Hearts and Flowers, or Up-and-Down Spring

'A perfect heart-shaped stone Mom found out in my garden this spring. 

Spring has been lovely, 

and now we move into summer already.  The oldest I've ever been and the fastest-moving year I've ever had, and I'm sure the two go together.  I turned 42 last month, my older brother is only five years from 50, baby Bianca "graduated" kindergarten last week, "little" Dylan who started kindergarten just yesterday has a girlfriend and is in high school this fall with his sister, a new niece or nephew is due any day now, I have been struggling for awhile now with what seems to be psoriatic arthritis, and all this to say time has been flying and I have been feeling old.  Bianca's cat ↓ captures my wary watching of the seasons as they change.  :)

'A thousand changes at work lately too, which have made for a stressful spring.  As Lisa over at "Searching for a Balance" knows, balance isn't something you find once and cross off your to-do list, but instead something you have to re-find over and over every day.  I found the below heart on a table at my workplace one night this spring and had to laugh.  When a paper towel-piece heart randomly appears on a worktable, I have to take it as a reminder to "be still and know that [He is] God," right.   So I adjust to the thousand new changes and plod onward. 

And get a haircut that is way too short--where is my wild mass of curls!!!??!!  GONE!  I now have the smallest sprig of them, like an unruly paintbrush perched atop my head--

 --then I find a heart in my hummus and chips and chill out a little more.  Again. 

I made it home around Mother's Day and Father's Day so got to see both my family and my roses--Louise Odier is in bloom this very week!  ♥--and those things alone end this up-and-down June on a sweet note.  

Heaven on earth!  And the scent!!  ♥  I made a small bouquet of these and my white Iceberg roses for my sister-in-law Sunday as she works her way through her final days of pregnancy.   To her, the days are probably not moving along quickly enough.  

'Another perfect heart Tuesday afternoon, this one as I was waiting for the bus back to the apartment post-visit home.  And tomorrow, it will be summer.  Ay yi yi.  

♥

♫ New Job and a Haircut, At Last ♪

Well.  :)  Almost exactly nine years after I first interviewed for it, I can finally shout from the rooftops say I got the job. Way back in June 2008--here--I had my first interview for it ahead of me, and today, after (not having enough experience for it back then, and thus) a lot of volunteering, seven years of working toward it at my now-previous position, and applying for it and being rejected at least six times since spring 2007--I've just completed my first two weeks on the job.  Last month, I shared the job announcement with one of the people who had supervised me during some volunteer work back in 2009, and she shook her head and cried out, "Val, your story shows the power of"--long pause--"PERSISTENCE!  It's a good, GOOD story!"  ♥  Indeed.  As my dad has long said, I am nothing if not stubborn.  :)  I got the job!  ♥   

A few days before I was offered the position, I found this graffiti on my walk to work.  I took it as a nod from the universe, as I tend to do, as it appeared at a time when I really needed the encouragement.  Little did I know that there was a bigger nod in my favor just a few days away.  Likewise, I caught a bus home a few weeks ago to visit my family for the first time since hearing the news and found this--

just the paper message, no fortune cookie or wrapper with it--resting on the window ledge beside the seat I'd chosen.  ♥

The day before I began the new job was not the smartest day to get a haircut--Anxiety, Thy Name Was Val!--but fortune continued to favor me, and I'm happy with the cut.  It seems to look completely different from morning-to-morning depending on how I part it and who-knows-what-else, but it suits me in all its variations.  Another "whew!"  Let's hear it for stylists who know what they're doing and can correctly interpret verbal instructions and clipped photographs!  :)  

Last night was my first night off since starting the new position that I didn't feel utterly exhausted, so it became Celebrating-Two-Weeks-on-the-Job Cake-Baking Night.  I wanted something joyful and summery, and flowers and berries were the way to go.

 I added mint leaves for a touch of green.  It is a season of fresh starts in these parts, after all. 

. . .I got the job!  I got the job!  ♥

My Ballet Teacher Wrote Back!

"I do remember you with your beautiful hair bouncing until your mother pulled it back."  So funny.  How in the world would she remember such a thing?!  She just retired from teaching in December after having taught dance for fifty years, she reported.  And she signed her letter, "Love, Miss Karen."  Surely, we must have called her that in class instead of just "Karen" as I had been recalling.  My mom will probably remember.  She filled an entire note-card and it is all so sweet.  Oh my goodness, I will treasure this.  ♥

It's the 80s Every Day Here--Or How I'm Writing My Book

As I mentioned in my birthday post in May, I decided awhile back to buckle down and really dig into the 80s childhood memoir I'm writing.  And so I have.  Most days/nights these past few months, I can be found for at least an hour--usually more, because I'm truly loving the whole process and am just determined to keep at it this time until a book comes out of it--sitting here at my green gingham tablecloth-covered table with my seemingly-endless piles of notes, my 1980s diaries, all sorts of memory-jogging ephemera my mom and I have saved all these years, hometown maps, old photos, packages of blank index cards--Mead-brand 3" x 5", and as with the green gingham tablecloth, and my usual black Bic-brand pens and ever-present glasses of iced tea, I'm almost afraid to shake up my routine now by changing any of these details, so I buy these index cards a few packages at a time--and a wide assortment of spiral notebooks--one for each year the final memoir will cover, plus one for family recipes I think I'll be including, is the plan--writing and remembering.  I've never enjoyed writing anything more, which is saying something for this one who has always loved finding the words. 

The old diaries mention all the personal girlhood and family memories, of course--Christmas wishlists, what we ate for dinner, who got in trouble for what, first bra, first deaths, school assignments, school book orders, Papa and Grandma's 50th anniversary party, Dad's local races, Mom's country decorating magazines, my younger brother's new stuffed "Pound Puppy," my older brother's new "Miami Vice" poster, and my proud "I learned how to do a front walkover today!"--

--but also record the drought and scorching temperatures during the summer of 1988, former First Lady Nancy Reagan's mastectomy, and that Michael Jackson's video for "Bad" is really more like a movie.  :)  Diaries are such treasures, and mine are, for this project, a most-amazing resource.  

It makes me happy every day to be getting somewhere with this.  I have a number of other writing projects here that I've started and stopped, and re-started and set aside again, but I'm in such a beautiful groove with this one, it just delights me. 

My parents have been answering the most random questions--"Where did our neighbor Paul work?" and "What model of car was that beige-ish one we had that had the backseat that folded down?" and "By ANY chance, do you guys remember who lived in our house before we loved in?  You DO?!  Oh my goodness!!"--  ♥ 

--and I have been in touch with others recently who have helped me piece a few more memories together.  When I was three or four, I would spend the hours my mom worked outside the home at sweet fifty-plus-year-old Bobbi's house.  This heart-of-gold had been recommended to my mom as simply the best with children, and she truly was.  I loved my days with her.  She had Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls and a big jar filled with marbles, but it was Bobbi herself I most enjoyed.  "Maybe the two have nothing to do with each other," I prefaced a query with a few weeks ago, "but I always associate the smells of lumber and manure with her home.  I've always liked the smell of manure!  It's a good memory for me."  My former babysitter's grown daughter--I am now in touch with this woman's daughter!  I'm having a blast, I tell you!  ♥--responded that this all makes sense because they had, after all, lived on a farm.  And her dad had owned a construction business.  :)  When I reported this to my parents, they immediately said, "Well, yeah.  We could have told you that."  They hadn't known that I'd been wondering all these years.  In this case, though, both the memory-confirmation and the contact with Bobbi's daughter were more than worth the research. 

Bobbi's daughter actually remembered me and my family, it turns out.  I hadn't known until I started looking into it that my dear babysitter had even had children of her own--let alone that her children had known my family--so this was all news to me.  "I remember you and your brother as well as your dad, can't remember your mom," Bobbi's daughter wrote in one of her emails last month.  "I sold the family farm to a couple from New Jersey. It is something else now. My mother is 87 now. . . .I remember your curly hair."  Ha!  ♥  This woman I'd gotten in touch with online not having realized we'd ever met--and until finding her name online I hadn't even known existed--remembers my hair!  I laughed out loud when I read that, and I alternately smile and shake my head at the wonder of it all. 

Picture me at my gingham table, then, with a full-to-bursting heart and ever-growing stacks of index cards as I make notes on 1977-1980 and recapture my memories of 1981-1989.  

One of my earliest memories has always been that of my maternal grandmother's asking me a day or so before my birthday party in 1981 if I was excited to be turning four.  The more I think about it and write about it, the more it's struck me how poignant it is that one of my first memories is of being asked if I'm excited about something--and such a celebratory something.  ♥  A most-beautiful beginning to the lifetime ahead. 

I write, and I write. 

The days/nights that I don't write, though, I read a little more and listen to extra 80s music--"extra" because I'm all about the 80s music, anyway  :) --and just let myself think. 

I can't attend this one--most unfortunately for me, while I work on this--but my twentieth high school class reunion is this summer--so this is very much a season of nostalgia here. 

Many of my former classmates will be hearing from me in the days ahead, of course, even if I can't join them for drinks and dinner just yet. 

And I intend to be at the twenty-fifth reunion, whether I attend it with research questions to ask or a finished book to share.  :)

I have been in touch with a few favorite former teachers recently too, and each bit of contact means the world to me.  Sweet Mrs. T read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH to my class during second-grade afternoons.  Mrs. R, Kindergarten Teacher to Beat All Kindergarten Teachers, would remember me and my mom even when we'd run into her in town when I was in high school.  And wonderful Mr. V encouraged my artwork and turned me on to science too.  I feel so much love for these gifts of people. 

There has such a blessing of love in my life all along, and I feel more grateful for it all the time.  To connect all the dots now, page by page, and note by note, is pure joy. 

The recipe for Grandma's fudge--or "Gramma's," as I spelled it in February 1988--mentioned two photos up is here, by the way.  "Yum!" is right.  And Paul Simon's video for "You Can Call Me Al," one of my favorite songs from the 1980s, noted in the photo above, can be seen here, (speaking of pure joy).  :)  ♪  "A man walks down the street, he says why am I soft in the middle now, why am I soft in the middle, the rest of my life is so hard. . . ."  ♫  Ahhhhhhhhh, the 80s, truly!  Love, love, love. 

The process--or at least, the process so far--is to gather all the 80s-related memories and thoughts I've jotted down onto scrap paper, in my diaries and journals, here on the blog, and sometimes even quickly onto paper towels fast-before-I-forget-this and transfer them to the index cards.  This has taken most of the past three months, and. . .many notes to go before I sleep.  A few years ago, before I'd really declared my intention, even to myself, to write this book, I was jotting down memories onto scraps of paper and saving them--thinking, I suppose, that I could elaborate on them here on the blog or at least transfer them into my journal to record them, so now I have a huge number of scraps and pages to sort through--and in some cases, decipher, if I scribbled the notes too quickly--and rewrite onto the cards.  When I know which year--between 1977 and 1989--the memory is from, I write that onto the index card.  Eventually, I'll rewrite all the "1987" index cards into the "1987" spiral notebook in a more organized way, for example.  And then it will be more writing and rewriting to turn each year's notebook into "Real" Writing.  The 1981 index cards' notes have almost all been transferred into the 1981 notebook now, which is encouraging to me. 

And yes, the (twelve?) spiral notebooks are all different 1980s-themed ones I've been collecting at thrift shops and online.  Mike thinks that's excessive, but why not have 80s supplies around me while I'm otherwise so immersed in the era, says I--and "You're not the one writing it, so what do you care!?" I retort as I return to my Care Bears and Lisa Frank rainbows and Mrs. Grossman stickers. 

I'm still aiming to have a finished draft by my next birthday.  And then the work of submitting it to potential publishers will begin. 

In the meantime here, it is index card-by-index card and a decidedly enthusiastic Val .  ♥

In the Summertime When the Weather Is High

 About every six-eight years I get the urge to cut my hair short, and today was the day again.

As I happily walked past him after leaving the salon, a homeless man on the sidewalk turned to one of his cronies and said, "Isn't she beautiful?" but this is also the same man who mutters "Well, okay, Sir!" when I don't give him money, so I don't know if the day's first compliment really counts. :)

An endearing little "Mr. Mike thing" is his love of singing Mungo Jerry's "In the Summertime" to me to make me laugh, :) and today is the first day this summer--the first day in awhile, for that matter--where life feels carefree (even though it's not). Mike's song comes to mind today, and I will be requesting his spirited rendition of it when he gets home from work tonight. ♫ "Sing along with us, dee dee dee dee dee. Da da da da da, yeah, we're hap-pap-py...." ♫ :)

A Girly Wedding Hair, Shoes, and Outfit Write-Up :)

Friday--Wedding Day!--morning, Mike walked down to pick up the rental car for our trip while I stayed here to get ready and dressed. Hair and makeup were easy--my hair's naturally curly, so I just pulled it up and added the braid so it would look more special than usual (and because my mom used to do my hair like this with the big braid on top, when I was a little kid, so this was a small way of sharing the moment with her ♥), and I always keep my makeup simple enough--but I just prayed I wouldn't get a run in my tights while pulling them on. I only had one pair of the cream tights, so I was hoping that I wouldn't tear them while buckling my shoes and that Stuffed wouldn't pull out his claws around me. The contingency plan in the event of a run was just to stop by the drugstore and pick up a pair of regular pantyhose, but I'd have been telling the cashier my sob story if I'd had to do that, silly though that is. No getting-ready mishaps, though. Cream tights (that look white in all the photos) and black T-strap shoes, it was, just as I'd wanted. :)

Stuffed even let me scoop him up for a picture after I'd finished getting dressed, and no tights or skin were scratched in the process. :)

And the hour I spent getting ready, maintenance workers were outside our apartment mowing the lawn for the first time this season, so the scent of freshly-mowed grass will likely always remind me of the morning of my wedding day now. :)

My green wedding dress was actually a vintage "baby doll" nighty, but I knew when I saw it that it would work as a dress, since it seemed to match my jacket's color exactly and had the lace down the front, as well, making it look a bit fancier than your average nightgown. I had found the vintage green jacket on etsy in January and had to have a local seamstress make alterations--it was too small in the arms and shoulders--but when she finished it and it finally fit perfectly, I emailed my friend Marylou right away to tell her and added, "The wedding feels real now that I have something to wear!" :) I had fallen in love with this funky old jacket with its adorable huge embroidered collar as soon as I saw it, so to see myself in it finally and to see that it did, indeed, match the nighty-dress was a sweet moment.

As I told Marylou the week before the wedding, I never went to Prom or any school dances, so I never did the "dress-up thing," so piecing together this crazy green "everything-I'm-wearing-is-vintage-except-my-underthings" outfit was just great fun. I'd written in 2008 about my "dream" wedding gown and swore I'd never wear anything else when I married, and that wedding gown is actually in my parents' house right now--I found it after almost 20 years of searching for it, on eBay in 2009--but somehow, this green outfit was more "me," and now I can't imagine having gotten married wearing anything else. And I knew even before I finished getting ready and dressed Friday that I'd never felt as beautiful as I did that day. :)

Mike had left around 9:30 a.m. to pick up the car and returned an hour later to find me finishing the packing and dolled-up in my wedding outfit. When he saw me--smiling giddily, as I couldn't stop--in my wedding outfit for the first time, he laughed and called me "[his] little green gum ball of joy." :)

People have always told me that I wear my heart on my sleeve, but Friday, I felt like my heart really was just glowing around me for everyone to see--I just felt beautiful and happy and full of love and good thoughts. I spent the day alternately praying for people I love and thanking God and giggling and hugging Mike and then, later on, spreading the good news of our surprise-wedding, and truly, I just felt like I was glowing from it all. Hair, shoes, and makeup only go so far: I was just happy and thankful and full of love Friday. There was a quote in Country Living magazine recently from memoir writer Frances Mayes: "Happiness? The color of it must be spring green." When I read that, I clipped it out and added it to one of my scrapbooks, and it will soon reappear in our wedding album--right beside Mike's memorable "green gum ball" compliment, of course. :)

I spent some of last Thursday pinning something inside the front of the dress to honor one of my loved ones, sewing a ring that had belonged to my best friend, Sommer, into the front of my jacket, and creating a jacket pocket that I filled with photos of other loved ones I wanted to honor similarly and who had somehow inspired me and/or helped me reach my wedding day. i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart). . . .And that was my wedding outfit, shoes, and braided-like-Mom-used-to-do-it hair: Love and prayers and gratitude. Hope for new beginnings. And green gum balls of joy.  

♥