The Bunny Bug

This is precious little Molly, my Himalayan Netherland Dwarf, who turns 6 years old on 7/13.

So 40 years ago, in June 1982, I got my first-ever rabbit — another sweet Himalayan Netherland Dwarf doe that I named Mittens, a.k.a. Mitsy-Bitsy. She was my world, my BFF, my confidante. 

I told her secrets of sadnesses and joys. I shared food with her and dressed her in hats and sweaters and took her for bike rides in my bicycle basket. When we went for walks, she rode around in the hood of my sweatshirts. 

She, in turn, gave me kisses, licked away my tears, and cuddled up close when I needed a hug. She gave me a litter of kits on Easter. She was the perfect first bunny for a girl who had desperately wanted her own pet. 

The “bunny-bug” had bitten me, and the rest is — as they say — history. 

Remembering...

Sometimes, when you think too much time has passed, you head back to something or someone familiar, and it all clicks back into place...at least for that moment. Like friends who haven't seen each other for decades and come back together like no time has passed, as if they both went home at the end of a day and returned in the morning. "As I was saying..." one might say, without missing a beat.

Sometimes.

Life has a strange way of taking us on twists and turns, uphill and downhill, back and forth. Memories flood our brains, holding us back or pushing us forward. 

We're all a product of those memories, our past times and events and happenings -- good and bad. How do we reckon with them? How do we not allow them to drag us down or pull us under?

It's a difficult process. Certainly doable. 

Children are mirrors of those memories. They go through ages and phases that we can somewhat remember, that become very clear when we watch our offspring go through them. Of course, their experiences are different. But the fuzzy recollection of our own experiences comes back into focus...at least for that moment.

And we remember. And the memories, like old friends, take us on journeys back to times that feel forgotten yet are still in the foreground. 

"As I was saying..." the memory says, without missing a beat.

New Year, Old Reflections -- 2017

My favorite thing to buy at the beginning of each year was the Life magazine "Year in Pictures." My parents had a few from over the years, and I loved looking through them at the moments in time that were captured through the photojournalist's lens.

Here's to looking back at 2017 through our pictures. So many photos (whittled down from 1,000s to a mere 400 or so)...and so many smiles -- many, many more than the last few years.

God is good to us! He has carried us through quite a lot in the past few years, especially. And being able to recap the year through photos is always a joy. Seeing memories forgotten already...truly priceless.

In an age of constantly changing technology, what are your favorite ways to keep memories alive year to year?

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Should old acquaintance be forgot,

and never brought to mind?

Should old acquaintance be forgot,

and old lang syne?

CHORUS:

For auld lang syne, my dear,

for auld lang syne,

we'll take a cup of kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

And surely you'll buy your pint cup!

and surely I'll buy mine!

And we'll take a cup o' kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have run about the slopes,

and picked the daisies fine;

But we've wandered many a weary foot,

since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

We two have paddled in the stream,

from morning sun till dine^†;

But seas between us broad have roared

since auld lang syne.

CHORUS

And there's a hand my trusty friend!

And give me a hand o' thine!

And we'll take a right good-will draught,

for auld lang syne.

CHORUS

Wordless Wednesday

A Day in the Life

Or the life in a day?

Sometimes it feels as if we're living many lifetimes in one day. There's so much going on.

My brain tries to sort out our schedule and keep everything straight. Soccer at 3:30...drama at 6:30...dinner at 5:30...little-guy soccer at 6.....laundry, meals, cleaning, and, oh, that's right...I have a newspaper story due.

Still. The soccer season is nearly over. Drama rehearses for a short period of time during the autumn. All will end before I know it and life will slow down, if only a little.

Enjoy the moments as they come, I tell myself.

I got extremely nostalgic this past Sunday when we passed a mom and her young daughter walking on the sidewalk as we drove to church. Suddenly, I pined yearned longed for that time again. It seemed so much easier, simpler somehow. The kids got up and had breakfast. We got dressed. We did school. We had lunch with a couple of PBS shows and then read a story together. After that, it was playtime. The kids loved playing outside. They built "fairy houses" in the flowerbeds and washed rocks and ran around defending our house from "bad" guys. They were little, and I could carry them. My kisses were still magical and healed boo-boos. We colored together.

It was while I was thinking about this and admitting that I missed that time that our 6-year-old piped up, "But then you wouldn't have me."

My heart froze.

He was totally right. He's 11 years younger than Emily and 7.5 years younger than Edward. To go back in time 10 years would erase his existence.

Never.

Then I got to thinking about how much I enjoy the kids now. And while they don't play outside very often anymore...and school takes a bit more time than the morning (mostly due to concentration problems),..and they're not as much into PBS kids' shows anymore...and I can't carry them (they're 5'10" and 5'9" tall now...and even the "little" one is 4'6". Sigh.)...they still love to hug me...and my kisses still have magic of some sort in them because they are filled with love.


Enjoy the moments as they come, I remind myself.

One day I'll feel nostalgic when I see a mom and her teenagers walking along the sidewalk, chatting together.


Enjoy. The. Moment.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  

What makes you feel nostalgic?

Remembering...

This is one of the best ads I've seen in a long time. Advice to new parents...and good reminders to "old" parents.

Four things you give your kids: Time (give it liberally); education (take it seriously); spirituality (make it real); and love (the others pale in comparison).

Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday

3-17-05

On Bunnies and Birthdays...Again

Today is a bunny birthday in our house. (For some reason, it feels like it's often a bunny or "piggy" or kitty or dog or human birthday in our house.)

Well, today is actually two bunnies' birthdays.

Our Bubble and Squeak celebrate being born at our house 7 years ago! They were the first of our Bonny and Clyde's kits. (The second pair included their younger brothers, Clementine and Earl Grey.)

It's funny how quickly time passes for pets and yet you don't realize it until you stop and look at them and at the photos of when they were "brand new."

Take a look and join us in celebrating this sweet pair of bunny girls -- from 3 days old to today.

Reinventing a Company

We've gone to see a few movies recently, and I always get chills when the various movie product companies flash their ads across the screen. You know, for things like the surround sound, or the animation, or the digital picture.

Each one has a part -- whether large or small -- of the whole movie we're about to enjoy, and that's always exciting to me.

I know.

It doesn't take much sometimes.

*wink-grin*

The one that stood out the most to me this week was DLP, a Texas Instruments company.

Texas Instruments.

Wow! That company's name conjures up a ton of memories for me.

My dad's desk calculator. The early personal computer my aunt and friend each had: the TI-99/4. (We had the Commodore 64, which at the time seemed lightyears ahead.) The Speak & Spell. My very favorite-most toy: The Little Professor calculator (pictured above). My husband's graphing calculator.

I reminisce about some of these products with my children on the way home. We revisit times gone by....

It's exciting to see a company last so long by reinventing itself...moving along with the times, so to speak.

According to Wikipedia, "Digital Light Processing (DLP) is a trademark owned by Texas Instruments, representing a technology used in some TVs and video projectors. It was originally developed in 1987 by Dr.Larry Hornbeck of Texas Instruments."


Texas Instruments started in 1930 under another name and formally under the current name in 1951.

That's a lot of history...and a lot of fun to see that this company is still a part of our world.

Saturday Sweethearts

Amazing how fast time passes, huh?

100 Things...Part 2

I'm borrowing this idea from Jadie over at The World of Emilia. (It's a lot harder than you think...)

34. I got my first rabbit in 1982.
35. It was summertime, and I was 11-going-on-12.
36. She was a Himalayan Dwarf that I named "Mittens."
37. I was suddenly smitten by rabbits.
38. My favorite house that I lived in when I was younger was one that was built in 1767.
39 It was an old "inn" along the now-defunct Union Canal.
40. It came with 7 acres of mostly grass -- and an old swimming pool and apple orchard.
41. And lots of history...and mystery.
42. I lived there from March 1981 until June 1983.
43. My adopted grandmother, Tick, lived across the street on a farm called "Willit Run." I loved her so much.
44. Her farm was old and had lots of history -- and mystery -- too.
45. I had a huge imagination when I was young and could scare myself half to death sometimes.
46. I had a love/hate relationship with Nancy Drew and Scooby Doo.
47. I have always loved music.
48. I started playing the flute when I was 10.
49. Because I have allergies, I have never been a good singer.
50. I always wanted to play the piano, too. My sister and I got very good at playing "Heart and Soul." We could really jazz-it-up.
51. I traded babysitting for horseback riding lessons when I was 13.
52. I always wanted a horse, too.
53. Rabbits are my horse.
54. It was the best compromise my dad could offer.
55. He grew up chasing his sister's horse.
56. After that, he wasn't a big "fan" of horses...or anything to do with them.
57. When I was younger, I wanted to join the 4-H sheep club.
58. I never got to.
59. Not until I was grown up and my daughter joined the 4-H rabbit club.
60. I was a member of my high school's FFA club though.
61. For 3 years, I was the club's historian and won gold medals for the scrapbook.
62. All four years of high school, I took agri-science classes. I was in heaven.
63. I also was editor of the school newspaper.
64. And in the band.
65. It was fun...but I was so glad to be finished.
66. We moved to England a week or so after my 18th birthday -- the autumn after I graduated...in 1988.
To be continued...

"Beary" Sweet

We're huge fans of the stuffed toys at Build-a-Bear. Who can resist the furry softness of the creatures you create?

I certainly can't.

I can't walk into one of those stores without wanting to choose, stuff, name, and take home all of them. It would make for a somewhat (more) crowded house, I think.

When I was a little girl, I had a stuffed frog named "Flippo." I got him for Christmas when I was 5. He went everywhere with me...to school, to church, to my friends' houses. He even hung upside down on my swingset (tied by his long legs) and protected me from bees and flies. He was my confidante...my best bud...my main squeeze (quite literally at night).

Anytime I got another stuffed toy I felt disloyal to him. But he "accepted" them, and they all got to sleep in bed with me. I couldn't resist their sweet furry faces. At one point my mother made me sleep on the inside of my topbunk bed. That way, if anyone fell out of bed it would be a "someone" with stuffing.

Memories are funny things at times, huh?

(Tele)Visions of the Past

Whilst perusing YouTube recently, we came across a number of videos containing tidbits from shows we watched as children.

Have fun remembering with us...

From Stuart's childhood viewing:









And some from mine:

Worm Weather

The weather has turned decidedly warmer and more humid...humider?

Yesterday, we even had some rain.

I went outside afterwards and the air smelled of earthworms. That's when I knew Summer had definitely arrived.

Warm, humid air + smell of earthworms = Summertime.

I'm not sure why that equation has to be, but for me it does. It's like smelling the combined aromas of freshly cut grass and onion grass. That's Spring for me.

Strange how smells can trigger memories.

When I was growing up we always had a chore to do in the morning before we could begin our day of playing/lazing/being bored.

Often it was weeding, and often when we weeded -- especially if it had rained overnight -- the air was humid and smelled "earthwormish."

I wonder what the worms smell in the summer...

I Don't Wanna Grow Up

"I don't wanna grow up...I'm a Toys R Us kid...."

I've been humming, whistling, singing this song for the past few days, and I'm not really sure why.

So I decided to look for a vintage commercial using it...and, behold! the magic of the Internet...okay, just YouTube.

Nonetheless, enjoy this memorable commercial from 1986 for Toys R Us. It certainly brought back some memories for me....not that at 16 I was into toys anymore by that year...but wasn't that the point of the commercial's jingle?

Button Box

My mom got a box of buttons from an auction once...a long, long time ago.

The buttons were odds and ends, the ones that come in a little baggie or envelope as an "extra button" with a sweater or blouse. Some were buttons lost off of pants or a shirt. Some were bought to replace others.

Whatever their purpose, the buttons always intrigued me. They came in all shapes, colors, and sizes with two holes or four, sometimes with patterns or pictures. Some were shiny; some just plain.

I loved sifting through that beautiful round tin, covered with gold and metallic pastel patterns, imagining where the buttons came from and what they could have been used for.

It was an endless delight for the young imagination; a ticket for a brief journey to another time and place. The perfect way to spend a rainy afternoon.

Pun-ily Enough

I have a habit of talking in puns. Not intentionally, of course. I'm certainly not a comedian. In fact, if I tried it wouldn't happen...my mind would be blank.

I used the above photo (taken in January 2003) on my computer desktop. My hubby and I were looking at it the other night, and I said how "cool it was to catch a moment like that frozen in time.".....

Ugh!

Happy Thoughts on Junk Food

From my online daily calendar:

5 THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT

• red grapefruit

• crisp mountain air

• moisturizing lotion

• a cat’s contented sigh

• junk food on a road trip

When Stuart and I were younger (I think it was way back in '94), we took a two-week roadtrip around Europe. We borrowed his parents' car, boarded a ferry in Southampton, England, and stayed in youth hostels, eating yoghurt and bread-n-cheese and drinking Fanta and coffee. We were living on a shoestring budget. Nothing posh. No grand hotels for us. But it was glorious, seeing life in the off-the-beaten-path towns and villages and experiencing some of the "real feel" of the countries we visited.

I decided to help out our limited budget by bringing along some snacks. You know those giant 3-pound bags of cheese curls and the economy-sized bags of animal crackers that could feed a boy scout camp through a whole summer? Well, that's what I brought.

It was a great thought -- a good idea that helped a bit -- but it soon got old when the cheese curls got decidedly harder and chewier and the animal crackers somewhat softer and blander.

I can't remember if we ever finished all of them.

But I do know that Stuart still won't eat animal crackers or cheese curls.

Nipped by Nostalgia

A funny thing happened today.

We finally received the 8X10 we'd ordered of Emily's 4th grade school photo.

I took down the frame containing last year's photo, and when I opened the back was whisked through the past 9 years of her life by all the other photos we have stored in there.

Whooooosh!

Just like in the movies when they flash backwards over the events in a character's life. I saw Emily grow up right before my eyes. From baby to big girl.

It was like that little doorway between New Year's Eve and New Year's Day -- that moment when everything becomes different even though it hasn't really changed at all -- when you see the memories of the past year blink through your mind.

And I was nipped by nostalgia and reminded of how quickly time passes....

Reflections at Year's End

Something about New Year's Eve always makes me a bit nostalgic. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. It's the sort of holiday that lends itself to reflection. I always feel abit weird about ending a year and beginning another. Funny, really, since it's only just the next day. But I feel like we go through a door at midnight-plus-one-second, leaving one year and entering another.

We were very blessed this year!

Here's a recap of 2006:

January: Emily got glasses and joined the Berks County 4-H Rabbit & Cavy Club.

February: Edward turned 5 on Valentine's Day, and we celebrated his birthday adventure at the Reading Museum. We had our annual 12th Annual Valentine's Day Tea. Earl Grey (Emily's 4-H project) and Clementine (Himalayan Dwarf bunnies) were born.

March: My sister, Shelly, turned 40! Stuart spent nearly the entire month in Qatar in the Middle East.

April: We celebrated Easter and gave a little homeschool seminar about bunnies. Emily went to work with Stuart as part of Take-Your-Daughter-to-Work Day. She spent the WHOLE day there and learned lots.

May: Stuart and I made it to our 10th Anniverary! Yeah!! And the greatest part is we're still best friends! Edward signed up for kindergarten, and Emily finished 3rd grade. I started this blog.

June: Emily had her dance recital. We went to the annual company picnic at Hershey Park. My parents celebrated 45 years of wedded bliss.

July: Independence Day! W. City celebrated 100 years this year and the annual 4th of July Parade reflected that in the floats and displays. I had my first ever Jury Duty!

August: Stuart debuted in our church's annual Vacation Bible School skit as Captain Chris P. Cookie. We enjoyed the summer, getting together with friends and having movie and game nights. I met up with two college friends I hadn't seen in 10 years.

September: A hurricane delayed our annual vacation to Nags Head, N.C., but we made it down there by Sunday night. When we came home we had to jump into a new school year with both feet -- especially since we'd left PAVCS for Agora Cyber Charter School. Stuart turned 36 on 9/11. The kids joined AWANA and started at their homeschool learning group. Stuart and I headed in to New York City to see the screening of I Trust You to Kill Me and met KIEFER SUTHERLAND in person.

October: Emily and I had our joint-birthday with her turning 9 and me turning 36. She had angel tryouts for the Nutcracker and made it. Our birthday adventure took place at the Children's Zoo in Central Park. We even took a ride on the subway, going through the station at the World Trade Center. We also spent a long weekend in Atlanta -- our first ever "just-us" vacation -- to see the I Trust You to Kill Me movie again with Kiefer Sutherland doing a Q&A afterwards and 99X hosting Rocco Deluca and the Burden in concert at midnight.

November: We plodded along through the month, enjoying Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle's house with 35 people in attendance. Stuart and I headed to Baltimore to see Rocco again in concert, this time meeting him and getting a photo and an autograph.

December: I headed to my annual shopping trip with a friend, and Stuart and the kids planned and filmed a funny movie for me. We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast with Santa, courtesy of Stuart's company. Emily received her Year One Award at 4-H. She spent the following week in the theatre at rehearsals for the Nutcracker and performed in all three shows. We celebrated Christmas, Boxing Day, and Pagoda Day...enjoying each other and the blessing of good food, family, and friends.

God is good!