Sunday, September 26, 2010

It's dark outside ...and it's still early

Yeah, summer has given up...thank god.  I was tired of it.  But I'm pretty pissed off at the mess the trees are leaving.  Let's not even get into the goose shit in the park. 

This new home thing is draining my energy.  I have about 50 choices for everything and I can't make up my mind.  I wish they would only give you two...take it.. or leave it....because I can understand that and it makes it so much easier.  In many cases the builder only gives you two choices eg.) kitchen cabinets...you can make different choices BUT if  they are not in the allowance of the contract you will have to pay the difference.  So, you have to do your homework and make sure you don't make stupid decisions just because something else is prettier.  So far we have stayed pretty well within our allowances, except for the front door.  They cheaped out on that and I wanted a nice door for a change.  Something welcoming instead of what we have now...a brown inside door and a screen door on the outside. Yawn.  Nothing that says...come on in!  But sometimes that might be a good thing.  heh.  I'm not that neighbour friendly, because if you own a business everyone in the neighbourhood wants a piece of you because they know Gord fixes appliances.....and they want it for nothing.  We decided in the new house we will not make friends with anyone like we did here.  It's amazing how people think because you live on the same street they will get their appliances fixed for next to nothing.  Man that irritates me.

Crazy I know.  But that is how people are. 

I can't wait to sit on my front porch. .... or veranda as my grandma used to call it.  Some of my friends are still laughing at me for putting on a porch, including my husband.  They say it will make it look old.  But my friend Janis who drew up the house...knew what I was talking about and made it look a little of both worlds.

 Best times of my life were when my mom put me on a bus to visit Grandma & Grandpa in the big city on summer break.  Grandma and I would sit on the veranda and she would try to teach me to embroider pillow cases....or eat bing cherries...or take me to a movie 10 blocks away from her house...or take me to Kelikes another 10 blocks in the other direction for chips.  We did a lot of walking.  Sometimes after eating chips at Kelikes we went and had ice cream too.  They didn't have a TV...nor did we at the time, so evenings were spent on the veranda talking and smelling her wonderful flowers.  Oh yeah,,,, there were caramels involved I remember them. 

Sometimes I would get a little homesick so  she would get one of my cousins who lived in the city to come over to play with me for the rest of the week.  Then she had two grandkids to spoil.

What I remember the most was the airplanes.  Grandma had a huge window facing the south...and it was full of her plants...bizzy lizzies...she called them.  I remember sitting at the window and watching the airplanes fly overhead.  Everytime I heard one I would go to the window and try to catch it.  We never had airplanes flying overhead in the country and this was so amazing to me.  I couldn't grasp it.  It was a great time of my life.  Grandma also made me really cool clothes.  She could sew anything.  Mom would always ask her to sew me an Easter Dress....God forbid I didn't have a nice Easter dress. This was when I was a little older...and got a little picky..er.  The one I remember the best was the skirt she sewed for me.  A circle skirt.  Yup....the one you put a crinoline underneath which made you look like a half assed blimp.  And when you sat down the crinoline popped up in front of you and showed off your panties. You had to constantly keep shoving it down between your legs...but hey...it was cool.  They were made of a very itchy hard fabric.   I remember after the crinoline days were over, I draped it over the bottom of  my dresser in my room and made it look very girly.  Recycling at it's best.  It was yellow...


Yeah... a veranda....I have to get some memories made there with my family before I take my dirt nap.   What can I teach them....???  Oy....their parents would kill me if they only knew what I have in mind.  Kidding....crocheting maybe.. anything computer...well I think I will teach them to blog.  They are all into facebook and can't write anything over three sentences.  Yeah that's what I will do in my veranda...which will be hooked up!  But I will have bing cherries and caramels...and I will see if I can get some bizzy lizzies to grow.

balonie...getting one step closer.

5 comments:

Captain Poolie said...

A truly lovely entry. So much living and learning on the veranda. I can almost taste those cherries!

Judy said...

Oh how I remember the crinolines. We used to wash ours and them spray them with starch and let them dry outside--they were so stiff they stood up on the hem out on the lawn. I can remember Mother cautioning me to "keep your knees together" cause those things popped up so high when you sat down, it could cause an embarrassment. She made me many circle skirts--no pattern, just lay the thing out and mark off a half circle and cut and put on a waist band and hem--nice and long so they touched the tops of my ankle socks--which we folded down. The big city girls, rolled their ankle socks down so their heel tendon showed--we thought that look "trashy", we folded ours in two folds. Oh the memories of those wonderful days.

Anonymous said...

Joanie, I have fond memories of my Nana teaching me how to embroider. She always wore Revlon's "Cherry in the Snow" lipstick and nail polish and I can still see her hands holding that white fabric. I still do stamped cross stitch because of her.

...and decisions? UGH! My husband is having a garage built and the builder has asked me about doors and windows and colors, etc, and I just want to say, Shut up!!! I want a damn family room, not a garage!!"

Donna said...

Ahhhh, sounds like you loved her Very much....wonderful memories.
People ask Us sometimes for freebies too....I guess it just comes with the territory! They just don't "get" it.
I would Love a porch!!
Enjoy sweetie!
hughugs

Brenda said...

I would watch my Aunts getting ready for their dates and couldn't wait until I would be old enough to wear a can-can slip (what we called crinolines). Then when I finally got old enough, they were not in style anymore.

My grandmother's porch was such a wonderful place.