Sherry Raby's Blog: Life Is a Smorgasbord (For Writers), page 3

Happy Birthday

Tomorrow I will be going to Florida.  My daughter and I have been planning for this trip for several months now and we are both getting quite excited.  It’s my eldests’, Jenny, 40th birthday.    Now for my husband this means, five days to not have to worry about whether his helicopter parts are spread all over my table.  He won’t have to wonder if I am going to be under foot.  He won’t wonder if he is going to come upstairs and get the evil eye because he just walked over my freshly scrubbed kitchen floor.

For me, it means 34 hours, in totality, of traveling.  It means coming home to a house that looks at least five times worse than the day I left.  It means coming home and doing tons of laundry and dishes.

In all reality, it also means coming home to a man who just wants to hug me and lies well when he says how much he missed me, and makes me feel good.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I want, and very much so, to go see my daughter and spend this special birthday with her.  I want to be first, after her spouse of course, to hug her and say happy birthday.  I want to sit and reminisce with her and my other daughter, Carey, about when they were little and I’ll embarrass her by telling her what a cute little cherub she was.

I will be with some of my favorite people.  My two daughters, my grandson and his girlfriend, my eldest son and his wife, and my daughter-in-law.  I know we’ll have a blast.  I know it will be non-stop chaos and laughter and maybe an occasional grumble between them.

But above all, I also know, I am already beginning to miss home and the best part of going to Florida is knowing that I will soon be back home, listening to my husband singing off key, cleaning up after him, and once again having the joy of reading what you write.

Happy Reading and Writing

A Four Year Old’s Birthday Party

My husband and I just got back from my niece’s birthday party.  She is now four.  Or is it forty?  “)

My daughter showed up a little late, but with my granddaughters and the oldest, Bean, who had her boyfriend along.

Cherish, my niece, became quite piqued at this.  She refused to talk to Bean.  It didn’t matter how hard she tried to talk to her, Cherish ignored her.

Cherish adores my husband and she went to him, put his arm around her shoulders, and whispered to him.  “Keep them away Uncle John.”

John looked at her and asked why she was mad at Bean.

“Because Bean is mine.  I asked her to my party and not that boy.”, she told him quite frankly.

“But he seems nice.”

She got up, put her hand up to him, and told him, “Don’t talk to me.  You are a trailer.”

Now I think she meant traitor, but she called him a trailer, which had him laughing.  Bean came over and hugged him.  “Hi Pop.  This is Taylor.”  Then bent down and whispered in his ear.  “Don’t hurt him.  Please.”

Now let me go back a little.  Since Bean was little enough to remember, he has been telling her that she was not allowed to date until she was at least eighteen.  Then it was only if he got to sit in back and chaperone and if the boy laid one finger on her, he would personally make sure that finger never touched anything again, and he planned on showing him his shot gun.  So, when Bean asked him not to hurt Taylor, he hugged her hard and just laughed.  He did, however, shake Taylor’s hand.  When Cherish didn’t like him, he was ecstatic.

Taylor decided he should try to talk to her, anyway.  As he walked over, she turned a 180 and put her head up in the air, attempting to ignore him.  All she would say is, “Bean is mine.  Not yours.”

“I don’t want to take her away.  But can’t we be friends like you and Bean are friends?”

Cherish turned a little so she could look over her shoulder at him.

I’m not sure what else he said, but she turned around and took his hand and took him to the swings.

Bean stood there, with her arms akimbo, just staring after them.  She grabbed Sam, her sister, and they headed in the same direction.  Cherish turned around.  “He’s mine for a while now Beana.  You just stay there and talk to my Daddy.”

Bean laughed.  Sam went with them to the play ground where Taylor showed them how not to climb a rock wall.

Needless to say, the day was perfect.  Thirty-five people and not even a raised voice.  How much better could it get.  But then, it was a birthday party for a four year old.  Oh and did I tell you?  Cherish decided Taylor should be her boyfriend because hers didn’t show up.  He’s five.

Happy reading everyone.

The ultimate compliment

My oldest daughter called me last night at 10PM.  Naturally, as a mom, my first thought was that something was wrong, but after ascertaining that she forgot how to tell time, we had a long chat.

We were talking about my granddaughters and how Sam, the eight year old, had talked her way into being allowed to go to Nina and Poppy’s house even though her room wasn’t clean and her homework not done.

Jen told me, “Mom, don’t let this go to your head, but you and Dad are to Sam and Bean what Pop and Gram were to Carey and I.”

“You mean we spoil them rotten?”  I quipped.

“I mean you love them unconditionally and let them just be.  We really needed that and I’m sure they enjoy it what with the way Carey works, being a single mom and all.”

I almost cried.  It was possible one of the best compliments I have ever been given.  I wonder if they all know how much they are loved and appreciated?

Let Me Tell You About The Birds And The Bees

Nine years ago my husband and I decided it was time to move.  We had just had a house fire, which after it was completely rebuilt, newly furnished, and looking just like we had always dreamed it would when we were remodeling, we realized it was no longer ours.  It was someone else’s creation.  It was what we pictured, it had the dark natural wood hardwood floors, two big bedrooms, an office downstairs, an amazing kitchen, open floor plan, and a third bedroom downstairs.  It also had central air.

So, what was wrong, you may ask?  We had been working for the past four years at remodeling and creating our dream home.  It was no longer our creation.

We went on a house hunt.  We found over twenty houses to go through.  There were carpenter’s dreams, which meant that the walls weren’t all there.  There were some that were advertised as having a riverside view, meaning they had been through at least one flood.  There were the quaint, or short for really small, and those that were ‘you’ve got to believe it to see it’.

After almost six months, we decided to make one last attempt.  My daughter called about a house that a friend of hers told her that a friend of hers said it was going to be going on the market on Saturday.  I called the real estate agency and inquired about the house.  We went to look at it on Saturday.

My husband was heading up over the mountain and sounding more like a little kid with every minute going by.  Almost two miles up over the mountain on a very dusty road, we found another smaller dirt road to the right.  We went up the road which turned out to be a quarter mile private drive.  At the top sat a three bedroom two bath A-frame with a finished loft and basement.  Even before we got out of the car, John turned to me and said, “This is our new home.”

Six months later, we made settlement and started moving in.  Had someone told us six months earlier, that in town, which was almost four miles away, was going to be forty five degrees and raining, but up on this mountain, it would be snowing, we would have laughed.  They didn’t.  But spring did come to us, eventually.

By mid May we were planning our truck patch out on our little slice of heaven, ten acre farmette.  We bought fruit trees to cover the bare patch of property that was a yard.

Three years later our trees were still twigs and our truck patch was only good for trucks and pumpkins.  Let me tell you, my husband was able to grow four hundred pound pumpkins, but we couldn’t grow a tomato.

After extensive research, we found out that you need male and female trees to be able to get fruit.  Now, I have no problem telling you the difference between males and females in any living species, but a tree?  After figuring out that we would probably need several of each kind to get fruit, we planted more trees.  But still no fruit.

Now we find out we need bees.  I spent several hundred dollars buying bees and hives that were safe for John to be around without dying on me within two minutes of being stung, just to have our neighbors get amazing looking vegetables.  Apparently, the bees liked them better.

We then decided to try chickens.  After taking care of these sweet little chirpers, and finally getting them big enough to lay eggs, we thought we had gotten to a point where we were going to have a farm.

I went outside one morning, and yelled to John.  There was an owl circling our chickens.  As I waited for John to come out, I watched one particularly big owl swoop down and gracefully fly off with one of our chickens in his mouth.  Over the next week, in spite of fencing, coops and the purchase of field cameras, animal in distress calls, and driveway alarms to alert us of anything going on outside, (and let me tell you, it was usually at 3 in the morning) we had gone from twelve chickens to one.

At that point we both decided we weren’t farmers, but we still loved our new home.

We’ve learned that the birds and the bees really do have a lot to do with everything and not just sex.  We’ve learned that pumpkins will grow, and grow, and grow, and grow, and once they have grown, you still have to move it to get it to market, the fair, or just into your yard for Halloween.  And…we learned, that you really do have to be happy with what you’ve been given and not try to make it what it isn’t.  And that’s my husband being a farmer.

Writer’s Block

I’m having a major writer’s block.  I’m sitting here looking at my computer, my newest children’s book, When I Was Three, is staring back at me, I’ve got this pathetic looking bear with a ‘cub’ in her arms, and a lot of blank space waiting to be filled.

The words are there, but I can’t put them together cohesively.  The pictures are blah and need revisited.  I’ve spent the last two hours going through clipart programs, considering buying a program called Sketchbook, and deciding against it, and then I decided to print the words out and give them to my granddaughter who is an excellent artist.

Then I looked at the words.  They sound more like a sappy mother’s day card than an illustrated book for children.

When I was three, you dressed me, you fed me, you played with me, you fixed my boo-boos.

When I was four, I dressed myself, I fed myself and I played by myself.

Now I am five and I cook with you, I talk with you, and I help with dishes.

I still want to be held, just not too tightly.  I want to be put to bed and talked to till I go to sleep and I want  you to take me in your arms and hug me until I squirm.

I’m still that three year old inside, but my wrapping is different.

So, I guess it’s back to the drawing board, literally, and a complete overhaul of the words and their sequence.

Any ideas?  I know I don’t have any right now.

Maybe a good night’s sleep and a fresh look in the morning will do me some good.  Or maybe I’ll just switch to one of the other two books I’m working on.  I am such a sucker for punishment.

Happy reading and writing to you all.