Gauchos and Mork & Mindy Suspenders

Elementary School Memories

     My first boyfriend was in Kindergarten. His name was Richie and we got in trouble for kissing behind the piano at school. He was pretty cool because he rode his big wheel to school each day.
 When it was time for recess, we would go outside to the back field and there where two forts. They were actually built similar to log cabins with logs overlapping in the corners and you were able to see through the slats. There was a roof and the three sides were full walls, but the fourth side only had a partial wall halfway up. One fort was for the girls and the other was for the boys and we would chase them and drag them back to our fort for a period of time. It was such a fun game. It was sure fun to capture the boys, but it was also fun to get caught and get to go hang out in the boy's fort with them! I think this is where my love of boys started.
     Lunchtime at school is always a kids favorite subject and I was no different in my day! I took a hot lunch and, back then, there was only one line and you had a tray with several divided spaces to hold all of your food. My favorites were spaghetti and chicken nuggets with mashed potatoes and gravy and my least favorites were long dog roll ups (a long hot dog with a breading wrapped around it) and soy burgers! Gross! I never liked the milk either and still don't now that I'm older. The best thing was that once a year our class got to choose the menu for one day.

     You were considered cool if you brought a packet of Kool-Aid to lunch. You would throw away the box and rip a corner off the packet big enough to stick your finger in and then lick the Kool-Aid. You were cool if your finger stayed red or green or purple all day. Hard to believe that we weren't totally wild in class with all of that sugar in us!
     Passing the time once we finished our lunches involved hand-clapping games and string games. There were no cell phones and other electronic devices to play with so we played with each other.
Hand Clapping involved singing songs while clapping your hands together to the beat.  Check out this website for examples of hand clapping. http://funclapping.com/about/
     Some of my favorites were:
     A sailor went to sea sea sea
     Bubblegum on a stick
     I met my boyfriend at the candy shop (go figure, I was boy crazy at a very young age!)
     Say, say oh playmate
     The other fun way to pass the time was string games, especially for the girls. We all wore a long, looped piece of string around our necks so we had them at all times!

          

Jacob's Ladder

Cat's cradle

Witch's Broom

     I was surprised one day to find out it was school picture day and I was not prepared. I was wearing a white turtle neck, gaucho jean pants and Mork and Mindy suspenders! I had also tried a new hairstyle where you slick all of your hair straight back. I was mortified! That was my worst school picture of all time. It seemed that I didn't have much luck looking good in a lot of my elementary school pictures, especially when we had them right after recess.

Yes, I actually wore these! A lot!

     My fourth-grade teacher had the longest toes I'd ever seen on a woman. She always wore these very high-heeled open toe shoes and her toes always came out the front and were actually touching the floor! I have the weirdest memories of my childhood.
     In fifth grade I had my first man teacher for reading class, Mr. M, and I thought he was cute! He had the biggest crush on Raquel Welsh and I had no idea who she was, except for the poster he had of her in our classroom. He also had a poster of Bo Derek from the movie "10", running on the beach in a bathing suit, behind the door.
     Book orders. We would get a thin booklet advertising the books they had for sale that month and, if we were lucky, our parents would let us order some. Sometimes I wasn't able to get any and other times I would get a couple of them at a time. I developed a strong love of books and reading at a very young age and this was one of the reasons why. I usually spend some time every day reading, usually before bed. Nothing like a great book to take you away to another world. I love the feel and smell of a brand new book to this day. My family thinks I'm crazy because I touch and smell every new book that I see!  Libraries are nice for free books but they don't smell as good as books from a bookstore. I was always careful not to break the spines too. Books were to be cherished.
     In sixth grade I had my first "real" boyfriend Pat, the one that asks with the note that says, "Will you be my girlfriend?" The one that has the yes and no boxes for you to check one! We both had Shih Tzu dogs so we would take them for walks a lot. One day he actually came over to my house and we were sitting on the couch talking and his hand accidentally touched mine! I thought I was going to faint and I told all my girlfriends that we touched! That was about the limit of that because I broke up with him, also in a note, about six weeks later! I still have all of the love notes he wrote me!

Do you Remember Banana Seats and Sissy Bars?

     I was born in the 70's and, honestly, can't remember much back then but I do know that I was a happy child. A lot of my memories from that age come from pictures in old photo albums. I was the first child, so I was lucky to have tons of pictures of me to reminisce over.   
     I grew up in a square house, the same style and type that everyone else had on the block, just in different colors. It wasn't too far from a park that I used to walk to with my babysitter from time to time. I had a metal swing set in the back yard that was rusty and fun! If you pumped your legs hard enough while swinging, you could make the legs of the swing set come off the ground! The double seated swing was used as our bus, our car or any other form of transportation we needed.

     This house had two bedroom doors and a bathroom door all at the end of the hallway. My babysitter let a boy come over one day so I took yarn and wrapped it back and forth among all the doorknobs and tied it tight so that he couldn't go into any of our rooms or use our bathroom! Also, when my door was closed for the night, I could see a blue flashing light coming from underneath it from the television in the living room. Oh the weird things I remember!

     I ended up in the hospital as a toddler 3 times with pneumonia. I don't remember much about that time period either but a few memories have stuck with me over the years. One was the crib I was in with the plastic sheeted walls to hold in the humidity and my parents reaching in the holes on the side to touch me and comfort me. Another was the plain Jell-o they gave me that I threw up all over myself. I have never liked plain Jell-o since then. (Interesting Fact: one of my favorite desserts of all time is Strawberry Pretzel Jello Salad). I also remember having to get several shots on my one leg and cringing when the nurses came in because I was worried I would need another one. I think this is where I began to develop a fear of hospitals and it's why I never like to go into them even to visit someone who is sick or just had a baby. The smell that hits me when I walk in reminds me of being there as a child. I have been better now that I'm older and have had to have some surgeries since then, but it's never very comfortable for me.

     I sucked my thumb until I was in sixth grade. I know my mom thought it was soooooo cute when I was a baby, but it ended up being a very traumatic thing for me in my childhood years. I mostly did it at night, but I also did it when I was tired or stressed. As I got older, my mom realized that it had become an unbreakable habit and tried her best to help me break it. She would apply the nasty pepper liquid that was supposed to repulse me, but I learned to just tolerate it long enough to lick it off. One time she made me put my thumb on the bread board and threatened to cut it off. She is a wonderful mom and only had the best intentions and really thought she was helping me quit, but it was a very scary experience for me. In third grade, my teacher used to make me wash my hands whenever she would catch me sucking my thumb and when that went on long enough, she would make me stand in the corner. I remember going to bed at night wishing myself to sleep without sucking my thumb. I would hold on to the railings above my head until I did only to wake up in the morning with my thumb in my mouth again. I honestly don't know how I ever stopped, but I do remember thinking that I never would.
Other childhood memories:
     My Mom told me that I hid on the stairs to the basement and cut my dog, Kelly's hair. She opened the door to the basement and a bunch of hair came flying out everywhere. I don't think she was very happy with me. I can barely remember it myself though.

Bike with a banana seat

     My first bike was pretty cool. It had a banana seat and a basket. You were considered cool if you could ride your bike without sitting on the seat and you were even cooler if you had a sissy bar!

Bike with a really large sissy bar

At a family campout one year, I brought along my lemon twist toy. You played by putting your foot in the circle and start to swing it around and then jump over it with your other foot. The goal was to see how many times you could do it without messing up. It was quite the popular toy at the campout and I was not really good at sharing. My parents captured a picture of me crying because I had to share it with my brother.

          I have pictures of myself from a bunch of birthday parties celebrated, but don't have much memory of any of them. I do know that one kid got a bloody nose and had to put his head between his legs and pinch it until it stopped. I remember thinking how gross that was and that I didn't want to invite him to my parties ever again! Every picture I have from my birthday parties has me in a dress. My favorite dress from when I was young was blue floral with a ruffle bottom and a white pinafore on top that was embroidered with a big Tweety Bird!

     In third grade I didn't pass the eye exam at school and so I had to go to the eye doctor for glasses. My Mom was feeling pretty bad when we were driving home and I was putting them on and taking them off comparing what I could see with them versus what I couldn't see without them. "I didn't know there were so many leaves on the trees", "Look, those billboards have words and pictures on them!", "I can see my fingernails!". I guess I had pretty bad vision - 20/800. Back then glasses were not cool and neither were braces. The glasses I had to have in order to see, but the braces I avoided because I didn't want to be a "brace face" or "metal mouth" too. What was I thinking?

     I remember thinking that life would be easier when I grew up because no one could tell me what to do and I could do whatever I wanted! Boy, was I wrong!

Little House on the Prairie and Me

     Shortly after I got married, we went to an Ingalls family reunion. That was quite the event and that is when I realized I had married into a family with a huge legacy. I read the books as a child and fell in love with them like most girls my age. I never in a million years thought that I would marry a real life descendant of the Ingalls clan! People ask me all the time if we are related and I always take pride in being able to say, "yes"! I do have to say that the actors who played the Ingalls characters in the TV show don't look anything like the real life Ingalls!

Left to Right: Ma, Grace, Laura, Pa, Carrie, Mary

     After we were married for several years my husband decided that he wanted to visit the places where the family grew up. We first went to Pepin, Wisconsin, the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder, where we saw a replica of the log house she lived in. It was a very small house and we were all shocked at the simplicity of the home. The beautiful Mississippi river runs along the road to get there too.

Log home similar to the one in the Little House books

     Next, we visited the famous Walnut Grove in Minnesota, where the Ingalls family lived for two years and was the basis for the television show. We got to check out a dugout home similar to the one they lived in On the Banks of Plum Creek, a schoolhouse similar to the one she went to and a covered wagon.

A dugout home similar to the one described in the book On the Banks of Plum Creek

     Finally, we traveled to De Smet, South Dakota to see the place where the family traveled to in order to claim land under the Homestead Act of 1862.

De Smet home

     A few years later, I got the idea to write a book based on the Little House on the Prairie series written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, but it would be set in my time and be about my childhood and I would call it Little House in the Suburbs. It never really got any further than that until a year ago when I decided to make it into a blog instead. I have no background or training in writing so this may be uninteresting to some, but I have been an avid writer in a journal since sixth grade so at least I know my family will be interested to read this since some of them read my journals already.
     I'm really excited to see where this takes me. I am probably going to be all over the place writing about things from the past and also, because I want to write about things in the present as well. Hopefully, I can figure out a way to make sense of it all!

Photographs

     Anyone that knows me, knows that I love pictures. I love to take pictures, I love to look at pictures, I love the memories behind pictures and I especially love wedding pictures. I have 1,500+ pictures on my phone that I look at all the time and I have probably 20x more than that on my laptop and in storage. I know, it's crazy, but I totally love pictures!
     Here are a few reasons why they mean so much to me:
1. My Grandma had Alzheimer's Disease for over 9 years and it was so heartbreaking to watch. I remember my Mom telling me that she was going to do everything she can to avoid getting this disease and forgetting the things that matter most to her. She is extremely active and keeps herself on the go hoping to beat it. My thought was that, if I had tons of pictures of memories and drill them in my head, I would never be able to forget the ones I love no matter what.
2. When I am missing my kids, friends and family, I can look through my pictures and remember the better times when we were all together. Also, a lot of my memories of childhood are sparked by the pictures in my childhood photo albums.
3. I love LOVE!!!! I should have been a wedding planner! I have put on and helped with many weddings over the years. I have decorated, made food, made the cake, made the guest book, etc. but never taken pictures of a wedding. The reason is that it means so much and I would not want to be responsible if the pictures didn't turn out. I truly love to look at wedding pictures and often ask people to see their pictures. If they are posted on FB, chances are I've seen them!
     I know I drive my family crazy sometimes because I do go a little overboard about taking pictures of them, getting family pictures often (I am going to talk about this more in a minute) and having them send me pictures of themselves and the things they are doing when they are away. I really want to stay connected to the people I care about the most! I really love Snapchat, but I like to screenshot because I tend to want to keep the pictures I get! P.S. My mom does it too!
     Family pictures. They are so wonderful to have and to look back at, but why are they so incredibly difficult to get? I have tons of pictures of the family where someone isn't looking, someone is mad and won't smile, or they are getting wild and won't focus! Here are a few examples from our latest family photo session with a professional photographer and they couldn't even be serious for that! I love how they turned out, but the photographer had to work very hard! I sure love my family!

“What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.”   ―Karl Lagerfeld

Counsel from a Wise Man

     Richard and I were talking the other day and I was telling him how bad I felt about something that was going on in my life. He said that he wanted to tell me a story that he heard from Elder Rulon Stacey:
     Heavenly Father asked a group of men to complete 10 very important tasks in their lifetimes. The men reported back at the end of their lives that they had done 1 of the tasks really well. They felt really happy and good about it and were sure they were going to Heaven!
     He also asked a group of women to complete 10 very important tasks in their lifetimes. The women reported back at the end of their lives that they had done just 8 of the tasks. "They were sure that they were all going to go to hell" for not completing all that was asked of them.
     That's the difference between most men and women. Why are we so hard on ourselves and only think of the things we didn't do, say or accomplish? I am guilty of that. I am going to take this counsel to heart!

Birth of a Blog

     I actually started this blog a few times in 2011. It was a lot harder than I realized and so I gave up. I started a new blog about Logan's Mission, which contained all of the emails he sent me from the last half of his mission. I figured it was a way to practice having a blog without totally losing everything like I did the first time, since I could just re-enter his emails over and over again until I got it right. It would be way easier than retyping long thought out posts just to have them disappear like before. I have since gone on to make a blog for Dallin's mission and that was very successful! They are both home from their missions now so it's time to start something new!  
     I have now started a blog for Macey's mission (stay tuned for details) and also decided to work on my own. This has been a dream of mine for quite some time (well, since around 2011)! I look forward to figuring this out and hope it goes better than last time!