My Mom--I miss her so!

Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers out in blog land, and for those who want to be mothers.

Recently, my brother was going through boxes of things in my parents' bedroom. Dad has been gone for almost 6 years, and it will be 28 years ago next month that we lost our dear mother. Anyhow, he found a box of my mother's photos. What a treat it was to have these passed to me! I saw pictures of her that I had never seen before, a time when she was in her 20s back in the 1950's.

Here is a picture of my mother with Mother's Day flowers that I sent her in 1980. I was in college at the time. Thirteen months later, she passed away. She was only 52 in this picture, two years older than I am now!

My mother was an amazing woman who survived many horrors in her life, things that I cannot imagine. However, she never let that stop her from going on in her life and being the best person she could be. She was a fantastic mother! She was strong, opinionated, loving, creative, and very social. She was also hilarious and one of my favorite memories is of her and me laughing hysterically at something we both found funny, just two days before she died.

On to the pictures:
It was so fascinating to see the young woman that she was. When I was at Wally World scanning these pictures, it took all I had to keep from bursting into tears. I don't think she ever realized just how beautiful she was! I love this picture of her in this beautiful dress with large dots. LOVE that dress!


She was quite the bathing beauty too! I was actually rather shocked to see her in a bikini, but wow, Mom was looking hot! I hope she isn't rolling over in her grave because I am posting these. Nah, she was the one who liked to run out to the front of the house in her bathing suits to kiss and hug guests goodbye just to give the neighbors something to talk about!




For a short time in her early 20s, my mother was married to a man (NOT my father!) who she thought was going to be a preacher. He turned out to be an abusive jerk who she divorced after he made threats to kill her. Back in the 50s, divorce was NOT common!

Anyhow, I think she had these pictures taken intending to send them to him while he was in the Army. At that time, she was living at a boarding house in Toledo for single women who were working or going to school. She had written on the backs of these pictures. Here is what they said.

"Writing to 'my man'."


"Thank you, I hope you liked the recital."


"I haven't heard from you in so long!" (Yep, I see divorce looming!)


"Time for tea."



"The housewife, relaxing." (Ugh, what ugly curtains here!)


"Just waiting - my baby's coming home"


"Do you like the perfume?" (Oh how I love this picture of her! Look at that tiny waist! I sure didn't inherit that from her.)


"Getting ready for work." (Because he didn't send her any money to pay the bills.)


"Bye now, see you later."


Mom had a lot of different jobs when she was in her 20s. She completed a degree in social work, but found that it really wasn't for her. She later went back to school to become a teacher. Here are some of the odd jobs she had along the way.

Mom was a camp counselor at Camp Friendly in Napoleon, Michigan. Here she is in front of one of the cabins. I think she OWNS these shorts!


Here she is at the camp playing a fortune teller, Madame Fifi, according to the back of the pic.


She put together this bulletin board. I think this may have been for Sunday school or maybe one of her very first classes.


I wonder if these are the kids she made the bulletin board for. They are so cute. Some of them remind me of the Little Rascals.


Here mom is ironing her apron for work. Can you imagine using those old irons? She was a waitress at a Kewpies. Not sure if this is that particular workplace, but she hated Kewpie's with a passion!




She had time for fun too. I love this picture of her in a rowboat. From the look on her face, I think that the photographer was someone that she was in love with. What do you think?


Here she is sitting on Santa's lap. Santa gives me the heebie jeebies in this pic though. He looks a bit like an evil clown. Although the caption on the pic says, "it sure is fun to sit on Santa's lap," she looks a little scared of him!


Gosh I sure do miss her! If you still have your mother, say a prayer of thanks that you still have her. Life never feels the same once she is gone. It was so hard for me at the time because I was only 22 and had a 6 month old baby. My youngest brother was still in high school. However, in the time she was on this earth, she was the best mother ever and taught me all the skills I needed to be successful in my life. She was loved by everyone who met her. I look forward to seeing her someday again in glory.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention my grandmothers!

This is my Grandma S. Here she is at age 31 (in 1922) holding my father! She was a warm and loving grandmother who passed from this earth far too soon. We lost her when I was only 7. She was a schoolteacher and a wonderful woman! I still get people (now elderly)coming up to me telling me how much they loved her. They do the same when talking about my mother. I take after my Grandma S a lot.


Here is my Grandma R, with my Grandpa. They took my mother into their home when she was 13 years old. My bio grandmother died when my mom was 8 years old. She went to an orphanage at age 9 and lived a hellish life there until my Grandma and Grandpa R took her in. They later officially adopted her. They gave her a good life. Grandpa ran a Mobil gas station and Grandma was also a teacher. While we didn't see them very often, and although Grandma was not a typically warm grandma, I did love her.


I hope all of you have a terrific Mother's Day surrounded by your loved ones.

Oh, my sons did give me the robin's egg blue plates! Yay! You'll get to see them on Tablescape Thursday.

Critters on Bonnie Lane

Here on the end of Bonnie Lane, you can find a number of different creatures!

Here are some birds in a tree. I love watching the birds. We have a nice variety from robins, sparrows and starlings, to cardinals, bluejays, wrens, and woodpeckers. There is even an eagle who nests further downstream! My son took the pic of the birds.

Last week we found a moth under our front porch light. How cool a find was this! Here he is near my red star.

Lately, we've been noticing a little woodchuck in the yard. Yes, I know they burrow and are destructive, but he is just the cutest little thing when he comes into my yard to eat. I think his burrow is on the riverbank. My son took these three pictures of the little guy.

Below is a little hedgehog I happened across under the bush next to my back patio. Oh wait, he's made of resin! He is so darn cute though that I wanted to include him.
We also had an indoor critter tonight. Yikes!!!!! I was sitting on the toilet when I saw this gargantuan wolf spider on my bathroom door. I swear, I first thought it was a miniature tarantula! It was the biggest wolf spider I had ever seen and every bit as big as this picture! Good thing I was already sitting on the toilet because I just about crapped myself.
He was near the door handle so I couldn't even open the door. I had to call for my son to open it slowly from the outside and I skedaddled out of there as quickly as I could! We found him on the outside of the door and sprayed him down with Raid, but he dropped to the floor and crawled off. I hope he met his untimely death of asphyxiation under my washer. The pic here was from Google images. I did not stop to take a picture of the nasty critter!

Ugh, after that horrid pic, I need something pretty to look at! Here is a peony in one of my flowerbeds.
And here is a picture of my driveway garden in early spring. I wish it still looked like this, but these were not flowers with long lives.
Let's hope the spider had a shorter life than these lovely flowers! There, now I feel a little bit better!

I may not be on much in the next couple of days. My youngest son is getting ready to go to Texas for 6 weeks with his father. This will be the first time that I have spent over a week away from my baby! More about that later. Have a great rest of the week!

My Mother's Day fun

I was going to post last night, but for some reason couldn't get my memory card to download! All is well today because I got it to work. There are over 1000 pictures on it, and I am sure half is of my 15 year old son who seems to have an obsession with taking pictures of himself!

My sons honored me with a card for Mother's Day and some chocolate. Reese's is on of my favorites! As you can see, there were only two left. Out of a package of 8, I had only had two, so I guess that means that the gifters got into my candy stash! The card was cute. My son wrote that it was the least thoughtful card for a very thoughtful mother. Too sweet! I didn't have the heart to tell them that Mom Mom is a term for grandmother. I am not ready to be one of those yet!

We traveled to my daughter's home for a little while. I had a present for her. She isn't a mother, but really wants to be. She had been wanting clothes for the goose she had "inherited" from her home's prior owner. She was so excited! I also wanted to give her these cute little colander tealight holders, but I didn't get a chance to pick them up from my friend's house. They will match the yellow colander I gave her at Easter as an Easter basket. She wants to use the big colander as a planter, so I also got her florist's foam and some spanish moss. Just so I don't violate any copyright laws, the picture below is from the PartyLite catalog.

When I came home from work last night, my son had sloppy joes and a can of baked beans cooking! He wanted to surprise me since he couldn't do that on Mother's Day due to having visitation with his dad. He did a great job!

Yesterday evening my son and I went outside in the yard and while I was checking the little garden, I noticed that a stalk of asparagus had found a small opening in the garden edging! Isn't it odd that plants know just where to grow?

I noticed that the rhubarb is really growing too! We've had a lot of rain and just enough sunny days.
I don't know how to tell if rhubarb is ripe enough to harvest. It's starting to get a beautiful red to the stalks. Do I need to wait a little bit longer?
The sun started going down, so we decided to go to the store. My son had been working on setting up a small aquarium and it was time to go find a fish. He decided on a pretty beta fish.
I love the colors! He said that it matched some of the red color in a dracaena plant he got for his bedroom. When I looked in on the fish last night, it seemed very happy in its new home!

Hope everyone else is happy in their homes and staying healthy!

Tribute to my mother

First of all, Happy Mother's Day to all of you out there in blogland! Cielo from The House in the Roses shared this pretty picture with all who wanted it. You can find her awesome blog here http://www.houseinroses.blogspot.com/

This weekend brings a lot of mixed feelings. My mother has been gone now for almost 27 years. She passed away unexpectedly at the age of 53 of a massive heart attack. She would be 81 if she were still alive! Today would also have marked my parents' 52nd wedding anniversary as well, and my father would be turning 86 this coming Tuesday. We lost him in 2003. I don't know how old my mother was in the picture below, but I think she is so beautiful here. It's the only picture where I think I look at like her, but the older I get, the more I see her face smiling back at me in the mirror!

My mother was a truly remarkable woman! She was the 13th child of 15 born to my biological grandparents. Her own mother passed away when my mother was only 8. Due to a traumatic event that directly affected my mother, the five youngest children were put into an orphange when she was just 9. She spent the next 4 years there before going into foster care with my grandparents who eventually adopted her. During her life, she endured abuse, loneliness, and poverty, but her spirit kept her going throughout it all. She was full of spunk and determination and earned a college education, first in social work, then in education.

Here she is reading to my youngest brother. Her first love was for her family, including myself and two younger brothers, and of course, our father. Her second love was teaching. She loved to read to us, and all of us could read before we went to school. I wasn't afraid to go to kindergarten because she was right across the hall teaching the other class! She later became an art teacher and though she was never trained in art, she used her creativity to come up with wonderful crafts and projects for her students. She had a special compassion for the students that others might have considered "unfortunate" and she always had encouraging words or a hug for them. She was much loved by all the students whose lives she touched.

This was the last picture of the family, taken summer of 1980. She passed away just one year later. My father never remarried. One thing that I have to say about my mother is that despite the horrific things that happened to her during her life, she never let that affect the way she mothered us. She raised us to be strong, independent individuals. I have her to thank for the woman that I am today.

This would not be complete without including my own family, my dear sweet daughter, and my two darling sons. I always wanted to be a mother, first and foremost above anything else, and I thank God for them. Without them I wouldn't get to hear Happy Mother's Day! I'm going to be able to spend time with all of them later today, and am so happy for that. If your mother is still alive, call her or spend some time with her today. She won't be around forever. You'll be glad you did!