Quilt

I just finished repairing the quilt I'm going to give it to Michelle. When I was little I remember seeing the stack of quilt blocks of little dutch dolls. I loved them they were so cute. My maternal grandmother told me that she and my paternal grandmother had quilted them for me. Some of them were of my clothes when I was little the rest of the blocks were from the families clothes. My paternal grandmother died when I was two so I don't remember her. My maternal grandmother lived with us all the time I was growing up. When "Snow White and the Seven Drawfts" came out I pested my mother to buy me some fabric that had them printed on it. She finally bought some and I had a dress that I don't remember. But my grandmother did quilt a block with that fabric. Years later one of Hubbys relatives got the quilt put togther and quilted for me. I should have put it away and kept it but I didn't I used it and it is a lot worse for wear. I have tried putting it back together and I am going to give it to Michelle. All the rest of the granddaughters have received afghans but Michelle doesn't need one her mom has made a lot.

Second House Pueblo

Why do we let employers dictate our lives. We were doing fine in our little house until hubby went to work for IBM. Why we thought it would be forever and that we should follow every suggestion (comand) they issued. First they had to take hubby out shopping and approve of his suits, shoes, shirts, ties and etc. Then it was the car we were driving and the house we lived in. The car had to be a new one not a 4 year old model. We lived in an older neigborhood with a lot of retired people, but the houses were slowly being sold to younger families. We had to live in an newer up and coming neighborhood. Belong to the clubs in town they approved of.

We found a house that was almost finished in the new neighborhood of Sunset Park. When I was a kid the land the subdivison occupied was the airport. A small three bedroom two baths with a full basement. The contractor that was bulding the house on speculation was having an affair with someone elses wife. The jealous husband, shot the contractor in the front yard of the house. A lot of little things in the house were not finished. None of the windows had hardware to lock them or pull them up and down. The first time I tried to use the build in oven the whole oven fell out of the hole in the cabinet.

We were temporary residents in that house and our life changed so much in the short time we lived there. The biggest change was the birth of little girl she changed our lives forever. The IBM Selectric was developed and hubby sold so many that it was going to take 9 months to get delivery on them. Commission were not paid until the typwritters were delivered. We were facing large car payments and a much larger house payment. I was expecting could not work and had a premature baby. We were facing 9 months without an income. Hubbies statment to IBM "I was looking for a job when I found this one". The boys and hubby worked very hard puting in the landscaping. We transplanted pine trees from Beulah unfortunately they did not live.
President JFK visited Pueblo, hubby was helping with crowd control and was able to get the boys front row seats.

Hubby got a new job with Gates Rubber Company the catch. We had to move to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We sold the house without any trouble, we sold it ourself.

We moved to Albuquerque when P was six months old. We wouldn't let the boys move to Albuquerque until they learned to spell it. Two little boys would work very hard to learn to spell that very hard word.

To own a home

Every house before 1958 didn't belong to us we were temporary residents. When we returned to Pueblo we started looking for a house to buy. Having left the military and hubbby spending one year in school and no job. My father purchased the house we wanted and sold it to us on a contract of sale.

This was a bugalow house with the living room, dinning room on one side and a bedroom with bath between the second bedroom on the other side of the house. The kitchen was a small tacked on item behind the dinning room. This was a fun house and one we were living the Cleavers from Leave it Beaver life in. Lots of fun things to remember happened in that house. My boys both started school, school was 3 blocks away so the boys walked to and from without a parent. Bruce knew all the names of the little girls in his class. I was beginning to think he was in a class of all girls. Also a teacher told him he couldn't sing and to just mouth the words to this day he won't sing. Pat first discovered he wasn't his big brother, teachers kept saying why aren't you like Bruce, because he was almost two years younger but following only one year behind him in school. This started the competition of all competitions.

I decided to paint the kitchen, the boys turned over the gallon can of paint. I spend the rest of the day sopping up jade paint with a rag and wringing it back into the can. I needed the paint to finish painting the kitchen. I also decided one time to paint the railings and floor of the front porch. I enlisted the aid of two little boys to help. What can go wrong painting the floor of the porch. Wrong even the dog in the back yard had paint on her and she never left the back yard. That is still a mystery. Then there was the time I decided to lay flag stone in the area in front of the garage. Bruce got his finger stuck under one of the heavier ones and almost pulled his fingernail out. A trip to the emergency room to remove the rest of the nail. To make Bruce feel better Pat and I decided he needed a dog. We went in search and found a darling little toy fox terrier. Promptly named Hector. The boys loved that dog so much he slept with them. Every time I started one these projects was when Hubby was out of town so it was just the boys and I. Both the boys got bikes for Christmas while we were there and learned to ride them. Pat got hit by a car and had his foot in a cast.

Does this sound like June Cleavers life well it wasn't. The nation was going through a resession and there wasn't enough money to go around. Hubby and my arguments were all about money or the lack of it. During one of arguments hubby ask me why I didn't get a divorce and marry someone that had more than he did. I seriously considered that and in all honesty answered. Why would I do that I would just get someone worse than you. This of course tickled my hubby and we both wound up laughing our selves silly. About that I time I decided I needed to go to work to help with the finances. Now my mom and dad were in our business constantly. My sister could work and run the music store but I had to stay home and take care of my kids. It's funny my sisters and my kids were not delinquents and are functioning and respectable adults now and we both worked.

One of my most pleasant memories of that little house was laying in bed watching the snow falling on the pine tree outside our bedroom window. That house was pleasant and warm and very friendly to a small disfunctional family.

Silly things your kids remember from that time. One year for our anniversary there wasn't money for a babysitter and a dinner out for hubby and I. I decided to celebrate at home. I bought steaks to broil, frozen strawberries for strawberry shortcake. I had the boys help set, I thought elegant table. I made them dress up like going to church and I dressed up. We had a great dinner all four of us to celebrate our anniversary. The boys kept asking me to do it again for a long time.

More Houses

Leaving the junction and going to California to get married. We lived in travel trailers, converted chicken coups, and assorted military housing. Too much moving in and out to have any feel of a presence in those houses of coups.

The duplex in NC we lived through a hurricane. We had such a great church family there it was great. The next military housing was in California just before hubby got out. It was a barracks of a building with 6 apartments. Three upstairs and three downstairs. We lived in the middle downstairs it was a lively group of marines and wifes and lots of kids. Hubby had just come back from Japan so we were having trouble being a family again. Hubby got out to go to school to preach. That house was just a stopping over place.

When hubby got out of the marines and we moved to Riverside for him to go to school. We rented a cozy little cottage it was at the back of a large lot with lots of palm trees out front. Someone had given us a little black scotty dog that we kept chained during the day out front. Poor dog would run the length of the chain and it would flip him and he would land on his feet. His name was spike and the boys loved him. He slept in the house with us at night. The kids bedroom had stars that glowed in the dark on the ceiling the boys loved it. Soap operas on TV were started while we lived in that house how I loved As the world turns could that be why my daughters name is the same as one of the girls on that show. No not Lisa. That house was cozy and we did hate to leave it to move back to Pueblo.

More Houses

When I was 13 my parents sold the big rock house and bought a business building at the junction. There was a large business down stairs and a very large living quarters upstairs. My dad installed an electric lock for the front door which was at the bottom of the stairs. Three bedrooms, living room, two kitchens, one large bath and two sleeping porches. I slept in every room in that upstairs with the acception of one kitchen and the bathroom. They built a large walkin closet, in the room for me. Mother use to tell me that she dreamed several times that she couldn't find a place to put my babybed. Upstairs was a long hall with doors on both sides leading into the rooms and the were only one room deep on both sides. Well, I did sleep all over that place. That place was like a hotel just a place to sleep and change clothes. I was more comfortable in the big front room I spent a great many hours reading in that room. I think that was where I learned to love reading so much. I sometime would finish a book and run down stairs to Grove Drug Store and bought another one for 25 cents. I really liked Mickey Spillane at that time also I read a lot of Ridder Hagar very hair raising.

Well,I cheeted at WW. The first night I had a heavy jacket on and my heavy athletic shoes. I weighted a lot more, so this week I had a cape I could take off with ease and shoes I could slip out of and stand in my stocking feet on the scales. I felt ashamed when they made a big deal about me losing 5 pounds. We will see what happens next week.

Presence in houses

I have been thinking lately about the many houses I have lived in. I can usually tell the minute I walk into a house how it feels.

The first house I lived in was a little brick house in Plainview, Texas. My father had dug up a small pine tree on Raton Pass. He planted the tree in the front yard of the little brick house. The tree is now so tall you can see it from all over the city. When Tig was going to Wayland Baptist College he was very aware of the family conection to that pine tree. I don't remember that house as we moved to Colorado when I was two. We lived in a rented house in Manitou, Colorado and I don't think I remember that one either. Just what I have been told, you went into the house on the ground floor in the front and out the back door from the basement. The only thing I really remember is that my black baby doll named Pansy disappeared in the move from that house. Yes, I remember the doll and how terrible I felt about loosing it. We moved to Pueblo on the north side of town in a rented house. We lived on the ground floor and the landlady on the second floor. I had a birth day there I don't know if it was the third or the fourth. But my birthday present was a play broom, yes that was what I wanted. I also remember a very large dog, they use to call it a police dog, it must have been a german shepard and at my size it was a very big dog.

We bought a house in Pueblo in what was called the blocks. It had been the elite part of town a long time before. It was a three story sandstone block house. Only the first and second floor was finished. There wasn't a staircase to the third floor and it was unfinished. Down stairs was 3 large rooms, living room, dinning room, kitchen. Second floor had three bedrooms a bath room without a toilet, a little hallway that was left to be used for the stairwell to the third floor.

I experienced my first remembered anxiety attack in the back bedroom of that house. My father and mother were in a little workshop on the alley of that house. Dad was building flower boxes for mother. Dad had his first power saw this must have been about 1937. My Dad sliced into his thumb and I remember my Mom walking into the house holding his hand trying to stop the bleeding. I don't even remember if he went to the doctor or what. But everytime they went out to that workshop and I heard that saw, I experienced an anxiety attack. The presence in
that house was a comforting family presence that was comfortable with the family that lived there.

I'm not talking about ghosts but just the feel inside the house. A house can be warm or cold. Safety, comfort, excitement or unwelcoming and cold. The big rock house was the first one that I was aware of and my feeling was excitement and the rush to have for me to grow up. I felt very sad on leaving. I remember laying on the bed I alway woke up before everyone else. The sun would shine through the leaves on the trees outside the window. I use to love to hear the lions roaring at the zoo. We lived two or three miles from the zoo but you could still hear the lions roaring early in the morning.

More on houses later

Tig requested the following story

When hubby was stationed at Santa Ana he surrendered to preach at Bristol Street Baptist Church. It was a short time until he should re-enlist and he deceided to go to school. Riverside, California had just started the California Baptist College and hubby needed to go to school. The marine corp. let hubby out of the service early so that he could go to school. We moved to Riverside and found a small two bedroom house which needed paint badly. We offered to paint and the owner bought the paint and we painted including the living room floor. We painted it a light grey, I don't remember what colors we painted anything else.

I found a job in the sheriff's department as a warrent clerk. Hubby took both little boys to school with him, they had a day care at school. Hubby really enjoyed school. One of the teachers was a young man that had been a missionary somewhere. He challenged the class of young would be preachers that divorce was not a motal sin and that a minister could be divorced. This was scandalous. Funny I don't remember this mans name just what a tempest his ideas caused.

Hubby's favorite teacher was a Dr. Timothy Walker. Dr. Walker was a refuge from Russia, his father had been an officer in the Czars personal guard. His father was a Christian and passed his beliefs to his family. Dr. Walker had to leave Russia because of the danger to his family. He migrated to Mexico and was there sometime before he could get into the United States. He told me one time that he thought in Russian, translated into Spanish and then into English.

The first time I met him he was taking a group of students to see the movie War and Peace. He kept up a running comment all the way through the movie about Russia and the movie. Hubby and I can't remember what he taught. Hubby volunteered me to play the piano for Dr. Walker when he preached at spanish churches. My first exposure to playing out of hymn book in spanish.

After I lost my job at the sheriff's office because I objected to the sheriff putting a very young officer in the drug scene when his wife was pg. I thought this was wrong and was vocal about it. So I lost my job, why we thought this was so terribel I don't know. Any way we moved back to Pueblo and hubby went to work for my father in the music store. The music store was started when I was about 13 and I worked there while I was in high school.

When we were in Pueblo the SBC started a Spanish Baptist Mission in Pueblo. Our church ask for volunteers to help with the mission and hubby and I volunteered. A Don and Virginia Weeks were the home missionaries that were sent to open the mission. The mission was held in their home but sometimes in our home. When the mission wanted to do a revival we suggested Dr. Walker for the visiting minister. So Dr. Walker came and spent a week with us. Our boys fell in love with him and he was such an encouragement for hubby and I. He ask us to name our next boy after him. It wasn't until 1964 that we had another boy and of course he was name Timothy but unfortunately didn't live.

Great Day

Preview to P birthday. We went to Tyler for lunch a steak house, steaks were great and we stayed on our weight watchers diet. The steaks were great really tender. On to Folleys for a makeup show and tell. We bought P some new makeup for her new look and darker hair. It took a long time but it was worth it. It was a long day but a good one.

More Computer Problems

I couldn't get on the computer at all Tuesday. So once again we went to Frys today and took my computer back. They didn't want to give me a loaner, they also said I would have to pay for any repairs that weren't covered under the contract I bought. Why did I buy a contract if it doesn't cover repairs. He was a smart Ass he noted every scratch on the computer. But he didn't list all the problems with the computer that I listed. I don't think those stupid people believe the problems I am having. This is fair warning don't buy anything from Frys and don't buy a toshiba laptop. They will only work for 1 year then they are trash. Five trips to Frys 118 miles round trip and 3 hours of driving. There has to be a better solution.

Computer maybe working

While I drove 118 miles to pick up the computer it worked fine at the shop. When I got home of course it didn't work. The key board was either not working or sending X's and M's in a long line and I had to turn the computer off to stop it. I tried everything including re-installing the keyboard driver that didn't work. I finally turned it off and went to bed. I decided to take it back today. I tried to use it again before we left still didn't work. After driving the 59 miles there the thing worked fine. The only option they gave me was to ship it off to California again. I couldn't go though that again. They suggested that I expand the memory. I had bought the memory back the first of December before the computer electricity decided not to work. I had tried last night to install the new memory but we couldn't get the screw out of the plate that holds the back on. We bought a screwdriver to take it off would you believe it cost $5.00 today. I got the back off and installed the memory chips twice and it still wouldn't work. I took it to D and he took the memory chips out and replaced them and would you believe it works.

I had to correct Tig's postings of his fathers life, he had the events alright but the timeline and items mixed up. Oh, well when you write about things before you were born and when you were too little to remember them. He just remembers the stories that were told.

Hooray my computer if ready!

They called about my computer and said it was ready. I just need to drive 75 miles to pick it up and try to put every thing back on it. I have spent the morning copying my information onto cd's. Now all I have to do is see if I can wipe everything off this one before I take it back.

P was doing well until last night she had a rough night and is back in bed. She is having pain from the shot they gave her.

I tried to blog the other day but it didn't take so. I will be off for a while until everything is back up and running.

A New Year

We have managed through New Years Eve without anyone setting fireworks off in our area. I was really worried about it we are setting in the edge of a wooded are and have a large gully behind use that is full of leaves, bushes, and small trees. Every thing is tender dry and just waiting for a spark. Dallas got up to 83 degrees today. It is good for our light bill we sure need it.

Michelle spent the day with us yesterday and it was so warm we went for a walk. We walked through the small woods in front of our house. It is suppose to go through to Highway 19 and I think we got far enough to see and hear the traffic on it. I can't see how it comes out on 19 but I quess I will walk around enough to see someday.

We have to take P to Dallas for chemo on Tuesday. She has to be there at 8:00 am I am hoping to talk Hubby into staying home. If you haven't been reading P blog, log onto a way to keep connected, is explains about her cancer and her treatments.