Pictures of the Steelers Room Construction

Carpet gets pulled up. Oops! Looks like we missed some painting behind the desk.

All the stuff in the room has to go somewhere while the carpeting is installed. Some went in Darcy's Room...

Most went into the dining room

The new carpet installed.

A few pendants on the wall

My Troy Polamalu fathead and important Steelers memorabilia

Just in case anyone forgets who my fav player is....

Summer Camp

This summer Darcy chose to attend a Synchronized Swimming Camp right down the street from our house. She got interested in the sport last year while on the swim team. Swimming her laps next to the 17 feet deep well she got to watch the synchronized swimmers working their routines. She thought about trying out, but circumstances prevented that until this summer camp became available.

She went each morning until late afternoon learning methods and routines. The last day of the camp the girls got to put up their hair in "synchro hair" which consisted of a bun, a decoration, and tons of wet gelatin to keep it all in place. Each girl got to demonstrate something a synchro move and then they performed their routines.

Below is Darcy's group. She is the one in the middle in the pink bathing suit. The movie is a tad wobbly and at one point she is off the screen entirely as I was watching her over the camera. Still you get to see how wonderful she was!

Wisdom at 3

The girls and I are visiting my friend Sharon in the central part of the state. She has two boys, ages 3 and 1. Ben, who will be 4 in less than two weeks, has kept us all in stitches with the things he says. Here are a few samples:

We arrived on Tuesday. Ben took Darcy's hand and led her around the house.

Ben: "I'm glad you came. Are you staying? Are you staying long? Where are you all going to sleep? Our house isn't big. My room only sleeps three."

Darcy and I left to go and pick up the pizza and stop in at the grocery. The boys were watching television when we left. Ben suddenly noticed Madison.

Ben: "What happened? Why didn't you go home with your Mom? Did she leave you here with us? Did she not want you anymore?"

We all were at the table eating dinner last night. Ben looks at me.

Ben: "Who is your father?"

Me: "His name was Russ."

Ben: "Who is Mommy's father?"

Me: "George. Who is your father?"

Ben: "Daddy."

Me: "Daddy who?"

Ben: "Daddy Carlisle"

Me: "Oh. What does he look like? What color is his hair?"

Ben: "He doesn't have any hair."

Me: "Really? Why?"

Ben: "Because he shaves it all off."

Me: "Why does he do that?"

Ben: "Because it is itchy."

Me: "How come you don't do that?"

Ben: (looking at me as if I were a moron) "Because mine isn't itchy."

Steelers Room Construction 110

Back when I first started the construction project that I dubbed "My Steelers Room", I had an idea of what I wanted. I wanted gold paint on the walls. I wanted a black leather couch that would cost no more than $300. I wanted Steelers stuff all over the walls. I wanted new carpet. I wanted, I wanted, I wanted.

The husband gave the okay-maybe-that-would-work and so the next day I went out and bought the paint. The next day I painted. Two days later the room was painted. A week later I found and purchased my black, fake leather $300 couch. The husband started sweating. This was not the way to go about re-doing a room. I was doing things backward. The carpet should be next. Why would I bring new furniture into a room when I would just have to remove it again when I did the floor? Because that was the same night of the beginning of my summer illness I didn't have the energy to argue. That and it made some sense.

Eventually I picked out the carpet and sat and waited for my flooring man to get to me on his list to measure. A month came and went. I was sick and had no interest in flooring. Another month started. I felt better. Tom moved on to the kitchen and we began picking out counter tops. No one could agree on one. We were stalled once again. Then one day Tom came in from mowing the lawn and announced that he was going to put a front porch on the house. I started sweating. This was not the way to go about things. He was doing things backward. Why would he start another project when I had two going on at this time? I insisted he call the flooring guy man to man.

The flooring guy was here in four hours to measure. The carpet was in stock. Cue to five days later and my carpet is here and getting installed. Temperature outside is in the upper 90's. I was on the afternoon shift. Temperature in that room in the afternoon is in the upper 90's with the air on. Doors are open while furniture is carried out to the pool deck and old carpet is being removed. Temperature in the house is in the upper 80's with the air cut back. The four children in my care are in the pool. The dog is locked in the pool area so that he won't bother the carpet men. I am in the office/kitchen unable to get to the pool unless I exit the front of the house and walk around because all the furniture and crap that was in the Steelers Room is now in the bedrooms, the dining area, the back porch, and the living room. Three computers, one of which I am attached to almost hourly, has been broken down and stored under the dining room table. I am sneakily using the husband's off limits computer so that I don't waste away.

The day started with my friend arriving to drop off her daughter for the weekend. She brought bagels. The other three girls and the friend's daughter chowed down and then hopped into the pool. The flooring men arrived. They began emptying the room of the stuff we left behind from our own attempts at emptying the room. I went back into the kitchen with my friend. The flooring guys called my name. I left and saw that the girls had not deflated the bed in that room. My friend and I began deflating and taking down the bed. The kids called me from the pool. I couldn't get close to them. I threw them what they needed. We moved the bed into another bedroom. We went back to the kitchen. Flooring guys called me again. The dog was in the room bothering them. I got the dog back to the girls and closed the fence. The flooring guys needed me again. I went back in and answered questions, picking up crap on the floor that had fallen behind my desk which now lay in three pieces on the floor. My phone rang. I couldn't get to it because furniture blocked my path. My friend was on her phone. The caller began leaving a message. I finished with the guys and got close to hear my mother as the caller on the machine. She sounded frantic. I climbed over the couch and made it to the kitchen and picked up the phone. She needed help. The girls called from the pool. Mother got annoyed. My friend had to leave. The flooring guy needed a bathroom. Somehow I kept my sanity. I'm pretty proud of that.

The carpet is almost down. I shall have to paint behind the desk before the furniture can be put back in the room. Troy is keeping an eye on the flooring guys. The dog is keeping an eye on the girls. I am on the illegal computer keeping an eye on the temperature. Pictures will be forthcoming.

Slide Memories from North Carolina

Before I lived in Evansville we lived in North Carolina. We were only there ten months and my memories from that time are few. I remember my address. I remember my Dad telling me to learn my address so I went outside to the front yard and put my hand on a tree and walked around and around and around that tree sing song-ing my address over and over. I've never forgotten that address sung to that tune to this day.

The house we lived in was the greatest house. I remember moving to Indiana and wishing years later that we could have moved our entire North Carolina house to Indiana to make my life just perfect. It had the best basement ever. For years I would dream about that basement and then in the same dream there would be a secret door that led to another secret area in the basement. Because my memories of that time were so sketchy I always wondered if it were true.

I remember everything about the house except for the bedrooms. No matter how hard I try I have absolutely no recollection of my room, Rusty's room, or my parents' room. Or the bathrooms. I don't remember them either. So I studied this picture really hard. I know the toy box. I still don't remember the room.

The basement had this really cool bar in the play area. We spent many a great time down there pretending we were bartenders mixing up drinks. It also had a neat fireplace and I think several other rooms, maybe a bathroom. I spent the majority of my time down there.

The other neat thing about the house was the woods in the back of our house. The backyard was huge and right behind it were woods. Woods to go exploring in. Woods to hike in. Woods that I thought scary wolves lived in. We had an upper deck that extended out over the backyard from our kitchen. Below it was a porch that led out from the basement. It was a great house.

One memory I swear I have is my mother waking me up and asking me if I had seen my brother. I remember looking around and thinking she was nuts and telling her no. They found him outside. He had slept-walked outside, dug a little hole in the snow, and crawled inside to sleep. I told that story anytime Rusty's sleepwalking came up in conversation. I don't think anyone else remembered that episode.

We got our first pet in North Carolina. This cat appeared one day and we began feeding it. We named her Amy. She lived in our garage until my Dad came home from traveling. He took one look at the cat and said, "This isn't an Amy, it's an Amos." He was Amos from then on. He thought he was a dog. He made the move to Indiana with us, but disappeared one day while my parents were out of town and we were staying with neighbors.

Another memory I have is getting locked out of our house. Don't remember how that happened, but remember my mother pulling out the jalousied window pane from the door in our garage that led into the kitchen. I remember being impressed, but then worrying that if it were that easy then a robber could do the same thing.

I have two memories of school in North Carolina. One was giving my teacher decorative soaps for Christmas. The other was falling asleep with my head on my desk. I awoke and heard the teacher tell the class to exit the room single file. I don't remember where we were going, only that I didn't want to go so I kept pretending that I was still asleep. The teacher turned off the light and I raised my head thinking the class was gone. My teacher was standing there looking at me and she just moved her hand for me to join the line. I remember feeling really cheated.

I also remember eating hush puppies at most meals and having to say, "Ma'am?" when our mother called our names. Everything was very southern with the "Yes, Ma'am and No, sir". It was a good ten months. Or so I remember.

Slide Memories from Indiana

This week I received a package in the mail. It contained a DVD from a friend of mine who had been visiting her parents for the weekend. Her father was in the process of going through his home slides and putting them on the computer and on to DVD's. My friend and her husband complied some pictures of me and sent them on.

Several months ago my mother-in-law bought a slide scanner and did the same with her own slides from her childhood. She passed the scanner to me when she was finished so that I could do the same with the slides my Dad had made of us as children. The scanner has sat silent on my desk ever since. The farthest I ever got was organizing the slides into categories.

Receiving that DVD got me hopping. My husband hooked up my scanner and for the past three days I have gone through my slides, transferring them on to my computer and labeling them for future reference. It is slow going and quite time consuming, but the nostalgia, memories and peace it has brought me has been worth it. So much so that I'm sharing.

I so remember this outfit, but have no memory of why it was made or what it was for or why I'm standing in front of the neighbor's house to model it. I had the outfit for years. Haven't a clue what happened to it now, but the hat is certainly a nice touch.

This picture made me just cry for lost items. As I grew up I kept everything from my childhood. I kept telling my parents that I was keeping the horse, and the rocking chair, and the table and the toybox for my kids. My mother rolled her eyes. My father just kept making room for the things in the storage area. Unfortunately a flood destroyed all of my things except for the horse and the rocking chair. Those two items my children kid get to enjoy.

I look at the record player and the record holder and so wish I still had them. I got the record player for my first birthday with a 45 record singing a birthday song. I played that song over and over and over for years. I still have the record. The player lost in the flood. I can still remember the smell the record holder had upon opening.

I like to tell my kids and Rusty's kids how he use to sleep with me when he was young. He slept walked in the night and always ended up cuddling with me in my room. This picture just proves me right!

This is a photo taken in the house next door soon after we moved to Indiana from North Carolina. It makes me remember how wonderful our neighborhood was and how wonderful all of us were as friends. It also makes me wish my own children would have that same experience. Unfortunately, those times are long gone.

The passing of a neighbor

I moved to Florida in my late twenties with a childhood friend. We lived with her grandparents while we established ourselves and got our shit together. One of the requirements that the grandparents asked of us was to join them for their big meal, eaten during the middle of the day, if we were home. That meant joining them and their "gang" of seniors at a different local restaurant and sometimes at one of the senior's home.

The "gang" consisted of friends from the grandparent's home state and friends they had made from their time living in Florida. They were all in their late 70's and 80's and they were all full of vim and vigor. They were the liveliest, funniest, happiest group of people that I had ever met. They loved to play games and cards. One loved sewing. One enjoyed baking. One golfed daily. One was a history buff. One of them told jokes every time there was a lull in the conversation. They were so far removed from the elderly people I knew from back home. These folks were alive.

I soon discovered that this was the norm for seniors in Florida. These people had moved to the southern state to live when they retired. They were all active and on the go. No sitting in chairs with afghans on their laps. Florida seniors were holding down second jobs, volunteering their time and expertise, riding their bikes for transportation, and experiencing things they hadn't gotten around to the first half of their lives. The thing I loved most about all of them was their willingness to make friends with my generation.

I ended up with a fistful of senior friends. They lived through my courtship with Tom. They attended my bridal shower and wedding. They watched me grow bigger with my first child and offered up advice and babysitting when she was born. I cried in their arms when my father died and lovingly planted the tree they bought me to always remember him by. I ate dinner at their homes and danced with them at clubs. We celebrated birthdays and holidays. Sometimes we just got together for fun. I never thought any differently about them as I did my younger friends.

The downside of those friendships, of course, was death. Death tended to come sooner to my senior friends then my others. Recently it has come all at once. In the past three years I have lost three good friends. Yesterday I lost another.

Garnet was my neighbor two doors down. When we first moved into the neighborhood she was still working. I got to know her husband before I knew her because he was home and very interested in chatting with his neighbors. It was only after she retired and began taking care of her husband during his poor health that I got to know her. She gave me glimpses into her life. She gave advice in her deep smoker's voice whether you wanted it or not. She made us laugh with her quick wit. Still she refused to come into my home for parties. "I'm a dud at parties," she would tell me. "Since I quit the drinking and pole dancing I'm just not much fun." Last year after getting our dog we became real friends.

Garnet had a puppy. I had a puppy. She was home alone during the day. I was home alone during the day. She hated cleaning and was bored. I hated cleaning and was bored. We bonded. Every day twice a day we met in one of our yards. We walked the dogs and we talked. After our walks we stood and talked. Sometimes for hours. Every few nights we sat in her driveway and talked some more. Eventually more neighbors would join us and we would have a coffee klatch going over the gossip of the neighborhood and the dirty deeds of the past few days. Both my girls would sit in her living room after school and tell her the trials and tribulations of middle school. She gave my elder daughter advice about dresses and how to care for them. She finally gave in and attended a party at my house.

She was one of the funniest women I knew. She could zing out one liners faster than anyone I knew. She had my dad's sense of humor and some of his sayings. Once after she had to call 911 I ran into her house to find her on the floor, paramedics hovering above her. "Garnet," I sighed. "You always have to cause trouble." She raised her head and looked at me. "I know," she agreed, "but I wish I had known all these good looking guys were coming cause I would have worn a sexier nightgown."

In March her puppy took her by surprise and pulled her over in her zeal to catch a squirrel. She broke her hip. She had surgery. She was recovering quite nicely. We met daily to sit in the driveway where she would hold court with the other neighbors. Then one morning she fell again. She blacked out and fell backwards into her bathtub. She refused to go to the doctor. "Flushing the toilet," she told me. "Who falls doing that?" I told her to flush before she stood up next time. She agreed that might work. Unfortunately she kept falling.

Three weeks later she was back in the hospital and they discovered a mass in her brain. Cancer had spread throughout her spine. The doctors gave her a week. She lasted a little longer just to show them. I'm going to miss her dreadfully.

Out of the mouths of my babes

Darcy: " I told Kelly she can't go into my room"

Me: "Why? We already wrapped her gifts."

Darcy: "Because she said Selena Gomez was a terrible actress and I have her all over my walls."

Kelly: "I only said that because you were telling me you put her all over your walls."

Me: (scoffing) "Yeah, all over her walls" Rolls eyes. "I showed her a picture of my room and what all over the walls meant."

Darcy: "My walls are too hard to put up that many pictures and besides you won't let me buy any magazines."

Kelly: "Well you don't need to be wasting your money and time buying 3 or more teen magazines a month, cutting out pictures, making scrapbooks and pasting pictures all over your walls."

Darcy: "But that's what you and Mommy did!"

Kelly: "I don't want to hear about what I did. You are the second generation. You should be learning from the first generation's mistakes."

Darcy: "I am. Your generation's mistake was putting up pictures of BOYS!"

Resolution 6 month check (a tad late)

Checking in on how well I'm doing on my 2010 resolutions. Grading system will be from 1-10 with 1 the worst and 10 the best.

• To study one subject (can be anything) once a month - Definitely got this one covered for June. I know most illnesses that include diarrhea as a symptom. I know more about hepatitis A, Crohn's disease, gastro-related illnesses, etc. then I ever did before. As for May I don't think I studied a damn thing or if I did I have forgotten. Just another symptom to go along with the diarrhea. Score: 5
  
• To see a movie once a month - Still perfect in this category with Shrek Forever After and Toy Story 3. Thank goodness I have kids or this one might not been a toughie! Score: 10
  
• To get into a cleaning routine and keep my house straightened - I'm blaming the end of school and my illness on this one. Score: 0
  
• To relax in general and to not react hysterically, especially when it comes to the dog - Think these past two months I've conquered this one much better. Still whine some and joke about him, but secretly, the damn pooch is a part of the family. Score: 8
  
• To tone down the potty mouth - Worked well on this one the past two months as well. Maybe not having school to bitch gripe about is the key. Score: 8
  

Total Score:31 (out of 50) - Woo Hoo! Moving up in the points. Better than half at the 6 month mark so I must be doing something right. Really going to crack down now.

Happy Days to You

To my dearest friend who is very much a part of our family.

Misc Adventures w/ Mason Clan

• Frenchy's - A must for all visitors
  

Fish spread to start

Curly fries with secret dressing

The famous grilled grouper sandwich
&
A Greek salad which the locals call "the best" although being a local I wasn't so sure after eating it.

• Taking Grandma shopping at the mall
  

Black heels

Red heels

and fashionable boots

Cool shades? Check

Comfy bathrobe for those rainy nights

Underwear for all nights

• Fireworks
  

Tom the Fire Master

Sparklers

Fourth of July attire

Safety behind glass

And here comes the summer rain....

One of the things about Florida in the summer is the rain. Nine months out of the year we are dry. Our flowers wither, our yards turn brown, and our skin begs for moisture. Then June comes and hurricane season starts and each evening we can look into the sky and see dark clouds and hear rumblings. Most of the time we get a summer shower that lasts anywhere from 3 minutes to 30 minutes. Very rarely does it last an hour.

Now that I have relatives visiting the summer season has started with a bang and been way out of the ordinary. We have had rain continuously for several days. It will stop for awhile and then sprinkle and then pour. We have swam in the pool in the rain. We have gotten caught at the mall in the rain. Today we decided to beach it and of course we got caught in the rain!

It started out quite lovely. The sun was actually peeking through the clouds and Susan was getting her tan on.

My little ones headed straight for the water, remembering to do the stingray shuffle, although the critters were not spotted all day.

Gabby kept her clothes on in the beginning as she and her mother walked the beach collecting shells...

and playing ball.

I feel asleep on the beach with my mouth opened and thankfully no one photographed that. Kelly and the girls brought out the inflatable boat with oars that Kelly's family had purchased earlier in their vacation. I awoke and went out into the water where 3 dolphin were frolicking not far from the buoys. Gabby, Darcy, Madison, Kelly and I played in the boat while the sky darkened and drops of rain fell.

We didn't mind it. The water was warm and the rain cold. We swam and played and giggled and laughed. The girls took turn in the boat. I lay on the raft holding on to the boat. Kelly pulled us all around the water. Susan watched from shore because, "someone should be on dry land in case someone gets into trouble."

Eventually the rain began to come down a tad more forceful. Susan opted to head back to dryness. I suggested we all join her so we hauled out the boat, packed it up, and began heaving it down the walkway toward Kelly's. And still the rain came. By the time we reached her beach house the streets were flooded and we were soaked.

But after showering and changing into dry clothes we felt satisfaction that we had actually gotten in a semi-beach day.

Poolside

Gabbers & Darc

Barbie in trouble

Darcy to the rescue

Ken takes Barbie boating

Susan doing pool maintenance

before relaxing....