The northeast has been experiencing nothing but hot, hot, and more hot weather. This weekend is supposed to be a rare cool weekend, in fact I am actually listening to crickets outside rather than the drone of our two air conditioners…and fans that help push the air into rooms that don’t have air…no, we don’t have central air.
As I was sitting here in the living room earlier appreciating the air conditioner in spite of the noise, I remembered our vacations as a child at my grandparents. I don’t remember them using an air conditioner very much, if at all. In later years there was one, only one, in a living room window, but it rarely went on.
I remember playing outside, running up the hill to the wooded area of their property picking blueberries, playing bad mitten, washing dishes by hand after dinner…that was our chore as children…my grandparents never had an automatic dishwasher….ever.
As the hot days wore on, we’d do quieter things, and enjoyed a nice dinner together around the table, followed each evening by the reading of a short devotional from “Our Daily Bread”. Then, as the sun went down, something simple, but magical happened, on went the attic fan, and suddenly, quickly, the air in the house became cool as the heat of the day was pulled out of the house and the cool air was pulled in through the windows….funny the memories that come so unexpectedly…warm memories on a warm day.
What a true honor it is to be asked to share a site that helps Veterans in a unique way, car donations, and so close to Memorial Day which was only a week ago today, and a day after the 66th anniversary of D-Day.
I am blessed with a family members that love our Country and have served in the military..including a Father-in-Law who went into Normandy very shortly after D-Day and was honored for it in recent years, a Father who served during the Korean War, a Grandfather who served in the Navy and the Air Force, retiring as an Air Force captain.
These are veterans of the the somewhat distant past, but we have many new Veterans that need assistance, and vehicle donations are a wonderful way to help. Many are wounded, homeless, have families that need support, and with the economy as it is, there is uncertainty as to how easy it will be for them to get jobs.
If you want to know more about this, please click the “donate car” link and see what you can do. The organization is a non-profit, your donation is tax deductible, but best of all, they have been helping feed, cloth and shelter Veterans in need. Your car doesn’t have to be running, and you can donate other items, like RV’s, boats, etc.
As with all non-profits, do your homework, research the site, and ask questions using the contact information.
This post contains both personal and sponsored information.
I’m curious about what has happened in the past in my family, in the lives of my ancestors, perhaps this is why I started years ago gathering information about our family tree. It has been a long time since I read the forms I asked family members fill out for me…this month they will be pulled out of storage. It will be bitter-sweet looking at some of those forms because at least 3 of the people in my family who completed them are no longer living. This makes the fact that information was gathered from them even more precious.
Lets face it, many of us may not want to know certain facts about our family’s past…but all of that information can help you know more about yourself, tendencies that may exist in your family, and if you are a person who believes in God’s power to heal (the God of the Bible), it can open the way to pray that God will help you through the things that you learn about yourself and your family.
Most of all, it can be great fun to learn who is part of your family history…like it was for me to learn that Charlotte Bronte is in my family tree…and others. There’s a tool for working on your family tree in the sidebar, and I am also interesting in looking at some of the new resources on the internet.
May is Personal History Month, learn something about your personal history.
Do women wear aprons anymore? I think they do, in fact, I know they do, but when I put an apron on, it doesn’t look anything like the apron’s my mother or grandmother used to wear, and doesn’t get used nearly as much. My mother always, always dressed nicely each day, wearing a dress or skirt with a sweater or blouse. It was only in the later years when teens had moved on to wearing jeans in high school that I remember my Mom finally wearing pants or slacks.
But an apron was very important if you wanted to keep your dress clean, and I suppose it still is. I read a little write up in a recent newsletter from a quilting club I belong to that was so nostalgic, and I thought I’d share it with you, it’s called “The History of Aprons”...I’ll give credit where it’s due…as soon as I find out who wrote this!
“I don’t think our kids know what an apron is. The principal use of Grandma’s apron was to protect the dress underneath, because she only had a few, it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven. Here’s some other things Grandma’s apron was good for:
It was wonderful for drying children’s tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning ears.
From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and somtimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.
When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.
And when the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms.
Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.
Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.
In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.
When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.
When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.
It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that ‘old time apron’ that seved so many purposes.
PS – I don’t think I ever caught anything from an Apron”
Today I was listening to Sarah Palin speak in Iowa, and again she mentioned her desire to bring awareness to the unique challenges that those who have “special needs” family members, or family members with “disabilities”, face on a day to day basis.
This touches a very special place in my heart because I have a brother who is in his 40′s who is a special needs adult. The memories from his past life are a mixed bag that contains many different emotions. Maybe, over time, I’ll share some of those things with you, and you can share your situations if you’ve “been there” in comments here, if you like.
For now, may I just say that it is wonderful to see that someone is bringing this issue to the forefront on a national level! After just finishing spending several years helping my family and brother by researching how to best meet my brother’s future needs, I have learned and seen a lot, and there is a lot of need in this area.
My brother, John, is in his 40′s, he has a delightful disposition, and a wonderful smile, because my Mom, who will be 80 in a couple of weeks, has been devoted to him and his care. John cannot talk, he can walk, but not easily, he can’t hear in one ear, and can only hear a bit in the other. All of this from a bout with Spinal Meningitis when he was a baby, while we were on vacation as a family at my Grandparents.
After the doctors realized the damage that had been done to my 6 month old baby brother from this illness that kept him in the hospital for most of the summer, and often with a 50/50 chance of living, they told my mother that it would be best if she just put him in an institution, that he would never amount to anything. That was not to be, and because of it, my brother was an active member of our family for his whole life. He is capable of caring for many of his own personal needs, getting a bowl of cereal, vacuuming, dressing himself, so many little helpful things that would never have happened had he been raised in an institution. There is a lot deep inside my brother that you see in his eyes that may never come out until we can talk to one another in heaven when all things are made new…what a day that will be!
Recently, after a lot of work and even more prayer, we were able to move my brother into a Christian group home, the one that we hoped and prayed he would live in, and he is happy there. Best of all, he doesn’t live far from all of us.
Was it always an easy road? Far from it, but it is through the challenges in life that we learn the most, isn’t it?
Summer vacations were something we always looked forward to when we were children, they were spent at my grandparents every year. It sounds like such a simple vacation compared to the elaborate vacations many take these days, but we loved it and I don’t have a single regret. My grandparents were wonderful, as I’ve probably shared in other posts.
They lived on property surrounded by woods, with what I thought was a HUGE hill in the yard. Everything seems bigger when you look back on it from the perspective of an adult. At the top of the hill was a metal shed that always smelled like gardening…manure probably, but it was a good, clean smell.
In the shed was a box that contained fun in the form of rolled up yellow plastic. We’d take it out, unroll it down the hill, and then attach a hose to the top so there was a steady flow of water, and we’d slide down the hill on the Slip ‘n Slide to our hearts content. Oh yes, there were times when the water wasn’t flowing as nicely as it could, and you’d get a nice “belly burn” on the plastic, but it was fun as can be and among the treasured vacation memories stored away in my mind.
Slip ‘n Slides have come a long way, now there are Slip ‘N Slide Mega Sharks, can you imagine? Now you can feel like you are escaping the jaws of a shark when you slide down the hill, but for us, just a plain piece of yellow plastic was enough.
In our town it was the last day of school for the young ones, and a flood of memories came to mind as a result, I’ll have more for you. When my husband and I went to my Grandparents house after Grandad passed, about 10 years after Gram, we took a look in that shed, and sure enough, the box was still there. Now the house and property have been completely redone, but pictures and happy memories remain.
Father’s Day has come and gone, but my thoughts about Dad haven’t. I have had him on my mind a lot in the days proceeding Father’s Day and since. The picture is one of my daddy holding me when I was a baby, I had the honor of making him a “daddy” for the first time.
Before Dad became disabled due to strokes, Father’s Day was usually celebrated here at my home on our deck overlooking the lake. The last Father’s Day that stands out most clearly in my mind was when Dad was well, and my Grandfather was still alive and visiting my parents from Massachusetts. It was a beautiful, sunny day, perfect for barbecuing on the deck. The whole family was there, including my sister with her then boyfriend. He took advantage of the day to borrow our rowboat, take my sister out on the lake, and propose to her.
This year we took a ride to the cemetery to visit Dad’s grave and thank the Lord that he is now in heaven with Him. I talked more about that on my New Jersey Baby Boomer blog.
What a true honor it is to be asked to share a site that helps Veterans in a unique way, 