Mom

The other day I came across this picture of my mother and I remembered being so excited when I got to wear her dress!   It was a strange experience, since I felt really pretty in it, even if I was only "handsome" it made me feel better than that.  Look at her face!!! She's having a wonderful time.  Obvioiusly it's My Dad on the other end of the camera, and they were both so young and filled with hope.  Mom is now 90, and has more recently been moved to a nursing home, her dementia to the point of complete disability....my Dad told me the other evening,that he had been visiting with Mom and he said "she's still a beautiful woman"...that kind of love is very hard to find!

Why it's my sister's fault that I write!!

One of my favourite memories of England was our Saturday ritual which included getting a shiny little sixpence which held the promise of all sorts of wonderful things to come.  As a child, the pondering is a large part of the joy, whereas for the adult in supervision, the pondering is akin to Japanese water torture! That little sixpence could buy a bounty of  wonderful sweets, some of my favourites being Sherbet Fountains and white chocolate mice... flying saucers filled with a sweet powdery substance and all sorts of other wonders which were both magical to behold, and delicious to taste! By the time our choosing was done, we were popped into the car ( a little yellow Rover 2000) and whisked home to devour our treats.  I tended to relish the moment, and in all ways actually I was slower than Angela! Slower dressing, slower cleaning up my bedroom, slower moving...well you get my point!!  That being understood it stands to reason that my sister's sweets were consumed and indeed gone before I had finished playing with my white chocolate mouse.  There I would be in my room, with my sweets laid out on my unmade bed, and there would be a little tap on my door...knock, knock, knock..."come in" I would say, except in a British accent of course...and Angela would come in, all bright eyed and a smile as sweet as the candy she was eyeing on my bed!  "Lets play a game" she would suggest..."what game" I would ask foolishly..."You are the rich Princess and I am the little starving pauper."..."alright", I say (why I don't know)..."Oh you beautiful and kind Princess, I am starving to death...would you please give me some food to eat?"...."Of course" I would reply..."What would you like?"... Well it turned out that she basically "liked" everything I had, and for strange reasons known only to God Himself I would feed my Pauper/Sister over and over again most Saturday mornings!!!!  It never really occurred to me to say "No" or to eat my sweets more quickly, but it did bring about a change in me.  The sweet shop was in a row of shops, which also included a bakery (I got lost once and ended up at the bakery where they gave me a doily while I cried!!!) and a stationary shop among others.  One Saturday I paused outside the window of the stationary store and was filled with a warm excited feeling.  I asked to go in, and there found beautiful pens and pencils, pretty paper books in all sorts of colours, notebooks with pretty pictures on them with matching equally pretty envelopes.  I was in love with stationary !!!

From then on , well almost from then on, I bought stationary instead of sweets, and little plastic tea sets that I could play "tea party" with my dolls, but no sweets to serve them!!!  My life was forever changed, and I still love stationary, even if I'm terrible at writing letters!  So Thanks Angela... all this writing came from you and as a direct result of your very convincing "Pauper" role!!! 

"Julia and Julia"... and Mom

Julia and Julia" trailer
Today is of course Easter Sunday, but this year has been a bit odd in how it played out, with Matt's Birthday celebration spreading over two weekends, but of a smaller size, me not being well, but getting better, and having to buy a new fridge, having been without one for 3 1/2 weeks!  So no egg hunt, no chocolate, no fanfare...but definitely grateful for the real reason that we do those other things...but back to business!  I watched a movie today (I also walked the dogs and did laundry so this is a good day).  I've seen this movie before,about a young woman who Blogs her way through Julia Child's cookbook. I enjoyed it so much that I had no trouble watching it again.  It also made me realize how distinctly linked Julia Child and my mother are in my mind!  I see Julia Child, and I see my mother cooking.  As you can see by the picture at left, there is nothing in similarity of looks between Julia and my mother. My mother, is a definite "looker" and Julia, on the other hand was...well...not!  There is also about 4 feet of height difference between the two of them, and my mother can speak French fluently, whereas Julia Child was still learning!  But my mother, with a copy of Mastering-Art-French-Cooking in her hand, was a force to be reckoned with. That book, with the little tear at the top of the blue/green cover, evokes memories of good smells, wonderful sauces, and desserts to die for.  Mother's pastry was so light and flaky that it simply melted in your mouth. My particular favourite traditionally appeared each Christmas...Mince Pies!  YUM!!!  In fact there were more than a few Christmases when everyone had gone to bed, that I would sneak down the stairs to quietly pry off the lid of that prized, square, blue, tart tin, and gently lift 1...2...no, usually 3 beautiful little pies, and whisk them off to be lovingly devoured in the quiet of my room! ...as I said previously.....YUM!  The Christmas of '79 was a particularly "pie filled" celebration.  I was actually in hospital, having just given birth to Paul, and mother imported the mince pies right to me...an entire tin...to myself!!!!! About 24 hours after those gems had been delivered, the supply was getting a bit low, when the nurses came in with little Paul, stuffed in a Christmas stocking, with a tiny cap on his head...but he was crying.  The nurses explained, as I prepared to nurse him, that he had begun to suffer from diarrhea.  They wanted to know if I had been eating a lot of fruit....my simple 19 year old mind leaped to apples; oranges; bananas...but I had none of those!  It was a mystery!!!!  Coincidentally, when I finished the mince pies, Paul started to feel better, and Christmas was over so alas for me, but good for Paul, the "tart season" was over.:(
Mom has made many, many, many, mince pies since then, and all my boys have had the privilege of savouring them just as much as I did.
Anywhere that Matthew and I have ever eaten, the food is always compared, and never succeeds "Nana's" cooking.
Thanks Mom...you've really got to see this movie.

Remember the Tractor?!

This takes me back!!!! This is the backyard at Mountainside...our first apartment for the 3 of us! Actually you couldn't really call it a backyard....as it was the size of a postage stamp!
Still, we managed to have lots of fun there...planted a garden even though everyone said nothing would grow, and built a sandbox which the boys loved to play in, and every summer we had an overflow of sand into the apartment. I couldn't afford to buy "play sand" so I would drive to Hamilton beach and fill up buckets full of sand, using a flour sifter to remove any glass or other debris!! I wonder if you guys (Paul & Andrew) remember it?

Where did the time go?

This past weekend my family had the joy of gathering together to celebrate the upcoming marriage of my eldest son Paul, to his wonderful bride Jacquie. Of course having a wedding requires a certain amount of harassment and humiliation which, we as parents, have already prepared well in advance!!! I hope you'll enjoy sharing some of these pictures....bare with me!! mean BEAR!!!! Stay tuned!!