hiding spot for me. I sat right there and when people passed me, I put my head down and when they left I could pick my head up and breathe.
Dad had dropped me in the tub when I was a baby, so I often had bad dreams of being in the water with the blood floating over my head. Mom and Dad accomodated my claustrophobia alot. I couldn't pull clothes over my head or wear turtlenecks or alot of other things that were weird. But hide and go seek was the hardest for me in the house. The others could hide in the top of the linen closet and other odd places, but I had to hide in the dirty clothes pile. That was the only place that made me win Hide and seek. I told you about when I tried to hide under the bed and my hair got caught. :) Those were the days, weren't they? Remember the boxing gloves?

The story of this picture.

I remember this day like it was yesterday. The dress mommy made me wear was way too small for me. Mommy was getting the little girls ready for Uncle Frank to come over to take our picture. I started having such a tantrum. Mommy, I cannot wear that dress. I was screaming, Amy was screaming and we were crying until Uncle Frank came over. Mommy said, just put the dress on. I put the dress on and we took the picture and Uncle Frank smiled at us, like we were little angels. I was losing my breath from a dress that was cutting off my circulation in my chest.
When he left, I ran upstairs to take the dress off. I pulled it over my dress and got stuck. I had forgotten to unzip it. I was unbelievably claustrophobic then and now. I was screaming, Help, please somebody help me please, I am stuck. Julia looked at me with my dress over my head and started screaming, it's a monster! We went back and forth upstairs screaming and crying about the dress until Mommy came to untangle me from the zipped, too tight dress. What a spectacle we were! What fun to be screaming and crying together and still live to talk about it.:)

DISAPPOINTMENT!

Ben and I used to joke about what it was like in a big family. Dad would look out the door and say "It is so hot, some people might go to the beach..." That was it. We would all look at one another and know that through the mystery of the "grapevine of the house", the entire family would go to bed with their bathing suits on. We would tell Dad, you said, we were going to the beach. That is the truth of life in the big family. We major in disappointments in a big family. We learn to live in the light of disappointments and finding joy in the friendship of having to live with eachother. Enjoying oneanother's company, no matter what. That was how we talked about it before we had children.
Yesterday, was that kind of disappointment for our big family. TRANNY problems with the car kept us from our first Christmas activity of the Walker family Christmas season. So, we couldn't go to the Billy Graham Library Christmas lights. AWWWW!
Are you sure? I said to "Dad" Ben. I am sure he said, on his way to work.
The whole house was in that ever-familiar funk, called disappointments.
The younger fellows contented themselves on the Wii. After a time of sympathy we started a game of cards that became a cheerful time of joking and laughing with the crew.
I think that is the dynamic of family, learning to create fun out of disappointments. The teamwork of necessity becoming the mother of invention and the hope that a new tranny will allow us to get where we need to go and home again day after day.
I am very thankful for the dynamic that makes the people that I love dear to me. The many times that we went to bed with our bathing suits on and woke up to a rain storm and the fun of dancing like Santa's reindeer in the living room are the memories that make us long to recreate that mystery of family again and again for generations. Love to you!

How do we get ready for the holidays when the weather is so nice?

They start playing holiday music, down here the day after Halloween. Every station on the radio and everywhere you go there is holiday music. The lights are around everywhere in the neighborhoods. It seems early to us, but we have come to learn that it is because there is no weather change that makes us shiver and say...the holidays are here, that the holiday season seems to take us so much by surprise. I took the lights out at Halloween, but my helpers were not ready to put them up.
Thanksgiving has come and gone and they are still avoiding the fun of putting up the lights. Our family is getting older and each year we have some sort of plan for the fun of the Holidays, today we plan to visit the lights at the Billy Graham library. There are live nativity scenes in various places. If I can get organized to figure out where to go next. I will just let my schedule planners keep the ball rolling for us. Miracle on Meadow Crossing Dr. is the story we write year after year. God is so good to us and we love remembering His mercies during this end of the year holiday season. Truly "the gift goes on!"

Who toughened up Baby Jackie? I cannot tell a lie...

We tortured that poor baby. Mom had to hire an armed guard, Ms. Newsome to keep us from accosting the poor baby. I remember the first time Fr. Jerry looked into the bassinet and Uncle Barry. She screamed to high heaven. I remember thinking, I don't know why they don't spank her for that. We have to say hello to everybody. Not Jackie. How long ago was that? 45 years? Nooooo! She was adorable and took all of the attention from Ju and me both. We were both jealous.
How did we start singing that horrible song. Doggone right! It was at Grandma Monica's house and they asked us to sing, but Jackie couldn't remember the words. We didn't know that she was too young to sing the words. So, we gave her the "lead". One line! Could she remember? Doggone right. It was just horrible that we could never finish the song. Doggone right? Can't you remember the words. Neither she nor Ju could remember the words. Late at night we would practice, like slave drivers. Next time we will remember. Did we? Now we are famous for not only the words but the intonation.
OOOOO....Good Morn or Evening Friends... Doggone Right?

I am just recuperated from my Happy Thanksgiving!

Too much Happy! Too much Thanksgiving! I am sure that the first Thankful ones in this country couldn't boast that they were as full as I was. I worked and thought that it was my "due" to eat too much. Thank God, especially for grace and mercy, when I have eaten more than I should, or ever have. Dear friends, grown children, loving interaction, no arm babies and the ingredients mean, I forgot to think before I ate.
I think every previous Thanksgiving I have had a "knife" to my throat. Either as a child the reminders to say "no, thank you or trying not to embarrass my husband or children eating too much, in front of company; not this year. It was just the food and fun and everything was laid out so beautifully! I will make up for it and work out and diet for the entire rest of the season. I have been carrying diet foods to work now that my stomach is expanded past all reasoning. I love the joy of the season. But I enjoyed the food and the cooking and the season entirely too much.
Today's joy was a pastry delight cooked by my grown Elyse called sweet potato crackers. They went well with the yogurt for my lunch. I was still hungry though? What to do with an extended apetite after Thanksgiving...
Get on the stationary bike! Good idea!

Now to plan my eating strategem for Christmas?
Where is my self discipline when I need it?