Archive for the ‘Memories & Melancholy’ Category

Fifteen ~ A Lesson in Life

Monday, January 16th, 2012

If everyone would just do things the way I think they should be done in the order they should done, the way I would do them and exactly the time I think it should all happen – how beautiful this world would be.

I jest – sort of. But the truth is, even I can’t make my own ways work perfectly all the time. I could if I were the only person in the universe, but the fact that there are others I live with, love, work with, socialize among and co-exist with, well, that changes the whole ballgame.

The Fifteen-Puzzle at Grandma Baker’s house

I actually never heard it called a Fifteen-Puzzle, but that’s what Restoration Hardware calls it (above). Though they were just little red-plastic squares with white movable numbered tiles and I probably had at least a dozen of these over the years, for whatever reason, I most associate this puzzle with being at my Grandma’s house on York Street in Des Moines in the mid-1960s. She had a few of these around and the cousins and I would play with them until we solved them. Or not. I recall so wanting to finish it every time – always starting with great-great hope, but being aggravated by it, too. The numbers would be mixed up and you had to move, one space at a time, to try to get them all back in order. I always hated the times I would have the whole thing almost right, but would have to undo other things I had done (that were already in the perfect spot!) to put a stray number in and it would end up messing up 3 or 4 tiles and take me an extra 16 moves – for just that one numbered-tile. Grrrrrr….

I had one like this, which I found on ebay. The tiles were glow-in-the-dark for playing after lights out!

The sliding tile puzzle as a metaphor for life.

The pieces have restraints, connections, they must stay on the board. They “rub elbows” with other pieces. And even when you know you want to get the number {two} from the bottom row second from the last block to the top row in the number {two} position, you can only slide it up or over one square at a time. Maybe you slid it up, but then you have to move the one beside it to the right and down to make space for the one above that to go to the right and down so you can keep moving the {2} tile up. Every movement you want to make {the most sensible and obvious move} will inevitably involve lots of other moves to get it there, some that even seem counter-productive. And, {gasp}, there are even times you have to move backwards, actually undo progress, to make the path ready.

But eventually, you keep at it and it works and it is {whew!} finished.

In life, in love, in relationships – you decide a plan and you can see exactly how it should go, but there are conversations to have, misunderstandings to overcome, celebrations to dance at, roses to stop to smell, there is give and take, tit for tat and concessions to make for the sake of peace. Some days it’s two steps forward and one step back. But other days it may ever be harder. Eye on the prize, though, we just keep going. We rub each other wrong, we bump elbows and move a little spastically by accident.

In the end, we get there. Everything lines up, everything is where it should be. Deep breath of satisfaction – we did it. We solved it together. A good moment in time.

Then some crazy kid picks it up and scrambles the numbers again. *sigh.

Note to self: Gotta get some of these for the grand-boys and maybe Guini. It is time they experience this puzzle.

Tags: childhood, fifteen puzzle, sliding tile puzzle
Posted in Memories & Melancholy, Stuff I Actually Think | 3 Comments »

“Live your life and forget your age.”

Saturday, January 7th, 2012

“Live your life and forget your age.” -Norman Vincent Peale

This is what women do: they criticize their looks and age and weight and everything about themselves all.the.time. Don’t ask me how I know.

When I first saw this huge image pop up in a sneak-preview of the wedding photos, I thought, “Well there are the bags under my eyes. I was still in my sweats. I didn’t have my mascara on” and etc. Dumb. I know. Very vain.

My mom saw it and said to me “Who is that old woman with all those wrinkles?” She is 73 and has yet to recognize her loveliness. Tredessa had already told me that she loved the intensity of the lines on her grandma’s face, the clearness of her features.

And all I could think in response to my mom was, “I so want to be like that woman.” I love her! I love her vivaciousness and love for life and picture-taking and horses and her family and her encouraging ways and deep-felt love for people and the belief in the best of them all. And if the lines on her face were a type of braille, they would read of her unwavering belief in me and love no matter what since the day I was born – even before.

We attack ourselves. We speak badly of ourselves. We wouldn’t let first-graders talk about each other the way we talk about ourselves. Stupid. Waste. of. Time.

Me and my mamala…

I have her nose. I have her blue eyes. I even have two, deep, furrowed lines between my brows exactly like hers. And I wanna be just like her when I grow up. I do. She is the most beautiful to me.

Tags: age, beauty, jeanie moslander rhoades, like mother like daughter, my mom, Norma Moslander
Posted in Making a List!, Memories & Melancholy, Mi Familia, My Most Unforgettable People | 2 Comments »

At Last

Saturday, December 31st, 2011

Let Me Hold You Longer, Karen Kingsbury

Stephanie Morgan brought me a book by that title yesterday at Starbucks. The premise of the book, the author explained, is that in life, we record and particularly note and celebrate all sorts of firsts. There is a baby’s first tooth, first steps, first day of school – all beautiful milestones that deserve our attention! Yet, we are unaware of the things that pass, last things. She explained it by recalling a beautiful day outdoors with her kids when one of the little guys ran up, jumped into her arms, wrapped his legs around her waist and while touching noses told her, “I love you, mommy.” She noticed how big he was getting and how heavy he was, realizing he probably wouldn’t be doing that too much longer. Then she looked across the lawn and saw her oldest son who was about to enter middle school and realized that he used to run and jump into her arms the same way and that at some point it had been the last time.

And the thing about last times is, you usually just don’t know they are happening, and if you did, you might want to take closer note.

Of course, I read the book and it killed me.

O my goodness. I tried to tell Stormie about it when she came by earlier today. Cry. *Sniff, sniff. And to be silly and try not to be all melancholy, I grabbed Gavin, who was here helping us take down our Christmas decorations and cuddled him on to my lap like I have been doing since June 2003 and kissed his cheek and he is getting so big. At 8 1/2 he doesn’t quite melt into his Nonna’s lap anymore (he just told me he has an adult-sized head). He still likes the attention, but is slightly embarrassed. And I jokingly said, “Everybody remember this in case it is the last time.”

There was practically a boooo and an eye-rolling moan from everyone, but also a palpable realization that this – this moment, this totally open relationship between a little boy and his Nonna, is a relationship that will grow and change and be re-defined as he becomes who God created him to be and has to pull away to become independent before he can, with full confidence in who he is, move back in closer with appreciation for these two old people who have loved him since the day he was born. And there is realization that time is flying and kissy-cheeks from Nonna, at least in their present, freely-flowing form, are making their way into a land of remember-when-memories. And growth is good and the destination is the point, but it changes everything you love in the moments that make life worth living to begin with. Nothing stays the same.

The first time

I don’t recall, though I love baby’s feet, when the last time I kissed the bottoms of my children’s feet was? I know I kept kissing them, even when they were “too old” for it because it made them laugh and I wanted them to know I adored them all the way from the bottoms of their little feet. They weren’t babies in age, but they were my babies. I can’t remember the last time I braided my little girls’ hair (I remember combing long, silky locks – or terrible tangles…lots of them) or what year I quit weaving red ribbons into their braids at Christmas? In my ornament box, I found a note my mom tucked into the branches of our Christmas tree in 2001…was that my last Christmas with my mom? I don’t know when the last time we sang “Testify” together at some church or played Risk as a family or any other number of mundane things that make up life. When was the last time Tara baked Jiffy pizza-bread sticks, anyway?

Lasting impressions

I do know the book struck a chord, something deeply reverberating through my heart. I am past the halfway mark now, but my senses and ability to feel love have increased exponentially with age, with experience. When the years rolled out ahead like there was no end in sight, I didn’t have to be as cautious in gathering memory, in recording the story, in remembering. But now that the lasts are happening, I don’t want to miss anything, not one thing.

2011 ~ 2012

One year rolls into another. And the year we have just lived, all the beauty and joy and ups and downs and round-abouts and surprises and laughs, the tears, the disappointments, the things that did not go our way – all of it, with the slightest move of a second hand on a clock becomes {*tick} last year, {*tock}.

The days ahead

We get this brand-spanking-new-year in just a few hours. It will be filled with so much yet-undiscovered adventure. I am hoping for 3 new grandbebes in 2012 – or at least some good work toward that! *smile. And I am excited to see what God is going to do through Heaven Fest this year and the songs I have yet to sing and the seasons changing and the garden tomatoes filling my counters and time with the love and watching the incredible lives of my children whom I cherish and the children they share…but like the author of the book, my prayer is, even as each day brings new things in a new year, “Let me hold on longer, God, to every precious last.”

This was totally unrelated

Gavin took a quick break from Christmas packing-away for a snack. I turned on the TV and an old Rockford Files episode was on. I said to the grand-boy, “See James Garner? Now that is some swagger.”

“What show is this, anyway?” he asked me.

“‘The Rockford Files’ from the 1970′s!” I told him.

He grimmaced and asked “Why do people want shows from the 70s anyway? Do they wish they had a time machine so they could go back there or something?”

Haha. Laugh. Laugh. Maybe…

But then it became related

Just now, as I was about ready to push the “publish” button on this post, Gavin was leaving to go home to have a special New Year’s Eve night with his family, games and snacks and good times. He came to say good-bye and I hugged him tight and said, “One last kiss in 2011.” He kissed my cheek. I feigned sorrow, “But now my other cheek needs one last kiss in 2011 – for you and I will never hug and kiss in 2011 ever again.” He giggled and kissed my other cheek before bolting toward the door

as he quipped, “Nuh-uh, Nonna – I will build a time machine to come back to 2011.”

{Heart m e l t i n g } And I would get into that machine, Gav, to collect all the lasts I have maybe missed.

Hello, 2012

Dear 2011 – you gave me all the days you promised you would and I will carry them in my heart forever.

Ok, Stephanie Morgan-you did this to me. Love you for the sharing. But you’re killing me! xxoo

Tags: firsts, last year, lasts, melancholy, new year, reflecting
Posted in Celebrations & Festive Events, Memories & Melancholy, Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think | 12 Comments »

A Norma Moslander Christmas

Saturday, December 24th, 2011

I keep trying to be my mom at Christmas.

I grew up in humble surroundings. In fact, I just had some one recently refer to the neighborhood I grew up in as the “ghetto.” But to me it was Leave it to Beaver-middle America. My dad was bi-vocational, a milkman in the wee hours and a church-planting-pastor by night, which in those days meant that he was, besides everything else, also financing it. And I watched my mom toil over her budget and struggle to make ends meet. Into the night she’d sit figuring out how to feed us and clothe us and support missionaries, too. But when Christmas came, she made it amazing.

Every year she’d tell me, “We can’t do much this year, but I will make sure you have at least 5 gifts under the tree” (I think her budget was $25 per child and there were 5 of us). There were always more. Plus the little touches like nuts in the shell for cracking throughout December.

She’d make “popcorn-ball garlands,” red and green rounds wrapped in cello and tied with red and green curling ribbon for relatives and neighbors. Her baked goods were prized gifts.

She made a big deal of December 15 – the day we always got the tree (my dad would not allow it earlier) and we’d carefully unpack a mish-mash of ornaments her relatives had given to her when she got married. I so regret getting her to switch to more organized “designer” trees 20 years ago or so, and teaching her to “theme.” I think she has reverted back somewhat, but I don’t know if any of my childhood ornaments, like the little collectors elves you see now, are still around. She gave me the angel-hair/spun glasss angel tree topper from 1964, but much of the rest is now gone. Because 20 years ago I was too busy trying to be unique to recognize the rich beauty of the traditions and little pieces of Christmas that had always been there.

On Christmas eve (right about now as I write), as soon as the sun began to set, we were home – warm and cozy and ate snacks and had homemade hot cocoa (not pre-mixed, please, my mom made it in a heavy pan with whole milk and fresh cocoa). There’d be popcorn and Bugles. Bugles. They were a Christmas Eve snack. And there were these things called Pizza Spins, which they no longer make. Usually some chips and dip, a rare treat in those days. And we would snack while watching A Charlie Brown Christmas or The Davy & Goliath Christmas episode.

We’d go to bed a little earlier than usual on Christmas Eve, dad having read the Christmas story to us from the Bible and the fam praying on our knees together before then, most years. I would agonize trying to go to sleep. I was always filled with such anticipation. Then there was always an unwrapped gift that we came out to in the morning. And other things my mom managed to fit into her budget.

I loved it.

I am still trying to figure out how she did it….

“All that I come from and all that I live for and all that I’m going to be – my precious famaily is more than an heirloom to me.”

Posted in Celebrations & Festive Events, Keep Christmas, Memories & Melancholy, Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think | 1 Comment »

Decorations @ Christmas

Sunday, December 18th, 2011

There is the tree in the living room.

It is themed and quite lovely, I think.

Then there is the tree with a gazillion mismatched things, and it is the tree of my heart. Not designer. Not a tree anyone would want to replicate, nor could they. This tree, the family room tree, is filled with the ornaments we have collected over time. There are things dating back to our childhoods, Dave’s and mine. There are thing the kids made growing up and now even things the grandbebes have made. There are ornaments I have received as gifts. I have vintage ornaments and 5 Baby’s First Christmas baubles. There is an egg-shaped Mod Podged thing my mom made in the 70s that has my high school graduation picture on it. And felt-frames with my childrens’ little school days photos. There are odds and ends ornaments giving tribute old Christmas movies and 1960s Christmas TV shows and even a letter Stormie wrote to Santa one year, even though we never actually did the Santa thing.

It is the tree that makes me smile. And cry a little.

Gemma and I unpacked the ornaments the other day

21-seconds of Gemma

Posted in Keep Christmas, Memories & Melancholy, Mi Familia, Stuff I Actually Think | 3 Comments »

Home 4 Christmas

Saturday, December 17th, 2011

I’ll be home with bells on. I’ll be home with bells on.

Trim the tree and wrap the presents, turn the Christmas music on

This Christmas I’ll be home with bells on.

Can’t you just hear Dolly Parton belting that out? It is a happy place for me: Dolly and Christmas!

Home.

Tredessa and Ryan just moved in to their leased, little 3-bedroom first home – in time for Christmas. It is so cute. They’ve got a big, fenced back yard with a workshop and garden shed. The house has been renovated and painted and upgraded and spiffed-up just in time for them, but those gleaming wooden floors slant for some good marble-rolling, like any 100-year-old house does. They are near “downtown Frederick,” one of the cutest little towns between Denver and Fort Collins. Everything is small and quaint there, little shops, family-owned Italian restaurants, and parks where young families meet up during walks and soccer practice. They have an alley and live about 7 blocks from Rocky and Jovan and only about 1.3 miles from Dave and Tara over on Hawthorne Circle. The photos below are realtor shots.

Front of house. Entry and living room (the piano is at the base of the stairs now), family room

Eat-in kitchen, fresh paint and brand new counters and cabintery, one of the bedrooms, new carpet.

1200-little-square-feet of love.

Concerned about a lack of good closet space and how small the rooms are, her sister Tara incredulously reminded Tredessa: the whole house is yours! You are not rooming with other people now. You have just increased your square footage by like 1000+ square feet!

And Tredessa and I were just talking about how good God is and what a crazy blessed year it has been for them. They met, fell in love, got married and were planning to live in an apartment for a year or two, but the deep desire of Dessa’s heart was a house where they could stay put for a bit and maybe get started on their family. And God just delights in doing good toward us. And so my daughter has a home. Home for Christmas!

Where the Heart is…

Home is a big deal to me. My family moved a. lot. while I was a kid, and both my parents had had rather nomadic childhoods so there was this silly moving thing. Dave and I determined NOT to do that, yet, living in a small Nebraska city experienced some uproot and movement we did not enjoy. I long for cocooning. I enjoy having a place. Yes, sometimes I have made it an idol, and I have had to learn that God is my home, He is where my heart truly rests.

5 LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup;

you make my lot secure.

6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

surely I have a delightful inheritance.

7 I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;

even at night my heart instructs me.

Psalm 16 NIV

But at Christmastime, like no other time, I think, home is wondrous. A house to hold everything your heart holds dear. Season turns in to season and the children grow and look forward to certain cookies baking and a particular ornament going in an exact place on the tree and new jammies because of the Christmas morning photographs and the traditions make home more than a roof over some walls but a place, an altar of sorts, a warm reminder from Father that we are His family, His household of faith. And He blesses us and gives us family on which to lavish our love and a place in which to enjoy it.

And God has blessed my familia. With homes and family.

Stephanie and Tristan got to buy their house when they had only been married for 3 months! She was still only 19 years old (Tristan was a ripe old 21, I think) when God planted them in the middle of their block, a good-looking young couple who were not even certain yet about becoming parents, when or if it would be in their plans. But o-my-goodness, the delight a year and half later when they presented us with Gavin. Now three of the cutest kids frolic through those rooms and Steph’s home-style has grown (in the 10-years-on-Dec-27-since-they-got-married!!!) and become colorful and jovial, kind of a light, bright, retro-vintage, but wholly modern and extremely hip home base. And she changes up her Christmas decorating every year. And a lot of times I see on Facebook that she has been listening to Spotify and I will smile when I see her, in her very own home with her own little munchkins, listening to a lot of the Christmas music we listened to while she was growing up. Wasn’t that just yesterday?

I don’t think we have a full Kelley-family Christmas-decor reveal yet, but this is from a recent photo shoot Steph and Tris did in their living room. You can see more at www.maydae.com

Dave and Tara travelled so much they were not even interested in buying their own home for years. They’d been able to lease a wonderful, roomy place right after their 4-month-honeymoon-ministry tour when they got back to accept a position at Northern Hills. But suddenly last year, it hit Tara that she wanted to buy a house. Just kaboom. She was ready to commit to a neighborhood and a little bit of stay-puttedness (yes, I know that is not a real word). And just a couple of days before Christmas, they closed on their home, the perfect place for them with lots of parking for lots of people over there all the time and a gorgeous back yard that connects to open space where Hunter can run. And parks nearby. And lots of family near, now. Ahem. And the house is warm and bright and cozy and light and roomy, yet intimate and filled with Tara’s touches and super clean and organized! We squeezed all of us and Ryan’s family from Florida in there for Thanksgiving and we all became fast-friends and family just because we were so squished and it was lovely. Last year at this time, they got a house for Christmas with an extra bedroom for a new baby – and who even knew that was about to happen!?!

Tara’s at Thanksgiving and after Christmas movies last night

Inspired by Dave and Tara’s success, Rocky and Jovan decided they’d had enough of apartment dwelling and bought their first house right after Christmas last year. And Jovan boldly added color and more color and handmade touches everywhere. Jovan has been madly crafting and creating all season long, some of which you can see on her blog (www.littlebitsandgiggles.com), making life merry and bright for her family. While Rocky continues to work on the recording studio going in to the basement, the girls are enjoying their great big yard and being very close to their grammie and papa (Jovan’s parents). There is definitely room for a baby brother!! Haha.

Then Stormie. The baby of the family – she bought her very first house just before her 25th birthday this past April. And she has made it uniquely hers this Christmas season. Her very busy schedule and exiting roommate caused her to decide on something very “scaled back,” though her version of that includes an actual antler “tree,” Yes, antlers. And she even put a few lights outside. And did some very different, non-commercial-type things for her little home Christmas decor. For her and the dog, Saber, whom she lovingly calls, “The German.”

Stormie’s house. And antler tree.

Everybody is safe in their homes tonight, where little lights twinkle and Christmas is expressed in many new ways, but also just like we have always done everything. And I am home and the house is festive and the ghost of Christmas past just walked down the hall and when she opened the door, I heard the 5 little Rhoades kids giggling and making merry – like it was yesterday. My heart is no longer at home just here. A little bit of it lives in 5 other lovely homes nearby…

Congratulations, Ryan and Dessa! There’s no place like home for the holidays!

Posted in Celebrations & Festive Events, Keep Christmas, Memories & Melancholy, Mi Familia, Songs I am Singing, Stuff I Actually Think | 6 Comments »

Song{s} for a Sunday // The Carpenters

Sunday, October 30th, 2011

The Carpenters, 1969-1973.

Yes, I treated myself today. It is sunny and gorgeous. A singing kind of morning. Even on my old vinyl, the girl’s smooooooooooooth voice is still o-my-gosh!

“Close to You” was my first Carpenter song ever, one of the greatest songs of all time. “Good-Bye to Love” was my favorite song when I was eleven. With the possible exception of “Top of the World,” which was “re-written” for church-singing (and I sang with Jayne and JJ Dixon in Cedar Rapids and later with Cheryl Bardwell in Robert, Lousiana I do believe), I love almost every song they have ever done like crazy. I just think I over-heard/sang “Top of the…” too many times and Karen’s mournful, deep heart stuff is her true genius.

Yes, I can listen on iTunes, too. But the records really, really take me back…Yesterday Once More.

Posted in Memories & Melancholy, Songs I am Singing, Stuff I Actually Think, TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment | No Comments »

“The autumn leaves are falling down…”

Wednesday, October 19th, 2011

My Grandma Hallet gave me a Roger Williams piano music album when I was eight.

I don’t really know why, necessarily. It was used, so she probably got it at a yard sale or a thrift store because she did not have money, really, to spend. It was probably a birthday gift. It wasn’t groovy or cool, but she knew I loved music and was never far from my little record player. And so I came to love it. And especially the song, “Autumn Leaves.” I secretly danced to it…

This leaf drifted from a tree in my front yard yesterday and landed at my feet, like a gift. I will probably play with it at www.picnik.com at some point, but this is just as it came. And truly, the autumn produces colors like no other, does it not? Glory. That is the color of fall. What started green and bright and light, unfurling after a stark winter, now reaches its’ full and most beautiful stage, and having held on with strength and determination throughout the summer, through both drought and drenching rains, now falls, now tumbles. Now, peacefully and content with itself, dances right down before me, a gift. Glory.

Missing my Grandma Hallet. I wish she could know what her gentle spirit meant to me.

Posted in Home & Garden/Food & Seasons, Memories & Melancholy, Songs I am Singing, Stuff I Actually Think | 1 Comment »

St. Louis CARDINALS!

Sunday, October 16th, 2011

Baseball, the sound of the summers of my youth.

The Cardinals – the ONLY team.

Our family vacations were almost always trips to Busch Stadium in St. Louis to watch them play. I rarely follow baseball these days, but when you get a late season chance and there is baseball in October, I am there!

Hope=hope=hope they beat the Brewers tonight!!!

Posted in Memories & Melancholy, Stuff I Actually Think, TV & Movies/Books & Entertainment | 1 Comment »

Cover-Alls

Sunday, October 9th, 2011

My dad was a country boy in Misourri, growing up in the 1940s ,who had to wear cover-alls too school. He hated it. And remains a very snazzy dresser to this day. This post is not about those little bibbed britches, actually. But rather, song covers.

Song covers.

That term can make a lot of people cringe with horror like fingernails on a blackboard. And usually, whenever some one “covers,” a song, or sings something that once “belonged” rightfully to another artist, I tend to think, “Why? Why are you doing that?” It was already an amazing song, done amazingly by some amazing artist I love {and am amazed by, it would seem}.

But honestly? There are great covers out there and the best, I think, are done well because the bands re-recording a tune respects the song so much and loves it for what was originally done with it – that they are able to communicate it really well. I actually want to BE a cover band, for my next job. **big, goofy, smile**

I still really adore Mariah Carey’s version of the Jackson Five’s, “I’ll Be There.” Just the other day, Blake (“Some Beach) Shelton released his cover of Kenny Loggin’s 1980s version of “Footloose,” and it is a respectful, countrified, get-up-and-dance version. I like it. The video is mostly fun, but a little too much dirty-dancing for me to post it here (this is a family blog, people), but the song is good. Great cover.

“Close to You,” by the Carpenters is simply classic and part of the soundtrack of my very life, almost too precious to communicate. Great (Bacharach) tune that it is, it has been covered a gazillion-million times and though I usually, absolutely dismiss any attempts at the re-do, there are a few artists who have given me such an interesting rendition, that I have come to appreciate why anyone ever attempts it at all. It is just a great song. And the live Barbara Streisand and Burt-the-Bacharach-himself version in 1971 are an interesting watch. And I must admit truly loving Mario Biondi’s raspy, deep, jazzy version. It is well interpreted. He knows why, ya know? And he respects the song.

Boondocks.

Though I was city born and raised (if Des Moines can be considered a real “city”), my heart that craves the “Boondocks,” which was a grand hit for Little Big Town a few years back. Felt like listening to it the other day and found out that this band that feeds my country-boondocks-slightly-bluegrass periodic-craving has done a bunch of great covers. They’ve done their original stuff with harmonies I love to get lost in, harmonies that harken back to the likes of the Starlight Vocal Band (“Afternoon Delight”) and so many family sing-a-longs in my youth. They are not hacks. They’ve earned the right to cover songs they love. And here is my favorite find!