Hey, I got me a helper coming this morning. I am so excited. I got 2 bookcases full of books up into my bedroom. Got the little desk Sherman gave me up there, also. One corner empty, one old lady worn out. Took the day off yesterday and just chilled. Well, took the kids to lunch, met a fellow at the library to help him with his computer, came home and emptied, or nearly emptied, the top of the china cabinet. Then I took a bunch of pictures for eBay and then wove about 8 inches on my towels. They are going to be absolutely beautiful.
Last night the phone rang and who do you think was on the other end? Grandson Mikey! Mom said grandma needed some help and he was just hanging out so he could sure come and give me a hand if I wanted him to! So I got to get out of the pj's a little early today. Oh, yeah, and the guy is coming for my furnace inspection so today is going to be pretty busy.
I picked a color to paint and I think it is going to be alright. Bedroom is purple, bathroom is pink, office is aqua, and the main level will be something called desert straw, unless I go with the chenille. Either way, all the stuff has to come off the walls. Seems like a never ending job here. Really makes me long for the good old days back in Nickerson, when mother was in charge!
I do want to tell you about my Christmas's there. Seems like the first one in that house was when Jake broke it to me that there was no such animal as "you know who" (in case some one is reading this to a little kid!). Seems that was the first year that mom and dad let him have the job of bringing in the stuff and putting it on top of the pieces of paper with our names on them. We needed our socks, man! Could not be hanging those up for some fat guy to shove stuff in and stretching them out of shape. Many years later I did have a stocking, but it was no big deal by that time.
I heard him sneaking back to his little bed in the middle of the night and asked where he had been. So he told me. And it seemed that he had proof. I was getting a tin doll house that held tiny people and tiny furniture. That was hard to believe because that seemed like something a rich kid would have gotten I learned later why. Seemed my dear Aunt Helen Lang had taken pity on us that year and wanted to make our Christmas special. She sure did! Aunt Helen would pop in from time to time in our lives and when she went away there was always wonderful stuff left behind. Once she enrolled me in Brownie, which is the really beginning of Girl Scouts. Even bought me a Brownie uniform. I was so cool! I had a little brown beanie for my head. Do they still have Brownie's? I need to research that.
The next Christmas that I remember I did not fare nearly as well. Seems there was a book of children's poems, a red rubber ball and an orange, oh, and that godawful candy that was dry powdered sugar and something and then dipped in chocolate or something that was meant to be chocolate. The candy I liked was the ribbon candy that tasted like licorice. It seemed that we always made the trip to Grandma Haas's in Plevna every Christmas. It was a very long ways. I think 23 miles. And it seemed the car always over heated.
Any way we always had a Christmas tree. The reason we had one was because at school every room had a Christmas tree and when school was over for the year, the tree went home with some one poor who needed it and with at least 4 kids in school there, one of us was bound to luck out. And here we would go down the road with our poor little tree with a few strands of tinsel clinging to the branches as if we were the proudest people in the town.
I would like to interject here, that I do not regret growing up in poverty. At that time we were not the only poor people at the school. Everyone was poor. It was right after the depression and the war had just ended. We did what we could and we all hung together. That is how things were done in those days. The best we could hope for was that the rich girls would get new clothes so we could have their old ones. Jake fared the worst because boys wore their clothes until they fell to pieces so he never got any new "old" clothes.
I have yet to have a Christmas when I do not remember back to Nickerson. Seems we always go back to our roots and no matter how far away I roam, I am still "from Nickerson." There is probably no one living in Nickerson today that remembers those Bartholomew kids. I probably would not know them, because I am still remembering the people who were there when I was.
My poor little jumbled mind is ready for bed, so "Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are!"
Last night the phone rang and who do you think was on the other end? Grandson Mikey! Mom said grandma needed some help and he was just hanging out so he could sure come and give me a hand if I wanted him to! So I got to get out of the pj's a little early today. Oh, yeah, and the guy is coming for my furnace inspection so today is going to be pretty busy.
I picked a color to paint and I think it is going to be alright. Bedroom is purple, bathroom is pink, office is aqua, and the main level will be something called desert straw, unless I go with the chenille. Either way, all the stuff has to come off the walls. Seems like a never ending job here. Really makes me long for the good old days back in Nickerson, when mother was in charge!
I do want to tell you about my Christmas's there. Seems like the first one in that house was when Jake broke it to me that there was no such animal as "you know who" (in case some one is reading this to a little kid!). Seems that was the first year that mom and dad let him have the job of bringing in the stuff and putting it on top of the pieces of paper with our names on them. We needed our socks, man! Could not be hanging those up for some fat guy to shove stuff in and stretching them out of shape. Many years later I did have a stocking, but it was no big deal by that time.
I heard him sneaking back to his little bed in the middle of the night and asked where he had been. So he told me. And it seemed that he had proof. I was getting a tin doll house that held tiny people and tiny furniture. That was hard to believe because that seemed like something a rich kid would have gotten I learned later why. Seemed my dear Aunt Helen Lang had taken pity on us that year and wanted to make our Christmas special. She sure did! Aunt Helen would pop in from time to time in our lives and when she went away there was always wonderful stuff left behind. Once she enrolled me in Brownie, which is the really beginning of Girl Scouts. Even bought me a Brownie uniform. I was so cool! I had a little brown beanie for my head. Do they still have Brownie's? I need to research that.
The next Christmas that I remember I did not fare nearly as well. Seems there was a book of children's poems, a red rubber ball and an orange, oh, and that godawful candy that was dry powdered sugar and something and then dipped in chocolate or something that was meant to be chocolate. The candy I liked was the ribbon candy that tasted like licorice. It seemed that we always made the trip to Grandma Haas's in Plevna every Christmas. It was a very long ways. I think 23 miles. And it seemed the car always over heated.
Any way we always had a Christmas tree. The reason we had one was because at school every room had a Christmas tree and when school was over for the year, the tree went home with some one poor who needed it and with at least 4 kids in school there, one of us was bound to luck out. And here we would go down the road with our poor little tree with a few strands of tinsel clinging to the branches as if we were the proudest people in the town.
I would like to interject here, that I do not regret growing up in poverty. At that time we were not the only poor people at the school. Everyone was poor. It was right after the depression and the war had just ended. We did what we could and we all hung together. That is how things were done in those days. The best we could hope for was that the rich girls would get new clothes so we could have their old ones. Jake fared the worst because boys wore their clothes until they fell to pieces so he never got any new "old" clothes.
I have yet to have a Christmas when I do not remember back to Nickerson. Seems we always go back to our roots and no matter how far away I roam, I am still "from Nickerson." There is probably no one living in Nickerson today that remembers those Bartholomew kids. I probably would not know them, because I am still remembering the people who were there when I was.
My poor little jumbled mind is ready for bed, so "Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are!"
